Jerry eBooks

No copyright  2012 by Jerry eBooks

No rights reserved.  All parts of this book may be reproduced in any form and by any means for any purpose without any prior written consent of anyone.

Hugo Awards: The Short Stories

Volume One

1946-1973

1946

NOMINEES

THE WAVERIES

CORRESPONDANCE COURSE

THE ETHICAL EQUATIONS

WHAT YOU NEED

WINNER

UNCOMMON SENSE

1951

NOMINEES

THE GNURRS COME FROM THE VOODVORK OUT

A SUBWAY NAMED MOBIUS

COMING ATTRACTION

BORN OF MAN AND WOMAN

WINNER

TO SERVE MAN

1954

NOMINEES

STAR LIGHT, STAR BRIGHT

IT’S A GOOD LIFE

THE SEVENTH VICTIM

A SAUCER OF LONELINESS

WINNER

THE NINE BILLION NAMES OF GOD

1955

WINNER

ALLAMAGOOSA

1956

WINNER

THE STAR

1958

WINNER

OR ALL THE SEAS WITH OYSTERS

1959

NOMINEES

THE MEN WHO MURDERED MOHAMMED

TRIGGERMAN

THE EDGE OF THE SEA

THE ADVENT ON CHANNEL TWELVE

THEORY OF ROCKETRY

RUMP-TITTY-TITTY-TUM-TAH-TE

SPACE TO SWING A CAT

NINE YARDS OF OTHER CLOTH

WINNER

THAT HELL-BOUND TRAIN

1960

NOMINEES

THE PI MAN

CAT AND MOUSE

THE ALLEY MAN

THE MAN WHO LOST THE SEA

WINNER

FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON

1961

NOMINEES

MY SISTER'S BROTHER

THE LOST KAFOOZALUM

NEED

WINNER

THE LONGEST VOYAGE

1962

NOMINEES

SCYLLA’S DAUGHTER

LIONS LOOSE

MONUMENT

DAY AFTER TOMORROW

WINNER

HOTHOUSE

1963

NOMINEES

WHEN YOU CARE, WHEN YOU LOVE

THE UNHOLY GRAIL

MYRRHA

WHERE IS THE BIRD OF FIRE?

WINNER

THE DRAGON MASTERS

1964

NOMINEES

CODE THREE

SAVAGE PELLUCIDAR

A ROSE FOR ECCLESIASTES

WINNER

NO TRUCE WITH KINGS

1965

NOMINEES

ONCE A COP

LITTLE DO G GONE

WINNER

SOLDIER, ASK NOT!

1966

NOMINEES

THE DOORS OF HIS FACE

STARDOCK

THE STAR FOX

DAY OF THE GREAT SHOUT

WINNER

“REPENT, HARLEQUIN!”

1967

NOMINEES

MAN IN HIS TIME

DELUSION FOR A DRAGON SLAYER

THE SECRET PLACE

MISTER JESTER

LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS

COMES NOW THE POWER

WINNER

NEUTRON STAR

1968

NOMINEES

AYE AND GORMORRAH

THE JIGSAW MAN

WINNER

I HAVE NO MOUTH

1969

NOMINEES

THE DANCE OF THE CHANGER

MASKS

ALL THE MYRIAD WAYS

WINNER

THE BEAST THAT SHOUTED LOVE

1970

NOMINEES

WINTER’S KING

DEEPER THAN THE DARKNESS

NOT LONG BEFORE THE END

PASSENGERS

WINNER

TIME CONSIDERED AS A HELIX OF SEMI-PRECIOUS STONES

1971

NOMINEES

BRILLO

JEAN DUPRES

CONTINUED ON NEXT ROCK

IN THE QUEUE

WINNER

SLOW SCULPTURE

1972

NOMINEES

THE BEAR WITH THE KNOT IN HIS TAIL

ALL THE LAST WARS AT ONCE

SKY

VASTER THAN EMPIRES AND MORE SLOW

THE AUTUMN LAND

WINNER

INCONSTANT MOON

1973

NOMINEES

WHEN IT CHANGED

WHEN WE WENT TO SEE THE END OF THE WORLD

AND I AWOKE AND FOUND ME HERE

WINNER

EUREMA’S DAM

THE MEETING

THE WAVERIES

Frederic Brown

Definitions from the school-abridged Webster-Hamlin Dictionary 1998 edition:

wavery (WA-ver-i) n. a vader-slang

vader (VA-der) n. inorgan of the class Radio

inorgan (in-OR-gan) n. noncorporeal ens, vader

radio(RA-di-o) n.

1. class of inorgans

2. etheric frequency between light and electricity

3. (obsolete) method of communication used up to 1977

The opening guns of invasion were not at all loud, although they were heard by millions of people. George Bailey was one of the millions. I choose George Bailey because he was the only one who came within a googol of light-years of guessing what they were.

George Bailey was drunk and under the circumstances one can’t blame him for being so. He was listening to radio advertisements of the most nauseous kind. Not because he wanted to listen to them, I hardly need say, but because he’d been told to listen to them by his boss, J. R. McGee of the MID network.

George Bailey wrote advertising for the radio. The only thing he hated worse than advertising was radio. And here on his own time he was listening to fulsome and disgusting commercials on a rival network.

“Bailey,” J. R. McGee had said, “you should be more familiar with what others are doing. Particularly, you should be informed about those of our own accounts who use several networks. I strongly suggest …”

One doesn’t quarrel with an employer’s strong suggestions and keep a five hundred dollar a week job.

But one can drink whisky sours while listening. George Bailey did.

Also, between commercials, he was playing gin rummy with Maisie Hetterman, a cute little redheaded typist from the studio. It was Maisie’s apartment and Maisie’s radio (George himself, on principle, owned neither a radio nor a TV set) but George had brought the liquor.

“—only the very finest tobaccos,” said the radio, “go dit-dit-dit nation’s favorite cigarette—”

George glanced at the radio. “Marconi,” he said.

He meant Morse, naturally, but the whisky sours had muddled him a bit so his first guess was more nearly right than anyone else’s. It was Marconi, in a way. In a very peculiar way.

“Marconi?” asked Maisie.

George, who hated to talk against a radio, leaned over and switched it off.

“I meant Morse,” he said. “Morse, as in Boy Scouts or the Signal Corps. I used to be a Boy Scout once.”

“You’ve sure changed,” Maisie said.

George sighed. “Somebody’s going to catch hell, broadcasting code on that wave length.”

“What did it mean?”

“Mean? Oh, you mean what did it mean. Uh…S, the letter S. Dit-dit-dit is S. SOS is did-dit-dit dah-dah-dah dit-dit-dit.”

“O is dah-dah-dah?”

George grinned. “Say that again, Maisie. I like it. And I think you are dah-dah-dah too.”

“George, maybe it’s really an SOS message. Turn it back on.”

George turned it back on. The tobacco ad was still going. “—gentlemen of the most dit-dit-dit-ing taste prefer the finer taste of dit-dit-dit-arettes. In the new package that keeps them dit-dit-dit and ultra fresh—”

“It’s not SOS. It’s just S’s.”

“Like a teakettle or-say, George, maybe it’s just some advertising gag.”

George shook his head. “Not when it can blank out the name of the product. Just a minute till I—”

He reached over and turned the dial of the radio a bit to the right and then a bit to the left, and an incredulous look came into his face. He turned the dial to the extreme left, as far as it would go. There wasn’t any station there, not even the hum of a carrier wave. But:

“Dit-dit-dit,” said the radio, “dit-dit-dit.”

He turned the dial to the extreme right. “Dit-dit-dit.” George switched it off and stared at Maisie without seeing her, which was hard to do.

“Something wrong, George?”

“I hope so,” said George Bailey. “I certainly hope so.” He started to reach for another drink and changed his mind. He had a sudden hunch that something big was happening and he wanted to sober up to appreciate it. He didn’t have the faintest idea how big it was. “George, what do you mean?”

“I don’t know what I mean. But Maisie, let’s take a run down the studio, huh? There ought to be some excitement.”

April 5, 1977; that was the night the waveries came.

It had started like an ordinary evening. It wasn’t one, now.

George and Maisie waited for a cab but none came so they took the subway instead. Oh yes, the subways were still running in those days. It took them within a block of the MID Network Building.

The building was a madhouse. George, grinning, strolled through the lobby with Maisie on his arm, took the elevator to the fifth floor and for no reason at all gave the elevator boy a dollar. He’d never before in his life tipped an elevator operator.

The boy thanked him. “Better stay away from the big shots, Mr. Bailey,” he said. “They’re ready to chew the ears off anybody who even looks at ‘em.”

“Wonderful,” said George.

From the elevator he headed straight for the office of J. R. McGee himself.

There were strident voices behind the glass door. George reached for the knob and Maisie tried to stop him. “But George,” she whispered, “you’ll be fired!”

“There comes a time,” said George. “Stand back away from the door, honey.”

Gently but firmly he moved her to a safe position. “But George, what are you?”

“Watch,” he said.

The frantic voices stopped as he opened the door a foot. All eyes turned toward him as he stuck his head around the corner of the doorway into the room.

“Dit-dit-dit,” he said. “Dit-dit-dit.”

He ducked back and to the side just in time to escape the flying glass as a paperweight and an inkwell came through the pane of the door.

He grabbed Maisie and ran for the stairs.

“Now we get a drink,” he told her.

The bar across the street from the network building was crowded but it was a strangely silent crowd. In deference to the fact that most of its customers were radio people it didn’t have a TV set but there was a big cabinet radio and most of the people were bunched around it.

“Dit,” said the radio. “Dit-dah-d’dah-dit-danditdah dit—”

“Isn’t it beautiful?” George whispered to Maisie.

Somebody fiddled with the dial. Somebody asked, “What band is that?” and somebody said, “Police.” Somebody said, “Try the foreign band,” and somebody did. “This ought to be Buenos Aires,” somebody said. “Dit-d’dah-dit—” said the radio.

Somebody ran fingers through his hair and said, “Shut that damn thing off.” Somebody else turned it back on.

George grinned and led the way to a back booth where he’d spotted Pete Mulvaney sitting alone with a bottle in front of him. He and Maisie sat across from Pete.

“Hello,” he said gravely.

“Hell,” said Pete, who was head of the technical research staff of MID.

“A beautiful night, Mulvaney,” George said. “Did you see the moon riding the fleecy clouds like a golden galleon tossed upon silver-crested whitecaps in a stormy—”

“Shut up,” said Pete. “I’m thinking.”

“Whisky sours,” George told the waiter. He turned back to the man across the table. “Think out loud, so we can hear. But first, how did you escape the booby hatch across the street?”

“I’m bounced, fired, discharged.”

“Shake hands. And then explain. Did you say dit-dit-dit to them?”

Pete looked at him with sudden admiration. “Did you?”

“I’ve a witness. What did you do?”

“Told ‘em what I thought it was and they think I’m crazy.”

“Are you?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” said George. “Then we want to hear—” He snapped his fingers. “What about TV?”

“Same thing. Same sound on audio and the pictures flicker and dim with every dot or dash. Just a blur by now.”

“Wonderful. And now tell me what’s wrong. I don’t care what it is, as long as it’s nothing trivial, but I want to know.”

“I think it’s space. Space is warped.”

“Good old space,” George Bailey said.

“George,” said Maisie, “please shut up. I want to hear this.”

“Space,” said Pete, “is also finite.” He poured himself another drink. “You go far enough in any direction and get back where you started. Like an ant crawling around an apple.”

“Make it an orange,” George said.

“All right, an orange. Now suppose the first radio waves ever sent out have just made the round trip. In seventy-six years.”

“Seventy-six years? But I thought radio waves traveled at the same speed as light. If that’s right, then in seventy-six years they could go only seventy-six light-years, and that can’t be around the universe because there are galaxies known to be millions or maybe billions of light-years away. I don’t remember the figures, Pete, but our own galaxy alone is a hell of a lot bigger than seventy-six light-years.”

Pete Mulvaney sighed. “That’s why I say space must be warped. There’s a short cut somewhere.”

“That short a short cut? Couldn’t be.”

“But George, listen to that stuff that’s coming in. Can you read code?”

“Not any more. Not that fast, anyway.”

“Well, I can,” Pete said. “That’s early American ham. Lingo and all. That’s the kind of stuff the air was full of before regular broadcasting. It’s the lingo, the abbreviations, the barnyard to attic chitchat of amateurs with keys, with Marconi coherers or Fessenden barreters-and you can listen for a violin solo pretty soon now. I’ll tell you what it’ll be.”

“What?”

“Handel’s Largo. The first phonograph record ever broadcast. Sent out by Fessenden from Brant Rock in late 1906. You’ll hear his CQ-CQ any minute now. Bet you a drink.”

“Okay, but what was the dit-dit-dit that started this?”

Mulvaney grinned. “Marconi, George. What was the most powerful signal ever broadcast and by whom and when?”

“Marconi? Dit-dit-dit? Seventy-six years ago?”

“Head of the class. The first transatlantic signal on December 12, 1901. For three hours Marconi’s big station at Poldhu, with two-hundred-foot masts, sent out an intermittent S, dit-dit-dit, while Marconi and two assistants at St. Johns in Newfoundland got a kite-born aerial four hundred feet in the air and finally got the signal. Across the Atlantic, George, with sparks jumping from the big Leyden jars at Poldhu and 20,000-volt juice jumping off the tremendous aerials—”

“Wait a minute, Pete, you’re off the beam. If that was in 1901 and the first broadcast was about 1906 it’ll be five years before the Fessenden stuff gets here on the same route. Even if there’s a seventy-six light-year short cut across space and even if those signals didn’t get so weak en route that we couldn’t hear them-it’s crazy.”

“I told you it was,” Pete said gloomily. “Why, those signals after traveling that far would be so infinitesimal that for practical purposes they wouldn’t exist. Furthermore they’re all over the band on everything from microwave on up and equally strong on each. And, as you point out, we’ve already come almost five years in two hours, which isn’t possible. I told you it was crazy.”

“But—”

“Ssshh. Listen,” said Pete.

A blurred, but unmistakably human voice was coming from the radio, mingling with the cracklings of code. And then music, faint and scratchy, but unmistakably a violin. Playing Handel’s Largo.

Only suddenly it climbed in pitch as though modulating from key to key until it became so horribly shrill that it hurt the ear. And kept on going past the high limit of audibility until they could hear it no more.

Somebody said, “Shut that God damn thing off.” Somebody did, and this time nobody turned it back on.

Pete said, “I didn’t really believe it myself. And there’s another thing against it, George. Those signals affect TV too, and radio waves are the wrong length to do that.”

He shook his head slowly. “There must be some other explanation, George. The more I think about it now the more I think I’m wrong.”

He was right: he was wrong.

“Preposterous,” said Mr. Ogilvie. He took off his glasses, frowned fiercely, and put them back on again. He looked through them at the several sheets of copy paper in his hand and tossed them contemptuously to the top of his desk. They slid to rest against the triangular name plate that read:

B. R. Ogilvie

Editor-in-Chief

“Preposterous,” he said again.

Casey Blair, his best reporter, blew a smoke ring and poked his index finger through it. “Why?” he asked.

“Because—why, it’s utterly preposterous.”

Casey Blair said, “It is now three o’clock in the morning. The interference has gone on for five hours and not a single program is getting through on either TV or radio. Every major broadcasting and telecasting station in the world has gone off the air.

“For two reasons. One, they were just wasting current. Two, the communications bureaus of their respective governments requested them to get off to aid their campaigns with the direction finders. For five hours now, since the start of the interference, they’ve been working with everything they’ve got. And what have they found out?”

“It’s preposterous!” said the editor.

“Perfectly, but it’s true. Greenwich at 11 P.M. New York time; Pm translating all these times into New York time—got a bearing in about the direction of Miami. It shifted northward until at two o’clock the direction was approximately that of Richmond, Virginia. San Francisco at eleven got a bearing in about the direction of Denver; three hours later it shifted southward toward Tucson. Southern hemisphere: bearings from Capetown, South Africa, shifted from direction of Buenos Aires to that of Montevideo, a thousand miles north.

“New York at eleven had weak indications toward Madrid; but by two o’clock they could get no bearings at all.” He blew another smoke ring. “Maybe because the loop antennae they use turn only on a horizontal plane?”

“Absurd.”

Casey said, “I like `presposterous’ better. Mr. Ogilvie. Preposterous it is, but it’s not absurd. I’m scared stiff. Those lines-and all other bearings I’ve heard about run in the same direction if you take them as straight lines running as tangents off the Earth instead of curving them around the surface. I did it with a little globe and a star map. They converge on the constellation Leo.”

He leaned forward and tapped a forefinger on the top page of the story he’d just turned in. “Stations that are directly under Leo in the sky get no bearings at all. Stations on what would be the perimeter of Earth relative to that point get the strongest bearings. Listen, have an astronomer check those figures if you want before you run the story, but get it done damn quick-unless you want to read about it in the other newspapers first.”

“But the heaviside layer, Casey-isn’t that supposed to stop all radio waves and bounce them back.”

“Sure, it does. But maybe it leaks. Or maybe signals can get through it from the outside even though they can’t get out from the inside. It isn’t a solid wall.”

“But—”

“I know, it’s preposterous. But there it is. And there’s only an hour before press time. You’d better send this story through fast and, have it set up while you’re having somebody check my facts and directions. Besides, there’s something else you’ll want to check.”

“What?”

“I didn’t have the data for checking the positions of the planets. Leo’s on the ecliptic; a planet could be in line between here and there. Mars, maybe.”

Mr. Ogilvie’s eyes brightened, then clouded again. He said, “We’ll be the laughingstock of the world, Blair, if you’re wrong.”

“And if I’m right?”

The editor picked up the phone and snapped an order.

April 6th headline of the New York Morning Messenger, final (6 A.M.) edition:

RADIO INTERFERENCE COMES FROM SPACE,

ORIGINATES IN LEO

May Be Attempt at Communication by Beings

Outside Solar System

All television and radio broadcasting was suspended.

Radio and television stocks opened several points off the previous day and then dropped sharply until noon when a moderate buying rally brought them a few points back.

Public reaction was mixed; people who had no radios rushed out to buy them and there was a boom, especially in portable and tabletop receivers. On the other hand, no TV sets were sold at all. With telecasting suspended there were no pictures on their screens, even blurred ones. Their audio circuits, when turned on, brought in the same jumble as radio receivers. Which, as Pete Mulvaney had pointed out to George Bailey, was impossible; radio waves cannot activate the audio circuits of TV sets. But these did, if they were radio waves.

In radio sets they seemed to be radio waves, but horribly hashed. No one could listen to them very long. Oh, there were flashes-times when, for several consecutive seconds, one could recognize the voice of Will Rogers or Geraldine Farrar or catch flashes of the Dempsey-Carpentier fight or the Pearl Harbor excitement. (Remember Pearl Harbor?) But things even remotely worth hearing were rare. Mostly it was a meaningless mixture of soap opera, advertising and off-key snatches of what had once been music. It was utterly indiscriminate, and utterly unbearable for any length of time.

But curiosity is a powerful motive. There was a brief boom in radio sets for a few days.

There were other booms, less explicable, less capable of analysis. Reminiscent of the Welles Martian scare of 1938 was a sudden upswing in the sale of shotguns and sidearms. Bibles sold as fast as books on astronomy-and books on astronomy sold like hotcakes. One section of the country showed a sudden interest in lightning rods; builders were flooded with orders for immediate installation.

For some reason which has never been clearly ascertained there was a run on fishhooks in Mobile, Alabama; every hardware and sporting goods store sold out of them within hours.

The public libraries and bookstores had a run on books on astrology and books on Mars. Yes, on Mars—despite the fact that Mars was at that moment on the other side of the sun and that every newspaper article on the subject stressed the fact that no planet was between Earth and the constellation Leo.

Something strange was happening-and no news of developments available except through the newspapers. People waited in mobs outside newspaper buildings for each new edition to appear. Circulation managers went quietly mad.

People also gathered in curious little knots around the silent broadcasting studios and stations, talking in hushed voices as though at a wake. MID network doors were locked, although there was a doorman on duty to admit technicians who were trying to find an answer to the problem. Some of the technicians who had been on duty the previous day had now spent over twenty-four hours without sleep.

George Bailey woke at noon, with only a slight headache. He shaved and showered, went out and drank a light breakfast and was himself again. He bought early editions of the afternoon papers, read them, grinned. His hunch had been right; whatever was wrong, it was nothing trivial.

But what was wrong?

The later editions of the afternoon papers had it.

EARTH INVADED, SAYS SCIENTIST

Thirty-six line type was the biggest they had; they used it. Not a home-edition copy of a newspaper was delivered that evening. Newsboys starting on their routes were practically mobbed. They sold papers instead of delivering them; the smart ones got a dollar apiece for them. The foolish and honest ones who didn’t want to sell because they thought the papers should go to the regular customers on their routes lost them anyway. People grabbed them.

The final editions changed the heading only slightly-only slightly, that is, from a typographical view-point. Nevertheless, it was a tremendous change in meaning. It read:

EARTH INVADED, SAY SCIENTISTS

Funny what moving an S from the ending of a verb to the ending of a noun can do.

Carnegie Hall shattered precedent that evening with a lecture given at midnight. An unscheduled and unadvertised lecture. Professor Helmetz had stepped off the train at eleven-thirty and a mob of reporters had been waiting for him. Helmetz, of Harvard, had been the scientist, singular, who had made that first headline.

Harvey Ambers, director of the board of Carnegie Hall, had pushed his way through the mob. He arrived minus glasses, hat and breath, but got hold of Helmetz’s army and hung on until he could talk again. “We want you to talk at Carnegie, Professor,” he shouted into Helmetz’s ear. “Five thousand dollars for a lecture on the `vaders.’ “

“Certainly. Tomorrow afternoon?”

“Now! I’ve a cab waiting. Come on.”

“But—”

“We’ll get you an audience. Hurry!” He turned to the mob. “Let us through. All of you can’t hear the professor here. Come to Carnegie Hall and he’ll talk to you. And spread the word on your way there.”

The word spread so well that Carnegie Hall was jammed by the time the professor began to speak. Shortly after, they’d rigged a loud-speaker system so the people outside could hear. By one o’clock in the morning the streets were jammed for blocks around.

There wasn’t a sponsor on Earth with a million dollars to his name who wouldn’t have given a million dollars gladly for the privilege of sponsoring that lecture on TV or radio, but it was not telecast or broadcast. Both lines were busy.

“Questions?” asked Professor Helmetz.

A reporter in the front row made it first. “Professor,” he asked, “Have all direction finding stations on Earth confirmed what you told us about the change this afternoon?”

“Yes, absolutely. At about noon all directional indications began to grow weaker. At 2:45 o’clock, Eastern Standard Time, they ceased completely. Until then the radio waves emanated from the sky, constantly changing direction with reference to the Earth’s surface, but constant with reference to a point in the constellation Leo.”

“What star in Leo?”

“No star visible on our charts. Either they came from a point in space or from a star too faint for our telescopes.

“But at 2:45 P.M. today-yesterday rather, since it is now past midnight-all direction finders went dead. But the signals persisted, now coming from all sides equally. The invaders had all arrived.

“There is no other conclusion to be drawn. Earth is now surrounded, completely blanketed, by radio-type waves which have no point of origin, which travel ceaselessly around the Earth in all directions, changing shape at their will-which currently is still in imitation of the Earth origin radio signals which attracted their attention and brought them here.”

“Do you think it was from a star we can’t see, or could it have really been just a point in space?”

“Probably from a point in space. And why not? They are not creatures of matter. If they came from a star, it must be a very dark star for it to be invisible to us, since it would be relatively near to us-only twenty-eight light-years away, which is quite close as stellar distances go.”

“How can you know the distance?”

“By assuming-and it is a quite reasonable assumption-that they started our way when they first discovered our radio signals-Marconi’s S-S-S code broadcast of fifty-six years ago. Since that was the form taken by the first arrivals, we assume they started toward us when they encountered those signals. Marconi’s signals, traveling at the speed of light, would have reached a point twenty-eight light-years away twenty-eight years ago; the invaders, also traveling at light speed would require an equal of time to reach us.

“As might be expected only the first arrivals took Morse code form. Later arrivals were in the form of other waves that they met and passed on-or perhaps absorbed-on their way to Earth. There are now wandering around the Earth, as it were, fragments of programs broadcast as recently as a few days ago. Undoubtedly there are fragments of the very last programs to be broadcast, but they have not yet been identified.”

“Professor, can you describe one of these invaders?”

“As well as and no better than I can describe a radio wave. In effect, they are radio waves, although they emanate from no broadcasting station. They are a form of life dependent on wave motion, as our form of life is dependent on the vibration of matter.”

“They are different sizes?”

“Yes, in two senses of the word size. Radio waves are measured from crest to crest, which measurement is known as wave length. Since the invaders cover the entire dials of our radio sets and television sets it is obvious that either one of two things is true: Either they come in all crest-to-crest sizes or each one can change his crest-to-crest measurement to adapt himself to the tuning of any receiver.

“But that is only the crest-to-crest length. In a sense it may be said that a radio wave has an over-all length determined by its duration. If a broadcasting station sends out a program that has a second’s duration, a wave carrying that program is one light-second long, roughly 187,000 miles. A continuous half-hour program is, as it were, on a continuous wave one-half light-hour long, and so on.

“Taking that form of length, the individual invaders vary in length from a few thousand miles-a duration of only a small fraction of a second-to well over half a million miles long-a duration of several seconds. The longest continuous excerpt from any one program that has been observed has been about seven seconds.”

“But, Professor Helmetz, why do you assume that these waves are living things, a life form. Why not just waves?”

“Because `just waves’ as you call them would follow certain laws, just as inanimate matter follows certain laws. An animal can climb uphill, for instance; a stone cannot unless impelled by some outside force. These invaders are life-forms because they show volition, because they can change their direction of travel, and most especially because they retain their identity; two signals never conflict on the same radio receiver. They follow one another but do not come simultaneously. They do not mix as signals on the same wave length would ordinarily do. They are not `just waves.’ “

“Would you say they are intelligent?”

Professor Helmetz took off his glasses and polished them thoughtfully. He said, “I doubt if we shall ever know. The intelligence of such beings, if any, would be on such a completely different plane from ours that there would be no common point from which we could start intercourse. We are material; they are immaterial. There is no common mound between us.”

“But if they are intelligent at all—”

“Ants are intelligent, after a fashion. Call it instinct if you will, but instinct is a form of intelligence; at least it enables them to accomplish some of the same things intelligence would enable them to accomplish. Yet we cannot establish communication with ants and it is far less likely that we shall be able to establish communication with these invaders. The difference in type between ant-intelligence and our own would be nothing to the difference in type between the intelligence, if any, of the invaders and our own. No, I doubt if we shall ever communicate.”

The professor had something there. Communication with the vaders-a clipped form, of course, of invaders-was never established.

Radio stocks stabilized on the exchange the next day. But the day following that someone asked Dr. Helmets a sixty-four dollar question and the newspapers published his answer:

“Resume broadcasting? I don’t know if we ever shall. Certainly we cannot until the invaders go away, and why should they? Unless radio communication is perfected on some other planet far away and they’re attracted there.

“But at least some of them would be right back the moment we started to broadcast again.”

Radio and TV stocks dropped to practically zero in an hour. There weren’t, however, any frenzied scenes on the stock exchanges; there was no frenzied selling because there was no buying, frenzied or otherwise. No radio stocks changed hands.

Radio and television employees and entertainers began to look for other jobs. The entertainers had no trouble finding them. Every other form of entertainment suddenly boomed like mad.

“Two down,” said George Bailey. The bartender asked what he meant.

“I dunno, Hank. It’s just a hunch I’ve got.”

“What kind of hunch?”

“I don’t even know that. Shake me up one more of those and then I’ll go home.”

The electric shaker wouldn’t work and Hank had to shake the drink by hand.

“Good exercise; that’s just what you need,” George said. “It’ll take some of that fat off you.”

Hank grunted, and the ice tinkled merrily as he tilted the shaker to pour out the drink.

George Bailey took his time drinking it and then strolled out into an April thundershower. He stood under the awning and watched for a taxi. An old man was standing there too.

“Some weather,” George said.

The old man grinned at him. “You noticed it, eh?”

“Huh? Noticed what?”

“Just watch a while, mister. Just watch a while.”

The old man moved on. No empty cab came by and Geroge stood there quite a while before he got it. His jaw dropped a little and then he closed his mouth and went back into the tavern. He went into a phone booth and called Pete Mulvaney.

He got three wrong numbers before he got Pete. Pete’s voice said, “Yeah?”

“George Bailey, Pete. Listen, have you noticed the weather?”

“Damn right. No lightning, and there should be with a thunderstorm like this.”

“What’s it mean, Pete? The vaders?”

“Sure. And that’s just going to be the start if—” A crackling sound on the wire blurred his voice out. “Hey, Pete, you still there?”

The sound of a violin. Pete Mulvaney didn’t play violin. “Hey, Pete, what the hell?”

Pete’s voice again. “Come on over, George. Phone won’t last long. Bring—” There was a buzzing noise and then a voice said, “—come to Carnegie Hall. The best tunes of all come—”

George slammed down the receiver.

He walked through the rain to Pete’s place. On the way he bought a bottle of Scotch. Pete had started to tell him to bring something and maybe that’s what he’d started to say.

It was.

They made a drink apiece and lifted them. The lights flickered briefly, went out, and then came on again but dimly.

“No lightning,” said George. “No lightning and pretty soon no lighting. They’re taking over the telephone. What do they do with the lightning?”

“Eat it, I guess. They must eat electricity.”

“No lightning,” said George. “Damn. I can get by without a telephone, and candles and oil lamps aren’t bad for lights-but I’m going to miss lightning. I like lightning. Damn.”

The lights went out completely.

Pete Mulvaney sipped his drink in the dark. He said, “Electric lights, refrigerators, electric toasters, vacuum cleaners—”

“Juke boxes,” George said. “Think of it, no more God damn juke boxes. No public address systems, no-hey, how about movies?”

“No movies, not even silent ones. You can’t work a projector with an oil lamp. But listen, George, no automobiles-no gasoline engine can work without electricity.”

“Why not, if you crank it by hand instead of using a starter?”

“The spark, George. What do you think makes the spark.”

“Right. No airplanes either, then. Or how about jet planes?”

“Well-I guess some types of jets could be rigged not to need electricity, but you couldn’t do much with them. Jet plane’s got more instruments than motor, and all those instruments are electrical. And you can’t fly or land a jet by the seat of your pants.”

“No radar. But what would we need it for? There won’t be any more wars, not for a long time.”

“A damned long time.”

George sat up straight suddenly. “Hey, Pete, what about atomic fission? Atomic energy? Will it still work?”

“I doubt it. Subatomic phenomena are basically electrical. Bet you a dime they eat loose neutrons too.”(He’d have won his bet; the government had not announced that an A-bomb tested that day in Nevada had fizzled like a wet firecracker and that atomic piles were ceasing to function.)

George shook his head slowly, in wonder. He said, “Streetcars and buses, ocean liners-Pete, this means we’re going back to the original source of horsepower. Horses. If you want to invest, buy horses. Particularly mares. A brood mare is going to be worth a thousand times her weight in platinum.”

“Right. But don’t forget steam. We’ll still have steam engines, stationary and locomotive.”

“Sure, that’s right. The iron horse again, for the long hauls. But Dobbin for the short ones. Can you ride, Peter?”

“Used to, but I think I’m getting too old. I’ll settle for a bicycle. Say, better buy a bike first thing tomorrow before the run on them starts. I know I’m going to.”

“Good tip. And I used to be a good bike rider. It’ll be swell with no autos around to louse you up. And say—”

“What?”

“I’m going to get a cornet too. Used to play one when I as a kid and I can pick it up again. And then maybe I’ll hole in somewhere and write that nov…Say, what about printing?”

“They printed books long before electricity, George. It’ll take a while to readjust the printing industry, but there’ll be books all right. Thank God for that.”

George Bailey grinned and got up. He walked over to the window and looked out into the night. The rain had stopped and the sky was clear.

A streetcar was stalled, without lights, in the middle of the block outside. An automobile stopped, then started more slowly, stopped again; its headlights were dimming rapidly.

George looked up at the sky and took a sip of his drink. “No lightning,” he said sadly. “I’m going to miss the lightning.”

The changeover went more smoothly than anyone would have thought possible.

The government, in emergency session, made the wise decision of creating one board with absolutely unlimited authority and under it only three subsidiary boards. The main board, called the Economic Readjustment Bureau, had only seven members and its job was to co-ordinate the efforts of the three subsidiary boards and to decide, quickly and without appeal, any jurisdictional disputes among them.

First of the three subsidiary boards was the Transporation Bureau. It immediately took over, temporarily, the railroads. It ordered Diesel engines run on sidings and left there, organized use of the steam locomotives and solved the problems of railroading sans telegraphy and electric signals. It dictated, then, what should be transported; food coming first, coal and fuel oil second, and essential manufactured articles in the order of their relative importance. Carload after carload of new radios, electric stoves, refrigerators and such useless articles were dumped unceremoniously alongside the tracks, to be salvaged for scrap metal later.

All horses were declared wards of the government, graded according to capabilities, and put to work or to stud. Draft horses were used for only the most essential kinds of hauling. The breeding program was given the fullest possible emphasis; the bureau estimated that the equine population would double in two years, quadruple in three, and that within six or seven years there would be a horse in every garage in the country.

Farmers, deprived temporarily of their horses, and with their tractors rusting in the fields, were instructed how to use cattle for plowing and other work about the farm, including light hauling.

The second board, the Manpower Relocation Bureau, functioned just as one would deduce from its title. It handled unemployment benefits for the millions thrown temporarily out of work and helped relocate them-not too difficult a task considering the tremendously increased demand for hand labor in many fields.

In May of 1977 thirty-five million employables were out of work; in October, fifteen million; by May of 1978, five million. By 1979 the situation was completely in hand and competitive demand was already beginning to raise wages.

The third board had the most difficult job of the three. It was called the Factory Readjustment Bureau. It coped with the stupendous task of converting factories filled with electrically operated machinery and, for the most part, tooled for the production of other electrically operated machinery, over for the production, without electricity, of essential nonelectrical articles.

The few available stationary steam engines worked twenty-four hour shifts in those early days, and the first thing they were given to do was the running of lathes and stompers and planers and millers working on turning out more stationary steam engines, of all sizes. These, in turn, were first put to work making still more steam engines. The number of steam engines grew by squares and cubes, as did the number of horses put to stud. The principle was the same. One might, and many did, refer to those early steam engines as stud horses. At any rate, there was no lack of metal for them. The factories were filled with nonconvertible machinery waiting to be melted down.

Only when steam engines-the basis of the new factory economy-were in full production, were they assigned to running machinery for the manufacture of other articles. Oil lamps, clothing, coal stoves, oil stoves, bathtubs and bedsteads.

Not quite all of the big factories were converted. For while the conversion period went on, individual handicrafts sprang up in thousands of places. Little one-and two-man shops making and repairing furniture, shoes, candles, all sorts of things that could be made without complex machinery. At first these small shops made small fortunes because they had no competition from heavy industry. Later, they bought small steam engines to run small machines and held their own, growing with the boom that came with a return to normal employment and buying power, increasing gradually in size until many of them rivaled the bigger factories in output and beat them in quality.

There was suffering, during the period of economic readjustment, but less than there had been during the great depression of the early thirties. And the recovery was quicker.

The reason was obvious: In combating the depression, the legislators were working in the dark. They didn’t know its cause-rather, they knew a thousand conflicting theories of its cause-and they didn’t know the cure. They were hampered by the idea that the thing was temporary and would cure itself if left alone. Briefly and frankly, they didn’t know what it was all about and while they experimented, it snowballed.

But the situation that faced the country—and all other countries—in 1977 was clear-cut and obvious. No more electricity. Readjust for steam and horsepower.

As simple and clear as that, and no ifs or ands or buts. And the whole people-except for the usual scattering of cranks-back of them.

By 1981—

It was a rainy day in April and George Bailey was waiting under the sheltering roof of the little railroad station at Blakestown, Connecticut, to see who might come in on the 3:14.

It chugged in at 3:25 and came to a panting stop, three coaches and a baggage car. The baggage car door opened and a sack of mail was handed out and the door closed again. No luggage, so probably no passengers would

Then at the sight of a tall dark man swinging down from the platform of the rear coach, George Bailey let out a yip of delight. “Pete! Pete Mulvaney! What the devil—”

“Bailey, by all that’s holy! What are you doing here?”

George wrung Pete’s hand. “Me? I live here. Two years now. I bought the Blakestown Weekly in ‘79, for a song, and I run it-editor, reporter, and janitor. Got one printer to help me out with that end, and Maisie does the social items. She’s—?

“Maisie? Maisie Hetterman?”

“Maisie Bailey now. We got married same time I bought the paper and moved here. What are you doing here, Pete?”

“Business. Just here overnight. See a man named Wilcox.”

“Oh, Wilcox. Our local screwball-but don’t get me wrong; he’s a smart guy all right. Well, you can see him tomorrow. You’re coming home with me now, for dinner and to stay overnight. Maisie’ll be glad to see you. Come on, my buggy’s over here.”

“Sure. Finished whatever you were here for?”

“Yep, just to pick up the news on who came in on the train. And you came in, so here we go.”

They got in the buggy, and George picked up the reins and said, “Giddup, Bessie,” to the mare. Then, “What are you doing now, Pete?”

“Research. For a gas supply company. Been working on a more efficient mantle, one that’ll give more light and be less destructible. This fellow Wilcox wrote us he had something along that line; the company sent me up to look it over. If it’s what he claims, I’ll take him back to New York with me, and let the company lawyers dicker with him.”

“How’s business, otherwise?”

“Great, George. Gas; that’s the coming thing. Every new home’s being piped for it, and plenty of the old ones. How about you?”

“We got it. Luckily we had one of the old Linotypes that ran the metal pot off a gas burner, so it was already piped in. And our home is right over the office and print shop, so all we had to do was pipe it up a flight. Great stuff, gas. How’s New York?”

“Fine, George. Down to its last million people, and stabilizing there. No crowding and plenty of room for everybody. The air-why, it’s better than Atlantic City, without gasoline fumes.”

“Enough horses to go around yet?”

“Almost. But bicycling’s the craze; the factories can’t turn out enough to meet the demand. There’s a cycling club in almost every block and all the able-bodied cycle to and from work. Doing ‘em good, too; a few more years and the doctors will go on short rations.”

“You got a bike?”

“Sure, a pre-vader one. Average five miles a day on it, and I eat like a horse.”

George Bailey chuckled. “I’ll have Maisie include some hay in the dinner. Well, here we are. Whoa, Bessie.”

An upstairs window went up, and Maisie looked out and down. She called out, “Hi, Pete!”

“Extra plate, Maisie,” George called. “We’ll be up soon as I put the horse away and show Pete around downstairs.”

He led Pete from the barn into the back door of the newspaper shop. “Our Linotype!” he announced proudly, pointing.

“How’s it work? Where’s your steam engine?”

George grinned. “Doesn’t work yet; we still hand set the type. I could get only one steamer and had to use that on the press. But I’ve got one on order for the Lino, and coming up in a month or so. When we get it, Pop Jenkins, my printer, is going to put himself out of a job teaching me to run it. With the Linotype going, I can handle the whole thing myself.”

“Kind of rough on Pop?”

George shook his head. “Pop eagerly awaits the day. He’s sixty-nine and wants to retire. He’s just staying on until I can do without him. Here’s the press—a honey of a little Miehle; we do some job work on it, too. And this is the office, in front. Messy, but efficient.”

Mulvaney looked around him and grinned. “George, I believe you’ve found your niche. You were cut out for a small-town editor.”

“Cut out for it? I’m crazy about it. I have more fun than everybody. Believe it or not, I work like a dog, and like it. Come on upstairs.”

On the stairs, Pete asked, “And the novel you were going to write?”

“Half done, and it isn’t bad. But it isn’t the novel I was going to write; I was a cynic then. Now—”

“George, I think the waveries were your best friends.”

“Waveries?”

“Lord, how long does it take slang to get from New York out to the sticks? The vaders. of course. Some professor who specializes in studying them described one as a wavery place in the ether, and `wavery’ stuck-Hello there, Maisie, my girl. You look like a million.”

They ate leisurely. Almost apologetically, George brought out beer, in cold bottles. “Sorry, Pete, haven’t anything stronger to offer you. But I haven’t been drinking lately. Guess—”

“You on the wagon, George?”

“Not on the wagon, exactly. Didn’t swear off or anything, but haven’t had a drink of strong liquor in almost a year. I don’t know why, but—”

“I do,” said Pete Mulvaney. “I know exactly why you don’t-because I don’t drink much either, for the same reason. We don’t drink because we don’t have to-say, isn’t that a radio over there?”

George chuckled. “A souvenir. Wouldn’t sell it for a fortune. Once in a while I like to look at it and think of the awful guff I used to sweat out for it. And then I go over and click the switch and nothing happens. Just silence. Silence is the most wonderful thing in the world, sometimes, Pete. Of course I couldn’t do that if there was any juice, because I’d get vaders then. I suppose they’re still doing business at the same old stand?”

“Yep, the Research Bureau checks daily. Try to get up current with a little generator run by a steam turbine. But no dice; the vaders suck it up as fast as it’s generated.”

“Suppose they’ll ever go away?”

Mulvaney shrugged. “Helmetz thinks not. He thinks they propagate in proportion to the available electricity. Even if the development of radio broadcasting somewhere else in the Universe would attract them there, some would stay here-and multiply like flies the minute we tried to use electricity again. And meanwhile, they’ll live on the static electricity in the air. What do you do evenings up here?”

“Do? Read, write, visit with one another, go to the amateur groups-Maisie’s chairman of the Blakestown Players, and I play bit parts in it. With the movies out everybody goes in for theatricals and we’ve found some real talent. And there’s the chess-and-checker club, and cycle trips and picnics-there isn’t time enough. Not to mention music. Everybody plays an instrument, or is trying to.”

“You?”

“Sure, cornet. First cornet in the Silver Concert Band, with solo parts. And-Good Heavens! Tonight’s rehearsal, and we’re giving a concert Sunday afternoon. I hate to desert you, but—”

“Can’t I come around and sit in? I’ve got my flute in the brief case here, and—”

“Flute? We’re short on flutes. Bring that around and Si Perkins, our director, will practically shanghai you into staying over for the concert Sunday and it’s only three days, so why not? And get it out now; we’ll play a few old timers to warm up. Hey, Maisie, skip those dishes and come on in to the piano!”

While Pete Mulvaney went to the guest room to get his flute from the brief case, George Bailey picked up his cornet from the top of the piano and blew a soft, plaintive little minor run on it. Clear as a bell; his lip was in good shape tonight.

And with the shining silver thing in his hand he wandered over to the window and stood looking out into the night. It was dusk out and the rain had stopped.

A high-stepping horse clop-clopped by and the bell of a bicycle jangled. Somebody across the street was strumming a guitar and singing. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

The scent of spring was soft and wet in the moist air. Peace and dusk.

Distant rolling thunder.

God damn it, he thought, if only there was a bit of lightning.

He missed the lightning.

CORRESPONDANCE COURSE

Raymond F. Jones

The old lane from the farmhouse to the letter box down by the road was the same dusty trail that he remembered from eons before. The deep summer dust stirred as his feet moved slowly and haltingly. The marks of his left foot were deep and firm as when he had last walked the lane, but where his right foot moved there was a ragged, continuous line with irregular depressions and there was the sharp imprint of a cane beside the dragging footprints.

He looked up to the sky a moment as an echelon of planes from the advanced trainer base fifty miles away wheeled overhead. A nostalgia seized him, an overwhelming longing for the men he had known—and for Ruth.

He was home; he had come back alive, but with so many gone who would never come back, what good was it?

With Ruth gone it was no good at all. For an instant his mind burned with pain and his eyes ached as if a bomb-burst had blinded him as he remembered that day in the little field hospital where he had watched her die and heard the enemy planes overhead.

Afterwards, he had gone up alone, against orders, determined to die with her, but take along as many Nazis as he could.

But he hadn’t died. He had come out of it with a bullet-shattered leg and sent home to rust and die slowly over many years.

He shook his head and tried to fling the thoughts out of his mind. It was wrong. The doctors had warned him—

He resumed his slow march, half dragging the all but useless leg behind him. This was the same lane down which he had run so fast those summer days so long ago. There was a swimming hole and a fishing pond a quarter of a mile away. He tried to dim his vision with half-shut eyes and remember those pleasant days and wipe out all fear and bitterness from his mind.

It was ten o’clock in the morning and Mr. McAfee, the rural postman, was late, but Jim Ward could see his struggling, antique Ford raising a low cloud of dust a mile down the road.

Jim leaned heavily upon the stout cedar post that supported the mailbox and when Mr. McAfee rattled up he managed to wave and smile cheerily.

Mr. McAfee adjusted his spectacles on the bridge of his nose with a rapid trombone manipulation.

“Bless me, Jim, it’s good to see you up and around!”

“Pretty good to be up.” Jim managed to force enthusiasm into his voice. But he knew he couldn’t stand talking very long to old Charles McAfee as if everything had not changed since the last time.

“Any mail for the Wards, today?”

The postman shuffled the fistful of mail. “Only one.”

Jim glanced at the return address block and shrugged. “I’m on the sucker lists already. They don’t lose any time when they find out there’s still bones left to pick on. You keep it.”

He turned painfully and faced toward the house. “I’ve got to be getting back. Glad to have seen you, Mr. McAfee.”

“Yeah, sure, Jim. Glad to have seen you. But I …er … got to deliver the mail—” He held the letter out hopefully.

“O.K.” Jim laughed sharply and grasped the circular.

He went only as far as the giant oak whose branches extended far enough to overshadow the mailbox. He sat down in the shade with his back against the great bole and tried to watch the echelon still soaring above the valley through the rifts in the leaf coverage above him. After a time he glanced down at the circular letter from which his fingers were peeling little fragments of paper. Idly, he ripped open the envelope and glanced at the contents. In cheap, garish typograph with splatterings of red and purple ink the words seemed to be trying to jump at him.

SERVICEMAN—WHAT OF THE FUTURE?

You have come back from the wars. You have found life different than you knew it before, and much that was familiar is gone. But new things have come, new things that are here to stay and are a part of the world you are going to live in.

Have you thought of the place you will occupy? Are you prepared to resume life in the ways of peace?

WE CAN HELP YOU!

Have you heard of the POWER CO-ORDINATOR? No, of course you haven’t because it has been a hush-hush secret source of power that has been turning the wheels of war industries for many months. But now the secret of this vast source of new power can be told, and the need for hundreds, yes, thousands of trained technicians—such as you, yourself, may become—will be tremendous in the next decade.

LET US PROVE TO YOU

Let us prove to you that we know what we are talking about. We are so certain that you, as a soldier trained in intricate operations of the machines of war, will be interested in this almost miraculous new source of power and the technique of handling it that we are willing to send you absolutely FREE the first three lessons of our twenty-five lesson course that will train you to be a POWER CO-ORDINATOR technician.

Let us prove it to you. Fill out the enclosed coupon and mail it today!

Don’t just shrug and throw this circular away as just another advertisement. MAIL THE COUPON NOW!

*

Jim Ward smiled reminiscently at the style of the circular. It reminded him of Billy Hensley and the time when they were thirteen. They sent in all the clipped and filled-out coupons they could find in magazines. They had samples of soap and magic tricks and catalogues and even a live bird came as the result of one. They kept all the stuff in Hensley’s attic until Billy’s dad finally threw it all out.

Impulsively, in whimsical tribute to the gone-forever happiness of those days, Jim Ward scratched his name and address in pencil and told the power co-ordinators to send him their three free lessons.

Mr. McAfee had only another mile to go up the road before he came to the end and returned past the Ward farm to Kramer’s Forks. Jim waited and hailed him.

“Want to take another letter?”

The postman halted the clattering Ford and jumped down. “What’s that?”

Jim repeated his request and held up the stamped reply card. “Take this with you?”

Mr. McAfee turned it over and read every word on the back of the card. “Good thing,” he grunted. “So you’re going to take a correspondence course in this new power what-is-it? I think that’s mighty fine, Jim. Give you new interests—sort of take your mind off things.”

“Yeah, sure.” Jim struggled up with the aid of his cane and the bole of the oak tree. “Better see if I can make it back to the house now.”

All the whimsy and humor had suddenly gone out of the situation.

*

It was a fantastically short time—three days later—that Mr. McAfee stopped again at the Ward farm. He glanced at the thick envelope in his pack and the return address block it bore. He could see Jim Ward on the farmhouse porch and turned the Ford up the lane. Its rattle made Jim turn his head and open his eyes from the thoughtless blankness into which he had been trying to sink. He removed the pipe from his mouth and watched the car approach.

“Here’s your course,” shouted Mr. McAfee. “Here’s your first lesson!”

“What lesson?”

“The correspondence course you sent for. The power what-is-it? Don’t you remember?”

“No,” said Jim. “I’d forgotten all about it. Take the thing away. I don’t want it. It was just a silly joke.”

“You hadn’t ought to feel that way, Jim. After all, your leg is going to be all right. I heard the Doc say so down in the drugstore last night. And everything is going to be all right. There’s no use of letting it get you down. Besides—I got to deliver the mail.”

He tossed the brown envelope on the porch beside Jim. “Brought it up special because I thought you’d be in a hurry to get it.”

Jim smiled in apology. “I’m sorry, Mac. Didn’t mean to take it out on you. Thanks for bringing it up. I’ll study it good and hard this morning right here on the porch.”

Mr. McAfee beamed and nodded and rattled away. Jim closed his eyes again, but he couldn’t find the pleasing blankness he’d found before. Now the screen of his mind showed only the sky with thundering, plummeting engines—and the face of a girl lying still and white with closed eyes.

Jim opened his eyes and his hands slipped to his sides and touched the envelope. He ripped it open and scanned the pages. It was the sort of stuff he had collected as a boy, all right He glanced at the paragraph headings and tossed the first lesson aside. A lot of obvious stuff about comparisons between steam power and waterfalls and electricity. It seemed all jumbled up like a high school student’s essay on the development of power from the time of Archimedes.

The mimeographed pages were poorly done. They looked as if the stencils had been cut on a typrwriter that had been hit on the type faces with a hammer.

He tossed the second lesson aside and glanced at the top sheet of the third. His hand arrested itself midway in the act of tossing this lesson beside the other two. He caught a glimpse of the calculations on an inside page and opened up the booklet.

There was no high school stuff there. His brain struggled to remember the long unused methods of the integral calculus and the manipulation of partial differential equations.

There were pages of the stuff. It was like a sort of beacon light, dim and far off, but pointing a sure pathway to his mind and getting brighter as he progressed. One by one, he followed the intricate steps of the math and the short paragraphs of description between. When at last he reached the final page and turned the book over and scowled heavily the sun was halfway down the afternoon sky.

He looked away over the fields and pondered. This was no elementary stuff. Such math as this didn’t belong in a home study correspondence course. He picked up the envelope and concentrated on the return address block.

All it said was: M. H. Quilcon Schools, Henderson, Iowa. The lessons were signed at the bottom with the mimeographed reproductions of M. H. Quilcon’s ponderous signature.

Jim picked up lesson one again and began reading slowly and carefully, as if hidden between the lines he might find some mystic message.

By the end of July his leg was strong enough for him to walk without the cane. He walked slowly and with a limp and once in a while the leg gave way as if he had a trick knee. But he learned quickly to catch himself before he fell and he reveled in the thrill of walking again.

By the end of July the tenth lesson of the correspondence course had arrived and Jim knew that he had gone as far as he could alone. He was lost in amazement as he moved in the new scientific wonderland that opened up before him. He had known that great strides had been made in techniques and production, but it seemed incredible that such a basic discovery as power co-ordination had been producing war machines these many months. He wondered why the principle had not been applied more directly as a weapon itself—but he didn’t understand enough about it to know whether it could or not. He didn’t even understand yet from where the basic energy of the system was derived.

The tenth lesson was as poorly produced as the rest of them had been, but it was practically a book in its thickness. When he had finished it Jim knew that he had to know more of the background of the new science. He had to talk to someone who knew something about it. But he knew of no one who had ever heard of it. He had seen no advertisements of the M. H. Quilcon Schools. Only the first circular and these lessons.

As soon as he had finished the homework on lesson ten and had given it into Mr. McAfee’s care, Jim Ward made up his mind to go down to Henderson, Iowa, and visit the Quilcon School.

He wished he had retained the lesson material because he could have taken it there faster than it would arrive via the local mail channels.

*

The streamliner barely stopped at Henderson, Iowa, long enough to allow him to disembark. Then it was gone and Jim Ward stared about him.

The sleepy looking ticket seller, dispatcher, and janitor eyed him wonderingly and spat a huge amber stream across his desk and out the window.

“Looking for somebody, mister?”

“I’m looking for Henderson, Iowa. Is this it?” Jim asked dubiously.

“You’re here, mister. But don’t walk too fast or you’ll be out of it. The city limits only go a block past Smith’s Drugstore.”

Jim noticed the sign over the door and glanced at the inscription that he had not seen before: Henderson, Iowa. Pop. 806.

“I’m looking for a Mr. M. H. Quilcon. He runs a correspondence school here somewhere. Do you know of him?”

The depot staff shifted its cud again and spat thoughtfully. “Been here twenty-nine years next October. Never heard a name like that around here, and I know ‘em all.”

“Are there any correspondence schools here?”

“Miss Marybell Anne Simmons gives beauty operator lessons once in a while, but that’s all the school of that kind that I know of.”

Disconcerted, Jim Ward murmured his thanks and moved slowly out of the station. The sight before him was dismaying. He wondered if the population hadn’t declined since the estimate on the sign in the station was made.

A small mercantile store that sagged in the middle faced him from across the street. Farther along was a tiny frame building labeled Sheriffs Office. On his side Jim saw Smith’s drugstore a couple of hundred feet down from the station with a riding saddle and a patented fertilizer displayed in the window. In the other direction was the combined post office, bank and what was advertised as a newspaper and printing office.

Jim strode toward this last building while curious watchers on the porch of the mercantile store stared at him trudging through the dust.

The postmistress glanced up from the armful of mail that she was sorting into boxes as Jim entered. She offered a cheery hello that seemed to tinkle from the buxom figure.

“I’m looking for a man named Quilcon. I thought you might be able to give me some information concerning him.”

“Kweelcon?” She furrowed her brow. “There’s no one here by that name. How do you spell it?”

Before he could answer, the woman dropped a handful of letters on the floor. Jim was certain that he saw the one he had mailed to the school before he left.

As the woman stooped to recover the letters a dark brown shadow streaked across the floor. Jim got the momentary impression of an enormous brown slug moving with lightning speed.

The postmistress gave a scream of anger and scuffled her feet to the door. She returned in a moment.

“Armadillo,” she explained. “Darn thing’s been hanging around here for months and nobody seems to be able to kill it.” She resumed putting the mail in the boxes.

“I think you missed one,” said Jim. She did not have the one that he recognized as the one he’d mailed.

The woman looked about her on the floor. “I got them all, thank you. Now what did you say this man’s name was?”

Jim leaned over the counter and looked at the floor. He was sure—But there was obviously no other letter in sight and there was no place it could have gone.

“Quilcon,” said Jim slowly. ‘Tm not sure of the pronunciation myself, but that’s the way it seemed it should be.”

“There’s no one in Henderson by that name. Wait a minute now. That’s a funny thing—you know it was about a month ago that I saw an envelope going out of here with a name something like that in the upper left corner. I thought at the time it was a funny name and wondered who put it in, but I never did find out and I thought I’d been dreaming. How’s you know to come here looking for him?”

“I guess I must have received the mail you saw.”

“Well, you might ask Mr. Herald. He’s in the newspaper office next door. But I’m sure there’s no one in this town by that name.”

“You publish a newspaper here?”

The woman laughed. “We call it that. Mr. Herald owns the bank and a big farm and puts this out free as a hobby, It’s not much, but everybody in town reads it. On Saturday he puts out a regular printed edition. This is the daily.”

She held up a small mimeographed sheet that was moderately legible. Jim glanced at it and moved towards the door. “Thanks, anyway.”

As he went out into the summer sun there was something gnawing at his brain, an intense you-forgot-something-in-there sort of feeling. He couldn’t place it and tried to ignore it.

Then as he stepped across the threshold of the printing office he got it. That mimeographed newssheet he had seen—it bore a startling resemblance to the lessons he had received from M. H. Quilcon. The same purple ink. Slightly crooked sheets. But that was foolish to try to make a connection there. All mimeographed jobs looked about alike.

Mr. Herald was a portly little man with a fringe around his baldness. Jim repeated his inquiry.

“Quilcon?” Mr. Herald pinched his lips thoughtfully. “No, can’t say as I ever heard the name. Odd name—I’m sure I’d know it if I’d ever heard it.”

Jim Ward knew that further investigation here would he a waste of time. There was something wrong somewhere. The information in his correspondence course could not be coming out of this half dead little town.

He glanced at a copy of the newssheet lying on the man’s littered desk beside an ancient Woodstock. “Nice little sheet you put out there,” said Jim.

Mr. Herald laughed. “Well, it’s not much, but I get a kick out of it, and the people enjoy reading about Mrs. Kelly’s lost hogs and the Dorius kid’s whooping cough. It livens things up.”

“Ever do any work for anybody else—printing or mimeographing?”

“If anybody wants it, but I haven’t had an outside customer in three years.”

Jim glanced about searchingly. The old Woodstock seemed to be the only typewriter in the room.

“I might as well go on,” he said. “But I wonder if you’d mind letting me use your typewriter to write a note and leave in the postoffice for Quilcon if he ever shows up.”

“Sure, go ahead. Help yourself.”

Jim sat down before the clanking machine and hammered out a brief paragraph while Mr. Herald wandered to the back of the shop. Then Jim rose and shoved the paper in his pocket. He wished he had brought a sheet from one of the lessons with him.

“Thanks,” he called to Mr. Herald. He picked up a copy of the latest edition of the newspaper and shoved it in his pocket with the typed sheet

*

On the trip homeward he studied the mimeographed sheet until he had memorized every line, but he withheld conclusions until he reached home.

From the station he called the farm and Hank, the hired man, came to pick him up. The ten miles out to the farm seemed like a hundred. But at last in his own room Jim spread out the two sheets of paper he’d brought with him and opened up lesson one of the correspondence course.

There was no mistake. The stencils of the course manuals had been cut on Mr. Herald’s ancient machine. There was the same nick out of the side of the o, and the b was flattened on the bulge. The r was minus half its base.

Mr. Herald had prepared the course.

Mr. Herald must then be M. H. Quilcon. But why had he denied any knowledge of the name? Why had he refused to see Jim and admit his authorship of the course?

At ten o’clock that night Mr. McAfee arrived with a special delivery letter for Jim.

“I don’t ordinarily deliver these way out here this time of night,” he said. “But I thought you might like to have. it. Might be something important. A job or something, maybe. It’s from Mr. Quilcon.”

“Thanks. Thanks for bringing it, Mac.”

Jim hurried into his room and ripped open the letter.

It read:

Dear Mr. Ward:

Your progress in understanding the principles of power co-ordination are exceptional and I am very pleased to note your progress in connection with the tenth lesson which I have just received from you.

An unusual opportunity has arisen which I am moved to offer you. There is a large installation of a power co-ordination engine in need of vital repairs some distance from here. I believe that you are fully qualified to work on this machine, under supervision which will be provided and you would gain some valuable experience. The installation is located some distance from the city of Henderson. It is about two miles out on the Balmer Road. You will find there the Hortan Machine Works at which the installation is located. Repairs are urgently needed and you are the closest qualified student able to take advantage of this opportunity which might lead to a valuable permanent connection. Therefore, I request that you come at once. I will meet you there.

Sincerely,

M. H. Quilcon

For a long time Jim Ward sat on the bed with the letter and the sheets of paper spread out before him. What had begun as a simple quest for information was rapidly becoming an intricate puzzle.

Who was M. H. Quilcon?

It seemed obvious that Mr. Herald, the banker and part-time newspaper publisher, must be Quilcon. The correspondence course manuals had certainly been produced on his typewriter. The chances of any two typewriters having exactly the same four or five disfigurements in type approached the infinitesimal.

And Herald—if he were Quilcon—must have written this letter just before or shortly after Jim’s visit. The letter was certainly a product of the ancient Woodstock.

There was a fascination in the puzzle and a sense of something sinister, Jim thought. Then he laughed aloud at his own melodrama and began repacking the suitcase. There was a midnight train he could get back to Henderson.

It was hot afternoon when he arrived in the town for the second time. The station staff looked up in surprise as he got off the train.

“Back again? I thought you’d given up.”

“I’ve found out where Mr. Quilcon is. He’s at the Hortan Machine Works. Can you tell me exactly where that is?”

“Never heard of it.”

“It’s supposed to be about two miles out of town on Balmer Road.”

“That’s just the main street of town going on down through the Willow Creek district. There’s no machine works out there. You must be in the wrong state, mister. Or somebody’s kidding you.”

“Do you think Mr. Herald could tell me anything about such a machine shop. I mean, does he know anything about machinery or things related to it?”

“Man, no! Old man Herald don’t care about nothing but money and that little fool paper of his. Machinery! He can’t hook up anything more complicated than his suspenders.”

Jim started down the main street toward the Willow Creek district. Balmer Road rapidly narrowed and turned, leaving the town out of sight behind a low rise. Willow Creek was a glistening thread in the midst of meadow land.

There was no more unlikely spot in the world for a machine works of any kind, Jim thought. Someone must be playing an utterly fantastic joke on him. But how or why they had picked on him was mystifying.

At the same time he knew within him that it was no joke. There was a deadly seriousness about it all. The principles of power co-ordination were right. He had slaved and dug through them enough to be sure of that. He felt that he could almost build a power co-ordinating engine now with the proper means—except that he didn’t understand from where the power was derived!

In the timelessness of the bright air about him, with the only sound coming from the brook and the leaves on the willow trees beside it, Jim found it impossible to judge time or distance.

He paced his steps and counted until he was certain that at least two miles had been covered. He halted and looked about almost determined to go back and re-examine the way he had come.

He glanced ahead, his eyes scanning every minute detail of the meadowland. And then he saw it.

The sunlight glistened as if on a metal surface. And above the bright spot in the distance was the faintly readable legend:

HORTAN MACHINE WORKS

Thrusting aside all judgment concerning the incredibility of a machine shop in such a locale, he crossed the stream and made his way over the meadow toward the small rise.

As he approached, the, machine works appeared to be merely a dome-shaped structure about thirty feet in diameter and with an open door in one side. He came up to it with a mind ready for anything. The crudely painted sign above the door looked as if it had been drawn by an inexpert barn painter in a state of intoxication.

Jim entered the dimly lit interior of the shop and set his case upon the floor beside a narrow bench that extended about the room.

Tools and instruments of unfamiliar design were upon the bench and upon the walls. But no one appeared.

Then he noticed an open door and a steep, spiral ramp that led down to a basement room. He stepped through and half slid, half walked down to the next level.

There was artificial lighting by fluorescent tubes of unusual construction, Jim noticed. But still no sign of anyone. And there was not an object in the room that appeared familiar to him. Articles that vaguely resembled furniture were against the walls.

He felt uneasy amid the strangeness of the room and he was about to go back up the steep ramp when a voice came to him.

“This is Mr. Quilcon. Is that you, Mr. Ward?”

“Yes. Where are you?”

“I am in the next room, unable to come out until I finish a bit of work I have started. Will you please go on down to the room below? You will find the damaged machinery there. Please go right to work on it. I’m sure that you have a complete understanding of what is necessary. I will join you in a moment”

*

Hesitantly, Jim turned to the other side of the room where he saw a second ramp leading down to a brilliantly lighted room. He glanced about once more, then moved down the ramp.

The room was high-ceilinged and somewhat larger in diameter than the others he had seen and it was almost completely occupied by the machine.

A series of close fitting towers with regular bulbous swellings on their columns formed the main structure of the engine. These were grouped in a solid circle with narrow walkways at right angles to each other passing through them.

Jim Ward stood for a long time examining their surfaces that rose twenty feet from the floor. All that he had learned from the curious correspondence course seemed to fall into place. Diagrams and drawings of such machines had seemed incomprehensible. Now he knew exactly what each part was for and how the machine operated.

He squeezed his body into the narrow walkway between the towers and wormed his way to the center of the engine. His bad leg made it difficult, but he at last came to the damaged structure.

One of the tubes had cracked open under some tremendous strain and through the slit he could see the marvelously intricate wiring with which it was filled. Wiring that was burned now and fused to a mass. It was in a control circuit that rendered the whole machine functionless, but its repair would not be difficult, Jim knew.

He went back to the periphery of the engine and found the controls of a cranelike device which he lowered and seized the cracked sleeve and drew off the damaged part.

From the drawers and bins in the walls he selected parts and tools and returned to the damaged spot.

In the cramped space he began tearing away the fused parts and wiring. He was lost and utterly unconscious of anything but the fascination of the mighty engine. Here within this room was machine capacity to power a great city.

Its basic function rested upon the principle of magnetic currents in contrast to electric currents. The discovery of magnetic currents had been announced only a few months before he came home from the war. The application of the discovery had been swift.

And he began to glimpse the fundamental source of the energy supplying the machine. It was in the great currents of gravitational and magnetic force flowing between the planets and the suns of the universe. As great as atomic energy and as boundless in its resources, this required no fantastically dangerous machinery to harness. The principle of the power co-ordinator was simple.

The pain of his cramped position forced Jim to move out to rest his leg. As he stood beside the engine he resumed his pondering on the purpose it had in this strange location. Why was it built there and what use was made of its power?

He moved about to restore the circulation in his legs and sought to trace the flow of energy through the engine, determine where and what kind of a load was placed upon it.

His search led him below into a third sub-basement of the building and there he found the thing he was searching for, the load into which the tremendous drive of the engine was coupled.

But here he was unable to comprehend fully, for the load was itself a machine of strange design, and none of its features had been covered in the correspondence course.

The machine upstairs seized upon the magnetic currents of space and selected and concentrated those flowing in a given direction.

The force of these currents was then fed into the machines in this room, but there was no point of reaction against which the energy could be applied.

Unless—

The logical, inevitable conclusion forced itself upon his mind. There was only one conceivable point of reaction.

He stood very still and a tremor went through him. He looked up at the smooth walls about him. Metal, all of them.

And this room—it was narrower than the one above—as if the entire building were tapered from the dome protruding out of the earth to the basement floor.

The only possible point of reaction was the building itself.

But it wasn’t a building. It was a vessel.

*

Jim clawed and stumbled his way up the incline into the engine room, then beyond into the chamber above. He was halfway up the top ramp when he heard the voice again.

“Is that you, Mr. Ward? I have almost finished and will be with you in a moment. Have you completed the repairs. Was it very difficult?”

He hesitated, but didn’t answer. Something about the quality of that voice gave him a chill. He hadn’t noticed it before because of his curiosity and his interest in the place. Now he detected its unearthly, inhuman quality.

He detected the fact that it wasn’t a voice at all, but that the words had been formed in his brain as if he himself had spoken them.

He was nearly at the top of the ramp and drew himself on hands and knees to the floor level when he saw the shadow of the closing door sweep across the room and heard the metallic dang of the door. It was sealed tight. Only the small windows—or ports—admitted light.

He rose and straightened and calmed himself with the thought that the vessel could not fly. It could not rise with the remainder of the repair task unfinished—and he was not going to finish it; that much was certain.

“Quilcon!” he called. “Show yourself! Who are you and what do you want of me?”

“I want you to finish the repair job and do it quickly,” the voice replied instantly. “And quickly—it must be finished quickly.”

There was a note of desperation and despair that seemed to cut into Jim. Then he caught sight of the slight motion against the wall beside him.

In a small, transparent hemisphere that was fastened to the side of the wall lay the slug that Jim had seen at the post office, the thing the woman had called an “armadillo.” He had not even noticed it when he first entered the room. The thing was moving now with slow pulsations that swelled its surface and great welts like dark veins stood out upon it.

From the golden-hued hemisphere a maze of cable ran to instruments and junction boxes around the room and a hundred tiny pseudopods grasped terminals inside the hemisphere.

It was a vessel—and this slug within the hemisphere was its alien, incredible pilot. Jim knew it with startling cold reality that came to him in waves of thought that emanated from the slug called Quilcon and broke over Jim’s mind. It was a ship and a pilot from beyond Earth—from out of the reaches of space.

*

“What do you want of me? Who are you?” said Jim Ward.

“I am Quilcon. You are a good student. You learn well.”

“What do you want?”

“I want you to repair the damaged engine.”

There was something wrong with the creature. Intangibly, Jim sensed it. An aura of sickness, a desperate urgency came to his mind.

But something else was in the foreground of Jim’s mind. The horror of the alien creature diminshed and Jim contemplated the miracle that had come to mankind.

“I’ll bargain with you,” he said quietly. “Tell me how to build a ship like this for my people and I will fix the engines for you.”

“No! No—there is no time for that. I must hurry—”

“Then I shall leave without any repairs.”

He moved toward the door and instantly a paralyzing wave took hold of him as if he had seized a pair of charged electrodes. It relaxed only as he stumbled back from the door.

“My power is weak,” said Quilcon, “but it is strong enough for many days yet—many of your days. Too many for you to live without food and water. Repair the engine and then I shall let you go.”

“Is what I ask too much to pay for my help?”

“You have had pay enough. You can teach your people to build power co-ordinator machines. Is that not enough?”

“My people want to build ships like this one and move through space.”

“I cannot teach you that I do not know. I did not build this ship.”

There were surging waves of troubled thought that washed over his mind, but Jim Ward’s tenseness eased. The first fear of totally alien life drifted from his mind and he felt a strange affinity for the creature. It was injured and sick, he knew, but he could not believe that it did not know how the ship was built.

“Those who built this ship come often to trade upon my world,” said Quilcon. “But we have no such ships of our own. Most of us have no desire to see anything but the damp caves and sunny shores of our own world. But I longed to see the worlds from which these ships came.

“When this one landed near my cave I crept in and hid myself. The ship took off then and we traveled an endless time. Then an accident to the engine killed all three of those who manned the ship and I was left alone.

“I was injured, too, but I was not killed. Only the other of me died.”

Jim did not understand the queer phrase, but he did not break into Quilcon’s story.

“I was able to arrange means to control the flight of the ship, to prevent its destruction as it landed upon this planet, but I could not repair it because of the nature of my body.”

Jim saw then that the creature’s story must be true. It was obvious that the ship had been built to be manned by beings utterly unlike Quilcon.

“I investigated the city of yours near by and learned of your ways and customs. I needed the help of one of you to repair the ship. By force I could persuade one of you to do simple tasks, but none so complex as this requires.

“Then I discovered the peculiar customs of learning among you. I forced the man Herald to prepare the materials and send them to you. I received them before the person at the post office could see them. I got your name from the newspapers along with several others who were unsatisfactory.

“I had to teach you to understand the power co-ordinator because only by voluntary operation of your highest faculties will you be able to understand and repair the machine. I can assist but not force you to do that.”

The creature began pleading again. “And now will you repair the engine quickly. I am dying—but shall live longer than you—it is a long journey to my home planet, but I must get there and I need every instant of time that is left to me.”

*

Jim caught a glimpse of the dream vision that was the creature’s home world. It was a place of security and peace—in Quilcoa’s terms. But even its alienness did not block out the sense of quiet beauty that Quilcon’s mind transmitted to Jim’s. They were a species of high intelligence. Exceptionally developed in the laws of mathematics and theory of logic, they were handicapped in bodily development from inquiring into other fields of science whose existence was demonstrated by their logic and their mathematics. The more intellectual among them were frustrated creatures whose lives were made tolerable only by an infinite capacity for stoicism and adaptation.

But of them all, Quilcon was among the most restless and rebellious and ambitious. No one of them had ever dared such a journey as he had taken. A swelling pity and understanding came over Jim Ward.

“I’ll bargain with you,” he said desperately. “I’ll repair the engine if you’ll let me have its principles. If you don’t have them, you can get them to me with little trouble. My people must have such a ship as this.”

He tried to visualize what it would mean to Earth to have space flight a century or perhaps five centuries before the slow plodding of science and research might reveal it.

But the creature was silent.

“Quilcon—” Jim repeated. He hoped it hadn’t died.

“I’ll bargain with you,” said Quilcon at last. “Let me be the other of you, and I’ll give you what you want.”

“The other of me? What are you talking about?”

“It is hard for you to understand. It is union—such as we make upon our world. When two or more of us want to be together we go together in the same brain, the same body. I am alone now, and it is an unendurable existence because I have known what it is to have another of me.

“Let me come into your brain, into your mind and live there with you. We will teach your people and mine. We will take this ship to all the universes of which living creatures can dream. It is either this or we both die together, for too much time has gone for me to return. This body dies.”

Stunned by Quilcon’s ultimatum, Jim Ward stared at the ugly slug on the wall. Its brown body was heaving with violent pulsations of pain and a sense of delirium and terror came from it to Jim.

“Hurry! Let me come!” it pleaded.

He could feel sensations as if fingers were probing his cranium looking, pleading for entrance. It turned him cold.

He looked into the years and thought of an existence with this alien mind in his. Would they battle for eventual possession of his body and he perhaps be subjected to slavery in his own living corpse?

He tried to probe Quilcon’s thoughts, but he could find no sense or intent of conquest. There were almost human amenities intermingled with a world of new science and thought.

He knew Quilcon would keep his promise to give the secrets of the ship to the men of Earth. That alone would be worth the price of his sacrifice—if it should be sacrifice.

“Come!” he said quietly.

It was as if a torrent of liquid light were flowing into his brain. It was blinding and excruciating in its flaming intensity. He thought he sensed rather than saw the brown husk of Quilcon quiver in the hemisphere and shrivel like a brown nut.

But in his mind there was union and he paused and trembled with the sudden great reality of what he knew. He knew what Quilcon was and gladness flowed into him like light. A thought soared through his brain: Is sex only in the difference of bodily function and the texture of skin and the tone of voice?

He thought of another day when there was death in the sky and on the Earth below, and in a little field hospital. A figure on a white cot had murmured, “You’ll be all right, Jim. I’m going on, I guess, but you’ll be all right. I know it. Don’t miss me too much.”

He had known there would be no peace for him ever, but now there was peace and the voice of Quilcon was like that voice from long ago, for as the creature probed into his thoughts its inherent adaptability matched its feelings and thought to his and said, “Everything is all right, isn’t it, Jim Ward?”

“Yes … yes it is.” The intensity of his feelings almost blinded him. “And I want to call you Ruth, after another Ruth—”

“I like that name.” There was shyness and appreciation in the tones, and it was not strange to Jim that he could not see the speaker, for there was a vision in his mind far lovelier than any Earthly vision could have been.

“We’ll have everything,” he said, “Everything that your world and mine can offer. We’ll see them all.”

But like the other Ruth who had been so practical, this one was, too. “First we have to repair the engine. Shall we do it, now?”

The solitary figure of Jim Ward moved toward the ramp and disappeared into the depths of the ship.

THE ETHICAL EQUATIONS

Murray Leinster

It is very, very queer. The Ethical Equations, of course, link conduct with probability, and give mathematical proof that certain patterns of conduct increase the probability of certain kinds of coincidences. But nobody ever expected them to have any really practical effect. Elucidation of the laws of chance did not stop gambling, though it did make life insurance practical. The Ethical Equations weren’t expected to be even as useful as that. They were just theories, which seemed unlikely to affect anybody particularly. They were complicated, for one thing. They admitted that the ideal pattern of conduct for one man wasn’t the best for another. A politician, for example, has an entirely different code—and properly—than a Space Patrol man. But still, on at least one occasion—

The thing from outer space was fifteen hundred feet long, and upward of a hundred and fifty feet through at its middle section, and well over two hundred in a curious bulge like a fish’s head at its bow. There were odd, gill-like flaps just back of that bulge, too, and the whole thing looked extraordinarily like a monster, eyeless fish, floating in empty space out beyond Jupiter. But it had drifted in from somewhere beyond the sun’s gravitational field—its speed was too great for it to have a closed orbit—and it swung with a slow, inane, purposeless motion about some axis it had established within itself.

The little spacecruiser edged closer and closer. Freddy Holmes had been a pariah on the Arnina all the way out from Mars, but he clenched his hands and forgot, his misery and the ruin of his career in the excitement of looking at the thing.

“No response to signals on any frequency, sir,” said the communications officer, formally. “It is not radiating. It has a minute magnetic field. Its surface temperature is just about four degrees absolute.”

The commander of the Arnina said, “Hrrrmph!” Then he said, “We’ll lay alongside.” Then he looked at Freddy Holmes and stiffened. “No,” he said, “I believe you take over now, Mr. Holmes.”

Freddy started. He was in a very bad spot, but his excitement had made him oblivious of it for a moment. The undisguised hostility with which he was regarded by the skipper and the others on the bridge.brought it back, however.

“You take over, Mr. Holmes,” repeated the skipper bitterly. “I have orders to that effect. You originally detected this object and your uncle asked Headquarters that you be given full authority to investigate it. You have that authority. Now, what are you going to do with it?”

There was fury in his voice surpassing even the rasping dislike of the voyage out. He was a lieutenant commander and he had been instructed to take orders from a junior officer. That was bad enough. But this was humanity’s first contact with an extrasolar civilization, and Freddy Holmes, lieutenant junior grade, bad been given charge of the matter by pure political pull.

Freddy swallowed.

“I …I—” He swallowed again and said miserably, “Sir, I’ve tried to explain that I dislike the present set-up as much as you possibly can. I . . wish that you would let me put myself under your orders, sir, instead of—”

“No!” rasped the commander vengefully. “You are in command, Mr. Holmes. Your uncle put on political pressure to arrange it. My orders are to carry out your instructions, not to wet-nurse you if the job is too big for you to handle. This is in your lap! Will you issue orders?”

Freddy stiffened.

“Very well, sir. it’s plainly a ship and apparently a derelict. No crew would come in without using a drive, or allow their ship to swing about aimlessly. You will maintain your present position with relation to it. I’ll take a spaceboat and a volunteer, if you will find me one, and look ‘it over.”

He turned and left the bridge. Two minutes later he was struggling into a spacesuit when Lieutenant Bridges—also junior grade—came briskly into the spacesuit locker and observed:

“I’ve permission to go with you, Mr. Holmes.” He began to get into another spacesuit. As he pulled it up over his chest he added blithely: “I’d say this was worth the price of admission!”

Freddy did not answer. Three minutes later the little spaceboat pulled out from the side of the cruiser. Designed for expeditionary work and tool-carrying rather than as an escapecraft, it was not enclosed. It would carry men in spacesuits, with their tools and weapons, and they could breathe from its tanks instead of from their suits, and use its power and so conserve their own. But it was a strange feeling to sit within its spidery outline and see the great blank sides of the strange object draw near. When the spaceboat actually touched the vast metal wall it seemed impossible, like the approach to some sorcerer’s castle across a monstrous moat of stars.

It was real enough, though. The felted rollers touched, and Bridges grunted in satisfaction.

“Magnetic. We can anchor to it. Now what?”

“We hunt for an entrance port,” said Freddy curtly. He added: “Those openings that look like gills are the drive tubes. Their drive’s in front instead of the rear. Apparently they don’t use gyros for steering.”

The tiny craft clung to the giant’s skin, like a fly on a stranded whale. It moved slowly to the top of the rounded body, and over it, and down on the other side. Presently the cruiser came in sight again as it came up the near side once more.

“Nary a port, sir,” said Bridges blithely. “Do we cut our way in?”

“Hm-m-m,” said Freddy slowly. “We have our drive in the rear, and our control room in front. So we take on supplies amidships, and that’s where we looked. But this ship is driven from the front. Its control room might be amidships. If so, it might load at the stem. Let’s see.”

The little craft crawled to the stern of the monster.

“There!” said Freddy.

It was not like an entrance port on any vessel in the solar system. It slid aside, without hinges. There was an inner door, but it opened just as readily. There was no rush of air, and it was hard to tell if it was intended as an air lock or not.

“Air’s gone,” said Freddy. “It’s a derelict, all right. You might bring a blaster, but what we’ll mostly need is light, I think.”

The magnetic anchors took hold. The metal grip shoes of the spacesuits made loud noises inside the suits as the two of them pushed their way into the interior of the ship. The spacecruiser had been able to watch them, until now. Now they were gone.

The giant, enigmatic object which was so much like a blind fish in empty space floated on. It swung aimlessly about some inner axis. The thin sunlight out here beyond Jupiter, smote upon it harshly. It seemed to hang motionless in mid-space against an all-surrounding background of distant and unwinking stars. The trim Space Patrol ship hung alertly a mile and a half away. Nothing seemed to happen at all.

*

Freddy was rather pale when he went back to the bridge. The pressure mark on his forehead from the spacesuit helmet was still visible, and he rubbed at it abstractedly. The skipper regarded him with a sort of envious bitterness. After all, any human would envy any other who had set foot in an alien spaceship. Lieutenant Bridges followed him. For an instant there were no words. Then Bridges saluted briskly:

“Reporting back on board, sir, and returning to watch duty after permitted volunteer activity.”

The skipper touched his hat sourly. Bridges departed with crisp precision. The skipper regarded Freddy with the helpless fury of a senior officer who has been ordered to prove a junior officer a fool, and who has seen the assighment blow up in his face and that of the superior officers who ordered it. It was an enraging situation. Freddy Holmes, newly commissioned and assigned to the detector station on Luna which keeps track of asteroids and meteor streams, had discovered a small object coming in over Neptune. Its speed was too high for it to be a regular member of the solar system, so he’d reported it as a visitor and suggested immediate examination. But junior officers are not supposed to make discoveries. It violates tradition, which is a sort of Ethical Equation in the Space Patrol. So Freddy was slapped down for his presumption. And he slapped back, on account of the Ethical Equations bearing upon scientific discoveries. The first known object to come from beyond the stars ought to be examined. Definitely. So, most unprofessionally for a Space Patrol junior, Freddy raised a stink. The present state of affairs was the result. He had an uncle who was a prominent politician. That uncle went before the Space Patrol Board and pointed out smoothly that his nephew’s discovery was important. He demonstrated with mathematical precision that the Patrol was being ridiculous in ignoring a significant discovery simply because a junior officer had made it. And the Board, seething at outside interference, ordered Freddy to be taken to the object he had detected, given absolute command of the spacecruiser which had taken him there, and directed to make the examination he had suggested. By all the laws of probability, he would, have to report that the hunk of matter from beyond the solar system was just like hunks of matter in it. And then the Board would pin back both his and his uncle’s ears with a vengeance.

But now the hunk of matter turned out to be a fish shaped artifact from an alien civilization. It turned out to be important. So the situation was one to make anybody steeped in Patrol tradition grind his teeth.

“The thing, sir,” said Freddy evenly, “is a spaceship. It is driven by atomic engines shooting blasts sternward from somewhere near the bow. Apparently they steer only by hand. Apparently, too, there was a blow-up in the engine room and they lost most of their fuel out the tube vents. After that, the ship was helpless though they patched up the engines after a fashion. It is possible to calculate that in its practically free fall to the sun it’s been in its present state for a couple of thousand years.”

“I take it, then,” said the skipper with fine irony, “that there are no survivors of the crew.”

“It presents several problems, sir,” said Freddy evenly, “and that’s one of them.” He was rather pale. “The ship is empty of air, but her tanks are full. Storage spaces containing what look like supplies are only partly emptied. The crew did not starve or suffocate. The ship simply lost most of her fuel. So it looks like they prepared the ship to endure an indefinite amount of floating about in free space and”—he hesitated—”then it looks like they went into suspended animation. They’re all on board, in transparent cases that have—machinery attached. Maybe they thought they’d be picked up by sister ships sooner or later.”

The skipper blinked.

“Suspended animation? They’re alive?” Then he said sharply: “What sort of ship is it? Cargo?”

“No, sir,” said Freddy. “That’s another problem. Bridges and I agree that it’s a fighting ship, sir. There are rows of generators serving things that could only be weapons. By the way they’re braced, there are tractor beams and pressor beams and—there are vacuum tubes that have grids but apparently work with cold cathodes. By the size of the cables that lead to them, those tubes handle amperages up in the thousands. You can figure that one out, sir.”

The skipper paced two steps this way, and two steps that. The thing was stupendous. But his instructions were precise.

“I’m under your orders,” he said doggedly. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to work myself to death, I suppose,” said Freddy unhappily, “and some other men with me. I want to go over that ship backwards, forwards and sideways with scanners, and everything the scanners see photographed back oil board, here. I want men to work the scanners and technicians on board to direct them for their specialties. I want to get every rivet and coil in that whole ship on film before touching anything.”

The skipper said grudgingly:

“That’s not too foolish. Very well, Mr. Holmes, it will be done.”

“Thank you,” said Freddy. He started to leave the bridge, and stopped. “The men to handle the scanners,” he added, “ought to be rather carefully picked. Imaginative men wouldn’t do. The crew of that ship—they look horribly alive, and they aren’t pretty. And er …the plastic cases they’re in are arranged to open from inside. That’s another problem still, sir.”

He went on down. The skipper clasped his hands behind his back and began to pace the bridge furiously. The first object from beyond the stars was a spaceship. It had weapons the Patrol had only vainly imagined. And he, a two-and-a-half-striper, had to stand by and take orders for its investigation from a lieutenant junior grade just out of the Academy. Because of politics! The skipper ground his teeth— Then Freddy’s last comment suddenly had meaning. The plastic cases in which the alien’s crew lay in suspended animation opened from the inside. From the inside!

Cold sweat came out on the skipper’s forehead as he realized the implication. Tractor and pressor beams, and the ship’s fuel not quite gone, and the suspended animation cases opening from the inside— There was a slender, coaxial cable connecting the two spacecraft, now. They drifted in sunward together. The little cruiser was dwarfed by the alien giant.

The sun was very far away; brighter than any star, to be sure, and pouring out a fierce radiation, but still very far from a warming orb. All about were the small, insuitably distant lights which were stars. There was exactly one object in view which had an appreciable diameter. That was Jupiter, a new moon in shape; twenty million miles sunward and eighty million miles farther along its orbit. The rest was emptiness.

The spidery little spaceboat slid along the cable between the two craft. Spacesuited figures got out and clumped on magnetic-soled shoes to the air lock. They went in.

Freddy came to the bridge. The skipper said hoarsely:

“Mr. Holmes, I would like to make a request. You are, by orders of the Board, in command of this ship until your investigation of the ship yonder is completed.”

Freddy’s face,was haggard and worn. He said abstractedly:

“Yes, sir. What is it?”

“I would like,” said the Arnina’s skipper urgently, “to send a complete report of your investigation so far. Since you are in command, I cannot do so without your permission.”

“I would rather you didn’t, sir,” said Freddy. Tired as he was, his jaws clamped. “Frankly, sir, I think they’d cancel your present orders and issue others entirely.”

The skipper bit his lip. That was the idea. The scanners had sent back complete images of almost everything in the other ship, now. Everything was recorded on film. The skipper had seen the monsters which were the crew of the extrasolar vessel. And the plastic cases in which they had slumbered for at least two thousand years did open from the inside. That was what bothered him. They did open from the inside!

The electronics technicians of the Arnina were going about in silly rapture, drawing diagrams for each other and contemplating the results with dazed appreciation. The gunnery officer was making scale, detailed design drawings for weapons he had never hoped for, and waking up of nights to feel for those drawings and be sure that they were real. But the engineer officer was wringing his hands. He wanted to take the other ship’s engines apart. They were so enormously smaller than the Arnina’s drive, and yet they bad driven a ship with eighty-four times the Arnina’s mass—and he could not see how they could work.

The alien ship was ten thousand years ahead of the Arnina. Its secrets were being funneled over to the little Earth-ship at a rapid rate. But the cases holding its still living crew opened from the inside.

“Nevertheless, Mr. Holmes,” the skipper said feverishly, “I must ask permission to send that report.”

“But I am in command,” said Freddy tiredly, “and I intend to stay in command. I will give you a written order forbidding you to make a report, sir. Disobedience will be mutiny.”

The skipper grew almost purple.

“Do you realize,” he demanded savagely, “that if the crew of that ship is in suspended animation, and if their coffins or containers open only from inside—do you realize that they expect to open them themselves?”

“Yes, sir,” said Freddy wearily. “Of course. Why not?”

“Do you realize That cables from those containers lead to thermobatteries in the ship’s outer plating? The monsters knew they couldn’t survive without power, but they knew that in any other solar system they could get it! So they made sure they’d pass close to our sun with what power they. dared use, and went into suspended animation with a reserve of power to land on and thermobatteries that would waken them when it was time to set to work!”

“Yes, sir,” said Freddy, as wearily as before. “They had courage, at any rate. But what would you do about that?”

“I’d report it to Headquarters!” raged the skipper. “I’d report that this is a warship capable of blasting the whole Patrol out of the ether and smashing our planets! I’d say it was manned by monsters now fortunately helpless, but with fuel enough to maneuver to a landing. And I’d ask authority to take their coffins out of their ship and destroy them! Then I’d—”

“I did something simpler,” said Freddy. “I disconnected the tbermobatteries. They can’t revive. So I’m going to get a few hours’ sleep. If you’ll excuse me—” He went to his own cabin and threw himself on his bunk.

*

Men with scanners continued to examine every square inch of the monster derelict. They worked in spacesuits. To have filled the giant hull with air would practically have emptied the Arnina’s tanks. A spacesuited man held a scanner before a curious roll of flexible substance, on which were inscribed symbols. His headphones brought instructions from the photo room. A record of some sort was being duplicated by photography. There were scanners at work in the storerooms, the crew’s quarters, the gun mounts. So far no single article had been moved from the giant stranger. That was Freddy’s order. Every possible bit of information was being extracted from every possible object, but nothing had been taken away. Even chemical analysis was being done by scanner, using cold-light spectrography applied from the laboratory on the cruiser.

And Freddy’s unpopularity had not lessened. The engineer officer cursed him luridly. The stranger’s engines, now—

They had been patched up after an explosion, and they were tantalizingly suggestive. But their working was unfathomable. The engineer officer wanted to get his hands on them. The physiochemical officer wanted to do some analysis with his own hands, instead of by cold-light spectrography over a scanner. And every man, from the lowest enlisted apprentice to the skipper himself, wanted to get hold of some artifact made by an alien, non-human race ten thousand years ahead of human civilization. So Freddy was unpopular.

But that was only part of his unhappiness. He felt that he had acted improperly. The Ethical Equations gave mathematical proof that probabilities and ethics are interlinked, so that final admirable results cannot be expected from unethical beginnings. Freddy had violated discipline-which is one sort of ethics—and after that through his uncle had interjected politics into Patrol affairs. Which was definitely a crime. By the Equations, the probability of disastrous coincidences was going to be enormous until corrective, ethically proper action was taken to cancel out the original crimes. And Freddy had been unable to devise such action. He felt, too, that the matter was urgent. He slept uneasily despite his fatigue, because there was something in the back of his mind which warned him stridently that disaster lay ahead.

Freddy awoke still unrefreshed and stared dully at the ceiling over his head. He was trying discouragedly to envision a reasonable solution when there came a tap on his door. It was Bridges with a batch of papers.

“Here you are!” he said cheerfully, when Freddy opened to him. “Now we’re all going to be happy!”

Freddy took the extended sheets.

“What’s happened?” he asked. “Did the skipper send for fresh orders regardless, and I’m to go in the brig?”

Bridges, grinning, pointed to the sheets of paper in Freddy’s hand. They were from the physiochemical officer, who was equipped to do exact surveys on the lesser heavenly bodies.

“Elements found in the alien vessel,” was the heading of a list. Freddy scanned the list. No heavy elements, but the rest was familiar. There had been pure nitrogen in the fuel tank, he remembered, and the engineer officer was going quietly mad trying to understand how they had used nitrogen for atomic power. Freddy looked down to the bottom. Iron was the heaviest element present.

“Why should this make everybody happy?” asked Freddy.

Bridges pointed with his finger. The familiar atomic symbols had unfamiliar numerals by them. H3, Li5, Gl8— He blinked. He saw N15, O17, F18, S35— Then he stared. Bridges grinned.

“Try to figure what that ship’s worth!” he said happily. “It’s all over the Arnina. Prize money isn’t allowed in the Patrol, but five percent of salvage is. Hydrogen three has been detected on Earth, but never isolated. Lithium five doesn’t exist on Earth, or glucinium eight, or nitrogen fifteen or ‘oxygen seventeen or fluorine eighteen or sulphur thirty-four—or thirty-five! The whole ship is made up of isotopes that simply don’t exist in the solar system! And you know what pure isotopes sell for! The hull’s practically pure iron fifty-five! Pure iron, fifty-four sells for thirty-five credits a gram! Talk about the lost treasures of Mars! For technical use only, the stripped hull of this stranger is worth ten years’ revenue of Earth government! Every man on the Arnina is rich for life. And you’re popular!”

Freddy did not smile.

“Nitrogen fifteen,” he said slowly. “That’s what’s in the remaining fuel tank. It goes into a queer little aluminum chamber we couldn’t figure out, and from there into the drive tubes. I see—”

He was very pale. Bridges beamed.

“A hundred thousand tons of materials that simply don’t exist on Earth! Pure isotopes, intact! Not a contamination in a carload! My dear chap, I’ve come to like you, but you’ve been hated by everyone else. Now come out and bask in admiration and affection!”

Freddy said, unheeding:

“I’ve been wondering what that aluminum chamber was for. It looked so infernally simple, and I couldn’t see what it did—”

“Come out and have a drink!” insisted Bridges joyously. “Be lionized! Make friends and influence people!”

“No,” said Freddy. He smiled mirthlessly. “I’ll be lynched later anyhow. Hm-m-m. I want to talk to the engineer officer. We want to get that ship navigating under its own power. It’s too big to do anything with towlines.” -

“But nobody’s figured out its engines!” protested Bridges. “Apparently there’s nothing but a tiny trickle of nitrogen through a stuffy chamber that does something to it, and then it flows through aluminum baffles into the drive tubes. It’s too simple! How are you going to make a thing like that work?”

“I think,” said Freddy, “it’s going to be horribly simple. That whole ship is made up of isotopes we don’t have on Earth. No. It has aluminum and carbon. They’re simple substances. Theirs and ours are just alike. But most of the rest—”

He was pale. He looked as if he were suffering.

“I’ll get a couple of tanks made up, of aluminum, and filled with nitrogen. Plain air should do— And I’ll want a gyro-control. I’ll want it made of aluminum, too, with graphite bearings—”

He grinned mirthlessly at Bridges.

“Ever hear of the Ethical Equations, Bridges? You’d never expect them to suggest the answer to a spacedrive problem, would you? But that’s what they’ve done. I’ll get the engineer officer to have those things made up. It’s nice to have known you, Bridges—”

As Bridges went out, Freddy Holmes sat down, wetting his lips, to make sketches for the engineer officer to work from.

*

The control room and the engine room of the monster ship were one. It was a huge, globular chamber filled with apparatus of startlingly alien design. To Freddy, and to Bridges too, now, there was not so much of monstrousness as at first. Eight days of familiarity, and knowledge of how they worked, had made them seem almost normal. But still it was eerie to belt themselves before the instrument board, with only their hand lamps for illumination, and cast a last glance at the aluminum replacements of parts that had been made on some planet of another sun.

“If this works,” said Freddy, and swallowed, “we’re lucky. Here’s the engine control. Cross your fingers, Bridges.”

The interior of the hull was still airless. Freddy shifted a queerly shaped lever an infinitesimal trace. There was a slight surging movement of the whole vast hull. A faint murmuring came through the fabric of the monster ship to the soles of their spacesuit boots. Freddy wet his lips and touched another lever.

“This should be lights.”

It was. Images formed on the queerly shaped screens. The whole interior of the ship glowed. And the whole creation had been so alien as somehow to be revolting in the harsh white light of the hand lamps the men had used. But now it was like a highly improbable fairy palace. The fact that all doors were circular and all passages round tubes was only pleasantly strange, in the many-colored glow of the ship’s own lighting system. Freddy shook his head in his spacesuit helmet; as if to shake away drops of sweat on his forehead.

“The next should be heat,” he said more grimly than before. “We do not touch that! Oh, definitely! But we try the drive.”

The ship stirred. It swept forward in a swift smooth acceleration that was invincibly convincing of power. The Arnina dwindled swiftly, behind. And Freddy, with compressed lips, touched controls here, and there, and the monstrous ship obeyed with the docility of a willing, well-trained animal. It swept back to clear sight of the Arnina.

“I would say,” said Bridges in a shaking voice, “that it works. The Patrol has nothing like this!”

“No,” said Freddy shortly. His voice sounded sick. “Not like this! It’s a sweet ship. I’m going to hook in the gyro controls. They ought to work. The creatures who made this didn’t use them. I don’t know why. But they didn’t.”

He cut off everything but the lights. He bent down and looked in the compact little aluminum device which would control the flow of nitrogen to the port and starboard drive tubes.

Freddy came back to the control board and threw in the drive once more. And the gyro control worked. It should. After all, the tool work of a Space Patrol machinist should be good. Freddy tested it thoroughly. He set it on a certain fine adjustment. He threw three switches. Then he picked up one tiny kit he had prepared.

“Come along,” he said tiredly. “Our work’s over. We go back to the Arnina and I probably get lynched.” -

Bridges, bewildered, followed him to the spidery little spaceboat. They cast off from the huge ship, now three miles or more from the Arnina and untenanted save its own monstrous crew us suspended animation The Space Patrol cruiser shifted position to draw near and pick them up. And Freddy said hardly:

“Remember the Ethical Equations, Bridges? I said they gave me the answer to thet other ship’s drive. If they were right, it couldn’t have been anything else. Now I’m going to find out about something else.”

His spacegloved hands worked clumsily. From the tiny kit he spilled out a single small object. He plopped it into something from a chest in the spaceboat—a mortar shell, as Bridges saw incredulously. He dropped that into the muzzle of a line-mortar the spaceboat carried as a matter of course. He jerked the lanyard. The mortar flamed. Expanding gases beat at the spacesuits of the men. A tiny, glowing, crimson spark sped toward outer space. Seconds passed. Three. Four. Five— “Apparently I’m a fool,” said Freddy, in the grimmest voice Bridges had ever heard.

But then there was light. And such light! Where the dwindling red spark of a tracer mortar shell had sped toward infinitely distant stars, there was suddenly an explosion of such incredible violence as even the proving-grounds of the Space Patrol had never known. There was no sound in empty space. There was no substance to be heated to incandescence other than that of a half-pound tracer shell. But there was a flare of bluewhite light and a crash of such violent static that Bridges was deafened by it. Even through the glass of his helmet he felt a flash of savage heat. Then there was—nothing.

“What ‘was that?” said Bridges, shaken.

“The Ethical Equations,” said Freddy. “Apparently I’m not the fool I thought—”

The Arnina slid up alongside the little spaceboat. Freddy did not alight. He moved the boat over to its cradle and plugged in his communicator set. He talked over that set with his helmet phone, not radiating a signal that Bridges could pick up. In three minutes or so the great lock opened and four spacesuited figures came out. One wore the crested four-communicator helmet which only the skipper of a cruiser wears when in command of a landing party. The newcomers to the outside of the Arnina’s hull crowded into the little spaceboat. Freddy’s voice sounded again in the headphones, grim and cold.

“I’ve some more shells, sir. They’re tracer shells which have been in the work boat for eight days. They’re not quite as cold as the ship, yonder—that’s had two thousand years to cool off in—but they’re cold. I figure they’re not over eight or ten degrees absolute. And here are the bits of material from the other ship. You can touch them. Our spacesuits are as nearly nonconductive of heat as anything could be. You won’t warm them if you hold them in your hand.”

The skipper—Bridges could see him—looked at the scraps of metal Freddy held out to him. They were morsels of iron and other material from the alien ship. By the cold glare of a handlight the skipper thrust one into the threaded hollow at the nose of a mortar shell into which a line-end is screwed when a line is to be thrown. The skipper himself dropped in the mortar shell and fired it. Again a racing, receding speck of red in emptiness. And a second terrible, atomic blast.

The skipper’s voice in the headphones:

“How much more of the stuff did you bring away?”

“Three more pieces, sir,” said Freddy’s voice, very steady now. “You see how it happens, sir. They’re isotopes we don’t have on Earth. And we don’t have them because in contact with other isotopes at normal temperatures, they’re unstable. They go off. Here we dropped them into the mortar shells and nothing happened, because both isotopes were cold-down to the temperature of liquid helium, or nearly. But there’s a tracer compound in the shells, and it burns as they fly away. The shell grows warm. And when either isotope, in contact with the other, is as warm as …say …liquid hydrogen …why …they destroy each other. The ship yonder is of the same material. Its mass is about a hundred thousand Ions. Except for the aluminum and maybe one or two other elements that also are non-isotopic and the same in both ships, every bit of that ship will blast off if it comes in contact with matter from this solar system above ten or twelve degrees absolute.”

“Shoot the other samples away,” said the’ skipper harshly. “We want to be sure—!”

There were three violent puffs of gases expanding into empty space. There were three incredible bluewhite flames in the void. There was silence. Then— “That thing has to be destroyed,” said the skipper, heavily. “We couldn’t set it down anywhere, and its crew might wake up anyhow, at any moment. We haven’t anything that could fight it, and if it tried to land on Earth—”

The alien monster, drifting aimlessly in the void, suddenly moved. Thin flames came from the gill-like openings at the bow. Then one side jetted more strongly. It swung about, steadied, and swept forward with a terrifying smooth acceleration. It built up speed vastly more swiftly than any Earth-ship could possibly do. It dwindied to a speck. It vanished in empty space.

But it was not bound inward toward the sun. It was not headed for the plainly visible half-moon disk of Jupiter, now barely seventy million miles away. It headed out toward the stars.

“I wasn’t sure until a few minutes ago,” said Freddy Holmes unsteadily, “but by the Ethical Equations something like that was probable. I couldn’t make certain until we’d gotten everything possible from it, and until I had everything arranged. But I was worried from the first. The Ethical Equations made it pretty certain that if we did the wrong-thing we’d suffer for it …and by we I mean the whole Earth, because any visitor from beyond the stars would be bound to affect the Whole human race.” His voice wavered a little. “It was hard to figure out what we ought to do. If one of our ships had been. in the same fix, though, we’d have hoped for— friendliness. We’d hope for fuel, maybe, and help in starting back home. But this ship was a warship, and we’d have been helpless to fight it. It would have been hard to be friendly. Yet, according to the Ethical Equations, if we wanted our first contact with an alien civilization to be of benefit to us, it was up to us to get it started back home with plenty of fuel.”

“You mean,” said the skipper, incredulously, “you mean you—”

“Its engines use nitrogen,” said Freddy. “It runs nitrogen fifteen into a little gadget we know how to make, now. It’s very simple, but it’s a sort of atom smasher: It turns nitrogen fifteen into nitrogen fourteen and hydrogen. I think we can make use of that for ourselves. Nitrogen fourteen is the kind we have. It can be handled in aluminum pipes and tanks, because there’s only one aluminium, which is stable under all conditions. But when it bits the alien isotopes in the drive tubes, it breaks down—”

He took a deep breath.

“I gave them a double aluminum tank of nitrogen, and bypassed their atom smasher. Nitrogen fourteen goes into their drive tubes, and they drive! And …I figured back their orbit, and set a gyro to head them back for their own solar system for as long as the first tank of nitrogen holds out. They’ll make it out of the sun’s gravitational field on that, anyhow. And I reconnected their thermobatteries. When they start to wake up they’ll see the gyro and know that somebody gave it to them. The double tank is like their own and they’ll realize they have a fresh supply of fuel to land with. It …may be a thousand years before they’re back home, but when they get there they’ll know we’re friendly and …not afraid of them. And meanwhile we’ve got all their gadgets to work on -and work with—” Freddy was silent. The little spaceboat clung to the side of the Arnina, which with its drive off was now drifting in sunward past the orbit of Jupiter.

“It is very rare,” said the skipper ungraciously, “that a superior officer in the Patrol apologizes to an inferior, But I apologize to you, Mr. Holmes, for thinking you a fool. And when I think that I, and certainly every other Patrol officer of experience, would have thought of nothing but setting that ship down at Patrol Base for study, and when I think what an atomic explosion of a hundred thousand tons of matter would have done to Earth …I apologize a second time.”

Freddy said uncomfortably:

“If there are to be any apologies made, sir, I guess I’ve got to make them. Every man on the Arnina has figured he’s rich, and I’ve sent it all back where it came from. But you see, sir, the Ethical Equations—

*

When Freddy’s resignation went in with the report of his investigation of the alien vessel, it was returned marked “Not Accepted.” And Freddy was ordered to report to a tiny, hardworked spacecan on which a junior Space Patrol officer normally gets his ears pinned back and learns his work the hard way. And Freddy was happy, because he wanted to be a Space Patrol officer more than he wanted anything else in the world. His uncle was satisfied, too, because he wanted Freddy to be content, and because certain space-admirals truculently told him that Freddy was needed in the Patrol and would get all the consideration and promotion he needed without any politicians butting in. And the Space Patrol was happy because it had a lot of new gadgets to work with which were going to make it a force able not, only to look after interplanetary traffic but defend it, if necessary.

And, for that matter, the Ethical Equations were satisfied.

WHAT YOU NEED

Lewis Padgett

DEEN UOY TAHW EVAH EW

That’s what the sign said. Tim Carmichael, who worked for a trade paper that specialized in economics, and eked out a meager salary by selling sensational and untrue articles to the tabloids, failed to sense a story in the reversed sign. He thought it was a cheap publicity gag, something one seldom encounters on Park Avenue, where the shop fronts are noted for their classic dignity. And he was irritated.

He growled silently, walked on, then suddenly turned and came back. He wasn’t quite strong enough to resist the temptation to unscramble the sentence, though his annoyance grew. He stood before the window, staring up, and said to himself, “We Have What You Need. Yeah?”

The sign was in prim, small letters on a black painted ribbon that stretched across a narrow glass pane. Below it was one of those curved, invisible-glass windows. Through the window Carmichael could see an expanse of white velvet, with a few objects carefully arranged there. A rusty nail, a snowshoe, and a diamond tiara. It looked like a Dali decor for Carder’s or Tiffany.

“Jewelers?” Carmichael asked silently. “But why...what you need?” He pictured millionaires miserably despondent for lack of a matched pearl necklace, heiresses weeping inconsolably because they needed a few star sapphires. The principle of luxury merchandising was to deal with the whipped cream of supply and demand; few people needed diamonds. They merely wanted them and could afford them.

“Or the place might sell jinniflasks,” Carmichael decided. “Or magic wands. Same principle as a Coney carny, though. A sucker trap. Bill the Whatzit outside and people will pay their dimes and flock in. For two cents—”

He was dyspeptic this morning, and generally disliked the world. Prospect of a scapegoat was attractive, and his press card gave him a certain advantage. He opened the door and walked into the shop.

It was Park Avenue, all right. There were no showcases or counters. It might be an art gallery, for a few good oils were displayed on the walls. An air of overpowering luxury, with the bleakness of an unlived-in place, struck Carmichael.

Through a curtain at the back came a very tall man with carefully-combed white hair, a ruddy, healthy face, and sharp blue eyes. He might have been sixty. He wore expensive but careless tweeds, which somehow jarred with the decor.

“Good morning,” the man said, with a quick glance at Carmichael’s clothes. He seemed slightly surprised. “May I help you?”

Maybe.” Carmichael introduced himself and showed his press card. “Oh? My name is Talley. Peter Talley.” ‘I saw your sign.”

“Oh?”

“Our paper is always on the lookout for possible write-ups. I’ve never noticed your shop before—”

I’ve been here for years,” Talley said. “This is an art gallery?”

“Well—no.”

The door opened. A florid man came in and greeted Talley cordially. Carmichael, recognizing the client, felt his opinion of the shop swing rapidly upward. The florid man was a Name—a big one.

“It’s a bit early, Mr. Talley,” he said, “but I didn’t want to delay. Have you had time to get …what I needed?”

“Oh, yes. I have it. One moment.” Talley hurried through the draperies and returned with a small, neatly-wrapped parcel which he gave to the florid man. The latter forked over a check—Carmichael caught a glimpse of the amount and gulped—and departed. His town car was at the curb outside.

Carmichael moved toward the door where he could watch. The florid man seemed anxious. His chauffeur waited stolidly as the parcel was unwrapped with hurried fingers.

“I’m not sure I’d want publicity, Mr. Carmichael,” Talley said. “I’ve a select clientele—carefully chosen.”

“Perhaps our weekly economic bulletins might interest you—”

Talley tried not to laugh. “Oh, I don’t think so. It really isn’t in my line.”

The florid man had finally unwrapped the parcel and taken out an egg. As far as Carmichael could see from his post near the door, it was merely an ordinary egg. But its possessor regarded it almost with awe. Had Earth’s last hen died ten years before, he could have been no more pleased. Something like deep relief showed on the Florida-tanned face.

He said something to the chauffeur, and the car rolled smoothly forward and was gone.

“Are you in the dairy business?” Carmichael asked abruptly.

“No.”

“Do you mind telling me what your business is?”

“I’m afraid I do, rather,” Talley said.

Carmichael was beginning to scent a story. “Of course I could find out through the Better Business Bureau—”

“You couldn’t.”

“No? They might be interested in knowing why an egg is worth five thousand dollars to one of your customers.”

Talley said, “My clientele is so small I must charge high fees. You …ah … know that a Chinese mandarin has been known to pay thousands of taels for eggs of proved antiquity.”

“That guy wasn’t a Chinese mandarin,” Carmichael said.

“Oh, well. As I say, I don’t welcome publicity—”

“I think you do. I was in the advertising game for a while. Spelling your sign backwards is an obvious baited hook.”

“Then you’re no psychologist,” Talley said. “It’s just that I can afford to indulge my whims. For five years I looked at that window every day and read the sign backward—from inside my shop. It annoyed me. You know how a word will begin to look funny if you keep staring on it? Any word. It turns into something in no human tongue. Well, I discovered I was getting a neurosis about that sign. It makes no sense backwards, but I kept finding myself trying to read sense into it. When I started to say ‘Deen uoy tahw evah ew’ to myself and looking for philological derivations, I called in a sign painter. People who are interested enough still drop in.”

“Not many,” Carmichael said shrewdly. “This is Park Avenue. And you’ve got the place fixed up too expensively. Nobody in the low-income brackets—or the middle brackets—would come in here. So you run an upper-bracket business.”

“Well,” Talley said, “yes, I do”

“And you won’t tell me what it is?”

“I’d rather not.

“I can find out, you know. It might be dope, pornography, high-class fencing—”

“Very likely,” Mr. Talley said smoothly. “I buy stolen jewels, conceal them in eggs, and sell them to my customers. Or perhaps that egg, loaded with microscopic French postcards. Good morning, Mr. Carmichael.”

“Good morning,” Carmichael said, and went out. He was overdue the office, but annoyance was the stronger motivation. He played sleuth for a while, keeping an eye on Talley’s shop, and the results were thoroughly satisfactory—to a certain extent. He learned everything but why.

Late in the afternoon, he sought out Mr. Talley again.

“Wait a minute,” he said, at sight of the proprietor’s discouraging face. “For all you know, I may be a customer.”

Talley laughed.

“Well, why not?” Carmichael compressed his lips. “How do you know the size of my bank account? Or maybe you’ve got a restricted clientele?”

“No. But—”

Carmichael said quickly. “I’ve been doing some investigating. I’ve been noticing your customers. In fact, following them. And finding out what they buy from you.”

Talley’s face changed. “Indeed?”

“In-deed. They’re all in a huny to unwrap their little bundles. So that gave me my chance to find out. I missed a few, but—I saw enough to apply a couple of rules of logic, Mr. Talley. Item, your customers don’t know what they’re buying from you. It’s a sort of grab bag. A couple of times they were plenty surprised. The man who opened his parcel and found an old newspaper clipping. What about the sunglasses? And the revolver? Probably illegal, by the way—no license. And the diamond—it must have been paste, it was so big.”

“M-mm,” Mr. Talley said.

“I’m no smart apple, but I can smell a screwy set-up. Most of your clients are big shots, in one way or another. And why didn’t any of ‘em pay you, like the first man—the guy who came in when I was here this morning.”

“It’s chiefly a credit business,” Talley said. “I’ve my ethics. I have to—for my own conscience. It’s responsibility. You see, I sell …my goods …with a guarantee. Payment is made only if the product proves satisfactory.”

“So. An egg. Sunglasses. A pair of asbestos gloves—I think they were. A newspaper clipping. A gun and a diamond. How do you take inventory?”

Talley said nothing.

Carmichael grinned. “You’ve an errand-boy. You send him out and he comes back with bundles. Maybe he goes to a grocery on Madison and buys an egg. Or a pawnshop op Sixth for a revolver. Or—well, anyhow, I told you I’d find out, what your business is.”

“And have you?” Talley asked. ” ‘We have what you need,’” Carmichael said. “But how do you know?”

“You’re jumping to conclusions.”

I’ve got a headache—I didn’t have sunglasses!—and I don’t believe in magic. Listen, Mr. Talley. I’m fed up to the eyebrows and ‘way beyond on queer little shops that sell peculiar things. I know too much about ‘em—I’ve written about ‘em. A guy walks along the street and sees a funny sort of store and the proprietor won’t serve him—he sells only to pixies—or else he does sell him a magic charm with a double edge. Well— pfui!”

“Mph,” Talley said.

” ‘Mph’ as much as you like. But you can’t get away from logic. Either you’ve got a sound, sensible racket here, or else it’s one of those funny magic-shop set-ups—and I don’t believe that. For it isn’t logical.”

“Why not?”

“Because of economics,” Carmichael said flatly. “Grant the idea that you’ve got certain mysterious powers—let’s say you can make telepathic gadgets. All right. Why the devil would you start a business so you could sell the gadgets so you could make money so you could live? You’d simply put on one of your gadgets, read a stockbroker’s mind, and buy the right stocks. That’s the intrinsic fallacy in these crazy-shop things—if you’ve got enough stuff on the ball to be able to stock and run such a shop, you wouldn’t need a business in the first place. Why go round Robin Hood’s barn?”

Talley said nothing.

Carmichael smiled crookedly. ” ‘I often wonder what the vintners buy one half so precious as the stuff they sell,’” he quoted. “Well—what do you buy? I know what you sell—eggs and sunglasses.”

“You’re an inquisitive man, Mr. Carmichael,” Talley murmured. “Has it ever occurred to you that this is none of your business?”

“I may be a customer,” Carmichael repeated. “How about that?”

Talley’s cold blue eyes were intent. A new light dawned in them; Talley pursed his lips and scowled. “I hadn’t thought of that,” he admitted. “You might be. Under the circumstances. Will you excuse me for a moment?”

“Sure,” Carmichael said. Talley went through the curtains.

Outside, traffic drifted idly along Park. As the sun slid down beyond the Hudson, the street lay in a blue shadow that crept imperceptibly up the barricades of the buildings. Carmichael stared at the sign—“We have what you need”—and smiled.

In a back room, Talley put his eye to a binocular plate and moved a calibrated dial. He did this several times. Then, biting his lip—for he was a gentle man—he called his errand boy and gave him directions. After that he returned to Carmichael.

“You’re a customer,” he said. “Under certain conditions.”

“The condition of my bank account, you mean?”

“No,” Talley said. “I’ll give you reduced rates. Understand one thing. I really do have what you need. You don’t know what you need, but I know. And as it happens—well, I’ll sell you what you need for, let’s say, five dollars.”

Carmichael reached for his wallet. Talley held up a hand.

“Pay me after you’re satisfied. And the money’s the nominal part of the fee. There’s another part. If you’re satisfied, I want you to promise that you’ll never come near this shop again and never mention it to anyone.”

“I see,” Carmichael said slowly. His theories had changed slightly. “It won’t be long before … ah, here it is now.” A buzzing from the back indicated the return of the errand boy. Talley said “Excuse me,” and vanished. Soon he returned with a neatly-wrapped parcel, which he thrust into Carmichael’s hands.

“Keep this on your person,” Talley said. “Good afternoon.”

Carmichael nodded, pocketed the parcel, and went out. Feeling affluent, he hailed a taxi and went to a cocktail bar he knew. There, in the dim light of a booth, he unwrapped the bundle.

Protection money, he decided. Talley was paying him off to keep his mouth shut about the racket, whatever it was. O.K. live and let live. How much would be—

Ten thousand? Fifty thousand? How big was the racket?

He opened an oblong cardboard box. Within, nesting upon tissue paper, was a pair of shears, the blades protected by a sheath of folded, glued cardboard.

Carmichael said something softly. He drank his highball and ordered another, but left it untasted. Glancing at his wrist watch, he decided that the Park Avenue shop would be closed by now and Mr. Peter Talley gone.

” ‘One half so precious as the stuff they sell,’” Carmichael said. “Maybe it’s the scissors of Atropos. Blah.” He unsheathed the blades and snipped experimentally at the air. Nothing happened. Slightly crimson around the

cheekbones, Carmichael reholstered the shears and dropped them into the side pocket of his topcoat. Quite a gag!

He decided to call on Peter Talley tomorrow.

Meanwhile, what? He remembered he had a dinner date with one of the girls at the office, and hastily paid his bill and left. The streets were darkening, and a cold wind blew southward from the Park. Carmichael wound his scarf tighter around his throat and made gestures toward passing taxis.

He was considerably annoyed.

Half an hour later a thin man with sad eyes—Jerry Worth, one of the copy-writers from his office—greeted him at the bar where Carmichael was killing time. “Waiting for Betsy?” Worth said, nodding toward the restaurant annex. “She sent me to tell you she couldn’t make it. A rush deadline. Apologies and stuff. Where were you today? Things got gummed up a bit. Have a drink with me.”

They worked on rye. Carmichael was already slightly stiff. The dull crimson around his cheekbones had deepened, and his frown had become set. “What you need,” he remarked. “Double-crossing little—”

“Huh?” Worth said.

“Nothing. Drink up. I’ve just decided to get a guy in trouble. If I can.”

“You almost got in trouble yourself today. That trend analysis of ores—”

“Eggs. Sunglasses!”

“I got you out of a jam—”

“Shut up,” Carmichael said and ordered another round. Every time he felt the weight of the shears in his pocket he found his lips moving.

Five shots later Worth said plaintively, “I don’t mind doing good deeds but I do like to mention them. And you won’t let me. All I want is a little gratitude.”

“All right, mention them,” Carmichael said. “Brag your head off. Who cares?”

Worth showed satisfaction. “That ore analysis—it was that. You weren’t at the office today, but I caught it. I checked with our records and you had Trans-Steel all wrong. If I hadn’t altered the figures, it would have gone down to the printer—”

“What?”

“The Trans-Steel. They—”

“Oh, you fool,” Carmichael groaned. “I know it didn’t check with the office figures. I meant to put in a notice to have them changed. I got my dope from the source. Why don’t you mind your own business?”

Worth blinked. “I was trying to help.”

“It would have been good for a five-buck raise,” Carmichael said. “After all the research I did to uncover the real dope—listen. Has the stuff gone to bed yet?”

“I dunno. Maybe not. Croft was still checking the copy—”

“O.K.!” Carmichael said. “Next time—” He jerked at his scarf, jumped off the stool, and headed for the door, trailed by the protesting Worth. Ten minutes later he was at the office, listening to Croft’s bland explanation that the copy had already been dispatched to the printer.

“Does it matter? Was there …incidentally, where were you today?”

“Dancing on the rainbow,” Carmichael snapped, and departed. He had switched over from rye to whiskey sours, and the cold night air naturally did not sober him. Swaying slightly, watching the sidewalk move a little as he blinked at it, he stood on the curb and pondered.

“I’m sorry, Tim,” Worth said. “It’s too late now, though. There won’t be any trouble. You’ve got a right to go by our office records.”

“Stop me now,” Carmichael said. “Lousy little—” He was angry and drunk. On impulse he got another taxi and sped to the printers, still trailing a somewhat confused Jerry Worth.

There was rhythmic thunder in the building. The swift movement of the taxi had given Carmichael a slight nausea; his head ached, and alcohol was in solution in his blood. The hot, inky air was unpleasant. The great Linotypes thumped and growled. Men were moving about. It was all slightly nightmarish, and Carmichael doggedly hunched his shoulders and lurched on until something jerked him back and began to strangle him.

Worth started yelling. His face showed drunken terror. He made ineffectual gestures.

But this was all part of the nightmare. Carmichael saw what had happened. The ends of his scarf had caught in moving gears somewhere and he was being drawn inexorably into meshing metal cogs. Men were running. The clanking, thumping, rolling sounds were deafening. He pulled at the scarf.

Worth screamed, “…knife! Cut it—”

The warping of relative values that intoxication gives saved Carmichael. Sober, he would have been helpless with panic. As it was, each thought was hard to capture, but clear and lucid when he finally got it. He remembered the shears, and he put his hand in his pocket—the blades slipped out of their cardboard sheath—and he snipped through the scarf with fumbling, hasty movements.

The white silk disappeared. Carmichael fingered the ragged edge at his throat and smiled stiffly.

Mr. Peter Talley had been hoping that Carmichael would not come back. The probability lines had shown two possible variants; in one, all was well; in the other—

Carmichael walked into the shop the next morning and held out a five-dollar bill. Talley took it.

“Thank you. But you could have mailed me a check.”

“I could have. Only that wouldn’t have told me what I wanted to know.”

“No,” Talley said, and sighed. ‘You’ve decided, haven’t your”

“Do you blame me?” Carmichael asked. “Last night—do you know what happened?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I might as well tell you,” Talley said. “You’d find out anyway. That’s certain, anyhow.”

Carmichael sat down, lit a cigarette, and nodded. “Logic. You couldn’t have arranged that little accident, by any manner of means. Betsy Hoag decided to break our date early yesterday morning. Before I saw you. That was the beginning of the chain of incidents that led up to the accident. Ergo, you must have known what was going to happen.”

“I did know.”

“Prescience?”

“Mechanical. I saw that you would be crushed in the machine—”

“Which implies an alterable future.”

“Certainly,” Talley said, his shoulders slumping. “There are innumerable possible variants to the future. Different lines of probability. All depending on the outcome of various crises as they arise. I happen to be skilled in certain branches of electronics. Some years ago, almost by accident, I stumbled on the principle of seeing the future.”

“How?”

“Chiefly it involves a personal focus on the individual. The moment you enter this place”—he gestured—“you’re in the beam of my scanner. In my back room I have the machine itself. By turning a calibrated dial, I check the possible futures. Sometimes there are many. Sometimes only a few. As though at times certain stations weren’t broadcasting. I look into my scanner and see what you need—and supply it.”

Carmichael let smoke drift from his nostrils. He watched the blue coils through narrowed eyes.

“You follow a man’s whole life—in triplicate or quadruplicate or whatever?”

“No,” Talley said. “I’ve got my device focused so it’s sensitive to crisis curves. When those occur, I follow them farther and see what probability paths involve the man’s safe and happy survival.”

“The sunglasses, the egg and the gloves—”

Talley said, “Mr…. uh …Smith is one of my regular clients. Whenever he passes a crisis successfully, with my aid, he comes back for another checkup. I locate his next crisis and supply him with what he needs to meet it. I gave him the asbestos gloves. In about a month, a situation will arise where he must—under the circumstances—move a red-hot bar of metal. He’s an artist. His hands—”

“I see. So it isn’t always saving a man’s life.”

“Of course not,” Talley said. “Life isn’t the only vital factor. An apparently minor crisis may lead to—well, a divorce, a neurosis, a wrong decision, and the loss of hundreds of lives indirectly. I insure life, health, and happiness.”

“You’re an altruist. Only why doesn’t the world storm your doors? Why limit your trade to a few?”

“I haven’t got the time or the equipment.”

“More machines could be built.”

“Well,” Talley said, “most of my customers are wealthy. I must live.”

“You could read tomorrow’s stock-market reports if you wanted dough,” Carmichael said. “We get back to that old question. If a guy has miraculous powers, why is he satisfied to run a hole-in-the-wall store?”

“Economic reasons. I …ah …I’m averse to gambling.” I “It wouldn’t be gambling,” Carmichael pointed out. “‘I often wonder what the vintners buy—’ Just what do you get out of this?”

“Satisfaction,” Talley said, “Call it that.”

But Carmichael wasn’t satisfied. His mind veered from the question and turned to the possibilities. Insurance, eh? Life, health, and happiness.

“What about me? Won’t there be another crisis in my life sometime?”

“Probably. Not necessarily one involving personal danger.”

“Then I’m a permanent customer.”

“I …don’t—”

“Listen,” Carmichael said, “I’m not trying to shake you down. I’ll pay. I’ll pay plenty. I’m not rich, but I know exactly what a service like this would be worth to me. No worries—”

“It wouldn’t be—”

“Oh, come off it. I’m not a blackmailer or anything. I’m not threatening you with publicity, if that’s what you’re afraid of. I’m an ordinary guy. Not a melodramatic villain. Do I look dangerous? What are you afraid of?”

“You’re an ordinary guy, yes,” Talley admitted. “Only—”

“Why not?” Carmichael argued. “I won’t bother you. I passed one crisis successfully, with your help. There’ll be another one due sometime. Give me what I need for that. Charge me anything you like. I’ll get the dough somehow. Borrow it if necessary. I won’t disturb you at all. All I ask is that you let me come in whenever I’ve passed a crisis, and get ammunition for the next one. What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing,” Talley said soberly.

“Well, then. I’m an ordinary guy. There’s a girl—it’s Betsy Hoag. I Want to marry her. Settle down somewhere in the country, raise kids, and have security. There’s nothing wrong with that either, is there?”

Talley said, “It was too late the moment you entered this shop today.”

Carmichael looked up. ‘Why?” he asked sharply.

A buzzer rang in the back. Talley went through the curtains and came back almost immediately with a wrapped parcel. He gave it to Carmichael.

Carmichael smiled. “Thanks,” he said. “Thanks a lot. Do you have any idea when my next crisis will come?”

“In a week.”

“Mind if I—” Carmichael was unwrapping the package. He took out a pair of plastic-soled shoes and looked at Talley, bewildered.

“Like that, eh? I’ll need—shoes?”

“Yes.”

“I suppose—” Carmichael hesitated. “I guess you wouldn’t tell me why?”

“No, I won’t do that. But be sure to wear them whenever you go out.”

“Don’t worry about that. And—I’ll mail you a check. It may take me a few days to scrape up the dough, but I’ll do it. How much—?”

“Five hundred dollars.”

“I’ll mail a check today.”

“I prefer not to accept a fee until the client has been satisfied,” Talley said. He had grown more reserved, his blue eyes cool and withdrawn.

“Suit yourself,” Carmichael said. “I’m going out and celebrate. You— don’t drink?”

“I can’t leave the shop.”

“Well, good-by. And thanks again. I won’t be any trouble to you, you know. I promise that!” He turned away.

Looking after him, Talley smiled a wry, unhappy smile. He did not answer Carmichael’s good-by. Not then.

When the door had closed behind him, Talley turned to the back of his shop and went through the door where the scanner was.

The lapse of ten years can cover a multitude of changes. A man with the possibility of tremendous -power almost within his grasp can alter, in that time, from a man who will not reach for it to a man who will and moral values lie damned.

The change did not come quickly to Carmichael. It speaks well for his integrity that it took ten years to work such an alteration in all he had been taught. On the day he first went into Talley’s shop there was little evil in him. But the temptation grew stronger week by week, visit by visit. Talley, for reasons of his own, was content to sit idly by, waiting for customers, smothering the inconceivable potentialities of his machine under a blanket of trivial functions. But Carmichael was not content.

It took him ten years to reach the day, but the day came at last.

Talley sat in the inner room, his back to the door, was slumped low in an ancient rocker, facing the -machine. It had changed little in the space of a decade. It still covered most of two walls, and eyepiece of its scanner glittered under amber fluorescents.

Carmichael looked covetously at the eyepiece. It was window and doorway to a power beyond any man’s dreams. Wealth beyond imagining lay just within that tiny opening. The rights over the life and death of every man alive. And nothing between that fabulous future and himself except the man who sat looking at the machine.

Talley did not seem to hear the careful footsteps or the creak of the door behind him. He did not stir as Carmichael lifted the gun slowly. One might think that he never guessed what was coming, or why, or from whom, as Carmichael shot him through the head.

Talley sighed and shivered a little, and twisted the scanner dial. It was not the first time that the eyepiece had shown him his own lifeless body, glimpsed down some vista of probability, but he never saw the slumping of that familiar figure without feeling a breath of indescribable coolness blow backward upon him out of the future.

He straightened from the eyepiece and sat back in his chair, looking thoughtfully at a pair of rough-soled shoes lying beside him on a table. He sat quietly for a while, his eyes upon the shoes, his mind following Carmichael down the street and into the evening, and the morrow, and on toward that coming crisis which would depend on his secure footing on a subway platform as a train thundered by the place where Carmichael would be standing one day next week.

I Talley had sent his messenger boy out this time for two pairs of shoes. He had hesitated long, an hour ago, between the rough-soled pair and the smooth. For Talley was a humane man, and there were many times when his job was distasteful to him. But in the end, this time, it had been the smooth-soled pair he had wrapped for Carmichael. If Now he sighed and bent to the scanner again, twisting the dial to bring into view a scene he had watched before.

Carmichael, standing on a crowded subway platform, glittering with oily wetness from some overflow. Carmichael, in the slick-soled shoes Talley had chosen for him. A commotion in the crowd, a surge toward the platform edge. Carmichael’s feet slipping frantically as the train roared by.

“Good-by, Mr. Carmichael,” Talley murmured. It was the farewell he had not spoken when Carmichael left the shop. He spoke it regretfully, and the regret was for the Carmichael of today, who did not yet deserve that end. He was not now a melodramatic villain whose death one could Watch unmoved. But the Tim Carmichael of today had atonement to make for the Carmichael of ten years ahead, and the payment must be exacted.

It is not a good thing to have the power of life and death over one’s fellow humans. Peter Talley knew it was not a good thing—but the power had been put into his hands. He had not sought it. It seemed to him that the machine had grown almost by accident to its tremendous completion under his trained fingers and trained mind.

At first it had puzzled him. How ought such a device to be used? What dangers, what terrible potentialities, lay in that Eye that could see through the veil of tomorrow? His was the responsibility, and it had weighed heavily upon him until the answer came. And after he knew the answer—well, the weight was heavier still. For Talley was a mild man.

He could not have told anyone the real reason why he was a shopkeeper. Satisfaction, he had said to Carmichael. And sometimes, indeed, there was deep satisfaction. But at other times—at times like this—there was only dismay and humility. Especially humility.

We have what you need. Only Talley knew that message was not for the individuals who came to his shop. The pronoun was plural, not singular. It was a message for the world—the world whose future was being carefully, lovingly reshaped under Peter Talley’s guidance.

The main line of the future was not easy to alter. The future is a pyramid shaping slowly, brick by brick, and brick by brick Talley had to change it. There were some men who were necessary—men who would create and build—men who should be saved.

Talley gave them what they needed.

But inevitably there were others whose ends were evil. Talley gave them, too, what the world needed—death.

Peter Talley had not asked for this terrible power. But the key had been put in his hands, and he dared not delegate such authority as this to any other man alive. Sometimes he made mistakes.

He had felt a little surer since the simile of the key had occurred to him. The key to the future. A key that had been laid in his hands.

Remembering that, he leaned back in his chair and reached for an old and well-worn book. It fell open easily at a familiar passage. Peter Talley’s lips moved as he read the passage once again, in his room behind the shop on Park Avenue.

“And I say also unto thee. That thou art Peter. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.”

UNCOMMON SENSE

Hal Clement

“So you’ve left us, Mr. Cunningham!” Malmeson’s voice sounded rougher than usual, even allowing for headphone distortion and the ever-present Denebian static. “Now, that’s too bad. If you’d chosen to stick around, we would have put you off on some world where you could live, at least. Now you can stay here and fry. And I hope you live long enough to watch us take off—without you!”

Laird Cunningham did not bother to reply. The ship’s radio compass should still be in working order, and it was just possible that his erstwhile assistants might start hunting for him, if they were given some idea of the proper direction to begin a search. Cunningham was too satisfied with his present shelter to be very anxious for a change. He was scarcely half a mile from the grounded ship, in a cavern deep enough to afford shelter from Deneb’s rays when it rose, and located in the side of a small hill, so that he could watch the activities of Malmeson and his companion without exposing himself to their view.

In a way, of course, the villain was right. If Cunningham permitted the ship to take off without him, he might as well open his face plate; for, while he had food and oxygen for several days’ normal consumption, a planet scarcely larger than Luna, baked in the rays of one of the fiercest radiating bodies in the galaxy, was most unlikely to provide further supplies when these ran out. He wondered how long it would take the men to discover the damage he had done to the drive units in the few minutes that had elapsed between the crash landing and their breaking through the control room door, which Cunningham had welded shut when he had discovered their intentions. They might not notice at all; he had severed a number of inconspicuous connections at odd points. Perhaps they would not even test the drivers until they had completed repairs to the cracked hull. If they didn’t, so much the better.

Cunningham crawled to the mouth of his cave and looked out across the shallow valley in which the ship lay. It was barely visible in the starlight, and there was no sign of artificial luminosity to suggest that Malmeson might have started repairs at night. Cunningham had not expected that they would, but it was well to be sure. Nothing more had come over his suit radio since the initial outburst, when the men had discovered his departure; he decided that they must be waiting for sunrise, to enable them to take more accurate stock of the damage suffered by the hull.

He spent the next few minutes looking at the stars, trying to arrange them into patterns he could remember. He had no watch, and it would help to have some warning of approaching sunrise on succeeding nights. It would not do to be caught away from his cave, with the flimsy protection his suit could afford from Deneb’s radiation. He wished he could have filched one of the heavier work suits; but they were kept in a compartment forward of the control room, from which he had barred himself when he had sealed the door of the latter chamber.

He remained at the cave mouth, lying motionless and watching alternately the sky and the ship. Once or twice he may have dozed; but he was awake and alert when the low hills beyond the ship’s hull caught the first rays of the rising sun. For a minute or two they seemed to hang detached in a black void, while the flood of blue-white light crept down their slopes; then one by one, their bases merged with each other and the ground below to form a connected landscape. The silvery hull gleamed brilliantly, the reflection from it lighting the cave behind Cunningham and making his eyes water when he tried to watch for the opening of the air lock.

He was forced to keep his eyes elsewhere most of the time, and look only in brief glimpses at the dazzling metal; and in consequence, he paid more attention to the details of his environment than he might otherwise have done. At the time, this circumstance annoyed him; he has since been heard to bless it fervently and frequently.

Although the planet had much in common with Luna as regarded size, mass, and airlessness, its landscape was extremely different. The daily terrific heatings which it underwent, followed by abrupt and equally intense temperature drops each night, had formed an excellent substitute for weather; and elevations that might at one time have rivaled the Lunar ranges were now mere rounded hillocks like that containing Cunningham’s cave. As on the Earth’s moon, the products of the age-long spalling had taken the form of fine dust, which lay in drifts everywhere. What could have drifted it, on an airless and consequently windless planet, struck Cunningham as a puzzle of the first magnitude; and it bothered him for some time until his attention was taken by certain other objects upon and between the drifts. These he had thought at first to be outcroppings of rock; but he was at last convinced that they were specimens of vegetable life—miserable, lichenous specimens, but nevertheless vegetation. He wondered what liquid they contained, in an environment at a temperature well above the melting point of lead.

The discovery of animal life—medium-sized, crablike things, covered with jet-black integument, that began to dig their way out of the drifts as the sun warmed them—completed the job of dragging Cunningham’s attention from his immediate problems. He was not a zoologist by training, but the subject had fascinated him for years; and he had always had money enough to indulge his hobby. He had spent years wandering the Galaxy in search of bizarre life forms—proof, if any were needed, of a lack of scientific training—and terrestrial museums had always been more than glad to accept the collections that resulted from each trip and usually to send scientists of their own in his footsteps. He had been in physical danger often enough, but it had always been from the life he studied or from the forces which make up the interstellar traveler’s regular diet, until he had overheard the conversation which informed him that his two assistants were planning to do away with him and appropriate the ship for unspecified purposes of their own. He liked to think that the promptness of his action following the discovery at least indicated that he was not growing old.

But he did let his attention wander to the Denebian life forms.

Several of the creatures were emerging from the dust mounds within twenty or thirty yards of Cunningham’s hiding place, giving rise to the hope that they would come near enough for a close examination. At that distance, they were more crablike than ever, with round, flat bodies twelve to eighteen inches across, and several pairs of legs. They scuttled rapidly about, stopping at first one of the lichenous plants and then another, apparently taking a few tentative nibbles from each, as though they had delicate tastes which needed pampering. Once or twice there were fights when the same tidbit attracted the attention of more than one claimant; but little apparent damage was done on either side, and the victor spent no more time on the meal he won than on that which came uncontested.

Cunningham became deeply absorbed in watching the antics of the little creatures, and completely forgot for a time his own rather precarious situation. He was recalled to it by the sound of Malmeson’s voice in his headphones.

“Don’t look up. you fool; the shields will save your skin, but not your eyes. Get under the shadow of the hull, and we’ll look over the damage.”

Cunningham instantly transferred his attention to the ship. The air lock on the side toward him the port—was open, and the bulky figures of his two ex-assistants were visible standing on the ground beneath it. They were clad in the heavy utility suits which Cunningham had regretted leaving, and appeared to be suffering little or no inconvenience from the heat, though they were still standing full in Deneb’s light when he looked. He knew that hard radiation burns would not appear for some time, but he held little hope of Deneb’s more deadly output coming to his assistance; for the suits were supposed to afford protection against this danger as well. Between heat insulation, cooling equipment, radiation shielding, and plain mechanical armor, the garments were so heavy and bulky as to be an almost insufferable burden on any major planet. They were more often used in performing exterior repairs in space.

Cunningham watched and listened carefully as the men stooped under the lower curve of the hull to make an inspection of the damage. It seemed, from their conversation, to consist of a dent about three yards long and half as wide, about which nothing could be done, and a series of radially arranged cracks in the metal around it. These represented a definite threat to the solidity of the ship, and would have to be welded along their full lengths before it would be safe to apply the stresses incident to second-order flight. Malmeson was too good an engineer not to realize this fact, and Cunningham heard him lay plans for bringing power lines outside for the welder and jacking up the hull to permit access to the lower portions of the cracks. The latter operation was carried out immediately, with an efficiency which did not in the least surprise the hidden watcher. After all, he had hired the men.

Every few minutes, to Cunningham’s annoyance, one of the men would carefully examine the landscape; first on the side on which he was working, and then walking around the ship to repeat the performance. Even in the low gravity, Cunningham knew he could not cross the half mile that lay between him and that inviting air lock, between two of those examinations; and even if he could, his leaping figure, clad in the gleaming metal suit, would be sure to catch even an eye not directed at it. It would not do to make the attempt unless success were certain; for his unshielded suit would heat in a minute or two to an unbearable temperature, and the only place in which it was possible either to remove or cool it was on board the ship. He finally decided, to his annoyance, that the watch would not slacken so long as the air lock of the ship remained open. It would be necessary to find some means to distract or—an unpleasant alternative for a civilized man—disable the opposition while Cunningham got aboard, locked the others out, and located a weapon or other factor which would put him in a position to give them orders. At that, he reflected, a weapon would scarcely be necessary; there was a perfectly good medium transmitter on board, if the men had not destroyed or discharged it, and he need merely call for help and keep the men outside until it arrived.

This, of course, presupposed some solution to the problem of getting aboard unaccompanied. He would, he decided, have to examine the ship more closely after sunset. He knew the vessel as well as his own home—he had spent more time on her than in any other home—and knew that there was no means of entry except through the two main locks forward of the control room, and the two smaller, emergency locks near the stern, one of which he had employed on his departure. All these could be dogged shut from within; and offhand he was unable to conceive a plan for forcing any of the normal entrances. The view ports were too small to admit a man in a spacesuit, even if the panes could be broken; and there was literally no other way into the ship so long as the hull remained intact. Malmeson would not have talked so glibly of welding them sufficiently well to stand flight, if any of the cracks incurred on the landing had been big enough to admit a human body—or even that of a respectably healthy garter snake.

Cunningham gave a mental shrug of the shoulders as these thoughts crossed his mind, and reiterated his decision to take a scouting sortie after dark. For the rest of the day he divided his attention between the working men and the equally busy life forms that scuttled here and there in front of his cave; and he would have been the first to admit that he found the latter more interesting.

He still hoped that one would approach the cave closely enough to permit a really good examination, but for a long time he remained unsatisfied. Once, one of the creatures came within a dozen yards and stood “on tiptoe”—rising more than a foot from the ground on its slender legs, while a pair of antennae terminating in knobs the size of human eyeballs extended themselves several inches from the black carapace and waved slowly in all directions. Cunningham thought that the knobs probably did serve as eyes, though from his distance he could see only a featureless black sphere. The antennae eventually waved in his direction, and after a few seconds spent, apparently in assimilating the presence of the cave mouth, the creature settled back to its former low-swung carriage and scuttled away. Cunningham wondered if it had been frightened at his presence; but he felt reasonably sure that no eye adapted to Denebian daylight could see past the darkness of his threshold, and he had remained motionless while the creature was conducting its inspection. More probably it had some reason to fear caves, or merely darkness.

That it had reason to fear something was shown when another creature, also of crustacean aspect but considerably larger than those Cunningham had seen to date. appeared from among the dunes and attacked one of the latter. The fight took place too far from the cave for Cunningham to make out many details, but the larger animal quickly overcame its victim. It then apparently dismembered the vanquished, and either devoured the softer flesh inside the black integument or sucked the body fluids from it. Then the carnivore disappeared again, presumably in search of new victims. It had scarcely gone when another being, designed along the lines of a centipede and fully forty feet in length, appeared on the scene with the graceful flowing motion of its terrestrial counterpart.

For a few moments the newcomer nosed around the remains of the carnivore’s feast, and devoured the larger fragments. Then it appeared to look around as though for more, evidently saw the cave, and came rippling toward it, to Cunningham’s pardonable alarm. He was totally unarmed, and while the centipede had just showed itself not to be above eating carrion, it looked quite able to kill its own food if necessary. It stopped, as the other investigator had, a dozen yards from the cave mouth; and like the other, elevated itself as though to get a better look. The baseball-sized black “eyes” seemed for several seconds to stare into Cunningham’s more orthodox optics; then, like its predecessor, and to the man’s intense relief, it doubled back along its own length and glided swiftly out of sight.

Cunningham again wondered whether it had detected his presence, or whether caves or darkness in general spelled danger to these odd life forms.

It suddenly occurred to him that, if the latter were not the case, there might be some traces of previous occupants of the cave; and he set about examining the place more closely, after a last glance which showed him the two men still at work jacking up the hull.

There was drifted dust even here, he discovered, particularly close to the walls and in the corners. The place was bright enough, owing to the light reflected from outside objects, to permit a good examination—shadows on airless worlds are not so black as many people believe—and almost at once Cunningham found marks in the dust that could easily have been made by some of the creatures he had seen. There were enough of them to suggest that the cave was a well-frequented neighborhood; and it began to look as though the animals were staying away now because of the man’s presence.

Near the rear wall he found the empty integument that had once covered a four-jointed leg. It was light, and he saw that the flesh had either been eaten or decayed out, though it seemed odd to think of decay in an airless environment suffering such extremes of temperature—though the cave was less subject to this effect than the outer world. Cunningham wondered whether the leg had been carried in by its rightful owner, or as a separate item on the menu of something else. If the former, there might be more relics about.

There were. A few minutes’ excavation in the deeper layers of dust produced the complete exoskeleton of one of the smaller crablike creatures; and Cunningham carried the remains over to the cave mouth, so as to examine them and watch the ship at the same time.

The knobs he had taken for eyes were his first concern. A close examination of their surfaces revealed nothing, so he carefully tried to detach one from its stem. It finally cracked raggedly away, and proved, as he had expected, to be hollow. There was no trace of a retina inside, but there was no flesh in any of the other pieces of shell, so that proved nothing. As a sudden thought struck him, Cunningham held the front part of the delicate black bit of shell in front of his eyes; and sure enough, when he looked in the direction of the brightly gleaming hull of the spaceship, a spark of light showed through an almost microscopic hole. The sphere was an eye, constructed on the pinhole principle—quite an adequate design on a world furnished with such an overwhelming luminary. It would be useless at night, of course, but so would most other visual organs here; and Cunningham was once again faced with the problem of how any of the creatures had detected his presence in the cave—his original belief, that no eye adjusted to meet Deneb’s glare could look into its relatively total darkness, seemed to be sound.

He pondered the question, as he examined the rest of the skeleton in a half-hearted fashion. Sight seemed to be out, as a result of his examination; smell and hearing were ruled out by the lack of atmosphere; taste and touch could not even be considered under the circumstances. He hated to fall back on such a time-honored refuge for ignorance as “extrasensory perception,” but he was unable to see any way around it.

It may seem unbelievable that a man in the position Laird Cunningham occupied could let his mind become so utterly absorbed in a problem unconnected with his personal survival. Such individuals do exist, however; most people know someone who has shown some trace of such a trait; and Cunningham was a well-developed example. He had a single-track mind, and had intentionally shelved his personal problem for the moment.

His musings were interrupted, before he finished dissecting his specimen, by the appearance of one of the carnivorous creatures at what appeared to constitute a marked distance—a dozen yards from his cave mouth, where it rose up on the ends of its thin legs and goggled around at the landscape. Cunningham, half in humor and half in honest curiosity, tossed one of the dismembered legs from the skeleton in his hands at the creature. It obviously saw the flying limb; but it made no effort to pursue or devour it. Instead, it turned its eyes in Cunningham’s direction, and proceeded with great haste to put one of the drifts between it and what it evidently considered a dangerous neighborhood.

It seemed to have no memory to speak of, however; for a minute or two later Cunningham saw it creep into view again, stalking one of the smaller creatures which still swarmed everywhere, nibbling at the plants. He was able to get a better view of the fight and the feast that followed than on the previous occasion, for they took place much nearer to his position; but this time there was a rather different ending. The giant centipede, or another of its kind, appeared on the scene while the carnivore was still at its meal, and came flowing at a truly surprising rate over the dunes to fall on victor and vanquished alike. The former had no inkling of its approach until much too late; and both black bodies disappeared into the maw of the creature Cunningham had hoped was merely a scavenger.

What made the whole episode of interest to the man was the fact that in its charge, the centipede loped unheeding almost directly through a group of the plant-eaters; and these, by common consent, broke and ran at top speed directly toward the cave. At first he thought they would swerve aside when they saw what lay ahead; but evidently he was the lesser of two evils, for they scuttled past and even over him as he lay in the cave mouth, and began to bury themselves in the deepest dust they could find. Cunningham watched with pleasure, as an excellent group of specimens thus collected themselves for his convenience.

As the last of them disappeared under the dust. he turned back to the scene outside. The centipede was just finishing its meal. This time, instead of immediately wandering out of sight, it oozed quickly to the top of one of the larger dunes, in full sight of the cave, and deposited its length in the form of a watch spring, with the head resting above the coils. Cunningham realized that it was able, in this position, to look in nearly all directions and, owing to the height of its position, to a considerable distance.

With the centipede apparently settled for a time, and the men still working in full view, Cunningham determined to inspect one of his specimens. Going to the nearest wall, he bent down and groped cautiously in the dust. He encountered a subject almost at once, and dragged a squirming black crab into the light. He found that if he held it upside down on one hand, none of its legs could get a purchase on anything; and he was able to examine the underparts in detail in spite of the wildly thrashing limbs.

The jaws, now opening and closing futilely on a vacuum, were equipped with a set of crushers that suggested curious things about the plants on which it fed; they looked capable of flattening the metal finger of Cunningham’s spacesuit, and he kept his hand well out of their reach.

He became curious as to the internal mechanism that permitted it to exist without air, and was faced with the problem of killing the thing without doing it too much mechanical damage. It was obviously able to survive a good many hours without the direct radiation of Deneb, which was the most obvious source of energy, although its body temperature was high enough to be causing the man some discomfort through the glove of his suit; so “drowning” in darkness was impractical. There might, however, be some part of its body on which a blow would either stun or kill it; and he looked around for a suitable weapon.

There were several deep cracks in the stone at the cave mouth, caused presumably by thermal expansion and contraction; and with a little effort he was able to break loose a pointed, fairly heavy fragment. With this in his right hand, he laid the creature on its back on the ground, and hoped it had something corresponding to a solar plexus.

It was too quick for him. The legs, which had been unable to reach his hand when it was in the center of the creature’s carapace, proved supple enough to get a purchase on the ground; and before he could strike, it was right side up and departing with a haste that put to shame its previous efforts to escape from the centipede.

Cunningham shrugged, and dug out another specimen. This time he held it in his hand while he drove the point of his rock against its plastron. There was no apparent effect; he had not dared to strike too hard, for fear of crushing the shell. He struck several more times, with identical results and increasing impatience; and at last there occurred the result he had feared. The black armor gave way, and the point penetrated deeply enough to insure the damage of most of the interior organs. The legs gave a final twitch or two, and ceased moving, and Cunningham gave an exclamation of annoyance.

On hope, he removed the broken bits of shell, and for a moment looked in surprise at the liquid which seemed to have filled the body cavities. It was silvery, even metallic in color; it might have been mercury, except that it wet the organs bathed in it and was probably at a temperature above the boiling point of that metal. Cunningham had just grasped this fact when he was violently bowled over, and the dead creature snatched from his grasp. He made a complete somersault, bringing up against the rear wall of the cave; and as he came upright he saw to his horror that the assailant was none other than the giant centipede.

It was disposing with great thoroughness of his specimen, leaving at last only a few fragments of shell that had formed the extreme tips of the legs; and as the last of these fell to the ground, it raised the fore part of its body from the ground, as the man had seen it do before, and turned the invisible pin-points of its pupils on the spacesuited human figure.

Cunningham drew a deep breath, and took a firm hold of his pointed rock, though he had little hope of overcoming the creature. The jaws he had just seen at work had seemed even more efficient that those of the plant-eater, and they were large enough to take in a human leg.

For perhaps five seconds both beings faced each other without motion; then to the man’s inexpressible relief, the centipede reached the same conclusion to which its previous examination of humanity had led it, and departed in evident haste. This time it did not remain in sight, but was still moving rapidly when it reached the limit of Cunningham’s vision.

The naturalist returned somewhat shakily to the cave mouth, seated himself where he could watch his ship, and began to ponder deeply. A number of points seemed interesting on first thought, and on further cerebration became positively fascinating. The centipede had not seen, or at least had not pursued, the plant-eater that had escaped from Cunningham and run from the cave. Looking back, he realized that the only times he had seen the creature attack were after “blood” had been already shed—twice by one of the carnivorous animals, the third time by Cunningham himself. It had apparently made no difference where the victims had been—two in full sunlight, one in the darkness of the cave. More proof, if any were needed, that the creatures could see in both grades of illumination. It was not strictly a carrion eater, however; Cunningham remembered that carnivore that had accompanied its victim into the centipede’s jaws. It was obviously capable of overcoming the man, but had twice retreated precipitately when it had excellent opportunities to attack him. What was it, then, that drew the creature to scenes of combat and bloodshed, but frightened it away from a man; that frightened, indeed, all of these creatures?

On any planet that had a respectable atmosphere,

Cunningham would have taken one answer for granted—scent. In his mind, however, organs of smell were associated with breathing apparatus, which these creatures obviously lacked.

Don’t ask why he took so long. You may think that the terrific adaptability evidenced by those strange eyes would be clue enough; or perhaps you may be in a mood to excuse him. Columbus probably excused those of his friends who failed to solve the egg problem.

Of course, he got it at last, and was properly annoyed with himself for taking so long about it. An eye, to us, is an organ for forming images of the source of such radiation as may fall on it; and a nose is a gadget that tells its owner of the presence of molecules. He needs his imagination to picture the source of the latter. But what would you call an organ that forms a picture of the source of smell?

For that was just what those “eyes” did. In the nearly perfect vacuum of this little world’s surface, gases diffused at high speed—and their molecules traveled in practically straight lines. There was nothing wrong with the idea of a pinhole camera eye, whose retina was composed of olfactory nerve endings rather than the rods and cones of photosensitive organs.

That seemed to account for everything. Of course the creatures were indifferent to the amount of light reflected from the object they examined. The glare of the open spaces under Deneb’s rays, and the relative blackness of a cave, were all one to them—provided something were diffusing molecules in the neighborhood. And what doesn’t? Every substance, solid or liquid, has its vapor pressure; under Deneb’s rays even some rather unlikely materials probably vaporized enough to affect the organs of these life forms—metals. particularly. The life fluid of the creatures was obviously metal—probably lead, tin, bismuth, or some similar metals, or still more probably, several of them in a mixture that carried the substances vital to the life of their body cells. Probably much of the makeup of those cells was in the form of colloidal metals.

But that was the business of the biochemists. Cunningham amused himself for a time by imagining the analogy between smell and color which must exist here; light gases, such as oxygen and nitrogen, must be rare, and the tiny quantities that leaked from his suit would be absolutely new to the creatures that intercepted them. He must have affected their nervous systems the way fire did those of terrestrial wild animals. No wonder even the centipede had thought discretion the better part of valor!

With his less essential problem solved for the nonce. Cunningham turned his attention to that of his own survival; and he had not pondered many moments when he realized that this, as well, might be solved. He began slowly to smile, as the discrete fragments of an idea began to sort themselves out and fit properly together in his mind—an idea that involved the vapor pressure of metallic blood, the leaking qualities of the utility suits worn by his erstwhile assistants, and the bloodthirstiness of his many-legged acquaintances of the day; and he had few doubts about any of those qualities. The plan became complete, to his satisfaction; and with a smile on his face, he settled himself to watch until sunset.

Deneb had already crossed a considerable arc of the sky. Cunningham did not know just how long he had, as he lacked a watch, and it was soon borne in on him that time passes much more slowly when there is nothing to occupy it. As the afternoon drew on, he was forced away from the cave mouth; for the descending star was beginning to shine in. Just before sunset, he was crowded against one side; for Deneb’s fierce rays shone straight through the entrance and onto the opposite wall, leaving very little space not directly illuminated. Cunningham drew a sigh of relief for more reasons than one when the upper limb of the deadly luminary finally disappeared.

His specimens had long since recovered from their fright, and left the cavern; he had not tried to stop them. Now, however, he emerged from the low entryway and went directly to the nearest dust dune, which was barely visible in the starlight. A few moments’ search was rewarded with one of the squirming plant-eaters, which he carried back into the shelter; then, illuminating the scene carefully with the small torch that was clipped to the waist of his suit, he made a fair-sized pile of dust, gouged a long groove in the top with his toe; with the aid of the same stone he had used before, he killed the plant-eater and poured its “blood” into the dust mold.

The fluid was metallic, all right; it cooled quickly, and in two or three minutes Cunningham had a silvery rod about as thick as a pencil and five or six inches long. He had been a little worried about the centipede at first; but the creature was either not in line to “see” into the cave, or had dug in for the night like its victims.

Cunningham took the rod, which was about as pliable as a strip of solder of the same dimensions, and, extinguishing the torch, made his way in a series of short, careful leaps to the stranded spaceship. There was no sign of the men, and they had taken their welding equipment inside with them—that is, if they had ever had it out; Cunningham had not been able to watch them for the last hour of daylight. The hull was still jacked up, however; and the naturalist eased himself under it and began to examine the damage. once more using the torch. It was about as he had deduced from the conversation of the men; and with a smile, he took the little metal stick and went to work. He was busy for some time under the hull, and once he emerged, found another plant-eater, and went back underneath. After he had finished, he walked once around the ship, checking each of the air locks and finding them sealed, as he had expected.

He showed neither surprise nor disappointment at this; and without further ceremony he made his way back to the cave, which he had a little trouble finding in the starlight. He made a large pile of the dust. for insulation rather than bedding, lay down on it, and tried to sleep. He had very little success, as he might have expected.

Night, in consequence, seemed unbearably long; and he almost regretted his star study of the previous darkness, for now he was able to see that sunrise was still distant, rather than bolster his morale with the hope that Deneb would be in the sky the next time he opened his eyes. The time finally came, however, when the hilltops across the valley leaped one by one into brilliance as the sunlight caught them; and Cunningham rose and stretched himself. He was stiff and cramped, for a spacesuit makes a poor sleeping costume even on a better bed than a stone floor.

As the light reached the spaceship and turned it into a blazing silvery spindle, the air lock opened. Cunningham had been sure that the men were in a hurry to finish their task, and were probably awaiting the sun almost as eagerly as he in order to work efficiently; he had planned on this basis.

Malmeson was the first to leap to the ground, judging by their conversation, which came clearly through Cunningham’s phones. He turned back, and his companion handed down to him the bulky diode welder and a stack of filler rods. Then both men made their way forward to the dent where they were to work. Apparently they failed to notice the bits of loose metal lying on the scene—perhaps they had done some filing themselves the day before. At any rate, there was no mention of it as Malmeson lay down and slid under the hull, and the other began handing equipment in to him.

Plant-eaters were beginning to struggle out of their dust beds as the connections were completed, and the torch started to flame. Cunningham nodded in pleasure as he noted this; things could scarcely have been timed better had the men been consciously co-operating. He actually emerged from the cave, keeping in the shadow of the hillock, to increase his field of view; but for several minutes nothing but plant-eaters could be seen moving.

He was beginning to fear that his invited guests were too distant to receive their call, when his eye caught a glimpse of a long, black body slipping silently over the dunes toward the ship. He smiled in satisfaction; and then his eyebrows suddenly rose as he saw a second snaky form following the tracks of the first.

He looked quickly across his full field of view, and was rewarded by the sight of four more of the monsters—all heading at breakneck speed straight for the spaceship. The beacon he had lighted had reached more eyes than he had expected. He was sure that the men were armed, and had never intended that they actually be overcome by the creatures; he had counted on a temporary distraction that would let him reach the air lock unopposed.

He stood up, and braced himself for the dash, as Malmeson’s helper saw the first of the charging centipedes and called the welder from his work. Malmeson barely had time to gain his feet when the first pair of attackers reached them; and at the same instant Cunningham emerged into the sunlight, putting every ounce of his strength into the leaps that were carrying him toward the only shelter that now existed for him.

He could feel the ardor of Deneb’s rays the instant they struck him; and before he had covered a third of the distance the back of his suit was painfully hot. Things were hot for his ex-crew as well; fully ten of the black monsters had reacted to the burst of—to them—overpoweringly attractive odor—or gorgeous color?—that had resulted when Malmeson had turned his welder on the metal where Cunningham had applied the frozen blood of their natural prey; and more of the same substance was now vaporizing under Deneb’s influence as Malmeson, who had been lying in fragments of it, stood fighting off the attackers. He had a flame pistol, but it was slow to take effect on creatures whose very blood was molten metal; and his companion, wielding the diode unit on those who got too close, was no better off. They were practically swamped under wriggling bodies as they worked their way toward the air lock; and neither man saw Cunningham as, staggering even under the feeble gravity that was present, and fumbling with eye shield misted with sweat, he reached the same goal and disappeared within.

Being a humane person, he left the outer door open; but he closed and dogged the inner one before proceeding with a more even step to the control room. Here he unhurriedly removed his spacesuit, stopping only to open the switch of the power socket that was feeding the diode unit as he heard the outer lock door close. The flame pistol would make no impression on the alloy of the hull, and he felt no qualms about the security of the inner door. The men were safe, from every point of view.

With the welder removed from the list of active menaces, he finished removing his suit, turned to the medium transmitter, and coolly broadcast a call for help and his position in space. Then he turned on a radio transmitter, so that the rescuers could find him on the planet; and only then did he contact the prisoners on the small set that was tuned to the suit radios, and tell them what he had done.

“I didn’t mean to do you any harm,” Malmeson’s voice came back. “I just wanted the ship. I know you paid us pretty good, but when I thought of the money that could be made on some of those worlds if we looked for something besides crazy animals and plants, I couldn’t help myself. You can let us out now; I swear we won’t try anything more—the ship won’t fly, and you say a Guard flyer is on the way. How about that?”

“I’m sorry you don’t like my hobby,” said Cunningham. “I find it entertaining; and there have been times when it was even useful, though I won’t hurt your feelings by telling you about the last one. I think I shall feel happier if the two of you stay right there in the air lock; the rescue ship should be here before many hours, and you’re fools if you haven’t food and water in your suits.”

“I guess you win, in that case,” said Malmeson.

“I think so, too,” replied Cunningham, and switched off.

THE GNURRS COME FROM THE VOODVORK OUT

R. Bretnor

When Papa Schimmelhorn heard about the war with Bobovia, he bought a box-lunch, wrapped his secret weapon in brown paper, and took the first bus straight to Washington. He showed up at the main gate of the Secret Weapons Bureau shortly before midday, complete with box-lunch, beard, and bassoon. That’s right—bassoon. He had unwrapped his secret weapon. It looked like a bassoon. The difference didn’t show.

Corporal Jerry Colliver, on duty at the gate, didn’t know there was a difference. All he knew was that the Secret Weapons Bureau was a mock-up, put there to keep the crackpots out of everybody’s hair, and that it was a lousy detail, and that there was the whole afternoon to go before his date with Katie.

“Goot morning, soldier boy!” bellowed Papa Schimmelhorn, waving the bassoon.

Corporal Colliver winked at the two Pfc’s who were sunning themselves with him on the guardhouse steps. “Come back Chris’mus, Santa,” he said. “We’re closed for inventory.”

“No!” Papa Schimmelhorn was annoyed. “I cannot stay so long from vork. Also, I haff here a zecret veapon. Ledt me in.”

The Corporal shrugged. Orders were orders. Crazy or not, you had to let ‘em in. He reached back and pressed the loony-button, to alert the psychos just in case. Then, keys jangling, he walked up to the gate. “A secret weapon, huh?” he said, unlocking it. “Guess you’ll have the war all won and over in a week.”

“A veek?” Papa Schimmelhorn roared with laughter. “Soldier boy, you vait! It iss ofer in two days! I am achenius!”

As he stepped through, Corporal Colliver remembered regulations and asked him sternly if he had any explosives on or about his person.

“Ho-ho-ho! It iss nodt necessary to haff exblosives to vin a var! Zo all right, you zearch me!”

The corporal searched him. He searched the box-lunch, which contained one devilled egg, two pressed-ham sandwiches, and an apple. He examined the bassoon, shaking it and peering down it to make sure that it was empty.

“Okay, Pop,” he said, when he had finished. “You can go on in. But you better leave your flute here.”

“It iss nodt a fludt,” Papa Schimmelhorn corrected him. “It iss a gnurrpfeife. And I must take it because it iss my zecret veapon.”

The Corporal, who had been looking forward to an hour or so of trying to tootle Comiri Through the Rye, shrugged philosophically. “Barney,” he said to one of the Pfc’s, “take this guy to Section Eight.”

As the soldier went off with Papa Schimmelhorn in tow, he pressed the loony-button twice more just for luck. “Don’t it beat all,” he remarked to the other Pfc, “the way we gotta act like these nuts was top brass or something?”

Corporal Colliver, of course, didn’t know that Papa Schimmelhorn had spoken only gospel truth. He didn’t know that Papa Schimmelhorn really was a genius, or that the gnurrs would end the war in two days, or that Papa Schimmelhorn would win it.

Not then, he didn’t.

At ten minutes past one, Colonel Powhattan Fairfax Pollard was still mercifully unaware of Papa Schimmelhorn’s existence.

Colonel Pollard was long and lean and leathery. He wore Peal boots, spurs, and one of those plum-colored shirts which had been fashionable at Fort Huachuca in the ‘twenties. He did not believe in secret weapons. He didn’t even believe in atomic bombs and tanks, recoilless rifles and attack aviation. He believed in horses.

The Pentagon had called him back out of retirement to command the Secret Weapons Bureau, and he had been the right man for the job. In the four months of his tenure, only one inventor—a man with singularly sound ideas regarding packsaddles— had been sent on to higher echelons.

Colonel Pollard was seated at his desk, dictating to his blond WAC secretary from an open copy of Lieutenant-General Wardrop’s Modern Pigsticking. He was accumulating material for a work of his own, to be entitled Sword and Lance in Future Warfare. Now, in the middle of a quotation outlining the virtues of the Bengal spear, he broke off abruptly. “Miss Hooper!” he announced. “A thought has occurred to me!”

Katie Hooper sniffed. If he had to be formal, why couldn’t he just say sergeant? Other senior officers had always addressed her as my dear or sweetheart, at least when they were alone. Miss Hooper, indeed! She sniffed again, and said, “Yes, sir.”

Colonel Pollard snorted, apparently to clear his mind. “I can state it as a principle,” he began, “that the mania for these so-called scientific weapons is a grave menace to the security of the United States. Flying in the face of the immutable science of war, we are building one unproved weapon after another, counter-weapons against these weapons, counter-counter-weapons, and—and so on. Armed to the teeth with theories and delusions, we soon may stand defenseless, impotent—Did you hear me, Miss Hooper? Impotent—”

Miss Hooper snickered and said, “Yessir.”

“—against the onrush of some Attila,” shouted the Colonel, “some modern Genghis Khan, as yet unborn, who will sweep away our tinkering technicians like chaff, and carve his empire with cavalry—yes, cavalry, I say!—with horse and sword!”

“Tessir,” said his secretary.

“Today,” the Colonel thundered, “we have no cavalry! A million mounted moujiks could—”

But the world was not destined to find out just what a million mounted moujiks could or could not do. The door burst open. From the outer office, there came a short, sharp squeal. A plump young officer catapulted across the room, braked to a halt before the Colonel’s desk, saluted wildly.

“Oooh!” gasped Katie Hooper, staring with vast blue eyes.

The Colonel’s face turned suddenly to stone.

And the young officer caught his breath long enough to cry, “My God, it—it’s happened, sir!”

Lieutenant Hanson was no combat soldier; he was a scientist. He had made no appointment. He had entered without knocking, in a most unmilitary manner. And—and—

“MISTER!” roared Colonel Pollard. “WHERE ARE YOUR TROUSERS?”

For Lieutenant Hanson obviously was wearing none. Nor was he wearing socks or shoes. And the tattered tails of his shirt barely concealed his shredded shorts.

“SPEAK UP, DAMMIT!”

Vacantly, the Lieutenant glanced at his lower limbs and back again. He began to tremble. “They— they ate them!” he blurted. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you! Lord knows how he does it! He’s about eighty, and he’s a—a foreman in a cuckoo-clock factory! But it’s the perfect weapon! And it works, it works, it works!” He laughed hysterically. “The gnurrs come from the voodvork out!” he sang, clapping his hands. “The voodvork out, the—”

Here Colonel Pollard rose from his chair, vaulted his desk, and tried to calm Lieutenant Hanson by shaking him vigorously. “Disgraceful!” he shouted in his ear. “Turn your back!” he ordered the blushing Katie Hooper. “NONSENSE!” he bellowed when the Lieutenant tried to chatter something about gnurrs.

And, “Vot iss nonzense, soldier boy?” enquired Papa Schimmelhorn from the doorway.

Colonel Pollard let go of the Lieutenant. He flushed a deep red cordovan. For the first time in his military career, words failed him.

The Lieutenant pointed unsteadily at Colonel Pollard. “Gnurrs iss nonzense!” he giggled. “He says so!”

“Ha!” Papa Schimmelhorn glared. “I show you, soldier boy!”

The Colonel erupted. “Soldier boy? SOLDIER BOY? Stand at attention xvhen I speak to you! ATTENTION, DAMN YOU!”

Papa Schimmelhorn, of course, paid no attention whatsoever. He raised his secret weapon to his lips, and, the first bars of Come to the Church in the Wildwood moaned around the room.

“Mister Hanson!” raged the Colonel. “Arrest that man! Take that thing away from him! I’ll prefer charges! I’ll—”

At this point, the gnurrs came from the voodvork out.

It isn’t easy to describe a gnurr. Can you imagine a mouse-colored, mouse-sized critter shaped like a wild boar, but sort of shimmery with thumbs fore and aft, and a pink, naked tail, and yellow eyes several sizes too large? And with three sets of sharp teeth in its face? You can? Well, that’s about it— except that nobody has ever seen a gnurr. They don’t come that way. When the gnurrs come from the voodvork out, they come all over—like lemmings, only more so—millions and millions and millions of them.

And they come eating.

The gnurrs came from the voodvork out just as Papa Schimmelhorn reached “…the church in the vale.” They covered half the floor, and ate up half the carpet, before he finished “No scene is so dear to my childhood.” Then they advanced on Colonel Pollard.

Mounting his desk, the Colonel started slashing around with his riding crop. Katie Hooper climbed a filing case, hoisted her skirt, and screamed. Lieutenant Hanson, secure in his nether nakedness, held his ground and guffawed insubordinately.

Papa Schimmelhorn stopped tootling to shout, “Don’dt vorry, soldier boy!” He started in again, playing something quite unrecognizable—something that didn’t sound like a tune at all.

Instantly, the gnurrs halted. They looked over their shoulders apprehensively. They swallowed the remains of the Colonel’s chair cushion, shimmered brightly, made a queasy sort of creaking sound, and turning tail, vanished into the wainscoting.

Papa Schimmelhorn stared at the Colonel’s boots, which were surprisingly intact, and muttered, “Hmm-m, zo!” He leered appreciatively at Katie Hooper, who promptly dropped her skirt. He thumped himself on the chest, and announced, “They are vunderful, my gnurrs!” to the world at large.

“Wh—?” The Colonel showed evidences of profound psychic trauma. “Where did they go?”

“Vere they came from,” replied Papa Schimmelhorn.

“Where’s that?”

“It iss yesterday.”

“That—that’s absurd!” The Colonel stumbled down and fell into his chair. “They weren’t here yesterday!”

Papa Schimmelhorn regarded him pityingly. “Of course nodt! They vere nodt here yesterday because yesterday vas then today. They are here yesterday, ven yesterday is yesterday already. It iss different.”

Colonel Pollard wiped his clammy brow, and cast an appealing glance at Lieutenant Hanson.

“Perhaps I can explain, sir,” said the Lieutenant, whose nervous system apparently had benefited by the second visit of the gnurrs. “May I make my report?”

“Yes, yes, certainly.” Colonel Pollard clutched gladly at the straw. “Ah—sit down.”

Lieutenant Hanson pulled up a chair, and—as Papa Schimmelhorn walked over to flirt with Katie— he began to talk in a low and very serious voice.

“It’s absolutely incredible,” he said. “All the routine tests shovp that he’s at best a high grade moron. He quit school when he was eleven, served his apprenticeship and worked as a clockmaker till he was in his fifties. After that, he was a janitor in the Geneva Institute of Higher Physics until just a few years ago. Then he came to America and got his present job. But it’s the Geneva business that’s important. They’ve been concentrating on extensions of Einstein’s and Minkowski’s work. He must have overheard a lot of it.”

“But if he is a moron—” The Colonel had heard of Einstein, and knew that he was very deep indeed “—what good would it do him?”

“That’s just the point, sir! He’s a moron on the conscious level, but subconsciously he’s a genius. Somehow, part of his mind absorbed the stuff, integrated it, and came up with this bassoon thing. It’s got a weird little L-shaped crystal in it, impinging on the reed, and when you blow, the crystal vibrates. We don’t know why it works—but it sure does!”

“You mean the—uh—the fourth dimension?”

“Precisely. Though we’ve left yesterday behind, the gnurrs have not. They’re there now. When a day becomes our yesterday, it becomes their today.”

“But—but how does he get rid of them?”

“He says he plays the same tune backwards, and reverses the effect. Damn’ lucky, if you ask me!”

Papa Schimmelhorn, who had been encouraging Katie Hooper to feel his biceps, turned around. “You vait!” he laughed uproariously. “Soon, vith my gnurrpfeife I broadcast to the enemy! Ve vin the var!”

The Colonel shied. “The thing’s untried, unproven! It—er—requires further study—field service—acid test.”

“We haven’t time, sir. We’d lose the element of surprise!”

“We will make a regular report through channels,” declared the Colonel. “It’s a damn’ machine, isn’t it? They’re unreliable. Always have been. It would be contrary to the principles of war.”

And then Lieutenant Hanson had an inspiration. “But, sir,” he argued, “we won’t be fighting with the gnurrpfeife! The gnurrs will be our real weapon, and they’re not machines—they’re animals! The greatest generals used animals in war! The gnurrs aren’t interested in living creatures, but they’ll devour just about anything else—wool, cotton, leather, even plastics—and their numbers are simply astronomical. If I were you, I’d get through to the Secretary right away!”

For an instant, the Colonel hesitated—but only for an instant. “Hanson,” he said decisively, “you’ve got a point there—a very sound point!”

And he reached for the telephone.

It took less than twenty-four hours to organize Operation Gnurr. The Secretary of Defense, after conferring with the President and the Chiefs of Staff, personally rushed over to direct preliminary tests of Papa Schimmelhorn’s secret weapon. By nightfall, it was known that the gnurrs could:

a. completely blanket everything within two hundred yards of the gnurrpfeife in less than twenty seconds;

b. strip an entire company of infantry, supported by chemical weapons, to the skin in one minute and Eighteen seconds;

c. ingest the contents of five Quartermaster warehouses in just over two minutes;

and,

d. come from the voodvork out when the gnurrpfeife was played over a carefully shielded shortwave system.

It had also become apparent that there were only three effective ways to kill a gnurr—by shooting him to death, drenching him with liquid fire, or dropping an atomic bomb on him—and that there were entirely too many gnurrs for any of these methods to be worth a hoot.

By morning, Colonel Powhattan Fairfax Pollard— because he was the only senior officer who had ever seen a gnurr, and because animals were known to be right up his alley—had been made a lieutenant-general and given command of the operation. Lieutenant Hanson, as his aide, had suddenly found himself a major. Corporal Colliver had become a master-sergeant, presumably for being there when the manna fell. And Katie Hooper had had a brief but strenuous date with Papa Schimmelhorn.

Nobody was satisfied. Katie complained that Papa Schimmelhorn and the gnurrs had the same idea in mind, only his technique was different. Jerry Colliver, who had been dating Katie regularly, griped that the old buzzard with the muscles had sent his Hooper rating down to zero. Major Hanson had awakened to the possibility of somebody besides the enemy tuning in on the Papa Schimmelhorn Hour. Even General Pollard was distressed— “I could overlook everything, Hanson,” he said sourly, “except his calling me ‘soldier boy.’ I won’t stand for it! The science of war cannot tolerate indiscipline. I spoke to him about it, and all he said was, ‘It iss all right, soldier boy. You can call me Papa.’”

Major Hanson disciplined his face, and said, “Well, why not call him Papa, sir? After all, it’s just such human touches as these that make history.”

“Ah, yes—History.” The General paused reflectively. “Hmm, perhaps so, perhaps so. They always called Napoleon ‘the little Corporal.’”

“The thing that really bothers me, General, is how we’re going to get through without our own people listening in. I guess they must’ve worked out something on it, or they wouldn’t have scheduled the—the offensive for five o’clock. That’s only four hours off.”

“Now that you mention it,” said General Pollard, coming out of his reverie, “a memorandum did come through—Oh, Miss Hooper, bring me that memo from G-I, will you?—Thank you. Here it is. It seems that they have decided to—er—scramble the broadcast.”

“Scramble it, sir?”

“Yes, yes. And I’ve issued operational orders accordingly. You see, Intelligence reported several weeks ago that the enemy knows how to unscramble anything we transmit that way. When Mr. Schimmelhorn goes on the air, we will scramble him, but we will not transmit the code key to our own people. It is assumed that from five to fifteen enemy monitors will hear him. His playing of the tune will constitute Phase One. When it is over, the microphones will be switched off, and he will play it backwards. That will be Phase Two, to dispose of such gnurrs as appear locally.”

“Seems sound enough.” Major Hanson frowned. “And it’s pretty smart, if everything goes right. But what if it doesn’t? Hadn’t we better have an ace up our sleeve?”

He frowned again. Then, as the General didn’t seem to have any ideas on the subject, he went about his duties. He made a final inspection of the special sound-proof room in which Papa Schimmelhorn would tootle. He allocated its observation windows— one to the President, the Secretary, and General Pollard; one to the Chiefs of Staff; another to Intelligence liaison; and the last to the functioning staff of Operation Gnurr, himself included. At ten minutes to five, when everything was ready, he was still worrying.

“Look here,” he whispered to Papa Schimmelhorn, as he escorted him to the fateful door. “What are we going to do if your gnurrs really get loose here? You couldn’t play them back into the voodvork in a month of Sundays!”

“Don’dt vorry, soldier boy!” Papa Schimmelhorn gave him a resounding slap on the back. “I haff yet vun trick I do nodt tell you!”

And with that vague assurance, he closed the door behind him.

“Ready!” called General Pollard tensely, at one minute to five.

“Ready!” echoed Sergeant Colliver.

In front of Papa Schimmelhorn, a red light flashed on. The tension mounted. The seconds ticked away. The General’s hand reached for a sabre-hilt that wasn’t there. At five exactly—

“CHARGE!” the General cried.

And Papa Schimmelhorn started tootling Come to the Church in the Wildwood.

The gnurrs, of course, came from the voodvork out.

The gnurrs came from the voodvork out, and a hungry gleam was in their yellow eyes. They carpeted the floor. They started piling up. They surged against the massive legs of Papa Schimmelhorn, their tiny electric-razor sets of teeth going like all get out. His trousers vanished underneath the flood—his checkered coat, his tie, his collar, the fringes of his beard. And Papa Schimmelhorn, all undismayed, lifted his big bassoon out of gnurrs’ way and tootled on. “Come, come, come, come. Come to the church in the vildvood …”

Of course, Major Hanson couldn’t hear the gnurrpfeife—but he had sung the song in Sunday school, and now the words resounded in his brain. Verse after verse, chorus after chorus—The awful thought struck him that Papa Schimmelhorn would be overwhelmed, sucked under, drowned in gnurrs…

And then he heard the voice of General Pollard, no longer steady—

“R-ready, Phase Two?”

“R-ready!” replied Sergeant Colliver.

A green light flashed in front of Papa Schimmelhorn.

For a moment, nothing changed. Then the gnurrs hesitated. Apprehensively, they glanced over their hairy shoulders. They shimmered. They started to recede. Back, back, back they flowed, leaving Papa Schimmelhorn alone, triumphant, and naked as a jaybird.

The door was opened, and he emerged—to be congratulated and re-clothed, and (much to Sergeant Colliver’s annoyance) to turn down a White House dinner invitation in favor of a date with Katie. The active phases of Operation Gnurr were over.

In far-away Bobovia, however, chaos reigned. Later it was learned that eleven inquisitive enemy monitors had unscrambled the tootle of the gnurrpfeife, and that tidal waves of gnurrs had inundated the enemy’s eleven major cities. By seven fifteen, except for a few hysterical outlying stations, Bobovia was off the air. By eight, Bobovian military activity had ceased in every theatre. At twenty after ten, an astounded Press learned that the surrender of Bobovia could be expected momentarily…. The President had received a message from the Bobovian Marshalissimo, asking permission to fly to Washington with his Chief of Staff, the members of his Cabinet, and several relatives. And would His Excellency the President—the Marshalissimo had radioed—be so good as to have someone meet them at the airport with nineteen pairs of American trousers, new or used?

VE Day wasn’t in it. Neither was VJ Day. As soon as the papers hit the streets—BOBOVIA SURRENDERS!—ATOMIC MICE DEVOUR ENEMY!—SWISS GENIUS’ STRATEGY WINS WAR!—the crowds went wild. From Maine to Florida, from California to Cape Cod, the lights went on, sirens and bells and auto horns resounded through the night, millions of throats were hoarse from singing Come to the Church in the Wildwood.

Next day, after massed television cameras had let the entire nation in on the formal signing of the surrender pact, General Pollard and Papa Schimmelhorn were honored at an impressive public ceremony.

Papa Schimmelhorn received a vote of thanks from both Houses of Congress. He was awarded academic honors by Harvard, Princeton, M.I.T., and a number of denominational colleges down in Texas. He spoke briefly about cuckoo-clocks, the gnurrs, and Katie Hooper—and his remarks were greeted by a thunder of applause.

General Pollard, having been presented with a variety of domestic and foreign decorations, spoke at some length on the use of animals in future warfare. He pointed out that the horse, of all animals, was best suited to normal military purposes, and he discussed in detail many of the battles and campaigns in which it had been tried and proven. He was just starting in on swords and lances when the abrupt arrival of Major Hanson cut short the whole affair.

Hanson raced up with sirens screaming. He left his escort of MP’s and ran across the platform. Pale and panting, he reached the President—and, though he tried to whisper, his voice was loud enough to reach the General’s ear. “The—the gnurrs!” he choked. “They’re in Los Angeles!”

Instantly, the General rose to the occasion. “Attention, please!” he shouted at the microphone. “This ceremony is now over. You may consider yourselves—ah—DISMISSED!”

Before his audience could react, he had joined the knot of men around the President, and Hanson was briefing them on what had happened. “It was a research unit! They’d worked out a descrambler—new stuff—better than the enemy’s. They didn’t know. Tried it out on Papa here. Cut a record. Played it back today! Los Angeles is overrun!”

There were long seconds of despairing silence. Then, “Gentlemen,” said the President quietly, “we’re in the same boat as Bobovia.”

The General groaned.

But Papa Schimmelhorn, to everyone’s surprise, laughed boisterously. “Oh-ho-ho-ho! Don’dt vorry, soldier boy! You trust old Papa Schimmelhorn. All ofer, in Bobovia, iss gnurrs! Ve haff them only in Los Angeles, vere it does nodt matter! Also, I haff a trick I did nodt tell!” He winked a cunning wink. “Iss vun thing frightens gnurrs—”

“In God’s name—whatT’ exclaimed the Secretary.

“Horzes,” said Papa Schimmelhorn. “It iss the smell.”

“Horses? Did you say horses?” The General pawed the ground. His eyes flashed fire. “CAVALRY!” he thundered. “We must have CAVALRY!”

No time was wasted. Within the hour, Lieutenant-General Powhattan Fairfax Pollard, the only senior cavalry officer who knew anything about gnurrs, was promoted to the rank of General of the Armies, and given supreme command. Major Hanson became a brigadier, a change of status which left him slightly dazed. And Sergeant Colliver (reflecting ruefully that he was now making more than enough to marry on) received his warrant.

General Pollard took immediate and decisive action. The entire Air Force budget for the year was commandeered. Anything even remotely resembling a horse, saddle, bridle, or bale of hay was shipped westward in requisitioned trains and trucks. Former cavalry officers and non-com’s, ordered to instant duty regardless of age and wear-and-tear, were flown by disgruntled pilots to assembly points in Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona. Anybody and everybody who had ever so much as seen a horse was drafted into service. Mexico sent over several regiments on a lend-lease basis.

The Press had a field day. NUDE HOLLYWOOD STARS FIGHT GNURRS! headlined many a full front page of photographs. Life devoted a special issue to General of the Armies Pollard, Jeb Stuart, Marshal Ney, Belisarius, the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava, and AR 50-45, School of the Soldier Mounted Without Arms. The Journal-American reported, on reliable authority, that the ghost of General Custer had been observed entering the Officer’s Club at Fort Riley, Kansas.

On the sixth day, General Pollard had ready in the field the largest cavalry force in all recorded history. Its discipline and appearance left much to be desired. Its horsemanship was, to say the very least, uneven. Still, its morale was high, and—

“Never again,” declared the General to correspondents who interviewed him at his headquarters in Phoenix, “must we let politicians and long-haired theorists persuade us to abandon the time-tried principles of war, and trust our national destiny to—to gadgets.”

Drawing his sabre, the General indicated his operations map. “Our strategy is simple,” he announced. “The gnurr forces have by-passed the Mohave Desert in the south, and are invading Arizona. In Nevada, they have concentrated against Reno and Virginia City. Their main offensive, however, appears to be aimed at the Oregon border. As you know, I have more than two million mounted men at my disposal—some three hundred divisions. In one hour, they will move forward. We will force the gnurrs to retreat in three main groups—in the south, in the center, in the north. Then, when the terrain they hold has been sufficiently restricted, Papa—er, that is, Mister—Schimmelhorn will play his instrument over mobile public address systems.”

With that, the General indicated that the interview was at an end, and, mounting a splendid bay gelding presented to him by the citizens of Louisville, rode off to emplane for the theatre of operations.

Needless to say, his conduct of the War Against the Gnurrs showed the highest degree of initiative and energy, and a perfect grasp of the immutable principles of strategy and tactics. Even though certain envious elements in the Pentagon afterwards referred to the campaign as “Polly’s Round-up,” the fact remained that he was able to achieve total victory in five weeks—months before Bobovia even thought of promising its Five Year Plan for retrousering its population. Inexorably, the terror-stricken gnurrs were driven back. Their queasy creaking could be heard for miles. At night, their shimmering lighted up the sky. In the south, where their deployment had been confined by deserts, three tootlings in reverse sufficed to bring about their downfall. In the center, where the action was heavier than anticipated, seventeen were needed. In the north, a dozen were required to do the trick. In each instance, the sound was carried over an area of several hundred square miles by huge loudspeaker units mounted in escort wagons or carried in pack. Innumerable cases of personal heroism were recorded—and Jerry Colliver, after having four pairs of breeches shot out from under him, was personally commissioned in the field by General Pollard.

Naturally, a few gnurrs made their escape—but the felines of the state, who had been mewing with frustration, made short work of them. As for the numerous gay instances of indiscipline which occurred as the victorious troops passed through the quite literally denuded towns, these were soon forgiven and forgotten by the joyous populace.

Secretly, to avoid the rough enthusiasm of admiring throngs, General Pollard and Papa Schimmelhorn flew back to Washington—and three full regiments with drawn sabres were needed to clear a way for them. Finally, though, they reached the Pentagon. They walked toward the General’s office arm in arm, and at the door they paused.

“Papa,” said General Pollard, pointing at the gnurrpfeife with awe, “we have made History! And, by God, we’ll make more of it!”

“Ja!” said Papa Schimmelhorn, with an enormous wink. “But tonight, soldier boy, ve vill make vhoopee! I haff a date vith Katie. For you she has a girl friend.”

General Pollard hesitated. “Wouldn’t it—wouldn’t it be bad for—er—discipline?”

“Don’dt vorry, soldier boy! Ve don’dt tell anybody!” laughed Papa Schimmelhorn—and threw the door open.

There stood the General’s desk. There, at its side, stood Brigadier-General Hanson, looking worried. Against one wall stood Lieutenant Jerry Colliver, smirking loathsomely, with a possessive arm around Katie Hooper’s waist. And in the General’s chair sat a very stiff old lady, in a very stiff black dress, tapping a very stiff umbrella on the blotting pad.

As soon as she saw Papa Schimmelhorn, she stopped tapping and pointed the umbrella at him.

“So!” she hissed. “You think you get avay? To spoil Cousin Anton’s beaudtiful bassoon, and play vith mices, and passes at female soldier-girls to make?”

She turned to Katie Hooper, and they exchanged a feminine glance of triumph and understanding. “Iss lucky that you phone, so I find out,” she said. “You are nice girl. You can see under the sheep’s clothings.”

She rose. As Katie blushed, she strode across the room, and grabbed the gnurrpfeife from Papa Schimmelhorn. Before anyone could stop her, she stripped it of its reed—and crushed the L-shaped crystal underfoot. “Now,” she exclaimed, “iss no more gnurrs and people-vithout-trousers-monkeyshines!”

While General Pollard stared in blank amazement and Jerry Colliver snickered gloatingly, she took poor Papa Schimmelhorn firmly by the ear. “So ve go home!” she ordered, steering him for the door. “Vere iss no soldier-girls, and the house needs painting!”

Looking crestfallen, Papa Schimmelhorn went without resistance. “Gootbye!” he called unhappily. “I must go home vith Mama.”

But as he passed by General Pollard, he winked his usual wink. “Don’dt vorry, soldier boy!” he whispered. “I get avay again—I am a chenius!”

A SUBWAY NAMED MOBIUS

A.J. Deutsch

In a complex and ingenious pattern, the subway had spread out from a focus at Park Street. A shunt connected the Lochmere line with the Ashmont for trains southbound, and with the Forest Hills line for those northbound. Harvard and Brookline had been linked with a tunnel that passed through Kenmore Under, and during rush hours every other train was switched through the Kenmore Branch back to Egleston. The Kenmore Branch joined the Maverick Tunnel near Fields Corner. It climbed a hundred feet in two blocks to connect Copley Over with Scollay Square; then it dipped down again to join the Cambridge line at Boylston. The Boylston shuttle had finally tied together the seven principal lines on four different levels. It went into service, you remember, on March 3rd. After that, a train could travel from any one station to any other station in the whole system.

There were two hundred twenty-seven trains running the subways every weekday, and they carried about a million and a half passengers. The Cambridge-Dorchester train that disappeared on March 4th was Number 86. Nobody missed it at first. During the evening rush, the traffic was a little heavier than usual on that line. But a crowd is a crowd. The ad posters at the Forest Hills yards looked for 86 about 7:30, but neither of them mentioned its absence until three days later. The controller at the Milk Street Cross-Over called the Harvard checker for an extra train after the hockey game that night, and the Harvard checker relayed the call to the yards. The dispatcher there sent out 87, which had been put to bed at ten o’clock, as usual. He didn’t notice that 86 was missing.

It was near the peak of the rush the next morning that Jack O’Brien, at the Park Street Control, called Warren Sweeney at the Forest Hills yards and told him to put another train on the Cambridge run. Sweeney was short, so he went to the board and scanned it for a spare train and crew. Then, for the first time, he noticed that Gallagher had not checked out the night before. He put the tag up and left a note. Gallagher was due on at ten. At ten-thirty, Sweeney was down looking at the board again, and he noticed Gallagher’s tag still up, and the note where he had left it. He groused to the checker and asked if Gallagher had come in late. The checker said he hadn’t seen Gallagher at all that morning. Then Sweeney wanted to know who was running 86? A few minutes later he found that Dorkin’s card was still up, although it was Dorkin’s day off. It was 11:30 before he finally realized that he had lost a train.

Sweeney spent the next hour and a half on the phone, and he quizzed every dispatcher, controller, and checker on the whole system. When he finished his lunch at 1:30, he covered the whole net again. At 4:40, just before he left for the day, he reported the matter, with some indignation, to Central Traffic. The phones buzzed through the tunnels and shops until nearly midnight before the general manager was finally notified at his home.

It was the engineer on the main switchbank who, late in the morning of the 6th, first associated the missing train with the newspaper stories about the sudden rash of missing persons. He tipped off the Transcript, and by the end of the lunch hour three papers had Extras on the streets. That was the way the story got out.

Kelvin Whyte, the General Manager, spent a good part of that afternoon with the police. They checked Gallagher’s wife, and Dorkin’s. The motorman and the conductor had not been home since the morning of the 4th. By mid-afternoon, it was clear to the police that three hundred and fifty Bostonians, more or less, had been lost with the train. The System buzzed, and Whyte nearly expired with simple exasperation. But the train was not found.

Roger Tupelo, the Harvard mathematician, stepped into the picture the evening of the 6th. He reached Whyte by phone, late, at his home, and told him he had some ideas about the missing train. Then he taxied to Whyte’s home in Newton and had the first of many talks with Whyte about Number 86.

Whyte was an intelligent man, a good organizer, and not without imagination. “But I don’t know what you’re talking about!” he expostulated.

Tupelo was resolved to be patient. “This is a very hard thing for anybody to understand, Mr. Whyte,” he said. “I can see why you are puzzled. But it’s the only explanation. The train has vanished, and the people on it. But the System is closed. Trains are conserved. It’s somewhere on the System!”

Whyte’s voice grew louder again. “And I tell you, Dr. Tupelo, that train is not on the System! It is not! You can’t overlook a seven-car train carrying four hundred passengers. The System has been combed. Do you think I’m trying to hide the train?”

“Of course not. Now look, let’s be reasonable. We know the train was en route to Cambridge at 8:40 A.M. on the 4th. At least twenty of the missing people probably boarded the train a few minutes earlier at Washington, and forty more at Park Street Under. A few got off at both stations. And that’s the last. The ones who were going to Kendall, to Central, to Harvard—they never got there. The train did not get to Cambridge.”

“I know that, Dr. Tupelo,” Whyte said savagely. “In the tunnel under the River, the train turned into a boat. It left the tunnel and sailed for Africa.”

“No, Mr. Whyte. I’m trying to tell you. It hit a node.”

Whyte was livid. “What is a node!” he exploded. “The System keeps the tracks clear. Nothing on the tracks but trains, no nodes left lying around—”

“You still don’t understand, A node is not an obstruction. It’s a singularity. A pole of high order.”

Tupelo’s explanations that night did not greatly clarify the situation for Kelvin Whyte. But at two in the morning, the general manager conceded to Tupelo the privilege of examining the master maps of the System. He put in a call first to the police, who could not assist him with his first attempt to master topology, and then, finally, to Central Traffic. Tupelo taxied down there alone, and pored over the maps till morning. He had coffee and a snack, and then went to Whyte’s office.

He found the general manager on the telephone. There was a conversation having to do with another, more elaborate inspection of the Dorchester-Cambridge tunnel under the Charles River. When the conversation ended, Whyte slammed the telephone into its cradle and glared at Tupelo. The mathematician spoke first.

“I think probably it’s the new shuttle that did this,” he said.

Whyte gripped the edge of his desk and prowled silently through his vocabulary until he had located some civil words. “Dr. Tupelo,” he said, “I have been awake all night going over your theory. I don’t understand it all. I don’t know what the Boylston shuttle has to do with this.”

“Remember what I was saying last night about the connective properties of networks?” Tupelo asked quietly. “Remember the Mobius band we made—the surface with one face and one edge? Remember this—?” and he removed a little glass Klein bottle from his pocket and placed it on the desk.

Whyte sat back in his chair and stared wordlessly at the mathematician. Three emotions marched across his face in quick succession—anger, bewilderment, and utter dejection. Tupelo went on.

“Mr. Whyte, the System is a network of amazing topological complexity. It was already complex before the Boylston shuttle was installed, and of a high order of connectivity. But this shuttle makes the network absolutely unique. I don’t fully understand it, but the situation seems to be something like this: the shuttle has made the connectivity of the whole System of an order so high that I don’t know how to calculate it. I suspect the connectivity has become infinite.”

The general manager listened as though in a daze. He kept his eyes glued to the little Klein bottle.

“The Mobius band,” Tupelo said, “has unusual properties because it has a singularity. The Klein bottle, with two singularities, manages to be inside of itself. The topologists know surfaces with as many as a thousand singularities, and they have properties that make the Mobius band and the Klein bottle both look simple. But a network with infinite connectivity must have an infinite number of singularities. Can you imagine what the properties of that network could be?”

After a long pause, Tupelo added: “I can’t either. To tell the truth, the structure of the System, with the Boylston shuttle, is completely beyond me. I can only guess.”

Whyte swiveled his eyes up from the desk at a moment when anger was the dominant feeling within him.

“And you call yourself a mathematician, Professor Tupelo!” he said.

Tupelo almost laughed aloud. The incongruous, the absolute foolishness of the situation, all but overwhelmed him. He smiled thinly, and said: “I’m no topologist. Really, Mr. Whyte, I’m a tyro in the field—not much better acquainted with it than you are. Mathematics is a big pasture. I happen to be an algebraist.”

His candor softened Whyte a little. “Well, then,” he ventured, “if you don’t understand it, maybe we should call in a topologist. Are there any in Boston?”

“Yes and no,” Tupelo answered. “The best in the world is at Tech.”

Whyte reached for the telephone. “What’s his name?” he asked. “I’ll call him.”

“Merritt Turnbull. He can’t be reached. I’ve tried for three days.”

“Is he out of town?” Whyte asked. “We’ll send for him— emergency.”

“I don’t know. Professor Turnbull is a bachelor. He lives alone at the Brattle Club. He has not been seen since the morning of the 4th.”

Whyte was uncommonly perceptive. “Was he on the train?” he asked tensely.

“I don’t know,” the mathematician replied. “What do you think?”

There was a long silence. Whyte looked alternately at Tupelo and at the glass object on the desk. “I don’t understand it,” he said finally. “We’ve looked everywhere on the System. There was no way for the train to get out.”

‘The train didn’t get out. It’s still on the System,” Tupelo said.

“Where?”

Tupelo shrugged. “The train has no real ‘where.’ The whole System is without real ‘whereness.’ It’s double-valued, or worse.”

“How can we find it?”

“I don’t think we can,” Tupelo said.

There was another long silence. Whyte broke it with a loud exclamation. He rose suddenly, and sent the Klein bottle flying across the room. “You are crazy, professor!” he shouted. Between midnight tonight and 6:00 A.M. tomorrow, we’ll get every train out of the tunnels. I’ll send in three hundred men, to comb every inch of the tracks—every inch of the one hundred eighty-three miles. We’ll find the train! Now, please excuse me.” He glared at Tupelo.

Tupelo left the office. He felt tired, completely exhausted. Mechanically, he walked along Washington Street toward the Essex Station. Halfway down the stairs, he stopped abruptly, looked around him slowly. Then he ascended again to the street and hailed a taxi. At home, he helped himself to a double shot. He fell into bed.

At 3:30 that afternoon he met his class in “Algebra of Fields and Rings.” After a quick supper at the Crimson Spa, he went to his apartment and spent the evening in a second attempt to analyze the connective properties of the System. The attempt was vain, but the mathematician came to a few important conclusions. At eleven o’clock he telephoned Whyte at Central Traffic.

“I think you might want to consult me during tonight’s search,” he said. “May I come down?”

The general manager was none too gracious about Tupelo’s offer of help. He indicated that the System would solve this little problem without any help from harebrained professors who thought that whole subway trains could jump off into the fourth dimension. Tupelo submitted to Whyte’s unkindness, then went to bed. At about 4:00 A.M. the telephone awakened him. His caller was a contrite Kelvin Whyte.

“Perhaps I was a bit hasty last night, professor,” he stammered. “You may be able to help us after all. Could you come down to the Milk Street Cross-Over?”

Tupelo agreed readily. He felt none of the satisfaction he had anticipated. He called a taxi, and in less than half an hour was at the prescribed station. At the foot of the stairs, on the upper level, he saw that the tunnel was brightly lighted, as during normal operation of the System. But the platforms were deserted except for a tight little knot of seven men near the far end. As he walked towards the group, he noticed that two were policemen. He observed a one-car train on the track beside the platform. The forward door was open, the car brightly lit, and empty. Whyte heard his footsteps and greeted him sheepishly.

“Thanks for coming down, professor,” he said, extending his hand. “Gentlemen, Dr. Roger Tupelo, of Harvard. Dr. Tupelo, Mr. Kennedy, our chief engineer; Mr. Wilson, representing the Mayor; Dr. Gannot, of Mercy Hospital.” Whyte did not bother to introduce the motorman and the two policemen.

“How do you do,” said Tupelo. “Any results, Mr. Whyte?”

The general manager exchanged embarrassed glances with his companions. “Well… yes, Dr. Tupelo,” he finally answered. “I think we do have some results, of a kind.”

“Has the train been seen?”

“Yes,” said Whyte. “That is, practically seen. At least, we know it’s somewhere in the tunnels.” The six others nodded their agreement.

Tupelo was not surprised to learn that the train was still on the System. After all, the System was closed.

“Would you mind telling me just what happened?” Tupelo insisted.

“I hit a red signal,” the motorman volunteered. “Just outside the Copley junction.”

“The tracks have been completely cleared of all trains,” Whyte explained, “except for this one. We’ve been riding it, all over the System, for four hours now. When Edmunds, here, hit a red light at the Copley junction, he stopped, of course. I thought the light must be defective, and told him to go ahead. But then we heard another train pass the junction.”

“Did you see it?” Tupelo asked.

“We couldn’t see it. The light is placed just behind a curve. But we all heard it. There’s no doubt the train went through the junction. And it must be Number 86, because our car was the only other one on the tracks.”

“What happened then?”

“Well, then the light changed to yellow, and Edmunds went ahead.”

“Did he follow the other train?”

“No. We couldn’t be sure which way it was going. We must have guessed wrong.”

“How long ago did this happen?”

“At 1:38, the first time—”

“Oh,” said Tupelo, “then it happened again later?”

“Yes. But not at the same spot, of course. We hit another red signal near South Station at 2:15. And then at 3:28—”

Tupelo interrupted the general manager. “Did you see the train at 2:15?”

“We didn’t even hear it, that time. Edmunds tried to catch it, but it must have turned off onto the Boylston shuttle.”

“What happened at 3.28?”

“Another red light. Near Park Street. We heard it up ahead of us.”

“But you didn’t see it?”

“No. There is a little slope beyond the light. But we all heard it. The only thing I don’t understand, Dr. Tupelo, is how that train could run the tracks for nearly five days without anybody seeing—”

Whyte’s words trailed off into silence, and his right hand went up in a peremptory gesture for quiet. In the distance, the low metallic thunder of a fast-rolling train swelled up suddenly into a sharp, shrill roar of wheels below. The platform vibrated perceptibly as the train passed.

“Now we’ve got it!” Whyte exclaimed. “Right past the men on the platform below!” He broke into a run towards the stairs to the lower level. All the others followed him, except Tupelo. He thought he knew what was going to happen. It did. Before Whyte reached the stairs, a policeman bounded up to the top.

“Did you see it, now?” he shouted.

Whyte stopped in his tracks, and the others with him.

“Did you see that train?” the policeman from the lower level asked again, as two more men came running up the stairs.

“What happened?” Wilson wanted to know.

“Didn’t you see it?” snapped Kennedy.

“Sure not,” the policeman replied. “It passed through up here.”

“It did not,” roared Whyte. “Down there!”

The six men with Whyte glowered at the three from the lower level. Tupelo walked to Whyte’s elbow. “The train can’t be seen, Mr. Whyte,” he said quietly.

Whyte looked down at him in utter disbelief. “You heard it yourself. It passed right below—”

“Can we go to the car, Mr. Whyte?” Tupelo asked. “I think we ought to talk a little.”

Whyte nodded dumbly, then turned to the policemen and the others who had been watching at the lower level. “You really didn’t see it?” he begged them.

“We heard it,” the policemen answered. “It passed up here, going that way, I think,” and he gestured with his thumb.

“Get back downstairs, Maloney,” one of the policemen with Whyte commanded. Maloney scratched his head, turned, and disappeared below. The two other men followed him. Tupelo led the original group to the car beside the station platform. They went in and took seats, silently. Then they all watched the mathematician and waited.

“You didn’t call me down here tonight just to tell me you’d found the missing train,” Tupelo began, looking at Whyte. “Has this sort of thing happened before?”

Whyte squirmed in his seat and exchanged glances with the chief engineer. “Not exactly like this,” he said, evasively, “but there have been some funny things.”

“Like what?” Tupelo snapped.

“Well, like the red lights. The watchers near Kendall found a red light at the same time we hit the one near South Station.”

“Go on.”

“Mr. Sweeney called me from Forest Hills at Park Street Under. He heard the train there just two minutes after we heard it at the Copley junction. Twenty-eight track miles away.”

“As a matter of fact, Dr. Tupelo,” Wilson broke in, “several dozen men have seen lights go red, or have heard the train, or both, inside of the last four hours. The thing acts as though it can be in several places at once.”

“It can,” Tupelo said,

“We keep getting reports of watchers seeing the thing,” the engineer added. “Well, not exactly seeing it, either, but everything except that. Sometimes at two or even three places, far apart, at the same time. It’s sure to be on the tracks. Maybe the cars are uncoupled.”

“Are you really sure it’s on the tracks, Mr. Kennedy?” Tupelo asked.

“Positive,” the engineer said. “The dynamometers at the power house show that it’s drawing power. It’s been drawing power all night. So at 3:30 we broke the circuits. Cut the power.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing,” Whyte answered. “Nothing at all. The power was off for twenty minutes. During that time, not one of the two hundred fifty men in the tunnels saw a red light or heard a train. But the power wasn’t on for five minutes before we had two reports again—one from Arlington, the other from Egleston.”

There was a long silence after Whyte finished speaking. In the tunnel below, one man could be heard calling something to another. Tupelo looked at his watch. The time was 5:20.

“In short, Dr. Tupelo,” the general manager finally said, “we are compelled to admit that there may be something in your theory.” The others nodded agreement.

“Thank you, gentlemen,” Tupelo said.

The physician cleared his throat. “Now about the passengers,” he began. “Have you any idea what—?”

“None,” Tupelo interrupted.

“What should we do, Dr. Tupelo?” the mayor’s representative asked.

“I don’t know. What can you do?”

“As I understand it from Mr. Whyte,” Wilson continued, “the train has… well, it has jumped into another dimension. It isn’t really on the System at all. It’s just gone. Is that right?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“And this… er… peculiar behavior has resulted from certain mathematical properties associated with the new Boylston shuttle?”

“Correct.”

“And there is nothing we can do to bring the train back to… uh… this dimension?”

“I know of nothing.”

Wilson took the hit in his teeth. “In this case, gentlemen,” he said, “our course is clear. First, we must close off the new shuttle, so this fantastic thing can never happen again. Then, since the missing train is really gone, in spite of all these red lights and noises, we can resume normal operation of the System. At least there will be no danger of collision—which has worried you so much, Whyte. As for the missing train and the people on it—” He gestured them into infinity. “Do you agree, Dr. Tupelo?” he asked the mathematician.

Tupelo shook his head slowly. “Not entirely, Mr. Wilson,” he responded. “Now, please keep in mind that I don’t fully comprehend what has happened. It’s unfortunate that you won’t find anybody who can give a good explanation. The one man who might have done so is Professor Turnbull, of Tech, and he was on the train. But in any case, you will want to check my conclusions against those of some competent topologists. I can put you in touch with several.

“Now, with regard to the recovery of the missing train, I can say that I think this is not hopeless. There is a finite probability, as I see it, that the train will eventually pass from the nonspatial part of the network, which it now occupies, back to the spatial part. Since the nonspatial part is wholly inaccessible, there is unfortunately nothing we can do to bring about this transition, or even to predict when or how it will occur. But the possibility of the transition will vanish if the Boylston shuttle is taken out. It is just this section of track that gives the network its essential singularities. If the singularities are removed, the train can never reappear. Is this clear?”

It was not clear, of course, but the seven listening men nodded agreement. Tupelo continued.

“As for the continued operation of the System while the missing train is in the nonspatial part of the network, I can only give you the facts as I see them and leave to your judgment the difficult decision to be drawn from them. The transition back to the spatial part is unpredictable, as I have already told you. There is no way to know when it will occur, or where. In particular, there is a fifty percent probability that, if and when the train reappears, it will be running on the wrong track. Then there will be a collision, of course.”

The engineer asked: “To rule out this possibility, Dr. Tupelo, couldn’t we leave the Boylston shuttle open, but send no trains through it? Then, when the missing train reappears on the shuttle, it cannot meet another train.”

“That precaution would be ineffective, Mr. Kennedy,” Tupelo answered. “You see, the train can reappear anywhere on the System. It is true that the System owes its topological complexity to the new shuttle. But, with the shuttle in the System, it is now the whole System that possesses infinite connectivity. In other words, the relevant topological property is a property derived from the shuttle, but belonging to the whole System. Remember that the train made its first transition at a point between Park and Kendall, more than three miles away from the shuttle.

“There is one question more you will want answered. If you decide to go on operating the System, with the Boylston shuttle left in until the train reappears, can this happen again, to another train? I am not certain of the answer, but I think it is: No. I believe an exclusion principle operates here, such that only one train at a time can occupy the nonspatial network.”

The physician rose from his seat. “Dr. Tupelo,” he began, timorously, “when the train does reappear, will the passengers—?”

“I don’t know about the people on the train,” Tupelo cut in. “The topological theory does not consider such matters.” He looked quickly at each of the seven tired, querulous faces before him. “I am sorry, gentlemen,” he added, somewhat more gently. “I simply do not know.” To Whyte, he added: “I think I can be of no more help tonight. You know where to reach me.” And, turning on his heel, he left the car and climbed the stairs. He found dawn spilling over the street, dissolving the shadows of night.

That impromptu conference in a lonely subway car was never reported in the papers. Nor were the full results of the night-long vigil over the dark and twisted tunnels. During the week that followed, Tupelo participated in four more formal conferences with Kelvin Whyte and certain city officials. At two of these, other topologists were present. Ornstein was imported to Boston from Philadelphia, Kashta from Chicago, and Michaelis from Los Angeles. The mathematicians were unable to reach a consensus. None of the three would fully endorse Tupelo’s conclusions, although Kashta indicated that there might be something to them. Ornstein averred that a finite network could not possess infinite connectivity, although he could not prove this proposition and could not actually calculate the connectivity of the System. Michaelis expressed his opinion that the affair was a hoax and had nothing whatever to do with the topology of the System. He insisted that if the train could not be found on the System then the System must be open, or at least must once have been open.

But the more deeply Tupelo analyzed the problem, the more fully he was convinced of the essential correctness of his first analysis. From the point of view of topology, the System soon suggested whole families of multiple-valued networks, each with an infinite number of infinite discontinuities. But a definitive discussion of these new spatio-hyperspatial networks somehow eluded him. He gave the subject his full attention for only a week. Then his other duties compelled him to lay the analysis aside. He resolved to go back to the problem later in the spring, after courses were over.

Meanwhile, the System was operated as though nothing untoward had happened. The general manager and the mayor’s representative had somehow managed to forget the night of the search, or at least to reinterpret what they had seen and not seen. The newspapers and the public at large speculated wildly, and they kept continuing pressure on Whyte. A number of suits were filed against the System on behalf of persons who had lost a relative. The State stepped into the affair and prepared its own thorough investigation. Recriminations were sounded in the halls of Congress. A garbled version of Tupelo’s theory eventually found its way into the press. He ignored it, and it was soon forgotten.

The weeks passed, and then a month. The State’s investigation was completed. The newspaper stories moved from the first page to the second; to the twenty-third; and then stopped. The missing persons did not return. In the large, they were no longer missed.

One day in mid-April, Tupelo traveled by subway again, from Charles Street to Harvard. He sat stiffly in the front of the first car, and watched the tracks and gray tunnel walls hurl themselves at the train. Twice the train stopped for a red light, and Tupelo found himself wondering whether the other train was really just ahead, or just beyond space. He half-hoped, out of curiosity, that his exclusion principle was wrong, that the train might make the transition. But he arrived at Harvard on time. Only he among the passengers had found the trip exciting.

The next week he made another trip by subway, and again the next. As experiments, they were unsuccessful, and much less tense than the first ride in mid-April. Tupelo began to doubt his own analysis. Sometime in May, he reverted to the practice of commuting by subway between his Beacon Hill apartment and his office at Harvard. His mind stopped racing down the knotted gray caverns ahead of the train. He read the morning newspaper, or the abstracts in Reviews of Modern Mathematics,

Then there was one morning when he looked up from the newspaper and sensed something. He pushed panic back on its stiff, quivering spring, and looked quickly out the window at his right. The lights of the car showed the black and gray lines of wall-spots streaking by. The tracks ground out their familiar steely dissonance. The train rounded a curve and crossed a junction that he remembered. Swiftly, he recalled boarding the train at Charles, noting the girl on the ice-carnival poster at Kendall, meeting the southbound train going into Central.

He looked at the man sitting beside him, with a lunch pail on his lap. The other seats were filled, and there were a dozen or so straphangers. A mealy-faced youth near the front door smoked a cigarette, in violation of the rules. Two girls behind him across the aisle were discussing a club meeting. In the seat ahead, a young woman was scolding her little son. The man on the aisle, in the seat ahead of that, was reading the paper. The Transit-Ad above him extolled Florida oranges.

He looked again at the man two seats ahead and fought down the terror within. He studied that man. What was it? Brunette, graying hair; a roundish head; wan complexion; rather flat features; a thick neck, with the hairline a little low, a little ragged; a gray, pin-stripe suit. While Tupelo watched, the man waved a fly away from his left ear. He swayed a little with the train. His newspaper was folded vertically down the middle. His newspaper! It was last March’s!

Tupelo’s eyes swiveled to the man beside him. Below his lunch pail was a paper. Today’s. He turned in his seat and looked behind him. A young man held the Transcript open to the sports pages. The date was March 4th. Tupelo’s eyes raced up and down the aisle. There were a dozen passengers carrying papers ten weeks old.

Tupelo lunged out of his seat. The man on the aisle muttered a curse as the mathematician crowded in front of him. He crossed the aisle in a bound and pulled the cord above the windows. The brakes sawed and screeched at the tracks, and the train ground to a stop. The startled passengers eyed Tupelo with hostility.

At the rear of the car, the door flew open and a tall, thin man in a blue uniform burst in. Tupelo spoke first.

“Mr. Dorkin?” he called, vehemently.

The conductor stopped short and groped for words.

“There’s been a serious accident, Dorkin,” Tupelo said, loudly, to carry over the rising swell of protest from the passengers. “Get Gallagher back here right away!”

Dorkin reached up and pulled the cord four times. “What happened?” he asked.

Tupelo ignored the question, and asked one of his own. “Where have you been, Dorkin?”

The conductor’s face was blank. “In the next car, but—”

Tupelo cut him off. He glanced at his watch, then shouted at the passengers. “It’s ten minutes to nine on May 17th!”

The announcement stilled the rising clamor for a moment. The passengers exchanged bewildered glances.

“Look at your newspapers!” Tupelo shouted. “Your newspapers!”

The passengers began to buzz. As they discovered each other’s papers, the voices rose. Tupelo took Dorkin’s arm and led him to the rear of the car, “What time is it?” he asked.

“8:21,” Dorkin said, looking at his watch.

“Open the door,” said Tupelo, motioning ahead. “Let me out. Where’s the phone?”

Dorkin followed Tupelo’s directions. He pointed to a niche in the tunnel wall a hundred yards ahead. Tupelo vaulted to the ground and raced down the narrow lane between the cars and the wall. “Central Traffic!” he barked at the operator. He waited a few seconds, and saw that a train had stopped at the red signal behind his train. Flashlights were advancing down the tunnel. He saw Gallagher’s legs running down the tunnel on the other side of 86. “Get me Whyte!” he commanded, when Central Traffic answered. “Emergency!”

There was a delay. He heard voices rising from the train beside him. The sound was mixed—anger, fear, hysteria.

“Hello!” he shouted. “Hello! Emergency! Get me Whyte!”

“I’ll take it,” a man’s voice said at the other end of the line. “Whyte’s busy!”

“Number 86 is back,” Tupelo called. “Between Central and Harvard now. Don’t know when it made the jump. I caught it at Charles ten minutes ago, and didn’t notice it till a minute ago.”

The man at the other end gulped bard enough to carry over the telephone. “The passengers?” he croaked.

“All right, the ones that are left,” Tupelo said. “Some must have got off already at Kendall and Central.”

“Where have they been?”

Tupelo dropped the receiver from his ear and stared at it, his mouth wide open. Then he slammed the receiver onto the hook and ran back to the open door.

Eventually, order was restored, and within a half hour the train proceeded to Harvard. At the station, the police took all passengers into protective custody. Whyte himself arrived at Harvard before the train did. Tupelo found him on the platform.

Whyte motioned weakly towards the passengers. “They’re really all right?” he asked.

“Perfectly,” said Tupelo. “Don’t know they’ve been gone.”

“Any sign of Professor Turnbull?” asked the general manager.

“I didn’t see him. He probably got off at Kendall, as usual.”

‘Too bad,” said Whyte. “I’d like to see him!”

“So would I!” Tupelo answered. “By the way, now is the time to close the Boylston shuttle.”

“Now is too late,” Whyte said. “Train 143 vanished twenty-five minutes ago between Egleston and Dorchester.”

Tupelo stared past Whyte, and down and down the tracks.

“We’ve got to find Turnbull,” Whyte said.

Tupelo looked at Whyte and smiled thinly.

“Do you really think Turnbull got off this train at Kendall?”

“Of course!” answered Whyte. “Where else?”

COMING ATTRACTION

Fritz Lieber

The coupe with the fishhooks welded to the fender shouldered up over the curb like the nose of a nightmare. The girl in its path stood frozen, her face probably stiff with fright under her mask. For once my reflexes weren’t shy. I took a fast step toward her, grabbed her elbow, yanked her back. Her black skirt swirled out.

The big coupe shot by, its turbine humming. I glimpsed three faces. Something ripped. I felt the hot exhaust on my ankles as the big coupe swerved back into the street. A thick cloud like a black flower blossomed from its jouncing rear end, while from the fishhooks flew a black shimmering rag.

“Did they get you?” I asked the girl.

She had twisted around to look where the side of her skirt was torn away. She was wearing nylon tights.

“The hooks didn’t touch me,” she said shakily. “I guess I’m lucky.”

I heard voices around us:

“Those kids! What’ll they think up next?”

“They’re a menace. They ought to be arrested.”

Sirens screamed at a rising pitch as two motor-police, their rocket-assist jets full on, came whizzing toward us after the coupe. But the black flower had become an inky fog obscuring the whole street. The motor-police switched from rocket assists to rocket brakes and swerved to a stop near the smoke cloud.

“Are you English?” the girl asked me. “You have an English accent.”

Her voice came shudderingly from behind the sleek black satin mask. I fancied her teeth must be chattering. Eyes that were perhaps blue searched my face from behind the black gauze covering the eyeholes of the mask. I told her she’d guessed right. She stood close to me. “Will you come to my place tonight?” she asked rapidly. “I can’t thank you now. And there’s something else you can help me about.”

My arm, still lightly circling her waist, felt her body trembling. I was answering the plea in that as much as in her voice when I said, “Certainly.” She gave me an address south of Inferno, an apartment number and a time. She asked me my name and I told her.

“Hey, you!”

I turned obediently to the policeman’s shout. He shooed away the small clucking crowd of masked women and barefaced men. Coughing from the smoke that the black coupe had thrown out, he asked for my papers. I handed him the essential ones.

He looked at them and then at me. “British Barter? How long will you be in New York?”

Suppressing the urge to say, “For as short a time as possible,” I told him I’d be here for a week or so.

“May need you as a witness,” he explained. “Those kids can’t use smoke on us. When they do that, we pull them in.”

He seemed to think the smoke was the bad thing. “They tried to kill the lady,” I pointed out.

He shook his head wisely. “They always pretend they’re going to, but actually they just want to snag skirts. I’ve picked up rippers with as many as fifty skirt-snags tacked up hi their rooms. Of course, sometimes they come a little too close.”

I explained that if I hadn’t yanked her out of the way, she’d have been bit by more than hooks. But he interrupted, “If she’d thought it was a real murder attempt, she’d have stayed here.”

I looked around. It was true. She was gone.

“She was fearfully frightened,” I told him.

“Who wouldn’t be? Those kids would have scared old Stalin himself.”

“I mean frightened of more than ‘kids.’ They didn’t look like ‘kids.’”

“What did they look like?”

I tried without much success to describe the three faces. A vague impression of viciousness and effeminacy doesn’t mean much.

“Well, I could be wrong,” he said finally. “Do you know the girl? Where she lives?”

“No,” I half lied.

The other policeman hung up his radiophone and ambled toward us, kicking at the tendrils of dissipating smoke. The black cloud no longer hid the dingy fagades with their five-year-old radiation flash-burns, and I could begin to make out the distant stump of the Empire State Building, thrusting up out of Inferno like a mangled finger.

“They haven’t been picked up so far,” the approaching policeman grumbled. “Left smoke for five blocks, from what Ryan says.”

The first policeman shook his head. “That’s bad,” he observed solemnly.

I was feeling a bit uneasy and ashamed. An Englishman shouldn’t lie, at least not on impulse.

“They sound like nasty customers,” the first policeman continued in the same grim tone. “We’ll need witnesses. Looks as if you may have to stay in New York longer than you expect.”

I got the point. I said, “I forgot to show you all my papers,” and handed him a few others, making sure there was a five dollar bill in among them.

When he handed them back a bit later, his voice was no longer ominous. My feelings of guilt vanished. To cement our relationship, I chatted with the two of them about their job.

“I suppose the masks give you some trouble,” I observed. “Over in England we’ve been reading about your new crop of masked female bandits.”

“Those things get exaggerated,” the first policeman assured me. “It’s the men masking as women that really mix us up. But, brother, when we nab them, we jump on them with both feet.”

“And you get so you can spot women almost as well as if they had naked faces,” the second policeman volunteered. “You know, hands and all that.”

“Especially all that,” the first agreed with a chuckle. “Say, is it true that some girls don’t mask over in England?”

“A number of them have picked up the fashion,” I told him. “Only a few, though—the ones who always adopt the latest style, however extreme.”

“They’re usually masked in the British newscasts.”

“I imagine it’s arranged that way out of deference to American taste,” I confessed. “Actually, not very many do mask.”

The second policeman considered that. “Girls going down the street bare from the neck up.” It was not clear whether he viewed the prospect with relish or moral distaste. Likely both.

“A few members keep trying to persuade Parliament to enact a law forbidding all masking,” I continued, talking perhaps a bit too much.

The second policeman shook his head. “What an idea. You know, masks are a pretty good thing, brother. Couple of years more and I’m going to make my wife wear hers around the house.”

The first policeman shrugged. “If women were to stop wearing masks, in six weeks you wouldn’t know the difference. You get used to anything, if enough people do or don’t do it.”

I agreed, rather regretfully, and left them. I turned north on Broadway (old Tenth Avenue, I believe) and walked rapidly until I was beyond Inferno. Passing such an area of undecontaminated radioactivity always makes a person queasy. I thanked God there weren’t any such in England, as yet.

The street was almost empty, though I was accosted by a couple of beggars with faces tunnelled by H-bomb scars, whether real or of makeup putty, I couldn’t tell. A fat woman held out a baby with webbed fingers and toes. I told myself it would have been deformed anyway and that she was only capitalizing on our fear of bomb-induced mutations. Still, I gave her a seven-and-a-half-cent piece. Her mask made me feel I was paying tribute to an African fetish.

“May all your children be blessed with one head and two eyes, sir.”

“Thanks,” I said, shuddering, and hurried past her.

“… There’s only trash behind the mask, so turn your head, stick to your task: Stay away, stay away—from—the—girls!”

This last was the end of an anti-sex song being sung by some religionists half a block from the circle-and-cross insignia of a fe-malist temple. They reminded me only faintly of our small tribe of British monastics. Above their heads was a jumble of billboards advertising predigested foods, wrestling instruction, radio handies and the like.

I stared at the hysterical slogans with disagreeable fascination. Since the female face and form have been banned on American signs, the very letters of the advertiser’s alphabet have begun to crawl with sex—the fat-bellied, big-breasted capital B, the lascivious double O. However, I reminded myself, it is chiefly the mask that so strangely accents sex in America.

A British anthropologist has pointed out, that, while it took more than 5,000 years to shift the chief point of sexual interest from the hips to the breasts, the next transition to the face has taken less than 50 years. Comparing the American style with Moslem tradition is not valid; Moslem women are compelled to wear veils, the purpose of which is to make a husband’s property private, while American women have only the compulsion of fashion and use masks to create mystery.

Theory aside, the actual origins of the trend are to be found in the anti-radiation clothing of World War III, which led to masked wrestling, now a fantastically popular sport, and that hi turn led to the current female fashion. Only a wild style at first, masks quickly became as necessary as brassieres and lipsticks had been earlier in the century.

I finally realized that I was not speculating about masks in general, but about what lay behind one in particular. That’s the devil of the things; you’re never sure whether a girl is heightening loveliness or hiding ugliness. I pictured a cool, pretty face in which fear showed only in widened eyes. Then I remembered her blonde hair, rich against the blackness of the satin mask. She’d told me to come at the twenty-second hour—10 P.M.

I climbed to my apartment near the British Consulate; the elevator shaft had been shoved out of plumb by an old blast, a nuisance in these tall New York buildings. Before it occurred to me that I would be going out again, I automatically tore a tab from the film strip under my shirt. I developed it just to be sure. It showed that the total radiation I’d taken that day was still within the safety limit. I’m not phobic about it, as so many people are these days, but there’s no point in taking chances.

I flopped down on the day bed and stared at the silent speaker and the dark screen of the video set. As always, they made me think, somewhat bitterly, of the two great nations of the world. Mutilated by each other, yet still strong, they were crippled giants poisoning the planet with their respective dreams of an impossible equality and an impossible success.

I fretfully switched on the speaker. By luck the newscaster was talking excitedly of the prospects of a bumper wheat crop, sown by planes across a dust bowl moistened by seeded rains. I listened carefully to the rest of the program (it was remarkably clear of Russian telejamming) but there was no further news of interest to me. And, of course, no mention of the Moon, though everyone knows that America and Russia are racing to develop their primary bases into fortresses capable of mutual assault and the launching of alphabet-bombs toward Earth. I myself knew perfectly well that the British electronic equipment I was helping trade for American wheat was destined for use in spaceships.

I switched off the newscast. It was growing dark and once again I pictured a tender, frightened face behind a mask. I hadn’t had a date since England. It’s exceedingly difficult to become acquainted with a girl in America, where as little as a smile, often, can set one of them yelping for the police—to say nothing of the increasingly puritanical morality and the roving gangs that keep most women indoors after dark. And naturally, the masks which are definitely not, as the Soviets claim, a last invention of capitalist degeneracy, but a sign of great psychological insecurity. The Russians have no masks, but they have their own signs of stress.

I went to the window and impatiently watched the darkness gather. I was getting very restless. After a while a ghostly violet cloud appeared to the south. My hair rose. Then I laughed. I had momentarily fancied it a radiation from the crater of the Hell-bomb, though I should instantly have known it was only the radio-induced glow in the sky over the amusement and residential area south of Inferno.

Promptly at twenty-two hours I stood before the door of my unknown girl-friend’s apartment. The electronic say-who-please said just that. I answered clearly, “Wysten Turner,” wondering if she’d given my name to the mechanism. She evidently had, for the door opened. I walked into a small empty living-room, my heart pounding a bit.

The room was expensively furnished with the latest pneumatic hassocks and sprawlers. There were some midgie books on the table. The one I picked up was the standard hard-boiled detective story hi which two female murderers go gunning for each other.

The television was on. A masked girl in green was crooning a love song. Her right hand held something that blurred off into the foreground. I saw the set had a handle, which we haven’t hi England as yet, and curiously thrust my hand into the handie orifice beside the screen. Contrary to my expectations, it was not like slipping into a pulsing rubber glove, but rather as if the girl on the screen actually held my hand.

A door opened behind me. I jerked out my hand with as guilty a reaction as if I’d been caught peering through a keyhole.

She stood hi the bedroom doorway. I think she was trembling. She was wearing a grey fur coat, white speckled, and a grey velvet evening mask with shirred grey lace around the eyes and mouth. Her fingernails twinkled like silver.

It hadn’t occurred to me that she’d expect us to go out.

“I should have told you,” she said softly. Her mask veered nervously toward the books and the screen and the room’s dark corners. “But I can’t possibly talk to you here.”

I said doubtfully, “There’s a place near the Consulate…”

“I know where we can be together and talk,” she said rapidly. “If you don’t mind.”

As we entered the elevator I said, “I’m afraid I dismissed the cab.”

But the cab driver hadn’t gone for some reason of his own. He jumped out and smirkingly held the front door open for us. I told him we preferred to sit in back. He sulkily opened the rear door, slammed it after us, jumped in front and slammed the door behind him.

My companion leaned forward. “Heaven,” she said.

The driver switched on the turbine and televisor.

“Why did you ask if I were a British subject?” I said, to start the conversation.

She leaned away from me, tilting her mask close to the window. “See the Moon,” she said in a quick, dreamy voice.

“But why, really?” I pressed, conscious of an irritation that had nothing to do with her.

“It’s edging up into the purple of the sky.”

“And what’s your name?”

“The purple makes it look yellower.”

Just then I became aware of the source of my irritation. It lay in the square of writhing light in the front of the cab beside the driver.

I don’t object to ordinary wrestling matches, though they bore me, but I simply detest watching a man wrestle a woman. The fact that the bouts are generally “on the level,” with the man greatly outclassed in weight and reach and the masked females young and personable, only makes them seem worse to me.

“Please turn off the screen,” I requested the driver.

He shook his head without looking around. “Uh-uh, man,” he said. “They’ve been grooming that babe for weeks for this bout with Little Zirk.”

Infuriated, I reached forward, but my companion caught my arm. “Please,” she whispered frightenedly, shaking her head.

I settled back, frustrated. She was closer to me now, but silent and for a few moments I watched the heaves and contortions of the powerful masked girl and her wiry masked opponent on the screen. His frantic scrambling at her reminded me of a male spider.

I jerked around, facing my companion. “Why did those three men want to kill you?” I asked sharply.

The eyeholes of her mask faced the screen. “Because they’re jealous of me,” she whispered.

“Why are they jealous?”

She still didn’t look at me. “Because of him.”

“Who?”

She didn’t answer.

I put my arm around her shoulders. “Are you afraid to tell me?” I asked. “What is the matter?”

She still didn’t look my way. She smelled nice.

“See here,” I said laughingly, changing my tactics, “you really should tell me something about yourself, I don’t even know what you look like.”

I half playfully lifted my hand to the band of her neck. She gave it an astonishingly swift slap. I pulled it away in sudden pain. There were four tiny indentations on the back. From one of them a tiny bead of blood welled out as I watched. I looked at her fingernails and saw they were actually delicate and pointed metal caps.

“I’m dreadfully sorry,” I heard her say, “but you frightened me. I thought for a moment you were going to…”

At last she turned to me. Her coat had fallen open. Her evening dress was Cretan Revival, a bodice of lace beneath and supporting the breasts without covering them.

“Don’t be angry,” she said, putting her arms around my neck. “You were wonderful this afternoon.”

The soft grey velvet of her mask, moulding itself to her cheek, pressed mine. Through the mask’s lace the wet warm tip of her tongue touched my chin.

“I’m not angry,” I said. “Just puzzled and anxious to help.”

The cab stopped. To either side were black windows bordered by spears of broken glass. The sickly purple light showed a few ragged figures slowly moving toward us.

The driver muttered, “It’s the turbine, man. We’re grounded.” He sat there hunched and motionless. “Wish it had happened somewhere else.”

My companion whispered, “Five dollars is the usual amount.”

She looked out so shudderingly at the congregating figures that I suppressed my indignation and did as she suggested. The driver took the bill without a word. As he started up, he put his hand out the window and I heard a few coins clink on the pavement.

My companion came back into my arms, but her mask faced the television screen, where the tall girl had just pinned the convulsively kicking Little Zirk.

“I’m so frightened,” she breathed.

Heaven turned out to be an equally ruinous neighborhood, but it had a club with an awning and a huge doorman uniformed like a spaceman, but in gaudy colors. In my sensuous daze I rather liked it all. We stepped out of the cab just as a drunken old woman came down the sidewalk, her mask awry. A couple ahead of us turned their heads from the half revealed face, as if from an ugly body at the beach. As we followed them in I heard the doorman say, “Get along, grandma, and cover yourself.”

Inside, everything was dimness and blue glows. She had said we could talk here, but I didn’t see how. Besides the inevitable chorus of sneezes and coughs (they say America is fifty per cent allergic these days), there was a band going full blast in the latest robop style, in which an electronic composing machine selects an arbitrary sequence of tones into which the musicians weave their raucous little individualities.

Most of the people were in booths. The band was behind the bar. On a small platform beside them, a girl was dancing, stripped to her mask. The little cluster of men at the shadowy far end of the bar weren’t looking at her.

We inspected the menu in gold script on the wall and pushed the buttons for breast of chicken, fried shrimps and two scotches. Moments later, the serving bell tinkled. I opened the gleaming panel and took out our drinks.

The cluster of men at the bar filed off toward the door, but first they stared around the room. My companion had just thrown back her coat. Their look lingered on our booth. I noticed that there were three of them.

The band chased off the dancing girl with growls. I handed my companion a straw and we sipped our drinks.

“You wanted me to help you about something,” I said. “Incidentally, I think you’re lovely.”

She nodded quick thanks, looked around, leaned forward. “Would it be hard for me to get to England?”

“No,” I replied, a bit taken aback. “Provided you have an American passport.”

“Are they difficult to get?”

“Rather,” I said, surprised at her lack of information. “Your country doesn’t like its nationals to travel, though it isn’t quite as stringent as Russia.”

“Could the British Consulate help me get a passport?”

“It’s hardly their…”

“Could you?”

I realized we were being inspected. A man and two girls had paused opposite our table. The girls were tall and wolfish-looking, with spangled masks. The man stood jauntily between them like a fox on its hind legs.

My companion didn’t glance at them, but she sat back. I noticed that one of the girls had a big yellow bruise on her forearm. After a moment they walked to a booth in the deep shadows.

“Know them?” I asked. She didn’t reply. I finished my drink. “Fin not sure you’d like England,” I said. “The austerity’s altogether different from your American brand of misery.”

She leaned forward again. “But I must get away,” she whispered.

“Why?” I was getting impatient.

“Because I’m so frightened.”

There were chimes. I opened the panel and handed her the fried shrimps. The sauce on my breast of chicken was a delicious steaming compound of almonds, soy and ginger. But something must have been wrong with the radionic oven that had thawed and heated it, for at the first bite I crunched a kernel of ice in the meat. These delicate mechanisms need constant repair and there aren’t enough mechanics.

I put down my fork. “What are you really scared of?” I asked her.

For once her mask didn’t waver away from my face. As I waited I could feel the fears gathering without her naming them, tiny dark shapes swarming through the curved night outside, converging on the radioactive pest spot of New York, dipping into the margins of the purple. I felt a sudden rush of sympathy, a desire to protect the girl opposite me. The warm feeling added itself to the infatuation engendered in the cab.

“Everything,” she said finally.

I nodded and touched her hand.

“I’m afraid of the Moon,” she began, her voice going dreamy and brittle as it had in the cab. “You can’t look at it and not think of guided bombs.”

“It’s the same Moon over England,” I reminded her.

“But it’s not England’s Moon any more. It’s ours and Russia’s. You’re not responsible.

“Oh, and then,” she said with a tilt of her mask, “I’m afraid of the cars and the gangs and the loneliness and Inferno. I’m afraid of the lust that undresses your face. And—” her voice hushed— “I’m afraid of the wrestlers.”

“Yes?” I prompted softly after a moment.

Her mask came forward. “Do you know something about the wrestlers?” she asked rapidly. “The ones that wrestle women, I mean. They often lose, you know. And then they have to have a girl to take their frustration out on. A girl who’s soft and weak and terribly frightened. They need that, to keep them men. Other men don’t want them to have a girl. Other men want them just to fight women and be heroes. But they must have a girl. It’s horrible for her.”

I squeezed her fingers tighter, as if courage could be transmitted— granting I had any. “I think I can get you to England,” I said.

Shadows crawled onto the table and stayed there. I looked up at the three men who had been at the end of the bar. They were the men I had seen in the big coupe. They wore black sweaters and close-fitting black trousers. Their faces were as expressionless as dopers. Two of them stood about me. The other loomed over the girl.

“Drift off, man,” I was told. I heard the other inform the girl: “We’ll wrestle a fall, sister. What shall it be? Judo, slapsie or kill-who-can?”

I stood up. There are times when an Englishman simply must be maltreated. But just then the foxlike man came gliding in like the star of a ballet. The reaction of the other three startled me. They were acutely embarrassed.

He smiled at them thinly. “You won’t win my favour by tricks like this,” he said.

“Don’t get the wrong idea, Zirk,” one of them pleaded.

“I will if it’s right,” he said. “She told me what you tried to do this afternoon. That won’t endear you to me, either. Drift.”

They backed off awkwardly. “Let’s get out of here,” one of them said loudly, as they turned. “I know a place where they fight naked with knives.”

Little Zirk laughed musically and slipped into the seat beside my companion. She shrank from him, just a little. I pushed my feet back, leaned forward.

“Who’s your friend, baby?” he asked, not looking at her.

She passed the question to me with a little gesture. I told him.

“British,” he observed. “She’s been asking you about getting out of the country? About passports?” He smiled pleasantly. “She likes to start running away. Don’t you, baby?” His small hand began to stroke her wrist, the fingers bent a little, the tendons ridged, as if he were about to grab and twist.

“Look here,” I said sharply. “I have to be grateful to you for ordering off those bullies, but—”

“Think nothing of it,” he told me. “They’re no harm except when they’re behind steering wheels. A well-trained fourteen-year-old girl could cripple any one of them. Why even Theda here, if she went in for that sort of thing…” He turned to her, shifting his hand from her wrist to her hair. He stroked it, letting the strands slip slowly through his fingers. “You know I lost tonight, baby, don’t you?” he said softly.

I stood up. “Come along,” I said to her. “Let’s leave.”

She just sat there, I couldn’t even tell if she was trembling. I tried to read a message in her eyes through the mask.

“I’ll take you away,” I said to her. “I can do it. I really will.”

He smiled at me. “She’d like to go with you,” he said. “Wouldn’t you, baby?”

“Will you or won’t you?” I said to her. She still just sat there.

He slowly knotted his fingers in her hair.

“Listen, you little vermin,” I snapped at him. “Take your hands off her.”

He came up from the seat like a snake. I’m no fighter. I just know that the more scared I am, the harder and straighter I hit. This time I was lucky. But as he crumpled back, I felt a slap and four stabs of pain hi my cheek. I clapped my hand to it. I could feel the four gashes made by her dagger ringer caps, and the warm blood oozing out from them.

She didn’t look at me. She was bending over Little Zirk and cuddling her mask to his cheek and crooning: “There, there, don’t feel bad, you’ll be able to hurt me afterward.”

There were sounds around us, but they didn’t come close. I leaned forward and ripped the mask from her face.

I really don’t know why I should have expected her face to be anything else. It was very pale, of course, and there weren’t any cosmetics. I suppose there’s no point in wearing any under a mask.

The eyebrows were untidy and the lips chapped. But as for the general expression, as for the feelings crawling and wriggling across it-Have you ever lifted a rock from damp soil? Have you ever watched the slimy white grubs?

I looked down at her, she up at me. “Yes, you’re so frightened, aren’t you?” I said sarcastically. “You dread this little nightly drama, don’t you? You’re scared to death.”

And I walked right out into the purple night, still holding my hand to my bleeding cheek. No one stopped me, not even the girl wrestlers. I wished I could tear a tab from under my shirt, and test it then and there, and find I’d taken too much radiation, and so be able to ask to cross the Hudson and go down New Jersey, past the lingering radiance of the Narrows Bomb, and so on to Sandy Hook to wait for the rusty ship that would take me back over the seas to England.

BORN OF MAN AND WOMAN

Richard Matheson

X—This day when it had light mother called me a retch. You retch she said. I saw in her eyes the anger. I wonder what it is a retch.

This day it had water falling from upstairs. It fell all around. I saw that. The ground of the back I watched from the little window. The ground it sucked up the water like thirsty lips. It drank too much and it got sick and runny brown. I didn’t like it.

Mother is a pretty I know. In my bed place with cold walls around I have a paper things that was behind the furnace. It says on it SCREEN-STARS. I see in the pictures faces like of mother and father. Father says they are pretty. Once he said it.

And also mother he said. Mother so pretty and me decent enough. Look at you he said and didn’t have the nice face. I touched his arm and said it is airtight father. He shook and pulled away where I couldn’t reach.

Today mother let me off the chain a little so I could look out the little window. That’s howl saw the water falling from upstairs.

XX—This day it had goidness in the upstairs. As I know, when I looked at it my eyes hurt. After I look at it the cellar is red.

I think this was church. They leave the upstairs. The big machine swallows them and rolls out past and is gone. In the back part is the little mother. She is much small than me. I am big. It is a secret but I have pulled the chain out of the wall. I can see out the little window all I like.

In this day when it got dark I had eat my food and some bugs. I hear laughs upstairs. I like to know why there are laughs for. I took the chain from the wall and wrapped it around me. I walked squish to the stairs. They creak when I walk on them. My legs slip on them because I don’t walk on stairs. My feet stick to the wood.

I went up and opened a door. It was a white place. White as white jewels that come from upstairs sometime. I went in and stood quiet. I hear the laughing some more. I walk to the sound and look through to the people. More people than I thought was. I thought I should laugh with them.

Mother came out and pushed the door in. It Mt me and hurt. I fell back on the smooth floor and the chain made noise. I cried. She made a hissing noise into her and put her hand on her mouth. Her eyes got big.

She looked at me. I heard father call. What fell he called. She said a iron board. Come help pick it up she said. He came and said now is that so heavy you need. He saw me and grew big. The anger came in his eyes. He hit me. I spilled some of the drip on the floor from one arm. It was not nice. It made ugly green on the floor.

Father told me to go to the cellar. I had to go. The light it hurt some now in my eyes. It is not so like that in the cellar.

Father tied my legs and arms up. He put me on my bed. Upstairs I heard laughing while I was quiet there looking on a black spider that was swinging down to me. I thought what father said. Oh god he said. And only eight.

XXX—This day father hit in the chain again before it had light. I have to try pull it out again. He said I was bad to come upstairs. He said never do that again or he would beat me hard. That hurts.

I hurt. I slept the day and rested my head against the cold wall. I thought of the white place upstairs.

XXXX—I got the chain from the wall out. Mother was upstairs. I heard little laughs very high. I looked out the window. I saw all little people like the little mother and little fathers too. They are pretty.

They were making nice noise and jumping around the ground. Their legs was moving hard. They are like mother and father. Mother says alt right people look like they do.

One of the little fathers saw me. He pointed at the window. I let go and slid down the wall in the dark. I curled up as they would not see. I heard their talks by the window and foots running. Upstairs there was a door hitting. I heard the little mother call upstairs. I heard heavy steps and I rushed to my bed place. I hit the chain in the wall and lay down on my front.

I heard mother come down. Have you been at the window she said. I heard the anger. Stay away from the window. You have pulled the chain out again.

She took the stick and hit me with it. I didn’t cry. I can’t do that. But the drip ran all over the bed. She saw it and twisted away and made a noise. Oh mygod mygod she said why have you done this to me? I heard the stick go bounce on the stone floor. She ran upstairs. I slept the day.

XXXXX—This day it had water again. When mother was upstairs I heard the little one come slow down the steps. I hidded myself in the coal bin for mother would have anger if the little mother saw me.

She had a little live thing with her. It walked on the arms and had pointy ears. She said things to it.

It was all right except the live thing smelled me. It ran up the coal and looked down at me. The hairs stood up. In the throat it made an angry noise. I hissed but it jumped on me.

I didn’t want to hurt it. I got fear because it bit me harder than the rat does. I hurt and the little mother screamed. I grabbed the live thing tight. It made sounds I never heard. I pushed it all together. It was all lumpy and red on the black coal.

I hid there when mother called. I was afraid of the stick. She left. I crept over the coal with the thing. I hid it under my pillow and rested on it. I put the chain in the wall again.

X—This is another times. Father chained me tight. I hurt because he beat me. This time I hit the stick out of his hands and made noise. He went away and his face was white. He ran out of my bed place and locked the door.

I am not so glad. All day it is cold in here. The chain comes slow out of the wall. And I have a bad anger with mother and father. I will show them. I will do what I did that once.

I will screech and laugh loud. I will run on the walls. Last I will hang head down by all my legs and laugh and drip green all over until they are sorry they didn’t be nice to me.

If they try to beat me again I’ll hurt them. I will.

TO SERVE MAN

Damon Knight

The Kanamit were not very pretty, it’s true. They looked something like pigs and something like people, and that is not an attractive combination. Seeing them for the first time shocked you; that was their handicap. When a thing with the countenance of a fiend comes from the stars and offers a gift, you are disinclined to accept.

I don’t know what we expected interstellar visitors to look like—those who thought about it at all, that is. Angels, perhaps, or something too alien to be really awful. Maybe that’s why we were all so horrified and repelled when they landed in their great ships and we saw what they really were like.

The Kanamit were short and very hairy-thick bristly brown-gray hair all over their abominably plump bodies. Their noses were snoutlike and their eyes small, and they had thick hands of three fingers each. They wore green leather harness and green shorts, but I think the shorts were a concession to our notions of public decency. The garments were quite modishly cut, with slash pockets and half-belts in the back. The Kanamit had a sense of humor, anyhow.

There were three of them at this session of the U.N., and, lord, I can’t tell you how queer it looked to see them there in the middle of a solemn plenary session—three fat piglike creatures in green harness and shorts, sitting at the long table below the podium, surrounded by the packed arcs of delegates from every nation. They sat correctly upright, politely watching each speaker. Their flat ears drooped over the earphones. Later on, I believe, they learned every human language, but at this time they knew only French and English.

They seemed perfectly at ease—and that, along with their humor, was a thing that tended to make me like them. I was in the minority; I didn’t think they were trying to put anything over.

The delegate from Argentina got up and said that his government was interested in the demonstration of a new cheap power source, which the Kanamit had made at the previous session, but that the Argentine government could not commit itself as to its future policy without a much more thorough examination.

It was what all the delegates were saying, but I had to pay particular attention to Senor Valdes, because he tended to sputter and his diction was bad. I got through the translation all right, with only one or two momentary hesitations, and then switched to the Polish-English line to hear how Grigori was doing with Janciewicz. Janciewicz was the cross Grigori had to bear, just as Valdes was mine.

Janciewicz repeated the previous remarks with a few ideological variations, and then the Secretary-General recognized the delegate from France, who introduced Dr. Denis Leveque, the criminologist, and a great deal of complicated equipment was wheeled in.

Dr. Leveque remarked that the question in many people’s minds had been aptly expressed by the delegate from the U.S.S.R. at the preceding session, when he demanded, “What is the motive of the Kanamit? What is their purpose in offering us these unprecedented gifts, while asking nothing in return?”

The doctor then said, “At the request of several delegates and with the full consent of our guests, the Kanamit, my associates and I have made a series of tests upon the Kanamit with the equipment which you see before you. These tests will now be repeated.”

A murmur ran through the chamber. There was a fusillade of flashbulbs, and one of the TV cameras moved up to focus on the instrument board of the doctor’s equipment. At the same time, the huge television screen behind the podium lighted up, and we saw the blank faces of two dials, each with its pointer resting at zero, and a strip of paper tape with a stylus point resting against it.

The doctor’s assistants were fastening wires to the temples of one of the Kanamit, wrapping a canvas-covered rubber tube around his forearm, and taping something to the palm of his right hand.

In the screen, we saw the paper tape begin to move while the stylus traced a slow zigzag pattern along it. One of the needles began to jump rhythmically; the other flipped halfway over and stayed there, wavering slightly.

“These are the standard instruments for testing the truth of a statement,” said Dr. Leveque. “Our first object, since the physiology of the Kanamit is unknown to us, was to determine whether or not they react to these tests as human beings do. We will now repeat one of the many experiments which were made in the endeavor to discover this.”

He pointed to the first dial. “This instrument registers the subject’s heartbeat. This shows the electrical conductivity of the skin in the palm of his hand, a measure of perspiration, which increases under stress. And this—” pointing to the tape-and-stylus device—“shows the pattern and intensity of the electrical waves emanating from his brain. It has been shown, with human subjects, that all these readings vary markedly depending upon whether the subject is speaking the truth.”

He picked up two large pieces of cardboard, one red and one black. The red one was a square about three feet on a side; the black was a rectangle three and a half feet long. He addressed himself to the Kanama.

“Which of these is longer than the other?”

“The red,” said the Kanama.

Both needles leaped wildly, and so did the line on the unrolling tape.

“I shall repeat the question,” said the doctor. “Which of these is longer than the other?”

“The black,” said the creature.

This time the instruments continued in their normal rhythm.

“How did you come to this planet?” asked the doctor.

“Walked,” replied the Kanama.

Again the instruments responded, and there was a subdued ripple of laughter in the chamber.

“Once more,” said the doctor. “How did you come to this planet?”

“In a spaceship,” said the Kanama, and the instruments did not jump.

The doctor again faced the delegates. “Many such experiments were made,” he said, “and my colleagues and myself are satisfied that the mechanisms are effective. Now—” he turned to the Kanama—“I shall ask our distinguished guest to reply to the question put at the last session by the delegate of the U.S.S.R.—namely, what is the motive of the Kanamit people in offering these great gifts to the people of Earth?”

The Kanama rose. Speaking this time in English, he said, “On my Planet there is a saying, ‘There are more riddles in a stone than in a philosopher’s head.’ The motives of intelligent beings, though they may at times appear obscure, are simple things compared to the complex workings of the natural universe. Therefore I hope that the people of Earth will understand, and believe, when I tell you that our mission upon your planet is simply this—to bring to you the peace and plenty which we ourselves enjoy, and which we have in the past brought to other races throughout the galaxy. When your world has no more hunger, no more war, no more needless suffering, that will be our reward.”

And the needles had not jumped once.

The delegate from the Ukraine jumped to his feet, asking to be recognized, but the time was up and the Secretary-General closed the session.

I met Grigori as we were leaving the chamber. His face was red with excitement. “Who promoted that circus?” he demanded.

“The tests looked genuine to me,” I told him.

“A circus!” he said vehemently. “A second-rate farce! If they were genuine, Peter, why was debate stifled?”

“There’ll be time for debate tomorrow, surely.”

“Tomorrow the doctor and his instruments will be back in Paris. Plenty of things can happen before tomorrow. In the name of sanity, man, how can anybody trust a thing that looks as if it ate the baby?”

I was a little annoyed. I said, “Are you sure you’re not more worried about their politics than their appearance?”

He said, “Bah,” and went away.

The next day reports began to come in from government laboratories all over the world where the Kanamit’s power source was being tested. They were wildly enthusiastic. I don’t understand such things myself, but it seemed that those little metal boxes would give more electrical power than an atomic pile, for next to nothing and nearly forever. And it was said that they were so cheap to manufacture that everybody in the world could have one of his own. In the early afternoon there were reports that seventeen countries had already begun to set up factories to turn them out.

The next day the Kanamit turned up with plans and specimens of a gadget that would increase the fertility of any arable land by 60 to 100 per cent. It speeded the formation of nitrates in the soil, or something. There was nothing in the newscasts any more but stories about the Kanamit. The day after that, they dropped their bombshell.

“You now have potentially unlimited power and increased food supply,” said one of them. He pointed with his three-fingered hand to an instrument that stood on the table before him. It was a box on a tripod, with a parabolic reflector on the front of it. “We offer you today a third gift which is at least as important as the first two.”

He beckoned to the TV men to roll their cameras into closeup position. Then he picked up a large sheet of cardboard covered with drawings and English lettering. We saw it on the large screen above the podium; it was all clearly legible.

“We are informed that this broadcast is being relayed throughout your world,” said the Kanama. “I wish that everyone who has equipment for taking photographs from television screens would use it now.”

The Secretary-General leaned forward and asked a question sharply, but the Kanama ignored him.

“This device,” he said, “generates a field in which no explosive, of whatever nature, can detonate.”

There was an uncomprehending silence.

The Kanama said, “It cannot now be suppressed. If one nation has it, all must have it.” When nobody seemed to understand, he explained bluntly, “There will be no more war.”

That was the biggest news of the millennium, and it was perfectly true. It turned out that the explosions the Kanama was talking about included gasoline and Diesel explosions. They had simply made it impossible for anybody to mount or equip a modern army.

We could have gone back to bows and arrows, of course, but that wouldn’t have satisfied the military. Besides, there wouldn’t be any reason to make war. Every nation would soon have everything.

Nobody ever gave another thought to those lie-detector experiments, or asked the Kanamit what their politics were. Grigori was put out; he had nothing to prove his suspicions.

I quit my job with the U.N. a few months later, because I foresaw that it was going to die under me anyhow. U.N. business was booming at the time, but after a year or so there was going to be nothing for it to do. Every nation on Earth was well on the way to being completely self-supporting; they weren’t going to need much arbitration.

I accepted a position as translator with the Kanamit Embassy, and it was there that I ran into Grigori again. I was glad to see him, but I couldn’t imagine what he was doing there.

“I thought you were on the opposition.” I said. “Don’t tell me you’re convinced the Kanamit are all right.”

He looked rather shamefaced. “They’re not what they look, anyhow,” he said.

It was as much of a concession as he could decently make, and I invited him down to the embassy lounge for a drink. It was an intimate kind of place, and he grew confidential over the second daiquiri.

“They fascinate me,” he said. “I hate them instinctively still—that hasn’t changed—but I can evaluate it. You were right, obviously; they mean us nothing but good. But do you know—” he leaned across the table—” the question of the Soviet delegate was never answered.”

I am afraid I snorted.

“No, really,” he said. They told us what they wanted to do—‘to bring to you the peace and plenty which we ourselves enjoy.’ But they didn’t say why.”

“Why do missionaries—”

“Missionaries be damned!” he said angrily. “Missionaries have a religious motive. If these creatures have a religion, they haven’t once mentioned it. What’s more, they didn’t send a missionary group; they sent a diplomatic delegation—a group representing the will and policy of their whole people. Now just what have the Kanamit, as a people or a nation, got to gain from our welfare?”

I said, “Cultural—”

“Cultural cabbage soup! No, it’s something less obvious than that, something obscure that belongs to their psychology and not to ours. But trust me, Peter, there is no such thing as a completely disinterested altruism. In one way or another, they have something to gain.”

“And that’s why you’re here,” I said. “To try to find out what it is.”

“Correct. I wanted to get on one of the ten-year exchange groups to their home planet, but I couldn’t, the quota was filled a week after they made the announcement. This is the next best thing. I’m studying their language, and you know that language reflects the basic assumptions of the people who use it. I’ve got a fair command of the spoken lingo already. It’s not hard, really, and there are hints in it. Some of the idioms are quite similar to English. I’m sure I’ll get the answer eventually.’

“More power,” I said, and we went back to work.

I saw Grigori frequently from then on, and he kept me posted about his progress. He was highly excited about a month after that first meeting; said he’d got hold of a book of the Kanamit’s and was trying to puzzle it out. They wrote in ideographs, worse than Chinese, but he was determined to fathom it if it took him years. He wanted my help.

Well, I was interested in spite of myself, for I knew it would be a long job. We spent some evenings together, working with material from Kanamit bulletin boards and so forth, and with the extremely limited English-Kanamit dictionary they issued to the staff. My conscience bothered me about the stolen book, but gradually I became absorbed by the problem. Languages are my field, after all. I couldn’t help being fascinated.

We got the title worked out in a few weeks. It was How to Serve Man, evidently a handbook they were giving out to new Kanamit members of the embassy staff. They had new ones in, all the time now, a shipload about once a month; they were opening all kinds of research laboratories, clinics and so on. If there was anybody on Earth besides Grigori who still distrusted those people, he must have been somewhere in the middle of Tibet.

It was astonishing to see the changes that had been wrought in less than a year. There were no more standing armies, no more shortages, no unemployment. When you picked up a newspaper you didn’t see H-BOMB or SATELLITE leaping out at you; the news was always good. It was a hard thing to get used to. The Kanamit were working on human biochemistry, and it was known around the embassy that they were nearly ready to announce methods of making our race taller and stronger and healthier—practically a race of supermen—and they had a potential cure for heart disease and cancer.

I didn’t see Grigori for a fortnight after we finished working out the title of the book; I was on a long-overdue vacation in Canada. When I got back, I was shocked by the change in his appearance.

“What on earth is wrong, Grigori?” I asked. “You look like the very devil.”

“Come down to the lounge.”

I went with him, and he gulped a stiff Scotch as if he needed it.

“Come on, man, what’s the matter?” I urged.

“The Kanamit have put me on the passenger list for the next exchange ship,” he said. “You, too, otherwise I wouldn’t be talking to you.”

“Well,” I said, “but—”

“They’re not altruists.”

I tried to reason with him. I pointed out they’d made Earth a paradise compared to what it was before. He only shook his head.

Then I said, “Well, what about those lie-detector tests?”

“A farce,” he replied, without heat. “I said so at the time, you fool. They told the truth, though, as far as it went.”

“And the book?” I demanded, annoyed. “What about that—How to Serve Man? That wasn’t put there for you to read. They mean it. How do you explain that?”

“I’ve read the first paragraph of that book,” he said. “Why do you suppose I haven’t slept for a week?”

I said, “Well?” and he smiled a curious, twisted smile.

“It’s a cookbook,” he said.

STAR LIGHT, STAR BRIGHT

Alfred Bester

The man in the car was thirty-eight years old. He was tall, slender, and not strong. His cropped hair was prematurely grey. He was afflicted with an education and a sense of humor. He was inspired by a purpose. He was armed with a phone book. He was doomed.

He drove up Post Avenue, stopped at No. 17 and parked. He consulted the phone book, then got out of the car and entered the house. He examined the mailboxes and then ran up the stairs to apartment 2-F. He rang the bell. While he waited for an answer he got out a small black notebook and a superior silver pencil that wrote in four colors.

The door opened. To a nondescript middle-aged lady, the man said, “Good evening. Mrs. Buchanan?”

The lady nodded.

“My name is Foster. I’m from the Science Institute. We’re trying to check some flying saucer reports. I won’t take a minute.” Mr. Foster insinuated himself into the apartment. He had been in so many that he knew the layout automatically. He marched briskly down the hall to the front parlor, turned, smiled at Mrs. Buchanan, opened the notebook to a blank page, and poised the pencil.

“Have you ever seen a flying saucer, Mrs. Buchanan?”

“No. And it’s a lot of bunk, I—”

“Have your children ever seen them? You do have children?”

“Yeah, but they—”

“How many?”

“Two. Them flying saucers never—”

“Are either of school age?”

“What?”

“School,” Mr. Foster repeated impatiently. “Do they go to school?”

“The boy’s twenty-eight,” Mrs. Buchanan said. “The girl’s twenty-four. They finished school a long—”

“I see. Either of them married?”

“No. About them flying saucers, you scientist doctors ought to—”

“We are,” Mr. Foster interrupted. He made a tic-tac-toe in the notebook, then closed it and slid it into a inside pocket with the pencil. “Thank you very much, Mrs. Buchanan,” he said, turned, and marched out.

Downstairs, Mr. Foster got into the car, opened the telephone directory, turned to a page and ran his pencil through a name. He examined the name underneath, memorized the address and started the car. He drove to Fort George Avenue and stopped the car in front of No. 800. He entered the house and took the self-service elevator to the fourth floor. He rang the bell of apartment 4-G. While he waited for an answer he got out the small black notebook and the superior pencil.

The door opened. To a truculent man, Mr. Foster said, “Good evening. Mr. Buchanan?”

“What about it?” the truculent man said.

Mr. Foster said, “My name is Davis. I’m from the Association of National Broadcasters. We’re preparing a list of names for prize competitors. May I come in? Won’t take a minute.”

Mr. Foster/Davis insinuated himself and presently consulted with Mr. Buchanan and his redheaded wife in the living room of their apartment.

“Have you ever won a prize in radio or television?”

“No,” Mr. Buchanan said angrily. “We never got a chance. Everybody else does but not us.”

“All that free money and iceboxes,” Mrs. Buchanan said. “Trips to Paris and planes and—”

“That’s why we’re making up this list,” Mr. Foster/Davis broke in. “Have any of your relatives won prizes?”

“No. It’s all a fix. Put-up jobs. They——”

“Any of your children?”

“Ain’t got any children.”

“I see. Thank you very much.” Mr. Foster/Davis played out the tic-tac-toe game in his notebook, closed it and put it away.

He released himself from the indignation of the Buchanans, went down to his car, crossed out another name in the phone book, memorized the address of the name underneath and started the car.

He drove to No. 215 East Sixty-Eighth Street and parked in front of a private brownstone house. He rang the doorbell and was confronted by a maid in uniform.

“Good evening,” he said. “Is Mr. Buchanan in?”

“Who’s calling?”

“My name is Hook,” Mr. Foster/Davis said, “I’m conducting an investigation for the Better Business Bureau.”

The maid disappeared, reappeared and conducted Mr. Foster/Davis/Hook to a small library where a resolute gentleman in dinner clothes stood holding a Limoges demitasse cup and saucer. There were expensive books on the shelves. There was an expensive fire in the grate.

“Mr. Hook?”

“Yes, sir,” the doomed man replied. He did not take out the notebook. “I won’t be a minute, Mr. Buchanan. Just a few questions.”

“I have great faith in the Better Business Bureau,” Mr. Buchanan pronounced. “Our bulwark against the inroads of—”

“Thank you, sir,” Mr. Foster/Davis/Hook interrupted. “Have you ever been criminally defrauded by a businessman?”

“The attempt has been made. I have never succumbed.”

“And your children? You do have children?”

“My son is hardly old enough to qualify as a victim.”

“How old is he, Mr. Buchanan?”

“Ten.”

“Perhaps he has been tricked at school? There are crooks who specialize in victimizing children.”

“Not at my son’s school. He is well protected.”

“What school is that, sir?”

“Germanson.”

“One of the best. Did he ever attend a city public school?”

“Never.”

The doomed man took out the notebook and the superior pencil. This time he made a serious entry.

“Any other children, Mr. Buchanan?”

“A daughter, seventeen.”

Mr. Foster/Davis/Hook considered, started to write, changed his mind and closed the notebook. He thanked his host politely and escaped from the house before Mr. Buchanan could ask for his credentials. He was ushered out by the maid, ran down the stoop to his car, opened the door, entered and was felled by a tremendous blow on the side of his head.

When the doomed man awoke, he thought he was in bed suffering from a hangover. He started to crawl to the bathroom when he realized he was dumped in a chair like a suit for the cleaners. He opened his eyes. He was in what appeared to be an underwater grotto. He blinked frantically. The water receded.

He was in a small legal office. A stout man who looked like an unfrocked Santa Claus stood before him. To one side, seated on a desk and swinging his legs carelessly, was a thin young man with a lantern jaw and eyes closely set on either side of his nose.

“Can you hear me?” the stout man asked.

The doomed man grunted.

“Can we talk?”

Another grunt.

“Joe,” the stout man said pleasantly, “a towel.”

The thin young man slipped off the desk, went to a corner basin and soaked a white hand towel. He shook it once, sauntered back to the chair where, with a suddenness and savagery of a tiger, he lashed it across the sick man’s face.

“For God’s sake!” Mr. Foster/Davis/Hook cried.

“That’s better,” the stout man said. “My name’s Herod.

Walter Herod, attorney-at-law.” He stepped to the desk where the contents of the doomed man’s pockets were spread, picked up a wallet and displayed it. “Your name is Warbeck. Marion Perkin Warbeck. Right?”

The doomed man gazed at his wallet, then at Walter Herod, attorney-at-law, and finally admitted the truth. “Yes,” he said. “My name is Warbeck. But I never admit the Marion to strangers.”

He was again lashed by the wet towel and fell back in the chair, stung and bewildered.

“That will do, Joe,” Herod said. “Not again, please, until I tell you.” To Warbeck he said, “Why this interest in the Buchanans?” He waited for an answer, then continued pleasantly, “Joe’s been tailing you. You’ve averaged five Buchanans a night. Thirty, so far. What’s your angle?”

“What the hell is this? Russia?” Warbeck demanded indignantly. “You’ve got no right to kidnap me and grill me like the MVD. If you think you can—”

“Joe,” Herod interrupted pleasantly. “Again, please.”

Again the towel lashed Warbeck. Tormented, furious and helpless, he burst into tears.

Herod fingered the wallet casually. “Your papers say you’re a teacher by profession, principal of a public school. I thought teachers were supposed to be legit. How did you get mixed up in the inheritance racket?”

“The what racket?” Warbeck asked faintly.

“The inheritance racket,” Herod repeated patiently. “The Heirs of Buchanan caper. What kind of parlay are you using? Personal approach?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Warbeck answered. He sat bolt upright and pointed to the thin youth. “And don’t start that towel business again.”

“I’ll start what I please and when I please,” Herod said ferociously. “And I’ll finish you when I goddamned well please. You’re stepping on my toes and I don’t buy it. I’ve got seventy-five thousand a year I’m taking out of this and I’m not going to let you chisel.”

There was a long pause, significant for everybody in the room except the doomed man. Finally he spoke. “I’m an educated man,” he said slowly. “Mention Galileo, say, or the lesser Cavalier poets, and I’m right up there with you. But there are gaps in my education and this is one of them. I can’t meet the situation. Too many unknowns.”

“I told you my name,” Herod answered. He pointed to the thin young man. “That’s Joe Davenport.”

Warbeck shook his head. “Unknown in the mathematical sense. X quantities. Solving equations. My education speaking.”

Joe looked startled. “Jesus!” he said without moving his lips. “Maybe he is legit.”

Herod examined Warbeck curiously. “I’m going to spell it out for you,” he said. “The inheritance racket is a long-term con. It operates something like so: There’s a story that James Buchanan—”

“Fifteenth President of the U.S.?”

“In person. There’s a story he died intestate leaving an estate for heirs unknown. That was in 1868. Today at compound interest that estate is worth millions. Understand?”

Warbeck nodded. “I’m educated,” he murmured.

“Anybody named Buchanan is a sucker for this setup. It’s a switch on the Spanish Prisoner routine. I send them a letter. Tell ‘em there’s a chance they may be one of the heirs. Do they want me to investigate and protect their cut in the estate? It only costs a small yearly retainer. Most of them buy it. From all over the country. And now you—”

“Wait a minute,” Warbeck exclaimed. “I can draw a conclusion. You found out I was checking the Buchanan families. You think I’m trying to operate the same racket. Cut in … cut in? Yes? Cut in on you?”

“Well,” Herod asked angrily, “aren’t you?”

“Oh God!” Warbeck cried. “That this should happen to me. Me! Thank You, God. Thank You. I’ll always be grateful.” In his happy fervor he turned to Joe. “Give me the towel, Joe,” he said. “Just throw it. I’ve got to wipe my face.” He caught the flung towel and mopped himself joyously.

“Well,” Herod repeated. “Aren’t you?”

“No,” Warbeck answered, “I’m not cutting in on you. But I’m grateful for the mistake. Don’t think I’m not. You can’t imagine how flattering it is for a schoolteacher to be taken for a thief.”

He got out of the chair and went to the desk to reclaim his wallet and other possessions.

“Just a minute,” Herod snapped.

The thin young man reached out and grasped Warbeck’s wrist with an iron clasp.

“Oh stop it,” the doomed man said impatiently. “This is a silly mistake.”

“I’ll tell you whether it’s a mistake and I’ll tell you if it’s silly,” Herod replied. “Just now you’ll do as you’re told.”

“Will I?” Warbeck wrenched his wrist free and slashed Joe across the eyes with the towel. He darted around behind the desk, snatched up a paperweight and hurled it through the window with a shattering crash.

“Joe!” Herod yelled.

Warbeck knocked the phone off its stand and dialed Operator. He picked up his cigarette lighter, flicked it and dropped it into the wastepaper basket. The voice of the operator buzzed in the phone. Warbeck shouted, “I want a policeman!” Then he kicked the flaming basket into the center of the office.

“Joe!” Herod yelled and stamped on the blazing paper.

Warbeck grinned. He picked up the phone. Squawking noises were coming out of it. He put one hand over the mouthpiece. “Shall we negotiate?” he inquired.

“You sonofabitch,” Joe growled. He took his hands from his eyes and slid toward Warbeck.

“No!” Herod called. “This crazy fool’s hollered copper. He’s legit, Joe.” To Warbeck he said in pleading tones, “Fix it. Square it. We’ll make it up to you. Anything you say. Just square the call.”

The doomed man lifted the phone to his mouth. He said, “My name is M. P. Warbeck. I was consulting my attorney at this number and some idiot with a misplaced sense of humor made this call. Please phone back and check.”

He hung up, finished pocketing his private property and winked at Herod. The phone rang, Warbeck picked it up, reassured the police and hung up. He came around from behind the desk and handed his car keys to Joe.

“Go down to my car,” he said. “You know where you parked it. Open the glove compartment and bring up a brown manila envelope you’ll find.”

“Go to hell,” Joe spat. His eyes were still tearing.

“Do as I say,” Warbeck said firmly.

“Just a minute, Warbeck,” Herod said. “What’s this? A new angle? I said we’d make it up to you, but—”

“I’m going to explain why I’m interested in the Buchanans,” Warbeck replied. “And I’m going into partnership with you. You’ve got what I need to locate one particular Buchanan …you and Joe. My Buchanan’s ten years old. He’s worth a hundred times your make-believe fortune.”

Herod stared at him.

Warbeck placed the keys in Joe’s hand. “Go down and get that envelope, Joe,” he said. “And while you’re at it you’d better square that broken window rap. Rap? Rap.”

The doomed man placed the manila envelope neatly on his lap. “A school principal,” he explained, “has to supervise school classes. He reviews work, estimates progress, irons out student problems and so on. This must be done at random. By samplings, I mean. I have nine hundred pupils in my school. I can’t supervise them individually.”

Herod nodded. Joe looked blank.

“Looking through some fifth-grade work last month,” Warbeck continued, “I came across this astonishing document.” He opened the envelope and took out a few sheets of ruled composition paper covered with blots and scrawled writing. “It was written by a Stuart Buchanan of the fifth grade. His age must be ten or thereabouts. The composition is entitled: My Vacation. Read it and you’ll understand why Stuart Buchanan must be found.”

He tossed the sheets to Herod who picked them up, took out a pair of horn-rim spectacles and balanced them on his fat nose. Joe came around to the back of his chair and peered over his shoulder.

My Vacatoin

by Stuart Buchanan

This sumer I vissited my frends. I have 4 frends and they are verry nice. First there is Tommy who lives in the contry and he is an astronnimer. Tommy bill his own tellescop out of glass 6 inches acros wich he grand himself. He loks at the stars every nihgt and he let me lok even wen it was raining cats & dogs…

“What the hell?” Herod looked up, annoyed. “Read on. Read on,” Warbeck said.

cats & dogs. We cold see the stars becaze Tommy made a thing for over the end of the tellescop wich shoots up like a serchlite and makes a hole in the skie to see rite thru the rain and everythinng to the stars.

“Finished the astronomer yet?” Warbeck inquired.

“I don’t dig it.”

“Tommy got bored waiting for clear nights. He invented something that cuts through clouds and atmosphere … a funnel of vacuum so he can use his telescope all weather. What it amounts to is a disintegration beam.”

“The hell you say.”

“The hell I don’t. Read on. Read on.”

Then I went to AnnMary and staled one hole week. It was fun. Becaze AnnMary has a spinah chaingerfor spinak and beats and strinbeans—

“What the hell is a ‘spinak chainger’?”

“Spinach. Spinach changer. Spelling isn’t one of Stuart’s specialties. ‘Beats’ are beets. ‘Strinbeens’ are string beans.”

beats and Strinbeens. Wen her mother made us eet them AnnMary presed the buton and they staid the same outside onnly inside they became cake. Chery and strowbery. I asted AnnMary how & she sed it was by Enhv.

“This, I don’t get.”

“Simple. Anne-Marie doesn’t like vegetables. So she’s just as smart as Tommy, the astronomer. She invented a matter-transmuter. She transmutes spinak into cake. Chery or strow-berry. Cake she eats with pleasure. So does Stuart.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Not me. The kids. They’re geniuses. Geniuses? What am I saying? They make a genius look imbecile. There’s no label for these children.”

“I don’t believe it. This Stuart Buchanan’s got a tall imagination. That’s all.”

“You think so? Then what about Enhv? That’s how Anne-Marie transmutes matter. It took time but I figured Enhv out. It’s Planck’s quantum equation E = nhv. But read on. Read on. The best is yet to come. Wait till you get to lazy Ethel.”

My frend Gorge bilds modell airplanes very good and small. Gorg’s hands are clumzy but he makes small men out of moddel-ling clay and he tels them and they bild for him.

“What’s this?”

“George, the plane-maker?”

“Yes.”

“Simple. He makes miniature androids …robots …and they build the planes for him. Clever boy, George, but read about his sister, lazy Ethel.”

His sister Ethel is the lazyist girl I ever saw. She is big & fat and she hates to walk. So wen her mothar sends her too the store Ethel thinks to the store and thinks home with all thepahejes and has to hang arownd Gorg’s room hiding untill it wil look like she walked both ways. Gorge and I make fun of her becaze she is fat and lazy but she gets into the movees for free and saw Hoppalong Casidy sixteen times.

The End

Herod stared at Warbeck.

“Great little girl, Ethel,” Warbeck said. “She’s too lazy to walk, so she teleports. Then she has a devil of a time covering up. She has to hide with her pakejes while George and Stuart make fun of her.”

“Teleports?”

“That’s right. She moves from place to place by thinking her way there.”

“There ain’t no such thing!” Joe said indignantly.

“There wasn’t until lazy Ethel came along.”

“I don’t believe this,” Herod said. “I don’t believe any of it.”

“You think it’s just Stuart’s imagination?”

“What else?”

“What about Planck’s equation? E = nhv?”

“The kid invented that, too. Coincidence.”

“Does that sound likely?”

“Then he read it somewhere.”

“A ten-year-old boy? Nonsense.”

“I tell you, I don’t believe it,” Herod shouted. “Let me talk to the kid for five minutes and I’ll prove it.”

“That’s exactly what I want to do … only the boy’s disappeared.”

“How do you mean?”

“Lock, stock, and barrel. That’s why I’ve been checking every Buchanan family tree in the city. The day I read this composition and went down to the fifth grade for Stuart Buchanan to have a talk, he disappeared. He hasn’t been seen since.”

“What about his family?”

“The family disappeared too.” Warbeck leaned forward intensely. “Get this. Every record of the boy and the family disappeared. Everything. A few people remember them vaguely, but that’s all. They’re gone.”

“Jesus!” Joe said. “They scrammed, huh?”

“The very word. Scrammed. Thank you, Joe.” Warbeck cocked an eye at Herod. “What a situation. Here’s a child who makes friends with child geniuses. And the emphasis is on the child. They’re making fantastic discoveries for childish purposes. Ethel teleports because she’s too lazy to run errands. George makes robots to build model planes. Anne-Marie transmutes elements because she hates spinach. God knows what Stuart’s other friends are doing. Maybe there’s a Matthew who’s invented a time machine so he can catch up on his homework.”

Herod waved his hands feebly. “Why geniuses all of a sudden? What’s happened?”

“I don’t know. Atomic fallout? Fluorides in drinking water? Antibiotics? Vitamins? We’re doing so much juggling with body chemistry these days that who knows what’s happening? I want to find out but I can’t. Stuart Buchanan blabbed like a child. When I started investigating, he got scared and disappeared.”

“Is he a genius, too?”

“Very likely. Kids generally hang out with kids who share the same interests and talents.”

“What kind of a genius? What’s his talent?”

“I don’t know. All I know is he disappeared. Recovered up his tracks, destroyed every paper that could possibly help me locate him and vanished into thin air.”

“How did he get into your files?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe he’s a crook type;” Joe said; “Expert: at breaking and entering and such.”

Herod smiled wanly. “A racketeer-genius? A mastermind? The kid Moriarty?”

“He could be a thief-genius,” the doomed man said, “but don’t let running away convince you. All children do that when they get caught in a crisis. Either they wish it had never happened or they wish they were a million miles away. Stuart Buchanan may be a million miles away, but we’ve got to find him.”

“Just to find out is he smart?” Joe asked.

“No, to find his friends. Do I have to diagram it? What would the army pay for a disintegration beam? What would an element-transmuter be worth? If we could manufacture living robots how rich would we get? If we could teleport how powerful would we be?”

There was a burning silence, then Herod got to his feet. “Mr. Warbeck,” he said, “you make me and Joe look like pikers. Thank you for letting us cut in on you. We’ll pay off. We’ll find that kid.”

It is not possible for anyone to vanish without a trace …even a probable criminal genius. It is sometimes difficult to locate that trace …even for an expert experienced in hurried disappearances. But there is a professional technique unknown to amateurs.

“You’ve been blundering,” Herod explained kindly to the doomed man. “Chasing one Buchanan after the other. There are angles. You don’t run after a missing party. You look around on his back-trail for something he dropped.”

“A genius wouldn’t drop anything.”

“Let’s grant the kid’s a genius. Type unspecified. Let’s grant him everything. But a kid is a kid. He must have overlooked something. We’ll find it.”

In three days Warbeck was introduced to the most astonishing angles of search. They consulted the Washington Heights post office about a Buchanan family formerly living in that neighborhood, now moved. Was there any change-of-address-card filed? None.

They visited the election board. All voters are registered. If a voter moves from one election district to another, provision is usually made that a record of the transfer be kept. Was there any such record on Buchanan? None.

They called on the Washington Heights office of the gas and electric company. All subscribers for gas and electricity must transfer their accounts if they move. If they move out of town, they generally request the return of their deposit. Was there any record of a party named Buchanan? None.

It is a state law that all drivers must notify the license bureau of change of address or be subject to penalties involving fines, prison or worse. Was there any such notification by a party named Buchanan at the Motor Vehicle Bureau? There was not.

They questioned the R-J Realty Corp., owners and operators of a multiple dwelling in Washington Heights in which a party named Buchanan had leased a four-room apartment. The R-J lease, like most other leases, required the names and addresses of two character references for the tenant. Could the character references for Buchanan be produced? They could not. There was no such lease in the files.

“Maybe Joe was right,” Warbeck complained in Herod’s office. “Maybe the boy is a thief-genius. How did he think of everything? How did he get at every paper and destroy it? Did he break and enter? Bribe? Burgle? Threaten? How did he do it?”

“We’ll ask him when we get to him,” Herod said grimly. “All right. The kid’s licked us straight down the line. He hasn’t forgotten a trick. But I’ve got one angle I’ve been saving. Let’s go up and see the janitor of their building.”

“I questioned him months ago,” Warbeck objected. “He remembers the family in a vague way and that’s all. He doesn’t know where they went.”

“He knows something else, something the kid wouldn’t think of covering. Let’s go get it.”

They drove up to Washington Heights and descended upon Mr. Jacob Ruysdale at dinner in the basement apartment of the building. Mr. Ruysdale disliked being separated from his liver and onions, but was persuaded by five dollars.

“About that Buchanan family,” Herod began.

“I told him everything before,” Ruysdale broke in, pointing to Warbeck.

“All right. He forgot to ask one question. Can I ask it now?” Ruysdale reexamined the five-dollar bill and nodded.

“When anybody moves in or out of a building, the superintendent usually takes down the name of the movers in case they damage the building. I’m a lawyer. I know this. It’s to protect the building in case suit has to be brought. Right?”

Ruysdale’s face lit up. “By Godfrey!” he said. “That’s right, I forgot all about it. He never asked me.”

“He didn’t know. You’ve got the name of the company that moved the Buchanans out. Right?”

Ruysdale ran across the room to a cluttered bookshelf. He withdrew a tattered journal and flipped it open. He wet his fingers and turned pages.

“Here it is,” he said. “The Avon Moving Company. Truck No. G-4.”

The Avon Moving Company had no record of the removal of a Buchanan family from an apartment in Washington Heights. “The kid was pretty careful at that,” Herod murmured. But it did have a record of the men working truck G-4 on that day. The men were interviewed when they checked in at closing time. Their memories were refreshed with whiskey and cash. They recalled the Washington Heights job vaguely.

It was a full day’s work because they had to drive the hell and gone to Brooklyn. “Oh God! Brooklyn!” Warbeck muttered. What address in Brooklyn? Something on Maple Park Row. Number? The number could not be recalled.

“Joe, buy a map.”

They examined the street map of Brooklyn and located Maple Park Row. It was indeed the hell and gone out of civilization and was twelve blocks long. “That’s Brooklyn blocks,” Joe grunted. “Twice as long as anywhere. I know.”

Herod shrugged. “We’re close,” he said. “The rest will have to be legwork. Four blocks apiece. Cover every house, every apartment. List every kid around ten. Then Warbeck can check them, if they’re under an alias.”

“There’s a million kids a square inch in Brooklyn.” Joe protested.

“There’s a million dollars a day in it for us if we find him. Now let’s go.”

Maple Park Row was a long, crooked street lined with five-story apartment houses. Its sidewalks were lined with baby carriages and old ladies on camp chairs. Its curbs were lined with parked cars. Its gutter was lined with crude whitewash stickball courts shaped like elongated diamonds. Every manhole cover was a home plate.

“It’s just like the Bronx,” Joe said nostalgically. “I ain’t been home to the Bronx in ten years.”

He wandered sadly down the street toward his sector, automatically threading his way through stickball games with the unconscious skill of the city-born. Warbeck remembered that departure sympathetically because Joe Davenport never returned.

The first day, he and Herod imagined Joe had found a hot lead. This encouraged them. The second day they realized no heat could keep Joe on the fire for forty-eight hours. This depressed them. On the third day they had to face the truth.

“He’s dead,” Herod said flatly. “The kid got him.”

“How?”

“He killed him.”

“A ten-year-old boy? A child?”

“You want to know what kind of genius Stuart Buchanan has, don’t you? I’m telling you.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Then explain Joe.”

“He quit.”

“Not on a million dollars.”

“But where’s the body?”

“Ask the kid. He’s the genius. He’s probably figured out tricks that would baffle Dick Tracy.”

“How did he kill him?”

“Ask the kid. He’s the genius.”

“Herod, I’m scared.”

“So am I. Do you want to quit now?”

“I don’t see how we can. If the boy’s dangerous, we’ve got to find him.”

“Civic virtue, heh?”

“Call it that.”

“Well, I’m still thinking about the money.”

They returned to Maple Park Row and Joe Davenport’s four-block sector. They were cautious, almost furtive. They separated and began working from each end toward the middle; in one house, up the stairs, apartment by apartment, to the top, then down again to investigate the next building. It was slow, tedious work. Occasionally they glimpsed each other far down the street, crossing from one dismal building to another. And that was the last glimpse Warbeck ever had of Walter Herod.

He sat in his car and waited. He sat in his car and trembled. “I’ll go to the police,” he muttered, knowing perfectly well he could not. “The boy has a weapon. Something he invented. Something silly like the others. A special light so he can play marbles at night, only it murders men. A machine to play checkers, only it hypnotizes men. He’s invented a robot mob of gangsters so he can play cops-and-robbers and they took care of Joe and Herod. He’s a child genius. Dangerous. Deadly. What am I going to do?”

The doomed man got out of the car and stumbled down the street toward Herod’s half of the sector. “What’s going to happen when Stuart Buchanan grows up?” he wondered. “What’s going to happen when all the rest of them grow up? Tommy and George and Anne-Marie and lazy Ethel? Why don’t I start running away now? What am I doing here?”

It was dusk on Maple Park Row. The old ladies had withdrawn, folding their camp chairs like Arabs. The parked cars remained. The stickball games were over, but small games were starting under the glowing lamp posts …games with bottle caps and cards and battered pennies. Overhead, the purple city haze was deepening, and through it the sharp sparkle of Venus following the sun below the horizon could be seen.

“He must know his power,” Warbeck muttered angrily. “He must know how dangerous he is. That’s why he’s running away. Guilt. That’s why he destroys us, one by one, smiling to himself, a crafty child, a vicious, killing genius….”

Warbeck stopped in the middle of Maple Park Row.

“Buchanan!” he shouted. “Stuart Buchanan!”

The kids near him stopped their games and gaped.

“Stuart Buchanan!” Warbeck’s voice cracked hysterically. “Can you hear me?”

The wild voice carried farther down the street. More games stopped. Ringaleevio, Chinese tag, Red-Light and Boxball.

“Buchanan!” Warbeck screamed. “Stuart Buchanan! Come out come out, wherever you are!”

The world hung motionless.

In the alley between 217 and 219 Maple Park Row playing hide-and-seek behind piled ash barrels, Stuart Buchanan heard his name and crouched lower. He was aged ten, dressed in sweater, jeans, and sneakers. He was intent and determined that he was not going to be caught out “it” again. He was going to hide until he could make a dash for home-free in safety. As he settled comfortably among the ashcans, his eye caught the glimmer of Venus low in the western sky.

“Star light, star bright,” he whispered in all innocence, “first star I see tonight. Wish I may, wish I might, grant me the wish I wish tonight.” He paused and considered. Then he wished. “God bless Mom and Pop and me and all my friends and make me a good boy and please let me be always happy and I wish that anybody who tries to bother me would go away … a long way away …and leave me alone forever.”

In the middle of Maple Park Row, Marion Perkin Warbeck stepped forward and drew breath for another hysterical yell. And then he was elsewhere, going away on a road that was a long way away. It was a straight white road cleaving infinitely through blackness, stretching onward and onward into forever; a dreary, lonely, endless road leading away and away and away.

Down that road Warbeck plodded, an astonished automaton, unable to speak, unable to stop, unable to think in the timeless infinity. Onward and onward he walked into a long way away, unable to turn back. Ahead of him he saw the minute specks of figures trapped on that one-way road to forever. There was a dot that had to be Herod. Ahead of Herod there was a mote that was Joe Davenport. And ahead of Joe he could make out a long, dwindling chain of mites. He turned once with a convulsive effort. Behind him, dim and distant, a figure was plodding, and behind that another abruptly materialized, and another …and another….

While Stuart Buchanan crouched behind the ash barrels and watched alertly for the “it.” He was unaware that he had disposed of Warbeck. He was unaware that he had disposed of Herod, Joe Davenport and scores of others.

He was unaware that he had induced his parents to flee Washington Heights, that he had destroyed papers and documents, memories and peoples, in his simple desire to be left alone. He was unaware that he was a genius.

His genius was for wishing.

IT’S A GOOD LIFE

Jerome Bixby

Aunt Amy was out on the front porch, rocking back and forth in the high-backed chair and fanning herself, when Bill Soames rode his bicycle up the road and stopped in front of the house.

Perspiring under the afternoon “sun,” Bill lifted the box of groceries out of the big basket over the front wheel of the bike and came up the front walk.

Little Anthony was sitting on the lawn, playing with a rat. He had caught the rat down in the basement—he had made it think that it smelled cheese, the most rich-smelling and crumbly-delicious cheese a rat had ever thought it smelled, and it had come out of its hole, and now Anthony had hold of it with his mind and was making it do tricks.

When the rat saw Bill Soames coming, it tried to run, but Anthony thought at it, and it turned a flip-flop on the grass and lay trembling, its eyes gleaming in small black terror.

Bill Soames hurried past Anthony and reached the front steps, mumbling. He always mumbled when he came to the Fremont house, or passed by it, or even thought of it. Everybody did. They thought about silly things, things that didn’t mean very much, like two-and-two-is-four-and-twice-is-eight and so on; they tried to jumble up their thoughts and keep them skipping back and forth, so Anthony couldn’t read their minds. The mumbling helped. Because if Anthony got anything strong out of your thoughts, he might take a notion to do something about it—like curing your wife’s sick headaches or your kid’s mumps, or getting your old milk cow back on schedule, or fixing the privy. And while Anthony mightn’t actually mean any harm, he couldn’t be expected to have much notion of what was the right thing to do in such cases.

That was if he liked you. He might try to help you, in his way. And that could be pretty horrible.

If he didn’t like you—well, that could be worse.

Bill Soames set the box of groceries on the porch railing and stopped his mumbling long enough to say, “Everythin’ you wanted, Miss Amy.”

“Oh, fine, William,” Amy Fremont said lightly. “My, ain’t it terrible hot today?”

Bill Soames almost cringed. His eyes pleaded with her. He shook his head violently no, and then interrupted his mumbling again, though obviously he didn’t want to. “Oh, don’t say that, Miss Amy. It’s fine, just fine. A real good day!”

Amy Fremont got up from the rocking chair and came across the porch. She was a tall woman, thin, a smiling vacancy in her eyes. About a year ago Anthony had got mad at her, because she’d told him he shouldn’t have turned the cat into a cat rug, and although he had always obeyed her more than anyone else, which was hardly at all, this time he’d snapped at her. With his mind. And that had been the end of Amy Fremont’s bright eyes, and the end of Amy Fremont as everyone had known her. And that was when word got around in Peaksville (population forty-six) that even the members of Anthony’s own family weren’t safe. After that, everyone was twice as careful.

Someday Anthony might undo what he’d done to Aunt Amy. Anthony’s Mom and Pop hoped he would. When he was older, and maybe sorry. If it was possible, that is. Because Aunt Amy had changed a lot, and besides, now Anthony wouldn’t obey anyone.

“Land alive, William,” Aunt Amy said, “you don’t have to mumble like that. Anthony wouldn’t hurt you. My goodness, Anthony likes you!” She raised her voice and called to Anthony, who had tired of the rat and was making it eat itself, “Don’t you, dear? Don’t you like Mr. Soames?”

Anthony looked across the lawn at the grocery man—a bright, wet, purple gaze. He didn’t say anything. Bill Soames tried to smile at him. After a second Anthony returned his attention to the rat. It had already devoured its tail, or at least chewed it off—for Anthony had made it bite faster than it could swallow, and little pink and red furry pieces lay around it on the green grass. Now the rat was having trouble reaching its hindquarters.

Mumbling silently, thinking of nothing in particular as hard as he could, Bill Soames went stiff-legged down the walk, mounted his bicycle and pedaled off.

“We’lI see you tonight, William,” Aunt Amy called after him. As Bill Soames pumped the pedals, he was wishing deep down that he could pump twice as fast, to get away from Anthony all the faster, and away from Aunt Amy, who sometimes just forgot how careful you had to be. And he shouldn’t have thought that. Because Anthony caught it. He caught the desire to get away from the Fremont house as if it was something bad, and his purple gaze blinked, and he snapped a small, sulky thought after Bill Soames—just a small one, because he was in a good mood today, and besides, he liked Bill Soames, or at least didn’t dislike him, at least today. Bill Soames wanted to go away—so, petulantly, Anthony helped him.

Pedaling with superhuman speed—or, rather, appearing to, because in reality the bicycle was pedaling him—Bill Soames vanished down the road in a cloud of dust, his thin, terrified wail drifting back across the summerlike heat.

Anthony looked at the rat. It had devoured half its belly, and had died from pain. He thought it into a grave out deep in the cornfield—his father had once said, smiling, that he might as well do that with the things he killed—and went around the house, casting his odd shadow in the hot, brassy light from above.

In the kitchen, Aunt Amy was unpacking the groceries. She put the Mason-jarred goods on the shelves, and the meat and milk in the icebox, and the beet sugar and coarse flour in big cans under the sink. She put the cardboard box in the corner, by the door, for Mr. Soames to pick up next time he came. It was stained and battered and torn and worn fuzzy, but it was one of the few left in Peaksville. In faded red letters it said “Campbell’s Soup.” The last cans of soup, or of anything else, had been eaten long ago, except for a small communal hoard which the villagers dipped into for special occasions—but the box lingered on, like a coffin, and when it and the other boxes were gone the men would have to make some out of wood.

Aunt Amy went out in back, where Anthony’s Mom—Aunt Amy’s sister—sat in the shade of the house, shelling peas. The peas, every time Mom ran a finger along a pod, went lollop-lollop-lollop into the pan on her lap.

“William brought the groceries,” Aunt Amy said. She sat down wearily in the straight-backed chair beside Mom and began fanning herself again. She wasn’t really old; but ever since Anthony had snapped at her with his mind, something had seemed to be wrong with her body as well as her mind, and she was tired all the time.

“Oh, good,” said Mom. Lollop went the fat peas into the pan.

Everybody in Peaksvile always said, “Oh, fine,” or “Good,” or “Say, that’s swell!” when almost. anything happened or was mentioned—even unhappy things like accidents or even deaths. They’d always say “Good” because if they didn’t try to cover up how they really felt Anthony might overhear with his mind, and then nobody knew what might happen. Like the time Mrs. Kent’s husband, Sam, had come walking back from the graveyard because Anthony liked Mrs. Kent and had heard her mourning.

Lollop.

“Tonight’s television night,” said Aunt Amy. “I’m glad. I look forward to it so much every week. I wonder what we’ll see tonight.”

“Did Bill bring the meat?” asked Mom.

“Yes.” Aunt Amy fanned herself, looking up at the featureless brassy glare of the sky. “Goodness, it’s so hot! I wish Anthony would make it just a little cooler—”

“Amy!”

“Oh!” Mom’s sharp tone had penetrated where Bill Soames’s agonized expression had failed. Aunt Amy put one thin hand to her mouth in exaggerated alarm. “Oh …I’m sorry, dear.” Her pale-blue eyes shuttled around, right and left, to see if Anthony was in sight. Not that it would make any difference if he was or wasn’t—he didn’t have to be near you to know what you were thinking. Usually, though, unless he had his attention on somebody, he would be occupied with thoughts of his own.

But some things attracted his attention you could never be sure just what.

“This weather’s just fine,” Mom said.

Lollop.

“Oh, yes,” Aunt Amy said. “It’s a wonderful day. I wouldn’t want it changed for the world!”

Lollop.

Lollop.

“What time is it?” Mom asked.

Aunt Amy was sitting where she could see through the kitchen window to the alarm clock on the shelf above the stove. “Four-thirty,” she said.

Lollop.

“I want tonight to be something special,” Mom said. “Did Bill bring a good lean roast?”

“Good and lean, dear. They butchered just today, you know, and sent us over the best piece.”

“Dan Hollis will be so surprised when he finds out that tonight’s television party is a birthday party for him, too!”

“Oh I think he will! Are you sure nobody’s told him?”

“Everybody swore they wouldn’t.”

“That’ll be real nice.” Aunt Amy nodded, looking off across the cornfield. “A birthday party.”

“Well—” Mom put the pan of peas down beside her, stood up and brushed her apron ”I’d better get the roast on. Then we can set the table.” She picked up the peas.

Anthony came around the corner of the house. He didn’t look at them, but continued on down through the carefully kept garden—all the gardens in Peaksville were carefully kept, very carefully kept and went past the rustling, useless hulk that had been the Fremont family car, and went smoothly over the fence and out into the cornfield.

“Isn’t this a lovely day!” said Mom, a little loudly, as they went toward the back door.

Aunt Amy fanned herself. “A beautiful day, dear. Just fine!”

Out in the cornfield, Anthony walked between the tall, rustling rows of green stalks. He liked to smell the corn. The alive corn overhead, and the old dead corn underfoot. Rich Ohio earth, thick with weeds and brown, dry-rotting ears of corn, pressed between his bare toes with every step. He had made it rain last night so everything would smell and feel nice today.

He walked clear to the edge of the cornfield, and over to where a grove of shadowy green trees covered cool, moist, dark ground and lots of leafy undergrowth and jumbled moss-covered rocks and a small spring that made a clear, clean pool. Here Anthony liked to rest and watch the birds and insects and small animals that rustled and scampered and chirped about. He liked to lie on the cool ground and look up through the moving greenness overhead and watch the insects flit in the hazy soft sunbeams that stood like slanting, glowing bars between ground and treetops. Somehow, he liked the thoughts of the little creatures in this place better than the thoughts outside; and while the thoughts he picked up here weren’t very strong or very clear, he could get enough out of them to know what the little creatures liked and wanted, and he spent a lot of time making the grove more like what they wanted it to be. The spring hadn’t always been here; but one time he had found thirst in one small furry mind, and had brought subterranean water to the surface in a clear cold flow and had watched, blinking, as the creature drank, feeling its pleasure. Later he had made the pool, when he found a small urge to swim.

He had made rocks and trees and bushes and caves, and sunlight here and shadows there, because he had felt in all the tiny minds around him the desire—or the instinctive want—for this kind of resting place, and that kind of mating place, and this kind of place to play, and that kind of home. And somehow the creatures from all the fields and pastures around the grove had seemed to know that this was a good place, for there were always more of them coming in. Every time Anthony came out here there were more creatures than the last time, and more desires and needs to be tended to. Every time there would be some kind of creature he had never seen before, and he would find its mind, and see what it wanted, and then give it to it. He liked to help them. He liked to feel their simple gratification.

Today he rested beneath a thick elm and lifted his purple gaze to a red-and-black bird that had just come to the grove. It twittered on a branch over his head, and hopped back and forth, and thought its tiny thoughts, and Anthony made a big, soft nest for it, and pretty soon it hopped in.

A long brown, sleek-furred animal was drinking at the pool. Anthony found its mind next. The animal was thinking about a smaller creature that was scurrying along the ground on the other side of the pool, grubbing for insects. The little creature didn’t know that it was in danger. The long brown animal finished drinking and tensed its legs to leap, and Anthony thought it into a grave in the cornfield.

He didn’t like those kinds of thoughts. They reminded him of the thoughts outside the grove. A long time ago some of the people outside had thought that way about him, and one night they’d hidden and waited for him to come back from the grove—and he’d just thought them all into the cornfield. Since then the rest of the people hadn’t thought that way at least, very clearly. Now their thoughts were all mixed up and confusing whenever they thought about him or near him, so he didn’t pay much attention.

He liked to help them too, sometimes—but it wasn’t simple, or very gratifying either. They never thought happy thoughts when he did—just the jumble. So he spent more time out here.

He watched all the birds and insects and furry creatures for a while, and played with a bird, making it soar and dip and streak madly around tree trunks until, accidentally, when another bird caught his attention for a moment, he ran it into a rock. Petulantly, he thought the rock into a grave in the cornfield; but he couldn’t do anything more with the bird. Not because it was dead, though it was; but because it had a broken wing. So he went back to the house. He didn’t feel like walking back through the cornfield, so he just went to the house, right down into the basement.

It was nice down here. Nice and dark and damp and sort of fragrant, because once Mom had been making preserves in a rack along the far wall and then she’d stopped coming down ever since Anthony had started spending time here, and the preserves had spoiled and leaked down and spread over the dirt floor and Anthony liked the smell.

He caught another rat, making it smell cheese, and after he played with it he thought it into a grave right beside the long animal he’d killed in the grove. Aunt Amy hated rats, and so he killed a lot of them, because he liked Aunt Amy most of all and sometimes did things Aunt Amy wanted. Her mind was more like the little furry minds out in the grove. She hadn’t thought anything bad at all about him for a long time.

After the rat, he played with a big black spider in the corner under the stairs, making it run back and forth until its web shook and shimmered in the light from the cellar window like a reflection in silvery water. Then he drove fruit flies into the web until the spider was frantic trying to wind them all up. The spider liked flies, and its thoughts were stronger than theirs, so he did it. There was something bad in the way it liked flies, but it wasn’t clear— and besides, Aunt Amy hated flies too.

He heard footsteps overhead—Mom moving around in the kitchen. He blinked his purple gaze and almost decided to make her hold still—but instead he went up to the attic, and, after looking out the circular window for a while at the front lawn and the dusty road and Henderson’s tip-waving wheatfield beyond, he curled into an unlikely shape and went partly to sleep.

Soon people would be coming for television, he heard Mom think.

He went more to sleep. He liked television night. Aunt Amy had always liked television a lot, so one time he had thought some for her, and a few other people had been there at the time, and Aunt Amy had felt disappointed when they wanted to leave. He’d done something to them for that—and now everybody came to television.

He liked all the attention he got when they did.

*

Anthony’s father came home around six-thirty, looking tired and dirty and bloody. He’d been over in Dunn’s pasture with the other men, helping pick out the cow to be slaughtered this month, and doing the job, and then butchering the meat and salting it away in Soames’s icehouse. Not a job he cared for, but every man had his turn. Yesterday he had helped scythe down old McIntyre’s wheat. Tomorrow they would start threshing. By hand. Everything in Peaksville had to be done by hand.

He kissed his wife on the cheek and sat down at the kitchen table. He smiled and said, “Where’s Anthony?”

“Around someplace,” Mom said.

Aunt Amy was over at the wood-burning stove, stirring the big pot of peas. Mom went back to the oven and opened it and basted the roast.

“Well, it’s been a good day,” Dad said. By rote. Then he looked at the mixing bowl and breadboard on the table. He sniffed at the dough. “M’m,” he said. “I could eat a loaf all by myself, I’m so hungry.”

“No one told Dan Hollis about its being a birthday party, did they?” his wife asked.

“Nope. We kept as quiet as mummies.”

“We’ve fixed up such a lovely surprise!”

“Um? What?”

“Well …you know how much Dan likes music. Well, last week Thelma Dunn found a record in her attic!”

“No!”

“Yes! And we had Ethel sort of ask you know, without really asking—if he had that one. And he said no. Isn’t that a wonderful surprise?”

“Well, now, it sure is. A record, imagine! That’s a real nice thing to find! What record is it?”

“Perry Como, singing ‘You Are My Sunshine.’”

“Well, I’ll be darned. I always liked that tune.” Some raw carrots were lying on the table. Dad picked up a small one, scrubbed it on his chest, and took a bite. “How did Thelma happen to find it?”

“Oh, you know—just looking around for new things.”

“M’m.” Dad chewed the carrot. “Say, who has that picture we found a while back? I kind of liked it—that old clipper sailing along …”

“The Smiths. Next week the Sipiches get it, and they give the Smiths old McIntyre’s music-box, and we give the Sipiches …” And she went down the tentative order of things that would exchange hands among the women at church this Sunday.

He nodded. “Looks like we can’t have the picture for a while, I guess. Look, honey, you might try to get that detective book back from the Reillys. I was so busy the week we had it, I never got to finish all the stories.”

“I’ll try,” his wife said doubtfully. “But I hear the Van Husens have a stereoscope they found in the cellar.” Her voice was just a little accusing. “They had it two whole months before they told anybody about it.”

“Say,” Dad said, looking interested, “that’d be nice, too. Lots of pictures?”

“I suppose so. I’ll see on Sunday. I’d like to have it—but we still owe the Van Husens for their canary. I don’t know why that bird had to pick our house to die—it must have been sick when we got it. Now there’s just no satisfying Betty Van Husen. She even hinted she’d like our piano for a while!”

“Well, honey, you try for the stereoscope—or just anything you think we’ll like.” At last he swallowed the carrot. It had been a little young and tough. Anthony’s whims about the weather made it so that people never knew what crops would come up, or what shape they’d be in if they did. All they could do was plant a lot; and always enough of something came up any one season to live on. Just once there had been a grain surplus; tons of it had been hauled to the edge of Peaksville and dumped off into the nothingness. Otherwise, nobody could have breathed when it started to spoil.

“You know,” Dad went on, “it’s nice to have the new things around. It’s nice to think that there’s probably still a lot of stuff nobody’s found yet, in cellars and attics and barns and down behind things. They help, somehow. As much as anything can help—”

“Sh-h!” Mom glanced nervously around.

“Oh,” Dad said, smiling hastily, “it’s all right! The new things are good! It’s nice to be able to have something around you’ve never seen before, and know that something you’ve given somebody else is making them happy. That’s a real good thing.”

“A good thing,” his wife echoed.

“Pretty soon,” Aunt Amy said, from the stove, “there won’t be any more new things. We’ll have found everything there is to find. Goodness, that’ll be too bad.”

“Amy!”

“Well …” Her pale eyes were shallow and fixed, a sign of her recurrent vagueness. “It will be kind of a shame—no new things—”

“Don’t talk like that,” Mom said, trembling. “Amy, be quiet!”

“It’s good,” said Dad, in the loud, familiar, wanting-to-be-overheard tone of voice. “Such talk is good. It’s okay, honey don’t you see? It’s good for Amy to talk any way she wants. It’s good for her to feel bad. Everything’s good. Everything has to be good.”

Anthony’s mother was pale. And so was Aunt Amy the peril of the moment had suddenly penetrated the clouds surrounding her mind. Sometimes it was difficult to handle words so that they might not prove disastrous. You just never knew. There were so many things it was wise not to say, or even think—but remonstration for saying or thinking them might be just as bad, if Anthony heard and decided to do anything about it. You could just never tell what Anthony was liable to do.

Everything had to be good. Had to be fine just as it was, even if it wasn’t. Always. Because any change might be worse. So terribly much worse.

“Oh, my goodness, yes, of course it’s good,” Mom said. “You talk any way you want to, Amy, and it’s just fine. Of course, you want to remember that some ways are better than others.”

Aunt Amy stirred the peas, fright in her pale eyes.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “But I don’t feel like talking right now. It it’s good that I don’t feel like talking.”

*

Dad said tiredly, smiling, “I’m going out and wash up.”

They started arriving around eight o’clock. By that time Mom and Aunt Amy had the big table in the dining room set, and two more tables off to the side. The candles were burning, and the chairs situated, and Dad had a big fire going in the fireplace.

The first to arrive were the Sipiches, John and Mary. John wore his best suit, and was well scrubbed and pink-faced after his day in McIntyre’s pasture. The suit was neatly pressed but getting threadbare at elbows and cuffs. Old McIntyre was working on a loom, designing it out of schoolbooks, but so far it was slow going. McIntyre was a capable man with wood and tools, but a loom was a big order when you couldn’t get metal parts. McIntyre had been one of the ones who, at first, had wanted to try to get Anthony to make things the villagers needed, like clothes and canned goods and medical supplies and gasoline. Since then he felt that what had happened to the whole Terrance family and Joe Kinney was his fault, and he worked hard trying to make it up to the rest of them. And since then no one had tried to get Anthony to do anything.

Mary Sipich was a small, cheerful woman in a simple dress. She immediately set about helping Mom and Aunt Amy put the finishing touches on the dinner.

The next arrivals were the Smiths and the Dunns, who lived right next to each other down the road, only a few yards from the nothingness. They drove up in the Smiths’ wagon, drawn by their old horse.

Then the Reillys showed up, from across the darkened wheatfield, and the evening really began. Pat Reilly sat down at the big upright in the front room and began to play from the popular sheet music on the rack. He played softly, as expressively as he could—and nobody sang. Anthony liked piano playing a whole lot, but not singing; often he would come up from the basement, or down from the attic, or just come, and sit on top of the piano, nodding his head as Pat played “Lover” or “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” or “Night and Day.” He seemed to prefer ballads, sweet-sounding songs—but the one time somebody had started to sing, Anthony had looked over from the top of the piano and done something that made everybody afraid of singing from then on. Later they’d decided that the piano was what Anthony had heard first, before anybody had ever tried to sing, and now anything else added to it didn’t sound right and distracted him from his pleasure.

So every television night Pat would play the piano, and that was the beginning of the evening. Wherever Anthony was, the music would make him happy and put him in a good mood, and he would know that they were gathering for television and waiting for him.

By eight-thirty everybody had shown up, except for the seventeen children and Mrs. Soames, who was off watching them in the schoolhouse at the far end of town. The children of Peaksville were never, never allowed near the Fremont house—not since little Fred Smith had tried to play with Anthony on a dare. The younger children weren’t even told about Anthony. The others had mostly forgotten about him, or were told that he was a nice, nice goblin but they must never go near him.

Dan and Ethel Hollis came late, and Dan walked in not suspecting a thing. Pat Reilly had played the piano until his hands ached—he’d worked pretty hard with them today—and now he got up, and everybody gathered around to wish Dan Hollis a happy birthday.

“Well, I’ll be darned,” Dan grinned. “This is swell. I wasn’t expecting this at all …gosh, this is swell!”

They gave him his presents mostly things they had made by hand, though some were things that people had possessed as their own and now gave him as his. John Sipich gave him a watch charm, hand-carved out of a piece of hickory wood. Dan’s watch had broken down a year or so ago, and there was nobody in the village who knew how to fix it, but he still carried it around because it had been his grandfather’s and was a fine old heavy thing of gold and silver. He attached the charm to the chain while everybody laughed and said John had done a nice job of carving. Then Mary Sipich gave him a knitted necktie, which he put on, removing the one he’d worn.

The Reillys gave him a little box they had made, to keep things in. They didn’t say what things, but Dan said he’d keep his personal jewelry in it. The Reillys had made it out of a cigar box, carefully peeled of its paper and lined on the inside with velvet. The outside had been polished, and carefully if not expertly carved by Pat—but his carving got complimented, too. Dan Hollis received many other gifts—a pipe, a pair of shoelaces, a tiepin, a knit pair of socks, some fudge, a pair of garters made from old suspenders.

He unwrapped each gift with vast pleasure and wore as many of them as he could right there, even the garters. He lit up the pipe and said he’d never had a better smoke. Which wasn’t quite true, because the pipe wasn’t broken in yet; Pete Manners had had it lying around ever since he’d received it as a gift four years ago from an out-of-town relative who hadn’t known he’d stopped smoking.

Dan put the tobacco into the bowl very carefully. Tobacco was precious. It was only pure luck that Pat Reilly had decided to try to grow some in his back yard just before what had happened to Peaksville had happened. It didn’t grow very well, and then they had to cure it and shred it and all, and it was just precious stuff. Everybody in town used wooden holders old McIntyre had made, to save on butts.

Last of all, Thelma Dunn gave Dan Hollis the record she had found.

Dan’s eyes misted even before he opened the package. He knew it was a record.

“Gosh,” he said softly. “What one is it? I’m almost afraid to look …”

“You haven’t got it, darling,” Ethel Hollis smiled. “Don’t you remember, I asked about ‘You Are My Sunshine’?”

“Oh, gosh,” Dan said again. Carefully he removed the wrapping and stood there fondling the record, running his big hands over the worn grooves with their tiny, dulling crosswise scratches. He looked around the room, eyes shining, and they all smiled back, knowing how delighted he was.

“Happy birthday, darling!” Ethel said, throwing her arms around him and kissing him.

He clutched the record in both hands, holding it off to one side as she pressed against him. “Hey,” he laughed, pulling back his head. “Be careful—I’m holding a priceless object!” He looked around again, over his wife’s arms, which were still around his neck. His eyes were hungry. “Look …do you think we could play it? Lord, what I’d give to hear some new music. Just the first part, the orchestra part, before Como sings?”

Faces sobered. After a minute, John Sipich said, “I don’t think we’d better, Dan. After all, we don’t know just where the singer comes in—it’d be taking too much of a chance. Better wait till you get home.”

Dan Hollis reluctantly put the record on the buffet with all his other presents. “It’s good,” he said automatically, but disappointedly, “that I can’t play it here.”

“Oh, yes,” said Sipich. “It’s good.” To compensate for Dan’s disappointed tone, he repeated, “It’s good.”

They ate dinner, the candles lighting their smiling faces, and ate it all right down to the last delicious drop of gravy. They complimented Mom and Aunt Amy on the roast beef, and the peas and carrots, and the tender corn on the cob. The corn hadn’t come from the Fremonts’ cornfield, naturally—everybody knew what was out there, and the field was going to weeds. Then they polished off the dessert—homemade ice cream and cookies. And then they sat back, in the flickering light of the candles, and chatted, waiting for television.

There never was a lot of mumbling on television night; everybody came and had a good dinner at the Fremonts’, and that was nice, and afterward there was television, and nobody really thought much about that—it just had to be put up with. So it was a pleasant enough get-together, aside from your having to watch what you said just as carefully as you always did everyplace. If a dangerous thought came into your mind, you just started mumbling, even right in the middle of a sentence. When you did that, the others just ignored you until you felt happier again and stopped.

Anthony liked television night. He had done only two or three awful things on television night in the whole past year.

Mom had put a bottle of brandy on the table, and they each had a tiny glass of it. Liquor was even more precious than tobacco. The villagers could make wine, but the grapes weren’t right, and certainly the techniques weren’t, and it wasn’t very good wine. There were only a few bottles of real liquor left in the village— four rye, three Scotch, three brandy, nine real wine and half a bottle of Drambuie belonging to old McIntyre (only for marriages)—and when those were gone, that was it.

Afterward everybody wished that the brandy hadn’t been brought out. Because Dan Hollis drank more of it than he should have, and mixed it with a lot of the homemade wine. Nobody thought anything about it at first, because he didn’t show it much outside, and it was his birthday party and a happy party, and Anthony liked these get-togethers and shouldn’t see any reason to do anything even if he was listening. But Dan Hollis got high, and did a fool thing. If they’d seen it coming, they’d have taken him outside and walked him around.

The first thing they knew, Dan stopped laughing right in the middle of the story about how Thelma Dunn had found the Perry Como record and dropped it and it hadn’t broken because she’d moved faster than she ever had before in her life and caught it. He was fondling the record again, and looking longingly at the Fremonts’ gramophone over in the corner, and suddenly he stopped laughing and his face got slack, and then it got ugly, and he said, “Oh, Christ!”

Immediately the room was still. So still they could hear the whirring movement of the grandfather’s clock out in the hall. Pat Reilly had been playing the piano, softly. He stopped, his hands poised over the yellowed keys.

The candles on the dining-room table flickered in a cool breeze that blew through the lace curtains over the bay window.

“Keep playing, Pat,” Anthony’s father said softly.

Pat started again. He played “Night and Day,” but his eyes were sidewise on Dan Hollis, and he missed notes.

Dan stood in the middle of the room, holding the record. In his other hand he held a glass of brandy so hard his hand shook.

They were all looking at him.

“Christ,” he said again, and he made it sound like a dirty word. Reverend Younger, who had been talking with Mom and Aunt Amy by the dining-room door, said “Christ,” too—but he was using it in a prayer. His hands were clasped, and his eyes were closed.

John Sipich moved forward. “Now, Dan. It’s good for you to talk that way, but you don’t want to talk too much, you know.”

Dan shook off the hand Sipich put on his arm.

“Can’t even play my record,” he said loudly. He looked down at the record, and then around at their faces. “Oh, my God—” He threw the glassful of brandy against the wall. It splattered and ran down the wallpaper in streaks.

Some of the women gasped.

“Dan,” Sipich said in a whisper. “Dan, cut it out.”

Pat Reilly was playing “Night and Day” louder, to cover up the sounds of the talk. It wouldn’t do any good, though, if Anthony was listening. Dan Hollis went over to the piano and stood by Pat’s shoulder, swaying a little. “Pat,” he said, “don’t play that. Play this.” And he began to sing, softly, hoarsely, miserably, “Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me …”

“Dan!” Ethel Hollis screamed. She tried to run across the room to him. Mary Sipich grabbed her arm and held her back. “Dan,” Ethel screamed again, “stop—”

“My God, be quiet!” hissed Mary Sipich, and pushed her toward one of the men, who put his hand over her mouth and held her still.

“happy birthday, dear Danny,” Dan sang, “happy birthday to me!” He stopped and looked down at Pat Reilly. “Play it, Pat. Play it, so I can sing right. You know I can’t carry a tune unless somebody plays it!”

Pat Reilly put his hands on the keys and began “Lover”—in a slow waltz tempo, the way Anthony liked it. Pat’s face was white. His hands fumbled.

Dan Hollis stared over at the dining-room door. At Anthony’s mother, and at Anthony’s father, who had gone to join her. “You had him,” he said. Tears gleamed on his cheeks as the candlelight caught them. “You had to go and have him …“ He closed his eyes, and the tears squeezed out. He sang loudly, “You are my sunshine …my only sunshine …you make me happy …when I am blue …”

Anthony came into the room.

Pat stopped playing. He froze. Everybody froze. The breeze rippled the curtains. Ethel Hollis couldn’t even try to scream—she had fainted.

“…please don’t take my sunshine …away …“ Dan’s voice faltered into silence. His eyes widened. He put both hands out in front of him, the empty glass in one, the record in the other. He hiccuped and said, “No—”

“Bad man,” Anthony said, and thought Dan Hollis into something like nothing anyone would have believed possible, and then he thought the thing into a grave deep, deep in the cornfield.

The glass and the record thumped on the rug. Neither broke.

Anthony’s purple gaze went around the room.

Some of the people began mumbling. They all tried to smile. The sound of mumbling filled the room like a far-off approval. Out of the murmuring came one or two clear voices:

“Oh, it’s a very good thing,” said John Sipich.

“A good thing,” said Anthony’s father, smiling. He’d had more practice in smiling than most of them. “A wonderful thing.”

“It’s swell …just swell,” said Pat Reilly, tears leaking from eyes and nose, and he began to play the piano again, softly, his trembling hands feeling for “Night and Day.”

Anthony climbed up on top of the piano, and Pat played for two hours.

Afterward, they watched television. They all went into the front room, and lit just a few candles, and pulled up chairs around the set. It was a small-screen set, and they couldn’t all sit close enough to it to see, but that didn’t matter. They didn’t even turn the set on. It wouldn’t have worked anyway, there being no electricity in Peaksville.

They just sat silently, and watched the twisting, writhing shapes on the screen, and listened to the sounds that came out of the speaker, and none of them had any idea of what it was all about. They never did. It was always the same.

“It’s real nice,” Aunt Amy said once, her pale eyes on the meaningless flickers and shadows. “But I liked it a little better when there were cities outside and we could get real—”

“Why, Amy!” said Mom. “It’s good for you to say such a thing. Very good. But how can you mean it? Why, this television is much better than anything we ever used to get!”

“Yes,” chimed in John Sipich. “It’s fine. It’s the best show we’ve ever seen!”

He sat on the couch with two other men, holding Ethel Hollis flat against the cushions, holding her arms and legs and putting their hands over her mouth so she couldn’t start screaming again.

“It’s really good!” he said again.

Mom looked out of the front window, across the darkened road, across Henderson’s darkened wheat field to the vast, endless, gray nothingness in which the little village of Peaksville floated like a soul—the huge nothingness that was most evident at night, when Anthony’s brassy day had gone.

It did no good to wonder where they were—no good at all. Peaksville was just someplace. Someplace away from the world. It was wherever it had been since that day three years ago when Anthony had crept from her womb and old Doc Bates—God rest him—had screamed and dropped him and tried to kill him, and Anthony had whined and done the thing. Had taken the village someplace. Or had destroyed the world and left only the village, nobody knew which.

It did no good to wonder about it. Nothing at all did any good—except to live as they must live. Must always, always live, if Anthony would let them.

These thoughts were dangerous, she thought.

She began to mumble. The others started mumbling, too. They had all been thinking, evidently.

The men on the couch whispered and whispered to Ethel Hollis, and when they took their hands away she mumbled, too.

While Anthony sat on top of the set and made television, they sat around and mumbled and watched the meaningless, flickering shapes far into the night.

Next day it snowed, and killed off half the crops but it was a good day.

THE SEVENTH VICTIM

Robert Sheckley

Stanton Frelaine sat at his desk, trying to look as busy as an executive should at nine-thirty in the morning. It was impossible. He couldn’t concentrate on the advertisement he had written the previous night, couldn’t think about business. All he could do was wait until the mail came.

He had been expecting his notification for two weeks now. The government was behind schedule, as usual.

The glass door of his office was marked Morger and Frelaine, Clothiers.

It opened, and E. J. Morger walked in, limping slightly from his old gunshot wound. His shoulders were bent; but at the age of seventy-three, he wasn’t worrying much about his posture.

“Well, Stan?” Morger asked. “What about that ad?”

Frelaine had joined Morger sixteen years ago, when he was twenty-seven.

Together they had built Protec-Clothes into a million-dollar concern.

“I suppose you can run it,” Frelaine said, handing the slip of paper to Morger. If only the mail would come earlier, he thought.

“’Do you own a Protec-Suit?”’ Morger read aloud, holding the paper close to his eyes. “’The finest tailoring in the world has gone into Morger and Frelaine’s Protec-Suit, to make it the leader in men’s fashions.”’

Morger cleared his throat and glanced at Frelaine. He smiled and read on.

“’Protec-Suit is the safest as well as the smartest. Every Protec-Suit comes with special built-in gun pocket, guaranteed not to bulge. No one will know you are carrying a gun—except you. The gun pocket is exceptionally easy to get at, permitting fast, unhindered draw. Choice of hip or breast pocket.”

“Very nice,” Morger commented.

Frelaine nodded morosely.

“’The Protec-Suit Special has the fling-out gun pocket, the greatest modern advance in personal protection. A touch of the concealed button throws the gun into your hand, cocked, safeties off. Why not drop into the Protec-Store nearest you? Why not be safe?”

“That’s fine,” Morger said. “That’s a very nice, dignified ad.” He thought for a moment, fingering his white mustache. “Shouldn’t you mention that Protec-Suits come in a variety of styles, single and double-breasted, one and two-button rolls, deep and shallow flares?”

“Right. I forgot.”

Frelaine took back the sheet and jotted a note on the edge of it. Then he stood up, smoothing his jacket over his prominent stomach. Frelaine was forty-three, a little overweight, a little bald on top. He was an amiable-looking man with cold eyes.

“Relax,” Morger said. “It’ll come in today’s mail.”

Frelaine forced himself to smile. He felt like pacing the floor, but instead sat on the edge of the desk.

“You’d think it was my first kill,” he said, with a deprecating smile.

“I know how it is,” Morger said. “Before I hung up my gun, I couldn’t sleep for a month, waiting for a notification. I know.”

The two men waited. Just as the silence was becoming unbearable, the door opened. A clerk walked in and deposited the mail on Frelaine’s desk.

Frelaine swung around and gathered up the letters. He thumbed through them rapidly and found what he had been waiting for—the long white envelope from ECB, with the official government seal on it.

“That’s it!” Frelaine said, and broke into a grin. “That’s the baby!”

“Fine.” Morger eyed the envelope with interest, but didn’t ask Frelaine to open it. It would be a breach of etiquette, as well as a violation in the eyes of the law. No one was supposed to know a Victim’s name except his Hunter. “Have a good hunt.”

“I expect to,” Frelaine replied confidently. His desk was in order—had been for a week. He picked up his briefcase.

“A good kill will do you a world of good,” Morger said, putting his hand lightly on Frelaine’s padded shoulder. “You’ve been keyed up.”

“I know,” Frelaine grinned again and shook Morger’s hand.

“Wish I was a kid again,” Morger said, glancing down at his crippled leg with wryly humorous eyes. “Makes me want to pick up a gun again.”

The old man had been quite a Hunter in his day. Ten successful hunts had qualified him for the exclusive Tens Club. And, of course, for each hunt Morger had had to act as Victim, so he had twenty kills to his credit.

“I sure hope my Victim isn’t anyone like you,” Frelaine said, half in jest.

“Don’t worry about it. What number will this be?”

“The seventh.”

“Lucky seven. Go to it,” Morger said. “We’ll get you into the Tens yet.”

Frelaine waved his hand and started out the door.

“Just don’t get careless,” warned Morger. “All it takes is a single slip and I’ll need a new partner. If you don’t mind, I like the one I’ve got now.”

“I’ll be careful,” Frelaine promised.

Instead of taking a bus, Frelaine walked to his apartment. He wanted time to cool off. There was no sense in acting like a kid on his first kill.

As he walked, Frelaine kept his eyes strictly to the front. Staring at anyone was practically asking for a bullet, if the man happened to be serving as Victim. Some Victims shot if you just glanced at them.

Nervous fellows. Frelaine prudently looked above the heads of the people he passed.

Ahead of him was a huge billboard, offering J. F. O’Donovan’s services to the public.

“Victims!” the sign proclaimed in huge red letters. “Why take chances? Use an O’Donovan accredited Spotter. Let us locate your assigned killer. Pay after you get him!”

The sign reminded Frelaine. He would call Ed Morrow as soon as he reached his apartment.

He crossed the street, quickening his stride. He could hardly wait to get home now, to open the envelope and discover who his victim was.

Would he be clever or stupid? Rich, like Frelaine’s fourth Victim, or poor, like the first and second? Would he have an organized spotter service, or try to go it on his own?

The excitement of the chase was wonderful, coursing through his veins, quickening his heartbeat. From a block or so away, he heard gunfire.

Two quick shots, and then a final one.

Somebody got his man, Frelaine thought. Good for him.

It was a superb feeling, he told himself. He was alive again.

At his one-room apartment, the first thing Frelaine did was call Ed Morrow, his spotter. The man worked as a garage attendant between calls.

“Hello, Ed? Frelaine.”

“Oh, hi, Mr. Frelaine.” He could see the man’s thin, grease-stained face, grinning flat-lipped at the telephone.

“I’m going out on one, Ed.”

“Good luck, Mr. Frelaine,” Ed Morrow said. “I suppose you’ll want me to stand by?”

“That’s right. I don’t expect to be gone more than a week or two.

I’ll probably get my notification of Victim Status within three months of the kill.”

“I’ll be standing by. Good hunting, Mr. Frelaine.”

“Thanks. So long.” He hung up. It was a wise safety measure to reserve a first-class spotter. After his kill, it would be Frelaine’s turn as Victim.

Then, once again, Ed Morrow would be his life insurance.

And what a marvelous spotter Morrow was! Uneducated-stupid, really.

But what an eye for people! Morrow was a natural. His pale eyes could tell an out-of-towner at a glance. He was diabolically clever at rigging an ambush.

An indispensable man.

Frelaine took out the envelope, chuckling to himself, remembering some of the tricks Morrow had turned for the Hunters. Still smiling, he glanced at the data inside the envelope.

Janet-Marie Patzig.

His Victim was a female!

Frelaine stood up and paced for a few moments. Then he read the letter again. Janet-Marie Patzig. No mistake. A girl. Three photographs were enclosed, her address, and the usual descriptive data.

Frelaine frowned. He had never killed a female.

He hesitated for a moment, then picked up the telephone and dialed ECB.

“Emotional Catharsis Bureau, Information Section,” a man’s voice answered.

“Say, look,” Frelaine said. “I just got my notification and I pulled a girl. Is that in order?” He gave the clerk the girl’s name.

“It’s all in order, sir,” the clerk replied after a minute of checking micro-files. “The girl registered with the board under her own free will. The law says she has the same rights and privileges as a man.”

“Could you tell me how many kills she has?”

“I’m sorry, sir. The only information you’re allowed is the Victim’s legal status and the descriptive data you have received.”

“I see.” Frelaine paused. “Could I draw another?”

“You can refuse the hunt, of course. That is your legal right. But you will not be allowed another Victim until you have served. Do you wish to refuse?”

“Oh, no,” Frelaine said hastily. “I was just wondering. Thank you.”

He hung up and sat down in his largest armchair, loosening his belt.

This required some thought.

Damn women, he grumbled to himself, always trying to horn in on a man’s game. Why can’t they stay home?

But they were free citizens, he reminded himself. Still, it just didn’t seem feminine.

He knew that, historically speaking, the Emotional Catharsis Board had been established for men and men only. The board had been formed at the end of the fourth world war—or sixth, as some historians counted it.

At that time there had been a driving need for permanent, lasting peace.

The reason was practical, as were the men who engineered it.

Simply—annihilation was just around the corner.

In the world wars, weapons increased in magnitude, efficiency and exterminating power. Soldiers became accustomed to them, less and less reluctant to use them.

But the saturation point had been reached. Another war would truly be the war to end all wars. There would be no one left to start another.

So this peace had to last for all time, but the men who engineered it were practical. They recognized the tensions and dislocations still present, the cauldrons in which wars are brewed. They asked themselves why peace had never lasted in the past.

“Because men like to fight,” was their answer.

“Oh, no!” screamed the idealists.

But the men who engineered the peace were forced to postulate, regretfully, the presence of a need for violence in a large percentage of mankind.

Men aren’t angels. They aren’t fiends, either. They are just very human beings, with a high degree of combativeness.

With the scientific knowledge and the power they had at that moment, the practical men could have gone a long way toward breeding this trait out of the race. Many thought this was the answer.

The practical men didn’t. They recognized the validity of competition, love of battle, courage in the face of overwhelming odds. These, they felt, were admirable traits for a race, and insurance toward its perpetuity.

Without them, the race would be bound to retrogress.

The tendency toward violence, they found, was inexplicably linked with ingenuity, flexibility, drive.

The problem, then: To arrange a peace that would last after they were gone. To stop the race from destroying itself, without removing the responsible traits.

The way to do this, they decided, was to rechannel Man’s violence.

Provide him with an outlet, an expression.

The first big step was the legalization of gladiatorial events, complete with blood and thunder. But more was needed. Sublimations worked only up to a point. Then people demanded the real thing.

There is no substitute for murder.

So murder was legalized, on a strictly individual basis, and only for those who wanted it. The governments were directed to create Emotional Catharsis Boards.

After a period of experimentation, uniform rules were adopted.

Anyone who wanted to murder could sign up at the ECB. Giving certain data and assurances, he would be granted a Victim.

Anyone who signed up to murder, under the government rules, had to take his turn a few months later as Victim—if he survived.

That, in essence, was the setup. The individual could commit as many murders as he wanted. But between each, he had to be a Victim. If he successfully killed his Hunter, he could stop, or sign up for another murder.

At the end of ten years, an estimated third of the world’s civilized population had applied for at least one murder. The number slid to a fourth, and stayed there.

Philosophers shook their heads, but the practical men were satisfied.

War was where it belonged—in the hands of the individual.

Of course, there were ramifications to the game, and elaborations.

Once its existence had been accepted it became big business. There were services for Victim and Hunter alike.

The Emotional Catharsis Board picked the Victims’ names at random. A Hunter was allowed two weeks in which to make his kill. This had to be done by his own ingenuity, unaided. He was given the name of his Victim, address and description, and allowed to use a standard-caliber pistol. He could wear no armor of any sort.

The Victim was notified a week before the Hunter. He was told only that he was a Victim. He did not know the name of his Hunter. He was allowed his choice of armor. He could hire spotters. A spotter couldn’t kill; only Victim and Hunter could do that. But he could detect a stranger in town, or ferret out a nervous gunman.

The Victim could arrange any kind of ambush in his power to kill the Hunter.

There were stiff penalties for killing or wounding the wrong man, for no other murder was allowed. Grudge killings and gain killings were punishable by death.

The beauty of the system was that the people who wanted to kill could do so. Those who didn’t—the bulk of the population—didn’t have to.

At least, there weren’t any more big wars. Not even the imminence of one.

Just hundreds of thousands of small ones.

Frelaine didn’t especially like the idea of killing a woman; but she had signed up. It wasn’t his fault. And he wasn’t going to lose out on his seventh hunt.

He spent the rest of the morning memorizing the data on his Victim, then filed the letter.

Janet Patzig lived in New York. That was good. He enjoyed hunting in a big city, and he had always wanted to see New York. Her age wasn’t given, but to judge from her photographs, she was in her early twenties.

Frelaine phoned for his jet reservations to New York, then took a shower.

He dressed with care in a new Protec-Suit Special made for the occasion.

From his collection he selected a gun, cleaned and oiled it, and fitted it into the fling-out pocket of the suit. Then he packed his suitcase.

A pulse of excitement was pounding in his veins. Strange, he thought, how each killing was a new thrill. It was something you just didn’t tire of, the way you did of French pastry or women or drinking or anything else. It was always new and different.

Finally, he looked over his books to see which he would take.

His library contained all the good books on the subject. He wouldn’t need any of his Victim books, like L. Fred Tracy’s Tactics for the Victim, with its insistence on a rigidly controlled environment, or Dr. Frisch’s Don’t Think like a Victim!

He would be very interested in those in a few months, when he was a Victim again. Now he wanted hunting books.

Tactics for Hunting Humans was the standard and definitive work, but he had it almost memorized. Development of the Ambush was not adapted to his present needs.

He chose Hunting in Cities, by Mitwell and Clark, Spotting the Spotter, by Algreen, and The Victim’s In-group, by the same author.

Everything was in order. He left a note for the milkman, locked his apartment and took a cab to the airport.

In New York, he checked into a hotel in the midtown area, not too far from his Victim’s address. The clerks were smiling and attentive, which bothered Frelaine. He didn’t like to be recognized so easily as an out-of-town killer.

The first thing he saw in his room was a pamphlet on his bedtable. How to Get the Most Out of Your Emotional Catharsis, it was called, with the compliments of the management. Frelaine smiled and thumbed through it.

Since it was his first visit to New York, he spent the afternoon just walking the streets in his Victim’s neighborhood. After that, he wandered through a few stores.

Martinson and Black was a fascinating place. He went through their Hunter-Hunted room. There were lightweight bulletproof vests for Victims, and Richard Arlington hats, with bulletproof crowns.

On one side was a large display of a new .38 caliber sidearm.

“Use the Malvern Strait-shot!” the ad proclaimed. “ECB-approved.”

“Carries a load of twelve shots. Tested deviation less than .001 inches per 1000 feet. Don’t miss your Victim! Don’t risk your life without the best! Be safe with Malvern!”

Frelaine smiled. The ad was good, and the small black weapon looked ultimately efficient. But he was satisfied with the one he had.

There was a special sale on trick canes, with concealed four-shot magazine, promising safety and concealment. As a young man, Frelaine had gone in heavily for novelties. But now he knew that the old-fashioned ways were usually best.

Outside the store, four men from the Department of Sanitation were carting away a freshly killed corpse. Frelaine regretted missing the take.

He ate dinner in a good restaurant and went to bed early.

Tomorrow he had a lot to do.

The next day, with the face of his Victim before him, Frelaine walked through her neighborhood. He didn’t look closely at anyone. Instead, he moved rapidly, as though he were really going somewhere, the way an old Hunter should walk.

He passed several bars and dropped into one for a drink. Then he went on, down a side street off Lexington Avenue.

There was a pleasant sidewalk cafe there. Frelaine walked past it.

And there she was! He could never mistake the face. It was Janet Patzig, seated at a table, staring into a drink. She didn’t look up as he passed.

Frelaine walked to the end of the block. He turned the corner and stopped, hands trembling.

*

Was the girl crazy, exposing herself in the open? Did she think she had a charmed life?

He hailed a taxi and had the man drive around the block. Sure enough, she was just sitting there. Frelaine took a careful look.

She seemed younger than her pictures, but he couldn’t be sure. He would guess her to be not much over twenty. Her dark hair was parted in the middle and combed above her ears, giving her a nunlike appearance. Her expression, as far as Frelaine could tell, was one of resigned sadness.

Wasn’t she even going to make an attempt to defend herself?

Frelaine paid the driver and hurried to a drugstore. Finding a vacant telephone booth, he called ECB.

“Are you sure that a Victim named Janet-Marie Patzig has been notified?”

“Hold on, sir.” Frelaine tapped on the door while the clerk looked up the information. “Yes, sir. We have her personal confirmation. Is there anything wrong, sir?”

“No,” Frelaine said. “Just wanted to check.”

After all, it was no one’s business if the girl didn’t want to defend herself.

He was still entitled to kill her.

It was his turn.

He postponed it for that day however, and went to a movie. After dinner, he returned to his room and read the ECB pamphlet. Then he lay on his bed and glared at the ceiling.

All he had to do was pump a bullet into her. Just ride by in a cab and kill her.

She was being a very bad sport about it, he decided resentfully, and went to sleep.

The next afternoon, Frelaine walked by the cafe again. The girl was back, sitting at the same table. Frelaine caught a cab.

“Drive around the block very slowly,” he told the driver.

“Sure,” the driver said, grinning with sardonic wisdom.

From the cab, Frelaine watched for spotters. As far as he could tell, the girl had none. Both her hands were in sight upon the table.

An easy, stationary target.

Frelaine touched the button of his double-breasted jacket. A fold flew open and the gun was in his hand. He broke it open and checked the cartridges, then closed it with a snap.

“Slowly, now,” he told the driver.

The taxi crawled by the cafe. Frelaine took careful aim, centering the girl in his sights. His finger tightened on the trigger.

“Damn it!” he said.

A waiter had passed by the girl. He didn’t want to chance winging someone else.

“Around the block again,” he told the driver.

The man gave him another grin and hunched down in his seat. Frelaine wondered if the driver would feel so happy if he knew that Frelaine was gunning for a woman.

This time there was no waiter around. The girl was lighting a cigarette, her mournful face intent on her lighter. Frelaine centered her in his sights, squarely above the eyes, and held his breath.

Then he shook his head and put the gun back in his pocket.

The idiotic girl was robbing him of the full benefit of his catharsis.

*

He paid the driver and started to walk.

It’s too easy, he told himself. He was used to a real chase. Most of the other six kills had been quite difficult. The Victims had tried every dodge. One had hired at least a dozen spotters. But Frelaine had reached them all by altering his tactics to meet the situation.

Once he had dressed as a milkman, another time as a bill collector.

The sixth Victim he had had to chase through the Sierra Nevadas. The man had clipped him, too. But Frelaine had done better.

How could he be proud of this one? What would the Tens Club say?

That brought Frelaine up with a start. He wanted to get into the club.

Even if he passed up this girl he would have to defend himself against a Hunter. If he survived, he would still be four hunts away from membership.

At that rate, he might never get in.

He began to pass the cafe again, then, on impulse, stopped abruptly.

“Hello,” he said.

Janet Patzig looked at him out of sad blue eyes, but said nothing.

“Say, look,” he said, sitting down. “If I’m being fresh, just tell me and I’ll go. I’m an out-of-towner. Here on a convention. And I’d just like someone feminine to talk to. If you’d rather I didn’t—”

“I don’t care,” Janet Patzig said tonelessly.

“A brandy,” Frelaine told the waiter. Janet Patzig’s glass was still half full.

Frelaine looked at the girl and he could feel his heart throbbing against his ribs. This was more like it—having a drink with your Victim!

“My name’s Stanton Frelaine,” he said, knowing it didn’t matter.

“Janet.”

“Janet what?”

“Janet Patzig.”

“Nice to know you,” Frelaine said, in a perfectly natural voice. “Are you doing anything tonight, Janet?”

“I’m probably being killed tonight,” she said quietly.

Frelaine looked at her carefully. Did she realize who he was? For all he knew, she had a gun leveled at him under the table.

He kept his hand close to the fling-out button.

“Are you a Victim?” he asked.

“You guessed it,” she said sardonically. “If I were you, I’d stay out of the way. No sense getting hit by mistake.”

Frelaine couldn’t understand the girl’s calm. Was she a suicide?

Perhaps she just didn’t care. Perhaps she wanted to die.

“Haven’t you got any spotters?” he asked, with the right expression of amazement.

“No.” She looked at him, full in the face, and Frelaine saw something he hadn’t noticed before.

She was very lovely.

“I am a bad, bad girl,” she said lightly. “I got the idea I’d like to commit a murder, so I signed for EB. Then—I couldn’t do it.”

Frelaine shook his head, sympathizing with her.

“But I’m still in, of course. Even if I didn’t shoot, I still have to be a Victim.”

“But why don’t you hire some spotters?” he asked.

“I couldn’t kill anyone,” she said. “I just couldn’t. I don’t even have a gun.”

“You’ve got a lot of courage,” Frelaine said, “coming out in the open this way.” Secretly, he was amazed at her stupidity.

“What can I do?” she asked listlessly. “You can’t hide from a Hunter. Not a real one. And I don’t have enough money to make a good disappearance.”

“Since it’s in your own defense, I should think—” Frelaine began, but she interrupted.

“No. I’ve made up my mind on that. This whole thing is wrong, the whole system. When I had my Victim in the sights—when I saw how easily I could—I could—” She pulled herself together quickly.

“Oh, let’s forget it,” she said and smiled.

Frelaine found her smile dazzling.

After that, they talked of other things. Frelaine told her of his business, and she told him about New York. She was twenty-two, an unsuccessful actress.

They had supper together. When she accepted Frelaine’s invitation to go to the Gladiatorials, he felt absurdly elated.

He called a cab—he seemed to be spending his entire time in New York in cabs—and opened the door for her. She started in. Frelaine hesitated. He could have pumped a shot into her at that moment. It would have been very easy.

But he held back. Just for the moment, he told himself.

The Gladiatorials were about the same as those held anywhere else, except that the talent was a little better. There were the usual historical events, swordsmen and netmen, duels with saber and foil.

Most of these, naturally, were fought to the death.

Then bull fighting, lion fighting and rhino fighting, followed by the more modern events. Fights from behind barricades with bow and arrow.

Dueling on a high wire.

The evening passed pleasantly.

Frelaine escorted the girl home, the palms of his hands sticky with sweat.

He had never found a woman he liked better. And yet she was his legitimate kill.

He didn’t know what he was going to do.

She invited him in and they sat together on the couch. The girl lighted a cigarette for herself with a large lighter, then settled back.

“Are you leaving soon?” she asked him.

“I suppose so,” Frelaine said. “The convention is only lasting another day.”

She was silent for a moment. “I’ll be sorry to see you go.”

They were quiet for a while. Then Janet went to fix him a drink.

Frelaine eyed her retreating back. Now was the time. He placed his hand near the button.

But the moment had passed for him, irrevocably. He wasn’t going to kill her. You don’t kill the girl you love.

The realization that he loved her was shocking. He’d come to kill, not to find a wife.

She came back with the drink and sat down opposite him, staring at emptiness.

“Janet,” he said. “I love you.”

She sat, just looking at him. There were tears in her eyes.

“You can’t,” she protested. “I’m a Victim. I won’t live long enough to—”

“You won’t be killed. I’m your Hunter.”

She stared at him a moment, then laughed uncertainly.

“Are you going to kill me?” she asked.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “I’m going to marry you.”

Suddenly she was in his arms.

“Oh, Lord!” she gasped. “The waiting—I’ve been so frightened—“

“It’s all over,” he told her. “Think what a story it’ll make for our kids. How I came to murder you and left marrying you.”

She kissed him, then sat back and lighted another cigarette.

“Let’s start packing,” Frelaine said. “I want—“

“Wait,” Janet interrupted. “You haven’t asked if I love you.”

“What?”

She was still smiling and the cigarette lighter was pointed at him. In the bottom of it was a black hole. A hole just large enough for a .3 caliber bullet.

“Don’t kid around,” he objected, getting to his feet.

“I’m not being funny, darling,” she said.

In a fraction of a second, Frelaine had time to wonder how he could ever have thought she was not much over twenty. Looking at her now—really looking at her—he knew she couldn’t be much less than thirty. Every minute of her strained, tense existence showed on her face.

“I don’t love you, Stanton,” she said very softly, the cigarette lighter poised.

Frelaine struggled for breath. One part of him was able to realize detachedly what a marvelous actress she really was. She must have known all along.

Frelaine pushed the button, and the gun was in his hand, cocked and ready.

The blow that struck him in the chest knocked him over a coffee table.

The gun fell out of his hand. Gasping, half-conscious, he watched her take careful aim for the coup de grace.

“Now I can join the Tens,” he heard her say elatedly as she squeezed the trigger.

A SAUCER OF LONELINESS

Theodore Sturgeon

If she’s dead, I thought, I’ll never find her in this white flood of moonlight on the white sea, with the surf seething in and over the pale, pale sand like a great shampoo. Almost always, suicides who stab themselves or shoot themselves in the heart carefully bare their chests; the same strange impulse generally makes the sea-suicide go naked.

A little earlier, I thought, or later, and there would be shadows for the dunes and the breathing toss of the foam. Now the only real shadow was mine, a tiny thing just under me, but black enough to feed the blackness of the shadow of a blimp.

A little earlier, I thought, and I might have seen her plodding up the silver shore, seeking a place lonely enough to die in. A little later and my legs would rebel against this shuffling trot through sand, the maddening sand that could not hold and would not help a hurrying man.

My legs did give way then and I knelt suddenly, sobbing—not for her; not yet— just for air. There was such a rush about me: wind, and tangled spray, and colors upon colors and shades of colors that were not colors at all but shifts of white and silver. If light like that were sound, it would sound like the sea on sand, and if my ears were eyes, they would see such a light.

I crouched there, gasping in the swirl of it, and a flood struck me, shallow and swift, turning up and outward like flower petals where it touched my knees, then soaking me to the waist in its bubble and crash. I pressed my knuckles to my eyes so they would open again. The sea was on my lips with the taste of tears and the whole white night shouted and wept aloud.

And there she was.

Her white shoulders were a taller curve in the sloping foam. She must have sensed me—perhaps I yelled—for she turned and saw me kneeling there. She put her fists to her temples and her face twisted, and she uttered a piercing wail of despair and fury, and then plunged seaward and sank.

I kicked off my shoes and ran into the breakers, shouting, hunting, grasping at flashes of white that turned to sea-salt and coldness in my fingers. I plunged right past her, and her body struck my side as a wave whipped my face and tumbled both of us. I gasped in solid water, opened my eyes beneath the surface and saw a greenish-white distorted moon hurtle as I spun. Then there was sucking sand under my feet again and my left hand was tangled in her hair.

The receding wave towed her away and for a moment she streamed out from my hand like steam from a whistle. In that moment I was sure she was dead, but as she settled to the sand, she fought and scrambled to her feet.

She hit my ear, wet, hard, and a huge, pointed pain lanced into my head. She pulled, she lunged away from me, and all the while my hand was caught in her hair. I couldn’t have freed her if I had wanted to. She spun to me with the next wave, battered and clawed at me, and we went into deeper water.

“Don’t … don’t … I can’t swim!” I shouted, so she clawed me again.

“Leave me alone,” she shrieked. “Oh, dear God, why can’t you leave” (said her fingernails) “me …” (said her snapping teeth) “alone!” (said her small, hard fist).

So by her hair I pulled her head down tight to her white shoulder; and with the edge of my free hand I hit her neck twice. She floated again, and I brought her ashore.

I carried her to where a dune was between us and the sea’s broad, noisy tongue, and the wind was above us somewhere. But the light was as bright. I rubbed her wrists and stroked her face and said, “It’s all right,” and, “There!” and some names I used to have for a dream I had long, long before I ever heard of her.

She lay still on her back with the breath hissing between her teeth, with her lips in a smile which her twisted-tight, wrinkle-sealed eyes made not a smile but a torture. She was well and conscious for many moments and still her breath hissed and her closed eyes twisted.

“Why couldn’t you leave me alone?” she asked at last. She opened her eyes and looked at me. She had so much misery that there was no room for fear. She shut her eyes again and said, “You know who I am.”

“I know,” I said.

She began to cry.

I waited, and when she stopped crying, there were shadows among the dunes. A long time.

She said, “You don’t know who I am. Nobody knows who I am.”

I said, “It was in all the papers.”

“That!” She opened her eyes slowly and her gaze traveled over my face, my shoulders, stopped at my mouth, touched my eyes for the briefest second. She curled her lips and turned away her head. “Nobody knows who I am.”

I waited for her to move or speak, and finally I said, “Tell me.”

“Who are you?” she asked, with her head still turned away.

“Someone who…”

“Well?”

“Not now,” I said. “Later, maybe.”

She sat up suddenly and tried to hide herself. “Where are my clothes?”

“I didn’t see them.”

“Oh,” she said. “I remember. I put them down and kicked sand over them, just where a dune would come and smooth them over, hide them as if they never were … I hate sand. I wanted to drown in the sand, but it wouldn’t let me … You mustn’t look at me!” she shouted. “I hate to have you looking at me!” She threw her head from side to side, seeking. “I can’t stay here like this! What can I do? Where can I go?”

“Here,” I said.

She let me help her up and then snatched her hand away, half turned from me. “Don’t touch me. Get away from me.”

“Here,” I said again, and walked down the dune where it curved in the moonlight, tipped back into the wind and down and became not dune but beach. “Here,” I pointed behind the dune.

At last she followed me. She peered over the dune where it was chest-high, and again where it was knee-high. “Back there?”

She nodded.

“I didn’t see them.”

“So dark…” She stepped over the low dune and into the aching black of those moon-shadows. She moved away cautiously, feeling tenderly with her feet, back to where the dune was higher. She sank down into the blackness and disappeared there. I sat on the sand in the light. “Stay away from me,” she spat.

I rose and stepped back. Invisible in the shadows, she breathed, “Don’t go away.” I waited, then saw her hand press out of the clean-cut shadows. “There,” she said, “over there. In the dark. Just be a… Stay away from me now… Be a—voice.”

I did as she asked, and sat in the shadows perhaps six feet from her.

She told me about it. Not the way it was in the papers.

She was perhaps seventeen when it happened. She was in Central Park, in New York. It was too warm for such an early spring day, and the hammered brown slopes had a dusting of green of precisely the consistency of that morning’s hoarfrost on the rocks. But the frost was gone and the grass was brave and tempted some hundreds of pairs of feet from the asphalt and concrete to tread on it.

Hers were among them. The sprouting soil was a surprise to her feet, as the air was to her lungs. Her feet ceased to be shoes as she walked, her body was consciously more than clothes. It was the only kind of day which in itself can make a city-bred person raise his eyes. She did.

For a moment she felt separated from the life she lived, in which there was no fragrance, no silence, in which nothing ever quite fit nor was quite filled. In that moment the ordered disapproval of the buildings around the pallid park could not reach her; for two, three clean breaths it no longer mattered that the whole wide world really belonged to images projected on a screen; to gently groomed goddesses in these steel-and-glass towers; that it belonged, in short, always, always to someone else.

So she raised her eyes, and there above her was the saucer.

It was beautiful. It was golden, with a dusty finish like that of an unripe Concord grape. It made a faint sound, a chord composed of two tones and a blunted hiss like the wind in tall wheat. It was darting about like a swallow, soaring and dropping. It circled and dropped and hovered like a fish, shimmering. It was like all these living things, but with that beauty it had all the loveliness of things turned and burnished, measured, machined, and metrical.

At first she felt no astonishment, for this was so different from anything she had ever seen before that it had to be a trick of the eye, a false evaluation of size and speed and distance that in a moment would resolve itself into a sun-flash on an airplane or the lingering glare of a welding arc.

She looked away from it and abruptly realized that many other people saw it—saw something—too. People all around her had stopped moving and speaking and were craning upward. Around her was a globe of silent astonishment, and outside it, she was aware of the life-noise of the city, the hard-breathing giant who never inhales.

She looked up again, and at last began to realize how large and how far away the saucer was. No: rather, how small and how very near it was. It was just the size of the largest circle she might make with her two hands, and it floated not quite eighteen inches over her head.

Fear came then. She drew back and raised a forearm, but the saucer simply hung there. She bent far sideways, twisted away, leaped forward, looked back and upward to see if she had escaped it. At first she couldn’t see it; then as she looked up and up, there it was, close and gleaming, quivering and crooning, right over her head.

She bit her tongue.

From the corner of her eye, she saw a man cross himself. He did that because he saw me standing here with a halo over my head, she thought. And that was the greatest single thing that had ever happened to her. No one had ever looked at her and made a respectful gesture before, not once, not ever. Through terror, through panic and wonderment, the comfort of that thought nestled into her, to wait to be taken out and looked at again in lonely times.

The terror was uppermost now, however. She backed away, staring upward, stepping a ludicrous cakewalk. She should have collided with people. There were plenty of people there, gaping and craning, but she reached none. She spun around and discovered to her horror that she was the center of a pointing, pressing crowd. Its mosaic of eyes all bulged, and its inner circle braced its many legs to press back and away from her.

The saucer’s gentle note deepened. It tilted, dropped an inch or so. Someone screamed, and the crowd broke away from her in all directions, milled about, and settled again in a new dynamic balance, a much larger ring, as more and more people raced to thicken it against the efforts of the inner circle to escape.

The saucer hummed and tilted, tilted …

She opened her mouth to scream, fell to her knees, and the saucer struck.

It dropped against her forehead and clung there. It seemed almost to lift her. She came erect on her knees, made one effort to raise her hands against it, and then her arms stiffened down and back, her hands not reaching the ground. For perhaps a second and a half the saucer held her rigid, and then it passed a single ecstatic quiver to her body and dropped it. She plumped to the ground, the backs of her thighs heavy and painful on her heels and ankles.

The saucer dropped beside her, rolled once in a small circle, once just around its edge, and lay still. It lay still and dull and metallic, different and dead.

Hazily, she lay and gazed at the gray-shrouded blue of the good spring sky, and hazily she heard whistles.

And some tardy screams.

And a great stupid voice bellowing, “Give her air!” which made everyone press closer.

Then there wasn’t so much sky because of the blue-clad bulk with its metal buttons and its leatherette notebook. “Okay, okay, what’s happened here stand back figods sake.”

And the widening ripples of observation, interpretation and comment: “It knocked her down.”

“Some guy knocked her down.”

“He knocked her down.”

“Some guy knocked her down and—”

“Right in broad daylight this guy…”

“The park’s gettin to be…” onward and outward, the adulteration of fact until it was lost altogether because excitement is so much more important.

Somebody with a harder shoulder than the rest bulling close, a notebook here, too, a witnessing eye over it, ready to change “… a beautiful brunet…” to “an attractive brunet” for the afternoon editions, because “attractive” is as dowdy as any woman is allowed to get if she is a victim in the news.

The glittering shield and the florid face bending close: “You hurt bad, sister?” And the echoes, back and back through the crowd, “Hurt bad, hurt bad, badly injured, he beat the hell out of her, broad daylight…”

And still another man, slim and purposeful, tan gaberdine, cleft chin and beard-shadow: “Flyin’ saucer, hm? Okay, Officer, I’ll take over here.”

“And who the hell might you be, takin’ over?”

The flash of a brown leather wallet, a face so close behind that its chin was pressed into the gaberdine shoulder. The face said, awed: “FBI” and that rippled outward, too. The policeman nodded—the entire policeman nodded in one single bobbing genuflection.

“Get some help and clear this area,” said the gaberdine.

“Yes, sir!” said the policeman.

“FBI, FBI,” the crowd murmured, and there was more sky to look at above her.

She sat up and there was a glory in her face. “The saucer talked to me,” she sang.

“You shut up,” said the gaberdine. “You’ll have lots of chance to talk later.”

“Yeah, sister,” said the policeman. “My God, this mob could be full of Communists.”

“You shut up, too,” said the gaberdine.

Someone in the crowd told someone else a Communist beat up this girl, while someone else was saying she got beat up because she was a Communist.

She started to rise, but solicitous hands forced her down again. There were thirty police there by that time.

“I can walk,” she said.

“Now, you just take it easy,” they told her.

They put a stretcher down beside her and lifted her onto it and covered her with a big blanket.

“I can walk,” she said as they carried her through the crowd.

A woman went white and turned away moaning, “Oh, my God, how awful!”

A small man with round eyes stared and stared at her and licked and licked his lips.

The ambulance. They slid her in. The gaberdine was already there.

A white-coated man with very clean hands: “How did it happen, miss?”

“No questions,” said the gaberdine. “Security.”

The hospital.

She said, “I got to get back to work.”

“Take your clothes off,” they told her.

She had a bedroom to herself then for the first time in her life. Whenever the door opened, she could see a policeman outside. It opened very often to admit the kind of civilians who were very polite to military people, and the kind of military people who were even more polite to certain civilians. She did not know what they all did nor what they wanted. Every single day they asked her four million five hundred thousand questions. Apparently they never talked to each other, because each of them asked her the same questions over and over.

“What is your name?”

“How old are you?”

“What year were you born?”

“What is your name?”

Sometimes they would push her down strange paths with their questions.

“Now, your uncle. Married a woman from Middle Europe, did he? Where in Middle Europe?”

“What clubs or fraternal organizations did you belong to? Ah! Now, about that Rinkeydinks gang on Sixty-third Street. Who was really behind it?”

But over and over again, “What did you mean when you said the saucer talked to you?”

And she would say, “It talked to me.”

And they would say, “And it said—”

And she would shake her head.

There would be a lot of shouting ones, and then a lot of kind ones. No one had ever been so kind to her before, but she soon learned that no one was being kind to her. They were just getting her to relax, to think of other things, so they could suddenly shoot that question at her. “What do you mean it talked to you?”

Pretty soon it was just like Mom’s or school or anyplace, and she used to sit with her mouth closed and let them yell. Once they sat her on a hard chair for hours and hours with a light in her eyes and let her get thirsty. Home, there was a transom over the bedroom door and Mom used to leave the kitchen light glaring through it all night, every night, so she wouldn’t get the horrors. So the light didn’t bother her at all.

They took her out of the hospital and put her in jail. Some ways it was good. The food. The bed was all right, too. Through the window she could see lots of women exercising in the yard. It was explained to her that they all had much harder beds.

“You are a very important young lady, you know.”

That was nice at first, but as usual, it turned out they didn’t mean her at all. They kept working on her. Once they brought the saucer in to her. It was inside a big wooden crate with a padlock, and a steel box inside that with a Yale lock. It only weighed a couple of pounds, the saucer, but by the time they got it packed, it took two men to carry it and four men with guns to watch them.

They made her act out the whole thing just the way it happened, with some soldiers holding the saucer over her head. It wasn’t the same. They’d cut a lot of chips and pieces out of the saucer, and, besides, it was that dead gray color. They asked her if she knew anything about that, and for once, she told them.

“It’s empty now,” she said.

The only one she would ever talk to was a little man with a fat belly who said to her the first time he was alone with her, “Listen, I think the way they’ve been treating you stinks. Now, get this: I have a job to do. My job is to find out why you won’t tell what the saucer said. I don’t want to know what it said and I’ll never ask you. I don’t even want you to tell me. Let’s just find out why you’re keeping it a secret.”

Finding out why turned out to be hours of just talking about having pneumonia and the flower pot she made in second grade that Mom threw down the fire escape and getting left back in school and the dream about holding a wineglass in both hands and peeping over it at some man.

And one day she told him why she wouldn’t say about the saucer, just the way it came to her: “Because it was talking to me, and it’s just nobody else’s business.”

She even told him about the man crossing himself that day. It was the only other thing she had of her own.

He was nice. He was the one who warned her about the trial. “I have no business saying this, but they’re going to give you the full dress treatment. Judge and jury and all. You just say what you want to say, no less and no more, hear? And don’t let ‘em get your goat. You have a right to own something.”

He got up and swore and left.

First a man came and talked to her for a long time about how maybe this Earth would be attacked from outer space by beings much stronger and cleverer than we are, and maybe she had the key to a defense. So she owed it to the whole world. And then even if Earth wasn’t attacked, just think of what an advantage she might give this country over its enemies. Then he shook his finger in her face and said that what she was doing amounted to working for the enemies of her country. And he turned out to be the man that was defending her at the trial.

The jury found her guilty of contempt of court, and the judge recited a long list of penalties he could give her. He gave her one of them and suspended it. They put her back in jail for a few more days, and one fine day they turned her loose.

That was wonderful at first. She got a job in a restaurant, and a furnished room. She had been in the papers so much that Mom didn’t want her back home. Mom was drunk most of the time and sometimes used to tear up the whole neighborhood, but all the same she had very special ideas about being respectable, and being in the papers all the time for spying was not her idea of being decent. So she put her maiden name on the mailbox downstairs and told her daughter not to live there anymore. At the restaurant she met a man who asked her for a date. The first time. She spent every cent she had on a red handbag to go with her red shoes. They weren’t the same shade, but anyway, they were both red. They went to the movies, and afterward he didn’t try to kiss her or anything; he just tried to find out what the flying saucer told her. She didn’t say anything. She went home and cried all night.

Then some men sat in a booth talking and they shut up and glared at her every time she came past. They spoke to the boss, and he came and told her that they were electronics engineers working for the government and they were afraid to talk shop while she was around—wasn’t she some sort of spy or something? So she got fired. Once she saw her name on a jukebox. She put in a nickel and punched that number, and the record was all about “the flyin’ saucer came down one day, and taught her a brand-new way to play, and what it was I will not say, but she took me out of this world.” And while she was listening to it, someone in the juke joint recognized her and called her by name. Four of them followed her home and she had to block the door shut.

Sometimes she’d be all right for months on end, and then someone would ask for a date. Three times out of five, she and the date were followed. Once the man she was with arrested the man who was tailing them. Twice the man who was tailing them arrested the man she was with. Five times out of five, the date would try to find out about the saucer. Sometimes she would go out with someone and pretend that it was a real date, but she wasn’t very good at it.

So she moved to the shore and got a job cleaning at night in offices and stores. There weren’t many to clean, but that just meant there weren’t many people to remember her face from the papers. Like clockwork, every eighteen months, some feature writer would drag it all out again in a magazine or a Sunday supplement; and every time anyone saw a headlight on a mountain or a light on a weather balloon, it had to be a flying saucer, and there had to be some tired quip about the saucer wanting to tell secrets. Then for two or three weeks she’d stay off the streets in the daytime. Once she thought she had it whipped. People didn’t want her, so she began reading. The novels were all right for a while until she found out that most of them were like the movies—all about the pretty ones who really own the world. So she learned things—animals, trees. A lousy little chipmunk caught in a wire fence bit her. The animals didn’t want her. The trees didn’t care.

Then she hit on the idea of the bottles. She got all the bottles she could and wrote on papers which she corked into the bottles. She’d tramp miles up and down the beaches and throw the bottles out as far as she could. She knew that if the right person found one, it would give that person the only thing in the world that would help. Those bottles kept her going for three solid years. Everyone’s got to have a secret little something he does.

And at last the time came when it was no use anymore. You can go on trying to help someone who maybe exists; but soon you can’t pretend there’s such a person anymore. And that’s it. The end.

“Are you cold?” I asked when she was through telling me.

The surf was quieter and the shadows longer.

“No,” she answered from the shadows. Suddenly she said, “Did you think I was mad at you because you saw me without my clothes?”

“Why shouldn’t you be?”

“You know, I don’t care? I wouldn’t have wanted … wanted you to see me even in a ball gown or overalls. You can’t cover up my carcass. It shows; it’s there whatever. I just didn’t want you to see me. At all.”

“Me, or anyone?”

She hesitated. “You.”

I got up and stretched and walked a little, thinking. “Didn’t the FBI try to stop you throwing those bottles?”

“Oh, sure. They spent I don’t know how much taxpayers’ money gathering ‘em up. They still make a spot check every once in a while. They’re getting tired of it, though. All the writing in the bottles is the same.” She laughed. I didn’t know she could.

“What’s funny?”

“All of ‘em—judges, jailers, jukeboxes—people. Do you know it wouldn’t have saved me a minute’s trouble if I’d told ‘em the whole thing at the very beginning?”

“No?”

“No. They wouldn’t have believed me. What they wanted was a new weapon. Super-science from a super-race, to slap hell out of the super-race if they ever got a chance, or out of our own if they don’t. All those brains,” she breathed, with more wonder than scorn, “all that brass. They think ‘super-race’ and it comes out ‘super-science.’ Don’t they ever imagine a super-race has super-feelings, too—super-laughter, maybe, or super-hunger?” She paused. “Isn’t it time you asked me what the saucer said?”

“I’ll tell you,” I blurted.

“There is in certain living souls

A quality of loneliness unspeakable,

So great it must be shared

As company is shared by lesser beings.

Such a loneliness is mine; so know by this

That in immensity

There is one lonelier than you.”

***

“Dear Jesus,” she said devoutly, and began to weep. “And how is it addressed?”

“To the loneliest one…”

“How did you know?” she whispered.

“It’s what you put in the bottles, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she said. “Whenever it gets to be too much, that no one cares, that no one ever did … you throw a bottle into the sea, and out goes a part of your own loneliness. You sit and think of someone somewhere finding it… learning for the first time that the worst there is can be understood.”

The moon was setting and the surf was hushed. We looked up and out to the stars. She said, “We don’t know what loneliness is like. People thought the saucer was a saucer, but it wasn’t. It was a bottle with a message inside. It had a bigger ocean to cross—all of space—and not much chance of finding anybody. Loneliness? We don’t know loneliness.”

When I could, I asked her why she had tried to kill herself.

“I’ve had it good,” she said, “with what the saucer told me. I wanted to … pay back. I was bad enough to be helped; I had to know I was good enough to help. No one wants me? Fine. But don’t tell me no one, anywhere, wants my help. I can’t stand that.”

I took a deep breath. “I found one of your bottles two years ago. I’ve been looking for you ever since. Tide charts, current tables, maps and … wandering. I heard some talk about you and the bottles hereabouts. Someone told me you’d quit doing it, you’d taken to wandering the dunes at night. I knew why. I ran all the way.”

I needed another breath now. “I got a club foot. I think right, but the words don’t come out of my mouth the way they’re inside my head. I have this nose. I never had a woman. Nobody ever wanted to hire me to work where they’d have to look at me. You’re beautiful,” I said. “You’re beautiful.”

She said nothing, but it was as if a light came from her, more light and far less shadow than ever the practiced moon could cast. Among the many things it meant was that even to loneliness there is an end, for those who are lonely enough, long enough.

THE NINE BILLION NAMES OF GOD

Arthur C. Clarke

“This is a slightly unusual request,” said Dr. Wagner, with what he hoped was commendable restraint. “As far as I know, it’s the first time anyone’s been asked to supply a Tibetan monastery with an Automatic Sequence Computer. I don’t wish to be inquisitive, but I should hardly have thought that your—ah—establishment had much use for such a machine. Could you explain just what you intend to do with it?”

“Gladly,” replied the lama, readjusting his silk robes and carefully putting away the slide rule he had been using for currency conversions. “Your Mark V Computer can carry out any routine mathematical operation involving up to ten digits. However, for our work we are interested in letters, not numbers. As we wish you to modify the output circuits, the machine will be printing words, not columns of figures.”

“I don’t quite understand….”

“This is a project on which we have been working for the last three centuries—since the lamasery was founded, in fact. It is somewhat alien to your way of thought, so I hope you will listen with an open mind while I explain it.”

“Naturally.”

“It is really quite simple. We have been compiling a list which shall contain all the possible names of God.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“We have reason to believe,” continued the lama imperturbably, “that all such names can be written with not more than nine letters in an alphabet we have devised.”

“And you have been doing this for three centuries?”

“Yes: we expected it would take us about fifteen thousand years to complete the task.”

“Oh,” Dr. Wagner looked a little dazed. “Now I see why you wanted to hire one of our machines. But exactly what is the purpose of this project?”

The lama hesitated for a fraction of a second, and Wagner wondered if he had offended him. If so, there was no trace of annoyance in the reply.

“Call it ritual, if you like, but it’s a fundamental part of our belief. All the many names of the Supreme Being—God, Jehovah, Allah, and so on—they are only man-made labels. There is a philosophical problem of some difficulty here, which I do not propose to discuss, but somewhere among all the possible combinations of letters that can occur are what one may call the real names of God. By systematic permutation of letters, we have been trying to list them all.”

“I see. You’ve been starting at AAAAAAA …and working up to ZZZZZZZZ….”

“Exactly—though we use a special alphabet of our own.

Modyifying the electromatic typewriters to deal with this is, of course, trivial. A rather more interesting problem is that of devising suitable circuits to eliminate ridiculous combinations. For example, no letter must occur more than three times in succession.”

“Three? Surely you mean two.”

“Three is correct: I am afraid it would take too long to explain why, even if you understood our language.”

“I’m sure it would,” said Wagner hastily. “Go on.”

“Luckily, it will be a simple matter to adapt your Automatic Sequence Computer for this work, since once it has been programed properly it will permute each letter in turn and print the result. What would have taken us fifteen thousand years it will be able to do in a hundred days.”

Dr. Wagner was scarcely conscious of the faint sounds from the Manhattan streets far below. He was in a different world, a world of natural, not man-made, mountains. High up in their remote aeries these monks had been patiently at work, generation after generation, compiling their lists of meaningless words. Was there any limit to the follies of mankind? Still, he must give no hint of his inner thoughts. The customer was always right….

“There’s no doubt,” replied the doctor, “that we can modify the Mark V to print lists of this nature. I’m much more worried about the problem of installation and maintenance. Getting out to Tibet, in these days, is not going to be easy.”

“We can arrange that. The components are small enough to travel by air—that is one reason why we chose your machine. If you can get them to India, we will provide transport from there.”

“And you want to hire two of our engineers?”

“Yes, for the three months that the project should occupy.”

“I’ve no doubt that Personnel can manage that.” Dr. Wagner scribbled a note on his desk pad. “There are just two other points—”

Before he could finish the sentence the lama had produced a small slip of paper.

“This is my certified credit balance at the Asiatic Bank.”

“Thank you. It appears to be—ah—adequate. The second matter is so trivial that I hesitate to mention it—but it’s surprising how often the obvious gets overlooked. What source of electrical energy have you?”

“A diesel generator providing fifty kilowatts at a hundred and ten volts. It was installed about five years ago and is quite reliable. It’s made life at the lamasery much more comfortable, but of course it was really installed to provide power for the motors driving the prayer wheels.”

“Of course,” echoed Dr. Wagner. “I should have thought of that.”

The view from the parapet was vertiginous, but in time one gets used to anything. After three months, George Hanley was not impressed by the two-thousand-foot swoop into the abyss or the remote checkerboard of fields in the valley below. He was leaning against the wind-smoothed stones and staring morosely at the distant mountains whose names he had never bothered to discover.

This, thought George, was the craziest thing that had ever happened to him. “Project Shangri-La,” some wit back at the labs had christened it. For weeks now the Mark V had been churning out acres of sheets covered with gibberish. Patiently, inexorably, the computer had been rearranging letters in all their possible combinations, exhausting each class before going on to the next. As the sheets had emerged from the electromatic typewriters, the monks had carefully cut them up and pasted them into enormous books. In another week, heaven be praised, they would have finished. Just what obscure calculations had convinced the monks that they needn’t bother to go on to words of ten, twenty, or a hundred letters, George didn’t know. One of his recurring nightmares was that there would be some change of plan, and that the high lama (whom they’d naturally called Sam Jaffe, though he didn’t look a bit like him); would suddenly announce that the project would be extended to approximately A.D. 2060. They were quite capable of it.

George heard the heavy wooden door slam in the wind as Chuck came out onto the parapet beside him. As usual, Chuck was smoking one of the cigars that made him so popular with the monks—who, it seemed, were quite willing to embrace all the minor and most of the major pleasures of life. That was one thing in their favor: they might be crazy, but they weren’t bluenoses. Those frequent trips they took down to the village, for instance …

“Listen, George,” said Chuck urgently. “I’ve learned something that means trouble.”

“What’s wrong? Isn’t the machine behaving?” That was the worst contingency George could imagine. It might delay his return, and nothing could be more horrible. The way he felt now, even the sight of a TV commercial would seem like manna from heaven. At least it would be some link with home.

“No—it’s nothing like that.” Chuck settled himself on the parapet, which was unusual because normally he was scared of the drop. “I’ve just found what all this is about.”

“What d’ya mean? I thought we knew.”

“Sure—we know what the monks are trying to do. But we didn’t know why. It’s the craziest thing—”

“Tell me something new,” growled George.

“—but old Sam’s just come clean with me. You know the way he drops in every afternoon to watch the sheets roll out. Well, this time he seemed rather excited, or at least as near as he’ll ever get to it. When I told him that we were on the last cycle he asked me, in that cute English accent of his, if I’d ever wondered what they were trying to do. I said, ‘Sure’— and he told me.”

“Go on: I’ll buy it.”

“Well, they believe that when they have listed all His names—and they reckon that there are about nine billion of them—God’s purpose will be achieved. The human race will have finished what it was created to do, and there won’t be any point in carrying on. Indeed, the very idea is something like blasphemy.”

“Then what do they expect us to do? Commit suicide?”

“There’s no need for that. When the list’s completed, God steps in and simply winds things up …bingo!”

“Oh, I get it. When we finish our job, it will be the end of the world.”

Chuck gave a nervous little laugh.

“That’s just what I said to Sam. And do you know what happened? He looked at me in a very queer way, like I’d been stupid in class, and said, ‘It’s nothing as trivial as that.’”

George thought this over for a moment.

“That’s what I call taking the Wide View,” he said presently. “But what d’you suppose we should do about it? I don’t see that it makes the slightest difference to us. After all, we already knew that they were crazy.”

“Yes—but don’t you see what may happen? When the list’s complete and the Last Trump doesn’t blow—or whatever it is they expect—we may get the blame. It’s our machine they’ve been using. I don’t like the situation one little bit.”

“I see,” said George slowly. “You’ve got a point there. But this sort of thing’s happened before, you know. When I was a kid down in Louisiana we had a crackpot preacher who once said the world was going to end next Sunday. Hundreds of people believed him—even sold their homes. Yet when nothing happened, they didn’t turn nasty, as you’d expect. They just decided that he’d made a mistake in his calculations and went right on believing. I guess some of them still do.”

“Well, this isn’t Louisiana, in case you hadn’t noticed. There are just two of us and hundreds of these monks. I like them, and I’ll be sorry for old Sam when his lifework backfires on him. But all the same, I wish I was somewhere else.”

“I’ve been wishing that for weeks. But there’s nothing we can do until the contract’s finished and the transport arrives to fly us out.”

“Of course,” said Chuck thoughtfully, “we could always try a bit of sabotage.”

“Like hell we could! That would make things worse.”

“Not the way I meant. Look at it like this. The machine will finish its run four days from now, on the present twenty-hours-a-day basis. The transport calls in a week. OK—then all we need to do is to find something that needs replacing during one of the overhaul periods—something that will hold up the works for a couple of days. We’ll fix it, of course, but not too quickly. If we time matters properly, we can be down at the airfield when the last name pops out of the register. They won’t be able to catch us then.”

“I don’t like it,” said George. “It will be the first time I ever walked out on a job. Besides, it would make them suspicious. No, I’ll sit tight and take what comes.”

“I still don’t like it,” he said, seven days later, as the tough little mountain ponies carried them down the winding road. “And don’t you think I’m running away because I’m afraid. I’m just sorry for those poor old guys up there, and I don’t want to be around when they find what suckers they’ve been. Wonder how Sam will take it?”

“It’s funny,” replied Chuck, “but when I said good-by I got the idea he knew we were walking out on him—and that he didn’t care because he knew the machine was running smoothly and that the job would soon be finished. After that—well, of course, for him there just isn’t any After That.

George turned in his saddle and stared back up the mountain road. This was the last place from which one could get a clear view of the lamasery. The squat, angular buildings were silhouetted against the afterglow of the sunset: here and there, lights gleamed like portholes in the side of an ocean liner. Electric lights, of course, sharing the same circuit as the Mark V. How much longer would they share it? wondered George. Would the monks smash up the computer in their rage and disappointment? Or would they just sit down quietly and begin their calculations all over again?

He knew exactly what was happening up on the mountain at this very moment. The high lama and his assistants would be sitting in their silk robes, inspecting the sheets as the junior monks carried them away from the typewriters and pasted them into the great volumes. No one would be saying anything. The only sound would be the incessant patter, the never-ending rainstorm of the keys hitting the paper, for the Mark V itself was utterly silent as it flashed through its thousands of calculations a second. Three months of this, thought George, was enough to start anyone climbing up the wall.

“There she is!” called Chuck, pointing down into the valley. “Ain’t she beautiful!”

She certainly was, thought George. The battered old DC3 lay at the end of the runway like a tiny silver cross. In two hours she would be bearing them away to freedom and sanity. It was a thought worth savoring like a fine liqueur. George let it roll round his mind as the pony trudged patiently down the slope.

The swift night of the high Himalayas was now almost upon them. Fortunately, the road was very good, as roads went in that region, and they were both carrying torches. There was not the slightest danger, only a certain discomfort from the bitter cold. The sky overhead was perfectly clear, and ablaze with the familiar, friendly stars. At least there would be no risk, thought George, of the pilot being unable to take off because of weather conditions. That had been his only remaining worry.

He began to sing, but gave it up after a while. This vast arena of mountains, gleaming like whitely hooded ghosts on every side, did not encourage such ebullience. Presently George glanced at his watch.

“Should be there in an hour,” he called back over his shoulder to Chuck. Then he added, in an afterthought: “Wonder if the computer’s finished its run. It was due about now.”

Chuck didn’t reply, so George swung round in his saddle.

He could just see Chuck’s face, a white oval turned toward the sky.

“Look,” whispered Chuck, and George lifted his eyes to heaven. (There is always a last time for everything.)

Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.

ALLAMAGOOSA

Eric Frank Russell

It was a long time since the Bustler had been so silent. She lay in the Sirian spaceport, her tubes cold, her shell particle-scarred, her air that of a long-distance runner exhausted at the end of a marathon. There was good reason for this: she had returned from a lengthy trip by no means devoid of troubles.

Now, in port, well-deserved rest had been gained if only temporarily. Peace, sweet peace. No more bothers, no more crises, no more major upsets, no more dire predicaments such as crop up in free flight at least twice a day.

Just peace.

Hah!

Captain McNaught reposed in his cabin, feet up on desk, and enjoyed the relaxation to the utmost. The engines were dead, their hellish pounding absent for the first time in months. Out there in the big city, four hundred of his crew were making whoopee under a brilliant sun. This evening, when First Officer Gregory returned to take charge, he was going to go into the fragrant twilight and make the rounds of neon-lit civilization.

That was the beauty of making landfall at long last. Men could give way to themselves, blow off surplus steam, each according to his fashion. No duties, no worries, no dangers, no responsibilities in spaceport. A haven of safety and comfort for tired rovers.

Again, hah!

Burman, the chief radio officer, entered the cabin. He was one of the half-dozen remaining on duty and bore the expression of a man who can think of twenty better things to do.

“Relayed signal just come in, sir.” Handing the paper across, he waited for the other to look at it and perhaps dictate a reply.

Taking the sheet, McNaught removed the feet from his desk, sat erect, and read the message aloud.

Terran Headquarters to Bustler. Remain Siriport pending further orders. Rear Admiral Vane W. Cassidy due there seventeenth. Feldman. Navy Op. Command, Sirisec.

He looked up, all happiness gone from his leathery features, and groaned.

“Something wrong?” asked Burman, vaguely alarmed.

McNaught pointed at three thin books on his desk. “The middle one. Page twenty.”

Leafing through it, Burman found an item that said: Vane W. Cassidy, R-Ad. Head Inspector Ships and Stores.

Burman swallowed hard. “Does that mean—?”

“Yes, it does,” said McNaught without pleasure. “Back to training-college and all its rigmarole. Paint and soap, spit and polish.” He put on an officious expression, adopted a voice to match it. “Captain, you have only seven ninety-nine emergency rations. Your allocation is eight hundred. Nothing in your logbook accounts for the missing one. Where is it? What happened to it? How is it that one of the men’s kit lacks an officially issued pair of suspenders? Did you report his loss?”

“Why does he pick on us?” asked Burman, appalled. “He’s never chivvied us before.”

“That’s why,” informed McNaught, scowling at the wall. “It’s our turn to be stretched across the barrel.” His gaze found the calendar. “We have three days—and we’ll need ‘em! Tell Second Officer Pike to come here at once.”

Burman departed gloomily. In short time, Pike entered. His face reaffirmed the old adage that bad news travels fast.

“Make out an indent,” ordered McNaught, “for one hundred gallons of plastic paint, Navy gray, approved quality. Make out another for thirty gallons of interior white enamel. Take them to spaceport stores right away. Tell them to deliver by six this evening along with our correct issue of brushes and sprayers. Grab up any cleaning material that’s going for free.”

“The men won’t like this,” remarked Pike, feebly.

“They’re going to love it,” McNaught asserted. “A bright and shiny ship, all spic and span, is good for morale. It says so in that book. Get moving and put those indents in. When you come back, find the stores and equipment sheets and bring them here. We’ve got to check stocks before Cassidy arrives. Once he’s here we’ll have no chance to make up shortages or smuggle out any extra items we happened to find in our hands.”

“Very well, sir.” Pike went out wearing the same expression as Burman’s.

Lying back in his chair, McNaught muttered to himself. There was a feeling in his bones that something was sure to cause a last-minute ruckus. A shortage of any item would be serious enough unless covered by a previous report. A surplus would be bad, very bad. The former implied carelessness or misfortune. The latter suggested barefaced theft of government property in circumstances condoned by the commander.

For instance, there was that recent case of Williams of the heavy cruiser Swift. He’d heard of it over the spacevine when out around Bootes. Williams had been found in unwitting command of eleven reels of electric-fence wire when his official issue was ten. It had taken a court-martial to decide that the extra reel—which had formidable barter-value on a certain planet—had not been stolen from space-stores, or, in sailor jargon, “teleportated aboard.” But Williams had been reprimanded. And that did not help promotion.

He was still rumbling discontentedly when Pike returned bearing a folder of foolscap sheets.

“Going to start right away, sir?”

“We’ll have to.” He heaved himself erect, mentally bid good-bye to time off and a taste of the bright lights. “It’ll take long enough to work right through from bow to tail. I’ll leave the men’s kit inspection to the last.”

Marching out of the cabin, he set forth toward the bow, Pike following with broody reluctance.

As they passed the open main lock, Peaslake observed them, bounded eagerly up the gangway and joined behind. A pukka member of the crew, he was a large dog whose ancestors had been more enthusiastic than selective. He wore with pride a big collar inscribed: Peaslake—Property of S.S. Bustler. His chief duties, ably performed, were to keep alien rodents off the ship and, on rare occasions, smell out dangers not visible to human eyes.

The three paraded forward, McNaught and Pike in the manner of men grimly sacrificing pleasure for the sake of duty, Peaslake with the panting willingness of one ready for any new game no matter what.

Reaching the bow-cabin, McNaught dumped himself in the pilot’s seat, took the folder from the other. “You know this stuff better than me—the chart room is where I shine. So I’ll read them out while you look them over.” He opened the folder, started on the first page. “K1. Beam compass, type D, one of.”

“Check,” said Pike.

“K2. Distance and direction indicator, electronic, type JJ, one of.”

“Check.”

“K3. Port and starboard gravitic meters, Casini models, one pair.”

“Check.”

Peaslake planted his head in McNaught’s lap, blinked soulfully and whined. He was beginning to get the others’ viewpoint. This tedious itemizing and checking was a hell of a game. McNaught consolingly lowered a hand and played with Peaslake’s ears while he ploughed his way down the list.

“K187. Foam rubber cushions, pilot and co-pilot, one pair.”

“Check.”

***

By the time First Officer Gregory appeared, they had reached the tiny intercom cubby and poked around it in semidarkness. Peaslake had long departed in disgust.

“M24. Spare minispeakers, three inch, type T2, one set of six.”

“Check.”

Looking in, Gregory popped his eyes and said, “What’s going on?”

“Major inspection due soon.” McNaught glanced at his watch. “Go see if stores has delivered a load and if not why not. Then you’d better give me a hand and let Pike take a few hours off.”

“Does this mean land-leave is canceled?”

“You bet it does—until after Hizonner has been and gone.” He glanced at Pike. “When you get into the city, search around and send back any of the crew you can find. No arguments or excuses. Also no alibis and/or delays. It’s an order.”

Pike registered unhappiness. Gregory glowered at him, went away, came back and said, “Stores will have the stuff here in twenty minutes’ time.” With bad grace he watched Pike depart.

“M47. Intercom cable, woven-wire protected, three drums.”

“Check,” said Gregory, mentally kicking himself for returning at the wrong time.

The task continued until late in the evening, was resumed early next morning. By that time three-quarters of the men were hard at work inside and outside the vessel, doing their jobs as though sentenced to them for crimes contemplated but not yet committed.

Moving around the ship’s corridors and catwalks had to be done crab-fashion, with a nervous sidewise edging. Once again it was being demonstrated that the Terran life-form suffers from ye fear of wette paynt. The first smearer would have ten years willed off his unfortunate life.

It was in these conditions, in midafternoon of the second day, that McNaught’s bones proved their feelings had been prophetic. He recited the ninth page while Jean Blanchard confirmed the presence and actual existence of all items enumerated. Two-thirds of the way down they hit the rocks, metaphorically speaking, and commenced to sink fast.

***

McNaught said boredly, “V1097. Drinking bowl, enamel, one of.”

“Is zis,” said Blanchard, tapping it.

“V1098. Offog, one.”

“Quoi?” asked Blanchard, staring.

“V1098. Offog, one,” repeated McNaught. “Well, why are you looking thunderstruck? This is the ship’s galley. You’re the head cook. You know what’s supposed to be in the galley, don’t you? Where’s this offog?”

“Never hear of heem,” stated Blanchard, flatly.

“You must have. It’s on this equipment-sheet in plain, clear type. Offog, one, it says. It was here when we were fitted-out four years ago. We checked it ourselves and signed for it.”

“I signed for nossings called offog,” Blanchard denied. “In the cuisine zere is no such sing.”

“Look!” McNaught scowled and showed him the sheet.

Blanchard looked and sniffed disdainfully. “I have here zee electronic oven, one of. I have jacketed boilers, graduated capacities, one set. I have bain marie pans, seex of. But no offog. Never heard of heem. I do not know of heem.” He spread his hands and shrugged. “No offog.”

“There’s got to be,” McNaught insisted. “What’s more, when Cassidy arrives there’ll be hell to pay if there isn’t.”

“You find heem,” Blanchard suggested.

“You got a certificate from the International Hotels School of Cookery. You got a certificate from the Cordon Bleu College of Cuisine. You got a certificate with three credits from the Space-Navy Feeding Center,” McNaught pointed out. “All that—and you don’t know what an offog is.”

“Nom d’un chien!” ejaculated Blanchard, waving his arms around. “I tell you ten’t’ousand time zere is no offog. Zere never was an offog. Escoffier heemself could not find zee offog of vich zere is none. Am I a magician perhaps?”

“It’s part of the culinary equipment,” McNaught maintained. “It must be because it’s on page nine. And page nine means its proper home is in the galley, care of the head cook.”

“Like hail it does,” Blanchard retorted. He pointed at a metal box on the wall. “Intercom booster. Is zat mine?”

McNaught thought it over, conceded, “No, it’s Burman’s. His stuff rambles all over the ship.”

“Zen ask heem for zis bloody offog,” said Blanchard, triumphantly.

“I will. If it’s not yours, it must be his. Let’s finish this checking first. If I’m not systematic and thorough Cassidy will jerk off my insignia.” His eyes sought the list. “V1099. Inscribed collar, leather, brass studded, dog, for the use of. No need to look for that. I saw it myself five minutes ago.” He ticked the item, continued, “V1100. Sleeping basket, woven reed, one of.”

“Is zis,” said Blanchard, kicking it into a corner.

“V1101. Cushion, foam rubber, to fit sleeping basket, one of.”

“Half of,” Blanchard contradicted. “In four years he has chewed away other half.”

“Maybe Cassidy will let us indent for a new one. It doesn’t matter. We’re okay so long as we can produce the half we’ve got.” McNaught stood up, closed the folder. “That’s the lot for here. I’ll go see Burman about this missing item.”

The inventory party moved on.

***

Burman switched off a UHF receiver, removed his earplugs, and raised a questioning eyebrow.

“In the galley we’re short an offog,” explained McNaught. “Where is it?”

“Why ask me? The galley is Blanchard’s bailiwick.”

“Not entirely. A lot of your cables run through it. You’ve two terminal boxes in there, also an automatic switch and an intercom booster. Where’s the offog?”

“Never heard of it,” said Burman, baffled.

McNaught shouted, “Don’t tell me that! I’m already fed up hearing Blanchard saying it. Four years back we had an offog. It says so here. This is our copy of what we checked and signed for. It says we signed for an offog. Therefore we must have one. It’s got to be found before Cassidy gets here.”

“Sorry, sir,” sympathized Burman. “I can’t help you.”

“You can think again,” advised McNaught. “Up in the bow there’s a direction and distance indicator. What do you call it?”

“A didin,” said Burman, mystified.

“And,” McNaught went on, pointing at the pulse transmitter, “what do you call that?”

“The opper-popper.”

“Baby names, see? Didin and opper-popper. Now rack your brains and remember what you called an offog four years ago.”

“Nothing,” asserted Burman, “has ever been called an offog to my knowledge.”

“Then,” demanded McNaught, “why did we sign for one?”

“I didn’t sign for anything. You did all the signing.”

“While you and others did the checking. Four years ago, presumably in the galley, I said, ‘Offog, one,’ and either you or Blanchard pointed to it and said, ‘Check.’ I took somebody’s word for it. I have to take other specialists’ words for it. I am an expert navigator, familiar with all the latest navigational gadgets but not with other stuff. So I’m compelled to rely on people who know what an offog is—or ought to.”

Burman had a bright thought. “All kinds of oddments were dumped in the main lock, the corridors, and the galley when we were fitted-out. We had to sort through a deal of stuff and stash it where it properly belonged, remember? This offog-thing might be anyplace today. It isn’t necessarily my responsibility or Blanchard’s.”

“I’ll see what the other officers say,” agreed McNaught, conceding the point. “Gregory, Worth, Sanderson, or one of the others may be coddling the item. Wherever it is, it’s got to be found. Or accounted for in full if it’s been expended.”

He went out. Burman pulled a face, inserted his earplugs, resumed fiddling with his apparatus. An hour later McNaught came back wearing a scowl.

“Positively,” he announced with ire, “there is no such thing on the ship. Nobody knows of it. Nobody can so much as guess at it.”

“Cross it off and report it lost,” Burman suggested.

“What, when we’re hard aground? You know as well as I do that loss and damage must be signaled at time of occurrence. If I tell Cassidy the offog went west in space, he’ll want to know when, where, how, and why it wasn’t signaled. There’ll be a real ruckus if the contraption happens to be valued at half a million credits. I can’t dismiss it with an airy wave of the hand.”

“What’s the answer then?” inquired Burman, innocently ambling straight into the trap.

“There’s one and only one,” McNaught announced. “You will manufacture an offog.”

“Who? Me?” said Burman, twitching his scalp.

“You and no other. I’m fairly sure the thing is your pigeon, anyway.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s typical of the baby names used for your kind of stuff. I’ll bet a month’s pay that an offog is some sort of scientific allamagoosa. Something to do with fog, perhaps. Maybe a blind-approach gadget.”

“The blind-approach transceiver is called ‘the fumbly,’ ” Burman informed.

“There you are!” said McNaught as if that clinched it. “So you will make an offog. It will be completed by six tomorrow evening and ready for my inspection then. It had better be convincing, in fact pleasing. In fact its function will be convincing.”

Burman stood up, let his hands dangle, and said in hoarse tones, “How can I make an offog when I don’t even know what it is?”

“Neither does Cassidy know,” McNaught pointed out, leering at him. “He’s more of a quantity surveyor than anything else. As such he counts things, looks at things, certifies that they exist, accepts advice on whether they are functionally satisfactory or worn out. All we need do is concoct an imposing allamagoosa and tell him it’s the offog.”

“Holy Moses!” said Burman, fervently.

“Let us not rely on the dubious assistance of Biblical characters,” McNaught reproved. “Let us use the brains that God has given us. Get a grip on your soldering-iron and make a topnotch offog by six tomorrow evening. That’s an order!”

He departed, satisfied with this solution. Behind him, Burman gloomed at the wall and licked his lips once, twice.

***

Rear Admiral Vane W. Cassidy arrived right on time. He was a short, paunchy character with a florid complexion and eyes like those of a long-dead fish. His gait was an important strut.

“Ah, Captain, I trust that you have everything shipshape.”

“Everything usually is,” assured McNaught, glibly. “I see to that.” He spoke with conviction.

“Good!” approved Cassidy. “I like a commander who takes his responsibilities seriously. Much as I regret saying so, there are a few who do not.” He marched through the main lock, his cod-eyes taking note of the fresh white enamel. “Where do you prefer to start, bow or tail?”

“My equipment-sheets run from bow backward. We may as well deal with them the way they’re set.”

“Very well.” He trotted officiously toward the nose, paused on the way to pat Peaslake and examine his collar. “Well cared-for, I see. Has the animal proved useful?”

“He saved five lives on Mardia by barking a warning.”

“The details have been entered in your log, I suppose?”

“Yes, sir. The log is in the chart room awaiting your inspection.”

“We’ll get to it in due time.” Reaching the bow-cabin, Cassidy took a seat, accepted the folder from McNaught, started off at businesslike pace. “K1. Beam compass, type D, one of.”

“This is it, sir,” said McNaught, showing him.

“Still working properly?”

“Yes, sir.”

They carried on, reached the intercom-cubby, the computer room, a succession of other places back to the galley. Here, Blanchard posed in freshly laundered white clothes and eyed the newcomer warily.

“V147. Electronic oven, one of.”

“Is zis,” said Blanchard, pointing with disdain.

“Satisfactory?” inquired Cassidy, giving him the fishy-eye.

“Not beeg enough,” declared Blanchard. He encompassed the entire galley with an expressive gesture. “Nossings beeg enough. Place too small. Eversings too small. I am chef de cuisine an’ she is a cuisine like an attic.”

“This is a warship, not a luxury liner,” Cassidy snapped. He frowned at the equipment-sheet. “V148. Timing device, electronic oven, attachment thereto, one of.”

“Is zis,” spat Blanchard, ready to sling it through the nearest port if Cassidy would first donate the two pins.

Working his way down the sheet, Cassidy got nearer and nearer while nervous tension built up. Then he reached the critical point and said, “V1098 Offog, one.”

“Morbleu!” said Blanchard, shooting sparks from his eyes, “I have say before an’ I say again, zere never was—”

“The offog is in the radio room, sir,” McNaught chipped in hurriedly.

“Indeed?” Cassidy took another look at the sheet. “Then why is it recorded along with galley equipment?”

“It was placed in the galley at time of fitting-out, sir. It’s one of those portable instruments left to us to fix up where most suitable.”

“Hm-m-m! Then it should have been transferred to the radio room list. Why didn’t you transfer it?”

“I thought it better to wait for your authority to do so, sir.”

The fish-eyes registered gratification. “Yes, that is quite proper of you, Captain. I will transfer it now.” He crossed the item from sheet nine, initialed it, entered it on sheet sixteen, initialed that. “V1099. Inscribed collar, leather … oh, yes, I’ve seen that. The dog was wearing it.”

He ticked it. An hour later he strutted into the radio room. Burman stood up, squared his shoulders but could not keep his feet or hands from fidgeting. His eyes protruded slightly and kept straying toward McNaught in silent appeal. He was like a man wearing a porcupine in his britches.

***

“V1098. Offog, one,” said Cassidy in his usual tone of brooking no nonsense.

Moving with the jerkiness of a slightly uncoordinated robot, Burman pawed a small box fronted with dials, switches, and colored lights. It looked like a radio ham’s idea of a fruit machine. He knocked down a couple of switches. The lights came on, played around in intriguing combinations.

“This is it, sir,” he informed with difficulty.

“Ah!” Cassidy left his chair and moved across for a closer look. “I don’t recall having seen this item before. But there are so many different models of the same things. Is it still operating efficiently?”

“Yes, sir.”

“It’s one of the most useful things in the ship,” contributed McNaught, for good measure.

“What does it do?” inquired Cassidy, inviting Burman to cast a pearl of wisdom before him.

Burman paled.

Hastily, McNaught said, “A full explanation would be rather involved and technical but, to put it as simply as possible, it enables us to strike a balance between opposing gravitational fields. Variations in lights indicate the extent and degree of unbalance at any given time.”

“It’s a clever idea,” added Burman, made suddenly reckless by this news, “based on Finagle’s Constant.”

“I see,” said Cassidy, not seeing at all. He resumed his seat, ticked the offog and carried on. “Z44. Switchboard, automatic, forty-line intercom, one of.”

“Here it is, sir.”

Cassidy glanced at it, returned his gaze to the sheet. The others used his momentary distraction to mop perspiration from their foreheads.

Victory had been gained.

All was well.

For the third time, hah!

***

Rear Admiral Vane W. Cassidy departed pleased and complimentary. Within one hour the crew bolted to town. McNaught took turns with Gregory at enjoying the gay lights. For the next five days all was peace and pleasure.

On the sixth day, Burman brought in a signal, dumped it upon McNaught’s desk, and waited for the reaction. He had an air of gratification, the pleasure of one whose virtue is about to be rewarded.

Terran Headquarters to Bustler. Return here immediately for overhaul and refitting. Improved power plant to be installed. Feldman. Navy Op. Command. Sirisec.

“Back to Terra,” commented McNaught, happily. “And an overhaul will mean at least one month’s leave.” He eyed Burman. “Tell all officers on duty to go to town at once and order the crew aboard. The men will come running when they know why.”

“Yes, sir,” said Burman, grinning.

Everyone was still grinning two weeks later when the Siriport had receded far behind and Sol had grown to a vague speck in the sparkling mist of the bow starfield. Eleven weeks still to go, but it was worth it. Back to Terra. Hurrah!

In the captain’s cabin, the grins abruptly vanished one evening when Burman suddenly developed the willies. He marched in, chewed his bottom lip while waiting for McNaught to finish writing in the log.

Finally, McNaught pushed the book away, glanced up, frowned. “What’s the matter with you? Got a bellyache or something?”

“No, sir. I’ve been thinking.”

“Does it hurt that much?”

“I’ve been thinking,” persisted Burman in funereal tones. “We’re going back for overhaul. You know what that means? We’ll walk off the ship and a horde of experts will walk onto it.” He stared tragically at the other. “Experts, I said.”

“Naturally they’ll be experts,” McNaught agreed. “Equipment cannot be tested and brought up to scratch by a bunch of dopes.”

“It will require more than a mere expert to bring the offog up to scratch,” Burman pointed out. “It’ll need a genius.

McNaught rocked back, swapped expressions like changing masks. “Jumping Judas! I’d forgotten all about that thing. When we get to Terra we won’t blind those boys with science.”

“No, sir, we won’t,” endorsed Burman. He did not add “any more,” but his face shouted aloud, “You got me into this. You get me out of it.” He waited a time while McNaught did some intense thinking, then prompted, “What do you suggest, sir?”

Slowly the satisfied smile returned to McNaught’s features as he answered, “Break up the contraption and feed it into the disintegrator.”

“That doesn’t solve the problem,” said Burman. “We’ll still be short an offog.”

“No, we won’t. Because I’m going to signal its loss owing to the hazards of space-service.” He closed one eye in an emphatic wink. “We’re in free flight right now.” He reached for a message-pad and scribbled on it while Burman stood by vastly relieved.

Bustler to Terran Headquarters. Item V1098, Offog, one, came apart under gravitational stress while passing through twin-sun field Hector Major-Minor. Material used as fuel. McNaught, Commander. Bustler.

Burman took it to the radio room and beamed it Earthward. All was peace and progress for another two days. The next time he went to the captain’s cabin he went running and worried.

“General call, sir,” he announced breathlessly and thrust the message into the other’s hands.

Terran Headquarters for relay all sectors. Urgent and Important. All ships grounded forthwith. Vessels in flight under official orders will make for nearest spaceport pending further instructions. Welling. Alarm and Rescue Command. Terra.

“Something’s gone bust,” commented McNaught, undisturbed. He traipsed to the chart room, Burman following. Consulting the charts, he dialed the intercom phone, got Pike in the bow and ordered, “There’s a panic. All ships grounded. We’ve got to make for Zaxtedport, about three days’ run away. Change course at once. Starboard seventeen degrees, declination ten.” Then he cut off, griped, “Bang goes that sweet month on Terra. I never did like Zaxted, either. It stinks. The crew will feel murderous about this, and I don’t blame them.”

“What d’you think has happened, sir?” asked Burman. He looked both uneasy and annoyed.

“Heaven alone knows. The last general call was seven years ago when the Starider exploded halfway along the Mars run. They grounded every ship in existence while they investigated the cause.” He rubbed his chin, pondered, went on, “And the call before that one was when the entire crew of the went nuts. Whatever it is this time, you can bet it’s serious.”

“It wouldn’t be the start of a space war?”

“Against whom?” McNaught made a gesture of contempt. “Nobody has the ships with which to oppose us. No, it’s something technical. We’ll learn of it eventually. They’ll tell us before we reach Zaxted or soon afterward.”

They did tell him. Within six hours. Burman rushed in with face full of horror.

“What’s eating you now?” demanded McNaught, staring at him.

“The offog,” stuttered Burman. He made motions as though brushing off invisible spiders.

“What of it?”

“It’s a typographical error. In your copy it should read off. dog.”

The commander stared owlishly.

“Off. dog?” echoed McNaught, making it sound like foul language.

“See for yourself.” Dumping the signal on the desk, Burman bolted out, left the door swinging. McNaught scowled after him, picked up the message.

Terran Headquarters to Bustler. Your report V1098, ship’s official dog Peaslake. Detail fully circumstances and manner in which animal came apart under gravitational stress. Cross-examine crew and signal all coincidental symptoms experienced by them. Urgent and Important. Welling. Alarm and Rescue Command. Terra.

In the privacy of his cabin McNaught commenced to eat his nails. Every now and again he went a little cross-eyed as he examined them for nearness to the flesh.

THE STAR

Arthur C. Clarke

It is three thousand light-years to the Vatican. Once I believed that space could have no power over Faith. Just as I believed that the heavens declared the glory of God’s handiwork. Now I have seen that handiwork, and my faith is sorely troubled.

I stare at the crucifix that hangs on the cabin wall above the Mark VI computer, and for the first time in my life I wonder if it is no more than an empty symbol.

I have told no one yet, but the truth cannot be concealed. The data are there for anyone to read, recorded on the countless miles of magnetic tape and the thousands of photographs we are carrying back to Earth. Other scientists can interpret them as easily as I can—more easily, in all probability. I am not one who would condone that tampering with the Truth which often gave my Order a bad name in the olden days.

The crew is already sufficiently depressed, I wonder how they will take this ultimate irony. Few of them have any religious faith, yet they will not relish using this final weapon in their campaign against me—that private, good-natured but fundamentally serious war which lasted all the way from Earth. It amused them to have a Jesuit as chief astrophysicist: Dr. Chandler, for instance, could never get over it (why are medical men such notorious atheists?). Sometimes he would meet me on the observation deck, where the lights are always low so that the stars shine with undiminished glory. He would come up to me in the gloom and stand staring out of the great oval port, while the heavens crawled slowly round us as the ship turned end over end with the residual spin we had never bothered to correct.

“Well, Father,” he would say at last. “It goes on forever and forever, and perhaps Something made it. But how you can believe that Something has a special interest in us and our miserable little world—that just beats me.” Then the argument would start, while the stars and nebulae would swing around us in silent, endless arcs beyond the flawlessly clear plastic of the observation port.

It was, I think, the apparent incongruity of my position which… yes, amused … the crew. In vain I would point to my three papers in the Astrophysical Journal, my five in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. I would remind them that our Order has long been famous for its scientific works. We may be few now, but ever since the eighteenth century we have made contributions to astronomy and geophysics out of all proportions to our numbers.

Will my report on the Phoenix Nebula end our thousand years of history? It will end, I fear, much more than that.

I do not know who gave the Nebula its name, which seems to me a very bad one. If it contains a prophecy, it is one which cannot be verified for several thousand million years. Even the word nebula is misleading: this is a far smaller object than those stupendous clouds of mist—the stuff of unborn stars—which are scattered throughout the length of the Milky Way. On the cosmic scale, indeed, the Phoenix Nebula is a tiny thing—a tenuous shell of gas surrounding a single star.

Or what is left of a star…

***

The Rubens engraving of Loyola seems to mock me as it hangs there above the spectrophotometer tracings. What would you, Father, have made of this knowledge that has come into my keeping, so far from the little world that was all the universe you knew? Would your faith have risen to the challenge, as mine has failed to do?

You gaze into the distance, Father, but I have traveled a distance beyond any that you could have imagined when you founded our Order a thousand years ago. No other survey ship has been so far from Earth: we are at the very frontiers of the explored universe. We set out to reach the Phoenix Nebula, we succeeded, and we are homeward bound with our burden of knowledge. I wish I could lift that burden from my shoulders, but I call to you in vain across the centuries and the light-years that lie between us.

On the book you are holding the words are plain to read. AD MAIO-REM DEI GLORIAM the message runs, but it is a message I can no longer believe. Would you still believe it, if you could see what we have found?

We knew, of course, what the Phoenix Nebula was. Every year, in our galaxy alone, more than a hundred stars explode, blazing for a few hours or days with thousands of times their normal brilliance before they sink back into death and obscurity. Such are the ordinary novae—the commonplace disasters of the universe. I have recorded the spectrograms and light-curves of dozens, since I started working at the lunar observatory.

But three or four times in every thousand years occurs something beside which even a nova pales into total insignificance.

When a star becomes a supernova, it may for a little while outshine all the massed suns of the galaxy. The Chinese astronomers watched this happen in 1054 A.D., not knowing what it was they saw. Five centuries later, in 1572, a supernova blazed in Cassiopeia so brilliantly that it was visible in the daylight sky. There have been three more in the thousand years that have passed since then.

Our mission was to visit the remnants of such a catastrophe, to reconstruct the events that led up to it, and, if possible, to learn its cause. We came slowly in through the concentric shells of gas that had been blasted out six thousand years before, yet were expanding still. They were immensely hot, radiating still with a fierce violet light, but far too tenuous to do us any damage. When the star had exploded, its outer layers had been driven upwards with such speed that they had escaped completely from its gravitational field. Now they formed a hollow shell large enough to engulf a thousand solar systems, and at its center burned the tiny, fantastic object which the star had now become—a white dwarf, smaller than the Earth yet weighing a million times as much.

The glowing gas shells were all around us, banishing the normal night of interstellar space. We were flying into the center of a cosmic bomb that had detonated millennia ago and whose incandescent fragments were still hurtling apart. The immense scale of the explosion, and the fact that the debris already covered a volume of space many billions of miles across, robbed the scene of any visible movement. It would take decades before the unaided eye could detect any motion in these tortured wisps and eddies of gas, yet the sense of turbulent expansion was overwhelming.

***

We had checked our primary drive hours before, and were drifting slowly towards the fierce little star ahead. Once it had been a sun like our own, but it had squandered in a few hours the energy that should have kept it shining for a million years. Now it was a shrunken miser, hoarding its resources as if trying to make amends for its prodigal youth.

No one seriously expected to find planets. If there had been any before the explosion, they would have been boiled into puffs of vapor, and their substance lost in the greater wreckage of the star itself. But we made the automatic search, as always when approaching an unknown sun, and presently we found a single small world circling the star at an immense distance. It must have been the Pluto of this vanished solar system, orbiting on the frontiers of the night. Too far from the central sun ever to have known life, its remoteness had saved it from the fate of all its lost companions.

The passing fires had seared its rocks and burnt away the mantle of frozen gas that must have covered it in the days before the disaster. We landed, and we found the Vault.

Its builders had made sure that we should. The monolithic marker that stood above the entrance was now a fused stump, but even the first long-range photographs told us that here was the work of intelligence. A little later we detected the continent-wide pattern of radioactivity that had been buried in the rock. Even if the pylon above the Vault had been destroyed, this would have remained, an immovable and all but eternal beacon calling to the stars. Our ship fell towards this gigantic bull’s-eye like an arrow into its target.

The pylon must have been a mile high when it was built, but now it looked like a candle that had melted down into a puddle of wax. It took us a week to drill through the fused rock, since we did not have the proper tools for a task like this. We were astronomers, not archaeologists, but we could improvise. Our original program was forgotten: this lonely monument, reared at such labor at the greatest possible distance from the doomed sun, could have only one meaning. A civilization which knew it was about to die had made its last bid for immortality.

It will take us generations to examine all the treasures that were placed in the Vault. They had plenty of time to prepare, for their sun must have given its first warnings many years before the final detonation. Everything that they wished to preserve, all the fruits of their genius, they brought here to this distant world in the days before the end, hoping that some other race would find them and that they would not be utterly forgotten.

If only they had had a little more time! They could travel freely enough between the planets of their own sun, but they had not yet learned to cross the interstellar gulfs, and the nearest solar system was a hundred light-years away.

***

Even if they had not been so disturbingly human as their sculpture shows, we could not have helped admiring them and grieving for their fate. They left thousands of visual records and the machines for projecting them, together with elaborate pictorial instructions from which it will not be difficult to learn their written language. We have examined many of these records, and brought to me for the first time in six thousand years the warmth and beauty of a civilization which in many ways must have been superior to our own. Perhaps they only showed us the best, and one can hardly blame them. But their worlds were very lovely, and their cities were built with a grace that matches anything of ours. We have watched them at work and play, and listened to their musical speech sounding across the centuries. One scene is still before my eyes—a group of children on a beach of strange blue sand, playing in the waves as children play on Earth.

And sinking into the sea, still warm and friendly and life-giving, is the sun that will soon turn traitor and obliterate all this innocent happiness.

Perhaps if we had not been so far from home and so vulnerable to loneliness, we should not have been so deeply moved. Many of us had seen the ruins of ancient civilizations on other worlds, but they had never affected us so profoundly.

This tragedy was unique. It was one thing for a race to fail and die, as nations and cultures have done on Earth. But to be destroyed so completely in the full flower of its achievement, leaving no survivors—how could that be reconciled with the mercy of God?

My colleagues have asked me that, and I have given what answers I can. Perhaps you could have done better, Father Loyola, but I have found nothing in the Eocercitia Spiritualia that helps me here. They were not an evil people: I do not know what gods they worshipped, if indeed they worshipped any. But I have looked back at them across the centuries, and have watched while the loveliness they used their last strength to preserve was brought forth again into the light of their shrunken sun.

I know the answers that my colleagues will give when they get back to Earth. They will say that the universe has no purpose and no plan, that since a hundred suns explode every year in our galaxy, at this very moment some race is dying in the depths of space. Whether that race has done good or evil during its lifetime will make no difference in the end: there is no divine justice, for there is no God.

Yet, of course, what we have seen proves nothing of the sort. Anyone who argues thus is being swayed by emotion, not logic. God has no need to justify His actions to man. He who built the universe can destroy it when He chooses. It is arrogance—it is perilously near blasphemy—for us to say what He may or may not do.

This I could have accepted, hard though it is to look upon whole worlds and peoples thrown into the furnace. But there comes a point when even the deepest faith must falter, and now, as I look at my calculations, I know I have reached that point at last.

***

We could not tell, before we reached the nebula, how long ago the explosion took place. Now, from the astronomical evidence and the record in the rocks of that one surviving planet, I have been able to date it very exactly. I know in what year the light of this colossal conflagration reached Earth. I know how brilliantly the supernova whose corpse now dwindles behind our speeding ship once shone in terrestrial skies. I know how it must have blazed low in the East before sunrise, like a beacon in that Oriental dawn.

There can be no reasonable doubt: the ancient mystery is solved at last. Yet—O God, there were so many stars you could have used.

What was the need to give these people to the fire, that the symbol or their passing might shine above Bethlehem?

OR ALL THE SEAS WITH OYSTERS

Avram Davidson

When the man came in to the F & O Bike Shop, Oscar greeted him with a hearty “Hi, there!” Then, as he looked closer at the middle-aged visitor with the eyeglasses and business suit, his forehead creased and he began to snap his thick fingers.

“Oh, say, I know you,” he muttered. “Mr.—um—name’s on the tip of my tongue, doggone it…” Oscar was a barrel-chested fellow. He had orange hair.

‘Why, sure you do,” the man said. There was a Lion’s emblem in his lapel. ”Remember, you sold me a girl’s bicycle with gears, for my daughter? We got to talking about that red French racing bike your partner was working on—“

Oscar slapped his big hand down on the cash register. He raised his head and rolled his eyes up. “Mr. Whatney!” Mr. Whatney beamed. “Oh, sure. Gee, how could I forget? And we went across the street afterward and had a couple a beers. Well, how you been, Mr. Whatney? I guess the bike—it was an English model, wasn’t it? Yeah. It must of given satisfaction or you would of been back, huh?”

Mr. Whatney said the bicycle was fine, just fine. Then he said, “I understand there’s been a change, though. You’re all by yourself now. Your partner…”

Oscar looked down, pushed his lower lip out, nodded. “You heard, huh? Ee-up. I’m all by myself now. Over three months now.”

*

The partnership had come to an end three months ago, but it had been faltering long before then. Ferd liked books, long-playing records and high-level conversation. Oscar liked beer, bowling and women. Any women. Any time.

The shop was located near the park; it did a big trade in renting bicycles to picnickers. If a woman was barely old enough to be called a woman, and not quite old enough to be called an old woman, or if she was anywhere in between, and if she was alone, Oscar would ask, “How does that machine feel to you? All right?”

“Why…I guess so.”

Taking another bicycle, Oscar would say, “Well, I’ll just ride along a little bit with you, to make sure. Be right back, Ferd.” Ferd always nodded gloomily. He knew that Oscar would not be right back. Later, Oscar would say, “Hope you made out in the shop as good as I did in the park.”

“Leaving me all alone here all that time,” Ferd grumbled.

And Oscar usually flared up. “Okay, then, next time you go and leave me stay here. See if I begrudge you a little fun.” But he knew, of course, that Ferd—tall, thin, pop-eyed Ferd—would never go. “Do you good,” Oscar said, slapping his sternum. “Put hair on your chest.”

Ferd muttered that he had all the hair on his chest that he needed. He would glance down covertly at his lower arms; they were thick with long black hair, though his upper arms were slick and white. It was already like that when he was in high school, and some of the others would laugh at him—call him “Ferdie the Birdie.” They knew it bothered him, but they did it anyway. How was it possible—he wondered then; he still did now—for people deliberately to hurt someone else who hadn’t hurt them? How was it possible?

He worried over other things. All the time.

“The Communists—” He shook his head over the newspaper. Oscar Differed an advice about the Communists in two short words. Or it might be capital punishment. “Oh, what a terrible thing if an innocent man was to be executed,” Ferd moaned. Oscar said that was the guy’s tough luck.

“Hand me that tire-iron,” Oscar said.

And Ferd worried even about other people’s minor concerns. Like the time the couple came in with the tandem and the baby-basket on it. Free air was all they took; then the woman decided to change the diaper and one of the safety pins broke.

“Why are there never any safety pins?” the woman fretted, rummaging here and rummaging there. “There are never any safety pins.”

Ferd made sympathetic noises, went to see if he had any; but, though he was sure there’d been some in the office, he couldn’t find them. So they drove off with one side of the diaper tied in a clumsy knot.

At lunch, Ferd said it was too bad about the safety pins. Oscar dug his teeth into a sandwich, tugged, tore, chewed, swallowed. Ferd liked to experiment with sandwich spreads—the one he liked most was cream-cheese, olives, anchovy and avocado, mashed up with a little mayonnaise—but Oscar always had the same pink luncheon-meat.

“It must be difficult with a baby.” Ferd nibbled. “Not just traveling, but raising it.”

Oscar said, “Jeez, there’s drugstores in every block, and if you can’t read, you can at least reckernize them.”

“Drugstores? Oh, to buy safety pins, you mean.”

“Yeah. Safety pins.”

“But… you know… it’s true… there’s never any safety pins when you look.”

Oscar uncapped his beer, rinsed the first mouthful around. “Aha! Always plenny of clothes hangers, though. Throw ‘em out every month, next month same closet’s full of ’m again. Now whatcha wanna do in your spare time, you invent a device which it’ll make safety pins outa clothes hangers.”

Ferd nodded abstractedly. “But in my spare time I’m working on the French racer…” It was a beautiful machine, light, low-slung, swift, red and shining. You felt like a bird when you rode it. But, good as it was, Ferd knew he could make it better. He showed it to everybody who came in the place until his interest slackened.

Nature was his latest hobby, or, rather, reading about Nature. Some kids had wandered by from the park one day with tin cans in which they had put salamanders and toads, and they proudly showed them to Ferd. After that, the work on the red racer slowed down and he spent his spare time on natural history books.

“Mimicry!” he cried to Oscar. “A wonderful thing!”

Oscar looked up interestedly from the bowling scores in the paper. “I seen Edie Adams on TV the other night, doing her imitation of Marilyn Monroe. Boy, oh, boy.”

Ferd was irritated, shook his head. “Not that kind of mimicry. I mean how insects and arachnids will mimic the shapes of leaves and twigs and so on, to escape being eaten by birds or other insects and arachnids.”

A scowl of disbelief passed over Oscar’s heavy face. “You mean they change their shapes? What you giving me?”

“Oh, it’s true. Sometimes the mimicry is for aggressive purposes, though—like a South African turtle that looks like a rock and so the fish swim up to it and then it catches them. Or that spider in Sumatra. When it lies on its back, it looks like a bird dropping. Catches butterflies that way.“

*

Oscar laughed, a disgusted and incredulous noise. It died away as he turned back to the bowling scores. One hand groped at his pocket, came away, scratched absently at the orange thicket under the shirt, then went patting his hip pocket.

“Where’s that pencil?” he muttered, got up, stomped into the office, pulled open drawers. His loud cry of “Hey!” brought Ferd into the tiny room.

“What’s the matter?” Ferd asked.

Oscar pointed to a drawer. “Remember that time you claimed there were no safety pins here? Look—whole gahdamn drawer is full of ‘em.”

Ferd stared, scratched his head, said feebly that he was certain he’d looked there before…

A contralto voice from outside asked, “Anybody here?”

Oscar at once forgot the desk and its contents, called, “Be right with you,” and was gone. Ferd followed him slowly.

There was a young woman in the shop, a rather massively built young woman, with muscular calves and a deep chest. She was pointing out the seat of her bicycle to Oscar, who was saying “Uh-huh” and looking more at her than at anything else. “It’s just a little too far forward (“Uh-huh”), as you can see. A wrench is all I need (“Uh-huh”). It was silly of me to forget my tools.”

Oscar repeated, “Uh-huh” automatically, then snapped to. “Fix it in a jiffy,” he said, and—despite her insistence that she could do it herself—he did fix it. Though not quite in a jiffy. He refused money. He prolonged the conversation as long as he could.

“Well, thank you,” the young woman said. “And now I’ve got to go.”

“That machine feel all right to you now?”

“Perfectly. Thanks—”

“Tell you what, I’ll just ride along with you a little bit, just—”

Pear-shaped notes of laughter lifted the young woman’s bosom. “Oh, you couldn’t keep up with me! My machine is a racer!”

The moment he saw Oscar’s eye flit to the corner, Ferd knew what he had in mind. He stepped forward. His cry of “No” was drowned out by his partner’s loud, “Well, I guess this racer here can keep up with yours!”

The young woman giggled richly, said, well, they would see about that, and was off. Oscar, ignoring Ferd’s outstretched hand, jumped on the French bike and was gone. Ferd stood in the doorway, watching the two figures, hunched over their handlebars, vanish down the road into the park. He went slowly back inside.

*

It was almost evening before Oscar returned, sweaty but smiling. Smiling broadly. “Hey, what a babe!” he cried. He wagged his head, he whistled, he made gestures, noises like escaping steam. “Boy, oh, boy, what an afternoon!”

“Give me the bike,” Ferd demanded.

Oscar said, yeah, sure; turned it over to him and went to wash. Ferd looked at the machine. The red enamel was covered with dust; there was mud spattered and dirt and bits of dried grass. It seemed soiled-degraded. He had felt like a swift bird when he rode it…

Oscar came out wet and beaming. He gave a cry of dismay, ran over.

“Stand away,” said Ferd, gesturing with the knife. He slashed the tires, the seat and seat cover, again and again.

“You crazy?” Oscar yelled. “You outa your mind? Ferd, no, don’t, Ferd—”

Ferd cut the spokes, bent them, twisted them. He took the heaviest hammer and pounded the frame into shapelessness, and then he kept on pounding till his breath was gasping.

“You’re not only crazy,” Oscar said bitterly, “you’re rotten jealous. You can go to hell.” He stomped away.

Ferd, feeling sick and stiff, locked up, went slowly home. He had no taste for reading, turned out the light and fell into bed, where he lay awake for hours, listening to the rustling noises of the night and thinking hot, twisted thoughts.

They didn’t speak to each other for days after that, except for the necessities of the work. The wreckage of the French racer lay behind the shop. For about two weeks, neither wanted to go out back where he’d have to see it.

One morning Ferd arrived to be greeted by his partner, who began to shake his head in astonishment even before he started speaking. “How did you do it, how did you do it, Ferd? Jeez, what a beautiful job—I gotta hand it to you—no more hard feelings, huh, Ferd?”

Ferd took his hand. “Sure, sure. But what are you talking about?”

Oscar led him out back. There was the red racer, all in one piece, not a mark or scratch on it, its enamel bright as ever. Ferd gaped. He squatted down and examined it. It was his machine. Every change, every improvement he had made, was there.

He straightened up slowly. “Regeneration…”

“Huh? What say?” Oscar asked. Then, “Hey, kiddo, you’re all white. Whad you do, stay up all night and didn’t get no sleep? Come on in and siddown. But I still don’t see how you done it.“

Inside, Ferd sat down. He wet his lips. He said, “Oscar—listen—”

“Yeah?”

“Oscar. You know what regeneration is? No? Listen. Some kinds of lizards, you grab them by the tail, the tail breaks off and they grow a new one. If a lobster loses a claw, it regenerates another one. Some kinds of worms—and hydras and starfish—you cut them into pieces, each piece will grow back the missing parts. Salamanders can regenerate lost hands, and frogs can grow legs back.”

“No kidding, Ferd. But, uh, I mean: Nature. Very interesting. But to get back to the bike now—how’d you manage to fix it so good?”

“I never touched it. It regenerated. Like a newt. Or a lobster.”

Oscar considered this. He lowered his head, looked up at Ferd from under his eyebrows. “Well, now, Ferd… Look… How come all broke bikes don’t do that?”

“This isn’t an ordinary bike. I mean it isn’t a real bike.” Catching Oscar’s look, he shouted, “Well, it’s true!”

The shout changed Oscar’s attitude from bafflement to incredulity. He got up. “So for the sake of argument, let’s say all that stuff about the bugs and the eels or whatever the hell you were talking about is true. But they’re alive. A bike ain’t.” He looked down triumphantly.

Ferd shook his leg from side to side, looked at it. “A crystal isn’t, either, but a broken crystal can regenerate itself if the conditions are right. Oscar, go see if the safety pins are still in the desk. Please, Oscar?”

He listened as Oscar, muttering, pulled the desk drawers out, rummaged in them, slammed them shut, tramped back.

“Naa,” he said. “All gone. Like that lady said that time, and you said, there never are any safety pins when you want ‘em. They disap—Ferd? What’re—”

Ferd jerked open the closet door, jumped back as a shoal of clothes hangers clattered out.

“And like you say,” Ferd said with a twist of his mouth, “on the other hand, there are always plenty of clothes hangers. There weren’t any here before.”

Oscar shrugged. “I don’t see what you’re getting at. But anybody could of got in here and took the pins and left the hangers. I could of— but I didn’t. Or you could of. Maybe—” He narrowed his eyes. “Maybe you walked in your sleep and done it. You better see a doctor. Jeez, you look rotten.”

Ferd went back and sat down, put his head in his hands. “I feel rotten. I’m scared, Oscar. Scared of what?” He breathed noisily. “I’ll tell you. Like I explained before, about how things that live in the wild places, they mimic other things there. Twigs, leaves… toads that look like rocks. Well, suppose there are… things… that live in people places. Cities. Houses. These things could imitate—well, other kinds of things you find in people places—“

“People places, for crise sake!”

“Maybe they’re a different kind of life-form. Maybe they get their nourishment out of the elements in the air. You know what safety pins are—these other kinds of them? Oscar, the safety pins are the pupa-forms and then they, like, hatch. Into the larval-forms. Which look just like coat hangers. They feel like them, even, but they’re not. Oscar, they’re not, not really, not really, not…”

He began to cry into his hands. Oscar looked at him. He shook his head.

After a minute, Ferd controlled himself somewhat. He snuffled. “All these bicycles the cops find, and they hold them waiting for owners to show up, and then we buy them at the sale because no owners show up because there aren’t any, and the same with the ones the kids are always trying to sell us, and they say they just found them, and they really did because they were never made in a factory. They grew. They grow. You smash them and throw them away, they regenerate.”

Oscar turned to someone who wasn’t there and waggled his head. “Hoo, boy,” he said. Then, to Ferd: “You mean one day there’s a safety pin and the next day instead there’s a coat hanger?”

*

Ferd said, “One day there’s a cocoon; the next day there’s a moth. One day there’s an egg; the next day there’s a chicken. But with… these it doesn’t happen in the open daytime where you can see it. But at night, Oscar—at night you can hear it happening. All the little noises in the nighttime, Oscar—”

Oscar said, “Then how come we ain’t up to our belly-button in bikes? If I had a bike for every coat hanger—”

But Ferd had considered that, too. If every codfish egg, he explained, or every oyster spawn grew to maturity, a man could walk across the ocean on the backs of all the codfish or oysters there’d be. So many died, so many were eaten by predatory creatures, that Nature had to produce a maximum in order to allow a minimum to arrive at maturity. And Oscar’s question was: then who, uh, eats the, uh, coat hangers?

Ferd’s eyes focused through wall, buildings, park, more buildings, to the horizon. “You got to get the picture. I’m not talking about real pins or hangers. I got a name for the others—‘false friends,’ I call them. In high school French, we had to watch out for French words that looked like English words, but really were different. ‘Faux amis,’ they call them. False friends. Pseudo-pins. Pseudo-hangers… Who eats them? I don’t know for sure. Pseudo-vacuum cleaners, maybe?“

His partner, with a loud groan, slapped his hands against his thighs. He said, “Ferd, Ferd, for crise sake. You know what’s the trouble with you? You talk about oysters, but you forgot what they’re good for. You forgot there’s two kinds of people in the world. Close up them books, them bug books and French books. Get out, mingle, meet people. Soak up some brew. You know what? The next time Norma—that’s this broad’s name with the racing bike—the next time she comes here, you take the red racer and you go out in the woods with her. I won’t mind. And I don’t think she will, either. Not too much.”

But Ferd said no. “I never want to touch the red racer again. I’m afraid of it.”

At this, Oscar pulled him to his feet, dragged him protestingly out to the back and forced him to get on the French machine. “Only way to conquer your fear of it!”

Ferd started off, white-faced, wobbling. And in a moment was on the ground, rolling and thrashing, screaming.

Oscar pulled him away from the machine.

“It threw me!” Ferd yelled. “It tried to kill me! Look-blood!”

His partner said it was a bump that threw him—it was his own fear. The blood? A broken spoke. Grazed his cheek. And he insisted Ferd get on the bicycle again, to conquer his fear.

But Ferd had grown hysterical. He shouted that no man was safe— that mankind had to be warned. It took Oscar a long time to pacify him and to get him to go home and into bed.

*

He didn’t tell all this to Mr. Whatney, of course. He merely said that his partner had gotten fed up with the bicycle business.

“It don’t pay to worry and try to change the world,” he pointed out. “I always say take things the way they are. If you can’t lick ‘em, join ’em.”

Mr. Whatney said that was his philosophy, exactly. He asked how things were, since.

“Well… not too bad. I’m engaged, you know. Name’s Norma. Crazy about bicycles. Everything considered, things aren’t bad at all. More work, yes, but I can do things all my own way, so…”

Mr. Whatney nodded. He glanced around the shop. “I see they’re still making drop-frame bikes,” he said, “though, with so many women wearing slacks, I wonder they bother.”

Oscar said, “Well, I dunno. I kinda like it that way. Ever stop to think that bicycles are like people? I mean, of all the machines in the world, only bikes come male and female.“

Mr. Whatney gave a little giggle, said that was right, he had never thought of it like that before. Then Oscar asked if Mr. Whatney had anything in particular in mind—not that he wasn’t always welcome.

“Well, I wanted to look over what you’ve got. My boy’s birthday is coming up—”

Oscar nodded sagely. “Now here’s a job,” he said, “which you can’t get it in any other place but here. Specialty of the house. Combines the best features of the French racer and the American standard, but it’s made right here, and it comes in three models—Junior, Intermediate and Regular. Beautiful, ain’t it?”

Mr. Whatney observed that, say, that might be just the ticket. “By the way,” he asked, “what’s become of the French racer, the red one, used to be here?”

Oscar’s face twitched. Then it grew bland and innocent and he leaned over and nudged his customer. “Oh, that one. Old Frenchy? Why, I put him out to stud!”

And they laughed and they laughed, and after they told a few more stories they concluded the sale, and they had a few beers and they laughed some more. And then they said what a shame it was about poor Ferd, poor old Ferd, who had been found in his own closet with an unraveled coat hanger coiled tightly around his neck.

THE MEN WHO MURDERED MOHAMMED

Alfred Bester

“She doesn’t know what she’s doing,” he thought. “She’s so scared of being lost. She’s not mine. Not yet. Maybe never.”

And then, “Fisher’s won, and I’ve lost.”

And last of all, “We only remember the past; we never know it when we meet it. The mind goes back, but time goes on, and farewells should be forever.”

Here was a man who mutilated history. He toppled empires and uprooted dynasties. Because of him, Mount Vernon should not be a national shrine, and Columbus, Ohio, should be called Cabot, Ohio. Because of him the name Marie Curie should be cursed in France, and no one should swear by the beard of the Prophet. Actually, these realities did not happen, because he was a mad professor; or, to put it another way, he only succeeded in making them unreal for himself.

Now, the patient reader is too familiar with the conventional mad professor, undersized and overbrowed, creating monsters in his laboratory which invariably turn on their maker and menace his lovely daughter. This story isn’t about that sort of make-believe man. It’s about Henry Hassel, a genuine mad professor in a class with such better-known men as Ludwig Boltzmann (see Ideal Gas Law), Jacques Charles, and Andre Marie Ampere (1775-1836).

Everyone ought to know that the electrical ampere was so named in honor of Ampere. Ludwig Boltzmann was a distinguished Austrian physicist, as famous for his research on black-body radiation as on Ideal Gases. You can look him up in Volume Three of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, BALT to BRAI. Jacques Alexandra Cesar. Charles was the first mathematician to become interested in flight, and he invented the hydrogen balloon. These were real men.

They were also real mad professors. Ampere, for example, was on his way to an important meeting of scientists in Paris. In his taxi he got a brilliant idea (of an electrical nature, I assume) and whipped out a pencil and jotted the equation on the wall of the hansom cab. Roughly, it was: dH = ipdl/r^2 in which p is the perpendicular distance from P to the line of the element dl; or dH = i sin 0 dl/r^2. This is sometimes known as Laplace’s Law, although he wasn’t at the meeting.

Anyway, the cab arrived at the Academic. Ampere jumped out, paid the driver and rushed into the meeting to tell everybody about his idea. Then he realized he didn’t have the note on him, remembered where he’d left it, and had to chase through the streets of Paris after the taxi to recover his runaway equation. Sometimes I imagine that’s how Fermat lost his famous “Last Theorem,” although Fermat wasn’t at the meeting either, having died some two hundred years earlier.

Or take Boltzmann. Giving a course in Advanced Ideal Gases, he peppered his lectures with involved calculus, which he worked out quickly and casually in his head. He had that kind of head. His students had so much trouble trying to puzzle out the math by ear that they couldn’t keep up with the lectures, and they begged Boltzmann to work out his equations on the blackboard.

Boltzmann apologized and promised to be more helpful in the future. At the next lecture he began, “Gentlemen, combining Boyle’s ‘ Law with the Law of Charles, we arrive at the equation pv = p_0 vo (1 ‘ + at). Now, obviously, if aSb = f (x) dxx(a), then pv = RT and VS f j (x,y,z) dV = O. It’s as simple as two plus two equals four.” At this point Boltzman remembered his promise. He turned to the blackboard, conscientiously chalked 2 + 2=4, and then breezed on, casually doing the complicated calculus in his head.

Jacques Charles, the brilliant mathematician who discovered Charles’s Law (sometimes known as Gay-Lussac’s Law), which Boltzmann mentioned in his lecture, had a lunatic passion to become a famous paleographer—that is, a discoverer of ancient manuscripts. I think that being forced to share credit with Gay-Lussac may have unhinged him.

He paid a transparent swindler named Vrain-Lucas 200,000 francs for holograph letters purportedly written by Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, and Pontius Pilate. Charles, a man who could see through any gas, ideal or not, actually believed in these forgeries despite the fact that the maladroit Vrain-Lucas had written them in modern French on modern notepaper bearing modern watermarks. Charles even tried to donate them to the Louvre.

Now, these men weren’t idiots. They were geniuses who paid a high price for their genius because the rest of their thinking was other-world. A genius is someone who travels to truth by an unexpected path. Unfortunately, unexpected paths lead to disaster in everyday life. This is what happened to Henry Hassel, professor of Applied Compulsion at Unknown University in the year 1980.

Nobody knows where Unknown University is or what they teach there. It has a faculty of some two hundred eccentrics, and a student body of two thousand misfits—the kind that remain anonymous until they win Nobel prizes or become the First Man on Mars. You can always spot a graduate of U.U. when you ask people where they went to school. If you get an evasive reply like: “State,” or “Oh, a freshwater school you never heard of,” you can bet they went to Unknown. Someday I hope to tell you more about this university, which is a center of learning only in the Pickwickian sense.

Anyway, Henry Hassel started home from his office in the Psychotic Psenter early one afternoon, strolling through the Physical Culture arcade. It is not true that he did this to leer at the nude coeds practicing Arcane Eurythmics; rather, Hassel liked to admire the trophies displayed in the arcade in memory of great Unknown teams which had won the sort of championships that Unknown teams win—in sports like Strabismus, Occlusion, and Botulism. (Hassel had been Frambesia singles champion three years running.) He arrived home uplifted, and burst gaily into the house to discover his wife in the arms of a man.

There she was, a lovely woman of thirty-five, with smoky red hair and almond eyes, being heartily embraced by a person whose pockets were stuffed with pamphlets, microchemical apparatus, and a patella-reflex hammer—a typical campus character of U.U., in fact. The embrace was so concentrated that neither of the offending parties noticed Henry Hassel glaring at them from the hallway.

Now, remember Ampere and Charles and Boltzmann. Hassel weighed one hundred and ninety pounds. He was muscular and uninhibited. It would have been child’s play for him to have dismembered his wife and her lover, and thus simply and directly achieve the goal he desired—the end of his wife’s life. But Henry Hassel was in the genius class; his mind just didn’t operate that way.

Hassel breathed hard, turned and lumbered into his private laboratory like a freight engine. He opened a drawer labeled DUODENUM and removed a .45-caliber revolver. He opened other drawers, more interestingly labeled, and assembled apparatus. In exactly seven and one half minutes (such was his rage), he put together a time machine (such was his genius).

Professor Hassel assembled the time machine around him, set the dial for 1902, picked up the revolver and pressed a button. The machine made a noise like defective plumbing and Hassel disappeared. He reappeared in Philadelphia on June 3, 1902, went directly to No. 1218 Walnut Street, a red-brick house with marble steps, and rang the bell. A man who might have passed for the third Smith Brother opened the door and looked at Henry Hassel.

“Mr. Jessup?” Hassel asked in a suffocated voice.

“Yes?”

“You are Mr. Jessup?”

“I am.”

“You will have a son, Edgar? Edgar Allan Jessup—so named because of your regrettable admiration for Poe?”

The third Smith Brother was startled. “Not that I know of,” he said. “I’m not married yet.”

“You will be,” Hassel said angrily. “I have the misfortune to be married to your son’s daughter. Greta. Excuse me.” He raised the revolver and shot his wife’s grandfather-to-be.

“She will have ceased to exist,” Hassel muttered, blowing smoke out of the revolver. “I’ll be a bachelor. I may even be married to somebody else …Good God! Who?”

Hassel waited impatiently for the automatic recall of the time machine to snatch him back to his own laboratory. He rushed into his living room. There was his redheaded wife, still in the arms of a man.

Hassel was thunderstruck.

“So that’s it,” he growled. “A family tradition of faithlessness. Well, we’ll see about that. We have ways and means.” He permitted himself a hollow laugh, returned to his laboratory, and sent himself back to the year 1901, where he shot and killed Emma Hotchkiss, his wife’s maternal grandmother-to-be. He returned to his own home in his own time. There was his redheaded wife, still in the arms of another man.

“But I know the old bitch was her grandmother,” Hassel muttered. “You couldn’t miss the resemblance. What the hell’s gone wrong?”

Hassel was confused and dismayed, but not without resources. He went to his study, had difficulty picking up the phone, but finally managed to dial the Malpractice Laboratory. His finger kept oozing out of the dial holes.

“Sam?” he said. “This is Henry.”

“Who?”

“Henry.”

“You’ll have to speak up.”

“Henry Hassel!”

“Oh, good afternoon, Henry.”

“Tell me all about time.”

“Time? Hmmm…” The Simplex-and-Multiplex Computer cleared its throat while it waited for the data circuits to link up. “Ahem. Time. (1) Absolute. (2) Relative. (3) Recurrent. (I) Absolute: period, contingent, duration, diurnity, perpetuity—”

“Sorry, Sam. Wrong request. Go back. I want time, reference to succession of, travel in.”

Sam shifted gears and began again. Hassel listened intently. He nodded. He grunted. “Uh huh. Uh huh. Right. I see. Thought so. A continuum, eh? Acts performed in past must alter future. Then I’m on the right track. But act must be significant, eh? Massaction effect. Trivia cannot divert existing phenomena streams. Hmmm. But how trivial is a grandmother?”

“What are you trying to do, Henry?”

“Kill my wife,” Hassel snapped. He hung up. He returned to his laboratory. He considered, still in a jealous rage.

“Got to do something significant,” he muttered. “Wipe Greta out. Wipe it all out. All right, by God! I’ll show ‘em.”

Hassel went back to the year 1775, visited a Virginia farm and shot a young colonel in the brisket. The colonel’s name was George Washington, and Hassel made sure he was dead. He returned to his own time and his own home. There was his redheaded wife, still in the arms of another.

“Damn!” said Hassel. He was running out of ammunition. He opened a fresh box of cartridges, went back in time and massacred Christopher Columbus, Napoleon, Mohammed and half a dozen other celebrities. “That ought to do it, by God!” said Hassel

He returned to his own time, and found his wife as before.

His knees turned to water; his feet seemed to melt into the floor. He went back to his laboratory, walking through nightmare quicksands.

“What the hell is significant?” Hassel asked himself painfully. “How much does it take to change futurity? By God, I’ll really change it this time. I’ll go for broke.”

He traveled to Paris at the turn of the twentieth century and visited a Madame Curie in an attic workshop near the Sorbonne. “Madame,” he said in his execrable French, “I am a stranger to you of the utmost, but a scientist entire. Knowing of your experiments with radium— Oh? You haven’t got to radium yet? No matter. I am here to teach you all of nuclear fission.”

He taught her. He had the satisfaction of seeing Paris go up in a mushroom of smoke before the automatic recall brought him home. “That’ll teach women to be faithless,” he growled …“Guhhh!” The last was wrenched from his lips when he saw his redheaded wife still— But no need to belabor the obvious.

Hassel swam through fogs to his study and sat down to think. While he’s thinking I’d better warn you that this not a conventional time story. If you imagine for a moment that Henry is going to discover that the man fondling his wife is himself, you’re mistaken. The viper is not Henry Hassel, his son, a relation, or even Ludwig Boltzmann (1844-1906). Hassel does not make a circle in time, ending where the story begins—to the satisfaction of nobody and the fury of everybody—for the simple reason that time isn’t circular, or linear, or tandem, discoid, syzygous, longinquitous, or pandicularted. Time is a private matter, as Hassel discovered.

“Maybe I slipped up somehow,” Hassel muttered. “I’d better find out.” He fought with the telephone, which seemed to weigh a hundred tons, and at last managed to get through to the library.

“Hello, Library? This is Henry.”

“Who?”

“Henry Hassel.”

“Speak up, please.”

“HENRY HASSEL!”

“Oh. Good afternoon, Henry.”

“What have you got on George Washington?”

Library clucked while her scanners sorted through her catalogues. “George Washington, first president of the United States, was born in—”

“First president? Wasn’t he murdered in 1775?”

“Really, Henry. That’s an absurd question. Everybody knows that George Wash—”

“Doesn’t anybody know he was shot?”

“By whom?”

“Me.”

“When?”

“In 1775.”

“How did you manage to do that?”

“I’ve got a revolver.”

“No, I mean, how did you do it two hundred years ago?”

“I’ve got a time machine.”

“Well, there’s no record here,” Library said. “He still doing fine in my files. You must have missed.”

“I did not miss. What about Christopher Columbus? Any record of his death in 1489?”

“But he discovered the New World in 1492.”

“He did not. He was murdered in 1489.”

“How?”

“With a forty-five slug in the gizzard.”

“You again, Henry?”

“Yes.”

“There’s no record here,” Library insisted. “You must be one lousy shot.”

“I will not lose my temper,” Hassel said in a trembling voice.

“Why not, Henry?”

“Because it’s lost already,” he shouted. “All right! What about Marie Curie? Did she or did she not discover the fission bomb which destroyed Paris at the turn of the century?”

“She did not. Enrico Fermi—”

“She did.”

“She didn’t.”

“I personally taught her. Me. Henry Hassel.”

“Everybody says you’re a wonderful theoretician, but a lousy teacher, Henry. You—”

“Go to hell, you old biddy. This has got to be explained.”

“Why?”

“I forget. There was something on my mind, but it doesn’t matter now. What would you suggest?”

“You really have a time machine?”

“Of course I’ve got a time machine.”

“Then go back and check.”

Hassel returned to the year 1775, visited Mount Vernon, and interrupted the spring planting. “Excuse me, colonel,” he began.

The big man looked at him curiously. “You talk funny, stranger,” he said. “Where you from?”

“Oh, a freshwater school you never heard of.”

“You look funny too. Kind of misty, so to speak.”

“Tell me, colonel, what do you hear from Christopher Columbus?”

“Not much,” Colonel Washington answered. “Been dead two, three hundred years.”

“When did he die?”

“Year fifteen hundred some-odd, near as I remember.”

“He did not. He died in 1489.”

“Got your dates wrong, friend. He discovered America in 1492.”

“Cabot discovered America. Sebastian Cabot.”

“Nope. Cabot came a mite later.”

“I have infallible proof!” Hassel began, but broke off as a stocky and rather stout man, with a face ludicrously reddened by rage, approached. He was wearing baggy gray slacks and a tweed jacket two sizes too small for him. He was carrying a .45 revolver. It was only after he had stared for a moment that Henry Hassel realized that he was looking at himself and not relishing the sight.

“My God!” Hassel murmured. “It’s me, coming back to murder Washington that first time. If I’d made this second trip an hour later, I’d have found Washington dead. Hey!” he called. “Not yet. Hold off a minute. I’ve got to straighten something out first.”

Hassel paid no attention to himself; indeed, he did not appear to be aware of himself. He marched straight up to Colonel Washington and shot him in the gizzard. Colonel Washington collapsed, emphatically dead. The first murderer inspected the body, and then, ignoring Hassel’s attempt to stop him and engage him in dispute, turned and marched off, muttering venomously to himself.

“He didn’t hear me,” Hassel wondered. “He didn’t even feel me. And why don’t I remember myself trying to stop me the first time I shot the colonel? What the hell is going on?”

Considerably disturbed, Henry Hassel visited Chicago and dropped into the Chicago University squash courts in the early 1940s. There, in a slippery mess of graphite bricks and graphite dust that coated him, he located an Italian scientist named Fermi.

“Repeating Marie Curie’s work, I see, dottore?” Hassel said.

Fermi glanced about as though he had heard a faint sound.

“Repeating Marie Curie’s work, dottore?” Hassel roared.

Fermi looked at him strangely, “where you from, amico?”

“State.”

“State Department?”

“Just State. It’s true, isn’t it, dottore, that Marie Curie discovered nuclear fission back in nineteen ought ought?”

“No! No! No!” Fermi cried. “We are the first, and we are not there yet. Police! Police! Spy!”

“This time I’ll go on record,” Hassel growled. He pulled out his trusty .45, emptied it into Dr. Fermi’s chest, and awaited arrest and immolation in newspaper files. To his amazement, Dr. Fermi did not collapse. Dr. Fermi merely explored his chest tenderly and, to the men who answered his cry, said, “It is nothing. I felt in my within a sudden sensation of burn which may be a neuralgia of the cardiac nerve, but is most likely gas.”

Hassel was too agitated to wait for the automatic recall of the time machine. Instead he returned at once to Unknown University under his own power. This should have given him a clue, but he was too possessed to notice. It was at this time that I (1913-1975) first saw him—a dim figure tramping through parked cars, closed doors and brick walls, with the light of lunatic determination on his face.

He oozed into the library, prepared for an exhaustive discussion, but could not make himself felt or heard by the catalogues. He ‘ went to the Malpractice Laboratory, where Sam, the Simplex-and-Multiplex Computer, has installations sensitive up to 10,700 angstroms. Sam could not see Henry, but managed to hear him through a sort of wave-interference phenomenon.

“Sam,” Hassel said. “I’ve made one hell of a discovery.”

“You’re always making discoveries, Henry,” Sam complained. “Your data allocation is filled. Do I have to start another tape for you?”

“But I need advice. Who’s the leading authority on time, reference to succession of, travel in?”

“That would be Israel Lennox, spatial mechanics, professor of,

Yale.”

“How do I get in touch with him?”

“You don’t, Henry. He’s dead. Died in ‘75.”

“What authority have you got on time, travel in, living?”

“Wiley Murphy.”

“Murphy? From our own Trauma Department? That’s a break. Where is he now?”

“As a matter of fact, Henry, he went over to your house to ask you something.”

Hassel went home without walking, searched through his laboratory and study without finding anyone, and at last floated into the living room, where his redheaded wife was still in the arms of another man. (All this, you understand, had taken place within the space of a few moments after the construction of the time machine; such is the nature of time and travel.) Hassel cleared his throat once or twice and tried to tap his wife on the shoulder. His fingers went through her.

“Excuse me, darling,” he said. “Has Wiley Murphy been in to see me?”

Then he looked closer and saw that the man embracing his wife was Murphy himself.

“Murphy!” Hassel exclaimed. “The very man I’m looking for. I’ve had the most extraordinary experience.” Hassel at once launched into a lucid description of his extraordinary experience, which went something like this: “Murphy, u— v = (u’/2— v’A) (ua + u” + vy) but when George Washington F (xjy+ dx and Enrico Fermi F (u’/2) dxdt one half of Marie Curie, then what about Christopher Columbus times the square root of minus one?”

Murphy ignored Hassel, as did Mrs. Hassel. I jotted down Has-sel’s equations on the hood of a passing taxi.

“Do listen to me, Murphy,” Hassel said. “Greta dear, would you mind leaving us for a moment? I— For heaven’s sake, will you two stop that nonsense? This is serious.”

Hassel tried to separate the couple. He could no more touch them than make them hear him. His face turned red again and he became quite choleric as he beat at Mrs. Hassel and Murphy. It was like beating an Ideal Gas. I thought it best to interfere.

“Hassel!”

“Who’s that?”

“Come outside a moment. I want to talk to you.”

He shot through the wall. “Where are you?”

“Over here.”

“You’re sort of dim.”

“So are you.”

“Who are you?”

“My name’s Lennox, Israel Lennox.”

“Israel Lennox, spatial mechanics, professor of, Yale?”

“The same.”

“But you died in ‘75.”

“I disappeared in ‘75.”

“What d’you mean?”

“I invented a time machine.”

“By God! So did I,” Hassel said. “This afternoon. The idea came to me in a flash—I don’t know why—and I’ve had the most extraordinary experience. Lennox, time is not a continuum.”

“No?”

“It’s a series of discrete particles—like pearls on a string.”

“Yes?”

“Each pearl is a ‘Now.’ Each ‘Now’ has its own past and future, but none of them relate to any others. You see? if a = a, + a_2ji + ax (b,)—”

“Never mind the mathematics, Henry.”

“It’s a form of quantum transfer of energy. Time is emitted in discrete corpuscles or quanta. We can visit each individual quantum and make changes within it, but no change in any one corpuscle affects any other corpuscle. Right?”

“Wrong,” I said sorrowfully.

“What d’you mean, ‘Wrong’?” he said, angrily gesturing through the cleave of a passing coed. “You take the trochoid equations and—”

“Wrong,” I repeated firmly. “Will you listen to me, Henry?”

“Oh, go ahead,” he said.

“Have you noticed that you’ve become rather insubstantial? Dim? Specttal? Space and time no longer affect you?”

“Yes?”

“Henry, I had the misfortune to construct a time machine back in ‘75.”

“So you said. Listen, what about power input? I figure I’m using about 7.3 kilowatts per—”

“Never mind the power input, Henry. On my first trip into the past, I visited the Pleistocene. I was eager to photograph the mastodon, the giant ground sloth, and the saber-tooth tiger. While I was backing up to get a mastodon fully in the field of view at f/6.3 at I/100th of a second, or on the LVS scale—”

“Never mind the LVS scale,” he said.

“While I was backing up, I inadvertently trampled and killed a small Pleistocene insect.”

“Aha!” said Hassel.

“I was terrified by the incident. I had visions of returning to my world to find it completely changed as a result of this single death. Imagine my surprise when I returned to my world to find that nothing had changed.”

“Oho!” said Hassel.

“I became curious. I went back to the Pleistocene and killed the mastodon. Nothing was changed in 1975. I returned to the Pleistocene and slaughtered the wildlife—still with no effect. I ranged through time, killing and destroying, in an attempt to alter the’ present.”

“Then you did it just like me,” Hassel exclaimed. “Odd we didn’t run into each other.”

“Not odd at all.”

“I got Columbus.”

“I got Marco Polo.”

“I got Napoleon.”

“I thought Einstein was more important.”

“Mohammed didn’t change things much—I expected more from him.”

“I know. I got him too.”

“What do you mean, you got him too?” Hassel demanded.

“I killed him September 16, 599. Old Style.”

“Why, I got Mohammed January 5, 598.”

“I believe you.”

“But how could you have killed him after I killed him?”

“We both killed him.”

“That’s impossible.”

“My boy,” I said, “time is entirely subjective. It’s a private matter—a personal experience. There is no such thing as objective time, just as there is no such thing as objective love, or an objective soul.”

“Do you mean to say that time travel is impossible? But we’ve done it.”

“To be sure, and many others, for all I know. But we each travel into our own past, and no other person’s. There is no universal continuum, Henry. There are only billions of individuals, each with his own continuum; and one continuum cannot affect the other. We’re like millions of strands of spaghetti in the same pot. No time traveler can ever meet another time traveler in the past or future. Each of us must travel up and down his own strand alone.”

“But we’re meeting each other now.”

“We’re no longer time travelers, Henry. We’ve become the spaghetti sauce.”

“Spaghetti sauce?”

“Yes. You and I can visit any strand we like, because we’ve destroyed ourselves.”

“I don’t understand.”

“When a man changes the past he only affects his own past—no one else’s. The past is like memory. When you erase a man’s memory, you wipe him out, but you don’t wipe out anybody else’s. You and I have erased our past. The individual worlds of the others go on, but we have ceased to exist.”

“What d’you mean, ‘ceased to exist’?”

“With each act of destruction we dissolved a little. Now we’re all gone. We’ve committed chronicide. We’re ghosts. I hope Mrs. Hassel will be very happy with Mr. Murphy…. Now let’s go over to the Academic. Ampere is telling a great story about Ludwig Boltzmann.”

TRIGGERMAN

J. F. Bone

General Alastair French was probably the most important man in the Western Hemisphere from the hours of 0800 to 1600. Yet all he did was sit in a windowless room buried deeply underground, facing a desk that stood against a wall. The wall was studded with built-in mechanisms. A line of twenty-four-hour clocks was inset near the ceiling, showing the corresponding times in all time zones on Earth. Two huge TV screens below the clocks were flunked by loudspeaker systems. The desk was bare except for three telephones of different colors—red, blue, and white—and a polished plastic slab inset with a number of white buttons framing a larger one whose red surface was the color of fresh blood. A thick carpet, a chair of peculiar design with broad flat arms, and an ashtray completed the furnishings. Warmed and humidified air circulated through the room from concealed grilles at floor level. The walls of the room were painted a soft restful gray that softened the indirect lighting. The door was steel and equipped with a time lock.

The exact location of the room and the Center that served it was probably the best kept secret in the Western world. Ivan would probably give a good percentage of the Soviet tax take to know precisely where it was, just as the West would give a similar amount to know where Ivan’s Center was located. Yet despite the fact that its location was remote, the man behind the desk was in intimate contact with every major military point in the Western Alliance. The red telephone was a direct connection to the White House. The blue was a line that reached to the headquarters of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and to the emergency Capitol hidden in the hills of West Virginia. And the white telephone connected by priority lines with every military center and base in the world that was under Allied control.

General French was that awesome individual often joked about by TV comics who didn’t know that he really existed. He was the man who could push the button that would start World War III!

French was aware of his responsibilities and took them seriously. By nature he was a serious man, but, after three years of living with ultimate responsibility, it was no longer the crushing burden that it had been at first when the Psychological Board selected him as one of the most inherently stable men on Earth. He was not ordinarily a happy man; his job, and the steadily deteriorating world situation precluded that, but this day was a bright exception. The winter morning had been extraordinarily beautiful, and he loved beauty with the passion of an artist. A flaming sunrise had lighted the whole eastern sky with golden glory, and the crisp cold air stimulated his senses to appreciate it. It was much too lovely for thoughts of war and death.

He opened the door of the room precisely at 0800, as he had done for three years, and watched a round, pink-cheeked man in a gray suit rise from the chair behind the desk. Kleinmeister, he thought, neither looked like a general nor like a potential executioner of half the world. He was a Santa Claus without a beard. But appearances were deceiving. Hans Kleinmeister could, without regret, kill half the world if he thought it was necessary. The two men shook hands, a ritual gesture that marked the changing of the guard, and French sank into the padded chair behind the desk.

“It’s a beautiful day outside, Hans,” he remarked as he settled his stocky, compact body into the automatically adjusting plastifoam. “I envy you the pleasure of it.”

“I don’t envy you, Al,” Kleinmeister said. “I’m just glad it’s all over for another twenty-four hours. This waiting gets on the nerves.” Kleinmeister grinned as he left the room. The steel door thudded into place behind him and the time lock clicked. For the next eight hours French would be alone.

He sighed. It was too bad that he had to be confined indoors on a day like this one promised to be, but there was no help for it. He shifted luxuriously in the chair. It was the most comfortable seat that the mind and ingenuity of man could contrive. It had to be. The man who sat in it must have every comfort. He must want for nothing. And above all he must not be irritated or annoyed. His brain must be free to evaluate and decide—and nothing must distract the functioning of that brain. Physical comfort was a means to that end—and the chair provided it. French felt soothed in the gentle caress of the upholstery.

The familiar feeling of detachment swept over him as he checked the room. Nominally, he was responsible to the President and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but practically he was responsible to no one. No hand but his could set in motion the forces of massive retaliation that had hung over aggression for the past twenty years. Without his sanction, no intercontinental or intermediate-range missile could leave its rack. He was the final authority, the ultimate judge, and the executioner if need be—a position thrust upon him after years of intensive tests and screening. In this room he was as close to being a god as any man had been since the beginning of time.

French shrugged and touched one of the white buttons on the panel.

“Yes sir?” an inquiring voice came from one of the speakers. “A magazine and a cup of coffee,” said General French. “What magazine, sir?”

“Something light—something with pictures. Use your judgment.”

“Yes, sir.”

French grinned. By now the word was going around Center that the Old Man was in a good humor today. A cup of coffee rose from a well in one of the board arms of the chair, and a magazine extruded from a slot in its side. French opened the magazine and sipped the coffee. General Craig, his relief, would be here in less than eight hours, which would leave him the enjoyment of the second-best part of the day if the dawn was any indication. He hoped the sunset would be worthy of its dawn. He looked at the center clock. The hands read 0817 ….

At Station 2 along the DEW Line the hands of the station clock read 1217. Although it was high noon it was dark outside, lightened only by a faint glow to the south where the winter sun strove vainly to appear above the horizon. The air was clear, and the stars shone out of the blue-black sky of the polar regions. A radarman bending over his scope stiffened. “Bogey!” he snapped. “Azimuth 0200, coming up fast!”

The bogey came in over the north polar cap, slanting downward through the tenuous wisps of upper atmosphere. The gases ripped at its metallic sides with friction and oxidation. Great gouts of flaming brilliance spurted from its incandescent outer surface, boiling away to leave a trail of sparkling scintillation in its wake. It came with enormous speed, whipping over the Station almost before the operator could hit the general alarm.

The tracking radar of the main line converged upon the target. Electronic computers analyzed its size, speed and flight path, passing the information to the batteries of interceptor missiles in the sector. “Locked on,” a gunnery office announced in a bored tone. “Fire two.” He smiled. Ivan was testing again. It was almost routine, this business of one side or the other sending over a pilot missile. It was the acid test. If the defense network couldn’t get it, perhaps others would come over—perhaps not. It was all part of the cold war.

Miles away, two missiles leaped from their ramps, flashing skyward on flaming rockets. The gunnery officer waited a moment and then swore. “Missed, by damn! It looks like Ivan’s got something new.” He flipped a switch. “Reserve line, stand by,” he said. “Bogey coming over. Course 0200.”

“Got her,” a voice came from the speaker of the command set. “All stations in range, fire four—salvo!”

“My God, what’s in that thing! Warn Stateside! Execute!”

“All stations East Seaboard Outer Defense Area! Bogey coming over!”

“Red Alert, all areas!” a communications man said urgently into a microphone. “Ivan’s got something this time! General evacuation plan Boston to Richmond Plan One! Execute!”

“Outer Perimeter Fire Pattern B!”

“Center! Emergency Priority! General, there’s a bogey coming in. Eastseaboard sector. It’s passed the outer lines, and nothing’s touched it so far. It’s the damnedest thing you ever saw! Too fast for interception. Estimated target area Boston-Richmond. For evaluation—!”

“Sector perimeter on target, sir!”

“Fire twenty, Pattern C!”

All along the flight path of the bogey, missile launchers hurled the cargoes of death into the sky. A moving pattern formed in front of the plunging object that now was flaming brightly enough to be seen in the cold northern daylight. Missiles struck, detonated, and were absorbed into the ravening flames around the object, but it came on with unabated speed, a hissing, roaring mass of destruction!

“God! It’s still coming in!” an anguished voice wailed. “I told them we needed nuclear warheads for close-in defense!”

More missiles swept aloft, but the bogey was now so low that both human and electronic sensings were too slow. An instantaneous blast of searing heat flashed across the land in its wake, crisping anything flammable in its path. Hundreds of tiny fires broke out, most of which were quickly extinguished, but others burned violently. A gas refinery in Utica exploded. Other damage of a minor nature was done in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre. The reports were mixed with military orders and the flare of missiles and the crack of artillery hurling box barrages into the sky. But it was futile. The target was moving almost too fast to be seen, and by the time the missiles and projectiles reached intercept point, the target was gone, drawing away from the fastest defense devices with almost contemptuous ease.

General French sat upright in his chair. The peaceful expression vanished from his face to be replaced by a hard, intent look, as his eyes flicked from phones to TV screen. The series of tracking stations, broadcasting over wire, sent their images in to be edited and projected on the screens in French’s room. Their observations appeared at frighteningly short intervals.

French stared at the flaring dot that swept across the screens. It could not be a missile, unless—his mind faltered at the thought— the Russians were further advanced than anyone had expected. They might be at that—after all, they had surprised the world with Sputnik not too many years ago, and the West was forced to work like fiends to catch up.

“Target confirmed,” one of the speakers announced with unearthly calm. “It’s Washington!”

The speaker to the left of the screen broke into life. “This is Conelrad,” it said. “This is not a test, repeat—this is not a test!” The voice faded as another station took over. “A transpolar missile is headed south along the eastern seaboard. Target Washington. Plan One. Evacuation time thirty seconds—”

Thirty seconds! French’s mind recoiled. Washington was dead! You couldn’t go anywhere in thirty seconds! His hand moved toward the red button. This was it!

The missile on the screen was brighter now. It flamed like a miniature sun, and the sound of its passage was that of a million souls in torment! “It can’t stand much more of that,” French breathed. “It’ll burn up!”

“New York Sector—bogey at twelve o’clock—high! God! Look at it!”

The glare of the thing filled the screen.

The blue phone rang. “Center,” French said. He waited and then laid the phone down. The line was dead.

“Flash!” Conelrad said. “The enemy missile has struck south of New York. A tremendous flash was seen fifteen seconds ago by observers in civilian defense spotting nets … no sound of the explosion as yet …more information—triangulation of the explosion indicates that it has struck the nation’s capital! Our center of government has been destroyed!” There was a short silence broken by a faint voice. “Oh, my God!—all those poor people!”

The red phone rang. French picked it up. “Center,” he said.

The phone squawked at him.

“Your authority?” French queried dully. He paused and his face turned an angry red. “Just who do you think you are, Colonel? I’ll take orders from the Chief—but no one else! Now get off that line! …Oh, I see. Then it’s my responsibility? … All right, I accept it—now leave me alone!” He put the phone gently back on the cradle. A fine beading of sweat dotted his forehead. This was the situation he had never let himself think would occur. The President was dead. The Joint Chiefs were dead. He was on his own until some sort of government could be formed. Should he wait and let Ivan exploit his advantage, or should he strike? Oddly, he wondered what his alter ego in Russia was doing at this moment. Was he proud of having struck this blow— or was he frightened? French smiled grimly. If he were in Ivan’s shoes, he’d be scared to death! He shivered. For the first time in years he felt the full weight of the responsibility that was his. The red phone rang again.

“Center—French here …Who’s that? . .. Oh, yes, sir, Mr. Vice … er, Mr. President! .. . Yes, sir, it’s a terrible thing … What have I done? Well, nothing yet, sir. A single bogey like that doesn’t feel right. I’m waiting for the follow-up that’ll confirm …Yes, sir I know—but do you want to take the responsibility for destroying the world? What if it wasn’t Ivan’s? Have you thought of that? …Yes, sir, it’s my judgment that we wait …No, sir, I don’t think so, if Ivan’s back of this we’ll have more coming, and if we do, I’ll fire …No, sir, I will not take that responsibility …Yes, I know Washington’s destroyed, but we still have no proof of Ivan’s guilt. Long-range radar has not reported any activity in Russia …Sorry, sir, I can’t see it that way—and you can’t relieve me until 1600 hours …Yes, sir, I realize what I’m doing …Very well, sir, if that’s the way you want it, I’ll resign at 1600 hours. Goodbye.” French dropped the phone into its cradle and wiped his forehead. He had just thrown his career out the window, but that was another thing that couldn’t be helped. The President was hysterical now. Maybe he’d calm down later.

“Flash!” the radio said. “Radio Moscow denies that the missile which destroyed Washington was one of theirs. They insist that it is a capitalist trick to make them responsible for World War III. The Premier accuses the United States …hey! wait a minute! …accuses the United States of trying to foment war, but to show the good faith of the Soviet Union, he will open the country to UN inspection to prove once and for all that the Soviet does not and has not intended nuclear aggression. He proposes that a UN team investigate the wreckage of Washington to determine whether the destruction was actually caused by a missile. Hah! Just what in hell does he think caused it?”

French grinned thinly. Words like the last were seldom heard on the lips of commentators. The folks outside were pretty wrought up. There was hysteria in almost every word that had come into the office. But it hadn’t moved him yet. His finger was still off the trigger. He picked up the white phone. “Get me DEW Line Headquarters,” he said. “Hello, DEW Line, this is French at Center. Any more bogeys? …No? …That’s good …No, we’re still holding off… Why? …Any fool would know why if he stopped to think!” He slammed the phone back into its cradle. Damn fools howling for war! Just who did they think would win it? Sure, it would be easy to start things rolling. All he had to do was push the button. He stared at it with fascinated eyes. Nearly three billion lives lay on that polished plastic surface, and he could snuff most of them out with one jab of a finger.

“Sir!” a voice broke from the speaker. “What’s the word— are we in it yet?”

“Not yet, Jimmy.”

“Thank God!” the voice sounded relieved. “Just hang on, sir. We know they’re pressuring you, but they’ll stop screaming for blood once they have time to think.”

“I hope so,” French said. He chuckled without humor. The personnel at Center knew what nuclear war would be like. Most of them had experience at Frenchman’s Flat. They didn’t want any part of it, if it could be avoided. And neither did he.

The hours dragged by. The phones rang, and Conelrad kept reporting—giving advice and directions for evacuation of the cities. All the nation was stalled in the hugest traffic jam in history. Some of it couldn’t help seeping in, even through the censorship. There was danger in too much of anything, and obviously the country was over-mechanized. By now, French was certain that Russia was innocent. If she wasn’t, Ivan would have struck in force by now. He wondered how his opposite number in Russia was taking it. Was the man crouched over his control board, waiting for the cloud of capitalist missiles to appear over the horizon? Or was he, too, fingering a red button, debating whether or not to strike before it was too late?

“Flash!” the radio said. “Radio Moscow offers immediate entry to any UN inspection team authorized by the General Assembly. The presidium has met and announces that under no circumstances will Russia take any aggressive action. They repeat that the missile was not theirs, and suggest that it might have originated from some other nation desirous of fomenting war between the Great Powers …ah, nuts!”

“That’s about as close to surrender as they dare come,” French murmured softly. “They’re scared green—but then, who wouldn’t be?” He looked at the local clock. It read 1410. Less than two hours to go before the time lock opened and unimaginative Jim Craig came through that door to take his place. If the President called with Craig in the seat, the executive orders would be obeyed. He picked up the white phone.

“Get me the Commanding General of the Second Army,” he said. He waited a moment. “Hello, George, this is Al at Center. How you doing? Bad, huh? No, we’re holding off … Now hold it, George. That’s not what I called for. I don’t need moral support. I want information. Have your radio crews checked the Washington area yet? …They haven’t. Why not? Get them on the ball! Ivan keeps insisting that that bogey wasn’t his and the facts seem to indicate he’s telling the truth for once, but we’re going to blast if he can’t prove it! I want the dope on radioactivity in that area and I want it now! … If you don’t want to issue an order—call for volunteers … So they might get a lethal dose— so what? …Offer them a medal. There’s always someone who’d walk into hell for the chance of getting a medal. Now get cracking! …Yes, that’s an order.”

The radio came on again. “First reports of the damage in Washington,” it chattered. “A shielded Air Force reconnaissance plane has flown over the blast area, taking pictures and making an aerial survey of fallout intensity. The Capitol is a shambles. Ground Zero was approximately in the center of Pennsylvania Avenue. There is a tremendous crater over a half-mile wide, and around that for nearly two miles there is literally nothing! The Capitol is gone. Over ninety-eight percent of the city is destroyed. Huge fires are raging in Alexandria and the outskirts. The Potomac bridges are down. The destruction is inconceivable. The landmarks of our—”

French grabbed the white phone. “Find out who the Air Force commander was who sent up that recon plane over Washington!” he barked. “I don’t know who he is—but get him now!” He waited for three minutes. “So it was you, Willoughby! I thought it might be. This is French at Center. What did that recon find? … It did, hey? …Well now, isn’t that simply wonderful! You stupid publicity-crazy fool! What do you mean by with-holding vital information! Do you realize that I’ve been sitting here with my finger on the button ready to kill half the earth’s population, while you’ve been flirting around with reporters? …Dammit! That’s no excuse! You should be cashiered— and if I have any influence around here tomorrow, I’ll see that you are. As it is, you’re relieved as of now! …What do you mean, I can’t do that? …Read your regulations again, and then get out of that office and place yourself under arrest in quarters! Turn over your command to your executive officer! You utter, driveling fool! …Aaagh!!” French snarled as he slammed the phone back.

It began ringing again immediately. “French here …Yes, George …You have? …You did? … It isn’t? … I thought so. We’ve been barking up the wrong tree this time. It was an act of God! …Yes, I said an act of God! Remember that crater out in Arizona? Well, this is the same thing—a meteor! … Yes, Ivan’s still quiet. Not a peep out of him. The DEW Line reports no activity.”?

The blue phone began to ring. French looked at it. “O.K., George—apology accepted. I know how you feel.” He hung up and lifted the blue phone. “Yes, Mr. President,” he said. “Yes, sir. You’ve heard the news, I suppose …You’ve had confirmation from Lick Observatory? …Yes, sir, I’ll stay here if you wish …No, sir, I’m perfectly willing to act. It was just that this never did look right—and thank God that you understand astronomy, sir … Of course I’ll stay until the emergency is over, but you’ll have to tell General Craig …Who’s Craig? Why, he’s my relief, sir.” French looked at the clock. “He comes on in twenty minutes …Well, thank you, sir. I never thought that I’d get a commendation for not obeying orders.”

French sighed and hung up. Sense was beginning to percolate through the shock. People were beginning to think again. He sighed. This should teach a needed lesson. He made a mental note of it. If he had anything to say about the makeup of Center from now on—there’d be an astronomer on the staff, and a few more of them scattered out on the DEW Line and the outpost groups. It was virtually certain now that the Capitol was struck by a meteorite. There was no radioactivity. It had been an act of God—or at least not an act of war. The destruction was terrible, but it could have been worse if either he or his alter ego in Russia had lost control and pushed the buttons. He thought idly that he’d like to meet the Ivan who ran their Center.

“The proposals of the Soviet government,” the radio interrupted, “have been accepted by the UN. An inspection team is en route to Russia, and others will follow as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, the UN has requested a cease-fire assurance from the United States, warning that the start of a nuclear war would be the end of everything.” The announcer’s voice held a note of grim humor. “So far, there has been no word from Washington concerning these proposals.”

French chuckled. It might not be in the best taste, and it might be graveyard humor—but it was a healthy sign.

THE EDGE OF THE SEA

Algis Budrys

The Overseas Highway, two narrow white lanes on yellowed concrete piers, lay close to the shallow water, passed over the key, and went on.

All afternoon the sea had been rising. Long, greasy-faced green swells came in from the Atlantic Ocean and broke on the rocks with a sudden upsurge of surf. At midday, the water had been far down among the coral heads. Now it was in the tumbled limestone blocks and concrete prisms that had been dumped there to build up the key. In a little while it would be washing its spume over the highway itself, and it might well go farther, with the increasing wind.

It was dark with twilight, and darker with clouds thick as oil smoke covering the sun over the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf was stirring, too, and bayous were flooding in Louisiana. But it was over the Atlantic that the hurricane was spinning. It was the broad, deep, deadly ocean that the tide and wind were pushing down through the gloom on to the side of the key where Dan Henry was struggling grimly, his massive back and shoulders naked and running with spray.

His eyes were red-rimmed with salt and his hide was slashed shallowly in a dozen places where he had lost his balance on the stones and fallen. He had been lurching through the surf all afternoon, working to save what he had seen, leaden and encrusted, rolling ponderously at the edge of the water. His shirt, the seat covers from his car—the fan-belt, too and what few scraps of rope and wire had been in the trunk, all had gone for him to twist into an incredible rag of a hawser.

The men who built the Overseas Highway on the old railroad right-of-way had built up the little key, but it was still no more than a hundred feet in diameter. If the thing trapped on the rocks.

The edge of the sea had chosen any other islet to wash against, there would have been a reasonable chance of saving it. But there was no one living here, and nothing to use for tools or anchors. The thing was rolling and grinding against the rocks, too heavy to float but too bulky to resist the push of storm-driven water. There were bright silver gouges on its metal flanks, and in a little while it would break up or break free, and be lost either way. The rope—the stubborn, futile rope passed around the two struts at its nose and wrapped around the great concrete block it was now butting at with brute persistence—was as much use as though Dan Henry had been a spider and tried to hold this thing in a hurriedly created web. But he had had to try, and he was trying now in another way. He jammed the soles of his feet against one concrete block and pushed his shoulders against another. With his belly ridged and his thighs bulging, his face contorted and his hands clenched, he was trying to pusn another massive piece of stone into place behind the plunging metal thing, though his blood might erupt from his veins and the muscles tear open his flesh.

The thing was as thick through as a hogshead, and as long as two men. There was a thick-lipped, scarred opening a foot across at one end, where the body rounded sharply in a hemispherical compound curve. There were three stumpy fins rooted in the curve, their tips not extending beyond the bulge of the body, and two struts at the blunt nose like horns on a snail but bent forward so that the entire thing might have been fired out of a monstrous cannon or launched from the tubes of some unimaginable submarine. There were no visible openings, no boltheads, no seams. The entire thing might have been cast of a piece—might h’ave been solid, except for the tube in the stern and though barnacles clung to it and moss stained it, though the rocks gouged it and other blows had left their older scars on its pitted surface, still the thing was not visibly damaged.

Dan Henry strained at the rock, and sand grated minutely at its base. But the world turned red behind his eyes, and his muscles writhed into knots, and his breath burned his chest with the fury of fire. The sea broke against him and ran into his nose and mouth. The wind moaned, and the water hissed through the rocks, crashing as it came and gurgling as it drew back. The thing groaned and grated with each sluggish move. The day grew steadily darker.

Dan Henry had stopped his car on the key at noon, pulling off the highway on to the one narrow space of shoulder. He had opened the glove compartment and taken out the waxed container of milk and the now stale sandwich he had bought in Hallandale, above Miami, at ten that morning. He lit a cigarette and unwrapped the sandwich, and began to eat. The milk had turned warm in the glove compartment and acquired an unpleasant taste, but Dan Henry had never cared how his food tasted. He paid no attention to it as he chewed the sandwich and drank the milk between drags on the cigarette. He had bought the food when he stopped for gas, and when he finished it he planned to go on immediately, driving until he reached Key West.

There was nothing specific waiting for him there. Nothing in his life had ever been waiting for him anywhere. But, everywhere he went, he went as directly and as efficiently as possible because that was his nature. He was a powerful, reasonably intelligent, ugly man who drew his strength from a knowledge that nothing could quite overcome him. He asked no more of the world. He was thirty years old, and had been a construction foreman, a police officer, an M.P. sergeant in Germany and a long-haul trailer-truck driver. In addition to these things he had been born into a derrick rigger’s family in Oklahoma and raised in his father’s nomadic, self-sufficient tradition.

When he first saw the dull colour of metal down among the rocks, he got out of the car to see what it was. He was already thinking in terms of its possible usefulness when he reached the thing. Once near it, the idea of salvage rights came naturally.

Looking at it, he felt immediately that it had to be a military instrument of some kind. The Navy, he knew, was constantly firing rockets from Cape Canaveral, up in central Florida. But the longer he looked at the thing the longer he doubted that possibility. The thing was too massive, too obviously built to take the kind of vicious punishment it was receiving at the hands of the sea, to be the light, expendable shell that was a missile prototype or a high-altitude test-rocket. There were tons of metal in it, and the barnacles were thick on it. He wondered how long it had

The edge of the sea been surging along the bottom, urged and tumbled by the great hidden forces of the ocean, drifting this way and that until this morning the first high tide had heaved it up here to lie caught and scraping on the rocks, steaming as it dried under the early sun.

He did not know what it was, he decided finally. Rocket, torpedo, shell, bomb, or something else, whatever it was, it was valuable and important. The Navy or the Army or Air Force would need it or want it for something.

There was nothing on it to mark it as anyone’s property. If anything had ever been written or engraved on that hull, it was gone now. He began to think of how he might establish his rights until he could reach a Navy installation of some kind. The only reason he had for going to Key West was that he had a friend in the sponge-diving business down there. The friend did not know he was coming, so there was no reason not to delay for as long as this business might take him.

He had begun with nothing more than that to urge him on but, as the afternoon grew, the sea and the thing between them had trapped him.

The thing lay awash with half its length over the usual high-water mark, and even when he found it, at low tide, the water curled among the rocks above it. He had thought about that, too, but he had not thought that a hurricane might have taken an unexpected turn during the night, while he drove his old car without a radio to tell him so. Only when the clouds turned grey and the water swirled around his knees like a pack of hounds did he stop for a moment and look out to sea.

He had been clearing the smaller rocks away from around the thing and piling them in an open-ended square enclosing its forward sections, and had been scraping a clean patch in the barnacles with a tyre iron. It had been his intention to make it obvious someone was working on the thing, so he could then leave it and report it with a clear claim. The few cars going by on the highway had not stopped or slowed down—there was no place to stop, with his car on the bit of shoulder, and no real reason to slow down—and after a while the cars had stopped coming entirely.

It was that, telling him the storm had probably caused the highway to be blocked off at either end, together with the look of the sea, that made him go up to the car and try to make a hawser. And by then he could not have left the thing. It was too obvious that a man had begun a job of work here. If he left it now, it would be too plain that someone had let himself be backed down.

If he had gotten in his car and driven away, he would not have been Dan Henry.

The water was almost completely over the thing now. He himself was working with the waves breaking over his head, trying to dislodge him. More important, the thing was rocking and slipping out of its trap.

The next nearest key was a third of a mile away, bigger than this one, but still uninhabited. The nearest inhabited place was Greyhound Key, where the rest stop was for the buses, and that was out of sight. It would be battened down, and probably evacuated. Dan Henry was all alone, with the highway empty above him and the sea upon him.

He set his back once more, and pushed against the concrete block again. If he could wedge the thing, even a storm tide might not be able to take it away from him. He could untangle his home-made rope and put the fan-belt back on his car. Then he could drive away to some place until the storm died down.

The blood roared in Dan Henry’s ears, and the encrusted concrete block opened the hide over his shoulders. A coughing grunt burst out of his mouth. The block teetered—not much, but it gave a little way. Dan Henry locked his knees and braced his back with his palms, pushing his elbows against the block, and when the next wave threw its pressure into the balance he pushed once more. The block slipped suddenly away from him, and he was thrown aside by the wave, flung into the wet rocks above. But the thing was wedged. It could roll and rear as much as it wanted to, but it could not flounder back into the sea. Dan Henry lay over a rock, and wiped the back of his hand across his bloody mouth in satisfaction.

It was over. He could get out of here now, and hole up somewhere. After the storm, he would come back and make sure it was still here. Then he would make his claim, either at one of the little Navy stations along the chain of keys, or at the big base at Boca Chica. And that would be that, except for the cheque in the mail. The bruises and breaks in his skin would heal over, and become nothing more than scars.

He took his rope off the thing and took it apart far enough to pick out the fan-belt. He let the rest of it wash away, shredded. As he got out of the surging water at last, he scowled slightly because he wondered if the car’s spark plugs weren’t wet.

It was dark now. Not quite pitch-black, for the hurricane sky to the west was banded by a last strip of sulphur-coloured light at the horizon, but dark enough so that his car was only a looming shape as he climbed up to it. Then, suddenly, the wet finish and the rusty chrome of the front bumper were sparkling with the reflections of faraway lamps. He turned to look southward down the highway, and saw a car coming. As it came nearer, its headlights let him see the clouds of spray that billowed across the road, and the leaping white heads of breakers piling up on the piers and rebounding to the level of the highway. The storm was building up even more quickly than he’d thought. He wondered what kind of damned fool was crazy enough to drive the stretches where the highway crossed open water between keys, and had his answer when a spotlight abruptly reached out and fingered him and his car. Either the state or the county police were out looking to make sure no one was trapped away from shelter.

The police car pulled up, wet and hissing, half-blocking the highway, and the driver immediately switched on his red roof-beacon, through force of habit or training, though there was no oncoming traffic to warn. The four rotating arms of red light tracked monotonously over the road, the key, and the water. By their light, Dan Henry realized for the first time that it was raining furiously. The spotlight was switched off, and the headlights pointed away, up the highway. It was the red beacon that lit the scene and isolated the two men inside its colour.

The officer did not get out of the car. He waited for Dan Henry to come around to his side, and only then cranked his window down halfway.

‘Trouble with the car?’ he asked, hidden behind the reflection on the glass. Then he must have thought better of it, seeing Dan Henry’s broken skin. He threw the door open quickly, and slid out with his hand on the bone-gripped butt of his plated revolver. He was thick-bodied, with a burly man’s voice and brusqueness, and he kept his eyes narrowed. ‘What’s the story here, Mac?’

Dan Henry shook his head. ‘No trouble, I was down on the rocks. Waves threw me around some.’

The officer’s uniform pants and leather jacket were already sodden. Water ran down his face and he wiped it out of his eyes. ‘What were you doin’ down there? No brains?’ He watched carefully, his hand firm on his gun.

Dan Henry had been a policeman himself. He was not surprised at the officer’s attitude. A policeman was paid to be irritated by anything that didn’t have a simple answer.

‘I’ve got something down there I was salvaging,’ he said reasonably. ‘Storm caught me at it and knocked me around some before I got finished.’ Telling about it made him realize he was tired out. He hoped this business with the policeman would be over in a hurry, so that he could fix his car and get into its shelter. The wind was chilly, and the constant impact of water on his skin was beginning to make him numb.

The officer risked a glance down at the thrashing surf before he brought his eyes back to Dan Henry. ‘I don’t see nothin’. What kind of a thing was it? What’re you carryin’ that belt around for?’

‘It’s metal,’ Dan Henry said. ‘Big. Never seen anything just like it before. I was using the belt to hold it.’

The officer scowled. ‘What’s holdin’ it now? What d’you mean, big? How big? And how come I can’t see it?’

‘I pushed a rock behind it,’ Dan Henry said patiently. ‘It’s damn near as big as a car. And it’s under water, now.’

‘Buddy, that don’t begin to sound like a likely story.’ The policeman pulled his gun out of the holster and held it down alongside his thigh. ‘What kind of a lookin’ thing is it?’

‘Kind of like a rocket, I guess.’

‘Now, why the hell didn’t you say so!’ the policeman growled, relaxing just a little. ‘That makes sense. It’ll be one of those Navy jobs. They’ve got ‘em droppin’ in the ocean like flies. But you ain’t goin’ to get anything out of it, Buddy. That’s government property. You’re supposed to turn it in. It’s your duty.’

The edge of the sea ‘I don’t think so.’

‘What d’you mean, you don’t think so?’ The policeman’s gun arm was tense again.

‘It doesn’t look like a Navy rocket. Doesn’t look like anybody’s rocket that I know of. I said it was kind of like a rocket. Don’t know what it is, for sure.’ Now Dan Henry was growing angry himself. He didn’t like the way things were going. He kept his attention carefully on the gun.

‘Know all about rockets, do you?’

‘I read the papers. This thing isn’t just a piece. It isn’t the bottom stage or the top stage. It’s one thing, and it never was part of anything bigger. And it’s been in the water maybe a couple of years without getting broken up. You show me the Navy rocket that’s like that.’

The policeman looked at him. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ he said slowly. ‘Tell you what—suppose you just step over here and put my spotlight on it. Reach through the window.’ He stepped back casually.

Dan Henry reached around and switched the spot on. He swept it down across the water, a little startled to see how far up the breakers had come. Under the light, the water was a venomous green, full of foam, rain-splotched and furiously alive. A gust of wind rocked the car sharply, and the light with it. The pale beam shot over the sea before it fell back, reaching beyond the swinging cross of red from the roof beacon, and out there the waves disappeared in a mist of rain.

He found the thing, finally, after having to hunt for it. For an instant he thought it had been swept away after all, and felt a stab of anger. But it was still there, heaving under the waves, with only the dim, broad mottling of its back near enough to the surface to be seen at all, that and a constant stirring in the water, rolling it like an animal. ‘There it is.’ He was surprised how relieved he felt. ‘See it?’

‘Yeah. Yeah, I seen enough of it,’ the officer said. ‘You got somethin’ down there, all right.’ There was a sudden hardness in his voice that had been waiting all along for him to make the decision that would bring it completely out. ‘I got my gun on you, buddy. Just step back from that car easy. Anybody foolin’ around out here in a hurricane must want some thin’ awful bad. If that somethin’s a Navy rocket, I guess I know what kind of a son of a bitch that would be.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Dan Henry whispered to himself. He was angry with the kind of rage that is almost a pleasure. And not because the cop thought he was a Commie, either, Dan Henry suddenly realized, but because he persisted in not-understanding about the rocket. Or whatever it was.

He turned around with a jump. The fan-belt in his hand whipped out with all the strength in his arm and all the snap in his wrist, and snatched the cop’s gun out of his hand. It skittered across the wet concrete of the highway, and Dan Henry pounced after it. He scooped it up and crouched with the muzzle pointed dead at the cop’s belly.

‘Back off,’ he said. ‘Back off. You’re not takin’ that thing away from me. I sweated blood to hang on to it, and you’re not goin’ to come along and throw me in jail to get it away.’

The cop retreated, his hands up without his being told, and waited for his chance. Dan Henry backed him up the highway until the cop was past the cars, and opened the door of his own car. He threw the gun inside, together with the belt. He slammed the door and said, ‘You can get that back later. Or you can try and take it away from me now, barehanded.’ He was shaking with the tension in his bunched shoulders, and his arms were open wide. He was crouched, his chest deep as his lungs hunted for more and more oxygen to wash the rush of blood his heart was driving through his veins. The red flood of beacon on the police car swept over him in regular flashes.

‘I’ll wait,’ the cop said.

‘Now,’ Dan Henry said, ‘I want to use your radio. I want you to call in and report this. Only I want you to report it to the Navy before you call your headquarters.’

The cop looked at him with a puzzled scowl. ‘You on the level?’ he asked, and Dan Henry could see him wondering if he hadn’t made a mistake, somewhere, in his thinking about what was going on here. But Dan Henry had no more time for him. The wind was a steady pressure that made him brace his left leg hard against it.

The water flying across the highway was coming in solid chunks, instead of spray, and the two cars were rocking on their springs. The rain was streaming over them, leaving the officer’s jacket a baggy, clinging mess. The sea was smashing violently into the highway piers, thundering to the wind’s howl, and even here on solid ground the shock of the impacts was coming up through Dan Henry’s bones.

His throat was raw. Bit by bit, he and the officer had had to raise their voices until they had been shouting at each other without realizing it. ‘Get in the car and do it!’ he yelled, and the officer came forward as he backed away to give him room.

The policeman got into his car, with Dan Henry standing watchfully a little behind the open door-frame, and switched on his radio. ‘Tell them where we are,’ Dan Henry said. ‘Tell them my name—Daniel Morris Henry—tell them what I said about it’s not being one of their rockets—and tell them I’m claiming salvage rights. Then you tell them the rest any way you see it.’

The officer turned the dials away from their usual settings. After a minute, he picked his microphone out of the dashboard hanger and began calling Boca Chica in a stubborn voice. At intervals, he said, ‘Over,’ and threw the Receive switch. They heard the peculiar, grating crackle of radiotelephone static, trapped in the speaker. And only that.

‘Look, buddy,’ the policeman said at last, ‘we’re not goin’ to get any answer. Not if we ain’t got one by now. Boca Chica radio may be knocked out. Or maybe my transmitter’s shorted, with all this wet. Could be anything.’ He jerked his head toward the water. ‘How much longer you want us to stay out here?’ Probably because he had seen many hurricanes, he was beginning to grow nervous.

Try it again,’ Dan Henry said. He watched the officer closely, and couldn’t see him doing anything wrong. Dan Henry didn’t know the Boca Chica frequency; that was where the trouble might be. But he’d used a police radio often enough so that any other trick wouldn’t have gotten by him.

The officer called Boca Chica for another five minutes. Then he stopped again. ‘No dice. Look, buddy, you’ve had it. Maybe you’re just a guy looking for some salvage money, like you say you are. Maybe not. But there’s goin’ to be waves coming across this road in a little while. Why don’t we get out of here and straighten things out when this blows over?’

Dan Henry set his jaw. ‘Get the vibrator out of that radio. Do it.’ Now he had no choice. If he went with the cop, that was that. They’d throw him in some jail for resisting arrest and assaulting an officer, and keep him there until they were good and ready to let him out. By then, whatever happened to the thing down here, somebody would have figured out some way to get that Navy cheque instead of him. The only thing to do was to cripple the cop’s radio and send him down the highway until he reached a phone. There was no guarantee that the radio wouldn’t work on the police frequency.

Maybe the cop would call the Navy right after he called his headquarters. Or maybe, even if he didn’t, some higher brass at the headquarters would report to the Navy. Either way—if you believed it was a Navy rocket or if you didn’t—it was government business. Then, maybe, the Navy would get here before the cops did. Or soon enough afterward so he’d still be here to talk to them. Once he got taken away from here, that chance was gone. On that decision, he was ready to cling to a hundred-foot key in the middle of an Atlantic hurricane. ‘Let’s have that vibrator.

Right now.’

The officer looked at him, and reached under the dash. He fumbled in the narrow space where the radio hung, and pulled the sealed aluminium cylinder out of its socket. But he was getting ready to grab for Dan Henry if he could reach him quickly enough.

‘Okay,’ Dan Henry said, ‘drop it on the road and clear out of here. You can get it back along with your gun. And just in case you have some brains in your head, when you get to a phone, call the Na—’

The policeman had dropped the vibrator, and the wind had rolled it under Dan Henry’s Chevrolet. Dan Henry had been in the act of letting the police car door close, when a thread of brilliant violet fire punched up from the water, through the red light, up through the rain, up through the black clouds, and out to the stars beyond.

‘There’s something in that thing!’ the officer blurted.

Dan Henry threw the door shut. ‘Get out of here, man!’

Down in the drowned rocks, an arc hissed between the two struts in the thing’s nose. The water leaped and bubbled around it but, for all the breakers could do, the blaze of light still illuminated the thing and the rocks it ground against, turning the sea transparent; and from the crown of the arc the thin violet column pointed without wavering, without dispersing, straight as a line drawn from hell to heaven.

The police car’s tyres smoked and spun on the pavement. ‘I’ll get help,’ the officer shouted over the squeal and the roar of his engine. Then he had traction and the car shot away, headlights slashing, glimmering in the rain and the spray, lurching from side to side under the wind’s hammer, roof beacon turning at its unvarying pace, the siren’s howl lost in the boom of the water. And Dan Henry was left in the violet-lanced darkness.

Without the windbreak of the police car in front of him, he was pushed violently backward until his own car’s fender stopped him. Water struck his eyes, and the night blurred. He bent forward and rubbed his face until the ache of the salt was dulled to a steady throbbing, and then he staggered across the highway to the guard rail on the Atlantic side. The tops of the incoming waves washed over his shoes, just as the surf at noon had lapped at him, twelve feet below.

The rain and the spray streamed over him. He cupped one hand over his nose, to breathe, and hung on the rail.

There was nothing more to see. The pillar of light still shot up from the arc, and the bulk of the thing loomed, gross and black, down there in the water. It was feet below the surface now, cushioned from the smash of the waves, and it stirred with a regular motion like a whale shark in a tank.

The radio, he thought. It had felt the radio in the police car. Nothing else had happened to bring it to life at that particular moment. It had waited a little—perhaps analysing what it had encountered, perhaps then noticing the flash of the car’s roof beacon for the first time. And for the first time since the day, years ago, when it entered the sea it had found a reason for sending out a signal.

To where? Not to him, or the policeman. The light was not pointed toward the highway. It went up, straight up, going out of sight through the clouds as his eyes tried to follow it before the lash of water forced his head down again.

There was no one inside the thing, Dan Henry thought. There couldn’t be. He had scraped on the side with regular, purposeful strokes, clearing an exactly square patch, and gained no response. And the thing had lain in the ocean a long time, sealed up, dragging its hide over the bottom as the currents pushed and pulled it, rolling, twisting, seamless, with only those two horns with which to feel the world about it.

He could be wrong, of course. Something could be alive in there, still breathing in some fantastic way from a self-contained air supply, eating tiny amounts of stored food, getting rid of its wastes somehow. But he didn’t see how. It didn’t seem logical that anything would trap itself like that, not knowing if it was ever going to escape.

He could be wrong about it all. It might not have been reacting to anything that happened on the highway. It might be ignoring everything outside itself, and following some purpose that had nothing to do with this world or its people. But whether it was that, or whether he was at least partly right, Dan Henry wondered what was sending things to drop down on the Earth and make signals to the stars.

The water came higher. It came up the key too quickly to split and go around it, and spilled over the highway to plunge into the rocks on the Gulf side. It broke halfway up the side of his car. He remembered the policeman’s vibrator. That would be far to the west of him now, skipping at a thrown stone’s velocity over waves whose tops were being cut off by the wind. Dan Henry’s mouth twisted in a numb grimace. Now he’d have to buy one. They probably wouldn’t let him get away that cheaply. They could make that stick for a robbery charge. And destroying public property. While, on the other hand, if he was swept off this key they wouldn’t even have to pay for his burial. He laughed drunkenly.

A wave broke over him. He had made a sling for himself by knotting the legs of his dungarees around one of the guardrail uprights, and when the wave was past he lolled naked with the bunched tops of the dungarees cutting into his chest under his arms. The wind worked at him now, with a kind of fury, and then the next wave came. It was warm, but the wind evaporating it as soon as he was exposed again made his skin crawl and his teeth chatter. He reached behind him with a wooden arm and felt the knot in the dungaree legs to make sure it was holding. The pressure had tightened it into a small hard lump.

That was good, at any rate. That and the blessed practicality of the engineers who built the highway. When they laid the roadway where the hurricane-smashed railroad had been, they had cut the rusted rails up with torches, set the stumps deep in the concrete, and welded the guardrails together out of T-shaped steel designed to hold a locomotive’s weight.

Dan Henry grinned to himself. The rail would hold. The dungarees would hold, or the trademark was a liar. Only about Dan Henry was there any doubt. Dan Henry—hard, sure Dan Henry, with his chest being cut in half, with his torn skin being torn again as the waves beat him against the highway, with his head going silly because he was being pounded into raw meat.

Dear God, he thought, am I doing this for money! No, he thought, as a wave filled his nostrils, no, not any more. When that thing turned its light on and I didn’t jump in the car with that cop, that’s when we found out I wasn’t doing it for the money.

For what? God knows.

He floundered half over on his side, arched his neck, and looked at the violet arrow through the clouds. Signal, you bastard! Go ahead and signal! Do anything. As long as I know you’re still there. If you can stay put, so can I.

Well, what was he doing this for? Dan Henry fought with the sling that held him, trying to take some of the pressure off his chest. God knew, but it was up to Dan Henry to find out for himself.

It wasn’t money. All right—that was decided. What was left -vanity? Big Dan Henry—big, strong, Dan Henry …take more than a hurricane to stop big, strong, wonderful Dan Henry—was that the way his thoughts were running?

He croaked a laugh. Big, strong Dan Henry was lying here limp as a calico doll, naked as a baby, praying his pants wouldn’t rip. The storm had washed the pride out of him as surely as it had his first interest in the salvage money.

All right, what, then! He growled and cursed at his own stupidity. Here he was, and he didn’t even know why. Here he was, being bludgeoned to death, being drowned, being torn apart by the wind. He was stuck out here now, and nobody could save him.

A wave roared over the highway and struck his car a blow that sent a hubcap careening off into the darkness. The car tilted on to the Gulf-side guardrail. The rail bellied outward, and the car hung halfway over the rocks on the other side. Successive waves smashed into it, exploding in spray, and the guardrail groaned in the lull after each strike. Dan Henry watched it dully in the violet light, with the water sluicing down over his head and shoulders for a moment before the wind found it and tore it away in horizontal strings of droplets.

The car’s door panels had already been pushed in, and the windows were cracked. Now the exposed floor-boards were being hammered. The muffler was wrenched out.

With the next smash of solid water, the horizontal rail broke its weld at one end and the car heeled forward to the right, impaling its radiator on an upright. It hung there, gradually tearing the radiator out of its brackets, spilling rusty water for one instant before a wave washed it clean, scraping its front axle down the sharp edge of the roadway, breaking loose pieces of the concrete and raising its left rear wheel higher and higher. The radiator came free with a snap like a breaking tooth, and the car dropped suddenly, its front end caught by the edge of the left wheel, kept from falling only by the straining uprights still jammed against it farther back on the right side. The hood flew back suddenly and was gone with a twang in one gust of wind.

Am I going to have to buy that cop a new gun, too? Dan Henry thought, and in that moment the wind began to die. The water hesitated. Three waves rolled across the road slowly, much higher than when the wind was flattening them, but almost gentle. The rain slackened. And then the eye of the storm had moved over him, and he had calm.

He pushed himself to his feet at last, after he sagged out of the hold the dungarees had on his chest. He leaned against the guardrail and stared woodenly at the ocean and the thing.

The beam went up out of sight, a clean, marvellously precise line. But down at the surface the sea was finally hiding the thing, and making a new noise that had none of a storm-sea’s clean power. It filled his ears and unnerved him.

With the wind and the pressure gone, the waves were leaping upward, clashing against each other, rebounding, colliding again, peaking sharply. Dan Henry could hear the highway over the water booming faintly as the waves slammed up against its underside. But he could actually see very little. It had grown darker, and what he saw were mostly the tops of the exploding waves, glimmering pale violet.

The thing was buried deep, where it lay at the foot of the key, and the arc that had diffused most of the light was visible only as a fitful glow that shifted and danced. The violet beam seemed to spring into life of itself at the plunging surface, and it kept most of its light compressed within itself.

Dan Henry swayed on the guardrail. It was stifling hot. The mugginess filled his lungs and choked him. He lolled his head back. The clouds were patchy overhead, and the stars shone through in places.

There was a high-pitched chime, and a circle of ice-blue flame came hurtling down the beam. It came out of the sky and shot into the water, and when it touched the glimmer of the arc there was another chime, this time from the thing, and this time the water quivered. The violet beam flickered once, and a red halo spat up with a crackle, travelling slowly. When it was a hundred feet over Dan Henry’s head it split in two, leaving one thin ring moving at the old rate, and a larger one that suddenly doubled its speed until it split again, doubled its speed and split again, accelerated again, and so blazed upward along the violet beam’s axis, leaving a spaced trail of slowly moving lesser rings behind it. They hung in the air, a ladder to the stars. Then they died out slowly, and before they had stopped glowing the violet beam was switched off.

The sky was empty, and the thing lay quiescent in the water once more. Dan Henry blinked at the flashes swimming across his eyes. It was pitch dark. He could barely see the white of swirling water as it dashed itself into the rocks at his feet.

Far up the highway, coming towards him, were two headlights with a swinging red beacon just above them. The police car was plastered with wet leaves and broken palm fronds. The policeman slammed it to a halt beside him, and flung the door open. He stopped long enough to turn his head and say, ‘Jesus Christ! He’s still here! He ain’t gone!’ to someone in the front seat with him, and then he jumped out. ‘What happened?’ he asked Dan Henry. ‘What was that business with the lights?’ Dan Henry looked at him. ‘You made it,’ he mumbled. ‘Yeah, I made it. Got to this Navy skywatch station. Phone was out, so I couldn’t call in to headquarters. Found this Navy professor up there. Brought him down with me when the eye came over. He figures we got maybe twenty minutes more before the other side of the hurricane comes around.’

The other man had slid out of the car. He was a thin, bony-faced man with rimless glasses. He was dressed in a badly fitted tropical suit that was pleated with dampness. He looked at Dan Henry’s purpled chest, and asked, ‘Are you all right?’

‘Sure.’

The man twitched an eyebrow. ‘I’m assigned to the satellite-tracking station north of here. What is this thing?’

Dan Henry nodded toward it. ‘Down there. It got an answer to its signal, acknowledged and switched off. That’s what I think, anyhow.’

‘You do, eh? Well, you could be right. In any case, we don’t have much time. I’ll notify the naval district commandant’s office as soon as the telephones are working again, but I want a quick look at it now, in case we lose it.’

‘We’re not going to lose it,’ Dan Henry growled.

The professor looked at him sharply. ‘What makes you sure?’

‘I wedged it,’ Dan Henry said with a tight note in his voice. ‘I almost ruined myself and I almost drowned, but I wedged it. I took a gun away from a cop to keep it from getting left here without anybody to watch it. And I stayed here and got almost drowned, and almost cut in half, and almost beat to death against this highway here, and we’re not going to lose it now.’

‘M …see,’ the professor said. He turned to the policeman. ‘If you happen to have some sedatives in your first-aid kit, they might be useful now,’ he murmured.

‘Might have something. I’ll look,’ the policeman said.

‘And put your spotlight on the thing, please,’ the professor added, peering over the guardrail. ‘Though I don’t suppose we’ll see much.’

The yellow beam of the spotlight slid over the top of the water. If it penetrated at all, it still did not reach any part of the thing. The policeman hunted for it, sweeping back and forth until Dan Henry made an impatient sound, went over to him, and pointed it straight. ‘Now, leave it there. That’s where it is.’

‘Yeah? I don’t see anythin’ but water.’

‘That’s where it is,’ Dan Henry said. ‘Haven’t been here all this time for nothin’.’ He went back to the railing, but there was still nothing to see.

‘You’re sure that’s where it is?’ the professor asked.

‘Yes. It’s about ten feet down.’

‘All right,’ the professor sighed. ‘Tell me as much as you can about its activities.’

‘I think it’s a sounding rocket,’ Dan Henry said. ‘I think somebody from some place sent that thing down here a while ago to find out things. I don’t know what those things are. I don’t know who that somebody is. But I’m pretty sure he lost it somehow, and didn’t know where it was until it signalled him just now. I don’t know why it worked out that way. I don’t know why the rocket couldn’t get its signal through before this, or why it didn’t go home.’

‘You think it’s of extraterrestrial origin, then?’

Dan Henry looked at the professor. ‘You don’t think so?’

‘If I did, I would be on my way to district headquarters at this moment, hurricane or no hurricane,’ the professor said testily.

‘You don’t believe it?’ Dan Henry persisted.

The professor grew uneasy. ‘No.’

‘Wouldn’t you like to believe it?’

The professor looked quickly out to sea.

‘Here,’ the policeman said, handing Dan Henry a flat brown half-pint bottle. ‘Sedative.’ He winked.

Dan Henry knocked the bottle out of the cop’s hand. It broke on the pavement.

‘Look up!’ the professor whispered.

They turned their heads. Something huge, flat, and multi-winged was shadowed faintly on the stars.

‘Oh, Lord,’ the officer said.

There was a burst of chiming from the thing down in the water, and violet pulses of light came up through the water and burst on the underside of the thing up in the sky.

Answering darts of tawny gold came raining down. The thing in the water stirred, and they could see the rocks move. ‘Tractor rays,’ the professor said in a husky voice. ‘Theoretically impossible.’

‘What’s it going to do?’ the policeman asked.

‘Pick it up,’ the professor answered. ‘And take it back to wherever it comes from.’

Dan Henry began to curse.

The thing in the sky slipped down, and they could feel the air throb. After a moment, the sound came to them—a distant, rumbling purr, and a high metallic shrieking.

The thing in the water heaved itself upward. It struggled against the rocks.

‘We’d better get back,’ the professor said.

The distant sound grew stronger and beat upon their ears. The professor and the policeman retreated to the car.

But Dan Henry did not. He straightened his back and gathered his muscles. As the tawny fire came down, he leaped over the guardrail into the water.

He swam with grim fury, thrown and sucked by the water, sputtering for breath, his feet pounding. Even so, he would not have reached the thing. But the water humped in the grip of the force that clutched at the thing, and the waves collapsed. Dan Henry’s arms bit through the water with desperate precision, and just before the thing broke free, he was upon it.

‘No, sir,’ he grunted, closing his hand on one of the struts. ‘Not without me. We’ve been through too much together.’ He grinned coldly at the hovering ship as they rose to meet it.

THE ADVENT ON CHANNEL TWELVE

C. M. Kornbluth

It came to pass in the third quarter of the fiscal year that the Federal Reserve Board did raise the rediscount rate and money was tight in the land. And certain bankers which sate in New York sent to Ben Graffis in Hollywood a writing which said, Money is tight in the land so let Poopy Panda up periscope and fire all bow tubes.

Whereupon Ben Graffis made to them this moan:

O ye bankers, Poopy Panda is like unto the child of my flesh and you have made of him a devouring dragon. Once was I content with my studio and my animators when we did make twelve Poopy Pandas a year; cursed be the day when I floated a New York loan. You have commanded me to make feature-length cartoon epics and I did obey, and they do open at the Paramount to sensational grosses, and we do re-release them to the nabes year on year, without end. You have commanded me to film live adventure shorts and I did obey, and in the cutting room we do devilishly splice and pull frames and flop negatives so that I and my cameras are become bearers of false witness and men look upon my live adventure shorts and say lo! these beasts and birds are like unto us in their laughter, wooing, pranks, and contention. You have commanded that I become a mountebank for that I did build Poopy Pandaland, whereinto men enter with their children, their silver, and their wits, and wherefrom they go out with their children only, sandbagged by a thousand catch-penny engines; even this did I obey. You have commanded that Poopy Panda shill every weekday night on television between five and six for the Poopy Panda Pals, and even this did I obey, though Poopy Panda is like unto the child of my flesh.

But O ye bankers, this last command will I never obey.

Whereupon the bankers which sate in New York sent to him another writing that said, Even so, let Poopy Panda up periscope and fire all bow tubes, and they said, Remember, boy, we hold thy paper.

And Ben Graffis did obey.

He called unto him his animators and directors and cameramen and writers, and his heart was sore but he dissembled and said:

In jest you call one another brainwashers, forasmuch as you addle the heads of children five hours a week that they shall buy our sponsors’ wares. You have fulfilled the prophecies, for is it not written in the Book of the Space Merchants that there shall be spherical trusts? And the Poopy Panda Pals plug the Poopy Panda Magazine, and the Poopy Panda Magazine plugs Poopy Pandaland, and Poopy Pandaland plugs the Poopy Panda Pals. You have asked of the Motivational Research boys how we shall hook the little bastards and they have told ye, and ye have done it. You identify the untalented kid viewers with the talented kid performers, you provide in Otto Clodd a bumbling father image to be derided, you furnish in Jackie Whipple an idealized big brother for the boys and a sex-fantasy for the more precocious girls. You flatter the cans off the viewers by ever saying to them that they shall rule the twenty-first century, nor mind that those who shall in good sooth come to power are doing their homework and not watching television programs. You have created a liturgy of opening hymn and closing benediction, and over all hovers the spirit of Poopy Panda urging and coaxing the viewers to buy our sponsors’ wares.

And Ben Graffis breathed a great breath and looked them not in the eye and said to them, Were it not a better thing for Poopy Panda to coax and urge no more, but to command as he were a god?

And the animators and directors and cameramen and writers were sore amazed and they said one to the other, This is the bleeding end, and the bankers which sit in New York have flipped their wigs. And one which was an old animator said to Ben Graffis, trembling, O chief, never would I have stolen for thee Poopy Panda from the Winnie the Pooh illustrations back in twenty-nine had I known this was in the cards, and Ben Graffis fired him.

Whereupon another which was a director said to Ben Graffis, O chief, the thing can be done with a two-week buildup, and Ben Graffis put his hands over his face and said, Let it be so.

And it came to pass that on the Friday after the two-week buildup, in the closing quarter-hour of the Poopy Panda Pals, there was a special film combining live and animated action as they were one.

And in the special film did Poopy Panda appear en-haloed, and the talented kid performers did do him worship, and Otto Clodd did trip over his feet whilst kneeling, and Jackie Whipple did urge in manly and sincere wise that all the Poopy Panda Pals out there in television-land do likewise, and the en-haloed Poopy Panda did say in his lovable growly voice, Poop-poop-poopy.

And adoration ascended from thirty-seven million souls.

And it came to pass that Ben Graffis went into his office with his animators and cameramen and directors and writers after the show and said to them, it was definitely a TV first, and he did go to the bar.

Whereupon one which was a director looked at who sat behind the desk that was the desk of Ben Graffis and he said to Ben Graffis, O chief, it is a great gag but how did the special effects boys manage the halo?

And Ben Graffis was sore amazed at Who sat behind his desk and he and they all did crowd about and make as if to poke Him, whereupon He in His lovable growly voice did say, Poop-poop-poopy, and they were not.

And certain unclean ones which had gone before turned unbelieving from their monitors and said, Holy Gee, this is awful. And one which was an operator of marionettes turned to his manager and said, Pal, if Graffis gets this off the ground we’re dead. Whereat a great and far-off voice was heard, saying, Poop-poop-poopy, and it was even so; and the days of Poopy Panda were long in the land.

THEORY OF ROCKETRY

C. M. Kornbluth

Mr. Edel taught six English classes that year at Richard M. Nixon High School, and the classes averaged seventy-five pupils each. That was four hundred and fifty boys and girls, but Mr. Edel still tried to have the names down cold by at least the third week of the semester. As English 308 stormed into his room he was aware that he was not succeeding, and that next year he would even stop trying, for in 1978 the classes would average eighty-two pupils instead of seventy-five.

One seat was empty when the chime sounded; Mr. Edel was pleased to notice that he remembered whose it was. The absent pupil was a Miss Kahn, keyed into his memory by “Kahnstipated,” which perhaps she was, with her small pinched features centered in a tallow acre of face. Miss Kahn slipped in some three seconds late; Edel nodded at his intern, Mrs. Giovino, and Mrs. Giovino coursed down the aisle to question, berate and possibly demerit Miss Kahn. Edel stood up, the Modern Revised Old Testament already open before him.

“You’re blessed,” he read, “if you’re excused for your wrongdoing and your sin is forgiven. You’re blessed if God knows that you’re not evil and sly any more. I, King David, used to hide my sins from God while I grew old and blustered proudly all day. But all day and all night too your hand was heavy on me, God …”

It would be the flat, crystal-clear, crystal-blank M.R.O.T. all this week; next week he’d read (with more pleasure) from the Roman Catholic Knox translation; the week after that, from the American Rabbinical Council’s crabbed version heavy with footnotes; and the week after that, back to M.R.O.T. Thrice blessed was he this semester that there were no Moslems, Buddhists, militant atheists or miscellaneous cultists to sit and glower through the reading or exercise their legal right to wait it out in the corridor. This semester the classes were All-American: Protestant, Catholic, Jewish—choice of one.

“Amen,” chorused the class, and they sat down; two minutes of his fifty-minute hour were gone forever.

Soft spring was outside the windows, and they were restless. Mr. Edel “projected” a little as he told them, “This is the dreaded three-minute impromptu speech for which English Three Oh Eight is notorious, young ladies and gentlemen. The importance of being able to speak clearly on short notice should be obvious to everybody. You’ll get nowhere in your military service if you can’t give instructions and verbal orders. You’ll get less than nowhere in business if you can’t convey your ideas crisply and accurately.” A happy thought struck him: great chance to implement the Spiritual-Values Directive. He added, “You may be asked to lead in prayer or say grace on short notice.” (He’d add that one to his permanent repertoire; it was a natural.) “We are not asking the impossible. Anybody can talk interestingly, easily and naturally for three minutes if they try. Miss Gerber, will you begin with a little talk on your career plans?”

Miss Gerber (“Grapefruit” was the mnemonic) rose coolly and driveled about the joys of motherhood until Mrs. Giovino passed her card to Edel and called time.

“You spoke freely, Miss Gerber, but perhaps not enough to the point,” said Edel. “I’m pleased, though, that you weren’t bothered by any foolish shyness. I’m sure everybody I call on will be able to talk right up like you did.” (He liked that “like” the way you like biting on a tooth that aches; he’d give them Artificial-Grammar De-emphasis …) “Foster, may we hear from you on the subject of your coming summer vacation?” He jotted down a C for the Grapefruit.

Foster (“Fireball”) rose and paused an expert moment. Then in a firm and manly voice he started with a little joke (“If I survive English Three Oh Eight …”), stated his theme (“A vacation is not a time for idling and wasted opportunity”), developed it (“harvest crew during the day for physical—my Science Search Project during the evenings for mental”), elevated it (“no excuse for neglecting one’s regular attendance at one’s place of worship”) and concluded with a little joke (“should be darned glad to get back to school!”).

The speech clocked 2:59. It was masterly; none of the other impromptus heard that morning came close to it.

“And,” said Mr. Edel at lunch to his semi-crony Dr. Fugua, biology, “between classes I riffled through the grade cards again and found I’d marked him F. Of course I changed it to A. The question is, why?”

“Because you’d made a mistake,” said Fuqua absently. Something was on his mind, thought Edel.

“No, no. Why did I make the mistake?”

“Well, Fured, in The Psychology of Everyday—”

“Roland, please, I know all that. Assume I do. Why do I unconsciously dislike Foster? I should get down on my knees and thank God for Foster.”

Fugua shook his head and began to pay attention. “Foster?” he said. “You don’t know the half of it. I’m his faculty adviser. Quite a boy, Foster.”

“To me just a name, a face, a good recitation every time. You know: seventy-five to a class. What’s he up to here at dear old Tricky Dicky?”

“Watch the funny jokes, Edel,” said Fuqua, alarmed.

“Sorry. It slipped out. But Foster?”

“Well, he’s taking an inhuman pre-engineering schedule. Carrying it with ease. Going out for all the extracurricular stuff the law allows. R.O.T.C. Drill Team, Boxing Squad, Math Club, and there I had to draw the line. He wanted on the Debating Team too. I’ve seen him upset just once. He came to me last year when the school dentist wanted to pull a bad wisdom tooth he had. He made me make the dentist wait until he had a chance to check the dental requirements of the Air Force Academy. They allow four extractions, so he let the dentist yank it. Fly boy. Off we go into the whatsit. He wants it bad.”

“I see. Just a boy with motivation. How long since you’ve seen one, Roland?”

Dr. Fuqua leaned forward, his voice low and urgent. “To hell with Foster, Dave. I’m in trouble. Will you help me?”

“Why, of course, Roland. How much do you need?” Mr. Edel was a bachelor and had found one of the minor joys of that state to be “tiding over” his familied friends.

“Not that kind of trouble, Dave. Not yet. They’re sharpening the ax for me. I get a hearing this afternoon.”

“Good God! What are you supposed to have done?”

“Everything. Nothing. It’s one of those ‘best interests’ things. Am I taking the Spiritual-Values Directive seriously enough? Am I thinking about patting any adolescent fannies? Exactly why am I in the lowest quarter for my seniority group with respect to voluntary hours of refresher summer courses? Am I happy here?”

Edel said, “These things always start somewhere. Who’s out to get you?”

Fuqua took a deep breath and said in a surprisingly small voice, “Me, I suppose.”

“Oh?”

Then it came out with a rush. “It was the semester psychometrics. I’d been up all night almost, righting with Beth. She does not understand how to handle a fifteen-year-old boy—never mind. I felt sardonic, so I did something sardonic. And stupid. Don’t ever get to feeling sardonic, Dave. I took the psychometric and I checked their little boxes and I told the goddamned truth right down the line. I checked them where I felt like checking them and not where a prudent biology teacher ought to check them.”

“You’re dead,” Mr. Edel said after a pause.

“I thought I could get a bunch of the teachers to say they lie their way through the psychometrics. Start a real stink.”

“I’d make a poor ditch digger, Roland, but—if you can get nine others, I’ll speak up. No, make that six others. I don’t think they could ignore eight of us.”

“You’re a good man,” Dr. Fuqua said. “I’ll let you know. There’s old McGivern—near retirement. I want to try him.” He gulped his coffee and headed across the cafeteria.

Edel sat there, mildly thunderstruck at Fuqua’s folly and his own daring. Fuqua had told them the kind of bird he was by checking “Yes” or “No” on the silly-clever statements. He had told them that he liked a drink, that he thought most people were stupider than he, that he talked without thinking first, that he ate too much, that he was lazy, that he had an eye for a pretty ankle—that he was a human being not much better or worse than any other human being. But that wasn’t the way to do it, and damned well Fuqua had known it. You simply told yourself firmly, for the duration of the test, “I am a yuk. I have never had an independent thought in my life; independent thinking scares me. I am utterly monogamous and heterosexual. I go bowling with the boys. Television is the greatest of the art forms. I believe in installment purchasing. I am a yuk.”

That these parlor games were taken seriously by some people was an inexplicable but inexorable fact of life in the twentieth century. Edel had yukked his way through scholarships, college admissions, faculty appointment and promotions and had never thought the examination worse than a bad cold. Before maturity set in, in the frat house, they had eased his qualms about psychometric testing with the ancient gag “You ain’t a man until you’ve had it three times.”

Brave of him, pretty brave at that, to back up Fuqua—if Roland could find six others.

Roland came to him at four o’clock to say he had not even found one other. “I don’t suppose— No. I’m not asking you to, Dave. Two—it wouldn’t be any good.”

He went into the principal’s office.

The next day a bright young substitute was teaching biology in his place and his student advisees had been parceled out among other teachers. Mr. Edel found that young Foster had now become his charge.

The seventy-two pupils in his English 114 class sat fascinated and watched the television screen. Dr. Henley Ragen was teaching them Macbeth, was teaching about nine hundred English 114 classes throughout the state Macbeth, and making them like it. The classroom rapport was thick enough to cut and spread with a shingle. The man’s good, Edel thought, but that good? How much is feedback from their knowing he’s famous for his rapport, how much is awe of his stupendous salary, still nowhere equal to nine hundred teachers’ salaries?

Dr. Henley Ragen, el magnifico, portentously turned a page; there was grim poetry in the gesture. He transfixed the classroom (nine hundred classrooms) with Those Eyes. Abruptly he became Macbeth at the Banquet prepared. With nervous hilarity he shouted at his guests, “You know your own degrees; sit down! At first and last, the hearty welcome!” Stockstill at a lectern he darted around the table, bluffly rallying the company, slipped off to chat, grimly merry, with the First Murtherer at the door, returned to the banquet, stood in chilled horror at the Ghost in the chair, croaked, “The table’s full.”

Mr. Edel studied the faces of his seventy-two English 114ers. They were in hypnotic states of varying depths, except Foster. The Fireball was listening and learning, his good mind giving as well as taking. The intelligent face was alive, the jaw firm, and around him eyes were dull and jaws went slack. Foster could speak and write an English sentence, which perhaps was the great distinguishing mark between him and the rest of English 114. Blurted fragments of thought came from them, and the thoughts were cliches a hundred times out of a hundred.

Dr. Henley Ragen growled at them, “We are yet but young in deed …” and his eyes said the rest, promising horrors to come. He snapped the book shut like a pistol’s bang; the 114ers popped out of their trances into dazed attentiveness. “Notebooks!” said Ragen (qua Ragen) and, seventy-two gunfighters quick on the draw, they snapped out books and poised their pens. Ragen spoke for ten minutes about the scene; every so often Those Eyes and an intensification of That Voice cued them to write a word or a phrase, almost without glancing at the paper. (Later each would look at his notes and not be surprised to find them lucid, orderly, even masterful summations of the brief lecture.)

As Dr. Henley Ragen bluffly delivered a sort of benediction from the altar of learning, Mr. Edel thought, Well, they’ve got the Banquet Scene now; they’ll own it forever. The way they own the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, the “Ode to the West Wind,” Arroiusmith. A good deal better than nothing; pauca sed matura. Or so he supposed.

That afternoon from three to five Mr. Edel was available to his advisees. It was a period usually devoted to catching up on his paperwork; beyond making out the students’ assignment schedule, a task traditionally considered beyond the capacity of the young, he had done no advising in years. And Foster appeared.

His handshake was manly, his grin was modest but compelling. He got to the point. “Mr. Edel, do you think I could swing an Enrichment Project in English?”

The teacher hardly knew what he meant. “Enrichment? Well, we haven’t been doing that lately, Foster. I suppose it’s still in the optional curriculum—”

“Yes, sir, Form Sixty-eight, English, Paragraph Forty-five, Section Seven. ‘Opportunities shall be afforded to students believed qualified by advisers to undertake projects equivalent to College Freshman English term papers, and the grades therefore shall be entered on the students’ records and weighed as evidence in assigning students’ positions in the graduating class.”

Mr. Edel had found Foster’s card by then and was studying it. The boy’s schedule was brutal, but his grade average was somewhere between B-plus and A. “Foster,” he told him, “there’s such a thing as a breaking point. I—I understand you want very much to go to Colorado Springs.” (Poor Fuqua! What had become of …?)

“Very much, sir. They expect the best—they have a right to expect the best. I’m not complaining, Mr. Edel, but there are girls with straight-A averages who aren’t working as hard as I am. Well, I’ve just got to beat them at their own game.”

Mr. Edel understood. It wasn’t just girls, though mostly it was. There was a type of student who was no trouble, who did the work, every smidgen of it, who read every word of every assigned page, who turned in accurate, curiously dead, echoless, unresonant papers which you could not in decency fault though you wanted to tear them up and throw them in their authors’ bland faces. You had a curious certainty that the adeptly memorized data they reeled back on demand vanished forever once the need for a grade was gone, that it never by any chance became bone of their bone to strengthen them against future trials. Often enough when you asked them what they hoped to be they smilingly said, “I am going to teach.”

Foster, now. A boy who fought with the material and whipped it. He said, “Why so strong, Foster? What’s it about?”

The boy said, “Space, partly. And my father. Two big challenges, Mr. Edel. I think I’m a very lucky fellow. Here I am with a new frontier opening up, but there are lot’s of fellows my age who don’t see it. I see it because of my father. It’s wonderful to have a challenge like that: Can I be the man he is? Can I learn even more, be a better leader, a better engineer?”

Mr. Edel was moved deeply. “Your father just missed space flight, is that it?”

“By a whisker,” Foster said regretfully. “Nothing can be done about it except what I’m doing.”

“He’s an aeroengineer?”

“He can do anything,” Foster said positively. “And he has!”

A picture of the elder Foster was forming in Mr. Edel’s mind-young Fireball grown taller, solider and grizzled, the jaw firmed and controlled, the voice more powerful and sure. And, unquestionably, leather puttees.

Foster’s card said he had no mother, which made it more understandable. This fine boy was hard material honed to an edge, single-purposed. Did he have a young Hap Arnold here in his office? A Curtis LeMay? They had to come from somewhere, those driving, wide-ranging leaders and directors of millions. The slow-rolling conquest of space needed such men, first to navigate and pilot so no navigator or pilot would ever be able to snow them, then to move up step by step through research to command, then to great command.

“I’ll bet on you, Foster,” he said abruptly. “We can’t let the—the future English teachers outpoint you with their snap courses. You’ll do me a term paper on … on Henry V. First, read it. Read hell out of it and take notes. Get in touch with me when you think you’re ready to talk it over. I happen to be a bachelor; I have time in the evenings. And talk it over with your father, if you can persuade him to read along with you.”

Foster laughed. “I’m afraid Dad’s much too busy for Shakespeare, but I’ll try. Thanks, Mr. Edel.” He left.

Mr. Edel, with considerable trouble, found a pad of forms in his desk which covered Enrichment Projects, English, Adviser’s Permission for. He filled one out for Foster, looked it over and said, surprised, “Again, damn it!” He had checked the box for “Permission denied.” He tore up the form—it was discolored anyway from being so long on the top of the pad—and meticulously made out another, checking the various boxes with exquisite care.

That night after dinner he tried to telephone Roland Fuqua, but service to his number had been discontinued. Alarmed, he buzzed over on his scooter to Fuqua’s apartment, one of a quarter million in the Dearborn Village Development of Metropolitan Life and Medical. Roland’s hulking, spoiled and sullen boy Edward (who had unilaterally changed his name last year to Rocky) was the only person there, and he was on his way out—“to an orgy with some pigs,” if you believed him. He said “Little Rollo” was now a night-shift lab assistant in a petfood company’s quality-control department and this was his mother’s Bingo night. “You want I should give a message?” he asked satirically, overplaying the role of intolerably burdened youth.

“If it won’t break your back,” Mr. Edel said, “please ask your father to give me a ring sometime.”

Again in his own small apartment, Mr. Edel thought of many things. Of the ancient papyrus which, when decoded, moaned: “Children are not now as respectful and diligent as they were in the old days.” Of Henry V. Of Dr. Fuqua drudging away on petfood protein determinations and lucky to be doing that. Of his own selfish, miserable, lonely comfort in his castle. Of Foster, the hero-king to be, and of himself, Aristotle to the young Alexander. Had there been a dozen such in his twenty years? There had not. Marie Perrone still sent him her novels, and they were almost popular and very bad. Jim Folwell had gone to Princeton and into the foreign service and that was that. Janice Reeves and Ward Dreiman were married and both teaching at Cornell. What had happened to the hundred thousand others he had taught only God and themselves knew. If they all dropped dead at this instant, tomorrow morning some trucks would not roll for an hour or two, some advertising agencies would come near to missing a few deadlines, some milk would sour and some housewives would bang, perplexed, on the doors of shops that should be open, a few sales would languish unclosed, a few machines would growl for lack of oil. But Foster might land on the moons of Jupiter.

Therefore let him learn, make him learn, how to be great. He would meet his Pistols, Bardolphs, Fluellens, a few Exeters, and without doubt his Cambridges and Scroops: clowns, fuss-budgets, friends and traitors. It could matter to nobody except herself if her agent ripped poor arty Marie Perrone up her back; it might matter a great deal to—he shied at the alternatives—to, let us say, man, if Foster trusted a Pistol to do his work, or passed over a Fluellen for his mannerisms, or failed to know a Scroop when he saw one.

We will arm the young hero-king, he thought comfortably just before sleep claimed him.

Roland Fuqua had been transferred to Toledo by the petfood company. He wrote to Edel:

Instinct tells me not to queer my luck by talking about it, but anyway—I really believe I’m moving up in the organization. The other day a party from Sales came through the QC labs and one of them, just an ordinary-looking Joe, stopped to talk to me about the test I was running—asked very intelligent questions. You could have knocked me over with a Folin-Wu pipette when they told me who he was afterward: just John McVey himself, Assistant Vice-President in Charge of Sales! Unaccustomed as I am to pipe dreams, it can’t be a coincidence that it was me he talked to instead of half a dozen other lab men with seniority; I don’t know what he has in mind exactly, maybe some kind of liaison job between QC and Sales, which would put me on Staff level instead of Hourly-Rated….

Mr. Edel felt sick for him. He would have to answer the letter at once; if he put it off he would put it off again and their correspondence would peter out and Fuqua would be betrayed. But what could he tell him—that he was pipe-dreaming, that “coincidences” like that happen to everybody a hundred times a day, that Roland Fuqua, Ph.D., would never, at forty-five, move from the quality-control lab to the glittering world of sales?

He stalled for time by stamping and addressing the envelope first, then hung over the typewriter for five minutes of misery. It was Wednesday night; Foster was due for the twelfth and last of his Enrichment sessions. Mr. Edel tried not to cause Fuqua pain by dwelling on the world of teaching he had lost—but what else was there to write about?

I’m sure you remember Foster—the fly boy? I’ve been taking him, on one of those Enrichment things, through Henry V. This is supposed to win him .001 of a place higher on the graduating-class list and get him into the Academy, and I suppose it will. Things are very simple for Foster, enviably so. He has a titan of engineering for a father who appears to commute between the Minas Gerais power station in Brazil, his consulting service in the city and trouble spots in the I. T. and T. network—maybe I should say commutate. I honestly do not believe that Foster has to lie his way through the personality profiles like the rest of us mortals—

Now, there was a hell of a thing to put down. He was going to rip the page out and start again, then angrily changed his mind. Fuqua wasn’t a cripple; it wasn’t Bad Form to mention his folly; it would be merely stupid to pretend that nothing had happened. He finished out the page with a gush of trivia. Sexy little Mrs. Dickman who taught Spanish was very visibly expecting. New dietician in the cafeteria, food cheaper but worse than ever. Rumored retirement of Old Man Thelusson again and one step up for history teachers if true. Best wishes good luck regards to Beth and the youngster, Dave. He whipped the page into folds, slipped it into the envelope and sealed the flap fast, before he could change his mind again. It was time to stop treating Fuqua like a basket case; if convalescence had not begun by now it never would.

His bell rang: Foster was on time, to the minute.

They shook hands rather formally. “Like a cup of coffee, Foster?” Mr. Edel asked.

“No thank you, sir.”

“I’ll make one for myself, then. Brought your paper? Good. Read it to me.”

While he compounded coffee Foster began to read. After much discussion they had settled on “Propaganda and Reality in Henry V” as his topic. The boy had read Holinshed where relevant, articles in The Dictionary of National Biography and appropriate history texts. Beyond suggesting these, Mr. Edel had left him alone in the actual treatment of his paper. He did not quite know what to expect from Foster beyond careful organization and an absence of gross blunders; he waited with interest.

The paper was a short one—fifteen hundred words, by request. Nevertheless it gave Mr. Edel a few painful shocks. There were two sneers at “deluded groundlings,” much reveling in the irony of the fictional Henry’s affection for his Welsh captain as against the real Henry who had helped to crush Glendower and extinguish the Welsh as a nation, and fun with the Irishman Macmorris who came loyally from Shakespeare’s pen in 1599 while “the general of our gracious empress” was doing his best to extinguish the Irish as a nation. Henry’s “we have now no thoughts in us but France (save those to God)” was evaluated as “the poet’s afterthought.” The massacre of the French prisoners at Agincourt, Henry’s brutal practical joke with the pretended glove of a French nobleman, his impossibly compressed and eloquent courtship of Katharine, were all somehow made to testify to a cynical Shakespeare manipulating his audience’s passions.

The great shock was that Foster approved of all this. “It was a time of troubles and England was besieged from without and threatened from within. The need of the time was a call to unity, and this Shakespeare provided in good measure. The London mob and the brotherhood of apprentices, always a potential danger to the Peace, no doubt were inspired and pacified for a time by the Shakespearean version of a successful aggressor’s early career.”

Modestly Foster folded his typescript.

It was ground into Mr. Edel that you start by saying whatever words of praise are possible and then go on to criticize. Mechanically he said warm things about the paper’s organization, its style, its scholarly apparatus. “But—aren’t you taking a rather too utilitarian view of the play? It is propaganda to some extent, but should you stop short with the propaganda function of the play? I’m aware that you’re limited by your topic and length, but I wish there had been some recognition of the play’s existence as a work of art.”

Foster said, smiling, “Well, I’m new at this, Mr. Edel. I didn’t know I was supposed to stray. Should I revise it?”

“Oh, no,” Mr. Edel said quickly. “I didn’t mean to imply that you’re unarguably mistaken in anything you said. I don’t know why I’m fussing at you about it at all. I suppose you’ve taken a sort of engineering approach to literature, which is natural enough. Did you ever succeed in engaging your father in the project?”

“I’m afraid not, Mr. Edel. You can imagine.”

“He’s been away?”

“Why, no.” Foster was surprised. But didn’t his father go away now and then? He thought Foster had said—or almost said—He took the paper from him and leafed through it. “This is quite good enough for a pass, Foster. It’ll be read by somebody in the English chairman’s office, but that’s a formality. Let’s say you’ve completed your Enrichment Option.” He stuck out his hand and Foster took it warmly. “That, then, is that. Do you have to run now?”

“With all rods out,” Foster said. “I’ve got to prepare for the Math Team meet, a hundred things. Can I mail that for you?”

It was the letter to Fuqua on his desk. “Why, thanks.”

“Thank you, Mr. Edel, for the time you’ve taken with me.”

Well worth it, son, Mr. Edel thought after the door closed. There aren’t many like you. The paper was a little cold and cynical, but you’ll learn. Criticism’s heady stuff. Speaking quite objectively, you’ve done a piece thoroughly consistent with College Freshman English work, and that’s what you were supposed to do. If it helps get you into Colorado Springs, I’ve done my job.

He turned in the paper the next day to the English chairman’s office and the assistant chairman read it while he waited, mumbled “Seems quite competent” and entered a “Completed” on Foster’s grade card. He let his eyes run over the other grades and whistled. “A beaver,” he said.

“All rods out,” Mr. Edel smugly corrected him, and went to the door. A freshman girl who knew him, on messenger duty with the principal’s office, intercepted him in the corridor. The message: he would please report at once to the principal; Mrs. Giovino would be advised to take such classes as he might be obliged to miss.

“Classes?” he asked the girl, unbelievingly.

She knew nothing.

The assistant principal for teaching personnel received him at once, alone in his two-window office. He was a gray man named Sturgis whose pride was getting to the point. “Edel,” he asked, “are you sure you’re happy here?”

Mr. Edel said, recognizing a sheet of typing on Sturgis’ desk, “May I ask how you got that letter of mine?”

“Surely. Your young friend Foster turned it in.”

“But why? Why?”

“I shall quote: ‘I honestly do not believe that Foster has to lie his way through the personality profiles like the rest of us mortals.’ If you believed this, Edel, why did you counsel him to lie? Why did you show him this letter as proof that you lied yourself?”

“Counsel him to lie? I never. I never.”

His stammering was guilt; his sweating was guilt. Sturgis pitied him and shook his head. “He kept a little record,” Sturgis said. “Ha, a ‘log’ he called it—he’s quite space-minded; did you know?”

“I know. I demand a hearing, goddammit!”

Sturgis was surprised. “Oh, you’ll get a hearing, Edel. We always give hearings; you know that.”

“I know that. Can I get back to my classes now?”

“Better not. If you’re not happy here …”

Mr. Edel and Foster met that afternoon in the soda shop two blocks from the school. Mr. Edel had been waiting for him, and Foster saw the teacher staring at him from a booth. He excused himself politely from the Math Team crowd around him and joined Mr. Edel.

“I feel I owe you an explanation, sir,” Foster said.

“I agree. How could you—why—?”

Foster said apologetically, “They like you to be a little ruthless at the Academy. This will stand out on my record as a sign of moral fiber. No, Mr. Edel, don’t try to hit me. It’ll make things look that much worse at the hearing. Goodbye, sir.”

He rejoined his handsome, quiet crowd at the counter; in a moment they were talking busily about elliptic functions and Fourier series. Mr. Edel slunk from the place knowing that there was only one court of appeal.

3379 Seneca Avenue turned out to be a shocking slum tenement back of a municipal bus garage. The apartment, Mr. Edel thought, after his initial surprise, would be one of those “hideaways”— probably a whole floor run together, equipped with its own heating and air-conditioning, plumbing replaced …after all, would Foster Senior give a damn about a fancy address? Not that engineer.

But the Foster apartment, or so said a card tacked to a rust-stiffened bell-pull, was only one of a dozen like it on the cabbage-reeking fifth floor. And the paunchy, unshaven, undershirted man who came to the door and stood reeling in the doorway said: “Yah, I’m Ole Foster. Yah, I got a boy in Nixon High. What the crazy kid do now? He’s crazy, that kid. Maybe I get a little drunk sometime, I got a little pension from I hurt my back driving the buses, people don’t appreciate, don’t realize. You wanna drink? What you say you come for?”

“About your son …”

“So I beat him up!” the man yelled, suddenly belligerent. “Ain’t I his father? He talks smart to me, I got a right to beat him some, ain’t I? People don’t appreciate …”

Old Foster lost interest and, mumbling, closed the door.

Mr. Edel walked slowly down the stairs, not able to forgive, but feeling at least the beginnings of eventual ease from the knowledge of why he was being destroyed.

RUMP-TITTY-TITTY-TUM-TAH-TE

Fritz Lieber

Once upon a time, when just for an instant all the molecules in the world and in the collective unconscious mind got very slippery, so that just for an instant something could pop through from the past or the future or other places, six very important intellectual people were gathered together in the studio of Simon Grue, the accidental painter.

There was Tally B. Washington, the jazz drummer. He was beating softly on a gray hollow African log and thinking of a composition he would entitle “Duet for Water Hammer and Whistling Faucet.”

There were Lafcadio Smits, the interior decorator, and Lester Phlegius, the industrial designer. They were talking very intellectually together, but underneath they were wishing very hard that they had, respectively, a really catchy design for modernistic wallpaper and a really new motif for industrial advertising.

There were Gorius James Mclntosh, the clinical psychologist, and Norman Saylor, the cultural anthropologist. Gorius James Mclntosh was drinking whisky and wishing there were a psychological test that would open up patients a lot wider than the Rorschach or the TAT, while Norman Saylor was smoking a pipe but not thinking or drinking anything especially.

It was a very long, very wide, very tall studio. It had to be, so there would be room on the floor to spread flat one of Simon Grue’s canvases, which were always big enough to dominate any exhibition with yards to spare, and room under the ceiling for a very tall, very strong scaffold.

The present canvas hadn’t a bit of paint on it, not a spot or a smudge or a smear, except for the bone-white ground. On top of the scaffold were Simon Grue and twenty-seven big pots of paint and nine clean brushes, each eight inches wide. Simon Grue was about to have a new accident—a semi-controlled accident, if you please. Any minute now he’d plunge a brush in one of the cans of paint and raise it over his right shoulder and bring it forward and down with a great loose-wristed snap, as if he were cracking a bullwhip, and a great fissioning gob of paint would go splaaAAT on the canvas in a random, chance, arbitrary, spontaneous and therefore quintuply accidental pattern which would constitute the core of the composition and determine the form and rhythm for many, many subsequent splatters and maybe even a few contact brush strokes and impulsive smearings.

As the rhythm of Simon Grue’s bouncy footsteps quickened, Norman Saylor glanced up, though not apprehensively. True, Simon had been known to splatter his friends as well as his canvases, but hi anticipation of this Norman was wearing a faded shut, old sneakers and the frayed tweed suit he’d sported as assistant instructor, while his fishing hat was within easy reach. He and his armchair were crowded close to a wall, as were the other four intellectuals. This canvas was an especially large one, even for Simon.

As for Simon, pacing back and forth atop his scaffold, he was experiencing the glorious intoxication and expansion of vision known only to an accidental painter in the great tradition of Wassily Kandin-sky, Robert Motherwell and Jackson Pollock, when he is springfly based a good twenty feet above a spotless, perfectly prepared canvas. At moments like this Simon was especially grateful for these weekly gatherings. Having his five especial friends on hand helped create the right intellectual milieu. He listened happily to the hollow rhythmic thrum of Tally’s drumming, the multisyllabic rippling of Lester’s and Lafcadio’s conversation, the gurgle of Gorius’ whisky bottle, and happily watched the mystic curls of Norman’s pipe smoke. His entire being, emotions as well as mind, was a blank tablet, ready for the kiss of the universe.

Meanwhile the instant was coming closer and closer when all the molecules hi the world and in the collective unconscious mind would get very slippery.

Tally B. Washington, beating on his African log, had a feeling of oppression and anticipation, almost (but not quite) a feeling of apprehension. One of Tally’s ancestors, seven generations back, had been a Dahomey witch doctor, which is the African equivalent of an intellectual with artistic and psychiatric leanings. According to a very private family tradition, half joking, half serious, this five-greats-grandfather of Tally had discovered a Jumbo Magic which could “lay holt” of the whole world and bring it under its spell, but he had perished before he could try the magic or transmit it to his sons. Tally himself was altogether skeptical about the Jumbo Magic, but he couldn’t help wondering about it wistfully from time to time, especially when he was beating on his African log and hunting for a new rhythm. The wistful feeling came to him right now, building on the feeling of oppression and anticipation, and his mind became a tablet blank as Simon’s.

The slippery instant arrived.

Simon seized a brush and plunged it deep in the pot of black paint. Usually he used black for a final splatter if he used it at all, but this time he had the impulse to reverse himself.

Of a sudden Tally’s wrists lifted high, hands dangling loosely, almost like a marionette’s. There was a dramatic pause. Then his hands came down and beat out a phrase on the log, loudly and with great authority.

Rump-titty-titty-tum-T Mi-tee!

Simon’s wrist snapped and the middle air was full of free-falling paint which hit the canvas in a fast series of splaaAAT’s which was an exact copy of Tally’s phrase.

Rump-titty-titty-tum-TAa-tee!

Intrigued by the identity of the two sounds, and with the back hairs lifting a little for the same reason, the five intellectuals around the wall rose and stared, while Simon looked down from his scaffold like God after the first stroke of creation.

The big black splatter on the bone-white ground was itself an exact copy of Tally’s phrase, sound made sight, music transposed into visual pattern. First there was a big roundish blot—that was the rump. Then two rather delicate, many-tongued splatters—those were the titties. Next a small rump, which was the turn. Following that a big blot like a bent spearhead, not so big as the rump but even more emphatic—the TAH. Last of all an indescribably curled and broken little splatter which somehow seemed exactly right for the tee.

The whole big splatter was as like the drummed phrase as an identical twin reared in a different environment and as fascinating as a primeval symbol found next to bison paintings hi a Cro-Magnon cave. The six intellectuals could hardly stop looking at it and when they did, it was to do things in connection with it, while their minds were happily a-twitter with all sorts of exciting new projects.

There was no thought of Simon doing any more splattering on the new painting until this first amazing accidental achievement had been digested and pondered.

Simon’s wide-angle camera was brought into play on the scaffold and negatives were immediately developed and prints made in the darkroom adjoining the studio. Each of Simon’s friends carried at least one print when he left. They smiled at each other like men who share a mysterious but powerful secret. More than one of them drew his print from under his coat on the way home and hungrily studied it.

At the gathering next week there was much to tell. Tally had introduced the phrase at a private jam session and on his live jazz broadcast. The jam session had improvised on and developed the phrase for two solid hours and the musicians had squeaked with delight when Tally finally showed them the photograph of what they had been playing, while the response from the broadcast had won Tally a new sponsor with a fat pocketbook.

Gorius Mclntosh had got phenomenal results from using the splatter as a Rorschach inkblot. His star patient had seen her imagined incestuous baby in it and spilled more in one session than hi the previous hundred and forty. Stubborn blocks hi two other analyses had been gloriously broken, while three catatonics at the state mental hospital had got up and danced.

Lester Phlegius rather hesitantly described how he was using “something like the splatter, really not too similar” (he said) as an attention-getter hi a forthcoming series of Industrial-Design-for-Living advertisements.

Lafcadio Smits, who had an even longer and more flagrant history of stealing designs from Simon, brazenly announced that he had reproduced the splatter as a silk-screen pattern on linen. The pattern was already selling like hotcakes at five arty gift shops, while at this very moment three girls were sweating in Lafcadio’s loft turning out more. He braced himself for a blast from Simon, mentally rehearsing the attractive deal he was prepared to offer, one depending on percentages of percentages, but the accidental painter was strangely abstracted. He seemed to have something weighing on his mind.

The new painting hadn’t progressed any further than the first splatter.

Norman Saylor quizzed him about it semi-privately.

“I’ve developed a sort of artist’s block,” Simon confessed to him with relief. “Whenever I pick up a brush I get afraid of spoiling that first tremendous effect and I don’t go on.” He paused. “Another thing—I put down papers and tried some small test-splatters. They all looked almost exactly like the big one. Seems my wrist won’t give out with anything else.” He laughed nervously. “How are you cashing in on the thing, Norm?”

The anthropologist shook his head. “Just studying it, trying to place it in the continuum of primitive signs and universal dream symbols. It goes very deep. But about this block and this… er… fancied limitation of yours—I’d just climb up there tomorrow morning and splatter away. The big one’s been photographed, you can’t lose that.”

Simon nodded doubtfully and then looked down at his wrist and quickly grabbed it with his other hand, to still it. It had been twitching in a familiar rhythm.

If the tone of the gathering after the first week was enthusiastic, that after the second was euphoric. Tally’s new drummed theme had given rise to a musical fad christened Drum ‘n’ Drag which promised to rival Rock ‘n’ Roll, while the drummer himself was in two days to appear as a guest artist on a network TV program. The only worry was that no new themes had appeared. All the Drum ‘n’ Drag pieces were based on duplications or at most developments of the original drummed phrase. Tally also mentioned with an odd reluctance that a few rabid cats had taken to greeting each other with a four-handed patty-cake that beat out rump-titty-titty-tum-TAK-tee.

Gorjus Mclntosh was causing a stir in psychiatric circles with his amazing successes in opening up recalcitrant cases, many of them hitherto thought fit for nothing but eventual lobotomy. Colleagues with M.P.S quit emphasizing the lowly “Mister” in his name, while several spontaneously addressed him as “Doctor” as they begged him for copies of the McSPAT (Mclntosh’s Splatter Pattern Apperception Test). His name had been mentioned in connection with the assistant directorship of the clinic where he was a humble psychologist. He also told how some of the state patients had taken to pommelling each other playfully while happily spouting some gibberish variant of the original phrase, such as “Bump-biddy-biddy-bum-KAa-bee!” The resemblance in behavior to Tally’s hepcats was noted and remarked on by the six intellectuals.

The first of Lester Phlegms’ attention-getters (identical with the splatter, of course) had appeared and attracted the most favorable notice, meaning chiefly that his customer’s front office had received at least a dozen curious phone calls from the directors and presidents of cognate firms. Lafcadio Smits reported that he had rented a second loft, was branching out into dress materials, silk neckties, lampshades and wallpaper, and was deep hi royalty deals with several big manufacturers. Once again Simon Grue surprised him by not screaming robbery and demanding details and large simple percentages. The accidental painter seemed even more unhappily abstracted than the week before.

When he ushered them from his living quarters into the studio they understood why.

It was as if the original big splatter had whelped. Surrounding and overlaying it were scores of smaller splatters. They were all colors of a well-chosen artist’s-spectrum, blending with each other and pointing each other up superbly. But each and every one of them was a perfect copy, reduced to one half or less, of the original big splatter.

Lafcadio Smits wouldn’t believe at first that Simon had done them free-wrist from the scaffold. Even when Simon showed him details proving they couldn’t have been stencilled, Lafcadio was still unwilling to believe, for he was deeply versed in methods of mass-producing the appearance of handwork and spontaneity.

But when Simon wearily climbed the scaffold and, hardly looking at what he was doing, flipped down a few splatters exactly like the rest, even Lafcadio had to admit that something miraculous and frightening had happened to Simon’s wrist.

Gorius James Mclntosh shook his head and muttered a remark about “stereotyped compulsive behavior at the artistic-creative level. Never heard of it getting that stereotyped, though.”

Later during the gathering, Norman Saylor again consulted with Simon and also had a long confidential talk with Tally B. Washington, during which he coaxed out of the drummer the whole story of his five-greats-grandfather. When questioned about his own researches, the cultural anthropologist would merely say that they were “progressing.” He did, however, have one piece of concrete advice, which he delivered to all the five others just before the gathering broke up.

“This splatter does have an obsessive quality, just as Gory said. It has that maddening feeling of incompleteness which cries for repetition. It would be a good thing if each of us, whenever he feels the thing getting too strong a hold on him, would instantly shift to some engrossing activity which has as little as possible to do with arbitrarily ordered sight and sound. Play chess or smell perfumes or eat candy or look at the moon through a telescope, or stare at a point of light in the dark and try to blank out your mind—something like that. Try to set up a counter-compulsion. One of us might even hit on a coun-terformula—a specific antidote—like quinine for malaria.”

If the ominous note of warning in Norman’s statement didn’t register on all of them just then, it did at some time during the next seven days, for the frame of mind in which the six intellectuals came to the gathering after the third week was one of paranoid grandeur and hysterical desperation.

Tally’s TV appearance had been a huge success. He’d taken to the TV station a copy of the big splatter and although he hadn’t intended to (he said) he’d found himself showing it to the M.C. and the unseen audience after his drum solo. The immediate response by phone, telegram and letter had been overwhelming but rather frightening, including a letter from a woman in Smallhills, Arkansas, thanking Tally for showing her “the wondrous picture of God.”

Drum ‘n’ Drag had become a national and even international craze. The patty-cake greeting had become general among Tally’s rapidly-growing horde of fans and it now included a staggering slap on the shoulder to mark the TAH. (Here Gorius Mclntosh took a drink from his bottle and interrupted to tell of a spontaneous, rhythmic, lock-stepping procession at the state hospital with an even more violent

TAH-blow. The mad march had been forcibly broken up by attendants and two of the patients treated at the infirmary for contusions.) The New York Times ran a dispatch from South Africa describing how police had dispersed a disorderly mob of University of Capetown students who had been chanting, “Shlump Shliddy Shliddy Shlump SHLAH Shlee!”—which the correspondents had been told was an anti-apartheid cry phrased in pig-Afrikaans.

For both the drummed phrase and the big splatter had become a part of the news, either directly or by inferences that made Simon and his friends alternately cackle and shudder. An Indiana town was fighting a juvenile phenomenon called Drum Saturday. A radio-TV columnist noted that Blotto Cards were the latest rage among studio personnel; carried in handbag or breast pocket, whence they could be quickly whipped out and stared at, the cards were claimed to be an infallible remedy against boredom or sudden attacks of anger and the blues. Reports of a penthouse burglary included among the objects listed as missing “a recently-purchased spotted linen wall-hanging”; the woman said she did not care about the other objects, but pleaded for the hanging’s return, “as it was of great psychological comfort to my husband.” Splattermarked raincoats were a high-school fad, the splattering being done ceremoniously at Drum ‘n’ Drag parties. An English prelate had preached a sermon inveighing against “this deafening new American craze with its pantherine overtones of mayhem.” At a press interview Salvador Dali had refused to say anything to newsmen except the cryptic sentence, “The time has come.”

In a halting, hiccupy voice Gorius Mclntosh reported that things were pretty hot at the clinic. Twice during the past week he had been fired and triumphantly reinstated. Rather similarly at the state hospital Bump Parties had been alternately forbidden and then encouraged, mostly on the pleas of enthusiastic psychiatric aides. Copies of the McSPAT had come into the hands of general practitioners who, ignoring its original purpose, were using it as a substitute for electroshock treatment and tranquiHzing drugs. A group of progressive psychiatrists calling themselves the Young Turks were circulating a statement that the McSPAT constituted the worst threat to classical Freudian psychoanalysis since Alfred Adler, adding a grim scholarly reference to the Dancing Mania of the Middle Ages. Gorius finished his report by staring around almost frightenedly at his five friends and clutching the whisky bottle to his bosom.

Lafcadio Smits seemed equally shaken, even when telling about the profits of his pyramiding enterprises. One of his four lofts had been burglarized and another invaded at high noon by a red-bearded Greenwich Village Satanist protesting that the splatter was an illicitly procured Taoist magic symbol of direst power. Lafcadio was also receiving anonymous threatening letters which he believed to be from a criminal drug syndicate that looked upon Blotto Cards as his creation and as competitive to heroin and lesser forms of dope. He shuddered visibly when Tally volunteered the information that his fans had taken to wearing Lafcadio’s splatter-patterned ties and shirts.

Lester Phlegms said that further copies of the issue of the costly and staid industrial journal carrying his attention-getter were unprocurable and that many had vanished from private offices and wealthy homes or, more often, simply had the crucial page ripped out.

Norman Saylor’s two photographs of the big splatter had been pilfered from his locked third-floor office at the university, and a huge copy of the splatter, painted in a waterproof black substance, had appeared on the bottom of the swimming pool in the girls’ gymnasium.

As they continued to share their experiences, it turned out that the six intellectuals were even more disturbed at the hold the drummed phrase and the big splatter had got on them individually and at their failure to cope with the obsession by following Norman’s suggestions. Playing at a Sunday-afternoon bar concert, Tally had got snagged on the phrase for fully ten minutes, like a phonograph needle caught in one groove, before he could let go. What bothered him especially was that no one in the audience had seemed to notice and he had the conviction that if something hadn’t stopped him (the drum skin ruptured) they would have sat frozen there until, wrists flailing, he died of exhaustion.

Norman himself, seeking escape in chess, had checkmated his opponent in a blitz game (where each player must move without hesitation) by banging down his pieces in the rump-titty rhythm—and his subconscious mind had timed it, he said, so that the last move came right on the tee; it was a little pawn-move after a big queen-check on the TAH. Lafcadio, turning to cooking, had found himself mixing salad with a rump-titty flourish. (“… and a madman to mix it, as the old Spanish recipe says,” he finished with a despairing giggle.) Lester Phlegius, seeking release from the obsession in the companionship of a lady spiritualist with whom he had been carrying on a strictly Platonic love affair for ten years, found himself enlivening with the rump-titty rhythm the one chaste embrace they permitted themselves to each meeting. Phoebe had torn herself away and slapped him full-arm across the face. What had horrified Lester was that the impact had coincided precisely with the TAH.

Simon Grue himself, who hadn’t stirred out of his apartment all week but wandered shivering from window to window in a dirty old bathrobe, had dozed in a broken armchair and had a terrifying vision. He had imagined himself hi the ruins of Manhattan, chained to the broken stones (before dozing off he had wound both wrists heavily with scarves and cloths to cushion the twitching), while across the dusty jagged landscape all humanity tramped in an endless horde screeching the accursed phrase and every so often came a group of them carrying a two-story-high poster (“… like those Soviet parades,” he said) with the big splatter staring blackly down from it. His nightmare had gone on to picture the dreadful infection spreading from the Earth by spaceship to planets revolving around other stars.

As Simon finished speaking Gorius Mclntosh rose slowly from his chair, groping ahead of himself with his whisky bottle.

“That’s it!” he said from between bared clenched teeth, grinning horribly. “That’s what’s happening to all of us. Can’t get it out of our minds. Can’t get it out of our muscles. Psychosomatic bondage!” He stumbled slowly across the circle of intellectuals toward Lester, who was sitting opposite him. “It’s happening to me. A patient sits down across the desk and says with his eyes dripping tears, ‘Help me, Doctor Mclntosh,’ and I see his problems clearly and I know just how to help hitn and I get up and I go around the desk to him”—he was standing right over Lester now, bottle raised high above the industrial designer’s shoulder—“and I lean down so that my face is close to his and then I shout RUMP-TITTY-TITTY-TUM-TAH-TEE!”

At this point Norman Saylor decided to take over, leaving to Tally and Lafcadio the restraining of Gorius, who indeed seemed quite docile and more dazed than anything else now that his seizure was spent, at least temporarily. The cultural anthropologist strode to the center of the circle, looking very reassuring with his darkly billowing pipe and his strong jaw and his smoky tweeds, though he kept his hands clasped tightly together behind him, after snatching his pipe with one of them.

“Men,” he said sharply, “my research on this thing isn’t finished by a long shot, but I’ve carried it far enough to know that we are dealing with what may be called an ultimate symbol, a symbol that is the summation of all symbols. It has everything in it—birth, death, mating, murder, divine and demonic possession, all of life, the whole lot—to such a degree that after you’ve looked at it, or listened to it, or made it, for a time, you simply don’t need life any more.”

The studio was very quiet. The five other intellectuals looked at him. Norman rocked on his heels like any normal college professor, but his arms grew perceptibly more rigid as he clasped his hands even more tightly behind his back, fighting an exquisite compulsion.

“As I say, my studies aren’t finished, but there’s clearly no time to carry them further—we must act on such conclusions as I have drawn from the evidence assembled to date. Here’s briefly how it shapes up: We must assume that mankind possesses an actual collective unconscious mind stretching thousands of years into the past and, for all I know, into the future. This collective unconscious mind may be pictured as a great dark space across which radio messages can sometimes pass with difficulty. We must also assume that the drummed phrase and with it the big splatter came to us by this inner radio from an individual living over a century in the past. We have good reason to believe that this individual is, or was, a direct male ancestor, in the seventh generation back, of Tally here. He was a witch doctor. He was acutely hungry for power. In fact, he spent his life seeking an incantation that would put a spell on the whole world. It appears that he found the incantation at the end, but died too soon to be able to use it—without ever being able to embody it in sound or sign. Think of his frustration!”

“Norm’s right,” Tally said, nodding somberly. “He was a mighty mean man, I’m told, and mighty persistent.”

Norman’s nod was quicker and also a plea for undivided attention. Beads of sweat were dripping down his forehead. “The thing came to us when it did—came to Tally specifically and through him to Simon—because our six minds, reinforcing each other powerfully, were momentarily open to receive transmissions through the collective unconscious, and because there is—was—this sender at the other end long desirous of getting his message through to one of his descendants. We cannot say precisely where this sender is—a scientifically oriented person might say that he is in a shadowed portion of the space-time continuum while a religiously oriented person might aver that he is in Heaven or Hell.”

“I’d plump for the last-mentioned,” Tally volunteered. “He was that kind of man.”

“Please, Tally,” Norman said. “Wherever he is, we must operate on the hope that there is a counter formula or negative symbol— yang to this yin—which he wants, or wanted, to transmit too—something that will stop this flood of madness we have loosed on the world.”

“That’s where I must differ with you, Norm,” Tally broke in, shaking his head more somberly than he had nodded it, “if Old Five-Greats ever managed to start something bad, he’d never want to stop it, especially if he knew how. I tell you he was mighty mighty mean and—”

“Please, Tally! Your ancestor’s character may have changed with his new environment, there may be greater forces at work on him—in any case, our only hope is that he possesses and will transmit to us the counter formula. To achieve that, we must try to recreate, by artificial means, the conditions that obtained in this studio at the time of the first transmission.”

A look of acute pain crossed his face. He unclasped his hands and brought them in front of him. His pipe fell to the floor. He looked at the large blister the hot bowl had raised in one palm. Then clasping his hands together in front of him, palm to palm, with a twisting motion that made Lafcadio wince, he continued rapping out the words.

“Men, we must act at once, using only such materials as can be rapidly assembled. Each of you must trust me implicitly. Tally, I know you don’t use it any more, but can you still get weed, the genuine crushed leaf? Good, we may need enough for two or three dozen sticks. Gory, I want you to fetch the self-hypnotism rigmarole that’s so effective—no, I don’t trust your memory and we may need copies. Lester, if you’re quite through satisfying yourself that Gory didn’t break your collarbone with his bottle, you go with Gory and see that he drinks lots of coffee. On your way back buy several bunches of garlic, a couple of rolls of dimes, and a dozen red railway flares. Oh yes, and call up your mediumistic lady and do your damnedest to get her to join us here—her talents may prove invaluable. Laf, tear off to your home loft and get the luminous paint and the black velvet hangings you and your red-bearded ex-friend used—yes, I know about that association!—when you and he were dabbling with black magic. Simon and I will hold down the studio. All right, then—” A spasm crossed his face and the veins in his forehead and cords in his neck bulged and his arms were jerking with the struggle he was waging against the compulsion that threatened to overpower him. “All right, then—Rump-titty-titty-tum-GET-MOVJNG!”

An hour later the studio smelt like a fire in a eucalyptus grove. Such light from outside as got past the cabalistically figured hangings covering windows and skylight revealed the shadowy forms of Simon, atop the scaffold, and the other five intellectuals, crouched against the wall, all puffing their reefers, sipping the sour smoke industriously. Their marijuana-blanked minds were still reverberating to the last compelling words of Gory’s rigmarole, read by Lester Phlegius in a sonorous bass.

Phoebe Saltonstall, who had refused reefers with a simple, “No thank you, I always carry my own peyote,” had one wall all to herself. Eyes closed, she was lying along it on three small cushions, her pleated Grecian robe white as a winding sheet.

Round all four walls waist-high went a dimly luminous line with six obtuse angles in it besides the four corners; Norman said that made it the topological equivalent of a magician’s pentalpha or pentagram. Barely visible were the bunches of garlic nailed to each door and the tiny silver discs scattered hi front of them.

Norman flicked his lighter and the little blue flame added itself to the six glowing red points of the reefers. In a cracked voice he cried, “The time approaches!” and he shambled about rapidly setting fire to the twelve railway flares spiked into the floor through the big canvas.

In the hellish red glow they looked to each other like so many devils. Phoebe moaned and tossed. Simon coughed once as the dense clouds of smoke billowed up around the scaffold and filled the ceiling.

Norman Saylor cried, “This is it!”

Phoebe screamed thinly and arched her back as if in electroshock.

A look of sudden agonized amazement came into the face of Taliaferro Booker Washington, as if he’d been jabbed from below with a pin or hot poker. He lifted his hands with great authority and beat out a short phrase on his gray African log.

A hand holding a brightly-freighted eight-inch brush whipped out of the hellish smoke clouds above and sent down a great fissioning gout of paint that landed on the canvas with a sound that was an exact visual copy of Tally’s short drummed phrase.

Immediately the studio became a hive of purposeful activity. Heavily-gloved hands jerked out the railway flares and plunged them into strategically located buckets of water. The hangings were ripped down and the windows thrown open. Two electric fans were turned on. Simon, half-fainting, slipped down the last feet of the ladder, was rushed to a window and lay across it gasping. Somewhat more carefully Phoebe Saltonstall was carried to a second window and laid in front of it. Gory checked her pulse and gave a reassuring nod.

Then the five intellectuals gathered around the big canvas and stared. After a while Simon joined them.

The new splatter, in Chinese red, was entirely different from the many ones under it and it was an identical twin of the new drummed phrase.

After a while the six intellectuals went about the business of photographing it. They worked systematically but rather listlessly. When their eyes chanced to move to the canvas they didn’t even seem to see what was there. Nor did they bother to glance at the black-on-white prints (with the background of the last splatter touched out) as they shoved them under their coats.

Just then there was a rustle of draperies by one of the open windows. Phoebe Saltonstall, long forgotten, was sitting up. She looked around her with some distaste.

“Take me home, Lester,” she said faintly but precisely.

Tally, half-way through the door, stopped. “You know,” he said puzzledly, “I still can’t believe that Old Five-Greats had the public spirit to do what he did. I wonder if she found out what it was that made him—”

Norman put his hand on Tally’s arm and laid a ringer of the other on his own lips. They went out together, followed by Lafcadio, Gorius, Lester and Phoebe. Like Simon, all five men had the look of drunkards in a benign convalescent stupor, and probably dosed with paraldehyde, after a bout of DTs.

The same effect was apparent as the new splatter and drummed phrase branched out across the world, chasing and eventually overtaking the first one. Any person who saw or heard it proceeded to repeat it once (make it, show it, wear it, if it were that sort of thing, in any case pass it on) and then forget it—and at the same time forget the first drummed phrase and splatter. All sense of compulsion or obsession vanished utterly.

Drum ‘n’ Drag died a-borning. Blotto Cards vanished from handbags and pockets, the McSPATS I and II from doctor’s offices and psychiatric clinics. Bump Parties no longer plagued and enlivened mental hospitals. Catatonics froze again. The Young Turks went back to denouncing tranquilizing drugs. A fad of green-and-purple barber-pole stripes covered up splattermarks on raincoats. Satanists and drug syndicates presumably continued their activities unhampered except by God and the Treasury Department. Capetown had such peace as it deserved. Spotted shirts, neckties, dresses, lampshades, wallpaper, and linen wall hangings all became intensely passe. Drum Saturday was never heard of again. Lester Phlegius’ second attention-getter got none.

Simon’s big painting was eventually hung at one exhibition, but it got little attention even from critics, except for a few heavy sentences along the lines of “Simon Grue’s latest elephantine effort fell with a thud as dull as those of the gobs of paint that in falling composed it.” Visitors to the gallery seemed able only to give it one dazed look and then pass it by, as is not infrequently the case with modern paintings.

The reason for this was clear. On top of all the other identical splatters it carried one in Chinese red that was a negation of all symbols, a symbol that had nothing in it—the new splatter that was the identical twin of the new drummed phrase that was the negation and completion of the first, the phrase that had vibrated out from

Tally’s log through the red glare and come slapping down out of Simon’s smoke cloud, the phrase that stilled and ended everything (and which obviously can only be stated here once): “Tah-titty-titty-tee-toe’t”

The six intellectual people continued their weekly meetings almost as if nothing had happened, except that Simon substituted for splatter-work a method of applying the paint by handfuls with the eyes closed, later treading it in by foot. He sometimes asked his friends to join him in these impromptu marches, providing wooden shoes imported from Holland for the purpose.

One afternoon, several months later, Lester Phlegius brought a guest with him—Phoebe Saltonstall.

“Miss Saltonstall has been on a round-the-world cruise,” he explained. “Her psyche was dangerously depleted by her experience in this apartment, she tells me, and a complete change was indicated. Happily now she’s entirely recovered.”

“Indeed I am,” she said, answering their solicitous inquiries with a bright smile.

“By the way,” Norman said, “at the time your psyche was depleted here, did you receive any message from Tally’s ancestor?”

“Indeed I did,” she said.

“Well, what did Old Five-Greats have to say?” Tally asked eagerly. “Whatever it was, I bet he was pretty crude about it!”

“Indeed he was,” she said, blushing prettily. “So crude, in fact, that I wouldn’t dare attempt to convey that aspect of his message. For that matter, I am sure that it was the utter fiendishness of his anger and the unspeakable visions in which his anger was clothed that so reduced my psyche.” She paused.

“I don’t know where he was sending from,” she said thoughtfully. “I had the impression of a warm place, an intensely warm place, though of course I may have been reacting to the railway flares.” Her frown cleared. “The actual message was short and simple enough:

“ ‘Dear Descendant, They mode me stop it It was beginning to catch on down here.’”

SPACE TO SWING A CAT

Stanley Mullen

It was a long, long time ago that Man learned that a horse can run and pull better than he, and that a dog can hunt better.

Been quite a while since we’ve learned anything new…

In space, the big ship and the little ship huddled together. Arnold Brook crawled through the flexible tunnel connecting to the air lock of the tiny spacer. Inside, Brook closed the outer valve and signaled he was coming through. A buzzer sounded, the red blinker went on, and the inner valve clicked, sliding slowly open. Evidently the new fish was already on-ship.

As chief test pilot, Brook had reached the stage of estimating in advance his chances with each new apprentice. His duties included testing new men or surrogates as well as ships. He wondered what the new boy would be like, or would this one be another Pilot Surrogate Number something-or-other? Biolabs had been sending some weirdies lately.

His first sight of Tam, seated arrogantly in the triple-hung pilot’s seat playing with the controls, convinced Brook that he was going to have trouble with this one. Tam P.S 97C was a dilly. Becoming instinctively aware of Brook’s scrutiny, Tam spun about and transfixed the veteran pilot with a pair of sharply alert yellow-green eyes.

“You’re Brook, aren’t you? Specialist test-pilot STP 471863H. I’ve memorized your records.”

Brook laughed grimly. “Good. Then you’ll know what to expect in the way of a shakedown. I’m tough on apprentices. It keeps them and me alive.”

“It has until now,” said Tam steadily. “You’ve never had a fatal accident with an apprentice, have you?”

“Never.”

“And you’ve never given a Pilot Surrogate any kind of passing grade, either?”

“None so far. Maybe I’m harder to please with freaks.”

“Controlled mutants, please.”

“Man-made freaks,” corrected Brook amiably.

“I won’t argue with you. I just want to be sure that we understand one another,” Tam went on seriously.

“I’m afraid we do,” countered Brook, less amiably. “I didn’t ask for this job, you know. It was dumped on me. I don’t have to like it, and I don’t have to like the material they send me. Human apprentices are bad enough, but I won’t settle for any substitutes unless they’re better than the original.”

“I didn’t ask for the job either,” Tam stated fairly. “I can do the work, but I doubt if I will when people feel about me … about us, the way you seem to.”

“I could be clearer.”

Tam stroked a whisker with a beautifully formed finger. “Go ahead,” he prodded. “I’m curious. What do you really think of us?”

Brook was irritated or he would never have said it. “I think you’re a bunch of stinking animals. I’m just the cage-sweeper in a zoo.”

“Unfortunately,” muttered Tam, “the olfactory senses of other animals is more sensitive than in humans. And the stench of man has been an offense in our nostrils ever since the gray apes descended from trees.”

Brook had the grace to laugh, which eased the tension slightly.

“I apologize for my rudeness,” Brook said awkwardly. “I should not have said what I did. And don’t let it worry you as far as the test is concerned. You’ll get a fair test.”

“But you really don’t like me?” persisted Tam.

“Let’s say I don’t like cats. Now that we’ve settled the relationship between man and the noble beasts which may or may not be his friends, shall we get to work?”

“Whenever you say,” agreed Tam eagerly.

“Right. The first thing you have to do is relax. You may as well climb out of that seat and take it easy. Sleep if you can. They’ll drop us off in seven hours – 2300 Earth Arbitrary Time – and then you’ll take over and run course. And remember, nothing is ever as bad as you feared, or as good as you hoped. You’ll never run into anything in normal space-piloting as bad as the measured course. Most work in space is eternal boredom or screaming and continuous emergency. Anybody can stand boredom, so all you’ll get in the test is emergency.”

“Nothing is ever as bad as you feared, or as good as you hoped,” Tam repeated aloud. “That’s an awfully gray view of existence.”

“Is it? I suppose you prefer bright colors.”

Tam laughed. “With me, bright colors are standard equipment.”

Tam yawned tigerishly, exposing savage fangs. His peach-fuzzed skin rippled smoothly as he flexed magnificent muscles getting out of the pilot’s chair, which was actually more of a cage.

Out of the cage-seat, standing on hind legs, Tam stood taller than a man. His build suggested that he could walk erect or go as a quadruped with equal ease. He walked with pride, seemed alert and intelligent, not given to wasted thought of movement. In him was a natural pride of being which showed in his poise and a catlike grace and sureness of movement. He slipped down the trapeze bars of the ship’s framing with the skill and agility of a veteran spaceman. Cat of the catwalks, thought Brook irritably. He looks like a tiger left too long in the rain, bright colors just starting to run together on the fine fur of his coat.

Tam was a cat. A tiger, to be strictly accurate.

In his profession, Brook had expected to catch a few tigers by the tail but not so literally. Deep space is no place for such strenuous exercise. But science must be served, and the Biolabs were serving their science in pretty big platefuls. Tam was a new-model tiger, and even a tame tiger can be a husky handful in space. Biolabs might be, but Brook was not too sure that Tam was tame. The space-testing course would give him an excellent opportunity to find out…

Long ago, interplanetary expansion reaching as far as Pluto convinced man of one thing. Before risking the black and empty unknowns beyond the Solar System, man would need a partner with greater strength, endurance, and quicker reflexes than his own. Machines could not completely fill the need. Devices such as mass detectors, proximity alarms and radiation counters could extend man’s meager senses. Automatic calculators could solve problems of logic and astrogation more rapidly than man ever had. But there were limits beyond which mechanical extensions of his faculties could not serve.

Emergencies in space occur too rapidly for mankind’s reflexes to function, and even robot piloting equipment was too unreliable and subject to breakdown. The race needed outside help, a partner, preferably an organic adaptation with high intelligence potential, yet with reflexes not atrophied by civilization. Only such a being could relieve man of the physical strains and crushing responsibility during microsecond emergencies in space. It must be a helper, strong, agile, courageous, nimble of thought, with the cold nerve to carry through instantaneous decision in spite of the distraction, danger and inevitable panic. For partner, man needed superman. He had to settle for superbeast.

Biolabs, trying to create a demigod in man’s own image, inevitably turned first to the higher primates. For varieties of reasons monkeys, apes, chimpanzees, gorillas, et cetera, all failed to qualify, usually because their one-track minds derailed trains of thought after about one full minute of concentration. They were mercurial, inattentive, disinterested though curious, and even more inclined to panic than were men.

Next on the list, predictably, was man’s ancient ally, the dog. Canines took eagerly to space travel, adapted readily to odd atmospheric compounds, showed little unhealthy response to differences in pressure, were not easily thrown into panic, and had the real advantage of loyal devotion to their masters. On the debit side, their slave-complex gave them a complete incapacity to initiate ideas, to think logically and understand even the most elementary arithmetic. They remained slaves and companions, pets rather than partners. They were stubbornly stupid as if the breed had been behind the door when brains were given out. Dogs were not the answer.

Housecats had their day – but failed, too, due to their closed-circuit minds, their limited reactions to directed mutation, especially to growth stimuli. Larger than the size of a well-fed Persian, the animals became lethargic and morose, usually dying of obscure glandular complaints. Cat-minds and cat-bodies both had definite limitations supplied by nature; they were difficult to teach, full of blind spots, and rigidly limited in size and potentials of mechanical ability.

A rat experiment promised more, but proved deadly dangerous. Rats were highly intelligent and startlingly adaptable. Controlled mutation took care of anatomical limitations, gave them increased size, developed delicate, skillful hands. Rodent minds blotted up technical educations, learned quickly, remembered well, and quickly made use of all available knowledge. Unfortunately – from the human point of view – serious character flaws became rapidly apparent. The beasts were species-consciously working together with maniac efficiency, vicious between groups with no quarter asked or given, treacherous in their jealousy and hatred for mankind, suicidally savage in implementing their traditional feuds with cats, dogs … and man.

That experiment had to be quickly discontinued. In self-defense, the experimenters in Biolabs slaughtered the races of mutant rats, and felt the odd guilt of genocide while carrying out the massacre. Even so, the brutes almost got out of hand, and there were casualties.

Backtracking, Biolabs tried their techniques on larger cats, all carnivores, and all notorious for trigger-tempers. The lions were most intelligent, but too lazy ever to be taught to work for a living. Also, they lived in family groups, hunted in concert, and resisted all attempts to separate them from their group way of life. Some other large cats were exclusively hunters, and remained so. Even in mutation, instincts and interests stayed set, and all processes designed to change them produced only neuroses.

Oddly enough, one of the least promising branches of the cat family showed most signs of success. Only after leopards and cheetahs and lions had been tried did anyone think of trying to tame and reconstruct tigers. Tam was not the first of his kind, but he was the most recent, and in some ways, the most startling. With eight generations of selected pedigree behind him, not to mention much scientific meddling with gene-patterns, he was a magnificent animal.

A few of the larger apes had got through, managing to get past the various stages of processing, retaining their mutant factors and remembering enough of their educations to be useful. A very few of them were actually in service as stand-by space pilots. Quite a number of the large cats of various species had made the grade. In the main they were successful experiments, and useful as human facsimiles, if not always as pilot-surrogates. However, Tam was unique of his kind. The first, but not, Biolabs hoped, the last. They held great hopes for him, and for the vast avenues of scientific achievement his success would open up.

“Our job,” Brook explained, “is not just a dry run. We have to make a complete circuit of the rings of Saturn, as you know, following a patterned course. But that’s only part of the job. We also have to pick up the robot cameras automatically trained upon the planet from various points in the rings, we have to replace film and reset the cameras, check the mechanisms, and then bring back the exposed film. I’d say we were night-watchmen punching time docks in various parts of a big warehouse, but I don’t suppose you’d know anything about that.”

“I know,” said Tam. “And you can stop patronizing me. My education is quite thorough. Possibly better than yours in many ways.”

“Monkey tricks, maybe. And some parroting of general background culture. Probably you’ve had training in simulated close-up maneuvering, but it’s not the real thing. Matching motion and latching onto a non-spherical chunk of matter flipping over and over in its own crazy rotation pattern is one of the trickiest deals you’ll ever encounter. Every decision and every reflex action stands a good chance of being your last.”

Tam smiled with aggravating calm. “Long speech, bwana. Is it supposed to frighten me?”

“It should. Sitting on my hands while a green pilot does it always frightens me.”

“Do I frighten you, bwana?” jeered Tam.

“Any raw test pilot does. And you seem rawer than most. This isn’t your jungle, pussycat. This is space. It’s big and tough and mean.”

Tam stared unblinkingly, his eyes cold and luminous.

“Perhaps it is just a bigger jungle. Don’t you think I am big and tough and mean?”

“It doesn’t worry me, pussycat. You’re a long way from your home jungle. This is my jungle. I know it. I like it. If you try throwing your weight around in my jungle, I’ll pull your fangs for you and make you gum them down. Savvy.”

Tam laughed. “Little man talks big. A few generations ago, my ancestors considered mankind too low-grade game even to hunt. We left man-eating to the old, the toothless, the crippled of our kind. There are other jungles, other hunts. And don’t call me pussycat. Tomcat, at least. My name is Tam. I am surrogate pilot 97C. Tam is simpler, unless you prefer to call me ‘sir.’ “

“All right, chum. When the mother ship drops us off, we travel to the rings on robot pilot. We can check the magnetic tapes and feed them in. I’ll let you know when to take over. And when I do, you’re on your own. You’ll have to trim orbit, set a course as it’s marked on the charts, and do your own worrying. I don’t take over unless you flub out. Understood?”

“Right, Bwana Brook. It should be an interesting test voyage.” His luminous eyes became veiled and thoughtful.

Sleeping, Tam dreamed:

Race memories stirred and he roamed deep jungle. Hot lances of sungold streamed through the filtering lacy foliage overhead. It lay in pools on shadowy pathways among the tangled masses of cool greenery. His senses knew and recognized the smell of rotting vegetation, the soft caress of thick mud by the river, the slashing cut of sawgrass on his flanks, the sounds of rustling small life deep-hidden in the forest. In retrospect, he caught a sharp scent of fresh blood, and the rank taste of raw flesh, salty, rich, satisfying. Blood-memories knew all these things and many more, their arrogant tiger-stalk as lords of their environment, a joy of hunting and slaying, the mystical darkness of an untouched wilderness, a contemptuous, but oddly disturbing, knowledge of mankind.

Other memories prowled the dark fastness of mind, the pride of being, the knowledge of instincts smothered or distorted by mutation, the reluctant yielding of body patterns, retention of the old sureness and grace, the warping of senses and desires, but still the hot, flaring identity of tiger-being. Form might be altered, paws become hands, new motivations take the place of old, but something remained. Something elemental.

“Tiger, tiger,

Burning bright.”

Sleeping, Tam moved restlessly.

Like a triggered spring, he awoke. He awoke, remembering.

To blunt the weariness of passing hours, he studied “The Space Pilot’s Handbook.”

Saturn; possible orbits from Titan…

Saturn, rings of…

Ring “A” – outermost ring, outer diameter one hundred sixty-nine thousand miles, inner diameter one hundred forty-nine thousand miles, divided by two minor gaps. Separated by two thousand miles interval “Cassini’s Gap” from Ring “B” smaller and brighter about sixteen thousand five hundred miles breadth, contacts Ring “C” at inner diameter, so-called Crepe Ring, darkish and diffuse, inner diameter ninety-two thousand miles, although extremely diffuse matter extends eight thousand five hundred miles to surface of planet Saturn.

Composition of Rings – diffuse matter, largely rock debris and solid-frozen-ammonia snow, believed wreckage of satellite destroyed by tidal action.

Tam slammed the book shut. Nothing there not already memorized. Nothing to occupy his mind, release pressure built up in his nervous system. He paced the restricted interior of the ship as restlessly as a cat in a cage.

The hours dragged past somehow. The mother ship dropped the survey cruiser.

“Relax,” advised Brook, not unkindly. “You’ve wound yourself up too tightly.”

“I feel all right,” said Tam, shooting a quick glance at the dark emptiness beyond the viewplates. A large slice of the glowing globe of Saturn occupied one side of the visible.

“We’ll have to close the cover flaps on the viewplates.”

“Don’t do me any favors,” snapped Tam.

“I’m not. It’s required. You’re supposed to make this run on instruments. However, if it will make you feel any better, you can switch on the outside televiewers. They relay a picture inside. There’s no regulation against that. In fact, you’ll have to use them when we try to sneak up on the camera placements. Remember, they’re no different from any other asteroids. Just junk heaps of loose rock, mostly stuck together with frozen ammonia.”

“I know that.” Savagely.

“All right, friend. You’ll be flying broken pieces of orbits. Don’t get jerky or impatient, or you’ll blast us in to Saturn, or halfway across space. The escape velocity of Saturn is a little over 22 mps, which is rough, so don’t get careless. I won’t bother you, unless you flub and I have to take over. So good luck. It’s all yours.”

Calm flowed into Tam as he felt the controls in his hands. He gripped them solidly, learning the feel, experimenting, getting to know the responses. Race memories rose from his deepest subconscious. A sense of power, of mastery, knowledge of his new environment, and sureness of his ability to deal with it.

He became, like any pilot, part of the ship. Its reflex was his reflex. He was the ship…

Sureness. Power. Happiness, such as he had never known, never dreamed existed…

Once around the rings of Saturn, dipping in and out of the agglomerations of cosmic debris, implementing split-seconds of decision with exact timing of action. Normally only a demented space pilot would subject himself or his ship to such continuous strains, such frequent changes of direction, such intricacies of maneuver. The test allowed only a minimum of departure from the scheduled pattern, only a minimum of initiative to the apprentice pilot. But, no sanely planned spaceflight would skirt so closely the infinite possibilities of disaster.

Disaster came, of course. In space, emergency comes quickly, from any angle, and is by definition unpredictable. It was a small thing, but a diamond is small. The random factor in this case was a chunk of meteoric debris, basically identical to the rest of the local matter, but with one important difference. This one was not part of the ring. It was a rogue meteor caught in the gravity of Saturn, possibly pursuing a violently eccentric orbit of its own, possibly heading for Saturn on collision course.

It never reached Saturn. The space cruiser, with Tam at the controls, got in the way.

Emergency is sudden and definite. It can be complete and fatal. But a survey cruiser, new-model, is planned with high margin for error. End over end went the ship, like an insect hit on the wing, but not smashed. Tam eventually wrestled some sense into ship motion by firing auxiliary jets in sequence, but the main drive was off. While the flip-ups lasted, both Tam and Brook had a rough ride.

“That was fun,” commented Brook. “Shall we do it again?”

“You’re joking, of course.”

“Only to hide how scared I am,” admitted Brook uneasily.

“What happened? Or is this just part of a rigged gimmick to see how I’ll react in a real emergency?”

“No gimmick. I think we can assume that something hit us. It happens. The question is, how much damage is done? Can we fix it? And how much time do we have?”

“What do you want me to do?” inquired Tam.

“You figure out where we’re heading on the new orbit. I will check the ship.”

In a few moments, Tam glanced up from his figures.

“We’re in trouble,” he observed.

“I guessed that,” agreed Brook. “How bad?”

“Present orbit will intersect the surface of Saturn. At our present speed, the ship will burn up in atmosphere long before we crash. In any case, the surface of Saturn is not a comfortable alternative. We will have to repair the ship. Have you located the damage?”

“None inside,” said Brook. “Use the outside viewers to scan. Maybe you can see something.”

“Main jets are jammed apparently,” said Tam a minute later. “They shut off automatically. Won’t go on again. What happens now?”

Brook shrugged. “That depends on the damage. We can go outside and poke around, but we haven’t dry-dock facilities. I can’t make a prognosis until I see what’s wrong.”

“Outside,” said Tam, closing his eyes briefly.

“Outside. Get your suit on, buster. Bring torches.”

“Right, chief.”

NINE YARDS OF OTHER CLOTH

Manly Wade Wellman

High up that almighty steep rocky slope with the sun just sunk, I turned as I knelt by my little campfire. Looking down slope and down to where the river crawled like a snake in the valley bottom, I saw her little black figure splash across the shallow place I’d found an hour back. At noontime I’d looked from the mountain yonder across the valley and I’d seen her then, too, on another height I’d left behind. And I’d thought of a song with my name in it:

On yonder hill there stands a creature,

Who she is I do not know …

Oh no, John, no, John, no …

But I knew she was Evadare. I’d fled from before her pretty face as never I’d fled from any living thing, not from evil spell-throwers nor murder-doers, nor either from my country’s enemies when I’d soldiered in foreign parts and seen battle as the Bible prophet-book tells it, confused noises and garments rolled in blood. Since dawn I’d run from Evadare like a rabbit from a fox, and still she followed, climbing now along the trail I’d tried not to leave, toward the smoke of the fire I’d built before I knew she was still coming.

No getaway from her now, for night dropped on the world, and to climb higher would be to fall from some steep hidden place. I could wait where I was or I could head down and face her. Wondering which to do, I recollected how first we’d come on each other in Hosea’s Hollow.

I’d not rightly known how I’d wandered there—Hosea’s Hollow. I hadn’t meant to, that was certain sure. No good-sensed man or woman would mean to. Folks wished Hosea’s Hollow was a lost hollow, tried to stay out of it and not think about it.

Not even the old Indians relished to go there. When the white folks ran the Indians off, the Indians grinned over their shoulders as they went, calling out how Kalu would give white men the same hard times he’d given Indians.

Kalu. The Indian word means a bone. Why Kalu was named that nobody could rightly say, for nobody who saw him lived to tell what he looked to be. He came from his place when he was mad or just hungry. Who he met he snatched away, to eat or worse than eat. The folks who’d stolen the Indians’ country near about loaded their wagons to go the way they’d come. Then—and this was before the tune of the oldest man I’d heard tell of it—young Hosea Palmer said he’d take Kalu’s curse away.

Folks hadn’t wanted Hosea to try such. Hosea’s father was a preacher—he begged him. So did Hosea’s mother and so did a girl who’d dreamed to marry Hosea. They said if Hosea went where Kalu denned, he’d not come back, but Hosea allowed Kalu was the downright evil and couldn’t prevail against a pure heart. He went in the hollow, and true he didn’t come out, but no more did Kalu, from that day on. Both vanished from folks’ sight and knowledge, and folks named the place Hosea’s Hollow, and nary path led there.

How I myself had come to the hollow, the first soul in long years as I reckoned, it wondered me. What outside had been the broad open light of the day was cloudy gray light here among funny-growing trees. Somewhere I heard an owl hoot, not waiting for night. Likewise I half-heard music, and it came to me that was why I’d walked there without meaning to.

Later, while I watched Evadare climb up trail to me, I recollected how, in Hosea’s Hollow, I’d recollected hearing the sure enough music, two days before and forty-fifty miles off.

At Haynie’s Fork, hunters had shot a hog that belonged to nobody, and butchered it up while the lady-folks baked pones of corn bread and sliced up coleslaw, and from here and yonder came folks carrying jugs of beady white liquor and music instruments. I was there, too, I enjoy to aid at such doings. We ate and drank and had dancing, and the most skilled men gave us music. Obray Ramsey picked his banjo and sang O where is pretty Polly, O yonder she stands, with rings on the fingers of her lily-white hands, on to the last line that’s near about the frighteningest last line ary song had. Then they devilled me to play my silver-strung guitar and give them Vandy, Vandy and The Little Black Train. That led to tale-tellings, and one tale was of Hosea’s Hollow and fifty different notions of what might could have gone with Hosea and whatever bore the name of Kalu. Then more music, with Byard Ray fiddling his possible best, the way we never thought to hear better.

But a tall thin stranger was there, with a chin like a skinny fist and sooty-colored hair. When Byard Ray had done, the stranger took from a bag a shiny black fiddle. I offered to pick guitar to harmony with him, but he said sharp, “No, I thank you.” Alone he fiddled, and, gentlemen, he purely fiddled better than Byard Ray. When he’d done, I inquired him his name.

“Shull Cobart,” he replied me. “You’re John, is that right? We’ll meet again, it’s possible, John.”

His smile was no way likeable as he walked off, while folks swore no living soul could fiddle Byard Ray down without some special fiddle-secret. That had been two days before, and here I was in Hosea’s Hollow, seeming to hear music that was some way like the music of Shull Cobart’s black fiddle.

The gray air shimmered, but not the least hot or bright, there where owls hooted by day. I looked at a funny-growing tree, and such flowers as it had I’d not seen before. Might be they grew from the tree, might be from a vine scrabbled up. They were cup-shape, shiny black like new shoes—or like Shull Cobart’s shiny-black fiddle, and I felt I could hear him still play, could see him still grin.

Was that why I half-heard the ghost of his music, why I’d come to these black-flowered trees in the shimmery gray air? Anyway, there was a trail, showing that something moved in Hosea’s Hollow, between the trees so close-grown on each side you wondered could you put a knife blade among them. I headed along the trail, and the gray dancing shunmer seemed to slow me as I walked.

That tune in my head; I swung my guitar around from where it hung with my soogin sack and blanket roll, and tweaked the music from the silver strings. The shimmer dulled off, or at least I moved faster, picking up my feet to my own playing, around a curve bunched with more black flowers. And there, under the trees to one side, was a grave.

Years old it had to be, for vines and scrub grew on it. A wooden cross showed it was sure enough a grave. The straight stick was as tall as my chin and as big around as my both hands could grab, and the crosspiece wasn’t nailed or tied on, it grew on. I stopped.

You’ve seen branches grown to each other like that. Two sorts of wood, the straight-up piece darker than the crosspiece. But both pieces looked alive, though the ends had been cut or broken so long back the raw was gone and the splinters rubbed off. Little-bitty twigs sprouted, with broad light-green leaves on the crosspiece and narrow dark laurel-looking ones on the straight pole. Roots reached into the grave, to sprout the cross. And letters were carved on, shaky and deep-dug and different sizes:

PRAy

foR

HosEA PALMeR

So here was where Hosea Palmer had lain down the last time, and some friend had buried him with the word to pray for him. Standing alone in the unchanciness, I did what the cross bade. In my heart I prayed, Let the good man rest as he’s earned the right and when it’s my time, O Lord, let me rest as I’ve earned the right; and bless the kind soul who made and marked a long home for Hosea Palmer, amen.

While always my hands moved to pick that inner-heard tune, slow and quiet like a hymn. Still picking, I strolled around another curve, and there before me was a cabin.

I reckoned one main room with clay chinking, with a split-plank door on leather hinges and a window curtained inside with tanned hide. A shed-roofed leanto was tacked to the left, and it and the main cabin had shake shingles pegged on.

The door opened, and I popped behind a tree as a girl came out.

Small-made; yet you saw she was grown and you saw she was proud, though the color was faded from her cotton dress till it was gray as a dove. Her bright, sun-colored hair was tied behind her neck with a blue ribbon. She brought a rusty old axe with her,walking proud toward a skimpy woodpile, and on her feet were flat, homemade shoes with the hair still on the cowhide. The axe was wobble-handled, but there was strength in her little round arms. She made the axe chew the wood into pieces enough for an armful, carried the wood back into the cabin, and came out again with an old hoe on her shoulder.

From the dug well she drew the bucket—it was old, too, with a couple of silver trickles leaking from it. She dipped a drink with a gourd dipper and lowered the bucket again. Then she went to the cleared patch past the cabin, and leaned on the hoe to look at the plants growing.

There was shin-high corn, and what looked like cabbages. She studied them, and her face was lovely. I saw that she yearned for her little crop to grow into food for her. She began to chop the ground up along a row, and I slid off down trail again, past the grave to where I heard water talking to itself.

I found a way through the trees to the waterside. Lay flat and took a big drink, and washed my face and hands. I dropped my gear on a flat rock, then unlaced my shoes and let the water wash my feet. Finally I cut a pole, tied on a string and hook and baited it with a scrap of smoke meat.

Fishing was good. Gentlemen, fresh fish are pretty things, they show you the reason for the names they’ve earned—shiner, sunflsh, rainbow trout. Not that I caught any such, but what I caught was all right. When I had six I opened my knife to clean them, and built a fire and propped a stone beside it to fry meat on and then a couple of fish for supper. They ate good, just as the sun went down across the funny trees, and I wondered about the bright-haired girl, if she had a plenty to eat.

Finally, in the last dun light, I took my handaxe and chopped as much dry wood as I could tote. I wrapped the four other fish in leaves. I slung on my guitar, for I never walk off from that. Back I went along the trail to the cabin. Firelight danced in the window as I sneaked through the door-yard, and bent to stack the wood by the threshold log and lay the fish on it.

“What are you doing?”

She’d ripped the door open, and she had the axe in her hand. I took a long jump away before she could swing that rusty blade.

She stood with feet apart and elbows square, to fill the door as much as her small self could. Her hair was down around her shoulders, and shone like gold fire in the light from inside.

“Oh,” she said, and let the axe sink. “You’re not—”

“Whom am I not?” I inquired her, trying hard to sound laughy.

She leaned tired on the axe. “Not Shull Cobart,” she said.

“No, ma’am,” I said. “You can say for me that I’m not Shull Cobart, nor I wouldn’t be. I saw him once, and I’m honest to tell you he doesn’t suit me.” I pointed at what I’d brought. “I’m camped by the branch yonder. Had more fish and wood than I needed, and figured you might like them.” I bowed to her. “Good night.”

“Wait.” There was a plea in that, and I waited. “What brought you here, Mr.—”

“I’m named John. And I just roamed in here, without thought of why.”

“I’m wondered, Mr.—”

“John,” I named myself again.

“I’m wondered if you’re the man I’ve heard tell of, named John, with a silver-strung guitar.”

“Why,” I said, “I’d not be amazed if I had the only silver-strung guitar there is. Nobody these days strings with silver but me.”

“Then I’ve heard you called a good man.” She looked down at the wood and the fish. “You’ve had your supper?” she asked, soft.

“Yes, ma’am, I’ve had my supper.”

She picked up a fish. “I’ve not eaten. If you—maybe you’d like some coffee—”

“Coffee,” I repeated her. “I’d mightily relish a cup.”

She picked up the rest of the fish. “Come in, John,” she bade me, and I gathered the wood in my arms and walked in after her.

“My name’s Evadare,” she told me.

The inside of the cabin was what I might expect from the outside. Chinked walls, a stone fire-place with wood burning in it, a table home-pegged together, two stools made of split chunks with tough branches for legs. In a corner was a pallet bed, made up on the floor with two old patch quilts. A mirror was stuck to the wall chinking— a woman purely has to have a mirror. Evadare took a fire-splinter from the hearth and lighted a candle stuck on the table in its own tallow. I saw by the glow how pinky-soft her skin was, how young and pretty; and bigger, bluer eyes than Evadare’s you couldn’t call for. At last she smiled, just a little hopeful smile.

I laid more wood to the fire, found a skillet and a chunk of fat meat. I rolled two fish in cornmeal and commenced frying them. She poured coffee from a tin pot into two tin cups. Watching, I had it in mind that the bottom of the pot was as sooty black as Shull Cobalt’s hair.

Finally I forked the fish on to an old cracked white plate for her. She ate, and I saw she was hungry. Again she smiled that little small smile, and filled my cup again.

“I’d not expected nary a soul to come into Hosea’s Hollow,” she finally said.

“You expected Shull Cobart,” I told her to recollect. “You said so.”

“He’d come if anybody would, John.”

“He didn’t,” I said. “And I did. Do you care to talk about it?”

She acted glad to talk about it, once she started.

She’d worked at weaving for Shull Cobart, with maybe nine-ten others, in a little town off in the hills. He took the cloth to places like Asheville and sold at a high mark to the touristers that came there. Once or twice he made to court Evadare, but she paid him no mind. But one day he went on a trip, and came again with the black fiddle.

“And he was different,” she said. “He’d been scared and polite to folks before that. But the fiddle made him somebody else. He played at dances and folks danced their highest and fastest, but they were scared by his music, even when they flocked to it. He won prizes at fiddle-playing. He’d stand by the shop door and play to us girls, and the cloth we wove was more cloth and better cloth—but it was strange. Funny feel and funny look to it.”

“Did the touristers still buy it?” I inquired her.

“Yes, and payed more for it, but they seemed scared while they were buying it. So I’ve heard tell from folks who saw.”

“And Shull Cobart made you run off.”

“It was when he said he wanted me to light his darkness.”

I saw what those words meant. An evil man speaking them to a good girl, because his evil was hungry for good. “What did you reply him?”

“I said I wanted to be quiet and good, he wanted to be showy and scary. And he said that was just his reason, he wanted me for my goodness to his scariness.” She shivered, the way folks shiver when ice falls outside the window. “I swore to go where he’d not follow.

Then he played his fiddle, it somehow made to bind me hand and foot. I felt he’d tole me off with him then and there, but I pretended—”

She looked sad and ashamed of pretending, even in peril.

“I said I’d go with him next day. He was ready to wait. That night I ran off.”

“And you came to Hosea’s Hollow,” I said. “How did you make yourself able?”

“I feared Kalu another sight less than I fear Shull Cobart,” Evadare replied me. “And I’ve not seen Kalu—I’ve seen nothing. I heard a couple of things, though. Once something knocked at the door at night.”

“What was it knocked, Evadare?”

“I wasn’t so foolish for the lack of sense that I went to see.” She shivered again, from her little toes up to her bright hair. “I dragged up the quilt and spoke the strongest prayer I remember, the old-timey one about God gives His angels charge over us by day and by night.” Her blue eyes fluttered, remembering. “Whatever knocked gave one knock more and never again, that night or ary night since.”

I was purely ready to talk of something else. “Who made this cabin for you?” I asked, looking around.

“It was here when I came—empty. But I knew good folks had made it, by the cross.”

I saw where her eyes went, to the inside of the half-shut door. A cross was cut there, putting me in mind of the grave by the trail.

“It must have been Hosea Palmer’s cabin. He’s dead and buried now. Who buried him?”

She shook her head. “That wonders me, too. All I know is, a good friend did it years ago. Sometimes, when I reckon maybe it’s a Sunday, I say a prayer by the grave and sing a hymn. It seems brighter when I sing, looking up to the sky.”

“Maybe I can guess the song you sing, Evadare.” And I touched the guitar again, and both of us sang it:

Lights in the valley outshine the sun— Look away beyond the blue!

As we sang I kept thinking in my heart—how pretty her voice, and how sweet the words in Evadare’s mouth.

She went on to tell me how she hoped to live. She’d fetched in meal and salt and not much else, and she’d stretched it by picking wild greens, and there were some nuts here and there around the old cabin, poked away in little handfuls like the work of squirrels; though neither of us had seen a squirrel in Hosea’s Hollow. She had planted cabbages and seed corn, and reckoned these would be worth eating by deep summer. She was made up in her mind to stay in Hosea’s Hollow till she had some notion that Shull Cobart didn’t lie in wait for her coming back.

“He’s waiting,” she felt sure. “He laughed when I spoke of running off. Said he’d know all I meant to do, all he needed was to wonder a thing while he played his fiddle and the answer was in his mind.” Her pink tongue wet her lips. “He had a song he played, said it had power—”

“Was it maybe this one?” I asked, trying to jolly her, and again I touched the strings. I sang old words to the music I heard inside:

My pretty little pink,

I once did think

That you and I would marry,

But now I’ve lost all hope of you,

And I’ve no time to tarry.

I’ll take my sack upon my back,

My rifle on my shoulder,

And I’ll be off to the Western States

To view the country over …

“That’s the tune,” she said, “but not the words.” Again she shivered. “They were like something in a dream, while he played and sang along, and I felt I was trapped and tangled and webbed.”

“Like something in a dream,” I repeated her, and made up words like another thing I’d heard once, to fit the same music:

I dreamed last night of my true love,

All in my arms I had her,

And her locks of hair, all long and fair,

Hung round me like a shadow …

“That’s not his song, either,” said Evadare.

“No, it isn’t,” a voice I’d heard before came to agree her.

In through that half-open door stepped Shull Cobart, with his sooty hair and his grin, and his shiny black fiddle in his hand.

“Why don’t you say me a welcome?” he asked Evadare, and cut his eyes across at me. “John, I counted on you being here, too.”

Quick I leaned my guitar to the wall and got up. “Then you counted on trouble with me,” I said. “Lay aside that fiddle so I won’t break it when I break you.”

But it was to his chin, and the bow across. “Hark before we fight,” he said, and gentlemen, hush! how Shull Cobart could play.

It was the same tune, fiddled beyond my tongue’s power to tell how wild and lovely. And the cabin that had had red-gold light from the fire and soft-gold light from Evadare’s hair, it looked that quick to glow silver-pale, in jumping, throbbing sweeps as he played. Once, a cold clear dry winter night, I saw in the sky the Northern Lights; and the air in that cabin beat and throbbed and quivered the same way, but pale silver, I say, not warm red. And it came to my mind, harking helpless, that the air turned colder all at once than that winter night when I’d watched the Northern Lights in the sky.

I couldn’t come at Shull Cobart. Somehow, to move at him was like moving neck-deep against a flooding river. I couldn’t wear my way a foot closer. I sat on the stool again, and he stripped his teeth at me, grinning like a dog above a trapped rabbit.

“I wish the best for you, John,” he said through the music. “Look how I make you welcome and at rest here.”

I knew what way he wanted me to rest, the same way Hosea Palmer rested out yonder. I knew it wouldn’t help to get up again, so I took back my guitar and sat quiet. I looked him up and down. He wore a suit of dark cloth with a red stripe, a suit that looked worth money, and his shoes were as shiny as his fiddle, ready to make manners before rich city folks. His mean dark eyes, close together above that singing, spell-casting fiddle, read my thoughts inside me.

“Yes, John, it’s good cloth,” he said. “My own weaving.”

“I know how it was woven,” Evadare barely whispered, the first words she’d spoken since Shull came in.

She’d moved halfway into a corner. Scared white—but she was a prettier thing than I’d ever seen in my life.

“Like me to weave for you?” he inquired me, mocking; and then he sang a trifly few words to his tune:

I wove this suit and I cut this suit,

And I put this suit right on,

And I’ll weave nine yards of other cloth

To make a suit for John …

“Nine yards,” I repeated after him.

“Would that be enough fine cloth for your suit?” he grinned across the droning fiddle strings. “You’re long and tall, a right much of a man, but—”

“Nobody needs nine yards but for one land of suit,” I kept on figuring. “And that’s no suit at all.”

“A shroud,” said Evadare, barely making herself heard, and how Shull Cobart laughed at her wide eyes and the fright in her voice!

“You reckon there’ll be a grave for him here in Kalu’s own place, Evadare?” he gobbled at her. “Would Kalu leave enough of John to be worth burying? I know about old Barebones Kalu.”

“He’s not hereabouts,” Evadare half-begged to be believed. “Never once he bothered me.”

“Maybe he’s just spared you, hoping for something better,” said Shull. “But he won’t be of a mind to spare all of us that came here making a fuss in his home place. That’s why I toled John here.”

“You toled me?” I asked, and again he nodded.

“I played a little tune so you’d come alone, John. I reckoned Kalu would relish finding you here. Being he’s the sort he is, and I’m the sort I am, it’s you he’d make way with instead of me. That lets me free to take Evadare away.”

“I’ll not go with you,” Evadare said, sharper and louder than I thought possible for her.

“Won’t you, though?” Shull laughed.

His fiddle-music came up, and Evadare drew herself tight and strong, as if she leaned back against ropes on her. The music took on wild-sounding notes to fit into itself. Evadare’s hands made fists, her teeth bit together, her eyes shut tight. She took a step, or maybe she was dragged. Another step she took, another, toward Shull.

I tried to get up, too, but I couldn’t move as she was moving. I had to sit and watch, and I had the thought of that saying about how a snake draws a bird to his coil. I’d never believed such a thing till I saw Evadare move, step by step she didn’t want to take, toward Shull Cobart.

Suddenly he stopped playing, and breathed hard, like a man who’s been working in the fields. Evadare stood still and rocked on her feet. I took up my muscles to make a jump, but Shull pointed his fiddle-bow at me, like a gun.

“Have sense!” he slung out. “You’ve both learned I can make you go or stay, whichever I want, when I fiddle as I know how. Sit down, Evadare, and I’ll silence my playing for the time. But make a foolish move, John, and I might play a note that would have the bones out of your body without ‘ary bit of help from Kalu.”

Bad man as he was, he told the truth, and both of us knew it Evadare sat on the other stool, and I put my guitar across my knees. Shull Cobart leaned against the door jamb, his fiddle low against his chest, and looked sure of himself. At that instant I was dead sure I’d never seen a wickeder face, not among all the wicked faces of the wide world.

“Know where I got this fiddle, you two?” he asked.

“I can guess,” I said, “and it spoils my notion of how good a trader a certain old somebody is. He didn’t make much of a swap, that fiddle for your soul; for the soul was lost before you bargained.”

“It wasn’t a trade, John.” He plucked a fiddle-string with his thumbnail. “Just a sort of little present between friends.”

“I’ve heard the fiddle called the devil’s instrument,” said Evadare, back to her soft whisper; and once again Shull Cobart laughed at her, and then at me.

“Folks have got a sight to learn about fiddles. This fiddle will make you and me rich, Evadare. We’ll go to the land’s great cities, and I’ll play the dollars out of folks’ pockets and the hearts out of folks’ bodies. They’ll honor me, and they’ll bow their faces in the dirt before your feet.”

“I’ll not go with you,” she told him again.

“No? Want me to play you right into my arms this minute? The only reason I don’t, Evadare—and my arms want you, and that’s a fact—I’d have to put down my fiddle to hold you right.”

“And I’d be on you and twist your neck around like the stem on a watch,” I added onto that. “You know I can do it, and so do I. Any moment it’s liable to happen.”

As he’d picked his fiddle-string, I touched a silver string of my guitar, and it sang like a honey-bee.

“Don’t do that any more, John,” he snapped. “Your guitar and my fiddle don’t tune together. I’m a lone player.”

To his chin went that shiny black thing, and the music he made lay heavy on me. He sang:

I’ll weave nine yards of other cloth

For John to have and keep,

He’ll need it where he’s going to lie,

To warm him in his sleep …

“What are we waiting for?” I broke in. “You might kill me somehow with your fiddling, but you won’t scare me.”

“Kalu will do the scaring,” he said as he stopped again. “Scare you purely to death. We’re just a-waiting for him to come.”

“How will we know—” began Evadare.

“We’ll know,” said Shull, the way he’d promise a baby child something. “We’ll hear him. Then I’ll play John out of here to stand face to face with Kalu, if it’s really a face Kalu has.”

I laughed myself, and heaven pardon me the lie I put into my laugh, trying to sound as if naught pestered me. Shull frowned; he didn’t like how my laugh hit his ear.

“Just for argument’s sake,” I said to him, “how do you explain what you say your music can do?”

“I don’t do any explaining. I just do the playing.”

“I’ve heard tell how a fiddler can be skilled to where he plays a note and breaks a glass window,” I recollected. “I’ve heard tell he might possibly even make a house fall down.”

“Dogs howl when fiddles play,” said Evadare. “From pain it makes.”

Shull nodded at us both. “You folks are right. There’s been power-music long before this. Ever hear of a man named Orpheus?”

“He was an old-timey Greek,” I said.

“He played his harp, and trees danced for him. He played his way down to the floor of hell, and back out again. Maybe I’ve got some of that power. A fiddle can sing extra sharp or extra sweet, and its sound’s solid—like a knife or club or rope, if you can work it.”

I remembered in my mind that sound goes in waves like light, and can be measured; and a wave is power, whether of sound or light. Waves can wash, like the waves of the sea that strike down tall walls and strong men. Too bad, I decided, that educated folks couldn’t use that black fiddle, to make its power good and useful. In devil-taught hands, it was the devil’s instrument. Not like my silver-strung guitar, the way harps, certain harps in a certain high place, are said to be strung with gold …

Shull listened. You could almost see his ears stick up, like the ears of an animal. “Something’s out there,” he said.

I heard it, too. Not a step or a scramble, but a movement.

“Kalu,” said Evadare, her eyes the widest yet in the firelight.

“Yes, it’s Kalu,” said Shull. “John, wouldn’t it be kindlier to the lady if you met him outside?”

“Much kindlier,” I agreed him, and got up.

“You know this isn’t personal, John,” Shull said, fiddle at his chin. “But Kalu’s bound to have somebody. It won’t be Evadare, because some way he’s let her be. And it won’t be me, with you here. You’ve got a reputation, John, for doing things against what Kalu stands to represent. I figure he wants something good, because he’s got plenty of the strong evil.”

“The way you think you’ve got to have Evadare,” I said.

“That’s it. You’re in the line of what he wants to devour.” He began to play again. “Come on, John.”

I was coming. I’d made up my mind. The weight of the music was on me, but not quite as deadening and binding as before. Shull Cobart walked out, fiddling. I just winked at Evadare, as if I figured it would be all right. Then I walked out, too.

The light was greeny-pale, though I saw no moon. Maybe the trees hid it, or the haze in the sky.

“Where will you face him?” asked Shull, almost polite above his soft playing.

“There’s a grave down yonder—” I began to say.

“Yes, just the place. Come on.”

I followed after him on the trail. My left hand chorded my guitar at the neck, my right-hand fingers found the strings. What was it Evadare had told me? …I say a prayer by the grave and sing a hymn. It seems brighter when I sing …

Then there could be two kinds of power-music.

I began to pick the tune along with Shull, softer even than Evadare’s whisper. He didn’t hear; and, because I followed him like a calf to the slaughter-pen, he didn’t guess.

Around the bend was the grave, the green light paler around it. Shull stopped. All of a quick, I knew Kalu was in the trees over us. Somewhere up there, he made a heaviness in the branches.

“Stand where you want to, John. I vow, you’ve played the man so far.”

I moved past him, close to the cross, though there wasn’t light enough to see the name or the prayer.

“Drop that guitar!” Shull howled at me.

For I began to play loud, and I sang to his tune, changing the rhythm for my own quick-made-up words:

I came to where the pilgrim lay,

Though he was dead and gone,

And I could hear his comrade say,

He rests in peace alone—

“Hush up with that!”

Shull Cobart stopped playing and ran at me. I ducked away and around the cross, and quick I sang the second verse:

Winds may come and thunders roll

And stormy tempests rise,

But here he sleeps with a restful soul

And the tears wiped from his eyes—

“Come for him, Kalu!” Shull screamed.

Kalu drop-leaped out of the branches between us.

Gentlemen, don’t ask me to say too much what Kalu was. Bones, yes—something like man-bones, but bigger and thicker, also something like bear-bones, or big ape-bones from a foreign land. And a rotten light to them, so I saw for a moment that the bones weren’t empty. Inside the ribs were caged puffy things, like guts and lungs and maybe a heart that skipped and wiggled. The skull had a snout like I can’t say what, and in its eye-holes burned blue-green fire. Out came the arm-bones, and the finger-bones were on Shull Cobart.

I heard Shull Cobart scream one more time, and then Kalu had him, like a bullfrog with a minnow. And Kalu was back up in the branches. Standing by the grave, still tweaking my strings, I heard the branches rustle, and no more sounds after that from Shull Cobart.

After a while, I walked to where the black fiddle lay. I stomped with my foot, heard it smash, and kicked the pieces away.

Walking back to the cabin seemed to take an hour. I stopped at the door.

“No!” moaned Evadare, and then she just looked at me. “John— but—”

“That’s twice you thought I was Shull Cobart,” I said.

“Kalu—”

“Kalu took him, not me.”

“But—” she stopped again.

“I figured the truth about Kalu and Hosea Palmer, walking out with Shull,” I began to explain. “All at once I knew why Kalu never pestered you. You’ll wonder why you didn’t know it, too.”

“But—” she tried once more.

“Think,” I bade her. “Who buried Hosea Palmer, with a cross and a prayer? What dear friend could he have, when he came in here alone? Who was left alive here when it was Hosea Palmer’s tune to die?”

She just shook her head from side to side.

“It was Kalu,” I said. “Remember the story, all of it. Hosea Palmer said he knew how to stop Kalu’s wickedness. Folks think Hosea destroyed Kalu some way. But what he did was teach him the good part of things. They weren’t enemies. They were friends.”

“Oh,” she said. “Then—”

“Kalu buried Hosea Palmer,” I finished for her, “and cut his name and the prayer. Hosea must have taught him his letters. But how could Shull Cobart understand that? It wasn’t for us to know, even, till the last minute. And Kalu took the evil man, to punish him.”

I sat on the door-log, my arms around my guitar.

“You can go home now, Evadare,” I said. “Shull Cobart won’t vex you again, by word of mouth or by sight of his face.”

She’d been sitting all drawn up, as small as she could make herself. Now she managed to stand.

“Where will you go, John?”

“There’s all the world for me to go through. I’ll view the country over. Think me a kind thought once in a while when we’re parted.”

“Parted?” she said after me, and took a step, but not as if a web of music dragged her. “John. Let me come with you.”

I jumped up. “With me? You don’t want to go with me, Evadare.”

“Let me come.” Her hand touched my arm, trembling like a bird.

“How could I do that, take you with me? I live hard.”

“I’ve not lived soft, John.” But she said it soft and lovely, and it made my heart ache with what I hadn’t had time before to feel for her.

“I don’t have a home,” I said.

“Folks make you welcome everywhere. You’re happy. You have enough of what you need. There’s music wherever you go. John, I want to hear the music and help the song.”

I wanted to try to laugh that thought away, but I couldn’t laugh. “You don’t know what you say. Listen, I’ll go now. Back to my camp, and I’ll be out of here before sunup. Evadare, God bless you wherever you go.”

“Don’t you want me to go with you, John?”

I couldn’t dare reply her the truth of that. Make her a wanderer of the earth, like me? I ran off. She called my name once, but I didn’t stop. At my camp again, I sat by my died-out fire, wondering, then wishing, then driving the wish from me.

In the black hour before dawn, I got my stuff together and started out of Hosea’s Hollow. I came clear of it as the light rose, and mounted up a trail to a ridge above. Something made me look back.

Far down the trail I’d come, I saw her. She leaned on a stick, and she carried some kind of bundle—maybe her quilts, and what little food she had. She was following.

“That fool-headed girl,” I said, all alone to myself, and I up and ran down the far side. It was hours until I crossed the bottom below and mounted another ridge beyond. On the ridge I’d left behind I saw Evadare still moving after me, her little shape barely bigger than a fly. Then I thought of that song I’ve told you before:

On yonder hill there stands a creature, Who she is I do not know, I will ask her if she’ll marry …Oh, no, John, no, John, no!

But she didn’t stand, she came on. And I knew who she was. And if I asked her to marry she wouldn’t answer no.

The rest of that day I fled from her, not stopping to eat, only to grab mouthfuls of water from streams. And in the dusky last end of the day I sat quiet and watched her still coming, leaning on her stick for weariness, and knew I must go down trail to meet her.

She was at the moment when she’d drop. She’d lost her ribbon, and the locks of her hair fell round her like a shadow. Her dress was torn, her face was white-tired, and the rocks had cut her shoes to pieces and the blood seeped out of her torn feet.

She couldn’t even speak. She just sagged into my arms when I held them out to her.

I carried her to my camp. The spring trickled enough so I could wash her poor cut feet. I put down her quilt and my blanket for her to sit on, with her back to a big rock. I mixed a pone of cornmeal to bake on a flat stone, and strung a few pieces of meat on a green twig. I brought her water in my cupped hand.

“John,” she managed at last to speak my name.

“Evadare,” I said, and we both smiled at each other, and I sat down beside her.

“I’ll cease from wandering,” I vowed to her. “I’ll get a piece of land and put up a cabin. I’ll plant and hoe a crop for us—”

“No such thing, John! I’m tired now—so tired—but I’ll get over that. Let’s just—view the country over.”

I pulled my guitar to me, and remembered another verse to the old song that fitted Shull Cobalt’s tune:

And don’t you think she’s a pretty little pink,

And don’t you think she’s clever,

And don’t you think that she and

I could make a match forever?

THAT HELL-BOUND TRAIN

Robert Bloch

When Martin was a little boy, his daddy was a railroad man. Daddy never rode the high iron, but he walked the tracks for the CB&Q, and he was proud of his job. And every night when he got drunk, he sang this old song about ‘That Hell-Bound Train.’

Martin didn’t quite remember any of the words, but he couldn’t forget the way his daddy sang them out. And when Daddy made the mistake of getting drunk in the afternoon and got squeezed between a Pennsy tank car and an AT&SF gondola, Martin sort of wondered why the Brotherhood didn’t sing the song at his funeral.

After that, things didn’t go so good for Martin, but somehow he always recalled Daddy’s song. When Mom up and ran off with a travelling salesman from Keokuk (Daddy must have turned over in his grave, knowing she’d done such a thing, and with a passenger, too!), Martin hummed the tune to himself every night in the Orphan Home. And after Martin himself ran away, he used to whistle the song softly at night in the jungles, after the other bindle stiffs were asleep.

Martin was on the road for four or five years before he realised he wasn’t getting anyplace. Of course he’d tried his hand at a lot of things – picking fruit in Oregon, washing dishes in a Montana hash house, stealing hubcaps in Denver and tires in Oklahoma City – but by the time he’d put in six months on the chain gang down in Alabama he knew he had no future drifting around this way on his own.

So he tried to get on the railroad like his daddy had, and they told him that times were bad.

But Martin couldn’t keep away from the railroads. Wherever he travelled, he rode the rods; he’d rather hop a freight heading north in sub-zero weather than lift his thumb to hitch a ride with a Cadillac heading for Florida. Whenever he managed to get hold of a can of Sterno, he’d sit there under a nice warm culvert, think about the old days, and often as not he’d hum the song about ‘That Hell-Bound Train.’ That was the train the drunks and the sinners rode – the gambling men and the grifters, the big-time spenders, the skirt-chasers, and all the jolly crew. It would be really fine to take a trip in such good company, but Martin didn’t like to think of what happened when that train finally pulled into the Depot Way Down Yonder. He didn’t figure on spending eternity stoking boilers in hell, without even a company union to protect him. Still, it would be a lovely ride. If there was such a thing as a hell-bound train. Which, of course, there wasn’t.

At least Martin didn’t think there was, until that evening when he found himself walking the tracks heading south, just outside of Appleton Junction. The night was cold and dark, the way November nights are in the Fox River Valley, and he knew he’d have to work his way down to New Orleans for the winter, or maybe even Texas. Somehow he didn’t much feel like going, even though he’d heard tell that a lot of those Texas automobiles had solid-gold hubcaps.

No sir, he just wasn’t cut out for petty larceny. It was worse than a sin – it was unprofitable too. Bad enough to do the devil’s work, but then to get such miserable pay on top of it! Maybe he’d better let the Salvation Army convert him.

Martin trudged along humming Daddy’s song, waiting for a rattler to pull out of the Junction behind him. He’d have to catch it – there was nothing else for him to do.

But the first train to come along came from the other direction, roaring toward him along the track from the south.

Martin peered ahead, but his eyes couldn’t match his ears, and so far all he could recognise was the sound. It was a train, though; he felt the steel shudder and sing beneath his feet.

And yet, how could it be? The next station south was Neenah-Menasha, and there was nothing due out of there for hours.

The clouds were thick overhead, and the field mists rolled like a cold night in a November midnight. Even so, Martin should have been able to see the headlight as the train rushed on. But there was only the whistle, screaming out of the black throat of the night. Martin could recognise the equipment of just about any locomotive ever built, but he’d never heard a whistle that sounded like this one. It wasn’t signalling; it was screaming like a lost soul.

He stepped to one side, for the train was almost on top of him now. And suddenly there it was, looming along the tracks and grinding to a stop in less time than he’d believed possible. The wheels hadn’t been oiled, because they screamed too, screamed like the damned. But the train slid to a halt, and the screams died away into a series of low, groaning sounds, and Martin looked up and saw that this was a passenger train. It was big and black, without a single light shining in the engine cab or any of the long string of cars; Martin couldn’t read any lettering on the sides, but he was pretty sure this train didn’t belong on the North-western Road.

He was even more sure when he saw the man clamber down out of the forward car. There was something wrong about the way he walked, as though one of his feet dragged, and about the lantern he carried. The lantern was dark, and the man held it up to his mouth and blew, and instantly it glowed redly. You don’t have to be a member of the Railway Brotherhood to know that this is a mighty peculiar way of lighting a lantern.

As the figure approached, Martin recognised the conductor’s cap perched on his head, and this made him feel a little better for a moment – until he noticed that it was worn a bit too high, as though there might be something sticking up on the forehead underneath it.

Still, Martin knew his manners, and when the man smiled at him, he said, “Good evening, Mr. Conductor.”

“Good evening, Martin.”

“How did you know my name?”

The man shrugged. “How did you know I was the conductor?”

“You are, aren’t you?”

“To you, yes. Although other people, in other walks of life, may recognise me in different roles. For instance, you ought to see what I look like to the folks out in Hollywood.” The man grinned. “I travel a great deal,” he explained.

“What brings you here?” Martin asked.

“Why, you ought to know the answer to that, Martin. I came because you needed me. Tonight, I suddenly realised you were backsliding. Thinking of joining the Salvation Army, weren’t you?”

“Well –” Martin hesitated.

“Don’t be ashamed. To err is human, as somebody-or-other once said. Reader’s Digest, wasn’t it? Never mind. The point is, I felt you needed me. So I switched over and came your way.”

“What for?”

“Why, to offer you a ride, of course. Isn’t it better to travel comfortably by train than to march along the cold streets behind a Salvation Army band? Hard on the feet, they tell me, and even harder on the eardrums.”

“I’m not sure I’d care to ride your train, sir,” Martin said. “Considering where I’m likely to end up.”

“Ah, yes. The old argument.” The Conductor sighed. “I suppose you’d prefer some sort of bargain, is that it?”

“Exactly,” Martin answered.

“Well, I’m afraid I’m all through with that sort of thing. There’s no shortage of prospective passengers anymore. Why should I offer you any special inducements?”

“You must want me, or else you wouldn’t have bothered to go out of your way to find me.”

The Conductor sighed again. “There you have a point. Pride was always my besetting weakness, I admit. And somehow I’d hate to lose you to the competition, after thinking of you as my own all these years.” He hesitated. “Yes, I’m prepared to deal with you on your own terms, if you insist.”

“The terms?” Martin asked.

“Standard proposition. Anything you want.”

“Ah,” said Martin.

“But I warn you in advance, there’ll be no tricks. I’ll grant you any wish you can name – but in return you must promise to ride the train when the time comes.”

“Suppose it never comes?”

“It will.”

“Suppose I’ve got the kind of wish that will keep me off forever?”

“There is no such wish.”

“Don’t be too sure.”

“Let me worry about that,” the Conductor told him. “No matter what you have in mind, I warn you that I’ll collect in the end. And there’ll be none of this last-minute hocus-pocus, either. No last-hour repentances, no blonde fräuleins or fancy lawyers showing up to get you off. I offer a clean deal. That is to say, you’ll get what you want, and I’ll get what I want.”

“I’ve heard you trick people. They say you’re worse than a used-car salesman.”

“Now, wait a minute –”

“I apologise,” Martin said hastily. “But it is supposed to be a fact that you can’t be trusted.”

“I admit it. On the other hand, you seem to think you have found a way out.”

“A sure-fire proposition.”

“Sure-fire? Very funny!” The man began to chuckle, then halted. “But we waste valuable time, Martin. Let’s get down to cases. What do you want from me?”

Martin took a deep breath. “I want to be able to stop time.”

“Right now?”

“No. Not yet. And not for everybody. I realise that would be impossible, of course. But I want to be able to stop time for myself. Just once, in the future. Whenever I get to a point where I know I’m happy and contented, that’s where I’d like to stop. So I can just keep on being happy forever.”

“That’s quite a proposition,” the Conductor mused. “I’ve got to admit I’ve never heard anything just like it before – and believe me, I’ve listened to some lulus in my day.” He grinned at Martin. “You’ve really been thinking about this, haven’t you?”

“For years,” Martin admitted. Then he coughed. “Well, what do you say?”

“It’s not impossible, in terms of your own subjective time sense,” the Conductor murmured. “Yes, I think it could be arranged.”

“But I mean really to stop. Not just for me to imagine it.”

“I understand. And it can be done.”

“Then you’ll agree?”

“Why not? I promised you, didn’t I? Give me your hand.”

Martin hesitated. “Will it hurt very much? I mean, I don’t like the sight of blood and –”

“Nonsense! You’ve been listening to a lot of poppycock. We already have made our bargain, my boy. I merely intend to put something into your hand. The ways and means of fulfilling your wish. After all, there’s no telling at just what moment you may decide to exercise the agreement, and I can’t drop everything and come running. So it’s better if you can regulate matters for yourself.”

“You’re going to give me a time-stopper?”

“That’s the general idea. As soon as I can decide what would be practical.” The Conductor hesitated. “Ah, the very thing! Here, take my watch.”

He pulled it out of his vest pocket; a railroad watch in a silver case. He opened the back and made a delicate adjustment; Martin tried to see just exactly what he was doing, but the fingers moved in a blinding blur.

“There we are,” the Conductor smiled. “It’s all set, now. When you finally decide where you’d like to call a halt, merely turn the stem in reverse and unwind the watch until it stops. When it stops, time stops, for you. Simple enough?” And the Conductor dropped the watch into Martin’s hand.

The young man closed his fingers tightly around the case. “That’s all there is to it, eh?”

“Absolutely. But remember – you can stop the watch only once. So you’d better make sure that you’re satisfied with the moment you choose to prolong. I caution you in all fairness; make very certain of your choice.”

“I will.” Martin grinned. “And since you’ve been so fair about it, I’ll be fair, too. There’s one thing you seem to have forgotten. It doesn’t really matter what moment I choose. Because once I stop time for myself, that means I stay where I am forever. I’ll never have to get any older. And if I don’t get any older, I’ll never die. And if I never die, then I’ll never have to take a ride on your train.”

The Conductor turned away. His shoulders shook convulsively, and he may have been crying. “And you said I was worse than a used-car salesman,” he gasped, in a strangled voice.

Then he wandered off into the fog, and the train whistle gave an impatient shriek, and all at once it was moving swiftly down the track, rumbling out of sight in the darkness.

Martin stood there, blinking down at the silver watch in his hand. If it wasn’t that he could actually see it and feel it there, and if he couldn’t smell that peculiar odour, he might have thought he’d imagined the whole thing from start to finish – train, Conductor, bargain, and all.

But he had the watch, and he could recognise the scent left by the train as it departed, even though there aren’t many locomotives around that use sulphur and brimstone as fuel.

And he had no doubts about his bargain. That’s what came of thinking things through to a logical conclusion. Some fools would have settled for wealth, or power, or Kim Novak. Daddy might have sold out for a fifth of whiskey.

Martin knew that he’d made a better deal. Better? It was foolproof. All he needed to do now was choose his moment.

He put the watch in his pocket and started back down the railroad track. He hadn’t really had a destination in mind before, but he did now. He was going to find a moment of happiness …

***

Now young Martin wasn’t altogether a ninny. He realised perfectly well that happiness is a relative thing; there are conditions and degrees of contentment, and they vary with one’s lot in life. As a hobo, he was often satisfied with a warm handout, a double-length bench in the park, or a can of Sterno made in 1957 (a vintage year). Many a time he had reached a state of momentary bliss through such simple agencies, but he was aware that there were better things. Martin determined to seek them out.

Within two days he was in the great city of Chicago. Quite naturally, he drifted over to West Madison Street, and there he took steps to elevate his role in life. He became a city bum, a panhandler, a moocher. Within a week, he had risen to the point where happiness was a meal in a regular one-arm luncheon joint, a two-bit flop on a real army cot in a real flophouse, and a full fifth of muscatel.

There was a night, after enjoying all three of these luxuries to the full, when Martin thought of unwinding his watch at the pinnacle of intoxication. But he also thought of the faces of the honest johns he’d braced for a handout today. Sure, they were squares, but they were prosperous. They wore good clothes, held good jobs, drove nice cars. And for them, happiness was even more ecstatic – they ate dinner in fine hotels, they slept on innerspring mattresses, they drank blended whiskey.

Squares or no, they had something there. Martin fingered his watch, put aside the temptation to hock it for another bottle of muscatel, and went to sleep determined to get himself a job and improve his happiness quotient.

When he awoke he had a hangover, but the determination was still with him. Before the month was out Martin was working for a general contractor over on the South Side, at one of the big rehabilitation projects. He hated the grind, but the pay was good, and pretty soon he got himself a one-room apartment out on Blue Island Avenue. He was accustomed to eating in decent restaurants now, and he bought himself a comfortable bed, and every Saturday night he went down to the corner tavern. It was all very pleasant, but –

The foreman liked his work and promised him a raise in a month. If he waited around, the raise would mean that he could afford a second-hand car. With a car, he could even start picking up a girl for a date now and then. Other fellows on the job did, and they seemed pretty happy.

So Martin kept on working, and the raise came through and the car came through and pretty soon a couple of girls came through.

The first time it happened, he wanted to unwind his watch immediately. Until he got to thinking about what some of the older men said. There was a guy named Charlie, for example, who worked alongside him on the hoist. “When you’re young and don’t know the score, maybe you get a kick out of running around with those pigs. But after a while, you want something better. A nice girl of your own. That’s the ticket.”

Martin felt he owed it to himself to find out. If he didn’t like it better, he could always go back to what he had.

Almost six months went by before Martin met Lillian Gillis. By that time he’d had another promotion and was working inside, in the office. They made him go to night school to learn how to do simple bookkeeping, but it meant another fifteen bucks extra a week, and it was nicer working indoors.

And Lillian was a lot of fun. When she told him she’d marry him, Martin was almost sure that the time was now. Except that she was sort of – well, she was a nice girl, and she said they’d have to wait until they were married. Of course, Martin couldn’t expect to marry her until he had a little more money saved up, and another raise would help too.

That took a year. Martin was patient, because he knew it was going to be worth it. Every time he had any doubts, he took out his watch and looked at it. But he never showed it to Lillian, or anybody else. Most of the other men wore expensive wristwatches and the old silver railroad watch looked just a little cheap.

Martin smiled as he gazed at the stem. Just a few twists and he’d have something none of these other poor working slobs would ever have. Permanent satisfaction, with his blushing bride –

Only getting married turned out to be just the beginning. Sure, it was wonderful, but Lillian told him how much better things would be if they could move into a new place and fix it up. Martin wanted decent furniture, a TV set, a nice car.

So he started taking night courses and got a promotion to the front office. With the baby coming, he wanted to stick around and see his son arrive. And when it came, he realised he’d have to wait until it got a little older, started to walk and talk and develop a personality of its own.

About this time the company sent him out on the road as a trouble-shooter on some of those other jobs, and now he was eating at those good hotels, living high on the hog and the expense account. More than once he was tempted to unwind his watch. This was the good life …Of course, it would be even better if he just didn’t have to work. Sooner or later, if he could cut in on one of the company deals, he could make a pile and retire. Then everything would be ideal.

It happened, but it took time. Martin’s son was going to high school before he really got up there into the chips. Martin got a strong hunch that it was now or never, because he wasn’t exactly a kid anymore.

But right about then he met Sherry Westcott, and she didn’t seem to think he was middle-aged at all, in spite of the way he was losing hair and adding stomach. She taught him that a toupee could cover the bald spot and a cummerbund could cover the pot gut. In fact, she taught him quite a lot and he so enjoyed learning that he actually took out his watch and prepared to unwind it.

Unfortunately, he chose the very moment that the private detectives broke down the door of the hotel room, and then there was a long stretch of time when Martin was so busy fighting the divorce action that he couldn’t honestly say he was enjoying any given moment.

When he made the final settlement with Lil he was broke again, and Sherry didn’t seem to think he was so young, after all. So he squared his shoulders and went back to work.

He made his pile eventually, but it took longer this time, and there wasn’t much chance to have fun along the way. The fancy dames in the fancy cocktail lounges didn’t seem to interest him anymore, and neither did the liquor. Besides, the Doc had warned him off that.

But there were other pleasures for a rich man to investigate. Travel, for instance – and not riding the rods from one hick burg to another, either. Martin went around the world by plane and luxury liner. For a while it seemed as though he would find his moment after all, visiting the Taj Mahal by moonlight. Martin pulled out the battered old watch case, and got ready to unwind it. Nobody else was there to watch him –

And that’s why he hesitated. Sure, this was an enjoyable moment, but he was alone. Lil and the kid were gone, Sherry was gone, and somehow he’d never had time to make any friends. Maybe if he found new congenial people, he’d have the ultimate happiness. That must be the answer – it wasn’t just money or power or sex or seeing beautiful things. The real satisfaction lay in friendship.

So on the boat trip home, Martin tried to strike up a few acquaintances at the ship’s bar. But all these people were much younger, and Martin had nothing in common with them. Also they wanted to dance and drink, and Martin wasn’t in condition to appreciate such pastimes. Nevertheless, he tried.

Perhaps that’s why he had the little accident the day before they docked in San Francisco. ‘Little accident’ was the ship’s doctor’s way of describing it, but Martin noticed he looked very grave when he told him to stay in bed, and he’d called an ambulance to meet the liner at the dock and take the patient right to the hospital.

At the hospital, all the expensive treatment and the expensive smile and the expensive words didn’t fool Martin any. He was an old man with a bad heart, and they thought he was going to die.

But he could fool them. He still had the watch. He found it in his coat when he put on his clothes and sneaked out of the hospital.

He didn’t have to die. He could cheat death with a single gesture – and he intended to do it as a free man, out there under a free sky.

That was the real secret of happiness. He understood it now. Not even friendship meant as much as freedom. This was the best thing of all – to be free of friends or family or the furies of the flesh.

Martin walked slowly beside the embankment under the night sky. Come to think of it, he was just about back where he’d started, so many years ago. But the moment was good, good enough to prolong forever. Once a bum, always a bum.

He smiled as he thought about it, and then the smile twisted sharply and suddenly, like the pain twisting sharply and suddenly in his chest. The world began to spin, and he fell down on the side of the embankment.

He couldn’t see very well, but he was still conscious, and he knew what had happened. Another stroke, and a bad one. Maybe this was it. Except that he wouldn’t be a fool any longer. He wouldn’t wait to see what was still around the corner.

Right now was his chance to use his power and save his life. And he was going to do it. He could still move; nothing could stop him.

He groped in his pocket and pulled out the old silver watch, fumbling with the stem. A few twists and he’d cheat death, he’d never have to ride that Hell-Bound Train. He could go on forever.

Forever.

Martin had never really considered the word before. To go on forever – but now? Did he want to go on forever, like this; a sick old man, lying helplessly here in the grass?

No. He couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t do it. And suddenly he wanted very much to cry, because he knew that somewhere along the line he’d outsmarted himself. And now it was too late. His eyes dimmed, there was a roaring in his ears …

He recognised the roaring, of course, and he wasn’t at all surprised to see the train come rushing out of the fog up there on the embankment. He wasn’t surprised when it stopped, either, or when the Conductor climbed off and walked slowly toward him.

The Conductor hadn’t changed a bit. Even his grin was still the same.

“Hello, Martin,” he said. “All aboard.”

“I know,” Martin whispered. “But you’ll have to carry me. I can’t walk. I’m not even really talking any more, am I?”

“Yes, you are,” the Conductor said. “I can hear you fine. And you can walk, too.” He leaned down and placed his hand on Martin’s chest. There was a moment of icy numbness, and then, sure enough, Martin could walk after all.

He got up and followed the Conductor along the slope, moving to the side of the train.

“In here?” he asked.

“No, the next car,” the Conductor murmured. “I guess you’re entitled to ride Pullman. After all, you’re quite a successful man. You’ve tasted the joys of wealth and position and prestige. You’ve known the pleasures of marriage and fatherhood. You’ve sampled the delights of dining and drinking and debauchery, too, and you travelled high, wide and handsome. So let’s not have any last-minute recriminations.”

“All right,” Martin sighed. “I can’t blame you for my mistakes. On the other hand, you can’t take credit for what happened, either. I worked for everything I got. I did it all on my own. I didn’t even need your watch.”

“So you didn’t,” the Conductor said, smiling. “But would you mind giving it back now?”

“Need it for the next sucker, eh?” Martin muttered.

“Perhaps.”

Something about the way he said it made Martin look up. He tried to see the Conductor’s eyes, but the brim of his cap cast a shadow. So Martin looked down at the watch instead.

“Tell me something,” he said softly. “If I give you the watch, what will you do with it?”

“Why, throw it in the ditch,” the Conductor told him. “That’s all I’ll do with it.” And he held out his hand.

“What if somebody comes along and finds it? And twists the stem backward, and stops time?”

“Nobody would do that,” the Conductor murmured. “Even if they knew.”

“You mean it was all a trick? This is an ordinary, cheap watch?”

“I didn’t say that,” whispered the Conductor. “I only said that no one has ever twisted the stem backward. They’ve all been like you, Martin – looking ahead to find the perfect happiness. Waiting for the moment that never comes.”

The Conductor held out his hand again.

Martin sighed and shook his head. “You cheated me after all.”

“You cheated yourself, Martin. And now you’re going to ride that Hell-Bound Train.”

He pushed Martin up the steps and into the car ahead. As he entered, the train began to move, and the whistle screamed. And Martin stood there in the swaying Pullman, gazing down the aisle at the other passengers. He could see them sitting there, and somehow it didn’t seem strange at all.

Here they were; the drunks and the sinners, the gambling men and the grifters, the big-time spenders, the skirt-chasers, and all the jolly crew. They knew where they were going, of course, but they didn’t seem to give a damn. The blinds were drawn on the windows, yet it was light inside, and they were all living it up – singing and passing the bottle and roaring with laughter, throwing the dice and telling their jokes and bragging their big brags, just the way Daddy used to sing about them in the old song.

“Mighty nice travelling companions,” Martin said. “Why, I’ve never seen such a pleasant bunch of people. I mean, they seem to be really enjoying themselves!”

The Conductor shrugged. “I’m afraid things won’t be quite so jazzy when we pull into that Depot Way Down Yonder.”

For the third time, he held out his hand. “Now, before you sit down, if you’ll just give me that watch. A bargain’s a bargain –”

Martin smiled. “A bargain’s a bargain,” he echoed. “I agreed to ride your train if I could stop time when I found the right moment of happiness. And I think I’m about as happy right here as I’ve ever been.”

Very slowly, Martin took hold of the silver watch stem.

“No!” gasped the Conductor. “No!”

But the watch stem turned.

“Do you realise what you’ve done?” the Conductor yelled. “Now we’ll never reach the Depot! We’ll just go on riding, all of us – forever!”

Martin grinned. “I know,” he said. “But the fun is in the trip, not the destination. You taught me that. And I’m looking forward to a wonderful trip. Look, maybe I can even help. If you were to find me another one of those caps, now, and let me keep this watch –”

And that’s the way it finally worked out. Wearing his cap and carrying his battered old silver watch, there’s no happier person on or out of this world now and forever – than Martin. Martin, the new brakeman on that Hell-Bound Train.

THE PI MAN

Alfred Bester

“With each act of destruction we dissolved a little. Now we’re all gone. We’ve committed chronicide. We’re ghosts. I hope Mrs. Has-sel will be very happy with Mr. Murphy…. Now let’s go over to the Academic. Ampere is telling a great story about Ludwig Boltzmann.

How to say? How to write? When sometimes I can be fluent, even polished, and then, reculer pour mieux sauter, patterns take hold of me. Push. Compel.

Sometimes…

I I I

am am am

3.14159 +

from from from

this other that

space space space

Othertimes not

I have no control, but I try anyways.

I wake up wondering who, what, when, where, why?

Confusion result of biological compensator born into my body which I hate. Yes, birds and beasts have biological clock built in, and so navigate home from a thousand miles away. I have biological compensator, equalizer, responder to unknown stresses and strains. I relate, compensate, make and shape patterns, adjust rhythms, like a gridiron pendulum in a clock, but this is an unknown clock, and I do not know what time it keeps. Nevertheless I must. I am force. Have no control over self, speech, love, fate. Only to compensate.

Quae nocent decent. Translation follows: Things that injure teach. I am injured and have hurt many. What have we learned? However. I wake up the morning of the biggest hurt of all wondering which house. Wealth, you understand. Damme! Mews cottage in London, villa in Rome, penthouse in New York, rancho in California. I awake. I look. Ah! Layout familiar. Thus:

Foyer

Bedroom Bath Bath

Living Room Kitchen

Dressing Room Bedroom

So. I am in penthouse in New York, but that bath-bath-back-to-back. Pfui! All rhythm wrong. Pattern painful. Why have I never noticed before? Or is this sudden awareness result of phenomenon elsewhere? I telephone to janitor-mans downstairs. At that moment I lose my American-English. Damn nuisance. I’m compelled to speak a compost of tongues, and! never know which will be forced on me next.

“Pronto. Ecco mi. Signore Marko. Miscusi tanto—”

Pfui! Hang up. Hate the garbage I must sometimes speak and write. This I now write during period of AmerEng lucidity, otherwise would look like goulash. While I wait for return of communication, I shower body, teeth, hairs, shave face, dry everything, and try again.

Vqila! Ye Englishe, she come. Back to invention of Mr. A. G. Bell and call janitor again.

“Good morning, Mr. Lundgren. This is Peter Marko. Guy in the penthouse. Right. Mr. Lundgren, be my personal rabbi and get some workmen up here this morning. I want those two baths converted into one. No, I mean it. I’ll leave five thousand dollars on top of the icebox. Yes? Thanks, Mr. Lundgren.”

Wanted to wear grey flannel this morning but compelled to put on sharkskin. Damnation! Black Power has peculiar side effects. Went to spare bedroom (see diagram) and unlocked door which was installed by the Eagle Safe Company—Since 1904—Bank Vault Equipment—Fireproof Files & Ledger Trays—Combinations changed. I went in.

Everything broadcasting beautifully, up and down the electromagnetic spectrum. Radio waves down to 1,000 meters, ultraviolet up into the hard X-rays and the 100 Kev (one hundred thousand electron volts) gamma radiation. All interrupters innn-tt-errrr-up-ppp-t-ingggg at random. I’m jamming the voice of the universe at least within this home, and I’m at peace. Dear God! To know even a moment of peace!

So. I take subway to office in Wall Street. Limousine more convenient but chauffeur too dangerous. Might become friendly, and I don’t dare have friends anymore. Best of all, the morning subway is jam-packed, mass-packed, no patterns to adjust, no shiftings and compensations required. Peace.

In subway car I catch a glimpse of an eye, narrow, bleak, grey, the property of an anonymous man who conveys the conviction that you’ve never seen him before and will never see him again. But I picked up that glance and it tripped an alarm in the back of my mind. He knew it. He saw the flash in my eyes before I could turn away. So I was being tailed again. Who, this time? U.S.A.? U.S.S.R? Interpol? Skip-Tracers, Inc.?

I drifted out of the subway with the crowd at City Hall and gave them a false trail to the Woolworth Building in case they were operating double-tails. The whole theory of the hunters and the hunted is not to avoid being tailed, no one can escape that; the thing to do is give them so many false leads to follow up that they become overextended. Then they may be forced to abandon you. They have a man-hour budget; just so many men for just so many operations.

City Hall traffic was out of sync, as it generally is, so I had to limp to compensate. Took elevator up to tenth floor of bldg. As I was starting down the stairs, I was suddenly seized by something from out there, something bad. I began to cry, but no help. An elderly clerk emerge from office wearing alpaca coat, gold spectacles, badge on lapel identify: N. N. Chapin.

“Not him,” I plead with nowhere. “Nice mans. Not N. N. Chapin, please.”

But I am force. Approach. Two blows, neck and gut. Down he go, writhing. I trample spectacles and smash watch. Then I’m permitted to go downstairs again. It was ten-thirty. I was late. Damn! Took taxi to 99 Wall Street. Drivers pattern smelled honest; big black man, quiet and assured. Tipped him fifty dollars. He raise eyebrows. Sealed one thousand in envelope (secretly) and sent driver back to bldg. to find and give to N. N. Chapin on tenth floor. Did not enclose note: “From your unknown admirer.”

Routine morning’s work in office. I am in arbitrage, which is simultaneous buying and selling of moneys in different markets to profit from unequal price. Try to follow simple example: Pound sterling is selling for $2.79H in London. Rupee is selling for $2.79 in New York. One rupee buys one pound in Burma. See where the arbitrage lies? I buy one rupee for $2.79 in New York, buy one pound for rupee in Burma, sell pound for $2.79H in London, and I have made H cent on the transaction. Multiply by $100,000, and I have made $250 on the transaction. Enormous capital required.

But this is only crude example of arbitrage; actually the buying and selling must follow intricate patterns and have perfect timing. Money markets are jumpy today. Big Boards are hectic. Gold fluctuating. I am behind at eleven-thirty, but the patterns put me ahead $57,075.94 by half-past noon, Daylight Saving Time.

57075 makes a nice pattern but that 94e1 lych! Ugly. Symmetry above all else. Alas, only 24? hard money in my pockets. Called secretary, borrowed 70<z from her, and threw sum total out window. Felt better as I watched it scatter in space, but then I caught her looking at me with delight. Very dangerous. Fired girl on the spot.

“But why, Mr. Marko? Why?” she asked, trying not to cry. Darling little thing. Palefaced and saucy, but not so saucy now.

“Because you’re beginning to like me.”

“What’s the harm in that?”

“When I hired you, I warned you not to like me.”

“I thought you were putting me on.”

“I wasn’t. Out you go.”

“But why?”

“Because I’m beginning to like you.”

“Is this some new kind of pass?”

“God forbid!”

“Well you don’t have to worry,” she flared. “I despise you.”

“Good. Then I can go to bed with you.”

She turned crimson and opened her mouth to denounce me, the while her eyes twinkled at the corners. A darling girl, whatever her name was. I could not endanger her. I gave her three weeks’ salary for a bonus and threw her out. Punkt. Next secretary would be a man, married, misanthropic, murderous; a man who could hate me.

So, lunch. Went to nicely balanced restaurant. All chairs filled by patrons. Even pattern. No need for me to compensate and adjust. Also, they give me usual single corner table which does not need guest to balance. Ordered nicely patterned luncheon:

Martini Martini

Croque M’sieur Roquefort

Salad

Coffee

But so much cream being consumed in restaurant that I had to compensate by drinking my coffee black, which I dislike. However, still a soothing pattern.

x^2 1 x 1 415 prime number. Excuse, please. Sometimes I’m in control and see what compensating must be done …tick-tock-tick-tock, good old gridiron pendulum …other times is force on me from God knows where or why or how or even if there is a God. Then I must do what I’m compelled to do, blindly, without motivation, speaking the gibberish I speak and think, sometimes hating it like what I do to poor mans Mr. Chapin. Anyway, the equation breaks down when x 5 40.

The afternoon was quiet. For a moment I thought I might be forced to leave for Rome (Italy) but whatever it was adjusted without needing my two ($0,02) cents. ASPCA finally caught up with me for beating my dog to death, but I’d contributed $5,000.00 to their shelter. Got off with a shaking of heads. Wrote a few graffiti on posters, saved a small boy from a clobbering in a street rumble at a cost of sharkskin jacket. Drat! Slugged a maladroit driver who was subjecting his lovely Aston-Martin to cruel and unusual punishment. He was, how they say, “grabbing a handful of second.”

In the evening to ballet to relax with all the beautiful Balanchine patterns; balanced, peaceful, soothing. Then I take a deep breath, quash my nausea, and force myself to go to The Raunch, the West Village creepsville. I hate The Raunch, but I need a woman and I must go where I hate. That fair-haired girl I fired, so full of mischief and making eyes at me. So, poisson d’avril, I advance myself to The Raunch.

Chaos. Blackness. Cacophony. My vibes shriek. 25 Watt bulbs. Ballads of Protest. Against L. wall sit young men, with pubic beards, playing chess.

Badly.

Exempli gratia:

1 P—Q4

2 Kt—Q2

3 PXP

4 P—KR3

Kt—KB 3 P—K4 Kt—Kt5 Kt—K6

If White takes the knight, Black forces mate with Q—R5ch. I didn’t wait to see what the road-company Capablancas would do next.

Against R. wall is bar, serving beer and cheap wine mostly. There are girls with brown paper bags containing toilet articles. They are looking for a pad for the night. All wear tight jeans and are naked under loose sweaters. I think of Herrick (1591-1674): Next, when I lift mine eyes and see/That brave vibration each way free/Oh, how that glittering taketh me!

I pick out the one who glitters the most. I talk. She insult. I insult back and buy hard drinks. She drink my drinks and snarl and hate, but helpless. Her name is Bunny and she has no pad for tonight. I do not let myself sympathize. She is a dyke; she does not bathe, her thinking patterns are jangles. I hate her and she’s safe; no harm can come to her. So I maneuvered her out of Sink City and took her home to seduce by mutual contempt, and in the living room sat the slender little paleface secretary, recently fired for her own good.

She sat there in my penthouse, now minus one (1) bathroom, and with $1,997.00 change on top of the refrigerator. Oi! Throw $6.00 into kitchen Dispos-All (a Federal offense) and am soothed by the lovely 1991 remaining. She sat there, wearing a pastel thing, her skin gleaming rose-red from embarrassment, also red for danger. Her saucy face was very tight from the daring thing she thought she was doing. Gott bewahre! I like that.

***

I now write following piece of the Address: 49bis Avenue Hoche, Paris, Seme, France.

Forced to go there by what happened in the U.N., you understand. It needed extreme compensation and adjustment. Almost, for a moment, I thought I would have to attack the conductor of the Opera Comique, but fate was kind and let me off with nothing worse than indecent exposure, and I was able to square it by founding a scholarship at the Sorbonne. Didn’t someone suggest that fate was the square root of minus one?

Anyway, back in New York it is my turn to denounce the paleface but suddenly my AmerEng is replaced by a dialect out of a B-picture about a white remittance man and a blind native girl on a South Sea island who find redemption together while she plays the ukulele and sings gems from Lawrence Welk’s Greatest Hits.

“Oh-so,” I say. “Me-fella be ve’y happy ask why you-fella invade ‘long my apa’tment, ‘cept me’ now speak pidgin. Ve’y emba’ss ‘long me.”

“I bribed Mr. Lundgren,” she blurted. “I told him you needed important papers from the office.”

The dyke turned on her heel and bounced out, her brave vibration each way free. I caught up with her in front of the elevator, put $101 into her hand, and tried to apologize. She hated me more so I did a naughty thing to her vibration and returned to the living room. “What’s she got?” the paleface asked. My English returned. “What’s your name?”

“Good Lord! I’ve been working in your office for two months and you don’t know my name? You really don’t?”

“No.”

“I’m Jemmy Thomas.”

“Beat it, Jemmy Thomas.”

“So that’s why you always called me ‘Miss Uh.’ You’re Russian?”

“Half.”

“What’s the other half?”

“None of your business. What are you doing here? When I fire them they stay fired. What d’you want from me?”

“You,” she said, blushing fiery.

“Will you for God’s sake get the hell out of here.”

“What did she have that I don’t?” paleface demanded. Then her face crinkled. “Don’t? Doesn’t? I’m going to Bennington. They’re strong on aggression but weak on grammar.”

“What d’you mean, you’re going to Bennington?”

“Why, it’s a college. I thought everybody knew.”

“But going?”

“Oh. I’m in my junior year. They drive you out with whips to acquire practical experience in your field. You ought to know that. Your office manager—I suppose you don’t know her name, either.”

“Ethel M. Blatt.”

“Yes. Miss Blatt took it all down before you interviewed me.”

“What’s your field?”

“It used to be economics. Now it’s you. How old are you?”

“One hundred and one.”

“Oh, come on. Thirty? They say at Bennington that ten years is the right difference between men and women because we mature quicker. Are you married?”

“I have wives in London, Paris, and Rome. What is this catechism?”

“Well, I’m trying to get something going.”

“I can see that, but does it have to be me?”

“I know it sounds like a notion.” She lowered her eyes, and without the highlight of their blue, her pale face was almost invisible. “And I suppose women are always throwing themselves at you.”

“It’s my untold wealth.”

“What are you, blasé or something? I mean, I know I’m not staggering, but I’m not exactly repulsive.”

“You’re lovely.”

“They why don’t you come near me?”

“I’m trying to protect you.”

“I can protect me when the time comes. I’m a Black Belt.”

“The time is now, Jemmy Thompson.”

“Thomas.”

“Walk, not run, to the nearest exit, Jemmy Thomas.”

“The least you could do is offend me the way you did that hustler in front of the elevator.”

“You snooped?”

“Sure I snooped. You didn’t expect me to sit here on my hands, did you? I’ve got my man to protect.”

I had to laugh. This spunky little thing march in, roll up her sleeves and set to work on me. A wonder she didn’t have a pot roast waiting in the oven and herself waiting in the bed.

“Your man?” I ask.

“It happens,” she said in a low voice. “I never believed it, but it happens. You fall in and out of love and affairs, and each time you think it’s real and forever. And then you meet somebody and it isn’t a question of love anymore. You just know that he’s your man, and you’re stuck with him, whether you like it or not.” She burst out angrily. “I’m stuck, dammit! Stuck! D’you think I’m enjoying this?”

She looked at me through the storm; violet eyes full of youth and determination and tenderness and fear. I could see she, too, was being forced and was angry and afraid. And I knew how lonely I was, never daring to make friends, to love, to share. I could fall into those violet eyes and never come up. I looked at the clock. 2:30 A.M. Sometimes quiet at this hour. Perhaps my AmerEng would stay with me a while longer.

“You’re being compelled, Jemmy,” I said. “I know all about that. Something inside you, something you don’t understand, made you take your dignity in both hands and come after me. You don’t like it, you don’t want to, you’ve never begged in your life, but you had to. Yes?”

She nodded.

“Then you can understand a little about me. I’m compelled, too.”

“Who is she?”

“No, no. Not forced to beg from a woman; compelled to hurt people.”

“What people?”

“Any people; sometimes strangers, and that’s bad, other times people I love, and that’s not to be endured. So now I no longer dare love. I must protect people from myself.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Are you some kind of psychotic monster?”

“Yes, played by Lon Chancy, Jr.”

“If you can joke about it, you can’t be all that sick. Have you seen a shrink?”

“No. I don’t have to. I know what’s compelling me.” I looked at the clock again. Still a quiet time. Please God the English would stay with me a while longer. I took off my jacket and shirt. “I’m going to shock you,” I said, and showed her my back, crosshatched with scars. She gasped.

“Self-inflicted,” I told her. “Because I permitted myself to like a man and become friendly with him. This is the price I paid, and I was lucky that he didn’t have to. Now wait here.”

I went into the master bedroom where my heart’s shame was embalmed in a silver case hidden in the right-hand drawer of my desk. I brought it to the living room. Jemmy watched me with great eyes.

“Five years ago a girl fell in love with me,” I told her. “A girl like you. I was lonely then, as always, so instead of protecting her from me, I indulged myself and tried to love her back. Now I want to show you the price she paid. You’ll loathe me for this, but I must show you. Maybe it’ll save you from—”

I broke off. A flash had caught my eye—the flash of lights going on in a building down the street; not just a few windows, a lot. I put on my jacket, went out on the terrace, and watched. All the illuminated windows in the building three down from me went out. Five-second eclipse. On again. It happened in the building two down and then the one next door. The girl came to my side and took my arm. She trembled slightly.

“What is it?” she asked. “What’s the matter? You look so grim.”

“It’s the Geneva caper,” I said. “Wait.”

The lights in my apartment went out for five seconds and then came on again.

“They’ve located me the way I was nailed in Geneva,” I told her.

“They? Located?”

“They’ve spotted my jamming by d/f.”

“What jamming?”

“The full electromagnetic spectrum.”

“What’s dee eff?”

“Radio direction-finder. They used it to get the bearing of my jamming. Then they turned off the current in each building in the area, building by building, until the broadcast stopped. Now they’ve pinpointed me. They know I’m in this house, but they don’t know which apartment yet. I’ve still got time. So. Good night, Jemmy. You’re hired again. Tell Ethel Blatt I won’t be in for a while. I wish I could kiss you good-bye, but safer not.”

She clamped her arms around my neck and gave me an honest kiss. I tried to push her away.

She clung like The Old Man of the Sea. “You’re a spy,” she said. “I’ll go to the chair with you.”

“I wish to heaven I only was a spy. Good-bye, my love. Remember me.”

A great mistake letting that slip. It happen, I think, because my speech slip, too. Suddenly forced to talk jumble again. As I run out, the little paleface kick off her sandals so she can run, too. She is alongside me going down the fire stairs to the garage in the basement. I hit her to stop, and swear Swahili at her. She hit back and swear gutter, all the time laughing and crying. I love her for it, so she is doomed. I will ruin her like all the rest.

We get into car and drive fast. I am making for 59th Street bridge to get off Manhattan Island and head east. I own plane in Babylon, Long Island, which is kept ready for this sort of awkwardness.

“J’y suis, J’y rests is not my motto,” I tell Jemmy Thomas, whose French is as uncertain as her grammar, an endearing weakness. “Once Scotland Yard trapped me with a letter. I was receiving special mail care of General Delivery. They mailed me a red envelope, spotted me when I picked it up, and followed me to No. 13 Mayfair Mews, London W.I., Telephone, Mayfair 7711. Red for danger. Is the rest of you as invisible as your face?”

“I’m not invisible,” she said, indignant, running hands through her streaky fair hair. “I tan in the summer. What is all this chase and escape? Why do you talk so funny and act so peculiar? In the office I thought it was because you’re a crazy Russian. Half crazy Russian. Are you sure you’re not a spy?”

“Only positive.”

“It’s too bad. A Commie 007 would be utter blissikins.”

“Yes, I know. You see yourself being seduced with vodka and caviar.”

“Are you a being from another world who came here on a UFO?”

“Would that scare you?”

“Only if it meant we couldn’t make the scene.”

“We couldn’t anyway. All the serious side of me is concentrated on my career. I want to conquer the earth for my robot masters.”

“I’m only interested in conquering you.”

“I am not and have never been a creature from another world. I can show you my passport to prove it.”

“Then what are you?”

“A compensator.”

“A what?”

“A compensator. Like a clock pendulum. Do you know dictionary of Messrs Funk & Wagnalls? Edited by Frank H. Vizetelly, Litt.D, LL.D.? I quote: One who or that which compensates, as a device for neutralizing the influence of local attraction upon a compass needle, or an automatic apparatus for equalizing— Damn!”

Litt.D. Frank H. Vizetelly does not use that word. It is my own because roadblock now faces me on 59th Street bridge. I should have anticipated. Should have sensed patterns, but too swept up with this inviting girl. Probably there are roadblocks on all exits leading out of this $24 island. Could drive off bridge, but maybe Bennington College has also neglected to teach Jemmy Thomas how to swim. So. Stop car. Surrender.

“Kamerad,” I pronounce. “Who you? John Birch?” Gentlemans say no. “White Supremes of the World, Inc.?”

No again. I feel better. Always nasty when captured by lunatic f ringers.

“U.S.S.R.?”

He stare, then speak. “Special Agent Hildebrand. FBI,” and flash his identification which no one can read in this light. I take his word and embrace him in gratitude. FBI is safe. He recoil and wonder if I am fag. I don’t care. I kiss Jemmy Thomas, and she open mouth under mine to mutter, “Admit nothing. Deny everything. I’ve got a lawyer.”

I own thirteen lawyers, and two of them can make any court tremble, but no need to call them. This will be standard cross-examination; I know from past experience. So let them haul me off to Foley Square with Jemmy. They separate us. I am taken to Inquisition Room.

Brilliant lights; the shadows arranged just so; the chairs placed just so; mirror on wall probably one-way window with observers outside; I’ve been through this so often before. The anonymous man from the subway this morning is questioning me. We exchange glances of recognition. His name is R. Sawyer. The questions come.

“Name?”

“Peter Marko.”

“Born?”

“Lee’s Hill, Virginia.”

“Never heard of it.”

“It’s a very small town, about thirty miles north of Roanoke. Most maps ignore it.”

“You’re Russian?”

“Half, by descent.”

“Father Russian?”

“Yes. Eugene Alexis Markolevsky.”

“Changed his name legally?”

“Shortened it when he became a citizen.”

“Mother?”

“Vera Broadhurst. English.”

“You were raised in Lee’s Hill?”

“Until ten. Then Chicago.”

“Father’s occupation?”

“Teacher.”

“Yours, financier?”

“Arbitrageur. Buying and selling money on the open market.”

“Known assets from identified bank deposits, three million dollars.”

“Only in the States. Counting overseas deposits and investments, closer to seventeen million.”

R. Sawyer shook his head, bewildered. “Marko, what the hell are you up to? I’ll level with you. At first we thought espionage, but with your kind of money— What are you broadcasting from your apartment? We can’t break the code.”

“There is no code, only randomness so I can get a little peace and some sleep.”

“Only what?”

“Random jamming. I do it in all my homes. Listen, I’ve been through this so often before, and it’s difficult for people to understand unless I explain it my own way. Will you let me try?”

“Go ahead.” Sawyer was grim. “You better make it good. We can check everything you give us.”

I take a breath. Always the same problem. The reality is so strange that I have to use simile and metaphor. But it was 4:00 A.M. and maybe the jumble wouldn’t interrupt my speech for a while. “Do you like to dance?”

“What the hell …”

“Be patient. I’m trying to explain. You like to dance?”

“I used to.”

“What’s the pleasure of dancing? It’s people making rhythms together; patterns, designs, balances. Yes?”

“So?”

“And parades. Masses of men and music making patterns. Team sports, also. Action patterns. Yes?”

“Marko, if you think I’m going to—”

“Just listen, Sawyer. Here’s the point. I’m sensitive to patterns on a big scale; bigger than dancing or parades, more than the rhythms of day and night, the seasons, the glacial epochs.”

Sawyer stared. I nodded. “Oh yes, people respond to the 2/2 of the diurnal-nocturnal rhythms, the 4/4 of the seasons, the great terra-epochs. They don’t know it, but they do. That’s why they have sleep-problems, moon-madness, sun-hunger, weather-sensitivity. I respond to these local things, too, but also to gigantic patterns, influences from infinity.”

“Are you some kind of nut?”

“Certainly. Of course. I respond to the patterns of the entire galaxy, maybe universe; sight and sound; and the unseen and unheard. I’m moved by the patterns of people, individually and demo-graphically: hostility, generosity, selfishness, charity, cruelties and kindnesses, groupings and whole cultures. And I’m compelled to respond and compensate.”

“How a nut like you ever made seventeen mill— How do you compensate?”

“If a child hurts itself, the mother responds with a kiss. That’s compensation. Agreed? If a man beats a horse you beat him. You boo a bad fight. You cheer a good game. You’re a cop. Sawyer. Don’t the victim and murderer seek each other to fulfill their pattern?”

“Maybe in the past; not today. What’s this got to do with your broadcasts?”

“Multiply that compensation by infinity and you have me. I must kiss and kick. I’m driven. I must compensate in a pattern I can’t see or understand. Sometimes I’m compelled to do extravagant things, other times I’m forced to do insane things: talk gibberish, go to strange places, perform abominable acts, behave like a lunatic.”

“What abominable acts?”

“Fifth amendment.”

“But what about those broadcasts?”

“We’re flooded with wave emissions and particles, sometimes in patterns, sometimes garbled. I feel them all and respond to them the way a marionette jerks on strings. I try to neutralize them by jamming, so I broadcast at random to get a little peace.”

“Marko, I swear you’re crazy.”

“Yes, I am, but you won’t be able to get me committed. It’s been tried before. I’ve even tried myself. It never works. The big design won’t permit it. I don’t know why, but the big design wants me to go on as a Pi Man.”

“What the hell are you talking about? What kind of pie?”

“Not pee-eye-ee-man. Pee-eye-man. Pi. Sixteenth letter in the Greek alphabet. It’s the relation of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. 3.14159+. The series goes on into infinity. It’s transcendental and can never be resolved into a finite pattern. They call extrasensory perception Psi. I call extrapattern perception Pi. All right?”

He glared at me, threw my dossier down, sighed, and slumped into a chair. That made the grouping wrong, so I had to shift. He cocked an eye at me.

“Pi Man,” I apologized.

“All right,” he said at last. “We can’t hold you.”

“They all try but they never can.”

“Who try?”

“Governments, police, counterintelligence, politicals, lunatic fringe, religious sects …They track me down, hoping they can nail me or use me. They can’t. I’m part of something much bigger. I think we all are, only I’m the first to be aware of it.”

“Are you claiming you’re a superman?”

“Good God! No! I’m a damned man … a tortured man, because some of the patterns I must adjust to are outworld rhythms like nothing we ever experience on earth …29/51 …108/303 …tempi like that, alien, terrifying, agony to live with.”

He took another deep breath. “Off the record, what’s this about abominable acts?”

“That’s why I can’t have friends or let myself fall in love. Sometimes the patterns turn so ugly that I have to make frightful sacrifices to restore the ‘design. I must destroy something I love.”

“This is sacrifice?”

“Isn’t it the only meaning of sacrifice, Sawyer? You give up what’s dearest to you.”

“Who to?”

“The Gods, The Fates, The Big Pattern that’s controlling me. From where? I don’t know. It’s too big a universe to comprehend, : but I have to beat its tempo with my actions and reactions, emotions and senses, to make the patterns come out even, balanced in some way that I don’t understand. The pressures that

whipsaw me

back and

and turn

forth \ me

and into

back the

and transcendental

forth 3.141591

and maybe I talk too much to R. Sawyer and the patterns pronounce:

PI MAN, IT IS NOT PERMITTED.

So.

There is darkness and silence.

“The other arm now,” Jemmy said firmly. “Lift.”

I am on my bed, me. Thinking upheaved again. Half (H ) into pyjamas; other half (H ) being wrestled by paleface girl. I lift. She yank. Pyjamas now on, and it’s my turn to blush. They raise me prudish in Lee’s Hill.

“Pot roast done?” I ask.

“What?”

“What happened?”

“You pooped out. Keeled over. You’re not so cool.”

“How much do you know?”

“Everything. I was on the other side of that mirror thing. Mr. Sawyer had to let you go. Mr. Lundgren helped lug you up to the apartment. He thinks you’re stoned. How much should I give him?”

“Cinque lire. No. Parla Italiano, gentile signorina?”

“Are you asking me do I speak Italian? No.”

“Entschuldigen, Sie, bitte. Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”

“Is this your patterns again?”

I nod.

“Can’t you stop?”

After stopovers in Greece and Portugal, Ye Englische finally returns to me. “Can you stop breathing, Jemmy?”

“Is it like that, Peter? Truly?”

“Yes.”

“When you do something …something bad … do you know why? Do you know exactly what it is somewhere that makes you do it?”

“Sometimes yes. Other times no. All I know is that I’m compelled to respond.”

“Then you’re just the tool of the universe.”

“I think we all are. Continuum creatures. The only difference is, I’m more sensitive to the galactic patterns and respond violently. So why don’t you get the hell out of here, Jemmy Thomas?”

“I’m still stuck,” she said.

“You can’t be. Not after what you heard.”

“Yes, I am. You don’t have to marry me.”

Now the biggest hurt of all. I have to be honest. I have to ask, “Where’s the silver case?”

A long pause. “Down the incinerator.”

“Do you … Do you know what was in it?”

“I know what was in it.”

“And you’re still here?”

“It was monstrous what you did. Monstrous!” Her face suddenly streaked with mascara. She was crying. “Where is she now?”

“I don’t know. The checks go out every quarter to a numbered account in Switzerland. I don’t want to know. How much can the heart endure?”

“I think I’m going to find out, Peter.”

“Please don’t find out.” I make one last effort to save her. “I love you, paleface, and you know what that can mean. When the patterns turn cruel, you may be the sacrifice.”

“Love creates patterns, too.” She kissed me. Her lips were parched, her skin was icy, she was afraid and hurting, but her heart beat strong with love and hope. “Nothing can crunch us now. Believe me.”

“I don’t know what to believe anymore. We’re part of a world that’s beyond knowing. What if it turns out to be too big for love?”

“AH right,” she said composedly. “We won’t be dogs in the manger. If love is a little thing and has to end, then let it end. Let all little things like love and honor and mercy and laughter end, if there’s a bigger design beyond.”

“But what’s bigger? What’s beyond? I’ve asked that for years. Never an answer. Never a clue.”

“Of course. If we’re too small to survive, how can we know? Move over.”

Then she is in bed with me, the tips of her body like frost while the rest of her is hot and evoking, and there is such a consuming burst of passion that for the first time I can forget myself, forget everything, abandon everything, and the last thing I think is: God damn the world! God damn the universe!

God damn GGG-o-ddddddd

THEY DON’T MAKE LIFE LIKE THEY USED TO

The girl driving the jeep was very fair and very Nordic. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a pony tail but it was so long that it was more a mare’s tail. She wore sandals, a pair of soiled bluejeans, and nothing else. She was nicely tanned. As she turned the jeep off Fifth Avenue and drove bouncing up the steps of the library, her bosom danced enchantingly.

She parked in front of the library entrance, stepped out, and was about to enter when her attention was attracted by something across the street. She peered, hesitated, then glanced down at her jeans and made a face. She pulled off the pants and hurled them at the pigeons.

CAT AND MOUSE

Ralph Williams

The Warden needed to have a certain very obnoxious pest eliminated …and he knew just the pest-eradicator he needed...

THE Harn first came to the Warden’s attention through its effect on the game population of an area in World 7 of the Warden’s sector. A natural ecology was being maintained on World 7 as a control for experimental seedings of intelligent life-forms in other similar worlds. How the Harn got there, the Warden never knew. In its free-moving larval state, the Harn was a ticklike creature which might have sifted through a natural inter-dimensional rift; or it might have come through as a hitchhiker on some legitimate traveler, possibly even the Warden himself.

In any event, it was there now. Free of natural enemies and competition, it had expanded enormously. So far, the effect in the control world was localized, but this would not be the case when the Harn seeded. Prompt action was indicated.

The Warden’s inclination and training was in the direction of avoiding direct intervention in the ecology of the worlds under his jurisdiction, even in the field of predator control. He considered introduction of natural enemies of the Harn from its own world, and decided against it. That cure, was as bad, if not worse, than the disease itself.

There was, however, in one adjacent world, a life-form not normally associated with the Harn; but which analysis indicated would be inimical to it, and reasonably amenable to control.

It was worth trying, anyway.

October 3rd, Ed Brown got up to the base cabin of his trap line with his winter’s outfit.

He hung an N. C. Company calendar on the wall and started marking off the days.

October 8th, the hole into the other world opened.

In the meantime, of course, Ed had not been idle. All summer the cabin had stood empty. He got his bedding, stove, and other cabin gear down from the cache and made the place livable. The mice were thick, a good fur sign, but a nuisance otherwise. Down in the cellar hole, when he went to clear it out for the new spud crop, he found burrowings everywhere.

Well, old Tom would take care of that in short order. Tom was a big, black, bobtailed cat eleven years old who had lived with Ed since he was a kitten. Not having any feline companionship to distract him, his only interest was hunting mice. Generally he killed a lot more than he could eat, racking the surplus in neat piles beside the trail, on the doorstep, or on a slab in the cellar. He was the best mouser in interior Alaska.

Ed propped the cellar hatch with a stick so old Tom could come and go as he pleased, and went on about his chores, working with a methodical efficiency that matched Tom’s and went with his thinning gray hair and forty years in the woods. He dug the spuds he had planted that spring. He made a swing around his beaver lakes, tallying the blankets in each house. He took the canoe and moved supplies to his upper cabin. He harvested some fat mallards that had moved down on the river with the coming of skim ice on the lakes. He bucked up firewood and stacked it to move into camp with the first snow.

On the fifth morning, as he was going down to the boat landing with a pail for water, he found the hole into the other world.

Ed had never seen a hole into another world, of course, nor even heard of such a thing. He was as surprised as anyone would naturally be to find one not fifty feet from their front door.

Still, his experience had been all in the direction of believing what his eyes told him. He had seen a lot of strange things in his life, and one more didn’t strain him too much. He stood stockstill where he had first noticed the hole and studied it warily.

It was two steps off the trail to the left, right beside the old leaning birch, a rectangular piece of scenery that did not fit. It looked to be, as nearly as he could judge, about man-size, six by three. At the bottom it was easy enough to see where this world left off and that one began. On the left side the two worlds matched pretty well, but on the right side there was a niggerhead in this world, the moss-covered relic of a centuries old stump, while that world continued level, so that the niggerhead was neatly sliced in two. Also, the vegetation was different, mossy on this side, grassy on that.

On up around the hole, though, it was harder to tell. There was no clear-cut line, just the difference in what you could see through it. In the other world, the ground seemed to fall away, with low scrubby brush in the foreground. Then, a mile or so away, there were rising hills with hardwood forests of some kind, still green with summer, covering them.

Ed stepped cautiously to one side. The view through the hole narrowed, as if it faced the trail squarely. He edged around the old birch to get behind it, and from that side there was no hole, just the same old Alaskan scenery, birch and rose bushes and spruce. From the front, though, it was still there.

He cut an alder shoot about eight feet long, trimmed it, and poked it through the hole. It went through easily enough. He prodded at the sod in the other world, digging up small tufts. When he pulled the stick back, some of the other world dirt was on the sharp end. It looked and smelled just about like any dirt.

Old Tom came stretching out into the morning sun and stalked over to investigate. After a careful inspection of the hole he settled down with his paws tucked under him to watch. Ed took a flat round can from his pocket, lined his lip frugally with snuff, and sat down on the up-ended bucket to watch too. At the moment, that seemed the likeliest thing to do.

It was nearly swarming time, the Harn had many things to preoccupy it, but it spared one unit to watch the hole into the other world. So far, nothing much had happened. A large biped had found the opening from the other side. It had been joined by a smaller quadruped; but neither showed any indication yet of coming through. The sun was shining through the hole, a large young yellow sun, and the air was crisp, with sharp interesting odors.

The biped ejected a thin squirt of brown liquid through the hole— venom of some sort, apparently. The Harn hastily drew back out of range.

The hole into the other world stayed there, as unobtrusively fixed as if it had been there since the beginning of time. Nothing came through, and nothing moved in the other world but leaves stirring now and then with a breeze, clouds drifting across the sky. Ed began to realize it was getting late in the morning, and he had not yet had breakfast. He left old Tom to watch the hole, got stiffly to his feet and went on down the trail to get the pail of water he had started for. From the cabin door, he could still see the hole into the other world. He kept one eye on it while he cooked breakfast.

As he was finishing his second cup of coffee, he noticed the view into the other world becoming duller, dimming in a peculiar fashion. He left the dirty dishes and went over to look more closely. What was happening, he found, was just that it was getting dark in the other world. The effect was strange, much like looking out the door of a brightly lighted room at dusk. The edges of the hole cast a very clearly marked shadow now, and outside this shaft of sunlight the view faded, until a few yards away it was impossible to make out any detail.

Presently the stars came out. Ed was not an astronomer, but he had a woodsman’s knowledge of the sky. He could find nothing familiar in any of the stars he saw. In some way, that was more unsettling than the hole itself had been.

After he had finished the dishes, he cut two gee-pole spruce, trimmed them, and stuck one on each side of the hole. He got some thin thread he used to tie beaver snares and wove it back and forth between the poles, rigging a tin can alarm. It seemed likely someone or something had put the hole there, it had not just happened. If anything came through, Ed wanted to know about it. Just to make extra sure, he got some number three traps and made a few blind sets in front of the hole.

Then he went back to his chores. Whatever was going to happen with the hole would happen when it happened, and winter was still coming.

He set some babiche to soak for mending his snowshoes. He ran the net he had set at the edge of the eddy for late silvers and took out two fish. Old Tom had pretty well cleaned up the mice in the cellar hole, but they were still burrowing around the sills of the lean-to. Ed took a shovel and opened up a hole so Tom could get under the lean-to floor. He got out his needles, palm, thread, and wax; and mended his winter moccasins.

Off and on, he checked the hole into the other world. There was nothing but the slow progression of alien stars across the sky. Finally old Tom grew bored and left to investigate the hole under the lean-to. Shortly there were scutterings and squeakings as evidence that he, too, had got back to business.

Toward evening, Ed got to wondering how a living creature would take transition into the other world. He had no intention of trying it himself until he knew a lot more about it, but he thought he might be able to scare up a surrogate. Out by the wood pile some live-traps were piled under a spruce, from the time when Ed had been catching marten for the Fish and Wildlife to transplant. One was still in pretty fair shape. He patched it up and set it among the cottonwoods at the head of the bar, where there were some rabbit trails.

When he went to bed it was still dark in the other world. He left the cabin door ajar so he could see it from his bed and set his shotgun, loaded with 00 buck, handy. Nearing sixty, Ed was not a sound sleeper, even when he had nothing on his mind. About ten it started to get light in the other world, and that woke him up. He padded out to look, but there was no change, it looked about the same as yesterday. He went back to bed.

The next morning there was a rabbit in the live-trap. With a pole, Ed pushed the trap with the rabbit in it through into the other world and watched. Nothing happened. After a while the rabbit began nibbling at some spears of grass that pushed through the wire of the cage. Ed pulled it back and examined the rabbit carefully. It seemed healthy and about as happy as a rabbit could expect to be in a cage.

It did not get dark in the other world till about noon, that day; and about seven, when it was dark in both worlds, Ed heard the jangle of the tin can alarm, followed by the snap of one of the steel traps.

He took a flashlight and found a small hoofed animal, hardly bigger than old Tom, rearing and bucking with a broken leg in the trap. It had sharp little spike horns, only a few inches long, but mean. Ed got several painful jabs before he got the animal tied up and out of the trap. He re-strung the alarm, then took his catch into the cabin to examine.

It was herbivorous and adult, from the looks of its teeth and hoofs, though it only weighed about fifteen pounds. As an approximation, Ed decided it was female. When he killed it and opened it up, at first glance it looked reasonably familiar, on closer study less so.

The blood, anyway, was red; not blue or yellow or green; and the bones were bones, just odd-shaped.

Ed cut off a slice of heart and tossed it to old Tom. The cat sniffed it dubiously and then decided he liked it. He meowed for more. Ed gave it to him and fried a small sliver of ham. It smelled and tasted fine, but Ed contented himself with a single delicate nibble, pending further developments. Anyway, it was beginning to look like a little exploration would be feasible.

The Harn, also, was well-satisfied with the way things were going. It had been a strain to pass up the juicy little quadruped in the cage, but the inhabitants of the other world seemed shy, and the Harn did not wish to frighten them. At least, it knew now that life could come through the hole, and the small herbivore it had herded through confirmed that passage in the opposite direction was equally possible—plus a gratis demonstration of the other world’s pitiful defenses. At swarming time) the whole new world would be open to embryo Harn, as well as this world it presently occupied.

It looked like a really notable swarming. The Harn budded three more planters on the forcing stem, to be ready to take full advantage of it.

It got light in the other world at one in the morning that night. Ed had the days there pretty well pegged now. They were roughly twenty-seven hours, of which about thirteen hours were dark. Not too high a latitude, apparently, and probably late summer by the looks of the vegetation.

He got up a little before daylight and looked at the rabbit and old Tom. Both seemed to be doing nicely. Old Tom was hungry for more other-world meat. Ed gave it to him and made up a light pack. After some thought, he took the .450 bear gun he used for back-up when guiding. Whatever he ran into over there, the .450—a model 71 throwing a 400 grain slug at 2100 fps—should handle it.

The first step through into the other world was a queasy one, but it turned out to be much the same as any other step. The only difference was that now he was in the other world looking back. From this side, the niggerhead at the threshold was sliced sharply, but it had been kicked down a little when he came through, and what with shoving the cage through and pulling it back, so that some clods of moss and dirt were scattered in the other world. For some reason, that made Ed feel better, it seemed to make the joining of the two worlds a little more permanent.

Still, it had come sudden, and it might go sudden. Ed went back into his own world and got an ax, a saw, more ammunition, salt, a heavy sleeping robe, a few other possibles. He brought them through and piled them in the other world, covering them with a scrap of old tarp. He cut a couple of poles, peeled them, and stuck them in the ground to mark the hole from this side.

Then he looked around.

He stood on the shoulder of a hill, in a game trail that ran down toward a stream below, in what seemed to be a fairly recent burn. There were charred stumps, and the growth was small stuff, with some saplings pushing up through. There was timber in the valley below, though, and on the hills beyond, deciduous, somewhat like oak. South was where east had been in his own world, and the sun seemed smaller, but brighter. The sky was a very dark blue. He seemed lighter in this world, there was a spring in his step he had not known for twenty years. He looked at his compass. It checked with the direction of the sun.

He studied the trail. It had seen a lot of use, but less in recent weeks. There were sharp hoof-prints of the animal he had caught, larger hoof-prints, vague pad-marks of various sizes, but nothing that looked human. The trail went under a charred tree trunk at a height that was not comfortable for a man, and the spacing of the steps around the gnarled roots of an old stump did not fit a man’s stride.

He did not notice the Harn creature at all—which was understandable, it was well camouflaged.

He worked circumspectly down the trail, staying a little off it, studying tracks and droppings, noticing evidences of browsing on the shrubs— mostly old—pausing to examine tufts of hair and an occasional feather. Halfway down the slope he flushed a bird about ptarmigan-size, grayish brown in color.

The trail was more marked where it went into the timber. It wound through the trees for a few hundred yards and came out on a canoe-sized stream. Here it forked. One trail crossed the stream and went up the hill on the other side, the other followed the stream up the valley.

The Harn followed Ed’s movements, observing carefully. It needed a specimen from the other world, and this biped would serve nicely, but it might as well learn as much as possible about him first. It could always pick him up some time before he returned to his own world. Just to make sure, it sent a stinging unit to guard the entrance.

All his life, except for a short period in France, Ed had been a hunter, never hunted. Still, you don’t grow old in the woods by jumping without looking. Coming into a new situation, he was wary as an old wolf. There was a little shoulder right above the fork in the trail. He stood there for several minutes, looking things over, and then went down and crossed the stream at the next riffle, above the ford. By doing so, although he did not know it, he missed the trap the Harn maintained at the ford for chance passers-by.

On the other side of the creek, the trail ran angling off downstream, skirted a small lake hidden in the trees, climbed over another low shoulder and dropped into a second valley. As Ed followed along it, he began to notice a few more signs of life—birds, small scurriers on the ground and in tree tops—and this set him thinking. The country had a picked-over feel to it, a hunted and trapped-out feel, worse where he had first come through, but still noticeable here.

The Harn did not like to cross water, it could, but it did not like to.

Ed looked at the sun. It was getting down in the sky. If there was any activity at all around here, the ford at dusk would be as likely a place as any to find it. He worked back along the ridge to a point above where he judged the ford to be. The breeze was drawing up the valley, but favoring the other side a little. He dropped down and crossed the stream a quarter mile above the ford, climbed well above the trail and worked along the hillside until he was in a position where he could watch both the ford and the fork in the trail. He squatted down against a tree in a comfortable position, laid his gun across his knees, and rummaged in his pack for the cold flapjacks, wrapped around slices of duck breast, which he had packed for lunch.

After he had finished eating he drank from his canteen—the water in this world might be good, it might not, there was no point in taking chances till he could try it on the cat—and took an economical chew of snuff. He settled back to wait.

The Harn had lost Ed after he crossed the creek—it used a fallen tree quite a way further up for its own crossing—and did not pick him up again until just before he crossed back. Now, however, he had been immobile for several minutes. This looked like about as good a time as any to make the pickup. The Harn had a stinging unit just about positioned, and it had dispatched a carrier to stand by.

After a while, sitting there, Ed began to feel uneasy. The timber was big here, and open underneath, almost parklike. The nearest cover was fifty or sixty yards off to his left, a little tangle of brush where a tree had fallen and let a shaft of sunlight through.

It looked possible, but it didn’t feel quite right. Still, it was about the only place anything big enough to bother him could hide. The feeling was getting stronger, the back hairs on Ed’s neck were starting to stand up now. Without visible movement, or even noticing himself that he was doing it, he let awareness run over his body, checking the position and stiffness of his legs—he had been sitting there quite a while—the balance of the gun across his knees, the nearness of his thumb to the hammer.

Thoughtfully, still studying the patch of brush, he spat a thin stream over his left shoulder at a pile of leaves a few feet away.

Thinking about it later, Ed could almost have sworn the tobacco juice sizzled as it hit. Actually, this was probably imaginary. The stinging unit was not that sensitive to tobacco, though it was sensitive enough. As the drops splattered it, the pile of leaves erupted with a snuffling hiss like an overloaded teakettle into a tornado of bucking, twisting activity.

Ed’s reflexes were not quite as fast as they had been when he was young, but they were better educated. Also, he was already keyed-up. Almost as it started, the flurry in the leaves stopped with the roar of his rifle. Fired like that, the heavy gun just about took his hand off, but he did not notice it at the moment. He came erect in a quick scramble, jacking in a fresh round as he did so. The scene took on that strange timeless aspect it often does in moments of emergency, with a man’s whole being focused on the fleeting now—you know, in an academic sort of way, that things are moving fast, you are moving fast yourself, but there seems plenty of time to make decisions, to look things over and decide what has to be done, to move precisely, with minimum effort and maximum effect.

Whatever the thing at his feet was, it was out of the picture now—it had not even twitched after the heavy bullet tore through it. There was a stomping rush in the little thicket he had been watching. Ed took two long quick steps to one side to clear a couple of trees, threw up the gun and fired as something flashed across a thin spot in the brush. He heard the whack of the bullet in flesh and fired again. Ordinarily he did not like to shoot at things he could not see clearly, but this did not seem the time to be overly finicky. There was no further movement in the brush.

He stood there several long moments, listening, and there was no further movement anywhere. He eased the hammer down, fed in three rounds to replace those he had used, and walked slowly back to the first thing he had shot.

At that range, the bullet had not opened up, but it had not needed to. It had practically exploded the creature anyway—the .450 has two tons of striking energy at the muzzle. From what was left, Ed deduced a smallish, rabbit-sized thing, smooth-skinned, muscular, many-legged, flattish, mottled to camouflage perfectly in the leaves. There was a head at one end, mostly undamaged since it had been at the end of a long muscular neck, with a pair of glazing beady eyes and a surprisingly small mouth. When Ed pressed on the muscles at the base of the skull, the mouth gaped roundly and a two-inch long spine slid smoothly out of an inconspicuous slot just below it.

At middling distances or better, Ed could still see as well as ever, but close up he needed help. He got out his pocket magnifier and studied the spine. It looked hollow, grooved back for a distance from the point. A drop of milky looking substance trembled on its tip.

Ed nodded thoughtfully to himself. This was what had made him uneasy, he was pretty sure. What was the thing in the brush, then? Innocent bystander? He got stiffly to his feet, conscious now of the ache in his wrist that had taken most of the recoil of the first shot, the torn web between his right thumb and forefinger where the hammer spur had bitten in; and walked over to the thicket.

The thing in the brush was larger, quite a bit larger, and the bullets had not torn it up so badly. It lay sprawled with three of its eight legs doubled under it, a bear-sized animal with a gaping, cavernous, toothless mouth out of all proportion to the slender body which seemed designed mainly as a frame for the muscular legs. It was not quite dead. As Ed came up it struggled feebly to get up, but one of the heavy slugs had evidently hit the spine, or whatever carried communications to the hindquarters. It fell back, shuddering convulsively, and suddenly regurgitated a small, furry animal.

Ed stepped back quickly to bring his rifle to bear, but the newest arrival was obviously already dead.

He turned his attention back to the larger animal. It, too, was dead now. There was an obvious family resemblance to the smaller one he had shot in the leaves. Both were smooth-skinned, many-legged, and now that he looked closely he could see this one had two mouths, a small one just under the nostrils, purse-lipped and tiny in its huge face but quite like that of the other creature. Neither looked even remotely like anything he had ever seen before.

He laid down his rifle and took out his knife.

Ten minutes later, he knew quite a bit about the thing, but what he knew did not make much sense. In the first place, its blood was green, a yellowish pussy green. In the second place, the larger mouth, complete with jaws and impressive musculature, opened not into a digestive system, but into a large closed pouch which comprised most of the animal’s torso. There was no proper digestive system at all, only a rudimentary gut, heavily laced with blood vessels, terminating at one end in the small second mouth, at the other in an even smaller anus. Otherwise, the thing had no insides except a good pair of lungs and a stout heart—none at all. Bone, muscle, lung, heart—plus the ridiculously inadequate gut—that was it.

What about the small, furry, animal then; the one the other had been carrying in its pouch? There was nothing much out-of-the-way about it—a feline sort of carnivore, something like a marten. The fur looked interesting, and he skinned it out, casing the hide. On the left ham, the skin was punctured and there was a swollen, bluish area—about the sort of wound that would be made by the fang of the first thing he had shot. Ed squatted back on his heels, studying it and putting two and two together. What two and two made was pretty hard to believe, but it fitted the evidence.

He wiped his knife carefully on the grass, put it back in its sheath, and got to his feet. Suddenly, the feeling that he was not alone recurred. He looked quickly around.

Back where he had shot the first thing, a man in forest-green whipcord trousers and jacket was leaning over, hands on knees, looking at the remains. The man looked up and met Ed’s eyes. He nodded casually and walked over to the second thing, prodded it with his toe. After a long moment he nodded again to Ed, smiled briefly, and winked out.

Ed stared at the empty air where the other man had been, mouth open.

It was just a little too much. A lot of things had happened to him in the last few days, he had been able to take most of them more or less as they came along, but after all, he wasn’t a chicken any more, he was pushing sixty, and there is a limit to what a man should have to put up with at that age. The thought of his snug cabin, with a good fire going, moosemeat bubbling in the pot, the gas lantern hissing, and the bottle of Hudson’s Bay rum he had tucked under the eaves against just such an occasion as this, was suddenly very appealing.

Besides, it was getting late, and he didn’t think he cared to be stumbling around this world in the dark.

He elbowed his pack up, hooked the left shoulder strap, and headed for home, staying off the trail in ordinary caution and watching his footing, but moving pretty fast just the same.

Actually, he need not have been so careful.

The Harn had been surprised and shocked by the explosive violence of the man’s reaction to a routine harvesting maneuver. It was a relatively young Harn, but it retained memories of its own world, where there were also nasty, violent things which killed Harn. It was not pleasant to think that it might have evoked some such monster in this hitherto peaceful place.

Then, to top that, there had been the sudden appearance of the Warden. The Harn, of course, saw the Warden not as a man, but in its true aspect, which was not at all friendly.

All in all, this did not seem the moment to start any new adventures. The Harn pulled in all its mobile units, including the stinger it had left at the hole into the other world. It huddled protectively together in its nest, considering these new developments.

By ten that evening, Ed, in conference with old Tom and the bottle of Hudson’s Bay, had done considerable hard thinking, pro and con.

Of course, he didn’t have to go into the other world, just because the hole was there. He could block it off, seal it up with timbers and forget it.

He sat there and thought about this, absently smoothing the strange fur on his knee. For an old-timer like himself, things weren’t too hot in this world. Fur didn’t bring much of a price any more, and he couldn’t get it in as he had when he was younger. His wants were simple, but there was a certain rock-bottom minimum he had to have. Too, the winters were starting to bother him a little, the arthritis in his hands was getting worse every year, times he hardly had the strength in his left hand, which was the worst, to hold an ax. Another five, ten, years and it would be the Pioneers’ Home for him—if he did not get stove up or sick sooner and die right here in the cabin, too helpless to cut wood for the fire. He had helped bury enough others, bed and all when they didn’t come down the river at breakup and somebody had to go up and look for them, to know it was possible.

The other world was milder, it had game and fur—good fur, too, from the looks of it, something new that could lick any mutation or synthetic on the market, and the income tax had still left a few fellows who could pay through the nose to see their women look nice.

And, the country was new. He’d never thought he’d have a crack at a new country again, a new, good country. Often, he’d thought how lucky people had been who were born a hundred and fifty years ago, moving into an easy, rich country like the Ohio or Kentucky when it was new, instead of the bitter North.

The Harn would be a nuisance— Ed did not think of it as the Harn, of course, but just as “they”—but he supposed he could find a way to clean them out. A man generally could, if varmints got troublesome enough.

And the man in forest-green whipcord, well, he could have been just an hallucination. Ed did not really believe in hallucinations, but he had heard about them, and there was always a first time.

Ed sighed, looked at the clock, measured the bottle with his eye— still better than three quarters full.

All in all, he guessed, he’d leave the door into the other world open.

He put old Tom out and went to bed.

The first order of business seemed to be to get better acquainted with the Harn, and first thing in the morning he set about it. He took the rabbit out of the live box and tethered it in a spot in the other world close to the hole, where raw earth had been exposed by a big blowdown, sweeping the ground afterward to clear it of tracks.

Getting better acquainted with the Harn, though, did not mean he had to have it come in and crawl in bed with him.

Before going to bed the night before, he had set half a can of snuff to steep in some water. He loaded a bug gun with this and sprayed the ground around the hole into the other world. From the reaction yesterday, he judged the stinging units did not like tobacco juice, and this should discourage them from coming through.

He checked his bear snares and found three in good enough shape to satisfy him—the large Harn beast, he suspected, would be about like a grizzly to hold. Three would hardly be enough for a serious trapping program. Ed made his own snares from old aircraft control cable, using a lock of his own devising which slid smoothly and cinched down tight and permanently. He got out his roll of wire and box of locks and started making up some more, sitting where he could watch the rabbit he had staked out.

By the middle of the afternoon the snares were done, but there had been no action with the rabbit, nor was there for the rest of the day.

In the morning, though, it was gone. There were three new sets of tracks in the bare spot—two smaller ones, either of which would have fitted the stinging unit, and what looked like a carrier’s. The action was clear enough. The small things had prowled around the rabbit for some time, stopping frequently as if uncertain and suspicious. Finally, one had moved in, with a little flurry of action when it met the rabbit. Then it had moved back and squatted again. The big tracks came directly to the rabbit and went right out again. They were heavy enough to be clear in the grass beyond the bare spot.

Ed went back to the cabin and rummaged till he found a pair of snake proof pants a Stateside sport had once given him—heavy duck with an interlining of woven wire. They were heavy and uncomfortable to wear, and about as useless as wings on a pig in Alaska, where there are no snakes; but they had been brand-new and expensive when given to him, and he had put them away, thinking vaguely he might find a use for them some day. It looked like that day might be now.

He slipped them on, took his rifle and hunting pack, and set out to follow the animal that had taken the rabbit.

The trail showed well in the morning dew, going straight away along the hillside as if the thing were headed some place definite. Ed followed along for a quarter mile or so, then found himself on a fairly well beaten path, which presently joined another, and then another, till it was a definitely well used trail. It began to look to him like the thing might have a den of some sort, and he might be getting pretty close to it. He left the trail and climbed up into a lone tall tree, fire-scorched but still struggling for life. From there, he could follow the trail pretty well with his glasses for a couple of hundred yards before he lost it. Finally, he settled on a spot under an old burnt stump as a likely spot for the den.

He focused the glasses carefully and after a few minutes saw a flash of movement there, as if something had slipped in or out. Nothing else happened for about an hour. Then the grass along one of the trails began to wave and a large beast, similar to the one he had shot, trotted into sight. It slipped in under the stump and disappeared.

For the rest of the morning, nothing went in or out.

There was a very good reason for this, and Ed was it.

All night and day after he shot the stinging unit and the carrier unit, the Harn had stayed in its nest. By the second evening, it was getting hungry. It ventured out and found a few morsels, but the organized hunting network it ordinarily maintained had been disrupted, it had lost track of things, and the pickings were poor. Then it stumbled on the rabbit Ed had staked out.

Its first impulse was to leave the rabbit strictly alone. In spite of its early promise, the other world had so far given nothing but trouble. On the other hand, the rabbit was meat, and very good meat, by the smell and looks of it…

The Harn kept its observation unit prowling irresolutely around the target for half the night before it finally gave in to appetite and sent in a stinger to finish the rabbit off, a carrier to pick it up.

It was still uneasy about this when it noticed Ed near the nest the next morning, confirming its fears. It promptly broke up the net it had been re-establishing and pulled all units back in. Maybe if it left him strictly alone, he might still go on about his business, whatever that was, and let the Harn get back to its harvesting.

By noon, Ed was getting pretty stiff sitting in the tree. He climbed down and eased over toward the stump, watching where he set his feet. He was pretty sure the snakeproof pants would stop the stingers, but he saw no point in putting them to the test until he had to.

About fifty yards away, he got a good view, and it did look like there might be a sizable hole under the stump. He studied it carefully with the glasses. There was a smooth-beaten mound in front, and exposed roots were worn slick.

As he got closer, he noticed an unpleasant smell, and near the mouth of the den he got a sudden whiff that almost gagged him—a sour, acid, carrion stink like a buzzard’s nest. He moved back a little. The hole was wide and fairly high, two or three feet, but too dark to see back into. Still, he had a sense of something stirring there not too far back.

Ed had considerable respect for caves and dens with unseen occupants—he had once helped carry in the bodies of two men who had poked a stick into a spring grizzly’s den. At the same time, he wanted pretty badly to know what was in there. He suspected there was a good deal more than what he had already seen.

The bug gun loaded with tobacco juice was in his pack, and a flashlight, a small light one designed for a lady’s purse which he always carried when away from camp. He got them out and leaned his rifle against a root sticking out just to the left of the den. Taking the bug gun in his left hand and the flashlight in his right, he stooped over to shine the light in, keeping as well clear of the entrance as possible.

All in all, he must have got about a five-second look, which is a lot longer than it sounds when things are happening.

His first impression was a jumble—eyes, scurrying movement, and bulk. Then things started to shape up. About ten feet back from the entrance was a huge, flattish, naked, scabrous bulk, pimpled with finger-sized teats. Clustered around and behind this were a tangle of stinging units, carrier units, observation units. Some had their mouths fixed to teats.

For a long second or two the scene stayed frozen.

Then the front edge of the bulk split and began to gape. Ed found himself looking down a manhole-sized gullet into a shallow puddle of slime with bits of bone sticking up here and there. Toward the near end a soggy mass of fur that might have been the rabbit seemed to be visibly melting down. At the same moment, the tangle of lesser monsters sorted themselves out and a wave of stingers came boiling out at him.

Ed dropped the flashlight, gave two mighty pumps of the bug gun, and jumped clear of the entrance. For a moment, the den mouth boiled with stingers, hissing and bucking in agony. Ed sprayed them heavily again, snatched up his rifle, and ran, looking back over his shoulder. The stingers showed no inclination to follow, though, the tobacco juice seemed to be keeping them well occupied for the moment.

Halfway home, Ed had to stop and rest for a moment while he took a spell of shuddering and gagging as a sudden picture of the slimy gullet came into his mind, with Ed Brown laying where the rabbit had been, melting down into a stinking soup of bones and gobbets of flesh.

When he got to the hole, his arrangement of tin cans, traps, and tobacco juice no longer looked nearly as secure as it had. He got his ax and cut two stout posts, framing the hole; built a stout slab door and hung it from them. Then he drove stakes close together at the threshold, to foil any attempts to dig under, and trimmed a sill tight to the door.

His feeling in this matter, as it happened, was sound.

The Harn was beginning to develop a pretty strong dislike for Ed Brown. Three of its stinging units were dead, and most of the rest were in poor shape, thanks to the tobacco spray. It had got a little whiff of the stuff itself, not enough to do any serious damage ordinarily, but right now, so close to swarming time—

Ed was going to have to go.

So far, in this world, the Harn had needed only the three basic types of mobile units. There were other standard types, however, for dealing with more complicated situations. As it happened, a couple of carrier embryos were at just about the right stage. With a little forcing, they could be brought on in not too long a time. Meanwhile, the Harn would do what it could with the material available.

When Ed came through, the next day to set his snares, the Harn was prepared to test his snakeproof pants. They held, which was disconcerting to the Harn, but it was a hard creature to convince, once thoroughly aroused. Ed was not too sure of how well the pants would stand up to persistent assault himself. After the third ambush, he took to spraying suspicious looking spots with tobacco juice. He shot two more stingers in this way, but it slowed him up quite a bit. It took him all day to make four sets.

In the next three days he made a dozen sets and caught two carriers. Then, the fourth day, as he adjusted a snare, a seeming root suddenly came to life and slashed at his hand. He was wearing gloves to keep his scent from the snares, and the fang caught the glove and just grazed the ball of his left thumb. The hatchet he had been using to cut a toggle was lying by his knee. He snatched it up and chopped the stinger before it could strike again, then yanked off the glove and looked at his hand. A thin scratch, beaded with drops of blood, showed on the flesh. Unhesitatingly, he drew the razor edge of the hatchet across it, sucked and spat, sucked and spat again and again. Then he started for home.

He barely made it. By the time he got to the hole, he was a very sick man. He latched the door, stumbled into the cabin and fell on the bed.

It was several days before he was able to be about again, his hand still partly paralyzed.

During that time, the situation changed. The Harn took the offensive.

Ed’s first notice of this was a rhythmic crashing outside the cabin. He managed to crawl to where he could see the gate he had built to block the hole into the other world. It was shaking from repeated batterings from the other side. Dragging his rifle with his good hand, he scrabbled down to where he could see through the chinks in the slab door. Two of the carrier units were there, taking turns slamming their full weight against it. He had built that gate skookum, but not to take something like that.

He noted carefully where they were hitting it, then backed off twenty feet and laid the .450 across a log. He let them hit the door twice more to get the timing before he loosed off a shot, at the moment of impact. The battering stopped abruptly, and through the chinks he could see a bulk piled against the gate.

For a while there was no more action. Then, after a few tentative butts at the door, the battering started again. This time, Ed wasn’t so lucky. The battering stopped when he fired, but he got an impression that the carrier ran off. He thought he might have hit it, but not mortally.

In an hour or so the Harn was back, and it kept coming back. Ed began to worry about his ammunition, which was not unlimited. Ordinarily, two or three boxes lasted him through the winter. He got his .30-06, for which he had a sugar sack full of military ammunition. The light full-patch stuff did not have the discouraging effect of the .450 though, and he had to shoot a lot oftener.

Another thing, he wasn’t getting any rest, which was bad in his already weakened condition. Every time he dozed off the battering would start again, and he would have to wake up and snap a few shots through the door. He held pretty much on one spot, not wanting to shoot the door to pieces, but the Harn noticed this, and started hitting the door in other places.

The second day of the attack, the door came down. It had been pretty shaky for some time, and Ed had got the cabin ready for a siege, filling butter kegs with water and nailing up the windows. As the Harn poured through, he shot several and then broke for the cabin. A carrier ran at him full tilt, bent on bowling him over. Once off his feet, he would have been easy meat for one of the stinger’s. He sidestepped, swung his shotgun up in one hand—he had kept it handy for the close fighting— and blew the carrier’s spine in half. He had to kick it aside to slam the cabin door.

For a few minutes, then, things were pretty hectic. Ed went from one to another of the loopholes he had cut, blasting first with the shotgun as the Harn crowded around, then using the .30 as they grew more cautious.

After the first rush, it was obvious to the Harn that the cabin was going to be a tough nut to crack. On the other hand, there was no rush about it either. Necessarily, it had let its hunting go the past several days while it concentrated on Ed. It was pretty hungry, and it was in rich pickings now—Ed had always kept from disturbing game close to the cabin, partly because he liked to see it around, and partly because he had an idea that some day he might be in a fix where he couldn’t travel very well, and would want meat close to hand. The Harn felt no such compunctions. The stinging units spread through the woods, and shortly a steady procession of loaded carriers began to stream back through the hole. Ed picked off the first few, but then the Harn found it could route them up the river trail in such a way that he got only a glimpse as they flashed through the hole. After that he did not hit very many.

Ed stopped shooting. He was getting short on ammunition for the .30 now, too. He counted up. There were eighteen rounds for the .450, half a box of 220 grain soft point for the .30 plus about the same amount of military stuff, and a handful of shotgun shells. Of course, there was still the .30 Luger with a couple of boxes, and the .22; but they were not much account for this kind of work.

He looked at the cabin door. It was stout, built of hewed three-inch slabs, but it wouldn’t last forever against the kind of beating the gate had got. Even if it did, he was going to run out of water eventually.

Ed thought about that for a while, sitting at the table staring at the little pile of cartridges. He was going to be run out of here sooner or later, he might as well pick his own time, and now seemed about as good as any, while the Harn was busy exploring and hunting.

He sighed and got up to rummage around the cabin. The snakeproof pants had done real good, but he did not trust them entirely. There was some sheet iron laid over the ceiling joists, which he had brought up to make new stoves for his line camps. He got this down and cut it into small pieces. Around the edges he drilled a number of small holes. Then he got out his mending gear and began sewing the plates, in an overlapping pattern, to the legs of the snakeproof pants and to an old pair of moccasins. When he finished, he was pretty well armored as far as his crotch. It was an awkward outfit to move around in, but as long as he was able to stay on his feet, he figured he would be reasonably secure from the stingers. As for the bigger ones, he would just have to depend on seeing them first, and the .450.

Next, he needed some gasoline. The fuel cache was under a big spruce, about twenty yards from the door. He made the round of his loopholes. There were no Harn in sight, they were apparently ignoring him for now. He slipped out the door, closing it securely behind him, and started for the cache.

As he stepped out, a stinger came from under the sill log and lashed at his foot. He killed it with the ax beside the door, saving a cartridge, and went on, walking fairly fast but planting his feet carefully, a little awkward in his armor. He picked up a five-gallon can of gas, a quart of motor oil, and the twenty feet of garden hose he used for siphoning gas down the bank to the boat. On the way back, another stinger hit him. He kicked it aside, not wanting to set down his load, and it came at him again and again. Just outside the door, he finally caught it under a heel and methodically trampled it to death. Then he snatched open the door, tossed the stuff inside, and pulled it quickly shut behind him.

So far, good enough.

He lashed the gas can solidly to .his packboard, slipped the end of the hose into the flexible spout and wired it tight. Then he cut up an old wool undershirt and wrapped the pieces” around miscellaneous junk—old nuts and bolts, chunks of leadline, anything to make up half a dozen packages of good throwing heft. He soaked these in oil and stowed them in a musette bag which he snapped to the D-rings of the pack.

One of the metal plates on his moccasin was hanging by a thread, probably he had torn it loose in the scuffle at the door. They weren’t going to take too much kicking and banging around, he could see, and once he was on his way, it wouldn’t be a very good idea to be caught bending over with his bare hands at ground level to fix them. On the other hand, he couldn’t be using all his cartridges on the stingers, either, he had to save them for the carriers. He thought about this some while mending the moccasin, and decided to take the bug gun. It might not kill the stingers, but it ought to discourage them enough so they wouldn’t keep pestering him.

With his bad left arm, he had trouble getting the pack on his back. He finally managed by swinging it up on the table first. It was not too much of a load, forty or fifty pounds he guessed. Still, shaky as he was, it was about as much as he could manage. He had intended to just try it on for size, but after he got it up he thought: well, why not now? He picked up the .450, stowed the extra cartridges in his pocket, checked to make sure he had matches, hung the bug gun on his belt, and opened the door.

It was just getting dusk, but the other world was in broad daylight, the days and nights were almost completely reversed again. As he stepped through the hole, the first stinger struck. He gave it a good squirt of tobacco juice. It went bucking and twisting off and he went on, stepping carefully and solidly.

Luckily, most of the Harn was foraging in the new world. Two more stingers ambushed him, but the tobacco juice got rid of them, and he had no serious trouble till he got close to the den. Two carriers came out and rushed him there. He shot them both and then killed the stinger that was pecking at his shins. He moved quickly now, he had an idea that in about a minute all hell would break loose. He swung the pack down on the uphill side of the den, wet the musette bag with a quick spray of gas, tossed it over his shoulder, jammed the free end of the hose into the den mouth and stabbed the can with his knife to vent it. As the gas poured into the den he lit one of his oil and gas soaked bombs and ran around in front, lighting one after another from the one in his hand and tossing them into the den. The musette bag caught fire and he snatched it from his shoulder and tossed it after the bombs. A whoof and a sheet of flame blew out.

About fifty yards away there was a slender, popplelike tree. Ed had thought if he could make that, he would be reasonably secure while the Harn burned. He ran for it as hard as he could, beating at the flames that had spattered on him from the burning gas, but he never made it.

Harn were erupting everywhere. A carrier suddenly came charging out of the brush to his left. While Ed dealt with that one, the Harn played its ace in the hole. The two special units it had been developing to deal with Ed were not quite done yet, but they were done enough to work for the few minutes the Harn needed them. Ed heard a coughing grunt behind him and spun around to see something new crawling out of the flame and smoke at the den entrance.

This one was a roughly carrier shaped creature, but half again as large, built for killing. It had powerful fanged jaws and its eight feet were armed with knifelike, disemboweling claws. As it came at Ed in a lumbering rush, another came crawling out after it.

Ed shot four times, as fast as he could work the action. The heavy slugs did the job, but not quite well enough. With its dying lunge the thing got to him and tossed him ten feet like a rag doll. He lit on his bad hand and felt the wrist bones go.

As he struggled to get up, digging his elbow in and using one hand, he saw a stinger darting in at him. He had lost both the bug gun and his rifle when the fighting unit swiped him. He swiveled on his hips and kicked the stinger away. Then he saw the second fighting unit coming. He forgot about the stinger. It still might get to him, but, if it did, it would be too late to matter.

He drew his knife, managed to get to one knee, and crouched there like an old gray rat, stubbly lips drawn back from worn teeth in a grin of pain and rage. This was one he wasn’t going to win, he guessed.

Ten feet away, the fighting unit suddenly ran down like a clockwork toy. It toppled over, skidded past him under its own momentum, and lay there kicking spasmodically. Ed glared at it uncomprehendingly. It arched its neck back to almost touch its haunches, stiffened, and was still.

Ed looked around. The stinger was dead too, three feet from his shoulder, and half a dozen more which had been making for him. A cloud of greasy, stinking smoke was rolling out of the den. The Harn was dead.

Ed put his knife away and lay back. He did not quite pass out, but things got pretty dim.

After a while he got hold of himself and sat up. He was not too surprised to see the man in forest green prodding at the bodies of the fighting units. The stranger looked at the smoke still oozing from the den and nodded approvingly. Then he came over and looked at Ed. He clucked his tongue in concern and bent over, touching Ed’s wrist. Ed noticed there was now a cast on it, and it didn’t hurt so much. There was also a plastic binding around his ribs and shoulder, where the claws of the first fighter had raked as it tossed him. That was a mighty neat trick, because the rags of his shirt were still buttoned around him, and he was pretty sure it had not been off at any time.

The stranger smiled at Ed, patted him on the shoulder, and disappeared He seemed to be a busy sort of fellow, Ed thought, with not much time for visiting.

Ed felt quite a bit better now, enough better to gather up what was left of his gear and start home. He was glad to find old Tom waiting for him there. The cat had taken to the woods when the attack on the gate first started, he didn’t like shooting, and Ed had worried that the Harn might have got him.

Ed slept till noon the next day, got up and cooked a dozen flapjacks and a pound of bacon. After breakfast, he sat around for an hour or so drinking coffee. Then he spent the rest of the afternoon puttering around the cabin.

He packed away the snakeproof pants, disassembled the flame-thrower, picked up the traps by the hole.

Old Tom seemed to have pretty well cleaned up the mice under the lean-to. Ed took his shovel and filled in the hole he had dug for the cat to get at them.

He went to bed early. Tomorrow he would take a long hike around the new world, scout out the fur and game, plan his trap-line and pick cabin sites.

The next morning, though, the hole into the other world was gone.

The posts which had marked it were sheared neatly in half. The remains of the door still hung there, battered and sagging; but it swung open on nothing but Alaska, when Ed stepped through he found himself standing beside the old leaning birch.

He tried it several times before he convinced himself.

He walked slowly back toward the cabin, feeling old and uncertain, not quite knowing what to do with himself. Old Tom was over by the lean-to, sniffing and pawing tentatively at the fresh earth where Ed had filled in the hole. As Ed came up, he came over to rub against Ed’s leg.

They went into the cabin and Ed started fixing breakfast.

THE ALLEY MAN

Philip Jose Farmer

The man from the puzzle factory was here this morning,“ X said Gummy. ”While you was out fishin.“ She dropped the piece of wiremesh she was trying to tie with string over a hole in the rusty window screen. Cursing, grunting like a hog in a wallow, she leaned over and picked it up. Straightening, she slapped viciously at her bare shoulder.

“Figurin skeeters! Must be a million outside, all tryin to get away from the burnin garbage.”

“Puzzle factory?” said Deena. She turned away from the battered kerosene-burning stove over which she was frying sliced potatoes and perch and bullheads caught in the Illinois River, half a mile away.

“Yeah!” snarled Gummy. “You heard Old Man say it. Nuthouse. Booby hatch. So… this cat from the puzzle factory was named John Elkins. He gave Old Man all those tests when they had him locked up last year. He’s the skinny little guy with a moustache ”n never lookin you in the eye ‘n grinnin like a skunk eatin a shirt. The cat who took Old Man’s hat away from him ’n woun’t give it back to him until Old Man promised to be good. Remember now?“ Deena, tall, skinny, clad only in a white terrycloth bathrobe, looked like a surprised and severed head stuck on a pike. The great purple birthmark on her cheek and neck stood out hideously against her paling skin.

“Are they going to send him back to the State hospital?” she asked.

Gummy, looking at herself in the cracked full-length mirror nailed to the wall, laughed and showed her two teeth. Her frizzy hair was a yellow brown, chopped short. Her little blue eyes were set far back in tunnels beneath two protruding ridges of bone; her nose was very long, enormously wide, and tipped with a broken-veined bulb. Her chin was not there, and her head bent forward in a permanent crook. She was dressed only in a dirty once-white slip that came to her swollen knees. When she laughed, her huge breasts, resting on her distended belly, quivered like bowls of fermented cream. From her expression, it was evident that she was not displeased with what she saw in the broken glass.

Again she laughed. “Naw, they din’t come to haul him away. Elkins just wanted to interduce this chick he had with him. A cute little brunette with big brown eyes behint real thick glasses. She looked just like a collidge girl, ‘n she was. This chick has got a B.M. or somethin in sexology…”

“Psychology?”

“Maybe it was societyology…”

“Sociology?”

“Umm. Maybe. Anyway, this foureyed chick is doin a study for a foundation. She wants to ride aroun with Old Man, see how he collects his junk, what alleys he goes up ‘n down, what his, uh, habit patterns is, ’n learn what kinda bringin up he had…”

“Old Man’d never do it!” burst out Deena. “You know he can’t stand the idea of being watched by a False Folker!”

“Umm. Maybe. Anyway, I tell em Old Man’s not goin to like their slummin on him, ‘n they say quick they’re not slummin, it’s for science. ’N they’ll pay him for his trouble. They got a grant from the foundation. So I say maybe that’d make Old Man take another look at the color of the beer, ‘n they left the house…”

“You allowed them in the house? Did you hide the birdcage?”

“Why hide it? His hat wasn’t in it.”

Deena turned back to frying her fish, but over her shoulder she said, “I don’t think Old Man’ll agree to the idea, do you? It’s rather degrading.”

“You kiddin? Who’s lower’n Old Man? A snake’s belly, maybe. Sure, he’ll agree. He’ll have an eye for the foureyed chick, sure.”

“Don’t be absurd,” said Deena. “He’s a dirty stinking one-armed middle-aged man, the ugliest man in the world.”

“Yeah, it’s the uglies he’s got, for sure. ‘N he smells like a goat that fell in a outhouse. But it’s the smell that gets em. It got me, it got you, it got a whole stewpotful a others, includin that high society dame he used to collect junk off of…”

“Shut up!” spat Deena. “This girl must be a highly refined and intelligent girl. She’d regard Old Man as some sort of ape.”

“You know them apes,” said Gummy, and she went to the ancient refrigerator and took out a cold quart of beer.

Six quarts of beer later, Old Man had still not come home. The fish had grown cold and greasy, and the big July moon had risen. Deena, like a long lean dirty-white nervous alley cat on top of a backyard fence, patrolled back and forth across the shanty. Gummy sat on the bench made of crates and hunched over her bottle. Finally, she lurched to her feet and turned on the battered set. But, • hearing a rattling and pounding of a loose motor in the distance, she turned it off.

The banging and popping became a roar just outside the door. Abruptly, there was a mighty wheeze, like an old rusty robot coughing with double pneumonia in its iron lungs. Then, silence.

But not for long. As the two women stood paralyzed, listening apprehensively, they heard a voice like the rumble of distant thunder.

“Take it easy, kid.”

Another voice, soft, drowsy, mumbling.

“Where… we?”

The voice like thunder, “Home, sweet home, where we rest our dome.”

Violent coughing.

“It’s this smoke from the burnin garbage, kid. Enough to make a maggot puke, ain’t it? Lookit! The smoke’s risin’t‘ward the full moon like the ghosts a men so rotten even their spirits’re carryin the contamination with em. Hey, li’l chick, you din’t know Old Man knew them big words like contamination, didja? That’s what livin on the city dump does for you. I hear that word all a time from the big shots that come down inspectin the stink here so they kin get away from the stink a City Hall. I ain’t no illiterate. I got a TV set. Hor, hor, hor!”

There was a pause, and the two women knew he was bending his knees and tilting his torso backward so he could look up at the sky.

“Ah, you lovely lovely moon, bride a The Old Guy In The Sky! Some day to come, rum-a-dum-a-dum, one day I swear it, Old Woman a The Old Guy In The Sky, if you help me find the longlost headpiece a King Paley that I and my fathers been lookin for for fifty thousand years, so help me, Old Man Paley’ll spread the freshly spilled blood a a virgin a the False Folkers out acrosst the ground for you, so you kin lay down in it like a red carpet or a new red dress and wrap it aroun you. And then you won’t have to crinkle up your lovely shinin nose at me and spit your silver spit on me. Old Man promises that, just as sure as his good arm is holdin a daughter a one a the Falsers, a virgin, I think, and bringin her to his home, however humble it be, so we shall see…”

“Stoned out a his head,” whispered Gummy.

“My God, he’s bringing a girl in here!” said Deena. “The girl!”

“Not the collidge kid?”

“Does the idiot want to get lynched?”

The man outside bellowed, “Hey, you wimmen, get off your fat asses and open the door ‘fore I kick it in! Old Man’s home with a fistful a dollars, a armful a sleepin lamb, and a gutful a beer! Home like a conquerin hero and wants service like one, too!”

Suddenly unfreezing, Deena opened the door.

Out of the darkness and into the light shuffled something so squat and blocky it seemed more a tree trunk come to life than a man. It stopped, and the eyes under the huge black homburg hat blinked glazedly. Even the big hat could not hide the peculiar lengthened-out bread-loaf shape of the skull. The forehead was abnormally low; over the eyes were bulging arches of bone. These were tufted with eyebrows like Spanish moss that made even more cavelike the hollows in which the little blue eyes lurked. Its nose was very long and very wide and flaring-nostriled. The lips were thin but pushed out by the shoving jaws beneath them. Its chin was absent, and head and shoulders joined almost without intervention from a neck, or so it seemed. A corkscrew forest of rusty-red hairs sprouted from its open shirt front.

Over his shoulder, held by a hand wide and knobbly as a coral branch, hung the slight figure of a young woman.

He shuffled into the room in an odd bent-kneed gait, walking on the sides of his thick-soled engineer’s boots. Suddenly, he stopped again, sniffed deeply, and smiled, exposing teeth thick and yellow, dedicated to biting.

“Jeez, that smells good. It takes the old garbage stink right off. Gummy! You been sprinklin yourself with that perfume I found in a ash heap up on the bluffs?”

Gummy, giggling, looked coy.

Deena said, sharply, “Don’t be a fool, Gummy. He’s trying to butter you up so you’ll forget he’s bringing this girl home.”

Old Man Paley laughed hoarsely and lowered the snoring girl upon an Army cot. There she sprawled out with her skirt around her hips. Gummy cackled, but Deena hurried to pull the skirt down and also to remove the girl’s thick shell-rimmed glasses.

“Lord,” she said, “how did this happen? What’d you do to her?”

“Nothin,” he growled, suddenly sullen.

He took a quart of beer from the refrigerator, bit down on the cap with teeth thick and chipped as ancient gravestones, and tore it off. Up went the bottle, forward went his knees, back went his torso and he leaned away from the bottle, and down went the amber liquid, gurgle, gurgle, glub. He belched, then roared. “There I was, Old Man Paley, mindin my own figurin business, packin a bunch a papers and magazines I found, and here comes a blue fifty-one

Ford sedan with Elkins, the doctor jerk from the puzzle factory. And this little foureyed chick here, Dorothy Singer. And…“

“Yes,” said Deena. “We know who they are, but we didn’t know they went after you.”

“Who asked you? Who’s tellin this story? Anyway, they tole me what they wanted. And I was gonna say no, but this little collidge broad says if I’ll sign a paper that’ll agree to let her travel aroun with me and even stay in our house a couple a evenins, with us actin natural, she’ll pay me fifty dollars. I says yes! Old Guy In The Sky! That’s a hundred and fifty quarts a beer! I got principles, but they’re washed away in a roarin foamin flood of beer.

“I says yes, and the cute little runt give me the paper to sign, then advances me ten bucks and says I’ll get the rest seven days from now. Ten dollars in my pocket! So she climbs up into the seat a my truck. And then this figurin Elkins parks his Ford and says he thinks he ought a go with us to check on if everythin’s gonna be OK.”

“He’s not foolin Old Man. He’s after Little Miss Foureyes. Everytime he looks at her, the lovejuice runs out a his eyes. So, I collect junk for a couple a hours, talkin all the time. And she is scared a me at first because I’m so figurin ugly and strange. But after a while she busts out laughin. Then I pulls the truck up in the alley back a Jack’s Tavern on Ames Street. She asks me what I’m doin. I says I’m stoppin for a beer, just as I do every day. And she says she could stand one, too. So…”

“You actually went inside with her?” asked Deena.

“Naw. I was gonna try, but I started gettin the shakes. And I hadda tell her I coun’t do it. She asks me why. I say I don’t know. Ever since I quit bein a kid, I kin’t. So she says I got a… somethin like a fresh flower, what is it?”

“Neurosis?” said Deena.

“Yeah. Only I call it a taboo. So Elkins and the little broad go into Jack’s and get a cold six-pack, and brin it out, and we’re off…”

“So?”

“So we go from place to place, though always stayin in alleys, and she thinks it’s funnier’n hell gettin loaded in the backs a taverns. Then I get to seein double and don’t care no more and I’m over my fraidies, so we go into the Circle Bar. And get in a fight there with one a the hillbillies in his sideburns and leather jacket that hangs out there and tries to take the foureyed chick home with him.”

Both the women gasped, “Did the cops come?”

“If they did, they was late to the party. I grab this hillbilly by his leather jacket with my one arm—the strongest arm in this world—and throw him clean acrosst the room. And when his buddies come after me, I pound my chest like a figurin gorilla and make a figurin face at em, and they all of a sudden get their shirts up their necks and go back to listenin to their hillbilly music. And I pick up the chick—she’s laughin so hard she’s chokin—and Elkins, white as a sheet out a the laundromat, after me, and away we go, and here we are.”

“Yes, you fool, here you are!” shouted Deena. “Bringing that girl here in that condition! She’ll start screaming her head off when she wakes up and sees you!”

“Go figure yourself!” snorted Paley. “She was scared a me a first, and she tried to stay upwind a me. But she got to likin' me. I could tell. And she got so she liked my smell, too. I knew she would. Don’t all the broads? These False wimmen kin’t say no once they get a whiff of us. Us Paleys got the gift in the blood.”

Deena laughed and said, “You mean you have it in the head. Honest to God, when are you going to quit trying to forcefeed me with that bull? You’re insane!”

Paley growled. “I tole you not never to call me nuts, not never!” and he slapped her across the cheek.

She reeled back and slumped against the wall, holding her face and crying, “You ugly stupid stinking ape, you hit me, the daughter of people whose boots you aren’t fit to lick. You struck me!”

“Yeah, and ain’t you glad I did,” said Paley in tones like a complacent earthquake. He shuffled over to the cot and put his hand on the sleeping girl.

“Uh, feel that. No sag there, you two flabs.”

“You beast!” screamed Deena. “Taking advantage of a helpless little girl!”

Like an alley cat, she leaped at him with claws out.

Laughing hoarsely, he grabbed one of her wrists and twisted it so she was forced to her knees and had to clench her teeth to keep from screaming with pain. Gummy cackled and handed Old Man a quart of beer. To take it, he had to free Deena. She rose, and all three, as if nothing had happened, sat down at the table and began drinking.

About dawn a deep animal snarl awoke the girl. She opened her eyes but could make out the trio only dimly and distortedly. Her hands, groping around for her glasses, failed to find them.

Old Man, whose snarl had shaken her from the high tree of sleep, growled again. “I’m tellin you, Deena, I’m tellin you, don’t laugh at Old Man, don’t laugh at Old Man, and I’m tellin you again, three times, don’t laugh at Old Man!”

His incredible bass rose to a high-pitched scream of rage.

“Whassa matter with your figurin brain? I show you proof after proof, and you sit there in all your stupidity like a silly hen that sits down too hard on its eggs and breaks em but won’t get up and admit she’s squattin on a mess. I—I—Paley—Old Man Paley—kin prove I’m what I say I am, a Real Folker.”

Suddenly, he propelled his hand across the table toward Deena.

“Feel them bones in my lower arm! Them two bones ain’t straight and dainty like the arm bones a you False Folkers. They’re thick as flagpoles, and they’re curved out from each other like the backs a two tomcats outbluffin each other over a fishhead on a garbage can. They’re built that way sos they kin be real strong anchors for my muscles, which is bigger’n False Folkers‘. Go ahead, feel em.

“And look at them brow ridges. Like the tops a those shell-rimmed spectacles all them intelleckchooalls wear. Like the spectacles this collidge chick wears.

“And feel the shape a my skull. It ain’t a ball like yours but a loaf a bread.”

“Fossilized bread!” sneered Deena. “Hard as a rock, through and through.”

Old Man roared on, “Feel my neck bones if you got the strength to feel through my muscles! They’re bent forward, not—”

“Oh, I know you’re an ape. You can’t look overhead to see if that was a bird or just a drop of rain without breaking your back.”

“Ape, hell! I’m a Real Man! Feel my heel bone! Is it like yours? No, it ain’t! Its built diff’runt, and so’s my whole foot!”

Is that why you and Gummy and all those brats of yours have to walk like chimpanzees?“

“Laugh, laugh, laugh!”

“I am laughing, laughing, laughing. Just because you’re a freak of nature, a monstrosity whose bones all went wrong in the womb, you’ve dreamed up this fantastic myth about being descended from the Neanderthals…”

“Neanderthals!” whispered Dorothy Singer. The walls whirled about her, looking twisted and ghostly in the halflight, like a room in Limbo.

“… all this stuff about the lost hat of Old King,” continued Deena, “and how if you ever find it you can break the spell that keeps you so-called Neanderthals on the dumpheaps and in the alleys, is garbage, and not very appetizing…”

“And you,” shouted Paley, “are headin for a beatin!”

“Thass what she wants,” mumbled Gummy. “Go ahead. Beat her. She’ll get her jollies off, ‘n quit needlin you. ’N we kin all get some shuteye. Besides, you’re gonna wake up the chick.”

“That chick is gonna get a wakin up like she never had before when Old Man gets his paws on her,” rumbled Paley. “Guy In The Sky, ain’t it somethin she should a met me and be in this house? Sure as an old shirt stinks, she ain’t gonna be able to tear herself away from me.

“Hey, Gummy, maybe she’ll have a kid for me, huh? We ain’t had a brat aroun here for ten years. I kinda miss my kids. You gave me six that was Real Folkers, though I never was sure about that

Jimmy, he looked too much like O’Brien. Now you’re all dried up, dry as Deena always was, but you kin still raise em. How’d you like to raise the collidge chick’s kid?“

Gummy grunted and swallowed beer from a chipped coffee mug. After belching loudly, she mumbled, “Don’t know. You’re crazier’n even I think you are if you think this cute little Miss Foureyes’d have anythin to do with you. ‘N even if she was out of her head enough to do it, what kind a life is this for a brat? Get raised in a dump? Have a ugly old maw ’n paw? Grow up so ugly nobody’d have nothin to do with him ‘n smellin so strange all the dogs’d bite him?”

Suddenly, she began blubbering.

“It ain’t only Neanderthals has to live on dumpheaps. It’s the crippled ‘n sick ’n the stupid ‘n the queer in the head that has to live here. ’N they become Neanderthals just as much as us Real Folk. No diff’runce, no diff’runce. We’re all ugly ‘n hopeless ’n rotten. We’re all Neander…”

Old Man’s fist slammed the table.

“Name me no names like that! That’s a G’yaga name for us Paleys—Real Folkers. Don’t let me never hear that other name again! It don’t mean a man; it means somethin like a high-class gorilla.”

“Quit looking in the mirror!” shrieked Deena.

There was more squabbling and jeering and roaring and confusing and terrifying talk, but Dorothy Singer had closed her eyes and fallen asleep again.

Some time later, she awoke. She sat up, found her glasses on a little table beside her, put them on, and stared about her.

She was in a large shack built of odds and ends of wood. It had two rooms, each about ten feet square. In the corner of one room was a large kerosene-burning stove. Bacon was cooking in a huge skillet; the heat from the stove made sweat run from her forehead and over her glasses.

After drying them off with her handkerchief, she examined the furnishings of the shack. Most of it was what she had expected, but three things surprised her. The bookcase, the photograph on the wall, and the birdcage.

The bookcase was tall and narrow and of some dark wood, badly scratched. It was crammed with comic books, Blue Books, and Argosies, some of which she supposed must be at least twenty years old. There were a few books whose ripped backs and water-stained covers indicated they’d been picked out of ash heaps. Haggard's Allan and the Ice Gods, Wells's Outline of History, Vol. I, and his The Croquet Player. Also Gog and Magog, A Prophecy of Armageddon by the Reverend Caleb G. Harris. Burroughs’ Tarzan the Terrible and In the Earth’s Core. Jack London’s Beyond Adam.

The framed photo on the wall was that of a woman who looked much like Deena and must have been taken around 1890. It was very large, tinted in brown, and showed an aristocratic handsome woman of about thirty-five in a high-busted velvet dress with a high neckline. Her hair was drawn severely back to a knot on top of her head. A diadem of jewels was on her breast.

The strangest thing was the large parrot cage. It stood upon a tall support which had nails driven through its base to hold it to the floor. The cage itself was empty, but the door was locked with a long narrow bicycle lock.

Her speculation about it was interrupted by the two women calling to her from their place by the stove.

Deena said, “Good morning, Miss Singer. How do you feel?”

“Some Indian buried his hatchet in my head,” Dorothy said. “And my tongue is molting. Could I have a drink of water, please?”

Deena took a pitcher of cold water out of the refrigerator, and from it filled up a tin cup.

“We don’t have any running water. We have to get our water from the gas station down the road and bring it here in a bucket.”

Dorothy looked dubious, but she closed her eyes and drank.

“I think I’m going to get sick,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“Til take you to the outhouse,” said Deena, putting her arm around the girl’s shoulder and heaving her up with surprising strength.

“Once I’m outside,” said Dorothy faintly, “I’ll be all right.”

“Oh, I know,” said Deena. “It’s the odor. The fish, Gummy’s cheap perfume, Old Man’s sweat, the beer. I forgot how it first affected me. But it’s no better outside.”

Dorothy didn’t reply, but when she stepped through the door, she murmured, “Ohh!”

“Yes, I know,” said Deena. “It’s awful, but it won’t kill you…”

Ten minutes later, Deena and a pale and weak Dorothy came out of the ramshackle outhouse.

They returned to the shanty, and for the first time Dorothy noticed that Elkins was sprawled face-up on the seat of the truck. His head hung over the end of the seat, and the flies buzzed around his open mouth.

“This is horrible,” said Deena. “He’ll be very angry when he wakes up and finds out where he is. He’s such a respectable man.”

“Let the heel sleep it off,” said Dorothy. She walked into the shanty, and a moment later Paley clomped into the room, a smell of stale beer and very peculiar sweat advancing before him in a wave.

“How you feel?” he growled in a timbre so low the hairs on the back of her neck rose.

“Sick. I think I’ll go home.”

“Sure. Only try some a the hair.”

He handed her a half-empty pint of whiskey. Dorothy reluctantly downed a large shot chased with cold water. After a brief revulsion, she began feeling better and took another shot. She then washed her face in a bowl of water and drank a third whiskey.

“I think I can go with you now,” she said. “But I don’t care for breakfast.”

“I ate already,” he said. “Let’s go. It’s ten-thirty accordin to the clock on the gas station. My alley’s prob’ly been cleaned out by now. Them other ragpickers are always moochin in on my territory when they think I’m stayin home. But you kin bet they’re scared out a their pants every time they see a shadow cause they’re afraid its Old Man and he’ll catch em and squeeze their guts out and crack their ribs with this one good arm.”

Laughing a laugh so hoarse and unhuman it seemed to come from some troll deep in the caverns of his bowels, he opened the refrigerator and took another beer.

“I need another to get me started, not to mention what I’ll have to give that damn balky bitch, Fordiana.”

As they stepped outside, they saw Elkins stumble toward the outhouse and then fall headlong through the open doorway. He lay motionless on the floor, his feet sticking out of the entrance. Alarmed, Dorothy wanted to go after him, but Paley shook his head.

“He’s a big boy; he kin take care a hisself. We got to get Fordiana up and goin.”

Fordiana was the battered and rusty pickup truck. It was parked outside Paley’s bedroom window so he could look out at any time of the night and make sure no one was stealing parts or even the whole truck.

“Not that I ought a worry about her,” grumbled Old Man. He drank three-fourths of the quart in four mighty gulps, then uncapped the truck’s radiator and poured the rest of the beer down it.

“She knows nobody else’ll give her beer, so I think that if any a these robbin figurers that live on the dump or at the shacks aroun the bend was to try to steal anythin off’n her, she’d honk and backfire and throw rods and oil all over the place so’s her Old Man could wake up and punch the figurin shirt off a the thievin figurer. But maybe not. She’s a female. And you kin’t trust a figurin female.”

He poured the last drop down the radiator and roared, “There! Now don’t you dare not turn over. You’re robbin me at the good beer I could be havin! If you so much as backfire, Old Man’ll beat hell out a you with a sledgehammer!”

Wide-eyed but silent, Dorothy climbed onto the ripped open front seat beside Paley. The starter whirred, and the motor sputtered.

“No more beer if you don’t work!” shouted Paley.

There was a bang, a fizz, a sput, a whop, whop, whop, a clash of gears, a monstrous and triumphant showing of teeth by Old Man, and they were bumpbumping over the rough ruts.

“Old Man knows how to handle all them bitches, flesh or tin, two-legged, four-legged, wheeled. I sweat beer and passion and promise em a kick in the tailpipe if they don’t behave, and that gets em all. I’m so figurin ugly I turn their stomachs. But once they get a whiff a the out-a-this-world stink a me, they’re done for, they fall prostrooted at my big hairy feet. That’s the way it’s always been with us Paley men and the G’yaga wimmen. That’s why their menfolks fear us, and why we got into so much trouble.”

Dorothy did not say anything, and Paley fell silent as soon as the truck swung off the dump and onto U.S. Route 24. He seemed to fold up into himself, to be trying to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. During the three minutes it took the truck to get from the shanty to the city limits, he kept wiping his sweating palm against his blue workman’s shirt.

But he did not try to release the tension with oaths. Instead, he muttered a string of what seemed to Dorothy nonsense rhymes.

“Eenie, meenie, mmie, moe. Be a good Guy, help me go. Hoola boola, teenie weenie, ram em, damn em, figure em, duck em, watch me go, don’t be a shmoe. Stop em, block em, sing a go go go.”

Not until they had gone a mile into the city of Onaback and turned from 24 into an alley did he relax.

“Whew! That’s torture, and I been doin it ever since I was sixteen, some years ago. Today seems worse’n ever, maybe cause you’re along. G’yaga men don’t like it if they see me with one a their wimmen, specially a cute chick like you.”

Suddenly, he smiled and broke into a song about being covered all over “with sweet violets, sweeter than all the roses.” He sang other songs, some of which made Dorothy turn red in the face though at the same time she giggled. When they crossed a street to get from one alley to another, he cut off his singing, even in the middle of a phrase, and resumed it on the other side.

Reaching the west bluff, he slowed the truck to a crawl while his little blue eyes searched the ash heaps and garbage cans at the rears of the houses. Presently, he stopped the truck and climbed down to inspect his find.

“Guy In The Sky, we’re off to a flyin start! Look!—some old grates from a coal furnace. And a pile a coke and beer bottles, all redeemable. Get down, Dor’thy—if you want to know how us ragpickers make a livin, you gotta get in and sweat and cuss with us. And if you come acrosst any hats, be sure to tell me.”

Dorothy smiled. But when she stepped down from the truck, she winced.

“What’s the matter?”

“Headache.”

“The sun’ll boil it out. Here’s how we do this collectin, see? The back end a the truck is boarded up into five sections. This section here is for the iron and the wood. This, for the paper. This, for the cardboard. You get a higher price for the cardboard. This, for rags. This, for bottles we kin get a refund on. If you find any int’restin books or magazines, put em on the seat. I’ll decide if I want to keep em or throw em in with the old paper.”

They worked swiftly, and then drove on. About a block later, they were interrupted at another heap by a leaf of a woman, withered and blown by the winds of time. She hobbled out from the back porch of a large three-storied house with diamond-shaped panes in the windows and doors and cupolas at the corners. In a quavering voice she explained that she was the widow of a wealthy lawyer who had died fifteen years ago. Not until today had she made up her mind to get rid of his collection of law books and legal papers. These were all neatly cased in cardboard boxes not too large to be handled.

Not even, she added, her pale watery eyes flickering from Paley to Dorothy, not even by a poor one-armed man and a young girl.

Old Man took off his homburg and bowed.

“Sure, ma’am, my daughter and myself’d be glad to help you out in your housecleanin.”

“Your daughter?” croaked the old woman.

“She don’t look like me a tall,” he replied. “No wonder. She’s my foster daughter, poor girl, she was orphaned when she was still fillin her diapers. My best friend was her father. He died savin my life, and as he laid gaspin his life away in my arms, he begged me to take care a her as if she was my own. And I kept my promise to my dyin friend, may his soul rest in peace. And even if I’m only a poor ragpicker, ma’am, I been doin my best to raise her to be a decent Godfearin obedient girl.”

Dorothy had to run around to the other side of the trunk where she could cover her mouth and writhe in an agony of attempting to smother her laughter. When she regained control, the old lady was telling Paley she’d show him where the books were. Then she started hobbling to the porch.

But Old Man, instead of following her across the yard, stopped by the fence that separated the alley from the backyard. He turned around and gave Dorothy a look of extreme despair.

“What’s the matter?” she said. “Why’re you sweating so? And shaking? And you’re so pale.”

“You’d laugh if I tole you, and I don’t like to be laughed at.”

“Tell me. I won’t laugh.”

He closed his eyes and began muttering. “Never mind, it’s in the mind. Never mind, you’re just fine.” Opening his eyes, he shook himself like a dog just come from the water.

“I kin do it. I got the guts. All them books re a lotta beer money I’ll lose if I don’t go down into the bowels a hell and get em. Guy In The Sky, give me the guts a a goat and the nerve a a pork dealer in Palestine. You know Old Man ain’t got a yellow streak. It’s the wicked spell a the False Folkers workin on me. Come on, let’s go, go, go.”

And sucking in a deep breath, he stepped through the gateway. Head down, eyes on the grass at his feet, he shuffled toward the cellar door where the old lady stood peering at him.

Four steps away from the cellar entrance, he halted again. A small black spaniel had darted from around the corner of the house and begun yap-yapping at him.

Old Man suddenly cocked his head to one side, crossed his eyes, and deliberately sneezed.

Yelping, the spaniel fled back around the corner, and Paley walked down the steps that led to the cool dark basement. As he did so, he muttered, “That puts the evil spell on em figurin dogs.”

When they had piled all the books in the back of the truck, he took off his homburg and bowed again.

“Ma’am, my daughter and myself both thank you from the rockbottom a our poor but humble hearts for this treasure trove you give us. And if ever you’ve anythin else you don’t want, and a strong back and a weak mind to carry it out… well, please remember we’ll be down this alley every Blue Monday and Fish Friday about time the sun is three-quarters acrosst the sky. Providin it ain’t rainin cause The Old Guy In The Sky is cryin in his beer over us poor mortals, what fools we be.”

Then he put his hat on, and the two got into the truck and chugged off. They stopped by several other promising heaps before he announced that the truck was loaded enough. He felt like celebrating; perhaps they should stop off behind Mike’s Tavern and down a few quarts. She replied that perhaps she might manage a drink if she could have a whiskey. Beer wouldn’t set well.

“I got some money,” rumbled Old Man, unbuttoning with slow clumsy fingers his shirt pocket and pulling out a roll of worn tattered bills while the truck’s wheels rolled straight in the alley ruts.

“You brought me luck, so Old Man’s gonna pay today through the hose, I mean, nose, har, har, har!”

He stopped Fordiana behind a little neighborhood tavern. Dorothy, without being asked, took the two dollars he handed her and went into the building. She returned with a can opener, two quarts of beer, and a half pint of VO.

“I added some of my money. I can’t stand cheap whiskey.”

They sat on the running board of the truck, drinking, Old Man doing most of the talking. It wasn’t long before he was telling her of the times when the Real Folk, the Paleys, had lived in Europe and Asia by the side of the woolly mammoths and the cave lion.

“We worshiped The Old Guy In The Sky who says what the thunder says and lives in the east on the tallest mountain in the world. We faced the skulls a our dead to the east so they could see

The Old Guy when he came to take them to live with him in the mountain.

“And we was doin fine for a long long time. Then, out a the east come them motherworshipin False Folk with their long straight legs and long straight necks and flat faces and thundermug round heads and their bows and arrows. They claimed they was sons a the goddess Mother Earth, who was a virgin. But we claimed the truth was that a crow with stomach trouble sat on a stump and when it left the hot sun hatched em out.

“Well, for a while we beat em hands-down because we was stronger. Even one a our wimmen could tear their strongest man to bits. Still, they had that bow and arrow, they kept pickin us off, and movin in and movin in, and we kept movin back slowly, till pretty soon we was shoved with our backs against the ocean.

“Then one day a big chief among us got a bright idea. ‘Why don’t we make bows and arrows, too?’ he said. And so we did, but we was clumsy at makin and shootin em cause our hands was so big, though we could draw a heavier bow’n em. So we kept gettin run out a the good huntin grounds.

“There was one thin might a been in our favor. That was, we bowled the wimmen a the Falsers over with our smell. Not that we smell good. We stink like a pig that’s been makin love to a billy goat on a manure pile. But, somehow, the wimmen folk a the Falsers was all mixed up in their chemistry, I guess you’d call it, cause they got all excited and developed roundheels when they caught a whiff a us. If we’d been left alone with em, we could a Don Juan’d them Falsers right off a the face a the earth. We would a mixed our blood with theirs so much that after a while you coun’t tell the diff runce. Specially since the kids lean to their pas side in looks, Paley blood is so much stronger.

“But that made sure there would always be war tween us. Specially after our king, Old King Paley, made love to the daughter a the Falser king, King Raw Boy, and stole her away.

“Gawd, you should a seen the fuss then! Raw Boy’s daughter flipped over Old King Paley. And it was her give him the bright idea a callin in every able-bodied Paley that was left and organizin em into one big army. Kind a puttin all our eggs in one basket, but it seemed a good idea. Every man big enough to carry a club went out in one big mob on Operation False Folk Massacre. And we ganged up on every little town a them motherworshipers we found. And kicked hell out a em. And roasted the men’s hearts and ate em. And every now and then took a snack off the wimmen and kids, too.

“Then, all of a sudden, we come to a big plain. And there’s a army a them False Folk, collected by Old King Raw Boy. They outnumber us, but we feel we kin lick the world. Specially since the magic strength a the G’yaga lies in their wimmen folk, cause they worship a woman god, The Old Woman In The Earth. And we’ve got their chief priestess, Raw Boy’s daughter.

“All our own personal power is collected in Old King Paley’s hat—his magical headpiece. All a us Paleys believed that a man’s strength and his soul was in his headpiece.

“We bed down the night before the big battle. At dawn there’s a cry that’d wake up the dead. It still sends shivers down the necks a us Paley’s fifty thousand years later. It’s King Paley roarin and cryin. We ask him why. He says that that dirty little sneakin little hoor, Raw Boy’s daughter, has stole his headpiece and run off with it to her father’s camp.

“Our knees turn weak as nearbeer. Our manhood is in the hands a our enemies. But out we go to battle, our witch doctors out in front rattlin their gourds and whirlin their bullroarers and prayin. And here comes the G’yaga medicine men doin the same. Only thing, their hearts is in their work cause they got Old King’s headpiece stuck on the end a a spear.

“And for the first time they use dogs in war, too. Dogs never did like us any more’n we like em.

“And then we charge into each other. Bang! Wallop! Crash! Smash! Whack! Owwwrrroooo! And they kick hell out a us, do it to us. And we’re never again the same, done forever. They had Old King’s headpiece and with it our magic, cause we’d all put the soul a us Paleys in that hat.

“The spirit and power a us Paleys was prisoners cause that headpiece was. And life became too much for us Paleys. Them as wasn’t slaughtered and eaten was glad to settle down on the garbage heaps a the conquerin Falsers and pick for a livin with the chickens, sometimes comin out second best.

“But we knew Old King’s headpiece was hidden somewhere, and we organized a secret society and swore to keep alive his name and to search for the headpiece if it took us forever. Which it almost has, it’s been so long.

“But even though we was doomed to live in shantytowns and stay off the streets and prowl the junkpiles in the alleys, we never gave up hope. And as time went on some a the nocounts a the G’yaga came down to live with us. And we and they had kids. Soon, most a us had disappeared into the bloodstream a the low-class G’yaga. But there’s always been a Paley family that tried to keep their blood pure. No man kin do no more, kin he?”

He glared at Dorothy. “What d’ya think a that?”

Weakly, she said, “Well, I’ve never heard anything like it.”

“Gawdamighty!” snorted Old Man. “I give you a history longer’n a hoor’s dream, more’n fifty thousand years a history, the secret story a a longlost race. And all you kin say is that you never heard nothin like it before.”

He leaned toward her and clamped his huge hand over her thigh.

“Don’t flinch from me!” he said fiercely. “Or turn your head away. Sure, I stink, and I offend your dainty figurin nostrils and upset your figurin delicate little guts. But what’s a minute’s whiff a me on your part compared to a lifetime on my part a havin all the stinkin garbage in the universe shoved up my nose, and my mouth filled with what you woun’t say if your mouth was full a it? What do you say to that, huh?”

Coolly, she said, “Please take your hand off me.”

“Sure, I din’t mean nothin by it. I got carried away and forgot my place in society.”

“Now, look here,” she said earnestly. “That has nothing at all to do with your so-called social position. It’s just that I don’t allow anybody to take liberties with my body. Maybe I’m being ridiculously Victorian, but I want more than just sensuality. I want love, and—”

“OK, I get the idea.”

Dorothy stood up and said, “I’m only a block from my apartment. I think I’ll walk on home. The liquor’s given me a headache.”

“Yeah,” he growled. “You sure it’s the liquor and not me?”

She looked steadily at him. “I’m going, but I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Does that answer your question?”

“OK,” he grunted. “See you. Maybe.”

She walked away very fast.

Next morning, shortly after dawn, a sleepy-eyed Dorothy stopped her car before the Paley shanty. Deena was the only one home. Gummy had gone to the river to fish, and Old Man was in the outhouse. Dorothy took the opportunity to talk to Deena, and found her, as she had suspected, a woman of considerable education. However, although she was polite, she was reticent about her background. Dorothy, in an effort to keep the conversation going, mentioned that she had phoned her former anthropology professor and asked him about the chances of Old Man being a genuine Neanderthal. It was then that Deena broke her reserve and eagerly asked what the professor had thought.

“Well,” said Dorothy, “he just laughed. He told me it was an absolute impossibility that a small group, even an inbred group isolated in the mountains, could have kept their cultural and genetic identity for fifty thousand years.

“I argued with him. I told him Old Man insisted he and his kind had existed in the village of Paley in the mountains of the Pyrenees until Napoleon’s men found them and tried to draft them. Then they fled to America, after a stay in England. And his group was split up during the Civil War, driven out of the Great Smokies. He, as far as he knows, is the last purebreed, Gummy being a half or quarter-breed.

“The professor assured me that Gummy and Old Man were cases of glandular malfunctioning, of acromegaly. That they may have a superficial resemblance to the Neanderthal man, but a physical anthropologist could tell the difference at a glance. When I got a little angry and asked him if he wasn’t taking an unscientific and prejudiced attitude, he became rather irritated. Our talk ended somewhat frostily.

“But I went down to the university library that night and read everything on what makes Homo Neanderthalensis different from Homo sapiens.”

“You almost sound as if you believe Old Man’s private little myth is the truth,” said Deena.

“The professor taught me to be convinced only by the facts and not to say anything is impossible,” replied Dorothy. “If he’s forgotten his own teachings, I haven’t.”

“Well, Old Man is a persuasive talker,” said Deena. “He could sell the devil a harp and halo.”

Old Man, wearing only a pair of blue jeans, entered the shanty. For the first time Dorothy saw his naked chest, huge, covered with long redgold hairs so numerous they formed a matting almost as thick as an orangutan’s. However, it was not his chest but his bare feet at which she looked most intently. Yes, the big toes were widely separated from the others, and he certainly tended to walk on the outside of his feet.

His arm, too, seemed abnormally short in proportion to his body.

Old Man grunted a good morning and didn’t say much for a while. But after he had sweated and cursed and chanted his way through the streets of Onaback and had arrived safely at the alleys of the west bluff, he relaxed. Perhaps he was helped by finding a large pile of papers and rags.

“Well, here we go to work, so don’t you dare to shirk. Jump, Dor’thy! By the sweat a your brow, you’ll earn your brew!”

When that load was on the truck, they drove off. Paley said, “How you like this life without no strife? Good, huh? You like alleys, huh?”

Dorothy nodded. “As a child, I liked alleys better than streets. And they still preserve something of their first charm for me. They were more fun to play in, so nice and cozy. The trees and bushes and fences leaned in at you and sometimes touched you as if they had hands and liked to feel your face to find out if you’d been there before, and they remembered you. You felt as if you were sharing a secret with the alleys and the things of the alleys. But streets, well, streets were always the same, and you had to watch out the cars didn’t run you over, and the windows in the houses were full of faces and eyes, poking their noses in your business, if you can say that eyes had noses.”

Old Man whopped and slapped his thigh so hard it would have broke if it had been Dorothys.

“You must be a Paley! We feel that way, too! We ain’t allowed to hang aroun streets, so we make our alleys into little kingdoms. Tell me, do you sweat just crossin a street from one alley to the next?”

He put his hand on her knee. She looked down at it but said nothing, and he left it there while the truck putputted along, its wheels following the ruts of the alley.

“No, I don’t feel that way at all.”

“Yeah? Well, when you was a kid, you wasn’t so ugly you hadda stay off the streets. But I still wasn’t too happy in the alleys because a them figurin dogs. Forever and forever they was barkin and bitin at me. So I took to beatin the bejesus out a them with a big stick I always carried. But after a while I found out I only had to look at em in a certain way. Yi, yi, yi, they’d run away yapping, like that old black spaniel did yesterday. Why? Cause they knew I was sneezin evil spirits at em. It was then I began to know I wasn’t human. A course, my old man had been tellin me that ever since I could talk.

“As I grew up I felt every day that the spell a the G’yaga was gettin stronger. I was gettin dirtier and dirtier looks from em on the streets. And when I went down the alleys, I felt like I really belonged there. Finally, the day came when I coun’t cross a street without gettin sweaty hands and cold feet and a dry mouth and breathin hard. That was cause I was becomin a full-grown Paley, and the curse a the G’yaga gets more powerful as you get more hair on your chest.”

“Curse?” said Dorothy. “Some people call it a neurosis.”

“It’s a curse.”

Dorothy didn’t answer. Again, she looked down at her knee, and this time he removed his hand. He would have had to do it, anyway, for they had come to a paved street.

On the way down to the junk dealer’s, he continued the same theme. And when they got to the shanty, he elaborated upon it.

During the thousands of years the Paley lived on the garbage piles of the G’yaga, they were closely watched. So, in the old days, it had been the custom for the priests and warriors of the False Folk to descend on the dumpheap dwellers whenever a strong and obstreperous Paley came to manhood. And they had gouged out an eye or cut off his hand or leg or some other member to ensure that he remembered what he was and where his place was.

“That’s why I lost this arm,” Old Man growled, waving the stump. “Fear a the G’yaga for the Paley did this to me.”

Deena howled with laughter and said, “Dorothy, the truth is that he got drunk one night and passed out on the railroad tracks, and a freight train ran over his arm.”

“Sure, sure, that’s the way it was. But it coun’t a happened if the Falsers din’t work through their evil black magic. Nowadays, stead a cripplin us openly, they use spells. They ain’t got the guts anymore to do it themselves.”

Deena laughed scornfully and said, “He got all those psychopathic ideas from reading those comics and weird tale magazines and those crackpot books and from watching that TV program, Alley Oop and the Dinosaur. I can point out every story from which he’s stolen an idea.”

“You’re a liar!” thundered Old Man.

He struck Deena on the shoulder. She reeled away from the blow, then leaned back toward him as if into a strong wind. He struck her again, this time across her purple birthmark. Her eyes glowed, and she cursed him. And he hit her once more, hard enough to hurt but not to injure.

Dorothy opened her mouth as if to protest, but Gummy lay a fat sweaty hand on her shoulder and lifted her finger to her own lips.

Deena fell to the floor from a particularly violent blow. She did not stand up again. Instead, she got to her hands and knees and crawled toward the refuge behind the big iron stove. His naked foot shoved her rear so that she was sent sprawling on her face, moaning, her long stringy black hair falling over her face and birthmark.

Dorothy stepped forward and raised her hand to grab Old Man. Gummy stopped her, mumbling, ‘“S all right. Leave em alone.”

“Look at that figurin female bein happy!” snorted Old Man. “You know why I have to beat the hell out a her, when all I want is peace and quiet? Cause I look like a figurin caveman, and they’re supposed to beat their hoors silly. That’s why she took up with me.”

“You’re an insane liar,” said Deena softly from behind the stove, slowly and dreamily nursing her pain like the memory of a lover’s caresses. “I came to live with you because I’d sunk so low you were the only man that’d have me.”

“She’s a retired high society mainliner, Dor’thy,” said Paley. “You never seen her without a longsleeved dress on. That’s cause her arms’re full a holes. It was me that kicked the monkey off a her back. I cured her with the wisdom and magic a the Real Folk, where you coax the evil spirit out by talkin it out. And she’s been livin with me ever since. Kin’t get rid a her.

“Now, you take that toothless bag there. I ain’t never hit her. That shows I ain’t no woman-beatin bastard, right? I hit Deena cause she likes it, wants it, but I don’t ever hit Gummy… Hey, Gummy, that kind a medicine ain’t what you want, is it?”

And he laughed his incredibly hoarse, hor, hor, hor.

“You’re a figurin liar,” said Gummy, speaking over her shoulder because she was squatting down, fiddling with the TV controls. “You’re the one knocked most a my teeth out.”

“I knocked out a few rotten stumps you was gonna lose anyway. You had it comin cause you was runnin aroun with that O’Brien in his green shirt.”

Gummy giggled and said, “Don’t think for a minute I quit goin with that O’Brien in his green shirt just cause you slapped me aroun a little bit. I quit cause you was a better man ‘n him.”

Gummy giggled again. She rose and waddled across the room toward a shelf which held a bottle of her cheap perfume. Her enormous brass earrings swung, and her great hips swung back and forth.

“Look at that,” said Old Man. “Like two bags a mush in a windstorm.”

But his eyes followed them with kindling appreciation, and, on seeing her pour that reeking liquid over her pillow-sized bosom, he hugged her and buried his huge nose in the valley of her breasts and sniffed rapturously.

“I feel like a dog that’s found an old bone he buried and forgot till just now,” he growled, “Arf, arf, arf!”

Deena snorted and said she had to get some fresh air or she’d lose her supper. She grabbed Dorothy’s hand and insisted she take a walk with her. Dorothy, looking sick, went with her.

The following evening, as the four were drinking beer around the kitchen table, Old Man suddenly reached over and touched Dorothy affectionately. Gummy laughed, but Deena glared. However, she did not say anything to the girl but instead began accusing Paley of going too long without a bath. He called her a flatchested hophead and said that she was lying, because he had been taking a bath every day. Deena replied that, yes he had, ever since Dorothy had appeared on the scene. An argument raged. Finally, he rose from the table and turned the photograph of Deena’s mother so it faced the wall.

Wailing, Deena tried to face it outward again. He pushed her away from it, refusing to hit her despite her insults—even when she howled at him that he wasn’t fit to lick her mother’s shoes, let alone blaspheme her portrait by touching it.

Tired of the argument, he abandoned his post by the photograph and shuffled to the refrigerator.

“If you dare turn her aroun till I give the word, I’ll throw her in the creek. And you’ll never see her again.”

Deena shrieked and crawled onto her blanket behind the stove and there lay sobbing and cursing him softly.

Gummy chewed tobacco and laughed while a brown stream ran down her toothless jaws. “Deena pushed him too far that time.”

“Ah, her and her figurin mother,” snorted Paley. “Hey, Dor’thy, you know how she laughs at me cause I think Fordianas got a soul.

And I put the evil eye on em hounds? And cause I think the salvation a us Paleys’ll be when we find out where Old King’s hats been hidden?

“Well, get a load a this. This here intellekchooall purple-faced dragon, this retired mainliner, this old broken-down nag for a monkey-jockey, she’s the sooperstishus one. She thinks her mother’s a god. And she prays to her and asks forgiveness and asks what’s gonna happen in the future. And when she thinks nobody’s aroun, she talks to her. Here she is, worshipin her mother like The Old Woman In The Earth, who’s The Old Guy’s enemy. And she knows that makes The Old Guy sore. Maybe that’s the reason he ain’t allowed me to find the longlost headpiece a Old King, though he knows I been lookin in every ash heap from here to God-knowswhere, hopin some fool G’yaga would throw it away never realizin what it was.

“Well, by all that’s holy, that pitcher stays with its ugly face on the wall. Aw, shut up, Deena, I wanna watch Alley Oop.”

Shortly afterward, Dorothy drove home. There she again phoned her sociology professor. Impatiently, he went into more detail. He said that one reason Old Man’s story of the war between the Neanderthals and the invading Homo sapiens was very unlikely was that there was evidence to indicate that Homo sapiens might have been in Europe before the Neanderthals—it was very possible the Homo Neanderthalensis was the invader.

“Not invader in the modern sense,” said the professor. “The influx of a new species or race or tribe into Europe during the Paleolithic would have been a sporadic migration of little groups, an immigration which might have taken a thousand to ten thousand years to complete.

“And it is more than likely that Neanderthalensis and sapiens lived side by side for millennia with very little fighting between them because both were too busy struggling for a living. For one reason or another, probably because he was outnumbered, the Neanderthal was absorbed by the surrounding peoples. Some anthropologists have speculated that the Neanderthals were blonds and that they had passed their light hair directly to North Europeans.

“Whatever the guesses and surmises,” concluded the professor, “it would be impossible for such a distinctly different minority to keep its special physical and cultural characteristics over a period of half a hundred millennia. Paley has concocted this personal myth to compensate for his extreme ugliness, his inferiority, his feelings of rejection. The elements of the myth came from the comic books and TV.

“However,” concluded the professor, “in view of your youthful enthusiasm and naivete, I will consider my judgment if you bring me some physical evidence of his Neanderthaloid origin. Say you could show me that he had a taurodont tooth. I’d be flabbergasted, to say the least.”

“But, Professor,” she pleaded, “why can’t you give him a personal examination? One look at Old Man’s foot would convince you, I’m sure.”

“My dear, I am not addicted to wild-goose chases. My time is valuable.”

That was that. The next day, she asked Old Man if he had ever lost a molar tooth or had an X-ray made of one.

“No,” he said. “I got more sound teeth than brains. And I ain’t gonnna lose em. Long as I keep my headpiece, I’ll keep my teeth and my digestion and my manhood. What’s more, I’ll keep my good sense, too. The loose-screw tighteners at the State Hospital really gave me a good goin-over, fore and aft, up and down, in and out, all night long, don’t never take a hotel room right by the elevator. And they proved I wasn’t hatched in a cuckoo clock. Even though they tore their hair and said somethin must be wrong. Specially after we had that row about my hat. I woun’t let them take my blood for a test, you know, because I figured they was going to mix it with water—G’yaga magic—and turn my blood to water. Somehow, that Elkins got wise that I hadda wear my hat—cause I woun’t take it off when I undressed for the physical, I guess—and he snatched my hat. And I was done for. Stealin it was stealin my soul; all Paleys wears their souls in their hats. I hadda get it back. So I ate humble pie; I let em poke and pry all over and take my blood.”

There was a pause while Paley breathed in deeply to get power to launch another verbal rocket. Dorothy, who had been struck by an idea, said, “Speaking of hats, Old Man, what does this hat that the daughter of Raw Boy stole from King Paley look like? Would you recognize it if you saw it?”

Old Man stared at her with wide blue eyes for a moment before he exploded.

“Would I recognize it? Would the dog that sat by the railroad tracks recognize his tail after the locomotive cut it off? Would you recognize your own blood if somebody stuck you in the guts with a knife and it pumped out with every heartbeat? Certainly, I would recognize the hat a Old Kind Paley! Every Paley at his mothers knees get a detailed description a it. You want to hear about the hat? Well, hang on, chick, and I’ll describe every hair and bone a it.”

Dorothy told herself more than once that she should not be doing this. If she was trusted by Old Man, she was, in one sense, a false friend. But, she reassured herself, in another sense she was helping him. Should he find the hat, he might blossom forth, actually tear himself loose from the taboos that bound him to the dumpheap, to the alleys, to fear of dogs, to the conviction he was an inferior and oppressed citizen. Moreover, Dorothy told herself, it would aid her scientific studies to record his reactions.

The taxidermist she hired to locate the necessary materials and fashion them into the desired shape was curious, but she told him it was for an anthropological exhibit in Chicago and that it was meant to represent the headpiece of the medicine man of an Indian secret society dedicated to phallic mysteries. The taxidermist sniggered and said he’d give his eyeteeth to see those ceremonies.

Dorothy’s intentions were helped by the run of good luck Old Man had in his alleypicking while she rode with him. Exultant, he swore he was headed for some extraordinary find; he could feel his good fortune building up.

“It’s gonna hit,” he said, grinning with his huge widely spaced gravestone teeth. “Like lightnin.”

Two days later, Dorothy rose even earlier than usual and drove to a place behind the house of a well-known doctor. She had read in the society column that he and his family were vacationing in Alaska, so she knew they wouldn’t be wondering at finding a garbage can already filled with garbage and a big cardboard box full of cast-off clothes. Dorothy had brought the refuse from her own apartment to make it seem as if the house were occupied. The old garments, with one exception, she had purchased at a Salvation Army store.

About nine that morning, she and Old Man drove down the alley on their scheduled route.

Old Man was first off the truck; Dorothy hung back to let him make the discovery.

Old Man picked the garments out of the box one by one.

“Here’s a velvet dress Deena kin wear. She’s been complainin she hasn’t had a new dress in a long time. And here’s a blouse and skirt big enough to wrap aroun an elephant. Gummy kin wear it. And here…”

He lifted up a tall conical hat with a wide brim and two balls of felted horsemane attached to the band. It was a strange headpiece, fashioned of roan horsehide over a ribwork of split bones. It must have been the only one of its kind in the world, and it certainly looked out of place in the alley of a mid-Illinois city.

Old Man’s eyes bugged out. Then they rolled up, and he fell to the ground, as if shot. The hat, however, was still clutched in his hand.

Dorothy was terrified. She had expected any reaction but this. If he had suffered a heart attack, it would, she thought, be her fault.

Fortunately, Old Man had only fainted. However, when he regained consciousness, he did not go into ecstasies as she had expected. Instead, he looked at her, his face gray and said, “It kin’t be! It must be a trick The Old Woman In The Earth’s playing on me so she kin have the last laugh on me. How could it be the hat a Old King Paley’s? Woun’t the G’yaga that been keepin it in their famley all these years know what it is?”

“Probably not,” said Dorothy. “After all, the G’yaga, as you call them, don’t believe in magic anymore. Or it might be that the present owner doesn’t even know what it is.”

“Maybe. More likely it was thrown out by accident durin housecleanin. You know how stupid them wimmen are. Anyway, let’s take it and get goin. The Old Guy In The Sky might a had a hand in fixin up this deal for me, and if he did, it’s better not to ask questions. Let’s go.”

Old Man seldom wore the hat. When he was home, he put it in the parrot cage and locked the cage door with the bicycle lock. At nights, the cage hung from the stand; days, it sat on the seat of the truck. Old Man wanted it always where he could see it.

Finding it had given him a tremendous optimism, a belief he could do anything. He sang and laughed even more than he had before, and he was even able to venture out onto the streets for several hours at a time before the sweat and shakings began.

Gummy, seeing the hat, merely grunted and made a lewd remark about its appearance. Deena smiled grimly and said, “Why haven’t the horsehide and bones rotted away long ago?”

“That’s just the kind a question a G’yaga dummy like you’d ask,” said Old Man, snorting. “How kin the hat rot when there’s a million Paley souls crowded into it, standin room only? There ain’t even elbow room for germs. Besides, the horsehide and the bones’re jampacked with the power and the glory a all the Paleys that died before our battle with Raw Boy, and all the souls that died since. It’s seethin with soul-energy, the lid held on it by the magic a the G’yaga.”

“Better watch out it don’t blow up ‘n wipe us all out,” said Gummy, sniggering.

“Now you have the hat, what are you going to do with it?” asked Deena.

“I don’t know. I’ll have to sit down with a beer and study the situation.”

Suddenly, Deena began laughing shrilly.

“My God, you’ve been thinking for fifty thousand years about this hat, and now you’ve got it, you don’t know what to do about it! Well, I’ll tell you what you’ll do about it! You’ll get to thinking big, all right! You’ll conquer the world, rid it of all False Folk, all right! You fool! Even if your story isn’t the raving of a lunatic, it would still be too late for you! You’re alone! The last! One against two billion! Don’t worry, World, this ragpicking Rameses, this alley Alexander, this junkyard Julius Caesar, he isn’t going to conquer you! No, he’s going to put on his hat, and he’s going forth! To do what?

“To become a wrestler on TV, that’s what! That’s the height of his half-wit ambition—to be billed as the One-Armed Neanderthal, the Awful Apeman. That is the culmination of fifty thousand years ha, ha, ha!”

The others looked apprehensively at Old Man, expecting him to strike Deena. Instead, he removed the hat from the cage, put it on, and sat down at the table with a quart of beer in his hand.

“Quit your cacklin, you old hen,” he said. “I got my thinkin cap on!”

The next day Paley, despite a hangover, was in a very good mood. He chattered all the way to the west bluff and once stopped the truck so he could walk back and forth on the street and show Dorothy he wasn’t afraid.

Then, boasting he could lick the world, he drove the truck up an alley and halted it by the backyard of a huge but somewhat rundown mansion. Dorothy looked at him curiously. He pointed to the jungle-thick shrubbery that filled a corner of the yard.

“Looks like a rabbit coun’t get in there, huh? But Old Man knows thins the rabbits don’t. Folly me.”

Carrying the caged hat, he went to the shrubbery, dropped to all threes, and began inching his way through a very narrow passage. Dorothy stood looking dubiously into the tangle until a hoarse growl came from its depths.

“You scared? Or is your fanny too broad to get through here?”

“I’ll try anything once,” she announced cheerfully. In a short time she was crawling on her belly, then had come suddenly into a little clearing. Old Man was standing up. The cage was at his feet, and he was looking at a red rose in his hand.

She sucked in her breath. “Roses! Peonies! Violets!”

“Sure, Dor’thy,” he said, swelling out his chest. “Paley’s Garden a Eden, his secret hothouse. I found this place a couple a years ago, when I was lookin for a place to hide if the cops was lookin for me or I just wanted a place to be alone from everybody, including myself.

“I planted these rosebushes in here and these other flowers. I come here every now and then to check on em, spray em, prune em. I never take any home, even though I’d like to give Deena some. But Deena ain’t no dummy, she’d know I was gettin em out a a garbage pail. And I just din’t want to tell her about this place. Or anybody.”

He looked directly at her as if to catch every twitch of a muscle in her face, every repressed emotion.

“You’re the only person besides myself knows about this place.” He held out the rose to her. “Here. It’s yours.”

“Thank you. I am proud, really proud, that you’ve shown this place to me.”

“Really are? That makes me feel good. In fact, great.”

“It’s amazing. This, this spot of beauty. And… and…”

‘Til finish it for you. You never thought the ugliest man in the world, a dumpheaper, a man that ain’t even a man or a human bein, a—I hate the word—a Neanderthal, could appreciate the beauty of a rose. Right? Well, I growed these because I love em.

“Look, Dor’thy. Look at this rose. It’s round, not like a ball but a flattened roundness…”

“Oval.”

“Sure. And look at the petals. How they fold in on one another, how they’re arranged. Like one ring a red towers protectin the next ring a red towers. Protectin the gold cup on the inside, the precious source a life, the treasure. Or maybe that’s the golden hair a the princess a the castle. Maybe. And look at the bright green leaves under the rose. Beautiful, huh? The Old Guy knew what he was doin when he made these. He was an artist then.

“But he must a been sufferin from a hangover when he shaped me, huh? His hands was shaky that day. And he gave up after a while and never bothered to finish me but went on down to the corner for some a the hair a the dog that bit him.”

Suddenly, tears filled Dorothys eyes.

“You shouldn’t feel that way. You’ve got beauty, sensitivity, a genuine feeling, under…”

“Under this?” he said, pointing his finger at his face. “Sure. Forget it. Anyway, look at these green buds on these baby roses. Pretty, huh? Fresh with promise a the beauty to come. They’re shaped like the breasts a young virgins.”

He look a step toward her and put his arm around her shoulders.

“Dor’thy.”

She put her hands on his chest and gently tried to shove herself away.

“Please,” she whispered, “please, don’t. Not after you’ve shown me how fine you really can be.”

“What do you mean?” he said, not releasing her. “Ain’t what I want to do with you just as fine and beautiful a thin as this rose here? And if you really feel for me, you’d want to let your flesh say what your mind thinks. Like the flowers when they open up for the sun.”

She shook her head. “No. It can’t be. Please. I feel terrible because I can’t say yes. But I can’t. I—you—there’s too much diff—”

“Sure, we’re diff’runt. Coin in diff’runt directions and then, comin roun the corner—bam!—we run into each other, and we wrap ours arms aroun each other to keep from fallin.”

He pulled her to him so her face was pressed against his chest.

“See!” he rumbled. “Like this. Now, breathe deep. Don’t turn your head. Sniff away. Lock yourself to me, like we was glued and nothin could pull us apart. Breathe deep. I got my arm aroun you, like these trees roun these flowers. I’m not hurtin you: I’m givin you life and protectin you. Right? Breathe deep.”

“Please,” she whimpered. “Don’t hurt me. Gently…”

“Gently it is. I won’t hurt you. Not too much. That’s right, don’t hold yourself stiff against me, like you’re stone. That’s right, melt like butter. I’m not forcin you, Dor’thy, remember that. You want this, don’t you?”

“Don’t hurt me,” she whispered. “You’re so strong, oh my God, so strong.”

For two days, Dorothy did not appear at the Paleys‘. The third morning, in an effort to fire her courage, she downed two double shots of VO. before breakfast. When she drove to the dumpheap, she told the two women that she had not been feeling well. But she had returned because she wanted to finish her study, as it was almost at an end and her superiors were anxious to get her report.

Paley, though he did not smile when he saw her, said nothing. However, he kept looking at her out of the corners of his eyes when he thought she was watching him. And though he took the hat in its cage with him, he sweated and shook as before while crossing streets. Dorothy sat staring straight ahead, unresponding to the few remarks he did make. Finally, cursing under his breath, he abandoned his effort to work as usual and drove to the hidden garden.

“Here we are,” he said. “Adam and Eve returnin to Eden.”

He peered from beneath the bony ridges of his brows at the sky. “We better hurry in. Looks as if The Old Guy got up on the wrong side a the bed. There’s gonna be a storm.”

“I’m not going in there with you,” said Dorothy. “Not now or ever.”

“Even after what we did, even if you said you loved me, I still make you sick?” he said. “You sure din’t act then like Old Ugly made you sick.”

“I haven’t been able to sleep for two nights,” she said tonelessly. “I’ve asked myself a thousand times why I did it. And each time I could only tell myself I didn’t know. Something seemed to leap from you to me and take me over. I was powerless.”

“You certainly wasn’t paralyzed,” said Old Man, placing his hand on her knee. “And if you was powerless, it was because you wanted to be.”

“It’s no use talking,” she said. “You’ll never get a chance again. And take your hand off me. It makes my flesh crawl.”

He dropped his hand.

“All right. Back to business. Back to pickin peoples piles a junk. Let’s get out a here. Forget what I said. Forget this garden, too. Forget the secret I told you. Don’t tell nobody. The dumpheapers’d laugh at me. Imagine Old Man Paley, the one-armed candidate for the puzzle factory, the fugitive from the Old Stone Age, growin peonies and roses! Big laugh, huh?”

Dorothy did not reply. He started the truck and, as they emerged onto the alley, they saw the sun disappear behind the clouds. The rest of the day, it did not come out, and Old Man and Dorothy did not speak to each other.

As they were going down Route 24 after unloading at the junkdealer’s, they were stopped by a patrolman. He ticketed Paley for not having a chauffeurs license and made Paley follow him downtown to court. There Old Man had to pay a fine of twenty-five dollars. This, to everybody’s amazement, he produced from his pocket.

As if that weren’t enough, he had to endure the jibes of the police and the courtroom loafers. Evidently he had appeared in the police station before and was known as King Kong, Alley Oop, or just plain Chimp. Old Man trembled, whether with suppressed rage or nervousness Dorothy could not tell. But later, as Dorothy drove him home, he almost frothed at the mouth in a tremendous outburst of rage. By the time they were within sight of his shanty, he was shouting that his life savings had been wiped out and that it was all a plot by the G’yaga to beat him down to starvation.

It was then that the truck’s motor died. Cursing, Old Man jerked the hood open so savagely that one rusty hinge broke. Further enraged by this, he tore the hood completely off and threw it away into the ditch by the roadside. Unable to find the cause of the breakdown, he took a hammer from the toolchest and began to beat the sides of the truck.

“I’ll make her go, go, go!” he shouted. “Or she’ll wish she had! Run, you bitch, purr, eat gasoline, rumble your damn belly and eat gasoline but run, run, run! Or your ex-lover, Old Man, sells you for junk, I swear it!”

Undaunted, Fordiana did not move.

Eventually, Paley and Dorothy had to leave the truck by the ditch and walk home. And as they crossed the heavily traveled highway to get to the dumpheap, Old Man was forced to jump to keep from getting hit by a car.

He shook his fist at the speeding auto.

“I know you’re out to get me!” he howled. “But you won’t! You been tryin for fifty thousand years, and you ain’t made it yet! We’re still fightin!”

At that moment, the black sagging bellies of the clouds overhead ruptured. The two were soaked before they could take four steps. Thunder bellowed, and lightning slammed into the earth on the other end of the dumpheap.

Old Man growled with fright, but seeing he was untouched, he raised his fist to the sky.

“OK, OK, so you got it in for me, too. I get it. OK, OK!”

Dripping, the two entered the shanty, where he opened a quart of beer and began drinking. Deena took Dorothy behind a curtain and gave her a towel to dry herself with and one of her white terrycloth robes to put on. By the time Dorothy came out from behind the curtain, she found Old Man opening his third quart. He was accusing Deena of not frying the fish correctly, and when she answered him sharply, he began accusing her of every fault, big or small, real or imaginary, of which he could think. In fifteen minutes, he was nailing the portrait of her mother to the wall with its face inward. And she was whimpering behind the stove and tenderly stroking the spots where he had struck her. Gummy protested, and he chased her out into the rain.

Dorothy at once put her wet clothes on and announced she was leaving. She’d walk the mile into town and catch the bus.

Old Man snarled, “Go! You’re too snotty for us, anyway. We ain’t your kind, and that’s that.”

“Don’t go,” pleaded Deena. “If you’re not here to restrain him, he’ll be terrible to us.”

“I’m sorry,” said Dorothy. “I should have gone home this morning.”

“You sure should,” he growled. And then began weeping, his pushed-out lips fluttering like a birds wings, his face twisted like a gargoyles.

“Get out before I forget myself and throw you out,” he sobbed.

Dorothy, with pity on her face, shut the door gently behind her.

The following day was Sunday. That morning, her mother phoned her she was coming down from Waukegan to visit her. Could she take Monday off?

Dorothy said yes, and then, sighing, she called her supervisor. She told him she had all the data she needed for the Paley report and that she would begin typing it out.

Monday night, after seeing her mother off on the train, she decided to pay the Paleys a farewell visit. She could not endure another sleepless night filled with fighting the desire to get out of bed again and again, to scrub herself clean, and the pain of having to face Old Man and the two women in the morning. She felt that if she said goodbye to the Paleys, she could say farewell to those feelings, too, or, at least, time would wash them away more quickly.

The sky had been clear, star-filled, when she left the railroad station. By the time she had reached the dumpheap clouds had swept out from the west, and a blinding rainstorm was deluging the city. Going over the bridge, she saw by the lights of her headlamps that the Kickapoo Creek had become a small river in the two days of heavy rains. Its muddy frothing current roared past the dump and on down to the Illinois River, a half mile away.

So high had it risen that the waters lapped at the doorsteps of the shanties. The trucks and jalopies parked outside them were piled high with household goods, and their owners were ready to move at a minutes notice.

Dorothy parked her car a little off the road, because she did not want to get it stuck in the mire. By the time she had walked to the Paley shanty, she was in stinking mud up to her calves, and night had fallen.

In the light streaming from a window stood Fordiana, which Old Man had apparently succeeded in getting started. Unlike the other vehicles, it was not loaded.

Dorothy knocked on the door and was admitted by Deena. Paley was sitting in the ragged easy chair. He was clad only in a pair of faded and patched blue jeans. One eye was surrounded by a big black, blue, and green bruise. The horsehide hat of Old King was firmly jammed onto his head, and one hand clutched the neck of a quart of beer as if he were choking it to death.

Dorothy looked curiously at the black eye but did not comment on it. Instead, she asked him why he hadn’t packed for a possible flood.

Old Man waved the naked stump of his arm at her.

“It’s the doins a The Old Guy In The Sky. I prayed to the old idiot to stop the rain, but it rained harder’n ever. So I figure it’s really The Old Woman In The Earth who’s kickin up this rain. The Old Guy’s too feeble to stop her. He needs strength. So… I thought about pouring out the blood a a virgin to him, so he kin lap it up and get his muscles back with that. But I give that up, cause there ain’t no such thin anymore, not within a hundred miles a here, anyway.

“So… I been thinkin about goin outside and doin the next best thing, that is pouring a quart or two a beer out on the ground for him. What the Greeks call pourin a liberation to the Gods…”

“Don’t let him drink none a that cheap beer,” warned Gummy. “This rain fallin on us is bad enough. I don’t want no god pukin all over the place.”

He hurled the quart at her. It was empty, because he wasn’t so far gone he’d waste a full or even half-full bottle. But it was smashed against the wall, and since it was worth a nickel’s refund, he accused Gummy of malicious waste.

“If you’d a held still, it woun’t a broke.”

Deena paid no attention to the scene. “I’m pleased to see you, child,” she said. “But it might have been better if you had stayed home tonight.”

She gestured at the picture of her mother, still nailed face inward. “He’s not come out of his evil mood yet.”

“You kin say that again,” mumbled Gummy. “He got a pistol-whippin from that young Limpy Doolan who lives in that packin-box house with the Jantzen bathin suit ad pasted on the side, when Limpy tried to grab Old Kings hat off a Old Man’s head just for fun.”

“Yeah, he tried to grab it,” said Paley. “But I slapped his hand hard. Then he pulls a gun out a his coat pocket with the other hand and hit me in this eye with its butt. That don’t stop me. He sees me comin at him like I’m late for work, and he says he’ll shoot me if I touch him again. My old man din’t raise no silly sons, so I don’t charge him. But I’ll get him sooner or later. And he’ll be limpin in both legs, if he walks at all.

“But I don’t know why I never had nothing but bad luck ever since I got this hat. It ain’t supposed to be that way. It’s supposed to be bringin me all the good luck the Paleys ever had.”

He glared at Dorothy and said, “Do you know what? I had good luck until I showed you that place, you know, the flowers. And then, after you know what, everythin went sour as old milk. What did you do, take the power out a me by doin what you did? Did The Old Woman In The Earth send you to me so you’d draw the muscle and luck and life out a me if I found the hat when Old Guy placed it in my path?”

He lurched up from the easy chair, clutched two quarts of beer from the refrigerator to his chest, and staggered toward the door.

“Kin’t stand the smell in here. Talk about my smell. I’m sweet violets, compared to the fish a some a you. I’m goin out where the air’s fresh. I’m goin out and talk to The Old Guy In The Sky, hear what the thunder has to say to me. He understands me; he don’t give a damn if I’m a ugly old man that’s ha’f-ape.”

Swiftly, Deena ran in front of him and held out her claws at him like a gaunt, enraged alley cat.

“So that’s it! You’ve had the indecency to insult this young girl! You evil beast!”

Old Man halted, swayed, carefully deposited the two quarts on the floor. Then he shuffled to the picture of Deena’s mother and ripped it from the wall. The nails screeched; so did Deena.

“What are you going to do?”

“Somethin I been wantin to do for a long long time. Only I felt sorry for you. Now I don’t. I’m gonna throw this idol a yours into the creek. Know why? Cause I think she’s a delegate a The Old Woman In The Earth, Old Guy’s enemy. She’s been sent here to watch on me and report to Old Woman on what I was doin. And you’re the one brought her in this house.”

“Over my dead body you’ll throw that in the creek!” screamed Deena.

“Have it your way,” he growled, lurching forward and driving her to one side with his shoulder.

Deena grabbed at the frame of the picture he held in his hand, but he hit her over the knuckles with it. Then he lowered it to the floor, keeping it from falling over with his leg while he bent over and picked up the two quarts in his huge hand. Clutching them, he squatted until his stump was level with the top part of the frame. The stump clamped down over the upper part of the frame, he straightened, holding it tightly, lurched toward the door, and was gone into the driving rain and crashing lightning.

Deena stared into the darkness for a moment, then ran after him.

Stunned, Dorothy watched them go. Not until she heard Gummy mumbling, “They’ll kill each other,” was Dorothy able to move.

She ran to the door, looked out, turned back to Gummy.

“What’s got into him?” she cried. “He’s so cruel, yet I know he has a soft heart. Why must he be this way?”

“It’s you,” said Gummy. “He thought it din’t matter how he looked, what he did, he was still a Paley. He thought his sweat would get you like it did all em chicks he was braggin about, no matter how uppity the sweet young thin was. ‘N you hurt him when you din’t dig him. Specially cause he thought more a you ’n anybody before.

“Why’d you think life’s been so miserable for us since he found you? What the hell, a man’s a man, he’s always got the eye for the chicks, right? Deena din’t see that. Deena hates Old Man. But Deena kin’t do without him, either…”

“I have to stop them,” said Dorothy, and she plunged out into the black and white world.

Just outside the door, she halted, bewildered. Behind her, light streamed from the shanty, and to the north was a dim glow from the city of Onaback. But elsewhere was darkness. Darkness, except when the lightning burned away the night for a dazzling frightening second.

She ran around the shanty toward the Kickapoo, some fifty yards away—she was sure that they’d be somewhere by the back of the creek. Halfway to the stream, another flash showed her a white figure by the bank.

It was Deena in her terrycloth robe, Deena now sitting up in the mud, bending forward, shaking with sobs.

“I got down on my knees,” she moaned. “To him, to him. And I begged him to spare my mother. But he said I’d thank him later for freeing me from worshiping a false goddess. He said I’d kiss his hand.”

Deena’s voice rose to a scream. “And then he did it! He tore my blessed mother to bits! Threw her in the creek! I’ll kill him! I’ll kill him!”

Dorothy patted Deena’s shoulder. “There, there. You’d better get back to the house and get dry. It’s a bad thing he’s done, but he’s not in his right mind. Where’d he go?”

“Toward that clump of cottonwoods where the creek runs into the river.”

“You go back,” said Dorothy. “I’ll handle him. I can do it.”

Deena seized her hand.

“Stay away from him. He’s hiding in the woods now. He’s dangerous, dangerous as a wounded boar. Or as one of his ancestors when they were hurt and hunted by ours.”

“Ours?” said Dorothy. “You mean you believe his story?”

“Not all of it. Just part. That tale of his about the mass invasion of Europe and King Paley’s hat is nonsense. Or, at least it’s been distorted through God only knows how many thousands of years. But it’s true he’s at least part Neanderthal. Listen! I’ve fallen low, I’m only a junkman’s whore. Not even that, now—Old Man never touches me anymore, except to hit me. And that’s not his fault, really. I ask for it; I want it.

“But I’m not a moron. I got books from the library, read what they say about the Neanderthal. I studied Old Man carefully. And I know he must be what he says he is. Gummy, too—she’s at least a quarter-breed.”

Dorothy pulled her hand out of Deena’s grip.

“I have to go. I have to talk to Old Man, tell him I’m not seeing him anymore.”

“Stay away from him,” pleaded Deena, again seizing Dorothy’s hand. “You’ll go to talk, and you’ll stay to do what I did. What a score of others did. We let him make love to us becuase he isn’t human. Yet, we found Old Man as human as any man, and some of us stayed after the lust was gone because love had come in.”

Dorothy gently unwrapped Deena’s fingers from her hand and began walking away.

Soon she came to the group of cottonwood trees by the bank where the creek and the river met and there she stopped.

“Old Man!” she called in a break between the rolls of thunder. “Old Man! It’s Dorothy!”

A growl as of a bear disturbed in his cave answered her, and a figure like a tree trunk come to life stepped out of the inkiness between the cottonwoods.

“What you come for?” he said, approaching so close to her that his enormous nose almost touched hers. “You want me just as I am, Old Man Paley, descendant a the Real Folk—Paley, who loves you? Or you come to give the batty old junkman a tranquillizer so you kin take him by the hand like a lamb and lead him back to the slaughterhouse, the puzzle factory, where they’ll stick a ice pick back a his eyeball and rip out what makes him a man and not an ox.”

“I came…”

“Yeah?”

“For this!” she shouted, and she snatched off his hat and raced away from him, toward the river.

Behind her rose a bellow of agony so loud she could hear it even above the thunder. Feet splashed as he gave pursuit.

Suddenly, she slipped and sprawled facedown in the mud. At the same time, her glasses fell off. Now it was her turn to feel despair, for in this halfworld she could see nothing without her glasses except the lightning flashes. She must find them. But if she delayed to hunt for them, she’d lose her headstart.

She cried out with joy, for her groping fingers found what they sought. But the breath was knocked out of her, and she dropped the glasses again as a heavy weight fell upon her back and half stunned her. Vaguely, she was aware that the hat had been taken away from her. A moment later, as her senses came back into focus, she realized she was being raised into the air. Old Man was holding her in the crook of his arm, supporting part of her weight on his bulging belly.

“My glasses. Please, my glasses. I need them.”

“You won’t be needin em for a while. But don’t worry about em. I got em in my pants pocket. Old Man’s takin care a you.”

His arm tightened around her so she cried out with pain.

Hoarsely, he said, “You was sent down by the G’yaga to get that hat, wasn’t you? Well, it din’t work cause The Old Guy’s stridin the sky tonight, and he’s protectin his own.”

Dorothy bit her lip to keep from telling him that she had wanted to destroy the hat because she hoped that that act would also destroy the guilt of having made it in the first place. But she couldn’t tell him that. If he knew she had made a false hat, he would kill her in his rage.

“No. Not again,” she said. “Please. Don’t. I’ll scream. They’ll come after you. They’ll take you to the State Hospital and lock you up for life. I swear I’ll scream.”

“Who’ll hear you? Only The Old Guy, and he’d get a kick out a seein you in this fix cause you’re a Falser and you took the stuffin right out a my hat and me with your Falser Magic. But I’m gettin back what’s mine and his, the same way you took it from me. The door swings both ways.”

He stopped walking and lowered her to a pile of wet leaves.

“Here we are. The forest like it was in the old days. Don’t worry. Old Man’ll protect you from the cave bear and the bull a the woods. But who’ll protect you from Old Man, huh?”

Lightning exploded so near that for a second they were blinded and speechless. Then Paley shouted, “The Old Guy’s whoopin it up tonight, just like he used to do! Blood and murder and wickedness’re ridin the howlin night air!”

He pounded his immense chest with his huge fist.

“Let The Old Guy and The Old Woman fight it out tonight. They ain’t goin to stop us. Dor’thy. Not unless that hairy old god in the clouds is going to fry me with his lightnin, jealous a me cause I’m havin what he kin’t.”

Lightning rammed against the ground from the charged skies, and lightning leaped up to the clouds from the charged earth. The rain fell harder than before, as if it were being shot out of a great pipe from a mountain river and pouring directly over them. But for some time the flashes did not come close to the cottonwoods. Then, one ripped apart the night beside them, deafened and stunned them.

And Dorothy, looking over Old Man’s shoulder, thought she would die of fright because there was a ghost standing over them. It was tall and white, and its shroud flapped in the wind, and its arms were raised in a gesture like a curse.

But it was a knife that it held in its hand.

Then, the fire that rose like a cross behind the figure was gone, and night rushed back in.

Dorothy screamed. Old Man grunted, as if something had knocked the breath from him.

He rose to his knees, gasped something unintelligible, and slowly got to his feet. He turned his back to Dorothy so he could face the thing in white. Lightning flashed again. Once more Dorothy screamed, for she saw the knife sticking out of his back.

Then the white figure had rushed toward Old Man. But instead of attacking him, it dropped to its knees and tried to kiss his hand and babbled for forgiveness.

No ghost. No man. Deena, in her white terrycloth robe.

“I did it because I love you!” screamed Deena.

Old Man, swaying back and forth, was silent.

“I went back to the shanty for a knife, and I came here because I knew what you’d be doing, and I didn’t want Dorothy’s life ruined because of you, and I hated you, and I wanted to kill you. But I don’t really hate you.”

Slowly, Paley reached behind him and gripped the handle of the knife. Lightning made everything white around him, and by its brief glare the women saw him jerk the blade free of his flesh.

Dorothy moaned, “It’s terrible, terrible. All my fault, all my fault.”

She groped through the mud until her fingers came across the Old Man’s jeans and its backpocket, which held her glasses. She put the glasses on, only to find that she could not see anything because of the darkness. Then, and not until then, she became concerned about locating her own clothes. On her hands and knees she searched through the wet leaves and grass. She was about to give up and go back to Old Man when another lightning flash showed the heap to her left. Giving a cry of joy, she began to crawl to it.

But another stroke of lightning showed her something else. She screamed and tried to stand up but instead slipped and fell forward on her face.

Old Man, knife in hand, was walking slowly toward her.

“Don’t try to run away!” he bellowed. “You’ll never get away! The Old Guy’ll light thins up for me so you kin’t sneak away in the dark. Besides, your white skin shines in the night, like a rotten toadstool. You’re done for. You snatched away my hat so you could get me out here defenseless, and then Deena could stab me in the back. You and her are Falser witches, I know damn well!”

“What do you think you’re doing?” asked Dorothy. She tried to rise again but could not. It was as if the mud had fingers around her ankles and knees.

“The Old Guy’s howlin for the blood a C’yaga wimmen. And he’s gonna get all the blood he wants. It’s only fair. Deena put the knife in me, and The Old Woman got some a my blood to drink. Now it’s your turn to give The Old Guy some a yours.”

“Don’t!” screamed Deena. “Don’t! Dorothy had nothing to do with it! And you can’t blame me, after what you were doing to her!”

“She’d done everythin to me. I’m gonna make the last sacrifice to Old Guy. Then they kin do what they want to me. I don’t care. I’ll have had one moment a bein a real Real Folker.”

Deena and Dorothy both screamed. In the next second, lightning broke the darkness around them. Dorothy saw Deena hurl herself on Old Man’s back and carry him downward. Then, night again.

There was a groan. Then, another blast of light. Old Man was on his knees, bent almost double but not bent so far Dorothy could not see the handle of the knife that was in his chest.

“Oh, Christ!” wailed Deena. “When I pushed him, he must have fallen on the knife. I heard the bone in his chest break. Now he’s dying!”

Paley moaned. “Yeah, you done it now, you sure paid me back, din’t you? Paid me back for my takin the monkey off a your back and supportin you all these years.”

“Oh, Old Man,” sobbed Deena, “I didn’t mean to do it. I was just trying to save Dorothy and save you from yourself. Please! Isn’t there anything I can do for you?”

“Sure you kin. Stuff up the two big holes in my back and chest. My blood, my breath, my real soul’s flowin out a me. Guy In the Sky, what a way to die! Kilt by a crazy woman!”

“Keep quiet,” said Dorothy. “Save your strength. Deena, you run to the service station. It’ll still be open. Call a doctor.”

“Don’t go, Deena,” he said. “It’s too late. I’m hangin onto my soul by its big toe now; in a minute I’ll have to let go, and it’ll jump out a me like a beagle after a rabbit.

“Dor’thy, Dor’thy, was it the wickedness a The Old Woman put you up to this? I must a meant something to you… under the flowers… maybe it’s better… I felt like a god, then… not what I really am… a crazy old junkman… a alley man… Just think a it… fifty thousand years behint me… older’n Adam and Eve by far… now, this…”

Deena began weeping. He lifted his hand, and she seized it.

“Let loose,” he said faintly. “I was gonna knock hell outta you for blubberin… just like a Falser bitch… kill me… then cry… you never did ‘predate me… like Dorothy…”

“His hand’s getting cold,” murmured Deena.

“Deena, bury that damn hat with me… least you kin do… Hey, Deena, who you goin to for help when you hear that monkey chitterin outside the door, huh? Who…?”

Suddenly, before Dorothy and Deena could push him back down, he sat up. At the same time, lightning hammered into the earth nearby and it showed them his eyes, looking past them out into the night.

He spoke, and his voice was stronger, as if life had drained back into him through the holes in his flesh.

“Old Guy’s given me a good send-off. Lightnin and thunder. The works. Nothin cheap about him, huh? Why not? He knows this is the end a the trail for me. The last a his worshipers… last a the Paleys…”

He sank back and spoke no more.

THE MAN WHO LOST THE SEA

Theodore Sturgeon

Say you’re a kid, and one dark night you’re running along the cold sand with this helicopter in your hand, saying very fast witch y-witchy-witchy. You pass the sick man and he wants you to shove off with that thing. Maybe he thinks you’re too old to play with toys. So you squat next to him in the sand and tell him it isn’t a toy, it’s a model. You tell him look here, here’s something most people don’t know about helicopters. You take a blade of the rotor in your fingers and show him how it can move in the hub, up and down a little, back and forth a little, and twist a little, to change pitch. You start to tell him how this flexibility does away with the gyroscopic effect, but he won’t listen. He doesn’t want to think about flying, about helicopters, or about you, and he most especially does not want explanations about anything by anybody. Not now. Now, he wants to think about the sea. So you go away.

The sick man is buried in the cold sand with only his head and his left arm showing. He is dressed in a pressure suit and looks like a man from Mars. Built into his left sleeve is a combination timepiece and pressure gauge, the gauge with a luminous blue indicator which makes no sense, the clock hands luminous red. He can hear the pounding of surf and the soft swift pulse of his pumps. One time long ago when he was swimming he went too deep and stayed down too long and came up too fast, and when he came to it was like this: they said, “Don’t move, boy. You’ve got the bends. Don’t even try to move.” He had tried anyway. It hurt. So now, this time, he lies in the sand without moving, without trying.

His head isn’t working right. But he knows clearly that it isn’t working right, which is a strange thing that happens to people in shock sometimes. Say you were that kid, you could say how it was, because once you woke up lying in the gym office in high school and asked what had happened. They explained how you tried something on the parallel bars and fell on your head. You understood exactly, though you couldn’t remember falling. Then a minute later you asked again what had happened and they told you. You understood it. And a minute later…forty-one times they told you, and you understood. It was just that no matter how many times they pushed it into your head, it wouldn’t stick there; but all the while you knew that your head would start working again in time. And in time it did…. Of course, if you were that kid, always explaining things to people and to yourself, you wouldn’t want to bother the sick man with it now.

Look what you’ve done already, making him send you away with that angry shrug of the mind (which, with the eyes, are the only things which will move just now). The motionless effort costs him a wave of nausea. He has felt seasick before but he has never been, seasick, and the formula for that is to keep, your eyes on the horizon and stay busy. Now! Then he’d better get busy—now; for there’s one place especially not to be seasick in, and that’s locked up in a pressure suit. Now!

So he busies himself as best he can, with the seascape, landscape, sky. He lies on high ground, his head propped on a vertical wall of black rock. There is another such outcrop before him, whip-topped with white sand and with smooth flat sand. Beyond and down is valley, salt-flat, estuary; he cannot yet be sure. He is sure of the line of footprints, which begin behind him, pass to his left, disappear in the outcrop shadows, and reappear beyond to vanish at last into the shadows of the valley.

Stretched across the sky is old mourning-cloth, with starlight burning holes in it, and between the holes the black is absolute—wintertime, mountaintop sky-black.

(Far off on the horizon within himself, he sees the swell and crest of approaching nausea; he counters with an undertow of weakness, which meets and rounds and settles the wave before it can break. Get busier. Now.)

Burst in on him, then, with the X-15 model. That’ll get him. Hey, how about this for a gimmick? Get too high for the thin air to give you any control, you have these little jets in the wingtips, see? and on the sides of the empennage: bank, roll, yaw, whatever, with squirts of compressed air.

But the sick man curls his sick lip: oh, git, kid, git, will you?—that has nothing to do with the sea. So you git.

Out and out the sick man forces his view, etching all he sees with a meticulous intensity, as if it might be his charge, one day, to duplicate all this, To his left is only starlit sea, windless. In front of him across the valley, rounded hills with dim white epaulettes of light. To his right, the jutting corner of the black wall against which his helmet rests. (He thinks the distant moundings of nausea becalmed, but he will not look yet.) So he scans the sky, black and bright, calling Sirius, calling Pleiades, Polaris, Ursa Minor, calling that …that …Why, it moves. Watch it: yes, it moves! It is a fleck of light, seeming to be wrinkled, fissured, rather like a chip of boiled cauliflower in the sky. (Of course, he knows better than to trust his own eyes just now.) But that movement—

As a child he had stood on cold sand in a frosty Cape Cod evening, watching Sputnik’s steady spark rise out of the haze (madly, dawning a little north of west); and after that he had sleeplessly wound special coils for his receiver, risked his life restringing high antennas, all for the brief capture of an unreadable tweetle-eep-tweetle in his earphones from Vanguard, Explorer, Lunik, Discoverer, Mercury. He knew them all (well, some people collect match-covers, stamps) and he knew especially that unmistakable steady sliding in the sky.

This moving fleck was a satellite, and in a moment, motionless, uninstrumented but for his chronometer and his part-brain, he will know which one. (He is grateful beyond expression—without that sliding chip of light, there were only those footprints, those wandering footprints, to tell a man he was not alone in the world.)

Say you were a kid, eager and challengeable and more than a little bright, you might in a day or so work out a way to measure the period of a satellite with nothing but a timepiece and a brain; you might eventually see that the shadow in the rocks ahead had been there from the first only because of the light from the rising satellite. Now if you check the time exactly at the moment when the shadow on the sand is equal to the height of the outcrop, and time it again when the light is at the zenith and the shadow gone, you will multiply this number of minutes by 8—think why, now: horizon to zenith is one-fourth of the orbit, give or take a little, and halfway up the sky is half that quarter— and you will then know this satellite’s period. You know all the periods—ninety minutes, two, two-and-a-half hours; with that and the appearance of this bird, you’ll find out which one it is.

But if you were that kid, eager or resourceful or whatever, you wouldn’t jabber about it to the sick man, for not only does he not want to be bothered with you, he’s thought of all that long since and is even now watching the shadows for that triangular split second of measurement. Now! His eyes drop to the face of his chronometer: 0400, near as makes no never mind.

He has minutes to wait now—ten?… thirty?.. . twenty-three?—while this baby moon eats up its slice of shadowpie; and that’s too bad, the waiting, for though the inner sea is calm there are currents below, shadows that shift and swim. Be busy. Be busy. He must not swim near that great invisible ameba, whatever happens: its first cold pseudopod is even now reaching for the vitals.

Being a knowledgeable young fellow, not quite a kid any more, wanting to help the sick man too, you want to tell him everything you know about that cold-in-the-gut, that reaching invisible surrounding implacable ameba. You know all about it—listen, you want to yell at him, don’t let that touch of cold bother you. Just know what it is, that’s all. Know what it is that is touching your gut. You want to tell him, listen:

Listen, this is how you met the monster and dissected it. Listen, you were skin-diving in the Grenadines, a hundred tropical shoal-water islands; you had a new blue snorkel mask, the kind with face-plate and breathing-tube all in one, and new blue flippers on your feet, and a new blue spear-gun—all this new because you’d only begun, you see; you were a beginner, aghast with pleasure at your easy intrusion into this underwater otherworld. You’d been out in a boat, you were coming back, you’d just reached the mouth of the little bay, you’d taken the notion to swim the rest of the way. You’d said as much to the boys and slipped into the warm silky water. You brought your gun.

Not far to go at all, but then beginners find wet distances deceiving. For the first five minutes or so it was only delightful, the sun hot on your back and the water so warm it seemed not to have any temperature at all and you were flying. With your face under the water, your mask was not so much attached as part of you, your wide blue flippers trod away yards, you gun rode all but weightless in your hand, the taut rubber sling making an occasional hum as your passage plucked it in the sunlit green. In your ears crooned the breathy monotone of the snorkel tube, and through the invisible disk of plate glass you saw wonders. The bay was shallow—ten, twelve feet or so—and sandy, with great growths of brain-, bone-, and fire-coral, intricate waving sea-fans, and fish—such fish! Scarlet and green and aching azure, gold and rose and slate-color studded with sparks of enamel-blue, pink and peach and silver. And that thing got into you, that… monster.

There were enemies in this otherworld: the sand-colored spotted sea-snake with his big ugly head and turned-down mouth, who would not retreat but lay watching the intruder pass; and the mottled moray with jaws like bolt-cutters; and somewhere around, certainly, the barracuda with his undershot face and teeth turned in-ward so that he must take away whatever he might strike. There were urchins—the plump white sea-egg with its thick fur of sharp quills and the black ones with the long slender spines that would break off in unwary flesh and fester there for weeks; and file-fish and stone-fish with their poisoned barbs and lethal meat; and the stingray who could drive his spike through a leg bone. Yet these were not monsters, and could not matter to you, the invader churning along above them all. For you were above them in so many ways—armed, rational, comforted by the close shore (ahead the beach, the rocks on each side) and by the presence of the boat not too far behind. Yet you were…attacked.

At first it was uneasiness, not pressing, but pervasive, a contact quite as intimate as that of the sea; you were sheathed in it. And also there was the touch—the cold in-ward contact. Aware of it at last, you laughed: for Pete’s sake, what’s there to be scared of?

The monster, the ameba.

You raised your head and looked back in air. The boat had edged in to the cliff at the right; someone was giving a last poke around for lobster. You waved at the boat; it was your gun you waved, and emerging from the water it gained its latent ounces so that you sank a bit, and as if you had no snorkle on, you tipped your head back to get a breath. But tipping your head back plunged the end of the tube under water; the valve closed; you drew in a hard lungful of nothing at all. You dropped your face under; up came the tube; you got your air, and along with it a bullet of seawater which struck you somewhere inside the throat. You coughed it out and floundered, sobbing as you sucked in air, inflating your chest until it hurt, and the air you got seemed no good, no good at all, a worthless devitalized inert gas.

You clenched your teeth and headed for the beach, kicking strongly and knowing it was the right thing to do; and then below and to the right you saw a great bulk mounding up out of the sand floor of the sea. You knew it was only the reef, rocks and coral and weed, but the sight of it made you scream; you didn’t care what you knew. You turned hard left to avoid it, fought by as if it would reach for you, and you couldn’t get air, couldn’t get air, for all the unobstructed hooting of your snorkel tube. You couldn’t bear the mask, suddenly, not for another second, so you shoved it upward clear of your mouth and rolled over, floating on your back and opening your mouth to the sky and breathing with a quacking noise.

It was then and there that the monster well and truly engulfed you, mantling you round and about within itself— formless, borderless, the illimitable ameba. The beach, mere yards away, and the rocky arms of the bay, and the not-too-distant boat—these you could identify but no longer distinguish, for they were all one and the same thing, the thing called unreachable.

You fought that way for a time, on your back, dangling the gun under and behind you and straining to get enough warm sun-stained air into your chest. And in time some particles of sanity began to swirl in the roil of your mind, and to dissolve and tint it. The air pumping in and out of your square-grinned frightened mouth began to be meaningful at last, and the monster relaxed away from you.

You took stock, saw surf, beach, a leaning tree. You felt the new scent of your body as the rollers humped to become breakers. Only a dozen firm kicks brought you to where you could roll over and double up; your shin struck coral with a lovely agony and you stood in foam and waded ashore. You gained the wet sand, hard sand, and ultimately with two more paces powered by bravado, you crossed high-water mark and lay in the dry sand, unable to move.

You lay in the sand, and before you were able to move or to think, you were able to feel a triumph—a triumph because you were alive and knew that much without thinking at all.

When you were able to think, your first thought was of the gun, and the first move you were able to make was to let go at last of the thing. You had nearly died because you had not let it go before; without it you would not have been burdened and you would not have panicked. You had (you began to understand) kept it because someone else would have had to retrieve it—easily enough—and you could not have stood the laughter. You had almost died because They might laugh at you.

This was the beginning of the dissection, analysis, study of the monster. It began then; it had never finished. Some of what you had learned from it was merely important; some of the rest—vital.

You had learned, for example, never to swim farther with a snorkel than you could swim back without one. You learned never to burden yourself with the unnecessary in an emergency: even a hand or a foot might be as expendable as a gun; pride was expendable, dignity was. You learned never to dive alone, even if They laugh at you, even if you have to shoot a fish yourself and say afterward “we” shot it. Most of all, you learned that fear has many fingers, and one of them a simple one, made of too great a concentration of carbon dioxide in your blood, as from too rapid breathing in and out of the same tube—is not really fear at all but feels like fear, and can turn into panic and kill you.

Listen, you want to say, listen, there isn’t anything wrong with such an experience or with all the study it leads to, because a man who can learn enough from it could become fit enough, cautious enough, foresighted, unafraid, modest, teachable enough to be chosen, to be qualified for— You lose the thought, or turn it away, because the sick man feels that cold touch deep inside, feels it right now, feels it beyond ignoring, above and beyond anything that you, with all your experience and certainty, could explain to him even if he would listen, which he won’t. Make him, then; tell him the cold touch is some simple explainable thing like anoxia, like gladness even: some triumph that he will be able to appreciate when his head is working— right again.

Triumph? Here he’s alive after …whatever it is, and that doesn’t seem to be triumph enough, though it was in the Grenadines, and that other time, when he got the bends, saved his own life, saved two other lives. Now, somehow, it’s not the same: there seems to be a reason why just being alive afterward isn’t a triumph.

Why not triumph? Because not twelve, not twenty, not even thirty minutes is it taking the satellite to complete its eighth-of-an-orbit: fifty minutes are gone, and still there’s a slice of shadow yonder. It is this, this which is placing the cold finger upon his heart, and he doesn’t know why, he doesn’t know why, he will not know why; he is afraid he shall when his head is working again.

Oh, where’s the kid? Where is any way to busy the mind, apply it to something, anything else but the watchhand which outruns the moon? Here, kid: come over here—what you got there?

If you were the kid, then you’d forgive everything and hunker down with your new model, not a toy, not a helicopter or a rocket-plane, but the big one, the one that looks like an overgrown cartridge. It’s so big, even as a model, that even an angry sick man wouldn’t call it a toy. A giant cartridge, but watch: the lower four-fifths is Alpha—all muscle—over a million pounds thrust. (Snap it off, throw it away.) Half the rest is Beta—all brains—it puts you on your way. (Snap it off, throw it away.) And now look at the polished fraction which is left. Touch a control somewhere and see—see? it has wings—wide triangular wings. This is Gamma, the one with wings, and on its back is a small sausage; it is a moth with a sausage on its back. The sausage (click! it comes free) is Delta. Delta is the last, the smallest: Delta is the way home.

What will they think of next? Quite a toy. Quite a toy. Beat it, kid. The satellite is almost overhead, the sliver of shadow going—going—almost gone and …gone.

Check: 0459. Fifty-nine minutes? give or take a few. Times eight…472 … is, uh, 7 hours 52 minutes.

Seven hours fifty-two minutes? Why, there isn’t a satellite round earth with a period like that. In all the solar system there’s only—

The cold finger turns fierce, implacable.

The east is paling and the sick man turns to it, wanting the light, the sun, an end to questions whose answers couldn’t be looked upon. The sea stretches endlessly out to the growing light, and endlessly, somewhere out of sight, the surf roars. The paling east bleaches the sandy hilltops and throws the line of footprints into aching relief. That would be the buddy, the sick man knows, gone for help. He cannot at the moment recall who the buddy is, but in time he will, and meanwhile the footprints make him less alone.

The sun’s upper rim thrusts itself above the horizon with a flash of green, instantly gone. There is no dawn, just the green flash and then a clear white blast of unequivocal sunup. The sea could not be whiter, more still, if it were frozen and snow-blanketed. In the west, stars still blaze, and overhead the crinkled satellite is scarcely abashed by the growing light. A formless jumble in the valley below begins to resolve itself into a sort of tent-city, or installation of some kind, with tubelike and saillike buildings. This would have meaning for the sick man if his head were working right. Soon, it would. Will. (Oh…)

The sea, out on the horizon just under the rising sun, is behaving strangely, for in that place where properly belongs a pool of unbearable brightness, there is instead a notch of brown. It is as if the white fire of the sun is drinking dry the sea—for look, look! the notch becomes a bow and the bow a crescent, racing ahead of the sunlight, white sea ahead of it and behind it a cocoa-dry stain spreading across and down toward where he watches.

Beside the finger of fear which lies on him, another finger places itself, and another, making ready for that clutch, that grip, that ultimate insane squeeze of panic. Yet beyond that again, past that squeeze when it comes, to be savored if the squeeze is only fear and not panic, lies triumph—triumph, and a glory. It is perhaps this which constitutes his whole battle: to fit himself, prepare himself to bear the utmost that fear could do, for if he can do that, there is a triumph on the other side. But …not yet. Please, not yet awhile.

Something flies (or flew, or will fly—he is a little confused on this point) toward him, from the far right where the stars still shine. It is not a bird and it is unlike any aircraft on earth, for the aerodynamics are wrong. Wings so wide and so fragile would be useless, would melt and tear away in any of earth’s atmosphere but the outer fringes. He sees then (because he prefers to see it so) that it is the kid’s model, or part of it, and for a toy, it does very well indeed.

It is the part called Gamma, and it glides in, balancing, parallels the sand and holds away, holds away slowing, then settles, all in slow motion, throwing up graceful sheet-fountains of fine sand from its skids. And it runs along the ground for an impossible distance, letting down its weight by the ounce and stingily the ounce, until look out until a skid look out fits itself into a bridged crevasse look out, look out! and still moving on, it settles down to the struts. Gamma then, tired, digs her wide left wingtip carefully into the racing sand, digs it in hard; and as the wing breaks off, Gamma slews, sidles, slides slowly, pointing her other triangular tentlike wing at the sky, and broadside crushes into the rocks at the valley’s end.

As she rolls smashing over, there breaks from her broad back the sausage, the little Delta, which somersaults away to break its back upon the rocks, and through the broken hull, spill smashed shards of graphite from the moderator of her power-pile. Look out! Look out! and at the same instant from the finally checked mass of Gamma there explodes a doll, which slides and tumbles into the sand, into the rocks and smashed hot graphite from the wreck of Delta.

The sick man numbly watches this toy destroy itself: what will they think of next?—and with a gelid horror prays at the doll lying in the raging rubble of the atomic pile: don’t stay there, man—get away! get away! that’s hot, you know? But it seems like a night and a day and half another night before the doll staggers to its feet and, clumsy in its pressure-suit, runs away up the valleyside, climbs a sand-topped outcrop, slips, falls, lies under a slow cascade of cold ancient sand until, but for an arm and the helmet, it is buried.

The sun is high now, high enough to show the sea is not a sea, but brown plain with the frost burned off it, as now it burns away from the hills, diffusing in air and blurring the edges of the sun’s disk, so that in a very few minutes there is no sun at all, but only a glare in the east. Then the valley below loses its shadows, and like an arrangement in a diorama, reveals the form and nature of the wreckage below: no tent-city this, no installation, but the true real ruin of Gamma and the eviscerated hulk of Delta. (Alpha was the muscle, Beta the brain; Gamma was a bird, but Delta, Delta was the way home.)

And from it stretches the line of footprints, to and by the sick man, above to the bluff, and gone with the sand-slide which had buried him there. Whose footprints?

He knows whose, whether or not he knows that he knows, or wants to or not. He knows what satellite has (give or take a bit) a period like that (want it exactly?—it’s 7.66 hours). He knows what world has such a night, and such a frosty glare by day. He knows these things as he knows how spilled radioactives will pour the crash and mutter of surf into a man’s earphones.

Say you were that kid: say, instead, at last, that you are the sick man, for they are the same; surely then you can understand why of all things, even while shattered, shocked, sick with radiation calculated (leaving) radiation computed (arriving) and radiation past all bearing (lying in the wreckage of Delta) you would want to think of the sea. For no farmer who fingers the soil with love and knowledge, no poet who sings of it, artist, contractor, engineer, even child bursting into tears at the inexpressible beauty of a field of daffodils—none of these is as intimate with Earth as those who live on, live with, breathe and drift in its seas. So of these things you must think; with these you must dwell until you are less sick and more ready to face the truth.

The truth, then, is that the satellite fading here is Phobos, that those footprints are your own, that there is no sea here, that you have crashed and are killed and will in a moment be dead. The cold hand ready to squeeze and still your heart is not anoxia at even fear, it is death. Now, if there is something more important than this, now is the time for it to show itself.

The sick man looks at the line of his own footprints, which testify that he is alone, and at the wreckage below, which states that there is no way back, and at the white east and the mottled west and the paling flecklike satellite above. Surf sounds in his ears. He hears his pumps. He hears what is left of his breathing. The cold clamps down and folds him round past measuring, past all limit.

Then he speaks, cries out: then with joy he takes his triumph at the other side of death, as one takes a great fish, as one completes a skilled and mighty task, rebalances at the end of some great daring leap; and as he used to say “we shot a fish” he uses no “I”:

“God,” he cries, dying on Mars, ‘God, we made it!”

FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON

Daniel Keyes

progris riport 1—martch 5, 1965

Dr. Strauss says I shud rite down what I think and evrey thing that happins to me from now on. I dont know why but he says its importint so they will see if they will use me. I hope they use me. Miss Kinnian says maybe they can make me smart. I want to be smart. My name is Charlie Gordon. I am 37 years old and 2 weeks ago was my birthday. I have nuthing more to rite now so I will close for today.

progris riport 2—martch 6

I had a test today. I think I faled it. and I think that maybe now they wont use me. What happind is a nice young man was in the room and he had some white cards with ink spilled all over them. He sed Charlie what do you see on this card. I was very skared even tho I had my rabits foot in my pockit because when I was a kid I always faled tests in school and I spilled ink to.

I told him I saw a inkblot. He said yes and it made me feel good. I thot that was all but when I got up to go he stopped me. He said now sit down Charlie we are not thru yet. Then I dont remember so good but he wantid me to say what was in the ink. I dint see nuthing in the ink but he said there was picturs there other pepul saw some picturs. I coudnt see any picturs. I reely tryed to see. I held the card close up and then far away. Then I said if I had my glases I coud see better I usally only ware my glases in the movies or TV but I said they are in the closit in the hall. I got them. Then I said let me see that card agen I bet Ill find it now.

I tryed hard but I still coudnt find the picturs I only saw the ink. I told him maybe I need new glases. He rote somthing down on a paper and I got skared of faling the test. I told him it was a very nice inkblot with littel points al around the eges. He looked very sad so that wasnt it. I said please let me try agen. Ill get it in a few minits becaus Im not so fast somthnes. Im a slow reeder too in Miss Kinnians class for slow adults but I’m trying very hard.

He gave me a chance with another card that had 2 kinds of ink spilled on it red and blue.

He was very nice and talked slow like Miss Kinnian does and he explaned it to me that it was a raw shok. He said pepul see things in the ink. I said show me where. He said think. I told him I think a inkblot but that wasnt rite eather. He said what does it remind you—pretend something. I closd my eyes for a long time to pretend. I told him I pretned a fowntan pen with ink leeking all over a table cloth. Then be got up and went out.

I dont think I passd the raw shok test.

progris report 3—martch 7

Dr Strauss and Dr Nemur say it dont matter about the inkblots. I told them I dint spill the ink on the cards and I coudnt see anything in the ink. They said that maybe they will still use me. I said Miss Kinnian never gave me tests like that one only spelling and reading. They said Miss Kinnian told that I was her bestist pupil in the adult nite scool becaus I tryed the hardist and I reely wantid to lern. They said how come you went to the adult nite scool all by yourself Charlie. How did you find it. I said I askd pepul and sunibody told me where I shud go to lern to read and spell good. They said why did you want to. I told them becaus all my life I wantid to be smart and not dumb. But its very hard to be smart. They said you know it will probly be tempirery. I said yes. Miss Kinnian told me. I dont care if it herts.

Later I had more crazy tests today. The nice lady who gave it me told me the name and I asked her how do you spellit so I can rite it in my progris riport. THEMATIC APPERCEPTION TEST. I dont know the fist 2 words but I know what test means. You got to pass it or you get bad marks. This test lookd easy becaus I coud see the picturs. Only this time she dint want me to tell her the picturs. That mixd me up. I said the man yesterday said I shoud tell him what I saw in the ink she said that dont make no difrence. She said make up storys about the pepul in the picturs.

I told her how can you tell storys about pepul you never met. I said why shud I make up lies. I never tell lies any more becaus I always get caut.

She told me this test and the other one the raw-shok was for getting personally. I laffed so hard. I said how can you get that thing from inkblots and fotos. She got sore and put her picturs away. I dont care. It was sily. I gess I faled that test too.

Later some men in white coats took me to a difernt part of the hospitil and gave me a game to play. It was like a race with a white mouse. They called the mouse Algemon. Algernon was in a box with a lot of twists and turns like all kinds of walls and they gave me a pencil and a paper with lines and lots of boxes. On one side it said START and on the other end it said FINISH. They said it was amazed and that Algernon and me had the same amazed to do. I dint see how we could have the same amazed if Algemon had a box and I had a paper but I dint say nothing. Anyway there wasnt time because the race started.

One of the men had a watch he was trying to hide so I woudnt see it so I tryed not to look and that made me nervus.

Anyway that test made me feel worser than all the others because they did it over 10 times with difernt amazeds and Algernon won every time. I dint know that mice were so smart. Maybe thats because Algernon is a white mouse. Maybe white mice are smarter then other mice.

progris riport 4—Mar 8

Their going to use me! I’m so exited I can hardly write. Dr Nemur and Dr Strauss had a argament about it first. Dr Nemur was in the office when Dr Strauss brot me in. Dr Nemur was worryed about using me but Dr Strauss told him Miss Kinnian rekemmended me the best from all the people who she was teaching. I like Miss Kirmian becaus shes a very smart teacher. And she said Charlie your going to have a second chance. If you volenteer for this experament you mite get smart. They dont know if it will be perminint but theirs a chance. Thats why I said ok even when I was scared because she said it was an operashun. She said dont be scared Charlie you done so much with so little I think you deserv it most of all.

So I got scaird when Dr Nemur and Dr Strauss argud about it. Dr Strauss said I had something that was very good. He said I had a good motorvation. I never even knew I had that. I felt proud when he said that not every body with an eye-q of 68 had that thing. I dont know what it is or where I got it but he said Algemon had it too. Algernons motorvation is the cheese they put in his box. But it cant be that because I didnt eat any cheese this week.

Then he told Dr Nemur something I dint understand so while they were talking I wrote down some of the words.

He said Dr Nemur I know Charlie is not what you had in mind as the first of your new brede of intelek** (coudnt get the word) superman. But most people of his low menta** are host** and uncoop** they are usualy dull apath** and hard to reach. He has a good natcher hes intristed and eager to please.

Dr Nemur said remember he will be the first human beeng ever to have his intelijence trippled by surgicle meens.

Dr Strauss said exakly. Look at how well hes lerned to read and write for his low mentel age its as grate an acheve** as you and I lerning einstines therey of **vity without help. That shows the intenss motorvation. Its comparat** a tremen** achev** I say we use Charlie.

I dint get all the words and they were talking to fast but it sounded like Dr. Strauss was on my side and like the other one wasnt.

Then Dr Nemur nodded he said all right maybe your right. We will use Charlie. When he said that I got so exited I jumped up and shook his hand for being so good to me. I told him thank you doc you wont be sorry for giving me a second chance. And I mean it like I told him. After the operashun I’m gonna try to be smart. I’m gonna try awful hard.

progris ript 5—Mar 10

Im skared. Lots of people who work here and the nurses and the people who gave me the tests came to bring me candy and wish me luck. I hope I have luck. I got my rabits foot and my lucky penny and my horse shoe. Only a black cat crossed me when I was comming to the hospitil. Dr Strauss says dont be supersitis Charlie this is sience. Anyway Im keeping my rabits foot with me.

I asked Dr Strauss if Ill beat Algernon in the race after the operashun and he said maybe. If the operashun works Ill show that mouse I can be as smart as he is. Maybe smarter. Then Ill be abel to read better and spell the words good and know lots of things and be like other people. I want to be smart like other people. If it works perminint they will make everybody smart all over the wurid.

They dint give me anything to eat this morning. I dont know what that eating has to do with getting smart. I’m very hungry and Dr Nemur took away my box of candy. That Dr Nemur is a grouch. Dr Strauss says I can have it back after the operashun. You cant eat befor a operashun…

Progress Report 6—Mar 15

The operashun dint hurt. He did it while I was sleeping. They took off the bandijis from my eyes and my head today so I can make a PROGRESS REPORT. Dr Nemur who looked at some of my other ones says I spell PROGRESS wrong and he told me how to spell it and REPORT too. I got to try and remember that.

I have a very bad memary for spelling. Dr Strauss says its ok to tell about all the things that happin to me but he says I shoud tell more about what I feel and what I think. When I told him I dont know how to think he said try. All the time when the bandijis were on my eyes I tryed to think. Nothing happened. I dont know what to think about. Maybe if I ask him he will tell me how I can think now that Im suppose to get smart. What do smart people think about. Fancy things I suppose. I wish I knew some fancy things alredy.

Progress Report 7—mar 19

Nothing is happining. I had lots of tests and different kinds of races with Algemon. I hate that mouse. He always beats me. Dr Strauss said I got to play those games. And he said some time I got to take those tests over again. Thse inkblots are stupid. And those pictures are stupid too. I like to draw a picture of a man and a woman but I wont make up lies about people.

I got a headache from trying to think so much. I thot Dr Strauss was my fend but he dont help me. He dont tell me what to think or when Ill get smart. Miss Kinnian dint come to see me. I think writing these progress reports are stupid too.

Progress Report 8—Mar 23

Im going back to work at the factery. They said it was better I shud go back to work but I cant tell anyone what the operashun was for and I have to come to the hospitil for an hour evry night after work. They are gonna pay me mony every month for lerning to be smart.

Im glad Im going back to work because I miss my job and all my fends and all the fun we have there.

Dr Strauss says I shud keep writing things down but I dont have to do it every day just when I think of something or something speshul happins. He says dont get discoridged because it takes time and it happins slow. He says it took a long time with Algemon before he got 3 times smarter than he was before. Thats why Algemon beats me all the time because he had that operashun too. That makes me feel better. I coud probly do that amazed faster than a reglar mouse. Maybe some day Ill beat Algemon. Boy that would be something. So far Algemon looks like he mite be smart perminent.

Mar 25—(I dont have to write PROGRESS REPORT on top any more just when I hand it in once a week for Dr Nemur to read. I just have to put the date on. That saves time)

We had a lot of fun at the factery today. Joe Carp said hey look where Charlie had his operashun what did they do Charlie put some brains in. I was going to tell him but I remembered Dr Strauss said no. Then Frank Reffly said what did you do Charlie forget your key and open your door the hard way. That made me laff. Their really my friends and they like me.

Sometimes somebody will say hey look at Joe or Frank or George he really pulled a Charlie Gordon. I dont know why they say that but they always laff. This morning Amos Borg who is the 4 man at Donnegans used my name when he shouted at Ernie the office boy. Ernie lost a packige. He said Ernie for godsake what are you trying to be a Charlie Gordon. I dont understand why he said that. I never lost any packiges.

Mar 28—Dr Strauss came to my room tonight to see why I dint come in like I was suppose to. I told him I dont like to race with Algernon any more. He said I dont have to for a while but I shud come in. He had a present for me only it wasnt a present but just for lend. I thot it was a little television but it wasnt. He said I got to turn it on when I go to sleep. I said your kidding why shud I turn it on when Im going to sleep. Who ever herd of a thing like that. But he said if I want to get smart I got to do what he says. I told him I dint think I was going to get smart and he put his hand on my sholder and said Charlie you dont know it yet but your getting smarter all the time. You wont notice for a while. I think he was just being nice to make me feel good because I dont look any smarter.

Oh yes I almost forgot. I asked him when I can go back to the class at Miss Kinnians school. He said I wont go their. He said that soon Miss Kinnian will come to the hospitil to start and teach me speshul. I was mad at her for not comming to see me when I got the operashun but I like her so maybe we will be frends again.

Mar 29—That crazy TV kept me up all night. How can I sleep with something yelling crazy things all night in my ears. And the nutty pictures. Wow. I dont know what it says when I’m up so how am I going to know when I’m sleeping.

Dr Strauss says its ok. He says my brains are lerning when I sleep and that will help me when Miss Kinnian starts my lessons in the hospitil (only I found out it isnt a hospitil its a labatory). I think its all crazy. If you can get smart when your sleeping why do people go to school. That thing I dont think will work. I use to watch the late show and the late late show on TV all the time and it never made me smart. Maybe you have to sleep while you watch it.

PROGRESS REPORT 9—April 3

Dr Strauss showed me how to keep the TV turned low so now I can sleep. I dont hear a thing. And I still dont understand what it says. A few times I play it over in the morning to find out what I lerned when I was sleeping and I dont think so. Miss Kinnian says Maybe its another langwidge or something. But most times it sounds american. It talks so fast faster then even Miss Gold who was my teacher in 6 grade and I remember she talked so fast I coudnt understand her.

I told Dr Strauss what good is it to get smart in my sleep. I want to be smart when Im awake. He says its the same thing and I have two minds. Theres the subconscious and the conscious (thats how you spell it). And one dont tell the other one what its doing. They dont even talk to each other. Thats why I dream. And boy have I been having crazy dreams. Wow. Ever since that night TV. The late late late late late show.

I forgot to ask him if it was only me or if everybody had those two minds.

(I just looked up the word in the dictionary Dr Strauss gave me. The word is subconscious. adj. Of the nature of mental operations yet not present in consciousness; as, subconscious conflict of desires.) Theres more but I still don’t know what it means. This isnt a very good dictionary for dumb people like me.

Anyway the headache is from the party. My frinds from the factery Joe Carp and Frank Reilly invited me to go with them to Muggsys Saloon for some drinks. I dont like to drink but they said we will have lots of fun. I had a good time.

Joe Carp said I shoud show the girls how I mop out the toilet in the factory and he got me a mop. I showed them and everyone laffed when I told that Mr Donnegan said I was the best janiter he ever had because I like my job and do it good and never come late or miss a day except for my operashun.

I said Miss Kinnian always said Charlie be proud of your job because you do it good.

Everybody laffed and we had a good time and they gave me lots of drinks and Joe said Charlie is a card when hes potted. I dont know what that means but everybody likes me and we have fun. I cant wait to be smart like my best fends Joe Carp and Frank Reilly.

I dont remember how the party was over but I think I went out to buy a newspaper and coffe for Joe and Frank and when I came back there was no one their. I looked for them all over till late. Then I dont remember so good but I think I got sleepy or sick. A nice cop brot me back home. Thats what my landlady Mrs Flynn says.

But I got a headache and a big lump on my head and black and blue all over. I think maybe I fell but Joe Carp says it was the cop they beat up drunks some times. I don’t think so. Miss Kinnian says cops are to help people. Anyway I got a bad headache and Im sick and hurt all over. I dont think Ill drink anymore.

April 6—I beat Algernon! I dint even know I beat him until Burt the tester told me. Then the second time I lost because I got so exited I fell off the chair before I finished. But after that I beat him 8 more times. I must be getting smart to beat a smart mouse like Algernon. But I dont feel smarter.

I wanted to race Algernon some more but Burt said thats enough for one day. They let me hold him for a minit. lies not so bad. Hes soft like a ball of cotton. He blinks and when he opens his eyes their black and pink on the eges.

I said can I feed him because I felt bad to beat him and I wanted to be nice and make fends. Burt said no Algernon is a very specshul mouse with an operashun like mine, and he was the first of all the animals to stay smart so long. He told me Algernon is so smart that every day he has to solve a test to get his food. Its a thing like a lock on a door that changes every time Algernon goes in to eat so he has to 1cm something new to get his food. That made me sad because if he coudnt lern he woud be hungry.

I dont think its right to make you pass a test to eat. How woud Dr Nemur like it to have to pass a test every time he wants to eat. I think Ill be fends with Algernon.

April 9—Tonight after work Miss Kinnian was at the laboratory. She looked like she was glad to see me but scared. I told her dont worry Miss Kinnian I’m not smart yet and she laffed. She said I have confidence in you Charlie the way you struggled so hard to read and right better than all the others. At werst you will have it for a littel wile and your doing somthing for sience.

We are reading a very hard book. I never read such a hard book before. Its called Robinson Crusoe about a man who gets merooned on a dessert iland. Hes smart and figers out all kinds of things so he can have a house and food and hes a good swimmer. Only I feel sorry because hes all alone and has no frends. But I think their must be somebody else on the iland because theres a picture with his funny umbrella looking at footprints. I hope he gets a fend and not be lonly.

April 10—Miss Kinnian teaches me to spell better. She says look at a word and close your eyes and say it over and over until you remember. I have lots of truble with through that you say threw and enough and tough that you dont say enew and tew. You got to say enuff and tuff. Thats how I use to write it before I started to get smart. Im confused but Miss Kinnian says theres no reason in spelling.

PROGRESS REPORT 9—April 3

Apr .14—Finished Robinson Crusoe. I want to find out more about what happens to him but Miss Kinnian says thats all there is. Why?

Apr 15—Miss Kinnian says Im lerning fast. She read some of the Progress Reports and she looked at me kind of funny. She says I’m a fine person and Ill show them all. I asked her why. She said never mind but I shoudnt feel bad if I find out that everybody isnt nice like I think. She said for a person who god gave so little to you done more then a lot of people with brains they never even used. I said all my fends are smart people but there good. They like me and they never did anything that wasnt nice. Then she got something in her eye and she had to run out to the ladys room.

Apr 16—Today, I lerned, the comma, this is a comma (,) a period, with a tail, Miss Kinnian, says its importent, because, it makes writing, better, she said, sombeody, could lose, a lot of money, if a comma, isnt, in the, right place, I dont have, any money, and I dont see, how a comma, keeps you, from losing it,

But she says, everybody, uses commas, so Ill use, them too,

Apr 17—I used the comma wrong. Its punctuation. Miss Kinnian told me to look up long words in the dictionary to lern to spell them. I said whats the difference if you can read it anyway. She said its part of your education so now on Ill look up all the words I’m not sure how to spell. It takes a long time to write that way but I think Im remembering. I only have to look up once and after that I get it right. Anyway thats how come I got the word punctuation right. (Its that way in the dictionary). Miss Kinnian says a period is punctuation too, and there are lots of other marks to lern. I told her I thot all the periods had to have tails but she said no.

You got to mix them up, she showed? me” how. to mix! them( up,. and now; I can! mix up all kinds” of punctuation, in! my writing? There, are lots! of rules? to lern; but Im gettin’g them in my head.

One thing I? like about, Dear Miss Kinnian: (thats the way it goes in a business letter if I ever go into business) is she, always gives me’ a reason” when—I ask. She’s a gen’ius! I wish! I cou’d be smart” like, her;

(Punctuation, is; fun!)

April 18—What a dope I am! I didn’t even understand what she was talking about. I read the grammar book last night and it explanes the whole thing. Then I saw it was the same way as Miss Kinnian was trying to tell me, but I didn’t get it. I got up in the middle of the night, and the whole thing straightened out in my mind.

Miss Kinnian said that the TV working in my sleep helped out. She said I reached a plateau. Thats like the flat top of a bill.

After I figgered out how punctuation worked, I read over all my old Progress Reports from the beginning. Boy, did I have crazy spelling and punctuation! I told Miss Kinnian I ought to go over the pages and fix all the mistakes but she said, “No, Charlie, Dr. Nemur wants them just as they are. That’s why he let you keep them after they were photostated, to see your own progress. You’re coming along fast, Charlie.”

That made me feel good. After the lesson I went down and played with Algernon. We don’t race any more.

April 20—I feel sick inside. Not sick like for a doctor, but inside my chest it feels empty like getting punched and a heartburn at the same time.

I wasn’t going to write about it, but I guess I got to, because it’s important. Today was the first time I ever stayed home from work.

Last night Joe Carp and Frank Reilly invited me to a party. There were lots of girls and some men from the factory. I remembered how sick I got last time I drank too much, so I told Joe I didn’t want anything to drink. He gave me a plain Coke instead. It tasted funny, but I thought it was just a bad taste in my mouth.

We had a lot of fun for a while. Joe said I should dance with Ellen and she would teach me the steps. I fell a few times and I couldn’t understand why because no one else was dancing besides Ellen and me. And all the time I was tripping because somebody’s foot was always sticking out.

Then when I got up I saw the look on Joe’s face and it gave me a funny feeling in my stomack. “He’s a scream,” one of the girls said. Everybody was laughing.

Frank said, “I ain’t laughed so much since we sent him off for the newspaper that night at Muggsy’s and ditched him.”

“Look at him. His face is red.”

“He’s blushing. Charlie is blushing.”

“Hey, Ellen, what’d you do to Charlie? I never saw him act like that before.”

I didn’t know what to do or where to turn. Everyone was looking at me and laughing and I felt naked. I wanted to hide myself. I ran out into the street and I threw up. Then I walked home. It’s a funny thing I never knew that Joe and Frank and the others liked to have me around all the time to make fun of me.

Now I know what it means when they say “to pull a Charlie Gordon.”

I’m ashamed.

PROGRESS REPORT 11

April 21—Still didn’t go into the factory. I told Mrs. Flynn my landlady to call and tell Mr. Donnegan I was sick. Mrs. Flynn looks at me very funny lately like she’s scared of me.

I think it’s a good thing about finding out how everybody laughs at me. I thought about it a lot. It’s because I’m so dumb and I don’t even know when I’m doing something dumb. People think it’s funny when a dumb person can’t do things the same way they can.

Anyway, now I know I’m getting smarter every day. I know punctuation and I can spell good. I like to look up all the hard words in the dictionary and I remember them. I’m reading a lot now, and Miss Kin-than says I read very fast. Sometimes I even understand what I’m reading about, and it stays in my mind. There are times when I can close my eyes and think of a page and it all comes back like a picture.

Besides history, geography, and arithmetic, Miss Kinnian said I should start to learn a few foreign languages. Dr. Strauss gave me some more tapes to play while I sleep. I still don’t understand how that conscious and unconscious mind works, but Dr. Strauss says not to worry yet. He asked me to promise that when I start learning college subjects next week I wouldn’t read any books on psychology—that is, until he gives me permission.

I feel a lot better today, but I guess I’m still a little angry that all the time people were laughing and making fun of me because I wasn’t so smart. When I become intelligent like Dr. Strauss says, with three times my 1.0. of 68, then maybe I’ll be like everyone else and people will like me and be friendly.

I’m not sure what an I.Q. is. Dr. Nemur said it was something that measured how intelligent you were—like a scale in the drugstore weighs pounds. But Dr. Strauss had a big argument with him and said an I.Q. didn’t weigh intelligence at all. He said an I.Q. showed how much intelligence you could get, like the numbers on the outside of a measuring cup. You still had to fill the cup up with stuff.

Then when I asked Burt, who gives me my intelligence tests and works with Algernon, he said that both of them were wrong (only I had to promise not to tell them he said so). Burt says that the I.Q. measures a lot of different things including some of the things you learned already, and it really isn’t any good at all.

So I still don’t know what 1.0. is except that mine is going to be over 200 soon. I didn’t want to say anything, but I don’t see how if they don’t know what it is, or where it is—I don’t see how they know how much of it you’ve got.

Dr. Nemur says I have to take a Rorshach Test tomorrow. I wonder what that is.

April 22—I found out what a Rorshach is. It’s the test I took before the operation—the one with the inkblots on the pieces of cardboard. The man who gave me the test was the same one.

I was scared to death of those inkblots. I knew he was going to ask me to find the pictures and I knew I wouldn’t be able to. I was thinking to myself, if only there was some way of knowing what kind of pictures were hidden there. Maybe there weren’t any pictures at all. Maybe it was just a trick to see if I was dumb enough to look for something that wasn’t there. Just thinking about that made me sore at him.

“All right, Charlie,” he said, “you’ve seen these cards before remember?”

“Of course I remember.”

The way I said it, he knew I was angry, and he looked surprised. “Yes, of course. Now I want you to look at this one. What might this be? What do you see on this card? People see all sorts of things in these inkblots. Tell me what it might be for you—what it makes you think of.”

I was shocked. That wasn’t what I had expected him to say at all. “You mean there are no pictures hidden in those inkblots?”

He frowned and took off his glasses. “What?”

“Pictures. Hidden in the inkblots. Last time you told me that everyone could see them and you wanted me to find them too.”

He explained to me that the last time he had used almost the exact same words he was using now. I didn’t believe it, and I still have the suspicion that he misled me at the time just for the fun of it. Unless—I don’t know any more—could I have been that feebleminded?

We went through the cards slowly. One of them looked like a pair of bats tugging at something. Another one looked like two men fencing with swords. I imagined all sorts of things. I guess I got carried away. But I didn’t trust him any more, and I kept turning them around and even looking on the back to see if there was anything there I was supposed to catch. While he was making his notes, I peeked out of the corner of my eye to read it. But it was all in code that looked like this:

WF+A DdF-Ad orig. WF-A SF+obj

The test still doesn’t make sense to me. It seems to me that anyone could make up lies about things that they didn’t really see. How could be know I wasn’t making a fool of him by mentioning things that I didn’t really imagine? Maybe I’ll understand it when Dr. Strauss lets me read up on psychology.

April 25—I figured out a new way to line up the machines in the factory, and Mr. Donnegan says it will save him ten thousand dollars a year in labor and increased production. He gave me a twenty-five-dollar bonus.

I wanted to take Joe Carp and Frank Reilly out to lunch to celebrate, but Joe said he had to buy some things for his wife, and Frank said he was meeting his cousin for lunch. I guess it’ll take a little time for them to get used to the changes in me. Everybody seems to be frightened of me. When I went over to Amos Borg and tapped him on the shoulder, he jumped up in the air.

People don’t talk to me much any more or kid around the way they used to. It makes the job kind of lonely.

April 27—I got up the nerve today to ask Miss Kinnian to have dinner with me tomorrow night to celebrate my bonus.

At first she wasn’t sure it was right, but I asked Dr. Strauss and he said it was okay. Dr. Strauss and Dr. Nemur don’t seem to be getting along so well. They’re arguing all the time. This evening when I came in to ask Dr. Strauss about having dinner with Miss Kinnian, I heard them shouting. Dr. Nemur was saying that it was his experiment and his research, and Dr. Strauss was shouting back that he contributed just as much, because he found me through Miss Kinnian and he performed the operation. Dr. Strauss said that someday thousands of neurosurgeons might be using his technique all over the world.

Dr. Nemur wanted to publish the results of the experiment at the end of this month. Dr. Strauss wanted to wait a while longer to be sure. Dr. Strauss said that Dr. Nemur was more interested in the Chair of psychology at Princeton than he was in the experiment. Dr. Nemur said that Dr. Strauss was nothing but an opportunist who was trying to ride to glory on his coattails.

When I left afterwards, I found myself trembling. I don’t know why for sure, but it was as if I’d seen both men clearly for the first time. I remember hearing Burt say that Dr. Nemur had a shrew of a wife who was pushing him all the time to get things published so that he could became famous. Burt said that the dream of her life was to have a big-shot husband.

Was Dr. Strauss really trying to ride on his coattails?

April 28—I don’t understand why I never noticed how beautiful Miss Kinnian really is. She has brown eyes and feathery brown hair that comes to the top of her neck. She’s only thirty-four! I think from the beginning I had the feeling that she was an unreachable genius—and very, very old. Now, every time I see her she grows younger and more lovely.

We had dinner and a long talk. When she said that I was coming along so fast that soon I’d be leaving her behind, I laughed.

“It’s true, Charlie. You’re already a better reader than I am. You can read a whole page at a glance while I can take in only a few lines at a time. And you remember every single thing you read. I’m lucky if I can recall the main thoughts and the general meaning.”

“I don’t feel intelligent. There are so many things I don’t understand.”

She took out a cigarette and I lit it for her. “You’ve got to be a little patient. You’re accomplishing in days and weeks what it takes normal people to do in half a lifetime. That’s what makes it so amazing. You’re like a giant sponge now, soaking things in. Facts, figures, general knowledge. And soon you’ll begin to connect them, too. You’ll see how the different branches of learning are related. There are many levels, Charlie, like steps on a giant ladder that take you up higher and higher to see more and more of the world around you.

“I can see only a little bit of that, Charlie, and I won’t go much higher than I am now, but you’ll keep climbing up and up, and see more and more, and each step will open new worlds that you never even knew existed.” She frowned. “I hope… I just hope to God—”

“What?”

“Never mind, Charles. I just hope I wasn’t wrong to advise you to go into this in the first place.”

I laughed. “How could that be? It worked, didn’t it? Even Algernon is still smart.”

We sat there silently for a while and I knew what she was thinking about as she watched me toying with the chain of my rabbit’s foot and my keys. I didn’t want to think of that possibility any more than elderly people want to think of death. I knew that this was only the beginning. I knew what she meant about levels because I’d seen some of them already. The thought of leaving her behind made me sad.

I’m in love with Miss Kinnian.

PROGRESS REPORT 12

April 30—I’ve quit my job with Donnegan’s Plastic Box Company. Mr. Donnegan insisted that it would be better for all concerned if I left.

What did I do to make them hate me so?

The first I knew of it was when Mr. Donnegan showed me the petition. Eight hundred and forty names, everyone connected with the factory, except Fanny Girden. Scanning the list quickly, I saw at once that hers was the only missing name. All the rest demanded that I be fired.

Joe Carp and Frank Reilly wouldn’t talk to me about it. No one else would either, except Fanny. She was one of the few people I’d known who set her mind to something and believed it no matter what the rest of the world proved, said, or did—and Fanny did not believe that I should have been fired. She had been against the petition on principle and despite the pressure and threats she’d held out.

“Which don’t mean to say,” she remarked, “that I don’t think there’s something mighty strange about you, Charlie. Them changes. I don’t know. You used to be a good, dependable, ordinary man—not too bright maybe, but honest. Who knows what you done to yourself to get so smart all of a sudden. Like everybody around here’s been saying, Charlie, it’s not right.”

“But how can you say that, Fanny? What’s wrong with a man becoming intelligent and wanting to acquire knowledge and understanding of the world around him?”

She stared down at her work and I turned to leave. Without looking at me, she said: “It was evil when Eve listened to the snake and ate from the tree of knowledge. It was evil when she saw that she was naked. If not for that none of us would ever have to grow old and sick, and die.”

Once again now I have the feeling of shame burning inside me. This intelligence has driven a wedge between me and all the people I once knew and loved. Before, they laughed at me and despised me for my ignorance and dullness; now, they hate me for my knowledge and understanding. What in God’s name do they want of me?

They’ve driven me out of the factory. Now I’m more alone than ever before.

May 15—Dr. Strauss is very angry at me for not having written any progress reports in two weeks. He’s justified because the lab is now paying me a regular salary. I told him I was too busy thinking and reading. When I pointed out that writing was such a slow process that it made me impatient with my poor handwriting, he suggested that I learn to type. It’s much easier to write now because I can type nearly seventy-five words a minute. Dr. Strauss continually reminds me of the need to speak and write simply so that people will be able to understand me.

I’ll try to review all the things that happened to me during the last two weeks. Algernon and I were presented to the American Psychological Association sitting in convention with the World Psychological Association last Tuesday. We created quite a sensation. Dr. Nemur and Dr. Strauss were proud of us.

I suspect that Dr. Nemur, who is sixty—ten years older than Dr. Strauss—finds it necessary to see tangible results of his work. Undoubtedly the result of pressure by Mrs. Nemur.

Contrary to my earlier impressions of him, I realize that Dr. Nemur is not at all a genius. He has a very good mind, but it struggles under the spectre of self-doubt. He wants people to take him for a genius. Therefore, it is important for him to feel that his work is accepted by the world. I believe that Dr. Nemur was afraid of further delay because he worried that someone else might make a discovery along these lines and take the credit from him.

Dr. Strauss on the other hand might be called a genius, although I feel that his areas of knowledge are too limited. He was educated in the tradition of narrow specialization; the broader aspects of background were neglected far more than necessary—even for a neurosurgeon.

I was shocked to learn that the only ancient languages he could read were Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and that he knows almost nothing of mathematics beyond the elementary levels of the calculus of variations. When he admitted this to me, I found myself almost annoyed. It was as if he’d hidden this part of himself in order to deceive me, pretending—as do many people I’ve discovered—to be what he is not. No one I’ve ever known is what he appears to be on the surface.

Dr. Nemur appears to be uncomfortable around me. Sometimes when I try to talk to him, he just looks at me strangely and turns away. I was angry at first when Dr. Strauss told me I was giving Dr. Nemur an inferiority complex. I thought he was mocking me and I’m oversensitive at being made fun of.

How was I to know that a highly respected psychoexperimentalist like Nemur was unacquainted with Hindustani and Chinese? It’s absurd when you consider the work that is being done in India and China today in the very field of this study.

I asked Dr. Strauss how Nemur could refute Rahajamati’s attack on his method and results if Nemur couldn’t even read them in the first place. That strange look on Dr. Strauss’ face can mean only one of two things. Either he doesn’t want to tell Nemur what they’re saying in India, or else—and this worries me—Dr. Strauss doesn’t know either. I must be careful to speak and write clearly and simply so that people won’t laugh.

May 18—I am very disturbed. I saw Miss Kinnian last night for the first time in over a week. I tried to avoid all discussions of intellectual concepts and to keep the conversation on a simple, everyday level, but she just stared at me blankly and asked me what I meant about the mathematical variance equivalent in Dorbermann’s Fifth Concerto.

When I tried to explain she stopped me and laughed. I guess I got angry, but I suspect I’m approaching her on the wrong level. No matter what I try to discuss with her, I am unable to communicate. I must review Vrostadt’s equations on Levels of Semantic Progression. I find that I don’t communicate with people much any more. Thank God for books and music and things I can think about. I am alone in my apartment at Mrs. Flynn’s boardinghouse most of the time and seldom speak to anyone.

May 20—I would not have noticed the new dishwasher, a boy of about sixteen, at the corner diner where I take my evening meals if not for the incident of the broken dishes.

They crashed to the floor, shattering and sending bits of white china under the tables. The boy stood there, dazed and frightened, holding the empty tray in his hand. The whistles and catcalls from the customers (the cries of “hey, there go the profits!”… “Mazeltov!”… and “well, he didn’t work here very long… ” which invariably seems to follow the breaking of glass or dishware in a public restaurant) all seemed to confuse him.

When the owner came to see what the excitement was about, the boy cowered as if he expected to be struck and threw up his arms as if to ward off the blow.

“All right! All right, you dope,” shouted the owner, “don’t just stand there! Get the broom and sweep that mess up. A broom… a broom, you idiot! It’s in the kitchen. Sweep up all the pieces.”

The boy saw that he was not going to be punished. His frightened expression disappeared and he smiled and hummed as he came back with the broom to sweep the floor. A few of the rowdier customers kept up the remarks, amusing themselves at his expense.

“Here, sonny, over here there’s a nice piece behind you…”

“C’mon, do it again…”

“He’s not so dumb. It’s easier to break ‘em than to wash ‘em…”

As his vacant eyes moved across the crowd of amused onlookers, he slowly mirrored their smiles and finally broke into an uncertain grin at the joke which he obviously did not understand.

I felt sick inside as I looked at his dull, vacuous smile, the wide, bright eyes of a child, uncertain but eager to please. They were laughing at him because he was mentally retarded.

And I had been laughing at him too.

Suddenly, I was furious at myself and all those who were smirking at him. I jumped up and shouted, “Shut up! Leave him alone! It’s not his fault he can’t understand! He can’t help what he is! But for God’s sake he’s still a human being!”

The room grew silent. I cursed myself for losing control and creating a scene. I tried not to look at the boy as I paid my check and walked out without touching my food. I felt ashamed for both of us.

How strange it is that people of honest feelings and sensibility, who would not take advantage of a man born without arms or legs or eyes—how such people think nothing of abusing a man born with low intelligence. It infuriated me to think that not too long ago I, like this boy, had foolishly played the clown.

And I had almost forgotten.

I’d hidden the picture of the old Charlie Gordon from myself because now that I was intelligent it was something that had to be pushed out of my mind. But today in looking at that boy, for the first time I saw what I had been. I was just like him!”

Only a short time ago, I learned that people laughed at me. Now I can see that unknowingly I joined with them in laughing at myself. That hurts most of all.

I have often reread my progress reports and seen the illiteracy, the childish naïveté, the mind of low intelligence peering from a dark room, through the keyhole, at the dazzling light outside. I see that even in my dullness I knew that I was inferioi, and that other people had something I lacked—something denied me. In my mental blindness, I thought that it was somehow connected with the ability to read and write, and I was sure that if I could get those skills I would automatically have intelligence too.

Even a feebleminded man wants to be like other men.

A child may not know how to feed itself, or what to eat, yet it knows of hunger.

This then is what I was like, I never knew. Even with my gift of intellectual awareness, I never really knew.

This day was good for me. Seeing the past more clearly, I have decided to use my knowledge and skills to work in the field of increasing human intelligence levels. Who is better equipped for this work? Who else has lived in both worlds? These are my people. Let me use my gift to do something for them.

Tomorrow, I will discuss with Dr. Strauss the manner in which I can work in this area. I may be able to help him work out the problems of widespread use of the technique which was used on me. I have several good ideas of my own.

There is so much that might be done with this technique. If I could be made into a genius, what about thousands of others like myself? What fantastic levels might be achieved by using this technique on normal people? On geniuses?

There are so many doors to open. I am impatient to begin.

PROGRESS REPORT 13

May 23—It happened today. Algernon bit me. I visited the lab to see him as I do occasionally, and when I took him out of his cage, he snapped at my hand. I put him back and watched him for a while. He was unusually disturbed and vicious.

May 24—Burt, who is in charge of the experimental animals, tells me that Algernon is changing. He is less co-operative; he refuses to run the maze any more; general motivation has decreased. And he hasn’t been eating. Everyone is upset about what this may mean.

May 25—They’ve been feeding Algernon, who now refuses to work the shifting-lock problem. Everyone identifies me with Algernon. In a way we’re both the first of our kind. They’re all pretending that Algernon’s behavior is not necessarily significant for me. But it’s hard to hide the fact that some of the other animals who were used in this experiment are showing strange behavior.

Dr. Strauss and Dr. Nemur have asked me not to come to the lab any more. I know what they’re thinking but I can’t accept it. I am going ahead with my plans to carry their research forward. With all due respect to both of these fine scientists, I am well aware of their limitations. If there is an answer, I’ll have to find it out for myself. Suddenly, time has become very important to me.

May 29—I have been given a lab of my own and permission to go ahead with the research. I’m on to something. Working day and night. I’ve had a cot moved into the lab. Most of my writing time is spent on the notes which I keep in a separate folder, but from time to time I feel it necessary to put down my moods and my thoughts out of sheer habit.

I find the calculus of intelligence to be a fascinating study. Here is the place for the application of all the knowledge I have acquired. In a sense it’s the problem I’ve been concerned with all my life.

May 31—Dr. Strauss thinks I’m working too hard. Dr. Nemur says I’m trying to cram a lifetime of research and thought into a few weeks. I know I should rest, but I’m driven on by something inside that won’t let me stop. I’ve got to find the reason for the sharp regression in Algernon. I’ve got to know if and when it will happen to me.

June 4

LETTER TO DR. STRAUSS (copy)

Dear Dr. Strauss:

Under separate cover I am sending you a copy of my report entitled, “The Algernon-Gordon Effect: A Study of Structure and Function of Increased Intelligence,” which I would like to have you read and have published.

As you see, my experiments are completed. I have included in my report all of my formulae, as well as mathematical analysis in the appendix. Of course, these should be verified.

Because of its importance to both you and Dr. Nemur (and need I say to myself, too?) I have checked and rechecked my results a dozen times in the hope of finding an error. I am sorry to say the results must stand. Yet for the sake of science, I am grateful for the little bit that I here add to the knowledge of the function of the human mind and of the laws governing the artificial increase of human intelligence.

I recall your once saying to me that an experimental failure or the disproving of a theory was as important to the advancement of learning as a success would be. I know now that this is true. I am sorry, however, that my own contribution to the field must rest upon the ashes of the work of two men I regard so highly.

Yours truly,

Charles Gordon

encL: rept.

June 5—I must not become emotional. The facts and the results of my experiments are clear, and the more sensational aspects of my own rapid climb cannot obscure the fact that the tripling of intelligence by the surgical technique developed by Drs. Strauss and Nemur must be viewed as having little or no practical applicability (at the present time) to the increase of human intelligence.

As I review the records and data on Algernon, I see that although he is still in his physical infancy, he has regressed mentally. Motor activity is impaired; there is a general reduction of glandular activity; there is an accelerated loss of co-ordination.

There are also strong indications of progressive amnesia.

As will be seen by my report, these and other physical and mental deterioration syndromes can be predicted with statistically significant results by the application of my formula.

The surgical stimulus to which we were both subjected has resulted in an intensification and acceleration of all mental processes. The unforeseen development, which I have taken the liberty of calling the Algernon-Gordon Effect, is the logical extension of the entire intelligence speed-up. The hypothesis here proven may be described simply in the following terms: Artificially increased intelligence deteriorates at a rate of time directly proportional to the quantity of the increase.

I feel that this, in itself, is an important discovery.

As long as I am able to write, I will continue to record my thoughts in these progress reports; it is one of my few pleasures. However, by all indications, my own mental deterioration will be very rapid.

I have already begun to notice signs of emotional instability and forgetfulness, the first symptoms of the burnout.

June 10—Deterioration progressing. I have become absentminded. Algernon died two days ago. Dissection shows my predictions were right. His brain had decreased in weight and there was a general smoothing out of cerebral convolutions as well as a deepening and broadening of brain fissures.

I guess the same thing is or will soon be happening to me. Now that it’s definite, I don’t want it to happen.

I put Algernon’s body in a cheese box and buried him in the back yard. I cried.

June 15—Dr. Strauss came to see me again. I wouldn’t open the door and I told him to go away. I want to be left to myself. I have become touchy and irritable. I feel the darkness closing in. It’s hard to throw off thoughts of suicide. I keep telling myself how important this introspective journal will be.

It’s a strange sensation to pick up a book that you’ve read and enjoyed just a few months ago and discover that you don’t remember it. I remembered how great I thought John Milton was, but when I picked up Paradise Lost I couldn’t understand it at all. I got so angry I threw the book across the room.

I’ve got to try to hold on to some of it. Some of the things I’ve learned. Oh, God, please don’t take it all away.

June 19—Sometimes, at night, I go out for a walk. Last night I couldn’t remember where I lived. A policeman took me home. I have the strange feeling that this has all happened to me before—a long time ago. I keep telling myself I’m the only person in the world who can describe what’s happening to me.

June 21—Why can’t I remember? I’ve got to fight. I lie in bed for days and I don’t know who or where I am. Then it all comes back to me in a flash. Fugues of amnesia. Symptoms of senility—second childhood. I can watch them coming on. It’s so cruelly logical. I learned so much and so fast. Now my mind is deteriorating rapidly. I won’t let it happen. I’ll fight it. I can’t help thinking of the boy in the restaurant, the blank expression, the silly smile, the people laughing at him. No—please—not that again.

June 22—I’m forgetting things that I learned recently. It seems to be following the classic pattern—the last things learned are the first things forgotten. Or is that the pattern? I’d better look it up again.

I reread my paper on the Algernon-Gordon Effect and I get the strange feeling that it was written by someone else. There are parts I don’t even understand.

Motor activity impaired. I keep tripping over things, and it becomes increasingly difficult to type.

June 23—I’ve given up using the typewriter completely. My co-ordination is bad. I feel that I’m moving slower and slower. Had a terrible shock today. I picked up a copy of an article I used in my research, Krueger’s Uber psychische Ganzheit, to see if it would help me understand what I had done. First I thought there was something wrong with my eyes. Then I realized I could no longer read German. I tested myself in other languages. All gone.

June 30—A week since I dared to write again. It’s slipping away like sand through my fingers. Most of the books I have are too hard for me now. I get angry with them because I know that I read and understood them just a few weeks ago.

I keep telling myself I must keep writing these reports so that somebody will know what is happening to me. But it gets harder to form the words and remember spellings. I have to look up even simple words in the dictionary now and it makes me impatient with myself.

Dr. Strauss comes around almost every day, but I told him I wouldn’t see or speak to anybody. He feels guilty. They all do. But I don’t blame anyone. I knew what might happen. But how it hurts.

July 7—I don’t know where the week went. Todays Sunday I know because I can see through my window people going to church. I think I stayed in bed all week but I remember Mrs. Flynn bringing food to me a few times. I keep saying over and over lye got to do something but then I forget or maybe its just easier not to do what I say Im going to do.

I think of my mother and father a lot these days. I found a picture of them with me taken at a beach. My father has a big ball under his arm and my mother is holding me by the hand. I dont remember them the way they are in the picture. All I remember is my father drunk most of the time and arguing with mom about money.

He never shaved much and he used to scratch my face when he hugged me. My mother said he died but Cousin Miltie said he heard his mom and dad say that my father ran away with another woman. When I asked my mother she slapped my face and said my father was dead. I dont think I ever found out which was true but I don’t care much. (He said he was going to take me to see cows on a farm once but he never did. He never kept his promises…)

July 10—My landlady Mrs Flynn is very worried about me. She says the way I lay around all day and dont do anything I remind her of her son before she threw him out of the house. She said she doesnt like loafers. If Im sick its one thing, but if Im a loafer thats another thing and she wont have it. I told her I think flu sick.

I try to read a little bit every day, mostly stories, but sometimes I have to read the same thing over and over again because I dont know what it means. And its hard to write. I know I should look up all the words in the dictionary but its so hard and Im so tired all the time.

Then I got the idea that I would only use the easy words instead of the long hard ones. That saves time. I put flowers on Algernons grave about once a week. Mrs Flynn thinks Im crazy to put flowers on a mouses grave but I told her that Algernon was special.

July 14—Its sunday again. I dont have anything to do to keep me busy now because my television set is broke and I dont have any money to get it fixed. (I think I lost this months check from the lab. I dont remember)

I get awful headaches and asperin doesnt help me much. Mrs Flynn knows I’m really sick and she feels very sorry for me. Shes a wonderful woman whenever someone is sick.

July 22—Mrs Flynn called a strange doctor to see me. She was afraid I was going to die. I told the doctor I wasnt too sick and that I only forget sometimes. He asked me did I have any friends or relatives and I said no I dont have any. I told him I had a friend called Algernon once but he was a mouse and we used to run races together. He looked at me kind of funny like he thought I was crazy.

He smiled when I told him I used to be a genius. He talked to me like I was a baby and he winked at Mrs Flynn. I got mad and chased him out because he was making fun of me the way they all used to.

July 24—I have no more money and Mrs Flynn says I got to go to work somewhere and pay the rent because I havent paid for over two months. I dont know any work but the job I used to have at Donnegans Plastic Box Company. I dont want to go back there because they all knew me when I was smart and maybe they’ll laugh at me. But I dont know what else to do to get money.

July 25—I was looking at some of my old progress reports and its very funny but I cant read what I wrote. I can make out some of the words but they dont make sense.

Miss Kinnian came to the door but I said go away I dont want to see you. She cried and I cried too but I wouldnt let her in because I didnt want her to laugh at me. I told her I didn’t like her any more. I told her I didnt want to be smart any more. Thats not true. I still love her and I still want to be smart but I had to say that so shed go away. She gave Mrs Flynn money to pay the rent. I dont want that. I got to get a job.

Please… please let me not forget how to read and write.

July 27—Mr Donnegan was very nice when I came back and asked him for my old job of janitor. First he was very suspicious but I told him what happened to me then he looked very sad and put his hand on my shoulder and said Charlie Gordon you got guts.

Everybody looked at me when I came downstairs and started working in the toilet sweeping it out like I used to. I told myself Charlie if they make fun of you dont get sore because you remember their not so smart as you once thot they were. And besides they were once your friends and if they laughed at you that doesnt mean anything because they liked you too.

One of the new men who came to work there after I went away made a nasty crack he said hey Charlie I hear your a very smart fella a real quiz kid. Say something intelligent. I felt bad but Joe Carp came over and grabbed him by the shirt and said leave him alone you lousy cracker or Ill break your neck. I didnt expect Joe to take my part so I guess hes really my friend.

Later Frank Reilly came over and said Charlie if anybody bothers you or trys to take advantage you call me or Joe and we will set em straight. I said thanks Frank and I got choked up so I had to turn around and go into the supply room so he wouldnt see me cry. Its good to have friends.

July28—I did a dumb thing today I forgot I wasnt in Miss Kinnians class at the adult center any more like I use to be. I went in and sat down in my old seat in the back of the room and she looked at me funny and she said Charles. I dint remember she ever called me that before only Charlie so I said hello Miss Kinnian Im redy for my lesin today only I lost my reader that we was using. She startid to cry and run out of the room and everybody looked at me and I saw they wasnt the same pepul who used to be in my class.

Then all of a suddin I rememberd some things about the operashun and me getting smart and I said holy smoke I reely pulled a Charlie Gordon that time. I went away before she come back to the room.

Thats why Im going away from New York for good. I dont want to do nothing like that agen. I dont want Miss Kinnian to feel sorry for me. Evry body feels sorry at the factery and I dont want that eather so Im going someplace where nobody knows that Charlie Gordon was once a genus and now he cant even reed a book or rite good.

Im taking a cuple of books along and even if I cant reed them Ill practise hard and maybe I wont forget every thing I lerned. If I try reel hard maybe Ill be a littel bit smarter than I was before the operashun. I got my rabits foot and my luky penny and maybe they will help me.

If you ever reed this Miss Kinnian dont be sorry for me Im glad I got a second chanse to be smart becaus I lerned a lot of things that I never even new were in this world and Im grateful that I saw it all for a littel bit. I dont know why Im dumb agen or what I did wrong maybe its becaus I dint try hard enuff. But if I try and practis very hard maybe Ill get a littl smarter and know what all the words are. I remember a littel bit how nice I had a feeling with the blue book that has the torn cover when I red it. Thats why fin gonna keep trying to get smart so I can have that feeling agen. Its a good feeling to know things and be smart. I wish I had it rite now if I did I would sit down and reed all the time. Anyway I bet fin the first dumb person in the world who ever found out something importent for sience. I remember I did somthing but I dont remember what. So I gess its like I did it for all the dumb pepul like me.

Good-by Miss Kinnian and Dr. Strauss. and evreybody. And P.S. please tell Dr Nemur not to be such a grouch when pepul laff at him and he woud have more frends. Its easy to make frends if you let pepul laff at you. Im going to have lots of frends where I go.

P.P.S. Please if you get a chanse put some flowrs on Algernons grave in the bakyard…

MY SISTER'S BROTHER

Philip Jose Farmer

The sixth night on Mars, Lane wept. He sobbed loudly while tears ran down his cheeks. He smacked his right fist into the palm of his left hand until the flesh burned. He howled with loneliness. He swore the most obscene and blasphemous oaths he knew.

After a while, he quit weeping. He dried his eyes, downed a shot of Scotch, and felt much better.

He wasn’t ashamed because he had bawled like a woman. After all, there had been a Man who had not been ashamed to weep. He could dissolve in tears the grinding stones within; he was the reed that bent before the wind, not the oak that toppled, roots and all.

Now, the weight and the ache in his breast gone, feeling almost cheerful, he made his scheduled report over the transceiver to the circum-Martian vessel five hundred and eight miles overhead. Then he did what men must do any place in the universe. Afterward, he lay down in the bunk and opened the one personal book he had been allowed to bring along, an anthology of the world’s greatest poetry.

He read here and there, running, pausing for only a line or two, then completing in his head the thousand-times murmured lines. Here and there he read, like a bee tasting the best of the nectar…

It is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying,

Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled…

We have a little sister,

And she hath no breasts;

What shall we do for our sister…

In the day when she shall be spoken for?

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil for Thou art with me…

Come live with me and be my love

And we shall all the pleasures prove…

It lies not in our power to love or hate

For will in us is over-ruled by fate…

With thee conversing, I forget all time,

All seasons, and their change, all please alike…

He read on about love and man and woman until he had almost forgotten his troubles. His lids drooped; the book fell from his hand. But he roused himself, climbed out of the bunk, got down on his knees, and prayed that he be forgiven and that his blasphemy and despair be understood. And he prayed that his four lost comrades be found safe and sound. Then he climbed back into the bunk and fell asleep.

At dawn he woke reluctantly to the alarm clocks ringing. Nevertheless, he did not fall back into sleep but rose, turned on the transceiver, filled a cup with water and instant, and dropped in a heat pill. Just as he finished the coffee, he heard Captain Stroyansky’s voice from the ‘ceiver. Stroyansky spoke with barely a trace of Slavic accent.

“Cardigan Lane? You awake?”

“More or less. How are you?”

“If we weren’t worried about all of you down there, we’d be fine.”

“I know. Well, what are your orders?”

“There is only one thing to do, Lane. You must go look for the others. Otherwise, you cannot get back up to us. It takes at least two more men to pilot the rocket.”

“Theoretically, one man can pilot the beast,” replied Lane. “But it’s uncertain. However, that doesn’t matter. I’m leaving at once to look for the others. I’d do that even if you ordered otherwise.”

Stroyansky chuckled. Then he barked like a seal. “The success of the expedition is more important than the fate of four men. Theoretically, anyway. But if I were in your shoes, and I’m glad I’m not, I would do the same. So, good luck, Lane.”

“Thanks,” said Lane. “I’ll need more than luck. I’ll also need God’s help. I suppose He’s here, even if the place does look God forsaken.”

He looked through the transparent double plastic walls of the dome.

“The wind’s blowing about twenty-five miles an hour. The dust is covering the tractor tracks. I have to get going before they’re covered up entirely. My supplies are all packed; I’ve enough food, air, and water to last me six days. It makes a big package, the air tanks and the sleeping tent bulk large. It’s over a hundred Earth pounds, but here only about forty. I’m also taking a rope, a knife, a pickax, a flare pistol, half a dozen flares. And a walkie-talkie.

“It should take me two days to walk the thirty miles to the spot where the tracs last reported. Two days to look around. Two days to get back.”

“You be back in five days!” shouted Stroyansky. “That’s an order! It shouldn’t take you more than one day to scout around. Don’t take chances. Five days!”

And then, in a softer voice, “Good luck, and, if there is a God, may He help you!”

Lane tried to think of things to say, things that might perhaps go down with the Doctor Livingstone, I presume, category. But all he could say was, “So long.”

Twenty minutes later, he closed behind him the door to the dome’s pressure lock. He strapped on the towering pack and began to walk. But when he was about fifty yards from the base, he felt compelled to turn around for one long look at what he might never see again. There, on the yellow-red felsite plain, stood the pressurized bubble that was to have been the home of the five men for a year. Nearby squatted the glider that had brought them down, its enormous wings spreading far, its skids covered with the forever-blowing dust.

Straight ahead of him was the rocket, standing on its fins, pointing toward the blue-black sky, glittering in the Martian sun, shining with promise of power, escape from Mars, and return to the orbital ship. It had come down to the surface of Mars on the back of the glider in a hundred-and-twenty-mile an hour landing. After it had dropped the two six-ton caterpillar tractors it carried, it had been pulled off the glider and tilted on end by winches pulled by those very tractors. Now it waited for him and for the other four men.

“I’ll be back,” he murmured to it. “And if I have to, I’ll take you up by myself.”

He began to walk, following the broad double tracks left by the tank. The tracks were faint, for they were two days old, and the blowing silicate dust had almost filled them. The tracks made by the first tank, which had left three days ago, were completely hidden.

The trail led northwest. It left the three-mile wide plain between two hills of naked rock and entered the quarter-mile corridor between two rows of vegetation. The rows ran straight and parallel from horizon to horizon, for miles behind him and miles ahead.

Lane, on the ground and close to one row, saw it for what it was. Its foundation was an endless three-foot high tube, most of whose bulk, like an icebergs, lay buried in the ground. The curving sides were covered with blue-green lichenoids that grew on every rock or projection. From the spine of the tube, separated at regular intervals, grew the trunks of plants. The trunks were smooth shiny blue-green pillars two feet thick and six feet high. Out of their tops spread radially many pencil-thin branches, like bats’ fingers. Between the fingers stretched a blue-green membrane, the single tremendous leaf of the umbrella tree.

When Lane had first seen them from the glider as it hurtled over them, he had thought they looked like an army of giant hands uplifted to catch the sun. Giant they were, for each rib-supported leaf measured fifty feet across. And hands they were, hands to beg for and catch the rare gold of the tiny sun. During the day, the ribs on the side nearest the moving sun dipped toward the ground, and the furthest ribs tilted upward. Obviously, the daylong maneuver was designed to expose the complete area of the membrane to the light, to allow not an inch to remain in shadow.

It was to be expected that strange forms of plant life would be found here. But structures built by animal life were not expected. Especially when they were so large and covered an eighth of the planet.

These structures were the tubes from which rose the trunks of the umbrella trees. Lane had tried to drill through the rocklike side of the tube. So hard was it, it had blunted one drill and had done a second no good before he had chipped off a small piece. Contented for the moment with that, he had taken it to the dome, there to examine it under a microscope. After an amazed look, he had whistled. Embedded in the cementlike mass were plant cells. Some were partially destroyed; some, whole.

Further tests had shown him that the substance was composed of cellulose, a ligninlike stuff, various nucleic acids, and unknown materials.

He had reported his discovery and also his conjecture to the orbital ship. Some form of animal life had, at some time, chewed up and partially digested wood and then had regurgitated it as a cement. The tubes had been fashioned from the cement.

The following day he intended to go back to the tube and blast a hole in it. But two of the men had set out in a tractor on a field exploration. Lane, as radio operator for that day, had stayed in the dome. He was to keep in contact with the two, who were to report to him every fifteen minutes.

The tank had been gone about two hours and must have been about thirty miles away, when it had failed to report. Two hours later, the other tank, carrying two men, had followed the prints of the first party. They had gone about thirty miles from base and were maintaining continuous radio contact with Lane.

“There’s a slight obstacle ahead,” Greenberg had said: “It’s a tube coming out at right angles from the one we’ve been paralleling. It has no plants growing from it. Not much of a rise, not much of a drop on the other side, either. We’ll make it easy.”

Then he had yelled.

That was all.

Now, the day after, Lane was on foot, following the fading trail. Behind him lay the base camp, close to the junction of the two canali known as Avernus and Tartarus. He was between two of the rows of vegetation which formed Tartarus, and he was traveling northeastward, toward the Sirenum Mare, the so-called Siren Sea. The Mare, he supposed, would be a much broader group of tree-bearing tubes.

He walked steadily while the sun rose higher and the air grew warmer. He had long ago turned off his suit-heater. This was summer and close to the equator. At noon the temperature would be around seventy degrees Fahrenheit.

But at dusk, when the temperature had plunged through the dry air to zero, Lane was in his sleeping tent. It looked like a cocoon, being sausage-shaped and not much larger than his body. It was inflated so he could remove his helmet and breathe while he warmed himself from the battery-operated heater and ate and drank. The tent was also very flexible; it changed its cocoon shape to a triangle while Lane sat on a folding chair from which hung a plastic bag and did that which every man must do.

During the daytime he did not have to enter the sleeping tent for this. His suit was ingeniously contrived so he could unflap the rear section and expose the necessary area without losing air or pressure from the rest of his suit. Naturally, there was no thought of tempting the teeth of the Martian night. Sixty seconds at midnight were enough to get a severe frostbite where one sat down.

Lane slept until half an hour after dawn, ate, deflated the tent, folded it, stowed it, the battery, heater, food-box, and folding chair into his pack, threw away the plastic sack, shouldered the pack, and resumed his walk.

By noon the tracks faded out completely. It made little difference, for there was only one route the tanks could have taken. That was the corridor between the tubes and the trees.

Now he saw what the two tanks had reported. The trees on his right began to look dead. The trunks and leaves were brown, and the ribs drooped.

He began walking faster, his heart beating hard. An hour passed, and still the line of dead trees stretched as far as he could see.

“It must be about here,” he said out loud to himself.

Then he stopped. Ahead was an obstacle.

It was the tube of which Greenberg had spoken, the one that ran at right angles to the other two and joined them.

Lane looked at it and thought that he could still hear Greenberg’s despairing cry.

That thought seemed to turn a valve in him so that the immense pressure of loneliness, which he had succeeded in holding back until then, flooded in. The blue-black of the sky became the blackness and infinity of space itself, and he was a speck of flesh in an immensity as large as Earths land area, a speck that knew no more of this world than a newborn baby knows of his.

Tiny and helpless, like a baby…

No, he murmured to himself, not a baby. Tiny, yes. Helpless, no. Baby, no. I am a man, a man, an Earthman…

Earthman: Cardigan Lane. Citizen of the U.S.A. Born in Hawaii, the fiftieth state. Of mingled German, Dutch, Chinese, Japanese, Negro, Cherokee, Polynesian, Portuguese, Russian-Jewish, Irish, Scotch, Norwegian, Finnish, Czech, English, and Welsh ancestry. Thirty-one years old. Five foot six. One hundred and sixty pounds. Brown-haired. Blue-eyed. Hawkfeatured, M.D. and Ph.D. Married. Childless. Methodist. Sociable mesomorphic mesovert. Radio ham. Dog breeder. Deer hunter. Skin diver. Writer of first-rate but far from great poetry. All contained in his skin and his pressure suit, plus a love of companionship and life, an intense curiosity, and a courage. And now very much afraid of losing everything except his loneliness.

For some time he stood like a statue before the three-foot high wall of the tube. Finally, he shook his head violently, shook off his fear like a dog shaking off water. Lightly, despite the towering pack on his back, he leaped up onto the top of the tube and looked on the other side, though there was nothing he had not seen before jumping.

The view before him differed from the one behind in only one respect. This was the number of small plants that covered the ground. Or rather, he thought, after taking a second look, he had never seen these plants this size before. They were foot-high replicas of the huge umbrella trees that sprouted from the tubes. And they were not scattered at random, as might have been expected if they had grown from seeds blown by the wind. Instead, they grew in regular rows, the edges of the plants in one row separated from the other by about two feet.

His heart beat even faster. Such spacing must mean they were planted by intelligent life. Yet intelligent life seemed very improbable, given the Martian environment.

Possibly some natural condition might have caused the seeming artificiality of this garden. He would have to investigate.

Always with caution, though. So much depended on him: the lives of the four men, the success of the expedition. If this one failed, it might be the last. Many people on Earth were groaning loudly because of the cost of Space Arm and crying wildly for results that would mean money and power.

The field, or garden, extended for about three hundred yards. At its far end there was another tube at right angles to the two parallel ones. And at this point the giant umbrella plants regained their living and shining blue-green color.

The whole setup looked to Lane very much like a sunken garden. The square formation of the high tubes kept out the wind and most of the felsite flakes. The walls held the heat within the square.

Lane searched the top of the tube for bare spots where the metal plates of the caterpillar tractors’ treads would have scraped off the lichenoids. He found none but was not surprised. The lichenoids grew phenomenally fast under the summertime sun.

He looked down at the ground on the garden side of the tube, where the tractors had presumably descended. Here there were no signs of the tractors’ passage, for the little umbrellas grew up to within two feet of the edge of the tube, and they were uncrushed. Nor did he find any tracks at the ends of the tube where it joined the parallel rows.

He paused to think about his next step and was surprised to find himself breathing hard. A quick check of his air gauge showed him that the trouble wasn’t an almost empty tank. No, it was the apprehension, the feeling of eeriness, of something wrong, that was causing his heart to beat so fast, to demand more oxygen.

Where could two tractors and four men have gone? And what could have caused them to disappear?

Could they have been attacked by some form of intelligent life? If that had happened, the unknown creatures had either carried off the six-ton tanks, or driven them away, or else forced the men to drive them off.

Where? How? By whom?

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

“Here is where it must have happened,” he muttered to himself. “The first tank reported seeing this tube barring its way and said it would report again in another ten minutes. That was the last I heard from it. The second was cut off just as it was on top of the tube. Now, what happened? There are no cities on the surface of Mars, and no indications of underground civilization. The orbital ship would have seen openings to such a place through its telescope…”

He yelled so loudly that he was deafened as his voice bounced off the confines of his helmet. Then he fell silent, watching the line of basketball-size blue globes rise from the soil at the far end of the garden and swiftly soar into the sky.

He threw back his head until the back of it was stopped by the helmet and watched the rising globes as they left the ground, swelling until they seemed to be hundreds of feet across. Suddenly, like a soap bubble, the topmost one disappeared. The second in line, having reached the height of the first, also popped. And the others followed.

They were transparent. He could see some white cirrus clouds through the blue of the bubbles.

Lane did not move but watched the steady string of globes spurt from the soil. Though startled, he did not forget his training. He noted that the globes, besides being semitransparent, rose at a right angle to the ground and did not drift with the wind. He counted them and got to forty-nine when they ceased appearing.

He waited for fifteen minutes. When it looked as if nothing more would happen, he decided that he must investigate the spot where the globes seemed to have popped out of the ground. Taking a deep breath, he bent his knees and jumped out into the garden. He landed lightly about twelve feet out from the edge of the tube and between two rows of plants.

For a second he did not know what was happening, though he realized that something was wrong. Then he whirled around. Or tried to do so. One foot came up, but the other sank deeper.

He took one step forward, and the forward foot also disappeared into the thin stuff beneath the red-yellow dust. By now the other foot was too deep in to be pulled out.

Then he was hip-deep and grabbing at the stems of the plants to both sides of him. They uprooted easily, coming out of the soil, one clenched in each hand.

He dropped them and threw himself backward in the hope he could free his legs and lie stretched out on the jellylike stuff. Perhaps, if his body presented enough of an area, he could keep from sinking. And, after a while, he might be able to work his way to the ground near the tube. There, he hoped, it would be firm.

His violent effort succeeded. His legs came up out of the sticky semiliquid. He lay spread-eagled on his back and looked up at the sky through the transparent dome of his helmet. The sun was to his left; when he turned his head inside the helmet he could see the sun sliding down the arc from the zenith. It was descending at a slightly slower pace than on Earth, for Mars’s day was about forty minutes longer. He hoped that, if he couldn’t regain solid ground, he could remain suspended until evening fell. By then this quagmire would be frozen enough for him to rise and walk up on it. Provided that he got up before he himself was frozen fast.

Meanwhile, he would follow the approved method of saving oneself when trapped in quicksand. He would roll over quickly, once, and then spread-eagle himself again. By repeating this maneuver, he might eventually reach that bare strip of soil at the tube.

The pack on his back prevented him from rolling. The straps on his shoulders would have to be loosened.

He did so, and at the same time felt his legs sinking. Their weight was pulling them under, whereas the air tanks in the pack, the air tanks strapped to his chest, and the bubble of his helmet gave buoyancy to the upper part of his body.

He turned over on his side, grabbed the pack, and pulled himself up on it. The pack, of course, went under. But his legs were free, though slimy with liquid and caked with dust. And he was standing on top of the narrow island of the pack.

The thick jelly rose up to his ankles while he considered two courses of action.

He could squat on the pack and hope that it would not sink too far before it was stopped by the permanently frozen layer that must exist…

How far? He had gone down hip-deep and felt nothing firm beneath his feet. And… He groaned. The tractors! Now he knew what had happened to them. They had gone over the tube and down into the garden, never suspecting that the solid-seeming surface covered this quagmire. And down they had plunged, and it had been Greenberg’s horrified realization of what lay beneath the dust that had made him cry out, and then the stuff had closed over the tank and its antenna, and the transmitter, of course, had been cut off.

He must give up his second choice because it did not exist. To get to the bare strip of soil at the tube would be useless. It would be as unfirm as the rest of the garden. It was at that point that the tanks must have fallen in.

Another thought came to him: that the tanks must have disturbed the orderly arrangement of the little umbrellas close to the tube. Yet there was no sign of such a happening. Therefore, somebody-must have rescued the plants and set them up again.

That meant that somebody might come along in time to rescue him.

Or to kill him, he thought.

In either event, his problem would be solved.

Meanwhile, he knew it was no use to make a jump from the pack to the strip at the tube. The only thing to do was to stay on top of the pack and hope it didn’t sink too deeply.

However, the pack did sink. The jelly rose swiftly to his knees, then his rate of descent began slowing. He prayed, not for a miracle but only that the buoyancy of the pack plus the tank on his chest would keep him from going completely under.

Before he had finished praying, he had stopped sinking. The sticky stuff had risen no higher than his breast and had left his arms free.

He gasped with relief but did not feel overwhelmed with joy. In less than four hours the air in his tank would be exhausted. Unless he could get another tank from the pack, he was done for.

He pushed down hard on the pack and threw his arms up in the air and back in the hope his legs would rise again and he could spread-eagle. If he could do that, then the pack, relieved of his weight, might rise to the surface. And he could get another tank from it.

But his legs, impeded by the stickiness, did not rise far enough, and his body, shooting off in reaction to the kick, moved a little distance from the pack. It was just far enough so that when the legs inevitably sank again, they found no platform on which to be supported. Now he had to depend entirely on the lift of his air tank.

It did not give him enough to hold him at his former level; this time he sank until his arms and shoulders were nearly under, and only his helmet stuck out.

He was helpless.

Several years from now the second expedition, if any, would perhaps see the sun glinting off his helmet and would find his body stuck like a fly in glue.

If that does happen, he thought, I will at least have been of some use; my death will warn them of this trap. But I doubt if they’ll find me. I think that Somebody or Something will have removed me and hidden me.

Then, feeling an inrush of despair, he closed his eyes and murmured some of the words he had read that last night in the base, though he knew them so well it did not matter whether he had read them recently or not.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil;

for Thou art with me.

Repeating that didn’t lift the burden of hopelessness. He felt absolutely alone, deserted by everybody, even by his Creator. Such was the desolation of Mars.

But when he opened his eyes, he knew he was not alone. He saw a Martian.

A hole had appeared in the wall of the tube to his left. It was a round section about four feet across, and it had sunk in as if it were a plug being pulled inward, as indeed it was.

A moment later a head popped out of the hole. The size of a Georgia watermelon, it was shaped like a football and was as pink as a baby’s bottom. Its two eyes were as large as coffee cups and each was equipped with two vertical lids. It opened its two parrotlike beaks, ran out a very long tubular tongue, withdrew the tongue, and snapped the beak shut. Then it scuttled out from the hole to reveal a body also shaped like a football and only three times as large as its head. The pinkish body was supported three feet from the ground on ten spindly spidery legs, five on each side. Its legs ended in broad round pads on which it ran across the jelly-mire surface, sinking only slightly. Behind it streamed at least fifty others.

These picked up the little plants that Lane had upset in his struggles and licked them clean with narrow round tongues that shot out at least two feet. They also seemed to communicate by touching their tongues, as insects do with antennae.

As he was in the space between two rows, he was not involved in the setting up of the dislodged plants. Several of them ran their tongues over his helmet, but these were the only ones that paid him any attention. It was then that he began to stop dreading that they might attack him with their powerful-looking beaks. Now he broke into a sweat at the idea that they might ignore him completely.

That was just what they did. After gently embedding the thin roots of the plantlets in the sticky stuff, they raced off toward the hole in the tube.

Lane, overwhelmed with despair, shouted after them, though he knew they couldn’t hear him through his helmet and the thin air even if they had hearing organs.

“Don’t leave me here to die!”

Nevertheless, that was what they were doing. The last one leaped through the hole, and the entrance stared at him like the round black eye of Death itself.

He struggled furiously to lift himself from the mire, not caring that he was only exhausting himself.

Abruptly, he stopped fighting and stared at the hole.

A figure had crawled out of it, a figure in a pressure-suit.

Now he shouted with joy. Whether the figure was Martian or not, it was built like a member of Homo sapiens. It could be presumed to be intelligent and therefore curious.

He was not disappointed. The suited being stood up on two hemispheres of shiny red metal and began walking toward him in a sliding fashion. Reaching him, it handed him the end of a plastic rope it was carrying under its arm.

He almost dropped it. His rescuer’s suit was transparent. It was enough of a shock to see clearly the details of the creature’s body, but the sight of the two heads within the helmet caused him to turn pale.

The Martian slidewalked to the tube from which Lane had leaped. It jumped lightly from the two bowls on which it had stood, landed on the three-foot high top of the tube, and began hauling Lane out from the mess. He came out slowly but steadily and soon was scooting forward, gripping the rope. When he reached the foot of the tube, he was hauled on up until he could get his feet in the two bowls. It was easy to jump from them to a place beside the biped.

It unstrapped two more bowls from its back, gave them to Lane, then lowered itself on the two in the garden. Lane followed it across the mire.

Entering the hole, he found himself in a chamber so low he had to crouch. Evidently, it had been constructed by the dekapeds and not by his companion for it, too, had to bend its back and knees.

Lane was pushed to one side by some dekapeds. They picked up the thick plug, made of the same gray stuff as the tube walls, and sealed the entrance with it. Then they shot out of their mouths strand after strand of gray spiderwebby stuff to seal the plug.

The biped motioned Lane to follow, and it slid down a tunnel which plunged into the earth at a forty-five degree angle. It illuminated the passage with a flashlight which it took from its belt. They came into a large chamber which contained all of the fifty dekapeds. These were waiting motionless. The biped, as if sensing Lane’s curiosity, pulled off its glove and held it before several small vents in the wall. Lane removed his glove and felt warm air flowing from the holes.

Evidently this was a pressure chamber, built by the ten-legged things. But such evidence of intelligent engineering did not mean that these things had the individual intelligence of a man. It could mean group intelligence such as Terrestrial insects possess.

After a while, the chamber was filled with air. Another plug was pulled; Lane followed the dekapeds and his rescuer up another forty-five degree tunnel. He estimated that he would find himself inside the tube from which the biped had first come. He was right. He crawled through another hole into it.

And a pair of beaks clicked as they bit down on his helmet!

Automatically, he shoved at the thing, and under the force of his blow the dekaped lost its bite and went rolling on the floor, a bundle of thrashing legs.

Lane did not worry about having hurt it. It did not weigh much, but its body must be tough to be able to plunge without damage from the heavy air inside the tube into the almost-stratospheric conditions outside.

However, he did reach for the knife at his belt. But the biped put its hand on his arm and shook one of its heads.

Later, he was to find out that the seeming bite must have been an accident. Always—with one exception—the leggers were to ignore him.

He was also to find that he was lucky. The leggers had come out to inspect their garden because, through some unknown method of detection, they knew that the plantlets had been disturbed. The biped normally would not have accompanied them. However, today, its curiosity aroused because the leggers had gone out three times in three days, it had decided to investigate.

The biped turned out its flashlight and motioned to Lane to follow. Awkwardly, he obeyed. There was light, but it was dim, a twilight. Its source was the many creatures that hung from the ceiling of the tube. These were three feet long and six inches thick, cylindrical, pinkish-skinned, and eyeless. A dozen frondlike limbs waved continuously, and their motion kept air circulating in the tunnel.

Their cold firefly glow came from two globular pulsing organs which hung from both sides of the round loose-lipped mouth at the free end of the creature. Slime drooled from the mouth, and dripped onto the floor or into a narrow channel which ran along the lowest part of the sloping floor. Water ran in the six-inch deep channel, the first native water he had seen. The water picked up the slime and carried it a little way before it was gulped up by an animal that lay on the bottom of the channel.

Lane’s eyes adjusted to the dimness until he could make out the water-dweller. It was torpedo-shaped and without eyes or fins. It had two openings in its body; one obviously sucked in water, the other expelled it.

He saw at once what this meant. The water at the North Pole melted in the summertime and flowed into the far end of the tube system. Helped by gravity and by the pumping action of the line of animals in the channel, the water was passed from the edge of the Pole to the equator.

Leggers ran by him on mysterious errands. Several, however, halted beneath some of the downhanging organisms. They reared up on their hind five legs and their tongues shot out and into the open mouths by the glowing balls. At once, the fireworm—as Lane termed it—its cilia waving wildly, stretched itself to twice its former length. Its mouth met the beak of the legger, and there was an exchange of stuff between their mouths.

Impatiently, the biped tugged at Lane’s arm. He followed it down the tube. Soon they entered a section where pale roots came down out of holes in the ceiling and spread along the curving walls, gripping them, then becoming a network of many thread-thin rootlets that crept across the floor and into the water of the channel.

Here and there a dekaped chewed at a root and then hurried off to offer a piece to the mouths of the fireworms.

After walking for several minutes, the biped stepped across the stream. It then began walking as closely as possible to the wall, meanwhile looking apprehensively at the other side of the tunnel, where they had been walking.

Lane also looked but could see nothing at which to be alarmed. There was a large opening at the base of the wall which evidently led into a tunnel. This tunnel, he presumed, ran underground into a room or rooms, for many leggers dashed in and out of it. And about a dozen, larger than average, paced back and forth like sentries before the hole.

When they had gone about fifty yards past the opening, the biped relaxed. After it had led Lane along for ten minutes, it stopped. Its naked hand touched the wall. He became aware that the hand was small and delicately shaped, like a woman’s.

A section of the wall swung out. The biped turned and bent down to crawl into the hole, presenting buttocks and legs femininely rounded, well-shaped. It was then that he began thinking of it as a female. Yet the hips, though padded with fatty tissue, were not broad. The bones were not widely separated to make room to carry a child. Despite their curving, the hips were relatively as narrow as a man’s.

Behind them, the plug swung shut. The biped did not turn on her flashlight, for there was illumination at the end of the tunnel. The floor and walls were not of the hard gray stuff nor of packed earth. They seemed vitrified, as if glassed by heat.

She was waiting for him when he slid off a three-foot high ledge into a large room. For a minute he was blinded by the strong light. After his eyes adjusted, he searched for the source of light but could not find it. He did observe that there were no shadows in the room.

The biped took off her helmet and suit and hung them in a closet. The door slid open as she approached and closed when she walked away.

She signaled that he could remove his suit. He did not hesitate. Though the air might be poisonous, he had no choice. His tank would soon be empty. Moreover, it seemed likely that the atmosphere contained enough oxygen. Even then he had grasped the idea that the leaves of the umbrella plants, which grew out of the top of the tubes, absorbed sunlight and traces of carbon dioxide. Inside the tunnels, the roots drew up water from the channel and absorbed the great quantity of carbon dioxide released by the dekapeds. Energy of sunlight converted gas and liquid into glucose and oxygen, which were given off in the tunnels.

Even here, in this deep chamber which lay beneath and to one side of the tube, a thick root penetrated the ceiling and spread its thin white web over the walls. He stood directly beneath the fleshy growth as he removed his helmet and took his first breath of Martian air. Immediately afterward, he jumped. Something wet had dropped on his forehead. Looking up, he saw that the root was excreting liquid from a large pore. He wiped the drop off with his finger and tasted it. It was sticky and sweet.

Well, he thought, the tree must normally drop sugar in water. But it seemed to be doing so abnormally fast, because another drop was forming.

Then it came to him that perhaps this was so because it was getting dark outside and therefore cold. The umbrella trees might be pumping the water in their trunks into the warm tunnels. Thus, during the bitter subzero night, they’d avoid freezing and swelling up and cracking wide open.

It seemed a reasonable theory.

He looked around. The place was half living quarters, half biological laboratory. There were beds and tables and chairs and several unidentifiable articles. One was a large black metal box in a corner. From it, at regular intervals, issued a stream of tiny blue bubbles. They rose to the ceiling, growing larger as they did so. On reaching the ceiling they did not stop or burst but simply penetrated the vitrification as if it did not exist.

Lane now knew the origin of the blue globes he had seen appear from the surface of the garden. But their purpose was still obscure.

He wasn’t given much time to watch the globes. The biped took a large green ceramic bowl from a cupboard and set it on a table. Lane eyed her curiously, wondering what she was going to do. By now he had seen that the second head belonged to an entirely separate creature. Its slim four-foot length of pinkish skin was coiled about her neck and torso; its tiny flat-faced head turned toward Lane; its snaky light blue eyes glittered. Suddenly, its mouth opened and revealed toothless gums, and its bright red tongue, mammalian, not at all reptilian, thrust out at him.

The biped, paying no attention to the worm’s actions, lifted it from her. Gently, cooing a few words in a soft many-voweled language, she placed it in the bowl. It settled inside and looped around the curve, like a snake in a pit.

The biped took a pitcher from the top of a box of red plastic. Though the box was not connected to any visible power source, it seemed to be a stove. The pitcher contained warm water which she poured into the bowl, half filling it. Under the shower, the worm closed its eyes as if it were purring soundless ecstasy.

Then the biped did something that alarmed Lane.

She leaned over the bowl and vomited into it.

He stepped toward her. Forgetting the fact that she couldn’t understand him, he said, “Are you sick?”

She revealed human-looking teeth in a smile meant to reassure him, and she walked away from the bowl. He looked at the worm, which had its head dipped into the mess. Suddenly, he felt sick, for he was sure that it was feeding off the mixture. And he was equally certain that she fed the worm regularly with regurgitated food.

It didn’t cancel his disgust to reflect that he shouldn’t react to her as he would to a Terrestrial. He knew that she was totally alien and that it was inevitable that some of her ways would repel, perhaps even shock him. Rationally, he knew this. But if his brain told him to understand and forgive, his belly said to loathe and reject.

His aversion was not much lessened by a close scrutiny of her as she took a shower in a cubicle set in the wall. She was about five feet tall and slim as a woman should be slim, with delicate bones beneath rounded flesh. Her legs were human; in nylons and high heels they would have been exciting—other things being equal. However, if the shoes had been toeless, her feet would have caused much comment. They had four toes.

Her long beautiful hands had five fingers. These seemed nailless, like the toes, though a closer examination later showed him they did bear rudimentary nails.

She stepped from the cubicle and began toweling herself, though not before she motioned to him to remove his suit and also to shower. He stared intently back at her until she laughed a short embarrassed laugh. It was feminine, not at all deep. Then she spoke.

He closed his eyes and was hearing what he had thought he would not hear for years: a woman’s voice. Hers was extraordinary: husky and honeyed at the same time.

But when he opened his eyes, he saw her for what she was. No woman. No man. What? It? No. The impulse to think her, she, was too strong.

This, despite her lack of mammaries. She had a chest, but no nipples, rudimentary or otherwise. Her chest was a man’s, muscled under the layer of fat which subtly curved to give the impression that beneath it… budding breasts?

No, not this creature. She would never suckle her young. She did not even bear them alive, if she did bear. Her belly was smooth, undimpled with a navel.

Smooth also was the region between her legs, hairless, unbroken, as innocent of organ as if she were a nymph painted for some Victorian children’s book.

It was that sexless joining of the legs that was so horrible. Like the white belly of a frog, thought Lane, shuddering.

At the same time, his curiosity became even stronger. How did this thing mate and reproduce?

Again she laughed and smiled with fleshy palered humanly everted lips and wrinkled a short, slightly uptilted nose and ran her hand through thick straight red-gold fur. It was fur, not hair, and it had a slightly oily sheen, like a water-dwelling animal’s.

The face itself, though strange, could have passed for human, but only passed. Her cheekbones were very high and protruded upward in an unhuman fashion. Her eyes were dark blue and quite human. This meant nothing. So were an octopus’s eyes.

She walked to another closet, and as she went away from him he saw again that though the hips were curved like a woman’s they did not sway with the pelvic displacement of the human female.

The door swung momentarily open, revealed the carcasses of several dekapeds, minus their legs, hanging on hooks. She removed one, placed it on a metal table, and out of the cupboard took a saw and several knives and began cutting.

Because he was eager to see the anatomy of the dekaped, he approached the table. She waved him to the shower. Lane removed his suit. When he came to the knife and ax he hesitated, but, afraid she might think him distrustful, he hung up the belt containing his weapons beside the suit. However, he did not take off his clothes because he was determined to view the inner organs of the animal. Later, he would shower.

The legger was not an insect, despite its spidery appearance. Not in the Terrestrial sense, certainly. Neither was it a vertebrate. Its smooth hairless skin was an animals, as lightly pigmented as a blond Swedes. But, though it had an endoskeleton, it had no backbone. Instead, the body bones formed a round cage. Its thin ribs radiated from a cartilaginous collar which adjoined the back of the head. The ribs curved outward, then in, almost meeting at the posterior. Inside the cage were ventral lung sacs, a relatively large heart, and liverlike and kidneylike organs. Three arteries, instead of the mammalian two, left the heart. He couldn’t be sure with such a hurried examination, but it looked as if the dorsal aorta, like some Terrestrial reptiles, carried both pure and impure blood.

There were other things to note. The most extraordinary was that, as far as he could discern, the legger had no digestive system. It seemed to lack both intestines and anus unless you would define as an intestine a sac which ran straight through from the throat halfway into the body. Further, there was nothing he could identify as reproductive organs, though this did not mean that it did not possess them. The creature’s long tubular tongue, cut open by the biped, exposed a canal running down the length of tongue from its open tip to the bladder at its base. Apparently these formed part of the excretory system.

Lane wondered what enabled the legger to stand the great pressure differences between the interior of the tube and the Martian surface. At the same time he realized that this ability was no more wonderful than the biological mechanism which gave whales and seals the power to endure without harm the enormous pressures a half mile below the sea’s surface.

The biped looked at him with round and very pretty blue eyes, laughed, and then reached into the chopped open skull and brought out the tiny brain.

“Hauaimi,” she said slowly. She pointed to her head, repeated, “Hauaimi,” and then indicated his head. “Hauaimi.”

Echoing her, he pointed at his own head. “Hauaimi. Brain.”

“Brain,” she said, and she laughed again.

She proceeded to call out the organs of the legger which corresponded to hers. Thus, the preparations for the meal passed swiftly as he proceeded from the carcass to other objects in the room. By the time she had fried the meat and boiled strips of the membranous leaf of the umbrella plant, and also added from cans various exotic foods, she had exchanged at least forty words with him. An hour later, he could remember twenty.

There was one thing yet to learn. He pointed to himself and said, “Lane.”

Then he pointed to her and gave her a questioning look.

“Mahrseeya,” she said.

“Martia?” he repeated. She corrected him, but he was so struck by the resemblance that always afterward he called her that. After a while, she would give up trying to teach him the exact pronunciation.

Martia washed her hands and poured him a bowlful of water. He used the soap and towel she handed him, then walked to the table where she stood waiting. On it was a bowl of thick soup, a plate of fried brains, a salad of boiled leaves and some unidentifiable vegetables, a plate of ribs with thick dark legger meat, hard-boiled eggs, and little loaves of bread.

Martia gestured for him to sit down. Evidently her code did not allow her to sit down before her guest did. He ignored his chair, went behind her, put his hand on her shoulder, pressed down, and with the other hand slid her chair under her. She turned her head to smile up at him. Her fur slid away to reveal one lobeless pointed ear. He scarcely noticed it, for he was too intent on the half-repulsive, half heart-quickening sensation he got when he touched her skin. It had not been the skin itself that caused that, for she was soft and warm as a young girl. It had been the idea of touching her.

Part of that, he thought as he seated himself, came from her nakedness. Not because it revealed her sex but because it revealed her lack of it. No breasts, no nipples, no navel, no pubic fold or projection. The absence of these seemed wrong, very wrong, un-settling. It was a shameful thing that she had nothing of which to be ashamed.

That’s a queer thought, he said to himself. And for no reason, he became warm in the face.

Martia, unnoticing, poured from a tall bottle a glassful of dark wine. He tasted it. It was exquisite, no better than the best Earth had to offer but as good.

Martia took one of the loaves, broke it into two pieces, and handed him one. Holding the glass of wine in one hand and the bread in the other, she bowed her head, closed her eyes, and began chanting.

He stared at her. This was a prayer, a grace-saying. Was it the prelude to a sort of communion, one so like Earths it was startling?

Yet, if it were, he needn’t be surprised. Flesh and blood, bread and wine: the symbolism was simple, logical, and might even be universal.

However, it was possible that he was creating parallels that did not exist. She might be enacting a ritual whose origin and meaning were like nothing of which he had ever dreamed.

If so, what she did next was equally capable of misinterpretation. She nibbled at the bread, sipped the wine, and then plainly invited him to do the same. He did so. Martia took a third and empty cup, spat a piece of wine-moistened bread into the cup, and indicated that he was to imitate her.

After he did, he felt his stomach draw in on itself. For she mixed the stuff from their mouths with her finger and then offered it to him. Evidently, he was to put the finger in his mouth and eat from it.

So the action was both physical and metaphysical. The bread and the wine were the flesh and blood of whatever divinity she worshiped. More, she, being imbued with the body and the spirit of the god, now wanted to mingle hers and that of the god’s with his.

What I eat of the god’s, I become. What you eat of me, you become. What I eat of you, I become. Now we three are become one.

Lane, far from being repelled by the concept, was excited. He knew that there were probably many Christians who would have refused to share in the communion because the ritual did not have the same origins or conform to theirs. They might even have thought that by sharing they were subscribing to an alien god. Such an idea Lane considered to be not only narrow-minded and inflexible, but illogical, uncharitable, and ridiculous. There could be but one Creator; what names the creature gave to the Creator did not matter.

Lane believed sincerely in a personal god, one who took note of him as an individual. He also believed that mankind needed redeeming and that a redeemer had been sent to Earth. And if other worlds needed redeeming, then they too would have gotten or would get a redeemer. He went perhaps further than most of his fellow religionists, for he actually made an attempt to practice love for mankind. This had given him somewhat of a reputation as a fanatic among his acquaintances and friends. However, he had been restrained enough not to make himself too much of a nuisance, and his genuine warmheartedness had made him welcome in spite of his eccentricity.

Six years before, he had been an agnostic. His first trip into space had converted him. The overwhelming experience had made him realize shatteringly what an insignificant being he was, how awe-inspiringly complicated and immense was the universe, and how much he needed a framework within which to be and to become.

The strangest feature about his conversion, he thought afterward, was that one of his companions on that maiden trip had been a devout believer who, on returning to Earth, had renounced his own sect and faith and become a complete atheist.

He thought of this as he took her proffered finger in his mouth and sucked the paste off it.

Then obeying her gestures, he dipped his own finger into the bowl and put it between her lips.

She closed her eyes and gently mouthed the finger. When he began to withdraw it, he was stopped by her hand on his wrist. He did not insist on taking the finger out, for he wanted to avoid offending her. Perhaps a long time interval was part of the rite.

But her expression seemed so eager and at the same time so ecstatic, like a hungry baby just given the nipple, that he felt uneasy. After a minute, seeing no indication on her part that she meant to quit, he slowly but firmly pulled the finger loose. She opened her eyes and sighed, but she made no comment. Instead, she began serving his supper.

The hot thick soup was delicious and invigorating. Its texture was somewhat like the plankton soup that was becoming popular on hungry Earth, but it had no fishy flavor. The brown bread reminded him of rye. The legger meat was like wild rabbit, though it was sweeter and had an unidentifiable tang. He took only one bite of the leaf salad and then frantically poured wine down his throat to wash away the burn. Tears came to his eyes, and he coughed until she spoke to him in an alarmed tone. He smiled back at her but refused to touch the salad again. The wine not only cooled his mouth, it filled his veins with singing. He told himself he should take no more. Nevertheless, he finished his second cup before he remembered his resolve to be temperate.

By then it was too late. The strong liquor went straight to his head; he felt dizzy and wanted to laugh. The events of the day, his near-escape from death, the reaction to knowing his comrades were dead, his realization of his present situation, the tension caused by his encounters with the dekapeds, and his unsatisfied curiosity about Martia’s origins and the location of others of her kind, all these combined to produce in him a half-stupor, half-exuberance.

He rose from the table and offered to help Martia with the dishes. She shook her head and put the dishes in a washer. In the meantime, he decided that he needed to wash off the sweat, stickiness, and body odor left by two days of travel. On opening the door to the shower cubicle, he found that there wasn’t room enough to hang his clothes in it. So, uninhibited by fatigue and wine, also mindful that Martia, after all, was not a female, he removed his clothes.

Martia watched him, and her eyes became wider with each garment shed. Finally, she gasped and stepped back and turned pale.

“It’s not that bad,” he growled, wondering what had caused her reaction. “After all, some of the things I’ve seen around here aren’t too easy to swallow.”

She pointed with a trembling finger and asked him something in a shaky voice.

Perhaps it was his imagination, but he could swear she used the same inflection as would an English speaker.

“Are you sick? Are the growths malignant?”

He had no words with which to explain, nor did he intend to illustrate function through action. Instead, he closed the door of the cubicle after him and pressed the plate that turned on the water. The heat of the shower and the feel of the soap, of grime and sweat being washed away, soothed him somewhat, so that he could think about matters he had been too rushed to consider.

First, he would have to learn Martia’s language or teach her his. Probably both would happen at the same time. Of one thing he was sure. That was that her intentions toward him were, at least at present, peaceful. When she had shared communion with him, she had been sincere. He did not get the impression that it was part of her cultural training to share bread and wine with a person she intended to kill.

Feeling better, though still tired and a little drunk, he left the cubicle. Reluctantly, he reached for his dirty shorts. Then he smiled. They had been cleaned while he was in the shower. Martia, however, paid no attention to his smile of pleased surprise but, grim-faced, she motioned to him to lie down on the bed and sleep. Instead of lying down herself, however, she picked up a bucket and began crawling up the tunnel. He decided to follow her, and, when she saw him, she only shrugged her shoulders.

On emerging into the tube, Martia turned on her flashlight. The tunnel was in absolute darkness. Her beam playing on the ceiling showed that the glowworms had turned out their lights. There were no leggers in sight.

She pointed the light at the channel so he could see that the jetfish were still taking in and expelling water. Before she could turn the beam aside, he put his hand on her wrist and with his other hand lifted a fish from the channel. He had to pull it loose with an effort, which was explained when he turned the torpedo-shaped creature over and saw the column of flesh hanging from its belly. Now he knew why the reaction of the propelled water did not shoot them backward. The ventral-foot acted as a suction pad to hold them to the floor of the channel.

Somewhat impatiently, Martia pulled away from him and began walking swiftly back up the tunnel. He followed her until she came to the opening in the wall which had earlier made her so apprehensive. Crouching, she entered the opening, but before she had gone far she had to move a tangled heap of leggers to one side. These were the large great-beaked ones he had seen guarding the entrance. Now they were asleep at the post.

If so, he reasoned, then the thing they guarded against must also be asleep.

What about Martia? How did she fit into their picture? Perhaps she didn’t fit into their picture at all. She was absolutely alien, something for which their instinctual intelligence was not prepared and which, therefore, they ignored. That would explain why they had paid no attention to him when he was mired in the garden.

Yet there must be an exception to that rule. Certainly Martia had not wanted to attract the sentinels’ notice the first time she had passed the entrance.

A moment later he found out why. They stepped into a huge chamber which was at least two hundred feet square. It was as dark as the tube, but during the walking period it must have been very bright because the ceiling was jammed with glowworms.

Martia’s flash raced around the chamber, showing him the piles of sleeping leggers. Then, suddenly, it stopped. He took one look, and his heart raced, and the hairs on the back of his neck rose.

Before him was a worm three feet high and twenty feet long.

Without thinking, he grabbed hold of Martia to keep her from coming closer to it. But even as he touched her, he dropped his hand. She must know what she was doing.

Martia pointed the flash at her own face and smiled as if to tell him not to be alarmed. And she touched his arm with a shyly affectionate gesture.

For a moment, he didn’t know why. Then it came to him that she was glad because he had been thinking of her welfare. Moreover, her reaction showed she had recovered from her shock at seeing him unclothed.

He turned from her to examine the monster. It lay on the floor, asleep, its great eyes closed behind vertical slits. It had a huge head, football-shaped like those of the little leggers around it. Its mouth was big, but the beaks were very small, horny warts on its lips. The body, however, was that of a caterpillar worm’s, minus the hair. Ten little useless legs stuck out of its side, too short even to reach the floor. Its side bulged as if pumped full of gas.

Martia walked past the monster and paused by its posterior. Here she lifted up a fold of skin. Beneath it was a pile of a dozen leathery-skinned eggs, held together by a sticky secretion.

“Now I’ve got it,” muttered Lane. “Of course. The egg-laying queen. She specializes in reproduction. That is why the others have no reproductive organs, or else they’re so rudimentary I couldn’t detect them. The leggers are animals, all right, but in some things they resemble Terrestrial insects.

“Still, that doesn’t explain the absence also of a digestive system.”

Martia put the eggs in her bucket and started to leave the room. He stopped her and indicated he wanted to look around some more. She shrugged and began to lead him around. Both had to be careful not to step on the dekapeds, which lay everywhere.

They came to an open bin made of the same gray stuff as the walls. Its interior held many shelves, on which lay hundreds of eggs. Strands of the spiderwebby stuff kept the eggs from rolling off.

Nearby was another bin that held water. At its bottom lay more eggs. Above them minnow-sized torpedo shapes flitted about in the water.

Lane’s eyes widened at this. The fish were not members of another genus but were the larvae of the leggers. And they could be set in the channel not only to earn their keep by pumping water which came down from the North Pole but to grow until they were ready to metamorphose into the adult stage.

However, Martia showed him another bin which made him partially revise his first theory. This bin was dry, and the eggs were laid on the floor. Martia picked one up, cut its tough skin open with her knife, and emptied its contents into one hand.

Now his eyes did get wide. This creature had a tiny cylindrical body, a suction pad at one end, a round mouth at the other, and two globular organs hanging by the mouth. A young glowworm.

Martia looked at him to see if he comprehended. Lane held out his hands and hunched his shoulders with an I-don’t-get-it air. Beckoning, she walked to another bin to show him more eggs. Some had been ripped from within, and the little fellows whose hard beaks had done it were staggering around weakly on ten legs.

Energetically, Martia went through a series of charades. Watching her, he began to understand.

The embryos that remained in the egg until they fully developed went through three main metamorphoses: the jetfish stage, the glowworm stage, and finally the baby dekaped stage. If the eggs were torn open by the adult nurses in one of the first two stages, the embryo remained fixed in that form, though it did grow larger.

What about the queen? he asked her by pointing to the monstrously egg-swollen body.

For answer, Martia picked up one of the newly-hatched. It kicked its many legs but did not otherwise protest, being, like all its kind, mute. Martia turned it upside down and indicated a slight crease in its posterior. Then she showed him the same spot on one of the sleeping adults. The adult’s rear was smooth, innocent of the crease.

Martia made eating gestures. He nodded. The creatures were born with rudimentary sexual organs, but these never developed. In fact, they atrophied completely unless the young were given a special diet, in which case they matured into egg-layers.

But the picture wasn’t complete. If you had females, you had to have males. It was doubtful if such highly developed animals were self-fertilizing or reproduced parthenogenetically.

Then he remembered Martia and began doubting. She gave no evidence of reproductive organs. Could her kind be self-reproducing? Or was she a martin, her natural fulfillment diverted by diet?

It didn’t seem likely, but he couldn’t be sure that such things were not possible in her scheme of Nature.

Lane wanted to satisfy his curiosity. Ignoring her desire to get out of the chamber, he examined each of the five baby dekapeds. All were potential females.

Suddenly Martia, who had been gravely watching him, smiled and took his hand, and led him to the rear of the room. Here, as they approached another structure, he smelled a strong odor which reminded him of clorox.

Closer to the structure, he saw that it was not a bin but a hemispherical cage. Its bars were of the hard gray stuff, and they curved up from the floor to meet at the central point. There was no door. Evidently the cage had been built around the thing in it, and its occupant must remain until he died.

Martia soon showed him why this thing was not allowed freedom. It—he—was sleeping, but Martia reached through the bars and struck it on the head with her fist. The thing did not respond until it had been hit five more times. Then, slowly, it opened its sidewise lids to reveal great staring eyes, bright as fresh arterial blood.

Martia threw one of the eggs at the thing’s head. Its beak opened swiftly, the egg disappeared, the beak closed, and there was a noisy gulp.

Food brought it to life. It sprang up on its ten long legs, clacked its beak, and lunged against the bars again and again.

Though in no danger, Martia shrank back before the killer’s lust in the scarlet eyes. Lane could understand her reaction. It was a giant, at least two feet higher than the sentinels. Its back was on a level with Martia’s head; its beaks could have taken her head in between them.

Lane walked around the cage to get a good look at its posterior. Puzzled, he made another circuit without seeing anything of male-ness about it except its wild fury, like that of a stallion locked in a barn during mating season. Except for its size, red eyes, and a cloaca, it looked like one of the guards.

He tried to communicate to Martia his puzzlement. By now, she seemed to anticipate his desires. She went through another series of pantomimes, some of which were so energetic and comical that he had to smile.

First, she showed him two eggs on a nearby ledge. These were larger than the others and were speckled with red spots. Supposedly, they held male embryos.

Then she showed him what would happen if the adult male got loose. Making a face which was designed to be ferocious but only amused him, clicking her teeth and clawing with her hands, she imitated the male running amok. He would kill everybody in sight. Everybody, the whole colony, queen, workers, guards, larvae, eggs, bite off their heads, mangle them, eat them all up, all, all. And out of the slaughterhouse he would charge into the tube and kill every legger he met, devour the jetfish, drag down the glowworms from the ceiling, rip them apart, eat them, eat the roots of the trees. Kill, kill, kill, eat, eat, eat!

That was all very well, sighed Lane. But how did…?

Martia indicated that, once a day, the workers rolled, literally rolled the queen across the room to the cage. There they arranged her so that she presented her posterior some few inches from the bars and the enraged male. And the male, though he wanted to do nothing but get his beak into her flesh and tear her apart, was not master of himself. Nature took over; his will was betrayed by his nervous system.

Lane nodded to show he understood. In his mind was a picture of the legger that had been butchered. It had had one sac at the internal end of the tongue. Probably the male had two, one to hold excretory matter, the other to hold seminal fluid.

Suddenly Martia froze, her hands held out before her. She had laid the flashlight on the floor so she could act freely; the beam splashed on her paling skin.

“What is it?” said Lane, stepping toward her.

Martia retreated, holding out her hands before her. She looked horrified.

“I’m not going to harm you,” he said. However, he stopped so she could see he didn’t mean to get any closer to her.

What was bothering her? Nothing was stirring in the chamber itself besides the male, and he was behind her.

Then she was pointing, first at him and then at the raging dekaped. Seeing this unmistakable signal of identification, he comprehended. She had perceived that he, like the thing in the cage, was male, and now she perceived structure and function in him.

What he didn’t understand was why that should make her so frightened of him. Repelled, yes. Her body, its seeming lack of sex, had given him a feeling of distaste bordering on nausea. It was only natural that she should react similarly to his body. However, she had seemed to have gotten over her first shock.

Why this unexpected change, this horror of him?

Behind him, the beak of the male clicked as it lunged against the bars.

The click echoed in his mind.

Of course, the monsters lust to kill!

Until she had met him, she had known only one male creature. That was the caged thing. Now, suddenly, she had equated him with the monster. A male was a killer.

Desperately, because he was afraid that she was about to run in panic out of the room, he made signs that he was not like this monster; he shook his head no, no, no. He wasn’t, he wasn’t, he wasn’t!

Martia, watching him intently, began to relax. Her skin regained its pinkish hue. Her eyes became their normal size. She even managed a strained smile.

To get her mind off the subject, he indicated that he would like to know why the queen and her consort had digestive systems, though the workers did not. For answer, she reached up into the downhanging mouth of the worm suspended from the ceiling. Her hand, withdrawn, was covered with secretion. After smelling her fist, she gave it to him to sniff also. He took it, ignoring her slight and probably involuntary flinching when she felt his touch.

The stuff had an odor such as you would expect from predigested food.

Martia then went to another worm. The two light organs of this one were not colored red, like the others, but had a greenish tint. Martia tickled its tongue with her finger and held out her cupped hands. Liquid trickled into the cup.

Lane smelled the stuff. No odor. When he drank the liquid, he discovered it to be a thick sugar water.

Martia pantomimed that the glowworms acted as the digestive systems for the workers. They also stored food away for them. The workers derived part of their energy from the glucose excreted by the roots of the trees. The proteins and vegetable matter in their diet originated from the eggs and from the leaves of the umbrella plant. Strips of the tough membranous leaf were brought into the tubes by harvesting parties which ventured forth in the daytime. The worms partially digested the eggs, dead leggers, and leaves and gave it back in the form of a soup. The soup, like the glucose, was swallowed by the workers and passed through the walls of their throats or into the long straight sac which connected the throat to the larger blood vessels. The waste products were excreted through the skin or emptied through the canal in the tongue.

Lane nodded and then walked out of the room. Seemingly relieved, Martia followed him. When they had crawled back into her quarters, she put the eggs in a refrigerator and poured two glasses of wine. She dipped her finger in both, then touched the finger to her lips and to his. Lightly, he touched the tip with his tongue. This, he gathered, was one more ritual, perhaps a bedtime one, which affirmed that they were at one and at peace. It might be that it had an even deeper meaning, but if so, it escaped him.

Martia checked on the safety and comfort of the worm in the bowl. By now it had eaten all its food. She removed the worm, washed it, washed the bowl, half filled it with warm sugar water, placed it on the table by the bed, and put the creature back in. Then she lay down on the bed and closed her eyes. She did not cover herself and apparently did not expect him to expect a cover.

Lane, tired though he was, could not rest. Like a tiger in its cage, he paced back and forth. He could not keep out of his mind the enigma of Martia nor the problem of getting back to base and eventually to the orbital ship. Earth must know what had happened.

After half an hour of this, Martia sat up. She looked steadily at him as if trying to discover the cause of his sleeplessness. Then, apparently sensing what was wrong, she rose and opened a cabinet hanging down from the wall. Inside were a number of books.

Lane said, “Ah, maybe I’ll get some information now!” and he leafed through them all. Wild with eagerness, he chose three and piled them on the bed before sitting down to peruse them.

Naturally he could not read the texts, but the three had many illustrations and photographs. The first volume seemed to be a child’s world history.

Lane looked at the first few pictures. Then he said, hoarsely, “My God, you’re no more Martian than I am!”

Martia, startled by the wonder and urgency in his voice, came over to his bed and sat down by him. She watched while he turned the pages over until he reached a certain photo. Unexpectedly, she buried her face in her hands, and her body shook with deep sobs.

Lane was surprised. He wasn’t sure why she was in such grief. The photo was an aerial view of a city on her home planet—or some planet on which her people lived. Perhaps it was the city in which she had—somehow—been born.

It wasn’t long, however, before her sorrow began to stir a response in him. Without any warning he, too, was weeping.

Now he knew. It was loneliness, appalling loneliness, of the kind he had known when he had received no more word from the men in the tanks and he had believed himself the only human being on the face of this world.

After a while, the tears dried. He felt better and wished she would also be relieved. Apparently she perceived his sympathy, for she smiled at him through her tears. And in an irresistible gust of rapport and affection she kissed his hand and then stuck two of his fingers in her mouth. This, he thought, must be her way of expressing friendship. Or perhaps it was gratitude for his presence. Or just sheer joy. In any event, he thought, her society must have a high oral orientation.

“Poor Martia,” he murmured. “It must be a terrible thing to have to turn to one as alien and weird as I must seem. Especially to one who, a little while ago, you weren’t sure wasn’t going to eat you up.”

He removed his fingers but, seeing her rejected look, he impulsively took hers in his mouth.

Strangely, this caused another burst of weeping. However, he quickly saw that it was happy weeping. After it was over, she laughed softly, as if pleased.

Lane took a towel and wiped her eyes and held it over her nose while she blew.

Now, strengthened, she was able to point out certain illustrations and by signs give him clues to what they meant.

This child’s book started with an account of the dawn of life on her planet. The planet revolved around a star that, according to a simplified map, was in the center of the Galaxy.

Life had begun there much as it had on Earth. It had developed in its early stages on somewhat the same lines. But there were some rather disturbing pictures of primitive fish life. Lane wasn’t sure of his interpretation, however, for these took much for granted.

They did show plainly that evolution there had picked out biological mechanisms with which to advance different from those on Earth.

Fascinated, he traced the passage from fish to amphibian to reptile to warm-blooded but non-mammalian creature to an upright ground-dwelling apelike creature to beings like Martia.

Then the pictures depicted various aspects of this being’s prehistoric life. Later, the invention of agriculture, working of metals, and so on.

The history of civilization was a series of pictures whose meaning he could seldom grasp. One thing was unlike Earths history. There was a relative absence of warfare. The Rameseses, Genghis Khans, Attilas, Caesars, Hitlers, seemed to be missing.

But there was more, much more. Technology advanced much as it had on Earth, despite a lack of stimulation from war. Perhaps, he thought, it had started sooner than on his planet. He got the impression that Martias people had evolved to their present state much earlier than Homo sapiens.

Whether that was true or not, they now surpassed man. They could travel almost as fast as light, perhaps faster, and had mastered interstellar travel.

It was then that Martia pointed to a page which bore several photographs of Earth, obviously taken at various distances by a spaceship.

Behind them an artist had drawn a shadowy figure, half-ape, half-dragon.

“Earth means this to you?” Lane said. “Danger? Do not touch?”

He looked for other photos of Earth. There were many pages dealing with other planets but only one of his home. That was enough.

“Why are you keeping us under distant surveillance?” said Lane. “You’re so far ahead of us that, technologically speaking, we’re Australian aborigines. What’re you afraid of?”

Martia stood up, facing him. Suddenly, viciously, she snarled and clicked her teeth and hooked her hands into claws.

He felt a chill. This was the same pantomime she had used when demonstrating the mindless kill-craziness of the caged male legger.

He bowed his head. “I can’t really blame you. You’re absolutely correct. If you contacted us, we’d steal your secrets. And then, look out! We’d infest all of space!”

He paused, bit his lip, and said, “Yet we’re showing some signs of progress. There’s not been a war or a revolution for fifteen years; the UN has been settling problems that would once have resulted in a world war; Russia and the U. S. are still armed but are not nearly as close to conflict as they were when I was born. Perhaps…?

“Do you know, I bet you’ve never seen an Earthman in the flesh before. Perhaps you’ve never seen a picture of one, or if you did, they were clothed. There are no photos of Earth people in these books. Maybe you knew we were male and female, but that didn’t mean much until you saw me taking a shower. And the suddenly revealed parallel between the male dekaped and myself horrified you. And you realized that this was the only thing in the world that you had for companionship. Almost as if I’d been shipwrecked on an island and found the other inhabitant was a tiger.

“But that doesn’t explain what you are doing here, alone, living in these tubes among the indigenous Martians. Oh, how I wish I could talk to you!

“With thee conversing,” he said, remembering those lines he had read the last night in the base.

She smiled at him, and he said, “Well, at least you’re getting over your scare. I’m not such a bad fellow, after all, heh?”

She smiled again and went to a cabinet and from it took paper and pen. With them, she made one simple sketch after another. Watching her agile pen, he began to see what had happened.

Her people had had a base for a long time—a long long time— on the side of the Moon the Terrestrials could not see. But when rockets from Earth had first penetrated into space, her people had obliterated all evidences of the base. A new one had been set up on Mars.

Then, as it became apparent that a Terrestrial expedition would be sent to Mars, that base had been destroyed and another one set up on Ganymede.

However, five scientists had remained behind in these simple quarters to complete their studies of the dekapeds. Though Martia’s people had studied these creatures for some time, they still had not found out how their bodies could endure the differences between tube pressure and that in the open air. The four believed that they were breathing hot on the neck of this secret and had gotten permission to stay until just before the Earthmen landed.

Martia actually was a native, in the sense that she had been born and raised here. She had been seven years here, she indicated, showing a sketch of Mars in its orbit around the sun and then holding up seven fingers.

That made her about fourteen Earth years old, Lane estimated. Perhaps these people reached maturity a little faster than his. That is, if she were mature. It was difficult to tell.

Horror twisted her face and widened her eyes as she showed him what had happened the night before they were to leave for Ganymede.

The sleeping party had been attacked by an uncaged male legger.

It was rare that a male got loose. But he occasionally managed to escape. When he did, he destroyed the entire colony, all life in the tube wherever he went. He even ate the roots of the trees so that they died, and oxygen ceased to flow into that section of the tunnel.

There was only one way a forewarned colony could fight a rogue male—a dangerous method. That was to release their own male. They selected the few who would stay behind and sacrifice their lives to dissolve the bars with an acid secretion from their bodies while the others fled. The queen, unable to move, also died. But enough of her eggs were taken to produce another queen and another consort elsewhere.

Meanwhile, it was hoped that the males would kill each other or that the victor would be so crippled that he could be finished off by the soldiers.

Lane nodded. The only natural enemy of the dekapeds was an escaped male. Left unchecked, they would soon crowd the tubes and exhaust food and air. Unkind as it seemed, the escape of a male now and then was the only thing that saved the Martians from starvation and perhaps extinction.

However that might be, the rogue had been no blessing in disguise for Martia’s people. Three had been killed in their sleep before the other two awoke. One had thrown herself at the beast and shouted to Martia to escape.

Almost insane with fear, Martia had nevertheless not allowed panic to send her running. Instead, she had dived for a cabinet to get a weapon.

A weapon, thought Lane. I’ll have to find out about that.

Martia acted out what had happened. She had gotten the cabinet door open and reached in for the weapon when she felt the beak of the rogue fastening on her leg. Despite the shock, for the beak cut deeply into the blood vessels and muscles, she managed to press the end of the weapon against the males body. The weapon did its work, for the male dropped on the floor. Unfortunately, the beaks did not relax but held their terrible grip on her thigh, just above the knee.

Here Lane tried to interrupt so he could get a description of what the weapon looked like and of the principle of its operation. Martia, however, ignored his request. Seemingly, she did not understand his question, but he was sure that she did not care to reply. He was not entirely trusted, which was understandable. How could he blame her? She would be a fool to be at ease with such an unknown quantity as himself. That is, if he were unknown. After all, though she did not know him well personally, she knew the kind of people from whom he came and what could be expected from them. It was surprising that she had not left him to die in the garden, and it was amazing that she had shared that communion of bread and wine with him.

Perhaps, he thought, it is because she was so lonely and any company was better than nothing. Or it might be that he acted on a higher ethical plane than most Earthmen and she could not endure the idea of leaving a fellow sentient being to die, even if she thought him a bloodthirsty savage.

Or she might have other plans for him, such as taking him prisoner.

Martia continued her story. She had fainted and some time later had awakened. The male was beginning to stir, so she had killed him this time.

One more item of information, thought Lane. The weapon is capable of inflicting degrees of damage.

Then, though she kept passing out, she had dragged herself to the medicine chest and treated herself. Within two days she was up and hobbling around, and the scars were beginning to fade.

They must be far ahead of us in everything, he thought. According to her, some of her muscles had been cut. Yet they grew together in a day,

Martia indicated that the repair of her body had required an enormous amount of food during the healing. Most of her time had been spent in eating and sleeping. Reconstruction, even if it took place at a normal accelerated rate, still required the same amount of energy.

By then the bodies of the male and of her companions were stinking with decay. She had to force herself to cut them up and dispose of them in the garbage burner.

Tears welled in her eyes as she recounted this, and she sobbed.

Lane wanted to ask her why she had not buried them, but he reconsidered. Though it might not be the custom among her kind to bury the dead, it was more probable that she wanted to destroy all evidence of their existence before Earthmen came to Mars.

Using signs, he asked her how the male had gotten into the room despite the gate across the tunnel. She indicated that the gate was ordinarily closed only when the dekapeds were awake or when her companions and she were sleeping. But it had been the turn of one of their number to collect eggs in the queen’s chamber. As she reconstructed it, the rogue had appeared at that time and killed the scientist there. Then, after ravening among the still-sleeping colony, it had gone down the tube and there had seen the light shining from the open tunnel. The rest of the story he knew.

Why, he pantomimed, why didn’t the escaped male sleep when all his fellows did? The one in the cage evidently slept at the same time as his companions. And the queen’s guards also slept in the belief they were safe from attack.

Not so, replied Martia. A male who had gotten out of a cage knew no law but fatigue. When he had exhausted himself in his eating and killing, he lay down to sleep. But it did not matter if it was the regular time for it or not. When he was rested, he raged through the tubes and did not stop until he was again too tired to move.

So then, thought Lane, that explains the area of dead umbrella plants on top of the tube by the garden. Another colony moved into the devastated area, built the garden on the outside, and planted the young umbrellas.

He wondered why neither he nor the others of his group had seen the dekapeds outside during their six days on Mars. There must be at least one pressure chamber and outlet for each colony, and there should be at least fifteen colonies in the tubes between this point and that near his base. Perhaps the answer was that the leaf-croppers only ventured out occasionally. Now that he remembered it, neither he nor anyone else had noticed any holes on the leaves. That meant that the trees must have been cropped some time ago and were now ready for another harvesting. If the expedition had only waited several days before sending out men in tracs, it might have seen the dekapeds and investigated. And the story would have been different.

There were other questions he had for her. What about the vessel that was to take them to Ganymede? Was there one hidden on the outside, or was one to be sent to pick them up? If one was to be sent, how would the Ganymedan base be contacted? Radio? Or some—to him—inconceivable method?

The blue globes! he thought. Could they be means of transmitting messages?

He did not know or think further about them because fatigue overwhelmed him, and he fell asleep. His last memory was that of Martia leaning over him and smiling at him.

When he awoke reluctantly, his muscles ached, and his mouth was as dry as the Martian desert. He rose in time to see Martia drop out of the tunnel, a bucket of eggs in her hand. Seeing this, he groaned. That meant she had gone into the nursery again, and that he had slept the clock around.

He stumbled up and into the shower cubicle. Coming out much refreshed, he found breakfast hot on the table. Martia conducted the communion rite, and then they ate. He missed his coffee. The hot soup was good but did not make a satisfactory substitute. There was a bowl of mixed cereal and fruit, both of which came out of a can. It must have had a high energy content, for it made him wide awake.

Afterward, he did some setting-up exercises while she did the dishes. Though he kept his body busy, he was thinking of things unconnected with what he was doing.

What was to be his next move?

His duty demanded that he return to the base and report. What news he would send to the orbital ship! The story would flash from the ship back to Earth. The whole planet would be in an uproar.

There was one objection to his plan to take Martia back with him.

She would not want to go.

Halfway in a deep knee bend, he stopped. What a fool he was! He had been too tired and confused to see it. But if she had revealed that the base of her people was on Ganymede, she did not expect him to take the information back to his transmitter. It would be foolish on her part to tell him unless she were absolutely certain that he would be able to communicate with no one.

That must mean that a vessel was on its way and would arrive soon. And it would not only take her but him. If he was to be killed, he would be dead now.

Lane had not been chosen to be a member of the first Mars expedition because he lacked decision. Five minutes later, he had made up his mind. His duty was clear. Therefore, he would carry it out, even if it violated his personal feelings toward Martia and caused her injury.

First, he’d bind her. Then he would pack up their two pressure suits, the books, and any tools small enough to carry so they might later be examined on Earth. He would make her march ahead of him through the tube until they came to the point opposite his base. There they would don their suits and go to the dome. And as soon as possible the two would rise on the rocket to the orbital ship. This step was the most hazardous, for it was extremely difficult for one man to pilot the rocket. Theoretically, it could be done. It had to be done.

Lane tightened his jaw and forced his muscles to quit quivering. The thought of violating Martia’s hospitality upset him. Still, she had treated him so well for a purpose not altogether altruistic. For all he knew, she was plotting against him.

There was a rope in one of the cabinets, the same flexible rope with which she had pulled him from the mire. He opened the door of the cabinet and removed it. Martia stood in the middle of the room and watched him while she stroked the head of the blue-eyed worm coiled about her shoulders. He hoped she would stay there until he got close. Obviously, she carried no weapon on her nor indeed anything except the pet. Since she had removed her suit, she had worn nothing.

Seeing him approaching her, she spoke to him in an alarmed tone. It didn’t take much sensitivity to know that she was asking him what he intended to do with the rope. He tried to smile reassuringly at her and failed. This was making him sick.

A moment later, he was violently sick. Martia had spoken loudly one word, and it was as if it had struck him in the pit of his stomach. Nausea gripped him, his mouth began salivating, and it was only by dropping the rope and running into the shower that he avoided making a mess on the floor.

Ten minutes later, he felt thoroughly cleaned out. But when he tried to walk to the bed, his legs threatened to give way. Martia had to support him.

Inwardly, he cursed. To have a sudden reaction to the strange food at such a crucial moment! Luck was not on his side.

That is, if it was chance. There had been something so strange and forceful about the manner in which she pronounced that word. Was it possible that she had set up in him—hypnotically or otherwise—a reflex to that word? It would, under the conditions, be a weapon more powerful than a gun.

He wasn’t sure, but it did seem strange that his body had accepted the alien food until that moment. Hypnotism did not really seem to be the answer. How could it be so easily used on him since he did not know more than twenty words of her language?

Language? Words? They weren’t necessary. If she had given him a hypnotic drug in his food, and then had awakened him during his sleep, she could have dramatized how he was to react if she wanted him to do so. She could have given him the key word, ‘t then have allowed him to go to sleep again.

He knew enough hypnotism to know that that was possible. Whether his suspicions were true or not, it was a fact that he had laid flat on his back. However, the day was not wasted. He learned twenty more words, and she drew many more sketches for him. He found out that when he had jumped into the mire of the garden he had literally fallen into the soup. The substance in which the young umbrella trees had been planted was a zoogloea, a glutinous mass of one-celled vegetables and somewhat larger anaerobic animal life that fed on the vegetables. The heat from the jam-packed water-swollen bodies kept the garden soil warm and prevented the tender plants from freezing even during the forty degrees below zero Fahrenheit of the midsummer nights.

After the trees were transplanted into the roof of the tube to replace the dead adults, the zoogloea would be taken piecemeal back to the tube and dumped into the channel. Here the jetfish would strain out part and eat part as they pumped water from the polar end of the tube to the equatorial end.

Toward the end of the day, he tried some of the zoogloea soup and managed to keep it down. A little later, he ate some cereal.

Martia insisted on spooning the food for him. There was something so feminine and tender about her solicitude that he could not protest.

“Martia,” he said, “I may be wrong. There can be good will and rapport between our two kinds. Look at us. Why, if you were a real woman, I’d be in love with you.

“Of course, you may have made me sick in the first place. But if you did, it was a matter of expediency, not malice. And now you are taking care of rne, your enemy. Love thy enemy. Not because you have been told you should but because you do.”

She, of course, did not understand him. However, she replied in her own tongue, and it seemed to him that her voice had the same sense of sympatico.

As he fell asleep, he was thinking that perhaps Martia and he would be the two ambassadors to bring their people together in peace. After all, both of them were highly civilized, essentially pacifistic, and devoutly religious. There was such a thing as the brotherhood, not only of man, but of all sentient beings throughout the cosmos, and…

Pressure on his bladder woke him up. He opened his eyes. The ceiling and walls expanded and contracted. His wristwatch was distorted. Only by extreme effort could he focus his eyes enough to straighten the arms on his watch. The piece, designed to measure the slightly longer Martian day, indicated midnight.

Groggily, he rose. He felt sure that he must have been drugged and that he would still be sleeping if the bladder pain hadn’t been so sharp. If only he could take something to counteract the drug, he could carry out his plans now. But first he had to get to the toilet.

To do so, he had to pass close to Martia’s bed. She did not move but lay on her back, her arms flung out and hanging over the sides of the bed, her mouth open wide.

He looked away, for it seemed indecent to watch when she was in such a position.

But something caught his eye—a movement, a flash of light like a gleaming jewel in her mouth.

He bent over her, looked, and recoiled in horror.

A head rose from between her teeth.

He raised his hand to snatch at the thing but froze in the posture as he recognized the tiny pouting round mouth and little blue eyes. It was the worm.

At first, he thought Martia was dead. The thing was not coiled in her mouth. Its body disappeared into her throat.

Then he saw her chest was rising easily and that she seemed to be in no difficulty.

Forcing himself to come close to the worm, though his stomach muscles writhed and his neck muscles quivered, he put his hand close to its lips.

Warm air touched his fingers, and he heard a faint whistling.

Martia was breathing through it!

Hoarsely, he said, “God!” and he shook her shoulder. He did not want to touch the worm because he was afraid that it might do something to injure her. In that moment of shock he had forgotten that he had an advantage over her, which he should use.

Martia’s lids opened; her large gray-blue eyes stared blankly.

“Take it easy,” he said soothingly.

She shuddered. Her lids closed, her neck arched back, and her face contorted.

He could not tell if the grimace was caused by pain or something else.

“What is this—this monster?” he said. “Symbiote? Parasite?”

He thought of vampires, of worms creeping into one’s sleeping body and there sucking blood.

Suddenly, she sat up and held out her arms to him. He seized her hands, saying, “What is it?”

Martia pulled him toward her, at the same time lifting her face to his.

Out of her open mouth shot the worm, its head pointed toward his face, its little lips formed into an O.

It was reflex, the reflex of fear that made Lane drop her hands and spring back. He had not wanted to do that, but he could not help himself.

Abruptly, Martia came wide awake. The worm flopped its full length from her mouth and fell into a heap between her legs. There it thrashed for a moment before coiling itself like a snake, its head resting on Martia’s thigh, its eyes turned upward to Lane.

There was no doubt about it. Martia looked disappointed, frustrated.

Lane’s knees, already weak, gave way. However, he managed to continue to his destination. When he came out, he walked as far as Martia’s bed, where he had to sit down. His heart was thudding against his ribs, and he was panting hard.

He sat behind her, for he did not want to be where the worm could touch him.

Martia made motions for him to go back to his bed and they would all sleep. Evidently, he thought, she found nothing alarming in the incident.

But he knew he could not rest until he had some kind of explanation. He handed her paper and pen from the bedside table and then gestured fiercely. Martia shrugged and began sketching while Lane watched over her shoulder. By the time she had used up five sheets of paper, she had communicated her message.

His eyes were wide, and he was even paler.

So—Martia was a female. Female at least in the sense that she carried eggs—and, at times, young—within her.

And there was the so-called worm. So called? What could he call it? It could not be designated under one category. It was many things in one. It was a larva. It was a phallus. It was also her offspring, of her flesh and blood.

But not of her genes. It was not descended from her.

She had given birth to it, yet she was not its mother. She was neither one of its mothers.

The dizziness and confusion he felt was not caused altogether by his sickness. Things were coming too fast. He was thinking furiously, trying to get this new information clear, but his thoughts kept going bacik and forth, getting nowhere.

“There’s no reason to get upset,” he told himself. “After all, the splitting of animals into two sexes is only one of the ways of reproduction tried on Earth. On Martia’s planet Nature—God— has fashioned another method for the higher animals. And only He knows how many other designs for reproduction He has fashioned on how many other worlds.”

Nevertheless, he was upset.

This worm, no, this larva, this embryo outside its egg and its secondary mother… well, call it, once and for all, larva, because it did metamorphose later.

This particular larva was doomed to stay in its present form until it died of old age.

Unless Martia found another adult of the Eeltau.

And unless she and this other adult felt affection for each other.

Then, according to the sketch she’d drawn, Martia and her friend, or lover, would lie down or sit together. They would, as lovers do on Earth, speak to each other in endearing, flattering, and exciting terms. They would caress and kiss much as Terrestrial man and woman do, though on Earth it was not considered complimentary to call one’s lover Big Mouth.

Then, unlike the Terran custom, a third would enter the union to form a highly desired and indeed indispensable and eternal triangle.

The larva, blindly, brainlessly obeying its instincts, aroused by mutual fondling by the two, would descend tail first into the throat of one of the two Eeltau. Inside the body of the lover a fleshy valve would open to admit the slim body of the larva. Its open tip would touch the ovary of the host. The larva, like an electric eel, would release a tiny current. The hostess would go into an ecstasy, its nerves stimulate electrochemically. The ovary would release an egg no larger than a pencil dot. It would disappear into the open tip of the larva’s tail, there to begin a journey up a canal toward the center of its body, urged on by the contraction of muscle and whipping of cilia.

Then the larva slid out of the first hostess’s mouth and went tail first into the other, there to repeat the process. Sometimes the larva garnered eggs, sometimes not, depending upon whether the ovary had a fully developed one to release.

When the process was successful, the two eggs moved toward each other but did not quite meet.

Not yet.

There must be other eggs collected in the dark incubator of the larva, collected by pairs, though not necessarily from the same couple of donors.

These would number anywhere from twenty to forty pairs.

Then, one day, the mysterious chemistry of the cells would tell the larva’s body that it had gathered enough eggs.

A hormone was released, the metamorphosis begun. The larva swelled enormously, and the mother, seeing this, placed it tenderly in a warm place and fed it plenty of predigested food and sugar water.

Before the eyes of its mother, the larva then grew shorter and wider. Its tail contracted; its cartilaginous vertebrae, widely separated in its larval stage, shifted closer to each other and hardened, a skeleton formed, ribs, shoulders. Legs and arms budded and grew and took humanoid shape. Six months passed, and there lay in its crib something resembling a baby of Homosapiens.

From then until its fourteenth year, the Eeltau grew and developed much as its Terran counterpart.

Adulthood, however, initiated more strange changes. Hor-‘tnone released hormone until the first pair of gametes, dormant these fourteen years, moved together.

The two fused, the chromatin of one uniting with the chromatin of the other. Out of the two—a single creature, wormlike, four inches long, was released into the stomach of its hostess.

Then, nausea. Vomiting. And so, comparatively painlessly, the bringing forth of a genetically new being.

It was this worm that would be both fetus and phallus and would give ecstasy and draw into its own body the eggs of loving adults and would metamorphose and become infant, child, and adult.

And so on and so on.

He rose and shakily walked to his own bed. There he sat down, his head bowed, while he muttered to himself.

“Let’s see now. Martia gave birth to, brought forth, or up, this larva. But the larva actually doesn’t have any of Martia’s genes. Martia was just the hostess for it.

“However, if Martia has a lover, she will, by means of this worm, pass on her heritable qualities. This worm will become an adult and bring forth, or up, Martia’s child.”

He raised his hands in despair.

“How do the Eeltau reckon ancestry? How keep track of their relatives? Or do they care? Wouldn’t it be easier to consider your foster mother, your hostess, your real mother? As, in the sense of having borne you, she is?

“And what kind of sexual code do these people have? It can’t, I would think, be much like ours. Nor is there any reason why it should be.

“But who is responsible for raising the larva and child? Its pseudo-mother? Or does the lover share in the duties? And what about property and inheritance laws? And, and…”

Helplessly, he looked at Martia.

Fondly stroking the head of the larva, she returned his stare.

Lane shook his head.

“I was wrong. Eeltau and Terran couldn’t meet on a friendly basis. My people would react to yours as to disgusting vermin. Their deepest prejudices would be aroused, their strongest taboos would be violated. They could not learn to live with you or consider you even faintly human.

“And as far as that goes, could you live with us? Wasn’t the sight of me naked a shock? Is that reaction a part of why you don’t make contact with us?”

Martia put the larva down and stood up and walked over to him and kissed the tips of his fingers. Lane, though he had to fight against visibly flinching, took her fingers and kissed them. Softly, he said to her, “Yet… individuals could learn to respect each other, to have affection for each other. And masses are made of individuals.”

He lay back on the bed. The grogginess, pushed aside for a while by excitement, was coming back. He couldn’t fight off sleep much longer.

“Fine noble talk,” he murmured. “But it means nothing.

Eeltau don’t think they should deal with us. And we are, unknowingly, pushing out toward them. What will happen when we are ready to make the interstellar jump? War? Or will they be afraid to let us advance even to that point and destroy us before then? After all, one cobalt bomb…“

He looked again at Martia, at the not-quite-human yet beautiful face, the smooth skin of the chest, abdomen, and loins, innocent of nipple, navel, or labia. From far off she had come, from a possibly terrifying place across terrifying distances. About her, however, there was little that was terrifying and much that was warm, generous, companionable, attractive.

As if they had waited for some key to turn, and the key had been turned, the lines he had read before falling asleep the last night in the base came again to him.

If is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled…

We have a little sister,

And she hath no breasts:

What shall we do for our sister

In the day when she shall be spoken for?

With thee conversing, I forget all time,

All seasons, and their change, all please alike.

“With thee conversing,” he said aloud. He turned over so his back was to her, and he pounded his fist against the bed.

“Oh dear God, why couldn’t it be so?”

A long time he lay there, his face pressed into the mattress. Something had happened; the overpowering fatigue was gone; his body had drawn strength from some reservoir. Realizing this, he sat up and beckoned to Martia, smiling at the same time.

She rose slowly and started to walk to him, but he signaled that she should bring the larva with her. At first, she looked puzzled. Then her expression cleared, to be replaced by understanding. Smiling delightedly, she walked to him, and though he knew it must be a trick of his imagination, it seemed to him that she swayed her hips as a woman would.

She halted in front of him and then stooped to kiss him full on the lips. Her eyes were closed.

He hesitated for a fraction of a second. She—no, it, he told himself—looked so trusting, so loving, so womanly, that he could not do it.

“For Earth!” he said fiercely and brought the edge of his palm hard against the side of her neck.

She crumpled forward against him, her face sliding into his chest. Lane caught her under the armpits and laid her facedown on the bed. The larva, which had fallen from her hand onto the floor, was writhing about as if hurt. Lane picked it up by its tail and, in a frenzy that owed its violence to the fear he might not be able to do it, snapped it like a whip. There was a crack as the head smashed into the floor and blood spurted from its eyes and mouth. Lane placed his heel on the head and stepped down until there was a flat mess beneath his foot.

Then, quickly, before she could come to her senses and speak any words that would render him sick and weak, he ran to a cabinet. Snatching a narrow towel out ot it, he ran back and gagged her. After that he tied her hands behind her back with the rope.

“Now, you bitch!” he panted. “We’ll see who comes out ahead! You would do that with me, would you! You deserve this; your monster deserves to die!”

Furiously he began packing. In fifteen mintues he had the suits, helmets, tanks, and food rolled into two bundles. He searched for the weapon she had talked about and found something that might conceivably be it. It had a butt that fitted to his hand, a dial that might be a rheostat for controlling degrees of intensity of whatever it shot, and a bulb at the end. The bulb, he hoped, expelled the stunning and killing energy. Of course, he might be wrong. It could be fashioned for an entirely different purpose.

Martia had regained consciousness. She sat on the edge of the -bed, her shoulders hunched, her head drooping, tears running down her cheeks and into the towel around her mouth. Her wide eyes were focused on the smashed worm by her feet.

Roughly, Lane seized her shoulder and pulled her upright. She gazed wildly at him, and he gave her a little shove. He felt sick within him, knowing that he had killed the larva when he did not have to do so and that he was handling her so violently because he was afraid, not of her, but of himself. If he had been disgusted because she had fallen into the trap he set for her, he was so because he, too, beneath his disgust, had wanted to commit that act of love. Commit, he thought, was the right word. It contained criminal implications.

Martia whirled around, almost losing her balance because of her tied hands. Her face worked, and sounds burst from the gag.

“Shut up!” he howled, pushing her again. She went sprawling and only saved herself from falling on her face by dropping on her knees. Once more, he pulled her to her feet, noting as he did so that her knees were skinned. The sight of the blood, instead of softening him, enraged him even more.

“Behave yourself, or you’ll get worse!” he snarled.

She gave him one more questioning look, threw back her head, and made a strange strangling sound. Immediately, her face took on a bluish tinge. A second later, she fell heavily on the floor.

Alarmed, he turned her over. She was choking to death.

He tore off the gag and reached into her mouth and grabbed the root of her tongue. It slipped away and he seized if again, only to have it slide away as if it were a live animal that defied him.

Then he had pulled her tongue out of her throat; she had swallowed it in an effort to kill herself.

Lane waited. When he was sure she was going to recover, he replaced the gag around her mouth. Just as he was about to tie the knot at the back of her neck, he stopped. What use would it be to continue this? If allowed to speak, she would say the word that would throw him into retching. If gagged, she would swallow her tongue again.

He could save her only so many times. Eventually, she would succeed in strangling herself.

The one way to solve his problem was the one way he could not take. If her tongue were cut off at the root, she could neither speak nor kill herself. Some men might do it; he could not.

The other way to keep her silent was to kill her.

“I can’t do it in cold blood,” he said aloud. “So, if you want to die, Martia, then you must do it by committing suicide. That, I can’t help. Up you go. I’ll get your pack, and we’ll leave.”

Martia turned blue and sagged to the floor.

“I’ll not help you this time!” he shouted, but he found himself frantically trying to undo the knot.

At the same time, he told himself what a fool he was. Of course! The solution was to use her own gun on her. Turn the rheostat to a stunning degree of intensity and knock her out whenever she started to regain consciousness. Such a course would mean he’d have to carry her and her equipment, too, on the thirty-mile walk down the tube to an exit near his base. But he could do it. He’d rig up some sort of travois. He’d do it! Nothing could stop him. And Earth…

At that moment, hearing an unfamiliar noise, he looked up. There were two Eeltau in pressure suits standing there, and another crawling out of the tunnel. Each had a bulb-tipped handgun in her hand.

Desperately, Lane snatched at the weapon he carried in his belt. With his left hand he twisted the rheostat on the side of the barrel, hoping that this would turn it on full force. Then he raised the bulb toward the group…

He woke flat on his back, clad in his suit, except for the helmet, and strapped to a stretcher. His body was helpless, but he could turn his head. He did so, and saw many Eeltau dismantling the room. The one who had stunned him with her gun before he could fire was standing by him.

She spoke in English that held only a trace of foreign accent. “Settle down, Mr. Lane. You’re in for a long ride. You’ll be more comfortably situated once we’re in our ship.”

He opened his mouth to ask her how she knew his name but closed it when he realized she must have read the entries in the log at the base. And it was to be expected that some Eeltau would be trained in Earth languages. For over a century their sentinel spaceships had been tuning in to radio and TV.

It was then that Martia spoke to the captain. Her face was wild and reddened with weeping and marks where she had fallen.

The interpreter said to Lane, “Mahrseeya asks you to tell her why you killed her… baby. She cannot understand why you thought you had to do so.”

“I cannot answer,” said Lane. His head felt very light, almost as if it were a balloon expanding. And the room began slowly to turn around.

“I will tell her why,” answered the interpreter. “I will tell her that it is the nature of the beast.”

“That is not so!” cried Lane. “I am no vicious beast. I did what I did because I had to! I could not accept her love and still remain a man! Not the kind of man…”

“Mahrseeya” said the interpreter, “will pray that you be forgiven the murder of her child and that you will someday, under our teaching, be unable to do such a thing. She herself, though she is stricken with grief for her dead baby, forgives you. She hopes the time will come when you will regard her as a—sister. She thinks there is some good in you.”

Lane clenched his teeth together and bit the end of his tongue until it bled while they put his helmet on. He did not dare to try to talk, for that would have meant he would scream and scream. He felt as if something had been planted in him and had broken its shell and was growing into something like a worm. It was eating him, and what would happen before it devoured all of him he did not know.

THE LOST KAFOOZALUM

Pauline Ashwell

I remember some bad times, most of them back home on Excenus 23; the worst was when Dad fell under the reaping machine but there was also the one when I got lost twenty miles from home with a dud radio, at the age of twelve; and the one when Uncle Charlie caught me practicing emergency turns in a helicar round the main weather-maker; and the one on Figuerra being chased by a cyber-crane; and the time when Dad decided to send me to Earth to do my Education.

This time is bad in a different way, with no sharp edges but a kind of a desolation.

Most people I know are feeling bad just now, because at Russett College we finished our Final Examination five days ago and Results are not due for a two weeks.

My friend B Laydon says this is yet another Test anyone still sane at the end being proved tough enough to break a molar on; she says also The worst part is in bed remembering all the things she could have written and did not; The second worst is also in bed picturing how to explain to her parents when they get back to Earth that someone has to come bottom and in a group as brilliant as Russett College Cultural Engineering Class this is really no disgrace.

I am not worried that way so much, I cannot remember what I wrote anyway and I can think of one or two people I am pretty sure will come bottomer than me—or B either.

I would prefer to think it is just Finals cause me to feel miserable but it is not.

In Psychology they taught us The mind has the faculty of concealing any motive it is ashamed of, especially from itself; seems unfortunately mine does not have this gadget supplied.

I never wanted to come to Earth. I was sent to Russett against my will and counting the days till I could get back to Home, Father and Excensus 23, but the sad truth is that now the longed-for moment is nearly on top of me I do not want to go.

Dad’s farm was a fine place to grow up, but now I had four years on Earth the thought of going back there makes me feel like a three-weeks’ chicken got to get back in its shell.

B and I are on an island in the Pacific. Her parents are on Caratacus researching on local art forms, so she and I came here to be miserable in company and away from the rest.

It took me years on Earth to get used to all this water around, it seemed unnatural and dangerous to have it all lying loose that way, but now I shall miss even the Sea.

The reason we have this long suspense over Finals is that they will not use Reading Machines to mark the papers for fear of cutting down critical judgement; so each paper has to be read word by word by three Examiners and there are forty-three of us and we wrote six papers each.

What I think is I am sorry for the Examiners, but B says they were the ones who set the papers and it serves them perfectly right.

I express surprise because D. J. M’Clare our Professor is one of them, but B says He is one of the greatest men in the galaxy, of course, but she gave up thinking him perfect years ago.

One of the main attractions on this Island is swimming under water, especially by moonlight. Dad sent me a fish-boat as a birthday present two years back, but I never used it yet on account of my above-mentioned attitude to water. Now I got this feeling of Carpe Diem, make the most of Earth while I am on it because probably I shall not pass this way again.

The fourth day on the Island it is full moon at ten o’clock, so I pluck up courage to wriggle into the boat and go out under the Sea. B says Fish parading in and out of reefs just remind her of Cultural Engineering—crowd behavior—so she prefers to turn in early and find out what nightmares her subconscious will throw up this time.

The reefs by moonlight are everything they are supposed to be, why did I not do this often when I had the chance? I stay till my oxygen is nearly gone, then come out and sadly press the button that collapses the boat into a thirty-pound package of plastic hoops and oxygen cans. I sling it on my back and head for the chalet B and I hired among the coconut trees.

I am crossing an open space maybe fifty yards from it when a Thing drops on me out of the air.

I do not see the Thing because part of it covers my face, and the rest is grabbed round my arms and my waist and my hips and whatever, I cannot see and I cannot scream and I cannot find anything to kick. The Thing is strong and rubbery and many-armed and warmish, and less than a second after I first feel it I am being hauled up into the air.

I do not care for this at all.

I am at least fifty feet up before it occurs to me to bite the hand that gags me and then I discover it is plastic, not alive at all. Then I feel self and encumberance scraping through some kind of aperture; there is a sharp click as of a door closing and the Thing goes limp all round me.

I spit out the bit I am biting and it drops away so that I can see.

Well!

I am in a kind of a cup-shaped space maybe ten feet across but not higher than I am; there is a trap door in the ceiling; the Thing is lying all around me in a mess of plastic arms, with an extensible stalk connecting it to the wall. I kick free and it turns over exposing the label FRAGILE CARGO right across the back.

The next thing I notice is two holdalls, B’s and mine, clamped against the wall, and the next after that is the opening of a trap door in the ceiling and B’s head silhouetted in it remarking Oh there you are Liz.

I confirm this statement and ask for explanations.

B says She doesn’t understand all of it but it is all right.

It is not all right I reply, if she has joined some Society such as for the Realization of Fictitious Improbabilities that is her privilege but no reason to involve me.

B says Why do I not stop talking and come up and see for myself?

There is a slight hitch when I jam in the trap door, then B helps me get the boat off my back and I drop it on the Fragile Cargo and emerge into the cabin of a Hopper, drop-shaped, cargo-carrying; I have been in its hold till now.

There are one or two peculiar points about it, or maybe one or two hundred, such as the rate at which we are ascending which seems to be bringing us right into the Stratosphere; but the main thing I notice is the pilot. He has his back to us but is recognizably Ram Gopal who graduated in Cultural Engineering last year, Rumor says next to top of his class.

I ask him what kind of a melodramatic shenanigan is this?

B says We had to leave quietly in a hurry without attracting attention so she booked us out at the Hotel hours ago and she and Ram have been hanging around waiting for me ever since.

I point out that the scope-trace of an Unidentified Flying Object will occasion a lot more remark than a normal departure even at midnight.

At this Ram smiles in an inscrutable Oriental manner and B gets nearly as cross as I do, seems she has mentioned this point before.

We have not gone into it properly when the cabin suddenly shifts through a right angle. B and I go sliding down the vertical floor and end sitting on a window. There is a jolt and a shudder and Ram mutters things in Hindi and then suddenly Up is nowhere at all.

B and I scramble off the window and grab fixtures so as to stay put. The stars have gone and we can see nothing except the dim glow over the instruments; then suddenly lights go on outside.

We look out into the hold of a ship.

Our ten-foot teardrop is sitting next to another one, like two eggs in a rack. On the other side is a bulkhead; behind, the curve of the hull; and directly ahead an empty space, then another bulkhead and an open door, through which after a few seconds a head pokes cautiously.

The head is then followed by a body which kicks off against the wall and sails slowly towards us. Ram presses a stud and a door slides open in the hopper; but the new arrival stops himself with a hand on either side of the frame, his legs trailing any old how behind him. It is Peter Yeng Sen who graduated the year I did my Field Work.

He says, Gopal, dear fellow, there was no need for the knocking, we heard the bell all right.

Ram grumbles something about the guide beam being miss-set, and slides out of his chair. Peter announces that we have only just made it as the deadline is in seven minutes time; he waves B and me out of the hopper, through the door and into a corridor where a certain irregular vibration is coming from the walls.

Ram asks what is that tapping? And Peter sighs and says The present generation of students has no discipline at all.

At this B brakes with one hand against the wall and cocks her head to listen; next moment she laughs and starts banging with her fist on the wall.

Peter exclaims in Mandarin and tows her away by one wrist like a reluctant kite. The rapping starts again on the far side of the wall and I suddenly recognize a primitive signaling system called Regret or something, I guess because it was used by people in situations they did not like such as Sinking ships or solitary confinement; it is done by tapping water pipes and such.

Someone found it in a book and the more childish element in College learned it up for signaling during compulsory lectures. Interest waning abruptly when the lecturers started to learn it, too.

I never paid much attention not expecting to be in Solitary confinement much; this just shows you; next moment Ram opens a door and pushes me through it, the door clicks behind me and Solitary confinement is what I am in.

I remember this code is really called Remorse which is what I feel for not learning when I had the chance.

However I do not have long for it, a speaker in the wall requests everyone to lie down as acceleration is about to begin. I strap down on the couch which fills half the compartment, countdown begins and at zero the floor is suddenly down once more.

I wait till my stomach settles, then rise to explore.

I am in an oblong room about eight by twelve, it looks as though it had been hastily partitioned off from a larger space. The walls are prefab plastic sheet, the rest is standard fittings slung in and bolted down with the fastenings showing.

How many of my classmates are on this ship? Remorse again as tapping starts on either side of me.

Discarding such Hypotheses as that Ram and Peter are going to hold us to ransom—which might work for me, since my Dad somehow got to be a millionaire, but not for B because her parents think money is vulgar—or that we are being carried off to found an ideal Colony somewhere—any first-year student can tell you why that won’t work—only one idea seems plausible.

This is that Finals were not final and we are in for a Test of some sort.

After ten minutes I get some evidence; a Reading Machine is trundled in, the door immediately slamming shut so I do not see who trundles it.

I prowl round it looking for tricks but it seems standard; I take a seat in it, put on the headset and turn the switch.

Hypothesis confirmed, I suppose.

There is a reel in place and it contains background information on a problem in Cultural Engineering all set out the way we are taught to do it in Class. The Problem concerns developments on a planet got settled by two groups during the Exodus and been isolated ever since.

Well while a Reading Machine is running there is no time to think, it crams in data at full speed and evaluation has to wait. However my subconscious goes into action and when the reel stops it produces a Suspicion full grown.

The thing is too tidy.

When we were First Year we dreamed up situations like this and argued like mad over them, but they were a lot too neat for real life and too dramatic as well.

However one thing M’Clare said to us, and every other lecturer too, just before the Finals, was Do not spend time trying to figure what the examiner was after but answer the question as set; I am more than halfway decided this is some mysterious Oriental idea of a joke but I get busy thinking in case it is not.

The Problem goes like this:

The planet is called Incognita in the reel and it is right on the edge of the known volume of space, it got settled by two groups somewhere between three and three and a half centuries ago. The rest of the human race never heard of it till maybe three years back.

(Well it happens that way, inhabited planets are still turning up eight or ten a century, on account of during the Exodus some folk were willing to travel a year or more so as to get away from the rest).

The ship that spotted the planet as inhabited did not land, but reported to Central Government, Earth, who shipped observers out to take a look.

(There was a rumor circulating at Russett that the Terry Government might employ some of us on that kind of job, but it never got official. I do not know whether to believe this bit or not.)

It is stated the observers landed secretly and mingled with the natives unobserved.

(This is not physically impossible but sounds too like a Field Trip to be true.)

The observers are not named but stated to be graduates of the Cultural Engineering Class.

They put in a few months’ work and sent home unanimous Crash Priority reports the situation is bad, getting worse and the prognosis is War.

Brother.

I know people had wars, I know one reason we do not have them now is just that with so many planets and cheap transportation, pressure has other outlets; these people scrapped their ships for factories and never built more.

But.

There are only about ten million of them and surely to goodness a whole planet gives room enough to keep out of each other’s hair?

Well this is not Reasoning but a Reaction, I go back to the data for another look.

The root trouble is stated to be that two groups landed on the planet without knowing the others were there, when they met thirty years later they got a disagreeable shock.

I cannot see there was any basic difference between them, they were very similar, especially in that neither lot wanted anything to do with people they had not picked themselves.

So they divided the planet along a Great Circle which left two of the main land-masses in one hemisphere and two in another.

They agree each to keep to its own section and leave the other alone.

Twenty years later, trading like mad; each has certain minerals the other lacks; each has certain agricultural products the other finds it difficult to grow.

You think this leads to Co-operation Friendship and ultimate Federation?

I will not go into the incidents that make each side feel it is being gypped, it is enough that from time to time each has a scarcity or hold-up on deliveries that upsets the other’s economy; and they start experimenting to become self-sufficient: and the exporter’s economy is upset in turn. And each thinks the other did it on purpose.

This sort of situation reacts internally leading to Politics.

There are troubles about a medium-sized island on the dividing line, and the profits from interhemispherical transport, and the laws of interhemispherical trade.

It takes maybe two hundred years, but finally each has expanded the Police into an army with a whole spectrum of weapons not to be used on any account except for Defense.

This situation lasts seventy years getting worse all the time, now Rumors have started on each side that the other is developing an Ultimate Weapon, and the political parties not in power are agitating to move first before the thing is complete.

The observers report War not maybe this year or the next but within ten, and if neither side was looking for an Ultimate Weapon to begin with they certainly are now.

Taking all this at face value there seems an obvious solution.

I am thinking this over in an academic sort of way when an itchy trickle of sweat starts down my vertebrae.

Who is going to apply this solution? Because if this is anything but another Test, or the output of a diseased sense of humor, I would be sorry for somebody.

I dial black coffee on the wall servitor and wish B were here so we could prove to each other the thing is just an exercise; I do not do so well at spotting proofs on my own.

Most of our class exercises have concerned something that happened, once.

After about ninety minutes the speaker requests me to write not more than one thousand words on any scheme to improve the situation and the equipment required for it.

I spent ten minutes verbalizing the basic idea and an hour or so on “equipment”; the longer I go on the more unlikely it all seems. In the end I have maybe two hundred words which acting on instructions I post through a slit in the door.

Five minutes later I realize I have forgotten the Time Factor.

If the original ship took a year to reach Incognita, it will take at least four months now; therefore it is more than four months since that report was written and will be more than a year before anyone arrives and War may have started already.

I sit back and by transition of ideas start to wonder where this ship is heading? We are still at one gee and even on Mass-Time you cannot juggle apparent acceleration and spatial transition outside certain limits; we are not just orbiting but must be well outside the Solar System by now.

The speaker announces Everyone will now get some rest; I smell sleep-gas for one moment and have just time to lie down.

I guess I was tired, at that.

When I wake I feel more cheerful than I have for weeks; analysis indicates I am glad something is happening even if it is another Exam.

I dial breakfast but am too restless to eat; I wonder how long this goes on or whether I am supposed to show Initiative and break out; I am examining things with this in mind when the speaker comes to life again.

It says, “Ladies and gentlemen. You have not been told whether the problem that you studied yesterday concerned a real situation or an imaginary one. You have all outlined measures which you think would improve the situation described. Please consider, seriously, whether you would be prepared to take part yourself in the application of your plan.”

Brother.

There is no way to tell whether those who say No will be counted cowardly or those who say Yes rash idiots or what, the owner of that voice has his inflections too well trained to give anything away except intentionally.

D. J. M’Clare.

Not in person but a recording, anyway M’Clare is on Earth surrounded by exam papers.

I sit back and try to think, honestly, if that crack-brained notion I wrote out last night were going to be tried in dead earnest, would I take a hand in it?

The trouble is, hearing M’Clare’s voice has convinced me it is a Test, I don’t know whether it is testing my courage or my prudence in fact I might as well toss for it.

Heads I am crazy, Tails a defaulter; Tails is what it is.

I seize my styler and write the decision down.

There is the slit in the door.

I twiddle the note and think Well nobody asked for it yet.

Suppose it is real, after all?

I remember the itchy, sweaty feeling I got yesterday and try to picture really embarking on a thing like this, but I cannot work up any lather today.

I begin to picture M’Clare reading my decision not to back up my own idea.

I pick up the coin and juggle it around.

The speaker remarks When I am quite ready will I please make a note of my decision and post it through the door.

I go on flipping the coin up and presently it drops on the floor, it is Heads this time.

Tossing coins is a pretty feeble way to decide.

I drop the note on the floor and take another sheet and write “YES. Lysistrata Lee.”

Using that name seems to make it more legal.

I slip the paper in the slit and poke till it falls through on the other side of the door.

I am suddenly immensely hungry and dial breakfast all over again.

Just as I finish M’Clare’s voice starts once more.

“It’s always the minor matters that cause the most difficulty. The timing of this announcement has cost me as much thought as any aspect of the arrangements. The trouble is that however honest you are—and your honesty has been tested repeatedly—and however strong your imagination—about half of your training has been devoted to developing it—you can’t possibly be sure, answering a hypothetical question, that you are giving the answer you would choose if you knew it was asked in dead earnest.

“Those of you who answered the question in the negative are out of this. They have been told that it was a test, of an experimental nature, and have been asked to keep the whole thing a secret. They will be returning to Earth in a few hours’ time. I ask the rest of you to think it over once again. Your decision is still private. Only the two people who gathered you together know which members of the class are in this ship. The list of possible helpers was compiled by a computer. I haven’t seen it myself.

“You have a further half hour in which to make up your minds finally. Please remember that if you have any private reservations on the matter, or if you are secretly afraid, you may endanger us all. You all know enough psychology to realize this.

“If you still decide in favor of the project, write your name on a slip of paper and post it as before. If you are not absolutely certain about it, do nothing. Please think it over for half an hour.”

Me, I had enough thinking. I write my name—just L. Lee—and post it straight away.

However I cannot stop thinking altogether. I guess I think very hard, in fact. My Subconscious insists afterwards that it did register the plop as something came through the slit, but my Conscious failed to notice it at all.

Hours later—my watch says twenty-five minutes but I guess the Mass-Time has affected it—anyway I had three times too much solitary confinement—when will they let me out of here?—there is a knock at the door and a second later it slides apart.

I am expecting Ram or Peter so it takes me an appreciable fraction of a moment to realize I am seeing D. J. M’Clare.

Then I remember he is back on Earth buried in Exam papers and conclude I am having a hallucination.

This figment of my imagination says politely, “Do you mind if I sit down?”

He collapses on the couch as though thoroughly glad of it.

It is a strange thing, every time I see M’Clare I am startled all over again at how good-looking he is; seems I forget it between times which is maybe why I never fell for him as most female students do.

However what strikes me this time is that he looks tired, three-days-sleepless tired with worries on top.

I guess he is real, at that.

He says, “Don’t look so accusing, Lizzie, I only just got on this ship myself.”

This does not make sense; you cannot just arrive on a ship twenty-four hours after it goes on Mass-Time; or can you?

M’Clare leans back and closes his eyes and inquires whether I am one of the Morse enthusiasts?

So that is the name; I say when we get back I will learn it first thing.

“Well,” says he, “I did my best to arrange privacy for all of you; with so many ingenious idiots on board I’m not really surprised that they managed to circumvent me. I had to cheat and check that you really were on the list; and I knew that whoever backed out you’d still be on board.”

So I should hope he might: Horrors there is my first answer screwed up on the floor and Writing side top-most.

However he has not noticed it, he goes on “Anyway you of all people won’t be thought to have dropped out because you were afraid.”

I have just managed to hook my heel over the note and get it out of sight, M’Clare has paused for an answer and I have to dredge my Sub-threshold memories for—

WHAT?

M’Clare opens his eyes and says like I am enacting Last Straw, “Have some sense, Lizzie.” Then in a different tone, “Ram says he gave you the letter half an hour ago.”

What letter?

My brain suddenly registers a small pale patch been occupying a corner of my retina for the last half hour; it turns out to be a letter postmarked Excenus 23.

I disembowel it with one jerk. It is from my Dad and runs like this:

My dear Liz,

Thank you for your last letter, glad you are keeping fit and so am I.

I just got a letter from your College saying you will get a degree conferred on you on September 12th and parents if on Earth will be welcome.

Well Liz this I got to see and Charlie says the same, but the letter says too Terran Authority will not give a permit to visit Earth just for this, so I wangled on to a Delegation which is coming to discuss trade with the Department of Commerce. Charlie and I will be arriving on Earth on August 24th.

Liz it is good to think I shall be seeing you again after four years. There are some things about your future I meant to write to Professor M’Clare about, but now I shall be able to talk it over direct. Please give him my regards.

Be seeing you Lizzie girl, your affectionate Dad

J. X. Lee.

Dear old Dad, after all these years farming with a weather-maker on a drydust planet I want to see his face the first time he sees real rain.

Hell’s fires and shades of darkness, I shan’t be there!

M’Clare says, “Your father wrote to me saying that he will be arriving on Earth on 24th August. I take it your letter says the same. I came on a dispatch boat; you can go back on it.”

Now what is he talking about? Then I get the drift.

I say, “Look. So Dad will be on Earth before we get back. What difference does that make?”

“You can’t let him arrive and find you missing.”

Well I admit to a qualm at the thought of Dad let loose on Earth without me, but after all Uncle Charlie is a born Terrie and can keep him in line; Hell he is old enough to look after himself anyway.

“You met my Dad,” I point out. “You think J. X. Lee would want any daughter of his backing out on a job so as to hold his hand? I can send him a letter saying I am off on a job or a Test or whatever I please and hold everything till I get back; what are you doing about people’s families on Earth already?”

M’Clare says we were all selected as having families not on Earth at present, and I must go back.

I say like Hell I will.

He says he is my official guardian and responsible for me.

I say he is just as responsible for everyone else on this ship.

I spent years and years trying to think up a remark would really get home to M’Clare; well I have done it now.

I say, “Look. You are tired and worried and maybe not thinking so well just now.

“I know this is a very risky job, don’t think I missed that at all. I tried hard to imagine it like you said over the speaker. I cannot quite imagine dying but I know how Dad will feel if I do.

“I did my level best to scare myself sick, then I decided it is just plain worth the risk anyway.

“To work out a thing like this you have to have a kind of arithmetic, you add in everybody’s feelings with the other factors, then if you get a plus answer you forget everything else and go right ahead.

“I am not going to think about it any more, because I added up the sum and got the answer and upsetting my nerves won’t help. I guess you worked out the sum, too. You decided four million people were worth risking twenty, even if they do have parents. Even if they are your students. So they are, too, and you gave us all a chance to say No.

“Well nothing has altered that, only now the values look different to you because you are tired and worried and probably missed breakfast, too.”

Brother some speech, I wonder what got into me? M’Clare is wondering, too, or maybe gone to sleep sitting, it is some time before he answers me.

“Miss Lee, you are deplorably right on one thing at least. I don’t know whether I was fit to make such a decision when I made it, but I’m not fit now. As far as you personally are concerned… .” He trails off looking tireder than ever, then picks up again suddenly. “You are again quite right, I am every bit as responsible for the other people on board as I am for you.”

He climbs slowly to his feet and walks out without another word.

The door is left open and I take this as an invitation to freedom and shoot through in case it was a mistake.

No because Ram is opening doors all along the corridor and ten of Russett’s brightest come pouring out like mercury finding its own level and coalesce in the middle of the floor.

The effect of release is such that after four minutes Peter Yeng Sen’s head appears at the top of a stairway and he says the crew is lifting the deck plates, will we for Time’s sake go along to the Conference Room which is soundproof.

The Conference Room is on the next deck and like our cabins shows signs of hasty construction; the soundproofing is there but the acoustics are kind of muffled and the generator is not boxed in but has cables trailing all over, and the fastenings have a strong but temporary look.

Otherwise there is a big table and a lot of chairs and a small projection box in front of each with a note-taker beside.

It is maybe this very functional setup or maybe the dead flatness of our voices in the damped room, but we do not have so much to talk about any more. We automatically take places at the table, all at one end, leaving seven vacant chairs near the door.

Looking round, I wonder what principle we were selected on.

Of my special friends Eru Te Whangoa and Kirsty Lammergaw are present but Lily Chen and Likofo Komom’baratse and Jean LeBrun are not; we have Cray Patterson who is one of my special enemies but not Blazer Weigh or the Astral Cad; the rest are P. Zapotec, Nick Howard, Aro Mestah, Dillie Dixie, Pavel Christianovitch, Lennie DiMaggio and Shootright Crow.

Eru is at the end of the table, opposite the door, and maybe feels this position puts it up to him to start the discussion; he opens by remarking “So nobody took the opportunity to withdraw.”

Cray Patterson lifts his eyebrows ceilingwards and drawls out that the decision was supposed to be a private one.

B says “Maybe but it did not work out that way, everyone who learned Morse knows who was on the ship, anyway they are all still here so what does it matter? And M’Clare would not have picked people who were going to funk it, after all.”

My chair gets a kick on the ankle which I suppose was meant for B; Eru is six foot five but even his legs do not quite reach; he is the only one of us facing the door.

M’Clare has somehow shed his weariness; he looks stern but fresh as a daisy. There are four with him; Ram and Peter looking serious, one stranger in Evercleans looking determined to enjoy the party and another in uniform looking as though nothing would make him.

M’Clare introduces the strangers as Colonel Delano-Smith and Mr. Yardo. They all sit down at the other end of the table; then he frowns at us and begins like this:

“Miss Laydon is mistaken. You were not selected on any such grounds as she suggests. I may say that I was astonished at the readiness with which you all engaged yourselves to take part in such a desperate gamble; and, seeing that for the last four years I have been trying to persuade you that it is worth while, before making a decision of any importance, to spend a certain amount of thought on it, I was discouraged as well.”

Oh.

“The criterion upon which you were selected was a very simple one. As I told you, you were picked not by me but by a computer; the one in the College Office which registers such information as your home addresses and present whereabouts. You are simply that section of the class which could be picked up without attracting attention, because you all happened to be on holiday by yourselves or with other members of the class; and because your nearest relatives are not on Earth at present.”

Oh, well.

All of us can see M’Clare is doing a job of deflation on us for reasons of his own, but it works for all that.

He now seems to feel the job is complete and relaxes a bit.

“I was interested to see that you all, without exception, hit on variations of the same idea. It is of course the obvious way to deal with the problem.” He smiles at us suddenly and I get mad at myself because I know he is following the rules for introducing a desired state of mind, but I am responding as meant. “I’ll read you the most succinct expression of it; you may be able to guess the author.”

Business with bits of paper.

“Here it is. I quote: ‘Drag in some outsider looks like he is going for both sides; they will gang up on him.’”

Yells of laughter and shouts of “Lizzie Lee!” even the two strangers produce sympathetic grins; I do not find it so funny as all that myself.

“Ideas as to the form the ‘outsider’ should take were more varied. This is a matter I propose to leave you to work out together, with the assistance of Colonel Delano-Smith and Mr. Yardo. Te Whangoa, you take the chair.”

Exit M’Clare.

This leaves the two halves of the table eying one another. Ram and Peter have been through this kind of session in their time; now they are leaning back preparing to watch us work. It is plain we are supposed to impress the abilities of Russett near-graduates on the two strangers, and for some moments we are all occupied taking them in. Colonel Delano-Smith is a small, neat guy with a face that has all the muscular machinery for producing an expression; he just doesn’t care to use it. Mr. Yardo is taller than any of us except Eru and flesh is spread very thin on his bones, including his face which splits now and then in a grin like an affable skeleton. Where the colonel fits is guessable enough, Mr. Yardo is presumably Expert at something but no data on what.

Eru rests his hands on the table and says we had better start; will somebody kindly outline an idea for making the Incognitans “gang up”? The simpler the better and it does not matter whether it is workable or not; pulling it to pieces will give us a start.

We all wait to see who will rush in; then I catch Eru’s eye and see I am elected Clown again. I say “Send them a letter postmarked Outer Space signed BEM saying we lost our own planet in a nova and will take over theirs two weeks from Tuesday.”

Mr. Yardo utters a sharp “Ha! Ha!” but it is not seconded; the colonel having been expressionless all along becomes more so; Eru says, “Thank you, Lizzie.” He looks across at Cray who is opposite me; Cray says there are many points on which he might comment; to take only one, two weeks from Tuesday leaves little time for ‘ganging up’, and what happens when the BEMs fail to come?

We are suddenly back in the atmosphere of a seminar; Eru’s glance moves to P. Zapotec sitting next to Cray, and he says, “These BEMs who lost their home planet in a nova, how many ships have they? Without a base they cannot be very dangerous unless their fleet is very large.”

It goes round the table.

Pavel: “How would BEMs learn to write?”

Nick: “How are they supposed to know that Incognita is inhabited? How do they address the letter?”

The Crow: “Huh. Why write letters? Invaders just invade.”

Kirsty: “We don’t want to inflame these people against alien races. We might find one some day. It seems to me this idea might have all sorts of undesirable by-products. Suppose each side regards it as a ruse on the part of the other. We might touch off a war instead of preventing it. Suppose they turn over to preparations for repelling the invaders, to an extent that cripples their economy? Suppose a panic starts?”

Dilly: “Say, Mr. Chairman, is there any of this idea left at all? How about an interim summary?”

Eru coughs to get a moment for thought, then says:

“In brief, the problem is to provide a menace against which the two groups will be forced to unite. It must have certain characteristics.

“It must be sufficiently far off in time for the threat to last several years, long enough to force them into a real combination.

“It must obviously be a plausible danger and they must get to know of it in a plausible manner. Invasion from outside is the only threat so far suggested.

“It must be a limited threat. That is, it must appear to come from one well-defined group. The rest of the Universe should appear benevolent or neutral.”

He just stops, rather as though there is something else to come; while the rest of us are waiting B sticks her oar in to the following effect.

“Yes, but look, suppose this goes wrong; it’s all very well to make plans but suppose we get some of Kirsty’s side-effects just the same, well what I mean is suppose it makes the mess worse instead of better we want some way we can sort of switch it off again.

“Look this is just an illustration, but suppose the Menace was pirates, if it went wrong we could have an Earth ship make official contact and they could just happen to say By the way have you seen anything of some pirates, Earth fleet wiped them up in this sector about six months ago.

“That would mean the whole crew conniving, so it won’t do, but you see what I mean.”

There is a bit of silence, then Aro says, “I think we should start fresh. We have had criticisms of Lizzie’s suggestion, which was not perhaps wholly serious, and as Dilly says there is little of it left, except the idea of a threat of invasion. The idea of an alien intelligent race has objections and would be very difficult to fake. The invaders must be men from another planet. Another unknown one. But how do the people of Incognita come to know that they exist?”

More silence, then I hear my own voice speaking although it was my intention to keep quiet for once: it sounds kind of creaky and it says: “A ship. A crashed ship from Outside.”

Whereupon another voice says, “Really! Am I expected to swallow this?”

We had just about forgotten the colonel, not to mention Mr. Yardo who contributes another “Ha! Ha!” so this reminder comes as a slight shock, nor do we see what he is talking about but this he proceeds to explain.

“I don’t know why M’Clare thought it necessary to stage this discussion. I am already acquainted with his plan and have had orders to co-operate. I have expressed my opinion on using undergraduates in a job like this and have been overruled. If he, or you, imagine that priming you to bring out his ideas like this is going to reconcile me to the whole business you are mistaken. He might have chosen a more suitable mouthpiece than that child with the curly hair—”

Here everybody wishes to reply at once; the resulting jam produces a moment of silence and I get in first.

“As for curly hair I am rising twenty-four and I was only saying what we all thought, if we have the same ideas as M’Clare that is because he taught us for four years. How else would you set about it anyway?”

My fellow students pick up their stylers and tap solemnly three times on the table; this is the Russett equivalent of “Hear! Hear!” and the colonel is surprised.

Eru says coldly, “This discussion has not been rehearsed. As Lizzie … as Miss Lee says, we have been working and thinking together for four years and have been taught by the same people.”

“Very well,” says Delano-Smith testily. “Tell me this, please: Do you regard this idea as practicable?”

Cray tilts his chair back and remarks to the ceiling, “This is rather a farce. I suppose we had to go through our paces for the colonel’s benefit—and Mr. Yardo’s of course—but can’t we be briefed properly now?”

“What do you mean by that?” snaps the colonel.

“It’s been obvious right along,” says Cray, balancing his styler on one forefinger, “so obvious none of us has bothered to mention it, that accepting the normal limitations of Mass-Time, the idea of interfering in Incognita was doomed before it began. No conventional ship would have much hope of arriving before war broke out; and if it did arrive it couldn’t do anything effective. Therefore I assume that this is not a conventional ship. I might accept that the Government has sent us out in a futile attempt to do the impossible, but I wouldn’t believe that of M’Clare.”

Cray is the only Terry I know acts like an Outsider’s idea of one; many find this difficult to take and the colonel is plainly one of them. Eru intervenes quickly.

“I imagine we all realized that. Anyway this ship is obviously not a conventional model. If you accept the usual Mass-Time relationship between the rate of transition and the fifth power of the apparent acceleration, we must have reached about four times the maximum already.”

“Ram!” says B suddenly, “What did you do to stop the Hotel scope registering the little ship you picked up me and Lizzie in?”

Everybody cuts in with something they have noticed about the capabilities of this ship or the hoppers, and Lenny starts hammering on the table and chanting! “Brief! Brief! Brief!” and others are just starting to join in when Eru bangs on the table and glares us all down.

Having got silence, he says very quietly, “Colonel Delano-Smith, I doubt whether this discussion can usefully proceed without a good deal more information; will you take over?”

The colonel looks round at all the eager earnest interested maps hastily put on for his benefit and decides to take the plunge.

“Very well. I suppose it is … very well. The decision to use students from Russett was made at a very high level, and I suppose—” Instead of saying “Very well” again he shrugs his shoulders and gets down to it.

“The report from the planet we decided to call ‘Incognita’ was received thirty-one days ago. The Department of Spatial Affairs has certain resources which are not generally known. This ship is one of them. She works on a modified version of Mass-Time which enables her to use about a thousand channels instead of the normal limit of two hundred; for good and sufficient reasons this has not been generally released.”

Pause while we are silently dared to doubt the Virtue and sufficiency of these reasons which personally I do not.

“To travel to Incognita direct would take about fifteen days by the shortest route. We shall take eighteen days as we shall have to make a detour.”

But presumably we shall take only fifteen days back. Hurrah we can spend a week round the planet and still be back in time for Commemoration. We shall skip maybe a million awkward questions and I shall not disappoint Dad.

It is plain the colonel is not filled with joy; far from it, he did not enjoy revealing a Departmental secret however obvious, but he likes the next item even less.

“We shall detour to an uninhabited system twelve days’ transit time from here and make contact with another ship, the Gilgamesh.”

At which Lennie DiMaggio who has been silent till now brings his fist down on the table and exclaims, “You can’t!”

Lennie is much upset for some reason; Delano-Smith gives him a peculiar look and says what does he know about it? and Lennie starts to stutter.

Cray remarks that Lennie’s childhood hobby appears to have been spaceships and he suffers from arrested development.

B says it is well known Lennie is mad about the Space Force and why not? It seems to have uses Go on and tell us Lennie.

Lennie says “G-Gilgamesh was lost three hundred years ago!”

“The flaw in that statement,” says Cray after a pause, “is that this may be another ship of the same name.”

“No,” says the colonel. “Explorer Class cruiser. They went out of service two hundred eighty years back.”

The Space Force, I remember, does not re-use names of lost ships: some says Very Proper Feeling some say Superstitious Rot.

B says, “When was she found again?”

Lennie says it was j-just thirty-seven revolutions of his native planet which means f-f-fifty-three Terrestrial years ago, she was found by an Interplanetary scout called Crusoe.

Judging by the colonel’s expression this data is Classified; he does not know that Lennie’s family come from one of the oldest settled planets and are space-goers to a man, woman, and juvenile; they pick up ship gossip the way others hear about the relations of people next door.

Lennie goes on to say that the Explorer Class were the first official exploration ships sent out from Earth when the Terries decided to find out what happened to the colonies formed during the Exodus. Gilgamesh was the first to re-make contact with Garuda, Legba, Lister, Cor-bis and Antelope; she vanished on her third voyage.

“Where was she found?” asks Eru.

“Near the p-p-pole of an uninhabited planet—maybe I shouldn’t say where because that may be secret, but the rest’s History if you know where to look.”

Maybe the colonel approves this discretion; anyway his face thaws very slightly unless I am Imagining it.

“Gilgamesh crashed,” he says. “Near as we can make out from the log, she visited Seleucis system. That’s a swarmer sun. Fifty-seven planets, three settled; and any number of fragments. The navigator calculated that after a few more revolutions one of the fragments was going to crash on an inhabited planet. Might have done a lot of damage. They decided to tow it out of the way.

“Grappling-beams hadn’t been invented. They thought they could use Mass-Time on it a kind of reverse thrust—throw it off course.

“Mass-Time wasn’t so well understood then. Bit off more than they could chew. Set up a topological relation that drained all the free energy out of the system. Drive, heating system—everything.

“She had emergency circuits. When the engines came on again they took over—landed the ship, more or less, on the nearest planet. Too late, of course. Heating system never came on—there was a safety switch that had to be thrown by hand. She was embedded in ice when she was found. Hull breached at one point—no other serious damage.”

“And the … the crew?”

Dillie ought to know better than that.

“Lost with all hands,” says the colonel.

“How about weapons?”

We are all startled. Cray is looking whitish like the rest of us but maintains his normal manner, i.e. offensive affection while pointing out that Gilgamesh can hardly be taken for a Menace unless she has some means of aggression about her.

Lennie says The Explorer Class were all armed—

Fine, says Cray, presumably the weapons will be thoroughly obsolete and recognizable only to a Historian—

Lennie says the construction of no weapon developed by the Space Department has ever been released; making it plain that anyone but a Nitwit knows that already.

Eru and Kirsty have been busy for some time writing notes to each other and she now gives a small sharp cough and having collected our attention utters the following Address.

“There is a point we seem to have missed. If I may recapitulate, the idea is to take this ship Gilgamesh to Incognita and make it appear as though she had crashed there while attempting to land. I understand that the ship has been buried in the polar cap; though she must have been melted out if the people on Crusoe examined the engines. Of course the cold—All the same there may have been … well … changes. Or when … when we thaw the ship out again—”

I find I am swallowing good and hard, and several of the others look sick, especially Lennie. Lennie has his eyes fixed on the colonel; it is not prescience, but a slight sideways movement of the colonel’s eye causes him to blurt out, “What is he doing here?”

Meaning Mr. Yardo who seems to have been asleep for some time, with his eyes open and grinning like the spikes on a dog collar. The colonel gives him another sideways look and says, “Mr. Yardo is an expert on the rehabilitation of space-packed materials.”

This is stuff transported in un-powered hulls towed by grappling-beams; the hulls are open to space hence no need for refrigeration, and the contents are transferred to specially equipped orbital stations before being taken down to the planet. But—

Mr. Yardo comes to life at the sound of his name and his grin widens alarmingly.

“Especially meat,” he says.

It is maybe two hours afterwards, Eru having adjourned the meeting abruptly so that we can … er … take in the implications of the new data. Lennie has gone off somewhere by himself; Kirsty has gone after him with a view to Mothering him; Eru, I suspect, is looking for Kirsty; Pavel and Aro and Dillie and the Crow are in a cabin arguing in whispers; Nick and P. Zapotec are exploring one of the Hoppers, cargo-carrying, drop-shaped, and I only hope they don’t hop through the hull in it.

B and I having done a tour of the ship and ascertained all this have withdrawn to the Conference Room because we are tired of our cabins and this seems to be the only other place to sit.

B breaks a long silence with the remark that However often you see it M’Clare’s technique is something to watch, like choosing my statement to open with, it broke the ice beautifully.

I say, “Shall I tell you something?”

B says, “Yes if it’s interesting.”

“My statement,” I inform her, “ran something like this: The best hope of inducing a suspension of the aggressive attitude of both parties, long enough to offer hope of ultimate reconciliation, lies in the intrusion of a new factor in the shape of an outside force seen to be impartially hostile to both.”

B says: “Gosh. Come to think of it Liz you have not written like that in years, you have gone all pompous like everyone else; well that makes it even more clever of M’Clare.”

Enter Cray Patterson and drapes himself sideways on a chair, announcing that his own thoughts begin to weary him.

I say this does not surprise me, at all.

“Lizzie my love,” says he, “you are twice blessed being not only witty yourself but a cause of wit in others; was that bit of Primitive Lee with which M’Clare regaled us really not from the hand of the mistress, or was it a mere pastiche?”

I say Whoever wrote that it was not me anyway.

“It seemed to me pale and luke-warm compared with the real thing,” says Cray languidly, “which brings me to a point that, to quote dear Kirsty, seems to have been missed.”

I say, “Yep. Like what language it was that these people wrote their log in that we can be certain the Incognitans won’t know.”

“More than that,” says B, “we didn’t decide who they are or where they were coming from or how they came to crash or anything.”

“Come to think of it, though,” I point out, “the language and a good many other things must have been decided already because of getting the right hypnotapes and translators on board.”

B suddenly lights up.

“Yes, but look, I bet that’s what we’re here for, I mean that’s why they picked us instead of Space Department people—the ship’s got to have a past history, it has to come from a planet somewhere only no one must ever find out where it’s supposed to be. Someone will have to fake a log, only I don’t see how—”

“The first reel with data showing the planet of origin got damaged during the crash,” says Cray impatiently.

“Yes, of course—but we have to find a reason why they were in that part of Space and it has to be a nice one, I mean so that the Incognitans when they finally read the log won’t hate them any more—”

“Maybe they were bravely defending their own planet by hunting down an interplanetary raider,” I suggest.

Cray says it will take only the briefest contact with other planets to convince the Incognitans that interplanetary raiders can’t and don’t exist, modern planetary alarm and defense systems put them out of the question.

“That’s all he knows,” says B, “some interplanetary pirates raided Lizzie’s father’s farm once. Didn’t they, Liz?”

“Yes in a manner of speaking, but they were bums who pinched a spaceship from a planet not many parsecs away, a sparsely inhabited mining world like my own which had no real call for an alarm system, so that hardly alters the argument.”

“Well,” says B, “the alarm system on Incognita can’t be so hot or the observation ships could not have got in, or out, for that matter, unless of course they have some other gadget we don’t know about.”

“On the other hand,” she considers, “to mention Interplanetary raiders raises the idea of Menace in an Unfriendly Universe again, and this is what we want to cancel out.

“These people,” she says at last with a visionary look in her eye, “come from a planet which went isolationist and abandoned space travel; now they have built up their civilization to a point where they can build ships of their own again, and the ones on Gilgamesh have cut loose from the ideas of their ancestors that led to their going so far afield—”

“How far afield?” says Cray.

“No one will ever know,” I point out to him. “Don’t interrupt.”

“Anyway,” says B, “they set out to rejoin the rest of the Human Race just like the people on Gilgamesh really did, in fact, a lot of this is the truth only kind of backwards—they were looking for the Cradle of the Race, that’s what. Then there was some sort of disaster that threw them off course to land on an uninhabited section of a planet that couldn’t understand their signals. And when Incognita finally does take to space flight again I bet the first thing the people do is to try and follow back to where Gilgamesh came from and make contact with them. It’ll become a legend on Incognita—the Lost People … the Lost … Lost—”

“The Lost Kafoozalum,” says Cray. “In other words we switch these people off a war only to send them on a wild goose chase.”

At which a strange voice chimes in, “No, no, no, son, you’ve got it all wrong.”

Mr. Yardo is with us like a well-meaning skeleton.

During the next twenty-five minutes we learn a lot about Mr. Yardo including material for a good guess at how he came to be picked for this expedition; doubtless there are many experts on Reversal Of Vacuum-Induced Changes in Organic Tissues but maybe only one of them a Romantic at heart.

Mr. Yardo thinks chasing the Wild Goose will do the Incognitans all the good in the galaxy, it will take their minds off controversies over interhemispherical trade and put them on to the quest of the Unobtainable; they will get to know something of the Universe outside their own little speck. Mr. Yardo has seen a good deal of the Universe in the course of advising on how to recondition space-packed meat and he found it an Uplifting Experience.

We gather he finds this desperate bit of damfoolery we are on now pretty Uplifting altogether.

Cray keeps surprisingly quiet but it is as well that the rest of the party start to trickle in about twenty minutes later the first arrivals remarking Oh that’s where you’ve got to!

Presently we are all congregated at one end of the table as before, except that Mr. Yardo is now sitting between B and me; when M’Clare and the colonel come in he firmly stays where he is evidently considering himself One of Us now.

“The proposition,” says M’Clare, “is that we intend to take Gilgamesh to Incognita and land her there in such a way as to suggest that she crashed. In the absence of evidence to the contrary the Incognitans are bound to assume that that was her intended destination, and the presence of weapons, even disarmed, will suggest that her mission was aggressive. Firstly, can anyone suggest a better course of action? or does anyone object to this one?”

We all look at Lennie who sticks his hands in his pockets and mutters “No.”

Kirsty gives her little cough and says there is a point which has not been mentioned.

If a heavily-armed ship crashes on Incognita, will not the government of the hemisphere in which it crashes be presented with new ideas for offensive weapons? And won’t this make it more likely that they will start aggression? And won’t the fear of this make the other hemisphere even more likely to try and get in first before the new weapons are complete?

Hell, I ought to have thought of that.

From the glance of unwilling respect which the colonel bestows on M’Clare it is plain these points have been dealt with.

“The weapons on Gilgamesh were disarmed when she was rediscovered,” he says. “Essential sections were removed. The Incognitans won’t be able to reconstruct how they worked.”

Another fact for which we shall have to provide an explanation. Well how about this: The early explorers sent out by these people—the people in Gilgamesh … oh, use Cray’s word and call them Lost Kafoozalum anyway their ships were armed, but they never found any enemies and the Idealists of B’s story refused even to carry arms any more.

(Which is just about what happened when the Terries set out to rediscover the colonies, after all.)

So the Lost Kafoozalum could not get rid of their weapons completely because it would have meant rebuilding the ship; so they just partially dismantled them.

Mr. Yardo suddenly chips in, “About that other point, girlie, surely there must be some neutral ground left on a half-occupied planet like that?” He beams round, pleased at being able to contribute.

B says, “The thing is,” and stops.

We wait.

We have about given up hope when she resumes, “The thing is, it will have to be neutral ground of course, only that might easily become a thingummy … I mean a, a casus belli in itself. So the other thing is it ought to be a place which is very hard to get at, so difficult that neither side can really get to it first, they’ll have to reach an agreement and co-operate.”

“Yeah,” says Dillie “that sounds fine, but what sort of place is that?”

I am sorting out in my head the relative merits of mountains, deserts, gorges, et cetera, when I an seized with inspiration at the same time as half the group; we say the same thing in different words and for a time there is Babel, then the idea emerges:

“Drop her into the sea!”

The colonel nods resignedly.

“Yes,” he says, “that’s what we’re going to do.”

He presses a button and our projection-screens light up, first with a map of one pole of Incognita, expanding in scale till finally we are looking down on one little bit of coast on one of the polar islands. A glacier descends on to it from mountains inland and there is a bay between cliffs. Then we get a stereo scene of approximately the least hospitable of scenery I ever did see—except maybe when Parvati Lal Dutt’s brother made me climb up what he swore was the smallest peak in the Himalayas.

It is a small bay backed by tumbled cliffs. A shelving beach can be deduced from contour and occasional boulders big enough to stick through the snow that smothers it all. A sort of mess of rocks and mud at the back may be glacial moraine. Over the sea the ice is split in all directions by jagged rifts and channels; the whole thing is a bit like Antarctica but nothing is high enough or white enough to uplift the spirit, it looks not only chilly but kind of mean.

“This place,” says the colonel, “is the only one, about which we have any topographical information, that seems to meet the requirements. Got to know about it through an elementary planetography. One of the observers had the sense to see we might need something of the sort. This place”—the stereo jigs as he taps his projector—“seems it’s the center of a rising movement in the crust … that’s not to the point. Neither side has bothered to claim the land at the poles… .”

I see their point if it’s all like this—

“… And a ship trying to land on those cliffs might very well pitch over into the sea. That is, if she were trying to land on emergency rockets.”

Rockets—that brings home the ancientness of this ship Gilgamesh—but after all the ships that settled Incognita probably carried emergency rockets, too.

This settled, the meeting turns into a briefing session and merges imperceptibly with the beginning of the job.

The job of course is Faking the background of the crash; working out the past history and present aims of the Lost Kafoozalum. We have to invent a planet and what’s more difficult convey all the essential information about it by the sort of sideways hints you gather among peoples’ personal possessions; diaries, letters et cetera; and what is even more difficult we have to leave out anything that could lead to definite identification of our unknown world with any known one.

We never gave that world a name; it might be dangerous. Who speaks of their world by name, except to strangers? They call it “home”—or “Earth,” as often as not.

Some things have been decided for us. Language, for instance—one of two thousand or so Earth tongues that went out of use late enough to be plausible as the main language of a colonized planet. The settlers on Incognita were not of the sort to take along dictionaries of the lesser-known tongues, so the computers at Russett had a fairly wide choice.

We had to take a hypnocourse in that language. Ditto the script, one of several forgotten phonetic shorthands. (Designed to enable the tongues of Aliens to be written down; but the Aliens have never been met. It is plausible enough that some colony might have kept the script alive; after all Thasia uses something of the sort to this day.)

The final result of our work looks pretty small. Twenty-three “Personal Background Sets”—a few letters, a diary in some, an assortment of artifacts. Whoever stocked this ship we are on supplied wood, of the half-dozen kinds that have been taken wherever men have gone; stocks of a few plastics—known at the time of the Exodus, or easily developed from those known, and not associated with any particular planet. Also books on Design, a Form-writer for translating drawings into materials, and so on. Someone put in a lot of work before this voyage began.

Most of the time it is like being back on Russet doing a group Project. What we are working on has no more and no less reality than that. Our work is all read into a computer and checked against everybody else’s. At first we keep clashing. Gradually a consistent picture builds up and gets translated finally into the Personal Background Kits. The Lost Kafoozalum start to exist like people in a History book.

Fifteen days hard work and we have just about finished; then we reach—call it Planet Gilgamesh.

I wake in my bunk to hear that there will be brief cessation of weight; strap down, please.

We are coming off Mass-Time to go on planetary drive.

Colonel Delano-Smith is in charge of operations on the planet, with Ram and Peter to assist. None of the rest of us see the melting out of fifty years’ accumulation of ice, the pumping away of the water, the fitting and testing of the holds for the grappling-beams. We stay inside the ship, on five-eighths gee which we do not have time to get used to, and try to work, and discard the results before the computer can do so. There is hardly any work left to do, anyway.

It takes nearly twelve hours to get the ship free, and caulked, and ready to lift. (Her hull has to be patched because of Mr. Yardo’s operations which make use of several sorts of vapors). Then there is a queer blind period with Up now one way, now another, and sudden jerks and tugs that upset everything not in gimbals or tied down; interspersed with periods when weightlessness supervenes with no warning at all. After an hour or two of this it would be hard to say whether Mental or physical discomfort is more acute; B consulted, however, says my autonomic system must be quite something, after five minutes her thoughts were with her viscera entirely.

Then, suddenly, we are back on Mass-Time again.

Two days to go.

At first being on Mass-Time makes everything seem normal again. By sleep time there is a strain, and next day it is everywhere. I know as well as any that on Mass-Time the greater the mass the faster the shift; all the same I cannot help feeling we are being slowed, dragged back by the dead ship coupled to our live one.

When you stand by the hull Gilgamesh is only ten feet away.

I should have kept something to work on like B and Kirsty who have not done their Letters for Home in Case of Accidents; mine is signed and sealed long ago. I am making a good start on a Neurosis when Delano-Smith announces a Meeting for one hour ahead.

Hurrah! now there is a time-mark fixed I think of all sorts of things I should have done before; for instance taking a look at the controls of the Hoppers.

I have been in one of them half an hour and figured out most of the dials—Up down and sideways are controlled much as in a helicar, but here a big viewscreen has been hooked in to the autopilot—when across the hold I see the air lock start to move.

Gilgamesh is on the other side.

It takes forever to open. When at last it swings wide on the dark tunnel what comes through is a storage rack, empty, floating on antigrav.

What follows is a figure in a spacesuit; modern type, but the windows of the hopper are semipolarized and I cannot make out the face inside the bubble top.

He slings the rack upon the bulkhead, takes off the helmet and hangs that up, too. Then he just stands. I am beginning to muster enough sense to wonder why when he comes slowly across the hold.

Reaching the doorway he says: “Oh it’s you, Lizzie. You’ll have to help me out of this. I’m stuck.”

M’Clare.

The outside of the suit is still freezing cold; maybe this is what has jammed the fastening. After a few minutes tugging it suddenly gives away. M’Clare climbs out of the suit, leaving it standing, and says, “Help me count these, will you?”

These are a series of transparent containers from a pouch slung at one side of the suit. I recognize them as the envelopes in which we put what are referred to as Personal Background Sets.

I say, “There ought to be twenty-three.”

“No,” says M’Clare dreamily, “twenty-two, we’re saving one of them.”

“What on earth is the use of an extra set of faked documents and oddments—”

He seems to wake up suddenly and says: “What are you doing here, Lizzie?”

I explain and he wanders over to the hopper and starts to explain the controls.

There is something odd about all this. M’Clare is obviously dead tired, but kind of relaxed; seeing that the hour of Danger is only thirty-six hours off I don’t understand it. Probably several of his students are going to have to risk their lives—

I am on the point of seeing something important when the speaker announces in the colonel’s voice that Professor M’Clare and Miss Lee will report to the Conference Room at once please.

M’Clare looks at me and grins. “Come along, Lizzie. Here’s where we take orders for once, you and I.”

It is the colonel’s Hour. I suppose that having to work with Undergraduates is something he could never quite forget, but from the way he looks at us we might almost be Space Force personnel,—low-grade of course but respectable.

Everything is at last worked out and he has it on paper in front of him; he puts the paper four square on the table, gazes into the middle distance and proceeds to recite.

“One. This ship will go off Mass-Time on 2nd August at 11.27 hours ship’s time…”

“Thirty-six hours from now.

“… At a point one thousand miles vertically above Co-ordinates 165OE, 7320S, on Planet Incognita, approximately one hour before midnight local time.

“Going on planetary drive as close as that will indicate that something is badly wrong to begin with.

“Two. This ship will descend, coupled to Gilgamesh as at present, to a point seventy miles above the planetary surface. It will then uncouple, discharge one hopper, and go back on Mass-Time. Estimated time for this stage of descent forty minutes.

“Three. The hopper will then descend on its own engines at the maximum speed allowed by the heat-disposal system; estimated at thirty-seven minutes. Gilgamesh will complete descent in thirty-three minutes. Engines of Gilgamesh will not be used except for the heat-disposal and gyro auxiliaries. The following installations have been made to allow for the control of the descent; a ring of eight rockets in peltathene mounts around the tail and, and one outsize antigrav unit inside the nose. “Sympathizer” controls hooked up with a visiscreen and a computer have also been installed in the nose.

“Four. Gilgamesh will carry one man only. The hopper will carry a crew of three. The pilot of Gilgamesh will establish the ship on the edge of the cliff, supported on antigrav a foot or so above the ground and leaning towards the sea at an angle of approximately 20° with the vertical. Except for this landing will be automatic.

“Five.”

The colonel’s voice has lulled us into passive acceptance; now we are jerked into sharper attention by the faintest possible check in it.

“The greatest danger attaching to the expedition is that the Incognitans may discover that the crash has been faked. This would be inevitable if they were to capture (a) the hopper; (b) any of the new installations in Gilgamesh, especially the antigrav; (c) any member of the crew.

“The function of the hopper is to pick up the pilot of Gilgamesh and also to check that ground appearances are consistent. If not, they will produce a landslip on the cliff edge, using power tools and explosives carried for the purpose. That is why the hopper has a crew of three, but the chance of their having to do this is slight.”

So I should think; ground appearances are supposed to show that Gilgamesh landed using emergency rockets and then toppled over the cliff and this will be exactly what happened.

“The pilot will carry a one-frequency low-power transmitter activated by the change in magnetic field on leaving the ship. The hopper will remain at five hundred feet until this signal is received. It will then pick up the pilot, check ground appearances, and rendezvous with this ship at two hundred miles up at 18.27 hours.”

The ship and the hopper both being radar-absorbent will not register on alarm systems, and by keeping to planetary nighttime they should be safe from being seen.

“Danger (b) will be dealt with as follows. The rocket-mounts being of peltathene will be destroyed by half an hour’s immersion in water. The installations in the nose will be destroyed with Andite.”

Andite produces complete colecular disruption in a very short range, hardly any damage outside it; the effect will be as though the nose broke off on impact; I suppose the Incognitans will waste a lot of time looking for it on the bed of the sea.

“Four ten-centimeter cartridges will be inserted within the nose installations. The fuse will have two alternative settings. The first will be timed to act at 12.50 hours, seven minutes after the estimated time of landing. It will not be possible to deactivate it before 12.45 hours. This takes care of the possibility of the pilot’s becoming incapacitated during the descent.

“Having switched off the first fuse the pilot will get the ship into position and then activate a second, timed to blow in ten minutes. He will then leave the ship. When the antigrav is destroyed the ship will, of course, fall into the sea.

“Six. The pilot of Gilgamesh will wear a spacesuit of the pattern used by the original crew and will carry Personal Background Set number 23. Should he fail to escape from the ship the crew of the hopper will on no account attempt to rescue him.”

The colonel takes up the paper, folds it in half and puts it down one inch further away.

“The hopper’s crew,” he says, “will give the whole game away should one of them fall into Incognitan hands, alive or dead. Therefore they don’t take any risks of it.”

He lifts his gaze ceilingwards. “I’m asking for three volunteers.”

Silence. Manning the hopper is definitely second best. Then light suddenly bursts on me and I lift my hand and hack B on the ankle.

“I volunteer,” I say.

B gives me a most dubious glance and then lifts her hand, too.

Cray on the other side of the table is slowly opening his mouth when there is an outburst of waving on the far side of B.

“Me too, colonel! I volunteer!”

Mr. Yardo proceeds to explain that his special job is over and done, he can be more easily spared than anybody, he may be too old to take charge of Gilgamesh but will back himself as a hopper pilot against anybody.

The colonel cuts this short by accepting all three. He then unfolds his paper again.

“Piloting Gilgamesh,” he says. “I’m not asking for volunteers now. You’ll go to your cabins in four hours’ time and those who want to will volunteer, secretly. To a computer hookup, Computer will select on a random basis and notify the one chosen. Give him his final instructions, too. No one need know who it was till it’s all over. He can tell anyone he likes, of course.”

A very slight note of triumph creeps into the next remark. “One point. Only men need volunteer.”

Instant outcry from Kirsty and Dilly: B turns to me with a look of awe.

“Nothing to do with prejudice,” says the colonel testily. “Just facts. The crew of Gilgamesh were all men. Can’t risk one solitary woman being found on board. Besides—spacesuits, personal background sets—all designed for men.”

Kirsty and Dilly turn on me looks designed to shrivel and B whispers “Lizzie how wonderful you are.”

The session dissolves. We three get an intensive session course of instruction on our duties and are ordered off to sleep. After breakfast next morning I run into Cray who says, Before I continue about what is evidently pressing business would I care to kick him, hard?

Not right now I reply, what for anyway?

“Miss Lee,” says Cray, dragging it out longer than ever, “although I have long realized that your brain functions in a way much superior to logic I had not sense enough yesterday to follow my own instinct and do what you do as soon as you did it; therefore that dessicated meat handler got in first.”

I say: “So you weren’t picked for pilot? It was only one chance in ten.”

“Oh,” says Cray, “did you really think so?” He gives me a long look and goes away.

I suppose he noticed that when the colonel came out with his remarks about No women in Gilgamesh I was as surprised as any.

Presently the three of us are issued with protective clothing; we just might have to venture out on the planet’s surface and therefore we get white one-piece suits to protect against Cold, heat, moisture, dessication, radioactivity, and mosquitoes, and they are quite becoming, really.

B and I drag out dressing for thirty minutes; then we just sit while Time crawls asymptotically towards the hour.

Then the speaker calls us to go.

We are out of the cabin before it says two words and racing for the hold; so that we are just in time to see a figure out of an Historical movie—padded, jointed, tin bowl for head and blank reflecting glass where the face should be—stepping through the air lock.

The colonel and Mr. Yardo are there already. The colonel packs us into the hopper and personally closes the door, and for once I know what he is thinking; he is wishing he were not the only pilot in this ship who could possibly rely on bringing the ship off and on Mass-Time at one particular defined spot of Space.

Then he leaves us; half an hour to go.

The light in the hold begins to alter. Instead of being softly diffused it separates into sharp-edged beams, reflecting and crisscrossing but leaving cones of shadow between. The air is being pumped into store.

Fifteen minutes.

The hull vibrates and a hatch slides open in the floor so that the black of Space looks through; it closes again.

Mr. Yardo lifts the hopper gently off its mounts and lets it back again.

Testing; five minutes to go.

I am hypnotized by my chronometer; the hands are crawling through glue; I am still staring at it when, at the exact second, we go off Mass-Time.

No weight. I hook my heels under the seat and persuade my esophagus back into place. A new period of waiting has begun. Every so often comes the impression we are falling head-first; the colonel using ship’s drive to decelerate the whole system. Then more free fall.

The hopper drifts very slowly out into the hold and hovers over the hatch, and the lights go. There is only the glow from the visiscreen and the instrument board.

One minute thirty seconds to go.

The hatch slides open again. I take a deep breath.

I am still holding it when the colonel’s voice comes over the speaker: “Calling Gilgamesh. Calling the hopper. Good-by and Good luck. You’re on your own.”

The ship is gone.

Yet another stretch of time has been marked off for us. Thirty-seven minutes, the least time allowable if we are not to get overheated by friction with the air. Mr. Yardo is a good pilot; he is concentrating wholly on the visiscreen and the thermometer. B and I are free to look around.

I see nothing and say so.

I did not know or have forgotten that Incognita has many small satellites; from here there are four in sight.

I am still looking at them when B seizes my arm painfully and points below us.

I see nothing and say so.

B whispers it was there a moment ago, it is pretty cloudy down there—Yes Lizzie there it is look.

And I see it. Over to the left, very faint and far below, a pin-prick of light.

Light in the polar wastes of a sparsely inhabited planet, and since we are still five miles up it is a very powerful light too.

No doubt about it, as we descend farther; about fifty miles from our objective there are men, quite a lot of them.

I think it is just then that I understand, really understand, the hazard of what we are doing. This is not an exercise. This is in dead earnest, and if we have missed an essential factor or calculated something wrong the result will be not a bad mark or a failed exam, or even our personal deaths, but incalculable harm and misery to millions of people we never even heard of.

Dead earnest. How in Space did we ever have cheek enough for this?

The lights might be the essential factor we have missed, but there is nothing we can do about them now.

Mr. Yardo suddenly chuckles and points to the screen.

“There you are, girlies! He’s down!”

There, grayly dim, is the map the colonel showed us; and right on the faint line of the cliff-edge is a small brilliant dot.

The map is expanding rapidly, great lengths of coastline shooting out of sight at the edge of the screen. Mr. Yardo has the cross-hairs centered on the dot which is Gilgamesh. The dot is changing shape; it is turning into a short ellipse, a longer one. The gyros are leaning her out over the sea.

I look at my chronometer; 12.50 hours exactly. B looks, too, and grips my hand.

Thirty seconds later the Andite has not blown; first fuse safety turned off. Surely she is leaning far enough out by now?

We are hovering at five hundred feet. I can actually see the white edge of the sea beating at the cliff. Mr. Yardo keeps making small corrections; there is a wind out there trying to blow us away. It is cloudy here: I can see neither moons nor stars.

Mr. Yardo checks the radio. Nothing yet.

I stare downwards and fancy I can see a metallic gleam.

Then there is a wordless shout from Mr. Yardo; a bright dot hurtles across the screen and at the same time I see a streak of blue flame tearing diagonally downwards a hundred feet away.

The hopper shudders to a flat concussion in the air, we are all thrown off balance, and when I claw my way back to the screen the moving dot is gone.

So is Gilgamesh.

B says numbly, “But it wasn’t a meteor. It can’t have been.”

“It doesn’t matter what it was,” I say. “It was some sort of missile, I think. They must be even nearer to war than we thought.”

We wait. What for, I don’t know. Another missile, perhaps. No more come.

At last Mr. Yardo stirs. His voice sounds creaky.

“I guess,” he says, then clears his throat, and tries again. “I guess we have to go back up.”

B says, “Lizzie, who was it? Do you know?”

Of course I do. “Do you think M’Clare was going to risk one of us on that job? The volunteering was a fake. He went himself.”

B whispers, “You’re just guessing.”

“Maybe,” says Mr. Yardo, “but I happened to see through that face plate of his. It was the professor all right.”

He has his hand on the controls when my brain starts working again. I utter a strangled noise and dive for the hatch into the cargo hold. B tries to grab me but I get it open and switch on the light.

Fifty-fifty chance—I’ve lost.

No, this is the one we came in and the people who put in the new cargo did not clear out my fish-boat, they just clamped it neatly to the wall.

I dive in and start to pass up the package. B shakes her head.

“No, Lizzie. We can’t. Don’t you remember? If we got caught, it would give everything away. Besides … there isn’t any chance—”

“Take a look at the screen,” I tell her.

Sharp exclamation from Mr. Yardo. B turns to look, then takes the package and helps me back.

Mr. Yardo maneuvers out over the sea till the thing is in the middle of the screen; then drops to a hundred feet. It is sticking out of the water at a fantastic angle and the waves are hardly moving it. The nose of a ship.

“The antigrav,” whispers B. “The Andite hasn’t blown yet.”

“Ten minutes,” says Mr. Yardo thoughtfully. He turns to me with sudden briskness. “What’s that, Lizzie girl? A fish-boat? Good. We may need it. Let’s have a look.”

“It’s mine,” I tell him.

“Now look—”

“Tailor made,” I say. “You might get into it, though I doubt it. You couldn’t work the controls.”

It takes him fifteen seconds to realize there is no way round it; he is six foot three and I am five foot one. Even B would find it hard.

His face goes grayish and he stares at me helplessly. Finally he nods.

“All right, Lizzie. I guess we have to try it. Things certainly can’t be much worse than they are. We’ll go over to the beach there.”

On the beach there is wind and spray and breakers but nothing unmanageable; the cliffs on either side keep off the worst of the force. It is queer to feel moving air after eighteen days in a ship. It takes six minutes to unpack and expand the boat and by that time it is ten minutes since the missile hit and the Andite has not blown.

I crawl into the boat. In my protective clothing it is a fairly tight fit. We agree that I will return to this same point and they will start looking for me in fifty minutes’ time and will give up if I have not returned in two hours. I take two Andite cartridges to deal with all eventualities and snap the nose of the boat into place. At first I am very conscious of the two little white cigars in the pouch of my suit, but presently I have other things to think about.

I use the “limbs” to crawl the last few yards of shingle into the water and on across the sea bottom till I am beyond the line of breakers; then I turn on the motor. I have already set the controls to “home” on Gilgamesh and the radar will steer me off any obstructions. This journey in the dark is as safe as my trip around the reefs before all this started—though it doesn’t feel that way.

It takes twelve minutes to reach Gilgamesh, or rather the fragment that antigrav is supporting; it is about half a mile from the beach.

The radar stops me six feet from her and I switch it off and turn to Manual and inch closer in.

Lights, a very small close beam. The missile struck her about one third of her length behind the nose. I know, because I can see the whole of that length. It is hanging just above the water, sloping at about 30° to the horizontal. The ragged edge where it was torn from the rest is just dipping into the sea.

If anyone sees this, I don’t know what they will make of it but no one could possibly think an ordinary spaceship suffered an ordinary crash, and very little investigation would show up the truth.

I reach up with the forward set of “limbs” and grapple on to the break. I now have somehow to get the hind set of “limbs” up without losing my grip. I can’t.

It takes several minutes to realize that I can just open the nose and crawl out.

Immediately a wave hits me in the face and does its best to drag me into the sea. However the interior of the ship is relatively sheltered and presently I am inside and dragging the boat up out of reach.

I need light. Presently I manage to detach one of the two from the boat. I turn it down to minimum close beam and hang it round my neck; then I start up the black jag-edged tunnel of the ship.

I have to get to the nose, find the fuse, change the setting to twenty minutes—maximum possible—and get out before it blows—out of the water I mean. The fish-boat is not constructed to take explosions even half a mile away. But the first thing is to find the fuse and I cannot make out how Gilgamesh is lying and therefore cannot find the door through this bulkhead; everything is ripped and twisted. In the end I find a gap between the bulkhead itself and the hull, and squeeze through that.

In the next compartment things are more recognizable and I eventually find the door. Fortunately ships are designed so that you can get through doors even when they are in the ceiling; actually here I have to climb up an overhang, but the surface is provided with rungs which make it not too bad. Finally I reach the door. I shall have to use antigrav to get down … why didn’t I just turn it on and jump? I forgot I had it.

The door was a little way open when the missile struck; it buckled in its grooves and is jammed fast. I can get an arm through. No more. I switch on antigrav and hang there directing the light round the compartment. No rents anywhere, just buckling. This compartment is divided by a partition and the door through that is open. There will be another door into the nose on the other side.

I bring back my feet ready to kick off on a dive through that doorway.

Behind me, something stirs.

My muscles go into a spasm like the one that causes a falling dream, my hold tears loose and I go tumbling through the air, rebound from a wall, twist, and manage to hook one foot in the frame of the door I was aiming for. I pull myself down and turn off the antigrav; then I just shake for a bit.

The sound was—

This is stupid, with everything torn to pieces in this ship there is no wonder if bits shake loose and drop around—

But it was not a metallic noise, it was a kind of soft dragging, very soft, that ended in a little thump.

Like a—

Like a loose piece of plastic dislodged from its angle of rest and slithering down, pull yourself together Lizzie Lee.

I look through the door into the other half of this level. Shambles. Smashed machinery every which way, blocking the door, blocking everything. No way through at all.

Suddenly I remember the tools. Mr. Yardo loaded the fish-boat with all it would take. I crawl back and return with a fifteen inch expanding beam-lever, and overuse it; the jammed trap door does not slide back in its grooves but flips right out of them, bent double; it flies off into the dark and clangs its way to rest.

I am halfway through the opening when I hear the sound again. A soft slithering; a faint defeated thump.

I freeze where I am, and then I hear the sigh; a long, long weary sound, almost musical.

An air leak somewhere in the hull and wind or waves altering the air pressure below.

All the same I do not seem able to come any farther through this door.

Light might help; I turn the beam up and play it cautiously around. This is the last compartment, right in the nose; a sawn-off cone-shape. No breaks here, though the hull is buckled to my left and the “floor”—the partition, horizontal when the ship is in the normal operating position, which holds my trap door—is torn up; some large heavy object was welded to a thin surface skin which has ripped away leaving jagged edges and a pattern of girders below.

There is no dust here; it has all been sucked out when the ship was open to space; nothing to show the beam except the sliding yellow ellipse where it touches the wall. It glides and turns, spiraling down, deformed every so often where it crosses a projection or a dent, till it halts suddenly on a spoked disk, four feet across and standing nearly eighteen inches out from the wall. The antigrav.

I never saw one this size, it is like the little personal affairs as a giant is like a pigmy, not only bigger but a bit different in proportion. I can see an Andite cartridge fastened among the spokes.

The fuse is a “sympathizer” but it is probably somewhere close. The ellipse moves again. There is no feeling that I control it; it is hunting on its own. To and fro around the giant wheel. Lower. It halts on a small flat box, also bolted to the wall, a little way below. This is it, I can see the dial.

The ellipse stands still, surrounding the fuse. There is something at the very edge of it.

When Gilgamesh was right way up the antigrav was bolted to one wall, about three feet above the floor. Now the lowest point is the place where this wall joins what used to be the floor. Something has fallen down to that point and is huddled there in the dark.

The beam jerks suddenly up and the breath whoops out of me; a round thing sticking out of the wall—then I realize it is an archaic space-helmet, clamped to the wall for safety when the wearer took it off.

I take charge of the ellipse of light and move it slowly down, past the fuse, to the thing below. A little dark scalloping of the edge of the light. The tips of fingers. A hand.

I turn up the light.

When the missile struck the big computer was wrenched loose from the floor. It careened down as the floor tilted, taking with it anything that stood in its way.

M’Clare was just stooping to the fuse, I think. The computer smashed against his legs and pinned him down in the angle between the wall and the floor. His legs are hidden by it.

Because of the spacesuit he does not looked crushed; the thick clumsy joints have kept their roundness, so far as they are visible; only his hands and head are bare and vulnerable looking.

I am halfway down, floating on minimum gravity, before it really occurs to me that he may be still alive.

I switch to half and drop beside him. His face is colorless but he is breathing all right.

First-aid kit. I will never make fun of Space Force thoroughness again. Rows and rows of small plastic ampoules. Needles.

Pain-killer, first. I read the directions twice, sweating. Emergencies only—this is. One dose only to be given and if patient is not in good health use—never mind that. I fit on the longest needle and jab it through the suit, at the back of the thigh, as far towards the knee-joint as I can get because the suit is thinner. Half one side, half the other.

Now to get the computer off. At a guess it weighs about five hundred pounds. The beam-lever would do it but it would probably fall back.

Antigrav; the personal size is supposed to take up to three times the weight of the average man. I take mine off and buckle the straps through a convenient gap. I have my hands under the thing when M’Clare sighs again.

He is lying on his belly but his head is turned to one side, towards me. Slowly his eyelids open. He catches the sight of my hand; his head moves a little, and he says, “Lizzie. Golden Liz.”

I say not to worry, we will soon be out of here.

His body jumps convulsively and he cries out. His hand reaches my sleeve and feels. He says, “Liz! Oh, God, I thought … what—”

I say things are under control and just keep quiet a bit.

His eyes close. After a moment he whispers, “Something hit the ship.”

“A homing missile, I think.”

I ought not to have said that; but it seems to make no particular impression, maybe he guessed as much.

I was wrong in wanting to shift the computer straight away, the release of pressure might start a hemorrhage; I dig out ampoules of blood-seal and inject them into the space between the suit and the flesh, as close to the damage as I can.

M’Clare asks how the ship is lying and I explain, also how I got here. I dig out the six-by-two-inch packet of expanding stretcher and read the directions. He is quiet for a minute or two, gathering strength; then he says sharply: “Lizzie. Stop that and listen.

“The fuse for the Andite is just under the antigrav. Go and find it. Go now. There’s a dial with twenty divisions. Marked in black—you see it. Turn the pointer to the last division. Is that done?

“Now you see the switch under the pointer? Is your boat ready? I beg your pardon, of course you left it that way. Then turn the switch and get out.”

I come back and see by my chrono that the blood-seal should be set; I get my hands under the computer. M’Clare bangs his hand on the floor.

“Lizzie, you little idiot, don’t you realize that even if you get me out of this ship, which is next to impossible, you’ll be delayed all the way—and if the Incognitans find either of us the whole plan’s ruined? Much worse than ruined, once they see it’s a hoax—”

I tell him I have two Andite sticks and they won’t find us and on a night like this any story of explosions will be put down to sudden gusts or to lightning.

He is silent for a moment while I start lifting the computer, carefully; its effective weight with the antigrav full on is only about twenty pounds but is has all its inertia. Then he says quietly, “Please, Lizzie—can’t you understand that the worst nightmare in the whole affair has been the fear that one of you might get injured? Or even killed? When I realized that only one person was needed to pilotGilgamesh—it was the greatest relief I ever experienced. Now you say… .” His voice picks up suddenly. “Lizzie, you’re beaten anyway. The … I’m losing all feeling. Even pain. I can’t feel anything behind my shoulders … it’s creeping up—”

I say that means the pain-killer I shot him with is acting as advertised, and he makes a sound as much like an explosive chuckle as anything and it’s quiet again.

The curvature between floor and wall is not helpful, I am trying to find a place to wedge the computer so it cannot fall back when I take off the antigrav. Presently I get it pushed on to a sort of ledge formed by a dent in the floor, which I think will hold it. I ease off the antigrav and the computer stays put, I don’t like the looks of it so let’s get out of here.

I push the packaged stretcher under his middle and pull the tape before I turn the light on to his legs to see the damage. I cannot make out very much; the joints of the suit are smashed some, but as far as I can see the inner lining is not broken which means it is still air-and-water-tight.

I put a hand under his chest to feel how the stretcher is going; it is now expanded to eighteen inches by six and I can feel it pushing out, but it is slow, what else have I to do—oh yes, get the helmet.

I am standing up to reach for it when M’Clare says, “What are you doing? Yes … well, don’t put it on for a minute. There’s something I would like to tell you, and with all respect for your obstinacy I doubt very much whether I shall have another chance. Keep that light off me, will you? It hurts my eyes.

“You know, Lizzie, I dislike risking the lives of any of the students for whom I am responsible, but as it happens I find the idea of you—blowing yourself to atoms particularly objectionable because … I happen to be in love with you. You’re also one of my best students, I used to think that … was why I’d been so insistent on your coming to Russett, but I rather think … my motives were mixed even then. I meant to tell you this after you graduated, and to ask you to marry me, not that … I thought you would, I know quite well … you never quite forgave me, but I don’t-want-to-have to remember … I didn’t … have the guts to—”

His voice trails off, I get a belated rush of sense to the head and turn the light on his face. His head is turned sideways and his fist is clenched against the side of his neck. When I touch it his hand falls open and five discharged ampoules fall out.

Pain-killer.

Maximum dose, one ampoule.

All that talk was just to hold my attention while he fixed the needles and—

I left the kit spread out right next to him.

While I am taking this in some small cold corner of my mind is remembering the instructions that are on the pain-killer ampoule; it does not say, outright, that it is the last refuge for men in the extremity of pain and despair; therefore it cannot say, outright, that they sometimes despair too soon; but it does tell you the name of the antidote.

There are only three ampoules of this and they also say, maximum dose one ampoule. I try to work it out but lacking all other information the best I can do is inject two and keep one till later. I put that one in my pocket.

The stretcher is all expanded now; a very thin but quite rigid grid, six feet by two; I lash him on it without changing his position and fasten the helmet over his head.

Antigrav; the straps just go round him and the stretcher.

I point the thing up towards the trap door and give it a gentle push; then I scramble up the rungs and get there just in time to guide it through. It takes a knock then and some more while I am getting it down to the next partition, but he can’t feel it.

This time I find the door, because the roar of noise behind it acts as a guide. The sea is getting up and is dashing halfway to the door as I crawl through. My boat is awash, pivoting to and fro on the grips of the front “limbs.”

I grab it, release the limbs and pull it as far back as the door. I maneuver the stretcher on top and realize there is nothing to fasten it with … except the antigrav, I get that undone, holding the stretcher in balance, and manage to put it under the stretcher and pass the straps between the bars of the grid … then round the little boat, and the buckle just grips the last inch. It will hold, though.

I set the boat to face the broken end of the ship, but I daren’t put it farther back than the doorway; I turn the antigrav to half, fasten the limb-grips and rush back towards the nose of the ship. Silver knob under the dial. I turn it down, hear the thing begin a fast, steady ticking, and turn and run.

Twenty minutes.

One and a half to get back to the boat, four to get inside it without overturning. Nearly two to get down to the sea—balance difficult. One and a half to lower myself in.

Thirty seconds’ tossing before I sink below the wave layer; then I turn the motor as high as I dare and head for the shore.

In a minute I have to turn it down; at this speed the radar is bothered by water currents and keeps steering me away from them as though they were rocks; I finally find the maximum safe speed but it is achingly slow. What happens if you are in water when Andite blows half a mile away? A moment’s panic as I find the ship being forced up, then I realize I have reached the point where the beach starts to shelve, turn off radar and motor and start crawling. Eternal slow reach out, grab, shove, haul, with my heart in my mouth; then suddenly the nose breaks water and I am hauling myself out with a last wave doing its best to overbalance me.

I am halfway out of the boat when the Andite blows behind me. There is a flat slapping sound; then an instant roar of wind as the air receives the binding energies of several tons of matter; then a long wave comes pelting up the beach and snatches at the boat.

I huddle into the shingle and hold the boat; I have just got the antigrav turned off, otherwise I think it would have been carried away. There are two or three more big waves and a patter of spray; then it is over.

The outlet valve of the helmet is working, so M’Clare is still breathing; very deep, very slow.

I unfasten the belt of the antigrav, having turned it on again, and pull the belt through the buckle. No time to take it off and rearrange it; anyway it will work as well under the stretcher as on top of it. I drag the boat down to the water, put in an Andite cartridge with the longest fuse I have, set the controls to take it straight out to sea at maximum depth the radar control will allow—six feet above bottom—and push it off. The other Andite cartridge starts burning a hole in my pocket; I would have liked to put that in too, but I must keep it, in case.

I look at my chrono and see that in five minutes the hopper will come.

Five minutes.

I am halfway back to the stretcher when I hear a noise further up the beach. Unmistakable. Shingle under a booted foot.

I stand frozen in mid-stride. I turned the light out after launching the boat but my eyes have not recovered yet; it is murkily black. Even my white suit is only the faintest degree paler than my surroundings.

Silence for a couple of minutes. I stand still. But it can’t have gone away. What happens when the hopper comes? They will see whoever it is on the infrared vision screen. They won’t come—

Footsteps again. Several.

Then the clouds part and one of those superfluous little moons shines straight through the gap.

The bay is not like the stereo the colonel showed because that was taken in winter; now the snow is melted, leaving bare shingle and mud and a tumble of rocks; more desolate than the snow. Fifty feet off is a man.

He is huddled up in a mass of garments but his head is bare, rising out of a hood which he has pushed back, maybe so as to listen better; he looks young, hardly older than me. He is holding a long thin object which I never saw before, but it must be a weapon of some sort.

This is the end of it. All the evidence of faking is destroyed; except M’Clare and me. Even if I use the Andite he has seen me—and that leaves M’Clare.

I am standing here on one foot like a dancer in a jammed movie, waiting for Time to start again or the world to end—

Like the little figure in the dance-instruction kit Dad got when I was seven, when you switched her off in the middle.

Like a dancer—

My weight shifts on to the forward foot. My arms swing up, forwards, back. I take one step, another.

Swing. Turn. Kick. Sideways.

Like the silly little dancer who could not get out of the plastic block; but I am moving forward little by little, even if I have to take three steps roundabout for every one in advance.

Arms, up. Turn, round. Leg, up. Straighten, out. Step.

Called the Dance of the Little Robot, for about three months Dad thought it was no end cute, till he caught on I was thinking so, too.

It is just about the only kind of dance you could do on shingle, I guess.

When this started I thought I might be going crazy, but I just had not had time to work it out. In terms of Psychology it goes like this; to shoot off a weapon a man needs a certain type of Stimulus like the sight of an enemy over the end of it. So if I do my best not to look like an enemy he will not get that Stimulus. Or put it another way most men think twice before shooting a girl in the middle of a dance. If I should happen to get away with this, nobody will believe his story, he won’t believe it himself.

As for the chance of getting away with it, i.e., getting close enough to grab the gun or hit him with a rock or something, I know I would become a Stimulus to shooting before I did that but there are always the clouds, if one will only come back over the moon again.

I have covered half the distance.

Twenty feet from him, and he takes a quick step back.

Turn, kick, out, step. I am swinging round away from him, let’s hope he finds it reassuring. I dare not look up but I think the light is dimming. Turn, kick, out, step. Boxing the compass. Coming round again.

And the cloud is coming over the moon, out of the corner of my eye I see darkness sweeping towards us—and I see his face of sheer horror as he sees it, too; he jumps back, swings up the weapon, and fires straight in my face.

And it is dark. So much for Psychology.

There is a clatter and other sounds—

Well, quite a lot for Psychology maybe, because at twenty feet he seems to have missed me.

I pick myself up and touch something which apparently is his weapon, gun or whatever. I leave it and hare back to the stretcher, next-to fall over it but stop just in time, and switch on the antigrav. Up; level it; now where to? The cliffs enclosing the bay are about thirty yards off to my left and they offer the only cover.

The shingle is relatively level; I make good time till I stumble against a rock and nearly lose the stretcher. I step up on to the rock and see the cliff as a blacker mass in the general darkness, only a yard away. I edge the stretcher round it.

It is almost snatched out of my hand by a gust of wind. I pull it back and realize that in the bay I have been sheltered; there is pretty near half a gale blowing across the face of the cliff.

Voices and footsteps, away back among the rocks where the man came from.

If the clouds part again they will see me, sure as shooting.

I take a hard grip on the stretcher and scramble round the edge of the cliff.

After the first gust the wind is not so bad; for the most part it is trying to press me back into the cliff. The trouble is that I can’t see. I have to shuffle my foot forward, rubbing one shoulder against the cliff to feel where it is because I have no hand free.

After a few yards I come to an impasse; something more than knee high; boulder, ridge, I can’t tell.

I weigh on the edge of the stretcher and tilt it up to get it over the obstacle. With the antigrav full on it keeps its momentum and goes on moving up. I try to check it, but the wind gets underneath.

It is tugging to get away; I step blindly upwards in the effort to keep up with it. One foot goes on a narrow ledge, barely a toe hold. I am being hauled upwards. I bring the other foot up and find the top of a boulder, just within reach. Now the first foot—

And now I am on top of the boulder, but I have lost touch with the cliff and the full force of the wind is pulling the stretcher upwards. I get one arm over it and fumble underneath for the control of the antigrav; I must give it weight and put it down on this boulder and wait for the wind to drop.

Suddenly I realize that my weight is going; bending over the stretcher puts me in the field of the antigrav. A moment later another gust comes, and I realize I am rising into the air.

Gripping the edge of the stretcher with one hand I reach out the other, trying to grasp some projection on the face of the cliff. Not being able to see I simply push farther away till it is out of reach.

We are still rising.

I pull myself up on the stretcher; there is just room for my toes on either side of M’Clare’s legs. The wind roaring in my ears makes it difficult to think.

Rods of light slash down at me from the edge of the cliff. For a moment all I can do is duck; then I realize we are still well below them, but rising every moment. The cliff-face is about six feet away; the wind reflecting from it keeps us from being blown closer.

I must get the antigrav off. I let myself over the side of the stretcher, hanging by one hand, and fumble for the controls. I can just reach. Then I realize this is no use. Antigrav controls are not meant to go off with a click of the finger; they might get switched off accidentally. To work the switch and the safety you must have two hands, or one hand in the optimum position. My position is about as bad as it could be. I can stroke the switch with one finger; no more.

I haul myself back on to the stretcher and realize we are only about six feet under the beam of light. Only one thing left. I feel in my pocket for the Andite. Stupidly, I am still also bending over the outlet valve of the helmet, trying to see whether M’Clare is still breathing or not.

The little white cigar is not fused. I have to hold on with one hand. In the end I manage to stick the Andite between thumb and finger-roots of that hand while I use the other to find the fuse and stick it over the Andite. The shortest; three minutes.

I think the valve is still moving—

Then something drops round me; I am hauled tight against the stretcher; we are pulled strongly downwards with the wind buffeting and snatching, banged against the edge of something, and pulled through into silence and the dark.

For a moment I do not understand; then I recognize the feel of Fragile Cargo, still clamping me to the stretcher, and I open my mouth and scream and scream.

Clatter of feet. Hatch opens. Fragile Cargo goes limp.

I stagger to my feet. Faint light through the hatch; B’s head. I hold out the Andite stick and she turns and shouts; and a panel slides open in the wall so that the wind comes roaring in.

I push the stick through and the wind snatches it away and it is gone.

After that—

After that, for a while, nothing, I suppose, though I have no recollection of losing consciousness; only without any sense of break I find I am flat on my back on one of the seats in the cabin of the hopper.

I sit up and say “How—”

B who is sitting on the floor beside me says that when the broadcaster was activated of course they came at once, only while they were waiting for the boat to reach land whole squads of land cars arrived and started combing the area, and some came up on top of the cliff and shone their headlights out over the sea so Mr. Yardo had to lurk against the cliff face and wait till I got into a position where he could pick me up and it was frightfully clever of me to think of floating up on antigrav—

I forgot about the broadcaster.

I forgot about the hopper come to that, there seemed to be nothing in the world except me and the stretcher and the enemy.

Stretcher.

I say, “Is M’Clare—”

At which moment Mr. Yardo turns from the controls with a wide smile of triumph and says “Eighteen twenty-seven, girls!” and the world goes weightless and swings upside down.

Then still with no sense of any time-lapse I am lying in the big lighted hold, with the sound of trampling all round: it is somehow filtered and far off and despite the lights there seems to be a globe of darkness around my head. I hear my own voice repeating, “M’Clare? How’s M’Clare?”

A voice says distantly, without emphasis, “M’Clare? He’s dead.”

The next time I come round it is dark. I am vaguely aware of having been unconscious for quite a while.

There is a single thread of knowledge connecting this moment with the last: M’Clare’s dead.

This is the central factor: I seem to have been debating it with myself for a very long time.

I suppose the truth is simply that the Universe never guarantees anything; life, or permanence, or that your best will be good enough.

The rule is that you have to pick yourself up and go on; and lying here in the dark is not doing it.

I turn on my side and see a cluster of self-luminous objects including a light switch. I reach for it.

How did I get into a hospital?

On second thoughts it is a cabin in the ship, or rather two of them with the partition torn out, I can see the ragged edge of it. There is a lot of paraphernalia around; I climb out to have a look.

Holy horrors what’s happened? Someone borrowed my legs and put them back wrong; my eyes also are not functioning well, the light is set at Minimum and I am still dazzled. I see a door and make for it to get Explanations from somebody.

Arrived, I miss my footing and stumble against the door and on the other side someone says “Hello, Lizzie. Awake at last?”

I think my heart stops for a moment. I can’t find the latch. I am vaguely aware of beating something with my fists, and then the door gives, sticks, gives again and I stumble through and land on all fours the other side of it.

Someone is calling: “Lizzie! Are you hurt? Where the devil have they all got to? Liz!”

I sit up and say, “They said you were dead!”

“Who did?”

“I … I … someone in the hold. I said How’s M’Clare? and they said you were dead.”

M’Clare frowns and says gently, “Come over here and sit down quietly for a bit. You’ve been dreaming.”

Have I? Maybe the whole thing was a dream—but if so how far does it go? Going down in the heli? The missile? The boat? Crawling through the black tunnel of a broken ship?

No, because he is sitting in a sort of improvised chaise longue and his legs are evidently strapped in place under the blanket; he is fumbling with the fastening or something.

I say “Hey! Cut that out!”

He straightens up irritably.

“Don’t you start that, Lysistrata. I’ve been suffering the attentions of the damnedest collection of amateur nurses who ever handled a thermocouple, for over a week. I don’t deny they’ve been very efficient, but when it comes to—”

Over a week?

He nods. “My dear Lizzie, we left Incognita ten days ago. Amateur nursing again! They have some unholy book of rules which says that for Exposure, Exhaustion and Shock the best therapy is sleep. I don’t doubt it, but it goes on to say that in extreme cases the patient has been known to benefit by as much as two weeks of it. I didn’t find out that they were trying it on you until about thirty-six hours ago when I began inquiring why you weren’t around. They kept me under for three days—in fact until their infernal Handbook said it was time for my leg muscles to have some exercise. Miss Lammergaw was the ring-leader.”

No wonder my legs feel as though someone exchanged the muscles for cotton wool, just wait till I get hold of Kirsty.

If it hadn’t been for her, I shouldn’t have spent ten days remembering, even in my sleep, that—

I say, “Hell’s feathers, it was you!”

M’Clare makes motions as though to start getting out of his chair, looking seriously alarmed. I say, “It was your voice! When I asked—”

M’Clare, quite definitely, starts to blush. Not much, but some.

“Lizzie, I believe you’re right. I have a sort of vague memory of someone asking how I was—and I gave what I took to be a truthful answer. I remember it seemed quite inconceivable that I could be alive. In fact I still don’t understand it. Neither Yardo nor Miss Laydon could tell me. How did you get me out of that ship?”

Well, I do my best to explain, glossing over one or two points; at the finish he closes his eyes and says nothing for a while.

Then he says, “So except for this one man who saw you, you left no traces at all?”

Not that I know of, but—

“Do you know, five minutes later there were at least twenty men in that bay, most of them scientists? They don’t seem to have found anything suspicious. Visibility was bad, of course, and you can’t leave foot-prints in shingle—”

Hold on, what is all this?

M’Clare says, “We’ve had two couriers while you were asleep. Yes, I know it’s not ordinarily possible for a ship on Mass-Time to get news. One of these days someone will have an interesting problem in Cultural Engineering, working out how to integrate some of these Space Force secrets into our economic and social structure without upsetting the whole of the known volume. Though courier boats make their crews so infernally sick I doubt whether the present type will ever come into common use. Anyway, we’ve had transcripts of a good many broadcasts from Incognita, the last dated four days ago; and as far as we can tell they’re interpreting Gilgamesh just as we meant them to.

“The missile, by the way, was experimental, waiting to be test-fired the next day. The man in charge saw Gilgamesh on the alarm screens and got trigger-happy. The newscasters were divided as to whether he should be blamed or praised; they all seem to feel he averted a menace, at least temporarily, but some of them think the invaders could have been captured alive.

“The first people on the scene came from a scientific camp; you and Miss Laydon saw their lights on the way down. You remember that area is geophysically interesting? Well, by extraordinary good luck an international group was there studying it. They rushed straight off to the site of the landing—they actually saw Gilgamesh, and she registered on some of their astronomical instruments, too. They must be a reckless lot. What’s more, they started trying to locate her on the sea bottom the next day. Found both pieces; they’re still trying to locate the nose. They were all set to try raising the smaller piece when their governments both announced in some haste that they were sending a properly equipped expedition. Jointly.

“There’s been no mention in any newscast of anyone seeing fairies or sea maidens—I expect the poor devil thinks you were a hallucination.”

So we brought it off.

I am very thankful in a distant sort of way, but right now the Incognitans have no more reality for me than the Lost Kafoozalum.

M’Clare came through alive.

I could spend a good deal of time just getting used to that fact, but there is something I ought to say and I don’t know how.

I inquire after his injuries and learn they are healing nicely.

I look at him and he is frowning.

He says, “Lizzie. Just before my well-meant but ineffective attempt at suicide—”

Here it comes.

I say quick If he is worrying about all that nonsense he talked in order to distract my attention, forget it; I have.

Silence, then he says wearily, “I talked nonsense, did I?”

I say there is no need to worry, under the circumstances anyone would have a perfect right to be raving off his Nut.

I then find I cannot bear this conversation any longer so I get up saying I expect he is tired and I will call someone.

I get nearly to the door when

“No, Lizzie! you can’t let that crew loose on me just in order to change the conversation. Come back here. I appreciate your wish to spare my feelings, but it’s wasted. We’ll have this out here and now.

“I remember quite well what I said, and so do you: I said that I loved you. I also said that I had intended to ask you to marry me as soon as you ceased to be one of my pupils. Well, the results of Finals were officially announced three days ago.

“Oh, I suppose I always knew what the answer would be, but I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering, because I never had the guts to ask you.

“You don’t dislike me as you used to—you’ve forgiven me for making you come to Russett—but you still think I’m a cold-blooded manipulator of other people’s minds and emotions. So I am; it’s part of the job.

“You’re quite right to distrust me for that, though. It is the danger of this profession, that we end up by looking on everybody and everything as a subject for manipulation. Even in our personal lives. I always knew that: I didn’t begin to be afraid of it until I realized I was in love with you.

“I could have made you love me, Lizzie. I could! I didn’t try. Not that I didn’t want love on those terms, or any terms. But to use professional … tricks … in private life, ends by destroying all reality. I always treated you exactly as I treated my other students—I think. But I could have made you think you loved me … even if I am twice your age—”

This I cannot let pass, I say “Hi! According to College rumor you cannot be more than thirty-six; I’m twenty-three.”

M’Clare says in a bemused sort of way He will be thirty-seven in a couple of months.

I say, “I will be twenty-four next week and your arithmetic is still screwy; and here is another datum you got wrong. I do love you. Very much.”

He says, “Golden Liz.”

Then other things which I remember all right, I shall keep them to remember any time I am tired, sick, cold, hungry Hundred-and-ninety—; but they are not for writing down.

Then I suppose at some point we agreed it is time for me to go, because I find myself outside the cabin and there is Colonel Delano-Smith.

He makes me a small speech about various matters ending that he hears he has to congratulate me.

Huh?

Oh, Space and Time did one of those unimitigated so-and-sos, my dear classmates, leave M’Clare’s communicator on?

The colonel says he heard I did very well in my Examinations.

Sweet splitting photons I forgot all about Finals.

It is just as well my Education has come to an honorable end, because … well, shades of … well, Goodness gracious and likewise Dear me, I am going to marry a Professor.

Better just stick to it I am going to marry M’Clare, it makes better sense that way.

But Gosh we are going to have to do some re-adjusting to a changed Environment. Both of us.

Oh, well, M’Clare is a Professor of Cultural Engineering and I just past my Final Exams in same; surely if anyone can we should be able to work out how you live Happily Ever After?

NEED

Theodore Sturgeon

Some towns seem to defy not only time, but change; when this happens in the far hinterland, one is hardly amazed. Yet, amazingly, it happens all the time quite near some of our largest cities. Occasionally one of these is found by the “project” entrepreneur, and becomes the setting for winding windrows of coops and hutches, alternately “ranch” and “split”; yet not even these, and the prefabricated, alien, chain-driven supercilious super-service shopping centers in symbiosis with them, ever become a part of such towns. Whatever span of years it takes to make the “projects” obsolescent only serves to make these towns themselves more solid, more—in the chemical sense—set. Modernity does not and cannot alter the character of such a place, any more than one might alter a suit of chain mail by topping it with a Panama hat.

In such towns are businesses—shops and services—which live as the unassailable town lives, that is to say, in their own way and forever. Purveyors of the same shoes, sheets and sundries as the multi-celled merchandizing mammoths sell go by the board, quite deserving of all that their critics say of them, that they can’t keep up with the times, that they’re dead and now must lie down. Defiance of time, of change, of anything is, after all, only defiance, and does not in itself guarantee a victory. But certain businesses, by their very nature, may be in a town, may be a town and achieve this defiant immortality. Anyone who has reflected with enough detachment on recent history is in a position to realize that, in revolutionary days, there must have been a certain market for genuine antiques made in America of American materials more than a century earlier. No technology advancing or static can eliminate the window-washer, the launderer, the handyman-smith and their establishments. Fashions in invention might change the vestments of their activity, but never their blood and marrow. The boatwright becomes a specialist in wooden station-wagon bodies, and then in mobile-home interiors. The blacksmith trades his leather bellows for a drill-press and a rack of epoxy resins, but he is what he was, and his shop is his permanence and his town’s.

The general store has passed into the hands of the chains. It, and they, pursue the grail of everything, and since to be able to sell everything is on the face of it impossible, they are as impermanent as a military dictatorship that must expand or die, and that dies expanding. But there is another kind of store that sells, not everything, but anything. Its hallmark is that it has no grail at all, and therefore no pursuit. It emphatically does not expand. Its stock is that which has been useful or desirable to some people at some time; its only credo, that anything which has been useful or desirable to some people at some time will again be useful to someone—anything. Here you might find dried flowers under a glass dome, a hand-cranked coffee mill, a toy piano, a two-volume, leather-bound copy of Dibdin’s Journey, a pair of two-wheel roller skates or a one tube radio set—the tube is a UX-n and is missing—which tunes with a vario-coupler. You might—you probably would—also find in such a place, a proprietor who could fix almost anything and has the tools to do it with, and who understands that conversation is important and the most important part of it is listening.

Such a town was North Nyack, New York, barely twenty miles from Manhattan, yet—but for superficial scratches—untouched and unchangeable. It contained such a business, the Anything Shoppe—a title that constituted one of the scratches, being a concession to the transient trade, but one that did not bleed—and such a proprietor. His name was Noat, George Noat. G-Note, naturally, to his friends, who were all the people who knew him. He was the ugliest man in town, but that, like the silliness of his concern’s name, was only skin-deep.

Why such a trade should be his, or why he was its, might make for some interesting discussion of cause and effect. The fact—which would contribute nothing to the discussion—remained that there was an anythingness about G-Note; not only would he buy anything, sell anything or fix anything, he would also listen to anyone, help anyone and, from the depths of a truly extraordinary well of the quality called empathy—the ability to feel with another’s fingertips, look out through another pair of eyes—he could understand.

To George Noat, Prop., then, at twenty minutes to three one stormy morning, came Gorwing.

“G-Note!” Gorwing roared, pounding on the front door of the Anything Shoppe with force enough to set adance the two sets of pony harness and the cabbage grater that hung against it. “G-Note, Goddammit!”

A dim light appeared in the back of the shop, and G-Note’s grotesque face and one T-shirted shoulder, over which a big square hand was pulling a gallus-strap, appeared at the edge of the baize curtain that separated G-Note’s working from G-Note’s living—the most partial of barriers, which suited him. He called, “It’s open!” semaphored and withdrew.

Gorwing, small, quick, black hair, snapping black voice and eyes, sharp white teeth, slammed into the shop. The vibration set a clothing-dummy, atop which was perched a rubber imp carnival mask, teetering, and it turned as it teetered, bearing round on Gorwing indignantly. He and it stared one another in the eye for an angry moment, and then he cursed and snatched off the head and threw it behind the counter. “G-Note!” he barked.

G-Note shuffled into the shop, shrugging into a shawl-like grey cardigan and, with his heavy lids, wringing sleep out of his eyes. “I got that toilet you wanted yesterday,” he mumbled. “Real tall, with pink rosebuds on. I bet there wouldn’t be another like it from here to—”

“The hell with it,” said Gorwing. “That was yesterday. Come on, willya?”

G-Note blinked at him. “Come?”

“The car, in the car!” Gorwing half cried, in the tones of excessive annoyance applied usually to people who should know by now. It was unfair, because by now G-Note did not know. “Hurry up, willya? What do I hafta do to make you hurry up?”

Gorwing flung open the door, and G-Note peered out into sodden blowing black. “It’s raining out.”

Gorwing’s tight lips emitted a single sibilant explosion, and he raced out, leaving the door open. A moment later there came the sound of a car door slamming. G-Note shrugged and followed, closing the door behind him, and, hunching his shoulders against the driving rain, made his way out to the car. Gorwing had started it and switched on the lights while he was negotiating the puddles, then flung open the door on the driver’s side and slid over into the passenger’s seat. He shouted something.

“Huh?” G-Note grunted as he came poking and dripping into the car.

“I said Essex Street and Storms Road, right by the traffic light, and get goin’, willya?”

G-Note got himself settled and got going. “Gosh, Gorwing,” he said, protesting gently.

“Quitcher bitchin’,” said Gorwing through clamped teeth and curled lips. “Tromp down on that thing.”

“Where we goin’?”

“I told you.”

“Yeah, but—”

“You’ll see when we get there. There’s some money in it. You think I’d come out on a night like this if there wasn’t some money in it? Listen, G-Note—” He paused with a mechanical abruptness, as if the machine gun with which he fired his words had jammed.

“What?”

Unjammed as suddenly, Gorwing shot: “You wouldn’t let me down.”

“No, I won’t do that, but I wish I knew what I was ‘sposed to do.”

They sloshed over the high crown of Storms Hill and down the winding slope on the other side. The slick blacktop showed the loom of lights ahead before they saw the lights themselves—gold tinged with green, suddenly with ruby; the intersection and the traffic signal.

“Cut him out. Quick! Don’tflet’m pick up that guy.”

Peering ahead, G-Note saw a car slowing for a waving figure who stood at the far side of the intersection. G-Note seemed not to have heard Gorwing’s crackling order, or to have understood; yet it was as if his hands and feet had. The car lurched forward, cut in to the curb at the right of the other, and almost alongside. Startled, the other driver shifted and pulled away up the hill. At Gorwing’s grunted order, G-Note stopped at the curb by the sodden and obviously bewildered pedestrian who had been trying to flag the other car. The man bent and tried to peer into the dark interior. Gorwing rolled down his window.

The man said, “Can you give me a lift?”

Gorwing reached back and opened the rear door, and the man plunged in. “Thank God,” he panted, slamming the door. “I’ve got to get home, but I mean quick. You going near Rockland Lake?”

“We’re going anywhere you say, mister,” said Gorwing. “But it’ll cost.”

“Oh, that’s all right. You’re a taxi, hmm?”

“We are now.” Gorwing’s hard hand took G-Note’s elbow, squeezed, warned; but, warning or no, G-Note gasped at what came next: “Rockland Lake costs one hundred bucks from here.”

G-Note’s gasp was quite lost in the newcomer’s wordless and indignant sound.

“What’s the matter,” Gorwing rasped, “can’t raise it?”

“What kind of a holdup is this?” squeaked the man.

For the second time Gorwing reached back and swung the rear door open. Then he stretched across G-Note and shut off the motor. In the sudden silence, the sluicing of rain across the roof and the passenger’s angry breath seemed too loud. Gorwing said, at a quarter the volume and twice the rasp, “I don’t much go for that holdup talk.”

The man plunged up and out—half out. He stood, with one foot still in the car, and looked up the road and down the road. Nothing moved but the rain. Clearly, they heard the relay in the traffic light saying clock, chuck! as the dim sodden shine of the intersection turned from green to red. To anyone thinking of traffic and transport, it was a persuasive sight. At three in the morning, chances of anything passing before daylight were remote.

He put his head back in. “Look, whoever you are, I’ve just got to get to Rockland Lake.”

“So by now,” said Gorwing, “we would be past Hook Mountain Road more’n halfway there. But you want to talk.”

The man made his inarticulate sound and got back in. “Go ahead.”

Gorwing, with a touch, checked G-Note’s move toward the ignition. “A hundred bucks?”

“Yes, damn you!”

Gorwing turned the dome light on. “Take a good careful look at him,” he said. Since he might have said it to either of them, they necessarily looked at one another, G-Note twisting around in his seat to look back, the passenger huddled sullen and glaring in the rear corner. G-Note saw a softhanded petulant man in his early thirties, with very fine, rather receding reddish hair and surprisingly bright blue eyes.

G-Note’s great ugly head loomed over him like an approaching rockfall. The domelight, almost directly overhead, accentuated the heavy ridges of bone over his eyes, leaving the eyes themselves all but invisible in their caves. It gleamed from the strong fleshy arches that walled his wide nostrils and concealed the soft sensitivity of his thin upper lip while making the most of the muscular protruding underlip.

“You’ll pay,” said Gorwing, grinning wolfishly and switching off the light. “Drive,” he said, nudging G-Note. He laughed. “I got a witness and you ain’t,” he said cheerfully.

“Just hurry,” said the passenger.

G-Note, wondering more than anything else at the first laugh he had ever heard from Gorwing, drove. He said, unhappily, “This ain’t a fun one, this time.”

“Shut up,” Gorwing said.

“Can’t you go any faster?” cried the passenger.

He got no response. Only the anxious would feel that this skilled hurtling was not fast enough. No object, including an automobile, was inanimate with G-Note’s big hands upon it; this one moved as if it knew its own way and its own weight.

“In here,” said the passenger.

“I always wondered,” said Gorwing. His meaning was clear. Many must have wondered just who lived behind these stone posts, these arresting NO ADMITTANCE and PRIVATE ROAD, KEEP OUT and NO TURNING and DEAD END ROAD signs. The drive climbed, turning, and in fifty yards one would have thought the arterial road below had ceased to exist. They came to a T. Neat little signs with arrows said SMITH on the left and POLLARD on the right. “Left,” said the passenger.

They climbed again, and abruptly the road was manicured, rolled, tended, neat. “This will do.”

There was a turnaround; the drive continued, apparently to a garage somewhere. In the howling wet, there was the shadowed white mass of a house. The man opened the door.

“A hundred bucks,” Gorwing said.

The man took out his wallet. Gorwing turned on the dome.

“I have only twenty here. Twenty-one.”

“You got it inside.” It could have been a question.

“Damn it!” the man flared. “Four lousy miles!”

“You was in a awful hurry,” Gorwing drawled. He took the twenty, and the one, out of the man’s hand. “I want the rest of it.”

The man got out of the car and backed off into the rain. From about forty feet, he shrieked at them. He meant, undoubtedly, to roar like a lion, but his voice broke and he shrieked. “Well, I won’t pay it!” and then he ran like a rabbit.

“Yes you will!” Gorwing bellowed. He slammed the back door of the car, which, if heard by the fleeing man, must have doubled his speed.

“Don’t go out in that,” said G-Note.

“Oh, I ain’t about to,” said Gorwing. “He’ll pay in the morning. He’ll pay you.”

“Me?”

“You drop me off home and then come back and park here,” said Gorwing. “Don’t for Pete’s sake go back to bed. You want to sleep any more, you do it right here. When he sees you he’ll pay. You won’t have to say nothing. Just be here.”

G-Note started the car and backed, turning. “Oh, why not just let it go? You got more than it’s worth.”

Gorwing made a laughing noise. This was not the laugh that had amazed G-Note before; it was the one that G-Note had thought was all the laughter Gorwing had. It was also all the answer Gorwing would offer.

G-Note said, sadly, “You like doing this to that fellow.”

Gorwing glanced at the road-signs as they pulled out of the driveway. “Private Road,” he read aloud, but not very. It was as if to say, “He can afford it.”

“Well,” said G-Note again, as they neared North Nyack, “This ain’t a fun one, this time.”

There had been “fun ones.” Like the afternoon Gorwing had come roaring and snapping into his place, just as urgently as he had tonight, demanding to know if G-Note had a copy of Trials and Triumphs, My Forty Years in The Show Business, by P. T. Barnum; and G-Note had! And they had tumbled it, with a lot of other old books, into two boxes, and had driven out to the end of Carrio Lane, where Gorwing just knew there was somebody who needed the book—not who, not why, just that there was somebody who needed it—and he and G-Note had stood at opposite sides of the lane, each with a box of books, and had bellowed at each other, “You got the P. T. Barnum book over there?” and “I don’t know if I have the P. T. Barnum book here; have you got the P. T. Barnum book there?” and “What is the name of the P. T. Barnum book?” and “Trials and Triumphs, My Forty Years in The Show Business,” and so on, until, sure enough, a window popped open and a lady called down, “Do one of you men really have Barnum’s biography there?” and, when they said they had, she said it was a miracle; she came down and gave them fifteen dollars for it. And that other time, when at Gorwing’s urgent behest, G-Note had gone on a hot summer’s day to stand blinking in the sun at Broad and Main streets, with a heavy ancient hand-cranked music box unwrapped on his shoulder, and the city man had come running up to him to ask what it played: “Skater’s Waltz,” G-Note had told him, “and My Rosary.”

“I’ll give you a hundred bucks for it,” the man had said, and, when G-Note’s jaw dropped and fumbled for an astonished word, he’d made it a hundred and a quarter and had paid it, then and there.

Fun ones, these and others, and it hadn’t mattered that the customers (or was it victims?) paid exorbitantly. They did it of their own free will, and they seemed really to need whatever it was. How Gorwing knew what was needed, and where—but never by whom or why—was a recurrent mystery; but after a while you stopped asking—because Gorwing wouldn’t stand catechizing on the subject—and then you stopped wondering; you just went along with it, the way you do with automatic shifting, the innards of an IBM machine, or, if you happen not to know, precisely what chemicals are put into the head of a match to make it light. You don’t have to know.

But this man, this passenger they’d charged twenty-five dollars per mile now; it wasn’t fun. He was a guy in trouble if ever G-Note had seen one, anxious, worried, even frantic—so anxious he’d say yes to a demand like that, even if he did take it back later; so anxious he was stumbling homeward through the rain at three in the morning. You should help a fellow like that, you shouldn’t use his trouble against him. Which didn’t seem to bother Gorwing, not one bit: coming into the street-lit area of North Nyack, now, G-Note could glance sidewise at Gorwing’s face, see the half grin, the cruel white teeth showing. No, it didn’t bother Gorwing.

So… you found out new things about people all the time. Such a thing could be surprising, but, if you don’t want surprises like that, you just keep away from people. Thus G-Note shrugged away the matter, as he asked, “Where you staying now?” for Gorwing moved around all the time.

“Just drop me off by O’Grady’s.”

O’Grady’s, the poolhall, was across town from G-Note’s place, on the same avenue; yet, passing his own shop, G-Note turned right and made the usual wide detour past the hospital. He made a U-turn at the poolhall and stopped. For a good-night, Gorwing had only, “Now you said you wouldn’t let me down.”

“All right,” said G-Note.

“Forty-sixty, you and me,” said Gorwing, and turned away.

G-Note drove off.

Eloise Smith hoped Jody wouldn’t be mad. His was not the towering rage of this one nor the sullen grumps of that one, but a waspish, petty, verbose kind of anger, which she had neither the wit nor the words to cope with. She loved Jody and tried her very best to have everything the way he wanted it, but it was hard, sometimes, to know what would annoy him. And when anything did, sometimes she had to go through an hour or more of his darting, flicking admonishments before she even knew what it was.

She’d broken the telephone. Kicked the wire right out of the wall—oh, how clumsy! But she’d done worse than that from time to time, and he’d just laughed. Or she’d done much less serious things and he’d carried on just terrible. Well… she’d just have to wait and see. She hoped she could stay awake, waiting—goodness, he was late. Elks nights were always the latest; he was secretary, and was always left to lock the hall after the meeting. But he usually got home by two anyway—it was three already, and still no sign of—oh—there he…

She ran and opened the door. He spun in, dripping, out of breath. He slammed the door and shot the bolt, and pushed past her to peer out the front window. Not that anything could be seen out there. He turned from the window. He looked wild. She stood before him, clutching her negligee against her breast.

“Eloise… you all right?”

“All right? Why, of course I’m all right!”

“‘Thank God?” He pushed past her again, darted to the living room door, flicked his gaze across and back. “You all alone?”

“Well, not since you got here,” she said, in a hopeless attempt to produce some levity. “Here, you’re wet through. Give me your hat. You poor—”

“It might interest you to know… you’ve driven me half out… of my mind,” he panted. She had never seen him like this. He might be a little short of breath from running from the car to the house, but not this much, and it should be, well, tapering off. It wasn’t. It seemed to get more marked as he talked. He was very pale. His red-rimmed eyes and the rain running off his bland features gave him the ludicrous expression of a five-year-old who has bumped his head and is trying not to cry. She followed him into the living room and rounded on him, to face him, and for the third time he pushed past her, this time to fling open the dining room door. She said timidly, “Jody, I broke the telephone. I mean, I fell over the wire and it came out.”

“Oh, you did, did you.”

He was still panting. “Jody!” she cried, “whatever is the matter? What’s happened?”

“Oh, what’s happened?” he barked. His eyes were too round. “I call you up and somebody cuts the wire, as far as I know. I rush out of the hall to the car and the door slams behind me, that’s all. My keys on the table. Can’t get back in, can’t start the car. Try my best to get here quickly. Hitchhiking. Get waylaid by a couple of the ugliest hoodlums you ever saw, they robbed me.”

“Oh dear—did they hurt you, honey?”

“They did not. Matter of fact,” he panted, “I told them off, but good. And they better not fool with me again. Not that they will—I guess they learned their lesson.” Angrily, proudly, he hitched his shoulders, a gesture that made him aware of his wet coat, which at last he began to remove. She ran to help him. “Oh Jody, Jody darling, but you didn’t have to rush back like that…”

“Didn’t I,” he said solemnly, in a tone dripping with meaning, not one whit of which she understood. He pulled himself, glaring, away from her, and, while she stood clutching her negligee to herself again, he ponderously took off the coat, glaring at her.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. You poor dear.” She thought, suddenly, of a woman she had seen in the parking lot at the supermarket, whose child had bolted in front of a car. People had shrieked, brakes had squealed, the woman had run out to scoop up her frightened but unharmed youngster—and, in her relief, had whaled the tar out of him.

That was it—Jody had been so terribly worried about her, he’d gotten into all this trouble rushing to help her, and now that he knew she was safe he was, in effect, spanking her.

She grew very tender, very patient. “Oh Jody …” she said fondly.

“You won’t ‘Oh Jody’ out of this one,” he said.

“Well, I’m sorry!” she cried, and, “Oh, Jody, what is it? Is it the telephone? Will it be hard to get it fixed?”

“The telephone can be fixed,” he growled in a voice again inexplicably loaded with meaning. He passed through the dining room into the kitchen, again flicking his glance here, there, up, across. “Got everything put away,” he said, looking at the glass cupboard, the dish shelf.

“Well, don’t I always?”

“Doubtless,” he said bitterly. He opened the refrigerator.

“Let me fix—”

“I’ll do it myself,” he said.

Her tenderness and patience gave out at that point. She said in a small voice, “I’ll go to bed then,” and when he did not respond, she went upstairs, lay down and cried.

She managed to be silent, stiff and silent, when he came upstairs, and lay in the dark with her eyes squeezed shut while he undressed and washed and got into his pajamas and into the other bed. She dearly hoped he’d say something, but he didn’t. After a long time, she whispered, “Well, good night, Jody.” He made a sound which might have been an offensive “Ha!” or just a grunt; she couldn’t be sure. She thought he fell asleep after a while, and then she did, too—lightly, troubled.

The glare of her bed lamp awoke her. Up through it, and up through the confusion of puzzlement and sleepiness, she blinked at Jody. Seen so, standing by her bed and glaring down at her, he looked very large. He never had before.

He said, “You’d better tell me all about it right now.”

She said, “Wh-what time is it?”

“Now you listen to me, Eloise. I’ve learned a whole lot of things in the last few hours. About you. About me. About—” Suddenly he raised his voice; at the rim of the glare of light, the vein at the side of his neck swelled. “I’m just too doggoned nice to everybody. When I told off those thugs, I tell you, something happened to me, and from now on I won’t stand for it any more!”

“Jody—”

“Two of them, twice my size, and I told them.”

“You did?”

In retrospect, Eloise was to look painfully back upon this moment and realize that on it turned everything that subsequently happened between them; she would realize that when she said, “You did?” he heard “You did?”—a difference in inflection that becomes less subtle the more one thinks about it. Later, she thought a great deal about it; now, however, she could only shrink numbly down into the covers as he roared, “Yes, I did! You didn’t think I had it in me, did you? Well I did, and from now on nobody puts anything over on me! Including you, you hear?”

“But Jody—I—”

“Who was here when I called you up at two o’clock?”

“Who was—Nobody!”

He sank down to the edge of his bed so their heads were more nearly on a level, and fixed her with a pink-rimmed, weepy, steely gaze. “I… heard… you,” he intoned.

“You mean when you called?”

He simply sat there with his unchanging, unnatural glare. Wonderingly, frightened, she shook her head. “I was watching a movie on TV. It was just ending—the very end; it was a good one. And I—I—”

“You told your… your…” He could not say the word. “You told whoever it was not to talk. But I heard you.”

Dazedly she sat up in bed, a slim, large-eyed, dark-blonde woman in her late twenties—frightened, deeply puzzled, warding off certain hurt. She thought hard, and said, “I spoke to you—I said that to you! In the picture, you see, there was this girl that… that… Oh, never mind; it’s just that in that last moment of the picture everything came together, like. And just as you rang and I picked up the phone, it was the last minute of the picture, don’t you see? I was sort of into it—you know. So I said to you, ‘Don’t say anything for a second, honey,’ and I—Is that what you heard?”

“That is what I heard,” he said coldly.

She laughed with relief. “I said it to you, to you, not to anyone here, you silly! And—well, I was sort of mixed up, coming out of the TV that way, to the phone, and you began to sort of shout at me, and I couldn’t hear the TV, and I kind of ran to it to turn it up, just for a second, and I forgot I was holding the phone and the wire caught my ankle and I fell down and the wire pulled out and—Jody!” she cried, seeing his face.

“You’re a liar, you bitch.”

“Jody!” she whispered faintly. Slowly she lay down again. She closed her eyes, and tears crept from beneath her lids. She made no sound.

“I can handle hoodlums and I can handle you,” he said flatly, and turned out the light. “And from now on,” he added, as if it were a complete statement; he must have thought so, for he said nothing more that night.

Eloise Smith lay trembling, her mind assuring her over and over that none of this was really happening, it couldn’t happen. After a useless time of that, she began to piece the thing together, what he’d said, what she’d said… she recalled suddenly what he had blurted out about the Elks’ Hall, and the car, and all… what was it? Oh: he’d called, apparently to tell her he was on the way; and she’d murmured, “Don’t say anything for a second, honey,” and he’d thought… he must have thought oh dear, how silly of him! “Jody!” she said, sitting up, and then the sight of his dim rigid form, curled away from her in the other bed, drove her back to silence, and she lay down to think it through some more… And he’d gotten himself all upset and yelled, and then she’d broken the wire, and probably thought her—her—but she could not think the word any more than he had been able to say it—he’d thought that whoever it was had gaily pulled out the wire to, well, stop his interruption. And then apparently Jody had gone all panicky and berserk, had run straight out to the car, got himself locked out of the Elks’ Hall with the car keys still inside, had headed north—away from town, and gas stations, and other telephones—and had tried to hitchhike home. And something about hoodlums and being robbed on the way—but then he said he’d driven them off, didn’t he?

She gave it up at length. Whatever had happened to him, he obviously felt like a giant, or a giant-killer maybe, for the first time in his life, and he was taking it out on her.

Well, maybe in the morning—

In the morning he was even worse. He hardly spoke to her at all. Just watched her every minute, and once in a while snorted disgustedly. Eloise moved quickly with poached egg, muffin, coffee, marmalade; sleepless, shaken, she would know what to do, take a stand, have a sensible thought, even—later; not now.

Watching her, Jody wiped his lips, threw down his napkin and stood up. “I’m going for the car. If you’re thinking of letting anybody in, well, look out, that’s all. You don’t know when I’ll be back.”

“Jody, Jody!” she wailed, “I never! I never, Jody!”

He walked past her, smiling tightly, and got his other hat. “Oh boy,” he said to the cosmos, “I just hope I run across one of those thugs again, that’s what I hope.” He banged the hat with the edge of his hand, and set it uncharacteristically at a rakish slant on his head. Numbly, she followed him to the door and stood in it, watching him go. He sprang up the steep driveway like a spring lamb. At the top he turned without breaking stride and came straight back—but not springing—scuttling would be the word for it. His face was chalky. He saw her and tried, with some apparent difficulty, to regain his swagger. “Forgot to call the phone company. Get a taxi, too.”

“You can’t,” she said. “I broke the wire.”

“I know, I know!” he snapped waspishly, though she felt he had forgotten it. “I’ll call from Pollard’s.” He glanced quickly over his shoulder, up the driveway, and then plunged across the lawn and through the wet shrubbery toward their only neighbor’s home.

She looked after him in amazement, and then up the drive. Over its crest, she could see the roof of a car, obviously parked in their turnaround. She was curious, but too much was happening; she would not dare climb the drive to see who it was. Instead she went in and closed the door and climbed upstairs, where she could see from the bedroom windows. From this elevation, the car was plainly visible. It wasn’t theirs. Also visible was the ugly giant lounging tiredly against the car, watching the house.

She shrank behind the curtain and put all her left fingers in her mouth.

After a time she saw Jody plunging across the long grass of the vacant acre that lay between their place and Pollard’s. He pushed through the shrubs at the edge of the lawn, stopped to paddle uselessly at his damp trouser-legs and then sidled over to the driveway. He peeped around the hollyhocks until he could look up the drive. The ugly man had apparently detected some movement, for he stood up straight and peered. Jody shrank back behind the hollyhocks.

She thought then that he might come in, but instead he crouched there. There was a long—to Eloise, an interminable—wait. Then a taxi pulled in from the road and turned to stop next to the other car. Jody straightened up and began trotting up the drive. The ugly man leaned his elbows on the lower edge of the taxi driver’s window—he had to bend nearly double to do it—and began speaking to him. Of course she could not hear a word, but the ugly man and the driver seemed to be laughing. Then the ugly man reached in, slapped the driver cheerfully on the shoulder and stood back. The taxi started up, backed around and pulled out of the drive. Jody, seeing this, for the second time made a U-turn and scuttled back to his hiding place behind the hollyhocks. He looked very little like a man who was overanxious to meet some thugs.

Eloise moved closer to the window in order to see him better, for he was almost straight down beneath her. Perhaps he caught the movement out of the corner of his eye, or perhaps some sixth sense… anyway, he glanced up, and for a moment looked more miserable than a human being ought, caught like that—chagrined, embarrassed. Then, visibly, he began to grow angry again; it began with her, she could see that. Then he wheeled and marched up the drive like a condemned man ascending the scaffold. The ugly man opened the right front door of his old sedan, and Jody got in.

For a long time Eloise Smith stood in the window, kneading her elbows and frowning. Then, slowly, she went downstairs and began to write a letter.

Smith’s posture of pugnacious defiance lasted from the turnaround to the private road he shared with Pollard. Once out of sight of the house, he slumped unhappily into the corner of his seat and stole a quick glance at his captor.

The man was even bigger, and considerably uglier, in daylight than he had been in the dark. He said, “I sent away your taxi. He didn’t mind. He’s an old buddy of mine.”

“Oh,“said Jody.

He watched the scenery go by, and thought of how gentle the man’s voice was. Very soft and gentle. Into this Jody Smith built vast menace. After a while he said sulkily, “This going to cost me another hundred?”

“Oh gosh no,” said the ugly man. “You bought a round trip. Where do you want to go?”

Cat-and-mouse, thought Jody. Trying to get my goat. “Got to get my car at the Elks’ Hall.”

“Okay,” the man said, nodding pleasantly. Deftly, he spun the wheel, turning into what Smith prided himself as being his short cut to the Hall. Obviously this creature knew the roads hereabouts.

They came to the built-up area, slid into an alley, crossed two streets and turned sharp right into the crunchy parking yard at the Elks. There were two other cars there; one Smith’s, the other obviously the caretaker’s, for the doors stood open and the old man was sweeping the step.

Timidly, Smith touched the door handle. The ugly man sat still, big gnarled hands on the wheel, eyes straight ahead. Smith opened the door and said, “… well—” Then, incredulous, he got out. The ugly man made no attempt to stop him.

Smith actually got two paces away from the car before sheer compulsive curiosity got the better of him. He went back and said, “Look, what about this money? You don’t really expect me to pay a hundred dollars for that ride.”

“I don’t,” said the big man, “Gorwing, I guess he does.”

“Gorwing. Is that the little ape that—”

“He’s a friend of mine,” said the giant, not loudly, but just quickly. Smith dropped that tactic, and asked, “You work for him?”

“With, not for. Sometimes.”

“But you’re doing the collecting.”

“Look,” said the ugly one, suddenly, “Gorwing, he wants sixty per cent of that money. Well, I wouldn’t let him down. For me, I don’t want it. Now, how much did he get off you last night?”

“Twenty-one.”

“From sixty is thirty-nine. You got thirty-nine bucks?”

“Not on me.” Astonished, he looked at the grotesque face. “Tell me something. What would you do if I wouldn’t give you another penny?”

The man looked at his gnarled hands, which twisted on the wheel. “I guess I’d just have to put it up myself.”

Smith got back in. “Run me over to the bank.”

The man made no comment, but started his engine.

“What’s your name?” asked Smith as they stopped for a light a block away.

“George Noat.”

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll go to the police?”

“Nope.”

Smith recalled then, forcefully, what Gorwing had said: “I got a witness and you haven’t.” He imagined himself trying to explain what had happened to a desk sergeant, who would be trying to write it all down in a book. Outrageous, certainly—but he had gotten into the car of his own free will, he had agreed to pay.

“How did you happen to come along when you did last night?”

“Just driving by.”

Smith found the answer unsatisfying, and he could not say why. He said, sulkily, “Friend or not, I’ve got to say that your Gorwing is a bandit.”

“No he ain’t,” said George Noat mildly. “Not when all he does is get things people really need. You really need something, you pay for it, right?”

“Yes, I suppose you—”

“And if you need something, and a fellow delivers it, nobody’s getting robbed.”

At that moment they came to the bank, and the subject was lost.

Jody Smith lived with the letter for a long time.

Dear Jody,

After the way you acted last night I don’t know what to do except I have to go away from you. You have to trust a person. I always believed you but why did you make up all that about Mr. Noat I know him a long time and he is about the kindest man who ever lived he wouldn’t hurt a fly.

I want you to think about one thing you said a lot about me and some man and all that, well I want you to know that there isn’t any man at all and now that means your wife left you and there wasn’t even any other man. I bet now you wish there was. I wish there was. No I don’t Jody, oh my goodness I wish I could write a letter I never could you know, but I can’t stay here any more. Maybe you could find somebody better I guess you better I won’t stand in your way because I still want you to be happy.

Eloise

Tell the market not to send the order I sent yesterday. We were supposed to have dinner at the Stewarts Tuesday. I can’t think of anything else.

Now Jodham Swaine Smith was a man of independent means—this was the phrase with which on occasion he described himself to himself. His parents had both come from well-to-do families, but Smith was two generations—three, on his mother’s side—removed from the kind of fortune-getting that had gotten these fortunes; latterly, it had become the Smith tradition to treat the principal as if it did not exist, and live modestly on the interest.

Independent means. Such independence means all Four Freedoms plus a good many more. Small prep schools—in small towns and with, comparatively, small fees—gray as Groton, followed by tiny, honored colleges on which the ivy, if not the patina, is quite as real as Harvard’s, make it possible to grow up in one of the most awesome independencies of all, the freedom from Life. In most cases it takes but six or so post-graduate weeks for trauma and tragedy to set in, and for the discoveries to be made that business is not necessarily conducted on the honor system, that the reward for dutifully reporting the errors of the erring gets you, not a mark toward your Good Citizen Button, but something more like a kick in the teeth, and finally, that the world is full of people who never heard of your family and wouldn’t give a damn if they had.

Yet for those few who are enabled by, on the one hand, the effortless accumulation of dividends, and on the other, an absence of personal talent or ambition that might be challenged, it is possible to slip into a surrogate of man’s estate in its subjective aspects hardly different from the weatherproof confines of the exclusive neighborhood, the private school and the honored and unheard-of college. Jody Smith was one of these few.

Not that he didn’t face the world, just as squarely and as valiantly as he had been taught to do. But it happened that, all unknowing, he gave the world nothing worth abrading, and the world was therefore, as far as he could know, a smooth place to live with. In no sense did he withdraw from life. On the contrary, he sought out the centers of motion, and involved himself as completely as possible with the Elks, the Rotary, the Lions, and the Civic Improvement League. Strangely enough, these gatherings, filled as they were with real people, gave him no evidence of the existence of a real world. Jody Smith was always available for the Thanksgiving Dance Committee and Operation Santa Claus, but did not submit himself, and was somehow never proposed, for any chairmanship. In a word, he wasn’t competition for anyone.

And he had gravitated to that same strange other-or no-world in what might laughingly be called his business. He was a philatelist. He ran small classified advertisements in the do-it-yourself and other magazines on a contract basis, and handled the trickle of mail from his little den at home. He made money at it. He also lost money at it. In the aggregate, he probably lost more than he made, but not enough to jeopardize his small but adequate and utterly predictable income.

He had, from time to time, wanted this or that. He had never for a moment needed, anything. Eloise, for example—he had wanted her, or perhaps it was to be married to her, but he hadn’t needed to. She helped him with his business, typing out some of the correspondence from form letters he had composed, and moistening stamp hinges. But he did not need her help. He did not need her.

Not even when she left. For a while. Weeks, in fact. And even then at first it was want, not need, and even then the want was to create some circumstance that would make her realize how wrong she had been. Then the wants widened, somehow. The television and the stamp hinges seemed after a time to be inadequate to fill the long evenings or to occupy the silence of the house. When no hand but his own moved anything about him, his hat would not go of itself into the closet but remained on hall tables where he himself had put it. And, where at first he had rather admired himself for his cookery, for he was a methodical, meticulous, and, as far as cookbooks were concerned, obedient person, he began slowly to resent the kitchen and even the animal beneath his belt which with such implacability drove him into it. It seemed to him a double burden—that he should have to put in all that time before a meal, and then have nothing ready until he prepared it himself. To do things in order to make lunchtime come seemed ultimately enough, more than enough, for a man to be burdened with. Then to have to do things to make the lunch itself seemed an intolerable injustice.

These matters of convenience—and lack of it—grew into nuisances and then, like the pebble in the shoe, like the inability to turn over even in the most comfortable of beds, into sheer torture.

The breaking point came, oddly enough, not in the long night hours with the empty bed beside his, nor in some dream-wracked and disoriented morning, but in the middle of an otherwise pleasant afternoon. He had just received the new Scott’s catalog, and wanted to compare something in it with the 1954 edition. He couldn’t find the 1954 edition, and he called out:

“Eloise—”

The sound of his own voice, and of her name, made something happen like the tearing of a membrane. It tore so completely, and with such suddenness and agony, that he grunted aloud and fell back on the couch. He sat there for a moment weaving, and his mouth grew crooked and his eyes pink, and there came a warning sting at the very back of the roof of his mouth that astonishingly informed him, as it hardly had since he was nine years old, that he was about to cry.

He didn’t cry, beyond once whimpering, “Eloise?” in a soprano half-whisper; then for a long time he sat silent and stunned, wondering numbly how such a force could have remained coiled so tightly within him, undetected.

When he could, he began to take stock. It was a matter of weeks—six of them, seven—since she had left, and not once had he examined his acts and attitude. He had done nothing about locating her, though in that department there was little to be done—he simply did not know where she was. Her only relative was an aging mother in a rest home out West, and she certainly had not gone there. He had not destroyed her letter, but he hadn’t reread it either, nor thought about its contents. He hadn’t wanted to think about these things, he now knew. He had thought… he hadn’t needed to.

He needed to now, and he did. The letter gave him nothing at first but a feeling—not quite anger—more like a sullen distaste for himself. And one more thing, slightest of handholds—she apparently, somehow or other, knew George Noat.

And, on that slender evidence, he tore out of the house and got into his car.

Nothing was the way it should be. The trail was not obscure. The taxi-driver—Noat had said he was “an old buddy”—told him immediately where Noat and his business were, and there were no obstacles to his finding the place—it was within three blocks of the Elks’ Hall. The fact that never once in Elks or Lions or Rotary had he heard Noat’s name was only surprising, not mysterious: such establishments as the Anything Shoppe look back, not forward, and are not found on the lists of forward-looking organizations.

It was only in the subdued light of the shop(pe), with the old-fashioned spring-swung doorbell still jangling behind him, that Jodham Swaine Smith realized that, though intuition and evidence had brought him here, they had not supplied him with the right thing to say. “Mr. Noat!” he bleated urgently, and then dried up altogether.

The proprietor glanced up at him from his work, and said easily, “Oh, hi. Give a hand here, will you?”

Annoyed, which was uncharacteristic of him, and simultaneously much more timid than he ever remembered being, Jody Smith edged around the counter. Noat was squatting before an inverted kitchen chair, painted flat red, with a broken spoke and a split seat-board. “Just grab holt here,” he invited. Smith took the legs as indicated and squeezed them together, while Noat drove in corrugated fasteners. “Nothing wrong with the chair,” said Noat philosophically between hammer blows. “It’s people. People busted this chair. As for fixing it, if people had sense enough to have four arms like this thing has four legs, why, I wouldn’t have to call on my neighbors. You like people?”

The direct question startled Smith; he had been about to interrupt, and was only half following what the big man said. He made a weak uncertain laugh, very like that of Sir Laurence in the Graveyard Scene, and said, “Sure. Sure I do.”

He stood back while Noat turned the chair upright, set it on the counter and measured the missing spoke with an ancient and frayed dressmaker’s tape. “You got to make allowances,” Noat said to the tape. “This old thing’s stretched, but you see I know just how much it’s stretched. 14 inches here is 14 and 17/3 2.nds[?] actual. That’s one way to make allowances. Then,” he went on, laying the tape against a piece of square stock that was chucked in a highly individual wood lathe, “if the tape says 14 on the chair, and I mark it the same 14 on the lumber, it comes out right and it makes no never mind what it is actual. People,” he said, rounding at last on Smith, who prepared himself for some profound truth, “fret too much.”

Smith lived for a moment with that feeling one has when mounting ten steps in the dark, then discovers there are only nine stairs. He grasped wildly at what he thought the man had been talking about. “People are all right. I mean, I like people.”

Noat considered this, or a turning chisel he had obviously made from an old screwdriver, carefully. Smith could not stand the contemplative silence, and ran on. “Why, I do everything for people. I join every club or lodge in town that does any good for people, and I work hard at it. I guess I wouldn’t do that if I didn’t like people.”

“You don’t do that for yourself.” It was, if a statement, agreement and a compliment; if a question, a searching, even embarrassing one, calling for more insight than Smith had or dared to have. It was voiced as a statement, but so nearly as a question that Smith could not be sure. He was, however, too honest a person to grasp at the compliment… and if he rejected it, he must be embarrassed, even insulted, and walk out… but he couldn’t walk out until he—“You know my wife, don’t you?”

“Sure do. A very nice little lady.”

He started the lathe. It made a very strange sound. The power looked like that from an ancient upright vacuum cleaner. Reduction was accomplished through gears that could only have come from one of those hand-operated coffee mills that used, with their great urn-shaped hoppers and scroll-spoked, cast-iron scarlet flywheels, to grace chain markets before they became supered. The frame was that of a treadle-operated sewing machine, complete with treadle, which, never having been disconnected, now disappeared in a blur of oscillation that transferred itself gently to everything in the place. One could not see it, but it was there in the soles of the feet, in the microscopic erection of the fibers in a dusty feather boa, in the way sun-captured dust motes marched instead of wandered. The lathe’s spur-center seemed to have been the business end of a planing attachment from some forgotten drill press; it was chucked into a collet that seemed to have been handmade out of rock maple. The cup center, at the other end, turned freely and true in what could be nothing else but a roller-skate wheel. Noat set his ground-down screwdriver on the long tool rest, which was of a size and massiveness that bespoke a history of angle-bracketship aboard a hay wagon. On the white wood a whiter line appeared, and a blizzard of fragrant dust appeared over Noat’s heavy wrists. He carried the tool along the rest, and the whiter-upon-white became a band, a sheet. When he had taken it from end to end, he stopped the machine. The wood was still square, but with all its corners rounded. Smith tore his fascinated eyes away from it and asked, wondering if Noat would still know what he was talking about, “How did you happen to know her?”

“Customer.”

“Really?”

Noat squinted at the display window over the edge of his chisel. “Garlic press,” he said, and pursed his lips. “Swedish cookie mold, by golly, she was here seven times over that. Little lady really gets two bits out of each two dozen pennies.” He laughed quietly; he had a good laugh. Smith’s solar plexus contained a sudden vacuum at the mention of these homey, Eloise-y things. “And the egg separators—two hundred egg separators.”

” What! I never saw—”

“Yes, you did. You went away to some kind of convention, and when you came back she’d done over the breakfast nook.”

“The textured wall!”

“Yeah, those mash-paper cushions they put between layers in an egg crate. She cut and fit and put ‘em up and painted ‘em—what she say?” He closed his eyes. “Flat purple with dull gold in the middle of each cup.”

“She never told me,” Smith informed himself aloud. “She said she’d… Well, I guess she didn’t actually say. But I got the idea she saved up from the house money and had it done. She really did it herself?”

Noat nodded gravely.

“I wonder why she didn’t tell me,” Smith breathed.

“Maybe,” said George Noat, “she thought you might live with a textured wall where you wouldn’t with egg separators.”

There was a meaning here that he could not—would not—see, but that he knew would come to him most distastefully later. He compressed his lips. He had acquired too many things to think about in the last few minutes, and at least two of them might be insults. He glanced doorward, and said in farewell tones, “Well, I—” and then the handle of the chisel pressed into his palm stopped him. “You go on with that. I got to cook some glue.”

Smith stared with horror at the chisel. “Me run that machine? I never in my life—”

The giant cupped a hand under his left armpit and propelled him to the machine. “The one wonderful thing about a lathe, you couldn’t tell a beginner’s first job from Chippendale’s last one. Don’t ever get all big-eyed over beautiful work—chances are it was real easy to do. What I always say is, a Duncan Phyfe is only a piccoloful of whiskey.”

“But—but—”

“Pull this chain, starts it. Rest your chisel here, cut light and slow at first. Anytime you want to see what you’ve done or feel it, pull the chain again, it stops. That’s all there is.” He started the machine, took the chisel, and, under its traveling point, the wood drew on a new garment of texture from end to end.

Timidly, Smith took back the chisel and nervously approached the spinning wood. It touched, and he sprang back, but there was a new neat ring around it. Fascinated, he tried it again, and again, and then looked up to ask if that was right: but Noat had confidently retired to the other end of the shop, where a disgraceful-looking glue pot sat upon a gas ring.

Nothing could have given him more assurance than to be trusted with the job like this. For a while, then, he entered the magical, never-quite-to-be-duplicated region of The First Time. You may challenge the world to find anyone who runs a lathe and who also forgets the first cut he ever made.

Disappointingly soon, the square wood was round; but then he realized joyfully that this would be a new spoke for the chair, and must come down quite a bit more. He worked steadily and carefully, until at last his mind was able to watch it while it thought of other things as well—and it thought of Eloise, thought of Eloise in a way unknown to it for oh… oh, a long time; and for such a brief while, too—there was something deeply sad about that. The day—no, two days—before he had stumblingly asked her to marry him, he had been in a drugstore, just like any other drugstore except for the climactic fact that it was in her neighborhood, the one she always went to, her drugstore. He had walked in to get some cough drops and had suddenly realized this incredible thing about the place—that she had many times stood here, had bent over that showcase, had had that prim warm little body cupped there by the padded swivel seats at the soda fountain. She had smiled in this place. Her voice had vibrated the sliding glass over the vitamins, and her little feet must have lightly dotted the floor, from time to time, just after it had been waxed.

And so it was with the Anything Shoppe; her hand had danced the spring-dangling doorbell, and she had bargained here and made plans, and counted money and held it for a moment, while the three fine “thinking” furrows—two long and one short—came between her eyebrows, and went quickly, leaving no mark. She had smiled in this place, and perhaps laughed; and here she had thought of him.

Textured wall.

The turning wood had grown silky, and now seemed to be growing a sheath of mist… he withdrew the tool and stood watching it through the blur until a bulky rectangular object on the tool rest distracted him. He blinked, and saw it was a box of tissues. Gratefully he reached for one and blew his nose and wiped his eyes. He gazed guiltily at Noat, but the big man’s back was turned and he appeared to be totally absorbed in stirring his stinking glue. Let’s not think about how he put the tissues there, or why… turn off the machine now.

George Noat found it not necessary to turn to him until he spoke: “Getting a cold, I guess… snff… time of year. Mr. Noat, have a look at this now.”

Noat lumbered back to the lathe and ran his hand along the piece. His hands were those a prep-school boy might see from the windows of the school bus, that a collegian with a school letter on the front of his sweater might see manipulating the mysteries under a car. One seldom noticed the skill of such hands, but ingrained black was dirt and dirt was, vaguely, “them,” not “us.” The idea does cling, oh yes it does, ingrained, too. Yet for all his distress in this moment, Smith was able to notice how the great grainy leather-brown hand closed all around the stainless new wood, was intimate with it from end to end, left not a mark. To Smith it was an illumination, to see such a hand live so with purity. All this subliminal; still before his stinging eyes was the mist of hurting, and he said aloud, “She left me.”

“That’s just fine,” said George Noat. He must have meant one thing or the other—probably he meant… for he was taking up the red chair. He lifted it high and hung it casually on the handle of a scythe, which, in turn, hung to the beam overhead. An unbroken rung of the chair thereby lay at his eye level. He started the lathe, and with four sure sweeps and five confident pauses, he duplicated the unbroken rung complete to its dowelled ends. He stopped the machine, slapped away collet and tailstock and tried the new rung for size. Freehand, with a keyhole saw, he cut away excess at the tips. It fitted. He took it to the glue pot, dipped the ends, returned and set it in place; then, with simultaneous blows right and left, he drove it home. A war surplus quartermaster’s canvas belt plus a suitcase clasp of the over-center type formed a clamp for it. He left it where it hung, and in his strange way—he seemed never to move quickly, but all the same, could loom up over a man in a rush—he rounded on Smith. “You want her back?”

“Oh God,” said Jody Smith softly, “I do.”

“Hmp.” Noat moved to the other end of the counter and gingerly capped the hot glue pot. “You need her,” Smith thought he said.

Smith frowned. “Isn’t that what I just said?”

“Nope.”

Jody Smith’s quick petulance evaporated as quickly as it had formed; again he found himself fumbling for whatever it was this creature seemed to mean, or almost meant. “I said I want her back.”

“I know. You didn’t say you need her.”

“It’s the same thing.”

“No, it ain’t.”

Half angry, half amused, Smith said, “Oh come on, now. Who’d split hairs about a thing like that?”

“Some people might.” He paused, looking at a piece of junk he pulled from a box. “Gorwing, he would.”

“Gorwing, he won’t,” said Smith with some asperity. “Look, I don’t want this talked all over with the likes of that Gorwing.”

Noat gave a peculiar chuckle. “Gorwing wouldn’t talk about it. He’d just know.”

“I don’t get you. He’d just—know? Know what?”

“If you should want something. Or need it.”

Smith wagged his head helplessly. “I never know when you’re kidding.”

“This thing,” said Noat soberly, staring at the object in his hand—it seemed to be the ring-shaped, calibrated “card” from a marine compass—“got three hundred and sixty degrees on it. More than any college graduate in the country.” Without moving anything but his eyes, he regarded Smith. “Am I kidding?”

In spite of himself, Smith felt moved to laughter. “I don’t know.” Sobering then, and anxious, “Have you any idea where she might have—”

“I really couldn’t say,” interjected the proprietor. “Here’s Gorwing.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Smith muttered.

Gorwing banged in, stopped, stared at Smith. He passed his hand over his eyes and muttered, “Oh, for God’s sake.”

Then both men turned to Noat, redly regarding his sudden burst of merriment.

“You settin’ on a feather?” rasped Gorwing.

“Just listening to the echoes,” answered Noat, grinning. Then a quick concern enveloped his features. He leaned forward and watched Gorwing bend his head, gingerly touch the back of his neck. “What is it—him?”

“Him?” Gorwing glanced insultingly at Smith. “Him, too, you might say. You doing anything?”

“What do you want?” asked Noat.

“Let’s take a ride.”

Noat, too, glanced at Smith, but not with insult. “Sure,” he said. “Go on out to the car. Be with you soon’s I… got something to finish.”

Gorwing glanced inimically at Smith again. “Don’t waste no time, now,” he said, and slung out.

Smith made a relieved and disgusted sighing sound like zhe-e-e-e! and shrugged like shuddering. Noat came around the counter and stood close, as if his proximity could add a special urgency to what he had to say. “Mister Smith, you want to see your wife again? You want her to come back?”

“I told you—”

“I believe you, especially now. Some other time we’ll talk about it all you want. Now if you want to get her back, you go with Gorwing, hear? You drive him where he wants to go.”

“Me? Not on your life! I want no part of it, and I bet neither does he.”

“You just tell him, it’s with you or not at all; you tell him I said so.”

“Look, I think—”

“Please, Mister Smith, don’t think; not now—there isn’t time. Just get out there.”

“This is the craziest thing I ever heard of.”

“You’re absolutely right.” Noat physically turned Smith around and faced him to the door. Outside, a horn blared. The sound seemed to loop and lock lassolike round the confused and upset Smith. He allowed it to pull him outside. He might then have been frightened if he had been given a chance to think, but Gorwing roared at him: “Where’s G-Note?”

“You come in my car or not at all,” Smith parrotted, his voice far more harsh than he had intended. He then marched to his car, got in and started the motor.

Livid, Gorwing sprang out of the other car. “G-Note!” he bawled at the unresponsive store front, then cursed and ran to Smith’s car and slammed inside.

“Whose stupid idea was this?” he snarled.

White and shaken, but, feeling that in some way he had already tipped over the lip of some long slide, Smith said, “Not mine. You going some place?”

Gorwing hunched back against the door, as far from Smith as he could get. “You know the Thruway exit southbound?”

“All right.”

He turned out into the street and right at the main avenue. Once or twice he glanced at his passenger, the slick black hair, the fevered dark eyes, the lips ever curled back from the too-sharp, too-white teeth. It was a tormented, dangerous kind of face, and the posture—this had been true as he had seen Gorwing stand, walk, turn, sit—was always one of imminent attack, like some small furious cornered animal.

He knew a short cut just here, and was on it before he quite realized he had come so far. He swung the wheel abruptly and turned into Midland Avenue, and from the corner of his eye, seemed to see the feral silhouette of his passenger sink and disappear. Astonished, he glanced at Gorwing, to find him bent almost double, his hands clasping the back of his neck, his eyes screwed shut.

“You feel sick?” He applied the brakes.

Gorwing unlaced the fingers behind his neck and, without opening his eyes, freed a hand for some violent semaphore. “Just drive,” came his strained, hissing whisper. Puzzled beyond bearing, Smith drove. Was Gorwing in pain? Or—could this be it—was he hiding? Who from? There was a football field and a high school on the left, a row of houses—mostly nurses’ residences for the nearby hospital—on the right. No one seemed to be paying special attention to the car.

Two blocks further on Gorwing slowly sat up.

“You all right now?”

In a very, very quiet voice, a deathly, a deadly voice, Gorwing spoke. He tipped the side of his mouth toward Smith as he spoke, but stared straight ahead. He said, “Don’t you ever drive me near the hospital. Not ever.”

Crazy as a coot, thought Smith. “Nobody told me.”

“I’m telling you.”

They came to the underpass and crossed beneath the Thruway, and Gorwing came out of himself enough to lean forward and scan the road and the sides of the road, ahead. Suddenly he pointed.

“There he is. Pull over there.”

Smith saw a young man in a grimy flannel suit and a white sport shirt, standing on the grassy shoulder just by the Thruway exit. There was a suitcase with a broken clasp on the grass by his feet. Smith pulled off the pavement and stopped.

The man picked up his suitcase and came toward them, trying to smile. “Give us a lift into town?”

Gorwing’s tongue darted out to wet his lips, and his eyes seemed to grow even brighter. He waited until the man was abreast of the car, was even elevating his suitcase to let it precede him into the back seat, then sprang out and, chest arched, eyes flaming, blocked the man. “Lift hell,” he snarled, “this town wouldn’t give a cup o’ water to the likes of you. Don’t you set foot in it. We don’t wancha.”

The stranger slitted his eyes. “Now wait, Mac, you wait a minute here. Who the hell you think you are? You own this—”

“Git,” said Gorwing, and his voice descended to something like the hissing, strained note that Smith had heard in the car. He mouthed his words—spittle ran suddenly from the corner of his mouth. As he spoke he walked, and as he walked the other man backed away. “You gawd… damn… junky… you think you can come here and pick up a fix, well this place is cold turkey for you and you’d better be on your way out of it, never mind who I am, I killed a man once.”

The man tried to shout him down, but Gorwing kept talking, kept crouching forward. “We’re stayin’ right here to see you walk up the pike or down the pike or hitch a ride, I don’t care which way, an’ don’t think you c’n slide into town without my knowin’, I got guys spotted all over town and your life ain’t worth a bar o’ soap if you so much as show your face let alone tryin’ to find a pusher. There ain’t no pusher an’ if you meet another gawd damn hophead you c’n pass the word—” but it was pointless to go on; suitcase and all, the man had turned by then and fled. Gorwing put his thumbs in his belt and watched the hitchhiker, white-faced, scampering to the northbound lane. Then Gorwing sighed, and turned tiredly back to the car.

“What a blistering,” breathed the thunderstruck Smith as Gorwing got in and fell back on the seat. “Who was that?”

“Never saw him before in my life,” said Gorwing absently. With great tenderness he touched the back of his neck. He looked at Smith by rolling his fevered eyes, as if the neck were too tender to disturb. “I never killed a man,” he said. “I just say that to scare ‘em.”

A thousand questions pressed on Smith’s tongue, but he swallowed all but, “You want to go back now?”

“How’s our li’l buddy doing?”

Smith peered down the ramp. Through the underpass, he could see the grimy-white of the hitchhiker’s clothes. “He’s still—no wait, I think he’s got a lift.”

Gorwing joined him in peering. They saw a green Dodge slow and stop, and the man climb in. “And good riddance,” murmured Gorwing.

“I don’t think he’ll be back,” said Smith, for something to say.

“He’ll wish he didn’t if he does,” said Gorwing, so offhandedly that Smith knew the man, the episode, the whole subject was leaving Gorwing’s mind; and in a way this was the most extraordinary part of this inexplicable episode, for Smith knew that he himself would never forget it. Gorwing said, “Drive.”

Smith made a slightly illegal turn and got the car headed back toward town. When he saw the yellow and black HOSPITAL ENTRANCE—500 FEET sign, he turned left and went into a long detour. Gorwing sat abstractedly, and Smith was certain he had not noticed the special effort he was making, until they turned back again on to Midland Avenue, well past, and Gorwing said, “Hospitals, they give me the creeps.”

“Me, too,” said Smith, remembering a tonsillectomy when he was fourteen—his only contact with the healing arts in all his life. Gorwing laughed at him—a singularly unpleasant and mirthless laugh. Anything in Smith that was about to formulate conversation—maybe even a question out of his vast perplexity—dried up. Smith’s petulant pink underlip protruded, and he drove without speaking until they pulled up in front of the Anything Shoppe. Smith had never been so glad to see anything in his life. He had had, as of now, exactly all he could take of this man.

He swung his door open but “Oh, hell,” Gorwing said. He said it in the tones of a man who has conducted a theater party in from the suburbs and finds, under the marquee, that he has forgotten the tickets. In spite of himself, “What’s the matter?” asked Smith.

“Shut up,” said Gorwing. Suddenly he closed his eyes and said again, “Oh hell.” Then he opened his eyes and snapped, “Get goin’. Quick.”

Reflexively Smith shut the door, then demanded of himself why?

Argumentatively he asked, “Where do you want to go?”

“Move, will ya?” He waved vaguely toward Hook Mountain. “Up that way. I’ll tell you.”

“I don’t see—”

Gorwing’s words tumbled out so fast they were almost indistinguishable. “Dammit you want somebody should be dead it’s your fault you didn’t jump when I said jump now drive!”

The car was started and heading north before Smith was aware of it, so stunned was he by this hot spurt of language. When a man speaks like that, you want to throw your hands up over your face as if you had seen raging heat through sudden cracks in something you knew, too late, might explode.

A mile later Smith asked timidly, “What do you mean, dead?”

“Your place,” Gorwing growled, directing, not responding.

They wheeled into the private road and up the hill. Dead? My place? Smith was terrified. “Listen—”

“You got any rope?” Gorwing snapped.

“Rope?” Smith repeated stupidly. He went into his own driveway in a power-slide; he hadn’t known he could drive like that. “No, I haven’t got any rope. What—”

“Oh, you wouldn’t,” spat Gorwing. “Chains. You got tire chains?”

“I don’t—yes. In the trunk.” He braked to a slithering stop in the turnaround. Gorwing was out of the car while it was still sliding, and tugging at the trunk lid. He roared to find it locked. Smith tumbled out with the keys and opened it. Gorwing flung him aside in his dive as he clawed through the trunk, throwing tire iron, jack pedestal, a can of hydraulic fluid behind him like a digging dog. The chains were in a cloth sack; he up-dumped the sack, shook out the chains, hooked the end of one into the end of the other, draped them over his shoulder and sprinted down toward the house.

“Wait, you—” gasped Smith, and trotted after him.

Gorwing passed the house and plunged across the lower lawn into the woods, Smith after him, already panting. “Hey, watch yourself, that’s full of poison ivy back there!”

Gorwing was already out of sight in the rank woods below the house.

Stumbling, gasping, Smith floundered after him, until he came to the edge of the cliff that overlooked the broad Hudson. At this point it was sheer about a hundred feet, then slanted down and away in a mass of weed-grown rubble almost to the railroad tracks. For a moment he thought Gorwing must have plunged straight over the edge, but then he saw him working his way along the ragged brink to the right.

“Hang on! Hang on!” Gorwing yelled. Totally perplexed, Smith looked around him for whatever it was he was supposed to hang on to and failed to find it. He shrugged and stumbled after the man. Gorwing kept bellowing to hang on. Suddenly Smith saw him fall to his knees and crawl to the crumbling lip of the precipice. He yelled again, then moved on a couple of feet and hooked a free end of the tire chains to itself around the trunk of a foolhardy pine tree with a ten-inch bole, which grew bravely at the lip of disaster.

At last, Smith reached Gorwing, who had hunkered down with his back to the tree. He had described the man to himself before as “fevered”—he now looked sick as well; there was a difference. “What are you—”

Gorwing motioned toward the drop. “You’ll have to do it. I can’t stand high places.”

“Do what?”

Gorwing pointed again. Smith heard a weak bleating sound that seemed to come from everywhere. But it was specifically outward that Gorwing had pointed. So he fell to his knees and crawled to the edge and looked over.

Eight or ten feet below him he saw the chalk-white, tear-streaked face of a thirteen or fourteen-year-old boy. The child was hanging by his hands to a protruding root, which angled so sharply downward that it was clear no grip could last too long on it. The boy’s toes were dug into loose earth, a fresh damp scar of which surrounded his feet and, widening, showed where to his left a ledge had fallen away. To his right was rock, almost sheer, and without a handhold.

“Hang on!” yelled Smith, at least half again as loud and urgently as Gorwing had. He caught up the end of the chain and lowered it carefully down. At its fullest extent it reached about to the boy’s belt-line. Smith looked at Gorwing, who looked back out of sick black eyes. “You got to,” he said in strained tones, “I tell you I can’t. I just can’t.”

Smith, whose usual activities involved nothing more strenuous than stamp tongs, found himself on his stomach, hanging his legs over, hunting wildly with his toes for the rungs formed by the crosslinks of the tire chain. Then he was stepping down, while the earth and grass of the edge rose up and obscured Gorwing like some crazy inverted theater curtain. “Hang on,” he said, and was startled when the boy answered, “Okay…” because that remark had been for himself.

Tire chains may be roughly the size and shape of a small ladder, but they take unkindly to it. The rungs roll and their parts pinch, and the whole thing swings and bends alarmingly; you know they won’t break, but do they? Too soon the next rung under his seeking foot just—wasn’t, and he withdrew the foot from nothing-at-all and stood on the last crosslink, gulping air. He was then of a mind to freeze to his shaky perch and stay there until somebody else figured a way out, but there came a whimper nearby and he saw clods and stones spin sickeningly down and away from the boy’s toes. He glanced at the boy’s face, saw and would forever see the muddy pallor, the fear-bulged eye, the lips gone whiter than the tanned cheeks. The youngster’s foothold was gone, and only his grip on the slanted root held him. Afterward, Smith was to reflect that, if the kid had been standing on anything solid, he would never in life have been able to figure out a way to bring him in; but now he had to, so he did.

“Lift your foot!” he screamed. “Give me your foot!”

The foot was already dangling, but for an endless, mindless moment the boy stretched downward with it, trying to make a toehold if he could not find one; then Smith screamed again, and the boy brought the foot up slowly, shakily… and he said, “My hands, I can’t…” but then Smith had the foot, leaning far sidewise to get it; he lifted it, thrust it through the last “rung” down to the knee. One more reach, and he had the skinny upper arm in a grip that astonished both of them. “Let go,” he panted, and the boy let go; it may well be that he could not have held on any longer to the root if he had wanted to. With the release, the chains swung nauseatingly sidewise; with one hand Smith ground steel into his own flesh, with the other drove flesh into the arm-bone; but he had the boy, now, thrust the arm through the next rung. “Hold with your arms, not your hands,” he said through his teeth.

When they stopped swinging, Smith freed his hand from the boy’s biceps. It took a concentrated effort, so clamped, so cramped, was his hysterical hand. “Now rest,” he said to both, for both of them. The boy kept whimpering, a past-tears meaningless, habitual kind of sound, dry and probably unfelt. Some measureless time later he helped the boy get his other leg into the little twisted square of chain, so that he sat and whimpered, while Smith stood and panted, for however long it took to be able to think again. Then Smith had the boy stand up inside the circle of his arms, and climb until his buttocks were at the level of Smith’s chest. Then they climbed together, Smith urging the boy to sit back on him when he had to, half-lifting him when they got the strength and the courage, each interminable time, to try another rung. And when at last the boy tumbled up and over and was, by Gorwing, snatched back from the edge, Smith had to stop achingly and wearily ponder out what had happened to the weight and presence of him, before he could go on.

Gorwing snatched him, too, away from the edge, where he lay laughing weakly.

“You,” said Gorwing darkly, “you real gutsy.”

“Me?”

“I coudn’t. Not ever, I could never do that.” He made a sudden vague gesture, startling in its aimlessness, a jolting contrast to his vulpine appearance and harsh voice. “I never had much guts.”

Smith held his peace, as does one in the presence of evidence too great for immediate speculation. He thought of Gorwing standing up to him about the hundred-dollar fare, and of Gorwing ravening, tearing, lashing out at the hitchhiking dope addict. Yet there was no mistaking his sincerity in what he said—nor in this frank compliment to him, Smith—a man who had, up until now, stimulated only open disgust. He promised himself he would think about it later. He said to the boy, “How do you feel, kid?”

“Gee, all right.” The boy shuddered. “Ain’t going to do that again.”

“What were you doing?”

“Aw. Bunch of Nyack kids, they bet nobody could climb the cliff. I didn’t say nothing, but I thought I could, so I tried it.”

Smith stood up, held gingerly to the tree trunk and peered over. “Where are they?”

“Oh gosh, I wouldn’t try it when anyone’s around. I just wanted to see if I could before I opened my trap about it.”

“So no one knew you were there!”

The boy grinned shakily. “You did.”

Gorwing and Smith shared a glance; to Smith it meant nothing, but Gorwing rose abruptly and barked, “Let’s get out of here.” Smith sensed his sudden desire to change the subject, just as he sensed the impact of the boy’s refusal to change the subject: “Hey, how did you know I was there?”

Gorwing half turned; Smith thought he sensed that glance again, but when he tried to meet it it was gone. “Heard you yellin’,” Gorwing said gruffly.

“I live right here,” said Smith. It satisfied the boy completely, but for the very first time Smith saw Gorwing look astonished. Yes, and in a way pleased.

They stopped at his house for something cool to drink, and then got in the car to return to Nyack; the boy said he lived on Castle Heights Avenue. There was surprisingly little talk. Neither Gorwing nor Smith seemed to know how to talk to a thirteen-year-old—a rare talent, at best, rare even among thirteen-year-olds—yet what occupied Smith’s mind could hardly be discussed in his presence.

Gorwing. This rough, mad, strange, unpredictable Gorwing… you couldn’t like him; and Smith knew he did not. Yet through him, with him, Smith had shared something new—new, yes, and rich. He had… it was as if he had had a friend for a moment there, working so dangerously together… and the work was for someone else; that had something to do with it…

Friend… Smith knew many people, and he had no enemies, and so he had thought he had had friends; but for a moment now he got a glimpse of the uncomfortable fact that he had no friends. Never had. Even… even Eloise. Husband and wife they were, lovers they had been—hadn’t they?—but could he honestly say that he and Eloise had ever been friends?

He sank for a moment into a viscous caldron of scalding loneliness. Eloise…

“Hey.” Gorwing’s harsh note crashed into his reverie. “How we get this young feller to keep his mouth shut?”

“Me?” said the boy.

“You better keep your mouth shut, that’s all,” said Gorwing ominously.

Smith had no experience in talking to boys, but he could see this was the wrong tack. The kid was edging away from Gorwing, and his eyes were too wide. Smith said quickly, “He’s right. I don’t know your mother, sonny, but I’d say she’d be worried sick if you told her the story. Or maybe just mad.”

“Yeah, maybe.” He looked warmly at Smith, then timidly at Gorwing. “Yeah, I guess you’re right——Can’t I tell nobody?”

“I’d as soon you didn’t.”

“Well, anything you say,” said the boy. He swallowed and said again, “Anything…” and then, “That’s my house. The white one.”

Smith stopped well away from the house. “Hop out, so no one sees you in the car. So long.”

“So long.” The boy walked away a slow pace, then turned back. “I don’t even know your names.”

“Delehanty,” said Smith. And Gorwing said solemnly, “Me, too.”

“Well,” said the boy uneasily, “well, thanks, then,” and moved toward the white house.

Smith backed into a nearby driveway and headed back toward the shop.

Gorwing said truculently, “How come you covered for me like that?”

“I had the idea you wanted it that way. Up on the cliff I got that idea.”

“Yeah——You know all the time what people want?”

“I don’t think,” said Smith slowly, with a frankness that stung his eyes, “I ever tried before.”

They rolled along for what seemed a long, companionable moment. Then Smith added, “You don’t always help people out for money, do you?”

Gorwing shrugged, rolled down his window, and spat. “Only when I can get it. Oh man, could I use some about now.”

“This,” said Smith bitterly, “is my taxicab this time.”

“Oh, I wasn’t asking you for nothing. You watch yourself, Smith. I’m no panhandler.”

Smith drove self-consciously, carefully. He knew his face was pink, and he hated himself for it. He wondered if he could say anything to this madman without making him angry. Angrier. He asked, without malice, “What would you do with money?”

“Get drunk,” said Gorwing, and immediately glanced at Smith’s face. “Oh my God,” he said disgustedly, “he believes me. I never drink anything… What would I do with money?” he mused. “Tends how much. Now there’s a couple, the old man is dying. I mean, he can’t last, not much more. The woman, she stays by him ever minute, don’t go out even to buy food. Somebody don’t go to the store for ‘em, throw ‘em a couple skins now and then, they… oh, you wouldn’t know.”

No, Smith wouldn’t know. He had never been in need… or in danger, before today. Turning into Midland Avenue, he glanced down a side street toward the river, where the wide-lawned pleasant houses gave way to the shabby-decent, the tenement, the shack. He had never done that before, not to see them. And then, the need you could see, starting with the shacks, was, when you came to think about it, surely not all the need there was; need comes in so many colors and kinds. He brought the thought back up to the crisp-tended, tree-shaded homes on the Avenue and wondered what it was like to live in this world instead of—of whatever it was he had been doing.

He stopped in front of the Anything Shoppe, and they got out. “Here,” Smith said. He took out his wallet and found a twenty-dollar bill. He looked at Gorwing and suddenly took out the ten, too—all he had with him.

Gorwing did not thank him. He took the money and said, “Well, all right!” and marched off.

Smith was still wagging his head as he entered the shop.

“I know how you feel,” said G-Note, grinning.

“What is he?”

G-Note grunted. “I never did really know, myself.”

“I never thought I’d say this, but I sort of like him.” Smith was feeling very warm inside about all this.

Oddly enough, the remark brought no smile this time. “I don’t know if you can really like Gorwing,” said Noat thoughtfully. “He sometimes… but anyway, tell me what happened.”

Smith related his afternoon. Noat nodded sagely. “Junkies,” he nodded at one point. “He can’t stand ‘em. Runs ‘em out of town every time.”

At the end of his story, Smith told him about the money. “Is that on the level, Mr. Noat? Or will he just go on a toot?”

“No, it’s on the level. If he keeps out any for himself, it’ll be what he barely needs.”

“Doesn’t he have a job or something?”

Noat shook his big head. “No job. No home, not what you might call a place of his own. Moves around all the time, furnished rooms, back of the poolhall, here in the shop sometimes. I don’t think he ever leaves town, though.”

“Mr. Noat, how does he do it?”

Noat cocked his head on one side. “Didn’t you ask him?”

Smith laughed weakly. “No.” Then, with a sudden surge of candor, “Tell you the truth, I was afraid to.”

“Tell you the truth, I’m afraid to, too,” said Noat. “He… well, between you and me, I think he thinks he’s some sort of freak. Or, anyway, he’s afraid people will think that. He never lets anybody get close to him. He always does what he can to hide how he does what he does. Usually by blowing up in your face.”

“He must… he seems to do a lot of good.”

“Yes…” There was a reservation in the ugly man’s voice.

“Well, doggone it, what is it he does?”

“He, well, hears when somebody needs something, or maybe you might say smells it. I don’t know. I don’t know as I care much, except it works. Heck, you don’t have to know how everything works—by the time you did, you’d be too old to work it.” He turned away, and Smith thought for a moment he had closed the subject, but he said, without turning around, “Only thing I’m sure of, he knows the difference between wanting something and needing it.”

“Want… you asked me that!”

“I did. I asked Gorwing, too, although maybe you don’t remember.”

“Eloise… you mean he’d know whether I—need her, or just want her? Him?”

Noat chuckled. “Feels like a sort of invasion of privacy, doesn’t it? It is and it isn’t… what he knows, however he knows it, it isn’t like anyone else knowing it. That Gorwing… but he does a lot of good, you know.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“Calla Pincus, she thinks he’s some sort of saint.”

“Who’s she?”

“Girl he—well, she was going to kill herself one time, and he stopped her. She’d do anything for him. So would the Blinker—he’s kind of a poolhall rat—and there’s old Sarge, that’s a track walker for the West Side Line… I mean, he has sort of a raggle-taggle army, all through the town, that’ve learned to ask no questions and jump to do what he says. Sometimes for pay. And Doc Tramble, and one of the teachers at the high school and… and me, I guess—”

“And me.”

Noat laughed. “So welcome to the fold.”

“All these years in this town,” Smith marveled, “and I never guessed this was going on. Mr. Noat… does he know where my wife is?”

“Did you ask him?”

Smith shook his head. “Somehow I… I was afraid to ask him that, too.”

“You better. You need her—you know that and I do and he does. I think you should ask him… Now can I ask you something?”

“Oh, sure.”

“You never went to the police or anything. How come?”

Smith looked down at his hands and closed them, then his eyes.

He said in a low voice, “I guess because… You know, she said to me, whatever had happened, she still wanted me to be happy. I imagine I wanted the same thing for her. It was something she had to do; I didn’t think I should stop her.”

“But you’re looking now.”

“Not with police.”

“Hey, he’s coming. Ask him. Go ahead—ask him.”

Smith turned eagerly to the door as Gorwing banged in. “Hi!” He felt warm, friendly—pleasurably scared—anticipatory. Gorwing utterly ignored him.

Noat frowned briefly and said, “Hey boy. Smitty there, he’s got something to ask you.”

“He has?” Gorwing did not even look around.

Smith hesitated, then caught Noat’s encouraging nod.

Timidly, he asked, “Mr. Gorwing… do you know where my wife is?”

Gorwing flicked him with a black glance and showed his white teeth. “Sure.” Then he turned his full cruel smile on Smith and said, “She don’t need you.”

Smith blinked as if something had flashed before his eyes. His mouth was dry inside, and outside shivery. He wanted to say something but could not.

Noat growled, “That ain’t what he asked you, Gorwing. He says do you know where she is.”

“Oh sure,” said Gorwing easily, and grinned again. “She got a cold-water walk-up over on High Avenue, ‘long with the guy she’s livin’ with.”

Smith had never in his life physically attacked anyone, but now he grunted, just as if he had been kicked in the stomach, and rushed Gorwing. He struck out, a wild, round, unpracticed blow, but loaded with hysteria and hate. It never reached Gorwing, but planted itself instead in the region of Noat’s left shoulder blade, for Noat, moving with unbelievable speed for so large a man, had vaulted the counter and come between them. He came, obviously, not to protect anyone, but to launch his own attack. “You lousy little rat, you didn’t have to do that. Now you get out of here,” he rumbled, as with one hand he opened the door and with the other literally threw Gorwing outside. Gorwing tried to keep his balance but could not; he fell heavily, rolled, got up. His face was so white his black hair looked almost blue; still he grinned. Then he was gone.

Noat closed the door and came to Smith. “So now you know.”

“El-Eloise is…” and he began to cough.

“Oh, not that! I mean, now you know about Gorwing. How can you figure it? All he does is take care of what people need… and there’s no kindness in him.”

“Eloise is—”

“Your wife is taking care of an old sick man who’ll be dead any time now.”

“Who?” Smith cried, agonized. ” What old man?”

“That you just gave the money for.”

“I’ve got to find her,” whispered Smith, and then heard what Noat had said. “You mean—that old man? Wh-why, he told me it was an old couple!”

“I bet he didn’t.”

“You! You know where she is! You knew all the time.”

Noat spread his hands unhappily. “You never asked me.”

Smith’s scorn made him appear a sudden four inches taller. “Quit playing games!”

“Okay… okay.” The big man looked completely miserable. “I just didn’t want to hurt you, that’s all.” At Smith’s sharp look, he said “Honest. Honest… Gorwing, he’s right, you know. She doesn’t need you. I wish you didn’t make me tell you that. I’m sorry.” He went back behind the counter, as if he could comfort himself with the tools, the clutter back there.

“You better tell me the whole thing,” whispered Smith.

“Well… she, Mrs. Smith I mean, she came to me that day. She was all… mixed up. I don’t think she meant to spill anything, but she sort of… couldn’t hold it.” He put up a swift hand when Smith would have interrupted. “Wait, I’m telling this all wrong. What I’m trying to say, she came here because she just didn’t know where else to go to. She said something about ‘Anything Shoppe’; she wanted to know if ‘anything’ meant… anything. She said she had to have a job, something to do. She said never mind the money, just enough to scrape along, but something to do; that’s what she needed.”

“What she needed.”

“I know what you’re thinking. Yeah, Gorwing knew she needed something, and just what it was, too… y’see,” he said earnestly, “he’s always right. Even the lousy things he does sometimes, they’re always right. Or at least… there’s always a reason.” He stopped, as if to ponder it out for himself.

“Look,” said Smith, suddenly, painfully kneading his cheeks, “whatever it is you have to tell me, tell me. I’m all mixed up… and… and where is she?” Then he opened his blue eyes very wide—oddly like those of the boy he had saved on the cliff, when Gorwing had frightened him—and said piteously, “You mean she really doesn’t need me? Gorwing was right?”

G-Note crouched over, elbows on the counter, his big hands holding each other in front of him.

He said, “What she needed, what she needed more than anything in the world, she needed something to take care of. You—well, she tried to take care of you, but—Don’t you see what I mean?”

There was silence for a long time. Smith felt that somehow, if he could pull together the churned-up pieces of his mind, he might be able to turn it to this, make some sense out of it. He tried very hard, and at last was able to say, “You mean, when you come right down to it, there… was never very much for her to do for me.”

“Oh, you got it. You got it. You… well, she told me some things. She cried, I guess she didn’t mean to say anything, but I guess—she just had to. She said you could cook better’n she could.”

“What?”

“Well, things you liked to eat, you could. And those were all the things you ever wanted. She took care of the house, but you’d ‘a done just the same things if she wasn’t there. She never felt she really had to…”

“But this old man—who’s he?”

“One of Gorwing’s… you know. Gorwing found him down by the tracks. Sick, wore out. Needing somebody to take care of him—needing it, you see? Not for long… Doc Tramble, he says he don’t know how the old fellow hung on this long.”

“God,” said Smith, stinging with chagrin, “is that what she needed? Maybe I should be dying—she’d be happy with me then.”

“Ah, knock that off. She’s only like most people, she has to make a difference to somebody. She makes a difference to that old man, and she knows it.”

“She made a difference to me,” whispered Smith, and then something lit up inside him. He stared at Noat. “But she never knew it.” Suddenly he leaped to his feet, walked up, walked back, sat again bolt upright, holding himself as if he were full of coiled springs. “What’s the matter with me? You know what I did, I said she had somebody with her while I was at the Elks’ that night, you know, the night you picked me up in the car. That’s why she left.” He hit himself on the forehead with sharp knuckles. “I know she didn’t have anyone, she wouldn’t! So what made me think of it? why all of a sudden did I have to think of it, and even when I knew I was wrong, why did I have to go for her, curse at her, call her names the way I did, till she had to leave… why?” he shouted.

“You really want me to tell you?” Then Noat looked away from Smith’s frantic, twisted face and shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said carefully, “I only know what I think. I don’t know everything… I don’t know you very much. All right?”

“Yes, I understand that. Go ahead.”

“Well, then.” Noat watched his big brown hands press and slide on the counter until they squeaked, as if they had ideas under them and could express the words by squeezing. He raised them and looked under them and folded them and looked at Smith. “You hear a lot of glop,” he said carefully, “about infantile this and adult that, and acting like a grownup. I’ve thought a lot about that. Like how you’ve got to be adult about this or that arrangement with people or the world or your work or something. Like they’d say you never had an adult relationship with the missus. Don’t get mad! I don’t mean—well, hell, how adult is two rabbits? I don’t mean the sex thing.” He opened his hands to look for more words, and folded them again. “Most people got the wrong idea about this ‘adult’ business, this ‘grownup’ thing they talk about but don’t think about. What I’m trying to say, if a thing is alive, it changes all the time. Every single second it changes; it grows or rots or gets bigger or grows hair in its armpits or puts out buds or sheds its skin or something, but when a thing is living, it changes.” He looked at Smith, and Smith nodded. He went on:

“What I think about you, I think somewhere along the line you forgot about that, that you had to go on changing. Like when you’re little, you keep getting bigger all the time, you get promoted in school; you change; good. But then you get out, you find your spot, you got your house, your wife, your kind of work, then there’s nothing around you any more says you have to change. No class to get promoted to. No pants grown too small. You think you can stop now, not change any more.” Noat shook his craggy head. “Nothing alive will stand for that, Smitty.”

“Well, but why did I think she… why did I say that about—some man with her, all that?”

Noat shrugged. “I don’t know all about you,” he said again. “Just sort of guessing, but suppose you’d stopped, you know, living. Something’s going to kick up about that. It don’t have to make a lot of sense; just kick up. Get mad about something. Your wife with some man—now, that’s not nice, that’s not even true, but it’s a living kind of thing, you see what I mean? I mean, things change around the house then—but good; altogether; right now.”

“My God,” Smith breathed.

” ‘Course,” said Noat, “sooner or later you have to get over it, face things as they really are. Or as they really ain’t.” He thought again for a time, then said, “Take a tree, starts from a seed, gets to be a stalk, a sapling, on up till it’s a hundred feet tall and nine feet through the trunk; it’s still growing and changing until one fine day it gets its growth; it’s grown up: it’s—dead. So the whole thing I’m saying is, this adult relationship stuff they talk about, it’s not that at all. It’s growing up that matters, not grownup——Man can get along alone for quite a long time ‘grownup’—taking care of himself. But if he takes in anyone else, he’s… well, he’s got to have a piece missing that the other person supplies all the time. He’s got to need that, and he’s got to have something that’s missing in the other person that they need. So then the two of them, they’re one thing now… and still it’s got to be like a living thing, it’s got to change and grow and be alive. Nothing alive will stand for being stopped. So… excuse me for butting in, but you thought you could stop it and it blew up on you.”

Smith stared silently at the big man, then nodded. “I see. But now what?”

“You want to know where she is?”

“Sure. By the Lord, now I can…”

“What’s the matter?”

Smith looked at him, stricken. “Gorwing said… she didn’t need me.”

“Gorwing!” snarled Noat. Then he scratched his head. “I see what he meant. She never could take care of you much, and she awful much needs to take care of somebody. Now she’s got the old feller. He needs her, God knows. For a little while yet… Gorwing… hey! Why d’ye suppose he tried to make you think—you know—about your wife?”

“You know him better than I do.”

“It comes to me,” said Noat, inwardly amazed. “I see it. I see it. He makes it his business to take care of what people really need, need real bad. Right? Good. How do you do that?”

“Get ‘em what they need, I guess.”

“That’s one way. Two—” he held up fingers—“you get ‘em out of range. Like he does with dope addicts. Right? Then—three. You fix it so they just don’t feel they need it any more. I mean, if he was to fix it that you got so mad at your wife you wouldn’t want ever to see her again—see?”

“That poor little man! He couldn’t do that.”

“He just tried. He has a gift, Smitty, but that don’t mean he’s bright.”

“It doesn’t?” said Smith in tones of revelation. “It’s bright enough. I need her—that’s one big need, correct? Now, suppose I go find her, take her away from that poor old man. He starts needing her—and she starts needing to take care of somebody again. So—two big needs. That Gorwing, he knows what he’s doing. I—I can’t do that, Mr. Noat.”

“You mean, to the old man?”

“Well, yes, that. But her… my wife. I need her. You know that, and I do.”

“And Gorwing does.”

“Yeah, but she doesn’t. God, what do I have to do? Do I really have to be dying?”

“Living,” said George Noat.

You’re a freak.

Sometimes for days at a time he could content himself with the thought that all the rest of them were freaks. Or that, after all, what does anyone do? When it gets cold, they try to get warm. When they get hungry, they go find something to eat. What people feel, whatever’s crowding them, they get out from under the best way they can, right? They duck it or move it or blast it out of the way, or use it on something else that might be bothering them, right? And what bothers people is different, one from the other. Hunger can get to them all and cold and things like that; but look, one wants some music, some special kind of music, more than anything else in life, more than a woman or a drink, while another needs heroin and another to have a roomful of people clapping their hands at him. Or needing, needing like life-and-death, some stupid little thing that would mean nothing to anyone else—something as little as a couple of words, like that Calla girl, about to jump off the Tappan Zee Bridge for wanting somebody to come up to her and say, “Hey, I need you to do something nobody else can do.” Or needing to feel safe from some something that lurks inside them, like the Blinker: you’d never guess it to watch him cuss and laugh and make the pass, and chalk the cue, just like anybody, but he was epileptic and he never knew when it was going to hit him. Or needing defense against things lurking outside of them, like Miss Guelph at the high school, crazy afraid of feathers, terrified one might touch her. So the things people need and the things they need to be safe from, they’re all kinds of things: it doesn’t make one of them a freak if his special need is a little different.

What if you never heard of anyone with a need just like yours?

Does that automatically make you a freak?… There are lots of people who have to make it alone, who can’t share what they have with anyone. Who can’t drive a car for fear that faint-making, aching cloud will suck them down into it when they don’t expect it.

Sometimes, too, you can get to believe that the very thing that’s wrong with you makes you special. Well, it does, too. You have power over people. Now just how many people in this—or any—town could tell you a little kid two blocks away was lost, and a woman three blocks the other way was looking for him? Or look at the way you found that boy on the cliff—now that boy would be dead right now.

So if you’re so special how come old Noat throws you out on your ear?

You’re a freak.

Now cut it out. You got it made. You got a nice spot. The town’s just big enough so nobody much notices you, just small enough so when that faintness comes, and that ache, and then the picture in your head—of a traffic light or a building front or a green fence or a cliff side—you know just where to go to find the person who has that big noisy need for something. Remember that trip down to Fort Lee? So big, so noisy; God, you almost went out of your head. Plank you down in the middle of New York, say, you’d be dead in a second, all that racket. And the things they need, you’d never know where to get them in a big place, but here, heck, you know where to find anything if it’s in town. Or old Noat will get it for you.

What he want to throw you out like that for? Just trying to shut off the shrieking lonesomeness of that squirt Smith; him and his Eloise, it gave him a headache.

Ow. Here comes one now. Shut your eyes. Ow, my neck. Shut your eyes tight, now. See… see a… see a street, store-front, green eaves over the window. Felt carpet slippers, a man’s belt. That would be Harry Schein’s Haberdashery on Washington Street. Somebody standing there, needs—what? Sleep, wants to sleep, for God’s sake, gets wide awake soon as hits the sack… a man. Screaming for sleep, frantic for sleep. Get some sleeping pills, everything closed now. Hey, this could be worth a buck. Go call Doc Tramble. Here, phone in the gas station. NY 7… 0… 0… 5…

“Doc? Gorwing here. Got some sleeping pills in your bag? Oh, nothing serious… yes, I know what’s dangerous and what ain’t. No, not for me. Oh, five, I guess. I’ll send the Blinker or somebody around for ‘em, okay?”

Ow. Guy walking toward Broad Street now. Oh boy does he want some sleep. Where’s dime… here. Call poolroom… 4… 7… “Hi—Danny? Gorwing. Hey, the Blinker there? Hell… Who else is around? No… Nuh, not her. Smith? What Smith—you mean that guy’s been hanging around G-Note’s? Yeah, put him on.”

“Hello—Smitty? Thought you’d be mad. You wouldn’t want to do a little job… you would? Well you’ll have to scramble. Get over to Doc Tramble’s and say you want the pills for me. Yeah. Then take ‘em over to Fordson Alley and North Broad—you know, right by the movie—there’s a guy there frantic for ‘em. See if you can get a dollar apiece. Sleeping tablets. Yeah. Hurry now… He’s moving, he’s ambling up past the movie. I don’t know what he looks like. Just look for a guy looks like he needs some sleep. Hurry now. See ya.”

Now that’s a surprise. I thought I’d botched it up with that Smith but for good. A good boy. Calmed down, too. Wonder if he’s going to pull that wife of his away from the old man. Hope not. Set up a hell of a rattle, the two of ‘em at once.

So Gorwing ambled through the evening, through the town. He walked in a cloud of, or in a murmur of, or under the pressure of, or through the resistance of the not-mist, not-sound, not-weight, not-fluid presence of human need. Want was there, too, but want of that kind—two teen-agers yearning for a front-drive imported car in a show window, a drowsy child remembering a huge bride-doll in Woolworth’s, the susurrus of desire that whispered up in the wake of a white-clad blonde who, with her boy-friend, walked through the lights of the theater marquee—this kind of want was simply there to be noticed if he cared to notice it. But the need… he watched for it fearfully, yet eagerly—for sometimes it paid off. He hoped that for a while nobody would get hit by a car without getting killed outright, or that some hophead wouldn’t suddenly appear with that rasping, edgy scream of demand. Ow. Wish Smitty would get to that guy with the sleeping pills.

Need was a noise to Gorwing. No, not really a noise. Need was an acid cloud, a swirling blindness. Need might mount up out of the nighttime village and make him faint. Need might pay off. Need, other people’s need, hurt Gorwing… but then each person had one or another difference, one or another talent; this one bad perfect pitch and that one had diabetes, and he wasn’t, after all, so different from other people.

You’re a freak.

Strangely, it was not too easy to be funereal at this funeral. The flowers were sad, of course, such a scrappy little bunch, and the man was saying all the right things… and it was sad how easily the men handled the coffin; poor little old man, so wasted away. But you couldn’t feel badly about him now; he’d been glad to go, and it was good that he’d had, for those last weeks, just what he’d yearned for for so many sick lonesome years—someone who sat near and brought him things and listened to him ramble on about all the old places and the friends and family who were passed on, dead and gone and yet waiting eagerly for him, some place. No, it wasn’t any tragedy. Sweetly sad, that was it… and oh, such a bright beautiful day!

Eloise Smith hadn’t been out in the fresh air, the sunshine, since…“Eeek!”

It was a small scream, or rather squeak, and really no one noticed. But Jody, oh Jody was standing right next to her in a dark suit, with his hat—the one they called his Other hat—held over his heart, his head bowed. He looked… peaceful.

She bowed her head, too, and they stood quite close together until the man finished saying the old simple words, and the handful of earth went tsk!—a polite expression of sympathy—on the coffin lid. Then it was over. “Bye, you old dear,” she said silently but with her heart full.

Then there was Jody. “Oh, Jody. I don’t think I—”

“Shh. Eloise, come home. I need you.”

“Jody, you’re going to make me sound mean, and I don’t want to be mean. But you don’t need me or anybody, Jody.”

Smith moistened his lips, but loosened no special, just-right winning words; he said, could say, only: “I need you. Come home.”

“Wait—there’s Mr. Gorwing… Wait, Jody; I have to speak to him. Will you wait over there, Jody? Please?”

“Let me stay with you.”

“Honey,” she said, the wifely word slipping out before she realized it, “he’s sometimes sort of… funny. Unpredictable. I wish you’d wait over there and let me talk to—”

“He won’t mind. We’re old friends.”

“You know Mr. Gorwing?”

“Sure.”

“Oh dear. I didn’t know. He… he’s a kind of saint, you know.” When Smith, coolly regarding Gorwing, who was talking to the funeral director, did not answer, she went on nervously—she had to talk, had to, oh why had he turned up like this, all unexpectedly? “If anyone’s in need at all, he has a way of finding it out; he—”

“I’m in need,” said Smith. “I need you.”

“Jody, don’t!”

“I do,” he said softly, earnestly. “You’ve got to come back. I can’t manage without you.”

“Oh, that’s silly! You have your—”

“I have my nothing, Ellie. I—I gave the money away, almost all of it. I got a job, but I’m only beginning, and the pay isn’t much. I’m running a wood lathe in the cabinetmaker’s.”

“You—what?”

“You’ve got to help; maybe you’ll even have to go to work. Would you, if there’s no other way? I can’t make it without you, Ellie.”

What she was going to say through those soft trembling lips he would not know, for Gorwing interrupted. “Miz Smith—you know who he is?”

She flashed a look at her husband and really blushed. Gorwing laughed that wolf’s laugh, that barking expression of mirth and hurt, and said, “I’ll tell you who he is. He’s the only person in the whole world who ever came up to me and asked me what I needed.” He clapped Smith on the shoulder, waved a casual hand at Eloise and walked away toward the cemetery gate. She called him once; he waved his hand but did not turn his face toward them.

“We’ll see him again,” said Smith. “Ellie… will you just let me tell you what this is all about?”

“What is it all about?”

“Can I tell you all of it?”

“Oh, very well…”

“It’ll take about twenty-three years. Oh Eloise—come home.”

“Oh, Jody…”

The shy man crouched in the hospital stairwell and peered through the crack of the barely-opened door. There were no white-coated figures in the corridor that he could see. He had long ago abandoned the front way, the elevator and all. Slipping in through the fire doors during visiting hours was much better. He pushed the door open far enough to let him into the corridor, and let it swing silently closed.

He gasped.

“Hello, Johnny.”

Right behind the door as he opened it, oh God, the doctor. Johnny bit his tongue and stared up into Doc Tramble’s face. It blurred.

“Hey now, hold on,” said the doctor. “You better come in here and sit down.” He took Johnny’s forearm—and for a split second they were both acutely aware of Johnny’s tearing temptation to snatch it away and run; and of its crushed quelling—and led him across the corridor into an empty private room, where he lowered the sweating visitor into an easy chair. Dr. Tramble pulled up a straight chair and sat close enough to force Johnny’s gaze up and into his own.

“I don’t know if you can take this, Johnny, all at once, but you’re going to have to try.”

“I got a second job, nights,” said Johnny hollowly. “With that I can catch up some on the bills. Don’t put my wife on the charity list, doctor. She couldn’t stand it. She—”

“Now you just listen to me, young fella.” He reached into the wall, got a paper cup from a dispenser and filled it from the ice-water jet. With his other hand he reached into his side pocket and took out a folded paper, which he planked down on Johnny’s knee. “The bill. I want you to look at it.”

Painfully, Johnny unfolded it and looked. His jaw dropped. “So much…” Then his eyes picked up an additional detail on the paper. “P-p-paid?” he whispered.

“In full,” said Dr. Tremble. “That’s point one. Point two, Madge gets her operation. MacKinney from the Medical Center got interested in the case. He’s going to do it next week. Point three—”

“Her operation…”

“Point three,” laughed the doctor, “she gets that room to herself now, all paid up, and you have the privilege of telling that to her snide roommate. Point four, here is a check made out to you for five hundred. Drink this,” and he pushed the water at him.

Johnny sipped, and over the cup said, “B-but wh-where…”

“Let’s keep it simple and say it’s a special fund for interesting cases from the Medical Center, and you know these endowed institutes—all this money is interest and there’s nobody to thank so shut up and get out of here. No—not to see Madge! Not yet. You go down to the office and they’ll cash that check for you. Then you grab a taxi and voom down the street and buy flowers and a radio and a big box of dusting powder and a fancy bed jacket. Git!”

Numbly, Johnny walked to the door. Once there, he turned to the doctor, opened his mouth, shook his head, closed his mouth and without a word went for the elevators.

Laughing, the doctor went down the corridor to the telephone booth, dropped a coin, dialed the poolroom.

“Gorwing there?”

“Speaking.”

“Tramble. All set.”

“Yeah, doc, I know. I know. Oh God, Doc, it’s so quiet in this town…”

THE LONGEST VOYAGE

Poul Anderson

When first we heard of the Sky Ship, we were on an island whose name, as nearly as Montalirian tongues can wrap themselves about so barbarous a noise, was Yarzik. That was almost a year after the Golden Leaper sailed from Lavre Town, and we judged we had come halfway round the world. So befouled was our poor caravel with weeds and shells that all sail could scarce drag her across the sea. What drinking water remained in the butts was turned green and evil, the biscuit was full of worms, and the first signs of scurvy had appeared on certain crewmen.

“Hazard or no,” decreed Captain Rovic, “we must land somewhere.” A gleam I remembered appeared in his eyes. He stroked his red beard and murmured, “Besides, it’s long since we asked for the Aureate Cities. Perhaps this time they’ll have intelligence of such a place.”

Steering by that ogre planet which climbed daily higher as we bore westward, we crossed such an emptiness that mutinous talk broke out afresh. In my heart I could not blame the crew. Imagine, my lords. Day upon day upon day where we saw naught but blue waters, white foam, high clouds in a tropic sky; heard only the wind, whoosh of waves, creak of timbers, sometimes at night the huge sucking and rushing as a sea monster breached. These were terrible enough to common sailors, unlettered men who still thought the world must be flat. But then to have Tambur hang forever above the bowsprit, and climb, so that all could see we must eventually pass directly beneath that brooding thing… and what upbore it? the crew mumbled in the forecastle. Would an angered God not let fall down on us?

So a deputation waited on Captain Rovic. Very timid and respectful they were, those rough burly men, as they asked him to turn about. But their comrades massed below, muscled sun-blackened bodies taut in the ragged kilts, with daggers and belaying pins ready to hand. We officers on the quarterdeck had swords and pistols, true. But we numbered a mere six, including that frightened boy who was myself, and aged Froad the astrologue, whose robe and white beard were reverend to see but of small use in a fight.

Rovic stood mute for a long while after the spokesman had voiced this demand. The stillness grew, until the empty shriek of wind in our shrouds, the empty glitter of ocean out to the world’s rim, became all there was. Most splendid our master looked, for he had donned scarlet hose and bell-tipped shoon when he knew the deputation was coming: as well as helmet and corselet polished to mirror brightness. The plumes blew around that blinding steel head and the diamonds on his fingers flashed against the rubies in his sword hilt.Yet when at last he spoke, it was not as a knight of the Queen’s court, but in the broad Anday of his fisher boyhood.

“So ‘tis back ye’d wend, lads? Wi’ a fair wind an‘ a warm sun, liefer ye’d come about an’ beat half round the globe? How ye’re changed from yere fathers! Ken ye nay the legend, that once all things did as man commanded, and ’twas an Andayman’s lazy fault that now men must work? For see ye, ‘twas nay too much that he told his ax to cut down a tree for him, an’ told the faggots to walk home, but when he told ‘em to carry him, then God was wroth an’ took the power away. Though to be sure, as recompense God gave all Andaymen sea-luck, dice-luck, an‘ love-luck. What more d’ye ask for, lads?”

Bewildered at this response, the spokesman wrung his hands, flushed, . looked at the deck, and stammered that we’d all perish miserably… starve, or thirst, or drown, or be crushed under that horrible moon, or sail off the world’s edge…the Golden Leaper had come farther, than ship had sailed since the Fall of Man, and if we returned at once, our fame would live forever—

“But can ye eat fame, Etien?” asked Rovic, still mild and smiling. “We’ve had fights an‘ storms, aye, an’ merry carouses too; but devil an Aureate City we’ve seen, though well ye ken they lie out here someplace, stuffed wi’ treasure for the first bold man who’ll come plunder ’em. ‘ What ails yere gutworks, lad? Is’t nay an easy cruise? What would the foreigners say? How will yon arrogant cavaliers o’ Sathayn, yon grubby chapmen o‘ Woodland, laugh—nay alone at us, but at all Montalir— did we turn back!”

Thus he jollied them. Only once did he touch his sword, half drawing it, as if absent-mindedly, when he recalled how we had weathered the hurricane off Xingu. But they remembered the mutiny that followed then, and how that same sword had pierced three armed sailors who attacked him together. His dialect told them he would let bygones lie forgotten: if they would. His bawdy promises of sport among lascivious heathen tribes yet to be discovered, his recital of treasure legends, his appeal to their pride as seamen and Montalirians, soothed fear. And then in the end, when he saw them malleable, he dropped the provincial speech. He stood forth on the quarterdeck with burning casque and tossing plumes, and the flag of Montalir blew its sea-faded colors above him, and he said as the knights of the Queen say:

“Now you know I do not propose to turn back until the great globe has been rounded and we bring to Her Majesty that gift which is most peculiarly ours to give. The which is not gold or slaves, nor even that lore of far places that she and her most excellent Company of Merchant Adventurers desire. No, what we shall lift in our hands to give her, on that day when again we lie by the long docks of Lavre, shall be our achievement: that we did this thing which no men have dared in all the world erenow, and did it to her glory.”

A while longer he stood, through a silence full of the sea’s noise. Then he said quietly, “Dismissed,” turned on his heel and went back into his cabin.

***

So we continued for some days more, the men subdued but not un-cheerful, the officers taking care to hide their doubts. I found myself busied, not so much with the clerical duties for which I was paid or the study of captaincy for which I was apprenticed—both these amounting to little by now—as with assisting Froad the astrologue. In these balmy airs he could carry on his work even on shipboard. To him it scarce mattered whether we sank or swam; he had lived more than a common span of years already. But the knowledge of the heavens to be gained here, that was something else. At night, standing on the fore-deck with quadrant, astrolabe, and telescope, drenched in the radiance from above, he resembled some frosty-bearded saint in the windows of Provien Minster.

“See there, Zhean.” His thin hand pointed above seas that glowed and rippled with light, past the purple sky and the few stars still daring to show themselves, toward Tambur. Huge it was in full phase at midnight, sprawling over seven degrees of sky, a shield or barry of soft vert and azure, splotched with angry sable that could be seen to move across its face. The firefly moon we had named Siett twinkled near the hazy edge of the giant. Balant, espied rarely and low on the horizon in our part of the world, here stood high: a crescent, but with the dark part of the disk tinged by luminous Tambur.

“Observe,” declared Froad, “there’s no doubt left, one can see how it rotates on an axis, and how storms boil up in its au Tambur is no longer the dimmest of frightened legends, nor a dreadful apparition seen to rise as we entered unknown waters; Tambur is real. A world like our own. Immensely bigger, certes, but still a spheroid in space: around which our own world moves, always turning the same hemisphere to her monarch. The conjectures of the ancients are triumphantly confirmed. Not merely that our world is round, pouf, that’s obvious to anyone… but that we move about a greater center, which in turn has ah annual path about the sun. But, then, how big is the sun?”

“Siett and Balant are inner satellites of Tambur,” I rehearsed, struggling for comprehension. “Vieng, Darou, and the other moons commonly seen at home, have paths outside our own world’s. Aye. But what holds it all up?”

“That I don’t know. Mayhap the crystal sphere containing the stars exerts an inward pressure. The same pressure, maybe, that hurled mankind down onto the earth, at the time of the Fall From Heaven.”

That night was warm, but I shivered, as if those had been winter stars. “Then,” I breathed, “there may also be men on… Siett, Balant, Vieng… even on Tambur?”

“Who knows? We’ll need many lifetimes to find out. And what lifetimes they’ll be! Thank the good God, Zhean, that you were born in this dawn of the coming age.”

Froad returned to making measurements. A dull business, the other officers thought; but by now I had learned enough of the mathematic arts to understand that from these endless tabulations might come the true size of the earth, of Tambur, sun and moons and stars, the path they took through space and the direction of Paradise. So the common sailors, who muttered and made signs against evil as they passed our instruments, were closer to fact than Rovic’s gentlemen: for indeed Froad practiced a most potent gramarye.

***

At length we saw weeds floating on the sea, birds, towering cloud masses, all the signs of land. Three days later we raised an island. It was an intense green under those calm skies. Surf, still more violent than in our hemisphere, flung against high cliffs, burst in a smother of foam and roared back down again. We coasted carefully, the palomers aloft to seek an approach, the gunners standing by our cannon with lighted matches. For not only were there unknown currents and shoals—familiar hazards—but we had had brushes with canoe-sailing cannibals in the past. Especially did we fear the eclipses. My lords can visualize how in that hemisphere the sun each day must go behind Tambur. In that longitude the occurrence was about midafternoon and lasted nearly ten minutes. An awesome sight: the primary planet—for so Froad now called it, a planet akin to Diell or Goint, with our own world humbled to a mere satellite thereof!—become a black disk encircled with red, up in a sky suddenly full of stars. A cold wind blew across the sea, and even the breakers seemed hushed. Yet so impudent is the soul of man that we continued about our duties, stopping only for the briefest prayer as the sun disappeared, thinking more about the chance of shipwreck in the gloom than of God’s Majesty.

So bright is Tambur that we continued to work our way around the island at night. From sunup to sunup, twelve mortal hours, we kept the Golden Leaper slowly moving. Toward the second noon, Captain Rovic’s persistence was rewarded. An opening in the cliffs revealed a long fjord. Swampy shores overgrown with saltwater trees told us that while the tides rose high in that bay, it was not one of those roosts so dreaded by mariners. The wind being against us, we furled sail and lowered the boats, towing in our caravel by the power of oars. This was a vulnerable moment, especially since we had perceived a village within the fjord. “Should we not stand out, master, and let them come first to us?” I ventured.

Rovic spat over the rail. “I’ve found it best never to show doubt,” said he. “If a canoe fleet should assail us, we’ll give ‘em a whiff of grape-shot and trust to break their nerve. But I think, thus showing ourselves fearless of them from the very first, we’re less likely to meet treacherous ambuscade later.”

He proved right.

In the course of time, we learned we had come upon the eastern end of a large archipelago. The inhabitants were mighty seafarers, considering that they had only outrigger dugouts to travel in. These, however, were often a hundred feet long. With forty paddles, or with three bast-sailed masts, such a vessel could almost match our best speed, and was more maneuverable. However, the small cargo space limited their range of travel.

Though they lived in houses of wood and thatch, possessing only stone tools, the natives were cultivated folk. They farmed as well as fished; their priests had an alphabet. Tall and vigorous, somewhat darker and less hairy than we, they were impressive to behold: whether nude as was common, or in full panoply of cloth and feathers and shell ornaments. They had formed a loose empire throughout the archipelago, raided islands lying farther north and carried on a brisk trade within their own borders. Their whole nation they called the Hisagazi, and the island on which we had chanced was Yarzik.

This we learned slowly, as we mastered somewhat their tongue. For we were several weeks at that town. The duke of the island, Guzan, made us welcome, supplying us with food, shelter, and helpers as we required. For our part, we pleased them with glassware, bolts of Wondish cloth, and suchlike trade goods. Nonetheless we encountered many difficulties. The shore above high-water mark being too swampy for beaching a vessel as heavy as ours, we must build a drydock before we could careen. Numerous of us took a flux from some disease, though all recovered in time, and this slowed us further.

“Yet I think our troubles will prove a blessing,” Rovic told me one night. As had become his habit, once he learned I was a discreet amanuensis, he confided certain thoughts in me. The captain is ever a lonely man; and Rovic, fisher lad, freebooter, self-taught navigator, victor over the Grand fleet of Sathayn and ennobled by the Queen herself, must have found the keeping of that necessary aloofness harder than would a gentleman born.

I waited silent, there in the grass hut they had given him. A soap-stone lamp threw wavering light and enormous shadows over us; something rustled the thatch. Outside, the damp ground sloped past houses on stilts and murmurous fronded trees, to the fjord where it shimmered under Tambur. Faintly I heard drums throb, a chant and stamping of feet around some sacrificial fire. Indeed the cool hills of Montalir seemed far.

Rovic leaned back his muscular form, y-clad a mere seaman’s kilt in this heat. He had had them fetch him a civilized chair from the ship. “For see you, young fellow,” he continued, “at other times we’d have established just enough communication to ask about gold. Well, we might also try to get a few sailing directions. But all in all, we’d hear little except the old story—‘aye, foreign lord, indeed there’s a kingdom where the very streets are paved with gold… a hundred miles west’— anything to get rid of us, eh? But in this prolonged stay, I’ve asked out the duke and the idolater priests more subtly. I’ve been so coy about whence we came and what we already know, that they’ve let slip a gobbet of knowledge they’d not otherwise have disgorged on the rack itself.”

“The Aureate Cities?” I cried.

“Hush! i I’d not have the crew get excited and out of hand. Not yet.”

His leathery, hooknosed face turned strange with thought. “I’ve always believed those cities an old wives’ tale,” he said. My shock must have been mirrored to his gaze, for he grinned and went on, “A useful one. Like a lodestone on a stick, it’s dragging us around the world.” His mirth faded. Again he got that look, which was not unlike the look of Froad considering the heavens. “Aye, of course I want gold, too.

But if we find none on this voyage, I’ll not care. I’ll just capture a few ships of Eralia or Sathayn when we’re back in home waters, and pay for the voyage thus. I spoke God’s truth that day on the quarterdeck, Zhean, that this journey was its own goal; until I can give it to Queen Odela, who once gave me the kiss of ennoblement.“

He shook himself out of his reverie and said in a brisk tone: “Having led him to believe I already knew the most of it, I teased from Duke Guzan the admission that on the main island of this Hisagazi empire is something I scarce dare think about. A ship of the gods, he says, and an actual live god who came from the stars therein. Any of the natives will tell you this much. The secret reserved to the noble folk is that this is no legend or mummery, but sober fact. Or so Guzan claims. I know not what to think. But… he took me to a holy cave and showed me an object from that ship. It was some kind of clockwork mechanism, I believe. What, I know not. But of a shining silvery metal such as I’ve never seen before. The priest challenged me to break it. The metal was not heavy; must have been thin. But it blunted my sword, splintered a rock I pounded with, and my diamond ring would not scratch it.”

I made signs against evil. A chill went along me, spine and skin and scalp, until I prickled all over. For the drums were muttering in a jungle dark, and the waters lay like quicksilver beneath gibbous Tambur, and each afternoon that planet ate the sun. Oh, for the bells of Provien, across windswept Anday downs!

***

When the Golden Leaper was seaworthy again, Rovic had no trouble gaining permission to visit the Hisagazian emperor on the main island. He would, indeed, have found difficulty in not doing so. By now the canoes had borne word of us from one end of the realm to another, and the great lords were all agog to see these blue-eyed strangers. Sleek and content once more, we disentangled ourselves from the arms of tawny wenches and embarked. Up anchor, up sail, with chanties whose echoes sent sea birds whirling above the steeps, and we stood out to sea. This time we were escorted. Guzan himself was our pilot, a big middle-aged man whose handsomeness was not much injured by the livid green tattoos his folk affected on face and body. Several of his sons spread their pallets on our decks, while a swarm of warriors paddled alongside.

Rovic summoned Etien the boatswain to him in his cabin. “You’re a man of some wit,” he said. “I give you charge of keeping our crew alert, weapons ready, however peaceful this may look.”

“Why, master!” The scarred brown face sagged with near dismay. “Think you the natives plot a treachery?”

“Who can tell?” said Rovic. “Now, say naught to the crew. They’ve no skill in dissembling. Did greed or fear rise among ‘em, the natives would sense as much, and grow uneasy—which would worsen the attitude of our own men, until none but God’s Daughter could tell what’d happen. Only see to it, as casually as you’re able, that our arms are ever close by and that our folk stay together.”

Etien collected himself, bowed, and left the cabin. I made bold to ask what Rovic had in mind.

“Nothing, yet,” said he. “However, I did hold in these fists a piece of clockwork such as the Grand Ban of Giair never imagined; and yarns were spun me of a Ship which flew down from heaven, bearing a god or a prophet. Guzan thinks I know more than I do, and hopes we’ll be a new, disturbing element in the balance of things, by which he may further his own ambitions. He did not take all those fighting men along by accident. As for me… I intend to learn more about this.”

He sat a while at his table, staring at a sunbeam which sickled up and down the wainscot as the ship rocked. Finally: “Scripture tells us man dwelt beyond the stars before the Fall. The astrologues of the past generation or two have told us the planets are corporeal bodies like this earth. A traveler from Paradise—”

I left with my head in a roar.

We made an easy passage among scores of islands. After several days we raised the main one, Ulas-Erkila. It is about a hundred miles long, forty miles across at the widest, rising steep and green toward central mountains dominated by a volcanic cone. The Hisagazi worship two sorts of gods, watery and fiery, and believe this Mount Ulas houses the latter. When I saw that snowpeak afloat in the sky above emerald ridges, staining the blue with smoke, I could feel what the pagans did. The holiest act a man can perform among them is to cast himself into the burning crater of Ulas, and many an aged warrior is carried up the mountain that he may do so. Women are not allowed on the slopes.

Nikum, the royal seat, is situated at the head of a fjord like the village where we had been staying. But Nikum is rich and extensive, being about the size of Roann. Many houses are made from timber rather than thatch; there is also a massive basalt temple atop a cliff, overlooking the city, with orchards, jungle, and mountains at its back. So great are the tree trunks available to them for pilings, the Hisagazi have built here a regular set of docks like those at Lavre—instead of moorings and floats that can rise or fall with the tides, such as most harbors throughout the world are content with. We were offered a berth of honor at the central wharf, but Rovic made the excuse that our ship was awkward to handle and got us tied at the far end.

“In the middle, we’d have the watchtower straight above us,” he muttered to me. “And they may not have discovered the bow here, but their javelin throwers are good. Also, we’d have an easy approach to our ship, plus a clutter o£ moored canoes between us and the bay mouth. Here, though, a few of us could hold the pier whilst the others ready for quick departure.”

“But have we anything to fear, master?” I asked.

He gnawed his mustache. “I know not. Much depends on what they really believe about this god-ship of theirs… as well as what the truth is. But come all death and hell against us, we’ll not return without that truth for Queen Odela.”

***

Drums rolled and feathered spearmen leaped as our officers disembarked. A royal catwalk had been erected above high-water level. (Common townsfolk in this realm swim from house to house when the tide laps their thresholds, or take a coracle if they have burdens to carry.) Across the graceful span of vines and canes lay the palace, which was a long building made from logs, the roof pillars carved into fantastic god-shapes.

Iskilip, Priest-Emperor of the Hisagazi, was an old and corpulent man. A soaring headdress of plumes, a feather robe, a wooden scepter topped with a human skull, his own facial tattoos, his motionlessness, all made him seem unhuman. He sat on a dais, under sweet-smelling torches. His sons sat crosslegged at his feet, his courtiers on either side. Down the long walls were ranged his guardsmen. They had not our custom of standing to attention; but they were big supple young men, with shields and corselets of scaly seamonster leather, with flint axes and obsidian spears that could kill as easily as iron. Their heads were shaven, which made them look the fiercer.

Iskilip greeted us well, called for refreshment, bade us be seated on a bench not much lower than his dais. He asked many perceptive questions. Wide-ranging, the Hisagazi knew of islands far beyond their own chain. They could even point the direction and tell us roughly the distance of a many-castled country they named Yurakadak, though one of them had traveled that far himself. Judging by their third-hand description, what could this be but Giair, which the Wondish adventurer Hanas Tolasson had reached overland? It blazed in me that we were indeed rounding the world. Only after that glory had faded a little did I again heed the talk.

“As I told Guzan,” Rovic was saying, “another thing which drew us hither was the tale that you were blessed with a Ship from heaven. And he showed me this was true.”

A hissing went down the hall. The princes grew stiff, the courtiers blanked their countenances, even the guardsmen stirred and muttered. Remotely through the walls I heard the rumbling, nearing tide. When Iskilip spoke, through the mask of himself, his voice had gone whetted: “Have you forgotten that these things are not for the uninitiate to see, Guzan?”

“No, Holy One,” said the duke. Sweat sprang forth among the devils on his face, but it was not the sweat of fear. “However, this captain knew. His people also… as nearly as I could learn… he still has trouble speaking so I can understand… his people are initiate too. The claim seems reasonable, Holy One. Look at the marvels they brought. The hard, shining stone-which-is-not-stone, as in this long knife I was given, is that not like the stuff of which the Ship is built? The tubes which make distant things look close at hand, such as he has given you, Holy One, is this not akin to the far-seer the Messenger possesses?”

Iskilip leaned forward, toward Rovic. His scepter hand trembled so much that the pegged jaws of the skull clattered together. “Did the Star People themselves teach you to make all this?” he cried. “I never imagined… The Messenger never spoke of any others—”

Rovic held up both palms. “Not so fast, Holy One, I pray you,” said he. ‘We are poorly versed in your tongue. I couldn’t recognize a word just now.”

This was his deceit. All his officers had been ordered to feign a knowledge of Hisagazi less than they really possessed. (We had improved our command of it by secret practicing with each other.) Thus he had an unimpeachable device for equivocation.

“Best we talk of this in private, Holy One,” suggested Guzan, with a glance at the courtiers. They returned him a jealous glare.

Iskilip slouched in his gorgeous regalia. His words fell blunt enough, but in the weak tone of an old, uncertain man. “I know not. If these strangers are already initiate, certes we can show them what we have. But otherwise—if profane ears heard the Messenger’s own tale—”

***

Guzan raised a dominator’s hand. Bold and ambitious, long thwarted in his petty province, he had taken fire this day. “Holy One,” he said, “why has the full story been withheld all these years? In part to keep the commoners obedient, aye. But also, did you and your councillors not fear that all the world might swarm hither, greedy for knowledge, if it knew, and we should then be overwhelmed? Well, if we let the blue-eyed men go home with curiosity unsatisfied, I think they are sure to return in strength. So we have naught to lose by revealing the truth to them. If they have never had a Messenger of their own, if they can be of no real use to us, time enough to kill them. But if they have indeed been visited like us, what might we and they not do together!”

This was spoken fast and softly, so that we Montalirians should not understand. And indeed our gentlemen failed to do so. I, having young ears, got the gist; and Rovic preserved such a fatuous smile of incomprehension that I knew he was seizing every word.

So in the end they decided to take our leader—and my insignificant self, for no Hisagazian magnate goes anywhere quite unattended—up to the temple. Iskilip led the way in person, with Guzan and two brawny princes behind. A dozen spearmen brought up the rear. I thought Rovic’s blade would be scant use if trouble came, but set my lips firmly together and made myself walk behind him. He looked as eager as a child on Thanksday Morning, teeth agleam in the pointed beard, a plumed bonnet slanted rakish over his brow. None would have thought him aware of any peril.

We left about sundown; in Tambur’s hemisphere, folk make less distinction between day and night than our people must. Having observed Siett and Balant in high tide position, I was not surprised that Nikum lay nearly drowned. And yet, as we wound up the cliff trail toward the temple, methought I had never seen a view more alien.

Below us lay a sheet of water, on which the long grass roofs of the city appeared to float; the crowded docks, where our own ship’s masts and spars raked above heathen figureheads; the fjord, winding between precipices toward its mouth, where the surf broke white and terrible on the skerries. The heights above us seemed altogether black, against a fire-colored sunset that filled nigh half the sky and bloodied the waters. Wan through those clouds I glimpsed the thick crescent of Tambur, banded in a heraldry no man could read. A basalt column chipped into the shape of a head loomed in outline athwart the planet. Right and left of the path grew sawtoothed grasses, summer-dry. The sky was pale at the zenith, dark purple in the east, where the first few stars had appeared. Tonight I found no comfort in the stars. We all walked silent. The bare native feet made no noise. My own shoes went pad-pad and the bells on Rovic’s toes raised a tiny jingle.

The temple was a bold piece of work. Within a quadrangle of basalt walls guarded by tall stone heads lay several buildings of the same material. Only the fresh-cut fronds that roofed them were alive. With Iskilip to lead us, we brushed past acolytes and priests to a wooden cabin behind the sanctum. Two guardsmen stood watch at its door, but they knelt for Iskilip. The emperor rapped with his curious scepter. :

My mouth was dry and my heart thunderous. I expected almost any being hideous or radiant to stand in the doorway as it was opened. Astonishing, then, to see just a man, and of no great stature. By lamplight within I discerned his room, clean, austere, but not uncomfortable; this could have been any Hisagazian dwelling. He himself wore a simple bast skirt. The legs beneath were bent and thin, old man’s shanks. His body was also thin, but still erect, the white head proudly carried. In complexion he was darker than a Montalirian, lighter than a Hisagazian, with brown eyes and thin beard. His visage differed subtly, in nose and lips and slope of jaw, from any other race I had ever encountered. But he was human.

Naught else.

***

We entered the cabin, shutting out the spearmen. Iskilip doddered through a half-religious ceremony of introduction. I saw Guzan and the princes shift their stance, restless and unawed. Their class had long been party to this. Rovic’s face was unreadable. He bowed with full courtliness to Val Nira, Messenger of Heaven, and explained our presence in a few words. But as he spoke, their eyes met and I saw him take the star man’s measure.

“Aye, this is my home,” said Val Nira. Habit spoke for him; he had given this account to so many young nobles that the edges were worn off it. As yet he had not observed our metallic instruments, or else had not grasped their significance to him. “For… forty-three years, is that right, Iskilip? I have been treated as well as might be. If at times I was near screaming from loneliness, that is what an oracle must expect.”

The emperor stirred, uneasy in his robe. “His demon left him,” he explained. “Now he is simple human flesh. That’s the real secret we keep. It was not ever thus. I remember when he first came. He prophesied immense things, and all the people wailed and went on their faces. But sithence his demon has gone back to the stars, and the once potent weapon he bore has equally been emptied of its force. The people would not believe this, however, so we still pretend otherwise, or there would be unrest among them.”

“Affecting your own privileges,” said Val Nira. His tone was tired and ardonic. “Iskilip was young then,” he added to Rovic, “and the imperial succession was in doubt. I gave him my influence. He promised in return to do certain things for me.”

“I tried, Messenger,” said the monarch. “Ask all the sunken canoes and drowned men if I did not try. But the will of the gods was otherwise.”

“Evidently.” Val Nira shrugged. “These islands have few ores, Captain Rovic, and no person capable of recognizing those I required. It’s too far to the mainland for Hisagazian canoes. But I don’t deny you tried, Iskilip… then.” He cocked an eyebrow back at us. “This is the first time foreigners have been taken so deeply into the imperial confidence, my friends. Are you certain you can get back out again, alive?”

“Why, why, why, they’re our guests!” blustered Iskilip and Guzan, almost in each other’s mouths.

“Besides,” smiled Rovic, “I had most of the secret already. My own country has secrets of its own, to set against this. Yes, I think we might well do business, Holy One.”

The emperor trembled. His voice cracked across. “Have you indeed a Messenger too?”

“What?" For a numbed moment Val Nira stared at us. Red and white pursued each other across his countenance. Then he sat down on the bench and began to weep.

‘Well, not precisely.“ Rovic laid a hand on the shaking shoulder, ”I confess no heavenly vessel had docked at Montalir. But we’ve certain other secrets, belike equally valuable.“ Only I, who knew his moods somewhat, could sense the tauntness in him. He locked eyes with Guzan and stared the duke down as a wild animal tamer does. And all the while, motherly gentle, he spoke with Val Nira. ”I take it, friend, your Ship was wrecked on these shores, but could be repaired if you had certain materials?“

“Yes… yes… listen—” Stammering and gulping at the thought he might see his home again ere he died, Val Nira tried to explain.

***

The doctrinal implications of what he said are so astounding, even dangerous, that I feel sure my lords would not wish me to repeat much. However, I do not believe they are false. If the stars are indeed suns like our own, each attended by planets like our own, this demolishes the crystal-sphere theory. But Froad, when he was told later, did not think that mattered to the true religion. Scripture has never said in so many words that Paradise lies directly above the birthplace of God’s Daughter; this was merely assumed, during those centuries when the earth was believed to be flat. Why should Paradise not be those planets of other suns, where men dwell in magnificence, men who possess all the ancient arts and flit from star to star as casually as we might go from Lavre to West Alayn?

Val Nira believed our ancestors had been cast away on this world, several thousand years ago. They must have been fleeing the consequences of some crime or heresy, to come so far from any human do-main. Somehow their ship was wrecked, the survivors went back to savagery, only by degrees have their descendants regained a little knowledge. I cannot see where this explanation contradicts the dogma of the Fall. Rather, it amplifies it. The Fall was not the portion of all mankind, but only of a few—our own tainted blood—while the others continued to dwell prosperous and content in the heavens.

Even today, our world lies far off the trade lanes of the Paradise folk. Very few of them nowadays have any interest in seeking new worlds. Val Nira, though, was such a one. He traveled at hazard for months until he chanced upon our earth. Then the curse seized him, too. Something went wrong. He descended upon Ulas-Erkila, and the Ship would fly no more.

“I know what the damage is,” he said ardently. “I’ve not forgotten. How could I? No day has passed in all these years that I didn’t recite to myself what must be done. A certain subtle engine in the Ship requires quicksilver.” (He and Rovic must spend some time talking ere they deduced this must be what he meant by the word he used.) “When the engine failed, I landed so hard that its tanks burst. All the quicksilver, what I had in reserve as well as what I was employing, poured forth. So much, in that hot enclosed space, would have poisoned me. I fled outside, forgetting to close the doorway. The deck being canted, the quicksilver ran after me. By the time I had recovered from blind panic, a tropical rainstorm had carried off all the fluid metal. A series of unlikely accidents, yes, that’s what’s condemned me to a life’s exile. It really would have made more sense to perish outright!”

He clutched Rovic’s hand, staring up from his seat at the captain who stood over him. “Can you actually get quicksilver?” he begged. “I need no more than the volume of a man’s head. Only that, and a few repairs easily made with tools in the Ship. When this cult grew up around me, I must needs release certain things I possessed, that each provincial temple might have a relic. But I took care never to give away anything important. Whatever I need is all there. A gallon of quicksilver and— Oh, God, my wife may even be alive, on Terra!”

***

Guzan, at least, had begun to understand the situation. He gestured to the princes, who hefted their axes and stepped a little closer. The door was shut on the guard escort, but a shout would bring their spears into this cabin. Rovic looked from Val Nira to Guzan, whose face was grown ugly with tension. My captain laid hand on hilt. In no other way did he seem to feel any nearness of trouble.

“I take it, milord,” he said lightly, “you’re willing that the Heaven Ship be made to fly again.”

Guzan was jarred. He had never expected this. “Why, of course,” he exclaimed. “Why not?”

“Your tame god would depart you. What then becomes of your power in Hisagazia?”

“I… I’d not thought of that,” Iskilip stuttered.

Val Nira’s eyes shuttled among us, as if watching a game of paddle-ball. His thin body shook. “No,” he whimpered. “You can’t. You can’t keep me!”

Guzan nodded. “In a few more years,” he said, not unkindly, “you would depart in death’s canoe anyhow. If meanwhile we held you against your will, you might not speak the right oracles for us. Nay, be at ease; we’ll get your flowing stone.” With a slitted glance at Rovic: “Who shall fetch it?”

“My own folk,” said the knight. “Our ship can readily reach Giair, where there are civilized nations who surely have the quicksilver. We could return within a year, I think.”

“Accompanied by a fleet of adventurers, to help you seize the sacred vessel?” asked Guzan bluntly. “Or… once out of our islands… you might not proceed to Yurakadak at all. You might continue the whole way home, and tell your Queen, and return with all the power she commands.”

Rovic lounged against a roof post, like a big pouncecat at its ease in ruffles and hose and scarlet cape. His right hand continued to rest on his sword pommel. “Only Val Nira could make that Ship go, I suppose,” he drawled. “Does it matter who aids him in making repairs? Surely you don’t think either of our nations could conquer Paradise!”

“The Ship is very easy to operate,” chattered Val Nira. “Anyone can fly it in air. I showed many nobles what levers to use. It’s navigating among the stars which is more difficult. No nation on this world could even reach my people unaided—let alone fight them—but why should you think of fighting? I’ve told you a thousand times, Iskilip, the dwellers in the Milky Way are dangerous to none, helpful to all. They have so much wealth they’re hard put to find a use for most of it. Gladly would they spend large amounts to help all the peoples on this world become civilized again.” With an anxious, half hysterical look at Rovic: “Fully civilized, I mean. We’ll teach you our arts. We’ll give you engines, automata, homunculi, that do all the toilsome work; and boats that fly through the air; and regular passenger service on those ships that ply between the stars—”

“These things you have promised for forty years,” said Iskilip. “We’ve only your word.”

“And, finally, a chance to confirm his word,” I blurted.

Guzan said with calculated grimness: “Matters are not that simple, Holy One. I’ve watched these men from across the ocean for weeks, while they lived on Yarzik. Even on their best behavior, they’re a fierce and greedy lot. I trust them no further than my eyes reach. This very night I see how they’ve befooled us. They know our language better than they ever admitted. And they misled us to believe they might have some inkling of a Messenger. If the Ship were indeed made to fly again, with them in possession, who knows what they might choose to do?”

Rovic’s tone softened still further, “What do you propose, Guzan?”

“We can discuss that another time.”

I saw knuckles tighten around stone axes. For a moment, only Val Nira’s unsteady breathing was heard. Guzan stood heavy in the lamplight, rubbing his chin, the small black eyes turned downward in thoughtfulness. At last he shook himself. “Perhaps,” he said crisply, “a crew mainly Hisagazian could sail your ship, Rovic, and fetch the flowing stone. A few of your men could go along to instruct ours. The rest could remain here as hostages.”

My captain made no reply. Val Nira groaned, “You don’t understand! You’re squabbling over nothing! When my people come here, there’ll be no more war, no more oppression, they’ll cure you of all such diseases. They’ll show friendship to all and favor to none. I beg you—”

“Enough,” said Iskilip. His own words fell ragged. “We shall sleep on all this. If anyone can sleep after so much strangeness.”

Rovic looked past the emperor’s plumes, into the face of Guzan. “Before we decide anything—” His fingers tightened on the sword hilt till the nails turned white. Some thought had sprung up within him. But he kept his tone even. “First I want to see that Ship. Can we go there tomorrow?”

Iskilip was the Holy One, but he stood huddled in his feather robe. Quzan nodded agreement.

***

We bade our goodnights and went forth under Tambur. The planet was waxing toward full, flooding the courtyard with cold luminance, but the hut was shadowed by the temple. It remained a black outline, with a narrow lamplight rectangle of doorway in the middle. There was etched the frail body of Val Nira, who had come from the stars. He watched us till we had gone out of sight.

On the way down the path, Guzan and Rovic bargained in curt words. The Ship lay two days’ march inland, on the slopes of Mount Ulas. We would go in a joint party to inspect it, but a mere dozen Montalirians were to be allowed. Afterward we would debate our course of action.

Lanthorns glowed yellow at our caravel’s poop. Refusing Isldlip’s hospitality, Rovic and I returned thither for the night. A pikeman on guard at the gangway inquired what I had learned. “Ask me tomorrow,” I said feebly. “My head’s in too much of a whirl.”

“Come into my cabin, lad, for a stoup ere we retire,” the captain invited me.

God knows I needed wine. We entered the low little room, crowded with nautical instruments, with books, and with printed charts that looked quaint to me now I had seen a little of those spaces where the cartographer drew mermaids and windsprites. Rovic sat down behind his table, gestured me to a chair opposite, and poured from a carafe into two goblets of Quaynish crystal. Then I knew he had momentous thoughts in his head—far more than the problem of saving our lives.

We sipped a while, unspeaking. I heard the lap-lap of wavelets on our hull, the tramp of men on watch, the rustle of distant surf: otherwise nothing. At last Rovic leaned back, staring at the ruby wine on the table. I could not read his expression.

“Well, lad,” said he, “what do you think?”

“I know not what to think, master.”

“You and Froad are a little prepared for this idea that the stars are other suns. You’re educated. As for me, I’ve seen so much eldritch in my day that this seems quite believable. The rest of our people, though—”

“An irony that barbarians like Guzan should long have been familiar with the concept—having had the old man from the sky to preach it privily to their class for more than forty years— Is he indeed a prophet, master?”

“He denies it. He plays prophet because he must, but it’s evident all the dukes and earls of this realm know it’s a trick. Iskilip is senile, more than half converted to his own artificial creed. He was mumbling about prophecies Val Nira made long ago, true prophecies. Bah! Tricks of memory and wishfulness. Val Nira is as human and fallible as I am. We Montalirians are the same flesh as these Hisagazi, even if we have learned the use of metal before they did. Val Nira’s people know more in turn than us; but they’re still mortals, by Heaven. I must remember that they are.”

“Guzan remembers.”

“Bravo, lad!” Rovic’s mouth bent upward, one-sidedly. “He’s a clever one, and bold. When he came, he saw his chance to stop stagnating as the petty lord of an outlying island. He’ll not let that chance slip without a fight. Like many a double-dealer before him, he accuses us of plotting the very things he hopes to do.”

“But what does he hope for?”

“My guess would be, he wants the Ship for himself. Val Nira said it was easy to fly. Navigation between the stars would be too difficult for anyone save him; nor could any man in his right mind hope to play pirate along the Milky Way. However… if the Ship stayed right here, on this earth, rising no higher than a mile above ground… the warlord who used it might conquer more widely than Lame Darveth himself.”

I was aghast. “Do you mean Guzan would not even try to seek out Paradise?”

Rovic scowled so blackly at his wine that I saw he wanted aloneness. I stole off to my bunk in the poop.

The captain was up before dawn, readying our folk. Plainly he had reached some decision, and it was not pleasant. But once he set a course, he seldom left it. He was long in conference with Etien, who came out of the cabin looking frightened. As if to reassure himself, the boatswain ordered the men about all the more harshly.

Our allowed dozen were to be Rovic, Froad, myself, Etien, and eight crewmen. All were supplied with helmets and corselets, muskets and edged weapons. Since Guzan had told us there was a beaten path to the Ship, we assembled a supply cart on the dock. Etien supervised its lading. I was astonished to see that nearly all it carried, till the axles groaned, was barrels of gunpowder. “But we’re not taking cannon!” I protested.

“Skipper’s orders,” rapped Etien. He turned his back on me. After a glance at Rovic’s face, no one ventured to ask him the reason. I remembered we would be going up a mountainside. A wagonful of powder, with lit fuse, set rolling down toward a hostile army, might win a battle. But did Rovic anticipate open conflict so soon?

Ciertes his orders to the men and officers remaining behind suggested as much. They were to stay aboard the Golden Leaper, holding her ready for instant fight or flight.

As the sun rose, we said our morning prayers to God’s Daughter and marched down the docks. The wood banged hollow under our boots. A few thin mists drifted on the bay; Tambur’s crescent hung wan above. Nikum Town was hushed as we passed through.

Guzan met us at the temple. A son of Iskilip was supposedly in charge, but the duke ignored that youth as much as we did. They had a hundred guardsmen with them, scaly-coated, shaven-headed, tattooed with storms and dragons. The early sunlight gleamed off obsidian spearheads. Our approach was watched in silence. But when we drew up before those disorderly ranks, Guzan trod forth. He was also y-clad in leather, and carried the sword Rovic had given him on Yarzik. The dew shimmered on his feather cloak. ‘What have you in that wagon?“ he demanded.

“Supplies,” Rovic answered.

“For four days?”

“Send home all but ten of your men,” said Rovic coolly, “and I’ll send back this cart.”

Their eyes clashed, until Guzan turned and gave his orders. We started off, a few Montalirians surrounded by pagan warriors. The jungle lay ahead of us, a deep and burning green, rising halfway up the slope of Ulas. Then the mountain became naked black, up to the snow that edged its smoking crater.

Val Nira walked between Rovic and Guzan. Strange, I thought, that the instrument of God’s will for us was so shriveled. He ought to have walked tall and haughty, with a star on his brow.

During the day, at night when we made camp, and again the next day, Rovic and Froad questioned him eagerly about his home. Of course, all their talk was in fragments. Nor did I hear everything, since I must take my turn at pulling our wagon along that narrow, upward, damnable trail. The Hisagazi have no draft animals, therefore they make very little use of the wheel and have no proper roads. But what I did hear kept me long awake.

***

Ah, greater marvels than the poets have imagined for Elf Land! Entire cities built in a single tower half a mile high. The sky made to glow so that there is no true darkness after sunset. Food not grown in the earth, but manufactured in alchemical laboratories. The lowest peasant owning a score of machines which serve him more subtly and humbly than might a thousand slaves—owning an aerial carriage which can fly him around his world in less than a day—owning a crystal window on which theatrical images appear, to beguile his abundant leisure. Argosies between suns, stuffed with the wealth of a thousand planets; yet every ship unarmed and unescorted, for there are no pirates and this realm has long ago come to such good terms with the other star-faring nations that war has also ceased. (These other countries, it seems, are more akin to the supernatural than Val Nira’s, in that the races composing them are not human, though able to speak and reason.) In this happy land there is little crime. When it does occur, the criminal is soon captured by the arts of the provost corps; yet he is not hanged, nor even transported overseas. Instead, his mind is cured of the wish to violate any law. He returns home to live as an especially honored citizen, since all know he is now completely trustworthy. As for the government—but here I lost the thread of discourse. I believe it is in form a republic, but in practice a devoted fellowship of men, chosen by examination, who see to the welfare of everyone else.

Surely, I thought, this was Paradise!

Our sailors listened with mouths agape. Rovic’s mien was reserved, but he gnawed his mustaches incessantly. Guzan, to whom this was an old tale, grew rough of manner. Plain to see, he disliked our intimacy with Val Nira, and the ease wherewith we grasped ideas that were spoken.

But then, we came of a nation which has long encouraged natural philosophy and improvement of all mechanic arts. I myself, in my short lifetime, had witnessed the replacement of the waterwheel in regions where there are few streams, by the modern form of windmill. The pendulum clock was invented the year before I was born. I had read many romances about the flying machines which no few men have tried to devise. Living at such a dizzy pace of progress, we Montalirians were well prepared to entertain still vaster concepts.

At night, sitting up with Froad and Etien around a campfire, I spoke somewhat of this to the savant. “Ah,” he crooned, “today Truth stood unveiled before me. Did you hear what the starman said? The three laws of planetary motion about a sun, and the one great law of attraction which explains them? Dear saints, that law can be put in a single short sentence, and yet the development will keep mathematicians busy for three hundred years!”

He stared past the flames, and the other fires around which the heathen men slept, and the jungle gloom, and the angry volcanic glow in heaven. I started to query him. “Leave be, lad,” grunted Etien. “Can ye nay tell when a man’s in love?”

I shifted my position, a little closer to the boatswain’s stolid, comforting bulk. “What do you think of all this?” I asked, softly, for the jungle whispered and croaked on every side.

“Me, I stopped thinking a while back,” he said. “After yon day on the quarterdeck, when the skipper jested us into sailing with him though we went off the world’s edge an’ tumbled down in foam amongst the nether stars… well, I’m but a poor sailor man, an‘ my one chance o’ regaining home is to follow the skipper.”

“Even beyond the sky?”

“Less hazard to that, maybe, than sailing on around the world. The little man swore his vessel was safe, an‘ that there’re no storms between the suns.”

“Can you trust his word?”

“Oh, aye. Even a knocked-about old palomer like me has seen enough o‘ men to ken when a one’s too timid an’ eagersome to stand by a lie. I fear not the folk in Paradise, nor does the skipper. Except in some way—” Etien rubbed his bearded jaw, scowling. “In some way I can nay wholly grasp, they affright Rovic. He fears nay they’ll come hither with ‘ torch an’ sword; but there’s somewhat else about ‘em that frets him.”

I felt the ground shudder, ever so faintly. Ulas had cleared his throat. “It does seem we’d be daring God’s anger—”

“That’s nay what gnaws on the skipper’s mind. He was never an over-pious man.” Etien scratched himself, yawned, and climbed to his feet. “Glad I am to be nay the skipper. Let him think over what’s best to do. Time ye an‘ me was asleep.”

***

But I slept little that night.

Rovic, I think, rested well. Yet as the next day wore on, I could see haggardness on him. I wondered why. Did he think the Hisagazd would turn on us? If so, why had he come at all? As the slope steepened, the wagon drew so toilsome to push and drag that my fears died for lack of breath.

Yet when we came upon the Ship, toward evening, I forgot my weariness. And after one amazed volley of oaths, our mariners rested silent on their pikes. The Hisagazi, never talkative, crouched low in token of awe. Only Guzan remained erect among them. I glimpsed his expression as he stared at the marvel. It was a look of lust.

Wild was that place. We had gone above timberline, so the land was a green sea below us, edged with silvery ocean. Here we stood among tumbled black boulders, with cinders and spongy tufa underfoot. The mountain rose in steeps and scarps and ravines, up to the snows and the smoke, which rose another mile into a pale chilly sky. And here stood the Ship.

And the Ship was beauty.

I remember. In length—height, rather, since it stood on its tail—it was about equal to our own caravel, in form not unlike a lance head, in color a shining white untarnished after forty years. That was all. But words are paltry, my lord. What can they show of clean soaring curves, of iridescence on burnished metal, of a thing which was proud and lovely and in its very shape aquiver to be off? How can I conjure back the glamor which hazed that Ship whose keel had cloven starlight?

We stood there a long time. My vision blurred. I wiped my eyes, angry to be seen so affected, until I noticed one tear glisten in Rovic’s red beard. But the captain’s visage was quite blank. When he spoke, he said merely, in a flat voice, “Come, let’s make camp.”

The Hisagazian guardsmen dared approach no closer than these several hundred yards, to so potent an idol as the Ship had become. Our own mariners were glad enough to maintain the same distance. But after dark, when all else was in order, Val Nira led Rovic, Froad, Guzan, and myself to the vessel.

As we approached, a double door in the side swung noiselessly open and a metal gangplank descended therefrom. Glowing in Tambur’s light, and in the dull clotted red reflected off the smoke clouds, the Ship was already as strange as I could endure. When it thus opened itself to me, as if a ghost stood guard, I whimpered and fled. The cinders crunched beneath my boots; I caught a whiff of sulfurous air.

But at the edge of camp I rallied myself enough to look again. The dark ground blotted all light, so that the Ship appeared alone with its grandeur. Presently I went back.

The interior was lit by luminous panels, cool to the touch. Val Nira explained that the great engine which drove it—as if the troll of folklore were put on a treadmill—was intact, and would furnish power at the flick of a lever. As nearly as I could understand what he said, this was done by changing the metallic part of ordinary salt into light… so I do not understand after all. The quicksilver was required for a part of the controls, which channeled power from the engine into another mechanism that hurtled the Ship skyward. We inspected the broken container. Enormous indeed had been the impact of landing, to twist and bend that thick alloy so. And yet Val Nira had been shielded by invisible forces, and the rest of the Ship had not suffered important damage. He fetched some tools, which flamed and hummed and Whirled, and demonstrated a few repair operations on the broken part. ‘Obviously he would have no trouble completing the work—and then he need only pour in a gallon of quicksilver, to bring his vessel alive again.

Much else did he show us that night. I shall say naught of this, for I cannot even remember such strangeness very clearly, let alone find words. Suffice it that Rovic, Froad, and Zhean spent a few hours in Elf Hill.

So, too, did Guzan. Though he had been taken here once before, as part of his initiation, he had never been shown this much erenow. Watching him, however, I saw less marveling in him than greed.

No doubt Rovic observed the same. There was little which Rovic did not observe. When we departed the Ship, his silence was not stunned like Froad’s or my own. At the time, I thought in a vague fashion that he fretted over the trouble Guzan was certain to make. Now, looking back, I believe his mood was sadness.

Sure it is that long after we others were in our bedrolls, he stood alone, looking at the planetlit Ship.

***

Early in a cold dawn, Etien shook me awake. “Up, lad, we’ve work to do. Load yere pistols an‘ belt on yere dirk.”

“What? What’s to happen?” I fumbled with a hoarfrosted blanket. Last night seemed a dream.

“The skipper’s nay said, but plainly he awaits a fight. Report to the wagon an‘ help us move into yon flying tower.” Etien’s thick form heel-squatted a moment longer beside me. Then, slowly: “Methinks Guzan has some idea o’ murdering us all, here on the mountain. One officer an‘ a few crewmen can be made to sail the Golden Leader for him, to Giair an’ back. The rest o‘ us would be less trouble to him wi’ our weasands slit.”

I crawled forth, teeth clattering in my head. After arming myself, I snatched some food from the common store. The Hisagazi on the march carry dried fish and a sort of bread made from a powdered weed. Only the saints knew when I’d next get a chance to eat. I was the last to join Rovic at the cart. The natives were drifting sullenly toward us, unsure what we intended.

“Let’s go, lads,” said Rovic. He gave his orders. Four men started manhandling the wagon across the rocky trail toward the Ship, where this gleamed among mists. We others stood by, weapons ready. Almost at once Guzan hastened toward us, with Val Nira toiling in his wake.

Anger darkened his countenance. “What are you doing?” he barked.

Rovic gave him a calm stare. “Why, milord, as we may be here for some time, inspecting the wonders aboard the Ship—”

“What?” interrupted Guzan. “What do you mean? Have you not seen enough for one visit? We must get home again, and prepare to sail after the flowing stone.”

“Go if you wish,” said Rovic. “I choose to linger. And since you don’t trust me, I reciprocate the feeling. My folk will stay in the Ship, which can be defended if necessary.”

Guzan stormed and raged, but Rovic ignored him. Our men continued hauling the cart over the uneven ground. Guzan signaled his spearmen, who approached in a disordered but alert mass. Etien spoke a command. We fell into line. Pikes slanted forward, muskets took aim.

Guzan stepped back. We had demonstrated firearms for him at his own home island. Doubtless he could overwhelm us with sheer numbers, were he determined enough, but the cost would be heavy. “No reason to fight, is there?” purred Rovic. “I am only taking a sensible precaution. The Ship is a most valuable prize. It could bring Paradise for all… or dominion over this earth for one. There are those who’d prefer the latter. I’ve not accused you of being among them. However, in prudence I’d liefer keep the Ship for my hostage and my fortress, as long as it pleases me to remain here.”

I think then I was convinced of Guzan’s real intentions, not as a surmise of ours but as plain fact. Had he truly wished to attain the stars, his one concern would have been to keep the Ship safe. He would not have reached out, snatched little Val Nira in his powerful hands, and dragged the starman backward like a shield against our fire. Not that his intent matters, save to my own conscience. Wrath distorted his patterned visage. He screamed at us, “Then I’ll keep a hostage too! And much good may your shelter do you!”

The Hisagazi milled about, muttering, hefting their spears and axes, but not prepared to follow us. We grunted our way across the black mountainside. The sun strengthened. Froad twisted his beard. “Dear me, master captain,” he said, “think you they’ll lay siege to us?”

“I’d not advise anyone to venture forth alone,” said Rovic dryly.

“But without Val Nira to explain things, what use for us to stay at the Ship? Best we go back. I’ve mathematic texts to consult—my head’s aspin with the law that binds the turning planets—I must ask the man from Paradise what he knows of—”

Rovic interrupted with a gruff order to three men, that they help lift a wheel wedged between two stones. He was in a savage temper. I confess his action seemed mad to me. If Guzan intended treachery, we had gained little by immobilizing ourselves in the Ship, where he could starve us. Better to let him attack in the open, where we would have a chance of fighting our way through. On the other hand, if Guzan did not plan to fall on us in the jungle—or any other time—then this was senseless provocation on our part. But I dared not question.

***

When we had brought our wagon up to the Ship, its gangplank again descended for us. The sailors started and cursed. Rovic forced himself out of his own bitterness, to speak soothing words. “Easy, lads. I’ve been aboard already, ye ken. Naught harmful within. Now we must tote our powder thither, an‘ stow it as I’ve planned.”

Being slight of frame, I was not set to carrying the heavy casks, but put at the foot of the gangplank to watch the Hisagazi. We were too far away to distinguish words, but I saw how Guzan stood up on a boulder and harangued them. They shook their weapons at us and whooped. But they did not venture to attack. I wondered wretchedly what this was all about. If Rovic had foreseen us besieged, that would explain why he brought so much powder along… no, it would not, for there was more than a dozen men could shoot off in weeks of musketry, even had we had enough lead along… and we had almost no food! I looked past the poisonous volcano clouds, to Tambur where storms raged that could engulf all our earth, and wondered what demons lurked here to possess men.

I sprang to alertness at an indignant shout from within. Froad! Almost, I ran up the gangway, then remembered my duty. I heard Rovic roar him down and order the crewfolk to carry on. Froad and Rovic must have gone alone into the pilot’s compartment and talked for an hour or more. When the old man emerged, he protested no longer. But as he walked down the gangway, he wept.

Rovic followed, grimmer of countenance than I had ever seen a man erenow. The sailors filed after, some looking appalled, some relieved, but chiefly watching the Hisagazian camp. They were simple mariners; the Ship was little to them save an alien and disquieting thing. Last came Etien, walking backward down the metal plank as he uncoiled a long string.

“Form square!” barked Rovic. The men snapped into position. “Best get within, Zhean and Froad,” said the captain. “You can better carry extra ammunition than fight.” He placed himself in the van.

I tugged Froad’s sleeve. “Please, I beg you, master, what’s happening?” But he sobbed too much to answer.

Etien crouched with flint and steel in his hands. He heard me—for otherwise we were all deathly silent—and said in a hard voice: “We placed casks 0‘ powder throughout this hull, lad, wi’ powder trains to join ‘em. Here’s the fuse to the whole.”

I could not speak, could not even think, so monstrous was this. As if from immensely far away, I heard the click of stone on steel in Etien’s fingers, heard him blow on the spark and add: “A good idea, methinks. I said t’other eventide, I’d follow the skipper wi’out fear o‘ God’s curse—but better ’tis not to tempt Him overmuch.”

“Forward march!” Rovic’s sword blazed clear of the scabbard.

Our feet scrunched loud and horrible on the mountain as we quick-stepped away. I did not look back. I could not. I was still fumbling in a nightmare. Since Guzan would have moved to intercept us anyhow, we proceeded straight toward his band. He stepped forward as we halted at the camp’s edge. Val Nira slunk shivering after him. I heard the words dimly:

“Well, Rovic, what now? Are you ready to go home?”

“Yes,” said the captain. His voice was dull. “All the way home.”

Guzan squinted in rising suspiciousness. “Why did you abandon your wagon? What did you leave behind?”

“Supplies. Come, let’s march.”

Val Nira stared at the cruel shapes of our pikes. He must wet his lips a few times ere he could quaver, “What are you talking about? There’s no reason to leave food there. It would spoil in all the time until… until—” He faltered as he looked into Rovic’s eyes. The blood drained from him.

“What have you done?” he whispered.

Suddenly Rovic’s free hand went up, to cover his face. “What I must,” he said thickly. “Daughter of God, forgive me.”

The starman regarded us an instant more. Then he turned and ran. Past the astonished warriors he burst, out onto the cindery slope, toward his Ship.

“Come back!” bellowed Rovic. “You fool you’ll never—”

He swallowed hard. As he looked after that small, stumbling, lonely shape, hurrying across a fire mountain toward the Beautiful One, the sword sank in his grasp. “Perhaps it’s best,” he said, like a benediction.

Guzan raised his own sword. In scaly coat and blowing feathers, he was a figure as impressive as steel-clad Rovic. “Tell me what you’ve done,” he snarled, “or I’ll kill you this moment!”

He paid our muskets no heed. He, too, had had dreams.

He, too, saw them end, when the Ship exploded.

***

Even that adamantine hull could not withstand a wagonload of carefully placed gunpowder, set off at one time. There came a crash that knocked me to my knees, and the hull cracked open. White-hot chunks 6f metal screamed across the slopes. I saw one of them strike a boulder and split it in twain. Val Nira vanished, destroyed too quickly to have seen what happened; so in the ultimate, God was merciful to him. Through the flames and smokes and the doomsday noise which followed, I saw the Ship fall. It rolled down the slope, strewing its own mangled guts behind. Then the mountainside grumbled and slid in pursuit, and buried it, and dust hid the sky.

More than this, I have no heart to remember.

The Hisagazi shrieked and fled. They must have thought all hell come to earth. Guzan stood his ground. As the dust enveloped us, hiding the grave of the Ship and the white volcano crater, turning the sun red, he sprang at Rovic. A musketeer raised his weapon. Etien slapped it down. We stood and watched those two men fight, up and over the shaken cinder land, and knew in our private darkness that this was their right. Sparks flew where the blades clamored together. At last Rovic’s skill prevailed. He took Guzan in the throat.

We gave Guzan decent burial and went down through the jungle.

That night the guardsmen rallied their courage enough to attack us. We were aided by our muskets, but must chiefly use sword and pike. We hewed our way through them because we had no other place to go than the sea.

They gave up, but carried word ahead of us. When we reached Nikum, all the forces Iskilip could raise were besieging the Golden Leaper and waiting to oppose Rovic’s entry. We formed a square again, and no matter how many thousands they had, only a score or so could reach us at any time. Nonetheless, we left six good men in the crimsoned mud of those streets. When our people on the caravel realized Rovic was coming back, they bombarded the town. This ignited the thatch roofs and distracted the enemy enough that a sortie from the ship was able to effect a juncture with us. We chopped our way to the pier, got aboard, and manned the capstan.

Outraged and very brave, the Hisagazi paddled their canoes up to our hull, where our cannon could not be brought to bear. They stood on each other’s shoulders to reach our rail. One band forced itself aboard, and the fight was fierce which cleared them from the decks. That was when I got the shattered collarbone which plagues me to this day.

But in the end, we came out of the fjord. A fresh east wind was blowing. With all sail aloft, we outran the foe. We counted our dead, bound our wounds, and slept.

Next dawning, awakened by the pain of my shoulder and the worse pain within, I mounted the quarterdeck. The sky was overcast. The wind had stiffened; the sea ran cold and green, whitecaps out to a cloud-gray horizon. Timbers groaned and rigging skirled. I stood an hour facing aft, into the chill wind that numbs pain.

When I heard boots behind me, I did not turn around. I knew they were Rovic’s. He stood beside me a long while, bareheaded. I noticed that he was starting to turn gray.

Finally, not yet regarding me, still squinting into the air that lashed tears from our eyes, he said: “I had a chance to talk Froad over, that day. He was grieved, but owned I was right. Has he spoken to you about it?”

“No,” I said.

“None of us are ever likely to speak of it much,” said Rovic.

After another time: “I was not afraid Guzan or anyone else would seize the Ship and try to turn conqueror. We men of Montalir should well be able to deal with any such rogues. Nor was I afraid of the Paradise dwellers. That poor little man could only have been telling truth. They would never have harmed us… willingly. They would have brought precious gifts, and taught us their own esoteric arts, and let us visit all their stars.”

“Then why?” I got out.

“Someday Froad’s successors will solve the riddles of the universe,” he said. “Someday our descendants will build their own Ship, and go forth to whatever destiny they wish.”

Spume blew up and around us, until our hair was wet. I tasted the salt on my lips.

“Meanwhile,” said Rovic, “we’ll sail the seas of this earth, and walk its mountains, and chart and subdue and come to understand it. Do you see, Zhean? That is what the Ship would have taken from us.”

Then I was also made able to weep. He laid his hand on my uninjured shoulder and stood with me while the Golden Leaper, all sail set, proceeded westward.

SCYLLA’S DAUGHTER

Fritz Leiber

The fleet was the third sent to tribute to Movarl. On the foredeck the captain told how the first two fleets had vanished, and a seaman’s body gnawed. “By fish?” asked the Mouser. “Seabirds?” Fafhrd inquired. “Dragons?” suggested the Demoiselle Hisvet. And so Mr. Leiber begins this incredible novelet of the world of Lankhmar.

WITH the motherly-generous west wind filling their brown triangular sails, the slim war galley and the five broad-beamed grain ships, two nights out of Lankhmar, coursed north in line ahead across the Inner Sea of the ancient world of Nehwon.

It was late afternoon of one of those mild blue days when sea and sky are the same hue, providing irrefutable evidence for the hypothesis currently favored by Lankhmar philosophers: that Nehwon is a giant bubble rising through the waters of eternity with continents, islands, and the great jewels that at night are the stars all orderly afloat on the bubble’s inner surface.

On the afterdeck of the last grain ship, which was also the largest, the Gray Mouser spat a plum skin to leeward and boasted luxuriously, “Fat times in Lankhmar! Not one day returned to the City of the Black Toga after months away adventuring and I procure us this cushy job from the Overlord himself.”

“I have an old distrust of cushy jobs,” Fafhrd replied, yawning and pulling his fur-trimmed jerkin open wider so that the mild wind might trickle more fully through the tangled hair-field of his chest. “And you got us out of Lankhmar so quickly that we had not even time to pay our respects to the ladies. Nevertheless I must confess that you might have done worse. A full purse is the best ballast for any man-ship, especially one bearing letters of marque against ladies.”

Ship’s Master Slinoor looked back with hooded appraising eyes at the email lithe gray-clad man and his tall, more gaudily accoutercd barbarian comrade. The master of the Squid was a sleek black-robed man of middle years. He stood beside the two stocky black-tunicked bare-legged sailors who held steady the great high-arching tiller that guided the Squid.

“How much do you two rogues really know of your cushy job?” Slinoor asked softly. “Or rather, how much did the arch-noble Glipkerio choose to tell you of the purpose and dark antecedents of this voyaging?” Two days of fortunate sailing seemed at last to have put the closed-mouthed ship’s master in a mood to exchange confidences, or at least trade queries and lies.

From a bag of netted cord that hung by the taffrail, the Mouser speared a night-purple plum with the hook-bladed dirk he called Cat’s Claw. Then he answered lightly, “This fleet bears a gift of grain from Overlord Glipkerio to Movarl of the Eight Cities in gratitude for Movarl’s sweeping the Mingol pirates from the Inner Sea and mayhap diverting the steppe-dwelling Mingols from assaulting Lankhmar across the Sinking Land. Movarl needs grain for his hunter-farmers turned city man-soldiers and especially to supply his army relieving his border city of Klelg Nar, which the Mingols besiege. Fafhrd and I are, you might say, a small but mighty rear-guard for the grain and for certain more delicate items of Glipkerio’s gift.”

“You mean those?” Slinoor bent a thumb toward the larboard rail.

Those were twelve large white rats distributed among four silver-barred cages. With their silky coats, pale-rimmed blue eyes and especially their short, arched upper lips and two huge upper in-eisors, they looked like a clique of haughty, bored inbred aristocrats, and it was in a bored aristocratic fashion that they were staring at a scrawny black kitten which was perched with dug-in claws on the starboard rail, as if to get as far away from the rats as possible, and staring back at them most worriedly.

FAFHRD reached out and ran a finger down the black kitten’s back. The kitten arched its spine, losing itself for a moment in sensuous delight, but then edged away and resumed its worried rat-peering—an activity shared by the two black-tunicked helmsmen, who seemed both resentful and fearful of the silver-caged afterdeck passengers.

The Mouser sucked plum juice from his fingers and flicked out his tongue-tip to neatly capture a drop that threatened to run down his chin. Then, “No, I mean not chiefly those high-bred gift rats,” he replied to Slinoor and kneeling lightly and unexpectedly and touching two fingers significantly to the scrubbed oak deck, he said, “I mean chiefly she who is below, who ousts you from your master’s cabin, and who now insists that the gift-rats require sunlight and fresh air—which strikes me as a strange way of cosseting burrow and shadow-dwelling vermin.”

Slinoor’s cropped eyebrows rose. He came close and whispered, “You think the Demoiselle Hisvet may not be merely the conductress of the rat-gift, but also herself part of Glipkerio’s gift to Movarl? Why, she’s the daughter of the greatest grain merchant in Lankhmar, who’s grown rich selling tawny corn to Glipkerio.”

The Mouser smiled cryptically but said nothing.

Slinoor frowned, then whispered even lower, “True, I’ve heard the story that Hisvet has already been her father Hisven’s gift to Glipkerio to buy his patronage.”

Fafhrd, who’d been trying to stroke the kitten again with no more success than to chase it up the aftermast, turned around at that. “Why, Hisvet’s but a child,” he said almost reprovingly. “A most prim and proper miss. I know not of Glipkerio, he seems decadent—” (The word was not an insult in Lankhmar) “—but surely Movarl, a northerner albeit a forest man, likes only strong-beamed, ripe, complete women.”

“Your own tastes, no doubt?” the Mouser remarked, gazing at Fafhrd with half-closed eyes. “No traffic with childlike women?”

Fafhrd blinked as if the Mouser had dug fingers in his side. Then he shrugged and said loudly, “What’s so special about these rats? Do they do tricks?”

“Aye,” Slinoor said distastefully. “They play at being men. They’ve been trained by Hisvet to dance to music, to drink from cups, hold tiny spears and swords, even fence. I’ve not seen it—nor would care to.”

The picture struck the Mouser’s fancy. He visioned himself small as a rat, dueling with rats who wore lace at their throats and wrists, slipping through the mazy tunnels of their underground cities, becoming a great connoisseur of cheese and smoked meats, perchance wooing a slim rat queen and being surprised by her rat-king husband and having to dagger-fight him in the dark. Then he noted one of the white rats looking at him intently through the silver bars with a cold inhuman blue eye and suddenly his idea didn’t seem amusing at all. He shivered in the sunlight.

Slinoor was saying, “It is not good for animals to try to be men.” The Squid’s skipper gazed somberly at the silent white aristos. “Have you ever heard tell of the legend of—” he began, hesitated, then broke off, shaking his head as if deciding he had been about to say too much.

“A sail!” The call winged down thinly from the crow’s nest. “A black sail to windward!”

“What manner of ship?” Slinoor shouted up.

“I know not, master. I see only sail top.”

“Keep her under view, boy,” Slinoor commanded.

“Under view it is, master.” Slinoor paced to the starboard rail and back.

“Movarl’s sails are green,” Fafhrd said thoughtfully.

Slinoor nodded. “Ilthmar’s are white. The pirates’ were red, mostly. Lankhmar’s sails once were black, but now that color’s only for funeral barges and they never venture out of sight of land. At least I’ve never known…”

The Mouser broke in with, “You spoke of dark antecedents of this voyaging. Why dark?”

SLINOOR drew them back against the taffrail, away from the stocky helmsmen. Fafhrd ducked a little, passing under the arching tiller. They looked all three into the twisting wake, their heads bent together.

Slinoor said, “You’ve been out of Lankhmar. Did you know this is not the first gift-fleet of grain to Movarl?”

The Mouser nodded. “We’d been told there was another. Somehow lost. In a storm, I think. Glipkerio glossed over it.”

“There were two,” Slinoor said tersely. “Both lost. Without a living trace. There was no storm.”

“What then?” Fafhrd asked, looking around as the rats chittered a little. “Pirates?”

“Movarl had already whipped the pirates east. Each of the two fleets was galley-guarded like ours. And each sailed off into fair weather with a good west wind.” Slinoor smiled thinly. “Doubtless Glipkerio did not tell you of these matters for fear you might beg off. We sailors and the Lankhmarines obey for duty and the honor of the City, but of late Glipkerio’s had trouble hiring the sort of special agents he likes to use for second bow-strings. He has brains of a sort, our overlord has, though he employs them mostly to dream of visiting other world bubbles in a great diving-bell or sealed brass diving-ship, while he sits with trained girls watching trained rats and buys off Lankhmar’s enemies with gold and repays Lankhmar’s ever-more-impatient friends with grain not soldiers.” Slinoor grunted. “Movarl grows most impatient, you know. He threatens, if the grain comes not, to recall his pirate patrol, league with the land-Mingols and set them at Lankhmar.”

“Northerners, even though not snow-dwelling, league with Mingols?” Fafhrd objected. “Impossible!”

Slinoor looked at him. “I’ll say just this, ice-eating northerner. If I did not believe such a leaguer both possible and likely—and Lankhmar thereby in dire danger—I would never have sailed with this fleet, honor and duty or no. Same’s true of Lukeen who commands the galley. Nor do I think Glipkerio would otherwise be sending to Movarl at Kvarch Nar his noblest performing rats and dainty Hisvet.”

Fafhrd growled a little. “You say both fleets were lost without a trace?” he asked incredulously.

Slinoor shook his head. “The first was. Of the second, some wreckage was sighted by an Ilthmar trader Lankhmar-bound. The deck of only one grain ship. It had been ripped off its hull, splinteringly—how or by that, the Ilthmart dared not guess. Tied to a fractured stretch of railing was the ship’s-master, only hours dead. His face had been nibbled, his body gnawed.”

“Fish?” the Mouser asked.

“Seabirds?” Fafhrd inquired.

“Dragons?” a third voice suggested, high, breathless, and as merry as a school girl’s. The three men turned around, Slinoor with guilty swiftness.

THE Demoiselle Hisvet stood as tall as the Mouser, but judging by her face, wrists, and ankles was considerably slenderer. Her face was delicate and taper-chinned with small mouth and pouty upper lip that lifted just enough to show a double dash of pearly tooth. Her complexion was creamy pale except for two spots of color high on her cheeks. Her straight fine hair, which grew low on her forehead, was pure white touched with silver and all drawn back through a silver ring behind her neck, whence it hung unbraided like a unicorn’s tail. Her eyes had china whites but darkly pink irises around the large black pupils. Her body was enveloped and hidden by a loose robe of violet silk except when the wind briefly molded a flat curve of her girlish anatomy. There was a violet hood, half thrown back. The sleeves were puffed but snug at the wrists. She was barefoot, her skin showing as creamy there as on her face, except for a tinge of pink about the toes.

She looked them all three one after another quickly in the eye. “You were whispering of the fleets that failed,” she said accusingly. “Fie, Master Slinoor. We must all have courage.”

“Aye,” Fafhrd agreed, finding that a cue to his liking. “Even dragons need not daunt a brave man. I’ve often watched the sea monsters, crested, horned, and some two-headed, playing in the waves of outer ocean as they broke around the rocks sailors call the Claws. They were not to be feared, if a man remembered always to fix them with a commanding eye. They sported lustily together, the man dragons pursuing the woman dragons and going—” Here Fafhrd took a tremendous breath and then roared out so loudly and wailingly that the two helmsmen jumped—“Hoongk! Hoongk!”

“Fie, Swordsman Fafhrd,” Hisvet said primly, a blush mantling her cheeks and forehead. “You are most indelicate. The sex of dragons—”

But Slinoor had whirled on Fafhrd, gripping his wrist and now crying, “Quiet, you monster-fool! Know you not we sail tonight by moonlight pest the Dragon Rocks? You’ll call them down on us!”

“There are no dragons in the Inner Sea,” Fafhrd laughingly assured him.

“There’s something that tears ships,” Slinoor asserted stubbornly.

The Mouser took advantage of this brief interchange to move in on Hisvet, rapidly bowing thrice as he approached.

“We have missed the great pleasure of your company on deck, Demoiselle,” he said suavely.

“Alas, sir, the sun mislikes me,” she answered prettily. “Now his rays are mellowed as he prepared to submerge. Then too,” she added with an equally pretty shudder, “these rough sailors—” She broke off as she saw that Fafhrd and the master of the Squid had stopped their argument and returned to her. “Oh, I meant not you, dear Master Slinoor,” she assured him, reaching out and almost touching his black robe.

“Would the Demoiselle fancy a sun-warmed, wind-cooled black plum of Sarheenmar?” the Mouser suggested, delicately sketching in the air with Cat’s Claw.

“I know not.” Hisvet said, eyeing the dirk’s needlelike point. “I must be thinking of getting the White Shadows below before the evening’s chill is upon us.”

“True,” Fafhrd agreed with a flattering laugh, realizing she must mean the white rats. “But ‘twas most wise of you, little mistress, to let them spend the day on deck, where they surely cannot hanker so much to sport with the Black Shadows—I mean, of course, their black free commoner brothers, and slim delightful sisters, to be sure, hiding here and there in the hold.”

“There are no rats on my ship, sportive or otherwise,” Slinoor asserted instantly, his voice loud and angry. “Think you I run a rat-brothel? Your pardon, Demoiselle,” he added quickly to Hisvet. “I mean, there are no common rats aboard Squid.”

“Then yours is surely the first grain ship so blessed,” Fafhrd told him with indulgent reasonableness.

THE sun’s vermillion disk touched the sea to the west and flattened like a tangerine. Hisvet leaned back against the taffrail under the arching tiller. Fafhrd was to her right, the Mouser to her left with the plums hanging just beyond him, near the silver cages. Slinoor had moved haughtily forward to speak to the helmsmen, or pretend to.

“I’ll take that plum now, Dirksman Mouser,” Hisvet said softly.

As the Mouser turned away in happy obedience and with many a graceful gesture, delicately palpating the net bag to find the most tender fruit, Hisvet stretched her right arm out sideways and without looking once at Fafhrd slowly ran her spread-fingered hand through the hair on his chest, paused when she reached the other side to grasp a fistful and tweak it sharply, then trailed her fingers lightly back across the hair she had ruffled. Her hand came back to her just as the Mouser turned around. She kissed the palm lingeringly, then reached it across her body to take the black fruit from the point of the Mouser’s dirk. She sucked delicately at the prick Cat’s Claw had made and shivered.

“Fie, sir,” she pouted. “You told me ‘twould be sun-warmed and ‘tis not, Already all things grow chilly with evening.” She looked around her thoughtfully. “Why, Swordsman Fafhrd is all goose-flesh,” she announced, then blushed and tapped her lips reprovingly. “Close your jerkin, sir. ‘Twill save you from catarrh and perchance from further embarrassment a girl who is un-used to any sight of man-flesh save in slaves.”

“Here is a toastier plum,” the Mouser called from beside the bag. Hisvet smiled at him and lightly tossed him backhanded the plum she’d sampled. He dropped that overboard and tossed her the second plum. She caught it deftly, lightly squeezed it, touched it to her lips, shook her head sadly though still smiling, and tossed back the plum. The Mouser, smiling gently too, caught it, dropped it overboard and tossed her a third. They played that way for some time. A shark following in the wake of the Squid got a stomachache. The black kitten came single-footing back along the starboard rail with a sharp eye to larboard, Fafhrd seized it instantly as any good general does opportunity in the heat of battle.

“Have you seen the ship’s catling, little mistress?” he called, crossing to Hisvet, the kitten almost hidden in his big hands, “Or perhaps we should call the Squid the catling’s ship, for she adopted it, skipping by herself aboard just as we sailed. Here, little mistress. It feels sun-tested now, warmer than any plum,” and he reached the kitten out sitting on the palm of his right hand.

But Fafhrd had been forgetting the kitten’s point of view. Its fur stood on end as it saw itself being carried toward the rats and now, as Hisvet stretched out her head toward it. showing her upper teeth in a tiny smile and saying, “Poor little waif,” the kitten hissed fiercely and raked out stiff armed with spread claws.

Hisvet drew back her hand with a gasp. Before Fafhrd could drop the kitten or bat it aside, it sprang to the top of his head and from there onto the highest point of the tiller.

The Mouser darted to Hisvet, crying meanwhile at Fafhrd, “Dolt! Lout! You knew the beast was half wild!” Then, to Hisvet, “Demoiselle! Are you hurt?”

Fafhrd struck angrily at the kitten and one of the helmsmen came back to bat at it too, perhaps because he thought it improper for kittens to walk on the tiller. The kitten made a long leap to the starboard rail, slipped over it, and dangled by two claws above the curving water.

Hisvet was holding her hand away from the Mouser and he was saying, “Better let me examine it, Demoiselle. Even the slightest scratch from a filthy ship’s cat can be dangerous,” and she was saying, almost playfully, “No, Dirksman, I tell you it’s nothing.”

Fafhrd strode to the starboard rail, fully intending to flick the kitten overboard, but somehow when he came to do it he found he had instead cupped the kitten’s rear in his hand and lifted it back on the rail. The kitten instantly sank its teeth deeply in the root of his thumb and fled up the aftermast. Fafhrd with difficulty suppressed a great yowl. Slinoor laughed.

“Nevertheless, I will examine it,” the Mouser said masterfully and took Hisvet’s hand by force. She let him hold it for a moment, then snatched it back and drawing herself up said frostily, “Dirksman, you forget yourself. Not even her own physician touches a demoiselle of Lankhmar, he touches only the body of her maid, on which the demoiselle points out her pains and symptoms. Leave me, Dirksman.”

THE Mouser stood huffily back against the taffrail. Fafhrd sucked the root of his thumb. Hisvet went and stood beside the Mouser. Without looking at him, she said softly, “You should have asked me to call my maid. She’s quite pretty.”

Only a fingernail clipping of red sun was left on the horizon. Slinoor addressed the crow’s nest: “What of the black sail, boy?”

“She holds her distance, master,” the cry came back. “She courses on abreast of us.”

The sun went under with a faint green flash. Hisvet bent her head sideways and kissed the Mouser on the neck, just under the ear. Her tongue tickled.

“Now I lose her, master,” the crow’s nest called. “There’s mist to the northwest. And to the northeast … a small black cloud …like a black ship specked with light …that moves through the air. And now that fades too. All gone, master.”

Hisvet straightened her head. Slinoor came toward them muttering, “The crow’s nest sees too much.”

Hisvet shivered and said, “The White Shadows will take a chill. They’re delicate, Dirksman.”

The Mouser breathed, “You are Ecstacy’s White Shadow, Demoiselle,” then strolled toward the silver cages, saying loudly for Slinoor’s benefit, “Might we not be privileged to have a show of them, Demoiselle, tomorrow here on the afterdeck? ‘Twould be wondrous instructive to watch you control them.” He caressed the air over the cages and said, lying mightily, “My, they’re fine handsome fellows.” Actually he was peering apprehensively for any of the little spears and swords Slinoor had mentioned. The twelve rats looked up at him incuriously. One even seemed to yawn.

Slinoor said curtly, “I would advise against it, Demoiselle. The sailors have a mad fear and hatred of all rats. ‘Twere best not to arouse it.”

“But these are aristos,” the Mouser objected, while Hisvet only repeated, “They’ll take a chill.”

Fafhrd, hearing this, took his hand out of his mouth and came hurrying to Hisvet, saying, “Little Mistress, may I carry them below? I’ll be gentle as a Kleshite nurse.” He lifted between thumb and third finger a cage with two rats in it. Hisvet rewarded him with a smile, saying, “I wish you would, gallant Swordsman. The common sailors handle them too roughly. But two cages are all you may safely carry. You’ll need proper help.” She gazed at the Mouser and Slinoor.

So Slinoor and the Mouser, the latter much to his distaste and apprehension, must each gingerly take up a silver cage, and Fafhrd two, and follow Hisvet to her cabin below the afterdeck. The Mouser could not forbear whispering privily to Fafhrd, “Oaf! To make rat-grooms of us! May you get rat-bites to match your cat-bite!” At the cabin door Hisvet’s dark maid Frix received the cages, Hisvet thanked her three gallants most briefly and distantly and Frix closed the door against them. There was the muffled thud of a bar dropping across it and the jangle of a chain locking down the bar.

DARKNESS grew on the waters. A yellow lantern was lit and hoisted to the crow’s nest. The black war galley Shark, its brown sail temporarily furled, came rowing back to fuss at Clam, next ahead of Squid in line, for being slow in getting up its masthead light, then dropped back by Squid while Lukeen and Slinoor exchanged shouts about a black sail and mist and ship-shaped small black clouds and the Dragon Rocks. Finally the galley went bustling ahead again with its Lankhmarines in browned-iron chain mail to take up its sailing station at the head of the column. The first stars twinkled, proof that the sun had not deserted through the waters of eternity to some other world bubble, but was swimming as he should back to the east under the ocean of the sky, errants rays from him lighting the floating star-jewels in his passage.

After moonrise that night Fafhrd and the Mouser each found private occasion to go rapping at Hisvet’s door, but neither profited greatly thereby. At Fafhrd’s knock Hisvet herself opened the small grille set in the larger door, said swiftly, “Fie, for shame, Swordsman! Can’t you see I’m undressing?” and closed it instantly. While when the Mouser asked softly for a moment with “Ecstacy’s White Shadow,” the merry face of the dark maid Frix appeared at the grille, saying, “My mistress bid me kiss my hand good night to you.” Which she did and closed the grille.

Fafhrd, who had been spying, greeted the crestfallen Mouser with a sardonic, “Ecstacy’s White Shadow!”

“Little Mistress!” the Mouser retorted scathingly. “Black Plum of Sarbeenmar!”

“Kleshite Nurse!” Neither hero slept restfully that night and two-thirds through it the Squid’s gong began to sound at intervals, with the other ships’ gongs replying or calling faintly. When at dawn’s first blink the two came on deck, Squid was creeping through fog that hid the sail top. The two helmsmen were peering about jumpily, as if they expected to see ghosts. The sails hung slackly. Slinoor, his eyes dark-circled by fatigue and big with anxiety, explained tersely that the fog had not only slowed but disordered the grain fleet.

“That’s Tunny next ahead of us, I can tell by her gong note. And beyond Tunny, Carp. Where’s Clam? What’s Shark about? And still not certainly past the Dragon Rocks! Not that I want to see ‘em!”

“Do not some captains call them the Rat Rocks?” Fafhrd interposed. “From a rat colony started there from a wreck?”

“Aye,” Slinoor allowed and then grinning sourly at the Mouser, observed, “Not the best day for a rat show on the after deck, is it? Which is some good from this fog. I can’t abide the lolling white brutes. Though but a dozen in number they remind me too much of the Thirteen. Have you ever heard tell of the legend of the Thirteen?”

“I have,” Fafhrd said somberly. “A wise woman of the Cold Waste once told me that for each animal kind—wolves, bats, whales, it holds for all and each—there are always thirteen individuals having almost manlike (or demonlike!) wisdom and skill. Can you but find and master this inner circle, the Wise Woman said, then through them you can control all animals of that kind.”

Slinoor looked narrowly at Fafhrd and said, “She was not an altogether stupid woman.”

The Mouser wondered if for men also there was an inner circle of Thirteen.

The black kitten came ghosting along the deck out of the fog forward. It made toward Fafhrd with an eager mew, then hesitated, studying him dubiously. “Take for example, cats,” Fafhrd said with a grin. “Somewhere in Nehwon today, mayhap scattered but more likely banded together, are thirteen cats of superfeline sagacity, somehow sensing and controlling the destiny of all catkind.”

“What’s this one sensing now?” Slinoor demanded softly. The black kitten was staring to larboard, sniffing. Suddenly its scrawny body stiffened, the hair rising along its back and its skimpy tail a-bush. “HOONGK!”

Slinoor turned to Fafhrd with a curse, only to see the Northerner staring about shut-mouthed and startled.

OUT of the fog to larboard came a green serpent’s head big as a horse’s, with white dagger teeth fencing red mouth horrendously agape. With dreadful swiftness it lunged low past Fafhrd on its endless yellow neck, its lower jaw loudly scraping the deck, and the white daggers clashed on the black kitten, Or rather, on where the kitten had just been. For the latter seemed not so much to leap as to lift itself, by its tail perhaps, onto the starboard rail and thence vanished into the fog at the top of the aftermast in at most three more bounds.

The helmsmen raced each other forward. Slinoor and the Mouser threw themselves against the starboard taffrail, the unmanned tiller swinging slowly above them affording some sense of protection against the monster, which now lifted its nightmare head and swayed it this way and that, each time avoiding Fafhrd by inches. Apparently it was searching for the black kitten or more like it.

Fafhrd stood frozen, at first by sheer shock, then by the thought that whatever part of him moved first would get snapped off.

Nevertheless he was about to jump for it—besides all else the monster’s mere stench was horrible—when a second green dragon’s head, four times as big as the first with teeth like scimitars, came looming out of the fog. Sitting commandingly atop this second head was a man dressed in orange and purple, like a herald of the Eastern Lands, with red boots, cape and helmet, the last with a blue window in it, seemingly of opaque glass.

There is a point of grotesquerie beyond which horror cannot go, but slips into delirium. Fafhrd had reached that point. He began to feel as if he were in an opium dream. Everything was unquestionably real, yet it had lost its power to horrify him acutely.

He noticed as the merest of quaint details that the two greenish yellow necks forked from a common trunk.

Besides, the gaudily garbed man or demon riding the larger head seemed very sure of himself, which might or might not be a good thing. Just now he was belaboring the smaller head, seemingly in rebuke, with a blunt-pointed, blunt-hooked pike he carried, and roaring out, either under or through his blue red helmet, a gibberish that might be rendered as:

“Gottverdammter Ungeheuer!”*

*”Goddam monster!” German is a language completely unknown in Nehwon.

The smaller head cringed away, whimpering like seventeen puppies. The man-demon whipped out a small book of pages and after consulting it twice (apparently he could see out through his blue window) called down in broken, outlandishly accented Lankhmarese, “What world is this, friend?”

Fafhrd had never before in his life heard that question asked, even by an awakening brandy guzzler. Nevertheless in his opium-dream mood he answered easily enough, “The world of Nehwon, oh sorcerer!”

“Gott sei dank!”* the man-demon gibbered.

*“Thank God!”

Fafhrd asked, “What world do you hail from?”

This question seemed to confound the man-demon. Hurriedly consulting his book, he replied, “Do you know about other worlds? Don’t you believe the stars are only huge jewels?”

Fafhrd responded, “Any fool can see that the lights in the sky are jewels, but we are not simpletons, we know of other worlds. The Lankhmarts think they’re bubbles in infinite waters. I believe we live in the jewel-ceilinged skull of a dead god. But doubtless there are other such skulls, the universe of universes being a great frosty battlefield.”

The tiller, swinging as Squid wallowed with sail a-flap, bumped the lesser head, which twisted around and snapped at it, then shook splinters from its teeth.

“Tell the sorcerer to keep it off!” Slinoor shouted, cringing.

AFTER more hurried page-flipping the man-demon called down, “Don’t worry, the monster seems to eat only rats. I captured it by a small rocky island where many rats live. It mistook your small black ship’s cat for a rat.”

Still in his mood of opium-lucidity, Fafhrd called up, “Oh sorcerer, do you plan to conjure the monster to your own skull-world, or world-bubble?”

This question seemed doubly to confound and excite the man-demon. He appeared to think Fafhrd must be a mind-reader. With much frantic book-consulting, he explained that he came from a world called simply Tomorrow and that he was visiting many worlds to collect monsters for some sort of museum or zoo, which he called in his gibberish Hagenbeck’s Zeitgarten.* On this particular expedition he had been seeking a monster that would be a reasonable facsimile of a wholly mythical six-headed sea-monster that devoured men off the decks of ships and was called Scylla by an ancient fantasy writer named Homer.

*Literally, in German. “Hagenbeek’s Time-garden,” apparently derived from Tiergarten, which means animal-garden, or zoo.

“There never was a Lankhmar poet named Homer,” muttered Slinoor, who seemed to have none too clear an idea of what was going on.

“Doubtless he was a scribe of Quarmall or the Eastern Lands,” the Mouser told Slinoor reassuringly. Then, grown less fearful of the two heads and somewhat jealous of Fafhrd holding the center of the stage, the Mouser leapt a-top the taffrail and cried, “Oh sorcerer, with what spells will you conjure your Little Scylla back to, or perhaps I should say ahead to your Tomorrow bubble? I myself know somewhat of witchcraft. Desist, vermin!” (This last remark was directed with a gesture of lordly contempt toward the lesser head, which came Questing curiously toward the Mouser. Slinoor gripped the Mouser’s ankle.)

The man-demon reacted to the Mouser’s question by slapping himself on the side of his red helmet, as though he’d forgotten something most important. He hurriedly began to explain that he traveled between worlds in a ship (or space-time engine, whatever that might mean) that tended to float just above the water—“a black ship with little lights and masts”—and that the ship had floated away from him in another fog a day ago while he’d been absorbed in taming the newly captured sea-monster. Since then the man-demon, mounted on his now-docile monster, had been fruitlessly searching for his lost vehicle.

The description awakened a memory in Slinoor, who managed to nerve himself to explain audibly that last sunset Squid’s crow’s nest had sighted just such a ship floating or flying to the northeast.

The man-demon was voluble in his thanks and after questioning Slinoor closely announced (rather to everyone’s relief) that he was now ready to turn his search eastward with new hope.

“Probably I will never have the opportunity to repay your courtesies,” he said in parting. “But as you drift through the waters of eternity at least carry with you my name: Karl Treuherz of Hagenbeck’s.”

Hisvet, who had been listening from the middeck, chose that moment to climb the short ladder that led up to the afterdeck. She was wearing an ermine smock and hood against the chilly fog.

As her silvery hair and pale lovely features rose above the level of the afterdeck, the smaller dragon’s head, which had been withdrawing decorously, darted at her with the speed of a serpent striking. Hisvet dropped. Woodwork rended loudly.

Backing off into the fog atop the larger and rather benign-eyed head, Karl Treuherz gibbered as never before and belabored the lesser head mercilessly as it withdrew.

Then the two-headed monster with its orange-and-purple mahout could be dimly seen moving around Squid’s stern eastward into thicker fog, the man-demon gibbering gentlier what might have been an excuse and fare well: “Es tut mir sehr leid! Aber dankeschoen, danheschoen!”

With a last gentle “Hoongk!” the man-demon dragon-dragon assemblage faded into the fog.

“It was! I am so very sorry. But thank you, thank you so nicely!”

FAFHRD and the Mouser raced a tie to Hisvet’s side, vaulting down over the splintered rail, only to have her scornfully reject their solicitude as she lifted herself from the oaken middeck, delicately rubbing her hip and limping for a step or two.

“Come not near me, Spoonmen,” she said bitterly. “Shame it is when a demoiselle must save herself from toothy perdition only by falling helter-skelter on that part of her which I would almost shame to show you on Frix. You are no gentle knights, else dragons’ heads had littered the afterdeck. Fie, fie!”

Meanwhile patches of clear sky and water began to show to the west and the wind to freshen from the same quarter. Slinoor dashed forward, bawling for his bosun to chase the monster-scared sailors up from the forecastle before Squid did herself an injury.

Although there was yet little real danger of that, the Mouser stood by the tiller, Fafhrd looked to the mainsheet. Then Slinoor, hurrying back aft followed by a few pale sailors, sprang to the taffrail with a cry.

The fogbank was slowly rolling eastward. Clear water stretched to the western horizon. Two bowshots north of Squid, four other ships were emerging in a disordered cluster from the white wall: the war galley Shark and the grain ships Tunny, Carp and Grouper. The galley, moving rapidly under oars, was headed toward Squid.

But Slinoor was staring south. There, a scant bowshot away, were two ships, the one standing clear of the fogbank, the other half hid in it.

The one in the clear was Clam, about to sink by the head, its gunwales awash. Its mainsail, somehow carried away, trailed brownly in the water. The empty deck was weirdly arched upward.

The fog-shrouded ship appeared to be a black cutter with a black sail.

Between the two ships, from Clam toward the cutter, moved a multitude of tiny, dark-headed ripples.

Fafhrd joined Slinoor. Without looking away, the latter said simply, “Rats!” Fafhrd’s eyebrows rose.

The Mouser joined them, saying, “Clam’s holed. The water swells the grain, which mightily forces up the deck.”

Slinoor nodded and pointed toward the cutter. It was possible dimly to see tiny dark forms— rats surely!—climbing over its side from out of the water. “There’s what gnawed holes in Clam,” Slinoor said.

Then Slinoor pointed between the ships, near the cutter. Among the last of the ripple-army was a white-headed one. A little later a small white form could be seen swiftly mounting the cutter’s side. Slinoor said, “There’s what commanded the hole-gnawers.”

With a dull splintering rumble the arched deck of Clam burst upward, spewing brown.

“The grain!” Slinoor cried hollowly.

“Now you know what tears ships,” the Mouser said.

The black cutter grew ghostlier, moving west now into the retreating fog.

The galley Shark went boiling past Squid’s stern, its oars moving like the legs of a leaping centipede. Lukeen shouted up, “Here’s foul trickery! Clam was lured off in the night!”

The black cutter, winning its race with the eastward-rolling fog, vanished in whiteness.

The split-decked Clam nosed under with hardly a ripple and angled down into the black and salty depths, dragged by its leaden keel.

With war trumpet skirling, Shark drove into the white wall after the cutter.

Clam’s masthead, cutting a little furrow in the swell, went under. All that was to be seen now on the waters south of Squid was a great spreading stain of tawny grain.

Slinoor turned brim-faced to his mate. “Enter the Demoiselle Hisvet’s cabin, by force if need be,” he commanded. “Count her white rats!”’

Fafhrd and the Mouser looked at each other.

THREE hours later the same four persons were assembled in Hisvet’s cabin with the Demoiselle, Frix, and Lukeen.

The cabin, low-ceilinged enough so that Fafhrd, Lukeen and the mate must move bent and tended to sit hunch-shouldered, was spacious for a grain ship, yet crowded by this company together with the caged rats and Hisvet’s perfumed, silver-bound baggage piled on Slinoor’s dark furniture and locked tea chests.

Three horn windows to the stern and louver slits to starboard and larboard let in a muted light.

Slinoor and Lukeen sat against the horn windows, behind a narrow table. Fafhrd occupied a cleared sea chest, the Mouser an upended cask. Between them were racked the four rat cages, whose white-furred occupants seemed as quietly intent on the proceedings as any of the men. The Mouser amused himself by imagining what it would be like if the white rats were trying the men instead of the other way round. A row of blue-eyed white rats would make most formidable judges, already robed in ermine. He pictured them staring down mercilessly from very high seats at a tiny cringing Lukeen and Slinoor, round whom scuttled mouse pages and mouse clerks and behind whom stood rat pike-men in half armor holding fantastically barbed and curvy-bladed weapons.

The mate stood stooping by the open grille of the closed door, in part to see that no other sailors eavesdropped.

The Demoiselle Hisvet sat cross-legged on the swung-down sea-bed, her ermine smock decorously tucked under her knees, managing to look most distant and courtly even in this attitude. Now and again her right hand played with the dark wavy hair of Frix, who crouched on the deck at her knees.

Timbers creaked as Squid bowled north. Now and then the bare feet of the helmsmen could be heard faintly slithering on the afterdeck overhead. Around the small trapdoor-like hatches leading below and through the very crevices of the planking came the astringent, toastlike, all-pervasive odor of the grain.

Lukeen spoke. He was a lean, slant-shouldered, cordily muscled man almost as big as Fafhrd, His short coat of browned-iron mail over his simple black tunic was of the finest links. A golden band confined his dark hair and bound to his forehead the browned-iron five-pointed curvy-edged starfish emblem of Lankhmar.

“How do I know Clam was lured away? Two hours before dawn I twice thought I heard Shark’s own gong-note in the distance, although I stood then beside Shark’s muffled gong. Three of my crew heard it too. ‘Twas most eerie. Gentlemen, I know the gong-notes of Lankhmar war galleys and merchantmen better than I know my children’s voices. This that we heard was so like Shark’s I never dreamed it might be that of another ship—I deemed it some ominous ghost-echo or trick of our minds and I thought no more about it as a matter for action. If I had only had the faintest suspicion …”

Lukeen scowled bitterly, shaking his head, and continued, “Now I know the black cutter must carry a gong shaped to duplicate Shark’s note precisely. They used it, likely with someone mimicking my voice, to draw Clam out of line in the fog and get her far enough off so that the rat horde, officered by the white one, could work its will on her without the crew’s screams being heard. They must have gnawed twenty holes in her bottom for Clam to take on water so fast and the grain to swell so. Oh, they’re far shrewder and more persevering than men, the little spade toothed fiends!”

“MIDSEA madness!” Fafhrd snorted in interruption. “Rats make men scream? And do away with them? Rats seize a ship and sink it? Rats officered and accepting discipline? Why, this is the rankest superstition!”

“You’re a fine one to talk of superstition and the impossible, Fafhrd,” Slinoor shot at him, “when only this morning you talked with a masked and gibbering demon who rode a two-headed dragon.”

Lukeen lifted his eyebrows at Slinoor. This was the first he’d heard of the Hagenbeck episode.

Fafhrd said, “That was travel between worlds. Another matter altogether. No superstition in it.”

Siinoor responded skeptically. “I suppose there was no superstition in it either when you told me what you’d heard from the Wise Woman about the Thirteen?”

Fafhrd laughed. “Why, I never believed one word the Wise Woman ever told me. She was a witchery old fool. I recounted her nonsense merely as a curiosity.”

Slinoor eyed Fafhrd with slit-eyed incredulity, then said to Lukeen, “Continue.”

“There’s little more to tell,” the latter said. “I saw the rat-battalions swimming from Clam to the black cutter. I saw, as you did, their white officer.” This with a glare at Fafhrd. “Thereafter I fruitlessly hunted the black cutter two hours in the fog until cramp took my rowers. If I’d found her, I’d not boarded her but thrown fire into her! Aye, and stood off the rats with burning oil on the waters if they tried again to change ships! Aye, and laughed as the furred murderers fried!”

“Just so,” Slinoor said with finality. “And what, in your judgment, Commander Lukeen, should we do now?”

“Sink the white arch-fiends in their cages,” Lukeen answered in stantly, “before they officer the rape of more ships, or our sailors go mad with fear.”

This brought an instant icy retort from Hisvet. “You’ll have to sink me first, silver-weighted, oh Commander!”

Lukeen’s gaze moved past her to a scatter of big-eared silver unguent jara and several looped heavy silver chains on a shelf by the bed. “That too is not impossible. Demoiselle,” he said, smiling hardly.

“There’s not one shred of proof against her!” Fafhrd exploded. “Little mistress, the man is mad.”

“No proof?” Lukeen roared. “There were twelve white rats yesterday. Now there are eleven.” He waved a hand at the stacked cages and their blue-eyed haughty occupants. “You’ve all counted them. Who else but this devilish demoiselle sent the white officer to direct the sharp-toothed gnawers and killers that destroyed Clam? What more proof do you want?”

“Yes, indeed!” the Mouser interjected in a high vibrant voice that commanded attention. “There is proof aplenty …if there were twelve rats in the four cages yesterday.” Then he added casually but very clearly, “It is my recollection that there were eleven.”

Slinoor stared at the Mouser as though he couldn’t believe his ears. “You lie!” he said. “What’s more, you lie senselessly. Why, you and Fafhrd and I all spoke of there being twelve white rats!”

The Mouser shook his head. “Fafhrd and I said no word about the exact number of rats. You said there were a dozen,” he informed Slinoor. “Not twelve, but … a dozen. I assumed you were using the expression as a round number, an approximation.” The Mouser snapped his fingers. “Now I remember that when you said a dozen I became idly curious and counted the rats. And got eleven. But it seemed to me too trifling a matter to dispute.”

“No, there were twelve rats yesterday,” Slinoor asserted solemnly and with great conviction, “You’re mistaken, Gray Mouser.”

“I’ll believe my friend Slinoor before a dozen of you,” Lukeen put in.

“True, friends should stick together,” the Mouser said with an approving smile. “Yesterday I counted Glipkerio’s gift-rats and got eleven. Ship’s Master Slinoor, any man may be mistaken in his recollections from time to time. Let’s analyze this. Twelve white rats divided by four silver cages equals three to a cage. Now let me see …I have it! There was a time yesterday when between us, we surely counted the rats— when we carried them down to this cabin. How many were in the cage you carried, Slinoor?”

“Three,” the latter said instantly.

“And three in mine,” the Mouser said.

“And three in each of the other two,” Lukeen put in impatiently, “We waste time!”

“We certainly do,” Slinoor agreed strongly, nodding.

“Wait!” said the Mouser, lifting a point-fingered hand. “There was a moment when all of us must have noticed how many rats there were in one of the cages Fafhrd carried—when he first lifted it up, speaking the while to Hisvet. Visualize it. He lifted it like this.” The Mouser touched his thumb to his third finger. “How many rats were in that cage, Slinoor?”

Slinoor frowned deeply. “Two,” he said, adding instantly, “and four in the other.”

“You said three in each just now,” the Mouser reminded him.

“I did not!” Slinoor denied, “Lukeen said that, not I.”

“Yes, but you nodded, agreeing with him,” the Mouser said, his raised eyebrows the very emblem of innocent truth-seeking.

“I agreed with him only that we wasted time,” Slinoor said. “And we do.” Just the same a little of the frown lingered between his eyes and his voice had lost its edge of utter certainty.

“I see,” the Mouser said doubtfully. By stages he had begun to play the part of an attorney elucidating a case in court, striding about and frowning most professionally. Now he shot a sudden question: “Fafhrd, how many rats did you carry?”

“Five,” boldly answered the Northerner, whose mathematics were not of the sharpest, but who’d had plenty time to count surreptitiously on his fingers and to think about what the Mouser was up to. “Two in one cage, three in the other.”

“A feeble falsehood!” Lukeen scoffed. “The base barbarian would swear to anything to win a smile from the Demoiselle, who has him fawning.”

“That’s a foul lie!” Fafhrd roared, springing up and fetching his head such a great hollow thump on a deck beam that he clapped both hands to it and crouched in dizzy agony.

“SIT down, Fafhrd, before I ask you to apologize to the roof!” the Mouser commanded with heartless harshness. “This is solemn civilized court, no barbarous brawling session! Let’s see—three and three and five make …eleven. Demoiselle Hisvet!” He pointed an accusing finger straight between her red-irised eyes and demanded most sternly, “How many white rats did you bring aboard Squid?” The truth now and nothing but the truth!”

“Eleven,” she answered demurely. “La, but I’m joyed someone at last had the wit to ask me.”

“That I know’s not true!” Slinoor said abruptly, his brow once more clear. “Why didn’t I think of it before?— ‘twould have saved us all this bother of questions and counting. I have in this very cabin Glipkerio’s letter of commission to me. In it he speaks verbatim of entrusting to me the Demoiselle Hisvet, daughter of Hisvin, and twelve witty white rats. Wait, I’ll get it out and prove it to your faces!”

“No need, Ship’s-Master,” Hisvet interposed. “I saw the letter writ and can testify to the perfect truth of your quotation. But most sadly, between the sending of the letter and my boarding of Squid, poor Tchy was gobbled up by Glippy’s giant boarhound Bimbat.” She touched a slim finger to the corner of her eye and sniffed. “Poor Tchy, he was the most winsome of the twelve. ‘Twas why I kept to my cabin the first two days.” Each time she spoke the name Tchy, the eleven caged rats chittered mournfully.

“Is it Glippy you call our overlord?” Slinoor ejaculated, genuinely shocked. “Oh shameless one!”

“Aye, watch your language, Demoiselle,” the Mouser warned severely, maintaining to the hilt his new role of austere inquisitor. “The familiar relationship between you and our overlord the arch-noble Glipkerio Kistomerces does not come within the province of this court.”

“She lies like a shrewd subtle witch!” Lukeen asserted angrily. “Thumbscrew or rack, or perchance just a pale arm twisted high behind her back would get the truth from her fast enough!”

Hisvet turned and looked at him proudly. “I accept your challenge, Commander,” she said evenly, laying her right hand on her maid’s dark head. “Frix, reach out your naked hand, or whatever other part of you the brave gentleman wishes to torture.” The dark maid straightened her back. Her face was impassive, lips firmly pressed together, though her eyes searched around wildly. Hisvet continued to Slinoor and Lukeen, “If you know any Lankhmar law at all, you know that a virgin of the rank of demoiselle is tortured only in the person of her maid, who proves by her steadfastness under extreme pain the innocence of her mistress.”

“What did I tell you about her?” Lukeen demanded of them all. “Subtle is too gross a term for her spiderwebby sleights!” He glared at Hisvet and said scornfully, his mouth a-twist, “Virgin!”

Hisvet smiled with cold long-suffering. Fafhrd flushed and although still holding his battered head, barely refrained from leaping up again. Lukeen looked at him with amusement, secure in his knowledge that he could bait Fafhrd at will and that the barbarian lacked the civilized wit to insult him deeply in return.

FAFHRD stared thoughtfully at Lukeen from under his capping hands. Then he said, “Yes, you’re brave enough in armor, with your threats against girls and your hot imaginings of torture, but if you were without armor and had to prove your manhood with just one brave girl alone, you’d fail like a worm!”

Lukeen shot up enraged and got himself such a clout from a deck beam that he squeaked shudderingly and swayed. Nevertheless he gripped blindly for his sword at his side. Slinoor grasped that wrist and pulled him down into his seat.

“Govern yourself, Commander,” Slinoor implored sternly, seeming to grow in resolution as the rest quarreled and quibbled. “Fafhrd, no more dagger words. Gray Mouser, this is not your court but mine and we are not met to split the hairs of high law but to meet a present peril. Here and now this grain fleet is in grave danger. Our very lives are risked. Much more than that, Lankhmar’s in danger if Movarl gets not his gift-grain at this third sending. Last night Clam was foully murdered. Tonight it may he Grouper or Squid, Shark even, or no less than all our ships. The first two fleets went warned and well guarded, yet suffered only total perdition.”

He paused to let that sink in. Then, “Mouser, you’ve roused some small doubts in my mind by your eleven-twelving. But small doubts are nothing where home lives and home cities are in peril. For the safety of the fleet and of Lankhmar we’ll sink the white rats forthwith and keep close watch on the Demoiselle Hisvet to the very docks of Kvarch Nar.”

“Right!” the Mouser cried approvingly, getting in ahead of Hisvet. But then he instantly added, with the air of sudden brilliant inspiration, “Or …better yet … appoint Fafhrd and myself to keep unending watch not only on Hisvet but also on the eleven white rats. That way we don’t spoil Glipkerio’s gift and risk offending Movarl.”

“I’d trust no one’s mere watching of the rats. They’re too tricksy,” Slinoor informed him. “The Demoiselle I intend to put on Shark, where she’ll be more closely guarded. The grain is what Movarl wants, not the rats. He doesn’t know about them, so can’t be angered at not getting them.”

“But he does know about them,” Hisvet interjected. “Glipkerio and Movarl exchange weekly letters by albatross-post. La, but Nehwon grows smaller each year, Ship’s Master—ships are snails compared to the great winging mail-birds. Glipkerio wrote of the rats to Movarl, who expressed great delight at the prospective gift and intense anticipation of watching the White Shadows perform. Along with myself,” she added, demurely bending her head.

“Also,” the Mouser put in rapidly, “I must firmly oppose— most regretfully, Slinoor—the transfer of Hisvet to another ship. Fafhrd’s and my commission from Glipkerio, which I can produce at any time, states in clearest words that we are to attend the Demoiselle at all times outside her private quarters. He makes us wholly responsible for her safety—and also for that of the White Shadows, which creatures our overlord states, again in clearest writing, that he prizes beyond their weight in jewels.”

“You can attend her in Shark,” Slinoor told the Mouser curtly.

“I’ll not have the barbarian on my ship!” Lukeen rasped, still squinting from the pain of his clout.

“I’d scorn to board such a tricked-out rowboat or oar-worm,” Fafhrd shot back at him, voicing the common barbarian contempt for galleys.

“Also,” the Mouser cut in again, loudly, with an admonitory gesture at Fafhrd, “It is my duty as a friend to warn you, Slinoor, that in your reckless threats against the White Shadows and the Demoiselle herself, you risk incurring the heaviest displeasure not only of our overlord but also of the most powerful grain merchant in Lankhmar.”

Slinoor answered most simply, “I think only of the City and the grain fleet. You know that,” but Lukeen, fuming, spat out a “Hah!” and said scornfully, “the Gray Fool has not grasped that it is Hisvet’s very father Hisvin who is behind the rat-sinkings, since he thereby grows rich with the extra nation’s-ransoms of grain he sells Glipkerio!”

“Quiet, Lukeen!” Slinoor commanded apprehensively. “This dubious guess-work of yours has no place here.”

“Guesswork? Mine?” Lukeen exploded. “It was your suggestion, Slinoor—Yes, and that Hisvin plots Glipkerio’s overthrow—Aye, and even that he’s in league with the Mingols! Let’s speak truth for once!”

“Then speak it for yourself alone. Commander,” Slinoor said most sober-sharply. “I fear the blow’s disordered your brain. Gray Mouser, you’re a man of sense,” he appealed. “Can you not understand my one overriding concern? We’re alone with mass murder on the high seas. We must take measures against it. Oh, will none of you show some simple wit?”

“La, and I will, Ship’s-Master, since you ask it,” Hisvet said brightly, rising to her knees on the sea-bed as she turned toward Slinoor. Sunlight striking through a louver shimmered on her silver hair and gleamed from the silver ring confining it. “I’m but a girl, unused to problems of war and rapine, yet I have an all-explaining simple thought that I have waited in vain to hear voiced by one of you gentlemen, wise in the ways of violence.

“Last night a ship was slain. You hang the crime on rats―small beasties which would leave a sinking ship in any case, which often have a few whites among them, and which only by the wildest stretch of imagination are picturable as killing an entire crew and vanishing their bodies, To fill the great gaps in this weird theory you make me a sinister rat-queen, who can work black miracles, and now even, it seems, create my poor doting daddy an all-powerful rat-emperor.

“Yet this morning you met a ship’s murderer if there ever was one and let him go honking off unchallenged. La, but the man-demon even confessed he’d been seeking a multi-headed monster that would snatch living men from a ship’s deck and devour them. Surely he lied when he said his this-world foundling ate small fry only, for it struck at me to devour me—and might earlier have snapped up any of you, except it was sated!

“For what is more likely than that the two-head long-neck dragon ate all Clam’s sailors off her deck, snaking them out of the forecastle and hold, if they fled there, like sweetmeats from a compartmented comfit-box, and then scratched holes in Clam’s planking? Or perhaps more likely still, that Clam tore out her bottom on the Dragon Rocks in the fog and at the same time met the sea-dragon? These are sober possibilities, gentlemen, apparent even to a soft girl and asking no mind-stretch at all.”

This startling speech brought forth an excited medly of reactions. Simultaneously the Mouser applauded, “A gem of princess-wit, Demoiselle, oh you’d make a rare strategist;” Fafhrd said stoutly, “Most lucid, Little Mistress, yet Karl Treuherz seemed to me an honest demon;” Frix told them proudly, “My mistress outthinks you all;” the mate at the door goggled at Hisvet and made the sign of the starfish; Lukeen snarled, “She conveniently forgets the black cutter;” while Slinoor cried them all down with, “Rat-queen you say jestingly? Rat-queen you are!”

AS the others grew silent at that dire accusation, Slinoor, gazing grimly fearful at Hisvet, continued rapidly, “The Demoiselle has recalled to me by her speech the worst point against her. Karl Treuherz said his dragon, living by the Rat Rocks, ate only rats. It made no move to gobble us several men, though it had every chance, yet when Hisvet appeared it struck at her at once. It knew her true race.”

Slinoor’s voice went shudderingly low. “Thirteen rats with the minds of men rule the whole rat race. That’s ancient wisdom from Lankhmar’s wisest seers. Eleven are these silver-furred silent sharpies, hearing our every word. The twelfth celebrates in the black cutter his conquest of Clam. The thirteenth—” and he pointed finger “—is the silver-haired, red eyed Demoiselle herself!”

Lukeen slithered to his feet at that, crying, “Oh most shrewdly reasoned, Slinoor! And why does she wear such modest shrouding garb except to hide further evidence of the dread kinship? Let me but strip off that cloaking ermine smock and I’ll show you a white furred body and ten small black dugs instead of proper maiden breasts!”

As he came snaking around the table toward Hisvet, Fafhrd sprang up, also cautiously, and pinned Lukeen’s arms to his sides in a bear-hug, calling, “Nay, and you touch her, you die!”

Meantime Frix cried, “The dragon was sated with Clam’s crew, as my mistress told you. It wanted no more coarse-fibered men, but eagerly seized at my dainty-fleshed darling for a dessert mouthful!”

Lukeen wrenched around until his black eyes glared into Fafhrd’s green ones inches away. “Oh most foul barbarian!” he grated. “I forego rank and dignity and challenge you this instant to a bout of quarterstaves on middeck. I’ll prove Hisvet’s taint on you by trial of battle. That is, if you dare face civilized combat, you great stinking ape!” And he spat full in Fafhrd’s taunting face.

Fafhrd’s only reaction was to smile a great smile through the spittle running gummily down his cheek, while maintaining his grip of Lukeen and wary lookout for a bite at his own nose.

Thereafter, challenge having been given and accepted, there was naught for even the head-shaking, heaven-glancing Slinoor to do but hurry preparation for the combat or duel, so that it might be fought before sunset and leave some daylight for taking sober measures for the fleet’s safety in the approaching dark of night.

As Slinoor, the Mouser and mate came around them, Fafhrd released Lukeen, who scornfully averting his gaze instantly went on deck to summon a squad of his marines from Shark to second him and see fair play. Slinoor conferred with his mate and other officers. The Mouser, after a word with Fafhrd, slipped forward and could be seen gossiping industriously with Squid’s bosun and the common members of her crew down to cook and cabin boy. Occasionally something might have passed rapidly from the Mouser’s hand to that of the sailor with whom he spoke.

DESPITE Slinoor’s urging, the sun was dropping down the western sky before Squid’s gongsman beat the rapid brassy tattoo that signalized the imminence of combat. The sky was clear to the west and overhead, but the sinister fogbank still rested a Lankhmar league (twenty bowshots) to the east, paralleling the northward course of the fleet and looking almost as solid and dazzling as a glacier wall in the sun’s crosswise rays. Most mysteriously neither hot sun nor west wind dissipated it.

Black-suited, brown-mailed and brown-helmeted marines facing aft made a wall across Squid to either side of the mainmast. They held their spears horizontal and crosswise at arm’s-length down, making an additional low fence. Black-tunicked sailors peered between their shoulders and boots, or sat with their own brown legs a-dangle on the larboard side of the foredeck, where the great sail did not cut off their view. A few perched in the rigging.

The damaged rail had been stripped away from the break in the afterdeck and there around the bare aftermast sat the three judges: Slinoor, the Mouser, and Lukeen’s sergeant. Around them, mostly to larboard of the two helmsmen, were grouped Squid’s officers and certain officers of the other ship on whose presence the Mouser had stubbornly insisted, though it had meant time-consuming ferrying by ship’s boat.

Hisvet and Frix were in the cabin with the door shut. The Demoiselle had wanted to watch the duel through the open door or even from the afterdeck, but Lukeen had protested that this would make it easier for her to work an evil spell on him, and the judges had ruled for Lukeen. However the grille was open and now and again the sun’s rays twinkled on a peering eye or silvered fingernail.

Between the dark spear-wall of marines and the afterdeck stretched a great square of white oaken deck, empty save for the crane-fittings and like fixed gear and level except for the main hatch, which made a central square of deck a hand’s span above the rest. Each corner of the larger square was marked off by a black-chalked quarter circle. Either contestant stepping inside a quarter circle after the duel began (or springing on the rail or grasping the rigging or falling over the side) would at once forfeit the match.

In the foreward larboard quarter circle stood Lukeen in black shirt and hose, still wearing his gold-banded starfish emblem. By him was his second, his own hawkfaced lieutenant. With his right hand Lukeen gripped his quarterstaff, a heavy wand of close-grained oak as tall as himself and thick as Hisvet’s wrist. Raising it above his head he twirled it till it hummed, smiling fiendishly.

In the after starboard quarter circle, next the cabin door, were Fafhrd and his second, the mate of Carp, a grossly fat man with a touch of the Mingol in his sallow features. The Mouser could not be judge and second both, and he and Fafhrd had diced more than once with Carp’s mate in the old days at Lankmar— losing money to him, too, which at least indicated that he might be resourceful.

Fafhrd took from him now his own quarterstaff, gripping it cross-handed near one end. He made a few slow practice passes with it through the air, then handed it back to Carp’s mate and stripped off his jerkin.

Lukeen’s marines sniggered to each other at the Northerner handling a quarterstaff as if it were a two-handed broadsword, but when Fafhrd bared his hairy chest Squid’s sailors set up a rousing cheer and when Lukeen commented loudly to his second, “What did I tell you? A great hairy-pelted ape, beyond question,” and spun his staff again, the sailors booed him lustily.

“Strange,” Slinoor commented in a low voice. “I had thought Lukeen to be popular among the sailors.”

Lukeen’s sergeant looked around incredulously at that remark. The Mouser only shrugged. Slinoor continued to him, “If the sailors knew your comrade fought on the side of rats, they’d not cheer him.” The Mouser only smiled.

The gong sounded again.

SLINOOR rose and spoke loudly: “A bout at quarterstaves with no breathing spells! Commander Lukeen seeks to prove on the Overlord’s mercenary Fafhrd certain allegations against a demoiselle of Lankhmar. First man struck senseless or at mercy of his foe loses. Prepare!”

Two ship’s boys went skipping across the middeck, scattering handfuls of white sand.

Sitting, Slinoor remarked to the Mouser, “A pox of this footling duel! It delays our action against Hisvet and the rats. Lukeen was a fool to bridle at the barbarian. Still, when he’s drubbed him, there’ll be time enough.”

The Mouser lifted an eyebrow. Slinoor said lightly, “Oh didn’t you know? Lukeen will win, that’s certain,” while the sergeant, nodding soberly, confirmed, “The Commander’s a master of staves. ‘Tis no game for barbarians.”

The gong sounded a third time.

Lukeen sprang nimbly across the chalk and onto the hatch, crying, “Ho, hairy ape! Art ready to double-kiss the oak?— first my staff, then the deck?”

Fafhrd came shambling out, gripping his wand most awkwardly and responding, “Your spit has poisoned my left eye, Lukeen, but I see some civilized target with my right.”

Lukeen dashed at him joyously then, feinting at elbow and head, then rapidly striking with the other end of his staff at Fafhrd’s knee to tumble or lame him.

Fafhrd, abruptly switching to conventional stance and grip, parried the blow and swung a lightning riposte at Lukeen’s jaw.

Lukeen got his staff up in time so that the blow hit only his cheek glancingly, but he was unsettled by it and thereafter Fafhrd was upon him, driving him back in a hail of barely-parried blows while the sailors cheered.

Slinoor and the sergeant gaped wide-eyed, but the Mouser only knotted his fingers, muttering, “Not so fast, Fafhrd.”

Then, as Fafhrd prepared to end it all, he stumbled stepping off the hatch, which changed his swift blow to the head into a slow blow at the ankles. Lukeen leaped up so that Fafhrd’s staff passed under his feet, and while he was still in the air rapped Fafhrd on the head.

The sailors groaned. The marines cheered once, growlingly.

The unfooted blow was not of the heaviest, nonetheless it three-quarters stunned Fafhrd and now it was his turn to be driven back under a pelting shower of swipes. For several moments there was no sound but the rutch of soft-soled boots on sanded oak and the rapid dry musical bong of staff meeting staff.

When Fafhrd came suddenly to his full senses he was falling away from a wicked swing. A glimpse of black by his heel told him that his next inevitable backward step would carry him inside his own quarter circle.

Swift as thought he thrust far behind him with his staff. Its end struck deck, then stopped against the cabin wall, and Fafhrd heaved himself forward with it, away from the chalk line, ducking and lunging to the side to escape Lukeen’s blows while his staff could not protect him.

The sailors screamed with excitement. The judges and officers on the afterdeck kneeled like dice-players, peering over the edge.

Fafhrd had to lift his left arm to guard his head. He took a blow on the elbow and his left arm dropped limp to his side. Thereafter he had to handle his staff like a broadsword indeed, swinging it one-handed in whistling parries and strokes.

Lukeen hung back, playing more cautiously now, knowing Fafhrd’s one wrist must tire sooner than his two. He’d aim a few rapid blows at Fafhrd, then prance back.

Barely parrying the third of these attacks, Fafhrd riposted recklessly, not with a proper swinging blow, but simply gripping the end of his staff and lunging. The combined length of Fafhrd and his staff overtook Lukeen’s retreat and the tip of Fafhrd’s staff poked him low in the chest, just on the nerve spot.

Lukeen’s jaw dropped, his mouth stayed open wide, and he wavered. Fafhrd smartly rapped his staff out of his fingers and as it clattered down, toppled Lukeen to the deck with a second almost casual prod.

THE sailors cheered themselves hoarse. The marines growled surlily and one cried, “Foul!” Lukeen’s second knelt by him, glaring at Fafhrd. Carp’s mate danced a ponderous jig up to Fafhrd and wafted the wand out of his hands. On the afterdeck Squid’s officers were glum, though those of the other grain ships seemed strangely jubilant. The Mouser gripped Slinoor’s elbow, urging, “Cry Fafhrd victor,” while the sergeant frowned prodigiously, hand to temple, saying, “Well, there’s nothing I know of in the rules…”

At that moment the cabin door opened and Hisvet stepped out, wearing a long scarlet, scarlet-hooded silk robe.

The Mouser, sensing climax, sprang to starboard, where Squid’s gong hung, snatched the striker from the gongsman and clanged it wildly.

Squid grew silent. Then there were pointings and questioning cries as Hisvet was seen. She put a silver recorder to her lips and began to dance dreamily toward Fafhrd, softly whistling with her recorder a high haunting tune of seven notes in a minor key. From somewhere tiny tuned bells, accompanied it tinklingly. Then Hisvet swung to one side, facing Fafhrd as she moved around him, and the questioning cries changed to ones of wonder and astonishment and the sailors came crowding as far aft as they could and swinging through the rigging, as the procession became visible that Hisvet headed.

It consisted of eleven white rats walking in single file on their hind legs and wearing little scarlet robes and caps. The first four carried in each forepaw clusters of tiny silver bells which they shook rythmically. The next five bore on their shoulders, hanging down between them a little, a double length of looped gleaming silver chain—they were very like five sailors lugging an anchor chain. The last two each bore slantwise a slim silver wand as tall as himself as he walked erect, tail curving high.

The first four halted side by side in rank facing Fafhrd and tinkling their bells to Hisvet’s piping.

The next five marched on steadily to Fafhrd’s right foot. There their leader paused, looked up at Fafhrd’s face with upraised paw, and squeaked three times. Then, gripping his end of the chain in one paw, he used his other three to climb Fafhrd’s boot. Imitated by his four fellows, he then carefully climbed Fafhrd’s trousers and hairy chest.

FAFHED stared down at the mounting chain and scarlet-robed rats without moving a muscle, except to frown faintly as tiny paws unavoidably tweaked clumps of his chest-hair.

The first rat mounted to Fafhrd’s right shoulder and moved behind his back to his left shoulder, the four other rate following in order and never letting slip the chain.

When all five rats were standing on Fafhrd’s shoulders, they lifted one strand of the silver chain and brought it forward over his head, most dexterously. Meanwhile he was looking straight ahead at Hisvet, who had completely circled him and now stood piping behind the bell-tinklers.

The five rats dropped the strand, so that the chain hung in a gleaming oval down Fafhrd’s chest. At the same instant each rat lifted his scarlet cap as high above his head as his foreleg would reach.

Someone cried, “Victor!” The five rats swung down their caps and again lifted them high, and as if from one throat all the sailors and most of the marines and officers cried in a great shout: “VICTOR!”

The five rats led two more cheers for Fafhrd, the men aboard Squid obeying as if hypnotized—though whether by some magic power or simply by the wonder and appropriateness of the rats’ behavior, it was hard to tell.

Hisvet finished her piping with a merry flourish and the two rats with silver wands scurried up onto the afterdeck and standing at the foot of the aftermast where all might see, began to drub away at each other in most authentic quarterstaff style, their wands flashing in the sunlight and chiming sweetly when they clashed. The silence broke in rounds of exclamation and laughter. The five rats scampered down Fafhrd and returned with the bell-tinklers to cluster around the hem of Hisvet’s skirt. Mouser and several officers were leaping down from the afterdeck to wring Fafhrd’s good hand or clap his back. The marines had much ado to hold back the sailors, who were offering each other bets on which rat would be the winner in this new bout.

Fafhrd, fingering his chain, remarked to the Mouser, “Strange that the sailors were with me from the start,” and under cover of the hubbub the Mouser smiling explained, “I gave them money to bet on you against the marines. Likewise I dropped some hints and made some loans for the same purpose to the officer of the other ships—a fighter can’t have too big a claque. Also I started the story going round that the whiteys are anti-rat rats, trained exterminators of their own kind, sample of Glipkerio’s latest device for the safety of the grain fleets—sailors eat up such tosh.”

“Did you first cry victor?” Fafhrd asked.

The Mouser grinned. “A judge take sides? In civilized combat? Oh, I was prepared to, but ‘twasn’t needful.”

At that moment Fafhrd felt a small tug at his trousers and looking down saw that the black kitten had bravely approached through the forest of legs and was now climbing him purposefully. Touched at this further display of animal homage, Fafhrd rumbled gently as the kitten reached his belt, “Decided to heal our quarrel, eh, small black one?” At that the kitten sprang up his chest, sunk his little claws in Fafhrd’s bare shoulder and, glaring like a black hangman, raked Fafhrd bloodily across the jaw, then sprang by way of a couple of startled heads to the mainsail and rapidly climbed its concave taut brown curve. Someone threw a belaying pin at the small black blot, but it was negligently aimed and the kitten safely reached the mast-top.

“I FORSWEAR all cats!” Fafhrd cried angrily, dabbling at his chin. “Henceforth rats are my favored beasties.”

“Most properly spoken, Swordsman!” Hisvet called gayly from her own circle of admirers, continuing, “I will be pleased by your company and the Dirksman’s at dinner in my cabin an hour past sunset. We’ll conform to the very letter of Slinoor’s stricture that I be closely watched and the White Shadows too.” She whistled a little call on her silver recorder and swept back into her cabin with the nine rats close at her heels. The quarterstaving scarlet-robed pair on the afterdeck broke off their drubbing with neither victorious and scampered after her, the crowd parting to make way for them admiringly.

Slinoor, hurrying forward, paused to watch. The Squid’s skipper was a man deeply bemused. Somewhere in the last half hour the white rats had been transformed from eerie poison-toothed monsters threatening the fleet into popular, clever, harmless animal-mountebanks, whom Squid’s sailors appeared to regard as a band of white mascots. Slinoor seemed to be seeking unsuccessfully but unceasingly to decipher how and why.

Lukeen, still looking very pale, followed the last of his disgruntled marines (their purses lighter by many a silver smerduk, for they had been coaxed into offering odds) over the side into Shark’s long dinghy, brushing off Slinoor when Squid’s skipper would have conferred with him.

Slinoor vented his chagrin by harshly commanding his sailors to leave off their disorderly milling and frisking, but they obeyed him right cheerily, skipping to their proper stations with the happiest of sailor smirks. Those passing the Mouser winked at him and surreptiously touched their forelocks. The Squid bowled smartly northward a half bowshot astern of Tunny, as she’d been doing throughout the duel, only now she began to cleave the blue water a little more swiftly yet as the west wind freshened and her after sail was broken out. In fact, the fleet began to sail so swiftly now that Shark’s dinghy couldn’t make the head of the line, although Lukeen could be noted bullying his marine-oarsmen into back-cracking efforts, and the dinghy had finally to signal Shark herself to come back and pick her up—which the war galley achieved only with difficulty, rolling dangerously in the mounting seas and taking until sunset, oars helping sails, to return to the head of the line.

“He’ll not be eager to come to Squid’s help tonight, or much able to either,” Fafhrd commented to the Mouser where they stood by the larboard middeck rail. There had been no open break between them and Slinoor, but they were inclined to leave him the afterdeck, where he stood beyond the helmsmen in bent-head converse with his three officers, who had all lost money on Lukeen and had been sticking close to their skipper ever since. “Not still expecting that sort of peril tonight, are you, Fafhrd?” the Mouser asked with a soft laugh. “We’re far past the Rat Rocks.”

Fafhrd shrugged and said frowningly, “Perhaps we’ve gone just a shade too far in endorsing the rats.”

“Perhaps,” the Mouser agreed.

“But then their charming mistress is worth a fib and false stamp or two, aye and more than that, eh, Fafhrd?”

“She’s a brave sweet lass,” Fafhrd said carefully.

“Aye, and her maid too,” the Mouser said brightly. “I noted Frix peering at you adoringly from the cabin entryway after your victory. A most voluptuous wench. Some men might well prefer the maid to the mistress in this instance, Fafhrd?”

Without looking around at the Mouser, the Northerner shook his head.

The Mouser studied Fafhrd, wondering if it were politic to make a certain proposal he had in mind. He was not quite certain of the full nature of Fafhrd’s feelings toward Hisvet. He knew the Northerner was a goatish man enough and had yesterday seemed quite obsessed with the love-making they’d missed in Lankhmar, yet he also knew that his comrade had a variable romantic streak that was sometimes thin as a thread yet sometimes grew into a silken ribbon leagues wide in which armies might stumble and be lost.

On the afterdeck Slinoor was now conferring most earnestly with the cook, presumably (the Mouser decided) about Hisvet’s (and his own and Fafhrd’s) dinner. The thought of Slinoor having to go to so much trouble about the pleasures of three persons who today had thoroughly thwarted him made the Mouser grin and somehow also nerved him to take the uncertain step he’d been contemplating.

“Fafhrd,” he whispered, “I’ll dice you for Hisvet’s favors.”

“Why, Hisvet’s but a gir—” Fafhrd began in accents of rebuke, then cut off abruptly and closed his eyes in thought. When he opened them, they were regarding the Mouser with a large smile.

“No,” Fafhrd said softly, “for truly I think this Hisvet is so balky and fantastic a miss it will take both our most heartfelt and cunning efforts to persuade her to aught. And, after that; who knows? Dicing for such a girl’s favors were like betting when a Lankhman night-lilly will open and whether to north or south.” The Mouser chuckled and lovingly dug Fafhrd in the ribs, aaying, “There’s my shrewd true comrade!”

Fafhrd looked at the Mouser with sudden dark suspicions. “Now don’t go trying to get me drunk tonight,” he warned, “or sifting opium in my drink.”

“Hah, you know me better than that, Fafhrd,” the Mouser said with laughing reproach.

“I certainly do,” Fafhrd agreed sardonically. Again the sun went under with a green flash, indicating crystal clear air to the west, though the strange fogbank, now an ominous dark wall, still paralleled their course a league or so to the east.

The cook, crying, “My mutton!” went racing forward past them toward the galley, whence a deliciously spicy aroma was wafting.

“We’ve an hour to kill,” the Mouser said. “Come on, Fafhrd. On our way to board Squid I bought a little jar of wine of Quarmall at the Silver Eel. It’s still sealed.”

From just overhead in the ratlines, the black kitten hissed down at them in angry menace or perhaps warning.

TWO hours later the Demoisella Hisvet offered to the Mouser, “A golden rilk for your thoughts, Dirksman.”

She was on the swung-down sea-bed once more, half reclining. The long table, now laden with tempting viands and tall silver wine cups, had been placed against the bed. Fafhrd sat across from Hisvet, the empty silver cages behind him, while the Mouser was at the stern end of the table. Frix served them all from the door forward, where she took the trays from the cook’s boys without giving them so much as a peep inside. She had a small brazier there for keeping hot such items as required it and she tasted each dish and set it aside for a while before serving it. Thick dark pink candles in silver sconces shed a pale light.

The white rats crouched in rather disorderly fashion around a little table of their own set on the floor near the wall between the sea-bed and the door, just aft of one of the trapdoors opening down into the grain-redolent hold. They wore little black jackets open at the front and little black belts around their middles. They seemed more to play with than eat the bits of food Frix set before them on their three or four little silver plates and they did not lift their small bowls to drink their wine-tinted water but rather lapped at them and that not very industriously. One or two would always be scampering up onto the bed to be with Hisvet, which made them most difficult to count, even for Fafhrd, who had the best view. Sometimes he got eleven, sometimes ten. At intervals one of them would stand up on the pink coverlet by Hisvet’s knees and chitter at her in cadences so like those of human speech that Fafhrd and the Mouser would have to chuckle.

“Dreamy Dirksman, two rilks for your thoughts!” Hisvet repeated, upping her offer. “And most immodestly I’ll wager a third rilk they are of me.”

The Mouser smiled and lifted his eyebrows. He was feeling very light-headed and a bit uneasy, chiefly because contrary to his intentions he had been drinking much more than Fafhrd, Frix had just served them the main dish, a masterly yellow curry heavy with dark-tasting spices and originally appearing with “Victor” pricked on it with black capers. Fafhrd was devouring it manfully though not voraciously, the Mouser was going at it more slowly, while Hisvet all evening had merely toyed with her food.

“I’ll take your two rilks, White Princess,” the Mouser replied airily, “for I’ll need one to pay the wager you’ve just won and the other to fee you for telling me what I was thinking of you.”

“You’ll not keep my second rilk long, Dirksman,” Hisvet said merrily, “for as you thought of me you were looking not at my face, but most impudently somewhat lower. You were thinking of those somewhat nasty suspicions Lukeen voiced this day about my secretest person. Confess it now, you were!”

The Mouser could only hang his head a little and shrug helplessly, for she had most truly divined his thoughts. Hisvet laughed and frowned at him in mock anger, saying, “Oh, you are most indelicate minded, Dirksman. Yet at least you can see that Frix, though indubitably mammalian, is not fronted like a she-rat.”

This statement was undeniably true, for Hisvet’s maid was all dark smooth skin except where black silk scarves narrowly circled her slim body at breasts and hips. Silver net tightly confined her black hair and there were many plain silver bracelets on each wrist. Yet although garbed like a slave, Frix did not seem one tonight, but rather a lady-companion who expertly played at being slave, serving them all with perfect yet laughing, wholly unservile obedience.

Hisvet, by contrast, was wearing another of her long smocks, this of black silk edged with black lace, with a lace-edged hood half thrown back. Her silvery white hair was dressed high on her head in great smooth swelling sweeps. Regarding her across the table, Fafhrd said, “I am certain that the Demoiselle would be no less than completely beautiful to us in whatever shape she chose to present herself to the world—wholly human or somewhat otherwise.”

“Now that was most gallantly spoken, Swordsman,” Hisvet said with a somewhat breathless laugh. “I must reward you for it. Come to me, Frix.” As the slim maid bent close to her, Hisvet twined her white hands round the dark waist and imprinted a sweet slow kiss on Frix’s lips. Then she looked up and gave a little tap on the shoulder to Frix, who moved smiling around the table and, half kneeling by Fafhrd, kissed him as she had been kissed. He received the token graciously, without unmannerly excitement, yet when Frix would have drawn back, prolonged the kiss, explaining a bit thickly when he released her: “Somewhat extra to return to the sender, perchance.” She grinned at him saucily and went to her serving table by the door, saying, “I must first chop the rats their meat, naughty barbarian.” While Hisvet discoursed, “Don’t seek too much, Bold Swordsman. That was in any case but a small proxy reward for a small gallant speech. A reward with the mouth for words spoken with the mouth. To reward you for drubbing Lukeen and vindicating my honor were a more serious matter altogether, not to be entered on lightly if at all. I’ll think of it.”

AT this point the Mouser, who just had to be saying something but whose fuddled brain was momentarily empty of suitably venturesome yet courteous wit, called out to Frix, “Why chop you the rats their mutton, dusky minx? ‘Twould be rare sport to see them slice it for themselves.” Frix only wrinkled her nose at him, but Hisvet expounded gravely, “Only Skwee carves with any great skill. The others might hurt themselves, particularly with the meat shifting about in the slippery curry. Frix, reserve a single chunk for Skwee to display us his ability. Chop the rest fine. Skwee!” she called, setting her voice high. “Skwee-skwee-skwee!”

A tall rat sprang onto the bed and stood dutifully before her with forelegs folded across his cheat. Hisvet instructed him, then took from a silver box behind her a most tiny carving set of knife, steel and fork in joined treble scabbard and tied it carefully to his belt. Then Skwee bowed low to her and sprang nimbly down to the rats’ table. The Mouser watched the little scene with clouded and heavy-lidded wonder, feeling that he was falling under some sort of spell. At times thick shadows crossed the cabin, at times Skwee grew tall as Hisvet or perhaps it was Hisvet tiny as Skwee. And then the Mouser grew small as Skwee too and ran under the bed and fell into a chute that darkly swiftly slid him, not into a dark hold of sacked or loose delicious grain, but into the dark spacious low-ceilinged pleasance of a subterranean rat metropolis, lit by phosphorus, where robed and long-skirted rats whose hoods hid their long faces moved about mysteriously, where rat swords clashed behind the next pillar and rat money chinked, where lewd female rats danced in their fur for a fee, where rat spies and rat informers lurked, where everyone— every-furry-one— was cringingly conscious of the omniscient overlordship of a supernally powerful Council of Thirteen, and where a rat Mouser sought everywhere a slim rat princess named Hisvet-sur-Hisvin.

The Mouser woke from his dinnerdream with a jerk. Somehow he’d surely drunk even more cups than he’d counted, he told himself haltingly. Skwee, he saw, had returned to the rats’ table and was standing before the yellow chunk Frix had set on the silver platter at Skwee’s end. With the other rats watching him, Skwee drew forth knife and steel with a flourish. The Mouser roused himself more fully with another jerk and shake and was inspired to say, “Ah, were I but a rat, White Princess, so that I might come as close to you, serving you!”

The Demoiselle Hisvet cried, “A tribute indeed!” and laughed with delight, showing—it appeared to the Mouser—a tongue half splotched with bluish black and an inner mouth similarly pied. Then she said rather soberly, “Have a care what you wish. for some wishes have been granted,” but at once continued gayly, “Nevertheless, ‘twas most gallantly said, Dirksman. I must reward you. Frix, sit at my right side here.”

The Mouser could not see what passed between them, for Hisvet’s loosely smocked form hid Frix from him, but the merry eyes of the maid peered steadily at him over Hisvet’s shoulder, twinkling like the black silk. Hisvet seemed to be whispering into Frix’s ear while nuzzling it playfully.

MEANWHILE there commeneed the faintest of high skirrings as Skwee rapidly clashed steel and knife together, sharpening the latter. The Mouser could barely see the rat’s head and shoulders and the tiny glimmer of flashing metal over the larger table intervening. He felt the urge to stand and move closer to observe the prodigy— and perchance glimpse something of the interesting activities of Hisvet and Frix—but he was held fast by a great lethargy, whether of wine or sensuous anticipation or pure magic he could not tell.

He had one great worry—that Fafhrd would out with a cleverer compliment than his own, one so much cleverer that it might even divert Frix’s mission to him. But then he noted that Fafhrd’s chin had fallen to his chest, and there came to his ears along with the silvery klirring the barbarian’s gently rumbling snores.

The Mouser’s first reaction was pure wicked relief. He remembered gloatingly past times he’d gamboled, while his comrade snored sodden. Fafhrd must after all have been sneaking many extra swigs or whole drinks!

Frix jerked and giggled immoderately. Hisvet continued to whisper in her ear while Frix giggled and cooed again from time to time, continuing to watch the Mouser impishly.

Skwee scabbarded the steel with a tiny clash, drew the fork with a flourish, plunged it into the yellow-coated meat-chunk, big as a roast for him, and began to carve most dexterously.

Frix rose at last, received her tap from Hisvet, and headed around the table, smiling the while at the Mouser.

Skwee up with a paper-thin tiny slice of mutton on his fork and flapped it this way and that for all to see, then brought it close to his muzzle for a sniff and a taste.

The Mouser in his dreamy slump felt a sudden twinge of apprehension. It had occured to him that Fafhrd simply couldn’t have sneaked that much extra wine. Why, the Northerner hadn’t been out of his sight the past two hours. Of course blows on the head sometimes had a delayed effect.

All the same his first reaction was pure angry jealousy when Frix paused beside Fafhrd and leaned over his shoulder and looked in his forward-tipped face.

Just then there came a great squeak of outrage and alarm from Skwee and the white rat sprang up onto the bed, still holding carving knife and fork with the mutton slice dangling from it.

From under eyelids that persisted in drooping lower and lower, the Mouser watched Skwee gesticulate with his tiny implements, as he chittered dramatically to Hisvet in most manlike cadences, and finally lift the petal of mutton to her lips with an accusing squeak.

Then, coming faintly through the cluttering, the Mouser heard a host of stealthy footsteps crossing the middeck, converging on the cabin. He tried to call Hisvet’s attention to it, but found his lips and tongue numb and unobedient to his will.

Frix suddenly grasped the hair of Fafhrd’s forehead and jerked his head up and back. The Northerner’s jaw hung slackly, his eyes fell open, showing only whites.

There was a gentle rapping at the door, exactly the same as the cook’s boys had made delivering the earlier courses.

A look passed between Hisvet and Frix. The latter dropped Fafhrd’s head, darted to the door, slammed the bar across it and locked the bar with the chain (the grille already being shut) just as something (a man’s shoulder, it sounded) thudded heavily against the thick panels.

That thudding continued and a few heartbeats later became much more sharply ponderous, as if a spare mast-section were being swung like a battering ram against the door, which yielded visibly at each blow.

THE Mouser realized at last, much against his will, that something was happening that he ought to do something about. He made a great effort to shake off his lethargy and spring up. He found he could not even twitch a finger. In fact it was all he could do to keep his eyes from closing altogether and watch through lash-blurred slits as Hisvet, Frix and the rate spun into a whirlwind of silent activity.

Frix jammed her serving table against the jolting door and began to pile other furniture against it.

Hisvet dragged out from behind the sea-bed various dark long boxes and began to unlock them. As fast as she threw them open the white rats helped themselves to the small blued-iron weapons they contained: swords, spears, even most wicked-looking blued-iron cross bows with belted cannisters of darts. They took more weapons than they could effectively use themselves. Skwee hurriedly put on a black-plumed helmet that fitted down over his furry cheeks. The number of rats busy around the boxes was ten—that much the Mouser noted clearly.

A split appeared in the middle of the piled door. Nevertheless Frix sprang away from there to the starboard trap door leading to the hold and heaved it up, Hisvet threw herself on the floor toward it and thrust her head down into the dark square hole.

There was something terribly animal-like about the movements of the two women. It may have been only the cramped quarters and the low ceiling, but it seemed to the Mouser that they moved by preference on all fours.

All the while Fafhrd’s chest-sunk head kept lifting very slowly and then falling with a jerk as he went on snoring.

Hisvet sprang up and waved on the ten white rats. Led by Skwee, they trooped down through the hatch, their blued-iron weapons flashing and once or twice clashing, and were gone in a twinkling. Frix grabbed dark garments out of a curtained niche. Hisvet caught her by the wrist and thrust the maid ahead of her down the trap and then descended herself. Before pulling the hatch down above her, she took a last look around the cabin. As her red eyes gazed briefly at the Mouser, it seemed to him that her forehead and cheeks were grown over with silky white hair, but that may well have been a combination of eyelash-blue and her own disordered hair streaming and streaking down across her face.

THE cabin door split and a man’s length of thick mast boomed through, overturning the bolstering table and scattering the furniture set on and against it. After the mast end came piling in three apprehensive sailors followed by Slinoor holding a cutlass low and Slinoor’s starsman (navigation officer) with a crossbow at the cock.

Slinoor pressed ahead a little and surveyed the scene swiftly yet intently, then said, “Our poppy-dust curry has taken Glipkerio’s two lust-besotted rogues, but Hisvet’s hid with her nymphy slavegirl. The rats are out of their cages. Search, sailors! Starsman, cover us!”

Gingerly at first, but soon in a rush, the sailors searched the cabin, tumbling the empty boxes and jerking the quilts and mattress off the sea-bed and swinging it up to see beneath, heaving chests away from walls and flinging open the unlocked ones, sweeping Hisvet’s wardrobe in great silken armfuls out of the curtained niches in which it had been hanging.

The Mouser again made a mighty effort to speak or move, with no more success than to widen his blurred eye-slits a little. A sailor louted into him and he helplessly collapsed sideways against an arm of his chair without quite falling out of it. Fafhrd got a shove behind and slumped face-down on the table in a dish of stewed plums, his great arms outsweeping unconsciously upsetting cups and scattering plates.

The starsman kept crossbow, trained on each new space uncovered. Slinoor watched with eagle eye, flipping aside silken fripperies with his cutlass point and using it to overset the rats’ table, peering the while narrowly.

“There’s where the vermin feasted like men,” he observed disgustedly. “The curry was set before them. Would they had gorged themselves senseless on it.”

“Likely they were the ones to note the drug even through the masking spices of the curry and warn the women,” the starsman put in. “Rats are prodigiously wise to poisons.”

As it became apparent neither girls nor rats were in the cabin, Slinoor cried with angry anxiety, “They can’t have escaped to the deck—here’s the sky-trap locked below besides our guard above. The mate’s party bars the after hold. Perchance the stern-lights—”

But just then the Mouser heard one of the horn windows behind him being opened and the Squid’s arms-master call from there, “Naught came this way. Where are they, captain?”

“Ask someone wittier than I,” Slinoor tossed him sourly. “Certain they’re not here.”

“Would that these two could speak,” the starsman wished, indicating the Mouser and Fafhrd.

“No,” Slinoor said dourly. “They’d just lie. Cover the larboard trap to the hold. I’ll have it up and speak to the mate.”

JUST then footsteps came hurrying across the middeck and the Squid’s mate with blood-streaked face entered by the broken door, half dragging and half supporting a sailor who seemed to be holding a thin stick to his own bloody cheek.

“Why have you left the hold?” Slinoor demanded of the first. “You should be with your party below.”

“Rats ambushed us on our way to the after hold,” the mate gasped. “There were dozens of blacks led by a white, some armed like men. The sword of a beam-hanger almost cut my eye across. Two loamy-mouthed springers dashed out our lamp. ‘Twere pure folly to have gone on in the dark. There’s scarce a man of my party not bitten, slashed or jabbed. I left them guarding the fore way to the hold. They say their wounds are poisoned and talk of nailing down the hatch.”

“Oh monstrous cowardice!” Slinoor cried. “You’ve spoiled my trap that would have scotched them at the start. Now all’s to do and difficult. Oh scarelings! Daunted by rats!”

“I tell you they were armed!” the mate protested and then. swinging the sailor forward, “Here’s my proof with a spearlet in his cheek.”

“Don’t drag her out, captain, sir,” the sailor begged as Slmoor moved to examine his face. “‘Tis barbed for certain and poisoned too, I wot.”

“Hold still, boy,” Slinoor commanded. “And take your hands away—I’ve got it firm. The point’s near the skin. I’ll drive it out forward so the barbs don’t catch. Pinion his arms, mate. Don’t move your face, boy, or you’ll be hurt worse. If it’s poisoned, it must come out the faster. There!”

The sailor squeaked. Fresh blood rilled down his cheek.

‘“Tis a nasty needle indeed,” Slinoor commended, inspecting the bloody point. “Doesn’t look poisoned. Mate, gently cut off the shaft aft of the wound, draw out the rest forward.”

“Here’s further proof, most wicked,” said the starsman, who’d been picking about in the litter. He handed Slinoor a tiny crossbow.

Slinoor held it up before him. In the pale candlelight it gleamed bluely, while the skipper’s dark-circled eyes were like agates.

“Here’s evil’s soul,” he cried. “Perchance ‘twas well you were ambushed in the hold. ‘Twill teach each mariner to hate and fear all rats again, like a good grain-sailor should. And now by a swift certain killing of all rats on Squid wipe out today’s traitrous folery, when you clapped for rats and let rats lead your cheers, seduced by a scarlet girl and bribed by that most misnamed Mouser.”

The Mouser, still paralyzed and perforce watching Slinoor a-slant as Slinoor pointed at him, had to admit it was a well-turned reference to himself.

“First off,” Slinoor said, “drag those two rogues on deck. Truss them to mast or rail. I’ll not have them waking to botch my victory.”

“Shall I up with a trap and loose a dart in the after hold?” the starsman asked eagerly.

“You should know better,” was all Slinoor answered.

“Shall I gong for the galley and run up a red lamp?” the mate suggested.

Slinoor was silent two heartbeats, then said, “No. This is Squid’s fight to wipe out today’s shame. Besides, Lukeen’s a hothead botcher. Forget I said that, gentlemen, but it is so.”

“Yet we’d be safer with the galley standing by,” the mate ventured to continue. “Even now the rats may be gnawing holes in us.”

“That’s unlikely with the Rat Queen below,” Slinoor retorted. “Speed’s what will save us and not stand-by ships. Now hearken close. Guard well all ways to the hold. Keep traps and hatches shut. Rouse the off watch. Arm every man. Gather on middeck all we can spare from sailing. Move!”

The Mouser wished Slinoor hadn’t said “Move!” quite so vehemently, for the two sailors instantly grabbed his ankles and dragged him most enthusiastically out of the littered cabin and across the middeck, his head bumping a bit. True, he couldn’t feel the bumps, only hear them. To the west the sky was a quarter globe of stars, to the east a mass of fog below and thinner mist above, with the gibbous moon shining through the latter like a pale misshapen silver ghost-lamp. The wind had slackened. Squid sailed smoothly.

ONE sailor held the Mouser against the mainmast, facing aft, while the other looped rope around him. As the sailors bound him with his arms flat to his sides, the Mouser felt a tickle in his throat and life returning to his tongue, but he decided not to try to speak just yet. Slinoor in his present mood might order him gagged.

The Mouser’s next divertisement was watching Fafhrd dragged out by four sailors and bound lengthwise, facing inboard with head aft and higher than feet, to the larboard rail. It was quite a comic performance, but the Northerner snored through it.

Sailors began to gather then on middeck, some palely silent but most quipping in low voices. Pikes and cutlasses gave them courage. Some carried nets and long sharp-tined forks. Even the cook came with a great cleaver, which he hefted playfully at the Mouser.

“Struck dumb with admiration of my sleepy curry eh?”

Meanwhile the Mouser found he could move his fingers. No one had bothered to disarm him, but Cat’s Claw was unfortunately fixed far too high on his left side for either hand to touch, let alone get out of its scabbard. He felt the hem of his tunic until he touched, through the cloth, a rather small flat round object thinner along one edge than the other. Gripping it by the thick edge through the cloth, he began to scrape with the thin edge at the fabric confining it.

The sailors crowded aft as Slinoor emerged from the cabin with his officers and began to issue low-voiced orders. The Mouser caught “Slay Hisvet or her maid on sight. They’re not women but were-rats or worse,” and then the last of Slinoor’s orders: “Poise your parties below the hatch or trap by which you enter. When you hear the bosun’s whistle, move!”

The effect of this “Move!” was rather spoiled by a tiny twing and the arms-master clapping his hand to his eye and screaming. There was a flurry of movement among the sailors. Cutlasses struck at a pale form that scurried along the deck. For an instant a rat with a crossbow in his hands was silhouetted on the starboard rail against the moon-pale mist. Then the starsman’s crossbow twanged and the dart winging with exceptional accuracy or luck knocked the rat off the rail into the sea.

“That was a whitey, lads!” Slinoor cried. “A good omen!”

Thereafter there was some confusion, but it was quickly settled, especially when it was discovered that the starsman had not been struck in the eye but only near it, and the beweaponed parties moved off, one into the cabin, two forward past the mainmast, leaving on deck a skeleton crew of four.

The fabric the Mouser had been scraping parted and he most carefully eased out of the shredded hem an iron tik (the Lankhmar coin of least value) with half its edge honed to razor sharpness and began to slice with it in tiny strokes at the nearest loop of the line binding him. He looked hopefully toward Fafhrd, but the latter’s head still hung at a senseless angle.

A whistle sounded faintly, followed some ten breaths later by a louder one from another part of the hold, it seemed. Then muffled shouts began to come in flurries; there were two screams, something thumped the deck from below, and a sailor swinging a rat squeaking in a net dashed past the Mouser.

The Mouser’s fingers told him he was almost through the first loop. Leaving it joined by a few threads, he began to slice at the next loop, bending his wrist acutely to do it.

An explosion shook the deck, stinging the Mouser’s feet. He could not conjecture its nature and sawed furiously with his sharpened coin. The skeleton crew cried out and one of the helmsmen fled forward but the other stuck by the tiller. Somehow the gong clanged once, though no one was by it.

THEN Squid’s sailors began to pour up out of the hold, half of them without weapons and frantic with fear. They milled about. The Mouser could hear sailors dragging Squid’s boats, which were forward of the mainmast, to the ship’s side. The Mouser gathered that the sailors had fared most evilly below, assaulted by batallions of black rats, confused by false whistles, slashed and jabbed from dark corners, stung by darts, two struck in the eye and blinded. What had completed their rout was that, coming to a hold of un-sacked grain, they’d found the air above it choked with grain dust from the recent churnings and scatterings of a horde of rats, and Frix had thrown in fire from beyond, exploding the stuff and knocking them off their feet though not setting fire to the ship.

At the same time as the panic-stricken sailors, there also came on deck another group, noted only by the Mouser—a most quiet and orderly file of black rats that went climbing around him up the mainmast. The Mouser weighed crying an alarm, although he wouldn’t have wagered a tik on his chances of survival with hysterical be-cutlassed sailors rat-slashing all around him.

In any case his decision was made for him in the negative by Skwee, who climbed on his left shoulder just then. Holding on by a lock of the Mouser’s hair, Skwee leaned out in front of him, staring into the Mouser’s left eye with his own two wally blue ones under his black-plumed silver helmet. Skwee touched pale paw to his buck-toothed lips, enjoining silence, then patted the little sword at his side and jerked his rat-thumb across his rat-throat to indicate the penalty for silence broken. Thereafter he retired into the shadows by the Mouser’s ear, presumably to watch the routed sailors and wave on and command his own company—and keep close to the Mouser’s jugular vein. The Mouser kept sawing with his coin.

The starsman came aft followed by three sailors with two white lanterns apiece. Skwee crowded back closer between the Mouser and the mast, but touched the cold flat of his sword to the Mouser’s neck, just under the ear, as a reminder. The Mouser remembered Hisvet’s kiss. With a frown at the Mouser the starsman avoided the mainmast and had the sailors hang their lanterns to the aftermast and the crane fittings and the forward range of the afterdeck, fussing about the exact positions. He asserted in a high babble that light was the perfect military defense and counter-weapon, and talked wildly of light-entrenchmente and light palisades, and was just about to set the sailors hunting more lamps, when Slinoor limped out of the cabin bloody-foreheaded and looked around.

“Courage, lads,” Slinoor shouted hoarsely. “On deck we’re still masters. Let down the boats orderly, lads, we’ll need ‘em to fetch the marines. Run up the red lamp! You there, gong the alarm!”

Someone responded, “The gong’s gone overboard. The ropes that hung it—gnawed!”

At the same time thickening waves of fog came out of the east, shrouding Squid in deadly moonlit silver. A sailor moaned. It was a strange fog that seemed to increase rather than diminish the amount of light cast by the moon and the atarsmen’s lantern. Colors stood out, yet soon there was only white wall beyond the Squid’s rails.

Slinoor ordered, “Get up the spare gong! Cook, let’s have your biggest kettles, lids and pots—anything to beat an alarm!”

There were two splashing thumps as Squid’s boats hit the water.

Someone screamed agonizingly in the cabin.

Then two things happened together. The mainsail parted from the mast, falling to starboard like a cathedral ceiling in a gale, its lines and ties to the mast gnawed loose or sawed by tiny swords. It floated darkly on the water, dragging the boom wide. Squid lurched to starboard.

At the same time a horde of black rats spewed out of the cabin door and came pouring over the taffrail, the latter presumably by way of the stern lights. They rushed at the humans in waves, springing with equal force and resolution whether they landed on pike points or tooth-clinging to noses and throats.

THE sailors broke and made for the boats, rats landing on their backs and nipping at their heels. The officers fled too. Slinoor was carried along, crying for a last stand. Skwee came out with his sword on the Mouser’s shoulder and bravely waved on his suicidal soldiery, chittering high, then leaped down to follow in their rear. Four white rats armed with crossbows knelt on the crane fittings and began to crank, load and fire with great efficiency.

Splashings began, first two and three, then what sounded like a half dozen together, mixed with screams. The Mouser twisted his head around and from the corner of his eye saw the last two of Squid’s sailors leap over the side. Straining a little further around yet, he saw Slinoor clutch to his chest two rats that worried him and follow the sailors. The four white-furred arbalasters leaped down from the crane fittings and raced toward a new firing position on the prow. Hoarse human cries came up from the water and faded off. Silence fell on Squid like the fog, broken only by the inevitable chitterings and those few now.

When the Mouser turned his head aft again, Hisvet was standing before him. She was dressed in close-fitting black leather from neck to elbows and knees, looking most like a slim boy, and she wore a black leather helmet fitting down over her temples and cheeks like Skwee’s silver one, her white hair streaming down in a tail behind making her plume. A slim dagger was scabbarded on her left hip.

“Dear, dear Dirksman,” she said softly, smiling with her little mouth, “You at least do not desert me,” and she reached out and almost brushed his cheek with her fingers. Then, “Bound!” she said, seeming to see the rope for the first time and drawing back her hand. “We must remedy that, Dirksman.”

“I would be most grateful, White Princess,” the Mouser said humbly. Nevertheless, he did not let go his sharpened coin, which although somewhat dulled had now sliced almost halfway through a third loop.

“We must remedy that,” Hisvet repeated a little absently, her gaze straying beyond the Mouser. “But my fingers are too soft and unskilled to deal with such mighty knots as I see. Frix will release you. Now I must hear Skwee’s report on the afterdeck. Skwee-skwee-skwee!”

As she turned and walked aft the Mouser saw that her hair all went through a silver-ringed hole in the back top of her black helmet. Skwee came running Past the Mouser and when he had almost caught up with Hisvet he took position to her right and three rat-paces behind her, strutting with forepaw on sword-hilt and head held high, like a captain-general behind his empress.

As the Mouser resumed his weary sawing of the third loop, he looked at Fafhrd bound to the rail and saw that the black kitten was crouched fur-on-end on Fafhrd’s neck and slowly raking his cheek with the spread claws of a forepaw while the Northerner still snored garglingly. Then the kitten dipped its head and bit Fafhrd’s ear. Fafhrd groaned piteously, but then came another of the gargling snores. The kitten resumed its cheek-raking. Two rats, one white, one black, walked by and the kitten wauled at them softly yet direly. The rats stopped and stared, then scurried straight toward the afterdeck, presumably to report the unwholesome condition to Skwee or Hisvet.

THE Mouser decided to burst loose without more ado, but just then the four white arbalasters came back dragging a brass cage of frightenedly cheeping wrens the Mouser remembered seeing hanging by a sailor’s bunk in the forecastle. They stopped by the crane fittings again and started a wren-shoot. They’d release one of the tiny terrified flutterers, then as it winged off bring it down with a well-aimed dart—at distances up to five and six yards, never missing. Once or twice one of them would glance at the Mouser narrowly and touch the dart’s point.

Frix stepped down the ladder from the afterdeck. She was now dressed like her mistress, except she had no helmet, only the tight silver hairnet, though the silver rings were gone from her wrists.

“Lady Frix!” the Mouser called in a light voice, almost gayly. It was hard to say how one should speak on a ship manned by rats, but a high voice seemed indicated.

She came towards him smiling, but “Frix will do better,” she said. “Lady is such a corset title.”

“Frix then,” the Mouser called, “on your way would you scare that black witch cat from our poppy-sodden friend? He’ll rake out my comrade’s eye.”

Frix looked sideways to see what the Mouser meant, but still kept stepping toward him.

“I never interfere with another person’s pleasures or pains, since it’s hard to be certain which are which,” she informed him, coming close. “I only carry out my mistress’s directives. Now she bids me tell you be patient and of good cheer. Your trials will soon be over. And this withal she sends you as a remembrancer.” Lifting her mouth, she kissed the Mouser softly on each upper eyelid.

The Mouser said, “That’s the kiss with which the green priestess of Djil seals the eyes of those departing this world.”

“Is it?” Frix asked softly.

“Aye, ‘tis,” the Mouser said with a little shudder, continuing briskly, “So now undo me these knots, Frix, which is something your mistress has directed. And then perchance give me a livelier smack—after I’ve looked to Fafhrd.”

“I only carry out the directives of my mistress’ own mouth,” Frix said, shaking her head a little sadly. “She said nothing to me about untieing knots. But doubtless she will direct me to loose you shortly.”

“Doubtless,” the Mouser agreed, a little glumly, forbearing to saw with his coin at the third loop while Frix watched him. If he could but sever at once three loops, he told himself, he might be able to shake off the remaining ones in a not impossibly large number of heartbeats.

As if on cue, Hisvet stepped lightly down from the afterdeck and hastened to them.

“Dear mistress, do you bid me undo the Dirksman his knots?” Frix asked at once, almost as if she wanted to be told to.

“I will attend to matters here,” Hisvet replied hurriedly. “Go you to the afterdeck, Frix, and harken and watch for my father. He delays overlong this night.” She also ordered the white cross bow-rats, who’d winged their last wren, to retire to the afterdeck.

AFTER Frix and the rats had gone, Hisvet gazed at the Mouser for the space of a score of heartbeats, frowning just a little, studying him deeply with her red-irised eyes.

Finally she said with a sigh, “I wish I could be certain.”

“Certain of what, White Princessship?” the Mouser asked.

“Certain that you love me truly,” she answered softly yet downrightly, as if he surely knew. “Many men—aye and women too and demons and beasts—have told me they loved me truly, but truly I think none of them loved me for myself (save Frix, whose happiness is in being a shadow) but only because I was young or beautiful or a demoiselle of Lankhmar or dreadfully clever or had a rich lather or was dowered with power, being blood-related to the rats, which is a certain sign of power in more worlds than Nehwon. Do you truly love me for myself, Gray Mouser?”

“I love you most truly indeed, Shadow Princess,” the Mouser said with hardly an instant’s hesitation. “Truly I love you for yourself alone, Hisvet. I love you more dearly than aught else in Nehwon—aye, and in all other worlds too and heaven and hell besides.”

Just then Fafhrd, cruelly clawed or bit by the kitten, let off a most piteous groan indeed with a dreadful high note in it, and the Mouser said impulsively, “Dear Princess, first chase me that were-cat from my large friend, for I fear it will be his blinding and death’s bane, and then we shall discourse of our great loves to the end of eternity.”

“That is what I mean,” Hisvet said softly and reproachfully. “If you loved me truly for myself, Gray Mouser, you would not care a feather if your closest friend or your wife or mother or child were tortured and done to death before your eyes, so long as my eyes were upon you and I touched you with my fingertips. With my kisses on your lips and my slim hands playing about you, my whole person accepting and welcoming you, you could watch your large friend there scratched to blindness and death by a cat—or mayhap eaten alive by rats—and be utterly content, I have touched few things in this world, Gray Mouser. I have touched no man, or male demon or larger male beast, save by the proxy of Frix. Remember that, Gray Mouser.”

“To be sure, Dear Light of my Life!” the Mouser replied most spiritedly, certain now of the sort of self-adoring madness with which he had to deal, since he had a touch of the same mania and so was well-acquainted with it “Let the barbarian bleed to death by pinpricks! Let the cat have his eyes! Let the rats banquet on him to his bones! What skills it while we trade sweet words and caresses, discoursing to each other with our entire bodies and our whole souls!”

Meanwhile, however, he had started to saw again most fiercely with his now-dulled coin, unmindful of Hisvet’s eyes upon him. It joyed him to feel Cat’s Claw lying against his ribs.

“That’s spoken like my own true Mouser,” Hisvet said with most melting tenderness, brushing her fingers so close to his cheek that he could feel the tiny chill zephyr of their passage. Then, turning, she called, “Holla, Frix! Send to me Skwee and the White Company. Each may bring with him two black comrades of his own choice. I have somewhat of a reward for them, somewhat of a special treat. Skwee! Skwee-skwee-skwee!”

What would have happened then, both instantly and ultimately, is impossible to say, for at that moment Frix hailed, “Ahoy!” into the fog and called happily down, “A black sail! Oh Blessed Demoiselle, it is your father!”

OUT of the pearly fog to starboard came the shark’s-fin triangle of the upper portion of a black sail, running alongside Squid aft of the dragging brown mainsail. Two boathooks a small ship’s length apart came up and clamped down on the starboard middeck rail while the black sail flapped. Frix came running lightly forward and secured to the rail midway between the boathooks the top of a rope ladder next heaved up from the black cutter (for surely this must be that dire craft, the Mouser thought).

Then up the ladder and over the rail came nimbly an old man of Lankhmar dressed all in black leather and on his left shoulder a white rat clinging with right forepaw to a cheek-flap of his black leather cap. He was followed swiftly by two lean, bald Mingols with faces yellow-brown as old lemons, each shoulder-bearing a large black rat that steadied itself by a yellow ear.

At that moment, most coincidentally, Fafhrd groaned again, more loudly, and opened his eyes and cried out in the faraway moan of an opium-dreamer, “Millions of black monkeys! Take him off, I say! Tis a black fiend of hell torments me! Take him off!”

At that the black kitten raised up, stretched out its small evil face, and bit Fafhrd on the nose. Disregarding this interruption, Hisvet threw up her hand at the newcomers and cried clearly, “Greetings, oh Cocommander my Father! Greetings, peerless rat captain Grig! Clam is conquered by you, now Squid by me, and this very night, after small business of my own attended to, shall see the perdition of all this final fleet. Then it’s Movarl estranged, the Mingols across the Sinking Land, Glipkerio hurled down, and the rats ruling Lankhmar under my overlordship and yours!”

The Mouser, sawing ceaselessly at the third loop, chanced to note Skwee’s muzzle at that moment. The small white captain had come down from the afterdeck at Hisvet’s summoning along with eight white comrades, two bandaged, and now he shot Hisvet a silent look that seemed to say there might be doubts about the last item of her boast, once the rats ruled Lankhmar.

Hisvet’s father Hisvin had a long-nosed, much wrinkled face patched by a week of white, old-man’s beard, and he seemed permanently stooped far over, yet he moved most briskly for all that, taking very rapid little shuffling steps.

NOW he answered his daughter’s bragging speech with a petulant sideways flirt of his black glove close to his chest and a little impatient “Tsk-tsk!” of disapproval, then went circling the deck at his odd scuttling gait while the Mingols waited by the ladder-top. Hisvin circled by Fafhrd and his black tormenter (“Tsk-tsk!”) and by the Mouser (another “Tsk!”) and stopping in front of Hisvet said rapid and fumingly, still crouched over, jogging a bit from foot to foot, “Here’s confusion indeed tonight! You catsing and romancing with bound men!—I know, I know! The moon coming through too much! (I’ll have my astrologer’s liver!) Shark oaring like a mad cuttlefish through the foggy white! A black balloon with little lights scudding above the waves! And but now ere we found you, a vast sea monster swimming about in circles with a gibbering demon on his head—it came sniffing at us as if we were dinner, but we evaded it!

“Daughter, you and your maid and your little people must into the cutter at once with us, pausing only to slay these two and leave a suicide squad of gnawers to sink Squid!”

“Sink Squid?” Hisvet questioned. “The plan was to slip her to Ilthmar with a Mingol skeleton crew and there sell her cargo.”

“Plans change!” Hisvin snapped. “Daughter, if we’re not off this ship in forty breaths, Shark will ram us by pure excess of blundering energy or the monster with the clown-clad mad mahout will eat us up as we drift here helpless. Give orders to Skwee! Then out with your knife and cut me these two fools’ throats! Quick, quick!”

“But Daddy,” Hisvet objected, “I had something quite different in mind for them. Not death, at least not altogether. Something far more artistic, even loving—”

“I give you thirty breaths each to torture ere you slay them!” Hisvin conceded. “Thirty breaths and not one more, mind you! I know your somethings!”

“Dad, don’t be crude! Among new friends! Why must you always give people a wrong impression of me? I won’t endure it longer!”

“Chat-chat-chat! You pother and pose more than your rat-mother.”

“But I tell you I won’t endure it. This time we’re going to do things my way for a change!”

“Hist-hist!” her father commanded, stooping still lower and cupping hand to left ear, while his white rat Grig imitated his gesture on the other side.

Faintly through the fog came a gibbering. “Gottverdammter Nebel! Freünde, wo sind Sie?”*

*“Goddam fog! Friends, where are you!” Evidently Karl Treugerz’ Lankhmarese dictionary was unavailable to him at the moment.

“‘Tiz the gibberer!” Hisvin cried under his breath. “The monster will be upon us! Quick, daughter, out with your knife and slay, or I’ll have my Mingols dispatch them!”

Hisvet lifted her hand against that villainous possibility. Her proudly plumed head literally bent to the inevitable.

“I’ll do it,” she said. “Skwee, give me your crossbow. Load with silver.”

The white rat captain folded his forelegs across his chest and chittered at her with a note of demand.

“No, you can’t have him,” she said sharply. “You can’t have either of them. They’re mine now.”

Another curt chitter from Skwee.

“Very well, your people may have the small black one. Now quick with your crossbow or I’ll curse you! Remember, only a smooth silver dart.”

Hisvin had scuttled to his Mingols and now he went around in a little circle, almost spitting. Frix glided smiling to him and touched his arm but he shook away from her with an angry flirt.

Skwee was fumbling into his cannister rat-frantically. His eight comrades were fanning out across the deck toward Fafhrd and the black kitten, which leaped down now in front of Fafhrd, snarling defiance.

Fafhrd himself was looking about bloody-faced but at last lucid-eyed, drinking in the desperate situation, poppy-langour banished by nose-bite.

Just then there came another gibber through the fog. “Gottverdammter Nirgendswelt!”*

*“Goddam Nowhere-World!”

Fafhrd’s blood-shot eyes widened and brightened with a great inspiration. Bracing himself against his bonds, he inflated his mighty chest.

“HOONGK!” he bellowed. “HOONGK!”

Out of the fog came eager answer, growing each time louder: “Hoongk! Hoongk! HOONGK!”

SEVEN of the eight white rats that had crossed the deck now returned carrying stretched between them the still-snarling black kitten spread-eagled on its back, one to each paw and ear while the seventh tried to master but was shaken from side to side by the whipping tail. The eighth came hobbling behind on three legs, shoulder paralyzed by a deep-stabbing cat-bite.

From cabin and forecastle and all corners of the deck, the black rats scurried in to watch gloatingly their traditional enemy mastered and delivered to torment, until the middeck was thick with their bloaty dark forms.

Hisvin cracked a command at his Mingols. Each drew a wavy-edged knife. One headed for Fafhrd, the other for the Mouser. Black rats hid their feet.

Skwee dumped his tiny darts on the deck. His paw closed on a palely gleaming one and he slapped it in his crossbow, which he hurriedly handed up toward his mistress. She lifted it in her right hand toward Fafhrd, but just then the Mingol moving toward the Mouser crossed in front of her, his kreese point-first before him. She shifted crossbow to left hand, whipped out her dagger and darted ahead of the Mingol.

Meanwhile the Mouser had snapped the three cut loops with one surge. The others still confined him loosely at ankles and throat, but he reached across his body, drew Cat’s Claw and slashed out at the Mingol as Hisvet shouldered the yellow man aside.

The dirk sliced her pale cheek from jaw to nose.

The other Mingol, advancing his kreese toward Fafhrd’s throat, abruptly dropped to the deck and began to roll back across it, the black rats squeaking, and snapping at him in surprise.

“HOONK!”

A great green dragon’s head had loomed from the moon-mist over the larboard rail just at the spot where Fafhrd was tied. Strings of slaver trailed on the Northerner from the dagger-toothed jaws.

Like a ponderous jack-in-the-box, the red-mawed head dipped and drove forward, lower jaw rasping the oaken deck and sweeping up from it a swathe of black rats three rats wide. The jaws crunched together on their great squealing mouthful inches from the rolling Mingol’s head. Then the green head swayed aloft and a horrid swelling travelled down the greenish yellow neck.

But even as it poised there for a second strike, it shrank in size by comparison with what now appeared out of the mist after it—a second green dragon’s head fourfold larger and fantastically crested in red, orange and purple (for at first sight the rider seemed to be part of the monster). This head now drove forward as if it were that of the father of all dragons, sweeping up a black-rat swathe twice as wide as had the first and topping off its monster gobble with the two white rats behind the rat-carried black kitten. It ended its first strike so suddenly (perhaps to avoid eating the kitten) that its parti-colored rider, who’d been waving his pike futilely, was hurled forward off its green head. The rider sailed low past the mainmast, knocking aside the Mingol striking at the Mouser, and skidded across the deck into the starboard rail.

The white rats let go of the kitten, which raced for the mainmast.

Then the two green heads famished by their two days of small fishy pickings since their last real meal at the Rat Rocks began methodically to sweep Squid’s deck clean of rats, avoiding humans for the most part, though not very carefully. And the rats, huddled in their mobs, did little to evade this dreadful mowing. Perhaps in their straining toward world-dominion they had grown just human and civilized enough to experience imaginative, unhelpful, freezing panic and to have acquired something of humanity’s talent for inviting and enduring destruction, Perhaps they looked on the dragons’ heads as the twin red maws of war and hell, into which they must throw themselves willy-nilly. At all events they were swept up by dozens and scores. All but three of the white rats were among those engulfed.

MEANWHILE the larger people aboard Squid faced up variously to the drastically altered situation.

Old Hisvin shook his fist and spat in the larger dragon’s face when after its first gargantuan swallow it came questing toward him, as if trying to decide whether this bent black thing were (ugh!) a very queer man or (yum!) a very large rat. But when the stinking apparition kept coming on, Hisvin rolled deftly over the rail as if into bed and swiftly climbed down the rope ladder, fairly chittering in consternation, while Grig clung for dear life to the back of the black leather collar.

Hisvin’s two Mingols picked themselves up and followed him, vowing to get back to their cozy cold steppes as soon as Mingolly possible.

Fafhrd and Karl Treuherz watched the melee from opposite sides of the middeck, the one bound by ropes, the other by out-wearied astonishment.

Skwee and a white rat named Siss ran over the heads of their packed apathetic black fellows and hopped on the starboard rail. There they looked back. Siss blinked in horror. But Skwee, his black-plumed helmet pushed down over his left eye, menaced with his little sword and chittered defiance.

Frix ran to Hisvet and urged her to the starboard rail. As they neared the head of the rope ladder, Skwee went down it to make way for his empress, dragging Siss with him. Just then Hisvet turned like someone in a dream. The smaller dragon’s head drove toward her viciously. Frix sprang in the way, arms wide, smiling, a little like a ballet dancer taking a curtain call. Perhaps it was the suddenness or seeming aggressiveness of her move that made the dragon sheer off, fangs clashing. The two girls climbed the rail.

Hisvet turned again. Cat’s Claw’s cut a bold red line across her face, and sighted her crossbow at the Mouser. There was the faintest silvery flash. Hisvet tossed the crossbow in the black sea and followed Frix down the ladder. The boathooks let go, the flapping black sail filled, and the black cutter faded into the mist.

The Mouser felt a little sting in his left temple, but he forgot it while whirling the last loops from his shoulders and ankles. Then he ran across the deck, disregarding the green heads lazily searching for last rat morsels, and cut Fafhrd’s bonds.

ALL the rest of that night the two adventurers conversed with Karl Treuherz, telling each other fabulous things about each other’s worlds, while Scylla’s sated daughter slowly circled Squid, first one head sleeping and then the other. Talking was slow and uncertain work, even with the aid of the little Lankhmarese-German Dictionary for Space-Time Travelers, and neither party really believed a great deal of the other’s tales, yet pretended to for friendship’s sake.

“Do all men dress as grandly as you do in Tomorrow?” Fafhrd once asked, admiring the German’s purple and orange garb.

“No, Hagenbeck just has his employees do it, to spread his monster zoo’s fame,” Karl Treuherz explained.

The last of the mist vanished just before dawn and they saw, silhouetted against the sea silvered by the sinking gibbous moon, the black ship of Karl Treuherz hovering not a bowshot west of Squid, its little lights twinkling softly.

The German shouted for joy, summoned his sleepy monster by thwacking his pike against the rail, swung astride the larger head, and swam off calling after him, “Auf Wiedersehen!”

Fafhrd had learned just enough Gibberish—German, during the night to know this meant, “Until we meet again.”

When the monster and the German had swum below it, the space-time engine descended, somehow engulfing them. Then a little later the black ship vanished.

“It dove into the infinite waters toward Karl’s Tomorrow bubble,” the Gray Mouser affirmed confidently. “By Ning and by Sheel, the German’s a master magician!”

Fafhrd blinked, frowned, and then simply shrugged…

The black kitten rubbed his ankle. Fafhrd lifted it gently to eye level, saying, “I wonder, kitten, if you’re one of the Cat’s Thirteen or else their small agent, sent to wake me when waking was needful?” The kitten smiled solemnly into Fafhrd’s cruelly scratched and bitten face and purred.

Clear gray dawn spread across the waters of the Inner Sea, showing them first Squid’s two boats crowded with men and Slinoor sitting dejected in the stern of the nearer but standing up with uplifted hand as he recognized the figures of the Mouser and Fafhrd; next Lukeen’s war galley Shark and the three other grain ships Tunny, Carp and Grouper; lastly, small on the northern horizon, the green sails of two dragon-ships of Movarl.

The Mouser, running his left hand back through his hair, felt a short, straight, rounded ridge in his temple under the skin. He knew it was Hisvet’s smooth silver dart, there to stay.

LIONS LOOSE

James Schmitz

1

For twelve years, at a point where three major shipping routes of the Federation of the Hub crossed within a few hours’ flight of one another, the Seventh Star Hotel had floated in space, a great golden sphere, gleaming softly in the void through its translucent shells of battle plastic. The Star had been designed to be much more than a convenient transfer station for travelers and freight; for some years after it was opened to the public, it retained a high rating among the more exotic pleasure resorts of the Hub. The Seventh Star Hotel was the place to have been that season, and the celebrities and fat cats converged on it with their pals and hangers-on. The Star blazed with life, excitement, interstellar scandals, tinkled with streams of credits dancing in from a thousand worlds. In short, it had started out as a paying proposition.

But gradually things changed. The Star’s entertainment remained as delightfully outrageous as ever; the cuisine as excellent; the accommodations and service were still above reproach. The fleecing, in general, became no less expertly painless. But one had been there. By its eighth year, the Star was dated. Now, in its twelfth, it lived soberly off the liner and freighter trade, four fifths of the guest suites shut down, the remainder irregularly occupied between ship departures.

And in another seven hours, if the plans of certain men went through, the Seventh Star Hotel would abruptly wink out of existence.

*

Some fifty or sixty early diners were scattered about the tables on the garden terraces of Phalagon House, the Seventh Star Hotel’s most exclusive eatery. One of them had just finished his meal, sat smoking and regarding a spiraling flow of exquisitely indicated female figures across the garden’s skyscape with an air of friendly approval. He was a large and muscular young man, deeply tanned, with shoulders of impressive thickness, an aquiline nose, and dark, reflective eyes.

After a minute or two, he yawned comfortably, put out the cigarette, and pushed his chair back from the table. As he came to his feet, there was a soft bell-note from the table ComWeb. He hesitated, said, “Go ahead.”

“Is intrusion permitted?” the ComWeb inquired.

“Depends,” the guest said. “Who’s calling?”

“The name is Reetal Destone.”

He grinned, appeared pleasantly surprised. “Put the lady through.”

There was a brief silence. Then a woman’s voice inquired softly, “Quillan?”

“Right here, doll! Where—”

“Seal the ComWeb, Quillan.”

He reached down to the instrument, tapped the seal button, said, “All right. We’re private.”

“Probably,” the woman’s voice said. “But better scramble this, too. I want to be very sure no one’s listening”

Quillan grunted, slid his left hand into an inner coat pocket, briefly fingered a device of the approximate size and shape of a cigarette, drew his hand out again. “Scrambling!” he announced. “Now, what—”

“Mayday, Quillan,” the soft voice said. “Can you come immediately?”

Quillan’s face went expressionless. “Of course. Is it urgent?”

“I’m in no present danger. But we’d better waste no time.”

“Is it going to take real hardware? I’m carrying a finger gun at the moment.”

“Then go to your rooms and pick up something useful,” Reetal said. “This should take real hardware, all right.”

“All right. Then where do I go?”

“I’ll meet you at your door. I know where it is.”

When Quillan arrived, she was standing before the door to his suite, a tall blonde in a sleeveless black and gold sheath; a beautiful body, a warm, lovely, humorous face. The warmth and humor were real, but masked a mind as impersonally efficient as a computer, and a taste for high and dangerous living. When Quillan had last met Reetal Destone, a year and a half before, the taste was being satisfied in industrial espionage. He hadn’t heard of her activities since then.

She smiled thoughtfully at him as he came up. “I’ll wait outside,” she said. “We’re not talking here.”

Quillan nodded, went on into his living room, selected a gun belt and holstered gun from a suitcase, fastened the belt around his waist under the coat, and came out. “Now what?”

“First a little portal-hopping—”

He followed her across the corridor and into a tube portal, watched as she tapped out a setting. The exit light flashed a moment later; they stepped out into a vacant lounge elsewhere in the same building, crossed it, entered another portal. After three more shifts, they emerged into a long hall, dimly lit, heavily carpeted. There was no one in sight.

“Last stop,” Reetal said. She glanced up at his face. “We’re on the other side of the Star now, in one of the sections they’ve closed up. I’ve established a kind of emergency headquarters here. The Star’s nearly broke, did you know?”

“I’d heard of it.”

“That appears to be part of the reason for what’s going on.”

Quillan said, “What’s going on?”

Reetal slid her arm through his, said, “Come on. That’s my, hm-m-m, unregistered suite over there. Big boy, it’s very, very selfish of me, but I was extremely glad to detect your name on the list of newly arrived guests just now! As to what’s going on …the Camelot berths here at midnight, you know.”

Quillan nodded. “I’ve some business with one of her passengers.”

Reetal bent to unlock the entrance door to the indicated suite. “The way it looks now,” she remarked, “the odds are pretty high that you’re not going to keep that appointment.”

“Why not?”

“Because shortly after the Camelot docks and something’s been unloaded from her, the Camelot and the Seventh Star Hotel are scheduled to go poof! together. Along with you, me, and some twelve thousand other people. And, so far, I haven’t been able to think of a good way to keep it from happening.”

Quillan was silent a moment. “Who’s scheduling the poof?” he asked.

“Some old acquaintances of ours are among them. Come on in. What they’re doing comes under the heading of destroying the evidence.”

*

She locked the door behind them, said, “Just a moment,” went over to the paneled wall, turned down a tiny silver switch. “Room portal,” she said, nodding at the wall. “It might come in handy. I keep it turned off most of the time.”

“Why are you turning it on now?” Quillan asked.

“One of the Star’s stewards is working on this with me. He’ll be along as soon as he can get away. Now I’ll give you the whole thing as briefly as I can. The old acquaintances I mentioned are some boys of the Brotherhood of Beldon. Movaine’s here; he’s got Marras Cooms and Fluel with him, and around thirty of the Brotherhood’s top guns. Nome Lancion’s coming in on the Camelot in person tonight to take charge. Obviously, with all that brass on the job, they’re after something very big. Just what it is, I don’t yet know. I’ve got one clue, but a rather puzzling one. Tell you about that later. Do you know Velladon?”

“The commodore here?” Quillan nodded. “I’ve never met him but I know who he is.”

Reetal said, “He’s been manager of the Seventh Star Hotel for the past nine years. He’s involved in the Beldon outfit’s operation. So is the chief of the Star’s private security force—his name’s Ryter—and half a dozen other Star executives. They’ve got plenty of firepower, too; close to half the entire security force, I understand, including all the officers. That would come to nearly seventy men. There’s reason to believe the rest of the force was disarmed and murdered by them in the subspace section of the Star about twelve hours ago. They haven’t been seen since then.

“Now, Velladon, aside from his share in whatever they’re after, has another reason for wanting to wipe out the Star in an unexplained blowup. There I have definite information. Did you know the Mooley brothers owned the Star?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve been working for the Mooleys the past eight months,” Reetal said, “checking up on employees at Velladon’s level for indications of graft. And it appears the commodore has been robbing them blind here for at least several years.”

“Sort of risky thing to try with the Mooleys, from what I hear,” Quillan remarked.

“Yes. Very. Velladon had reason to be getting a little desperate about that. Two men were planted here a month ago. One of them is Sher Heraga, the steward I told you about. The other man came in as a bookkeeper. Two weeks ago, Heraga got word out that the bookkeeper had disappeared. Velladon and Ryter apparently got wise to what he was trying to do. So the Mooleys sent me here to find out exactly what was going on before they took action. I arrived four days ago.”

She gave a regretful little headshake. “I waited almost a day before contacting Heraga. It seemed advisable to move very cautiously in the matter. But that made it a little too late to do anything. Quillan, for the past three days, the Seventh Star Hotel has been locked up like a bank vault. And except for ourselves, only the people who are in on the plot are aware of it.”

“The message transmitters are inoperative?” he asked.

Reetal nodded. “The story is that a gravitic storm center in the area has disrupted transmissions completely for the time being.”

“What about incoming ships?”

“Yours was the only one scheduled before the Camelot arrives. It left again eight hours ago. Nobody here had been let on board. The guests who wanted to apply for outgoing berths were told there were none open, that they’d have to wait for the Camelot.”

She went over to a desk, unlocked a drawer, took out a sheaf of papers, and handed one of them to Quillan. “That’s the layout of the Star,” she said. “This five-level building over by the shell is the Executive Block. The Brotherhood and the commodore’s men moved in there this morning. The Block is the Star’s defense center. It’s raid-proofed, contains the control offices and the transmitter and armament rooms. About the standard arrangement. While they hold the Executive Block, they have absolute control of the Star.”

“If it’s the defense center, it should be practically impossible to do anything about them there,” Quillan agreed. “They could close it up, and dump the air out of the rest of the Star in a minute, if they had to. But there must be …well, what about the lifeboats in the subspace section—and our pals must have a getaway ship stashed away somewhere?”

“They have two ships,” Reetal said. “A souped-up armed freighter the Brotherhood came in on, and a large armed yacht which seems to be the commodore’s personal property. Unfortunately, they’re both in subspace locks.”

“Why unfortunately?”

“Because they’ve sealed off subspace. Try portaling down there, and you’ll find yourself looking at a battle-plastic bulkhead. There’s no way of getting either to those ships or to the lifeboats.”

Quillan lifted his eyebrows. “And that hasn’t caused any comment? What about the maintenance crews, the warehouse men, the—”

“All the work crews were hauled out of subspace this morning,” Reetal said. “On the quiet, the Star’s employees have been told that a gang of raiders was spotted in the warehouse area, and is at present cornered there. Naturally, the matter isn’t to be mentioned to the guests, to avoid arousing unnecessary concern. And that explains everything very neatly. The absence of the security men, and why subspace is sealed off. Why the Executive Block is under guard, and can’t be entered—and why the technical and office personnel in there don’t come out, and don’t communicate out. They’ve been put on emergency status, officially.”

*

“Yunk,” Quillan said disgustedly after a moment. “This begins to look like a hopeless situation, doll!”

“True.”

“Let’s see now—”

Reetal interrupted, “There is one portal still open to subspace. That’s in the Executive Block, of course, and Heraga reports it’s heavily guarded.”

“How does he know?”

“The Block’s getting its meals from Phalagon House. He floated a diner in there a few hours ago.”

“Well,” Quillan said, brightening, “perhaps a deft flavoring of poison—”

Reetal shook her head. “I checked over the hospital stocks. Not a thing there that wouldn’t be spotted at once. Unless we can clobber them thoroughly, we can’t afford to make them suspicious with a trick like that.”

“Poison would be a bit rough on the office help, too,” Quillan conceded. “They wouldn’t be in on the deal.”

“No, they’re not. They’re working under guard.”

“Gas …no, I suppose not. It would take too long to whip up something that could turn the trick.” Quillan glanced at his watch. “If the Camelot docks at midnight, we’ve around six and a half hours left, doll! And I don’t find myself coming up with any brilliant ideas. What have you thought of?”

Reetal hesitated a moment “Nothing very brilliant either,” she said then. “But there are two things we might try as a last resort.”

“Let’s hear them.”

“I know a number of people registered in the Star at present who’d be carrying personal weapons. If they were told the facts, I could probably line up around twenty who’d be willing to make a try to get into the Executive Block, and take over either the control offices or the transmitter room. If we got a warning out to the Camelot, that would break up the plot. Of course, it wouldn’t necessarily save the Star.”

“No,” Quillan said, “but it’s worth trying if we can’t think of something better. How would you get them inside?”

“We could crowd twenty men into one of those diner trucks, and Heraga could take us in.”

“What kind of people are your pals?”

“A few smugglers and confidence men I’ve had connections with. Fairly good boys for this sort of thing. Then there’s an old millionaire sportsman, with a party of six, waiting to transfer to the Camelot for a safari on Jontarou. Old Philmarron isn’t all there, in my opinion, but he’s dead game and loves any kind of a ruckus. We can count on him and his friends, if they’re not too drunk at the moment. Still …that’s not too many to set against something less than a hundred professional guns, even though some of them must be down on the two ships.”

“No, not enough.” Quillan looked thoughtful. “What’s the other idea?”

“Let the cat out of the bag generally. Tell the guests and the employees out here what’s going on, and see if somebody can think of something that might be done.”

He shook his head. “What you’d set off with that would be anywhere between a riot and a panic. The boys in the Executive Block would simply give us the breathless treatment. Apparently, they prefer to have everything looking quiet and normal when the Camelot gets here—”

“But they don’t have to play it that way,” Reetal agreed. “We might be dead for hours before the liner docks. If they keep the landing lock closed until what they want has been unloaded, nobody on the Camelot would realize what had happened before it was too late.”

*

There was a moment’s silence. Then Quillan said, “You mentioned you’d picked up a clue to what they’re after. What was that?”

“Well, that’s a curious thing,” Reetal said. “On the trip out here, a young girl name of Solvey Kinmarten attached herself to me. She didn’t want to talk much, but I gathered she was newly married, and that her husband was on board and was neglecting her. She’s an appealing little thing, and she seemed so forlorn and upset that I adopted her for the rest of the run. After we arrived, of course, I pretty well forgot about the Kinmartens and their troubles.

“A few hours ago, Solvey suddenly came bursting into the suite where I’m registered. She was shaking all over. After I calmed her down a bit, she spilled out her story. She and her husband, Brock Kinmarten, are rest wardens. With another man named Eltak, whom Solvey describes as `some sort of crazy old coot,’ they’re assigned to escort two deluxe private rest cubicles to a very exclusive sanatorium on Mezmiali. But Brock told Solvey at the beginning of the trip that this was a very unusual assignment, that he didn’t want her even to come near the cubicles. That wouldn’t have bothered her so much, she says, but on the way here Brock became increasingly irritable and absent-minded. She knew he was worrying about the cubicles, and she began to wonder whether they weren’t involved in something illegal. The pay was very high; they’re both getting almost twice the regular warden fee for the job. One day, she found an opportunity to do a little investigating.

“The cubicles are registered respectively to a Lady Pendrake and a Major Pendrake. Lady Pendrake appears to be genuine; the cubicle is unusually large and constructed somewhat differently from the ones with which Solvey was familiar, but it was clear that it had an occupant. However, the life indicator on `Major Pendrake’s’ cubicle registered zero when she switched it on. If there was something inside it, it wasn’t a living human being.

“That was all she learned at the time, because she was afraid Brock might catch her in the cubicle room. Here in the Star, the cubicles were taken to a suite reserved for Lady Pendrake. The other man, Eltak, stayed in the suite with the cubicles, while the Kinmartens were given other quarters. However, Brock was still acting oddly and spending most of his time in the Pendrake suite. So this morning, Solvey swiped his key to the suite and slipped in when she knew the two men had left it.

“She’d barely got there when she heard Brock and Eltak at the door again. She ran into the next room, and hid in a closet. Suddenly there was a commotion in the front room, and Solvey realized that men from the Star’s security force had arrived and were arresting Brock and Eltak. They hauled both of them away, then floated the cubicles out on a carrier and took them off too, locking the suite behind them.

“Solvey was in a complete panic, sure that she and Brock had become involved in some serious breach of the Warden Code. She waited a few minutes, then slipped out of the Pendrake suite, and looked me up to see if I couldn’t help them. I had Heraga check, and he reported that the Kinmarten suite was under observation. Evidently, they wanted to pick up the girl, too. So I tucked her away in one of the suites in this section, and gave her something to put her to sleep. She’s there now.”

*

Quillan said, “And where are the prisoners and the cubicles?”

“In the Executive Block.”

“How do you know?”

Reetal smiled briefly. “The Duke of Fluel told me.”

“Huh? The Brotherhood knows you’re here?”

“Relax,” Reetal said. “Nobody but Heraga knows I’m working for the Mooleys. I told the Duke I had a big con deal set up when the Camelot came in—I even suggested he might like to get in on it. He laughed, and said he had other plans. But he won’t mention to anyone that I’m here.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” Reetal said dryly, “what the Duke is planning to get in on is an hour of tender dalliance. Before the Camelot arrives, necessarily. The cold-blooded little skunk!” She hesitated a moment; when she spoke again, her voice had turned harsh and nasal, wicked amusement sounding through it. “Sort of busy at the moment, sweetheart, but we might find time for a drink or two later on in the evening, eh?”

Quillan grunted. “You’re as good at the voice imitations as ever. How did you find out about the cubicles?”

“I took a chance and fed him a Moment of Truth.”

“With Fluel,” Quillan said thoughtfully, “that was taking a chance!”

“Believe me, I was aware of it! I’ve run into card-carrying sadists before, but the Duke’s the only one who scares me silly. But it did work. He dropped in for about a minute and a half, and came out without noticing a thing. Meanwhile, I’d got the answers to a few questions. The bomb with which they’re planning to mop up behind them already has been planted up here in the normspace section. Fluel didn’t know where; armaments experts took care of it. It’s armed now. There’s a firing switch on each of their ships, and both switches have to be tripped before the thing goes off. Part of what they’re after is in those Pendrake rest cubicles—”

“Part of it?” Quillan asked.

“Uh-huh. An even hundred similar cubicles will be unloaded from the Camelot—the bulk of the haul; which is why Nome Lancion is supervising things on the liner. I started to ask what was in the cubicles, but I saw Fluel was beginning to lose that blank look they have under Truth, and switched back to light chitchat just before he woke up. Yaco’s paying for the job—or rather, it will pay for the stuff, on delivery, and no questions asked.”

“That’s not very much help, is it?” Quillan said after a moment. “Something a big crooked industrial combine like Yaco thinks it can use—”

“It must expect to be able to use it to extremely good advantage,” Reetal said. “The Brotherhood will collect thirty million credits for their part of the operation. The commodore’s group presumably won’t do any worse.” She glanced past Quillan toward the room portal. “It’s O.K., Heraga! Come in.”

*

Sher Heraga was a lean, dark-skinned little man with a badly bent nose, black curly hair, and a nervous look. He regretted, he said, that he hadn’t been able to uncover anything which might be a lead to the location of the bomb. Apparently, it wasn’t even being guarded. And, of course, a bomb of the size required here would be quite easy to conceal.

“If they haven’t placed guards over it,” Reetal agreed, “it’ll take blind luck to spot it! Unless we can get hold of one of the men who knows where it’s planted—”

There was silence for some seconds. Then Quillan said, “Well, if we can’t work out a good plan, we’d better see what we can do with one of the bad ones. Are the commodore’s security men wearing uniforms?”

Heraga shook his head. “Not the ones I saw.”

“Then here’s an idea,” Quillan said. “As things stand, barging into the Executive Block with a small armed group can’t accomplish much. It might be more interesting than sitting around and waiting to be blown up, but it still would be suicide. However, if we could get things softened up and disorganized in there first—”

“Softened up and disorganized how?” Reetal asked.

“We can use that notion you had of having Heraga float in another diner. This time, I’m on board—in a steward’s uniform, in case the guards check.”

“They didn’t the first time,” Heraga said.

“Sloppy of them. Well, they’re just gun hands. Anyway, once we’re inside I shuck off the uniform and get out. Heraga delivers his goodies, and leaves again—”

Reetal gave him a look. “You’ll get shot down the instant you’re seen, dope!”

“I think not. There’re two groups in there—around a hundred men in all—and they haven’t had time to get well acquainted yet. I’ll have my gun in sight, and anyone who sees me should figure I belong to the other group, until I run into one of the Brotherhood boys who knows me personally.”

“Then that’s when you get shot down. I understand the last time you and the Duke of Fluel met, he woke up with lumps.”

“The Duke doesn’t love me,” Quillan admitted. “But there’s nothing personal between me and Movaine or Marras Cooms—and I’ll have a message for Movaine.”

“What kind of a message?”

“I’ll have to play that by ear a little. It depends on how things look in there. But I have a few ideas, based on what you’ve learned of the operation. Now, just what I can do when I get that far, I don’t know yet. I’ll simply try to louse the deal up as much as I can. That may take time, and, of course, it might turn out to be impossible to get word out to you.”

“So what do we do meanwhile?” Reetal asked. “If we start lining up our attack group immediately, and then there’s no action for another five or six hours, there’s always the chance of a leak, with around twenty people in the know.”

“And if there’s a leak,” Quillan agreed, “we’ve probably had it. No, you’d better wait with that! If I’m not out, and you haven’t heard from me before the Camelot’s actually due to dock, Heraga can still take the group—everyone but yourself—in as scheduled.”

“Why everyone but me?” Reetal asked.

“If nothing else works, you might find some way of getting a warning to the liner’s security force after they’ve docked. It isn’t much of a possibility, but we can’t afford to throw it away.”

“Yes, I see.” Reetal looked reflective. “What do you think, Heraga?”

The little man shrugged. “You told me that Mr. Quillan is not inexperienced in dealing with, ah, his enemies. If he feels he might accomplish something in the Executive Block, I’m in favor of the plan. The situation certainly could hardly become worse.”

“That’s the spirit!” Quillan approved. “The positive outlook—that’s what a thing like this mainly takes. Can you arrange for the diner and the uniform?”

“Oh, yes,” Heraga said. “I’ve had myself put in charge of that detail, naturally.”

“Then what can you tell me about the Executive Block’s layout?”

Reetal stood up. “Come over to the desk,” she said. “We’ve got diagrams.”

*

“The five levels, as you see,” Heraga was explaining a few moments later, “are built directly into the curve of the Star’s shells. Level Five, on the top, is therefore quite small. The other levels are fairly extensive. Two, Three, and Four could each accommodate a hundred men comfortably. These levels contain mainly living quarters, private offices, and the like. The Brotherhood men appear to be occupying the fourth level; Velladon’s group the second. The third may be reserved for meetings between representatives of the two groups. All three of these levels are connected by single-exit portals to the large entrance area on the ground level.

“The portals stood open when I went in earlier today, and there were about twenty armed men lounging about the entrance hall. I recognized approximately half of them as being members of the Star’s security force. The others were unfamiliar.” Heraga cleared his throat. “There is a possibility that the two groups do not entirely trust each other.”

Quillan nodded. “If they’re playing around with something like sixty million CR, anybody would have to be crazy to trust the Brotherhood of Beldon. The transmitter room and the control offices are guarded, too?”

“Yes, but not heavily,” Heraga said. “There seem to be only a few men stationed at each of those points. Ostensibly, they’re there as a safeguard—in case the imaginary raiders attempt to break out of the subspace section.”

“What’s the arrangement of the ordinary walk-in tube portals in the Executive Block?”

“There is one which interconnects the five levels. On each of the lower levels there are, in addition, several portals which lead out to various points in the Seventh Star Hotel. On the fifth level, there is only one portal of this kind. Except for the portal which operates between the different levels in the Executive Block, all of them have been rendered unusable at present.”

“Unusable in what way?”

“They have been sealed off on the Executive Block side.”

“Can you get me a diagram of the entry and exit systems those outgoing portals connect with?” Quillan asked. “I might turn one of them usable again.”

“Yes, I can do that.”

“How about the communication possibilities?”

“The ComWeb system is functioning normally on the second, third, and fourth levels. It has been shut off on the first level—to avoid the spread of `alarming rumors’ by office personnel. There is no ComWeb on the fifth level.”

Reetal said, “We’ll shift our operating headquarters back to my registered suite then. The ComWebs are turned off in these vacant sections. I’ll stay in the other suite in case you find a chance to signal in.”

Heraga left a few minutes later to make his arrangements. Reetal smiled at Quillan, a little dubiously.

“Good luck, guy,” she said. “Anything else to settle before you start off?”

Quillan nodded. “Couple of details. If you’re going to be in your regular suite, and Fluel finds himself with some idle time on hand, he might show up for the dalliance you mentioned.”

Reetal’s smile changed slightly. Her left hand fluffed the hair at the back of her head, flicked down again. There was a tiny click, and Quillan looked at a small jeweled hair-clasp in her palm, its needle beak pointing at him.

“It hasn’t got much range,” Reetal said, “but within ten feet it will scramble the Duke’s brains just as thoroughly as they need to be scrambled.”

“Good enough,” Quillan said. “Just don’t give that boy the ghost of a chance, doll. He has a rep for playing very un-nice games with the ladies.”

“I know his reputation.” Reetal replaced the tiny gun in her hair. “Anything else?”

“Yes. Let’s look in on the Kinmarten girl for a moment. If she’s awake, she may have remembered something or other by now that she didn’t think to tell you.”

They found Solvey Kinmarten awake, and tearfully glad to see Reetal. Quillan was introduced as a member of the legal profession who would do what he could for Solvey and her husband. Solvey frowned prettily, trying very hard to remember anything that might be of use. But it appeared that she had told Reetal all she knew.

2

The blue and white Phalagon House diner, driven by Heraga, was admitted without comment into the Executive Block. It floated on unchallenged through the big entry hall and into a corridor. Immediately behind the first turn of the corridor, the diner paused a few seconds. Its side door opened and closed. The diner moved on.

Quillan, coatless and with the well-worn butt of a big Miam Devil Special protruding from the holster on his right hip, came briskly back along the corridor. Between fifteen and twenty men, their guns also conspicuously in evidence, were scattered about the entrance hall, expressions and attitudes indicating a curious mixture of boredom and uneasy tension. The eyes of about half of them swiveled around to Quillan when he came into the hall; then, with one exception, they looked indifferently away again.

The exception, leaning against the wall near the three open portals to the upper levels, continued to stare as Quillan came toward him, forehead creased in a deep scowl as if he were painfully ransacking his mind for something. Quillan stopped in front of him.

“Chum,” he asked, “any idea where Movaine is at the moment? They just give me this message for him—”

Still scowling, the other scratched his chin and blinked. “Uh …dunno for sure,” he said after a moment. “He oughta be in the third level conference room with the rest of `em. Uh …dunno you oughta barge in there right now, pal! The commodore’s reee-lly hot about somethin’!”

Quillan looked worried. “Gotta chance it, I guess! Message is pretty important, they say—” He turned, went through the center portal of the three, abruptly found himself walking along a wide, well-lit hall.

Nobody in sight here, or in the first intersecting passage he came to. When he reached the next passage he heard voices on the right, turned toward them, went by a string of closed doors on both sides until, forty feet on, the passage angled again and opened into a long, high-ceilinged room. The voices came through an open door on the right side of the room. Standing against the wall beside the door were two men whose heads turned sharply toward Quillan as he appeared in the passage. The short, chunky one scowled. The big man next to him, the top of whose head had been permanently seared clear of hair years before by a near miss from a blaster, dropped his jaw slowly. His eyes popped.

“My God!” he said.

“Movaine in there, Baldy?” Quillan inquired, coming up.

“Movaine! He …you …how—”

The chunky man took out his gun, waved it negligently at Quillan. “Tell the ape to blow, Perk. He isn’t wanted here.”

“Ape?” Quillan asked softly. His right hand moved, had the gun by the barrel, twisted, reversed the gun, jammed it back with some violence into the chunky man’s stomach. “Ape?” he repeated. The chunky man went white.

“Bad News—” Baldy Perk breathed. “Take it easy! That’s Orca. He’s the commodore’s torpedo. How—”

“Where’s Movaine?”

“Movaine …he …uh—”

“All right, he’s not here. And Lancion can’t have arrived yet. Is Cooms in there?”

“Yeah,” Baldy Perk said weakly. “Cooms is in there, Quillan.”

“Let’s go in.” Quillan withdrew the gun, slid it into a pocket, smiled down at Orca. “Get it back from your boss, slob. Be seeing you!”

Orca’s voice was a husky whisper.

“You will, friend! You will!”

*

The conference room was big and sparsely furnished. Four men sat at the long table in its center. Quillan knew two of them—Marras Cooms, second in command of the Beldon Brotherhood’s detachment here, and the Duke of Fluel, Movaine’s personal gun. Going by Heraga’s descriptions, the big, florid-faced man with white hair and flowing white mustaches who was doing the talking was Velladon, the commodore; while the fourth man, younger, wiry, with thinning black hair plastered back across his skull, would be Ryter, chief of the Star’s security force.

“What I object to primarily is that the attempt was made without obtaining my consent, and secretly,” Velladon was saying, with a toothy grin but in a voice that shook with open fury. “And now it’s been made and bungled, you have a damn nerve asking for our help. The problem is yours—and you better take care of it fast! I can’t spare Ryter. If—”

“Cooms,” Baldy Perk broke in desperately from the door, “Bad News Quillan’s here an’—”

The heads of the four men at the table came around simultaneously. The eyes of two of them widened for an instant. Then Marras Cooms began laughing softly.

“Now everything’s happened!” he said.

“Cooms,” the commodore said testily, “I prefer not to be interrupted. Now—”

“Can’t be helped, commodore,” Quillan said, moving forward, Perk shuffling along unhappily beside him. “I’ve got news for Movaine, and the news can’t wait.”

“Movaine?” the commodore repeated, blue eyes bulging at Quillan. “Movaine! Cooms, who is this man?”

“You’re looking at Bad News Quillan,” Cooms said. “A hijacking specialist, with somewhat numerous sidelines. But the point right now is that he isn’t a member of the Brotherhood.”

“What!” Velladon’s big fist smashed down on the table. “Now what kind of a game …how did he get in here?”

“Well,” Quillan said mildly, “I oozed in through the north wall about a minute ago. I—”

He checked, conscious of having created some kind of sensation. The four men at the table were staring up at him without moving. Baldy Perk appeared to be holding his breath. Then the commodore coughed, cleared his throat, drummed his fingers on the table.

He said reflectively: “He could have news—good or bad—at that! For all of us.” He chewed on one of his mustache tips, grinned suddenly up at Quillan. “Well, sit down, friend! Let’s talk. You can’t talk to Movaine, you see. Movaine’s, um, had an accident. Passed away suddenly half an hour ago.”

“Sorry to hear it,” Quillan said. “That’s the sort of thing that happens so often in the Brotherhood.” He swung a chair around, sat down facing the table. “You’re looking well tonight, Fluel,” he observed.

The Duke of Fluel, lean and dapper in silver jacket and tight-fitting silver trousers, gave him a wintry smile, said nothing.

*

“Now, then, friend,” Velladon inquired confidentially, “just what was your business with Movaine?”

“Well, it will come to around twenty per cent of the take,” Quillan informed him. “We won’t argue about a half-million CR more or less. But around twenty per.”

The faces turned thoughtful. After some seconds, the commodore asked, “And who’s we?”

“A number of citizens,” Quillan said, “who have been rather unhappy since discovering that you, too, are interested in Lady Pendrake and her pals. We’d gone to considerable expense and trouble to …well, her ladyship was scheduled to show up in Mezmiali, you know. And now she isn’t going to show up there. All right, that’s business. Twenty per—no hard feelings. Otherwise, it won’t do you a bit of good to blow up the Star and the liner. There’d still be loose talk—maybe other complications, too. You know how it goes. You wouldn’t be happy, and neither would Yaco. Right?”

The commodore’s massive head turned back to Cooms. “How well do you know this man, Marras?”

Cooms grinned dryly. “Well enough.”

“Is he leveling?”

“He’d be nuts to be here if he wasn’t. And he isn’t nuts—at least, not that way.”

“There might be a question about that,” Fluel observed. He looked at the commodore. “Why not ask him for a couple of the names that are in it with him?”

“Hagready and Boltan,” Quillan said.

Velladon chewed the other mustache rip. “I know Hagready. If he—”

“I know both of them,” Cooms said. “Boltan works hijacking crews out of Orado. Quillan operates there occasionally.”

“Pappy Boltan’s an old business associate,” Quillan agreed. “Reliable sort of a guy. Doesn’t mind taking a few chances either.”

Velladon’s protruding blue eyes measured him a moment. “We can check on those two, you know—”

“Check away,” Quillan said.

Velladon nodded. “We will.” He was silent for a second or two, then glanced over at Cooms. “There’ve been no leaks on our side,” he remarked. “And they must have known about this for weeks! Of all the inept, bungling—”

“Ah, don’t be too hard on the Brotherhood, commodore,” Quillan said. “Leaks happen. You ought to know.”

“What do you mean?” Velladon snapped.

“From what we heard, the Brotherhood’s pulling you out of a hole here. You should feel rather kindly toward them.”

The commodore stared at him reflectively. Then he grinned. “Could be I should,” he said. “Did you come here alone?”

“Yes.”

The commodore nodded. “If you’re bluffing, God help you. If you’re not, your group’s in. Twenty per. No time for haggling—we can raise Yaco’s price to cover it.” He stood up, and Ryter stood up with him. “Marras,” the commodore went on, “tell him what’s happened. If he’s half as hot as he sounds, he’s the boy to put on that job. Let him get in on a little of the work for the twenty per cent. Ryter, come on. We—”

“One moment, sir,” Quillan interrupted. He took Orca’s gun by the muzzle from his pocket, held it out to Velladon. “One of your men lost this thing. The one outside the door. If you don’t mind—he might pout if he doesn’t get it back.”

*

The fifth level of the Executive Block appeared to be, as Heraga had said, quite small. The tiny entry hall, on which two walk-in portals opened, led directly into the large room where the two Pendrake rest cubicles had been placed. One of the cubicles now stood open. To right and left, a narrow passage stretched away from the room, ending apparently in smaller rooms.

Baldy Perk was perspiring profusely.

“Now right here,” he said in a low voice, “was where I was standing. Movaine was over there, on the right of the cubicle, and Cooms was beside him. Rubero was a little behind me, hanging on to the punk—that Kinmarten. An’ the Duke”—he nodded back at the wide doorspace to the hall—“was standing back there.”

“All right. The punk’s opened the cubicle a crack, looking like he’s about to pass out while he’s doin’ it. This bearded guy, Eltak, stands in front of the cubicle, holding the gadget he controls the thing with—”

“Where’s the gadget now?” Quillan asked.

“Marras Cooms’ got it.”

“How does it work?”

Baldy shook his head. “We can’t figure it out. It’s got all kinds of little knobs and dials on it. Push this one an’ it squeaks, turn that one an’ it buzzes. Like that.”

Quillan nodded. “All right. What happened?”

“Well, Movaine tells the old guy to go ahead an’ do the demonstrating. The old guy sort of grins and fiddles with the gadget. The cubicle door pops open an’ this thing comes pouring out. I never seen nothin’ like it! It’s like a barn door with dirty fur on it! It swirls up an’ around an’—it wraps its upper end clean around poor Movaine. He never even screeches.”

“Then everything pops at once. The old guy is laughing like crazy, an’ that half-smart Rubero drills him right through the head. I take one shot at the thing, low so’s not to hit Movaine, an’ then we’re all running. I’m halfway to the hall when Cooms tears past me like a rocket. The Duke an’ the others are already piling out through the portal. I get to the hall, and there’s this terrific smack of sound in the room. I look back …an’ …an’—” Baldy paused and gulped.

“And what?” Quillan asked.

“There, behind the cubicles, I see poor Movaine stickin’ halfway out o’ the wall!” Baldy reported in a hushed whisper.

“Halfway out of the wall?”

“From the waist up he’s in it! From the waist down he’s dangling into the room! I tell you, I never seen nothin’ like it.”

“And this Hlat creature—”

“That’s gone. I figure the smack I heard was when it hit the wall flat, carrying Movaine. It went on into it. Movaine didn’t—at least, the last half of him didn’t.”

“Well,” Quillan said after a pause, “in a way, Movaine got his demonstration. The Hlats can move through solid matter and carry other objects along with them, as advertised. If Yaco can work out how it’s done and build a gadget that does the same thing, they’re getting the Hlats cheap. What happened then?”

“I told Marras Cooms about Movaine, and he sent me and a half dozen other boys back up here with riot guns to see what we could do for him. Which was nothin’, of course.” Baldy gulped again. “We finally cut this end of him off with a beam and took it back down.”

“The thing didn’t show up while you were here?”

Baldy shuddered and said, “Naw.”

“And the technician …was dead?”

“Sure. Hole in his head you could shove your fist through.”

“Somebody,” Quillan observed, “ought to drill Rubero for that stupid trick!”

“The Duke did—first thing after we got back to the fourth level.”

“So the Hlat’s on the loose, and all we really have at the moment are the cubicles …and Rest Warden Kinmarten. Where’s he, by the way?”

“He tried to take off when we got down to Level Four, an’ somebody cold-cocked him. The doc says he ought to be coming around again pretty soon.”

Quillan grunted, shoved the Miam Devil Special into its holster, said, “O.K., you stay here where you can watch the room and those passages and the hall. If you feel the floor start moving under you, scream. I’ll take a look at the cubicle.”

*

Lady Pendrake’s cubicle was about half as big again as a standard one; but, aside from one detail, its outer settings, instruments, and operating devices appeared normal. The modification was a recess almost six feet long and a foot wide and deep, in one side, which could be opened either to the room or to the interior of the rest cubicle, but not simultaneously to both. Quillan already knew his purpose; the supposed other cubicle was a camouflaged food locker, containing fifty-pound slabs of sea beef, each of which represented a meal for the Hlat. The recess made it possible to feed it without allowing it to be seen, or, possibly, attempting to emerge. Kinmarten’s nervousness, as reported by his wife, seemed understandable. Any rest warden might get disturbed over such a charge.

Quillan asked over his shoulder, “Anyone find out yet why the things can’t get out of a closed rest cubicle?”

“Yeah,” Baldy Perk said. “Kinmarten says it’s the cubicle’s defense fields. They could get through the material. They can’t get through the field.”

“Someone think to energize the Executive Block’s battle fields?” Quillan inquired.

“Yeah. Velladon took care of that before he came screaming up to the third level to argue with Cooms and Fluel.”

“So it can’t slip out of the Block unless it shows itself down on the ground level when the entry lock’s open.”

“Yeah,” Baldy muttered. “But I dunno. Is that good?”

Quillan looked at him. “Well, we would like it back.”

“Why? There’s fifty more coming in on the liner tonight”

“We don’t have the fifty yet. If someone louses up that detail—”

“Yawk!” Baldy said faintly. There was a crash of sound as his riot gun went off. Quillan spun about, hair bristling, gun out. “What happened?”

“I’ll swear,” Baldy said, white-faced, “I saw something moving along that passage!”

Quillan looked, saw nothing, slowly replaced the gun. “Baldy,” he said, “if you think you see it again, just say so. That’s an order! If it comes at us, we get out of this level fast. But we don’t shoot before we have to. If we kill it, it’s no good to us. Got that?”

“Yeah,” Baldy said. “But I got an idea now, Bad News.” He nodded at the other cubicle. “Let’s leave that meat box open.”

“Why?”

“If it’s hungry,” Baldy explained simply, “I’d sooner it wrapped itself around a few chunks of sea beef, an’ not around me.”

Quillan punched him encouragingly in the shoulder. “Baldy,” he said, “in your own way, you have had an idea! But we won’t leave the meat box open. When Kinmarten wakes up, I want him to show me how to bait this cubicle with a piece of sea beef, so it’ll snap shut if the Hlat goes inside. Meanwhile it won’t hurt if it gets a little hungry.”

“That,” said Baldy, “isn’t the way I feel about it.”

“There must be around a hundred and fifty people in the Executive Block at present,” Quillan said. “Look at it that way! Even if the thing keeps stuffing away, your odds are pretty good, Baldy.”

Baldy shuddered.

*

Aside from a dark bruise high on his forehead, Brock Kinmarten showed no direct effects of having been knocked out. However, his face was strained and his voice not entirely steady. It was obvious that the young rest warden had never been in a similarly unnerving situation before. But he was making a valiant effort not to appear frightened and, at the same time, to indicate that he would co-operate to the best of his ability with his captors.

He’d regained consciousness by the time Quillan and Perk returned to the fourth level, and Quillan suggested bringing him to Marras Cooms’ private quarters for questioning. The Brotherhood chief agreed; he was primarily interested in finding out how the Hlat-control device functioned.

Kinmarten shook his head. He knew nothing about the instrument, he said, except that it was called a Hlat-talker. It was very unfortunate that Eltak had been shot, because Eltak undoubtedly could have told them all they wanted to know about it. If what he had told Kinmarten was true, Eltak had been directly involved in the development of the device.

“Was he some Federation scientist?” Cooms asked, fiddling absently with the mysterious cylindrical object.

“No, sir,” the young man said. “But—again if what he told me was the truth—he was the man who actually discovered these Hlats. At least, he was the first man to discover them who wasn’t immediately killed by them.”

Cooms glanced thoughtfully at Quillan, then asked, “And where was that?”

Kinmarten shook his head again. “He didn’t tell me. And I didn’t really want to know. I was anxious to get our convoy to its destination, and then to be relieved of the assignment. I …well, I’ve been trained to act as Rest Warden to human beings, after all, not to monstrosities!” He produced an uncertain smile, glancing from one to the other of his interrogators. The smile promptly faded out again.

“You’ve no idea at all then about the place they came from?” Cooms asked expressionlessly.

“Oh, yes,” Kinmarten said hastily. “Eltak talked a great deal about the Hlats, and actually—except for its location—gave me a fairly good picture of what the planet must be like. For one thing, it’s an uncolonized world, of course. It must be terratype or very nearly so, because Eltak lived there for fifteen years with apparently only a minimum of equipment. The Hlats are confined to a single large island. He discovered them by accident and—”

“What was he doing there?”

“Well, sir, he came from Hyles-Frisian. He was a crim …he’d been engaged in some form of piracy, and when the authorities began looking for him, he decided it would be best to get clean out of the Hub. He cracked up his ship on this world and couldn’t leave again. When he discovered the Hlats and realized their peculiar ability, he kept out of their way and observed them. He found out they had a means of communicating with each other, and that he could duplicate it. That stopped them from harming him, and eventually, he said, he was using them like hunting dogs. They were accustomed to co-operating with one another, because when there was some animal around that was too large for one of them to handle, they would attack it in a group …”

He went on for another minute or two on the subject. The Hlats—the word meant “rock lion” in one of the Hyles-Frisian dialects, describing a carnivorous animal which had some superficial resemblance to the creatures Eltak had happened on—frequented the seacoast and submerged themselves in sand, rocks and debris, whipping up out of it to seize some food animal, and taking it down with them again to devour it at leisure.

Quillan interrupted, “You heard what happened to the man it attacked on the fifth level?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why would the thing have left him half outside the wall as it did?”

Kinmarten said that it must simply have been moving too fast. It could slip into and out of solid substances without a pause itself, but it needed a little time to restructure an object it was carrying in the same manner. No more time, however, than two or three seconds—depending more on the nature of the object than on its size, according to Eltak.

“It can restructure anything in that manner?” Quillan asked.

Kinmarten hesitated. “Well, sir, I don’t know. I suppose there might be limitations on its ability. Eltak told me the one we were escorting had been the subject of extensive experimentation during the past year, and that the results are very satisfactory.”

“Suppose it carries a living man through a wall. Will the man still be alive when he comes out on the other side, assuming the Hlat doesn’t kill him deliberately?”

“Yes, sir. The process itself wouldn’t hurt him.”

*

Quillan glanced at Cooms. “You know,” he said, “we might be letting Yaco off too cheaply!”

Cooms raised an eyebrow warningly, and Quillan grinned. “Our friend will be learning about Yaco soon enough. Why did Eltak tell the creature to attack, Kinmarten?”

“Sir, I don’t know,” Kinmarten said. “He was a man of rather violent habits. My impression, however, was that he was simply attempting to obtain a hostage.”

“How did he get off that island with the Hlat?”

“A University League explorer was investigating the planet. Eltak contacted them and obtained the guarantee of a full pardon and a large cash settlement in return for what he could tell them about the Hlats. They took him and this one specimen along for experimentation.”

“What about the Hlats on the Camelot?”

“Eltak said those had been quite recently trapped on the island.”

Cooms ran his fingers over the cylinder, producing a rapid series of squeaks and whistles. “That’s one thing Yaco may not like,” he observed. “They won’t have a monopoly on the thing.”

Quillan shook his head. “Their scientists don’t have to work through red tape like the U-League. By the time the news breaks—if the Federation ever intends to break it—Yaco will have at least a five-year start on everyone else. That’s all an outfit like that needs.” He looked at Kinmarten. “Any little thing you haven’t thought to tell us, friend?” he inquired pleasantly.

A thin film of sweat showed suddenly on Kinmarten’s forehead.

“No, sir,” he said. “I’ve really told you everything I know. I—”

“Might try him under dope,” Cooms said absently.

“Uh-uh!” Quillan said. “I want him wide awake to help me bait the cubicle for the thing. Has Velladon shown any indication of becoming willing to co-operate in hunting it?”

Cooms gestured with his head. “Ask Fluel! I sent him down to try to patch things up with the commodore. He just showed up again.”

Quillan glanced around. The Duke was lounging in the doorway. He grinned slightly, said, “Velladon’s still sore at us. But he’ll talk to Quillan. Kinmarten here …did he tell you his wife’s on the Star?”

Brock Kinmarten went utterly white. Cooms looked at him, said softly, “No, that must have slipped his mind.”

Fluel said, “Yeah. Well, she is. And Ryter says they’ll have her picked up inside half an hour. When they bring her in, we really should check on how candid Kinmarten’s been about everything.”

The rest warden said in a voice that shook uncontrollably, “Gentlemen, my wife knows absolutely nothing about these matters! I swear it! She—”

Quillan stood up. “Well, I’ll go see if I can’t get Velladon in a better mood. Are you keeping that Hlat-talker, Cooms?”

Cooms smiled. “I am.”

“Marras figures,” the Duke’s flat voice explained, “that if the thing comes into the room and he squeaks at it a few times, he won’t get hurt.”

“That’s possible,” Cooms said, un-ruffled. “At any rate, I intend to hang on to it.”

“Well, I wouldn’t play around with those buttons too much,” Quillan observed.

“Why not?”

“You might get lucky and tap out some pattern that spells `Come to chow’ in the Hlat’s vocabulary.”

3

There were considerably more men in evidence on Level Two than on the fourth, and fewer signs of nervousness. The Star men had been told of the Hlat’s escape from its cubicle, but weren’t taking it too seriously. Quillan was conducted to the commodore and favored with an alarmingly toothy grin. Ryter, the security chief, joined them a few seconds later. Apparently, Velladon had summoned him.

Velladon said, “Ryter here’s made a few transmitter calls. We hear Pappy Boltan pulled his outfit out of the Orado area about a month ago. Present whereabouts unknown. Hagready went off on some hush-hush job at around the same time.”

Quillan smiled. “Uh-huh! So he did.”

“We also,” said Ryter, “learned a number of things about you personally.” He produced a thin smile. “You lead a busy and—apparently—profitable life.”

“Business is fair,” Quillan agreed. “But it can always be improved.”

The commodore turned on the toothy grin. “So all right,” he growled, “you’re clear. We rather liked what we learned. Eh, Ryter?”

Ryter nodded.

“This Brotherhood of Beldon, now—” The commodore shook his head heavily.

Quillan was silent a moment. “They might be getting sloppy,” he said. “I don’t know. It’s one possibility. They used to be a rather sharp outfit, you know.”

“That’s what I’d heard!” Velladon chewed savagely on his mustache, asked finally, “What’s another possibility?”

Quillan leaned back in his chair. “Just a feeling, so far. But the business with the cubicle upstairs might have angles that weren’t mentioned.”

They looked at him thoughtfully. Ryter said, “Mind amplifying that?”

“Cooms told me,” Quillan said, “that Nome Lancion had given Movaine instructions to make a test with Lady Pendrake on the quiet and find out if those creatures actually can do what they’re supposed to do. I think he was telling the truth. Nome tends to be overcautious when it’s a really big deal. Unless he’s sure of the Hlats, he wouldn’t want to be involved in a thing like blowing up the Star and the liner.”

The commodore scowled absently. “Uh-huh,” he said. “He knows we can’t back out of it—”

“All right. The Brotherhood’s full of ambitious men. Behind Lancion, Movaine was top man. Cooms behind him; Fluel behind Cooms. Suppose that Hlat-control device Cooms is hanging on to so tightly isn’t as entirely incomprehensible as they make it out to be. Suppose Cooms makes a deal with Eltak. Eltak tickles the gadget, and the Hlat kills Movaine. Rubero immediately guns down Eltak—and is killed by Fluel a couple of minutes later, supposedly for blowing his top and killing the man who knew how to control the Hlat.”

Ryter cleared his throat. “Fluel was Movaine’s gun,” he observed.

“So he was,” Quillan said. “Would you like the Duke to be yours?”

Ryter grinned, shook his head. “No, thanks!”

Quillan looked back at Velladon. “How well are you actually covered against the Brotherhood?”

“Well, that’s air-tight,” the commodore said. “We’ve got `em outgunned here. When the liner lands, we’ll be about even. But Lancion won’t start anything. We’re too even. Once we’re clear of the Star, we don’t meet again. We deal with Yaco individually. The Brotherhood has the Hlats, and we have the trained Federation technicians accompanying them, who …who—”

“Who alone are supposed to be able to inform Yaco how to control the Hlats,” Ryter finished for him. The security chief’s face was expressionless.

“By God!” the commodore said softly.

“Well, it’s only a possibility that somebody’s playing dirty,” Quillan remarked. “We’d want to be sure of it. But if anyone can handle a Hlat with that control instrument, the Brotherhood has an advantage now that it isn’t talking about—it can offer Yaco everything Yaco needs in one package. Of course, Yaco might still be willing to pay for the Hlat technicians. If it didn’t, you and Ryter could make the same kind of trouble for it that my friends can.”

*

The color was draining slowly from Velladon’s face. “There’s a difference,” he said. “If we threaten to make trouble for Yaco, they’d see to it that our present employers learn that Ryter and I are still alive “

“That’s the Mooleys, eh?”

“Yes.”

“Tough.” Quillan knuckled his chin thoughtfully. “Well, let’s put it this way then,” he said. “My group doesn’t have that kind of problem, but if things worked out so that we’d have something more substantial than nuisance value to offer Yaco, we’d prefer it, of course.”

Velladon nodded. “Very understandable! Under the circumstances co-operation appears to be indicated, eh?”

“That’s what I had in mind.”

“You’ve made a deal,” Velladon said. “Any immediate suggestions?”

Quillan looked at his watch. “A couple. We don’t want to make any mistake about this. It’s still almost five hours before the Camelot pulls in, and until she does you’re way ahead on firepower. I wouldn’t make any accusations just now. But you might mention to Cooms you’d like to borrow the Hlat gadget to have it examined by some of your technical experts. The way he reacts might tell us something. If he balks, the matter shouldn’t be pushed too hard at the moment—it’s a tossup whether you or the Brotherhood has a better claim to the thing.”

“But then there’s Kinmarten, the rest warden in charge of the cubicle. I talked with him while Cooms and Fluel were around, but he may have been briefed on what to say. Cooms mentioned doping him, which could be a convenient way of keeping him shut up, assuming he knows more than he’s told. He’s one of the personnel you’re to offer Yaco. I think you can insist on having Kinmarten handed over to you immediately. It should be interesting again to see how Cooms reacts.”

Velladon’s big head nodded vigorously. “Good idea!”

“By the way,” Quillan said, “Fluel mentioned you’ve been looking for Kinmarten’s wife, the second rest warden on the Pendrake convoy. Found her yet?”

“Not a trace, so far,” Ryter said.

“That’s a little surprising, too, isn’t it?”

“Under the circumstances,” the commodore said, “it might not be surprising at all!” He had regained his color, was beginning to look angry. “If they—”

“Well,” Quillan said soothingly, “we don’t know. It’s just that things do seem to be adding up a little. Now, there’s one other point. We should do something immediately about catching that Hlat.”

Velladon grunted and picked at his teeth with his thumbnail. “It would be best to get it back in its cubicle, of course. But I’m not worrying about it—just an animal, after all. Even the light hardware those Beldon fancy Dans carry should handle it. You use a man-sized gun, I see. So do I. If it shows up around here, it gets smeared, that’s all. There’re fifty more of the beasts on the Camelot.”

Quillan nodded. “You’re right on that. But there’s the possibility that it is being controlled by the Brotherhood at present. If it is, it isn’t just an animal any more. It could be turned into a thoroughly dangerous nuisance.”

The commodore thought a moment, nodded. “You’re right, I suppose. What do you want to do about it?”

“Baiting the cubicle on the fifth level might work. Then there should be life-detectors in the Star’s security supplies—”

Ryter nodded. “We have a couple of dozen of them, but not in the Executive Block. They were left in the security building.”

The commodore stood up. “You stay here with Ryter,” he told Quillan. “There’re a couple of other things I want to go over with you two. I’ll order the life-detectors from the office here—second passage down, isn’t it, Ryter? …And, Ryter, I have another idea. I’m pulling the man in space-armor off the subspace portal and detailing him to Level Five.” He grinned at Quillan. “That boy’s got a brace of grenades and built-in spray guns! If Cooms is thinking of pulling any funny stunts up there, he’ll think again.”

*

The commodore headed briskly down the narrow passageway, his big holstered gun slapping his thigh with every step. The two security guards stationed at the door to the second level office came to attention as he approached, saluted smartly. He grunted, went in without returning the salutes, and started over toward the ComWeb on a desk at the far end of the big room, skirting the long, dusty-looking black rug beside one wall.

Velladon unbuckled his gun belt, placed the gun on the desk, sat down and switched on the ComWeb.

Behind him, the black rug stirred silently and rose up.

*

“You called that one,” Ryter was saying seven or eight minutes later, “almost too well!”

Quillan shook his head, poked at the commodore’s gun on the desk with his finger, looked about the silent office and back at the door where a small group of security men stood staring in at them.

“Three men gone without a sound!” he said. He indicated the glowing disk of the ComWeb. “He had time enough to turn it on, not time enough to make his call. Any chance of camouflaged portals in this section?”

“No,” Ryter said. “I know the location of every portal in the Executive Block. No number of men could have taken Velladon and the two guards without a fight anyway. We’d have heard it. It didn’t happen that way.”

“Which leaves,” Quillan said, “one way it could have happened.” He jerked his head toward the door. “Will those men keep quiet?”

“If I tell them to.”

“Then play it like this. Two guards have vanished. The Hlat obviously did it. The thing’s deadly. That’ll keep every man in the group on the alert every instant from now on. But we don’t say Velladon has vanished. He’s outside in the Star at the moment, taking care of something”

Ryter licked his lips. “What does that buy us?”

“If the Brotherhood’s responsible for this—”

“I don’t take much stock in coincidences,” Ryter said.

“Neither do I. But the Hlat’s an animal; it can’t tell them it’s carried out the job. If they don’t realize we suspect them, it gives us some advantage. For the moment, we just carry on as planned, and get rid of the Hlat in one way or another as the first step. The thing’s three times as dangerous as anyone suspected—except, apparently, the Brotherhood. Get the life-detectors over here as soon as you can, and slap a space-armor guard on the fifth level.”

Ryter hesitated, nodded. “All right.”

“Another thing,” Quillan said, “Cooms may have the old trick in mind of working from the top down. If he can take you out along with a few other key men, he might have this outfit demoralized to the point of making up for the difference in the number of guns—especially if the Hlat’s still on his team. You’d better keep a handful of the best boys you have around here glued to your back from now on.”

Ryter smiled bleakly. “Don’t worry. I intend to. What about you?”

“I don’t think they’re planning on giving me any personal attention at the moment. My organization is outside, not here. And it would look odd to the Brotherhood if I started dragging a few Star guards around with me at this point.”

Ryter shrugged. “Suit yourself. It’s your funeral if you’ve guessed wrong.”

*

“There was nothing,” Quillan told Marras Cooms, “that you could actually put a finger on. It was just that I got a very definite impression that the commodore and Ryter may have something up their sleeves. Velladon’s looking too self-satisfied to suit me.”

The Brotherhood chief gnawed his lower lip reflectively. He seemed thoughtful, not too disturbed. Cooms might be thoroughly afraid of the escaped Hlat, but he wouldn’t have reached his present position in Nome Lancion’s organization if he had been easily frightened by what other men were planning.

He said, “I warned Movaine that if Velladon learned we’d checked out the Hlat, he wasn’t going to like it.”

“He doesn’t,” Quillan said. “He regards it as something pretty close to an attempted double cross.”

Cooms grinned briefly. “It was.”

“Of course. The question is, what can he do about it? He’s got you outgunned two to one, but if he’s thinking of jumping you before Lancion gets here, he stands to lose more men than he can afford to without endangering the entire operation for himself.”

Cooms was silent a few seconds. “There’s an unpleasant possibility which didn’t occur to me until a short while ago,” he said then. “The fact is that Velladon actually may have us outgunned here by something like four to one. If that’s the case, he can afford to lose quite a few men. In fact, he’d prefer to.”

Quillan frowned. “Four to one? How’s that?”

Cooms said, “The commodore told us he intended to let only around half of the Seventh Star’s security force in on the Hlat deal. The other half was supposed to have been dumped out of one of the subspace section’s locks early today, without benefit of suits. We had no reason to disbelieve him. Velladon naturally would want to cut down the number of men who got in on the split with him to as many as he actually needed. But if he’s been thinking about eliminating us from the game, those other men may still be alive and armed.”

Quillan grunted. “I see. You know, that could explain something that looked a little odd to me.”

“What was that?” Cooms asked.

Quillan said, “After they discovered down there that two of their guards were missing and decided the Hlat must have been on their level, I tried to get hold of the commodore again. Ryter told me Velladon won’t be available for a while, that he’s outside in the Star, taking care of something there. I wondered what could be important enough to get Velladon to leave the Executive Block at present, but—”

“Brother, I’m way ahead of you!” Cooms said. His expression hardened. “That doesn’t look good. But at least he can’t bring in reinforcements without tipping us off. We’ve got our own guards down with theirs at the entrance.”

Quillan gave him a glance, then nodded at the wall beyond them. “That’s a portal over there, Marras. How many of them on this level?”

“Three or four. Why? The outportals have been plugged, man! Sealed off. Fluel checked them over when we moved in.”

“Sure they’re sealed.” Quillan stood up, went to the portal, stood looking at the panel beside it a moment, then pressed on it here and there, and removed it. “Come over here, friend. I suppose portal work’s been out of your line. I’ll show you how fast a thing like that can get un-plugged!”

He slid a pocketbook-sized tool kit out of his belt, snapped it open. About a minute later, the lifeless VACANT sign above the portal flickered twice, then acquired a steady white glow.

“Portal in operation,” Quillan announced. “I’ll seal it off again now. But that should give you the idea.”

Cooms’ tongue flicked over his lips. “Could somebody portal through to this level from the Star while the exits are sealed here?”

“If the mechanisms have been set for that purpose, the portals can be opened again at any time from the Star side. The Duke’s an engineer of sorts. isn’t he? Let him check on it. He should have been thinking of the point himself, as far as that goes. Anyway, Velladon can bring in as many men as he likes to his own level without using the main entrance.” He considered. “I didn’t see anything to indicate that he’s started doing it—”

Marras Cooms shrugged irritably. “That means nothing! It would be easy enough to keep half a hundred men hidden away on any of the lower levels.”

“I suppose that’s right. Well, if the commodore intends to play rough, you should have some warning anyway.”

“What kind of warning?”

“There’s Kinmarten and that Hlat-talking gadget, for example,” Quillan pointed out. “Velladon would want both of those in his possession and out of the way where they can’t get hurt before he starts any shooting.”

Cooms looked at him for a few seconds. “Ryter,” he said then, “sent half a dozen men up here for Kinmarten just after you got back! Velladon’s supposed to deliver the Hlats’ attendants to Yaco, so I let them have Kinmarten.” He paused. “They asked for the Hlat-talker, too.”

Quillan grunted. “Did you give them that?”

“No.”

“Well,” Quillan said after a moment, “that doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re in for trouble with the Star group. But it does mean, I think, that we’d better stay ready for it!” He stood up. “I’ll get back down there and go on with the motions of getting the hunt for the Hlat organized. Velladon would sooner see the thing get caught, too, of course, so he shouldn’t try to interfere with that. If I spot anything that looks suspicious, I’ll get the word to you.”

*

“I never,” said Orca, unconsciously echoing Baldy Perk, “saw anything like it!” The commodore’s chunky little gunman was ashen-faced. The circle of Star men standing around him hardly looked happier. Most of them were staring down at the empty lower section of a suit of space armor which appeared to have been separated with a neat diagonal slice from its upper part.

“Let’s get it straight,” Ryter said, a little unsteadily. “You say this half of the suit was lying against the wall like that?”

“Not exactly,” Quillan told him. “When we got up to the fifth level the suit was stuck against the wall—like that—about eight feet above the floor. That was in the big room where the cubicles are. When Kinmarten and Orca and I finally got the suit worked away from the wall, I expected frankly that we’d find half the body of the guard still inside. But he’d vanished.”

Ryter cleared his throat. “Apparently,” he said, “the creature drew the upper section of the suit into the wall by whatever means it uses, then stopped applying the transforming process to the metal, and simply moved on with the upper part of the suit and the man.”

Quillan nodded. “That’s what it looks like.”

“But he had two grenades!” Orca burst out. “He had sprayguns! How could it get him that way?”

“Brother,” Quillan said, “grenades won’t help you much if you don’t spot what’s moving up behind you!”

Orca glared speechlessly at him. Ryter said, “All right! We’ve lost another man. We’re not going to lose any more. We’ll station no more guards on the fifth level. Now, get everyone who isn’t on essential guard duty to the main room, and split `em up into life-detector units. Five men to each detail, one to handle the detector, four to stay with him, guns out. If the thing comes back to this level, we want to have it spotted the instant it arrives. Orca, you stay here—and keep your gun out! “

The men filed out hurriedly. Ryter turned to Quillan. “Were you able to get the cubicle baited?”

Quillan nodded. “Kinmarten figured out how the thing should be set for the purpose. If the Hlat goes in after the sea beef, it’s trapped. Of course, if the hunting it’s been doing was for food, it mightn’t be interested in the beef.”

“We don’t know,” Ryter said, “that the hunting it’s been doing was for food.”

“No. Did you manage to get the control device from Cooms?”

Ryter shook his head. “He’s refused to hand it over.”

“If you tried to take it from him” Quillan said, “you might have a showdown on your hands.”

“And if this keeps on,” Ryter said, “I may prefer a showdown! Another few rounds of trouble with the Hlat, and the entire operation could blow up in our faces! The men aren’t used to that kind of thing. It’s shaken them up. If we’ve got to take care of the Brotherhood, I’d rather do it while I still have an organized group. Where did you leave Kinmarten, by the way?”

“He’s back in that little room with his two guards,” Quillan said.

“Well, he should be all right there. We can’t spare—” Ryter’s body jerked violently. “What’s that?”

There had been a single thudding crash somewhere in the level. Then shouts and cursing.

“Main hall!” Quillan said. “Come on!”

*

The main hall was a jumble of excitedly jabbering Star men when they arrived there. Guns waved about, and the various groups were showing a marked tendency to stand with their backs toward one another and their faces toward the walls.

Ryter’s voice rose in a shout that momentarily shut off the hubbub. “What’s going on here?”

Men turned, hands pointed, voices babbled again. Someone nearby said sharply and distinctly, ” …Saw it drop right out of the ceiling!” Farther down the hall, another group shifted aside enough to disclose it had been clustered about something which looked a little like the empty shell of a gigantic black beetle.

The missing section of the suit of space armor had been returned. But not its occupant.

Quillan moved back a step, turned, went back down the passage from which they had emerged, pulling the Miam Devil from its holster. Behind him the commotion continued; Ryter was shouting something about getting the life-detector units over there. Quillan went left down the first intersecting corridor, right again on the following one, keeping the gun slightly raised before him. Around the next corner, he saw the man on guard over the portal connecting the building levels facing him, gun pointed.

“What happened?” the guard asked shakily.

Quillan shook his head, coming up. “That thing got another one!”

The guard breathed, “By God!” and lowered his gun a little. Quillan raised his a little, the Miam Devil grunted, and the guard sighed and went down. Quillan went past him along the hall, stopped two doors beyond the portal and rapped on the locked door.

“Quillan here. Open up!”

The door opened a crack, and one of Kinmarten’s guards looked out questioningly. Quillan shot him through the head, slammed on into the room across the collapsing body, saw the second guard wheeling toward him, shot again, and slid the gun back into the holster. Kinmarten, standing beside a table six feet away, right hand gripping a heavy marble ashtray, was staring at him in white-faced shock.

“Take it easy, chum!” Quillan said, turning toward him. “I—”

He ducked hurriedly as the ashtray came whirling through the air toward his head. An instant later, a large fist smacked the side of Kinmarten’s jaw. The rest warden settled limply to the floor.

“Sorry to do that, pal,” Quillan muttered, stooping over him. “Things are rough all over right now.” He hauled Kinmarten upright, bent, and had the unconscious young man across his shoulder. The hall was still empty except for the body of the portal guard. Quillan laid Kinmarten on the carpet before the portal, hauled the guard off into the room, and pulled the door to the room shut behind him as he came out. Picking up Kinmarten, he stepped into the portal with him and jabbed the fifth level button. A moment later, he moved out into the small dim entry hall on the fifth level, the gun in his right hand again.

He stood there silently for some seconds, looking about him listening. The baited cubicle yawned widely at him from the center of the big room. Nothing seemed to be stirring. Kinmarten went back to the floor. Quillan moved over to the panel which concealed the other portal’s mechanisms.

He had the outportal unsealed in considerably less than a minute this time, and slapped the panel gently back in place. He turned back to Kinmarten and started to bend down for him, then straightened quietly again, turning his head.

Had there been a flicker of shadowy motion just then at the edge of his vision, behind the big black cube of the Hlat’s food locker? Quillan remained perfectly still, the Miam Devil ready and every sense straining for an indication that the thing was there—or approaching stealthily now, gliding behind the surfaces of floor or ceiling or walls like an underwater swimmer.

But half a minute passed and nothing else happened. He went down on one knee beside Kinmarten, the gun still in his right hand. With his left, he carefully wrestled the rest warden back up across his shoulder, came upright, moved three steps to the side, and disappeared in the outportal.

4

Reetal Destone unlocked the entry door to her suite and stepped hurriedly inside, letting the door slide shut behind her. She crossed the room to the ComWeb stand and switched on the playback. There was the succession of tinkling tones which indicated nothing had been recorded.

She shut the instrument off again, passing her tongue lightly over her lips. No further messages from Heraga …

And none from Quillan.

She shook her head, feeling a surge of sharp anxiety, glanced at her watch and told herself that, after all, less than two hours had passed since Quillan had gone into the Executive Block. Heraga reported there had been no indications of disturbance or excitement when he passed through the big entrance hall on his way out. So Quillan, at any rate, had succeeded in bluffing his way into the upper levels.

It remained a desperate play, at best.

Reetal went down the short passage to her bedroom. As she came into the room, her arms were caught from the side at the elbows, pulled suddenly and painfully together behind her. She stood still, frozen with shock.

“In a hurry, sweetheart?” Fluel’s flat voice said.

Reetal managed a breathless giggle. “Duke! You startled me! How did you get in?”

She felt one hand move up her arm to her shoulder. Then she was swung about deftly and irresistibly, held pinned back against the wall, still unable to move her arms.

He looked at her a moment, asked, “Where are you hiding it this time?”

“Hiding what, Duke?”

“I’ve been told sweet little Reetal always carries a sweet little gun around with her in some shape or form or other.”

Reetal shook her head, her eyes widening. “Duke, what’s the matter? I …”

He let go of her suddenly, and his slap exploded against the side of her face. Reetal cried out, dropping her head between her hands. Immediately he had her wrists again, and her fingers were jerked away from the jeweled ornament in her hair.

“So that’s where it is!” Fluel said. “Thought it might be. Don’t get funny again now, sweetheart. Just stay quiet.”

She stayed quiet, wincing a little as he plucked the glittering little device out of her hair. He turned it around in his fingers, examining it, smiled and slid it into an inside pocket, and took her arm again. “Let’s go to the front room, Reetal,” he said almost pleasantly. “We’ve got a few things to do.”

*

A minute later, she was seated sideways on a lounger, her wrists fastened right and left to its armrests. The Duke placed a pocket recorder on the floor beside her. “This is a crowded evening, sweetheart,” he remarked, “which is lucky for you in a way. We’ll have to rush things along a little. I’ll snap the recorder on in a minute so you can answer questions—No, keep quiet. Just listen very closely now, so you’ll know what the right answers are. If you get rattled and gum things up, the Duke’s going to get annoyed with you.”

He sat down a few feet away from her, hitched his shoulders to straighten out the silver jacket, and lit a cigarette. “A little while after Bad News Quillan turned up just now,” he went on, “a few things occurred to me. One of them was that a couple of years ago you and he were operating around Beldon at about the same time. I thought, well, maybe you knew each other; maybe not. And then—”

“Duke,” Reetal said uncertainly, “just what are you talking about? I don’t know—”

“Shut up.” He reached over, tapped her knee lightly with his fingertips. “Of course, if you want to get slapped around, all right. Otherwise, don’t interrupt again. Like I said, you’re in luck; I don’t have much time to spend here. You’re getting off very easy. Now just listen.

“Bad News knew a lot about our operation and had a story to explain that. If the story was straight, we couldn’t touch him. But I was wondering about the two of you happening to be here on the Star again at the same time. A team maybe, eh? But he didn’t mention you as being in on the deal. So what was the idea?

“And then, sweetheart, I remembered something else—and that tied it in. Know that little jolt people sometimes get when they’re dropping off to sleep? Of course. Know another time they sometimes get it? When they’re snapping back out of a Moment of Truth, eh? I remembered suddenly I’d felt a little jump like that while we were talking today. Might have been a reflex of some kind. Of course, it didn’t occur to me at the time you could be pulling a lousy stunt like that on old Duke. Why take a chance on getting your neck broken?

“But, sweetheart, that’s the tie-in! Quillan hasn’t told it straight. He’s got no backing. He’s on his own. There’s no gang outside somewhere that knows all about our little deal. He got his information right here, from you. And you got it from dumb old Duke, eh?”

“Duke,” Reetal said quite calmly. “can I ask just one question?”

He stared bleakly at her a moment, then grinned. “It’s my night to be big-hearted, I guess. Go ahead.”

“I’m not trying to argue. But it simply doesn’t make sense. If I learned about this operation you’re speaking of from you, what reason could I have to feed you Truth in the first place? There’d be almost a fifty-fifty chance that you’d spot it immediately. Why should I take such a risk? Don’t you see?”

Fluel shrugged, dropped his cigarette and ground it carefully into the carpet with the tip of his shoe.

“You’ll start answering those questions yourself almost immediately, sweetheart! Let’s not worry about that now. Let me finish. Something happened to Movaine couple of hours ago. Nobody’s fault. And something else happened to Marras Cooms just now. That puts me in charge of the operation here. Nice! isn’t it? When we found Cooms lying in the hall with a hole through his stupid head, I told Baldy Perk it looked like Bad News had thrown in with the Star boys and done it. Know Baldy? He’s Cooms’ personal gun. Not what you’d call bright, and he’s mighty hot now about Cooms. I left him in charge on our level, with orders to get Quillan the next time he shows up there. Well and good. The boys know Bad News’ rep too well to try asking him questions. They won’t take chances with him. They’ll just gun him down together the instant they see him.”

He paused to scuff his shoe over the mark the cigarette had left on the carpet, went on, “But there’s Nome Lancion now. He kind of liked Cooms, and he might get suspicious. When there’s a sudden vacancy in the organization like that, Nome takes a good look first at the man next in line. He likes to be sure the facts are as stated.

“So now you know the kind of answers from you I want to hear go down on the recorder, sweetheart. And be sure they sound right. I don’t want to waste time on replays. You and Quillan were here on the Star. You got some idea of what was happening, realized you were due to be vaporized along with the rest of them after we left. There was no way out of the jam for you unless you could keep the operation from being carried out. You don’t, by the way, mention getting any of that information from me. I don’t want Lancion to think I’m beginning to get dopey. You and Quillan just cooked up this story, and he managed to get into the Executive Block. The idea being to knock off as many of the leaders as he could, and mess things up.”

*

Fluel picked up the recorder, stood up, and placed it on the chair. “That’s all you have to remember. You’re a smart girl; you can fill in the detail any way you like. Now let’s get started—”

She stared at him silently for instant, a muscle beginning to twitch in her cheek. “If I do that,” she said, “if I give you a story Nome will like, what happens next?”

Fluel shrugged. “Just what you’re thinking happens next. You’re a dead little girl right now, Reetal. Might as well get used to the idea. You’d be dead anyhow four, five hours from now, so that shouldn’t make too much difference. What makes a lot of difference is just how unpleasant the thing can get.”

She drew a long breath. “Duke, I—”

“You’re stalling, sweetheart.”

“Duke, give me a break. I really didn’t know a thing about this. I—”

He looked down at her for a moment. “I gave you a break,” he said. “You’ve wasted it. Now we’ll try it the other way. If we work a few squeals into the recording, that’ll make it more convincing to Lancion. He’ll figure little Reetal’s the type who wouldn’t spill a thing like that without a little pressure.” He checked himself, grinned. “And that reminds me. When you’re talking for the record, use your own voice.”

“My own voice?” she half whispered.

“Nome will remember what you sound like—and I’ve heard that voice imitations are part of your stock in trade. You might think it was cute if Nome got to wondering after you were dead whether that really had been you talking. Don’t try it, sweetheart.”

He brought a glove out of his jacket pocket, slipped it over his left hand, flexing his fingers to work it into position. Reetal’s eyes fastened on the rounded metal tips capping thumb, forefinger and middle finger of the glove. Her face went gray.

“Duke,” she said. “No—”

“Shut up.” He brought out a strip of transparent plastic, moved over to her. The gloved hand went into her hair, gripped it, turned her face up. He laid the plastic gag lengthwise over her mouth, pressed it down and released it. Reetal closed her eyes.

“That’ll keep it shut,” he said. “Now—” His right hand clamped about the back of her neck, forcing her head down and forward almost to her knees. The gloved left hand brushed her hair forwards, then its middle finger touched the skin at a point just above her shoulder blades.

“Right there,” Fluel said. The finger stiffened, drove down.

Reetal jerked violently, twisted, squirmed sideways, wrists straining against the grip of the armrests. Her breath burst out of her nostrils, followed by squeezed, whining noises. The metal-capped finger continued to grind savagely against the nerve center it had found.

“Thirty,” Fluel said finally. He drew his hand back, pulled her upright again, peeled the gag away from her lips. “Only thirty seconds, sweetheart. Think you’d sooner play along now?”

Reetal’s head nodded.

“Fine. Give you a minute to steady up. This doesn’t really waste much time, you see—” He took up the recorder, sat down on the chair again, watching her. She was breathing raggedly and shallowly, eyes wide and incredulous. She didn’t look at him.

The Duke lit another cigarette.

“Incidentally,” he observed, “if you were stalling because you hoped old Bad News might show up, forget it. If the boys haven’t gunned him down by now, he’s tied up on a job the commodore gave him to do. He’ll be busy another hour or two on that. He—”

He checked himself. A central section of the wall paneling across the room from him had just dilated open. Old Bad News stood in the concealed suite portal, Rest Warden Kinmarten slung across his shoulder.

Both men moved instantly. Fluel’s long legs bounced him sideways out of the chair, right hand darting under his coat, coming out with a gun. Quillan turned to the left to get Kinmarten out of the way. The big Miam Devil seemed to jump into his hand. Both guns spoke together.

Fluel’s gun thudded to the carpet. The Duke said, “Ah-aa-ah!” in a surprised voice, rolled up his eyes, and followed the gun down.

Quillan said, stunned, “He was fast! I felt that one parting my hair.”

*

He became very solicitous then—after first ascertaining that Fluel had left the Executive Block unaccompanied, on personal business. He located a pain killer spray in Reetal’s bedroom and applied it to the bruised point below the back of her neck. She was just beginning to relax gratefully, as the warm glow of the spray washed out the pain and the feeling of paralysis, when Kinmarten, lying on the carpet nearby, began to stir and mutter.

Quillan hastily put down the spray.

“Watch him!” he cautioned. “I’ll be right back. If he sits up, yell. He’s a bit wild at the moment. If he wakes up and sees the Duke lying there, he’ll start climbing the walls.”

“What—” Reetal began. But he was gone down the hall.

He returned immediately with a glass of water, went down on one knee beside Kinmarten, slid an arm under the rest warden’s shoulder, and lifted him to a sitting position.

“Wake up, old pal!” he said loudly. “Come on, wake up! Got something good for you here—”

“What are you giving him?” Reetal asked, cautiously massaging the back of her neck.

“Knockout drops. I already had to lay him out once. We want to lock him up with his wife now, and if he comes to and tells her what’s happened, they’ll both be out of their minds by the time we come to let them out—”

He interrupted himself. Kinmarten’s eyelids were fluttering. Quillan raised the glass to his lips. “Here you are, pal,” he said in a deep, soothing voice. “Drink it! It’ll make you feel a lot better.”

Kinmarten swallowed obediently, swallowed again. His eyelids stopped fluttering. Quillan lowered him back to the floor.

“That ought to do it,” he said.

“What,” Reetal asked, “did happen? The Duke—”

“Tell you as much as I can after we get Kinmarten out of the way. I have to get back to the Executive Block. Things are sort of teetering on the edge there.” He jerked his head at Fluel’s body. “I want to know about him, too, of course. Think you can walk now?”

Reetal groaned. “I can try,” she said.

They found Solvey Kinmarten dissolved in tears once more. She flung herself on her husband’s body when Quillan placed him on the bed. “What have those beasts done to Brock?” she demanded fiercely.

“Nothing very bad,” Quillan said soothingly. “He’s, um, under sedation at the moment, that’s all. We’ve got him away from them now, and he’s safe …look at it that way. You stay here and take care of him. We’ll have the whole deal cleared up before morning, doll. Then you can both come out of hiding again.” He gave her an encouraging wink.

“I’m so very grateful to both of you—”

“No trouble, really. But we’d better get back to work on the thing.”

“Heck,” Quillan said a few seconds later, as he and Reetal came out on the other side of the portal, “I feel like hell about those two. Nice little characters! Well, if the works blow up, they’ll never know it.”

“We’ll know it,” Reetal said meaningly. “Start talking.”

He rattled through a brief account of events in the Executive Block, listened to her report on the Duke’s visit, scratched his jaw reflectively.

“That might help!” he observed. “They’re about ready to jump down each other’s throats over there right now. A couple more pushes—” He stood staring down at the Duke’s body for a moment. Blood soiled the back of the silver jacket, seeping out from a tear above the heart area. Quillan bent down, got his hands under Fluel’s armpits, hauled the body upright.

Reetal asked, startled, “What are you going to do with it?”

“Something useful, I think. And wouldn’t that shock the Duke …the first time he’s been of any use to anybody. Zip through the Star’s ComWeb directory, doll, and get me the call symbol for Level Four of the Executive Block!”

*

Solvey Kinmarten dimmed the lights a trifle in the bedroom, went back to Brock, rearranged the pillows under his head, and bent down to place her lips tenderly to the large bruises on his forehead and the side of his jaw. Then she brought a chair up beside the bed, and sat down to watch him.

Perhaps a minute later, there was a slight noise behind her. Startled, she glanced around, saw something huge, black and shapeless moving swiftly across the carpet of the room toward her.

Solvey quietly fainted.

*

“Sure you know what to say?” Quillan asked.

Reetal moistened her lips. “Just let me go over it in my mind once more.” She was sitting on the floor, on the right side of the ComWeb stand, her face pale and intent. “You know,” she said, “this makes me feel a little queasy somehow, Quillan! And suppose they don’t fall for it?”

“They’ll fall for it!” Quillan was on his knees in front of the stand, supporting Fluel’s body, which was sprawled half across it, directly before the lit vision screen. An outflung arm hid the Duke’s face from the screen. “You almost had me thinking I was listening to Fluel when you did the take-off on him this evening. A dying man can be expected to sound a little odd, anyway.” He smiled at her encouragingly. “Ready now?”

Reetal nodded nervously, cleared her throat.

Quillan reached across Fluel, tapped out Level Four’s call symbol on the instrument, ducked back down below the stand. After a moment, there was a click.

Reetal produced a quavering, agonized groan. Somebody else gasped.

“Duke!” Baldy Perk’s voice shouted. “What’s happened?”

“Baldy Perk!” Quillan whispered quickly.

Reetal stammered hoarsely, “The c-c-commodore, Baldy! Shot me …shot Marras! They’re after …Quillan …now!”

“I thought Bad News …” Baldy sounded stunned.

“Was w-wrong, Baldy,” Reetal croaked. “Bad News …with us! Bad News …pal! The c-c-comm—”

Beneath the ComWeb stand the palm of Quillan’s right hand thrust sharply up and forward. The stand tilted, went crashing back to the floor. Fluel’s body lurched over with it. The vision screen shattered. Baldy’s roaring question was cut off abruptly.

“Great stuff, doll!” Quillan beamed, helping Reetal to her feet. “You sent shudders down my back!”

“Down mine, too!”

“I’ll get him out of here now. Ditch him in one of the shut-off sections. Then I’ll get back to the Executive Block. If Ryter’s thought to look into Kinmarten’s room, they’ll really be raving on both sides there now! “

“Is that necessary?” Reetal asked. “For you to go back, I mean. Somebody besides Fluel might have become suspicious of you by now.”

“Ryter might,” Quillan agreed “He’s looked like the sharpest of the lot right from the start. But we’ll have to risk that. We’ve got all the makings of a shooting war there now but we’ve got to make sure it gets set off before somebody thinks of comparing notes. If I’m around, I’ll keep jolting at their nerves.”

“I suppose you’re right. Now, our group—”

Quillan nodded. “No need to hold off on that any longer, the way things are moving. Get on another ComWeb and start putting out those Mayday messages right now! As soon as you’ve rounded the boys up—”

“That might,” Reetal said, “take a little less than an hour.”

“Fine. Then move them right into the Executive Block. With just a bit of luck, one hour from now should land them in the final stages of a beautiful battle on the upper levels. Give them my description and Ryter’s, so we don’t have accidents.”

“Why Ryter’s?”

“Found out he was the boy who took care of the bomb-planting detail. We want him alive. The others mightn’t know where it’s been tucked away. Heraga says the clerical staff and technicians in there are all wearing the white Star uniforms. Anyone else who isn’t in one of those uniforms is fair game—” He paused. “Oh, and tip them off about the Hlat. God only knows what that thing will be doing when the ruckus starts.”

“What about sending a few men in through the fifth level portal, the one you’ve unplugged?”

Quillan considered, shook his head “No. Down on the ground level is where we want them. They’d have to portal there again from the fifth, and a portal is too easy to seal off and defend. Now let’s get a blanket or something to tuck Fluel into. I don’t want to feel conspicuous if I run into somebody on the way.”

5

Quillan emerged cautiously from the fifth portal in the Executive Block a short while later, came to a sudden stop just outside it. In the big room beyond the entry hall, the door of the baited cubicle was closed and the life-indicator on the door showed a bright steady green glow.

Quillan stared at it a moment, looking somewhat surprised, then went quietly into the room and bent to study the cubicle’s instruments. A grin spread slowly over his face. The trap had been sprung. He glanced at the deep-rest setting and turned it several notches farther down.

“Happy dreams, Lady Pendrake!” he murmured. “That takes care of you. What an appetite! And now—”

As the Level Four portal dilated open before him, a gun blazed from across the hall. Quillan flung himself out and down, rolled to the side, briefly aware of a litter of bodies and tumbled furniture farther up the hall. Then he was flat on the carpet, gun out before him, pointing back at the overturned, ripped couch against the far wall from which the fire had come.

A hoarse voice bawled, “Bad News—hold it!”

Quillan hesitated, darting a glance right and left. Men lying about everywhere, the furnishings a shambles. “That you, Baldy?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Baldy Perk half sobbed. “I’m hurt—”

“What happened?”

“Star gang jumped us. Portaled in here—spitballs and riot guns! Bad News, we’re clean wiped out! Everyone that was on this level—”

Quillan stood up, holstering the gun, went over to the couch and moved it carefully away from the wall. Baldy was crouched behind it, kneeling on the blood-soaked carpet, gun in his right hand. He lifted a white face, staring eyes, to Quillan.

“Waitin’ for `em to come back,” he muttered. “Man, I’m not for long! Got hit twice. Near passed out a couple of times already.”

“What about your boys on guard downstairs?”

“Same thing there, I guess …or they’d have showed up. They got Cooms and the Duke, too! Man, it all happened fast!”

“And the crew on the freighter?”

“Dunno about them.”

“You know the freighter’s call number?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Sure. Never thought of that,” Baldy said wearily. He seemed dazed now.

“Let’s see if you can stand.”

Quillan helped the big man to his feet. Baldy hadn’t bled too much outwardly, but he seemed to have estimated his own condition correctly. He wasn’t for long. Quillan slid an arm under his shoulders.

“Where’s a ComWeb?” he asked.

Baldy blinked about. “Passage there—” His voice was beginning to thicken.

The ComWeb was in the second room up the passage. Quillan eased Perk into the seat before it. Baldy’s head lolled heavily forward, like a drunken man’s “What’s the number?” Quillan asked.

Baldy reflected a few seconds. blinking owlishly at the instrument, then told him. Quillan tapped out the number, flicked on the vision screen, then stood aside and back, beyond the screen’s range.

“Yeah, Perk?” a voice said some seconds later. “Hey, Perk …Perk, what’s with ya?”

Baldy spat blood, grinned. “Shot—” he said.

“What?”

“Yeah.” Baldy scowled, blinking. “Now, lessee—Oh, yeah. Star gang’s gonna jump ya! Watch it!”

“What?”

“Yeah, watch—” Baldy coughed, laid his big head slowly down face forward on the ComWeb stand, and stopping moving.

“Perk! Man, wake up! Perk!”

Quillan quietly took out the gun, reached behind the stand and blew the ComWeb apart. He wasn’t certain what the freighter’s crew would make of the sudden break in the connection, but they could hardly regard it as reassuring. He made a brief prowl then through the main sections of the level. Evidence everywhere of a short and furious struggle, a struggle between men panicked and enraged almost beyond any regard for self-preservation. It must have been over in minutes. He found that the big hall portal to the ground level had been sealed, whether before or after the shooting he couldn’t know. There would have been around twenty members of the Brotherhood on the level. None of them had lived as long as Baldy Park, but they seemed to have accounted for approximately an equal number of the Star’s security force first.

*

Five Star men came piling out of the fifth level portal behind him a minute or two later, Ryter in the lead. Orca behind Ryter. All five held leveled guns.

“You won’t need the hardware,” Quillan assured them. “It’s harmless enough now. Come on in.”

They followed him silently up to the cubicle, stared comprehendingly at dials and indicators. “The thing’s back inside there, all right!” Ryter said. He looked at Quillan. “Is this where you’ve been all the time?”

“Sure. Where else?” The others were forming a half-circle about him, a few paces back.

“Taking quite a chance with that Hlat, weren’t you?” Ryter remarked.

“Not too much. I thought of something.” Quillan indicated the outportal in the hall. “I had my back against that. A portal’s space-break, not solid matter. It couldn’t come at me from behind. And if it attacked from any other angle”—he tapped the holstered Miam Devil lightly, and the gun in Orca’s hand jerked upward a fraction of an inch—“There aren’t many animals that can swallow more than a bolt or two from that baby and keep coming.”

There was a moment’s silence. Then Orca said thoughtfully, “That would work!”

“Did it see you?” Ryter asked.

“It couldn’t have. First I saw of it, it was sailing out from that corner over there. It slammed in after that chunk of sea beef so fast, it shook the cubicle. And that was that.” He grinned. “Well, most of our troubles should be over now!”

One of the men gave a brief, nervous laugh. Quillan looked at him curiously. “Something, chum?”

Ryter shook his head. “Something is right! Come on downstairs again, Bad News. This time we have news for you—”

The Brotherhood guards on the ground level had been taken by surprise and shot down almost without losses for the Star men. But the battle on the fourth level had cost more than the dead left up there. An additional number had returned with injuries that were serious enough to make them useless for further work.

“It’s been expensive,” Ryter admitted. “But one more attack by the Hlat would have left me with a panicked mob on my hands. If we’d realized it was going to trap itself—”

“I wasn’t so sure that would work either,” Quillan said. “Did you get Kinmarten back?”

“Not yet. The chances are he’s locked up somewhere on the fourth level. Now the Hlat’s out of the way, some of the men have gone back up there to look for him. If Cooms thought he was important enough to start a fight over, I want him back.”

“How about the crew on the Beldon ship?” Quillan asked. “Have they been cleaned up?”

“No,” Ryter said. “We’ll have to do that now, of course.”

“How many of them?”

“Supposedly twelve. And that’s probably what it is.”

“If they know or suspect what’s happened,” Quillan said, “twelve men can give a boarding party in a lock a remarkable amount of trouble.”

Ryter shrugged irritably. “I know, but there isn’t much choice. Lancion’s bringing in the other group on the Camelot. We don’t want to have to handle both of them at the same time.”

“How are you planning to take the freighter?”

“When the search party comes back down, we’ll put every man we can spare from guard duty here on the job. They’ll be instructed to be careful about it …if they can wind up the matter within the next several hours, that will be early enough. We can’t afford too many additional losses now. But we should come out with enough men to take care of Lancion and handle the shipment of Hlats. And that’s what counts.”

“Like me to take charge of the boarding party?” Quillan inquired. “That sort of thing’s been a kind of specialty of mine.”

Ryter looked at him without much expression on his face. “I understand that,” he said. “But perhaps it would be better if you stayed up here with us.”

*

The search party came back down ten minutes later. They’d looked through every corner of the fourth level. Kinmarten wasn’t there, either dead or alive. But one observant member of the group had discovered, first, that the Duke of Fluel was also not among those present, and, next, that one of the four outportals on the level had been unsealed. The exit on which the portal was found to be set was in a currently unused hall in the General Offices building on the other side of the Star. From that hall, almost every other section of the Star was within convenient portal range.

None of the forty-odd people working in the main control office on the ground level had actually witnessed any shooting; but it was apparent that a number of them were uncomfortably aware that something quite extraordinary must be going on. They were a well-disciplined group, however. An occasional uneasy glance toward one of the armed men lounging along the walls, some anxious faces, were the only noticeable indications of tension. Now and then, there was a brief, low-pitched conversation at one of the desks.

Quillan stood near the center of the office, Ryter and Orca a dozen feet from him on either side. Four Star guards were stationed along the walls. From the office one could see through a large doorspace cut through both sides of a hall directly into the adjoining transmitter room. Four more guards were in there. Aside from the men in the entrance hall and at the subspace portal, what was available at the moment of Ryter’s security force was concentrated at this point.

The arrangement made considerable sense; and Quillan gave no sign of being aware that the eyes of the guards shifted to him a little more frequently than to any other point in the office, or that none of them had moved his hand very far away from his gun since they had come in here. But that also made sense. In the general tension area of the Executive Block’s ground level, a specific point of tension—highly charged though undetected by the noninvolved personnel—was the one provided by the presence of Bad News Quillan here. Ryter was more than suspicious by now; the opened portal on the fourth level, the disappearance of Kinmarten and the Duke, left room for a wide variety of speculations. Few of those speculations could be very favorable to Bad News. Ryter obviously preferred to let things stand as they were until the Beldon freighter was taken and the major part of his group had returned from the subspace sections of the Star. At that time, Bad News could expect to come in for some very direct questioning by the security chief.

The minutes dragged on. Under the circumstances, a glance at his watch could be enough to bring Ryter’s uncertainties up to the explosion point, and Quillan also preferred to let things stand as they were for the moment. But he felt reasonably certain that over an hour had passed since he’d left Reetal; and so far there had been no hint of anything unusual occurring in the front part of the building. The murmur of voices in the main control office continued to eddy about him. There were indications that in the transmitter room across the hall messages had begun to be exchanged between the Star and the approaching liner.

A man sitting at a desk near Quillan stood up presently, went out into the hall and disappeared. A short while later, the white-suited figure returned and picked up the interrupted work. Quillan’s glance went over the clerk, shifted on. He felt something tighten up swiftly inside him. There was a considerable overall resemblance, but that wasn’t the man who had left the office.

Another minute or two went by. Then two other uniformed figures appeared at the opening to the hall, a sparse elderly man, a blond girl. They stood there talking earnestly together for some seconds, then came slowly down the aisle toward Quillan. It appeared to be an argument about some detail of her work. The girl frowned, stubbornly shaking her head. Near Quillan they separated, started off into different sections of the office. The girl, glancing back, still frowning, brushed against Ryter. She looked up at him. startled.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Ryter scowled irritably, started to say something, suddenly appeared surprised. Then his eyes went blank and his knees buckled under him.

The clerk sitting at the nearby desk whistled shrilly.

Quillan wheeled, gun out and up, toward the wall behind him. The two guards there were still lifting their guns. The Miam Devil grunted disapprovingly twice, and the guards went down. Noise crashed from the hall …heavy sporting rifles. He turned again, saw the two other guards stumbling backward along the far wall. Feminine screaming erupted around the office as the staff dove out of sight behind desks, instrument stands and filing cabinets. The elderly man stood above Orca, a sap in his hand and a pleased smile on his face.

In the hallway, four white-uniformed men had swung about and were pointing blazing rifles into the transmitter room. The racketing of the gunfire ended abruptly and the rifles were lowered again. The human din in the office began to diminish, turned suddenly into a shocked, strained silence. Quillan realized the blond girl was standing at his elbow.

“Did you get the rest of them?” he asked quickly, in a low voice.

“Everyone who was on this level,” Reetal told him. “There weren’t many of them.”

“I know. But there’s a sizable batch still in the subspace section. If we can get the bomb disarmed, we’ll just leave them sealed up there. How long before you can bring Ryter around?”

“He’ll be able to talk in five minutes.”

6

Quillan had been sitting for some little while in a very comfortable chair in what had been the commodore’s personal suite on the Seventh Star, broodingly regarding the image of the Camelot in a huge wall screen. The liner was still over two hours’ flight away but would arrive on schedule. On the Star, at least in the normspace section, everything was quiet; and in the main control offices and in the transmitter room normal working conditions had been restored.

A room portal twenty feet away opened suddenly, and Reetal Destone stepped out.

“So there you are!” she observed.

Quillan looked mildly surprised then grinned. “I’d hate to have to try to hide from you!” he said.

“Hm-m-m!” said Reetal. She smiled. “What are you drinking?”

He nodded at an open liquor cabinet near the screen. “Velladon was leaving some excellent stuff behind. Join me?”

“Hm-m-m.” She went to the cabinet, looked over the bottles, made her selection and filled a glass. “One has the impression,” she remarked, “that you were hiding from me.”

“One does? I’d have to be losing my cotton-picking mind—”

“Not necessarily.” Reetal brought the drink over to his chair, sat down on the armrest with it. “You might just have a rather embarrassing problem to get worked out before you give little Reetal a chance to start asking questions about it.”

Quillan looked surprised. “What gave you that notion?”

“Oh,” Reetal said, “adding things up gave me that motion …Care to hear what the things were?”

“Go ahead, doll.”

“First,” said Reetal, “I understand that a while ago, after you’d first sent me off to do some little job for you, you were in the transmitter room having a highly private—shielded and scrambled—conversation with somebody on board the Camelot.”

“Why, yes,” Quillan said. “I was talking to the ship’s security office. They’re arranging to have a Federation police boat pick up what’s left of the commodore’s boys and the Brotherhood in the subspace section.”

“And that,” said Reetal, “is where that embarrassing little problem begins. Next, I noticed, as I say, that you were showing this tendency to avoid a chance for a private talk between us. And after thinking about that for a little, and also about a few other things which came to mind at around that time, I went to see Ryter.”

“Now why—?”

Reetal ran her fingers soothingly through his hair. “Let me finish, big boy. I found Ryter and Orca in a highly nervous condition. And do you know why they’re nervous? They’re convinced that some time before the Camelot gets here, you’re going to do them both in.”

“Hm-m-m,” said Quillan.

“Ryter,” she went on, “besides being nervous, is also very bitter. In retrospect, he says, it’s all very plain what you’ve done here. You and your associates—a couple of tough boys named Hagready and Boltan, and others not identified—are also after these Hlats. The Duke made some mention of that, too, you remember. The commodore and Ryter bought the story you told them because a transmitter check produced the information that Hagready and Boltan had, in fact, left their usual work areas and gone off on some highly secret business about a month ago.

“Ryter feels that your proposition—to let your gang in on the deal for twenty per cent, or else—was made in something less than good faith. He’s concluded that when you learned of the operation being planned by Velladon and the Brotherhood, you and your pals decided to obstruct them and take the Hlats for delivery to Yaco yourselves, without cutting anybody in. He figures that someone like Hagready or Boltan is coming in on the Camelot with a flock of sturdy henchmen to do just that. You, personally, rushed to the Seventh Star to interfere as much as you could here. Ryter admits reluctantly that you did an extremely good job of interfering. He says it’s now obvious that every move you made since you showed up had the one purpose of setting the Star group and the Brotherhood at each other’s throats. And now that they’ve practically wiped each other out, you and your associates can go on happily with your original plans.

“But, of course, you can’t do that if Ryter and Orca are picked up alive by the Federation cops. The boys down in the subspace section don’t matter; they’re ordinary gunhands and all they know is that you were somebody who showed up on the scene. But Ryter could, and certainly would, talk—”

“Ah, he’s too imaginative,” Quillan said, taking a swallow of his drink. “I never heard of the Hlats before I got here. As I told you, I’m on an entirely different kind of job at the moment. I had to make up some kind of story to get an in with the boys, that’s all.”

“So you’re not going to knock those two weasels off?”

“No such intentions. I don’t mind them sweating about it till the Feds arrive, but that’s it.”

“What about Boltan and Hagready?”

“What about them? I did happen to know that if anyone started asking questions about those two, he’d learn that neither had been near his regular beat for close to a month.”

“I’ll bet!” Reetal said cryptically.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Hm-m-m,” she said. “Bad News Quillan! A really tough boy, for sure. You know, I didn’t believe for an instant that you were after the Hlats—”

“Why not?”

Reetal said, “I’ve been on a couple of operations with you, and you’d be surprised how much I’ve picked up about you from time to time on the side. Swiping a shipment of odd animals and selling them to Yaco, that could be Bad News, in character. Selling a couple of hundred human beings—like Brock and Solvey Kinmarten—to go along with the animals to an outfit like Yaco would not be in character.”

“So I have a heart of gold,” Quillan said.

“So you fell all over your own big feet about half a minute ago!” Reetal told him. “Bad News Quillan—with no interest whatsoever in the Hlats—still couldn’t afford to let Ryter live to talk about him to the Feds, big boy!”

Quillan looked reflective for a moment. “Dirty trick!” he observed. “For that, you might freshen up my glass.”

*

Reetal took both glasses over to the liquor cabinet, freshened them up, and settled down on the armrest of the chair again. “So there we’re back to the embarrassing little problem,” she said.

“Ryter?”

“No, idiot. We both know that Ryter is headed for Rehabilitation. Fifteen years or so of it, at a guess. The problem is little Reetal who has now learned a good deal more than she was ever intended to learn. Does she head for Rehabilitation, too?”

Quillan took a swallow of his drink and set the glass down again. “Are you suggesting,” he inquired, “that I might be, excuse the expression, a cop?”

Reetal patted his head. “Bad News Quillan! Let’s look back at his record. What do we find? A shambles, mainly. Smashed-up organizations, outfits, gangs. Top-level crooks with suddenly vacant expressions and unexplained holes in their heads. Why go on? The name is awfully well earned! And nobody realizing anything because the ones who do realize it suddenly …well, where are Boltan and Hagready at the moment?”

Quillan sighed. “Since you keep bringing it up—Hagready played it smart, so he’s in Rehabilitation. Be cute if Ryter ran into him there some day. Pappy Boltan didn’t want to play it smart. I’m not enough of a philosopher to make a guess at where he might be at present. But I knew he wouldn’t be talking.”

“All right,” Reetal said, “we’ve got that straight. Bad News is Intelligence of some kind. Federation maybe, or maybe one of the services. It doesn’t matter, really, I suppose. Now, what about me?”

He reached out and tapped his glass with a fingertip. “That about you, doll. You filled it. I’m drinking it. I may not think quite as fast as you do, but I still think. Would I take a drink from a somewhat lawless and very clever lady who really believed I had her lined up for Rehabilitation? Or who’d be at all likely to blab out something that would ruin an old pal’s reputation?”

Reetal ran her fingers through his hair again. “I noticed the deal with the drink,” she said. “I guess I just wanted to hear you say it. You don’t tell on me, I don’t tell on you. Is that it?”

“That’s it,” Quillan said. “What Ryter and Orca want to tell the Feds doesn’t matter. It stops there; the Feds will have the word on me before they arrive. By the way, did you go wake up the Kinmartens yet?”

“Not yet,” Reetal said. “Too busy getting the office help soothed down and back to work.”

“Well, let’s finish these drinks and go do that, then. The little doll’s almost bound to be asleep by now, but she might still be sitting there biting nervously at her pretty knuckles.”

*

Major Heslet Quillan, of Space Scout Intelligence, was looking unhappy. “We’re still searching for them everywhere,” he explained to Klayung, “but it’s a virtual certainty that the Hlat got them shortly before it was trapped.”

Klayung, a stringy, white-haired old gentleman, was an operator of the Psychology Service, in charge of the shipment of Hlats the Camelot had brought in. He and Quillan were waiting in the vestibule of the Seventh Star’s rest cubicle vaults for Lady Pendrake’s cubicle to be brought over from the Executive Block.

Klayung said reflectively, “Couldn’t the criminals with whom you were dealing here have hidden the couple away somewhere?”

Quillan shook his head. “There’s no way they could have located them so quickly. I made half a dozen portal switches when I was taking Kinmarten to the suite. It would take something with a Hlat’s abilities to follow me over that route and stay undetected. And it must be an unusually cunning animal to decide to stay out of sight until I’d led it where it wanted to go.”

“Oh, they’re intelligent enough,” Klayung agreed absently. “Their average basic I.Q. is probably higher than that of human beings. A somewhat different type of mentality, of course. Well, when the cubicle arrives, I’ll question the Hlat and we’ll find out.”

Quillan looked at him. “Those control devices make it possible to hold two-way conversations with the things?”

“Not exactly,” Klayung said. “You see, major, the government authorities who were concerned with the discovery of the Hlats realized it would be almost impossible to keep some information about them from getting out. The specimen which was here on the Star has been stationed at various scientific institutions for the past year; a rather large number of people were involved in investigating it and experimenting with it. In consequence, several little legends about them have been deliberately built up. The legends aren’t entirely truthful, so they help to keep the actual facts about the Hlats satisfactorily vague.”

“The Hlat-talker is such a legend. Actually, the device does nothing. The Hlats respond to telepathic stimuli, both among themselves and from other beings, eventually begin to correlate such stimuli with the meanings of human speech.”

“Then you—” Quillan began.

“Yes. Eltak, their discoverer, was a fairly good natural telepath. If he hadn’t been abysmally lazy, he might have been very good at it. I carry a variety of the Service’s psionic knickknacks about with me, which gets me somewhat comparable results.”

He broke off as the vestibule portal dilated widely. Lady Pendrake’s cubicle floated. through, directed by two gravity crane operators behind it. Klayung stood up.

“Set it there for the present, please,” he directed the operators. “We may call for you later if it needs to be moved again.”

He waited until the portal had closed behind the men before walking over to the cubicle. He examined the settings and readings at some length.

“Hm-m-m, yes,” he said, straightening finally. His expression became absent for a few seconds; then he went on. “I’m beginning to grasp the situation, I believe. Let me tell you a few things about the Hlats, major. For one, they form quite pronounced likes and dislikes. Eltak, for example, would have been described by most of his fellow men as a rather offensive person. But the Hlats actually became rather fond of him during the fifteen or so years he lived on their island.

“That’s one point. The other has to do with their level of intelligence. We discovered on the way out here that our charges had gained quite as comprehensive an understanding of the functioning of the cubicles that had been constructed for them as any human who was not a technical specialist might do. And—”

He interrupted himself, stood rubbing his chin for a moment.

“Well, actually,” he said, “that should be enough to prepare you for a look inside the Hlat’s cubicle.”

Quillan gave him a somewhat surprised glance. “I’ve been told it’s ugly as sin,” he remarked. “But I’ve seen some fairly revolting looking monsters before this.”

Klayung coughed. “That’s not exactly what I meant,” he said. “I …well, let’s just open the thing up. Would you mind, major?”

“Not at all.” Quillan stepped over to the side of the cubicle, unlocked the door switch and pulled it over. They both moved back a few feet before the front of the cubicle. A soft humming came for some seconds from the door’s mechanisms; then it suddenly swung open. Quillan stooped to glance inside, straightened instantly again, hair bristling.

“Where is it?” he demanded, the Miam Devil out in his hand.

Klayung looked at him thoughtfully. “Not very far away, I believe. But I can assure you, major, that it hasn’t the slightest intention of attacking us—or anybody else—at present.”

Quillan grunted, looked back into the cubicle. At the far end, the Kinmartens lay side by side, their faces composed. They appeared to be breathing regularly.

“Yes,” Klayung said, “they’re alive and unharmed.” He rubbed his chin again. “And I think it would be best if we simply closed the cubicle now. Later we can call a doctor over from the hospital to put them under sedation before they’re taken out. They’ve both had thoroughly unnerving experiences, and it would be advisable to awaken them gradually to avoid emotional shock.”

He moved over to the side of the cubicle, turned the door switch back again. “And now for the rest of it,” he said. “We may as well sit down again, major. This may take a little time.”

*

“Let’s look at the thing for a moment from the viewpoint of the Hlat,” he resumed when he was once more comfortably seated. “Eltak’s death took it by surprise. It hadn’t at that point grasped what the situation in the Executive Block was like. It took itself out of sight for the moment, killing one of the gang leaders in the process, then began prowling about the various levels of the building, picking up information from the minds and conversation of the men it encountered. In a fairly short time, it learned enough to understand what was planned by the criminals; and it arrived at precisely your own conclusion …that it might be possible to reduce and demoralize the gangs to the extent that they would no longer be able to carry out their plan. It began a systematic series of attacks on them with that end in mind.

“But meanwhile you had come into the picture. The Hlat was rather puzzled by your motive at first because there appeared to be an extraordinary degree of discrepancy between what you were saying and what you were thinking. But after observing your activities for a while, it began to comprehend what you were trying to do. It realized that your approach was more likely to succeed than its own, and that further action on its side might interfere with your plans. But there remained one thing for it to do.

“I may tell you in confidence, major, that another legend which has been spread about these Hlats is their supposed inability to escape from the cubicles. Even their attendants are supplied with this particular bit of misinformation. Actually, the various force fields in the cubicles don’t hamper them in the least. The cubicles are designed simply to protect the Hlats and keep them from being seen; and rest cubicles, of course, can be taken anywhere without arousing undue curiosity.”

“You mentioned that the Kinmartens are very likable young people. The Hlat had the same feeling about them; they were the only human beings aside from Eltak with whose minds it had become quite familiar. There was no assurance at this point that the plans to prevent a bomb from being exploded in the Star would be successful, and the one place where human beings could hope to survive such an explosion was precisely the interior of the Hlat’s cubicle, which had been constructed to safeguard its occupant against any kind of foreseeable accident.

“So the Hlat sprang your cubicle trap, removed the bait, carried the Kinmartens inside, and whipped out of the cubicle again before the rest current could take effect on it. It concluded correctly that everyone would decide it had been recaptured. After that, it moved about the Executive Block, observing events there and prepared to take action again if that appeared to be advisable. When you had concluded your operation successfully, it remained near the cubicle, waiting for me to arrive.”

Quillan shook his head. “That’s quite an animal!” he observed after some seconds. “You say it’s in our general vicinity now?”

“Yes,” Klayung said. “It followed the cubicle down here, and has been drifting about the walls of the vestibule while we …well, while I talked.”

“Why doesn’t it show itself?”

Klayung cleared his throat. “For two reasons,” he said. “One is that rather large gun you’re holding on your knees. It saw you use it several times, and after all the shooting in the Executive Block, you see—”

Quillan slid the Miam Devil into its holster. “Sorry,” he said. “Force of habit, I guess. Actually, of course, I’ve understood for some minutes now that I wasn’t …well, what’s the other reason?”

“I’m afraid,” Klayung said, “that you offended it with your remark about its appearance. Hlats may have their share of vanity. At any rate, it seems to be sulking.”

“Oh,” said Quillan. “Well, I’m sure,” he went on rather loudly, “that it understands I received the description from a prejudiced source. I’m quite willing to believe it was highly inaccurate.”

“Hm-m-m,” said Klayung. “That seems to have done it, major. The wall directly across from us—”

Something like a ripple passed along the sidewall of the vestibule. Then the wall darkened suddenly, turned black. Quillan blinked, and the Hlat came into view. It hung, spread out like a spider, along half the length of the vestibule wall. Something like a huge, hairy amoeba in overall appearance, though the physical structures under the coarse, black pelt must be of very un-amoebalike complexity. No eyes were in sight, but Quillan had the impression of being regarded steadily. Here and there, along the edges and over the surface of the body, were a variety of flexible extensions.

Quillan stood up, hitched his gun belt into position, and started over toward the wall.

“Lady Pendrake,” he said, “honored to meet you. Could we shake hands?”

MONUMENT

Lloyd Biggle Jr.

1

It came to Obrien quite suddenly that he was dying.

He was lying in a gently swaying gourd hammock, almost within reach of the flying spray where the waves broke in on the point. The caressing warmth of the sun filtered through ragged, scarlet-leaved sao trees. Shouts of the children spearing marnl off the point reached him on fitful gusts of fragrant wind. A full drinking gourd hung at his elbow. The sweet, clear tones of a girl’s voice uplifted in an old, old song, and the tremulous twanging of the nabuls stroked in accompaniment, had embroidered his reverie with bittersweet nostalgia. His first wife had sung that song at a moment in time that now seemed remote almost beyond the reach of memory.

Then the realization snapped coldly across his thoughts and roused him from half-dozing, drowsy contentment to icy wakefulness.

He was dying.

The sudden surge of panic he experienced brought pain in its wake, and while the spasm lasted he lay quietly, hands clutching his abdomen, eyes closed, perspiration oozing from his forehead and soaking the hammock’s brightly patterned robes. It passed, and he jerked erect and shook his fist at the mocking emptiness of the cloudless blue-green sky. “What are you waiting for, damn it! What are you waiting for?”

The song stopped abruptly. A nabul struck the ground with a soft thud and a dissonant rattle of strings as Dalla, the singer, leaped to her feet and hurried to his side. He sat on the edge of the hammock wearily looking about him. The multicolored vegetation encircled him with a curtain of riotous beauty, and its glistening, drooping blossoms wafted a soporific invitation to rest, to meditate.

Obrien leaned back. Then he felt the first stabbing thrust of the pain’s return, and he slid determinedly to his feet and brushed the blossoms aside.

Dalla fluttered about him concernedly, her face tense with unspoken questions. Obrien’s great-great-grandson, Fornri, hurried toward him. Fornri and Dalla: Obrien regarded the two of them benignly, suddenly comprehending why Dalla had sung that old love song. In a year or two they would be partners at a betrothal dance. He wondered whether he would be alive to offer his blessing.

The other young people were on their feet and looking on with grave concern. They came frequently to ease the burden of an old man’s boredom with music, and they would not understand if he told them he no longer needed to be entertained because he was dying. The pain’s thrust continued, but Obrien resisted the impulse to futilely clutch his stomach.

“To the Elder,” he said curtly.

Consternation touched their faces. Fornri said slowly, “It is a long and tiring journey. Perhaps in the morning—”

“To the Elder,” Obrien said again and turned his back on them.

Their words drifted after him; they spoke unaware that an old man’s hearing could be as sharp as their own. Dalla said tremulously, “If you go only a short distance and then return, he may fall asleep and forget.”

There was a pause, and then Fornri answered, his voice deeply troubled. “No. He is the Langri. If he wishes to visit the Elder we must take him.”

Obrien left them to their dilemma and stumbled down the slope to the beach. The moment he appeared, the children came splashing toward him. “Langri!” they shouted. “Langri!”

They crowded about him excitedly, holding up marnl for his approval, waving their spears, laughing and shouting. The marnl was a fiat, broad, reptilian-looking creature with a multitude of legs and a small head on a ridiculously long neck. It was unlovely and inedible, but as a bait it was priceless. On this world children learned to swim before they could walk, for there was nothing in the sea that could harm them, and as soon as they could wield a spear they took to this game of catching marnl and made their play an indispensable economic asset.

Obrien paused to admire the more choice specimens before he gestured toward a dugout hunting boat drawn up on the beach. “To the Elder,” he said.

“Ai! To the Elder! Ai! To the Elder!”

They dashed to the boat, hauled it into the water, and began a furious struggle for places. Then Fornri arrived, and he waded into the melee, restored order, and told off seven boys for paddlers. They brought the boat back to the beach for Obrien to board. His pain had diminished, so he shrugged off Fornri’s proffered assistance, waded to the other end of the boat, and hopped aboard native fashion. As the boat moved away, the crowd of children splashed after it, swimming around and under it until the paddlers got up speed. Behind them, Dalla stood on a rise of ground with her arm uplifted in farewell.

The boys shouted a song as they dipped their paddles—a serious song, for this was a serious undertaking. The Langri wished to see the Elder, and it was their solemn duty to make haste.

And Obrien leaned back and wearily watched the foam dance under the outrigger, for he was dying.

It was not the imminence of death that disturbed him, but the realization that he should have thought of it sooner. Death was inevitable from the instant of birth, and Cerne Obrien was a long lifetime from babyhood. He wondered, sometimes, just how old he might be, for in this dreamy land, where the nights were moist and the days warm and sunny, where there were no seasons, where men measured age by wisdom, it was difficult to keep an alert finger on the pulse of time.

But Obrien did not need a calendar to tell him he was an old man. The solitary hut he had built on the lovely rise of ground above the point had become the center of a community as his sons, and grandsons, and great-grandsons brought home their wives. It was the village of Langru, the village of fire-topped men, already celebrated in legend and song; and though few of his descendants inherited his red hair, all were considered people of fire. Maidens were eager to mate with them, and the sturdiest youths came to court the daughters of fire. Many of them defied tradition and settled in the village of their wives.

A man who lived to watch his family thrive into the fifth generation had to expect a time of reckoning. Obrien’s limbs were stiff and swollen each morning from the night’s dampness. He moved slowly and tired easily, and the flaming red hair of his youth had faded to rusty gray. He had been ill for several years as a twitch of discomfort in his stomach became a throbbing irritation and then a sharp, prolonged pain and finally a searing agony. It was the corrosive touch of death, and so slowly did it come upon him that he had not recognized it.

He had received more happiness than he’d expected from life and far more than he deserved, and he should have been able to face death without fear or regret; but the dream that had grown until it shaped his life among these people was unfulfilled, and he knew, with an absolute and terrifying certitude, that if he died now this lovely world was doomed to utter ruin and this beautiful, generous, loving people to extinction. He knew.

He had known it almost from the moment of his crash landing. In his younger days the knowledge had made him frantic with worry, and he had pondered and debated with himself on long nocturnal walks along the beaches, and paced his hut through innumerable hours of misty darkness while he devised stratagems, and with inspiration and luck and stubbornness he finally fashioned the answers he had to have. He was the one man in the far-flung cosmos who could save this world that he loved and these people that he loved, and he would do it. He painstakingly rehearsed in his mind every step that had to be taken, and every opposing move that would have to be countered, and he was ready to act the moment the world was officially discovered.

The discovery did not happen, and he, Cerne Obrien, had played the fool. He had been content to wait. It was pleasant lounging in his hammock with a gourd of fermented juice at his elbow, acting the part of a veritable oracle, respected, even worshiped. When he was younger he had roamed the length and breadth of this world’s lone continent. He had taken long sea voyages. He was first in every adventure and courted danger with a grin on his face, scorning the world’s hazards and revering its beauties wherever and whenever he found them; but his zest for hazards diminished with age, and he became aware that the view from his own village encompassed as much breath-taking beauty as a man could comprehend in a lifetime.

He was a simple man, an uneducated man. The natives’ awe of his supposed wisdom alarmed and embarrassed him. He found himself called upon to settle complex sociological and economic problems, and because he had seen many civilizations and remembered much of what he had seen, he achieved a spectacular success and enjoyed it not at all.

And now the long pageant of unnumbered, wonderful years had come to this bitter ending: he was the one man in the cosmos who knew how to save this world and this people, and he could not do it because he was dying.

Kilometers of coast drifted past, and scores of villages, where people recognized the Langri and crowded the shore to wave. The afternoon waned and evening came on. Fatigue touched the boys’ faces and their singing became strained and breathless, but they worked tirelessly and kept their rhythm.

Dusk was hazing the sea about them and purpling the land when they entered a shallow bay and rode the surf up onto a wide, sloping beach studded with boats. The boys leaped out and heaved their own boat far up onto the sand. Then they slumped to the beach in exhaustion and bounced up a moment later, beaming with pride. There would be feasting tonight, and they would be honored guests. Had they not brought the Langri?

All native villages lay on hillsides overlooking the sea, with their dwellings arranged in concentric circles about a central oval where, at dusk, cooking fires sent fragrant plumes of smoke skyward. Obrien’s march up the village’s central avenue was a triumphal procession. Respectful adults and awed children solemnly trailed after him. He skirted the enormous signal gourd that stood in the center of the oval and continued on to the top of the slope where the Elder’s dwelling stood. The Elder stood waiting for him, a smile on his wrinkled face, his arms forming the native salute: one arm uplifted; the other held across his breast with hand resting lightly on his shoulder. Ten paces from him Obrien halted and returned the salute. The villagers watched silently.

“I greet you,” Obrien said.

“Your greetings are as welcome as yourself,” the Elder replied.

Obrien stepped forward, and they touched hands. This was not a native greeting, but he used it with some of the older men who were almost lifelong friends to him.

“I ordered a feast in the hope that you would come,” the Elder said.

“I came in the hope there would be a feast,” Obrien returned.

The formalities thus satisfied, the villagers drifted away murmuring approval. The Elder took Obrien’s arm and led him to the grove at the top of the hill, where hammocks were hung. They stood facing each other.

“Many days have passed,” the Elder said.

“Too many days,” Obrien agreed.

The Elder’s tall, gaunt frame seemed as sturdy as ever, but his hair was silvery white. The years had etched lines in his face, and more years had deepened them and dimmed the brightness in his eyes. Like Obrien, he was old. He was dying.

“The way is long,” the Elder said, “but at the end is a soft hammock, a full gourd, and a village of friends. Rest!”

They settled into two hammocks hung in a V, where they could lie with their heads close together, and a girl brought drinking gourds. They sipped in silence as darkness slowly settled on the village.

“The Langri is no longer a traveler,” the Elder observed finally.

“The Langri travels when the need arises.”

“Let us then talk of that need.”

“Later. After we have eaten. Or tomorrow. Tomorrow would be better.”

“Tomorrow, then,” the Elder agreed. He pushed Obrien’s gourd toward him.

Below them, the village was girding itself for the feast. New fires had been kindled—the oval blazed with them—and each of the village’s most skilled chefs had brought out the piece of koluf meat that he or she had long been curing, or aging, or marinating, or smoking, or drying for just such an auspicious occasion as a visit from the Langri. The koluf was an authentic sea monster—one of them filled a hunting boat—and Obrien often wondered how many of the natives’ ancestors had died before they found a way to capture this virulently poisonous creature and render it edible. Once found, the meat proved delectable beyond human powers of description. Obrien had tasted thousands of koluf dishes, because each chef had his own technique of seasoning and preparation, and each one tasted more delicious than any of the others.

Fires also leaped high on the distant beach, and soon Obrien heard the thum …thum …thum of the nabs. Like the smaller nabuls, they were stringed instruments fashioned of gourds, but the enormous nabs towered over the musicians who played them.

The thumming continued. Soon a raln, a type of gourd used as a drum, added its resonant thuds, and then the twanging nabuls were heard. Already the dancing had begun, for the young natives needed no persuasion to perform a festive dance. They were circling the musicians with torches, and soon they would peel off in a sinuous dance line that would weave through the village and summon the guests of honor. The rippling night breeze blended savory odors of the coming feast with the crisp tartness of the sea that heaved tirelessly just beyond the mouth of the bay. Blended words of chant and song were flung up to them as the dance line gained momentum and began its progress through the village.

Obrien felt exhausted—had there been time, he gladly would have slept—but when the Elder touched his arm he dutifully swung to his feet. Escorted by the jubilantly singing dancers, the two walked to their places of honor on the beach.

Except for the chefs and the escorting dancers, the entire village had assembled there. Around the fires, enormous, elongated gourds had been placed in circles, and these served as platforms for the dancing. In the position of honor amidst the waiting villagers was a triple throne with a high seat in the center and lower seats on either side.

Obrien and the Elder took the two lower places, and the dancers returned to the village oval and began to escort the chefs to the beach. They came a few at a time, each carefully carrying his culinary masterpiece on a gourd platter that was lined with colorful leaves and encircled with flowers. The natives’ existence depended absolutely on the whims of the koluf. When they caught enough, they ate well; when they didn’t, they went hungry. But no matter how much or how little food they had, they lavished on it all of the care and skill at their command.

The chefs formed a line at the edge of the beach, and the dancers took the dishes, one at a time, and with great ceremony they moved to the place of honor and presented them to Obrien. The thumming, twanging music and rhythm continued; dancing about the beach fires was now a contortion of violent movement; now a sedate gliding; now a vigorous leaping from gourd to gourd.

Obrien inspected each dish in turn, broke off a crumb of meat, tasted solemnly, meditated, shook his head. The dish was passed to the waiting villagers, and its hopeful author retired in disappointment. Another took his place at the head of the line, and the dancers brought the next dish for Obrien’s approval. Obrien tasted, rejected, and turned his attention to the dancing until another dish arrived.

The villagers watched avidly as Obrien tasted dish after dish. The Langri was no novice, and the chef who prepared the portion he found out of the ordinary would be honored indeed.

Suddenly Obrien, having tasted a crumb of koluf, tilted his head thoughtfully and broke off a larger morsel. He tasted again, smiled, nodded, and offered some to the Elder, who tasted it and smiled his own approval. Obrien accepted the platter of meat from the dancers, who returned to the line of waiting chefs to proclaim the winner. They escorted her to the throne, a plump, middle-aged woman delirious with delight. Obrien and the Elder arose and handed her up to the highest seat while around them the villagers slapped bare legs in enthusiastic approval. For with the natives, as with any people revering good food, the ultimate place of honor at any feast belonged to the cook.

In the morning, Obrien and the Elder walked together along the shore and seated themselves on a knoll overlooking the sea. Sweet-scented blossoms crowded up about them, nodding in the breeze. The morning light sparkled on the leaping water. Brightly colored sails of the hunting fleet were pinned flower-like to the horizon. To their left, the village rested sleepily on its hillside, with a single thin plume of smoke wafting skyward. Children of both sexes romped in the surf or walked timidly along the shore to stare up at the Elder and the Langri.

“I am an old man,” Obrien observed wearily.

“The oldest of old men,” the Elder agreed promptly.

Obrien smiled wanly. To a native, “old” meant “wise.” The Elder had paid him the highest of compliments, and he felt only bitterness and frustration. “I am an old man,” he said, “and I am dying.”

The Elder turned quickly and looked at him with concern.

“No man lives forever, my friend,” Obrien said, “and you and I have been cheating the fire of death for a long time.”

“The fire of death never lacks for fuel. Let those cheat it who can. You spoke of a need.”

“Your need. The need of all of your people and of my people.”

The Elder nodded thoughtfully. “As always, we listen well when the Langri speaks.”

Obrien got to his feet, walked forward a few paces, and stood looking at the sea. “You remember that I came from afar and stayed because the skyship that brought me could fly no longer. I came to this land by chance and because I had lost my way and my skyship had a serious sickness.”

“I remember.”

“Others will come,” Obrien said, “and then more others. There will be good men and bad, but all will have strange weapons.”

“I remember. I was there when you slew the maf.”

“Strange weapons,” Obrien repeated. “Our people will be helpless. The men from the sky will take this land—whatever they want of it. They will take the hills and the forests and the beaches and even the sea, the mother of life. There will be boats that sail above and below the waters and poison them, and the koluf, the staple of life, will be driven into deep waters where the hunters can’t find it. Our people will be pushed back into the mountains where there is no food. The strangers will bring strange sicknesses, and entire villages will lie in the fire of death. They will lay waste to the shores, they will hunt the waters and swim, and their dwellings will be taller than the tallest trees and their numbers on the beaches thicker than the marnl at hatching. Our own people will be no more.”

The Elder was silent for a time. Then he said, “You know this to be true?”

“It will not happen this day or the next, but it will happen.”

“It is indeed a terrible need,” the Elder said quietly.

Obrien looked at the awesome beauty of the curving shore and thought, “This beautiful, unspoiled land, this wonderful, generous, beautiful people—” A man was so damned helpless when he was dying.

The Elder got to his feet, and for a time they stood side by side in silence, two old men in bright sunlight waiting for darkness. The Elder placed his hand gently on Obrien’s shoulder. “Cannot the Langri prevent this thing?”

Obrien walked a short distance down the slope and knelt in the lush vegetation. He plucked the flowers, one at a time, and as each glistening, multicolored blossom turned dark in his hand he crushed it, tossed it aside, and plucked another.

The Elder followed and knelt beside him. “Cannot the Langri—”

“The Langri can prevent it—I think—if the men from the sky come this day or the next. If they delay longer the Langri cannot prevent it because the Langri is dying.”

“Now I understand. The Langri must show us the way.”

“The way is strange and difficult.”

“What we must do shall be done. The Langri’s wisdom will light the way.”

“Strange and difficult,” Obrien repeated. “Our people may not be able to follow it, or the path the Langri chooses may be the wrong one.”

“What does the Langri require?”

Obrien got to his feet. “Send the young people to me, two hands at a time. I will make my choices. There must be a village for them, in a place apart. They must eat, though they neither hunt nor gather, and the burden of their food and its preparation must be fairly divided among all the villages.”

“The first will come to you this day, and your wishes will be my wishes.”

They touched hands. Obrien turned and walked away quickly. Fornri and the young paddlers were waiting for him on the beach, and they pushed off at once and hoisted a sail, because the wind was at their back for the return voyage. They moved swiftly out of the bay, and Obrien, looking backward, saw the Elder still standing motionless on the knoll with arm uplifted.

2

Cerne Obrien had been knocking about in space since he was twelve, and when he got sufficiently tired of being the top name on everyone’s duty list, he saved a little money and acquired a battered government surplus survey ship. The sale—at discounted salvage value—was contingent on his junking the ship, but he scraped together some supplies and paid a dispatcher to be looking the other way when he took off.

He was only a dumb mechanic—though a good one—and he had no license to be touching anything at all on a spaceship forward of the retron cells; but he’d seen one piloted often enough to think he knew the fundamentals. The ship had a perverse streak that matched his own, but after he exercised his rich vocabulary of profanity and kicked the control panel a few times it would settle down and behave itself. Pointing it in the right direction was another matter. Probably any bright school kid knew more about celestial navigation than he did, and his only support came from an obsolete Simplified Astrogation for the Layman. He was lost ninety per cent of the time and only vaguely aware of his whereabouts for the other ten, but it didn’t matter.

He wanted to see some places that were off the usual space lanes and maybe do a little illegal prospecting, but especially he wanted to be his own boss and make his own decisions. When supplies got low he looked for a small, privately owned port where there would be no authorities asking to see his non-existent license. Good mechanics were always in demand, and he could slip in for a night landing, work until he’d earned enough to replenish his fuel and supplies, and slip back into space without exciting anyone.

He went through the motions of prospecting, too, nosing about on dozens of asteroids and moons and small planets that either were undiscovered or forgotten. He would have been reluctant to admit even to himself that the prospecting was in reality an excuse that enabled him to enjoy the contorted strangeness of a stark lunar landscape or experience the awesome thrill of riding a barren, spinning asteroid through an unending procession of glowing dawns and precipitant sunsets.

No one could have been more amazed than Obrien when he actually struck it rich. An asteroid of solid platinum he would have overlooked, but a rich deposit of retron crystals made his ship’s instrumentation misbehave so radically that eventually he got the message. He started back to civilization with a wealth so enormous and so unexpected that he had no notion of what he would do with it.

He had nothing with which to blanket the massive retron emissions from his cargo hold. He was lost when he started, and his erratically functioning instrumentation quickly lost him much more thoroughly while he fought a losing battle to conserve fuel and keep his worn engines operating. Finally he selected the world that seemed to offer his best chance for survival and pointed his ship at it. It was in fact his last chance, because his misbehaving fuel gauge had misled him. He ran out of fuel and crashed while attempting to land.

The natives made him welcome. He became a hero by turning his las pistol on an obnoxious, leathery-skinned flying creature that dove into the sea to tear its food from the living koluf. The maf had become so numerous that the natives’ principal source of food was threatened. Obrien used up all of his magazines, shooting the creatures in flight and destroying chrysalides and young in the high, inaccessible lairs, and he rendered the maf virtually extinct.

Obrien then explored the lone continent end to end and found nothing more significant than scant deposits of coal and a few metals. Any serious prospector would have scorned them, but they sufficed to lead the natives immediately into a bronze age and give them the metal points they so desperately needed for their hunting spears. He next turned his attention to the sea and added an outrigger to the hunting boats for stability in the furious battles waged with the koluf.

He had lost interest in being rescued. He was the Langri; he had his family and his own growing village and a position of tremendous prestige. He could have been the Elder at a relatively young age, but the idea of him, an alien, ruling these people seemed repugnant to him. His refusal enhanced the natives’ respect for him. He was happy.

He also was worried. The planet had such meager natural resources that no one would be attracted to it by prospective plunder. It was so inhospitable to humans that the natives could not have survived without the koluf and the many species of gourds. There were few material things that they needed that could not be made in whole or in part from gourds, but the koluf crop barely sufficed to feed them. Fortunately for the natives, there was no galactic market for gourds. Unfortunately, the world had another potential resource that rendered it priceless.

It was a beautiful world. Its beaches were smooth and sandy, its waters warm, its climate admirable. It would make a magnificent vacation resort, a world-wide vacation resort, and those paradoxical features that made life so difficult for the natives would become assets where tourists were concerned.

Man was the alien on this world, and these natives had to be descended from a space expedition or colonization party that had gone astray hundreds of years before. Except for the koluf— after a lavish purification process—and a few roots and berries, the world’s flora and fauna were virulently poisonous to man. Fortunately, man was equally poisonous to the native animals. He could swim in the sea with perfect safety as long as he avoided drowning, for not even the most voracious monster would dare to molest him. A drop of his blood, a scrap of his flesh, meant sickness or death, and in that violent arena the first was rapidly followed by the second.

Man paid dearly for his safety, because there was so little that he could eat. The edible roots could be pounded into a barely palatable flour. A few specimens of bitter fruit and leaves were excellent for seasoning koluf meat, and there was a small, pulpy berry that was tasteless but contained juices that could be blended into an excellent fermented drink. That was all.

But if man brought his own food, avoided poisonous thorns and nettles, and guarded against those forms of the world’s distressingly potent bacteria to which man was susceptible—and a well-ordered resort would take the necessary precautions—this world would become his playground. To the people of the myriads of harsh environments whose natural resources attracted large populations—dry worlds, barren worlds, airless worlds—it would be paradise. Those who could leave their bleak atmosphere domes, or underground caverns, or sand-blown villages for a few days in this sweet-smelling, oxygen-rich atmosphere could return to their rigorous environments with renewed courage.

Luxury hotels would crowd the beaches. Lesser hotels, boardinghouses, rental cottages would press back into the hills where magnificent forests now flaunted their lavishly colored leaves. Millionaires would indulge in spirited bidding for choice stretches of beach on which to locate their mansions. The shores would be clotted with vacationers. Ships would offer relaxing sea cruises, undersea craft would introduce their passengers to the world’s fantastically rich and incredibly strange marine life, and crowded wharves would harbor fishing boats for hire—for though the sea creatures were inedible, catching such repulsive monsters would constitute rare sport. It would be a year-round business because the climate was delightful the year around: a multibillion credit business.

The natives, of course, would be crowded out. Exterminated. There were laws to protect them, and an impressive Colonial Bureau to enforce the laws, but Obrien knew only too well how such governmental bureaucracies functioned. The little freebooters such as himself, who tried to pick up a few quick credits, received stiff fines and prison terms. The big-money operators incorporated, applied for charters, and if charters weren’t available they found the required legal loophole or paid the necessary bribe. Then they went after their spoils under the protection of the laws that were supposed to protect the natives.

The tourists’ water recreations would drive the koluf to new feeding grounds, and unless the natives were able to follow it—continuously—or effect radical changes in their diet, their social structure, and their manner of living, they would starve. Obrien doubted that they could do any of those. And a century or two later, scholars, always worrying deeply about yesterday’s tragedies while blithely ignoring today’s, would bemoan the loss. “They’d achieved a splendid civilization. Some of its facets were highly original and even unique. It’s a pity, really it is. One would think there’d be a law about that kind of thing.”

The young people came from all of the villages. They swung lightly down the coast with flashing paddles and rollicking songs—ten at a time they came, handsome boys and lovely girls bronzed from their days in the sun, all of them equally experienced at the koluf hunt and the loom, for in this society either sex did the work it preferred.

Theirs was the age of carefree happiness, the age the natives called the Time of Joy, for they were granted the leisure for singing and dancing, for courtship, for—if they chose—doing nothing at all, before assuming their adult responsibilities. And though they solemnly beached their boats along the point and came into the august presence of the Langri with appropriate reverence, he knew that no talk about tomorrow’s doom would easily divert their thoughts from today’s delights.

His questions startled them. They grappled awkwardly with strange concepts. They struggled to repeat unutterable sounds. They underwent bewildering tests of strength and endurance, of memory, of comprehension. Obrien tested and rejected, and others took their places, and finally he had chosen fifty.

In the forest, remote from the attractions of sea and shore and village, Obrien had a small village constructed. He moved in with his fifty students, and he worked them from dawn until darkness and often far into the night, while other natives loyally brought food, and the villages in turn sent help to prepare it. Fornri stood by alertly to do whatever was needed, and Dalla waited patiently with a cool drink and a damp leaf for Obrien’s brow when he tired, and an entire people watched and waited. The pain in Obrien’s abdomen came and went. When he was able, he ignored it. When he could not ignore it, he dismissed his students until he felt better.

His own formal education had ended the moment he became large enough to outrun his school’s attendance officer, but he had never stopped learning, and in his wandering he had acquired a smattering of all sorts of knowledge. Not until this moment did he realize what a scant thing a smattering amounted to, nor had he been aware that he could know something well and still have no notion of how to explain it.

He knew nothing at all about teaching.

He stood at one end of a forest clearing. Behind him was an improvised writing board, a fiber mat stretched between two trees with a layer of moist clay smoothed across it. With a pointed stick Obrien had written the numbers one through ten, and below that he had carefully inscribed what he considered the beginning of an education in arithmetic:

1 + 1 = 2

1 + 1 + 1 = 3

His fifty students sat on the ground before him in varying stages of inattention or perplexity. Around the edges of the clearing children peered out curiously, for native children were ubiquitous, and their curiosity was insatiable. Behind his class, at the far end of the clearing, stood the village.

“One means one of anything,” Obrien announced. “One dwelling, one spear, one koluf, one boat. One and one are two—two dwellings, two spears, two koluf. You, Banu!”

A youth in the front row started, and as Obrien continued to talk, his face assumed the contortions of total bafflement. “If you have a spear,” Obrien said, “and I give you another spear, how many spears do you have?”

“Why would you give me a spear if I already have one?” Banu blurted.

Eddies of discussion and comment swirled about the class and merged into larger eddies. Obrien took a heroic grip on his patience. “You’re hunting koluf, Banu, and your friend gives you his spear to hold while he secures the bait. How many spears do you have?”

“One,” Banu said confidently.

“You at the back—pay attention here!” Obrien shouted. He turned to Banu. “Banu—you have two spears. One and one are two!”

“But one of them is my friend’s,” Banu protested. “I only have one. I always have one. Why would I want two?”

Obrien took a deep breath and tried again. “Look at your fingers. On each hand you have one plus one plus one plus one plus one. Five. Five fingers on each hand. If a koluf bit off one of your fingers, how many would you have left?” He held up his hand, fingers outspread. Then he folded one finger down. “Four! Five take away one leaves four. Count!”

The entire class sat staring intently at outspread fingers. Banu had ahold of one of his, wiggling it back and forth. “I can’t take away one,” he announced finally. “I still have five.”

“Damn it, can’t you understand? Five of anything take away one leaves four. Five koluf, you eat one, you have four left.”

A student seated at the side of the clearing got to his feet and absently ambled forward, keeping his eyes on the writing board. Obrien went to meet him. “What is it, Larno?”

“What happens after ten?” Larno asked.

Obrien showed him, writing the numbers eleven to twenty as he spoke them.

“Yes, yes!” Larno exclaimed. “And after twenty?”

Obrien patiently went on writing numbers and pronouncing them. The class had lost interest. Talk became louder; a girl squealed; some youths began playing a game with a small gourd. Obrien, sensing Larno’s intense interest, ignored the disturbances and continued with the numbers until he had filled the writing board.

“Yes, yes!” Larno exclaimed. “And after ninety-nine?”

“One hundred. One hundred one. One hundred two. One hundred—”

“And after one hundred ninety-nine?”

“Two hundred.”

“And after two hundred ninety-nine is three hundred?” Larno asked. “Yes, yes! And four hundred? And five hundred? Yes, yes! And if one and one are two, then eleven and eleven are twenty-two, and one hundred and one hundred are two hundred. Yes, yes! And if five take away one is four, then five hundred take away one hundred is four hundred. And if each of us has ten fingers, then two of us have twenty fingers, and all fifty of us have five hundred fingers, not including you and Fornri and Dalla. Yes, yes!”

Obrien turned grimly and walked away. “Yes, yes!” he muttered. “Now tell me how a dumb mechanic like me can teach arithmetic to a class with one mathematical genius and forty-nine nitwits.”

He taught language. That much was all right. Through some freakish tradition this small population of isolated natives practiced bilingualism—they had a speech that was like nothing Obrien had ever encountered, but they also had a ceremonial speech that was a bastardized derivative of the galaxy’s one universal tongue that men everywhere called Galactic. Obrien had grown up speaking Galactic, and a man who couldn’t teach his own language was a fool. He had been teaching it ever since he arrived on this world, and many of the older natives had learned fairly good Galactic from him and passed it along to family or village. All of these young people already knew Galactic or something very close to it, and they easily mastered as much spoken language as Obrien wanted them to know.

Obrien taught science, and any spacer who didn’t have a pragmatic grasp of basic principles rarely lived long enough to be able to inflict his ignorance on others. But Obrien also had to teach subjects that had been no more than faint academic rumors to him, subjects such as economics and sociology and government. He taught political science, and he stirred and sifted the dregs of his memory for facts that might have stuck there concerning constitutions and compacts and articles of confederation; and socialism and communism and fascism; and theocracies and oligarchies and meritocracies and as many of the variegated modifications and adaptations as he could remember.

He taught military discipline and guerrilla warfare and colonial procedure, and he brought his class together under the stars and taught the history of the people of the galaxy. He expected these young natives to stare openmouthed while he described flaming space wars, and fantastic creatures, and worlds beyond worlds, and suns more numerous than the leaves of the forest; but their attention spans seemed even shorter at night than during the day.

“There!” he said, using a hunting spear to point with. “See those two bright stars and that dim one? Aim a spear between those stars, and if it had its own power, like the skyships I was telling you about, eventually it’d reach the sun Sol, which you can’t see without a large telescope. According to history or legend or maybe someone’s fancy rumor, that’s the system all of our ancestors came from.

“The bright stars are Tartta and Rologne, and long ago their planets had a war. The skyships fought it—so many ships on each side that you wouldn’t be able to understand the number.”

He paused to scowl his whispering students into momentary silence. “Thousands and thousands of ships, but so far apart that you have no number for the distance because space is so vast. And the ships shot bolts of fire at each other, and metal harder than your spear points became blobs of boiling liquid, and the crews were like charred sticks, and in every battle a few ships broke through on each side to shoot their bolts of fire at the mother worlds, and villages larger than this entire forest, with houses taller than the tallest trees, were boiled into liquid along with all of their people. Now no one lives on those worlds. Over there—”

He turned and pointed his spear in another direction. “Over there is a world called Watorno, and there’s a creature that lives in its seas that would make your koluf seem like a child’s toy. It’s a hundred times as big, and it could swallow one of your hunting boats with one gulp.”

As he paused, he heard a whispered voice from the shadowy fringe of the class. “Someone should tell the Elder. The Langri has a serious head sickness.”

Probably it was inevitable; his class began to drift away. Each morning he would search the faces anxiously to see how many more were missing, and then he would determinedly struggle on.

He taught as much as he could and improvised when he had to, which was often. While he talked to the class, Larno stood at one side of the clearing and worked mathematical problems on his own private writing board. Obrien, with the uncertain support of his Simplified Astrogation for the Layman, would sketch out a problem, following which Larno would gleefully fill all the available space with mathematical symbols, to the bafflement of those in the class who bothered to watch. Finally Larno would interrupt Obrien. “I’ve finished this problem. May I have another?”

Obrien would reach for his Simplified Astrogation. “All right. Your ship’s velocity is fifty thousand units and the position is the same as before. Calculate the amount of fuel needed to reach Planet X and go into orbit.”

“Yes, yes! And—this problem? Is my solution correct?”

“How the devil would I know?” Obrien would mutter as he returned to his lecture.

Whenever he caught Banu asleep, which was often, he would snarl at him, “Banu! What are those attorneys’ names?”

Banu would blink himself awake and recite flawlessly: “Klarouse, Hraanl, Picrawley, McLindorffer and Webluston, city of Schwalofro, world of Schwala, Sector 9138.”

Obrien fervently offered thanks for small favors. He had a mathematical genius who solved problems he didn’t understand, and a mnemonic genius who remembered things spoken while he was asleep—which was fortunate, because sleeping was what he did the most of. Banu seemed never to forget anything, though he understood so little of what he remembered that mining his memory could be an involved and frustrating process.

The rest of his students were uncomplicated morons.

“Attorneys—” Obrien began.

He doubled up suddenly, clutching his abdomen. Fornri and Dalla hurried to him, but he shook them off, straightened up, wiped the perspiration from his face, and continued.

“One day you’re going to need attorneys more than you need air to breathe, and that law firm wasn’t afraid to take on a world government for me. It won’t be afraid to take on a Federation of Worlds for you, but you may have trouble finding it—it’s been a long time, and the names may have changed.

“Attorneys cost money, which you don’t understand, but you may understand this. Look!”

He unwrapped a piece of cloth and displayed a handful of magnificent crystals. “Take a good look,” he told the gaping class. “They’re retron crystals. They make interstellar travel possible, and they’re rare enough and valuable enough so they can be changed for monetary credits at any financial center in the galaxy.”

An altercation broke out at the rear of the class, and he paused until it was resolved, to the accompaniment of much whispering and some squealing. Some boys persisted in teasing the girls, most of whom enjoyed it, and some couples overtly carried on their courtships during class. Obrien had not quite forgotten that he once was young himself.

“Monetary credits are money,” he went on, “and attorneys require a lot of it. There are enough crystals packed away in my wreck of a spaceship to buy you a lot of legal service. They’ll have to be buried in a safe place—deep in the cave under the double hill would be best. A wrecked ship will be the first thing that’ll get looked at when the skymen come, and if the crystals aren’t buried deeply there are instruments that will detect them.

“I was talking about governments. The other worlds won’t understand a system like yours, where leaders just happen instead of being elected or appointed, so this world will have to—”

The stabbing pain returned, and this time he dismissed the class and weakly allowed Fornri and Dalla to help him into his hammock. He lay with eyes closed, face perspiring, hands clutching his abdomen, and he said softly, “So much to do and so little time. Law and government and economics and colonial administration and all the rest, and I’m only a dumb mechanic and I’m dying.” Suddenly his eyes opened and he jerked erect. “Five more were gone today. Where are they?”

Fornri and Dalla exchanged uneasy glances. “Perhaps their villages needed them,” Fornri said apologetically. “The hunting—”

“The hunting! What’s an empty belly compared with slavery or death? Can’t they understand that there won’t be any hunting if they don’t have a Plan?”

“They don’t understand what you want them to do,” Fornri said. “Perhaps if you told them the Plan—”

“They aren’t ready for it. I should have started sooner.”

He sank back into the hammock and closed his eyes. He heard Dalla whisper, “Can’t the Elder help?” And Fornri answered, “He helps as much as he can, but it is difficult for him to make them stay here if they think they are needed elsewhere. Tomorrow will be worse.”

The pain returned.

One day he had a class of fifteen, and the next day there were eleven. The pain came more frequently, and he ignored it when he could and doggedly continued. “You’ve got to understand the government of the Federation. There are independent member worlds and independent non-member worlds, and dependent worlds that are virtually the property of other worlds.”

They were bored; most of them seemed asleep. He knew the problem—part of the problem—was that he was a lousy teacher, but he couldn’t think of any other way to do it, and time was so short.

“You’ve got to start as an independent non-member and qualify for membership in the Federation or, so help me, you’ll end up as somebody’s property. I don’t know the requirements for membership—that’s one of the reasons you’ll need those attorneys. Banu?”

Banu tonelessly recited the names and address.

“I do know you’ll have to read and write,” Obrien went on. “Everyone. The whole population, even the children, those that are old enough. It helps that you already know Galactic, but being able to speak it isn’t enough. If you can’t read and write, you’ll never know what’s going on in the galaxy and you won’t be able to look after your own interests. Anyway, there’s a literacy requirement of maybe ninety per cent for Federation membership. This afternoon we’ll start writing lessons, and when you’ve learned you’ll have to teach others, every day, whenever you get a chance. Everyone has to learn.

“You’ve got to know about bureaucracies. Every government has them. The bigger the government, the bigger the bureaucracies. What the government gives, the bureaucracy takes away and may not even know it’s doing it. If you don’t know how to fight back, it’ll steal this world right out from under you. There’s a Colonial Bureau that’s supposed to oversee the administration of dependent worlds, but what actually happens—”

The pain struck relentlessly, and he clutched his abdomen and sobbed, “What’s the use?”

Fornri and Dalla hurried to his side, and Obrien, rigid with agony, gasped, “Won’t any of them come back?”

“They all say maybe tomorrow,” Fornri said.

“Tomorrow I may be dead. All of us may be dead.”

He shook off Fornri’s arm, staggered to a log at the edge of the clearing, and sat down. “I waited too long and now there isn’t time. I can’t make you see the danger.”

All of the students were awake now, and some of them were standing.

“This is a poor world,” Obrien said, “but it’s got something that’s priceless. It’s a paradise. The beaches and ocean are wonderful. The climate is wonderful. Everything is beautiful.”

He lurched to his feet. Fornri hurried to keep him from falling, but Obrien recovered his balance and jerked away. He said with terrible earnestness, “The moment it occurs to anyone to put a vacation resort on this world, you’re doomed. That man is your enemy, and you’ve got to fight him to the death. If you let him build just one resort, there’ll be ten or a hundred more before you know what’s happening. You’ll have to move your villages back into the forest, and even if you’re allowed to use the sea there’ll be no more hunting. The resorts will drive away the koluf, and you’ll starve. And I can’t make you understand.”

He staggered back to the log. The students had not moved. “And this is what I have to work with,” Obrien said resignedly. “Banu, who remembers but never understands. Fornri, my great-great-grandson, who is being loyal even though he’d rather be hunting, and who understands but rarely remembers.”

Fornri was blinking back tears.

“And Dalla.” Obrien struggled to his feet and placed his arm about her affectionately, and she hid her face on his shoulder and wept. “She’s not here to learn, but to keep me from making myself sick, and I’m already sick beyond any of your understanding.” He turned. “And the rest of you, who’ll stay with me loyally until you find an excuse to leave. It’s all I have, and I’ll do my damnedest with it. Come here, all of you.”

He sat down on the log, and they gathered around him. He nodded to Fornri, who brought Obrien the smashed spaceship’s battered logbook. Sporadically, down through the years, Obrien had used it as a journal. Now it contained the laborious working out of a world’s one hope for survival.

“I’m going to give you the Plan,” he said. “You aren’t ready for it, and it’s long and complicated, and most of it you won’t understand. I can only hope that when you need it you’ll be able to figure out what I was talking about. If you can’t pay attention, at least keep Banu awake. Someone has got to hear this and remember it.

“I’ll give it to you over and over, with all of the details I can think of, and then I’ll give it to you over and over again. As long as I’m able to speak, I’ll tell you the Plan.

“And then, before God—before my God and yours—I’ll have done my best.”

3

From Fornri’s earliest memories the Langri had terrified him.

Few children possessed living great-great-grandfathers, and those who did had to care for doddering, decrepit oldsters who thought only of the fire of death.

The Langri was—the Langri. His was the rope spear in the koluf hunt, and his stroke never missed. He it was who launched the boat into one of the world’s rare storms to rescue the children caught out in it. When all feared to cross a swollen stream, it was the Langri who found a ford and went first to test it. Those who had broken arms or legs were brought to him, for only the Langri had the skill to deal with such tragedies.

All manner of adults came to ask his counsel, from a woman whose marriage was troubled to the village leaders and even the Elder; and when the Langri said, “Do this,” entire villages leaped to his bidding. Where the Langri led, everyone followed.

Such a great-great-grandfather was a frightful burden for a small boy. The Langri would say, “Why do you go upstream to cross the river? Why don’t you swim it here, like the older boys?” Or “The older boys dive from the cliff. Why do you walk down?” Fornri was terrified, but he swam, and he dived.

And when the Langri said, “Spearing marnl is child’s play. You should be hunting koluf,” Fornri joined the hunters—the youngest person by far in his boat, perhaps the youngest who had ever joined a koluf hunt. The others did not know until afterward that the Langri had sent him, but the custom was for an empty place to be filled by anyone who wanted it, so they did not turn him away. Instead, they mocked him. “Look at the mighty hunter who honors us! Surely our boat is destined for greatness on this day! His will be the rope spear—if he can stop trembling long enough to throw it!”

But Fornri’s trembling was from rage, not fear—rage at the Langri, for sending him, and at the hunters, for their mocking. He flung the rope spear with such fury that he fell overboard. The jeers stopped abruptly as the spear struck solidly in the best place of all, the notch just back of the head; and because Fornri was already in the water, he took the trailing rope and made the first loop about the koluf’s knifelike, threshing tail, and the others thought he had gone into the water purposely. No one ever mocked Fornri again, about anything.

As the Langri grew older, still first in anything he felt like doing, more and more frequently he felt like doing nothing at all except lie in his hammock in his favorite grove on the point and sip the drink of intoxication. This brought new responsibilities for Fornri. Whatever the Langri did not care to do, he sent Fornri to do for him. And when Fornri came to his Time of Joy, when his peers could devote whole days and nights to music and dancing, to song, to the tender turmoil of love and courtship, Fornri was merely the personal servant of a tyrannical old man. Other boys envied him, the great-great-grandson and support of the Langri’s declining years, and Fornri could not understand why.

Then the Langri’s health began to fail. The Elder wisely concluded that Fornri’s talents were more suitable to hunting than nursing, and he sent Dalla to the Langri. Her mother, a widow, had died of the Hot Sickness that sometimes followed the smallest cut or scratch and was invariably fatal, and Dalla and a young sister were left without relatives.

Fornri had never had a sweetheart. He could have had his choice of many—not only was he a young man of fire, but he was the Langri’s heir, already famed for his bravery and his many skills, and there was no village that did not have maidens pining for the great-great-grandson of the Langri.

But the Langri, lounging in his hammock, demanding that his gourd be refilled, or that the leader of the next village be reminded that it was his turn to conduct the berry harvest, or that Fornri carry the Langri’s acceptance to a feasting invitation—the Langri seemed unaware that Fornri had reached the Time of Joy. One of the most sublime of joys was young love and courtship, for which long-established customs required freedom and leisure and which could not be managed at all between errands run for a demanding and temperamental old man. The loveliest of maidens might sigh when Fornri passed her, but a youth entrusted with an urgent message from the Langri, with instructions to hurry back with the reply, had no time to suggest an assignation, or even the sharing of a song, and anyway no respectable maiden would have accepted the degradation of a hasty courtship.

Then Dalla came. No maiden surpassed her in loveliness, and they could conduct their courtship with proper leisure despite the Langri’s demands because their very bondage brought them together constantly.

Because the Langri was sometimes seriously ill and racked with frightful stomach pains, it was decided that he needed more mature care. The adults took charge of him in spite of his objections, and they sympathetically gave Fornri and Dalla as much freedom as possible and found a younger boy to run the Langri’s infrequent errands.

At last Fornri and Dalla had the full pleasure of their Times of Joy. They sang and danced with the other youths, and they passed both days and nights of sweetness on the Bower Hills, the hills reserved for courtship. Most who had Fornri’s years were already betrothed. Because Dalla had not yet reached the age of betrothal, he was forced to wait; but in his belated pleasure of his Time of Joy he did not mind.

Yet even the sweetness was bitter-flavored when Fornri reflected that he possessed it only because the Langri suffered a serious illness and was growing old. He understood, now, that even though his great-great-grandfather possessed years far beyond those attained by ordinary men, he could not live always.

And he knew, too, that he loved him.

Then came the journey to the Elder, followed by the building of the Forest Village. Many joys suffered long interruptions because of the Langri’s school, and those of Fornri and Dalla most of all. Fornri again had the Langri’s errands to run, and both had to care for a sick old man who was trying to do more than his strength would allow. Even when the Langri’s illness confined him to his hammock they could not escape, for then they had to trek wearily from village to village trying vainly to persuade former students to return to class.

Rarely did they find time for the pleasures of the Bower Hills, and when they did, Fornri’s conscience troubled him severely. He could not understand the need for a Plan, or what the Plan would accomplish, but when the Langri said there would be no hunting, Fornri, at least, believed him. And if his world and his people were threatened, he knew he must put the Time of Joy behind him and do something about it. He only wished he could understand what it was he had to do.

With the class reduced to a mere two hands of students, the Langri finally began to teach them the Plan. All found it bewildering, and some flatly refused to believe it. If—as the Langri said—the skies were filled with worlds, why should anyone want theirs? It was known that the Langri was extremely old, and sometimes the minds of the aged imagined strange things. No one would willingly disrespect the Langri, but what he spoke was not believable.

Fornri would protest hotly, but even those who wanted to believe could make little sense of what the Langri told them. If this happens, he would say, that must be done. If the other thing happens, then something else must be done. If both happen …Banu sat with eyes closed and a dazed look on his face, but whenever the Langri asked him he could repeat what was said, word for word.

There would be a ship-from-the-sky, the Langri told them, and they might as well start calling such things spaceships, because that’s what they were. Compared with other ships, this one would be small. And then—

But the Plan seemed interminable, and when it was finished the Langri started over again. And over again. And over again.

Each day he grew weaker, and his pains became more racking. When he no longer could leave his hammock, he gathered them about him and once more started at the beginning. There would be a spaceship, a small spaceship, and then—

And then the day came when his words grew incoherent, and finally he could no longer speak. The class wandered off; Fornri and Dalla remained with the women who came to see what could be done to ease his pain.

“His face is dreadfully hot,” Dalla said. “Shouldn’t we call the healers?”

“They would only anger him,” Fornri told her. “The last time, he chased them away. He said there is no way to heal a body worn out by age, and I fear that he is right.”

The women massaged the Langri’s swollen limbs and applied damp leaves to his hot face. Fornri, watching with helpless concern, became aware of a faint, whistling sound. He puzzled over it for a moment and then set off at a lope toward the nearest village. He saw Dalla start after him, and he motioned her to go back. He broke into a run when he noticed that the sound became steadily louder.

At the edge of the forest he stopped abruptly. The sound had grown to an earsplitting shriek, and the villagers, all of them, were in panicky flight. They raced past him, panting with terror, and beyond the village he saw a spaceship slowly settling ground-ward. He recognized it at once—it was just as the Langri had described it.

“Stop!” he called to the villagers. “The Langri was right! We must use his Plan!”

They paid him no heed. The ship had vanished behind a hill, so he advanced cautiously to the hilltop and scurried from bush to bush until he found a hiding place from which he could observe this strange object.

It had come ponderously to rest in a seaside meadow, and after an interminable wait the hatch folded out and a man swung to the ground by his hands. The strange costume that covered him from ears to toenails was exactly what the Langri had foretold. Fornri made himself comfortable in his hiding place and watched delightedly.

Once on the ground, the man stretched his limbs luxuriously and then ran a finger down his chest, opening up his garment. Another man appeared in the airlock and shouted down to him, “Get back in here! They haven’t finished checking the atmosphere.”

The man on the ground took an enormously deep breath and exhaled slowly. “The atmosphere’s fine,” he shouted back. “I just checked it myself.”

Finally the walkway dropped from the opened hatch, and the ship’s company began to descend. The Langri had said there would be both men and women, but because of the strange costumes they wore, Fornri had difficulty in distinguishing them.

He picked out the leader at once: a short, fat man to whom others came for instructions. As the leader surveyed the scene about him, to Fornri’s gaping astonishment he blew a cloud of red smoke from his mouth.

“It is a pretty place,” he said.

“Pretty?” one of the others exclaimed. “It’s a paradise. Look at that beach!”

A slender man with bushy hair on his face came down the ramp and began to talk with the leader. They walked back and forth together with so much arm movement that Fornri wondered if this was part of their language.

The sea breeze carried their spoken words to him clearly. Bushy-face said, “We can’t leave without investigating those natives. Crystals only make you rich. Something like this would make you famous. Primitive humans! How could they have got to this out-of-the-way corner of the galaxy? I must have a look at that village!”

“Have a look, then,” the leader said. “Since I’m chartered as a scientific expedition, it wouldn’t hurt to have a few scientific results just in case someone asks what we’ve been doing. You can have an hour.”

The leader turned to another man, who was performing mysterious rites with a strange black object that he held in his two hands. “I wish you wouldn’t wear that gold tooth when I’m taking readings,” the man said. “For a moment I thought I had a gold strike.”

“No metals at all?” the leader asked.

The other shrugged. “Oh well—those natives may use copper spear points, but no one will ever run a mining concession on this world.”

“How come you picked up retron interference?”

“I told you there couldn’t possibly be retron crystals on this type of planet unless someone brought them here. I did pick up the interference. Maybe it’s still there and the terrain is masking it. Or maybe the meters burped when they shouldn’t have.”

The leader turned away disgustedly. “Another landing shot on nothing. For your information, setting this crate down and taking off again costs money.” He raised his voice. “Captain?”

A man in a different type of clothing appeared in the airlock. “Yes, Mr. Wembling?”

“We’ll lift in an hour. Break out the stun guns. Those wanting to stretch their legs are to stay in groups, and they’re not to get out of hailing distance of the ship. I want one stun gun with every group, and that’s an order. I also want an armed sentry here at the ship.” He turned to the others, most of whom were looking longingly at the sea. “And no swimming. An unknown world can be damned dangerous. You’ve seen the list of precautions. Follow it.”

The captain waved a hand and ducked back into the ship. The leader spoke to the man with the black object. “Take a group and scout around with that hand detector—just in case the retron interference was real.”

Groups began to form and head off in different directions. The bushy-faced man led one toward the village. It passed quite near to Fornri, who studied its members carefully and puzzled over the strangely shaped weapon one of them carried. The Langri had described such things, but none of his students believed what he told them.

Twenty strides toward the village, one of the group turned aside suddenly, leaped into a clump of bushes, and dragged out— Dalla, kicking and screaming. Fornri leaped to his feet in consternation and then quickly dropped out of sight. He had not known Dalla had followed him, and it was a contingency the Langri’s Plan did not provide for, but Fornri did not hesitate. While Dalla continued to struggle and occupied the men’s full attention, he moved stealthily toward them.

The man who captured her was laughing. “I like this world better and better. I hope there’s enough of these to go around.”

“Let’s take her to the ship,” Bushy-face said. “I want to see what sort of language she speaks.”

The other answered, “That isn’t what I want to see.”

Fornri was near enough to charge. He crashed into the man holding Dalla and knocked him sprawling. The others immediately grappled with Fornri, and all of them tumbled into a heap while Dalla quickly vanished into the forest. Three of the men pulled Fornri to his feet and held him, and another restrained Dalla’s captor, who was furiously angry and attempting to assault Fornri.

“Never mind,” Bushy-face said. “He’ll do as well as the woman.”

“Not for me, he won’t!”

“Let’s take him to the ship,” Bushy-face said. “We can look at the village later.”

As they approached the ship, the leader came to meet them. “What do you want with a native?” he asked disgustedly.

“I want to find out something about him,” the bushy-faced man said. “His features are Abdolynian, and I think I have some language keys.”

“With all the interesting things crawling in that ocean, you shouldn’t be wasting your time on humans. There are life forms there I don’t believe even when I’m looking at them. I didn’t need to worry about anyone sneaking a swim.” He turned to a man who was quietly following him about. “Hirus, what are the chances those freaks might be worth money?”

“The only ones interested would be museums and animalariums,” the other said. “They haven’t got money. If you donated a few of them, no doubt they’d be pleased to name a choice specimen after you. That thing with all the legs and the long neck— how’d you like to have it called genus Wemblous?”

The fat man shuddered.

Bushy-face had darted up the walkway to the ship while the others held onto Fornri. Now he returned with another sort of strange black object. He held it in front of Fornri, pressed some of the gleaming protuberances—and the thing spoke! It said, “Fraugh, villick, lascrouf, boumarl, caciss, denlibdra.”

Bushy-face was watching Fornri intently. “Those are key words,” he said. “If he’s Abdolynian, he ought to be able to understand at least one of them.”

Fornri, comprehending that he’d been expected to make meaning of the strange sounds, suppressed a smile.

One of the men exclaimed, “Look at the puggard! He’s laughing at you! He understands Galactic!”

Suddenly Fornri bolted, slipping from their grasps, knocking over the sentry who was pacing an aimless circle about the ship, and getting away cleanly. He outdistanced the pursuit and reached the forest safely. Dalla had been watching. She was waiting for him just inside the forest, and the two of them quickly placed its comfortably thick vegetation between themselves and the strangers’ weapons. They hurried toward the Forest Village.

There a crowd of terrified adults clustered about the Langri’s hammock. Women and men were wailing in turn, “Langri, a thing-from-the-sky! What shall we do?”

The Langri lay deathly still, but as Fornri and Dalla pushed through to him, his eyes opened and he muttered, “Too late.”

“The Langri won’t help us,” a woman said reproachfully.

“The Langri is very sick,” Dalla said. “You shouldn’t bother him.”

The Langri muttered again, “Go away. I’m dying.”

“He won’t tell us what to do,” the woman said.

“He’s already told us what to do,” Fornri said. “He taught us his Plan. Now we’ll follow it,” He spoke quietly to the man beside him. “Sound the signal gourds. Summon all the villages.” The man stared at Fornri for a moment. Then he smiled, nodded, and hurried away.

“We must capture the skymen,” Fornri told the others. “We have to do it without spears or knives, because we dare not injure them. The Langri said that is very important. Even if they injure or kill us, we must capture them without harming them. Do you understand?”

“How?” a man demanded.

Fornri smiled. “The Langri has told us how.”

The panic was lifting slowly. This descent of a thing-from-the-sky was the most terrifying event of their lifetimes, but if someone would tell them what to do, they would go and do it. Fornri divided them into two groups and sent them east and west to meet those coming from the other villages.

After he got them started, he turned again to the Langri. The staring eyes did not recognize him. “Should have taught the children,” the Langri muttered. “Children were interested. Older ones in a hurry to grow up. Should have started sooner and taught the children.” His body went rigid. “Hide the crystals!” he gasped.

Fornri clasped the Langri’s hand. Then his eyes sought Dalla’s. “Come,” he said.

They turned away. Only a few women, the Langri’s nurses, remained with him. Already a signal gourd was sending out patterns of deep honks, and the gourds of nearby villages were answering.

They had not reached the first bend in the forest path when they heard, behind them, the women’s voices raised in the lament of death. They did not look back. The most important thing in the Langri’s life had been his Plan; he surely would understand if they also made it the most important thing in his death.

The Langri had told them how, and they did exactly as he said. One group of skymen had blundered into the forest after Fornri. They advanced boldly, with one of their strange weapons in the lead, until one of them stepped off the path to pick fruit and ran a Death Thorn into his leg. The others argued as to whether the thorn should be left in his leg or pulled out at once with the chance of breaking it, because it was barbed, and he died before they could decide.

While they argued, Fornri surrounded them with the first villagers to arrive. The skymen started a panicky retreat, carrying the body with them, and Fornri sprang his ambush on a curve of the path. He captured them one at a time, without injury to anyone—just as the Langri had foretold.

A short time later, villagers from the west dropped from trees onto the party of skymen worshiping the mysterious black object. One skyman suffered an injured ankle and had to be carried. Fornri’s friend Tollof was struck by the mysterious force of a skyman’s weapon. They thought he was dead, but a short time later he regained consciousness, though it was the following day before he could move his arms and legs. The black object was broken, but that was the fault of the skyman carrying it.

Capture of the remaining groups required complicated stalking. Finally the ship was rushed and those inside made prisoners before they were able to close the hatch. The skymen were marched to a remote stretch of beach by a meandering route deliberately chosen to confuse them. They were given food and told that on the morrow shelter would be built for them.

So helpless were they that they could not make their own fire. And when one was kindled for them, they huddled about it and listened to the whining reproaches of the leader Wembling until the distant drums of the Langri’s death procession frightened him into silence.

The following day dwellings were raised for the prisoners, and boundaries marked out that they were not to pass, for that was the Plan.

And Fornri and Dalla, that morning after the Langri’s death rites, led the fifty youths of the Langri’s class back to the Forest Village, there to grapple doubtfully with the heritage the Langri had left to them.

4

The battle cruiser Rirga was outward bound on a routine patrol mission, and Captain Ernst Dallman was relaxing quietly in his quarters with his robot chess player. He was about to trap the robot’s queen, a suspenseful move because this robot was programmed for eccentricity, and at a given moment it could be functioning on any level from idiot to genius. He never knew whether an apparent lapse was due to stupidity or the setting of a cunningly contrived trap.

At that crucial moment the Rirga’s communications officer interrupted to hand Dallman a message. From his apologetic manner and the speed with which he departed, Dallman knew that the news was not good. The officer was dropping the door shut when a bellow of anger brought him scurrying back.

Dallman tapped the strip menacingly. “This is an order from the sector governor.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ships of the fleet do not take orders from bureaucrats, politicians, or port authority waste disposal engineers. You will kindly inform His Highness that there is an entity known as Fleet Headquarters, and that it esteems the illusion that it has full control over its own ships. I am currently on a third-priority assignment, and the fact that I am passing through one corner of his alleged territory does not give a sector governor control over my movements.”

The communications officer fumbled with a pocket flap and produced his memorator. “If you will dictate the message, sir—”

“I just gave you the message. You’re a communications officer. Communicate. Surely you have sufficient command of language to tell the man in a flattering way that Space Navy orders must come through Space Navy channels. Do so. And tell Commander Protz I want to see him.”

“Yes, sir.”

The communications officer exited nervously. Commander Protz sauntered in a moment later, met Dallman’s foreboding scowl with a grin, and calmly seated himself.

“How long are we going to be in this sector?” Dallman asked him.

Protz thought for a moment. “Roughly forty-eight hours.”

Dallman slammed down the message. “That’s twenty-four hours too long.”

“Some colony in trouble?”

“It’s worse than that. The sector governor has lost four scratchers.”

Protz straightened up and swallowed his grin. “By all that’s spaceworthy! Four of them? Look here—I have a leave due in two or three years. I’m sorry I won’t be able to see you through this, but I wouldn’t give up that leave if the Chancellor himself had lost four scratchers.”

“Not only does this oaf of a governor lose four survey ships at one crack,” Dallman went on, “but he has the insufferable nerve to order me to start looking for them. Order, mind you. I’m letting him know that we have a chain-of-command procedure in the Space Navy, but he’ll have time to get through to headquarters and have the order issued there. And since the Rirga is on routine patrol, headquarters will be happy to oblige.”

Protz reached over and took the strip. By the time he finished reading, he had recaptured his grin. “It could be worse. We just might find all of them in the same place. The W-439 turned up missing. What’s the ‘W’ for?”

“Maybe it’s privately owned. The others belong to the Sector Survey.”

“To be sure. The W-439 turned up missing, so they sent the 1123 to look for it. Then they sent the 519 after the W-439 and the 1123, and the 1468 after the W-439 and the 1123 and the 519. Too bad we happened to be here. Now we’ll never know how many ships the governor would have lost one at a time before he realized that isn’t the way to do it.”

Dallman nodded. “Seems curious, doesn’t it?”

“We can rule out mechanical failure. Those scratchers are reliable, and four of them wouldn’t bubble out at the same time.”

“Right. And no more than a fifth of the worlds in this sector have even had space ranging. Probably fewer than a tenth have been surveyed. An unsurveyed world can offer some queer kinds of trouble. The odds are that we’ll find all four on the same planet and that the same trouble that caught the first one caught the others. Go down to the chart room and see if you can lay out a search area. We might even be lucky.”

Twenty-four hours later Fleet Headquarters made it official, and the Rirga altered course. Protz paced the control room, whistling cheerfully and making deft calculations on a three-dimensional slide rule. Technicians were verifying them on a battery of computers and having trouble keeping up.

Finally he produced a set of co-ordinates, and Dallman accepted it skeptically. “I asked for an area, not a star system.”

“I’m betting we’ll find them there,” Protz said. He stepped to the chart. “The W-439 last reported in from here, on course—so. Obviously this is where it was heading, and there shouldn’t be more than one habitable planet. We can wind this up in a couple of days.”

Dallman nodded grimly. “And when we do—if we do—I’m going to see that this sector’s surveying section overhauls its procedures. If you’re right, four ships in a row landed on an unsurveyed planet, and not one of them bothered to let its headquarters know where it was and what it thought it was doing there. If the navy operated like that—” He turned on Protz. “Are you out of your mind? A couple of days to find four scratchers? You’ve been in space so long you’ve forgotten how large a world is!”

Protz shrugged cheerfully. “Like you said, we might even be lucky.”

They were lucky. There was one habitable planet, with a single long, narrow subtropical continent. On their first orbit they sighted the four gleaming survey ships parked neatly in a row in a meadow overlooking the sea.

Dallman studied the observational data, squinted at the film strips, and exploded. “By the time we get back on course we’ll be a month off schedule, and those fools have just taken time off to go fishing.”

“We’ll have to land,” Protz said. “We can’t be certain.”

“Of course we’ll land—but only after we’ve observed the entire prescribed procedure for landings on unsurveyed worlds. And as we complete each step we’ll notify headquarters that we have done so, just in case we have to be rescued. If whatever caught those scratchers also catches us, we’d better have a damned good excuse.”

“Right,” Protz agreed. “We land, but we land by the book.”

Dallman was still looking at the film strips. “Take a good look at these,” he said with a smile. “After this is over with, and after I’ve kicked those scratcher crews in the pants, I’m going fishing.”

Protz instituted USW landing procedure, and before he completed half the prescribed visual and instrument surveys, headquarters intervened and ordered them to land at once.

Protz read the order incredulously. “Who was on that privately owned ship? A Federation congressman’s brother-in-law?”

“At least,” Dallman said.

“Going to protest the order?”

Dallman shook his head. “I’d lose the argument, and what if something happened to this party while I was protesting? Obviously it’s someone important enough to risk losing a battle cruiser.”

The Rirga came gently to rest a thousand meters down the shore from the survey ships. After the routine scientific tests, a security unit made a meticulous search of the landing area, and Protz led a patrol to investigate the survey ships under the cover of alert Rirga gunners.

Dallman was waiting at the top of the ramp when he returned. “There’s no sign of any trouble,” Protz said. “It looks as if the scratchers’ crews just parked the ships and walked off and left them.”

“Notify headquarters,” Dallman said. “If you want my opinion, either this is something very simple, or else we have a major space mystery on our hands.”

Protz returned to the control room, and Dallman strolled down the ramp and headed for the beach, sniffing the sea air hungrily. “Beautiful!” he murmured. “Where has this world been all my life?”

His communications officer had trailed after him with portable equipment, mortally offended that a naval officer would conduct a military operation from anywhere but his ship’s command station. He said, “Commander Protz, sir.”

Dallman, who was admiring the sea, did not bother to turn around. “Let’s hear it.”

The officer said, “Go ahead, sir,” and directed Protz’s voice at Dallman.

“That native village is recently deserted, sir,” Protz said. “I’d suggest consolidation of patrols for a probe in that direction. If the natives have captured the scratchers’ crews, they’ll have enough weapons to give a small patrol a nasty surprise.”

“Do so,” Dallman said.

He strolled along the beach until he reached the point where Rirga sentries had established a perimeter. The communications officer, still following after him, announced suddenly, “Sir—we’ve found a native!”

“The Rirga ought to be able to cope with one native without harassing its commanding officer,” Dallman said pleasantly.

“Perhaps I should say he found us, sir. He walked right into the perimeter—none of the outposts saw him—and he says he wants to speak with the captain.”

Dallman turned and stared at him. “He wants to speak—any particular language?”

“He speaks Galactic, sir. They want to know what they should do with him.”

“I suppose we’ll have to pretend that he’s someone important. Tell them to set up some props, and I’ll receive him formally. Does Commander Protz know about this?”

The communications officer flushed. “Commander Protz says it’s probably the local game warden, come to complain because the scratcher crews went fishing without a license.”

Dallman returned to the Rirga and donned a ribbon-bedecked dress uniform. Then he went to the control room to observe the native on the viewing screen before he stepped forth to meet him in person. The young man was intelligent-looking and a model of bodily perfection, though he wore only a loincloth of doubtful manufacture. If he felt any nervousness about meeting the Rirga’s captain, he was concealing it.

Protz entered and asked, “Ready to go, sir?”

“I’m having a look at the native,” Dallman told him. “Odd to find humans already in residence on such a remote world, isn’t it? Lost colonies forgotten because of war or some other catastrophe have always been favorite scope subjects, but I’ve never heard of it actually happening.”

“This place is too remote for it anyway,” Protz said.

“I don’t know about that. Historians think none of the old suspended-animation colonies survived, but one of the ships could have run off course and deposited a colony here. Or a private expedition could have landed and been unwilling or unable to leave. The equipment it brought would wear out, the ship would be disassembled for the metal, and if the colony found no metals here or didn’t have the know-how to mine and smelter them, its descendants would have to survive as a primitive society. After a few hundred years they’d be as much ‘natives’ as an indigenous population would be. Anthropologists will be fascinated. Did you notify headquarters? Then let’s go talk with him.”

Dallman marched down the ramp, and as he approached the props he saw the members of the honor guard struggling to keep their faces straight. He had to restrain a smile of his own. A naval captain in full dress uniform ceremoniously receiving a native in loincloth offered a study in incongruities worth pondering.

The props were upholstered sections from the ship’s lounge. They had been assembled into a circle in a shaded location a short distance from the ship. In the center were chairs and a conference table, the whole looking strangely out of place in that sylvan setting, but Dallman hoped that the native would be impressed into amicability if that happened to be what the situation required.

The honor guard presented arms as Dallman approached. The native stood calmly surrounded by grinning officers. Dallman scowled at them, and the grinning stopped.

The native stepped to meet him. “I greet you. I am Fornri.”

“I’m Captain Dallman,” Dallman responded. He came to attention and snapped off a full salute. Then he stepped aside and gestured graciously. An officer opened a door in the circle of props, and Fornri stepped through and turned as Dallman and Protz followed him.

He ignored the proffered chair and faced Dallman with splendid dignity. “It is my unfortunate duty to inform you that you and the personnel of your ship are under arrest,” he announced.

Dallman sat down heavily. He looked blankly at Protz, who grinned and winked. The native had spoken in a firm tone of voice, and beyond the circle the waiting officers were struggling to contain their laughter.

A semi-nude native possessed of not so much as a dull spear had calmly walked in and placed the Rirga under arrest. It was a gag worth retelling—if anyone would believe it.

Dallman said angrily, “Stop it! This is a serious matter.” The laughter stopped. Dallman turned to Fornri. “What are the charges?”

The native recited tonelessly, “Failure to land at a proper immigration point with official clearance, landing in a restricted area, avoidance of customs and quarantine, suspicion of smuggling, and bearing arms without legal authority. Follow me, please, and I’ll lead you to your detention area.”

Dallman turned on his officers again. “You will kindly stop that idiotic grinning,” he snapped.

The grinning stopped.

“This man represents civil authority,” Dallman went on. “Unless there are special arrangements to the contrary, military personnel are subject to civil law.” He asked the native, “Does this world have a central government?”

“It does,” the native said.

“Do you have the personnel of the survey ships under detention?”

“We do.”

“May I have permission to inform my superiors as to the charges?”

“On two conditions. All weapons that have been brought from your ship are considered confiscated; and no one except yourself will be permitted to return to the ship.”

“May I request an immediate court hearing?”

“Certainly.”

Dallman turned to Protz. “Order the men to stack arms at whatever place he indicates.”

“You can’t be serious!” Protz exclaimed, a note of hysteria in his voice. “One native in a loincloth—what would happen if we just packed up and left?”

“Probably nothing,” Dallman said, “but several hundred independent worlds would have convulsions if they found out about it. The Federation’s obligations toward every independent world are written into a lot of treaties.”

Dallman opened the gate to the circle of props and stepped through it. Turning, he said again, “Order the men to stack arms at whatever place he indicates.”

The courtroom was a lovely hillside by the sea. The slope was crowded with natives, none of whom had the air of knowing what was happening. At the bottom, seated behind something that looked suspiciously like an enormous, elongated gourd, were the justices: a girl and two young men. The chairs occupied by the defense and the prosecution also were fashioned from gourds, and Dallman was so impressed with the comfort of his that he considered trying to buy it.

The verdict, of course, was predetermined. Not only that, but the courtroom scene had all of the blundering overtones of a drama badly rehearsed by amateur actors. Lines were bungled. The defense seemingly was expected to play dead, because every query or objection produced stark consternation on the part of both prosecution and court. The native Fornri, the arresting officer, also functioned as chief prosecutor. He addressed the young lady first justice as “Your Eminence” except when he absently called her Dalla. Fornri’s assistant, a native called Banu, seemed to sleep through the proceedings, but when either prosecution or court was stumped on a legal point, Fornri would nudge him, whisper a question, and—after a searching meditation—receive a whispered response.

At one side and to the rear of the justices, a native named Larno sat beside a stretched matting that had been plastered with clay. When Dallman first saw this, he nudged his counsel, the Rirga’s young legal officer, Lieutenant Darnsel, and whispered jokingly, “The court recorder.” He was only partly wrong. Larno’s function, they eventually discovered, was to record the fines as they were assessed.

Lieutenant Darnsel had no more illusion as to the outcome than Dallman had, but as long as he had to be there he was determined to enjoy himself. His performance displayed a skill in histrionics and a gift for inspired improvisation that Dallman would not have suspected of him. The vibrant indignation with which he now leaped to his feet to shout, “Exception!” was sheer dramatic art.

The natives again displayed signs of consternation. Dallman could not understand why. They had bested Lieutenant Darnsel easily on every point he raised.

“State your exception,” the first justice responded.

“We cannot be convicted on any of those charges—willfully disregarding landing regulations, avoidance of customs, landing in a restricted area, and so on, when you have failed to inform approaching ships as to what your regulations are.”

Prosecution and court listened with deepening anxiety.

Darnsel continued, “You are required to so inform approaching ships, and the failure to do so places the burden of negligence on you.”

The justices exchanged apprehensive glances. “Does the distinguished world’s advocate have any comment?” the first justice asked.

Fornri again turned to the dozing Banu, who eventually whispered a reply. Fornri nodded, got to his feet, and faced Lieutenant Darnsel. “Please tell the court what steps you took to obtain the necessary regulations prior to landing.”

“We monitored the SCC, the Standard Communications Channel, which is required of any ship approaching a planet. The same regulations require every planet to broadcast its regulations in the common Galactic language and to state the communications channel to be used to obtain landing instructions and clearance. Obviously you failed to do so, and your negligence leaves this world open to severe penalties.”

Fornri conferred with Banu again, and then he asked, “Where is this requirement of which you speak? Where is it stated? We are an independent world. Who requires this of us?”

“It is contained in every interworld treaty and in every commercial and communications agreement,” Lieutenant Darnsel said.

“We have no such treaty or agreement,” Fornri told him.

Darnsel reflected for a moment, shrugged wearily, and murmured, “Touche.” He took a step toward his chair and then turned to Fornri again. “Would you mind if I consulted your lawbook?”

Fornri’s expression was one of sheer bafflement, but he said politely, “Not at all.”

Darnsel marched over to Banu, and they engaged in a whispered conference while court and audience gaped at them. Finally Darnsel straightened up and addressed the court. “No further questions.”

The first justice said, “Will the court’s recorder kindly tabulate the fines?”

“Certainly, Your Eminence,” Larno said. “Five counts of failure to land at proper immigration points with official clearance.” He turned to Darnsel and Dallman and added, with engaging apology, “That’s one for each ship.”

They watched intently as he wrote, and as he finished Darnsel leaped to his feet with a cry of anguish. He was no longer acting. “A hundred and twenty-five thousand credits!” he screamed.

“Next charge, please,” the first justice said.

Darnsel stood with arms outstretched pleadingly. Fornri ignored him. “The next charge, Your Eminence, is ‘Willful avoidance of customs and quarantine.’ On this date, representing the fifth in a series of flagrant and willful acts, a ship of the Space Navy of the Galactic Federation of Independent Worlds did violate our sovereign territory—”

Darnsel continued his exhibition of dramatic pantomime, but neither court nor prosecutor paid the slightest attention.

Nor, in the end, did it have the least effect on the outcome.

As they marched back from the court hearing, with natives escorting them at a discreet distance, Darnsel remarked, “I’ve heard of piracy, sir, and I’ve had some experience with extortion, but this—half a million credits in fines—I don’t know what to call this.”

Dallman said philosophically, “They knocked off thirty thousand to make it a round number, which was nice of them.”

“The government won’t pay it. It’ll let us rot here.”

“It’ll pay it,” Dallman said confidently. “It’ll have to, to avoid political complications.”

“Where does it get the money, sir? Out of our wages for the next century?”

“Hardly. We were ordered to land immediately, and we followed orders. If the fine comes out of anyone’s wages it won’t be ours. What was it you asked the young chap who functions as a lawbook?”

“I asked him about the age of majority on this world. All of the justices looked suspiciously young to me—in fact, I thought I had sound basis for a mistrial.”

“So what did you find out?”

“I had some trouble making him understand what I meant by ‘age of majority,’ and then he claimed it was up to the individual to decide when he was an adult. I didn’t pursue the matter. What will you do now, sir?”

“Communicate with headquarters and ask for instructions,” Dallman said. He smiled wryly. “It could only happen in Paradise.”

5

It required eight days of frenzied communication with his headquarters before Dallman finally was able to complete negotiations with the natives. Before the last conference started he asked to confer with the navy men and scratcher crews under detention, and Fornri led him on a fast-paced march along meandering forest trails. He was fully convinced that the detention camp was buried at the center of the continent when suddenly they emerged on the seashore again. For all Dallman knew, they were a couple of kilometers and a short boat ride down the coast from where they had started.

“They don’t quite trust me,” he mused. “But then—why should they?”

A small village had been constructed in a sloping meadow just above the beach. He had not been close to a native village, and the dwellings startled him—the brilliantly colored, precisely shaped roofs looked like molded plastic.

But the village was deserted. Its entire population was on the beach, either cavorting or relaxing. Some prisoners were swimming, some sprawled in the sun, and some were playing games with native boys. One young native was giving juggling lessons with oddly shaped balls that had color patterns similar to the roofs of the dwellings. In the water just offshore, an older youth was teaching some prisoners to spear sea creatures. A nav jabbed with his spear; the boy cried, “No, no!” He thrust with his own spear and brought up a squirming nightmare of a meter-long sea monster. Farther offshore was a boat race between Space Navy men and native boys. The boys, more of them convulsed with laughter than paddling, were having a difficult time making the race look close. The navy men were working furiously and accomplishing very little, and all were having a hilariously good time.

Fornri smiled and gestured, indicating to Dallman that he had the freedom of the place, and seated himself at the edge of the forest to wait. Dallman walked down to the beach and stopped beside one of his men who lay among the sun bathers. At first the nav had difficulty in recognizing his commanding officer. Belatedly he attempted to lurch to his feet, and Dallman put him at ease.

The nav grinned sheepishly. “I’m almost sorry to see you, sir. I suppose the leave is over.”

“How have you been treated?”

“Perfectly. Couldn’t ask for better treatment. The food is wonderful. They have a drink I’ll swear is the best thing in the galaxy. Those huts they built for us are very comfortable, and each of us has a hammock. They told us where we could go and what we could do and left us alone. We hardly see any natives except for the boys. They bring our food, and they’re around all the time. Look—” He pointed to the boat race, now fading into the distance. “It’s been a riot.”

“Three native women apiece, I suppose,” Dallman said dryly.

“Well, no. The women haven’t come near us. Otherwise, if you’re thinking of naming this planet, sir, you can call it Paradise.”

The men in the scratchers’ crews had much the same story to tell. “You weren’t harmed?” Dallman asked.

“No, sir. They took us by surprise and used just enough force to disarm us. One of the crewmen of Wembling’s ship died from running a poison thorn in his leg, but that wasn’t the natives’ fault. He was out exploring, or something.”

Eventually Dallman located Commander Protz, and the two of them sat down apart from the others and talked.

Protz said, “Half a million credits! The government will never pay it!”

“The money’s already been transferred. What have you found out about this character Wembling?”

“More than he wanted me to know. Obviously he’s a Very Important Big Businessman with plenty of political pull.”

“What’s the man doing out here?” Dallman asked.

“Neither he nor his crew is talking much about that. From an occasional careless remark, I gather that Wembling is speculating in bankrupt mining corporations. If he can find new sources of ore for them, he’ll make a billion, so he’s batting about this unsurveyed zone looking for worlds to plunder. In other words, the situation is shady.”

“Very shady,” Dallman agreed. “In fact, illegal.”

“A Very Important Big Businessman with political pull isn’t handicapped by legalities. Wembling has a right-hand man named Hirus Ayns who’s as slick an expert in dirty manipulations as you’ll ever meet. He offered to make me an admiral in two years for unspecified considerations, and I think he meant it. Anyway, Wembling got around the law by chartering himself as a scientific expedition, but with one exception all of his scientists are geologists and mineralogists.”

“The one exception being the grain of truth in case he’s caught? I’m sorry to hear that. I’m about to negotiate a treaty recognizing this place as an independent world, and guess whom the sector governor has nominated as the first ambassador.”

Protz stared at him. “Not—Wembling?”

“I feel sorry for the natives, who seem to be a remarkably fine people, but I have my orders.” Dallman got to his feet. “I’ll talk with Wembling now, and then we’ll wind this thing up.”

Dallman found Wembling and the man Ayns seated on boulders near the water, and the beginning of their conversation was interrupted by the boat race, now on its return lap. It swept past them just offshore, and Wembling turned to scowl at it until the racket receded. When he could make himself heard, he asked incredulously, “What was that you said? Ambassador?”

“The sector governor wants to appoint one immediately so he won’t be embarrassed by the loss of more ships.”

Wembling chuckled. “Nonsense! That may be what he told you, but I know that cheap twiddler. He just wants to save transportation expenses. I’m here, and if I don’t take the job he’ll have to send someone. Tell him I haven’t got time right now for playing ambassador.”

“He instructed me to tell you that you already have more money than you know how to spend, and if you serve as ambassador, even temporarily, forever afterward you’ll be able to refer to yourself as the Eminent H. Harlow Wembling.”

Wembling guffawed heartily. “How about that? The Eminent H. Harlow Wembling! Not bad for the son of a jet swabber that had to drop out of school to support his family. Not bad! But no, I just haven’t the time—”

Ayns’s foot moved two centimeters and nudged Wembling’s ankle. Wembling turned, and Ayns’s head moved an almost imperceptible two millimeters down, two millimeters up. A nod.

“Maybe I better think it over,” Wembling said.

“You can have half an hour. If you decide to stay, I’m authorized to let you have some prefab buildings for an embassy, equipment for a communications center, and enough supplies to last until a courier ship gets here. If you want to keep some of your own people with you, the governor will give diplomatic appointments to a reasonable number. Let me know as soon as you decide.”

The props, with the central conference table and chairs, still stood in the shady grove near the Rirga. Dallman and Protz met Fornri there. With Fornri was the girl Dalla, formerly first justice, and the boy Banu, who had been Fornri’s lawbook. The officers saluted; the natives responded with upraised arms. Then they seated themselves on opposite sides of the conference table.

“I now have my final instructions,” Dallman announced. “I am authorized to accept unconditionally your listing of fines and penalties. The half million credits will be deposited to the credit of your government in the Bank of the Galaxy as soon as my government is notified that these negotiations have been successfully completed. In accepting it, you agree to return all confiscated equipment and weapons, to release all detained personnel, and to give departure clearance to all ships.”

He passed the credit memo across the table. The natives glanced at it indifferently. Dallman found himself wondering what a half million credits—a modest fortune on any civilized world—could possibly mean on this one.

“Your planet’s status as an independent world will be recognized,” Dallman went on. “Its laws will be respected by the Galactic Federation and enforceable in Federation courts whenever Federation citizens or governments are involved. My government will maintain a representative in residence with the rank of ambassador, and his embassy will operate a communications center for contact with his government and with ships wishing to obtain landing clearance.”

“That is satisfactory,” Fornri said. “Provided, of course, that the terms of the agreement are in writing,”

“Certainly.” Dallman hesitated. “You understand—this means that you must return all of the weapons that you’ve confiscated, not only from the Rirga, but also from the survey ships.”

“We understand,” Fornri said with a smile. “We are a peaceful people. We have no need for weapons.”

For some reason Dallman had expected negotiations to collapse over that point. He paused for a deep breath and said, “Very well. I’ll have the treaty drawn up for signature.”

“May we have copy reproductions for our district archives?” Fornri asked.

Dallman blinked at him; the very word “archive” seemed incongruous on this lush, primitive world, but he resisted the temptation to inquire as to whether the archives were kept in woven-walled huts or hollow trees. “You can have as many copies as you like,” he said. “There is one more thing. In order to draw up the treaty, we’ll need an official name for your world. What do you call it?”

The natives gazed at him blankly. “Official—name?” Fornri repeated.

“Until now your world has been a set of chart co-ordinates. It must have a name, and if you don’t name it someone else will and you probably won’t like his choice. The name can be a native word that means ‘world,’ or the name of a legendary hero, or a description—anything you like, really, but it’s wise to make it short and euphonious. What do you want to call it?”

Fornri hesitated. “Perhaps we should discuss this.”

“Certainly. It’s extremely important, not only for the treaty, but for your relations with other worlds. Worlds have names for much the same reason that men have names—to identify them, to describe them, and so on. We can’t even deposit the half million credits for you unless your world has a name with which to identify its account. But one word of caution. Once you choose a name, it will become a matter of record in all sorts of places and virtually impossible to change.”

“I understand.”

“As soon as you decide on the name, then, we’ll draw up the treaty.”

The natives withdrew. Dallman relaxed and poured himself a tumbler of the natives’ fermented drink. It was all that the nav had claimed, and the food Dallman had eaten when the natives invited him to a festival the night before—something called koluf—was a delicacy any member of the Galactic League of Culinary Artists would have been proud to assign his mark to.

All of this beauty, and gastronomical delights as well. “Perhaps Paradise would be the proper name for the place,” he mused aloud.

Protz raised his own tumbler, took a long draft, and sighed deeply. “Agreed, but we’d best leave the choice to them. Their idea of Paradise might be a very different sort of place. Anyway, all kinds of complications arise when worlds are named by outsiders.”

Dallman smiled, remembering the famous story of the survey ship calling for help from a swamp on a strange planet. “Where are you?” its base had asked. The survey ship gave its co-ordinates and then added, quite unnecessarily, “It’s a helluva place.” The people of that planet had been trying for centuries to have its name changed, but on all the official charts it was still Helluvaplace.

Three hours later the Rirga was in space, and Protz and Dallman stood in the control room watching the receding disk of a planet they always would remember as Paradise.

“I’d feel a lot better about this if the ambassador was anyone but Wembling,” Protz said.

“That couldn’t be helped,” Dallman said, looking dreamily at the viewer. “What a lovely world it was, though. I wonder if well ever see it again.”

“And they call it ‘Langri,’” Protz mused. “What do you suppose that means?”

6

Young Mr. Yorlon was purring landing data into the courier ship’s intercom. Talitha Warr listened with a half-smile as she worked on an unruly lock of hair. The performance was exclusively for her benefit, since she was the only passenger aboard; but then, the purser had been purring for her ever since she took passage, and the only difference now was the desperate note of sadness in his voice.

“World of Langri in fifty seconds, Miss Warr. Surface temperature, twenty-six; humidity, fifty-one; gravity, ninety-four per cent normal; atmosphere, twenty-four per cent oxygen. World of Langri in thirty seconds—”

She said, “Drat it,” stepped around the pile of luggage in the center of her cramped passage quarters, and threw herself into the cushioned landing chair. The warning light was already on; at her elbow, her diffracto softly played music that matched Mr. Yorlon’s mood. She despised it, but she was too preoccupied with dressing to change the grating.

Mr. Yorlon’s voice purred on. “Landing in ten seconds; landing!”

The ship settled to ground with a gentle lurch that produced a squalk from the diffracto. The warning light faded. Talitha bounded back to her mirror and resumed the fussing with her hair. Finally she switched the mirror to full length and stepped back to inspect herself: immaculately gowned, tiara in place, coiffure elegantly sculpted except for the one dratted lock.

The gong sounded, and the intercom crackled again. This time it was the captain. “Clear for disembarking, Miss Warr.”

She moved closer to the mirror for a last try at that hair. “Thank you, Captain. I’ll be ready in a moment.”

Finally satisfied, she retracted the mirror, closed the diffracto and placed it with her other luggage, and picked up a wrap. The captain was waiting outside her door. His greeting was a wide-eyed stare, but she thought nothing of that. She was quite accustomed to being stared at.

“Ready to disembark?” he asked.

“Yes, thank you.”

She handed her wrap to him, and he helped her into it. Then she moved along the corridor toward the airlock. Up ahead, a door dropped open. Two eyes surmounted by a bald head peered out at her. The purring, lovesick Mr. Yorlon was memorizing her for his garden of regrets. She decided that the kindest thing she could do would be to ignore him. She said over her shoulder, “Is the limousine here? I told Mr. Yorlon to ask the embassy to send one.”

“Limousine?” the captain exclaimed. “There aren’t any ground vehicles on Langri. Anyway, the landing field is the embassy’s back yard.”

“No ground vehicles? How do they get about?”

“By boat, mostly.”

“You mean—it’s a water world?”

The captain did not answer. They had reached the airlock. He handed her through, and the two of them stood at the top of the ship’s ramp while she looked about her in consternation. “This—this is the world of Langri?”

A cluster of shoddy prefab buildings stood on a rise at the end of the landing field. They looked as though they’d been dumped wherever a machine tired of carrying them. They stood, or floated, in an undulating sea of flowers. The gigantic, vividly colored blooms, along with the fantastic colors of the surrounding forest, made the view breath-taking despite the blight imposed on the scene by the buildings.

She could not comprehend, let alone believe. She looked again at the shoddy prefabs the captain had called the embassy. “You mean—Uncle Harlow is ambassador—to that?”

The captain regarded her with amusement. “The citizens of Langri offered to build an embassy for him, but your uncle was afraid his status would suffer. Native buildings are made of woven grass.”

“But—” Again she looked about her bewilderedly. “But— where’s the capital city?”

“There aren’t any cities,” the captain said. “Just native villages with grass huts.”

Talitha burst into laughter. She still hadn’t grasped what had happened, but she knew that the joke was on her—and no wonder the captain had stared at her, attired in the latest soiree gown to land in a wilderness! “I came because I thought Uncle would need a hostess,” she gasped. “I brought a special wardrobe for the embassy receptions and soirees and dinners. I spent all my savings on it. And look!”

She moved down the ramp a short distance. “It is beautiful,” she said.

She walked to the bottom of the ramp and looked about her. The tossing, floating flowers seemed to beckon, and suddenly she broke into a run. Gown flapping, coiffure completely forgotten, she dashed buoyantly through the flowers, and as she ran she reached out and snatched a handful. Then, glancing down at them, she came to an abrupt halt. They had wilted in her hand and turned brown. She puzzled over this, and finally she plucked another flower and watched its glistening petals fade as though she were holding a flame to them. She dropped it and thoughtfully walked toward the buildings.

They were connected by muddy paths, and paths led away from them in several directions, one of them curving toward the beach. The ocean had not been visible from the landing field; from the hilltop it could be seen spanning the horizon, a shimmering, sparkling, incredibly lovely blue-green sea under a blue-green sky.

She looked into the buildings. One contained a communications center and offices. Three were divided into sleeping quarters. One had a dining room, library, and game room. One was a storage building. All were as immaculately clean and tidy as a properly programmed housekeeper could make them, and all of them were deserted. As she examined them, she had the panicky sensation of trying to convince herself that this world of Langri was in fact inhabited.

Finally she returned to the building with the offices, and a short time later the ship’s captain dropped the door open and came in swinging a mail pouch. He tossed it onto a desk and took another from its hook by the door.

“Your luggage is on the way,” he told Talitha. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Prove to me that someone lives on this stupid world.”

He stepped to the window and pointed. On the watery horizon she could just make out specks of color. “Native hunting boats,” the captain said. “Can you see the sails? The creatures they catch are the most hideous monsters imaginable, and one of them completely fills a boat.” He grinned at her. “Great place, Langri. You’ll have a wonderful time here.”

“Doing what?” she demanded scornfully.

“Swimming, playing games with the natives—go have a look at that beach.”

They turned as three perspiring crewmen entered with Talitha’s luggage. The captain picked up his mail pouch and started for the door, and the crewmen awkwardly moved aside for him.

“I’m tempted to leave with you,” Talitha said.

“Nonsense. Have a nice vacation, like everyone else on Langri. Then if you want to leave, I’ll be back in two or three months.”

He nodded, smiled, and went out swinging the pouch.

The crewmen were still holding her luggage. “Please excuse me,” she said. “Just set everything down here. I don’t know where my quarters will be. Thank you. It’s a warm day for carrying loads.”

One of them said bitterly, “I don’t know what the blasted hurry is. We’re never on schedule anyway, and I could do with a swim.”

They nodded at her and went out. She hesitated for a moment, and then she followed them and stood watching the ship. The supplies had been stacked haphazardly just beyond the ship’s landing perimeter. The captain had been willing to deliver luggage for a lady in distress, but obviously he would not transport supplies a centimeter farther than was absolutely necessary for an embassy staff that did nothing but swim and play games with the natives. She watched the ship until it lifted, and then, feeling very lonely, she returned to the embassy.

But she did not go inside. After a moment’s hesitation she chose the path to the beach, walked for a short distance along the water’s edge, and retraced her steps. Another path led from the buildings across a flower-spangled meadow to the magnificently colored forest. She hesitated once more, and then she shrugged and followed it. Crossing the meadow, she stooped over to look closely at the strangely fragile flowers. Her breath was even more corrosive than her touch—it blackened them instantly. She straightened up in consternation and walked on.

Not until she found the trees looming directly in front of her did she pause. The path obviously was not much used. The forest seemed very dark.

Off to her right, a flash of color caught her attention. She hurried to it and leaned over it in utter fascination. It was the most magnificent flower she had ever seen. Instinctively she stretched out her hand—and the flower ran off, scurrying over blossoms, leaping from leaf to leaf, and finally dropping to the ground and disappearing into the long vegetation.

As she stared after it, Talitha was vaguely aware of a slight movement above her head. Before she could move, before she had time even to feel alarmed, a cluster of wreathing vines fell upon her. In an instant they swarmed over her and began to tighten. She screamed and clawed at them, but almost before she could struggle they whipped away, twisting and threshing, and slowly began to hoist back into the brilliant canopy of leaves. She staggered backward. Her bare arms were laced with networks of tiny blood spots where the vines had seized her. Otherwise, she seemed unharmed. Panting, she stared up at the tree, which held numerous clusters of vines poised for dropping on the unwary.

Then she noticed that the forest floor under the tree was thickly strewn with the skeletal structures of small animals. She screamed again, louder. Pounding footsteps approached her, and a man burst from the forest. He was heavily bearded, his skin beautifully bronzed by the sun, and he wore only a loincloth. She immediately took him for a native. While she stared at him, he was looking about for the cause of her scream. Then he noticed her costume and stared at her with a rare frankness.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“The vines,” she said, pointing. “They grabbed me.”

“And then they ungrabbed you. Look.”

The vines were still wreathing just overhead, and he strode forward and deliberately extended a hand toward them. They retreated, threshing violently.

“Humans are poisonous to it, and to all the other insidious life forms on the planet,” he said. “For which we all offer thanks daily. Actually, it knows better than to attack humans, but your gown and light complexion probably fooled it. Come back in a couple of weeks, when you’ve got yourself a good coat of tan, and it won’t pay any attention to you.” He paused, looking at her with puzzled admiration. “Going to a party, or something?”

Talitha burst into laughter. “It must seem like an odd costume for exploring!”

He spoke very seriously. “Don’t do that. Not in any costume. It’s a lovely world, but it can be deadly. Excuse me. Things are rather informal on Langri. I’m Aric Hort. I’m an anthropologist. I’m supposed to be studying the natives, but I don’t make much progress because they’d rather I didn’t.”

“I’m Talitha Warr,” she said. “My uncle is ambassador to this place, or so he said, and I decided to pay him a surprise visit. Thus far I’m the one surprised.”

“Better wait for your uncle at the embassy. I’ll walk back with you.”

She said stiffly, “I’m sure I can find the way myself.”

“I’m sure you can, and I can’t think of any danger you might encounter along the way, but I’ll go with you anyway.”

He took her arm firmly and turned her toward the embassy, and they walked side by side through the flower-clustered meadow.

“What’s so deadly about Langri?” she asked him.

“The world isn’t compatible with humans. The first colonists must have had a horrible struggle for survival, because there’s so little here that humans can eat. In compensation, there’s nothing here that wants to eat us, but there are a number of things that can cause unpleasant sickness or death.”

She reached out and plucked a flower and watched it turn brown. “Then the flowers are allergic to humans?”

“Some are. Some the natives can wear as ornaments. Some are poisonous to everything that comes near them. Better not touch anything at all without asking first.”

“What’s Uncle Harlow doing in a place like this?”

“Playing ambassador,” he answered indifferently.

“That doesn’t sound at all like him. He’s a dear, and he can move mountains, but usually he won’t stir a muscle until he counts the profit.”

“Being able to put the word ‘ambassador’ in front of one’s name is a kind of profit,” Hort said.

“I suppose, but it still doesn’t sound like Uncle Harlow.”

They were approaching the embassy buildings. Hort touched her arm and pointed, and she saw her uncle approaching from another direction. He seemed to be leading an army, but she quickly picked out familiar faces: Hirus Ayns, her uncle’s executive assistant, and two of her uncle’s secretaries. Ayns had noticed her. He spoke to Wembling, who turned. His mouth dropped open. Then he bellowed, “Talitha!”

She dashed into his arms. A moment of ponderous embrace, and then she backed off and looked at him. “Uncle Harlow!” she exclaimed. “You look wonderful! You’ve lost weight, and what a marvelous tan you have!”

“You’re looking pretty good yourself, Tal. But you’re supposed to be in medical school. Vacation time?”

She ignored the question. “I thought I’d find you lording it over a big embassy staff in some glamorous world capital. What are you doing here?”

He glanced over his shoulder at the natives, and then he drew her aside and spoke quietly. “Frankly, I’m working on the biggest deal of my life. I fell into this appointment, and if I use it properly—” He broke off. “Why aren’t you in medical school?” he asked sternly.

“Because I quit. I wanted to help suffering humanity. Know what they were making of me? A computer technician.”

“Medical computation is a damned good job,” he said. “Good pay, and you can always— Look here. Wemblings don’t quit. I’m sending you back on the next ship.”

He stomped away. The natives and his staff respectfully fell in behind him. No one looked back, but she shouted after him furiously, “You won’t have to! I’m leaving on the next ship!”

She glared at Aric Hort, who was looking on innocently. “I like that. The nerve!”

She flounced toward the nearest building, dropped a door open, entered, and dropped it closed again, leaving him staring blankly after her.

7

Her next impression of Langri was of the peering eyes of children. Whenever she left the embassy there were native children watching her. They stared at her from behind bushes, they trailed after her, they anticipated her movements and were there ahead of her wherever she went. The only sounds they uttered were suppressed giggles.

On the morning following her arrival she lay drowsily on the beach, acquiring a first installment of sun tan, and already she was so accustomed to children slyly circling around her that when Aric Hort approached she did not even open her eyes until he spoke.

He told her good morning, and she answered politely and closed her eyes again.

He sat down beside her. “Do you like Langri any better than you did yesterday?”

“Worlds usually don’t change much overnight,” she murmured.

She was silent for a time, and when she looked up at him she found him grinning at her. She said testily, “The ocean is the nicest blue-green I’ve ever seen, except for the sky, and the forest colors are magnificent, and the flowers are wonderfully fragrant and lovely until you pick them, and if you take away this world’s blatant prettiness what have you got?”

“At least you’re enjoying the beach,” Hort observed.

She picked up a handful of sand and flung it aside. “I tried to go swimming, but there are things out there I don’t care to share an ocean with.”

“They feel the same way about you. If you know how to swim, the ocean is the safest place on Langri.”

She pushed herself into a sitting position. “Tell me,” she said seriously. “Just what is Uncle doing here?”

“Yesterday he was laying out a drainage system for a native village. I don’t know what he’s doing today. Let’s find him and see.”

He helped her to her feet, and they walked off along the beach. She looked back once and saw a group of children scurrying to keep up with them.

“I wanted to ask you something,” Hort said. “Yesterday your uncle said you’d been in medical school.”

“I had one year of medical school, and it was ten per cent physiology and ninety per cent electronics, and I’d rather not think about it. You’ll have to take your aches somewhere else.”

He grinned at her. “No, no—I’m not after free medical advice. I’m worried about the natives. They’re a healthy people, which is fortunate—they have no medical science at all. When one of them is sick or injured, he’s in deep trouble.”

“If I tried to look after him, he’d be in worse trouble. Anyway, nursing a bunch of ignorant savages wouldn’t appeal to me.”

He said sharply, “Don’t call them ignorant! On this world they’re much more knowledgeable than you are.”

“Then they’re knowledgeable enough to nurse themselves.”

They walked on in silence.

The shore curved into an inlet, and a native village came into view, built on a gently sloping side of a hill above the sea. The dwellings stood in concentric circles, with a broad avenue pointing straight up the hill to bisect the village, and other avenues radiating out from the central oval. Children were playing along the beach, and older children were swimming and spearing sea creatures. The moment they saw Hort all of them headed for him at a rush, the younger children flocking along the beach and the older ones quickly swimming to shore and chasing after them. All of them shouted, “Airk! Airk!”

The younger children made faces at him, and the contorted expressions he produced in return convulsed them. The older children circled around him playing some kind of complicated hitting game that he invariably lost, and his expressions and gestures of feigned pain dissolved all of them in hilarity. Even the quivering gloom of his scowl set them squealing with merriment.

Plainly they loved this man, and his very presence was a delight to them. Talitha looked at Hort with interest for the first time and found that he had the kindest eyes she had ever seen, and that his face, behind its ridiculous facade of beard, radiated compassion and good humor.

She also thought that something was troubling him deeply.

Hort picked up one small girl and introduced her. “This is Dabbi. My prize student. Dabbi, this is Miss Warr.”

Dabbi smiled charmingly and spoke an unintelligible greeting.

Hort answered her unspoken question. “They’re bilingual. It’s a very strange situation. They have a language that I can’t make anything of, and then many of them are quite fluent in Galactic and almost all of them understand it—some of the young people even use fairly up-to-date slang expressions.”

He put Dabbi down and directed Talitha’s attention to the sea.

A hunting boat was rapidly approaching shore below the village. The crew, which consisted of both men and women, was standing poised on the edges of the boat. Hort waved, and all of them waved back.

“Why do they call them hunting boats?” Talitha asked.

“Come and see what they catch, and you’ll understand.”

He took her hand, and they ran along the beach with the children trailing after them. When they reached the village, the crew already had dragged the boat ashore. Hort led her over to it.

She looked once, briefly, and felt a wave of revulsion and horror such as she never before had experienced. She reeled backward with averted face, not believing, not wanting to remember, trying not to be sick.

The koluf was an enormous creature that completely filled the boat. It had a double row of clawing legs and a hideous, mottled, threshing, multitudinously jointed body that swiveled obnoxiously and formed strangely contorted curves. The vast head was slashed from front to rear by a gaping mouth with huge, protruding, curved teeth that snapped viciously. It was held in place in the narrow boat by poles and lashings.

Talitha turned and looked out to sea, where the colorful sails were just visible on the horizon. “Did they come all that distance with that in the boat?”

“It makes for a lively ride,” Hort said with a smile, “but it’s the only way it can be done. If they tried to tow it in, either it would haul them out to sea, or its friends and relatives would tear it to pieces. They have to get it into the boat as quickly as possible.”

“What do the women do?” she asked.

“The same thing the men do. They hunt koluf.”

The natives were hauling the koluf from the boat. They dragged it far up onto the beach, pulling it by its long, stringy, lashing fins and deftly avoiding the slashing teeth, clawing legs, and threshing, knifelike tail. By the time the hunters had finished, men and women of the village were gathered about them. The hunters turned at once, launched their boat, reefed in the sail, and paddled away.

The koluf continued to twist and thresh violently, and the villagers began to push sand over it with long-handled scrapers. As they worked, they shouted a rhythmic song in the native language. The koluf’s violent movements increased and several times it broke free, but they continued to push the sand. Finally they built a mound from which it could not escape, though its struggle made the sand heave and jerk.

A few villagers remained, putting finishing touches on the mound and watching to make certain that the koluf did not break free. The others returned to the village.

Talitha said incredulously, “And Uncle says it’s the most delicious meat he’s ever eaten!”

“If there were pantheons of gods in the Langrian religion,” Hort said solemnly, “that creature would be their ambrosia. It’s delectable beyond mere human comprehension.”

“I wish I’d tasted it before I saw it,” Talitha said. She counted eight widely spaced mounds along the beach and shuddered.

They walked on, skirting the village but passing close to the outlying dwellings, and Talitha stopped to examine one of them. She ran a finger over the brilliant color design of the roof and then rapped on it. “What’s it made of?”

“It’s a segment of a gourd. Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“It is.” She rapped again. “A gourd? If this is only a segment, they must be huge.”

“Enormous,” Hort agreed. “And when the shell is soaked in sea water and dried it becomes as tough and durable as plastic. Did you notice the lovely symmetry these dwellings have? They’re a fitting ornament for a beautiful world, and they’re also the best sort of housing that could be devised for this climate. Look at the walls—they’re a fine mesh woven of fiber, and they not only keep out pests, but they also breathe. They’re incredibly durable. Interestingly enough, the fiber is made from threads extracted from gourd stems, and the natives also use it for a rope—”

Talitha had lost interest. She saw her uncle approaching the village, followed by his usual incongruous escort. One of his two secretaries, Sela Thillow, carried an electronic gadget for note taking. The other, Kaol Renold, seemed to be waiting to be told to do something. Hirus Ayns followed along at the rear, sharp-eyed as usual, saying little but missing nothing. What the natives were doing she couldn’t fathom at all.

“Here’s Uncle,” she said.

Hort turned off his lecture, and they went to meet him. As they approached, the grinning natives suddenly scattered in all directions, and Wembling shouted a final admonition after them. “Big logs, mind you!”

“What are you doing?” Talitha asked him.

“Trying to get the natives to build a raft,” he said.

“What do they need a raft for?” Hort demanded. Talitha turned and stared at him. Few men spoke to her uncle in that tone of voice.

Wembling seemed not to notice. “They need a raft to hunt with,” he said.

“They seem to be doing quite well without one,” Talitha observed.

Wembling shook his head. “Have you seen the way they hunt? Whenever they catch one of those monsters, a crew has to bring it all the way to shore. Every catch costs them up to an hour of prime hunting time. Look at that!” He was counting the mounds on the beach. “Six, seven, eight. That’s a good start on the day’s hunt, but it means the boats already have made eight round trips from the hunting grounds. That’s the loss of a boat and crew for eight hours of hunting, and while one boat is bringing a koluf to shore, the fleet is less efficient. It takes every crew available to haul one of those monsters out of the water. If they could anchor a big raft close to the hunting grounds they could transfer the koluf to the raft, and then in the evening they could tow in the day’s catch all at once. A village this size would save a couple of hundred man-hours of work a day and hunt much more efficiently. That would make it possible to catch more koluf and get off their subsistence diet. Got that, Sela?”

“Got it,” she said, fingers playing rapidly on the electronic keyboard.

“Did you say subsistence diet?” Talitha asked. “I’ve never seen a healthier-looking people.”

“They’re healthy enough now, but they have very little food reserve. Whenever the hunting falls off, they come close to starvation. It takes a lot of koluf to feed a world population, even when it’s a small population. I wanted to teach them some ways to preserve their surplus meat. Couldn’t get them to understand what I was talking about. Turned out the reason they couldn’t understand was because they have so little surplus. A raft would increase the daily catch and let them store an emergency reserve. Well, Hort?”

“I’ve told you what I think,” Hort said. “The natives lead a precarious existence in the ecology of a hostile environment. Any tampering at all might upset the balance and exterminate them.”

Wembling grinned at him and spoke in conversational tones. “Hort, you’re fired. You can’t see beyond your textbooks. Increased efficiency in hunting will put them on the safe side of that precarious balance.”

“Increased efficiency in hunting could change the koluf’s feeding habits or reduce the breeding stock. The result would be fewer koluf and starving natives.”

“Long before that happened, we’d think of something else. Here’s Fornri.”

A group of young natives approached them, and one, obviously their leader, strode up to Wembling and wasted no time in coming to the point. “Excellency, this raft. It could not be used.”

“Why not?” Wembling asked.

“The koluf must be buried in sand.”

Wembling turned questioningly to Hort. “Some religious quirk?”

“It’s probably vital,” Hort said. “Most things on this world are poisonous to humans. Burying the koluf in sand must do something to neutralize the poison.”

“It must be buried as soon as possible after it is caught,” Fornri said, “and it must be kept buried for a day and a night. Otherwise, the meat cannot be eaten.”

Wembling nodded thoughtfully. “I see. Couldn’t we load the raft with sand and bury the koluf there?”

“The sand must be dry. Would that be possible on a raft at sea? And burying the koluf is dangerous. Much room is needed for the burying.”

Wembling nodded again. He was bitterly disappointed and trying not to show it. “I’ll have to think about it. A dying koluf does thresh about a bit. As for keeping the sand dry—I’ll think about it.”

He turned and marched away, and his entourage formed up and followed him. Fornri and a young woman remained behind, and Hort performed introductions. “Fornri, this is Talitha Warr, sister-daughter of the ambassador.”

Fornri smiled and raised his arm in the native greeting. Talitha hesitated and then awkwardly tried to imitate him.

“And this is Dalla,” Hort said.

The native woman greeted her warmly.

Fornri said to Hort, “It is a very interesting suggestion. Is the ambassador angry?”

“Frustrated, perhaps. You might consider building a small raft just to show him that it wouldn’t work.”

“But then he would say the failure was because the raft was too small,” Fornri said with a polite smile. “And it would not work no matter how large the raft was. Every time a new koluf was taken onto this raft much water would go with it, and such a small amount of sand would quickly become wet even if it did not wash away. And the sand must be dry, or the koluf cannot be eaten. So I think we won’t build the raft.”

The two of them took their farewells with upraised arms and disappeared into the forest.

Hort said thoughtfully, “Among all the records of primitive peoples I can remember, it was the elders who ruled and made the decisions. Here it seems to be the young people who lead, but actually they’re doing what Fornri tells them to do. He reflects, he speaks, and that’s the law. If it’s really complicated he asks for time, and then he probably consults with others, but even so he carries an enormous responsibility for one so young.”

“They’re a handsome couple,” Talitha said. “Are they married?”

“That’s another mystery. They aren’t. Other youths Fornri’s age are married, and many of them have a child. I’d suspect that he’s a youthful high priest with a rule of celibacy if it weren’t for the fact that he and Dalla obviously are sweethearts. They behave like a betrothed couple.”

Wembling had been talking with a group of natives on the beach, and now he called to them, “We’re going back by boat. Want to come?”

Talitha turned questioningly to Hort.

“Go ahead,” he said. “I have a class of native children to teach.”

“Really? What are you teaching them?”

“Reading and writing.”

She stared for a moment and then burst into laughter. “What for? Once they’ve learned, what possible use could they have for it?”

“Who knows? They’re exceptionally bright children. Maybe someday Langri will create its own great literature. You go with your uncle. I’ll walk back after my class.”

She joined her uncle on the beach. He was finishing his conversation with the natives—something about drainage ditches—and while she waited she watched Aric Hort. The children were dashing to meet him, the girl called Dabbi in the lead. “Airk!” they shouted. “Airk!”

Hort knelt on a level stretch of packed sand near the village. “Proud,” he said. The children repeated the word. “Proud.”

He spelled it. “P-R-O-U-D. Proud.” They spelled it after him, and he wrote the word in the sand. Then he stalked about on his knees, nose in the air, acting out the word “proud.” The children, in convulsions of merriment, imitated him.

“Strong,” Hort said.

“Strong,” the children repeated.

Wembling patted Talitha on the arm. “Ready to go, Tal?”

He helped her into a boat, and the paddlers, young native boys, pushed off. Looking back, she saw Aric Hort, surrounded by his mob of children, acting out the word “strong.”

“What a dear man!” she exclaimed.

Wembling grunted skeptically. “I’d say he acts rather silly.”

She smiled. “Yes. He certainly does.”

8

She swam in the gentle surf, she lounged on the beach, and sometimes she flirted mischievously with an unlikely-looking animal that eyed her warily from the forest or, at dusk, scurried along the water’s edge on scavenger patrol. Dusk came too soon on this world of Langri, and no one lay abed mornings because the dawn touched the bulging clouds with a drama of color to set in motion a renewed procession of ever changing facets of beauty.

The beach sand was the finest she had ever seen. She poured it, powderlike, from one hand to another, and to her amazement she saw that it, too, was composed of myriad grains of color. The sun, warming but never burning, so relaxed her that she had to will herself not to sleep.

She rarely saw Aric Hort. His days were filled with teaching and learning, and on the infrequent occasions when they met she could not refrain from mocking his preoccupation with Langrian trivialities. The things that elated him—that an elderly native accidentally revealed a memory of a time when there were no metal spear points, or his new theory that the poor quality of clay was as much responsible for the absence of pottery on Langri as were the easily available multitudes of gourds, or the list of a hundred and seventeen words that proved some kind of interworld contacts for the natives no more than seventy years before—Talitha failed to see anything universe-shattering about such discoveries.

But as time passed, and Langri’s beauty became cloying, even a Langrian triviality eased her boredom somewhat, and she occasionally accepted Hort’s invitation to look at something or other that he found remarkable.

Returning from swimming one day, she stopped at the embassy’s office and found her uncle talking guardedly with Hirus Ayns. She would have withdrawn without disturbing them, but her uncle waved and invited her in.

“Well, Tal,” he said, “you seem to be keeping busy.”

“I’m keeping busy the way a tourist keeps busy,” she said bitterly. “The beach until it gets boring, and then sightseeing until I can’t stand that any longer. Tomorrow Aric is taking me to see some gourds that are supposed to be fascinating. Dangerous trip, that—into the forest. Tomorrow night we’re to be entertained and fed by the natives, songs and dances, gourmet dishes that will make me sick because I’ve seen what they’re made of, everything certified authentic and uncorrupted. It reminds me of that vacation I took on Mallorr. I didn’t like it there, either.”

“The natives’ food will make you forget what you saw, and their dancing and singing are lovely.” Wembling strode to the window and looked out absently. Obviously he had a few problems of his own to cope with, so she said nothing more to him. “The natives are a fine people,” he announced finally, “but I wish they weren’t so confounded stubborn. I think maybe I ought to fire Hort—really fire him. He encourages them.”

He served himself a smoke capsule, exhaled a cloud of lavender smoke, and started for the door. “I’ll see if Sela has those messages transcribed,” he said to Ayns.

Talitha looked after him affectionately. “Poor Uncle. The biggest deal of his life, and the stupid natives won’t co-operate. By the way, what is this big deal?”

Ayns eyed her calculatingly. When she was younger, that look had disturbed her; but now she knew that he eyed everyone calculatingly. “Ambassador to Binoris,” he said.

She straightened up in astonishment. “Wow! That’s quite a deal! How does an ambassador get promoted from a nothing world like this to the most important independent world in the galaxy?”

Ayns leaned back, transferred his gaze to the ceiling, and spoke meditatively. “It’s tricky. For that matter, getting appointed ambassador to anything is tricky these days. We fell into this, so the question is what we can make of it.”

“I knew Uncle wasn’t just ‘playing ambassador.’”

Ayns nodded. “We’ve got the political pull, but that isn’t enough, not in the diplomatic service, certainly not for a choice appointment like Binoris. We’ve got to make a sensational record here, and we have less than two years to do it. The ambassador to Binoris retires next year.”

“Ah! So that’s why the drainage ditches and the rafts.”

Ayns nodded again. “We have to transform this world and make vital improvements in the people’s living standard, and we have to do it in ways that make good copy for the diplomatic press. We have very little time. And the natives give us no cooperation whatsoever.”

“But what a prize if you can bring it off!” Talitha enthused. “High-class society, the arts—”

“Nonsense!” Ayns scowled at her. “Binoris has huge mineral reserves, and no one is in a better position to influence mining concessions than the Federation ambassador. The appointment is worth a minimum hundred million a year.”

Wembling returned carrying a sheaf of papers, and Talitha said sympathetically, “Poor Uncle! So much at stake and the natives won’t co-operate. Haven’t they accepted any of your suggestions?”

He sputtered indignantly. “Of course they have! Haven’t you seen my ferries? Solved their river-crossing problems—like that. Come on. I’ll show you.”

He rushed her out of the building and across the flower-choked meadow toward the forest. At first she was too startled to protest, but when she found herself dashing along a forest path she began to eye the trees uneasily, looking for clusters of vines. “How far is it?” she panted.

Her uncle did not even break stride. “Another kilometer or two.”

“So what’s the hurry?” she demanded. “It’ll still be there if we walk, won’t it?”

He slowed his pace, and they moved along the meandering forest path at a fast walk. It ended at a riverbank, where Wembling turned, beaming with pride, to study her reaction.

Nearby was a native boat, and at each end was an inverted V over an overhead rope. Other ropes were tied to trees on either side of the stream. To cross, one simply pulled on the appropriate rope and coiled it into the boat. The other rope payed out as the boat made its crossing. The overhead rope kept it at the crossing site.

Wembling handed Talitha into the boat, pulled it across the narrow stream, pulled it back again. “Well, what do you think of it?” he demanded.

“It’s very—clever,” she murmured.

“We’ve got them at all the main crossings,” he said. “I’ve had real good publicity on it—action photos made the news transmissions on eight worlds, including Binoris, and—”

He broke off, staring at her. “Tal—you can help me! Pose for some pictures. A picture of this thing with you in it in that bathing costume would make the news transmissions on a hundred worlds. Drat it—I should have brought my camera. What d’ya say?”

She was too indignant to speak. Fortunately Aric Hort called to them from the bank before the silence became embarrassing.

“I wondered where you two were going in such a rush,” he said. “There’s a delegation of natives at the embassy waiting to see the ambassador.”

“That’ll be the official invitation to the festival,” Wembling said. “I’ll have to hurry back.”

Hort helped him out of the boat, and as he scrambled ashore he said, “Give her a ride, Aric, if she wants it. Let her try it out as much as she likes.” He trotted off along the forest path, and a moment later, before either of them had moved, he was back again. “Let her pull the rope herself, Aric.”

“I will,” Hort promised. “Both ways.”

Wembling grinned, nodded, and turned away with a wave of his hand.

“Gracious! Isn’t he proud of it!” Talitha exclaimed.

“Come out of there! Quickly!” Hort snapped.

Startled, she scrambled ashore, and he helped her from the boat and into a place of concealment behind some bushes. An instant later two natives emerged from the forest on the opposite bank. Without breaking stride they walked through the river, which was only waist-deep, and disappeared into the forest.

“Don’t they use it at all?” she asked bewilderedly, when the natives had passed out of hearing.

“Only when they think one of us is watching,” Hort said. He led her back to the boat, and so that she could wax properly enthusiastic about it without an uncomfortable amount of lying, she gave herself a round-trip crossing while Hort watched from the bank.

“You know—he really is trying to help the natives,” she said when she’d returned to him. “But I suppose it’s human nature to resist change.”

“There’s much more to it than that. At one time this must have been a horribly dangerous world for humans. The first settlers probably survived by an eyelash. There are still plenty of ways humans can die on this world, but it’s a relatively safe place because over a long period of time the natives found out by trial and error what the dangers are and how to avoid them. No outsider can come in and instantly know better ways of doing things than the natives have learned from generations of costly experience.”

He got into the boat and took a seat at the opposite end. “I’m worried about the natives. Your uncle is being wonderfully patient, but that won’t last forever. Eventually he’ll start maneuvering to make them do what he tells them, and he has the influence and the political and legal connections to find ways to force them. If he does, he stands an excellent chance of destroying them.”

She stared at him. “Destroying them? Nonsense! Uncle is no monster.”

“Have you noticed anything unusual about the feet of those on the embassy staff?”

“They’re all badly scarred,” she said. “I’ve wondered about that.”

“Your uncle had this notion of eliminating the muddy village streets. He tried to talk Fornri into paving them with gravel. Fornri nixed the idea emphatically. So your uncle demonstrated his wisdom by having the staff members bring in enough gravel to pave the paths between the embassy buildings—just to show the natives how it ought to be done. It turns out that there’s a fungus that thrives in gravel and has an unfortunate affinity for human feet. Now the entire staff has scarred feet, and the paths between embassy buildings are muddy again.”

“The entire staff except you,” she remarked, inspecting his feet.

“Well—I suspected something like that, so when your uncle graveled the paths, I didn’t walk on them. The natives know this world and we don’t, and when they say something shouldn’t be done, I’m not going to do it. Look at this.”

He pointed to the strangely convoluted lashings by which the ferry apparatus was attached to the boat.

“What about it?” she asked.

“I thought that knot was so interesting I was going to send an example to the Anthropological Institute. While I was writing my report, one of the crewmen from the courier ship happened by, and he laughed himself silly over it. This is a very common knot. It was developed to secure wires in spaceship construction to avoid problems caused by vibrations in faster-than-light travel. Anyone who’s had much to do with ships will know this knot. Obviously our expedition wasn’t the first to discover these natives.”

He paused and looked expectantly at her. She resented being treated like a backward child in one of his classes, and she said icily, “If you expect me to believe that this knot is somehow connected with the fungus—”

“Think. The natives have such a perilous struggle for survival that they have to use every available weapon. They’re bright. If they happen onto a more efficient way of doing things, they’ll adopt it. No one knows how many visitors they’ve had, down through the centuries, and out of all the knowledge that those visitors brought here, the only item I can positively identify that the natives found useful was that knot.”

Before she could comment, he changed the subject abruptly. “As long as you’ve walked this far, why don’t we see the gourds now?”

“Why not?” she murmured. “By an incredible coincidence, I have no other engagement.”

They used the ferry to cross the river, and when they reached the other side he told her, “The one rule is to go single file and keep to the center of the path. There’s no danger there, or there wouldn’t be a path.”

They moved off into the forest. Several times vegetation along the path drew back from them as they passed, alarming her, but Hort paid no attention to it. She followed him silently. They passed trees with enormous, multicolored flowers, and they splashed through a small stream just downstream from a towering waterfall in which a strange flying creature, magnificently colored but unspeakably hideous in appearance, was enjoying a shower bath. The creature suddenly became aware of them and soared away squalking, dripping water on them as it passed overhead.

Abruptly they came to another river and another of Wembling’s ferries, and this one was in use. A crowd of extremely happy children was playing in it, hauling back and forth across the river. Now and then a child tumbled overboard and found that hilarious, too. With whoops of joy they ran the ferry to shore, made room for Hort and Talitha, and gave them swift passage. Hort helped Talitha to disembark, and then the two of them stood with arms uplifted, and the children, giggling delightedly, responded as they pulled the boat back across the river.

“I forgot about that,” Hort said. “The children think the ferries are absolutely scrumptious playthings. If they want to cross a river, though, they’ll swim.”

A short distance beyond the river, Hort stopped abruptly and pointed. “There’s one of them.”

Talitha gazed blankly at the enormous, looming thing that vanished from sight among the branches of the surrounding trees. She said, “It grew that big?”

“Some of them do,” Hort said. “Probably the natives pick most of them when they’re smaller, because they have so many uses for them. A gourd this size must be many years old. What I can’t figure out is how the things reproduce. There are dozens of them here. Look.”

He moved along the path, parting leaves and showing her gourds of various sizes. “All of them come from one plant,” he said. “Wherever you see gourds, whatever the species, there’s always one plant. I can’t figure out how a thing like this can scatter seeds or spores so widely—and in a forest, too.”

“Are they edible?” she asked.

“No, but they’re used for everything else. Roofs of houses, containers, hammocks, furniture, and they make really splendid drums and musical instruments. Children play all sorts of games with gourd toys. They’re platforms for native dances, and the end of a small one can be painted to make a splendid mask. The vines yield a thread that makes excellent rope and cloth. Remarkable, aren’t they?”

He leaned over and thumped on one, and it gave off deep, booming thuds.

“Is that all there is to see?” she asked.

“That’s all,” he said cheerfully.

“They certainly are remarkable. I’m glad I didn’t wait until tomorrow to see them. Two such tremendous thrills like gourds and a native festival on the same day would be more than my nervous system could stand.”

She turned and walked away. Where the path curved, she was able to glance back at him without turning her head, and she saw him still standing in the path looking after her.

9

There were two fires on the beach, and they produced an enormous halo of light that not only illuminated the spectators crowding the hillside but also touched off spectacular flashes in the breaking wave caps. Between the fires a musician had set up his instrument. A nab, Aric Hort called it, and it was constructed of a gourd twice as tall as the musician and of tremendous circumference. Talitha’s first incredulous conclusion was that it took one musician to play the thing and two to hold it down, because two members of the audience were seated atop the gourd. Later, when they began to stomp their feet, she learned that they were drummers.

The musician struck his first tones, and the native festival was under way. For a time nothing happened but the rhythmic thum …thum …thum of the nab strings. Then another musician joined him.

He played the same instrument.

Sets of strings were stretched from a yoke near the top to a wood collar near the bottom. The nab was not an instrument; it was many instruments. More musicians joined in, each on another set of strings, until Talitha counted eight playing one nab. Probably there were others hidden by the instrument. The rhythm took on fantastic complexities.

Then the drummers began punctuating the thums with their vigorous stomping, marking off new rhythmic complexities with a thud …thud …thud. An orchestra began to assemble about the nab, and smaller drums and stringed instruments joined in. Then the colorfully costumed dancers entered. The young men circled one fire, the young women the other.

The lines broke off and interwove as the groups changed fires. The lines broke off again and began to weave through the spectators. Several of the young women tried to coax Talitha into the dance as they passed her.

She shook her head. “I don’t know how.”

Hort, seated beside her, got up and tried to pull her to her feet. “Go ahead,” he said. “It’s the custom—they’re making an honored guest of you. Just do what they do.”

Her uncle, seated nearby, was smiling encouragement at her. The natives around her seemed delighted. The movements did not look difficult, so she succumbed and let the girls lead her away.

For a time she thought she was not doing badly, though the steps quickly became more intricate. They circled a fire and broke off to weave through the line of young men. Aric Hort smiled at her as they passed; the young men had pulled him into the dance.

The men returned to form a circle around the girls, and she found herself paired off with Hort. The dance picked up speed, the steps became more and more difficult, but they blundered along until they were exhausted. Laughing, gasping for breath, they staggered back to their places.

When she had caught her breath, Talitha looked about her at the rapt audience of natives. She nudged Hort. “Why aren’t Fornri and Dalla dancing?”

“It’s like I told you—Fornri is the leader. He seems to have forsworn marriage. He and Dalla are sweethearts, but they aren’t dancing. Dalla isn’t happy about that, but she’s not accepting any other offers.”

“What’s that got to do with dancing?” Talitha demanded.

“It’s a betrothal dance.”

She stared at him. “Betrothal dance? You mean—you and I—”

“Only on Langri,” he said with superb nonchalance.

Angrily she slapped his face and dashed off into the night. At the top of the slope she looked back. The throbbing pulse of the music, the blend of color and intricate movement, gripped and exhilarated her.

Then she saw Aric Hort anxiously looking about for her, and she laughed merrily.

Lying on the beach, hand cupping her chin, looking thoughtfully out to sea, she made up her mind. Ahead of her she could anticipate only dreamy, lethargic days too frequently interrupted by long monologues from her uncle and Aric Hort. Her uncle was preoccupied with the brilliant new projects he was devising. Hort was obsessed with one trivial mystery after another.

Her uncle was determined to help the natives, and obviously they didn’t want to be helped. Hort was intent on studying them, and they didn’t want to be studied. What they did want was to be left alone, and that was perfectly satisfactory to her.

She heard her uncle’s booming voice and the usual chorus of farewell from his native retinue. Resignedly she got to her feet, gathered up the robe she’d been lying on, and walked determinedly toward the embassy office.

As she dropped the door open, they turned toward her: her uncle, Hirus Ayns, and Aric Hort. They were about to drink a toast, and they held tumblers raised.

Her uncle greeted her with a smile. “You’re just in time, Tal.” He filled another tumbler. “Join our celebration. Fornri has accepted my suggestion about the drainage ditches. They’ll start work on them in the morning.”

He offered her the tumbler, and in a sudden burst of anger she struck it to the floor. “You fools!” she exclaimed.

Ayns and Hort stood frozen with tumblers raised. Her uncle stared at her dumbfoundedly.

“Can’t you see they are laughing at you?” she demanded. “You work from dawn to dark just tramping about trying to help them, and when they condescend to accept a suggestion, like your precious ferries, they give it to the children to play with. Now I suppose you’ll expect me to pose for pictures in your drainage ditches!”

She marched to the window and stood there with her back to them, looking out. “Langri is a lovely world,” she said. “The singing and dancing are charming, and the food is delicious, and it’s a nice place for a vacation, and I’ve had one. I’m leaving on the next courier ship.”

Her uncle said quietly, “You’re free to leave whenever you like, Tal.”

She turned and faced them. Hort was struggling to conceal his embarrassment. He suddenly became aware that he still held a drink in his hand, and he downed it. Wembling and Ayns did the same.

Talitha, looking past them through another window, asked, “What’s this?”

Natives had landed a boat just below the embassy, and they were walking up from the beach carrying a segment of gourd with what looked like a pile of blankets on it. Fornri led the way. Dalla, weeping, walked at one side.

Aric Hort dashed to meet them, with Wembling and Ayns following on his heels. Talitha, after long hesitation, trailed after them. When she finally reached them, the procession of natives had halted, and Hort was bending over the segment of gourd.

He peeled back the blankets and gazed down at an unconscious child.

Dabbi.

Her eyes were closed. Her small, pinched face looked violently feverish. Her breathing was rapid and shallow.

Hort spoke incredulously, and his agony throbbed in every syllable. “Not-the Hot Sickness?”

Fornri said gravely, “She cut her foot. On a sharp rock, we think. And now—”

His voice broke. Hort turned away, brushing his eyes with a gesture, and the procession followed him. They turned off and took the path to the rear, where Hort’s quarters were located. He hurried on ahead, dropped the door open, and stood waiting for them.

When Talitha entered the room at the end of the procession, Hort had folded out a bed and lifted the child onto it. The natives, except for Fornri and Dalla, took the gourd stretcher and left at once. Hort knelt beside the bed and gently loosened the blankets, exposing Dabbi’s foot and leg.

Talitha gasped. Both were hideously swollen to twice, three times their normal size.

Hort straightened up slowly. “I can try something different,” he said. “We might possibly learn from it, but I’m afraid she’s going to die.”

Dalla knelt at the head of the bed and continued to weep soundlessly. Fornri, still grave and courteous despite his obvious grief, said politely, “We understand. The Hot Sickness always brings death, and we are grateful for your attempts to find a cure. Please do what you can.”

He bent over the bed, placed his hand for a moment on Dabbi’s forehead, and then he turned and left the room. As he did so, Wembling stepped forward and spoke to Hort, who stood looking down at the sick child.

“How long are they going to be here?” Wembling demanded.

“Only until the child dies.”

Wembling shrugged resignedly. “Well—keep them quiet.”

He went out. Hort moved a chair into position beside the bed and started to examine Dabbi’s leg again. Now Talitha edged forward. “Why did they wait so long?” she asked angrily.

Hort looked up at her blankly. “This probably didn’t happen much over an hour ago.”

“What is it?”

“Some kind of blood poisoning. Our antibiotics have no effect on it. I’ve been trying them in combination, and the last pair kept the victim alive for eight days, but he died just as certainly as if I’d left him alone, and a great deal more painfully. The only thing I can do now is try a stronger dose of the same thing and see how she reacts.”

Talitha knelt beside the bed and conducted her own examination, but she could draw no conclusion except that the infection was appallingly virulent. “How do you administer your antibiotics?” she asked.

“By mouth if the patient is conscious. Otherwise, by absorption. I’ve been afraid to use the injector.”

“When an infection has spread this much, it’s too late for oral or absorbent applications,” she said dryly. “Let me see your medical kit.”

Hort wheeled the kit from the closet. She noted with relief that it was prime rated and had been renewed within the past year. She quickly rolled it into position, clipped a surgical mask to her nostrils, sprayed on a pair of gloves, and began a quick but thorough examination of the patient. She drew a blood sample by palm osmosis, and while the kit analyzed it she taped a cardiosensor to Dabbi’s chest and monitored the faltering heartbeat.

“What did you give the last patient—the one that lived eight days?” she asked.

“Kornox Four and Cybolithon.”

“Dosage?”

“Half normal for each. I figured mixing the medicines was experiment enough, and two halves made a whole.”

While the cardiograph continued to click its appallingly irregular pictures of Dabbi’s heartbeat, the blood analysis data drifted across the screen:

WBC 18,440 [] ZYN 9+ [] W3W 7.5 [] BUN 38 [] CPK 790 [] BROS 1,125 [] GAMMA GT 2,220 [] XRX 8.4 [] PY4 0- [] SGOT 57 [] RRR 190 [] SGPT 55 [] EBD 440 [] BILIRUBIN 3.5 [] MIC 99 [] DQS …

Her memory of blood analysis norms was fuzzy, but even without the red warning tabs she would have recognized the scientific confirmation of what Hort already had said: this was a dying child. She turned off the cardiograph and punched the code for the antibiotics chart. She read the data on Kornox Four and Cybolithon, read it again, read it a third time. She had been working quickly and confidently, but thus far she had followed a routine practiced countless times.

Now, with a dying patient before her, she was forced to make a medical decision light-years beyond her competence, and she was frightened.

She dared not hesitate. A delayed decision, even if right, could be as fatal as a wrong decision. “Unless we act quickly, she won’t live an hour,” she said quietly to Hort. “Is it possible to consult her parents?”

“Her parents are dead,” Hort said. “Dalla is her sister. You can consult her.”

Dalla was still kneeling at the head of the bed. Talitha knelt beside her. “If we do nothing, she’ll die quickly. If we give her too much medicine, we may cure the disease and kill her with the medicine. I can only guess and hope. Are you willing for me to try?”

Dalla’s face was tear-stained, her expression agonized, but she did not hesitate. She said calmly, “Yes. Please.”

Talitha swung the injector over Dabbi’s leg, radiated it, punched the code for .55 of the specified dosages of the two antibiotics, mixed them, and threw the switch. She examined Dabbi’s leg immediately to make certain that the injection had not filtered improperly; but the puffy flesh was unbroken, and she could not even find the usual upwelling of fluid. She radiated the leg again and pushed the medical kit aside.

“Now all we can do is try to control the fever and wait,” she announced.

“Is there anything I can do?” Dalla asked.

“I’ll fix a vol solution. We’ll have to keep spraying her to get the fever down. Otherwise, if your religion has any gods that are well disposed, you might try praying. That’s what I’m going to do.”

She mixed the solution and set Dalla and Hort to spraying the patient. Then she stripped off her gloves, returned the mask to the sterilizer, and went to stand at the window. She’d thought her medical career long since washed out; unexpectedly she’d drawn her first and probably her last patient, and she was forced to search her mind for deliberately forgotten data and dicta while frantically reviewing her performance for fatal errors committed and crucial procedures overlooked.

Outside the building, the natives who had brought Dabbi, Fornri with them, sat on the ground in a circle in prayerlike meditation. None of them moved a muscle. It was dusk now, and her uncle, walking from his office to the commissary, had to circle them. He paid no attention to the natives, and their attention was fixed on the infinite.

She returned to her patient, took Dabbi’s hand, and watched the small, flushed face. The sprayers hissed continuously, but the fever was not dropping. The child’s breathing seemed more labored. Certainly they were too late, and yet—and yet—

With all of the fervor her mind could command she willed the child to live. It came to her as a revelation that this small creature was not a semihuman animal from the most uncivilized of worlds. She belonged to the universe of children, and no sick child, anywhere, was significantly different from any other sick child.

Looking at Dalla’s agonized face, Talitha suddenly wondered if there was also a universe of people.

The room was growing dark, and Hort got up and adjusted the illumination to a subdued glow. As the night wore on, Dalla finally succumbed to sleep and huddled on the floor by the bed. Eventually Hort followed her. With Dabbi’s fever finally in check, Talitha stopped the spraying and covered her lightly. She continued to watch, leaving her patient only when she moved quietly about the room in an attempt to keep herself awake. And whenever she looked from the window, the natives, dimly visible in the pale light that seeped from the sickroom, sat un-moving in their circle.

At dawn, dozing in her chair, she snapped to instant wakefulness and bent over Dabbi in alarm. The child’s eyes were open. She was looking about the room bewilderedly and attempting to sit up.

Dalla awakened with a cry. Hort sprang up, and as he did so the door dropped open and Fornri bounded into the room. All watched tensely while Talitha examined her patient.

The swelling in the leg and foot was miraculously reduced, and she no longer was feverish. Hort exclaimed incredulously, “Then—she’s going to be all right!”

Talitha was anxiously watching the cardiograph. Finally she pushed the medical kit aside. Dabbi sat up, smiling, and Dalla leaned over and embraced her. Fornri stood beaming down on them.

Talitha said quietly to Hort, “Her heart action is very erratic. I should have studied the literature before I administered the medicine. Combinations of medications can be terribly dangerous. Do you have a medical referencer?”

“In the office,” Hort said. “But it’s a small one, and it hasn’t a thing about pairing antibiotics. Believe me, I checked every shred of information available. I thought I might as well gamble, because the patients were going to die anyway. What’s the matter with her heart?”

“I don’t know,” Talitha said. She felt so weary, so indescribably weary. She had been fighting for a child’s life, and now she did not know what to do, and her fight was merely to hold back her tears. “I’ll have a look at the referencer anyway,” she said. “No, I’ll go. If I don’t move around a bit I’ll collapse.” She said to Dalla, “Keep her covered. She might catch a chill—though what that means in terms of Langri’s viruses I have no idea.”

“Nor does anyone else,” Hort growled.

The natives no longer were sitting in their circle. They were excitedly peering through the windows. Talitha plodded slowly to the office building, found the medical referencer, and began to punch out questions. Finally she slumped back in the chair, eyes closed. Perhaps the question was too complex for this machine’s programming, or perhaps the pairing of antibiotics was such a medical blunder that the programmer thought it unnecessary to mention it.

She buried her face in her hands and wept fearlessly—wept from exhaustion and frustration. Then, with a wrench of determination, she stonily got to her feet and started back to the sickroom. She was almost there when she heard Dalla’s scream.

Dalla was on her knees by the bed, face buried in the blankets, sobbing. Fornri stood with head bowed. Hort turned toward her as she entered, an expression of stunned grief on his face.

Talitha rushed to the bed and bent over Dabbi. Then she straightened up, shaking her head.

“It was her heart,” she said bitterly. “The medicine killed her.”

10

Talitha and Aric Hort despondently faced each other across a table in the embassy’s dining room. The autoserver loomed nearby, but nothing it could offer on this morning tempted either of them.

Finally Talitha burst out angrily, “A biological research laboratory could develop a specific for that disease in a couple of hours.”

Hort’s response matched her bitterness. “I don’t happen to have one with me.”

“Any competent doctor with training in bio-analysis—”

“If you run into one on the beach, send him up here and I’ll put him to work.”

“Does it cause many deaths?”

“Dabbi’s is the third this month. The last two months there weren’t any; the month before that, eight. Not many in terms of the total population. The bacteria has to be present, and there has to be a fairly deep flesh wound. When the two happen together, the mortality is a hundred per cent.”

Wembling entered. He nodded pleasantly, and when they did not respond, he suddenly remembered. “The child died?” Neither of them answered. “Pity,” he said. “Too bad they’ve no conception of medical science.”

He strode to the autoserver, consulted the breakfast list, punched buttons, and accepted a steaming tray. He carried it to their table and seated himself, and he was taking his first mouthful of food when he noticed that they weren’t eating. He asked, “Finished breakfast already?”

“I may never eat again,” Talitha said.

The rest of the staff strolled in, gave them a chorus of greetings, and gathered about the autoserver.

“Isn’t it time you reprogrammed this thing?” Sela Thillow asked Renold. “Everything is starting to taste the same, and it was a lousy menu to begin with.”

“See if you can coax it into putting out some of that native koluf,” Hirus Ayns said.

They took their trays to another table. Talitha said to her uncle, “Did you ever have the agony of watching a child die?” He stared at her. “A death like that is absolutely unnecessary,” she went on.

Wembling nodded. “Of course. Health always is a problem where medical facilities are primitive. Living on such a world is dangerous—something like that could happen to any of us.” He shrugged to show how oblivious he was to danger and went on spooning his breakfast.

“Uncle Harlow!” Talitha exclaimed. “You’re wasting your time trying to build a reputation with drainage ditches. Give the natives a medical center!”

Wembling shook his head. “That’d only give me a reputation for being rich—which I already have. Anyway, it’d cost more than the publicity would be worth.”

“What’s so expensive about a small clinic?”

“The staff. No medic is going to leave a comfortable situation to work on a primitive world unless he’s offered an enormous salary. He’ll also want lavish support in the way of assistants and laboratory and research facilities. It’d cost a fortune annually to finance that kind of operation. Hirus?”

Ayns had been listening. He always was listening. He said, “Depends on what you want to accomplish. The kind of medical center found on civilized worlds would be impossibly expensive to duplicate here. On the other hand, a small clinic, bring in an unsuccessful doctor who’d jump at a steady salary—”

Wembling was shaking his head. “No good. That kind of setup wouldn’t accomplish a thing except find alternate ways of killing the natives. To do the job adequately would cost a fortune. It’d certainly cost a lot more than I’d be willing to spend.”

“Then get governmental support,” Talitha said.

“Can’t be done. Langri is an independent world, which means that its health problems are its own business. If it were dependent, the government might be coaxed into putting a medical station here.”

“Then change its classification.”

“Perhaps the natives think their independence worth more than a medical station,” Hort remarked.

Talitha ignored him. “Why not offer those doctors and technicians a free vacation if they’ll work part time in the medical center? ‘Vacation in Paradise’—that ought to fetch a few doctors.”

Wembling found that amusing. “A long trip with a part-time job at the end is no vacation. No, there won’t be a medical station on Langri until the government can support one, and I can’t imagine where it would get the money. A world can’t amass exchange credits unless it has something someone else wants, and Langri—”

For a suspenseful moment Wembling stared at Talitha. Then he scrambled to his feet and dashed for the door. Talitha hesitated, exchanged glances with Aric Hort, and then she followed her uncle. Hort hurried after her. The staff had left off eating for a moment when Wembling got to his feet, but none of them moved to follow him. When Wembling wanted his staff, he let them know it.

Talitha and Hort caught up with Wembling on the beach. He was standing where the gentle surf lapped at his sandals, waving his arms excitedly. “That’s the answer, Tal!” he exclaimed. “The people of Langri can operate a vacation resort, and the profits will finance a medical center and anything else they want. And setting it up for them will make my reputation.”

“I don’t think the natives would want their world cluttered up with tourists,” Hort said.

Wembling grinned at him. “Hort, you’re fired.” He turned toward the sea and raised his arms, a man with a vision. “Langri—even the name sounds like a vacation paradise. There are plenty of barren worlds in this sector where life is either difficult or monotonous, and their peoples would pay a soul’s ransom for a vacation on a world like this. Look at the ocean. The forests. The natural beauties of every kind. The word ‘paradise’ is an understatement. How could I have been so blind?”

Now Hort was genuinely concerned. “I don’t think the natives—”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” Wembling told him. “Giving up a stretch of the beach to a tourist resort won’t affect the natives at all. Unless they want to work in the resort and get rich. If they don’t want to, we’ll import labor and they’ll get rich anyway.” He paced back and forth excitedly. “How could I have been so blind? This will make my reputation, Tal, and you’ll be able to play hostess in the Binoris Embassy.” He turned to Hort. “Get Fornri.”

Hort hesitated a moment, shrugged, and trotted off along the beach.

Wembling resumed his pacing. He said over his shoulder, “What do you think?”

“I think it’s a wonderful idea,” Talitha said. “Anything that gets these people the medical help they need—”

Wembling wasn’t listening. “We can leave the landing field where it is. Lay out a village on the embassy site for employees. What a resort it’ll be!” He waved his hands rapturously. “Fleets of pleasure craft at the wharves!”

“Undersea craft, too,” Talitha suggested.

“All kinds of water recreation. Fishing—those weird things in the ocean ought to provide plenty of excitement. Never know what you’ll catch when you fish on Langri. A native festival every night. Gourmet feasts of native-prepared food. I’ve been blind. You kept saying this was like a vacation world, and I never saw it that way. This is the kind of thing Binoris will understand— developing a resource a world never knew it had. It’ll make my reputation. The Binoris appointment—”

He broke off and muttered, “Now that was a fast trip.”

Hort and Fornri were approaching along the beach. Wembling and Talitha walked to meet them.

“He was on his way to see you,” Hort told Wembling. “He wants to invite us to attend Dabbi’s death rites.”

“Yes, yes, of course we’ll come. Thank you. Fornri, I have a wonderful idea. All of Langri’s problems are solved. We’ll build a World Medical Center, and the Hot Sickness will never come again. We’ll build schools for the children, and there’ll be plenty of food and everything else Langri needs.”

Fornri smiled politely. “This is welcome news. Where do the things come from?”

“We’ll get them with money. I don’t know how much you know about that—money’s the one thing without which very little can be done. Medical centers and things like that require huge amounts of money, and we’ll get it for the world of Langri by establishing a vacation resort.”

Fornri’s polite smile did not waver, but his tone of voice was firm beyond any possibility of appeal. “No, thank you. We would not care for that. We will expect you at darkness for the death rites.” He took a backward step, delivered the native salute, and strode away.

Wembling stood looking after him. “You were right,” he told Talitha. “They’re laughing at me.”

He marched back to the embassy.

Hort said to Talitha, “Now that’s a puzzle. From the way Fornri turned it down he might have been expecting it. Whenever anything strange is offered, the natives ask highly astute questions and then they retire to think it over. He didn’t take time to flick an eyelash—and how would he know what a vacation resort is?”

Hort wanted to observe the preparations for the death rites, so he followed Fornri back to the village. Talitha returned to the embassy and found her uncle and Hirus Ayns talking in the office.

Ayns said, “If the natives are that stupid, I don’t suppose there’s anything we can do.”

“Why do you have to have their permission?” Talitha asked. “You’re doing it for them, aren’t you? You’re offering something that will save lives, and what possible harm can come from that?”

“It’s their world,” Wembling said. “It’s their decision to make, and they’ve made it.”

“Maybe they don’t understand what you’re trying to do. We know ‘medical center’ means good health and lives saved, but it may be gibberish to them. When a primitive people can’t understand, then the decisions should be made by someone who does.”

“I think Fornri understood,” Wembling said.

“He couldn’t watch that child die and immediately afterward turn down something that would save children’s lives. A vacation resort means the medical center, and schools, and a proper diet for his people with no risk of famine when those whatever-they-are can’t be caught, and decent housing, and all the rest. How could he reject that if he understood what you were talking about?”

“He’s the head of the government of the independent world of Langri,” Wembling said. “Whether he understands or not, the decision is his to make.” He turned to Ayns. “Do we have a copy of that treaty?”

Ayns pulled the general referencer toward him and punched buttons. “Yes. Here it is. What about it?”

“How does one obtain concessions under it?”

Ayns took the time to read the treaty. “You’d have to obtain them from the government of Langri,” he said finally.

Wembling strode to the window. He said over his shoulder, “How many places do you suppose that treaty is on file?”

“Not many. It isn’t an important treaty.”

“How many of them could you fix?”

“Some. Maybe half. It’d be much easier to fix the references so the computers would lose it for a few years. Would a few years be enough?”

“One year would be enough. What a fool I’ve been! All these months of work trying to peddle a few piddling ideas to these stupid natives and make myself ambassador to Binoris, and the mineral wealth of a dozen worlds couldn’t buy Langri’s vacation potential. I’ve had the financial coup of my life right under my nose and I never saw it.”

“What about the medical center?” Talitha asked.

“They’ll have their medical center. Right away. We’ll have to solve Langri’s health problems to protect our work force and the tourists, and the sooner we do that the better. You can go back on the next courier ship, Hirus, and get to work on that treaty. As soon as it’s taken care of we’ll get the world reclassified and apply for a charter.”

“It’ll take time and money to lose the treaty,” Ayns said.

“You can have all you need.” Wembling returned to his desk, adjusted his chair, and faced Ayns. “While you’re working on the treaty, you can set up an office for Wembling and Company and hire a sharp law firm. Look for some competent people in construction and resort planning. We can start stockpiling supplies immediately, so we’ll be ready to move the moment the charter is issued.”

“Won’t the natives object to that?” Ayns asked.

“Probably.” Wembling grinned at him. “I’ll tell them the stuff is for their medical center. Part of it will be. We’ll use the medical center as a pilot project.”

“You’ll need an expert in medical research,” Talitha said.

“Not an expert. Just a competent technician. We’ll bring one in the moment facilities are ready. He can give the world a routine going over and have the medical problems solved before the resort opens. A couple of cases of that Hot Sickness would destroy a resort. I promise you, Tal—we’ll solve all the natives’ medical problems. We’ll have to. The medical center will be a good investment in public relations, too, just in case later on there’s a stink about the treaty.”

“If the resort is going to make that much money, you should give the natives some of the profits,” Talitha said. “It’s their world you’ll be using.”

Wembling cocked his head and looked at Ayns, who nodded slowly. “Ten per cent?” Wembling asked. Ayns nodded again. “Good idea,” Wembling said. “We’ll put ten per cent of the profits in trust for them. When the treaty tampering is discovered, it’ll be more than worth the cost. It’ll make us look like humanitarians.” He turned to Talitha. “All right, Tal. Your natives will get their medical center and a thorough study of their diseases. They’ll also get ten per cent of the resort profits, and eventually that’ll be enough to support the whole native population. In addition, there’ll be a lot of resort jobs they can handle if they want them, and we’ll pay them well for festivals and koluf feasts for the tourists. They’ll be doing very nicely for themselves. Satisfactory?”

Talitha smiled and nodded.

“There is one thing, though.” He looked at her calculatingly. “I’m going to have to get rid of Hort.”

“Am I supposed to cry?” she asked belligerently. “If you have to, then get rid of him.”

“I thought you liked the guy.”

“I don’t dislike him. Away from Langri he might be an interesting person, but one gets tired of lectures about gourds and native hunting techniques.”

“Firing him might make him suspicious,” Ayns said. “Let me find him a plush assignment somewhere else.”

“Good idea. I won’t fire him, I’ll promote him. That all right with you, Tal?”

“Whatever you think best,” she said. “How soon will our medical center be ready?”

11

Fornri ran.

He widely circled the village, where Dabbi’s small body lay surrounded by mourners, and he moved at top speed along a forest path, forcing himself forward, ignoring protesting muscles and aching lungs, willing his body to respond to his desperate haste.

At a point where several paths intersected, he panted to a halt, looked about him carefully, and then burrowed into the apparently impenetrable undergrowth that lined the path.

He emerged in a small clearing. Two native youths were lolling in front of a native dwelling, bored with waiting for nothing to happen. Banu sat cross-legged on the ground nearby, head bowed, eyes closed, sifting his recollections. At one side was a hammock, where the Elder lay resting. All of them leaped up when Fornri burst upon them, and they waited expectantly while he tried to catch his breath.

Finally he was able to speak. He gasped, “The ambassador is the enemy!”

The secret headquarters was but one of many parts of the Plan that they could not understand. It was a meeting place for those responsible for the Plan. It also was the center of a complicated arrangement for keeping track of every alien on Langri. The children were organized into an army of small patrols, and the moment the ambassador or one of his staff made a move, a child nipped off at top speed to the secret headquarters to report that fact. A map had been sketched on the level ground in front of the dwelling, and by means of stones the position of every alien was marked, and his every movement followed.

They did it even though it made no sense to them, because the Plan said they should do it. In the beginning the embassy staff had been larger, and many of its members wandered about with little to do; but very soon the ambassador decided that they weren’t needed and sent them away. Of the four staff members remaining, three of them always accompanied the ambassador. Further, the ambassador had asked for natives to assist him and give him information when he needed it, and he never went anywhere without a large escort. The leadership council frequently debated why the children should bring reports about the ambassador when he always had adult natives with him.

Then there was Aric Hort, who very quickly became one of them, a genuine friend who was always willing to help them in disagreements with the ambassador. It seemed almost a breach of friendship to be following him about secretly when everything he did was done so openly.

The Plan said they must know where everyone was, all the time, and they followed the Plan. They had no choice.

The ambassador’s sister-daughter introduced a complication that made the Plan’s dictates more understandable. Everything she did was unpredictable. Worse, others reacted strangely to her. Aric Hort, having announced that he would go to a certain place, or do a certain thing, would meet her along the way and go elsewhere to do something entirely different.

That was bad enough, but the ambassador’s unexpected dash into the forest to show his sister-daughter the ferry, along with Aric Hort’s dash after them, left the council confounded. After weeks and months of painstaking care always to have the ferries in use when the ambassador passed that way, it was a shock to have their secret discovered by Miss Warr. Aric Hort had known, but they knew instinctively that Hort would not tell the ambassador. They knew nothing at all about Miss Warr.

The incident prompted a debate. Fornri sat on the ground before the map, scowling at the stones representing the ambassador, Miss Warr, and Aric Hort and attempting to fathom this turn of events that so swiftly and inexplicably moved them from embassy to forest. The Elder, who always was present in their deliberations but rarely spoke, looked on solemnly while others furiously argued the import of Miss Warr’s seeing Rarnt and Mano cross a stream without using the ferry.

Finally Fornri said, “Banu?”

Banu was in his usual position, legs crossed, head bowed. He spoke without moving. “Nothing. She is not important.”

“I think the sister-daughter of the ambassador is important,” Fornri said.

Narrif, who frequently opposed Fornri, remarked lightly, “She laughs at us and our world. Soon she will leave. She has said so. How can she be important?”

Dalla asked, “What are the marriage customs of the ambassador’s people? Airk is attracted to her, and he is our friend. If they were to marry—”

“Is she attracted to him?” Tollof asked. “Would Airk need her consent or the ambassador’s?”

In the silence that followed, Fornri gave the boy who had brought the message a friendly pat and sent him away to rest. He said, “The next time Airk questions any of us concerning our customs, he should be asked about his own marriage customs.”

In the end they did nothing, and if the ambassador’s sister-daughter told him of the river crossing, he never mentioned it. But once again the wisdom of the Langri’s Plan stood starkly revealed to them, and never after that did anyone question the need for knowing where everyone was, always.

It worried Fornri desperately that there were so few questions they could resolve, and that a growing minority of the council advocated rash moves or—occasionally—disregarding the Plan. He knew that soon he would lose his leadership, for almost every decision he made was challenged by Narrif, and that worried him—not because Narrif was incapable, for he was very capable, but Fornri feared that he would not follow the Plan.

Everything the Plan predicted had happened, every instruction they had followed succeeded easily, and Fornri needed no further evidence of the Langri’s infallibility. Either they followed the Plan, or they would lose their world and their lives.

The fate of his people depended on his leadership, and he found it increasingly difficult to lead. Even when the Plan clearly told them what should be done, it sometimes was impossible to say when it should be done.

Almost daily Narrif would ask Fornri, “Have you spoken to Airk about the message to the attorneys?”

And Fornri would reply, “I am asking him, one at a time, the questions the Langri suggested.”

“Are you still testing his friendship?” Narrif would exclaim. “Surely Airk is a friend worthy of trust.”

Fornri could only answer that he agreed, but when possible he preferred to follow the Langri’s wisdom rather than his own; and then Banu would dredge up an appropriate recollection: “The Langri said—a friend worthy of trust won’t object to proving his worthiness.”

Then there were the crystals. The Langri had said that they should be converted into monetary credits as soon as possible, but they feared to mention them to anyone until they fully understood what must be done and had friends whose worthiness was tested. The Langri himself had told them, over and over, how strangers would prey upon them if they were not alert.

The most difficult thing of all was not knowing whom the Plan was directed against. They could not identify their enemy. Some thought it was the ambassador, but there was no proof, and the ambassador seemed to be sincerely trying to help them. Further, the Langri himself had said that the enemy might not arrive for years after the first spaceship.

Fornri felt increasingly alienated from the other members of the council. That Dalla frequently joined his opponents hurt him most of all. It had been a long time since they shared their joy, and the burden of leadership grew heavier and heavier on him.

But now they knew the enemy.

The others listened, heard Banu recite tonelessly what the Langri had said about the first person who got the idea of building a vacation resort on their world, and doubtfully assented.

“What do we do?” Dalla asked.

Fornri did not know. He said slowly, “The Langri told us so much, and we understand so little.”

“What will the ambassador do?” Dalla asked. “What can he do?”

No one knew.

“We must continue to watch with care,” Fornri suggested, and at least no one could disagree with that.

They watched, and they waited, and nothing happened. One of the embassy staff, Hirus Ayns, left on the courier ship to visit his family. Their friend Aric Hort seemed increasingly preoccupied, but when Fornri asked him why he was troubled, he would only say, “There’s something peculiar going on, and I can’t find out what it is.”

Nothing seemed to have changed. The ambassador marched about each day making suggestions that they usually declined with thanks. The ambassador’s sister-daughter continued to spend her days on the beach, doing nothing at all, and that, too, they found incomprehensible. Aric Hort’s somber mood puzzled them only until Dalla observed that he no longer was seen with Miss Warr.

Fornri, taking an overland short cut through the forest near the embassy, suddenly heard the faint, shrill whistle of an incoming spaceship. Perplexed, he halted and listened. The courier ship was not due for many weeks, and no other ship came to Langri.

A moment later he was able to distinguish a second whistle, and a third, and he broke into a run. By the time he reached the edge of the forest and stood looking down on the landing field, two ships had landed and a third was settling to ground. He paused a moment to stare at them, because they were the largest ships he had seen except for the navy battle cruiser.

Then he hurried down to them.

The man the ambassador was talking with wore a uniform that vaguely reminded Fornri of the clothing Captain Dallman had worn. The two of them were leafing through a thick stack of the plastic sheets the aliens used for records.

Fornri, still breathing deeply from his long run, slowed to a walk and tried to catch his breath as he approached. The ambassador greeted him with his usual broad smile.

“Captain,” he said, “this is Fornri, the leader of the Langri Government.”

“Honored,” the captain murmured, snapping off a salute.

Fornri acknowledged it gravely before turning to the ambassador. “May I ask why these ships have landed without official clearance?”

The ambassador seemed astonished. “But you gave us permission to land routine supplies at any time!”

“The permission applied only to the courier ship,” Fornri said. He hesitated; what he was about to do troubled him, but the Plan offered no alternative. “I must ask that these ships leave immediately.”

The ambassador was smiling again. “Frankly, I wanted to surprise you, but I suppose I’ll have to tell you about it. You may want to keep it as a surprise for your people, though. These ships have brought part of Langri’s new medical center.”

“Medical center?” Fornri echoed blankly.

“I’m also bringing in a doctor to study Langri’s diseases, so no more children will have to share Dabbi’s fate. This is a gift to the people of Langri from Wembling and Company.”

Fornri stared at him. “Wembling and Company?”

They were angry. Often the council members had been resentful of Fornri, but now they were openly rebellious.

“I can’t believe that an enemy would give us a medical center!” Narrif exclaimed.

Banu, seated as usual with bowed head and closed eyes, completed the search of his memory. “The Langri didn’t mention a medical center,” he said.

Fornri said stubbornly, “We must refuse this gift and ask the ships to leave.”

Dalla turned on him furiously. “What harm can come of a medical center? How can it be bad to save lives?”

“The Langri said gifts always have a price,” Fornri said slowly. “He said to beware of them, or we might learn too late that we have sold our world and ourselves.”

“How can there be a price on something that is freely given?” Dalla demanded. “Are you too proud to admit that we need this medical center? Must we watch our children die while Fornri enjoys his pride?”

Fornri said wearily, “I ask your support. We must refuse this medical center and ask the ships to leave.” He looked about the circle of silent, hostile faces. “Very well,” he said finally. “According to the Plan, you must choose a new leader.”

He had intended merely to step down from the leadership and become a member of the council, but when he took a place beside Dalla, she deliberately turned her back to him. Slowly, feeling very tired, he pushed through the undergrowth and walked off into the forest.

Later the Elder found him, and after they had talked long together, they walked toward the embassy looking for Aric Hort. They came upon him at the edge of the landing field, talking with Talitha Warr, and at the sound of angry, raised voices they discreetly watched from the concealment of a convenient cluster of bushes.

“There’s such a thing as too great a price!” Hort shouted.

“Too great a price for whom?” Miss Warr returned. “For Dabbi? Someone has to violate the natives’ rights in order to save their lives!”

“It isn’t that simple. You have to understand—”

“I understand that you can watch a child die without being affected,” she said furiously. “I can’t.”

She stormed off, leaving Hort looking after her. Finally he walked a short distance to a group of boulders and sat down to watch the bustle of unloading around the ships.

He greeted Fornri and the Elder with a wan smile when they approached him. “My friends,” he said, “I need your help. The ambassador wants to send me to another world. I’d rather stay here, so I’m no longer employed by him. Have I your permission to remain on Langri?”

“We implore you to remain,” the Elder said. “I fear that my people are in serious trouble.”

“That is my fear,” Hort said soberly.

“We welcome your presence as a friend, and we need your counsel,” Fornri said. “Now more than ever. Have you found a way to send a message to the attorneys?”

“The problem was to find a safe way to send a message,” Hort said. “The answer is no. Every ship that lands here from now on will be owned or chartered by Wembling and Company—I have a hunch that we won’t see the courier ship again. If we paid a crewman to smuggle out a message, he would guess that the ambassador would pay more to know what the message said, and he’d be right. It’s a difficult problem.”

“What if one of us were to go to see the attorneys?” the Elder asked.

Hort smiled at them. “You’re asking whether it would be easier to smuggle out a person than a message. Probably not. It might be possible to have someone leave openly, as a passenger; and when a passenger pays his passage there are laws protecting him and he’s under no obligation to tell the captain his ultimate destination or why he’s going. Whoever went would find it a frightening experience. Whom were you going to send?”

“Fornri,” the Elder said. “Since he has lost his leadership—”

“What?”

Hort scrutinized their faces. “So that’s how it is,” he said finally. “Tried to get them to turn it down, did you? And they wouldn’t. I don’t know if it would have made any difference. I don’t know—yet—just how Wembling means to do it and how he expects to get away with it, but obviously he intends to build a resort, whether you want one or not. By accepting the medical center, they’re making it much easier for him. So you want to see the attorneys yourself.”

“If that is possible,” Fornri said.

“It may be much worse than a frightening experience. It may be worse than terrifying.”

“If you will tell me what to expect and what I must do,” Fornri said, “I will go in confidence.”

“There won’t be any trouble about the passage,” Hort said. “Ill tell Wembling that I’m leaving, and he’ll be so pleased he’ll arrange it himself. Just before the ship lifts you can go aboard in my place. You’ll need clothing. I’ll see what I can buy from the crewmen.”

“When would I go?” Fornri asked.

“There’s a ship leaving tonight, but that’s rather soon. I think on the last of these three, if I can arrange it. We’ll need as much time as possible. I’ll send you first to a friend of mine, who is also an anthropologist. He’ll be delighted to give you lessons in civilization, and he’ll help you find those attorneys. Or, if that firm no longer exists, perhaps he can help you find another.”

“There is one thing more,” Fornri said. “We have some retron crystals.”

“Really?” Hort exclaimed. “You actually have some crystals? Now that’s interesting!”

“We would like to convert them to monetary units. Should I take them with me?”

“Certainly not. Crystals have to be transported in special containers, or their emissions mess up a ship’s instrumentation. You’d be asked to leave the ship before lift-off. Maybe the attorneys could help you find out how to do it.”

The three of them sat for a time in silence, looking down at the ships. Finally Hort said to the Elder, “Has Langri developed any sayings about the fickleness of women?”

“Many,” the Elder said. “But I think the word is ‘contrariness.’”

Hort nodded. “Yes. That’s the word.”

12

In the background stood the geodesic frameworks for the clusters of small domes that were to constitute the medical center. A machine was at work leveling the top of the bluff on which the building was being erected. Talitha Warr strode about confidently, giving instructions; the foreman followed her, and Dalla followed the foreman, and both listened attentively.

“A sturdy wall,” Talitha said. “We don’t want anyone falling over the edge. Resident patients can come here and enjoy the breeze and the sea view.”

The foreman scowled and scratched his bead. “Resident patients? The plans don’t call for no hospital accommodations.”

“The hospital will be at the rear of the medical center,” Talitha said. “As much as possible we’ll keep the patients in native-style buildings. They’ll be more comfortable in familiar surroundings. The center will house the various treatment and surgical and laboratory clinics.”

“I see.”

“Back there we’ll put the children’s playground,” Talitha said, pointing. “Over here I want a formal park laid out, with a fountain and the most attractive Langrian flowers and shrubs we can find. Now—about the road down to the beach. I want the grade as easy as possible. Sick patients will have to climb it, or their friends will have to carry them up. I’d like to have a lift for them, but I’m afraid it’d be too expensive.”

“Doesn’t have to be,” the foreman said. “We can cobble up something for you.”

Talitha shook her head firmly. “Uncle offered me a platform pulled up by ropes and pulleys and things, and I turned it down. I’m not having my patients falling out of a lift. Let’s just concentrate on making that road with the easiest grade possible.”

Aric Hort and the Elder stood at the edge of the forest looking down at the medical center construction site and the lovely sweep of sea and shore beyond it. Hort lowered his binoculars. “Miss Warr is firmly in charge,” he said. “They seem to be making good progress. It’ll be an attractive building. I’m relieved about that—I was afraid they’d put up more of those hideous prefabs.”

The Elder said nothing. Hort looked at him for a moment and then he raised his binoculars again. “So Dalla is going to study nursing,” he remarked.

“Miss Warr will teach her,” the Elder said. “It’s all right, isn’t it?”

“Of course. Hard to argue against health care and medical centers and the like, even when Wembling is importing a thousand times the supplies and materials the medical center will require. Has the council bothered to look at the landing field lately? The cargo holders are piled eight high and eight deep all along one side of the field.”

“Narrif says he is tired of senseless complaints about the ambassador.”

“That’s unfortunate. They ought to have some notion of what a small building like the medical center requires. At a guess, ten cargo holders, and someone ought to ask the ambassador what he intends to do with the other six hundred. Let’s hope that Fornri and the attorneys will be ready to act the moment the council’s eyes are opened.”

“Narrif feels that the attorneys aren’t necessary. He talks of preventing Fornri from using Langri’s money to pay them.”

“Narrif is getting suspiciously friendly with the ambassador,” Hort said. “I’ve noticed that he calls at the embassy every day.”

“I, too, have noticed that.”

The two men seated themselves on the broad trunk of a fallen tree, and Hort continued to study the medical center site with his binoculars.

“I’ve noticed that Narrif is courting Dalla,” Hort said. “Has she had a change of desire?”

The Elder smiled. “I think her desire will always be Fornri’s.”

“Too bad she didn’t realize that before he left. Her turning against him hurt most of all.”

“She did realize it,” the Elder said. “She came to the ship. Perhaps she would have spoken to him if he’d been alone, but because we were with him she held back until it was too late. I saw her weeping in the forest above the landing field after the ship left.” He paused. “She asked about him yesterday.”

“By strange coincidence, so did Wembling. He hasn’t quite figured out what’s happening, but he’s highly suspicious. We were wise to tell Fornri not to send any messages. Wembling passes my mail along to me, but he opens it first.”

“Are you comfortable living alone in the forest?” the Elder asked anxiously. “Any village would be honored to be your host.”

“Thank you, but I’m very comfortable. It gives me a sense of achievement, living in a dwelling I built myself—even if I never did get the walls woven right.”

“You could have built your own dwelling in one of the villages.”

“True, but I think I’m more useful where I am. I’m close enough to Wembling’s iniquities to keep track of them, but not so close that he’ll think me a nuisance. You can tell Dalla that we’re confident Fornri’s all right. My friend will look after him. What worries me is that Wembling may have his resort built and in operation before Fornri can get an appointment with the attorneys.”

Hirus Ayns returned on one of Wembling and Company’s freighters, and Wembling was waiting for him when he came down the ramp. He grabbed his hand anxiously and asked, “Well?”

“No problems,” Ayns said. “I have your charter.”

“I was getting worried.”

“I told you it would take time, and you told me not to communicate.”

“I know—any kind of a leak would have crimped the whole show. But I’ve got a fortune stacked up here, and if the natives had decided to confiscate the stuff I wouldn’t have had a legal leg to stand on. You really got it?”

Ayns grinned and handed the document to him. Wembling read it eagerly. Then he turned and shouted, “It’s all right. Break out the machines and let’s get going.” He turned back to Ayns. “What about the rest of my work force?”

“The ship should get in day after tomorrow.”

“Good. Now we can stop this dratted acting and get to work.”

Workers were removing tarps from the long rows of enormous cargo holders. At one end they pulled off dummy facings and removed blocks from the concealed construction machines. The first motor whirred, and an earth planer crept ponderously across the landing field. Others followed. The surveying crew was bustling about locating its hidden stakes and replacing them with visible ones. Wembling, watching with deep satisfaction, saw the first machine take its first deep bite of Langrian soil.

Dalla had been going from village to village talking about the medical center and recruiting young people to study nursing there. It was Miss Warr’s idea that every village should have its own trained nurses.

Narrif offered to take her. He found a crew of boys willing to serve as paddlers, and they went down the coast by boat, stopping at every village. Then at dusk, when they reached the last village she planned to visit that day, he sent the boat back without telling her; and when she had finished he suggested that they walk.

She knew his wish—that they should go to a Bower Hill for the night—and she declined firmly. He had asked her often since Fornri left, but even had her desire changed, she could not have consented because she had not offered Fornri the broken branch. She had no intention of doing so—if the broken branch came between them, it would have to be his offering—but Narrif thought she had not offered it because Fornri left suddenly, and he tried to convince her that the offering was no longer necessary.

He followed her through the forest, arguing angrily and telling her that Fornri had fled like a coward because the council had refused his leadership. He was still making surly remarks as they passed along a forest path near the embassy, and a sudden awareness of strange sounds silenced him and halted both of them.

They turned aside, and—very cautiously, because the sounds were frighteningly strange—they made their way to the edge of the forest, parted the foliage, and looked out.

Between them and the sea the land had been carved with hideous slashes. There were strangely shaped monsters tearing at it, and others were smashing and devouring the trees. Near the beach stood a row of strange dwellings like those of the embassy, and while they watched a flat object suddenly flung up walls and roof and became another dwelling.

Staring down at the appalling devastation, frightened, angry, Dalla exclaimed, “Fornri was right! The ambassador is the enemy!”

13

The clothing Fornri wore chafed him awkwardly weeks after they said he would become accustomed to it. The marvels they promised to show him gave him a turmoil of impressions, some of which he would have preferred not to believe.

He worried about what might be happening to his own world, where the marvels were the colors of the forests, and the soft warmth of the beach sand, and the crisp, fragrant breeze off the sea. He missed Dalla enormously. He was lonely, confused, very tired, and frightened—for he had to make decisions that would affect the entire future of his people and his world, and the thought of a wrong choice terrified him.

This was another building of the stone that was not stone. Above the vaulted entrance were words he did not understand even after they were explained: hall of justice, and interworld division.

Fornri had arrived in one of the strange, bubblelike air boats that darted everywhere above the city’s vast and intricate skyline. His companion was Jarvis Jarnes, of the firm of McLindorffer, Klarouse, Hraanl, Picrawley, Webluston, and Jarnes. As the Langri had foretold, its name had been changed.

Just inside the vast entrance, they stepped onto a floor-that-moved. This was one of the things Jarnes and his friends expected Fornri to marvel at, and he could only wonder why they did not walk, which would have been so much faster. On this day Jarnes went to a room called Interworld Law Library. He had explained what he would do—ask the strange machine-that-remembers about other legal actions that could have had to do with troubles like those of Langri’s, and in Jarnes’s notebook were long lists of questions that he thought might stir the machine’s memory; but through all the questions the dark green panel that should have answered only flashed, at intervals, the symbol that said it did not know.

On the way out they stopped to pay the attendant for the use of the machine. Jarnes presented a circular token, which the attendant fitted into a machine that growled over it.

“Still no luck?” the attendant asked. “There couldn’t possibly be a legal question with no references!”

Jarnes smiled wistfully and said, “Couldn’t there?”

They rode the moving floor again and got off at a room marked registrar, interworld pacts and compacts, where Jarnes talked with an attendant. The attendant consulted his own machine-that-remembers and shook his head. They rode on, to a room marked extra-federation registrar, with the same result.

Finally they rode to the Justice Arena.

They left the moving floor and followed a broad corridor that encircled the justice chambers. The curving outer wall of each chamber was transparent—a genuine marvel—and within it the two side walls narrowed almost to a point at the dais where opposing attorneys faced each other across the consoles of their machines-that-remember. Above them sat the clerk, and above and behind him sat the justice—except that the justice was not really there. His image appeared when the session opened and disappeared when it closed, and no amount of explaining by Jarnes could make Fornri understand this marvel called a three-dimensional projection.

At the rear of the chamber were chairs for spectators. In some chambers the chairs were filled and people were standing; in others, the principals performed without an audience.

Fornri gaped into each chamber as he passed it. Someday the fate of his world would be decided in one of them, and Jarnes had explained the procedures as well as he could. Each chamber contained its own contest, no two of them alike. In one chamber both attorneys were on their feet, violently angry, while the clerk stood waving for order. In another the attorneys seemed bored and the justice appeared to be asleep. In a third the drama of the legal contest was unfolding in such a fascinating pantomime that Fornri stopped to watch. Jarnes moved on without him and then returned for him with a smile.

Finally they reached their destination and paused to wait. Inside the chamber, the legal proceedings were coming to an end. The justice’s image faded; the sign over the entrance that read justice in session darkened; and Jarnes touched Fornri’s arm and led him into the chamber.

The two attorneys were sorting out their reference disks and placing them in cases. Fornri eyed the disks curiously. These strange objects conveyed messages to the machine-that-remembers, and if they matched its memories in certain ways more appropriate than the disks of the other attorney, the lawsuit was won. It seemed wildly improbable to Fornri, but Jarnes had explained it to him, and he had to believe.

The clerk was starting for the private exit behind his desk, carrying an armful of the strangely perforated records spewed out by the machines-that-remember. Jarnes hurried to overtake him, and the clerk turned with a smile of recognition.

“Ah! Submaster Jarnes!”

“Clerk Wyland,” Jarnes said, and introduced Fornri; and the clerk, too burdened with his rolls of records to touch hands, nodded and smiled.

“I received the letter from your Master McLindorffer,” the clerk said. “Come this way, please.”

Beyond the door was the marvel that had impressed Fornri most of all, the VMS, verticle movement shafts. One shaft gently raised one to the upper levels of a building; the other sank one to the lower levels. The first time Fornri had encountered them he spent an hour of intense pleasure soaring to the top and then sinking to the bottom, until an amused Jarvis Jarnes had beckoned him away.

This time they rose only one level, and Fornri, following the others, checked his ascent by extending his hand and was gently drawn through the door that dropped open. They walked along a corridor, and Clerk Wyland dropped open the door of his office and motioned them through it.

Inside, he placed his rolls of records on his desk and arranged chairs for them before he seated himself.

“So this is the young man from Langri,” he said. He was an extremely rotund individual with a completely bald head, but his smile was warm and engaging, and Fornri liked him despite his grotesque appearance. “Any progress?” he asked Jarnes.

“None at all,” Jarnes said.

Clerk Wyland scratched his nose fretfully. “It would be extremely difficult to erase the treaty in all of its references. I’d think it impossible. They probably tampered with the references.” He turned to smile at Fornri, who was gazing at him blankly. “That may seem mysterious, but really it isn’t. Supposing I were to tell you, ‘Whenever you hear the word “chair,” stand up.’ And then, when I’m not looking, Submaster Jarnes whispers to you, The rules have been changed. Don’t pay any attention to the word “chair.” Stand up when you hear the word “table.”’ When I want you to stand up I say ‘chair,’ and I can’t understand why you won’t respond. In a vastly more complicated way, something like this happened to your treaty. Someone secretly and illegally sent out a general reference correction. Your treaty remains in all of the proper files, but no one can locate it without knowing the magic word—just as I couldn’t get you to stand up by saying ‘chair’ when someone had told you secretly that the word had been changed to ‘table.’”

Fornri continued to regard him blankly, wondering whether Clerk Wyland actually wanted him to stand up and why.

“Of course the references are a bit more involved than the words ‘chair’ and ‘table,’” Clerk Wyland said.

“Just a bit,” Jarnes agreed, with a wistful smile.

“But something like that must have happened, and now we won’t be able to find the Langri treaty officially until we figure out what the new reference is—just as I wouldn’t have been able to make you stand up until I tried out a lot of words and found that you were now responding to ‘table.’ It shouldn’t be possible to tamper with a reference—aside from the technical difficulties, there are all sorts of safeguards, and there are stiff penalties for even trying, but someone has done it.”

“Someone was bribed to do it,” Jarnes amended.

“Undoubtedly. And sooner or later—”

“Even ‘sooner’ will be much too late,” Jarnes said grimly. “I told you—Fornri brought a complete report from Aric Hort, who is a competent anthropologist and a former employee of this man Wembling. The world of Langri is about to suffer an ecological catastrophe. The natives’ food supply will be wiped out.”

“Yes, indeed,” Clerk Wyland said, with a side glance at Fornri. “The poor natives. Master McLindorffer informed me as to the urgency of the problem, and I consulted with Justice Laysoring, as I promised. He saw no hope at all for an action on the treaty. It’s an extra-Federation matter. No Federation court would assume jurisdiction.”

“The only other source of redress would be the legislature,” Jarnes said glumly. “Since the party in power is also the party responsible for the injustice, the outlook is less than bright.” Clerk Wyland gestured forlornly. “That leaves only one point of attack for us,” Jarnes went on. “Wembling’s charter. Rather, his use of his charter, since the courts would decline jurisdiction on any question concerning its legality.”

Clerk Wyland nodded. “Justice Laysoring agrees that each of the points your Master McLindorffer listed has legal validity and should secure you a temporary injunction with a temporary restraining order stopping Wembling’s work until the hearing. He also gives it as his opinion that none of the points would be sustained.”

Jarnes turned to Fornri. “Do you understand all this? The copy of your treaty means nothing unless something official exists that it is a copy of. Wembling somehow managed to get the official version lost. Eventually it’ll be found again, perhaps with appropriate scandal, but that may not happen for years. There are various legal questions we can raise, but the best we can hope for is to delay and harass Wembling and Company. We can make him stop work on his resort while the legal questions we raise are being decided—one week, two weeks, sometimes a little longer. There’s very little chance that we could win one of these actions. They will be extremely expensive, and the most we can hope to gain for you is a little time.”

“Time is what we need,” Fornri said. “Time for the Plan.”

“Do they have money?” the clerk asked.

“That’s another peculiarity about this case. The Federation Office of External Affairs maintains that Langri is a dependent world. The Bank of the Galaxy has half a million credits, plus some interest, registered to a Government of Langri. Oddly enough, that half million credits was deposited to the Government of Langri by the same Federation Office of External Affairs that now maintains there is no such government. Would you care to comment?”

“You can’t amaze me with governmental stupidities,” Clerk Wyland said. “I’ve seen too many of them. You’ll be able to stir things up a little with the half million—but only a little, unfortunately. A fortune doesn’t buy much legal action on the interworld market.”

“Yes. They also have a cache of retron crystals. From Fornri’s description I’d estimate the value at a minimum million credits and possibly as much as two million. Enough to stir things up quite a bit. Problem is getting the crystals back here. Would it be feasible to have a couple of marshals sent to Langri when we make our first filing? They’d be on the scene to answer any court questions, and they could make certain that Wembling does in fact stop work when an injunction is issued.”

Clerk Wyland nodded eagerly. “It would have to be done at your expense, but relatively the cost would be a pittance and well worth it. Otherwise Wembling might take no notice of your actions.”

“When eventually the marshals returned, they could be instructed to bring sealed containers of records or other objects of value the natives wished to send to their attorneys. We could provide the necessary containers to mask the retron interference. Feasible?”

“Entirely feasible,” the clerk agreed.

“Fornri could return to Langri with the marshals, and we’d send communications equipment with him. The natives won’t be able to entrust any secrets to it, because Wembling certainly will intercept every message they send, but the fact that they are able to communicate will help us immensely and restrain Wembling a bit. Maybe we could arrange for the marshals to deputize this anthropologist Hort so there’ll be someone permanently on the scene who can make official reports.”

“Excellent idea,” the clerk said. “If there’s an observer on the scene who can report violations, Wembling will obey court orders scrupulously. He won’t want the investigation that a contempt citation would provoke. How will you begin?”

“By questioning Wembling’s use of his charter. The charter gives him the right to develop Langri’s natural resources. Actually he’s building a vacation resort, which should be, ipso facto, a violation of the charter.”

Clerk Wyland flashed his smile and nodded approvingly. “Have you searched it?”

“Yes. There’s no firm authority as to whether a vacation resort constitutes the development of natural resources. It would require a new point of law.”

“Very good. That should give you a handsome delay—perhaps as much as three or four weeks.”

“I hope so,” Jarnes said. He turned to Fornri. “I’d feel better about this if I knew what your Plan is, but since you’d rather not say—and I can understand that the universe must seem like a rather bewildering place right now and you’d rather keep your own secrets until you know us better—I’ll spend your money as wisely as I can and stop Wembling’s work as often and as long as I can. At the moment that’s the only thing I can do, but it will give you a little time for your Plan.”

“Thank you,” Fornri said. “We need all the time you can find for us.”

“Then we’ll do it that way. Since I haven’t got a Plan, I might as well help you as much as I can with yours, whatever it is. In the meantime, I’m sure you’re needed on Langri, so we’ll send you back with the marshals and the communications equipment.”

“May I give you some advice, Fornri?” Clerk Wyland asked. “This Plan of yours. Don’t let it get you into trouble. Mr. H. Harlow Wembling has a charter, which is a very weighty document, and the law is on his side. If you try to interfere with him, except through the courts, you can do yourself substantially more harm than good. Leave that problem to Submaster Jarnes. He’ll do the very best he can for you, and one careless act there on Langri might destroy everything he accomplishes here.”

Fornri smiled politely and nodded.

14

H. Harlow Wembling had developed the habit of looking out of one particular window of his embassy office. Now his office was in a different location—all of the embassy buildings had been moved down the slope to the construction area, where dormitories, offices, and workshops made up a small village—but in his idle moments Wembling continued to look out of the same window.

It faced on the ocean, and now the beach was crowded the way he had anticipated when he envisioned his resort—except that it was crowded with Wembling and Company’s idle work force. Men and women were cavorting in and out of the water and playing silly games, and Wembling glowered at them.

Hirus Ayns came in and seated himself. Wembling said, without turning around, “Any news?”

“About lifting the injunction, no. Otherwise, one small item. Fornri is back.”

Wembling turned.

“Narrif told me,” Ayns said. “He arrived with the marshals-he was the mysterious third passenger, and he managed to slip off the ship without being noticed. They’ve made him head of the council again.”

“Pity,” Wembling said. “I think we could have come to an agreement with Narrif, but we’ll never manage it with Fornri. He’s as smooth a scoundrel as I’ve ever met. So he came with the marshals.” He paused for a moment. Then he exclaimed, “So it was Fornri that started the legal action!”

“Right. And until the natives spend that half million credits they collected in fines, you can count on more of the same. Let’s cut to a token work force until the natives run out of money or their attorneys run out of arguments.”

Wembling shook his head. “Time is much more important than money. We’ve got to get as much work done as possible before the blowup over the treaty. If we can only work between lawsuits, that’s better than no work at all. Anyway, this morning I reached an agreement with the overseers. As long as the court stops work, they’ll take half pay. They’ll still be making good wages in addition to having a glorious vacation. They hardly put up an argument. They were afraid I’d close down completely. No, I’ll keep everyone here. Did Narrif give you anything else?”

Ayns shook his head. “He’s frightened. He bought your line about the medical center. So did the others, but he led the way, and of course now they have to blame someone. There was a move to kick him off the council, but Fornri squelched it—he said if they punished everyone who made a mistake, the world would soon run out of councilors. But from now on I don’t think we’ll see much of Narrif.”

“Pity. He might have been useful.” Wembling ambled back to the window. “Right now there’s nothing we can do but wait.”

Two days later Wembling discharged most of his work force. He had received from his attorneys, the eminent firm of Khorwiss, Qwaanti, Mllo, Bylym, and Alaffro, an astute analysis of his legal position with a projection of the probable future legal actions to be expected from the natives’ attorneys. If all legal alternatives were explored, and if the natives’ money held out, they estimated that Wembling would be doing no work at all for the next six months. Wembling ordered transportation for his work force, keeping only a maintenance crew and the surveyors. The court had ruled that surveying stakes in no way permanently damaged a world. Wembling was permitted to set as many as he wished, and the natives were enjoined from interfering with them. This pleased Wembling. He could proceed with his first-stage planning, and less time would be lost than he had anticipated.

The other information he received pleased him less. Aric Hort was designated a reporting deputy marshal. Hort himself brought the information in the form of a notice from the marshals, who would be leaving shortly.

Wembling exploded. “Now I suppose I have to worry about a dirty double-crosser sending in false reports!”

“Certainly not,” Hort said with a grin. “True reports.”

The workmen left; the waiting dragged on. Finally the question of whether a vacation resort constituted a development of natural resources was resolved in Wembling’s favor. To the amazement of Wembling’s attorneys, Submaster Jarnes brought no further actions. Wembling gleefully hired a new work force, transported it to Langri, and again began tearing up meadows and forests; whereupon Jarnes struck again. Abruptly he appealed the natural resource ruling to Higher Court, and he astutely avoided having to deposit bond by pointing out that Wembling had brought in his work force before the period of appeal had expired. Higher Court merely extended the injunction previously in force, and Wembling again found himself glaring out of his office window at an entire work force cavorting in Langri’s enticing surf.

“So what do I do now?” Wembling demanded. “If I keep them here, he’ll hit me with injunction after injunction. If I send them home, he’ll wait with the next one until I bring in a new force.”

“Then keep ‘em here,” Ayns said. “If time is more important than money, make him play his whole hand. Then you can get to work.”

“Well—maybe. Except that I don’t need to keep all of them here. Just enough so they’ll think they have to keep me from using them.”

Submaster Jarnes followed the suit that challenged Wembling’s right to build a resort with another that questioned his right to run the resort after it was built. Wembling lost a week’s work before Higher Court voided the injunction, dryly affirming that if Wembling wanted to exercise his legal right to construct a resort that he might not be able to use, he had the right to do so. While the courts were meditating that question, Jarnes followed with another action asking the courts to prevent Wembling and Company from destroying Langri’s natural resources through the building of a resort, and to compensate the natives for those already destroyed. Construction was halted for five weeks, and a furious Wembling had to count each tree that had been removed, and tabulate cubic meters of soil redistributed, and tons of rock dumped into the ocean, and shrubs, herbs, and meadow grass crushed, dug up, or buried, and wild life driven away, knowing as he did so that the moment he won this idiotic suit Submaster Jarnes would have another ready.

Which he did.

The weeks became months, and Wembling could only contemplate his mounting costs and wait. Finally the day came when Master Khorwiss notified him that Jarnes had no more cards to play. Further, the courts were becoming highly impatient of these well-reasoned but legally unsound requests for injunctions. Wembling enlarged the work force so he could employ double shifts the moment the last injunction was lifted.

Aric Hort brought the message, as he had so many times previously. Wembling already had been informed by way of his own communications center, and once again he grudgingly verified that Hort was just as prompt in delivering news of an injunction dissolved as he was of an injunction imposed.

“Well, that ends this farce,” Wembling said, as Hort handed him the official release. “That was the last one.”

“If you say so,” Hort remarked agreeably.

Wembling eyed him suspiciously. “What infamies are the natives concocting now?”

“I’ve told you at least a dozen times that the natives don’t confide in anyone. If they ever do decide to trust me, you’ll be the last to know it.”

Hort strolled away, and Wembling, bristling with anger, stepped to the nearest com unit and sent his work force into action.

A few minutes later he was watching with satisfaction while his gigantic machines carved Langri’s soil and masticated its forest. Suddenly one of them leaned sideways at an unlikely, rakish angle and came to an abrupt stop. Wembling charged toward it and found the operator gazing bewilderedly at the left front wheel, which was firmly lodged in a deep hole.

“Of all the stupid things to do!” Wembling bellowed.

The operator protested that he hadn’t seen the hole.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t see it. You can’t drive a machine into a hole that big without seeing it. Don’t just stand there—let’s get it out, and fast, and next time look where you’re going.”

As Wembling turned to walk away, the ground dissolved beneath him. He landed with a thud and found himself standing waist-deep in a neatly incised hole. For a moment he ignored the helping hand extended by the operator and thought deeply. The hole obviously was freshly dug, and yet no dirt could be seen nearby. He could testify that it had been artfully hidden. It was, he reflected, of a size and depth nicely calculated to entrap the wheels of his machines.

“The natives did this!” he roared.

He shook off the operator’s hand and climbed out by himself. Ayns came hurrying up, and Wembling exhibited the hole. “They must have sneaked in and done it during the night. I want the entire site ringed with lighted sentry posts.”

“We don’t have enough men,” Ayns objected.

“We’ll get enough men. I want those sentry posts operating tonight.”

He turned to watch another machine lumbering past. Abruptly he leaped toward it, screaming, “Stop!”

The machine skidded to a halt a few centimeters from a native who had sprung out of nowhere to fling himself across its path. As Wembling charged up, the operator got out and bent over the native.

“There’s nothing wrong with him,” the operator said. “He just laid down there to interfere with the work. Let me run over him and put a stop to this nonsense.”

“You fool!” Wembling bellowed. “That’s the one thing that could cost me my charter. I don’t dare harm a native, and they know it. They don’t dare harm one of you, and they know that, too. Take him over to the forest and throw him in. Next time, be on the lookout for something like this.”

He waved some workmen over, and they picked up the native and carried him away. The operator mounted his machine, and before he could get it in motion another native darted up and sprawled in front of it.

“I’m beginning not to like this job,” the operator growled.

Wembling paid no attention. He had glimpsed a peculiar movement at the edge of the forest. He raised his binoculars, and then he broke into a run. By the time he arrived, one of his machines had raised itself into the air only to fall back with a crash as a tree collapsed on top of it.

The operator babbled excitedly. “Native was in that tree. He fed a vine into the winding drum. I didn’t pay no attention—what’s a little vine to a machine that big and heavy—and then, before I could get back to shut the thing off—”

Wembling turned on his heel and walked away. He was past anger. For the remainder of the day he watched without comment while the ground repeatedly collapsed under his machines and natives persistently halted the work; and at the end of the day he expressed no surprise whatsoever when Ayns came to report seven men missing.

“The natives are playing right into our hands,” he said grimly. “This time they’ve gone much too far, and they’re not going to get away with it.”

“The men are alarmed,” Ayns said. “If we don’t light the dormitory area tonight and put a strong guard there, well lose our work force.”

“If we do, we can’t protect the construction site,” Wembling protested. “The natives’ll riddle it with holes and commit all kinds of deviltry.”

Ayns repeated firmly, “We’ll lose our work force.”

Wembling raised his arms resignedly. “All right. Set the guard around the dormitories.”

Looking out of his bedroom window, Wembling cursed the lights. They perfectly illuminated the area around the buildings, but beyond the bright swath they cut through the still Langrian night, he could see nothing at all. If the natives possessed any kind of a weapon that was effective from a distance, they would be helpless.

Seven of his men had disappeared without a trace. Each of them had been working alone near the edge of the forest, and in a matter of seconds he had vanished.

“Probably overpowered by a mob and carried off,” Ayns said, but it made no difference whether it had been done by a mob or by sorcery. The entire work force was in a panic. Wembling had said the natives wouldn’t dare, and they had dared. Probably they thought they had nothing to lose, and as far as Wembling could figure out, they were right. He dared not attempt any kind of retaliation.

Work procedures would have to be revised. In the future his men would have to work in groups, with the site guarded both day and night. The additional expense could be written off, but it would slow the work.

Abruptly the night erupted. Shouts, screams, the hellish thud, thud, thud of native drums, the deep honks of their signal gourds, all blended into a horrifying cacophony. Wembling raced to his door and looked out. Something enormous crashed and thudded across the construction site, and he took one glance at the monstrous, looming, shadowy form that suddenly roared into the circle of light and fled toward the rear of the building. It struck with a hollow, popping sound that made his ears ring, accompanied by a splintering crash. It was followed by another, and still another, and the fourth struck Wembling’s office and skidded it sideways into the next building.

Silence rushed in for a moment, and then the shouts and curses of the work force rent the night. Wembling crawled out from under a table, shakily confirmed that he had no bones broken, and went to assess the damage.

Ayns, with several of the sentries, was outside studying the remains of the object that had struck the office. “The natives rolled some of those silly gourds down the slope,” he said. Then he exclaimed sharply, “What’s that?”

The sentries hauled a squirming figure from the slimy pulp. It was one of the missing men. Fumbling distastefully, they found another. Other sentries were performing similar rescues from the slimy remains of the other gourds.

“Are they all right?” Wembling demanded.

“We don’t know yet,” Ayns answered.

They had been bound and gagged and stuffed into the large gourds with protective small gourd helmets on their heads. Not only did they show no gratitude for their release, but they were, all of them, thunderingly angry—not at the natives, but at Wembling. While they flexed cramped limbs and stomped feeling into numbed feet, they poured torrents of abuse on Wembling and Company and all of its works.

“Now just a moment,” Wembling said. “Maybe you had a rough time, but you don’t seem any the worse for it, and I don’t have to stand for that. Report in the morning for disciplinary action.”

“I’ll report in the morning for transportation,” a worker snapped. “I quit.”

“Now wait—”

“So do I,” another said.

The onlookers shouted in chorus, “We all quit!” and sent up a cheer. Wembling turned and went back to his office. It had been pushed down a slope, and it stood at a crazy angle.

“I want this back on its foundation as soon as it’s light,” Wembling told Ayns, who had followed him. He grabbed a towel and began wiping the gourd pulp from his hands.

“I think they meant it about quitting,” Ayns said. “What do we do now—issue weapons?”

“You know we don’t dare. One injured native, and our friend the deputy marshal will turn in a report that’ll cost us our charter. On the other hand, it’s no concern of ours if someone else injures a native.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Space Navy. We’re citizens of the Federation. Our lives and property are threatened and our lawful endeavors have been interfered with. We’re entitled to protection.”

Ayns gave Wembling one of his rare smiles. “Now that you mention it, I’m sure that we are.”

Wembling thumped on the sloping top of his desk. “H. Harlow Wembling has enough influence to get what he’s entitled to.”

15

An obsolete freighter, bound from Quiron to Yorlang on a seldom-used space route, mysteriously vanished. A thousand light-years away a bureaucrat with an overactive imagination thought of piracy. Orders went out, and Commander James Vorish, captain of the battle cruiser Hiln, changed course and resigned himself to a monotonous six months of patrolling.

A week later his orders were canceled. He changed course again and mulled over the new assignment with Lieutenant Commander Robert Smith, his executive. “Someone’s been stirring up an indigenous population,” Vorish said. “We’re to take over and protect Federation citizens and property.”

“Peculiar assignment for a battle cruiser,” Smith observed. “Where the devil is Langri? I’ve never heard of it.”

Looking westward, Vorish thought it the most beautiful world he’d ever seen. The forest stretched back into the hills, its unbroken foliage an awesome expanse of dazzling variegation. Flowers lifted delicately beautiful, enormous petals to the lightly stirring sea breeze. Waves rippled in lethargically from an indescribably magnificent sea, and the fine beach sand caught the afternoon sun with a billion billion facets of flashing color.

Behind him was the hideous, scarred, noisy, reeking cauldron of the construction site. Motors whined, machines shuffled back and forth, workmen scurried hither and yon like a blighting invasion of mindless insects.

Smith touched Vorish’s arm and pointed. A clumsy ground conveyance sped away from the clutter of prefab buildings and bounced toward them—the first official acknowledgment of their arrival. Vorish strode down the Hiln’s ramp, inspected the sentries, and then turned to see what that official acknowledgment would consist of.

There were four men in the vehicle, and when one vaulted out and hurried toward the Hiln, two of the others, obviously personal bodyguards, sauntered after him. Vorish appraised the short, rotund figure and decided that it probably contained more muscle than one would suspect. The agility with which the man had left the vehicle was impressive, and obviously he worked in the sun. His bronzed complexion was one the pale-faced inhabitants of frigid worlds would regard with envy.

“Glad to meet you, Commander,” the man said. “I’m Wembling.”

They touched hands.

“Seems peaceful here,” Vorish remarked. “From my orders, I had the impression that the natives were keeping you under siege.”

“They are,” Wembling said bitterly. “They’re pulling every dirty trick they can get away with.”

Vorish murmured polite concern and looked about him again. He could see nothing that contradicted his first impression: Langri was a spectacularly beautiful, peaceful world.

Wembling chuckled, completely misinterpreting Vorish’s scowl. “Don’t let it worry you. We keep them pretty much under control in the daytime. Why don’t you give your men a few hours of leave—let them enjoy the beach and shake off their space tremors. And as soon as you settle in, Commander, come down to my office and I’ll show you what I want you to do.”

He turned away, carelessly tossed a gesture of farewell over his shoulder, and boarded his conveyance. He was driven off at once, and the guards had to pile unceremoniously into the moving vehicle.

Vorish turned and found Lieutenant Commander Smith grinning down at him from the ramp. “Who was that?” Smith demanded. “The Grand Admiral? He certainly seems to know what you’re supposed to be doing.”

“I’m glad someone knows what I’m supposed to be doing. I certainly don’t. Do you notice something peculiar about this situation?”

“I seem to detect a certain pronounced odoriferousness,” Smith remarked.

“Tell Macklie to scout around and talk with Wembling’s men and see if he can find out what’s going on here. I suppose I’ll have to go see the man. At a guess, he wants the entire crew of the Hiln for sentry duty. While I’m gone, take a patrol and circle the construction site. See what the security arrangements are and what problems we’re likely to encounter.”

One wall of Wembling’s office was an enormous map, and Wembling, with energetic gesticulations, explained what it was he wanted. He wanted a solid wall of men around his construction site, though it took him twenty minutes to say so.

Vorish heard him out, and then he politely informed Wembling that it wasn’t possible. “My men are capable,” he said, “but there aren’t enough of them, and thus far I haven’t been able to teach them to function in seven different places at once.”

“It’s your solemn duty to protect the lives and property of citizens of the Federation!” Wembling snapped.

“If Fleet Headquarters had meant for me to stand guard duty over an entire continent,” Vorish told him coldly, “it would have sent a larger force—say two ships. What you want would require ten divisions of troops and a billion credits’ worth of equipment and even that wouldn’t be foolproof. Why do you have sentries along the beach?”

“Sometimes the puggards sneak in from the sea. Can’t trust the unprincipled scoundrels for an instant. My men won’t work for me if they’re all the time in terror of their lives.”

Vorish turned in surprise. “I wasn’t aware of that. How many men have you lost?”

“Well—none, but that isn’t the natives’ fault.”

“Have they been damaging your equipment and materials?”

“Plenty. They manage to put two or three machines out of commission every day, and they keep sneaking in and stopping the work. It’d be a lot worse if I hadn’t imported a double work force just to guard the site. Commander, I’ve met a lot of different kinds of people in my lifetime, but never before have I encountered this measure of ingratitude. My whole project was started just to finance projects the natives need, and the first thing I built was a medical center for them, and they’re going to share in every penny of profit this place makes. In spite of that they’ve harassed us in every possible way right from the beginning. This is a multibillion-credit project, and I’ve backed it to the limit of my resources, and these ingrates are trying to ruin me. I resent that. Now—this is what I suggest. Each of us will assign a man to each sentry post on every shift. My men know what the natives are up to and how to handle them, and they’ll show your men what to do. I’ll tell my super to work out the details with you.”

“Do you have another map?” Vorish asked.

“Why, yes—”

“With the sentry posts marked on it?”

Wembling shook his head. “Never needed more than one.”

“That’s all right. We’ll probably want to shift them anyway. Send your super up to the Hiln with the map. We’ll ask him what we need to know, and then we’ll work out with him what we’re prepared to do.”

Smith returned from his inspection patrol and glumly remarked that it wasn’t the Space Navy Wembling wanted, but the Space Army—all of it. Vorish turned Wembling’s super over to him and left the two of them arguing about the sentry posts. He wanted to see the situation for himself.

He was standing on a lonely stretch of beach at the far end of the perimeter, looking out to sea, when Lieutenant Commander Macklie, his intelligence officer, caught up with him.

“You were right, sir,” Macklie said. “It’s a queer situation. These raids Wembling talked about—the natives usually sneak in one or two at a time. They lie down in front of a machine or grab ahold of something, and all the work has to stop until someone pries them loose and tosses them back into the forest.”

“Have any natives been hurt?” Vorish asked.

“No, sir. The men say Wembling is very strict about that. He knows that mistreating the natives, even when he thinks they deserve it, would bring him more trouble than he could handle.”

“He knows correctly.”

“Yes, sir. The natives may be aware of it, because they almost seem to be trying to get hurt. It’s got on the workers’ nerves— they never know when a native is going to pop up in front of them. They’re afraid if one did get hurt the others would come after them with poisoned weapons. This world is reputed to have some very wicked poisons. There’s a thorn that will kill a man almost instantly.”

“Have any of the workers been injured?”

“Several were abducted before Wembling got the idea of making them work in groups. The natives returned them unharmed. They stuffed them into giant gourds and rolled the gourds down the slope at the prefabs. Scared everyone half to death, especially the workers inside the gourds, but no one was hurt.”

“Sounds like some kind of childish prank,” Vorish observed.

“Yes, sir. From what I’ve seen of Wembling, sir, my sympathy is with the natives.”

“And mine. Unfortunately, I have orders. It’s just as well that the natives have a sense of humor. I’m afraid they’re going to need it.”

“Smith asked me to tell you we’ll have to assign the specialized ratings to guard duty or there won’t be enough men.”

“They’ll howl, I suppose.”

“No, sir, they won’t. A couple of hours on this beach each day are worth four times that in guard duty. I’ll scout around some more, sir.”

He saluted and hurried away. Vorish strolled along the beach toward the landing field. As he passed the prefab dormitories and offices, a messenger hurried out to intercept him. “Excuse me, sir, but Mr. Wembling would like to use your ship’s power plant to extend his lighting system. If you’ll wait just a moment, his engineer—”

“Tell him to send his engineer to the Hiln,” Vorish said. “He can arrange it with my engineer.”

At the ship he okayed Smith’s guard rosters, and then he went to have a look at the security arrangements. He inspected sentry posts, watched the engineers set up new lights, and listened in on some of the arguments between his men and the construction workers.

Smith was complaining to a foreman that the lights in Sector R were useless because the field of observation was cluttered up with large bushes. He wanted them cut; the foreman protested that he had neither the men nor the machines for bush cutting. Smith was perfectly free to do the job himself, though. Since devices for cutting bushes were not standard equipment on Space Navy battle cruisers, Vorish knew how this was going to end. He walked on. At the north end of the perimeter, a nav technician was insisting that the line of sentry posts be moved back from the forest. “You can’t light up a forest,” he kept saying. “There’ll be a zillion shadows. Move the posts back, and the natives will have to come out of the trees to get at us.” Vorish gave him high marks but left him to win his own argument, which he did. The line was moved back.

While Vorish made his rounds, a stream of messengers from Wembling plodded in his wake.

“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, sir, Mr. Wembling would like your Post Number Seven Two moved ten meters to the north. The light will fall on his bedroom window.”

“Mr. Wembling’s compliments, sir. It’s a frozen tart for your mess. And if it wouldn’t inconvenience you too much, would you mind spotting half a dozen more sentry posts at the head of the inlet?”

“Excuse me, sir, but Mr. Wembling would like to meet with your duty officer at seventeen hundred.”

“At your earliest convenience, sir, Mr. Wembling requests that—”

“Damn Wembling!” Vorish exploded.

At dusk Smith reported the sentry arrangements completed and the first echelon posted. “I think we’re in good shape,” he said. “There isn’t much to worry about anyway—outside Wembling’s imagination. The natives have no weapons.”

“Who says they don’t?” Vorish demanded. “Just because they haven’t used any doesn’t mean they don’t have any. These natives aren’t fools. I have a dozen reports of them watching from cover while you were posting the sentries. If they have foolish ambitions, tonight is the night they’ll try them out. They’ll know that fifty per cent of the sentries are new here, and they may know that Space Navy men aren’t accustomed to ground duty. Some of our men are going to be scared stiff standing out there with nothing between them and a dark forest, and the natives may know that, too. I want the off-duty echelons organized into platoons and bedded down where they’ll be available the moment reinforcements are needed anywhere. Have you talked with Macklie?”

Smith nodded. “Did he tell you the natives actually took Wembling to court over this?”

“No!”

“It’s a fact. They hit him with one suit after another and held up his work for months. Wembling won every case, but he was enjoined from working while the cases were being decided.”

“No wonder Wembling is in a foul mood!”

“That’s just the half of it. Once the courts let him go back to work, the natives started harassing him with those silly pranks to slow down his work. It gets on the nerves of his work force, and he’s had a tremendous turnover in personnel.”

“Did you know that Wembling claims he’s doing all this for the natives?”

Smith stared at him. “Then what are we doing here? Ours not to reason why, I suppose.”

“Nonsense,” Vorish said. “If a military man doesn’t know why, his work will suffer while he tries to figure it out for himself. Anyway, there’s no special secret why we’re here. Wembling may toss the natives a few crumbs, but he’s operating mainly for himself, and when he loses time he loses money. Whenever you encounter dirty politics, wherever you encounter it, it was caused by someone losing money, or someone trying to make money. Remember that.”

Along with the night, silence descended on the construction site. At the landing field the Hiln stood in an oval of light, and there was an unbroken band of light in front of the sentry posts around the entire perimeter. The dormitories and offices were surrounded by another band of light, and revolving lights swept the site, briefly illuminating the beginning of a skeletal framework where the resort building would stand. In spite of the lavish lighting, Wembling did not dare to continue work at night. In the confused play of shadows, the natives that broke in might be injured; or they might contrive really serious damage.

As soon as darkness had settled in, Vorish made another inspection tour. His men were less tense than he’d expected. The bored aplomb of Wembling’s veterans seemed to have a tranquilizing effect on them. Vorish returned to the Hiln and worked on a report, and when the second echelon had been posted he made another inspection. He had resigned himself to a sleepless night, but his men seemed in good spirits, and the night seemed so peaceful that he thought to catch a couple of hours’ sleep before inspecting the third echelon. He went to bed, and he was sound asleep when the explosion went off.

The enormous blast was still echoing in the distant hills when Vorish reached the ship’s ramp. High-pitched buzzes sounded from several directions as jittery men discharged their weapons. A patrol working inside the perimeter had taken cover, and the men in sentry reserve had sprung to their feet and were jabbering nervously. Down on the construction site, workers were pouring from the dormitories, and Wembling’s ground conveyance spun its rollers and lurched away toward the landing field. Vorish waited resignedly.

Another explosion sounded, and then another. Smith was delivering a preliminary report when the conveyance arrived. Wembling, in his slippers and a flapping robe, scrambled out and ran toward the Hiln, his ever present guards close on his heels. Vorish went to the bottom of the ramp to meet him. The echoing boom of the explosions continued.

“The natives are using explosives!” Wembling gasped.

“It certainly sounds that way,” Vorish agreed.

“We’re being attacked!”

“Nonsense. None of the sentries has seen a thing.”

“Remember those poison thorns I told you about? What if they have some kind of weapon that shoots them into the construction site?”

“If they were shooting anything at all into the construction site, it would have landed by now,” Vorish said dryly. “Nothing has.”

Wembling stood silently for a moment, and the two of them listened to the booming explosions. They ranged the full arc of the surrounding forest, but obviously they came from widely varied distances. If there was a pattern, Vorish couldn’t detect it.

“I want the sentries reinforced,” Wembling said.

“That’d be silly. I’d be left without a reserve.”

“I’m relying on you to take charge of the situation,” Wembling proclaimed oracularly.

“I’ve already done so.”

Trailing his guards, Wembling shuffled back to his conveyance and was driven away. Smith had loped off into the night while they were talking, so Vorish returned to the Hiln’s control room to wait for his report. The explosions continued.

Finally Smith returned. “No one has even seen a flash,” he said. “That’s maybe understandable considering how thick the forest is, but no one has smelled anything, either, and the wind is in our direction. I think the explosions are taking place a long way off. Nothing like this has ever happened before, and Wembling’s people haven’t an inkling of what’s going on. They say there’s only one man on Langri who’s likely to know anything about it— an anthropologist named Hort. He was on Wembling’s staff, and Wembling fired him because he stood up for the natives. He’s living by himself in a native-style dwelling back in the forest. Interestingly enough, he’s now a deputy marshal.”

Vorish arched his brows. “With what authority?”

“I don’t know.”

“See him tomorrow and put him on the staff,” Vorish said. “I don’t mind if he takes the natives’ part. It’s time someone did.”

“I want to see him tonight and ask him what the natives are up to.”

“How far?”

“A few kilometers.”

“How large a patrol?”

“Three men and myself—just enough to carry lights and com equipment.”

Vorish silently pondered the specter of a small patrol of his men taking a stroll along a narrow path in a thick, possibly hostile forest. It seemed a strange midnight occupation for the Space Navy, but he’d seen stranger things, and worlds far weirder than this one.

“I know about the thorns,” Smith said. “It’s perfectly safe as long as we keep to the center of the path. The paths were made by the natives, and they wouldn’t pass that way often enough to make a path if it wasn’t safe. Also, they’re too bright to be ambushing a patrol from a ship that could incinerate every one of their villages on one pass around the planet.”

“We don’t know that,” Vorish said. “On the other hand, since they haven’t harmed anyone yet, I’ll risk the assumption that they’d rather start with Wembling than us. Go ahead, then. And before you shoot anything, be damned certain it’s something you want to kill.”

Smith waved a salute and hurried away.

Vorish told a technician to give Smith’s patrol a special channel, and then he began to monitor the sentry posts. His men were nervous about the explosions, but they seemed to be holding up well. He caught bits of conversation. A nav muttered, “Whatever they’re blowing up, they’ve got a lot of the stuff,” and Wembling’s hammerhead replied, “You can’t trust the puggards as far as you can spit. Let me tell you about the time—”

An officer called in a suggestion that the beach sentries be moved to the forest side of the perimeter. “The natives would like that,” Vorish told him dryly. “Especially if the explosions are a diversion to keep our attention on the forest while they attack from the sea.”

By that time the technician had Smith’s patrol tuned in, and Vorish watched them in three-dimensional projection as they moved along a path, their lights poking holes in the forest’s blackness. Several of the explosions sounded alarmingly close by, but Smith, when Vorish asked him, chuckled and said they were kilometers away.

Finally the patrol rounded a bend and came upon a small clearing with a native hut. A bearded man stood in its doorway scowling fiercely at the intruders.

Smith marched up to him. “Aric Hort? I’m Lieutenant Commander Smith. Space Navy. What’s causing the explosions?”

“If I had the faintest idea, is there any reason why I should tell you?”

“Do the natives have explosives?” Smith asked.

At that moment one went off close by, with an enormous charge, and both Hort and Smith winced. “You deaf, or something?” Hort demanded. “Of course they do. Not that it’s any of your business—or is Wembling claiming sovereignty over the entire continent?”

“Wembling is hiding under his bed,” Smith said. “I have no intention of interfering with the natives. I’m just curious about what woke me up.”

Suddenly Hort grinned. “If you put it that way, so am I. Let’s go have a look.”

They moved off into the forest, with Hort leading the way. Explosions continued to sound. Smith, walking just behind Hort, said to him, “Are you positive these natives aren’t dangerous?”

Hort halted and faced him. “I’ve been living near them or with them for almost three years. I’ve spent most of my time with them, every day, and I’ve never seen a fight or even a strenuous argument. I’d say they’re extremely dangerous, but not in the way you’re thinking.”

They moved on. Suddenly they came upon a river, which they crossed on a boat rigged as a crude ferry. They regained the path on the opposite side and moved along it at a brisk pace. The forest unfolded monotonously along the path. The night and the com equipment reduced all colors to gray, and the huge flowers on many of the trees had folded delicate petals into strangely shaped defenses against the darkness.

They ferried their way across another river. The explosions were becoming more distant, but Vorish, watching from the safety of the Hiln while his men moved farther and farther into an unknown forest, became increasingly concerned.

Smith asked, “Have they ever set off explosives before?”

“No,” Hort said. “I didn’t know they had any.”

“They sound like potent charges. One of them could make a scrap heap of a rather large spaceship.”

Hort had no comment. Vorish was on the verge of halting them when suddenly Hort dropped to his knees on the path.

“Stand back!” he snapped.

Smith knelt nearby, holding a light, and one of the navs pointed a scanner. Vorish scrutinized the projected image of the nondescript mass Hort was studying and made nothing of it.

“What is it?” Smith asked.

“I don’t know. Can you move the light—there. Darned if it doesn’t look like—”

Suddenly Hort began to laugh. The navy men crowded around him and bewilderedly studied the clutter of debris on the path while Hort slumped to the ground convulsed with laughter. He thumped helplessly on the packed dirt with his fist. At irregular intervals the explosions boomed a bizarre accompaniment.

Finally Hort controlled himself sufficiently to be able to speak. “It’s the gourds,” he gasped.

“It’s the gourds,” Smith repeated. He was becoming angry. “Is that supposed to tell me something?”

Still laughing, Hort struggled to his feet. “Langri has these enormous gourds. They’re bigger than houses—in fact, the natives actually use segments of them for the roofs of their dwellings. They come in all shapes and sizes, and they’re used for everything from furniture to utensils. I’ve been wondering ever since I came here how the damned things reproduce, and now I know—they explode and scatter their spores.”

Smith said bitterly, “Do you mean every alien on the planet has been woke up, and we’ve had this lovely midnight stroll through the forest, just because some vegetables are enjoying their mating season?”

An officer entered the control room and snapped to attention. “Excuse me, sir, but—”

Vorish raised his hand. “Just a moment.”

Smith was nurturing his anger. “How come these gourds decided all of a sudden to have babies the night the navy landed?”

“Obviously the natives know how to set them off,” Hort said.

“Sir,” the officer said to Vorish, “there’s a native—”

Vorish raised his hand again.

“The natives know how to set them off,” Smith said coldly. “Just their idea of a friendly welcome, I suppose.”

“Or a way to distract your sentries.”

“There’s a native asking to see you, sir,” the officer persisted.

Vorish turned. “A native?”

Hort said, “It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if your commanding officer were having an extremely interesting conversation with a young native named Fornri.”

“Is his name Fornri?” Vorish asked in a low voice.

“Yes, sir.”

“I told him he’d get killed if he tried to go through the perimeter,” Hort said. “I told him with all those new lights and sentry posts it’d be impossible, and I could make an appointment for him tomorrow, and he said it was too important to wait and the Plan would get him past the sentries.”

“What Plan?” Smith asked.

“The Plan behind everything the natives do. You’ve been listening to part of it.”

Vorish leaned forward and turned off the projection. “I suppose all the sentries and patrols have been watching the forest so they can hear the explosions better, and this Fornri walked right up to Sentry Post Number One without being challenged.”

“That he did,” the officer said grimly. “He had to pass through the perimeter, avoid three patrols, and follow a route that should have been visible to half the rear-line sentry posts, and no one saw him. I’m going to throw twenty men in the brig.”

“I’ll look into that later,” Vorish said. “Well—I’ve heard Wembling’s side of this, so it’s only fair that I hear what the natives have to say. Do you suppose Wembling would let us have an interpreter?”

“I wouldn’t know about that, sir, but this native doesn’t need one. He speaks Galactic.”

Vorish nodded his head. “Of course. He would. This is quite an assignment we’ve drawn here. Everything is perfectly logical and utterly inexplicable. Gourds explode, but only when they’re properly asked. A construction site is under tremendous guard with the navy called in to help, and for no obvious reason. Natives speak Galactic, which as far as I know isn’t a native language anywhere in the galaxy. Bring this Galactic-speaking native in.”

16

He was clad only in a loincloth, and he entered the Hiln’s control room with the superb confidence of one about to take possession of it. He said, “Commander Vorish? I am Fornri.”

Vorish did not offer to touch hands. He would give this native a fair hearing, but he wasn’t pleased about the commotion that had made the interview possible. He especially wasn’t pleased because, if his men had been as alert as he expected them to be, this youngster should have been a corpse right now instead of an emissary, and Vorish could think of nothing that Fornri or any other native might have to say to him that couldn’t wait until the morrow or even the next week. He indicated a stool, and as Fornri accepted it he moved up one for himself.

Fornri spoke firmly. “My understanding is that you are members of the Space Navy of the Galactic Federation of Independent Worlds. Is that correct?”

Caught in the act of seating himself, Vorish straightened up and stared. He said blankly, “Yes—”

“On behalf of my government, I ask your assistance in repelling invaders of our world.”

The communications duty officer so far forgot himself as to exclaim, “The devil!” Vorish managed to sit down on his second try, and he said calmly, “By ‘invaders’ I suppose you refer to the construction project.”

“I do.”

“Your planet has been classified Three-C by the Federation, which places it under the jurisdiction of the Colonial Bureau. Wembling and Company have a charter from the Bureau. They are hardly to be considered invaders.”

Fornri spoke with exaggerated deliberation. “My government has a treaty with the Galactic Federation of Independent Worlds. The treaty guarantees the independence of Langri and also guarantees the assistance of the Federation in the event that Langri is invaded. I am calling upon the Federation to fulfill its treaty obligations.”

Vorish turned to the duty officer. “Let’s have the index.”

“Shall I put it on that screen, sir?”

“Yes. Dial Langri for me, please.”

The screen at Vorish’s side flickered to life, and he spoke aloud as he read. “Initial contact in ‘44. Classified Three-C in ‘46. There’s no mention of any treaty.”

Fornri took a tube of polished wood from his belt and slipped out a rolled parchment. He passed it to Vorish, who unrolled it and smoothed it flat. He stared at it so long, and so incredulously, that the duty officer came to look over his shoulder.

“That’s the seal of the battle cruiser Rirga!” the duty officer exclaimed. “It’s a certified copy of the original.”

Vorish tapped the parchment with one finger. “Where is the original?”

“It is preserved in a safe place,” Fornri said. “We requested copies at the time the treaty was signed, and the naval officers supplied them.”

Vorish looked again at the screen. “There’s something exceedingly peculiar about this. The treaty is dated two months after the initial contact, and it classifies the world Five-X. That would mean that the ‘46 action was a reclassification. The index should say so, but it doesn’t.”

“There’d be no possible explanation for almost a two-year delay in classifying a world,” the duty officer said. “But is the treaty genuine?”

“Where would these natives get the knowledge and equipment to produce a forgery on this order?” Vorish turned to Fornri. “If this is genuine, and I see no reason to doubt it, there’s skulduggery here on an order I wouldn’t have thought possible. Tell me what happened.”

The next morning Aric Hort called to keep an appointment made by way of Smith’s com equipment the night before. He took Vorish for a walk along the beach, and at a point beyond the construction site perimeter, where the coast curved northward for a short distance, they found eight native boys waiting for them with a boat. They had a swift ride along the coast, past several native villages, and eventually the shore curved west again and Vorish saw the spectacular silhouette of a modern building perched on a bluff by the sea.

“So that’s the medical center,” he said. “Would you mind explaining—”

“Not until you’ve seen it. I promised Talitha she could have first crack at you before I stuff you with misleading information.”

“Talitha?”

“Miss Warr. Wembling’s niece. The medical center is her pet project.”

“I gather that you don’t think much of it.”

“I think it’s tremendous,” Hort said. “I just wish the natives hadn’t had to pay such a stiff price for it. When a man has an infected toenail, we ought to be able to heal him without cutting off his head.”

They turned shoreward and beached their boat beside two other native boats that were drawn up on the beach. Someone had gone to considerable trouble to construct a paved walk that curved to the top of the bluff on a gentle slope, but another path, crude but well worn, went directly and steeply to the top, and Hort led him that way without apology.

Talitha Warr received him graciously and introduced him to Dr. Fenell, the Wembling and Company staff doctor who spent two half days a week at the medical center and also was on call for emergencies. Miss Warr was capable of ornamenting any surroundings and also seemed dazzlingly efficient. Dr. Fenell was a gawky young man, obviously inexperienced, and certainly not the sort Vorish would have expected to find in such an adventurous project. He wondered if the man was a failure attempting to rehabilitate himself.

The doctor followed Miss Warr about as though she were the doctor and he the nursing assistant, and he fawned over her at every opportunity. Vorish observed Aric Hort glaring at the two of them. Obviously there was a rivalry here that perhaps accounted for Hort’s attitude toward the medical center and made his judgments suspect, but that was no concern to Vorish. He would form his own judgments.

So he politely observed the various tiny clinics, most of them without signs of recent use, from magno and hydrotherapy to nutrionics. He professed to admire the pediatrics ward, with its adjoining children’s playground, though he wondered how the native children managed to cope with such radically civilized toys.

What impressed him most was not the clinic but the fact that it seemed to have so little use. The only patients he saw were a few adults seated in the magnificent park that overlooked the sea, and every one of them was a bone-fracture case. Watching them as they came and went in self-powered invalid chairs from the native-type buildings at the rear, he decided to ask his own medical staff to examine this puzzle. Either the Langrian natives were an unusually healthy people, or they were using the medical center only for a few medical problems they couldn’t handle themselves.

Otherwise, if Miss Warr expected to overwhelm him with her uncle’s generosity to the natives, it was just as well that she would not be seeing the report he intended to file. Vorish had seen medical centers on many worlds. Any time a man in his command became seriously ill far from regular navy facilities, Vorish had to obtain for him the best medical care conveniently available, and he always made it a point to inspect the facilities himself. He would not willingly place one of his men in the care of Langri’s medical center. The building and its setting were attractive, but its medical facilities were at best mediocre, and there was no trained staff at all. Miss Warr, for all of her enthusiasm, was a novice, and the doctor could not possibly have the broad spectrum of experience so essential to a medical director. Wembling and Company had in fact made no more than a gesture at providing medical care for the natives.

But Vorish did not denigrate the gesture. He well understood that even a badly run center could produce spectacular results on a primitive world that had been completely without medical care.

“That’s the story,” Miss Warr said finally. “I insisted that the center be built first, and here it is. We’ve already inoculated the entire population against the worst diseases, and there’s a regular inoculation program for children. Diseases that formerly caused certain death now no longer require hospitalization, and we haven’t had a death from sickness since the center opened. We’re making spectacular improvements in infant mortality, and broken bones, which in the past frequently caused death or lifetime disability, now are routinely handled. I still have nightmares about that child I saw die, and it’s the greatest satisfaction I’ve ever experienced to know that it won’t happen again.”

“To be sure,” Vorish murmured. “I see that you’re training native nurses.”

“We call them medical assistants. We have youngsters of both sexes studying here, and we let them perform all kinds of routine chores under supervision. As much as possible we convert our cases into medical lessons for them. Of course the natives won’t be able to achieve the competence to run the center themselves until they’re able to send their bright young people to medical schools on other worlds and make fully qualified doctors of them. That’s many years away, but the problem isn’t urgent. The resort will have its own medical center, so there’ll be doctors available until the natives can provide their own.”

“Thank you very much, Miss Warr,” Vorish said. “I’ll send my own medical officer to visit you. I’m sure he’ll be interested.”

Vorish and Hort emerged at the rear of the center, near the native buildings, and they took the paved walk back to the beach. As soon as it had curved out of sight of the center, Vorish said to Hort, “Now will you answer my questions?”

“You saw it yourself,” Hort said. “She thinks the medical center justifies everything.”

“I want to know what you think. I’ve heard Fornri’s story, and I believe him. He couldn’t possibly have forged that treaty, and anyway my records officer has come up with an old index tape that he fortunately neglected to discard, and on it Langri is classified Five-X. How did Wembling get the classification switched to Three-C?”

“How does a big-time operator manage anything?” Hort asked bitterly. “Political pressure, bribery, trading favors—if there’s a way, he knows how to find it. Probably we’ll never know how he did it. The question should be—what can be done about it while there’s still time to save the natives?”

“Save the natives? Surely Wembling isn’t plotting anything more sinister than stopping their harassment. He started his project with the idea of helping them.”

“He did not,” Hort said hotly. “Wembling never has any idea except to help himself. He was trying to make a record so he’d get a diplomatic appointment to a world with more potential loot. The moment he got the notion he could make more money from Langri resorts than he could from mining concessions somewhere else, he sent Ayns off to Colomus to get Langri reclassified.”

“I see. Even so, if the resort is as successful as Wembling predicts, ten per cent of the profits will produce a whopping income for the natives. Why are they fighting him?”

“Haven’t they the right to reject the ten per cent and the resort if they don’t want either?”

“Of course. That is, they should have had that right under the violated treaty. But it does seem to me that they could have compromised—received the benefits from the resort and at the same time controlled it. Wembling did try to get their permission first, Fornri said. And when he couldn’t, then he worked the reclassification.”

They had reached the beach. The natives pushed the boat into the water and stood waiting for them, but Hort and Vorish turned aside and sought the forest’s edge and a fallen tree to sit on. The boys grinned and pulled the boat back onto the beach.

“It’s a matter of life and death,” Hort said.

Vorish regarded him skeptically. “You’ll have to explain that.”

“These natives have a precarious existence. Perhaps a small resort, properly controlled, wouldn’t affect the world’s ecology, but Wembling doesn’t do anything in a small way. He’s building a huge resort, and he’s planning others, and already his construction and the water recreation of his workers is seriously affecting the natives’ food supply. If Wembling isn’t stopped, there won’t be any native population left to enjoy that ten per cent when and if Wembling and Company gets around to paying it.”

“Are you serious?”

“Deadly serious. It’s a scientific fact that a people can become accustomed to certain kinds of foods and unable to eat others. There are dozens of worlds where local populations are fond of native herbs that make visitors ill.”

“The Space Navy can tell you a few things about that,” Vorish said. “Our men come from all the member worlds of the Federation. Space Navy ships have to have dietary classifications, so that men accustomed to the same kinds of food can serve together.”

“Langri’s problem is much more serious than that. For an unknown number of generations, these natives have been existing on a diet composed almost entirely of koluf, a Langrian sea creature. It’s an extremely rich and nutritious food, but its components of vitamins and minerals and the rest are peculiar to the world of Langri and unlike any food ever eaten by humans anywhere else. By evolution or adaptation the natives’ bodies are accustomed to this, and I’m afraid they won’t be able to assimilate normal human foods. And the construction activity is ruining their hunting grounds.”

“In other words,” Vorish mused, “the natives can’t eat anything but this koluf, and Wembling and Company are destroying it.”

“Not ‘destroying.’ Driving it away. As far back as the natives can remember, koluf always have followed regular feeding routes along the coast. Now they’re changing them.”

“I see.”

“Would it be possible to have your medical staff investigate this for me?” Hort asked.

“The ability of the natives to eat normal food? Certainly. Now what’s this about a Plan? And what are ‘conjunctions’?”

Hort chuckled. “Fornri means ‘injunctions,’ and there’ve been a lot of them. The court held up Wembling’s work for months.”

“I heard about that. It cost the natives a fortune and they lost every case.”

“It bought them some time, though, and that’s what they say they need. Time for the Plan.”

“And what’s the Plan?”

“I don’t know. Whatever it is, they believe in it absolutely. The Plan said Fornri should see you the moment you landed, so he insisted on seeing you last night. I tried to convince him he’d get himself killed, and he said he’d follow the Plan and be perfectly safe and every hour was important. Now you know as much about it as I do.”

“He easily could have got himself killed,” Vorish said. “On the other hand, he didn’t, so maybe he was perfectly safe. All things considered, this seems like an extremely complicated problem.” He got to his feet. “I have an appointment with Wembling, and it wouldn’t do to keep a busy and important man waiting.”

They walked toward the boat, and the grinning boys launched it again and stood waiting for them.

“I don’t think the natives can beat Wembling in court,” Vorish said. “He’ll have too much money, and too much influence, and the trickiest lawyers money can buy.”

“Where do you stand in this?”

“Squarely in the middle,” Vorish said. “I’m absolutely impartial, and Wembling isn’t going to like that. I’ll protect him from the natives, but I’m also going to protect the natives from Wembling, in every way I can. And while I’m doing that, I’m going to report this situation at once, in more detail than Fleet Headquarters will like, and request action to get the treaty restored. The problem on this world isn’t what the natives can or can’t eat. The problem is a treaty that was negotiated in good faith on both sides and now has been brazenly violated. The honor of the Space Navy is involved.”

“You don’t realize how potent Wembling’s influence is. Your headquarters will file that report and forget it.”

“Then I’ll take action to get it unfiled,” Vorish said with a grin.

The natives weren’t talking about their Plan, but Wembling talked rather too much about his. He took Vorish and Smith to his planning office, where an impressive scale model of the resort was on display. There he bit a capsule, breathed pungent colored smoke into their faces, and orated statistics.

“A thousand accommodations,” he said proudly, “and most of them suites.”

Smith stooped for a closer look. “Are those things on the beach terrace swimming pools?”

“Right. There’ll also be an indoor pool. Some people can’t stand even mildly salty water, you know, and some will be afraid of the ocean creatures, even though there’s no danger. Well—what d’ya think of it?”

“It’s very—impressive,” Vorish murmured.

“There’ll be two main dining rooms and half a dozen small ones that’ll specialize in food from famous places. I’ll have a whole fleet of over-and underwater boats for recreation and sightseeing. You may not believe it, but there are millions of people in the galaxy who’ve never seen an ocean. Why, there are worlds where people don’t even have enough water to bathe in. Some worlds even have to import their air. If their populations can come to Langri now and then and live a little, they’ll need a lot fewer doctors and psychiatrists. This project of mine is nothing less than a service to humanity.”

Vorish and Smith exchanged glances. “From the looks of this, the only humanity you’ll benefit will be the poor, broken-down millionaires,” Vorish observed.

Wembling waved a hand disarmingly. “This is only the beginning. Have to put the thing on a sound financial basis right from the start, you know. Later there’ll be plenty of room for the little fellows—not in water-front hotels, of course, but there’ll be community beaches and hotels with rights of access and that sort of thing. My staff has it worked out. Once this resort opens for business—”

The construction sounds outside the window had halted. Wembling dashed for the door, with Vorish and Smith close on his heels. Once outside, they stopped and watched him sprint to the nearest work point, where three of his hammerheads were struggling with a native.

The young man had attached himself to a girder that was about to be swung aloft. The workers were trying to remove him, but he clung stubbornly. Wembling dashed up waving his arms angrily and shouting orders. None seemed to be needed. The workers had to remove the native without harming him, and they were doing their best. Eventually they managed to pry him loose and carry him away.

“What can they possibly gain from that?” Smith asked.

“Time,” Vorish said. “Time for their Plan.”

“Has it occurred to you that this Plan might consist of a genuine uprising with real explosives?”

“No, and from what I’ve seen of the natives, that’s the last thing I’d expect. What do you think of Wembling?”

“He’s a self-activated power unit.”

“Much as I loathe the man, I have to admire the way he gets things done,” Vorish said. “I’d hate to be a native and have to fight for my life against him. They’re intelligent enough to know they can’t evict him with force. I’m afraid, though, that they’re trying to match wits with him. They don’t stand a chance that way, either.”

Wembling got the work started again, and then he trotted back to join them. “If you’d put in the kind of defensive line I want, I wouldn’t have that trouble,” he complained.

“We both know I’m not going to do it,” Vorish told him. “An electronic barrier would cost a fortune, and the dead natives it produced would be my responsibility. I wouldn’t even suggest it, At the very worst, the natives are only a minor nuisance to you.”

“They make the men nervous. Everyone has to keep alert every minute so he won’t accidentally kill one of the puggards.”

“That should make them highly efficient workers,” Vorish observed dryly.

“Maybe, but the natives mucking about the project slow me down. I want ‘em kept out.”

“Frankly, I think you’re exaggerating the problem. One or two interruptions a day doesn’t slow you down much—certainly not enough to justify keeping a naval battle cruiser here. However, I have my orders. I’ll use everything I have short of violence to keep them out.”

Wembling grinned good-naturedly. “I guess I can’t ask more than that.”

He looped his arm through Vorish’s and led him back to the planning office.

17

The Hiln’s medical officer refused to pose as an expert nutritionist, but he saw nothing absurd in Aric Hort’s notion that the natives might be unable to assimilate other foods after living on koluf for generations. “It’s easily tested,” he said. “Let’s put some natives on navy rations and see what happens.”

Hort arranged the experiment, and nothing at all happened. Vorish gratefully marked it off as one less thing to worry about.

As the days spun out into weeks, he dutifully tightened his protective screen around the construction site, his men became better versed in the natives’ infiltration tactics, and work stoppages decreased almost to zero. Wembling was pleased, and the construction project began to take on a skeletal resemblance to the lavish model in Wembling’s planning office.

Vorish saw Aric Hort only on the infrequent occasions when he wanted information. The only natives he saw were those captured on the construction site. He politely declined invitations to native festivals, just as he declined Wembling’s social invitations. The air of impending tragedy at the native villages, and the natives’ blind faith in a futile Plan, disconcerted him. He easily could have become too sympathetic to them. On the other hand, Wembling was able to exude charm and infectious enthusiasm when he chose, and too much exposure easily could have biased Vorish in the opposite direction.

He saw himself as the impartial referee in a dispute, and if he got too familiar with either party, that impartiality might suffer. It disturbed him deeply that he was increasingly convinced that Wembling was right: the resort would be a splendid asset for Langri and its people. Hort’s and the natives’ fears undoubtedly were silly bugaboos that would be forgotten without regret once the benefits of the resort became a reality.

Concerning the shamefully violated treaty, though, he had no choice but to fight fiercely for justice and a full restoration of the natives’ control of their own destiny.

The dilemma seemed irreconcilable.

Because the natives were declining something that obviously would benefit them greatly, perhaps the resort should be forced upon them, as one forced a child to take the medicine he needed. On the other hand, Aric Hort, an anthropologist, stoutly maintained that whole populations had been destroyed by such stupid benevolence, and he could cite which ones they were.

If Wembling’s activities were interfering with the natives in any way, Vorish couldn’t detect it. The hunting fleets went out daily, and the invitations to attend the natives’ feasts and festivals arrived with monotonous regularity. He could not share Hort’s belief that the resort posed a threat to the natives’ existence.

And yet there had been a treaty, and there was such a thing as honor—the Federation’s and the Space Navy’s. And if the resort offered benefits for the natives, Vorish wasn’t overlooking the fact that it would benefit Wembling much more. The treaty had to be reinstated, following which Wembling could do what he should have done in the first place: convince the natives about those lavish benefits, and build the resort with their consent. Perhaps they would let him have ten per cent, in which case it would be interesting to see if he still considered that share as munificent as he had when he was offering it to the natives.

As Hort predicted, headquarters had ignored Vorish’s report on the treaty. When he politely asked what action was being taken, headquarters gave him a polite Z in response: “We assume authority and responsibility.”

Then Hort came to see him and spoke tersely, and when he left one of Vorish’s worries had been restored: the natives they thought were participating in the food test had been cheating. They ate little if any of the navy food and continued to eat native food, and the test was a farce.

“They claim they were so hungry they had to,” Hort said glumly. “That ought to tell us something. I hope so, because it’s as much as we’re likely to learn.”

If Hort could find volunteers who seemed to understand the experiment, they would try again. He was not optimistic about his success. A native accustomed to koluf meat would have to be a genuine martyr to agree to subsist on Space Navy rations, even in a short experiment.

While Vorish was still meditating this restored worry, Wembling came with a request for expanding the protective perimeter around the construction site. He wanted to enlarge it. He also wanted to begin work at a new construction site far down the coast.

Vorish brusquely refused. He had insufficient men for the area they were screening now. Further, he was becoming concerned about them. They had been vegetating on this paradise planet long enough. Specialists who didn’t use their skills soon stopped being specialists. It was time he took the Hiln back into space where it belonged.

Talitha Warr invited him to dinner at the medical center. Vorish persuaded himself that this was neutral ground and went, and the food she served was delectable beyond description.

“It’s koluf,” she explained. “It’s the staple of the natives’ diet—imagine a diet with a staple like that! But never ask to see a live one, or your koluf palate will be ruined for months.”

The next day Vorish sent for Aric Hort and inquired as to the possibility of obtaining enough koluf for an occasional navy meal.

Hort regarded him with horror. “I keep telling you that the natives don’t have enough for themselves. Don’t you believe me?”

“I somehow never made the connection,” Vorish confessed. “I know it’s their principal food—we talked about that—but Miss Warr was serving it, and—”

“The hospital has a priority, but the food supplied to it is supposed to be for the sick. And because Talitha always gets anything she asks for, she won’t believe there’s a shortage.”

“I see.”

“No, you don’t. I know the natives aren’t getting enough to eat. The koluf catch is down at least a fourth. They’re starving, but so slowly that it’s hardly noticeable. As the catch continues to drop, which it will, they’ll starve more quickly. We must find a dietary supplement. I’d like to try another experiment.”

“What sort of experiment?”

“Since some of your men are living in Wembling’s dormitories, could we bring a few native children to the Hiln for a short stay? They could be fed nothing but navy food—they couldn’t cheat if we kept them on the ship—and perhaps we could learn something.”

“Perhaps,” Vorish agreed. “Find out if the natives are willing, and I’ll find out whether my medical staff would object to running a nursery for a few days.”

The medical staff didn’t object; the natives did. They saw no need for such an experiment. They had their Plan. Hort promised to continue his efforts to persuade them.

First there was the violated treaty, and then there was Vorish’s report that headquarters had tried to Z out of existence, and now the independent world of Langri had sunk so low that the natives were unable to confer privately with their attorneys. Wembling monitored their communications center and read all of their messages. They were afraid to send letter mail on his supply ships, because they knew that he would read that, too.

Lieutenant Commander Smith discussed the problem with Fornri, and then he brought it to Vorish.

“The natives certainly have a legal right to private communication with their attorneys,” Vorish said, “but since headquarters maintains that no Langri problem exists, it wouldn’t be wise to involve ourselves in an official solution to a non-existent problem.”

“How about a private solution?” Smith suggested. “I’ll send the communications as coming from myself, and I’ll ask the attorneys to suggest some way in which they could be representing me— just in case anyone inquires. As for their letters to the natives, they can double-wrap them and address the outer to me. I’ll pledge to deliver the inner one unopened.”

“Good idea,” Vorish said. “There’s no naval regulation that forbids your forwarding a friend’s mail.”

“Too bad headquarters Z’d your report. I thought they’d have to react one way or the other—either with a public fuss or with a private order to keep your mouth shut.”

“They will,” Vorish promised grimly. “Wembling was in this morning, and he took me for a tour of the territory he wants to add to the construction site. Know what he intends to put there? A golf course! This afternoon I’ll see Fornri about it. And yes— I’m certain I can get a reaction to my report.”

As Vorish walked along the central avenue of the native village, cordially exchanging greetings with the natives he passed, he noticed Talitha Warr seated a short distance up one of the curving side streets. Beside her was a child swathed in blankets, and her attitude was grave and intense.

He turned aside and sat down beside her. “What do we have here?” he asked, scrutinizing the child’s small, serious face.

“It’s something new,” she said. “A number of the children have come down with it, and we haven’t been able to figure out what it is.”

“Nothing serious, I hope.”

“We don’t know. They get sick and they stay sick, and we haven’t the facilities to handle an epidemic. All of our beds at the center are filled.”

“Are only the children affected?”

She nodded. “The young children. They’re a stubbornly healthy people, but this world has some very peculiar diseases.”

Vorish took leave of her and walked on up the central avenue.

At the isolated hut beyond the village, Fornri stepped out to meet him. They touched hands, and Vorish unfolded a large map onto a gourd table.

“Did Aric tell you what I wanted to talk about?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“This is a map of Wembling’s construction site and the land beyond it. He wants to push the perimeter back into the forest so he can clear land for a golf course. Do you know what golf is?”

“Airk explained it to me,” Fornri said.

“If you don’t see the point, don’t let that bother you. Some people who play the game don’t see the point. This new territory would lengthen the perimeter enormously, and I’ve already told Wembling I haven’t sufficient men. I think he’ll go ahead and use his own men for guards.”

“Perhaps we could ask our attorneys to make a suit about this golf course,” Fornri said. “The charter says Mr. Wembling can develop our world’s natural resources. Is golf a natural resource?”

“I don’t know,” Vorish said. “It sounds like the sort of question attorneys would enjoy immensely. By all means suggest it to them. This is what I wanted to see you about. There’s an abandoned village in the forest.” He pointed to the map. “Here. Did Wembling move your people out of there?”

“No.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Vorish said, grinning ruefully. “If he’d forced your people from their homes, I could have done something about it. Why is this village off by itself in the forest when all the others are located on the coast?”

“It is the village of our teacher, and it is no longer in use.”

“Teacher?” Vorish echoed blankly. “What sort of teacher?”

“Every sort,” Fornri said with a smile.

“You interest me.” Vorish helped himself to a gourd chair. “Tell me honestly. Does this village have some special meaning for you?”

“It has a very special meaning.”

“Teacher? Guru? Philosopher? Prophet? A very special meaning, you say.”

“Yes. Very special.”

“And a village with a very special meaning—especially if the teacher is a religious leader—can become a shrine,” Vorish suggested. “Could we say that you left it exactly as it was in memory of your teacher?”

“Yes. That is true.”

“And you have permitted no feet to profane it since his parting. I like that. It just might be the angle I’ve been looking for.” He grinned at Fornri. “I think I’m going to get you some time for your Plan. I also think I’m going to get my report unfiled.”

On his way out of the village Vorish encountered Aric Hort, and the two of them walked together toward Vorish’s boat.

“Did you see the sick children?” Hort asked.

“Miss Warr was telling me about them. I gather that this world has some rather peculiar diseases.”

Hort turned on him furiously. “There wouldn’t be any disease if the children weren’t weak from hunger. The whole population is weak from hunger, but the children are the most susceptible to the disease. Neither she nor her precious doctor will face up to that.”

Vorish said, “As long as there’s no proof—”

“When the koluf catch is down more than a fourth, what more proof do you want?”

“Have the natives consented to your experiment?”

“We’ll start tomorrow.”

“Strange anyone should have to be hungry on such a fertile world,” Vorish mused, looking at the magnificent growth of forest.

“Don’t you know that human food won’t grow here?”

“No. I hadn’t heard that.”

“When we first came here I got Wembling to import all kinds of seeds,” Hort said. “The few things that grew were mutated and nutritionally suspect.”

“So the natives are forced to eat koluf, which would be a wonderful fate if they had enough of it.”

“Right. The water activity by construction and naval personnel, the machinery and construction noises transmitted through the water, the pollutants that are dumped offshore—all this and maybe other things are driving the koluf into deep water where the natives can’t catch them. The situation is going to get a lot worse, and it may never get better because once the resort opens the tourists will ruin the hunting grounds much more thoroughly. Yes, the natives are hungry, and the children are showing the effects of it first.”

“Strange,” Vorish said. “One would think the medical center would detect a thing like that immediately and do something about it.”

Hort said bitterly, “The most the medical center can do is make it possible for the natives to starve to death in perfect health.”

On his return, Vorish went to see Wembling. “About that golf course,” he said. “What do you plan to do with the native village?”

“Knock it down,” Wembling told him. “It’s abandoned. Probably it’s been years since the natives have used it.”

“Let’s go have a look at it,” Vorish suggested.

Wembling went willingly. Probably he hoped to persuade Vorish to extend the perimeter. His machines, well guarded, already were biting deeply into the forest. Wembling led the way around them and along a path that led to the village. It consisted of an oval-shaped clearing with a cluster of native dwellings at one end.

“See? It’s just an abandoned village,” Wembling said.

He began poking into the huts. Vorish, looking about him, saw an utterly strange object: native cloth stretched between two trees and plastered with a smooth layer of clay, and the dried clay bristled with mathematical symbols. “What the devil’s this?” he exclaimed.

Wembling emerged from a hut. “It’s been abandoned for years,” he called to Vorish. “Anyway, I couldn’t possibly leave it here. It’s right on the eighth green.”

Vorish was staring at the math symbols. “Why—it’s a problem in celestial navigation! Then this is a teacher’s village! But what would the natives want with mathematics on this order?” He turned away shaking his head.

Vorish joined Wembling as he emerged from investigating another hut. “Sorry,” Vorish said. “I can’t let you touch this place without the natives’ permission.”

Wembling playfully prodded him in the ribs. “Don’t be silly. You wouldn’t tie up my whole project for a few grass huts. Let the natives sue me. The court won’t stop me—it’ll just award them the value of the huts, which can’t amount to more than a credit and a half, and the suit will cost them fifty thousand. The faster they use up their money, the sooner they’ll stop harassing me.”

Vorish said sternly, “The navy is not here for your exclusive use. My orders specifically call for the protection of the natives and their property, just as I protect you and your property. Maybe the court won’t stop you, but I will.”

He strode away, leaving Wembling to glare after him. “But he thinks I’m bluffing,” Vorish told Smith afterward. “I notice he has the machines pointed at the village. Some people can’t resist calling a bluff, even if they know it’ll explode when touched.”

“I hope you realize that you’re sticking your neck out,” Smith said.

“A naval commander who’s afraid to stick his neck out isn’t worth a damn.”

When the machines broke through into the village clearing, Vorish had his men waiting. He stood with Smith on the high ground near the lauding field and watched Wembling waddle up to a work crew, gesture, and step back. A machine edged forward and smashed the nearest hut. Vorish signaled his own men into action. An armed navy squad moved down the slope, weapons at the ready, and took possession of the village. The machines clanked to a stop, and as Vorish and Smith approached, Wembling stormed to meet them.

“Did you get the natives’ permission for this?” Vorish demanded.

It cost Wembling an effort to master his rage. “I have a charter. How I use it is none of your business.”

“I think it is,” Vorish said. “Shall we have a legal test? Maybe the court will award you the value of the huts.” He turned to Smith. “Place these men under protective arrest and stop all work on the construction site. A sacred place has been desecrated, and we’ll have to use the utmost care to prevent a native revolt.”

He went back to his quarters on the Hiln and worked on his report. Smith came in later, grinning broadly.

“Well, it’s done,” he said. “Wembling is confined to quarters. His project is closed down and his entire force has an indefinite vacation. The workers are delighted and Wembling is apoplectic. Are you sure that’s what you wanted?”

“That’s what I wanted. There’s a massive conspiracy to cover up Wembling’s shenanigans here, and I know of only one person who has enough influence, and is capable of making enough noise, to force headquarters to take action.”

“Who’s that?”

“Wembling. You and I have to use the chain of command. He can broadcast complaints in all directions, at the top of his voice. If he gets mad enough, he will.”

“He’s mad enough. He’s sending messages furiously. I was going to suggest closing his com center.”

Vorish shook his head. “I want every message he sends to go through promptly. About the time headquarters grasps the significance of my report, his complaints will hit it from a dozen different directions. I’d like to see it Z Langri this time!”

Wembling’s work had been at a dead halt for three weeks when Vorish next called at the native village. Talitha Warr had taken over a large dwelling to use as a children’s hospital, and he saw her at work there, though she was much too preoccupied with her young charges to notice him.

He wondered if Hort had told her of the sober preliminary report from the Hiln’s medical staff: the children in Hort’s experiment were indeed undernourished, all of them, and as far as the staff could determine, navy rations did nothing to correct that. The experiment was continuing, but the staff was disposed to give Hort’s theory a qualified endorsement: the natives were so thoroughly adapted to their diet of koluf that only a very similar food could successfully supplement their diets. The staff now was attempting to figure out what might constitute a similar food.

In the grove of trees at the top of the avenue, Fornri and Aric Hort were seated in gourd chairs talking quietly. They made Vorish welcome and called for another chair and drinking gourds. Nearby, several elderly natives lay talking in hammocks that swung gently in the sea breeze. Vorish noted their leisurely conversation and long, meditative silences and reflected on the wisdom of the natives in placing the burden of leadership on Fornri and not on the Elder. The menace of a Wembling could not be coped with by the hammock talk of the elderly.

Fornri said anxiously, “Is it true that you will suffer harm from helping us?”

“I’ll be threatened with all kinds of dire consequences,” Vorish said. “I already have been, by Wembling, as recently as this morning. The worst that’s likely to happen is that I’ll be recalled and spoken to sternly. Anything more serious would require a public airing of this mess, which is the last thing Wembling’s friends want.”

“The commander is an optimist,” Aric Hort said. “He’s bought time for your precious Plan, and he may pay for it with his naval career. There’s an admiral on the way here, and his first action will be to turn Wembling and his men loose and arrest Commander Vorish.”

“This particular admiral is an old friend of mine,” Vorish said with a smile. “If he arrests me, he’ll do it affectionately.”

Hort gestured disgustedly. “If Wembling has anything to say about it—and he will—he’ll have the commander’s ears on a platter, barbecued. I’d feel much better about this if you’d made some use of the time that he bought. If your Plan is to hold out and harass Wembling until he goes away, I promise you that he won’t.”

Leaving the village, Hort and Vorish found Talitha Warr sitting at the edge of the beach. She had been gazing morosely out to sea. “I can’t understand it,” she said. “The sick list grows longer every day.”

Hort had been in a savage mood throughout the interview with Fornri, and now he turned on her furiously. “You can’t understand it? You mean you still can’t see what is happening? Are you blind?”

“What—what do you mean?”

“An entire population is in the preliminary stages of starvation, and you can’t understand why the sick list grows. Do you know how many koluf this village caught yesterday? Just two, and they were small. Normally it takes sixteen to twenty to feed a village this size. Try eating one eighth of your usual diet and see how your strength lasts.”

She tried to meet his eyes and failed. For a suspenseful moment she stared at the lines her foot was drawing in the moist sand. Then she got to her feet and walked toward the village.

Hort called after her, “Where are you going?”

She did not answer. Vorish and Hort exchanged glances and followed after her. She went to the large dwelling she was using for a hospital, and they waited outside while she moved slowly from one child to another. When she emerged her face was white.

“I was blind,” she whispered.

“Have you looked at the old people lately?” Hort demanded. “The koluf hunters have to keep up their strength—hunting koluf is a tremendous physical struggle, and there’d be instantaneous starvation the moment the hunters became weak. The hunters eat first, and the old people who contribute the least and have the least to lose eat last. They lie in their hammocks and wait for death. Haven’t you noticed that a fire of death is almost a nightly occurrence at every village?”

“I was blind,” she whispered again. “But why didn’t Dr. Fenell recognize it?”

“Malnutrition isn’t a civilized disease. He probably never saw a case before.”

“Uncle will have to import food for the natives.”

“It’s too late,” Hort said. “That should have been thought of before the construction started. Commander Vorish’s doctor has been trying to feed navy rations to native children. He hasn’t been able to find a food that gives them a significant amount of nourishment. Humans accustomed to eating nothing but koluf can’t assimilate other foods.”

Talitha buried her face in her hands. “It’s my fault. I suggested the resort to Uncle. I talked him into it.”

“Maybe you did or maybe you didn’t,” Hort said grimly, “but I don’t think anyone is going to talk him out of it.”

Vorish turned out an honor guard when Admiral Milford Corning arrived on the command cruiser Maldaro. The admiral, a crusty, fussy little officer whose men affectionately called him—out of his hearing—“the Old Woman,” paused at the top of the ramp to receive Vorish’s salute, and then he marched down and touched hands with him.

He said, “Good to see you, Jim,” and Vorish responded, “You’re looking well, sir,” and they moved off to inspect the guard.

When they reached the end of the last line, Corning said, “That’s as much ego lub as I can stand for one day. Now let’s go where we can talk.”

“Your quarters or mine?” Vorish asked.

The admiral sniffed the sea air. “Jim. I’ve been in space for six months. Let’s have a look at that beach.”

They strolled out beyond the perimeter and seated themselves on boulders where the surf washed gently beneath their feet. The devastation of the construction site was hidden from them; the nearest sentry was fifty meters away. Corning sniffed the sea breeze again, and observed, “Nice place here. Your men look as though they’d enjoyed it. You’re looking pretty good yourself.” He paused. “Jim, just what is going on here?”

“I don’t suppose headquarters showed you my reports,” Vorish said, “so I had copies made for you.”

He handed them to Corning, and then he walked a few paces along the beach and stood watching the lapping waves while the admiral quickly perused the reports.

Finally Corning said, “All right—I’ve read enough to get the idea. I’ll go through them carefully tonight. What official action did they take?”

“None,” Vorish said.

“You mean—you formally submitted these reports, and headquarters took no action at all?”

“Neither report was acknowledged. When I asked to be informed as to action taken, headquarters Z’d them.”

Coming’s lips shaped a soundless whistle. “I agree with you absolutely. It’s a damnable mess, and eventually heads will roll, but that’s no concern of yours. Your duty was to report the situation, which you did. Sit down here.”

Vorish perched himself on an adjacent boulder.

“Now then. What’s this nonsense about a few native huts?”

“According to my orders, I’m an impartial referee here,” Vorish said. “I’m to maintain the peace, which means that I protect Wembling against any excesses perpetrated by the natives, but I also protect the natives against infringement upon their customs, property, sacred places, and so on. Paragraph seven.”

“I’ve read it.”

“The idea being—I assume—that if the natives are treated properly, Federation citizens and property are less likely to need protection. Those few huts are called, by the natives, ‘The Teacher’s Village,’ and the place seems to have a religious significance to them.”

“Ah! That would make it a sacred place in terms of your orders. I take it that Wembling busted right in and started tearing the place apart.”

“That he did.”

“And you’d warned him ahead of time that he had to have the natives’ permission, and he laughed it off. Up to that point your conduct was not only proper but commendable, and no one will fault you. But why did you have to close Wembling down and stop his work completely? Why didn’t you just make him put his golf course somewhere else? If he’d complained about that, he’d have been laughed at. By stopping his operation you’ve cost him time and money, and now he has a valid grievance—and he has plenty of political influence.”

“I closed him down for his own protection,” Vorish said.

“His own—protection?” Corning echoed blankly.

“He’d defiled a sacred place. If the natives had retaliated, I would have been responsible. So I placed him under guard and restricted his workers.”

Corning burst into laughter. “That’s very good! For his own protection! All right—I’ll support that. I think I can keep you from being shot.”

“Is that what they were planning?” Vorish asked with a grin.

“They were—are—planning to do their worst,” the admiral said soberly. “I don’t like it, but I have my orders. You’ll return to Galaxia on the Hiln, under arrest, to stand court-martial.”

“I’m glad to hear that. I’m looking forward to describing Wembling’s iniquities for the public record.”

“That’s the last thing headquarters will want, and if you insist on a public court-martial they’ll probably tell you to forget it and give you a commendation. So insist.”

“I’ll insist,” Vorish promised. “A private hearing wouldn’t accomplish a thing—except maybe get me shot. I’m glad I’m leaving Langri in capable hands.”

“Not in my hands, you’re not,” Corning said. “Not for long. The 984th Squadron is on its way to take over. Eleven ships. Headquarters is taking no chances on the Langri situation getting out of hand. The commander is Vice Admiral Ernst Dallman. A good man. Know him?”

18

Submaster Jarvis Jarnes presented himself to the court in the only manner possible—with temerity. Although the Justice His Eminence Blorr Figawn had not precisely said so, his manner on the occasion of Jarnes’s previous appearance clearly indicated that His Eminence was sick of the sight of him, and His Eminence had a long memory. And Jarnes himself had lost track of the number of unsuccessful actions he had undertaken for the people of Langri.

His Eminence greeted Jarnes with resignation and a prolonged scowl. “Must we go through this again, Submaster Jarnes?”

“It is of crucial import, Your Eminence. The natives of Langri—”

“Ah, yes. Those poor natives. If there were any possible succor, I assure you—” He paused and then said sternly, “What is it this time?”

“A petition for an injunction, Your Eminence.”

“I suspected as much.”

“It concerns Wembling and Company’s use of its Langrian charter, Your Eminence.”

“Submaster Jarnes, are you—the words are those of your honorable opponent and the counsel to Wembling and Company, Master Khorwiss—are you inflating trivialities again?”

“I hope not, Your Eminence.”

“So do I. You may proceed.”

His expression of polite boredom matched that of Clerk Wyland, who was seated beneath the justice’s projection. There were no spectators. “I’ll be brief, Your Eminence,” Jarnes promised. “I am petitioning for a court-directed work stoppage and a thorough review of the ‘natural resources’ clause in Wembling and Company’s charter.”

“Again?” the justice asked politely.

“The survival of a world’s population is at stake, Your Eminence. The plight of the natives is desperate. I have proof—”

“I am well aware of that plight, Submaster Jarnes. You have brought it to my attention repeatedly, and while I no doubt have my weaknesses and foibles, I do not number a poor memory among them. Nor do I stand second to anyone in my sympathy for those poor natives. Unfortunately, I must apply the law and observe the rulings of Higher Court. What is the basis for your challenge this time?”

“Golf courses, Your Eminence.”

“Golf courses?” the justice repeated incredulously.

“Yes, Your Eminence. Wembling and Company plan the construction of a number of golf courses of unusually large size—one could even say absurdly large size. The number is far in excess of the possible needs of the resort under construction, and most of them will be in locations impossibly remote from the resort. Obviously they’re a subterfuge, Your Eminence. They are camouflage for a land grab that will further endanger the native population’s chances for survival, and Wembling and Company intend—”

The justice waved a precautionary finger. “Opinion of the plaintiff’s counsel is not evidential. Can you prove they’re a subterfuge?”

“By the time the real intention of Wembling and Company becomes apparent, it’ll be too late for legal action.”

“We must test the situation on the basis of the known facts, Submaster Jarnes. Wembling and Company’s project is a vacation resort. I suppose it is perfectly in order for people on vacation to play golf, and Higher Court has affirmed that the charter provision allowing Wembling and Company to develop the world’s natural resources can legally cover the construction and operation of a resort. Precisely what new question are you raising, if any?”

“Two questions, Your Eminence. First, whether the charter permits golf courses; and second, if it does, whether it permits golf courses in this irrational number and on this unreasonable scale. The golf courses require the clearing of vast stretches of forest, Your Eminence. In other words, these golf courses, which Wembling and Company presumes to build under a charter permitting the development of natural resources, are resulting in the irrational destruction of natural resources.”

“Have you searched it?”

“Yes, Your Eminence. I find no ruling that would apply.”

“Then I would have to view the golf courses as adjunct to the vacation resort and thus properly covered by the charter. Believe me, my sympathy is with the natives, but I cannot make law to succor them. You’d have to apply directly to Higher Court for your injunction, and I doubt that it would hear you.”

“Yes, Your Eminence. I will weigh that. Would you then consider enjoining Wembling and Company from further disruption of the ecology of the world of Langri?”

The justice stared for a moment. Then he smiled. “Very ingenious, Submaster Jarnes. Tell me frankly. At this stage is there any aspect of Wembling and Company’s activities that could be continued without further disruption of the ecology of the world of Langri?”

“We would request the injunction only as concerns new activities, Your Eminence.”

“Such as golf courses?”

Jarnes said feebly, “Well—”

“Ecology is such a large word, Submaster Jarnes. It covers so many things—among them things already granted to Wembling and Company by Higher Court. Should I enjoin Wembling and Company from further disruption of the world’s ecology, would I not be infringing upon rights already granted? If a tourist takes a deep breath, doesn’t that alter the ecology? The breathed portion of the atmosphere has been converted from oxygen prime to carbon dioxide prime. No, Submaster Jarnes. Higher Court has affirmed the right of Wembling and Company to build and use resorts on the world of Langri, and that right is now beyond my power of enjoinment. Those poor natives—but of course I must observe the law and the decisions of Higher Court. Are there any promising possibilities on the political front?”

“It is very uncertain, Your Eminence. Too many politicians are interested in injustice only when they can make political capital of it.”

“To be sure,” the justice said sympathetically. “There’s one comforting thing about the law. When asked it will answer. It may say it doesn’t know, but at least it speaks.”

“Nevertheless, the law permits the destruction of an entire world population so that Wembling and Company can have a prosperous resort.”

The justice frowned and then regarded him perplexedly. “Mmm—a charter to develop natural resources should not permit the extermination of human life. If you can put that in the form of a legal petition I will grant you relief immediately.”

“I’ve been trying for months, Your Eminence. It can’t be done.”

“And unfortunately, there’s no way I or any other justice can rule on a petition you cannot present. Most unfortunate, but true. Those poor natives—”

19

Admiral Ernst Dallman stood at the window, as he had so often since Wembling gave him office space in this completed wing of the resort, and stared at the specks of color on the horizon. They were native hunting boats, and he kept a pair of binoculars at hand to use when he wanted to study them.

His intercom rasped, “The Spolon has landed, sir. Captain Protz is on his way down.”

Dallman thanked the intercom over his shoulder and reflected again that he would have to fire the young man who served as desk ensign. He had tested well, but with each passing day he sounded more raspy. Such an unpleasant voice, abruptly intruding upon a commanding officer’s most intimate thoughts, could reduce his efficiency by fifty per cent.

He raised his binoculars and watched the hunting boats until he heard voices in the corridor. The desk ensign asked, “Have a nice leave, sir?” Captain Protz responded, “The usual.” Then Protz entered through the open door and dropped it shut behind him. Dallman stepped to meet him; Protz saluted, and then they touched hands.

“What’s ‘the usual’?” Dallman asked.

“The usual? Oh, you mean—yes. The usual leave. Crowded, with dreary treks to visit relatives.”

Dallman seated himself at his desk and indicated a chair for Protz, and the captain dropped into it wearily. “Well, I did it,” he said. “I planted copies of the treaty and of Vorish’s reports and yours with every opposition politician and with all the major news and political commentary services. I’m not hopeful, though. When I talked with the natives’ attorneys, I found they’d already done something like that. Still—if it’s said often enough, someone might start believing it.”

“Our hitting them with it a second time might possibly convince someone,” Dallman agreed. “Unfortunately, when the explosion comes, if it does come, it’ll be much too late. Have the attorneys run out of ideas? Wembling wasn’t hit with an injunction all the time you were away.”

“They didn’t confide in me. Maybe the natives have run out of money. So that’s why Wembling got so much done. That and his flimsy building techniques. I stopped to watch on the way over. They roll the film on, spray it, and suddenly it’s as solid as metal-the foreman claimed. It still looked like film to me. At this rate, Wembling will be open for business in a few weeks. Still, if some politician has the guts—”

Dallman shook his head soberly. “It’s got to happen now, or he’ll be too late. Look here.”

He went to the window, and Protz joined him there. “See those hunting boats off the point?” Dallman asked.

“What about them?”

“They don’t catch anything. I’ve watched them for hours. Every day they’re there, patiently searching back and forth, but they never catch anything. The natives are starving.”

“Can’t we make Wembling feed them?” Protz asked.

“We still haven’t found a food they can or will eat. They’re a proud people, Protz, and they don’t want handouts. Especially they don’t want handouts from Wembling. The perplexing thing is that they’re so cheerful. They’re confident they have a Plan to blast Wembling and his resort right off the planet.”

“Have you found out what it is?”

Dallman shook his head. “I only hope that when it fails, as it must, they don’t lose their heads and attack us. It’ll be a sad day for the navy if we have to slaughter starving natives to protect the corrupt interests of a Wembling.”

The desk ensign’s voice rasped, “Mr. Wembling is on his way up, sir.”

Protz turned away. “Excuse me. I haven’t unpacked yet.”

“Go ahead,” Dallman said. “I wish I could go somewhere and unpack something.”

Protz dropped the door open and went out. Dallman heard Wembling’s voice outside. “Oh, hello, Captain. Have a nice leave?” And Protz’s answer, “Very nice, thank you.”

Then Wembling entered. “Morning, Ernie.”

“Good morning, Harlow.”

Wembling sauntered up to Dallman’s desk and dropped a folio with a thud. “Here’s more paperwork for you. Come down to the lounge for a drink?”

Dallman absently lifted the folio and set it down again. “Why not?”

The upper levels of the finished wing were used for office space. The lower level served as a lounge for Wembling’s supervisory personnel and the naval officers. Wembling used it as a training school for waitresses, cooks, and bartenders who later would work in the resort. Normally Dallman avoided the place—its dim interior was always crowded with off-duty personnel, and the strumming, whining music sometimes was so loud that he could feel the beat in his office two levels above.

But when Wembling entered, the volume of sound was turned down instantly, and the lights were turned up. The hostess dashed out to greet them and signaled a waitress, and when they reached their favorite table—hurriedly evacuated for their use—the waitress was waiting with their favorite drinks. Dallman seated himself; Wembling captured the waitress’ arm and remained standing.

“Ernie!” he exclaimed. “You didn’t notice! The uniforms camel How do you like this one?”

He turned the waitress around, posing her. To Dallman the uniform looked like a few spangles and frills without a costume, but he made no comment.

Wembling released the waitress and pounced on another who was passing by. “Just a moment, Farica. How do you like this one, Ernie? I can’t make up my mind.”

To Dallman it looked like the same costume with a different arrangement of frills. Wembling posed the second waitress, he extremely serious, she giggling. Finally he seated himself and looked after her as she walked away.

“You’re going to have several lounges and dining rooms,” Dallman said. “Why don’t you put a different costume in each one?”

“Hey—why didn’t I think of that?”

They sipped their drinks in silence, and Dallman, looking through a gap in the heavy draperies, watched the specks of color on the horizon: starving natives, searching the waters with heroic patience for food that long since had been driven elsewhere.

Wembling set his tumbler down and raised two fingers. The waitress was waiting for the signal, and she rushed over with fresh drinks.

“Trouble this morning on Site Four, Ernie,” Wembling said. “The usual—native sneaked in and stopped the work. Can’t you put more sentries there?”

Dallman shook his head. “I just don’t have enough men.”

“The puggards are changing their tactics—now they don’t lie down and wait to be carried away. They run about and make the work force catch them. This one held up work for half an hour. Can’t you give me more sentry posts there?”

Dallman shook his head again. “No. Can’t be done.”

“You’re doing a fine job, Ernie. I’m putting in a good word for you at Naval Headquarters. But go down to Site Four this afternoon, like a good fellow, and see why the natives keep breaking in there.”

“Why are you scattering those stupid golf courses all over Langri?” Dallman asked. “If you’d keep your operations in one place, I could look after you properly.”

“Politics and the law,” Wembling said, grinning at him slyly. “Stay away from them, Ernie. You have superior brains and talent, but it isn’t that kind of brains and talent.”

Dallman shrugged good-naturedly and said nothing, though he was reflecting that the galaxy would be a far better place if even fewer people had that kind of brains and talent. The hunting boats were tacking toward shore, and he could make out the black lines of the boats beneath the sails.

Wembling said suddenly, “By the way—whatever happened to Commander Vorish?”

“The last I heard, he’d been promoted to captain, and he was taking the Hiln on training maneuvers.”

“You mean—they didn’t fire him?”

It was Dallman’s turn to grin slyly. “They investigated him, and then they handed him a commendation for handling himself well in a difficult situation. My assumption is that the trumped-up charge would have resulted in more publicity than certain persons thought desirable, so Vorish was patted on the head and told to forget it. I could be wrong about that—I don’t know anything about politics and law. Did you want him fired?”

Wembling looked startled. “I? Certainly not. I had no grudge against him. There’s no profit in grudges. We both had jobs to do, but he went at his in the wrong way. If they kicked him out, I’d have offered him a job. He was a good man, and he understood these natives, and I can use someone like that. I’m going to have a huge enterprise here, and I’ll need all the good men I can get. If you ever leave the navy, Ernie, come back to Langri. I’ll have a place for you.”

“Thanks. I’ll remember that.”

Wembling finished his drink, slapped the table with both hands, and pushed himself to his feet. “Come down to Site Four with me this afternoon?”

“I have a full schedule, but I’ll send someone.”

Wembling nodded and waddled away. Dallman nursed his drink for a time and watched the tacking hunting boats. The music became louder the moment Wembling left, and the dancing that accompanied it became disconcertingly frenzied, and finally he fled back to his office.

Again he stood at the window watching the hunting boats. For half a day he had been trying to decide what to do about a joint report submitted to him by Aric Hort and Talitha Warr. It detailed the mortality rate at each native village during the past month, with an attested statement from Wembling’s own doctor concerning the natives’ physical condition. It also contained a bleak forecast concerning future mortality. The report was a model of its kind—detached, concise, and bristling with verifiable facts, and if, as he had done with their previous reports, he forwarded it to headquarters with a covering letter pointing out that Wembling’s resort project was exterminating the natives, headquarters would file it without comment.

Headquarters undoubtedly wished that he would cease and desist, but it dared not complain. His orders made him responsible for the welfare of the natives and the protection of Wembling’s rights under his charter, and there was no provision for the possibility that these two responsibilities would be irreconcilable.

Somewhere in the upper strata of political power, there were persons who had conspired with Wembling to violate a treaty solemnly entered into by their government, and if they knew about Dallman’s dilemma they would be badly frightened. They would exert all of their influence to consign such reports to the file and keep them there, and they would willingly allow an entire people to die because they could not save them without revealing their complicity in a vile conspiracy. In the end the fermenting scandal would explode anyway, and everyone concerned would be destroyed except Wembling.

That would come much too late to help the natives.

Dallman’s problem was to send the report where it would be studied and acted upon, and if such a place existed, no one he had consulted knew where it was.

Finally he gave it up and attacked the pile of work on his desk.

It was mid-afternoon when he became aware of the vibrating roar and whistle of a spaceship in landing approach. At first he scowled irritably, and then he sprang for the window. The shrieking roar shook the building as the ship passed close overhead. Dallman caught only a glimpse of it, and he turned and raced for the door.

The white-faced duty ensign was looking out from under his desk. He scrambled to his feet in embarrassment and asked, “What was it, sir?”

Dallman ran past him without speaking. Outside the building, several construction workers were climbing out from under a machine. A driver was still hiding under Wembling’s conveyance. Dallman hauled him out and had himself driven at top speed to the landing field.

Captain Protz was standing at the top of his ship’s ramp, angrily staring into the distance. Dallman called to him, “Where did it land?”

“Off in the forest somewhere,” Protz said. His face was flushed with anger. “What idiot was it?”

“I don’t know. Suppose we try finding out.”

“When we do, I want the captain’s license. He came in without clearance, he violated every landing procedure on the list, and then he missed the field by at least twenty kilometers.”

Their investigation lasted all of five minutes and produced two negatives: the ship was not a naval craft, and Wembling’s supply chief disclaimed any knowledge of it—he had no ships due. In the meantime, a reconocopter was taking the tops out of trees back in the area where the ship was presumed to have come down. The pilot saw no trace of it.

“This can only mean one thing,” Dallman said. “The natives have visitors.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I think that landing approach was neither inept nor accidental. It was done deliberately, to avoid any chance of an interception. The natives probably have the ship thoroughly hidden by now, which means that neither a reconocopter nor a ground search would have a chance in a million of finding it.”

“A ground search is out anyway,” Protz said. “I wouldn’t order men into that forest. Anyway, I don’t suppose there’s a portable detector on Langri.”

“I certainly don’t know of any.”

“What possible business would an outsider have with the natives?”

“How about smuggling arms?” Dallman suggested.

Protz groaned. “In that case, we’ll have to make a ground search. But even if we found the ship, the arms would be unloaded and hidden.”

“If they attack us, we’ll have to smash them,” Dallman said despondently. “I’d hoped I could get through this assignment without a shot fired at the natives. I’d much rather shoot Wembling.”

20

A broad band of light marked the construction site perimeter, and on the landing field each ship stood in its own bright oval. The humped silhouette of a reconocopter, small cabin perched over enormous, circular turbine housing, stood at the edge of the landing field. As Dallman and Protz approached it, the pilot jumped down and snapped a salute.

“Ready any time you are, sir,” he said.

“Pity Langri doesn’t have a moon,” Protz observed, looking about him. “It’d be charming by moonlight.”

“Mention that to Wembling,” Dallman said. “He’ll have one built.”

They climbed aboard, and the reconocopter shot upward steeply and moved off along the coast, still climbing. Staring down into utter blackness, Dallman suddenly saw a patch of light on the horizon. As they gained altitude, more patches came into view.

He touched the pilot’s shoulder. “Can we have a closer look?”

They dropped precipitously and drifted over a village at low altitude, and the patch of light resolved into rows of fires that turned the village oval into a blaze of light. There seemed to be a great bustle of activity, but what it signified Dallman had no idea.

“You say this isn’t normal?” he asked the pilot.

“Definitely not normal, sir. They fix their evening meal about dark, when the hunting boats get in. When they have something to fix, that is. Sometimes they don’t. Once they’ve finished their meal you can fly the whole coast without catching a glimpse of light except at the construction sites.”

“It’s a shame that we know so little about these natives,” Dallman said. “I never have an inkling of what Fornri’s thinking about, and I doubt that Aric Hort understands him any better than I do. The Colonial Bureau should have sent in a team to study them.” He turned to Protz. “What do you make of it?”

“It’s suggestive, but darned if I know what it suggests.”

“I know what it suggests,” Dallman said grimly. “A strange ship lands this afternoon, and tonight every native on the planet is staying up all night. They’re getting ready for something. We’d better go back and make a few preparations of our own.”

The pilot turned back. When they reached the landing field, Dallman strolled over to the perimeter and walked the sentry path for a thousand meters, meditating the uncanny quiet of the night. Protz followed behind him without speaking.

“Going to double the sentries?” he asked finally.

“Could you work out a staggered relief system to place all the sentries on duty from four hundred on?”

“Of course.”

“Let’s do it that way. Since most of the natives are still at their villages, it should be several hours before anything happens here. I’m going to get Wembling out of bed. I’ll tell him to issue orders immediately—his men are to have the day off tomorrow, and they’re restricted to quarters until further notice. That’ll apply to him, too. He can put his commissary to work right now packing meals for the men to eat in quarters.”

“He’ll howl,” Protz said.

“He’d better not howl to me. I want all the site commanders alerted. For the time being we’re going to forget Wembling’s golf courses and shorten sentry lines to effectively protect workers and equipment. I’ll also tell ordnance to place a reserve of arms at each site so the workers can be armed if that proves necessary.”

They returned to the landing field, and Dallman walked over to a waiting conveyance and climbed into it. “I want to see Hort the first thing in the morning,” he said. “Wembling’s niece, too, if she’ll come. Tell me—if you were a native and you wanted to stop Wembling’s work, what would you do?”

“That’s easy. I’d kill Wembling.”

“All right,” Dallman said disgustedly. “I’ll give him an armed guard.”

Dallman slept at his desk. He woke up occasionally to monitor reports, but nothing was being reported but negatives. All of the larger native villages were alight with numerous small fires, but if the natives were stirring anywhere else, no one saw them. Finally Dallman chose to ignore the reports and sleep.

The intercom rasped him to wakefulness and reminded him that he’d decided the day before to replace his desk ensign. “Captain Protz is here, sir. With Miss Warr and Mr. Hort.”

Dallman stirred sleepily, yawned, and lowered his feet. “Send them in.”

He stood up to greet them, and with Protz’s help he pulled chairs into position and got the three of them seated. “Nice of you to come,” he said, wearily dropping into his own chair. “I urgently need the answer to a question. What’s going on?”

Hort and Miss Warr exchanged startled glances and then looked at him blankly. Protz said, “They won’t be able to help us much. They don’t know anything about the fires. They didn’t even know a ship landed yesterday.”

“There wasn’t any mention among the natives of a ship landing?” Dallman asked them.

They shook their heads.

“Did you notice anything about the natives yesterday that seemed unusual?”

“They were a little hungrier than they were the day before, but there’s nothing unusual about that,” Hort said. “What’s this about a ship?”

“I don’t know, except that there was one,” Dallman said. “It landed in the forest some twenty kilometers from the coast.” Absently he got to his feet and went to the window. “How does it happen you don’t know about the fires? Aren’t you two usually at one of the villages until after nightfall?”

“Usually,” Hort agreed. “Yesterday—well, it seemed natural enough at the time, but now that I think about it—anyway, we were sort of escorted away yesterday afternoon.”

“Asked to leave?”

“Nothing like that. Fornri said he was going to the next village, and he offered to walk with us as far as the center. If eviction was what he had in mind, I’d have to admit he managed it very neatly. What kind of fires were there?”

Dallman turned again to the window. He gazed at the horizon for a moment, and then he leaned forward, staring. “Look!”

The other three bounded to the window. “What is it?” Protz demanded.

“Look-off the point.”

All of them stared. “There’s nothing there,” Protz announced.

“Right.” After so many hours of uncertainty, Dallman’s grim-ness had become fatalistic. “Every day since I arrived here, there’s been a hunting fleet working off the point—until today.”

“I was about to tell you that,” Protz said reproachfully. “The reconocopter pilot just reported—none of the hunting boats are working today.”

“I see. Yesterday a strange ship arrives. Today all the natives on Langri take the day off. What are they doing?”

“All the pilot could tell me is that they’re congregating in the larger villages,” Protz said.

“At this point there’s only one thing to do. We’ll have a frank talk with Fornri.”

“How many men do you want to take?”

“None. Miss Warr and Hort if they want to come. We aren’t trying to coerce the natives. We’re just asking the favor of some information.”

They circled widely to approach from the sea and make an unobtrusive landing on the beach below the village. The pilot remained with the reconocopter; Dallman, with Protz, Hort, and Miss Warr trailing after him, walked slowly up the slope to the village. As they reached the point where the first curving side street intercepted the main avenue, he paused and looked about him incredulously.

The natives were in festival costume, and the atmosphere was one of celebration. They greeted their visitors with smiles and made way for them respectfully as they moved slowly up the central avenue. And despite their emaciated appearances, they seemed not merely cheerful but happy.

Cooking fires blazed in the central oval. When they reached it, Dallman paused again and sniffed appreciatively. “They’re certainly starving in style. That smells delicious.”

“It is delicious,” Hort said bitterly. “What there is of it. The natives will get about as much as you did—a smell.”

“It was enough to remind me that I missed breakfast,” Dallman said good-naturedly. They moved on, and at the other side of the oval he halted abruptly. “What the devil!”

They stood gazing perplexedly up the central avenue. At the top of the village, before one of the larger dwellings, a long line of natives stood waiting quietly.

Then Fornri saw them. He came hurrying toward them, but whether his action suggested either alarm or resentment at their presence, Dallman could not say. The native’s face remained expressionless.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

“To observe,” Dallman said.

“In the past you have not interfered in the lives of my people. Is that to change?”

“Certainly not,” Dallman said. “I have no intention of interfering.”

“Then your presence is not required. What is happening here concerns only ourselves.”

“Everything that happens on this world concerns me,” Dallman said firmly. “I intend to know what is going on here.”

They faced each other, Space Navy admiral and Langrian native, and Dallman had no doubt that he was the more nervous of the two. The silence seemed interminable. Finally Fornri spoke. “I know that you have been a good friend to my people. All of you have, but you also have duties and obligations that concern others. Our fear on this day is that Mr. Wembling may attempt to interfere with us.”

“He won’t,” Dallman promised. “I’ve confined Wembling and all of his workers to their quarters. If what you are doing concerns only yourselves, no one will interfere.”

“Very well.” Fornri paused, and then he said proudly, “We are holding an election.”

“An—election?” Dallman felt Protz’s grip tighten on his arm. He turned and looked blankly at him. Hort and Miss Warr were looking just as blankly at each other.

“We are electing delegates to a constitutional convention,” Fornri said.

Dallman gazed past Fornri at the line of waiting natives. He thought, “What an idyllic setting for an election!” Holiday atmosphere, a magnificent view of the sea, a feast in preparation, citizens waiting their turns at the polling booths in a woven grass hut—the principles of democracy had never been more strikingly portrayed.

None of them spoke. Probably none of them could speak— Dallman could not.

“When the constitution has been approved,” Fornri went on, “we shall elect a government. And then we shall apply for membership in the Galactic Federation of Independent Worlds.”

“Is it legal?” Protz blurted.

“It is legal. Our attorney is advising us.”

“Is it the Plan?” Hort asked eagerly.

“It is part of the Plan,” Fornri said. “We could have done it sooner, but we did not know that we needed only sixty per cent literacy. We have more than ninety per cent.”

Dallman, sensing the solemnity as well as the importance of the occasion, snapped to attention. “I am honored to present my congratulations, and I’m confident that I can include those of the Federation Government. And I give you this pledge: no one will interfere with any of your steps toward self-government, at any time. If anyone tries, notify me at once.”

Fornri gave the jerky bow that he sometimes affected when speaking with outsiders. “In behalf of the people of Langri, I thank you.”

“I suppose your government’s first official action will be to evict Wembling,” Protz said lightly.

Fornri’s politely blank expression did not change. “We shall of course be guided by the law.”

With a final glance at the polling hut, they turned and walked slowly back to the reconocopter. The pilot was waiting to assist them aboard, but instead they turned again and looked at the village.

“And that,” Protz murmured, “will finish Wembling.”

“At least we’ve solved the mystery of the unknown ship,” Dallman said. “It was their attorney, coming to advise them and help them draw up a constitution. As for finishing Wembling, you’re wrong. The Wemblings in this universe don’t finish that easily. He’s ready for this. You might even say he’s been expecting it.”

“What can he do?” Protz demanded.

“No court of law would make him give up what he already has. The bribery and political connivance that got him his illegal charter won’t be part of the official record, and the court can’t take note of them. It will have to assume that Wembling acted under his charter in good faith. Now we know why he’s been laying out all those enormous golf courses. That land was legally developed by him, under an official Federation charter, and the court will let him keep it.”

Hort and Miss Warr turned on him aghast. “That can’t be true!” Hort exclaimed.

“Ah, but it is. Wait and see. And once the court confirms his ownership of all that land, he’ll be free to use it any way he likes. He can put up dozens of resorts and flood the coast with tourists. If the natives try to stop him, the Federation courts will support Wembling—with force, if necessary.”

Dallman gestured at the distant election lines. “Do you realize what a tremendous accomplishment that is? Ninety per cent literacy from nothing. How they must have worked! You two—” He spoke to Hort and Miss Warr. “Did you know the entire population was learning to read and write?”

“I’ve been teaching the children,” Hort said. “But only children from the villages close by.”

“Then the children taught the adults, and the villages close by taught others. They did this thing themselves, and they did it secretly, and in all of human history few people can have worked harder or achieved more. Ninety per cent literacy. And they were beaten before they started. The poor devils!”

21

In the course of his legal career, Submaster Jarvis Jarnes often had experienced despondency—any attorney who lost a close judgment experienced despondency—but what he felt now was bleak despair. The sugary visage of Master Khan Khorwiss, eminent counsel of Wembling and Company, who faced him across the chamber’s computer consoles, added another measure of bitterness for the quaffing.

Khorwiss was waiting patiently, hands clasped behind his head, robe thrown back carelessly, the merest flicker of a smile playing on his lips, and occasionally he shot a scornful glance at Jarnes, who was rechecking his reference disks and arranging his notes. Like most masters of the old school, Khorwiss disdained such last-minute priming. Prepare your case in your office and play it in the chamber. Obviously his case was prepared to the last reference code, and he was as confident of winning as Jarnes was certain of losing. Jarnes’s own case was as thoroughly searched and briefed as human effort could make it, but the most he could hope for was that Khorwiss might be guilty of overconfidence. In that unlikely event Jarnes would have the pleasure of slipping him a nasty jolt or two, but he had no illusions that this could possibly affect the outcome.

He could not imagine any attorney, much less Master Khan Khorwiss, playing a case as strong as that of Wembling and Company so carelessly as to lose it. Jarnes’s only chance lay in tricking the computer, a reckless gambit much discussed among young attorneys but as far as he knew never employed successfully. Since his case was lost, he had nothing further to lose by gambling.

His despair was not brought on by the prospect of defeat— what was one more defeat after so many? Every attorney knew that one sometimes had to concede points to win a case and lose first cases to win the last. But following this defeat he would take the one blundering step that would destroy the Langri cause utterly. He had protested and argued frantically, but the natives insisted, and they were his clients, and he had no choice. It was part of the Plan, they said.

They would not tell him their Plan.

The justice in session sign glowed to life at the back of the room, and a moment later the scowling, brightly robed image of Justice Figawn appeared. Clerk Wyland jerked to respectful attention, and the two attorneys arose and bowed. Figawn bent low in acknowledgment—without, however, relinquishing his scowl. As soon as they had seated themselves, he faced Jarnes and spoke his mind with more than his usual bluntness.

“Again we have the People of Langri versus Wembling and Company. Submaster Jarnes, my patience—which I never claimed to be limitless—has long since been exhausted by these baseless actions and petitions. Once again I offer my entire sympathy to those poor, starving natives, but—”

The justice turned his irritated gaze on Khorwiss, who had got to his feet and stood waiting. “Well, Master Khorwiss?”

“May I speak, Your Eminence?”

“You have leave, Master Khorwiss.”

“Your Eminence, I beg permission to present the petition of Wembling and Company against the People of Langri.”

Figawn stared at him for a moment before turning incredulously to Clerk Wyland. “Wembling and Company are suing the natives?”

“They are, Your Eminence,” the clerk murmured.

“At least it’s a change. You may proceed, Master Khorwiss.”

“This morning, Your Eminence, the Federation Congress granted the world of Langri independent status and membership in the Federation. Naturally this alters the status of Wembling and Company.”

A flicker of a smile touched the justice’s face. “No one will ever accuse you of overstatement, Master Khorwiss. It does indeed ‘alter the status.’ Wembling and Company’s charter is automatically voided.”

“Wembling and Company are petitioning for confirmation of ownership of lands properly and legally developed by them under the charter,” Khorwiss said. “There is of course substantial legal precedence for such a petition, Your Eminence, as we are prepared to demonstrate.”

He seated himself with a smug glance at Jarnes.

Justice Figawn turned. “Have you a challenge, Submaster Jarnes?”

Jarnes got to his feet. “Your Eminence, the people of Langri naturally challenge the claim of Wembling and Company to lands usurped under an illegal and corruptly granted charter.”

Khorwiss leaped to his feet. “Exception!”

“Silence!” Figawn snapped. He turned to Jarnes. “Surely I need not inform you again, Submaster Jarnes, that this court has no jurisdiction over the status of that charter. You may play your cases, gentlemen.”

The attorneys resumed their seats, and Clerk Wyland spoke. “Do Wembling and Company stand ready to present their petition?”

Khorwiss bowed deeply.

“Do the people of Langri stand ready to answer that petition?”

Jarnes bowed. Clerk Wyland activated the computer; Jarnes leaned forward intently, hands alert on his own console, waiting for Khorwiss’ initial reference.

It came with a sharp ping, and the symbols appeared at the top of the left, the plaintiff’s screen. Jarnes absorbed them with a glance; regretfully he matched the reference from his own slender stack of reference disks. Another ping sounded, and his reference appeared in symbols atop the right-hand screen. The third ping followed almost at once, and both references vanished; the computer had rated them equal.

Jarnes glanced across at Khorwiss and found Wembling’s attorney watching him with a faint smile on his face—perhaps a surface reflection of the old attorney’s pleasure in playing a case that could not lose. In his own comparatively brief career Jarnes could not remember having experienced that pleasure.

Khorwiss disdainfully posted three references in rapid succession and then sat back to see what Jarnes would make of them. Tongue firmly in cheek, Jarnes posted one of his feit disks—a reference of dubious value. It appeared and instantly swept Khorwiss’ references into oblivion, leaving the left screen blank. But almost immediately a gong sounded, Jarnes’s feit reference disappeared, and Khorwiss’ references were restored.

Clerk Wyland spoke. “The computer disallows it, Submaster Jarnes. Reversed by decision of Higher Court.”

Jarnes nodded with feigned apology. Khorwiss’ momentary consternation offered some slight compensation for the ignominy of having to play a case with such slight support. He touched the keys that directed more of his slender stack of reference disks into the play. It cost him five of them to match Khorwiss’ three postings, and two more to match another.

With an eye on his diminished references, he played again from his stack of feit disks. Again the gong sounded, and Clerk Wyland observed laconically, “Voided by legislative act, Submaster Jarnes.” Another feit disk, another gong. “The computer says irrelevant, Submaster Jarnes.”

Khorwiss, scenting an easier victory than expected, began to pile up unanswered references. Jarnes waited until the lengthening list reached the eighteenth line. Then, with the stage set, with Khorwiss’ plump, smug face radiating victory, Jarnes stroked the keys.

The ping sounded; his reference symbols appeared on the right screen. Almost instantly came the ping of response, and Khorwiss’ entire list disappeared.

All of it. For a suspenseful moment the master attorney was too dumbfounded to protest. Then he came to his feet screaming. “Exception! Exception! What reference is that?”

Jarnes answered calmly, “The reference is as stated: Rulings of Governmental Commissions, 5/19/E/349/K.”

“That’s no reference!” Khorwiss proclaimed indignantly.

“Shall we permit the court to decide?” Jarnes asked him politely.

Justice Figawn was consulting his own computer. After a moment he turned toward them. “I find no indication that the commission intended its ruling to have legal precedence. The reference is denied because of single-case applicability.”

With a ping Jarnes’s reference was wiped out and Khorwiss’ list restored. He shrugged philosophically; a gamble with a feit reference was excusable only when one didn’t expect it to work.

He played his remaining references with deliberation, one at a time. When he succeeded in reducing Khorwiss’ list to six, Wembling’s attorney insolently added another dozen.

Finally, his references exhausted, Jarnes turned to the most promising of his feit disks. The computer greeted each one with a gong, and Clerk Wyland’s voice took on an edge of impatience that matched Justice Figawn’s deepening scowl as he observed, “The computer says irrelevant, Submaster Jarnes.” Khorwiss was grinning broadly.

Finally Jarnes got to his feet and faced the justice. “That’s all I have, Your Eminence.”

Justice Figawn nodded politely. “The court confirms the ownership by Wembling and Company of land on the world of Langri properly developed by them under charter. Does your petition include the required legal descriptions, Master Khorwiss?”

Khorwiss arose. “It does, Your Eminence.”

“It does? Yes—I have it here.” Figawn paused to skim through the descriptions. “Master Khorwiss,” he asked politely, “how many golf courses does one resort require?”

Khorwiss remained discreetly silent.

Figawn turned to Jarnes. “May I have your counterpetition, Submaster Jarnes?”

“I have none, Your Eminence,” Jarnes told him.

Figawn stared at him. “Do you mean to say you’re going to accept these claims as stated?”

“That is the wish of my clients, Your Eminence.”

“Anyone but a nitwit could tell with one glance that many of these claims are preposterous,” Figawn announced.

“Your Eminence!” Khorwiss exclaimed.

“Surely you’re not going to let this petition stand without protest,” Figawn said to Jarnes.

“I have no choice but to observe the wishes of my clients, Your Eminence. They do request, however, that Wembling and Company be required to file a certified and attested statement of investment for each parcel of land claimed so as to demonstrate the validity of the claim to this court’s satisfaction, I shall insist on an accounting of Wembling and Company’s expenditures for each parcel.”

Figawn regarded him gravely. “You are of course bound by the wishes of your clients.” He turned to Khorwiss. “I so rule. Wembling and Company are instructed to prepare the desired certified and attested statements, and I myself will then carry out the wishes of the people of Langri by allowing such claims as the developmental investment justifies—in accordance with legal procedure, of course. Is there further comment? None? Let justice be done.”

His image faded. The justice in session sign darkened. Khorwiss quickly gathered his disks and records and went out grinning. Jarnes wearily began the methodical packing of his own reference disks.

Clerk Wyland leaned over and spoke to him. “Submaster Jarnes—a word, please. My understanding was that even one resort on Langri would seriously deplete the natives’ food supply.”

“That is correct, sir.”

“Surely the people of Langri can perceive that Wembling and Company will use this lavish gift of land for the construction of innumerable resorts.”

“I’m sure that they can,” Jarnes said politely. “In fact, I brought that possibility to their attention very forcefully. However, they not only requested the action taken, they demanded it, and I had no choice but to carry out their wishes.”

“Surely if you had explained to them …”

“I did explain,” Jarnes said.

“…and demonstrated to them …”

“I did demonstrate.”

“…and described the inevitable result…”

“I did describe the inevitable result, not once but repeatedly.”

“Well!” Clerk Wyland drew back and regarded him indignantly. “I’ll be interested to see what happens, and I’m certain that I’ll find out. The people of Langri will soon be back here screaming for relief. Unfortunately, that petition will come much too late.”

He stomped away angrily. Jarnes felt like weeping, and he turned away for a moment before resuming his packing. Saltwater corrosion in an attorney’s reference disks was a sure sign of immaturity.

22

The village was deathly quiet. Pausing in the street outside the improvised hospital, Talitha Warr tried to remember the last time she’d heard singing there. Once the natives had accompanied every mood with an appropriate song, from the tender love melodies of the youths to the stirring chants that were used with heavy work and the burying of koluf; but now so many natives were weak from hunger that the heavy work went undone, and the few koluf that were caught were buried in tragic silence.

There were no more songs—only lamentations for the dead, and she heard one beginning now. Shivering, she walked despondently down to the beach, where Aric Hort was to meet her. He was sitting alone on the vast stretch of sand. There were no more native children well enough to play there.

She said, “Did you hear?”

He nodded. “The natives gave your uncle everything he asked for.”

They set out along the beach for the medical center, and for a time they walked silently, keeping their eyes on the unmarked, wind-rippled sand. “It was their last chance for help from the courts,” Hort said finally. “Fornri doesn’t even seem worried. He says it’s part of the Plan.”

“I have an appointment with Uncle tomorrow,” she said. “I’m going to try again to persuade him to hire an experienced nutritionist. We’ve got to find something they can eat. If only they would trust us—”

“But they won’t,” Hort said. “If one thing is more responsible than any other for the mess they’re in, that’s it. They need help desperately, and they won’t trust anyone. Turn your head slowly and look at that bush on the ridge.”

She did as he told her and saw two native children peering at them from behind the bush. “It’s only a couple of children,” she said.

“Any time you can see two, there are ten others you can’t see. Weak as they are, they follow every alien on Langri who takes a step away from the construction sites. They watch his every move and carry regular reports to a secret native headquarters. They’ve been doing that from the moment your uncle set up an embassy, and they’re still doing it, malnutrition or not. One would think that by this time they’d trust you and me, but they don’t. We’re followed everywhere we go. Didn’t you know?”

She shook her head. “I’m not surprised, though. Certainly they have every right—”

He gripped her arm. The two of them stopped and stood facing each other. “Would you join me in an experiment?” he asked. “There’s something I’ve wanted to investigate for weeks, but I know the natives would stop me if they caught me at it. There’s only one way I can think of to shake off those children.”

She resisted the temptation to look again at the bush. “What sort of an experiment?”

“Come on. I’ll show you.”

They turned back, left the beach, and crossed the seaside meadow to a forest path. After some distance the path forked; one branch sloped upward steeply, and when they turned into it they saw, far ahead of them, a young native couple walking along slowly in close embrace.

“Where are we?” Talitha asked.

Hort gestured toward the top of the slope. “This is a Bower Hill.”

“Bower Hill?” she echoed. “I never heard of such a thing.” She glanced about her. “I’ve never been this way before.”

“I should hope not!” Hort said with a grin.

“Now what do you mean by that?”

He shook his head and took a surreptitious backward glance. “We brought the whole flock with us,” he said disgustedly.

“Was that the experiment? Did you think they wouldn’t come here?”

“I hoped they wouldn’t, but they probably want to make certain where we’re going.”

“So where are we going?” she asked.

“To the Bower Hill.”

As they approached the crest she saw why the word “bower” was used—along each side of the path were openings into small forest glades. In one of them she saw the young couple they had. followed up the path lying in close embrace. She averted her eyes and then turned a puzzled gaze on Hort; he was looking behind them again, and they walked on for some distance. Then, before she quite knew what was happening, he had drawn her into a bower on the opposite side of the path.

She struggled furiously as he tried to embrace her. “So this is your idea of an experiment!” she snapped. She beat futilely against his face with her fists.

“Hush!” he whispered. “It’s the only way to get rid of the escort!”

She continued to struggle. “With you, a girl needs an escort!”

“Hush! If it isn’t a good act, they won’t leave!”

Then his lips found hers, and she stopped struggling.

A moment later, an hour, an eternity, she lay in his arms on the soft, springy blanket of pliable fronds, and she opened her eyes bewilderedly when he suddenly released her and raised himself up.

“I think they’re gone,” he whispered.

“Good for them,” she said, and pulled him back.

His beard caressed her face and his lips sealed her eyes, and she heard his whispered words with a wild surge of joy. “If we had only ourselves to think of—they call this world paradise, but it wasn’t, not until you came. But the natives—”

Her joy took flight, and reluctantly she pushed herself into a sitting position. “The natives are starving. What was it you wanted to find out?”

He got to his feet and helped her up. “There’s a path they keep concealed. I’d like to find out where it leads.” He went to the bower opening and cautiously looked down the path. Then he returned to her. “They’re gone. It was a magnificent act.”

She went willingly to his arms, and when they finally drew apart she said, “You’re rather convincing yourself, but was it necessary to climb up here for our acting?”

He smiled at her. “You really don’t know where you are?”

She shook her head.

“It’s a Bower Hill. There’s one for every two or three villages, and they’re the places where the young people do their courting. They’re the only locations on Langri where there’s a right to privacy. Come on—they’ll be waiting for us at the bottom of the hill, so we’ll have to sneak out the back way.”

A narrow path, only slightly worn, took them down the hill in another direction. After watching for a time to make certain they were unobserved, they sprinted across a meadow to the forest and cautiously skirted it until they came upon one of the main paths. They followed it in single file with Hort leading the way. So well camouflaged was the intersecting path that he missed it completely and had to fumble in the tall undergrowth searching for it, but finally he found the place. The opening was cunningly laced together with vines, and they parted it only enough to squeeze through.

They found themselves on a broad avenue—not only was this path wider than any other forest path Talitha could remember, but the undergrowth had been trimmed back from it. It had the appearance of a tidy roadway, and to aggravate the mystery, the path ran absolutely straight. Other forest paths meandered— around trees, away from thickets and bogs, along watercourses— but this one ran as straight as a survey. It turned aside for nothing, and no trace remained of the trees that must have been felled to make its course possible.

They had to get back to the Bower Hill before the children suspected their ruse, so they walked quickly. The wide path provided some consolation: they could walk side by side, and his arm encircled her warmly.

“Did you ever see a forest path that ran so straight?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Nor one so wide.”

“What could be back here in the forest that attracts so much traffic?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out.”

The only obstacle they encountered was a small stream. They waded across, and far up ahead of them the path seemed to end in a blaze of sunlight. A large forest clearing opened before them. It was roughly circular and carpeted with thick grass and flowers. They paused for a moment to look about, and then almost simultaneously they saw it: the rusting, overgrown, smashed hulk of an old survey ship. The forest growth of decades so obliterated its outline that had it not been for the open hatch and the rusting ramp they would have overlooked it.

They ran toward it, and Hort stopped at the foot of the ramp and whistled softly. “Someone came down rather hard. It happened a long, long time ago, but it probably explains a lot of things.”

Together they climbed the wobbly ramp and entered the ship. They felt their way cautiously along the dim corridor to the control room, where cracks in the hull permitted the jagged entry of light. There, on the chart table, atop the brittle remains of the charts, was an amazing clutter of objects: the ship’s log, a few books, a rusted pocket knife, a broken compass, a rosary.

In the center of the table was a heap of fresh flowers.

“It’s a shrine!” Talitha exclaimed.

Hort picked up the logbook. “The ship’s log. This may answer questions I’ve been asking myself ever since I arrived here. Let’s take it outside and have a look.”

They sat side by side at the top of the ramp and held the log between them. “It’s an old-fashioned script,” Hort said, leafing through the pages. “Can you make it out?”

“Just barely.”

“After the ship crashed, it seems to have been used as a diary, and also—” He stared at it. “Also I don’t know what. Let’s start at the beginning and see what we can make of it.”

So they read together, page after page after page.

His name was Cerne Obrien. He was a little freebooter who had somehow managed to buy or steal a junked government survey ship, and he went batting about the galaxy raising hell and generally having himself a grand puff of a good time. He also did a bit of illegal prospecting when he felt like it, which didn’t seem to be often. When the miracle occurred, and he did strike it rich, he actually seemed to resent the fact. He crashed on his way back to civilization, but he remained the freebooter, now lording it among unsophisticated natives. He explored, he prospected for metals, and he added an outrigger to the hunting boats to give them stability in the furious struggles with the koluf.

Cerne Obrien, the wanderer, finally remained in one place because he was unable to leave. He acquired a native wife, rose high in native councils, and became a leader. And down through the years, as they leafed the pages, a subtle change became more and more pronounced. Obrien increasingly identified with the natives, became one of them, and began to worry about their future. He penned in the logbook an astute summary of Langri’s potential as a resort planet that might have been written by Wembling, followed by a warning as to the probable fate of the natives. He added, “If I live, this won’t happen. If I don’t live, there must be a Plan for them to follow.”

“Tal!” Hort exclaimed. “It isn’t possible! One man couldn’t have done all that. He taught the natives government and law and economics and history and science and language and political science and colonial procedure and an entire university curriculum. He even taught military subjects. How could one man—obviously an uneducated man—how could he do it?”

“He did more than that,” Talitha said. “He taught them their Plan.”

The initial landing, probably by survey ship (government or private). Steps to observe in capturing the crew. Subsequent landings by ships searching for the first ship. How to approach the Space Navy ship. Negotiations, lists of violations and penalties. Achievement of independent status. Steps to follow when independent status is violated. Steps to follow in preparing for Federation membership.

Every detail was there. Everything the natives had done since Wembling’s ship touched down was laid out in the form of meticulous instructions for them to follow: the exploding gourds that terrified the Space Navy, the sly tricks and dodges used to interrupt Wembling’s work, the directions for their attorney….

Everything. They found themselves gazing awesomely at the natives’ cryptic Plan in all of its breath-taking completeness, right up to its final master stroke, laboriously written out by an uneducated man who had vision and wisdom and patience. By a great man. It was a brilliant prognostication, with nothing lacking except her uncle’s name, and Talitha had the impression that Cerne Obrien had known more than a few H. Harlow Wemblings in his day.

“Not just one man!” Hort exclaimed again. “He couldn’t!”

But he had.

Talitha cast an anxious glance at the lengthening shadows in the clearing. “It’s getting late. How long a courtship will they believe from a couple of beginners?”

“I never thought to ask the rules. Well—” Hort closed the book reverently and got to his feet. “Cerne Obrien, we salute you. Someday we want to come back here and read this carefully. Eventually Langri will have its own historians, and they’ll venerate it.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Talitha said. “They’ll send the name of Cerne Obrien across the galaxy in dryly written tomes read only by other historians. The man deserves a better fate.”

Hort returned the logbook to the chart table, and the two of them scrambled down the ramp. At the bottom they turned, looked at each other, and then solemnly genuflected. “I wrote down his name and the ship’s registration number,” Hort said. “Someone, somewhere, may want to know what happened to him.”

They left the clearing behind them and hurried along the wide path—the memorial path—that led to the shrine of Cerne Obrien.

“Perhaps verbal tradition will keep his memory a living thing far into the future,” Hort said thoughtfully. “Perhaps even now, when no aliens are present, the children gather around a fire and listen to old tales of what the mighty Obrien did and said. But I agree. He deserves a far better fate. Maybe someday we can speak to Fornri about it.”

At the concealed entrance to the path, Talitha halted Hort and faced him. “Aric—now that we know what the Plan is, maybe we could help.”

Hort shook his head. “Absolutely not. Obrien ordered the natives not to tell anyone, not even their attorney, and he was right. In some ways it cost them, like not knowing the literacy requirements, but it also could be the reason the Plan has succeeded. If your uncle so much as suspected a crafty master plan behind the natives’ irrational actions, he’d figure out what it is.”

“Then the best way we can help is to know nothing at all and do nothing.”

“Right,” Hort said. “Let’s not tamper with a work of genius and give the natives a handicap of unnecessary assistance.”

“All right,” she said. “I know nothing. I’ll see Uncle tomorrow and beg for a nutritionist. More dratted acting.”

“I want you to know,” Hort said. “I wasn’t acting.” They embraced hastily, and then they hurried toward the Bower Hill.

Her uncle had forgotten the appointment. She cornered him in a plush conference room in the finished wing of the resort, and they had a brief conversation before his meeting started. Hirus Ayns was there, along with the entire staff of bright young people Wembling had recruited to build his resorts and run them. They sat around the circular table and talked and joked in low tones, with occasional outbursts of boisterous laughter, while Talitha tried to talk with her uncle.

“Tal,” he said firmly, “I wouldn’t even consider it.”

“You can’t be so calloused as to exterminate the entire population!”

“Tal, business is business. I gave the natives every chance, and they wouldn’t co-operate. They can have their ten per cent of the profits, I’ll stand by that, but only after my investment is amortized.”

Talitha faced him defiantly, hoping that she looked sufficiently pale and earnest. She said, “Surely—”

“Tal, I have a meeting here. If you want to stay, I’ll talk with you afterward.”

He got to his feet. “All right. All of you have read the verdict. The court allowed every claim we made. Some were so flimsy that I blushed to submit them, but the natives’ attorney was too stupid to object. So that’s settled.”

He pushed the subject aside with a gesture. “Now that we’re safe from further harassment, we can give some attention to long-range planning. We’re already recruiting and training the personnel we’ll need for this resort, and we’ll be ready to open the moment construction is completed. Today’s meeting was called to discuss our second resort—what sort of a resort we want and where we should put it. Hirus?”

Wembling sat down, and Hirus Ayns got to his feet. “If I may interpose a remark, I think the natives will give in eventually and work for us.”

Wembling shrugged, bit a smoke capsule, blew a smoke ring. “Perhaps. Except for the fact that we’d be able to pay them a twentieth of what imported labor will cost, I couldn’t care less. Put it this way: we made them a fair offer and got snubbed. If they change their minds they’ll have to come to us. Go ahead, Hirus.”

“I call your attention to Site Nine,” Ayns said. “By a most fortuitous coincidence, when we laid out this golf course we included a mountain smack in the middle of it.”

Laughter erupted around the table. Ayns waited, grinning, until it subsided. “A mountain resort would nicely complement this seaside resort, with the added advantage that a brisk walk or a brief ride down the mountain or inside the mountain will take our guests to the seashore. It’s a lovely site. Now then.”

He took some drawings from the portfolio that lay on the table in front of him. “We have sketches from three architects for a resort building on this site. Number one: a circular building constructed completely around the mountain.” He held up the sketch and then passed it to the young man on his right. “The architect has placed a pavilion on the mountaintop for dining and refreshments or just for the view. There’d be VM shafts inside the mountain for those who wanted the view without the climb. And, of course, shafts leading down to the beaches.”

He turned with a frown and directed a question at the doorway. “Yes? What is it?”

Wembling’s young secretary had dropped the door open, and he was waiting apologetically. He said to Wembling, “Sir—excuse me, sir—Fornri is here.”

“I haven’t time to talk with him now,” Wembling said. “Tell him to come back later.”

“Is that wise, Harlow?” Ayns asked. “After all, he is the President of Langri.”

“That doesn’t give him the privilege of interrupting me whenever he feels like it,” Wembling said.

“It isn’t a matter of privilege,” Ayns said. “It’s a question of courtesy.”

Wembling turned to his secretary. “Did he say what he. wanted?”

“No, sir.”

“Maybe he’s changed his mind about those land parcels,” a young woman suggested.

“Tell him he can’t have ‘em back, and let’s get on with this,” another called.

Wembling said to Ayns, “I think you’re right, Hirus. It’s a question of courtesy. I’ll see him and make an appointment to talk with him later.” He turned to the secretary. “Send him in.”

All eyes were on the door when Fornri appeared. They were curious, Talitha thought, to see how he was taking his defeat. He entered smiling and came to a stop just inside the door.

“I’m extremely busy now, Fornri,” Wembling said. “Could we make an appointment for this afternoon?”

“That won’t be necessary, sir,” Fornri told him. “I only came to deliver your tax bill.”

Amidst the circle of blank faces, only Wembling managed a smile. “Tax bill? It only goes to show you—even in paradise!” His bright young assistants laughed, and Wembling went on, “All right, Fornri, but it isn’t necessary to deliver things like this to me personally. You can leave them with my secretary.”

“I thought perhaps you might have questions about it,” Fornri said.

He circled the table, giving Talitha a friendly nod, and handed the packet to Wembling. Wembling nodded his thanks and dropped it onto the table. Then, as he dismissed Fornri with a gesture, he glanced down at the summation.

He snatched it up, looked at it again, and leaped to his feet in rage. “Tax bill? That’s fraud! Extortion! Robbery! No court will permit such a thing!”

The assistant sitting next to him took the packet, stared at the summation, and leaped to his feet, and it passed around the table with the staff members in turn registering rage, astonishment, or indignation. While this happened, Wembling remained on his feet, orating.

“Just because you call yourself a government doesn’t mean you can come in here—go ahead, take a look at that. Just because you call yourself a government doesn’t mean you can come in here and confiscate—that’s what it amounts to, confiscatory taxation, why, that’s been outlawed for centuries! Here’s an entire world with only one taxpayer, Wembling and Company, and if you think for one moment you can come in here—did you ever see the likes of a tax bill like that? We’ll sue and demand damages, that’s what we’ll do!”

Fornri listened politely, and Talitha, occasionally stealing glances at him, thought his splendidly blank expression nothing less than a work of art. She fought to suppress her laughter while her uncle’s voice raged on.

“We’ll sue and demand damages. Confiscatory taxation, that’s the only way to describe it. Confiscatory and punitive taxation, and if you think for one moment Wembling and Company is going to play the sucker and let you get away with an illegal tax grab—”

23

Master Khan Khorwiss pompously struck his most dramatic pose. “Confiscatory and punitive taxation, Your Eminence,” he thundered.

Justice Figawn leaned forward. “Ah! So that’s the tactic. The people of Langri made their bargain, Submaster Jarnes. They cannot unmake it through the agency of taxation.”

“Ten-to-one taxes, Your Eminence,” Khorwiss proclaimed. “Langri presumes to assess Wembling and Company with an annual tax equal to ten times its total investment. If it fails to pay, its holdings will be confiscated. If it pays it will be forced into bankruptcy. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

“Now I have,” the justice said angrily.

Jarnes leaped to his feet.

“I know, I know, Submaster Jarnes. Those poor natives—but they lose sympathy rapidly when they practice such a flagrant illegalism.”

“The references, Your Eminence,” Jarnes said politely. ‘Those tax rates were set properly and legally by the duly elected Congress of the World of Langri, and no Federation court can claim jurisdiction over them.”

The justice studied Jarnes quizzically for a moment, and then he said, “Very well. Do you both stand ready? You may play your cases, gentlemen.”

Clerk Wyland activated the computer. Jarnes sat back comfortably and waited for Khorwiss to build his case, and Wembling’s distinguished counsel did not hesitate. He quickly built a column of references on the left-hand screen. Jarnes, comparing them with his notes, watched patiently; and at the console opposite, Khorwiss’ expression gradually became a smirk as he posted one unanswered reference after another.

At one point Figawn, intrigued by such unusual tactics, interrupted with a question. “Are you going to let him play his entire case, Submaster Jarnes?”

“What there is of it, Your Eminence,” Jarnes said politely.

Finally Khorwiss slowed his pace, and after each entry he began to eye Jarnes uneasily. Then Jarnes stirred himself, stroked his console, and posted a single reference.

A ping sounded, followed instantly by another, and all of Khorwiss’ references vanished. Staring at the screen, mouth open, Khorwiss half rose to protest, thought better of it, waited for the computer to correct itself, and finally asked for time and searched the reference.

While they waited, the justice asked, “Have you other references, Submaster Jarnes?”

“Yes, Your Eminence, but I doubt that they’ll be needed.”

The justice did some searching of his own, read the result, and smiled, shaking his head. “I’ve never seen that case posted before, Submaster Jarnes. How did you happen to find it?”

“I didn’t, Your Eminence. The people of Langri brought it to my attention.”

The justice looked skeptical, and Jarnes did not blame him. He found it difficult to believe himself. He’d had the devil’s own time tracking the case down even after he’d been told about it, and when he located it he thought at first that he’d been victimized by a joker. The case was almost identical to Langri’s, concerning a world’s right to impose uniform taxes, and on appeal to Higher Court the legal principles were laid down firmly for all time in the most comprehensive review of a world’s powers of taxation that Jarnes had ever seen. Apparently a world’s right to impose taxes had never before been challenged in Federation court, and obviously it wasn’t challenged again until now, and a case never cited eventually was dropped from current references.

But someone had remembered it—someone not an attorney, because it was not a legal reference that Fornri passed to him on a soiled scrap of paper, but a scrawled eyewitness recollection of an event remote in time and space. And how did Langri find out about it, when the world’s discovery took place long after the event had been forgotten?

Fornri volunteered no information, and Jarnes, not being aware that the scrap of paper might be important, did not ask. If he had asked, probably he would not have been answered. From the beginning the natives carefully told him no more than he had to know, and though this sometimes tried him sorely, he now felt that they had been wise.

And though there were many other references he could have used, though he thought he could have won without this one, it pleased him to let the people of Langri win their own case.

Khorwiss resumed play a moment later, posting reference after reference, and each appeared on the screen momentarily and then vanished. Eventually he began to resort to feit references, and the pings were replaced by gongs and Clerk Wyland’s reproving voice, “Reversed by decision of Higher Court, Master Khorwiss.”

Finally Khorwiss slumped back dejectedly.

“Your reference stands, Submaster Jarnes,” Figawn observed. “The tax rate is the local government’s prerogative, but it cannot be selectively applied. It must apply equally to all.”

Jarnes got to his feet. “It does apply equally to all, Your Eminence.”

Khorwiss leaped up, arms waving. “Exception! Exception! First, the valuation bases for these taxes are wildly inflated.”

“Exception!” Jarnes shouted. “Those values were attested to this chamber by Wembling and Company!”

Justice Figawn imposed order with a gesture. The merest flicker of a smile touched his lips as he inclined his head to Jarnes. “My congratulations, Submaster Jarnes. Your exception is allowed. Wembling and Company did indeed certify the valuations that their counsel now calls wildly inflated, and I can and do accept them as a proper basis for taxation. Further, I affirm the right of the people of Langri to set their own tax rates. But I must consider Wembling and Company’s charge of selective taxation.”

“There is none, Your Eminence,” Jarnes said. “The ten-for-one tax rate is applied equally to all.”

“Exception!” Khorwiss bleated. “No citizen of Langri owns more than a grass hut. What is ten times the value of a grass hut? Whereas Wembling and Company—”

“Silence!” Figawn roared. He sat back to contemplate the situation. “Will the natives in fact be paying taxes, Submaster Jarnes?” he asked finally.

“Certainly, Your Eminence. The same tax rate applies to all, and I have the tax rolls here for your examination. Further, I object to that term, ‘grass hut.’ These are well-constructed dwellings, requiring several days’ labor by a crew of highly skilled workers to build them, and no grass is used in their construction. I would like to see my eminent colleague produce an example of the woven fiber matting that is so well suited for dwelling walls on the world of Langri. Only the most skilled of the natives are able to weave it. I offer in evidence a report from one Aric Hort, a trained anthropologist and a deputy marshal on Langri, concerning his own efforts to build one of those maligned grass huts. I further point out that these dwellings are also taxed according to their locations, a variable land-value factor that applies only to community dwelling sites and thus is not imposed on the landholdings of Wembling and Company.”

“Accepted as stated,” the justice said. “I’ll now take your cases on the subject of selective taxation.”

This time Jarnes posted a single reference and sat back to enjoy Khorwiss’ perspiring efforts to dislodge it. The other counsel’s postings appeared, one after the other, and the computer consigned them to oblivion with its mocking ping. Khorwiss frantically shuffled his reference disks and frequently turned to the reference console to search something new.

Another posting, and a buzzer rasped. “Duplicated reference, Master Khorwiss,” Clerk Wyland said.

Khorwiss shrugged and posted another reference. Again the buzzer sounded. “Duplicated reference, Master Khorwiss.”

Justice Figawn leaned forward. “Come, Master Khorwiss. Submaster Jarnes is extending every courtesy and I am permitting unlimited challenges. Have you a case?”

Khorwiss tried again; again the buzzer sounded. Clerk Wyland laughed aloud and then clapped a hand over his mouth in consternation; the justice’s tight lips suppressed a smile. With difficulty Jarnes contained his own laughter.

Khorwiss leaped to his feet. “We won’t tolerate this. We’ll appeal. It’s an outrage, and if this court won’t take proper action to prevent it, then Higher Court will. And further—”

Listening to him, Jarnes suppressed a yawn. There would be an appeal, and then another, and with them all of the legal gymnastics the firm of Khorwiss, Qwaanti, Mllo, Bylym, and Alaffro could devise, but he knew that he had won the judgment.

So did Justice Figawn. He had been busily searching references while the case was played, and now, while Khorwiss raved, he studied the results. Then he inclined his head toward Jarnes and closed one eye in a deliberate wink.

24

The paradise world of Langri still looked hideously scarred, but it was healing. The resort buildings were gone. A solitary freighter stood on the landing field, and a machine was carrying the last of the salvage to it, a mammoth scoopload at a time. Freighters loading salvage had become such a familiar sight that Talitha Warr passed it without a glance.

The resort’s vast terrace, designed for thousands of tourists to cavort in oceanside pools, was now bare of its expensive imported tiling, and the Langrian flowers were rapidly restoring it to its pristine integrity. Standing on the beach below the terrace, viewing the sparkling Langrian ocean under the late afternoon sun, was a solitary figure: H. Harlow Wembling. Talitha approached him timidly.

He turned his head when he heard the crunch of her steps on the sand. Then he looked away. His voice was flatly expressionless. “You’re going to stay, then?”

“The government of Langri has invited us to stay. Aric and I are being married tomorrow, in a double ceremony with Fornri and Dalla. Would you like to come?”

“No—no, thank you,” Wembling said quickly. “I already told Fornri that I’d finish loading the salvage this evening and leave at once.” He paused a moment, and then he muttered half to himself, “What a waste! What a place for a resort!”

A group of natives carrying logs approached them along the beach. They placed the logs carefully, laying out fires for a festival. Then they grinned at Talitha and left. Now that the koluf were returning to the feeding grounds, they had shaken off the horrible grip of malnutrition, but food alone could not account for their transformed appearance. They were happy.

Wembling had watched them gloomily. “Getting ready for the wedding celebration?” he asked.

“No. That’ll take place at the Elder’s village. This is tor a special feast tonight. The natives are celebrating getting their world back.”

More natives came with logs. Wembling ignored them and stood looking out to sea again. “Well, Tal—you’re old enough to know what you want to do, and I wish you well.”

“I’m sorry we ended up on opposite sides, Uncle Harlow, but I had no choice.”

“That’s all right, Tal. This won’t ruin me. But what a waste this is—what a place for a resort!”

The purring whine of the machine cut off abruptly. Hirus Ayns came hurrying down the slope from the landing field. “We’ve loaded everything worth loading,” he said. “I think the natives are anxious for us to leave.”

“I told Fornri we’d go this evening. We don’t have to run away.”

“If you want a frank opinion,” Ayns said, “I think we do.”

Wembling and Talitha turned and looked toward the landing field. A good portion of the population of Langri was gathering for the festival, and evidently the natives considered the departure of Wembling’s last ship the ideal beginning for their celebration. Instead of assembling where the festival was to take place, they were crowding the landing field to watch the ship leave. They had completely surrounded it except for a single lane that had opened to make way for the salvage machine, now being loaded.

“There’s a festival tonight,” Talitha told Ayns. “They’ve come to take part in it.”

“Let’s not make them delay it on account of us,” Ayns said. “They might decide to have us provide the entertainment.”

“Nonsense!” Talitha snapped; but Ayns obviously was frightened. He started back toward the ship.

“He has a point,” Wembling said. “I’ve nothing to gain from hanging around here.” He turned. “Good-by, Tal.”

Impulsively she kissed him. Then, as he walked quickly toward the ship, she went looking for Aric Hort. The two of them stood apart from the natives, arm in arm, to watch Wembling’s departure.

Ayns already had reached the crowd of smiling natives. He glanced uneasily from side to side as he started up the lane toward the ship. Wembling also was becoming uneasy. He had increased his pace and was overtaking Ayns. Somehow the two of them read malice into the smiling faces that surrounded them, and they broke into a panicky run. Panting, they reached the ramp and scrambled up. Ayns disappeared into the ship. Wembling, breathing heavily, turned at the top of the ramp and looked down on the natives.

Fornri and Dalla stood at the foot of the ramp. They, too, were smiling happily, and Fornri gave Wembling the native salute.

“Well, Fornri,” Wembling panted. “No hard feelings, I hope. I tried to do my best for your people, you know. The resort would have been a splendid asset for you. Your ten per cent—”

The smiles had broadened. Wembling paused for breath, and then he said stiffly, “I’m grateful for the opportunity to salvage the building materials, and I thank you.”

“And we thank you for the medical center,” Fornri called back to him.

“You’re welcome. Sorry you couldn’t see it my way. It’s such a waste. Why not let us find a stretch of coast where a resort won’t interfere with your hunting?”

Fornri did not answer.

“I’ll give you twenty per cent of the profits,” Wembling said.

He paused and craftily surveyed the faces below him. Ayns had reappeared in the ship’s open hatch, and he was looking out curiously.

“Thirty per cent,” Wembling said. He paused again and looked about him. “Fifty per cent.”

Ayns’s mouth dropped open in consternation. Leaning toward Fornri, Wembling called down to him, and the note of pleading desperation in his voice was entirely out of character. “I’ll make you rich!”

“We already are rich,” Fornri replied.

Wembling turned away. A moment later the hatch closed, the ramp raised, and the natives slowly drew back from the ship. It lifted, and the wild dance of celebration began.

The fires had been lighted, the music had begun, and as Hort and Talitha walked toward the beach, Fornri and Dalla overtook them. Talitha and Dalla embraced happily, and Fornri drew Hort aside and talked seriously with him for a moment.

Hort turned to Talitha. “Guess what—Fornri has a job for us. He wants us to have a look at a certain wrecked spaceship. I had to tell him we found it ourselves.”

“Yes. We found it,” Talitha said. “We decided it would be best if we pretended we didn’t know about it.”

The dance lines were leaving the beach to snake through the former construction site. Torches waved everywhere, and the natives were pulling apart the scraps of unsalvageable material left by Wembling.

“What are they doing?” Hort asked.

“We are planning our new capital city,” Fornri said. “Mr. Wembling kindly cleared the ground, and now we’ll build it the way we want it. They are marking the places for streets and buildings. And parks—we will have many parks.”

“Yes. Well—we found the wrecked ship, and we looked through it. It was extremely interesting.”

“Have you read the logbook?” Talitha asked eagerly.

“They couldn’t,” Hort said. “Not in that script. They wouldn’t even be able to figure out what it was.”

They were walking slowly toward the celebration. “I wonder if you and your people are aware of what a great man Cerne Obrien was,” Hort said. “‘Genius’ is something of an understatement for him, considering what he did. I suppose in time you’ll have buildings and villages and streets and parks named Obrien, but he deserves a really important monument. You should give some thought to that.”

Fornri and Dalla were regarding them perplexedly.

“They probably didn’t know a world could be named after a man,” Talitha said. “What a shame.”

Hort nodded his agreement. Then he exclaimed, “Look!”

They were close enough, now, to see what the dancers were doing. They had lettered signs on the scraps of building material, and they were marking off their new capital city—a city planned by dancing. The signs floated past on the way to their destinations: LANGRI UNIVERSITY; LANGRI BOULEVARD; CONGRESS OF THE WORLD OF LANGRI; LANGRI BOTANICAL GARDENS; GOVERNMENT OF LANGRI, ADMINISTRATIVE BRANCH; LANGRI WORLD LIBRARY.

Hort turned again to Fornri and Dalla. “It is a shame. Too late to change it now, but you should have named your world ‘Obrien.’”

Again Fornri and Dalla exchanged bewildered glances.

“Obrien?” Fornri asked blankly. “Who is Obrien?”

DAY AFTER TOMORROW

Mack Reynolds

I

Government employees in his income bracket and the suburb in which he lived were currently wearing tweeds. Tweeds were all the thing. Tweeds were in. You weren’t with it if you wore anything else.

Lawrence Woolford consequently wore tweeds. His suit, this morning, had first seen the light of day on a hand loom in Donegal, Ireland. It had been cut by a Swede widely patronized by serious young career men in Lawrence Woolford’s status group. These days, English tailors were out and Italians absolutely unheard of.

Woolford sauntered down the walk before his auto-bungalow, scowling at the sportscar at the curb-wrong year, wrong make. Thanks to the powers that be, it was still the right three-tone color. But he’d have to trade it in on a new model. It was a shame in a way—he liked the car. However, he had no desire to get a reputation as a weird among colleagues and friends. What was it Senator Carey McArthur had said the other day? Show me a weird and I’ll show you a person who has taken the first step toward being a Commie.

Woolford slid under the wheel, dropped the lift lever, depressed the thrust pedal gently and took off for downtown Greater Washington. Theoretically, he had another four days of vacation coming to him. He wondered what the Boss wanted. That was the trouble in being one of the Boss’ favorite troubleshooters; when trouble arose you wound up in the middle of it. Whether you wanted to or not. Lawrence Woolford was to die point where he was thinking in terms of graduating out of field work and taking a desk job, which meant promotion in status and pay. He had to like it.

He turned over his car to a parker at the departmental parking lot and made his way through the entrance utilized by second grade departmental officials. In another year, he told himself, he’d be using that other door.

The Boss’ secretary looked up when Lawrence Woolford entered the anteroom where she presided. “Hello, Larry,” she said. “Hear they called your vacation short. Darn shame.”

LaVerne Polk was a cute little whiz of efficiency. Like Napoleon and his army, she knew the name of every member of the department and was on a first name basis with all. However, she was definitely a weird. For instance, styles might come and styles might go, but LaVerne dressed basically for comfort, did her hair the way she thought it looked best, and wore low-heeled walking shoes on the job. In fact, she was willing and able to snarl at anyone, no matter how kindly intentioned, who even hinted that her nonconformity didn’t help her promotion prospects.

Woolford said, “Hi, LaVerne. I think the Boss is expecting me.”

“That he is. Go right in, Larry.”

She looked after him when he turned and left her desk. Lawrence Woolford cut a pleasant figure as thirty year old bachelors go.

The Boss looked up from a report which he had been frowning at, nodded to his ace field man and said, “Sit down Lawrence. I’ll be with you in a minute. Please take a look at this while you’re waiting.” He handed over a banknote.

Larry Woolford took it and found himself a comfortable chair. He examined the bill, front and back. It was a fifty dollar note, almost new. He couldn’t see anything special about it.

Finally, the Boss, a stocky, tight-faced, domineering but impeccable career bureaucrat, scribbled his initials on the report and tossed it into an Out chute. He said to Woolford, “I am sorry to cut short your vacation, Lawrence. I considered giving Walter Foster the assignment, but I think you’re the better choice. It might take quite a bit of thinking on your feet.”

Larry decided that faint praise was the best tactic. He spoke earnestly, though he detested Foster, his closest rival, “Walt’s a good man, sir. One of the best when you’re in the clutch.” And then, “What’s the crisis?”

“What do you think of that fifty?” The Boss indicated it with a thumb.

His troubleshooter looked down at it. “What is there to think about it?” The Boss grunted, slid open a desk drawer and brought forth another bill. “Here, look at this, please.”

It was another fifty. Larry Woolford frowned at it, not getting whatever was going on.

“The serial numbers,” the Boss said impatiently.

They were identical. Larry Woolford whistled softly and looked up. “Counterfeit. Which one is the bad one?”

“That is exactly what we would like to know,” the Boss said.

Larry stared at his superior, blinked and then examined the bills again. “A beautiful job,” he said. “But what’s it got to do with us, sir? Counterfeiting is Secret Service jurisdiction.”

“They called us in on it. They think it might have international ramifications.”

Now they were getting somewhere. Larry Woolford put the two bills back on the Boss’ desk and leaned back in his chair, waiting.

His superior said, “Remember the Nazis turning out American and British banknotes during the Second War?”

“Before my time, of course, but I’ve read about it, somewhere or other.”

“At any rate, obviously a government with all its resources could perfectly counterfeit any currency in the world. It would have the skills, the equipment, the funds to accomplish the task. The Germans turned out hundreds of millions of dollars and pounds with the idea of confounding the Allied financial base. They also used it to pay off some of their spies.” The bureau head grunted a laugh. “That was a dirty trick.”

“And why didn’t it work—the upsetting of the Allied financial base?”

The other nodded. “The difficulty of getting it into circulation, for one thing. However, they did actually use a quantity. For a time our people were so alarmed that they wouldn’t allow any bills to come into this country from Mexico except the two dollar bills—the one denomination the Germans hadn’t bothered to duplicate. Oh, they had the Secret Service in a dither for a time.”

Woolford was frowning. “What’s this got to do with our current situation, sir?”

The Boss said, “It is only a conjecture. One of those bills is counterfeit, but such an excellent reproduction that the skill involved is beyond the resources of any known counterfeiters. The Secret Service wishes to know if it might be coming from abroad, and, if so, from where. If it’s a government project, particularly a Soviet Complex one, then it comes into the ken of our own particular cloak-and-dagger department.”

“Yes, sir,” Woolford said. He got up and examined the two bills again. “How’d they ever detect that one was bad? It’s not my field, but I’d accept either one.

“Partly luck,” his superior told him. “A bank clerk on a computer was going through a batch of fifties. It’s not too commonly used a denomination, you know. In the sheaf he was working on the serial number was duplicated. The computer picked the factjup.”

“Couldn’t the mistake have been made at the mint? Two bills with the same serial number?”

The other shook his head. “No. Evidently impossible.”

“All right. And then?”

“The reproduction was so perfect that the Secret Service was in an immediate uproar. Short of the Nazi effort, there has never been anything like it. A perfect duplication of engraving, and paper. The counterfeiters have evidently even gone to the extent of putting a certain amount of artificial wear on the bills before putting them into circulation.”

Larry Woolford said, “Once again, this is out of my line. How were they able to check further, and how many more of these did they turn up?”

“The new computers helped. Secret Service checked out every fifty dollar bill in every institution in town, both banking and governmental. Thus far, they have located ten bills in all.”

“And other cities?”

“They checked them next. The whole country. None. They’ve all been passed in Greater Washington, which is suspicious in itself. The amount of expense that has gone into the manufacture of these bills does not allow for only a handful of them being passed. They should be turning up-in great quantity. Lawrence, this reproduction is such that a pusher—I think they call them that—could walk into a bank and have his false currency changed by any teller. Why they haven’t done it, we have no idea. A pusher could go into a bank with a packet of fifty of these, and immediately have it changed into any other denomination he asked for.”

“Wow,” Larry muttered. “Indeed.”

Larry said, “Do you want me to work with Secret Service on this, on the off chance that the Soviet Complex is doing us deliberate dirt? I thought that currently the Cold War was supposedly all warmed up.”

“So did we,” the other said sourly. “But that is exactly the idea, Lawrence. Get to work please and keep in touch with me. If you need support, I can assign Walter Foster or some of the other agents to assist you. This might have endless ramifications, and there are no limits in regard to personnel or budget.”

Larry came to his feet and snapped a snappy, “Yes, sir. Will get on it right this minute.”

Back in the anteroom, Woolford said to the Boss’ receptionist, “I’m on a local job, LaVerne. How about assigning me a secretary, somebody who can handle off-beat assignments?”

“Can do,” she said.

He thought about it. “And look; tell her to get hold of every available work on counterfeiting and pile it on my desk.”

“Right. Thinking of going into business, Larry?”

He grinned down at her. “That’s the idea. Keeping up with the Jones clan in this man’s town costs roughly twice my income. I’m thinking of augmenting it.”

LaVerne said sarcastically, “Then why not give up this battle to equal the Joneses? With the classification you’ve got a single man ought to be able to save half his pay.” She added, more quietly, “Or get married and support a family.”

“Save half my pay?” Larry snorted. “And get a far out reputation, eh? No thanks. You can’t afford to be a weird these days.”

She flushed—and damned prettily, Larry Woolford decided. He took her in, all over again. She wore a minus-skirt, so that her legs could be seen all the way up to the pinkness of her inner thighs and didn’t leave much to the imagination on what dark, warm wonders lay beyond. She could be an attractive item if it wasn’t for obviously getting her kicks out of being individualistic. Minus-skirts were out in Paris, Budapest and Copenhagen, this season. The nipples, cosmetically touched up, were currently the come-on.

Larry said suddenly, “Look, promise to be a good girl and not to make us conspicuous and I’ll take you to the Swank Room for dinner tonight. After that, a few drinks in one of the latest spots and then back to my place for a friendly roll in the hay. For a long time I’ve wondered what you’ve got on the ball.”

“The Swank Room,” she said skeptically. “Is that where all the bright young men currently have to be seen once or twice a week? Get lost, Larry. Being a healthy, normal woman I’m interested in men, but I don’t necessarily spread my legs for every walking status symbol.”

It was his turn to flush, and, he decided wryly, he probably didn’t do it as prettily as she did. He wondered about her. Did she go all-out in bed? He’d bet that she’d be a wizard at Roman fashion.

He tried to keep it light, though, and said, “You’ll be sorry. I’ve picked up some new bed techniques, imported from Sweden. Guaranteed to send you out of this world and far beyond. You’ve got to have a chandelier, even to start.”

She snorted. TU bet. However, I’m an old-fashioned girl and stick to only the more normal perversions.”

“What’s a normal perversion?” Larry said. He was intrigued.

“I’ll never tell.”

On his way to his office, he wondered why the Boss kept her on. Classically, a secretary-receptionist should have every hair in place, every pore. But in her time LaVerne Polk must have caused more than one bureaucratic eyebrow to raise. Efficiency was probably the answer. The Boss couldn’t afford to let her go. The old boy probably wasn’t even laying the girl. Larry got the impression she wasn’t exactly an easy lay.

II

Ilya Simonov was an excellent driver. He drove with the same care and efficiency that he expended upon all of his activities. Now he tooled This Zil aircushion convertible along.the edge of Red Square, paralleling the giantic eyesore which was the GUM department store, and opposite the red marble tomb of Lenin. He turned right just before St. Basil’s Cathedral and took the Moskvoretski bridge over the Moscow River.

He merged into the largely automated traffic of Pyatnikskaya and at Dobryninskaya Square blended west into the traffic that led to Gorki Park. He sped along the edge of the park on Kaluga until he came to tine Czarist baroque palace which was the headquarters of the ministry of which he had been a member for almost all his adult life.

Theoretically, there was no parking before the ministry. However, he pulled up to the curb and the two guards, staring directly ahead, snapped to the saluts. Ilya Simonov flicked them a return with the swagger stick he carried. It was an anachronism.

Not since the days before the revolution had a Russian officer carried a swagger stick. It was, in a way, his trademark. A good many persons, on both sides of the Iron Curtain knew Colonel Simonov on sight, although they had never seen him before, by the swagger stick.

He was tall for a Cossack, slightly slanted of eye, due to his Siberian heritage, black of hair, and obviously iron of body. He had an air of intensity and dedication about him, and, instinctively, there were few who dared thwart him.

The building was an anachronism as well. It had once belonged to the Yusopov family, the last prince of which had earned immortality by finishing off the mad monk, Rasputin. Simonov knew it well and strode along the corridors ignoring the antiquities, the marble statues, pre-World War One paintings, and marble benches. No one had ever bothered to remove them since the days when Grand Dukes strode the halls.

There were armed guards spotted, here, there, at all crucial turnings, at all doors. They wore the uniform of the KGB, the Committee of State Security.

Ilya Simonov began to stride past a group of three of the guards, two captains and a lieutenant. Suddenly he snapped to a halt. They came to attention, a ramrod attention.

He looked them up and down, his face empty except for bleak eyes, and said to the one in the middle, “What is your name, lieutenant?”

The other clicked heels. “Captain Nicolia Ilyichev, Comrade Colonel.”

“Never contradict me, sergeant,” Simonov said. “When did you shave last?”

The other paled slightly. “This morning, Comrade Colonel.”

“Never lie to me, corporal,” Simonov said, his I voice as empty as his face. “What was it, vodka or a woman, that kept you from getting to your post I properly presentable?’

Nicolai Ilyichev looked at him with sick blankness.

“Comrade Colonel,” he said desperately. “I carry the Soviet Hero’s Combat Award. It is a great privilege to be assigned to the Security Guard of the Minister.”

“All members of the Minister’s Security Guard carry the Hero’s Combat Award,” Simonov snapped. “Do not try to impress me, infantryman. If you are so sloppy that you come on duty in unpresentable condition, what would happen if the emergency to which your life is dedicated manifested itself? Would you be in the physical shape to meet it? I am afraid that the Moscow climate does not agree with you, infantryman. Perhaps you are more suited to the Eastern Provinces.”

“Comrade Colonel…!”

But Ilya Simonov had strode on.

The former Captain Ilyichev bug-eyed after him. He turned to the lieutenant flanking him, desperately. “Perhaps he’ll forget.”

“Ilya Simonov never forgets,” the lieutenant said unhappily. “It’s no mistake that he’s the minister’s top hatchetman. He’s killed more people than malaria. He’s certainly a bad one to have down on you.”

“But what did I do? Why me?’

The other captain, who was just relaxing from the rigid attention to which he had been standing during the quick interrogation, said, “Nicolai, it wasn’t you, in particular. There are fifty-five officers and men assigned to the minister’s security guard. This sort ‘of discipline will insure, for at least a couple of years, that no one will come on duty with the slightest of hangovers, or anything else that might dull the edge of perception. You’d better go pack, Nicolai. If I know the colonel, you’ll be on your way to some post above the Arctic Circle before the day is out.”

The captain took a deep breath. “Hell-have you reduced to private, but you’re a good man, Ilyicnev, and you carry the Hero’s award, as I well know, since I am only here as a result of your conduct. Promotion is faster in Siberia than it is in Moscow. You’ll soon regain your rank.”

His words were meaningless to the other. Captain Nicolai Ilyichev had planned to be married the following week. He and his bride to be had been consummating their marriage a bit prematurely the night before. The colonel had been correct. He hadn’t shaved.

Ilya Simonov continued down the corridor. He came to a halt a£ the reception desk before the ornate door of the Minister’s office. Another captain sat before it. The Soviet agent didn’t know him. The other took in the swagger stick.

Simonov said, “I have no appointment but the Minister is probably expecting me.”

“Yes, Comrade Colonel Simonov,” the other nodded respectfully. He flicked a switch and spoke into an inter-office communicator screen.

He flicked another switch and the door behind him automatically opened. Ilya Simonov marched on through.

Minister Kliment Blagonravov was at the huge desk at the far end of the room. There was a smaller desk to one side which accommodated an aide. The Minister snapped his fingers at the aide, who immediately came to his feet and left the room.

“Sit down, Ilya,” Blagonravov said. “I was expecting you. Don’t you ever take a day or two off after completing an assignment?”

“Sometimes,” Simonov said, finding a chair and turning back to his ultimate superior.

Blagonravov was a heavy man, heavy of face, heavy-set and his head was completely shaven in the manner no longer much affected by Russian ministers and ranking army officers. He was one of those who sweat if the weather is even mildly warm. As usual, his tunic was off, his collar loosened. After the dressing down his field man had given the untidy captain out in the corridor, he could hardly have approved the appearance of his superior. But he was, after all, the minister, and possibly the most powerful, and the most feared, minister in the Soviet Complex.

Blagonravov said, “A drink?”

Simonov shook his head. “A bit too early for me. Besides, I am afraid I celebrated a bit too much last night upon my return from Irkutsk. I dislike Siberia.”

His superior had swung in his swivel chair to a small bar behind him. He opened the refrigerator door and brought forth a liter of highly chilled vodka, pulled the cork with his teeth and took up a tall shot glass and filled it. He put the bottle on the top of the bar rather than returning it to the refrigerator.

He said, “Ah, yes. Vladimir gave you an assignment in the East while I was in Rumania. How did it go, Hya?”

His top operative shrugged. “The usual. Took a couple of weeks in all.”

“What was it all about?”

“The men in the mines there were trying to start a union.”

The minister knocked back his vodka with a practiced stiff-wristed toss. “Union?” he said in surprise. “Surely they already have a union. Miners? Of course they have a union.”

“I do not mean the State union,” Simonov said, crossing his legs. “They were trying to establish a union independent of control by the State. They had various grievances, including a desire for better housing and medical care. They even had plans for a strike.”

His superior poured himself another drink. “What’s it coming to?” he growled. “You’d think we were in the West. What did you do?”

Hya Simonov grunted his version of humor. “Well, I could hardly send the ringleaders to Siberia, in view of the fact that they were already there. So I arranged for a bit of an accident.”

Blagonravov pursed fat lips. “Was it necessary to be so drastic? Number One has suggested that we, ah, cool it a bit, as the Yankees say. Things are no longer as desperate as they were in the old days.”

“I thought it was necessary,” Simonov said. “A thing like that can get out of control, can spread like wildfire, can grow like a geometric progression. And if we allowed such action to the miners, who can say where else free unions might not spring up?

“Yes, yes, of course, Ilya,” his boss said. “You can always be counted upon to take the correct action.” He finished off his second vodka, then looked over at his favorite field man. He said, “How long has it been since you have been in the United States?”

Simonov thought back. “Perhaps as much as ten years.” He cleared his throat. “I am not exactly popular in America.”

The Chrezvychainaya Komissiya head chuckled heavily. “No, of course not. The last time we retrieved you only by making a swap with the C.I.A. Two of their arrested agents for you.” He chuckled again. “It was a bargain, especially since one of their two was a double agent that they didn’t get onto for almost three years. But at any rate, this will be a milk-run, as the Yankees call it. There should be no danger.”

Simonov contemplated his superior quizzically.

“Most likely,” Blagonravov said, “it could be nan-died by the attaches at the Embassy in Greater Washington. However, I trust you most explicitly, and want your experienced opinion.”

His field man waited for him to go on.

The minister leaned back in his chair and looked thoughtful. He said slowly, “There is the danger of a very fundamental change taking place in America.”

“A fundamental change, Kliment?” the operative said. He was the only man in the ministry who dared call the chief by his first name.

“Yes, a very basic change, if our meager information is correct.”

“Good!”

“No, bad. It is a change we do not wish to see, if I have any idea whatsoever about what is going on, and I sometimes wonder.”

His trouble shooter waited patiently.

“In the way of background,” the minister said, ‘let me go back a bit. The situation that prevails in the States these days had its roots back possibly in the last century. The tendency has been accelerating, and, frankly, it is to the advantage of the Soviet Complex to have it continue to accelerate.”

“Tendency?” Simonov scowled.

“Yes. Let me use an example. Some decades ago, a rather incompetent American lieutenant-colonel came under the observation of representatives of some of the largest .American multi-national corporations—IBM, that sort of thing. Although not particularly intelligent, he evidently had a fantastic personality. They were far-seeing people and decided to groom our lieutenant-colonel for the presidency. At I the time he was unknown. This was their first problem, to give him status. Bringing pressure to bear, they had him rapidly promoted until he became, first, commander of the American European theatre of operations, in the Hitler war, and then supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, although he had never been in combat in his life, had never commanded troops in action. But still more status was needed if he was to be considered for the presidency. When the war ended, he was made head of the occupation troops in Germany.

“But being the country’s top soldier was not quite enough, particularly when the presidency of General U.S. Grant was recalled. He resigned his rank and was made president of Columbia University. An indication of the man was found when the reporters interviewing him got through his aides. One asked what his background was in education that he should hold such a post. And he replied that he didn’t have any. That they would have to brief him on his duties. The next day or so the reporters got to him again and one asked him what his favorite newspapers were and he returned that he never read the newspapers. ‘If anything important happens, they tell me about it.’ He didn’t mention who they were.”

Blagonravov chuckled heavily before going on, he was a compulsive chuckler. “Still later in the week, the reporters managed to get him aside once more and one asked what his favorite type of books were and he replied that he hadn’t read a book in fourteen years. You begin to realize our hero’s capabilities. At any rate—after his sponsors began shielding him from the newspaper people—he took leave of absence from his Columbia University post and became supreme commander of the Allied powers in Europe, and was given credit for the organizing of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. By now his status was considered adequate and they ran him for President of the United States and he easily won. He remained in the postion for eight years, spending most of his time playing golf. He was probably one of the most inadequate presidents the United States has ever had, and, as all know, they’ve had some unbelievably inadequate presidents.”

Ilya Simonov shifted in his chair. “I fail to see your point, Kliment.”

The other nodded. “The point is, that it is to the advantage of the Soviet Complex that the Americans continue to elect to their highest offices men whose sole claim to such office is their holding of status symbols. It is to our advantage to have their corporations headed by such men, their institutions of learning, their laboratories, their hospitals.”

“I fail to see what all this has got to do with my going to Greater Washington.”

The minister poured himself still another vodka and bolted it back as he had the others.

He squinted at his field man and said, “There seems to be some sort of underground among the Americans who seek to change this, Ilya. We do not want it changed. Your task is to find out more about the group and to come up with some plan to frustrate them.”

“You mean that I, a Party member from youth, am to attempt to undermine a revolutionary organization?”

“That is correct, Ilya.”

“I’ll have that drink,” Ilya Simonov said grimly.

III

Larry Woolford’s office wasn’t much bigger than a cubicle. He sat down at the desk and banged a drawer or two open and closed. He liked to work, liked the department, but theoretically he still had several days of vacation and hated to get back into routine.

He flicked on the phone finally and asked for an out-line. He punched three different numbers before getting his subject. The phone screen remained blank, although Larry knew the other could see him.

“Hans?” he said. “Lawrence Woolford here.”

The Teutonic accent was heavy, the voice bluff. “Ah, Larry! You need some assistance to make your vacation? Perhaps a sinister, exotic young lady, complete with a long cigarette holder and a knowledge of some of the most fantastic positions recently discovered in China?”

Larry Woolford growled, “How’d you know I was on vacation?”

The other laughed. “You know better than to ask that, my friend. I am in the business of knowing things.”

Larry said, “The vacation is over, Hans. I need some information.”

The voice was more guarded now. “I owe you a favor or two.”

“Don’t you though,” Larry said sarcastically. “Look, Hans, what’s new in the Russkie camp?”

The heartiness was gone. “How do you mean, my friend?”

“Is there anything big stirring? Is there anyone new in this country from the Soviet Complex?”

“Well, now…” the other’s voice drifted away.

Larry Woolford said impatiently, “Look, Hans, let’s don’t waste time going round and around. You run a clearing agency for, ah, information. You’re strictly a businessman, nonpartisan, so to speak. Hell, you’d better be. Fine, thus far our department has tolerated you. Perhaps we’ll continue to. Perhaps the reason is that we figure we get more out of your existence than we lose. The Russkies evidently figure the same way, the proof being that you’re still alive and have branches in the capitals of every power on Earth.”

“All right, all right,” the German said. “Let me think for a moment. Can you give me any idea of what you’re looking for?” There was an undernote of interest in his voice now.

“No. I just want to know if you’ve heard anything new anti-my-side from the other side. Or if you know of any fresh personnel recently from there.”

“Frankly, I haven’t. If you could give me a hint.”

“I can’t,” Larry said. “Look, Hans, like you say, you owe me a favor or two. If something comes up, let me know. Then I’ll owe you one.”

The voice was jovial again. “It’s a bargain, my friend.”

After Woolford had hung up, he scowled at the phone. He wondered if Hans Distelmayer was lying. The German commanded the largest professional spy ring in the world. It was possible, but difficult, for anything in the way of espionage-counter-espionage to develop without his having an inkling. Well, at least he had planted a bug in the other’s ear, perhaps he would come up with something.

The phone rang back. It was Steve Hackett of Secret Service on the screen.

Hackett said, “Woolford, you coming over? I understand you’ve been assigned to get in our hair on this job.”

“Huh,” Larry grunted. “The way I hear it, your whole department has given up, so I’m assigned to help you out of your usual fumble-fingered confusion.”

Hackett snorted. “At any rate, can you drop over? I’m to work in liaison with you.”

“Coming,” Larry said. He flicked off the phone, got to his feet and headed for the door. If they could crack this thing the first day, he’d take up that vacation where it had been interrupted and possibly be able to wangle a few more days out of the Boss to boot.

At this time of day, parking would have been a problem, in spite of automated traffic in the streets. Looking up and down in a quick check to see if anyone he knew was around to see him, he ducked down into the underground. It was a slight drop in status for someone on his level to take the subway. He took a line that delivered him to the high-rise that housed Secret Service.

The Counterfeit Division of the Secret Service occupied an impressive section of the governmental building. Larry Woolford flashed his credentials here and there, explained to guards and receptionists here and there, and finally wound up in Steve Hackett’s office, which was all but a duplicate of his own in size and decor.

Steve Hackett himself was a fairly accurate carbon copy of Woolford, barring facial resemblance alone. He wore Harris tweed, instead of Donegal. Larry Woolford made a note of that. Possibly herringbone was coming back in. He winced at the thought of a major change in his wardrobe; it’d cost a fortune. However, you couldn’t get the reputation for being out: of style.

They had worked on a few cases before when Steve Hackett had been assigned to the presidential bodyguard, and although they weren’t good friends, they cooperated well.

Steve came to his feet and shook hands. “Thought you were going to be down in Florida bass fishing this month. You like your work so well you can’t stay away, or is it a matter of trying to impress your chief?”

Larry growled, “Fine thing, fine thing. Secret Service bogs down and they’ve got to call me in to clean up the mess.”

Steve motioned him to a chair and immediately went serious. “Do you know anything about pushing queer, Woolford?”

“That means passing counterfeit money, doesn’t it? All I know is what’s in the Tri-Di crime shows.”

“Oh, great. I can see you’re going to be one hell of a lot of help. Have you gotten anywhere at all on the possibility that the stuff might be coming in from abroad?”

“Nothing positive,” Larry said. “Are you people accomplishing anything?”

“We’re just getting underway. There’s something awfully off-trail about this deal, Woolford. It doesn’t fit into routine.”

Larry said, “I wouldn’t think so if the stuff is so good not even a bank teller can tell the difference.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about now, although that curls our hair too. Let me give you a rundown on standard counterfeiting.” The Secret Service man pushed back in his swivel chair, lit a cigarette and propped his feet onto the edge of a partly open desk drawer. “Briefly, it goes like this. Some smart lad gets himself a set of plates and a platen press and—”

Larry interrupted. “Where does he get the plates?”

“That doesn’t matter for the moment,” Steve said. “Various ways. Maybe he makes them himself, sometimes he buys them from a crooked engraver. But I’m talking about pushing green goods once it’s printed. Anyway, our boy runs off, say, a million dollars’ worth of fives, face value. But he doesn’t even try to push them himself. He wholesales them around getting, say, fifty thousand dollars. In other words, he sells twenty dollars in counterfeit for one good dollar.”

Larry pursed his lips. “Quite a discount.”

“Ummm. But that’s safest from his angle. The half dozen or so distributors he sold it to don’t try to pass it either. They also are playing it carefully. They peddle it at, say, ten to one, to the next rung down the ladder.”

“And these are the fellows that pass it, eh?”

“Not even then, usually. These small timers take it and pass it on at five to one to the suckers in the trade who take the biggest risks. Most of these are professional pushers of the queer, as the term goes. Some, however, are comparative amateurs. Sailors, for instance, who buy with the idea of passing it in some foreign port where seamen’s money flows fast.”

Larry Woolford shifted in his chair and said, “So what are you building up to?”

Steve Hackett rubbed the end of his pug nose with a forefinger, in quick irritation. “Like I say, that’s standard counterfeiting procedure. We’re all set up to meet it, and do a pretty good job. Where we have our difficulties is with amateurs.”

Woolford scowled at him, lacking comprehension.

Hackett said.”

“Some guy who makes and passes it himself, for instance. He’s unknown to the stoolpigeons, has no criminal record, does up comparatively small amounts and dribbles his product onto the market over a period of time. We had one old devil up in New York once who actually drew one dollar bills. He was a tremendous artist. It took us years to get him.”

Larry Woolford said, “Well, why go into all this? We’re hardly dealing with amateurs now.”

Steve looked at him. “That’s the trouble. We are.”

“Are you batty? Not even your own experts can tell this product from real money.”

“I didn’t say it was being made by amateurs. It’s being passed by amateurs—or maybe amateur is the better word.”

“How do you know?”

“For one thing, most professionals won’t touch anything bigger than a twenty. Tens are better, fives better still. When you pass a fifty, the person you gave it to is apt to remember where he got it.” Steve Hackett added slowly, “Particularly if you give one as a tip to the maître dliotel in a first class restaurant. A maître d’ holds his job on the strength of his ability to remember faces and names.”

“What else makes you think your pushers are amateurs?”

“Amateur,” Hackett corrected. “Ideally, a pusher is an inconspicuous type, the kind of person whose face you’d never remember. It’s never a teenage girl who’s blowing money at fifty dollars a crack.”

It was time to stare now, and Larry Woolford obliged. “A teenager!”

“We’ve had four descriptions of her, one of them excellent. Fredrick, the maître d’ over at La Calvados, is the one that counts, but the others jibe. She’s bought perfume and gloves at Michel Swiss, the swankest shop in town; a dress at Chez Maris— she passed three fifties there—and a hat at Paulette’s over on Monroe street.

“That’s another sign of the amateur, by the way. A competent pusher buys a small item and gets change for his counterfeit bill. Our girl’s been buying expensive items, obviously more interested in the product than in her change.”

“This doesn’t seem to make much sense,” Larry Woolford protested. “You have any ideas at all?”

“The question is,” Hackett said, “where did she. get it? Is she connected with one of the embassies and acquired the stuff overseas? If so, that puts it in your lap again, possibly—”

The phone rang and Steve flicked the switch and said, “Yeah? Steven Hackett speaking.”

He listened for a moment then banged the phone off and jumped to his feet. “Come on, Larry,” he snapped. “This is it.” He fished down into a desk drawer, came up ‘with a gyro-jet pistol, which he flicked expertly into a shoulder holster rig beneath his left arm.

Larry stood too. “What was that?”

“Fredrick, over at La Calvados. The girl has come in for lunch. Let’s go!”

Larry followed him, saying mildly, “If it’s just a teenage kid, why the shooter?’

Steve looked back at him, over his shoulder. “How do we know this crackpot kid didn’t spend one of her fifties for a nice little pearl handled root-a-toot-tooter? A teenager can put just as big a hole in you as anybody else. Besides, maybe she’s just a front for some guy who is in the background, letting her do the dirty work.”

IV

La Calvados was the swankest French restaurant in Greater Washington, a city not devoid of swank restaurants. It duplicated the decor of Maxim’s in Paris, and was very red carpeted and plush indeed. Only the upper echelons in government circles could afford its tariffs, the clientele was more apt to consist of business mucky-mucks and lobbyists on the make. Larry Woolford had eaten here exactly twice. You could get a reputation spending money far beyond your obvious pay status.

Fredrick, the maître d’ hotel, however, was able to greet them both by name. “Monsieur Hackett, Monsieur Woolford,” he bowed. He obviously didn’t approve of La Calvados being used as a hangout where counterfeiters were picked up by the authorities.

“Where is she?” Steve said, looking out over the public dining room.

Fredrick said, unprofessionally agitated, “See here, Monsieur Hackett, you didn’t expect to, ah, arrest the young lady here during our luncheon hour?” Steve looked at him impatiently. “We don’t exactly beat them over the head with blackjacks, slip the bracelets on and drag them screaming to the paddy-wagon.”

“Of course not, Monsieur, but…” Larry Woolford’s chief dined here several times a week and was possibly on the best of terms with Fredrick—whose decisions on tables and whose degree of servility had a good deal of influence on a man’s prestige in Greater Washington. Larry said wearily, “We can wait until she leaves. Where is she?”

“Do you see the young lady over near the window on the park? The rather gauche type?”

It was a teenager, all right. A youngster up to her eyebrows in the attempt to project sophistication. Larry assumed she was a Tri-Di fan incomparable. Steve said, “Do you know who she is?”

“No,” Fredrick said, nostrils high. “Hardly our usual clientele.”

“Oh?” Larry said. “She looks like money.” Fredrick said, “Her clothing would seem to be derived from the Chez Marie but she wears it as though it came from Kleins, and she is much too young to wear a blouse so transparent as to reveal her bosom in such fashion. Her perfume is Chanel, but she has used approximately three times the quantity one would expect. Besides, Chanel is not in now, it has lost status of recent date.”

Larry hadn’t known that last. He must remember not to give Chanel as a present.

“That’s our girl, aU right,” Steve murmured.

‘Where can we keep an eye on her until she leaves?”

“Why not the bar here, Messieurs?”

“Why not?” Larry said. “I could use a drink.”

Fredrick cleared his throat. “Ah, Messieurs, that fifty I turned over to you. I suppose it turned out to be spurious?”

Steve grinned at him. “Afraid so, Fredrick. The department is holding it.”

Larry Woolford took out his wallet. “However, we have a certain leeway on expenses on this assignment and appreciate your cooperation.” He handed two twenties and a ten to the maitre’d. Fredrick bowed low, the money disappearing into his clothes magically. “Merci bien, Monsieur.”

At the bar, Steve scowled at his colleague. “Hal” he said. “Why didn’t I think of that first? Hell get down on his knees and bump his head each time he sees you in the joint from now on.”

Larry Woolford waggled a finger at the other. “This is a status-conscious town, my boy. Prestige means everything. When I take over my Boss’ job, maybe we can swing you a transfer and I’ll give you a position suitable to your attainments.” He pursed his lips judiciously. “Though come to think of it, that might mean a demotion from the job you’re holding now.”

“Vodka Martini,” Steve told the bartender. “Polish vodka, of course.”

“Of course,” the bartender said.

Larry said. “Same for me.”

The bartender left and Steve muttered, “I hate vodka.”

“Yeah,” Larry said. “But what are you going to do in a place like this, order some weird drink, like a highball or something? Vodka’s in. Suppose somebody saw you drinking a gin cocktail.”

Steve dug into his pocket for money. “We’re not going to have to drink them anyway. Here she comes.”

She walked with her head high, hauteur in every step, ignoring the peasants at the tables she passed. Her youthful breasts bobbed gently in her diaphanous blouse as she progressed. She looked like a young, prosperous, but unpracticed tart.

“Holy smokes,” Steve grunted. “It’s a wonder that Fredrick let her in. She looks like a young weird.”

“He let her in when she crossed his palm with half a bill,” Larry said cynically. “She has a nice pair of knockers, though.”

Steve looked at him, even as he paid up for their untouched drinks. “You one of these types that goes for kids?”

“I go for anything that has one of those things,” Larry leered back at him.

The girl hesitated momentarily before the doorway of the prestige restaurant, allowing the passers-by to realize that she had just emerged, and then turned to her right to promenade along the shopping street.

Larry and Steve trailed after her. Fifty feet below La Calvados, Steve said, “Okay, this is it. Let’s go, Woolford.”

One stepped to one elbow, the other the other. Steve said, “I wonder if we could ask you a few questions, Miss?”

Her eyebrows went up. “I beg your pardon!”

Steve sighed and displayed the badge pinned to his wallet, keeping it inconspicuous. “Secret Service, Miss,” he murmured.

“Oh, devil,” she said. She looked at at Larry Woolford, then back at Steve.

Steve said, “Among other things, we’re in charge of counterfeit money.’

She was about five foot four in her heels, had obviously been on a round of beauty shops and had obviously instructed them to glamourize her. It hadn’t come off. She still looked as though she’d be more at home as cheerleader of the junior class in a small time school. She was honey blond, green-gray of eye, and had that complexion they seldom carry even into the twenties. Her figure wasn’t at all bad, for her age. In another half-dozen years she was going to be one gorgeous dish.

She said, a trifle shrilly, “I… I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her chin began to tremble and she held her elbows tight against her sides, as though in rejection of this whole situation. The gesture seemed to make her young semi-bared breasts more prominent.

Larry said gently, “Don’t worry, Miss. We just want to ask you some questions.”

“Well… like what?” She was going to be blinking back tears in a moment. At least Larry hoped she’d blink them back. He’d hate to have her start howling here in public.

Larry said, “We think you can be of assistance to the government, and we’d like your help.”

Steve rolled his eyes upward at that, but turned and waved for a street level cab.

In the cab, Larry said, “Suppose we go over to my office, Steve. It’s closer.”

“Okay with me,” Steve muttered, ‘Taut by the looks of the young lady here, I think it’s a false alarm from your angle. She’s obviously an American. What’s your name, Miss?”

“It’s Zusanette. Well, really, Susan.”

“Susan what?”

“I… I’m not sure I want to tell you. I… I want a lawyer.”

“A lawyer!” Steve snorted. “You mean you want the juvenile authorities, don’t you?”

“Oh, what a mean thing to say,” she sputtered.

“Yeah, well, can’t you cover up those two things?” Steve said, staring at her breasts, the nipples of which could clearly be made out through her Cretean revival blouse. “My friend, here, is lecherous.”

“Oh, what a mean thing to say,” Larry murmured.

In the corridor, outside the Boss’ suite of offices, Larry said to Steve, “You take Miss… ah, Zusanette to my office, will you Steve? I’ll be there in a minute.”

He opened the door to the anteroom and said, “LaVerne, we’ve got a girl in my office——”

“Why, Larry! And what a place to take a girl. Why don’t you go to a hotel?”

He glowered at her. “A suspect. I want a complete tape of everything said. As soon as we’re through, have copies made, at least three or four.”

“And who, Mr. Woolford, was your girl Friday last year?”

“This is important, honey. I suppose you’ve sup-plied me with a secretary, but I haven’t even met her yet. Take care of it, will you?”

“Sure enough, Larry.”

He followed Steve and the girl into his office.

Once seated, the girl and Steve in the only two extra chairs the cubicle boasted and Larry behind his desk, he looked at her in what he hoped was reassurance. “Just tell us where you got the money, Zusanette.”

Steve Hackett reached out a hand suddenly and grabbed up her bag from her lap. She gasped and snatched at it, but he eluded her and she sat back, her chin trembling again.

The Secret Service man unsnapped the bag, put a hand in and came up with a thick sheaf of bills, the top ones, at least, all fifties. He tossed them to Larry’s desk and resumed the search. He took out a school pass and read, “Susan Self, 418 Elwood Avenue.” He looked up and said to Larry, “That’s right off Eastern, near Paterson Park in the Baltimore section of town, isn’t it?”

Larry said to her, “Zusanette, I think you had bet-I ter tell us where you got all this money.”

“I found it,” she said defiantly. “You can’t do anything to me if I simply found it. Anybody can find money. Finders keepers and losers…”

“But if it’s counterfeit,” Steve interrupted dryly, “it might also be, finders weepers.”

“Where did you find it, Zusanette?” Larry said gently.

She tightened her lips and the trembling of her chin disappeared. “I… I can’t tell you mat. But it’s not counterfeit. Daddy… my father, said it was as good as any money the government prints.”

‘“That it is.” Steve’s voice was sour. “But it’s still counterfeit, which makes it very illegal indeed to spend, Miss Sett.”

She looked from one of them to the other, not clear about her position. She said to Larry, “You mean it’s not real money?”

He kept his tone disarming, but shook his head. “I’m afraid not, Zusanette. Now, tell us, where did you find it?”

“I can’t. I promised.”

“I see. Then you don’t know to whom it originally belonged?”

“It didn’t belong to anybody.”

Steve Hackett made with a disbelieving whistle. He was taking the part of the tough, suspicious cop; Larry the part of the understanding, sympathetic officer, trying to give the suspect a break.

Susan Self turned quickly on Steve. “Well, it didn’t. You don’t even know.”

Larry said, “I think she’s telling the truth, Steve. Give her a chance. She’s playing fair.” He looked back at the girl and frowned his puzzlement. “But all money belongs to somebody, doesn’t it?”

She had them now. She said superiorly, “Not necessarily to somebody. It can belong to, like, an organization.”

Steve grunted scepticism. “I think we ought to arrest her,” he said.

Larry held up a hand, his face registering opposition. “I’ll handle this,” he said sharply. “Zusanette is doing everything she can to cooperate.” He turned back to the girl. “Now, the question is, what organization did this money belong to?”

She looked triumphantly at Steve Hackett. “It belonged to the Movement.”

They both looked at her.

Steve said finally, “What movement?”

She pouted in thought. “That’s the only name they call it.”

“Who’s they?” Steve snapped nastily. I…I don’t know.

Larry said, “Well, you already told us your father was a member, Zusanette.”

Her eyes went wide. “I did? I shouldn’t have said that.” But she evidently took him at his word.

Larry said encouragingly, “We might as well go on. Who else is a member of this Movement besides your father?”

She shifted in her chair uncomfortably. “I don’t know any of their names.”

Steve looked down at the school pass he still held in his hands. He said to Larry, “I’d better make a phone call.”

“Yeah, obviously,” Larry said.

Steve left.

Larry said to the girl, “Don’t worry about him, Zusanette. Now then, this Movement. ThatV kind of a funny name, isn’t it? What does it mean?”

She was evidently glad that the less than handsome Steve Hackett had left the office. Her words flowed more freely. “Well, Daddy says they call it the Movement rather than a revolution.”

An ice cube manifested itself in the stomach of Lawrence Woolford.

V

She was saying, “Because people get conditioned, like, to words. Like revolution. Everybody is against the word because they all think of killing and everything, and Daddy says that there doesn’t have to be ‘ any shooting or killing or anything like that at all. It just means a fundamental change in society. And, Daddy says, take the word propaganda. Everybody’s got to thinking that it automatically means lies, but it doesn’t at all. It just means, like, the arguments you use to convince people that what you stand for is right and it might be lies or not. And, Daddy says, take the word socialism. So many people have the wrong idea of what it means that die socialists ought to scrap the word and start using something else to mean what they stand for.”

Larry said gently, “Your father is a socialist?”

“Oh, no.”

He nodded in understanding. “Oh, a Communist, eh?”

Susan Self was indignant. “Daddy thinks the Communists are strictly awful, really weird.”

Steve Hackett came back into the office, obviously less than happy. He said to Larry, “I sent a couple of the boys out to pick him up in a jet-helio.”

Susan was on her feet, a hand to mouth. “You mean my father! You’re going to arrest him!”

Larry said soothingly. “Sit down, Zusanette. There’s a lot of things about this that I’m sure your father can explain.” He said to Steve, “She tells me that the money belonged to a Movement. A revolutionary Movement which doesn’t use the term revolutionary because people react unfavorably to that word. It’s not Commie.”

Susan said indignantly, “It’s American, not anything foreign!”

Steve growled. “Let’s get back to the money. What’s this movement doing with a lot of counterfeit bills and where did you find them?”

She evidently figured she’d gone too far now to make a stand. “It’s not Daddy’s fault,” she told them. “He took me to headquarters twice.”

“Where’s headquarters?” Larry said, trying to keep his voice soothing. They were going to wind this up and he could get back to his vacation before the day was out.

She frowned. “Well, I don’t know, really. Daddy was awfully silly about it. He tied his handkerchief around my eyes near the end. But the others complained about me anyway, and Daddy got awfully mad and said something about the young people of the country participating in their emancipation and all, but the others got mad too and said there wasn’t any kind of help I could do around headquarters anyway, and I’d be better off in school. Everybody got awfully mad, but after the second time Daddy promised not to take me to headquarters any more.”

“And where did you find the money, Zusanette?” Larry said.

“At headquarters. There’s tons and tons of it there.”

Larry cleared his throat and said, “When you say tons and tons, you mean a great deal of it, eh?”

She was proudly defiant. “I mean tons and tons. A ton is two thousand pounds.”

“Now look, Zusanette,” Larry said reasonably. “I don’t know exactly how much money weighs, not exactly, but let’s say a pound would be, say, a thousand bills.” He took a pencil up from the desk and scribbled on a pad before him. “A pound of fifties would be $50,000. Then if you multiplied that by 2,000 pounds to make a ton, you’d have $100-000,000. And you say there’s tons and tons?”

“And that’s just the fifties,” Susan said triumphantly. “So you can see the two little packages I picked up aren’t really important at all. It’s just like I found them.”

“I don’t think there’d be anything like a thousand bills in a pound,” Steve said weakly.

Larry said, “How much other money is there? I mean besides the fifties?”

“Oh, piles. Whole rooms. Rooms after rooms. And hundred dollar bills, and twenties, and fives and tens-Larry said, “Look Zusanette, everything makes it obvious that you are in no position to be telling us whoppers. This whole story doesn’t make sense, does it?”

Her mouth tightened. “I’m not going to say anything more until Daddy gets here anyway,” she said.

Which was when the phone rang.

The screen lit up and LaVerne Polk said, “There’s a call for Steve Hackett, Larry.”

Larry pushed the phone screen around so that Steve could look into it. LaVerne was faded off and was replaced by a stranger in uniform. Steve said, “Yeah?”

“Flown the coop, sir. Must have got out just minutes before we arrived. Couldn’t have taken more than a suitcase. Few papers scattered around the room he used for an office. By the looks of things he was ready to take off just any time at all.”

Susan gasped. “You mean Daddy?”

Steve Hackett rubbed a hand over his flattened nose. “Holy smokes,” he said. He thanked the cop and flicked off.

. Larry said, “Look Zusanette, everything’s going to be all right. Nothing is going to happen to you. You say you managed to pick up two packets of all this money they have at headquarters. Okay. So you thought it wouldn’t be missed and you thought it was real money, and you’ve always wanted to spend money the way you see the stars do on Tri-Di and in the movies.’

She looked at him, taken aback. “Efow did you know?”

Larry said dryly, “I’ve always wanted to myself.

But I would like to know one more thing. The Movement. What was it going to do with all this money?”

That evidently puzzled her. “The Professor says they were going to spend it on chorus girls. I guess… I guess he was joking or something. But Daddy and I’d just been up to New York and we saw those famous precision dancers at the New Roxy Theatre and all and then when we got back the Professor and Daddy were talking and I heard him say it.”

Steve said carefully, “Professor who?”

Susan said, “Just the Professor. That’s all we ever call him.” Her chin went to trembling again.

VI

Steve Hackett looked at Larry. “What in the hell will we do with her?”

Larry thought about it. He turned to the girl. “How old are you… Zusanette.”

“I’m… I’m nearly eighteen.”

“You don’t look it.” His eyes went back to Steve Hackett. “She’s too old for the juvenile authorities and too young to throw into the smasher with a bunch of addicts, prostitutes and lesbians. Besides, we’ll want to go over her story some more. If we arrest her, how do we know what this so-called Movement might come up with? We don’t want the Civil Liberties Union, or whoever, bailing her out.”

“Yeah,” Steve said, unhappily. “This professor and his boys probably control quite a bit of cash, not counting the counterfeit. They’d possibly have her out before the cell door clanked shut. But, on the other hand, we can’t hold her without some kind of a charge.”

Larry snorted. “Maybe your department can’t. You’d be surprised what ours pulls off from time to time.”

Susan Self was darting her eyes back and forth between them. She blurted, “What do you mean? What are you talking about? Aren’t you going to let me go? You practically promised. You said all you wanted was to ask me a few questions to help the government.”

“I better check this out with the chief,” Steve said, eyeing Larry without pleasure.

“Tell you what,” Larry said. Til take her over to the Hilton and put her in a suite. You check with your chief and find, out what he wants to do. Obviously, there’s no foreign angle here. It’s a pure Secret Service matter. I’ll stay with her until you check back with me.”

“Right,” Steve came to his feet. He said to Susan, his voice more kindly now. “Don’t worry about it, kid. You’re not under arrest. And you’ll still be living it up as though that pile of fifties was still yours. The Greater Hilton is the biggest hotel in town and everything you eat or drink is on Uncle Sam. You should have the time of your life.” He added wryly, “What with your tastes.”

Susan said, “What I’d really like is to go home.”

Steve shook his head. “Look, your father isn’t even there. You’d be alone.”

Larry stood too. “Let’s go, Zusanette.” He took her arm and ushered her from the small office.

Susan Self was impressed by the Greater Hilton. She should have been. Short of, possibly, Versailles, Louis the 14th’s pad, there had probably never been a palace in more luxurious bad taste in history. This was not the first time Larry Woolford had kept someone under wraps in the swank hotel. His department maintained several suites on a full time basis. There was no need even for him to register. He led Susan directly across the lobby to the elevator banks.

The departmental suites were on the 18th floor. He led her down the ornate, all but gaudy, hall to Suite 18 and stood before the identity screen on the door.

The door opened and a lanky, yawning operative was there. He was dressed in tweeds, of course, Larry noted. Harris tweeds, rather than Donegal, and Larry wondered again if Donegalwas going out. He’d have to check with his tailor. Damn it, he had just bought the suit he was wearing two weeks ago.

The other gave Susan Self the once over then turned his eyes back to Larry. He said, “Hi, Larry, what’s up? Damn it, you know we’re not supposed to bring broads here. Besides, aren’t you robbing the cradle?”

“Don’t be silly,” Larry Woolford said, escorting Susan inside and closing the door behind them. He saw her to the couch in the lavish living room before turning back to the other. He wondered if the girl knew what ‘robbing the cradle’ meant. Probably. Her generation knew everything. But she was probably too upset to think about it.

He said, “Listen, Art, this girl’s a kingpin in an operation we’re cooperating with Secret Service on. Whether or not we stay on it, I don’t know. At any rate, well be hearing from Steve Hackett, shortly. You know Steve, don’t you? Meanwhile, post yourself out in the hall. Nobody but Steve gets in unless you clear it with me first.”

Art had raised his eyebrows, but now he said, “Right, Larry.” He drew his Gyro-jet from the holster beneath his left arm, threw the magazine, checked it, heeled it back into the butt of the gun, threw a cartridge into the chamber, returned the deadly weapon to its nest and left for the corridor to stand guard.

Larry lowered himself into a chair across from her. “Well, here we are,” he said. “We’ll probably have a couple of hours or so before we hear from Mr. Hackett. Steven’s boss isn’t the easiest man in the world to get to see.”

Her under lip trembled slightly again. “You aren’t going to let me go?”

He said soothingly, “Possibly a little later, Zusanette. There are some other people who will probably want to talk to you.”

She said hesitantly, “You could let me go… if you wanted to? I mean, you’re the one in charge? I heard the superior way you talked to that other one—Steve.”

“Sure, sure. You can depend on me. Meanwhile, this isn’t as bad as all that. Let me show you around. There’s a king-size Tri-Di set over there in that wall. And lots of books there on the shelves. If you want anything to eat or drink, just phone for it. This is the most ritzy hotel in Greater Washington. There’s a delivery box in the kitchen over there. They’ll send up everything you want. Consider yourself a guest of the government, Zusanette.”

He led-her about the suite. Two bedrooms, two baths, two dressing rooms, a dining room, a kitchen.

It was very well done, actually, though somewhat ostentatious. Which he assumed wouldn’t bother her at all. Some real VIPs had stayed here on more than one occasion—usually complete with call girls.

“It’s very nice,” Susan Self said lowly. “But I’d rather go home.”

“Your father isn’t even there, you know, Zusanette,” Larry said patiently.

They were in one of the bedrooms. She turned to him and swallowed. Then her fingers went to the buttons of her blouse and she slowly, obviously trying to be provocative, unbuttoned it.

Larry Woolford rather doubted that the girl was the nearly eighteen she claimed to be, but whether or not, her breasts were lush. She wore no brassiere, of course, and needed none. Her face was possibly overly made-up but her body could not be corrupted by’her gauche efforts to appear sophisticated.

She stood there for a moment in silence, then she flushed and said, “You… you like me?”

His throat felt thick. Steve Hackett had been quite correct when he had accused Larry Woolford of going for the young stuff. He said, “Yes, of course. But what in the world do you think you’re doing, pretending that I’m trying to compromise your

Her fingers went to the side of her skirt. She said, her voice embarassed, as though he might reject her offerings, “Don’t you want me to lay for you?”

She stepped out of the skirt, remaining in nothing more than shoes, stocking, garter belt and the flimsiest of bikini type briefs.

He goggled at her. “Lay for me? Aren’t you a little on the young side to be climbing out of your clothes in a bedroom with a man?”

Susan Self stood there, a touch of pride in her highly held head now. She said, “I’ve… I’ve done it ever so many times. If a girl doesn’t put out for a boy these days, she never gets any dates.”

He licked a dry lower lip. “I… well… why not?”

He supposed that he should be feeling like a son of a bitch, but he didn’t. Hell, the girl had asked for it. Asked for it? Hell, she’d grabbed it. He went into the bathroom to clean himself up a bit, and when he returned began to dress.

She was still on the bed, completely nude. She blinked at him as he climbed into his pants. She said, “Didn’t you want to… to do me again?”

He regarded her sceptically. “Now I know you’re telling the truth, that you’ve never been with an older man. But that’s not all of it, Susan. You’d better get dressed and see if you can remake that bed, a bit. It might be awhile until Steve gets back here, but you never know.”

She got up from the bed, a pathetic quality there. She took up her bikini briefs and said wistfully, “You mean… you mean you’re not going to let me go?”

At the room’s dresser he retied his tie, avoiding looking into her face through the mirror. He said reproachfully, “Now Zusanette, you know better than that. I’m in no position to let you go home. There are a good many questions various people will undoubtedly want to ask you.”

“But you said…”

“No I didn’t.”

“But I laid for you and all.” Her voice was broken.

He said disgustedly, “What would Steve Hackett say when he came back, if I let you go?”

She blinked and said, “I could put out for him, too.”

He shook his head and muttered, “What a way to solve all problems.” And then louder. “I doubt it. Steve’s married. He undoubtedly gets all he wants.”

She said, “Some men cheat on their wives. I could let him do me and go on home. And then you two could pretend that you’d never caught me.”

He sighed. “Zusanette, our conversation down at my office was taped. There’s no way of pretending we never caught you.” His voice became something more curt. “You’re involved in one of the biggest counterfeiting romps in history. You don’t buy yourself out of that with a couple of rolls in the hay.”

“You don’t?”

“No, you don’t. Now get your clothes on and remake the bed and come on back into the other room. We’ll order something to eat and drink. Do you drink? God knows, you kids seem to do everything else these days.”

She said lowly, getting into her skirt, “Daddy lets me drink wine with our meals.”

VII

Larry Woolford summed it up for the Boss later after Steve had returned and taken over.

His chief scowled his disbelief, and said, “The child is full of dreams, Lawrence. It comes from seeing an over-abundance of these Tri-Di shows. I have a girl the same age. I don’t know what is happening to the country. They have no sense of reality.”

Larry Woolford said mildly, “Well, she might be full of nonsense but she did have the fifties and she’s our only connection with whoever printed them, whether it’s a movement to overthrow the government, or’what.”

The Boss said tolerantly, “Movement indeed. Obviously, her father produced them and she purloined a quantity before he was ready to.attempt to pass them. Have you a run down on him as yet?”

“Susan Self says her father, Ernest Self, is an inventor. Steve Hackett is working on locating him.”

“He’s an inventor indeed. Evidently, he has invented a perfect counterfeiting device. However, that is the Secret Service’s headache, not ours. Do you wish to resume that vacation of yours, Lawrence?”

His operative twisted his face in a grimace. “Sure I do, sir, but I’m not happy about this. What happens if there really is an organization, a Movement, like she said? That brings it back under our jurisdiction, anti-subversion.”

The other shook his head tolerantly. “See here, Lawrence, when you begin scheming a social revolution you can’t plan on an organization composed of a small number of persons who keep their existence secret. In spite of what a good many persons seem to believe, revolutions are not accomplished by little groups of conspirators hiding in cellars and eventually overthrowing society by dramatically shooting the President, or King, or Czar, or whoever. Revolutions are precipitated by masses of people. People who have ample cause to be dissatisfied, possibly having been pushed to the brink of starvation, though other things can sometimes be the cause of revolt. Have you ever read Machiavelli?”

Niccolo Machiavelli was currently the thing to read.

Larry said with a certain dignity, “I’ve gone through ‘The Prince,’ the ‘Discourses’ and currently I’m amusing myself with his ‘History of Florence.’

“Anybody who can amuse himself reading Machiavelli,” the Boss said wryly, “has a macabre sense of humor. At any rate what I was alluding to was where he stated that the Prince cannot rule indefinitely in the face of the active opposition of his people. Therefore, the people always get a government that lies within the limits of their tolerance.

It may be on one edge or the other of their limits of toleration—but it’s always within their tolerance zone.”

Larry frowned and said, “Well, what’s your point, sir?

The Boss said patiently, “I’m just observing that cultures aren’t overthrown by little handfuls of secret conspirators. You might eliminate a few individuals in that manner, in other words change the personnel of the government, but you aren’t going to alter a socioeconomic system. That can’t be done until your people have been pushed outside their limits of tolerance. Very well then. A revolutionary organization must get out and propagandize. It has got to convince the people that they are being pushed beyond endurance. You have got to get the masses to moving. You have got to give speeches, print newspapers, books, pamphlets, you have got to send your organizers out to intensify interest in your program.”

Larry said, “I see what you mean. If this so-called Movement actually existed it couldn’t expect to get anywhere as long as it remained secret.”

The Boss nodded. “That is correct. The leaders of a revolutionary movement might be intellectuals, social scientists, scholars—in fact they usually are-take our own American Revolution with Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Paine. Or the French Revolution with Robespierre, Danton, Marat. For that matter take Marx, Engels, Lenin. All were well educated intellectuals from the middle class. But the revolution itself, once it starts, comes from below, from the masses of people pushed beyond tolerance.”

It came to Lawrence Woolford that his superior had achieved his prominent office not through any fluke. He knew what he was talking about.

The Boss wound it up. “If there was such an organization as this Movement, then this department would know about it. You don’t keep a revolutionary movement secret. It doesn’t make sense to even try. Even if it is forced underground, it makes as much noise as it can.”

His troubleshooter cleared his throat. “I suppose you’re right, sir.” He added hesitantly, “We could always give Susan Self a few drops of Scop-Serum, sir.”

The Boss scowled disapprovingly. “You know how the Supreme Court ruled on that, Lawrence. And particularly since the medics revealed its effect on reducing sexual inhibitions. It’s one of the most effective aphrodisiacs ever come upon. No, Mr. Hackett and Secret Service will have to get the truth out of the girl by some other means. At any rate, it is out of our hands.”

Larry came to his feet. “Well, then, I’ll resume my vacation, eh?”

His chief took up a report from his desk and frowned at it, his attention already passing to other matters. He grunted, “Clear it with LaVerne, please. Tell her I said to take another week to make up for our intruding on you in this manner.”

In the back of his head, Larry Woolford had misgivings. For one thing, where had the kid, who on the face of her performance was no great brain even as teenagers go, picked up such ideas as the fact that people developed prejudices against words like revolution and propaganda?

However, he was clear of it now. Let Steve Hackett and his people take over. He, Lawrence Woolford, was due for a quick return to Astor, Florida and the bass fishing there which was, in his book, the best in the world. A ten-pound large-mouthed bass, practically unknown elsewhere, was an ordinary thing on the St. Johns. In his time, Larry had landed bass that went as high as fourteen pounds and they were by no means record breakers-He stopped at LaVerne’s desk and gave her his address to be, now that his vacation was resumed.

She said, smiling up at him, the warm smile that was LaVerne Polk when she wasn’t in one of her needling moods, “Right. The Boss told me to get in touch with Secret Service and let them know that we’re pulling out. What happened to Susan Self?”

Larry looked at her quizzically. “How do you know about Susan Self?”

Her tone was deprecating. “Don’t you remember? You had me cut some tapes on you and that hulking Steve Hackett grilling the poor kid.”

Larry snorted. “Poor kid, yet. With her tastes for living it up, and that father she has, she’ll probably spend the rest of her life getting in Steve’s hair as a counterfeit pusher.”

LaVerne didn’t like it. She said, “What are they going to do with her? She’s just a child.”

The agent shrugged. “I feel sorry for her, too, LaVerne. Steve’s got her over in one of our suites at the Greater Washington Hilton, until things are cleared up. They don’t want the newspapers to get wind of this until they’ve got that inventor father of hers and whatever he’s cooked up to turn out per-feet reproductions of Uncle Sam’s money. Look, I won’t be leaving until tomorrow. What’d you say we got out on the town tonight?”

“Why, Larry Woolford,” she gushed. “How nice of you to ask me. What did you have in mind for a weird type like myself? I understand that Mort Lenny’s at one of the night clubs.”

Larry winced. “You know what he’s been saying about the administration. That so called stand-up comedian is one of the biggest weirds in town.” She smiled sweetly at him.

Larry said, “Look, we could take in the Brahms concert, then we could—”

Still sweetly, she said, “Do you like Brahms? I go for popular music myself. Preferably the sort of thing they wrote back in the 1930s. Something you can dance to; something you know the words to. Corny, they used to call it. Remember ‘Sunny Side of the Street,’ and ‘Just the Way You Look Tonight’?”

Larry winced again. He said, “Look, I admit, I don’t go for concerts either but it doesn’t hurt you to—”

“I know,” she said sweetly. “It doesn’t for a bright young bureaucrat to be seen at concerts.”

“How about Dixieland?” he said. “It’s rapidly becoming all the thing now.”

“I like corn. Besides, my wardrobe is all out of style. Paris, London and Rome just got in a huddle a couple of months ago and antiquated everything I own. You wouldn’t want to be seen with a girl a few weeks out of date, would you?”

“Oh, now, LaVerne, get off my back.” He thought about it. “Look, you must have something you could wear.”

“Get out of here, you vacant-minded conformist! I like Mort Lenny, he makes me laugh. I hate vodka martinis, they give me a sour stomach. I don’t like the current women’s styles, they look ridiculous and are uncomfortable. And I don’t like the men’s styles either; they’re too boyish.” LaVerne spun back to her auto-typer and began to dictate into it.

Larry glared down at her. “All right, okay. What do you like?”

She snapped back irrationally, “I like what I like.”

He laughed at her in ridicule.

This time it was she who glared at him. “That makes more sense than you’re capable of assimilating, Mr. Walking Status Symbol. My likes and dislikes aren’t dictated by someone else. If I like corny music, I’ll listen to it and the devil with Brahms or Dixieland or anything else that somebody else tells me is all the thing!”

He turned on his heel angrily. “Okay, okay, it takes all sorts to make a world, weirds and all.”

“One more label to hang on people,” she snarled after him. “Everything’s labels. Be sure and never come to any judgements of your own!”

What a woman! He wondered why he had ever bothered to ask her for a date. There were so many women in this town you waded through them. And most were happy and anxious to be laid. And here he was exposing himself to be seen in public with a girl that everybody in the department knew was as weird as they came. It didn’t do your standing any good to be seen around with the type. He wondered all over again why the boss tolerated her as his receptionist-secretary.

Well, he wouldn’t have minded screwing her. LaVerne Polk had one of the pertist bodies he’d ever admired.

He got his car from the parking lot and drove home on a high level. Ordinarily, the distance being what it was, he drove in the lower and slower traffic levels but now his frustration demanded some expression.

VIII

Back at his suburban auto-bungalow, he threw all except the high priority switch and went on down into his small cellar den. He didn’t really feel like a night on the town anyway. A few vodka martinis under his belt and he’d sleep late and he wanted to get up in time for an early start for Astor, Florida and his bass fishing. Besides, in that respect he agreed with that irritating wench, LaVerne Polk. Vermouth was never meant to mix with Polish vodka. He wished that Sidecars would come back into popularity.

In his den, he shucked off his tweed jacket, kicked off his shoes and shuffled into Moroccan slippers. He went over to his reading rack and scowled at the paperbacks there. His status books were upstairs where they could be seen. He pulled out a suspense yarn, tossed it over to the cocktail table that sat next to his favorite chair, and then went over to the bar.

Up above in his living room, he had one of the new auto-bars. You could dial any of more than thirty drinks. Auto-bars were all the rage. The Boss had one that gave a selection of a hundred different drinks, running from Absinth Coolers to Zombies. But what difference did it make when nobody but eccentric old-timers of flighty blondes drank anything except vodka martinis? He didn’t like auto-bars anyway. A well mixed drink is a personal thing, a work of competence, instinct and art, not something measured to the drop, iced to the degree, shaked or stirred to a mathematical formula.

Out of the tiny refrigerator he brought a four-ounce cube of frozen pineapple juice, touched the edge with his thumbnail and let the ultra thin plastic peel away. He tossed the cube into his mixer, took up a bottle of light rum and poured in about two ounces. He brought an egg from the refrigerator and added that. An ounce of whole milk followed and a teaspoon of powdered sugar. He flicked the switch and let the conglomeration froth together.

He poured it into a king-size highball glass and took it over to his chair. Vodka martinis be damned, he liked a slightly sweet long drink.

He sat down in the chair, picked up the suspense novel and scowled at the cover. He ought to be reading that Florentine history of Machiavelli’s, especially if the Boss had gotten to the point where he was quoting from the guy. But the hell with it, he was on vacation. He didn’t think much of the Italian diplomat anyway.

He couldn’t get beyond the first page or two.

And when you can’t concentrate on a suspense yarn, you just can’t concentrate.

He finished his drink, went over to his phone and dialed Department of Records and then Information. When the bright young thing answered, he said, “I’d like the brief on an Ernest Self who lives on Elwood Avenue, Baltimore section of Greater Washington. I don’t know his code number.”

She did things with switches and buttons for a moment and then brought forth a sheet from a delivery chute. “Do you want me to read it to you, sir?”

“No, I’ll scan it,” Larry said.

Her face faded to be replaced by the brief on Ernest Self.

It was astonishingly short. Records seemed to have slipped up on this occasion. A rare occurence. He considered requesting the full dossier, then changed his mind. Instead, he dialed the number of the Sun-Post and asked for its science columnist.

Sam Sokolski’s puffy face eventually faded it.

Larry said to him sourly, “You drink too much. You can begin to see veins breaking in your nose.”

Sam looked at him patiently.

Larry said, “How’d you like to come over and toss back a few tonight?”

“I’m working. I thought you were going on a vacation down to Florida, or someplace.”

Larry sighed. “I am,” he said. “Okay, so you can’t take a night off and lift a few with an old buddy.”

“That’s right, I can’t,” the columnist told him. “Anything else, Larry?”

“Yes. Look, have you ever heard of an inventor named Ernest Self?”

The other nodded. “Sure I’ve heard of him. I covered a hassle he got into some years ago. A nice guy.”

Til bet,” Larry said. “What does he invent, something to do with printing presses, or something?”

“Printing presses?” Sokolski’s expression was blank. “Don’t you remember the story about him?”

“Brief me,” Larry said.

“Well—briefly does it. It got out a couple of years back that some of our rocketeers had bought a solid fuel formula from an Italian research outfit for the star probe project. Paid them a big hunk of Uncle’s change for it. So Ernest Self sued.”

Larry said, “You’re being too brief. What do you mean, he sued. Why?”

“Because he claimed he’d submitted the same formula to the same agency a full eighteen months earlier and they’d turned him down.”

“Had he?”

“Probably.”

Larry didn’t get it. “Then why’d they turn him down?”

Sam said, “Oh, the government boys had a good alibi. Crackpots turn up all over the place and you have to brush them off. Every cellar scientist who comes along and says he’s got a new super-fuel developed from old coffee grounds can’t be given the welcome mat. Something was wrong with Self’s math or something and they didn’t pay much attention to him. They wouldn’t even let him demonstrate it. But it was the same formula, all right.”

Larry Woolford was scowling. Science wasn’t his cup of tea. He said, “Something wrong with his math? What kind of a degree does he have?”

Sam grinned in memory. “I got a good quote on that. He doesn’t have any degree. He said he learned to read by the time he’d reached high school and since then he figured spending time in classrooms was a matter of interfering with his education.”

“No wonder they turned him down. He sounds like a weird to me. No degree at all. You can’t get anywhere in science like that.”

Sam said, “The courts rejected his suit but he got a certain amount of support here and there. Peter Voss, over at the university, claims he’s one of the great intuitive scientists, whatever that is, of our generation.”

“Who said that?”

“Professor Voss. Not that it makes a great deal of difference what he says. Another crackpot. A weird if there ever was one.”

Larry wound it up. “Okay. Thanks, Sam. Take care. You worry me with all the boozing you do.”

Sam snorted. After his less than handsome face was gone from the phone screen, Larry walked back to the bar with his empty glass and stared at the mixer for several minutes. He began to build himself another flip, but cut it short in the middle, put down the ingredients and went back to the phone to dial Records again.

He went through first the brief and then the full dossier on Professor Peter Luther Voss. Aside from his academic accomplishments, particularly in the fields of political economy and international law, and the dozen or so books accredited to him, there wasn’t anything particularly noteworthy. A bachelor in his fifties. No criminal record of any kind, of course, and no military career. No known political affiliations. Evidently a strong predilection for Thor-sten Veblen’s theories.” And he’d been a friend of Henry Mencken in his youth, back when that old nonconformist was tearing down contemporary society seemingly largely for the fun involved in the tearing.

On the face of it, the man was no radical, and the term “crackpot” which Sam had applied was hardly called for.

Larry Woolford went back to the bar and resumed the job of building his own version of a rum flip.

But his heart wasn’t in it. The Professor, Susan had said.

IX

Ilya Simonov entered the United States quite openly.

He landed at the International Supersonic Airport, built in the ocean ten miles off the coast of New York. He was dressed in mufti and his passport was completely correct, up too and including both photograph and fingerprints, save that he used his second name, Alex, rather than Ilya.

It was a diplomatic passport, which, of course, was immediately noticed by the Immigrations inspector who said, “Welcome to the United States, Mr. Simonov. In what capacity are you assigned to your Embassy?”

“Military attaché,” Ilya Simonov said easily. “I shall clear my position, of course, as soon as I arrive in Greater Washington and complete my accreditation.”

“Of course.” The other stamped the Soviet Complex passport and returned it to its owner. “I hope you enjoy America, sir,” he said politely.

Simonov nodded his thanks. “Certainly. I have been here before, you know.” He didn’t bother to add that the last time he had spent some months in jail as a Russian spy.

He took the regular shuttle jet-helio to Long Island and then a jet plane to Greater Washington, without bothering to go into New York City, a place he loathed. The supersonic planes which crossed the Atlantic were not allowed over the mainland of the United States, the sonic bomb aspects of the craft having never been licked. It seemed a bit complicated, but it still saved time. One flew to England, took a ferry plane or hoverboat out to the supersonic airport anchored half way between England and France off Brighton. There one took the supersonic to the airport anchored off Long Island, and from there the jet-helio to New York, or, if one was going elsewhere than New York, to the airport. In spite of all the switching about, one still saved considerable time over the old transatlantic jet planes.

Ilya was mildly amused and a bit proud of the fact that the supersonic planes were Russian in origin. The United States had never caught up in the race for ultra-speed. But, for that matter, it hadn’t particularly tried.

At the airport of Greater Washington, he hired a hover-car and drove out to the Soviet Complex Embassy to the southwest of town, an area that accommodated most of the larger embassies. There was no difficulty anywhere along the way.

At the embassy entrance he received no more than a quick passing scrutiny on the part of the two American plainclothesmen stationed there. Such was fame, he thought wryly. Here he was, supposedly the most notorious operative of the Chrezvychainija Komissiya, penetrating the capital city of his nation’s most powerful rival as easily as if he had been a tourist. He wondered if it was equally as easy for an American agent of, say, the C.I.A. to penetrate Moscow.

At the reception desk in the large and overly ornate entrada, Ilya Simonov identified himself and asked to see the ambassador as soon as possible. Evidently, the clerk had heard of the famous hatchetman of Minister Blagonravov. He made quick motions with his hands and spoke into a phone screen.

He said, “Just a moment, Comrade Colonel.”

“Of course,” Simonov said patiently.

A nattily dressed embassy official came hurrying out. He introduced himself and said, “We received word of your arrival, Comrade Simonov, on the scrambler. You’ve been assigned an apartment on the third floor. Your bags…?”

“Bag,” Ilya Simonov said. “It’s out in the car.”

“I’ll send a man for it immediately. Would you like me to show you up to your quarters? I assume you’d like to freshen up?”

“I cleaned up in the aircraft,” Simonov said. “I’d like to see the ambassador immediately. I haven’t the slightest idea of how long I’ll be able to be here before my cover is blown, and I wish to get to work.”

“Of course, Comrade Colonel Simonov. Would you come this way? I’ve already notified the ambassador of your arrival.”

Simonov followed him down a hall for a short distance, to a heavy wooden door which the other rapped upon. It opened and Ilya Simdfiov strode through into the large office. The ambassador was behind a king-sized antique desk which looked as though it had probably been shipped over from Russia and probably went back to Czarist days. He came to his feet on the entrance of the secret police agent and came around the desk to shake hands energetically.

He was, Ilya Simonov had found out, Leonid Mikoyan, son of one of the few Old Bolsheviks who hadn’t been purged by Stalin. Leonid Mikoyan owed his position, which he reputedly was incompetent to hold down, to the fact that being the son of an Old Bolshevik in the Soviet Complex was a status symbol unrivaled. At the age of nine he had become a Young Pioneer, another status symbol in Russia; you were a nobody if, as a child, you had not been a Young Pioneer. At the age of fourteen he became a member of the Young Communist League, attaining more merit in the eyes of the elite. And at the age of twenty-six he was made a full fledged party member. One attains little in the way of position in the Soviet Complex, no matter how competent, unless he is a member of the Party. The Soviet Complex was not free of the worship of status symbols, though her system differed from that of the Americans.

Ilya Simonov was contemptuous of the man.

He shook hands and then looked suggestively at his guide.

Leonid Mikoyan said hurriedly, “Vyacheslav, if you’ll just leave us now…”

The younger man bowed out, closing the door softly behind him.

The ambassador hurriedly saw his caller to a chair. Ilya Simonov was inwardly amused. He realized that the other was somewhat afraid of him.

Undoubtedly, Moscow hadn’t mentioned, in the scrambler message, the purpose of his visit to Greater Washington. Even a scrambler beam could possibly be tapped. Mikoyan didn’t know why he was here and thought it might be something personal. Blagonravov’s top field man wasn’t sent on missions of small import.

To put the man at his ease, Simonov came directly to the point. And drew a blank.

Ambassador Leonid Mikoyan hadn’t the vaguest idea of what he was talking about.

“You do read the American papers and other publications, don’t you?” the operative said testily.

“Yes, yes of course. But I have not heard of this organization of which you speak.” His tone of voice was almost apologetic. Ilya Simonov made a mental note to have the ambassador looked into. He appeared and sounded as though he had something on his mind.

He thought about it for a moment, then said, “How many KGB men do you have assigned here?”

“Three, all military attaches.”

“Have I been assigned an office?”

“Unless I am mistaken, it is part of your suite.” Ilya Simonov stood. He said, “Would you be so kind as to ask them to report to me there?”

“Of course,” the ambassador said. He seemed relieved to see his awesome caller departing. “Will my wife and I have the pleasure of your company at dinner tonight?”

“I doubt it,” Simonov said. “I’ve got to plow into this immediately. I have old friends here in Greater Washington in die C.I.A. and the F.B J., among other organizations, and it’s just a matter of time before they stumble on the fact of my presence. I have no doubt but that this embassy is either bugged or that we have American agents on our staff—or both. Some opinion to the contrary, they are not necessarily incompetent.”

The ambassador did his best to hide the fact that his invitation being refused did not completely displease him.

Up in his suite, behind his desk, Ilya Simonov ran his eyes over the three Committee of State Security men. He knew none of them but that didn’t surprise him. He hadn’t operated in the United States for a decade, and there were tens of thousands of KGB men on this level. They knew him, however. Or, at least, they knew of him. And they, like the ambassador, were slightly queasy in his presence.

He didn’t offer them seats.

He told them the same story as he had the ambassador and received in return the same blankness.

He glowered at them. “Do you mean to tell me that you, three trained KGB men, are assigned to this country and don’t even know of subversive organizations here?”

One of them, his name was Mikhail Aristov, if Simonov recalled correctly, said anxiously, “There are a good many organizations in America that are considered subversive, Comrade Colonel. There is, of course, our Communist Party, which is not very strong in the United States, and the Mao Communist Party which is even smaller. There is the Socialist Labor Party, the oldest of the radical parties in this country, going back to before 1900. There are the Socialist Workers tarty, who are Trotskests. There is Socialist Reconstruction. There is the Progressive Party. And there is the IWW, the Industrial Workers of the World, a union rather than a political organization. Then there is——”

Simonov held up a hand. “This is not a Marxist group that I am investigating.”

One of the three said, “Then it,is a right wing organization? Something like the John Birch Society or the Ku Klux Klan?”

Ilya Simonov shook his head in irritation. “We don’t know. All we know about them is that they are trying to increase the efficiency of the Yankee socioeconomic system. And that, obviously, is not to our interest.”

He took them in and said slowly, “Now here are your instructions. Get out and locate some of these people, however you can. Find out the details of just what it is they want. Find out how they expect to obtain their goals. Find out the names of the top leaders, their theoreticians and so forth. You’ll have to be my legmen. I don’t dare leave the embassy grounds. I might be spotted. We can put off, for a time, undoubtedly, my having to go through the red tape of accreditation, but when this does come up, undoubtedly they will be upon me and refuse my presence in the country.”

After they had left, Ilya Simonov sat there for a long moment. Finally, he looked up a number and dialed it on the phone. The screen didn’t light up, but he had expected that.

A heavy Teutonic voice said, “Ah, Colonel Simonov, I had heard that you were in the country. Rather bold of you, wouldn’t you say?”

Simonov growled, “Don’t try to impress me with your efficiency, Herr Distelmayer. You know very well that you didn’t know I was here in America.”

The German chuckled without humor. “You entered by supersonic from England. You have a diplomatic passport under the name Alex, rather than Ilya. You are supposedly a new military attache for your embassy.”

, Ilya Simonov didn’t like it. If Distelmayer’s organization had already cracked his cover, there was no reason why the Americans couldn’t as well, and he needed time.

He said, “And why am I really here?”

For once, the German spy master’s voice was puzzled. “That I don’t know, my friend. Tell me, why?”

Ilya Simonov said, obviously reluctantly, “Ordinarily, we don’t like to use your services, Hans Distelmayer, but on this occasion I am afraid time might be of the essence, and you have a large organization.”

“Yours to command,” the other said jovially.

Ilya Simonov told him the purpose of his visit, mentioning the fact that neither the ambassador nor his three KGB men had ever heard of the organization in which Minister Blagonravov was interested.

“Where did Blagonravov hear about it?” the German spy master said interestedly.

“I don’t know. The Minister has a good many irons in the fire.”

When Simonov had finished the German held silence for a moment, then said, “Interesting situation. That is, your government’s involvement. Very well, I shall have a report for you shortly. If you have been apprehended by then, or have flown the country by that time, where shall I send it?”

“Directly to the Ministry in Moscow.”

“Very well. And payment, Colonel?”

“The usual. In gold, from Moscow, to your offices in Basel, Switzerland, immediately upon the receipt of your bill. But speed is important, Distelmayer.”

“It usually is,” the other chuckled.

X

Steve Hackett rubbed the end of his pug nose irritably. He looked up and down the street, before going into the underground. He couldn’t see anyone he knew, so down he went into the public transit system. Like Larry Woolford, he knew it wasn’t the thing to do in this status-conscious town, but he had left his car with Ruth that morning, her own being in the garage.

He took the subway to Alexandria .and stared morosely out the window, though there was nothing to see in the tunnel. Steve Hackett was very unhappy.

He had done everything he could think of to do, and had assigned half a dozen others to assist him.

They had checked out every stoolpigeon within a fifty mile radius, men who had fingered pushers for them before. The world of the counterfeiter is small and its inhabitants even more prone to be susceptible to official pressure than other criminal elements. You caught a lower echelon pusher, made a deal with him to escape prosecution, freed him and then for the rest of all time you could twist his arm when you needed information. It was a dirty way to han-die the business, perhaps, but no one had ever figured out another way.

His men had brought in a score of these con-temptable informers. They had been worthless.

He remembered the first one. A stoolie who would probably wind up dead one of these days. He had been informing on his colleagues for some ten years now. It was a typical case. The other was still pushing himself; he probably knew no other manner of making a living, had probably been doing it from youth—whatever kind of youth he might have had. Steve took it easy on him. It was much better to have a pusher netting possibly a hundred dollars a week in your pocket and to have an informer who might finger for you the next echelon up, or two echelons, than to have him in prison. Hell, you could always throw him into prison if he became worthless to you so far as seeking out his superiors was concerned.

When the informer had entered his office, Steve had been even colder than usual. He had ignored the hand the other had hesitantly extended. Steve’s ugliness was an attribute in his trade. He wasn’t, but he had the reputation of being the most vicious, cold-blooded agent in Secret Service, People were afraid of him.

“Sit down,” he said.

“Yeah, sure.” The other’s name was Mike Edmonds. Steve had caught him, initially. The fool had been spending some of the crudest five dollar bills Steve had ever seen. The only reason he had survived at all was that he made a practice of passing the bills only in a very dim atmosphere—bars, dimly-lit restaurants, taxi-cabs, whorehouses; or sometimes in markets, at stands owned by immigrants, those less acquainted with the currency than die average.

More recently, Steve knew, Edmonds had been trying a new angle. He was pushing tens. He’d start off at about one o’clock in the morning and made the round of the cheaper bars down in the port area. He’d strike up an acquaintance, buy the other a drink, fish into his wallet and say, “Hey, you wouldn’t have two fives for a ten would you? I . got this broad I’m screwing regular and always slip her a fiver, but if I didn’t have a five, I’d have to wind up giving her a ten.”

It usually didn’t occur to the sucker to suggest that Edmonds ask the bartender for the change, at this time of the morning he was too far gone. If he had two fives, they usually were passed on for the phoney ten. There were so many bars of this type in the area that Edmonds could keep on operating indefinitely.

But Steve wasn’t basically interested in Mike Edmonds. Not at this stage, at least. He knew where Edmonds stood. On the lowest rungs of the ladder. If the other—who wasn’t completely bright, or he wouldn’t be in this sucker game—graduated to the higher counterfeit echelons, then Steve would move in on him. But now? He was of more value as a stoolie than he would be in jail, where he belonged.

Steve eyed him now, very coldly.

Edmonds said nervously, “What’s up… Steve?”

“Mr. Hackett.”

“Oh, yeah, well, sure. But the last time I seen you we was calling each other by first names.”

Steve Hackett eyed him coldly for a long, long moment, and the other became increasingly nervous.

Steve said finally, “I gave you a break ten years ago, Edmonds. I’ve given you more than one other break, down through the years. How much time have you spent in the slammer, since I’ve been cooperating with you, giving you breaks you don’t deserve?”

Mike Edmonds licked nervous lips. “Only a year or so… Mr. Hackett.”

“Right. And now that something big has come up, you lay low.”

“Something big… Mr. Hackett?”

“Don’t give me that crap, Edmonds. If anybody in the racket would know, you would. There’s not a man in this town who knows more about pushing green goods than you do.”

The other wiped a moist hand over his mouth nervously. He knew very well that the man across the desk could send him over for as much as twenty years.

He stuttered, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Hackett. You know I’ve always cooperated with you, like. I got a hard time these days. The old lady’s sick and all, and—”

“Listen, I don’t have my violin with me, Edmonds, or I’d be glad to play some sad gypsy music for you.”

“Look, Mr. Hackett, I don’t know…”

Steve Hackett pulled out a drawer and brought forth a fifty dollar bill, one of those he had taken from Susan Self. He handed it over.

Mike Edmonds was now on his own grounds. He looked at it carefully. In particular he looked at the eyes of the portrait. He rubbed the bill between his fingers to get the texture. He held it up the window, to peer through the composition of the paper. Finally, he looked up at the man who could send him to prison for the rest of his life, or, at least, that portion of it that made any difference.

He shook his head definitely. “This here ain’t green goods, Mr. Hackett.”

“It’s queer as chicken shit.”

The counterfeit passer’s face went blank and he looked at the bill again, carefully, fully. Steve Hackett held his peace.

The other shook his head again, again definitely. “If it is, I never seen nothing like it.”

“Where’d it come from?”

Edmonds stared at him. “How would I know? I still don’t think it’s queer. I never seen nothing like this. I been around a long time, Mr. Hackett. I never seen any queer like this—if it’s queer.” He had enough animal courage to stick to his guns in his own field.

Steve sighed. “All right, Mike. I tell you this. You tell me where these half-a-bill things are coming from before the week is out, or into the slammer you go. You know how much I’ve got in my files on you. As a matter of fact, you don’t. I’ve got more than you know about. I can send you over, Mike, for the rest of your days.”

“Listen, Mr. Hackett. I got a wife and two kids.”

“Those kids will be orphans unless I know where those fifties came from before the week is out.”

The counterfeit pusher stared at the bill, which he had returned to the surface of the desk. He shook his head. “Could I take it along, for a sample?”

Steve said, “You smart-assed son of a bitch. You’d pass it at the first bank you came across. It’s perfect.”

“Yes, sir, that’s what I’ve been telling you. Is it all in fifties? The boys don’t run off much fifties.”

Steve Hackett said, “We’ve only seen the fifties, but we’ve been told there are also fives, tens and twenties.”

Mike Edmonds came to his feet. “I’ll circulate around, Mr. Hackett and see what I hear. But you wanta know something?”

“What?”

“I don’t think any of the regulars are turning this green goods out. It’s gotta be somebody new. Somebody with a lot of, like resources, not some guy down in a cellar with his own engraving outfit and a platen press.”

Steve Hackett had stared after him, when the other had left, with a feeling of frustration. He didn’t know why, but he was inclined to agree with the little pusher’s final statement. He called for the next stool pigeon, and drew another blank. And another. There seemed to be no question about it. The counterfeit pushing professionals in the Greater Washington area knew nothing about this job.

He tried to track down the ink. If Susan Self was even partially right about the amount of phony money she had seen, it would have taken a great deal of the type ink involved to have printed it. But he drew a big round zero on the ink.

He tried to track down the source of the paper.

The type paper utilized was identical to that used by the government in printing real money. It was of a quality never used for other purposes. If Susan was right, that there were rooms and rooms of the fake dollars, then tons of expensive paper were involved. But he drew another blank. He could find no records of paper of this type being sold to any source save the government printing plants of the Treasury. Could it have come from abroad? But, if so, where? He had no manner in which to check foreign paper manufacturers. Besides, if it had originated in some other country, how had the counterfeiters got it over the border? It’s one thing smuggling a suitcase full of contraband, but tons?

Now, on the subway, he shook his head in despair. Of course, there was always the possibility that, although the counterfeit money was now here in Washington, that this was basically an out of town operation. He had sent men to New York, Chicago and Los Angeles to check with local police and further stoolies, but he had a strong intuition that they were not going to do any better in those cities than they had here.

In Alexandria, he left the public transport system tube at the station nearest to his house, and set out on foot. It was an older part of town and in its day had been the proudest section of the city. He loved it for its relative quiet, its relatively little traffic, the large trees which lined the streets, the quaint oldness of the mansions.

He strode up the steps of his home, crossed the porch and allowed the identity screen on the door to pick him up. He had hated to have the device in-stalled in the beautiful, heavy door, but Ruth had insisted. Everybody, but everybody, had identity screens on their doors. They’d be the talk of the neighborhood if they didn’t have one. He wouldn’t want to get the reputation of being a weird, would he?

The door opened automatically before him and he went on in, down the hall and to the living room.

Ruth was sitting there, her mouth pursed. He recognized the expression from of old. Something was on her mind that she feared he wasn’t going to like and she was getting into a frame of mind for the fray.

Ruth was a tall girl with every pore in place. Her hair was in the very latest style from Budapest, hair style center of Europe, this year. Her make-up was perfect, which was to be expected, he reflected glumly, in view of the time she spent at it. Her clothing was the most chic available from Copenhagen. Scandinavian styles were all the thing this year. The French and Italian dressing houses must be starving to death.

He said, “Hello, darling. Sorry I’m a little late this evening. We’re on a big case. Probably the biggest one I’ve ever seen.” He went over to the auto-bar. “How about a drink? I could use one.”

She shook her head, and said, “Steve, there’s something I have to talk to you about.”

“All right.” He dialed for a vodka martini, telling himself grimly that he was going to learn to like to drink the damn things if it killed him,

“Ben and Tessy were here this afternoon.”

“Oh?” He brought the drink back and sat down on the couch beside her. “What did they have to say?”

“It wasn’t what they said. It was their attitude,” she said, and her mouth pursed again.

He fixed his eyes on her but held his peace.

She said, “They’ve recently moved into a new apartment in the Druid Hill section of Baltimore. It’s the name area now. Just everybody is moving there. You’re simply not with it, these days, unless you live near Druid Hill Park.”

“I don’t like Baltimore,” he muttered.

“What’s that got to do with it? Steve, we’ve simply got to take an apartment there. Houses have become old hat. We’ll be nobodies unless we move to a Baltimore apartment.”

“Those damn plastic and glass fish bowls? Good God, Ruthie, this house is comfortable. It has that lived-in feeling. The rooms are large, the furniture comfortable. The climate is relatively nice here. The neighborhood’s quiet. Most of the neighbors are old families; they’ve known we Hacketts for generations. Known us, respected us, liked us. It’s something you can’t buy. We have a pride of place here. It’s our turf.”

“That’s all you ever think about, your own comfort,” she said hotly. “It means nothing to you that I’ve become a social leper, in the circles in which we move.

“Oh, come off of it, Ruth,” he said wearily. He finished his drink and got to his feet disgustedly to go for another one. “For one thing, we own this house. So it’s rent free. If we had to pay rent these days, particularly in a prestige part of town, it’d cost so much that your budget would be half what it is now. What did you pay for those clothes you’re wearing?”

“We could sell this old monstrosity of a house and buy an apartment!”

He came back with his fresh drink. “No, we couldn’t. By the terms of the will, we have to live in it, or it reverts to the trust. This house was built by my great-grandfather back in Civil War days. Our family has lived in it ever since. When you and I die, it goes to our children, if any, or reverts to the trust to be assigned to some other family branch. But it remains in the family. I’m not allowed to sell it.”

“Good heavens, what the hell kind of a will is that? What you’re saying is we don’t really own this ramshackle joint.”

“The kind of will my great-grandfather set up,” he said dryly. “At any rate, there’ll be no moving to Baltimore because it’s the latest thing to do.”

“Well be ostrasized,” she said coldly.

“Sorry. Anything on for tonight? I’m going to have to get to the office early in the morning.” He wanted to get off the subject before the whine came into her voice.

She said, “Yes. We’ve been invited to the Cala-han’s, Bess and Fred, to join their swap club.”

“Swap club?” he said. “What’s a swap club?”

“It’s becoming all the rage. You simply have to belong to at least one swap club or you’re nobody.”

“I’m sure it’s all the rage, or you wouldn’t want to join one. Frankly, I’ve never heard of them.”

“They’ve just been introduced from Common Eu-rope. Everybody who is anybody belongs to one on the Continent.”

“But what do you do in a swap club?”

“Oh, don’t be silly. Isn’t it obvious? You swap.”

“Swap what?”

“Husbands and wives. You trade bed companions. Each week, you swap with somebody else. Just for one night, of course.”

“Great Gods! And you want us to join something like that?”

“I told you. It’s a must these days. Just everybody belongs to at least one swap club. Bess and Fred have been kind enough to invite us to join theirs, in spite of the fact that we’re hasbeens, living in this neighborhood.”

XI

Before he had gone to bed the night before, Larry Woolford had ordered a seat on the shuttle jet for Jacksonville and a hover-cab there to take him to Astor, on the St. Johns River. And he’d requested to be wakened in ample time to get to the shuttle-port.

But it wasn’t the saccharine pleasant face of the Personal Service operator which confronted him when he grumpily answered the phone in the morning. In fact, the screen remained blank.

Larry decided that sweet long drinks were fine but that anyone who took several of them in a row needed to be candled. His mouth felt as though he had been eating dirty dish cloths, and he suspected he was bleeding to death through the eyes.

He grumbled into the phone, “All right. Who is it?”

A Teutonic voice chuckled and said, “You are going to have to decide whether or not you are on vacation, my friend. At this time of day, why aren’t you at work?”

Larry Woolford was waking up. He said, “What can I do for you, Distelmayer?” The German merchant of espionage wasn’t the type to make personal calls.

“Have you forgotten so soon, my friend?” the other chuckled. “It was I who was going to do you a favor.” He hesitated momentarily before adding, “In possible return for future favors on your part.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Larry said. He was fully awake now. “So the favor you’re doing me?”

The German said slowly, “You asked if any of your friends from, ah, abroad were newly in the country. Ilya Simonov has recently appeared on the scene.

Simonov! In various respects, Larry Woolford’s counterpart. Chief hatchetman for the Chrezvychainaya Komissiya; right hand man of Minister Blagonravov. Woolford had met him on occasion when they had both been present at international summit meetings, busily working at counter-espionage for their respective superiors. Blandly shaking hands with each other, blandly smiling, blandly drinking toasts to peace and international coexistence, blandly sizing each other up and wondering if it’d ever come to the point where one would blandly treat the other to a hole in the head, possibly in some dark alley in Havana or Singapore, Leopoldville or Saigon.

Larry said sharply, “Where is he? How did he get into the country?”

“My friend, my friend,” the German grunted in heavy good humor. “You know better than to ask me die first question. As for the second, Ilya’s command of American-English is at least as good as your own. Do you think his Komissiya less capable than your own department and unable to do him up suitable papers so that he could be, perhaps, a ‘returning tourist’ from Europe?”

Larry Woolford was impatient with himself for having asked. He said now, “It’s not important. If we want to locate Ilya and pick him up, we’ll probably not have too much trouble doing it. We’ve caught him before.”

“I wouldn’t think so,” the other said humorously. “Since 1919, when they were first organized, the so-called Communists in this country from the lowest to the highest echelons, have been so riddled with police agents that a federal judge in New England once refused to prosecute a case against them on the grounds that the party was a United States government agency.”

Larry was in no frame of mind for the other’s heavy humor. “Look, Hans,” he said, “what I want to know is what Ilya is over here for.”

“Of course you do,” Hans Distelmayer said, unable evidently to keep a note of puzzlement from his voice. “Larry,” he said, “I assume your people know of the new American underground.’

“What underground?” Larry snapped.

The professional spy chief said, his voice strange, “The Soviets seem to have picked up an idea somewhere, possibly through their membership in this country, that something is abrewing in the States, that a change is being engineered.”

Larry stared at the blank phone screen.

“What kind of a change?” he said finally. “You mean a change to the Soviet system, to what they call communism, but which obviously isn’t?” Surely not even the self-deluding Russkies could think it possible to overthrow the American socioeconomic system in favor of the Soviet brand.

“No, no, no,” the German chuckled. “Of course not. It’s not of their working at all.”

“Then what’s Ilya Simonov’s interest, if they aren’t engineering it?”

Distelmayer rumbled his characteristic chuckle which held nothing in common with humor. “My dear friend, don’t be so naive. Anything that happens in America is of interest to the Soviets. There is delicate peace between you now that they have changed their direction and are occupying themselves largely with the economic and agricultural development of Asia and such portions of the world as have come under their hegemony while you put all efforts into modernizing the more backward countries among your satellites.”

Larry said automatically, “Our allies aren’t satellites.”

The spy-master went on without contesting the statement. “There is immediate peace but surely governmental officials on both sides keep careful watch on the internal developments of the other. True, the current heads of the Soviet Complex would like to see the governments of all the Western powers changed—but only if they are changed in the direction of communism. They are hardly interested in seeing changes made which would strengthen the West in the, ah, Battle for Men’s Minds.”

Larry snorted his disgust. “What sort of change in government would strengthen the United States in——”

The German interrupted smoothly, “Evidently, that’s what Ilya seems to be here for, Larry. To find out more about this Movement and——”

“This what?” Larry blurted.

“The term seems to be Movement.”

Larry Woolford held a long silence before saying, “And Ilya is actually here in this country to buck this… this Movement?”

“Not necessarily,” the other said impatiently. “If I understand it correctly, he is here to find out more about it. Evidently Moscow and Peking both have heard just enough to make them nervous.”

Larry said, “You have anything more, Hans?”

“I’m afraid that’s about it at this point.”

“All right,” Larry said. He added, absently, “Thanks, Hans.”

“Thank me some day with deeds, rather than words,” the German chuckled.

Larry flicked the phone screen off, looked at his watch and grimaced. He was either going to get going now or forget about doing any fishing in Florida this afternoon.

Grudgingly, he dialed the phone company’s Personal Service and said to the impossibly cheerful blonde who answered, “Where can I find Professor Peter Voss who teaches over at the University in Baltimore? I don’t want to talk with him, but just want to know where he’ll be an hour from now.”

While waiting for his information, he dressed, deciding inwardly that he hated his job, the department in which he was employed, the Boss and Greater Washington. On top of that, he hated himself. He had already been taken off this assignment, why couldn’t he leave it lay?

The blonde rang him back. Professor Peter Voss was at home. He had no classes today. She gave him the address.

Larry Woolford raised his car from his auto-bungalow in the Brandywine suburb and headed northwest at a high level for the old Baltimore section of the city.

The Professor’s house, he noted, was of an earlier day and located on the opposite side of Paterson Park from Elwood Avenue, the street on which Susan Self and her father resided. That didn’t necessarily hold significance; the park was a large one and the Professor’s section a well-to-do neighborhood, while Self’s was just short of a slum these days.

He brought his car down to street level before the scholar’s three story brick house. Baltimore-like, it was identical to every other house in the block. Larry wondered vaguely how anybody ever managed to find his own place when it was very dark out— or very drunk out.

There was an old-fashioned bell at the side of the entrance and Larry Woolford pushed it. There was no identification screen on the door, which made it necessary for the inhabitants to open up to see who was calling, a tiring chore if you were on the far side of the house and the caller nothing more than a salesman.

It was obviously the Professor himself who answered.

He was in shirtsleeves, tieless and with age-old slippers on his stockingless feet. He evidently hadn’t bothered to shave this morning and he held a dog-earred pamplet in his right hand, his forefinger tucked in it to mark his place. He wore thick-lensed, gold rimmed glasses through which he blinked at Larry Woolford questioningly, without speaking. Professor Peter Voss was a man in his mid-fifties and, on the face of it, couldn’t care less right now about his physical appearance.

A weird, Larry decided immediately. He wondered at the University, one of the nations best, keeping such a figure on the faculty.

“Professor Voss?” he said. “Lawrence Woolford.” He brought forth his wallet and opened it to display his badge.

The Professor blinked down at it. “I see,” he said. “Would you come in?”

The house was old, all right. From the outside, quite acceptable, but the interior boasted few of the latest amenities which made all the difference in modern existence. Larry was taken back by the fact that the phone which he spotted in the entrada hadn’t even a screen—an old model for voice only.

The Professor noticed his glance and said dryly, “The advantages of combining television and telephone have never seemed valid to me. In my own home, I feel free to relax, as you can observe. Had I a screen on my phone, it would be necessary for me to maintain the same appearance as I must on the screen or before my classes.”

Larry cleared his throat before saying anything. This was a weird, all right.

The living room was comfortable in a blatantly primitive way. Three or four paintings were on the walls and by the looks of them were originals, Larry decided, and should have been in museums. Not an abstract among them. A Grant Wood, a Marin and that over there could only be a Grandma Moses. The sort of thing you might keep in your private den, but hardly to be seen as culture symbols.

The chairs were large, of leather, and comfortable and probably belonged to the period before the Second World War. Peter Voss, obviously, was little short of an exhibitionist.

The Professor took up a battered humidor. “Cigar?” he said. “Manila. They’re hard to get these days.”

A cigar? Good grief, the man would be offering him a chaw of tobacco next.

“Thanks, no,” Larry said. “I smoke a pipe. An Irish briar, of course. British briars are out this year.”

“I see,” the Professor said, lighting his stogie. “Do you really like a pipe? Personally, I’ve always thought the cigar by far the most satisfactory method of taking tobacco.”

What can you say to a question like that? Larry ignored it, as though it was rhetorical. Actually, he smoked cigarettes in the privacy of his den, a habit which was on the proletarian side and not consistent with his status level.

He said, to get things under way, “Professor Voss, what is an intuitive scientist?”

The Professor exhaled blue smoke, shook out the old-time kitchen match with which he had lit up, and tossed the matchstick into an ashtray. “Intuitive scientist?”

“You once called Ernest Self a great intuitive scientist.”

“Oh, Self. Yes, indeed. What is he doing these days?”

Larry said, “That’s what I came to ask you about.”

The Professor was puzzled. “I’m afraid you came to the wrong place, Mr. Woolford. I haven’t seen Ernest Self for quite a time. Why?”

Larry said carefully, “Some of his researches seem to have taken him rather far afield. Actually, I know practically nothing about him. I wonder if you could fill me in a bit.”

Peter Voss looked at the ash on the end of his cigar. “I really don’t know the man that well. He lives across the park. Why don’t you——”

“He’s disappeared,” Larry said.

The Professor blinked. “I see,” he said. “And in view of the fact that you are a security officer, I assume under strange circumstances.” Larry Woolford said nothing to that and the Professor sank bank into his chair and pursed his lips. “I can’t really tell you much. I became interested in Self two or three years ago when gathering material for a paper on the inadequate manner in which our country rewards its inventors.”

Larry said, “I’ve heard about his suit against the government.”

The Professor became more animated. “Ha!” he snorted. “One example among many. Self is not alone. Our culture is such that the genius is smothered. The great contributors to our society are ignored, or worse.”

Larry Woolford was feeling his way. Now he said mildly, “I was under the impression that American free enterprise, or capitalism, if you will, gave the individual the best opportunity to prove himself and that if he had it on the ball he would get to the top, no matter what the obstacles.”

“Were you really?” the Professor said snappishly. “And did you know that Edison died a comparatively poor man with an estate somewhere in the vicinity of a hundred thousand dollars? An amount that might sound like a good deal to you or me, but, when you consider his contributions, shockingly little. Did you know that Eli Whitney realized little, if anything, from the cotton gin? Or that McCormack didn’t invent the reaper but gained it in a dubious court victory? Or take Robert Goddard, one of the best examples of modern times. He developed the basics of rocket technology—gyroscopic stabilizers, fuel pumps, self-cooling motors, landing devices. He died in 1945 leaving behind twenty-two volumes of records that proved priceless. What did he get out of his researches? Nothing. It was fifteen years later that his widow won her suit against the government for patent infringements.”

Larry held up a hand. “Really,” he said. “My interest is in Ernest Self.”

The Professor relaxed. “Sorry, Mr. Woolford, I’m afraid I get carried away on this subject. Self, to get back to your original question, is a great intuitive scientist. Unfortunately for him, society being what it is today, he fits into few grooves. Our educational system was little more than an irritation to him and consequently he holds no degrees. Needless to say, this interferred with his gaining employment with the universities and the large corporations which dominate our country’s research, not to mention governmental agencies.

“Ernest Self holds none of the status labels that count. The fact that he is a genius means nothing. He is supposedly qualified no more than to hold a janitor’s position in laboratories where his inferiors conduct experiments in fields where he is a dozen-fold more capable than they. No one is interested in his genius, they want to know what status labels are pinned to him. Ernest Self has no respect for labels.”

Larry Woolford figured he was picking up background and didn’t change the subject. “Just what do you mean by an intuitive scientist?”

“It’s a term I have used loosely, I am afraid,” the Professor admitted. “Possibly a scientist who makes a breakthrough in his field, destroying formerly held positions—in Selfs case, without the math, without the accepted theories to back him. He finds something that works, possibly without knowing how or why, and by using unorthodox analytical techniques. An intuitive scientist, if I may use the term, is a thorn in the side of our theoretical physicists laden down with their burden of status labels but who are themselves short of the makings of a Leonardo, a Newton, a Galileo, or even a Nicholas Christofilos.”

“I’m afraid that last name escapes me,” Larry said.

“Similar to Selfs case and Robert Goddard’s,” Voss said, his voice bitter. “Although his story has a better ending. Christofilos invented the strong-focusing principle that made possible the multi-billion-volt particle accelerators currently so widely used in nuclear physics experimentation. However, he was nothing but a Greek electrical systems engineer and the supposed experts turned him down on the grounds that his math was faulty. It seems that he submitted the idea in straight-algebra terms instead of differential equations. He finally won through after patenting the discovery and rubbing their noses in it. Previously, none of the physics journals would publish his paper—he didn’t have the right status labels to impress them.”

Larry said, almost with amusement, “You seem to have quite a phobia against the status label, as you call it. However, I don’t see how as complicated a world as ours could get along without it.”

The Professor snorted his contempt of that opinion. “Tell me,” he said, “to which class do you consider yourself to belong? What social strata?”

Larry Woolford shrugged. “I suppose individuals in my bracket, with my education, and my job are usually thought of as being middle-middle class. Given luck, as I grow older possibly I’ll be able to work myself up to upper-middle class.”

The other snorted” again. “And you have no feeling of revolt in having such a label hung on you? Consider this system for a moment. You have lower-lower, middle-lower, and upper lower. Then you have lower-middle, middle-middle, upper-middle. Then you have lower-upper, middle-upper, and finally we achieve to upper-upper class. Now tell me, when we get to that rarified category, who do we find? Do we find an Einstein, a Schweitzer, a Picasso; outstanding scientists, humanitarians, the great writers, artists and musicians of our day? Certainly not. We find ultra-wealthy playboys and girls, a former king and his duchess who eke out their income by accepting fees to attend parties. We find the international bum set, bearers of meaningless feudalistic titles, or we find millionaires and billionaires, who achieved their wealth by inheriting it. These are your upper-upper class!”

Larry laughed.

The professor snapped, “You think it funny? Let me give you another example of our status label culture. I have a friend whom I have known since childhood. I would estimate that Charles has an I.Q. of approximately 90, certainly no more. His family, however, took such necessary steps as were needed to get Charles through public school. No great matter these days, you’ll admit, although on occasion he needed a bit of tutoring to pass his grades. On graduation, they recognized that the really better schools might be a bit difficult for Charles so he was entered in a college with a good name but without—shall we say—the highest of scholastic ratings. Charles plodded along, had some more tutoring, probably had his thesis ghosted, and eventually graduated with his first degree. At that point an uncle died and left a rather strange will. He left Charles an indefinite amount of money to be used in furthering his education to any extent he wished to go. Charles, probably motivated by the desire to avoid obtaining a job and competing with his fellow man, managed to wrangle himself into a medical school and eventually even graduated. Since funds were still available, he continued his studies abroad, largely in Vienna.”

The Professor wound it up. “Eventually, he ran out of schools, or his uncle’s estate ran out—I don’t know which came first. At any rate, my friend Charles, laden down with status labels, is today practicing as a psychiatrist in this fair city of ours.”

Larry stared at him blankly.

The Professor said snappishly, “So any time you feel you need to have your brains unscrambled, you can go to his office and expend fifty dollars an hour or so. His reputation is of the highest.” The Professor grunted his contempt. “He doesn’t know the difference between an aspirin tablet and a Rorschach test.”

Larry Woolford stirred in his chair. “We seem to have gotten off the subject. What has all this got to do with Ernest Self?”

The Professor seemed angry. “I repeat, I’m afraid I get carried away on this subject. I’m in revolt against a culture based on the status label. It eliminates the need to judge a man on his merits. To judge a person by the clothes he wears, the amount of money he possesses, the car he drives, the neighborhood in which he lives, the society he keeps, or even his ancestry, is out of the question in a vital, growing society. You wind up with nonentities as the leaders of your nation. In these days, we can’t afford it.”

He smiled suddenly, rather elfishly, at the security agent. “But admittedly, this deals with Ernest Self only as one of many victims of a culture based on status labels. Just what was it you wanted to know about Ernest?”

Larry said, “When you knew him, evidently he was working on rocket fuels. Have you any idea whether or not he later developed a method of producing perfect counterfeit?”

The Professor said, “You mean counterfeit money? Ernest Self? Surely you are jesting.”

Larry said unhappily, “Then here’s another question. Have you ever heard him mention belonging to a movement, or, I think, he might word it The Movement.”

“Movement?” the Professor said, scowling. “Evidently a revolutionary group interested in the overthrow of the government.’

“Good heavens,” the Professor said. “Just a moment, Mr. Woolford. You interrupted me just as I was having my second cup of coffee. Do you mind if I…”

“Certainly not,” Larry Woolford shook his head. “I simply can’t get along until after my third cup,” the Professor said. “You just wait a moment and I’ll bring the pot in here.”

He left Larry to sit in the combined study and living room while he shuffled off in his slippers to the kitchen. Larry Woolford decided that in his school days he had had some far-out professors himself, but it would really be something to study under this one. Not that the old boy didn’t have some points, of course. Almost all nonconformists base their particular peeves on some actuality, but in this case, what was the percentage? How could you buck the system? Particularly when, largely, it worked.

The Professor returned with an old-fashioned coffeepot, two cups, and sugar and cream on a tray. He put them on a side table and said to Larry, “You’ll join me? How do you take it?”

Larry still had the slightest of hangovers from his solitary drinking of the night before. “Thanks. Make it black,” he said.

The Professor poured, served, then did up a cup” for himself. He returned to his chair and said, “Now, where were we? Something about a revolutionary group. What has that to do with counterfeiting?”

Larry sipped the strong brew. “It seems that there might be some connection.”

The Professor shook his head. “It’s hard to imagine Ernest Self being connected with a criminal pursuit. It simply is not in his character.”

Larry said carefully, sipping at the still overly hot coffee, “Susan seemed to be of the opinion that you knew about a large amount of counterfeit currency that this Movement had on hand and that you were in favor of spending it on chorus girls.”

The Professor gaped at him.

Larry chuckled uncomfortably.

Professor Peter Voss said finally, his voice very even, “My dear sir, I am afraid that evidently I can be of little assistance to you.”

“Admittedly, it doesn’t seem to make much sense.”

“Susan—you mean that little sixteen-year-old?— said I was in favor of spending counterfeit money on chorus girls?”

Larry said, “She used the term The Professor.” He wasn’t at all happy about the way this was going.

“And why did you assume that the title must necessarily allude to me? Even if any of the rest of the fantastic story was true?”

Larry said, “In my profession, Professor Voss, we track down every possible clue. Thus far, you are the only professor of whom we know who was connected with Ernest Self.”

Voss said stiffly, “I can only say, sir, that in my estimation Mr. Self is a man of the highest integrity. And, in addition, that I have never spent a penny on a chorus girl in my life and have no intention of beginning, counterfeit or otherwise.”

Larry Woolford decided that he wasn’t doing too well and that he’d neeed more ammunition if he was going to return to this particular attack. He was surprised that the old boy hadn’t already ordered him from the house. In which case, he would have to go, of course; he was here by invitation.

He finished the coffee, preparatory to coming to his feet. He said, “Then you think it is out of the question, Ernest Self belonging to a revolutionary organization?”

The Professor protested. “I didn’t say that at all. Mr. Self is a man of ideals. I can well see him belonging to such an organization.”

Larry Woolford decided that he’d better hang on for a few more words. “You don’t seem to think, yourself, that a subversive organization is undesirable in this country.”

The Professor’s voice was reasonable. “Isn’t that according to what it means to subvert?”

“You know what I mean,” Woolford said in irritation. “I don’t usually think of revolutionists, even when they call themselves simply members of a Movement, as exactly idealists.”

“Then you are wrong,” the Professor said definitely, pouring himself another cup of coffee. “History bears out that almost invariably revolutionists are men of idealism. The fact that they might be either right or wrong in their revolutionary program is beside the point. I cite in our own revolution such men as Jefferson. Robespierre we might abhor for the Reign of Terror, but he was an idealist. Even Lenin.”

Larry Woolford began to say, “Are you sure than you aren’t interested in this Move—”

Then the knockout drops hit him.

XII

He came out of the fog feeling nausea and with his head splitting. He groaned and opened one eye experimentally.

Steve Hackett’s voice said, “The cloddy is snapping out of it.” He sounded far away.

Larry groaned again, opened the other eye and attempted to focus.

“What happened?” he muttered.

“Oh, great. What happened, he says. Now that’s an original question,” Steve said in disgust.

Larry Woolford struggled up into a sitting position. He’d been stretched out on a couch in the Professor’s combined living room and study.

Steve Hackett, his hands on his hips, was looking down at him sarcastically. There were three or four others, one of whom Larry vaguely remembered as being a Secret Service colleague of Steve’s, going about and in and out of the room.

Larry said, his fingers pressing into his forehead. “My head’s killing me. Damn it, what’s going on?”

Steve said sarcastically, “You’ve been slipped a mickey, my cloak and dagger friend, and the bird has flown. And evidently, what a bird.”

“You mean the Professor? He’s a bird all right.”

“Leave us depart the field of humor,” Hackett said, his ugly face scowling. “Listen, I thought you people had pulled out of this case.”

Larry sat up and swung his two feet around to the floor. “So did I,” he said, or rather moaned. “But there were two or three things that bothered me and I thought I’d tidy them up before leaving.”

“You tidied them up, all right,” Steve grumbled. “This Professor Voss was practically the only lead I’ve been able to discover. An old friend of Self’s. And you allowed him to get away before we even got here.”

One of Hackett’s men came up and said, “Not a sign of him, Steve. He evidently burned a few papers, packed a suitcase, and took off. His things look suspiciously like he was ready to go into hiding at a moment’s notice.”

Steve growled at him, “Give the place the works. Let’s hope he’s left some clues around that’ll give us a line.”

The other went off and Steve Hackett sat down on one of the leather chairs and glowered at Larry Woolford. “Listen,” he said, “what did you people want with Susan Self?”

Larry shook his head for clarity and took the other in. He said, “Susan? What are you talking about? You don’t have any aspirin, do you?”

“No. What do you mean, what am I talking about? You called Betsy Hughes and then sent a couple of men over to pick the Self kid up.”

“Who’s Betsy Hughes?” Larry Woolford complained. “I’ve never heard of her.”

Steve shook his head. “I don’t know what kind of knockout drops the old boy gave you, but they sure as hell worked. Betsy’s the operative we put on to mind Susan Self in the Greater Washington Hilton. About an hour ago you got her on the phone, said your department wanted to question Susan, and that you were sending two men over to pick her up. The two men turned up with an order from you, and took the girl. Now do you remember?”

Larry gawked at him. Finally he said, “Listen, Steve, what time is it?”

Steve looked at his watch. “It’s. almost two o’clock.”

Larry said, “I came into this house in the morning. I talked to the Professor for about half an hour and then was silly enough to let him give • me some loaded coffee. He was such a weird old buzzard that it never occurred to me that he might be dangerous. At any rate, I’ve been unconscious for several hours. I couldn’t have called this Betsy Hughes operative of yours, and I sure as hell didn’t write any order to turn Susan over to two men from our department.”

It was Steve Hackett’s turn to stare. “Do you mean to tell me that you people don’t have Susan Self?”

Larry shook his head, which he found to be a mistake since the motion increased his splitting headache. He said, “Not so far as I know. The Boss told me yesterday that we were pulling out, that it was all in your hands. What in the devil would we want with Susan?”

“Oh, great,” Steve snarled. “There goes our last contact. Ernest Self, Professor Voss, and now Susan Self; they’ve all disappeared. And if they’ve gone to ground, we’ll have our work cut out finding them. None of them have a criminal record. We don’t even have their fingerprints.”

“Look,” Larry said, suppressing a groan, “let’s get me some aspirin and then let’s go and see my chief. I have a sneaking suspicion that our department is back on this case.”

Steve snorted his sarcasm. “If you can foul things up this well when you’re off the case, God only knows what you’ll accomplish using your facilities on an all-out basis.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Larry told him. The Boss said slowly, “Whoever we are working against evidently isn’t short of resources. Abducting that young lady right out from under our noses was no simple matter. I hope the farce doesn’t ever get into the newspapers. Both of our departments would look awfully inefficient.” The career bureaucraft worked his lips in and out in the nearest thing to a pout his heavy face was capable of.

Larry Woolford, who had taken the time to go home, shower, change clothes and medicate himself out of his dope induced hangover, sat across the desk from him, flanked by Steve Hackett.

The Boss said sourly, “It would seem that I was in error. That our young Susan Self was not spouting fantasy. There evidently is an underground movement interested in changing our institutions.” He stirred in his chair and his scowl went deeper. “And evidently working on a basis never conceived of by subversive organizations in the past. The fact that they have successfully remained secret even to this department is the prime indication that they are attempting to make their revolutionary changes in a unique manner.”

Larry said, “The trouble is, sir, that we don’t even know what it is they want.”

“However,” his superior said slowly, “we are be-, beginning to get some inklings.”

Steve Hackett said, “What inklings, sir? This sort of thing might be routine for you people, but my field is counterfeit. I, frankly, don’t know what its all about.”

The Boss turned his eyes to the Secret Service man. “We have a clue or two, Mr. Hackett. For one thing, we know that this Movement of ours has no affiliation with the Soviet Complex, nor, so far as we know, any foreign element whatsoever. If we take Miss Self’s word, it is strictly an American phenomenon. From what little we know of Ernest Self and Peter Voss they might be in revolt against some of our current institutions but there is no reason to believe them, ah, un-American in the usually accepted sense of the word.”

The two younger men looked at him as though he was joking.

He shook his. heavy head negatively. “Actually, what do we have on this so-called Movement thus far? Aside from treating Lawrence, here, to some knockout drops—and let us remember that Lawrence was present in the Professor’s home without a warrant—all we have is the suspicion that they have manufactured a quantity of counterfeit.”

“A quantity is right,” Steve Hackett blurted. “If we’re expected to accept what that Self kid told us, they have a few billion dollars worth of perfect bills on hand.”

A strange amount for counterfeiters to produce,” the Boss said uncomfortably. “That is what puzzles me. Any revolutionary movement needs funds. Remember Stalin as a young man? He used to be in charge of the Bolshevik gang which robbed banks to raise funds for their underground newspapers and other activities. But a billion dollars? What in the world can they expect to need that amount for?”

Larry said, “Sir, you keep talking as though these characters were a bunch of idealistic do-gooders bleeding for the sake of the country. Actually, from what we know, they’re nothing but a bunch of revolutionists.”

The Boss shook his head. “You’re not thinking clearly, Lawrence. Revolution per se, is not illegal in the United States. Our Constitution was probably the first document of its kind which allowed for its own amendment. The men who wrote it provided for changing it either slightly or en toto. Whenever the majority of the American people decide completely to abandon the Constitution and govern themselves by new laws, no matter how revolutionary they might be by present standards, they have the right to do it.”

“Then what’s the whole purpose of this department, sir?” Larry argued. “Why have we been formed to combat foreign and domestic subversion?”

His chief sighed. “You shouldn’t have to ask that, Lawrence. The present government cannot oppose the will of the majority if it votes, by constitutional methods, to make any changes it wishes. But we can, and do, unmask the activities of anyone trying to overthrow the government by force and violence, or any other method not consistent with the Constitution. Any culture protects itself against that.”

“What are we getting at, sir?” Steve Hackett said, impatient.

The Boss shrugged lardly shoulders. “I’m trying to point out that so far as my department is concerned, thus far we have little against this Movement. Secret Service may have, what with this wholesale counterfeiting, even though thus far they seem to have made no attempt to pass the currency they have allegedly manufactured. We wouldn’t even know of it, if it weren’t for our young Susan pilfering an amount.”

Larry said, desperately, “Sir, you just pointed out a few minutes ago that this Movement is a secret organization trying to make changes in the government in some unique manner. In short, they don’t figure on using the ballot to put over their revolution. That makes them as illegal as the Commies, doesn’t it?”

The Boss said, “That’s the difficulty; we don’t know what they want. From your conversations with Susan Self and especially with Professor Voss, evidently they think the country needs some basic changes. What these changes are, and how they expect to accomplish them, we don’t know. Unless a foreign government is involved, or unless they plan to alter our institutions by. violence, this department simply doesn’t have much jurisdiction.”

Steve Hackett snorted. “Secret Service has! If those bales of money are ever put into circulation, there’ll be hell to pay.”

The Boss sighed, “Well,” he said, “Lawrence can continue on the assignment. If it develops that this department is justified in further investigation, we’ll put more men on it. Meanwhile, it is obviously more a Secret Service matter. I am sorry to intrude upon your vacation again, Lawrence.”

“Not at all, sir,” Larry said nobly. It didn’t do his credit with the old man any harm to make sacrifices for the sake of the department.

XIII

On awakening in the morning, Larry Woolford stared glumly at the ceiling for long moments before dragging himself from bed. This was, he decided, the damnedest assignment he’d ever been on. In his day he had trekked through South America, Common Europe, a dozen African states, and even areas of Southern Asia, combatting Commie pressures here, fellow-traveler organizations there, disruptive plots hatched in the Soviet Complex in another place. On his home grounds in the United States he’d covered everything from out and out Soviet espionage to exposing Communist activities of complexions from the faintest of pinks to the rosiest Trotskyite red. But,, he decided, he’d never expected to wind up after a bunch of weirds whose sole actionable activity to date seemed to be the counterfeiting of a fantastic amount of legal tender which thus far they were making no attempt to pass.

He got out of bed and went through the rituals of showering, shaving and dressing, of coffee, sausages and eggs, toast and more coffee.

What amazed Larry Woolford was the shrug-it-off manner in which the Boss seemed to accept this underground Movement and its admittedly subversive goals—whatever they were. Carry the Boss’ reasoning to its ultimate and subversion was perfectly all right, just so it didn’t involve force and violence. If he was in his chiefs position, he would have thrown the full resources of the department into tracking down these crackpots. As it was, he, Larry Woolford, was the only operative on the job.

He needed a new angle on which to work. Steve Hackett was undoubtedly handling the tracing down of the counterfeit with all of the resources of the Secret Service. Larry didn’t know much about such activities.

He finished his final cup of coffee in the living room and took up the pipe he was currently breaking in. He loaded it automatically from the humidor and lit it with his pocket lighter. Three drags, and he tossed it back to the table, fumbled in a drawer and located a pack of cigarettes. His status group might be currently smoking Irish briars in public, but, let’s face it, he hated the goddamned things. He couldn’t keep himself from inhaling, and pipe tobacco was never built for inhaling, it was too strong.

He sat down before the phone screen and dialed the offices of the Surir Post. Eventually he got Sam Sokolski who beat him to the punch this time.

Sam said, “You shouldn’t drink alone. Listen, Larry, why don’t you get in touch with Alcoholics Anonymous? It’s a great outfit. Kind of a mutual masturbation society. You sit around and have kind of a circle jerk.”

“You ought to know,” Larry growled. “If you’d just stop sucking on bottles, you’d probably have prospects of becoming some sort of newspaper man. Look, as science columnist for that rag you work for, you probably come in touch with a lot of eggheads.”

“Laddy-buck, you have said it,” Sam said. “In my life there are more eggheads than eggs, of which I eat two every morning.”

“Fine. Now look, what I want to know is have you ever heard—even the slightest of rumors—about an organization called the Movement?”

“What’d’ya mean, slightest of rumors? Half the weirds I run into are interested in the outfit. Get two or three intellectuals, scientists, technicians, or what have you, together and they start knocking themselves out on die pros and cons of the Movement.”

Larry Woolford goggled at him. “You must be kidding. I’ve never even heard of them until the last few days.”

The other was mystified. “Why should I kid you? As a matter of fact, I was thinking of doing a column one of these days on Voss and this Movement of his.”

“Voss and this movement of his!” Larry blurted. “What do you mean by that?”

“Sure,” Sam said. “Professor Peter Voss, over at the university. He’s the top leader.”

“Oh, great,” Larry growled. “Look, Sam, event-ally there is probably a story in this for you. Right now, though, we’re trying to keep the lid on it. Could you brief me a little on this Movement? What are they trying to put over? How do they expect to accomplish it?”

“I seem to spend half of my time briefing you on information any semi-moron ought to be up on,” the newspaperman told him nastily. “However, briefly, they’re in revolt against social-label judgements. They think it’s fouling up the country and that eventually it’ll result in the Russkies passing us in all the fields that really count, although the Russkies have a certain amount of the same situation themselves.”

“I keep running into this term,” Larry complained. “What do you mean, social-label judgements, and how can they possible louse up the country?”

Sam said, “I was present a month or so ago when Voss gave an informal lecture to a group of twenty or so. Here’s one of the examples he used.

“Everybody wants to be rated on a (1) personal, or, (2) social-label basis, depending on which basis is to his greater advantage. The Black who is a no-good, lazy, objectionable person demands to be accepted because Blacks should not be discriminated against. The highly competent, hard working, honest and productive Black wants to be accepted because he is hard-working, honest and productive—and should be so accepted.

“See what I mean? This social-label system is intended to relieve the individual of the necessity of judging, and the consequences of being judged. If you have poor judgement, and are forced to rely on your own judgement, you’re almost sure to go under. So persons of poor judgement support our social-label system. If you’re a louse, and are correctly judged as being a louse, you’d prefer that the social dictum ‘Human beings are never lice’ should apply.”

Larry said impatiently, “What in the devil’s this got to do with the race between this country and the Russkies?”

Sam said, his voice as patient as his caller’s was the opposite, “Voss and the Movement he leads contend that a social-label system winds up with incompetents running the country in all fields. Often, incompetent scientists are in charge of our research; incompetent doctors in charge of our health; incompetent politicians run our government; incompetent teachers, leaden with social-labels, teach our youth. Our young people are going to college to secure a degree, not an education. It’s the label that counts, not the reality.

“Voss contends that it’s getting progressively worse. That we’re sinking into an equivalent of a ritual-taboo, tribal social-like situation. This,is the system the low-level human wants, yearns for and seeks. A situation in which no one’s judgement is of any use. Then his lack of judgement is no handicap to him.”

The newspaperman went on. “According to members of the Movement, today the tribesman type is seeking to reduce civilization back to ritual-taboo tribalism wherein no one man’s judgement is of any value. The union wants advancement based on seniority, not on ability and judgement. The persons with whom you associate judge you by the amount of money you possess, the family from which you come, the degrees you hold, by social-labels—not by your own proven abilities. Down with judgement! is the cry.”

“It sounds awfully weird to me,” Larry grumbled in deprecation.

Sam shrugged. “There’a lot of sense in it, so far as I’m concerned. What the Movement wants is to develop a socioeconomic system in which judgement produces a maximum advantage.”

Larry sighed and said, “What gets me is that you talk as though half the country was all caught up in debating this Movement. But I haven’t even heard of it, neither has my department chief, nor any of my colleagues, so far as I know. Why isn’t anything about it in the papers, or on the Tri-Di?”

Sam said, “As a matter of fact, I took in Mort Lenny’s show the other night and he made some cracks about it. But it’s not the sort of thing that’s even meant to become popular with the man in the street. To put it bluntly, Voss and his people aren’t particularly keen about the present conception of the democratic ideal. According to him, true democracy can only be exercised by peers and society today isn’t composed of peers. If you have one hundred people, twenty of them competent, intelligent persons, eighty of them untrained, incompetent and less than intelligent, then it’s ridiculous to have the eighty dictate to the twenty.”

Larry looked accusingly at his long-time friend. “You know, Sam, you sound as though you approve of all this.”

Sam said patiently, “I listen to it all, Larry my boy. And, like I said, I think there’a lot of sense in it. There’s only one drawback.”

“And that is?”

“How’s it going to be put over? This social-label system the Movement complains about was bad enough ten years ago. But look how much worse it is today. It’s a progressive thing. And, remember, it’s to the advantage of the incompetent. Since the incompetents predominate, you’re going to have a hard time starting up a system based on judgement and ability.”

Larry thought about it for a moment.

Sam said, “Look, I’m working, Larry. Was there anything else?”

Larry said, “You wouldn’t know where I could get hold of Voss, would you?”

“At his home, I imagine. If I recalled, he lives somewhere over in Baltimore. Not the swank apartment area around Druid Hill, but the older section near Paterson Park. Or, you could probably contact him at the University.”

“He’s disappeared. We’re looking for him.”

Sam laughed. “Gone underground, eh? The old boy is getting romantic.”

“Does he have any particular friends who might be putting him up?”

Sam thought that over for a moment. “There’s Frank Nostrand. You know, that rocket expert who was fired when he got into the big hassle with Senator McCord.”

When Sam Sokolski had flicked off, Larry stared at the vacant phone screen for a long moment, assimilating what the other had told him. He was astonished that an organization such as the Movement would have spread to the extent it evidently had through the country’s intellectual circles, through the scientifically and technically trained, without his department being keenly aware of it.

One result, he decided glumly, of labeling everything contrary to the status quo as weird and dismissing it with contempt. Admittedly, that would have been his own reaction only a week ago. For that matter he still thought that Professor Peter Voss and his group were on the weird side. It wasn’t as simple as all that, this being opposed to the status label. He’d worked hard for his own status labels, he told himself virtuously.

But suppose that he’d been at a cocktail party, and had drifted up to a group who were arguing about social labels judgements and the need to develop a movement to change society’s use of them. The discussion would have gone in one ear and out the other and he would have muttered inwardly, “Weirds,” and drifted away to get himself another vodka martini.

Larry snorted the subject away and dialed the Department of Records. He’d never heard of Frank Nostrand before, nor of his run-in with Senator Mc-Cord, the current top witch-hunter when it came to subversives, which was interesting in itself. Was Nostrand considered a subversive? He got information.

The bright young thing who answered seemed to have a harried expression untypical of Records employees. Larry said to her, “I’d like the brief dossier of a Mr. Frank Nostrand who is evidently an expert on rocketry. The only other thing I know about him is that he recently got in the news as a result of a controversy with Senator McCord.”

“Just a moment, sir,” the bright young thing said.

She touched buttons and reached into a delivery chute. When her eyes came up to meet his again, they were more than ever harried. They were absolutely confused.

“Mr. Franklin Howard Nostrand,” she said. “Cur-tently employed by Madison Air as a rocket research technician.”

“That must be him,” Larry said. “I’m in a hurry, Miss. What is his background?”

Her eyes rounded. “It says… it says he’s an Archbishop of the Anglican Church.”

Larry Woolford looked at her.

She looked back, pleadingly.

Larry scowled and said, “His university degrees, please.’

Her eyes darted to the report and she swallowed. “A bachelor in Home Economics, sir.”

“Look here, Miss,” Larry snarled. “How could a Home Economics degree result in his becoming either an Archbishop or a rocket technician?”

“I’m sorry, sir, she said, confused. “But that’s what his dossier says.”

Larry was fuming but there was not point in taking it out on this junior employee of the Department of Records. He snapped, “Just give me his address, please.”

She said agonizingly, “Sir, it says, Lhasa, Tibet.”

A red light flicked at the side of his phone and he said to her, “I’ll call you back. I’m getting a priority call.”

He flicked her off, and flicked the incoming call in. It was LaVerne Polk. She seemed to be on the harried side, too.

“Larry,” she said. “You’d better get over here soonest. Hellz-a-poppin’.”

“What’s up, LaVerne?”

“This Movement,” she said. “It seems to have started moving! The Boss says to get over here right away.”

XIV

The top of his car was retracted. Larry Woolford slammed down the walk of his auto-bungalow and vaulted over the side and into the seat. He banged the start button, dropped the lift lever, depressed the thrust peddle and took off at maximum acceleration.

He took the police level for maximum speed and was in downtown Greater Washington in flat minutes.

So the Movement had started moving. That could mean almost anything. It was just enough to keep him stewing until he got to the Boss and found out what was going on. He turned his car over to a parker and made his way to the entrance utilized by the second-grade department officials. In another year, or at most two, he told himself all over again, he’d be using that other door. He had an intuitive feeling that if he licked this current assignment it’d be the opening wedge he needed and he’d wind up in a status bracket unique for his age. Yes, if he could just bring this Movement to bay, he’d have it made.

LaVerne looked up when he hurried into her anteroom. She seemingly had two or three calls going on at tmce, taking orders from one phone, giving them in another. Something was obviously erupting. She didn’t speak to him, merely nodding her head at the inner office. He had never seen the efficient LaVerne Polk in this much of a dither. She was invariably cool and collected, no matter what the crisis. And this was a department of crises. The shit must have really hit the fan, he decided.

In the Boss’ office were six or eight others besides Larry’s ultimate superior. Their expressions and attitudes ran from bewilderment to shock. They weren’t the men you’d expect to have such reactions. At least not those that Larry recognized. Three of them, Ben Ruthenberg, Bill Fraina and Dave Moskowitz were F.B.I, men, of high echelon, and with whom Larry had worked on occasion. One of the others he recognized as being a supervisor with the C.I.A. Walt Foster, Larry’s rival for the affections of the Boss, was also present, his disgustingly fawning face—given Larry’s viewpoint—continually on the superior.

The Boss growled at Larry, “Where in the name of heavens have you been, Lawrence?”

Larry tried to rise to the occasion manfully. “Following out leads on this so-called Movement, sir,” he said. “Thin results, so far. What’s going on?”

Ruthenberg, the Department of Justice man, grunted sour amusement at that. “So-called Movement isn’t exactly the term,, not the correct phrase. It’s a Movement, all right, all right. I’ll be a son-of-a-bitch.”

The Boss said, “Please dial Records and get your brief dossier, Lawrence. That will be the quickest manner in which to bring you up on developments.” His voice was grim.

Mystified, but with a growing premonition already, Larry dialed the Department of Records. Knowing his own classification code, he had no need of Information this time. He got the hundred odd word brief and stared at it as it filled the screen. The only items really correct were his name and present occupation. Otherwise, his education was listed as grammar school only, an initial cruel cut. His military career had him ending the Asian War as a General of the Armies and his criminal career record included four years on Alcatraz for molesting small children. Alcatraz! Hadn’t it been closed down for years?

Blankly, he faded the brief and dialed his full dossier. It failed to duplicate the brief, but that was no great advantage. This time he had a M.D. degree from Johns Hopkins, but his military career listed him as a dishonorable discharge from the Navy where he had served in the steward department. His criminal career consisted of being a pusher of heroin and his religion was listed as Holy Roller. Political affiliations had him down as a member of the British Tory party.

The others were looking at him, most of them blankly, although there were grins on the faces of Moskowitz and the C.I.A. man. He suspected that they had gone through similar routines.

Moskowitz said, “With a name like mine, yet, they have me a Bishop of the Orthodox Greek Catholic Church.”

Larry said, hopelessly, “What in the name of whatever is if all about?”

Ruthenberg said, resignation in voice, “It all started early this morning, so far as we know. As a matter of fact, we don’t exactly know what in the hell has happened.” Which didn’t seem to answer the question.

Larry said, “I don’t get it. Obviously, the Department of Records is fouled up in some manner. How and why?”

“How, we know, more or less,” the Boss rumbled disgustedly. “Why, is another matter. You’ve spent more time than anyone else on this assignment, Lawrence. Perhaps you can tell us.” He grabbed up a pipe from his desk, tried to light it noisily, noticed finally that it held no tobacco and threw it to the desk top again.

“Evidently, a large group of these Movement individuals either already worked in Records or wriggled themselves into Key positions in the technical end of the department. Now they’ve managed to sabotage the files.”

“Weve caught most of them already,” one of the F.B.I. men growled, “but damn little good that does us at this stage of the game.”

The C.I.A. supervisor made a gesture indicating that he gave it all up. He said, “Not only here, but it happened in Chicago and San Francisco as well. All at once. Evidently perfectly rehearsed. Personnel records from coast to coast are all bollixed. The question is, why?” Larry said slowly, “I think I know that now. Yesterday I wouldn’t have but I’ve been picking up odds and ends from here and there.”

They all fixed their eyes on him.

Larry sat down and ran a hand back through his hair. “The general idea is to change the country’s reliance on social-label judgements.”

“On what?” the Boss barked.

Larry viewed his chief. “Orf one person judging another according to social-labels. Professor Voss and the others—

“Who did you say?” Ruthenberg interrupted with a snap.

“Voss. Professor Peter Voss from the University over in the Baltimore section of town. He’s the ring leader, the brains behind the Movement.”

Ruthenberg snapped to Fraina, “Get on the phone and send out a pick-up order for him.”

Fraina was on his feet. “What kind of a charge do I lay on him, Ben?”

Ben Ruthenberg said sarcastically, “Rape, or something. Get moving, well figure out a charge later. The guy’s a fruitcake.”

Larry said wearily, “He’s already gone into hiding. I’ve been trying to locate him. He managed to slip me some knockout drops and got away yesterday.”

The Boss looked at him in disgust. He said, “You mean a rank amateur managed to do you in?”

There was no answer to that.

Ruthenberg said, “We’ve had men go into hiding before. Get going, Fraina.”

Fraina left the office and the others looked back to Larry, waiting for him to go on.

The Boss said, “About this social-label nonsense—”

Larry said, “They think the country is going to pot because of it. People hold high office or places of responsibility not because of superior intelligence, or even acquired skill, but because of the social-labels they’ve accumulated, and these can be based on something as flimsy—from the Movement’s viewpoint—as who your grandparents were, how much seniority you have on the job, what part of town you live in, or what tailor cuts your clothes.”

Their expressions ran from scowls and frowns to complete puzzlement.

Walt Foster, Larry’s neck and neck rival, grumbled, “What’s all this got to do with sabotaging the country’s Records? You sure you know what you’re talking about, Larry?”

Larry shrugged as he said, “I don’t have the complete picture, but one thing is sure. It’s going to be harder for a while to base your opinions on a quick hundred-word brief on a man. Yesterday, an employer, considering hiring somebody, could dial the man’s dossier, check it, and form his opinions by the status labels the would-be employee could produce. Today, he’s damn well going to have to exercise his own judgement.”

LaVerne’s face lit up the screen on the Boss’ desk and she said, “Those two members of the Movement who were picked up in Alexandria are here, sir.”

“Send them in,” the Boss rumbled. He looked at Larry. “The F.B.I, managed to arrest almost everyone directly involved in the sabotage.”

The two prisoners seemed more amused than otherwise. They were young men, in their early thirties—well-dressed and obviously intelligent. The Boss had them seated side by side and glared at them for a long moment before speaking. Larry and the others took chairs in various parts of the room and added their own stares to the barrage.

The Boss said, “Your situation is an unhappy one, gentlemen.”

One of the two shrugged.

The Boss said, “You can, ah, hedge your bets by cooperating with us. It might make the difference between a year or two in prison—and life.”

One of them grinned and said, “I doubt it.”

The Boss tried a slightly different approach. “You have no reason to maintain a feeling of obligation to Professor Voss and the others. You’ve been let down. You have obviously been abandoned. Had they any feeling for you there would have been more efficacious arrangements for your escape.”

The more articulate of the two shrugged again. “We were expendable, and were fully aware of it,” he said. “However, it won’t be long before we are out.”

“You think so?” Ruthenberg grunted.

The revolutionist looked at him. “Yes, I do,” he said. “Six months from now and we’ll be heroes. By that time the Movement will have been a success.”

The Boss snorted. “Just because you deranged the Records? Why, that’s but temporary.”

“Not so temporary as you think,” the technician replied. “This country allowed itself to get deeply immeshed in punch-card and tape records. Oh, it made sense enough. With the population we have, and the endless files that result from our ultra-complicated society, it was simply a matter of developing a standardized system of records for the nation as a whole. Now, for all practical purposes, all of our records these days are kept with the Department of Records, confidential as well as public records. Why should a university, for instance, keep literally tons of files, with all the expense and space and time involved, when it can merely file the same records with the government and have them safe and easily available at any time? Now, the Movement has completely and irrevocably destroyed almost all the files that deal with the social-labels to which we object. An excellent first step, in forcing our country back into judgement based on ability and intelligence.”

“First step!” Larry blurted.

The two prisoners looked at him in obvious amusement. “That’s right,” the quieter of the two said. “This is just the first step. You didn’t think we expected to achieve our purpose with nothing more than this, did you?”

“Don’t kid yourselves,” Ben Ruthenberg bit out. “It’s also the last.”

The two Members of the Movement grinned at him. Oh, they were enjoying themselves all right, all right.

XV

When the others had gone, the Boss looked at Larry Woolford. He said sourly, “When this department was being formed, I doubt that anyone had in mind this particular type of subversion, Lawrence.”

Larry grunted. “Give me a good old-fashioned Commie, any time. Look sir, what are the Department of Justice boys going to do with those two prisoners?”

“Hold them on various charges, I assume. They should be able to dream up a multitude of them. We’ve conflicted with the F.B.I, in the past on overlapping jurisdiction, but thank heavens for them now. Their manpower is needed.

Larry leaned forward. “Sir, we ought to take all members of the Movement we’re already arrested, feed them a dose of Scop and pressure them to open up on the organization’s operations.”

His superior squinted at him, waiting for him to continue.

Larry said urgently, “Those two we just had in here thought the whole thing was a big joke. The first step, they called it. Sir, there’s something considerably bigger than this cooking. Uncle Sam might pride himself on the personal liberties guaranteed by this country, but unless we break this organization, and do it fast, there’s going to be trouble that will make this fouling of the dossier records look like the minor matter those two jokers seemed to think it.”

The Boss thought about that. He said slowly, “Lawrence, the Supreme Court ruled against the use of Scop-Serum. Not that it is as efficient as all that anyway. Largely these so-called truth serums don’t accomplish much more than to lower resistance, slacken natural inhibitions, weaken the will.”

“Sure,” Larry said. “But give a man a good dose of Scop-Serum and he’d betray his own mother. Not because he’s helpless to tell a lie, but because under the influence of the drug he figures it just isn’t important enough to bother about. Sir, Supreme Court or not, I think those two ought to be given Scop-Serum, along with all other Movement members we’ve picked up.”

The Boss was shaking his head. “Lawrence, those men are not wide-eyed radicals picked up in a street demonstration. They’re highly respected members of our society. They’re educators, scientists, engineers, technicians. Anything done to them is going to make headlines. Those that were actually involved in the sabotage will have criminal charges brought against them, but they’re going to get a considerable amount of publicity, and we’re going to be in no position to alienate any of their constitutional rights. Scop-Serum is a highly effective and dangerous aphrodisiac, as well as being a truth serum. If it came out that we’d used it, the trials might be thrown out of court.”

Larry stood up, approached his chiefs desk and leaned over it urgently. “Sir, that’s fine, but we’ve got to move and move fast. Something’s up and we don’t even know whatl Take that counterfeit money. From Susan Self’s description, there actually billions of dollars worth of it.”

“Oh, come now, Lawrence. The child exaggerated. Besides, that’s a problem for Steve Hackett and the Secret Service, we have enough on our hands as it is. Forget about the counterfeit, Lawrence. I think I’ll put you in complete control of field work on this, to cooperate in liaison with Ben Ruthenberg and the F.B.I. So far as we’re concerned, the counterfeiting angle belongs to Secret Service. We’re working on subversion and until the Civil Liberties Union or whoever else proves otherwise, well consider the Movement an organization attempting to change the country by illegal means.”

Larry Woolford made a hard decision quickly. He was shaking his head. “Sir, I’d rather you gave the administrative end to someone else and let me continue in the field. I’ve got some leads—I think. If I get bogged down in interdepartmental red tape, and in paper work here at headquarters, I’ll never get to the heart of this and I’m laying bets that we either crack this within days or there are going to be some awfully big changes in this country.”

The Boss glared at him. “You mean you’re refusing this assignment, Woolford? Confound it, don’t you realize that it is a promotion?”

Larry was worriedly dogged, “Sir, I’d rather stay in the field. I think it’s where I’ll be most useful.”

“Very well,” the other snapped disgustedly. “I hope you deliver some results, Woolford, otherwise I am afraid I won’t feel particularly happy about your somewhat cavalier rejection of this opportunity.” He flicked on one of the phones and said, “Miss Polk, locate Walter Foster for me. He is to take over our end of this Movement matter.”

LaVerne said, “Yes, sir,” and her face was gone.

The Boss looked up, still scowling. “What are you waiting for Woolford?” he said.

“Yes, sir,” Larry said. It was just coming to him now, what he’d done. There possibly went his yearned-for promotion in the department. There went his chance of an upgrading in status. And Walt Foster, of all people, in his place.

At LaVerne’s desk, Larry stopped off long enough to say, “Did you ever assign that secretary to me?”

“She’s come and gone, Larry. She sat around for a couple of days, after seeing you not even once, and then I gave her another assignment.”

“Well, bring her back again, or an equivalent. I want a girl to do up briefs for me on all the information we accumulate on the Movement. It’ll be coming in from all sides now. From the Press, from those members we’ve arrested, from our F.B.I, pals, now that they’re interested, and so forth.”

“I’ll give you Irene Day,” LaVerne said. “Where are you off to now, Larry?”

“Probably a wild goose chase,” Larry growled. “Which reminds me. Do me a favor, LaVerne, Call Personal Service and find out where Franklin Nostrand is. He’s some kind of rocket technician at Madison Air Laboratories. Ill be in my office.”

“Franklin Nostrand,” LaVerne said briskly. “Will do, Larry.”

Back in his own cubicle, Larry stood for a moment in thought. He was increasingly aware of the uncomfortable feeling that time was running out on them; that things were coming to a dangerous head.

He stared down at the dozen or more books and pamphlets that his never seen secretary had heaped up for him. Well, he certainly didn’t have any time for reading now, about counterfeiting or anything else.

He sat down at the desk and dialed an inter-office number.

The harassed looking face of Walter Foster faded in. On seeing Larry Woolford he growled accusingly, “My pal. You’ve let them dump this whole thing into my lap.”

Larry grinned at him. “Better you than me, old buddy. Besides, it’s a promotion. Pull this off and you’ll be the Boss’ right-hand man.”

“That’s a laugh,” Foster said. “It’s a madhouse. This Movement gang is as weird as they come.”

“I bleed for you,” Larry said. “However, here’s a tip. Ilya Simonov, of the Chrezvychainaya Komissiya is somewhere in the country.”

“Ilya Simonov!” Foster blurted. “What’ve the Commies got to do with this? Is it something the Boss knows about?”

“Haven’t had time to go into it with him,” Larry said. “However, it seems that friend Ilya is here to find out what the Movement is all about. Evidently, the big boys in Peking and Moscow are nervous about any changes that might take place over here. It might upset the applecart, or something. I suggest you have Ilya picked up, Walt.”

Walt Foster said, “All right, I’ll make a note to put some people on it. Maybe the F.B.I, can help.”

Larry flicked off as he saw the red priority light on his phone shining. He pushed it and LaVerne’s face faded in.

She said, “This Franklin Nostrand you wanted to know about. He’s evidently working at the laboratories over in Newport News, Larry. He’ll be on the job until five this afternoon.”

“Fine,” he said. Larry grinned at her. “When are we going to have that date, sweetie? I’ve always wanted to see how you looked in a nightgown, or, better still, out of one.”

She made a face at him. “Ha! Some day when the program involves having fun instead of parading around in the right places, driving the right model car, dressed in exactly the right clothes, and above all associating with the right people.”

It was his turn to grimace. “I’m beginning to think you ought to sign up with Professor Voss and this Movement of his. You’d be right at home with his weirds. You’re a hard lay, LaVerne Polk, and I resent it.”

She stuck her tongue out at him and flicked off, after saying, “I’d only put out for a man—not a status symbol.”

As he made his way to the parking lot for his car, something in their conversation nagged at him, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He considered the girl, all over again. She had almost all of the qualities he looked for in a woman. She was attractive, without being overly so. He disliked women who were out of the ordinarily beautiful, it became too much to live up to. She was sharp, but not objectionably so. Not to the point of giving you an inferiority complex.

But, Holy Smokes, she’d never do as a career man’s wife. He could just see the Boss’ ultracon-servative wife inviting them out to dinner. It would happen exactly once, never again. And Larry had been buttering up to the Boss’ better half for the better part of a decade now. He had won her over the hard way, and with just those status labels, status symbols, that the Movement was in such revolt against.

He obtained his car, lifted it to one of the higher levels and headed for Newport News. The former naval base and maritime center was shortly to be assimiliated into Greater Washington but hadn’t quite made it yet. It was a half hour trip and he wasn’t particularly expectant of results. The tip Sam Sokolsld had given him wasn’t much to go by. Seemingly, Frank Nostrand was a friend of the Professor’s, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was connected with the Movement, or that he was aware of Professor Voss’ whereabouts.

He might have saved himself the trip.

The bird had flown again. In fact, two birds had flown. Not only was Frank Nostrand not at the Madison Air Laboratories, but he wasn’t at home, either. Larry Woolford, mindful of his departmental chief’s words on the prestige these people carried, and the need to avoid hanky-panky when they were involved, took a full hour in acquiring a search warrant before breaking into the Nostrand home.

Nostrand was supposedly a bachelor, but the auto-bungalow, similar to Larry Woolford’s own, showed signs of double occupancy, and there was little indication that the guest had been a woman.

Disgruntled, Larry Woolford dialed the offices, asked for Walt Foster. It took nearly ten minutes before his colleague faded in.

He said, snappishly, “I’m up to my eyebrows, Larry. What in the hell do you want?”

Larry gave him Frank Nostrand’s address. “This guy has disappeared, Walt.”

“So?”

“He was a close friend of Professor Voss. I got a warrant to search his house. It shows signs he had a guest. Possibly it was the Professor. Do you want to get some of the boys down here to go through the place? Possibly there’s some sort of clue to where they took off for. The Professor’s on the run and he’s no professional at this. If we can pick him up, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion we’ll have the so-called Movement licked. It’s as though you’d picked up Lenin, at the beginnings of the Bolshevik revolution.”

Walt Foster slapped a hand to his face in anguish. “You knew where the Professor was hiding, and you tried to pick him up on your own and let him get away. Why didn’t you discuss this with either the Boss or me? I’m in charge of this operation! I would have had a dozen men down there. You’ve really fouled this one up, Woolford!”

Larry stared at him. Already Walt Foster was making sounds like an enraged superior.

He said mildly, “Sorry, Walt. I came down here on a very meager tip. I didn’t really expect it to pan out. It was one chance in a million.”

“Well, in the future, for crissakes, clear it with either me or the Boss before running off half-cocked into something, Woolford. Yesterday, you had this whole assignment on your own. Today, it’s no longer a minor matter. Our department alone has two hundred people on it, in Greater Washington alone. The F.B.I, must have five times that many and that’s not even counting the Secret Service’s interest. It’s no longer your individual baby.”

“Sorry,” Larry repeated. Then, “I don’t imagine you’ve got hold of Ilya Simonov yet.”

The other was disgusted. “Do you think we’re magicians? We just put out the call for him a few hours ago. He’s no amateur. If he doesn’t want to be picked up, and he obviously doesn’t, he’ll go to ground and we’ll have our work cut out for us finding him. I can’t see that it’s particularly important anyway.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Larry said. “But you never know. He might have learned some things that we’re not up on. See you later, Walt.”

Walter Foster stared at him for a moment as though about to say something, but then tightened his lips and faded off.

Larry looked at the phone screen for a moment. “Did that phony expect me to call him sir? he muttered.

XVI

The next two days dissolved into routine.

Frustrated, Larry Woolford spent most of his time in his office digesting developments, trying to “figure out a new line of attack. There had to be something, some manner in which to flush this Movement thing before they came up with their next step in disrupting the country’s socioeconomic system.

For want of something else, he put his new secretary, a brightly efficient girl, as style and status conscious as LaVerne Polk wasn’t, to work typing up the tapes he had cut on Susan Self and the various phone calls he’d had with Hans Distelmayer and Sam Sokolski. From memory, he dictated to her his conversation with Professor Peter Voss.

He carefully read the typed sheets over and over again. He continually had the feeling in this case that there were loose ends dangling around. There must be several important points he should be able to put his finger upon.

On the morning of the third day he dialed Steve Hackett and on seeing the other’s worried, pug-ugly face fade in on the phone screen, decided that if nothing else the Movement was undermining the United States government by dispensing ulcers to its employees.

Steve growled, “What is it Woolford? I’m as busy as a whirling dervish in a revolving door.”

“This is just the glimmer of an idea, Steve,” Larry told him. “But look, remember that conversation with Susan, when she described her father taking her to headquarters?”

“Yeah, of course. So what? Go on,” Steve said impatiently.

“Do you remember her description of headquarters?” Larry continued.

“Go on,” Steve rapped.

“What did it remind you of?”

“What in the hall are you leading up to?” the Secret Service agent demanded.

“This is just a hunch,” Larry went on, nibbling his lower lip thoughtfully, “but the way she described the manner in which her father took her to headquarters suggests that they’re in the Greater Washington area.”

Steve was taking him in with disgust. How obvious could you get?

Larry stuck to it, though. “What’s the biggest business in this area, Steve?”

“Government.”

“Right. And the way she described headquarters of the Movement, was rooms, after rooms, after rooms, in which they’d stored the money.”

“And?”

Larry said urgently, “Steve, I think in some way the Movement has taken over some governmental building, or storage warehouse. Possibly some older building, no longer in use. It would be a perfect hideout. Who would expect a subversive organization to be in a governmental building? All they’d need would be a few officials here and there who were on their side and—”

Steve said wearily, “You couldn’t have thought of this two days ago, could you?”

Larry cut himself off sharply. “Eh?”

Steve said, “We found their headquarters. One of their captured members cracked. Ben Ruthenberg of the F.B.I, found he had a morals rap against him some years ago. Something to do with messing around with a very young boy. The homosexual bit, but with a young kid, instead of a consenting adult. So Ben scared the pants off him by talking about threats of exposure. At any rate, you’re right. They had established themselves in some government buildings going back to Spanish-American War days. We’ve arrested eight orten officials that were involved in letting the Movement take over the buildings.”

“But the money?” Larry said.

“The money was gone,” Steve said bitterly. “They’d gotten it out in time. But Susan Self was right. There had evidently been room after room of it, stacked to the ceilings. Literally billions of counterfeit dollars. They’d moved out hurriedly, but they left enough loose hundreds, fifties, twenties, tens and fives around to give us an idea. Look, Woolford, I thought you’d been pulled off this case and that Walt Foster was handling it.”

Larry said sourly, ‘Tin beginning to think so too. They’re evidently not even bothering to let me know about such developments as this. See you later, Steve.”

The other’s face faded off.

Larry Woolford looked across the double desk at Irene Day, his secretary. “Look,” he said. “Be smart and when you’re offered a promotion, take it, real quick. If you don’t, someone else will and you’ll be left out in the cold.”

Irene Day said brightly, “I’ve always known that, sir.”

He looked at her. The typical eager beaver. Sharp as a whip. Bright as a button. “I’ll bet you have,” he muttered.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Woolford?”

“Nothing,” he said. He leaned back in his chair and tried to think of another angle. Nothing came.

The phone lit and LaVerne Polk said, “The Boss wants to talk to you, Larry.” Her face faded and Larry’s superior was scowling at him.

He snapped, “Did you get anything on this medical records thing, Woolford?’

“Medical records?” Larry said blankly. “What do you mean medical records, sir?”

The Boss grunted in deprecation. “No, I suppose you haven’t. I wish you would snap into it, Woolford. I don’t know what’s happened to you of late. I used to think that you were a good field man. Now everything you do seems to be half-assed.” He flicked off abruptly.

Larry dialed LaVerne Polk. “What in the world was the Boss just talking about, LaVerne? About medical records.”

LaVerne said, frowning. “Didn’t you know? The Movement’s been at it again. They’ve fouled up the records of the State Medical Licensing bureaus, at the same time sabotaging the remaining records of most, if not all, of tie country’s medical schools. They struck simultaneously, throughout the country, and even in Alaska and Hawaii.”

He looked at her expressionlessly, for the moment not getting it at all. Were these people completely mad?

LaVerne said, “We’ve caught several hundred of those responsible. It’s the same thing as before, when they fouled up the dossiers of everybody. It’s an attack on the social label. From now on, if a man tells you he’s an Ear, Eye, Nose and Throat specialist, you’d better do some investigation before letting him amputate your tongue. You’d better use your judgement before letting any doctor work on you. The status labels pertaining to medicine are gone. It’s a madhouse, Larry.”

Her face faded off.

Larry thought about it. Walt was really giving him the works. He had deliberately failed to let his rival in on this development. It had made Larry look like a damn fool in the eyes of the Boss. Obviously, Foster was taking every opportunity to make him look bad. And he was succeeding.

For long moments, he stared unseeingly at his secretary across from him until she stirred.

He brought his eyes back to the present and shook his head. He said, “It’s just another preliminary move, not the important thing, yet. Not the big explosion they’re figuring on. They got something more up their sleeves. Where have they taken that money, and why?”

Irene Day blinked at him. She said hesitantly, “I don’t know, I’m sure, sir.”

Larry said, “Get me Mr. Foster on the phone, Irene.”

When Walt Foster’s unhappy face faded in, Larry said, “Walt, did you get Ilya Simonov?”

“Simonov?” the other said impatiently. “No. We haven’t spent much effort on it. I think this hunch of yours, that Ilya Simonov is some how deep in this, is like the other ones you’ve been having lately, Woolford. Ilya Simonov was last reported by our operatives as being in Siberia.”

“It wasn’t a hunch,” Larry said, his voice tight. “He’s in this country on an assignment dealing with the Movement.”

“Well, that’s your opinion,” Foster said, wasps in his own voice. “I’m busy, Woolford. See here. At present you’re under my orders on this job. In the way of something to do, instead of sitting around in that office, why don’t you follow up this Colonel Ilya Simonov thing yourself?” He considered it a moment. “Yeah. That’s an order, Woolford. Even if you don’t locate him, it’ll keep you out of our hair.”

After the other was gone, Larry leaned back in his chair again, his face flushed as though the other had slapped it. In a way he had. There was no two ways about it. Walt Foster was after his scalp, and was going to attempt to finish him off while he had the upper hand. Walt Foster not only wished to down his rivals, but stomp them after they were down.

But he had to get on with it. He said to the girl, “Miss Day, dial me Hans Distelmayer. His offices are over in the Belmont Building.”

As always, the screen remained blank as the German spy master spoke.

Larry said, “Hans, I want to talk to Ilya Simonov.”

“Ah?”

“I want to know where I can find him.”

The German’s voice was humorously gruff. “My friend, my friend…”

Larry said impatiently, “I’m not interested in arresting him at this time. I simply want to talk to him. Possibly he might even welcome the opportunity.”

The other said heavily, “This goes beyond favors, my friend, Larry. On the face of it, I am not in this business for my health. And what you ask is dangerous from my viewpoint. You realize that upon occasion my organization does small tasks for the Soviet Complex and—”

“Ha!” Larry said bitterly.

“… it is hardly in my interest to gain the reputation of betraying my sometimes employers,” the German continued, unruffled. “Were you on an assignment in, say Bulgaria or Hungary, would you expect me to betray you to the Chrezvychainaya Komissiya?”

“Not unless somebody paid you enough to make it worth while,” Larry said.

“Exactly,” the espionage chief said.

“See here,” Larry said. “Send your bill to this department, Hans. I’ve been given carte blanche on this matter and I want to talk to Ilya Simonov. Now, where is he?”

The German chuckled heavily. “He is at the Soviet Embassy, my friend Larry.”

“WhatI You mean they’ve got the gall to house their top spy right in—”

Distelmayer interrupted him. “Friend Simonov is currently accredited as a military attache and quite correctly. He holds the rank of colonel, as you know. He entered this country quite openly and legally, the only precaution taken was to use his second name, rather than Ilya, on his papers. It would seem that your people passed him by without a second look. Ah, I understand, though I am not sure, that he went to the trouble of making some minor changes in his facial appearance. After all, he received quite a bit of journalistic coverage in that affair of his with your F.B.I, about a decade ago. I assume he didn’t want to be too easily identified.”

“We’ll expect your bill, Hans,” Larry said. “Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, friend Larry,” Distelmayer chuckled.

Larry Woolford got up and reached for his hat, saying to Irene Day, “I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.” He added, wryly, “If either Foster or the Boss try to get in touch with me—which seems unlikely—tell them that I’m carrying out orders.”

XVII

He drove over to the Soviet Embassy, inwardly snarling and sneering at the traffic about him, and parked his car directly before the building.

The American plainclothesmen stationed near the entrance, gave him a cool, thorough once-over as he began to pass.

He said, from the side of his mouth, to the larger of the two, “Fuck you.”

The other looked at him aggressively. “You want to be picked up, Buster? Let’s see your identification?”

Larry Woolford grunted and brought forth his wallet and flashed his buzzer.

The plainclothesman, he was probably F.B.I., Larry figured, said quickly, “Sorry, sir.”

Larry was f eeling nasty. He snapped, “What’s your name? Who’s your immediate boss?”

“Roy Smith, sir. My superior is Gene Watergate.”

‘Til mention your manners the next time Gene and I have a few quick ones,” Larry said coldly.

He passed on by, feeling slightly like the ass he should feel. On the other hand, the lower echelon F.B.I, man should have known by Larry’s clothes, his manner of carrying himself, that he was of higher status. Larry Woolford didn’t appreciate being addressed as Buster.

The two impassive Russian guards within the gates, armed with submachine guns slung over then-shoulders, didn’t bother to flicker an eyelid. This, as an Embassy, was Russia territory. There was no reason why they shouldn’t be armed, though there was no other embassy in Greater Washington where the gate guards were openly armed.

At the reception desk in the immense entrada, he brought forth his wallet and introduced himself. “I am Lawrence Woolford. I carry the official rank of major in American Security. As you probably know, we deal with subversion and with espionage and counter-espionage. I would like to interview Colonel Ilya Simonov.”

“I am afraid—” the clerk began stiffly.

“I suppose you have him on the records under a different name,” Larry said. “Nevertheless, I demand to see him.”

The clerk had evidently touched a concealed button. A door opened and a junior embassy official approached them. He didn’t look particularly pleased at Larry’s presence.

Larry restated his desire. The newcomer began to open his mouth in denial.

Larry simply eyed him.

The other was a stocky, square-faced Ukrainian type, in an out of style, double-breasted serge suit. He finally shrugged and said, “Just a moment, please,” and left the room by the same door he had entered.

He was gone a full twenty minutes. Larry Woolford patiently found a chair, brought forth his pipe and loaded it. The damn thing still wasn’t really broken in, and burnt his tongue. But at least it gave him something to do besides stare at the clerk who had returned to his paper work.

The junior official returned and said briefly. “This way, if you please.”

Larry followed him upstairs to what would seem an area of the extensive building devoted to living quarters. However, the room he was taken to was an office, moderately-sized.

Ilya Simonov was there, seated behind a desk. He was in the full uniform of a colonel. He came to his feet on Larry’s entrance and picked up a swagger stick which had been lying on the desk surface.

He came around the desk, saying to the young embassy officer, “That will be all, Vovo.”

Vovo left, closing the door behind him.

Ilya Simonov shook hands with Larry. “It’s been a long time,” he said in perfect English. “Let me see, that conference in Warsaw, wasn’t it? Have a chair, Mr. Woolford. I am sure you didn’t come to discuss old times, although there have been some interesting ones in which we both participated.”

Larry took the offered chair and ignored the other pleasantries, knowing full well they were left-handed. He said, “How in the world did you expect to get by with this nonsense, Simonov? We’ll have you declared persona non grata in a matter of hours.”

“It is not important,” the Russian said, returning to his swivel chair behind the desk, slapping his swagger stick against the side of his leg as he went.

“I have found what I came to find out. J was about to return to report to my ministry in any event.”

“We won’t do anything to hinder you, Colonel,” Larry Woolford said dryly.

Ilya Simonov tapped his swagger stick on the desk top several times and said, “In actuality, it is all very amusing. In our country we would deal quickly with this Movement nonsense. You Americans with your pseudo-democracy, your labels without reality, your—”

Larry said wearily, “Please, Simonov, I promise not to try to convert you, if you’ll promise not to try and convert me. Needless to say, my department isn’t happy about your presence in this country. You’ll be watched from now on. We’ve been busy with other matters…” Here the Russian laughed.

“… or we’d already have flushed you.” He allowed his voice to go curious. “We’ve wondered about your interest in this phase of our internal affairs.”

The Russian agent let his facade slip a bit, his iron mouth almost sneering. He said, “We are interested in all phases of your antiquated socioeconomic system, Mr. Woolford. In the present peaceful economic competition between East and West, we would simply loath to see anything happen to your present culture.” He hesitated deliberately, before adding, “That is, of course, if you can call it a culture.”

Larry said, unprovoked, “If I understand you correctly, you are not in favor of the changes the Movement advocates.”

The Russian shrugged his military-straight shoulders. “I doubt if they are possible of achievement, even if we did wish to see such changes. The organization is a sloppy one. Revolutionary? Nonsense,” he grunted that last. “They have no plans to change the government. No plans for overthrowing the present regime. Ultimately, what this country really needs is true Communism. This so-called Movement doesn’t have that as its eventual goal. It is laughable.”

Larry said, interestedly, “Then perhaps you’ll tell me what little you’ve found out about the group. I’d be interested in your viewpoint, as opposed to my own.”

“Why not?” The Russian tapped his swagger stick on the top of the desk again, three or four little taps. “They are composed of impractical idealists. Scientists, intellectuals, a few admitted scholars and even a few potential leaders. Their sabotage of your Department of Records was an amusing farce, and of your medical records as well. But, frankly, I have been unable to discover the purpose of their interest in rockets. For a time I contemplated the possibility that they had a scheme to develop a nuclear bomb and to explode it over Greater Washington in the belief that in the resulting confusion they might seize power. But, on the face of it, their membership is incapable of such direct action.”

“Their interest in rockets?” Larry said softly. Oh God, was he beginning to hit pay dirt.

The Russian agent tapped the table top some more with his stick ‘Tes, of course. As you’ve undoubtedly discovered, half the rocket technicians of your country seem to have joined up with them. We got the tip through…” the Russian cleared his throat.

“… several of our converts who happen to be connected with your space efforts groups.”

“Is that so?” Larry said. “I wondered what you thought about their interest in money.”

It was Ilya Simonov’s turn to look blank. “Money?” he said.

“That’s right,” Larry told him, his eyes narrower now. “Large quantities of money.”

The Russian said, frowning puzzlement. “I suppose most citizens in your capitalist countries are interested largely in money, and above everything else. One of your basic failings.”

Larry Woolford stood. “Well, I suppose that’s about all Simonov. We expect you to leave the United States by tomorrow at the latest. Otherwise, you’ll be deported. Obviously, we will not accept you as a military attaché. How in the world have you avoided going through the red tape at the State Department to be accredited?”

The Russian said humorously, perhaps mockingly, “We reported that I was indisposed, and too ill to report—diarrhea, as a result of change in the water or whatever.”

Larry snorted. “You’ve got diarrhea, like I’ve got a halo,” he said. “That alibi wouldn’t have stood up very long.”

“It didn’t have to. A few days were all I needed. I accomplished my mission. There is just one thing remaining to be done.”

Larry had been about to turn to go, but now he came to a halt and scowled at the other.

“And just what is that?”

“As I told you, my superiors are not interested in seeing basic changes take place in the socioeconomic system of America. Besides finding out about this movement, I was to throw a monkey wrench in its workings. That’s the Yankee term isn’t it? Throw a monkey wrench in the works?”

“Yes,” Larry said flat. “And the monkey wrench you’re about to throw to louse up the Movement?”

Ilya Simonov tapped the top of his desk and smiled. “One of the most influential members of the Movement is in your office. Through this person, the Movement has been tipped off time and again to your actions.”

Larry Woolford’s face went cold. “And who is this person?”

Ilya Simonov told him.

XVIII

Driving back to the office, Larry let it pile up on him.

Ernest Self had been a specialist in solid fuel for rockets. Professor Voss had particularly stressed his indignation about Professor Goddard, the rocket pioneer, and how he had been treated by his contemporaries. Frank Nostrand had been employed as a technician on rocket research at Madison Air Laboratories. It was too damn much for coincidence.

And now something else that had been nagging away at the back of his head suddenly came clear.

Susan Self had said that she and her father had seen the precision dancers at the New Roxy Theater in New York and later the Professor had said they were going to spend the money on chorus girls. Susan had got it wrong. The Rockettes—the precision chorus girls. The Professor had said they were going to expend their money on rockets, and Susan had misunderstood.

But billions of dollars, counterfeit dollars at that, expended on rockets? How? But, above all, to what end? How could that possibly help the Movement?

As Ilya Simonov had said, Professor Voss and his people were hardly capable of bombing Greater Washington or whatever. Weirds they all might be but they weren’t homicidal maniacs.

If he’d only been able to hold onto Susan, or her father; or to Voss or Nostrand, for that matter. Someone to work on. But each had slipped through his fingers.

Which brought something else up from his subconscious. Something which had been nagging at him. He pondered it for awhile, coming up with semi-answers.

At the office, Irene Day was packing her things as he entered. Packing as though she was leaving for good.

“What goes on?” Larry growled, rounding his desk and seating himself. “I’m going to be needing you more than ever. Things are coming to a head.”

She said, a bit snippishly, Larry thought, “Miss Polk, in the Boss’ office said for you to see her as soon as you came in, Mr. Woolford. She also gave me instructions to return to the secretary’s pool for reassignment.”

“Oh?” he said mystified.

He made his way to LaVerne’s office, his attention actually on the ideas still churning in his mind.

She looked up when he entered and there was something in her face he didn’t quite understand.

“Hi, Larry,” she said, flicking off the phone screen, in her bank of phone screens, into which she had been talking.

Larry said, “The Boss wanted to see me?”

LaVerne ducked her head, as though embarrassed. “Well, not exactly, Larry.”

He gestured with his thumb in the direction of his own cubicle office. “Irene just said you wanted to see me. She also said she was being pulled off her assignment with me, which is ridiculous. I’m just getting used to her. I don’t want to have to break in another girl.”

LaVerne looked up into his face. “The Boss and Mr. Foster, too, are boiling about your authorizing that Distelmayer man to bill this department for information he gave you. The Boss hit the roof. Something about the Senate Appropriations Committee getting down on him if it came out that we bought information from professional espionage agents, particularly material that this department is supposed to ferret out on its own.”

Larry said, “It was information we needed and needed quickly, and Foster gave me the go ahead on locating Ilya Simonov. Maybe I’d better go in and see the Boss and explain the whole damned mess. I’ve got some other stuff I have to report to him, anyway.”

LaVerne said, and there was apology in her voice, “I don’t think he wants to see you, Larry. They’re up to their ears in this Movement thing. It’s in the papers now and nobody knows what to do next. The department is beginning to become a laughing stock, which is probably one of the things the Movement wanted to accomplish. The President is going to make a speech on Tri-Di, and the Boss has to supply the information for the speech writers. His orders are for you to resume your vacation and to take a full month off and then see him when you get back.”

Larry sank down into a chair. “I see,” he breathed. “And at that time hell probably give me an assignment to mop out the men’s room.”

“Larry,” LaVerne said, almost impatiently, “why in the world didn’t you take that job Walt Foster has now when the Boss offered it to you?”

“Because I’m stupid, I suppose,” Larry said bitterly. “I thought I could do more working alone in the field than at an administrative post tangled in red tape and bureaucratic routine. If I’d taken the job I could now be slitting Walt’s throat instead of his slitting mine.”

She said, “Sorry, Larry.” And she sounded as though she really meant it.

Larry stood up. “Well, tonight I’m going to hang one on, and tomorrow it’s back to Astor, Florida and the bass fishing.” He added, in a rush, “Look, LaVerne, how about that date we’ve been talking about for six months or more?”

She looked up at him, question in her eyes, wary question. “I can’t stand vodka martinis.”

“Neither can L” he said glumly.

“And I don’t get a kick out of prancing around, a stuffed shirt among stuffed shirts, at some going-on that supposedly improves my culture status.”

Larry said, “At the house, I have ever known brand of drinkable, and a stack of… what did you call it?… corny music. We can mix our own drinks and dance all by ourselves. I even know some old time swing steps.”

She tucked her head to one side and looked at him suspiciously. “Are your intentions honorable? A nice girl doesn’t go to a man’s home, all alone.”

“We can even discuss that later,” he said sourly. “How about it, LaVerne? You can help me drown my sorrows.”

She laughed. “It’s a date, Larry.”

He picked her up after work and they drove to his Brandywine district auto-bungalow, and both of them remained largely quiet the whole way.

He didn’t even comment when she said, “Walt Foster requested today that I locate him a new apartment in the Druid Hill section of Baltimore. It will double his rent, but I assume that he is expecting a raise.”

At one point she touched his hand with hers and said, ‘It’ll work out, Larry. Things have a way of always working out. It might even turn out for the best.

“Yeah,” he said sourly. “I’ve put ten years into ingratiating myself with the Boss. Now, overnight, he’s got a new boy. I suppose there’s some moral involved.”

When they pulled up before his auto-bungalow, LaVerne whistled appreciatively. “Quite a neighborhood you’re in Larry. It must set you back considerably.”

He grunted. “A good address. What our friend Professor Voss would call one more status symbol, one more social label. For it, I pay about fifty percent more than my budget can afford.”

He ushered her inside and took her jacket.

“Look,” he said, indicating his living room with a sweep of his hand. “See that volume of Klee reproductions there next to my reading chair? That proves I’m not a weird. Indicates my culture status. Actually, my appreciation of modern art doesn’t go any further than the Impressionists. But don’t tell anybody. See those books up on my shelves? Same thing. You’ll find everything there that ought to be on the shelves of any ambitious young career man.”

She looked at him from the side of her eyes. “You’re really soured, Larry. As long as I’ve known you I don’t believe I’ve ever heard you so bitter.”

“Come along,” he said. “I want to show you something. An inkling of just how bitter I can be.”

He took her down the tiny elevator to his den. Off hand, he couldn’t remember twenty people being down here in the five or six years he had lived in this house.

He said, “You’re unique, LaVerne. You’re the only girl I’ve ever shown my inner secrets to.”

“Well, thank you,” she said, not knowing exactly what sort of response was expected of her. “What are you going to do, beat me with whips?”

He ignored her attempt at levity, as though he hadn’t heard it. “How hypocritical can you get?” he asked her. “This is where I really live. But I seldom bring anyone down here. Except a couple of poker-playing pals such as Sam Sokolski over on the Sun-Times. We went to college together. I’m afraid to have anybody down here, except people as close as Sam. I wouldn’t want to get a reputation as a weird, would I? Sit down, LaVerne. Ill make you a drink. How about a Sidecar?”

She said, “I’d love one. Hey, I like this room. It looks, well, lived in. Are you sure you’ve never had a woman down here before, young man?”

“Quite sure,” he said wearily. “When I have a woman in my home we go through the usual bit, upstairs. Everything is the latest, from wherever the latest is from. And we usually wind up on the waterbed up above, from Finland. Why waterbeds have a status symbol when they come from Finland, I don’t know. But they do. Frankly, I hate waterbeds.”

She was laughing a bit. “You mean you act the cad when you seduce a young lady to come to your home?”

He said, “I don’t have to. It’s all the thing, these days, if you have status labels, and she has status labels of approximately the same level, to climb into bed with each other, after a few vodka martinis.”

His back to her, he brought forth brandy and Cointreau from his liquor cabinet, and lemon and ice from the tiny refrigerator. He also surreptitiously dropped a small white pill into one of the glasses.

She had kicked her shoes off and now tucked her legs under her, making a very attractive picture on the couch where she had sat herself.

“What?” she said accusingly. “No auto-bar? I thought an auto-bar was mandatory these days. How could an ambitious young bureaucrat get by without an auto-bar?”

Larry measured out ingredients efficiently and then stirred the drink briskly, until the shaker was frosted. “Upstairs with the rest of my status symbols,” he said, pouring carefully into the cham-pagne-sized glasses. “Down here, I live, up there, I conform.” He took one of the drinks over to her, kept the other for himself.

He put his glass down on the cocktail table before her and went over to the tape recorder. She sipped the drink, appreciatively, and looked over at him. “My, you really can mix a cocktail. I haven’t had anything as good as this for ages.”

“These days bartenders don’t have to know how to make anything but vodka martinis,” he said bitterly. “That’s my own version of a Sidecar.” He looked at his collection of tapes. “In the way of corny music, how do you like that old timer, Nat Cole?”

“King Cole? I love him,” LaVerne said, taking another pull at her Sidecar.

He placed a tape in the recorder and activated it. The strains of “For All We Know” penetrated the room. Larry turned it low and then went over and sat down next to her. He picked up his drink from the cocktail table before them and finished half of it in one swallow.

“I’m beginning to wonder whether or not this Movement doesn’t have something,” he said.

She didn’t answer that. They sat in silence for a while, appreciating the drink and the music. Nat Cole was singing “The Very Thought of You,” now. Larry got up and made two more of the cocktails and returned with them. This time when he regained his seat next to her, he idly put an arm around her shoulders.

He said, “Did anyone ever tell you that you are a very pretty girl?”

LaVerne didn’t resist. In fact, her breath seemed to be coming in little pants. She looked at him, her eyes a bit wide. “Not for a long time,” she said. “It seems that in this day and age, men steer clear of girls who don’t conform.” Her voice trembled a little.

Larry put a finger under her chin and bent over and kissed her very gently. Her lips seemed hot. She responded enthusiastically. It hardly seemed like the prim, sharp-tongued LaVerne Polk. Evidently, the gentleness of his kiss wasn’t called for.

He continued to kiss her, and put his right hand over one of her breasts. He could feel through the clothing that the nipple was already hard. She had ample breasts. He wondered how she looked in a bathing suit—or out of one, for that matter. She was probably stacked like a brick outhouse. She squirmed, but not in rejection. In fact, she pressed her mouth to his more firmly and opened her lips.

He let his hand go down to her knee, received no protest, and slid it up under her dress. She pretended to ignore it, continuing the hotness of her kisses.

He stopped kissing her long enough to say, “You’re a virgin, LaVerne?”

She had her eyes closed. “Yes… yes, I am,” she managed to get out. “I… hope you don’t mind. Please, darling, don’t stop. Don’t stop now.”

He kissed her again, stretched her out on the king-size couch and reached up and flicked the light to very dim.

She lay there, panting, and evidently a bit apprehensive, in spite of her passion. He folded her skirt up to her hips, took off her shoes, and gently pulled down her briefs. She made no protest whatsoever, indeed moved to help him in the “rearranging of her clothing.

He tossed the panties to the floor and bent over her expertly for a moment. She squirmed and her breath became a series of gasps.

He sat erect for a moment and unzipped his fly…

He performed with her three times in all, finally deciding that she had reached saturation. Surely, he had. If she was not now completely relaxed, there was nothing he could do about it.

He rearranged their clothing, pulling her skirt back over her knees, and sat there on the couch with her, his arm affectionately over her shoulders. He reached up and flicked the lamp back to greater intensity; not to full brightness, but enough that he would be able to study her face. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

XIX

Finally he said softly, only a murmur, “When Steve Hackett and I were questioning Susan, there was only one other person who knew that we’d picked her up. There was, hence, only one person who could have warned Ernest Self to make a getaway. Later on, there was only one person who could have warned Frank Nostrand so that he and the Professor could find a new hideout.”

She said sleepily, “How long have you know about that, darling?”

“A while,” Larry said, his own voice kept deliberately low. “Partly, I figured it out when I also decided how Susan Self was spirited out of the Greater Washington Hilton before we had the time to question her further. Somebody who had access to tapes of me cut out a section and dubbed in a voice so that the Secret Service matron who was watching Susan was fooled into believing it was I ordering the girl to be turned over to the two Movement members.”

LaVerne stirred comfortably and let her head sink onto his shoulder. “You’re so warm and… comfortable,” she said.

Larry said softly, “What does the Movement expect to do with all that counterfeit money, LaVerne?”

She stirred against his shoulder, as though bothered by the need to talk. “Give it all away,” she said.

Inwardly he froze.

She went on sleepily. “Distribute it all over the country and destroy the nation’s social currency.”

It took him a long, unbelieving moment to assimilate that at all.

He said carefully, “What have the rockets to do with it? Where do they come in?”

She stirred once again, as though wishing he’d be silent and said sleepily, “That’s how the money will be distributed. About twenty rockets, strategically placed, each with a warhead of a couple of tons of money. Fired to an altitude of a couple of hundred miles and then the money is spewed out. In falling, it will be distributed over cities and countryside, everywhere. Billions upon billions of dollars worth.”

Larry said, so softly as hardly to be heard, “What will that accomplish?”

“Money is the greatest social-label of them all. The Professor believes that through this step the Movement will have accomplished its purpose. That people will be forced to utilize their judgement, rather than depend upon social-labels.”

Larry didn’t follow that, but he had no time to go further now. He said, still evenly soft, “And when is the Movement going to do this?”

LaVerne moved comfortably, sleepily, “The trucks go out to distribute the money tonight. The rockets are waiting. The firing will take place in a few days.”

“And where is the Professor now?” Larry was doing his best to keep urgency from his voice.

“Where the money and trucks are hidden, darling. What difference does it make?”

“And where is that?”

“At the Greater Washington Trucking Corporation. It’s owned by one of the Movement’s members.”

He said, “Undoubtedly, there’s a password. What is it?”

“Judgement.”

Larry Woolford bounced to his feet. He looked down at her, then over at the phone. In three quick steps he was over to it. He grasped its wires and yanked them from the wall, silencing it. He slipped into the tiny elevator, locking the door to the den behind him.

As the door slid closed, her voice wailed, still sleepily husky, “Larry, darling, where are you…”

He ran down the walk of the house, vaulted into the car and snapped on its key. He slammed down the lift lever, kicked the thrust pedal and was thrown back against the seat by the acceleration.

Even while he was climbing, he flicked on the radio-phone, called Personal Service for the location of the Greater Washington Trucking Corporation.

Fifteen minutes later, he parked a block away from his destination, noting with satisfaction that it was still an hour or more to go until dark. His intuition, working doubletime now, told him that they’d probably wait until nightfall to start their money-laden trucks rolling.

He hesitated momentarily before turning on the phone and dialing the Boss’ home address.

When the other’s face faded in, it failed to display pleasure when the caller’s identity was established. His superior growled, “Confound it, Woolford, you know my privacy is to be respected. This phone is to be used only in extreme emergency.”

“Yes, Sir,” Larry said briskly. “It’s the Movement. They’re moving again.”

The other’s face darkened still further. “You’re not on that assignment any longer, Woolford. Walter Foster has taken over and I’m sympathetic to his complaints that you’ve proven more of a hinder-ance than anything else.”

Larry ignored his words. “Sir, I’ve tracked them down. Professor Voss is at the Greater Washington Trucking Corporation here in the Alexandria section of town. Any moment now, they’re going to start distributing all of that counterfeit money on some scatterbrained plan to disrupt the country’s exchange system.”

Suddenly alert, the department chief snapped, “Where are you, Woolford?”

“Outside the garages, Sir. But I’m going in now.”

“You stay where you are,” the other snapped. “I’ll have every department man and every Secret Service man in town over there within twenty minutes. You hang on. Those people are lunatics and probably desperate.”

Inwardly, Larry Woolford grinned. He wasn’t going to lose this opportunity to finish up the job with him on top. He said, flatly, “Sir, we can’t chance it. They might escape. I’m going in!”

He flicked off the set, dialed again and raised Sam Sokolski.

“Sam,” he said, his voice clipped. “I’ve cornered the Movement’s leader and am going in for the finish. Maybe some of you journalist boys better get over here. Tri-Di, too.” He gave the other the address and flicked off before there were any questions.

XX

From the dash compartment he brought a heavy automatic and checked the clip. He jacked a cartridge into the barrel and put the gun in his hip pocket, then left the car and walked toward the garages. Time was running out now.

He strode into the only open door, without shifting pace. Two men were posted nearby, neither of them truckmen by appearance. They looked at him in surprise.

Larry clipped out, “The password is Judgement. I’ve got to see Professor Voss immediately.”

One of them frowned questioningly, but the other was taken up with the urgency in Woolford’s voice. He nodded a direction. “He’s over there in the office.”

Now ignoring them completely, Larry strode past the low rows of sealed delivery vans toward the office.

He pushed the door open, entered and closed it behind him.

Professor Peter Voss was seated at a paper-littered desk. There was a cot with a rumpled army blanket in a corner of the room, some soiled clothing and two or three dirty dishes on a tray. The room was being lived in, obviously.

At the agent’s entry, the little man looked up and blinked in distress through his heavy lenses.

Larry snapped, “You’re under arrest, Voss.”

The Professor was, on the face of it, dismayed, but he said in as vigorous a voice as he could muster, “Nonsense! On what charge?”

“Counterfeiting, among many. Your whole scheme has fallen apart, Voss. You and your Movement, so-called, are finished.”

The Professor’s eyes darted. To Larry Woolford’s surprise, the Movement’s leader was alone in here. Undoubtedly, he was awaiting others, drivers of the trucks, technicians involved in the rockets, other subordinates. But right now he was alone.

If Larry correctly diagnosed the situation, Voss was playing for time, waiting for the others. Good enough, so was Larry Woolford. Had the Professor only known it, a shout would have brought at least two of his followers on the run and the government agent would have had his troubles.

Woolford played along. “Just what is this fantastic scheme of yours for raining down money over half the country, Voss? The very insanity of it proves your whole outfit is composed of a bunch of nonconformist weirds.”

The Professor was indignant—and stalling for time. He said, “Nonconformists is correct! He who conforms in an incompetent society is an incompetent himself.”

Larry stood, his legs apart and hands on hips. He shook his head in simulated pity at the angry little man. “What’s all this about raining money down over the country?”

“Don’t you see?” the other said. “The perfect method for disrupting our present system of social-labels. With billions of dollars, perfect counterfeit, strewing the streets, the fields, the trees, the housetops, available for anyone to pick up, all social currency becomes worthless. Utterly unuseable. And it’s no use to attempt to print more with another design, because we can duplicate it as well. Our experts are the world’s best, we’re not a bunch of sulking criminals, but capable, trained, dedicated men.

“Very well! We will have made it absolutely impossible to have any form of mass-produced social currency.”

Larry stared at him. “It would completely foul the whole business system. You’d have chaos!”

“At first. Private individuals, once the value of money was seen to be zero, would have lost the amount of cash they had on hand. But banks and such institutions would lose little. They have accurate records that show the actual values they held at the time our money rains down.”

Larry was bewildered. “But what are you getting at? What do you expect to accomplish?”

The Professor, on his favorite subject, said triumphantly, “The only form of currency that can be used under these conditions is the personal check. It’s not mass-produced, and mass-production can’t duplicate it. It’s immune to the attack. Business has to go on or people will starve, so personal checks will have to replace paper money. Credit cards and traveler’s checks won’t do. We can counterfeit them too, and will, if necessary. Realize of course that hard money will still be valid, but it can’t be utilized for any but small transactions. Try taking enough silver dollars to the store with you to buy a refrigerator.”

“But what’s the purpose?” Larry demanded, flabbergasted.

“Isn’t it obvious? Our whole Movement is devoted to the destruction of social-label judgements. It’s all very well to say: You should not judge your fellow man but when it comes to accepting another man’s personal check, friend, you damn well have to! The bum check artist might have a field day to begin with—but only to begin with.”

Larry shook his head in exasperation. “You people are a bunch of anarchists,” he said.

“No,” the Professor denied. “Absolutely not. We are the antithesis of the anarchist. The anarchist says, ‘No man is capable of judging another.’ We say, ‘Each man must judge his fellow, must demand proper evaluation of him. To judge a man by his clothes, the amount of money he owns, the car he drives, the neighborhood in which he lives, or the society he keeps, is out of the question in a vital culture.”

Larry said sourly, “Well, whether or not you je right, Voss, you’ve lost. This place is surrounded. My men will be breaking in shortly.”

Voss laughed at him. “Nonsense. All you’ve done is to prevent us from accomplishing this portion of our program. What will you do after my arrest? You’ll bring me to trial. Do you remember the Scopes’ Monkey Trial back in the 1920s which be-came a world-appreciated farce and made Tennessee a laughingstock? Well, just wait until you get me into court backed with my organization’s resources. We’ll bring home to every thinking person, not only in this country but in the world, tide fantastic qualities of our existing culture. Why, Mr-Secret-Agent-of-Anti-Subversive-Activity you aren’t doing me any injury by giving me the opportunity to have my day in court. You’re doing me a favor. Newspapers, radios, Tri-Di will give me the chance to expound my program in the home of every thinking person in the world.”

There was a fiery dedication in the little man’s eyes. “This will be my victory, not my defeat!”

There were sounds now, coming from the other rooms—the garages. There were shouts and scuffling. Faintly, Larry could hear Steve Hackett’s voice.

He was ogling the Professor, his eyes narrower.

The Professor was on his feet. He said in defiant triumph, “You think that you, personally, will win prestige and honor as a result of tracking the Movement down, don’t you, Mr. Woolford? You probably figure on promotion. Well, let me tell you, you won’t! In six months from now, Mr. Woolford, you’ll be a laughingstock.”

That did it.

Larry said, “You’re under arrest. Turn around with your back to me.”

The Professor snorted his contempt, turned his back and held up his hands, obviously expecting to be searched.

In a fluid motion, Larry Woolford drew his gun and fired twice. The other, with no more than a grunt of surprise and pain, stumbled forward to his knees and then to the floor, his arms and legs akimbo.

The door broke open and Steve Hackett, gun in hand, burst in.

“Woolford!” he barked. “What’s up?

Larry indicated the body on the floor. “There you are, Steve,” he said. “The head of the counterfeit ring. He was trying to escape so I had to shoot him.”

Behind Steve Hackett crowded Ben Ruthenberg of the F.B.I, and behind him half a dozen others of various departments.

The Boss came pushing his way through. He glared down at the Professor’s body, then up at Larry Woolford.

“Good work, Lawrence,” he said. “How did you bring it oS?’

Larry replaced the gun in his hip pocket and shrugged modestly. “I got a bit of information on a leak in our office from Ilya Simonov, over the Soviet Complex Embassy. How he got it, I haven’t the vaguest idea. At any rate, it was the Polk girl. I gave her some Scop-Serum in a drink and she talked. Evidently, she was a prominent member of the Movement.”

The Boss was nodding wisely. “I’ve had an eye on her, Lawrence. An obvious weird. But we’ll have to suppress that Scop-Serum angle. Knowing you, I can imagine you were discrete.” He slapped his favorite field man on the arm jovially. “Well, boy, this means promotion, of course. I can use a right hand man.”

Larry grinned. “Thanks, sir. All in a day’s work. I don’t think we’ll have much trouble with the remnants of this Movement thing. The pitch is to treat them as counterfeiters, not subversives. Try them for that. Their silly explanations of what they were going to do with it, the money, will never be taken seriously.”

He looked down at the small corpse. “Particularly now that their kingpin is gone.”

A new wave of agents, F.B.I, men and prisoners washed into the room and Steve Hackett and Larry were for a moment pushed back into a corner by themselves.

Steve looked at him strangely and said, “Did you really have to shoot him, Woolford?”

Larry brushed it off. “What’s the difference? He was as weird as they come, wasn’t he?”

HOTHOUSE

Brian Aldiss

PART ONE

1

Obeying an inalienable law, things grew, growing riotous and strange in their impulse for growth.

The heat, the light, the humidity-these were constant and had remained constant for… but nobody knew how long. Nobody cared any more for the big question that begin ‘How long…?’ or ‘Why…?’ It was no longer a place for mind. It was a place for growth, for vegetables. It was like a hothouse.

In the green light, some of the children came out to play. Alert for enemies, they ran along a branch, calling to each other in soft voices. A fast-growing berrywhisk moved upwards to one side, its sticky crimson mass of berries gleaming. Clearly it was intent on seeding and would offer the children no harm. They scuttled past. Beyond the margin of the group strip, some nettlemoss had sprung up during their period of sleep. It stirred as the children approached.

‘Kill it,’ Toy said simply. She was the head child of the group. She was ten, had lived through ten fruitings of the fig tree. The others obeyed her, even Gren. Unsheathing the sticks every child carried in imitation of every adult, they scraped at the nettlemoss. They scraped at it and hit it. Excitement grew in them as they beat down the plant, squashing its poisoned tips.

Clat fell forward in her excitement. She was only five, the youngest of the group’s children. Her hands fell among the poisonous stuff. She cried aloud and rolled aside. The other children also cried, but did not venture into the nettlemoss to save her.

Struggling out of the way, little Clat cried again. Her fingers clutched at the rough bark-then she was tumbling from the branch.

The children saw her fall on to a great spreading leaf several lengths below, clutch it, and lie there quivering on the quivering green. She looked pitifully up at them, afraid to call.

‘Fetch Lily-yo,’ Toy told Gren. Gren sped back along the branch to get Lily-yo. A tigerfly swooped out of the air at him, humming its anger deeply. He struck it aside with a hand, not pausing. He was nine, a rare man child, very brave already,

and fleet and proud. Swiftly he ran to the Headwoman’s hut.

Under the branch, attached to its underside, hung eighteen great homemaker nuts. Hollowed out they were, and cemented into place with the cement distilled from the acetoyle plant. Here lived the eighteen members of the group, one to each homemaker’s hut, the Headwoman, her five women, their man, and the eleven surviving children.

Hearing Gren’s cry, out came Lily-yo from her nuthut, climbing up a line to stand on the branch beside him.

‘Clat has fallen!’ cried Gren.

With her stick, Lily-yo rapped sharply on the bough before running on ahead of the child.

Her signal called out the other six adults, the women Flor, Daphe, Hy, Ivin, and Jury, and the man Haris. They hastened from their nuthuts, weapons ready, ready for attack or flight.

As Lily-yo ran, she whistled on a sharp split note.

Instantly to her from the thick foliage nearby came a dumbler, flying to her shoulder. The dumbler rotated, a fleecy umbrella, whose separate spokes controlled its direction. It matched its flight to her movement.

Both children and adults gathered round Lily-yo when she looked down at Clat, still sprawled some way below on her leaf.

‘Lie still, Clat! Do not move!’ called Lily-yo. ‘I will come to you.’ Clat obeyed that voice, though she was in pain and fear, staring up hopefully towards the source of hope.

Lily-yo climbed astride the hooked base of the dumbler, whistling softly to it. Only she of the group had fully mastered the art of commanding dumblers. These dumblers were the half-sentient fruits of the whistlethistle. The tips of their feathered spokes carried seeds; the seeds were strangely shaped, so that a light breeze whispering in them made them into ears that listened to every advantage of the wind that would spread their propagation. Humans, after long years of practice, could use these crude ears for their own purposes and instructions, as Lily-yo did now.

The dumbler bore her down to the rescue of the helpless child. Clat lay on her back, watching them come, hoping to herself. She was still looking up when green teeth sprouted through the leaf all about her.

‘Jump, Clat!’ Lily-yo cried.

The child had time to scramble to her knees. Vegetable predators are not as fast as humans. Then the green teeth snapped shut about her waist.

Under the leaf, a trappersnapper had moved into position, sensing the presence of prey through the single layer of foliage. The trappersnapper was a horny, caselike affair, just a pair of square jaws, hinged and with many long teeth. From one corner of it grew a stalk, very muscular and thicker than a human, and resembling a neck. Now it bent, carrying Clat away down to its true mouth, which lived with the rest of the plant far below on the unseen forest Ground, in darkness and decay.

Whistling, Lily-yo directed her dumbler back up to the home branch. Nothing now could be done for Clat. It was the way.

Already the rest of the group was dispersing. To stand in a bunch was to invite trouble, trouble from the unnumbered enemies of the forest. Besides, Clat’s was not the first death they had witnessed.

Lily-yo’s group had once consisted of seven underwomen and two men. Two women and one man had fallen to the green. Between them, the eight women had borne twenty-two children to the group, five of them being man children. Deaths of children were many, always. Now that Clat was gone, over half the children had fallen to the green. Lily-yo knew that this was a shockingly high fatality rate, and as leader she blamed herself for it. The dangers in the branches might be many, but they were familiar, and could be guarded against. She rebuked herself all the more because of the surviving offspring, only three man children were left, Gren, Poas, and Veggy. Of them, she felt obscurely that Gren was born for trouble.

Lily-yo walked back along the branch in the green light. The dumbler drifted from her unheeded, obeying the silent instruction of the forest air, listening for word of a seeding place. Never had there been such an overcrowding of the world. No bare places existed. Sometimes the dumblers floated through the jungles for centuries, waiting to alight, epitomizing a vegetable loneliness.

Coming to a point above one of the nuthuts, Lily-yo lowered herself down by the creeper into it. This had been Clat’s nuthut. The headwoman could hardly enter it, so small was the door. Humans kept their doors as narrow as possible, enlarging them only as they grew. It helped to keep out unwanted visitors.

All was tidy in Clat’s nuthut. From the soft fibre of the inside a bed had been cut; there the five-year-old had slept, when a feeling for sleep came among the unchanging forest

green. On the cot lay Clat’s soul. Lily-yo took it and thrust it into her belt.

She climbed out on to the creeper, took her knife, and began to slash at the place where the bark of the tree had been cut away and the nuthut was attached to the living wood. After several slashes, the cement gave. Clat’s hut hinged down, hung for a moment, then fell.

As it disappeared among the huge coarse leaves, there was a flurry of foliage. Something was fighting for the privilege of devouring the huge morsel.

Lily-yo climbed back on to the branch. For a moment she paused to breathe deeply. Breathing was more trouble than it had been. She had gone on too many hunts, borne too many children, fought too many fights. With a rare and fleeting knowledge of herself, she glanced down at her bare green breasts. They were less plump than they had been when she first took the man Haris to her; they hung lower. Their shape was less beautiful.

By instinct she knew her youth was over. By instinct she knew it was time to Go Up.

The group stood near the Hollow, awaiting her. She ran to them, outwardly as active as ever, though her heart felt dead. The Hollow was like an upturned armpit, formed where the branch joined the trunk. In the Hollow a water supply had collected.

The group was watching a line of termights climb the trunk. One of the termights now and again signalled greetings to the humans. The humans waved back. As far as they had allies at all, the termights were their allies. Only five great families survived among the rampant green life; the tigerflies, the treebees, the plantants and the termights were social insects mighty and invincible. And the fifth family was man, lowly and easily killed, not organized as the insects were, but not extinct, the last animal species in all the all-conquering vegetable world.

Lily-yo came up to the group. She too raised her eyes to follow the moving line of termights until it disappeared into the layers of green. The termights could live on any level of the great forest, in the Tips or down on the Ground. They were the first and last of insects; as long as anything lived, the termights and tigerflies would.

Lowering her eyes, Lily-yo called to the group.

When they looked, she brought out Clat’s soul, lifting it above her head to show to them.

‘Clat has fallen to the green,’ she said. ‘Her soul must go to the Tips, according to the custom. Flor and I will take it at once, so that we can go with the termights. Daphe, Hy, Ivin, Jury, you guard well the man Haris and the children till we return.’

The women nodded solemnly. Then they came one by one to touch Clat’s soul.

The soul was roughly carved of wood into the shape of a woman. As a child was born, so with rites its male parent carved it a soul, a doll, a totem soul-for in the forest when one fell to the green there was scarcely ever a bone surviving to be buried. The soul survived for burial in the Tips.

As they touched the soul, Gren adventurously slipped from the group. He was nearly as old as Toy, as active and as strong. Not only had he power to run. He could climb. He could swim. Further, he had a will of his own. Ignoring the cry of his friend Veggy, he scampered into the Hollow and dived into the pool.

Below the surface, opening his eyes, he saw a world of bleak clarity. A few green things like clover leaves grew at his approach, eager to wrap round his legs. Gren avoided them with a flick of his hands as he shot deeper. Then he saw the crocksock—before it saw him.

The crocksock was an aquatic plant semi-parasitic by nature. Living in hollows, it sent down its saw-toothed suckers into the trees’ sap. But the upper section of it, rough and tongue-shaped like a sock, could feed also. It unfolded, wrapping round Gren’s left arm, its fibres instantly locking to increase the grip.

Gren was ready for it. With one slash of his knife, he clove the crocksock in two, leaving the lower half to thrash uselessly at him as he swam away.

Before he could rise to the surface, Daphe the skilled huntress was beside him, her face angered, bubbles flashing out silver like fish from between her teeth. Her knife was ready to protect him.

He grinned at her as he broke surface and climbed out on to the dry bank. Nonchalantly he shook himself as she climbed beside him.

‘Nobody runs or swims or climbs alone,’ Daphe called to him, quoting one of the laws. ‘Gren, have you no fear? Your head is an empty burr!’

The other women too showed anger. Yet none of them touched Gren. He was a man child. He was tabu. He had the

magic powers of carving souls and bringing babies—or would have when fully grown, which would be soon now.

‘I am Gren, the man child!’ he boasted to them, thumping his chest. His eyes sought Haris’s for approval. Haris merely looked away. Now that Gren was so big, Haris did not cheer him on as once he had, though the boy’s deeds were braver than before.

Slightly deflated, Gren jumped about, waving the strip of crocksock still wrapped round his left arm. He called and boasted at the women to show how little he cared for them.

‘You are a baby yet,’ hissed Toy. She was ten, his senior by one year. Gren fell quiet. The time would come to show them all that he was someone special.

Scowling, Lily-yo said, ‘The children grow too old to manage. When Flor and I have been to the Tips to bury Clat’s soul, we shall return and break up the group. Time has come for us to part. Guard yourselves!’

She saluted them and turned about with Flor beside her.

It was a subdued group that watched their leader go. All knew that the group had to split; none cared to think about it. Their time of happiness and safety—so it seemed to all of them—would be finished, perhaps for ever. The children would enter a period of lonely hardship, fending for themselves before joining o’ther groups. The adults embarked on old age, trial, and death when they Went Up into the unknown.

2

Lily-yo and Flor climbed the rough bark easily. For them it was like going up a series of more or less symmetrically placed rocks. Now and again they met some kind of vegetable enemy, a thinpin or a pluggyrug, but these were small fry, easily despatched into the green gloom below. Their enemies were the termight’s enemies, and the moving column had already dealt with the foes in its path. Lily-yo and Flor climbed close to the termights, glad of their company.

They climbed for a long while. Once they rested on an empty branch, capturing two wandering burrs, splitting them, and eating their oily white flesh. On the way up, they had glimpsed one or two groups of humans on different branches; sometimes these groups waved shyly, sometimes not. Eventually they climbed too high for humans.

Nearer the Tips, new dangers threatened. In the safer middle

layers of the forest the humans lived, avoided the perils of the Tips or the Ground.

‘ Now we move on,’ Lily-yo told Flor, getting to her feet when they had rested. ‘Soon we will be at the Tips.’

A commotion silenced the two women. They looked up, crouching against the trunk for protection. Above their heads, leaves rustled as death struck.

A leapycreeper flailed the rough bark in a frenzy of greed, attacking the termight column. The leapycreeper’s roots and stems were also tongues and lashes. Whipping round the trunk, it thrust its sticky tongues into the termights.

Against this particular plant, flexible and hideous, the insects had little defence. They scattered but kept doggedly climbing up, each perhaps trusting in the blind law of averages to survive.

For the humans, the plant was less of a threat—at least when met on a branch. Encountered on a trunk, it could easily dislodge them and send them helplessly falling to the green.

‘We will climb on another trunk,’ Lily-yo said.

She and Flor ran deftly along the branch, once jumping a bright parasitic bloom round which treebees buzzed, a forerunner of the world of colour above them.

A far worse obstacle lay waiting in an innocent-looking hole in the branch. As Flor and Lily-yo approached, a tigerfly zoomed up at them. It was all but as big as they were, a terrible thing that possessed both weapons and intelligence—and malevolence. Now it attacked only through viciousness, its eyes large, its mandibles working, its transparent wings beating. Its head was a mixture of shaggy hair and armour-plating, while behind its slender waist lay the great swivel-plated body, yellow and black, sheathing a lethal sting in its tail.

It dived between the women, aiming to hit them with its wings. They fell flat as it sped past. Angrily, it tumbled against the branch as it turned on them again; its golden-brown sting flicked in and out.

`I’ll get it!’ Flor said. A tigerfly had killed one of her babes.

Now the creature came in fast and low. Ducking, Flor reached up and seized its shaggy hair, swinging the tigerfly off balance. Quickly she raised her sword. Bringing it down in a mighty sweep, she severed that chitinous and narrow waist.

The tigerfly fell away in two parts. The two women ran on.

The branch, a main one, did not grow thinner. Instead, it ran on and grew into another trunk. The tree, vastly old, the longest lived organism ever to flourish on this little world, had

a myriad trunks. Very long ago—two thousand million years past—trees had grown in many kinds, depending on soil, climate, and other conditions. As temperatures climbed, the trees proliferated and came into competition with each other. On this continent, the banyan, thriving in the heat and using its complex system of self-rooting branches, gradually established ascendancy over the other species. Under pressure, it evolved and adapted. Each banyan spread out farther and farther, sometimes doubling back on itself for safety. Always it grew higher and crept wider, protecting its parent stem as its rivals multiplied, dropping down trunk after trunk, throwing out branch after branch, until at last it learnt the trick of growing into its neighbour banyan, forming a thicket against which no other tree could strive. Their complexity became unrivalled, their immortality established.

On the continent where the humans lived, only one banyan tree grew now. It had become first King of the forest, then the forest itself. It had conquered the deserts and the mountains and the swamps. It filled the continent with its interlaced scaffolding. Only before the wider rivers or at the margins of the sea, where the deadly seaweeds would assail it, did the tree not go.

And at the terminator, where all things stopped and night began, there too the tree did not go.

The women climbed slowly now, alert as the odd tigerfly zoomed in their direction. Splashes of colour grew everywhere, attached to the tree, hanging from lines, or drifting free. Lianas and fungi blossomed. Dumblers moved mournfully through the tangle. As they gained height, the air grew fresher and colour rioted, azures and crimsons, yellows and mauves, all the beautifully tinted snares of nature.

A dripperlip sent its scarlet dribbles of gum down the trunk. Several thinpins, with vegetable skill, stalked the drops, pounced, and died. Lily-yo and Flor went by on the other side.

Slashweed met them. They slashed back and climbed on.

Many fantastic plant forms there were, some like birds, some like butterflies. Ever and again, whips and hands shot out, taking them in mid-flight.

‘Look!’ Flor whispered. She pointed above their heads.

The tree’s bark was cracked almost invisibly. Almost invisibly, a part of it moved. Thrusting her stick out at arm’s length, Flor eased herself up until stick and crack were touching. Then she prodded.

A section of the bark gaped wide, revealing a pale deadly mouth. An oystermaw, superbly camouflaged, had dug itself into the tree. Jabbing swiftly, Flor thrust her stick into the trap. As the jaws closed, she pulled with all her might, Lily-yo steadying her. The oystermaw, taken by surprise, was wrenched from its socket.

Opening its maw in shock, it sailed outward through the air. A rayplane took it without trying.

Lily-yo and Flor climbed on.

The Tips was a strange world of its own, the vegetable kingdom at its most imperial and most exotic.

If the banyan ruled the forest,was the forest, then the traversers ruled the Tips. The traversers had formed the typical landscape of the Tips. Theirs were the great webs trailing everywhere, theirs the nests built on the tips of the tree.

When the traversers deserted their nests, other creatures built there, other plants grew, spreading their bright colours to the sky. Debris and droppings knitted these nests into solid platforms. Here grew the burnurn plant, which Lily-yo sought for the soul of Clat.

Pushing and climbing, the two women finally emerged on to one of these platforms. They took shelter from the perils of the sky under a great leaf and rested from their exertions. Even in the shade, even for them, the heat of the Tips was formidable. Above them, paralysing half the heaven, burned a great sun. It burnt without cease, always fixed and still at one point in the sky, and so would burn until that day—now no longer impossibly distant—when it burnt itself out.

Here in the Tips, relying on that sun for its strange method of defence, the burnurn ruled among stationary plants. Already its sensitive roots told it that intruders were near. On the leaf above them, Lily-yo and Flor saw a circle of light move; it wandered over the surface, paused, contracted. The leaf smouldered and burst into flames. By focusing one of its urns on them, the plant was fighting them with its terrible weapon—fire.

‘Run!’ Lily-yo commanded, and they dashed behind the top of a whistlethistle, hiding beneath its thorns, peering out at the burnurn plant.

It was a splendid sight.

High reared the plant, displaying perhaps half a dozen cerise flowers, each flower larger than a human. Other flowers, fertilized, had closed together, forming many-sided urns. Later stages could be seen, where the colour drained from the urns as seed swelled at the base of them. Finally, when the seed

was ripe, the urn—now hollow and immensely strong—turned transparent as glass and became a heat weapon the plant could use even after its seeds were scattered.

Every vegetable and creature shrank from fire—except the humans. They alone could deal with the burnurn plant and use it to advantage.

Moving cautiously, Lily-yo stole forth and cut off a big leaf which grew through the platform on which they stood. It was taller than she was. Clutching it to her, she ran straight for the burnurn, hurling herself among its foliage and shinning to the top of it without pause, before it could turn its urn-shaped lenses up to focus on her.

‘Now!’ she cried to Flor.

Flor was already on the move, sprinting towards her.

Lily-yo raised the leaf above the burnurn, holding it between the plant and the sun, so that the menacing urns were in shadow. As if realizing that this ruined its method of defence, the plant drooped in the shade, a picture of vegetable dejection with its flowers and is urns hanging limply.

With a grunt of approval, Flor darted forward and cut off one of the great transparent urns. They carried it between them as they ran back for the cover of the whistlethistle. As the shadowing leaf fell away from over it, the burnurn came back to furious life, flailing its urns as they sucked in the sun again.

The two women reached cover just in time. A vegbird swooped out of the sky at them—and impaled itself on a thorn.

In no time, a dozen scavengers were fighting for its body. Under cover of the confusion, Lily-yo and Flor attacked the urn they had won. Using both their knives and all their strength, they prised up one side enough to put Clat’s soul inside the urn. The side instantly snapped back into place again, an airtight join. The soul stared woodenly out at them through the transparent facets.

‘May you Go Up and reach heaven,’ Lily-yo said.

It was her business to see the soul stood at least a sporting chance of doing so. With Flor, she carried the urn across to one of the cables spun by a traverser. The top end of the urn, where the seed had been, exuded gum and was enormously sticky. The urn adhered easily to the cable and hung there glittering in the sun.

Next time a traverser climbed up the cable, the urn stood an excellent chance of sticking like a burr to one of its legs. Thus it would be carried away to heaven.

As they finished the work, a shadow fell over them. A mile long body drifted down towards them. A traverser, that gross vegetable equivalent of a spider, was descending to the Tips.

Hurriedly, the women burrowed their way through the platform of leaves. The last rites for Clat had been carried out; it was time to return to the group.

Before they climbed down again to the green world of middle layers, Lily-yo looked back over her shoulder.

The traverser was descending slowly, a great bladder with legs and jaws, fibery hair covering most of its bulk. To her it was like a god with the powers of a god. It came down a cable. It floated nimbly down a cable which trailed up into the sky.

Other cables could be seen, stretching up from the jungle close by or distantly. All slanted up, pointing like slender drooping fingers into heaven. Where the sun caught them, they shone. It could be seen that they trailed up in a certain direction. In that direction, a silver half globe floated, remote and cool, but visible even in the sunshine.

Unmoving, steady, the half moon remained always in that sector of the sky.

Throughout the eons, the pull of this moon had gradually slowed the axial revolution of its parent planet to a standstill, until day and night slowed, becoming fixed forever: one on one side of the planet, one on the other. At the same time, a reciprocal braking effect had checked the moon’s apparent flight. Drifting farther from Earth, it had shed its role as satellite and rode along in a Trojan position, an independent planet in its own right hugging one angle of a vast equilateral triangle which held the Earth and the sun at its other angles. Now Earth and Moon, for what was left of the afternoon of eternity, faced each other in the same relative position. They were locked face to face, and so would be, until the sands of time ceased to run, or the sun ceased to shine.

And the multitudinous strands of cable floated across the gap between them, uniting the worlds. Back and forth the traversers could shuttle at will, vegetable astronauts huge and insensible, with Earth and Luna both enmeshed in their indifferent net.

With surprising suitability, the old age of the Earth was snared about with cobwebs.

3

The journey back to the group was fairly uneventful. Lily-yo and Flor travelled at an easy pace, sliding down again into the middle layers of the tree. Lily-yo did not press forward as hard as usual, for she was reluctant to face the break-up of the group that had to come.

She could not express her thoughts. In this green millenary, there were few thoughts and fewer words.

‘Soon we must Go Up like Clat’s soul,’ she said to Flor, as they climbed down.

‘It is the way,’ Flor answered, and Lily-yo knew she would get no deeper a word on the matter than that. Nor could she frame deeper words herself; human understandings trickled shallow these days. It was the way.

The group greeted them soberly when they returned. Being weary, Lily-yo offered them a brief salutation and retired to her nuthut. Jury and Ivin soon brought her food, setting not so much as a finger inside her home, that being tabu. When she had eaten and slept, she climbed again on to the home strip of branch and summoned the others.

‘Hurry!’ she called, staring fixedly at Haris, who was not hurrying. How he could vex her, when he knew she favoured him most! Why should a difficult thing be so precious—or a precious thing so difficult?

At that moment, while her attention was diverted, a long green tongue licked out from behind the tree trunk. Uncurling, it hovered daintily for a second. It took Lily-yo round the waist, pinning her arms to her side, lifting her off the branch, while she kicked and cried in a fury at having been less than alert.

Haris pulled a knife from his belt, leapt forward with eyes slitted, and hurled the blade. Singing, it pierced the tongue and pinned it to the rough trunk of the tree.

Haris did not pause after throwing. As he ran towards the pinioned tongue. Daphe and Jury ran behind him, while Flor scuttled the children to safety. In its agony, the tongue eased its grip on Lily-yo.

Now a terrific thrashing had set in on the other side of the tree trunk: the forest seemed full of its vibrations. Lily-yo whistled up two dumblers, fought her way out of the green coils round her, and got safely back on the branch. The tongue, writhing in pain, flicked about meaninglessly. Weapons out, the four humans moved forward to deal with it.

The tree itself shook with the wrath of the creature trapped by its tongue. Edging cautiously round the trunk they saw it. Its great vegetable mouth distorted, a wiltmilt stared back at them with the hideous palmate pupil of its single eye. Furiously it hammered itself against the tree, foaming and mouthing. Though they had faced wiltmilts before, yet the humans trembled at the sight.

The wiltmilt was many times the girth of the tree trunk at its present extension. If necessary, it could have extended itself up almost to the Tips, stretching and becoming thinner as it did so. Like an obscene jack-in-the-box, it sprang up from the Ground in search of food, armless, brainless, gouging its slow way over the forest floor on wide and rooty legs.

‘Pin it!’ Lily-yo cried. ‘Don’t let the monster break away!’

Concealed all along the branch were sharp stakes that the group kept for emergencies. With these they stabbed the tongue still cracking like a whip about their heads. At last they had a good length of it secured, staked down to the tree. However much the wiltmilt writhed, it could never get free now.

‘Now we must leave and Go Up,’ Lily-yo said.

No human could ever kill a wiltmilt, for its vital parts were inaccessible. But already its struggles were attracting predators, the thinpins—those mindless sharks of the middle layers—rayplanes, trappersnappers, gargoyles, and smaller vegetable vermin. They would tear the wiltmilt to living pieces until nothing of it remained—and if they happened on a human at the same time… well, it was the way. So the group melted quickly away into the curtains of green.

Lily-yo was angry. She had brought on this trouble. She had been caught off guard. Alert, she would never have been trapped by a slow-moving wiltmilt. Her mind had been tied with thought of her own bad leadership. For she had caused two dangerous trips to be made to the Tips where one would have done. If she had taken all the group with her when Clat’s soul was disposed of, she would have saved the second ascent that now lay before them. What ailed her brain that she -did not see this beforehand?

She clapped her hands. Standing for shelter under a giant leaf, she made the group come about her. Sixteen pairs of eyes stared trustingly at her, awaiting her words. She was angry to see how they trusted her.

‘We adults grow old,’ she told them. ‘We grow stupid. I grow stupid—I let a slow wiltmilt catch me. I am not fit to lead you any more. The time is come for the adults to Go Up and return to the gods who made us. Then the children will be on their own. They will be the new group. Toy will lead the group. By the time you are sure of your group, Gren and soon Veggy will be old enough to give you children. Take care of the man children. Let them not fall to the green, or the group dies. Better to die yourself than let the group die.’

Lily-yo had never made, the others had never heard, so long a speech. Some of them did not understand it all. What of this talk about falling to the green? One did or one did not: it needed no talk. Whatever happened was the way, and talk could not touch it.

May, a girl child, said cheekily, ‘On our own we can enjoy many things.’

Reaching out, Flor clapped her on an ear.

‘First you make the hard climb to the Tips,’ she said.

‘Yes, move,’ Lily-yo said. She gave the order for climbing, who should lead, who follow. There was no further discussion between them, no curiosity; only Gren said wonderingly, ‘Lily-yo would punish us all for her mistake.’

About them the forest throbbed, green creatures sped and snapped through the greenery, as the wiltmilt was devoured.

`The climb is hard. Begin quickly,’ Lily-yo said, looking restlessly about her, and laying a particularly severe look on Gren.

‘Why climb?’ Gren asked rebelliously. ‘With dumblers we can fly easily to the Tips and suffer no pain.’

It was too complicated to explain to him that a human drifting in the air was far more vulnerable than a human shielded by a trunk, with the good rough bark nodules to squeeze between in case of attack.

‘While I lead, you climb,’ Lily-yo said. ‘You talk so much you must have a toad in your head.’ She could not hit Gren; he was a tabu man child.

They collected their souls from their nuthuts. There was no pomp about saying good-bye to their old home. Their souls went in their belt, their swords—the sharpest, hardest thorns available—went in their hands. They ran along the branch after Lily-yo, away from the disintegrating wiltmilt, away from their past.

Slowed by the younger children, the journey up to the Tips was long. Although the humans fought off the usual hazards, the tiredness growing in small limbs could not be fought. Half way to the Tips, they found a side branch to rest on, for there grew a fuzzypuzzle, and they sheltered in it.

The fuzzypuzzle was a beautiful, disorganized fungus. Although it looked like nettlemoss on a larger scale, it did not harm humans, drawing in its poisoned pistils as if with disgust when they came to it. Ambling in the eternal branches of the tree, fuzzypuzzles desired only vegetable food. So the group climbed into the middle of it and slept. Guarded among the waving viridian and yellow stalks, they were safe from nearly all forms of attack.

Flor and Lily-yo slept most deeply of the adults. They were tired by their previous journey. Haris the man was the first to awake knowing something was wrong. As he roused, he woke up Jury by poking her with his stick. He was lazy; besides, it was his duty to keep out of danger. Jury sat up. She gave a shrill cry of alarm and jumped at once to defend the children.

Four winged things had invaded the fuzzypuzzle. They had seized Veggy, the man child, and Bain, one of the younger girl children, gagging and tying them before the pair could wake properly.

At Jury’s cry, the winged ones looked round.

They were flymen!

In some respects they resembled humans. That is to say, they had one head, two long and powerful arms, stubby legs, and strong fingers on hands and feet. But instead of smooth green skin, they were covered in a glittering horny substance, here black, here pink. And large scaly wings resembling those of a vegbird grew from their wrists to their ankles. Their faces were sharp and clever. Their eyes glittered.

When they saw the humans waking, the flymen grabbed up the two captive children. Bursting through the fuzzypuzzle, which did not harm them, they ran towards the edge of the branch to jump off.

Flymen were crafty enemies, seldom seen but much dreaded by the group. They worked by stealth. Though they did not kill unless forced to, they stole children, which was reckoned almost a graver crime. Catching them was hard. Flymen did not fly properly, but the crash glides they fell into carried them swiftly away through the forest, safe from human reprisal.

Jury flung herself forward with all her might, Ivin behind her. She caught one of the flymen’s ankles before he could launch himself, seizing part of the leathery tendon of wing where it joined the foot, and clung on. The flyman staggered with her weight and turned to free himself, releasing his hold on Veggy. His companion, taking the full weight of the boy child, paused, dragging out a knife to defend himself.

Ivin flung herself at him with savagery. She had mothered Veggy: he should not be taken away. The flyman’s blade came to meet her. She threw herself on it. It ripped her stomach till the brown entrails showed, and she toppled from the branch with no cry. There was a commotion in the foliage below as trappersnappers fought for her as she fell.

Knocked backwards by Ivin’s charge, the flyman dropped the bound Veggy and left his friend still struggling with Jury. He spread his wings, taking off heavily after the two who had borne Bain away between them into the green thicket.

All the group were awake now. Lily-yo silently untied Veggy, who did not cry, for he was a man child. Meanwhile Haris knelt by Jury and her winged opponent, who fought without words to get away. Haris raised his knife to settle the struggle.

‘Don’t kill me. I will go!” cried the flyman. His voice was harsh, his words hardly understandable. The mere strangeness of him filled Haris with savagery, so that his lips curled back and his tongue came quickly between his teeth.

He thrust his knife deep between the flyman’s ribs, four times over, till the blood poured across his clenched fist.

Jury stood up gasping and leant against Flor. ‘I grow old,’ she said. ‘Once it was no trouble to kill a flyman.’

She looked at the man Haris with gratitude. He had more than one use.

With one foot she pushed the limp body over the edge of the branch. It rolled messily, then dropped. With its old wizened wings tucked uselessly about its head, the flyman fell to the green.

4

They lay among the sharp leaves of two whistlethistle plants, dazed by the bright sun but still alert for danger. Their climb had been completed. Now the nine children saw the Tips for the first time—and were struck mute by it.

Once more Lily-yo and Flor lay seige to a burnurn, with Daphe helping them to shade it with upheld leaves. As the plant slumped defencelessly, Daphe severed six of the great transparent pods that were to be their coffins. Hy helped her carry them to safety, after which Lily-yo and Flor dropped their leaves and ran for the shelter of the whistlethistles.

A cloud of paperwings drifted by, their colours startling to eyes generally submerged in green: sky blues and yellows and bronzes and a viridian that flashed like water.

One of the paperwings alighted fluttering on a tuft of emerald foliage near the watchers. The foliage was a dripperlip. Almost at once the paperwing turned grey as its small nourishments content was sucked out. It disintegrated like ash.

Rising cautiously, Lily-yo led the group over to the nearest cable of traverser web. Each adult carried her own urn.

The traversers, largest of all creatures, vegetable or otherwise, could never go into the forest. They spurted out their line among the upper branches, securing it with side strands.

Finding a suitable cable with no traverser in sight, Lily-yo turned, signalling for the urns to be put down. She spoke to Toy, Gren, and the seven other children.

‘Now help us climb with our souls into our burnurns. See us tight in. Then carry us to the cable and stick us to it. And then good-bye. We Go Up, and leave the group in your hands. You are the living now!’

Toy momentarily hesitated. She was a slender girl, her breasts like pearfruit.

‘Do not go, Lily-yo,’ she said. ‘We still need you, and you know we need you.’

‘It is the way,’ Lily-yo said firmly.

Prising open one of the facets of her urn, she slid into her coffin. Helped by the children, the other adults did the same. From habit, Lily-yo glanced to see that Haris the man was safe.

They were all in their transparent prisons at last. A surprising coolness and peace stole over them.

The children carried the coffins between them, glancing nervously up at the sky meanwhile. They were afraid. They felt helpless. Only the bold man child Gren looked as if he was enjoying their new sense of independence. He more than Toy directed the others in the placing of the urns upon the traverser’s cable.

Lily-yo smelt a curious smell in the urn. As it soaked through her lungs, her senses became detached. Outside, the scene that had been clear clouded and shrank. She saw she hung suspended on a traverser cable above the tree tops, with Flor, Haris, Daphe, Hy and Jury in other urns nearby, hanging helplessly. She saw the children, the new group, run to shelter. Without looking back, they dived into the muddle of foliage on the platform and disappeared.

The traverser drifted very high above the Tips, safe from its enemies. All about it, space was indigo, and the invisible rays of space bathed it and nourished it. Yet the traverser was still dependent on the earth for nourishment. After many hours of vegetative dreaming, it swung itself over and climbed down a cable.

Other traversers hung motionless nearby. Occasionally one would blow a globe of oxygen or hitch a leg to try and dislodge a troublesome parasite. Theirs was a leisureliness never attained before. Time was not for them; the sun was theirs, and would ever be until it became unstable, turned nova, and burnt both them and itself out.

The traverser fell, its feet twinkling, hardly touching its cable. It fell straight to the forest, it plunged towards the leafy cathedrals of the forest. Here in the air lived its enemies, enemies many times smaller, many times more vicious, many times more clever. Traversers were prey to one of the last families of insect, the tigerflies.

Only tigerflies could kill traversers—in their own insidious, invincible way.

Over the long slow eons as the sun’s radiation increased, vegetation had evolved to undisputed supremacy. The wasps had developed too, keeping pace with the new developments. They grew in number and size as the animal kingdom fell into eclipse and dwindled into the rising tide of green. In time they became the chief enemies of the spider-like traversers. Attacking in packs, they could paralyse the primitive nerve centres, leaving the traversers to stagger to their own destruction. The tigerflies also laid their eggs in tunnels bored into the stuff of their enemies’ bodies; when the eggs hatched, the larvae fed happily on living flesh.

This threat it was, more than anything, that had driven the traversers farther and farther into space many millennia past. In this seemingly inhospitable region, they reached their full and monstrous flowering.

Hard radiation became a necessity for them. Nature’s first astronauts, they changed the face of the firmament. Long after man had rolled up his affairs and retired to the trees from whence he came, the traversers reconquered that vacant pathway he had lost. Long after intelligence had died from its peak of dominance, the traversers linked the green globe and the white indissolubly—with that antique symbol of neglect, a spider’s web.

The traverser scrambled down among foliage of the Tips, erecting the hairs on its back, where patchy green and black afforded it natural camouflage. On its way down it had collected several creatures caught fluttering in its cables. It sucked them peacefully. When the soupy noises stopped, it vegetated.

Buzzing roused it from its doze. Yellow and black stripes zoomed before its crude eyes. A pair of tigerflies had found it.

With great alacrity, the traverser moved. Its massive bulk, contracted in the atmosphere, had an overall length of over a mile, yet it moved lightly as pollen, scuttling up a cable back to the safety of vacuum.

As it retreated, its legs brushing the web, it picked up various spores, burrs, and tiny creatures that adhered there. It also picked up six burnurns, each containing an insensible human, which swung unregarded from its shin.

Several miles up, the traverser paused. Recovering from its fright, it ejected a globe of oxygen, attaching it gently to a cable. It paused. Its palps trembled. Then it headed out towards deep space, expanding all the time as pressure dropped.

Its speed increased. Folding its legs, the traverser began to eject fresh web from the spinnerets under its abdomen. So it propelleditself, a vast vegetable almost without feeling, rotating slowly to stabilize its temperature.

Hard radiations bathed it. The traverser basked in them. It was in its element.

Daphne roused. She opened her eyes, gazing without intelligence. What she saw had no meaning. She only knew she had Gone Up. This was a new existence and she did not expect it to have meaning.

Part of the view from her urn was eclipsed by stiff yellowy wisps that might have been hair or straw. Everything else was uncertain, being washed either in blinding light or deep shadow. Light and shadow revolved.

Gradually Daphe identified other objects. Most notable was a splendid green half-ball mottled with white and blue. Was it a fruit? To it trailed cables, glinting here and there, many cables, silver or gold in the crazy light. Two traversers she recognized at some distance, travelling fast, looking mummified. Bright points of lights sparkled painfully. All was confusion.

This was the region of the gods.

Daphe had no feeling. A curious numbness kept her without motion or the wish to move. The smell in the urn was strange. Also the air seemed thick. Everything was like an evil dream. Daphe opened her mouth, her jaw sticky and slow to respond. She screamed. No sound came. Pain filled her. Her sides in particular ached. Even when her eyes closed again, her mouth still hung open.

Like a great shaggy balloon, the traverser floated down to the moon.

It could hardly be said to think, being a mechanism or little more. Yet somewhere in it the notion stirred that its pleasant journey was too brief, that there might be other directions in which to sail. After all, the hated tigerflies were almost as many now, and as troublesome, on the moon as on the earth. Perhaps somewhere there might be a peaceful place, another of these half-round places with green stuff, in the middle of warm delicious rays….

Perhaps some time it might be worth sailing off on a full belly and a new course….

Many traversers hung above the moon. Their nets straggled untidily everywhere. This was their happy base, better liked than the earth, where the air was thick and their limbs were clumsy. This was the place they had discovered first—except for some puny creatures who had been long gone before they arrived. They were the last lords of creation. Largest and lordliest, they enjoyed their long lazy afternoon’s supremacy. The traverser slowed, spinning out no more cable. In leisurely fashion, it picked its way through a web and drifted down to the pallid vegetation of the moon….

Here were conditions very unlike those on the heavy planet. The many-trunked banyans had never gained supremacy here; in the thin air and low gravity they outgrew their strength and collapsed. In their place, monstrous celeries and parsleys grew, and it was into a bed of these that the traverser settled. Hissing from its exertions, it blew off a cloud of oxygen and relaxed.

As it settled down into the foliage, its great sack of body rubbed against the stems. Its legs too scraped into the mass of leaves. From the legs and body a shower of light debris was dislodged—burrs, seeds, grit, nuts, and leaves caught up in its sticky fibres back on distant earth. Among this detritus were six seed casings from a burnurn plant. They rolled over the ground and came to a standstill.

Haris the man was the first to awaken. Groaning with an unexpected pain in his sides, he tried to sit up. Pressure on his forehead reminded him of where he was. Doubling up knees and arms, he pushed against the lid of his coffin.

Momentarily, it resisted him. Then the whole urn crumbled into pieces, sending Haris sprawling. The rigours of vacuum had destroyed its cohesive powers.

Unable to pick himself up, Haris lay where he was. His head throbbed, his lungs were full of an unpleasant odour. Eagerly he gasped in fresh air. At first it seemed thin and chill, yet he sucked it in with gratitude.

After a while, he was well enough to look about him.

Long yellow tendrils were stretching out of a nearby thicket, working their way gingerly towards him. Alarmed, he looked about for a woman to protect him. None was there. Stiffly, his arms so stiff, he pulled his knife from his belt, rolled over on one side, and lopped the tendrils off as they reached him. This was an easy enemy!

Haris cried as he saw his own flesh. He jumped unsteadily to his feet, yelling in disgust at himself. He was covered in scabs. Worse, as his clothes fell in shreds from him, he saw that a mass of leathery flesh grew from his arms, his ribs, his legs. When he lifted his arms, the mass stretched out almost like wings. He was spoilt, his handsome body ruined.

A sound made him turn, and for the first time he remembered his fellows. Lily-yo was struggling from the remains of her burnurn. She raised a hand in greeting.

To his horror, Haris saw that she bore disfigurements like his own. In truth, he scarcely recognized her at first. She resembled nothing so much as one of the hated flymen. He flung himself to the ground and wept as his heart expanded in fear and loathing.

Lily-yo was not born to weep. Disregarding her own painful deformities, breathing laboriously, she cast about around the indifferent legs of the traverser, seeking out the other four coffins.

Flor’s was the first she found, half-buried though it was. A blow with a stone shattered it. Lily-yo lifted up her friend, as hideously transformed as she, and in a short while Flor roused. Inhaling the strange air raucously, she too sat up. Lily-yo left her to seek the others. Even in her dazed state, she thanked her aching limbs for feeling so light of body.

Daphe was dead. She lay stiff and purple in her urn. Though Lily-yo shattered it and called aloud, Daphe did not stir. Her swollen tongue stayed dreadfully protruding from her mouth. Daphe was dead, Daphe who had lived, Daphe who had been the sweet singer.

Hy was also dead, a poor shrivelled thing lying in a coffin that had cracked on its arduous journey between the two worlds. When that coffin shattered under Lily-yo’s blow, Hy too fell away to powder. Hy was dead, Hy who had born a man child, Hy always so fleet of foot.

Jury’s urn was the last. She stirred as the headwomen reached her and brushed the burrs from her transparent box. A minute later, she was sitting up, eyeing her deformities with a stoical distaste, breathing the sharp air. Jury lived.

Haris staggered over to the women. In his hand he carried his soul. ‘Four of us!’ he exclaimed. ‘Have we been received by the gods or no?’ ‘We feel pain—so we live,’ Lily-yo said. ‘Daphe and Hy have fallen to the green.’ Bitterly, Haris flung down his soul and trampled it underfoot. ‘Look at us! Better be dead!’ he said. ‘Before we decide that, we will eat,’ said Lily-yo. Painfully, they retreated into the thicket, alerting themselves once more to the idea of danger. Flor,

Lily-yo, Jury, Haris, each supported the other. The idea of tabu had somehow been forgotten.

5

‘No proper trees grow here,’ Flor protested, as they pushed among giant celeries whose crests waved high above their heads.

‘Take care!’ Lily-yo said. She pulled Flor back. Something rattled and snapped, like a chained dog, missing Flor’s leg by inches. A trappersnapper, having missed its prey, was slowly reopening its jaws, baring its green teeth. This one was only a shadow of the terrible trappersnappers spawned on the jungle floors of earth. Its jaws were weaker, its movements far more circumscribed. Without the shelter of the giant banyans, the trappersnappers were disinherited.

Something of the same feeling overcame the humans. They and their ancestors for countless generations had lived in the high trees. Safety was arboreal. Trees there were here, but only celery and parsley trees offering neither the rock-steadiness nor the unlimited boughs of the giant trees.

So they journeyed, nervous, lost, in pain, knowing neither where they were nor why they were. They were attacked by leapycreepers and sawthorns, and beat them down. They skirted a thicket of nettlemoss taller and wider than any to be met with on earth.

Conditions that worked against one group of vegetation favoured others. They climbed a slope and came on a pool fed by a stream. Over the pool hung berries and fruits, sweet to taste, good to eat.

‘This is not so bad,’ Haris said. ‘Perhaps we can still live.’ Lily-yo smiled at him. He was the most trouble, the most lazy; yet she was glad he was still here. When they bathed in the pool she looked at him again. For all the strange scales that covered him, and the two broad sweeps of flesh that hung by his side, he was still good to look on just because he was Haris. She hoped she was also comely. With a burr she raked her hair back; only a little of it fell out.

When they had bathed, they ate. Haris worked then, collecting fresh knives from the bramble bushes. They were not so tough as the ones on earth, but they would have to do. Then they rested in the sun.

The pattern of their lives was completely broken. More by instinct than intelligence they had lived. Without the group, without the tree, without the earth, no pattern guided them. What was the way or what was not became unclear. So they lay where they were and rested.

As she lay, Lily-yo looked about her. All was strange, so that her heart beat faintly.

Though the sun shone bright as ever, the sky was as deep blue as a vandalberry. And the half-globe shining in the sky was streaked with green and blue and white, so that Lily-yo could not know it for somewhere she had lived. Phantom silver lines pointed to it, while nearer at hand the tracery of traverser webs glittered, veining the whole sky. Traversers moved over it like clouds, their great bodies slack.

All this was their empire, their creation. On their first journeys here, many millennia ago, the traversers had literally laid the seeds of this world. To begin with, they withered and died by the thousand on the inhospitable ash. But even the dead had brought their little levy of oxygen and other gases, soil, spores, and seed, some of which latter sprouted on the fruitful corpses. Under the weight of dozy centuries, these plants gained a sort of foothold.

They grew. Stunted and ailing in the beginning, they grew. With vegetal tenacity, they grew. They exhaled. They spread. They thrived. Slowly the broken wastes of the moon’s lit face turned green. In the craters creepers began to flower. Up the ravaged slopes the parsleys crawled. As the atmosphere deepened, so the magic of life intensified, its rhythm strengthened, its tempo increased. More thoroughly than another dominant species had once managed to do, the traversers colonized the moon.

Little Lily-yo knew or cared about any of this. She turned her face from the sky.

Flor had crawled over to Haris the man. She lay against him in the circle of his arms, half under the shelter of his new skin, and she stroked his hair.

Furious, up jumped Lily-yo. She kicked Flor on the shin, then flung herself upon her, using teeth and nails to pull her away. Jury ran to join in.

‘This is not time for mating!’ Lily-yo cried. ‘How dare you touch Haris?’

‘Let me go! Let me go!’ cried Flor. ‘Haris touched me first.’

Haris in his startlement jumped up. He stretched his arms, waved them, and rose effortlessly into the air.

‘Look!’ he shouted in alarmed delight. ‘Look what I can do!’

Over their heads he circled once, perilously. Then he lost his balance and came sprawling head first, mouth open in fright. Head first he pitched into the pool.

Three anxious, awe-struck, and love-struck female humans dived in in unison to save him.

While they were drying themselves they heard the noises in the forest. At once they became alert, their old selves. They drew their swords and looked to the thicket.

The wiltmilt when it appeared was not like its earthly brothers. No longer upright like a jack-in-the-box, it groped its way along like a caterpillar.

The humans saw its distorted eye break from the celeries. Then they turned and fled.

Even when the danger was left behind, they still moved rapidly, not knowing what they sought. Once they slept, ate, and then again pressed on through the unending growth, the undying daylight, until they came to where the jungle gaped.

Ahead of them, everything seemed to cease and then go on again.

Cautiously they went to see what they had arrived at. The ground underfoot had been uneven. Now it broke altogether into a wide crevasse. Beyond the crevasse the vegetation grew again—but how did humans span that gulf? The four of them stood anxiously where the ferns ended, looking across at the far side.

Haris the man screwed his face in pain to show he had a troublesome idea in his head.

‘What I did before—going up in the air,” he began awkwardly. ‘If we do it again now, all of us, we go in the air across to the other side.’

‘No!’ Lily-yo said. ‘When you go up you come down hard. You will fall to the green!’

‘I will do better than before. I think I have the art now.’

‘NoI’ repeated Lily-yo. ‘You are not to go. You are not safe.’

‘Let him go,” Flor said. ‘He says he has the art.’

The two women turned to glare at each other. Taking his chance, Haris raised his arms, waved them, rose slightly from the ground, and began to use his legs too. He moved forward over the crevasse before his nerve broke.

As he fluttered down, Flor and Lily-yo, moved by instinct, dived into the gulf after him. Spreading their arms, they glided about him, shouting. Jury remained behind, crying in baffled anger down to them.

Regaining a little control, Haris landed heavily on an outcropping ledge. The two women alighted chattering and scolding beside him. They looked up, pressing against the cliff for safety. Two lips fringed with fern sucked a narrow purple segment of sky above their heads. Jury could not be seen, though her cries still echoed down to them. They called back to her.

Behind the ledge on which they stood, a tunnel ran into the cliff. All the rock face was peppered with similar holes, so that it resembled a sponge. From the tunnel ran three flymen, two male and one female, ropes and spears in their hands.

Flor and Lily-yo were bending over Haris. Before they had time to recover, they were knocked sprawling and tied with ropes. Other flymen launched themselves from other holes and came gliding in to help secure them. Their flight seemed more sure, more graceful, than it had done on earth. Perhaps the fact that humans were lighter here had something to do with it.

‘Bring them in!’ the flymen cried to each other. Their sharp, clever faces jostled round eagerly as they hoisted up their captives and bore them into the gloom of tunnel. In their alarm, Lily-yo, Flor and Haris forgot about Jury, still crouching on the lip of the crevasse. They never saw her again.

The tunnel sloped gently down. Finally it curved and led into another which ran level and true. This in its turn led into an immense cavern with regular sides and a regular roof. Grey daylight flooded in at one end, for the cavern stood at the bottom of the crevasse. To the middle of this cavern the three captives were brought. Their knives were taken from them and they were released. As they huddled together uneasily, one of the flymen stood forward and spoke.

‘We will not harm you unless we must,’ he said. ‘You come by traverser from the Heavy World. You are new here. When you learn our ways, you will join us.’ ‘I am Lily-yo,’ Lily-yo proudly said. ‘You must let me go. We three are humans and you are flymen.’ ‘Yes, you are humans, we are flymen. Also we are humans, you are flymen, for we are all the same. Just now you know nothing. Soon you will know more when you have seen the Captives. They will tell you many things.’ ‘I am Lily-yo. I know many things.’ ‘The Captives will tell you many more things,’ the flyman insisted.

‘If there were many more things, then I should know them, for I am Lily-yo.’ ‘I am Band Appa Bondi and I say come to see the Captives. Your talk is stupid Heavy World talk, Lily-yo.’

Several flymen began to look aggressive, so that Haris nudged Lily-yo and muttered, ‘Let us do what he asks. Do not make more trouble.’ Grumpily, Lily-yo let herself and her two companions be led to another chamber. This one was partially ruined, and stank. At the far end of it, a fall of tindery rock marked where the roof had collapsed, while a shaft of the unremitting sunlight burnt on the floor, sending up a curtain of golden light about itself. Near this light were the Captives.

‘Do not fear to see them. They will not harm you.’ Band Appa Bondi said, going forward. The encouragement was needed, for the Captives were not prepossessing. Eight of them there were, eight Captives, kept in eight great burnurns big enough to serve them as narrow cells. The cells stood grouped in a semicircle. Band Appa Bondi led Lily-yo, Flor and Haris into the middle of this semicircle, where they could survey and be surveyed. The Captives were painful to look on. All had some kind of deformity. One had no legs. One had no flesh on his lower jaw. One had four gnarled dwarf arms. One had short wings of flesh connecting ear lobes and thumbs, so that he lived perpetually with hands half raised to his face. One had boneless arms dangling at his side and one boneless leg. One had monstrous wings which trailed about him like carpet. One was hiding his ill-shaped form away behind a screen of his own excrement, smearing it on the transparent walls of his cell. And one had a second head, a small wizened thing growing from the first that fixed Lily-yo with a malevolent eye. This last captive, who seemed to lead the others, spoke now, using the mouth of his main head.

‘I am the Chief Captive. I greet you, children, and invite you to know yourselves. You are of the Heavy World; we are of the True World. Now you join us because you are of us. Though your wings and your scars are new, you are welcome to join us.’

‘I am Lily-yo. We three are humans, while you are only flymen. We will not join you.’ The Captives grunted in boredom. The Chief Captive spoke again. ‘Always this talk from you denizens of the Heavy World! Understand that youhave joined us by becoming like us. You are flymen, we are human. You know little, we know much.’ ‘But we -‘ ‘Stop your stupid talk, woman!’ ‘We are -‘ ‘Be silent, woman, and listen,’ Band Appa Bondi said. ‘We know much,’ repeated the Chief Captive. ‘Some things we will tell you now to make you understand. All who make the journey from the Heavy World become changed. Some die. Most live and grow wings. Between the worlds are many strong rays, not seen or felt, which change our bodies. When you come here, when you come to the True World, you become a true human. The grub of the tigerfly is not a tigerfly until it changes. So humans change, becoming what you call flymen.’

‘I cannot know what he says,’ Haris said stubbornly, throwing himself down. But Lily-yo and Flor were listening.

‘To this True World, as you call it, we came to die,’ Lily-yo said, doubtingly. The Captive with the fleshless jaw said, ‘The grub of the tigerfly thinks it dies when it changes into a tigerfly.’

‘You are still young,’ said the Chief Captive. ‘You have entered a fresh life. Where are your souls?’

Lily-yo and Flor looked at each other. In their flight from the wiltmilt they had heedlessly thrown down their souls. Haris had trampled on his. It was unthinkable! ‘You see. You needed your souls no more. You are still young, and may be able to have babies. Some of those babies may be born with wings.’

The Captive with the boneless arms added, ‘Some may be born wrong, as we are. Some may be born right.’

‘You are too foul to live!’ Haris growled. ‘Why are you not killed for your horrible shapes?’ ‘Because we know all things,” the Chief Captive said. His second head roused itself and declared in a husky voice, ‘To be a standard shape is not all in life. To know is also important. Because we cannot move well, we canthink. This tribe of the True World is good and understands the value of thought in any shape. So it lets us rule it.’

Flor and Lily-yo muttered together. ‘Do you say that you poor Captivesrule the True World?’ Lily-yo asked at last. ‘We do.’ ‘Then why are you captives?’ The flyman with ear lobes and thumbs connected, making his perpetual little gesture of protest, spoke for the first time in a rich and strangled voice. `To rule is to serve, woman. Those who bear power are slaves to it. Only an outcast is free. Because we are Captives, we have the time to talk and think and plan and know. Those who know command the knives of others. We are power, though we rule without power.’ ‘No hurt will come to you, Lily-yo,’ Band Appa Bondi added. ‘You will live among us and enjoy your life free from harm.’

‘No!’ the Chief Captive said with both mouths. ‘Before she can enjoy, Lily-yo and her companion Flor this other man creature is plainly useless—must help our great plan.’ ‘You mean we should tell them about the invasion?’ Bondi asked. ‘Why not? Flor and Lily-yo, you arrive here at a good time. Memories of the Heavy World and its savage life are still fresh in you. We need such memories. So we ask you to go back there on a great plan we have.’ ‘Go back?’ gasped Flor. ‘Yes. We plan to attack the Heavy World. You must help to lead our force.’

6

The long afternoon of eternity wore on, that long golden road of an afternoon that would somewhen lead to everlasting night.

Motion there was, but motion without event—except for those neglible events that seemed so large to the creatures participating in them. For Lily-yo, Flor and Haris there were many events. Chief of these was, that they learnt to fly properly.

The pains associated with their wings soon died away as the wonderful new flesh and tendon strengthened. To sail up in the light gravity became an increasing delight—the ugly flopping movements of flymen on the Heavy World had no place here.

They learnt to fly in packs, and then to hunt in packs. In time they were trained to carry out the Captives’ plan.

The series of accidents that had first delivered humans to this world in burnurns had been a fortunate one, growing more fortunate as millennia rolled away. For gradually the humans adapted better to the True World. Their survival factor became greater, their power surer. All this: as on the Heavy World conditions grew more and more adverse to anything but vegetation.

Lily-yo at least was quick to see how much easier life was in these new conditions. She sat with Flor and a dozen others eating pulped pluggyrug, before they did the Captives’ bidding and left for the Heavy World.

It was hard to express all she felt.

‘Here we are safe,’ she said, indicating the whole green land that sweltered under the silver network of webs.

‘Except from the tigerflies,’ Flor agreed.

They rested on a bare peak, where the air was thin and even the giant creepers had not climbed. The turbulent green stretched away below them, almost as if they were on Earth—although here it was continually checked by the circular formations of rock.

‘This world is smaller,’ Lily-yo said, trying again to make Flor know what was in her head. ‘Here we are bigger. We do not need to fight so much.’

‘Soon we must fight.’

‘Then we can come back here again. This is a good place, with nothing so savage and without so many enemies. Here the groups could live without so much fear. Veggy and Toy and May and Gren and the other little ones would like it here.”

“They would miss the trees.’

‘We shall soon miss the trees no longer. We have wings instead. Everything is a matter of custom.’

This idle talk took place beneath the unmoving shadow of a rock. Overhead, silver blobs against a purple sky, the traversers drifted, walking their networks, descending only occasionally to celeries far below. As Lily-yo fell to watching these creatures, she thought in her mind of the grand plan the Captives had hatched, she flicked it over in a series of vivid pictures.

Yes, the Captives knew. They could see ahead as she could not. She and those about her had lived like plants, doing what came to hand. The Captives were not plants. From their cells they saw more than those outside.

This, the Captives saw. That the few humans who reached the True World bore few children, because they were old, or because the rays that made their wings grow made their seed die. That it was good here, and would be better still with more humans. That one way to get more humans here was to bring babies and children from the Heavy World.

For countless time, this had been done. Brave flymen had travelled back to that other world and stolen children. The flymen who had once attacked Lily-yo’s group on their climb to the Tips had been on that mission. They had taken Bain to bring her to the True World in burnurns—and had not been heard of since.

Many perils and mischances lay in that long double journey. Of those who set out, few returned.

Now the Captives had thought of a better and more daring scheme.

‘Here comes a traverser,’ Band Appa Bondi said, rousing Lily-yo from her thoughts. ‘Let us be ready to move.’

He walked before the pack of twelve flyers who had been chosen for this new attempt. He was the leader of them. Lily-yo, Flor, and Haris were in support of him, together with eight others, three male, five female. Only one of them, Band Appa Bondi himself, had been carried to the True World as a boy; the rest had arrived here in the same manner as Lily-yo.

Slowly the pack stood up, stretching their wings. The moment of their great adventure was here. Yet they felt little fear; they could not look ahead as the Captives did, except perhaps for Band Appa Bondi and Lily-yo. She strengthened her will by saying ‘It is the Way’. Then they all spread their arms wide and soared off to meet the traverser.

The traverser had eaten.

It had caught one of its most tasty enemies, a tigerfly, in a web and sucked it till only the shell was left. Now it sank down into a bed of celeries, crushing them under its great bulk. Gently, it began to bud; then it could be heading out for the great black gulfs, where heat and radiance called it. It had been born on this world. Being young, it had never yet made that dreaded and desired journey to the other world.

Its buds burst up from its back, hung over, popped, fell to the ground, and scurried away to bury themselves in the pulp and dirt where they might begin their ten thousand years’ growth in peace.

Young though it was, the traverser was sick. It did not know this. The enemy tigerfly had been at it, but it did not know this either. Its vast bulk held little sensation.

The twelve humans glided over and landed on its back, low down on the abdomen in a position hidden from the creature’s cluster of eyes. They sank among the tough shoulder-high fibres that served the traverser as hair, and looked about them. A rayplane swooped overhead and disappeared. A trio of tumbleweeds skittered into the fibres and were seen no more. All was as quiet as if they lay on a small deserted hill.

At length they spread out and moved along in line, heads down, eyes searching, Band Appa Bondi at one end, Lily-yo at the other. The great body was streaked and pitted and scarred, so that progress down the slope was not easy. The fibre grew in patterns of different shades, green, yellow, black, breaking up the traverser’s bulk when seen from the air, serving it as natural camouflage. In many places, tough parasitic plants had rooted themselves, drawing their nourishment entirely from their host; most of them would die when the traverser launched itself out between worlds.

The humans worked hard. Once they were thrown flat when the traverser changed position. As the slope down which they moved grew steeper, so progress became more slow.

‘Here!’ cried Y Coyin, one of the women.

At last they had found what they sought, what the Captives sent them to seek.

Clustering round Y Coyin with their knives out, the pack looked down at a place where the fibres had been neatly champed away in swathes, leaving a bare patch as far across as a human was long. In this patch was a round scab. Lily-yo stooped and felt it. It was immensely hard.

Lo Jint put his ear to it. Silence.

They looked at each other.

No signal was needed, none given.

Together they knelt, prising with their knives round the scab. Once the traverser moved, and they threw themselves flat. A bud rose nearby, popped, rolled down the slope and fell to the distant ground. A thinpin devoured it as it ran. The humans continued prising.

The scab moved. They lifted it off. A dark and sticky tunnel was revealed to them.

‘I go first,’ Band Appa Bondi said.

He lowered himself into the hole. The others followed. Dark sky showed roundly above them until the twelfth human was in the tunnel. Then the scab was drawn back into place. A soft slobber of sound came from it, as it began to heal back into position again.

They crouched where they were for a long time, in a cavity that pulsed slightly. They crouched, their knives ready, their wings folded round them, their human hearts beating strongly.

In more than one sense they were in enemy territory. At the best of tunes, traversers were only allies by accident; they ate humans as readily as they devoured anything else. But this burrow was the work of that yellow and black destroyer, the tigerfly. One of the last true insects to survive, the tough and resourceful tigerflies had instinctively made the most invincible of all living things its prey.

The female tigerfly alights and bores her tunnel into the traverser. Burrowing away, she stops at last and prepares a natal chamber, hollowing it from the living traverser, paralysing its flesh with her needletail to prevent it healing again. There she lays her store of eggs before climbing back to daylight. When the eggs hatch, the larvae have fresh and living stuff to nourish them.

After a while, Band Appa Bondi gave a sign and the pack moved forward, climbing awkwardly down the tunnel. A faint luminescence guided their eyes. The air lay heavy and green in their chests. Very slowly, very quietly, they moved—for they heard movement ahead.

Suddenly the movement was on them.

‘Look out!’ Band Appa Bondi cried.

From the terrible dark, something launched itself at them.

Before they realized it, the tunnel had curved and widened into the natal chamber. The tigerfly’s eggs had hatched. An uncountable number of larvae with jaws as wide as a man’s reach turned on the intruders, snapping in fury and fear.

Even as Band Appa Bondi sliced his first attacker, another had his head off. He fell, and his companions launched themselves over him in the dark. Pressing forward, they dodged those clicking jaws.

Behind their hard heads, the larvae were soft and plump. One slash of a sword and they burst, their entrails flowing out. They fought, but knew not how to fight. Savagely the humans stabbed, ducked and stabbed. No other human died. With backs to the wall they cut and thrust, breaking jaws, ripping flimsy stomachs. They killed unceasingly with neither hate nor mercy until they stood knee deep in slush. The larvae snapped and writhed and died. Uttering a grunt of satisfaction, Haris slew the last of them.

Wearily then, eleven humans crawled back to the tunnel, there to wait until the mess drained away—and then to wait a longer while.

The traverser stirred in its bed of celeries. Vague impulses drifted through its being. Things it had done. Things it had to do. The things it had done had been done before, the things it had to do were still to do. Blowing off oxygen, it heaved itself up.

Slowly at first, it swung up a cable, climbing to the network where the air thinned. Always, always before in the eternal afternoon it had stopped here. This time there seemed no reason for stopping. Air was nothing, heat was all, the heat that blistered and prodded and chafed and coaxed increasingly with height—

It blew a jet of cable from a spinneret. Gaining speed, gaining intention, it rocketed its mighty vegetable self out and away from the place where the tigerflies flew. Ahead of it at an unjudgeable distance floated a semicircle of light, white and blue and green, that was a useful thing to head towards.

For this was a lonely place for a young traverser, a terrible-wonderful bright-dark place, so full of nothing. Turn as you speed and you fry well on all sides… nothing to trouble you…

… Except that deep in your core a little pack of humans use you as an ark for their own purposes. You carry them unknowingly back to a world that once—so staggeringly long ago—belonged to their kind.

7

Throughout most of the forest, silence ruled. The silence seemed to carry as much weight as that deep mass of foliage which covered all the land on the day side of the planet. It was a silence built of millions upon millions of years, intensifying as the sun overhead poured forth more and more energy in the first stages of its decline. Not that the silence signified lack of life. Life was everywhere, life on a formidable scale. But the increased solar radiation that had brought the extinction of most of the animal kingdom had spelt the triumph of plant life. Everywhere, in a thousand forms and guises, the plants ruled. And vegetables have no voices.

The new group with Toy leading moved along the numberless branches, disturbing that deep silence not at all. They travelled high in the Tips, patterns of light and shade falling across their green skins. Continually alert for danger, they sped along with all possible discretion. Fear drove them with apparent purpose, although in fact they had no destination. Travel gave them a needful illusion of safety, so they travelled.

A white tongue made them halt.

The tongue lowered itself gradually down to one side of them, keeping close to a sheltering trunk. Noiselessly it sank, pointing down from the Tips whence it had come towards the distant Ground, a fibrous cylindrical thing like a snake, tough and naked. The group watched it go, watched its tip sink out of sight through the foliage towards the dark floor of the forest, watched its visible length paying out.

‘A suckerbird!’ Toy said to the others. Although her leadership was still unsure, most of the other children

-all of them but Gren—clustered round her and looked anxiously from her to the moving tongue.

‘Will it harm us?’ Fay asked. She was five, and the youngest by a year.

‘We will kill it,’ Veggy said. He was a man child. He jumped up and down on the branch so that his soul rattled. ‘I know how to kill it, I will kill it!’

`Iwill kill it,’ Toy said, firmly asserting her leadership. She stepped forward, unwinding a fibre rope from her waist as she did so.

The others watched in alarm, not yet trusting to Toy’s skill. Most of them were already young adults, with the broad shoulders, strong arms, and long fingers of their kind. Three of them—a generous proportion were men children: the clever Gren, the self-assertive Veggy, the quiet Poas. Gren was the oldest of the three. He stepped forward now.

‘I also know how to trap the suckerbird,’ he told Toy, eyeing the long white tube that still lowered itself into the depths. ‘I will hold you to keep you safe. Toy. You need help.’

Toy turned to him. She smiled because he was beautiful and because one day he would mate with her. Then she frowned because she was leader.

‘Gren, you are man now. It is tabu to touch you, except during the courtship seasons. I will trap the bird. Then we will all go to the Tips to kill and eat it. It shall be a great feast for us, to celebrate that I now lead.’

Gren’s and Toy’s gaze met challengingly. But just as she had not yet settled into her role as leader, so he had hardly assumed—and was indeed reluctant to assume—the role of rebel. He disagreed with her ideas, but tried as yet not to show it. He fell back, fingering the soul that dangled from his belt, the little wooden image of himself that gave him confidence.

‘Do as you please,’ he said—but Toy had already turned away.

On the topmost branches of the forest perched the suckerbird. Being of vegetable origin, it had little intelligence and only a rudimentary nervous system. What it lacked in this respect, it made up for in bulk and longevity.

Shaped like a mighty two-winged seed, the suckerbird could never fold its wings. They were capable of little movement, although the sensitive flexible fibres with which they were covered, and their overall span of some two hundred metres, made them masters of the breezes that stirred their hothouse world.

So the suckerbird perched, paying out that incredible tongue from its pouch down to the nourishment it needed in the obscure depths of the forest. At last the tender buds on its tip hit Ground.

Cautiously, slowly, the sensitive feelers of the tongue explored, ready to shrink from any of the many dangers of that gloomy region. Deftly, it avoided giant mildews and funguses. It found a patch of naked earth, soggy and heavy and full of nourishment. It bored down. It began to suck.

‘Right!’ Toy said when she was ready. She felt the excitement of the others behind her. ‘Nobody make a sound.’

Her rope was knotted to her knife. Now she leant forward and slipped the loose end about the white hose, knotting it in a slip knot. She sank her blade into the tree, thus securing the arrangement. After a moment, the tongue bulged and expanded up its length as soil was sucked up inside it to the suckerbird’s ‘stomach’. The noose tightened. Though the suckerbird did not realize it, it was now a prisoner, and could not fly from its perch.

`That’s well done!’ Poyly said admiringly. She was Toy’s closest friend, emulating her in everything.

‘Quick, to the Tips!’ Toy called. ‘We can kill the bird now it cannot get away.’

They all began climbing the nearest trunk, to get to the suckerbird—all except Gren. Though not disobedient by nature, he knew there were easier ways than climbing to get to the Tips. As he had learnt to do from some of his elders in the old group, from Lily-yo and Haris the man, he whistled from the corner of his lips.

‘Come on, Gren!’ Poas called back to him. When Gren shook his head, Poas shrugged and climbed on up the tree after the others.

A dumbler came floating to Gren’s command, twirling laconically down through the foliage. Its vanes spun, and on the end of each spoke of its flight umbrella grew the curiously-shaped seeds.

Gren climbed on to his dumbler, clinging tightly to its shaft, and whistled his instructions. Obeying him sluggishly, it carried him upwards, so that he arrived in the Tips just after the rest of the group, unruffled when they were panting.

‘You should not have done that,’ Toy told him angrily. ‘You were in danger.’

‘Nothing ate me,’ Gren replied. Yet suddenly he felt a chill, for he knew Toy was right. Climbing a tree was laborious but safe. Floating among the leaves, where hideous creatures might momentarily appear and drag one down into the green depths, was both easy and wildly dangerous. Still, he was safe now. They would see his cleverness soon enough.

The cylindrical white tongue of the suckerbird still pulsed nearby. The bird itself squatted just above them, keeping its immense crude eyes swivelled for enemies. It was headless. Slung between the stiffly extended wings was a heavy bag of body, peppered with the corneal protuberances of its eyes and its bud corms; among these latter hung the pouch from which the tongue now extended. By deploying her forces, Toy had her party attacking this monstrous creature from several sides at once.

‘Kill it!’ Toy cried. ‘Now, jump! Quick, my children!’

They leapt on it where it lay gracelessly among the upper branches, yelping in excitement in a way that would have earnt Lily-yo’s fury.

The suckerbird’s body heaved, its wings fluttered in a vegetal parody of fright. Eight humans—all but Gren—hurled themselves among the feathery leafage on its back, stabbing deep into the epicarp to wound its rudimentary nervous system. Among that leafage lay other dangers. Disturbed from its slumbers, a tigerfly crawled from under the lowlying growth and came almost face to face with Poas.

Confronted with a yellow and black enemy as big as himself, the man child fell back squealing. On this later-day Earth, drowsing through the late afternoon of its existence, only a few families of the old orders of hymenoptera and diptera survived in mutated form: most dreadful of these were the tigerflies.

Veggy dashed to his friend’s aid. Too late! Poas sprawled over on his back: the tigerfly was on to him. As the circular plates of its body arched, a ginger-tipped sabre of sting flashed out, burying itself into Poas’s defenceless stomach. Its legs and arms gripped the boy, and with a hurried whirr of wings the tigerfly was bearing its paralysed burden away. Veggy hurled his sword uselessly after it.

No time could be spared for bemoaning this accident. As the equivalents of pain filtered through to it, the suckerbird strove to fly away. Only Toy’s frail noose held it down, and that might soon pull free.

Still crouching under the creature’s belly, Gren heard Poas’s cry and knew something was amiss. He saw the shaggy body heave, heard the wings creak in their frames as they beat the air. Twigs showered down on him, small branches snapped, leaves flew. The limb to which he clung vibrated.

Panic filled Gren’s mind. All he knew was that the suckerbird might escape, that it must die as soon as possible. Inexperienced, he stabbed out blindly at the sucker tongue that now threshed against the tree trunk in its efforts to break free.

He sliced with his knife again and again. A gash appeared in the living white hose. Earth and mud, sucked from the Ground and intended for the vegbird’s nourishment, spurted out of it, plastering Gren with filth. The vegbird heaved convulsively and the wound widened.

For all his fear, Gren saw what was about to happen. He flung himself up, his long arms outstretched, grasped one of the bird’s bud protuberances, and clung to it shaking. Anything was better than to be left alone in the mazes of the forest—where he might wander for half a lifetime without coming on another group of humans.

The suckerbird fought to release itself. In its struggles, it enlarged the gash Gren had made, tugging until it pulled its tongue off. Free at last, it sailed into the air.

In mortal terror, hugging fibres and leafage, Gren crawled on its great back, where seven other frightened humans crouched. He joined them without a word.

The suckerbird swung upwards into the blinding sky. There blazed the sun, slowly building up towards the day when it would turn nova and burn itself and its planets out. And beneath the suckerbird, which was twirling like the sycamore seed it resembled, swung endless vegetation that rose, rose as remorselessly as boiling milk to greet its life-source.

Toy was shouting to the group.

‘Slay the bird!’ she called at them, rising on her knees, waving her sword. ‘Slay it fast! Chop it to bits. Kill it, or we shall never get back to the jungle.’

With the sun bronze on her green skin, she looked wonderful. Gren slashed for her sake. Veggy and May worked together, carving a great hole through the tough rind of the bird, kicking away chunks of it. As the chunks fell they were snapped up by predators before hitting the forest.

For a long while the suckerbird flew on unperturbed. The humans tired before it did. Yet even semi-sentience has its limits of endurance; when the suckerbird was leaking sap from many gashes, its wings faltered in their broad sweeping movement. It began to sink down.

`Toy! Toy! Living shades, look what we are coming to!’ Driff cried. She pointed ahead at the shining entanglements towards which they were falling.

None of the young humans had seen the sea; intuition, and a marrow-deep knowledge of the hazards of their planet, told them that they were being carried towards grave dangers.

A stretch of coast rose up to meet them—and here was waged the most savage of all battles for survival, where the things of the land met the things of the ocean.

Clinging to the suckerbird’s leafage, Gren worked his way over to where Toy and Poyly lay. He realized that he was much to blame for their present predicament, and longed to be helpful.

‘We can call dumblers and fly to safety with them,’ he said. ‘They will carry us safely home.’

“That’s a good idea, Gren,’ Poyly said encouragingly, but Toy looked blankly at him.

‘You try and call a dumbler, Gren,’ she said.

He did as he was bidden, distorting his face to whistle. The air rushing past them carried the sound away. They were in any case travelling too high for the whistlethistle seeds. Sulkily, Gren lapsed into silence, turning away from the others to see where they were getting to.

`I’d have thought of that idea if it had been any good,’ Toy told Poyly. She was a fool, thought Gren, and he ignored her.

The suckerbird was now losing height more slowly; it had reached a warm updraught of air and drifted along in it. Its lame and late efforts to turn inlands again only carried it parallel with the coast, so that the humans had the doubtful privilege of seeing what awaited them there.

Highly organized destruction was in progress, a battle without generals waged for uncounted thousands of years. Or perhaps one side had a general, for the land was covered with that one inexhaustible tree which had grown and spread and sprawled and swallowed everything from shore to shore. Its neighbours had been starved, its enemies overgrown. It had conquered the whole continent as far as the terminator that divided Earth’s day from its night side; it had almost conquered time, for its numberless trunks afforded it a life-span the end of which could not be foreseen; but the sea it could not conquer. At the sea’s edge, the mighty tree stopped and drew back.

At this point, away among the rocks, sands, and swamps of the coast, species of tree defeated by the banyan had made their last stand. The shore was their inhospitable home. Withered, deformed, defiant, they grew as they could. Where they grew was called Nomansland, for they were besieged on both sides by enemies.

On their land side, the silent force of the tree opposed them. On their other side they had to face poisonous seaweeds and other antagonists that assailed them perpetually.

Over everything, indifferent begetter of all this carnage, shone the sun.

Now the wounded suckerbird dropped more rapidly, until the humans could hear the slap of the seaweeds below. They all gathered close, waiting helplessly to see what would happen.

More steeply fell the bird, slipping sideways. It veered over the sea, all the fringes of which were dappled by the vegetation growing in its tideless waters. Labouring, it swerved towards a narrow and stony peninsula that jutted into the sea.

‘Look! There’s a castle below!’ cried Toy.

The castle stood out on the peninsula, tall, thin, and grey, seeming to tilt crazily as the suckerbird flapped towards it. They swerved down. They were going to hit it. Evidently the dying creature had sighted the clear space at the base of the castle, had marked it as the only nearby place of safety, and was heading there.

But now its creaking wings like old sails in a storm paid no heed to their controls. The great body lumbered earthwards, Nomansland and sea lurched up to meet it, castle and peninsula jarred towards it.

‘Hold tightly, all!’ Veggy yelled.

Next moment they crashed into the spire of the castle, the impact flinging them all forward. One wing split and tore as the suckerbird clung to a soaring buttress.

Toy saw what would happen next: the suckerbird must fall, taking the humans with it. Agile as a cat, she jumped down to one side, into a depression formed between the irregular tops of two buttresses and the main bulk of the castle. Then she called to the others to join her.

One by one they leapt across to her narrow platform, were caught and steadied. May was the last across. Clutching her wooden soul, she jumped to safety.

Helplessly, the suckerbird swivelled a striated eye at them. Toy had time to notice that the recent violent impact had split it clean across the great bulb of its body. Then it began to slip.

Its crippled wing slithered across the castle wall. Its grip relaxed. It fell.

They leant over the natural rampart and watched it go.

The suckerbird hit the clear ground by the base of the castle and rolled over. With the tenacity to life of its kind, it was far from dead; it pulled itself up and staggered away from the grey pile, moving in a drunken semicircle, trailing its wings as it went.

One wing brushed over the stony edge of the peninsula, reflecting its tip in the motionless sea.

The face of the water puckered and from it emerged great leathery strands of seaweed. The strands were punctuated along their length by bladder-like excrescences. Almost hesitantly, they began to lash at the wing of the suckerbird.

Although the lashing was at first lethargic, it quickly worked up to a faster tempo. More and more of the sea, up to a quarter of a mile out, became covered with the flailing seaweed that punished and struck at the water repeatedly in idiot hatred of all life but its own.

Directly it was struck, the suckerbird attempted to drag itself out of the way. But the reach of the seaweed once it became active was surprisingly long, and the suckerbird’s attempts to lurch to safety were of no avail, struggle though it might under the battery of blows.

Some of the bladder-like protrusions that flogged the luckless being landed so hard that they burst. A dark iodine-like liquid sprayed up from them, foaming and gushing into the air.

Where the poison landed on the suckerbird, it gave off a rank brown steam.

The suckerbird could utter no cries to relieve its promptings of pain. At something between flight and a hobble, it set off along the peninsula, heading for the shore, bounding into the air when it could to escape the seaweed. Its wings smouldered.

More than one kind of seaweed fringed that macabre coast. The frenzied bludgeoning stopped and the bladder weeds sank below the waves, their autotrophic beings temporarily exhausted.

In their stead, a long-toothed weed leapt out of the waters, raking the peninsula with its thorny teeth. Several fragments of rind were torn from the fleeing bird by these flails, but it almost gained the shore before it was properly hooked.

The teeth had it. More and more seaweed put out wavering arms and tugged at the suckerbird’s wing. By now it could fight only feebly. It heeled over and hit the confused water. The whole sea developed mouths to meet it.

Eight frightened humans watched all this from the top of the castle.

‘We can never get back to the safety of the trees,’ Fay whimpered. She was the youngest; she began to cry.

The seaweed had earned but not yet won its prey, for the plants of Nomansland had scented the prize. Squeezed as they were between jungle and sea, some of them, mangrove-like in form, had long ago waded out boldly into the water. Others, more parasitic by nature, grew on their neighbours and sent out great stiff brambles that hung down towards the water like fishing rods. These two species, with others rapidly joining them, put forth claim tothe victim, trying to snatch it from their marine enemies. From under the sea they threw up gnarled roots like the limbs of some antidiluvian squid. They seized the suckerbird, and battle was joined. At once the whole coastline came alive. A fearful array of flails and barbs burst into action. Everything writhed deliriously. The sea was whipped into a spray that added to the horror by partially concealing it.

Flying creatures, leather-feathers and rayplanes, soared overhead out of the forest to pick their own advantage from the fray. In the mindless carnage, the suckerbird was pulverized and forgotten. Its flesh was tossed and lost in spume.

Toy stood up, full of decision.

‘We must go now,’ she said. ‘This is the time for us to get to the shore.’

Seven agonized faces regarded her as if she were mad.

‘We shall die down there,” Poyly said.

‘No,’ Toy said fiercely. Now we shall not die. Those things fight each other, so they will be too busy to hurt us. Later may be too late.’ Toy’s authority was not absolute. The group was unsure of itself. When she saw them beginning to argue, Toy fell into a rage and boxed Fay and Shree on the ears. But her chief opponents were Veggy and May. ‘We shall be killed there at any time,’ Veggy said. ‘There is no way to safety. Haven’t we just seen what happened to the suckerbird that was so strong?’ ‘We cannot stay here and die,’ Toy said angrily. ‘We can stay and wait till something happens,’ May said. ‘Please let’s stay!’ ‘Nothing will happen,’ Poyly said, taking her friend Toy’s part. ‘Only bad things. It is the way. We must look after ourselves.’ ‘We shall be killed,’ Veggy repeated stubbornly. In despair, Toy turned to Gren, the senior man child. ‘What do you say?’ she asked. Gren had watched all the destruction with a set face. It did not relax as he turned it towards Toy. ‘You lead the group, Toy. Those who can obey you must do it. That is law.’ Toy stood up.

‘Poyly, Veggy, May, you others—follow me! We will go now while the things are too busy to see us. We must get back to the forest.’

Without hesitation she swung a leg over the domed top of the buttress and began sliding down its steep side. Sudden panic filled the others in case they were left behind. They followed Toy. They swarmed over the top, slipping and scrambling down after her.

At the bottom, dwarfed by the grey height of the castle, they stood momentarily in a silent group. Awe held them there.

Their world held an aspect of flat unreality. Because the great sun burnt overhead, their shadows lay like disregarded dirt below their feet. Everywhere was this same lack of shadow, lending the landscape its flat look. It was as dead as a poor painting.

The coastal battle raged like a fever. There was in this era (as in a sense there had always been) only Nature. Nature was supreme mistress of everything; and in the end it was as if she had laid a curse on her handiwork.

Overcoming her fears, Toy moved forward.

As they ran after Toy and away from that mysterious castle, their feet tingled; the stones beneath their feet were stained with brown poison. In the heat it had dried to harmlessness.

Noise of battle filled their ears. Spume drenched them—but the combatants paid them no attention, so absorbed were they in their mindless antagonism. Frequent explosions now ploughed the sea’s face. Some of the Nomansland trees, beleaguered for century after century in their narrow strip of territory, had plunged their roots down into the meagre sands to find not only nourishment but a way of defence against their enemies. They had discovered charcoal, they had drawn up sulphur, they had mined potassium nitrate. In their knotty entrails they had refined and mixed them.

The gunpowder that resulted had been carried up through sappy veins to nut cases in the topmost branches. These branches now hurled their explosive weapons at the seaweeds. The torpid sea writhed under the bombardment.

Toy’s plan was not a good one: it succeeded through luck rather than judgment. To one side of the land end of the peninsula, a great mass of seaweed had threshed itself far out of the water and covered a gunpowder tree. By sheer weight, it was pulling the tree down, and a fight to the death raged about it. The little humans burst past, and fled into the shelter of tall couch grass.

Only then did they realize Gren was not with them.

8

Gren still lay in the blinding sun, hunched behind the ramparts of the castle.

Fear had been the chief but not the only cause for his remaining behind. He had felt, as he had told Toy, that obedience was important. Yet he was by nature hard put to it to obey. Particularly so in this case, when the plan Toy offered seemed to hold such slight hope for survival. Also, he had an idea of his own, though he found it impossible to express verbally.

‘Oh, how can anyone speak!’ he said to himself. “There seem so few words. Once there must have been more words!’

His idea concerned the castle.

The rest of the group were less thoughtful than Gren. Directly they had landed on it, their attention had been directed elsewhere. Not so Gren’s; he realized that the castle was not of rock. It had been built with intelligence. Only one species could have built it and that species would have a safe way from the castle to the coast.

So in a little while, after Gren had watched his companions run down the stony path, he rapped with his knife handle on the wall beside him.

At first the knock went unanswered.

Without warning, a section of the tower behind Gren swung open. He turned at the faint sound, to face eight termights emerging from darkness.

Once declared enemies, now termight and human faced each other almost in kinship, as though the teeming millennia of change had wrought a bond between them. Now that men were outcasts rather than the inheritors of Earth, they met the insects on equal terms.

The termights surrounded Gren and inspected him, their mandibles working. He stood still, motionless as their white bodies brushed round him. They were nearly as big as he was. He could smell their smell, acrid but not unpleasant.

When they had satisfied themselves that Gren was harmless, the termights marched to the ramparts. Whether they could see or not in glaring daylight Gren did not know, but at least they could hear the sounds of the sea struggle clearly enough.

Tentatively, Gren moved over to the opening in the tower. A strange cool odour drifted from it.

Two of the termights came rapidly across and barred his way, their jaws level with his throat.

‘I want to go down,’ he told them. ‘I will be no trouble. Let me come inside.”

One of the creatures disappeared down the hole. In a minute it returned with another termight. Gren shrank back. The new termight had a gigantic growth on its head.

The growth was a leprous brown in colour, spongy in texture, and pitted like the honeycomb the treebees made. It proliferated over the termight’s cranium, growing round its neck in a ruff. Despite this fearsome burden, the termight seemed active enough. It came forward and the others made way for it. It seemed to stare at Gren, then turned away.

Scratching in the grit underfoot, it began to draw. Crudely but clearly, it sketched a tower and a line, and connected the two by a narrow strip formed with two parallel lines. The single line was evidently intended to represent the coast, the strip the peninsula.

Gren was completely surprised by this. He had never heard of such artistic abilities in insects before. He walked round gazing at the lines.

The termight stepped back and seemed to regard Gren. Obviously something was expected of him. Pulling himself together, he stooped down and falteringly added to the sketch. He drew a line from the top of the tower down the middle of it, through the middle of the strip and to the coast. Then he pointed to himself.

Whether the creatures understood this or not was hard to say. They simply turned and hurried back into the tower. Deciding there was nothing else for it, Gren followed them. This time they did not stop him; evidently his request had been understood.

That strange sunless smell enveloped him.

It was nerve-wracking in the tower when the entrance closed above them. After the sun-flooded brilliance outside, everything here was pitch dark.

Descending the tower was easy for one as agile as Gren, since it was much like climbing down a natural chimney, with plenty of protrusions on all sides to cling on to. He swarmed down hand over fist with growing confidence.

As his eyes accustomed themselves to the dark, Gren saw that a faint luminescence clung to the bodies of the termights, giving them ghostly shape. Many of them were present in the tower, utterly silent. Like phantoms they seemed to move on every side, noiseless rows of them trundling up into the dark, noiseless rows of them trundling down. He could not guess what they were busy at.

Eventually he and his guides reached the bottom of the castle and stood on level ground. According to Gren’s estimation, they must now be below the level of the sea. The atmosphere was moist and heavy.

Only the termight with the growth accompanied Gren now; the others moved off in military order without looking back. Gren noted a curious green light composed as much of shadow as of illumination; at first he could not detect its source. He was hard put to it to follow his guide. The corridor they traversed was uneven and full of traffic. Termights were everywhere, moving purposefully: there were also other small creatures about, herded along by the hosts, sometimes singly, sometimes in flocks.

‘Not so fast,’ Gren cried, but his guide kept to its steady pace, paying him no attention.

The green light was stronger now. It lay mistily on either side of their route. Gren saw it filtered through irregular mica sheets evidently there by the creative genius of the tunnelling insects. These mica sheets formed windows looking out into the sea, through which the activities of the menacing seaweed could be viewed.

The industry of this underground place amazed him. At least the denizens were so busy that they kept to themselves; not one paused to inspect him, until one of the creatures belonging to the termights approached. Four-legged and furry, it possessed a tail and luminous yellow eyes and stood almost as high as Gren. Eyeing him through its glowing pupils, the creature cried ‘Miaow!’ and tried to rub against him. Its whiskers brushed his arm. Shuddering, he dodged it and pressed on.

The furry creature looked back at him almost with a quality of regret. Then it turned to follow some termights, the species that now tolerated and fed it. A moment later Gren saw several more of these mewing things! some of them were infected with and almost covered by the fungus growth.

Gren and his guide came at last to where the broad tunnel divided into several lesser ones. Unhesitatingly, the guide chose a fork that sloped upwards into darkness. The darkness was broken suddenly as the termight pushed up a flat stone that covered the tunnel mouth and crawled into daylight.

‘You’ve been very kind,’ Gren said as he crawled out too. He kept as much distance as possible between himself and the brown growth.

The termight scurried back into the hole, pulling the stone into place with never a backward glance.

Nobody needed to tell Gren that he was now in Nomansland.

He could smell the smell of the sullen sea. He could hear the sound of the battle between the seaweeds and the land plants, though the noise was intermittent now, as both sides tired. He could sense a tension round him that never existed in the gentle middle layers of the forest where the human group had been born. Above all, he could see the sun glaring through the matted leaves over his.head.

Underfoot, the ground was sour and pasty, a mixture of clay and sand with rocks frequently outcropping. It was infertile stuff, and the trees growing from it showed their sickness. Their trunks were distorted, their foliage meagre. Many of them had intertwined in an attempt to support each other; and where this attempt had failed, they lay spilled over the ground in horrible distortions. Moreover, some of them through the long centuries had evolved such curious ways of defending themselves that they hardly resembled tree forms at all.

Gren decided that his best policy was to creep to the land end of the peninsula and try and pick up the tracks of Toy and the others from there. Once he got to the sea’s edge, it should not be hard to see the peninsula; it would make a prominent landmark.

He had no doubt in which direction the sea lay, for he was able to look through the distorted trees and see the landward border of Nomansland. That was clearly designated.

Along a line that marked the end of good soil, the great banyan had established its outer perimeter. It stood unshakeably, though its boughs were scarred by innumerable assaults from bramble and claw. And to assist it, to help it repel the banished species of Nomansland, the creatures that used its shelter had gathered: trappersnappers, wiltmilts, berrywishes, pluggyrugs, and others, stood ready to scourge the slightest movement along its perimeter.

Keeping this formidable barrier at his back, Gren moved cautiously forward.

His progress was slow. Every sound made him jump. At one point he flung himself flat as a cloud of long deadly needles was launched at him from a thicket. Lifting his head, he saw a cactus shaking itself and rearranging its defences. He had never seen a cactus before; his stomach was like water to think of all the unknown perils about him.

A little later he met something stranger.

He stepped through a tree whose trunk had contorted itself into a loop. As he did so, the loop snapped together. Gren escaped constriction by the skin of his teeth and lost the skin of his legs. As he lay panting, an animal slid past almost near enough to touch. It was a reptile, long and armoured, with a mirthless grin that revealed many teeth. Once (in the vanished days when humans had a name for everything) it had been called an alligator. It peered through goat’s eyes at Gren, then scuttled under a log. Almost all animals had died out millennia ago. The sheer weight of vegetable growth, as the sun favoured green things, had crushed and extinguished them. Yet as the last of the old trees were beaten back to the swamps and the fringes of the ocean, a few animals had retreated with them. Here they protracted their existence in Nomansland, enjoying the heat and the savour of life while life lasted. Going more cautiously now, Gren moved forward again. By now, the hubbub from the sea had abated and he travelled in dead quiet. Everything was silent, as if waiting, as if under a curse.

The ground began to shelve gradually towards the water. Shingle rasped underfoot. The trees which had grown more sparsely clustered together again to withstand possible attacks from the sea. Gren halted. Anxiety still moved in his heart. He longed to be back with the others. Yet his feeling was not that he had behaved stubbornly in remaining behind on the termight castle, but that they had behaved foolishly in not offering to accept his lead. Looking round him cautiously, he let out a whistle. No answer came. A sudden stillness settled, as if even those things that had no ears were listening.

Panic seized Gren. ‘Toy!’ he cried. ‘Veggy! Poyly! Where are you?’ As he was calling, a cage descended from the foliage above him and pinned him to the ground. When Toy led her six fellows to the shore, they flung themselves into long grass and hid their eyes to recover from their fright.Their bodies were foam-drenched from the vegetable battle. At last they sat up and discussed Gren’s absence. Since he was a man child, he was valuable; though they could not go back for him, they could wait for him. It remained only to find a place where they could wait in comparative safety. ‘We will not wait long,’ Veggy said. ‘Gren had no need to stay behind. Let us leave him and forget him.’ ‘We need him for mating,’ Toy said simply. ‘I will mate with you,’ Veggy said. ‘I am a man child with a big mater to stick into you. Look, you cannot wear this one out! I will mate with all you women before the figs come again! I am riper than the figs.’ And in his excitement he stood up and danced, showing off his body to the women, who were not averse to it. He was now their only man child; was he not desirable therefore?

May jumped up to dance with him. Veggy ran at her. Ducking lithely, she shot away. He capered after. She was laughing, he shouting.

‘Come back!’ Toy and Poyly called furiously.

Unheeding, May and Veggy ran from the grass on to sloping sand and shingle. Almost at once a great arm shot up from the sand and grasped May’s ankle. As she screamed, another arm came up, then another, fastening on her. May fell on her face, kicking in terror. Veggy flung himself savagely into the attack, pulling out his knife as he did so. Other arms came up from the sand and grasped him too.

When plant life had conquered the Earth, the animals least affected had been those of the sea. Theirs was an environment less susceptible to change than land. Nevertheless, alterations in size and distribution of the marine algae had forced many of them to change their habits or habitat.

The new monster seaweeds had proved expert at catching crabs, at wrapping them in a greedy frond as they scuttled over the ocean bed, or at trapping them beneath stones at that vulnerable time when the crabs were growing new shells. In a few million years, the brachyura were all but extinct.

Meanwhile, the octopuses were already in trouble with the seaweeds. Their extinction of the crabs deprived them of a chief item of their diet. These factors and others forced them into an entirely new mode of life. Compelled both to avoid seaweeds and to seek food, many of them left the oceans. They became shore-dwellers—and the sand octopus evolved.

Toy and the other humans ran to Veggy’s rescue, terrified by this threat to their only remaining man child. Sand flew as they hurled themselves into the fight. But the sand octopus had arms enough to deal with all seven of them. Without raising its body from where it was hidden, it took them all in its tentacles, fight how they might.

Their knives were of little use against that rubbery embrace. One by one, their faces were pressed down into the slithering sand and their shouts stifled.

For all that they had finally triumphed, the vegetables had triumphed as much by weight of numbers as by inventiveness. Time and again, they succeeded simply by imitating some device used long since—perhaps on a smaller scale—in the animal kingdom, as the traverser, that mightiest of all plant-creatures, flourished simply by adopting the way of life chosen by the humble spider back in the Carboniferous Age.

In Nomansland, where the struggle to survive was at its most intense, this process of imitation was particularly noticeable. The willows were a living example of it; they had copied the sand octopus, and by so doing had become the most invincible beings along that dreadful coast.

Killerwillows now lived submerged under the sand and shingle, only their foliage occasionally showing. Their roots had acquired a steely flexibility and become tentacles. To one of these brutes the group now owed its lives.

A sand octopus was obliged to stifle its prey as soon as possible. Too long a struggle attracted its rivals, the killerwillows; for those that imitated it had become its deadliest enemies. They moved up on it now, two of them, heaving themselves along under the sand with only their leaves showing like innocent bushes, and a furrow of disturbed dirt behind them.

They attacked without hesitation or warning.

Their roots were long and sinewy and fearfully tough. One from one side, one from the other, they took a hold on the tentacles of the sand octopus. It knew that deadly grip, it recognized that obscene strength. Relinquishing its hold on the humans, it turned to fight the killerwillows for its life.

With a heave that sent the group scattering, it emerged from the sand, its beak agape, its pale eyes round with fright. Giving a sudden twist, one of the killerwillows sent it sprawling upside down. The sand octopus twisted back into position, managing to free all its tentacles but one as it did so. Angrily, it pecked off the offending tentacle with one savage bite, as if its own flesh were the enemy.

Close at hand lay the sullen sea. Its impulse was to retreat there in an emergency. But even as it began its frantic scuttle, the tentacular roots of the killerwillows thrashed blindly about, seeking for it. They found it! The octopus whipped up a curtain of sand and pebble in its fury as its retreat was checked.

But the killerwillows had it—and between them they commanded some thirty-five knotty legs.

Forgetting themselves, the humans stared fascinated at this unequal duel. Then the blindly waving arms flashed in their direction.

‘Run!’ Toy cried, picking herself up as sand spurted near her.

‘It’s got Fay!’ Driff screamed.

The smallest of the group had been caught. Searching for a hold, one of those thin white tentacles of roots had wrapped Fay round the chest. She could not even cry out. Her face and arms went purple. Next second she was lifted up and dashed brutally against the trunk of a nearby tree. They saw her half-severed body roll bloodily over into the sand. ‘It is the way,’ Poyly said sickly. ‘Let’s move!’ They fled into the nearest thicket and lay gasping there. As they mourned the loss of their youngest companion, the sounds came to them of the sand octopus being shredded to pieces.

9

For a long while after the horrible noises had stopped, the six members of the group lay where they were. At last Toy sat up and spoke to them.

‘You see what has happened because you do not let me lead you,’ she said. ‘Gren is lost. Now Fay is dead. Soon we will all be dead and our souls rotting.’

‘We must get out of Nomansland,’ said Veggy sulkily. ‘This is all the suckerbird’s fault.’ He was aware that he was to blame for the incident with the sand octopus.

‘We shall get nowhere,’ Toy snapped, ‘until you obey me. Do you have to die before you know that? After this, you do what I say. Do you understand, Veggy?’

‘Yes.’

‘May?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you, Driff and Shree?’ ‘Yes,’ they said, and Shree added, ‘I’m hungry.’ ‘Follow me quietly,’ Toy said, tucking her soul more securely into her belt. She led them, testing every step she took. By now, the din of the sea battle was abating. Several trees had been dragged down into the water. At the same time, much seaweed had been fished out of the sea. This was now being eagerly tossed among the victor trees, anxious as they were for nourishment in that barren soil. As the group crept forward, a soft-pelted thing rushed past on four legs and was gone before they had their wits about them.

‘We could have eaten that,’ Shree said grumpily. Toy promised us the suckerbird to eat and we never got it.’ The thing had scarcely disappeared before there was a scuffle in the direction it had taken, a squeal, a hasty gobbling sound, and then silence.

‘Something else ate it,” Toy whispered. ‘Spread out and we’ll stalk it. Knives ready!’ They fanned out and slid through the long grass, happy to engage in positive action. This part of the business of living they understood.

To track down the source of that quick gobbling sound was easy. The source was in captivity and could not move away. From a particularly gnarled tree a pole hung; attached to the bottom of the pole was a crude cage consisting of only a dozen wooden bars. The bars dug down into the ground. Contained in the cage, its snout protruding one way, its tail another, was a young alligator. Some scattered pieces of pelt lay by its jaws, the remains of the furry thing the group had seen alive five minutes before.

The alligator stared at the humans as they emerged from the long grass and they stared back at it. ‘We can kill it. It cannot move,’ May said. ‘We can eat it,’ Shree said. ‘Even my soul is hungry.” The alligator, thanks to its armour, proved difficult to kill. Right at the onset, its tail sent Driff spinning into a pile of shingle, where she cut her face badly. But by stabbing at it from all sides, and by blinding it, they at last exhausted it enough for Toy to thrust her hand bravely into the cage and cut the creature’s throat. As the reptile threshed about in its death agony, a curious thing happened. The bars of the cage lifted upwards so that their pronged ends emerged from the ground, and the whole contraption clenched together like a hand. The straight pole above it twisted into several loops; it and the cage vanished up into the green boughs of the tree.

With exclamations of awe, the group seized their alligator and ran.

Winding their way though tight-packed tree trunks, they came on a bare outcrop of rock. It looked like a safe refuge, particularly as it was fringed by a spiky local variant of the whistlethistle.

Crouching on the rock, they began their unlovely meal. Even Driff joined in, though her face still bled from where she had grazed it on the shingle.

Scarcely were their jaws in motion than they heard Gren calling for help near at hand.

‘Wait here and guard the food,’ Toy commanded. ‘Poyly will come with me. We will go and find Gren and bring him back here.’

Her command was a good one. To travel with food was never wise; travelling alone was dangerous enough.

As she and Poyly skirted the thistles, Gren’s cry came again to guide them. The two girls moved round a bank of mauve cactus, and there he lay. He sprawled face downwards under a tree similar to the one beneath which they had killed the alligator, penned in a cage similar to the alligator’s.

‘Oh, Gren!’ cried Poyly. ‘How we missed you!’

Even as they ran towards him,a trailer creeper swung at him from the limb of a nearby tree, a creeper with a wet red mouth at its extremity, bright as a flower, poisonous-looking as a dripperlip. It swooped for Gren’s head.

Poyly’s feelings for Gren went deep. Without thought, she flung herself at the creeper, meeting it as it swung forward, catching it as high as possible to avoid those pulpy lips. Drawing a new knife, she severed the stem that pulsed beneath her fingers. Then she dropped back lightly to the ground. It was easy to avoid the mouth that now writhed there, ineffectually pursing and opening.

‘Above you, Poyly!’ Toy cried in warning, darting forward. The parasite, alerted now to danger, uncurled a full dozen of its trailing mouths. Gay and deadly, they swung about Poyly’s head. But Toy was beside her. Expertly they lopped away, till milk spurted from the creeper’s wounds, till the mouths lay gasping at their feet. Vegetable reaction time is not the fastest thing in the universe, perhaps because it is rarely prompted by pain.

Breathing hard, the two girls turned their attention to Gren, who still lay pinned beneath the cage.

‘Can you get me out?’ he asked, looking up helplessly at them.

‘I am leader. Of course I can get you out,’ Toy said. Using some of the knowledge she had gained from dealing with the alligator, she said, ‘This cage is a part of the tree. We will make it move and let you go.’

She knelt down and began to saw at the bars of the cage with her knife.

Over the land where the banyan ruled, covering everything with its layers of green, the chief problem for lesser breeds was to propagate their kind. With plants like the whistlethistle that had developed the curious dumblers, and the burnurn that had turned its seedcases into weapons, the solution of this problem was ingenious.

No less ingenious were some of the solutions of the flora of Nomansland to their particular problem. Here the main problem was less one of propagation than of sustenance; this accounted for the radical difference between these outcasts of the beaches and their cousins inland.

Some trees like the mangroves waded into the sea and fished deadly seaweeds for mulch. Other like the killerwillows took on the habits of animals, hunting in the manner of carnivores and nourishing themselves on decomposed flesh. But the oak, as one million-year stretch of sunlight succeeded another, shaped some of its extremities into cages and caught animals alive, letting their dung feed its starving roots. Or if they eventually starved to death, in decomposing they would still feed the tree.

Nothing of this Toy knew. She knew only that Gren’s cage should move, just as the one enclosing the alligator had done. Grimly, with Poyly helping, she hacked at the bars. The two girls worked at each of the twelve bars in turn. Perhaps the oak assumed the damage being done was greater in fact than it was; the bars were suddenly pulled from the ground and the whole contraption sprang up into the boughs above them.

Ignoring tabu, the girls grabbed Gren and ran with him back to the rest of the party.

When they were reunited, they devoured the alligator meat, keeping guard as they did so.

Not without a certain amount of boasting, Gren told them what he had seen inside the termight’s nest. They were unbelieving.

‘Termights have not enough sense to do all that you say,’ Veggy said.

‘You all saw the castle they made. You sat on it.”

‘In the forest, termights have not so much sense,’ May said, backing Veggy up as usual.

‘This is not the forest,’ Gren said. ‘New things happen here. Terrible things.’

‘Only in your head they happen,’ May teased. ‘You tell us about these funny things so that we will forget you did wrong to disobey Toy. How could there be windows underground to look out on to the sea?’

‘I tell you only what I saw,” Gren said. He was angry now. ‘In Nomansland, things are different. It is the way. Many termights also had a bad fungus growth on them such as I have not seen before. I have seen this fungus again since then. It looks bad.’

‘Where did you see it?’ Shree asked.

Gren threw a curiously-shaped piece of glass into the air and caught it, perhaps pausing to create suspense, perhaps because he was not too keen to mention his recent fright.

‘When I was caught by the snaptrap tree,’ he said, ‘I looked up into its branches. There among the leaves I saw a fearful thing. I could not make out what it was until the leaves stirred. Then I saw one of the fungi that grew on the termights, all shining like an eye and growing on the tree.’

‘Too many things bring death here,’ she said. ‘Now we must move back to the forest where we can live happily. Get up, all of you.’

‘Let me finish this bone off,’ Shree said.

‘Let Gren finish his story,’ Veggy said.

‘Get up, all of you. Tuck your souls in your belts, and do as I order.’

Gren slipped his curious glass under his belt and jumped up first to show he was anxious to obey. As the others stood up too, a dark shadow passed overhead; two rayplanes fluttered by, locked in combat.

Over the disputed strip called Nomansland many sorts of vegbird passed, both those that fed at sea and those that fed on land. They passed without alighting, knowing well the dangers that lurked there. Their shadows sped and dappled over the outcast plants without pause.

The rayplanes were so mortally engaged they did not know where they went. With a crash they sprawled among the upper branches near the group.

At once Nomansland sprang to life.

The famished angry trees spread up and lashed their branches. Toothed briars uncurled. Gigantic nettles shook their bearded heads. Moving cactus crawled and launched its spikes. Climbers hurled sticky bolas at the enemy. Cat-like creatures, such as Gren had seen in the termight’s nest, bounded past and swarmed up the trees to get to the attack. Everything that could move did so, prodded on by hunger. On the instant, Nomansland turned itself into a war machine.

Those plants that possessed no sort of mobility came alert for secondary spoils. The thicket of whistlethistles near which the group now lay trembling shook its thorns in anticipation. Harmless enough in its normal habitat, here the need to feed its roots had goaded the whistlethistle into a more offensive role. It would impale any passer-by it could. Similarly, a hundred other plants, small and stationary and armed, prepared to ignore the doomed rayplanes but to feed on those who—returning fromtheir feed—blundered into their path.

A great killerwillow appeared, heaving itself into view with root-tentacles waving. Sand and grit poured off its pollarded head as it struggled up. Soon it too was grappling with the luckless rayplanes, with the snaptrap trees, and indeed with any living thing whose existence offended it.

The scene was chaos. The rayplanes never had a chance.

‘Look—there’s some of the fungus!’ Gren exclaimed, pointing.

In among the short snake-like branches that formed the head of the killerwillow grew the deadly fungus. Nor was this the first time Gren had seen it since the rayplanes crashed. Several of the plants lumbering past had borne traces of it. Gren shuddered at the sight, but the others were less impressed. Death, after all, had many shapes; everyone knew it: it was the way.

Twigs showered on them from the target area. The rayplanes were shredded by now; the fight was among the feasters.

‘We are too close to the trouble,’ Poyly said. ‘Let’s move.’

‘I was about to order it myself,’ Toy said stiffly.

They scrambled up and made their way as best they could. All were armed now with long poles which they thrust out before them to test the ground for danger. The fearful remorselessness of the killerwillows had struck caution into their hearts.

For a long while they moved, overcoming obstacle after obstacle and frequently avoiding death. Finally they were overcome—by sleep.

They found a fallen trunk of a tree that was hollow. They beat out the poisonous leafy creature that lived in it, and slept there, curled up together and feeling secure. When they awoke, they were prisoners. Both ends of the tree trunk were sealed.

Driff, who was the first to rouse and discover this, set up a howl that quickly brought the others to investigate. No doubt of it, they were now sealed in and liable to suffocation. The walls of the tree that previously had felt dry and rotten were now tacky, dripping a sweetish syrup on to them. In fact, they were about to be digested!

The fallen trunk was nothing more than an abdomen into which they had thoughtlessly climbed.

After eons of time, the bellyelm had entirely abandoned its earlier attempts to draw nourishment from the inhospitable shores of Nomansland. Retracting all form of root structure, it had adopted its present horizontal mode of living. It camouflaged itself as a dead log. Its branch and leaf system had become separate, evolving into the symbiotic leafy creature the group had beaten off—a symbiotic creature that acted as a useful decoy to lure other beings into the open stomach of its partner.

Though the bellyelm normally attracted only vegetal creatures into its maw, flesh also satisfied its nutritive requirements. Seven little humans were very welcome.

The seven little humans fought savagely, slithering in the dirty dark as they attacked the strange plant with knives. Nothing they did had any effect. The syrupy rain came down faster, as the bellyelm worked up an appetite.

‘It’s no good,’ Toy gasped. ‘Rest for a little while and try to think what we can do.’

Close together, they squatted on their haunches. Baffled, frightened, numbed by the dark, they could only squat.

Gren tried to make a useful picture come into his head. He concentrated, ignoring the muck trickling down his back.

He tried to remember what the trunk had looked like outside. They were seeking somewhere to sleep when they came to it. They had climbed up a slope, skirting a suspicious patch of bare sand, and found the bellyelm lying at the top of the incline in short grass. Externally, it had been smooth….

‘Ha!’ he exclaimed in the dark.

‘What is it?’ Veggy asked. ‘What are you going on about?’ He was angry with them all; was he not a man, who should have been protected from this danger and indignity?

‘We will all throw ourselves against this wall together,’ Gren said. “That way we may be able to make the tree roll.’ Veggy snorted in the dark.

‘How will that help us?’ she asked. ‘Do what he says, you little worm!’ Toy’s voice was savage. They all jumped at its lash. She, as much as Veggy, could not guess what Gren had in mind, but she had to keep authority…. ‘All push at this wall, quickly.’

In the gummy mess they scrambled together, touching each other to discover whether they were all facing the same way. ‘All ready?‘Toy asked.‘Push! And again! Push! Push!’ Their toes slithered in the tacky sap, but they pushed. Toy called encouragement.

The bellyelm rolled. Now they were all caught in excitement. They heaved gladly, shouting in unison. And the bellyelm rolled again. And again. And then continuously.

Suddenly there was no further need to push. As Gren had hoped, the trunk began to roll down the slope of its own accord. Seven humans found themselves somersaulting at increasing speed. ‘Get ready to run as soon as you get the chance,’ Gren called. ‘Ifyou get the chance. The tree may split at the bottom of the slope.’

When it hit sand, the bellyelm slowed its pace and, as the incline flattened out, it stopped. Its partner, the leafy creature, which had been pursuing it meanwhile, now caught up. It jumped on top of the trunk and plugged its lower appendages firmly into the runnels of the trunk; but it had no time to preen.

Something moved beneath the sand. A white root-like tentacle appeared, then another. They waved blindly and grasped the bellyelm round the middle. As the leafy thing scuttled for its life, a killerwillow heaved itself up into view. Still trapped inside the trunk, the humans heard the bellyelm groan. ‘Get ready to jump clear,” Gren whispered. Few things could resist the clutches of a killerwillow. Its present victim was utterly defenceless. Beneath the grip of those hawser-like tentacles, it cracked with a sound of snapping ribs. Hopelessly, tugged from more than one direction, it broke apart like a cracker.

As daylight splintered into being about them, the group jumped for safety. Only Driff could not jump. She was trapped at one end of the trunk as it caved in. Frantically she cried and straggled, but could not get loose. The others—bounding for long grass—halted and looked back.

Toy and Poyly glanced at each other, then ran to the rescue.

‘Come back, you fools!’ Gren cried. ‘It will get you too!’ Unheeding, they ran back to Driff, plunging into the patch of sand. In a panic, Gren rushed after them. ‘Come away!’ he shouted. Three yards from them rose the great body of the killerwillow. In its poll fungus glistened, the dark crinkled fungus they had seen before. It was terrible to behold—Gren could not understand how the others dared to stay. He pulled at Toy, hitting her and screaming at her to come away and save her soul. Toy took no notice. Within inches of those strangulating white roots, she and Poyly struggled to set Driff free. The latter’s leg was caught between two sandwiching slabs of wood. At last one of these shifted, so that she could be dragged away. Seizing her between them, Poyly and Toy ran for the long grass where the others crouched, and Gren ran with them.

For minutes they all lay panting. They were covered in stickiness and filth and nearly unrecognizable.

Toy was the first to sit up. She turned to Gren and said in a voice cold with rage, ‘Gren, I dismiss you from the group. You are an outcast from now on.’ Gren jumped up, tears in his eyes, conscious of their stares. Banishment was the most terrible punishment that could be used against anyone. It was rarely invoked against females; to invoke it against a male was almost unheard of.

‘You can’t do this!’ he cried. ‘Why should you do this? You have no reason.’ ‘You hit me,’ Toy said. ‘I am your leader but you hit me. You tried to stop Driff from being rescued, you would have let her die. And always you want your own way. I cannot lead you, so you must go.’

The others, all but Driff, were standing now, open-mouthed and anxious. ‘It’s lies, lies!’ ‘No, it is true.’ Then she weakened and turned to the five faces anxiously regarding her. ‘Isn’t it true?’ Driff, clutching her hurt leg, agreed heartily that it was. Shree, being Drift’s friend, also agreed. Veggy and

May merely nodded their heads without speaking; they were feeling guilty because they had not also gone to the rescue of Driff, and compensated for it by breaking up Toy now. The only note of dissent came unexpectedly from Toy’s dearest friend, Poyly.

‘Never mind if what you say is true or not,’ Poyly declared. ‘But for Gren we would now be dead inside that bellyelm. He saved us there, and we should be grateful.’ ‘No, the killerwillow saved us,’ Toy said. ‘If it had not been for Gren -‘

‘Keep out of this Poyly. You saw him hit me. He must go from the group. I say he must be outcast.’

The two women faced each other angrily, hands on knives, their cheeks red. ‘He is our man. We cannot let him go!’ Poyly said. ‘You talk rubbish, Toy.’ ‘We have Veggy still, or have you forgotten?’ “Veggy is only a man child, and you know it!’ Angrily Veggy jumped up. ‘I’m old enough to do it to you, Poyly, you fat thing,’ he cried, hopping about and exposing himself. ‘Look how I’m made—just as good as Gren!’

But they cuffed him down and went on quarrelling. Benefiting by this example, the others also began to quarrel. Only when Gren burst into angry tears did they fall silent. ‘You are all fools,’ he cried between his sobs. ‘I know how to get out of Nomansland but you don’t. How can you do it without me?’ ‘We can do anything without you,’ Toy said, but she added, ‘What is your plan?’ Gren laughed bitterly. ‘You are a fine leader, Toy! You don’t even know where we are. You don’t even realize that we are on the edge of Nomansland. Look, you can see our forest from here.’ He pointed dramatically with outstretched finger.

10

In their hurried escape from the bellyelm, they had hardly taken in their new surroundings. There was little room for doubt that Gren was right. As he said, they stood on the fringe of Nomansland. Beyond them, the gnarled and stunted trees of the region grew more closely, as if tightening their ranks. Among them were spiky soldier trees, thorn and bamboo, as well as tall grasses with edges sharp enough to lop off a human arm. All were woven together by an absolute barricade of brambles. It was a thicket impossible to penetrate, suicide to enter. Every plant stood at guard like troops facing a common enemy. Nor was the common enemy a reassuring sight. The great banyan, pushing outwards as far as its nutritional requirements would allow, loomed high and black over the outcasts of Nomansland. Its outermost branches bore an abnormally dense thatch of leaves; they reached out as far as possible over the enemy like a wave ever about to break, cutting off as much sunlight as possible.

Aiding the banyan were the creatures that lived in its forest aisles, the trappersnappers, the jack-in-the-box wiltmilts, the berrywishes, the deadly dripperlips and others. They patrolled the perimeters of the mighty tree like eternal watchdogs.

The forest, so welcoming to the humans in theory, presented only its claws to them from where they now stood. Gren watched their faces as the others regarded that double wall of hostile vegetation. Nothing moved; the lightest breeze slinking in from the sea hardly shifted one armoured leaf; only their bowels stirred in dread.

‘You see,’ Gren said. ‘Leave me here! Let me watch you walk through the barrier! I want to see you do it.’ He had the initiative now and gloried in it. They looked at him, at the barrier, back at him. ‘Youdon’t know how to get through,’ Veggy said uneasily. Gren sneered. ‘I know a way,’ he said flatly. ‘Do you think the termights will help you?’ Poyly asked him. ‘No.’ ‘What then?’

He stared at them defiantly. Then he faced Toy. ‘I will show you the way if you follow me. Toy has no brains. I have brains. I will not be outcast. I will lead you instead of Toy. Make me your leader and I will get you to safety.’

‘Pah, you man child,’ Toy said. ‘You talk too much. You boast all the time.’ But round her the others were muttering. ‘Women are leaders, not men,’ Shree said, with doubt in her voice.

`Toy is a bad leader,’ Gren shouted. ‘No, she’s not,’ said Drift, ‘she’s braver than you,’ and the others murmured agreement with this, even Poyly. Though their faith in Toy was not unbounded, their trust in Gren was small. Poyly went to him and said quietly, ‘You know the law and the way of humans. They will outcast you if you do not tell them a good way to safety.’

‘And if I do tell them?’ His truculence faded, because Poyly was fair to look upon. ‘Then you can stay with us as is right. But you must not expect to lead in Toy’s place. That is not right.’ ‘I will say what is right or not.’ ‘That is not right either.’

He pulled a face at her. ‘You are a right person, Poyly. Make no argument with me.’ ‘I do not want to see you outcast. I am on your side.” ‘Look, then!’ And Gren turned towards the rest of them. From his belt he produced the curiously-shaped piece of glass he had handled earlier. He held it out in his open palm.

‘This I picked up when I was trapped by the snaptrap tree,’ he told them. ‘It is called mica or glass. Perhaps it came from the sea. Perhaps it is what the termights use for their windows on to the sea.’ Toy made to examine it, but he pulled his hand back. ‘Hold it in the sun and it makes a little sun beneath it. When I was trapped, I burned my hand with it. I could have burnt my way out of the trap if you had not come along. So we can burn our way out of Nomansland. Light some sticks and grass here and the flame will grow. The little breeze will tickle it towards the forest. Nothing likes fire—and where the fire has been we can follow, safely back into the forest.’

They all stared at each other. ‘Gren is very clever,’ ‘Poyly said. ‘His idea can save us.’ ‘It won’t work,’ Toy said stubbornly. In a sudden rage, Gren hurled the crude lens at her. ‘You stupid girl! Your head is full of toads. You’re the one who should be outcast! You should be driven off!’ She caught the lens and backed away. ‘Gren, you are mad! You don’t know what you say. Go away,’ she shouted, ‘before we have to kill you.’ Gren turned savagely to Veggy. ‘You see how she treats me, Veggy! We cannot have her for leader. We two must go or she must.’ ‘Toy never hurt me,’ Veggy said sullenly, anxious to avoid quarrelling. I’m not going to be outcast.’ Toy caught their mood and used it quickly. ‘There can be no arguing in the group or the group will die. It is the way. Gren or I must go, and you all must decide which it is to be. Cast your vote now. Speak, anyone who would turn me away rather than Gren.’ ‘Unfair!’ Poyly cried. Then an uneasy silence fell. Nobody spoke. ‘Gren must go,’ Driff whispered.

Gren pulled out a knife. Veggy at once jumped up and drew his. May behind him did the same. Soon they all stood armed against Gren. Only Poyly did not move.

Gren’s face was thin with bitterness.

‘Give me back my glass,” he said, holding out his hand to Toy.

‘It is ours,’ Toy said. ‘We can make a small sun without your help. Go away before we kill you.”

He scanned their faces for the last time. Then he turned on his heel and walked silently away.

He was blind with defeat. No possible future lay open to him. To be on one’s own in the forest was dangerous; here it was doubly dangerous. If he could get back to the middle layers of the forest, he might be able to find other human groups; but those groups were scarce and shy; even supposing they accepted him, the idea of fitting in with strangers did not appeal to Gren.

Nomansland was not the best place in which to walk about blind with defeat. Within five minutes of being outcast, he had fallen victim to a hostile plant.

The ground beneath his feet shelved down raggedly to a small water course along which water no longer flowed. Boulders taller than Gren lay thickly about, with shingle and the littered small change of pebbles underfoot. Few plants grew here except razor-sharp grasses.

As Gren wandered regardlessly on, something fell on to his head—something light and painless.

Several times, Gren had seen and been worried by the dark brain-like fungus that attached itself to other creatures. This discomycete plant form was a mutated morel. Over the ages it had learnt new ways of nourishing and propagating itself.

For some while Gren stood quite still, trembling a little beneath the touch of the thing. Once he raised his hand only to drop it again. His head felt cool, almost numb.

At last he sat down by the nearest boulder, his backbone firm against it, staring in the direction he had come. He was in deep shade, in a clammy place; at the top of the watercourse bank lay a brilliant bar of sunlight, behind which a backdrop of foliage seemed painted in indifferent greens and whites. Gren stared at it listlessly, trying to bring meaning out of the pattern.

Dimly he knew that it would all be there when he was dead—that it would even be a little richer for his death, as the phosphates of his body were reabsorbed by other things: for it seemed unlikely that he would Go Up in the manner approved and practised by his ancestors; he had no one to look after his soul. Life was short, and after all, what was he? Nothing!

‘You are human,’ said a voice. It was a ghost of a voice, an unspoken voice, a voice that had no business with vocal chords. Like a dusty harp, it seemed to twang in some lost attic of his head.

In his present state, Gren felt no surprise. His back was against stone; the shade about him covered not only him; his body was of common material; why should there not be silent voices to match his thoughts?

‘Who is that speaking?’ he asked idly.

‘You call me morel. I shall not leave you. I can help you.’ He had a detached suspicion that morel had never used words before, so slowly did they come. ‘I need help,’ he said. ‘I’m an outcast.’ ‘So I see. I have attached myself to you to help you. I shall always be with you.’ Gren felt very dull, but he managed to ask, ‘How will you help me?’ ‘As I have helped other beings,’ said morel. ‘Once I am with them I never leave them. Many beings have no brain; I am brain. I collect thoughts. I and those of my kind act as brains, so that the creatures we attach ourselves to are more cunning and able than the others.’ ‘Will I be more cunning than other humans?’ Gren asked. The sunlight at the top of the watercourse never changed. Everything was mixed in his mind. It was as though he spoke with the gods.

‘We have never caught a human before,’ said the voice, choosing its words more rapidly now. ‘We morels live only in the margins of Nomansland. You live only in the forests. You are a good find. I will make you powerful. You shall go everywhere, taking me with you.’

Giving no answer, Gren rested against the cool stone. He was drained of energy and content to let time pass. At length the voice twanged in his head again. ‘I know much about humans. Time has been terribly long on this world, and on the worlds in space. Once in a very distant time, before the sun was hot, your two-legged kind ruled this world. You were large beings then, five times as tall as you are now. You shrank to meet new conditions, to survive in whatever way you could. In those days, my ancestors were small, but change is always taking place, though so slowly as to go unnoticed. Now you are little creatures in the undergrowth, while I am capable of consuming you.’

After listening and thinking, Gren asked. ‘How can you know all this, morel, if you have not met a human till now?’

‘By exploring the structure of your mind. Many of your memories and thoughts are inherited from the far past and buried so that you cannot reach them. But I can reach them. Through them I read the history of your kind’s past. My kind could be as great as your kind was….’

“Then would I be great too?’ ‘It would probably have to be that way….’ All at once a wave of sleep came over Gren. The sleep was fathomless, but full of strange fish—dreams he could not afterwards grasp by their flickering tails. He woke suddenly. Something had moved nearby.

On the top of the bank, where the bright sun would always shine, stood Poyly.

‘Gren, my sweet!’ she said, when his slight movement revealed him. ‘I have left the others to be with you and be your mate.” His brain was clear now, clear and sharp as spring water. Many things were plain to him that had been hidden before. He jumped up.

Poyly looked down at him in the shade. With horror she saw the dark fungus growing from him as it had from the snaptrap trees and the killerwillows. It protruded from his hair, it formed a ridge down the nape of his neck, it stood like a ruff half way round his collarbone. It glistened darkly in its intricate patterns.

‘Gren! The fungus!’ she cried in horror, backing away. ‘It’s all over you!’

He climbed out rapidly and caught her by the hand.

‘It’s all right, Poyly, there’s no cause for alarm. The fungus is called morel. It will not hurt us. It can help us.’ At first Poyly did not answer. She knew the way in the forest, and in Nomansland. Things looked after themselves, not after others. Dimly she guessed that the real purpose of the morel was to feed on others and to propagate itself as widely as possible; and that to this end it might be clever enough to kill its hosts as slowly as possible. `The fungus is bad, Gren,’ she said. ‘How can it be anything but bad?’ Gren fell on his knee and pulled her down with him, murmuringly reassuring as he did so. He stroked her russet hair. ‘Morel can teach us many things,’ he said. ‘We can be so much better than we are. We are poor creasures; surely there’s no harm in being better creatures?’ ‘How can the fungus make us better?’ In Gren’s head, morel spoke. ‘She surely shall not die. Two heads are better than one. Your eyes shall be opened. Why—you’ll be like gods!’ Almost word for word, Gren repeated to Poyly what morel had said. ‘Perhaps you know best, Gren,’ she said falteringly. ‘You were always very clever.’ ‘You can be clever, too,’ he whispered. Reluctantly she lay back in his arms, nestling against him. A slab of fungus fell from Gren’s neck on to her forehead. She stirred and struggled, made as if to protest, then closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they were very clear.

Like another Eve, she drew Gren to her. They made love in the warm sunlight, letting their wooden souls fall as they undid their belts. At last they stood up, smiling at each other.

Gren glanced down at their feet. ‘We’ve dropped our souls,’ he said. She made a careless gesture. ‘Leave them, Gren. They’re only a nuisance. We don’t need them any more.’

They kissed and stretched and began to think of other things, already completely accustomed to the crown of fungus on their heads. ‘We don’t have to worry about Toy and the others,’ Poyly said. ‘They have left us open a way back to the forest. Look!’

She led him round a tall tree. A wall of smoke drifted gently inland where flame had bitten a path back to the banyan. Hand in hand, they walked together towards that way out of Nomansland, their dangerous Eden.

PART TWO

11

Little silent things without minds sped around the highway, appearing from and disappearing into the dark greens that surrounded it.

Two fruit cases moved along the highway. From under them, two pairs of eyes looked askance at the silent things, and flitted here and there like the things themselves in their search for danger. The highway was a vertical one; the anxious eyes could see neither its beginning nor its end. Occasional branches forked horizontally from the highway; these were ignored in the slow but steady progress. The surface of the highway was rough, providing excellent holds for the moving fingers and toes that protruded from the fruit cases. Also, the surface was cylindrical, for the highway was one trunk of the mighty banyan tree.

The two fruit cases moved from its middle layers towards the ground below. Foliage gradually filtered out the light, so that they seemed to move in a green mist towards a tunnel of black. At last the leading fruit case hesitated and turned aside on to one of the horizontal branches, pursuing a scarcely visible trail. The other case followed it. Together they sat up, half leaning against each other, and with their backs to their erstwhile highway.

‘I fear going down towards the Ground,’ Poyly said, from under her case. ‘We must go where the morel directs,’ Gren said with patience, explaining as he had explained before.

‘He has more wisdom than we have. Now that we are on the trail of another group, it would be foolish to disobey him. How can we live in the forest on our own?’ He knew that the morel in her head was soothing her with similar arguments. Yet ever since he and Poyly had left Nomansland several sleeps ago, she had been uneasy, her self-exile from the group having imposed on her a greater strain than she had expected.

‘We should have made a stronger effort to pick up the trail of Toy and our other friends,’ Poyly said. ‘If we had waited till the fire died down we might have found them.’

‘We had to move on because you were afraid of being burnt,’ Gren said. ‘Besides, you know Toy would not have taken us back. She had no mercy or understanding even of you, her friend.’

At this, Poyly merely grunted, and silence fell between them. Then she began again.

‘Need we go farther?’ she asked in a tiny voice, taking hold of Gren’s wrist.

Then they waited with a timorous patience for another voice that they knew would answer them.

‘Yes, you shall go farther, Poyly and Gren, for I advise you to go and I am stronger than you.’ The voice was already familiar to them both. It was a voice made without lips and heard without ears, a voice born and dying within their heads like a jack-in-the-box eternally imprisoned in its little chest. It had the tone of a dusty harp.

‘I have brought you so far in safety,’ the morel continued, ‘and I will take you farther in safety. I taught you to wear the fruit cases for camouflage and already we have come a long way in them unharmed. Go a little farther and there will be glory for you.’

‘We need a rest, morel,’ Gren said.

‘Rest and then we will go on. We have found the traces of another human tribe—this is not the time to be faint of heart. We must find the tribe.’

Obeying the voice, the two humans lay down to rest. The cumbersome skins, hacked from two of the oedematous fruits of the forest, crudely pierced with holes for their legs and arms, prevented them from lying flat. They crouched as they could, limbs sprawling upwards as if they had been crushed to death by the weight of the leafage above them.

Like a distracting background hum, the thoughts of the morel ran somewhere beyond their supervision. In this age of vegetables, plants specialized in size while remaining brainless; the morel fungus, however, had specialized in intelligence—the sharp and limited intelligence of the jungle. To further its own wider propagation, it could become parasitic on other species, adding its deductive powers to their mobility. The particular individual which had bisected itself to take over both Poyly and Gren, laboured under constant surprise as it discovered in their nervous centre something owned by no other creature—a memory that included dim racial memories hidden even from their possessors.

Although the morel remained unaware of the phrase ‘In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king,’ it was nevertheless in the same position of power. The life forms of the great hothouse world lived out their days in ferocity or flight, pursuit or peace, before falling to the green and forming compost for the next generation. For them there was no past and no future; they were like figures woven into a tapestry, without depth. The morel, tapping human minds, was different. It had perspective.

It was the first creature in a billion years to be able to look back down the long avenues of time. Prospects emerged that frightened, dizzied, and nearly silenced the harp-like cadences of its voice.

‘How can morel protect us from the terrors of the Ground?’

Poyly asked after a spell. ‘How can he protect us from a wilt-milt or a dripperlip?’

‘He knows things,’ Gren said simply. ‘He made us put on these fruit skins to hide us from enemies. They have kept us safe. When we find this other tribe we will be still safer.’

‘My fruit skin chafes my thighs,’ Poyly said, with a womanly gift for irrelevance that eons of time had not quenched.

As she lay there, she felt her mate’s hand grope for her thigh and rub it tenderly. But her eyes still wandered among the boughs overhead, alert for danger.

A vegetable thing as bright as a parakeet fluttered down and settled on a branch above them. Almost at once a jittermop fell from its concealment above, dropping smack on to the vegbird. Antipathetic liquids splashed. Then the broken vegbird was drawn up out of sight, only a smear of green juice marking where it had been.

‘A jittermop, Gren! We should move on,’ Poyly said, ‘before it falls on us.’

The morel too had seen this struggle—had in fact watched with approval, for vegbirds were great fanciers of a tasty morel.

‘We will move, humans, if you are ready,’ it said. One pretext for moving on was as good as another; being parasitic, it needed no rest.

They were reluctant to move from their temporary comfort even to avoid a jittermop, so the morel prodded them. As yet it was gentle enough with them, not wishing to provoke a contest of wills and needing their co-operation. Its ultimate objective was vague, vain-glorious, and splendid. It saw itself reproducing again and again, until fungus covered the whole Earth, filling hill and valley with its convolutions.

Such an end could not be achieved without humans. They would be its means. Now—in its cold leisurely way—it needed as many humans under its sway as it could get. So it prodded. So Gren and Poyly obeyed.

They climbed back head downwards on to the trunk that was their highway, clinging to its rounded surface, and resumed their advance.

Other creatures used the same route, some harmless like the leafabians, making their endless leafy caravanserais from the depths of the jungle to its heights, some far from harmless, green in tooth and claw. But one species had left minute distinguishing marks down the trunk: a stab mark here, a stain there, that to a trained eye meant that humanity was somewhere near at hand. It was this trail the two humans followed.

The great tree and the denizens of its shade went about their business in silence. So did Gren and Poyly. When the marks they pursued turned along a side branch, they turned too, without discussion.

So they continued, horizontally and vertically, until Poyly glimpsed movement. A flitting human form revealed itself. Ducking among the leaves, it plunged for safety into a clump of fuzzypuzzle on a branch ahead—just the mystery of it, then silence.

They had seen no more than a flash of shoulder and a glimpse of face alert under flying hair, yet it had an electrifying effect on Poyly.

‘She’ll escape if we don’t catch her,’ she told Gren. ‘Let me go and try to get her! Keep watch, in case her companions are near.’

‘Let me go.’

‘No, I’ll get her. Make a noise to distract her attention when you think I’m ready to pounce.’

Shucking off her fruit case and sliding forward on her belly, she edged over the curve of the branch until she hung upside down under it. As she began to work her way along, the morel, anxious for its own safety in an exposed position, invaded her mind. Her perceptions became extraordinarily sharp, her vision clearer, her skin more sensitive.

‘Go in from behind. Capture it, don’t kill it, and it will lead us to the rest of its tribe,’ twanged the voice in her head.

‘Hush, or she’ll hear,’ Poyly breathed.

‘Only you and Gren can hear me, Poyly; you are my kingdom.’

Poyly crawled beyond the fuzzypuzzle patch before climbing on to the upper side of the branch again, never rustling the leaves about her as she did so. Slowly she slid forward.

Above the soft lollipop buds of the fuzzypuzzle she spied her quarry’s head. A fine young female was looking guardedly about, eyes dark and liquid under a sheltering hand and a crown of hair.

‘She did not recognize you under your fruit cases as human, so she hides from you,’ said the morel.

That was silly, Poyly thought to herself. Whether this female recognized us or not, she would always hide from strangers. The morel sucked the thought from her brain and understood why his reasoning had been false; for all he had already learnt, the whole notion of a human being was still alien to him.

Tactfully he removed himself from Poyly’s mind, leaving her free to tackle the stranger in her own way.

Poyly moved a step nearer, and another step, bent almost double. Head down, she waited for Gren to signal as instructed.

On the other side of the fuzzypuzzle patch, Gren shook a twig. The strange female peered in the direction of the noise, her tongue running over her open lips. Before she could pull the knife from her belt, Poyly jumped on her from behind.

They struggled in among the soft fibres, the stranger grappling for Poyly’s throat. Poyly in return bit her in the shoulder. Bursting in, Gren gripped the stranger round her neck and tugged her backwards until her saffron hair fell about his face. The girl put up a savage struggle, but they had her. Soon she was bound and lay on the branch looking up at them.

‘You have done well! Now she will lead us -‘ began the morel.

‘Quiet!’ Gren rasped, so that the fungus instantly obeyed. Something was moving fast in the layers of the tree above them. Gren knew the forest. He knew how predators were attracted by the sounds of struggle. Hardly had he spoken when a thinpin came spiralling down the nearest trunk like a spring and launched itself at them.

Gren was ready for it. Swords are useless against thinpins. He caught it a blow with a stick, sending it spinning. It anchored itself by a springy tail before rearing to strike again—and a rayplane curved down from the foliage above, snapped up the thinpin, and swooped on.

Poyly and Gren flung themselves flat beside their captive and waited. The terrible silences of the forest came in again like a tide all round them, and it was safe once more.

12

Their captive was almost speechless. She pouted and tossed her head in answer to Poyly’s questions. They elicited from her only the fact that she went by the name of Yattmur. Obviously she was alarmed by the sinister ruff about their necks and the glistening lumps on their heads.

‘Morel, she is too fearful to speak,’ Gren said, moved by the beauty of the girl who sat bound at their feet. ‘She does not care for the look of you. Shall we leave her and go on? We’ll find other humans.’ ‘Hit her and then she may speak,’ twanged the silent voice of the morel. ‘But that will make her more fearful.’ ‘It may loosen her tongue. Hit her face, on that cheek you seem to admire -‘

‘Even though she is causing me no danger?’ ‘You silly creature, why can you never use all of your brain at once? She causes us all danger by delaying us.’

‘I suppose she does. I never thought of that. You think deep, morel, that I must admit.’ ‘Then do as I say and hit her.’ Gren raised his hand hesitantly. Morel twitched at his muscles. The hand came down violently across

Yattmur’s cheek, jerking her head. Poyly winced and looked questioningly at her mate. ‘You foul creature! My tribe will kill you,’ Yattmur threatened, showing her teeth at them. His eyes gleaming, Gren raised his hand again. ‘Do you want another blow? Tell us where you live.’

The girl struggled ineffectually.

‘I am only a herder. You do wrong to harm me if you are of my kind. What harm did I do you? I was only gathering fruit.’ ‘We need answers to questions. You will not be hurt if you answer our questions.’ Again his hand came up, and this time she surrendered.

‘I am a herder—I herd the jumpvils. It is not my job to fight or to answer questions. I can take you to my tribe if you wish.’

‘Tell us where your tribe is.’ ‘It lives on the Skirt of the Black Mouth, which is only a small way from here. We are peaceful people. We don’t jump out of the sky on to other humans.’

‘The Skirt of the Black Mouth? Will you take us there?’ ‘Do you mean us harm?’ ‘We mean no harm to anyone. Besides you can see there are only two of us. Why should you be afraid?’ Yattmur put on a sullen face, as if she doubted his words. ‘You must let me up then, and set my arms free. My people shall not see me with tied hands. I will not run away from you.’ ‘My sword through your side if you do,’ Gren said. ‘You are learning,’ the morel said with approval. Poyly released Yattmur from her bonds. The girl smoothed her hair, rubbed her wrists, and began to climb among the silent leaves, her two captors following close. They exchanged no more words, but in Poyly’s heart doubts rose, particularly when she saw that the endless uniformity of the banyan was breaking.

Following Yattmur, they descended the tree. One great mass of broken stone crowned with nettlemoss and berrywish thrust itself up beside their way, and then another. But although they descended, it grew lighter overhead; which meant the banyan was here far from its average height. Its branches twisted and thinned. A spear of sunlight pierced through the travellers. The Tips were almost meeting the ground. What could it mean?

Poyly whispered the question in her mind, and the morel answered.

‘The forest must fail somewhere. We are coming to a broken land where it cannot grow. Do not be alarmed.’ ‘We must be coming to the Skirt of the Black Mouth. I fear the sound of it, morel. Let us go back before we meet fatal trouble.’ ‘We have no back to go to, Poyly. We are wanderers. We can only go on. Have no fear. I will help you and I shall never leave you.’

Now the branches grew too weak and narrow to bear them. With a flying leap, Yattmur threw herself on to a massive outcrop of rock. Poyly and Gren landed beside her. They lay there looking at each other questioningly. Then Yattmur raised a hand.

‘Listen! Some jumpvils are coming!’ she exclaimed, as a sound came like rain through the forest. ‘These are the beasts my tribe catches.’

Below their island of rock stretched the ground. It was not the foul quagmire of decay and death about which Gren and Poyly had so often been warned in their tribal days. It was curiously broken and pitted, like a frozen sea, and coloured red and black. Few plants grew in it. Instead, it seemed to have a frozen life of its own, so indented was it with holes that had stretched themselves into agonized navels, eye sockets, or leering mouths.

`The rocks have evil faces,’ Poyly whispered as she gazed down.

‘Quiet! They’re coming this way,’ Yattmur said.

As they looked and listened, a horde of strange creatures poured over the pitted ground, loping from the depths of the forest with a strange gait. They were fibrous creatures, plants that over an immensity of eons had roughly learnt to copy the hare family.

Their running was slow and clumsy by the standards of the animals they superseded. As they moved, their fibrous sinews cracked sharply; they lurched from side to side. Each jumpvil had a head all scoop jaw and enormous ears, while its body was without line and irregularly coloured. The front legs were more like poor stumps, small and clumsy, while the hind pair were much longer and captured at least something of the grace of an animal’s leg.

Little of this was apparent to Gren and Poyly. To them, the jumpvils were merely a strange new species of creature with inexplicably ill-shaped legs. To Yattmur they meant something different.

Before they came into sight she pulled a weighted line from round her waist and balanced it between her hands. As the hordes thudded and clacked below the rock, she flung it dexterously. The line extended itself into a sort of elementary net, with the weights swinging at key points.

It tripped three of the queer-limbed creatures. At once Yattmur scrambled down, jumped at the jumpvils before they could right themselves, and secured them to the line.

All the rest of the herd parted, ran on, and disappeared. The three that had been captured stood submissively in vegetable defeat. Yattmur looked challengingly at Gren and Poyly as if relieved to have shown her mettle—but Poyly ignored her, pointing into the clearing ahead of them and shrinking against her companion.

‘Gren! Look! A—monster, Gren!’ she said in a strangled voice. ‘Did I not say this place was evil?’

Against a wide shoulder of rock, and near the path of the fleeing jumpvils, a silvery envelope was inflating. It stretched out into a great globe far higher than any human.

‘It’s a greenguts! Don’t watch it!’ Yattmur said. ‘It makes a bad thing for humans!’

But they stared, fascinated, for the envelope was now a soggy sphere, and on that sphere grew one eye, a huge jelly-like eye with a green pupil. The eye swivelled until it appeared to be regarding the humans. A vast gap appeared low down in the envelope. The last few retreating jumpvils saw it, paused, then staggered round on a new course. Six of them jumped through the gap, which at once closed over them like a mouth, while the envelope began to collapse. ‘Living shadows!’ Gren gasped. ‘What is it?’ ‘It is a greenguts,’ Yattmur said. ‘Have you never seen one before? Many of them live near here, stuck to the tall rocks. Come, I must take these jumpvils to the tribe.’

The morel thought differently. It twanged in the heads of Gren and Poyly. Reluctantly they moved towards the shoulder of rock. The greenguts had entirely collapsed. It was drawn in, adhering to the rock like so many folds of wet tissue. A still moving bulge near the ground marked its bag of jumpvils. As they surveyed it in horror, it surveyed them with its one striated green eye. Then the eye closed, and they seemed to be looking only at rock. The camouflage was perfect.

‘It cannot hurt us,’ twanged the morel. ‘It is nothing but a stomach.’

They moved away. Again they followed Yattmur, walking painfully on the broken ground, the three captive creatures humping along at their side as if this was something they did every day. The ground sloped upwards. In their heads, the morel suggested that this was why the banyan was falling away overhead, and waited to see what they would answer. Poyly said, ‘Perhaps these jumpvils have long back legs to help them get uphill.’ ‘It must be so,’ said the morel. But that’s absurd, thought Gren, for what about when they want to run downhill again? The morel cannot know everything, or it would not agree to Poyly’s silly idea. ‘You are right that I do not know everything,’ twanged the morel, surprising him. ‘But I am capable of learning quickly, which you are not—for unlike some past members of your race, you work mainly by instinct.’ ‘What is instinct?’ ‘Green thoughts,’ said the morel, and would not elaborate. At length Yattmur halted. Her first sullenness had worn away, as if the journey had made them friends.

She was almost gay. ‘You are standing in the middle of my tribal area, where you wished to be,’ she said. ‘Call them, then; tell them that we come with good desires and that I shall speak to them,’ Gren said, adding anxiously for the morel’s benefit, ‘but I don’t know what to say to them.’ ‘I shall tell you,’ twanged the morel. Yattmur raised a clenched hand to her lips and blew a piping note through it. Alertly, Poyly and her mate looked about them…. Leaves rustled, and they became surrounded by warriors who seemed to rise up from the ground. Glancing upwards, Poyly saw strange faces there regarding her from the branches overhead.

The three jumpvils shuffled uneasily. Gren and Poyly stood absolutely still, allowing themselves to be inspected. Slowly Yattmur’s tribe came closer. Most of them, as was customary, were female, with flowers adorning their private parts. All were armed, many were as striking of feature as Yattmur. Several wore round their waists the same weighted trapping lines that Yattmur had carried.

‘Herders,’ Yattmur said, ‘I have brought you two strangers, Poyly and Gren, who wish to join us.’ Prompted by the morel, Poyly said, ‘We are wanderers who will do you no harm. Make us welcome if you wish to Go Up in peace. We need rest and shelter now, and later we can show you our skills.’

One of the group, a stocky woman with braided hair in which was inserted a gleaming shell, stood forward. She held out her hand palm upwards. ‘Greetings, strangers, I am called Hutweer. I lead these herders. If you join us, you follow me. Do you consent to that?’

If we do not consent, they may kill us, thought Gren. Right from the first we must show we are leaders, replied the morel. Their knives point at us, Gren told it. We must lead from the start or not at all, the morel returned. As they stood wrapped in conflict, Hutweer clapped her hands impatiently. ‘Answer, strangers! Will you follow Hutweer?’ We must agree, morel. No Gren, we cannot afford to. But they will kill us! You must kill her first then, Poyly! No! I say yes.

No…. No…. No…. Their thoughts grew more fierce as a three-cornered argument grew up. ‘Herders, alert!’ Hutweer called. Dropping her hand to her sword belt, she came a pace nearer, her face stern. Obviously these strangers were not friends. To the strangers something strange was happening. They began to writhe, as if in an unearthly dance.

Poyly’s hands twisted up to the darkly glistening ruff about her neck, and then curved away as if dragged by force. Both of them twisted slowly and stamped their feet. Their faces stretched and wrinkled in an unknown pain. From their mouths came foam, and in their extremity they urinated upon the hard ground.

Slowly they moved, staggered, turned, arching their bodies, biting their lips, while their eyes glared madly at nothing. The herders dropped back in awe.

`They fell on me from the sky! They must be spirits!’ Yattmur cried, covering her face. Hutweer dropped the sword she had drawn, her countenance pale. It was a sign to her followers. With frightened haste they dropped their weapons, hiding their faces in their hands.

Directly the morel saw that it had inadvertently achieved what it had wished to do, it ceased trying to impose its will on Gren and Poyly. As the wrenching pressure on their minds relaxed, they would have fallen had the fungus not stiffened them again.

‘We have won the victory we need, Poyly,’ it said in its harp-like voice. ‘Hutweer kneels before us. Now you must speak to them.’ ‘I hate you, morel,’ she said sullenly. ‘Make Gren do your work—I won’t.’

Strongly prompted by the fungus, Gren went over to Hutweer and took her hand. ‘Now you have acknowledged us,’ he said, ‘you need fear no more. Only never forget that we are spirits inhabited by spirits. We will work with you. Together we shall establish a mighty tribe where we can live in peace. Human beings will no longer be fugitives of the forest. We are going to lead you out of the forest to greatness.’

‘The way out of the forest is only just ahead,’ Yattmur ventured. She had handed the captive jumpvils to one of the other women, and now came forward to hear what Gren was saying. ‘We will lead you farther than that,’ he told her.

‘Will you free us from the spirit of the Black Mouth?’ Hutweer enquired boldly. ‘You shall be led as you deserve,’ Gren declared. ‘First my fellow spirit Poyly and I desire food and sleep, then we will talk with you. Take us now to your place of safety.’

Hutweer bowed—and disappeared into the ground beneath her feet.

13

The tortured lava bed on which they were standing was pierced by many holes. Under some of these, the earth had fallen away or had been scooped out by the herders to form a hideout below ground level. Here they lived in something like safety and something like darkness, in a cave provided with boltholes conveniently situated overhead.

With Yattmur helping them, Poyly and Gren were induced to go down into the gloom more gently than

Hutweer had done. There they were seated on couches and a meal was brought to them almost at once. They tasted jumpvil, which the herders had flavoured in a way unknown to the two travellers, with spices to make it tempting and peppers to make it hot. Jumpvil, Yattmur explained, was one of their chief dishes; but they had a speciality, and this was now set before Gren and Poyly with some deference.

‘It is called fish,’ Yattmur said, when they expressed their satisfaction with it. ‘It comes from the Long Water that pours from the Black Mouth.’

At this, the morel became attentive and made Gren ask, ‘How do you catch this fish if it lives in water?’ ‘We do not catch them. We do not go to the Long Water, for a tribe of strange men called Fishers live there. Sometimes we meet them, and as we are at peace with them we exchange our jumpvil for their fish.’

The life of the herders sounded pleasant. Trying to work out exactly what their advantages were, Poyly asked Hutweer, ‘Are there not many enemies around you?’

Hutweer smiled. ‘There are very few enemies here. Our big enemy, the Black Mouth, swallows them. We live near the Black Mouth because we believe one big enemy is easier to deal with than a lot of small ones.’

At this the morel began to confer urgently with Gren. Gren had now learnt to talk in his mind with the morel without speaking aloud, an art Poyly never mastered. ‘We must examine this Mouth of which they talk so much.’ the morel twanged. ‘The sooner the better. And since you have lost face by eating with them like an ordinary human, you must also make them a stirring speech. The two must go together. Let us find out this Mouth and show them how little we fear it by speaking there.’ ‘No, morel! You think clever but you don’t think sense! If these fine herders fear the Black Mouth, I am prepared to do the same.’

‘If you think like that, we are lost.’ ‘Poyly and I are tired. You do not know what tiredness is. Let us sleep as you promised us we could.’ ‘You are always sleeping. First we must show how strong we are.’ ‘How can we when we are weak from tiredness?’ Poyly interposed.

‘Do you want to be killed while you sleep?’

So the morel had its way, and Gren and Poyly demanded to be taken to look at the Black Mouth.

At this the herders were startled. Hutweer silenced their murmurs of apprehension.

‘It shall be as you say, O Spirits. Come forth, Iccall,’ she cried, and at once a young male with a white wishbone in his hair jumped forward. He held his palm upwards in greeting to Poyly.

‘Young Iccall is our best Singer,’ Hutweer said. ‘With him you will come to no harm. He will show you the Black Mouth and bring you back here. We will await your return.’

They climbed up again in the broad and everlasting daylight. As they stood blinking, feeling the hot pumice beneath their feet, Iccall smiled brilliantly at Poyly and said, ‘I know you feel tired, but it is only a little way I have to take you.’

‘Oh, I’m not tired, thank you,’ Poyly said, smiling back, for Iccall had large dark eyes and a soft skin, and was as beautiful in his way as Yattmur. ‘That is a pretty bone in your hair, shaped like the veins of a leaf.’

‘They are very rare—perhaps I might get you one.’

‘Let’s move if we are going,’ Gren said sharply to Iccall, thinking he had never seen a man grin so foolishly. ‘How can a mere singer—if that is what you are—be any use against this mighty enemy, the Black Mouth?’

‘Because when the Mouth sings, I sing—and I sing better,’ said Iccall, not at all upset, and he led the way among the leaves and the broken pillars of rock, swaggering a little as he went.

As he foretold, they did not have far to go. The ground continued to rise gently and became more and more coated with the black and red igneous rock, so that nothing could grow there. Even the banyan, which had crossed a thousand miles of continent in its sinewy stride, was forced to draw back here. Its outmost trunks showed scars from the last lava flow, yet they dropped aerial roots which explored among the rock for nourishment with greedy fingers.

Iccall brushed past these roots and crouched behind a boulder, beckoning them to join him. He pointed ahead.

‘There is Black Mouth,’ he whispered.

For Poyly and Gren it was a strange experience. The whole idea of open country was completely unknown to them; they were forest folk. Now their eyes stared ahead in wonder that a prospect could be so strange.

Broken and tumbled, the lava field stretched away from them into the distance. It tilted and shaped up towards the sky until it turned into a great ragged cone. The cone in its sad eminence dominated the scene, for all that it stood some distance away.

`That is the Black Mouth,’ whispered Iccall again, watching the awe on Poyly’s face.

He stabbed his finger to a suspiration of smoke that rose from the lip of the cone and trickled up into the sky.

‘The Mouth breathes,’ he said.

Gren pulled his eyes away from the cone to the forest beyond it, the eternal forest reasserting itself. Then his eyes were drawn back to the cone as he felt the morel grope deep into his mind with a dizzying sensation that made him brush his hand over his forehead. His sight blurred as the morel expressed resentment of his gesture.

The morel bored down deeper into the sludge of Gren’s unconscious memory like a drunken man pawing through the faded photographs of a legacy. Confusion overwhelmed Gren; he too glimpsed these brief pictures, some of them extremely poignant, without being able to grasp their content. Swooning, he pitched over on to the lava.

Poyly and Iccall lifted him up—but already the fit was over and the morel had what it needed.

Triumphantly it flashed a picture at Gren. As he revived, the morel explained to him.

‘These herders fear shadows, Gren. We need not fear. Their mighty Mouth is only a volcano, and a small one at that. It will do no harm. Probably it is all but extinct.’ And he showed Gren and Poyly what a volcano was from the knowledge he had dredged out of their memory.

Reassured, they returned to the tribe’s subterranean home, where Hutweer, Yattmur and the others awaited them.

‘We have seen your Black Mouth and have no fear of it,’ Gren declared. ‘We shall sleep in peace with quiet dreams.’

‘When the Black Mouth calls, everyone must go to it,’ Hutweer said. ‘Though you may be mighty, you scoff because you have only seen the Mouth in its silence. When it sings, we will see how you dance, O spirits!’

Poyly asked the whereabouts of the Fishers, the tribe Yattmur had mentioned.

‘From where we stood, we could not see their home trees,’ Iccall said. ‘From the belly of the Black Mouth comes the Long Water. That also we did not see for the rise of the land. Beside the Long Water stand the trees, and there live the Fishers, a strange people who worship their trees.’

At this the morel entered into Poyly’s thoughts, prompting her to ask, ‘If the Fishers live so much nearer to the Black Mouth than you, O Hutweer, by what magic do they survive when the Mouth calls?’

The herders muttered among themselves, keen to find an answer to her question. None presented itself to them. At length one of the women said, ‘The Fishers have long green tails, O spirit.’

This reply satisfied neither her nor the others. Gren laughed, and the morel launched him into a speech.

‘Oh you children of an empty mouth, you know too little and guess too much! Can you believe that people are able to grow long green tails? You are simple and helpless and we will lead you. We shall go down to the Long Water when we have slept and all of you will follow.

‘There we will make a Great Tribe, at first uniting with the Fishers, and then with other tribes in the forests. No longer shall we run in fear. All other things will fear us.’

In the reticulations of the morel’s brain grew a picture of the plantation these humans would make for it. There it would propagate in peace, tended by its humans. At present—it felt the handicap strongly—it had not sufficient bulk to bisect itself again, and so take over some of the herders. But as soon as it could manage it, the day would come when it would grow in peace in a well-tended plantation, there to take over control of all humanity. Eagerly it compelled Gren to speak again.

‘We shall no longer be poor things of the undergrowth. We will kill the undergrowth. We will kill the jungle and all its bad things. We will allow only good things. We will have gardens and in them we will grow—strength and more strength, until the world is ours as it was once long ago.’

Silence fell. The herders looked uneasily at each other, anxious yet self-defiant.

In her head, Poyly thought that the things Gren said were too big and without meaning. Gren himself was past caring. Though he looked on the morel as a strong friend, he hated the sensation of being forced to speak and act in a way often just beyond his comprehension.

Wearily, he flung himself down into a corner and dropped asleep almost immediately. Equally indifferent to what the others thought, Poyly too lay down and went to sleep.

At first the herders stood looking down in puzzlement at them. Then Hutweer clapped her hands for them to disperse.

‘Let them sleep for now,’ she said.

“They are such strange people! I will stay by them,’ Yattmur said.

‘There is no need for that; time enough to worry about them when they wake,’ said Hutweer, pushing Yattmur on ahead of her.

‘We shall see how these spirits behave when the spirit of the Black Mouth sings,’ Iccall said, as he climbed outside.

14

While Poyly and Gren slept, the morel did not sleep. Sleep was not in its nature.

At present the morel was like a small boy who dashes into a cave only to find it full of jewels; he had staggered into wealth unsuspected even by its owner and was so constituted that he could not help examining it. His first predatory investigation merged into excited wonder.

That sleep which Gren and Poyly slept was disturbed by many strange fantasies. Whole blocks of past experience loomed up like cities in a fog, blazed on their dreaming eye, and were gone. Working with no preconceptions which might have provoked antagonism from the unconscious levels through which it sank, the morel burrowed back through the obscure corridors of memory where Gren’s and Poyly’s intuitive responses were stored.

The journey was long. Many of its signs, obnubilated by countless generations, were misleading. The morel worked down to records of the days before the sun had begun to radiate extra energy, to the days when man was a far more intelligent and aggressive being than his present arboreal counterpart. It surveyed the great civilizations in wonder and puzzlement—and then it plunged back still further, far back, into much the longest mistiest epoch of man’s history, before history began, before he had so much as a fire to warm him at night, or a brain to guide his hand at hunting.

And there the morel, groping among the very shards of human memory, made its astonishing find. It lay inert for many heartbeats before it could digest something of the import of what it chanced on.

Twanging at their brains, it roused Gren and Poyly. Though they turned over exhaustedly, there was no escaping that inner voice.

‘Gren! Poyly! I have made a great discovery! We are more nearly brothers than you know!’

Pulsing with an emotion they had never before known it to show, the morel forced on them pictures stored in their own limbos of unconscious memory.

It showed them first the great age of man, an age of fine cities and roads, an age of hazardous journeys to the nearer planets. The time was one of great organization and aspiration, of communities, communes, and committees. Yet the people were not noticeably happier than their predecessors. Like their predecessors, they lived in the shade of various pressures and antagonisms. All too easily they were crushed by the million under economic or total warfare.

Next, the morel showed, Earth’s temperatures began to climb as the sun went into its destructive phase. Confident in their technology, the people prepared to meet this emergency.

‘Show us no more,’ Poyly whimpered, for these scenes were very bright and painful. But the morel paid her no heed and continued to force knowledge upon her.

As their preparations were being made, people began to fall sick. The sun was pouring out a new band of radiation, and gradually all mankind succumbed to the strange sickness. It affected their skin, their eyes -and their brains.

After a prolonged spell of suffering, they became immune to the radiations. They crawled forth from their beds. But something had changed. They no longer had the power to command and cogitate and fight.

They were like different creatures!

They crawled away from their great and beautiful towns, left their cities, deserted their houses—as if all that had once been home had suddenly become alien. Their social structures also collapsed, and all organization died overnight. From then on, the weeds began to flourish in the streets, and the pollen to blow over the cash registers; the advance of the jungle had begun.

The downfall of man happened not gradually but in one dreadful rush, like the collapse of a tall tower.

‘It’s enough,’ Gren told the morel, struggling against its power. ‘What is past is no concern of ours. Why should we care what happened so very long ago? You’ve worried us enough! Let us sleep.’

A curious sensation took him, as if his inside were being rattled while his outside remained still. The morel was metaphorically shaking him by the shoulders.

‘You are so indifferent,’ twanged the morel, still gripped by excitement. ‘You must attend. Look! We are going back now to very distant days, when man had no history or heritage, when he was not even Man. He was then a puny thing similar to what you are now—’

And Poyly and Gren could do nothing but see the visions that followed. Though the glimpses were blurred and muddy, they watched tarsier-like people sliding down trees and running barefoot among the ferns. They were small people, nervous and without language. They squatted and pranced and hid in bushes. No detail was clear, for there had never been clear perception to record it. Scents and sounds were sharp—yet taunting as a riddle. The humans saw merely flashes of half-light, as in that primaeval world the little lives scampered and enjoyed and died.

For no reason that they recognized, nostalgia flooded them and Poyly wept.

A clearer picture came. A group of the little people paddled in marsh under giant ferns. From the ferns, things dropped and landed on their heads. The things that dropped were recognizable as morel fungi.

‘In that early oligocene world, my kind was the first to develop intelligence,’ twanged the morel. “There’s the proof of it! In ideal conditions of gloom and moisture we first discovered the power of thought. But thought needs limbs it can direct. So we became parasitic on those small creatures, your remote ancestors!’

And it pushed Poyly and Gren forward in time again, showing them the true history of the development of man, which was also the history of the morels. For the morels, which began as parasites, developed into symbiotes.

At first they clung to the outsides of the skulls of the tarsier-people. Then as those people prospered under the connection, as they were taught to organize and hunt, they were induced, generation by slow generation, to increase their skull capacity. At last the vulnerable morels were able to move inside, to become truly a part of the people, to improve their own abilities under a curving shelter of bone..

‘So the real race of men developed,’ intoned the morel, throwing up a storm of pictures. “They grew and conquered the world, forgetting the origins of their success, the morel brains which lived and died with them…. Without us, they would still have remained among the trees, even as your tribes live now without our aid.’

To enforce its point, it again provoked their latent memories of the time when the sun had entered its latest phase and all mankind fell sick.

‘Men were physically stronger than morels. Though they survived the stepping-up of solar radiation, their symbiotic brains did not.They quietly died, boiled alive in the little bone shelters they had fashioned for themselves. Man was left… to fend for himself equipped only with his natural brains, which were no better than those of the higher animals…. Small wonder he lost his splendid cities and took again to the trees!’

‘It means nothing to us… nothing at all,’ Gren whimpered. ‘Why do you haunt us now with this ancient disaster, which all finished uncounted millions of years ago?’

The morel gave a silent noise like laughter in his head.

‘Because the drama may not yet be finished! I am a sturdier strain than those of my bygone ancestors; I can tolerate high radiation. So can your kind. Now is the historic moment for us to begin another symbiosis as great and profitable as the one which once tempered those tarsiers until they rode among the stars! Again the clocks of intelligence begin to chime. The clocks have hands again….’ ‘Gren, he is mad and I do not understand!’ Poyly cried, appalled by the turmoil behind her closed eyes. ‘Hear the clocks chime!’ twanged the morel. ‘They chime for us, children!’ ‘Oh, oh! I can hear them!’ Gren moaned, twisting restlessly where he lay. And in all their ears came a sound to drown all else, a chiming sound like diabolic music. ‘Gren, we are all going mad!’ Poyly cried. ‘The terrible noises!’

‘The chimes, the chimes!’ the morel twanged. Then Poyly and Gren awoke, sitting up in a sweat with the morel afire about their heads and necks—and the terrible sound still came, more terrible still!

Through the disturbed race of their thoughts they perceived that they were now the sole occupants of the cavern under the lava bed. All the herders had gone. The terrifying noises they could hear came from outside. Why they should be so frightening was hard to say. The main sound was almost a melody, though it gave no prospect of resolution. It sang not to the ear but to the blood, and the blood responded by alternately freezing and racing to its call.

‘We must go!’ Poyly said, struggling up. ‘It’s singing for us to go.’ ‘What have I done?’ wailed the morel. ‘What’s gone wrong?’ Gren asked. ‘Why do we have to go?’ They clung together in fear, yet the urge in their veins would not let them remain. Their limbs moved

without obedience. Whatever the dreadful tune was, it had to be followed to its source. Even the morel had no thought but to do otherwise. Regardless of their bodies, they scrambled up the rock fall that served as stairs and into the open, to find themselves in the midst of nightmare.

Now the awful melody blew about them like a wind, though not a leaf moved. Frenziedly it plucked and tugged at their limbs. Nor were they the only creatures answering that syren call. Flying things and running things and hopping things and things that slithered battered their way through the clearing, all heading in one direction—towards the Black Mouth.

“The Black Mouth!’ the morel cried. “The Black Mouth sings to us and we must go!’ It tugged not only at their ears but at their eyes. Their very retinas were partially drained of sensation, so that all the world appeared in black and white and grey. White the sky glimpsed overhead, grey the foliage that dappled it, black and grey the rocks distorted beneath their running feet. With hands extended before them, Gren and Poyly began to run amid the running things. Now through a maelstrom of dread and compulsion they saw the herders.

Like so many shadows, the herders stood against the last trunks of the banyan. They had strapped or tied themselves there with ropes. In the centre of them, also tied, stood Iccall the Singer. Now he sang! He sang in a peculiarly uncomfortable position, as if disfigured, as if his neck were broken, with his head hanging down and his eyes wildly fixed on the ground.

He sang with all his voice and all his heart’s blood. The song came valiantly out, flinging itself against the might of the Black Mouth’s song. It had a power of its own, a power to counteract the evil that would otherwise have drawn all the herders out towards the source of that other melody.

The herders listened with grim intensity to what he sang. Yet they were not idle. Lashed to the tree trunks, they cast their line nets before them, trapping the creatures that poured past them to the undeniable call.

Poyly and Gren could not make out the words of Iccall’s song. They had not been trained to it. Its message was overridden by the emanations from the mighty Mouth.

Wildly, they fought against that emanation—wildly but fruitlessly. Despite themselves, they stumbled on. Fluttering things struck them on the cheeks. The whole black and white world heaved and crawled in one direction alone! Only the herders were immune while they listened to Iccall’s song.

When Gren stumbled, galloping vegetable creatures hopped over him.

Then the jumpvils poured by, teeming through the jungle. Still desperately listening to Iccall’s song, the herders snared them as they flocked past, staying them and slaying them in the middle of the melee.

Poyly and Gren were passing the last of the herders. They were moving faster as the dreadful melody grew stronger. The open lay ahead of them. Framed in a canopy of foreground branches stood the distant Black Mouth! A strangled cry of—what? admiration? horror?—was torn from their lips at that spectacle.

Terror now had forms and legs and feelings, animated by the Black Mouth’s song.

Towards it—they saw with their drained eyes—poured a stream of life, answering that accursed call, making as fast as it could go over the lava field, and up the volcanic slopes, and finally throwing itself in triumph over the lip and into that great aperture!

Another chilling detail struck their eyes. Over the edge of the Mouth appeared three great long chitinous fingers which waved and enticed and kept time to the fateful tune.

Both the humans screamed at the sight—yet they redoubled their speed, for the grey fingers beckoned them.

‘O Poyly! O Gren! Gren!’

The cry came as a will o’ the wisp. They did not pause. Gren managed a quick glance back, towards the jolting blacks and greys of the forest.

The last herder they had passed was Yattmur; regardless of Iccall’s song, she threw off the thong that tied her to the tree. Her hair was flying wild, she was plunging knee deep through the tide of life to join them. Her arms stretched out to him like those of a lover in a dream.

In the weird light her face was grey, but bravely she sang as she ran, a song like Iccall’s to counteract that other evil melody.

Gren faced ahead again, looking towards the Black Mouth, and instantly forgot about her. The long beckoning fingers beckoned him alone.

He had hold of Poyly’s hand, but as they dashed past one of the outcrops of rock, Yattmur snatched his free hand.

For a saving moment they paid her attention. For a saving moment her brave song rose uppermost in their attention. Like a flash the morel seized this chance to break from bondage.

‘Swerve aside!’ it twanged. ‘Swerve aside if you wish to live!’

A peculiar-looking copse of young shoots stood just by their path. Labouring hand in hand, they turned into its doubtful refuge. A jumpvil hurtled in ahead of them, no doubt looking for a short cut in its stampede. They plunged into the grey gloom.

At once the Black Mouth’s monstrous tune lost much of its power. Yattmur fell against Gren’s breast and sobbed—but all was still far from well.

Poyly touched one of the slender rods near her and screamed. A glutinous mass slid from the rod and over her head. She waved it and clutched it, hardly knowing what she did.

In despair they stared about, realizing they were in some kind of small enclosure. Their faulty vision had deceived them into entering a trap. Already the jumpvil that had entered before them was inextricably caught by the mess extruded from the rods.

Yattmur grasped the truth first.

‘A greenguts!’ she cried. ‘We’ve been swallowed by a greenguts!’

‘Cut our way out, quickly!’ twanged the morel. ‘Your sword, Gren—fast, fast! It’s closing on us.’

The gap had shut behind them. They were totally enclosed. The ‘ceiling’ started to crumble and come down on them. The illusion of being in a copse faded. They were in a greenguts’s stomach.

Wrenching out their swords, they began to defend their lives. As the rods about them—rods growing so cunningly to suggest the trunks of saplings—buckled and telescoped, so the ceiling lowered, its folds oozing a suffocating jelly. Jumping high, Gren slashed mightily with his sword. A great split appeared in the greenguts’s envelope.

The two girls helped him to enlarge it. As the bag crumpled down, they managed to get their heads through the rent, thus avoiding certain death.

But now the older menace reasserted itself. Again the death wail from the Mouth seized them by their bloodstreams. They hacked with redoubled energy at the greenguts, to get loose and answer that chilling call.

They were free now but for their feet and ankles, which were stuck in the jelly. The greenguts was firmly anchored to a shoulder of rock so that it could not obey the call of the Black Mouth. It had collapsed entirely now, its solitary eye mournfully, helplessly, regarding their attempts to cut it to pieces.

‘We must go!’ Poyly cried, and at last managed to drag herself free. With her aid, Gren and Yattmur also broke away from the ruined creature. It closed its eye as they hurried off.

The delay had been longer than they knew. The ooze on their feet impeded them. They made their way over the lava as well as they could, still jostled by other creatures. Yattmur was too exhausted to sing again. Their wills were blotted out by the strength of the Black Mouth’s song.

Thev started to scramble up the slopes of the cone, surrounded by a galloping phantasmagoria of life. Above them the three long fingers waved in sinister invitation. A fourth finger appeared, and then a fifth, as if whatever it was in the volcano was working itself up to a climax.

Their eyes saw everything in a fuzz of grey as the melody swelled to an unbearable intensity and their hearts laboured. The jumpvils really showed their paces, their long back legs enabling them to bound up the steeper slopes. They poured by, jumped on to the lip of the crater and then took their final leap to whatever lured them.

The humans were filled with longing to meet the dread singer.. Panting, impeded by the mess about their feet, they scrambled across the last few yards that separated them from the Black lip.

The dreadful melody ceased in mid-note. So unexpected was it, they fell flat on their faces. Exhaustion and relief washed over them. They lay with closed eyes, sobbing together. The melody had stopped, had stopped, entirely stopped.

After many pulses of his blood had gone by, Gren opened one eye.

The colours of the world were returning to normal again, white flooding with pink again, grey turning to blue and green and yellow, black dissolving into the sombre hues of the forest. By the same token, the overmastering desire in him turned to a revulsion for what they had been about to do.

The creatures round about that were too late to suffer the privilege of being swallowed by the Black Mouth evidently felt as he did. They turned and limped back towards the shelter of the forest, slowly at first and then faster, until their earlier stampede was reversed.

Soon the landscape was deserted.

Above the humans, five terrible long fingers came to rest precisely together on the lip of the Black Mouth. Then one by one they were withdrawn, leaving Gren with a vision of some unimaginable monster picking its teeth after an obscene repast.

‘But for the greenguts we’d be dead by now,’ he said. ‘Are you all right, Poyly?’

‘Let me alone,’ she said. Her face remained buried in her hands.

‘Are you strong enough to walk? For the gods’ sake let’s get back to the herders,’ he said.

‘Wait!’ Yattmur exclaimed. ‘You deceived Hutweer and the others into thinking you were great spirits. By your running to the Black Mouth, they will know now you are not great spirits. Because you deceived them, they will surely kill you if you return.” Gren and Poyly looked at each other hopelessly. Despite the manoeuvres of the morel, they had been pleased to be with a tribe again; the prospect of having to wander alone once more did not please them.

‘Fear not,’ twanged the morel, reading their thought. ‘There are other tribes! What of these Fishers of which we heard? They sounded a more docile tribe than the herders. Ask Yattmur to lead us there.’

‘Are the Fishers far away?’ Gren asked the girl herder. She smiled at him and pressed his hand. ‘It will be pleasant to take you to them. You can see where they live from here.’

Yattmur pointed down the flanks of the volcano. In the opposite direction to that from which they had come, an opening was apparent at the base of the Black Mouth. From the opening came a swift broad stream.

‘There runs Long Water,’ Yattmur said. ‘Do you see the strange bulb-shaped trees, three of them in number, growing on the bank? That is where the Fishers live.’ She smiled, looking Gren in the face. The beauty of her stole over his senses like a tangible thing. ‘Let’s get out of this crater, Poyly,’ he said. ‘That dreadful singing monster…” she said, stretching out a hand. Taking it, Gren pulled her to her feet. Yattmur regarded them both without speaking.

‘Off we go, then,’ she said sharply. She took the lead and they began sliding down towards the water, ever and anon glancing back fearfully over their shoulders to make sure that nothing came climbing out of the volcano after them.

15

At the foot of the Black Mouth they came to the stream called Long Water. Once they had escaped from the shadow of the volcano, they lay in the warmth by the river bank. The waters ran dark and fast and smooth. On the opposite bank, the jungle began again, presenting a colonnade of trunks to the onlookers. On the near bank, lava checked that luxuriant growth for some yards. Poyly dipped her hand into the water. So fast was it running that a bow wave formed against her palm.

She splashed her forehead and rubbed her wet hand over her face. ‘I am so tired,’ she said, ‘tired and sick. I want to go no farther. All these parts here are so strange—not like the happy middle layers of jungle where we lived with Lily-yo. What happens to the world here? Does it go mad here, or fall apart? Does it end here?’ ‘The world has to end somewhere,’ Yattmur said. ‘Where it ends may be a good place for us to start it going again,’ twanged the morel.

‘We shall feel better when we are rested,’ Gren said. ‘And then you must return to your herders, Yattmur.’

As he looked at her, a movement behind him caught his eye. He spun round, sword in hand, jumping up to confront three hairy men who seemed to have materialized out of the ground.

The girls jumped up too. ‘Don’t hurt them, Gren,’ Yattmur cried. ‘These are Fishers and they will be perfectly harmless.’ And indeed the newcomers looked harmless. At second glance, Gren was less sure that they were human. All three were plump and their flesh beneath the abundant hair was spongy, almost like rotting vegetable matter. Though they wore knives in their belts, they carried no weapon in their hands, and their hands hung aimlessly by their sides. Their belts, plaited out of jungle creepers, were their only adornments. On their three faces, their three expressions of mild stupidity were so simliar as to represent almost a uniform.

Gren took in one other noteworthy fact about them before they spoke: each had a long green tail, even as the herders had said. ‘Do you bring us food for eating?’ the first of them asked. ‘Have you brought us food for our tummies?’ asked the second.

‘Can we eat any food you have brought?’ asked the third. “They think you are of my tribe, which is the only tribe they know,’ Yattmur said. Turning to the Fishers, she replied, ‘We have no food for your bellies, O Fishers. We did not come to see you, only to travel.’

‘We have no fish for you,’ replied the first Fisher, and the three of them added almost in chorus, ‘Very soon the time for fishing will be here.’ ‘We have nothing to exchange for food, but we should be glad of some fish to eat,’ Gren said. ‘We have no fish for you. We have no fish for us. The time for fishing will soon be here,’ the Fishers said. ‘Yes. I heard you the first time,’ Gren said. ‘What I mean is, will you give us fish when you have it?’

‘Fish is fine to eat. There is fish for everyone when it comes.’ ‘Good,’ Gren said, adding for the benefit of Poyly, Yattmur and the morel, ‘these seem very simple people.’

‘Simple or not, they didn’t go chasing up the Black Mouth trying to kill themselves,” the morel said. ‘We must ask them about that. How did they resist its beastly song? Let’s go to their place, as they seem harmless enough.’

‘We will come with you,’ Gren told the Fishers.

‘We are going to catch fish when the fish come soon. You people do not know how to catch.’ ‘Then we will come and watch you catch fish.’ The three Fishers looked at each other, a slight uneasiness ruffling the surface of their stupidity. Without saying a word more, they turned and walked away along the river bank. Given no option, the others followed.

‘How much do you know of these people, Yattmur?’ Poyly asked. ‘Very little. We trade sometimes, as you know, but my people fear the Fishers because they are so strange, as if they were dead. They never leave this little strip of river bank.’

‘They can’t be complete fools, for they know enough to eat well,’ Gren said, regarding the plump flanks of the men ahead. ‘Look at the way they carry their tails!’ Poyly exclaimed. ‘These are curious folk. I never saw the like.’

“They would be simple for me to command,’ thought the morel. As they walked, the Fishers reeled in their tails, holding them in neat coils in their right hands; the action, done so easily, was clearly automatic. For the first time, the others saw that these tails were extraordinarily long; in fact, the ends of them were not visible. Where they joined the Fishers’ bodies, a sort of soft green pad formed at the base of their spines.

Suddenly and in unison the Fishers stopped and turned.

‘You can come no further now,’ they said. ‘We are near our trees and you must not come with us. Stop here and soon we will bring you fish.’ ‘Why can’t we come any farther?’ Gren asked. One of the Fishers laughed unexpectedly. ‘Because you have no tail! Now wait here and soon we will bring you fish.’ And he walked on with his companion, not even bothering to look back and see if his order was being obeyed.

‘These are curious folk,’ Poyly said again. ‘I don’t like them, Gren. They are not like people at all. Let us leave them; we can easily find our own food.’ ‘Nonsense! They may be very useful to us,’ twanged the morel. ‘You see they have a boat of some kind down there.’ Farther down the bank, several of the people with long green tails were working. They laboured under the trees, dragging what looked like some sort of a net into their boat. This boat, a heavy barge-like craft, rode tight in against the near bank, plunging occasionally in the stiff current of Long Water. The first three Fishers rejoined the main party and helped them with the net. Their movements were languid, although they appeared to be working with haste.

Poyly’s gaze wandered from them to the three trees in the shade of which they worked. She had never seen trees like them before, and their unusual aspect made her more uneasy.

Standing apart from all other vegetation, the trees bore a resemblance to giant pineapples. A collar of spiny leaves projected outwards direct from the ground, protecting the central fleshy trunk, which in each of the three cases was swollen into a massive knobbly ovoid. From the knobs of the ovoid sprouted long trailers; from the top of the ovoid sprouted more leaves, spiny and sharp, extending some two hundred feet into the air, or hanging stiffly out over Long Water.

‘Poyly, let us go and look more closely at those trees,’ the morel twanged urgently. ‘Gren and Yattmur will wait here and watch us.’

‘I do not like these people or this place, morel,’ Poyly said. ‘And I will not leave Gren here with this woman, do what you will.’

‘I shall not touch your mate,’ Yattmur said indignantly. ‘What makes you think such a silly thing?’

Poyly staggered forward under a sudden compulsion from the morel. She looked appealingly at Gren; but Gren was tired and did not meet her eye. Reluctantly she moved forward and soon was under the bloated trees. They towered above her, casting a spiked shade. Their swollen trunks stuck out like diseased stomachs.

The morel seemed not to feel their menace.

‘Just as I had assumed!’ it exclaimed after a long inspection. ‘Here is where the tails of our Fishers end. They are joined to the trees by their rumps—our simple friends belong to the trees.’

‘Humans do not grow from trees, morel. Did you not know -‘ She paused, for a hand had fallen on her shoulder.

She turned. One of the Fishers confronted her, looking her closely in the face with his blank eyes and puffing out his cheeks.

‘You must not come under the trees,’ he said. ‘Their shade is sacred. We said you must not come under our trees and you did not remember we said it. I will take you back to your friends who have not come with you.’

Poyly’s eye travelled down his tail. Even as the morel had claimed, it joined on to the swelling of the nearest spiky tree. She felt a shiver of dread and moved away from him.

‘Obey him!’ twanged the morel. “There is evil here, Poyly. We must fight it. Let him walk with us back to the others and then we will capture him and ask him a few questions.’

This will cause trouble, she thought, but at once the morel filled her mind saying, ‘We need these people and perhaps we need their boat.’

So she yielded to the Fisher and he grasped her arm and walked her slowly back to Gren and Yattmur, who watched this performance intently. As they went, the Fisher solemnly paid out his tail.

‘Now!’ cried the morel, when they reached the others.

Forced on by his will, Poyly flung herself on the Fisher’s back. The move was so sudden that he staggered and fell forward.

‘Help me!’ Poyly called. Before she had spoken, Gren was springing forward with his knife ready. And at the same moment a cry came from all the other Fishers. They dropped their great net and began in unison to run towards Gren and his party, their feet padding heavily over the ground.

‘Quickly, Gren, cut this creature’s tail off,’ Poyly said, prompted by the morel, as she struggled in the dust to keep her opponent down.

Without questioning her, for the morel’s orders were in his mind too, Gren reached forward and slashed once.

The green tail was severed a foot from the Fisher’s rump. At once the man ceased struggling. The tail that had been attached to him commenced a writhing motion, lashing the ground like an injured snake, and catching Gren in its coils. He slashed at it again. Leaking sap, it curled and went looping back to the tree. As if this were a signal, the other Fishers came to a standstillen masse; they milled about aimlessly and then turned and went indifferently back to loading their net into the boat.

‘Praise the gods for that!’ Yattmur exclaimed, brushing her hair back. ‘What made you attack this poor fellow, Poyly, jumping on him from behind as you did with me?’

‘All these Fishers are not like us, Yattmur. They can’t be human at all—their tails attach them to the three trees.’ Not meeting the other girl’s eyes, Poyly stared down at the stump of tail on the fellow weeping at her feet.

‘These fat Fisher people are slaves of the trees,’ twanged the morel. ‘It is disgusting. The trailers from the trees grow into their backbones and compel the men to guard them. Look at this poor wretch grovelling here—a slave!’

‘Is it worse than what you do with us, morel?’ Poyly asked, showing signs of tears. ‘Is it any different? Why don’t you let us go? I had no wish to attack this fellow.’

‘I help you—I save your lives. Now, attend to this poor Fisher and let’s have no more silly talk from you.’

The poor Fisher was attending to himself, sitting up and examining a knee that had been grazed in his fall on to the rock. He gazed at them with an anxiety that still did not remove the simplicity from his countenance. Huddled there, he looked like a roughly rounded lump of dough.

‘You can get up,’ Gren told him gently, extending his hand to help the fellow to his feet. ‘You’re shaking. There’s nothing to be afraid of. We won’t hurt you if you answer our questions.’

The Fisher broke into a torrent of words, most of it incomprehensible, gesturing with his broad hands as he talked.

‘Speak slowly. You’re talking about the trees? What are you saying?’

‘Please…. The tummy-tree, yes. I and them all one part, all tummy or tummy-hands. Tummy-head to think for me where I serve Tummy-trees. You kill my tummy-cord, I feel no good in my veins, no good sap. You wild lost people with no Tummy-tree, not have the sap to see what I say….’

‘Stop it! Talk sense, you great tummy! You’re human, aren’t you? You call those big swollen plants Tummy-trees? And you have to serve them? When did they catch you? How long ago?’

The Fisher put his hand to the height of his knee, rolled his head stupidly and burst into speech again.

‘No-high the Tummy-tree take us, cuddle, bed, save snugly like mothers. Babies go in the soft folds, just legs to see, keep on sucking at the tummy, get put on a tummy-cord to walk. Please you let me go back, try find a new tummy-cord or I’m a poor baby too without one.’

Poyly, Gren and Yattmur stared at him as he chattered, not taking in half he said.

‘I don’t understand,’ Yattmur whispered. ‘He talked more sense before his tail was cut off.’

‘We’ve set you free—we’ll set all your friends free,’ Gren said, the morel prompting him. ‘We’ll take you all away from these filthy Tummy-trees. You’ll be free, free to work with us and start a new life, slaves no longer.’

‘No, no, please…. Tummy-trees grow us like flowers! We have no want to be wild men like you, no lovely Tummy-trees -‘

‘Shut up about the trees!’ Gren raised his hand and at once the other fell silent, biting his lips and scratching his fat thighs in anguish. ‘We are your liberators and you should be grateful to us. Now, tell us quickly, what is this fishing we’ve heard about? When does it start? Soon?’

‘Soon now, so soon, please,’ the Fisher said, trying to catch Gren’s hand in entreaty. ‘Most times, no fishy swim in Long Water, cut too sharply on out the hole of Black Mouth, so no fish swim. And if no fish means no fishing, see? Then the Black Mouth sings to all things to be a meal for him in his mouth, and so Tummy-trees make us big mummy noise, cuddle us up, not let us be any meal in his mouth. Then short time Mouth make rest, no sing, no eat, no noise. Then Mouth drop away what he eat not need not eat not have, drop away in Long Water under his self. Then up come big fish big hunger big eat all drop-away pieces, we quick Tummy-men Fishers go out catch big fish big hunger in big net, feed big glad Tummy-tree, feed Tummy-men, all feed -‘

‘All right, that’ll do,’ Gren said, and the Fishers subsided wretchedly, standing on one foot with the other. As they began an excited discussion, he sank to the ground, holding his head dolorously in his hands.

With the morel, Gren and Poyly quickly came to a plan of action.

‘We can save them all from this humiliating way of life,’ Gren said.

`They don’t want to be saved,’ Yattmur said. ‘They’re happy.’

‘They’re horrible,’ Poyly said.

While they were talking, the Long Water changed colour. A myriad bits and pieces erupted on to its surface, dappling it as they were swept along in the direction of the Tummy-trees.

“The remains of the Mouth’s feast,’ Gren exclaimed. ‘Come on, before the boat casts off and the Fishers start to fish. Out with your knives.’

Impelled by the morel, he bounded off, Poyly and Yattmur following. Only the later cast a backward glance at the Fisher. He was rolling on the ground in a bout of misery, indifferent to everything but his own wretchedness.

The rest of the Fishers had by now loaded their net into the boat. On seeing the refuse in the stream they gave a cheer and climbed into the vessel, each paying out his tail over the stern as he went. The last one was scrambling aboard as Gren and the women rushed up.

‘Jump for it!’ Gren shouted, and the three of them jumped, landing on the crude and creaking deck close together. In unison, the nearer Fishers turned to face them,

Unwieldly though it was, built under the direction of the pseudo-aware Tummy-trees, the boat was made to serve a particular purpose: to catch the big scavenger fish of Long Water. It boasted neither oars nor sail, since its only function was to drag a heavy net across the stream from one bank to the other. Accordingly, a stout woven rope had been stretched across the water and anchored to trees on either side. To this rope the boat was loosely secured through a series of eyes, thus preventing its being swept away on the flood. It was manoeuvred across the river by simple brute force, half the Fishers pulling on the guide rope while the others lowered the net into place. So it had been from dimmest times.

Routine governed the Fishers’ lives. When the three intruders landed in their midst, neither they nor the Tummy-trees knew clearly what action to take. Divided in purpose, the Fishers were made half to continue hauling the boat into mid-stream and half to defend their position.

With one uniform rush, the defence force charged at Gren and the girls.

Yattmur glanced over her shoulder. It was too late to jump ashore again; they were away from the bank. She drew her knife and stood by Gren and Poyly. As the Fishers fell at them, she plunged it into the stomach of the nearest man. He stumbled, but others bore her down. Her knife went skidding over the deck and her hands were pinned before she could draw her sword.

The fat men flung themselves at Poyly and Gren. Though they fought desperately, they too were borne down.

Evidently the Fishers and their pot-bellied masters ashore had not thought to use knives until they saw Yattmur’s. Now—as one man—they all produced knives.

Through Gren’s brain, amid his panic and fury, seared the angry jangle of the morel’s thoughts.

‘You brainless tarsiers! Waste no time on these dolls of men. Cut their umbilical cords, their tails, their tails, you fools! Hack their tails off and they’ll not harm you!’

Cursing, ramming a knee into a groin and knuckles into an attacker’s face, Gren knocked aside a down-curving knife and twisted over on to his knees. Impelled by the morel, he grasped another Fisher by the neck, wrenching it savagely and then flinging the man aside. Now his way was clear. With a leap he was up on the stern.

The green tails lay there, thirty of them together, stretching over to the shore.

Gren let out a shout of triumph. Then he brought his blade down.

Half a dozen slashes in cold anger and the thing was done!

The boat rocked violently. The Fishers jerked and fell. All their activity stopped. They moaned and cried, picking themselves up to stand helplessly together in a knot, their severed tails dangling. Shorn of its motive power, the boat rested in mid-stream.

‘You see,’ remarked the morel, ‘the fight is over.’

As Poyly picked herself up, a flailing movement caught her eye, and she looked at the bank they had left. A low cry of horror was wrenched from her lips. Gren and Yattmur turned to stare where she did. They stood transfixed, their knives still grasped in their hands.

‘Get down!’ Poyly shouted.

Scintillant leaves like toothed swords whirled above them. The three Tummy-trees heaved in wrath. Bereft of their willing slaves, they were lashing the tall leaves that formed their poll into action. Their whole bulk trembled as the dark green blades flashed above the vessel.

As Poyly flung herself flat, the first leaf struck, throwing a great raw weal across the rough wood of the deck. Splinters flew. A second and a third blow fell. Such a terrible bombardment, she knew, would kill them all in no time.

The unnatural anger of these trees was fearful to see. Poyly did not let it paralyse her. As Gren and Yattmur crouched under the frail shelter of the stern, she jumped up. Without heeding the morel to guide her, she leant over the side and hacked at the tough fibres that kept the boat square across the river.

Armoured leaves flayed near her. The Fishers were struck once and then again. Parabolas of blood patterned the deck. Crying, the poor creatures tumbled together while their limbs bled and they staggered from the centre of the deck. Still the trees struck out mercilessly.

Tough though the securing rope was, it parted at last under Poyly’s attack. She gave a shout of triumph as the boat freed itself and swayed round under the force of the water.

She was still climbing to cover when the next leaf crashed down. The spines along one fleshy edge of it raked her with full force across the chest.

‘Poyly!’ Gren and Yattmur cried with one voice, springing up.

They never reached her. The blow caught her off balance. She doubled up as blood came weeping from her wound. As her knees buckled she fell backwards. Momentarily her eyes caught Gren’s in tender appeal, and then she disappeared over the side and hit the waters.

They rushed to the side and peered down. An extra turbidity marked where she had sunk. One hand appeared on the surface, its fingers outspread, severed from its arm. It vanished almost at once in a welter of smooth fish bodies and then there was no more sign of Poyly.

Falling on to the deck, beating his fists on it in sorrow, Gren cried to the morel.

‘Could you not have saved her, you miserable fungus, you useless growth? Could you not have done something? What did you ever bring her but trouble?’

A long silence followed. Gren called at it again—in grief and hatred. At length the morel spoke in a small voice. ‘Half of me is dead,’ it whispered.

16

By this time the boat had begun to whirl away down the flood. Already they were safe from the Tummy-trees, which fell rapidly behind, their murderous polls still beating the water into lines of spray.

Seeing that they were being carried off, the Fishers began a chorus of groans. Yattmur paraded before them with her knife out, allowing herself to show no pity for their wounds. ‘You Tummy-belly men! You long-tailed sons of swollen plants. Cease your noise! Someone real has died and you shall mourn her or I’ll throw you all overboard with my own two hands.’

At that the Fishers fell into abject silence. Grouped humbly together, they comforted each other and licked each other’s wounds. Running over to Gren, Yattmur put her arm round him and pressed her cheek against his. Only for a moment did he try to resist her.

‘Don’t mourn too much for Poyly. She was fine in life—but a time comes for all of us to fall to the green. I am here now, and I will be your mate.’

‘You will want to get back to your tribe, to the herders,’ Gren said miserably. ‘Ha! They lie far behind us. How shall I get back? Stand up and see how fast we are being swept along! I can hardly see the Black Mouth now—it’s no bigger than one of my nipples. We are in danger, O Gren. Rouse yourself! Ask your magical friend the morel where we are going.’

‘I don’t care what happens to us now.’ ‘Look Gren -‘ A shout rose from the Fishers. They showed a sort of apathetic interest, pointing ahead and calling, which was enough to pull Yattmur and Gren up at once. Their boat was rapidly being swept towards another. More than one Fishers’ colony grew by the banks of the Long Water. Another loomed ahead. Two bulging Tummy-trees marked its position. This colony’s net was out across the stream, its boat resting against the far bank, full of Fishers. Their tails hung over the river along the top of the net. ‘We’re going to hit them!’ Gren said. ‘What are we going to do?’ ‘No, we shall miss their boat. Perhaps their net will stop us. Then we can get safely ashore.’ ‘Look at these fools climbing on to the sides of the boat. They’ll be jerked overboard.’ He called to the

Fishers in question, who were swarming over the bows. ‘Hey, you Short-tails! get down there, or you’ll be flung into the water.’ His cry was drowned by their shouts and the roar of the water. They were rushing irresistibly toward the other boat. Next moment they struck the net that stretched across their path.

The cumbersome boat squealed and lurched. Several Fishers were flung down into the water by the impact. One of them managed to jump the narrowing distance into the other boat. The two vessels struck glancingly, cannoned off each other—and then the securing rope across the river broke.

They whirled free again, to go racing on down the flood. The other boat, being already against the bank, stayed there, bumping uncomfortably. Many of its crew were scampering about the bank; some had been flung into the stream, some had had their tails lopped off. But their misadventures remained hidden for ever more as Gren’s boat swept round a grand curve and jungle closed in on both sides.

‘Now what do we do?’ Yattmur asked, trembling.

Gren shrugged his shoulders. He had no ideas. The world had revealeditself as too big and too terrible for him.

‘Wake up, morel,’ he said. ‘What happens to us now? You got us into this trouble—now get us out of it.’

For answer the morel started turning his mind upside down. Dizzied, Gren sat down heavily. Yattmur clasped his hands while phantoms of memory and thought fluttered before his mental gaze. The morel was studying navigation.

Finally it said, ‘We need to steer this boat to get it to obey us. But there is nothing to steer it with. We must wait and see what happens.’

It was an admission of defeat. Gren sat on the deck with an arm round Yattmur, properly indifferent to everything external. His thoughts went back to the time when he and Poyly were careless children in the tribe of Lily-yo. Life had been so easy, so sweet then, and little had they realized it! Why, it had even been warmer; the sun had shone almost directly overhead.

He opened one eye. The sun was quite far down in the sky.

‘I’m cold,’ he said.

‘Huddle against me,’ Yattmur coaxed.

Some freshly plucked leaves lay near them; perhaps they had been plucked to wrap the Fishers’ expected catch of fish in. Yattmur pulled them over Gren and lay close against him, letting her arms steal round him.

He relaxed in her warmth. An interest in her awoke, he began instinctively to explore her body. She was as warm and sweet as childhood dreams, and pressed ardently against his touch. Her hands too began a journey of exploration. Lost in delight of each other they forgot the world. When he took her she was also taking him.

Even the morel was soothed by the pleasure of their actions under the warm leaves. The boat sped on down the river, occasionally bumping a bank, but never ceasing its progress.

After a while, it joined a much wider river and spun hopelessly in an eddy for some time, making them all dizzy. One of the wounded Fishers died here; he was thrown overboard; this might have been a signal, for at once the boat was released from the eddy and floated off again on the broad bosom of the waters.

Now the river was very wide, and spreading still farther, so that in time they could see neither shore.

For the humans, especially for Gren to whom the idea of long empty distances was foreign, it was an unknown world. They stared out at the expanse only to turn away shivering and hide their eyes. Everywhere was motion!—and not only beneath them in the restless water. A cool wind had sprung up, a wind that would have lost its way in the measureless miles of the forest but was here master of all it passed over. It scuffed the water with its invisible footsteps, it jostled the boat and made it creak, it splashed spray in the troubled faces of the Fishers, it ruffled their hair and blew it across their ears. Gaining strength, it chilled their skins and drew a gauze of cloud over the sky, obscuring the traversers that drifted there.

Two dozen Fishers remained in the boat, six of them suffering badly from the attack of the Tummy-trees. They made no attempt to approach Gren and Yattmur at first, lying together like a living monument to despair. First one and then another of the wounded died and was cast overboard, amid desultory mourning.

So they were carried out into the ocean.

The great width of the river prevented them from being attacked by the giant seaweeds which fringed the coasts. Nothing, indeed, marked their transition from river to estuary or from estuary to sea; the broad brown roll of fresh water continued far into the surrounding salt waves.

Gradually the brown faded into green and blue depths, and the wind stiffened, taking them in a different direction, parallel with the coast. The mighty forest looked no bigger than a leaf.

One of the Fishers, urged by his companions, came humbly over to Gren and Yattmur where they lay resting among the leaves. He bowed to them.

‘O great herders, hear us speak when we speak if you let me start talking,’ he said.

Gren said sharply, ‘We will do you no harm, fat fellow. We are in trouble just as you are. Can’t you understand that? We meant to help you, and that we shall do if the world turns dry again. But try to gather your thoughts together so that you talk sense. What do you want?’

The man bowed low. Behind him, his companion bowed low in heart-sick imitation.

‘Great herder, we see you since you come. We clever Tummy-tree chaps are seeing your size. So we know you will soon love to kill us when you jump up from playing the sandwich game along with your lady in the leaves. We clever chaps are not fools, and not fools are clever to make glad dying for you. All the same sadness makes us not clever to die with no feeding. All we poor sad clever Tummy-men have no feeding and pray you give us feeding because we have no mummy Tummy-feeding -‘

Gren gestured impatiently.

‘We’ve no food either,’ he said. ‘We are humans like you. We too must fend for ourselves.’

‘Alas, we did not dare to have any hopes you would share your food with us, for your food is sacred and you wish to see us starve. You are very clever to hide from us the jumpvil food we know you always carry. We are glad, great herder, that you make us starve if our dying makes you have a laugh and a gay song and another sandwich game. Because we are humble, we do not need food to die with….” ‘I really will kill these creatures,’ Gren said savagely, releasing Yattmur and sitting up. ‘Morel, what do we do with them? You got us into this trouble. Help us get out of it.’

‘Make them throw their net over the side and catch fish,’ twanged the morel. ‘Good!’ Gren said. He jumped up, pulling Yattmur with him, and began shouting orders at the Fishers. Miserably, incompetently, f awningly, they arranged their net and cast it over the side of the vessel. The sea here teemed with life. No sooner was the net down than something big tugged at it—tugged and began unfalteringly to climb it. The boat listed over to one side. With a cry, the Fishers fell away as a great pair of claws rattled over the gunwhales. Gren was beneath them. Without thought, he pulled out his knife and smote.

A lobster head bigger than his own loomed up before him. An eyestalk went flying—and another, as he smote again. Soundlessly, the marine monster released its hold and fell back into the depths, leaving a frightened band of Fishers moaning in the scuppers. Almost as frightened himself—for he sensed the morel’s fear in his mind—Gren rounded on them, kicking and shouting.

‘Get up, you flabby tummy-bellies! Would you lie there and die? Well I won’t let you. Get up and haul the net in again before we get any more monsters in on us. Come on, move! Get this net in! Jump to it, you blubbering brutes!’

‘O great herder, you may throw us to the wonders of the wet world and we will not complain. We may not complain! You see we praise you even when you fetch up the beasts of the wet world upon us and we are too lowly to complain, so be merciful -‘

‘Merciful! I’ll flay you alive if you don’t get that net in at once. Move!’ he yelled, and they moved, the hair on their flanks fluttering in the breeze. The line came over the side laden with creatures that splashed and flapped about their ankles. ‘Wonderful!’ Yattmur cried, squeezing Gren. ‘I am so hungry, my love. Now we shall live! Soon there will be an end to this Long Water, I know.’

But the boat drifted as it would. They went to sleep once more and then a second time, and the weather grew no warmer and then they woke to find the deck motionless beneath them. Gren opened his eyes. A stretch of sand and bushes met his gaze. He and Yattmur were alone in the boat.

‘Morel!’ he cried, leaping to his feet. ‘You never sleep—why did you not wake me and tell us that the water had stopped? And the flabby-bellies have escaped!’ He looked round at the ocean that had brought them here. Yattmur stood up silently, hugging her breasts and regarding with wonder a great peak that rose sheer from the nearby bushes.

The morel made something like a ghostly chuckle in Gren’s mind. “The Fishers will not get far—let them find out the dangers for us first. I let you and Yattmur sleep on so that you would feel fresh. You need all your energies. This may be the place where we build our new kingdom, my friend!’

Gren made a doubtful move. No traversers were visible overhead, and he took it as a bad omen. All there was to be seen, apart from the forbidding island and the wastes of ocean, was a speedseed bird, sailing along under the ceiling of high cloud.

‘I suppose we’d better get ashore,’ Gren said.

I’d rather stay in the boat,’ Yattmur said, eyeing the great cliff of rock with apprehension. But when he put out a hand to her, she took it and climbed over the side without fuss.

He could hear her teeth chattering.

They stood on the unwelcoming beach, testing it for menace.

The speedseed still flew along in the sky. It changed direction by a degree or so without interrupting the pulse of its flight. High over the ocean it soared, its wooden wings creaking like a fully rigged sailing ship.

The two humans heard its noise and looked up. The speedseed had sighted land. Slowing, it circled and began to lose height.

‘Is it after us?’ Yattmur asked.

A choice of cover presented itself. They could hide under their boat, or they could dive into the fringe of jungle that curled over the low forehead of the beach. The boat was flimsy shelter from a large bird, should it choose to attack; together, man and woman slid into the foliage.

Now the speedseed was plunging steeply. Its wings did not retract. Stiffly outspread, they jarred and vibrated through the air under increased momentum.

Formidable though it was, the speedseed remained but a crude imitation of the true birds which had once filled the skies of Earth. The last of the true birds had perished many eons ago, when the sun had begun to pour out increased energy as it moved into the last phase of its existence. Speedseeds imitated the form of an extinct avian class with a lordly inefficiency in keeping with the supremacy of the vegetable world. The vibratory racket of its wings filled the heavens.

‘Has it seen us, Gren?’ Yattmur asked, peering from under the leaves. It was cold in the shadow of the towering cliff.

For answer Gren merely clutched her arm tightly, staring up with slitted eyes. Because he was both frightened and angry, he did not trust himself to speak. The morel offered him no comfort, withdrawing itself to await events.

It now became obvious that the clumsy bird could not straighten out in time to avoid hitting the land. Down it came, its shadow swept black over the bush, the leaves stirred as it shot past behind a nearby tree—and silence fell. No sound of impact reached the humans, though the bird must have hit the ground not more than fifty yards from them.

‘Living shades!’ Gren exclaimed. ‘Did something swallow it?’ His mind backed hurriedly away from trying to visualize something big enough to swallow a speedseed bird.

17

They stood waiting, but nothing interrupted the silence. ‘It vanished like a ghost!’ Gren said. ‘Let’s go and see what happened to it.’ She clung to him to hold him back. `This is an unknown place, full of unknown perils,’ she said. ‘Let us not seek trouble when trouble is ready enough to seek us. We know nothing of where we are. First we must find what kind of place this is, and if we can live here.’ ‘I would rather find trouble than let it find me,’ Gren said. ‘But perhaps you are right, Yattmur. My bones tell me that this is not a good place. What has happened to those stupid tummy-belly men?’ They emerged on to the beach and started to walk slowly along it, the whole time looking watchfully about them, keeping an eye open for signs of their pitiful companions, moving between the flatness of the sea and the steepness of the great cliff. The signs they looked for were not far to seek. ‘They’ve been here,’ said Gren, running along the strand. Scuffed footprints and droppings marked the place where the tummy-belly men had paddled ashore.

Many of the prints were imprecise and pointed this way and that; handprints also were not uncommon, marking where the creatures had stumbled into one another and fallen. The marks clearly betrayed the lumpish and uncertain way in which the tummy-bellies had progressed. After a short distance they led into a narrow belt of trees with leathery and sad leaves that stood between beach and cliff. As Gren and Yattmur followed the prints into the gloom, a low sound made them stop. Moans came from near at hand.

Drawing out his knife, Gren spoke. Looking into the grove that drew nourishment what it could from the sandy soil, he called, ‘Whoever you are, come out before I haul you out squealing!’

The moans redoubled, a low threnody in which babbled words were distinguishable. ‘It’s a tummy-belly!’ Yattmur exclaimed. ‘Don’t be angry with him if he’s hurt.’ Her eyes had adjusted to the shade, and now she ran forward as she spoke and knelt on the sandy ground among the sharp grasses.

One of the fat Fishers lay there with three of his companions huddled against him. He shuddered violently away, half-rolling over, as Yattmur appeared.

‘I shan’t hurt you,’ Yattmur said. ‘We were searching to find where you had gone.’ ‘It is too late, for our hearts are broken by your not coming before,’ the man cried, tears rolling down his cheeks. Dried blood from a long scratch across one shoulder had matted his hair at that point, but Yattmur could see the wound was only superficial. ‘It’s a good thing we found you,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing much wrong with you. You must all get up now and return to the boat.’ At this the tummy-belly burst into fresh complaint; his fellows joined in the chorus, speaking in their peculiarly jumbled dialect. ‘O great herders, the sight of you adds to our miseries. How very much we rejoice to see you again, though we know you will kill us, poor helpless loveable tummy-fellows that we are.’

‘We are, we are, we are, and though our love is loving you, you cannot love us, for we are only miserable dirt and you are cruel murderers who are cruel to dirt.’ ‘You will kill us though we are dying! O how we admire your bravery, you clever tail-less heroes!’ ‘Stop this filthy babbling,’ Gren ordered. ‘We are not murderers and we have never desired to harm you.’ ‘How clever you are, master, to be pretending that cutting us off our lovely tails is no harm! O we thought you were dead and finished with making sandwiches in the boat when the watery world turned solid, so we crept away in good grief, crept away on all our feet because your snores were loud. Now you have caught us again and because you do not snore we know you will kill us!’

Gren slapped the cheek of the nearest creature, who wailed and writhed as if in mortal agony.

‘Be silent, blubbering fools! We shall not hurt you if you trust us. Stand up and tell us where the rest of your number is.’ His order only brought forth fresh lamentation. ‘You can see we four sad sufferers are fatally dying of the death that comes to all green and pink things, so you tell us to stand up, because to make any standing position will kill us badly, so that you kick us when our souls are gone and we can only be dead at you and not crying with our harmless mouths. O we fall down from our lying flat at such a sly idea, great herder!’

As they cried out, they tried blindly to grasp Yattmur and Gren’s ankles and kiss their feet, making the two humans skip about to avoid this embrace. ‘There’s very little wrong with the foolish creatures,’ said Yattmur, who had been trying to examine them during this orgy of lamentation. ‘They are scratched and bruised, nothing more.’

`I’ll soon heal them,’ Gren said. His ankle had been caught; he kicked out into a podgy face. Impelled by loathing, he grasped one of the other prone tummy-bellies and dragged the creature to its feet by force.

‘How wonderfully strong you are, master,’ it groaned, trying at once to kiss and bite his hands. ‘Your muscles and your cruelty are huge to poor little dying chaps like us whose blood is going bad inside them because of bad things and other bad things, alas!’

‘I’ll push your teeth down your throat if you don’t keep quiet,’ Gren promised.

With Yattmur’s help, he got the other three weeping tummy-bellies to their feet; as she had said, there was little wrong with them apart from self-pity. Silencing them, he asked them whither their sixteen companions had gone.

‘O wonderful no-tail, you spare this poor tiny number four to enjoy killing the big number sixteen. What self-sacrifice you sacrifice! We happily tell you of the happiness we feel in telling you which way went our jolly sad sixteen number, so we can be spared to go on living and enjoying your smacks and blows and cruel kicks in the noses of our tender face. The sixteen number laid us down here to die in peace before they ran on that way for you to catch them and play killing.’

And they pointed dejectedly along the shore.

‘Stay here and keep quiet,’ Gren ordered. ‘We will come back for you when we’ve found your fellows. Don’t go away or something may eat you.’

‘We will wait in fear even if we die first.’

‘See that you do.’

Gren and Yattmur set off along the beach. Silence descended; even the ocean made hardly a murmur as it nuzzled against the land; and they felt again a huge unease, as if a million eyes watched them unseen.

As they walked, they surveyed their surroundings. Creatures of the jungle, they would never face anything more alien than the sea; yet the land here held strangeness. It was not simply that the trees—with leathery leaves that seemed suitable for the colder climate—were of an unknown variety; nor that behind the trees there rose the steep cliff, so steep, so grey, so pitted, rising to a spire so far above their heads, that it dwarfed everything and seemed to cast a gloom over the whole scene.

Beside all these elements of visual strangeness was another, one to which they could give no name, but which seemed all the more obtrusive after their brush with the tummy-bellies. The murmuring silence of the beach contributed to their unease.

Taking a nervous glance across her shoulder, Yattmur looked up towards the towering cliff again. Gathering cloud scudding across the sky made that great wall look as if it were toppling.

Yattmur fell on her face and covered her eyes.

The mighty cliffs are crashing down on us!’ she cried, pulling Gren down with her.

He looked up once. The illusion caught him too: that grand and high tower was coming grandly down on top of them! Together they squeezed their soft bodies among the hard rocks, seeking safety by pressing their faces into damp shingly sand. They were creatures who belonged to the jungles of the hothouse world; so many things here were alien to them, they could respond only with fear.

Instinctively, Gren called the fungus that draped his head and neck.

‘Morel, save us! We trusted you and you brought us to this dreadful place. Now you must get us away from it, quickly before the cliff comes down on us.’ ‘If you die, I die,’ said the morel, sending its twanging harmonics through Gren’s head. It added more helpfully, ‘You can both get up. The clouds move; the cliff does not.’ A moment or two passed—an interval of waiting filled with the dirge of the ocean—before Gren dared to test the truth of this observation. At length, finding that no rocks cascaded down on to his naked body, he peered up. Feeling him move, Yattmur whimpered. Still the cliff seemed to fall. He braced himself to look at it more thoroughly. The cliff appeared to be sailing out of the heavens on to him, yet at last he assured himself that it did not move. He dared to look away from its pitted face and nudge Yattmur. ‘The cliff is not harming us yet,’ he said. ‘We can go on.’ She raised a woebegone face, its cheeks patterned redly where they had pressed against the tiny stones of the shore, some of which still clung there.

‘It is a magic cliff. It always falls yet it never falls,’ she said at last, after regarding the rock carefully. ‘I don’t like it. It has eyes to watch us.’ They scrambled on, Yattmur looking nervously up from time to time. Clouds were gathering, their shadows moving in from the sea. The shore curved sharply and continuously, its sands often buried under great masses of rock on which the jungle encroached at one end and the sea at the other. Over these masses they had laboriously to climb, moving as quietly as possible. ‘We shall soon be back where we started from,’ Gren said, looking back and finding that their boat was now concealed behind the central cliff. ‘Correct,’ twanged the morel. We are on a small island, Gren.’ ‘We can’t live here then, morel?’ ‘I think not.’ ‘How do we get away?’ ‘As we arrived—in the boat. Some of these giant leaves would serve us as sails.’ ‘We hate the boat, morel, and the watery world.’ ‘But you prefer them to death. How can we live here, Gren? It is merely a great round tower of rock skirted by a strip of sand.’

Gren lapsed into confused thought without reporting this unspoken conversation to Yattmur. The wise thing, he concluded, would be to postpone a decision until they had found the rest of the tummy-belly men.

He became aware of Yattmur looking more and more frequently over her shoulder at the high tower of rock. Bursting with nerves, he said, ‘What’s the matter with you? Look where you are going or you will break your neck.’

She took his hand.

‘Hush! It will hear you,’ she said. ‘This terrible big tower of cliff has a million eyes that watch us all the time.’

As he began to turn his head she seized his face, pulling him down with her behind a protruding rock.

‘Don’t let it see that we know,’ she whispered. ‘Peep at it from here.’

So he did, his mouth dry, his gaze going over that large and watchful surface of grey. Cloud had obscured the sun, rendering the rock in the dull light more forbidding than ever. Already he had noticed that it was pitted; now he saw how evenly spaced those pits were, how much they resembled sockets, how uncannily they seemed to stare down at him from the rock face.

‘You see!’ Yattmur said. ‘What terrible thing broods over this place? The place is haunted, Gren! What life have we seen since we came here? Nothing moving in the trees, nothing scampering on the beach, nothing climbing on that rock face. Only the speedseed, that something swallowed. Onlywe are alive, and for how much longer will that be?’

Even as she moaned, something moved on the tower of rock. The bleak eyes—now there was no mistaking them for anything else—rolled; countless numbers of them rolled in unison, and turned in a new direction as if to stare at something out to sea.

Compelled by the intensity of that stone gaze, Gren and Yattmur also turned. From where they crouched, only a section of the sea was visible, framed among the nearby broken rock lying on the beach. It was view enough for them to observe, far out on the grey waters, a commotion marking where a large swimming thing laboured towards the island.

‘O shades! That creature’s heading towards us! Do we run back to the boat?’ Yattmur asked.

‘Let’s lie still. It cannot have seen us between these rocks.’

‘The magic tower with eyes is calling it to come and devour us!’

‘Nonsense,’ said Gren, speaking also to his secret fears.

Hypnotized, they watched the sea thing. Spray made it difficult to distinguish its shape. Only two great flippers that flailed the water like crazy paddlewheels could be seen clearly at intervals. Occasionally they thought they could see a head poised as though straining towards the shore; but visibility was still failing.

The broad sheet of sea puckered. A rain curtain blew in from the heavy skies, cutting off sight of the sea creature and sousing everything with cold stinging droplets.

Obeying a common impulse, Gren and Yattmur dived for the trees, to stand dripping against one of the trunks. The rain redoubled its strength. For a moment they could see no farther than the tattered frill of whiteness that marked the margin of the sea.

From out of the wetness came a forlorn chord, a warning note as if the world were falling away. The sea creature was signalling for guidance. Almost at once it received answer. The island or the rock tower itself gave voice in return.

One hollow jarring note was wrenched from its very foundations. Not that it was a loud note; but it filled all things, spilling down to land and sea like the rain itself, as though every decibel was a drop that had to make itself individually felt. Shaken by the sound, Yattmur clung to Gren and cried.

Above her weeping, above the noise of the rain and sea, above the reverberations of the voice of the tower, another voice rose in a ragged intensity of fright and then died. It was a composite voice containing elements of supplication and reproach, and Gren recognized it.

`The missing tummy-belly men!’ he exclaimed. ‘They must be near at hand.’

He looked hopelessly about, dashing rain from his eyes as he did so. The great leathery leaves sagged and sprang up again under varying loads of water pouring off the cliff. Nothing but forest could be seen, forest bowing in submission to the downpour. Gren did not move; the tummy-bellies would have to wait till the rain abated. He stood where he was with an arm round Yattmur.

As they peered out towards the sea, the greyness before them was broken in a flurry of waves.

‘O living shades, that creature has come to get us,’ Yattmur breathed.

The vast marine creature had entered shallow water and was heaving itself from the sea. They saw the rain sizzling in cataracts off a great flat head. A mouth as narrow and heavy as a grave creaked open and Yattmur broke from Gren’s arms and ran off along the beach in the direction from which they had come, shrieking with fright.

‘Yattmur!’ His muscles strained to follow her, but the full dead weight of the morel’s will fought unexpectedly against him. Gren stayed locked, momentarily immobile in a sprinter’s stance. Caught off balance, he fell sideways into the streaming sand.

‘Stay where you are,’ twanged the morel. ‘Since the creature is obviously not after us, we must stay to see what it is doing. It will do us no harm if you keep quiet.’

‘But Yattmur -‘

‘Let the silly child go. We can find her later.’

Through the violence of the rain came an irregular and protracted groaning. The vast creature was out of breath. Laboriously it dragged itself up the shelving beach some few yards from where Gren lay. The rain folded it in grey curtains, so that with its anguished breathing and pained movements it took on the aspect, lumbering there in surroundings as unlikely as itself, of a grotesque symbol of pain conjured up in a dream.

Its head became hidden from Gren by the trees. Only its body could be seen, moved forward by jerks from its unwieldy flippers, before that too was concealed. The tail slithered up the beach; then it also was swallowed by the jungle.

‘Go and see where it has gone,’ ordered the morel.

‘No,’ said Gren. He knelt, and his body ran brown where rain and sand mingled.

‘Do as I tell you,’ twanged the morel. Always at the back of its mind lay its basic purpose, to propagate as widely as possible. Although this human had at first seemed by reason of its intelligence to hold promise as a useful host, it had hardly come up to expectations; a brute of mindless power such as they had just seen was worth investigation. The morel propelled Gren forward.

Walking by the fringe of the trees, they came to the sea creature’s tracks. It had churned up a trench as deep as a man’s height in its progress up the beach.

Gren dropped on to hands and knees, his blood racing. The creature could be only a short distince away; a distinct rotten briny smell hung in the air. He peered round a bole of a tree, following the tracks with his eye.

Here the strip of jungle stopped unexpectedly, to resume some paces farther along the shore. In the gap, the sand led right to the base of the cliff—and in the cliff was a large cave. Through the driving rain the monster’s tracks could be seen leading right into the cave. Yet although the limits of the cave were visible; it was large enough to contain the creature, but no more—it stood silent and empty, like a mouth caught in a perpetual yawn of rock.

Perplexed, forgetting his fright, Gren came out into the open to observe better, and at once saw some of the sixteen tummy belly men.

They crouched together under the farther trees fringing the avenue of sand, pressing against the cliff very near the cave. Characteristically, they had sought shelter under an outcrop of rock that now sent a continuous spout of rainwater down upon them. With the long hairs of their bodies washed out flat, they looked very wet indeed, wet and frightened. When Gren appeared, they gave a wail of panic, clutching their genitals in apprehension.

‘Come out here!’ called Gren, still looking round to try to account for the disappearance of the sea monster.

With the rain spurting into their faces, the tummy-belly men were thoroughly demoralized; Gren recalled their idiot cry of fear when they had glimpsed the monster. Now they showed an inclination to run from him, milling round in tight circles like sheep and uttering meaningless sounds. Fury for their stupidity filled Gren’s veins. He picked up a heavy stone.

‘Come out here to me, you blubbering belly babies!’ he called.’ Quickly before the monster finds you!’

‘O terror! O master! All things hate poor lovely tummy-belly men!’ they cried, blundering into each other and turning their fat backs on him.

Infuriated, Gren flung his stone. It hit one of the men on the buttock, a good shot that had a bad effect. The stricken one jumped squealing into the avenue of sand, whirled about, and began to run away from Gren towards the cave. Taking up the cry, the others bounded and tumbled after him, all clasping their behinds in imitation.

‘Come back!’ Gren cried, running after them down the centre of the sea monster’s tracks. ‘Stay out of that cave.’

They paid him no heed. Yelping like curs, they burst into the cave, their noise echoing sharply back from its walls. Gren followed them.

The briny reek of the sea monster was heavy in the air.

‘Get out of here as quickly as you can,’ the morel advised in Gren’s mind, sending a twinge through his whole body.

All over the walls and roof of the cave were protruding rods of rock, pointing inwards and ending in eye sockets similar to those on the outside of the cliff. These eye sockets too were watchful; as the tummy-belly men bumped into them, they rolled back lids and began to stare, one by one, more and more.

Finding they were cornered, the men began to sprawl in the sand at Gren’s feet and set up a hullabaloo for mercy.

‘O mighty big killing lord with strong skin, O king of running and chasing, look how we ran to you when we saw you! How glad we are to honour our poor old tummy-eyes with a sight of you. We ran straight to you, though our poor running was confused and somehow our legs sent us the wrong way instead of happy right ways because the rain confused us.’

More eyes were opening round the cave now, directing a stony stare at the group. Gren seized one of the tummy-bellies roughly by his hair and pulled him into a standing position; at this the others fell quiet, glad perhaps that they had been momentarily spared.

‘Now you listen to me,’ Gren said, through clenched teeth. He had come to hate these people with a fierce aversion, for they drew out all the latent bullying instincts in him. ‘I wish none of you harm, as I’ve told you before. But you have all got to get out of here at once. Danger waits here. Back on to the beach, quick, the lot of you!’

‘You will stone us -‘

‘Never mind what I’ll do! Do what I say. Move!’ And as he spoke he sent the fellow reeling towards the cave mouth.

Then what Gren thought of afterwards as the Mirage began.

A critical number of eyes in the cave walls had opened.

Time stopped. The world turned green. The tummy-belly man by the cave mouth perched on one leg in a flying attitude, turned green, petrified in his absurd position. The rain behind him turned green. Everything: green and immobile.

And shrinking. To dwindle. To shrivel and contract. To become a drop of rain falling forever down the lungs of the heavens. Or to be a grain of sand marking an eternal tumble through hourglasses of endless time. To be a proton speeding inexhaustibly through its own pocket-sized version of limitless space. Finally to reach the infinite immensity of being nothing… the infinite richness of non-existence… and thus of becoming God… and thus of being the top and tail of one’s own creation….

… of summoning up a billion worlds to rattle along the green links of every second… of flying through uncreated stacks of green matter that waited in a vast ante-chamber of being for its hour or eon of use….

For hewas flying, wasn’t he? And these happier notes alongside (weren’t they?), were the beings that he or someone else, someone on another plane of memory, had once called ‘tummy-bellies’. And if it was flight, then it was happening in this impossible green universe of delight, in some element other than air and in some flux apart from time. And they were flying in light, emitting light.

And they were not alone.

Everything was with them. Life had replaced time, that was it; death had gone, for the clocks here would tick off fertilities only. But two of the everythings were familiar….

In that vague other existence—oh it was so hard to recall, a dream within a dream—that existence connected with a beach of sand and grey rain (grey? that could be nothing like green, for green had no likenesses), in that existence there had been a great bird diving and a great beast emerging from the sea… and they had come through the… mirage and were here in this same sappy delight. The element about them was full of the assurance that here there was room for everything to grow and develop without conflict, to develop for ever if needed, tummy-belly, bird, or monster.

And he knew that the others had been directed to the mirage in a way he had not. Not that it mattered, for here was the sugar of being, of just being in this effortless eternal flight/dance/song, without time or scale or worry.

With only the fulfilment of growing green and good.

Yet he was somehow falling behind the others! His first impetus was dying. There was worry, even here, and dimension had some meaning even here, or he would not be behind them.

They would not be looking back, smiling, beckoning, the bird, the beast, the tummy-bellies. Spores, seeds, happy sappy things, would not be whirling, filling the growing distance between him and his companions. He would not be following, crying, losing it all…. Oh, losing all this suddenly dear and bright unimaginable natured place.

He would not be aware again of fear, of a last hopeless attempt to regain paradise, of the green going, of vertigo taking him, and eyes, a million eyes all saying ‘No’ and spitting him back where he belonged…

He was back in the cave, sprawled on the trampled sand in a posture crudely aping flight. He was alone. About him, a million stone eyes closed in disdain, and a green music died from his brain. He was doubly alone as the tower of rock removed its presence from the cave.

The rain still rained. He knew that that measureless eternity during which he had been away had lasted only for a flicker of time. Time… whatever it was… perhaps it was just a subjective phenomenon, a mechanism in a human bloodstream from which vegetables did not suffer.

Gren sat up, startled by his thoughts.

‘Morel!’ he whispered. ‘I’m here….’ A long silence fell. At last without prompting the brain fungus spoke. ‘You have a mind, Gren,’ it twanged. ‘So the tower would not accept you—us. The tummy-bellies were almost as mindless as the sea creature or the bird; they were accepted. What is now mirage to us is now reality to them. They were accepted.’ Another silence. ‘Accepted where?’ Gren asked. It had been so beautiful….

The morel did not answer directly. ‘This age is the long age of the vegetable,’ it said. ‘It has grown green upon the earth, it has rooted and proliferated without thought. It has taken many forms and exploited many environments, so that every possible ecological nook has long since been filled.

“The earth is more impossibly overcrowded than it ever was in any earlier age. Plants everywhere… all ingeniously, mindlessly, seeding and propagating, doubling the confusion, adding to the pressing problem of how one more blade of grass can find a niche in which to grow.

‘When your distant predecessor, man, was ruler of this planet, he had a way with the overcrowded bed in his garden. He transplanted or weeded out. Now, somehow, nature has invented her own gardener. The rocks have shaped themselves into transmitters.

Probably there are stations like this all round the coasts… stations where any near-mindless thing can be accepted for onward transmission… stations where plants can be transplanted….’ `Transplantedwhere!’ Gren asked. ‘Where was that place?’ Something like a sigh floated down the aisles of his mind. ‘Can’t you see I’m guessing, Gren? Since I have joined forces with you, I have become part human. Who knows the worlds available to different forms of life? The sun means one thing to you and another to a flower. To us the sea is terrible; to that great creature we saw…. There would be neither words nor thought to describe where we went; how could there be, when it was so patently the product of… non-ratiocin-active processes….’

Gren got unsteadily to his feet. `I want to be sick,’ he said. He staggered out of the cave.

‘To conceive of other dimensions, other modes of being -‘ continued the morel. ‘For soul’s sake, shut up!’ Gren cried. ‘What does it matter to me that there are places—states—I can’t… can’t attain. I can’t, and that’s that. It was all a beastly mirage, so leave me alone, will you? I want to be sick.’ The rain was abating a little. It pattered lightly on his backbone as he arched it to lean a head forward against a tree. His head throbbed, his eyes watered, his stomach heaved. They would have to make sails from the big leaves and sail away from here, he and Yattmur and the four surviving tummy-belly men. They must get away. As it had become colder, they might have to make coverings for themselves out of those same leaves. This world was no paradise, but in some respects it was manageable. He was still throwing up the contents of his stomach when he heard Yattmur calling. He looked up, grinning feebly. She was coming back to him along the rainy beach.

18

They stood hand in hand, as confusedly he tried to tell her of his experiences in the cave. ‘I’m glad you came back,’ she said gently. He shook his guilty head, thinking how beautiful and strange the experience had been. Weariness filled him. He dreaded the thought of their having to put to sea again, yet obviously they could not remain on this island.

‘Get moving, then,’ said the morel inside his head. ‘You’re as slow as a tummy-belly.’ Still holding Yattmur’s hand, he turned and they trudged slowly back down the beach. A chilly wind blew up, carrying the rain out to sea. The four tummy-belly men stood huddling together where Gren had told them to wait. They fell on the sand in self-abasement as Gren and Yattmur came up.

‘You can stop that,’ he told them without humour. ‘We’ve all got work to do, and you are going to do your share. Slapping their fat flanks, he drove them before him towards the boat.

A breeze blew over the ocean as bright and sharp as glass. To the occasional traversers that soared far overhead, the boat with its six passengers looked like nothing more than a drifting log. It floated now far beyond the island of the tall cliff.

The sail of large and crudely stitched leaves hung from an improvised mast; but adverse winds had long since torn it, robbing it of usefulness. In consequence the boat now moved without control and was carried eastwards on a strong thermal current.

The humans watched with either apathy or anxiety, according to their natures, as they were swept along. They had eaten several times and slept much since sailing away from the island of the tall cliff.

Much lay on either side for them to see when they cared to look. To port ran a long coastline, presenting from this distance an unbroken aspect of forest on its cliffs. Throughout uncounted watches it had remained the same; when hills appeared inland, as they did with increasing frequency, they too were clothed in forest.

Between coast and boat, small islands sometimes interposed themselves. On these grew a variety of foliage the mainland lacked, some being crowned by trees, some being covered in strange blossoms, some remaining mere barren humps of rock. Sometimes it appeared that the boat would be dashed against the shoals that fringed these islands: but so far it had always been carried clear at the last moment.

To starboard stretched the infinite ocean. This was now punctuated by evil-looking shapes of whose nature Gren and Yattmur had as yet no clue.

The helplessness of their position, as well as the mystery of it, bore down on the humans, though they were used to a subordinate place in the world. Now to add to their troubles a mist came up, closing round their boat and hiding all landmarks from them.

‘It’s the thickest mist I have ever seen,’ Yattmur said, as she stood with her mate staring over the side of the boat.

‘And the coldest,’ Gren said. ‘Have you noticed what is happening to the sun?’

In the gathering mist, nothing now could be seen except the sea immediately about the boat and a great red sun which hung low over the water in the direction from which they had come, dangling a sword of light across the waves.

Yattmur pressed more tightly to Gren.

“The sun used to be high above us,’ she said. ‘Now the watery world threatens to swallow it.’

‘Morel, what happens when the sun goes?’ Gren asked.

‘When the sun goes, there is darkness,’ twanged the morel, adding with gentle irony, ‘as you might have deduced for yourself. We have entered the realm of eternal sunset and the stream carries us deeper and deeper into it.’

It spoke reservedly, yet a tremor ran through Gren at the fear of the unknown. He held more tightly to Yattmur as they stared fixedly at the sun, dull and huge through the moisture-laden air. As they watched, one of the phantom shapes they had observed to starboard intervened between them and the sun, taking a great jagged bite out of it. Almost at the same time, the mist thickened and the sun was lost to view.

‘Ohhh! Ahhh!’ At the sun’s disappearance, a cry of dismay rose from the tummy-bellies. They had been cuddled together on a pile of dead leaves in the stern. Now they came scampering forward, seizing Gren’s and Yattmur’s hands.

‘O mighty master and sandwich-makers!’ they cried. ‘All this mighty watery world sailing is too much badness, too much badness, for we have sailed away and lost all the world. The world has gone by bad sailing and we must quickly good-sail to get it back.’

Their long hair glistened with moisture, their eyes were in a fine frenzy rolling. They bounched up and down, crying their woes.

‘Some creature has eaten the sun, O great herder!’

‘Stop your silly noise,’ Yattmur said. ‘We are as frightened as you are.’

‘No we are not,’ Gren exclaimed angrily, dashing their clammy hands from his flesh. ‘Nobody could be as frightened as they are, for they are always frightened. Stand back, you blubbering tummy-bellies! The sun will come again when the mist clears.’

‘You brave cruel herder,’ one of the creatures cried. ‘You have hidden the sun to scare us because you love us no more, though we happily enjoy your lovely blows and happy good bad words! You -‘

Gren struck out at the man, glad to relieve his tensions in action. The poor fellow reeled backwards squealing. His companions fell on him instantly, cuffing him for not enjoying the mighty hurts with which his master honoured him. Savagely, Gren pulled them away.

As Yattmur came to his aid, a shock sent them all reeling. The deck canted sharply, and they sprawled together, six of them in a heap. Splinters of a jagged transparent stuff showered on to them.

Unhurt, Yattmur picked up one of the splinters and looked at it. As she watched it, the shard changed, dwindled, and left only a tiny puddle of water in her hand. She stared in surprise. A wall of the same glassy substance loomed over the front of the boat.

‘Oh!’ she said dully, realizing they had struck one of thephantom shapes they had noticed riding along on the sea. ‘A mountain of fog has caught us.’

Gren jumped up, silencing the loud protestations of the tummy-belly men. A gash was visible in the bows of their boat, through which only a trickle of water ran. He climbed on to the side and peered about.

The warm current had carried them into a great glassy mountain that appeared to float on the sea. The mountain had been eroded at water level, forming a sloping shelf there; it was up this icy beach that they had been driven, and this that kept their broken bow partly above the water.

‘We shan’t sink,’ Gren said to Yattmur, ‘for there is a ledge under us. But the boat is useless now; off the ledge, it would sink.’

It was indeed filling steadily with water, as the wails of the tummy-bellies testified.

‘What can we do?’ Yattmur asked. ‘Perhaps we should have stayed at the island of the tall cliff.’

Doubtfully, Gren looked about. A great row of what resembled long sharp teeth hung over the deck as if about to bite the ship in two. Icy droplets of saliva fell from them, splashing the humans. They had sailed straight into this glass monster’s mouth!

Near at hand, its entrails were dimly visible, filling their vision with an array of blue and green lines and planes, some of which—with a dull murderous beauty—glowed orange from a sun still hidden from the humans.

‘This ice beast prepares to eat us!’ yelped the tummy-bellies, scampering round the deck. ‘Oh, oh, our death moment come hot upon us, ice cold in these nasty freezing jaws.’

‘Ice!’ exclaimed Yattmur. ‘Yes! How strange that these foolish belly-boy fishers should give us knowledge. Gren, this stuff is called ice. In the marsh grounds near Long Water where the tummies lived grew little flowers called colderpolders. At certain times these flowers, which flourish in the shade, made this cold ice to keep their seed in. When I was a girl-child I went into the marshes to get these ice drops and suck them.’

‘Now this big ice drop sucks us,’ Gren said, as cold water soused down on his face from the vault overhead. ‘What do we do, morel?’

‘There is no safety here, so we must look for some,’ twanged the morel. ‘If the boat slips back off the ice shelf, all will drown but you: for the boat will sink and you alone can swim. You must get off the boat at once, and take the tummy-fishers with you.’

‘Right! Yattmur, sweet, climb out on to the ice while I drive these four fools after you.’

The four fools were loath to leave the boat, though half of its deck was now shallowly under water. When Gren shouted at them, they leapt away, scattering as he approached, dashing away as he rushed to seize them, dodging and squealing as they went.

‘Save us! Spare us, O herder! What have we four poor filthy lumps of compost done that you should wish to throw us to the ice beast? Help, help! Alas, that we should be so nasty you love to treat us in this way!’

Gren dived at the nearest and hairiest, who skipped away screaming, his bosoms flopping up and down as he went.

‘Not me, great beastly spirit! Kill the other three that don’t love you, but not me who loves you -‘

Gren tripped him as he fled. The tummy-belly man sprawled, his sentence turning into a squeal before he pitched at full-length head first into the water. Quickly Gren was on him; they splashed in the icy water until Gren got a firm hold and dragged the spluttering creature up by the flesh and hair of his neck, to pull him by sheer force to the side of the boat. With a heave, he sent him sprawling over, collapsing crying in the shallows at Yattmur’s feet.

Thoroughly cowed by this display of force, the other three tummy-bellies climbed meekly out of their refuge and into the maw of the ice beast, teeth chattering with fear and cold. Gren followed them. For a moment the six stood together, looking into a grotto which to four of them at least was a gigantic throat. A ringing noise from behind made them turn back.

One of the ice fangs hanging overhead had cracked and fallen. It stuck upright in the wood of the deck like a dagger before slipping sideways and shattering into bits. Almost as if this were a signal, a much louder noise came from under the boat. The whole shelf on which the vessel rested gave way. Momentarily, the edge of a thin tongue of ice slid into view. Before it slumped back into the water, their boat was borne away on the dark flood. They watched it filling rapidly as it disappeared.

They were able to follow its progress for some while; the mist had lifted slightly and the sun once again painted a streak of cold fire down the back of the ocean.

For all that, it was with profound gloom that Gren and Yattmur turned away. With their boat gone, they were stranded on the iceberg. In silence the four tummy-bellies followed them as they took the only course possible and climbed along the cylindrical tunnel in the ice.

Splashing through chill puddles, they were hemmed in by ribs of ice, against which every sound threw itself in a frenzy of echoes. With each step they took, the noise grew louder and the tunnel smaller.

‘O spirits, I hate this place! Better if we had perished with the boat. How much farther can we go?’ Yattmur asked, as Gren paused.

‘No farther,’ he said grimly. ‘We’ve come to a dead end. We’re trapped here.’

Hanging nearly to the floor, several magnificent icicles barred their way almost as effectively as a portcullis. Beyond the portcullis, a flat pane of ice faced them.

‘Always trouble, always difficulty, always some fresh trouble to living!’ Gren said. ‘Man was an accident on this world or it would have been made better for him!’

‘I have already told you that your kind was an accident,’ twanged the morel.

‘We were happy till you started interfering,’ Gren said sharply.

‘You were a vegetable till then!’

Infuriated by this thrust, Gren grasped one of the great icicles and pulled. It snapped off some way above his head. Holding it like a spear, he hurled it at the wall of ice before him.

Painful carillons sparked down the tunnel as the entire wall shattered under the blow. Ice fell, broke, skidded past their ankles, as a whole half-melted curtain celebrated its downfall in swift disintegration. The humans crouched, holding their hands over their heads while it seemed as if the entire iceberg was collapsing round them.

When the din died, they looked up, to find through the gap ahead a whole new world awaiting them. The iceberg, caught in an eddy to the coastward side of the current, had come to rest against an islet where, held in the arms of a small bay, it was now weeping down into water again.

Though the isle looked far from hospitable, the humans drank in with relief the sight of the sparse green on it, at flowers clinging to it, and at seed pods towering in the air at the top of tall stalks. Here they could enjoy the feeling of ground that did not heave perpetually.

Even the tummy-bellies momentarily took heart. With small happy cries they followed Yattmur and Gren round a ledge of ice, eager to be beneath those flowers. Without too much protest, they jumped over a narrow gulf of deep blue water, to land on protruding rock and thus scramble safely ashore.

The islet was certainly no paradise. Broken rock and stone covered the crown of it. But in its smallness lay advantage: it was too tiny to support the larger sort of vegetable menaces that flourished on the mainland; with the smaller menaces, Gren and Yattmur could cope. To the disappointment of the tummy-bellies, no tummy-belly tree grew here to which they could attach themselves. To the morel’s disappointment, none of his kind grew here; much though he wished to take control of Yattmur and the tummy-bellies, as well as Gren, his bulk was as yet too small to allow him to do this, and he was counting on allies to help him. To the disappointment of Gren and Yattmur, no humans lived here with whom they could join forces.

As compensation, a spring of pure water surged out of the rock, larking among the big tumbled stones which covered much of the islet. First they heard its music, then they saw it. The little stream cascaded down on to a strip of beach and so into the sea. With one rush, they ran along the sand to it, drinking there without waiting to gain a less brackish draught higher up.

Like children, they forgot their cares. When they had drunk too much and belched sufficiently, they plunged into the water to bathe their limbs, although the chill of it did not tempt them to stay there for long. Then they began to make themselves at home.

For a time they lived on the islet and were content. In this realm of eternal sunset, the air was cool. They devised themselves better body covering from leaves or trailing moss, binding the latter tightly round their bodies. Mists and fogs swallowed them from time to time; then the sun would shine again, low over the sea. Sometimes they would sleep, sometimes would lie on the sunward-facing rocks idly eating fruit while listening to the icebergs groan as they sailed by.

The four tummy-belly men built themselves a crude shelter a distance apart from Gren and Yattmur. During one sleep it collapsed on top of them. After that they slept in the open, huddled together under leaves as close to their masters as Gren would allow.

Being happy again was good. When Yattmur and Gren made love together, the tummy-bellies would jump about and hug each other with excitement, praising the agility of their clever clutching master and his sandwich lady.

Huge seed pods grew and clattered overhead. Underfoot ran vegetable equivalents of lizards. In the air fluttered cordate butterflies with wide wings that lived by photosynthesis. Life continued without the punctuation of nightfall or sunrise. Sloth ruled; peace reigned.

The humans would have merged contentedly into this general pattern had it not been for the morel.

‘We cannot stay here, Gren,’ it said on one occasion, when Gren and Yattmur woke from a comfortable sleep. ‘You have rested enough and been well refreshed. Now we must move again, to find more humans and establish our own kingdom.’

‘You speak nonsense, morel. Our boat is lost. We must always remain on this island. Chilly it may be, yet we have seen worse places. Let us stay here in content.’

He and the girl were splashing naked through a series of pools which had formed among the big square blocks of stone on the crown of the islet. Life was sweet and idle, Yattmur kicked her pretty legs and sang one of her herder’s songs: he was loath to listen to that dreary voice in his head. More and more it came to represent something he disliked.

Their silent conversation was interrupted by a squeal from Yattmur.

Something like a hand with six bloated fingers had seized her ankle. Gren dived for it and pulled it away without difficulty. It struggled in his grasp as he examined it.

‘I’m silly to make a noise,’ Yattmur said. ‘It is just another of those creatures that the tummy-bellies have named crawlpaws. They swim out of the sea on to land. If the tummy-bellies catch them, they split them open and eat them. They are tough but sweet to taste.’

The fingers were grey and bulbous, wrinkled in texture and extremely cold. They flexed slowly as Gren held them. Finally he dropped it on to the bank, where it scuttled off into the grass. ‘Crawlpaws swim out of the sea and burrow into the ground. I’ve watched them,’ Yattmur said. Gren made no answer.

‘Does anything trouble you?’ she asked. ‘No,’ he said flatly, not wishing to tell her that the morel desired them to move again. He sank stiffly to the ground, almost like an old man. Though she was uneasy, she stifled her apprehensions and returned to the bathing place. Yet from that time on she was aware of Gren drawing away from her and becoming more closed in on himself; and she knew the morel was to blame for it. Gren woke from their next communal sleep to find the morel already restless in his mind. ‘You wallow in sloth. We mustdo something.’ ‘We are content here,’ replied Gren sulkily. ‘Besides, as I have said, we have no boats to get us to the big land.’ ‘Boats are not the only way of crossing seas,’ said the fungus. ‘Oh morel, cease being clever before you kill us with it. Leave us in peace. We’re happy here.’ ‘Happy, yes! You would grow roots and leaves if you could. Gren, you do not know what life is for! I tell you that great pleasures and powers await you if you only let me help you stretch out for them.’ ‘Go away! I don’t know what you mean.’ He jumped up as if to run away from the morel. It gripped him tightly, rooting him to the spot. Gathering strength, he concentrated on sending waves of hatred at the morel—uselessly, for its voice continued in his head. ‘Since it is impossible for you to be my partner, you must suffer being my slave. The spirit of enquiry is all but dead in you; you will respond to orders but not to observation.’

‘I don’t know what you are saying!’ He cried the words aloud, waking Yattmur, who sat up and gazed mutely at him. ‘You neglect so much!’ said the morel. ‘I can only see things through your senses, yet I take the trouble to analyse and find what is behind them. You can make nothing from your data, whereas I can make a lot. Mine is the way to power. Look about you again! Look at the stones over which you climb so regardlessly.’

‘Go away!’ Gren cried again. Instantly he doubled up in anguish. Yattmur came running over to him, holding his head and soothing him. She peered into his eyes. The tummy-bellies came up silently to stand behind her.

‘It’s the magic fungus, isn’t it?’ she said.

Dumbly he nodded. Phantoms of fire chased themselves over his nerve centres, burning a tune of pain through his body. While the tune continued he could scarcely move. At length it passed. Limply he said, ‘We must help the morel. He wishes us to explore these rocks more carefully.’

Trembling in every limb, he rose to do what was commanded of him. Yattmur stood with him, sympathetically touching his arm.

‘When we’ve explored, we will catch fish in the pool and eat them with fruit,’ she said, with a woman’s talent for producing comfort when it was needed.

He flashed her a humble look of gratitude.

The big stones had long been part of the natural landscape. Where the brook ran among them they were buried in mud and pebbles. Grass and sedge grew on them, deep earth covered them in many places. In particular, here prospered a crop of the flowers that bore their seed pods aloft on tall stalks, which the humans had seen from the iceberg; these Yattmur had casually called Stalkers, without realizing until much later how appropriate the title was.

Over the stones ran the roots of the Stalkers, like so many lengths of petrified snake.

‘What a nuisance these roots are,’ grumbled Yattmur. “They grow everywhere!’

‘The funny thing is the way the roots from one plant grow into another as well as into the ground,’ Gren said, answering abstractedly. He was squatting by a branch of two roots, one of which ran back to one plant, one to another. After they had joined, they curled over a block of stone and down into an irregular gap between other stones to the earth.

‘You can get down there. You will come to no harm,’ said the morel. ‘Scramble down between the stones and see what you can see.’

A hint of that painful tune sprang again over Gren’s nerves.

He scrambled down between the blocks as he was directed, nimble as a lizard for all his reluctance. Feeling cautiously, he discovered that they rested on other blocks below, and those on other blocks below that. They lay loosely; by twisting his body he was able to slide himself down between their cool planes.

Yatmur climbed after him, showering down a gentle rain of dirt on to his shoulders.

After crawling down the depth of five blocks, Gren reached solid ground. Yattmur arrived beside him. Now they were able to move horizontally, half squashed between the walls of stone. Attracted by a lessening in the darkness, they squeezed along to a large space, large enough for them to stretch out their arms.

‘The smell of cold and dark is in my nostrils and I am afraid,’ Yattmur said. ‘What has your morel made us come down here for? What has he to tell of this place?’

‘He is excited,’ Gren replied, unwilling to admit that the morel was not communicating with him.

Gradually they began to see more clearly. The ground above had fallen away to one side, for the source of light was the sun, shining in horizontally between the piled stone, sending a thin ray probing there. It revealed twisted metal among the blocks, and an aperture ahead of them. In the collapse of these stones long ago, this gap had remained. Now the only living things here beside themselves were stalker roots, twisting down into the soil like petrified serpents.

Obeying the morel, Gren scrabbled in the grit at his feet. Here was more metal and more stone and brick, most of it immovable. Fumbling and tugging, he managed to pull out some broken bits of guttering; then came a long metal strip as tall as himself. One end of it was shattered; on the rest of it was a series of separate marks arranged to form a pattern:

“That is writing,’ wheezed the morel, ‘a sign of man when he had power in the world, uncounted ages ago. We are on his tracks. These must once have been his buildings. Gren, climb forward into the dark aperture and see what else you can find.’

‘It is dark! I cannot go in there.’

‘Climb forward, I tell you.’

Shards of glass glinted dully by the aperture. Rotted wood fell away all round it as Gren put a hand forward to steady himself. Plaster showered down on his head as he climbed through. On the other side of the aperture was a drop; Gren slid down a slope of rubble into a room, cutting himself on glass as he went.

From outside, Yattmur gave a squeak of alarm. He called back softly to reassure her, pressing a hand to his heart to steady it. Anxiously he stared about in the all-but-blackness. Nothing moved. The silence of the centuries, thick and cloying, lay here, lived here, more sinister than sound, more terrible than fear.

For a spell he stood frozen, until the morel nudged him.

Half the roof had collapsed. Metal beams and brick made a maze of the room. To Gren’s untutored eye, everything was indistinguishable. The ancient smell of the place choked him.

‘In the corner. A square thing. Go there,’ ordered the morel, using his eyesight to advantage.

Reluctantly, Gren picked his way across to the corner. Something scuttled from under his feet and out the way he had come; he saw six thick fingers, and recognized a crawlpaw like the one that had seized Yattmur’s ankle. A square box three times his height loomed over him, its front surface marked by three protruding semi-circles of metal. He could reach only the lowest of these semi-circles, which, the morel instructed him, were handles. He tugged at it obediently.

It opened the width of a hand, then stuck.

‘Pull, pull, pull!’ twanged the morel.

Growing savage, Gren pulled till the whole box rattled, but what the morel termed the drawer would come no farther. Still he pulled, while the tall box shook. Something was dislodged from the top of it. From high above Gren’s head, an oblong thing came crashing down. As he ducked, it fell to the floor behind him, sending up a cloud of dust.

‘Gren! Are you all right? What are you having to do down there? Come out!’

‘Yes, yes, I’m coming! Morel, we’ll never open this stupid box thing.’

‘What’s this object that nearly hit us? Examine it and let me see. Perhaps it is a weapon. If we could only find something to help us….’

The thing that had fallen was thin, long, and tapered, like a flattened burnurn seed. It seemed to be composed of a material with a soft surface, not cold like metal. The morel pronounced it to be a container. When it found that Gren could lift it with comparative ease, it became excited.

‘We must carry this container to the surface,’ it said. ‘You can pull it up between the stones. We will examine it in daylight and find what it contains.’

‘But how can the thing help us? Will it get us to the mainland?’

‘I didn’t expect to find a boat down here. Have you no curiosity? This is a sign of power. Come on, move! You are as stupid as a tummy-belly.’

Smarting under this gross insult, Gren scrambled back up the debris to Yattmur. She clutched him, but would not touch the yellow case he carried. For a moment they whispered together, pressing each others’ genitals to gain strength; then they struggled up between the layers of tumbled stone back to daylight, dragging and pushing the container with them.

‘ Phooo! Daylight tastes sweet!’ Gren muttered as he levered himself up the last block. As they emerged bruised and cut into the misty air, up came the tummy-bellies scampering, their tongues lolling out in relief. Dancing round their masters, they raised a hullabaloo of complaint and reproach at their absence.

‘Kill us please, pretty cruel master, before you jump again into the lips of the earth! Stab us with wicked killing before you leave us alone to fight unknown fights alone!’

‘Your bellies are too fat for you to have squeezed down that crevice with us,’ Gren said, ruefully examining his wounds. ‘If you’re so pleased to see us, why not get us some food?’

When Yattmur and he had bathed their cuts and bruises in the stream, he turned his attention to the container. Squatting over it carefully, he turned it over several times. There was a strangeness about its symmetry that alarmed him. Evidently the tummy-bellies felt the same.

‘That very bad strange shape for touching is a strange bad touching shape,’ one of them wailed, dancing up and down. ‘Please only do a touching for throwing it into the splashing watery world.’ He clung to his companions, and they peered down in silly excitement.

‘They offer you sensible advice,’ Yattmur said, but with the morel urging him, Gren sat down and took the container between feet and fingers. While he examined it, he felt the fungus snatch at his impressions as soon as they arrived in his brain; shivers ran along his spine.

On the top of the container was one of the patterns that the morel called writing. This one resembled heckler or HHT303H depending on which way you looked at it, and was followed by several lines of similar but smaller patterns.

He began to tug and push at the container. It did not open. The tummy-bellies quickly lost interest and wandered away. Gren himself would have flung the thing aside, had the morel not kept him at it, poking and pressing. As he ran his fingers along one of the longer sides, a lid flipped open. He and Yattmur looked askance at one another, then peered down at the object in the container, squatting in the dirt and gaping with awe.

The object was of the same silky yellow material as its container. Reverently, Gren lifted it out and placed it on the ground. Releasing it from the box activated a spring; the object, which had been wedge-shaped to conform to the dimensions of its resting place, suddenly sprouted yellow wings. It stood between them, warm, unique, perplexing. The tummy-bellies crept back to stare.

‘It’s like a bird,’ Gren breathed. ‘Can it really have been made by men like us and not grown?’

‘It’s so smooth, so….’ Words failing, Yattmur put out a hand to stroke it. ‘We will call it Beauty.’

Age and the endless seasons had puckered its container; the winged thing remained as new. As the girl’s hand ran over its upper surface, a lid clicked back, revealing its insides. Four tummy-belly men dived for the nearest bush. Fashioned of strange materials, of metals and plastics, the insides of the yellow bird were marvellous to behold. Here were small spools, a line of knobs, a glimpse of amplifying circuits, a maze of cunning intestines. Full of curiosity, the two humans leant forward to touch. Full of wonder, they let their fingers—those four fingers with opposed thumb that had taken their ancestors so far—enjoy the delight of toggle switches.

The tuning knobs could be twiddled, the switches clicked!

With scarcely a murmur, Beauty rose from the ground, hovered before their eyes, rose above their heads. They cried with astonishment, they fell backwards, breaking the yellow container. It made no difference to Beauty. Superb in powered flight, it wheeled above them, glowing richly in the sun.

When it had gained sufficient altitude, it spoke.

‘Make the world safe for democracy!’ it cried. Its voice was not loud but piercing.

‘Oh, it speaks!’ cried Yattmur, gazing in delight at the flashing wings.

Up came the tummy-bellies, running to join in the excitement, falling back in apprehension when Beauty flew over them, standing baffled as it circled round their heads.

‘Who rigged the disastrous dock strike of ‘31?’ Beauty demanded rhetorically. “The same men who would put a ring through your noses today. Think for yourselves, friends, and vote forsrh—vote for freedom!’

‘It—what is it saying, morel?’ Gren asked.

‘It is talking of men with rings through their noses,’ said the morel, who was as baffled as Gren. ‘That is what men wore when they were civilized. You must try to learn from what it is saying.’

Beauty circled round one of the tall stalkers and remained overhead, buzzing slightly and emitting an occasional slogan. The humans, feeling they had gained an ally, were greatly cheered; for a long while they stood with their heads back, watching and listening. The tummy-bellies beat their stomachs in delight at its antics.

‘Let us go back and try to unearth another toy,’ Yattmur suggested.

After a moment’s silence, Gren replied, `The morel says not. He wants us to go down when we do not want to; when we want to go, he does not. I do not understand.’

‘Then you are foolish,’ grumbled the morel. ‘This circling Beauty will not get us ashore. I want to think. We must help ourselves; especially I wish to observe these stalker plants. Keep quiet and don’t bother me.’

It did not communicate with Gren for a long while. He and Yattmur were free to bathe again in the pool, and wash the underground dirt from their bodies and hair, while the tummy-bellies lolled near at hand, scarcely complaining, hypnotized by the yellow bird that circled tirelessly above them. Afterwards, they hunted over the ridge of the islet, away from the tumbled stones; Beauty wheeled above them following, occasionally crying ‘Thesrh and a two-day working week!’

19

Bearing in mind what the morel had said, Gren took more notice than before of the stalker plants. Despite their strong and interlinked root structure, the actual flowers were of a lowly order, though, canted towards the sun, they attracted the cordate butterflies. Beneath five bright and simple petals grew a disproportionately large seed pod, a sexfid drum, from each face of which protruded gummy and fringed bosses resembling sea anemones.

All this Gren observed without interest. What happened to the flowers on fertilization was more sensational. Yattmur was passing one of them when a treebee bumbled past her and landed on the blossom, crawling over its pistil. The plant responded to pollination with violence. With an odd shrilling noise, flower and seed drum rocked up skywards on a spring that unravelled itself from the drum.

Yattmur dived into the nearest bush in startlement, Gren close behind. Cautiously they watched; they watched the spring unwind more slowly now. Warmed by the sun, it straightened and dried into a tall stalk. The six-sided drum nodded in sunlight, far above their heads.

For the humans, the vegetable kingdom offered no wonders. Anything that held no menace held little interest. They had already seen these stalkers, waving high in the air.

‘Statistics prove that you are better off than your bosses,’ Beauty said, flying round the new pole and returning. ‘Be warned by what happened to the Bombay Interplanetary Freight Handlers’ Union! Stand up for your rights while you still have them.

Only a few bushes away, another stalker rattled up into the air, its stalk straightening and gaining rigidity.

‘Let’s get back,’ Gren said. ‘Let’s go and have a swim.’

As he spoke, the morel clamped down on him. He staggered and fought, then fell over into a bush, sprawling in pain.

‘Gren! Gren! What is it?’ Yattmur gasped, running to him, grasping his shoulders.

‘I-I-I -‘ He could not get the words out of his mouth. A blue tinge spread from his lips outwards. His limbs went rigid. Within his head, the morel was punishing him, paralysing his nervous system.

‘I’ve been too gentle with you, Gren. You’re a vegetable! I gave you a warning. In future I will do more commanding and you will do more obeying. Though I do not expect you to think, you can at least observe and let me do the thinking. Here we are on the fringe of finding something valuable about these plants, and you turn stupidly away. Do you want to rot forever on this rock? Now lie still and watch, or I’ll visit you with cramps, likethis I’

Painfully, Gren rolled over, burrowing his face in grass and dirt. She lifted him up, crying his name in sorrow at his hurt.

‘It’s this magic fungus!’ she said, looking with distaste at the hard glistening crust that ringed his neck. Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Gren, my love, come along. Another mist is blowing up. We must get back to the others.’

He shook his head. Again his body was his own—for the present at least—and the cramps died from it, leaving his limbs as weak as jelly.

`The morel wants me to remain here,’ he said faintly. Tears of weakness stood in his eyes. ‘You go back to the others.’

Distressed, she stood up. She twisted her hands in anger at their helplessness.

‘I’ll be back soon,’ she said. The tummy-bellies had to be looked after. They were almost too stupid to eat by themselves unless directed. As she picked her way back down the slope, she whispered aloud, ‘O spirits of the sun, banish that magic fungus of cruelty and guile before he kills my dear lover.’

Unfortunately the spirits of the sun looked particularly weak. A chill wind blew from the waters, carrying with it a fog that obscured the light. Close by the island sailed an iceberg; its creaking and cracking could be heard even when it had disappeared phantom-like into the fog.

Half hidden by bushes, Gren lay where he was, watching. Beauty hovered overhead, faint in the gathering mist, calling out its slogan at intervals.

A third stalker had rocked upwards, squealing as it went. He watched it straighten out, more slowly than its partners now the sun was hidden. The mainland was lost to view. A butterfly fluttered past and was gone; he remained alone on an uncharted mound, rolled up in a universe of watery obscurity.

Distantly, the iceberg groaned, its voice echoing drably across the ocean. He was alone, isolated from his kind by the morel fungus. Once it had filled him with hopes and dreams of conquest; now it gave him only a feeling of sickness; but he knew no way of ridding himself of it.

‘There goes another,’ fhe morel said, deliberately breaking into his thought. A fourth stalker had sprung up from the rock nearby. Its case loomed above them, hanging like a decapitated head on the dirty wall of fog. A breeze caught it, bumping it against its neighbour. The anemone-like protruberances stuck against each other, so that the two cases remained locked, swaying quietly on their long legs.

‘Ha!’ said the morel. ‘Keep watch, man, and don’t worry. These blooms are not separate plants. Six of them with their communal root structure go to make up one plant. They have grown from the six-pronged tubers we have seen, the crawlpaws. You watch and you’ll see the other two flowers of this particular group will be pollinated in a short while.’

Something of his excitement passed to Gren, warming him as he lay hunched among cold stones; staring and waiting because he could do nothing else, he let an age go by. Yattmur returned to him, threw over him a mat the tummy-bellies had plaited, and lay down beside him almost without speaking.

At last a fifth stalker flower was pollinated and rattled startlingly upwards. As its stalk straightened, it swayed against one of its neighbours; they joined, nodded on to the other pair as they did so, and then locked, so that a single case and a bundle of four now stood high above the humans’ heads.

‘What’s it mean?’ Yattmur asked.

‘Wait,’ Gren whispered. Scarcely had he spoken when the sixth and last fertilized drum headed up towards its brothers. Quivering, it hung in the mist awaiting a breeze; the breeze came; with hardly a sound, all six drums locked into one solid body. In the shrouded air, it resembled a hovering creature.

‘Can we go now?’ Yattmur asked.

Gren was shivering.

Tell the girl to fetch you some food,’ twanged the morel. ‘You are not leaving here yet.’

‘Are you going to have to stay here forever?’ she asked impatiently, when Gren passed on the message.

He shook his head. He didn’t know. Impatiently she vanished into the mist. A long while passed before she returned, and by then the stalker had taken the next step in its development.

The fog parted slightly. Horizontal rays of sun struck the stalker’s body, staining it bronze. As if encouraged by the slight additional warmth, the stalker moved one of its six stalks. The bottom of it snapped free from the root system and became a leg. The movement was repeated in each of the other legs. One by one they came free. As the last one was liberated, the stalker turned and began—oh, it was unmistakable, the seed cases on stilts began to walk downhill, slowly but sturdily.

‘Follow it,’ the morel twanged.

Climbing to his feet, Gren began to move in the wake of the thing, walking as stiffly as it did. Yattmur followed quietly by his side. Overhead, the yellow machine also followed.

The stalker happened to take their usual route to the beach. When the tummy-bellies saw it coming, they ran squealing into the bush for safety. Unperturbed, the stalker kept straight on, jabbed its way delicately through their camp, and headed for the sand.

Nor did it pause there. It stalked into the sea until little but its lumpy six-part body was above the water. It was slowly swallowed by mist as it waded in the direction of the coast. Beauty flew after it, uttering slogans, only to return in silence.

‘You see!’ exclaimed the morel, sounding so noisily inside Gren’s skull that he clutched his head. ‘There lies our escape route, Gren! These stalkers grow here, where there is room for their full development, then go back to the mainland to seed themselves. And if these migratory vegetables can get ashore, they can take us with them!’

The stalker seemed to sag a little at its metaphorical knees. Slowly, as if rheumatism had it tight by those long joints, it moved its six legs, one by one, and with long vegetable pauses between each move.

Gren had had trouble getting the tummy-belly men into position. To them, the islet was something to be clung to even in the face of blows, rather than exchange it for some imagined future bliss.

‘We can’t stay here: the food will probably give out,’ Gren told them, as they cowered before him.

‘O herder man, gladly we obey you with yesses. If food is all gone here,then we go away with you on a stalk-walker over the watery world. Now we eat lovely food with many teeth and do not go away till it is all gone.’

‘It will be too late then. We must go now, while the stalkers are leaving.’

Fresh protests at this, with much slapping of buttocks in anguish.

‘Never before have we seen the stalker-walkers to take a walk with them when they go stalking-walking? Where were they then when we never saw them? Terrible herder man and sandwich lady, now you two people without tails find this care to go with them. We don’t find the care. We don’t mind ever not to see the stalker-walkers stalky-walking.’

Gren did not confine himself to verbal argument for long; when he resorted to a stick, the tummy-bellies were quickly persuaded to acknowledge the truth of his reasoning and move accordingly. Snuffling and snorting, they were driven towards a group of six stalker flowers, the buds of which had just opened. They grew together on the edge of a low cliff overlooking the sea.

Under the morel’s direction, Yattmur and Gren had spent some while collecting food, wrapping it in leaves and attaching it with brambles to the stalker seed drums. Everything was ready for their journey.

The four tummy-bellies were forced to climb on to four drums. Telling them to hold on tightly, Gren went among them one by one, pressing his hand into the floury centre of each blossom. One by one, the seed cases shrilled into the air, noisily accompanied by a passenger hanging on for his life.

Only with the fourth case did anything go wrong. That particular flower was tilted towards the edge of the cliff. As the spring uncurled, the extra weight on the pod bore it sideways rather than upwards. It sagged over, an ostrich with a broken neck, and the tummy-belly yelled and kicked as his heels swung in mid-air.

‘O mummy! O tummy! Help your fat lovely son!’ he cried, but no help came. He lost his grip. Amid a shower of provision he fell, still protesting, an ignoble Icarus into the sea. The current carried him away. They saw his head go down below the swift water.

Freed of its burden, the stalker drum swayed upright, buffeted the three already erect, and joined with them into a solid unit.

‘Our turn!’ Gren said, turning to Yattmur. Yattmur was still gazing out to sea. He grasped her arm and pushed her over to the two unsprouted flowers. Without showing anger, she freed herself from his grip.

‘Do I have to beat you like a tummy-belly?’ he asked her. She did not laugh. He still held his stick. When she did not laugh, his hold on the stick tightened. Obediently, she climbed on to the big green stalker drum.

They clutched the ribs of the plant, churning a hand about the pistil of the flower. Next minute, they too were spiralling up into the air. Beauty flew about them, begging them not to let vested interests prosper. Yattmur was most horribly afraid She fell face forward among polleny stamens, almost unable to breathe for the scent of the flower, but incapable of moving. Dizziness filled her.

A timid hand touched her shoulder. ‘If you have a making hungry by the fear, do not eat of the nasty stalker flower but taste good fish without walking legs we clever menchaps catch in a pool!’

She looked up at the tummy-belly, his mouth moving nervously, his eyes large and soft, a dust of pollen making his hair ludicrously fair. He had no dignity. With one hand he scratched his crutch, with the other offered her fish.

Yattmur burst into tears. Dismayed, the tummy-belly crawled forward, putting a hairy arm over her shoulder. ‘Do not make too many wet tears to fish when fish will not hurt you,’ he said. ‘It’s not that,’ she said. ‘It’s just that we have brought so much trouble to you poor fellows -‘ ‘O we poor tummy men all lost!’ he began, and his two companions joined in a dirge of sorrow. ‘It is true

you cruelly bring us so much trouble.’ Gren had been watching as the six cases joined into one lumpy unit. He looked anxiously down to catch the first signs of the stalker detaching its legs from its root system. The chorus of lament made him switch his attention.

His stick landed loudly across plump shoulders. The tummy-belly who had been comforting Yattmur drew back crying. His companions also shrank away.

‘Leave her alone!’ Gren cried savagely, rising to his knees. ‘You filthy hairy tummy-tails, if you touch her again I’ll throw you down to the rocks!’

Yattmur peered at him with her lips drawn back so that her teeth showed. She said nothing.

Nobody spoke again until at last the stalker began to stir with a purposeful movement.

Gren felt the morel’s combination of excitement and triumph as the tall-legged creature took its first step. One by one its six legs moved. It paused, gaining its balance. It moved again. It halted. Then again it moved, this time with less hesitation. Slowly it began to stalk away from the cliff, across the islet, down to the gently shelving beach where its kin had gone, where the ocean current was less strong. Beauty followed, flying overhead.

Without hesitation, it waded into the sea. Soon its legs were almost entirely immersed, and the sea slid by on all sides.

‘Wonderful!’ Gren exclaimed. ‘Free of that hateful island at last.’

‘It did us no harm. We had no enemies there,’ Yattmur replied. ‘You said you wanted to stay there.’

‘We couldn’t stay there for ever.’ Contemptuously, he offered her only what he had said to the tummy-bellies.

‘Your magic morel is too glib. He thinks only of how he can make use of things—of the tummies, of you and me, of the stalkers. But the stalkers did not grow for him. They were not on the island for him. They were on the island before we came. They grow for themselves, Gren. Now they do not go ashore for us but for themselves. We ride on one, thinking ourselves clever. How clever are we? These poor fisher-bellies call themselves clever, but we see they are foolish. What if we are also foolish?’

He had not heard her speak like this. He stared at her, not knowing how to answer her until irritation helped him.

‘You hate me, Yattmur, or you would not speak like that. Have I hurt you? Don’t I protect you and love you? We know the tummy-bellies are stupid, and we are different from them, so we cannot be stupid. You say these things to hurt me.’

Yattmur ignored all these irrelevancies. She said sombrely, as if he had not spoken. ‘We ride on this stalker but we do not know where it is going. We muddle its wishes with our own.’

‘It is going to the mainland of course,’ Gren said angrily.

‘Is it? Why don’t you look about you?’

She gestured with a hand and he did look.

The mainland was visible. They had started towards it. Then the stalker had entered a current of water and was now moving directly up it, travelling parallel with the coast. For a long while, Gren stared angrily, until it was impossible to doubt what was happening.

‘You are pleased!’ he hissed.

Yattmur made no reply. She leant over and dabbled her hand in the water, quickly withdrawing it. A warm current had carried them to the island. This was a cold current the stalker waded in, and they moved towards its source. Something of that chill found its way up to her heart.

PART THREE

20

The icy water flowed by, bearing icebergs. The stalker kept steadily on its course. Once it became partially submerged and its five passengers were soaked; even then its pace did not alter.

It was not alone. Other stalkers joined it from other islands off the coast, all heading in the same direction. This was their migratory time when they made for unknown seed beds. Some of them were bowled over and broken by icebergs; the others continued.

From time to time the humans were joined on their raft-like perch by crawlpaws similar to the ones they had encountered on the island. Grey with cold, the tuberous hands hauled themselves up out of the water, fumbling about for a warm place, scuttling furtively from one nook to another. One climbed on to Gren’s shoulders. He flung it disgustedly far out to sea.

The tummy-bellies complained little about these visitors climbing coldly over them. Gren had rationed their food as soon as he realized they would not be getting ashore so quickly as expected, and they had withdrawn into apathy. Nor did the cold improve matters for them. The sun seemed about to sink into the sea, while a chill wind blew almost continuously. Once hail deluged down on them out of a black sky, almost skinning them as they lay defenceless.

To the least imaginative among them it must have seemed that they were taking a journey into nowhere. The frequent fog banks that rolled up round them increased that impression; and when the fogs lifted they saw on the horizon ahead a line of darkness that threatened and threatened and never blew away. But the time came when at last the stalker swerved from it course.

Huddled together in the centre of the seed cases, Gren and Yattmur were roused from sleep by the chatter of the three tummy-bellies.

‘The watery wetness of the watery world leaves us cold tummy-belly men by going dripping down long legs! We sing great happy cries, for we must be dry or die. Nothing is so lovely as to be a warm dry tummy-chummy chap, and the warm dry world is coming to us.’

Irritably, Gren opened his eyes to see what the excitement was about.

Truly enough, the stalker’s legs were visible again. It had turned aside from the cold current and was wading ashore, never altering its inflexible pace. The coast, covered thickly with the great forest, was near now.

‘Yattmur! We’re saved! We’re going ashore at last!’ It was the first time he had spoken to her in a long while.

She stood up. The tummy-bellies stood. The five of them, for once united, clasped each other in relief.

Beauty flew overhead crying, ‘Remember what happened to the Dumb Resistance League in ‘45! Speak out for your rights. Don’t listen to what the other side are saying—it’s all lies, propaganda. Don’t get caught between Delhi bureaucracy and Communist intrigues. Ban Monkey Labour now!’

‘Soon we will be dry good chaps!’ cried the tummy-bellies.

‘We’ll start a fire going when we get there,’ said Gren.

Yattmur rejoiced to see him in better spirits, yet a sudden wave of misgiving urged her to ask, ‘How do we get down off here?’

Anger burnt in his eyes as he stared at her, anger at having his elation punctured. When he did not immediately reply, she guessed he was consulting the morel for an answer.

‘The stalker is going to find a place to seed itself,’ he said. ‘When it finds a place, it will sink to the ground. Then we shall get off. You do not need to worry; I am in command.’

She could not understand the hardness of his tone. ‘But you aren’t in command, Gren. This thing goes where it will and we are helpless. That is why I worry.’

‘You worry because you are stupid,’ he said.

Although she was hurt, she determined to find all the possible comfort she could in the circumstances.

‘We can all worry less when we get ashore. Then perhaps you will be less unkind to me.’

The shore, however, did not extend them a particularly warm invitation. As they looked towards it hopefully, a pair of large black birds rose from the forest. Spreading their wings, they sailed upwards, hovered, and then began to beat their way heavily through the air towards the stalker.

‘Lie flat!’ Gren called, drawing his knife.

‘Boycott chimp goods!’ Beauty cried. ‘Don’t allow Monkey Labour in your factory. Support Imbroglio’s Anti-Tripartite scheme!’

The stalker was trampling through shallow water now.

Black wings flashed low overhead, thundering with a whiff of decay across the stalker. Next moment, Beauty had been snatched from its placid circling and was being carried coastwards in mighty talons. As it was borne off, its cry came back pathetically, ‘Fight today to save tomorrow. Make the world safe for democracy!’ Then the birds had it down among the branches.

With water draining from its slender shanks, the stalker was now wading ashore. Four or five of its kind could be seen doing or about to do the same thing. Their animation, their human-like appearance of purpose, set them apart from the dreariness of their surroundings. The brooding sense of life that impregnated the world Gren and Yattmur had previously known was lacking entirely in these regions. Of that hothouse world, only a shade remained. With the sun lolling on the horizon like a bloody and raped eye upon a slab, twilight prevailed everywhere. In the sky ahead, darkness gathered.

From the sea, life seemed to have died. No monstrous seaweeds fringed the shore, no fish stirred in the rock pools. This desolation was emphasized by the shuddering calm of the ocean, for the stalkers prompted by instinct—had chosen for their migration a season without storms.

On the land, a similar quietude reigned. The forest still grew, yet it was a forest stunned by shadow and cold, a forest half alive, smothered in the blues and greys of perpetual evening. As they moved about its stunted trunks, the humans looked down to see mildew speckling its foliage. Only at one point did a touch of yellow show brightly. A voice called to them,’ Votesrh today, the democratic way!’ The heckler machine lay like a broken toy where the birds had left it, with one wing visible amid the tree tops; it called still as they trudged inland, out of earshot.

‘When do we stop?’ Yattmur whispered.

Gren did not answer; nor did she expect an answer. His face was cold and fixed; he did not even glance towards her. She dug her nails into her palm to keep her anger back, knowing the fault was not his.

Picking their way with care, the stalkers moved above the forest, leaves brushing against their legs or occasionally sweeping their bodies. Always the stalkers marched with the sun behind them, leaving it half-hidden beneath a wilderness of sour foliage. Always they marched towards the darkness that marked the end of the world of light. Once a flock of black vegbirds rose from the treetops and clattered away towards the sun; but the stalkers never faltered.

Despite their fascination, their growing apprehension, the humans eventually had to resign themselves to eating more of their rations. Eventually, too, they had to settle to sleep, huddling up closely at the centre of their perch. And still Gren would not speak.

They slept, and when they woke, coming reluctantly back to the consciousness that was now associated with cold, the view about them had changed—though hardly for the better.

Their stalker was crossing a shallow valley. Darkness stretched beneath them, though one ray of sun lit the vegetable body on which they rode. Forest still covered the ground, a distorted forest that now resembled the newly blind who stagger forward with arms and fingers extended, fright apparent in every feature. Here and there a leaf hung, otherwise the limbs were naked, contorting themselves into grotesque forms as the great solitary tree that had over the ages turned itself into a whole jungle fought to grow where it had never been intended to grow.

The three tummy-bellies shuddered with alarm. They were looking not down but ahead.

‘O tummies and tails! Here comes the swallowing-up place of all night for ever. Why did we not sadly happily die long long ago, when we were all together and sweating together was juicily nice so long ago?’

‘Be quiet, the pack of you!’ Gren shouted, grasping his stick. His voice rang hollow and confused to his ears as it was thrown back by the valley.

‘O big little tailless herder, you should have been kind and killed us with killing cruelly long when we could sweat, in the time when we still grew on happy long tails. Now here comes the black old end of the world to chop its jaws over us without tails. Alas the happy sunshine, O poor us!’

He could not stop their cries. Ahead lay the darkness, piled up like layers of slate.

Emphasizing that mottled blackness stood one small hill. It stuck up uncompromisingly before them, bearing the weight of the night on its shattered shoulders. Where the sun struck its upper levels it had a golden touch, the world’s last colour of defiance. Beyond it lay obscurity. Already they were climbing its lower slopes. The stalker toiled upwards into light; stretched out across the valley, five more stalkers could be seen, one near, four more half lost in murk.

The stalker was labouring. Yet it climbed up into the sunshine and continued on without pause.

The forest too had come through the valley of shadow. For this it had fought its way through the gloom: to be able to fling its last wave of greenery up the last strip of lit ground. Here, on slopes looking back towards the ever-setting sun, it threw off its blights to grow in something like its old exuberance.

‘Perhaps the stalker will stop here,’ Yattmur said. ‘Do you think it will, Gren?’

‘I don’t know. Why should I know?’

‘Itmust stop here. How can it go any farther?’

‘I don’t know, I tell you. I don’t know.’

‘And your morel?’

‘He does not know either. Leave me alone. Wait to see what happens.’

Even the tummy-bellies fell silent, staring about them at the weird scene in mingled fear and hope.

Without giving any indication that it ever meant to stop, the stalker climbed on, creaking up the hill. Its long legs continued to pick a safe course through the foliage, until it dawned on them that wherever it intended to go, it was not stopping here on this last bastion of light and warmth. Now they were at the brow of the hill, yet still it marched, an automatic vegetable thing they suddenly hated.

‘I’m going to jump off!’ Gren cried, standing up. Yattmur, catching the wildness in his eyes, wondered whether it was he or the morel that spoke. She wrapped her arms round his thighs, crying that he would kill himself. With his stick half lifted to strike her, he paused—the stalker, unpausing, had commenced to climb down the unlit side of the hill.

Just for a moment the sun still shone on them. They had a last glimpse of a world with gold in the dull air, a floor of black foliage, and another stalker looming up on their left flank. Then the shoulder of the hill shrugged upwards, and down they jolted into the world of night. With one voice they gave forth a cry: a cry that echoed into the unseen wastes about them, dying as it fled.

For Yattmur only one interpretation of events was possible. They had stepped out of the world into death.

Dumbly she buried her face into the soft hairy flank of the nearest tummy-belly, until the steadily continued jolting of the stalker persuaded her that she had not entirely lost company with the things that were.

Gren said, grasping at what the morel told him, ‘This world is fixed with one half always turned towards the sun… we are moving into the night side, across the terminator… into perpetual dark….’

His teeth were chattering. She clasped him, opening her eyes for the last time to search for sight of his face.

In the darkness it floated, a ghost of a face from which she nevertheless drew comfort. Gren put his arms round the girl, so that they crouched there together with cheeks touching. The posture gave her warmth and courage enough to peer furtively around.

She had visualized in her terror a place of reeling emptiness, imagining that perhaps they had fallen into some cosmic sea shell washed up on the mythical beaches of the sky. Reality was less impressive and more nasty. Directly overhead, a memory of sunlight lingered, illumining the vale into which they plodded. This light was split by a shadow that grew and grew across the sky and was projected by the black ogre’s shoulder down which they were still climbing. Their descent was marked by thudding sounds. Peering down, Yattmur saw that they travelled through a bed of writhing worms. The worms were lashing themselves against the stilt legs of the stalker, which now moved with great care to avoid being thrown off balance. Glistening yellow in the stramineous light, the worms boiled and reared and thudded in fury. Some of them were tall enough to reach almost to where the humans crouched, so that as their heads flickered up on a level with Yattmur’s, she saw they had bowl-like receptors at their tips. Whether these receptors were mouths, or eyes, or organs to catch what heat there was, she could not say. But her moan of horror roused Glen from his trance; almost cheerfully he set about tackling terrors which he could comprehend, lopping off the squidgy yellow tips as they flicked out of the murk.

The stalker over to their left was also in trouble. Though they could see it only dimly, it had walked into a stretch where the worms grew taller. Silhouetted against a bright strip of land to the far side of the hill, it had been reduced to immobility, while a forest of boneless fingers boiled all round it. It toppled. Without a sound it fell, the end of its long journey marked by worms.

Unaffected by the catastrophe, the stalker on which the humans rode continued to edge downwards.

Already it was through the thickest patch of opposition. The worms were rooted to the ground and could not follow. They fell away, grew shorter, more widely spaced, finally sprouted only in bunches, which the stalker avoided.

Relaxing slightly, Gren took the opportunity to look more searchingly at their surroundings. Yattmur hid her face in his shoulder; sickness stirred in her stomach and she wanted to see no more.

21

Rock and stones lay thick on the ground below the stalker’s legs. This detritus had been shed by an ancient river which no longer flowed; the old river bed marked the bottom of a valley; when they crossed it, they began to climb, over ground free of any form of growth.

‘Let us die!’ moaned one of the tummy-belly men. ‘It is too awful to be alive in the land of death. Turn all things the same, great herder, give us the benefit of the cutting of your cosy and cruel little cutting sword. Let tummy-belly men have a quick short cutting to leave this long land of death! O, O, O, the cold burns us, ayeee, the long cold cold!’

In chorus they cried their woe.

Gren let them moan. At last, growing weary of their noise, which echoed so strangely across the valley, he lifted his stick to strike them. Yattmur restrained him.

‘Are they not right to moan?’ she asked. ‘I would rather moan with them than strike them, for soon it must be that we shall die with them. We have gone beyond the world, Gren. Only death can live here.’

‘We may not be free, but the stalkers are free. They would not walk to their death. You are turning into a tummy-belly, woman!’

For a moment she was silent. Then she said, ‘I need comfort, not reproach. Sickness stirs like death in my stomach.’

She spoke without knowing that the sickness in her stomach was not death but life.

Gren made no answer. The stalker moved steadily over rising ground. Lulled by the threnody of the tummy-bellies, Yattmur fell asleep. Once the cold woke her. The chant had ceased; all her companions were sleeping. A second time she woke, to hear Gren weeping; but lethargy had her, so that she succumbed again to tiring dreams.

When she roused once more, she came fully awake with a start. The dreary twilight was broken by a shapeless red mass apparently suspended in the air. Gasping between fright and hope, she shook Gren.

‘Look, Gren,’ she cried, pointing up ahead. ‘Something burns there! What are we coming to?’

The stalker quickened its pace, almost as if it had scented its destination.

In the near-dark, seeing ahead was baffling. They had to stare for a long while before they could make out what lay in front of them. A ridge stretched immediately above them; as the stalker made its way up to the ridge, they saw more and more of what it had hitherto obscured. Some way behind the ridge loomed a mountain with a triple peak. It was this mountain that glowed so redly.

They gained the ridge, the stalker hauled itself stiffly over the lip, and the mountain was in full view.

No sight could have been more splendid.

All about, night or a pale brother of night reigned supreme. Nothing stirred; only the chilly breeze moved with stealth through the valleys unseen below them, like a stranger in a ruined town at midnight. If they were not beyond the world, as Yattmur thought, they were beyond the world of vegetation. Utter emptiness obscured utter darkness beneath their feet, magnifying their least whisper to a stammering shriek.

From all this desolation rose the mountain, high and sublime; its base was lost in blackness; its peaks soared tall enough to woo the sun, to fume in rosy warmth, to throw a reflection of that glow into the wide trough of obscurity at its foot.

Taking Yattmur’s arm, Gren pointed silently. Other stalkers had crossed the darkness they had crossed; three of them could be seen steadily mounting the slopes ahead. Even their aloof and eerie figures mitigated the loneliness.

Yattmur woke the tummy-bellies, keen to let them see the prospect. The three plump creatures kept their arms round each other as they gazed up at the mountain.

‘O the eyes make a good sight!’ they gasped.

‘Very good,’ Yattmur agreed.

‘O very good, sandwich lady! This big chunk of ripe day makes a hill of a hill shape to grow in this night-and-death place for us. It is a lovely sun slice for us to live in as a happy home.’

‘Perhaps so,’ she agreed, though already she foresaw difficulties beyond their simpler comprehensions.

They climbed. It grew lighter. Finally they emerged from the margin of shadow. The blessed sun shone on them again.

They drank the sight of it until their eyes were blinded and the sombre valleys beneath them danced with orange and green spots. Compressed to lemon shape and parboiled crimson by atmosphere, it simmered at them from the ragged lip of the world, its rays beating outwards over a panorama of shadow. Broken into a confusing array of searchlights by a score of peaks thrusting up from the blackness, the lowest strata of sunlight made a pattern of gilt wonderful to behold.

Unmoved by these vistas, the stalker continued immutably to climb, its legs creaking at every step. Beneath it scuttled an occasional crawlpaw, heading down towards the shrouded valley and ignoring their progress upward. At last the stalker came to a position almost in the dip between two of the three peaks. It halted.

‘By the spirits!’ Gren exclaimed. ‘I think it means to carry us no farther.’

The tummy-bellies set up a hullabaloo of excitement, but Yattmur looked round doubtfully.

‘How do we get down if the stalker is not going to sink as the morel said?’ she asked.

‘We must climb down,’ Gren said, after some thought, when the stalker showed no further sign of moving.

‘Let me see you climb down first. With the cold, and with crouching here too long, my limbs are as stiff as sticks.’

Looking defiantly at her, Gren stood up and stretched himself. He surveyed the situation. Since they had no rope, they had no means of getting down. The smoothly bulging skins of the seed drums prevented the possibility of their climbing down on to the stalker’s legs. Gren sat again, lapsing into blackness.

‘The morel advises us to wait,” he said. He put an arm about Yattmur’s shoulders, ashamed of his own helplessness.

There they waited. There they ate a morsel more of their food, which had begun to sprout mould. There they had perforce to fall asleep; and when they woke the scene had changed hardly at all, except that a few more stalkers now stood silent farther down the slopes, and that thick clouds were drawing across the sky.

Helpless, the humans lay there while nature continued inflexibly to work about them, like a huge machine in which they were the most idle cog.

The clouds came rumbling up from behind the mountain, big and black and pompous. They curdled through the passes, turning to sour milk where the sun lit them. Presently they obscured the sun. The whole mountainside was swallowed. It began to snow sluggish wet flakes like sick kisses.

Five humans burrowed together, turning their backs upwards to the drift. Underneath them, the stalker trembled.

Soon this trembling turned to a steady sway. The stalker’s legs sank a little into the moistened ground; then, as they too became softened by wet, they began to buckle. The stalker became increasingly bow-legged. In the mists of the mountainside, other stalkers—lacking the assistance of weight on top of them—began slowly to copy it. Now the legs quivered farther and farther apart; its body sank lower.

Suddenly, frayed by the countless miles of travel and subverted by wet, its joints reached breaking point and split. The stalker’s six legs fell outwards, its body dropped to the muddy ground. As it hit, the six drums that comprised it burst, scattering notchy seeds all about.

This sodden ruin in the middle of snow was at once the end and the beginning of the stalker plant’s journey. Forced like all plants to solve the terrible problem of overcrowding in a hothouse world, it had done so by venturing into those chilly realms beyond the timberline where the jungle could not grow. On this slope, and a few similar ones within the twilight zone, the stalkers played out one phase of their unending cycle of life. Many of the seeds dispersed now would germinate, where they had plenty of space and some warmth, growing into the hardy little crawlpaws; and some of those crawlpaws, triumphing over a thousand obstacles, would eventually find their way to the realms of true warmth and light, there to root and flower and continue the endless vegetable mode of being.

When the seed drums split, the humans were flung aside into mud. Painfully they stood up, their limbs creaking with stiffness. So thickly swirled the snow and cloud about them that they could hardly see each other: their bodies became white pillars, illusory.

Yattmur was anxious to gather the tummy-belly men together before they became lost. Seeing a figure glistening in the thick dim light, she ran to it and grasped it. A face turned snarling towards her, yellow teeth and hot eyes flared into her face. She cowered from attack, but the creature was gone in a bound.

This was their first intimation that they were not alone on the mountain.

‘Yattmur!’ Gren called. ‘The tummy-bellies are here. Where are you?’

She went running to him, her stiffness forgotten in fright.

‘Something else is here,’ she said. ‘A white creature, wild and with teeth and big ears!’

The three tummy-bellies set up a cry to the spirits of death and darkness as Yattmur and Gren stared about.

‘In this filthy mess, it’s impossible to see anywhere,’ Gren said, dashing snow from his face.

They stood huddled together, knives ready. The snow slackened abruptly, turned to rain, cut off. Through the last shower they saw a line of a dozen white creatures bounding over a brow of the mountain towards the dark side. Behind them they pulled a sort of sledge loaded with sacks, from one of which a trail of stalker seeds bounced.

A ray of sun pierced across the melancholy hillsides. As if they feared it, the white creatures hurried into a pass and disappeared from view.

Gren and Yattmur looked at each other.

‘Were they human?’ Gren asked.

She shrugged. She did not know. She did not know what human meant. The tummy-bellies, now lying in the mud and groaning: were they human? And Gren, so impenetrable now that it seemed as if the morel had taken him over: could it be said he was still human?

So many riddles, some she could not even formulate in words, never mind answer…. But once more the sun shone warm on her limbs. The sky was lined with crumpled lead and gilt. Above them on the mountain were caves. They could go there and build a fire. They could survive and sleep warmly again….

Brushing her hair off her face, she began to walk slowly uphill. Although she felt heavy and troubled, she knew enough to know that the others would follow her.

22

Life on the big slope was endurable, and sometimes more than just endurable, for the human spirit has a genius for making mountains out of molehills of happiness.

In the great and awful landscape in which they found themselves, the humans were dwarfed almost to insignificance. The pastoral of Earth and the drama of the weather unrolled without taking cognisance of them. Between slope and cloud, amid mud and snow, they lived their humble lives.

Though night and day no longer marked the passage of time, there were other incidents to tell of its passing. The storms increased, while the temperature fell; sometimes the rain that fell was icy; sometimes it was scalding hot, so that they ran screaming for the shelter of their caves.

Gren became more morose as the morel took a firmer hold over his will. Aware of how its own cleverness had brought them to a dead end, it brooded increasingly; oppressed by its need to procreate, it cut Gren off from communication with his fellows.

A third event marked the unceasing progression of time. During a storm, Yattmur gave birth to a son.

It became the reason for her existence. She called it Laren and was content.

On a remote mountainside of Earth, Yattmur cradled her baby in her arms, singing to him though he slept.

The upper slopes of the mountain were bathed in the rays of the ever-setting sun, while the lower slopes were lost in night. This whole tumbled area was one of darkness, lit occasionally by ruddy beacons where mountains thrust themselves up in stony imitation of living things to reach the light.

Even where darkness lay thickest, it was not absolute. Just as death is not absolute—the chemicals of life later reforming to create more life—so the darkness was often to be reckoned merely a lesser degree of light, a realm where lurked creatures that had been forced out of the brighter and more populous regions.

Among these exiles were the leatherfeathers, a pair of which skimmed over the mother’s head, enjoying an acrobatic flight, storming downwards with their wings closed or spreading them to float upwards on a current of warmer air. The baby awoke and the mother pointed the flying creatures out to him.

‘There they go, Laren, wheeee, down into the valley and -look, there they are!—back into the sun again, up so high.’

Her baby wrinkled its nose, indulging her. The leathery fliers dived and turned, flashing in the light before they sank into a mesh of shadows, only to rise again, as if out of a sea, sweeping upwards occasionally almost as far as the low canopy of cloud. The clouds held a bronze aura; they were as much a feature of the landscape as the mountains themselves, reflecting light over the obscure world below, scattering it from their contours like showers, until the barren countrysides were dappled with yellow and fugitive gold.

Amid this cross-hatching of brightness and dusk the leatherfeathers sped, feeding on the spores which even here floated thick, wafted from the vast propagating machine that covered the sunlit face of the planet. The infant Laren gurgled in delight, stretching out his hands; Yattmur the mother gurgled too, filled with pleasure at every movement of her child.

One of the fliers was diving steeply now. Yattmur watched with sudden surprise, noticing its lack of control. The leatherfeather twisted down, its mate winking powerfully after it. Just for a moment she thought it was going to straighten: then it struck the mountainside with an audible thwack!

Yattmur stood up. She could see the leatherfeather, a motionless heap above which the bereft mate fluttered.

She was not the only one who had observed the fatal dive. Farther over on the big slope, one of the tummy-belly men began running towards the fallen bird, crying to his two companions as he went. She heard the words, ‘Come and look see with eyes the fallen birds of wings!’ clear in the clear air, she heard the sound of his feet thudding on the ground as he trotted down the slope. Mother-like, she stood watching, clasping Laren and regretting any incident that disturbed her peace.

Something else was after the fallen bird. Yattmur glimpsed a group of figures farther down the hill, coming rapidly from behind a spur of stone. Eight of them she counted, white-clad figures with pointed noses and large ears, outlined sharply against the deep blue gloom of a valley. They dragged a sleigh behind them.

She and Gren called these beings Mountainears, and kept a sharp watch out for them, for the creatures were fast and well-armed, though they had never offered the humans any harm.

For a moment the tableau held: three tummy-belly men trotting downhill, eight mountainears moving up, and the one surviving bird wheeling overhead, uncertain whether to mourn or escape. The mountainears were armed with bows and arrows; tiny but clear in the distance, they lifted their weapons, and suddenly Yattmur was full of anxiety for the three plump half-wits with whom she had travelled so far. Clutching Laren to her breast, she stood up and called to them.

‘Hey, you tummies! Come back!’

Even as she called, the first fierce mountainear had unleashed his arrow. Swift and sure it went—and the surviving leatherfeather spiralled down. Beneath it, the leading tummy-belly ducked and squealed. The falling bird, its wings still faintly beating, hit him between the shoulder blades as it dropped. Staggering, he fell, while the bird flopped feebly about him. The group of tummy-bellies and mountainears met. Yattmur turned and ran. She burst into the smoky cave where she, Gren, and the baby lived. ‘Grenl Please come! The tummy-bellies will be killed. They are out there with the terrible big-eared white ones attacking them. What can we do?’ Gren lay propped against a column of rock, his hands clasped together on his stomach. When Yattmur entered, he fixed her with a dead gaze, then dropped his eyes again. Pallor marked his features, contrasting with the rich livery brown that glistened about his head and throat, framing his face with its sticky folds. ‘Are you going todo anything?’ she demanded. ‘What is the matter with you these days?’ ‘The tummy-bellies are useless to us,’ Gren said. Nevertheless, he stood up. She put out her hand, which he clutched listlessly, and dragged him to the cave mouth. ‘I’ve grown fond of the poor creatures,’ she said, almost to herself. They peered down the steep slope to where figures moved against a backdrop of hazy shadow. The three tummy-belly men were walking back up the hill, dragging one of the leatherfeathers with them.

Beside them walked the mountainears, pulling their sleigh, on the top of which lay the other leatherfeather. The two groups went amicably together, chattering with plentiful gesticulation from the tummy-bellies.

‘Well, what do you make of that?’ Yattmur exclaimed. It was an odd procession. The mountainears in profile were sharp-snouted; they moved in an irregular fashion, sometimes dropping forward to pace on all fours up the incline. Their language came to Yattmur in short barks of sound, though they were too far away for her to distinguish what was being said—even provided that what they said was intelligible.

‘What do you make of it, Gren?’ she asked. He said nothing, staring out at the little crowd that was now clearly heading for the cave in which he had directed the tummy-bellies to live. As they passed beyond the stalker grove, he saw them point in his direction and laugh. He made no sign. Yattmur looked up at him, suddenly struck with pity at the change that had recently possessed him. ‘You say so little and you look so ill, my love. We have come so far together, you and I with only each other to love, yet now it is as if you were gone from me. From my heart flows only love for you, from my lips only kindness. But love and kindness are lost things on you now, O Gren, O my Gren!’ She put her free arm round him, only to feel him move away. Yet he said, as if the words came wrapped one by one in ice, ‘Help me, Yattmur. Be patient. I am ill.’

Now she was half-preoccupied with the other matter.

‘You’ll be better. But what are those savage mountainears doing? Can they be friendly?’

‘You’d better go and see,’ Gren said, still in his bleak voice. He disengaged her hand, went back inside the cave and lay down, resuming his former position with his hands clasped over his stomach. Yattmur sat down at the cave mouth, undecided. The tummy-bellies and mountainears had disappeared into the other cave. The girl stayed helplessly where she was, while clouds piled up overhead. Presently it began to rain, the rain turning to snow. Laren cried and was given a breast to suck.

Slowly the girl’s thoughts grew outwards, eclipsing the rain. Vague pictures hung in the air about her, pictures that despite their lack of logic were her way of reasoning. Her safe days in the tribe of herders was represented by a tiny red flower that could also, with just the tiniest shift of emphasis, be her, as her safe days had been her: she had not seen herself as a phenomenon distinct from the phenomena about her. And when she tried to do so now, she could only picture herself distantly, in a crowd of bodies, or as part of a dance, or as a girl whose turn it was to take the buckets to Long Water.

Now the red flower days were over, except that a new bud put forth petals at her breast. The crowd of bodies had gone, and vanished with it was the yellow shawl symbol. The lovely shawl! Perpetual sun overhead like a hot bath, innocent limbs, a happiness that did not know itself—these were the strands of the yellow shawl she pictured. Distinctly she saw herself throw it away to follow the wanderer whose merit was that he was the unknown.

The unknown was a big withered leaf in which something crouched. She had followed the leaf—the tiny figure of herself grew nearer and somehow more spiky—while shawl and red petals blew merrily off in the one way wind of time. Now the leaf turned flesh, rolling with her. She became a big figure, swarming with traffic, a land of milk and honeyed public parts.

And in the red flower had been no music like the music of the fleshy leaf.

Yet it all faded. The mountain came marching in. Mountain and flower were opposed. Mountain rolled on for ever, in one steep slope that had no bottom or top, though the base rested in black mist and the peak in black cloud. Black mist and cloud were reaching everywhere through her reverie, long-handed shorthand for evil; while by another of those tiny shifts of emphasis, the slope became not just her present life, but all her life. In the mind are no paradoxes, only moments; and in the moment of the slope, all the bright flowers and shawls and flesh were as if they had never been.

Thunder snored over the real mountain, rousing Yattmur from her reverie, scattering her pictures.

She looked back into the cave at Gren. He was unmoving. He did not look at her. Her daydreaming brought her the comprehension she sought, and she told herself, ‘It is the magic morel that has brought us this trouble. Laren and I are victims of it as much as poor Gren. Because it preys on him, he is ill. It is on his head and in his head. Somehow,I must find a way to deal with it.’

Comprehension was not the same as comfort. Gathering up the baby, tucking her breast away, she stood up.

‘I’m going to the cave of the tummy-bellies,’ she said, half-expecting to get no reply.

Gren answered her.

‘You cannot take Laren through that pouring rain. Give him to me and I will take care of him.’

She crossed the floor towards him. Though the light was bad, she thought the fungus in his hair and round his neck looked darker than before. Certainly it was expanding, standing out over his forehead in a way it had never done. Sudden revulsion checked her movement as she began to offer him the baby.

He glanced up at her from under the morel with a look she could not recognize as his; it held the fatal mixture of stupidity and cunning that lurks at the bottom of all evil. Instinctively, she jerked her child back.

‘Give him to me. He won’t be hurt,’ Gren said. ‘A young human could be taught so much.’

Though his movements were generally lethargic, he jumped up with all swiftness. She leapt away angrily, hissing at him, drawing her knife, afraid in all her fibres. She showed him her teeth like an animal.

‘Keep away.’

Laren sent out an irritable wail.

‘Give me the baby,’ Gren said again.

‘You are not yourself. I’m frightened of you, Gren. Sit down again!, Stay away! Stay away!’

Still he came forward in a curiously slack way as if his nervous system was having to respond to two rival centres of control. She raised her knife, but he took absolutely no notice of it. In his eyes hung a blind look like a curtain.

At the last moment, Yattmur broke. Dropping her knife, she turned and sprinted from the cave, clutching her baby tightly.

Thunder came tumbling down the hill at her. Lightning sizzled, striking one strand of a great traverser web that stretched from nearby up into the clouds. The strand spluttered and flared until rain quenched it. Yattmur ran, making for the cave of the tummy-bellies, not daring to glance back.

Only when she reached it did she realize how unsure she was of her reception. By then it was too late to hesitate. As she burst in out of the rain, tummy-bellies and mountainears jumped up to meet her.

23

Grensank to his hands and knees among the painful stones at the mouth of the cave.

Complete chaos had overtaken his impressions of the external world. Pictures rose like steam, twisting in his inner mind. He saw a wall of tiny cells, sticky like a honeycomb, growing all about him. Though he had a thousand hands, they did not push down the wall; they came away thick with syrup that bogged his movements. Now the wall of cells loomed above his head, closing in. Only one gap in it remained. Staring through it, he saw tiny figures miles distant. One was Yattmur, down on her knees, gesticulating, crying because he could not get to her. Other figures he made out to be the tummy-bellies. Another he recognised as Lily-yo, the leader of the old group. And another—that writhing creature!—he recognized as himself, shut out from his own citadel.

The mirage fogged over and vanished.

Miserably, he fell back against the wall, and the cells of the wall began popping open like wombs, oozing poisonous things.

The poisonous things became mouths, lustrous brown mouths that excreted syllables. They impinged on him with the voice of the morel. They came so thickly on him from all sides that for a while it was only their shock and not their meaning that struck him. He screamed creakingly, until he realized the morel was speaking not with cruelty but regret; whereupon he tried to control his shivering and listen to what was being said.

`There were no creatures like you in the thickets of Nomansland where my kind live,’ the morel pronounced. ‘Our role was to live off the simple vegetable creatures there. They existed without brain; we were their brains. With you it has been different. In the extraordinary ancestral compost heap of your unconscious mind, I have burrowed too long.

‘I have seen so much to amaze me in you that I forgot what I should have been about. You have captured me, Gren, as surely as I have captured you.

‘Yet the time has come when I must remember my true nature. I have fed on your life to feed my own; that is my function, my only way. Now I reach a point of crisis, for I amripe.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Gren said dully.

‘A decision lies before me. I am soon to divide and sporulate; that is the system by which I reproduce, and I have little control over it. This I could do here, hoping that my progeny would survive somehow on this bleak mountain against rain and ice and snow. Or… I could transfer to a fresh host.’

‘Not to my baby.’

‘Why not to your baby? Laren is the only choice for me. He is young and fresh; he will be far easier to control than you are. True, he is weak as yet, but Yattmur and you will look after him until he becomes able to look after himself.’

‘Not if it means looking after you as well.’

Before Gren finished speaking he received a blow, scattering directly over his brain, that sent him huddling against the cave wall in pain.

‘You and Yattmur will not desert the baby under any circumstances. You know that, and I see it in your thought. You know also that if any opportunity came you would get away from these barren miserable slopes to the fertile lands of light. That also fits in with my plan. Time presses, man; I must move according to my needs.

‘Knowing every fibre of you as I do, I pity your pain—but it can mean nothing at all to me when set against my own nature. I must have an able and preferably witless host that will carry me rapidly back into the sunlit world, so that I can seed there. So I have chosen Laren. That would be the best course for my progeny, don’t you think?’

‘I’m dying,’ Gren moaned.

‘Not yet,’ twanged the morel.

At the back of the tummy-belly cave sat Yattmur, half-asleep. The foetid air of the place, the yammer of voices, the noise of the rain outside, all combined to dull her senses. She dozed, and Laren slept on a pile of dead foliage beside her. They had all eaten scorched leatherfeather, half-cooked, half-burnt over a blazing fire. Even the baby had accepted tit-bits.

When she appeared distraught at the cave entrance, the tummy-bellies welcomed her in, crying ‘Come, lovely sandwich lady, out of the raining wetness where the clouds fall. Come in with us to cuddle and make warmth without water.’

‘Who are these others with you?’ She looked anxiously at the eight mountainears, who were grinning and jumping up and down at the sight of her.

Seen close to, they were very formidable: a head taller than the humans, with thick shoulders on which long fur stood out like a mantle. They had grouped together behind the tummy-bellies, but now began circling Yattmur, showing their teeth and calling to each other in a weird perversion of speech.

Their faces were the most fearsome Yattmur had ever seen. Long-jawed, low-browed, they had snouts and brief yellow beards, while their ears curled out of fuzzy short fur like segments of raw flesh. Quick and irritable in movement, they seemed never to leave their faces in repose: bars of long, sharp ivories appeared and disappeared behind grey lips as they snapped out questions at her.

‘You yap you live here? On the Big Slope you yakker-yakker live? With the tummy-bellies, with the tummy-bellies live? You and them together, yipper-yap, slap-sleeping running living loving on the Big Big Slope?’

One of the largest mountainears asked Yattmur this rapid fire of questions, jumping before her and grimacing as he did so. His voice was so coarse and gutteral, his phrases so chopped into barks, that she had difficulty in understanding him at all. ‘Yipper yapper yes live you on Big Black Slope?’

‘Yes, I live on this mountain,’ she said, standing her ground. ‘Where do you live? What people are you?’

For answer he opened his goat eyes at her until a red brink of gristle showed all round them. Then he closed them tight, opened his cavernous jaws and emitted a high clucking soprano chord of laughter.

“These sharp-fur people are gods, lovely sharp gods, sandwich lady,’ the tummy-bellies explained, the three of them hopping before her, jostling each other in an agony to be first to unburden their souls to her. ‘These sharp-fur people are called sharp-furs. They are our gods, missis, for they run all over the Big Slope mountain, to be gods for dear old tummy-belly men. They are gods, gods, they are big fierce gods, sandwich lady. They havetails!

This last sentence was delivered in a cry of triumph. The whole mob of them went streaming round the cave, shrieking and whooping. Indeed the sharp-furs had tails, sticking out of their rumps at impudent angles. These the tummy-bellies chased, trying to pull and kiss them. As Yattmur shrank back, Laren, who had watched this rout for a moment wide-eyed, began to bawl at the top of his voice. The dancing figures imitated him, interposing shouts and chants of their own.

‘Devil dance on the Big Slope, Big Slope. Teeth many teeth bite-tear-chew night or light on Big Slope. Tummy-belly men are singing for tails of sharp-fur gods. Many big bad things to sing about on the Bad Slope. Eat and bite and drink when rain comes raining. Ai, ai, ai-yah!’

Suddenly as they galloped by, one of the fiercest sharp-furs snatched Laren out of Yattmur’s arms. She cried out—he was gone, whirled away with startlement on his small red face. The long-jawed creatures tossed him from one to another, first high then low, almost striking the floor or nearly scraping the ceiling, barking with laughter at their game.

Outraged, Yattmur flung herself on the nearest sharp-fur. As she tore at his long white fur, she felt the muscles beneath it, rippling as the creature turned. A leathery grey hand flashed up, rammed two fingers up her nostrils, and pushed. Scissoring pain cut between her eyes. She fell back, her hands going up to her face, lost her footing, and sprawled on the ground. Instantly the sharp-fur was on to her. Almost as quickly, the others piled on as well.

This was Yattmur’s saving. The sharp-furs began to fight among themselves and forgot her. She crawled away from them to rescue Laren, who lay now drugged with surprise, perfectly unharmed on the ground. Sobbing with relief, she hugged him to her. He began at once to cry—but when she looked fearfully round, the sharp-furs had forgotten about her and the fight, and were preparing to cook the dead leatherfeathers again.

‘Oh don’t have wet rain in the eyes, lovely sandwich lady,’ said the tummy-bellies, clustering round her, patting her clumsily, trying to stroke her hair. She was alarmed at their familiarity with her when Gren was not about, but she said in a low voice, ‘You were so afraid of Gren and me: why have you no fear of these terrible creatures? Do you not see how dangerous they are?’

‘Do you not see see see how these gods of sharp-fur have tails? Only tails that grow on people have people with tails to be gods to us poor tummy-belly men.’

‘They will kill you.’

‘They are our gods, so we make happiness to be killed only by gods with tails. Yes, they have sharp teeth and tails! Yes, and the teeth and tails are of a sharpness.’

‘You are like children, and they are dangerous.’

‘Ai-ee, the sharp-fur gods wear danger in their mouth for teeth. Yet the teeth do not call us hard names like you and the brain man Gren. Better to have a jolly death, miss!’

As the tummy-bellies huddled round Yattmur, she peered over their hairy shoulders at the group of sharp-furs. Momentarily they were almost still, tearing up one of the leatherfeathers and cramming it into their mouths. At the same time, a large leathern flask passed between them; from this, with much squabbling, they gulped in turn. Yattmur observed that even among themselves they spoke a broken version of the tongue the tummy-bellies spoke.

‘How long are they staying here for?’ she asked.

‘In the cave they stay often because they love us in the cave,’ one tummy-belly said, stroking her shoulder.

`They have visited you before?’

Those fat faces grinned at her.

‘They come to see us before and again and again because they love lovely tummy-belly men. You and the hunter man Gren do not love lovely tummy-belly men, so we weep on the Big Slope. And the sharp-furs soon take us away to find a green mummy-tummy. Yep, yep, sharp-furs take us?’

‘You are leaving us?’

‘We go away from you to leave you on the cold and nasty dark Big Slope, where it is so big and dark, because the sharp gods take us to tiny green place with warm mummy-tummies where slopes cannot live.’

In the heat and stink, and with Laren grizzling, she grew confused. She made them say it all again, which they did volubly, until their meaning was all too clear.

For a long while now, Gren had been unable to conceal his hatred for the tummy-bellies. This dangerous new sharp-snouted race had offered to take them off the mountain and back to one of the fleshy trees which succoured and enslaved tummy-belly men. Yattmur knew instinctively that the long-toothed mountainears were not to be trusted, but it was impossible to make the tummy-bellies feel this. She saw that she and her child were soon to be left alone on the mountain with Gren.

Overcome by several varieties of wretchedness, she began to weep.

They clustered nearer, trying inadequately to comfort her, breathing in her face, patting her breasts, tickling her body, making faces at the baby. She was too miserable to protest.

‘You come with us to the green world, lovely sandwich lady, to be again far from the huge Big Slope with us lovely chaps,’ they murmured. ‘We let you have lovely sleeps in with us.’

Encouraged by her apathy, they began to explore the more intimate parts of her body. Yattmur offered no resistance, and when their simple prurience was satisfied, they left her alone in her corner. One of them returned later, bringing her a portion of scorched leatherfeather, which she ate.

While she chewed, she thought, ‘Gren will kill my baby with that fungus. So I must take a chance for Laren’s sake, and leave when the tummy-bellies leave.’ Once the decision had been made, she felt happier, and sank into a doze.

She was wakened by Laren’s crying. As she attended to him, she peered outside. It was as dark as she had ever known it. The rain had stopped temporarily; now thunder filled the air, as if it rolled between earth and packed cloud seeking escape. The tummy-bellies and sharp-furs slept together in an uncomfortable heap, disturbed by the noise. Yattmur’s head throbbed, and she thought, I’ll never sleep in this rumpus. But a moment later, with Laren cuddled against her, her eyes were closed again.

The next time she was roused, it was by the sharp-furs. They were barking with excitement and scampering out of the cave.

Laren was sleeping. Leaving the child on a pile of dead foliage. Yattmur went to see what was happening. She drew back momentarily on coming face to face with the sharp-furs. To protect their heads from the rain—which was coming down again with full force—they were wearing helmets carved from the same sort of dried gourd that Yattmur used for cooking and washing in.

Holes had been cut in the gourds for their ears, eyes and snouts. But the gourds were too large for the furry heads they covered; they rolled from side to side with every movement, making the sharp-furs look like broken dolls. This, and the fact that the gourds had been clumsily smeared with various colours, gave the sharp-furs a grotesque air, from which the element of fear was not missing.

As Yattmur ran into the pouring rain, one of the creatures jumped forward with its nodding wooden head and barred her way.

‘Yagrapper yow you stay sleeping in the sleeping cave, mother lady. Coming through the rap-yap-rain is coming bad things that we fellows have no like. So we bite and tear and bite. Brrr buff best you stay away yap yay from sight of our teeth.’

She flinched from its clutch, hearing the drum of rain on its crude helmet mingle with its baffling mixture of growls, yaps, and words.

‘Why should I not stay out here?’ she asked. ‘Are you afraid of me? What is happening?’

‘Catch-carry-kind come yum yap and catch you! Grrr, let him catch you!’

It pushed Yattmur and leaped away to join its mates. The helmeted creatures were leaping about over their sledge, quarrelling as they sorted out their bows and arrows. The tummy-belly trio stood close by, cuddling each other and pointing along the slope.

The cause of all the excitement was a group of figures moving slowly towards Yattmur’s party. At first, squinting through the downpour, she thought only two things were approaching; then they separated to reveal themselves as three—and for the life of her she could not make out what, in their oddity, they might be. But the sharp-furs knew.

‘Catchy carry kind, catchy carry kind! Killy catchy carry kind!’ they seemed to be calling, growing frenzied about it. But the trio advancing through the rain, for all their peculiarity, did not look menacing even to Yattmur. The sharp-furs however, were leaping in the air with lust; one or two were already taking aim with their bows through the wavering curtains of rain.

‘Stop! Don’t hurt them, let them come!’ Yattmur shouted. ‘They can’t harm us.’

‘Catchy carry kind! You you yap you keep quiet, lady, and be not any harm or take harm!’ they called, unintelligble with excitement. One of them charged at her, head first, banging his gourd helmet against her shoulder. In fear of him she turned and ran, blindly at first and then with purpose.

She could not deal with the sharp-furs: but probably Gren and the morel could.

Squelching and splashing, she ran back to her own cave. Unthinkingly, she plunged right in.

Gren stood against the wall by the entrance, half-concealed. She was past him before she realized it, only turning as he began to bear down on her.

Helpless with shock, she screamed and screamed, her mouth sagging toothily wide at the sight of him.

The surface of the morel was black and pustular now—and it had slipped down so that it covered all his

face. Only his eyes gleamed sickly in the midst of it as he jumped forward at her.

She sank to her knees. It was all she could manage at the moment in the way of evasive action, so completely had the sight of that huge cancerous growth on Gren’s shoulders unnerved her.

‘Oh Gren!’ she gasped weakly. He bent and took her roughly by her hair. The physical pain of this cleared her mind; though she trembled like a hill under a landslide of emotion, her wits returned to her.

‘Gren, the morel thing is killing you,’ she whispered.

‘Where’s the baby?’ he demanded. Though his voice was muffled, it had too an additional remoteness, a twanging quality, that gave her one more item for alarm. ‘What have you done with the baby, Yattmur?”

Cringing, she said, ‘You don’t speak like yourself any more, Gren. What’s happening? You know I don’t hate you—tell me what’s happening, so that I can understand.’

‘Why have you not brought the baby?’

‘You’re not like Gren any more. You’re—you’re somehow the morel now, aren’t you? You talk with his voice.’

‘Yattmur—I need the baby.’ Struggling to her feet though he still clasped her hair, she said, as steadily as possible, ‘Tell me what you want Laren for.’

“The baby is mine and I need him. Where have you put him?’ She pointed to the gloomy recesses of the cave. ‘Don’t be silly, Gren. He’s lying back there behind you, at the back of the cave, fast asleep.’ Even as he looked, as his attention was diverted, she wrenched herself out of his grip, ducked under his arm, and ran. Squeaking with terror, she burst into the open. Again the rain soused down on to her face, bringing her back to a world she had left—though that horrifying glimpse of Gren had seemed to last for ever—little more than a moment before. From where she stood, the hillside cut off that strange trio the sharp-furs had called the catchy-carry-kind, but the group about the sledge was clearly visible. It stood in a tableau, tummy-bellies and sharp-furs motionless, looking over towards her, diverted from their other business by her screams.

She ran over to them, glad for all their irrationality to be with them again. Only then did she look back. Gren had followed her from the cave mouth and there had stopped. After pausing indecisively, he went back and disappeared. The sharp-furs muttered and chattered to themselves, evidently awed by what they had seen. Taking advantage of the situation, Yattmur pointed back at Gren’s cave and said, ‘Unless you obey me, that terrible mate of mine with the deadly sponge face will come and devour you all. Now, let these other people approach, and don’t harm them until they offer us harm.’

‘Catchy-carry-kind no yap yap good!’ they burst out.

‘Do as I say or the sponge-face will devour you, ears and fur and all!’

The three slowly moving figures were nearer now. Two of them were human in outline, if very thin, though the weird biscuit light pervading everywhere made detail impossible to discern. The figure that most intrigued Yattmur was the one bringing up the rear. Though it walked on two legs, it differed considerably from its companions in being taller and seeming to have an enormous head. At times it appeared to have a second head below the first, to possess a tail, and to be walking with its hands clutched round its upper skull. But the deluge, as well as part-concealing it, gave it a shimmering halo of rebounding rain drops which defied vision.

To add to Yattmur’s impatience, the odd trio now stopped. Although she called to them to come on, they ignored her. They stood perfectly still on the flooded hillside—and gradually one of the human figures blurred round the edges, became translucent, disappeared!

Both tummy-bellies and sharp-furs, obviously impressed by Yattmur’s threat, had fallen silent. At the disappearance, they set up a murmur, although the sharp-furs showed little surprise.

‘What’s going on over there?’ Yattmur asked one of the tummy-bellies.

‘Very much a strange thing to take in the ears, sandwich lady. Several strange things! Through the nasty wet rain come two spiriters and a nasty catchy-carry-kind creature having a nasty carry on a number three spiriter in the wet rain. So the sharp-fur gods are crying with many a bad thought!’

What they said made little sense to Yattmur. Suddenly angered with them, she said, ‘Tell the sharp-furs to keep quiet and get back into the cave. I’m going to meet these new people.’

‘These fine sharp gods do not do what you say with no tail,’ the tummy-belly replied, but Yattmur ignored him.

She began to walk forward with her arms outspread and her hands open to show she intended no harm. As she went, though the thunder still bumped over the nearby hills, the rain petered to a drizzle and stopped. The two creatures ahead became more clearly visible—and suddenly there were three of them again. A blurred outline took on substance, becoming a thin human being who stared ahead at Yattmur with the same watchful gaze as his two companions.

Disturbed by this apparition, Yattmur came to a halt. At this the bulky figure moved forward, calling out as he came, pushing past his companions.

‘Creatures of the evergreen universe, the Sodal Ye of the catchy-carry-kind comes to you with the truth. See you are fit to receive it!’

His voice had a richness and fruitiness, as though it travelled through mighty throats and palates to become sound. Moving under the shelter of its mellowness, the two human figures also advanced. Yattmur could see that they were indeed human—two females in fact of a very primitive order, utterly naked except for elaborate tattoos over their bodies, and expressions of invincible stupidity upon their faces.

Feeling that something was called for by way of reply, Yattmur bowed and said, ‘If you come peacefully, welcome to our mountain.’

The bulky figure gave out a roar of inhuman triumph and disgust.

‘You do not own this mountain! This mountain, this Big Slope, this growth of dirt and stone and boulder, owns you! The Earth is not yours: you are a creature of the Earth.’

‘You take my meaning a long way,’ Yattmur said, irritated. ‘Who are you?’

‘Everything has a long way to be taken!’ was the reply, but Yattmur was no longer listening; the bulky figure’s roar had precipitated activity behind her. She turned to see the sharp-furs preparing to leave, squealing and jostling, pushing each other as they swung their sledge about until it pointed downhill.

‘Carry us with you or come running gently beside your lovely riding machine!’ cried the tummy-bellies, darting distractedly about and even rolling in the mud before their fierce-featured gods. ‘Oh please kill us with lovely death only take us with you running and riding away from this Big Slope. Take us away from this Big Slope with the sandwich people and now this big roaring scratchy-carry-kind. Take us, take us, cruel lovely gods of sharp gods!’

‘No, no, no. Gup gup go away, sprawly men! Sharpish we go, and come back in a quiet time for you soon!’ cried the sharp-furs, bounding about.

All was activity. In no time, despite apparent chaos and indirection, the sharp-furs were moving, running beside and behind their sledge, pushing or braking as was needed, leaping over and on top of it, screaming, chattering, throwing up their gourd helmets and catching them, travelling over the uneven ground at speed, heading towards the glooms of the valley.

Bewailing their fate with gusto, the deserted tummy-bellies slunk back towards their cave, averting their eyes from the newcomers. As the yipping progress of the sharp-furs dwindled, Yattmur heard her baby’s cry from the cave. Forgetting everything else, she ran and picked him up, dandled him until he gurgled with joy at her, and then took him outside to speak once more with the bulky figure.

It began to orate directly Yattmur reappeared.

“Those sharp-teeth sharp-fur kind have fled from me. Leaf-brained idiots they are—nothing more, animals with toads in their heads. Though they will not listen to me now, the time will come when they will have to listen. Their kind will be driven like hail on the winds.’

As the creature talked on, Yattmur observed him thoroughly, with growing amazement. She could not understand him properly, for his head, an enormous fish-like affair with a broad lower lip which turned down so far that it nearly concealed his lack of chin, was out of all proportion with the rest of his body. His legs, though bowed, were human in appearance, his arms were wrapped unmoving behind his ears, while from his chest a hairy, head-like growth seemed to emerge. Now and again she caught a glimpse of a large tail hanging behind him.

The pair of tattooed women stood by him, staring blankly ahead without appearing to see or think—or indeed to perform any activity more elaborate than breathing.

Now this strange bulky figure broke off his oration to gaze up at the thick clouds that masked the sun.

‘I will sit,’ he said. ‘Place me on a suitable boulder, women. Soon the sky will clear, and then we shall see what we see.’

The order was not addressed to Yattmur, or the tummy-bellies, who clustered forlornly at their cave mouth, but to the tattooed women. They watched as he moved forward with his dull retinue.

A tumble of boulders lay nearby. One was large and flat-topped. By this the odd trio halted—and the bulky figure split into two as the woman lifted the top part off the bottom! Half of him lay flat and fishy on the boulder, the other half stood bowed nearby.

Comprehension made Yattmur gasp, even as the tummy-bellies behind her wailed in dismay and raced each other into the cave. The bulky creature, the catch-carry-kind as the sharp-furs called him, was two separate creatures! A giant fish shape, much like one of the dolphins she had seen during their voyage over the wastes of the ocean, had been carried by a stooped old human.

‘You are two people!’ she exclaimed.

‘Indeed I am not!’ said the dolphin-thing from its slab. ‘I am known as the Sodal Ye, greatest of all Sodals of the catch-carry-kind, Prophet of the Nightside Mountains, who brings you the true word. Have you intelligence, woman?’

About the man who had carried him clustered the two tattooed women. They did nothing effectual. They waved their hands at him without speaking. One of them grunted. As for the man, he had obviously been at his carrying for many seasons of fruit. Though the weight had gone from his shoulders, he remained bent as if he bore it yet, standing like a statue of dejection with his withered arms still circling the air above him, his back bowed, his eyes fixed only on the ground. Occasionally he shifted his stance; otherwise he was immobile.

‘I asked you if you had intelligence, woman,’ said the being who called himself Sodal Ye, his voice as thick as liver. ‘Speak, since you can speak.’

Yattmur pulled her eyes away from this horrifying porter and said, ‘What do you want here? Have you come to be helpful?’

‘Spoken like a human woman!’

‘Your women here don’t seem to speak much!’

‘They’re not human! They cannot speak, as you should know. Have you never met any of the Arablers, the tattoo tribe before? Anyhow, why do you ask Sodal Ye for help? I am a prophet, not a servant. Are you in trouble?’

‘Grave trouble. I have a mate who -‘

Sodal Ye flipped one of his fins.

‘Cease. Don’t bother me with your tales now. Sodal Ye has more important things to do—such as watching the mighty sky, the sea in which this tiny seed Earth floats. Also, this Sodal is hungry. Feed me and I’ll help you if I can. My brain is the mightiest of all things on the planet.’

Ignoring this boast, Yattmur said, indicating his motley retinue, ‘What of these companions of yours aren’t they hungry too?’

‘They’ll be no trouble to you, woman; they eat the bits that Sodal Ye leaves.’

‘I’ll feed you all if you will truly try to help me.’

She bustled off, ignoring the new speech on which he had launched himself. Already Yattmur felt that this was a creature—unlike the sharp-furs—with which she could deal; a conceited and intelligent being that was nevertheless vulnerable; for she saw clearly that she had only to kill his porter to render the sodal helpless—should that be necessary. Meeting someone with whom she could negotiate from a position of strength was like a tonic; she felt nothing but goodwill towards the sodal.

The tummy-belly men had always been as gentle as mothers with Laren. She handed him to them, seeing that they settled contentedly to amuse him before gathering food for her strange guests. Her hair dripped as she went, her clothes began to dry on her, but she took no notice.

Into a big gourd she crammed the remains of the leatherfeather feast and other edibles the tummy-bellies had collected: sprouts from the stalker grove, nuts, smoked mushrooms, berries and the fleshy fruits of the gourd. Another gourd stood full of water that had dripped through the fissured roof of the cave. She carried that out too.

Sodal Ye still lay on his boulder. He was bathed in an eerie cream light and did not move his eyes from the direction of the sun. Setting the food down, Yattmur looked where he did.

The clouds had parted. Over the dark and rugged sea of landscape, low hung the sun. It had changed its shape. Distorted by atmosphere, it was oblate: but no distortion of atmosphere could account for the great red-white wing which it had sprouted, a wing grown almost as large as its parent body.

‘Oh! The blessed light takes wing to fly away and leave us!’ Yattmur cried.

‘You are safe yet, woman,’ Sodal Ye declared. ‘This I foresaw. Do not worry. To bring me my food would be more useful. When I tell you about the flames that are about to consume our world, you will understand, but I must feed before I preach.’

But she fixed her eyes on the strange sight in the heavens. The storm centre had passed from the twilight zone into the regions of the mighty banyan. Above the forest, the clouds piled cream on purple; lightning flashed almost without cease. And in the centre of it hung that deformed sun.

Uneasily, when the Sodal called again, Yattmur brought the food forward.

At this moment, one of the two wretched women began to vanish from where she stood. Yattmur almost dropped the gourds, staring in fascination. In very little time, the woman existed only as a smudge. Her tattoo lines alone remained, a meaningless scribble in the air. Then they too faded and were gone.

The tableau held. Slowly the tattoos returned. The woman followed, dull-eyed and meagre as before. She made a movement with her hands to the other woman. The other woman turned to the sodal and mouthed two or three slurred syllables.

‘Good!’ exclaimed the sodal, slapping his fish tail on the boulder. ‘You wisely did not poison the food, mother, so I will eat it.’

The woman who had made the mockery of speech now came forward and took the gourd of food over to the sodal. Dipping her hand in, she commenced to feed him, thrusting handfuls into his fleshy mouth. He ate noisily and with relish, pausing only once to drink some water.

‘Who are you all? What are you? Where do you come from? How do you vanish?’ Yattmur asked.

Thickly through his mastication, Sodal Ye replied, ‘Something of all that I may tell you or I may not. You may as well know that only this one mute female can “vanish”, as you call it. Let me eat. Keep quiet.’

At last he had finished.

In the bottom of the gourd he had left some scraps, and on these the three woebegone humans made their meal, drawing to one side in pitiful modesty to do so. The women fed their stooped fellow, whose arms were still fixed as if paralysed over his head.

‘Now I am prepared to hear your story,’ announced the sodal, ‘and do something to help you if possible. Know that I come of the wisest race of this planet. My kind have covered all the vast seas and most of the less interesting land. I am a prophet, a Sodal of the Highest Knowledge, and I will stoop to help you if I consider your need interesting enough.’

‘Your pride is remarkable,’ she said.

‘Pah, what is pride when the Earth is about to die? Proceed with your silly tale, mother, if you are going to proceed at all.’

24

Yattmur r wished to present the sodal with her problem concerning Gren and the morel. But because she possessed no skill in unfolding a story and selecting the telling details for it, she gave him virtually the history of her life, and of her childhood with the herders who lived on the edge of the forest by Black Mouth. She then related the arrival of Gren with his mate Poyly, and spoke of Poyly’s death, and of their subsequent wanderings, until fate like a heavy sea had cast them upon the shores of the Big Slope. Then finally she told of the birth of her baby, and of how she knew it to be threatened by the morel.

During all this, the sodal of the catch-carry-kind lay with seeming indifference on his boulder, his lower lip hanging low enough to reveal the orange rims round his teeth. Beside him—with total indifference—the pair of tattooed women lay on the grass flanking the bowed porter, who still stood like a monument to care with his arms above his skull. The sodal surveyed none of them; his gaze roved over the heavens.

At last he said, ‘You make an interesting case. I have heard details of many infinitesimal lives not unlike yours. By fitting them all together—by synthestizing them in my extraordinary intelligence—I can construct a true picture of this world in its last stages of existence.’

Angrily Yattmur stood up.

‘Why I could knock you off your perch for that, you deboshed fish!’ she exclaimed. ‘Is that all you have to say when previously you offered help?’ ‘Oh I could say a deal more, little human. But your problem is so simple that for me it scarcely seems to exist. I have met with these morels before in my travels, and though they are clever fellows, they have several points of vulnerability upon which anyone of my intellect will quickly seize.’ ‘Please make a suggestion quickly.’ ‘I have only one suggestion: that you entrust your baby to your mate Gren when he calls for it.’ ‘That I can’t do!’ ‘Ah ha, but you must. Don’t back away. Come here while I explain why you must.’ She did not like the sodal’s plan. But behind his conceit and pomposity lay a stubborn stony force; his presence too was aweing; the very way he chewed out his words made them seem incontrovertible; so Yattmur clutched Laren with all-ease and agreed to his dictates.

‘I dare not go and face him in the cave,’ she said. ‘Get your tummy-creatures to fetch him here then,’ ordered the sodal. ‘And hurry up about it. I travel on behalf of Fate, a master who at present has too much on his hands to bother with your concerns.’

A rumble of thunder sounded, as if some mighty being signalled agreement with his words. Yattmur looked anxiously towards the sun, still wearing its cocky feather of fire, and then went to speak to the tummy-bellies.

They sprawled together in the cosy dirt, arms round each other, chattering. As she entered the cave mouth, one of them picked up a handful of earth and gravel and flung it at her. ‘Before now you don’t come in our cave or ever come here or want to come here, and now you are wanting to come here is too late, cruel sandwich lady! And the fishy-carry-man is your bad company we don’t belong. Poor tummy-men not want you come here—or they make the lovely sharp-furs crunch you up in the cave.’

She stopped. Anger, regret, apprehension, ran through her, then she said firmly, ‘Your troubles are only just beginning if you feel like that. You know I wish to be your friend.’

‘You make all our troubles! Go quickly away!’ She backed away and, as she began to walk towards the other cave where Gren lay, she heard the tummy-bellies crying out to her. Whether their tone was one of abuse or supplication she did not know. Lightning snickered, stirring her shadow about her ankles. The baby wriggled in her arms.

‘Lie still!’ she said sharply. ‘He shall not harm you.’

Gren sprawled at the back of the cave where she had last seen him. Lightning stabbed the brown mask through which his eyes peered. Though she saw him staring at her, he did not move or speak. ‘Gren!’ Still he neither moved nor spoke. Vibrant with strain, torn between love and hate of him, she leant there indecisively. When the lightning sparked again, she waved a hand before her eyes as though to brush it away. ‘Gren, you can have the baby if you want him.’ Then he moved. ‘Come outside for him; it’s too dark in here.’ Having spoken, she walked away. Sickness rose in her as she felt the miserable difficulty of life. Over the saturnine slopes below her played inconstant light, adding to her dizziness. The catchy-carry-kind still lay on his boulder; beneath his shadow were the gourds, now empty of food and drink, and his forlorn retinue, hands to the sky, eyes to the ground. Yattmur sat down heavily with her back to the boulder, cradling Laren on her lap.

After a pause, Gren came out of the cave. Walking slowly, slack-kneed, he approached her. She could not tell whether she sweated from the heat or the tension. Because she was afraid to gaze on that pulpy mash that covered his face, Yattmur shut her eyes, opening them again only when she felt him near, fixing them on him as he stooped over her and the child. Uttering his pleased noise, Laren stretched up his arms with complete confidence

‘Sensible boy!’ said Gren in his alien voice. ‘You are going to be a child apart, a wonder child, and I shall never leave you.’ Now she shivered so violently that she could not hold the baby still. But Gren was bending close now, down on his knees, so near she caught an acrid and clammy odour from him. Through the fluttering fringes of her eyelashes she saw the fungus on his face begin to move.

It hung above Laren’s head, gathering ready to drop on him. Her vision was full of it, peppered with spongy spores, and with a slab of the big boulder and one of the empty gourds. She believed herself to be breathing in short screams, so that Laren commenced to cry—and again the tissue slid over Gren’s face with the reluctant movement of stiff porridge.

‘Now!’ cried Sodal Ye in a Voice which twitched her into action. Yattmur whipped the empty gourd forward, over the child. The morel was caught in the bottom as it fell, trapped by the plan the sodal had devised. As Gren sagged sideways, she saw his true face twisted like a rope in a knot of pain. The light ebbed and flowed, quick as a pulse, but she only knew something screamed, not recognizing her own high note before she collapsed.

Two mountains clashed together like jaws with a bloated and squalling version of Laren lost between them. Thrown back to her senses. Yattmur sat up with a jerk and the monstrous vision fled.

‘So you are not dead,’ said the catchy-carry-kind gruffly. ‘Kindly get up and silence your child, since my women are unable to do so.’

It was incredible that everything was much as it had been before she fainted, so long had she seemed to be enveloped in night. The morel lay inert in the gourd that had trapped it, with Gren face down beside it. Sodal Ye was atop his boulder. The pair of tattooed women hugged Laren to their withered breasts without being able to hush his cries.

Yattmur stood up and took him from them, putting his mouth to one of her own plump breasts, where he at once began pulling greedily and was silent. To feel him there gradually stilled her trembling.

She stooped over Gren.

He turned his face towards her when she touched his shoulder.

‘Yattmur,’ he said.

Weak tears stood in his eyes. All over his shoulders, in his hair, across his face, ran a red and white stippling where the probes of the morel had gone down into his skin for nourishment.

‘Has it gone?’ he asked, and his voice was his own again.

‘Look at it,’ she said. With her free hand, she tilted the gourd over so that he could see in.

For a long while he stared down at the still-living morel, helpless and motionless now, lying like excrement in the gourd. His inner vision was looking back—more with amazement now than fear—at the things that had been since the morel first dropped on him in the forests of Nomansland, the things that had passed like a dream: how he had travelled through lands and performed actions and above all held knowledge in his mind in ways that would have been unknown to his former free self.

He saw how all this had come about under the agency of the fungus that now was no more potent than a burnt mess of food in the bottom of a dish; and quite coolly he saw how he had at first welcomed this stimulus, for it had helped him overcome the limitations natural to him. Only when the morel’s basic needs conflicted with his own had the process become evil, driving him almost literally out of his own mind, so that in working to the dictates of the morel he had almost preyed on his own kind.

It was over. The parasite was defeated. He would never again hear the inner voice of the morel twanging through his brain.

At that, loneliness more than triumph filled him. But he searched wildly along the corridors of his memory and thought, He has left me something good: I can evaluate, I can order my mind, I can remember what he taught me—and he knew so much.

Now it seemed to him that for all the havoc the morel had caused, he had found Gren’s mind like a little stagnant pool and left it like a living sea—and it was with pity he looked down into the bowl that Yattmur held out to him.

‘Don’t weep, Gren,’ he heard Yattmur’s voice say. ‘We are safe, we are all safe, and you will be all right.’

He laughed shakily.

‘I shall be all right,’ he agreed. He formed his scarred face into a smile and stroked her arms. ‘We shall all be all right.’

Then reaction hit him. He rolled over and was instantly asleep.

Yattmur was busy, when Gren awoke, attending to Laren who squealed with delight as she washed him by the mountain stream. The tattooed women were also there, carrying water back and forth to pour over the catchy-carry-kind on his slab, while nearby stood the carrying man, cramped into his habitual gesture of servitude. Of the tummy-bellies, there was no sign.

He sat up gingerly. His face was puffy but his head clear; what then was the jarring he could feel that had woken him? He caught a glimpse of movement from the corner of his eye, and turning saw a trickle of stones roll down a gully some way off. At another point, more stones rolled.

‘An earthquake is in progress,” said Sodal Ye in a cavernous voice. ‘I have discussed it with your mate Yattmur and have told her there is no need for alarm. The world is ending on schedule, according to my predictions.’

Gren rose to his feet and said, ‘You have a big voice, fish face; who are you?’

‘I delivered you from the devouring fungus, little man, for I am the Sodal and Prophet of the Nightside Mountains, and all the denizens of the mountains hear what I have to say.”

Gren was still thinking this over when Yattmur came up and said, ‘You’ve slept so long since the morel left you. We too have slept, and now we must prepare to move.’

‘To move? Where is there to go from here?’

‘I will explain to you as I explained to Yattmur,’ said the sodal, blinking as his women threw another gourd full of water over him. ‘I devote my life to travelling these mountains, giving out the Word of Earth. Now it is time for me to return to the Bountiful Basin, where my kind live, to gather fresh instructions. The Basin lies on the fringe of the Lands of Perpetual Twilight; if I take you as far as that, you can easily return to the eternal forests where you live. I will be your guide and you shall help attend me on the way.’

Seeing Gren hesitate, Yattmur said, ‘You know we cannot stay here on Big Slope. We were carried here against our wishes. Now we have the chance to go, we must take it.’

‘If you wish it, it shall be so, though I’m tired of travel.’

The earth trembled again. With unconscious humour, Yattmur said, ‘We must leave the mountain before it leaves us.’ She added, ‘And we must persuade the tummy-bellies to come with us. If they stay here, either the sharp-fur mountainears or starvation will kill them.’

‘Oh, no,’ Gren said. They’ve been trouble enough. Let the wretched creatures remain here. I don’t want them with us.’ ‘Since they don’t want to come with you, that question is settled,’ said the sodal with a flick of his tail. ‘Now, let us move, since I must not be kept waiting.’

They had next to no possessions, so close were their lives to nature. To make ready was merely to check their weapons, to stow a little food for carrying and to cast a backward glance at the cave that had sheltered the birth of Laren. Catching sight of a nearby gourd and its contents, Gren asked, ‘What about the morel?’

‘Leave it there to fester,’ Yattmur said. ‘We take the morel with us. My women will carry it,’ said the sodal. His women were already busy, their tattoo lines merging with their wrinkles as they strained to lift the sodal from his perch and on to the back of his carry man. Between themselves they exchanged only grunts, although one of them was capable of making monosyllabic replies accompanied by gesture when the sodal addressed her, using a tongue Gren did not recognize. He watched fascinated until Sodal Ye was firmly in place, clutched round the middle by the stooped man. ‘How long has that poor wretch been doomed to carry you about?’ he asked. `The destiny of his race—it is a proud one—is to serve the catch-carry-kind. He was trained to it early.

He neither knows nor wishes to know any other life.’ They began to move, going downhill with the two slave women leading. Yattmur glanced back to see the three tummy-bellies staring mournfully at them from their cave. She raised her hand, beckoning and calling to them. Slowly they stood up and began to jostle forward, almost tripping over one another in their efforts to stay close together. ‘Come on!’ she called encouragingly. ‘You fellows come with us and we’ll look after you.’ ‘They’ve been trouble enough to us,’ Gren said. Stooping, he collected a handful of stones and flung them. One tummy-belly was hit in the groin, one on the shoulder, before they broke and fled back into the cave, crying aloud that nobody loved them. ‘You are too cruel, Gren. We should not leave them at the mercy of the sharp-furs.’ ‘I tell you I’ve had enough of those creatures. We are better on our own.’ He patted her shoulder, but she remained unconvinced.

As they moved down Big Slope, the cries of the tummy-bellies died behind them. Nor would their voices ever reach Gren and Yattmur again. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE theydescended the ragged flank of Big Slope and the shadows of the valley rose up to meet them. A moment came when they waded in dark up to their ankles; then it rose rapidly, swallowing them, as the sun was hidden by a range of hills ahead.

The pool of darkness in which they now moved, and in which they were to travel for some while, was not total. Though at present no cloud banks overhead reflected the light of the sun, the frequent lightning traced out their path for them.

Where the rivulets of Big Slope gathered into a fair-sized stream, the way became precipitous, for the water had carved a gully for itself, and they were forced to follow along its higher bank, going in single file along a steep cliff edge. The need for care slowed them. They descended laboriously round boulders, many of them clearly dislodged by the recent earth tremors. Apart from the sound of their footsteps, the only noise to compete with the stream was the regular groaning of the carrying man.

Soon a roaring somewhere ahead told them of a waterfall. Peering into the gloom, they saw a light. It was burning on what, as far as they could discern, was the lip of the cliff. The procession halted, bunching protectively together.

‘What is it?’ Gren asked. ‘What sort of creature lives in this miserable pit?’

Nobody answered.

Sodal Ye grunted something to the talking woman, who in turn grunted at her mute companion. The mute companion began to vanish where she stood, rigid in an attitude of attention.

Yattmur clasped Gren’s arm. It was the first time he had seen this disappearing act. Shadows all about them made it the more uncanny, as a ragged incline showed through her body. For a while her tattoo lines hung seemingly unsupported in the gloom. He strained his eyes to see. She had gone, was as intangible as the resonance of falling water.

They held their tableau until she returned.

Wordlessly the woman made a few gestures, which the other woman interpreted into grunts for the sodal’s benefit. Slapping his tail round his porter’s calves to get him moving again, the sodal said, ‘It’s safe. One or two of the sharp-furs are there, possibly guarding a bridge, but they’ll go away.’

‘How do you know?’ Gren demanded.

‘It will help if we make a noise,’ said Sodal Ye, ignoring Gren’s question. Immediately he let out a deep baying call that startled Yattmur and Gren out of their wits and set the baby wailing.

As they moved forward, the light flickered and went over the lip of the cliff. Arriving at the point where it had been, they could look down a steep slope. Lightning revealed six or eight of the snouted creatures bouncing and leaping into the ravine, one of them carrying a crude torch. Ever and again they looked back over their shoulders, barking invective.

‘How did you know they’d go away?’ Gren asked.

‘Don’t talk so much. We must go carefully here.’

They had come to a sort of bridge: one cliff of the gully had fallen forward in a solid slab, causing the stream to tunnel beneath it before splashing down into the nearby ravine; the slab rested against the opposite cliff, forming an arch over the flood. Because the way looked so broken and uncertain, its hazards increased in the twilight, the party moved hesitantly. Yet they had hardly stepped on to the crumbling bridge when a host of tiny beings clattered up startlingly from beneath their feet.

The air flaked into black flying fragments.

Savage with startlement, Gren struck out, punching at small bodies as they rocketed past him. Then they had lifted. Looking up, he saw a host of creatures circling and dipping over their heads.

‘Only bats,’ said Sodal Ye casually. ‘Move on. You human creatures have a poor turn of speed.’

They moved. Again the lightning flashed, bleaching the world into a momentary still life. In the ruts at their feet, and just below them, and over the bridge side, reaching down to the tumbling waters, glistened such spiders’ webs as Gren and Yattmur had never seen before, like a multitude of beards growing into the river.

She exclaimed about them, and the sodal said loftily, ‘You don’t realize the facts behind the curious sight you see here. How could you, being mere landlivers?—Intelligence has always come from the seas. We sodals are the only keepers of the world’s wisdom.’

‘You certainly didn’t concentrate on modesty,’ Gren said, as he helped Yattmur on to the farther side.

‘The bats and the spiders were inhabitants of the old cool world, many eons ago,’ said the sodal, ‘but the growth of the vegetable kingdom forced them to adopt new ways of life or perish. So they gradually moved away from the fiercest competition into the dark, to which the bats at least were predisposed. And in so doing the two species formed an alliance.’

He went on discoursing with the smoothness of a preacher even while his porter, aided by the tattooed women, heaved and strained and groaned to pull him up a broken bank on to firm ground. The voice poured forth with assurance, as thick and velvety as the night itself.

‘The spider needs warmth for her eggs to hatch, or more warmth than she can get here. So she lays them, sews them into a bag, and the bat obligingly carries them up to Big Slope or one of these other peaks that catch the sun. When they hatch, he obligingly brings the progeny back again. Nor does he work for nothing.

‘The grown spiders weave two webs, one an ordinary one, the other half in and half out of the water, so that the lower part of it forms a net below the surface. They catch fish or small living things in it and then hoist them out into the air for the bats to eat. Any number of similar strange things go on here of which you land-dwellers would have no knowledge.’

They were now travelling along an escarpment that sloped down into a plain. Emerging as they were from under the bulk of a mountain, they slowly gained a better view of the terrain round about. From the tissue of shadows soared an occasional crimson cone of a hill lofty enough to bathe its cap in sunlight. Gathering cloud threw a glow over the land that changed minute by minute. Landmarks were thus by turns revealed and hidden as though by drifting curtains. Gradually the clouds blanketed the sun itself, so that they had to travel with additional caution through a thicker obscurity.

Over to the left appeared a wavering light. If it was the one they had seen by the ravine, then the sharp-furs kept pace with them. The sight reminded Gren of his earlier question.

‘How does this woman of yours vanish, Sodal?’ he asked.

‘We have a long way yet to go before reaching the Bountiful Basin,’ declared the sodal. ‘Perhaps it will therefore amuse me to answer your question fully, since you seem a mite more interesting than most of your kind.

‘The history of the lands through which we travel can never be pieced together, for the beings that lived here have vanished leaving no records but their unwanted bones. Yet there are legends. My race of the catchy-carry-kind are great travellers; we have travelled widely and through many generations; and we have collected these legends.

‘So we learned that the Lands of Perpetual Twilight, for all their apparent emptiness, have offered shelter to many creatures. Always these creatures are going the same way.

‘Always they come from the bright green lands over which the sun burns. Always they are heading either for extinction or for the lands of Night Eternal—and often the two mean the same thing.

‘Each wave of creatures may stay here for several generations. But always it is forced farther and farther from the sun by its successors.

‘Once there flourished here a race we know as the Pack People because they hunted in packs—as the sharp-furs will do in a crisis, but with far more organization. Like the sharp-furs, the Pack People were sharp of teeth and brought forth living young, but they moved always on all-fours.

‘The Pack People were mammal but non-human. Such distinctions are vague to me, for Distinguishing is not one of my subjects, but your kind once knew the Pack People as wolves, I believe.

‘After the Pack People came a hardy race of some kind of human, who brought with them four-footed creatures which supplied them with food and clothing, and with which they mated.’

‘Can that be possible?’ Gren asked.

‘I only repeat to you the old legends. Possibilities are no concern of mine. Anyhow, these people were called Shipperds. They drove out the Packers and were in turn superseded by the Howlers, the species that legend says grew from the matings between the Shipperds and their creatures. Some Howlers still survive, but they were mainly killed in the next invasion, when the Heavers appeared. The Heavers were nomadic -I’ve run into a few of them, but they’re savage brutes. Next came another off-shoot of humanity, the Arablers, a race with some small gift for cultivating crops, and no other abilities.

‘The Arablers were quickly overrun by the sharp-furs, or Bamboons, to give them their proper name.

‘The sharp-furs have lived in this region in greater or lesser strength for ages. Indeed, the myths say they wrested the gift of cooking from the Arablers, the gift of sledge transport from the Heavers, the gift of fire from the Packers, and the gift of speech from the Shipperds, and so on. How true that is, I don’t know. The fact remains that the sharp-furs have overrun the land.

‘They are capricious and untrustworthy. Sometimes they will obey me, sometimes not. Fortunately they are afraid of the powers of my species.

‘I should not be surprised if you tree-dwelling humans—Sandwichers, did I hear the belly men call you? aren’t the forerunners of the next wave of invaders. Not that you’d be aware of it if you were.’

Much of this monologue was lost on Gren and Yattmur, particularly as they had to concentrate on their progress across a stony valley.

‘And who are these people you have as slaves here?’ Gren asked, indicating the carrying man and the women.

‘As I should have thought you might have gathered, these are specimens of Arablers. They would all have died out but for our protection.

‘The Arablers, you see, are devolving. I may possibly explain what I mean by that some other time. They have devolved furthest. They will turn into vegetables if sterility does not obliterate the race first. Long ago they lost even the art of speech. Although I say lost, this was in fact an achievement, for they could only survive at all by renouncing everything that stood between them and vegetative level.

This sort of change is not surprising under present conditions on this world, but with it went a more unusual transformation. The Arablers lost the notion of passing time; after all, there is no longer anything to remind us daily or seasonally of time: so the Arablers in their decline forgot it entirely. For them there was simply the individual life span. It was—it is, the only time span they are capable of recognizing: the period-of-being.

‘So they have developed a co-extensive life, living where they need along that span.’

Yattmur and Gren looked blankly through the gloom at each other.

‘Do you mean these women can move forward or backward in time?’ Yattmur asked.

‘That wasn’t what I said: nor was it how the Arablers would express it. Their minds are not like mine nor even like yours, but when for instance we came to the bridge guarded by the sharp-fur with the torch, I got one of the women to move along her period-of-being to see if we crossed the bridge uneventfully.

‘She returned and reported that we did. We advanced and she was proved right, as usual.

‘Of course they only operate when danger threatens; this spanning process is primarily a form of defence. For instance, when Yattmur brought us food the first time, I made the spanning woman span ahead to see if it poisoned us. When she returned and reported us still alive, then I knew it was safe to eat.

‘And similarly when I first saw you with the sharp-furs and—what do you call them?—the belly-tummy men, I sent the spanning woman to see if you would attack us. So you see even a miserable race like the Arablers have their uses!’

They were forging slowly ahead through foothills, travelling through a deep green gloom nourished by sunshine reflected from cloud banks overhead. Ever and again they caught a glimpse of moving lights over on their left flank; the sharp-furs were still following them, and had added more torches to their original one.

As the sodal talked, Gren stared with new curiosity at the two Arabler women leading their party.

Because they were naked, he could see how little their sexual characteristics were developed. Their hair was scanty on the head, non-existent on the mons veneris. Their hips were narrow, their breasts flat and pendulous, although, as far as one could judge their age, they did not seem old.

They walked with neither enthusiasm nor hesitation, never glancing back. One of the women carried on her head the gourd that held the morel.

Through Gren ran a sort of awe to feel how different must be the understandings of these women from his own; what could their lives be like, how would their thoughts flow, when their period-of-being was not a consecutive but a concurrent vista?

He asked Sodal Ye, ‘Are these Arablers happy?’

The catchy-carry-kind laughed throatily.

‘I’ve never thought to ask them such a question.’

‘Ask them now.’

With an impatient flip of his tail, the sodal said, ‘All you human and similar kinds are cursed with inquisitiveness. It’s a horrible trait that will get you nowhere. Why should I speak to them just to gratify your curiosity?

‘Besides, it needs absolute nullity of intelligence to be able to span; to fail to distinguish between past and present and future needs a great concentration of ignorance. The Arablers have no language at all; once introduce them to the idea of verbalization and their wings are clipped. If they talk, they can’t span. If they span, they can’t talk.

“That’s why it is always necessary for me to have two women with me—women preferably, because they are even more ignorant than the men. One woman has been taught a few words so that I can give her commands; she communicates them by gesture to her friend, who can thus be made to span when danger threatens. It is all rather roughly devised, but it has saved me much trouble on my journeys.’

‘What about the poor fellow who carries you?’ Yattmur asked.

From Sodal Ye came a vibrating growl of contempt.

‘A lazy brute, nothing but a lazy brute! I’ve ridden him since he was a lad and he’s very near worn out already. Hup, you idle monster! Get along there, or we’ll never be home.’

Much more the sodal told them. To some of it Gren and Yattmur responded with concealed anger. To some of it they paid no heed. The sodal orated unceasingly, until his voice became merely another factor in the lightning-cluttered gloom.

They kept moving even when rain fell so heavily that it turned the plain about them to mud. The clouds swam in a green light; in their discomfort they felt that it was growing warmer. Still the rain fell. Because nowhere in the open country afforded shelter, they kept doggedly trudging forward. It was as though they walked in the middle of a bowl of swirling soup.

By the time the rainstorm died, they had begun to climb again. Yattmur insisted on stopping for the baby’s sake. The sodal, who had enjoyed the rain, reluctantly agreed. Under a bank they managed with difficulty to start a poor smouldering grass fire. The baby was fed. They all ate sparingly.

‘We are nearly at Bountiful Basin,’ declared Sodal Ye. ‘From the tops of this next range of mountains you will see it, its sweet salt waters dark, but with one long bar of sunlight falling across it. Ah, it’ll be good to be back in the sea. It’s lucky for you landgoers that we are a dedicated race, or we’d never leave the water in exchange for your benighted medium. Well, prophecy is our burden and we must shoulder it cheerfully….’

He began shouting at the women to hurry and fetch more grass and roots for the fire. They had placed him on top of the bank. The unfortunate carrying man was down in the hollow, standing with his arms above his head almost on top of the fire, letting smoke swirl round him as he attempted to induce heat into his body.

Seeing that Sodal Ye’s attention was distracted, Gren hurried over to the man. He grasped his shoulder.

‘Can you understand what I am saying?’ he asked. ‘Do you speak in my tongue, friend?’

The fellow never raised his head. It hung down on to his chest as if his neck was broken, rolling slightly as the man muttered something unintelligible. When next lightning spread its palsy over the world, Gren glimpsed scars about the top of the man’s spinal chord. In a flash of understanding as swift as the lightning, Gren knew the man had been mutilated so that his head would not lift.

Dropping on to one knee, Gren peered upwards at that bowed countenance. He had a view of a twisted mouth and an eye like a gleaming coal.

‘How far can I trust this catchy-carry-kind, friend?’ he asked.

The mouth writhed slowly, as if from an agony of which it had long grown bored. It dropped words thick as matter.

It said: ‘No good… I no good… break, fall, die filth… see, I finish.one more climb… Ye of all sins—Ye you carry… you strong back… you carry Ye… he know… I filth finish..’

Something splashed on to Gren’s hand as he fell back; whether it was tears or saliva he could not tell.

`Thanks, friend, we’ll see about all that,’ he said. Moving over to where Yattmur was cleaning Laren, he told her, ‘I felt in my bones this talkative fish was not to be trusted. He has a plan to use me as his beast of burden when this carrying man dies—or so the man says, and he should know the ways of the catchy-carry-kind by now.’

Before Yattmur could answer, the sodal let out a roar.

‘Something’s coming!’ he said. ‘Women, get me mounted at once. Yattmur, smother that fire. Gren, come up here and see what you can see.’

Scrambling on to the top of the bank, Gren peered about while the women pulled Sodal Ye into position on the carrying man’s back. Even above the noise of their panting, Gren heard the other sounds that the sodal must have heard: a distant and insistent yowling and howling that rose or fell in angry rhythm. It sent the blood draining from his face.

He saw with ill ease a group of about ten lights spread out not far away on the plain, but it was from another quarter that the eerie sound came. Then moving figures caught his eye; he strained to observe them more closely, his heart thudding.

‘I can see them,’ he reported. “They—they glow in the dark.’

‘They are howlers then, for sure—the man-animal species I told you of. Are they coming this way?’

‘It looks like it. What can we do?’

‘Get down with Yattmur and stay quiet. Howlers are like sharp-furs; they can be nasty if they are upset. I’ll send my woman spanning to see what is happening soon.’

The pantomime of grunting and gesture was undergone, both before the woman vanished and after she reappeared. All the while the eerie howling grew in volume.

‘The woman spanned and saw us climbing up the slope ahead, so we evidently shall not be harmed. Just wait quietly until the Howlers have gone by; then we will move on. Yattmur, keep that baby child of yours quiet.’

Somewhat reassured by what the sodal said, they stood by the bank.

Presently the Howlers sped past, travelling in a single file not more than a stone’s throw away. Their yipping cry, designed to intimidate, rose and fell as they went. It was impossible to say whether they ran or leaped or hopped over the ground. So fast and recklessly they travelled, they were like visions from a maniac’s dream.

Though they glowed with a dim white light, their shapes were ill-defined. Were their outlines mockeries of human figures? It was clear at least how tall they were, and as thin as wraiths, before they went bounding away across the plain, trailing their awful cry behind them.

Gren found he was clutching Yattmur and Laren and trembling.

‘What were those things?’ Yattmur asked.

‘I told you, woman, they were the Howlers,’ said the sodal, ‘the race about which I was telling you, that was driven into the lands of Night Eternal. That party was probably on a hunting expedition and is now returning home. We too must be on the move. The sooner we get over this next mountain, the better pleased I shall be.’

So they moved on again, Gren and Yattmur without the ease of mind they had previously enjoyed.

Because Gren developed the habit of glancing back, he was the one to see that the lights on their left flank which they took to be torches of sharp-furs were coming nearer. Occasionally a bark floated to him on the stillness like a twig drifting across water.

‘Those sharp-furs are closing in on us,” he told the sodal. “They’ve followed us almost the whole journey, andif we aren’t careful they’ll catch us on this hill.’

‘It’s unlike them to follow so consistently. They generally forget a course of action almost as soon as they have thought of it. Something ahead must be attracting them—a feast, possibly. All the same, they’re bold in the dark; we don’t want to risk attack. Move faster. Hup, you ambling Arabler, hup ho!’

But the torches gained on them. As they ascended up the long, long pull of the mountain, the filtered light overhead gradually increased, until they could see a blur of bodies about—the torchbearers. A considerable mob of creatures was pursuing them, although as yet at some distance.

Their worries were piling up. Yattmur observed more creatures on their right flank, heading tangentially towards them. Faint barks and yippings echoed through the wastes. Undoubtedly they were being overtaken by large numbers of sharp-furs.

Now the small party was leaning forward against the drag of the hill and almost running in its anxiety.

‘We’ll be safe when we get to the top. Hup ho!’ cried the sodal encouragingly. ‘Not much farther before we see Bountiful Basin. Hup hey there, you lazy, ugly brute!’

Without word or warning his carrying man collapsed under him, pitching him forward into a gully. For a moment the sodal lay half-stunned on his back; then a flick of his powerful tail put him right way up again. He began to curse inventively at his steed.

As for the tattooed women, they stopped, and the one carrying the gourd with the morel in set it down on the ground, but neither went over to the aid of the fallen man. Gren did that, running to the bundle of bones and turning it over as gently as possible. The carrying man made no sound. The eye like an ember had closed.

Breaking into Sodal Ye’s swearing, he said angrily, ‘What have you to complain of? Didn’t this poor wretch carry you until the last lungful of air left his body? You flogged all you could out of him, so be content! He’s dead now, and he’s free of you, and he’ll never carry you again.’

`Then you must carry me,’ answered the sodal without hesitation. ‘Unless we get out of here quickly, we shall all be torn to bits by those packs of sharp-furs. Listen to them—they’re getting nearer! So look smart, man, if you know what’s good for you, and make these women lift me on to your back.’

‘Oh, no! You’re staying there in the gully, sodal. We can get on more quickly without you. You’ve had your last ride.’

‘No!’ The sodal’s voice rose like a foghorn. ‘You don’t know what the crest of this mountain’s like. There’s a secret way down the other side into Bountiful Basin that I can find and these women can’t. You’ll be trapped on the top without me, that I promise you. The sharp-furs will have you.’

‘Oh, Gren, I’m so afraid for Laren. Let’s take the sodal rather than stand here arguing, please.’

He stared at Yattmur through the dull dawnlight. She was a blur, a chalk drawing on a rock face, yet he clenched his fist as if she were a real antagonist.

‘Do you want to see me as a beast of burden?’

‘Yes, yes, anything rather than have us all torn apart! It’s only over one mountain, isn’t it? You carried the morel far enough without complaint.’

Bitterly he motioned to the tattooed women.

`That’s better,’ said the sodal, wriggling between Gren’s encircling arms. ‘Just try and keep your head a little lower, so that no discomfort is caused to my throat. Ah, better still. Fine, yes, you’ll learn. Forward, hup ho!’

Head well bent, back bent, Gren struggled up the slope with the catchy-carry-kind on top of him, Yattmur carrying the babe beside him and the two women going on ahead. A desolate chorus of sharp-fur cries floated to them. They scrambled along a stream bed with water washing cold about their knees, helped each other up a precipitous gravel bank, and came on to less taxing ground.

Yattmur could see that over the next rise lay sunshine. When she thought to take in the landscape about them, she observed a new and more cheerful world of slopes and hill tops showing all round. The sharp-fur parties had fallen from view behind boulders.

Now the sky was streaked with light. An occasional traverser sailed overhead, making for the night side or heading up into space. It was like a sign of hope.

Still they had some way to go. But at last the sun lay hot on their backs and after a long steady pull they stood panting on the crest of the mountain. The other side of it fell away in a great ravaged cliff down which it would be impossible for anything to climb.

Nestling in a hundred intersecting curtains of shadow lay an arm of the sea, wide and serene. Fanning straight across it, casting a glow over the whole basin of cliffs in which the sea rested, was a swathe of light, just as Sodal Ye had predicted. Creatures moved in the water, leaving their marks momentarily upon it. On a strip of beach, other figures moved, winding between primitive white huts as tiny as pearls in the distance.

The sodal alone was not staring down.

His eyes went to the sun and to the narrow section of fully illumined world that could be seen from this vantage point, the lands where the sun shone perpetually. There the brilliance was almost intolerable. He needed no instruments to tell him that the heat and light had increased in intensity even since they left Big Slope.

‘As I predicted,’ he cried, ‘all things are melting into light. The day is coming when the Great Day comes and all creatures become a part of the evergreen universe. I must talk to you about it some time.’

The lightning which had almost played itself out over the lands of Perpetual Twilight still flittered over the bright side. One particularly vivid shaft struck down into the mighty forest—and stayed visible. Writhing like a snake caught between earth and heaven it remained; and from the base it began to turn green. Green rose up it into the sky, and the shaft steadied and thickened as it went, until something like a pointing finger stretched into the canopy of space and the tip of it was lost to view in the hazy atmosphere.

‘Aaaah, now I have seen the sign of signs!’ said the sodal. ‘Now I see and now I know the end of the Earth draws near.’

‘What in the name of terror is it?’ Gren said, squinting up from under his burden at the green column.

‘The spores, the dust, the hopes, the growth, the essence of the centuries of Earth’s green fuse, no less. Up it goes, ascending, for new fields. The ground beneath that column must be baked to brick! You heat a whole world for half an eternity, stew it heavy with its own fecundity, and then apply extra current: and on the reflected energy rises the extract of life, buoyed up and borne into space on a galactic flux.”

The island of the tall cliff returned to Gren’s mind. Though he did not know what the sodal meant by talking of extracts of life being buoyed up on galactic fluxes, it sounded like his experience in the strange cave with eyes. He wished he could ask the morel about it.

`The sharp-furs are coming!’ Yattmur cried. ‘Listen! I can hear them shouting.’

Looking back down the way they had come, she saw tiny figures in the gloaming, some still bearing smoky torches, climbing slowly but climbing steadily, swarming uphill mainly on all fours.

‘Where do we go?’ Yattmur asked. “They’ll be upon us if you don’t stop talking, Sodal.’

Shaken out of his contemplation, Sodal Ye said, ‘We have to move higher up the crest of the mountain. Only a little way. Behind this big spur sticking up ahead is a secret way leading down among the rocks. There we strike a passage leading right through the cliff down to Bountiful Basin. Don’t worry—those wretches have some distance to climb yet.’

Gren had started moving towards the spur before Sodal Ye stopped speaking.

Anxiously propping Laren over one shoulder, Yattmur ran forward. Then she paused.

‘Sodal,’ she said. ‘Look! One of the traversers has crashed behind the spur. Your escape way will be completely blocked!’

The spur stood up crazily on the sheer edge of the cliff, like a chimney built on top of a steeply-pitched roof. Behind it, massive and firm, lay the bulk of a traverser. Only the fact that they viewed its shadowed side, which rose up like part of the ground, had prevented their noticing it earlier.

Sodal Ye let out a great cry.

‘How are we to get under that great vegetable?’ he demanded, and he slapped Gren’s legs with his tail in a fury of frustration.

Gren staggered and fell against the woman carrying the gourd. They sprawled together on the grass while the sodal flopped beside them, bellowing.

The woman gave a cry of something between pain and rage, covering her face while her nose trickled blood. She took no notice when the sodal croaked at her. As Yattmur helped Gren up, the sodal said, ‘Curse her dung-devouring descendants, I’m telling her to make the spanning woman get spanning and see how we can escape from here. Kick her and make her pay attention—and then get me on to your back again and see you’re less careless in future.’

He started shouting at the woman again. Without warning, she jumped up. Her face was distorted as a squeezed fruit. Seizing the gourd by her side, she brought it swinging down hard on to the sodal’s skull. The blow knocked him unconscious. The gourd split under the impact, and the morel slid out like treacle, covering the sodal’s head with a sort of lethargic contentment. Gren and Yattmur’s eyes met, worried, questioning. The spanning woman’s mouth split open. She cackled soundlessly. Her companion sat down to weep; her period-of-being’s one moment of revolt had come and gone. ‘Now what do we do?’ asked Gren. ‘Let’s see if we can find the sodal’s bolthole; that’s the first worry,’ Yattmur said. He touched her arm for comfort. ‘If the traverser’s alive, perhaps we can light a fire under it and drive it away,’ he said. Leaving the Arabler women to wait vacantly beside Sodal Ye, they moved up towards the traverser.

26

As the sun’s output of radiation increased towards that day, no longer so far distant, when it would turn nova, so the growth of vegetation had increased to undisputed supremacy, overwhelming all other kinds of life, driving them either to extinction or to refuge in the twilight zone. The traversers, great spider-like monsters of vegetable origin that sometimes grew up to a mile in length, were the culmination of the might of the kingdom of plants.

Hard radiation had become a necessity for them. The first vegetable astronauts of the hothouse world, they travelled between Earth and Moon long after man had rolled up his noisy affairs and retired to the trees from whence he came.

Gren and Yattmur moved along under the green and black fibrous bulk of the creature, Yattmur hugging

Laren, who gazed at everything with alert eyes. Sensing danger, Gren paused. He looked up. A dark face stared down at him from high up that monstrous flank. After a startled moment, he made out more than one face. Concealed in the fuzz covering the traverser was a row of human beings.

Instinctively he drew his knife.

Seeing they were observed, the watchers emerged from hiding and began to swarm down the flank of the traverser. Ten of them appeared. ‘Get back!’ Gren said urgently, turning to Yattmur. ‘But the sharp-furs -‘ The attackers took them by surprise. Spreading wings or cloaks, they jumped down from a height well above Gren’s head. They started to surround Gren and Yattmur. Each one brandishing a stick or sword.

‘Stand steady or I’ll run you through!’ Gren shouted savagely, leaping in front of Yattmur and the baby.

‘Gren! You are Gren of the group of Lily-yo!’

The figures had stopped. One of them, the one who exclaimed, came forward with open arms, dropping her sword.

He knew her dark face!

‘Living shades! Lily-yo! Lily-yo! Is it you?’

‘It is I, Gren, and no other!’

And now two others were coming up to him, crying in pleasure. He recognized them, faces forgotten but ever familiar, the faces of two adult members of his tribal group. Haris the man, and Flor, clasping his hand. Although they were so changed, he hardly noticed that in his surprise at meeting them again. He looked at their eyes rather than their wings.

Seeing his questioning gaze run over their faces, Haris said, ‘You are a man now, Gren. We too have altered much. These others with us are our friends. We have returned from the True World, flying through space itself in the belly of this traverser. The creature became ill on the way and crashed here, in this miserable land of shadows. With no way to get back to the warm forests, we have been caught here for far too long, suffering attacks from all sorts of unimaginable creatures.’

‘And you’re about to suffer the worst one yet,’ Gren said. He was not pleased to see people that he admired like Haris and Lily-yo consorting with flymen. ‘Our enemies gather against us. Time for stories later, friends—and I’ll guess mine is more strange than yours—because a great pack, two great packs, of sharp-furs are nearly on us.’

‘Sharp-furs you call them?’ Lily-yo said. ‘We could see a little of their approach from on top of the traverser. What makes you think they are after us? In this miserable land of starvation they must surely be after the traverser for food?’

To Gren this idea was unexpected; yet he recognized its likelihood. Only the considerable bulk of food the traverser represented would have drawn so many sharp-furs so far so consistently. He turned to see what Yattmur thought. She was not there.

Immediately, he pulled out the knife he had just sheathed and jumped round, searching for her, calling her name. The members of Lily-yo’s band who did not know him fingered their swords anxiously, but he ignored them.

Yattmur stood a short way off, clutching their child and scowling in his direction. She had gone back to where the sodal lay; the Arabler women stood fruitlessly by, gazing ahead. Muttering angrily, Gren pushed by Haris to go to her.

‘What are you doing?’ he called. ‘Bring Laren here.’

‘Come and get him if you want him,’ she replied. ‘I will have nothing to do with these strange savages. You belong to me—why do you turn from me to them? Why do you talk to them? Who are they? ‘ ‘O shades protect me from foolish women! You don’t understand -‘ He stopped. They had left their escape from the ridge too late. Moving in an impressive silence, perhaps because they needed their breath, the first lines of sharp-furs appeared over the crest of the hill. They halted on confronting the humans, but the back ranks jostled them forward. With their mantles standing out stiff about their shoulders and their teeth bared, they did not have the look of friends. One or two of them wore the ridiculous helmets shaped out of gourds on their heads. Through cold lips, Yattmur said, ‘Some of these were the ones who promised they would help the tummy-bellies to get home.’ ‘How can you tell? They are so much alike.’ ‘That old one with the yellow whiskers and a finger missing—I’m sure I recognize him at least.’ Lily-yo, coming up with her group, asked, ‘What are we going to do? Will these beasts trouble us if we let them have the traverser?’

Gren made no reply. He walked forward until he stood directly in front of the yellow-whiskered creature Yattmur had pointed out. ‘We bear you no ill-will, sharp-fur bamboon people. You know we never fought you when we were on Big Slope. Do you have the three tummy-belly men who were our companions with you?’ Without answering, Yellow Whisker shambled round to consult with his friends. The nearest sharp-furs reared upon their hind legs and talked yappingly to each other. Finally Yellow Whisker turned back to Gren, showing his fangs as he spoke. He cuddled something in his arms. ‘Yip yip yap yes, skinny one, the bouncing-bellies are wiff wiff with us. See! Look! Catch!’ With a quick motion, he threw something at Gren—who was so close he could do nothing but catch it. It was the severed head of one of the tummy-bellies. Gren acted without thought. Dropping the head, he flung himself forward in scarlet fury, thrusting out with his knife as he did so. His blade caught the yellow-whiskered sharp-fur in the stomach before he could dodge. As the creature staggered sideways screaming, Gren grabbed his grey paw with both hands. He spun completely round on one heel, and cast Yellow Whiskers right over the edge of the tall cliff.

Absolute silence fell, a silence of surprise, as Yellow Whiskers’ cries died.

In the next moment, our fate is decided, Gren thought. His blood ran too high for him to care. He sensed Yattmur, Lily-yo, and the other humans behind him, but he did not deign to look back at them.

Yattmur leant forward to the broken and bloodied object lying at their feet. The head by its severance had been reduced to a mere thing, a thing of horror. Looking into the watery jelly that had been eyes, Yattmur read there the fate of all three tummy-belly men.

Unheard she cried, ‘And they were always so gentle with Laren!’

Then the noise broke out behind her.

A terrible roar burst forth, a roar of alien cadence and power, a roar—breaking over their heads so unexpectedly—that turned her blood to snow. The sharp-furs cried in awe: then they turned about, jostling and fighting to get back into the safety of the shadows below the crest of the mountain.

Deafened, Gren looked round. Lily-yo and her companions were heading back towards the dying traverser. Yattmur was trying to pacify the baby. Hands over their heads, the Arabler women lay prone on the ground.

Again the noise came, swelling with an anguished despair. Sodal Ye had recovered consciousness and cried aloud his wrath. And then, opening his fleshy mouth with its huge lower lip, he spoke, in words that only gradually merged into sense.

‘Where are your empty-headed heads, you creatures of the darkling plains You have toads in the head, not to understand my prophecies where the green pillars grow. Growing is symmetry, up and down, and what is called decay is not decay but the second part of growth. One process, you toad-heads—the process of devolution, that carries you down into the green well from which you came…. I’m lost in the mazes—Gren! Gren, like a mole I tunnel through an earth of understanding… Gren, the nightmares -Gren, from the fish’s belly I call to you. Can you hear me? It’s I—your old ally the morel!’

‘Morel?’

In his astonishment, Gren dropped to his knees before the catchy-carry-kind. Blank-faced, he stared at the leprous brown crown that now adorned its head. As he stared, the eyes opened, filmily at first, and then they focused on him.

‘Gren! I was near death…. Ah, the pain of consciousness…. Listen, man, it is I, your morel, who speaks. I hold the sodal in check, and am using his faculties, as once I had to use yours; there’s so much richness in his mind—coupling it with my own knowledge… ah, I see clearly not just this little world but all the green galaxy, the evergreen universe…’

Frantically, Gren jumped up.

‘Morel, are you crazed? Do you not see what a position we are in here, all about to be killed by these sharp-furs when they gather courage to charge? What are we to do? If you are truly here, if you are sane, help us!’

`I’m not crazed—unless to be the only wise creature in a toad-minded world is to be crazed…. All right, Gren, I tell you help comes! Look into the sky!’

The landscape had long been suffused with an uncanny light. Away in the distant and unbroken ranks of jungle stood the green pillar, joined now by another which had formed some way off. They seemed to taint the lower atmosphere with their glow, so that it did not surprise Gren to see cloud bars of viridescent hue striping the sky. From one of these clouds dropped a traverser. Falling at leisurely speed, it seemed to aim at the promontory on which Gren and the others stood.

‘Is it coming here, morel?’ Gren asked. Though he resented the resurrection of the tyrant that had recently sapped his life blood, he saw that the fungus, dependent on the legless sodal, could offer him only help, not harm.

‘It’s descending here,’ the morel answered. ‘You and Yattmur and the baby come and lie down here so that it does not crush you when it lands. It is probably coming to mate—to cross-fertilize—with the dying traverser. Directly it gets down, we must climb on to it. You must carry me, Gren, do you understand? Then I’ll tell you what else to do.’

As he spoke through the sodal’s blubber mouth, wind ruffled the grass. The hairy body overhead expanded until it filled almost their whole view: and gently the traverser landed on the brink of the cliff, perching on top of its dying mate. Its great legs came down, steadying it like buttresses on which rank mosses grew. It scratched for a hold and then was still.

Gren, with Yattmur and the tattooed women trailing behind, came up to it and stared up its height. He released the tail of the sodal, which he had dragged over the ground.

‘We can’t climb up there!’ he said. ‘You’re mad to consider such a thing, morel. It’s far too big!’

‘Climb, man creature, climb!’ bellowed the morel.

Still hesitating, Gren stood while Lily-yo and the others of her band came round. They had hidden behind the tall crag, and were anxious to get away.

‘As your fish-creature says, this is our only way to safety,’ Lily-yo said. ‘Climb, Gren! You can come with us and we’ll look after you.’

‘You don’t have to fear a traverser, Gren,’ Haris said.

He still stood there, not encouraged by their prompting..The thought of clinging to something that flew through the air made him sick; he remembered his ride on the back of the vegbird that crashed in Nomansland, remembered too the journeys by boat and stalker, each landing him in a worse situation than the last. Only on the journey just concluded, which he had undertaken under his own control with the sodal, had the destination seemed preferable to the starting point.

As he wavered, the morel was again bellowing with the sodal’s voice, goading the others to climb the fibrous leg, even goading the tattooed women to carry him up, which they did with the aid of Lily-yo’s party. They were soon all perched high up on the immense back, looking down and calling at him. Only Yattmur stood by him.

‘Just when we are free of the tummy-bellies and the morel, why should we have to depend on this monstrous creature?’ he muttered.

‘We must go, Gren. It will take us away to the warm forests, far from the sharp-furs, where we can live with Laren in peace. You know we can’t stay here.’

He looked at her, and at the big-eyed child in her arms. She had endured so much trouble for him, ever since the time the Black Mouth sang its irresistible song.

‘We will go ifyou wish it, Yattmur. Let me carry the boy.’ And then with a flash of anger he peered up, calling to the morel. ‘And stop your stupid shouting—I’m coming!’

He called too late: the morel had already stopped. When Gren and Yattmur finally pulled themselves panting on to the top of the living hill, it was to discover the morel busily directing Lily-yo and her company in a new enterprise.

The sodal turned one of its piggy stares at Gren and said, ‘As you know as well as anyone, it is time for me to divide, to propagate. So I’m going to take over this traverser as well as the sodal.’

‘Mind it doesn’t take you over,’ Gren said feebly. He sat down with a thud as the traverser moved. But the huge creature, in the throes of fertilization, had so little sensitivity that it remained engrossed in its own blind affairs as Lily-yo and the others, working savagely with their knives, cut into its epidermis.

When they had a crater exposed, they lifted the Sodal Ye so that he hung head down into it; though he wriggled weakly, the morel had him too much under control for him to do more. The ugly pitted brown shape of the morel began to slide; half of it dropped into the hole, after which—under direction—the others covered it with a sort of bung of flesh. Gren marvelled at the way they hurried to do the morel’s bidding; he seemed to have developed an immunity to orders.

Yattmur sat and suckled her child. As Gren settled beside her, she pointed a finger across the dark side of the mountain. From their vantage point, they could see sad and shadowy clusters of sharp-furs moving away to safety to await events; here and there their torches gleamed, punctuating the gloom like blossoms in a melancholy wood.

‘They’re not attacking,’ Yattmur said. ‘Perhaps we could climb down and find the secret way to Bountiful Basin?’

The landscape tilted.

‘It’s too late,’ Gren said. ‘Hold tightly! We’re flying. Have you got Laren safely?’

The traverser had risen. Below them flashed the high cliff and they were falling down it, sweeping rapidly over rock. Bountiful Basin spun towards them, growing as it turned and came nearer.

Into long shade they slipped, then into light—their shadow pasted across the stippled water—into shade again, and then once more into light as they rose, gained certainty, and headed towards the plumed sun.

Laren gave a yelp of alarm and then returned to the breast, shutting his eyes as if it was all too much for him.

‘Gather round, everyone,’ cried the morel, ‘while I speak to you through this fish’s mouth. You must all listen to what I have to say.’

Clinging to fibrous hairs, they settled about him, only Gren and Yattmur showing any reluctance to do so.

‘Now I am two bodies,’ pronounced the morel, `I have taken control of this traverser; I am directing its nervous system. It will go only where I wish. Have no fear, for no harm will come to any of you immediately.

‘What is more fearful than flight is the knowledge I have drained from this fishy catchy-carry-kind, Sodal Ye. You must hear about it, for it alters my plans.

`These sodals are people of the seas. While all other beings with intelligence have been isolated by vegetable life, the sodals in the freedom of the oceans have been able to keep in contact with all their communities. They can still rove the planet uninterruptedly. So they have gained rather than lost knowledge.

‘They have discovered that the world is about to end. Not immediately—not for many generations—but certainly it will end, and those green columns of disaster rising from the jungle to the sky are signs that the end has already begun.

‘In the really hot regions—regions unknown to any of us, where the burning bushes and other fire-using plants live—the green columns have already been for some time. In the sodal’s mind I find knowledge of them. I see some blazing on shores glimpsed from a steaming sea.’

The morel was silent. Gren knew how he would be dredging down for more intelligence. He shuddered, admiring somehow the morel’s excitement for facts, yet disgusted by his nature.

Underneath them, floating slowly by, bobbed the coast of the Lands of Perpetual Twilight. They showed appreciably brighter before the heavy lips moved and once more the voice of the sodal carried the thoughts of the morel.

‘These sodals don’t always understand all the knowledge they have gained. Ah, the beauty of the plan when you see it… Humans, there is this burning fuse of a force called devolution…. How can I put it so that your tiny brains will understand?

‘Very long ago, men—your remote ancestors—discovered that life grew and evolved from, as it were, a speck of fertility: an amoeba, which served as the gateway to life like an eye of a needle, beyond which lay the amino acids and the inorganic world of nature. And this inorganic world too, they found, evolved in its complexity from one speck, a primal atom.

`These vast processes of growth men came to understand. What the sodals have discovered is that growth incorporates also what men would have called decay: that not only does nature have to be wound up to wind down, it has to wind down to be wound up.

This creature I now inhabit knows the world is in a winding down phase. This he has vaguely been trying to preach to you lesser breeds.

‘At the beginning of this sun system’s time, all forms of life were blurred together and by perishing supplied other forms. They arrived on Earth from space like motes, like sparks, in Cambrian times. Then the forms evolved into animal, vegetable, reptile, insect—all varieties and species that flooded the world, many of them now gone.

‘Why are they gone? Because the galactic fluxes which determine the life of a sun are now destroying this sun. These same fluxes control animate life; they close it down as they will close Earth’s existence. So nature is devolving. Again the forms are blurring! They never ceased to be anything but inter-dependent the one always living off the other—and now they merge together once more. Were the tummy-bellies vegetable or human? Are the sharp-furs human or animal? And the creatures of the hothouse world, these traversers, the killer-willows in Nomansland, the stalkers that seed like plants and migrate like birds—how do they stand under the old classifications?

‘I ask myself what am I?’

For a moment the morel was silent. His listeners looked at each other covertly, full of unease, until a flick of the sodal’s tail recalled them to the discourse.

‘All of us here have by accident been swept aside from the main stream of devolution. We live in a world where each generation becomes less, and less defined. All life is tending towards the mindless, the infinitesimal: the embryonic speck. So will be fulfilled the processes of the universe. Galactic fluxes will carry the spores of life to another and new system, just as they once brought it here. Already you see the process at work, in these green pillars of light that draw life from the jungles. Under steadily increasing heat, devolutionary processes accelerate.’

While the morel was speaking, its other half controlling the traverser had brought them steadily lower. Now they floated over dense jungle, over the banyan that covered all of this sunlit continent. Warmth wrapped itself round them like a cloak.

Other traversers were here, moving their great bulks lightly up and down their threads. With hardly a jolt, morel’s traverser alighted in the tips of the jungle.

Gren stood up at once, helping Yattmur to her feet.

‘You are the wisest of creatures, morel,’ he said. ‘I feel no sorrow in leaving you, because you seem now so well able to look after yourself. After all, you are the first fungus to solve the riddle of the universe. Yattmur and I will speak of you when we are safe in the middle levels of the jungle. Are you coming also, Lily-yo, or is your life given over to riding vegetables?”

Lily-yo, Haris, and the others were also on their feet, facing Gren with a mixture of hostility and defensiveness he recognized from long ago.

‘You’re not leaving this splendid brain, this protector, this morel who is your friend?’ Lily-yo asked.

Gren nodded.

‘You are welcome to him—or he is welcome to you. You in your turn must decide as I have had to whether he is a power for good or evil. I have decided. I am taking Yattmur, Laren, and the two Arabler women back to the forest where I belong.’ When he snapped his fingers, the tattooed women rose obediently.

‘Gren you are as hard-headed as ever you were,’ Haris said, with a touch of ill-temper. ‘Come back to the True World with us—it’s a better place than the jungle. You just heard the fish-morel say the jungle is doomed.’

To his delight, Gren found he could use arguments in a way that once would have been impossible to him.

‘If what the morel says is correct, Haris, then your other world is doomed as surely as this one.’

The morel’s voice came back, booming and irritable.

‘So it is, man, but you have yet to hear about my plan. In the dim thought centre of this traverser I find awareness of worlds far beyond this, far beyond and basking round other suns. The traverser can be driven to make that journey. I and Lily-yo and the others will live inside it, safe, eating its flesh, until we get to those new worlds. We simply follow the green columns and ride on the galactic fluxes of space and they will lead us to a good fresh place. Of course you must come with us, Gren.’

‘I’m tired of carrying or being carried. Go and good luck! Fill a whole empty world with people and fungus!’

‘You know this Earth will suffer a fire death, you fool man!’

‘So you said, O wise morel. You also said that that would not come for many generations. Laren and his son and his son’s son will live in the green, rather than be cooked into the gut of a vegetable making an unknown journey. Come along, Yattmur. Hup hey, you two women—along you come with me.’

They moved to go. Ushering the tattooed women before her, Yattmur handed Laren to Gren, who rested him over his shoulder. Haris took a step forward with his knife out.

‘You were always as difficult to deal with. You don’t know what you are doing,” he said.

`That may be true; but at least I know what you are doing.’

Ignoring the man’s blade, he climbed slowly down that vast shaggy flank. They lowered themselves until they could reach a slender bough, helping the submissive Arablers to gain a foothold. With a wonderful gladness in his heart, Gren looked down into the leafy depths of the forest.

‘Come on,’ he said encouragingly. ‘This shall be home, where danger was my cradle, and all we have learnt will guard us! Give me your hand, Yattmur.’

Together they climbed down into a bower of leaves. They did not look back as the traverser with its passengers rose slowly, slowly floated from the jungle up into the green-flecked sky, and headed for the solemn blues of space.

WHEN YOU CARE, WHEN YOU LOVE

Theodore Sturgeon

He was beautiful in her bed.

When you care, when you love, when you treasure someone, you can watch the beloved in sleep as you watch everything, anything else–laughter, lips to a cup, a look even away from you; a stride, sun a-struggle lost in a hair-lock, a jest or a gesture–even stillness, even sleep.

She leaned close, all but breathless and watched his lashes. Now, lashes are thick sometimes, curled, russet; these were all these, and glossy besides. Look closely– there where they curve lives light in tiny serried scimitars. All so good, so very good, she let herself deliciously doubt its reality. She would let herself believe, in a moment, that this was real, was true, was here, had at last happened. All the things her life before had ever given her, all she had ever wanted, each by each had come to her purely for wanting. Delight there might be, pride, pleasure, even glory in the new possession of gift, privilege, object, experience: her ring, hat, toy, trip to Trinidad; yet, with possession there had always been (until now) the platter called Well, Of Course on which these things were served her. For had she not wanted it? But this, now–him, now… greatest of all her wants, ever; first thing in all her life to transcend want itself and knowingly become need: this she had at last, at long (how long, now) long last, this she had now for good and all, for always, forever and never a touch of Well, Of Course. He was her personal miracle, he in this bed now, warm and loving her. He was the reason and the reward of it all–her family and forbears, known by so few and felt by so many, and indeed, the whole history of mankind leading up to it, and all she herself had been and done and felt; and loving him, and losing him, and seeing him dead and bringing him back–it was all for this moment and because the moment had to be, he and this peak, this warmth in these sheets, this now of hers. He was all life and all life’s beauty, beautiful in her bed; and now she could be sure, could believe it, believe…

“I do,” she breathed. “I do.”

“What do you do?” he asked her. He had not moved, and did not now.

“Devil, I thought you were asleep.”

“Well, I was. But I had the feeling someone was looking.”

“Not looking,” she said softly. “Watching.” She was watching the lashes still, and did not see them stir, but between them now lay a shining sliver of the gray, cool aluminum of his surprising eyes. In a moment he would look at her–just that–in a moment their eyes would meet and it would be as if nothing new had happened (for it would be the same metal missile which had first impaled her) and also as if everything, everything were happening again. Within her, passion boiled up like a fusion fireball, so beautiful, so huge—

—and like the most dreaded thing on earth, without pause the radiance changed, shifting from the hues of all the kinds of love to all the tones of terror and the colors of a cataclysm.

She cried his name…

And the gray eyes opened wide in fear for her fears and in astonishment, and he bounded up laughing, and the curl of his laughing lips turned without pause to the pale writhing of agony, and they shrank apart, too far apart while the white teeth met and while between them he shouted his hurt. He fell on his side and doubled up, grunting, gasping in pain… grunting, gasping, wrapped away from her, unreachable even by her. She screamed. She screamed. She–

A Wyke biography is hard to come by. This has been true for four generations, and more true with each, for the more the Wyke holdings grew, the less visible have been the Wyke family, for so Cap’n Gamaliel Wyke willed it after his conscience conquered him. This (for he was a prudent man) did not happen until after his retirement from what was euphemistically called the molasses, to Europe, having brought molasses from the West Indies to New England. Of course a paying cargo was needed for the westward crossing, to close with a third leg this profitable triangle, and what better cargo than Africans for the West Indies, to harvest the cane and work in the mills which made the molasses?

Ultimately affluent and retired, he seemed content for a time to live among his peers, carrying his broadcloth coat and snowy linen as to the manor born, limiting his personal adornment to a massive golden ring and small square gold buckles at his knee. Soberly shop-talking molasses often, rum seldom, slaves never, he dwelt with a frightened wife and a silent son, until she died and something–perhaps loneliness–coupled his brain again to his sharp old eyes, and made him look about him. He began to dislike the hypocrisy of man and was honest enough to dislike himself as well, and this was a new thing for the Cap’n; he could not deny it and he could not contain it, so he left the boy with the household staff and, taking only a manservant, went into the wilderness to search his soul.

The wilderness was Martha’s Vineyard, and right through a bitter winter the old man crouched by the fire when the weather closed in, and, muffled in four great gray shawls, paced the beaches when it was bright, his brass telescope under his arm and his grim canny thoughts doing mighty battle with his convictions. In the late spring, he returned to Wiscassett, his blunt certainty regained, his laconic curtness increased almost to the point of speechlessness. He sold out (as a startled contemporary described it) “everything that showed,” and took his son, an awed, obedient eleven, back to the Vineyard where, to the accompaniment of tolling breakers and creaking gulls, he gave the boy an education to which all the schooling of all the Wykes for all of four generations would be mere addenda.

For in his retreat to the storms and loneliness of the inner self and the Vineyard, Gamaliel Wyke had come to terms with nothing less than the Decalogue.

He had never questioned the Ten Commandments, nor had he knowingly disobeyed them. Like many another before him, he attributed the sad state of the world and the sin of its inhabitants to their refusal to heed those Rules. But in his ponderings, God Himself, he at last devoutly concluded, had underestimated the stupidity of mankind. So he undertook to amend the Decalogue himself, by adding “… or cause…” to each Commandment, just to make it easier for a man to work with:

“… or cause the Name of the Lord to be taken in vain.”

“… or cause stealing to be done.”

“… or cause dishonor to thy father and thy mother.”

“… or cause the commission of adultery.”

“… or cause a killing to be done.”

But his revelation came to him when he came to the last one. It was suddenly clear to him that all mankind’s folly –all greed, lust, war, all dishonor, sprang from humanity’s almost total disregard for this edict and its amendment: “Thou shalt not covet… nor cause covetousness!”

It came to him then that to arouse covetousness in another is just as deadly a sin as to kill him or to cause his murder. Yet all around the world empires rose, great yachts and castles and hanging gardens came into being, tombs and trusts and college grants, all for the purpose of arousing the envy or covetousness of the less endowed –or having that effect no matter what the motive.

Now, one way for a man as rich as Gamaliel Wyke to have resolved the matter for himself would be St. Francis’ way; but (though he could not admit this, or even recognize it) he would have discarded the Decalogue and his amendments, all surrounding Scripture and his gnarled right arm rather than run so counter to his inborn, ingrained Yankee acquisitiveness. And another way might have been to take his riches and bury them in the sand of Martha’s Vineyard, to keep them from causing covetousness; the very thought clogged his nostrils with the feel of dune-sand and he felt suffocation; to him money was a living thing and should not be interred.

And so he came to his ultimate answer: Make your money, enjoy it, but never let anyone know. Desire, he concluded, for a neighbor’s wife, or a neighbor’s ass, or for anything, presupposed knowing about these possessions. No neighbor could desire anything of his if he couldn’t lay a name to it.

So Gamaliel brought weight like granite and force like gravity to bear upon the mind and soul of his son Walter, and Walter begat Jedediah, and Jedediah begat Caiaphas (who died) and Samuel, and Samuel began Zebulon (who died) and Sylva; so perhaps the true beginning of the story of the boy who became his own mother lies with Cap’n Gamaliel Wyke and his sand-scoured, sea-deep, rock-hard revelation.

—fell on his side on the bed and doubled up, grunting, gasping, wrapped away from her, even her, unreachable even by her.

She screamed. She screamed. She pressed herself up and away from him and ran naked into the sitting room, pawed up the ivory telephone: “Keogh” she cried; “For the love of God, Keogh!”

–and back into the bedroom where he lay open-mouthing a grating horrible uh uh! while she wrung her hands, tried to take one of his, found it agony-tense and unaware of her. She called him, called him, and once, screamed again.

The buzzer sounded with inexcusable discretion.

“Keogh!” she shouted, and the polite buzzer shhh’d her again–the lock, oh the damned lock… she picked up her negligee and ran with it in her hand through the dressing room and the sitting room and the hall and the living room and the foyer and flung open the door. She pulled Keogh through it before he could turn away from her; she thrust one arm in a sleeve of the garment and shouted at him, “Keogh, please, please, Keogh, what’s wrong with him?” and she fled to the bedroom, Keogh sprinting to keep up with her.

Then Keogh, chairman of the board of seven great corporations, board-member of a dozen more, general manager of a quiet family holding company which had, for most of a century, specialized in the ownership of corporate owners, went to the bed and fixed his cool blue gaze on the agonized figure there. He shook his head slightly.

“You called the wrong man,” he snapped, and ran back to the sitting-room, knocking the girl aside as if he had been a machine on tracks. He picked up the phone and said, “Get Rathburn up here. NOW. Where’s Weber? You don’t? Well, find him and get him here… I don’t care. Hire an airplane. Buy an airplane.”

He slammed down the phone and ran back into the bedroom. He came up behind her and gently lifted the negligee onto her other shoulder, and speaking gently to her all the while, reached round her and tied the ribbon belt. “What happened?”

“N-nothing, he just–”

“Come on, girl–clear out of here. Rathburn’s practically outside the door, and I’ve sent for Weber. If there’s a better doctor than Rathburn, it could only be Weber, so you’ve got to leave it to them. Come!”

“I won’t leave him.”

“Come!” Keogh rapped; then murmured, looking over her shoulder at the bed, “He wants you to, can’t you see? He doesn’t want you to see him like this. Right?” he demanded, and the face, turned away and half-buried in the pillow shone sweatly; cramp mounded the muscles on the side of the mouth they could just see. Stiffly the head nodded; it was like a shudder. “And… shut… door… tight…” he said in a clanging half whisper.

“Come,” said Keogh. And again, “Come.” He propelled her away; she stumbled. Her face turned yearningly until Keogh, both hands on her, kicked at the door and it swung and the sight of the bed was gone. Keogh leaned back against the door as if the latch were not enough to hold it closed.

“What is it? Oh, what is it?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“You do, you do… you always know everything… why won’t you let me stay with him?”

“He doesn’t want that.”

Overcome, inarticulate, she cried out.

“Maybe,” he said into her hair, “he wants to scream too.”

She struggled–oh, strong, lithe and strong she was. She tried to press past him. He would not budge, so at last, at last she wept.

He held her in his arms again, as he had not done since she used to sit on his lap as a little girl. He held her in his arms and looked blindly toward the unconcerned bright morning, seen soft-focused through the cloud of her hair. And he tried to make it stop, the morning, the sun, and time, but–

–but there is one certain thing only about a human mind, and that is that it acts, moves, works ceaselessly while it lives. The action, motion, labor differ from that of a heart, say, or an epithelial cell, in that the latter have functions, and in any circumstance perform their functions. Instead of a function, mind has a duty, that of making of a hairless ape a human being… yet as if to prove how trivial a difference there is between mind and muscle, mind must move, to some degree, always change, to some degree, always while it lives, like a stinking sweat gland… holding her, Keogh thought about Keogh.

The biography of Keogh is somewhat harder to come by than that of a Wyke. This is not in spite of having spent merely half a lifetime in this moneyed shadow; it is because of it. Keogh was a Wyke in all but blood and breeding: Wyke owned him and all he owned, which was a great deal.

He must have been a child once, a youth; he could remember if he wished but did not care to. Life began for him with the summa cum laude, the degrees in both business and law and (so young) the year and a half with Hinnegan and Bache, and then the incredible opening at the International Bank; the impossible asked of him in the Zurich-Plenum affair, and his performance of it, and the shadows which grew between him and his associates over the years, while for him the light grew and grew as to the architecture of his work, until at last he was admitted to Wyke, and was permitted to realize that Wyke was Zurich and Plenum, and the International Bank, and Hinnegan and Bache; was indeed his law school and his college and much, so very much more. And finally sixteen–good heavens, it was eighteen years ago, when he became General Manager, and the shadows dark to totally black between him and any other world, while the light, his own huge personal illumination, exposed almost to him alone an industrial-financial complex unprecedented in his country, and virtually unmatched in the world.

But then, the beginning, the other beginning, was when Old Sam Wyke called him in so abruptly that morning, when (though General Manager with many a board chairman, all unbeknownst, under him in rank) he was still the youngest man in that secluded office.

“Keogh,” said old Sam, “this is my kid. Take ‘er out. Give ’er anything she wants. Be back here at six.” He had then kissed the girl on the crown of her dark straw hat, gone to the door, turned and barked, “You see her show off or brag, Keogh, you fetch her a good one, then and there, hear? I don’t care what else she does, but don’t you let her wave something she’s got at someone that hasn’t got it. That’s Rule One.” He had then breezed out, leaving a silent, startled young mover of mountains locking gazes with an unmoving mouse of an eleven-year-old girl. She had luminous pale skin, blue-black silky-shining hair, and thick, level, black brows.

The summa cum laude, the acceptance at Hinnegan and Bache–all such things, they were beginnings that he knew were beginnings. This he would not know for some time that it was a beginning, any more than he could realize that he had just heard the contemporary version of Cap’n Gamaliel’s “Thou shalt not… cause covetousness.” At the moment, he could only stand nonplussed for a moment, then, excuse himself and go to the treasurer’s office, where he scribbled a receipt and relieved the petty cash box of its by no means petty contents. He got his hat and coat and returned to the President’s office. Without a word the child rose and moved with him to the door. They lunched and spent the afternoon together, and were back at six. He bought her whatever she wanted at one of the most expensive shops in New York. He took her to just the places of amusement she asked him to.

When it was all over, he returned the stack of bills to the petty cash box, less the one dollar and twenty cents he had paid out. For at the shop–the largest toy store in the world–she had carefully selected a sponge rubber ball, which they packed for her in a cubical box. This she carried carefully by its string for the rest of the afternoon.

They lunched from a pushcart–he had one hot dog with kraut, she had two with relish.

They rode uptown on the top of a Fifth Avenue double-decker, open-top bus.

They went to the zoo in Central Park and bought one bag of peanuts for the girl and the pigeons, and one bag of buns for the girl and the bears.

Then they took another double-decker back downtown, and that was it; that was the afternoon.

He remembered clearly what she looked like then: like a straw-hatted wren, for all it was a well-brushed wren. He could not remember what they had talked about, if indeed they had talked much at all. He was prepared to forget the episode, or at least to put it neatly in the Trivia: Misc-Closed file in his compartmented mind, when, a week later, old Sam tossed him a stack of papers and told him to read them through and come and ask questions if he thought he had to. The only question which came to mind when he had read them was, “Are you sure you want to go through with this?” and that was not the kind of question one asked old Sam. So he thought it over very carefully and came up with “Why me?” and old Sam looked him up and down and growled, “She likes you, that’s why.”

And so it was that Keogh and the girl lived together in a cotton mill town in the South for a year. Keogh worked in the company store. The girl worked in the mill; twelve-year-old girls worked in cotton mills in the South in those days. She worked the morning shift and half the evening shift, and had three hours’ school in the afternoons. Up until ten o’clock on Saturday nights they watched the dancing from the sidelines. On Sundays they went to the Baptist church. Their name while they were there was Harris. Keogh used to worry frantically when she was out of his sight, but one day when she was crossing the catwalk over the water-circulating sump, a sort of oversized well beside the mill, the catwalk broke and pitched her into the water. Before she could so much as draw a breath a Negro stoker appeared out of nowhere–actually, out of the top of the coal chute–and leapt in and had her and handed her up to the sudden crowd. Keogh came galloping up from the company store as they were pulling the stoker out, and after seeing that girl was all right, knelt beside the man, whose leg was broken.

“I’m Mr. Harris, her father. You’ll get a reward for this. What’s your name?”

The man beckoned him close, and as he bent down, the stoker, in spite of his pain, grinned and winked. “You don‘ owe me a thang, Mr. Keogh,” he murmured. In later times, Keogh would be filled with rage at such a confidence, would fire the man out of hand: this first time he was filled with wonder and relief. After that, things were easier on him, as he realized that the child was surrounded by Wyke’s special employees, working on Wyke land in a Wyke mill and paying rent in a Wyke row-house.

In due time the year was up. Someone else took over, and the girl, now named Kevin and with a complete new background in case anyone should ask, went off for two years to a very exclusive Swiss finishing school, where she dutifully wrote letters to a Mr. and Mrs. Kevin who held large acreage in the Pennsylvania mountains, and who just as dutifully answered her.

Keogh returned to his own work, which he found in apple-pie order, with every one of the year’s transactions beautifully abstracted for him, and an extra amount, over and above his astronomical salary, tucked away in one of his accounts–an amount that startled even Keogh. He missed her at first, which he expected. But he missed her every single day for two solid years, a disturbance he could not explain, did not examine, and discussed with no one.

All the Wykes, old Sam once grunted to him, did something of the sort. He, Sam, had been a logger in Oregon and a year and a half as utility man, then ordinary seaman on a coastwise tanker.

Perhaps some deep buried part of Keogh’s mind thought that when she returned from Switzerland, they would go for catfish in an old flat-bottomed boat again, or that she would sit on his lap while he suffered on the hard benches of the once-a-month picture show. The instant he saw her on her return from Switzerland, he knew that would never be. He knew he was entering some new phase; it troubled and distressed him and he put it away in the dark inside himself; he could do that; he was strong enough. And she –well, she flung her arms around him and kissed him; but when she talked with this new vocabulary, this deft school finish, she was strange and awesome to him, like an angel. Even a loving angel is strange and awesome…

They were together again then for a long while, but there were no more hugs. He became a Mr. Stark in the Cleveland office of a brokerage house and she boarded with an elderly couple, went to the local high school and had a part-tune job filing in his office. This was when she learned the ins and outs of the business, the size of it. It would be hers. It became hers while they were in Cleveland: old Sam died very suddenly. They slipped away to the funeral but were back at work on Monday. They stayed there for another eight months; she had a great deal to learn. In the fall she entered a small private college and Keogh saw nothing of her for a year.

“Shhh,” he breathed to her, crying, and sssh! said the buzzer.

“The doctor…”

“Go take a bath,” he said. He pushed her.

She half-turned under his hand, faced him again blazing. “No!”

“You can’t go in there, you know,” he said, going for the door. She glared at him, but her lower lip trembled.

Keogh opened the door. “In the bedroom.”

“Who–” then the doctor saw the girl, her hands knotted together, her face twisted, and had his answer. He was a tall man, gray, with quick hands, a quick step, swift words. He went straight through foyer, hall and rooms and into the bedroom. He closed the door behind him. There had been no discussion, no request and refusal; Dr. Rathburn had simply, quickly, quietly shut them out.

“Go take a bath.”

“No.”

“Come on.” He took her wrist and led her to the bathroom. He reached into the shower stall and turned on the side jets. There were four at each corner; the second from the top was scented. Apple blossom. “Go on.”

He moved toward the door. She stood where he had let go of her wrist, pulling at her hands. “Go on,” he said again. “Just a quick one. Do you good.” He waited. “Or do you want me to douse you myself? I bet I still can.”

She flashed him a look; indignation passed instantly as she understood what he was trying to do. The rare spark of mischief appeared in her eyes and, in perfect imitation of a mill-row redneck, she said, “Y’all try it an Ah’ll tall th‘ shurff Ah ain’t rightly yo’ chile.” But the effort cost her too much, and she cried again. He stepped out and softly closed the door.

He was waiting by the bedroom when Rathburn slid out and quickly shut the door on the grunt, the gasp.

“What is it?” asked Keogh.

“Wait a minute.” Rathburn strode to the phone; Keogh said, “I sent for Weber.”

Rathburn came almost ludicrously to a halt. “Wow,” he said. “Not bad diagnosing, for a layman. Is there anything you can’t do?”

“I can’t understand what you’re talking about,” said Keogh testily.

“Oh–I thought you knew. Yes, I’m afraid it’s in Weber’s field. What made you guess?” Keogh shuddered. “I saw a mill hand take a low blow once. I know he wasn’t hit. What exactly is it?”

Rathburn darted a look around. “Where is she?”

Keogh indicated the bathroom. “I told her to take a shower.”

“Good,” said the doctor. He lowered his voice. “Naturally I can’t tell without further examination and lab–”

“What is it?” Keogh demanded, not loud, but with such violence that Rathburn stepped back a pace.

“It could be choriocarcinoma.”

Tiredly, Keogh wagged his head. “Me diagnose that? I can’t even spell it. What is it?” He caught himself up, as if he had retrieved the word from thin air and run it past him again, “I know what the last part of it means.”

“One of the–” Rathburn swallowed, and tried again. “One of the more vicious forms of cancer. And it. . .” He lowered his voice again. “It doesn’t always hit this hard.”

“Just how serious is it?”

Rathburn raised his hands and let them fall.

“Bad, eh? Doc–how bad?”

“Maybe some day we can…” Rathburn’s lowered voice at last disappeared. They hung there, each on the other’s pained gaze.

“How much time?”

“Maybe six weeks.”

“Six weeks!”

“Shh,” said Rathburn nervously.

“Weber–”

“Weber knows more about internal physiology than anybody. But I don’t know if that will help. It’s a little like…your, uh, house is struck by lightning, flattened, burned to the ground. You can examine it and the weather reports and, uh, know exactly what happened. Maybe some day we can…” he said again, but he said it so hopelessly that Keogh, through the rolling mists of his own terror, pitied him and half-instinctively put out a hand. He touched the doctor’s sleeve and stood awkwardly.

“What are you going to do?”

Rathburn looked at the closed bedroom door. “What I did.” He made a gesture with a thumb and two fingers. “Morphine.”

“And that’s all?”

“Look, I’m a G.P. Ask Weber, will you?”

Keogh realized that he had pushed the man as far as he could in his search for a crumb of hope; if there was none, there was no point in trying to squeeze it out. He asked, “Is there anyone working on it? Anything new? Can you find out?”

“Oh, I will, I will. But Weber can tell you off the top of his head more than I could find out in six mon… in a long time.”

A door opened. She came out, hollow-eyed, but pink and glowing in a long white terry-cloth robe. “Dr. Rathburn–”

“He’s asleep.”

“Thank God. Does it–”

“There’s no pain.”

“What is it? What happened to him?”

“Well, I wouldn’t like to say for sure… we’re waiting for Dr. Weber. He’ll know.”

“But–but is he–”

“He’ll sleep the clock around.”

“Can I…” The timidity, the caution, Keogh realized, was so unlike her. “Can I see him?”

“He’s fast asleep!”

“I don’t care. I’ll be quiet. I won’t–touch him or anything.”

“Go ahead,” said Rathburn. She opened the bedroom door and eagerly, silently slipped inside.

“You’d think she was trying to make sure he was there.”

Keogh, who knew her so very well, said, “She is.”

But a biography of Guy Gibbon is really hard to come by. For he was no exceptional executive, who for all his guarded anonymity wielded so much power that he must be traceable by those who knew where to look and what to look for, and cared enough to process detail like a mass spectroscope. Neither was Guy Gibbon born heir to countless millions, the direct successor to a procession of giants.

He came from wherever it is most of us come from, the middle or the upper-middle, or the upper-lower middle or the lower-upper middle, or some other indefinable speck in the mid-range of the interflowing striations of society (the more they are studied, the less they mean). He belonged to the Wykes entity for only eight and a half weeks, after all. Oh, the bare details might not be too hard to come by–(birth date, school record) and certain main facts–(father’s occupation, mother’s maiden name)—as well, perhaps as a highlight or two–(divorce, perhaps, or a death in the family); but a biography, a real biography, which does more than describe, which explains the man–and few do—now, is an undertaking.

Science, it is fair to assume, can do what all the king’s horses and all the king’s men could not do, and totally restore a smashed egg. Given equipment enough, and time enough… but isn’t this a way of saying, “given money enough?” For money can be not only means, but motive. So if enough money went into the project, perhaps the last unknown, the last vestige of anonymity could be removed from a man’s life story, even a young man from (as the snobs say) nowhere, no matter how briefly—though intimately—known.

The most important thing, obviously, that ever happened to Guy Gibbon in his life was his first encounter with the Wyke entity, and like many a person before and since, he had not the faintest idea he had done so. It was when he was in his late teens, and he and Sammy Stein went trespassing.

Sammy was a school sidekick, and this particular day he had a secret; he had been very insistent on the day’s outing, but refused to say why. He was a burly-shouldered, good-natured, reasonably chinless boy whose close friendship with Guy was based almost exclusively on the attraction of opposite poles. And since, of the many kinds of fun they had had, the most fun was going trespassing, he wanted it that way on this particular occasion.

“Going trespassing,” as an amusement, had more or less invented itself when they were in their early teens. They lived in a large city surrounded (unlike many today) by old suburbs, not new ones, These included large–some, more than large–estates and mansions, and it was their greatest delight to slip through a fence or over a wall and, profoundly impressed by their own bravery, slip through field and forest, lawn and drive, like Indian scouts in settler country. Twice they had been caught, once to have dogs set on them–three boxers and two mastiffs, which certainly would have torn them to very small pieces if the boys had not been more lucky than swift–and once by a dear little old lady who swamped them sickeningly with jelly sandwiches and lonely affection. But over the saga of their adventures, their two captures served to spice the adventure; two failures out of a hundred successes (for many of these places were visited frequently) was a proud record.

So they took a trolley to the end of the line, and walked a mile, and went straight ahead where the road turned at a discreet No Admittance sign of expensive manufacture and a high degree of weathering. They proceeded through a small wild wood, and came at last to an apparently unscalable granite wall.

Sammy had discovered this wall the week before, roaming alone; he had waited for Guy to accompany him before challenging it, and Guy was touched. He was also profoundly excited by the wall itself. Anything this size should have been found, conjectured about, campaigned against, battled and conquered long since. But as well as being a high wall, a long wall, and mysterious, it was a distant wall, a discreet wall. No road touched it but its own driveway, which was primitive, meandering, and led to ironbound, solid oak gates without a chink or crack to peek through.

They could not climb it nor breach it–but they crossed it. An ancient maple on this side held hands with a chestnut over the crown of the wall, and they went over like a couple of squirrels.

They had, in their ghost-like way, haunted many an elaborate property, but never had they seen such maintenance, such manicure, such polish of a piece of land and, as Sammy said, awed out of his usual brashness, as they stood in a solid marble pergola overlooking green plush acres of rolling lawn, copses of carven boxwood, park-like woods and streams with little Japanese bridges and, in their bends, humorful little rock-gardens: “–and there’s goddam miles of it.”

They had wandered a bit, that first time, and had learned that there were after all some people there. They saw a tractor far away, pulling a slanted gang of mowers across one of the green-plush fields. (The owners doubtless called it a lawn; it was a field.) The machines, rare in that time, cut a swath all of thirty feet wide, “and that,” Sammy said, convulsing them, “ain’t hay.” And then they had seen the house–

Well, a glimpse. Breaking out of the woods, Guy had felt himself snatched back. “House up there,” said Sammy. “Someone’ll see us.” There was a confused impression of a white hill that was itself the house, or part of it; towers, turrets, castellations, crenellations; a fairy-tale palace set in this legendary landscape. They had not been able to see it again; it was so placed that it could be approached nowhere secretly nor even spied upon. They were struck literally speechless by the sight and for most of an hour had nothing to say, and that expressible only by wags of the head. Ultimately they referred to it as “the shack,” and it was in this vein that they later called their final discovery “the ol‘ swimmin’ hole.”

It was across a creek and over a wooded hill. Two more hills rose to meet the wood, and cupped between the three was a pond, perhaps a lake. It was roughly L-shaped, and all around it were shadowed inlets, grottoes, inconspicuous stone steps leading here to a rustic pavilion set about with flowers, there to a concealed forest glade harboring a tiny formal garden.

But the lake, the ol’ swimmin’ hole…

They went swimming, splashing as little as possible and sticking to the shore. They explored two inlets to the right (a miniature waterfall and a tiny beach of obviously imported golden sand) and three to the left (a square-cut one, lined with tile the color of patina, with a black glass diving tower overhanging water that must have been dredged to twenty feet; a little beach of snow-white sand; and one they dared not enter, for fear of harming the fleet of perfect sailing ships, none more than a foot long, which lay at anchor; but they trod water until they were bone-cold, gawking at the miniature model waterfront with little pushcarts in the street, and lamp-posts, and old-fashioned houses) and then, weary, hungry and awestruck, they had gone home.

And Sammy cracked the secret he had been keeping– the thing which made this day an occasion: he was to go wild-hairing off the next day in an effort to join Chennault in China.

Guy Gibbon, overwhelmed, made the only gesture he could think of: he devotedly swore he would not go trespassing again until Sammy got back.

“Death from choriocarcinoma,” Dr. Weber began, “is the result of–”

“But he won’t die,” she said. “I won’t let him.”

“My dear,” Dr. Weber was a small man with round shoulders and a hawk’s face. “I don’t mean to be unkind, but I can use all the euphemisms and kindle all the false hope, or I can do as you have asked me to do–explain the condition and make a prognosis. I can’t do both.”

Dr. Rathburn said gently, “Why don’t you go and lie down? I’ll come when we’ve finished here and tell you all about it.”

“I don’t want to lie down,” she said fiercely. “And I wasn’t asking you to spare me anything, Dr. Weber. I simply said I would not let him die. There’s nothing in that statement which keeps you from telling me the truth.”

Keogh smiled. Weber caught him at it and was startled; Keogh saw his surprise. “I know her better than you do,” he said, with a touch of pride. “You don’t have to pull any punches.”

“Thanks, Keogh,” she said. She leaned forward. “Go ahead, Dr. Weber.”

Weber looked at her. Snatched from his work two thousand miles away, brought to a place he had never known existed, of a magnificence which attacked his confidence in his own eyes, meeting a woman of power– every sort of power–quite beyond his experience… Weber had thought himself beyond astonishment. Shock, grief, fear, deprivation like hers he had seen before, of course; what doctor has not? but when Keogh had told her baldly that this disease killed in six weeks, always, she had flinched, closed her eyes for an interminable moment, and had then said softly, “Tell us everything you can about this–this disease, Doctor.” And she had added, for the first time, “He isn’t going to die. I won’t let him”; and the way she held her head, the way her full voice handled the words, he almost believed her. Heaven knows, he wished he could. And so he found he could be astonished yet again.

He made an effort to detach himself, and became not a man, not this particular patient’s doctor, but a sort of source-book. He began again:

“Death from choriocarcinoma is a little unlike other deaths from malignancies. Ordinarily a cancer begins locally, and sends its chains and masses of wild cells growing through the organ on which it began. Death can result from the failure of that organ; liver, kidney, brain, what have you. Or the cancer suddenly breaks up and spreads through the body, starting colonies throughout the system. This is called metastasis. Death results then from the loss of efficiency of many organs instead of just one. Of course, both these things can happen–the almost complete impairment of the originally cancerous organ, and metastatic effects at the same time.

“Chorio, on the other hand, doesn’t originally involve a vital organ. Vital to the species, perhaps, but not to the individual.” He permitted himself a dry smile. “This is probably a startling concept to most people in this day and age, but it’s nonetheless true. However, sex cells, at their most basic and primitive, have peculiarities not shared by other body cells.

“Have you ever heard of the condition known as ectopic pregnancy?” He directed his question at Keogh, who nodded. “A fertilized ovum fails to descend to the uterus; instead it attaches itself to the side of the very fine tube between the ovaries and the womb. And at first everything proceeds well with it–and this is the point I want you to grasp–because in spite of the fact that only the uterus is truly specialized for this work, the tube wall not only supports the growing ovum but feeds it. It actually forms what we call a counterplacenta; it enfolds the early fetus and nurtures it. The fetus, of course, has a high survival value, and is able to get along quite well on the plasma which the counterplacenta supplies it with. And it grows–it grows fantastically. Since the tube is very fine–you’d have difficulty getting the smallest needle up through it–it can no longer contain the growing fetus, and ruptures. Unless it is removed at that time, the tissues outside will quite as readily take on the work of a real placenta and uterus, and in six or seven months, if the mother survives that long, will create havoc in the abdomen.

“All right then: back to chorio. Since the cells involved are sex cells, and cancerous to boot, they divide and re-divide wildly, without pattern or special form. They develop in an infinite variety of shapes and sizes and forms. The law of averages dictates that a certain number of these–and the number of distorted cells is astronomical–resemble fertilized ova. Some of them resemble them so closely that I personally would not enjoy the task of distinguishing between them and the real thing. However, the body as a whole is not that particular; anything which even roughly resembles a fertilized egg-cell is capable of commanding that counterplacenta.

“Now consider the source of these cells–physiologically speaking, gland tissue–a mass of capillary tubes and blood vessels. Each and every one of these does its best to accept and nurture these fetal imitations, down to the tiniest of them. The thin walls of the capillaries, however, break down easily under such an effort, and the imitations–selectively, the best of them, too, because the tissues yield most readily to them–they pass into the capillaries and then into the bloodstream.

“There is one place and only one place where they can be combed out; and it’s a place rich in oxygen, lymph, blood and plasma: the lungs. The lungs enthusiastically take on the job of forming placentae for these cells, and nurturing them. But for every segment of lung given over to gestating an imitation fetus, there is one less segment occupied with the job of oxygenating blood. Ultimately the lungs fail, and death results from oxygen starvation.” Rathburn spoke up. “For years chorio was regarded as a lung disease, and the cancerous gonads as a sort of side effect.”

“But lung cancer–” Keogh began to object.

“It isn’t lung cancer, don’t you see? Given enough time, it might be, through metastasis. But there is never enough time. Chorio doesn’t have to wait for that, to kill. That’s why it’s so swift.” He tried not to look at the girl, and failed; he said it anyway: “And certain.”

“Just exactly how do you treat it?”

Weber raised his hands and let them fall. It was precisely the gesture Rathburn had made earlier, and Keogh wondered distantly whether they taught it in medical schools. “Something to kill the pain. Orchidectomy might make the patient last a little longer, by removing the supply of wild cells to the bloodstream. But it wouldn’t save him. Metastasis has already taken place by the time the first symptom appears. The cancer becomes generalized… perhaps the lung condition is only God’s mercy.”

“What’s ‘orchidectomy’?” asked Keogh.

“Amputation of the–uh–source,” said Rathburn uncomfortably.

“No!” cried the girl.

Keogh sent her a pitying look. There was that about him which was cynical, sophisticated, and perhaps coldly angry at anyone who lived as he could never live, had what he could never have. It was a stirring of the grave ancient sin which old Cap’n Gamaliel had isolated in his perspicacious thoughts. Sure, amputate, if it’ll help, he thought. What do you think you’re preserving–his virility? What good’s it to you now?… but sending her the look, he encountered something different from the romantically based horror and shock he expected. Her thick level brows were drawn together, her whole face intense with taut concentration. “Let me think,” she said, oddly.

“You really should–” Rathburn began, but she shushed him with any impatient gesture. The three men exchanged a glance and settled back; it was as if someone, something had told them clearly and specifically to wait. What they were waiting for, they could not imagine.

The girl sat with her eyes closed. A minute crawled by. “Daddy used to say,” she said, so quietly that she must surely be talking to herself, “that there’s always a way. All you have to do is think of it.”

There was another long silence and she opened her eyes. There was a burning down in them somewhere; it made Keogh uneasy. She said, “And once he told me that I could have anything I wanted; all it had to be was… possible. And… the only way you can find out if a thing is impossible is to try it.”

“That wasn’t Sam Wyke,” said Keogh. “That was Keogh.”

She wet her lips and looked at them each in turn. She seemed not to see them at all. “I’m not going to let him die,” she said. “You’ll see.”

Sammy Stem came back two years later, on leave, and full of plans to join the Army Air Force. He’d had, as he himself said, the hell kicked out of him in China and a lot of the hellishness as well. But there was enough of the old Sammy left to make wild wonderful plans about going trespassing; and they knew just where they were going. The new Sammy, however, demanded a binge and a broad first.

Guy, two years out of high school, working for a living, and by nature neither binger nor wencher, went along only too gladly. Sam seemed to have forgotten about the “ol‘ swimmin’ hole” at first, and halfway through the evening, in a local bar-and-dance emporium, Guy was about to despair of his ever remembering it, when Sam himself brought it up, recalling to Guy that he had once written Sam a letter asking Sam if it had really happened. Guy had, in his turn, forgotten the letter, and after that they had a good time with “remember-when”–and they made plans to go trespassing the very next day, and bring a lunch. And start early.

Then there was a noisy involvement with some girls, and a lot more drinks, and out of the haze and movement somewhere after midnight, Guy emerged on a sidewalk looking at Sammy shoveling a girl into a taxicab. “Hey!” he called out, “what about the you know, ol‘ swimmin’ hole?”

“Call me Abacus, you can count on me,” said Sammy, and laughed immoderately. The girl with him pulled at his arm; he shook her off and weaved over to Guy. “Listen,” he said, and gave a distorted wink, “if this makes–and it will–I’m starting no early starts. Tell you what, you go on out there and meet me by that sign says keep out or we’ll castigate you. Say eleven o’clock. If I can’t make it by then I’m dead or something.” He bellowed at the cab, “You gon‘ kill me, honey?” and the girl called back, “I will if you don’t get into this taxi.”

“See what I mean?” said Sammy in a grand drunken non-sequitur, “I got to go get killed.” He zigged away, needing no zag because even walking sidewise he reached the cab in a straight line, and Guy saw no more of him that leave.

That was hard to take, mostly because there was no special moment at which he knew Sammy wasn’t coming. He arrived ten minutes late, after making a super-human effort to get there. His stomach was sour from the unaccustomed drinking, and he was sandy-eyed and ache-jointed from lack of sleep. He knew that the greater probability was that Sammy had not arrived yet or would not at all; yet the nagging possibility existed that he had come early and gone straight in. Guy waited around for a full hour, and some more minutes until the little road was clear of traffic and sounds of traffic, and then plunged alone into the woods, past the No Trespassing sign, and in to the wall. He had trouble finding the two trees, and once over the wall, he could not get his bearings for a while; he was pleased, of course, to find the unbelievably perfect lawns still there by the flawless acre, the rigidly controlled museums of carven box, the edge-trimmed, rolled-gravel walks meandering prettily through the woods. The pleasure, however, was no more than confirmation of his memory, and went no further; the day was spoiled.

Guy reached the lake at nearly one o’clock, hot, tired, ravenously hungry and unpleasantly nervous. The combination hit him in the stomach and made it echo; he sat down on the bank and ate. He wolfed down the food he had brought for himself and Sammy’s as well–odds and ends carelessly tossed into a paper sack in the bleary early hoars. The cake was moldy but he ate it anyway. The orange juice was warm and had begun to ferment. And stubbornly, he determined to swim, because that was what he had come for.

He chose the beach with the golden sand. Under a thick cover of junipers be found a stone bench and table. He undressed here and scuttled across the beach and into the water.

He had meant it to be a mere dip, so he could say he’d done it. But around the little headland to the left was the rectangular cove with the diving platform; and he remembered the harbor of model ships; and then movement diagonally across the foot of the lake’s L caught his eye, and he saw models–not the anchored ships this time, but racing sloops, which put out from an inlet and crossed its mouth and sailed in again; they must be mounted on some sort of underwater wheel or endless chain, and moved as the breeze took them. He all but boiled straight across to them, then decided to be wise and go round.

He swam to the left and the rocky shore, and worked his way along it. Clinging close (the water seemed bottomless here) he rounded the point and came face to face (literally; they touched) with a girl.

She was young–near his age–and his first impression was of eyes of too complex an architecture, blue-white teeth with pointed canines quite unlike the piano-key regularity considered beautiful in these times, and a wide cape of rich brown hair afloat around her shoulders. By then his gasp was completed, and in view of the fact that in gasping he had neglected to remove his mouth from the water, he was shut off from outside impressions for a strangling time, until he felt a firm grasp on his left biceps and found himself returned to the side of the rock.

“Th-thanks,” he said hoarsely as she swam back a yard and trod water. “I’m not supposed to be here,” he added inanely.

“I guess I’m not either. But I thought you lived here. I thought you were a faun.”

“Boy am I glad to hear that. I mean about you. All I am is a trespasser. Boy.”

“I’m not a boy.”

“It was just a finger of speech,” he said, using one of the silly expressions which come to a person as he grows, and blessedly pass. She seemed not to react to it at all, for she said gravely, “You have the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen. They are made of aluminum. And your hair is all wiggly.”

He could think of nothing to say to that, but tried; all that emerged was, “We’ll, it’s early yet,” and suddenly they were laughing together. She was so strange, so different. She spoke in a grave, unaccented, and utterly incautious idiom as if she thought strange thoughts and-spoke them right out. “Also,” she said, “you have lovely lips. They’re pale blue. You ought to get out of the water.”

“I can’t!”

She considered that for a moment, treading away from him and then back to the yard’s distance. “Where are your things?”

He pointed across the narrow neck of the lake which he had circumnavigated.

“Wait for me over there,” she said, and suddenly swam close, so close she could dip her chin and look straight into his eyes. “You got to,” she said fiercely.

“Oh I will,” he promised, and struck out for the opposite shore. She hung to the rock, watching him.

Swimming, reaching hard, stretching for distance warmed him, and the chill and its accompanying vague ache diminished. Then he had a twinge of stomach-ache, and he drew up his knees to ease it. When he tried to extend himself again, he could, but it hurt too much. He drew up his knees again, and the pain followed inward so that to flex again was out of the question. He drew his knees up still tighter, and tighter still followed the pain. He needed air badly by then, threw up his head, tried to roll over on his back; but with his knees drawn up, everything came out all wrong. He inhaled at last because he had to, but the air was gone away somewhere; he floundered upward for it until the pressure in his ears told him he was swimming downward. Blackness came upon him and receded, and came again, he let it come for a tired instant, and was surrounded by light, and drew one lungful of air and one of water, and got the blackness again; this time it stayed with him…

Still beautiful in her bed, but morphine-clouded, fly-papered, and unstruggling in viscous sleep, he lay with monsters swarming in his veins…

Quietly, in a corner of the room, she spoke with Keogh: “You don’t understand me. You didn’t understand me yesterday when I cried out at the idea of that–that operation. Keogh, I love him, but I’m me. Loving him doesn’t mean I’ve stopped thinking. Loving him means I’m more me than ever, not less. It means I can do anything I did before, only more, only better. That’s why I fell in love with him. That’s why I am in love with him. Weren’t you ever in love, Keogh?”

He looked at the way her hair fell, and the earnest placement of her thick soft brows, and he said, “I haven’t thought much about it.”

“There’s always a way. All you have to do is think of it,” she quoted. “Keogh, I’ve accepted what Dr. Rathburn said. After I left you yesterday I went to the library and tore the heart out of some books… they’re right, Rathburn and Weber. And I’ve thought and I’ve thought… trying the way Daddy would, to turn everything upside down and backwards, to look for a new way of thinking. He won’t die, Keogh; I’m not going to let him die.”

“You said you accepted–”

“Oh, part of him. Most of him, if you like. We all die, bit by bit, all the time, and it doesn’t bother us because most of the dead parts are replaced. Hell… he’ll lose more parts, sooner, but–after it’s over, he’ll be himself again.” She said it with superb confidence-–perhaps it was childlike. If so, it was definitely not childish.

“You have an idea,” said Keogh positively. As he had pointed out to the doctors, he knew her.

“All those–those things in his blood,” she said quietly. “The struggle they go through… they’re trying to survive; did you ever think of it that way, Keogh? They want to live. They want most terribly to go on living.”

“I hadn’t thought about it.”

“His body wants them to live too. It welcomes them wherever they lodge. Dr. Weber said so.”

“You’ve got hold of something,” said Keogh flatly, “and whatever it is I don’t think I like it.”

“I don’t want you to like it,” she said in the same strange quiet voice. He looked swiftly at her and saw again the burning deep in her eyes. He had to look away. She said, “I want you to hate it. I want you to fight it. You have one of the most wonderful minds I have ever known, Keogh, and I want you to think up every argument you can think of against it. For every argument I’ll find an answer, and then we’ll know what to do.”

“You’d better go ahead,” he said reluctantly.

“I had a pretty bad quarrel with Dr. Weber this morning,” she said suddenly.

“This m–when?” He looked at his watch; it was still early.

“About three, maybe four. In his room. I went there and woke him up.”

“Look, you don’t do things like that to Weber!”

“I do. Anyway, he’s gone.”

He rose to his feet, the rare bright patches of anger showing in his cheeks. He took a breath, let it out, and sat down again. “You’d better tell me about it.”

“In the library,” she said, “there’s a book on genetics, and it mentions some experiments on Belgian hares. The does were impregnated without sperm, with some sort of saline or alkaline solution.”

“I remember something about it.” He was well used to her circuitous way of approaching something important. She built conversational points, not like a hired contractor, but like an architect. Sometimes she brought in portions of her lumber and stacked them beside the structure. If she ever did that, it was material she needed and would use. He waited.

“The does gave birth to baby rabbits, all female. The interesting thing was that they were identical to each other and to the mother. Even the blood-vessel patterns in the eyeball were so similar that an expert might be fooled by photographs of them. ‘Impossibly similar’ is what one of the experimenters called it. They had to be identical because everything they inherited was from the mother. I woke Dr. Weber up to tell him about that.”

“And he told you he’d read the book.”

“He wrote it,” she said gently. “And then I told him that if he could do that with a Belgian hare, he could do it with”–she nodded toward her big bed–“him.”

Then she was quiet, while Keogh rejected the idea, found it stuck to his mind’s hand, not to be shaken off; brought it to his mind’s eye and shuddered away from it, shook again and failed, slowly brought it close and turned it over, and turned it again.

“Take one of those–those things like fertilized ova– make it grow…”

“You don’t make it grow. It wants desperately to grow. And not one of them, Keogh. You have thousands. You have hundreds more every hour.”

“Oh my God.”

“It came to me when Dr. Rathburn suggested the operation. It came to me all at once, a miracle. If you love someone that much,” she said, looking at the sleeper, “miracles happen. But you have to be willing to help them happen.” She looked at him directly, with an intensity that made him move back in his chair. “I can have anything I want–all it has to be is possible. We just have to make it possible. That’s why I went to Dr. Weber this morning. To ask him.”

“He said it wasn’t possible.”

“He said that at first. After a half hour or so he said the odds against it were in the billions or trillions… but you see, as soon as he said that, he was saying it was possible.”

“What did you do then?”

“I dared him to try.”

“And that’s why he left?”

“Yes.”

“You’re mad,” he said before he could stop himself. She seemed not to resent it She sat calmly, wailing.

“Look,” said Keogh at last, “Weber said those distorted–uh–things were like fertilized ova. He never said they were. He could have said–well, I’ll say it for him– they’re not fertilized ova.”

“But he did say they were–some of them, anyway, and especially those that reached the lungs–were very much like ova. How close do you have to get before there’s no real difference at all?”

“It can’t be. It just can’t.”

“Weber said that. And I asked him if he had ever tried.”

“All right, all right! It can’t happen, but just to keep this silly argument going, suppose you got something that would grow. You won’t, of course. But if you did, how would you keep it growing. It has to be fed, it has to be kept at a certain critical temperature, a certain amount of acid or alkali will kill it… you don’t just plant something like that in the yard.”

“Already they’ve taken ova from one cow, planted them in another, and gotten calves. There’s a man in Australia who plans to raise blooded cattle from scrub cows that way.”

“You have done your homework.”

“Oh, that isn’t all. There’s a Dr. Carrel in New Jersey who has been able to keep chicken tissue alive for months –he says indefinitely–in a nutrient solution, in a temperature-controlled jar in his lab. It grows, Keogh! It grows so much he has to cut it away every once in a while.”

“This is crazy. This is–it’s insane,” he growled. “And what do you think you’ll get if you bring one of these monsters to term?”

“We’ll bring thousands of them to term,” she said composedly. “And one of them will be–him.” She leaned forward abruptly, and her even tone of voice broke; a wildness grew through her face and voice, and though it was quiet, it shattered him: “It will be his flesh, the pattern of him, his own substance grown again. His hair, Keogh. His fingerprints. His–eyes. His–his self.”

“I can’t–” Keogh shook himself like a wet spaniel, but it changed nothing; he was still here, she, the bed, the sleeper, and this dreadful, this inconceivably horrible, wrong idea.

She smiled then, put out her hand and touched him; incredibly, it was a mother’s smile, warm and comforting, a mother’s loving, protective touch; her voice was full of affection. “Keogh, if it won’t work, it won’t work, no matter what we do. Then you’ll be right. I think it will work. It’s what I want. Don’t you want me to have what I want?”

He had to smile, and she smiled back. “You’re a young devil,” he said ardently. “Got me coming and going, haven’t you? Why did you want me to fight it?”

“I didn’t,” she said, “but if you fight me, you’ll come up with problems nobody else could possibly think of, and once we’ve thought of them, we’ll be ready, don’t you see? I’ll fight with you, Keogh,” she said, shifting her strange bright spectrum from tenderness to a quiet, convinced, invincible certainty. “I’ll fight with you, I’ll lift and carry, I’ll buy and sell and kill if I have to, but I am going to bring him back. You know something, Keogh?”

She waved her hand in a gesture that included him, the room, the castle and grounds and all the other castle and grounds; the pseudonyms, the ships and trains, the factories and exchanges, the mountains and acres and mines and banks and the thousands of people which, taken together, were Wyke: “I always knew that all this was,” she said, “and I’ve come to understand that this is mine. But I used to wonder sometimes, what it was all for. Now I know. Now I know.”

A mouth on his mouth, a weight on his stomach. He felt boneless and nauseated, limp as grease drooling. The light around him was green, and all shapes blurred.

The mouth on his mouth, the weight on his stomach, a breath of air, welcome but too warm, too moist. He needed it desperately but did not like it, and found a power-plant full of energy to gather it up in his lungs and fling it away; but his weakness so filtered all that effort that it emerged in a faint bubbling sigh.

The mouth on his mouth again, and the weight on his stomach and another breath. He tried to turn his head but someone held him by the nose. He blew out the needed, unsatisfactory air and replaced it by a little gust of his own inhalation. On this he coughed; it was too rich, pure, too good. He coughed as one does over a pickle-barrel; good air hurt his lungs.

He felt his head and shoulders lifted, shifted, by which he learned that he had been flat on his back on stone, or something flat and quite that hard, and was now on smooth, firm softness. The good sharp air came and went, his weak coughs fewer, until he fell into a dazed peace. The face that bent over his was too close to focus, or he had lost the power to focus; either way, he didn’t care. Drowsily he stared up into the blurred brightness of that face and listened uncritically to the voice–

–the voice crooning wordlessly and comfortingly, and somehow, in its wordlessness, creating new expressions for joy and delight for which words would not do. Then after all there were words, half sung, half whispered; and he couldn’t catch them, and he couldn’t catch them and then… and then he was sure he heard: “How could it be, such a magic as this: all this and the eyes as well… ” Then, demanding, “You are the shape of the not-you: tell me, are you in there?”

He opened his eyes wide and saw her face clearly at last and the dark hair, and the eyes were green–true deep sea-green. Her tangled hair, drying, crowned her like vines, and the leafy roof close above seemed part of her and the green eyes, and threw green light on the unaccountably blond transparency of her cheeks. He genuinely did not know, at the moment, what she was. She had said to him (was it years ago?) “I thought you were a faun…” he had not, at the moment, much consciousness, not to say whimsy, at his command; she was simply something unrelated to anything in his experience.

He was aware of griping, twisting pain rising, filling, about to explode in his upper abdomen. Some thick wire within him had kinked, and knowing well that it should be unbent, he made a furious, rebellious effort and pulled it through. The explosion came, but in nausea, not in agony. Convulsively he turned his head, surged upward, and let it go.

He saw with too much misery to be horrified the bright vomit surging on and around her knee, and running into the crevice between thigh and calf where she had her leg bent and tucked under her, and the clots left there as the fluid ran away. And she–

She sat where she was, held his head, cradled him in her arms, soothed him and crooned to him and said that was good, good; he’d feel better now. The weakness floored him and receded; then shakily he pressed away from her, sat up, bowed his head and gasped for breath. “Whooo,” he said.

“Boy,” she said; and she said it in exact concert with him. He clung to his shins and wiped the nausea-tears from his left eye, then his right, on his knee-cap. “Boy oh boy,” he said, and she said it with him in concert.

So at last he looked at her.

He looked at her, and would never forget what he saw, and exactly the way it was. Late sunlight made into lace by the bower above clothed her; she leaned toward him, one small hand flat on the ground, one slim supporting arm straight and straight down; her weight turned up that shoulder and her head tilted toward it as if drawn down by the heavy darkness of her hair. It gave a sense of yielding, as if she were fragile, which he knew she was not. Her other hand lay open across one knee, the palm up and the fingers not quite relaxed, as if they held something; and indeed they did, for a spot of light, gold turned coral by her flesh, lay in her palm. She held it just so, just right, unconsciously, and her hand held that rare knowledge that closed, a hand may not give nor receive. For his lifetime he had it all, each tiniest part, even to the gleaming big toenail at the underside of her other calf. And she was smiling, and her complex eyes adored.

Guy Gibbon knew his life’s biggest moment during the moment itself, a rarity in itself, and of all times of life, it was time to say the unforgettable, for anything he said now would be.

He shuddered, and then smiled back at her. “Oh… boy,” he breathed.

And again they were laughing together until, puzzled, he stopped and asked, “Where am I?”

She would not answer, so he closed his eyes and puzzled it out. Pine bower… undress somewhere… swimming. Oh, swimming. And then across the lake, and he had met– He opened his eyes and looked at her and said, “You.”

Then swimming back, cold, his gut full of too much food and warm juice and moldy cake to boot, and, “… you must have saved my life.“

“Well somebody had to. You were dead.”

“I should’ve been.”

“No!” she cried. “Don’t you ever say that again!” And he could see she was absolutely serious.

“I only meant, for stupidity. I ate a lot of junk, and some cake I think was moldy. Too much, when I was hot and tired, and then like a bonehead I went right into the water, so anybody who does that deserves to–”

“I meant it,” she said levelly, “never again. Didn’t you ever hear of the old tradition of the field of battle, when one man saved another’s life, that life became his to do what he wanted with?”

“What do you want to do with mine?”

“That depends,” she said thoughtfully. “You have to give it. I can’t just take it.” She knelt then and sat back on her heels, her hands trailing pine-needles across the bower’s paved stone floor. She bowed her head and her hair swung forward. He thought she was watching him through it; he could not be sure.

He said, and the thought grew so large that it quelled his voice and made him whisper. “Do you want it?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, whispering too. When he moved to her and put her hair back to see if she was watching him, he found her eyes closed, and tears pressed through. He reached for her gently, but before he could touch her she sprang up and straight at the leafy wall. Her long golden body passed through it without a sound, and seemed to hang suspended outside; then it was gone. He put his head through and saw her flashing along under green water. He hesitated, then got an acrid whiff of his own vomit. The water looked clean and the golden sand just what he ached to scrub himself with. He climbed out of the bower and floundered clumsily down the bank and into the water.

After his first plunge he came up, and spun about, looking for her, but she was gone.

Numbly he swam to the tiny beach and, kneeling, scoured himself with the fine sand. He dove and rinsed, and then (hoping) scrubbed himself all over again. And rinsed. But he did not see her.

He stood in the late rays of the sun to dry, and looked off across the lake. His heart leapt when he saw white movement, and sank again as he saw it was just the wheel of boats bobbing and sliding there.

He plodded up to the bower–now at last he saw it was the one behind which he had undressed–and he sank down on the bench.

This was a place where tropical fish swam in ocean water where there was no ocean, and where fleets of tiny perfect boats sailed with no one sailing them and no one watching, and where priceless statues stood hidden in clipped and barbered glades deep in the woods and–and he hadn’t seen it all; what other impossibilities were possible in this impossible place?

And besides, he’d been sick. (He wrinkled his nostrils.) Damn near… drowned. Out of his head for sure, for a while anyway. She couldn’t be real. Hadn’t he noticed a greenish cast to her flesh, or was that just the light?… anybody who could make a place like this, run a place like this, could jimmy up some kind of machine to hypnotize you like in the science fiction stories.

He stirred uneasily. Maybe someone was watching him, even now.

Hurriedly, he began to dress.

So she wasn’t real. Or maybe all of it wasn’t real. He’d bumped into that other trespasser across the lake there, and that was real, but then when he’d almost drowned, he’d dreamed up the rest.

Only–he touched his mouth. He’d dreamed up someone blowing the breath back into him. He’d heard about that somewhere, but it sure wasn’t what they were teaching this year at the Y.

"You are the shape of the not-you. Are youin there?

What did that mean?

He finished dressing dazedly. He muttered, “What’d I hafta go an‘ eat that goddam cake for?” He wondered what he would tell Sammy. If she wasn’t real, Sammy wouldn’t know what he was talking about. If she was real there’s only one thing he would talk about, yes, and from then on. You mean you had her in that place and all you did was throw up on her? No–he wouldn’t tell Sammy. Or anybody.

And he’d be a bachelor all his life.

Boy oh boy. What an introduction. First she has to save your life and then you don’t know what to say and then oh, look what you had to go and do. But anyway–she wasn’t real.

He wondered what her name was. Even if she wasn’t real. Lots of people don’t use their real names.

He climbed out of the bower and crossed the silent pine carpet behind it, and he shouted. It was not a word at all, and had nothing about it that tried to make it one.

She was standing there waiting for him. She wore a quiet brown dress and low heels and carried a brown leather pocketbook, and her hair was braided and tied neatly and sedately in a coronet. She looked, too, as if she had turned down some inward tone control so that her skin did not radiate. She looked ready to disappear, not into thin air, but into a crowd–any crowd, as soon as she could get close to one. In a crowd he would have walked right past her, certainly, but for the shape of her eyes. She stepped up to him quickly and laid her hand on his cheek and laughed up at him. Again he saw the whiteness of those unusual eyeteeth, so sharp…

No blusher in history was ever stopped by that observation. He asked, “Which way do you go?”

She looked at his eyes, one, the other, both, quickly; then folded her long hands together around the strap of her pocketbook and looked down at them.

“With you,” she said softly.

This was only one of the many things she said to him, moment by moment; which gained meaning for him as time went on. He took her back to town and to dinner, and then to the West Side address she gave him and they stood outside it all night talking. In six weeks they were married.

“How could I argue,” said Weber to Dr. Rathburn.

They stood together watching a small army of workmen swarming over the gigantic stone barn a quarter-mile from the castle, which, incidentally, was invisible from this point and unknown to the men. Work had begun at three the previous afternoon, continued all night. There was nothing, nothing at all that Dr. Weber had specified which was not only given him, but on the site or already installed.

“I know,” said Rathburn, who did.

“Not only, how could I argue,” said Weber, “why should I? A man has plans, ambitions. That Keogh, what an approach! That’s the first thing he went after–my plans for myself! That’s where he starts. And suddenly everything you ever wanted to do or be or have is handed to you or promised to you, and no fooling about the promise either.”

“Oh...no. They don’t need to fool anybody… You want to pass a prognosis?”

“You mean on the youngster there?” He looked at Rathburn. “Oh–that’s not what you mean… You’re asking me if I can bring one of those surrogate fetuses to term. An opinion like that would make a damn fool out of a man, and this is no job for a damn fool. All I can tell you is, I tried it–and that is something I wouldn’t‘ve dreamed of doing if it hadn’t been for her and her crazy idea. I left here at four A.M. with some throat smears and by nine I had a half dozen of them isolated and in nutrient solution. Beef blood plasma–the quickest thing I could get ready. And I got mitosis. They divided, and in a few hours I could see two of ’em dimpling to form the gastro-sphore. That was evidence enough to get going; that’s all I think and that’s all I told them on the phone. And by the time I got here,” he added, waving toward the big barn, “there’s a research lab four fifths built, big enough for a city medical center. Argue?” he demanded, returning to Dr. Rathburn’s original question. “How could I argue? Why should I?… And that girl. She’s a force, like gravity. She can turn on so much pressure, and I mean by herself and personally, that she could probably get anything in the world she wanted even if she didn’t own it, the world I mean. Put that in the northeast entrance!” he bellowed at a foreman, “I’ll be down to show you just where it goes.” He turned to Rathburn; he was a man on fire. “I got to go.”

“Anything I can do,” said Dr. Rathburn, “just say it.”

“That’s the wonderful part of it,” said Weber. “That’s what everybody around here keeps saying, and;they mean it!” He trotted down toward the barn, and Rathburn turned toward the castle.

About a month after his last venture at trespassing, Guy Gibbon was coming home from work when a man at the corner put away a newspaper and, still folding it, said, “Gibbon?”

“That’s right,” said Guy, a little sharply.

The man looked him up and down, quickly, but giving an impression of such thoroughness, efficiency, and experience that Guy would not have been surprised to learn that the man had not only catalogued his clothes and their source, their state of maintenance and a computation therefrom of his personal habits, but also his state of health and even his blood type. “My name’s Keogh,” said the man. “Does that mean anything to you?”

“No.”

“Sylva never mentioned the name?”

“Sylva! N-no, she didn’t.”

“Let’s go somewhere and have a drink. I’d like to talk to you.” Something had pleased this man: Guy wondered what. “Well, okay,” he said. “Only I don’t drink much, but well, okay.”

They found a bar in the neighborhood with booths in the back. Keogh had a Scotch and soda and Guy, after some hesitation, ordered beer. Guy said, “You know her?”

“Most of her life. Do you?”

“What? Well, sure. We’re going to get married.” He looked studiously into his beer and said uncomfortably, “What are you anyway, Mr. Keogh?”

“You might say,” said Keogh, “I’m in loco parentis” He waited for a response, then added, “Sort of a guardian.”

“She never said anything about a guardian.”

“I can understand that. What has she told you about herself?”

Guy’s discomfort descended to a level of shyness, diffidence, even a touch of fear–which did not alter the firmness of his words, however they were spoken. “I don’t know you, Mr. Keogh. I don’t think I ought to answer any questions about Sylva. Or me. Or anything.” He looked up at the man. Keogh searched deeply, then smiled. It was an unpracticed and apparently slightly painful process with him, but was genuine for all that. “Good!” he barked, and rose. “Come on.” He left the booth and Guy, more than a little startled, followed. They went to the phone booth in the corner. Keogh dropped in a, nickel, dialed, and waited, his eyes fixed on Guy. Then Guy had to listen to one side of the conversation:

“I’m here with Guy Gibbon.” (Guy had to notice that Keogh identified himself only with his voice.)

“Of course I knew about it. That’s a silly question, girl.”

“Because it is my business. You are my business.”

“Stop it? I’m not trying to stop anything. I just have to know, that’s all.”

“All right. All right… He’s here. He won’t talk about you or anything, which is good. Yes, very good. Will you please tell him to open up?”

And he handed the receiver to a startled Guy, who said tremulously, “Uh, hello,” to it while watching Keogh’s impassive face.

Her voice suffused and flooded him, changed this whole unsettling experience to something different and good. “Guy, darling,”

“Sylva–”

“It’s all right. I should have told you sooner, I guess. It had to come some time. Guy, you can tell Keogh anything you like. Anything he asks.”

“Why, honey? Who is he, anyway?”

There was a pause, then a strange little laugh. “He can explain that better than I can. You want us to be married, Guy?”

“Oh yes!”

“Well all right then. Nobody can change that, nobody but you. And listen, Guy. I’ll live anywhere, any way you want to live. That’s the real truth and all of it, do you believe me?”

“I always believe you.”

“All right then. So that’s what we’ll do. Now you go and talk to Keogh. Tell him anything he wants to know. He has to do the same. I love you, Guy.”

“Me too,” said Guy, watching Keogh’s face. “Well, okay then,” he added when she said nothing further. “ ‘Bye.” He hung up and he and Keogh had a long talk.

“It hurts him,” she whispered to Dr. Rathburn.

“I know.” He shook his head sympathetically. “There’s just so much morphine you can ram into a man, though.”

“Just a little more?”

“Maybe a little,” he said sadly. He went to his bag and got the needle. Sylva kissed the sleeping man tenderly and left the room. Keogh was waiting for her.

He said, “This has got to stop, girl.”

“Why?” she responded ominously.

“Let’s get out of here.”

She had known Keogh so long, and so well, that she was sure he had no surprises for her. But this voice, this look, these were something new in Keogh. He held the door for her, so she preceded him through it and then went where he silently led.

They left the castle and took the path through a heavy copse and over the brow of the hill which overlooked the barn. The parking lot, which had once been a barnyard, was full of automobiles. A white ambulance approached; another was unloading at the northeast platform. A muffled generator purred somewhere behind the building, and smoke rose from the stack of the new stone boiler room at the side. They both looked avidly at the building but did not comment. The path took them along the crest of the hill and down toward the lake. They went to a small forest clearing in which stood an eight-foot Diana, the huntress Diana, chaste and fleet-footed, so beautifully finished she seemed not like marble at all, not like anything cold or static, “I always had the idea,” said Keogh, “that nobody can lie anywhere near her.”

She looked up at the Diana.

“Not even to themselves,” said Keogh, and plumped down on a marble bench.

“Let’s have it,” she said.

“You want to make Guy Gibbon happen all over again. It’s a crazy idea and it’s a big one too. But lots of things were crazier, and some bigger, and now they’re commonplace. I won’t argue on how crazy it is, or how big.”

“What then?”

“I’ve been trying, the last day or so, to back way out, far off, get a look at this thing with some perspective. Sylva, you’ve forgotten something.”

“Good,” she said. “Oh, good. I knew you’d think of things like this before it was too late.”

“So you can find a way out?” Slowly he shook his head. “Not this time. Tighten up the Wyke guts, girl, and make up your mind to quit.”

“Go ahead.”

“It’s just this. I don’t believe you’re going to get your carbon copy, mind you, but you just might. I’ve been talking to Weber, and by God you just about might. But if you do, all you’ve got is a container, and nothing to fill it with. Look, girl, a man isn’t blood and bone and body cells, and that’s all.”

He paused, until she said, “Go on, Keogh.”

He demanded, “You love this guy?”

“Keogh!” She was amused.

“Whaddaya love?” he barked. “That skrinkly hair? The muscles, skin? His nat’ral equipment? The eyes, voice?”

“All that,” she said composedly.

“All that, and that’s all?” he demanded relentlessly. “Because if your answer is yes, you can have what you want, and more power to you, and good riddance. I don’t know anything about love, but I will say this: that if that’s all there is to it, the hell with it.”

“Well of course there’s more.”

“Ah. And where are you going to get that, girl? Listen, a man is skin and bone he stands in, plus what’s in his head, plus what’s in his heart. You mean to reproduce Guy Gibbon, but you’re not going to do it by duplicating his carcass. You want to duplicate the whole man, you’re going to have to make him live the same life again. And that you can’t do.”

She looked up at the Diana for a long time. Then, “Why not?” she breathed.

“I’ll tell you why not,” he said angrily. “Because first of all you have to find out who he is.”

“I know who he is!”

He spat explosively on the green moss by the bench. It was totally uncharacteristic and truly shocking. “You don’t know a particle, and I know even less: I had his back against a wall one time for better than two hours, trying to find out who he is. He’s just another kid, is all. Nothing much in school, nothing much at sports, same general tastes and feelings as six zillion other ones like him. Why him, Sylva? Why him? What did you ever see in a guy like that to be worth the marrying?”

“I… didn’t know you disliked him.”

“Oh hell, girl, I don’t! I never said that. I can’t–I can’t even find anything to dislike.”

“You don’t know him the way I do.”

“There, I agree. I don’t and I couldn’t. Because you don’t know anything either–you feel, but you don’t know. If you want to see Guy Gibbon again, or a reasonable facsimile, he’s going to have to live by a script from the day he’s born. He’ll have to duplicate every experience that this kid here ever had.”

“All right,” she said quietly.

He looked at her, stunned. He said, “And before he can do that, we have to write the script. And before we can write it, we have to get the material somehow. What do you expect to do–set up a foundation or something dedicated to the discovery of each and every moment this– this unnoticeable young man ever lived through? And do it secretly, because while he’s growing up he can’t ever know? Do you know how much that would cost, how many people it would involve?”

“That would be all right,” she said.

“And suppose you had it, a biography written like a script, twenty years of a lifetime, every day, every hour you could account for; now you’re going to have to arrange for a child, from birth, to be surrounded by people who are going to play this script out–and who will never let anything else happen to him but what’s in the script, and who will never let him know.”

“That’s it! That’s it!” she cried.

He leapt to his feet and swore at her. He said, “I’m not planning this, you lovestruck lunatic, I’m objecting to it!”

“Is there any more?” she cried eagerly. “Keogh, Keogh, try–try hard. How do we start? What do we do first? Quick, Keogh.”

He looked at her, thunderstruck, and at last sank down on the bench and began to laugh weakly. She sat by him, held his hand, her eyes shining. After a time he sobered, and turned to her. He drank the shine of those eyes for a while; and after, his brain began to function again… on Wyke business…

“The main source of who he is and what he’s done,” he said at last, “won’t be with us much longer… We better go tell Rathburn to get him off the morphine. He has to be able to think.”

“All right,” she said. “All right.”

When the pain got too much to permit him to remember any more, they tried a little morphine again. For a while they found a balance between recollection and agony, but the agony gained. Then they severed his spinal cord so he couldn’t feel it. They brought in people–psychiatrist, stenographers, even a professional historian.

In the rebuilt barn, Weber tried animal hosts, cows even, and primates–everything he could think of. He got some results, though no good ones. He tried humans too. He couldn’t cross the bridge of body tolerance; the uterus will not support an alien fetus any more than the hand will accept the graft of another’s finger.

So he tried nutrient solutions. He tried a great many.

Ultimately he found one that worked. It was the blood plasma of pregnant women.

He placed the best of the quasi-ova between sheets of sterilized chamois. He designd automatic machinery to drip tiie plasma in at arterial tempo, drain it at a veinous rate, keep it at body temperature.

One day fifty of them died, because of the chloroform used in one of the adhesives. When light seemed to affect them adversely, Weber designed containers of bakelite. When ordinary photography proved impractical, he designed a new kind of film sensitive to heat, the first infrared film.

The viable fetuses he had at sixty days showed the eye-spot, the spine, the buds of arms, a beating heart. Each and every one of them consumed, or was bathed in, over a gallon of plasma a day, and at one point there were one hundred and seventy-four thousand of them. Then they began to die off–some malformed, some chemically unbalanced, many for reasons too subtle even for Weber and his staff.

When he had done all he could, when he could only wait and see, he had fetuses seven months along and growing well. There were twenty-three of them. Guy Gibbon was dead quite a while by then, and his widow came to see Weber and tiredly put down a stack of papers and reports, urged him to read, begged him to call her as soon as he had.

He read them, he called her. He refused what she asked.

She got hold of Keogh. He refused to have anything to do with such an idea. She made him change his mind. Keogh made Weber change his mind.

The stone barn hummed with construction again, and new machinery. The cold tank was four by six feet inside, surrounded by coils and sensing devices. They put her in it.

By that time the fetuses were eight and a half months along. There were four left.

One made it.

Author’s note: To the reader, but especially to the reader in his early twenties, let me ask: did you ever have the feeling that you were getting pushed around? Did you ever want to do something, and have all sorts of obstacles thrown in your way until you had to give up, while on the other hand some other thing you wanted was made easy for you? Did you ever feel that certain strangers know Who you are? Did you ever meet a girl who made you explode inside, who seemed to like you–and who was mysteriously plucked out of your life, as if she shouldn’t be in the script?

Well, we’ve all had these feelings. Yet if you’ve read the above, you’ll allow it’s a little more startling than just a story. It reads like an analogy, doesn’t it? I mean, it doesn’t have to be a castle, or the ol‘ swimmin’ hole, and the names have been changed to protect the innocent… author.

Because it could be about time for her to wake up, aged only two or three years for her twenty-year cold sleep. And when she meets you, it’s going to be the biggest thing that ever happened to you since the last time.

THE UNHOLY GRAIL

Fritz Leiber

Three things warned the wizard’s apprentice that something was wrong: first the deep-trodden prints of iron-shod hooves along the forest path— he sensed them through his boots before stooping to feel them out in the dark; next, the eerie drone of a bee unnaturally abroad by night; and finally, a faint aromatic odor of burning. Mouse raced ahead, dodging treetrunks and skipping over twisted roots by memory and by a bat’s feeling for rebounding whispers of sound. Gray leggings, tunic, peaked hood and streaming cloak made the slight youth, skinny with asceticism, seem like a rushing shadow.

The exaltation Mouse had felt at the successful completion of his long quest and his triumphal return to this sorcerous master, Glavas Rho, now vanished from his mind and gave way to a fear he hardly dared put into thoughts. Harm to the great wizard, whose mere apprentice he was?— “My Gray Mouse, still midway in his allegiance between white magic and black,” Glavas Rho had once put it— no, it was unthinkable that that great figure of wisdom and spiritual might should come to harm. The great magician…(There was something hysterical about the way Mouse insisted on that “great,” for to the world Glavas Rho was but a hedge-wizard, no better than a Mingol necromancer with his second-sighted spotted dog or a conjurer beggar of Quarmall)…the great magician and his dwelling were alike protected by strong enchantments no impious outsider could breach— not even (the heart of Mouse skipped a beat) the lord paramount of these forests, Duke Janarrl, who hated all magic, but white worse than black.

And yet the smell of burning was stronger now and Glavas Rho’s low cottage was built of resinous wood.

There also vanished from Mouse’s mind the vision of a girl’s face, perpetually frightened yet sweet— that of Duke Janarrl’s daughter Ivrian, who came secretly to study under Glavas Rho, figuratively sipping the milk of his white wisdom side by side with Mouse. Indeed, they had privately come to call each other Mouse and Misling, while under his tunic Mouse carried a plain green glove he had teased from Ivrian when he set forth on his quest, as if he were her armored and beweaponed knight and not a swordless wizardling.

By the time Mouse reached the hilltop clearing he was breathing hard, not from exertion.

There the gathering light showed him at a glance the hoof-hacked garden of magic herbs, the overturned straw beehive, the great flare of soot sweeping up the smooth surface of the vast granite boulder that sheltered the wizard’s tiny house.

But even without the dawn light he would have seen the fire-shrunken beams and fire-gnawed posts a-creep with red ember-worms and the wraithlike green flame where some stubborn sorcerous ointment still burned. He would have smelled the confusion of precious odors of burned drugs and balms and the horribly appetizing kitchen-odor of burned flesh.

His whole lean body winced. Then, like a hound getting the scent, he darted forward.

The wizard lay just inside the buckled door. And he had fared as his house: the beams of his body bared and blackened; the priceless juices and subtle substances boiled, burned, destroyed forever or streamed upward to some cold hell beyond the moon.

From all around came very faintly a low sad hum, as the unhoused bees mourned.

Memories fled horror-stricken through Mouse’s mind: these shriveled lips softly chanting incantations, those charred fingers pointing at the stars or stroking a small woodland animal.

Trembling, Mouse drew from the leather pouch at his belt a flat green stone, engraved on the one side with deep-cut alien hieroglyphs, on the other with an armored, many-jointed monster, like a giant ant, that trod among tiny fleeing human figures. That stone had been the object of the quest on which Glavas Rho had sent him. For sake of it, he had rafted across the Lakes of Pleea, tramped the foothills of the Mountains of Hunger, hidden from a raiding party of red-bearded pirates, tricked lumpish peasant-fishermen, flattered and flirted with an elderly odorous witch, robbed a tribal shrine, and eluded hounds set on his trail. His winning the green stone without shedding blood meant that he had advanced another grade in his apprenticeship. Now he gazed dully at its ancient surface and then, his trembling controlled, laid it carefully on his master’s blackened palm. As he stooped he realized that the soles of his feet were painfully hot, his boots smoldering a little at the edges, yet he did not hurry his steps as he moved away.

It was lighter now and he noticed little things, such as the anthill by the threshold. The master had studied the black-armored creatures as intently as he had their cousin bees. Now it was deeply dented by a great heelmark showing a semicircle of pits made by spikes— yet something was moving. Peering closely he saw a tiny heat-maimed warrior struggling over the sand-grains. He remembered the monster on the green stone and shrugged at a thought that led nowhere.

He crossed the clearing through the mourning bees to where pale light showed between the treetrunks and soon was standing, hand resting on a gnarly bole, at a point where the hillside sloped sharply away. In the wooded valley below was a serpent of milky mist, indicating the course of the stream that wound through it. The air was heavy with the dissipating smoke of darkness. The horizon was edged to the right with red from the coming sun. Beyond it, Mouse knew, lay more forest and then the interminable grain fields and marshes of Lankhmar and beyond even those the ancient world-center of Lankhmar city, which Mouse had never seen, yet whose Overlord ruled in theory even this far.

But near at hand, outlined by the sunrise red, was a bundle of jagged-topped towers— the stronghold of Duke Janarrl. A wary animation came into Mouse’s masklike face. He thought of the spiked heelmark, the hacked turf, the trail of hoofmarks leading down this slope. Everything pointed to the wizard-hating Janarrl as the author of the atrocity behind him, except that, still revering his master’s skills as matchless, Mouse did not understand how the Duke had broken through the enchantments, strong enough to dizzy the keenest woodsman, which had protected Glavas Rho’s abode for many a year.

He bowed his head … and saw, lying lightly on the springing grassblades, a plain green glove. He snatched it up and digging in his tunic drew forth another glove, darkly mottled and streakily bleached by sweat, and held them side by side. They were mates.

His lips writhed back from his teeth and his gaze went again to the distant stronghold. Then he unseated a thick round of scraggy bark from the treetrunk he’d been touching and delved shoulder-deep in the black cavity revealed. As he did these things with a slow tense automatism, the words came back to him of a reading Glavas Rho had smilingly given him over a meal of milkless gruel.

“Mouse,” the mage had said, firelight dancing on his short white beard, “when you stare your eyes like that and flare your nostrils, you are too much like a cat for me to credit you will ever be a sheepdog of the truth. You are a middling dutiful scholar, but secretly you favor swords over wands. You are more tempted by the hot lips of black magic than the chaste slim fingers of white, no matter to how pretty a misling the latter belong— no, do not deny it! You are more drawn to the beguiling sinuosities of the left-hand path than the straight steep road of the right. I fear me you will never be mouse in the end but mouser. And never white but gray— oh well, that’s better than black. Now, wash up these bowls and go breathe an hour on the newborn ague-plant, for ‘tis a chill night, and remember to talk kindly to the thorn bush.”

The remembered words grew faint, but did not fade, as Mouse drew from the hole a leather belt furred green with mold and dangling from it a moldy scabbard. From the latter he drew, seizing it by the thong-wrapped grip, a tapering bronze sword showing more verdigris than metal. His eyes grew wide, but pinpoint-pupiled, and his face yet more masklike, as he held the pale-green, brown-edged blade against the red hump of the rising sun.

From across the valley came faintly the high, clear, ringing note of a hunting horn, calling men to the chase.

Abruptly Mouse strode off down the slope, cutting over to the trail of the hooves, moving with long hasty strides and a little stiff-leggedly, as if drunk, and buckling around his waist as he went the mold-furred sword-belt.

A dark four-footed shape rushed across the sun-specked forest glade, bearing down the underbrush with its broad low chest and trampling it with its narrow cloven hooves. From behind sounded the notes of a horn and the harsh shouts of men. At the far edge of the glade, the boar turned. Breath whistled through its nostrils and it swayed. Then its half-glazed little eyes fixed on the figure of a man on horseback. It turned toward him and some trick of the sunlight made its pelt grow blacker. Then it charged. But before the terrible up-turning tusks could find flesh to slash, a heavy-bladed spear bent like a bow against the knob of its shoulder and it went crashing over half backward, its blood spattering the greenery.

Huntsmen clad in brown and green appeared in the glade, some surrounding the fallen boar with a wall of spear points, others hurrying up to the man on the horse. He was clad in rich garments of yellow and brown. He laughed, tossed one of his huntsmen the bloodied spear and accepted a silver-worked leather wine flask from another.

A second rider appeared in the glade and the Duke’s small yellow eyes clouded under the tangled brows. He drank deep and wiped his lips with the back of his sleeve. The huntsmen were warily closing their spear-wall on the boar, which lay rigid but with head lifted a finger’s breadth off the turf, its only movements the darting of its gaze from side to side and the pulse of bright blood from its shoulder. The spear-wall was about to close when Janarrl waved the huntsmen to a halt.

“Ivrian!” he called harshly to the newcomer. “You had two chances at the beast, but you flinched. Your cursed dead mother would already have sliced thin and tasted the beast’s raw heart.”

His daughter stared at him miserably. She was dressed as the huntsmen and rode astride with a sword at her side and a spear in her hand, but it only made her seem more the thin-faced, spindle-armed girl.

“You are a milksop, a wizard-loving coward,” Janarrl continued. “Your abominable mother would have faced the boar a-foot and laughed when its blood gushed in her face. Look here, this boar is scotched. It cannot harm you. Drive your spear into it now! I command you!”

The huntsmen broke their spear-wall and drew back to either side, making a path between the boar and the girl. They sniggered openly at her and the Duke smiled at them approvingly. The girl hesitated, sucking at her underlip, staring with fear and fascination too at the beast which eyed her, head still just a-lift.

“Drive in your spear!” Janarrl repeated, sucking quickly at the flask. “Do so, or I will whip you here and now.”

Then she touched her heels to the horse’s flanks and cantered down the glade, her body bent low, the spear trained at its target. But at the last instant its point swerved aside and gouged the dirt. The boar had not moved. The huntsmen laughed raucously.

Janarrl’s wide face reddened with anger as he whipped out suddenly and trapped her wrist, tightened on it. “Your damned mother could cut men’s throats and not change color. I’ll see you flesh your spear in that carcass, or I’ll make you dance, here and now, as I did last night, when you told me the wizard’s spells and the place of his den.”

He leaned closer and his voice sank to a whisper. “Know, chit, that I’ve long suspected that your mother, fierce as she could be, was perhaps ensorceled against her will— a wizard-lover like yourself … and you the whelp of that burned charmer.”

Her eyes widened and she started to pull away from him, but he drew her closer. “Have no fear, chit, I’ll work the taint out of your flesh one way or another. For a beginning, prick me that boar!”

She did not move. Her face was a cream-colored mask of fear. He raised his hand. But at that moment there was an interruption.

A figure appeared at the edge of the glade at the point where the boar had turned to make its last charge. It was that of a slim youth, dressed all in gray. Like one drugged or in a trance, he walked straight toward Janarrl. The three huntsmen who had been attending the Duke drew swords and moved leisurely toward him.

The youth’s face was white and tensed, his forehead beaded with sweat under the gray hood half thrown back. Jaw muscles made ivory knobs. His eyes, fixed on the Duke, squinted as if they looked at the blinding sun.

His lips parted wide, showing his teeth. “Slayer of Glavas Rho! Wizard-killer!”

Then his bronze sword was out of its moldy scabbard. Two of the huntsmen moved in his way, one of them crying, “Beware poison!” at the green of the newcomer’s blade. The youth aimed a terrific blow at him, handling his sword as if it were a sledge. The huntsman parried it with ease, so that it whistled over his head, and the youth almost fell with the force of his own blow. The huntsman stepped forward and with a snappy stroke rapped the youth’s sword near the hilt to disarm him, and the fight was done before begun— almost. For the glazed look left the youth’s eyes and his features twitched like those of a cat and, recovering his grip on his sword, he lunged forward with a twisting motion at the wrist that captured the huntsman’s blade in his own green one and whipped it out of its startled owner’s grasp. Then he continued his lunge straight toward the heart of the second huntsman, who escaped only by collapsing backward to the turf.

Janarrl leaned forward tensely in his saddle, muttering, “The whelp has fangs,” but at that instant the third huntsman, who had circled past, struck the youth with sword-pommel on the back of his neck. The youth dropped his sword, swayed and started to fall, but the first huntsman grabbed him by the neck of his tunic and hurled him toward his companions. They received him in their own jocular fashion with cuffs and slaps, slashing his head and ribs with sheathed daggers, eventually letting him fall to the ground, kicking him, worrying him like a pack of hounds.

Janarrl sat motionless, watching his daughter. He had not missed her frightened start of recognition when the youth appeared. Now he saw her lean forward, lips twitching. Twice she started to speak. Her horse moved uneasily and whinnied. Finally she hung her head and cowered back while low retching sobs came from her throat. Then Janarrl gave a satisfied grunt and called out, “Enough for the present! Bring him here!”

Two huntsmen dragged between them the half-fainting youth clad now in red-spattered gray.

“Coward,” said the Duke. “This sport will not kill you. They were only gentling you in preparation for other sports. But I forget you are a pawky wizardling, an effeminate creature who babbles spells in the dark and curses behind the back, a craven who fondles animals and would make the forests mawkish places. Faught! My teeth are on edge. And yet you sought to corrupt my daughter and— Hearken to me, wizardling, I say!” And leaning low from his saddle he caught the youth’s sagging head by the hair, tangling in his fingers. The youth’s eyes rolled wildly and he gave a convulsive jerk that took the huntsmen by surprise and almost tumbled Janarrl out of the saddle.

Just then there was an ominous crackling of underbrush and the rapid thud of hooves. Someone cried, “Have a care, master! Oh Gods, guard the Duke!”

The wounded boar had lurched to its feet and was charging the group by Janarrl’s horse.

The huntsmen scattered back, snatching for their weapons.

Janarrl’s horse shied, further overbalancing its rider. The boar thundered past, like red-smeared midnight. Janarrl almost fell atop it. The boar swung sharply around for a return charge, evading three thrown spears that thudded into the earth just beside it. Janarrl tried to stand, but one of his feet was snagged in a stirrup and his horse, jerking clear, tumbled him again.

The boar came on, but other hooves were thudding now. Another horse swept past Janarrl and a firmly-held spear entered near the boar’s shoulder and buried itself deep. The black beast, jarred backward, slashed once at the spear with its tusk, fell heavily on its side and was still.

Then Ivrian let go the spear. The arm with which she had been holding it dangled unnaturally. She slumped in her saddle, catching its pommel with her other hand.

Janarrl scrambled to his feet, eyed his daughter and the boar. Then his gaze traveled slowly around the glade, full circle.

Glavas Rho’s apprentice was gone. “North be south, east be west. Copse be glade and gully crest. Dizziness all paths invest. Leaves and grasses, do the rest.”

Mouse mumbled the chant through swollen lips almost as though he were talking into the ground on which he lay. His fingers arranging themselves into cabalistic symbols, he thumbed a pinch of green powder from a tiny pouch and tossed it into the air with a wrist-flick that made him wince. “Know it, hound, you are wolf-born, enemy to whip and horn. Horse, think of the unicorn, uncaught since the primal morn. Weave off from me, by the Norn!”

The charm completed, he lay still and the pains in his bruised flesh and bones became more bearable. He listened to the sounds of the hunt trail off in the distance.

His face was pushed close to a patch of grass. He saw an ant laboriously climb a blade, fall to the ground, and then continue on its way. For a moment he felt a bond of kinship between himself and the tiny insect. He remembered the black boar whose unexpected charge had given him a chance to escape and for a strange moment his mind linked it with the ant.

Vaguely he thought of the pirates who had threatened his life in the west. But their gay ruthlessness had been a different thing from the premeditated and presavored brutality of Janarrl’s huntsmen.

Gradually anger and hate began to swirl in him. He saw the gods of Glavas Rho, their formerly serene faces white and sneering. He heard the words of the old incantations, but they twanged with a new meaning. Then these visions receded, and he saw only a whirl of grinning faces and cruel hands. Somewhere in it the white, guilt-stricken face of a girl. Swords, sticks, whips. All spinning. And at the center, like the hub of a wheel on which men are broken, the thick strong form of the Duke.

What was the teaching of Glavas Rho to that wheel? It had rolled over him and crushed him. What was white magic to Janarrl and his henchmen? Only a priceless parchment to be besmirched. Magic gems to be trampled in filth. Thoughts of deep wisdom to be pulped with their encasing brain.

But there was the other magic. The magic Glavas Rho had forbidden, sometimes smilingly but always with an underlying seriousness. The magic Mouse had learned of only by hints and warnings. The magic which stemmed from death and hate and pain and decay, which dealt in poisons and night-shrieks, which trickled down from the black spaces between the stars, which, as Janarrl himself had said, cursed in the dark behind the back.

It was as if all Mouse’s former knowledge— of small creatures and stars and beneficial sorceries and Nature’s codes of courtesy— burned in one swift sudden holocaust. And the black ashes took life and began to stir, and from them crept a host of night shapes, resembling those which had been burned, but all distorted. Creeping, skulking, scurrying shapes. Heartless, all hate and terror, but as lovely to look on as black spiders swinging along their geometrical webs.

To sound a hunting horn for that pack! To set them on the track of Janarrl!

Deep in his brain an evil voice began to whisper, “The Duke must die. The Duke must die.” And he knew that he would always hear that voice, until its purpose was fulfilled.

Laboriously he pushed himself up, feeling a stabbing pain that told of broken ribs; he wondered how he had managed to flee this far. Grinding his teeth, he stumbled across a clearing. By the time he had gotten into the shelter of the trees again, the pain had forced him to his hands and knees. He crawled on a little way, then collapsed.

Near evening of the third day after the hunt, Ivrian stole down from her tower room, ordered the smirking groom to fetch her horse, and rode through the valley and across the stream and up the opposite hill until she reached the rock-sheltered house of Glavas Rho. The destruction she saw brought new misery to her white taut face. She dismounted and went close to the fire-gutted ruin, trembling lest she come upon the body of Glavas Rho. But it was not there. She could see that the ashes had been disturbed, as though someone had been searching through them and sifting them for any objects that might have escaped the flames. Everything was very quiet.

An inequality in the ground off toward the side of the clearing caught her eye and she walked in that direction. It was a new-made grave, and in place of a headstone was, set around with gray pebbles, a small flat greenish stone with strange carvings on its surface.

A sudden little sound from the forest set her trembling and made her realize that she was very much afraid, only that up to this point her misery had outweighed her terror. She looked up and gave a gasping cry, for a face was peering at her through a hole in the leaves. It was a wild face, smeared with dirt and grass stains, smirched here and there with old patches of dried blood, shadowed by a stubble of beard. Then she recognized it.

“Mouse,” she called haltingly.

She hardly knew the answering voice.

“So you have returned to gloat over the wreckage caused by your treachery.”

“No, Mouse, no!” she cried. “I did not intend this. You must believe me.”

“Liar! It was your father’s men who killed him and burned his house.”

“But I never thought they would!”

“Never thought they would— as if that’s any excuse. You are so afraid of your father that you would tell him anything. You live by fear.”

“Not always, Mouse. In the end I killed the boar.”

“So much the worse— killing the beast the gods had sent to kill your father.”

“But truly I never killed the boar. I was only boasting when I said so— I thought you liked me brave. I have no memory of that killing. My mind went black. I think my dead mother entered me and drove the spear.”

“Liar and changer of lies! But I’ll amend my judgment: you live by fear except when your father whips you to courage. I should have realized that and warned Glavas Rho against you. But I had dreams about you.”

“You called me Misling,” she said faintly.

“Aye, we played at being mice, forgetting cats are real. And then while I was away, you were frightened by mere whippings into betraying Glavas Rho to your father!”

“Mouse, do not condemn me.” Ivrian was sobbing. “I know that my life has been nothing but fear. Ever since I was a child my father has tried to force me to believe that cruelty and hate are the laws of the universe. He has tortured and tormented me. There was no one to whom I could turn, until I found Glavas Rho and learned that the universe has laws of sympathy and love that shape even death and the seeming hates. But now Glavas Rho is dead and I am more frightened and alone than ever. I need your help, Mouse. You studied under Glavas Rho. You know his teachings. Come and help me.”

His laughter mocked her. “Come out and be betrayed? Be whipped again while you look on? Listen to your sweet lying voice, while your father’s huntsmen creep closer? No, I have other plans.”

“Plans?” she questioned. Her voice was apprehensive. “Mouse, your life is in danger so long as you lurk here. My father’s men are sworn to slay you on sight. I would die, I tell you, if they caught you. Don’t delay, get away. Only tell me first that you do not hate me.” And she moved toward him.

Again his laughter mocked her.

“You are beneath my hate,” came the stinging words. “I feel only contempt for your cowardly weakness. Glavas Rho talked too much of love. There are laws of hate in the universe, shaping even its loves, and it is time I made them work for me. Come no closer! I do not intend to betray my plans to you, or my new hidey holes. But this much I will tell you, and listen well. In seven days your father’s torment begins.”

“My father’s torments—? Mouse, Mouse, listen to me. I want to question you about more than Glavas Rho’s teachings. I want to question you about Glavas Rho. My father hinted to me that he knew my mother, that he was perchance my very father.”

This time there was a pause before the mocking laughter, but when it came, it was doubled. “Good, good, good! It pleasures me to think that Old White-beard enjoyed life a little before he became so wise, wise, wise. I dearly hope he did tumble your mother. That would explain his nobility. Where so much love was— love for each creature ever born— there must have been lust and guilt before. Out of that encounter— and all your mother’s evil— his white magic grew. It is true! Guilt and white magic side by side— and the gods never lied! Which leaves you the daughter of Glavas Rho, betraying your true father to his sooty death.”

And then his face was gone and the leaves framed only a dark hole. She blundered into the forest after him, calling out “Mouse! Mouse!” and trying to follow the receding laughter. But it died away, and she found herself in a gloomy hollow, and she began to realize how evil the apprentice’s laughter had sounded, as if he laughed at the death of all love, or even its unbirth. Then panic seized her, and she fled back through the undergrowth, brambles catching at her clothes and twigs stinging her cheeks, until she had regained the clearing and was galloping back through the dusk, a thousand fears besetting her and her heart sick with the thought there was now no one in the wide world who did not hate and despise her.

When she reached the stronghold, it seemed to crouch above her like an ugly jag-crested monster, and when she passed through the great gateway, it seemed to her that the monster had gobbled her up forever.

Come nightfall on the seventh day, when dinner was being served in the great banquet hall, with much loud talk and crunching of rushes and clashing of silver plates, Janarrl stifled a cry of pain and clapped his hand to his heart.

“It is nothing,” he said a moment later to the thin-faced henchman sitting at his side. “Give me a cup of wine! That will stop it twinging.”

But he continued to look pale and ill at ease, and he ate little of the meat that was served up in great smoking slices. His eyes kept roving about the table, finally settling on his daughter.

“Stop staring at me in that gloomy way, girl!” he called. “One would think that you had poisoned my wine and were watching to see green spots come out on me. Or red ones edged with black, belike.”

This bought a general guffaw of laughter which seemed to please the Duke, for he tore off the wing of a fowl and gnawed at it hungrily, but the next moment he gave another sudden cry of pain, louder than the first, staggered to his feet, clawed convulsively at his chest, and then pitched over on the table, where he lay groaning and writhing in his pain.

“The Duke is stricken,” the thin-faced henchman announced quite unnecessarily and yet most portentously after bending over him. “Carry him to bed. One of you loosen his shirt. He gasps for air.”

A flurry of whispering went up and down the table. As the great door to his private apartments was opened for the Duke, a heavy gust of chill air made the torches flicker and turn blue, so that shadows crowded into the hall. Then one torch flared white-bright as a star, showing the face of a girl. Ivrian felt the others draw away from her with suspicious glances and mutterings, as if they were certain there had been truth in the Duke’s jest. She did not look up. After a while someone came and told her that the Duke commanded her presence. Without a word she rose and followed.

The Duke’s face was gray and furrowed with pain, but he had control of himself, though with each breath his hand tightened convulsively on the edge of the bed until his knuckles were like knobs of rock. He was propped up with pillows and a furred robe had been tucked closely about his shoulders and long-legged braziers glowed around the bed. In spite of all he was shivering convulsively.

“Come here, girl,” he ordered in a low, labored voice that hissed against his drawn lips. “You know what has happened. My heart pains as though there were a fire under it and yet my skin is cased in ice. There is a stabbing in my joints as if long needles pierced clear through the marrow. It is wizard’s work.”

“Wizard’s work, beyond doubt,” confirmed Giscorl, the thin-faced henchman, who stood at the head of the bed. “And there is no need to guess who. That young serpent whom you did not kill quickly enough ten days ago! He’s been reported skulking in the woods, aye, and talking to … certain ones,” he added, eyeing Ivrian narrowly, suspiciously.

A spasm of agony shook the Duke. “I should have stamped out whelp with sire,” he groaned. Then his eyes shifted back to Ivrian. “Look, girl, you’ve been seen poking about in the forest where the old wizard was killed. It’s believed you talked with his cub.”

Ivrian wet her lips, tried to speak, shook her head. She could feel her father’s eyes probing into her. Then his fingers reached out and twisted themselves in her hair.

“I believe you’re in league with him!” His whisper was like a rusty knife. “You’re helping him do this to me. Admit it! Admit!” And he thrust her cheek against the nearest brazier so that her hair smoked and her “No!” became a shuddering scream. The brazier swayed and Giscorl steadied it. Through Ivrian’s scream the Duke snarled, “Your mother once held red coals to prove her honor.”

A ghostly blue flame ran up Ivrian’s hair. The Duke jerked her from the brazier and fell back against the pillows.

“Send her away,” he finally whispered faintly, each word an effort. “She’s a coward and wouldn’t dare to hurt even me. Meantime, Giscorl, send out more men to hunt through the woods. They must find his lair before dawn, or I’ll rupture my heart withstanding the pain.”

Curtly Giscorl motioned Ivrian toward the door. She cringed, and slunk from the room, fighting down tears. Her cheek pulsed with pain. She was not aware of the strangely speculative smile with which the hawk-faced henchman watched her out.

Ivrian stood at the narrow window of her room watching the little bands of horsemen come and go, their torches glowing like will-o’-the-wisps in the woods. The stronghold was full of mysterious movement. The very stones seemed restlessly alive, as if they shared the torment of their master.

She felt herself drawn toward a certain point out there in the darkness. A memory kept recurring to her of how one day Glavas Rho had showed her a small cavern in the hillside and had warned her that it was an evil place, where much baneful sorcery had been done in the past. Her fingertips moved around the crescent-shaped blister on her cheek and over the rough streak in her hair.

Finally her uneasiness and the pull from the night became too strong for her. She dressed in the dark and edged open the door of her chamber. The corridor seemed for the moment deserted. She hurried along it, keeping close to the wall, and darted down the worn rounded hummocks of the stone stair. The tramp of footsteps sent her hurrying into a niche, where she cowered while two huntsmen strode glum-faced toward the Duke’s chamber. They were dust-stained and stiff from riding.

“No one’ll find him in all that dark,” one of them muttered. “It’s like hunting an ant in a cellar.”

The other nodded. “And wizards can change landmarks and make forest paths turn on themselves, so that all searchers are befuddled.”

As soon as they were past Ivrian hastened into the banquet hall, now dark and empty, and through the kitchen with its high brick ovens and its huge copper kettles glinting in the shadows.

Outside in the courtyard torches were flaring and there was a bustle of activity as grooms brought fresh horses or led off spent ones, but she trusted to her huntsman’s costume to let her pass unrecognized. Keeping to the shadows, she worked her way around to the stables. Her horse moved restlessly and neighed when she slipped into the stall but quieted at her low whisper. A few moments and it was saddled, and she was leading it around to the open fields at the back. No searching parties seemed to be near, so she mounted and rode swiftly toward the wood.

Her mind was a storm of anxieties. She could not explain to herself how she had dared come this far, except that the attraction toward that point in the night— the cavern against which Glavas Rho had warned her— possessed a sorcerous insistence not to be denied.

Then, when the forest engulfed her, she suddenly felt that she was committing herself to the arms of darkness and putting behind forever the grim stronghold and its cruel occupants. The ceiling of leaves blotted out most of the stars. She trusted to a light rein on her horse to guide her straight. And in this she was successful, for within a half hour she reached a shallow ravine which led past the cavern she sought.

Now, for the first time, her horse became uneasy. It balked and uttered little whinnying cries of fear and tried repeatedly to turn off as she urged it along the ravine. Its pace slowed to a walk. Finally it refused to move further. Its ears were laid back and it was trembling all over.

Ivrian dismounted and moved on. The forest was portentously quiet, as if all animals and birds— even the insects— had gone. The darkness ahead was almost tangible, as if built of black bricks just beyond her hand.

Then Ivrian became aware of the green glow, vague and faint at first as the ghosts of an aurora. Gradually it grew brighter and acquired a flickering quality, as the leafy curtains between her and it became fewer. Suddenly she found herself staring directly at it— a thick, heavy, soot-edge flame that writhed instead of danced. If green slime could be transmuted to fire, it would have that look. It burned in the mouth of a shallow cavern.

Then, beside the flame, she saw the face of the apprentice of Glavas Rho, and in that instant an agony of horror and sympathy tore at her mind.

The face seemed inhuman— more a green mask of torment than anything alive. The cheeks were drawn in; the eyes were unnaturally wild; it was very pale, and dripping with cold sweat induced by intense inward effort. There was much suffering in it, but also much power— power to control the thick twisting shadows that seemed to crowd around the green flame, power to master the forces of hate that were being marshaled. At regular intervals the cracked lips moved and the arms and hands made set gestures.

It seemed to Ivrian that she heard the mellow voice of Glavas Rho repeating a statement he had once made to Mouse and to her. “None can use black magic without straining the soul to the uttermost— and staining it into the bargain. None can inflict suffering without enduring the same. None can send death by spells and sorcery without walking on the brink of death’s own abyss, aye, and dripping his own blood into it. The forces black magic evokes are like two-edged poisoned swords with grips studded with scorpion stings. Only a strong man, leather-handed, in whom hate and evil are very powerful, can wield them, and he only for a space.”

In Mouse’s face Ivrian saw the living example of those words. Step by step she moved toward him, feeling no more power to control her movements than if she were in a nightmare. She became aware of shadowy presences, as if she were pushing her way through cobweb veils. She came so near that she could have reached out her hand and touched him, and still he did not notice her, as if his spirit were out beyond the stars, grappling the blackness there.

Then a twig snapped under her foot and Mouse sprang up with terrifying swiftness, the energy of every taut muscle released. He snatched up his sword and lunged at the intruder. But when the green blade was within a hand’s breadth of Ivrian’s throat, he checked it with an effort. He glared, lips drawn back from his teeth. Although he had checked his sword, he seemed only half to recognize her.

At that instant Ivrian was buffeted by a mighty gust of wind, which came from the mouth of the cavern, a strange wind, carrying shadows. The green fire burned low, running rapidly along the sticks that were its fuel, and almost snuffing out.

Then the wind ceased and the thick darkness lifted, to be replaced by a wan gray light heralding the dawn. The fire turned from green to yellow. The wizard’s apprentice staggered, and the sword dropped from his fingers.

“Why did you come here?” he questioned thickly.

She saw how his face was wasted with hunger and hate, how his clothing bore the signs of many nights spent in the forest like an animal, under no roof. Then suddenly she realized that she knew the answer to his question.

“Oh, Mouse,” she whispered, “let us go away from this place. Here is only horror.” He swayed, and she caught hold of him. “Take me with you, Mouse,” she said.

He stared frowningly into her eyes. “You do not hate me then, for what I have done to your father? Or what I have done to the teachings of Glavas Rho?” he questioned puzzledly. “You are not afraid of me?”

“I am afraid of everything,” she whispered, clinging to him. “I am afraid of you, yes, a great deal afraid. But that fear can be unlearned. Oh, Mouse, will you take me away?— to Lankhmar or to Earth’s End?”

He took her by the shoulders. “I have dreamed of that,” he said slowly. “But you…”

“Apprentice of Glavas Rho!” thundered a stern, triumphant voice. “I apprehend you in the name of Duke Janarrl for sorceries practiced on the Duke’s body!”

Four huntsmen were springing forward from the undergrowth with swords drawn and Giscorl three paces behind them. Mouse met them halfway. They soon found that this time they were not dealing with a youth blinded by anger, but with a cold and cunning swordsman. There was a kind of magic in his primitive blade. He ripped up the arm of his first assailant with a well-judged thrust, disarmed the second with an unexpected twist, then coolly warded off the blows of the other two, retreating slowly. But other huntsmen followed the first four and circled around. Still fighting with terrible intensity and giving blow for blow, Mouse went down under the sheer weight of their attack. They pinioned his arms and dragged him to his feet. He was bleeding from a cut in the cheek, but he carried his head high, though it was beast-shaggy. His bloodshot eyes sought out Ivrian.

“I should have known,” he said evenly, “that having betrayed Glavas Rho you would not rest until you had betrayed me. You did your work well, girl. I trust you take much pleasure in my death.”

Giscorl laughed. Like a whip, the words of Mouse stung Ivrian. She could not meet his eyes. Then she became aware that there was a man on horseback behind Giscorl and, looking up, she saw that it was her father. His wide body was bent by pain. His face was a death’s mask. It seemed a miracle that he managed to cling to the saddle.

“Quick, Giscorl!” he hissed.

But the thin-faced henchman was already sniffing around in the cavern’s mouth like a well-trained ferret. He gave a cry of satisfaction and lifted down a little figure from a ledge above the fire, which he next stamped out. He carried the figure as gingerly as if it were made of cobweb. As he passed by her, Ivrian saw that it was a clay doll wide as it was tall and dressed in brown and yellow leaves, and that its features were a grotesque copy of her father’s. It was pierced in several places by long bone needles.

“This is the thing, oh Master,” said Giscorl, holding it up, but the Duke only repeated, “Quick, Giscorl!” The henchman started to withdraw the largest needle which pierced the doll’s middle, but the Duke gasped in agony and cried, “Forget not the balm!” Whereupon Giscorl uncorked with his teeth and poured a large vial of sirupy liquid over the doll’s body and the Duke sighed a little with relief. Then Giscorl very carefully withdrew the needles, one by one, and as each needle was withdrawn the Duke’s breath whistled and he clapped his hand to his shoulder or thigh, as if it were from his own body that the needles were being drawn. After the last one was out, he sat slumped in his saddle for a long time. When he finally looked up the transformation that had taken place was astonishing. There was color in his face, and the lines of pain had vanished, and his voice was loud and ringing.

“Take the prisoner back to our stronghold to await our judgment,” he cried. “Let this be a warning to all who would practice wizardry in our domain. Giscorl, you have proved yourself a faithful servant.” His eyes rested on Ivrian. “You have played with witchcraft too often, girl, and need other instruction. As a beginning you will witness the punishment I shall visit on this foul wizardling.”

“A small boon, oh Duke!” Mouse cried. He had been hoisted onto a saddle and his legs tied under the horse’s belly. “Keep your foul, spying daughter out of my sight. And let her not look at me in my pain.”

“Strike him in the lips, one of you,” the Duke ordered. “Ivrian, ride close behind him— I command it.”

Slowly the little cavalcade rode off toward the stronghold through the brightening dawn. Ivrian’s horse had been brought to her and she took her place as bidden, sunk in a nightmare of misery and defeat. She seemed to see the pattern of her whole life laid out before her— past, present, and future— and it consisted of nothing but fear, loneliness, and pain. Even the memory of her mother, who had died when she was a little girl, was something that still brought a palpitation of panic to her heart: a bold, handsome woman, who always had a whip in her hand, and whom even her father had feared. Ivrian remembered how when the servants had brought word that her mother had broken her neck in a fall from a horse, her only emotion had been fear that they were lying to her, and that this was some new trick of her mother’s to put her off guard, and that some new punishment would follow.

Then, from the day of her mother’s death, her father had shown her nothing but a strangely perverse cruelty. Perhaps it was his disgust at not having a son that made him treat her like a cowardly boy instead of a girl and encourage his lowliest followers to maltreat her— from the maids who played at ghosts around her bed to the kitchen wenches who put frogs in her milk and nettles in her salad.

Sometimes it seemed to her that anger at not having a son was too weak an explanation for her father’s cruelties, and that he was revenging himself through Ivrian on his dead wife, whom he had certainly feared and who still influenced his actions, since he had never married again or openly taken mistresses. Or perhaps there was truth in what he had said of her mother and Glavas Rho— no, surely that must be a wild imagining of his anger. Or perhaps, as he sometimes told her, he was trying to make her live up to her mother’s vicious and blood-thirsty example, trying to recreate his hated and adored wife in the person of her daughter, and finding a queer pleasure in the refractoriness of the material on which he worked and the grotesquerie of the whole endeavor.

Then in Glavas Rho Ivrian had found a refuge. When she had first chanced upon the white-bearded old man in her lonely wanderings through the forest, he had been mending the broken leg of a fawn and he had spoken to her softly of the ways of kindness and of the brotherhood of all life, human and animal. And she had come back day after day to hear her own vague intuitions revealed to her as deep truths and to take refuge in his wide sympathy … and to explore her timid friendship with his clever little apprentice. But now Glavas Rho was dead and Mouse had taken the spider’s way, or the snake’s track, or the cat’s path, as the old wizard had sometimes referred to bale magic.

She looked up and saw Mouse riding a little ahead and to one side of her, his hands bound behind him, his head and body bowed forward. Conscience smote her, for she knew she had been responsible for his capture. But worse than conscience was the pang of lost opportunity, for there ahead of her rode, doomed, the one man who might have saved her from her life.

A narrowing of the path brought her close beside him. She said hurriedly, ashamedly, “If there is anything I can do so that you will forgive me a little…”

The glance he bent on her, looking sidewise up, was sharp, appraising, and surprisingly alive.

“Perhaps you can,” he murmured softly, so the huntsmen ahead might not hear. “As you must know, your father will have me tortured to death. You will be asked to watch it. Do just that. Keep your eyes riveted on mine the whole time. Sit close beside your father. Keep your hand on his arm. Aye, kiss him too. Above all, show no sign of fright or revulsion. Be like a statue carved of marble. Watch to the end. One other thing— wear, if you can, a gown of your mother’s, or if not a gown, then some article of her clothing.” He smiled at her thinly. “Do this and I will at least have the consolation of watching you flinch— and flinch— and flinch!”

“No mumbling charms now!” cried the huntsman suddenly, jerking Mouse’s horse ahead.

Ivrian reeled as if she had been struck in the face. She had thought her misery could go no deeper, but Mouse’s words had beaten it down a final notch. At that instant the cavalcade came into the open, and the stronghold loomed up ahead— a great horned and jag-crested blot on the sunrise. Never before had it seemed so much like a hideous monster. Ivrian felt that its high gates were the iron jaws of death.

Janarrl, striding into the torture chamber deep below his stronghold, experienced a hot wave of exultation, as when he and his huntsmen closed in around an animal for the kill. But atop the wave was a very faint foam of fear. His feelings were a little like those of a ravenously hungry man invited to a sumptuous banquet, but who has been warned by a fortuneteller to fear death by poison. He was haunted by the feverish frightened face of the man arm-wounded by the wizardling’s corroded bronze sword. His eyes met those of Glavas Rho’s apprentice, whose half-naked body was stretched— though not yet painfully so— upon the rack, and the Duke’s sense of fear sharpened. They were too searching, those eyes, too cold and menacing, too suggestive of magical powers.

He told himself angrily that a little pain would soon change their look to one of trapped panic. He told himself that it was natural that he should still be on edge from last night’s horrors, when his life had almost been pried from him by dirty sorceries. But deep in his heart he knew that fear was always with him— fear of anything or anyone that someday might be stronger than he and hurt him as he had hurt others— fear of the dead he had harmed and could hurt no longer— fear of his dead wife, who had indeed been stronger and crueler than he and who had humiliated him in a thousand ways that no one but he remembered.

But he also knew that his daughter would soon be here and that he could then shift off his fear on her; by forcing her to fear, he would be able to heal his own courage, as he had done innumerable times in the past.

So he confidently took his place and gave order that the torture begin.

As the great wheel creaked and the leathern wristlets and anklets began to tighten a little, Mouse felt a qualm of helpless panic run over his body. It centered in his joints— those little deep-set hinges of bone normally exempt from danger. There was yet no pain. His body was merely stretched a little, as if he were yawning.

The low ceiling was close to his face. The flickering light of the torches revealed the mortises in the stone and the dusty cobwebs. Toward his feet he could see the upper portion of the wheel, and the two large hands that gripped its spokes, dragging them down effortlessly, very slowly, stopping for twenty heartbeats at a time. By turning his head and eyes to the side he could see the big figure of the Duke— not wide as his doll of him, but wide— sitting in a carven wooden chair, two armed men standing behind him. The Duke’s brown hands, their jeweled rings flashing fire, were closed over the knobs on the chair-arms. His feet were firmly planted. His jaw was set. Only his eyes showed any uneasiness or vulnerability. They kept shifting from side to side— rapidly, regularly, like the pivoted ones of a doll.

“My daughter should be here,” he heard the Duke say abruptly in a flat voice. “Hasten her. She is not to be permitted to delay.”

One of the men hurried away.

Then the twinges of pain commenced, striking at random in the forearm, the back, the knee, the shoulder. With an effort Mouse composed his features. He fixed his attention on the faces around him, surveying them in detail as if they formed a picture, noting the highlights on the cheeks and eyes and beards and the shadows, wavering with the torchflames, that their figures cast upon the low walls.

Then those low walls melted and, as if distance were no longer real, he saw the whole wide world he’d never visited beyond them: great reaches of forest, bright amber desert, and turquoise sea; the Lake of Monsters, the City of Ghouls, magnificent Lankhmar, the Land of the Eight Cities, the Trollstep Mountains, the fabulous Cold Waste and by some chance striding there an open-faced, hulking red-haired youth he’d glimpsed among the pirates and later spoken with— all places and persons he’d never now encounter, but showing in wondrous fine detail, as if carved and tinted by a master miniaturist.

With startling suddenness the pain returned and increased. The twinges became needle stabs— a cunning prying at his insides— fingers of force crawling up his arms and legs toward his spine— an unsettling at the hips. He desperately tensed his muscles against them.

Then he heard the Duke’s voice, “Not so fast. Stop a while.” Mouse thought he recognized the overtones of panic in the voice. He twisted his head despite the pangs it cost him and watched the uneasy eyes. They swung to and fro, like little pendulums.

Suddenly then, as if time were no longer real, Mouse saw another scene in this chamber. The Duke was there and his eyes swinging from side to side, but he was younger and there was open panic and horror in his face. Close beside him was a boldly handsome woman in a dark red dress cut low in the bosom and with slashes inset with yellow silk. Stretched upon the rack itself in Mouse’s place was a strappingly beautiful but now pitifully whimpering maid, whom the woman in red was questioning, with great coldness and insistence on detail, about her amorous encounters with the Duke and her attempt on the life of herself, the Duke’s wife, by poison.

Footsteps broke that scene, as stones destroy a reflection in water, and brought the present back. Then a voice: “Your daughter comes, oh Duke.”

Mouse steeled himself. He had not realized how much he dreaded this meeting, even in his pain. He felt bitterly certain that Ivrian would not have heeded his words. She was not evil, he knew, and she had not meant to betray him, but by the same token she was without courage. She would come whimpering, and her anguish would eat at what little self-control he could muster and doom his last wild wishful schemings.

Lighter footsteps were approaching now— hers. There was something curiously measured about them.

It meant added pain for him to turn his head so he could see the doorway; yet he did so, watching her figure define itself as it entered the region of ruddy light cast by the torches.

Then he saw the eyes. They were wide and staring. They were fixed straight on him. And they did not turn away. The face was pale, calm with a deadly serenity.

He saw she was dressed in a gown of dark red, cut low in the bosom and with slashes inset with yellow silk.

And then the soul of Mouse exulted, for he knew that she had done what he had bidden her. Glavas Rho had said, “The sufferer can hurl his suffering back upon his oppressor, if only his oppressor can be tempted to open a channel for his hate.” Now there was a channel open for him, leading to Janarrl’s inmost being.

Hungrily, Mouse fastened his gaze on Ivrian’s unblinking eyes, as if they were pools of black magic in a cold moon. Those eyes, he knew, could receive what he could give.

He saw her seat herself by the Duke. He saw the Duke peer sidewise at his daughter and start up as if she were a ghost. But Ivrian did not look toward him, only her hand stole out and fastened on his wrist, and the Duke sank shuddering back into his chair.

“Proceed!” he heard the Duke call out to the torturers, and this time the panic in the Duke’s voice was very close to the surface.

The wheel turned. Mouse heard himself groan piteously. But there was something in him now that could ride on top of the pain and that had no part in the groan. He felt that there was a path between his eyes and Ivrian’s— a rock-walled channel through which the forces of human spirit and of more than human spirit could be sent roaring like a mountain torrent. And still she did not turn away. No expression crossed her face when he groaned, only her eyes seemed to darken as she grew still more pale. Mouse sensed a shifting of feelings in his body. Through the scalding waters of pain, his hate rose to the surface, rode atop too. He pushed his hate down the rock-walled channel, saw Ivrian’s face grow more deathlike as it struck her, saw her tighten her grip on her father’s wrist, sensed the trembling that her father no longer could master.

The wheel turned. From far off Mouse heard a steady, heart-tearing whimpering. But a part of him was outside the room now— high, he felt, in the frosty emptiness above the world. He saw spread out below him a nighted panorama of wooded hills and valleys. Near the summit of one hill was a tight clump of tiny stone towers. But as if he were endowed with a magical vulture’s eye, he could see through the walls and roofs of those towers into the very foundations beneath, into a tiny murky room in which men tinier than insects clustered and cowered together. Some were working at a mechanism which inflicted pain on a creature that might have been a bleached and writhing ant. And the pain of that creature, whose tiny thin cries he could faintly hear, had a strange effect on him at this height, strengthening his inward powers and tearing away a veil from his eyes— a veil that had hitherto hidden a whole black universe.

For he began to hear about him a mighty murmuring. The frigid darkness was beaten by wings of stone. The steely light of the stars cut into his brain like painless knives. He felt a wild black whirlpool of evil, like a torrent of black tigers, blast down upon him from above, and he knew that it was his to control. He let it surge through his body and then hurled it down the unbroken path that led to two points of darkness in the tiny room below— the two staring eyes of Ivrian, daughter of Duke Janarrl. He saw the black of the whirlwind’s heart spread on her face like an inkblot, seep down her white arms and dye her fingers. He saw her hand tighten convulsively on her father’s arm. He saw her reach her other hand toward the Duke and lift her open lips to his cheek.

Then, for one moment while the torch flames whipped low and blue in a physical wind that seemed to blow through the mortised stones of the buried chamber … for one moment while the torturers and guards dropped the tools of their trades … for one indelible moment of hate fulfilled and revenge accomplished, Mouse saw the strong, square face of Duke Janarrl shake in the agitation of ultimate terror, the features twisted like heavy cloth wrung between invisible hands, then crumpled in defeat and death.

The strand supporting Mouse snapped. His spirit dropped like a plummet toward the buried room.

An agonizing pain filled him, but it promised life, not death. Above him was the low stone ceiling. The hands on the wheel were white and slender. Then he knew that the pain was that of release from the rack.

Slowly Ivrian loosened the rings of leather from his wrists and ankles. Slowly she helped him down, supporting him with all her strength as they dragged their way across the room, from which everyone else had fled in terror save for one crumpled jeweled figure in a carven chair. They paused by that and he surveyed the dead thing with the cool, satisfied, masklike gaze of a cat. Then on and up they went, Ivrian and the Gray Mouser, through corridors emptied by panic, and out into the night.

MYRRHA

Gary Jennings

Excerpts from the report of thecourt-appointed psychiatrist, concurring in the commitment of Mrs. Shirley Makepeace Spencer to the Western State Hospital at Staunton, Virginia:

To all stimuli applied, subject remains blind, deaf, mute and paralyzed . .

Catatonic schizophrenia …

…complete withdrawal …

Briefly, subject’s formerly uneventful domestic life was recently disrupted by two tragic circumstances. Two loved ones died violently; but by indisputable accident, as attested by attending physicians.

To judge from her diary, subject reacted rationally enough to the fact of these deaths. Traumatic withdrawal appears to have developed from her inability to accept them as accidental. Although an intelligent, educated woman, she mentions toward the end of her diary, “a blight, a curse.” When Mrs. Spencer hints at suspecting her innocent house guest of cornplicity in the tragedies, the textbook syndrome is complete.

Events leading up to her psychogenic deterioration are set down in subject’s daily journal. The appended extractions have been arranged in narrative form, edited only in the excision of extraneous matter and repeated datelines.

NOTE: The last, unfinished sentence, which subject wrote just before the onset of catatonia, is inexplicable. In the absence of any other indication that she was obsessed with classical mythology, the final entry can only be dismissed as hysteric incoherence.

Excerpts front the journal of Mrs. Shirley Spencer, dated at intervals, May 10, 1960 to final entry, sometime in July, 1961. Intervals of one day or more are indicated by asterisks:

I had forgotten how beautiful Myrrha Kyronos was. Is, I should say. When she arrived this morning, I just had to get out the old Southern Seminary annual and look up her picture. She hasn’t changed an iota. She was a year ahead of me at school, probably a year older. That would make her 31 now, and she might just have doffed the cap and gown! And after that long ocean crossing, and the ride in the trucks and all, and having to mother a dozen horses and half a dozen helpers the whole way!

Tom’s mouth fell open when he met her. Afterwards he said if he’d known what a “temptation” I was putting in his way he’d never have agreed to let Myrrha come for the summer. Pooh to the temptation; Myrrha’s interested in nothing but her horses. And lovely creatures they are; she must have rounded them up on Mount Olympus. By comparison, our gentle old saddle jades here on the farm appear as torpid as tortoises.

Myrrha has certainly brought excitement. Right from the start, when her letter came. I don’t believe Mr. Tatum bothered to stop at any mailbox between Warrenton and here, he was so anxious to deliver that letter from Greece. And I was just about as amazed as he was. Myrrha and I hadn’t been “close” at school, and I’d had no reason to give her a thought since then.

And now here she is. And here I am, dabbling in international relations or whatever you’d call it. This is the first time Greece has ever competed in the National Horse Show. When I told Myrrha we were honored to play hosts to a representative of the Greek team, she laughed and said, “I am the Royal Hellenic Team.”

*

Of course the Show doesn’t come off until November. Myrrha brought the horses here now to get them used to American weather and atmosphere and feed—apparently foreign horses are a sensitive lot.

In just 24 hours, Myrrha has become undisputed queen of the Spencer acres, at least as far as our Dorrie is concerned. Dorrie, who can hardly speak “Virginian” yet, is beginning to imitate Myrrha’s exotic speech. A slight accent, disarming rather than distracting, that I don’t remember her having, way-back-when.

*

Even if we weren’t just thrilled to have Myrrha herself here, we’d enjoy basking in her reflected glory. The horses are the showpiece and envy of the neighborhood, and she is the cynosure of all the local young men. Cars drive by hourly, full of sightseers either openly ogling or pretending a nonchalant interest.

For the first time today I tried to strike up a conversation with one of Myrrha’s—whatever they are; she has a Greek word for them—herders, I suppose. And I can say truthfully it was all Greek to me. None of them speaks English.

All are dark, saturnine, hairy little men. They keep strictly to themselves—and the horses, of course. They seem to have made provision for their keep. Whatever it is they cook for themselves down there by the barn smells like singed hair and is eaten wrapped in a grape leaf. At night they amuse themselves with a sonorous and inharmonious tweedling; Pan-pipes, is my guess.

*

Good old bumbling Tom got familiar enough to ask her why her husband hadn’t come over. When she admitted there was none, he essayed gallantry and said he would expect her to be married to a prince. She told him quite seriously, “King Paul has only daughters.”

It does appear that Myrrha hails from one of the wealthiest families in her country, which somehow I never realized in the old days at school. Her father owns all these horses she brought, and is underwriting the expenses of the whole venture, all for the greater glory of Greece.

*

Myrrha told us, on arrival, that we must try to overlook any of her “so-strange” customs. I’d call them superstitions. Why, when we went walking in the woods, did she refuse to cross the branch? She said the still water would reflect her image; so what? And why, when I resurrected my old class ring, did she recoil and say she had a horror of wearing rings?

*

Dorrie, who has always treated our own horses with a sort of lazy, familiarity-bred contempt, looks on Myrrha’s as if they were Santa’s reindeer. It gives me a turn, sometimes, to see her dodging in and out among their sharp hoofs, or brazenly braiding one’s tail. But hair-triggered and walleyed as they are at any other intrusion, they suffer her as benignly as if she were their own frisky colt.

And Myrrha doesn’t seem to mind, any more than she minds Tom’s tomfoolery. Nowadays he pretends to be a horseflesh expert. He’s forever down at the stable or the paddock, looking wise, or expounding on some trick-of-the-trade known only to him, and getting in the little Greek herders’ way, and one of these times he’s going to get kicked in the head.

*

Was admiring Myrrha’s steeds today, for the umptieth time, and she scolded me gently about my own Merry Widow. Said she could have made a show-horse, if I’d spent a little time and effort instead of letting her turn out to be just—“A drudge?” I laughed. “Like me?” and said that Merry and I suited each other.

Torn said maybe it wasn’t too late; how about Myrrha letting one of her stallions service Merry Widow after the Show doings were over? I thought, and told him so, that that was an indelicate suggestion. He and Myrrha laughed.

*

First friction tonight.

My fault. We were re-hashing schooldays. Thinking it was the typical hair-letting-down hen session, I humorously confided to Myrrha that I and the other girls had considered her rather too “queenly” in her demeanor.

Myrrha was not amused; she practically demanded to know what were the necessary qualifications for queenliness. Somewhat flustered, I said, “Well, after all, the only other Greek any of us knew was the little man at the depot fruit-stand over in Lexington.”

Black, an artist friend once told me, is considered a “cold” color. Myrrha’s eyes are black, but they flared out like heat-lightning. I shouldn’t have said what I did.

*

I shouldn’t have said what I did. Things have been very awkward and a little awful for the past two days. Myrrha is being queenly in earnest, now, and I guess I’m in the role of the Court Fool. Tom has chided me for my “inhospitality,” and even Dorrie turns an occasional melancholy gaze on Mommy for tilting at her idol.

*

Myrrha unbent a little tonight; at least far enough to contribute a decanter of wine for the dinner, and invite me, too, to partake. I could have done without it. I forget what it’s called—some Greek name—but its proudest feature is that it’s spiced with resin (and tastes to me like old socks). Tom liked it fine; he and Myrrha had quite a high time. Quite high. Just one of their customs, she called it, but I’ve been gargling mouthwash all evening.

*

I wondered a little, at the time, when I saw her take the stone away from Laddie. It was just a plain old pebble; the dog had been idly chewing on it. She wheedled it away from him, stuck it in her pocket and walked away. Laddie didn’t seem to care, and I soon forgot the incident.

Then tonight she and Tom insisted I have some more of that wretched resin wine. Tom was quite set on my not being a “partypooper”—I think he must have had a little something previously. So I choked down a sip, then nearly choked for real. In the bottom of the decanter was the pebble Laddie had been mouthing.

There must be some reason, but she didn’t even pretend to vouchsafe one. Now I come to think, she didn’t taste the wine tonight.

*

Bad to worse. Perhaps I really shouldn’t have made such a fuss about that pebble; all the conflict seems to date from that night. Or was it from the time I made that thoughtless remark about the fruit peddler? Anyway, Tom has taken Myrrha’s side whenever there’s been the slightest brush between us. There’ve been more than a few, and not all of them slight.

The worst was at Dorrie’s bedtime, when she refused to kiss me goodnight, because I’d “been bad” to her adored Myrrha. Finally, by promising to mend my ways, I bought a reluctant kiss—and tasted that damnable resin wine on my child’s lips!

*

Don’t know what to do.

First that horrible scene, when I found what was left of Laddie, down by the herders’ campfires. And then the horrible scene when I confronted Myrrha—and Tom leaped to her defense.

And now both of them gone. Gone all day, and here it is after midnight. Dorrie upstairs, still awake, crying for Myrrha to come and kiss her goodnight.

*

Surely there can be no more horrible day in my life. Tom’s confession was enough to chill my soul. And then Myrrha’s denial of it—and his confusion. Is he losing his mind, or is she driving me out of mine?

He came to me, crying, pleading forgiveness “for what happened in the hayloft,” pleading that she had been the seducer. Then she, so cool, so self-possessed, said. “Do you think I’d give myself to that?” and I smelled the reek of resin on his breath.

She called our own old faithful Wheeler to witness, and he nodded witlessly and stammered yes, that Miss Kyronos had spent all night doctoring a croupy mare at the stable.

Tom, Tom, you were so bewildered. Did you confess to a dream? A wish?

*

Poor Myrrha. I’ve been so shaken by what has happened in these last couple days that I haven’t thought what they might have meant to her. It was my mare, Merry Widow, she spent that night nursing. And here I was all ready and willing to believe -

Anyway, today we’ve been close, friendly and forgiving, and more or less re-cemented our friendship. Tom—chastened, remorseful and shamefaced—has spent all day down at the stable, taking over the care of Merry Widow. When he comes up, I’ll tell him he’s forgiven, too.

*

Tomorrow is the funeral. How many clays has it been since I last wrote here? Why am I writing now? I look back over the pages and marvel at having written “there can be no more horrible day in my life.” I must force myself not to write that again here, in mortal fear that I may thereby call down another blow from fate.

If only I could have said goodbye, but he’ll be buried in a sealed coffin. Dr. Carey says the stallions did it because, when Tom went among Myrrha’s herd, he still had the smell of the sick mare on him.

*

I don’t know what I’d have clone all this time without Myrrha here to help me. Bless her, she realized that I wanted only seclusion. She has even neglected her duties with the horses, to keep Dorrie occupied and out of the way, and leave me to meander alone through the empty house.

But I must come back to myself. Dorrie will need me. Sooner or later she will be asking why Daddy hasn’t come back “from town.”

*

I think I have lost all capacity for grief, all vulnerability to horror. I know I have lost all sense of time. All I have left is a mild wonder that there really can be such a thing as a blight, a curse—and wonder, why me? why us?

I can’t think when it was—it wasn’t recently, because I am sure she’s been gone for quite a long time. Whenever it was, she came running up the hill from the wooded place down near the branch. She was chewing happily, eating from the little paper bag she carried, and calling, “Marshmallows, Mommy!”

Whenever that was, she died that night in convulsions. The doctor—not Dr. Carey; we couldn’t get him; and it was an emergency—whoever the doctor was, he said she had eaten Amanita-something. Not a marshmallow, a mushroom that they call the Death Angel.

*

Haven’t written. Things so seldom, so far between I don’t remember at the time, and when I think to write, by then they’ve lost all meaning. But write that farm now is empty as an echo. Whatever it is about this place that made Myrrha and the herders take their horses and leave, whatever it is seems to keep everybody else away as well.

*

Everything suffers. My bay mare Merry Widow foaled this morning after whole night of painful labor, screamed like a woman. I not much help and no one here with me but simple old Wheeler, not much help either.

*

Merry Widow unmotherly, refused to lick foal clean at birth. Today ignores, even shuns the poor trembly thing. Wheeler won’t touch it either, says it can’t live long. I don’t care, going to keep it anyway. Somebody, it reminds me so of somebody, somebody I loved.

*

Its dear little hands are…

WHERE IS THE BIRD OF FIRE?

Thomas Burnett Swann

I

I am very old by the counting of my people, the Fauns—ten full years. Hardly a boyhood, men would say, but we are the race with cloven hooves and pointed, furry ears, descendants of the great god Faunus who roamed with Saturn in the Golden Age. Like the goats, our cousins, we count ten years a lifetime.

And in my years, I have seen the beginning of Rome, a city on the Palatine which Romulus says will straddle the orange Tiber and spread west to the Tyrrhenian Sea, south through the new Greek settlement at Cumae to the tip of Italy, and north through Etruria to the land of the Gauls. Romulus, the Wolf, says these things, and I believe him, because with one exception he has never failed. Now, however, I do not wish to speak of Romulus, but of his twin brother, Remus, who was also part of the beginning. Remus, the bird of fire. With a reed pen, I will write his story on papyrus and trust it to the coffers of time which, cool in the earth, endure and preserve.

My people have wandered the hills and forests of Central Italy since the reign of Saturn: the blue-rocked Apennines where the Tiber springs, and the forests of beech and oak where Dryads comb green hair in the sun-dappled branches. When invaders arrived from Africa and from the tall Alps to the north, Saturn withdrew to a land where the Fauns could not follow him. Forsaken, they remained in Italy, together with the Dryads in their leafy houses.

A Faun’s life has always been brief and simple. We wear no clothes to encumber our movements except, in the winter months which have no name, a covering of wolf skin. Our only weapon is a simple sling with a hempen cord. We have no females of our own and must propagate by enticing maidens from the walled towns. I was born to an Alba Longan who had come to draw water from the Numicus River, outside her city.

Because the city was bowed under King Amulius, a tyrant who some years before had stolen the throne from his kindly brother Numitor and imprisoned him in the palace, she was willing to stay, for a little, with my father in the woods. But when she gave birth to me and saw my cloven hooves and pointed ears, she cried, “I would rather nurse a goat!” and hurried back to her town and its tyrannical king. I was left to be reared by a band of Fauns, who had built a small encampment in the woods, with branches raised on stakes to shelter them from the rains of Jupiter, and a low palisade to guard against marauding wolves or unfriendly shepherds.

It was night and we had built a fire, not only to cook our supper but to comfort ourselves in the loneliness of the black woods. Evil forces had come with the flight of Saturn, Lemures or ghosts and blood-sucking Striges. My father, holding nine black beans in his mouth, made the circuit of our camp and spat them out one by one, mumbling each time, “With this I ransom me and mine.” The Lemures, it was said by the shepherds who had taught him the custom, followed and ate the beans and were appeased.

This done, he bathed his hands in a clay vessel of water, clanged together two copper cooking pots left by my mother, and said, “Good Folks, get you gone.” At six months old—five years or so in human terms—I was much impressed with my father’s ritual. He had never shown me the least affection, but neither had anyone else, and a Faun’s place, I judged, was to be brave and clever, not affectionate.

My father looked very gallant confronting the ghosts and very wise since, even while facing them bravely, he spoke with discretion. The other Fauns, eight of them, gnarled, brown, hairy creatures as old, one would think, as the oaks of the forest, squatted on their hooves and watched with admiration and also impatience, since they had not yet enjoyed their supper of roasted hares and myrtle berries.

But scarcely had my father uttered “Good Folks” than a tree trunk crashed through the thin palisade and figures ran through the opening and thrashed among us with wooden staves. Lemures, I thought at first, but their staves and goatskin loin cloths marked them as shepherds. I heard the names “Romulus” and “Wolf” applied to the same man and guessed him to be their leader, the brawniest and the youngest.

The first thing they did was to stamp out our fire. I scrambled to shelter in a thicket of witch grass and watched with round-eyed terror and with ears quivering above my head. By the light of smouldering embers, I saw my father struck to the ground by Romulus himself. I roused myself and scurried to his side, but Romulus’s brawny arms scooped me into the air. He raised me above his head, opened his mouth, and gave the high thin wail of a hunting she-wolf. Then with the camp in shambles and the Fauns either fallen or staggering, he leaped through the broken fence with me in his arms, and his shepherds followed him, hugging roasted hares.

I gave my captor a sharp kick with my hoof, but he squeezed me so hard that I gasped for breath, and I thought it best to lie still.

Through the woods we raced; through oak trees older than Saturn, and feathery cypresses like Etruscan maidens dancing to soundless flutes. At last the earth became marshy and Romulus’s sandals squished in the sodden grass. I had heard my father speak of this malarial country near the Tiber, and I held my breath to avoid the poisonous vapours. Finally I grew faint and gulped in breaths, expecting the air to burn as it entered my lungs. Throughout the journey, Romulus never seemed short of breath, never stumbled, never rested.

We began to climb and soon reached the summit of what I guessed to be that hill of shepherds, the Palatine. On a broad plateau, hearth fires flickered through the doorways of circular huts. The jogging motion of my captor made the fires seem to dance and sway, and I blinked my eyes to make sure that they were real and not some feverish dream implanted by the swamp. From their pens of stone, pigs grunted and cattle lowed in resentment at being awakened.

One of the huts, the largest, seemed to belong to Romulus. We entered through a low door—though Romulus stooped, he brushed my ears against the lintel—and I found myself in a windowless, goat-smelling room with an earthen floor baked hard by the central fire. Romulus thrust me against a wall where a goat was nibbling a pile of straw. A hole in the roof allowed some smoke to escape, but some remained, and I waited for my eyes to stop watering before I could get a clear look at my captor.

I saw that the powerful arms which had held me belonged to one little more than a boy (at the time, of course, he looked overpoweringly adult, but still the youngest in the hut). Yet he was tall, broad, with muscular legs and with muscles tight across the bare abdomen above his loin cloth. A thin adolescent down darkened his chin, but the furrow between his eyebrows suggested ambitions beyond his years. His crow-black hair, unevenly cropped about an inch from his scalp, rioted in curls.

He stood in the firelight and laughed, and I dimly understood even then why men twice his age could follow and call him Wolf. His handsome face held a wolf’s cruelty, together with its preternatural strength. Had I been older, I might have seen also a wolf’s fierce tenderness toward those it loves; for this boy, though he loved rarely, could love with great tenacity. As it was, I thought him cruel and powerful, nothing more, and I cowered in terror.

An aged shepherd, his long white hair bound in a fillet behind his head, rose from the fire when Romulus entered with his five men. The five immediately began to laugh and boast about their victory over my people. But when Romulus spoke, the others were silent.

“The Fauns were driving out spirits, Faustulus,” he explained to the old man. “Their leader said, ‘Good Folks, get you gone,’ and in we come! See, I have captured a baby.”

“In a year he will be full grown,” said Faustulus, whose face, though wrinkled like a brick shattered in a kiln, held an ageless dignity. He was no mere shepherd, I later found, but a man of learning from Carthage. Shipwrecked near the mouth of the Tiber, he had wandered inland to take shelter with herdsmen and married a girl named Larentia. When his rustic bride hesitated to return with him to Carthage, he remained with her people and learned their trade.

“What will you do with him then? Your nocturnal games are childish, Romulus. They bring you no closer to the throne of Alba Longa.”

Romulus frowned. “Everything I do, Faustulus, brings me closer to the throne. Tonight we wrestle with Fauns. Tomorrow, soldiers. My men need practice.”

His ominous tone and the thought of what he had done to my father made me tremble. I burrowed into the hay where the goat seemed unlikely to eat (a foul-smelling beast, cousin though he was!) and peered out between wisps of straw.

Romulus saw my terror. To Faustulus he said, “You ask me what I will do with our captive. Eat him, before he grows up! Goat flesh cooked on a spit.” When Faustulus seemed ill-disposed to the joke (or serious intention, I was not sure which), Romulus addressed a young shepherd with the stupid, flattened eyes of a ram. “Faustulus, it seems, is not hungry. What about vou, Celer?”

Winking at Romulus, Celer felt my arms and muttered, “Too thin, too thin. Fatten him first, eh?” His speech was thick and slow, as if he were speaking with a mouthful of wine.

Romulus seemed to debate. “No,” he said finally. “He may be thin, but I am hungry. And I want to make a belt of his ears.” With that he hoisted me from the ground and lowered me toward the fire by the stump of my tail! I lay very still until I felt the flames singe my ears. Then I began to bleat, and Romulus and the ram-eyed Celer threw back their heads in merriment.

A voice spoke from the doorway, low but forceful. “Put him down, Romulus.”

Romulus turned and, recognizing the speaker, tossed me back into the straw. With one tremendous bound he reached the door and embraced his brother.

“Remus,” he cried, “I thought they had kept you in Veii!”

Remus returned his brother’s embrace with enthusiasm, though his slight frame was almost engulfed by Romulus’s massive hug. Like the others, he wore a loin cloth, but of wool, not goatskin, and dyed to the green of the woodpecker which haunts the forests of Latium. Over his shoulder hung a bow, and at his side, a quiver of arrows, their bronze nocks enwreathed with feathers to match his loin cloth. When I saw his hair, bound with a fillet but spilling in silken fire behind his head, I caught my breath. Picus, the woodpecker god, I thought. Who except gods and Gauls, in this part of Italy, had yellow hair (and Etruscan ladies, with the help of their famous cosmetics)?

He released himself from Romulus’s hug and walked over to my nest of straw. I squirmed away from him. A god he might be, but after all I had been kidnapped and almost cooked by his brother. I need not have feared him, however. He lifted me in his arms as my mother might if she had not disliked my ears. He cradled me against his smooth bronze chest—fragrant with clover as if he had slept in a meadow-and stroked the fur of my ears, smoothing it toward the tips.

“Little Faun,” he said. “Don’t be afraid. Tomorrow I will take you back to your people.”

“Take him back!” protested Romulus. “I caught him myself.”

“Fauns are not animals,” said Remus. “At least, not entirely. They have lived in this forest for centuries, and we have no right to capture their children.” He pointed to Romulus’s bloody stave. “Or fight their fathers.”

“They enjoy a fight as much as we do,” shrugged Romulus. “We knocked them about a bit, nothing more. If I don’t train my shepherds, how can they capture a city?” He grinned broadly, his sharp white teeth glittering in the firelight. “If we don’t take the city, what will we do for women?” Celer and the others— except Faustulus—whooped their approval. I was later to learn that these young shepherds, driven from Alba Longa and other towns of Latium for minor crimes, were womanless, and that Romulus had promised a house in the city and a wife for every man. Romulus winked at Celer. “My brother knows much of animals, but nothing of women. We will find him a girl when we take Alba Longa—a saucy wench with breasts like ripe pomegranates.”

“Brother,” said Remus, a slow smile curving his lips. “What do you know of pomegranates? You must have been gardening beyond the Palatine!”

“I know!” cried Celer. “I know about them! The girls I remember—”

“And the girls I imagine,” sighed Remus.

“Remember, imagine,” said Romulus. “One is as bad as the other. But once we take the city—! Now, brother, tell us about your journey to Veii.”

Romulus and the others seated themselves around the fire, while Remus remained standing. Clearly there had been an urgent purpose behind his visit to Veii, the Etruscan city twelve miles to the north. Even at my age, I sensed that purpose and, crouching at his feet, awaited his words more eagerly than those of my father when he told me stories of Dryads and river goddesses. What I failed to understand at the time was later clarified for me by Remus.

The brothers, it seemed, claimed to be sons of the war god Mars and a Vestal princess, Rhea, daughter of that same King Numitor whom Amulius had deposed and imprisoned in the palace. As Remus spoke, I learned how these royal twins in exile longed, above everything, to seize the throne of Alba Longa and restore their grandfather or rule in his place. Remus had gone to Veii to ask the lucomo or king to back their cause. It was a brazen thing for a young Latin shepherd, even a deposed prince, to seek audience with an Etruscan king and ask him to make war against a Latin city. But Romulus and Remus, after all, were very young.

I passed into the city (said Remus) with farmers taking shelter for the night. The palace astonished me. Its walls were of purple stucco, and terra cotta sphinxes flanked the entrance. I told the guards that I wished to see their king; that I could speak only with him. Would they tell him that Remus, exiled prince of Alba Longa, sought an audience.

“Yellow Hair,” one of them said. “Our king is a jolly man. I will take him word. Your boldness will make him laugh.”

After a long time, the guard returned and said that the king would see me now—in his banquet hall. In the great hall, the ceiling was painted with winged monsters and strange enormous cats. The king was lying on a couch with a young woman at his side. She was almost unrobed. He motioned me to a couch next to him and laid his arm, heavy with amber and gold, on my shoulder.

“Remus,” he said, “I have heard your story from shepherds who once served Amulius but now serve me. They told me how your mother, the Vestal Rhea, bore you to the god Mars and was buried alive for breaking her vow of chastity. How her uncle, King Amulius, ordered the shepherd Faustulus to drown you in the Tiber, but the shepherd set you adrift in a hollow log. How the log came ashore and a she-wolf suckled you in her cave and a woodpecker brought you berries, until Faustulus found and reared you as his own children.

“The story, it seems, is widely known in the country, though Amulius himself believes you long dead—for tyrants are rarely told the truth. I greet you as the prince you are. But we of Veii want peace with Rome, our closest neighbor. Lead your shepherds against Amulius, if you must, and pray to Mars that the townspeople rise to help you. When you have captured the city, come to me again and we shall sign treaties of amity. Until then, let us be friends but not allies.”

I looked closely into his face, the short pointed beard, black as a vulture, the arched eyebrows, the almond eyes, and saw that he would not change his mind. I took my leave and followed the basalt road through the great arched gate and returned to you.

Romulus sprang to his feet, narrowly avoiding my ears. “No help from Veii then. And we are not yet strong enough alone. Thirty shepherds at most, even if we scour the countryside.” He fingered the stubble on his chin, as if craving the ample beard—and the years—of a man. “We shall have to wait at least a year before we attack,” he continued, with the heavy weariness of one who was not used to waiting—who, at seventeen, was something of a leader already and covetous of wider leadership. “Gather more shepherds around us. Send scouts to the city and feel out the mood of the crowd.” Neither Romulus nor Remus had visited Alba Longa: their royal blood made it difficult to pass as herdsmen. “Father Mars, let it not be long!”

He strode to the corner of the hut where a wreathed bronze spear, green with age, lay apart like a holy relic. Mars, as everyone knows, manifests himself in spears and shields. “One day soon, Great Father, let me say to you: ‘Mars, awaken!’ “

“But even if we take the city,” asked Remus, “will our grandfather let us rule? The throne is rightfully his.”

“He is very old,” said Romulus. “When he steps aside—and he will, very soon—we will build a temple to Mars and train an army even the Etruscans will fear.”

“And offer asylum to slaves, and even to birds and animals.”

“Oh, Remus,” chided his brother. “This is a city we will rule, not a menagerie! For once, forget your animals.”

“But the city can learn from the forest! Remember when I cured your fever with berries last year? A bear showed them to me, growing beside the Tiber,”

Romulus shook his head. “Remus,” he smiled, “we shall have our problems ruling together. I sometimes wish that I had no brother or that I did not love him above all men. But let us capture the city—then we shall plan our government. Now it is late. Almost Cockcrow time.”

With a warm goodnight to Romulus and Faustulus, Remus gathered me in his arms and left the hut. Of course I could walk quite by myself, but rather than lose my ride I said nothing. Stumbling a bit with his burden, he descended the bank of the Palatine toward the Tiber, which looped like an adder in the starlight and swelled in places as if digesting a meal. Near the foot of the hill we entered the mouth of a cave where a small fire burned on a raised clay hearth. Remus stirred the fire.

“I hate the dark,” he said. “It is sad with spirits. People who died like my mother, without proper rites.” Sleepily I looked around me and saw that the earthen floor had been covered with rushes and clover, that a pallet of clean white wool lay in the corner, and that earthen pots lined the opposite wall. There was no one in the cave, but a large dog lay asleep beyond the fire.

As we entered, the animal awoke and opened its eyes. A dog indeed! An immense wolf, its yellow-grey fur matted with age, rose on its haunches and faced us. Whether it snarled or grinned, I could not be sure. When Remus bent to deposit me on the pallet, I refused at first to let go of his neck.

“Lie still, little Faun,” he laughed. “This is Luperca, my foster mother. It was she who found Romulus and me on the bank of the Tiber and brought us to this very cave. She is very old now. Sometimes she walks in the woods, but at night she shares my cave and my supper.” He knelt beside her and stroked her black-rimmed ears. In looking back, I can see the nobility of the scene, this boy with slender hands and hair as yellow as sunflowers, the aged wolf that had suckled him in this very cave. But at six months old, I saw only a flea-bitten animal which monopolized my friend’s attention.

“My name is Sylvan,” I said haughtily. They were the first words I had spoken since my capture.

“I did not know you could talk,” he laughed, rising from my rival and coming to lie beside me.

“Nobody asked me,” I said, less haughty now that he had answered my summons. As the firelight dwindled, he talked of Alba Longa and how, when he ruled the city with Romulus, Fauns would be as welcome as men.

“You have surely seen the city,” he said, and before I could tell him yes, that my father had carried me once to see the walls and pointed, “That is where your mother ran off to,” he continued. “It is a very small city, really just a town. But its houses are white and clean, and its temple to Vesta is as pure as the goddess’s flame. It is now an unhappy city. Amulius is a harsh ruler. He killed my mother, Sylvan. He laughed when she told him that Mars was my father. ‘You have broken your vow,’ he said, and buried her alive in the earth. Faustulus saw her before she died. Just a girl, really. Bewildered but proud. She looked at Amulius with her large black eyes and said: ‘Mars is my husband and he will look after my sons.’

“Everyone believed her except Amulius. You see why I hate him. And I have other reasons. He taxes the vintners a third of their wine and the shepherds a fourth of their sheep. What do they get in return? The protection of his soldiers—when they are not stealing wine and sheep! But Sylvan, forgive me. I am keeping you awake with problems beyond your months. Sleep little Faun. Tomorrow I will take you home.”

But I already knew that I did not wish to return to my people.

II

Twelve months had passed. Growing two inches a month, I had reached a Faun’s full height of five feet. Sometimes I looked in the stream that flowed near our cave and admired my reflection, for Fauns are vain as long as they resemble young saplings, and until they begin to grow gnarled—alas, too quickly—like the oaks of Saturn. My skin was the bronze of Etruscan shields. I wore my ears proudly, waving their silken fur above my head. I combed my tail with a hazel branch and kept it free from thistles and burrs. Remus was eighteen now but soon I would overtake him. Together with Luperca, I still shared his cave and we often hunted together, I with a sling, he with a bow and arrow. But at his insistence we hunted only the lower animals, and then from necessity—the hare and the wild pig. Bears and deer and even wolves had nothing to fear from us. Sometimes on these hunts I saw my father and called to him in passing. The first time he stopped to speak with me. I saw the scar which Romulus’s staff had left between his ears. He looked much older than I remembered and a little stooped.

“Is it well with you?” he asked, ignoring Remus.

“Yes, Father,” I answered, half expecting him to embrace me. For I had grown used to Remus’s affection. But family ties among Fauns are usually shallow; we live such a little time. “Good,” he said. “I thought they might have killed you.” He galloped into the forest.

On the Palatine Hill, new huts had risen near that of Romulus and Faustulus. Sabine shepherds had moved there from a neighbouring hill, the Quirinal (named for their spear god, Quirinus), and also thieves and murderers from the forest, whom Romulus welcomed too readily into his group. When Remus objected, Romulus argued that thieves, much more than shepherds, could help to capture a town. They could move with stealth and strike with sudden fury.

As shepherds, of course, the brothers must care for a large herd of cattle and sheep, leading them from pasture to pasture both on and below the Palatine, guarding them from wolves and bears, and making sacrifice to the deities called the Pales. The herds they tended belonged to an Alba Longan named Tullius, who often sent an overseer from the city to count or examine his animals; hence, our source of news about Amulius and his increasing tyrannies.

One day the overseer complained that the king had doubled taxes, the next, that his soldiers had insulted a Vestal or executed a boy for petty theft. The soldiers numbered a thousand—all the able bodied men in town were subject to duty at one time or another—and by no means the whole number approved of Amulius or victimized civilians. But a hard core, rewarded with land, cattle, or armour (there was no coinage yet in Latium), served Amulius willingly.

Inflamed by word from the city, Romulus left his herds in the care of sheep dogs and drilled his men; he taught them how to climb rocky cliffs like city walls or move with the swiftness of wolves. On the hill called Aventine, Remus taught them to whittle bows from hickory limbs and feather their arrows for deadly accuracy.

One day, when Remus was resting from both the herds and the training of archers, we had an adventure which seemed at the time unrelated to war and conquest, though it later proved vastly important. I found Remus standing under the fig tree near the mouth of his cave. He called it the Fig-Tree of Rumina, the goddess who protected suckling infants, because he felt that she had watched over him and Romulus while they fed from the she-wolf.

Finding him preoccupied, I crept up silently, seized his waist, and rolled him to the grass. My disadvantage in such matches was my tail, which he liked to take hold of and jerk until I begged for mercy. This morning, however, I had caught him by surprise, and soon I was sitting on his chest, triumphant. Already I had grown to outweigh him, with my hooves and my slim but sinewy body.

“Enough,” he gasped. “Let me up!” I rose and we fell against each other, laughing and catching our breath.

“The next time you turn your back,” he swore, “I will pull out your tail by the roots!” Suddenly he became serious. “Sylvan, my bees are dying.”

He had found the bees in a poorly concealed log, stunned them with smoke, and removed them to a hollow in the fig tree, safe from hungry bears and shepherds. For awhile they had seemed to thrive and Remus had been delighted, taking their honey only when they had enough to spare. But now—

“Look,” he said, drawing me to the tree which lifted its broad rough leaves to a remarkable forty feet. “The bees are very ill.”

I stood beside him, my hand on his shoulder, and peered up into the tree. The bees were carrying off their dead in great numbers. Two of them, overwhelmed by the weight of a third, fell to the ground at my feet.

“They look beyond our help,” I said. “But there are other hives, Remus. There will be no lack of honey.”

“But I am fond of these,” he protested, turning to face me. “They are my friends, Sylvan. Not once have they stung me, even when I took their honey.” He looked so troubled, so young and vulnerable, that I was speechless. In the year I had known him he had hardly changed. His face was still beardless, his hair like woven sunlight. Who could explain this blond, green-eyed boy, so different from Romulus, had been born to a dark Latin Mother? Only Mars knew the answer. Yet Rhea, the gentle Vestal, and not the warlike Mars, seemed more truly his parent.

“Wait,” I said. “Fauns love honey and sometimes keep bees. My father will know what to do.”

We went to find him in the forest south of the Aventine. Though a Faun without clothes and with only a slingshot to encumber me, I could barely keep pace with Remus, who raced through the woods as if he wore wings. As a matter of fact, he had sewn his loin cloth with those same woodpecker feathers he used to wreathe his arrows.

“Remus, take pity,” I gasped. “I expect you to rise through the treetops!”

Remus laughed. “They say a woodpecker fed me when I was small.”

“And gave you his wings.”

In the deepest part of the forest, the trees were tall as hills and older than Saturn. What they had seen had left them weary—bent, twisted, and sagging—but still powerful. Oaks were the oldest, but ilex trees, too, and grey-barked beeches mixed sunlight and shadows in a venerable mist of limbs. Blue-eyed owls hooted among the leaves and magpies, birds of good omen, chattered in hidden recesses. A woodpecker burned his small green flame against the greater fire of the forest, and Remus pointed to him excitedly. “It was one like that who fed me berries.”

Remus might have wandered for days without finding my father, but Fauns have an instinct in the woods and I led him straight to our camp.

Outside the palisade, I bleated like a goat to signify kinship with those behind the barrier. A section was lifted aside and a Faun, knotty and mottled like the underside of a rock, filled the entrance. His ears quivered with suspicion.

“It is Sylvan,” I said. “Will you tell Nemus, my father, I wish to see him?”

The Faun vanished without a word. Another took his place. To human eyes—to Remus, as he later confessed—there was nothing to distinguish this Faun from the first. But I knew my father by the scar on his head and by the length of his ears—they were very long, even for a Faun.

“Sylvan,” he said without emotion. “You want me?”

“Yes, Father. This is Remus, my friend.”

“I have seen you together.”

“We need your help. Remus’s bees are dying. We hoped you could help us save them. The hive is well placed. But a sickness has taken them. They are carrying off their dead.”

Nemus thought a moment. “Ah,” he said. “You must find a Dryad.”

“A Dryad, Father?”

“Yes. They speak to the bees. They know all cures.”

“But Dryads are rare. I have never seen one.”

“I have,” said Nemus proudly. “Her hair was the colour of oak leaves, and her skin, like milk—” He broke off, as if embarrassed by his own enthusiasm. “But I will tell you where to look. Two miles to the south of this camp, there is a circle of oaks. Some say Saturn planted them. At any rate, one is inhabited by a Dryad. Which one I cannot say. I saw her dipping water from a spring and followed her to a ruined altar among the oaks. There she escaped me. You must hide in the bushes and watch the bees for an hour or more. In the tree where the most of them light will be your Dryad. Taking her nectar, you know. But tell me, Sylvan, why are these bees so important? Let them die. There are others.”

Remus answered for me. “They are friends. We like to hear them work outside our cave. Now they are almost quiet.”

“Friends, you call them? You are one of the Old Ones, aren’t you, boy? Your hair is ripe barley, but your heart might have lived with Saturn. In the old time, there was love in the forest. So the records of my people say. A scrawl on a stone, a picture, an image of clay—always they tell of love. Fauns, men and animals living in harmony.” He turned to his son.

“Look after him, Sylvan. Help him to find his Dryad. Help him always. He is one who is marked to be hurt.”

I reached out and touched my father on the shoulder, as I often touched Remus. He seemed surprised, whether pleased or offended I could not say. When he turned his back, we went to find our Dryad.

There was the ring of oaks, just as he had said. Not the most ancient trees, if planted by Saturn, but old nonetheless. In their midst rose a pile of crumbling stones which had once formed an altar. Fingertips of sun touched the stones and live plants overrunning them, white narcissi with red-rimmed coronas, spiny-leafed acanthuses, and jonquils yellow as if the sunlight had flowered into the petals. We did not explore the altar however, and risk discovery by the Dryad, but crouched in some bushes beyond the oaks and watched for bees.

Soon a faint buzzing tingled my ears. I cocked them toward the sound and nudged Remus. A swarm of bees was approaching the ring of oaks. We watched them circle and vanish in the oak tree nearest the altar, a large tree with a trunk perhaps twenty feet wide at the base, and a welter of greenery high in the air. Yes, it could easily house a Dryad. I started to rise, but Remus grasped my tall.

“No,” he whispered. “Your father said to watch where the most bees go.”

We waited, I fretfully, since a minute to a man seems like ten to a Faun. Soon I grew sleepy and, using Remus’s back for a pillow, slept until he shook me.

“Three swarms have entered that tree and left again,” he said. “No other tree has attracted so many. That must be the one.”

We rose and walked to the tree in question. “We forgot to ask your father how to get inside,” Remus said, staring at the great trunk. Apparently the bees had entered through a hole invisible to us and far above our heads. The trunk was much too rough and broad to climb, and there were no branches within reach of our hands. We circled the base, prodding among the roots for an entrance, but succeeded only in dislodging a turquoise lizard that ran over Remus’s sandal and flickered toward the altar.

Thoughtful, Remus stared after him. “Your father lost sight of the Dryad near the altar.” We followed the lizard to the crumbling stones and began to kick among the rubble, careful, however, not to crush the jonquils or narcissi. A field mouse, poised for escape, stared at us from the tallest stone. A honey bee surged from a shaken jonquil.

“Sylvan,” Remus cried at last. “I think we have found it!” Eagerly he brushed aside bushes and, head first, squirmed into an opening just large enough for one body at a time. I followed him without enthusiasm. Such holes concealed poisonous adders as well as harmless lizards and mice.

The walls were smooth; neither roots nor rocks tore at our bodies. Rut the journey seemed long and the blackness grew oppressive. I imagined an adder with every bend of the tunnel.

Suddenly Remus stood up and pulled me beside him. We had entered the trunk of a tree, the Dryad’s tree, I hoped. Far above our heads, a light shone roundly through an opening. Climbing toward the light, wooden rungs had been carved in the side of the trunk.

“We have found it,” he cried, joyfully pulling my tail. “We have found her house!”

“I hope she is more accessible than her house,” I muttered.

We started to climb and at once I felt dizzy, since the tree was very tall. I consoled myself that our Dryad would perhaps be beautiful. I had heard that they remained young until they died with their trees. Remus and I saw no women on the Palatine, and imagination was a poor substitute. I had seen him scratching pictures on the walls of our cave, Rumina and other goddesses. He invariably drew them young, beautiful, radiant, the image of Woman in his own young heart. Did such a woman await us now?

Through the circular opening, we drew ourselves into a room which roughly followed the shape of the trunk. Small round windows cut in the walls admitted sunshine. A couch stood across the room, with feet like a lion’s and a silken coverlet prancing with warriors. The air smelled of living wood, and white narcissus petals carpeted the floor. Somewhat hesitantly we advanced into the room. At once I collided with a table and almost upset a lamp like a twisted dragon. Remus, meanwhile, had settled in a backless chair.

“It is cirrus wood from Carthage,” he said. “I saw one like it in Veii. But where is the Dryad?”

“The ladder continues,” I noted, hastily ridding myself of the dragon lamp. “There must be a second room over our head.”

Remus walked to the ladder. “I will call her. She must not think we are robbers.”

But he did not have to call, for we heard footsteps descending the ladder. I lifted the sling from my neck in case the Dryad should be armed. Aeneas, after all, had found a race of fierce Amazons in Italy. Dryads who lived alone, Amazons or not, must know how to fight for their trees.

The Dryad paused at the foot of the ladder and faced us. She was diminutive even to a five-foot Faun—no taller than four herself. Her hair fell long and loosely over her shoulders, green hair, a dark leaf-green that in the shadows looked black, but where the sunlight struck it smouldered like jade that travellers bring from the East. Her mouth was pink and small; her skin, the pure fresh white of goat’s milk. A brown linen robe, bordered with tiny acorns, rippled to sandaled feet.

She waited for us to speak and explain ourselves. When we said nothing—what could we say? our invasion was evident—she spoke herself, slowly as if out of practice, but with great precision.

“You have violated my house. I was sleeping above when your clumsy sandals woke me. May Janus, the door-god, curse you with evil spirits!”

“I am sorry we woke you,” said Remus. “As for violating your house, we were not sure it was a house until we found this room. Then we forgot ourselves in its beauty.” He paused. “We have come to ask a favour.”

“A favour?” she cried. “I can guess the favour you mean.” She fixed her glare on me. “You are the worst, you Fauns. Did it never occur to you to cover your loins, as your friend does?”

“If you notice my nakedness,” I said proudly, “perhaps it is because you admire it. Dryads need men, and Fauns need women. Why should they not be friends?”

“I have banqueted kings,” she spat. “Shall I frolic with strangers who blunder in from the woods—a Faun and a shepherd?”

“We only want to ask you about our bees,” Remus blinked, a small hurt child scolded for a deed he has not committed. He stepped toward her and she did not move. “Our bees are dying and we want you to heal them.”

They stared at each other. Then, incredibly, unpredictably even to me, he took her in his arms. Like the scolded child who does the very thing of which he has been accused, he kissed her small pink lips. Quick as an adder her hand rose—for the first time I saw the dagger—and raked down his side.

With a cry he withdrew, staring not at his blood-streaked side but at her, and not with anger but shame at his own affront. I seized the knife before she could use it again and caught her, struggling in my arms. Furious because she had hurt my friend, I pressed her wrists cruelly until she lay still. I felt her breasts against my flesh, and then, before I could want her too much myself, said,

“Remus, she is yours. Kiss her again!”

“Let her go,” he said.

“But Remus, she attacked you. She deserves what she feared.”

“Sylvan, let her go,” he said, a small boy, baffled, defeated, but not to be disobeyed. I released her. She stared at the streak down his side.

“Please,” he said to her. “My bees are dying. Tell me what to do for them.”

She drew him into the clear light of a window and dabbed the blood with a corner of her robe. “Burn galbanum under the hive and carry them clusters of raisins in leaves of thyme. They will heal and grow strong again.” Then she took a long, unhurried look at him, and I might have been in another oak, for all they noticed me. “You are very young. At first you were hidden in the shadows. When you kissed me, I was sure you were like the rest.”

“I am,” he said. “I came to ask you about my bees, but I forgot them. I wanted your body. You made me think of grass and flowers in the hot sun. I am like the rest.”

“But you told your friend to release me. Why weren’t you angry when I hurt you?”

“I was. With myself.”

She held his face between her hands. “You are fragrant from the forest. You have lain in clover, I think. Like Aeneas, the Trojan, I loved him, you know. He came to me just as you have. All Latium rang with his triumphs—Turnus defeated, Camilla’s Amazons put to rout! He sat on my couch and said, ‘Mellonia, I am tired. Since the sack of Troy I have wandered and fought. I have lost my wife and my father and forsaken a queen of Carthage. And I am tired.’

“I took his head between my hands and kissed him, my prince, my warrior. In the years that followed, I watched him grow old. He married the princess Lavinia to found a royal line here in Latium. But he died in my arms, an old man with hair like a white waterfall. And I cursed this tree which kept me young. I wanted to die with Aeneas. The years passed and I did not give myself, even in loneliness. I have waited for another Aeneas.”

She turned away from him and stared through a window at a swarm of bees approaching the tree. “They are bringing me honey. My little friends. Your friends too.” She faced him again.

“Why are you young? Aeneas was grey when he came to me, older than I in wars and loves, though younger in years. Now I am ancient. But you are young. You cannot have waited for anything very long. Your eyes are naked, a child’s. You have not learned to hide your thoughts. You want me and fear me. I could stab you with words more sharply than with this dagger. Why do you come here young and virginal? I will make you old. My face is a girl’s, but my eyes are tired with waiting.”

Like round-built merchant ships laden with precious oils, the bees invaded the room and unloaded their nectar in a cup of agate. She held out her hand and some of them lit in her palm. “To me, Remus, you are like the bees. Their life is six weeks.”

“Then help me to be like Aeneas!”

She reached up to him and loosened the fillet which bound his hair. “It spills like sunflowers. I am cold, so cold. Give me your sunflowers, Remus. Prince of Alba Longa!”

“You know me?”

“Not at first. Only when I had hurt you. I knew you by your yellow hair and your gentleness. The forest speaks of you, Remus. With love.”

Their voices blended with the whirr of bees, and the scent of nectar throbbed in my nostrils like a sweet intoxicant. I had lingered too long. I backed down the ladder and returned to the pile of stones.

Much later, when Remus stepped from the tunnel, he said, “Sylvan, you are crying!”

“I am not crying,” I protested. “Fauns don’t cry. We take things as they come and make light of everything. A bramble bush scratched my eyes and made them water.”

He looked doubtful but did not press me. In fact, he said little even after we left the circle of oaks and plunged into the forest.

“The Dryad,” I asked. “Was she hospitable?” I pressed him with the hope that he would speak of her lightly, as a woman possessed and forgotten. I wanted him to reassure me that I was not replaced in his heart by a bad tempered Dryad older than Aeneas!

“Yes.”

“Remus,” I chided. “Your spirits seem mildewed. Have you nothing to tell me about Mellonia?”

It was almost as if the aged Faustulus were speaking. “What is there to say about love? It isn’t happiness, altogether; it is sadness too. It is simply possession.”

“I should think you would feel like wrestling,” I said. “Or drawing one of your goddesses. Or swimming the Tiber. You don’t look possessed to me, you look vacant.”

“I am thinking of many things,” he said. “Yesterday, I wanted to punish the man who had killed my mother, and I wanted to be king for the sake of Fauns and wolves and runaway slaves. Now I want to be king for her sake also.”

We were nearing the Palatine. At the mouth of our cave, he stopped and faced me and placed his hands on my shoulders.

“Sylvan, why were you crying back there?”

“I told you,” I snapped.

“Did you think she had driven you out of my heart, little Faun?”

He had not called me “little Faun” since that night a year—ten years—ago, when Romulus stole me from my camp.

“Yes,” I said, losing control of my tears. “And not to a girl but a witch! Or squirrel, I should say, the way she lives in a tree. Remus, she will bite you yet.” Being half goat, I always saw people as animals.

He did not laugh at me and try to make light of my tears, but touched his fingers, lightly as butterflies, to my ear. “In the circle of oaks,” he said, “there were jonquils and narcissi growing together. There was room for both. Do you understand what I am saying, Sylvan?”

Just then the ram-eyed Celer hurried toward us down the hill. If anything, his eyes had grown flatter and more stupid with the passing year.

“Remus,” he called in his thick slurred way. “News from the city! Romulus wants you in his hut.”

III

In the early dusk, the hill lay shadowed and strange, and the hut of Romulus seemed misted to stone. Solemn and dignified, sheep roamed the paths and, pausing, were hardly separable from the low rocks which Vulcan, it was said, had thrust from his caverns in a fiery temper. Shepherds and those who had recently joined them, Romulus’s latest recruits, loitered in small groups talking about the day’s work or tomorrow’s drill. The newcomers held apart from the original shepherds. Their garb was the same simple loin cloth, but their faces, though mostly young, were scared and sullen. One, I knew, was a murderer who had fled from Lavrnium after killing his wife; another, a parricide from the new Greek colony at Cumae. It was men like these whom Remus wished to bar from the Palatine, and Romulus welcomed because they knew how to fight.

When the wife-killer saw me, he bleated like a goat. Remus wheeled in anger but I shoved him toward Romulus’s hut. He must not fight on my account.

“You sound like a frog,” I called good-naturedly. “Do it like this.” And I bleated so convincingly that she-goats answered from every direction.

A figure loomed toward us, a tall ship scudding in a sea of mist. It was Romulus. To me he nodded, to Remus he smiled.

“Brother,” he said. “Gaius is here from the city. He has brought us news.” We walked into his hut, where a small, bearded man who reminded me of a water bug, so freely did he skip about the room, was telling a story he seemed to have told several times and would no doubt tell again. His eyes sparkled when he saw Remus and me, a new audience.

“Remus,” he said. “And Sylvan, is it not? Listen to what I have seen! I met Numitor in the market yesterday with two attendants. Lately Amulius has allowed him considerable freedom. To appease the people, I expect, and keep them from growling about taxes. Anyway, a half-grown sheep dog was barking at one of Amulius’s soldiers. A friendly dog, wanting to play. But the soldier did not. He raised his spear and drove it through the animal’s heart. Numitor cried out in anger and raised his staff to strike the man. The soldier, far from cowed, drew his sword, but a barber and a vintner intervened while Numitor’s attendants hurried him back to the palace.

“As the old man disappeared, I heard him shout, ‘If my grandsons had lived, there would be no soldiers!’ Everyone who had watched the scene—myself included—was stirred by Numitor’s courage. And everyone wished that there were truly grandsons to drive the soldiers from the street.”

With a vigorous skip, he ended his story and smote Remus’s shoulder for emphasis. Remus’s emotion was evident. His eyes, wide and troubled, mirrored the flames from the hearth: mournful lights in a green, sad forest. As far as I knew, no one had told the overseer the boy’s real identity. But Gaius watched him with unusual interest. Perhaps he had overheard the shepherds.

Sparing Gaius the temptation to repeat his story, Romulus led him to the door. “It is bad news you bring us, Gaius. Thank Jove we are kingless here! Do you wonder we stay in the country?”

Gaius smiled ironically. Doubtless he guessed that most of Romulus’s men and Romulus himself avoided the city for reasons that had nothing to do with a fondness for the countryside.

“When I think of Amulius,” he sighed, “I am tempted to stay here with you. They call him The Toad, you know, though he calls himself The Bear. But Tullius, my master, depends on me. His herds have multiplied, Romulus. I shall take him good news.” With a backward wave, he bobbed down the Palatine.

In Romulus’s hut, Faustulus, Celer, the twins, and I gathered by the fire to evaluate Gaius’s news. On such occasions, Remus always included me, though the first time both Romulus and Celer had objected to the presence of a Faun.

“We have waited with patience,” Romulus said with unsuppressed excitement. “Now the mood of the city seems right. They will flock to our side the minute they know us! But they have to be told who we are, and our grandfather is the one to tell them. First we must identify ourselves to him. I will go to Alba Longa tomorrow and get an audience.”

“But he lives in Amulius’s palace,” cried the aged Faustulus bent like a hickory bow but taut, like the rest of us, with the spirit of revolt. “How can you get an audience?”

“He is right,” said Remus. “You can’t simply walk to the palace as I did in Veii and ask to see Numitor. Amulius’s guards are much too suspicious. Your height and bearing set you apart at once. I should be the one to go.”

“You, Remus? What about your hair? Blond men in Latium are as rare as virgins in Etruria. They will take you for a spy from the Gauls! Even if they don’t, how will you gain an audience with Numitor?”

“I have thought what I would do for some time. First I will dye my hair dark brown. You know the umber that’s dug from the banks of the Tiber? I will rub some in my hair and disguise the colour. Then I will steal one of Numitor’s cows. His shepherds will catch me and take me to Numitor. In the theft of cows, the owner and not the king has the right to pass judgment. Amulius will have no hand in this unless Numitor turns me over to him. I don’t believe he will.”

“No,” said Romulus, “it is much too dangerous. I won’t let you take the risk.”

Usually I wanted to kick him with both my hooves. Now I wanted to embrace him.

“Remus is right,” said that idiot, Celer, mouthing his usual monosyllables. “Old men love him. He’s soft and polite. Let him go, Romulus. I have a stake in this too.”

Yes, I thought, cattle, women, and a house in town. That’s all you want. What do you know about government? Remus, my friend, even if you win the city, you will not have won your justice.

“It is settled then,” said Remus with a finality that ended argument.

“And I will help you,” I said.

“No, I will do it alone. Fauns are not popular in Latium. The shepherds might kill you right off.”

Romulus looked troubled. He stroked his beginning beard and furrowed his brow. This fierce, ambitious young man, who feared neither wolves nor warriors, was unashamedly afraid for his brother. At last, like a father sending his son to fight the Gauls, he placed his hands on Remus’s shoulders and said,

“Go then, Brother. But while you are gone, I will gather the shepherds. We will be ready to attack the city when you return with word from Numitor. If you don’t return within three days, we will attack anyway. The gate is strong, but the walls aren’t high to shepherds who live on hills.”

“Or to shepherds led by princes,” said Faustulus proudly, drawing the twins to his side. “For eighteen years I have called you my sons. In fact, since I found you in the cave at the breast of Luperca. After you had fed, she let me take you—she, your second mother, knew that the time had come for a third. And I carried you back to this very hut and to Larentia, my wife. When Larentia died a year later, I brought you up myself. Now, like the wolf, I must step aside and return you to your grandfather. You will not shame him.”

In our cave the next morning, Remus veiled his head in a cloak and addressed a prayer to the god Bonus Eventus, whose image he had scratched on the wall. No one knew the god’s true appearance, but Remus had made him young and round-cheeked, with a spray of barley in his hand. Holding out his arms and quite oblivious to Luperca and me, Remus prayed:

“Bonus Eventus, god who brings luck to the farmer with his barley and his olive trees, bring me luck too; send me safely to my grandfather!”

After the prayer, he set a cup of milk before the image, for everyone knows that the gods, whether human as Remus and the Etruscans supposed, or bodiless powers in the wind, the rock, the tree, demand offerings of food. (Luperca eyed the milk, and I hoped that the god drank quickly!) Then he attended to his bees, burning galbanum under the hive and carrying them raisins in thyme.

“Look after them, will you?” he asked. “And Luperca too. You may have to feed her from your hands. She is very feeble.” Not too feeble to drink that milk, I thought.) “And Sylvan. Will you tell Mellonia where I have gone? I had meant to visit her today.”

I stamped my hoof in protest. “The squirrel lady?”

“Goddess,” he corrected.

“Goddess? She will live no longer than her tree!”

“But her tree has lived hundreds of years, and will live hundreds more. Till Saturn returns. Then he will find her another.”

“Is that what she told you? What about lightning? And floods? And woodcutters?”

“Your ears are quivering,” he grinned. “They always do when you are angry.” And he began to stroke them with his irresistible fingers. “You will see Mellonia? Promise me, Sylvan.”

“Don’t do that,” I cried. “You know how it tickles.”

“But you like to be tickled.”

“That’s my point. You can make me promise anything.”

“Would you rather I yanked your tail?”

“All right, all right. I will see Mellonia. Now go and steal your cow.”

Of course I had meant all along to help him. My problem was how to remain hidden until he had begun his theft, then run out and implicate myself and share his capture. I followed his tracks at a safe distance. In the marshes, I was careful not to let my hooves squish noisily, and among the Sabine burial mounds, some fresh, some covered with grass, I steeled myself not to take fright at the presence of spirits and break into a gallop. I was careful to keep a tree or a hill between us. He moved rapidly, as always, but his tracks and my keen sense of hearing kept me on his trail.

Numitor’s shepherds lay asleep in the shade, three gnarled men as ancient as their master, who, it was said, hired only the old to work for him because the young reminded him of his lost daughter and grandsons. At the feet of the shepherds lay an aged sheep dog who also seemed to be sleeping. I hid behind an ilex tree and waited for developments.

Remus advanced into the herd and singled out a thin, black cow with a shrunken udder. The dog stared at him sleepily as the three shepherds continued to drowse.

“Ho there, cow, off with you!” Remus cried, scuffing through the bushes with a great racket. Like a child chasing geese, he seemed to enjoy himself.

The dog made no move until he saw the shepherds open their eyes. Then he hobbled forward and warily circled the intruder. The men rubbed their eyes and began to shout, “Thief, thief!” Remus pretended to be bewildered by their cries and ran in circles around the cow. I sprang from my ilex tree and joined him.

“I told you not to come,” he whispered, as angry as I had ever seen him.

“Two of them,” croaked a shepherd. “And one a Faun. They might have made off with the herd!”

They cautiously approached the spot where we circled tihe cow, who, unperturbed by our sallies, continued her breakfast of grass, while the dog, preening himself on his vigilance, barked from a bed of lupine.

“Brave dog, brave Balbus,” the shepherds muttered, stroking the animal on its flea-bitten head. One of them fetched some leathern thongs from a lean-to beside the pasture.

“Now,” said the least infirm of the three, who seemed their leader. “Tie their hands.”

Without resistance, we offered our hands. While a shepherd bound them, the leader waved his staff threateningly and the dog rushed in and out barking, then withdrew to catch his breath.

“They are just boys,” said our binder, craning his neck and squinting for a clear look. “Need we take them to Numitor in town? It’s such a long walk, Julius. A good thrashing may be all they need.”

Remus hurried to speak. “My father thrashed me once. That is why I ran away. It made me rebellious. No, I am afraid you must take us to Numitor, unless you want every cow stolen and sold to the Etruscans across the river.” He looked very fierce and tilted his head as if to look down in scorn on these men who dared call him just a boy. “And my friend here, the Faun. Would you believe it! Young as he is, he has already carried off six maidens.” He added wickedly, “I have carried off seven. But then, I am older.”

“Boys they may be,” sighed the leader, “but dangerous ones. Numitor will have to judge. Can the two of you get them to town while Balbus and I watch the herds?”

The old men looked at each other and then toward town, as if weighing the effect of twenty-four miles on their weathered ankles. One of them prodded Remus with his staff, the other me. We lurched forward obligingly. “We will try,” they sighed.

“Give them a whack if they talk,” advised the leader, and off we went to find Numitor.

Alba Longa, the city of Romulus’s and Remus’s dream, which I myself had seen only from the woods at the foot of its plateau, was in truth a modest walled town of five thousand people. Its rock walls, though tall, were starting to crumble, and its streets grew grass between their cobblestones. Nevertheless the houses glittered whitely with plaster and looked to us both like little palaces.

“And their roofs,” Remus whispered. “They are covered with baked clay shingles.” We were used, of course, to the thatched roofs of shepherd huts. “No danger of fire, no rain soaking through.”

“Ho there, thieves, get on with you,” our captors shouted, and prodded us with their staves. Everywhere the people stared at our advance, to the obvious pleasure of the shepherds, who cried the more loudly, “Ho there!” A vestal with a black Etruscan vase almost spilled her water. A vintner dropped his pig-skin of wine and a thin red stream trickled among the cobblestones. There were barbers in stalls by lie road, and sellers of vegetables holding great melons in their hands; children, sheep dogs, and asses; and, brash and numerous, the soldiers of Amulius. In most Latin cities, I knew, there was no standing army, no soldiers except in wartime. But Amulius’s men, brandishing spears tipped with bronze, marched through the city as if to say, “We march on the king’s business, and it is not for civilians to inquire its nature.”

“Ho there,” shouted our captors once too often, and a soldier swatted them both on the head with the shaft of his spear. “Be quiet, old men. You are near the palace.” Chastened, the shepherds fell silent and ceased to prod us.

To the left lay the temple of Vesta, raised by Etruscan architects on a stone platform, with four square pillars across the front. Its pediment twinkled with orange terra cotta but not with the images beloved by the Etruscans, for the Latin goddess Vesta lived in the flame of her hearth and had no physical semblance. Opposite the temple crouched the palace of Amulius, a low white rectangle distinguished only by size from the houses we had passed. It was whispered that one day Amulius hoped to build a true Etruscan palace, multicoloured instead of white, with frescoes and colonnades, from the cattle he took in taxes; he would trade them to the Etruscans for architects and stone.

As a start, at least, he had flanked his gate with bronze Etruscan lions, slender and lithe-legged, their tails looped over to touch their backs, their eyes almond-shaped like those of the men who had made them. In front of the lions stood a pair of human guards, only less lordly than the animals.

“Have you business in the king’s palace?” one of them demanded. His jerkin was leather, his crested helmet, bronze.

Our captors had not recovered their composure since the scene with the soldier. They stammered awkwardly and Remus had to speak for them.

“They caught us stealing Numitor’s cattle. They want to receive his judgment.”

At mention of Numitor, the guards softened. One of them leaned into the gate and called, and a withered attendant appeared from the interior. Guard and attendant whispered together; attendant disappeared and shortly returned. He led us down a hallway supported by wooden timbers and into a garden behind the palace, enclosed on three sides by a brick wall. Roses rioted, in vermilion chaos and crocuses spilled like golden goblets. It was the first flower garden I had ever seen. I wanted to roll in the blossoms, thorns and all, and kick my hooves in the air. Then I saw the king of the garden and forgot to dream. He sat in a backless chair and stared into a milky pool. His white curving hair was hardly distinguishable from his robes, which billowed around his feet and hid his sandals.

He seemed unaware of us. The attendant drew his attention. “Prince, your shepherds have brought two thieves to receive justice.”

He raised his head and looked at us without expression. His face was as yellow and cracked as papyrus, laid in a tomb by pharaohs older than Saturn; god-men ruling the Nile before the Etruscans had passed through Egypt and brought her lore to Italy. A face like papyrus whose writing had been erased by time; inscrutable.

“Bring them forward,” he said. We knelt and Remus took his hand.

“My king,” he said, nothing more, but with infinite sincerity.

Numitor withdrew his hand and motioned the boy to rise. “I am not your king,” he said stiffly. “I never was. You are much too young—the age of my grandsons, had they lived. And they were born after I had lost my throne. Tell me, boy, why did you steal my cattle?”

“Because I wanted to see you.”

“To see me? I don’t understand.”

“As a thief, I knew they would bring me to receive your judgment.”

“You were right. Before I deliver judgment, what favour do you ask? I warn you, I have few to give.”

“Your blessing. Your love.”

“An old man loves his children. I have none. His grandchildren. I have none. My heart has rid itself of love. A nest without swallows. But what is your name? Something about you stirs me to remember—”

“A shepherd named me Remus, and my brother, Romulus. We are twins.”

The names, of course, were meaningless to him, but he caught at Remus’s last word. “Twins, you say?”

“Soon after we were born, our mother was buried in a pit and we were taken to be drowned in the Tiber. But Faustulus saved us and made us his sons.”

Numitor groaned and surged to his feet, like the geysers of Vulcan, white with borax, which roar from the earth and shudder in the air.

“What are you saying?” he thundered. “You lie as well as steal. I saw my grandsons when Amulius took them from my daughter. One had dark hair, darker than yours. One had gold, gold like this flower.” He crushed a crocus under his sandal. “A gift from the god, his father. Which are you?”

“The gold-haired.” Remus fell to his knees and ducked his head in the pool, which began to run rivulets of brown. He rose and shook out his hair. Though streaked with umber, it glittered yellowly like gold among veins of iron.

I watched the papyrus mask. The worn and time-veined surface trembled and softened, the forgotten language of love spoke in misting eyes. He ran his hand through Remus’s hair and felt the molten umber between his fingers.

“Time,” he said. “Give me time. I am not used to tears. They burn like wine.” An old man sightless with tears, he took the boy in his arms. “Rhea,” he whispered, “your son has come back to me.”

“You are a senile old fool,” a voice croaked from the door. “This boy has played a trick on you. He should be taught a lesson.”

I recognised Amulius though I had never seen him. I knew him from the veined toad eyes which never blinked, the hunched and dwarfish shape. Amulius the Toad.

“Guards!” he called.

“Go to Romulus,” Remus whispered. “I will hold them off.”

Behind me a prince and a tyrant grappled in roses and thorns. With a single thrust of my hooves, I clutched the top of the wall and drew myself up the bricks. “Bonus Eventus,” I prayed, “help me to bring him help!”

IV

I landed in a narrow street behind the palace and my hooves clattered on the cobblestones. An old woman, carrying melons from market, paused in surprise, then trudged down the street with a shrug that seemed to say: “Let Amulius protect his own palace. If Fauns can rob it, good for them.” There was no one else in sight, but an ass, tethered to a stake, watched me vacantly. His master, it seemed, had business in the shop of a dyer, which reeked with decaying trumpet shells, much prized for their purple dye.

Remus had given me seconds. As soon as the guards overpowered him, they would follow me or send their friends. I must reach the gate quickly; I must run. But a running Faun, in a city of soldiers, would look suspicious. They would take me for a thief. Nibbling grass between the stones, the tethered ass browsed in the sun. I loosed his rope and kicked him with the full force of my hoof. He galloped down the street.

“Whoa, whoa,” I shouted, galloping after him as if to recover my own escaping property. Round a bend he sped and into the central street and straight toward the towers of the gate. When he slowed, I slowed. When he quickened, I quickened and yelled “Whoa!” A hand reached out to stop him; I caught my breath; but he burst free and charged for the gate. The guards laughed and spurred him on with a slap to his flank and a cry of “Giddyap!” Upsetting a potter’s cart, laden with orange clay lamps, I hurried after him.

“May thieves crack your skull,” cried the potter. I waved without looking back and raced down the hill toward the forest. To the left of me, Lake Albanus glittered in the afternoon sun, and skiffs of hollowed alder poised Mice dragonflies on its molten turquoise. Ahead of me dusky cypresses signalled the path to the Palatine.

I found Romulus with Celer and the herd at the foot of the Palatine. When I told him what had happened, he turned very pale and drove his staff into the ground,

“I knew I should have gone.”

“Never mind,” I consoled. “Who can say no to Remus?”

“If they harm him, I will burn the city! Celer, watch the cattle.” He hurried me up the hill, making plans as he went. “We will attack tonight. In the dark, we may be able to climb the walls before we are seen.”

“But the people won’t know us. Remus had no chance to tell Numitor about our plan.”

“No matter. We can’t delay. Once in the city, we will shout his name—‘Long live Numitor!’—and hope to rally support.”

Romulus was right, we could not delay. But what could we do against walls and soldiers? If we battered down the gate with a tree, soldiers would surely be waiting. If we climbed the walls, they might see us and still be waiting. Since Alba Longa stands on a ridge, it is difficult to reach the walls without detection, even at night. I said nothing; Romulus knew the dangers. But I could not risk Remus’s life with such a puny effort.

I descended the Palatine and headed for the cave. I wanted to think. On the way I passed Celer with the herd. He leaned against a rock, staff in hand and a straw between his teeth. Complacent oaf, I thought. Calm as a sheep when Remus’s life is in danger.

“So they shut the Woodpecker in a cage,” he grinned. “Big games tonight, eh?” Before I could hoof him, he changed the subject. “Sylvan, I hear you found a Dryad. Where’s her tree?”

“She is Remus’s Dryad,” I said indignantly.

“And yours,” he smirked. “And mine, if you show me her tree.”

“North of the Quirinal,” I lied. “An ilex tree with a lightning mark on the trunk.” I lowered my ears to muffle his answer and hurried to the cave. Inside, I threw myself on a pallet of clover, but the fragrance reminded me of Remus and clouded my thoughts. I paced the floor. Luperca crept from the rear of the cave and pressed against my leg. I knelt and took her head in my hands.

“Luperca,” I said. “Remus has gone to the city. They have taken him captive. What shall I do?” She looked at me with such intelligence that I felt she understood my words; she began to whine and I wished that I understood hers.

Then I heard a swarming of bees outside the cave. I walked out and looked at the hive in the fig tree. Mellonia’s remedy had worked. The bees were recovering their health. Mellonia! She was the one to help Remus. She had cured his bees. Might she not have secrets to release him from prison? After all, she had loved Aeneas, the incomparable warrior. I galloped for the circle of oaks. Behind me, a conch shell boomed from the Palatine, and I knew that Romulus was summoning his men.

I stood at the foot of her oak and called: “Mellonia, I have come from Remus.” No answer.

Again I called. A voice, muffled by branches, answered. “I am coming down. Wait for me by the altar.”

In a surprisingly short time, she emerged from the tunnel. She was not the Mellonia I remembered, hard and queenly, but a pale tree child blinking in the alien sun. She raised a hand to shelter her eyes.

“He is hurt?”

“No. But Amulius has taken him prisoner.” I told her about his capture.

“What does Romulus mean to do?”

I explained his plan—as much as I knew.

“Romulus’s shepherds,” she sighed. “I have seen them drilling in the woods. They are brave but they have no armour. They have no spears. Only their staves and bows. What good are bows against walls, or in fighting hand to hand through the streets? They will cost Remus his life.”

“Mellonia,” I cried desperately. “You can save him. I know you can.”

She touched my cheek with the tips of her fingers, like little blades of grass. “You are a good friend to him, Sylvan. You and I and the forest, we are his friends. Perhaps we can save him. Go back to Romulus now. Say that when Arcturus shines directly over the temple of Vesta, I will come to him in the woods below the city gate. Let him do nothing till I come, but have his men in readiness.”

I pressed her hand; it was warm and small like a swallow. “Mellonia, I have not been kind to you.”

“Nor I to you. But Remus has made us friends. You are his brother, Sylvan. Far more than Romulus, the Wolf. Trust me.”

I turned to go and she called after me. “Sylvan, wait. In truth I am afraid for him. The forest is restless. The cranes have been flying all day, as they do before a storm. But there has been no storm. And all last night, owls cried in my. tree. I have looked for vultures, birds of good omen. Especially for woodpeckers. There are none to be seen.”

“Good omens?” I cried. “You are Remus’s good omen!”

Tall above Alba Longa, the temple of Vesta burned in the moonlight, and orange Arcturus, the star of spring, climbed above the stone pediment. Fifty shepherds crouched in the forest below the gate: Romulus with his ancient spear consecrated to Mars; several with bows and arrows, the use of which Remus had taught them; but most armed only with knives, staves, or slingshots. The bodies of all were bare except for loin cloths—no greaves on their legs nor metal corselets to hide their chests and backs from the plunge of an arrow or the bite of a sword.

Their battering ram was an elm tree cut in the forest; their ladders looked as frail as saplings untested by storms. How many shepherds, I wondered, would survive the night? I was glad that the bent Faustulus, at Romulus’s insistence, had remained on the Palatine. A momentary pity possessed me. Who could blame them, rough though they were, for wanting houses in town and women to tend then: hearths?

“We can wait no longer,” said Romulus. It fretted him following orders from a Dryad he had never seen. Nothing but concern for Remus, I think, and knowledge of his own inadequacy, could have made him listen at all.

“But Arcturus has just now risen above the temple,” I protested. “Before, it was still climbing. I know she will come!”

“What can she do if she does? We are fools to try the gate, which seems to be her intention. We should scale the wall on the far side.”

Then I heard the bees. “Hush,” I said. “She is coming.”

My ears quivered. The droning grew louder; curiously the men peered into the forest. I felt like a traveller approaching a waterfall. At first he hears just a murmur, faint and distant. Then the trees fall away and the murmur roars in his ears.

Now they surrounded us, bees beyond counting. Kindled by the moonlight, they curved like a Milky Way above our heads and wove a shield from the darkness. Mellonia led them. She seemed to be made out of leaves and mist and moonlight. She walked in a cloud of bees, and I had to look closely to see that her feet touched the ground. The men gaped at her; Romulus too, and that stupid Celer most of all.

“Is that your Dryad?” he whispered. “She looks like a goddess!”

I gaped too, but less at her beauty than at the dark stains on her face—were they blood?—and at her torn, dishevelled robe.

“It is nothing,” she whispered, passing me. “Part of my plan.” She singled out Romulus. It was not hard for her to recognise him, the brawniest of all of the young men and the only one with a spear.

“Romulus,” she said. “Brother of Remus, I salute you. When the gate is open, I will raise my arm. Enter with your men.”

Before he could question her somewhat cryptic directions, she was gone, climbing the hill toward the gate. The bees swirled high above her; their droning died, their fires flickered out in the darkness.

“What does she mean to do?” Romulus gasped. “Sylvan, she is mad.”

“Or a witch,” cried Celer, staring after her. The men shuddered and whispered among themselves. Something moved in the forest. Shapes inseparable from the trees, not to be seen, scarcely to be heard. Something breathed.

“Striges,” went the whisper. “Vampires.”

“Lemures. She sent to make us follow her!” Now she was midway to the gate. “Guards,” she called out, her voice broken as if with pain, yet strong enough to be heard in the towers that flanked the gate. “Help me. I am hurt.” She fell to her knees. “Help me.” Silence. Then a voice, hesitant, testing. “Who are you?”

“I have come from Veil, Wolves attacked my escort in the forest.”

Creaking, the gate swung inward on its massive stone pivot. A lamp flickered in one of the towers, vanished, reappeared on the ground. Its bearer paused in the gateway. Mellonia rose, staggered, fell again. “Help me.” The guard walked toward her, sword in hand. She raised her arm.

“They will shut the gate in our face,” groaned Romulus. “We can never climb the hill in time!” But his hesitation was brief. Whatever his faults, he was not a coward. With a low cry to his men, he raced up the hill toward the gate. I ran beside him. The hill swelled above us, endless and black. I felt like a swimmer in the trough of a mountainous wave. Would we never make its crest?

Kneeling beside Mellonia, the guard raised his head and saw us. “Shut the gate!” he shouted. He scurried to safety; the gate swung inward, monstrous, implacable.

Then a shadow crossed the moon. I looked up; my ears stood on end. Mellonia’s bees! In a deadly amber stream, they poured from the sky. A shout, a thrashing in the tower. The gate groaned slowly to silence, half open.

I dug my hooves in the turf, kicked aside stones, drove myself furiously forward. Romulus tripped and I heaved him back in the path. Through the half open gate, I saw the movement of men, the flash of a spear, the swirling of bees and bronze. Then we were in the city. The bees withdrew and left us to fight our battle.

A soldier charged me, levelling his spear and grinning like the demons of death in Etruscan tombs. I raised my sling and caught him in the teeth. He stopped, a round black hole where his teeth had been, and stared at me. Blood gushed out of the hole. Like a broken bow, he fell at my feet.

“We have them outnumbered,” Romulus shouted. “They are falling back!” Spears wavered, shields swung aside. The street near the gate lay empty except for ourselves.

“Numitor!”

“Numitor is king!” Romulus began the cry, and the rest of us took it up. “Numitor is king!” Dazed with too easy a victory, we surged toward the heart of town, the temple, the palace, and Remus.

But the street was barred. A row of spears glittered across our path, like the oars of a galley raised from the sea in sparkling unison. A wall of spears to bar our advance, and behind them another, another, and finally a row of archers, grim as Etruscan bronzes. The soldiers we had routed were few. Now we must meet an army. Already our limbs were streaked with blood.

We had spent our wind in the climb and the fight at the gate. We had lost some men—six I counted with a hasty glance in the street. We were tired, outnumbered, and armourless. How could we shake those fixed, immovable spears?

“Where are the bees?” I cried. “Mellonia, where are your bees?”

Then I saw the wolves, thudding through the gate and into the street. Muffled as raindrops, their feet padded on the stones. My nostrils quivered with the scent of fur, grassy and wet from the forest. I felt hot breath and smelled decaying flesh. We crouched against the walls to let them pass. The wolves ignored us. Straight toward the soldiers they went, the levelled spears and the tightening bows. Mellonia and Luperca followed them.

Mellonia spoke so softly that I could not make out her words, or should I say incantation. It is said that the Etruscan princes, when they hunt, bewitch the animals with the piping of flutes and lure them into their nets. Mellonia’s voice, it seemed, had such a power over wolves. Sometimes, it is true, an animal balked or threatened to turn from the pack. But Luperca, surprisingly agile, snapped at his heels and hurried him back into line. The venerable wolf who had suckled my friend in a cave and the aged, ageless Dryad; both were queens.

The line trembled, the spears wavered, like oars ingulfed by a wave. The long taut bows swayed in the archers’ arms. And the wolves attacked. High above the wavering spears, a body spun in the air. Spears shot up to ward off its deadly fall. The line was broken. The archers never fired. Men and animals rolled in the street; armour clattered on stones and weighed men down; animals sprang on their chests and tore at their naked faces. Spears were useless, arrows worse. A few had time to draw daggers. Most used their hands.

Some of the men broke free and began to run. Wolves loped after them. Wounded, in pain, the soldiers reeled against doorways and beat their fists for admittance. The doors remained shut.

The city had wakened. On the rooftops, torches flared, people crouched behind them and stared at the rout of the tyrants who, a few hours ago, had tyrannized Alba Longa. Now a weird procession formed: Mellonia and Luperca with the wolf pack, a cloud of returning bees above their heads: Romulus with his shepherds, raising their staves in token of victory.

But an army’s march is slow, and Remus was still in the palace. Ignoring the wolves, I pushed to Mellonia’s side.

“Come ahead with me,” I urged.

She nodded. “Luperca can watch the wolves.”

In a cloud of bees, we raced through the market of silent stalls, where tomorrow the vintner would hawk his wine and the farmer his gourds and grapes. A terrified soldier reeled from our path. A sheep dog snapped at our heels but, hearing the wolves, ducked in an alleyway.

The palace was almost dark. The temple of Vesta, across the road, lent a fitful light from its eternal hearth. The Etruscan lions growled in brazen impotence. They had no soldiers to guard them. The gate was unbarred. We entered the central corridor and, following a light, turned aside into a large hall.

“Amulius’s audience room,” Mellonia said. She pointed to a curule chair of gold and ivory raised on a stone platform. A tall candelabrum, hung with lamps, cast mournful flickerings on the tapestry behind the throne. Seeing that the room was empty, I turned to continue our search. Mellonia stopped me.

“We will lose minutes. Let my bees find him.” She raised her arms and inscribed in the air a series of circles and lines, like the loopings of bees when they tell the location of flowers. The bees understood and swarmed from the room.

We looked at each other. Where was the powerful sorceress who had opened the gate of a city to admit the forest? Like a swallow after a storm, beaten and bruised, she sank to the floor. I motioned her to sit in the chair.

“No,” she said. “Amulius sat there.” She stared at the plum-coloured hangings behind the chair. “Even his dye is false. Not Tyrian purple, the colour of kings, but the dye of trumpet sheik.”

I sat beside her and rested her in my arms. “It will be all right,” I said. “Soon we will have him back again.”

“Now perhaps. But later? He will always be hurt, always be threatened.”

“We will look after him.”

“We are vulnerable too. Even now I am weary for my tall bark walls. I cannot leave them for long.”

Abruptly the bees returned, circling in the doorway to catch our attention. In the dark corridor, we lost sight of them, but their droning guided us through several turnings and down a stairway redolent of rocks and moisture. We stepped into a cellar lit by a single torch, smoky and pungent with resin. The room opened through a barred door into a small cell. The door swung wide on its pivot and Amulius’s body, clutching a dagger, hunched like a bloated toad across the sill. Remus stood in the cell beyond the body.

“He came to get me,” he said, dazed. “And you had to kill him?”

“No. They did.” He pointed to the bees which had lit on the pallet in his cell. I knelt beside the body and saw the red welts, a hundred or more, and the closed swollen eyes.

“He unbolted the door and said that my friends were coming; he was going to make me his hostage. I stepped backward. He drew his dagger, and they hit him from the back like a hundred hundred slingshots. He scraped at his eyes, groaned, and fell to the floor. Then you came.”

“The bees love you,” Mellom’a said proudly. “Some may have come from your own hive. They sensed your danger.”

He buried his face in the fall of her hair and she held him with exquisite tenderness. For the first time, I loved him loving her. Two children they seemed, warm in each other’s arms and forgetful that love, however strong, is also brief, because it is bound by the frailties of the flesh. I wanted to enfold them in the magic circle of my own love and blunt, like a ring of shields, all menacing arrows. But I was a Faun, briefer than men.

At last she drew apart from him. “How pale you have grown, shut up in the palace. In a single day, you wilt like a lotus.”

“Come,” I said. “We must find Romulus. He is much concerned.” We climbed the stairs.

The palace thundered with men. Their shadows bristling on tapestried walls, they stalked through the rooms with torches and gasped at treasures which, to the eyes of a shepherd (and mine as well), rivalled the riches of Carthage. A fan made of peacock feathers. Pearls as big as acorns. A mirror whose handle was the neck of a graceful swan! Guards and servants were nowhere in evidence. They must have fled with our arrival, and the palace lay temptingly accessible. The shepherds seemed to forget that they had come to liberate and not to loot.

We found Romulus in Amulius’s audience room, and I must say for him that he was not himself looting, but, torch in hand, trying to organize a search for Remus. He was having trouble; his men were more concerned with found treasures than with lost brothers. When he saw us, he whooped like a Gaul on the warpath. Throwing his torch to me, he lifted his twin from the floor and hugged him with brotherly ardour. Often he seemed the crudest of warriors, a brash young wolf who, in spite of his tender years, had somehow missed youthfulness. But with Remus he was youthful as well as young, and only with Remus could I like him.

“We have taken the city,” he cried, while I steadied his torch and shielded my eyes from its sputtering resin. “Brother, Alba Longa is ours!”

“And Numitor’s,” Remus reminded us. “Has anyone seen the king?”

In a room at the back of the palace, we found him on a couch, his white beard overflowing a crimson coverlet. He had slept through the fall of the city, and he thought himself still asleep when Remus explained what had happened and said, “This is your grandson, Romulus.”

At last the sleep had cleared from his eyes. He held out his arms to Romulus, though clearly he was ill at ease with this great muscular grandson, smelling of wolves and blood, who came to him from the forest.

Romulus and Remus supported the king between them and, with Mellonia and me, headed for the gate. Along the way, in corridors and sleeping chambers, Romulus gathered his men, and a sizable procession emerged from the palace. Beyond the Etruscan lions, twenty or more shepherds lounged or sat in the street, placed there by Romulus and awaiting his signal to enter the palace. They stared at Numitor with mild curiosity.

On the roofs of the houses, the townspeople waited too. But Mellonia’s wolves still prowled the streets, and the timorous Alba Longans, though visibly moved at the presence of Numitor, were not yet ready to risk descent.

Romulus stepped forward with Numitor and raised the aged king’s arm into the air. “People of Alba Longa, your king is restored to you!”

With a slight motion, Numitor released himself from Romulus’s support and stood alone. He straightened his bowed shoulders and lifted his weathered face. Forgetting their timidity, the people cheered as if they themselves had restored him to his throne. The shepherds were silent; it was not Numitor they wanted but Romulus. Had they fought to restore an old man to a throne he had lost before they were born? I watched Romulus’s face and saw his impatience for Numitor to address the people and abdicate in favour of his grandsons. The Wolf had done the honourable thing; he had proclaimed his grandfather king. The next move was Numitor’s.

Meanwhile, Mellonia had left us. I saw her in the street with Luperca, gathering her wolves and bees as a shepherd gathers sheep. Remus saw her too, but she shook her head: he was not to follow.

“She is tired,” I whispered. “She wants her tree.”

“People of Alba Longa,” Numitor was saying in a clear, resonant voice. “Amulius is dead. My grandsons have come back to me. A staff in my old age, they will help me to live out my years—to rule wisely if only for a little while. As king of Alba Longa, I hereby declare an amnesty to all who supported Amulius. I will end my reign with peace, even as I began it. The years between are forgotten.” He paused, I should say posed, and lifted his arms with the studied flourish of a mime. A king, it seemed, even in exile, never forgot the gestures of royalty.

The applause was vehement.

“Long live Numitor!”

“King of Alba Longa!”

The people clambered from the rooftops and thrust their way through Romulus’s men to the feet of their restored king. Remus tightened his hand on my shoulder. Romulus paled. A mutter, lost in the general cheering, ran among the shepherds. We had rescued Remus; for me, that was enough. But the shepherds wanted more, and rightly, while Romulus and Remus had dreamed of a throne since childhood.

At last the old man’s strength was failing. “Help me to bed, will you, my grandsons? Tell your men the largess of the palace is theirs. The wines, the fruits, the venisons. Tomorrow I will rule—with your help. Now I will sleep.”

When Numitor slept and Romulus’s men roamed the palace, a sausage in one hand, a cluster of grapes in the other, Romulus, Remus, and I talked in the garden. The jonquils, beaten gold goblets by day, had paled with the moon into silver and seemed to be spilling moonlight into the pool.

For once, Celer was absent from our council. Romulus assured us that he had not been wounded, but no one had seen him since Numitor addressed his people.

“Chasing some wench,” I muttered.

Our conversation turned to Numitor.

“Did you see his excitement?” Remus asked. “He will reign for years!”

“Then we will build our own city,” Romulus announced. “Even if we reign with Numitor, we can’t have our way in Alba Longa. What changes can we make while an old man holds the throne? His people will not accept changes as long as he lives. They have had a tyrant; now they want a venerable figurehead. Let them have what they want. We will build our city on the Palatine. Already we have a circle of huts. Next, add a wall, then a temple to Mars, then a place of government—”

“And a shrine to our mother,” said Remus, kindling to the plan. “A temple to Rumina and a park for the birds and animals. I think, though, Romulus, that the Palatine is not the best hill. True, there are huts already. But some of the owners are thieves and cutthroats, as you well know. Let them keep their huts, but in our new city there will not be room for such men. Why not build on the Aventine? It is almost as high, and closer to the forest, to Mellonia and her friends, who won us our victory.”

“Ask Father Mars who won our victory,” Romulus snapped. “Mellonia helped, it is true. But my shepherds, Remus, took the city. The men you call thieves and cutthroats.”

“Men like Celer make good warriors,” Remus granted. “But not good citizens. I mean no disrespect to the man. But Romulus, can you see him worshipping in a temple or sitting in a senate house? Give him a woman and herds, but leave him on the Palatine. Build our city on the Aventine!”

“Ask for a sign from heaven,” I interrupted. The gods, I thought, should favour Remus, who worshipped all of them and not the war god only. “Consult a sheep’s liver, as the Etruscan augurs do, or watch for birds of good omen.”

“Very well,” said Romulus reluctantly. “We shall ask for a sign. Early one morning—the best time for omens—we shall climb our respective bills and watch the sky for vultures, the luckiest of birds. Whoever sees the most shall choose his hill for our city. Now, my brother, let us sleep before we quarrel.”

The palace abounded in couches; I chose one with feet like an eagle’s and fell asleep, dreaming of vultures.

V

With less reluctance than the brothers anticipated, Numitor received their declaration that they wished to build a city on the Tiber. Doubtless realizing that such a city would stand as a safeguard between Alba Longa and the Etruscans—now friendly, but expanding—Numitor had promised to send workmen and materials, and he had already purchased the herds of Tullius and given them to the twins who had long been their shepherds.

But first a site must be chosen. At sunrise three days after the capture of Alba Longa, Remus and I stood atop the Aventine, watching for vultures. The day had been chosen because it was sacred to the Pales, deities of shepherds who had given their name to the Palatine. Before sunrise, Remus had fumigated his herds with sulphur to drive out evil spirits and scattered the stalk with arbute boughs, beloved by the goats, and wreaths of myrtle and laurel. Later the shepherds on the Palatine would leap through bonfires and, facing the east, pray to the Pales. A lucky day, one would think, for omens. But for whom?

“I wonder why the gods favour vultures,” I said, wrinkling my nose as I pictured the birds at a feast. “Such an ugly creature.”

Remus laughed. “Ugly, yes. But helpful. They rid the forest of carcasses. And they never kill.”

“Which way will they come?”

“They may not come at all. They are very rare in this country. Mellonia says to watch the river, where the animals go to drink and die.”

He had visited her daily since the fall of Alba Longa. Her name had grown pleasant even to my long ears. Instead of his usual loin cloth, he was wearing a tunic, almost sleeveless and falling just below the thighs, which the Dryad had woven from rushes and leaves. Soon it would wilt, but Mellonia had promised him a leaf-coloured garment of wool to take its place. “Now you are part of my tree,” she had said. “Green leaves, green tunic. You carry the forest with you.”

“But how will Romulus know if we really see the number we say?”

“He will take our word,” said Remus, surprised.

“And you will take his?”

“Of course.”

“It means a lot to him to build on the Palatine.”

“I know. But he would never lie to us.”

“Remus. Have you ever thought of building your own city—without Romulus. It won’t be easy to rule with him. If you win your hill, it will be even harder. And men like Celer, how will you keep them out? Or make them behave if they enter?”

“I will build with Romulus or not at all. He is my brother. Do you realize, Sylvan, I shared the same womb with him? We have never been apart.”

“You love him deeply, don’t you?”

“He is one of three. You, Romulus, Mellonia. I love Mellonia as someone beyond me, a goddess or a queen. Green leaves in the uppermost branches of a tree. I love her with awe and a little sadness. I love you, Sylvan, as someone close and warm. A fire on a cold night. Barley loaves baking on the hearth. You never judge me. With you I am most myself. And Romulus? The stone pillars of a temple. The bronze of a shield. Hard things, yes. But strong and needed.”

“You are very different from Romulus. He is not always a shield. He is”—I chose my words carefully, not wishing to offend him—“rash in some ways.”

“I know,” he said sadly. “And I try to temper his rashness. In return, he gives me courage.”

“Courage, Remus? You have strength enough of your own. I never saw you hesitate when you knew what was right.”

“You can’t see my heart. It leaps like a grasshopper sometimes! Romulus, though, is fearless.”

Then you are the braver, I thought. You conquer fear, while Romulus’s courage is thoughtless, instinctive. But I said nothing; he would only make light of himself.

And then we saw them: High above the orange turbulence of the Tiber, six vultures glided to the north. Clumsy birds, ugly—I had not changed my mind—but oh, how welcome.

“Remus, you have won!” I cried. “Even if Romulus sees them, we saw them first. They are flying toward and not away from him.”

We raced down the hill and scrambled up the Palatine, a few hundred yards to the north.

“Slow down, Woodpecker,” I shouted. “Your tunic has given you wings.”

He laughed and tore me a leaf from his waist. “Catch my feathers and fly!”

In a flurry of leaves and dust, we burst through the circle of huts and found Romulus, waiting with a small band of men, on the highest part of the hill.

“Six of them,” Remus cried. “Romulus, we saw six at once!”

Romulus looked surprised, but he spoke blandly. “So did we. Just before you came.” His face at last showed the start of a beard, a small black V below his chin. The ambitious boy, impatient but waiting, had hardened into a man who, no less ambitious, had ceased to wait.

“It must have been the same six. They were flying this way.”

“No matter. They still count.”

“Then we are tied.”

“No,” put in Celer. “We have seen twelve.” He twisted his mouth to the caricature of a smile, but his flat eyes were cold.

“Twelve? There have never been so many near these hills!”

Romulus started to speak, but Celer continued. “Today there were. The six that just passed, and before them, six more. Even larger—as big as eagles. They circled twice to be sure we saw them. Sent by the gods, eh, Romulus?”

“Is it true?” Remus asked his brother.

Romulus glowered. “Of course it is true. Celer has told you. And the city is mine to build where I choose.”

Remus paled and spoke with an effort. “Build it then.” It must have been clear to him that Celer had lied and that Romulus, though hesitant at first, had repeated the lie. “Sylvan,” Remus said to me, “I am going to the cave.”

We started down the hill. Behind us Romulus was giving orders. “Find me a bull and a heifer. We will plough the boundaries of our new city. But first we will celebrate the feast of the Pales. Celer, break out the wine. And the rest of you, build us some bonfires.”

The men whooped approval and scuffled about their work. After the feast, Romulus would yoke the animals to a bronze-tipped plough and drive them around the base of the hill where he meant to build his walls, leaving a space for,the gate. The area enclosed by the plough would be fortunate ground. Whoever crossed the furrow instead of entering by the designated gate would shatter the luck of the builders and allow the invasion of hostile spirits.

Remus was silent until we reached the cave. He threw himself on his pallet and Luperca, as if she sensed his trouble, crept beside him.

“You can build your own city,” I suggested.

“No, I will help Romulus. But first I must understand him.”

“I know how you feel. Your hill was the best.”

He looked up at me. “The hill is not important. Romulus lied. That is important. He is building his city on a lie and the men know.”

“No one objected. They like the Palatine.”

“That is the harm. They knew and said nothing,”

I left him alone all morning and waited under the fig tree. Once I looked in the cave. His eyes were open, but he did not appear to see me, nor to hear the merriment on top of the hill.

“Rumina,” I said, more in conversation than in prayer. “You are the goddess of the suckling herds. But your tree stands right at our door. Neglect the lambs for awhile and help my friend.”

In the afternoon, I climbed the fig tree and captured some honey in a round clay bowl. The bees, sensing perhaps for whom it was meant (or instructed by Rumina herself), made no objection. In the cave I knelt beside Remus.

“Eat it,” I said crossly. “You have brooded enough.”

He smiled, sat up, and took the bowl from my hands. He tilted it to his lips as if it were milk, for he relished the honey from his own bees, and drained the bowl.

“Now,” he said, “I will help Romulus with his walls. But first I want to see Mellonia.”

“I will wait for you here.”

“No, come with me.”

“You must have things to say in private. Who wants a Faun’s big ears at such a time?”

“She has grown to love you. Besides—” His smile faded. “I want you with me. It is something I feel—a loneliness, a fear—I am not sure what. I want you with me.

In the woods beyond the Aventine, we encountered Celer and three of his friends, leaning on each other for support and thrashing through the undergrowth with such a racket that turquoise lizards flew in all directions. When they saw us they stopped, and Celer looked momentarily sobered. He forced a grin.

“Big Ears and Woodpecker,” he said. “You missed our feast. The gods will be hurt.”

“They are hurt already,” said Remus, without slowing. “But not by Sylvan and me.” The revellers made for the Palatine with surprising directness.

Suddenly I remembered that Celer had asked me the location of Mellonia’s tree. I had not told him, but the night of the wolves he had vanished from Alba Longa. Had he followed her home, I wondered, and then today, emboldened with wine and friends, returned to invade her tree?

“Remus,” I said. “Do you think he has found her tree?”

We began to run.

The branches of Mellonia’s oak tree sprawled like a city which has grown without planning, its temples and archways mingled in artless beauty. From a distance, there was nothing to hint an invasion.

We approached the trunk.

“That lowermost branch,” said Remus tensely. “I think it is starting to wilt.”

“Too little sun,” I said, but without conviction.

He began to call. “Mellonia!”

“Mellonia!”

I searched the ground for traces of a fire or other means of assault, but the trunk was untouched. Around the altar, however, there were definite signs of Celer and his friends—jonquils in crushed profusion, rocks overturned, and, yes, they had entered the tunnel; it reeked of their wine.

Mellonia’s room lay hushed and broken. We found her beside the couch, a white small body blackened with bruises and cradled, incongruously, in a bed of narcissus petals. Remus lifted her on to the couch and smoothed her tangled green hair, in which petals had caught as if to take root in its venture. She opened her eyes.

“Little bird,” she said. “Who will look after you?” That was all.

He covered her body with petals and kissed her on the mouth which could no longer feel bruises. “I had never meant to outlive you,” he said.

I turned my head but I heard his tears. Or was it the column of bees that swayed through the open window, the forest grieving for its queen, and for the king who had loved her? The shepherds say that bees speak only what is in our hearts—our grief, our joy, not theirs. That their murmur is always the same, and it is we who darken or lighten it to our mood. Perhaps, then, I heard my own tears.

We left her in the tree with the bees. “She would not want to be moved,” Remus said. “The oak is dying. They will go to earth together.”

We stared at the tree and already, it seemed, the wilt was stealing upward to the green and sunny towers.

“Did you hear what she said?” he asked.

I pressed his hand. “Yes. Yes, little bird.”

When we reached the Palatine, Romulus had driven his team around the foot of the hill. For one short space, the gate, he had left the earth unbroken. Stripped completely in the hot April sun, he leaned on the plough, his massive thighs diamonded with sweat. Drops rolled down his beard. He looked very tired—and very royal.

With mattocks and shovels, the shepherds were setting to work inside the circle. Romulus had captured the numen or magic of the gods. Now they must build strong walls and enclose the magic securely. They sang as they dug, Celer and his friends the loudest:

Romulus, son of the spear god Mars,

Nursed by the long grey wolf …

Celer looked up from his work and saw us. He dropped his shovel.

Pausing outside the circle, Remus cried: “Romulus, your walls are useless, the luck is gone. A murderer stands inside!” He jumped the furrow. The shepherds stared at him in horror. I myself, midway to the gate, gasped at his daring. He sprang at Celer. Celer recovered his shovel but Remus parried, wrestled it from his hands, and felled him with a blow to his shoulder.

Romulus snatched a shovel from the shepherd nearest him. “Idiot!” he shouted to Remus. “It is you who have broken Our luck. Fight me; not Celer.”

“Keep away from me,” Remus warned. But he made no move to defend himself from Romulus; he was waiting for Celer, dazed but conscious, to regain his feet.

Romulus struck him with the back of his shovel. I saw Remus’s eyes. Surprise, that was all. Not fear, not anger. Then he fell. In the forest, once, I heard a she-wolf cry when a shepherd killed her cubs. All pain, all yearning. A cry from the vital organs of her body, as if their red swift pulsing could wrench her cubs from death. So Romulus cried and knelt beside his brother. In Remus’s hair, the stains were of earth, not blood; the umber soil mingling with the sunflowers. But the stalk was broken.

I took Remus’s shovel. “Stand up,” I said to Romulus. “I am going to kill you.”

He looked up at me through tears. “Sylvan, I wish you would.”

I think it was Remus who held my hand. Born of one womb, he had said. Romulus, his brother, his pillar and shield of bronze. Instead of killing him, I knelt at his side.

Troubled and respectful, the shepherds surrounded us, and Faustulus laid his hand on Romulus’s neck.

“My son, you meant him no harm. Let me prepare his body for burial.”

Romulus shook his head. “I must make my peace with him first.”

“And you, Sylvan?”

“I will stay with Remus.”

The men climbed the hill. The sunlight thinned and shadows came to watch with us. Somewhere a cow lowed with quiet urgency. It is late, I thought. She is waiting for Remus to milk her.

“He must have a place for the night,” I said. “He never liked the dark.”

Romulus stirred. I think he had forgotten me. “The cave?”

“No. He would be alone there. We shall take him to Mellonia’s tree. Celer killed her, he and his friends.”

He looked at me with stunned comprehension. “Then that was why Remus attacked him. They will die for this, Sylvan.”

I kindled a torch in the cave with pieces of flint and returned to Romulus. Luperca followed me. Romulus stroked her head.

“Old mother,” he said, “you loved him too.” He lifted his brother and held him lightly, with Remus’s hair against his cheek. “His hair smells of clover.”

“I know.”

We walked slowly—Luperca was very weak—and came at last to the tree. Trembling but quiet, she waited outside the cave.

We placed him on the couch beside Mellonia. I pressed my cheek to the shoulder where, as a child, I had clung to be warmed and loved. I crossed his arms as if I were folding wings.

“Little bird,” I said. “You reproached Mellonia because you had to outlive her. But I am the one you punished. All of your life was loving—except for this. Where is your city, my friend?”

“In me,” Romulus answered.

I turned on him angrily. “In you?” Then I was sorry. Tears ran out of his eyes. He made no effort to hide them. I thought that he was going to fall and held out my hand. He grasped it and steadied himself.

“You think I want walls and armies,” he said, “and nothing more? At first I did. This morning I did, when I lied about the birds. But then I had Remus; it seemed I would always have him. Whatever I did, he would love me. He was all I needed of gentleness. Now he is gone—unless I capture him in my city. A great city, Sylvan. Men will call her Rome after me, and her legions will conquer the world—Carthage and Sardis, Karnak, Sidon, and Babylon. But her highways will carry laws as well,as armies, learning as well as conquest. Sylvan, don’t you see? Remus will live in us and the city we build. Come back with me, Little Faun!”

Where is the bird of fire? In the tall green flame of the cypress, I see his shadow, flickering with the swallows. In the city that crowds the Palatine, where Fauns walk with men and wolves are fed in the temples, I hear the rush of his wings. But that is his shadow and sound. The bird himself is gone. Always his wings beat just beyond my hands, and the wind possesses his cry. Where is the bird of fire? Look up, he burns in the sky, with Saturn and the Golden Age. I will go to find him.

THE DRAGON MASTERS

Jack Vance

1

THE APARTMENTS of Joaz Banbeck, carved deep from the heart of a limestone crag, consisted of five principal chambers, on five different levels. At the top were the reliquarium and a formal council chamber: the first a room of somber magnificence housing the various archives, trophies and mementos of the Banbecks; the second a long narrow hall, with dark wainscoting chest-high and a white plaster vault above, extending the entire width of the crag, so that balconies overlooked Banbeck Vale at one end and Kergan’s Way at the other.

Below were Joaz Banbeck’s private quarters: a parlor and bedchamber, then next his study and finally, at the bottom, a workroom where Joaz permitted none but himself.

Entry to the apartments was through the study, a large L-shaped room with an elaborate groined ceiling, from which depended four garnet-encrusted chandeliers. These were now dark; into the room came only a watery gray light from four honed glass plates on which, in the manner of a camera obscura, were focused views across Banbeck Vale. The walls were paneled with lignified reed; a rug patterned in angles, squares and circles of maroon, brown and black covered the floor.

In the middle of the study stood a naked man, his only covering the long fine brown hair which flowed down his back, the golden torc which clasped his neck. His features were sharp and angular, his body thin; he appeared to be listening, or perhaps meditating. Occasionally he glanced at a yellow marble globe on a nearby shelf, whereupon his lips would move, as if he were committing to memory some phrase or sequence of ideas.

At the far end of the study a heavy door eased open. A flower-faced young woman peered through, her expression mischievous, arch. At the sight of the naked man, she clapped her hands to her mouth, stifling a gasp. The naked man turned, but the heavy door had already swung shut.

For a moment he stood deep in frowning reflection, then slowly went to the wall on the inside leg of the L. He swung out a section of the bookcase, passed through the opening, and behind him the bookcase thudded shut. Descending a spiral staircase he came out into a chamber rough-hewn from the rock: Joaz Banbeck’s private workroom. A bench supported tools, metal shapes and fragments, a bank of electromotive cells, oddments of circuitry: the current objects of Joaz Banbeck’s curiosity.

The naked man glanced at the bench, picked up one of the devices, inspected it with something like condescension, though his gaze was as clear and wondering as that of a child. Muffled voices from the study penetrated to the workroom. The naked man raised his head to listen, then stooped under the bench. He lifted a block of stone, slipped through the gap into a dark void. Replacing the stone, he took up a luminous wand, and set off down a narrow tunnel, which presently dipped to join a natural cavern. At irregular intervals luminous tubes exuded a wan light, barely enough to pierce the murk. The naked man jogged forward swiftly, the silken hair flowing like a nimbus behind him.

Back in the study the minstrel-maiden Phade and an elderly seneschal were at odds. “Indeed I saw him!” Phade insisted. “With these two eyes of mine, one of the sacerdotes, standing thus and so, as I have described.” She tugged angrily at his elbow. “Do you think me bereft of my wits, or hysterical?”

Rife, the seneschal, shrugged, committing himself neither one way nor the other. “I do not see him now.” He climbed the staircase, peered into the sleeping parlor. “Empty. The doors above are bolted.” He peered owlishly at Phade. “And I sat at my post in the entry.”

“You sat sleeping. Even when I came past you snored!”

“You are mistaken; I did but cough.”

“With your eyes closed, your head lolling back?”

Rife shrugged once more. “Asleep or awake, it is all the same. Admitting that the creature gained access, how did he leave? I was wakeful after you summoned me, as you must agree.”

“Then remain on guard, while I find Joaz Banbeck.” Phade ran down the passage which presently joined Bird Walk, so called for the series of fabulous birds of lapis, gold, cinnabar, malachite and marcasite inlaid into the marble. Through an arcade of green and gray jade in spiral columns she passed out into Kergan’s Way, a natural defile which formed the main thoroughfare of Banbeck Village. Reaching the portal, she summoned a pair of lads from the fields. “Run to the brooder, find Joaz Banbeck! Hasten, bring him here; I must speak with him.”

The boys ran off toward a low cylinder of black brick a mile to the north.

Phade waited. With the sun Skene at its nooning, the air was warm; the fields of vetch, bellegarde, spharganum, gave off a pleasant odor. Phade went to lean against a fence. Now she began to wonder about the urgency of her news, even its basic reality. “No!” she told herself fiercely. “I saw! I saw!”

At either side tall white cliffs rose to Banbeck Verge, with mountains and crags beyond, and spanning all the dark sky flecked with feathers of cirrus. Skene glittered dazzling bright, a minuscule flake of brilliance.

Phade sighed, half-convinced of her own mistake. Once more, less vehemently, she reassured herself. Never before had she seen a sacerdote; why should she imagine one now?

The boys, reaching the brooder, had disappeared into the dust of the exercise pens. Scales gleamed and winked; grooms, dragon masters, armorers in black leather moved about their work. After a moment Joaz Banbeck came into view. He mounted a tall thin-legged Spider, urged it to the full extent of its head-jerking lope, pounded down the track toward Banbeck Village.

Phade’s uncertainty grew. Might Joaz become exasperated? Would he dismiss her news with an unbelieving stare? Uneasily she watched his approach. Coming to Banbeck Vale only a month before she still felt unsure of her status. Her preceptors had trained her diligently in the barren little valley to the south where she had been born, but the disparity between teaching and practical reality at times bewildered her. She had learned that all men obeyed a small and identical group of behaviors; Joaz Banbeck, however, observed no such limits, and Phade found him completely unpredictable. She knew him to be a relatively young man, though his appearance provided no guide to his age. He had a pale austere face in which gray eyes shone like crystals, a long thin mouth which suggested flexibility, yet never curved far from a straight line. He moved languidly; his voice carried no vehemence; he made no pretense of skill with either saber or pistol. He seemed deliberately to shun any gesture which might win the admiration or affection of his subjects. Phade originally had thought him cold, but presently changed her mind. He was, so she decided, a man bored and lonely, with a quiet humor which at times seemed rather grim. But he treated her without discourtesy, and Phade, testing him with all her hundred and one coquetries, not infrequently thought to detect a spark of response.

Joaz Banbeck dismounted from the Spider, ordered it back to its quarters. Phade came diffidently forward, and Joaz turned her a quizzical look. “What requires so urgent a summons? Have you remembered the nineteenth location?”

Phade flushed in confusion. Artlessly she had described the painstaking rigors of her training; Joaz now referred to an item in one of the classifications which had slipped her mind.

Phade spoke rapidly, excited once more. “I opened the door into your study, softly, gently. And what did I see? A sacerdote, naked in his hair! He did not hear me. I shut the door, I ran to fetch Rife. When we returned— the chamber was empty!”

Joaz’s eyebrows contracted a trifle; he looked up the valley. “Odd.” After a moment he asked, “You are sure that he saw nothing of you?”

“No. I think not. Yet, when I returned with stupid old Rife he had disappeared! Is it true that they know magic?”

“As to that, I cannot say,” replied Joaz. They returned up Kergan’s Way, traversed tunnels and rock-walled corridors, finally came to the entry chamber. Rife once more dozed at his desk. Joaz signaled Phade back, and going quietly forward, thrust aside the door to his study. He glanced here and there, nostrils twitching. The room was empty. He climbed the stairs, investigated the sleeping parlor, returned to the study. Unless magic were indeed involved, the sacerdote had provided himself a secret entrance. With this thought in mind, he swung back the bookcase door, descended to the workshop, and again tested the air for the sour-sweet odor of the sacerdotes. A trace? Possibly.

Joaz examined the room inch by inch, peering from every angle. At last, along the wall below the bench, he discovered a barely perceptible crack, marking out an oblong.

Joaz nodded with dour satisfaction. He rose to his feet, returned to his study. He considered his shelves. What was here to interest a sacerdote? Books, folios, pamphlets? Had they even mastered the art of reading? When next I meet a sacerdote I must inquire, thought Joaz vaguely; at least he will tell me the truth. On second thought, he knew the question to be ludicrous; the sacerdote, for all their nakedness, were by no means barbarians, and in fact had provided him his four vision-panes— a feat of no small skill.

He inspected the yellowed marble glove which he considered his most valued possession— a representation of mythical Eden. Apparently it had not been disturbed. Another shelf displayed models of the Banbeck dragons— the rustred Termagant; the Long-horned Murderer and its cousin the Striding Murderer; the Blue Horror; the Fiend, low to the ground, immensely strong, tail tipped with a steel barbel; the ponderous Jugger, skull-cap polished and white as an egg.

A little apart stood the progenitor of the entire group— a pearl-pallid creature upright on two legs, with two versatile central members, a pair of multi-articulated brachs at the neck. Beautifully detailed though these models might be, why should they pique the curiosity of a sacerdote? No reason whatever, when the originals could be studied daily without hindrance.

What of the workshop, then? Joaz rubbed his long pale chin. He had no illusions about the value of his work. Idle tinkering, no more. Joaz put aside conjecture. Most likely the sacerdote had come upon no specific mission, the visit perhaps being part of a continued inspection. But why?

A pounding at the door: old Rife’s irreverent fist. Joaz opened to him.

“Joaz Banbeck, a notice from Ervis Carcolo of Happy Valley. He wishes to confer with you, and at this moment awaits your response on Banbeck Verge.”

“Very well,” said Joaz. “I will confer with Ervis Carcolo.”

“Here? Or on Banbeck Verge?”

“On the Verge, in half an hour.”

2

TEN MILES from Banbeck Vale, across a wind-scoured wilderness of ridges, crags, spines of stone, amazing crevasses, barren fells and fields of tumbled boulders lay Happy Valley. As wide as Banbeck Vale but only half as long and half as deep, its bed of wind-deposited soil was only half as thick and correspondingly less productive.

The chief councilor of Happy Valley was Ervis Carcolo, a thick-bodied, short-legged man with a vehement face, a heavy mouth, a disposition by turns jocose and wrathful. Unlike Joaz Banbeck, Carcolo enjoyed nothing more than his visits to the dragon barracks, where he treated dragon masters, grooms and dragons alike to a spate of bawled criticism, exhortation, invective.

Ervis Carcolo was an energetic man, intent upon restoring Happy Valley to the ascendancy it had enjoyed some twelve generations before. During these harsh times, before the advent of the dragons, men fought their own battles, and the men of Happy Valley had been notably daring, deft and ruthless. Banbeck Vale, the Great Northern Rift, Clewhaven, Sadro Valley, and Phosphor Gulch all acknowledged the authority of the Carcolos.

Then down from space came a ship of the Basics, or grephs, as they were known at that time. The ship killed or took prisoner the entire population of Clewhaven; attempted as much in the Great Northern Rift, but only partially succeeded; then bombarded the remaining settlements with explosive pellets. When the survivors crept back to their devastated valleys, the dominance of Happy Valley was a fiction. A generation later, during the Age of Wet Iron, even the fiction collapsed. In a climactic battle Goss Carcolo was captured by Kergan Banbeck and forced to emasculate himself with his own knife.

Five years of peace elapsed, and then the Basics returned. After depopulating Sadro Valley, the great black ship landed in Banbeck Vale, but the inhabitants had taken warning and had fled into the mountains. Toward nightfall twenty-three of the Basics sallied forth behind their precisely trained warriors. There were several platoons of Heavy Troops, a squad of Weaponeers— these hardly distinguishable from the men of Aerlith— and a squad of Trackers. These later were emphatically different. The sunset storm broke over the Vale, rendering the fliers from the ship useless, which allowed Kergan Banbeck to perform the amazing feat which made his name a legend on Aerlith. Rather than joining the terrified flight of his people to the High Jambles, he assembled sixty warriors, shamed them to courage with jeers and taunts.

Leaping from ambush they hacked to pieces one platoon of the Heavy Troops, routed the others, captured the twenty-three Basics almost before they realized that anything was amiss. The Weaponeers stood back frantic with frustration, unable to use their weapons for fear of destroying their masters. The Heavy Troopers blundered forward to attack, halting only when Kergan Banbeck would be the first to die. Confused, the Heavy Troopers drew back; Kergan Banbeck, his men and the twenty-three captives escaped into the darkness.

The long Aerlith night passed; the dawn storm swept out of the east, thundered overhead, retreated majestically into the west; Skene rose like a blazing stom. Three men emerged from the Basic ship— a Weaponeer and a pair of Trackers. They climbed the cliffs to Banbeck Verge, while above flitted a small Basic flier, no more than a buoyant platform, diving and veering in the wind like a poorly-balanced kite. The three men trudged south toward the High Jambles, a region of chaotic shadows and lights, splintered rock and fallen crags, boulders heaped on boulders. It was the traditional refuge of hunted men.

Halting in front of the Jambles the Weaponeer called out for Kergan Banbeck, asking him to parley.

Kergan Banbeck came forth, and now ensued the strangest colloquy in the history of Aerlith. The Weaponeer spoke the language of men with difficulty, his lips, tongue and glottal passages more adapted to the language of the Basics.

“You are restraining twenty-three of our Reverend. It is necessary that you usher them forth, in all humility.” He spoke soberly, with an air of gentle melancholy, neither asserting commanding, nor urging. As his linguistic habits had been shaped to Basic patterns, so with his mental processes.

Kergan Banbeck, a tall spare man with varnished black eyebrows, black hair shaped and varnished into a crest of five tall spikes, gave a bark of humorless laughter. “What of the Aerlith folk killed? What of the folk seized aboard your ship?”

The Weaponeer bent forward earnestly, himself an impressive man with a noble aquiline head. He was hairless except for small rolls of wispy yellow fleece. His skin shone as if burnished; his ears, where he differed most noticeably from the unadapted men of Aerlith, were small fragile flaps.

He wore a simple garment of dark blue and white, carried no weapons save a small multi-purpose ejector. With complete poise and quiet reasonableness he responded to Kergan Banbeck’s questions. “The Aerlith folk who have been killed are dead. Those aboard the ship will be merged into the under-stratum, where the infusion of fresh outside blood is of value.”

Kergan Banbeck inspected the Weaponeer with contemptuous deliberation. In some respects, thought Kergan Banbeck, this modified and carefully inbred man resembled the sacerdotes of his own planet, notably in the clear fair skin, the strongly modeled features, the long legs and arms. Perhaps telepathy was at work, or perhaps a trace of the characteristic sour-sweet odor had been carried to him. Turning his head he noticed a sacerdote standing among the rocks not fifty feet away— a man naked except for his golden torc and long brown hair blowing behind him like a pennant. By the ancient etiquette, Kergan Banbeck looked through him, pretended that he had no existence. The Weaponeer after a swift glance did likewise.

“I demand that you release the folk of Aerlith from your ship,” said Kergan Banbeck in a flat voice.

The Weaponeer smilingly shook his head, bent his best efforts to the task of making himself intelligible. “These persons are not under discussion; their— ” he paused, seeking words, “— their destiny is … parceled, quantum-type, ordained. Established. Nothing can be said more.”

Kergan Banbeck’s smile became a cynical grimace. He stood aloof and silent while the Weaponeer croaked on. The sacerdote came slowly forward, a few steps at a time. “You will understand,” said the Weaponeer, “that a pattern for events exists. It is the function of such as myself to shape events so that they will fit the pattern.” He bent, with a graceful sweep of arm seized a small jagged pebble. “Just as I can grind this bit of rock to fit a round aperture.”

Kergan Banbeck reached forward, took the pebble, tossed it high over the tumbled boulders. “That bit of rock you shall never shape to fit a round hole.”

The Weaponeer shook his head in mild deprecation. “There is always more rock.”

“And there are always more holes,” declared Kergan Banbeck.

“To business then,” said the Weaponeer. “I propose to shape this situation to its correct arrangement.”

“What do you offer in exchange for the twenty-three grephs?”

The Weaponeer gave his shoulder an uneasy shake. The ideas of this man were as wild, barbaric and arbitrary as the varnished spikes of his hairdress. “If you desire I will give you instruction and advice, so that— “

Kergan Banbeck made a sudden gesture. “I make three conditions.” The sacerdote now stood only ten feet away, face blind, gaze vague. “First,” said Kergan Banbeck, “a guarantee against future attacks upon the men of Aerlith. Five grephs must always remain in our custody as hostages. Secondly— further to secure the perpetual validity of the guarantee— you must deliver me a spaceship, equipped, energized, armed, and you must instruct me in its use.”

The Weaponeer threw back his head, made a series of bleating sounds through his nose. “Thirdly,” continued Kergan Banbeck, “you must release all the men and women presently aboard your ship.”

The Weaponeer blinked, spoke rapid hoarse words of amazement to the Trackers. They stirred, uneasy and impatient, watching Kergan Banbeck sidelong as if he were not only savage, but mad. Overhead hovered the flier; the Weaponeer looked up and seemed to derive encouragement from the sight. Turning back to Kergan Banbeck with a firm fresh attitude, he spoke as if the previous interchange had never occurred. “I have come to instruct you that the twenty-three Revered must be instantly released.”

Kergan Banbeck repeated his own demands. “You must furnish me a spaceship, you must raid no more, you must release the captives. Do you agree, yes or no?”

The Weaponeer seemed confused. “This is a peculiar situation— indefinite, unquantizable.”

“Can you not understand me?” barked Kergan Banbeck in exasperation. He glanced at the sacerdote, an act of questionable decorum, then performed in manner completely unconventional. “Sacerdote, how can I deal with this blockhead? He does not seem to hear me.”

The sacerdote moved a step nearer, his face as bland and blank as before. Living by a doctrine which proscribed active or intentional interference in the affairs of other men, he could make to any question only a specific and limited answer. “He hears you, but there is no meeting of ideas between you. His thought-structure is derived from that of his masters, and is incommensurable with yours. As to how you must deal with him, I cannot say.”

Kergan Banbeck looked back to the Weaponeer. “Have you heard what I asked of you? Did you understand my conditions for the release of the grephs?”

“I heard you distinctly,” replied the Weaponeer. “Your words have no meaning, they are absurdities, paradoxes. Listen to me carefully. It is ordained, complete, a quantum of destiny, that you deliver to us the Revered. It is irregular, it is not ordainment that you should have a ship, or that your other demands be met.”

Kergan Banbeck’s face became red; he half-turned toward his men, but restraining his anger, spoke slowly and with careful clarity. “I have something you want. You have something I want. Let us trade.”

For twenty seconds the two men stared eye to eye. Then the Weaponeer drew a deep breath. “I will explain in your words, so that you will comprehend. Certainties— no, not certainties; definites— definites exist. These are units of certainty, quanta of necessity and order. Existence is the steady succession of these units, one after the other. The activity of the universe can be expressed by reference to these units. Irregularity, absurdity— these are like half a man, with half a brain, half a heart, half of all his vital organs. Neither are allowed to exist. That you hold twenty-three Revered as captives is such an absurdity, an outrage to the rational flow of the universe.”

Kergan Banbeck threw up his hands, turned once more to the sacerdote. “How can I halt his nonsense? How can I make him see reason?”

The sacerdote reflected. “He speaks not nonsense, but rather a language you fail to understand. You can make him understand your language by erasing all knowledge and training from his mind, and replacing it with patterns of your own.”

Kergan Banbeck fought back an unsettling sense of frustration and unreality. In order to elicit exact answers from a sacerdote, an exact question was required; indeed it was remarkable that this sacerdote stayed to be questioned. Thinking carefully, he asked, “How do you suggest that I deal with this man?”

“Release the twenty-three grephs.” The sacerdote touched the twin knobs at the front of his golden torc: a ritual gesture indicating that, no matter how reluctantly, he had performed an act which conceivably might alter the course of the future. Again he tapped his torc, and intoned, “Release the grephs; he will then depart.”

Kergan Banbeck cried out in unrestrained anger. “Who then do you serve? Man or greph? Let us have the truth! Speak!”

“By my faith, by my creed, by the truth of my tand I serve no one but myself.” The sacerdote turned his face toward the great crag of Mount Gethron and moved slowly off; the wind blew his long fine hair to the side.

Kergan Banbeck watched him go, then with cold decisiveness turned back to the Weaponeer. “Your discussion of certainties and absurdities is interesting. I feel that you have confused the two. Here is certainty from my viewpoint! I will not release the twenty-three grephs unless you meet my terms. If you attack us further, I will cut them in half, to illustrate and realize your figure of speech, and perhaps convince you that absurdities are possible. I say no more.”

The Weaponeer shook his head slowly, pityingly. “Listen, I will explain. Certain conditions are unthinkable, they are unquantized, un-destined—

“Go,” thundered Kergan Banbeck. “Otherwise you will join your twenty-three revered grephs, and I will teach you how real the unthinkable can become!”

The Weaponeer and the two Trackers, croaking and muttering, turned, retreated from the Jambles to Banbeck Verge, descended into the valley. Over them the flier darted, veered, fluttered, settled like a falling leaf.

Watching their retreat among the crags the men of Banbeck Vale presently witnessed a remarkable scene. Half an hour after the Weaponeer had returned to the ship, he came leaping forth once again, dancing, cavorting. Others followed him— Weaponeers, Trackers, Heavy Troopers and eight more grephs— all jerking, jumping, running back and forth in distracted steps. The ports of the ship flashed lights of various colors, and there came a slow rising sound of tortured machinery.

“They have gone mad!” muttered Kergan Banbeck. He hesitated an instant, then gave an order. “Assemble every man; we attack while they are helpless!”

Down from the High Jambles rushed the men of Banbeck Vale. As they descended the cliffs, a few of the captured men and women from Sadro Valley came timidly forth from the ship and meeting no restraint fled to freedom across Banbeck Vale. Others followed— and now the Banbeck warriors reached the valley floor.

Beside the ship the insanity had quieted; the out-worlders huddled quietly beside the hull. There came a sudden mind-shattering explosion; a blankness of yellow and white fire. The ship disintegrated. A great crater marred the valley floor; fragments of metal began to fall among the attacking Banbeck warriors.

Kergan Banbeck stared at the scene of destruction. Slowly, his shoulders sagging, he summoned his people and led them back to their ruined valley. At the rear, marching single-file, tied together with ropes, came the twenty-three grephs, dull-eyed, pliant, already remote from their previous existence. The texture of Destiny was inevitable: the present circumstances could not apply to twenty-three of the Revered. The mechanism must therefore adjust to insure the halcyon progression of events. The twenty-three, hence, were something Other than the Revered: a different order of creature entirely. If this were true, what were they? Asking each other the question in sad croaking undertones, they marched down the cliff into Banbeck Vale.

3

ACROSS THE LONG Aerlith years the fortunes of Happy Valley and Banbeck Vale fluctuated with the capabilities of the opposing Carcolos and Banbecks. Golden Banbeck, Joaz’s grandfather, was forced to release Happy Valley from clientship when Uttern Carcolo, an accomplished dragon-breeder, produced the first Fiends. Golden Banbeck, in his turn, developed the Juggers, but allowed an uneasy truce to continue. Further years passed; Ilden Banbeck, the son of Golden, a frail ineffectual man, was killed in a fall from a mutinous Spider. With Joaz yet an ailing child, Grode Carcolo decided to try his chances against Banbeck Vale. He failed to reckon with old Hendel Banbeck, grand-uncle to Joaz and Chief Dragon Master. The Happy Valley forces were routed on Starbreak Fell; Grode Carcolo was killed and young Ervis gored by a Murderer. For various reasons, including Hendel’s age and Joaz’s youth, the Banbeck army failed to press to a decisive advantage. Ervis Carcolo, though exhausted by loss of blood and pain, withdrew in some degree of order, and for further years a suspicious truce held between the neighboring valleys.

Joaz matured into a saturnine young man, who, if he excited no enthusiastic affection from his people, at least aroused no violent dislike. He and Ervis Carcolo were united in a mutual contempt. At the mention of Joaz’s study, with its books, scrolls, models and plans, its complicated viewing-system across Banbeck Vale (the optics furnished, it was rumored, by the sacerdotes), Carcolo would throw up his hands in disgust. “Learning? Pah! What avails all this rolling in bygone vomit? Where does it lead? He should have been born a sacerdote; he is the same sort of sour-mouthed cloud-minded weakling!”

An itinerant, one Dae Alvonso, who combined the trades of minstrel, child-buyer, psychiatrist and chiropractor, reported Carcolo’s obloquies to Joaz, who shrugged. “Ervis Carcolo should breed himself to one of his own Juggers,” said Joaz. “He would thereby produce an impregnable creature with the Jugger’s armor and his own unflinching stupidity.”

The remark in due course returned to Ervis Carcolo, and by coincidence, touched him in a particularly sore spot. Secretly he had been attempting an innovation at his brooders: a dragon almost as massive as the Jugger with the savage intelligence and agility of the Blue Horror. But Ervis Carcolo worked with an intuitive and over-optimistic approach, ignoring the advice of Bast Givven, his Chief Dragon Master.

The eggs hatched; a dozen spratlings survived. Ervis Carcolo nurtured them with alternate tenderness and objurgation. Eventually the dragons matured. Carcolo’s hoped for combination of fury and impregnability was realized in four sluggish irritable creatures, with bloated torsos, spindly legs, insatiable appetites. (“As if one can breed a dragon by commanding it: ‘Exist!’ ” sneered Bast Givven to his helpers, and advised them, “Be wary of the beasts; they are competent only at luring you within reach of their brachs.”)

The time, effort, facilities and provender wasted upon the useless hybrid had weakened Carcolo’s army. Of the fecund Termagants he had no lack; there was a sufficiency of Long-horned Murderers and Striding Monsters, but the heavier and more specialized types, especially Juggers, were far from adequate to his plans. The memory of Happy Valley’s ancient glory haunted his dreams; first he would subdue Banbeck Vale, and often he planned the ceremony whereby he would reduce Joaz Banbeck to the office of apprentice barracks boy.

Ervis Carcolo’s ambitions were complicated by a set of basic difficulties. Happy Valley’s population had doubled, but rather then extending the city by breaching new pinnacles or driving tunnels, Carcolo constructed three new dragon-brooders, a dozen barracks and an enormous training compound. The folk of the valley could choose either to cram the fetid existing tunnels or build ramshackle dwellings along the base of the cliff. Brooders, barracks, training fields; water was diverted from the pond to maintain the brooders; enormous quantities of produce went to feed dragons. The folk of Happy Valley, undernourished, sickly, miserable, shared none of Carcolo’s aspirations, and their lack of enthusiasm infuriated him.

In any event, when the itinerant Dae Alvonso repeated Joaz Banbeck’s recommendation that Ervis Carcolo breed himself to a Jugger, Carcolo seethed with choler. “Bah! What does Joaz Banbeck know about dragon-breeding? I doubt if he understands his own dragon-talk.” He referred to the means by which orders and instructions were transmitted to the dragons: a secret jargon distinctive to every army. To learn an opponent’s dragon-talk was the prime goal of every Dragon Master, for he thereby gained a certain degree of control over his enemies forces. “I am a practical man, worth two of him,” Carcolo went on. “Can he design, nurture, rear and teach dragons? Can he impose discipline, teach ferocity? No. He leaves all this to his dragon masters, while he lolls on a couch eating sweetmeats, campaigning only against the patience of his minstrel-maidens. They say that by astrological divination he predicts the return of the Basics, that he walks with his neck cocked, watching the sky. Is such a man deserving of power and a prosperous life? I say no. Is Ervis Carcolo of Happy Valley such a man? I say yes, and this I will demonstrate.”

Dae Alvonso judiciously held up his hand. “Not so fast. He is more alert than you think. His dragons are in prime condition; he visits them often. And as for the Basics— “

“Do not speak to me of Basics,” stormed Carcolo. “I am no child to be frightened by bugbears!”

Again Dae Alvonso held up his hand. “Listen. I am serious, and you can profit by my news. Joaz Banbeck took me into his study— “

“The famous study, indeed!”

“From a cabinet he brought out a ball of crystal mounted on a black box.”

“Aha!” jeered Carcolo. “A crystal ball!”

Dae Alvonso went on placidly, ignoring the interruption. “I examined this globe, and indeed it seemed to hold all of space; within it floated stars and planets, all the bodies of the cluster. ‘Look well,’ said Joaz Banbeck, ‘you will never see the like of this anywhere. It was built by the olden men and brought to Aerlith when our people first arrived.’

” ‘Indeed,’ I said. ‘And what is this object?’

” ‘It is a celestial armamentarium,’ said Joaz. ‘It depicts all the nearby stars, and their positions at any time I choose to specify. Now,’ here he pointed, ‘see this white dot? This is our sun. See this red star? In the old almanacs it is named Coralyne. It swings near us at irregular intervals, for such is the flow of stars in– this cluster. These intervals have always coincided with the attacks of the Basics.’

“Here I expressed astonishment; Joaz assured me regarding the matter. ‘The history of men on Aerlith records six attacks by the Basics, or grephs as they were originally known. Apparently as Coralyne swings through space the Basics scour nearby worlds for hidden dens of humanity. The last of these was long ago during the time of Kergan Banbeck, with the results you know about. At that time Coralyne passed close in the heavens. For the first time since Coralyne is once more close at hand.’ This,” Alvonso told Carcolo, “is what Joaz Banbeck told me, and this is what I saw.”

Carcolo was impressed in spite of himself. “Do you mean to tell me,” demanded Carcolo, “that within this globe swim all the stars of space?”

“As to that, I cannot vouch,” replied Dae Alvonso. “The globe is set in a black box, and I suspect that an inner mechanism projects images or perhaps controls luminous spots which stimulate the stars. Either way it is a marvelous device, one which I would be proud to own. I offered Joaz several precious objects in exchange, but he would have none of them.”

Carcolo curled his lip in disgust. “You and your stolen children. Have you no shame?”

“No more than my customers,” said Dae Alvonso stoutly. “As I recall, I have dealt profitably with you on several occasions.”

Ervis Carcolo turned away, pretended to watch a pair of Termagants exercising with wooden scimitars. The two men stood by a stone fence behind which scores of dragons practiced evolutions, duel with spears, swords, strengthened muscles. Scales flashed, dust rose up under splayed stamping feet; the acrid odor of dragon-sweat permeated the air.

Carcolo muttered, “He is crafty, that Joaz. He knew you would report to me in detail.”

Dae Alvonso nodded. “Precisely. His words were— but perhaps I should, be discreet.” He glanced slyly toward Carcolo from under shaggy white eyebrows.

“Speak,” said Ervis Carcolo gruffly.

“Very well. Mind you, I quote Joaz Banbeck. ‘Tell blundering old Carcolo that he is in great danger. If the Basics return to Aerlith, as well they may, Happy Valley is absolutely vulnerable and will be ruined. Where can his people hide? They will be herded into the black ship, transported to a cold new planet. If Carcolo is not completely heartless he will drive new tunnels, prepare hidden avenues. Otherwise— ‘ “

“Otherwise what?” demanded Carcolo. ” ‘Otherwise there will be no more Happy Valley, no more Ervis Carcolo.’ “

“Bah,” said Carcolo in a subdued voice. “The young jackanapes barks in shrill tones.”

“Perhaps he extends an honest warning. His further words …But I fear to offend your dignity.”

“Continue! Speak!”

“These are his words— but no, I dare not repeat them. Essentially he considers your efforts to create an army ludicrous; he contrasts your intelligence unfavorably to his own; he predicts— “

“Enough!” roared Ervis Carcolo, waving his fists. “He is a subtle adversary, but why do you lend yourself to his tricks?”

Dae Alvonso shook his frosty old head. “I merely repeat, with reluctance, that which you demand to hear. Now then, since you have wrung me dry, do me some profit. Will you buy drugs, elixirs, wambles, or potions? I have here a salve of eternal youth which I stole from the Demie Sacerdote’s personal coffer. In my train are both boy and girl children, obsequious and handsome, at a fair price. I will listen to your woes, cure your lisp, guarantee a placidity of disposition— or perhaps you would buy dragon eggs?”

“I need none of those,” grunted Carcolo. “Especially dragon’s eggs which hatch to lizards. As for children, Happy Valley seethes with them. Bring me a dozen sound Juggers, you may depart with a hundred children of your choice.”

Dae Alvonso shook his head sadly, lurched away. Carcolo slumped against the fence, staring across the dragon pens.

The sun hung low over the crags of Mount Despoire; evening was close at hand. This was the most pleasant time of the Aerlith day, when the winds ceased, leaving a vast velvet quiet. Skene’s blaze softened to a smoky yellow, with a bronze aureole; the clouds of the approaching evening storm gathered, rose, fell, shifted, swirled, glowing and changing in every tone of gold, orange-brown, gold-brown and dusty violet.

Skene sank; the golds and oranges became oak-brown and purple; lightning threaded the clouds and the rain fell in a black curtain. In the barracks men moved with vigilance, for now the dragons became unpredictable— by turns watchful, torpid, quarrelsome. With the passing of the rain, evening became night, and a cool quiet breeze drifted through the valleys. The dark sky began to burn and dazzle with the stars of the cluster. One of the most effulgent twinkled red, green, white, red, green.

Ervis Carcolo studied this star thoughtfully. One idea led to another, and presently to a course of action which seemed to dissolve the entire tangle of uncertainties and dissatisfactions which marred his life. Carcolo twisted his mouth to a sour grimace; he must make overtures to that popinjay Joaz Banbeck— but if this were unavoidable: so be it!

Hence, the following morning, shortly after Phade the minstrel-maiden discovered the sacerdote in Joaz’s study, a messenger appeared in the Vale, inviting Joaz Banbeck up to Banbeck Verge for a conference with Ervis Carcolo.

4

ERVIS CARCOLO waited on Banbeck Verge with Chief Dragon Master Bast Givven and a pair of young fuglemen. Behind, in a row, stood their mounts: four glistening Spiders, brachs folded, legs splayed at exactly identical angles. These were of Carcolo’s newest breed, and he was immoderately proud of them. The barbs surrounding the horny visages were clasped with cinnabar cabochons; a round target enameled black and studded with a central spike covered each chest. The men wore the traditional black leather breeches, with short maroon cloaks, black leather helmets, with long flaps slanting back across the ears and down to the shoulders.

The four men waited, patient or restless as their natures dictated, surveying the well-tended length of Banbeck Vale. To the south stretched fields of various food stuffs: vetch, bellegarde, moss-cake, a loquat grove. Directly opposite, near the mouth of Clybourne Crevasse the shape of the crater created by the explosion of the Basic ship could still be seen. North lay more fields, then the dragon compounds, consisting of black-brick barracks, a brooder, an exercise field. Beyond lay Banbeck Jambles, an area of wasteland, where ages previously a section of the cliff had fallen, creating a wilderness of tumbled rock, similar to the High Jambles under Mount Gethron, but smaller in compass.

One of the young fuglemen rather tactlessly commented upon the evident prosperity of Banbeck Vale, to the implicit deprecation of Happy Valley. Ervis Carcolo listened glumly a moment or two, then turned a haughty stare toward the offender.

“Notice the dam,” said the fugleman. “We waste half our water in seepage.”

“True,” said the other. “That rock facing is a good idea. I wonder why we don’t do something similar.”

Carcolo started to speak, thought better of it. With a growling sound in his throat, he turned away. Bast Givven made a sign; the fuglemen fell silent.

A few moments later Givven announced; “Joaz Banbeck has set forth.”

Carcolo peered down toward Kergan’s Way. “Where is his company? Does he ride alone?”

“So it seems.”

A few minutes later Joaz Banbeck appeared on Banbeck Verge riding a Spider caparisoned in gray and red velvet. Joaz wore a loose lounge cloak of soft brown cloth over a gray shirt and gray trousers, with a long-billed hat of blue velvet. He held up his hand in casual greeting; brusquely Ervis Carcolo returned the salute, and with a jerk of his head sent Givven and the fuglemen off out of earshot.

Carcolo said gruffly, “You sent me a message by old Alvonso.”

Joaz nodded. “I trust he rendered my remarks accurately?”

Carcolo grinned wolfishly. “At times he felt obliged to paraphrase.”

“Tactful old Dae Alvonso.”

“I am given to understand,” said Carcolo, “that you consider me rash, ineffectual, callous to the best interests of Happy Valley. Alvonso admitted that you used the word ‘blunderer’ in reference to me.”

Joaz smiled politely. “Sentiments of this sort are best transmitted through intermediaries.”

Carcolo made a great show of dignified forbearance. “Apparently you feel that another Basic attack is imminent.”

“Just so,” agreed Joaz, “if my theory, which puts their home at the star Coralyne, is correct. In which case, as I pointed out to Alvonso, Happy Valley is seriously vulnerable.”

“And why not Banbeck Vale as well?” barked Carcolo.

Joaz stared at him in surprise. “Is it not obvious? I have taken precautions. My people are housed in tunnels, rather than huts. We have several escape routes, should this prove necessary, both to the High Jambles and to Banbeck Jambles.”

“Very interesting.” Carcolo made an effort to soften his voice. “If your theory is accurate— and I pass no immediate judgment— then perhaps I would be wise to take similar measures. But I think in different terms. I prefer attack, activity, to passive defense.”

“Admirable,” said Joaz Banbeck. “Important deeds are done by men such as you.”

Carcolo became a trifle pink in the face. “This is neither here nor there,” he said. “I have come to propose a joint project. It is entirely novel, but carefully thought out. I have considered various aspects of this matter for several years.”

“I attend you with great interest,” said Joaz.

Carcolo blew out his cheeks. “You know the legends as well as I, perhaps better. Our people came to Aerlith as exiles during the War of the Ten Stars. The Nightmare Coalition apparently had defeated the Old Rule, but how the war ended— ” he threw up his hands, “who can say?”

“There is a significant indication,” said Joaz. “The Basics revisit Aerlith and ravage us at their pleasure. We have seen no men, except those who serve the Basics.”

” ‘Men?’ ” Carcolo demanded scornfully. “I call them something else. Nevertheless, this is no more than a deduction, and we are ignorant as to the course of history. Perhaps Basics rule the cluster, perhaps they plague us only because we are weak and weaponless. Perhaps we are the last men; perhaps the Old Rule is resurgent. And never forget that many years have elapsed since the Basics last appeared on Aerlith.”

“Many years have elapsed since Aerlith and Coralyne were in such convenient apposition.”

Carcolo made an impatient gesture. “A supposition, which may or may not be relevant. Let me explain the basic axiom of my proposal. It is simple enough. I feel that Banbeck Vale and Happy Valley are too small a compass for men such as ourselves. We deserve larger scope.”

Joaz agreed. “I wish it were possible to ignore the practical difficulties involved.”

“I am able to suggest a method to counter these difficulties,” asserted Carcolo.

“In that case,” said Joaz, “power, glory and wealth are as good as ours.”

Carcolo glanced at him sharply, slapped his breeches with the gold-beaded tassel to his scabbard. “Reflect,” he said. “The sacerdotes inhabited Aerlith before us. How long no one can say. It is a mystery. In fact, what do we know of the sacerdotes? Next to nothing. They trade their metal and glass for our food, they live in deep caverns, their creed is disassociation, reverie, detachment, whatever one may wish to call it— totally incomprehensible to one such as myself.” He challenged Joaz with a look; Joaz merely fingered his long chin. “They put themselves forward as simple metaphysical cultists; actually they are a very mysterious people. Has anyone yet seen a sacerdote woman? What of the blue lights, what of the lightning towers, what of the sacerdote magic? What of weird comings and goings by night, what of strange shapes moving across the sky, perhaps to other planets?”

“The tales exist, certainly,” said Joaz. “As to the degree of credence to be placed in them— “

“Now we reach the meat of my proposal!” declared Ervis Carcolo. “The creed of the sacerdotes apparently forbids shame, inhibition, fear, regard for consequence. Hence, they are forced to answer any question put to them. Nevertheless, creed or no creed, they completely befog any information an assiduous man is able to wheedle from them.”

Joaz inspected him curiously. “Evidently you have made the attempt.”

Ervis Carcolo nodded. “Yes. Why should I deny it? I have questioned three sacerdotes with determination and persistence. They answered all my questions with gravity and calm reflection, but told me nothing.” He shook his head in vexation. “Therefore, I suggest that we apply coercion.”

“You are a brave man.”

Carcolo shook his head modestly. “I would dare no direct measures. But they must eat. If Banbeck Vale and Happy Valley cooperate, we can apply a very cogent persuasion: hunger. Presently their words may be more to the point.”

Joaz considered a moment or two. Ervis Carcolo twitched his scabbard tassel. “Your plan,” said Joaz at last, “is not a frivolous one, and is ingenious— at least, at first glance. What sort of information do you hope to secure? In short, what are your ultimate aims?”

Carcolo sidled close, prodded Joaz with his forefinger. “We know nothing of the outer worlds. We are marooned on this miserable world of stone and wind while life passes us by. You assume that Basics rule the cluster, but suppose you are wrong? Suppose the Old Rule has returned? Think of the rich cities, the gay resorts, the palaces, the pleasure islands! Look up into the night sky, ponder the bounties which might be ours! You ask how can we implement these desires? I respond, the process may be so simple that the sacerdotes will reveal it without reluctance.”

“You mean— “

“Communication with the worlds of men! Deliverance from this lonely little world at the edge of the universe!”

Joaz Banbeck nodded dubiously. “A fine vision, but the evidence suggests a situation far different, namely the destruction of man, and the Human Empire.”

Carcolo held out his hands in a gesture of open-minded tolerance. “Perhaps you are right. But why should we not make inquiries of the sacerdotes? Concretely I propose as follows. First, that you and I agree to the mutual cause I have outlined. Next, we request an audience with the Demie Sacerdote. We put our questions. If he responds freely, well and good. If he evades, then we act in mutuality. No more food to the sacerdotes until they inform us clearly and frankly what we want to hear.”

“Other valleys, vales, and gulches exist,” said Joaz thoughtfully.

Carcolo made a brisk gesture. “We can deter any such trade by persuasion or by the power of our dragons.”

“The essence of your idea appeals to me,” said Joaz, “but I fear that all is not so simple.”

Carcolo rapped his thigh smartly with the tassel. “And why not?”

“In the first place, Coralyne shines bright in the sky. This is our first concern. Should Coralyne pass, should the Basics not attack— then is the time to pursue this matter. Again— and perhaps more to the point— I doubt that we can starve the sacerdotes into submission. In fact, I think it highly unlikely. I will go farther. I consider it impossible.”

Carcolo blinked. “In what wise?”

“They walk naked through sleet and storm; do you think they fear hunger? And there is wild lichen to be gathered.

How could we forbid this? You might dare some sort of coercion, but not I. The tales told of the sacerdotes may be no more than superstition— or they may be understatement.”

Ervis Carcolo heaved a deep disgusted sigh. “Joaz Banbeck, I took you for a man of decision. But you merely pick flaws.”

“These are not flaws, they are major errors which would lead to disaster.”

“Well, then, do you have any suggestions of your own?”

Joaz fingered his chin. “If Coralyne recedes and we are still on Aerlith— rather than in the hold of the Basic ship-then let us plan to plunder the secrets of the sacerdotes. In the meantime I strongly recommend that you prepare Happy Valley against a new raid. You are over-extended, with your new brooders and barracks. Let them rest, while you dig yourself secure tunnels!”

Ervis Carcolo stared straight across Banbeck Vale. “I am not a man to defend. I attack!”

“You will attack heat beams and ion rays with your dragons?”

Ervis Carcolo turned his gaze back to Joaz Banbeck. “Can I consider us allies in the plan I have proposed?”

“In its broadest principles, certainly. However, I don’t care to cooperate in starving or otherwise coercing the sacerdotes. It might be dangerous, as well as futile.”

For an instant Carcolo could not control his detestation of Joaz Banbeck; his lip curled, his hands clenched. “Danger! Bah! What danger from a handful of naked pacifists?”

“We do not know that they are pacifists. We do know that they are men.”

Carcolo once more became brightly cordial. “Perhaps you are right. But— essentially at least— we are allies.”

“To a degree.”

“Good. I suggest that in the case of the attack you fear, we act together, with a common strategy.”

Joaz nodded distantly. “This might be effective.”

“Let us co-ordinate our plans. Let us assume that the Basics drop down into Banbeck Vale. I suggest that your folk take refuge in Happy Valley, while the Happy Valley army joins with yours to cover their retreat. And likewise, should they attack Happy Valley, my people will take refuge in Banbeck Vale.”

Joaz laughed in sheer amusement. “Ervis Carcolo, what sort of lunatic do you take me for? Return to your valley, put aside your foolish grandiosities, dig yourself protection. And fast! Coralyne is bright!”

Carcolo stood stiffly. “Do I understand that you reject my offer of alliance?”

“Not at all. But I cannot undertake to protect you and your people if you will not help yourselves. Meet my requirements, satisfy me that you are a fit ally— then we shall speak further.”

Ervis Carcolo whirled on his heel, signaled to Bast Givven and the two young fuglemen. With no further word or glance he mounted his splendid Spider, goaded him into a sudden leaping run across the Verge, and up the slope toward Starbreak Fell. His men followed, less precipitously.

Joaz watched them go, shaking his head in sad wonder. Then mounting his own Spider he returned down the trail to the floor of Banbeck Vale.

5

THE LONG Aerlith day, equivalent to six of the old Diurnal Units, passed. In Happy Valley there was grim activity, a sense of purpose and impending decision. The dragons exercised in tighter formation, the fuglemen and cornets called orders with harsher voices. In the armory bullets were cast, powder mixed, swords ground and honed.

Ervis Carcolo drove himself with dramatic bravado, wearing out Spider after Spider as he sent his dragons through various evolutions. In the case of the Happy Valley forces, these were for the most part Termagants— small active dragons with rustred scales, narrow darting heads, chisel-sharp fangs. Their brachs were strong and well developed: they used lance, cutlass or mace with equal skill. A man pitted against a Termagant stood no chance, for the scales warded off bullets as well as any blow the man might have strength enough to deal. On the other hand a single slash of fang, the rip of a scythe-like claw, meant death to the man.

The Termagants were fecund and hardy and throve even under the conditions which existed in the Happy Valley brooders; hence their predominance in Carcolo’s army. This was a situation not to the liking of Bast Givven, Chief Dragon Master, a spare wiry man with a flat crooked-nosed face, eyes black and blank as drops of ink on a plate. Habitually terse and tight-lipped, he waxed almost eloquent in opposition to the attack upon Banbeck Vale. “Look you, Ervis Carcolo, we are able to deploy a horde of Termagants, with sufficient Striding Murderers and Long-horned Murderers. But Blue Horrors, Fiends, and Juggers— no! We are lost if they trap us on the fells!”

“I do not plan to fight on the fells,” said Carcolo. “I will force battle upon Joaz Banbeck. His Juggers and Fiends are useless on the cliffs. And in the matter of Blue Horrors we are almost his equal.”

“You overlook a single difficulty,” said Bast Givven.

“And what is this?”

“The improbability that Joaz Banbeck plans to permit all this. I allow him greater intelligence.”

“Show me evidence!” charged Carcolo. “What I know of him suggests vacillation and stupidity! So we will strike-hard!” Carcolo smacked fist into palm. “Thus we will finish the haughty Banbecks!”

Bast Givven turned to go; Carcolo wrathfully called him back. “You show no enthusiasm for this campaign!”

“I know what our army can do and what it cannot do,” said Givven bluntly. “If Joaz Banbeck is the man you think he is, we might succeed. If he has even the sagacity of a pair of grooms I listened to ten minutes ago, we face disaster.”

In a voice thick with rage, Carcolo said, “Return to your Fiends and Juggers. I want them quick as Termagants.”

Bast Givven went his way. Carcolo jumped on a nearby Spider, kicked it with his heels. The creature sprang forward, halted sharply, twisted its long neck to look Carcolo in the face. Carcolo cried, “Hust, hust! Forward at speed, smartly now! Show these louts what snap and spirit means!” The Spider jumped ahead with such vehemence that Carcolo tumbled over backward, landing on his neck, where he lay groaning. Grooms came running, assisted him to a bench where he sat cursing in a steady low voice. A surgeon examined, pressed, prodded, recommended that Carcolo take to his couch, and administered a sedative potion.

Carcolo was carried to his apartments beneath the west wall of Happy Valley, placed under the care of his wives, and so slept for twenty hours. When he awoke the day was half gone. He wished to arise, but found himself too stiff to move, and groaning, lay back. Presently he called for Bast Givven, who appeared and listened without comment to Carcolo’s adjurations. Evening arrived; the dragons returned to the barracks; there was nothing to do now but wait for daybreak.

During the long night Carcolo underwent a variety of treatments: massages, hot baths, infusions, and poultices. He exercised with diligence, and as the night reached its end, he declared himself fit. Overhead the star Coralyne vibrated poisonous colors: red, green, white, by far the brightest star of the cluster. Carcolo refused to look up at the star, but its radiance struck through the corners of his eyes whenever he walked on the valley floor.

Dawn approached. Carcolo planned to march at the earliest moment the dragons were manageable. A flickering to the east told of the oncoming dawn storm, still invisible across the horizon. With great caution the dragons were mustered from their barracks, and ordered into a marching column. There were almost three hundred Termagants, eighty-five Striding Murderers, as many Long-horned Murderers, a hundred Blue Horrors, fifty-two squat, immensely powerful Fiends, their tails tipped with spiked steel balls, and eighteen Juggers. They growled and muttered evilly among themselves, watching an opportunity to kick each other or to snip a leg from an unwary groom. Darkness stimulated their latent hatred for humanity, though they had been taught nothing of their past, nor the circumstances by which they had become enslaved.

The dawn lightning blazed and crackled, outlining the vertical steeples, the astonishing peaks of the Malheur Mountains. Overhead passed the storm, with wailing gusts of wind and thrashing banks of rain, and moved on toward Banbeck Vale. The east glowed with a gray-green pallor, and Carcolo gave the signal to march. Still stiff and sore he hobbled to his Spider, mounted, ordered the creature into a special and dramatic curvet. Carcolo had miscalculated; malice of the night still gripped the mind of the dragon. It ended its curvet with a lash of the neck which once again dashed Carcolo to the ground, where he lay half-mad with pain and frustration.

He tried to rise, collapsed; tried again, fainted. Five minutes he lay unconscious, then seemed to rouse himself by sheer force of will. “Lift me,” he whispered huskily. “Tie me into the saddle. We must march.” This being manifestly impossible, no one made a move. Carcolo raged, finally called hoarsely for Bast Givven. “Proceed; we cannot stop now. You must lead the troops.”

Givven nodded glumly. This was an honor for which he had no stomach.

“You know the battle plan,” wheezed Carcolo. “Circle north of the Fang, cross the Skanse with all speed, swing north around Blue Crevasse, then south along Banbeck Verge. There Joaz Banbeck may be expected to discover you, and you must deploy so that when he brings up his Juggers you can topple them back with Fiends. Avoid committing our Juggers, harry him with Termagants, reserve the Murderers to strike wherever he reaches the edge. Do you understand me?”

“As you explain it, victory is certain,” muttered Bast Givven.

“And so it is, unless you blunder grievously. Ah, my back! I can’t move. While the great battle rages I must sit by the brooder and watch eggs hatch! Now go! Strike hard for Happy Valley!”

Givven gave an order; the troops set forth. Termagants darted into the lead, followed by silken Striding Monsters and the heavier Long-horned Murderers, their fantastic chest-spikes tipped with steel. Behind came the ponderous Juggers, grunting, gurgling, teeth clashing together with the vibration of their steps. Flanking the Juggers marched the Fiends, carrying heavy cutlasses, flourishing their terminal steel balls as a scorpion carries his sting; then at the rear came the Blue Horrors, who were both massive and quick, good climbers, no less intelligent than the Termagants. To the flanks rode a hundred men: dragon masters, knights, fuglemen and cornets. They were armed with swords, pistols and large-bore blunderbusses.

Carcolo, on a stretcher, watched till the last of his forces had passed from view, then commanded himself carried back to the portal which led into the Happy Valley caves. Never before had the caves seemed so dingy and shallow. Sourly he eyed the straggle of huts along the cliff, built of rock, slabs of resin-impregnated lichen, canes bound with tar. With the Banbeck campaign at an end, he would set about cutting new chambers and halls into the cliff. The splendid decorations of Banbeck Village were well known; Happy Valley would be even more magnificent. The halls would glow with opal and nacre, silver and gold. And yet, to what end?. If events went as planned, there was his great dream in prospect. And then, what consequences a few paltry decorations in the tunnels of Happy Valley?

Groaning he allowed himself to be laid on his couch, and entertained himself picturing the progress of his troops. By now they should be working down from Dangle Ridge, circling the mile-high Fang. He tentatively stretched his arms, worked his legs. His muscles protested, pain shot back and forth along his body— but it seemed as if the injuries were less than before. By now the army would be mounting the ramparts which rimmed that wide area of upland fell known as the Skanse. The surgeon brought Carcolo a potion; he drank and slept, to awake with a start. What was the time? His troops might well have joined battle! He ordered himself carried to the outer portal; then, still dissatisfied, commanded his servants to transport him across the valley to the new dragon brooder, the walkway of which commanded a view up and down the valley. Despite the protests of his wives, here he was conveyed, and made as comfortable as bruises and sprains permitted.

He settled himself for an indeterminate wait, but news was not long in coming.

Down the North Trail came a cornet on a foam-bearded Spider. Carcolo sent a groom to intercept him, and heedless of aches and pains, raised himself from his couch. The cornet threw himself off his mount, staggered up the ramp, sagged exhausted against the rail.

“Ambush!” he panted. “Bloody disaster!”

“Ambush?” groaned Carcolo in a hollow voice. “Where?”

“As we mounted the Skanse Ramparts. They waited till our Termagants and Murders were over, then charged with Horrors, Fiends and Juggers. They cut us apart, drove us back, then rolled boulders on our Juggers! Our army is broken!”

Carcolo sank back on the couch, lay staring at the sky. “How many are lost?”

“I do not know. Givven called the retreat; we withdrew in the best style possible.”

Carcolo lay as if comatose, the cornet flung himself down on a bench.

A column of dust appeared to the north, which presently dissolved and separated to reveal a number of Happy Valley dragons. All were wounded; they marched, hopped, limped, dragged themselves at random, croaking, glaring, bugling. First came a group of Termagants, darting ugly heads from side to side; then a pair of Blue Horrors, brachs twisting and clasping almost like human arms; then a Jugger, massive, toad-like, legs splayed out in weariness. Even as it neared the barracks it toppled, fell with a thud to lay still, legs and talons jutting into the air.

Down from the North Trail rode Bast Givven, dust-stained and haggard. He dismounted from his drooping Spider, mounted the ramp. With a wrenching effort, Carcolo once more raised himself on the couch.

Givven reported in a voice so even and light as to seem careless, but even the insensitive Carcolo was not deceived. He asked in puzzlement, “Exactly where did the ambush occur?”

“We mounted the Ramparts by way of Chloris Ravine. Where the Skanse falls off into the ravine a porphyry outcrop juts up and over. Here they awaited us.”

Carcolo hissed through his teeth. “Amazing.”

Bast Givven gave the faintest of nods.

Carcolo said, “Assume that Joaz Banbeck set forth during the dawn-storm, an hour earlier than I would think possible; assume that he forced his troops at a run. How could he reach the Ramparts before us?”

“By my reckoning,” said Givven, “ambush was no threat until we had crossed the Skanse. I had planned to patrol Barchback, all the way down Blue Fell, and across Blue Crevasse.”

Carcolo gave somber agreement. “How then did Joaz Banbeck bring his troops to the Ramparts so soon?”

Givven turned, looked up the valley, where wounded dragons and men still straggled down the North Trail. “I have no idea.”

“A drug?” puzzled Carcolo. “A potion to pacify the dragons? Could he have made bivouac on the Skanse the whole night long?”

“The last is possible,” admitted Givven grudgingly. “Under Barch Spike are empty caves. If he quartered his troops there during the night, then he had only to march across the Skanse to waylay us.”

Carcolo grunted. “Perhaps we have underestimated Joaz Banbeck.” He sank back on his couch with a groan. “Well then, what are our losses?”

The reckoning made dreary news. Of the already inadequate squad of Juggers, only six remained. From a force of fifty-two Fiends, forty survived and of these five were sorely wounded. Termagants, Blue Horrors and Murderers had suffered greatly. A large number had been torn apart in the first onslaught, many others had been toppled down the Ramparts to strew their armored husks through the detritus. Of the hundred men, twelve had been killed by bullets, another fourteen by dragon attack; a score more were wounded in various degrees.

Carcolo lay back, his eyes closed, his mouth working feebly.

“The terrain alone saved us,” said Givven. “Joaz Banbeck refused to commit his troops to the ravine. If there were any tactical error on either side, it was his. He brought an insufficiency of Termagants and Blue Horrors.”

“Small comfort,” growled Carcolo. “Where is the balance of the army?”

“We have good position on Dangle Ridge. We have seen none of Banbeck’s scouts, either man or Termagant, and he may conceivably believe we have returned to the valley. In any event his main forces were still collected on the Skanse.”

Carcolo, by an enormous effort raised himself to his feet. He tottered across the walkway, looked down into the dispensary. Five Fiends crouched in vats of balsam, muttering, sighing. A Blue Horror hung in a sling, whining as surgeons cut broken fragments of armor from its gray flesh. As Carcolo watched, one of the Fiends raised itself high on its anterior legs, foam gushing from its gills. It cried out in a peculiar poignant tone, fell back dead into the balsam.

Carcolo turned back to Givven. “This is what you must do. Joaz Banbeck surely has sent forth patrols. Retire along Dangle Ridge, then taking all concealment from the patrols, swing up into one of the Despoire Cols— Tourmaline Col will serve. This is my reasoning. Banbeck will assume that you are retiring to Happy Valley, he will hurry south behind the Fang, to attack as you come down off Dangle Ridge. As he passes below Tourmaline Col, you have the advantage, and may well destroy Joaz Banbeck with all his troops.”

Bast Givven shook his head decisively. “What if his patrols locate us in spite of our precautions? He need only follow our tracks to bottle us into Tourmaline Col, with no escape except over Mount Despoire or out on Starbreak Fell. And if we venture out on Starbreak Fell his Juggers will destroy us in minutes.”

Ervis Carcolo sagged back down upon the couch. “Bring the troops back to Happy Valley. We will await another occasion.”

6

CUT INTO the cliff south of the crag which housed Joaz’s apartments was a large chamber known as Kergan’s Hall. The proportions of the room, the simplicity and lack of ornament, the massive antique furniture contributed to the sense of lingering personality, as well as an odor unique to the room. This odor exhaled from naked stone walls, the petrified moss parquetry, old wood— a rough ripe redolence which Joaz had always disliked, together with every other aspect of the room. The dimensions seemed arrogant in their extent, the lack of ornament impressed him as rude, if not brutal. One day it occurred to Joaz that he disliked not the room but Kergan Banbeck himself, together with the entire system of overblown legends which surrounded him.

The room nevertheless in many respects was pleasant. Three tall groined windows overlooked the vale. The casements were set with small square panes of green-blue glass in muntins of black ironwood. The ceiling likewise was paneled in wood, and here a certain amount of the typical Banbeck intricacy had been permitted. There were mock pilaster capitals with gargoyle heads, a frieze carved with conventionalized fern-fronds. The furniture consisted of three pieces-two tall carved chairs and a massive table, all polished dark wood, all of enormous antiquity.

Joaz had found a use for the room. The table supported a carefully detailed relief map of the district, on a scale of three inches to the mile. At the center was Banbeck Vale, on the right hand Happy Valley, separated by a turmoil of crags and chasms, cliffs, spikes, walls and five titanic peaks: Mount Gethron to the south, Mount Despoire in the center, Barch Spike, the Fang and Mount Halcyon to the north.

At the front of Mount Gethron lay the High Jambles, then Starbreak Fell extended to Mount Despoire and Barch Spike. Beyond Mount Despoire, between the Skanse Ramparts and Barchback, the Skanse reached all the way to the tormented basalt ravines and bluffs at the foot of Mount Halcyon.

As Joaz stood studying the map, into the room came Phade, mischievously quiet. But Joaz sensed her nearness by the scent of incense, in the smoke of which she had steeped herself before seeking out Joaz. She wore a traditional holiday costume of Banbeck maidens— a tight-fitting sheath of dragon intestine, with muffs of brown fur at neck, elbows and knees. A tall cylindrical hat, notched around the upper edge, perched on her rich brown curls, and from the top of this hat soared a red plume.

Joaz feigned unconsciousness of her presence; she came up behind him to tickle his neck with the fur of her neckpiece. Joaz pretended stolid indifference; Phade, not at all deceived, put on a face of woeful concern. “Must we all be slain? How goes the war?”

“For Banbeck Vale the war goes well. For poor Ervis Carcolo and Happy Valley the war goes ill indeed.”

“You plan his destruction,” Phade intoned in a voice of hushed accusation. “You will kill him! Poor Ervis Carcolo!”

“He deserves no better.”

“But what will befall Happy Valley?”

Joaz Banbeck shrugged. “Changes for the better.”

“Will you seek to rule?”

“Not I.”

“Think!” whispered Phade. “Joaz Banbeck, Tyrant of Banbeck Vale, Happy Valley, Phosphur Gulch, Glore, the Tarn, Clewhaven and the Great Northern Rift.”

“Not I,” said Joaz. “Perhaps you would rule in my stead?”

“Oh! Indeed! What changes there would be! I’d dress the sacerdotes in red and yellow ribbons. I’d order them to sing and dance and drink May wine; the dragons I’d send south to Arcady, except for a few gentle Termagants to nursemaid the children. And no more of these furious battles. I’d burn the armor and break the swords, I’d— “

“My dear little flutterbug,” said Joaz with a laugh. “What a swift reign you’d have indeed!”

“Why swift? Why not forever? If men had no means to fight—”

“And when the Basics came down, you’d throw garlands around their necks?”

Pah. They shall never be seen again. What do they gain by molesting a few remote valleys?”

“Who knows what they gain? We are free men— perhaps the last free men in the universe. Who knows? And will they be back? Coralyne is bright in the sky!”

Phade became suddenly interested in the relief map. “And your current war— dreadful! Will you attack, will you defend?”

“This depends on Ervis Carcolo,” said Joaz. “I need only wait till he exposes himself.” Looking down at the map he added thoughtfully, “He is clever enough to do me damage, unless I move with care.”

“And what if the Basics come while you bicker with Carcolo?”

Joaz smiled. “Perhaps we shall all flee to the Jambles. Perhaps we shall all fight.”

“I will fight beside you,” declared Phade, striking a brave attitude. “We will attack the great Basic spaceship, braving the heat rays, fending off the power bolts. We will storm to the very portal, we will pull the nose of the first marauder who shows himself!”

“At one point your otherwise sage strategy falls short,” said Joaz. “How does one find the nose of a Basic?”

“In that case,” said Phade, “we shall seize their— ” She turned her head at a sound in the hall. Joaz strode across the room, flung back the door. Old Rife the porter sidled forward. “You told me to call when either the bottle overturned or broke. Well, it’s done both, and irreparably, not five minutes ago.”

Joaz pushed past Rife, ran down the corridor. “What means this?” demanded Phade. “Rife, what have you said to disturb him?”

Rife shook his head fretfully. “I am as perplexed as you. A bottle is pointed out to me. ‘Watch this bottle day and night’. So I am commanded. And also, ‘When the bottle breaks or tips, call me at once.’ I tell myself that here in all truth is a sinecure. And I wonder, does Joaz consider me so senile that I will rest content with a make-work task such as watching a bottle? I am old, my jaws tremble, but I am not witless. To my surprise the bottle breaks! The explanation admittedly is workaday: a fall to the floor. Nevertheless, without knowledge of what it all means. I obey orders and so have notified Joaz Banbeck.”

Phade had been squirming impatiently. “Where then is this bottle?”

“In the studio of Joaz Banbeck.”

Phade ran off as swiftly as the tight sheath about her thighs permitted. She passed through a transverse tunnel, across Kergan’s Way by a covered bridge, then up at a slant toward Joaz’s apartments.

Down the long hall ran Phade, through the anteroom where a bottle lay shattered on the floor, into the studio, where she halted in astonishment. No one was to be seen. She noticed a section of shelving which stood at an angle. Quietly, timorously, she stole across the room, peered down into the workshop.

The scene was an odd one. Joaz stood negligently, smiling a cool smile, as across the room a naked sacerdote gravely sought to shift a barrier which had sprung down across an area of the wall. But the gate was cunningly locked in place, and the sacerdote’s efforts were to no avail. He turned, glanced briefly at Joaz, then started for the exit into the studio.

Phade sucked in her breath, backed away.

The sacerdote came out into the studio, started for the door.

“Just a moment,” said Joaz. “I wish to speak to you.”

The sacerdote paused, turned his head in mild inquiry. He was a young man, his face bland, blank, almost beautiful. Fine transparent skin stretched over his pale bones; his eyes, wide, blue, innocent, seemed to stare without focus. He was delicate of frame, sparsely fleshed; his hands were thin, with fingers trembling in some kind of nervous imbalance. Down his back, almost to his waist, hung the mane of long light-brown hair.

Joaz seated himself with ostentatious deliberation, never taking his eyes from the sacerdote. Presently he spoke in a voice pitched at an ominous level. “I find your conduct far from ingratiating.” This was a declaration requiring no response, and the sacerdote made none.

“Please sit,” said Joaz. He indicated a bench. “You have a great deal of explaining to do.”

Was it Phade’s imagination? Or did a spark of something like wild amusement flicker and die almost instantaneously in the sacerdote’s eyes? But again he made no response. Joaz, adapting to the peculiar rules by which communication with the sacerdotes must be conducted, asked, “Do you care to sit?”

“It is immaterial,” said the sacerdote. “Since I am standing now, I will stand.”

Joaz rose to his feet and performed an act without precedent. He pushed the bench behind the sacerdote, rapped the back of the knobby knees, thrust the sacerdote firmly down upon the bench. “Since you are sitting now,” said Joaz, “you might as well sit.”

With gentle dignity the sacerdote regained his feet. “I shall stand.”

Joaz shrugged. “As you wish. I intend to ask you some questions. I hope that you will cooperate and answer with precision.”

The sacerdote blinked owlishly.

“Will you do so?”

“Certainly. I prefer, however, to return the way I came.”

Joaz ignored the remark. “First,” he asked, “why do you come to my study?”

The sacerdote spoke carefully, in the voice of one talking to a child. “Your language is vague; I am confused and must not respond, since I am vowed to give only truth to anyone who requires it.”

Joaz settled himself in his chair. “There is no hurry. I am ready for a long discussion. Let me ask you then— did you have impulses which you can explain to me, which persuaded or impelled you to come to my studio?”

“Yes.”

“How many of these impulses did you recognize?”

“I don’t know.”

“More than one?”

“Perhaps.”

“Less than ten?”

“I don’t know.”

“Hmm …Why are you uncertain?”

“I am not uncertain.”

“Then why can’t you specify the number as I requested?”

“There is no such number.”

“I see. You mean, possibly, that there are several elements of a single motive which directed your brain to signal your muscles in order that they might carry you here?”

“Possibly.”

Joaz’s thin lips twisted in a faint smile of triumph. “Can you describe an element of the eventual motive?”

“Yes.”

“Do so, then.”

There was an imperative, against which the sacerdote was proof. Any form of coercion know to Joaz— fire, sword, thirst, mutilation— these to a sacerdote were no more than inconveniences; he ignored them as if they did not exist. His personal inner world was the single world of reality; either acting upon or reacting against the affairs of the Utter Men demeaned him, absolute passivity, absolute candor were his necessary courses of action. Understanding something of this, Joaz rephrased his command. “Can you think of an element of the motive which impelled you to come here?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“A desire to wander about.”

“Can you think of another?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“A desire to exercise myself by walking.”

“I see. Incidentally, are you trying to evade answering my questions?”

“I answer such questions as you put to me. So long as I do so, so long as I open my mind to all who seek knowledge— for this is our creed— there can be no question of evasion.”

“So you say. However, you have not provided me an answer that I find satisfactory.”

The sacerdote’s reply to the comment was an almost imperceptible widening of the pupils.

“Very well then,” said Joaz Banbeck. “Can you think of another element to this complex motive we have been discussing?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“I am interested in antiques. I came to your study to admire your relicts of the old worlds.”

“Indeed?” Joaz raised his eyebrows. “I am lucky to possess such fascinating treasures. Which of my antiques interests you particularly?”

“Your books, your maps, your great globe of the Arch-world.”

“The Arch-world? Eden?”

“This is one of its names.”

Joaz pursed his lips. “So you come here to study my antiques. Well then, what other elements to this motive exist?”

The sacerdote hesitated an instant. “It was suggested to me that I come here.”

“By whom?”

“By the Demie.”

“Why did he so suggest?”

“I am uncertain.”

“Can you conjecture?”

“Yes.”

“What are these conjectures?”

The sacerdote made a small bland gesture with the fingers of one hand. “The Demie might wish to become an Utter Man, and so seeks to learn the principles of your existence. Or the Demie might wish to change the trade articles. The Demie might be fascinated by my descriptions of your antiques. Or the Demie might be curious regarding the focus of your vision panels. Or— “

“Enough. Which of these conjectures, and of other conjectures you have not yet divulged, do you consider most probable?”

“None.”

Joaz raised his eyebrows once more. “How do you justify this?”

“Since any desired number of conjectures can be formed, the denominator of any probability-ratio is variable and the entire concept becomes meaningless.”

Joaz grinned wearily. “Of the conjectures which to this moment have occurred to you, which do you regard as the most likely?”

“I suspect that the Demie might think it desirable that I come here to stand.”

“What do you achieve by standing?”

“Nothing.”

“Then the Demie does not send you here to stand.”

To Joaz’s assertion, the sacerdote made no comment.

Joaz framed a question with great care. “What do you believe that the Demie hopes you will achieve by coming here to stand?”

“I believe that he wishes me to learn how Utter Men think.”

“And you learn how I think by coming here?”

“I am learning a great deal.”

“How does it help you?”

“I don’t know.”

“How many times have you visited my study?”

“Seven times.”

“Why were you chosen specially to come?”

“The synod has approved my tand. I may well be the next Demie.”

Joaz spoke over his shoulder to Phade. “Brew tea.” He turned back to the sacerdote. “What is a tand?”

The sacerdote took a deep breath. “My tand is the representation of my soul.”

“Hmm. What does it look like?”

The sacerdote’s expression was unfathomable. “It cannot be described.”

“Do I have one?”

“No.”

Joaz shrugged. “Then you can read my thoughts.”

Silence.

“Can you read my thoughts?”

“Not well.”

“Why should you wish to read my thoughts?”

“We are alive in the universe together. Since we are not permitted to act, we are obliged to know.”

Joaz smiled skeptically. “How does knowledge help you, if you will not act upon what you know?”

“Events follow the Rationale, as water drains into a hollow and forms a pool.”

“Bah!” said Joaz, in sudden irritation. “Your doctrine commits you to non-interference in our affairs, nevertheless you allow your ‘Rationale’ to create conditions by which events are influenced. Is this correct?”

“I am not sure. We are a passive people.”

“Still, your Demie must have had a plan in mind when he sent you here. Is this not correct?”

“I cannot say.”

Joaz veered to a new line of questioning. “Where does the tunnel behind my workshop lead?”

“Into a cavern.”

Phade set a silver pot before Joaz. He poured, sipped reflectively. Of contests there were numberless varieties; he and the sacerdote were engaged in a hide-and-seek game of words and ideas. The sacerdote was schooled in patience and supple evasions, to counter which Joaz could bring pride and determination. The sacerdote was handicapped by an innate necessity to speak truth; Joaz, on the other hand, must grope like a man blindfolded, unacquainted with the goal he sought, ignorant of the prize to be won. Very well, thought Joaz, let us continue. We shall see whose nerves fray first. He offered tea to the sacerdote, who refused with a shake of the head so quick and of such small compass as to seem a shudder.

Joaz made a gesture signifying it was all the same to him. “Should you desire sustenance or drink,” he said, “please let it be known. I enjoy our conversation so inordinately that I fear I may prolong it to the limits of your patience. Surely you would prefer to sit?”

“No.”

“As you wish. Well then, back to our discussion. This cavern you mentioned— is it inhabited by sacerdotes?”

“I fail to understand your question.”

“Do sacerdotes use the cavern?”

“Yes.”

Eventually, fragment by fragment, Joaz extracted the information that the cavern connected with a series of chambers, in which the sacerdotes smelted metal, boiled glass, ate, slept, performed their rituals. At one time there had been an opening into Banbeck Vale, but long ago this had been blocked. Why? There were wars throughout the cluster; bands of defeated men were taking refuge upon Aerlith, settling in rifts and valleys. The sacerdotes preferred a detached existence and had shut their caverns away from sight. Where was this opening? The sacerdote seemed vague, indefinite. Somewhere to the north end of the valley. Behind Banbeck Jambles? Possibly. But trading between men and sacerdotes was conducted at a cave entrance below Mount Gethron. Why? A matter of usage, declared the sacerdote. In addition this location was more readily accessible to Happy Valley and Phosphor Gulch. How many sacerdotes lived in these caves? Uncertainty. Some might have died, others might have been born. Approximately how many this morning? Perhaps five hundred.

At this juncture the sacerdote was swaying and Joaz was hoarse. “Back to your motive— or the elements of your motives— for coming to my studio. Are they connected in any manner with the star Coralyne, and a possible new coming of the Basics, or the grephs, as they were formerly called?”

Again the sacerdote seemed to hesitate. Then, “Yes.”

“Will the sacerdotes help us against the Basics, should they come?”

“No.” This answer was terse and definite.

“But I assume that the sacerdotes wish the Basics drivenoff?”

No answer.

Joaz rephrased his words. “Do the sacerdotes wish the Basics repelled from Aerlith?”

“The Rationale bids us stand aloof from affairs of men and non-men alike.”

Joaz curled his lip. “Suppose the Basics invaded your caves, dragged you off to the Coralyne planet, then what?”

The sacerdote almost seemed to laugh. “The question cannot be answered.”

“Would you resist the Basics if they made the attempt?”

“I cannot answer your question.”

Joaz laughed. “But the answer is not no?”

The sacerdote assented.

“Do you have weapons, then?”

The sacerdote’s mild blue eyes seemed to droop. Secrecy? Fatigue? Joaz repeated the question.

“Yes,” said the sacerdote. His knees sagged, but he snapped them tight.

“What kind of weapons?”

“Numberless varieties. Projectiles, such as rocks. Piercing weapons, such as broken sticks. Cutting and slashing weapons such as cooking utensils.” His voice began to fade as if he were moving away. “Poisons— arsenic, sulfur, triventidum, acid, black-spore. Burning weapons, such as torches and lenses to focus the sunlight. Weapons to suffocate— ropes, nooses, slings and cords. Cisterns, to drown the enemy….”

“Sit down, rest,” Joaz urged him. “Your inventory interests me, but its total effect seems inadequate. Have you other weapons which might decisively repel the Basics should they attack you?”

The question, by design, or chance, was never answered. The sacerdote sank to his knees, slowly, as if praying. He fell forward on his face, then sprawled to the side. Joaz sprang forward, yanked up the drooping head by its hair. The eyes, half-open, revealed a hideous white expanse. “Speak!” croaked Joaz. “Answer my last question! Do you have weapons— or a weapon— to repel a basic attack?”

The pallid lips moved. “I don’t know.”

Joaz frowned, peered into the waxen face, drew back in bewilderment. “The man is dead.”

Phade looked up from drowsing on a couch, face pink, hair tossed. “You have killed him!” she cried in a voice of hushed horror.

“No. He has died— or caused himself to die.”

Phade staggered blinking across the room, sidled close to Joaz, who pushed her absently away. Phade scowled, shrugged, and then as Joaz paid her no heed, marched from the room.

Joaz sat back, staring at the limp body. “He did not tire,” muttered Joaz, “until I verged upon secrets.”

Presently he jumped to his feet, went to the entry hall, sent Rife to fetch a barber. An hour later the corpse, stripped of hair, lay on a wooden pallet covered by a sheet, and Joaz held in his hands a rude wig fashioned from the long hair.

The barber departed; servants carried away the corpse. Joaz stood alone in his studio, tense and light-headed. He removed his garments, to stand naked as the sacerdote. Gingerly he drew the wig across his scalp and examined himself in the mirror. To a casual eye, where the difference? Something was lacking. The torc. Joaz fitted it about his neck, once more examined his reflection, with dubious satisfaction.

He entered the workshop, hesitated, disengaged the trap, cautiously pulled away the stone slab. On hands and knees he peered into the tunnel, and since it was dark, held forward a glass vial of luminescent algae. In the faint light the tunnel seemed empty. Irrevocably putting down his fears, Joaz clambered through the opening. The tunnel was narrow and low; Joaz moved forward tentatively, nerves thrilling with wariness. He stopped often to listen, but heard nothing but the whisper of his own pulse.

After perhaps a hundred yards the tunnel broke out into a natural cavern. Joaz stopped, stood indecisively, straining his ears through the gloom. Luminescent vials fixed to the walls at irregular intervals provided a measure of light, enough to delineate the direction of the cavern, which seemed to be north, parallel to the length of the valley. Joaz set forth once again, halting to listen every few yards. To the best of his knowledge the sacerdotes were a mild unaggressive folk, but they were also intensely secretive. How would they respond to the presence of an interloper? Joaz could not be sure, and proceeded with great caution.

The cavern rose, fell, widened, narrowed. Joaz presently came upon evidences of use— small cubicles, hollowed into the walls, lit by candelabra holding tall vials of luminous stuff. In two of the cubicles Joaz came upon sacerdotes, the first asleep on a reed rug, the second sitting cross-legged, gazing fixedly at a contrivance of twisted metal rods. They gave Joaz no attention; he continued with a more confident step.

The cave sloped downward, widened like a cornucopia, suddenly broke into a cavern so enormous that Joaz thought for a startled instant that he had stepped out into the night. The ceiling reached beyond the flicker of the myriad of lamps, fires and glowing vials. Ahead and to the left smelters and forges seemed to be in operation; then a twist in the cavern wall obscured something of the view. Joaz glimpsed a tiered tubular construction which seemed to be some sort of workshop, for a large number of sacerdotes were occupied at complicated tasks. To the right was a stack of bales; a row of bins contained goods of unknown nature. Joaz for the first time saw sacerdote women. They were neither the nymphs nor the half-human witches of popular legend. Like the men they seemed pallid and frail, with sharply defined features; like the men they moved with care and deliberation; and like the men they wore only their waist-long hair. There was little conversation and no laughter: rather an atmosphere of not unhappy placidity and concentration. The cavern exuded a sense of time, of use and custom. The stone floor was polished by endless padding of bare feet; the exhalations of many generations had stained the walls.

No one heeded Joaz. He moved slowly forward, keeping to the shadows, and paused under the stack of bales. To the right the cavern dwindled by irregular proportions into a vast horizontal funnel, receding, twisting, telescoping, losing all reality in the dim light.

Joaz searched the entire sweep of vast cavern. Where would be the armory, with the weapons whose existence the sacerdote, by the very act of dying, had assured him? Joaz turned his attention once more to the left, straining to see detail in the odd tiered workshop which rose fifty feet from the stone floor. A strange edifice, thought Joaz, craning his neck; one whose nature he could not entirely comprehend. But every aspect of the great cavern— so close beside Banbeck Vale and so remote— was strange and marvelous. Weapons? They might be anywhere; certainly he dared seek no further for them. There was nothing more he could learn without risk of discovery. He turned back the way he had come— up the dim passage, past the occasional side cubicles, where the two sacerdotes remained as he had found them before— the one asleep, the other intent on the contrivance of twisted metal. He plodded on and on. Had he come so far? Where was the fissure which led to his own apartment? Had he passed it by, must he search? Panic rose in his throat, but he continued, watching carefully. There, he had not gone wrong! There it opened to his right, a fissure almost dear and familiar. He plunged into it, walked with long loping strides, like a man under water, holding his luminous tube ahead. An apparition rose before him, a tall white shape. Joaz stood rigid. The gaunt figure bore down upon him. Joaz pressed against the wall. The figure stalked forward, and suddenly shrank to human scale. It was the young sacerdote whom Joaz had shorn and left for dead. He confronted Joaz, mild blue eyes bright with reproach and contempt. “Give me my torc.”

With numb fingers Joaz removed the golden collar. The sacerdote took it, but made no move to clasp it upon himself. He looked at the hair which weighted heavy upon Joaz’s scalp. With a foolish grimace Joaz doffed the disheveled wig, proffered it. The sacerdote sprang back as if Joaz had become a cave goblin. Sidling past, as far from Joaz as the wall of the passage allowed, he paced swiftly off down the tunnel. Joaz dropped the wig to the floor, stared down at the unkempt pile of hair. He turned, looked after the sacerdote, a pallid figure which soon became one with the murk. Slowly Joaz continued up the tunnel. There— an oblong blank of light, the opening to his workshop. He crawled through, back to the real world. Savagely, with all his strength, he thrust the slab back in the hole, slammed down the gate which originally had trapped the sacerdote.

Joaz’s garments lay where he had tossed them. Wrapping himself in a cloak he went to the outer door, looked forth into the anteroom, where Rife sat dozing. Joaz snapped his fingers. “Fetch masons, with mortar, steel and stone.”

Joaz bathed with diligence, rubbing himself time after time with emulsion, rinsing and re-rinsing himself. Emerging from the bath he took the waiting masons into his workshop, ordered the sealing of the hole.

Then he took himself to his couch. Sipping a cup of wine, he let his mind rove and wander. Recollection became reverie, reverie became dream. Joaz once again traversed the tunnel, on feet light as thistle-down, down the long cavern, and the sacerdotes in their cubicles now raised their heads to look after him. At last he stood in the entrance to the great underground void, and once more looked right and left in awe. Now he drifted across the floor, past sacerdotes laboring earnestly over fires and anvils. Sparks rose from retorts, blue gas flickered above melting metal.

Joaz moved beyond to a small chamber cut into the stone. Here sat an old man, thin as a pole, his waist-long mane of hair snow-white. The man examined Joaz with fathomless blue eyes, and spoke, but his voice was muffled, inaudible. He spoke again; the words rang loud in Joaz’s mind.

“I bring you here to caution you, lest you do us harm, and with no profit to yourself. The weapon you seek is both nonexistent and beyond your imagination. Put it outside your ambition.”

By great effort Joaz managed to stammer, “The young sacerdote made no denial; this weapon must exist!”

“Only within the narrow limits of special interpretation. The lad can speak no more than the literal truth, nor can he act with other than grace. How can you wonder why we hold ourselves apart? You Utter folk find purity incomprehensible; you thought to advantage yourself, but achieved nothing but an exercise in rat-like stealth. Lest you try again with greater boldness I must abase myself to set matters correct. I assure you, this so-called weapon is absolutely beyond your control.”

First shame, then indignation came over Joaz; he cried out, “You do not understand my urgencies! Why should I act differently? Coralyne is close; the Basics are at hand. Are you not men? Why will you not help us defend the planet?”

The Demie shook his head, and the white hair rippled with hypnotic slowness. “I quote you the Rationale: passivity, complete and absolute. This implies solitude, sanctity, quiescence, peace. Can you imagine the anguish I risk in speaking to you? I intervene, I interfere, at vast pain of the spirit. Let there be an end to it. We have made free with your studio, doing you no harm, offering you no indignity. You have paid a visit to our hall, demeaning a noble young man in the process. Let us be quits, let there be no further spying on either side. Do you agree?”

Joaz heard his voice respond, quite without his conscious prompting; it sounded more nasal and shrill than he liked. “You offer this agreement now when you have learned your fill of my secrets, but I know none of yours.”

The Demie’s face seemed to recede and quiver. Joaz read contempt, and in his sleep he tossed and twitched. He made an effort to speak in a voice of calm reason. “Come, we are men together; why should we be at odds? Let us share our secrets, let each help the other. Examine my archives, my cases, my relics at your leisure, and then allow me to study this existent but nonexistent weapon. I swear it shall be usedonly against the basics, for the protection of both of us.”

The Demie’s eyes sparkled. “No.”

“Why not?” argued Joaz. “Surely you wish us no harm?”

“We are detached and passionless. We await your extinction. You are the Utter Men, and the last of humanity. And when you are gone, your dark thoughts and grim plots will be gone; murder and pain and malice will be gone.”

“I cannot believe this,” said Joaz. “There may be no men in the cluster, but what of the universe? The Old Rule reached far; sooner or later men will return to Aerlith.”

The Demie’s voice became plangent. “Do you think we speak only from faith? Do you doubt our knowledge?”

“The universe is large. The Old Rule reached far.”

“The last men dwell on Aerlith,” said the Demie. “The Utter men and the sacerdotes. You shall pass; we will carry forth the Rationale like a banner of glory, through all the worlds of the sky.”

“And how will you transport yourselves on this mission?” Joaz asked cunningly. “Can you fly to the stars as naked as you walk the fells?”

“There will be a means. Time is long.”

“For your purposes, time needs to be long. Even on the Coralyne planets there are men. Enslaved, reshaped in body and mind, but men. What of them? It seems that you are wrong, that you are guided by faith indeed.”

The Demie fell silent. His face seemed to stiffen.

“Are these not facts?” asked Joaz. “How do you reconcile them with your faith?”

The Demie said mildly, “Facts can never be reconciled with faith. By our faith, these men, if they exist, will also pass. Time is long; Oh, the worlds of brightness: they await us!”

“It is clear,” said Joaz, “that you ally yourselves with the Basics, that you hope for our destruction, and this can only change our attitudes toward you. I fear that Ervis Carcolo was right and I wrong.”

“We remain passive,” said the Demie. His face wavered, seemed to swim with mottled colors. “Without emotion, we will stand witness to the passing of the Utter men, neither helping nor hindering.”

Joaz spoke in fury. “Your faith, your Rationale— whatever you call it— misleads you. I make this threat— if you fail to help us, you will suffer as we suffer.”

“We are passive, we are indifferent.”

“What of your children? The Basics make no difference between us. They will herd you to their pens as readily as they do us. Why should we fight to protect you?”

The Demie’s face faded, became splotched with fog, transparent mist; his eyes glowed like rotten meat. “We need no protection,” he howled. “We are secure.”

“You will suffer our fate,” cried Joaz, “I promise you this!”

The demie collapsed suddenly into a small dry husk, like a dead mosquito; with incredible speed, Joaz fled back through the caves, the tunnels, up through his workroom, his studio, into his bedchamber where now he jerked upright, eyes starting, throat distended, mouth dry.

The door opened; Rife’s head appeared. “Did you call, sir?”

Joaz raised himself on his elbows, looked around the room. “No. I did not call.”

Rife withdrew. Joaz settled back on the couch, lay staring at the ceiling. He had dreamed a most peculiar dream. Dream? A synthesis of his own imaginings? Or, in all verity, a confrontation and exchange between two minds? Impossible to decide, and perhaps irrelevant; the event carried its own conviction. Joaz swung his legs over the side of the couch, blinked at the floor. Dream or colloquy, it was all the same. He rose to his feet, donned sandals and a robe of yellow fur, limped morosely up to the Council Room and stepped out on a sunny balcony.

The day was two-thirds over. Shadows hung dense along the western cliffs. Right and left stretched Banbeck Vale. Never had it seemed more prosperous or more fruitful, and never before unreal, as if he were a stranger to the planet. He looked north along the great bulwark of stone which rose sheer to Banbeck Verge. This too was unreal, a facade behind which lived the sacerdotes. He gauged the rock face, superimposing a mental projection of the great cavern. The cliff toward the north end of the vale must be scarcely more than a shell!

Joaz turned his attention to the exercise field, where Juggers were thudding briskly through defensive evolutions. How strange was the quality of life, which had produced Basic and Jugger, sacerdote and himself. He thought of Ervis Carcolo, and wrestled with sudden exasperation. Carcolo was a distraction most unwelcome at the present time; there would be no tolerance when Carcolo was finally brought to account. A light step behind him, the pressure of fur, the touch of gay hands, the scent of incense. Joaz’s tensions melted. If there were no such creatures as minstrel-maidens, it would be necessary to invent them.

Deep under Banbeck Scarp, in a cubicle lit by a twelve-vial candelabra, a naked white-haired man sat quietly. On a pedestal at the level of his eyes rested his tand, an intricate construction of gold rods and silver wire, woven and bent seemingly at random. The fortuitousness of the design, however, was only apparent. Each curve symbolized an aspect of Final Sentience; the shadow cast upon the wall represented the Rationale, ever-shifting, always the same.

The object was sacred to the sacerdotes, and served as a source of revelation. There was never an end to the study of the tand: new intuitions were continually derived from some heretofore overlooked relationship of angle and curve. The nomenclature was elaborate: each part, juncture, sweep and twist had its name; each aspect of the relationships between the various parts was likewise categorized. Such was the cult of the tand: abstruse, exacting, without compromise. At his puberty rites the young sacerdote might study the original tand for as long as he chose; each must construct a duplicate tand, relying upon memory alone. Then occurred the most significant event of his lifetime: the viewing of his tand by a synod of elders. In awesome stillness, for hours at a time they would ponder his creation, weigh the infinitesimal variations of proportion, radius, sweep and angle. So they would infer the initiate’s quality, judge his personal attributes, determine his understanding of Final Sentience, the Rationale and the Basis.

Occasionally the testimony of the tand revealed a character so tainted as to be reckoned intolerable; the vile tand would be cast into a furnace, the molten metal consigned to a latrine, the unlucky initiate expelled to the face of the planet, to live on his own terms.

The naked white-haired Demie, contemplating his own beautiful tand, sighed, moved restlessly. He had been visited by an influence so ardent, so passionate, so simultaneously cruel and tender, that his mind was oppressed. Unbidden, into his mind, came a dark seep of doubt. Can it be, he asked himself, that we have insensibly wandered from the true Rationale? Do we study our tands with blinded eyes? How to know, oh how to know! All is relative ease and facility in orthodoxy, yet how can it be denied that good is in itself undeniable? Absolutes are the most uncertain of all formulations, while the uncertainties are the most real.

Twenty miles over the mountains, in the long pale light of the Aerlith afternoon, Ervis Carcolo planned his own plans. “By daring, by striking hard, by cutting deep I can defeat him! In resolve, in courage, in endurance, I am more than his equal. Not again will he trick me, to slaughter my dragons and kill my men! Oh, Joaz Banbeck, how I will pay you for your deceit!” He raised his arms in wrath. “Oh Joaz Banbeck, you whey-faced sheep!” Carcolo smote the air with his fist. “I will crush you like a clod of dry moss!” He frowned, rubbed his round red chin. “But how? Where? He has every advantage!”

Carcolo pondered his possible stratagems. “He will expect me to strike, so much is certain. Doubtless he will again wait in ambush. So I will patrol every inch, but this too he will expect and so be wary lest I thunder upon him from above. Will he hide behind Despoire, or along Northguard, to catch me as I cross the Skanse? If so, I must approach by another route— through Maudlin Pass and under Mount Gethron? Then, if he is tardy in his march, I will meet him on Banbeck Verge. And if he is early, I stalk him through the peaks and chasms.

7

WITH THE COLD RAIN of dawn pelting down upon them, with the trail illuminated only by lightning-glare, Ervis Carcolo, his dragons and his men set forth. When the first sparkle of sunlight struck Mount Despoire, they had already traversed Maudlin Pass.

So far, so good, exulted Ervis Carcolo. He stood high in his stirrups to scan Starbreak Fell. No sign of the Banbeck forces. He waited, scanning the far edge of Northguard Ridge, black against the sky. A minute passed, two minutes; the men beat their hands together, the dragons rumbled and muttered fretfully. Impatience began to prickle along Carcolo’s ribs; he fidgeted and cursed. Could not the simplest of plans be carried through without mistake? But now the flicker of a heliograph from Barch Spike, and another to the southeast from the slopes of Mount Gethron. Carcolo waved forward his army; the way clear across Starbreak Fell. Down from Maudlin Pass surged the Happy Valley army. First the Long-horned Murderers, steel-spiked and crested with steel prongs; then the rolling red seethe of the Termagants, darting their heads as they ran; and behind came the balance of the forces.

Starbreak Fell spread wide before them, a rolling slope strewn with flinty meteoric fragments which glinted like flowers on the gray-green moss. To all sides rose majestic peaks, snow blazing white in the clear morning light: Mount Gethron, Mount Despoire, Barch Spike, and far to the south, Clew Taw.

The scouts converged from left to right, and brought identical reports. There was no sign of Joaz Banbeck or his troops. Carcolo began to toy with a new possibility. Perhaps Joaz Banbeck had not deigned to take the fidd. The idea enraged him and filled him with a great joy: if so, Joaz would pay dearly for his neglect.

Halfway across Starbreak Fell they came upon a pen occupied by two hundred of Joaz Banbeck’s spratling Fiends. Two old men and a boy tended the pen, and watched the Happy Valley horde advance with manifest terror.

But Carcolo rode past leaving the pen unmolested. If he won the day, it would become part of his spoils; if he lost, the spratling Fiends could do him no harm.

The old men and the boy stood on the roof of their turf hut, watching Carcolo and his troops pass— the men in black uniforms and black peaked caps with back-slanting ear flaps; the dragons bounding, crawling, loping, plodding, according to their kind, scales glinting; the dull red and maroon of Termagants; the poisonous shine of the Blue Horrors; the black-green Fiends; the gray and brown Juggers and Murderers. Ervis Carcolo rode on the right flank, Bast Givven rode to the rear. And now Carcolo hastened the pace, haunted by the anxiety that Joaz Banbeck might bring his Fiends and Juggers up Banbeck Scarp before he arrived to thrust him back— assuming that Joaz Banbeck in all actuality had been caught napping.

But Carcolo reached Banbeck Verge without challenge. He shouted out in triumph, waved his cap high. “Joaz Banbeck the sluggard! Let him try now the ascent of Banbeck Scarp!” And Ervis Carcolo surveyed Banbeck Vale with the eye of a conqueror.

Bast Givven seemed to share none of Carcolo’s triumph, and kept an uneasy watch to north and south and to the rear.

Carcolo observed him peevishly from the corner of his eye and presently called out, “Ho, ho, then! What’s amiss?”

“Perhaps much, perhaps nothing,” said Bast Givven, searching the landscape.

Carcolo blew out his mustaches. Givven went on, in the cool voice which so completely irritated Carcolo. “Joaz Banbeck seems to be tricking us as before.”

“Why do you say this?”

“Judge for yourself. Would he allow us advantage without claiming a miser’s price?”

“Nonsense!” muttered Carcolo. “The sluggard is fat with his last victory.” But he rubbed his chin and peered uneasily down into Banbeck Vale. From here it seemed curiously quiet. There was a strange inactivity in the fields and barracks. A chill began to grip Carcolo’s heart. Then he cried out. “Look at the brooder, there are the Banbeck dragons!”

Givven squinted down into the vale, glanced sidewise at Carcolo. “Three Termagants, in egg.” He straightened, abandoned all interest in the vale and scrutinized the peaks and ridges to the north and east. “Assume that Joaz Banbeck set out before dawn, came up to the Verge, by the Slicken-slides, crossed Blue Fell— “

“What of Blue Crevasse?”

“He avoids Blue Crevasse to the north, comes over Barchback, steals across the Skanse and around Barch Spike …”

Carcolo studied Northguard Ridge with new and startled awareness. A quiver of movement, the glint of scales?

“Retreat!” roared Carcolo. “Make for Barch Spike! They’re behind us!”

Startled, his army broke ranks, fled across Banbeck Verge, up into the harsh spurs of Barch Spike. Joaz, his strategy discovered, launched squads of Murderers to intercept the Happy Valley army, to engage and delay and, if possible, deny them the broken slopes of Barch Spike.

Carcolo calculated swiftly. His own Murderers he considered his finest troops, and held them in great pride. Purposely now he delayed, hoping to engage the Banbeck skirmishers, quickly destroy them and still gain the protection of the Barch declivities.

The Banbeck Murderers, however, refused to close, and scrambled for height up Barch Spike. Carcolo sent forward his Termagants and Blue Horrors; with a horrid snarling the two lines met. The Banbeck Termagants rushed up, to be met by Carcolo’s Striding Murderers, and forced into humping pounding flight.

The main body of Carcolo’s troops, excited at the sight of retreating foes, could not be restrained. They veered off from Barch Spike, plunged down upon Starbreak Fell. The Striding Murderers overtook the Banbeck Termagants, climbed up their backs, toppled them over squealing and kicking, then knifed open the exposed pink bellies.

Banbeck’s Long-horned Murderers came circling, struck from the flank into Carcolo’s Striding Murderers, goring with steel-tipped horns, impaling on lances. Somehow they overlooked Carcolo’s Blue Horrors who sprang down upon them. With axes and maces they laid the Murderers low, performing the rather grisly entertainment of clambering on a subdued Murderer, seizing the horn, stripping back horn, skin and scales, from head to tail. So Joaz Banbeck lost thirty Termagants and perhaps two dozen Murderers. Nevertheless, the attack served its own purpose, allowing him to bring his knights, Fiends and Juggers down from Northguard before Carcolo could gain the heights of Barch Spike.

Carcolo retreated in a slantwise line up the pocked slopes, and meanwhile sent six men across the fell to the pen where the spratling Fiends milled in fear at the battle. The men broke the gates, struck down the two old men, herded the young Fiends across the fell toward the Banbeck troops. The hysterical spratlings obeyed their instincts, clasped themselves to the neck of whatever dragon they first encountered, which thereupon became sorely hampered, for its own instincts prevented it from detaching the spratling by force.

This ruse, a brilliant improvisation, created enormous disorder among the Banbeck troops. Ervis Carcolo now charged with all his power directly into the Banbeck center. Two squads of Termagants fanned out to harass the men; his Murderers— the only category in which he outnumbered Joaz Banbeck— were sent to engage Fiends, while Carcolo’s own Fiends, pampered, strong, glistening with oily strength, snaked in toward the Banbeck Juggers. Under the great brown hulks they darted, lashing the fifty-pound steel ball at the tip of their tails against the inner side of the Jugger’s legs.

A roaring meleй ensued. Battle lines were uncertain; both men and dragons were crushed, torn apart, hacked to bits. The air sang with bullets, whistled with steel, reverberated to trumpeting, whistles, shouts, screams and bellows.

The reckless abandon of Carcolo’s tactics achieved results out of proportion to his numbers. His Fiends burrowed ever deeper into the crazed and almost helpless Banbeck Juggers, while the Carcolo Murderers and Blue Horrors held back the Banbeck Fiends. Joaz Banbeck himself, assailed by Termagants, escaped with his life only by fleeing around behind the battle, where he picked up the support of a squad of Blue Horrors. In a fury he blew a withdrawal signal, and his army backed off down the slopes, leaving the ground littered with struggling and kicking bodies.

Carcolo, throwing aside all restraint, rose in his saddle, signaled to commit his own Juggers, which so far he had treasured like his own children.

Shrilling, hiccuping, they lumbered down into the seethe, tearing away great mouthfuls of flesh to right and left, ripping apart lesser dragons with their brachs, treading on Termagants, seizing Blue Horrors and Murderers, flinging them wailing and clawing through the air. Six Banbeck knights sought to stem the charge, firing their muskets point-blank into the demoniac faces; they went down and were seen no more.

Down on Starbreak Fell tumbled the battle. The nucleus of the fighting became less concentrated, the Happy Valley advantage dissipated. Carcolo hesitated, a long heady instant. He and his troops alike were afire; the intoxication of unexpected success tingled in their brains. But here on Starbreak Fell, could they counter the odds posed by the greater Banbeck forces? Caution dictated that Carcolo withdraw up Barch Spike, to make the most of his limited victory. Already a strong platoon of Fiends had grouped and were maneuvering to charge his meager force of Juggers. Bast Givven approached, clearly expecting the word to retreat. But Carcolo still waited, reveling in the havoc being wrought by his paltry six Juggers.

Bast Givven’s saturnine face was stern. “Withdraw, withdraw! It’s annihilation when their flanks bear in on us.”

Carcolo seized his elbow. “Look! See where those Fiends gather, see where Joaz Banbeck rides! As soon as they charge, send six Striding Murderers from either side; close in on him, kill him!”

Givven opened his mouth to protest, looked where Carcolo pointed, rode to obey the orders.

Here came the Banbeck Fiends, moving with stealthy certainty toward the Happy Valley Juggers. Joaz, raising in his saddle, watched their progress. Suddenly from either side the Striding Murderers were on him. Four of his knights and six young cornets, screaming alarm, dashed back to protect him; there was clanging of steel on steel and steel on scale. The Murderers fought with sword and mace; the knights, their muskets useless, countered with cutlasses, and one by one going under. Rearing on hind legs the Murderer corporal hacked down at Joaz, who desperately fended off the blow. The Murderer raised sword and • mace together— and from fifty yards a musket pellet smashed into its ear. Crazy with pain, it dropped its weapons, fell forward upon Joaz, writhing and kicking. Banbeck Blue Horrors came to attack; the Murderers darted back and forth over the thrashing corporal, stabbing down at Joaz, lucking at him, finally fleeing the Blue Horrors.

Ervis Carcolo groaned in disappointment; by a half-second only had he fallen short of victory. Joaz Banbeck, bruised, mauled, perhaps wounded, had escaped with his life.

Over the crest of the hill came a rider: an unarmed youth whipping a staggering Spider. Bast Givven pointed him out to Carcolo. “A messenger from the valley, in urgency.”

The lad careened down the fell toward Carcolo, shouting ahead, but his message was lost in the din of battle. At last he drew close. “The Basics, the Basics!”

Carcolo slumped like a half-empty bladder. “Where?”

“A great black ship, half the valley wide. I was up on the heath, I managed to escape.” He pointed, whimpered.

“Speak, boy!” husked Carcolo. “What do they do?”

“I did not see; I came to notify you.”

Carcolo gazed across the battle field; the Banbeck Fiends had almost reached his Juggers, who were backing slowly, with heads lowered, fangs fully extended.

Carcolo threw up his hands in despair; he ordered Givven, “Blow a retreat, break clear!”

Waving a white kerchief he rode around the battle to where Joaz Banbeck still lay on the ground, the quivering Murderer only just now being lifted from his legs. Joaz stared up, his face white as Carcolo’s kerchief. At the sight of Carcolo his eyes grew wide and dark, his mouth became still.

Carcolo blurted, “The Basics have come once more; they have dropped into Happy Valley, they are destroying my people.”

Joaz Banbeck, assisted by his knights, gained his feet. He Stood swaying, arms limp, looking silently into Carcolo’s face. Carcolo spoke once more. “We must call truce; this battle is waste! With all our forces let us march to Happy Valley, attack the monsters before they destroy all of us! Ah, think what we could have achieved with the weapons of the sacerdotes!”

Joaz stood silent. Another ten seconds passed. Carcolo cried angrily, “Come now, what do you say?”

In a hoarse voice Joaz spoke, “I say, no truce. You rejected my warning, you thought to loot Banbeck Vale. I will show you no mercy.”

Carcolo gaped, his mouth a red hole under the sweep of his mustaches. “But the Basics— “

“Return to your troops. You as well as the Basics are my enemy; why should I choose between you? Prepare to fight for your life; I give you no truce.”

Carcolo drew back, face as pale as Joaz’s own. “Never shall you rest. Even though you win this battle here on Starbreak Fell, yet you shall never know victory. I will persecute you until you cry for relief.”

Banbeck motioned to his knights. “Whip this dog back to his own.”

Carcolo backed his Spider from the threatening flails, turned, loped away. The tide of battle had turned. The Banbeck Fiends now had broken past his Blue Horrors; one of his Juggers was gone; another, facing three sidling Fiends, snapped its great jaws, waved its monstrous sword. The Fiends flicked and feinted with their steel balls, scuttled forward. The Jugger chopped, shattered its sword on the rock-hard armor of the Fiends; they were underneath, slamming their steel balls into the monstrous legs. It tried to hop clear, toppled majestically. The Fiends slit its belly, and now Carcolo had only five Juggers left.

“Back!” he cried. “Disengage!”

Up Barch Spike toiled his troops, the battle front a roaring seethe of scales, armor, flickering metal. Luckily for Carcolo his rear was to the high ground, and after ten horrible minutes he was able to establish an orderly retreat. Two more Juggers had fallen; the three remaining scrambled free. Seizing boulders, they hurled them down into the attackers, who, after a series of sallies and lunges, were well content to break clear. In any event, Joaz, after hearing Carcolo’s news, was of no disposition to spend further troops.

Carcolo, waving his sword in desperate defiance, led his troops back around Barch Spike, presently down across the dreary Skanse. Joaz turned back to Banbeck Vale. The news of the Basic raid had spread to all ears. The men rode sober and quiet, looking behind and overhead. Even the dragons seemed infected, and muttered restlessly among themselves.

As they crossed Blue Fell the almost omnipresent wind died; the stillness added to the oppression. Termagants, like the men, began to watch the sky. Joaz wondered, how could they know, how could they sense the Basics? He himself searched the sky, and as his army passed down over the scarp he thought to see, high over Mount Gethron, a flitting little black rectangle, which presently disappeared behind a crag.

8

ERVIS CARCOLO and the remnants of his army raced pell-mell down from the Skanse, through the wilderness of ravines and gulches at the base of Mount Despoire, out on the barrens to the west of Happy Valley. All pretense of military precision had been abandoned. Carcolo led the way, his .Spider sobbing with fatigue, behind in disarray pounded first Murderers and Blue Horrors, with Termagants hurrying along behind, then the Fiends, racing low to the ground, steel balls grinding on rocks, sending up sparks. Far in the rear lumbered the Juggers, with their attendants.

Down to the verge of Happy Valley plunged the army and pulled up short, stamping and squealing. Carcolo jumped from his Spider, ran to the brink, stood looking into the valley.

He had expected to see the ship, yet the actuality of the thing was so immediate and intense as to shock him. It was a tapered cylinder, glossy and black, resting in a field of legumes not far from ramshackle Happy Town. Polished metal disks at either end shimmered and glistened with fleeting films of color. There were three entrance ports: forward, central and aft, and from the central port a ramp had been extended to the ground.

The Basics had worked with ferocious efficiency. From the town straggled a line of people, herded by Heavy Troopers. Approaching the ship they passed through an inspection apparatus controlled by a pair of Basics. A series of instruments and the eyes of the Basics appraised each man, woman and child, classified them by some system not instantly obvious, whereupon the captives were either hustled up the ramp into the ship or prodded into a nearby booth. Peculiarly, no matter how many persons entered, the booth never seemed to fill.

Carcolo rubbed his forehead with trembling fingers, turned his eyes to the ground. When once more he looked up, Bast Givven stood beside him, and together they stared down into the valley.

From behind came a cry of alarm. Starting around, Carcolo saw a black rectangular flier sliding silently down from above Mount Gethron. Waving his arms Carcolo ran for the rocks, bellowing orders to take cover. Dragons and men scuttled up the gulch. Overhead slid the flier. A hatch opened, releasing a load of explosive pellets. They struck with a great rattling volley, and up into the air flew pebbles, rock splinters, fragments of bone, scales, skin, flesh, and all who failed to reach cover were shredded. The Termagants fared relatively well. The Fiends, though battered and scraped, had all survived. Two of the Juggers had been blinded, and could fight no more till they had grown new eyes.

The flier slid back once more. Several of the men fired their muskets— an act of apparently futile defiance, but the flier was struck and damaged. It twisted, veered, soared up in a roaring curve, swooped over on its back, plunged toward the mountainside, crashed in a brilliant orange gush of fire. Carcolo shouted in maniac glee, jumped up and down, ran to the verge of the cliff, shook his fist at the ship below. He quickly quieted, to stand glum and shivering. Then turning to the ragged cluster of men and dragons who once more had crept down from the gulch. Carcolo cried hoarsely, “What do you say? Shall we fight? Shall we charge down upon them?”

There was silence; Bast Givven replied in a colorless voice, “We are helpless. We can accomplish nothing. Why commit suicide?”

Carcolo turned away, heart too full for words. Givven spoke the obvious truth. They would either be killed or dragged aboard the ship; and then, on a world too strange for imagining, be put to uses too dismal to be borne. Carcolo clenched his fists, looked westward with bitter hatred. “Joaz Banbeck, you brought me to this! When I might yet have fought for my people you detained me!”

“The Basics were here already,” said Givven with unwelcome rationality. “We could have done nothing since we had nothing to do with.”

“We could have fought!” bellowed Carcolo. “We might have swept down the Crotch, come upon them with all force! A hundred warriors and four hundred dragons. Are these to be despised?”

Bast Givven judged further argument to be pointless. He pointed. “They now examine our brooders.”

Carcolo turned to look, gave a wild laugh. “They are astonished! They are awed! And well have they a right to be.”

Givven agreed. “I imagine the sight of a Fiend or a Blue Horror— not to mention a Jugger— gives them pause for reflection.”

Down in the valley the grim business had ended. The Heavy Troopers marched back into the ship; a pair of enormous men twelve feet high came forth, lifted the booth, carried it up the ramp into the ship. Carcolo and his men watched with protruding eyes. “Giants!”

Bast Givven chuckled dryly. “The Basics stare at our Juggers; we ponder their Giants.”

The Basics presently returned to the ship. The ramp was drawn up, the ports closed. From a turret in the bow came a shaft of energy, touching each of the three brooders in succession, and each exploded with great eruption of black bricks.

Carcolo moaned softly under his breath, but said nothing.

The ship trembled, floated; Carcolo bellowed an order; men and dragons rushed for cover. Flattened behind boulders they watched the black cylinder rise from the valley, drift to the west. “They make for Banbeck Vale,” said Bast Givven.

Carcolo laughed, a cackle of mirthless gless. Bast Givven looked at him sidelong. Had Ervis Carcolo become addled? He turned away. A matter of no great moment.

Carcolo came to a sudden resolve. He stalked to one of the Spiders, mounted, swung around to face his men. “I ride to Banbeck Vale. Joaz Banbeck has done his best to despoil me; I shall do my best against him. I give no orders. Come or stay as you wish. Only remember! Joaz Banbeck would not allow us to fight the Basics!”

He rode off. The men stared into the plundered valley, turned to look after Carcolo. The black ship was just now slipping over Mount Despoire. There was nothing for them in the valley. Grumbling and muttering they summoned the bone-tired dragons, set off up the dreary mountainside.

9

ERVIS CARCOLO rode his Spider at a plunging run across the Skanse. Tremendous crags soared to either side, the blazing sun hung halfway up the black sky. Behind, the Skanse Ramparts; ahead, Barchback, Barch Spike and Northguard Ridge. Oblivious to the fatigue of his Spider, Carcolo whipped it on; gray-green moss pounded back from its wild feet, the narrow head hung low, foam trailed from its gill-vents. Carcolo cared nothing; his mind was empty of all but hate— for the Basics, for Joaz Banbeck, for Aerlith, for man, for human history. Approaching Northguard the Spider staggered and fell. It lay moaning, neck outstretched, legs trailing back. Carcolo dismounted in disgust, looked back down the long rolling slope of the Skanse to see how many of his troops had followed him. A man riding a Spider at a modest lope turned out to be Bast Givven, who presently came up beside him, inspected the fallen Spider. “Loosen the surcingle; he will recover the sooner.”

Carcolo glared, thinking to hear a new note in Givven’s voice. Nevertheless he bent over the foundered dragon, slipped loose the broad bronze buckle. Givven dismounted, stretched his arms, massaged his thin legs. He pointed. “The Basic ship descends into Banbeck Vale.”

Carcolo nodded grimly. “I would be an audience to the landing.” He kicked the Spider. “Come, get up, have you not rested enough? Do you wish me to walk?”

The Spider whimpered its fatigue, but nevertheless struggled to its feet. Carcolo started to mount, but Bast Givven laid a restraining hand on his shoulder. Carcolo looked back in outrage; here was impertinence! Givven said calmly, “Tighten the surcingle, otherwise you will fall on the rocks, and once more break your bones.”

Uttering a spiteful phrase under his breath, Carcolo clasped the buckle back into position, the Spider crying out in despair. Paying no heed, Carcolo mounted, and the Spider moved off with trembling steps.

Barch Spike rose ahead like the prow of a white ship, dividing Northguard Ridge from Barchback. Carcolo paused to consider the landscape, tugging his mustaches.

Givven was tactfully silent. Carcolo looked back down the Skanse to the listless straggle of his army, set off to the left.

Passing close under Mount Gethron, skirting the High Jambles, they descended an ancient watercourse to Banbeck Verge. Though perforce they had come without great speed, the Basic ship had moved no faster and had only started to settle into the vale, the disks at bow and stern swirling with furious colors.

Carlol grunted bitterly. “Trust Joaz Banbeck to scratch his own itch. Not a soul in sight; he’s taken to his tunnels, dragons and all.” Pursing his mouth he rendered a mincing parody of Joaz’s voice. ” ‘Ervis Carcolo, my dear friend, there is but one answer to attack. Dig tunnels!’ And I replied to him, ‘Am I a sacerdote to live underground? Burrow and delve, Joaz Banbeck, do as you will, I am but an ‘old-time man; I go under the cliffs only when I must.’ “

Givven gave the faintest of shrugs.

Carcolo went on, “Tunnels or not, they’ll winkle him out. If need be they’ll blast open the entire valley. They’ve no lack of tricks.”

Givven grinned sardonically. “Joaz Banbeck knows a trick or two— as we know to our sorrow.”

“Let him capture two dozen Basics today,” snapped Carcolo. “Then I’ll concede him a clever man.” He walked away to the very brink of the cliff, standing in full view of the Basic ship. Givven watched without expression.

Carcolo pointed. “Aha! Look there!”

“Not I,” said Givven. “I respect the Basic weapons too greatly.”

“Pah!” spat Carcolo. Nevertheless he moved a trifle back from the brink. “There are dragons in Kergan’s Way. For all Joaz Banbeck’s talk of tunnels.” He gazed north along the valley a moment or two, then threw up his hands in frustration. “Joaz Banbeck will not come up here to me; there is nothing I can do. Unless I walk down into the village, seek him out and strike him down, he will escape me.”

“Unless the Basics captured the two of you and confined you in the same pen,” said Givven.

“Bah!” muttered Carcolo, and moved off to one side.

10

THE VISION-PLATES which allowed Joaz Banbeck to observe the length and breadth of Banbeck Vale for the first time were being put to practical use. He had evolved the scheme while playing with a set of old lenses, and dismissed it as quickly. Then one day, while trading with the sacerdotes in the cavern under Mount Gethron, he had proposed that they design and supply the optics for such a system.

The blind old sacerdote who conducted the trading gave an ambiguous reply: the possibility of such a project, under certain circumstances, might well deserve consideration. Three months passed; the scheme receded to the back of Joaz Banbeck’s mind. Then the sacerdote in the trading cave inquired if Joaz still planned to install the viewing system; if so he might take immediate delivery of the optics. Joaz agreed to the barter price, returned to Banbeck Vale with four heavy crates. He ordered the necessary tunnels driven, installed the lenses, and found that with the study darkened he could command all quarters of Banbeck Vale.

Now, with the Basic ship darkening the sky, Joaz Banbeck stood in his study, watching the descent of the great black hulk.

At the back of the chamber maroon portieres parted. Clutching the cloth with taut fingers stood the minstrel-maiden Phade. Her face was pale, her eyes bright as opals. In a husky voice she called, “The ship of death; it has come to gather souls!”

Joaz turned her a stony glance, turned back to the honed glass screen. “The ship is clearly visible.”

Phade ran forward, clasped Joaz’s arm, swung around to look into his face. “Let us try to escape! Into the mountains, the High Jambles; don’t let them take us so soon!”

“No one deters you,” said Joaz indifferently. “Escape in any direction you choose.”

Phade stared at him blankly, then turned her head and watched the screen. The great black ship sank with sinister deliberation, the disks at bow and stern now shimmering mother-of-pearl. Phade looked back to Joaz, licked her lips. “Are you not afraid?”

Joaz smiled thinly. “What good to run? Their Trackers are swifter than Murderers, more vicious than Termagants. They can smell you a mile away, take you from the very center of the Jambles.”

Phade shivered with superstitious horror. She whispered, “Let them take me dead, then; I can’t go with them alive.”

Joaz suddenly cursed. “Look where they land! In our best field of bellegarde!”

“What is the difference?”

“‘Difference’? Must we stop eating because they pay their visit?”

Phade looked at him in a daze, beyond comprehension. She sank slowly to her knees and began to perform the ritual gestures of the Theurgic cult: hands palm down to either side, slowly up till the back of the hand touched the ears, and the simultaneous protrusion of the tongue. Over and over again, eyes staring with hypnotic intensity into emptiness.

Joaz ignored the gesticulations, until Phade, her face screwed up into a fantastic mask, began to sigh and whimper; then he swung the flaps of his jacket into her face. “Give over your folly!”

Phade collapsed moaning to the floor; Joaz’s lips twitched in annoyance. Impatiently he hoisted her erect. “Look you, these Basics are neither ghouls nor angels of death; they are no more than pallid Termagants, the basic stock of our dragons. So now, give over your idiocy, or I’ll have Rife take you away.”

“Why do you not make ready? You watch and do nothing.”

“There is nothing more that I can do.”

Phade drew a deep shuddering sigh, stared dully at the screen. “Will you fight them?”

“Naturally.”

“How can you hope to counter such miraculous power?”

“We will do what we can. They have not yet met our dragons.”

The ship came to rest in a purple and green vine-field across the valley, near the mouth of Clybourne Crevasse.

The port slid back, a ramp rolled forth. “Look,” said Joaz, “there you see them.”

Phade stared at the queer pale shapes who had come tentatively out on the ramp. “They seem strange and twisted, like silver puzzles for children.”

“They are the Basics. From their eggs came our dragons. They have done as well with men. Look, here are their Heavy Troops.”

Down the ramp, four abreast, in exact cadence, marched the Heavy Troops, to halt fifty yards in front of the ship. There were three squads of twenty— short men with massive shoulders, thick necks, stern down-drawn faces. They wore armor fashioned from overlapping scales of black and blue metal, a wide belt slung with pistol and sword. Black epaulets extending past their shoulders supported a short ceremonial flap of black cloth ranging down their backs; their helmets bore a crest of sharp spikes, their knee-high boots were armed with kick-knives.

A number of Basics now rode forth. Their mounts, creatures only remotely resembling men, ran on hands and feet, backs high off the ground. Their heads were long and hairless, with quivering loose lips. The Basics controlled them with negligent touches of a quirt, and once on the ground set them cantering smartly through the bellegarde. Meanwhile a team of Heavy Troopers rolled a three-wheeled mechanism down the ramp, directed its complex snout toward the village.

“Never before have they prepared so carefully,” muttered Joaz. “Here come the Trackers.” He counted. “Only two dozen? Perhaps they are hard to breed. Generations pass slowly with men while dragons lay a clutch of eggs every year.”

The Trackers moved to the side and stood in a loose restless group. They were gaunt creatures seven feet tall, with bulging black eyes, beaked noses, small undershot mouths pursed as if for kissing. From narrow shoulders long arms dangled and swung like ropes. As they waited they flexed their knees, staring sharply up and down the valley, in constant restless motion. After them came a group of Weaponeers— unmodified men wearing loose cloth smocks and cloth hats of green and yellow. They brought with them two more three-wheeled contrivances which they at once began to adjust and test.

The entire group became still and tense. The Heavy Troopers stepped forward with a stumping, heavy-legged gait, hands ready at pistols and swords. “Here they come,” said Joaz. Phade made a quiet desperate sound, knelt, once more began to perform Theurgic gesticulations. Joaz in disgust ordered her from the study, went to a panel equipped with a bank of six direct-wire communications, the construction of which he had personally supervised. He spoke into three of the telephones, assuring himself that his defenses were alert, then returned the honed-glass screens.

Across the field of bellegarde came the Heavy Troopers, faces heavy, hard, marked with down-veering creases. Upon either flank the Weaponeers trundled their three-wheeled mechanisms, but the Trackers waited beside the ship. About a dozen Basics rode behind the Heavy Troopers, carrying bulbous weapons on their backs.

A hundred yards from the portal into Kergan’s Way, beyond the range of the Banbeck muskets, the invaders halted. A Heavy Trooper ran to one of the Weaponeer’s carts, thrust his shoulders under a harness, stood erect. He now carried a gray machine, from which extended a pair of black globes. The Trooper scuttled toward the village like an enormous rat, while from the black globes streamed a flux, intended to interfere with the neural currents of the Banbeck defenders, and so immobilize them.

Explosions sounded, puffs of smoke appeared from nooks and vantages through the crags. Bullets spat into the ground beside the Trooper, several caromed off his armor. At once heat beams from the ship stabbed against the cliff walls. In his study Joaz Banbeck smiled. The smoke puffs were decoys, the actual shots came from other areas. The Trooper, dodging and jerking, avoided a rain of bullets, ran under the portal, above which two men waited. Affected by the flux, they tottered, stiffened. But nevertheless, they dropped a great stone which struck the Trooper where the neck joined his shoulders, hurled him to the ground. He thrashed his arms and legs up and down, rolled over and over; then bouncing to his feet, he raced back into the valley, soaring and bounding, finally to stumble, plunge headlong to the ground, and lay kicking and quivering.

The Basic army watched with no apparent concern or interest.

There was a moment of inactivity. Then from the ship came an invisible field of vibration, traveling across the face of the cliff. Where the focus struck, puffs of dust arose and loose rock became dislodged. A man, lying on a ledge, sprang to his feet, dancing and twisting, plunged two hundred feet to his death. Passing across one of Joaz Banbeck’s spy-holes, the vibration was carried into the study where it set up a nerve-grinding howl. The vibration passed along the cliff; Joaz rubbed his aching head.

Meanwhile the Weaponeers discharged one of their instruments: first there came a muffled explosion, then through the air curved a wobbling gray sphere. Inaccurately aimed, it struck the portal and burst in a great gush of yellow-white gas. The mechanism exploded once more, and this time lobbed the bomb accurately into Kergan’s Way, which was now deserted, and the bomb produced no effect.

In his study Joaz waited grimly. Till now the Basics had taken only tentative, almost playful, steps; more serious efforts would surely follow.

Wind dispersed the gas; the situation remained as before. The casualties so far had been one Heavy Trooper and one Banbeck rifleman.

From the ship now came a stab of red flame, harsh, decisive. The rock at the portal shattered; slivers sang and spun; the Heavy Troopers jogged forward.

Joaz spoke into his telephone, bidding his captains caution, lest counter-attacking against a feint, they expose themselves to a new gas bomb.

But the Heavy Troopers stormed into Kergan’s Way— in Joaz’s mind an act of contemptuous recklessness. He gave a curt order; out from passages and areas swarmed his dragons— Blue Horrors, Fiends, Termagants.

The squat Troopers stared with sagging jaws. Here were unexpected antagonists. Kergan’s Way resounded with their calls and orders. First they fell back, then, with the courage of desperation, fought furiously. Up and down Kergan’s Way raged the battle. Certain relationships quickly became evident. In the narrow defile neither the Trooper pistols nor the steel-weighted tails of the Fiends could be used effectively. Cutlasses were useless against dragon-scale, but the pincers of the Blue Horrors, the Termagant daggers, the axes, swords, fangs and claws of the Fiends, did bloody work against the Heavy Troopers. A single Trooper and a single Termagant were approximately a match; though the Trooper, gripping the dragon with massive arms, tearing away its brachs, breaking back its neck, won more often than the Termagant. But if two or three Termagants confronted a single Trooper, he was doomed. As soon as he committed himself to one, another would crush his legs, blind him or hack open his throat.

So the Troopers fell back to the valley floor, leaving twenty of their fellows dead in Kergan’s Way. The Banbeck men once more opened fire, but once more with minor effect.

Joaz watched from his study, wondering as to the next Basic tactic. Enlightenment was not long in coming. The Heavy Troopers regrouped, stood panting, while the Basics rode back and forth receiving information, admonishing, advising, chiding.

From the black ship came a gush of energy, to strike the cliff above Kergan’s Way, and the study rocked with the concussion.

Joaz backed away from the vision-plates. What if a ray struck one of his collecting lenses? Might not the energy be guided and reflected directly toward him? He departed his study as it shook to a new explosion.

He ran through a passage, descended a staircase, emerged into one of the central galleries, to find apparent confusion. White-faced women and children, retiring deeper into the mountain, pushed past dragons and men in battle gear entering one of the new tunnels. Joaz watched for a moment of two to satisfy himself that the confusion held nothing of panic, then joined his warriors in the tunnel leading north.

In some past era an entire section of the cliff at the head of the valley had sloughed off, creating a jungle of piled rock and boulders called the Banbeck Jambles. Here, through a fissure, the new tunnel opened; and here Joaz went with his warriors. Behind them, down the valley, sounded the rumble of explosions as the black ship began to demolish Banbeck Village.

Joaz, peering around a boulder, watched in a fury, as great slabs of rock began to scale away from the cliff. Then he stared in astonishment, for to the Basic troops had come an extraordinary reinforcement. He saw eight Giants twice an ordinary man’s stature— barrel-chested monsters, gnarled of arm and leg, with pale eyes, shocks of tawny hair. They wore brown and red armor with black epaulettes, and carried swords, maces and blast-cannon slung over their backs.

Joaz considered. The presence of the Giants gave him no reason to alter his central strategy, which in any event was vague and intuitive. He must be prepared to suffer losses, and could only hope to inflict greater losses on the Basics. But what did they care for the lives of their troops? Less than he cared for his dragons. And if they destroyed Banbeck Village, ruined the Vale— how could he do corresponding damage to them? He looked over his shoulder at the tall white cliffs, wondering how closely he had estimated the position of the sacerdote’s hall. And now he must act; the time had come. He signaled to a small boy, one of his own sons, who took a deep breath, hurled himself blindly away from the shelter of the rocks, ran helter-skelter out to the valley floor. A moment later his mother ran forth to snatch him up and dash back into the Tumbles.

“Done well,” Joaz commended them. “Done well indeed.” Cautiously he again looked forth through the rocks. The Basics were gazing intently in his direction.

For a long moment, while Joaz tingled with suspense, it seemed that they had ignored his play. They conferred, came to a decision, flicked the leathery buttocks of their mounts with their quirts. The creatures pranced sidewise, then loped north up the valley. The Trackers fell in behind, then came the Heavy Troopers moving at a humping quickstep. The Weaponeers followed with their three-wheeled mechanisms, and ponderously at the rear came the eight Giants. Across the fields of bellegarde and vetch, over vines, hedges, beds of berries and stands of oil-pod tramped the raiders, destroying with a certain morose satisfaction.

The Basics prudently halted before the Banbeck Jambles while the Trackers ran ahead like dogs, clambering over the first boulders, rearing high to test the air for odor, peering, listening, pointing, twittering doubtfully to each other. The Heavy Troopers moved in carefully, and their near presence spurred on the Trackers. Abandoning caution they bounded into the heart of the Jambles, emitting squeals of horrified consternation when a dozen Blue Horrors dropped among them. They clawed out heat guns, in their excitement burning friend and foe alike. With silken ferocity the Blue Horrors ripped them apart. Screaming for aid, kicking, flailing, thrashing, those who were able fled as precipitously as they had come. Only twelve from the original twenty-four regained the valley floor; and even as they did so, even as they cried out in relief at winning free from death, a squad of Long-horned Murderers burst out upon them, and these surviving Trackers were knocked down, gored, hacked.

The Heavy Troopers charged forward with hoarse calls of rage, aiming pistols, swinging swords, but the Murderers retreated to the shelter of the boulders.

Within the Jambles the Banbeck men had appropriated the heat guns dropped by the Trackers, and warily coming forward, tried to burn the Basics. But, unfamiliar with the weapons, the men neglected either to focus or condense the flame, and the Basics, no more then mildly singed, hastily whipped their mounts back out of range. The Heavy Troopers, halting not a hundred feet in front of the Jambles, sent in a volley of explosive pellets, which killed two of the Banbeck knights and forced the others back.

At a discreet distance the Basics appraised the situation. The Weaponeers came up, and while awaiting instructions, conferred in low tones with the mounts. One of these Weaponeers was now summoned and given orders. He divested himself of all his weapons and holding his empty hands in the air marched forward to the edge of the Jambles. Choosing a gap between a pair of ten-foot boulders, he resolutely entered the rock-maze.

A Banbeck knight escorted him to Joaz. Here, by chance, were also half a dozen Termagants. The Weaponeer paused uncertainly, made a mental readjustment, approached the Termagants. Bowing respectfully he started to speak. The Termagants listened without interest, and presently one of the knights directed him to Joaz.

“Dragons do not rule men on Aerlith,” said Joaz dryly. “What is your message?”

The Weaponeer looked dubiously toward the Termagants, then somberly back to Joaz. “You are authorized to act for the entire warren?” He spoke slowly, in a dry bland voice, selecting his words with conscientious care.

Joaz repeated shortly, “What is your message?”

“I bring an integration from my masters.”

” ‘Integration’? I do not understand you.”

“An integration of the instantaneous vectors of destiny. An interpretation of the future. They wish the sense conveyed to you in the following terms: ‘Do not waste lives, both ours and your own. You are valuable to us and will be given treatment in accordance with this value. Surrender to the Rule. Cease the wasteful destruction of enterprise.’ “

Joaz frowned. ” ‘Destruction of enterprise’?”

“The reference is to the content of your genes. The message is at its end. I advise you to accede. Why waste your blood, why destroy yourselves? Come forth now with me; all will be for the best.”

Joaz gave a brittle laugh. “You are a slave. How can you judge what is best for us?”

The Weaponeer blinked. “What choice is there for you? All residual pockets of disorganized life are to be expunged. The way of facility is best.” He inclined his head respectfully toward the Termagants. “If you doubt me, consult your own Revered Ones. They will advise you.”

“There are no Revered Ones here,” said Joaz. “The dragons fight with us and for us; they are our fellow-warriors. But I have an alternate proposal. Why do not you and your fellows join us? Throw off your slavery, become free men! We will take the ship and go searching for the old worlds of men.”

The Weaponeer exhibited only polite interest. ” ‘Worlds of men’? There are none of them. A few residuals such as yourself remain in the desolate regions. All are to be expunged. Would you not prefer to serve the Rule?”

“Would you not prefer to be a free man?”

The Weaponeer’s face showed mild bewilderment. “You do not understand me. If you choose— “

“Listen carefully,” said Joaz. “You and your fellows can be your own masters, live among other men.”

The Weaponeer frowned. “Who would wish to be a wild savage? To whom would we look for law, control, direction, order?”

Joaz threw up his hands in disgust, but made one last attempt. “I will provide all these; I will undertake such a responsibility. Go back, kill all the Basics— the Revered Ones, as you call them. These are my first orders.”

“Kill them?” The Weaponeer’s voice was soft with horror.

“Kill them.” Joaz spoke as if to a child. “Then we men will possess the ship. We will go to find the worlds where men are powerful— “

“There are no such worlds.”

“Ah, but there must be! At one time men roamed every star in the sky.”

“No longer.”

“What of Eden?”

“I know nothing of it.”

Joaz threw up his hands. “Will you join us?”

“What would be the meaning of such an act?” said the Weaponeer gently. “Come then, lay down your arms, submit to the Rule.” He glanced doubtfully toward the Termagants. “Your own Revered Ones will receive fitting treatment, have no fear on this account.”

“You fool! These ‘Revered Ones’ are slaves, just as you are a slave to the Basics! We breed them to serve us, just as you are bred! Have at least the grace to recognize your own degradation!”

The Weaponeer blinked. “You speak in terms I do not completely understand. You will not surrender then?”

“No. We will kill all of you, if our strength holds out.”

The Weaponeer bowed, turned, departed through the rocks. Joaz followed, peered out over the valley floor.

The Weaponeer made his report to the Basics, who listened with characteristic detachment. They gave an order, and the Heavy Troopers, spreading out in a skirmish line, moved slowly in toward the rocks. Behind lumbered the Giants, blasters slung forward at the ready, and about twenty Trackers, survivors of the first foray. The Heavy Troopers reached the rocks, peered in. The Trackers clambered above, searching for ambushes, and finding none, signaled back. With great caution the Heavy Troopers entered the Jambles, necessarily breaking formation. Twenty feet they advanced, fifty feet, a hundred feet. Emboldened, the vengeful Trackers sprang forward over the rocks, and up surged the Termagants.

Screaming and cursing, the Trackers scrambled back pursued by the dragons. The Heavy Troopers recoiled, then swung up their weapons, fired, and two Termagants were struck under the lower armpits, their most vulnerable spot. Floundering, they tumbled down among the rocks. Others, maddened, jumped squarely down upon the Troopers. There was roaring, squealing, cries of shock and pain. The Giants lumbered up, and grinning vastly plucked away the Termagants, wrenched off their heads, flung them high over the rocks. Those Termagants who were able scuttled back, leaving half a dozen Heavy Troopers wounded, two with their throats torn open.

Again the Heavy Troopers moved forward, with the Trackers reconnoitering above, but more warily. The Trackers froze, yelled a warning, the Heavy Troopers stopped short, calling to each other, swinging their guns nervously. Overhead the Trackers scrambled back, and through the rocks, over the rocks, came dozens of Fiends and Blue Horrors. The Heavy Troopers, grimacing dourly, fired their pistols; and the air reeked with the stench of burning scale, exploded viscera. The dragons surged in upon the men, and now began a terrible battle among the rocks, with the pistols, the maces, even the swords useless for lack of room. The Giants lumbered forward and in turn were attacked by Fiends. Astonished, the idiotic grins faded from their faces; they hopped awkwardly back from the steel-weighted tails, but among the rocks the Fiends were also at a disadvantage, their steel balls clattering and jarring away from rock more often than flesh.

The Giants, recovering, discharged their chest projectors into the melee; Fiends were torn apart as well as Blue Horrors and Heavy Troopers, the Giants making no distinction.

Over the rocks came another wave of dragons— Blue Horrors. They slid down on the heads of the Giants, clawing, stabbing, tearing. In a frenzy the Giants tore at the creatures, flung them to the ground, stamped on them, and the Heavy Troopers burnt them with their pistols.

From nowhere, for no reason, there came a lull. Ten seconds, fifteen seconds passed, with no sound but whimpering and moaning from wounded dragons and men. A sense of imminence weighted the air, and here came the Juggers, looming through the passages. For a brief period Giants and Juggers looked each other face to face. Then Giants groped for their blast projectors, while Blue Horrors sprang down once more, grappling the Giant arms. The Juggers stumped quickly forward. Dragon brachs grappled Giant arms; bludgeons and maces swung, dragon armor and man armor crushed and ground apart. Man and dragon tumbled over and over, ignoring pain, shock, mutilation.

The struggle became quiet; sobbing and wheezing replaced the roars, and presently eight Juggers, superior in mass and natural armament, staggered away from eight destroyed Giants.

The Troopers meanwhile had drawn together, standing back to back in clots. Step by step, burning with heat beams the screaming Horrors, Termagants and Fiends who lunged after them, they retreated toward the valley floor, and finally won free of the rocks. The pursuing Fiends, anxious to fight in the open, sprang into their midst, while from the flanks came Long-horned Murderers and Striding Murderers. In a spirit of reckless jubilation, a dozen men riding Spiders, carrying blast cannon taken from the fallen Giants, charged the Basics and Weaponeers, who waited beside the rather casual emplacement of three-wheeled weapons. The Basics, without shame, jerked their man-mounts around and fled toward the black ship. The Weaponeers swiveled their mechanisms, aimed, discharged bursts of energy. One man fell, two men, three men— then the others were among the Weaponeers, who were soon hacked to pieces, including the persuasive individual who had served as envoy.

Several of the men, whooping and hooting, set out in chase of the Basics, but the human mounts, springing along like monstrous rabbits, carried the Basics as fast as the Spiders carried the men. From the Jambles came a horn signal; the mounted men halted, wheeled back. The entire Banbeck force turned and retreated full speed into the Jambles.

The Troopers stumbled a few defiant steps in pursuit, then halted in sheer fatigue. Of the original three squads, not enough men to make up a single squad survived. The eight Giants had perished, all Weaponeers and almost the entire group of Trackers.

The Banbeck forces gained the Jambles with seconds only to spare. From the black ship came a volley of explosive pellets, to shatter the rocks at the spot where they had disappeared.

On a wind-polished cape of rock above Banbeck Vale Ervis Carcolo and Bast Givven had watched the battle. The rocks hid the greater part of the fighting; the cries and clangor rose faint and tinny, like insect noise. There would be the glint of dragon scale, glimpses of running men, the shadow and flicker of movement, but not until the mangled forces of the Basics staggered forth did the outcome of the battle reveal itself. Carcolo shook his head in sour bewilderment. “The crafty devil, Joaz Banbeck! He’s turned them back, he’s slaughtered their best!”

“It would appear,” said Bast Givven, “that dragons armed with fangs, swords and steel balls are more effective than men with guns and heat beams— at least in close quarters.”

Carcolo grunted. “I might have done as well myself, under like circumstances.” He turned Bast Givven a waspish glance. “Do you not agree?”

“Certainly. Beyond all question.”

“Of course,” Carcolo went on, “I had not the advantage of preparation. The Basics surprised me, but Joaz Banbeck labored under no such handicap.” He looked back down into Banbeck Vale, where the Basic ship was bombarding the Jambles, shattering rocks into splinters. “Do they plan to blast the Jambles out of the valley? In which case, of course, Joaz Banbeck would have no further refuge. Their strategy is clear. And as I suspected: reserve forces!”

Another thirty Troopers had marched down the ramp to stand immobile in the trampled field before the ship.

Carcolo pounded his fist into his palm. “Bast Givven, listen now, listen carefully! For it is in our power to do a great deed, to reverse our fortunes! Notice Clybourne Crevasse, how it opens into the Vale, directly behind the Basic ship.”

“Your ambition will yet cost us our lives.”

Carcolo laughed. “Come, Givven, how many times does a man die? What better way to lose a life than in the pursuit of glory?”

Bast Givven turned, surveyed the meager remnants of the Happy Valley army. “We could win glory by trouncing a dozen sacerdotes. Flinging ourselves upon a Basic ship is hardly needful.”

“Nevertheless,” said Ervis Carcolo, “that is how it must be. I ride ahead, you marshal the forces and follow. We meet at the head of Clybourne Crevasse, on the west edge of the Vale!”

11

STAMPING HIS FEET, muttering nervous curses, Ervis Carcolo waited at the head of Clybourne Crevasse. Unlucky chance after chance paraded before his imagination. The Basics might surrender to the difficulties of Banbeck Vale and depart. Joaz Banbeck might attack across the open fields to save Banbeck Village from destruction and so destroy himself. Bast Givven might be unable to control the disheartened men and mutinous dragons of Happy Valley. Any of these situations might occur; any would expunge Carcolo’s dreams of glory and leave him a broken man. Back and forth he paced the scarred granite; every few seconds he peered down into Banbeck Vale; every few seconds he turned to scan the bleak skylines for the dark shapes of his dragons, the taller silhouettes of his men.

Beside the Basic ship waited a scanty two squads of Heavy Troopers— those who had survived the original attack and the reserves. They squatted in silent groups, watching the leisurely destruction of Banbeck Village. Fragment by fragment, the spires, towers and cliffs which had housed the Banbeck folk cracked off, slumped down into an evergrowing mound of rubble. An even heavier barrage poured against the Jambles. Boulders broke like eggs; rock splinters drifted down the valley.

A half hour passed. Ervis Carcolo seated himself glumly on a rock.

A jingle, the pad of feet. Carcolo bounded to his feet. Winding across the skyline came the sorry remnants of his forces, the men dispirited, the Termagants surly and petulant, a mere handful each of Fiends, Blue Horrors and Murderers.

Carcolo’s shoulders sagged. What could be accomplished with a force so futile as this? He took a deep breath. Show a brave front! Never say die! He assumed his bluffest mien. Stepping forward, he cried out, “Men, dragons! Today we have known defeat, but the day is not over. The time of redemption is at hand; we shall revenge ourselves on both the Basics and Joaz Banbeck!” He searched the faces of his men, hoping for enthusiasm. They looked back at him without interest. The dragons, their understanding less complete, snorted softly, hissed and whispered. “Men and dragons!” bawled Carcolo. “You ask me, how shall we achieve these glories? I answer, follow where I lead! Fight where I fight! What is death to us, with our valley despoiled?”

Again he inspected his troops, once more finding only listlessness and apathy. Carcolo stifled the roar of frustration which rose into his throat, and turned away. “Advance!” he called gruffly over his shoulder. Mounting his drooping Spider, he set off down Clybourne Crevasse.

The Basic ship pounded the Jambles and Banbeck Village with equal vehemence. From a vantage on the west rim of the valley Joaz Banbeck watched the blasting of corridor after familiar corridor. Apartments and halls hewn earnestly from the rock, carved, tooled, polished across the generations— all opened, destroyed, pulverized. Now the target became that spire which contained Joaz Banbeck’s private apartments, with his study, his workroom, the Banbeck reliquarium.

Joaz clenched and unclenched his fists, furious at his own helplessness. The goal of the Basics was clear. They intended to destroy Banbeck Vale, to exterminate as completely as possible the men of Aerlith, and what could prevent them? Joaz studied the Jambles. The old talus had been splintered away almost to the sheer face of the cliff. Where was the opening into the Great Hall of the sacerdotes? His farfetched hypotheses were diminishing to futility. Another hour would see the utter devastation of Banbeck Village.

Joaz tried to control a sickening sense of frustration. How to stop the destruction? He forced himself to calculate. Clearly, an attack across the valley floor was equivalent to suicide. But behind the black ship opened a ravine similar to that in which Joaz stood concealed: Clybourne Crevasse. The ship’s entry gaped wide, Heavy Troopers squatted listlessly to the side. Joaz shook his head with a sour grimace. Inconceivable that the Basics could neglect so obvious a threat.

Still— in their arrogance might they not overlook the possibility of so insolent an act?

Indecision tugged Joaz forward and backward. And now a barrage of explosive pellets split open the spire which housed his apartments. The reliquarium, the ancient trove of the Banbeck’s, was about to be destroyed. Joaz made a blind gesture, jumped to his feet, called the closest of his dragon masters. “Assemble the Murderers, three squads of Termagants, two dozen Blue Horrors, ten Fiends, all the riders. We climb to Banbeck Verge, we descend Clybourne Crevasse, we attack the ship.”

The dragon master departed; Joaz gave himself to gloomy contemplation. If the Basics intended to draw him into a trap, they were about to succeed.

The dragon master returned. “The force is assembled.”

“We ride.”

Up the ravine surged men and dragons, emerging upon Banbeck Verge. Swinging south, they came to the head of Clybourne Crevasse.

A knight at the head of the column suddenly signaled a halt. When Joaz approached he pointed out marks on the floor of the crevasse. “Dragons and men have passed here recently.”

Joaz studied the tracks. “Heading down the crevasse.”

“Yes.”

Joaz despatched a party of scouts who presently came galloping wildly back. “Ervis Carcolo, with men and dragons, is attacking the ship!”

Joaz wheeled his Spider, plunged headlong down the dim passage, followed by his army.

Outcries and screams of battle reached their ears as they approached the mouth of the crevasse. Bursting out on the valley floor Joaz came upon a scene of desperate carnage, with dragon and Heavy Trooper hacking, stabbing, burning, blasting. Where was Ervis Carcolo? Joaz recklessly rode to look into the entry port which hung wide. Ervis Carcolo then had forced his way into the ship. A trap? Or had he effectuated Joaz’s own plan of seizing the ship? What of the Heavy Troopers? Would the Basics sacrifice forty warriors to capture a handful of men? Unreasonable— but now the Heavy Troopers were holding their own. They had formed a phalanx, they now concentrated the energy of their weapons on those dragons who yet opposed them. A trap? If so, it was sprung— unless Ervis Carcolo already had captured the ship. Joaz rose in his saddle, signaled his company. “Attack!”

The Heavy Troopers were doomed. Striding Murderers hewed from above, Long-horned Murderers thrust from below, Blue Horrors pinched, clipped, dismembered. The battle was done, but Joaz, with men and Termagants, had already charged up the ramp. From within came the hum and throb of power, and also human sounds— cries, shouts of fury.

The sheer ponderous bulk struck at Joaz; he stopped short, peered uncertainly into the ship. Behind him his men waited, muttering under their breath. Joaz asked himself, “Am I as brave as Ervis Carcolo? What is bravery, in any case? I am completely afraid. I dare not enter, I dare not stay outside.” He put aside all caution, rushed forward, followed by his men and a horde of scuttling Termagants.

Even as Joaz entered the ship he knew Ervis Carcolo had not succeeded; above him the guns still sang and hissed. Joaz’s apartments splintered apart. Another tremendous volley struck into the Jambles, laying bare the naked stone of the cliff, and what was hitherto hidden— the edge of a tall opening.

Joaz, inside the ship, found himself in an antechamber. The inner port was closed. He sidled forward, peered through a rectangular pane into what seemed a lobby or staging chamber. Ervis Carcolo and his knights crouched against the far wall, casually guarded by about twenty Weaponeers. A group of Basics rested in an alcove to the side, relaxed, quiet, their attitude one of contemplation.

Carcolo and his men were not completely subdued; as Joaz watched Carcolo lunged furiously forward. A purple crackle of energy punished him, hurled him back against the wall.

From the alcove one of the Basics, staring across the inner chamber took note of Joaz Banbeck; he flicked out with his brach, touched a rod. An alarm whistle sounded, the outer port slid shut. A trap? An emergency process? The result was the same. Joaz motioned to four men, heavily burdened. They came forward, kneeled, placed on the deck four of the blast cannon which the Giants had carried into the Jambles.

Joaz swung his arm. Cannon belched; metal creaked, melted; acrid odors permeated the room. The hole was still too small. “Again!” The cannon flamed; the inner port vanished. Into the gap sprang Weaponeers, firing their energy guns. Purple fire cut into the Banbeck ranks. Men curled, twisted, wilted, fell with clenched fingers and contorted faces. Before the cannon could respond, red-scaled shapes scuttled forward. Termagants. Hissing and wailing they swarmed over the Weaponeers, on into the staging chamber. In front of the alcove occupied by the Basics they stopped short, as if in astonishment. The men crowding after fell silent: even Carcolo watched in fascination. Basic stock confronted its derivative, each seeing in the other its caricature. The Termagants crept forward with sinister deliberation; the Basics waved their brachs, whistled, fluted. The Termagants scuttled forward, sprang into the alcove. There was a horrid tumbling and croaking; Joaz, sickened at some elementary level, was forced to look away. The struggle was soon over; there was silence in the alcove. Joaz turned to examine Ervis Carcolo, who stared back, rendered inarticulate by anger, humiliation, pain and fright.

Finally finding his voice Carcolo made an awkward gesture of menace and fury. “Be off with you,” he croaked. “I claim this ship. Unless you would lie in your own blood, leave me to my conquest!”

Joaz snorted contemptuously, turned his back on Carcolo, who sucked in his breath, and with a whispered curse, lurched forward. Bast Givven seized him, drew him back. Carcolo struggled, Givven talked earnestly into his ear, and Carcolo at last relaxed, half-weeping.

Joaz meanwhile examined the chamber. The walls were blank, gray; the deck was covered with resilient black foam. There was no obvious illumination, but light was everywhere, exuding from the walls. The air chilled the skin, and smelled unpleasantly acrid. There was an odor which Joaz had not previously noticed. He coughed, his eardrums rang. A frightening suspicion became certainty; on heavy legs he lunged for the port, beckoning to his troops. “Outside, they poison us!” He stumbled out on the ramp, gulped fresh air; his men and Termagants followed, and then in a stumbling rush came Ervis Carcolo and his men. Under the hulk of the great ship the group stood gasping, tottering on limp legs, eyes dim and swimming.

Above them, oblivious or careless of their presence, the ship’s guns sent forth another barrage. The spire housing Joaz’s apartments tottered, collapsed; the Jambles were no more than a heap of rock splinters drifting into a high arched opening. Inside the opening Joaz glimpsed a dark shape, a glint, a shine, a structure— Then he was distracted by an ominous sound at his back. From a port at the other end of the ship, a new force of Heavy Troopers had alighted— three new squads of twenty men each, accompanied by a dozen Weaponeers with four of the rolling projectors.

Joaz sagged back in dismay. He glanced along his troops; they were in no condition either to attack or defend. A single alternative remained. Flight. “Make for Clybourne Crevasse,” he called thickly.

Stumbling, lurching, the remnants of the two armies fled under the brow of the great black ship. Behind them Heavy Troopers swung smartly forward, but without haste.

Rounding the ship, Joaz stopped short. In the mouth of Clybourne Crevasse waited a fourth squad of Heavy Troopers, with another Weaponeer and his weapon.

Joaz looked to right and left, up and down the valley. Which way to run, where to turn? The Jambles? They were nonexistent. Motion, slow and ponderous, on the opening previously concealed by tumbled rock caught his attention. A dark object moved forth; a shutter drew back, a bright disk glittered. Almost instantly a pencil of milky blue radiance lanced at, into, through the end disk of the Basic ship. Within, tortured machinery whined, simultaneously up and down the scale, to inaudibility at either end. The luster of the end disks vanished; they became gray, dull; the whisper of power and life previously pervading the ship gave way to dead quiet; the ship itself was dead, and its mass, suddenly unsupported, crushed groaning into the ground.

The Heavy Troopers gazed up in consternation at the hulk which had brought them to Aerlith. Joaz, taking advantage of their indecision, called, “Retreat! North— up the valley!”

The Heavy Troopers doggedly followed; the Weaponeers however cried out an order to halt. They emplaced their weapons, brought them to bear on the cavern behind the Jambles. Within the opening naked shapes moved with frantic haste; there was slow shifting of massive machinery, a change of lights and shadows, and the milky blue shaft of radiance struck forth once more. It flicked down; Weaponeers, weapons, two-thirds of the Heavy Troopers vanished like moths in a furnace. The surviving Heavy Troopers halted, retreated uncertainly toward the ship.

In the mouth of Clybourne Crevasse waited the remaining squad of Heavy Troopers. The single Weaponeer crouched over his three-wheeled mechanism. With fateful care he made his adjustments; within the dark opening the naked sacerdotes worked furiously, thrusting, wedging, the strain of their sinews and hearts and minds communicating itself to every man in the valley. The shaft of milky-blue light sprang forth, but too soon. It melted the rock a hundred yards south of Clybourne Crevasse, and now from the Weaponeer’s gun came a splash of orange and green flame. Seconds later the mouth of the sacerdote’s cavern erupted. Rocks, bodies, fragments of metal, glass, rubber arched through the air.

The sound of the explosion reverberated through the valley. And the dark object in the cavern was destroyed, was no more than tatters and shreds of metal.

Joaz took three deep breaths, throwing off the effects of the narcotic gas by sheer power of will. He signaled to his Murderers. “Charge, kill!”

The Murderers loped forward; the Heavy Troopers threw themselves flat, aimed their weapons, but soon died. In the mouth of Clybourne Crevasse the final squad of Troopers charged wildly forth, to be instantly attacked by Termagants and Blue Horrors who had sidled along the face of the cliff. The Weaponeer was gored by a Murderer; there was no further resistance in the valley, and the ship lay open to attack.

Joaz led the way back up the ramp, through the entry into the now dim staging-chamber. The blast cannon captured from the Giants lay where his men had dropped them.

Three portals led from the chamber, and these were swiftly burned down. The first revealed a spiral ramp; the second, a long empty hall lined with tiers of bunks; the third, a similar hall in which the bunks were occupied. Pale faces peered from the tiers, pallid hands flickered. Up and down the central corridor marched squat matrons in gray gowns. Ervis Carcolo rushed forward, buffeting the matrons to the deck, peering into the bunks. “Outside,” he bellowed. “You are rescued, you are saved. Outside quickly, while there is opportunity.”

But there was only meager resistance to overcome from a half dozen Weaponeers and Trackers, none whatever from twenty Mechanics— these, short thin men with sharp features and dark hair— and none from the sixteen remaining Basics, and all were marched off the ship as prisoners.

12

QUIET FILLED the valley floor, the silence of exhaustion. Men and dragons sprawled in the trampled fields; the captives stood in a dejected huddle beside the ship. Occasionally an isolated sound came to emphasize the silence— the creak of cooling metal within the ship, the fall of a loose rock from the shattered cliffs; an occasional murmur from the liberated Happy Valley folk, who sat in a group apart from the surviving warriors.

Ervis Carcolo alone seemed restless. For a space he stood with his back to Joaz, slapping his thigh with his scabbard tassel. He contemplated the sky where Skene, a dazzling atom, hung close over the western cliffs, then turned, studied the shattered gap at the north of the valley, filled with the twisted remains of the sacerdotes’ construction. He gave his thigh a final slap, looked toward Joaz Banbeck, turned to stalk through the huddle of Happy Valley folk, making brusque motions of no particular significance, pausing here and there to harangue or cajole, apparently attempting to instill spirit and purpose into his defeated people.

In this purpose he was unsuccessful, and presently he swung sharply about, marched across the field to where Joaz Banbeck lay outstretched. Carcolo stared down. “Well then,” he said bluffly, “the battle is over, the ship is won.”

Joaz raised himself up on one elbow. “True.”

“Let us have no misunderstanding on one point,” said Carcolo. “Ship and contents are mine. An ancient rule defines the rights of him who is first to attack. On this rule I base my claim.”

Joaz looked up in surprise, and seemed almost amused. “By a rule even more ancient, I have already assumed possession.”

“I dispute this assertion,” said Carcolo hotly. “Who— “

Joaz held up his hand warily. “Silence, Carcolo! You are alive now only because I am sick of blood and violence. Do not test my patience!”

Carcolo turned away, twitching his scabbard tassel with restrained fury. He looked up the valley, turned back to Joaz. “Here come the sacerdotes, who in fact demolished the ship. I remind you of my proposal, by which we might have prevented this destruction and slaughter.”

Joaz smiled. “You made your proposal only two days ago. Further, the sacerdotes possess no weapons.”

Carcolo stared as if Joaz had taken leave of his wits. “How, then, did they destroy the ship?”

Joaz shrugged. “I can only make conjectures.”

Carcolo asked sarcastically, “And what direction do these conjectures lead?”

“I wonder if they had constructed the frame of a spaceship. I wonder if they turned the propulsion beam against the Basic ship.”

Carcolo pursed his month dubiously. “Why should the sacerdotes build themselves a spaceship?”

“The Demie approaches. Why do you not put your question to him?”

“I will do so,” said Carcolo with dignity.

But the Demie, followed by four younger sacerdotes and walking with the air of a man in a dream, passed without speaking.

Joaz rose to his knees, watched after him. The Demie apparently planned to mount the ramp and enter the ship. Joaz jumped to his feet, followed, barred the way to the ramp. Politely he asked, “What do you seek, Demie?”

“I seek to board the ship.”

“To what end? I ask, of course, from sheer curiosity.”

The Demie inspected him a moment without reply. His face was haggard and tight; his eyes gleamed like frost-stars. Finally he replied, in a voice hoarse with emotion. “I wish to determine if the ship can be repaired.”

Joaz considered a moment, then spoke in a gentle rational voice. “The information can be of little interest to you. Would the sacerdotes place themselves so completely under my command?”

“We obey no one.”

“In that case, I can hardly take you with me when I leave.”

The Demie swung around, and for a moment seemed as if he would walk away. His eyes fell on the shattered opening at the end of the vale, and he turned back. He spoke, not in the measured voice of a sacerdote, but in a burst of grief and fury. “This is your doing, you preen yourself, you count yourself resourceful and clever; you forced us to act, and thereby violate ourselves and our dedication!”

Joaz nodded, with a faint grim smile. “I knew the opening must lie behind the Jambles; I wondered if you might be building a spaceship; I hoped that you might protect yourselves against the Basics, and so serve my purposes. I admit your charges. I used you and your construction as a weapon, to save myself and my people. Did I do wrong?”

“Right or wrong— who can weigh? You wasted our effort across more than eight hundred Aerlith years. You destroyed more than you can ever replace.”

“I destroyed nothing, Demie. The Basics destroyed your ship. If you had cooperated with us in the defense of Banbeck Vale this disaster would have never occurred. You chose neutrality, you thought yourselves immune from our grief and pain. As you see, such is not the case.”

“And meanwhile our labor of eight hundred and twelve years goes for naught.”

Joaz asked with feigned innocence, “Why did you need a spaceship? Where do you plan to travel?”

The Demie’s eyes burst with flames as intense as those of Skene. “When the race of men is gone, then we go abroad. We move across the galaxy, we repopulate the terrible old worlds, and the new Universal history starts from that day, with the past wiped clean as if it never existed. If the grephs destroy you, what is it to us? We await only the death of the last man in the universe.”

“Do you not consider yourselves men?”

“We are as you know us— above-men.”

At Joaz’s shoulder someone laughed coarsely. Joaz turned his head to see Ervis Carcolo. ” ‘Above-men’?” mocked Carcolo. “Poor naked waifs of the caves. What can you display to prove your superiority?”

The Demie’s mouth drooped, the lines of his face deepened. “We have our tands. We have our knowledge. We have our strength.”

Carcolo turned away with another coarse laugh. Joaz said in a subdued voice, “I feel more pity for you than you ever felt for us.”

Carcolo returned. “And where did you learn to build a spaceship? From your own efforts? Or from the work of men before you, men of the old times?”

“We are the ultimate men,” said the Demie. “We know all that men have ever thought, spoken or devised. We are the last and the first, and when the under-folk are gone, we shall renew the cosmos as innocent and fresh as rain.”

“But men have never gone and will never go,” said Joaz. “A setback yes, but is not the universe wide? Somewhere are the worlds of men. With the help of the Basics and their Mechanics, I will repair the ship and go forth to find these worlds.”

“You will seek in vain,” said the Demie.

“These worlds do not exist?”

“The Human Empire is dissolved; men exist only in feeble groups.”

“What of Eden, old Eden?”

“A myth, no more.”

“My marble globe, what of that?”

“A toy, an imaginative fabrication.”

“How can you be sure?” asked Joaz, troubled in spite of himself.

“Have I not said that we know all of history? We can look into our tands and see deep into the past, until the recollections are dim and misty, and never do we remember planet Eden.”

Joaz shook his head stubbornly. “There must be an original world from which men came. Call it Earth or Tempe or Eden— somewhere it exists.”

The Demie started to speak, then in a rare show of irresolution held his tongue. Joaz said, “Perhaps you are right, perhaps we are the last men. But I shall go forth to look.”

“I shall come with you,” said Ervis Carcolo.

“You will be fortunate to find yourself alive tomorrow,” said Joaz.

Carcolo drew himself up. “Do not dismiss my claim to the ship so carelessly.”

Joaz struggled for words, but could find none. What to do with the unruly Carcolo? He could not find in himself enough harshness to do what he knew should be done. He temporized, turned his back on Carcolo. “Now you know my plans,” he told the Demie. “If you do not interfere with me, I shall not interfere with you.”

The Demie moved slowly back. “Go then. We are a passive race; we despise ourselves for our activity of today. Perhaps it was our greatest mistake. But go, seek your forgotten world. You will only perish somewhere among the stars. We will wait, as already we have waited.” He turned and walked away, followed by the four younger sacerdotes, who had all the time stood gravely to the side.

Joaz called after him. “And if the Basics come again? Will you fight with us? Or against us?”

The Demie made no response, but walked to the north, the long white hair swinging down his thin shoulder blades.

Joaz watched him a moment, gazed up and down the ruined valley, shook his head in wonder and puzzlement, turned back to study the great black ship.

Skene touched the western cliffs; there was an instant dimming of light, a sudden chill. Carcolo approached him. “Tonight I shall hold my folk here in Banbeck Vale, and send them home on the morrow. Meanwhile, I suggest that you board the ship with me and make a preliminary survey.”

Joaz took a deep breath. Why could it not come easier for him? Carcolo had twice sought his life, and, had positions been reversed, would have shown him no mercy. He forced himself to act. His duty to himself, to his people, to his ultimate goal was clear.

He called to those of his knights who carried the captured heat guns. They approached.

Joaz said, “Take Carcolo into Clybourne Crevasse. Execute him. Do this at once.”

Protesting, bellowing, Carcolo was dragged off. Joaz turned away with a heavy heart, and sought Bast Givven. “I take you for a sensible man.”

“I regard myself so.”

“I set you in charge of Happy Valley. Take your folk home, before darkness falls.”

Bast Givven silently went to his people. They stirred, and presently departed Banbeck Vale.

Joaz crossed the valley floor to the tumble of rubble which choked Kergan’s Way. He choked with fury as he looked upon the destruction, and for a moment almost wavered in his resolve. Might it not be fit to fly the black ship to Coralyne and take revenge on the Basics? He walked around to stand under the spire which had housed his apartments, and by some strange freak of chance came upon a rounded fragment of yellow marble.

Weighing this in his palm he looked up into the sky where Coralyne already twinkled red, and tried to bring order to his mind.

The Banbeck folk had emerged from the deep tunnels. Phade the minstrel-maiden came to find him. “What a terrible day,” she murmured. “What awful events; what a great victory.”

Joaz tossed the bit of yellow marble back into the rubble. “I feel much the same way. And where it all ends, no one knows less than I.”

CODE THREE

Rick Raphael

The late afternoon sun hid behind gray banks of snow clouds and a cold wind whipped loose leaves across the drill field in front of the Philadelphia Barracks of the North American Continental Thruway Patrol. There was the feel of snow in the air but the thermometer hovered just at the freezing mark and the clouds could turn either into icy rain or snow.

Patrol Sergeant Ben Martin stepped out of the door of the barracks and shivered as a blast of wind hit him. He pulled up the zipper on his loose blue uniform coveralls and paused to gauge the storm clouds building up to the west.

The broad planes of his sunburned face turned into the driving cold wind for a moment and then he looked back down at the weather report secured to the top of a stack of papers on his clipboard.

Behind him, the door of the barracks was shouldered open by his junior partner, Patrol Trooper Clay Ferguson. The young, tall Canadian officer’s arms were loaded with paper sacks and his patrol work helmet dangled by its strap from the crook of his arm.

Clay turned and moved from the doorway into the wind. A sudden gust swept around the corner of the building and a small sack perched atop one of the larger bags in his arms blew to the ground and began tumbling towards the drill field.

“Ben,” he yelled, “grab the bag.”

The sergeant lunged as the sack bounded by and made the retrieve. He walked back to Ferguson and eyed the load of bags in the blond-haired officer’s arms.

“Just what is all this?” he inquired.

“Groceries,” the youngster grinned. “Or to be more exact, little gourmet items for our moments of gracious living.”

Ferguson turned into the walk leading to the motor pool and Martin swung into step beside him. “Want me to carry some of that junk?”

“Junk,” Clay cried indignantly. “You keep your grimy paws off these delicacies, peasant. You’ll get yours in due time and perhaps it will help Kelly and me to make a more polished product of you instead of the clodlike cop you are today.”

Martin chuckled. This patrol would mark the start of the second year that he, Clay Ferguson and Medical-Surgical Officer Kelly Lightfoot had been teamed together. After twenty-two patrols, cooped up in a semiarmored vehicle with a man for ten days at a time, you got to know him pretty well. And you either liked him or you hated his guts.

As senior officer, Martin had the right to reject or keep his partner after their first eleven-month duty tour. Martin had elected to retain the lanky Canadian. As soon as they had pulled into New York Barracks at the end of their last patrol, he had made his decisions. After eleven months and twenty-two patrols on the Continental Thruways, each team had a thirty-day furlough coming.

Martin and Ferguson had headed for the city the minute they put their signatures on the last of the stack of reports needed at the end of a tour. Then, for five days and nights, they tied one on. MSO Kelly Lightfoot had made a beeline for a Columbia Medical School seminar on tissue regeneration. On the sixth day, Clay staggered out of bed, swigged down a handful of antireaction pills, showered, shaved and dressed and then waved good-by. Twenty minutes later he was aboard a jet, heading for his parents’ home in Edmonton, Alberta. Martin soloed around the city for another week, then rented a car and raced up to his sister’s home in Burlington, Vermont, to play Uncle Bountiful to Carol’s three kids and to lap up as much as possible of his sister’s real cooking.

While the troopers and their med officer relaxed, a service crew moved their car down to the Philadelphia motor pool for a full overhaul and refitting for the next torturous eleven-month tour of duty.

The two patrol troopers had reported into the Philadelphia Barracks five days ago—Martin several pounds heavier courtesy of his sister’s cooking; Ferguson several pounds lighter courtesy of three assorted, starry-eyed, uniform-struck Alberta maidens.

They turned into the gate of the motor pool and nodded to the sentry at the gate. To their left, the vast shop buildings echoed to the sound of body-banging equipment and roaring jet engines. The darkening sky made the brilliant lights of the shop seem even brighter and the hulls of a dozen patrol cars cast deep shadows around the work crews.

The troopers turned into the dispatcher’s office and Clay carefully placed the bags on a table beside the counter. Martin peered into one of the bags. “Seriously, kid, what do you have in that grab bag?”

“Oh, just a few essentials,” Clay replied. “Pate de foie gras, sharp cheese, a smidgen of cooking wine, a handful of spices. You know, stuff like that. Like I said—essentials.”

“Essentials,” Martin snorted, “you give your brains to one of those Alberta chicks of yours for a souvenir?”

“Look, Ben,” Ferguson said earnestly, “I suffered for eleven months in that tin mausoleum on tracks because of what you fondly like to think is edible food. You’ve got as much culinary imagination as Beulah. I take that back. Even Beulah turns out some better smells when she’s riding on high jet than you’ll ever get out of her galley in the next one hundred years. This tour, I intend to eat like a human being once again. And I’ll teach you how to boil water without burning it.”

“Why you ungrateful young—” Martin yelped.

The patrol dispatcher, who had been listening with amused tolerance, leaned across the counter.

“If Oscar Waldorf is through with his culinary lecture, gentlemen,” he said, “perhaps you two could be persuaded to take a little pleasure ride. It’s a lovely night for a drive and it’s just twenty-six hundred miles to the next service station. If you two aren’t cooking anything at the moment, I know that NorCon would simply adore having the services of two such distinguished Continental Commandos.”

Ferguson flushed and Martin scowled at the dispatcher. “Very funny, clown. I’ll recommend you for trooper status one of these days.”

“Not me,” the dispatcher protested. “I’m a married man. You’ll never get me out on the road in one of those blood-and-gut factories.”

“So quit sounding off to us heroes,” Martin said, “and give us the clearances.”

The dispatcher opened a loose-leaf reference book on the counter and then punched the first of a series of buttons on a panel. Behind him, the wall lighted with a map of the eastern United States to the Mississippi River. Ferguson and Martin had pencils out and poised over their clipboards.

The dispatcher glanced at the order board across the room where patrol car numbers and team names were displayed on an illuminated board. “Car 56—Martin-Ferguson-Lightfoot,” glowed with an amber light. In the column to the right was the number “26-W.” The dispatcher punched another button. A broad belt of multi-colored lines representing the eastern segment of North America Thruway 26 flashed onto the map in a band extending from Philadelphia to St. Louis. The thruway went on to Los Angeles on its western segment, not shown on the map. Ten bands of color—each five separated by a narrow clear strip, detailed the thruway. Martin and Ferguson were concerned with the northern five bands; NAT 26-westbound. Other unlighted lines radiated out in tangential spokes to the north and south along the length of the multi-colored belt of NAT 26.

This was just one small segment of the Continental Thruway system that spanned North America from coast to coast and crisscrossed north and sound under the Three Nation Road Compact from the southern tip of Mexico into Canada and Alaska.

Each arterial cut a five-mile-wide path across the continent and from one end to the other, the only structures along the roadways were the turretlike NorCon Patrol check and relay stations—looming up at one-hundred-mile intervals like the fire control islands of earlier-day aircraft carries.

Car 56 with Trooper Sergeant Ben Martin, Trooper Clay Ferguson and Medical-Surgical Officer Kelly Lightfoot, would take their first ten-day patrol on NAT 26-west. Barring major disaster, they would eat, sleep and work the entire time from their car; out of sight of any but distant cities until they had reached Los Angeles at the end of the patrol. Then a five-day resupply and briefing period and back onto another thruway.

During the coming patrol they would cross ten state lines as if they didn’t exist. And as far as thruway traffic control and -authority was concerned, state and national boundaries actually didn’t exist. With the growth of the old interstate highway system and the Alcan Highway it became increasingly evident that variation in motor vehicle laws from state to state and country to country were creating impossible situations for any uniform safety control.

*

With the establishment of the Continental Thruway System two decades later, came the birth of the supra-cop—The North American Thruway Patrol—known as NorCon. Within the five-mile bands of the thruways—all federally-owned land by each of the three nations—the blue-coveralled “Continental Commandos” of NorCon were the sole law enforcement agency and authority. Violators of thruway law were cited into NorCon district traffic courts located in the nearest city to each access port along every thruway.

There was no challenge to the authority of NorCon. Public demand for faster and more powerful vehicles had forced the automotive industry to put more and more power under the touch of the ever-growing millions of drivers crowding the continent’s roads. Piston drive gave way to turbojet; turbojet was boosted by a modification of ram jet and air-cushion drive was added. In the last two years, the first of the nuclear reaction mass engines had hit the roads. Even as the hot Ferraris and Jags of the mid-‘60s would have been suicide vehicles on the T-model roads of the ‘20s so would today’s vehicles be on the interstates of the ‘60s. But building roads capable of handling three hundred to four hundred miles an hour speeds was beyond the financial and engineering capabilities of individual states and nations. Thus grew the continental thruways with their four speed lanes in each direction, each a half-mile wide separated east and west and north and south by a half-mile-wide landscaped divider. Under the Three Nation Compact, the thruways now wove a net across the entire North American continent.

*

On the big wall map, NAT 26-west showed as four colored lines; blue and yellow as the two high and ultra-high speed lanes; green and white for the intermediate and slow lanes. Between the blue and yellow and the white and green was a red band. This was the police emergency lane, never used by other than official vehicles and crossed by the traveling public shifting from one speed lane to another only at sweeping crossovers.

The dispatcher picked up an electric pointer and aimed the light beam at the map. Referring to his notes, he began to recite.

“Resurfacing crews working on 26-W blue at milestone Marker 185 to Marker 187, estimated clearance 0300 hours Tuesday—Let’s see, that’s tomorrow morning.”

The two officers were writing the information down on their trip-analysis sheets.

“Ohio State is playing Cal under the lights at Columbus tonight so you can expect a traffic surge sometime shortly after 2300 hours but most of it will stay in the green and white. Watch out for the drunks though. They might filter out onto the blue or yellow.

“The crossover for NAT 163 has painting crews working. Might watch out for any crud on the roadway. And they’ve got the entrance blocked there so that all 163 exchange traffic is being rerouted to 164 west of Chillicothe.”

The dispatcher thumbed through his reference sheets. “That seems to be about all. No, wait a minute. This is on your trick. The Army’s got a priority missile convoy moving out of the Aberdeen Proving Grounds bound for the west coast tonight at 1800 hours. It will be moving at green lane speeds so you might watch out for it. They’ll have thirty-four units in the convoy. And that is all. Oh, yes. Kelly’s already aboard. I guess you know about the weather.”

Martin nodded. “Yup. We should be hitting light snows by 2300 hours tonight in this area and it could be anything from snow to ice-rain after that.” He grinned at his younger partner. “The vacation is over, sonny. Tonight we make a man out of you.”

Ferguson grinned back. “Nuts to you, pop. I’ve got character witnesses back in Edmonton who’ll give you glowing testimonials about my manhood.”

“Testimonials aren’t legal unless they’re given by adults,” Martin retorted. “Come on, lover boy. Duty calls.”

Clay carefully embraced his armload of bundles and the two officers turned to leave. The dispatcher leaned across the counter.

“Oh, Ferguson, one thing I forgot. There’s some light corrugations in red lane just east of St. Louis. You might be careful with your soufflés in that area. Wouldn’t want them to fall, you know.”

Clay paused and started to turn back. The grinning dispatcher ducked into the back office and slammed the door.

*

The wind had died down by the time the troopers entered the brilliantly lighted parking area. The temperature seemed warmer with the lessening winds but in actuality, the mercury was dropping. The snow clouds to the west were much nearer and the overcast was getting darker.

But under the great overhead light tubes, the parking area was brighter than day. A dozen huge patrol vehicles were parked on the front “hot” line. Scores more were lined out in ranks to the back of the parking zone. Martin and Ferguson walked down the line of military blue cars. Number 56 was fifth on the line. Service mechs were just re-housing fueling lines into a ground panel as the troopers walked up. The technician corporal was the first to speak. “All set, Sarge,” he said. “We had to change an induction jet at the last minute and I had the port engine running up to reline the flow. Thought I’d better top ‘er off for you, though, before you pull out. She sounds like a purring kitten.”

He tossed the pair a waving salute and then moved out to his service dolly where three other mechs were waiting.

“Beulah looks like she’s been to the beauty shop and had the works,” Martin said. He reached out and slapped the maglurium plates. “Welcome home, sweetheart. I see you’ve kept a candle in the window for your wandering son.” Ferguson looked up at the lighted cab, sixteen feet above the pavement.

Car 56—Beulah to her team—was a standard NorCon Patrol vehicle. She was sixty feet long, twelve feet wide and twelve feet high; topped by a four-foot-high bubble canopy over her cab. All the way across her nose was a three-foot-wide luminescent strip. This was the variable beam headlight that could cut a day-bright swath of light through night, fog, rain or snow and could be varied in intensity, width and elevation. Immediately above the headlight strip were two red-black plastic panels which when lighted, sent out a flashing red emergency signal that could be seen for miles. Similar emergency lights and back-up white light strips adorned Beulah’s stern. Her bow rounded down like an old-time tank and blended into the track assembly of her dual propulsion system. With the exception of the cabin bubble and a two-foot stepdown on the last fifteen feet of her hull, Beulah was free of external protrusions. Racked into a flush-decked recess on one side of the hull was a crane arm with a two-hundred-ton lift capacity. Several round hatches covered other extensible gear and periscopes used in the scores of multiple operations the Nor Con cars were called upon to accomplish on routine road patrols.

Beulah resembled a gigantic offspring of a military tank, sans heavy armament. But even a small stinger was part of the patrol car equipment. As for armament, Beulah had weapons to meet every conceivable skirmish in the deadly battle to keep Continental Thruways fast-moving and safe. Her own two-hundred-fifty-ton bulk could reach speeds of close to six hundred miles an hour utilizing one or both of her two independent propulsion systems.

At ultra-high speeds, Beulah never touched the ground—floating on an impeller air cushion and driven forward by a pair of one hundred fifty thousand pound thrust jets and ram jets. At intermediate high speeds, both her air cushion and the four-foot-wide tracks on each side of the car pushed her along at two hundred-mile-an-hour-plus speeds. Synchro mechanisms reduced the air cushion as the speeds dropped to afford more surface traction for the tracks. For slow speeds and heavy duty, the tracks carried the burden.

Martin thumbed open the portside ground-level cabin door.

“I’ll start the outside check,” he told Clay. “You stow that garbage of yours in the galley and start on the dispensary. I’ll help you after I finish out here.”

As the younger officer entered the car and headed up the short flight of steps to the working deck, the sergeant unclipped a check list from the inside of the door and turned towards the stern of the big vehicle.

*

Clay mounted to the work deck and turned back to the little galley just aft of the cab. As compact as a spaceship kitchen—as a matter of fact, designed almost identically from models on the Moon run—the galley had but three feet of open counter space. Everything else, sink, range, oven and freezer, were built-ins with pull-downs for use as needed. He set his bags on the small counter to put away after the pre-start check. Aft of the galley and on the same side of the passageway were the double-decked bunks for the patrol troopers. Across the passageway was a tiny latrine and shower. Clay tossed his helmet on the lower bunk as he went down the passageway. At the bulkhead to the rear, he pressed a wall panel and a thick, insulated door slid back to admit him to the engine compartment. The service crews had shut down the big power plants and turned off the air exchangers and already the heat from the massive engines made the compartment uncomfortably warm.

He hurried through into a small machine shop. In an emergency, the troopers could turn out small parts for disabled vehicles or for other uses. It also stocked a good supply of the most common failure parts. Racked against the ceiling were banks of cutting torches, a grim reminder that death and injury still rode the thruways with increasing frequency.

In the tank storage space between the ceiling and top of the hull were the chemical firefighting liquids and foam that could be applied by nozzles, hoses and towers now telescoped into recesses in the hull. Along both sides and beneath the galley, bunks, engine and machine-shop compartments between the walls, deck and hull, were Beulah’s fuel storage tanks.

The last after compartment was a complete dispensary, one that would have made the emergency room or even the light surgery rooms of earlier-day hospitals proud.

Clay tapped on the door and went through. Medical-Surgical Officer Kelly Lightfoot was sitting on the deck, stowing sterile bandage packs into a lower locker. She looked up at Clay and smiled. “Well, well, you DID manage to tear yourself away from your adoring bevies,” she said. She flicked back a wisp of golden-red hair from her forehead and stood up. The patrol-blue uniform coverall with its belted waist didn’t do much to hide a lovely, properly curved figure. She walked over to the tall Canadian trooper and reached up and grabbed his ear. She pulled his head down, examined one side critically and then quickly snatched at his other ear and repeated the scrutiny. She let go of his ear and stepped back. “Damned if you didn’t get all the lipstick marks off, too.”

Clay flushed. “Cut it out, Kelly,” he said. “Sometimes you act just like my mother.”

The olive-complexioned redhead grinned at him and turned back to her stack of boxes on the deck. She bent over and lifted one of the boxes to the operating table. Clay eyed her trim figure. “You might act like ma sometimes,” he said, “but you sure don’t look like her.”

It was the Irish-Cherokee Indian girl’s turn to flush. She became very busy with the contents of the box. “Where’s Ben?” she asked over her shoulder.

“Making outside check. You about finished in here?”

Kelly turned and slowly scanned the confines of the dispensary. With the exception of the boxes on the table and floor, everything was behind secured locker doors. In one corner, the compact -diagnostician—capable of analyzing many known human bodily ailments and every possible violent injury to the body—was locked in its riding clamps. Surgical trays and instrument racks were all hidden behind locker doors along with medical and surgical supplies. On either side of the emergency ramp door at the stern of the vehicle, three collapsible autolitters hung from clamps. Six hospital bunks in two tiers of three each, lined another wall. On patrol, Kelly utilized one of the hospital bunks for her own use except when they might all be occupied with accident or other kind of patients. And this would never be for more than a short period, just long enough to transfer them to a regular ambulance or hospital vehicle. Her meager supply of personal items needed for the ten-day patrol were stowed in a small locker and she shared the latrine with the male members of the team.

Kelly completed her scan, glanced down at the check list in her hand. “I’ll have these boxes stowed in five minutes. Everything else is secure.” She raised her hand to her forehead in mock salute. “Medical-Surgical Officer Lightfoot reports dispensary ready for patrol, sir.”

Clay smiled and made a checkmark on his clipboard. “How was the seminar, Kelly?” he asked.

Kelly hiked herself onto the edge of the operating table. “Wonderful, Clay, just wonderful. I never saw so many good-looking, young, rich and eligible doctors together in one place in all my life.”

She sighed and smiled vacantly into space.

Clay snorted. “I thought you were supposed to be learning something new about tissue regeneration,” he said.

“Generation, regeneration, who cares,” Kelly grinned.

Clay started to say something, got flustered and wheeled around to leave—and bounded right off Ben Martin’s chest. Ferguson mumbled something and pushed past the older officer.

Ben looked after him and then turned back to Car 56’s combination doctor, surgeon and nurse. “Glad to see the hostess aboard for this cruise. I hope you make the passengers more comfortable than you’ve just made the first mate. What did you do to Clay, Kelly?”

“Hi, Ben,” Kelly said. “Oh, don’t worry about junior. He just gets all fluttery when a girl takes away his masculine prerogative to make cleverly lewd witticisms. He’ll be all right. Have a happy holiday, Ben? You look positively fat.”

Ben patted his stomach. “Carol’s good cooking. Had a nice restful time. And how about you. That couldn’t have been all work. You’ve got a marvelous tan.”

“Don’t worry,” Kelly laughed, “I had no intention of letting it be all study. I spent just about as much time under the sun dome at the pool as I did in class. I learned a lot, though.”

Ben grinned and headed back to the front of the car. “Tell me more after we’re on the road,” he said from the doorway. “We’ll be rolling in ten minutes.”

When he reached the cab, Clay was already in the right-hand control seat and was running down the instrument panel check. The sergeant lifted the hatch door between the two control seats and punched on a light to illuminate the stark compartment at the lower front end of the car. A steel grill with a dogged handle on the upper side covered the opening under the hatch cover. Two swing-down bunks were racked up against the walls on either side and the front hull door was without an inside handle. This was the patrol car brig, used for bringing in unwilling violators or other violent or criminal subjects who might crop up in the course of a patrol tour. Satisfied with the appearance of the brig, Ben closed the hatch cover and slid into his own control seat on the left of the cab. Both control seats were molded and plastiformed padded to the contours of the troopers and the armrests on both were studded with buttons and a series of small, finger-operated knobs. All drive, communication and firefighting controls for the massive vehicle were centered in the knobs and buttons on the seat arms, while acceleration and braking controls were duplicated in two footrest pedals beneath their feet.

Ben settled into his seat and glanced down to make sure his work-helmet was racked beside him. He reached over and flipped a bank of switches on the instrument panel. “All communications to ‘on,’” he said. Clay made a checkmark on his list. “All pre-engine start check complete,” Clay replied.

“In that case, the senior trooper said, “let’s give Beulah some exercise. Start engines.”

Clay’s fingers danced across the array of buttons on his seat arms and flicked lightly at the throttle knobs. From deep within the engine compartment came the muted, shrill whine of the starter engines, followed a split-second later by the full-throated roar of the jets as they caught fire. Clay eased the throttles back and the engine noise softened to a muffled roar.

Martin fingered a press-panel on the right arm of his seat.

“Car 56 to Philly Control,” Ben called.

The speakers mounted around the cab came to life. “Go ahead Five Six.”

“Five Six fired up and ready to roll,” Martin said.

“Affirmative Five Six,” came the reply. “You’re clear to roll. Philly Check estimates white density 300; green, 840; blue, 400; yellow, 75.”

Both troopers made mental note of the traffic densities in their first one-hundred-mile patrol segment; an estimated three hundred vehicles for each ten miles of thruway in the white or fifty to one hundred miles an hour lane; eight hundred forty vehicles in the one hundred to one hundred fifty miles an hour green, and so on. More than sixteen thousand westbound vehicles on the thruway in the first one hundred miles; nearly five thousand of them traveling at speeds between one hundred fifty and three hundred miles an hour.

Over the always-hot intercom throughout the big car Ben called out. “All set, Kelly?”

“I’m making coffee,” Kelly answered from the galley. “Let ‘er roll.”

Martin started to kick off the brakes, then stopped. “Ooops,” he exclaimed, “almost forgot.” His finger touched another button and a blaring horn reverberated through the vehicle.

In the galley, Kelly hurled herself into a corner. Her body activated a pressure plant and a pair of mummy-like plastifoam plates slid curvingly out the wall and locked her in a soft cocoon. A dozen similar safety clamps were located throughout the car at every working and relaxation station.

In the same instance, both Ben and Clay touched another plate on their control seats. From kiosk-type columns behind each seat, pairs of body-molded crash pads snapped into place to encase both troopers in their seats, their bodies cushioned and locked into place. Only their fingers were loose beneath the spongy substance to work arm controls. The half-molds included headforms with a padded band that locked across their foreheads to hold their heads rigidly against the backs of their reinforced seats. The instant all three crew members were locked into their safety gear, the bull horn ceased.

“All tight,” Ben called out as he wiggled and tried to free himself from the cocoon. Kelly and Clay tested their harnesses.

Satisfied that the safety cocoons were operating properly, Ben released them and the molds slid back into their recesses. The cocoons were triggered automatically in any emergency run or chase at speeds in excess of two hundred miles an hour.

Again he kicked off the brakes, pressed down on the foot feed and Car 56—Beulah—rolled out of the Philadelphia motor pool on the start of its ten-day patrol.

*

The motor pool exit opened into a quarter-mile wide tunnel sloping gently down into the bowels of the great city. Car 56 glided down the slight incline at a steady fifty miles an hour. A mile from the mouth of the tunnel the roadway leveled off and Ben kicked Beulah up another twenty-five miles an hour. Ahead, the main tunnel ended in a series of smaller portal ways, each emblazoned with a huge illuminated number designating a continental thruway.

Ben throttled back and began edging to the left lanes. Other patrol cars were heading down the main passageway, bound for their assigned thruways. As Ben eased down to a slow thirty, another patrol vehicle slid alongside. The two troopers in the cab waved. Clay flicked on the “car-to-car” transmit.

The senior trooper in Car 104 looked over at Martin and Ferguson. “If it isn’t the gruesome twosome,” he called. “Where have you been? We thought the front office had finally caught up with you and found out that neither one of you could read or write and that they had canned you.”

“We can’t read,” Ben quipped back. “That’s why we’re still on the job. The front office would never hire anyone who would embarrass you two by being smarter than either of you. Where’re you headed, Eddie?”

“Got 154-north,” the other officer said.

“Hey,” Clay called out, “I’ve got a real hot doll in Toronto and I’ll gladly sell her phone number for a proper price.”

“Wouldn’t want to hurt you, Clay,” the other officer replied. “If I called her up and took her out, she’d throw rocks at you the next time you drew the run. It’s all for your own good.”

“Oh, go get lost in a cloverleaf,” Clay retorted.

The other car broke the connection and with a wave, veered off to the right. The thruway entrances were just ahead. Martin aimed Beulah at the lighted orifice topped by the number 26-W. The patrol car slid into the narrower tunnel, glided along for another mile, and then turned its bow upwards. Three minutes later, they emerged from the tunnel into the red patrol lane of Continental Thruway 26-West. The late afternoon sky was a covering of gray wool and a drop or two of moisture struck the front face of the cab canopy. For a mile on either side of the police lane, streams of cars sped westward. Ben eyed the sky, the traffic and then peered at the outer hull thermometer. It read thirty-two degrees. He made a mental bet with himself that the weather bureau was off on its snow estimates by six hours. His Vermont upbringing told him it would be flurrying within the hour.

He increased speed to a steady one hundred and the car sped silently and easily along the police lane. Across the cab, Clay peered pensively at the steady stream of cars and cargo carriers racing by in the green and blue lanes—all of them moving faster than the patrol car.

The young officer turned in his seat and looked at his partner.

“You know, Ben,” he said gravely, “I sometimes wonder if those old-time cowboys got as tired looking at the south end of northbound cows as I get looking at the vanishing tail pipes of cars.”

The radio came to life.

“Philly Control to Car 56.”

Clay touched his transmit plate. “This is Five Six. Go ahead.”

“You’ve got a bad one at Marker 82,” Control said. “A sideswipe in the white.”

“Couldn’t be too bad in the white,” Ben broke in, thinking of the one-hundred mile-an-hour limit in the slow lane.

“That’s not the problem,” Control came back. “One of the sideswiped vehicles was flipped around and bounded into the green, and that’s where the real mess is. Make it code three.”

“Five Six acknowledge,” Ben said. “On the way.”

He slammed forward on the throttles. The bull horn blared and a second later, with MSO Kelly Lightfoot snugged in her dispensary cocoon and both troopers in body cushions, Car 56 lifted a foot from the roadway, and leaped forward on a turbulent pad of air. It accelerated from one hundred to two hundred fifty miles an hour.

The great red emergency lights on the bow and stern began to blink and from the special transmitter in the hull a radio siren wail raced ahead of the car to be picked up by the emergency receptor antennas required on all vehicles.

The working part of the patrol had begun.

*

Conversation died in the speeding car, partly because of the concentration required by the troopers, secondly because all transmissions whether intercom or radio, on a code two or three run, were taped and monitored by Control. In the center of the instrument panel, an oversized radiodometer was clicking off the mileage marks as the car passed each milestone. The milestone posts beamed a coded signal across all five lanes and as each vehicle passed the marker, the radiodometer clicked up another number.

Car 56 had been at MM 23 when the call came. Now, at better than four miles a minute, Beulah whipped past MM 45 with ten minutes yet to go to reach the scene of the accident. Light -flurries of wet snow bounced off the canopy, leaving thin, fast-drying trails of moisture. Although it was still a few minutes short of 1700 hours, the last of the winter afternoon light was being lost behind the heavy snow clouds overhead. Ben turned on the patrol car’s dazzling headlight and to the left and right, Clay could see streaks of white lights from the traffic on the green and blue lanes on either side of the quarter-mile wide emergency lane.

The radio filled them in on the movement of other patrol emergency vehicles being routed to the accident site. Car 82, also assigned to NAT 26-West, was more than one hundred fifty miles ahead of Beulah. Pittsburgh Control ordered Eight Two to hold fast to cover anything else that might come up while Five Six was handling the current crisis. Eastbound Car 119 was ordered to cut across to the scene to assist Beulah’s crew, and another eastbound patrol vehicle was held in place to cover for One-One-Nine.

At mile marker 80, yellow caution lights were flashing on all westbound lanes, triggered by Philadelphia Control the instant the word of the crash had been received. Traffic was slowing down and piling up despite the half-mile wide lanes.

“Philly Control this is Car 56.”

“Go ahead Five Six.”

“It’s piling up in the green and white,” Ben said. “Let’s divert to blue on slowdown and seal the yellow.”

“Philly Control acknowledged,” came the reply.

The flashing amber caution lights on all lanes switched to red. As Ben began de-acceleration, diagonal red flashing barriers rose out of the roadway on the green and white lanes at the 85 mile marker and lane crossing. This channeled all traffic from both lanes to the left and into the blue lane where the flashing reds now prohibited speeds in excess of fifty miles an hour around the emergency situation. At the same time, all crossovers on the ultra high yellow lane were sealed by barriers to prevent changing of lanes into the over-congested area.

As Car 56’s speed dropped back below the two hundred mile an hour mark the cocoon automatically slid open. Freed from her safety restraints, Kelly jumped for the rear entrance of the dispensary and cleared the racking clamps from the six autolitters. That done, she opened another locker and reached for the mobile first-aid kit. She slid it to the door entrance on its retractable casters. She slipped on her work helmet with the built-in transmitter and then sat down on the seat by the rear door to wait until the car stopped.

Car 56 was now less than two miles from the scene of the crash and traffic in the green lane to the left was at a standstill. A half mile farther westward, lights were still moving slowly along the white lane. Ahead, the troopers could see a faint wisp of smoke rising from the heaviest congregation of headlights. Both officers had their work helmets on and Clay had left his seat and descended to the side door, ready to jump out the minute the car stopped.

Martin saw a clear area in the green lane and swung the car over the dividing curbing. The big tracks floated the patrol car over the two-foot high, rounded abutment that divided each speed lane. Snow was falling faster as the headlight picked out a tangled mass of wreckage smoldering a hundred feet inside the median separating the green and white lanes. A crumpled body lay on the pavement twenty feet from the biggest clump of smashed metal, and other fragments of vehicles were strung out down the roadway for fifty feet. There was no movement.

NorCon thruway laws were strict and none were more rigidly enforced than the regulation that no one other than a member of the patrol set foot outside of their vehicle while on any thruway traffic lane. This meant not giving any assistance whatsoever to accident victims. The ruling had been called inhuman, monstrous, unthinkable, and lawmakers in the three nations of the compact had forced NorCon to revoke the rule in the early days of the thruways. After speeding cars and cargo carriers had cut down twice as many do-gooders on foot at accident scenes than the accidents themselves caused, the law was reinstated. The lives of the many were more vital than the lives of a few.

Martin halted the patrol vehicle a few feet from the wreckage and Beulah was still rocking gently on her tracks by the time both Patrol Trooper Clay Ferguson and MSO Kelly Lightfoot hit the pavement on the run.

In the cab, Martin called in on the radio. “Car 56 is on scene. Release blue at Marker 95 and resume speeds all lanes at Marker 95 in—” he paused and looked back at the halted traffic piled up before the lane had been closed “—seven minutes.” He jumped for the steps and sprinted out of the patrol car in the wake of Ferguson and Kelly.

The team’s surgeon was kneeling beside the inert body on the road. After an ear to the chest, Kelly opened her field kit bag and slapped an electrode to the victim’s temple. The needle on the encephalic meter in the lid of the kit never flickered. Kelly shut the bag and hurried with it over to the mass of wreckage. A thin column of black, oily smoke rose from somewhere near the bottom of the heap. It was almost impossible to identify at a glance whether the mangled metal was the remains of one or more cars. Only the absence of track equipment made it certain that they even had been passenger vehicles.

Clay was carefully climbing up the side of the piled up wrecks to a window that gaped near the top.

“Work fast, kid,” Martin called up. “Something’s burning down there and this whole thing may go up. I’ll get this traffic moving.”

He turned to face the halted mass of cars and cargo carriers east of the wreck. He flipped a switch that cut his helmet transmitter into the remote standard vehicular radio circuit aboard the patrol car.

“Attention, please, all cars in green lane. All cars in the left line move out now, the next line fall in behind. You are directed to clear the area immediately. Maintain fifty miles an hour for the next mile. You may resume desired speeds and change lanes at mile Marker 95. I repeat, all cars in green lane…” he went over the instructions once more, relayed through Beulah’s transmitter to the standard receivers on all cars. He was still talking as the traffic began to move.

By the time he turned back to help his teammates, cars were moving in a steady stream past the huge, red-flashing bulk of the patrol car.

Both Clay and Kelly were lying flat across the smashed, upturned side of the uppermost car in the pile. Kelly had her field bag open on the ground and she was reaching down through the smashed window.

“What is it, Clay?” Martin called.

The younger officer looked down over his shoulder. “We’ve got a woman alive down here but she’s wedged in tight. She’s hurt pretty badly and Kelly’s trying to slip a hypo into her now. Get the arm out, Ben.”

Martin ran back to the patrol car and flipped up a panel on the hull. He pulled back on one of the several levers recessed into the hull and the big wrecking crane swung smoothly out of its cradle and over the wreckage. The end of the crane arm was directly over Ferguson. “Lemme have the spreaders,” Clay called. The arm dipped and from either side of the tip, a pair of flanges shot out like tusks on an elephant. “Put ‘er in neutral,” Clay directed. Martin pressed another lever and the crane now could be moved in any direction by fingertip pulls at its extremity. Ferguson carefully guided the crane with its projecting tusks into the smashed orifice of the car window. “O.K., Ben, spread it.”

The crane locked into position and the entire arm split open in a “V” from its base. Martin pressed steadily on the two levers controlling each side of the divided arm and the tusks dug into the sides of the smashed window. There was a steady screeching of tearing and ripping metal as the crane tore window and frame apart. “Hold it,” Ferguson yelled and then eased himself into the widened hole.

“Ben,” Kelly called from her perch atop the wreckage, “litter.”

Martin raced to the rear of the patrol car where the sloping ramp stood open to the lighted dispensary. He snatched at one of the autolitters and triggered its tiny drive motor. A homing beacon in his helmet guided the litter as it rolled down the ramp, turned by itself and rolled across the pavement a foot behind him. It stopped when he stopped and Ben touched another switch, cutting the homing beacon.

Clay’s head appeared out of the hole. “Get it up here, Ben. I can get her out. And I think there’s another one alive still further down.”

Martin raised the crane and its ripper bars retracted. The split arms spewed a pair of cables terminating in magnalocks. The cables dangled over the ends of the autolitter, caught the lift plates on the litter and a second later, the cart was swinging beside the smashed window as Clay and Kelly eased the torn body of a woman out of the wreckage and onto the litter. As Ben brought the litter back to the pavement, the column of smoke had thickened. He disconnected the cables and homed the stretcher back to the patrol car. The hospital cart with its unconscious victim rolled smoothly back to the car, up the ramp and into the dispensary to the surgical table.

Martin climbed up the wreckage beside Kelly. Inside the twisted interior of the car, the thick smoke all but obscured the bent back of the younger trooper and his powerful handlight barely penetrated the gloom. Blood was smeared over almost every surface and the stink of leaking jet fuel was virtually overpowering. From the depths of the nightmarish scene came a tortured scream. Kelly reached into a coverall pocket and produced another sedation hypo. She squirmed around and started to slip down into the wreckage with Ferguson. Martin grabbed her arm. “No, Kelly, this thing’s ready to blow. Come on, Clay, get out of there. Now!”

Ferguson continued to pry at the twisted plates below him.

“I said ‘get out of there’ Ferguson,” the senior officer roared. “And that’s an order.”

Clay straightened up and put his hands on the edge of the window to boost himself out. “Ben, there’s a guy alive down there. We just can’t leave him.”

“Get down from there, Kelly,” Martin ordered. “I know that man’s down there just as well as you do, Clay. But we won’t be helping him one damn bit if we get blown to hell and gone right along with him. Now get outta there and maybe we can pull this thing apart and get to him before it does blow.”

The lanky Canadian eased out of the window and the two troopers moved back to the patrol car. Kelly was already in her dispensary, working on the injured woman.

Martin slid into his control seat. “Shut your ramp, Kelly,” he called over the intercom. “I’m going to move around to the other side.”

The radio broke in. “Car 119 to Car 56, we’re just turning into the divider. Be there in a minute.”

“Snap it up,” Ben replied. “We need you in a hurry.”

As he maneuvered Beulah around the wreckage he snapped orders to Ferguson.

“Get the foam nozzles up, just in case, and then stand by on the crane.”

A mile away, they saw the flashing emergency lights of Car 119 as it raced diagonally across the yellow and blue lanes, whipping with ponderous ease through the moving traffic.

“Take the south side, 119,” Martin called out. “We’ll try and pull this mess apart.”

“Affirmative,” came the reply. Even before the other patrol vehicle came to a halt, its crane was swinging out from the side, and the ganged magnalocks were dangling from their cables.

“O.K., kid,” Ben ordered, “hook it.”

At the interior crane controls, Clay swung Beulah’s crane and cable mags towards the wreckage. The magnalocks slammed into the metallic mess with a bang almost at the same instant the locks hit the other side from Car 119.

Clay eased up the cable slack. “Good,” Ben called to both Clay and the operating trooper in the other car, “now let’s pull it …LOOK OUT! FOAM …FOAM …FOAM,” he yelled.

The ugly, deep red fireball from the exploding wreckage was still growing as Clay slammed down on the fire-control panel. A curtain of thick chemical foam burst from the poised nozzles atop Beulah’s hull and a split-second later, another stream of foam erupted from the other patrol car. The dense, oxygen-absorbing retardant blanket snuffed the fire out in three seconds. The cranes were still secured to the foam-covered heap of metal. “Never mind the caution,” Ben called out, “get it apart. Fast.”

Both crane operators slammed their controls into reverse and with an ear-splitting screech, the twisted frames of the two vehicles ripped apart into tumbled heaps of broken metal and plastics. Martin and Ferguson jumped down the hatch steps and into ankle-deep foam and oil. They waded and slipped around the front of the car to join the troopers from the other car.

Ferguson was pawing at the scum-covered foam near the mangled section of one of the cars. “He should be right about,” Clay paused and bent over, “here.” He straightened up as the others gathered around the scorched and ripped body of a man, half-submerged in the thick foam. “Kelly,” he called over the helmet transmitter, “open your door. We’ll need a couple of sacks.”

He trudged to the rear of the patrol car and met the girl standing in the door with a pair of folded plastic morgue bags in her hands. Behind her, Clay could see the body of the woman on the surgical table, an array of tubes and probes leading to plasma drip bottles and other equipment racked out over the table.

“How is she?”

“Not good,” Kelly replied. “Skull fracture, ruptured spleen, broken ribs and double leg fractures. I’ve already called for an ambulance.”

Ferguson nodded, took the bags from her and waded back through the foam.

The four troopers worked in the silence of the deserted traffic lane. A hundred yards away, traffic was moving steadily in the slow white lane. Three-quarters of a mile to the south, fast and ultra high traffic sped at its normal pace in the blue and yellow lanes. Westbound green was still being rerouted into the slower white lane, around the scene of the accident. It was now twenty-six minutes since Car 56 had received the accident call. The light snow flurries had turned to a steady fall of thick wet flakes, melting as they hit on the warm pavement but beginning to coat the pitiful flotsam of the accident.

The troopers finished the gruesome task of getting the bodies into the morgue sacks and laid beside the dispensary ramp for the ambulance to pick up with the surviving victim. Car 119’s MSO had joined Kelly in Beulah’s dispensary to give what help she might. The four patrol troopers began the grim task of probing the scattered wreckage for other possible victims, personal possessions and identification. They were stacking a small pile of hand luggage when the long, low bulk of the ambulance swung out of the police lane and rolled to a stop. Longer than the patrol cars but without the non-medical emergency facilities, the ambulance was in reality a mobile hospital. A full, scrubbed-up surgical team was waiting in the main operating room even as the ramps opened and the techs headed for Car 56. The team had been briefed by radio on the condition of the patient; had read the full recordings of the diagnostician; and were watching transmitted pulse and respiration graphs on their own screens while the transfer was being made.

The two women MSOs had unlocked the surgical table in Beulah’s dispensary and a plastic tent covered not only the table and the patient, but also the plasma and Regen racks overhead. The entire table and rig slid down the ramp onto a motor-driven dolly from the ambulance. Without delay, it wheeled across the open few feet of pavement into the ambulance and to the surgery room. The techs locked the table into place in the other vehicle and left the surgery. From a storage compartment, they wheeled out a fresh patrol dispensary table and rack and placed it in Kelly’s miniature surgery. The dead went into the morgue aboard the ambulance, the ramp closed and the ambulance swung around and headed across the traffic lanes to eastbound NAT-26 and Philadelphia.

Outside, the four troopers had completed the task of collecting what little information they could from the smashed vehicles.

They returned to their cars and One-One-Nine’s medical-surgical officer headed back to her own cubbyhole.

The other patrol car swung into position almost touching Beulah’s left flank. With Ben at the control seat, on command, both cars extended broad bulldozer blades from their bows. “Let’s go,” Ben ordered. The two patrol vehicles moved slowly down the roadway, pushing all of the scattered scraps and parts onto a single great heap. They backed off, shifted direction towards the center police lane and began shoving the debris, foam and snow out of the green lane. At the edge of the police lane, both cars unshipped cranes and magnalifted the junk over the divider barrier onto the one-hundred-foot-wide service strip bordering the police lane. A slow cargo wrecker was already on the way from Pittsburgh barracks to pick up the wreckage and haul it away. When the last of the metallic debris had been deposited off the traffic lane, Martin called Control.

“Car 56 is clear. NAT 26-west green is clear.”

Philly Control acknowledged. Seven miles to the east, the amber warning lights went dark and the detour barrier at Crossover 85 sank back into the roadway. Three minutes later, traffic was again flashing by on green lane past the two halted patrol cars.

“Pitt Control, this is Car 119 clear of accident,” the other car reported.

“Car 119 resume eastbound patrol,” came the reply.

The other patrol car pulled away. The two troopers waved at Martin and Ferguson in Beulah. “See you later and thanks,” Ben called out. He switched to intercom. “Kelly. Any ID on that woman?”

“Not a thing, Ben,” she replied. “About forty years old, and she had a wedding band. She never was conscious, so I can’t help you.”

Ben nodded and looked over at his partner. “Go get into some dry clothes, kid,” he said, “while I finish the report. Then you can take it for a while.”

Clay nodded and headed back to the crew quarters.

*

Ben racked his helmet beside his seat and fished out a cigarette. He reached for an accident report form from the work rack behind his seat and began writing, glancing up from time to time to gaze thoughtfully at the scene of the accident. When he had finished, he thumbed the radio transmitter and called Philly Control. Somewhere in the bloody, oil and foam covered pile of wreckage were the registration plates for the two vehicles involved. When the wrecker collected the debris, it would be machine sifted in Pittsburgh and the plates fed to records and then relayed to Philadelphia where the identifications could be added to Ben’s report. When he had finished reading his report he asked, “How’s the woman?”

“Still alive, but just barely,” Philly Control answered. “Ben, did you say there were just two vehicles involved?”

“That’s all we found,” Martin replied.

“And were they both in the green?”

“Yes, why?”

“That’s funny,” Philly controller replied, “we got the calls as a sideswipe in white that put one of the cars over into the green. There should have been a third vehicle.”

“That’s right,” Ben exclaimed. “We were so busy trying to get that gal out and then making the try for the other man I never even thought to look for another car. You suppose that guy took off?”

“It’s possible,” the controller said. “I’m calling a gate filter until we know for sure. I’ve got the car number on the driver that reported the accident. I’ll get hold of him and see if he can give us a lead on the third car. You go ahead with your patrol and I’ll let you know what I find out.”

“Affirmative,” Ben replied. He eased the patrol car onto the police lane and turned west once again. Clay reappeared in the cab, dressed in fresh coveralls. “I’ll take it, Ben. You go and clean up now. Kelly’s got a pot of fresh coffee in the galley.” Ferguson slid into his control seat.

A light skiff of snow covered the service strip and the dividers as Car 56 swung back westward in the red lane. Snow was falling steadily but melting as it touched the warm ferrophalt pavement in all lanes. The wet roadways glistened with the lights of hundreds of vehicles. The chronometer read 1840 hours. Clay pushed the car up to a steady 75, just about apace with the slowest traffic in the white lane. To the south, densities were much lighter in the blue and yellow lanes and even the green had thinned out. It would stay moderately light now for another hour until the dinner stops were over and the night travelers again rolled onto the thruways.

Kelly was putting frozen steaks into the infra-oven as Ben walked through to crew quarters. Her coverall sleeves were rolled to the elbows as she worked and a vagrant strand of copper hair curled over her forehead. As Martin passed by, he caught a faint whisper of perfume and he smiled appreciatively.

In the tiny crew quarters, he shut the door to the galley and stripped out of his wet coveralls and boots. He eyed the shower stall across the passageway.

“Hey, mother,” he yelled to Kelly, “have I got time for a shower before dinner?”

“Yes, but make it a quickie,” she called back.

Five minutes later he stepped into the galley, his dark, crew-cut hair still damp. Kelly was setting plastic, disposable dishes on the little swing-down table that doubled as a food bar and work desk. Ben peered into a simmering pot and sniffed. “Smells good. What’s for dinner, Hiawatha?”

“Nothing fancy. Steak, potatoes, green beans, apple pie and coffee.”

Ben’s mouth watered. “You know, sometimes I wonder whether one of your ancestors didn’t come out of New England. Your menus always seem to coincide with my ideas of a perfect meal.” He noted the two places set at the table. Ben glanced out the galley port into the headlight-striped darkness. Traffic was still light. In the distance, the night sky glowed with the lights of Chambersburg, north of the thruway.

“We might as well pull up for dinner,” he said. “It’s pretty slow out there.”

Kelly shoved dishes over and began laying out a third setting. About half the time on patrol, the crew ate in shifts on the go, with one of the patrol troopers in the cab at all times. When traffic permitted, they pulled off to the service strip and ate together. With the communications system always in service, control stations could reach them anywhere in the big vehicle.

The sergeant stepped into the cab and tapped Ferguson on the shoulder. “Dinnertime, Clay. Pull her over and we’ll try some of your gracious living.”

“Light the candles and pour the wine,” Clay quipped, “I’ll be with you in a second.”

Car 56 swung out to the edge of the police lane and slowed down. Clay eased the car onto the strip and stopped. He checked the radiodometer and called in. “Pitt Control, this is Car 56 at Marker 158. Dinner is being served in the dining car to the rear. Please do not disturb.”

“Affirmative, Car 56,” Pittsburgh Control responded. “Eat heartily, it may be going out of style.” Clay grinned and flipped the radio to remote and headed for the galley.

*

Seated around the little table, the trio cut into their steaks. Parked at the north edge of the police lane, the patrol car was just a few feet from the green lane divider strip and cars and cargo carriers flashed by as they ate.

Clay chewed on a sliver of steak and looked at Kelly. “I’d marry you, Pocahontas, if you’d ever learn to cook steaks like beef instead of curing them like your ancestral buffalo robes. When are you going to learn that good beef has to be bloody to be edible?”

The girl glared at him. “If that’s what it takes to make it edible, you’re going to be an epicurean delight in just about one second if I hear another word about my cooking. And that’s also the second crack about my noble ancestors in the past five minutes. I’ve always wondered about the surgical techniques my great-great-great grandpop used when he lifted a paleface’s hair. One more word, Clay Ferguson, and I’ll have your scalp flying from Beulah’s antenna like a coontail on a kid’s scooter.”

Ben bellowed and nearly choked. “Hey, kid,” he spluttered at Clay, “ever notice how the wrong one of her ancestors keeps coming to the surface? That was the Irish.”

Clay polished off the last of his steak and reached for the individual frozen pies Kelly had put in the oven with the steak. “Now that’s another point,” he said, waving his fork at Kelly. “The Irish lived so long on potatoes and prayers that when they get a piece of meat on their menu, they don’t know how to do anything but boil it.”

“That tears it,” the girl exploded. She pushed back from the table and stood up. “I’ve cooked the last meal this big, dumb Canuck will ever get from me. I hope you get chronic indigestion and then come crawling to me for help. I’ve got something back there I’ve been wanting to dose you with for a long time.”

She stormed out of the galley and slammed the door behind her. Ben grinned at the stunned look on Clay’s face. “Now what got her on the warpath?” Clay asked. Before Ben could answer the radio speaker in the ceiling came to life.

“Car 56 this is Pitt Control.”

Martin reached for the transmit switch beside the galley table. “This is Five Six, go ahead.”

“Relay from Philly Control,” the speaker blared. “Reference the accident at Marker 92 at 1648 hours this date; Philly Control reports a third vehicle definitely involved.”

Ben pulled out a pencil and Clay shoved a message pad across the table.

“James J. Newhall, address 3409 Glen Cove Drive, New York City, license number BHT 4591 dash 747 dash 1609, was witness to the initial impact. He reports that a white over green, late model Travelaire, with two men in it, sideswiped one of the two vehicles involved in the fatal accident. The Travelaire did not stop but accelerated after the impact. Newhall was unable to get the full license number but the first six units were QABR dash 46 …rest of numerals unknown.”

Ben cut in. “Have we got identification on our fatalities yet?”

“Affirmative, Five Six,” the radio replied. “The driver of the car struck by the hit-and-run was a Herman Lawrence Hanover, age forty-two, of 13460 One Hundred Eighty-First Street South, Camden, New Jersey, license number LFM 4151 dash 603 dash 2738. With him was his wife, Clara, age forty-one, same address. Driver of the green lane car was George R. Hamilton, age thirty-five, address Box 493, Route 12, Tucumcari, New Mexico.”

Ben broke in once more. “You indicate all three are fatalities. Is this correct, Pitt Control? The woman was alive when she was transferred to the ambulance.”

“Stand by, Five Six, and I’ll check.”

A moment later Pitt Control was back. “That is affirmative, Five Six. The woman died at 1745 hours. Here is additional information. A vehicle answering to the general description of the hit-and-run vehicle is believed to have been involved in an armed robbery and multiple murder earlier this date at Wilmington, Delaware. Philly Control is now checking for additional details. Gate filters have been established on NAT 26-West from Marker-Exit 100 to Marker-Exit 700. Also, filters on all interchanges. Pitt Control out.”

Kelly Lightfoot, her not-too-serious peeve forgotten, had come back into the galley to listen to the radio exchange. The men got up from the table and Clay gathered the disposable dishware and tossed them into the waste receiver.

“We’d better get rolling,” Ben said, “those clowns could still be on the thruway, although they could have got off before the filters went up.”

They moved to the cab and took their places. The big engines roared into action as Ben rolled Car 56 back onto the policeway. Kelly finished straightening up in the galley and then came forward to sit on the jump seat between the two troopers. The snow had stopped again but the roadways were still slick and glistening under the headlights. Beulah rolled steadily along on her broad tracks, now cruising at one hundred miles an hour. The steady whine of the cold night wind penetrated faintly into the sound-proofed and insulated cabin canopy. Clay cut out the cabin lights, leaving only the instrument panel glowing faintly along with the phosphorescent buttons and knobs on the arms of the control seats.

A heavy express cargo carrier flashed by a quarter of a mile away in the blue lane, its big bulk lit up like a Christmas tree with running and warning lights. To their right, Clay caught the first glimpse of a set of flashing amber warning lights coming up from behind in the green lane. A minute later, a huge cargo carrier came abreast of the patrol car and then pulled ahead. On its side was a glowing star of the United States Army. A minute later, another Army carrier rolled by.

“That’s the missile convoy out of Aberdeen,” Clay told Kelly. “I wish our hit-runner had tackled one of those babies. We’d have scraped him up instead of those other people.”

The convoy rolled on past at a steady one hundred twenty-five miles an hour. Car 56 flashed under a crossover and into a long, gentle curve. The chronometer clicked up to 2100 hours and the radio sang out. “Cars 207, 56 and 82, this is Pitt Control. 2100 hours density report follows…”

Pittsburgh Control read off the figures for the three cars. Car 82 was one hundred fifty miles ahead of Beulah, Car 207 about the same distance to the rear. The density report ended and a new voice came on the air.

“Attention all cars and all stations, this is Washington Criminal Control.” The new voice paused, and across the continent, troopers on every thruway, control station, checkpoint and relay block, reached for clipboard and pen.

“Washington Criminal Control continuing, all cars and all stations, special attention to all units east of the Mississippi. At 1510 hours this date, two men held up the First National Bank of Wilmington, Delaware, and escaped with an estimated one hundred seventy-five thousand dollars. A bank guard and two tellers, together with five bank customers were killed by these subjects using automatic weapon fire to make good their escape. They were observed leaving the scene in a late model, white-over-green Travelaire sedan, license unknown. A car of the same make, model and color was stolen from Annapolis, Maryland, a short time prior to the holdup. The stolen vehicle, now believed to be the getaway car, bears USN license number QABR dash 468 dash 1113…”

“That’s our baby,” Ben murmured as he and Clay scribbled on their message forms.

“ …Motor number ZB 1069432,” Washington Criminal Control continued. “This car is also now believed to have been involved in a hit-and-run fatal accident on NAT 26-West at Marker 92 at approximately 1648 hours this date.

“Subject Number One is described as WMA, twenty to twenty-five years, five feet, eleven inches tall, medium complexion, dark hair and eyes, wearing a dark-gray sports jacket and dark pants, and wearing a gray sports cap. He was wearing a ring with a large red stone on his left hand.

“Subject Number Two is described as WMA, twenty to twenty-five years, six feet, light, ruddy complexion and reddish brown hair, light colored eyes. Has scar on back left side of neck. Wearing light-brown suit, green shirt and dark tie, no hat.

“These subjects are believed to be armed and psychotically dangerous. If observed, approach with extreme caution and inform nearest control of contact. Both subjects now under multiple federal warrants charging bank robbery, murder and hit-and-run murder. All cars and stations acknowledge. Washington Criminal Control out.”

The air chattered as the cars checked into their nearest controls with “acknowledged.”

“This looks like it could be a long night,” Kelly said, rising to her feet. “I’m going to sack out. Call me if you need me.”

“Good night, princess,” Ben called.

“Hey, Hiawatha,” Clay called out as Kelly paused in the galley door. “I didn’t mean what I said about your steaks. Your great-great-great grandpop would have gone around with his bare scalp hanging out if he had had to use a buffalo hide cured like that steak was cooked.”

He reached back at the same instant and slammed the cabin door just as Kelly came charging back. She slammed into the door, screamed and then went storming back to the dispensary while Clay doubled over in laugher.

Ben smiled at his junior partner. “Boy, you’re gonna regret that. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

*

Martin turned control over to the younger trooper and relaxed in his seat to go over the APB from Washington. Car 56 bored steadily through the night. The thruway climbed easily up the slight grade cut through the hills north of Wheeling, West Virginia, and once more snow began falling.

Clay reached over and flipped on the video scanners. Four small screens, one for each of the westbound lanes, glowed with a soft red light. The monitors were synchronized with the radiodometer and changed view at every ten-mile marker. Viewing cameras mounted on towers between each lane, lined the thruway, aimed eastward at the on-coming traffic back to the next bank of cameras ten miles away. Infra-red circuits took over from standard scan at dark. A selector system in the cars gave the troopers the option of viewing either the block they were currently patrolling; the one ahead of the next ten-mile block; or, the one they had just passed. As a rule, the selection was based on the speed of the car. Beamed signals from each block automatically switched the view as the patrol car went past the towers. Clay put the slower lane screens on the block they were in, turned the blue and yellow lanes to the block ahead.

They rolled past the interchange with NAT 114-South out of Cleveland and the traffic densities picked up in all lanes as many of the southbound vehicles turned west on to NAT 26. The screens flicked and Clay came alert. Some fifteen miles ahead in the one-hundred-fifty-to-two-hundred-mile an hour blue lane, a glowing dot remained motionless in the middle of the lane and the other racing lights of the blue lane traffic were sheering around it like a racing river current parting around a boulder.

“Trouble,” he said to Martin, as he shoved forward on the throttle.

A stalled car in the middle of the highspeed lane was an invitation to disaster. The bull horn blared as Beulah leaped past the two hundred mile an hour mark and safety cocoons slid into place. Aft in the dispensary, Kelly was sealed into her bunk by a cocoon rolling out of the wall and encasing the hospital bed.

Car 56 slanted across the police lane with red lights flashing and edged into the traffic flow in the blue lane. The great, red winking lights and the emergency radio siren signal began clearing a path for the troopers. Vehicles began edging to both sides of the lane to shift to crossovers to the yellow or green lanes. Clay aimed Beulah at the motionless dot on the screen and eased back from the four-mile-a-minute speed. The patrol car slowed and the headlight picked up the stalled vehicle a mile ahead. The cocoons opened and Ben slipped on his work helmet and dropped down the steps to the side hatch. Clay brought Beulah to a halt a dozen yards directly to the rear of the stalled car, the great bulk of the patrol vehicle with its warning lights serving as a shield against any possible fuzzy-headed speeders that might not be observing the road.

As Martin reached for the door, the Wanted bulletin flashed through his head. “What make of car is that, Clay?”

“Old jalopy Tritan with some souped-up rigs. Probably kids,” the junior officer replied. “It looks O.K.”

Ben nodded and swung down out of the patrol car. He walked quickly to the other car, flashing his handlight on the side of the vehicle as he went up to the driver. The interior lights were on and inside, two obviously frightened young couples smiled with relief at the sight of the uniform coveralls. A freckled-faced teenager in a dinner jacket was in the driver’s seat and had the blister window open. He grinned up at Martin. “Boy, am I glad to see you, officer,” he said.

“What’s the problem?” Ben asked.

“I guess she blew an impeller,” the youth answered. “We were heading for a school dance at Cincinnati and she was boiling along like she was in orbit when blooey she just quit.”

Ben surveyed the old jet sedan. “What year is this clunker?” he asked. The kid told him. “You kids have been told not to use this lane for any vehicle that old.” He waved his hand in protest as the youngster started to tell him how many modifications he had made on the car. “It doesn’t make one bit of difference whether you’ve put a first-stage Moon booster on this wreck. It’s not supposed to be in the blue or yellow. And this thing probably shouldn’t have been allowed out of the white—or even on the thruway.”

The youngster flushed and bit his lip in embarrassment at the giggles from the two evening-frocked girls in the car.

“Well, let’s get you out of here.” Ben touched his throat mike. “Drop a light, Clay and then let’s haul this junk pile away.”

In the patrol car, Ferguson reached down beside his seat and tugged at a lever. From a recess in Beulah’s stern, a big portable red warning light dropped to the pavement. As it touched the surface, it automatically flashed to life, sending out a bright, flashing red warning signal into the face of any approaching traffic. Clay eased the patrol car around the stalled vehicle and then backed slow into position, guided by Martin’s radioed instructions. A tow-bar extruded from the back of the police vehicle and a magnaclamp locked onto the front end of the teenager’s car. The older officer walked back to the portable warning light and rolled it on its four wheels to the rear plate of the jalopy where another magnalock secured it to the car. Beulah’s two big rear warning lights still shone above the low silhouette of the passenger car, along with the mobile lamp on the jalopy. Martin walked back to the patrol car and climbed in.

He slid into his seat and nodded at Clay. The patrol car, with the disabled vehicle in tow moved forward and slanted left towards the police lane. Martin noted the mileage marker on the radiodometer and fingered the transmitter. “Chillicothe Control this is Car 56.”

“This Chillicothe. Go ahead Five Six.”

“We picked up some kids in a stalled heap on the blue at Marker 382 and we’ve got them in tow now,” Ben said. “Have a wrecker meet us and take them off our hands.”

“Affirmative, Five Six. Wrecker will pick you up at Marker 412.”

*

Clay headed the patrol car and its trailed load into an emergency entrance to the middle police lane and slowly rolled westward. The senior trooper reached into his records rack and pulled out a citation book.

“You going to nail these kids?” Clay asked.

“You’re damned right I am,” Martin replied, beginning to fill in the violation report. “I’d rather have this kid hurting in the pocketbook than dead. If we turn him loose, he’ll think he got away with it this time and try it again. The next time he might not be so lucky.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Clay said, “but it does seem a little rough.”

Ben swung around in his seat and surveyed his junior officer. “Sometimes I think you spent four years in the patrol academy with your head up your jet pipes,” he said. He fished out another cigarette and took a deep drag.

“You’ve had four solid years of law; three years of electronics and jet and air-drive engine mechanics and engineering; pre-med, psychology, math, English, Spanish and a smattering of Portuguese, to say nothing of dozens of other subjects. You graduated in the upper tenth of your class with a B.S. in both Transportation and Criminology which is why you’re riding patrol and not punching a computer or tinkering with an engine. You’d think with all that education that somewhere along the line you’d have learned to think with your head instead of your emotions.”

Clay kept a studied watch on the roadway. The minute Ben had turned and swung his legs over the side of the seat and pulled out a cigarette, Clay knew that it was school time in Car 56. Instructor Sergeant Ben Martin was in a lecturing mood. It was time for all good pupils to keep their big, fat mouths shut.

“Remember San Francisco de Borja?” Ben queried. Clay nodded. “And you still think I’m too rough on them?” Ben pressed.

Ferguson’s memory went back to last year’s fifth patrol. He and Ben with Kelly riding hospital, had been assigned to NAT 200-North, running out of Villahermosa on the Guatamalan border of Mexico to Edmonton Barracks in Canada. It was the second night of the patrol. Some seven hundred fifty miles north of Mexico City, near the town of San Francisco de Borja, a gang of teenage Mexican youngsters had gone roaring up the yellow at speeds touching on four hundred miles an hour. Their car, a beat-up, fifteen-year-old veteran of less speedy and much rockier local mountain roads, had been gimmicked by the kids so that it bore no resemblance to its original manufacture.

From a junkyard they had obtained a battered air lift, smashed almost beyond use in the crackup of a ten-thousand dollar sports cruiser. The kids pried, pounded and bent the twisted impeller lift blades back into some semblance of alignment. From another wreck of a cargo carrier came a pair of 4000-pound thrust engines. They had jury-rigged the entire mess so that it stuck together on the old heap. Then they hit the thruway—nine of them packed into the jalopy—the oldest one just seventeen years old. They were doing three hundred fifty when they flashed past the patrol car and Ben had roared off in pursuit. The senior officer whipped the big patrol car across the crowded high speed blue lane, jockeyed into the ultra-high yellow and then turned on the power.

By this time the kids realized they had been spotted and they cranked their makeshift power plant up to the last notch. The most they could get out of it was four hundred and it was doing just that as Car 56, clocking better than five hundred, pulled in behind them. The patrol car was still three hundred yards astern when one of the bent and re-bent impeller blades let go. The out-of-balance fan, turning at close to 35,000 rpm’s, flew to pieces and the air cushion vanished. At four hundred miles an hour, the body of the old jalopy fell the twelve inches to the pavement and both front wheels caved under. There was a momentary shower of sparks, then the entire vehicle snapped cart-wheeling more than eighty feet into the air and exploded. Pieces of car and bodies were scattered for a mile down the thruway and the only whole, identifiable human bodies were those of the three youngsters thrown out and sent hurtling to their deaths more than two hundred feet away.

Clay’s mind snapped back to the present.

“Write ‘em up,” he said quietly to Martin. The senior officer gave a satisfied nod and turned back to his citation pad.

*

At marker 412, which was also the Columbus turnoff, a big patrol wrecker was parked on the side strip, engines idling, service and warning lights blinking. Clay pulled the patrol car alongside and stopped. He disconnected the tow bar and the two officers climbed out into the cold night air. They walked back to the teenager’s car. Clay went to the rear of the disabled car and unhooked the warning light while Martin went to the driver’s window. He had his citation book in hand. The youngster in the driver’s seat went white at the sight of the violation pad. “May I see your license, please,” Ben asked. The boy fumbled in a back pocket and then produced a thin, metallic tab with his name, age, address and license number etched into the indestructible and unalterable metal.

“Also your car registration,” Ben added. The youth unclipped a similar metal strip from the dashboard.

The trooper took the two tabs and walked to the rear of the patrol car. He slid back to a panel to reveal two thin slots in the hull. Martin slid the driver’s license into one of the slots, the registration tab into the other. He pressed a button below each slot. Inside the car, a magnetic reader and auto-transmitter “scanned” the magnetic symbols implanted in the tags. The information was fed instantly to Continental Headquarters Records division at Colorado Springs. In fractions of a second, the great computers at Records were comparing the information on the tags with all previous traffic citations issued anywhere in the North American continent in the past forty-five years since the birth of the Patrol. The information from the driver’s license and registration tab had been relayed from Beulah via the nearest patrol relay point. The answer came back the same way.

Above the license recording slot were two small lights. The first flashed green, “license is in order and valid.” The second flashed green as well, “no previous citations.” Ben withdrew the tag from the slot. Had the first light come on red, he would have placed the driver under arrest immediately. Had the second light turned amber, it would have indicated a previous minor violation. This, Ben would have noted on the new citation. If the second light had been red, this would have meant either a major previous violation or more than one minor citation. Again, the driver would have been under immediate arrest. The law was mandatory. One big strike and you’re out—two foul tips and the same story. And “out” meant just that. Fines, possibly jail or prison sentence and lifetime revocation of driving privileges.

Ben flipped the car registration slot to “stand-by” and went back to the teenager’s car. Even though they were parked on the service strip of the police emergency lane, out of all traffic, the youngsters stayed in the car. This one point of the law they knew and knew well. Survival chances were dim anytime something went wrong on the highspeed thruways. That little margin of luck vanished once outside the not-too-much-better security of the vehicle body.

Martin finished writing and then slipped the driver’s license into a pocket worked into the back of the metallic paper foil of the citation blank. He handed the pad into the window to the driver together with a carbon stylus.

The boy’s lip trembled and he signed the citation with a shaky hand.

Ben ripped off the citation blank and license, fed them into the slot on the patrol car and pressed both the car registration and license “record” buttons. Ten seconds later the permanent record of the citation was on file in Colorado Springs and a duplicate recording of the action was in the Continental traffic court docket recorder nearest to the driver’s hometown. Now, no power in three nations could “fix” that ticket. Ben withdrew the citation and registration tag and walked back to the car. He handed the boy the license and registration tab, together with a copy of the citation. Ben bent down to peer into the car.

“I made it as light on you as I could,” he told the young diver. “You’re charged with improper use of the thruway. That’s a minor violation. By rights, I should have cited you for illegal usage.” He looked around slowly at each of the young people. “You look like nice kids,” he said. “I think you’ll grow up to be nice people. I want you around long enough to be able to vote in a few years. Who knows, maybe I’ll be running for president then and I’ll need your votes. It’s a cinch that falling apart in the middle of two-hundred-mile an hour traffic is no way to treat future voters.

“Good night, Kids.” He smiled and walked away from the car. The three young passengers smiled back at Ben. The young driver just stared unhappily at the citation.

Clay stood talking with the wrecker crewmen. Ben nodded to him and mounted into the patrol car. The young Canadian crushed out his cigarette and swung up behind the sergeant. Clay went to the control seat when he saw Martin pause in the door to the galley.

“I’m going to get a cup of coffee,” the older officer said, “and then take the first shift. You keep Beulah ‘til I get back.”

Clay nodded and pushed the throttles forward. Car 56 rolled back into the police lane while behind it, the wrecker hooked onto the disabled car and swung north into the crossover. Clay checked both the chronometer and the radiodometer and then reported in. “Cinncy Control this is Car 56 back in service.” Cincinnati Control acknowledged.

Ten minute later, Ben reappeared in the cab, slid into the left-hand seat. “Hit the sack, kid,” he told Ferguson. The chronometer read 2204. “I’ll wake you at midnight—or sooner, if anything breaks.”

Ferguson stood up and stretched, then went into the galley. He poured himself a cup of coffee and carrying it with him, went back to the crew quarters. He closed the door to the galley and sat down on the lower bunk to sip his coffee. When he had finished, he tossed the cup into the basket, reached and dimmed the cubby lights and kicked off his boots. Still in his coveralls, Clay stretched out on the bunk and sighed luxuriously. He reached up and pressed a switch on the bulkhead above his pillow and the muted sounds of music from a standard broadcast commercial station drifted into the bunk area. Clay closed his eyes and let the sounds of the music and the muted rumble of the engines lull him to sleep. It took almost fifteen seconds for him to be in deep slumber.

*

Ben pushed Beulah up to her steady seventy-five-mile-an-hour cruising speed, moved to the center of the quarter-mile-wide police lane and locked her tracks into autodrive. He relaxed back in his seat and divided his gaze between the video monitors and the actual scene on either side of him in the night. Once again the sky was lighted, this time much brighter on the horizon as the roadways swept to the south of Cincinnati.

Traffic was once again heavy and fast with the blue and green carrying almost equal loads while white was really crowded and even the yellow “zoom” lane was beginning to fill. The 2200 hour density reports from Cinncy had been given before the Ohio State-Cal football game traffic had hit the thruways and densities now were peaking near twenty thousand vehicles for the one-hundred-mile block of westbound NAT 26 out of Cincinnati.

Back to the east, near the eastern Ohio state line, Martin could hear Car 207 calling for a wrecker and meat wagon. Beulah rumbled on through the night. The video monitors flicked to the next ten-mile stretch as the patrol car rolled past another interchange. More vehicles streamed onto the westbound thruways, crossing over and dropping down into the same lanes they held coming out of the north-south road. Seven years on patrols had created automatic reflexes in the trooper sergeant. Out of the mass of cars and cargoes streaming along the rushing tide of traffic, his eye picked out the track of one vehicle slanting across the white lane just a shade faster than the flow of traffic. The vehicle was still four or five miles ahead. It wasn’t enough out of the ordinary to cause more than a second, almost unconscious glance, on the part of the veteran officer. He kept his view shifting from screen to screen and out to the sides of the car.

But the reflexes took hold again as his eye caught the track of the same vehicle as it hit the crossover from white to green, squeezed into the faster lane and continued its sloping run towards the next faster crossover. Now Martin followed the movement of the car almost constantly. The moving blip had made the cutover across the half-mile wide green lane in the span of one crossover and was now whipping into the merger lane that would take it over the top of the police lane and drop down into the one hundred fifty to two hundred mile an hour blue. If the object of his scrutiny straightened out in the blue, he’d let it go. The driver had been bordered on violation in his fast crossover in the face of heavy traffic. If he kept it up in the now-crowded highspeed lane, he was asking for sudden death. The monitors flicked to the next block and Ben waited just long enough to see the speeding car make a move to the left, cutting in front of a speeding cargo carrier. Ben slammed Beulah into high. Once again the bull horn blared as the cocoons slammed shut, this time locking both Clay and Kelly into their bunks, sealing Ben into the control seat.

Beulah lifted on her air cushion and the twin jets roared as she accelerated down the police lane at three hundred miles an hour. Ben closed the gap on the speeder in less than a minute and then edged over to the south side of the police lane to make the jump into the blue lane. The red emergency lights and the radio siren had already cleared a hole for him in the traffic pattern and he eased back on the finger throttles as the patrol car sailed over the divider and into the blue traffic lane. Now he had eyeball contact with the speeding car, still edging over towards the ultra-high lane. On either side of the patrol car traffic gave way, falling back or moving to the left and right. Car 56 was now directly behind the speeding passenger vehicle. Ben fingered the cut-in switch that put his voice signal onto the standard vehicular emergency frequency—the band that carried the automatic siren-warning to all vehicles.

*

The patrol car was still hitting above the two-hundred-mile-an-hour mark and was five hundred feet behind the speeder. The headlamp bathed the other car in a white glare, punctuated with angry red flashes from the emergency lights.

“You are directed to halt or be fired upon,” Ben’s voice roared out over the emergency frequency. Almost without warning, the speeding car began braking down with such deceleration that the gargantuan patrol car with its greater mass came close to smashing over it and crushing the small passenger vehicle like an insect. Ben cut all forward power, punched up full retrojet and at the instant he felt Beulah’s tracks touch the pavement as the air cushion blew, he slammed on the brakes. Only the safety cocoon kept Martin from being hurled against the instrument panel and in their bunks, Kelly Lightfoot and Clay Ferguson felt their insides dragging down into their legs.

The safety cocoons snapped open and Clay jumped into his boots and leaped for the cab. “Speeder,” Ben snapped as he jumped down the steps to the side hatch. Ferguson snatched up his helmet from the rack beside his seat and leaped down to join his partner. Ben ran up to the stopped car through a thick haze of smoke from the retrojets of the patrol car and the friction-burning braking of both vehicles. Ferguson circled to the other side of the car. As they flashed their handlights into the car, they saw the driver of the car kneeling on the floor beside the reclined passenger seat. A woman lay stretched out on the seat, twisting in pain. The man raised an agonized face to the officers. “My wife’s going to have her baby right here!”

“Kelly,” Ben yelled into his helmet transmitter. “Maternity!”

The dispensary ramp was halfway down before Ben had finished calling. Kelly jumped to the ground and sprinted around the corner of the patrol car, medical bag in hand.

She shoved Clay out of the way and opened the door on the passenger side. On the seat, the woman moaned and then muffled a scream. The patrol doctor laid her palm on the distended belly. “How fast are your pains coming?” she asked. Clay and Ben had moved away from the car a few feet.

“Litter,” Kelly snapped over her shoulder. Clay raced for the patrol car while Ben unshipped a portable warning light and rolled it down the lane behind the patrol car. He flipped it to amber “caution” and “pass.” Blinking amber arrows pointed to the left and right of the halted passenger vehicle and traffic in the blue lane began picking up speed and parting around the obstructions.

By the time he returned to the patrol car, Kelly had the expectant mother in the dispensary. She slammed the door in the faces of the three men and then she went to work.

The woman’s husband slumped against the side of the patrol vehicle.

Ben dug out his pack of cigarettes and handed one to the shaking driver.

He waited until the man had taken a few drags before speaking.

“Mister, I don’t know if you realize it or not but you came close to killing your wife, your baby and yourself,” Ben said softly, “to say nothing of the possibility of killing several other families. Just what did you think you were doing?”

The driver’s shoulders sagged and his hand shook as he took the cigarette from his mouth. “Honestly, officer, I don’t know. I just got frightened to death,” he said. He peered up at Martin. “This is our first baby, you see, and Ellen wasn’t due for another week. We thought it would be all right to visit my folks in Cleveland and Ellen was feeling just fine. Well, anyway, we started home tonight—we live in Jefferson City—and just about the time I got on the thruway, Ellen started having pains. I was never so scared in my life. She screamed once and then tried to muffle them but I knew what was happening and all I could think of was to get her to a hospital. I guess I went out of my head, what with her moaning and the traffic and everything. The only place I could think of that had a hospital was Evansville, and I was going to get her there come hell or high water.” The young man tossed away the half-smoked cigarette and looked up at the closed dispensary door. “Do you think she’s all right?”

Ben sighed resignedly and put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Don’t you worry a bit. She’s got one of the best doctors in the continent in there with her. Come on.” He took the husband by the arm and led him around to the patrol car cab hatch. “You climb up there and sit down. I’ll be with you in a second.”

The senior officer signaled to Ferguson. “Let’s get his car out of the traffic, Clay,” he directed. “You drive it.”

*

Ben went back and retrieved the caution blinker and re-racked it in the side of the patrol car, then climbed up into the cab. He took his seat at the controls and indicated the jump seat next to him. “Sit down, son. We’re going to get us and your car out of this mess before we all get clobbered.”

He flicked the headlamp at Ferguson in the control seat of the passenger car and the two vehicles moved out. Ben kept the emergency lights on while they eased carefully cross-stream to the north and the safety of the police lane. Clay picked up speed at the outer edge of the blue lane and rolled along until he reached the first “patrol only” entrance through the divider to the service strip. Ben followed him in and then turned off the red blinkers and brought the patrol car to a halt behind the other vehicle.

The worried husband stood up and looked to the rear of the car. “What’s making it so long?” he asked anxiously. “They’ve been in there a long time.”

Ben smiled. “Sit down, son. These things take time. Don’t you worry. If there were anything wrong, Kelly would let us know. She can talk to us on the intercom anytime she wants anything.”

The man sat back down. “What’s your name?” Ben inquired.

“Haverstraw,” the husband replied distractedly, “George Haverstraw. I’m an accountant. That’s my wife back there,” he cried, pointing to the closed galley door. “That’s Ellen.”

“I know,” Ben said gently. “You told us that.”

Clay had come back to the patrol car and dropped into his seat across from the young husband. “Got a name picked out for the baby?” he asked.

Haverstraw’s face lighted. “Oh, yes,” he exclaimed. “If it’s a boy, we’re going to call him Harmon Pierce Haverstraw. That was my grandfather’s name. And if she’s a girl, it’s going to be Caroline May after Ellen’s mother and grandmother.”

The intercom came to life. “Anyone up there?” Kelly’s voice asked. Before they could answer, the wail of a baby sounded over the system. Haverstraw yelled.

“Congratulations, Mr. Haverstraw,” Kelly said, “you’ve got a fine-looking son.”

“Hey,” the happy young father yelped, “hey, how about that? I’ve got a son.” He pounded the two grinning troopers on the back. Suddenly he froze. “What about Ellen? How’s Ellen?” he called out.

“She’s just fine,” Kelly replied. “We’ll let you in here in a couple of minutes but we’ve got to get us gals and your new son looking pretty for papa. Just relax.”

Haverstraw sank down onto the jump seat with a happy dazed look on his face.

Ben smiled and reached for the radio. “I guess our newest citizen deserves a ride in style,” he said. “We’re going to have to transfer Mrs. Haverstraw and … er… oh yes, Master Harmon Pierce to an ambulance and then to a hospital now, George. You have any preference on where they go?”

“Gosh, no,” the man replied. “I guess the closest one to wherever we are.” He paused thoughtfully. “Just where are we? I’ve lost all sense of distance or time or anything else.”

Ben looked at the radiodometer. “We’re just about due south of Indianapolis. How would that be?”

“Oh, that’s fine,” Haverstraw replied.

“You can come back now, Mr. Haverstraw,” Kelly called out. Haverstraw jumped up. Clay got up with him. “Come on, papa,” he grinned, “I’ll show you the way.”

Ben smiled and then called into Indianapolis Control for an ambulance.

“Ambulance on the way,” Control replied. “Don’t you need a wrecker, too, Five Six?”

Ben grinned. “Not this time. We didn’t lose one. We gained one.”

He got up and went back to have a look at Harmon Pierce Haverstraw, age five minutes, temporary address, North American Continental Thruway 26-West, Mile Marker 632.

Five minutes later, mother and baby were in the ambulance heading north to the hospital. Haverstraw, calmed down with a sedative administered by Kelly, had nearly wrung their hands off in gratitude as he said good-by.

“I’ll mail you all cigars when I get home,” he shouted as he waved and climbed into his car.

Beulah’s trio watched the new father ease carefully into the traffic as the ambulance headed down the policeway. Haverstraw would have to cut over to the next exchange and then go north to Indianapolis. He’d arrive later than his family. This time, he was the very picture of careful driving and caution as he threaded his way across the green.

“I wonder if he knows what brand of cigars I smoke?” Kelly mused.

*

The chrono clicked up to 2335 as Car 56 resumed patrol. Kelly plumped down onto the jump seat beside Ben. Clay was fiddling in the galley. “Why don’t you go back to the sack?” Ben called.

“What, for a lousy twenty-five minutes,” Clay replied. “I had a good nap before you turned the burners up to high. Besides, I’m hungry. Anyone else want a snack?”

Ben shook his head. “No, thanks,” Kelly said. Ferguson finished slapping together a sandwich. Munching on it, he headed into the engine room to make the midnight check. Car 56 had now been on patrol eight hours. Only two hundred thirty-two hours and two thousand miles to go.

Kelly looked around at the departing back of the younger trooper. “I’ll bet this is the only car in NorCon that has to stock twenty days of groceries for a ten-day patrol,” she said.

Ben chuckled. “He’s still a growing boy.”

“Well, if he is, it’s all between the ears,” the girl replied. “You’d think that after a year I would have realized that nothing could penetrate that thick Canuck’s skull. He gets me so mad sometimes that I want to forget I’m a lady.” She paused thoughtfully. “Come to think of it. No one ever accused me of being a lady in the first place.”

“Sounds like love,” Ben smiled.

Hunched over on the jump seat with her elbows on her knees and her chin cupped in both hands, Kelly gave the senior officer a quizzical sideways look.

Ben was watching his monitors and missed the glance. Kelly sighed and stared out into the light streaked night of the thruway. The heavy surge of football traffic had distributed itself into the general flow on the road and while all lanes were busy, there were no indications of any overcrowding or jam-ups. Much of the pattern was shifting from passenger to cargo vehicle as it neared midnight. The football crowds were filtering off at each exchange and exit and the California fans had worked into the blue and yellow—mostly the yellow—for the long trip home. The fewer passenger cars on the thruway and the increase in cargo carriers gave the troopers a breathing spell. The men in the control buckets of the three hundred and four hundred-ton cargo vehicles were the real pros of the thruways; careful, courteous and fast. The NorCon patrol cars could settle down to watch out for the occasional nuts and drunks that might bring disaster.

Once again, Martin had the patrol car on auto drive in the center of the police lane and he steeled back in his seat. Beside him, Kelly stared moodily into the night.

“How come you’ve never married, Ben?” she asked. The senior trooper gave her a startled look. “Why, I guess for the same reason you’re still a maiden,” he answered. “This just doesn’t seem to be the right kind of a job for a married man.”

Kelly shook her head. “No, it’s not the same thing with me,” she said. “At least, not entirely the same thing. If I got married, I’d have to quit the Patrol and you wouldn’t. And secondly, if you must know the truth, I’ve never been asked.”

Ben looked thoughtfully at the copper-haired Irish-Indian girl. All of a sudden she seemed to have changed in his eyes. He shook his head and turned back to the road monitors.

“I just don’t think that a patrol trooper has any business getting married and trying to keep a marriage happy and make a home for a family thirty days out of every three hundred sixty, with an occasional weekend home if you’re lucky enough to draw your hometown for a terminal point. This might help the population rate but it sure doesn’t do anything for the institution of matrimony.”

“I know some troopers that are married,” Kelly said.

“But there aren’t very many,” Ben countered. “Comes the time they pull me off the cars and stick me behind a desk somewhere, then I’ll think about it.”

“You might be too old by then,” Kelly murmured.

Ben grinned. “You sound as though you’re worried about it,” he said.

“No,” Kelly replied softly, “no, I’m not worried about it. Just thinking.” She averted her eyes and looked out into the night again. “I wonder what NorCon would do with a husband-wife team?” she murmured, almost to herself.

Ben looked sharply at her and frowned. “Why, they’d probably split them up,” he said.

*

“Split what up?” Clay inquired, standing in the door of the cab.

“Split up all troopers named Clay Ferguson,” Kelly said disgustedly, “and use them for firewood—especially the heads. They say that hardwood burns long and leaves a fine ash. And that’s what you’ve been for years.”

She sat erect in the jump seat and looked sourly at the young trooper.

Clay shuddered at the pun and squeezed by the girl to get to his seat. “I’ll take it now, pop,” he said. “Go get your geriatrics treatment.”

Ben got out of his seat with a snort. “I’ll ‘pop’ you, skinhead,” he snapped. “You may be eight years younger than I am but you only have one third the virility and one tenth the brains. And eight years from now you’ll still be in deficit spending on both counts.”

“Careful, venerable lord of my destiny,” Clay admonished with a grin, “remember how I spent my vacation and remember how you spent yours before you go making unsubstantiated statements about my virility.”

Kelly stood up. “If you two will excuse me, I’ll go back to the dispensary and take a good jolt of male hormones and then we can come back and finish this man-to-man talk in good locker room company.”

“Don’t you dare,” Ben cried. “I wouldn’t let you tamper with one single, tiny one of your feminine traits, princess. I like you just the way you are.”

Kelly looked at him with a wide-eyed, cherubic smile. “You really mean that, Ben?”

The older trooper flushed briefly and then turned quickly into the galley. “I’m going to try for some shut-eye. Wake me at two, Clay, if nothing else breaks.” He turned to Kelly who was still smiling at him. “And watch out for that lascivious young goat.”

“It’s all just talk, talk, talk,” she said scornfully. “You go to bed, Ben. I’m going to try something new in psychiatric annals. I’m going to try and psychoanalyze a dummy.” She sat back down on the jump seat.

At 2400 hours it was Vincennes Check with the density reports, all down in the past hour. The patrol was settling into what looked like a quiet night routine. Kelly chatted with Ferguson for another half hour and then rose again. “I think I’ll try to get some sleep,” she said. “I’ll put on a fresh pot of coffee for you two before I turn in.”

She rattled around in the galley for some time. “Whatcha cooking?” Clay called out. “Making coffee,” Kelly replied.

“It take all that time to make coffee?” Clay queried.

“No,” she said. “I’m also getting a few things ready so we can have a fast breakfast in case we have to eat on the run. I’m just about through now.”

A couple of minutes later she stuck her head into the cab. “Coffee’s done. Want some?”

Clay nodded. “Please, princess.”

She poured him a cup and set it in the rack beside his seat.

“Thanks,” Clay said. “Good night, Hiawatha.”

“Good night, Babe,” she replied.

“You mean ‘Paul Bunyon,’ don’t you?” Clay asked. “‘Babe’ was his blue ox.”

“I know what I said,” Kelly retorted and strolled back to the dispensary. As she passed through the crew cubby, she glanced at Ben sleeping on the bunk recently vacated by Ferguson. She paused and carefully and gently pulled a blanket up over his sleeping form. She smiled down at the trooper and then went softly to her compartment.

In the cab, Clay sipped at his coffee and kept watchful eyes on the video monitors. Beulah was back on auto drive and Clay had dropped her speed to a slow fifty as the traffic thinned.

At 0200 hours he left the cab long enough to go back and shake Ben awake and was himself re-awakened at 0400 to take back control. He let Ben sleep an extra hour before routing him out of the bunk again at 0700. The thin, gray light of the winter morning was just taking hold when Ben came back into the cab. Clay had pulled Beulah off to the service strip and was stopped while he finished transcribing his scribbled notes from the 0700 Washington Criminal Control broadcast.

Ben ran his hand sleepily over his close-cropped head. “Anything exciting?” he asked with a yawn. Clay shook his head. “Same old thing. ‘All cars exercise special vigilance over illegal crossovers. Keep all lanes within legal speed limits.’ Same old noise.”

“Anything new on our hit-runner?”

“Nope.”

“Good morning, knights of the open road,” Kelly said from the galley door. “Obviously you both went to sleep after I left and allowed our helpless citizens to slaughter each other.”

“How do you figure that one?” Ben laughed.

“Oh, it’s very simple,” she replied. “I managed to get in a full seven hours of sleep. When you sleep, I sleep. I slept. Ergo, you did likewise.”

“Nope,” Clay said, “for once we had a really quiet night. Let’s hope the day is of like disposition.”

Kelly began laying out the breakfast things. “You guys want eggs this morning?”

“You gonna cook again today?” Clay inquired.

“Only breakfast,” Kelly said. “You have the honors for the rest of the day. The diner is now open and we’re taking orders.”

“I’ll have mine over easy,” Ben said. “Make mine sunny-up,” Clay called.

Kelly began breaking eggs into the pan, muttering to herself. “Over easy, sunny-up, I like ‘em scrambled. Next tour I take I’m going to get on a team where everyone likes scrambled eggs.”

A few minutes later, Beulah’s crew sat down to breakfast. Ben had just dipped into his egg yolk when the radio blared. “Attention all cars. Special attention Cars 207, 56 and 82.”

“Just once,” Ben said, “just once, I want to sit down to a meal and get it all down my gullet before that radio gives me indigestion.” He laid down his fork and reached for the message pad.

The radio broadcast continued. “A late model, white over green Travelaire, containing two men and believed to be the subjects wanted in earlier broadcast on murder, robbery and hit-run murder, was involved in a service station robbery and murder at Vandalia, Illinois, at approximately 0710 this date. NorCon Criminal Division believes this subject car escaped filter check and left NAT 26-West sometime during the night.

“Owner of this stolen vehicle states it had only half tanks of fuel at the time it was taken. This would indicate wanted subjects stopped for fuel. It is further believed they were recognized by the station attendant from video bulletins sent out by this department last date and that he was shot and killed to prevent giving alarm.

“The shots alerted residents of the area and the subject car was last seen headed south. This vehicle may attempt to regain access to NAT 26-West or it may take another thruway. All units are warned once again to approach this vehicle with extreme caution and only with the assistance of another unit where possible. Acknowledge. Washington Criminal Control out.”

Ben looked at the chrono. “They hit Vandalia at 0710, eh. Even in the yellow they couldn’t get this far for another half hour. Let’s finish breakfast. It may be a long time until lunch.”

The crew returned to their meal. While Kelly was cleaning up after breakfast, Clay ran the quick morning engine room check. In the cab, Ben opened the arms rack and brought out two machine pistols and belts. He checked them for loads and laid one on Clay’s control seat. He strapped the other around his waist. Then he flipped up a cover in the front panel of the cab. It exposed the breech mechanisms of a pair of twin-mounted 25 mm auto-cannon. The ammunition loads were full. Satisfied, Ben shut the inspection port and climbed into his seat. Clay came forward, saw the machine pistol on his seat and strapped it on without a word. He settled himself in his seat. “Engine room check is all green. Let’s go rabbit hunting.”

Car 56 moved slowly out into the police lane. Both troopers had their individual sets of video monitors on in front of their seats and were watching them intently. In the growing light of day, a white-topped car was going to be easy to spot.

*

It had all the earmarks of being another wintry, overcast day. The outside temperature at 0800 was right on the twenty-nine-degree mark and the threat of more snow remained in the air. The 0800 density reports from St. Louis Control were below the 14,000 mark in all lanes in the one-hundred-mile block west of the city. That was to be expected. They listened to the eastbound densities peaking at twenty-six thousand vehicles in the same block, all heading into the metropolis and their jobs. The 0800, 1200 and 1600 hours density reports also carried the weather forecasts for a five-hundred-mile radius from the broadcasting control point. Decreasing temperatures with light to moderate snow was in the works for Car 56 for the first couple of hundred miles west of St. Louis, turning to almost blizzard conditions in central Kansas. Extra units had already been put into service on all thruways through the Midwest and snow-burners were waging a losing battle from Wichita west to the Rockies around Alamosa, Colorado.

Outside the temperature was below freezing; inside the patrol car it was a comfortable sixty-eight degrees. Kelly had cleaned the galley and taken her place on the jump seat between the two troopers. With all three of them in the cab, Ben cut from the intercom to commercial broadcast to catch the early morning newscasts and some pleasant music. The patrol vehicle glided along at a leisurely sixty miles an hour. An hour out of St. Louis, a big liquid cargo carrier was stopped on the inner edge of the green lane against the divider to the police lane. The trucker had dropped both warning barriers and lights a half mile back. Ben brought Beulah to a halt across the divider from the stopped carrier. “Dropped a track pin,” the driver called out to the officers.

Ben backed Beulah across the divider behind the stalled carrier to give them protection while they tried to assist the stalled vehicle.

Donning work helmets to maintain contact with the patrol car, and its remote radio system, the two troopers dismounted and went to see what needed fixing. Kelly drifted back to the dispensary and stretched out on one of the hospital bunks and picked up a new novel.

Beulah’s well-equipped machine shop stock room produced a matching pin and it was merely a matter of lifting the stalled carrier and driving it into place in the track assembly. Ben brought the patrol car alongside the carrier and unshipped the crane. Twenty minutes later, Clay and the carrier driver had the new part installed and the tanker was on his way once again.

Clay climbed into the cab and surveyed his grease-stained uniform coveralls and filthy hands. “Your nose is smudged, too, dearie,” Martin observed.

Clay grinned, “I’m going to shower and change clothes. Try and see if you can drive this thing until I get back without increasing the pedestrian fatality rate.” He ducked back into the crew cubby and stripped his coveralls.

Bored with her book, Kelly wandered back to the cab and took Clay’s vacant control seat. The snow had started falling again and in the mid-morning light it tended to soften the harsh, utilitarian landscape of the broad thruway stretching ahead to infinity and spreading out in a mile of speeding traffic on either hand.

“Attention all cars on NAT 26-West and East,” Washington Criminal Control radio blared. “Special attention Cars 56 and 82. Suspect vehicle, white over green Travelaire reported re-entered NAT 26-West on St. Louis interchange 179. St. Louis Control reports communications difficulty in delayed report. Vehicle now believed…”

“Car 56, Car 56,” St. Louis Control broke in. “Our pigeon is in your zone. Commercial carrier reports near miss sideswipe three minutes ago in blue lane approximately three miles west of mile Marker 957.

“Repeating. Car 56, suspect car—”

Ben glanced at the radiodometer. It read 969, then clicked to 970.

“This is Five Six, St. Louis,” he broke in, “acknowledged. Our position is mile marker 970…”

Kelly had been glued to the video monitors since the first of the bulletin. Suddenly she screamed and banged Ben on the shoulder. “There they are. There they are,” she cried, pointing at the blue lane monitor.

Martin took one look at the white-topped car cutting through traffic in the blue lane and slammed Beulah into high. The safety cocoons slammed shut almost on the first notes of the bull horn. Trapped in the shower, Clay was locked into the stall dripping wet as the water automatically shut off with the movement of the cocoon.

*

“I have them in sight,” Ben reported, as the patrol car lifted on its air pad and leaped forward. “They’re in the blue five miles ahead of me and cutting over to the yellow. I estimate their speed at two twenty-five. I am in pursuit.”

Traffic gave way as Car 56 hurtled the divider into the blue.

The radio continued to snap orders.

“Cars 112, 206, 76 and 93 establish roadblocks at mile marker crossover 1032. Car 82 divert all blue and yellow to green and white.”

Eight Two was one hundred fifty miles ahead but at three—hundred-mile-an-hour speeds, 82’s team was very much a part of the operation. This would clear the two highspeed lanes if the suspect car hadn’t been caught sooner.

“Cars 414, 227 and 290 in NAT-26-East, move into the yellow to cover in case our pigeon decides to fly the median.” The controller continued to move cars into covering positions in the area on all crossovers and turnoffs. The sweating dispatcher looked at his lighted map board and mentally cursed the lack of enough units to cover every exit. State and local authorities already had been notified in the event the fugitives left the thruways and tried to escape on a state freeway.

In Car 56, Ben kept the patrol car roaring down the blue lane through the speeding westbound traffic. The standard emergency signal was doing a partial job of clearing the path, but at those speeds, driver reaction times weren’t always fast enough. Ahead, the fleeing suspect car brushed against a light sedan, sending it careening and rocking across the lane. The driver fought for control as it swerved and screeched on its tilting frame. He brought it to a halt amid a haze of blue smoke from burning brakes and bent metal. The white over green Travelaire never slowed, fighting its way out of the blue into the ultra-high yellow and lighter traffic. Ben kept Beulah in bulldog pursuit.

The sideswipe ahead had sent other cars veering in panic and a cluster inadvertently bunched up in the path of the roaring patrol car. Like a flock of hawk-frightened chickens, they tried to scatter as they saw and heard the massive police vehicle bearing down on them. But like chickens, they couldn’t decide which way to run. It was a matter of five or six seconds before they parted enough to let the patrol car through. Ben had no choice but to cut the throttle and punch once on the retrojets to brake the hurtling patrol car. The momentary drops in speed unlocked the safety cocoons and in an instant, Clay had leaped from the shower stall and sped to the cab. Hearing, rather than seeing his partner, Martin snapped over his shoulder, “Unrack the rifles. That’s the car.” Clay reached for the gun rack at the rear of the cab.

Kelly took one look at the young trooper and jumped for the doorway to the galley. A second later she was back. Without a word, she handed the nude Ferguson a dangling pair of uniform coveralls. Clay gasped, dropped the rifles and grabbed the coveralls from her hand and clutched them to his figure. His face was beet-red. Still without speaking, Kelly turned and ran back to her dispensary to be ready for the next acceleration.

Clay was into the coveralls and in his seat almost at the instant Martin whipped the patrol car through the hole in the blue traffic and shoved her into high once more.

There was no question about the fact that the occupants of the fugitive car knew they were being pursued. They shot through the crossover into the yellow lane and now were hurtling down the thruway close to the four-hundred-mile-an-hour mark.

Martin had Beulah riding just under three hundred to make the crossover, still ten miles behind the suspect car and following on video monitor. The air still crackled with commands as St. Louis and Washington Control maneuvered other cars into position as the pursuit went westward past other units blocking exit routes.

Clay read aloud the radiodometer numerals as they clicked off a mile every nine seconds. Car 56 roared into the yellow and the instant Ben had it straightened out, he slammed all finger throttles to full power. Beulah snapped forward and even at three hundred miles an hour, the sudden acceleration pasted the car’s crew against the backs of their cushioned seats. The patrol car shot forward at more than five hundred miles an hour.

The image of the Travelaire grew on the video monitor and then the two troopers had it in actual sight, a white, racing dot on the broad avenue of the thruway six miles ahead.

Clay triggered the controls for the forward bow cannon and a panel box flashed to “ready fire” signal.

“Negative,” Martin ordered. “We’re coming up on the roadblock. You might miss and hit one of our cars.”

“Car 56 to Control,” the senior trooper called. “Watch out at the roadblock. He’s doing at least five hundred in the yellow and he’ll never be able to stop.”

Two hundred miles east, the St. Louis controller made a snap decision. “Abandon roadblock. Roadblock cars start west. Maintain two hundred until subject comes into monitor view. Car 56, continue speed estimates of subject car. Maybe we can box him in.”

At the roadblock forty-five miles ahead of the speeding fugitives and their relentless pursuer, the four patrol cars pivoted and spread out across the roadway some five hundred feet apart. They lunged forward and lifted up to air-cushion jet drive at just over two hundred miles an hour. Eight pairs of eyes were fixed on video monitors set for the ten-mile block to the rear of the four vehicles.

Beulah’s indicated ground speed now edged towards the five hundred fifty mark, close to the maximum speeds the vehicles could attain.

The gap continued to close, but more slowly. “He’s firing hotter,” Ben called out. “Estimating five thirty on subject vehicle.”

Now Car 56 was about three miles astern and still the gap closed. The fugitive car flashed past the site of the abandoned roadblock and fifteen seconds later all four patrol cars racing ahead of the Travelaire broke into almost simultaneous reports of “Here he comes.”

A second later, Clay Ferguson yelled out, “There he goes. He’s boondocking, he’s boondocking.”

“He has you spotted,” Martin broke in. “He’s heading for the median. Cut, cut, cut. Get out in there ahead of him.”

The driver of the fugitive car had seen the bulk of the four big patrol cruisers outlined against the slight rise in the thruway almost at the instant he flashed onto their screens ten miles behind them. He broke speed, rocked wildly from side to side, fighting for control and then cut diagonally to the left, heading for the outer edge of the thruway and the unpaved, half-mile-wide strip of landscaped earth that separated the east and westbound segments of NAT-26.

The white and green car was still riding on its airpad when it hit the low, rounded curbing at the edge of the thruway. It hurtled into the air and sailed for a hundred feet across the gently-sloping snow-covered grass, came smashing down in a thick hedgerow of bushes—and kept going.

Car 56 slowed and headed for the curbing. “Watch it, kids,” Ben snapped over the intercom, “we may be buying a plot in a second.”

Still traveling more than five hundred miles an hour, the huge patrol car hit the curbing and bounced into the air like a rocket boosted elephant. It tilted and smashed its nose in a slanting blow into the snow-covered ground. The sound of smashing and breaking equipment mingled with the roar of the thundering jets, tracks and air drives as the car fought its way back to level travel. It surged forward and smashed through the hedgerow and plunged down the sloping snowbank after the fleeing car.

“Clay,” Ben called in a strained voice, “take ‘er.”

Ferguson’s fingers were already in position. “You all right, Ben?” he asked anxiously.

“Think I dislocated a neck vertebra,” Ben replied. “I can’t move my head. Go get ‘em, kid.”

“Try not to move your head at all, Ben,” Kelly called from her cocoon in the dispensary. “I’ll be there the minute we slow down.”

A half mile ahead, the fugitive car plowed along the bottom of the gentle draw in a cloud of snow, trying to fight its way up the opposite slope and onto the eastbound thruway.

But the Travelaire was never designed for driving on anything but a modern superhighway. Car 56 slammed through the snow and down to the bottom of the draw. A quarter of a mile ahead of the fugitives, the first of the four roadblock units came plowing over the rise.

The car’s speed dropped quickly to under a hundred and the cocoons were again retracted. Ben slumped forward in his seat and caught himself. He eased back with a gasp of pain, his head held rigidly straight. Almost the instant he started to straighten up, Kelly flung herself through the cab door. She clasped his forehead and held his head against the back of the control seat.

Suddenly, the fugitive car spun sideways, bogged in the wet snow and muddy ground beneath and stopped. Clay bore down on it and was about two hundred yards away when the canopy of the other vehicle popped open and a sheet of automatic weapons fire raked the patrol car. Only the low angle of the sedan and the nearness of the bulky patrol car saved the troopers. Explosive bullets smashed into the patrol car canopy and sent shards of plastiglass showering down on the trio.

An instant later, the bow cannon of the first of the cut-off patrol units opened fire. An ugly, yellow-red blossom of smoke and fire erupted from the front of the Travelaire and it burst into flames. A second later, the figure of a man staggered out of the burning car, clothes and hair aflame. He took four plunging steps and then fell face down in the snow. The car burned and crackled and a thick funereal pyre of oily, black smoke billowed into the gray sky. It was snowing heavily now, and before the troopers could dismount and plow to the fallen man, a thin layer of snow covered his burned body.

*

An hour later, Car 56 was again on NAT 26-West, this time heading for Wichita barracks and needed repairs. In the dispensary, Ben Martin was stretched out on a hospital bunk with a traction brace around his neck and a copper-haired medical-surgical patrolwoman fussing over him.

In the cab, Clay peered through the now almost-blinding blizzard that whirled and skirled thick snow across the thruway. Traffic densities were virtually zero despite the efforts of the dragonlike snow-burners trying to keep the roadways clear. The young trooper shivered despite the heavy jacket over his coveralls. Wind whistled through the shell holes in Beulah’s canopy and snow sifted and drifted against the back bulkhead.

The cab communications system had been smashed by the gunfire and Clay wore his work helmet both for communications and warmth.

The door to the galley cracked open and Kelly stuck her head in. “How much farther, Clay?” she asked.

“We should be in the barracks in about twenty minutes,” the shivering trooper replied.

“I’ll fix you a cup of hot coffee,” Kelly said. “You look like you need it.”

Over the helmet intercom Clay heard her shoving things around in the galley. “My heavens, but this place is a mess,” she exclaimed. “I can’t even find the coffee bin. That steeplechase driving has got to stop.” She paused.

“Clay,” she called out, “Have you been drinking in here? It smells like a brewery.”

Clay raised mournful eyes to the shattered canopy above him. “My cooking wine,” he sighed.

SAVAGE PELLUCIDAR

Edgar Rice Burroughs

PART I:

THE RETURN TO PELLUCIDAR

I

DAVE INNES came back to Sari. He may have been gone a week, or he may have been gone for years. It was still noon. But Perry had completed his aeroplane. He was very proud of it. He could scarcely wait to show it to Dave Innes.

“Does it fly?” asked Innes.

“Of course it flies,” snapped Perry. “What good would an aeroplane be which did not fly.”

“None,” replied Innes. “Have you flown it yet?”

“No, of course not. The day of the first flight is going to be epochal in the annals of Pellucidar. Do you think I’d fly it without you being here to see?”

“That’s mighty nice of you, Abner; and I appreciate it. When are you going to fly it?”

“Right now, right now. Come and see it,”

“Just what do you propose using an aeroplane for?” asked Innes.

“To drop bombs, of course, just think of the havoc it will raise! Think of these poor people who have never seen an aeroplane before running out from their caves as it circles overhead. Think of the vast stride it will be in civilizing these people! Why, we should be able to wipe out a village with a few bombs.”

“When I went back to the outer crust after the Great War that ended in 1918,” said Innes, “I heard a lot about the use of aeroplanes in war; but I also heard about a weapon which causes far more suffering and death than bombs.”

“What was that?” demanded Perry, eagerly.

“Poison gas,” said Innes.

“Ah, well,” said Perry, “perhaps I shall put my mind to that later.”

Dave Innes grinned. He knew that there was not a kinder hearted person living than Abner Perry. He knew that Perry’s plans for slaughter were purely academic. Perry was a theoretician, pure and simple. “All right,” he said, “let’s have a look at your plane.”

Perry led him to a small hangar-a strange anachronism in stone-age Pellucidar. “There!” he said, with pride. “There she is; the first aeroplane to fly the skies of Pellucidar.”

“Is that an aeroplane?” demanded Innes. “It certainly doesn’t look like one.”

“That is because it utilizes some entirely new principles,” explained Perry.

“It looks more like a parachute with a motor and a cockpit on top of it.”

“Exactly!” said Perry. “You grasped the idea instantly yet there is more to it than the eye perceives. You see one of the dangers of flying is, naturally, that of falling; now, by designing a plane on the principles of a parachute, I have greatly minimized that danger.”

“But what keeps it in the air at all? What gets it up?”

“Beneath the plane is a blower, operated by the engine. This blows a strong current of air constantly straight up from beneath the wing; and, of course, the air flow, while the ship is in motion supports it as is true in other, less advanced, designs; while the blower assists it in quickly attaining altitude.”

“Are you going to try to go up in that thing?” demanded Innes.

“Why, no; I have been saving that honor for you. Think of it! The first man to have flown in the heavens of Pellucidar. You should be grateful to me, David.”

Dave Innes had to smile; Perry was so naive about the whole thing. “Well,” he said, “I don’t want to disappoint you, Abner; and so I’ll give the thing a trial-just to prove to you that it won’t fly.”

“You’ll be surprised,” said Perry. “It will soar aloft like a lark on the wing.”

A considerable number of Sarians had gathered to inspect the plane and witness the flight. They were all skeptical, but not for the same reasons that David Innes was skeptical. They knew nothing about aeronautics, but they knew that man could not fly. Dian the Beautiful was among them. She is Dave Innes’s mate.

“Do you think it will fly?” she asked Innes.

“No.”

“Then why risk your life?”

“If it doesn’t fly, there will be no risk; and it will please Abner if I try,” he replied.

“There will be no honor,” she said, “for it will not be the first aeroplane to fly over Pellucidar. The great ship that you called a dirigible brought a plane. Was it not Jason Gridley who flew it until it was brought down by a thipdar?”

They were walking around the plane examining it carefully. The frame of the single parachute-like wing was of bamboo: the “fabric” was fabricated of the peritoneum of a large dinosaur. It was a thin, transparent membrane well suited to the purpose. The cockpit was set down into the top of the wing; the motor stuck out in front like a sore thumb; and behind a long tail seemed to have been designed to counter-balance the weight of the engine. It carried the stabilizers, fin, rudder, and elevators.

The engine, the first gas engine built in Pellucidar, was, an achievement of the first magnitude. It had been built practically by hand by men of the stone age, under the direction of Perry, and without precision instruments.

“Will it run?” asked Innes.

“Of course it will run,” replied Perry. “It is, I will concede, a trifle noisy; and is susceptible to some refinements, but a sweet thing nevertheless.”

“I hope so,” said Innes.

“Are you ready, David?” asked the inventor.

“Quite,” replied Innes.

“Then climb into the cockpit and I’ll explain the controls to you. You will find everything very simple.”

Ten minutes later Innes said he knew all about flying the ship that he would ever know, and Perry climbed down to the ground.

“Everybody get out of the way!” he shouted. “You are about to witness the beginning of a new epoch in the history of Pellucidar.”

A mechanic took his place at the propeller. It was so far off the ground that he had to stand on a specially constructed ladder. A man on either side stood ready to pull the blocks from beneath the wheels.

“Contact!” shouted Perry.

“Contact!” replied Innes.

The man at the propellor gave it a turn. The engine spluttered and died. “By golly!” exclaimed Innes! “It really fired. Try it again.”

“Give her more throttle,” said Perry.

The mechanic spun her again, and this time the engine took hold. The mechanic leaped from the ladder and dragged it away. David opened the throttle a little wider, and the engine almost leaped from its seat. It sounded as though a hundred men were building a hundred boilers simultaneously.

David shouted to the two men to pull the blocks, but no one could hear him above the din of the motor. He waved and pointed and signalled, and finally Perry grasped what he wanted, and had the blocks withdrawn. Everyone stood in wide-eyed silence as David opened the throttle wider. The engine raced. The plane moved! But it moved backward! It swung around and nearly crashed into the crowd of Sarians before Innes could cut the motor.

Perry approached, scratching his head. “What in the world did you do, David,” he asked, “to make an aeroplane back up?”

Dave Innes laughed.

“What are you laughing at?” demanded Perry. “Don’t you realize that we may have stumbled upon something sensational in aerodynamics? Just think of a fighter plane that could go either forward or backward! just think of how it could dodge enemy planes! Think of its maneuverability! What did you do, David?”

“The honor is wholly yours, Abner,” replied Innes. “You did it.”

“But how did I do it?”

“You’ve reversed the pitch of your propeller blades. The plane cannot go in any other direction than backward.”

“Oh,” said Perry, weakly.

“But it does move,” said Innes, encouragingly, “and the fault is easily remedied.”

There being no such thing as time in Pellucidar, no, one cared how long it took to effect a change in the propeller. Everyone except Perry and a couple of his mechanics lay down in the shade, under trees or under the plane until Perry announced that the propeller had been reversed.

Innes took his place in the cockpit, a mechanic spun the prop, the engine started, the blocks were yanked away. The engine roared and pounded and leaped. The Plane almost jumped from the ground in harmony with the vibration. Innes was thrown about so violently in the cockpit that he could scarcely find the controls or keep his hands and feet on them.

Suddenly the plane started forward. It gained momentum. It rushed down the long, level stretch that Perry had selected on which to build his hangar. Innes struggled with the controls, but the thing wouldn’t rise. It bounced about like a ship in a heavy sea until Innes was dizzy; and then, suddenly the fabric burst into flame.

Dave Innes discovered the flames as he was nearing the end of the runway. He shut off the motor, applied the brakes, and jumped. A moment later the gas tank burst, and Abner Perry’s latest invention went up in smoke.

II

EVEN THOUGH Abner Perry’s first gun powder would not burn, his aeroplane would not leave the ground, and his first ship turned bottomside up when it was launched, nevertheless he had achieved a great deal since Fate and the Iron Mole had deposited him at the center of the Earth.

He had discovered ores and smelted them; he had manufactured steel; he had made cement and produced a very good grade of concrete. He had discovered oil in Sari and refined it to produce gasoline; he had manufactured small arms and cannon. He had found and mined gold, silver, platinum, lead, and other metals. He was probably the busiest man in a whole world and the most useful. The great trouble was that the men of the stone age, or at least most of them, were not far enough advanced to appreciate what Perry had done and could do for them.

Often warriors armed with his rifles would throw them away in battle and go after the enemy with stone hatchets, or they would seize them by the muzzles and use them as clubs. He built a pumping plant near the village of Sari and pumped water through concrete pipes right into the villa yet many of the women still insisted upon walking half a mile to the spring and carrying water back in gourds balanced on the tops of their heads. Time meant nothing to them and carrying water on their heads gave them a fine carriage.

But Perry kept on just the same. He was never discouraged. He was almost perpetually good natured; and when he wasn’t praying, he was swearing like a trooper. Dave Innes loved him, and so did Dian the Beautiful One and Ghak the Hairy One, who was King of Sari. In fact everyone who knew Abner Perry loved him. The young Sarians who worked for him looked up to him and worshipped him as though he were a god. And Abner Perry was very happy.

After the aeroplane failed, he started in on another invention that he had had in mind for some time. If he had known what was to come of it, he would probably have thrown away all his plans; but of course he could not know.

Dave Innes took a company of warriors and went on a tour of inspection of some of the other kingdoms of the loose confederation which constitutes the Empire of Pellucidar, of which he had been elected Emperor, following the incident of the aeroplane. He went first to Amoz, which is two hundred miles northeast of Sari on the Lural Az, a great uncharted, unexplored ocean. Six hundred miles northeast of Amoz lies Kali. Kali is the last of the kingdoms in this direction which still gives allegiance to the Empire. Suvi, four hundred miles westerly from Kali, dropped out of the confederation and made war upon Kali. The king of Suvi, whose name is Fash, had once held Dian the Beautiful prisoner; and that act had never been avenged.

Dave Innes had this in mind when he went North. It would be well to teach Fash a lesson and, perhaps, place on the throne of Suvi a man loyal to the Empire.

Sari is not on the sea coast; so the party marched to Greenwich, a hundred and fifty miles, and there took one of the ships of the Navy, which had been built under Perry’s direction. Greenwich was established and named by Dave Innes and Abner Perry. Through it passes the prime meridian of Pellucidar, also an invention of Innes and Perry.

From Greenwich, they sailed to Amoz in the EPS Sari. The EPS is a conceit of Perry’s. It means Empire of Pellucidar ship, like USS California. The Sari, like most of the ships of Pellucidar, was manned by red skinned Mezops from the Island of Anoroc, a seafaring race of fighting men. They had known only canoes until Perry and Innes introduced them to sails, but they soon mastered the new ships and learned what little of navigation Dave Innes could teach them-all dead reckoning, with only crude compasses to aid them.

Beneath a stationary sun, without the aid of stars or moon, there can be few navigational aids. The Mezops knew all there was to know about tides and currents in the coastal waters near their island. Innes and Perry gave them the compass, the log, and a chronometer which was never accurate and which could never be corrected; so it was seldom used. Their navigation was mostly by guess and by God, but they got places. They could always sail the most direct course toward home because of the marvellous homing sense which is common to all Pellucidarians, a Providential compensation for their lack of guiding celestial bodies.

Kander is King of Amoz. The title, like that of Emperor, was Perry’s idea. Kander, like the other kings of the confederation, is chief of a tribe of cave men. He is about as far advanced in the scale of evolution and civilization as the Cro-Magnons of the outer crust were in their time; but like the Cro-Magnons, he is intelligent.

From him Innes learned that Fash was warring with Kali again and had boasted that he would move on down south and conquer Amoz and Sari, making himself Emperor of Pellucidar. Now Innes had brought but fifty warriors with him, but he decided to go on to Kali and learn first hand what was happening there. First he sent a runner back to Sari with a verbal message instructing Ghak to gather the fleet at Amoz and proceed to Kali with as many warriors as the ships would accommodate; then he got a detail of fifty warriors from Kander and sailed north for Kali, the hundred warriors straining the capacity of the EPS Sari.

Six hundred miles by water brought the Sari opposite Kali, which lies some forty miles inland; and from here he dispatched a runner to Oose, King of Kali. The runner was Hodon the Fleet One, a Sarian warrior of proven courage and loyalty; and it requires courage to carry a message across savage Pellucidar. Fierce beasts and fiercer reptiles are a constant menace, and hostile tribes may be in ambush along the way.

All the forty miles to Kali, Hodon had good fortune with him. Once he met a tarag, the giant sabertooth tiger; and the beast charged him, but an experienced runner knows how best to safeguard himself. He does not run in a straight line across open plains, but from tree to tree, much, after the manner of a merchant ship zigzagging to elude a submarine.

The sabertooth, which is a confirmed man-eater, may be aware of this strategy from hunting of men; but, be that as it may, this particular beast timed its charge to a nicety and launched it at the moment that Hodon was farthest from any tree.

It was a thrilling race-for Hodon a race with Death; for few men have met and killed a tarag singlehanded. An occasional super-warrior may boast that he has done so with the long, stout spear which they usually carry; but Hodon, running light, carried no spear. He had only his speed upon which he might depend for his life, his speed and a stone knife.

The tarag covered the ground in great, bounding leaps which would quickly have overhauled an ordinary man; but Hodon is no ordinary man. He has not won the distinction of having Fleet One added to his name for nothing. And now he really ran.

The great beast was but a few yards behind him when Hodon sprang into the tree that was his goal and scrambled out of harm’s way; then he sat upon a branch and spit down into the face of the tarag and called him all the vile names to which a Pellucidarian can lay his tongue, and they are many.

The tarag wasted no time waiting for Hodon to come down, as experience may have taught him that he would starve to death before any man-thing would come down to be eaten; so he made off in search of other prey.

A little farther on another tree saved Hodon from the talons of a thipdar, a huge pterodactyl such as winged the steaming skies of the Mesozoic. This mighty pteranodon, with a wig spread of twenty feet, hunted high in the air-a preposterous eagle or hawk, ready to swoop down upon any living thing. The only defense against it is the shelter of a tree, and once again Hodon reached this sanctuary just in time.

Hissing with rage, the reptile soared away; and when it was out of sight Hodon continued on to Kali, which he reached without further adventure.

The village of Kali consists mostly of eaves in a lime stone cliff, with a few rude, thatched shelters at its base, which are used for cooking, eating, and communal gatherings.

As Hodon approached the village he was met by a score of warriors, which was what he might have expected on approaching any well guarded village. They demanded his business there; and when he told them that he bore a message from the Emperor of Pellucidar to Oose, the King of Kali, they looked at one another; and some of them grinned behind his back.

“I will take word to the king,” said one. “Wait here.”

Presently the man returned and instructed Hodon to follow him, and all the warriors who had come to meet him accompanied them. It might have been a guard of honor, but Hodon had a feeling that it more nearly resembled the guard of a prisoner.

He was conducted to one of the thatched shelters, where a man sat upon a stool, surrounded by other warriors.

“What message do you bring to Oose, King of Kali, from the Emperor of Pellucidar?” demanded the man.

Now, Hodon had never before been to Kali, nor had he ever seen Oose; but it was evident to him that this man was the king. He thought that he was an ill-favored fellow, and he took an instinctive dislike to him.

“You are the king?” he asked, wishing to make sure before he delivered the message. “You are the king of Kali?”

“Yes,” replied the man. “I am the king of Kali. What message do you bring?”

“The Emperor wishes you to know that his ship is anchored off the coast of Kali with a hundred warriors. He has heard that you are having trouble with Fash, the king of Suvi; and he wishes to talk the matter over with you, that an expedition may be sent against Fash to punish him for his treason to the Empire. I am to take word back to him as to whether you will come to the coast to talk with him, or if you would prefer that he came here; for he knows that it is not always easy for a village to feed a hundred extra men.”

“I will send a runner to the Emperor,” said the king of Kali. “You will remain here and rest.”

“My orders are to bring the message to the Emperor myself,” replied Hodon.

“I give orders here,” said the king; and then he spoke to the leader of the warriors who surrounded Hodon. “Take this man to a high cave and place a guard over him. See that he does not escape.”

“What is the meaning of this?” demanded Hodon. “I am a Sarian and one of the Emperor’s men. What you are doing is treason.”

“Take him away,” said the king.

Up rickety wooden ladders Hodon’s guard forced him to climb to the highest level. Here a narrow ledge ran in front of several cave mouths. A guard of two warriors already squatted on the ledge near the top of the ladder; two others sat before the mouth of one of the eaves. Into this cave Hodon was ordered, and at the same time the king of Kali dispatched a runner to the coast with a message for David Innes.

When Hodon’s eyes became accustomed to the darkness of the interior of the cave, he saw that he was not alone. The cave was a large one, and fully fifty men squatted or lay upon the floor.

“Who are you?” demanded one of these, as Hodon groped his way in search of a place to sit down.

“I seem to be a prisoner.’ replied Hodon.

‘We are all prisoners,” said the man. “I did not recognize you as you came in. Are you a Kalian?”

“Are you?’ asked Hodon.

“We are all Kalians.”

“Then why are you prisoners in Kali?’ demanded Hodon.

“Because the warriors of Suvi attacked and overcame the village while most of the men were on the hunt and as we returned they fell upon us from ambush, killing many and capturing the rest.”

“Then the man sitting in the shelter at the foot of the cliff is not king of Kali?” asked Hodon.

“He calls himself King of Kali, because he has captured the village,” replied the man; “but I am king of Kali.”

“You are Oose?” demanded Hodon.

“I am Oose, and the man who calls himself King of Kali is Fash, the king of Suvi.”

“Then I have given the Emperor’s message to the Emperor’s enemy,” said Hodon, “but how was I to know.”

“The message was for me?” asked Oose.

“For you,” said Hodon, and then he repeated the message to Oose.

“It is bad,” said Oose, “for now Fash is warned.”

“How many warriors has he?” asked Hodon.

“I can count only to ten times the number of my fingers,” said Oose. “We men of Kali are not wise like the men of Sari who had been taught many things by Innes and Perry, but if I counted all of my fingers ten times; then I should say that Fash has five times that many warriors.

Hodon shook his head. “I must escape,” he said; “for when I do not return after a couple of sleeps, the Emperor will come after me; and he will be outnumbered five to one.”

“You cannot escape,” said Oose., “Four warriors squat upon the ledge, and many warriors are at the foot of the Cliff.”

“Are we allowed on the ledge?” asked Hodon.

“If you have a good reason you will be allowed to go to the little cave at the far end of the ledge.”

“I have a good reason,” said Hodon, and he went to the mouth of the cave and spoke to one of the warriors on guard there.

The fellow grunted surly permission, and Hodon came out upon the ledge and moved slowly toward the little cave at the far end. He did not look down; but always up, scanning the face of the cliff to its summit, which was only a few feet above his head.

A WARRIOR CAME to the shore of the Lural Az. He saw a ship anchored in a little cove a short distance off shore, and he shouted until he had attracted attention of those on board. A small boat floated beside the ship, and presently a number of copper colored warriors dove from the deck of the ship and clambered into the small boat, which they paddled toward the shore. When they had come close, they shouted to the warrior and asked him who he was and what he wanted.

“I bring a message from the king of Kali to the Emperor of Pellucidar,” the man replied; then the boat was brought to the shore, and the messenger taken aboard. A few moments later he was hauled to the deck of the Sari and brought before David Innes.

“You bring a message from the king of Kali?” asked Innes. “Why did my own warrior not return with it as I ordered?”

“Hodon was ill; and he was very, very tired,” replied the messenger. “That there might be no delay, the King sent me.”

“What is the message?”

“The King asks that you come to Kali. He cannot leave Kali now because of the danger of attack.”

“I understand,” said Innes. “I shall come at once.”

“I will go ahead and tell the King. He will be very pleased. Will you come alone?”

“I will bring a hundred warriors with me,” replied Innes.

So David Innes started for Kali, and the messenger of Fash went ahead to carry the word to his king.

HODON WALKED SLOWLY along the ledge, examining every inch of the cliff face above him until he came to the little cave at the far end. Here the cliff dipped downward, and its summit was scarcely four feet above Hodon’s head. He turned and looked back along the ledge. One of the guards was watching him; so Hodon stooped and entered the little cave. He turned around immediately, waited a moment, and then looked out. The guard was still looking at him. Hodon retreated into the cave, remained there a short time, and then came boldly out. His heart sank-two members of the guard had their eyes on him. He knew that he must have just a moment while no one was looking in order to put his plan into successful operation. Now there was nothing to do but return to the prison cave.

Here he tried to think of some plan that would help him to carry out that which he had in mind, and finally he hit upon one. He moved over beside Oose, and sat down close to him; then he explained his plan in low whispers.

“We will do it,” said Oose; “but do not forget what I told you-you cannot escape.”

“I can try,” said Hodon.

After a while-whether an hour, a day, or a week of outer Earthly time, who may know?-the guard upon the ledge was changed; then Hodon went immediately to the mouth of the cave and asked permission to go to the small cave at the end of the ledge. Again he was granted permission.

He walked along the ledge slowly. This time he looked down. At the bottom of the cliff he saw women and children, but only a few warriors-perhaps just enough to guard the village. Where were the others? Hodon thought that he knew, and he chafed to make good his escape. If he did, would he be in time?

Just as he reached the little cave he heard shouts and yells behind him. They were muffled, as though they came from the interior of a cave. He glanced back, and saw the four guards running toward the prison cave. Hodon smiled.

III

AFTER DAVID INNES left for Kali, Abner Perry busied himself upon a new project. He was determined to have something worth while to show Innes when he returned, for he was still a little depressed over the signal failure of his aeroplane.

He sent hunters out to slay dinosaurs-the largest they could find-with orders to bring back only the peritonea of those they killed; and while they were gone he succeeded in capping a gas well which had been blowing millions of cubic feet of natural gas into the air of Pellucidar for-well, who knows for how long?

He had many women braiding rope, and others weaving a large basket-a basket four feet in diameter and three feet high. It was the largest basket the Sarians had ever seen.

While this work was going on, the messenger arrived from Innes instructing Ghak to set forth with many warriors. When they had departed there were few warriors left, and they had to remain in the village as a guard, except for a couple of hunters sent out daily for fresh meat. The village was full of women; but that did not interfere with Perry’s plans, as the warriors had returned with more than enough peritonea.

The peritonea was stretched and dried and rubbed until they were thoroughly cured; then Perry cut them into strange shapes according to a pattern he had fashioned, and the women sewed them together with very fine stitches and sealed the seams with a cement that Perry thought would not be attacked by the constituents of natural gas.

When this work was complete, Perry attached the great bag to the basket with the ropes the women had braided; and to the bottom of the basket he attached a heavier rope that was five or six hundred feet long. No one in Sari had ever seen a rope like that, but they had long since ceased to marvel much at anything that Perry did.

With little ropes, many little ropes, Perry fastened the basket to the ground by means of pegs driven into the earth all around it; then he ran a clay pipe from the gas well into the opening at the small end of the bag. Perry had given birth to balloon! To him it was the forerunner of a fleet of mighty dirigibles which could carry tons of high-explosive bombs, and bring civilization to countless underprivileged cliff dwellers.

HODON SMILED, JUST A fleeting little smile that vanished almost as it was born; then he stooped before the little cave at the far end of the ledge and leaped upward. Hodon was proud of his legs; so was all Sari. They were the best legs in the Empire of Pellucidar, so far as anyone knew to the contrary; and they were just as marvelous at jumping as they were at running. They easily carried Hodon upward until his fingers could seize the top of the cliff. It was solid limestone. Hodon had determined that when he first examined the cliff. Had there been top soil right up to the edge of the cliff, the thing would not have been so easy-it might, in fact, have been impossible of accomplishment; but there was no top soil, and the hard stone did not crumble. It held magnificently, doing its part to thwart the evil machinations of the wicked Fash.

Sometimes we are annoyed by the studied perversities of inanimate objects, like collar buttons and quail on toast; but we must remember that, after all, some of them are the best friends of man. Take the dollar bill, for instance-but why go on? You can think of as many as I can.

So Hodon the Fleet One clambered over the summit of the cliff of Kali, and no man saw him go. When he had come he had carried a stone knife, but they had taken that from him. Now he must go absolutely unarmed across perhaps forty miles of danger ridden terrain, but he was not afraid. Sometimes I think that the men of the old stone age must have been very brave. They must have had to be very brave, as otherwise they could not have survived. The coward might have survived for a while-just long enough for him to starve to death-but it took a brave man to go out and brave the terrific creatures he must have had to face to find food for himself and his family.

Hodon’s only thought now was to reach David Innes before he ran into the ambush that he was sure Fash had laid for him. He moved swiftly, but he moved silently. Always every sense was alert for danger. His keen eyes ranged far ahead; his sensitive nostrils picked up every scent borne to them by each vagrant breeze. He was glad that he was running up wind, for now he could be warned of almost any danger that lay ahead.

Suddenly he caught a scent which brought a frown of puzzlement to his brow. It told him that there was a woman ahead of him-a lone woman-where there should not have been a woman. His judgment told him that there must be at least one man where there was a woman so far from a village, but his nostrils told him that there was no man.

He kept on in the direction of the woman, for that was the direction in which he was going. Now he went even more warily, if that were possible; and at last he saw her. Her back was toward him. She was moving slowly, looking in all directions. He guessed that she was afraid. She did not know that she was not alone until a hand fell upon her shoulder. She wheeled, a dagger in her hand-a slim dagger laboriously chipped from basalt-and as she wheeled, she struck a vicious blow at Hodon’s breast.

Being a Pellucidarian, he had expected something like this; for one does not accost a strange lady with impunity in the stone age. So he was ready. He seized her wrist, and held it. Then she tried to bite him.

Hodon smiled down into her flashing eyes, for she was young and beautiful. “Who are you?” he demanded. “What are you doing out here so far from your village alone?”

“That is my business,” she said. “Let me go! You cannot keep me, for if you do I’ll surely kill you.”

“I can’t waste time on you,” said Hodon, “but you are too young and good looking to be left for the first stray tarag to make a meal of. You may come along with me, if you wish. We have only your dagger, but I’ll use it for you.”

“Tell me who you are,” she said, a trifle more amicably.

“I am Hodon of Sari,” he said.

“A Sarian! They are the friends of my father’s people.

“You are a Sarian, you will not harm me.”

“Who said I would. I am a Sarian. Now who are you?”

“I am O-aa, the daughter of Oose, King of Kali.”

“And you are running away because Fash has conquered your people. Am I right?” He released his hold upon her wrist, and she returned her dagger to its sheath.

“Yes, you are right,” she replied. “After Fash had conquered Kali, he took me for himself; but I escaped. It was well for Fash that I did, because I should have killed him. You see, I am the daughter of a king, and my mother was—”

“I have no time to listen to your life history,” said Hodon. “Are you coming with me, or not?”

“Where are you going?”

He told her.

“I do not like your manner; and I shall probably not like you,” said O-aa, “but I will come with you. You are better than nobody. Being the daughter of a king, I am accustomed to being treated with respect. All of my father’s people—”

“Come!” said Hodon. “You talk too much,” and he started off again in the direction of the coast.

O-aa trotted along at his side. “I suppose you will delay me,” grumbled Hodon.

“I can run as fast and as far as you can. My mother’s father was the fastest runner in all his country, and my brother—”

“You are not your mother’s father nor are you your brother,” said Hodon. “I am only interested in how fast and how far you can run. If you cannot keep up with me, you will be left behind. The fate of the Emperor is much more important than yours.”

“You don’t call this running, do you?” demanded O-aa, derisively. “Why, when I was a little girl I used to run down and capture the orthopi. Everyone marveled at my swiftness. Even my mother’s father and my brother could not run down and capture the orthopi.”

“You are probably lying,” said Hodon, increasing his speed.

“For that, my brother will probably kill you,” said O-aa. “He is a mighty warrior. He—”

Hodon was running so fast now that O-aa had not the breath for both running and talking, which was what Hodon had hoped for.

GHAK THE HAIRY ONE, King of Sari, embarked a thousand warriors on two ships. They were much larger ships than the Sari which was the first successful ship that Perry had built and now practically obsolete. While the Sari had but two guns, one-pounders, one in the bow and the other in the stern, the newer ships had eight guns, four on each side on a lower deck; and they fired shells which occasionally burst when they were supposed to, but more often did not burst at all or prematurely. However, the cannon made a most satisfactory racket and emitted vast clouds of black smoke.

When Perry’s first one-pounder was fired for the first time, the cannon ball rolled out and fell on the ground in front of the cannon. Innes said that this had its advantages, since there would be no waste of ammunition -they could just pick the balls up and use them over again; but-Perry’s new pieces hurled a shell a full mile. He was very proud of them. The trouble was that the ships never found anyone to shoot at. There was no other known navy in Pellucidar except that of the Korsars, and Korsar is five thousand miles from Sari by water.

As Ghak’s expeditionary force beat up the coast toward Kali, David Innes and his hundred warriors marched inland toward the village. Half of Innes’s men were armed with the Perry musket, a smooth bore, muzzle loading flintlock; the other half carried bows and arrows. All had knives, and many carried the short spear that all Pellucidarians prefer. It hung by a leather thong about their necks and swung down their backs.

These men were all veterans-the corps elite of the Pellucidarian army. Perry had named them The Imperial Guard, and Innes had succeeded in inculcating some ideas of discipline upon their ruggedly individualistic egos. They marched now in a loose column of fours, and there were an advance guard and flankers. A hundred yards in front of the advance guard three warriors formed the point. Innes was taking no chance on an ambush.

They had covered about half the distance to Kali when the point halted at the summit of a little rise; then one of them turned and raced back toward the main body.

He came directly to Innes. “Many warriors are coming this way,” he reported.

Innes disposed his men and advanced slowly. The musketeers were in the first line. As a rule the noise and smoke of one of their ragged volleys would frighten away almost any enemy; which was well; because they seldom hit anybody. After they fired, the archers moved up through their ranks and formed the first line while the musketeers reloaded.

But none of this was necessary now; as a messenger came racing back from the point to say that the force approaching them was friendly-Oose’s warriors coming to welcome them to Kali and escort them to the village,

Innes went forward to investigate personally. At the top of the rise he found a hairy caveman waiting for him. Beyond, he saw a large force of warriors.

“Where is Oose?” he demanded.

“Oose is sick. He has a pain in his belly. He could not come; so he sent me to guide you to Kali.”

“Why did he send so many warriors?”

“Because we are at war with Suvi, and Fash’s warriors may be nearby.”

Innes nodded. The explanation seemed reasonable. “Very well,” he said, “lead the way.”

His warriors advanced. Soon they were in contact with the warriors of the other party, and these offered them food. They seemed to wish to make friends. They moved among the warriors of The Imperial Guard, handing out food, passing rough jokes. They seemed much interested in the muskets, which they took in their hands and examined interestedly. Soon all the muskets of The Imperial Guard were in the hands of these friendly warriors, and four or five of them surrounded each member of the Guard.

HODON HAD TAKEN a short cut. He and O-aa had come over a hill through a forest, and now they halted at the edge of the forest and looked down into the little valley below. In the valley were hundreds of warriors. Hodon’s keen eyes picked out David Innes among them; they saw the muskets of the musketeers. Hodon was puzzled. He knew that most of those warriors were the warriors of Fash of Suvi, but there was no battle. The men appeared to be mingling in peace and friendship.

“I cannot understand it,” he said. He was thinking out loud.

“I can,” said O-aa.

“What do you understand?” asked Hodon. “Tell me in a few words without any genealogical notes.”

O-aa bridled. “My brother—” she began.

“Oh, bother your brother!” cried Hodon. “Tell me what you think you understand. You can tell me while we are walking down there to join David Innes.”

“You would be fool enough to do that,” the girl sneered.

“What do you mean?”

“That is one of Fash’s tricks. Wait and see. If you go down, you will soon be back in the prison cave-if they do not kill you instead; which would be good riddance.”

She had scarcely ceased speaking, when the leader of the friendly warriors voiced a war whoop and, with several of his men, leaped upon David Innes and bore him to the ground. At the signal, the rest of the friendly warriors leaped upon the members of The Imperial Guard whom they had surrounded. There was some resistance, but it was futile. A few men were killed and a number wounded, but the outcome was inevitable. Inside of five minutes the survivors of The Imperial Guard had their hands tied behind their backs.

Then Fash came from behind a bush were he had been hiding and confronted David Innes. “You call yourself Emperor,” he said with a sneer. “You would like to be Emperor of all Pellucidar. You are too stupid. It is Fash who should be Emperor.”

“You may have something there,” said David Innes. “at least for the time being. What do you intend doing with us?”

“Those of your men who will promise to obey me shall live; I will kill the others.”

“For every one of my men you kill, five Suvians shall die.”

You talk big, but you can do nothing. You are through, David Innes. You should have stayed in that other world you are said to have come from. It does not pay to come to Pellucidar and meddle. As for you, I do not know. Perhaps I shall kill you; perhaps I shall hold you and trade you for ships and guns. Now that I am also King of Kali, I can make use of ships with which to conquer the rest of Pellucidar. Now I am Emperor! I shall build a city on the shore of the Lural Az and all Pellucidar shall soon know who is Emperor.”

“You have a big mouth,” said Innes. “Perhaps you are digging your grave with it.”

“I have a big fist, too,” growled Fash, and with that, he knocked David Innes down.

At word from Fash, a couple of warriors yanked Innes to his feet. He stood there, the blood running from his mouth. A shout of anger rose from the men of The Guard.

David Innes looked straight into the shifty eyes of Fash, the king of Suvi. “You had better kill me, Fash,” he said, “before you unbind my wrists.”

Hodon looked on in consternation. There was nothing that he could do. He moved back into the forest, lest some of Fash’s warriors see him. Not that they could have caught him, but he did not wish them to know that their act had been witnessed by a friend of David Innes.

“You were right,” he said to O-aa. “It was a trick of Fash’s.”

“I am always right,” said O-aa. “It used to make my brother very angry.”

“I can well understand that,” said Hodon.

“My brother—”

“Yes, yes,” said Hodon; “but haven’t you any other relatives than a brother and a mother’s father?”

“Yes, indeed,” cried O-aa. “I have a sister. She is very beautiful. All the women in my mother’s family have always been very beautiful. They say my mother’s sister was the most beautiful woman in Pellucidar. I look just like her.”

“So you have a mother’s sister!” exclaimed Hodon. “The family tree is growing. I suppose that will give you something more to talk about.”

“That is a peculiar thing about the women of my family,” said O-aa; “they seldom talk, but when they do—”

“They never stop,” said Hodon, sadly.

“I could talk if I had some one of intelligence to listen to me,” said O-aa.

IV

THE GAS BAG of Perry’s balloon filled rapidly. It billowed upon the ground and grew larger. It rose above its basket. The eyes of the Sarians grew wide in astonishment. It grew fat stretching its envelope. It tugged at the guy ropes.

Perry shut off the gas. There were tears on the old man’s cheeks as he stood there fondling the great thing with his eyes.

“It is a success!” he murmured. “The very first time it is a success.”

Dian the Beautiful came and slipped her arm through his. “It is wonderful, Abner,” she said; “but what is it for?”

“It is a balloon, my dear,” explained Perry. “It will take people up into the air.”

“What for?” asked Dian the Beautiful.

Perry cleared his throat. “Well, my dear, for many reasons.”

“Yes?” inquired Dian. “What, for instance?”

“Come, come,” said Perry; “you wouldn’t understand.”

“How could they get down again?” she asked.

“You see that big rope? It is attached to the bottom of the basket. The other end of the rope passes around the drum of this windlass we have built. After the balloon has ascended as high as we wish it to we turn the windlass and pull it down.”

“Why would anyone wish to go up there?” asked Dian. “There is nothing up there but air and we have plenty of air down here.”

“Just think of all the country you could see from way up there,” said Perry. “You could see all the way to the Lural Az. With my binoculars, you might see all the way to Amoz.”

“Could I see David, if he were coming back?”

“You could see his ships on the Lural Az a long way off,” said Perry, “and you could see a large body of marching men almost as far as Greenwich.”

“I shall go up in your balloon, Perry,” said Dian the Beautiful. “Go and let your bi-bi-whatever you called them, that I may look through them and see if David is returning. I have slept many times and we have had no word from him since his messenger came summoning Ghak.”

“I think that we had better test it first,” said Perry. “There might be something wrong with it. There have been isolated instances where some of my inventions have not functioned entirely satisfactorily upon their initial trial.”

“Yes,” agreed Dian the Beautiful.

“I shall put a bag of earth of more than twice your weight in the basket, send it up, and haul it down. That should prove an entirely adequate test.”

“Yes,” said Dian, “and please hurry.”

“You are sure you are not afraid to go up?” asked Perry.

“When was a woman of Sari ever afraid?” demanded Dian.

HODON RETRACED HIS steps to the summit of the cliff above Kali. He had a plan, but it all depended upon Fash’s imprisoning David Innes in the cave on the upper ledge of the village.

Just before he reached the summit of the cliff, he stopped and told O-aa to remain hidden among some bushes. “And do not talk!” he commanded.

“Why?” asked O-aa. “Who are you to tell me that I cannot talk?”

“Never mind about that,” said Hodon, “and don’t start telling me about any of your relations. They make me sick, just remember this: if you talk, one of the warriors on guard may hear you and then there will be an investigation. And remember one more thing: if you talk before I come back here, I’ll cut your throat. Can you remember that?”

“Wait until my brother—”

“Shut up!” snapped Hodon and walked away toward the top of the cliff.

As he neared it he got down on his belly and crawled. He wormed his way forward like an Apache Indian; and like an Apache Indian he carried a little bush in one hand. When he was quite close to the cliff edge, he held the little bush in front of his face and advanced but an inch at a time. At last he could peer over the edge and down upon the village of Kali. Once in position he did not move. He waited, waited with the infinite patience of primitive man.

He thought of David Innes, for whom he would have gladly laid down his life. He thought of O-aa and he smiled. She had spirit and the Sarians liked women with spirit. Also she was undeniably beautiful. The fact that she knew it detracted nothing from her charm. She would have been a fool if she hadn’t known it, and a hypocrite if she had pretended that she did not know that she was beautiful. It was true that she talked too much, but a talkative woman was better than a sullen one.

Hodon thought that O-aa might be very desirable but he knew that she was not for him-she had too frankly emphasized her dislike of him. However one sometimes took a mate against her will. He would give the matter thought. One trouble with that was that David Innes did not approve of the old fashioned method of knocking a lady over the head with a club and dragging her off to one’s cave. He had made very strict laws on the subject. Now no man could take a mate without the girl’s consent.

As these thoughts were passing through his mind he saw warriors approaching the village. They kept coming into view from an opening in the forest. Yes, it was the Suvians with their prisoners. He saw David Innes walking with his head up, just as he always walked in paths of peace or paths of war. No one ever saw David Innes’ chin on his chest. Hodon was very proud of him.

There was a brief halt at the foot of the cliff, and then some of the prisoners were herded toward the cliff and up the ladders. Would David Innes be one of these? So much depended on it that Hodon felt his heart beating a little faster.

All the prisoners could not be accommodated in the prison cave on the upper ledge. Some of them would have to be confined elsewhere or destroyed. Hodon was sure that no member of The Imperial Guard would accept Fash’s offer and prove a traitor to the Empire.

Yes! At last here came David Innes! The guards were particularly cruel to him. They prodded him with spears as he climbed the rickety ladders. They had removed the bonds from his wrists, but they had seen that he was at a safe distance from Fash before they did so.

Up and up he climbed. At last he was on the topmost ladder. Inwardly, Hodon whooped for joy. Now there was a chance. Of course his plan was full of bugs, but there was one chance in a hundred that it might succeed -one wild chance.

Just one little hour of night would have simplified things greatly but Hodon knew nothing of night. From the day of his birth he had known only one long, endless day, with the stationary sun hanging perpetually at zenith. Whatever he did now, as always, would have to be done in broad daylight among a people who had no set hours for sleeping; so that at least a half of them could be depended upon to be awake and watchful at all times.

He watched until he saw David Innes enter the prison cave; then he crawled back to O-aa. She was fast asleep! How lovely she looked. Her slim, brown body was almost naked, revealing the perfection of its contours. Hodon knelt beside her. For a moment he forgot David Innes, duty, honor. He seized O-aa and lifted her in his arms. He pressed his lips to hers. She awakened with a start. With the speed and viciousness of a cat, she struck-she struck him once across the mouth with her hand, and then her dagger sprang from its sheath.

Hodon leaped quickly back, but not quite quickly enough; the basalt blade ripped a six-inch slash in his chest. Hodon grinned.

“Well done,” he said. “Some day you are going to be my mate, and I shall be very proud of you.”

“I would as soon mate with a jalok,” she said.

“You will mate with me of your own free will,” said Hodon, “and now come and help me.”

V

“YOU THINK you understand perfectly what you are to do?” asked Hodon a few minutes later, after carefully explaining his plan to O-aa.

“You are bleeding,” said O-aa.

“It is nothing but a flesh wound,” said Hodon.

“Let me get some leaves and stop it.”

“Later,” said Hodon. “You are sure you understand?”

“Why did you want to kiss me?” asked O-aa. “Was it just because I am so beautiful?”

“If I tell you, will you answer my question?”

“Yes,” said O-aa.

“I think it was just because you are O-aa,” said Hodon.

O-aa sighed. “I understand all that I am to do,” she said. “Let us commence.”

Together they gathered several large and small pieces of sandstone from a weathered outcropping, and inched them up to the very edge of the cliff. One very large piece was directly over the ladder which led to the next ledge below; others were above the mouth of the prison cave.

When this was accomplished, Hodon went into the forest and cut several long lianas and dragged them close to the cliff; then he fastened an end of each of them to trees which grew a few yards back.

“Now!” he whispered to O-aa.

“Do not think,” she said, “because I have helped you and have not slipped my dagger between your ribs, that I do not bate you. Wait until my brother—”

“Yes,” said Hodon. “After we have finished this you may tell me all about your brother. You will have earned the right. You have been splendid, O-aa. You will make a wonderful mate.”

“I shall make a wonderful mate,” agreed O-aa, “but not for you.”

“Come on,” said Hodon, “and keep your mouth shut-if you can.”

She gave him a venomous look, but she followed him toward the edge of the cliff. Hodon looked over to be sure that everything was as he hoped it would be. He nodded his head at O-aa, and grinned.

He pushed the great stone nearer the edge, and O-aa did the same with some of her smaller ones. She watched Hodon very closely, and when she saw him pushing his over the edge, she stood up and hurled one of hers down.

The big stone struck the two guards squatting at the top of the ladder, carrying them and the ladder crashing down from ledge to ledge, carrying other ladders with them.

Hodon ran to the rocks that O-aa was hurling down, and O-aa ran to the lianas and dropped them over the edge. Hodon was calling David Innes by name. One of the other two guards had been hit and had fallen over the cliff; then David Innes and some of the other prisoners ran from the cave.

Only one guard opposed them. Neither O-aa or Hodon had been able to strike him with a rock. David Innes rushed him, and the guard met him on the narrow ledge with his short spear. As he lunged at Innes, the latter seized the weapon and struggled to wrench it from the Suvian’s grasp. The two men wrestled for the weapon on the brink of eternity. At any moment either of them might be precipitated to the foot of the cliff. The other prisoners seemed too stunned or too anxious to escape to go to Innes’ assistance, but not Hodon. Sensing the danger to his chief, he slid down one of the lianas and ran to Innes’ side. With a single blow he knocked the Suvian over the edge of the cliff; then he pointed to the lianas.

“Hurry!” he said. “They are already starting up the Canyon to climb the cliff and head us off.”

Each on a different liana, the two men clambered to the summit. Already most of the Kalians had disappeared into the forest. Innes had been the only Sarian confined on the upper ledge. Oose had not run away. He and another Kalian were talking with O-aa. Oose’s companion was a squat, bearded fellow with a most unprepossessing countenance. He looked like a throwback to a Neanderthal type. As Hodon and Innes approached the three, they heard O-aa say, “I will not!”

“Yes, you will,” snapped Oose. “I am your father and your king. You will do as I tell you. Blug is a mighty hunter, a mighty fighter. He will make a fine mate. He has a large cave and three other women to lighten your labors.”

O-aa stamped a sandalled foot. “I tell you I will not. I would just as soon mate with a Sagoth.”

Now, the Sagoths are those half human gorilla men who did the strong arm work for the Mahars, the reptiles who dominated Pellucidar before David Innes drove them away-at least away from that portion of the inner world of which he was Emperor. O-aa could scarcely have voiced a more comprehensive insult.

Blug growled angrily. “Enough!” he said. “I take her.” He reached for O-aa, but Hodon stepped between them and struck Blug’s hand away.

“You do not take her,” he said. “O-aa chooses her own mate.”

Blug, being more or less of an inarticulate low-brow, with a short temper, replied to words with action. He swung a terrific blow at Hodon that might well have felled a bos, had there been a bos there and had the blow landed; but there was no bos and the blow did not land. Hodon ducked under it, picked Blug up and hurled him heavily to the ground.

Blug was surprised and so was Oose, for Hodon looked like no match for the massive Blug. Hodon’s muscles rolled smoothly beneath his bronzed skin-deceptively. They had great strength and they possessed agility. Blug had only strength; but he had courage, too -the courage of stupidity. He scrambled to his feet and charged Hodon-charged like a wild bull. And this time Hodon struck him full in the mouth and dropped him in his tracks.

“Enough of this!” snapped David Innes. “If you stand here fighting, we shall all be captured.”

“Enough,” said Oose to Blug.

“I shall kill him later, then,” said Blug.

“What-again?” asked Hodon. He looked about him.

“Where is O-aa?” he asked.

O-aa had fled. While the two men fought, she had run away. Maybe she thought, as Blug and Oose had thought, that Blug would easily kill Hodon.

“I did not see her go,” said Oose. “When I find her, I shall beat her and give her to Blug.”

“Not if I’m around,” said Hodon.

“You should not interfere in the affairs of others, Hodon,” counselled David.

“It is my affair,” said Hodon.

Innes shrugged. “Very well,” he said; “but if it’s your own funeral, too, do not say that I did not warn you. Now we must get away from here.”

“There are some caves farther up the coast,” said Oose, “that we have used at other times that Kali has been invaded. My people have probably gone there. We had better go there also.”

“I shall remain near here,” said Innes. “Many of my warriors are prisoners here. I cannot desert them.”

“I will stay with you,” said Hodon.

Oose and Blug moved away into the forest. “If you are around here when I come back,” said the latter to Hodon, I will kill you. I will bring my mate back to see me do it. I shall find O-aa at the other caves, and there I shall take her.”

“You have a big mouth,” said Hodon. “It fills so much of your head that there is no room for brains.”

Blug did not retort. He could think of nothing to say, his powers of repartee being limited; so he disappeared into the forest wrapped in the gloomy cloak of anger.

“I hear the Suvians coming,” said Innes.

“Yes,” replied Hodon. “Come with me. I have become a little familiar with parts of this land, and I know where we can find a hiding place.”

“I do not like to hide,” said David Innes.

“Nor I; but two men cannot fight five hundred.”

“You are right,” said Innes. “Lead the way. I will follow you.”

They moved away very quietly, Hodon trying to find rocks to step on wherever he could and Innes stepping always in the exact spots that Hodon stepped. When they came to a little stream, Hodon entered it and walked up its bed. It would take an excellent tracker to follow them at all.

VI

PERRY BEAMED With satisfaction, and Dian the Beautiful clapped her hands ecstatically. Many other Sarians, mostly women and children, stood open mouthed and goggle eyed. Every head was tilted back, every eye looked straight aloft to where a great gas bag partially eclipsed the eternal noonday sun. The balloon was a success.

Its basket loaded with rock, it had risen at the end of its rope, as four stalwart Sarians payed out on the windlass. Everyone was surprised, none more so than Abner Perry; for this was the first one of his “inventions” that functioned on its initial trial. He would not have been greatly surprised had it instead of going up bored itself into the ground.

“This is a great day for Pellucidar, Dian,” he said. “Won’t David be surprised!”

True enough David was due for a big surprise.

As those who had been left behind in Sari watched the swaying balloon, like little children with a new toy, Ghak the Hairy One and his thousand fighting men sailed on toward Kali.

And Hodon led David Innes to a little canyon into the head of which tumbled a mountain brook in a waterfall of exquisite beauty. Continually watered by the spray and warmed by the never failing sun, lush vegetation swarmed up the side of the cliff and spread out on the floor of the valley. Great sprays of orchids trailed down the rocky face of the cliff, gorgeous corsages pinned to the breast of the mountain. Flowers that withered and died forever on the outer crust eons ago challenged the beauty of the orchids, and hidden behind this mass of greenery and blooms was a little cave -a cave that could be defended by a single warrior against an army of stone age men.

“Beautiful!” exclaimed Innes, “and not far from Kali. We can stay here until Ghak comes. We will take turns watching for him. Really, we should watch by the sea; but I want to be where I can also watch Kali; here my warriors are imprisoned. Perhaps an opportunity will come for us to get them out of the prison caves.”

Fruit and nuts grew in abundance on the trees and shrubs of the little canyon; but fighting men require meat; and one must have weapons to have meat. These two had not even a stone knife between them, but the first men had no weapons originally. They had to make them.

Innes and Hodon went into the little stream and hunted around until they found a large mussel. They pried it open with a sharp stone, and each took a half shell. With these they cut two pieces of bamboo-like arborescent grass to form the hafts of two spears. Searching again they collected a number of stones: soft stones, hard stones, flat stones, stones with sharp edges; and with some of these they chipped and scraped at others until they had fashioned two spear heads and a couple of crude knives. While Hodon was finding the toughest fibers with which to bind the spear heads to the hafts, Innes made a bow and some arrows, for this was one of his favorite weapons.

How long all this took, of course there was no way of telling, only that they ate several times and slept once. All in all, it may have taken them a week of outer earthly time, or half a day, or a year. Occasionally one of them would go to a high point in the hills and look out across the country toward the coast always hoping to see Ghak the Hairy One and his warriors.

Hodon was hunting. He had gone out northeast of Kali a little farther this time than usual; for his luck had not been good. He had seen some game-red deer and orthopi the little primitive three toed horse that once ranged the outer crust-but something had always happened to frighten them away before he could get within spear range.

Of a sudden he heard a terrific roaring, and the crash of a heavy body coming through the undergrowth of the forest. Hodon looked for a tree that could be easily and swiftly scaled. He knew the author of that roar. It was a cave lion and the less business he had with a cave lion the happier he would be and the longer he would live.

He had just found a nice tree when he saw something burst from the underbrush in the direction from which the roaring was coming, but it was not a cave lion. It was O-aa. She was running like a scared, rabbit and right behind her was the cave lion.

Hodon forgot the tree. The lion was not making as good progress through the underbrush as was O-aa. She was leaping as lightly and almost as swiftly as a springbok. Hodon ran to meet her.

“Go back!” she cried. “It is Ta-ho.”

Hodon could see that it was Ta-ho, but he didn’t go back. As O-aa passed him, he knelt and jammed the butt of his spear into the ground, holding the haft at an angle, the stone point ahead of him.

The spear was a little short for the purpose for which he was using it. With a long spear some great hunters had killed the cave lion and the sabertooth tiger thus; but with a short spear such as his, one would be almost sure to be mauled to death before death came to the beast. However, Hodon had never hesitated from the moment that he had seen O-aa.

The great lion rose snarling above him, its face a hideous mask of savagery; and then its momentum hurled it upon the spear point. Instantly Hodon leaped to one side and drew his puny stone knife; then he threw himself upon the back of the pain maddened beast tangling the fingers of one band in its mane while with the other he plunged his knife through the thick bide into the beast’s side.

The lion threw itself from side to side. It turned to seize the man-thing. It rolled upon the ground to dislodge him; and then, quite suddenly, it rolled over on its side. The spear had pierced its heart.

Hodon stood up and looked around him, searching for O-aa. She was nowhere in sight. He called her by name, but there was no answer. So, he had risked his life for her and she had run away from him! At that moment Hodon almost became a misogynist.

He started out to look for her with the intention of giving her a good beating when he found her. Being an excellent tracker it did not take him long to pick up her trail. He followed it as silently as though he were stalking the wariest of game for that he knew she would be.

Beyond the edge of the forest he saw her. Evidently she thought that she had eluded him, for she was walking along quite nonchalantly. The sight of her impertinent little back goaded Hodon to fury. He decided that a beating was far from adequate punishment; so he drew his stone knife from its scabbard and ran quietly after her determined to cut her throat.

After all, Hodon the Fleet One was only a cave man of the stone age. His instincts were primitive and direct, but they were sometimes faulty-as in this instance. He thought that the feeling that he harbored for O-aa was hate, when, as a matter of fact, it was love. Had he not loved her, he would not have cared that she ran away from him while he was risking his life for her. There are few sentiments more closely allied and inextricably intermingled than love and hate, but of this Hodon was not aware. At that moment he hated O-aa with utter single-mindedness and abandon.

He caught up with O-aa and seized her by the hair, spinning her around so that he looked down into her upturned face. That was a mistake, if he really wished to kill her. Only a man with a stone where his heart should have been could have slit O-aa’s throat while looking into her face.

O-aa’s eyes were very wide. “You are going to kill me?” she asked. “When my brother—”

“Why did you run away from me?” demanded Hodon. “I might have been killed.”

“I did not run away until I saw Ta-ho roll over dead,” said O-aa.

“Why did you run away then?” Hodon’s knife hand hung at his side, and he loosened his grasp on O-aa’s hair. Hodon’s rage was oozing out through his eyes as they looked into the eyes of O-aa.

“I ran away because I am afraid of you. I do not wish to mate with you or any other man until I am ready. No man has won me yet.”

“I have fought for you,” Hodon reminded her. “I have killed Ta-ho in your defense.”

“Ta-ho is not a man,” said O-aa, as though that settled the whole matter.

“But I fought Blug for you. Every time I fight for you you run away. Why do you do that?”

“That time, I was running away from Blug. I thought he would kill you and then come after me; and anyway, fighting Blug was nothing-you didn’t kill him. I saw Blug and my father afterward, but they did not see me.”

“So, I shall have to kill a man before you will mate with me?” demanded Hodon.

“Why, of course. I think you will have to kill Blug. I do not understand why he did not kill you when you fought. If I were you I should keep out of Blug’s way. He is a very great fighter. I think he would break you in two. I should like to see that fight.”

Hodon looked at her for a long minute; then he said, “I think you are not worth having for a mate.”

O-aa’s eyes flashed. “It is a good thing for you that my brother did not hear you say that,” she said with asperity.

“There you go,” said Hodon, “dragging in your family again. I am sick and tired of hearing of your family all the time.”

As they talked, unconscious of any but themselves, six strange looking creatures crept toward them through the underbrush.

VII

THE FOUR Sarians at the windlass wound the balloon down to earth, and held it there while others removed the stone ballast. Everyone clustered around, examining it and heaping praise on Abner Perry. And Perry was so proud and happy that he felt like doing a little dance.

“And now,” said Dian, “I shall go up.”

“Perhaps you had better wait until David comes,” counselled Perry. “Something might happen.”

“It took all that rock up,” argued Dian, “and I do not weigh as much as the rock.”

“That is not the point,” said Perry. “It would take you up, all right; but I don’t think you should go until after David gets back. As I said before, something might happen.”

“Well, I am going,” said Dian.

“What if I forbade it?” asked Perry.

“I should go anyhow. Am I not Empress of Pellucidar?” She smiled as she said it; but Perry knew that, Empress of Pellucidar or not, Dian the Beautiful would go up in the balloon if she wished to.

“Very well,” he said; “I’ll let you go up a little way.”

“You’ll let me go up to the end of the rope,” she said. “I want to see if David is coming home.”

“Very well,” said Perry, resignedly. “Get in.”

The other Sarians clustered around Dian as she clambered into the basket. Here was a new experience far beyond anything that they had ever imagined, and Dian the Beautiful was about to have it. They all envied her. They made little jokes and told her what to look for when she got up to the sun. They asked her all the questions outer Earth people might have asked under similar circumstances-all but one: nobody asked her if she were afraid. One does not ask a Sarian if he is afraid.

Perry signalled to the four men at the windlass and the balloon commenced to rise. Dian the Beautiful clapped her hands happily. “Faster!” she called to the four men at the windlass.

“Slower!” said Perry. “Take it easy.”

Up and up went the great gas bag. A little breeze caught it, and it swayed to, and fro. Dian felt very small up there all alone with that huge thing billowing above her.

“Can you see David?” some one shouted.

“Not yet,” shouted Dian, “but I can see the Lural Az. Send me up higher!”

Soon almost all the rope was out, and Perry was glad; for then he could start pulling the balloon down. He was anxious to see Dian the Beautiful on terra firma again. Perhaps Perry had a premonition.

THE TERRIBLE CREATURES crept closer and closer to Hodon and O-aa. They were men, naked black men with long, prehensile tails. Their brows protruded above small, close-set eyes; and there was practically no head above the brows. Short, stiff black hair grew straight out from their skulls; but their outstanding feature was a pair of tusks that curved down from the upper jaw to below the chin.

“I wish,” O-aa was saying, “that you would go away and leave me alone. I do not like you. If my brother—”

It was then that the creatures charged, roaring like beasts. With hands and tails, they seized Hodon and O-aa; and the two were helpless in their grasp. Chattering and jabbering among themselves they dragged their prisoners off into the forest.

Hodon tried to talk to them; but they did not understand him, nor could he understand them. They were very rough, slapping and cuffing their captives without provocation.

“Now we shall die,” said O-aa.

“What makes you think so?” asked Hodon. “If they had intended to kill us, they could have done so when they attacked us.”

“Do you not know what they are?” asked O-aa.

“No,” said Hodon. “I have never seen nor heard of such creatures before.”

“They are the sabertooth men,” she said. Of course she did not use the word saber. What she said was, roughly, the taragtooth men-the tarag being the sabertooth tiger. “They are man eaters,” she added for good measure.

“You mean they are taking us home to eat?” demanded Hodon.

“Exactly,” said O-aa.

“If you had come with me long ago, this would not have happened to you,” said Hodon.

“Oh, there are worse things than being eaten by a sabertooth man,” rejoined O-aa.

“Maybe you are right,” agreed Hodon; “having to hear about your family, for instance.”

“My brother is a mighty fighter,” said O-aa. “He could break you in two, and my sister is very beautiful. You have no women in Sari so beautiful as my sister. She is almost as beautiful as I. My mother’s father was so strong that he could carry the carcass of a full grown bos on his back.”

“Now, I know you are lying,” said Hodon. “Why must you lie so much, and always about your family? I am not interested in your family. I am only interested in you.”

“My father is a king,” said O-aa.

“He can be a Sagoth, for all I care. I do not wish to mate with your father.”

“Now you will never mate with anybody,” said O-aa. “Instead, you will be eaten by a sabertooth man and his mate.”

“Maybe the same man will eat us both,” said Hodon, grinning. “Then we shall be truly mated.”

“If he does that to me I will give him a pain in his belly,” said O-aa.

“You do not like me very well,” said Hodon.

“You are very stupid, if you have only just discovered that,” replied O-aa.

“I do not understand why you don’t like me. I am not bad to look at. I would be kind to you, and I can certainly protect you.”

“This looks like it,” said O-aa.

Hodon subsided.

Two of the sabertooth men each had his tail wrapped around the neck of one of the captives. Thus they, dragged them along, while other sabertooth men pushed, and slapped, and kicked their prisoners from the rear. The grotesque blacks kept jabbering. They reminded Hodon of the little hairy men who lived in the trees of the forests.

The cliff of Kali is the last rampart of a range of mountains that extended toward the northeast, parallel with the coast of the Lural Az. It was into these mountains that O-aa and Hodon were being dragged. The terrain became rougher as they ascended, the limestone formation giving way to volcanic rock. Extinct volcanos were visible on either hand. The vegetation was sparse and poor. It was a tough country.

Buffeted and bruised, the prisoners were dragged at last to a yawning hole in the side of a mountain. Inside it was dark as a pocket, but the sabertooth men did not even pause on the threshold. Still jabbering, they entered the cavern and raced along as though in broad daylight. Neither O-aa nor Hodon could see a thing. They felt the smooth surface of the rock beneath their sandals and they could tell that they were ascending. Presently the ascent became so steep that they would have fallen back had not their captors supported them. Up and up they went, dragged by their necks. In the grip of the choking tails they were gasping for breath.

At last the ascent became absolutely perpendicular and here were long lianas depending from above and there was daylight. Above them they could see a round opening into which the sun shone, and they could see that they were ascending a circular shaft. They did not know it, but they were in a volcanic tube.

The sabertooth men swarmed up the lianas, dragging O-aa and Hodon with them; and when they reached the top of the tube both their prisoners were unconscious. Then they released them, and the two lay as though dead where they had fallen.

DIAN THE BEAUTIFUL looked out across forest and rolling hills and fertile plains. She saw great herds of bos and red deer and herbivorous dinosaurs feeding on the lush vegetation. She saw the Lural Az curving upward, like Professor Einstein’s time and space, until it was simply lost in the distance; for there is no horizon in Pellucidar. She saw Anoroc Island, where the copper, colored Mezops dwell in their tree houses; and beyond Anoroc, the Luana Islands. She could have seen Greenwich had it been more than an imaginary spot on an imaginary map. But she saw no sign of David Innes, though she strained her eyes until the tears came to them.

The four men at the windlass kept letting out more and more rope, their eyes on the balloon and not on the drum. Perry was watching the balloon, too. He felt that Dian the Beautiful had gone high enough and had been up long enough to have seen all that there was to see; so he turned to the men at the windlass to order them to haul the balloon down. What he saw brought a scream of horror from his throat.

AT THE SAME TIME, David Innes stood upon a promontory above Kali and looked out toward the Lural Az. He was looking for Ghak the Hairy One, but his search was no more successful than had Dian’s been. Slowly he made his way back to the hidden canyon. Hodon would have returned with meat, he thought; and they would feast, but Hodon was not there.

David went into the cave and slept, and when he awoke there was still no sign of Hodon. So David went out and made a kill himself. He ate many times and slept twice more, and still Hodon had not returned. Now David became worried, for he knew that Hodon would have returned had all been well with him. He determined to go and search for him, though he knew that it would be like searching for a needle in a hay stack.

He found Hodon’s almost obliterated tracks, and he came upon the carcass of the cave lion. The dagger wounds in the beast’s side and the spear wound in its breast told a graphic story. Then he discovered the prints of O-aa’s little sandals.

What he read when he came to the spot at which the two had been captured by the sabertooth men filled him with apprehension. He saw great splayed, manlike footprints, and the trail of the party leading away to the northeast. For the most part, the spoor of O-aa and Hodon was obliterated by that of their captors; but David Innes saw enough to know that a party of creatures unknown to him had captured O-aa and Hodon.

There was but one thing to do: he must follow. This he did until the trail entered the dark mouth of the volcanic tube. He went in a short distance, but he could neither see nor hear anything; he felt a strong wind sucking in past him toward the interior of the, cave. He came out and examined the terrain. Above him lay the slope of an extinct volcano. He could see the rim of the crater sharply defined against the blue of the sky. Suddenly he had an inspiration, and he commenced the ascent of the mountain.

When Hodon and O-aa regained consciousness they were still lying where they had fallen. All around them rose the walls of a volcanic crater, the level floor of which was covered with verdure. In the center was a small lake of blue water. Rude shelters were dotted about.

They found themselves surrounded by sabertooth people-men, women, and children. There was much jabbering in the strange, monkey-like language of these hideous people. They snarled and growled at one another and occasionally one of them would try to grab either O-aa or Hodon with a long, prehensile tail. Three or four large males stood close to the captives, and every time one of their fellows tried to seize either of them, he would be set upon and chased away. It was apparent to Hodon that they were being guarded, but why?

After they regained consciousness, these guards jerked them to their feet and led them away toward one of the shacks-an open structure with a flimsy grass roof. Here a large male squatted on the ground, and beside him was the strangest looking human being either Hodon or O-aa had ever seen. He was a little, wizened old man with a white beard that almost concealed the rest of his features. He had no teeth, and his eyes were the eyes of a very old man.

“Well,” he said, looking them over, “you’re certainly in a fix. Back in Cape Cod, we’d say you was in a Hell of a fix; but we ain’t back in Cape Cod, and you never heard of Hell, unless this here place is it, which I sometimes believe; for doesn’t the Good Book tell us that people go down to Hell? or doesn’t it? Well, I dunno; but I came down to get to this here place, an’ I don’t believe Hell could be much worse.” He spoke in Pellucidarian with a Cape Cod accent. “Well,” he continued, taking a breath, “here you are. Do you know what’s goin’ to happen to you?”

“No,” said Hodon; “do you?”

“Well, they’ll probably fatten you up and eat you. That’s what they usually do. They might keep you a long time. They’re funny that way. You see they ain’t no such thing as time down here; so how’s a body to know how long it will be before you get fat or before they eat you? God only knows how long I been here. I had black hair and a good set o’ teeth when I come, but look at me now! Maybe they’ll keep you until your teeth fall out. I hope so, because I get danged lonesome for company down here. These here things aren’t very good company.”

“Why haven’t they I eaten you?” asked Hodon.

“Well, that there’s a long story. I’ll tell you all about it-if they don’t eat you too quick.”

The large sabertooth man sitting beside the old man now commenced to jabber at him, and the old man jabbered back in the same strange tongue; then he turned to Hodon.

“He wants to know where you come from and if there’s more like you real handy. He says that if you’ll guide his people to your village, he won’t have you killed right away.”

“Tell him I’ve got to rest first,” said Hodon. “Maybe I can think of a village where the people are all nice and fat.”

The old man turned and translated this to the sabertooth man, who replied at some length.

“He says that’s all right, and he’ll send some of his people with you right away.”

“Tell him I’ve got to rest first,” said Hodon.

After some further conversation between the sabertooth man and the old man, the latter said: “You can come with me now. I’m to look after you until you have rested.”

He got up, and Hodon and O-aa followed him to another shelter, which was much more substantially built than the others.

“This is my cabin,” said the old man. “Sit down and make yourselves at home. I built this myself. Got all the comforts of home!” The comforts of home were a bunk filled with dried grass, a table, and a bench.

“Tell me how you got here, and why they don’t eat you,” said Hodon.

“Well, the reason they don’t eat me, or rather the reason they didn’t eat me at first, was because I saved the life of that fellow you seen sitting beside me. He’s chief. I think about the only reason they don’t eat me now is because I’m too damned old and tough.

“Now, as to how I got here, I come from a place you never even heard of in a world you never heard of. You don’t know it, but you’re living in the center of a round ball; and on the outside is another world, entirely different from this one. Well, I come from that other world on the outside.

“I was a seafarin’ man up there. Used to go whalin’ up around the Arctic. Last time I went was an awful open summer up there. We went farther north than we’d ever been before, and no ice-just a great open polar sea as far as the eye could reach.

“Well, everything was lovely till we run into the worst dod-blasted storm you ever see; and the Dolly Dorcas was wrecked. The Dolly Dorcas was my ship. I dunno what become of the others, but there was eight of us in the boat I was in. We had food an’ water an’ a compass an’ sails as well as oars; but still it didn’t look very good. We was way up in the Arctic Ocean an’ winter comin’ on. We could just about kiss ourselves goodby.

“We sailed what we thought was south for a long time, and all the time the compass kept acting stranger an’ stranger. You’d thought the dod-blasted thing had gone crazy. Then we ran out o’ food, an’ the fust thing you knowed we commenced to eat one another-startin in on the weakest fust. Then some of ‘em went crazy; an’ two jumped overboard, which was a dirty trick when they knew we craved meat so bad.

“Well, to make a long story short, as the feller said, finally they wasn’t nobody left but me; and then, dod-blast it, if the weather didn’t commence to get warmer, and pretty soon I sighted land and found fruits and nuts, and fresh water. Believe me, it was just in time too; for I was so doggone hungry I was thinkin’ of cuttin’ off one of my legs an’ eatin’ it.”

O-aa sat wide eyed and wondering, drinking in every word. Hodon had never known her to be silent for so long. At last she had met her match.

“What’s become of your brother and your mother’s father?” asked Hodon.

“Eh! What’s that?” demanded the old man.

“I was speaking to O-aa,” said Hodon.

“Well, don’t interrupt me. You talk too much. Now, where was I? You got me all confused.”

“You were thinking of eating your leg,” said O-aa.

“Yes, yes. Well, to make a long story short, as the feller said, I was in Pellucidar. How I ever lived, I’ll be doggone if I know; but I did. I got in with one tribe after another, an’ none of ‘em killed me for one reason or another. I learned the language an’ how to hunt with spears. I made out somehow. Finally I stole a canoe an’ set sail on the biggest doggone ocean you ever seen. My beard was a yard long when I landed near here an’ got captured by these things.

“Well, I better start feedin’ you an’ fattenin’ you up. I reckon this gal will be pretty tasty eatin’ right soon.” He reached out and pinched O-aa’s flesh. “Yum!” he exclaimed. “She’s just about right now.”

“Do you eat human flesh?” demanded Hodon.

“Well, you see I sort o’ acquired a taste for it after the Dolly Dorcas was wrecked. Ole Bill was a mite tough an’ rank, but there was a Swede I et who was just about the nicest eatin’ you ever see. Yes, I eat what the Lord furnishes. I reckon I’m goin’ to enjoy both of you.”

“I thought you said you hoped they wouldn’t eat us, because you would like to have our company,” said O-aa.

“Yes, I’m sort o’ torn between two loves, as the feller said: I loves to eat an’ I loves to talk.”

“We like to listen,” said Hodon.

“Yes,” agrees O-aa; “we could listen to you forever.”

WHAT PERRY HAD SEEN that had brought the scream to his lips was the end of the rope slipping from the drum. He had forgotten to have it made fast! He sprang forward and seized at the rope, but the free balloon leaped upward carrying the rope’s end far above him. Of course his gesture was futile, as a dozen men could not have held the great gas bag that Perry had made.

The old man looked up at the great balloon, rapidly growing smaller as it rose; then he sat down, and, covering his face with his hands, commenced to sob; for he knew that Dian the Beautiful was already as good as dead. No power on earth or within it could save her now.

How high she would be carried he could not even guess, nor how far from Sari. She would doubtless die from lack of oxygen, and then her body would be carried for a thousand miles or more before the bag would lose sufficient gas to bring it down.

He loved Dian the Beautiful as he would have loved a daughter, and he knew that David Innes worshipped her. Now he had killed Dian and wrecked David’s life-the two people he loved most in the world. His silly inventions had done a little good and some harm, but whatever good they had accomplished had been wiped out by this. Worst of all, he realized, was his criminal absent-minded carelessness.

Dian felt the sudden upward rush of the balloon. She looked down over the edge of the basket and instantly realized what had happened. Everything was growing smaller down there. Soon she could no longer distinguish people. She wondered what would become of her. Perhaps she would be carried up to the sun and incinerated. She saw that the wind was carrying the balloon in a south-westerly direction.

She did not realize the greatest error of all that Perry had made; neither did Perry. He had arranged no rip cord on the gas bag. With that, Dian could have let gas out of the bag gradually and made a landing within a comparatively few miles from Sari. Perry was always leaving some essential thing off of everything he built. His first musket had no trigger.

Dian the Beautiful guessed that she was as good as dead. She cried, but not because she was afraid to die. She cried because she would never see David again.

And David, far away, reached the rim of the crater and looked over. Below him, scarcely a hundred feet, he saw a round valley, green with verdure. He saw a little lake and grass thatched shelters and people. He saw Hodon and O-aa. His surmise had been correct.

He saw the strange sabertooth people. There were a couple of hundred of them. How could he, single handed, rescue Hodon and O-aa from such an overwhelming number of enemies?

David Innes was resourceful; but the more he cudgeled his brains, the more hopeless a solution of his problem appeared. It would profit them nothing if he went down into the crater. That would mean simply his own capture; then he could do nothing for them.

He examined the crater closely. The inside walls were perpendicular and unscalable in all but a single place. There the wall had crumbled inward, the rubble forming an incline that reached to the top of the rim that was little more than fifty feet above the floor of the crater at that point. There was an avenue of escape, but how could he call Hodon’s attention to it. How could he create a diversion that would take the attention of their captors from them long enough for them to make a break for freedom. Suddenly he recalled the wind rushing past him as he had stood in the darkness of the cavern that was the entrance to the crater. He turned and started down the mountainside.

THE OLD MAN HAD been talking constantly. Even O-aa could not get a word in edgewise, but at last he paused for a moment, probably to refresh his mind concerning the past, in which he lived.

Hodon seized upon this moment to voice a suggestion that had been in his mind for some time. “Why don’t you escape?” he asked the old man.

“Eh? What? Escape? Why-er-I haven’t thought of it since before my last bicuspid dropped out. But of course I couldn’t escape.”

“I don’t see why not,” said Hodon. “I don’t see why the three of us couldn’t escape. Don’t you see that low place there? We could run up there in no time if you could find some way to get their attention somewhere else.”

“M-m-m,” murmured the old man thoughtfully. “Sometimes many of them are asleep at the same time. It might be done, but I doubt it. Anyway, what good would it do me to escape? I’d only be killed by the first tribe that captured me if some of the beasts didn’t get me before.”

“No,” said Hodon. “I would take you to Sari. They would treat you well there. You might meet some old friends. There are two men from Hartford, Connecticut there.”

The old man became instantly alert. “What do you know about Hartford, Connecticut?” he demanded.

“Nothing,” said Hodon, “but these men do. I have heard them speak of it many times.”

“How did they get down here? That must be a story like mine. I’ll bet they’d like to hear my story.”

“I know they would,” said O-aa, who was nobody’s fool. “I think you ought to come with us.”

“I’ll think it over,” said the old man.

David Innes made his way to the entrance to the tube. He gathered dry wood and leaves and green grass, and he piled it far into the tube, with the grass on top. Then he made fire and lighted it. As soon as he saw that it was burning freely, he ran from the tube and started up the side of the mountain as fast as he could go.

When he reached the top and looked over he saw smoke rising from the opening into the tube. Already a jabbering crowd of sabertooth men were gathering about it. Others were joining them. David was just about to risk everything by shouting to Hodon to run for the low place in the rim, when he saw O-aa, Hodon, and another walking toward it. He saw that the third member of the party was not one of the natives; so he assumed it must be another prisoner.

The diversion that Hodon had hoped for had occurred almost miraculously, and the three lost no time in taking advantage of it.

“You are sure, are you, that these men from Hartford, Connecticut, are where we are going?” demanded the old man. “Dod-burn you, if they ain’t, I’ll eat you the first chance I get.”

“Oh, they’re there all right,” said O-aa. “I saw them just before we left.”

Hodon looked at her in amazement not unmixed with admiration. “We may see one of them before we get to Sari,” he said. “He was with me just before we were captured.”

“I hope so,” said the old man. “I’d sure like to see some one from Hartford. By gum, I’d even like to see some one from Kansas.”

“Oh,” said O-aa with a shrug. “We know lots of people from Kansas. You can see all you want.”

Hodon’s expression turned to one of awe, but now they were at the base of the shelving rubble. He looked back. Every single sabertooth was gathered around the smoking vent; not an eye was turned in their direction. “Start up slowly,” he cautioned. “Do not start to hurry unless they discover what we are doing; then you’ll really have to climb. Once on the outside you and I, O-aa, can outdistance any of them, but I don’t know about the old man.”

“Listen, son,” said that worthy. “I can run circles around you and all your family. Why, when I was a young man they used to race me against race horses. I’d give ‘em two lengths start and beat ‘em in a mile.”

Hodon didn’t know what a horse was; but he had an idea that whatever it was the old man was lying; so he said nothing. He was thinking that between O-aa and the old man it was a toss-up.

They reached the summit without being detected; and as they started down, Hodon saw David coming toward him. He hurried forward to meet him, “It was you who started the fire that made the smoke, wasn’t it? But how did you know we were in the crater?”

“Is this one of the men from Hartford?” demanded the little old man.

“Yes,” said Hodon, “but don’t start telling him the story of your life now. Wait until we get out of reach of your friends.”

DIAN WAS SURPRISED to discover that the nearer the sun she got the colder she was. She was also mystified by the noises she heard in her ears and the difficulty she had in breathing; but even so, she gave little thought to her own danger. She could think only of David. David whom she would never see again.

The balloon was drifting now at an even altitude. It would rise no higher. Eventually it would commence to drop lower; but before it came to earth, Dian the Beautiful might be dead of hunger and exhaustion. Being practically naked, except for a most sketchy loin cloth she was already chilled through and shivering.

A hunting party far below saw the strange thing floating toward them; and they ran and hid beneath trees, thinking it some new and terrible reptile. Dacor the Strong One, Dian’s brother, was in the party. Little did he dream that his sister floated there high above him. He and his companions would tell of the awful creature they had seen; and the story would grow in the telling, but nothing which they could fabricate could equal the truth, if they could have known it.

THE SABERTOOTH PEOPLE are not very bright, but they do know what a volcano is; because there is an intermittently active one in the mountains not far from their own crater; so, putting two and two together, they assumed that their own volcano was about to become active. Had they been just a little bit more intelligent, they would have reasoned that wood smoke does not come from a volcano; but all they knew was that it was smoke and smoke meant fire; and they were afraid.

The best thing to do, then, was to get out of the crater; so they turned to the low point in the crater’s rim. It was then that they discovered that their prisoners had escaped.

As they swarmed out of the crater, they were not only frightened but angry. No prisoner had ever escaped before, and they didn’t purpose letting these prisoners get away with it. Being good trackers capable of moving with great speed, they had no doubt but that they would soon overhaul the fugitives. The latter however, were also fleet of foot; and they had two advantages: they did not have to watch for spoor to follow, and they were fleeing for their lives. There is no greater spur to honest and concentrated effort than this. Even the old man revealed amazing possibilities as he scampered in the wake of the others.

David and Hodon, being congenitally opposed to flight, hated the position in which they found themselves, but what were they to do? David alone was armed. He carried his crude bow and arrow and a stone knife but these were not enough to repel an attack by a numerically greater force of savage beasts such as the sabertooth men.

While they did not yet know that they were being followed, they assumed that they would be; and the old man had assured them that they would.

“I been there since before my teeth began falling out,” he said, “an’ you can lay to it that they’ll follow us all the way to hell an’ gone, for they ain’t no prisoner ever escaped from ‘em in my time. ”

Hodon, who was leading, guided them toward the little canyon where he and David had found sanctuary; and they succeeded in reaching its mouth before the first of the pursuers came within sight. It was just after they entered it that a chorus of savage roars told them that the sabertooth men had overtaken them.

David glanced back. Racing toward him were, three or four of the swiftest males and strung out behind them were other bucks and shes and young-the whole tribe was on their heels!

“Get the others into the cave, Hodon!” he called. “I’ll hold them up until you’re all in.”

Hodon hesitated. He wanted to come back and fight at David’s side.

“Go on!” shouted the latter. ‘We’ll all be lost if you don’t,” then Hodon raced on toward the cave with O-aa and the old man.

David wheeled about and sent an arrow into the breast of the leading savage. The fellow screamed and clutched at the shaft; then he spun around like a top and crashed to earth. A second and a third arrow in quick succession found their marks, and two more sabertooth warriors writhed upon the ground. The others paused. David fitted another arrow to his bow and backed away toward the cave.

The sabertooths jabbered and chattered among themselves. Finally a huge buck charged. Hodon and O-aa were in the cave; and the former, reaching down, grasped the hand of the old man and dragged him up. David was still backing toward the cave, holding his fire. His supply of arrows would not last forever; so he must not miss.

The great brute was almost upon him before he loosed his shaft. It drove straight through the heart of the buck, but there were others coming behind him. Not until he had dropped two more in rapid succession did the others pause momentarily; then David turned and raced for the cave. At his heels came the whole tribe of sabertooths, roaring and screaming. They came in mighty leaps and bounds, covering the ground twice as rapidly as David.

Hodon stood in the mouth of the cave. “Jump!” he cried to David. He leaned out and down, extending his hand. As David leaped upward toward the cave mouth, a sabertooth at his heels reached out to seize him; but simultaneously a bit of rock struck the fellow full between the eyes, and he stumbled forward on his face. O-aa, grinning, brushed the dust from her hands.

Hodon pulled David into the cave. “I never thought you’d make it,” he said.

There were extra spears and arrows in the cave and a little food. The waterfall dropped so close that they could reach out and catch water in a cupped hand. They would not suffer from thirst. One man with a spear could defend the entrance against such ill-armed brutes as the sabertooths. Altogether, they felt rather secure.

“These brutes won’t stay here forever,” said David. “When they find they can’t get us, they’ll go away.”

“You don’t know ‘em,” said the old man. “They’ll stick around here ‘till Hell freezes over, but the joke’s goin’ to be on them.”

“What do you mean?” asked David.

“Why, instead of gettin’ four of us, they’re only goin’ to get one,” explained the old man.

“How’s that?” inquired David.

“We can’t get no food in here,” said the old man; “so we gotta eat each other. I reckon I’ll be the last man. I’m too dod-burned old and tough to eat. Even the sabertooths wouldn’t eat me. This here’ll make a tender morsel. I reckon we’ll start on her.”

“Shut up!” snapped David. “We’re not cannibals.”

“Well, neither was I back at Cape Cod. I would have reared up on my hind legs an’ hit anybody then that had said I’d ever eat man, woman, or child; but then I hadn’t never nearly starved to death, nor I didn’t know what good eatin’ some people can be after you get used to it. Before you come along I was tellin’ these other two, about that sweet Swede I et once.”

“You also said,”, interposed O-aa, “that after you’d eaten all your friends you were about to cut your leg off and start eating yourself.”

“Yes,” admitted the old man, “that’s plumb right.”

“Then,” said O-aa, “when you get hungry, you’d better start eating yourself; because you’re not going to eat any of us.”

“That’s what I calls plumb selfish,” said the old man. “If we don’t eat each other, the sabertooths are goin’ to eat us; an’ I’d think you’d rather be eaten by a friend than by one of them criters.”

“Look here-er-what is your name, anyway?” David spoke with marked asperity.

The old man puckered his brow in thought. “Dod-burn it” he exclaimed at last. “What the dickens is my name? I’ll be dod-burned if I ain’t plumb forgot. You see I ain’t heard it since I was a young man.”

“I think,” said O-aa to David, “that his name is Dolly Dorcas.”

“Well, never mind,” said David; “but get this straight: there’s to be no more talk of eating one another. Do you understand?”

“Wait until you get good an’ hungry,” said the old man; “then it won’t be a matter of talking about it.”

David rationed out what food there had been stored in the cave-mostly nuts and tubers; as these would not spoil quickly. Each had his share. They took turns watching, while the others slept, if they cared to; and as there was nothing else to do, they slept a great part of the time. It is a custom of Pellucidarians. They seem to store up energy thus, so that they need less sleep, afterward. Thus they prepare themselves for long journeys or arduous undertakings.

Some of the sabertooths remained in the canyon at all times. They made several attempts to storm the cave; but after being driven off easily, they gave up. They would starve their quarry out.

The food supply in the cave dwindled rapidly. David presently suspected that it dwindled fastest while the old man was on watch and the others slept; so once he feigned sleep and caught the old man taking a little food from the supply of each of the others and hiding it in a crevice in the back of the cave.

He awoke the others and told them, and O-aa wanted to kill the old man at once. “He deserves to die,” said David, “but I have a better plan than that of killing him ourselves. We’ll drop him down to the sabertooths.”

The old man whimpered and begged, and promised never to do it again; so they let him live, but they did not let him stand watch alone again.

At last their food was all gone, and the sabertooths were still in the canyon. The besieged were ravenous. They drank quantities of water to allay the craving for food. They were getting weaker and weaker, and David realized that the end was near. They slept a great deal, but fitfully.

Once, when O-aa was standing watch, David awoke with a start; and was horrified to see the old man sneaking up behind her with a spear. His intentions were all too obvious. David called a warning and leaped for him but just in time.

Hodon awoke. The old man was grovelling on the floor of the cave. O-aa and David were looking down at him.

“What has happened?” demanded Hodon.

They told him. Hodon came toward the old man. “This time he dies,” he said.

“No! No!” shrieked the terrified creature. “I was not going to keep it all for myself. I was going to share it with you.”

“You beast!” exclaimed Hodon, picking up the spear the old man had dropped.

Screaming the latter leaped to his feet; and, running to the mouth of the cave, sprang out.

A hundred sabertooths were in the canyon. Straight toward them the old man ran, screaming at the top of his voice, his eyes wild with terror, his toothless mouth contorted.

The sabertooths fell aside, shrinking from him; and through the lane they made the old man fled and disappeared in the forest beyond the end of the canyon.

GHAK THE HAIRY ONE, with a thousand warriors, marched up to Kali. He did not know that Fash, the king of Suvi, had conquered it; so he was surprised when his advance guard was attacked as they neared the cliff. However, it made no difference to Ghak the Hairy One whether he fought Suvian or Kalian.

Fash had thought that the advance guard constituted the whole force with which he had to deal, as it was his own custom to hold all his warriors in one body when he attacked. He did not know that David Innes had taught the Sarians a different method of warfare, which was unfortunate for Fash.

When Ghak’s main body came up, Fash’s men scattered in all directions. A number retreated to the eaves of Kali. The Sarians swarmed up after them before they could remove the ladders. Men fought hand to hand on the narrow ledges all the way up to the highest ledge. Here, cornered Suvians leaped to their death; and at last Ghak the Hairy One stood victorious above the eaves of Kali.

Then the Sarian prisoners came from their prison eaves and for the first time Ghak learned that David’s little force had been either killed or made prisoner and that David was missing. All agreed that he must be dead.

Ghak’s force rested and fed at the Kali cliff; and then victorious but sad, started back to their ships waiting on the Lural Az. They had scarcely left the cliff when a strange figure of a man came dashing out of the forest a toothless little old man with an enormous white beard. His beard was stained with juice of berries and the pulp of fruit. He jibbered and yammered like the little hairy men who live in the trees of the forest.

The warriors of Sari had never seen a creature like this before; so they captured him, as they might have captured any strange animal and took him to show to Ghak.

“Who are you?” demanded Ghak.

“Are you going to kill me?” The old man was whimpering, the tears rolling down his cheeks.

“No,” Ghak assured him. “Tell me who you are and what you are doing here.”,

“My name is not Dolly Dorcas,” said the old man, “and I was going to divide O-aa with the others, but Hodon wanted to kill me.”

“Hodon!” exclaimed Ghak. “What do you know of Hodon?”

“I know that he was going to kill me, but I ran away.”

“Where is Hodon?” demanded Ghak.

“He and David and O-aa are in the cave. The sabertooth men are waiting to eat them.”

“What cave? Where is it?” asked Ghak.

“If I told you, you’d take me back there and Hodon would kill me,” said the old man.

“If you lead us to where David and Hodon are, no one will kill you. I promise you that,” Ghak assured him.

“And you’ll see that I get plenty to eat?”

“All you can hold.”

“Then follow me, but look out for the sabertooths; they will eat you all unless you kill them.”

O-AA LOOKED VERY wan and weak. Hodon looked at her and tears almost came to his eyes; then he spoke to David.

“David,” he said, “perhaps I have done wrong. I have hoarded my ration of food, eating only half of it.”

“It was yours to do with as you wished,” said David. “We shall not take it from you.”

“I do not want it,” said Hodon. “I saved it for O-aa, and now she needs it.”

O-aa looked up and smiled. “I hoarded mine too, Hodon,” she said. “I saved it for you. Here it is.” She took a little package of food wrapped in the large leaves that grew over the mouth of the cave and handed it to Hodon.

David walked to the mouth of the cave and looked out down the little canyon; but everything was blurred, as though he were looking through a mist.

Hodon knelt beside O-aa. “A woman would do that only for the man she loved,” he said.

O-aa nodded and crept into his arms. “But I have not killed Blug,” said Hodon.

O-aa drew his lips down to hers.

“What will your brother and sister say?” asked Hodon.

“I have no brother or sister,” said O-aa.

Hodon held her so tight that she gasped for breath.

Presently the mist cleared, and David could see quite plainly. He saw sabertooths who had been outside the canyon running in. They were jabbering excitedly. Then he saw human warriors approaching, warriors who carried muskets. There were many of them. When the sabertooths charged them, they were mowed down by a ragged volley. The noise was terrific, and clouds of black smoke filled the mouth of the canyon.

At the noise of the muskets, O-aa and Hodon ran to the mouth of the cave.

“Ghak has come,” said David. “Now everything is all right.”

It was well that he was to have a brief interlude of happiness before he returned to Sari.

PART II:

MEN OF THE BRONZE AGE

I

WHEN THE LAST of the sabertooth men had been killed or had fled, David, Hodon, and O-aa joined Ghak and his warriors. Immediately, Hodon espied the little old man and advanced upon him.

“I kill,” said Hodon.

The little old man screamed and hid behind Ghak. “You promised that you would not let Hodon kill me,” he whimpered, “if I guided you here.”

“I shall keep my promise,” said Ghak. “Leave the man alone, Hodon! What has he done that you should want to kill him?”

“He tried to kill O-aa; so that he could eat her,” replied Hodon.

“I was not going to keep her all for myself,” whined the old man; “I was going to share her with Hodon and David.”

“Who is this old man,” demanded Ghak, “who says that his name is not Dolly Dorcas?”

“He was a prisoner of the sabertooth men,” said David. “I think he is a little crazy.”

“He led me here,” said Ghak; “so you have him to thank for your rescue. Do not harm him. What does he mean by saying his name is not Dolly Dorcas?”

“He told us,” explained David, “that he was wrecked on a ship named the Dolly Dorcas near the North Pole of the outer world from which I come; then, in a small boat, he drifted through the North Polar Opening into Pellucidar. O-aa got things a little mixed and thought his name was Dolly Dorcas.”’

“He ate all the men that were in the boat with him,” said O-aa; “and he said that when they were all gone, he was about to cut off one of his own legs and eat that, when he found food. He is a very hungry man.”

“I do not see how he could eat anybody,” said Ghak; “he has no teeth.”

“You’d be surprised,” said the little old man.

“Well, you…What is your name anyway, if it isn’t Dolly Dorcas?” demanded Ghak.

“I don’t remember,” said the old man.

“Well, then, we shall just call you Ah-gilak; and that will be your name.” (Ah-gilak means in Pellucidarian, old man.)

“Well,” said the little old man, “at least Ah-gilak is a better name for a man than Dolly Dorcas.”

“And remember this, Ah-gilak,” continued Ghak, “if you ever try to eat anybody again, I’ll let Hodon kill you.

“Some of them were very good eating,” sighed Ah-gilak, reminiscently, “especially that Swede.”

“Let us go the village of Kali now,” said David. “O-aa, Hodon, and I must have food. We nearly starved to death in that cave. Then I shall send a runner north to the eaves where Oose and the remnants of his people are hiding, after which we will go down to the Lural Az, where your ships lie, Ghak, and embark for home; if you feel that you have taught the Suvians their lessons sufficiently well.”

Between the canyon and the village of Kali, they saw a party of men coming from the north. At sight of so many armed warriors, these people turned to flee; but O-aa called to them, “Come back! It is all right; these are our friends;” then she said to Ghak, “those are my people; I recognized my father, the king of Kali.”

When the newcomers approached more closely, Hodon saw the Blug was with Oose; and he went and put his arm around O-aa. When Blug saw that, he ran forward.

“I told you that if you were around here when I came back, I’d kill you,” he shouted.

“Go away!” said O-aa. “Hodon is my mate.”

“What is that?” demanded Oose, her father. “I told you you were to mate with Blug, and I meant it; Blug shall have you.”

“I kill!” shouted Blug, as he bore down on Hodon.

The Sarian met him with a clean right to the chin, and Blug dropped in his tracks. The Sarian warriors yelled in delight; but Blug was up in an instant, and this time he managed to clinch. The two men fell to the ground, fighting like a couple of wild cats. It was not a pretty fight, as the Marquis of Queensberry was entirely unknown to these men of the Stone Age. They gouged and bit and scratched, as Blug tried to fasten his teeth in Hodon’s jugular.

They were both covered with blood, and one of Blug’s eyes was hanging out on his cheek, when Hodon espied a rock lying near at hand. He happened to be on top for the moment; and, seizing the rock, he raised it high and brought it down with all his strength full on Blug’s face.

Blug had never been beautiful; but without any features to speak of left, and those scrambled, he was something of a sight. Hodon raised the rock and struck again; the third time, Blug relaxed and lay still; but Hodon did not stop striking him until his whole head was a jelly; then he stood up.

He looked at Oose. “O-aa is my mate,” he said.

Oose looked down at Blug. “Blug is not much good any more,” he said. “If O-aa wants you she may have you.”

They looked around, then, for O-aa. She had disappeared. “It has always been thus,” said Hodon. “Three times I have fought for her, and three times she has run away while I was fighting.”

“When you catch her, you should beat her,” said Oose.

“I will,” said Hodon.

He searched for O-aa for a long time, but he did not find her; then he came to the village of Kali, where his fellow Sarians were eating and resting.

When David Innes had rested sufficiently, the Sarians bid the Kalians farewell and departed for their ships, which lay off the coast forty miles away.

Hodon went with them. He was very sad, for he thought that O-aa had run away from him because she did not really wish to be his mate.

And O-aa? When she had seen Blug get his arms around Hodon, and the two men had fallen to the ground, she had known that Hodon would be killed; so she had run away, rather than remain and mate with Blug. She started south, intending to find Sari, which lay eight hundred miles away. She knew that she had a long journey before her and that the chances were quite remote that she would survive all the innumerable dangers of the way; but, with Hodon dead, she did not care much.

She was a cave girl, and death was such a familiar occurrence in her life that she did not fear it particularly. Early man must have been a fatalist; otherwise he would have gone crazy from fear. O-aa was a fatalist. She said to herself, “If the tarag, or the thipdar, or Ta-ho happened to meet me at just the right time and place, I shall be killed. Whatever they and I are doing now must lead up to that moment when we meet or do not meet; nothing can change it.” That is the way she felt; so she did not worry-but she kept her eyes and her ears open, just the same.

O-aa had never been to Sari, but she knew that it lay inland from the Lural Az and that between Kali and Sari there were a few tribes which belonged to the Federation and would be friendly to her. She would follow along the shore of the Lural Az until she found one of these tribes, and then she could get better directions for the remainder of her journey.

She knew that David Innes and the other Sarians would soon be going down to the sea and their ships, but she wanted to avoid them for fear that they would send her back to her father and Blug; so she went quite a distance south before she turned toward the east and the Lural Az, that great body of uncharted water, teeming with giant saurians, such as ruled the Cretaceous seas in the Mesozoic period of the outer crust. O-aa was a hill girl and was afraid of the great sea, but no less terrible were the dangers that threatened her on land.

And as O-aa came down to the sea of which she was so afraid, eyes watched her from the concealment of bushes that she was approaching.

ABNER PERRY WAS a broken man; he could neither eat nor sleep, for he knew that it was his own culpable carelessness that had tossed Dian the Beautiful to the mercy of the winds on high. He had dispatched three runners to try to follow the course of the drifting balloon; but he held too little hope that, should they find it when it came to earth, they would find Dian alive: cold, hunger, and thirst would long since have taken their grim toll of her strength. For the first time in his life, Abner Perry seriously considered taking his own life.

Dian the Beautiful had been mildly surprised by the sudden upward rush of the balloon, but she had not guessed what it portended until she looked down over the edge of the basket and saw the end of the rope which had secured the balloon to the windlass dangling high above the village of Sari.

Dian the Beautiful is a cave girl of the Stone Age. She knew nothing about balloons other than what she had gathered from Abner Perry while he was building this one. Only in a vague way did she know what made it go up in the air. She knew nothing about ripcords, and so she did not realize that once again Perry had blundered; he had neglected to equip the balloon with this safety device.

Had she known more about balloonery, she would have known that she might have climbed the suspension lines to the net and cut a hole in the gas bag with her dagger, letting the gas escape. But Dian the Beautiful did not know this; and so she watched her friends shrink to tiny dots far below; and eventually, with the village of Sari, disappear in the distance.

Dian knew that the sun was a ball of fire; and so she was surprised to discover that the closer she got to the sun, the colder she became. It didn’t make sense, and it upset a theory that was as old as the human race in Pellucidar. But then the balloon upset some long-standing theories, too. She knew that the basket and the peritonea of dinosaurs, of which the gas bag was fabricated, were far too heavy to sail up into the air. Why they should do so was beyond her; so she decided that it was because Perry could do anything.

The prevailing winds of Pellucidar blow, generally, from the north to south for half the outer-Earthly year and from south to north the other half, depending upon whether it is winter at one Pole or the other. The wind that carried Dian away from Sari was blowing in a southwesterly direction and bearing her toward Thuria, The Land of Awful Shadow.

Beneath the eternal noonday sun, the surface temperature of Pellucidar is usually high, requiring of her inhabitants a minimum of clothing; so Dian’s costume was scanty to a degree. A bit of skin, caught with a rawhide throng across one shoulder, hung gracefully and becomingly in a long point to below her knees in one place, leaving one well-shaped leg entirely bare almost to her waist. It had been designed with as much subtlety as the finest creation of a French couturier, to accentuate and reveal, to hide and intrigue; but it had not been designed for great altitudes. Dian was cold.

Dian was hungry and thirsty, too; but there were neither food nor drink in this new world into which she had soared; so she did what Pellucidarians usually do when they are hungry and cannot obtain food-she lay down and slept. This conserves energy and prolongs life; it also gives one some respite from the gnawing of hunger and the pangs of thirst.

Dian did not know how long she slept, but when she awoke she was over The Land of Awful Shadow. She was in shadow herself, and now it was very cold. Above her was the Dead World, as the Pellucidarians call it, that tiny satellite of Pellucidar’s sun that, revolving coincidentally with the rotation of the Earth, remained constantly in a fixed position above that part of the inner world known as The Land of Awful Shadow. Below her was Thuria, which lies partially within the shadow, and, to her right, the Lidi Plains where the Thurians graze and train their gigantic saddle animals, the huge diplodocuses of the Upper Jurassic, which they call lidi.

The greater cold had awakened Dian, and now she was suffering from that and from hunger and from thirst. Hope had left her, for she knew that she must soon die; and she thought that her dead body would continue to float around above Pellucidar forever.

When the balloon emerged again into sunlight, Dian lay down and slept; and, from exhaustion, she must have slept a long time, for when she awoke she was above the nameless strait that extends for a thousand miles or more and connects the Sojar Az with the Korsar Az. She knew what it was, for it bounds the southwestern portion of the continent on which Sari lies-beyond it was the terra incognita of her people, and no man knew what lay in that land of mystery.

The strait is about two hundred miles wide at the point at which Dian was crossing it; and the land curving gently upward around her, gave her such a range of vision that she could see the opposite shore.

Even in her hopelessness she could not but be impressed by the fact that she was looking upon a new world, the first of all her people to set eyes upon it. It gave her a little thrill, in which, possibly, was something of terror.

Her absorption was broken in upon by a hissing sound that came from above and behind her. Turning and looking up, she saw that terror of the Pellucidarian skies-a giant thipdar circling above the gas bag. The body of this huge pterodactyl measures some forty feet in length, while its bat-like wings have a spread of fully thirty feet. Its mighty jaws are armed with long, sharp teeth and its claws are equipped with horrible talons.

As a rule it attacks anything in sight. If it attacked the gas bag and ripped it open, Dian would be plummeted into the water below. She was helpless; she could only watch the terrible creature circling about the balloon and listen to its angry hisses.

The gas bag had the thipdar baffled. It paid no attention to him, but floated on serenely; it neither tried to escape nor give battle. What was the thing, anyway? He wondered if it were good to eat; and to find out, he gave it a tentative nip. Instantly some foul smelling stuff blew into his nostrils. He hissed angrily, and flew off a short distance; then he wheeled and came screaming toward the gas bag again.

Dian tried to think only of David, as one might concentrate on prayer who knew the end was near.

II

O-AA, ALWAYS ALERT to danger, nevertheless was not aware of the man hiding in the bushes. He was a large man with broad shoulders, a deep chest, and mighty forearms and biceps. He wore a loin cloth, made of the feathers of birds-yellow feathers with two transverse bars of red feathers. It was artistic and striking. He had rings in his ears; they were made of fish bone. A few strands of his hair were braided and made into a small knot at the top of the back of his head; into this knot were stuck three long, yellow feathers barred with red. He carried a stone knife and a spear tipped with the tooth of a huge shark. His features were strong and regular; he was a handsome man, and he was suntanned to a golden bronze.

As O-aa came opposite him, he leaped from his concealment and seized her by the hair; then he started to drag her through the bushes down toward the beach. He soon found that that was not so easy as he had hoped. Dragging O-aa was like dragging a cat with hydrophobia; O-aa didn’t drag worth a cent. She pulled back; she bit; she scratched; she kicked; and when she wasn’t biting, she was emitting a stream of vitriolic vituperation that would have done credit to Pegler when on the subject of Mr. Brown.

Cave people of the Stone Age are of few words and short tempers; the prehistoric Adonis who was dragging O-aa along by the hair was no exception that proved the rule; he was wholly orthodox. After a couple of bites, he raised his spear and clunked O-aa on the head with, the haft of it; and O-aa took the full count. Then he swung her across one shoulder and trotted down to the beach, where a canoe was drawn up on the sand. He dumped O-aa into it and then pulled it out into the water.

He held it against the incoming rollers; and at precisely the psychological moment, he leaped in and paddled strongly. The light craft rose on the next roller, dove into the trough beyond, and O-aa was launched upon the great sea she so greatly feared.

When she recovered consciousness her heart sank. The canoe was leaping about boisterously, and land was already far away. The man sat upon the deck of the tapering stern and paddled with a very broad, flat paddle. O-aa appraised him furtively. She noted and appreciated his pulchritude at the same time that she was seeking to formulate a plan for killing him.

She also examined the canoe. It was about twenty feet long, with a three foot beam; it was decked over fore and aft for about six feet, leaving an eight foot cockpit; transverse booms were lashed across it at each end of the cockpit, protruding outboard about four feet on either side; lashed to the underside of the ends of these booms was a twenty foot length of bamboo, about six inches in diameter, running parallel with the craft on each side, the whole constituting a double outrigger canoe. It was a clumsy craft to handle, but it was uncapsizable; even O-aa, who knew nothing about boats or seas, could see that; and she felt reassured. She would have been even more reassured had she known that the compartments beneath the two decks were watertight and that in addition to this, they held fresh water in bamboo containers and a quantity of food.

The man saw that she had regained consciousness. “What is your name?” he asked.

“My name is O-aa,” she snapped; “I am the daughter of a king. When my mate, my father, and my seven brothers learn of this, they will come and kill you.”

The man laughed. “My name is La-ak,” he said. “I live on the Island of Canda. I have six wives; you will be the seventh. With seven wives I shall be a very important man; our chief has only seven. I came to the mainland to get another wife; I did not have to look long, did I?” Again he laughed.

“I will not mate with you,” O-aa snapped.

Once again La-ak laughed. “You will be glad to,” he said, “after my other six wives teach you how to behave that is, you will if you live through it; they will not stand for any foolishness. They have already killed two women whom I brought home, who refused to become my wives. In my country no man may take a mate without her consent. I think it is a very foolish custom; but it is an old one, and we have to abide by it.”

“You had better take me back to the mainland,” said O-aa, “for I will not mate with you; and I shall certain kill some of your wives before they kill me; then you will be worse off than you are now.”

He looked at her for a long time before he spoke again, “I believe you,” he said; “but you are very beautiful, and I do not intend to be cheated of you entirely. What happens in this canoe, no one in Canda will ever know, for I’ll throw you overboard before we get there,” then he laid down his paddle and came toward her.

DAVID INNES, HODON, and the little old man, Ah-gilak, boarded the ship of Ghak the Hairy One; and when all of the other warriors had boarded this and the other ships, the fleet set sail.

Ah-gilak looked around him with a critical and contemptuous eye. “Dod-burn it” he ejaculated. “What dod-burned landlubber built this tub? There ain’t a gol-durned thing right about her. I reckon as how she’d sail sidewise just as well as she would ahead! an’ a lateen sail!” he added, disgustedly. “Now, you should have saw the Dolly Dorcas; there was a sweet ship.”

Ghak the Hairy One glared at him with a dangerous gleam in his eye, for Ghak was proud of every ship in the Navy of the Empire of Pellucidar. They were the first ships he had ever seen and they carried the first sails; to him they were the last word in perfection and modernity. Abner Perry had designed them; did this little, toothless runt think he could do better than Abner Perry? With a great, hairy hand Ghak seized Ah-gilak by the beard.

“Wait!” cautioned David. “I think Ah-gilak knows what he is talking about. He sailed ships on the outer Earth. Perry never did. Perry did the best he could down here, with no knowledge of ship design and no one to help him who had ever seen a ship before. He would be the first to welcome some one who could help us build a better navy. I think we can use Ah-gilak after we get home.”

Ghak reluctantly released Ah-gilak’s beard. “He talks too much,” he said, and, turning, walked away.

“If I hadn’t been wrecked in the Arctic and washed down into this dod-burned world,” said Ah-gilak, “I would probably have commanded the fastest clipper ship in the world today. I was aimin’ for to build it just as soon as I got back to Cape Cod.”

“Clipper ship!” said David. “There aren’t any more clipper ships. I don’t suppose there’s been one built in more than fifty years.”

“Why, dod-burn you,” exclaimed Ah-gilak; “they hadn’t been building ‘em more’n five year when the Dolly Dorcas went down-let’s see; that was 1845.”

David Innes looked at him in amazement. “Are you sure of that date?” he demanded.

“Sure as I am that I’m standin’ here, as the feller said,” replied Ah-gilak.

“How old were you when the Dolly Dorcas was lost?” asked David.

“I was forty years old. I can always remember, because my birthday was the same as President Tyler’s. He would have been fifty-five on March 29th, 1845, if he lived; an’ I was just fifteen years younger than him. They was talkin’ about a feller named Polk runnin’ for President when we sailed.”

“Do you know how old you are now?” asked David.

“Well, I sort o’ lost track o’ time down here in this dod-burned world; but I reckon I must be close to sixty.”

“Not very close,” said David; “you’re a hundred and fifty-three.”

“Well, of all the dod-burned liars, you sure take the cake! A hundred an’ fifty-three! God an’ Gabriel! Do I look a hundred an’ fifty-three?”

“No,” said David; “I’d say that you don’t look a day over a hundred and fifty.”

The old man looked at David disgustedly. “I ain’t mentionin’ no names,” he said; “but some folks ain’t got no more sense than a white pine dog with a poplar tail, as the feller said”; then he turned and walked away.

Hodon had been listening to the conversation; but he knew nothing about years or ages, and he wondered what it all meant. Anyway, he would not have been much interested, had he; for he was thinking of 0-aa, and wondering where she was. He was sorry now that he had not stayed on shore and searched for her.

The flag ship of the little fleet of three ships was called Amoz in honor of Dian the Beautiful, who came from the land of Amoz. It was crowded with five hundred warriors. It had eight guns, four on a side, on a lower deck. There were solid shot, chain shot, and shells for each of the guns, all of which were muzzle loading. They had to be run back on crude wooden tracks to load, and then run forward again, with their muzzles sticking out of port holes to fire; they were the pride of the Navy.

The sailors who manned the Amoz and the other ships were copper colored Mezops from the Anoroc Islands; and the Admiral of the Fleet was Ja, King of Anoroc. The lateen sail of the Amoz was enormous; it required the combined strength of fifty husky Mezops to raise it. Like the gas bag of Perry’s balloon and the fabric of his late aeroplane, it was made of the peritonea of dinosaurs. This was one of Perry’s prime discoveries, for there were lots of dinosaurs and their peritonea were large and tough. Habitually, they objected to giving them up; so it was quite an exciting job collecting peritonea, for dinosaurs such as carry A-1 peritonea are large, ferocious, and ill-mannered.

The fleet had been under way for but a short time, when Ah-gilak, casting a weather eye about from long habit, discovered a cloud astern. “We’re a-goin’ to have a blow,” he said to Ja, and pointed.

Ja looked and nodded. “Yes,” he said, and gave orders to shorten sail.

The cloud was not very large when it was first discovered, but it was undeniably a wind cloud. As it came closer, it grew in extent; and it became black. Ragged shreds of it whipped ahead. Around the ship was a sudden, deadly calm.

“We’re a-goin’ to have more ‘n a gale. That there looks like a dod-burned hurricane.”

Now there was a sudden gust of wind that made the sagging sail flap angrily. Ja had ordered it close reefed; and the Mezops were battling with the whipping peritonea, as the wind increased in violence.

And now the storm was upon them. Rolling black clouds shut out the eternal sun, lightning flashed, and thunder roared; rain began to fall-not in drops or sheets, but in solid masses. The wind wailed and shrieked like some ferocious demon of destruction. Men clung to the ship’s rails, to one another, to anything that they could lay hands on to keep from being blown overboard.

David Innes went among them, ordering them below; at last only the Mezop sailors and a few Sarians remained on the upper deck-they and the little old man, Ah-gilak. Innes and Ghak and Hodon clustered behind Ja and Ah-gilak. The little old man was in his element.

“I bin wrecked seven times,” he shrieked above the storm, “an’ I can be wrecked again, as the feller said; an’ dod-burn it if I don’t think I’m goin’ to be.”

The sea had risen, and the waves were growing constantly in immensity. The clumsy, overloaded ship wallowed out of one great sea only to be half swallowed by another.

So dark was it and so thick the rain that neither of the other ships could be seen. David was fearful for the safety of the little Sari; in fact, he was fearful for the fate of all three of the ships if the storm did not abate soon or if it increased in violence. As though possessed of sardonic humor, the hurricane raged even more violently while the thought was yet in David’s mind.

The Amoz rose upon the crest of a watery mountain to plunge into a watery abyss. The men clung to whatever they could as the ship buried its nose deep in the sea; and a huge, following wave combed over the stern, submerging them.

David thought it was the end. He knew that the ship would never rise again from beneath those tons of raging water, yet still he clung to the thing he had seized. Slowly, ponderously, like some gigantic beast trying to drag itself from quick-sand, the Amoz, staggered up, shaking the water from its deck.

“Dod-burne me!” screamed Ah-gilak; “but this is a sweet ship. It didn’t take half that sea to swamp the Dolly Dorcas, and I thought she was a sweet ship. Well live and learn, as the feller said.”

There were not as many men on the deck as there had been. David wondered how many of the poor devils had been lost. He looked at those about him; Ghak, and Ja, and Hondon, and Ah-gilak were all there.

David looked up at the waves as they towered above the ship, and he looked down into the abysses as the ship started down from the crest. “Seventy feet,” he said, half to himself; “a good seventy feet.”

Suddenly Ah-gilak yelled, “Make fast there an’ say your prayers!”

David glanced astern. The most stupendous wave he had ever seen trembled above them-hundreds of tons of water poised to crush the ship; then it camel.

DIAN THE BEAUTIFUL awaited the end with supreme indifference; she had reached the limit of human endurance; but she was not afraid. In fact, she was just a little fascinated by the situation, and wondered whether the screaming thipdar winging toward her was coming for her or the gas bag-not that it would make much difference to her in the end.

Suddenly the giant pterodactyl veered to one side, and rushed past. Dian watched it as it soared away, waiting for it to turn and renew the attack; but it did not return. it had finally discovered something of which it was afraid.

Dian looked down over the edge of the basket. She could see the land beyond the strait quite plainly now; she seemed to be much lower, and wondered. She did not know that the gas was leaking from the balloon where the thipdar had nipped it.

It was some time before she realized the truth-that the balloon was actually descending; and now she had something more to worry about: would it reach the shore, or would it come down in the water? If the latter, she would make food for some saurian; or for a horde of them that would tear her to pieces.

And on the land a short distance back from the shore she saw an amazing sight for Pellucidar-a city, a walled city. She would not have known what it was had David not told her of the cities of his world. Well, she might be about as well off among the saurians as among strange human beings. There was little choice, but upon reflection she hoped that the balloon reached the land before it came down.

It was quite low now, and the land was still a good half mile away. She tried to gauge the relation between its drop and its horizontal progress toward the land. She looked down over the edge of the basket and saw that the rope was already dragging in the water. The rope was five hundred feet long. After a part of the rope was submerged the balloon didn’t seem to drop any more; but its progress toward land was also retarded, as it dragged the submerged rope through the water. However, it appeared now that it would reach the land first. I Dian was congratulating herself on this as she peered down into the strait when she saw the head of a creature which she knew as an aztarag, or tiger of the sea, break the water near the trailing rope.

She was congratulating herself upon the fact that she was not down there, when the creature seized the rope in its mighty jaws and started for the center of the strait.

This was too much! Tired, hungry, thirsty, and exhausted, though no longer cold, Dian almost broke down. With an effort she kept back the tears for now there was no hope.

But was there one! If she could cut the rope, the balloon would be freed; and would continue on toward shore. Relieved of the weight of five hundred feet of heavy rope, it would certainly drift far inland before it came down, But she couldn’t reach the rope; it was fastened to the underneath side of the basket.

There must be some way! She drew her stone knife and commenced to hack at the wickerwork of the basket’s floor. At last she had a hole large enough to get her arm through. Feeling around, she found the large rope. It was attached to the basket by many smaller ropes which ran to the periphery of the basket’s bottom.

Dian commenced to saw on these smaller ropes. She could see through the hole in the bottom of the basket, and she saw that the balloon was being rapidly dragged toward the water-the aztarag had sounded and was pulling the balloon down behind it!

The girl worked frantically, for once the basket was submerged she would be lost-the sea beneath her was alive with hungry creatures. She saw a gigantic shark just below her; it thrust its snout out of water; and she could almost touch it, as the last rope parted.

Instantly the balloon leaped into the air, and once more started its precarious and seemingly endless journey toward the mysterious world beyond the nameless strait.

III

AS O-AA SAW La-ak coming toward her she stood up. “Go back to your paddle,” she said, “or I will jump overboard.”

La-ak hesitated; for he guessed, rightly, that the girl meant what she said; furthermore, he knew that eventually she must sleep; then he could overpower her. “You are a fool,” he said, as he resumed his paddle; “one lives but once.”

“O-aa lives in her own way,” retorted the girl.

She sat facing the stern; so that she might watch La-ak. She saw his spear lying beside him; she saw the dagger at his hip. These were instruments of escape, but she could not get them. She glanced around over the great sea that she so feared. Very, very dimly, through the haze of distance, she thought that she could see the mainland; elsewhere there was no sign of land-just the vast expanse of blue water rolling gradually upward in the distance to merge with the blue sky that arched over them and down again to merge with the blue water again on the opposite side. To her left she saw a little cloud, far away. It meant nothing to O-aa, who was a hill girl and consequently less cloud conscious than those who live much upon the sea.

Astern, she saw something else-a long, slender neck toppled by a hideous head with great-fanged jaws. Occasionally she caught a glimpse of a sleek, seal-like body rising momentarily above the slow ground swells. She knew this thing as a ta-ho-az, or a sea lion. It was not the harmless, playful creature that sports in the waters of our own Pacific Ocean; but a terrible engine of destruction whose ravenous appetite was never satisfied.

The fearsome creature was gliding smoothly through the water toward the canoe. That long neck would arch over the gunwale and snatch either La-ak or herself, probably both; or the creature would place a giant flipper on the craft and capsize or swamp it. O-aa thought quickly. She wished to be saved from La-ak, but not at the risk of her own life, if that comfortable circumstance could be avoided.

She stood up and pointed, taking a couple of steps toward La-ak as she did so. “Look!” she cried.

La-ak turned to look behind him, and as he did so O-aa sprang forward and seized his spear; then she thrust it with all her strength into the body of La-ak beneath his left shoulder.

With a scream of agony and rage, La-ak tried to turn upon her; but O-aa held to the end of the spear’s haft; and when La-ak turned, the sharp shark’s tooth with which the spear was tipped, tore into his heart. Thus died La-ak of the Island of Canda.

O-aa looked back at the ta-ho-az. It was approaching, but leisurely; as though it was quite sure that its quarry could not escape, and consequently saw no occasion for haste.

O-aa looked at the pretty yellow and red feather loin cloth on the body of La-ak and at the feathers in his hair. These she had admired greatly; so she removed them, after jerking the spear from the dead man; and then she rolled the naked body of La-ak over the stern of the canoe, after which she picked up the paddle; and with strong, if clumsy, strokes sent the craft ahead.

She glanced back often to see what the ta-ho-az was doing; and at last, to her relief, she saw that it was doing what she had hoped it would do-it had stopped to devour the body of La-ak. This, she guessed, would occupy it for some time; since, though its jaws were enormous, its neck was slender; and it must necessarily nibble rather than gulp.

O-aa had never handled a paddle before, which is not strange, since never before had she been in a boat of any description; but she had watched La-ak; and now she did remarkably well, considering her ignorance and clumsiness of the craft.

She was hungry, thirsty, and sleepy, and, as now she had lost sight of all land and had no idea in which direction to paddle, she decided that it would be foolish to paddle at all; since, there being so many different directions, and the nearest land being in one direction only, the chances were all in favor of her paddling in a wrong direction. It would be much pleasanter just to drift with the wind.

Of course she was endowed with that homing instinct that is the common heritage of all Pellucidarians to compensate them for lack of heavenly bodies to guide them, but out here on this vast expanse of water in an environment so totally unfamiliar, for the first time in her life she did not trust it.

The little cloud that she had seen had grown to a big cloud, and was coming nearer. O-aa looked at it and thought that it was going to rain, for which she would be thankful; since it would give her water to drink; then she turned her attention to other things.

She had noticed that there was one plank in the after deck where La-ak had sat that didn’t seem to fit as well as the others; and though it was a trivial thing, she had wondered at it. It had suggested something to her-that no one would come out upon this great ocean without food or water. Now she investigated; for O-aa, as you may have gathered, was no fool; and she found that the board, skillfully grooved on both edges, pulled out, revealing a large compartment beneath. In this compartment were extra weapons, fishhooks, lines, nets, bamboo water containers, and smoked meats and dried fruits and vegetables.

O-aa ate and drank her fill; then, she lay down to sleep, while the great, black cloud billowed toward her, and the lightning flashed and the thunder boomed. O-aa slept the dreamless sleep of utter exhaustion plus a full and contented stomach.

DAVID WAS SURE THAT the Amoz was doomed, as he saw the giant wave curling above her stern; then it broke over them, crushing them to the deck, tearing at them to break their holds on the supports to which they clung, driving the prow of the ship deep into the sea.

Not a man there but knew she could never recover from this blow; but, she did. Rolling and wallowing she slowly emerged; and as the water sluiced from her deck, David saw the little old man going with it toward the bow, and he lunged after him.

The mast had gone, leaving only a stump, around which was tangled cordage and a section of the sail, that had fouled and ripped away. just as he reached this, David caught the little old man by one ankle; then, as he himself was being washed toward the stern, he managed to seize hold of the cordage and retain his hold until the last of the water had gone over the side.

He thought that a man one hundred and fifty-three years old could never recover from such a shock; and he was about to pick him up and carry him back, when Ah-gilak scrambled to his feet.

“Dad-burn it!” ejaculated the old man, “I durn near got my feet wet that time, as the feller said.”

“Are you all right?” David asked.

“Never felt so fit in my life,” replied Ah-gilak. “Say, you come after me, didn’t you? Why, you dod-burned fool, you might have been washed overboard.” That was all he ever said about it.

That last wave marked the height of the storm. The wind continued to blow a gale, but the hurricane was past. The sea still ran high, but was diminishing. After what the Amoz had withstood, she seemed safe enough now. With no headway, she wallowed in the trough of the sea; often standing on her beam ends, but always righting herself.

“It’d take a dod-burned act of Congress to upset this tub,” said Ah-gilak. “You can’t sail her, an’ you can’t steer her; but, by gum, you can’t wreck her; an’ if I’d a had her instead o’ the Dolly Dorcas I wouldn’t be down here now in this dod-burned hole-in-the-ground, but back in Cape Cod, probably votin’ for John Tyler again, or some other good Democrat.

David went below, at the risk of life and limb, to see how the men there had fared. With the coming of the storm, they had closed all ports, and fastened the guns down more securely. Fortunately, none of them had broken loose; and there were only a few minor casualties among the men, from being thrown about during the wild pitching of the ship.

The Mezop sailors above had not fared so well; all but twenty-five of them had been washed overboard. And the boats were gone, the mast was gone, and most of the sail. The Amoz was pretty much of a derelict. Neither of the other ships was in sight; and David had given them both up for lost, especially the little Sari.

Their situation looked rather hopeless to these men of the Stone Age. “If the boats hadn’t been lost,” said Ghak, “some of us could get ashore.”

“Why can’t we break up the deck and build a raft-several of them?” suggested Hodon. “We could paddle rafts to shore, but we couldn’t ever paddle the Amoz.”

“You dod-burned landlubbers give me a pain,” snorted Ah-gilak. “We got the stub of a mast, part of the sail, and plenty cordage; we can jury rig the dod-durned tub, an’ get to shore twice as fast an’ ten times as easy as buildin’ rafts an’ paddlin’. Give me some hands, an’ I’ll have her shipshape in two shakes of a dead lamb’s tail, as the feller said. How fer is to port?”

David shrugged. “That depends on how far the hurricane carried us and in what direction. We may be fifty miles from port, or we may be five hundred. Your guess would be better than mine.”

“How’s the fresh water?” demanded Ah-gilak.

“We’ve enough for many sleeps,” said Ja.

“Dod-burn it!” cried the old man; “how in tarnation’s a fellow goin’ to do any figurin’ with a bunch of landlubbers that ain’t never knowed what time it was they was born.”

“On the contrary,” said David, “they always know what time it is.”

“How come?” demanded Ah-gilak.

“It is always noon.”

Ah-gilak snorted. He was in no mood for persiflage. “Well,” he said, “we’ll do the dod-burndest best we can. We may run short of water, but we got plenty food,” he cast his eyes on the warriors coming up from the lower deck.

O-AA WAS AWAKENED by the pitching of the canoe, and opened her eyes to see a wall of water towering above her. She lay in a watery canyon, with another wall of water hemming her in on the other side. This was a harrowing situation that was quite beyond her experience; nothing could save her; one of the walls would topple over on her. But nothing of the kind happened, Instead, the wall came down; and the canoe was lifted to the summit of one just like it. Here, O-aa could see a tumbling mass of wind torn water as far as the eye could reach. The sky was black with angry, rolling clouds that were split by vivid flashes of lightning to the accompaniment of peals of earth shaking thunder. The wind howled and shrieked in a fury of malign hate. Then the canoe sank into another canyon.

This went on and on; there seemed to be no end to it. The cockpit was half full of water; but La-ak had built well-the canoe could neither capsize nor sink and it was so light that it rode the crest of even the most mountainous waves; nothing short of a bolt of lightning could destroy it. This, however, O-aa did not know; she thought that each wave would be the last, as far as she was concerned; but as wave after wave lifted her upon its crest and then dropped her into a new abyss that was exactly like the last one, she took courage; until presently she was enjoying the experience. O-aa had never been on a roller coaster; but she was getting the same sort of thrill out of this experience; and it lasted much longer, and she didn’t have to buy any tickets.

THE SARI, BEING a lighter ship than either of the other two, was blown along before the hurricane much faster; also, as it carried a much smaller sail, its mast did not go by the board as quickly as had that of the Amoz. The third ship had lost its mast even before that of the Amoz had gone; so when the wind abated a little, the Sari, while also by this time a demasted derelict, was far ahead of her sister ships.

Having but a single, open deck, she had lost most of her complement; but she was still staunch of frame and timber-for Perry and David had built her well, much better than the first ship Perry had designed, and for which she was named, which had turned bottomside up at its launching.

The continuing gale, which persisted after the worst of the hurricane had past, was blowing the Sari merrily along to what fate or what destination no man knew. The survivors were only glad that they were alive; like most men of the Stone Age, they had no questions to ask of the future, the present being their only immediate concern; though, belying that very assertion, they did catch what rain water they could to augment the supply already aboard.

The deck of the Sari was still a more or less precarious resting place, when one of the Mezops sighted something floating dead ahead. He called his companions’ attention to it, and several of them worked their way around the rail to have a look at what he had discovered.

Now, anything floating on this lonely sea was worthy of remark; it was not like the waters off the coast of California, where half the deck loads of Oregon lumbermen bob around to menace navigation and give the Coast Guard the jitters.

“It’s a canoe,” said Ko, the big Mezop who had discovered it.

“Is there anyone in it?” asked Raj, the captain of the Sari and a chief among the Mezops.

“Wait until it comes up again,” said Ko.

“It must be a wonderful canoe, to have lived through such a storm,” said Raj.

“It had a most peculiar look,” said Ko. “Here it comes again! I think I see someone in it.”

“It is a strange canoe,” said Raj. “There are things sticking out from its sides,”

“I once saw one like it,” said another Mezop; “perhaps many thousand sleeps ago. It was blown to our island with a man who said that he came from an island called Canda, far out on the Lural Az. The canoe had bamboo floats on either side of it. It could not capsize. It had watertight compartments; so it could not sink. We killed the man. I think this canoe is from Canda.”

Presently the Sari, which presented a larger surface to the wind than the canoe, overhauled it. O-aa was watching it. Having heard about the great ships of the Sarians from Hodon and David, she guessed that this must be one of them; and she was not afraid. Here was rescue, if she could get aboard. She waved to the men looking over the rail at her.

“It is a girl,” said Raj. “Get a rope; we will try to get her aboard.”

“She is from Canda,” said the sailor who had seen the man from Canda, “she wears the same feather loin cloth that the man from Canda wore. We had better let her drown.”

“No,” said Raj; “she is a girl.” just what were the implications of this statement, you may guess as well as I. Raj was a man of the Stone Age; so, in many respects he was probably far more decent than men of the civilized outer world; but he was still a man.

One of the outriggers of the canoe bumped against the side of the Sari just as Ko threw a rope to O-aa. The girl seized it as the ship heeled over to starboard and rose on another wave while the canoe dropped into the trough, but O-aa held on. She was jerked from the canoe and banged against the side of the ship; but she clambered up the rope like a monkey-cave girls are that way, probably from climbing inadequate and rickety ladders and poles all their lives.

As she clambered over the side, Raj took her by the arm. “She is not only a girl,” he said, “but she is beautiful; I shall keep her for myself.”

O-aa slapped him in the face, and jerked away. “I am the daughter of a king,” she said. “My mate, my father, and my nine brothers will find you out and kill you if you harm me.”

A MAN FROM THURIA, who was searching for a herd of lidi which had strayed, followed them to the end of the world which is bounded by the nameless strait, There a shadow passed across him. He looked up, thinking to see a thipdar; but there was a tree close by, and he was not afraid. What he saw filled him with amazement and not a little awe. A great round thing, to the bottom of which something seemed to be attached, was floating high in the air out across the nameless strait. He watched it for a long time, until it was only a speck; then he went on searching for his lost lidi which he never found.

He thought a great deal about this remarkable experience as he made his way back to Thuria on his giant lidi. What could the thing have been? He was sure that it was not alive, for he had seen no wings nor any movement of any kind; the thing had seemed just to drift along on the wind.

Being a Stone Age man living in a savage world, he had had so many exciting adventures that he didn’t even bother to mention most of them after he got home; unless he hadn’t had any adventures at all and hadn’t killed any one or anything, nor hadn’t been nearly killed himself; then he told his mate about that, and they both marvelled.

But this thing that he had seen above the nameless strait was different; this was something really worth talking about. No one else in the world had ever seen anything like that, and the chances were that nobody would believe him when he told about it. He would have to take that chance, but nothing could change the fact that he had seen it.

As soon as he got home, he commenced to talk about it; and, sure enough, no one believed him, his mate least of all. That made him so angry that he beat her.

“You were probably off in that village of Liba with that frowzy, fat, she-jalok; and are trying to make me believe that you went all the way to the end of the world,” she had said; so perhaps he should have beaten her.

He had been home no great time, perhaps a couple of sleeps, when a runner came from Sari. Everybody gathered around the chief to hear what the runner had to say.

“I have run all the way from Sari,” he said “to ask if any man of Thuria has seen a strange thing floating through the air. It is round—”

“And it has something fastened to the bottom of it fairly shouted the man whom no one would believe.

“Yes!” cried the runner. “You have seen it?”

“I have seen it,” said the man.

His fellow Thurians looked at him in amazement; after all he had told the truth-that was the amazing part of it. His mate assumed an air of importance and an I-told-you-so expression as she looked around at the other women.

“Where did you see it?” demanded the runner.

“I had gone to the end of the world in search of my lost lidi,” explained the man, “and I saw this thing floating out across the nameless strait.”

“Then she is lost,” cried the runner.

“Who is lost?” demanded the chief.

“Dian the Beautiful who was in the basket which hung from the bottom of the great round ball that Perry called a balloon.”

“She will never be found,” said the chief. “No man knows what lies beyond the nameless strait. Sometimes, when it is very clear, men have thought that they saw land there; that is why it is called a strait; but it may be an ocean bigger than the Sojar Az, which has no farther shore as far as any man knows.”

IV

RELIEVED OF THE weight of the rope, the balloon soared aloft much higher than it had been when the rope first started to drag in the waters of the nameless strait. Soon it was over the land and the city. Dian looked down and marvelled at this wondrous thing built by men.

It was a mean little city of clay houses and narrow winding streets, but to a cave girl of the Stone Age who had never before seen a city, it was a marvelous thing. It impressed her much as New York City impresses the outlanders from Pittsburgh or Kansas City, who see it for the first time.

The balloon was floating so low now that she could see the people in the streets and on the roofs of the buildings. They were looking up at her in wonder. If Dian had never seen a city, she had at least heard of them; but these people had not only never before seen a balloon, but they had never heard of such a thing.

When the balloon passed over the city and out across the country beyond, hundreds of people ran out and followed it. They followed it for a long way as it slowly came closer and closer to the ground.

Presently Dian saw another city in the distance, and when she came close to this second city she was quite close to the ground-perhaps twenty feet above it; then she saw men running from the city. They carried shields and bows and arrows, and for the first time she noticed that those who had followed her all the way from the first city were all men and that they, too, carried shields and bows and arrows.

Before the basket touched the ground the men from the two cities were fighting all around it. At first they fought with bows and arrows, but when they came to close quarters they drew two bladed short-swords from scabbards that hung at their sides and fought hand-to-hand. They shouted and screamed at one another, and altogether made a terrible din.

Dian wished that she could make the balloon go up again, for she did not wish to fall into the hands of such ferocious people, but down came the balloon right in the midst of the fighting. Of course the gas bag dragged it, bumping and jumping along the ground, closer and closer to the second city. Warriors of both sides seized the edge of the basket and pulled and hauled, the men from the first city trying to drag it back and those of the second city trying to haul it on toward their gates.

“She is ours!” cried one of the latter. “See! She tries to come to Lolo-lolo! Kill the infidels who would steal our Noada!”

“She is ours!” screamed the men of the first city; “we saw her first. Kill the infidels who would cheat us of our Noada!”

Now the basket was near the gates of the city, and suddenly a dozen men rushed forward, seized hold of Dian, lifted her from the basket, and carried her through the gates, which were immediately slammed on friend and foe alike.

Relieved of the weight of Dian, the balloon leaped into the air, and drifted across the city. Even the fighters stopped to watch the miracle.

“Look!” exclaimed the warrior of the second city, “it has brought us our Noada, and now it returns to Karana.

Lolo-lolo was another city of clay houses and winding, crooked streets through which Dian the Beautiful was escorted with what, she realized, was deepest reverence.

A warrior went ahead, shouting, “Our Noada has come!” and as she passed, the people, making way for her little cortege, knelt, covering their eyes with their hands.

None of this could Dian understand, for she knew nothing of religion, her people being peculiarly free from all superstition. She only knew that these strange people seemed friendly, and that she was being received more as an honored guest than as a prisoner. Everything here was strange to her; the little houses built solidly along both sides of the narrow streets; the yellow skins of the people; the strange garments that they wore-leather aprons, painted with gay designs, that fell from their waists before and behind; the leather helmets of the men; the feather headdress of the women. Neither men nor women wore any garment above the waist, while the children and young people were quite naked.

The armlets and anklets and other metal ornaments of both men and women, as well as the swords, the spear heads, and the arrow tips of the warriors were of a metal strange to Dian. They were bronze, for these people had passed from the Stone Age and the Age of Copper into the Bronze Age. That they were advancing in civilization was attested by the fact that their weapons were more lethal than those of the Stone Age people the more civilized people become, the more deadly are the inventions with which they kill one another.

Dian was escorted to an open square in the center of the village. Here the buildings were a little larger, though none was over one story in height. In the center of one side of the quadrangle was a domed building, the most imposing in the city of Lolo-lolo; although to describe it as imposing is a trifle grandiloquent. It was, however, remarkable, in that these people could design and construct a dome as large as this one.

The shouting warrior who had preceded the escort had run ahead to the entrance of this building, where he shouted, “Our Noada comes!” repeating it until a number of weirdly costumed men emerged. They wore long leather coats covered with painted ornamentation, and the head of each was covered by 4 hideous mask.

As Dian approached the entrance to the building, these strange figures surrounded her; and, kneeling, covered the eye holes of their masks with their hands.

“Welcome, our Noada! Welcome to your temple in Lolo-lolo! We, your priests welcome you to The House of the Gods!” they chanted in unison.

The words welcome, priests, and gods were new words to Dian; she did not know what they meant; but she was bright enough to know that she was supposed to, and to realize that they thought her somebody she was not and that this belief of theirs was her best safeguard; so she merely inclined her head graciously and waited for what might come next.

The square behind her had filled with people, who now began to chant a weird pagan song to the beating of drums, as Dian the Beautiful was escorted into The House of the Gods by the priests of Noada.

UNDER THE EXPERT direction of Ah-gilak, the men of the Amoz set up a jury rig; and once more the ship moved on its journey. A man from Amoz was the compass, sextant, chronometer, and navigator; for the navel base of Pellucidar was the little bay beside which were the cliffs of Amoz. Guided by his inherent homing instinct, he stood beside the wheelsman and pointed toward Amoz. His relief was another Amozite, and the period of his watch was terminated when he felt like sleeping. The arrangement was most satisfactory, and the results obtained were far more accurate than those which might have been had by use of compass, sextant, and chronometer.

The wind had not abated and the seas were still high; but the EPS Amoz wallowed and plowed along toward port, which all aboard were now confident it would reach eventually.

“Dod-burn the old hooker,” said Ah-gilak; “she’ll get there some day, as the feller said.”

WHEN O-AA SAID to Raj, “I am the daughter of a king,” the Mezop cocked an ear, for the word had been grafted onto the language of Pellucidar by Abner Perry, and those who had a right to the title were the heads of “kingdoms” that belonged to the federation known as the Empire of Pellucidar. If the girl was just any girl, that was one thing; but if her people belonged to the Federation, that was something very different indeed.

“Who is your father?” demanded Raj.

“Oose, King of Kali,” she replied; “and my mate is Hodon the Fleet One, of Sari. My nine brothers are very terrible men.”

“Never mind your nine brothers,,” said Raj; “that you are a Kalian, or that your mate is Hodon of Sari is enough. You will be well treated on this ship.”

“And that will be a good thing for you,” said O-aa, “for if you hadn’t treated me well, I should have killed you. I have killed many men. My nine brothers and I used to raid the village of Suvi all alone, and I always killed more men than any of my brothers. My mother’s brother was also a great killer of men, as are my three sisters. Yes, it will be very well for you if you treat me nicely. I always—”

“Shut up,” said Raj, “you talk too much and you lie too much. I shall not harm you, but we Mezops beat women who talk too much; we do not like them.”

O-aa stuck her chin in the air, but she said nothing; she knew a man of his word when she met one.

“If you are not from Canda,” said the sailor who had once seen a man from Canda, “where did you get that feather loin cloth?”

“I took it from La-ak, the Candian, after I had killed him,” replied O-aa, “and that is no lie.”

The Sari was blown along before the gale, and at the same time it was in the grip of an ocean current running in the same direction; so it was really making excellent headway, though to O-aa it seemed to be going up and down only.

When they came opposite the Anoroc Islands, the Mezops became restless. They could not see the islands; but they knew exactly the direction in which they lay, and they didn’t like the idea of being carried past their home. The four boats of the Sari had been so securely lashed to the deck against the rail that the storm had not been able to tear them away; so Raj, suggested to the Sarians that he and his fellow Mezops take two of the boats and paddle to Anaroc, and that the Sarians take the other two and make for shore, since the ship was also opposite Sari.

The high seas made it extremely difficult and dangerous to launch the boats; but the Mezops are excellent sailors, and they finally succeeded in getting both their boats off; and with a final farewell they paddled away over the high seas.

O-aa looked on at all of this with increasing perturbation. She saw the frail boats lifted high on mighty waves only to disappear into the succeeding trough. Sometimes she thought that they would never come up again. She had watched the lowering of the boats and the embarkation of the Mezops with even greater concern; so, when the Sarians were ready to launch their boats, she was in more or less of a blue funk.

They told her to get into the first boat, but she said that she would go in the second-she wanted to delay the dread moment as long as possible. What added to her natural fear of the sea, was the fact that she was quite aware that the Sarians were not good sailors. Always they have lived inland, and had never ventured upon the sea until David and Perry had decreed that they become a naval power, and even then they had always gone as cargo and not as sailors.

O-aa watched the lowering of the first boat in fear and trepidation. They first lowered the boat into the sea with two men in it; these men tried to hold it from pounding against the side of the ship, using paddles for the purpose. They were not entirely successful. O-aa expected any minute to see it smashed to pieces. The other Sarians who were to go in the first boat slid down ropes; and when they were all in the boat, the Sari suddenly heeled over and capsized it. Some of the men succeeded in seizing the ropes down which they had slid, and these were hauled to the deck of the Sari; for the others there was no hope. O-aa watched them drown.

The remaining Sarians were dubious about lowering the second boat; no one likes to be drowned in a high sea full of ravenous reptiles. They talked the matter over.

“If half the men had taken paddles and held the boat away from the Sari, instead of trying to paddle before the ship rolled away from them, the thing would not have happened,” said one. Others agreed with him.

“I think we can do it safely,” said another. O-aa didn’t think so.

“If we drift around on the Sari, we shall die of thirst and starvation,” said a third; “we won’t have a chance. Once in the boat, we will have a chance. I am for trying it.” Finally the others agreed.

The boat was lowered successfully, and a number of men slid down into it to hold it away from the ship’s side.

“Down you go,” said a man to O-aa, pushing her toward the rail.

“Not I,” said O-aa. “I am not going.”

“What! You are going to remain on board the Sari alone?” he demanded.

“I am,” said O-aa; “and if you ever get to Sari, which you won’t and Hodon is there, tell him that O-aa is out on the Lural Az in the Sari. He will come and get me.”

The man shook his head, and slid over the side. The others followed him. O-aa watched them as they fended the boat from the side of the ship until it rolled away from them; then they drove their paddles into the water and stroked mightily until they were out of danger. She watched the boat being tossed about until it was only a speck in the distance. Alone on a drifting derelict on a storm-tossed ocean, O-aa felt much safer than she would have in the little boat which she was sure would never reach land.

O-aa had what she considered an inexhaustible supply of food and water, and some day the Sari would drift ashore; then she would make her way home. The greatest hardship with which she had to put up was the lack of some one with whom to talk; and, for O-aa, that was a real hardship.

The wind blew the ship toward the southwest, and the ocean current hastened it along in the same direction. O-aa slept many times, and it was still noon. The storm had long since abated. Great, smooth swells lifted the Sari gently and gently lowered it. Where before the ocean had belabored the ship, now it caressed her.

When O-aa was awake she was constantly searching for land, and at last she saw it. It was very dim and far away; but she was sure that it was land, and the Sari was approaching it-but, oh, so slowly. She watched until she could no longer hold her eyes open, and then she slept. How long she slept no man may know; but when she awoke the land was very close, but the Sari was moving parallel with it and quite rapidly. O-aa knew that she could never reach the land if the ship kept on its present course, but there was nothing that she could do about it.

A strong current runs through the nameless strait from the Sojar Az, into which the Sari had drifted, to the Korsar Az, a great ocean that bounds the western shore of the land mass on which Sari is located. None of this O-aa knew, nor did she know that the land off the port side of the Sari was that dread terra incognita of her people.

The wind, that had been blowing gently from the east, changed into the north and increased, carrying the Sari closer inshore. Now she was so close that O-aa could plainly discern things on land. She saw something that aroused her curiosity, for she had never seen anything like it before; it was a walled city. She had not the slightest idea what it was. Presently she saw people emerging from it; they were running down to the shore toward which the Sari was drifting. As they came closer, O-aa saw that there were many warriors.

O-aa had never seen a city before, and these people had never seen a ship. The Sari was drifting in slowly, and O-aa was standing on the stump of the bowsprit, a brave figure in her red and yellow feather loincloth and the three feathers in her hair.

The Sari was quite close to shore now and the people could see O-aa plainly. Suddenly they fell upon their knees and covered their eyes with their hands, crying, “Welcome, our Noada! The true Noada has come to Tanga-tanga!”

Just then the Sari ran aground and O-aa was pitched head-foremost into the water. O-aa had learned to swim in a lake above Kali, where there were no reptiles; but she knew that these waters were full of them; she had seen them often; so when she came to the surface she began swimming for shore as though all the saurians in the world were at heels. Esther Williams would not have been ashamed of the time in which the little cave girl of Kali made the 100 meters to shore.

As she scrambled ashore, the awe-struck warriors of Tanga-tanga knelt again and covered their eyes with their hands. O-aa glanced down to see if she had lost her loincloth, and was relieved to find that she had not.

V

O-AA LOOKED AT the kneeling warriors in amazement; the situation was becoming embarrassing. “What are you doing that for,” she demanded. “Why don’t you get up?”

“May we stand in your presence?” asked a warrior.

O-aa thought quickly; perhaps this was a case of mistaken identity, but she might as well make the best of it. If they were afraid of her, it might be well to keep them that way.

“I’ll think it over,” she said.

Glancing around, she saw some of the warriors peeking at her; but the moment she looked at them they lowered their heads. Even after they had looked at her, O-aa discovered, they still didn’t realize their mistake. She saw that they were yellow men, with painted leather aprons, and strange weapons, they wore helmets that O-aa thought were very becoming.

After she had taken her time looking them over, she said, “Now you may stand;” and they all arose.

Several of the warriors approached her. “Our Noada,” one of them said, “we have been waiting for you for a long time-ever since the first Xexot learned that only with your help can we hope to reach Karana after we die; perhaps that was a million sleeps ago. Our priests told us that some time you would come. Not so many sleeps ago one came out of the air whom we thought was our Noada, but now we know that she was a false Noada. Come with us to Tanga-tanga, where your priests will take you into your temple.”

O-aa was puzzled. Much that the man had said to her was as Greek to a Hottentot; but little O-aa was smart enough to realize that she seemed to be sitting pretty, and she wasn’t going to upset the apple cart by asking questions. Her greatest fear was that they might start asking her questions.

DIAN THE BEAUTIFUL had learned many things since she had come to the city of Lolo-lolo; and she had learned them without asking too many questions, for one of the first things she had learned was that she was supposed to know everything-even what people were thinking.

She had learned that this race of yellow men called themselves Xexots; and that she had come direct from a place called Karana, which was up in the sky somewhere, and that if they were good, she would see that they were sent there when they died; but if they were bad, she could send them to the Molop Az, the flaming sea upon which Pellucidar floats.

She already knew about the Molop Az, as what Pellucidarian does not? The dead who are buried in the ground go there; they are carried down, piece by piece, to the Molop Az by the wicked little men who dwell there. Everyone knows this, because when graves are opened it is always discovered that the bodies have been partially or entirely borne off. That is why many of the peoples of Pellucidar place their dead in trees where the birds may find them and carry them bit by bit to the Dead World that hangs above the Land of Awful Shadow. When people killed an enemy, they always buried his body in the ground; so that it would be sure to go to Molop Az.

She also discovered that being a Noada, was even more important than being an empress. Here in Lolo-lolo, even the king knelt down and covered his eyes when he approached her; nor did he arise again until she had given him permission.

It all puzzled Dian a great deal, but she was learning. People brought her presents of food and ornaments and leather and many, many little pieces of metal, thin and flat and with eight sides. These the priests, who eventually took most of the presents, seemed to value more than anything else; and if there were not a goodly supply left in the temple every day, they became very angry and scolded the people. But no matter how puzzled she was, Dian dared not ask questions; for she was intuitively aware that if they came to doubt that she was all wise, they would doubt that she was really a Noada; and then it would go hard with her. After they had worshipped her so devoutly, they might tear her to pieces if they discovered that she was an imposter.

The king of Lolo-lolo was called a go-sha; his name was Gamba. He came often to worship at the shrine of the Noada. The high priest, Hor, said that he had never come to the temple before except on feast days; when he could get plenty to eat and drink and watch the dancing.

“You are very beautiful, my Noada,” said Hor; “perhaps that is why the go-sha comes more often now.”

“Perhaps he wants to go to Karana when he dies,” suggested Dian.

“I hope that that is all he wants,” said Hor. “He has been a very wicked man, failing to pay due, respect to the priesthood and even deriding them. It is said that he does not believe in Karana or Molop Az or the teachings of Pu and that he used to say that no Noada would ever come to Lolo-lolo because there was no such thing as a Noada.”

“Now he knows better,” said Dian.

Shortly after this conversation, Gamba came to the temple while Hor was asleep; he knelt before Dian and covered his eyes with his hands.

“Arise, Gamba,” said Dian.

She was seated on a little platform upon a carved stool covered with painted leather and studded with bronze; she wore a soft leather robe fastened at the waist with a girdle. The robe was caught over one shoulder, leaving the other bare, and on one side it was slit to her hip and fastened there with a bronze disc. Around her neck were eight strands of carved ivory beads, each strand of a different length, the longest reaching below her waist. Bronze bracelets and anklets adorned her limbs, while surmounting this barbaric splendor was a headdress of feathers.

Dian the Beautiful, who had never before worn more than a sketchy loin cloth, was most uncomfortable in all this finery, not being sufficiently advanced in civilization to appreciate the necessity for loading the feminine form with a lot of useless and silly gew-gaws. She knew that Nature had created her beautiful and that no outward adornment could enhance her charms.

Gamba appeared to be in hearty accord with this view, as his eyes seemed to ignore the robe. Dian did not like the look in them.

“Did the go-sha come to worship?” inquired Dian the Goddess.

Gamba smiled. Was there a suggestion of irony in that smile? Dian thought so.

“I came to visit,” replied Gamba. “I do not have to come here to worship you-that I do always.”

“It is well that you worship your Noada,” said Dian; “Pu will be pleased.”

“It is not the Noada I worship,” said Gamba, boldly; “it is the woman.”

“The Noada is not pleased,” said Dian, icily; “nor is Pu; nor will Hor, the high priest, be pleased.”

Gamba laughed. “Hor may fool the rest of them; but he doesn’t fool me, and I don’t believe that he fools you. I don’t know what accident brought you here, nor what that thing was you came in; but I do know you are just a woman, for there is no such thing as a Noada; and there are a lot of my nobles and warriors who think just as I do.”

“The Noada is not interested,” said Dian, “the go-sha may leave.”

Gamba settled himself comfortably on the edge of the dais. “I am the go-sha,” he said. “I come and go as I please. I please to remain.”

“Then I shall leave,” said Dian, rising.

“Wait,” said Gamba. “If you are as wise as I think you are, you will see that it is better to have Gamba for a friend than an enemy. The people are dissatisfied; Hor bleeds them for all he can get out of them; and since he has had you with whom to frighten them, he has bled them worse. His priests threaten them with your anger if they do not bring more gifts, especially pieces of bronze; and Hor is getting richer, and the people are getting poorer. They say now that they have nothing left with which to pay taxes; soon the go-sha will not have the leather to cover his nakedness.”

“Of these things, you should speak to Hor,” said Dian.

“By that speech you convict yourself,” exclaimed Gamba, triumphantly, “but yours is a difficult role; I am surprised that you have not tripped before.”

“I do not know what you mean,” said Dian.

“The Noada is the representative of Pu in Pellucidar, according to Hor; she is omnipotent; she decides; she commands-not Hor. When you tell me to speak to Hor of the things of which the people complain, you admit that it is Hor who commands-not you.”

“The Noada does command,” snapped Dian; “she commands you to take your complaints to Hor; just as the common people take their complaints to the lesser priests-they do not burden their Noada with them, nor should you. If they warrant it, Hor will lay them before me.”

Gamba slapped his thigh. “By Pu!” he exclaimed, “but you are a bright girl. You slipped out of that one very cleverly. Come! let us be friends. We could go a long way together in Lolo-lolo. Being the wife of the go-sha would not be so bad, and a lot more fun than being a Noada cooped up in a temple like a prisoner-which you are. Yes, you are a prisoner; and Hor is your jailer. Think it. over, Noada; think it over.”

“Think what over?” demanded a voice from the side of the room.

They both turned. It was Hor. He came and knelt before Dian, covering his eyes with his hands; then he rose and glared at Gamba, but he spoke to Dian. “You permit this man to sit upon this holy spot?” he demanded.

Gamba eyed Dian intently, waiting for her reply. It came: “If it pleases him,” she said, haughtily.

“It is against the laws that govern the temple,” said Hor.

“I make the laws which govern the temple,” said Dian; “and I make the laws which govern the people of Lolo-lolo,” and she looked at Gamba.

Hor looked very uncomfortable. Gamba was grinning.

Dian rose. “You are both excused,” she said, and it sounded like a command-it was a command. Then Dian stepped down from the dais and walked toward the door of the temple.

“Where are you going?” demanded Hor.

“I am going to walk in the streets of Lolo-lolo and speak with my people.”

“But you can’t,” cried Hor. “It is against the rules of the temple.”

“Didn’t you just hear your Noada say that she makes the temple laws?” asked Gamba, still grinning.

“Wait, then,” cried Hor, “until I summon the priests and the drums.”

“I wish no priests and no drums,” said Dian. “I wish to walk alone.”

“I will go with you.” Gamba and Hor spoke in unison, as though the line had been rehearsed.

“I said that I wished to go alone,” said Dian; and with that, she passed through the great doorway of the temple out into the eternal sunlight of the square.

“Well,” said Gamba to Hor, “you got yourself a Noada, didn’t you?” and he laughed ironically as he said it.

“I shall pray Pu to guide her,” said Hor, but his expression was more that of an executioner than a suppliant.

“She’ll probably guide Pu,” said Gamba.

As the people saw their Noada walking alone in the square, they were filled with consternation; they fell upon their knees at her approach and covered their eyes with their hands until she bade them arise. She stopped before a man and asked him what he did.

“I work in bronze,” said the man. “I made those bracelets that you are wearing, Noada.”

“You make many pieces for your work?” Dian had never known a money system before she came to Lolo-lolo; but here she had learned that one could get food and other things in exchange for pieces of bronze, often called “pieces” for short. They were brought in quantities to the temple and given to her, but Hor took them.

“I get many pieces for my work,” replied the man, “but—” He hung his head and was silent.

“But what?” asked Dian.

“I am afraid to say,” said the man; “I should not have spoken.”

“I command you to speak,” said Dian.

“The priests demand most of what I make, and the go-sha wants the rest. I have barely enough left to buy food.”

“How much were you paid for these bracelets that I am wearing?” demanded Dian.

“Nothing.”

“Why nothing?”

“The priests said that I should make them and give them as an offering to the Noada, who would forgive my sins and see that I got into Karana when I died.”

“How much are they worth?”

“They are worth at least two hundred pieces,” said the man; “they are the most beautiful bracelets in Lolo-lolo.”

“Come with me,” said Dian, and she continued across the square.

On the opposite side of the square from the temple was the house of the go-sha. Before the entrance stood a number of warriors on guard duty. They knelt and covered their eyes as Noada approached, but when they arose and Dian saw their faces she saw no reverence there-only fear and hate.

“You are fighting men,” said Dian. “Are you treated well?”

“We are treated as well as the slaves,” said one, bitterly.

“We are given the leavings from the tables of the go-sha and the nobles, and we have no pieces with which to buy more,” said another.

“Why have you no pieces? Do you fight for nothing?”

“We are supposed to get five pieces every time go-sha sleeps, but we have not been paid for many sleeps.”

“Why?”

“The go-sha says that it is because the priests take all the pieces for you,” said the first warrior, boldly.

“Come with me,” said Dian.

“We are on guard here, and we cannot leave.”

“I, your Noada, command it; come!” said Dian, imperiously.

“If we do as the Noada commands us,” said one, “She will protect us.”

“But Gamba will have us beaten,” said another.

“Gamba will not have you beaten if you always obey me. It is Gamba who will be beaten if he harms you for obeying me.”

The warriors followed her as she stopped and talked with men and women, each of which had a grievance against either the priests or the go-sha. Each one she commanded to follow her; and finally, with quite a goodly procession following her, she returned to the temple.

Gamba and Hor had been standing in the entrance watching her; now they followed her into the temple. She mounted the dais and faced them.

“Gamba and Hor,” she said, “you did not kneel as your Noada passed you at the temple door. You may kneel now.”

The men hesitated. They were being humiliated before common citizens and soldiers. Hor was the first to weaken; he dropped to his knees and covered his eyes. Gamba looked up defiantly at Dian. Just the shadow of a smile, tinged by irony, played upon her lips. She turned her eyes upon the soldiers standing beside Gamba.

“Warriors,” she said, “take this—” She did not have to say more, for Gamba had dropped to his knees; he had guessed what was in her mind and trembling on her lips.

After she had allowed the two to rise, she spoke to Hor. “Have many pieces of bronze brought,” she said.

“What for?” asked Hor.

“The Noada does not have to explain what she wishes to do with her own,” said Dian.

“But Noada,” sputtered Hor; “the pieces belong to the temple.”

“The pieces and the temple, too, belong to me; the temple was built for me, the pieces were brought as gifts for me. Send for them.”

“How many?” asked Hor.

“All that six priests can carry. If I need more, I can send them back.”

With six priests trailing him, Hor left the apartment, trembling with rage; but he got many pieces of bronze, and he had them brought into the throne room of the temple.

“To that man,” said Dian, pointing at the worker in bronze, “give two hundred pieces in payment for these bracelets for which he was never paid.”

“But, Noada,” expostulated Hor, “the bracelets were gift offerings.”

“They were forced offerings-give the man the pieces.” She turned to Gamba. “How many times have you slept since your warriors were last paid?”

Gamba flushed under his yellow skin. “I do not know,” he said, surlily.

“How many?” she asked the warriors.

“Twenty-one times,” said one of them.

“Give each of these men five pieces for each of the twenty-one sleeps,” directed Dian, “and have all the warriors come immediately to get theirs”; then she directed the payment of various sums to each of the others who had accompanied her to the temple.

Hor was furious; but Gamba, as he came to realize what this meant, was enjoying it, especially Hor’s discomfiture; and Dian became infinitely more desirable to him than she had been before. What a mate she would be for a go-sha!

“Now,” said Dian, when all had received their pieces, “hereafter, all offerings to your Noada will be only what you can afford to give-perhaps one piece out of every ten or twenty; and to your go-sha, the same. Between sleeps I shall sit here, and Hor will pay to everyone who comes the number of pieces each has been forced to give. Those who think one piece in ten is fair, may return that amount to Hor. If you have any other grievances, bring them to your Noada; and they will be corrected. You may depart now.”

They looked at her in wonder and adoration, the citizens and the warriors whose eyes had first been filled with fear and hatred of her; and after they had kneeled, they paid to Hor one piece out of every ten they had received. Laughing and jubilant, they left the temple to spread the glad tidings through the city.

“Pu will be angry,” said Hor; “the pieces were Pu’s.”

“You are a fool,” said Dian, “and if you don’t mend your ways I shall appoint a new high priest.”

“You can’t do that,” Hor almost screamed, “and you can’t have any more of my pieces of bronze!”

“You see,” said Gamba to Dian, “that what I told you is true-Hor collects all the pieces for himself.”

“I spoke with many people in the square before the temple,” said Dian, “and I learned many things from them-one of them is that they hate you and they hate me. That is why I called you a fool, Hor; because you do not know that these people are about ready to rise up and kill us all-the robbed citizens and the unpaid warriors. After I return their pieces that have been stolen from them, they will still hate you two; but they will not hate me; therefore, if you are wise, you will always do what I tell you to do-and don’t forget that I am your Noada.”

VI

DIAN SLEPT. Her sleeping apartment was darkened against the eternal noonday sun. She lay on a leather couch-a tanned hide stretched over a crude wooden frame. She wore only a tiny loin cloth, for the apartment was warm; She dreamed of David.

A man crept into her apartment on bare feet, and moved silently toward the couch. Dian stirred restlessly; and the man stopped, waiting. Dian dreamed that a tarag was creeping upon David; and she leaped up, awake, to warn him; so that she stood face to face with one of the lesser priests who carried a slim bronze dagger in one hand.

Face to face with Death in that darkened chamber, Dian thought fast. She saw that the man was trembling, as he raised the dagger to the height of his shoulder-in a moment, he would leap forward and strike.

Dian stamped her foot upon the floor. “Kneel!” she commanded, imperiously.

The man hesitated; his dagger hand dropped to his side, and he fell to his knees.

“Drop the dagger,” said Dian. The man dropped it, and Dian snatched it from the floor.

“Confess!” directed the girl. “Who sent you here? but do I need ask? It was Hor?”

The priest nodded. “May Pu forgive me, for I did not wish to come. Hor threatened me; he said he would have me killed if I did not do this thing.”

“You may go now,” said Dian, ” and do not come again.”

“You will never see me again, my Noada,” said the priest. “Hor lied; he said you were not the true Noada, but now I know that you are-Pu watches over and protects you.”

After the priest had left the apartment, Dian dressed slowly and went to the temple throne room. As usual, she was ushered in by priests to the accompaniment of drums and chants. The priests, she noticed, were nervous; they kept glancing at her apprehensively. She wondered if they, too, had been commissioned to kill her.

The room was filled with people-priests, citizens, warriors. Gamba was there and Hor. The latter dropped to his knees and covered his eyes long before she was near him. There seemed to be considerable excitement.

By the time she took her place upon the dais everyone in the room was kneeling. After she had bidden them arise, they pressed forward to lay their grievances at her feet. She saw the priests whispering excitedly among themselves.

“What has happened, Hor?” she asked. “Why is everyone so excited?”

Hor cleared his throat. “It was nothing,” he said; “I would not annoy my Noada with it.”

“Answer my question,” snapped Dian.

“One of the lesser priests was found hanging by his neck in his room,” explained Hor. “He was dead.”

“I know,” said Dian; “it was the priest called Saj.”

“Our Noada knows all,” whispered one citizen to another.

After the people had aired their grievances and those who felt that they had been robbed were reimbursed, Dian spoke to all those assembled in the temple.

“Here are the new laws,” she said: “Of all the pieces of bronze which you receive, give one out of ten to the go-sha. These pieces will be used to keep the city clean and in repair and to pay the warriors who defend Lolo-lolo. Give the same number of pieces for the support of my temple. Out of these pieces the temple will be kept in repair, the priests fed and paid, and some will be given to the go-sha for the pay of his warriors, if he does not have enough, for the warriors defend the temple. You will make these payments after each twenty sleeps. Later, I will select an honest citizen to look after the temple pieces.

“Now, one thing more. I want fifty warriors to watch over me at all times. They will be the Noada’s Guard. After every sleep that your Noada sleeps, each warrior will receive ten pieces. Are there fifty among you who would like to serve on the Noada’s guard?”

Every warrior in the temple stepped forward, and from them Dian selected the fifty largest and strongest.

“I shall sleep better hereafter,” she said to Hor. Hor said nothing.

But if Hor said nothing, he was doing a great deal of thinking; for he knew that if he were ever to regain his power and his riches, he must rid himself of the new Noada.

While the temple was still jammed with citizens and warriors, alarm drums, sounded outside in the city; and as the warriors were streaming into the square, a messenger came running from the city gates.

“The Tanga-tangas have come!” he cried; “they have forced the gates and they are in the city!”

Instantly all was confusion; the citizens ran in one direction-away from the gates-and the warriors ran in the other to meet the raiding Tanga-tangas. Gamba ran out with his warriors, just an undisciplined mob with bronze swords. A few had spears, but the bows and arrows of all of them were in their barracks.

The fifty warriors whom Dian had chosen remained to guard her and the temple. The lesser priests fell to praying, repeating over and over, “Our Noada will give us victory! Our Noada will save us!” But Hor was more practical; he stopped their praying long enough to have them close the massive temple doors and bar them securely; then he turned to Dian.

“Turn back the enemy,” he said; “strike them dead with the swords of our warriors, drive them from the city, and let them take no prisoners back into slavery. Only you can save us!”

Dian noticed an exultant note in Hor’s voice, but she guessed that he was not exulting in her power to give victory to the Lolo-lolos. She was on a spot, and she knew it.

They heard the shouting of fighting men and the clash of weapons, the screams of the wounded and the dying. They heard the battle sweep into the square before the temple; there was clamoring before the temple doors and the sound of swords beating upon them.

Hor was watching Dian. “Destroy them, Noada!” he cried with thinly veiled contempt in his voice.

The massive doors withstood the attack, and the battle moved on beyond the temple. Later it swept back, and Dian could hear the victory cries of the Tanga-tangas. After a while the sounds died away in the direction of the city gates; and the warriors opened the temple doors, for they knew that the enemy had departed.

In the square lay the bodies of many dead; they were thick before the temple doors-mute evidence of the valor with which the warriors of Lolo-lolo had defended their Noada.

When the results of the raid were finally known, it was discovered that over a hundred of Gamba’s warriors had been killed and twice that number wounded; that all the Tanga-tangan slaves in the city had been liberated and that over a hundred men and women of Lolo-lolo had been taken away into slavery; while the Lolo-loloans had taken but a single prisoner.

This prisoner was brought to the temple and questioned in the presence of Dian and Gamba and Hor. He was very truculent and cocky.

“We won the great victory,” he said; “and if you do not liberate me the warriors of our Noada will come again, and this time they will leave not a single Lolo-loloan alive that they do not take back into slavery.”

“You have no Noada,” said Gamba. “There is one Noada, and she is here.”

The prisoner laughed derisively. “How then did we win such a glorious victory?” he demanded. “It was with the help of our Noada, the true Noada-this one here is a false Noada; our victory proves it.”

“There is only one Noada,” said Hor, but he didn’t say which one.

“You are right,” agreed the prisoner; “there is only one Noada, and she is in Tanga-tanga. She came in a great temple that floated upon the water, and she leaped into the sea and swam to the shore where we were waiting to receive her. She swam through the waters that are infested with terrible monsters, but she was unharmed; only Pu or a Noada could do that-and now she has given us this great victory.”

The people of Lolo-lolo were crushed; scarcely a family but had had a member killed, wounded, or taken into slavery. They had no heart for anything; they left the dead lying in the square and in the streets until the stench became unbearable, and all the time the lesser priests, at the instigation of Hor, went among them, whispering that their Noada was a false Noada, or otherwise this catastrophe would never have befallen them.

Only a few came to the temple now to worship, and few were the offerings brought. One, bolder than another, asked Dian why she had let this disaster overwhelm them. Dian knew that she must do something to counteract the effects of the gossip that the lesser priests were spreading, or her life would not be worth a single piece of bronze. She knew of the work of Hor and the priests, for one of the warriors who guarded her had told her.

“It was not I who brought this disaster upon you,” she answered the man; “it was Pu. He was punishing Lolo-lolo because of the wickedness of those who robbed and cheated the people of Lolo-lolo.”

It was not very logical; but then the worshippers of Pu were not very logical, or they would not have worshipped him; and those who heard her words, spread them through the city; and there arose a faction with which Hor and the lesser priests were not very popular.

Dian sent for Gamba and commanded him to have the dead removed from the city and disposed of, for the stench was so terrible that one could scarcely breathe.

“How can I have them removed?” he asked; “no longer have we any slaves to do such work.”

“The men of Lolo-lolo can do it, then,” said Dian.

“They will not,” Gamba told her.

“Then take warriors and compel them to do it,” snapped the Noada.

“I am your friend,” said Gamba, “but I cannot do that for you the people would tear me to pieces.”

“Then I shall do it,” said Dian, and she summoned her warrior guard and told them to collect enough citizens to remove the dead from the city; “and you can take Hor and all the other priests with you, too,” she added.

Hor was furious. “I will not go,” he said.

“Take him!” snapped Dian, and a warrior prodded him in the small of the back with his spear and forced him out into the square.

Gamba looked at her with admiration. “Noada or not,” he said, “you are a very brave woman. With you as my mate, I could defy all my enemies and conquer Tanga-tanga into the bargain.”

“I am not for you,” said Dian.

The city was cleaned up, but too late-an epidemic broke out. Men and women died; and the living were afraid to touch them, nor would Dian’s guard again force the citizens to do this work. Once more the lesser priests went among the people spreading the word that the disasters which had befallen them were all due to the false Noada.

“Pu,” they said, “is punishing us because we have received her.”

Thus things went from bad to worse for Dian the Beautiful; until, at last, it got so bad that crowds gathered in the square before the temple, cursing and reviling her; and then those who still believed in her, incited by the agents of Gamba, fell upon them; and there was rioting and bloodshed.

Hor took advantage of this situation to spread the rumor that Gamba and the false Noada were planning to destroy the temple and rule the city, defying Pu and the priests; and that when this happened, Pu would lay waste the city and hurl all the people into the Molop Az. This was just the sort of propaganda of terror that would influence an ignorant and superstitious people. Remember, they were just simple people of the Bronze Age. They had not yet reached that stage of civilization where they might send children on holy crusades to die by thousands; they were not far enough advanced to torture unbelievers with rack and red hot irons, or burn heretics at the stake; so they believed this folderol that more civilized people would have spurned with laughter while killing all Jews.

At last Gamba came to Dian. “My own warriors are turning against me,” he told her. “They believe the stories that Hor is spreading; so do most of the citizens. There are some who believe in you yet and some who are loyal to me; but the majority have been terrified into believing that Hor speaks the truth and that if they do not destroy us, Pu will destroy them.”

“What are we to do?” asked Dian.

“The only chance we have to live, is to escape from the city,” replied Gamba, “and even that may be impossible. We are too well known to escape detection-your white skin would betray you, and every man, woman, and child in Lolo-lolo knows his go-sha.”

“We might fight our way out,” suggested Dian. “I am sure that my warriors are still loyal to me.

Gamba shook his head. “They are not,” he said. “Some of my own warriors have told me that they are no longer your protectors, but your jailers. Hor has won them.”

Dian thought a moment, and then she said, “I have a plan-listen.” She whispered for a few minutes to Gamba, and when she had finished, Gamba left the temple; and Dian went to her sleeping apartment-but she did not sleep. Instead, she stripped off her robe of office and donned her own single garment that she had worn when she first came to Lolo-lolo; then she put the long leather robe on over it.

By a back corridor she came to a room that she knew would be used only before and after ceremonies; in it were a number of large chests. Dian sat down on one of them and waited.

A man came into the temple with his head so bandaged that only one eye was visible; he had come, as so many came, to be healed by his Noada. Unless they died, they were always healed eventually.

The temple was almost deserted; only the members of the Noada’s Guard loitered there near the entrance. They were there on Hor’s orders to see that the Noada not escape, Hor having told them that she was planning to join Gamba in his house across the square, from which they were arranging to launch their attack against the temple.

The man wore the weapons of a common warrior, and he appeared very tired and weak, probably from loss of blood. He said nothing; he just went and waited before the throne, waited for his Noada to come-the Noada that would never come again. After a while he commenced to move about the throne room, looking at different objects. Occasionally he glanced toward the warriors loitering near the door. They paid no attention to him. In fact they had just about forgotten him when he slipped through a doorway at the opposite side of the room.

The temple was very quiet, and there were only a few people in the square outside. The noonday sun beat down; and, as always, only those who had business outside were in the streets. Lolo-lolo was lethargic; but it was the calm before the storm. The lesser priests and the other enemies of Gamba and the Noada were organizing the mob that was about to fall upon them and destroy them. In many houses were groups of citizens and warriors waiting for the signal.

Two priests came into the throne room of the temple; they wore their long, leather robes of office and their hideous masks; they passed out of the temple through the group of warriors loitering by the door. Once out in the square, they commenced to cry, “Come, all true followers of Pu! Death to the false Noada! Death to Gamba!” It was the signal!

Warriors and citizens poured from houses surrounding the square. Some of them ran toward the house of the go-sha, and some ran for the temple; and they were all shouting, “Death! Death to Gamba! Death to the false Noada!”

The two priests crossed the square and followed one of the winding streets beyond, chanting their hymn of death; and as they passed, more citizens and warriors ran screaming toward the square, thirsting for the blood of their quarry.

THE SURVIVORS OF THE Amoz had finally brought the ship into the harbor beneath the cliffs of Amoz. David and Hodon and Ghak the Hairy One and the little old man whose name was not Dolly Dorcas had at last completed the long trek from Amoz and come again to Sari.

David found the people saddened and Perry in tears. “What is the matter?” he demanded. “What is wrong? Where is Dian that she has not come to meet me?”

Perry was sobbing so, that he could not answer. The headman, who had been in charge during their absence, spoke: “Dian the Beautiful is lost to us,” he said.

“Lost! What do you mean?” demanded David; then they told him, and David Innes’s world crumbled from beneath him. He looked long at Perry, and then he went and placed a hand upon his shoulder. “You loved her, too,” he said; “you would not have harmed her. Tears will do no good. Build me another balloon, and perhaps it will drift to the same spot to which she was carried.”

They both worked on the new balloon; in fact everyone in Sari worked on it, and the work gave them relief from sorrowing. Many hunters went out, and the dinosaurs which were to furnish the peritonea for the envelope of the gas bag were soon killed. While they were out hunting, the women wove the basket and braided the many feet of rope; and while this was going on, the runner returned from Thuria.

David was in Sari when he came, and the man came at once to him. “I have news of Dian the Beautiful,” he said. “A man of Thuria, saw the balloon floating across the nameless strait at the end of the world, high in the air.

“Could he see if Dian was still in it?” asked David.

“No,” replied the runner, “it was too high in the air.”

“At least we know where to look,” said David, but his heart was heavy; because he know that there was little chance that Dian could have survived the cold, the hunger, and the thirst.

Before the second balloon was finished the survivors of the Sari returned to the village; and they told Hodon all that they knew of O-aa. “She told us to tell you,” said one, “that she was adrift in the Sari on the Lural Az. She said that when you knew that, you would come and get her,”

Hodon turned to David. “May I have men and a ship with which to go in search of O-aa?” he asked.

“You may have the ship and as many men as you need,” replied David.

VII

CHANTING THEIR horrid song of death, the two priests walked through the narrow streets of Lolo-lolo all the way to the gates of the city. “Go to the great square,” they shouted to the guard. “Hor has sent us to summon you. Every fighting man is needed to overcome those who would defend the false Noada and Gamba. Hurry! We will watch the gates.”

The warriors hesitated. “It is Hor’s command,” said one of the priests; “and with Gamba and the Noada dead, Hor will rule the city; so you had better obey him, if you know what’s good for you. ”

The warriors thought so, too; and they hurried off toward the square. When they had gone, the two priests opened the gates and passed out of the city. Turning to the right, they crossed to a forest into which they disappeared; and as soon as they were out of sight of the city, they removed their masks and their robes of office.

“You are not only a very brave girl,” said Gamba, “but you are a very smart one.”

“I am afraid that I shall have to be a whole lot smarter,” replied Dian, “if I am ever to get back to Sari.”

“What is Sari?” asked Gamba.

“It is the country from which I came.”

“I thought you came from Karana,” said Gamba.

“Oh, no you didn’t,” said Dian, and they both laughed.

“Where is Sari?” asked Gamba.

“It is across the nameless strait,” replied Dian. “Do you know where we might find a canoe?”

“What is a canoe?” asked Gamba.

Dian was surprised. Was it possible that this man did not know what a canoe was? “It is what men use to cross the water in,” she replied.

“But no one ever crosses the water,” protested Gamba. “No one could live on the nameless strait. It is full of terrible creatures; and when the wind blows, the water stands up on end.”

“We shall have to build a canoe,” said Dian.

“If my Noada says so, we shall have to build a canoe,” said Gamba, with mock reverence.

“My name is Dian,” said the girl; so the man who had been a king and the woman who had been a goddess went down through the forest toward the shore of the nameless strait.

Beneath the long robes of the priests, they had brought what weapons they could conceal. They each had a sword and a dagger, and Gamba had a bow and many arrows.

On the way to the shore. Dian looked for trees suitable for the building of a canoe. She knew that it would be a long and laborious job; but if the Mezops could do it with stone tools, it should be much easier with the daggers and swords of bronze; and then, of course there was always fire with which to hollow out the inside.

When they came to the shore of the nameless strait, they followed it until Gamba was sure there would be no danger of their being discovered by the people of Lolo-lolo or the people of Tanga-tanga.

“They do not come in this direction much,” he said, “nor often so far from the cities. The hunters go more in the other direction or inland. There are supposed to be dangerous animals here, and there is said to be a tribe of wild savages who come up from below to hunt here.”

“We should have an interesting time building the canoe,” commented Dian.

AT LAST THE SECOND balloon was completed. It was just like the first, except that it had a rip cord and was stocked with food and water, David’s extra weight and the weight of the food and water being compensated for by the absence of the heavy rope which had been attached to the first balloon.

When the time came to liberate the great bag, the people of Sari stood in silence. They expected that they would never see David Innes again, and David shared their belief.

“Dod-burn it!” exclaimed the little old man whose name was not Dolly Dorcas, “there goes a man, as the feller said.”

OPE, THE HIGH PRIEST of the temple at Tanga-tanga, had acquired a Noada; but she was not at all what he had imagined Noada should be. At first she had been docile and tractable, amenable to suggestion; that was while O-aa was learning the ropes, before she learned that she was supposed to be all-wise and all-powerful, deriving her omniscience and omnipotence from some one they called Pu who dwelt in a place called Karana.

Later on, she became somewhat of a trial to Ope. In the first place, she had no sense of the value of pieces of bronze. When they were brought as offerings to her, she would wait until she had a goodly collection in a large bowl which stood beside her throne; then, when the temple was filled with people, she would scoop handfuls of the pieces from the bowl and throw them to the crowd, laughing as she watched them scramble for them.

This made O-aa very popular with the people, but it made Ope sad. He had never had such large congregation’s in the temple before, but the net profits had never been so small. Ope spoke to the Noada about this-timidly, because, unlike Hor of Lolo-lolo, he was a simple soul and guileless; he believed in the divinity of the Noada.

Furp, the go-sha of Tanga-tanga, was not quite so simple; but, like many an agnostic, he believed in playing safe. However, he talked this matter over with Ope, because it had long been the custom for Ope to split the temple take with him, and now his share was approaching the vanishing point, so he suggested to Ope that it might be well to suggest to the Noada that, while charity was a sweet thing, it really should begin at home. So Ope spoke to the Noada, and Furp listened.

“Why,” he asked, “does the Noada throw away the offerings that are brought to the temple?”

“Because the people like them,” replied O-aa. “Haven’t you noticed how they scramble for them?”

“They belong to the temple.”

“They are brought to me,” contradicted O-aa. “Anyway, I don’t see why you should make a fuss over some little pieces of metal. I do not want them. What good are they?”

“Without them we could not pay the priests, or buy food, or keep the temple in repair,” explained Ope.

“Bosh!” exclaimed O-aa, or an expletive with the same general connotation. “The people bring food, which we can eat; and the priests could keep the temple in repair in payment for their food; they are a lazy lot, anyway. I have tried to find out what they do besides going around frightening people into bringing gifts, and wearing silly masks, and dancing. Where I come from, they would either hunt or work.

Ope was aghast. “But you come from Karana, Noada!” he exclaimed. “No one works in Karana.”

O-aa realized that she had pulled a boner, and that she would have to do a little quick thinking. She did.

“How do you know?” she demanded. “Were you ever in Karana?”

“No, Noada,” admitted Ope.

Furp was becoming more and more confused, but he was sure of one point, and he brought it out. “Pu would be angry,” he said, “if he knew that you were throwing away the offerings that the people brought to his temple, and Pu can punish even a Noada.”

“Pu had better not interfere,” said O-aa; “my father is a king, and my eleven brothers are very strong men.”

“What?” screamed Ope. “Do you know what you are saying? Pu is all-powerful, and anyway a Noada has no father and no brothers.”

“Were you ever a Noada?” asked O-aa. “No, of course you never were. It is time you learned something about Noadas. Noadas have a lot of everything. I have not one father only, but three, and besides my eleven brothers, I have four sisters, and they are all Noadas. Pu is my son, he does what I tell him to. Is there anything more you would like to know about Noadas?”

Ope and Furp discussed this conversation in private later on. “I never before knew all those things about Noadas,” said Ope.

“Our Noada seems to know what she’s talking about,” observed Furp.

“She is evidently more powerful than Pu,” argued Ope, “as otherwise he would have struck her dead for the things she said about him.”

“Perhaps we had better worship our Noada instead of Pu,” suggested Furp.

“You took the words out of my mouth,” said Ope.

Thus, O-aa was sitting pretty in Tanga-tanga, as Hodon the Fleet One set sail from Amoz on his hopeless quest and David Innes drifted toward the end of the world in the Dinosaur II, as Perry christened his second balloon.

PART III:

TIGER GIRL

I

“You say there is another shore,” said Gamba to Dian; “perhaps there is, but we shall never reach it,”

“We can try,” replied the girl. “Had we remained in your land we should surely have been killed, either by the savages of which you told me, by the wild beasts, or by your own people. If we must die, it is better to die trying to reach safety than to have remained where there never could be safety for us.”

“I sometimes wish,” said Gamba, “that you had never come to Lolo-lolo.”

“You don’t wish it any more than I,” replied the girl.

‘We were getting along very well without a Noada,” continued the man, “and then you had to come and upset everything.”

“Things should have been upset,” said Dian “You and Hor were robbing the people. Pretty soon they would have risen and killed you both, which would have been a good thing for Lolo-lolo.”

“I might not have gotten into all this trouble,” said Gamba, “if I hadn’t fallen in love with you. Hor knew it; and he made that an excuse to turn the people against me.”

“You had no business falling in love with me. I already have a mate.”

“He is a long way off,” said Gamba, “and you will never see him again. If you had come to my house and been my wife before all this happened, you and I could have ruled Lolo-lolo as long as we lived. For a bright girl it seems to me that you are very stupid.”

“You were stupid to fall in love with me,” said Dian, “but in a moment it may not make any difference one way or another-look what is coming,” and she pointed.

“Pu be merciful!” cried the man. “This is the end. I told you that we should not come out upon this water which stands on end and is filled with death.”

A great head upon a slender neck rose ten feet above the surface of the sea. Cold, reptilian eyes glared at them, and jaws armed with countless teeth gaped to seize them. The creature moved slowly towards them as though knowing that they could not escape, the water rippling along its glossy sides.

“Your bow and arrow!” cried Dian. “Put an arrow into its body at the waterline, and bend your bow as you have never bent it before. When it comes closer we will use our swords.”

Gamba stood up in the canoe and drew a three-foot arrow back to its very tip; and when he released it, it drove true to its mark; burying two-thirds of its length into the saurian’s body at the waterline. Screaming with pain and hissing with rage, the creature seized the end of the shaft and jerked it from the wound; and with it came a stream of blood spurting out and crimsoning the surface of the water. Then, still hissing and screaming, it bore down upon the two relatively puny humans in the frail canoe. Dian was standing now, her bronze sword grasped-tightly in one hand, her bronze knife in the other. Gamba drove another arrow into the reptile’s breast; and then dropped his bow into the bottom of the canoe and seized his sword.

Now, as though by magic, hundreds of small fishes, about a foot long, attracted by the blood of the saurian, were attacking the maddened creature, which paused to wrench the second shaft from its breast. Ignoring the voracious, sharp-fanged fishes which were tearing it to pieces, it came on again to attack the authors of its first hurts. With arched neck it bore down upon them; and as it struck to seize Dian, she met it with her bronze sword; striking at the long neck and inflicting a terrible wound, which caused the creature to recoil. But it came on again, raising a flipper with which it could easily have overturned or swamped the frail craft.

Gamba, realizing the danger, struck a terrific blow at the flipper while it was still poised above the gunwale of the canoe; and so much strength did he put into it that he severed the member entirely; and simultaneously Dian struck again at the neck. The great head flopped sideways, and with a final convulsive struggle the saurian rolled over on its side.

“You see,” said Dian, “that there is still hope that we may reach the other shore. There are few creatures in any sea more terrible than the one which we have killed.”

“I wouldn’t have given one piece of bronze for our chances” said Gamba.

“They didn’t look very bright,” admitted Dian, “but I have been in much worse dangers than that before; and I have always come through all right. You see, I did not live in a walled city as you have all your life; and my people were always open to the attacks of wild beasts, and the men of enemy tribes.”

They had taken up their paddles again, but now they were out where the full strength of the current gripped them; and they were moving far more rapidly down the strait than they were across it. Because of the current it was hard to keep the bow of the canoe pointed in the right direction. It was a constant and exhausting struggle. They were still in sight of the shoreline they had left, though the distant shore was not yet visible.

“We’re not making very much progress in the right direction,” said Dian.

“I am very tired,” said Gamba. “I do not believe that I can paddle much longer.”

“I am about exhausted myself,” said the girl. “Perhaps we had better let the current carry us along. There is only one place that it can take us and that is into the Korsar Az. There, there will be no strong current and we can come to shore. As a matter of fact, I believe that we can get much closer to Sari along that coast than we would have been if we had been able to paddle directly across the strait.” So Dian the Beautiful and Gamba the Xexot drifted along the nameless strait toward the Korsar Az.

BORNE ALONG BY A gentle wind, David Innes drifted down across the Land of Awful Shadow toward the end of the world and the nameless strait, in the balloon which Abner Perry had named the Dinosaur II. He knew that his was an almost hopeless venture, with the chances of his balloon coming down near the exact spot where Dian had landed almost nil; and even if it did, where was he to look for her?

Where would she be, in a strange land, entirely unknown to her, provided that she was still alive, which seemed beyond reason; for, supplied with warm coverings as he was, and provided with food and water, he had already suffered considerably from the cold; and he knew that Dian had been without food, or water, or covering of any kind, other than her scant loincloth, at the time that her balloon had broken away.

Yet somehow he thought that she was not dead. It did not seem possible to him that that beautiful creature, so full of life and vigor, could be lying somewhere cold and still, or that her body had been devoured by wild beasts. And so he clung to hope with an almost fanatic zeal.

At last he came to the nameless strait, across which he had never been. He saw the waters of it below him, and far to his right two figures in a canoe. He wondered idly who they might be and where they might be going upon those lonely, danger-ridden waters; and then he forgot them and strained his eyes ahead in search of the farther shore, where, if at all, he felt sure that he might find his mate.

His balloon was floating at an altitude of only about a thousand feet when he approached the opposite side of the strait. His attention was attracted by two things. On the beach below him lay the wreck of a dismasted ship, which he recognized immediately; for he and Perry had designed her and superintended her building. He recognized her, and he knew that she was the Sari.

The other thing that had attracted his attention was a walled city, not far from the shore of the nameless strait. He knew that O-aa had been aboard the Sari when she had been abandoned by her crew; and he realized that perhaps O-aa had been captured by the people who lived in that city.

The presence of a walled city in Pellucidar was sufficiently amazing to arouse many conjectures in his mind. In a walled city there might live a semi-civilized people who would have befriended O-aa; and if Dian had landed near it, she might be in the city, too; or the people might have heard something about her, for a balloon would certainly have aroused their interest and their curiosity.

Now he saw that his balloon had accomplished that very thing; for people were running from the city gates, staring up at him, and calling to him. They might be cursing and threatening him, for all he knew; but he decided to come down, for here were people, and where there would be rumors; and even the faintest rumor might lead him upon the right track. So he pulled the ripcord, and the Dinosaur II settled slowly towards Tanga-tanga.

As the basket of the balloon touched the ground David Innes found himself surrounded by yellow-skinned warriors, wearing leather aprons painted with gay designs, that fell from their waists both before and behind. On their heads were leather helmets; and they carried swords and knives of bronze, as well as bows and arrows.

Some of the warriors shouted, “It is Pu. He has come to visit our Noada.”

“It is not Pu,” cried others. “He comes in the same thing that brought the false Noada of Lolo-lolo.”

David Innes understood the words, but not the purport of them; only that the reference to the false Noada who had come in a balloon convinced him that Dian the Beautiful had been here. He did not know who Pu might be, but he saw that they were divided among themselves as to his identity; and he also saw that no weapon was drawn against him.

“I have come down out of the sky,” he said, “to visit your chief. Take me to him.”

To many of the men of Tanga-tanga this sounded as though Pu spoke; and many who had said that it was not Pu wavered in their convictions.

“Go to the house of Furp, the go-sha,” said one who was evidently an officer to a warrior, “and tell him that we are bringing a stranger to the temple to visit him and our Noada. If he is indeed Pu, our Noada will recognize him.”

The gas bag, partially deflated, still billowed limply above the basket; and when David Innes stepped out and relieved it of his weight the balloon rose slowly and majestically into the air and floated away inland across the city of Tanga-tanga.

When David stood among them, those who thought that he was Pu, the god, fell upon their knees and covered their eyes with their hands. David looked at them in astonishment for a moment and then he quite suddenly realized that they must believe him a deity coming down from heaven; and that the name of this deity was Pu; and he thought to himself, what would a god do under like circumstances? He hazarded a guess, and he guessed right.

“Arise,” he said. “Now escort me to the temple,” for he recalled that the officer had said that that was where they were taking him. The officer’s reference to “our Noada” and to “Furp, the go-sha,” meant little or nothing to him; but he decided to maintain a godly silence on the subject until he did know.

They led him through the city gate and along narrow, crooked streets flanked by mean little houses of clay. Here he saw women and children, the women wearing painted leather aprons like the men and having headdresses of feathers, while the children were naked. He noted with some measure of astonishment the bronze weapons and ornaments, and realized that these people had advanced into the age of bronze. Their walled city, their painted aprons, craftsmanship displayed in their weapons and ornaments, suggested that if the inner world were closely following the stages of human development upon the outer crust, these people might soon be entering the iron age.

To David Innes, if his mind had not been solely devoted to the finding of his mate, these people might have presented an interesting study in anthropology; but he thought of them now only as a means to an end.

They had seen Dian’s balloon. Had they seen her? Did they know what had become of her?

II

IN THE CENTER of the city was an open plaza, on one side of which was a large, domed building, a replica of the temple where Dian the Beautiful had ruled for a short time in the city of Lolo-lolo. To this building David Innes was conducted.

Within it were many people. Some of them fell upon their knees and covered their eyes as he entered. These were the ones who were not taking any chances; but the majority stood and waited. Upon a dais at the far end of the room sat a girl in a long leather robe, gorgeously painted in many colors with strange designs. Upon her head was a massive feather headdress. Upon her arms were many bronze bracelets and armlets, and around her neck were strands of ivory beads.

As David Innes came toward the throne O-aa recognized him. They had brought her word that one who might be Pu had come to visit Furp the Go-sha; and now, nimble-witted as ever, she realized that she must perpetuate this erroneous belief as the most certain way in which to insure David’s safety.

She rose and looked angrily upon those who had remained standing.

“Kneel!”’ she commanded imperiously. “Who dares stand in the presence of Pu?”

David Innes was close enough now to recognize her; and as she saw recognition in his eyes, she forestalled anything he might be about to say: “The Noada welcomes you, Pu, to your temple in the city of Tanga-tanga”; and she held out her hands to him and indicated that he was to step to the dais beside her. When he had done so, she whispered, “Tell them to rise.”

“Arise!” said David Innes in a commanding voice. It was a sudden transition from mortality to godhood, but David rose to the occasion, following the lead of little O-aa, daughter of Oose, king of Kali.

‘What are your wishes, Pu?” asked O-aa. “Would you like to speak with your Noada alone?”

“I wish to speak with my Noada alone,” said David Innes with great and godly dignity; “and then I will speak with Furp the Go-sha,” he added.

O-aa turned to Ope the high priest. “Clear the Temple,” she said, “but tell the people to be prepared to return later with offerings for Pu. Then they shall know why Pu has come and whether he is pleased with the people of Tanga-tanga, or angry at them. And, Ope, have the lesser priests fetch a lesser bench for me, as Pu will sit upon my throne while he is here.”

After the temple was cleared and the bench was brought and they were alone O-aa looked into David’s eyes and grinned.

“Tell me what you are doing here, and how you got here,” she said.

“First tell me if you have heard anything of Dian the Beautiful,” insisted David.

“No,” replied O-aa, “what has happened to her? I supposed, of course, that she was in Sari.”

“No,” replied David, “she is not in Sari. Abner Perry built a balloon and it got away, carrying Dian the Beautiful with it.”

“What is a balloon?” asked O-aa; and then she said, “Oh, is it a great, round ball with a basket fastened to it in which a person may ride through the air?”

“Yes,” said David, “that is it.”

“Then it was Dian who came before I did. They have told me about this thing that happened. The what-you-call-it, balloon, came down low over Tanga-tanga; and they thought that the woman in it was their Noada come from Karana; and they went out and fought with the men of Lo lo-lolo for her. But the men of Lolo-lolo got her and she was Noada there until maybe thirty sleeps ago, maybe more. Then the people turned against her; and she disappeared with Gamba, the go-sha of Lolo-lolo, whom the people also wished to kill. What became of them no man knows; but the woman must have been Dian the Beautiful, for she came in that thing that floated through the air. But how did you get here, David Innes?”

“I also came in a balloon,” replied David. “I had Abner Perry build one, thinking that it might float in the same direction as had that which bore Dian away; for at this time of year the direction of the wind seldom varies, and a balloon is borne along by the wind.”

“They told me that this visitor, who some of them thought might be Pu, had come down from Karana. Now I understand what they meant.”

“What is Karana?” asked David.

“It is where Pu lives,” explained O-aa. “It is where I live when I am not on earth. It is where those who worship Pu go when they die. It is a mighty good thing for me that Pu came from Karana when he did,” she added.

“Why?” asked David. “What do you mean?”

“Ope, the high priest, and Furp, the go-sha, don’t like me,” replied O-aa. “They liked me at first, but now they don’t like me any more. They don’t like me at all. The people bring offerings to me, and many of these offerings are little pieces of metal, like the metal in my bracelets.”

“It is bronze,” said David Innes.

“Whatever it is, Ope the high priest and Furp the go-sha are very anxious to get hold of as much of it as they can; but I throw much of it back to the people because it is a lot of fun watching them fight for it; and that is why Ope and Furp do not like me. But it has made me very popular with the people of Tanga-tanga; and so, not only do Ope and Furp dislike me, but they fear me, also. I cannot understand why Ope and Furp and the People are so anxious to have these silly little pieces of metal.”

David Innes smiled. He was thinking of how typical it was of woman that even this little cave girl had no sense of the value of money, before she even knew what money was, or what it was for. “You had better let Ope and Furp have their silly little pieces of metal,” he said. “I think you will live longer if you do; for these little pieces of metal men will commit murder.”

“It is all very strange,” said O-aa. “I do not understand it, but I do not dare ask questions because a Noada is supposed to know everything.”

“And I suppose that Pu is supposed to know more than a Noada,” remarked David, with a wry smile.

“Of course,” said O-aa. “As I know everything that there is to be known, you must know everything that there is to be known, and a great deal that there isn’t to be known.”

“There is one thing that I don’t know, but that I would like to know very much,” he said; “and that is where Dian is, and whether she is still alive. After that I would like to know how we are going to get out of here and get back to Sari. You would like to get back, wouldn’t you, O-aa?”

“It makes no difference to me now,” she said, sadly. “Since Hodon the Fleet One was killed by Blug I do not care where I am.”

“But Hodon was not killed by Blug,” said David. “It was Blug who was killed.”

“And I ran away thinking that Hodon was dead and that I would have to mate with Blug,” exclaimed O-aa. “Oh, why didn’t I wait and see! Tell me, where is Hodon?”

“Before I left Sari he asked for a ship and some men that he might go out upon the Lural Az and search for you; for he received the message that you sent to him in the event that he was not dead.”

“And he will never find me,” said O-aa, “and he will be lost on that terrible ocean.”

After a while the people came back and brought offerings for Pu. David Innes saw the little pieces of metal and he smiled-crude little coins, crudely minted. For these the high priest and the king would drag the goddess from her pedestal; and doubtless kill her into the bargain. Unquestionably, these men of the bronze age were advancing toward a higher civilization.

O-aa took a handful of the coins and threw them to the people, who scrambled, screaming, upon the floor of the temple, fighting for them. Ope the high priest and Furp the go-sha looked on with sullen scowls, but O-aa felt safer now because she had Pu right there at her side.

After the people had left the temple Ope and Furp remained; and Ope, suddenly emboldened by his anger at the loss of so many pieces of metal, said to David, “How is it that you are so much older than the Noada?” O-aa was momentarily horrified, for she recalled that, she had once told Ope and Furp that she was the mother of Pu. She had also told them that Pu did everything she told him to do. To be a successful liar one must be quick to cover up; so, before David could answer, O-aa answered for him.

“You should know, Ope, being my high priest, that a Noada may look any age she wishes. It pleases me not to look older than my son.”

David Innes was astounded by the effrontery of the girl. Metaphorically, he took his hat off to her. These people, he thought, would look far before they could find a better goddess than O-aa.

Ope, the high priest, tried another tack. “Will Pu, who knows all, be kind enough to tell our Noada that she should not throw away the pieces of bronze that the people bring here as offerings?”

David thought that since he was supposed to know all, it would be best to pretend that he did.

“The Noada was quite right,” said David. “She has done this to teach you not to exact so much from the people. I have known for a long time that your priests were demanding more from them than they could afford to give; and that is one reason why I came from Karana to talk with you; and with Furp, who also exacts more in taxes than he should.”

Ope and Furp looked most unhappy; but Furp spoke up and said, “I must pay my warriors and keep the city in repair; and Ope must pay the priests and keep up the temple.”

“You are telling Pu the things that he already knows,” said David. “Hereafter you will exact less taxes and fewer offerings; demanding only what you require for the proper maintenance of the city and the temple.”

Ope was a simple fellow, who believed against his will that this was indeed Pu the god; and he was afraid; but Furp was a skeptic, as well as something of an atheist; at least, he bordered on atheism. But, with Ope, he bowed to the will of Pu; at least temporarily, and with mental reservation.

“There are many things that trouble my mind,” said Ope to David, “Perhaps you will explain them to me. We have always been taught that there was Pu; and that he had one daughter, who was our Noada. But now I am not only told that Pu is the son of our Noada, but that she had three fathers, eleven brothers, and four sisters, all of the latter being Noadas.”

Even O-aa flushed at the recital of this bare-faced lie which she had told Ope in order to impress him with her knowledge of conditions in Karana. For a moment she was lost, and could think of nothing to say. She only wondered what reply David Innes would make.

“It is all very simple,” he said, “when you understand it. As my high priest, Ope, you must know that Pu is all-powerful.”

Ope nodded. “Yes, of course, I know that,” he said importantly.

“Then you will understand why it is that Pu can be either the son or the father of your Noada. We can change about as we wish; and the Noada can, have as many brothers, or as many sisters, or as many fathers, as I wish her to have. Is that clear to you?”

“Perfectly clear,” said Ope. But it was not clear to Furp; and when he left the temple he started to implant in the minds of many a suspicion that the man who had come down out of the skies was not Pu at all, nor was the woman a true Noada. Furp planted the seed and was willing to wait and let it germinate, as he knew it would.

III

IT HAPPENED that when Hodon the Fleet One reached the coast of Amoz, to set sail upon the Lural Az in search of O-aa, that Raj, the Mezop who had commanded the Sari, was there; and Hodon asked Raj to come with him and take command of the little ship in which he and his warriors were about to embark.

The Mezops were a seafaring people, and Hodon was fortunate in obtaining the services of one to command his ship; and it was also additionally fortunate that it was Raj, because Raj knew exactly where the Sari had been abandoned; and he also knew the winds and the ocean currents. Knowing these, and where they would ordinarily have carried the Sari, Raj set his course for the mouth of the nameless strait. After many sleeps they reached it; but they had to stand off for several more sleeps because of a terrific storm, which because of the seamanship of Raj, they weathered.

When the storm, abated the wind and the currents swept the little ship into the mouth of the nameless strait, swept it close past the coast of the Xexot country, and the spot where the wreck of the Sari had lain until the storm they had just weathered had broken her up and removed all vestiges of the clue of the whereabouts of O-aa that it had previously constituted, and which would have led them immediately to the city of Tanga-tanga.

David Innes and O-aa sat upon the dais in the temple of Pu, ignorant of the fact that their friends were passing so near them.

DIAN THE BEAUTIFUL and Gamba, paddling through the nameless strait toward the Korsar Az, did not see the great balloon that passed in the air high behind them. Only a few thousand yards separated Dian the Beautiful and David at that moment; and it was a cruel fate that had prevented them from knowing how close they had been to a reunion; for David could have brought the balloon down on the shore, and Dian could have returned to it.

Dian had seen to it that the canoe was stocked with food and water before they embarked upon their perilous journey. They took turns sleeping as they let the current carry them along. Time and again they were attacked by fearful creatures of the deep, for this strange thing upon the surface of the water attracted many to them. Some were motivated only by curiosity, but voracious appetites actuated the majority of them; and it was a constant source of surprise to Gamba that they emerged from each encounter victorious.

“I didn’t think that we would live to sleep once after we set out from shore,” he said.

“I was not so sure myself,” replied Dian, “but now I think that we shall get through to the Korsar Az, and then go up the coast to a point opposite Amoz. We can cut across country there; but I believe that greater dangers lie ahead of us on land than on the sea.”

“Is it a savage country?” asked Gamba.

“For a long way back from the shores of the Korsar Az it is a very savage country,” replied Dian. “I have never been there, but our men who have ventured into it to hunt say that it is infested with savage beasts, and even more savage men.”

“I wish,” said Gamba, “that I had never seen you. If you had not come to Lolo-lolo, I should still be go-sha and safe behind the walls of my city.”

“I wish you would stop harping on that,” said Dian, “but I may say that if you had been a better go-sha you would still have been there; and if you want to go back, we can paddle to shore, and I will let you out.” After many sleeps they reached the end of the nameless strait, which narrowed right at the entrance to the Korsar Az; so that the waters rushed through with terrific velocity, and the little canoe was almost swamped many times before it floated out on the comparatively smooth surface of the Korsar Az. Now they turned in a northeasterly direction hugging the coast; and it was then that the storm that had held Hodon off the mouth of the nameless strait in the Sojar Az, struck them and carried them far from shore.

Driving rain blinded them, and great seas constantly threatened to swamp them; so that while one paddled in an effort to keep the canoe from turning broadside into the trough of the seas, the other bailed with one of the gourds that Dian had thoughtfully brought along for that purpose.

They were both exhausted when a shoreline suddenly rose before them, dimly visible through the rain, Now Dian could see a wide, white beach up which enormous rollers raced, to break thunderously upon the shore; and toward this the storm was carrying them, nor could any puny efforts which they might put forth avert the inevitable end.

It did not seem possible to the girl that they could live that terrific surf; but she determined to try to ride it in, and so she told Gamba to paddle with all his strength; and she did likewise.

On and on the little canoe raced; and then, riding just below the crest of an enormous roller, it shot with terrific speed towards the shore; and, like a surfboard, it was carried far up on the beach.

Surprised that they still lived, they leaped out and held it as the water receded; then they dragged it farther up on the shore, out of reach of the breakers.

“I think,” said Gamba, “that you must really be a Noada; for no mortal being could come through what we have come through, and live.”

Dian smiled. “I have never said that I wasn’t,” she replied.

Gamba thought this over, but he made no comment. Instead, he said presently, “As soon as the storm is over we can start for Amoz. It is good to be on land again and to know that we shall not have to face the dangers of the sea any more.”

“We have a lot more sea to cross,” said Dian, “before we reach Amoz.”

“What do you mean?” demanded Gamba. “Have we not been driven ashore; are we not on land?”

“Yes, we are on land,” replied Dian, “but that storm blew us away from that land where Amoz lies; and as it certainly did not blow us all the way across the enormous Korsar Az, it must have blown us onto an island.”

Gamba appeared stunned. “Now there is no hope for us,” he said. “This is indeed the end. You are no true Noada, or you would not have permitted this to happen.”

Dian laughed. “You give up too easily,” she said. “You must have been a very poor go-sha indeed.”

“I was a good go-sha until you came along,” snapped Gamba, “but now, great Noada,” he said sarcastically, “what do we do next?”

“As soon as the storm dies down,” replied Dian, “we launch the canoe and set out for shore.”

“I do not want to go on the water again,” said Gamba.

“Very well, then,” replied Dian, “you may remain here; but I am going.”

Beyond the beach rose cliffs to the height of a hundred feet or more, topping them Dian could see green, jungle-like verdure; and not far away a waterfall leaped over the cliff into the sea, which lashed the face of the cliff itself at this point, throwing spray so high into the air that at these times the waterfall was hidden. In the other direction the sea again broke against the face of the cliff. They stood upon a narrow, crescent-shaped bit of land that the sea had never as yet claimed. To Gamba, as to you and me, the cliffs looked unscalable; but to Dian the cave girl they appeared merely difficult. However, as she had no intention of scaling them, it made no difference.

They were very uncomfortable for a long while, as they sat drenched by the heavy downpour. There was no cave into which they could crawl, and sleep was out of the question. They just sat and endured; Dian stoically, Gamba grumblingly.

At last, however, they saw the sun shining far out upon the sea, and they knew that the storm was passing over them and that it would soon be gone. Often it is a relief to have that eternal noonday sun hidden by a cloud; but now when the cloud passed they were glad of the sun’s warmth again.

“Let us sleep,” said Dian, “and if the sea has gone down when we awaken I shall set out again in search of the big land. I think you would be wise if you came with me, but do as you please. It makes no difference to me.”

“You have a heart of stone,” said the man. “How can you talk like that to a man who loves you?”

“I am going to sleep now,” said Dian, “and you had better do likewise;” and she curled up in the wet grass with the hot sun beating down upon her beautiful body.

Dian dreamed that she was back in Sari, and that her people were gathered around her; and that David was there and she was very happy, happier than she had been for a long time.

Presently one of the people standing around her kicked her lightly in the ribs, and Dian awakened. She opened her eyes to see that there really were people surrounding her, but they were not the people of Sari. They were big men, who carried long, heavy spears and great bows; and their loincloths were made of the skins of tarags, and the heads of tarags had been cleverly fashioned to form helmets that covered their heads, with the great tusks pointing downward on either side of their heads at an angle of forty-five degrees, and the quivers which held their arrows at their backs were of the skin of the great carnivores-of the black and yellow hide of the tarag, the huge, sabre-tooth tiger that has been so long extinct upon the outer crust.

“Get up,” said one of the men; and Dian and Gamba both came to their feet.

“What do you want of us?” demanded Dian. “We were leaving as soon as the sea went down.”

“What were you doing here?” asked the man.

“The storm drove us onto this shore,” replied Dian. “We were trying to reach the mainland.”

“Who are you?”

“I am Dian, the mate of David Innes, the Emperor of Pellucidar.”

“We never heard of you, or him, and I do not know what an emperor is.”

“He is what you might call the chief of chiefs,” explained Dian. “He has an army and a navy and many guns. He would be your friend if you would protect me and this man.”

“What is a navy? What are guns?” demanded this man. “And why should we be kind to you? We are not afraid of this David Innes; we are not afraid of anyone in Pellucidar. We are the men of Tandar.”

“What is Tandar?” demanded Dian.

“You mean to say you have never heard of Tandar?” exclaimed the warrior.

“Never,” said Dian.

“Neither have I,” said Gamba.

The warrior looked at them disgustedly. “This is the Island of Tandar that you are on,” he said; “and I am Hamlar, the Chief.”

“The sea is going down,” said Dian, “and we shall soon be leaving.”

Hamlar laughed; it was a nasty sort of a laugh. “You mill never leave Tandar,” he said; “no one who comes here ever does.”

Dian shrugged. She knew her world, and she knew that the man meant what he said.

“Come,” said Hamlar; and there was nothing to do but follow him.

Warriors surrounded them as Hamlar led the way toward the waterfall. Dian was barefooted, as she had left her sandals on the thwart of the canoe to dry. She would not ask Hamlar if she might get them, for she was too proud to ask favors of an enemy. She kept looking up at the face of the cliff to see where these men had come down, but she saw no sign of a place here that even she could scale; and then Hamlar reached the waterfall and disappeared beneath it, and a moment later Dian found herself on a narrow ledge that ran beneath the falls; and then she followed the warrior ahead of her into the mouth of a cavern that was as dark as pitch and damp with dripping water.

She climbed through the darkness, feeling her way, until presently she saw a little light ahead. The light came from above down a shaft that inclined slightly from the vertical, and leaning against its wall was a crude ladder. Dian had delayed those behind her in the darkness of the cavern, but now she clambered up the ladder like a monkey, soon overtaking those ahead of her. She could hear the warriors behind her growling at Gamba for climbing so slowly; and she could hear his grunts and cries as they prodded him with their spears.

From the top of the shaft a winding trail led through the jungle. Occasionally Dian caught glimpses of large animals slinking along other paths that paralleled or crossed the one they were on; and she saw the yellow and black of the tarag’s hide.

A mile inland from the coast they came to a clearing at the foot of a towering cliff, in the sandstone face of which eaves and ledges had been laboriously excavated and cut. She looked with amazement upon these cliff dwellings, which must have required many generations to construct. At the foot of the cliff, warriors lolled in the shade of the trees, while women worked and children played.

At least a score of great tarags slept, or wandered about among the people. She saw a child pull the tail of one, and the great carnivore turned upon it with an ugly snarl. The child jumped back, and the tarag continued its prowling. Aside from that one child, no one seemed to pay any attention to the brutes at all.

Attracted by the sight of Dian and Gamba, warriors, women and children clustered about; and it was evident from their remarks that they seldom saw strangers upon their island. The women wore loincloths and sandals of the skins of tarags. Like the men, the women were rather handsome, with well-shaped heads, and intelligent eyes.

Hamlar motioned to one of the women. “Manai,” he said, “this one is yours,” and he pointed to Dian. “Does anyone want the man?” he asked, looking around. “If not, we will kill him and feed him to the tarags.

Gamba looked around then, too, hopefully; but at first no one indicated any desire to possess him, Finally, however, a woman spoke up and said, “I will take him. He can fetch wood and water for me and beat the skins of the tarags to soften them”; and Gamba breathed a sigh of relief.

“Come,” said Manai to Dian, and led the way up a series of ladders to a cave far up in the face of the cliff.

“This,” she said, stopping upon a ledge before sit opening, “is the cave of Hamlar, the chief, who is my mate.” Then she went in and came back with a bundle of twigs tied tightly together with strips of rawhide. “Clean out the cave of Hamlar and Manai,” she said, “and see that none of the dirt falls over the edge of the cliff. You will find a big gourd in the cave. Put the dirt into it and carry it down to the foot of the cliff and dump it in the stream.”

So Dian the Beautiful, Empress of Pellucidar, went to work as a slave for Manai, the mate of Hamlar, chief of Tandar; and she thought that she was fortunate not to have been killed. After she had cleaned the cave and carried the dirt down and dumped it in the stream, Manai, who had returned to the women at the foot of the cliff, called to her. “‘What is your name?” she asked.

“Dian,” replied the girl.

“There is meat in the cave,” said Manai. “Go and get it and bring it down here and make a fire and cook it for Hamlar and Manai, and for Bovar, their son.”

While Dian was broiling the meat she saw Gamba pounding a tarag skin with two big sticks; and she smiled when she thought that not many sleeps ago he had been a king, with slaves to wait upon him.

Hamlar came and sat down beside Manai. “Does your slave work, or is she lazy?” he asked.

“She works,” said Manai.

“She had better,” said Hamlar, “for if she doesn’t work, we will have to kill her and feed her to the tarags. We cannot afford to feed a lazy slave. Where is Bovar?”

“He is asleep in his cave,” replied Manai. “He told me to awaken him when we ate.”

“Send the slave for him,” said Hamlar. “The meat is almost ready.”

“Bovar’s cave is next to ours, just to the right of it,” Manai told Dian. “Go there and awaken him.”

So again Dian the Beautiful clambered up the long series of ladders to the ledge far up on the face of the cliff; and she went to the opening next to that of Hamlar’s cave and called Bovar by name. She called several times before a sleepy voice answered.

“What do you want?” it demanded.

“Manai, your mother, has sent me to tell you that the meat is ready and that they are about to eat.”

A tall young warrior crawled out of the cave and stood erect. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“I am Manai’s new slave,” replied Dian.

“What is your name?” asked Bovar.

“Dian,” replied the girl.

“That is a pretty name,” he said; “and you are a pretty girl. I think you are the prettiest girl I ever saw. Where do you come from?”

“I come from Amoz, which lies beside the Darel Az,” replied Dian.

“I never heard of either one of them,” said Bovar; “but no matter where you come from, you are certainly the prettiest girl I ever saw,” repeated Bovar.

“Come down to your meat,” said Dian as she turned to the ladder and started to descend.

Bovar followed her, and they joined Hamlar and Manai beside the leg of meat that was roasting over the fire on a pointed stick that Dian had driven through it, which was supported by forked sticks at either end.

“The meat is cooked,” said Manai who had been turning it during Dian’s absence. Dian took it from the fire then and laid it upon some leaves that were spread upon the ground, and Hamlar took his knife of stone and cut off a large piece and held it on a pointed stick to cool a little; and then Manai cut off a piece, and then Bovar.

“May I eat?” asked Dian.

“Eat,” said Hamlar.

Dian drew her bronze knife from its sheath and cut off a piece of meat. The knife cut slickly and smoothly, not like the crude stone weapons of the Tandars.

“Let me see that,” said Bovar; and Dian handed him the knife.

“No one ever saw anything like this,” said Bovar; and handed it to his father. Both Hamlar and Manai examined it closely.

‘What is it?” demanded Hamlar.

“It is a knife,” said Dian.

“I don’t mean that,” said Hamlar. “I mean, what is it made of?”

“It is a metal which the Xexots call ‘androde’,” replied the girl.

Bovar held out his hand for the knife and Manai gave it to him.

“Who are the Xexots?” said Hamlar.

“They are people who live a long way from here at the other end of the nameless strait.”

“Do these people all have knives made of this metal?’ asked Hamlar.

“Knives and swords, too.” She did not tell him that her sword and Gamba’s were in the canoe; for she hoped some day to be able to run away and put to sea again.

Dian held her hand out towards Bovar for the knife. “I shall keep it,” he said. “I like it.”

“Give it back to her,” said Manai. “It is hers. We are not thieves.” So Bovar handed the knife back to Dian; but he made up his mind then and there to possess it, and he knew just how to go about it. All that he would have to do would be to push Dian off the ledge that ran in front of this cave; and he was sure that Manai would let him have the knife; provided, of course, that no one saw him push Dian.

IV

MANY SLEEPS had passed since Pu came to Tanga-tanga, but neither David Innes nor O-aa had been able to concoct any scheme whereby they might escape. The temple guard was composed entirely of warriors handpicked by Furp; and as far as David Innes and O-aa were concerned, these guardsmen were their jailers.

Furp was convinced that they were just ordinary mortals who had come to Tanga-tanga by accident; but he knew that most of the people believed in them, and so he did not dare to act against them too openly. He would gladly have had them killed; for now he was not receiving from Ope, the high priest, even a quarter as many pieces of bronze as he had before the advent of the Noada.

It was a little better since Pu had come, but the avaricious Furp wanted much more. Ope, the high priest, was secretly their enemy, and for the same reason that Furp was; but being a simple and superstitious fool, he had convinced himself that it was really a true god and goddess who sat upon the dais of the temple.

Though their enemies were powerful, those who believed in Pu and the Noada were many; and they were loved by these because the amount of their taxes and offerings had been greatly reduced, and now they had pieces of bronze with which to buy more food, and such other things as they required.

Both David and O-aa felt the undercurrent of intrigue against them, and they also felt that many of the common people were their friends; but these were never allowed to speak with them alone, as they were always surrounded by the priests of the temple, or the temple guards.

“I wish I might talk with some of these people alone,” said David upon one of the few occasions where he had an opportunity to speak even to O-aa without being overheard by a priest or a warrior. “I think they are our friends, and if anyone were plotting against us, they would tell us if they had the opportunity.”

“I am sure of it,” said O-aa. “They have always liked me; and now they like you, too; for between us we have saved them a great many pieces of metal.”

Suddenly David snapped his fingers, “I have it!” he exclaimed. “In the world from which I come there is a great and old religious faith whose communicants may come and confess theirs sins and be forgiven. They come alone and whisper to the priest, telling him what is troubling their hearts; and no one but the priest may hear them. Pu is going to ordain that the people of Tanga-tanga have this privilege, with one great advantage over confessors in that other world, in that they may confess their sins directly to the ear of their god.”

“Ope won’t let you do it,” said O-aa.

“There is a good, old American expression, which you would not understand, that explains succinctly just how I purpose winning Ope over.”

“What are you going to do, then?” inquired O-aa.

“I am going to scare the pants off him,” said David.

“What are pants?” asked O-aa.

“That is neither here nor there,” replied David.

“Here comes Ope now,” said O-aa. “I shall watch while you scare his pants off.”

Ope, the high priest, came sinuously towards them; his gait reminding David of the silent approach of a snake.

David glared at the high priest sternly. “Ope,” he said in a terrible voice, “I know what you have been thinking.”

“I-I-I-I don’t know what you mean,” stammered the high priest.

“Oh, yes you do,” said David, “Don’t you know that you could be struck dead for thinking such thoughts?”

“No, most gracious Pu; honestly, I have not thought a bad thought about you. I have not thought of harming you—” and then he stopped suddenly; realizing, perhaps, that he had given himself away.

“I even know what you are thinking this instant,” cried David; and Ope’s knees smote together. “See that there is no more of it,” continued David; “and be sure that you obey my slightest wish, or that of your Noada.”

Ope dropped to his knees and covered his eyes with his palms. “Most glorious Pu,” he said, “you shall never have reason to upbraid me again.”

“And you’d better tell Furp to be careful what he thinks,” said O-aa.

“I shall tell him,” said Ope, “but Furp is a wicked man, and he may not believe me.”

“In spite of the wickedness of Tanga-tanga, I am going to bring a great blessing to its people,” said David. “Have built for me immediately against the wall beside the dais a room two paces square, with a door, and place two benches within it. The room should be two and a half paces high, and have no ceiling.”

“It shall be done at once, most glorious Pu,” said Ope, the high priest.

“See that it is,” said David, “and when it is done, summon the people to the temple; for I would speak to them and explain this wonderful blessing that I am bringing them.”

Ope, the high priest, was dying to know what the blessing was, but he did not dare ask; and he was still worrying and cudgeling his brain as he went away to arrange to have artisans build a clay room such as David had demanded.

I am sure that he is really Pu, thought Ope, the high priest. I am thinking good thoughts of him and of our Noada; and I always must. I must keep thinking good thoughts of them, good thoughts; and I must not let Furp put any bad thoughts into my head. He thought this last thought in the hope that Pu was listening to it and would place all the blame upon Furp for the bad thoughts which Ope knew only too well he had been entertaining.

When the little room beside the dais was completed David directed that the people be summoned to the temple; and the lesser priests went out in their hideous masks and beat upon drums and summoned the people to come to the temple of Pu; and the temple was so crowded with people that no more could get in, and those who could not get into the temple filled the plaza.

It was O-aa who addressed them: “Pu has decided to confer upon the people of Tanga-tanga a great blessing,” she said. “Many of you have sinned; and if you have sinned much and have not been forgiven by Pu, it will be difficult for you to get into Karana after you die. Therefore, Pu has had constructed this little room here, where you may go, one at a time, and sit with Pu and confess your sins, that Pu may grant you forgiveness. You cannot all come at once, but between sleeps Pu will listen to the sins of twenty. Go forth into the plaza now and explain this to the others who are there; and then let twenty return to the temple to confess.”

The people rushed out into the plaza then, and explained this marvelous thing to those who had not heard O-aa’s words; and there was almost a riot before twenty had been selected to lay their sins before Pu prior to the next sleep.

David went into the little room, and the first of those who were to confess came and kneeled before him, covering his eyes with his hands. David told him to raise and sit on the other bench; and then he said, “You may now confess your sins, and be forgiven.”

“Many sleeps ago,” said the man, “before you and our Noada came, I stole pieces of metal from a neighbor who had money; because the priests and the go-sha had taken so many of mine from me that I did not have any to buy food for my family.”

“When you are able to do so, you may return the pieces to the man from whom you took them,” said David, “and you shall be forgiven. Did you know,” continued David, “that if you have heard words spoken against Pu or the Noada, and have not come and told them, that that is a sin?”

“I did not know that,” said the man, “but I have heard words spoken against you and the Noada. The warriors of Furp go among the people, telling them that you and the Noada are not from Karana; are from Molop Az, and that some day soon you will destroy Tanga-tanga and take all its people to the Molop Az for the Little Men to devour. I did not believe that, and there are a good many others who do not believe it, but there are some who do; and these warriors are trying to incite them to murder you and the Noada.”

“What is your name?” asked David; and when the man had told him David scratched the name with the point of his dagger in the clay of the wall of the little room. The man watched this process almost fearfully, for he knew nothing of the alphabets, or of writing. “This,” said David, “is the sign of your forgiveness. It will stand as long as the temple stands, and Pu and the Noada remain here in safety. Now go on about your business, whatever it may be, and as you work learn the names of as many as possible who are loyal to Pu and the Noada; so that if we are ever in trouble you may summon them to the temple to defend us.”

The man left the temple, and it did not occur to him that it was strange that god and a Noada who were all powerful should require the help of mortals to defend them.

After many sleeps David had spoken with many of the citizens; and he had scratched upon the walls of the little room the names of those that he thought could be depended upon to be loyal to him and to O-aa. Nor was Furp idle during this time, for he had determined to rid himself of these two who were constantly increasing their hold upon the people; and depriving him of the pieces of bronze which he had been accustomed to collect from the temple and from the people.

Both Furp and Ope were quite concerned about this new confessional which permitted Pu to speak secretly with the people; but they would have been more concerned had they known that Pu, who now controlled the finances of the temple, was giving pieces of bronze to those who were loyal to him, in the privacy of the confessional, with which to purchase swords, and bows and arrows.

AH-GILAK, THE LITTLE old man from Cape Cod, was much concerned over the fate of David Innes, whom he greatly admired, not only because of his ability and courage, but because David was from Hartford, Connecticut; and he felt that in this outlandish world at the center of the earth New Englanders were bound together by a common tie.

“Dod-burn it,” he said to Abner Perry, shortly after David had departed, “how is this ding-busted idiot goin’ to get back if that contraption carries him across the nameless strait that everyone says is at the end of the world?”

“I don’t know” said Abner Perry sadly; “and to think that it is all my fault, all my fault. Because I am a careless absentminded old fool, I have sent the two I loved best to death.”

“Well, settin’ around cryin’ over split milk ain’t goin’ to butter no parsnips, as the feller said,” rejoined Ah-gilak. “What we ought to do is do sump’n about it.”

“What can we do?” asked Abner Perry. “There is nothing that I would not do. I have been seriously considering building another balloon with which to follow them.”

“Humph!” ejaculated Ah-gilak. “You sure are the dod-burndest old fool I’ve ever heard tell of. What good could you do if you did float over the nameless strait in one of them contraptions? We’d only have three of you to look for, instead of two. But I got a idea that I’ve been thinking about ever since David left.”

“What is it?” asked Perry.

“Well, you see,” explained the little old man, “afore the Dolly Dorcas was wrecked in the Arctic Ocean in 1845, I’d been a-plannin’ that when I got back to Cape Cod I’d build me a clipper ship, the finest, fastest clipper ship that ever cut salt water. But then, of course the Dolly Dorcas she did get wrecked, and I drifted down here into this dod-burned hole in the ground; and I ain’t never had no chance to build no clipper ship; but now, if I had the men and the tools, I could build one; and we could go down and cross this here nameless strait, and maybe we could find David and this here Dian the Beautiful.”

Abner Perry brightened immediately at the suggestion. “Do you think you could do it, Ah-gilak?” he asked. “For if you can, I can furnish you the men and the tools. We haven’t got a ship left seaworthy enough to navigate the nameless strait in safety; and if you can build one and sail it, I can furnish the men to build it, and the men to man it.”

“Let’s start, then,” said Ah-gilak. “Procrastination is the mother of invention, as the feller said.”

With this hope held out to him, Abner Perry was a new man. He sent for Ghak the Hairy One, who was king of Sari; and who theoretically ruled the loose federation of the Empire of Pellucidar while David was absent. Perry explained to Ghak what Ah-gilak had proposed, and Ghak was as enthusiastic as either of them. Thus it was that the entire tribe of Sarians, men, women and children, trekked to Amoz, which is on the Darel Az, a shallow sea that is really only a bay on the coast of the Lural Az.

They took with them arms and ammunition and tools-axes with hammers and chisels and mattocks, all the tools that Perry had taught them to make, after he himself had achieved steel following his discovery and smelting of iron ore, and the happy presence of carbon in the foothills near Sari.

Ghak sent runners to Thuria, Suvi, and Kali; and eventually a thousand men were gathered at Amoz, felling trees and shaping the timbers; and hunters went forth and killed dinosaurs for the peritonea which was to form the sails.

Ah-gilak did not design the huge clipper ship he had planned to build at Cape Cod, but a smaller one that might be equally fast, and just as seaworthy.

Ja, the Mezop, came from the Anoroc Islands with a hundred men who were to help with the building of the ship and man it after it was launched; for the Mezops are the seafaring men of the Empire of Pellucidar.

The women fabricated the shrouds and the rigging from the fibers of an abacalike plant; and even the children worked, fetching and carrying.

No man may know how long it took to build that clipper ship, in a world where it is always noon and there are no moving celestial bodies to mark the passage of time; a fact which always annoyed Ah-gilak.

“Dod-burn that dod-blasted sun!” he exclaimed. “Why don’t it rise and set like a sun oughta? How’s a feller goin’ to know when to quit work? Gad and Gabriel! It ain’t decent.”

But the Pellucidarians knew when to quit work. When they were hungry they stopped and ate; when they were sleepy they crawled into the darkest place they could find and went to sleep. Then the little old man from Cape Cod would dance around in a frenzy of rage and profanity, if their sleeping or their eating interfered with the building of the clipper. However, the work progressed, and eventually the clipper was ready to launch. The ways were greased, and every preparation had been made. A hundred men stood by the blocks, ready to pull them away.

“Dod-burn it!” exclaimed Ah-gilak. “We got to christen ‘er, and we plumb forgot to find a name for her.”

“You designed her and you built her,” said Abner Perry; “and so I think that you are the one who should have the privilege of naming her.”

“That’s fair enough,” said Ah-gilak, “and I’m going to call her the John Tyler, because I voted for him for president at the last election; that is, I voted for him and William Henry Harrison; but when Harrison died.”

“Why, that was a hundred and eighteen years ago, man!” exclaimed Abner Perry.

“I don’t give a dod-blasted whoop if it was a thousand and eighteen years ago,” said Ah-gilak. “I voted for Harrison and Tyler at the last election.”

“Do you know what year it is now?” asked Abner Perry.

“David Innes tried to tell me that I was a hundred and fifty-three years old,” said Ah-gilak; “but he has lived down here in this dod-burned hole in the ground so long he’s crazy. They don’t none of you know what year this is. They ain’t no years here; they ain’t no months! they ain’t no weeks; they ain’t no days; they ain’t nothin’ but noon. How you going to count time when it’s always noon? Anyhow I’m going to name her the John Tyler.”

“I think that’s an excellent name,” said Abner Perry.

“Now we ought to have a bottle of something to bust on her bow while I christen her,” said Ah-gilak. “If a thing’s worth doin’ at all, don’t put it off till tomorrow, as the feller said.”

The best substitute for a bottle of champagne which they could find was a clay jug filled with water. Ah-gilak held it in his hand and stood by the bow of the clipper. Suddenly he turned to Abner Perry. “This ain’t right,” he said. “Who ever heard of a man christening a ship?”

“Stellara, the mate of Tartar, the son of Ghak is here,” said Abner Perry. “Let her christen the John Tyler;” and so Stellara came, and Ah-gilak told her what to do; and at his signal the men pulled the blocks away immediately after Stellara had broken the jug of water on the bow of the clipper and said, “I christen thee the John Tyler.”

The ship slipped down the ways into the Darel Az; and the people of Thuria and Sari and Amoz and Suvi and Kali, screamed with delight.

The cannon had been put aboard her before they launched her; and now they set about rigging her, and this work Ah-gilak insisted must be done by the Mezops, who were to be the sailors that manned the ship; so that they would know every rope and spar. It was all a tremendous undertaking for people of the stone age, for they had so much to learn and when the ship was rigged the Mezops had to be drilled in making sail and taking it in quickly. Fortunately they were not only seafaring men, but semi-arboreal, as they lived in trees on their native islands. They ran up the shrouds like monkeys, and out upon the yardarms as though they had been born upon them.

“They may be red Injuns,” said Ah-gilak to Perry, “but they’re goin’ to make fine sailormen.”

Vast quantities of water in bamboo containers was stored aboard, as was the salt meat, vegetables, nuts, and quantities of the rough flour that Abner Perry had taught the Pellucidarians to make.

At last the Mezops were well drilled, and the John Tyler prepared to sail. Ah-gilak was skipper, Ja was the first mate and navigator. The second and third mates were Jav and Ko, while Ghak the Hairy One commanded two hundred picked warriors; for, being cavemen, they anticipated having to do battle after they had landed in the terra incognita beyond the nameless strait.

They had neither compass, nor sextant, nor any chronometer; but they had a man from Thuria aboard who could point the general direction; and Ja knew the great ocean currents that flowed directly along their course.

With all sails set to a fair wind, the John Tyler tossed the white water from her bow as she sailed gallantly out into the Lural Az in her quest for David Innes and Dian the Beautiful; and, for the first time since Dian had floated away toward the Land of Awful Shadow, Abner Perry felt hope budding in his breast; and for the first time in one hundred thirteen years the little old man from Cape Cod was really happy.

V

“I AM TIRED Of being a slave,” said Gamba to Dian, as they met beside the stream where Dian was filling a large gourd with water and Gamba was washing the lioncloths of his mistress. “That woman nearly works me to death.”

“It is better than being killed and fed to the tarags,” said Dian.

“I am afraid of the tarags,” said Gamba. “I don’t see why they let the terrible things bang around the way they do.”

“They are tame,” said Dian. “Manai told me that they catch them when they are cubs and tame them for hunting and for battle. There is a tribe on the other side of the island, two or three long marches away, with which Hamlar’s tribe is always at war. The name of this tribe is Manat; and as the Tandars have tamed and trained tarags, so the Menats have tamed and trained tahos.”

“What a terrible place,” grumbled Gamba. “Why did we have to be cast ashore here?”

“You do not know when you are well off,” said Dian. “If you had stayed in Lolo-lolo, you would have been killed; and if that woman had not taken you to be her slave, you would have been fed to the tarags. Are you never satisfied? Bovar said that you were very lucky to find a master at all, because nobody likes your yellow skin.”

“And I do not like Bovar,” snapped Gamba.

“Why?” asked Dian.

“Because he is in love with you.”

“Nonsense!” said Dian.

“It is true,” said Gamba. “He is always following you around with his eyes when he is not following you around with his feet.”

“He does not want me,” said Dian; “he wants my bronze knife”; she called the metal androde.

“In the name of Pu!” exclaimed Gamba. “Look what’s coming!”

Dian turned to see three great tarags slinking toward them. She and Gamba were some little distance from the cliff, and the tarags were between the cliff and them, Gamba was terrified, but Dian was not. The great beasts came and rubbed against the girl and nuzzled her hands, while Gamba sat frozen with terror.

“They will not hurt us,” said Dian. “They are my friends. Every time, that I can, I bring them pieces of meat.”

One of the beasts came and smelled of Gamba; and then it bared its terrible fangs and growled, and the man shook as with palsy. Dian came and pushed against the beast’s shoulder to turn it away, at the same time scratching it around one of its ears; then she walked away with her gourd of water, and the three beasts followed her.

For a long time Gamba sat there, wholly unnerved and unable to resume his work. But presently a woman came and spoke to him. “Get to work,” she said, “you lazy ja-lok. What do you suppose I am feeding you for, to sit around and do nothing? Much more of this and you will be tarag meat.”

“I am sick,” said Gamba.

“Well, you had better get well,” said the woman, “for I won’t feed any sick slave.” So Gamba, who had been a king, resumed his washing; and when it was done, he wrung the water out of the loincloths and took them and stretched them on a flat rock, where he rubbed them and rubbed them with a smooth stone to squeeze every remaining drop of water from them and to keep them soft as they dried in the hot sun. While he was doing this, his mistress came by again.

“You have not cleaned the cave since my last sleep,” she said irritably.

“I have been doing the washing,” said Gamba. “When that is done, I intended to clean the cave.”

“You could have done both twice over if you hadn’t been loafing,” said the woman. “I don’t know what to do. It is almost impossible to get a decent slave lately. I have had to feed the last three to the tarags, and it looks as though you would go the same way.”

“I will try to do better,” said Gamba. “I will work very hard.”

“See that you do,” said the woman, whose name was Shrud.

Dian shared a cave with some other slaves on the very lowest level. Such, of course, in a cave village, may be the least desirable, as the lower level is close to the ground and more easily accessible to wild beasts and enemies. She could go into it and sleep when her work was done; but it always seemed that she had no more than closed her eyes before Manai, or Hamlar, or Bovar, called her.

It was Bovar who called her most often, and usually for no other reason than that he wished to talk with her. He had long since given up all thoughts of killing her in order to obtain her bronze dagger, for he had become infatuated with her; but according to the customs of his tribe, he could not take a slave as a mate. However, this fact did not wholly discourage Bovar, for he knew of a cave hidden deep in the jungle; and he toyed with the thought of stealing Dian and taking her there.

Once, after a fitful sleep, Bovar awoke cross and irritable. As he came out on the ledge before his cave he saw Dian walking toward the jungle. Two great tarags paced beside her. Dian was having ideas. She was going to run away, find the beach where her canoe lay, and paddle out upon the Korsar Az in an effort to reach the mainland. She had asked Gamba to go with her, but he had said that they would only be caught and fed to the tarags; so she had decided to go alone.

As Bovar reached the foot of the lowest ladder, one of the great tigers lay stretched in sleep across his path. He gave it a vicious kick in the ribs to make it get out of his way; and the beast sprang up with bared fangs, growling hideously. Bovar prodded it with his long, heavy spear; and it screamed and stepped back; then it slunk away, still growling. Paying no more attention to the tarag, Bovar looked around at the men and women of his tribe, who were down at the foot of the cliff. No one was paying any attention to him. The men were lying around in the shade of trees, half asleep; and the women were working. Bovar walked nonchalantly towards the jungle into which Dian had disappeared. He did not look back; if he had, he would have seen a tarag slinking after him.

Gamba was scrubbing the floor of his mistress’ cave. He had carried up a gourd of water and a smooth flat stone and a bundle of grasses. His knees were raw and bleeding from contact with the sandstone floor. As Shrud passed him on her way out of the cave, she kicked him in the side.

“Work fast, you lazy slave,” she said.

This was more than Gamba could endure; it was the last straw, that he, a king, should be so abused and humiliated. He decided that death were better, but that he would have his revenge before he died, so he reached out and seized Shrud by an ankle, and as she fell forward he dragged her back into the cave. She clawed and struck at him, but he leaped upon her and drove his bronze dagger into her heart again and again.

When he realized what he had done, Gamba was terrified. Now he wished that he had gone with Dian, but perhaps she had not gone yet. He washed the blood from his dagger; and dragged Shrud’s body to the very farthest end of the cave, where it was darkest; then he came out onto the ledge. Dian was nowhere in sight.

Gamba hastened down the ladders to the lowest level; and going to Dian’s cave, he called her name; but there was no response. He started to cross the clearing toward the jungle in the direction that he thought Dian would take to reach the cove where their canoe lay; but he had gone only a short distance when Shrud’s mate called to him.

“Where are you going, slave?” he demanded.

“Shrud has sent me into the jungle for fruit,” replied Gamba.

“Well, hurry up about it,” said the man. “I have work for you to do.”

A moment later a runaway slave disappeared into the jungle.

It was noon in the city of Tanga-tanga and in all directions the world curved upward to be lost in the midst of the distance that merged with the blue vault of heaven to form a dome, in the center of which blazed the fiery sun that hung always at zenith.

In the temple a frightened man sat on a bench in the little room, facing his god.

“It will be soon, most gracious Pu,” he said; “and if they find that I have been here, they will kill me, for there are those who know that I know.”

“How will it come?” asked David.

“A great crowd will come to the temple with offerings. There will be warriors among them, and they will press close to the dais; and when one gives the word, they will fall upon you and our Noada and kill you. Furp will not be here, so that no blame may be attached to him by the people; but it is Furp who is directing it.”

David read aloud to the man the names that he had scratched upon the wall of the little room, the names of those who were loyal to him and to O-aa. He read them twice, and then the third time. “Can you remember those names?” he asked.

“Yes,” replied the man; “I know them all well.”

“Go to them, then, and tell them that Pu says that the time has come. They will know what you mean.”

“As I do,” said the man; and he knelt, covering his eyes with his hands; and then he arose and left the temple.

David returned to the dais and sat upon his throne; and presently O-aa entered from her apartments, with the lesser priests in their hideous masks and the drums, according to the custom of the temple. She had come to the dais and seated herself beside David Innes.

“The time has come,” he whispered to her.

“I have a sword and a dagger under my robe,” she said.

Ope the high priest had never been able to persuade David to wear any robes of office, nor had David discarded his weapons. He had told Ope that Pu always dressed thus, and that it was only those who served Pu who wore the robes of office.

Time dragged heavily for these two, who might be waiting for death, but presently men commenced to struggle into the temple. David recognized some among these as those who were loyal to him. He held the first two fingers of his right hand across his breast. It was the sign that had been decided upon to recognize friend from foe; and all the men who had come in, even those whom he had not recognized, answered his sign.

They came and knelt before the dais and covered their eyes; and after they had been bidden to arise, they still stayed close to the dais; and so that it might seem reasonable that they should remain there, David preached to them as he imagined a god might preach to his people. He spoke to them of loyalty and the rewards of loyalty, and the terrible fate of those who were untrue to their faith. He spoke slowly, that he might consume time.

More and more men were entering the temple. There were no women, which was unusual; and as each entered David made the sign; and some of them answered and some did not, but those who answered pressed close around the dais until they entirely surrounded the three sides of it, the fourth side being against the wall of the temple.

David continued to talk to them in quiet tones that gave no indication that he anticipated anything unusual, but he watched them carefully; and he noticed that many of those who had not answered this sign were nervous, and now some of them tried to push through closer to the dais; but the loyal ones stood shoulder to shoulder and would not let them pass; and everyone in the temple waited for the signal.

At last it came. A warrior screamed. “Death!” Just the one word he spoke, but it turned the quiet temple into a bedlam of cursing, battling men.

Instantly the signal was given, the loyal ones had wheeled about with drawn swords to face the enemies of their gods; and David had arisen and drawn his sword, too.

The fighting men surged back and forth before the dais. One of Furp’s men broke through and struck at O-aa; and David parried the blow and struck the man down; then he leaped to the floor of the temple and joined his supporters; and his presence beside them gave them courage and strength beyond anything that they had ever dreamed of possessing, and it put the fear of God into the hearts of the enemy.

Twenty of Furp’s men lay bleeding on the floor and the others turned to flee the wrath of Pu, only to find that retreat was cut off; for, according to David’s plan, a solid phalanx of his supporters, armed with bow and arrow, sword, and dagger, barred the way.

“Throw down your arms!” cried David. “Throw down your arms, or die!”

After they had divested themselves of swords and daggers, he told his people to let them go; but he warned them never again to raise their hands against Pu or their Noada.

“And now,” he said, “go back to him who sent you; and tell him that Pu has known all his wicked thoughts and has been prepared for him; and because of what he has done he will be turned over to the people to do with as they see fit; and when you go, take your dead and wounded with you.”

The vanquished warriors passed out of the temple with their dead and wounded, and David noted with a smile that they crossed directly to the house of the go-sha.

“It was easy to defeat the warriors of Furp when Pu was on our side,” said one of David’s supporters. “Now that will be the last of Furp, and Pu and his Noada will rule Tanga-tanga.”

“Don’t be too sure of that,” said David. “Furp sent only a handful of men to the temple, for he did not anticipate any resistance. There will be more fighting before this is settled; and if you know of any more loyal men in the city, see that they are armed and ready to come at any moment. Let one hundred remain here constantly, for I am sure that Furp will attack. He will not give up his power so easily.”

“Nor a chance to get all of our pieces of bronze as he once did,” said one of the men bitterly.

The one hundred men remained and the others left and went through the city searching for new recruits.

David looked at O-aa and smiled and she smiled back. “I wish my eleven brothers had been here,” she said.

VI

WHEN GAMBA entered the jungle, he commenced to run, hoping to overtake Dian; but the jungle was such a maze of trails that he soon realized that he was lost; and then he caught a glimpse of a large, yellow-striped creature slinking through the underbrush. Gamba was most unhappy. He wished that he had not killed Shrud, for then he would not have had to run away. He cursed the moment when Dian had come to Lolo-lolo; he cursed Dian; he cursed everybody but himself, who alone was responsible for his predicament; and, still cursing, he climbed a tree.

The tarag that had been stalking him came and stood under the tree and looked up and growled. “Go away,” said Gamba, and picked a fruit that grew upon the tree and threw it at the tarag. The great beast snarled and then lay down under the tree.

As soon as Dian had entered the jungle she accelerated her pace; and the two great beasts which accompanied her strode upon either side, for here the trail was wide. Dian was glad of their presence, for they suggested protection, even though she did not know whether or not they would protect her in an emergency.

Presently she came to a natural clearing in the jungle; and when she was half-way across it she heard her name called. Surprised, she turn about to see Bovar.

“Where are you going?” he demanded.

“To the village,” she said.

“You are going in the wrong direction, then. The village is back this way.”

“These trails are confusing,” said Dian. “I thought I was going in the right direction.” She realized now that there was nothing to do but go back to the village and wait for another opportunity to escape. She was terribly disappointed, but not wholly disheartened; because, if it had been so easy to go into the jungle this time without arousing suspicion, there would be other times when it would be just as easy.

As Bovar came toward her she saw a tarag slink into the clearing behind him; and she recognized it immediately as the third member of the terrible trinity the affections of which she had won.

“You won’t have to go back to the village now,” said Bovar. “You can keep ‘on going in the direction that you were.”

“What do you mean?” demanded Dian.

“I mean that I think you were trying to escape, and I am going to help you. I know a cave deep in the jungle where no one will ever find us and where, when I am not with you, you will be safe from man and beast.”

“I shall go back to the village,” said Dian; “and if you will promise not to annoy me, I will not tell Hamlar nor Manai what you would have done.”

“You shall not go back to the village,” said Bovar. “You are going with me. If you do not go willingly, I will drag you through the jungle by the hair.”

Dian drew her bronze knife. “Come and try it,” she said.

“Don’t be a fool,” said Bovar. “In the village you are a slave. You have to clean three caves and prepare the food for four people and wash loincloths and fetch carry all day. In the jungle you would have but one cave to clean and but two people to cook for; and if you behaved yourself I would never beat you.”

“You will never beat me whether I behave myself or not,” replied Dian.

“Throw down that knife,” added Bovar. Dian laughed at him and that made Bovar furious. “Drop it and come with me, or I will kill you,” he said. “You shall never go back to the village now to spread stories about me. Take your choice, slave. Come with me or die.”

Two of the tarags stood close beside Dian, imparting to her a sense of security-whether false or not she did not know, but at least their presence encouraged her to hope. The third tarag lay on its belly a few yards behind Bovar, the tip of its, tail constantly moving. Dian knew what that sign often portended, and she wondered.

Bovar did not know that the tarag had followed him, nor that it lay there behind him, watching his every move. What was in the great beast’s mind, no one may know. Since cubhood it had been taught to fear these men-things and their long, sharp spears.

Bovar took a few steps toward Dian, his spear poised to thrust. Dian had not thought that he would carry out his threat; but now, looking into his eyes, she saw determination there. She saw the tarag behind Bovar rise with barred fangs and then she had an inspiration. This cave girl knew what an unfailing invitation to any dangerous animal to attack is flight; and so she turned suddenly and ran across the clearing, banking her safety on the affections of these savage beasts.

Bovar sprang after her, his spear poised for the cast; and then the great beast behind him charged and sprang, and the two which had stood beside Dian leaped upon him with thunderous roars.

Dian heard one piercing scream and turned to see Bovar go down with all those terrible fangs buried in his body. That one piercing scream marked the end of Bovar, son of Hamlar the chief; and Dian watched while the great beasts tore the chiefs son to pieces and devoured him. Inured to savagery in a savage world, the scene that she witnessed did not horrify her. Her principle reactions to the event were induced by the knowledge that she had been relieved from an annoying enemy, that she now would not have to return to the village, and that she had acquired a long, heavy spear.

Dian went and sat down in the shade of a tree and waited for the three beasts to finish their grisly meal. She was glad to wait for them, for she wanted their company and protection as far as the entrance to the shaft which led down to the beach where her canoe lay; and while she was waiting she fell asleep.

Dian was awakened by something rubbing against her shoulder and opened her eyes to see one of the tarags nuzzling her. The other two had slumped down near her, but when she awoke they stood up; and then the three of them strode off into the jungle and Dian went with them. She knew that they were going for water and when they had drunk they would sleep; nor was she wrong, for when they had had their fill of water they threw themselves down in the shade near the stream; and Dian laid down with them and they all slept.

Gamba, in his tree a quarter of a mile away from the clearing where Bovar had died, had heard a human scream mingling with the horrid roars and snarls of attacking beasts, and he had thought that Dian had been attacked and was dead; and Gamba, who had been king of Lolo-lolo, felt very much alone in the world and extremely sorry for himself.

IN TANGA-TANGA, Ope the high priest was in a quandary and very unhappy. He and the lesser priests had all been absent from the temple throne room at the time that the followers of Furp had attacked Pu and the Noada; and now he was trying to explain his absence to his god. His quandary was occasioned by the fact that he did not know which side was going to win in the impending battle, of the imminence of which he was fully cognizant.

“It might have seemed a coincidence to some,” David was saying, “that you and all of the lesser priests were absent at the time that Furp’s men attacked us, but Pu knows that it was no coincidence. You absented yourselves when you knew that we were in danger so that the people might have no grounds upon which to reproach you, no matter what the outcome of the attempt might be. You must now determine once and for all whether you will support us or the go-sha.”

The lesser priests were gathered around Ope at the foot of the dais and they looked to him for leadership. He could feel their eyes upon him. He knew the great numerical strength of the go-sha’s retainers, but he did not know that Pu, also, had a great number, nor did he know that they were armed. He thought that warriors would be met, if at all, by an unarmed mob which they could easily mow down with arrow, spear and sword.

“I am waiting for your answer,” said David.

Ope decided to play safe; he could explain his reasons to Furp later. “We shall be loyal to Pu and our Noada in the future as in the past,” he said.

“Very well, then,” said David. “Send the lesser priests out into the city to spread the word among the people that they must arm themselves and be prepared to defend the temple.”

Ope had not expected anything of this sort and he was chagrined, for at the bottom of his heart he hoped that Furp would succeed in destroying these two, that he might again enjoy to the fullest extent the prequisites and graft of his office; but he realized that he must at least appear to comply with Pu’s instructions.

“It shall be done at once,” he said. “I shall take the lesser priests into my private chambers and explain their duties to them.”

“You will do nothing of the sort,” said David. “The lesser priests have heard the instructions that Pu has given. They will go out into the city at once and with each one of them I will send one of these loyal citizens to see that my instructions are carried out honestly.”

“But—” commenced Ope.

“But nothing!” snapped David, and he looked at the lesser priests. “You will leave at once, and you will each be accompanied by one of these men,” and as he detailed those who were to accompany the lesser priests, he told them that they had his permission, the permission of their god, to destroy any priest who failed to exhort the people enthusiastically to defend the temple of Pu.

It was not long thereafter that men commenced to congregate in the plaza before the temple. Through the great temple doorway David could see the house of the go-sha; and soon he saw warriors emerging from it, and others coming into the plaza from other directions. They marched straight toward the temple, before which stood the temple guards and the loyal citizens who had armed themselves to protect Pu and their Noada.

Furp’s men tried to shoulder their way through to the temple, but they were immediately set upon, and the battle began. Soon the plaza was filled with the clash of swords, the shouts and curses of men, and the screams and groans of the wounded and dying.

From every narrow, crooked street loyal citizens swarmed to the defense of the temple; so that not one of Furp’s men ever reached the great doorway.

Who may know how long that battle lasted, for it was noon when it commenced and noon when it ended; but to David and O-aa it seemed like an eternity. When the last of Furp’s retainers who were not dead or wounded were driven from the plaza, the dead lay thick upon every hand; and David Innes was the master of Tanga-tanga.

Furp and a couple of hundred of his retainers had fled the city; and it was later discovered that they had gone to Lolo-lolo and enlisted in the service of the new go-sha there, who was glad to acquire so many trained fighting men.

David sent word to the people that as long as he remained he would rule Tanga-tanga; and that when he left he would appoint a new go-sha, one who would not rob them; and then he sent for Ope the high priest.

“Ope,” he said, “in your heart you have always been, disloyal to your Noada and to Pu; therefore, you are dismissed from the priesthood and banished from Tanga-tanga. You may go to Lolo-lolo and join Furp, and you may thank Pu that he has not destroyed you as you deserve.”

Ope was aghast. He was not prepared for this, as he had felt that he had played safe.

“B-but, Pu,” he cried. “The people-the people, what of them? They will not be pleased. They might even turn against you in their wrath. I have been their high priest for many thousand sleeps.”

“If you prefer to leave the issue to the people,” said David “I will summon them and tell them how disloyal you have been, and turn you over to them.”

At that suggestion Ope trembled, for he knew that he was most unpopular among the people. “I shall abide by the will of Pu,” he said, “and leave Tanga-tanga immediately; but it pains me to think that I must abandon my people and leave them without a high priest to whom they may bring their grievances.”

“And their pieces of metal,” said O-aa.

“The people shall not be without a high priest,” said David; “for I now ordain Kanje as the high priest of the temple of Pu.” Kanje was one of the lesser priests whom David knew to be loyal.

Ope was conducted to the gates of the city by members of the temple guard, who had orders to see that he spoke to no one; and so the last of David’s active and powerful enemies was disposed of, and he could devote his time to plans for returning to Sari, after prosecuting a further search for Dian, who, in his heart of hearts, he believed to be lost to him forever.

He sent men out to fell a certain type of tree in a near-by forest, and to bring them into the city; and he sent hunters out to kill several boses, which on the outer crust were the prehistoric progenitors of our modern cattle. These hunters were instructed to bring the meat in and give it to the people; and to bring hides to the women to be cleaned and cured.

When the trees were brought in he had them cut into planks and strips, and in person he supervised the building of a large canoe with mast and sails and water-tight compartments forward and aft.

The people wondered at the purpose for which this strange thing was being built, for they were not a seafaring people; and in all their lives had seen only one craft that floated on the water-that in which their Noada had come to them.

When the canoe was completed, he summoned the people to the plaza and told them that he and the Noada were going to visit some of their other temples in a far land, and that while they were gone the people must remain loyal to Kanje and the new go-sha whom David appointed; and he warned Kanje and the new go-sha to be kind to the people and not to rob them.

“For, wherever I am, I shall be watching you,” he said.

He had the people carry the canoe down to the nameless strait, and stock it with provisions and with water, and with many weapons-spears, and bows and arrows, and bronze swords; for he knew that the crossing would be perilous.

The entire population of Tanga-tanga, with the exception of the warriors at the gates, had come down to the shore to bid Pu and the Noada farewell; and to see this strange thing set out upon the terrible waters. O-aa had come down with the people, but David had remained at the temple to listen to a report from some of the warriors he had sent out in search of a clue to the whereabouts of Dian. These men reported that they had captured a Lolo-lolo hunter, who claimed to have seen Gamba and Dian as they set forth upon the waters of the nameless strait in their little canoe. So David knew that if Dian were not already dead, she might have returned to Sari.

As he started for the gate of the city he heard sounds of fighting; and when he reached the gate he saw that his people by the shore had been attacked by a horde of warriors from Lolo-lolo and were falling back toward the city.

O-aa had been in the canoe, waiting for David, when the attack came; and in order to escape capture, she had paddled out upon the nameless strait, intending to hold the craft there until the attackers had been dispersed and David could come down to the shore; but the current seized the canoe and carried it out into the strait, and though she paddled valiantly she could do nothing to alter its course.

VII

THE SHIP in which Hodon sailed in search of the Sari and O-aa was named Lo-har, in honor of Laja who had come among the Sarians from the country called Lo-har. It was a little ship, but staunch; and Raj the Mezop brought it through that nameless strait, and out upon the broad bosom of the Korsar Az in safety; and there they were becalmed and the current carried them where it would. Their fresh water was almost exhausted and they looked in vain for rain; and then in the distance they sighted land, toward which the current was carrying them. When they were scarcely a mile off shore, the current changed and Hodon saw that they were going to be carried past the end of what he now saw to be an island; so he filled the canoe with empty water containers, and with twenty strong paddlers he set forth for the shore; and as he neared it he saw a waterfall tumbling into the sea over the edge of a cliff.

As the canoe was being drawn up on a narrow beach in a little cove at the far end of which was the Waterfall, Hodon saw another canoe that had been dragged up on the shore; and while his men carried the containers to the waterfall to fill them, he investigated.

In the bottom of the canoe were strange weapons such as he had never seen before, for the swords he found there were of a metal he had never seen before, and the spears and arrows were tipped with it, Upon a thwart rested two tiny sandals. Hodon picked one of them up and examined it, and instantly he recognized it as the work of a Sarian woman; for the women of each tribe have a distinctive way of making their sandals, so that they are easily recognized, as are the imprints they make upon soft earth or sand.

What Sarian woman other than Dian the Beautiful could these tiny sandals belong to? She alone was missing from Sari. Hodon was excited, and he hastened to the waterfall to tell his warriors; and they were excited, too, when they heard that Dian might be on this island.

As the men filled the remaining bamboo containers Hodon discovered the little ledge behind the falls and, in investigating, found the opening into the cavern. He felt his way into it until he came at last to the bottom of the shaft where rested the crude ladder up which Dian’s captors had taken her. Hodon returned to his men and they carried the fresh water back to the canoe; and as they looked out toward the Lo-har they saw that a breeze had sprung up and that the little ship was standing in toward shore.

AFTER THE TARAG, TIRED of waiting beneath the tree, arose and slunk off into the jungle, Gamba came down onto the ground and continued his flight. He walked quite a distance this time before he was treed again by sounds which he could not clearly interpret, but which resembled the growls of beasts mingled with the conversation of men; and presently there passed beneath him a dozen warriors, each one of which was accompanied by a ta-ho on a leash. Gamba recognized them instantly as Manats from the other side of the island; for, although he had never seen one of them before, he had heard them and their fierce fighting beasts described many times by the Tandars.

Gamba remained very quiet in his tree, for these Manats looked like fierce and terrible men, almost as fierce and terrible as their grim beasts.

And while Gamba watched them pass beneath him and disappear along the winding trail beyond him, Dian and her three beasts slept beside the little stream where they had quenched their thirst.

Dian was awakened when one of her beasts sprang to its feet with a hideous roar. Approaching were the twelve warriors of Manat with their fighting tahos. The three tarags, roaring and growling, stood between Dian and the approaching Manats.

With cries of encouragement, the Manats turned their twelve beasts loose; and Dian, seeing how greatly her defenders were outnumbered, turned and fled and while the tarags were battling for their lives, a Manat warrior pursued her.

Dian ran like a deer, far outdistancing the Manat. She had no idea in what direction she was running. She followed jungle trails which turned and twisted, and which eventually brought her back to the very clearing in which Bovar, had been killed, and there she saw the Manats and their fighting beasts, but there were only seven of the latter now. Before they had died, her tarags had destroyed five of them.

The warriors did not see Dian, and for that she breathed a sigh of relief as she turned and hurried back along the trail she had come-hurried straight into the arms of the warrior who had been following her. They met at a sharp turn in the trail and he seized her before she could escape. Dian reached for her dagger, but the man caught her wrist; and then he disarmed her.

“You came back to me,” he said, in a gruff voice, “but for making me run so far I shall beat you when I get you back to the village of Manat.”

Dian said nothing, for she knew that nothing she might say could avail her.

Gamba, sitting disconsolate and terrified in his tree, saw the twelve terrible men of Manat return. There were only seven tahos with them now, but this time there was a woman. Gamba recognized her immediately and his sorrow almost overcame him-sorrow for himself and not for Dian; for now he knew that she could never lead him to the cove where the canoe lay and that if he found it himself, he would have to embark on those terrible waters alone. It is wholly impossible that anyone could have been more unhappy than Gamba. He dared not return to the village; he did not know in which direction the cove lay; and he was alone in a jungle haunted by hungry man-eaters, he who had always lived in the safety of a walled city. From wishing that he had never seen Dian, he commenced to wish that he had never been born. Finally he decided to find a stream near which grew trees bearing edible fruits and nuts; and to live up in these trees all the rest of his life, coming down only for water.

While Gamba was bemoaning his fate, Dian, the leash of one of the dead tahos around her neck, was being led across the Island of Tandar toward the country of the Manats; but she was not bemoaning anything, nor being sorry for herself. She could not clutter her mind with useless thoughts while every moment it must be devoted to thoughts of escape. There was never any telling at what instant an emergency might arise, which would offer her an opportunity; yet, deep in the bottom of her heart, her fate must have seemed utterly hopeless.

The warrior who had captured Dian was an ill-natured brute, and the fact that he had lost his ta-ho in the fight with the tarags had not tended to improve his disposition. He jerked at the rope around Dian’s neck roughly and unnecessarily; and occasionally on no pretext at all, he cuffed her; and every time he did one of these things he was strengthening the girl’s resolve to kill him. She would almost have abandoned an opportunity to escape for the pleasure of driving a dagger into his heart.

WITH ALL SAILS SET, the John Tyler rode the water of the nameless strait. Ja and Abner Perry and Ah-gilak stood upon the quarterdeck.

“I think,” said Abner Perry, “that we should disembark a searching party as soon as possible. We may have a long shoreline to search and a big country, which we must comb until we find some clew to the whereabouts of Dian”; and the others agreed with him.

As they approached the shore the lookout shouted, “Canoe dead ahead.”

As they bore down upon the little craft the bow was filled with warriors and Mezops, watching the canoe and its single occupant. They saw a figure in a long cloak and an enormous feather headdress; and when they got closer they saw that it was a woman.

O-aa had never seen a ship built or rigged like this one, which had evidently discovered her and was headed for her; but as far as she knew, only the men of the Empire of Pellucidar built any sort of ships, and so she hoped against hope that these might be men of the federation.

As the ship came about and lay to near her, she paddled to its side. A rope was thrown to her and she was hauled to the deck.

“Dod-burn it!” exclaimed Ah-gilak. “Gad and Gabriel! If it isn’t O-aa! What in the name of all that’s dod-blasted are you doing in that get-up, girl; and out here alone in a canoe?”

“Don’t talk so much, old man,” retorted O-aa, who could never forget that Ah-gilak had once planned on killing and eating her that time that they were being besieged in the cave by the sabre-toothed men. “Instead of talking,” she continued, “get to shore and rescue David Innes.”

“David Innes!” exclaimed Abner Perry. “Is David Innes there?”

“He is in that city you can see,” replied O-aa, “and if the warriors from Lolo-lolo get in there, they will kill him.”

The ship was under way again and Ah-gilak brought it as close into shore as he dared, and dropped anchor. Then Ghak and his two hundred warriors, and all but about twenty-five of the Mezops, took to the boats and made for shore. Nearly three hundred veterans they were and they were armed with muskets; crude things, but effective against men of the stone age, or of the bronze age either; for, besides making a good deal of noise, they emitted volumes of black smoke; and those whom they didn’t kill, they nearly frightened to death.

In a long thin line, as David had taught them, they approached the city where the warriors of Lolo-lolo were attempting to force the gates.

When they were discovered, the Lolo-loloans turned to repel them, looking with contempt upon that long, thin line of a few hundred men who had the temerity to threaten a thousand bowmen. But the thunder of the first ragged volley and the black smoke belching at them, as twenty or thirty of their comrades fell screaming to the ground, gave them pause; but they advanced bravely in the face of a second volley. However, with the third volley, those who had not been killed or wounded turned and fled, and Ghak the Hairy One led his troop to the walls of Tanga-tanga.

“Who are you?” demanded a warrior standing upon the top of the wall.

“We are friends, and we have come for Pu,” replied Ghak, who had been coached by O-aa.

Almost immediately the gates were thrown open and David Innes emerged. From the temple he had heard the firing and he was sure that could have come only from the muskets of the empire.

Tears were streaming down Abner Perry’s cheeks as he welcomed David aboard the John Tyler.

David listened while they told him of their plans to search for Dian, but he shook his head and told them that it was useless; that Dian had set out upon the nameless strait in a canoe with a single companion and that if she were not already back in Sari, she must be dead.

O-aa had inquired about Hodon, and when she had been told that he had come this way in search of her, she begged David Innes to continue on through the nameless strait into the Korsar Az in search of him; as he must have gone there if he had not already been wrecked.

WHILE GAMBA WAS SEARCHING for a stream where there were trees bearing nuts and fruits he was suddenly confronted by a band of strange warriors bearing weapons such as he had never seen before. He tried to escape them, but they overtook and captured him.

“Who are you?” demanded Hodon.

“I am Gamba, the go-sha of Lolo-lolo,” replied the frightened man.

“I think we should kill him,” said a Mezop. “I do not like the color of his skin.”

“Where is Lolo-lolo,” asked Hodon.

“It is on the other side of the nameless strait,” replied Gamba, “where the country of the Xexots lies.”

“You came from the other side of the nameless strait?”

“Yes; I came in a thing called a ‘canoe’”

“Did you come alone?” asked Hodon.

“No; I came with a woman who said that she came from a country called Sari, and that her name was Dian the Beautiful.”

“Where is she?” demanded Hodon.

“She was captured by the Manats, who live on the other side of this island.”

“Can you lead us there?”

‘No,” replied Gamba; “I am lost. I do not even know the way to the coast where our canoe lies. If I were you, I would not go to the country of the Manats. They are terrible men and they lead tahos, who can kill and devour you. There were twelve Manats who captured Dian, and they had seven tahos with them.”

“Can you show us where she was captured?”

“I can show you where I last saw her,” replied Gamba; and this he did. There the trail of men and beasts was plain and to these men of the stone age the following of that trail was simple. They marched rapidly and almost without rest; and though ordinarily it was three long marches to the village of the Manats, Hodon and his hundred warriors reached it shortly after the first sleep.

The men who had captured Dian had only just arrived and her captor had taken her to his cave.

“Now,” he said, “I am going to give you the beating I promised you. It will teach you to behave.” He seized her by the hair and, stooping, picked up a short stick; and as he stooped Dian snatched her bronze dagger that the man had taken from her from the sheath at his side, and as he raised the stick she plunged it into his heart. With a scream he clutched at his breast; and then Dian gave him a push that sent him out of the cave to topple over the ledge and fall to the ground below.

A moment later she heard shouts and war-cries; and she thought that they were caused by the anger of the Manats because of the killing of one of their fellows; and she stood in the shadow of the cave’s entrance with the dagger in her hand, determined to sell her life dearly and take a heavy toll of her enemies.

From below rose the shouts of the warriors and the roars and growls of the tahos; and then, like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky, came the roar of musketry.

Dian could not believe her ears. What other people in all Pellucidar, other than the men of the empire and the inhabitants of far Korsar, had firearms? It was too good to hope that these might be Sarians; and if they were from Korsar, she was as well off here among the Manats as to be captured by the Korsarians.

She stepped to the mouth of the cave and looked out. The fighting was going on almost directly beneath her. The tahos were doing the most damage among the attackers, but one by one they were being shot down; for the Manat warriors, confused by the noise and the smoke, made only an occasional sally, only to be driven back with heavy losses; and at last the remnants of them turned and fled, as the last of the tahos was killed.

Dian had long since seen that these men were no Korsars. She recognized the copper skins of the Mezops and knew that she had been saved.

She stood upon the ledge and called down to them, and the men looked up and cheered. Then she went down and greeted Hodon and the others; and the first question that she asked was of David. “Why is he not with you?” she asked. “Has anything happened to him?”

“He left Sari in a balloon such as carried you away,” explained Hodon, “in the hope that it would take him to the same spot where yours landed. We do not know what became of him.”

“Why are you here?” asked Dian.

“We were looking for O-aa, who, when last seen, was adrift on the Sari.”

“How did you happen to come here and find me?” asked Dian.

“We landed on the island for water and I saw your sandals on the thwart of your canoe; then we came inland in search of you and we found a man who had seen you captured by these Manats. After that it was easy enough to follow their trail.”

They started immediately on the long trek back to the other side of the island; and when they entered the jungle Gamba came down out of a tree where he had been hiding during the fighting.

“This man said that he came here in a canoe with you,” said Hodon. “Did he offer to harm you in any way?”

“No,” said Dian.

“Then we shall let him live,” said Hodon.

PART IV:

SAVAGE PELLUCIDAR

I

As the JOHN TYLER sailed through the nameless strait toward the Korsar Az in what seemed to David a fruitless search for the ship Lo-har and Hodon the Fleet One, a forgotten incident flashed into David’s mind. As he had drifted across the strait in the balloon that Abner Perry had built for him that he might prosecute his search for Dian the Beautiful, he had seen, far below, a canoe with two occupants moving with the current toward the Korsar Az. And now, recalling what one of the Xexots had told him of seeing Dian and Gamba, the former king of Lolo-lolo, escaping in a canoe, he was certain that it must have been Dian and Gamba whom he had seen. So now he was anxious as O-aa to sail on into the Korsar Az.

Ah-gilak, the little old man from Cape Cod who could not recall his name but knew that it was not Dolly Dorcas, didn’t care where he sailed the ship he had designed and now skippered. He was just content to sail it, a small version of the great clipper ship he had dreamed of building nearly a hundred years before as soon as he got back to Cape Cod.

Of course Abner Perry was more than anxious to prosecute the search for Dian, since it had been through his carelessness that the balloon had escaped and borne her away. Ja and Jav and Ko and the other Mezops of the crew, being borne to the sea, were happy in this, to them, wonderful ship. Ghak the Hairy One, king of Sari, who commanded the two hundred warriors aboard, would have gone to the fiery sea of Molop Az for either David or Dian. The two hundred warriors, while loyal and valiant, were mostly unhappy. They are hill people, the sea is not their element, and most of them were often sick.

On the Lo-har, Hodon and Dian decided to cruise about the Korsar Az for a while before giving up the search for O-aa, whom they had about given up for lost. Then they would return to Sari.

The Korsar Az is a great ocean extending, roughly, two thousand miles from north to south. It is an unchartered wilderness of unknown waters, and all but a short distance of its enormous shoreline a terra incognita to the crews of the Lo-har and the John Tyler, most of whom thought that its waters extended to the ends of the world and were bordered by lands inhabited by fierce enemies and roved by terrifying beasts, in all but the first of which conceits they were eminently correct.

Leaving Tandar, the island upon which he had found Dian, Hodon cruised to the south, while the John Tyler, entering the great sea from the nameless strait, turned her prow toward the north. Thus, fate separated them farther and farther.

Usually within sight of land, the John Tyler cruised in a north-easterly direction along the great peninsula upon the opposite side of which lie most of the kingdoms of the Empire of Pellucidar. For thirteen or fourteen hundred miles the ship held this course, while Ghak’s two hundred sturdy warriors, sick and hating the sea, became more and more unhappy and discontented until they were close upon the verge of mutiny.

They were at heart loyal to Ghak and David; but they were men of the stone age, rugged individualists unaccustomed to discipline. Finally they came to Ghak in a body and demanded that the ship turn back and head for home.

Ghak and David listened to them, Ghak with deep sympathy, for he, too, was sick of the sea and longed to feel the solid earth beneath his feet once more. And David listened with understanding and a plan. He spread a crude map before them.

“We are here,” he said, pointing, “opposite the narrowest part of the peninsula.” He moved his finger in a southeasterly direction. “Here is Sari. Between us and Sari lie seven hundred miles of probably rugged country inhabited by savage tribes and overrun by fierce beasts. You would have to fight your way for all the seven hundred miles.” He ran his finger back along the coast and through the nameless strait and then up along the opposite shore of the peninsula to Sari. “The John Tyler is a safe and seaworthy ship,” he said. “If you remain aboard her, you may be sick and uncomfortable at times, but you will reach Sari in safety. If you wish, we will land you here; or you may remain aboard. If you stay with the ship, there must be no more grumbling, and you must obey orders. Which do you wish to do?”

“How far is it back to Sari by sea?” asked one of the warriors.

“This is, of course, a crude map,” said David, “and we may only approximate correct distances; but I should say that by sea the distance to Sari is around five thousand miles.”

“And only seven hundred miles by land,” said the man.

“About that. It may be more, it may be less.”

“If it were seven hundred miles by sea and five thousand by land,” spoke up another warrior, “and I had to fight for every mile, I’d choose to go by land.”

As one man, the two hundred cheered and that settled the matter.

“Well, dod-burn my hide!” grumbled Ah-gilak. “Of all the gol-durned idjits I almost nearly ever seen! ‘Druther hoof it fer seven hundred miles than ride home in style an’ comfort on the sweetest ship ever sailed these do blasted seas. Ain’t got no more sense ‘n a white pine dog with a poplar tail. Howsumever, good riddance says I. There’ll be more victuals for the rest of us, an’ plenty water.”

“Then everybody’s happy,” said David, smiling.

At the point they chose to land the Sarian warriors, there was a narrow beach at the foot of cliffs which extended in both directions as far as they could see. The lead showed no bottom at sixteen fathoms four hundred yards off shore. Closer than that Ah-gilak would not take his ship.

“Too gol-durned close now,” he said, “but what wind there is is right.”

Standing on and off a light breeze and a calm sea, the boats were lowered and the first contingent was put ashore. David, Abner Perry, Ghak, and O-aa were standing together watching the warriors disembark.

“You will accompany them, Ghak?” asked David.

“I will do whatever you wish,” replied the king of Sari.

“Your place is with them,” said David; “and if you go with them, you’ll be back in Sari much sooner than we shall by sea.”

“Why don’t we all go with them, then?” suggested Perry.

“I have been thinking the same thing,” said David, “but for myself. Not you. It would be too tough a trek for you, Abner. Don’t forget that you must be well over ninety by this time.”

Perry bridled. “Stuff and nonsense!” he exclaimed. “I can keep up with the best of you. And don’t you forget, David, that if I am over ninety, you are over fifty. I’m going along, and that settles it. I must get back to Sari. I have important things to do.”

“You will be much more comfortable aboard the John Tyler,” coaxed David. “And what have you so important to do, that can’t wait in a world where time stands eternally still?”

“I have in mind to invent a steam locomotive and build a railway,” said Perry. “I also wish to invent a camera. There is much to be done, David.”

“Why a camera?” asked David. “You can’t kill anyone with a camera.”

Perry looked hurt. The man who had brought gunpowder, muskets, cannon, and steel for swords and spears and knives to this stone age world was inherently the sweetest and kindest of men. But he just couldn’t help “inventing.”

“Be that as it may, David,” he said with dignity, “I am going with Ghak,” and David knew that that was that.

“How about you, O-aa?” asked David. “With two hundred warriors fully armed with Perry’s appurtenances of civilization, I am sure that we can make the journey with safety; and you can be back in Kali with your own people far sooner than by making the long trip by sea.”

“Hodon is somewhere on the Korsar Az searching for me, I am sure,” replied O-aa; “so I shall stay with the John Tyler. I should much rather go with you than remain with the little old man whose name is not Dolly Dorcas and whom I do not like, but by so doing I might miss Hodon.”

“Why do you call him the little man whose name is not Dolly Dorcas, and why do you dislike him?” asked Perry.

“He has forgotten his own name. He had none. So I called him Dolly Dorcas. I thought that was his name, but it was the name of the ship he was on that was wrecked. So he was always saying, ‘my name is not Dolly Dorcas’, until we gave him the name Ah-gilak. And I do not like him, because he eats people. He wanted to eat me. He ate the men who were ship-wrecked with him. He was even going to start eating himself. He has told us these things. He is an evil old man. But I shall go with him, because I wish to find my Hodon.”

“Gracious me!” exclaimed Perry. “I had no idea Ah-gilak was such a terrible person.”

“He is,” said O-aa, “but he had better leave me alone, or my thirteen brothers will kill him.”

II

AS THE JOHN TYLER drew away from shore, little O-aa leaned on the rail and watched the last of the Sari warriors clamber up the cliff and disappear in the junglelike growth which surmounted it. A moment later she heard savage cries floating out over the water, and then the loud reports of muskets and the screams of wounded men.

“Men do not have to wait long for trouble on land,” said Ko, the Mezop Third Mate, who leaned against the rail at her side. “It is well that you decided to return by sea, little one.”

O-aa shot a quick glance at him. She did not like the tone of his voice when he called her little one. “My people can take care of themselves,” she said. “If necessary they will kill all the men between here and Sari. And I can take care of myself, too,” she added.

“You will not have to take care of yourself,” said Ko. “I will take care of you.”

“You will mind your own business,” snapped O-aa.

Ko grinned. Like nearly all the red Mezops he was handsome, and like all handsome men he thought that he had a way with the women and was irresistable. “It is a long way to Sari,” he said, “and we shall be much together; so let us be friends, little one.”

“We shall not be much together, we shall not be friends, and don’t call me little one. I do not like you, red man.” Little O-aa’s eyes snapped.

Ko continued to grin. “You will learn to like me-little one,” he said. O-aa slapped him full in the face. Ko’s grin vanished, to be replaced by an ugly snarl. “I’ll teach you,” he growled, reaching for her.

O-aa drew the long, slim steel dagger David had given her after she came aboard the John Tyler; and then a thin, cracked voice cried, “Avast there, you swabs! What goes on?” It was Ah-gilak the skipper.

“This she-tarag was going to knife me,” said Ko.

“That’s only part of it,” said O-aa. “If he ever lays a hand on me I’ll carve his heart out.”

Ja, attracted by the controversy, crossed the deck to them in time to hear Ah-gilak say, “She is a bad one. She needs a lesson.”

“You had better not try to give me a lesson, eater of men,” snapped O-aa, “unless you want your old belly ripped open.”

“What is this all about, O-aa?” asked Ja.

“This,” said O-aa, pointing at Ko, “spoke to me as no one but Hodon may speak to me. And he called me little one-me, the daughter of Oose, King of Kali. And when I slapped him, he would have seized me-had I not had my knife.”

Ja turned on Ko. “You will leave the girl alone,” he said. Ko scowled but said nothing, for Ja is king of the Mezops of Anoroc Island, one whom it is well to obey. Ko turned and walked away.

“Dod-burn it!” exclaimed Ah-gilak. “They’s always trouble when you got a woman aboard. I never did like shippin’ a woman. I got me a good mind to set her ashore.”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” said Ja.

“I’m skipper of this here ship,” retorted Ah-gilak. “I can put her ashore if I’ve a mind to.”

“You talk too much, old man,” said Ja, and, walked away.

“You gol-durned red Indian,” grumbled Ah-gilak. “That’s insubordination. Tarnation! It’s mutiny, by gum. I’ll clap you in irons the fust thing you know,” but he was careful to see that Ja was out of earshot before he voiced his anger and made his threats, for now, except for himself, all the officers and crew of the John Tyler were Mezops and Ja was their king.

The John Tyler beat back along the coast toward the nameless strait; and every waking moment O-aa scanned the surface of the great sea that curved upward, horizonless, to merge in the distant haze with the vault of the heavens. But no sign of another ship rewarded her ceaseless vigil. There was life, the terrible marine life of this young world; but no ship bearing Hodon.

O-aa was very lonely. The Mezops, with the exception of Ko, were not unfriendly; but they are a taciturn people. And, further, she had little in common with them that might have promoted conversation. And she hated the sea, and she was afraid of it. She might cope with enemies among men, but she could not cope with the sea. She had begun to regret that she had not gone overland to Sari with David Innes and his party.

Time dragged heavily. The ship seemed to stand still. There were adverse winds; and once, when she came on deck after sleeping, they were becalmed and a dense fog lay upon the water. O-aa could not see the length of the ship. She could see no ocean. There was only the lapping of little waves against the hull and the gentle movement of the ship to indicate that she was not floating off into space in this new element. It was a little frightening.

Every sail was set and flapping idly. A figure materialized out of the fog. O-aa saw that it was the little old man, and the little old man saw that the figure by the rail was O-aa. He glanced around. There was no one else in sight. He came closer.

“You are a hoo-doo,” he said. “You brought bad winds. Now you have brought calm and fog. As long as you are aboard we’ll have bad luck.” He edged closer. O-aa guessed what was in his mind. She whipped out her dagger.

“Go away, eater of men,” she said. “You are just one step from death.”

Ah-gilak stopped. “Gol-durn it, girl,” he protested, “I ain’t goin’ to hurt you.”

“At least for once you have spoken the truth, evil old man,” said O-aa. “You are not going to hurt me. Not while I have my knife. All that you intended to do was to throw me overboard.”

“Of all the dod-gasted foolishness I ever heard, that there takes the cake, as the feller said.”

“Of all the dod-gasted liars,” O-aa mimicked, “you take the cake, as the feller said. Now go away and leave me alone.” O-aa made a mental note to ask some one what the cake was. There is no cake in the stone age and no word for it.

Ah-gilak walked forward and was lost in the fog. O-aa stood now with her back against the rail, that no one might sneak up on her from behind. She knew that she had two enemies aboard-Ko and Ah-gilak. She must be always on the alert. The outlook was not pleasant. The voyage would be very long, and during it there would be many opportunities for one or the other of them to harm her.

Again she berated herself for not having accompanied David and his party. The sea was not her element. She longed for the feel of solid ground beneath her feet. Even the countless dangers of that savage world seemed less menacing than this vile old man who bragged of his cannibalism. She had seen men look at her with hunger in their eyes, but the hunger look in the watery old eyes of Ah-gilak was different. It connoted hunger for food; and it frightened her more even than would have the blazing eyes of some terrible carnivore, for it was unclean, repulsive.

A little breeze bellied the sails of the John Tyler. It sent the fog swirling about the deck. Now the ship moved again. Looking across the deck, O-aa saw something looming close alongside the John Tyler. It was a land-a great, green clad cliff half hid by the swirling fog. She heard Ah-gilak screaming orders. She heard the deep voice of Ja directing the work of the sailors-a calm, unruffled voice.

O-aa ran across the deck to the opposite rail. The great cliff towered high above, lost in the fog. It was scarcely a hundred feet away. At the waterline was a narrow beach that could scarcely be dignified by the name of beach. It was little more than a foothold at the base of this vertical escarpment.

Here was land-beloved land! Its call was irresistible. O-aa stepped to the top of the rail and dived into the sea. She struck out strongly for the little ledge. A kind Providence protected her. No voracious denizen of this swarming sea attacked her, and she reached her goal safely.

As she drew herself up onto the ledge the fog closed in again, and the John Tyler disappeared from view. But she could still hear the voices of Ah-gilak and Ja.

O-aa took stock of her situation. If the tide was out, then the ledge would be submerged at high tide. She examined the face of the cliff in her immediate vicinity, and concluded that the tide was out, for she could see the marks of high tides far above her head.

Because of the fog, she could not see far either to the right or to the left above her. To most, such a situation would have been appalling; but the people of Kali are cliff dwellers. And O-aa, being a Kalian, had spent all of her life scaling cliffs. She had found that there are few cliffs that offer no footholds. This is especially true of cliffs the faces of which support vegetation, and this cliff was clothed in green.

O-aa wished that the fog would go away before the tide came in. She would have liked to examine the cliff more carefully before starting the ascent. She could no longer hear voices aboard the John Tyler. O-aa was alone in a strange world that contained no other living thing. A tiny little world encompassed by fog.

A wave rolled in and lapped her ankles. O-aa looked down. The tide was coming in. Something else was coming in, also. A huge reptile with formidable jaws was swimming toward her, and it was eyeing her quite as hungrily as had Ah-gilak. It was a nameless thing to O-aa, this forty foot monster. I would have advantaged little O-aa nothing to have known that this creature that was intent on reaching up and dragging her down into the sea was Tylosaurus, one of the rulers of the Cretaceous seas of the outer crust, eons ago.

III

AH-GILAK HAD SEEN the green cliff loom close alongside the John Tyler at the same moment as had O-aa, but it connoted something very different to the ancient skipper than to O-aa. To the one it meant disaster, to the other escape. And each reacted in his own way. Ah-gilak screamed orders and O-aa dived overboard.

With the lightly freshening breeze, the ship hauled away from danger, at least from the imminent threat of that particular cliff. But who knew what lay just ahead in the fog?

Again the wind died, the sails hung limp, the fog closed in tighter than before. The tide and a strong current bore the helpless ship on. But where? Abner Perry’s crude compass did 180s and 360s, as the current and the tide turned the John Tyler slowly this way and that.

“She ain’t nuthin’ but a dod-burned derelict,” groaned Ah-gilak, “jest driftin’ around. It all comes from shippin’ a woman, durn ‘em. If we’re driftin’ to sea, we’re all right. If we’re driftin’ t’other way, she’ll go ashore. Gad an’ Gabriel! I’d ruther pitch a whole slew o’ women overboard than lose a sweet ship like the John Tyler.”

“Shut up!” said Ja. “You talk too much. Listen!”

With a palm, Ah-gilak cupped an ear. “I don’t hear nuthin’,” he said.

“You’re deaf, old man,” said Ja.

“I can hear as good as the next feller, as the feller said,” remonstrated Ah-gilak.

“Then you can hear the surf that I hear,” said Ja.

“Surf?” screamed Ah-gilak. “Where? How far?”

“There,” said Ja, pointing. “And close.”

The Lo-har was fogbound. She had been cruising northeast after a futile search in the other direction. Hodon was loath to give up and admit that O-aa was hopelessly lost to him. Dian the Beautiful was apathetic. She knew that David might have been borne almost anywhere by the balloon that had carried him in search of her, and that she stood as good a chance of finding him while searching for O-aa as in any other way. But she was resigned to the fact that she would never see him again; so she encouraged Hodon to search for his O-aa.

Raj and the other Mezops were content just to sail. They loved the sea. Gamba, the Xexot, who had been a king, did not love the sea. It frightened him, but then Gamba was afraid of many things. He was not of the stuff of which kings are supposed to be made. And he was always whining and finding fault. Hodon would long since have pitched him overboard had not Dian interceded in his behalf.

“How many more sleeps before we reach your country?” he asked Dian.

“Many,” she replied.

“I have already lost count of the number of times I have slept since I came aboard this thing you call a ship. We should be close to your country by now. The world is not so large that one can travel for so many sleeps without seeing it all.”

“Pellucidar is very large,” said Dian. “You might travel many thousands of sleeps and yet see but little of it. Furthermore, we have not been traveling toward Sari.”

“What?” shrieked Gamba. “Not travelling toward your country?”

“Hodon has been searching for his mate.”

“He did not find her,” said Gamba, “so I suppose that we are not travelling toward Sari.”

“No,” said Dian. “We are getting farther and farther from Sari, at least by water.”

“Make him turn around, and sail toward Sari,” demanded Gamba. “I, Gamba the King do not like the ocean nor the ship.”

Dian smiled. “King of what” she asked.

“I shall probably be king of Sari when we get there,” said Gamba.

“Well, take my advice and don’t tell Ghak the Hairy One,” said Dian.

“Why not? Who is this Ghak the Hairy One?”

“He is king of Sari,” explained Dian, “and he is a very large person and very fierce when he is crossed.”

“I am not afraid of him,” said Gamba.

Again Dian smiled.

O-AA DID NOT SCREAM as the great jaws of the reptile opened wide to seize her, nor did she faint. Had our foremothers of the stone age wasted time screaming and fainting, when danger threatened, the human race would have died a-borning. And perhaps the world would have been a better, kinder place to live for all the other animals who do not constantly make war upon one another as do men.

Like a human fly, O-aa scrambled up the face of the cliff a few feet; then she looked back and made a face at Tylosaurus, after which she considered carefully her new position. Because of the fog, she could see but a few yards in any direction. How high the cliff she could not know, The greenery which covered it consisted of lichen and stout liana-like vines which depended from above. As there was no earth on this vertical rock in which plant life might take root, it was obvious to O-aa that the lianas were rooted in earth at the top of the cliff. She examined them carefully. Not only were they, in themselves, tough and sturdy; but the aerial tendrils with which the vines clung to the face of the cliff added still greater strength and permanency. Making use of this natural ladder, O-aa ascended.

Some fifty feet above the surface of the sea she came to the mouth of a large cave from which emanated a foul stench-the stink of putrid carrion-and as she drew herself up and peered over the sill of the opening, three hissing, screaming little horrors rushed forward to attack her. O-aa recognized them as the young of the thipdar. Paleontologists would have classified them as pterodactyls of the Lias, but they would have been surprised at the enormous size to which these flying reptiles grow in the Inner World. A wing span of twenty feet is only average. They are one of the most dreaded of Pellucidar’s many voracious carnivores.

The three that attacked O-aa were about the size of turkeys, and they came for her with distended jaws. Clinging to her support with one hand, O-aa whipped out her knife, and beheaded the leader of the attack. But the others came on, their little brains, reacting only to the urge of hunger, had no room for fear.

The girl would gladly have retreated, but the insensate little terrors gave her no respite. Sqawking and hissing, they hurled themselves upon her. She struck a terrific blow at one of them, and missed. The momentum of the blow carried her blade against the vine to which she clung, severing it just above her left hand; and O-aa toppled backward.

Fifty feet below her lay the ocean and, perhaps, Tylosaurus and Death. We, whose reactions have been slowed down by, generations of civilization and soft, protected living, would doubtless have fallen to the ocean and, perhaps, Tylosaurus and Death. But not O-aa. Simultaneously, she transferred the knife to her mouth, dropped the severed vine and grabbed for new support with both hands. She found it and held. “Whe-e-oo!” breathed O-aa.

It had been a close call. She started up again, but this time she detoured around the cave of the thipdars. She had much to be thankful for, including the fog. No adult thipdar had been in the cave, nor need she fear the return of one as long as the fog held.

A hundred feet above the sea she found the summit of the vertical cliff. From here, the mountain sloped upward at an angle of about forty-five degrees. Easy going for O-aa this. Practically level ground. There were trees. They kept looming up out of the fog as she advanced. Trees are beloved of Pellucidarians. Beneath their branches, sanctuary from the great earth bound carnivores.

Now that she had found trees, O-aa had no further need of fog. She wished that it would lift. She was getting as sick of the fog as she had been of the sea. But she knew that the fog was better than the sea. It would go away some time. The sea, never.

She climbed upward, alert, listening, sniffing the air. And presently she emerged from the fog into the bright sunlight of Pellucidar’s eternal noon. The scene was beautiful, And if you think that primitive peoples do not appreciate beauty you are crazy. In any event, O-aa did. The mountain continued to rise gently toward its peak. Splendid trees dotted its slope. Green grass grew lush, starred with many flowers; and below her, shining bright in the sun, the fog rolled, a silent, silver sea.

By the time she reached the summit, the fog had disappeared as miraculously as it had come. O-aa looked in all directions, and her heart sank. In all directions she saw water. This single mountain rose from the depths of the ocean to form a small island. A mile away, she could see the mainland. But that mile of water seemed to the little cave girl of the mountains as effectual a barrier to escape as would a hundred miles of turbulent sea.

And then O-aa saw something else-something that sent her heart into a real nose dive. Sneaking toward her was a jalok, the fierce dog of Pellucidar. And there was no tree nearby.

IV

THE JOHN TYLER went ashore and the surf pounded her against the rocks. Ah-gilak burst into tears as he envisioned the breaking up of his beloved clipper ship. The he cursed fate and the fog and the calm, but especially he cursed O-aa. “Shut up, old man!” commanded Ja. He gave orders that the boats be lowered on the off-shore side of the ship. The powerful Mezops manned them and held them from the ship’s side with their spears as the rollers came in.

Ja and Jav and Ko checked off the men to see that all were present. “Where is the girl?” asked Ja. No one had seen her, and Ja sent men to search the ship for her. They returned to report that she was not on board, and Ja turned fierce eyes on Ah-gilak.

“What did you do with her, old man?” demanded Ja.

“I did nothing to her.”

“You wanted to put her ashore. I think you threw her overboard.”

“We do not need him any more,” said Jav. “I think we should kill him.”

“No! No!” screamed Ah-gilak. “I did not throw the girl overboard. I do not know what became of her. Do not kill me, I am just a poor old man who would not harm any one.”

“We all know that you are a liar,” said Ja, “so nothing you may say makes any difference. However, as no one saw you throw the girl overboard I shall give you the benefit of the doubt and not kill you. Instead, I shall leave you aboard the ship.”

“But it will break up and I shall be drowned,” pleaded Ah-gilak.

“That is your affair, not mine,” said Ja. So the Mezops abandoned the wreck of the John Tyler, leaving Ah-gilak behind.

The Mezops reached the shore in safety and shortly after, the fog lifted. A strong wind sprang up, blowing from the land toward the sea. The Mezops saw the sails of the John Tyler fill.

“The old man is in bad way,” said Jav.

“Look!” cried Ko. “The ship is moving out to sea.”

“The tide came in and floated her,” said Ja. “Maybe we should not have abandoned her so soon. I do not like the land.”

“Perhaps we could overhaul her in the boats,” suggested one.

So they manned the boats and paddled after the John Tyler. Ah-gilak saw them coming and guessed their intention. Impelled by the urges-fear of the Mezops and a desire for revenge-he took the wheel and steered a course that took full advantage of the wind; and the John Tyler picked up speed and showed a pretty pair of heels to the sweating Mezops, who soon gave up the chase and started back toward shore.

“The old son of a sithic!” exclaimed Jav. The sithic is a toadlike reptile.

The jalok is a big, shaggy hyaenodon, with a body as large as a leopard’s but with longer legs. Jaloks usually hunt in packs, and not even the largest and fiercest of animals is safe from attack. They are without fear, and they are always hungry. O-aa knew all about jaloks, and she wished that she was up a tree-literally. She certainly was, figuratively. She was also behind the eight ball, but O-aa, knew nothing of eight balls. To be behind the eight ball and up a tree at the same time is very bad business.

O-aa drew her knife and waited. The jalok lay down and cradled his powerful jaws on his outstretched front legs, and eyed O-aa. This surprised the girl. She had expected the beast to rush her. The animal looked like a big, shaggy dog; but O-aa was not deceived by appearances. She knew that sometimes jaloks were tamed, but they were never domesticated. This one was probably not hungry, and was waiting until he was.

I can’t stay here forever, just waiting to be eaten, thought O-aa; so she started along slowly in the direction she had been going. The jalok got up and followed her.

Below her stretched a gentle declivity down to a narrow coastal plain. A little stream, starting from some place at her left, wound down the mountainside. It was joined by other little streams to form a little river that meandered across the plain down to the sea. It was all a scene of exquisite beauty-a little gem set in an azure sea. But for the moment it was all lost on O-aa as she glanced behind and saw the jalok following her.

If I climb a tree, thought O-aa, the jalok will lie down beneath it until I come down or fall out. O-aa knew her jaloks; so she kept on walking.

She had descended about a half mile when she heard a savage growl ahead and to her left. As she looked, a codon broke from the cover of some tall grass, and charged her. O-aa knew that she was lost, but she held her knife in readiness and waited her end. Then something flashed by her. It was the jalok. He met the codon, a huge timber wolf, long extinct upon the outer crust, at the moment that it leaped for O-aa.

Then followed what bade fair to be a battle royal between these two savage, powerful beasts; and O-aa took advantage of their preoccupation to make good her escape. As she ran down the mountainside, the roars and growls of the battling beasts filled her ears. But not for long. Suddenly they stopped. O-aa glanced back, and again her heart sank. The jalok was coming toward her at a run. Behind him, she could see the still form of the codon lying where it had died.

O-aa stood still. The end was inevitable. She might as well face it now. The jalok stopped a few yards from her; then it moved toward her again wagging its tail! That has meant the same thing in the dog family from the Cretaceous age to the present day, on the outer crust or in the Inner World at the earth’s core.

O-aa sheathed her knife and waited. The jalok came close and looked up into her face, and O-aa placed a hand upon its head and scratched it behind an ear. The great beast licked her hand, and when O-aa started down toward the sea again, it walked at her side, brushing against her. Not since she had lost Hodon had O-aa felt so safe. She tangled her fingers in the shaggy collar that zinged the jalok’s neck, as though she would never let him go again.

Until this moment she had not realized how friendless and alone she had been since she had said goodby to David and Abner Perry and Ghak. But now she had both a friend and a protector. O-aa was almost happy.

As they neared the beach, the jalok moved toward the right; and O-aa followed him. He led her to a little cove. Here she saw an outrigger canoe drawn up on the beach above high water. The jalok stopped beside it and looked up at her. In the canoe were the weapons and the loincloth of a man. And in these things, O-aa read a story. She could see by the general appearance of the articles in the canoe that they had lain untouched for some time. She knew that a man did not go naked and unarmed far from his weapons. And thus she reconstructed the story: A warrior had paddled from the mainland with his jalok to hunt, perhaps. He had gone into the sea to bathe, and had been seized and devoured by one of the innumerable voracious creatures which swarm in the waters of the Korsar Az. Or perhaps a thipdar had swooped down and seized him. At any rate, she was confident that he had gone never to return and, she had fallen heir to his weapons, his canoe, and his jalok. But there remained a mile of terrifying water between herself and the mainland!

She looked across to the farther shore just in time to see the John Tyler put to sea. She could not know that the ship bore only Ah-gilak. The others, far down the coast, were too far away for her to see them. She looked at the canoe and out again across the water. The jalok lay at her feet. She ruffled his shaggy mane with a sandalled foot, and he looked up at her and bared his fangs in a canine grin-terrible fangs set in mighty jaws that could tear her to pieces in a moment.

O-aa sat down on the ground beside the jalok and tried to plan for the future. What she was really trying to do was raise her courage to a point that would permit her to launch the canoe and paddle across that fearsome mile. Every time it reached the sticking point she would look out and see a terrible head or a dorsal fin break the surface of the sea. Then her courage would do a nose dive. And when she realized that the wind was against her, she breathed a sigh of relief for so excellent an excuse to delay her departure.

She examined the contents of the canoe more closely. She saw a stone knife, a stone tipped spear, a tomahawk with a well shaped stone head and a wooden haft, a bow, a quiver of arrows, two paddles, a pole six or seven feet long, a woven fibre mat, and some cordage of braided grasses. These articles suggested something to O-aa that would never have entered her head before she began her adventures on that unfamiliar medium which rolled and tossed in illimitable vastness to form the Sojar Az and Korsar Az. O-aa had learned much that was no part of the education of a cave girl from Kali.

She examined further and found a hole in a thwart and beneath it a corresponding receptacle in the bottom of the canoe. Now she knew what the pole was for and the fibre mat and the cordage. All she had to do, she decided, was wait for a favorable wind. That would be much better than paddling; and as she intended to wait for a strong wind, it would result in a much shorter passage, which would cut down the odds that were always against the survival of any who put to sea in Pellucidar.

Her doom postponed until the wind changed, O-aa realized that she was hungry. She took the spear, the quiver of arrows, and the bow and set forth to hunt. The jalok accompanied her.

V

AH-GILAK LAMED the wheel and went below to ascertain the damage that had resulted from the ship’s pounding on the rocks. He found her sound as a roach, for the Sarians had selected their lumber well and built well.

Returning to the wheel, he took stock of his situation. It did not appear too rosy. Twenty or thirty men were required to man the John Tyler. Obviously, one little old man could not. With the wind he had now, he could hold on as long as there was ocean ahead. He might even maneuver the ship a little, for Ah-gilak had spent a lifetime under sail. But a storm would be his undoing.

Without stars or moon, with a stationary sun, he could not navigate even had he had the necessary instruments and a dependable chart, none of which he had. Nor could he have navigated the nameless strait could he have found it. Ah-gilak was in a bad way, and he knew it; so he decided to beach John Tyler at the earliest opportunity and take his chances on land.

O-aa followed the little river. She moved warily, taking advantage of cover-trees, tall grasses, underbrush. She moved silently, as silently as the great beast at her side. Her left hand grasped her bow and several arrows, another arrow was fitted to the bow and drawn part way back, presenting an analogy to a loaded .45 with a full clip in the magazine and the safety off.

Suddenly three horses broke from nearby underbrush, and in quick succession two arrows brought two of them down. O-aa rushed in and finished them with her knife, while the jalok pursued and dragged down the third.

O-aa picked up the two horses she had shot and waited while the jalok devoured his kill; then they started back toward the canoe. The girl knew her prey as orthopi; but you would have recognized them as Hyracotherii of the Lower Eocene, the early ancestors of Seabiscuit and Whirlaway, little creatures about the size of foxes.

The girl gave one of the orthopi to the jalok; then she made fire and cooked much of the other for herself. Her hunger satisfied, she lay down beneath a tree and slept.

When she awoke, she looked around for the jalok; but he was nowhere to be seen. O-aa was swept by a wave of loneliness. She had been heartened by the promise of companionship and protection which the savage beast had offered. Suddenly the future looked very black. In her fit of despondency, the shore of the mainland seemed to have receded; and she peopled the world with terrifying menaces, which was wholly superfluous, as Nature had already attended to that.

She gave herself up to self-pity for only a short time; then she lifted her chin and braced her shoulders and was the self-sufficient cave girl of Kali once more. She looked out across the water, and realized that the wind had changed while she slept and was blowing strongly toward the mainland.

Going to the canoe, she stepped the mast and rigged the sail to the best of her ability, which was not mean; for O-aa was a highly intelligent young person, observant and with a retentive memory. She tugged on the canoe and found that she could move it, but before she dragged it into the sea she decided to look around once more for the jalok.

She was glad that she had, for she saw him coming down toward her carrying something on his back. When he was closer, she saw that it was the carcass of small deer which he had thrown across his shoulders, still holding to it with his jaws-carrying it as the African lion has been known to carry its prey.

He came up to her, wagging his tail, and laid his kill at her feet. O-aa was so glad to see him that she dropped to her knees and put both arms around his shaggy collar and hugged him. Doubtless, this was something new in the jalok’s life; but he seemed to understand and like it, for he bared his fangs in a grin and licked the girl’s face.

Now O-aa was faced with a problem. If she waited to cook some of the deer and eat, the wind might change. On the other hand she couldn’t bear to abandon so much good meat. The alternative was to take it with her, but would the jalok let her take the carcass away from him? She determined to experiment. Seizing the deer, she started to drag it down toward the water’s edge. The jalok watched her; then, apparently getting the idea, he took hold of it and helped her. O-aa realized what she had become almost convinced of, that here was a well trained hunting animal that had worked with and for his dead master.

Having deposited the deer on the beach, O-aa dragged the canoe down to the water. It taxed her strength, but at last she was rewarded by seeing it afloat. Then she carried the deer to it.

She had no name for the jalok, and did not know how to call him to get into the canoe. She did not need to know. As she climbed over the gunwale, he leaped aboard and took his station in the bow.

The stern of the canoe was still resting on the sandy, bottom, but the sail had filled and was tugging to free it. A few vigorous shoves with a paddle freed the little craft, and O-aa was on her way across the frightful water.

Steering with a paddle, O-aa kept the nose of her craft pointed at a spot on the opposite shore and the wind always directly astern. As the wind freshened, the canoe fairly raced through the water. This was much better than paddling and much faster. O-aa could imagine that this would be a delightful way to travel were it not for the innumerable horrors that infested the ocean and the terrific storms which occasionally whipped it into fury.

Constantly searching the surface of the sea for signs of danger, the girl glanced back and saw the long neck and small head of a tandoraz, which, in Pellucidarian, means mammoth of the sea. The reptile was following the canoe and gaining on it slowly. O-aa well knew what was in that tiny brain. She also knew that the best she could do with any of her weapons was to infuriate it.

Had she known a god, she would have prayed to him for more wind; but, knowing no god, she had to depend entirely on her own resources. Suddenly her eye’s fell upon the deer. If she couldn’t destroy the tandoraz, perhaps she might escape it if she could but delay it.

The shore was not far away now, and the canoe was racing through the water almost as fast as the reptile was swimming; although O-aa was none too sure that the creature was exerting itself anywhere near to the limit of its powers. Nor was it.

With a steel knife that David had given her she ripped open the belly of the carcass and eviscerated it. Glancing back, she saw that the tandoraz was almost upon her. The cold, reptilian eyes glared down upon her. The snake-like jaws gaped wide.

Dragging the viscera to the stern of the canoe, she dropped it overboard directly in front of the hissing creature. The next couple of seconds were an eternity. Would the thing take the bait? Would the stupid mind in its tiny brain be thus easily diverted from the fixed idea that it had been following?

The odor of fresh animal matter and blood turned the scale in O-aa’s favor. The neck arched and the head struck viciously at the viscera. As the tandoraz stopped, to tear at this luscious tid-bit, the canoe drew away. The distance widened. The shore was quite close now, but there was a heavy surf pounding on a sandy beach.

O-aa had resumed the paddle and was steering once more. Her heart was filled with rejoicing. Her escape from death had been all too close, and by comparison the menace of the heavy surf seemed trivial. She looked back at the tandoraz, and her heart missed a beat. Evidently sensing that its prey was escaping, it was coming through the water at terrific speed in pursuit.

O-aa glanced forward again. She was confident that the canoe would reach the surf before the tandoraz could overhaul it. But what then? She didn’t believe that the canoe could live in what seemed to her the mountainous waves that broke upon the shore and rolled far up the beach. The reptile would be upon them as they were thrown into the water. It could not get them all. She could only hope that the thing would seize the carcass of the deer rather than upon her or the jalok which still sat in the bow of the canoe all unconscious of the tragedy of the past few minutes.

Again the “mammoth of the sea” loomed above her. The canoe was caught by a great roller and lifted high. O-aa felt a sudden surging rush as though the canoe, sentient of impending danger, sought to escape in a burst of speed.

Riding high now, just over the crest of the roller, the outrigger raced toward the beach like a frightened deer; and in a swirl of foamy water came to rest on the sand well out of reach of the tandoraz. O-aa leaped out and held it from being drawn out again by the receding waves, and with the next she dragged it well up to safety. Then she threw herself down on the sand, exhausted.

The jalok came and sat down beside her. She stroked its shaggy coat. ‘We made it,” she said. “I didn’t think we should.” The jalok said nothing. At least not in words. He put a great paw on her and licked her ear. “I shall have to give you a name,” said O-aa. “Let me see. Ah, I have it! Rahna. That is a good name for you, Rahna.” Rahna means killer.

VI

O-AA SAT up and took stock of her situation. Beyond the sandy beach the ground rose slowly to a low ridge four or five hundred yards inland. Beyond the ridge were rolling hills, upcurving in this horizonless world to blend with distant mountains which, in turn, blended into the haze of distance.

The ground between O-aa and the ridge was carpeted with Bermuda grass and stunted shrubs, with here and there a windblown tree. The trees reminded O-aa that she was courting death to lie here thus in the open, an invitation to the first winged reptile that might discover her.

She arose and returned to the canoe, where she threw the carcass of the deer across one shoulder and gathered up her weapons. Then she looked down at the jalok and said, “Come, Rahna!” and walked to the nearest tree.

A man coming down out of the rolling hills paused at the edge of the low ridge which O-aa had seen a few hundred yards inland. At the man’s side was a jalok. The man was naked but for a G-string. He carried a stone tipped spear, a stone knife, a bow and arrows. When he saw the girl, he dropped to the ground, where he was hidden by low bushes. He spoke to the jalok, and it lay down beside him.

The man noted the canoe pulled up on the beach. He noted the jalok which accompanied the girl. He saw the carcass of the deer. At first he had thought the girl a man, but closer inspection revealed that he had been mistaken. He was also mystified, for he knew that here there should be no girl with a jalok and a canoe. This was the man’s country, and the men of the stone age knew all that went on in their own little neck-of-the-woods.

O-aa cut a generous hindquarter from the carcass and gave it to Rahna. She used the tomahawk and her steel knife. Then she gathered dry grasses and bits of dead wood, made fire, and cooked her own meal. O-aa, a slender little blonde, tore at the meat with firm, white teeth; and devoured enough for a couple of farm hands. Pellucidarians store up energy through food, for oftentimes they may have to go for long periods without food. Similarly, they store up rest by long sleeps.

Having stored up all the energy she could hold, O-aa lay down to store up rest. She was awakened by the growling of Rahna. He was standing beside her, his hair bristling along his spine.

O-aa saw a man approaching. A jalok paced at his side. The girl seized her bow and arrows and stood up. Both jaloks were growling now. O-aa fitted an arrow to her bow. “Go away!” she said.

“I am not going to hurt you,” said the man, who had seen that O-aa was very lovely and very desirable.

“I could have told you that myself,” replied the girl. “If you tried to, I could kill you. Rahna could kill you. My mate, my father, or my seven brothers could kill you.” It had occurred to O-aa that possibly thirteen brothers were too many to sound plausible.

The man grinned and sat down. “Who are you?” he asked.

“I am O-aa, daughter of Oose, King of Kali. My mate is Hodon the Fleet One. My seven brothers are very large, fierce men. My three sisters are the most beautiful women in Pellucidar, and I am more beautiful than they.”

The man continued. to grin. “I never heard of Kali,” he said. “Where is it?”

“There,” said O-aa, pointing. “You must be a very ignorant person,” she added, “for Kali is the largest country in the world. It requires the caves of a whole mountain range to house her warriors who are as many as the grasses that you can see as far as you can see.”

“You are very beautiful,” said the man, “but you are a great liar. If you were not so beautiful, I would beat you for lying so much. Maybe I shall anyway.”

“Try it,” challenged O-aa. “I have not killed anyone since I last slept.”

“Ah,” said the man, “so that is it? You killed my brother.”

“I did not kill your brother. I never saw your brother.”

“Then how did you get his canoe, his jalok, and his weapons? I recognize them all.”

It was then that O-aa realized that she had lied a little too much for her own health; so she decided to tell the truth. “I will tell you,” she said.

“And see that you tell the truth,” said the man.

“You see that mountain that sticks up out of the sea?” she asked, pointing at the island. The man nodded. “I leaped into the sea,” continued O-aa, “on the other side of that mountain from a big canoe to escape an old man whose name is not Dolly Dorcas. Then I crossed to this side of the mountain where I saw Rahna.”

“His name is not Rahna,” said the man.

“Maybe it wasn’t but it is now. And don’t interrupt me any more. Rahna saved me from a codon, and we became friends. We came down to the edge of the water and found a canoe with these weapons and a man’s loincloth in it. If it was your brother’s canoe, I think he must have gone in the water and been eaten by a tandoraz, or possibly a thipdar flew down and got him. I did not kill your brother. How could I have killed a warrior when I was armed only with a knife? As you can see, all my other weapons are those I found in the canoe.”

The man thought this over. “I believe that you are telling the truth at last,” he said; “because had you killed my brother, his jalok would have killed you.”

“Now will you go away and leave me alone?” demanded O-aa.

“Then what will you do?”

“I shall return to Kali.”

“Do you know how far it is to Kali?”

“No. Kali is not far from the shore of the Lural Az. Do you know how far it is to the Lural Az?”

“I never heard of the Lural Az,” said the man.

“You are a very ignorant person,” said O-aa.

“Not as ignorant as you, if you think you can reach Kali by going in the direction you pointed. In that direction there is a range of mountains that you cannot cross.”

“I can go around it,” said O-aa.

“You are a very brave girl,” said the man. “Let us be friends. Come with me to my village. Perhaps we can help you on your way to Kali. At least, warriors can go with you as far as the mountains, beyond which none of our people have ever gone.”

“How do I know that you will not harm me?” asked O-aa.

The man threw down all his weapons and came toward her with his hands raised. Then she knew that he would not harm her. “We will be friends,” she said. “What is your name?”

“I am Utan of the tribe of Zurts.” He turned and spoke to his jalok, saying, “Padang.”

“Tell your jalok that we are friends,” he said to O-aa.

“Padang, Rahna,” said O-aa. Padang is Pellucidarian for friend or friends.

The two jaloks approached one another a little stiff-legged; but when they had sniffed about each other, they relaxed and wagged their tails, for they had been raised together in the village of Zurts. But there was no playful bouncing, as there might have been between domesticated beasts dogs. These were savage wild beasts with all the majesty and dignity that is inherent in their kind. Adult wild beasts have far more dignity than man. When people say in disgust that a person acts like a beast, they really mean that he acts like a man.

“You can handle a paddle?” Utan asked O-aa.

“I have paddled all over the seas of Pellucidar,” said O-aa.

“There you go again! Well, I suppose that I shall have to get used to it. Anyway, you can help me paddle my brother’s canoe to a safe place.”

“It is my canoe,” said O-aa.

Utan grinned. “And I suppose that you are going to paddle it across the mountains to Kali?”

“I could if I wanted to,” said O-aa.

“The better I know you,” said Utan, “the less I doubt it. If there are other girls like you in Kali, I think I shall go with you and take one of them for my mate.”

“They wouldn’t have you,” said O-aa. “You are too short. You can’t be much more than six feet tall. All our men are seven feet-except those who are eight feet.”

“Come on, little liar,” said Utan, “and we will get the canoe.”

Together they dragged the outrigger into the water. O-aa climbed into the bow, the two jaloks leaped in, and just at the right moment Utan gave the craft a shove and jumped in himself.

“Paddle now!” he said. “And paddle hard.”

The canoe rose to the crest of a roller and slid down the other side. The two paddled furiously until, they were beyond the heavy rollers; then they paralleled the shore until they came to the mouth of a small river, up which Utan turned.

It was a pretty little river overhung by trees and full of crocodiles. They paddled up it for about a mile until they came to rapids. Here, Utan turned in to the bank on their right; and together, they dragged the canoe up among the lush verdure, where it was well hidden.

“Your canoe will be quite safe here,” said Utan, “until you are ready to paddle it over the mountains to Kali. Now we will go to my village.”

VII

HODON, RAJ, DIAN, AND GAMBA were standing on the quarterdeck of the Lo-har; and, as always, Hodon was searching the surface of the sea for the little speck that, in his heart of hearts, he knew he would never see-the little speck that would be the Sari in which O-aa had been carried away by winds and currents on the Sojar AZ and, doubtless, through the nameless strait into the Korsar Az. The little lateen rigged Lo-har had been beset by fog and calm, but now the weather had cleared and a fair wind filled the single sail.

Hodon shook his head sadly. “I am afraid it is hopeless, Dian,” he said. Dian the Beautiful nodded in acquiescence.

“My men are becoming restless,” said Raj. “They have been away from home for many, many sleeps. They want to get back to their women.”

“All right,” said Hodon. “Turn back for Sari.”

As the little ship came about, Gamba pointed. “What is that?” he asked.

They all looked. In the haze of the distance there was a white speck on the surface of the sea. “It is a sail,” said Raj.

“O-aa!” exclaimed Hodon.

The wind was blowing directly from the direction in which the sail lay; so the Lo-har had to tack first one way and then another. But it was soon apparent that the strange ship was sailing before the wind directly toward them, and so the distance between was constantly growing shorter.

“That is not the Sari,” said Raj. “That is a big ship with more sail than I have ever seen before.”

“It must be a Korsar,” said Dian. “If it is, we are lost.”

“We have cannon,” said Hodon, “and men to fight them.”

“Turn around,” said Gamba, “and go the other way. Maybe they have not seen us.”

“You always want to run away,” said Dian, contemptuously. “We shall hold our course and fight them.”

“Turn around!” screamed Gamba. “It is a command! I am king!”

“Shut up!” said Raj. “Mezops do not run away.”

“Nor Sarians,” said Dian.

THE VILLAGE OF THE Zurts, to which Utan led O-aa, lay in a lovely valley through which a little river wandered. It was not a village of caves such as O-aa was accustomed to in Kali. The houses here were of bamboo thatched with grass, and they stood on posts some ten feet above the ground. Crude ladders led up to their doorways.

There were many of these houses; and in the doorways, or on the ground below them, were many warriors and women and children and almost as many jaloks as there were people.

As Utan and O-aa approached, the jaloks of the village froze into immobility, the hair along their backbones erect. Utan shouted, “Padang!” And when they recognized him, some of the warriors shouted, “Padang!” Then the jaloks relaxed and Utan and O-aa entered the village in safety; but there had to be much sniffing and smelling on the part of the jaloks before an entente cordiale was established.

Warriors and women gathered around Utan and O-aa, asking many questions. O-aa was a curiosity here, for she was very blonde, while the Zurts had hair of raven black. They had never seen a blonde before.

Utan told them all that he knew about O-aa, and asked Jalu the chief if she might remain in the village. “She is from a country called Kali which lies the other side of the Terrible Mountains. She is going to try to cross them, and from what I have seen of her she will cross them if any one can.”

“No one can,” said Jalu, “and she may remain-for thirty sleeps,” he added. “If one of our warriors has taken her for a mate in the meantime, she may remain always.”

“None of your warriors will take me for a mate,” said O-aa, “and I will leave long before I have slept thirty times.”

“What makes you think none of my warriors will take you for a mate?” demanded Jalu.

“Because I wouldn’t have one of them.”

Jalu laughed. “If a warrior wanted you he would not ask you, He would take you.”

It was O-aa’s turn to laugh. “He would get a knife in his belly,” she said. “I have killed many men. Furthermore, I have a mate. If I am harmed, he would come and my eleven brothers and my father, the king; and they would kill you all. They are very fierce men. They are nine feet tall. My mate is Hodon the Fleet One. He is a Sarian. The Sarians are very fierce people. But if you are kind to me, no harm will befall you. While I am here, Rahna and I will hunt for you. I am a wonderful hunter. I am probably the best hunter in all Pellucidar.”

“I think you are probably the best liar,” said Jalu. “Who is Rahna?”

“My jalok,” said O-aa, laying her hand on the head of the beast standing beside her.

‘Women do not hunt, nor do they have jaloks,” said Jalu.

“I do,” said O-aa.

A half smile curved the lip of Jalu. He found himself admiring this yellow haired stranger, girl. She had courage, and that was a quality that Jalu the chief understood and admired. He had never seen so much of it in a woman before.

A warrior stepped forward. “I will take her as my mate,” he said, “and teach her a woman’s place. What she needs is a beating.”

O-aa’s lip curved in scorn. “Try it, bowlegs,” she said.

The warrior flushed, for he was very bowlegged and was sensitive about it. He took another step toward O-aa, threateningly.

“Stop, Zurk!” commanded Jalu. “The girl may remain here for thirty sleeps without mating. If she stays longer, you may take her-if you can. But I think she will kill you.”

Zurk stood glaring at O-aa. “When you are mine,” he snarled, “the first thing I will do is beat you to death.”

Jalu turned to one of the women. “Hala,” he directed, “show this woman a house in which she may sleep.”

“Come,” said Hala to O-aa.

She took her to a house at the far end of the village. “No one lives here now,” she said. “The man and the woman who lived here were killed by a tarag not long ago.”

O-aa looked at the ladder and up at the doorway. “How can my jalok get up there?” she asked.

Hala looked at her in surprise. “Jaloks do not come into the houses,” she explained. “They lie at the foot of the ladders to warn their owners of danger and to protect them. Did you not know this?”

“We do not have tame jaloks in my country,” said O-aa.

“You are lucky that you have one here, now that you have made an enemy of Zurk. He is a bad man; not at all like Jalu, his father.”

So, thought O-aa, I have made an enemy of the chief’s son. She shrugged her square little shoulders.

Ah-gilak had bowled along in a southwesterly direction for some time before a good wind. Then the wind died. Ah-gilak cursed. He cursed many things, but principally he cursed O-aa, who had brought all his misfortunes upon him, according to his superstition.

When the wind sprang up again, it blew in the opposite direction from that in which it had been blowing before the calm. Ah-gilak danced up and down in rage. But he could do nothing about it. He could sail in only one way, and that was with the wind. So he sailed back in a north-easterly direction. He lashed the wheel and went below to eat and sleep.

VIII

AS THE LO-HAR and John Tyler approached one another, the former made no effort to avoid the larger ship. Her guns were loaded and manned, and she was prepared to fight.

It was Raj who first noticed something peculiar about the strange ship. “There is no one on deck,” he said. “There is no one at the wheel. She is a fine ship,” he added half to himself. Then an idea popped into his head. “Let’s capture her,” he said.

“No! No!” cried Gamba. “They haven’t seen us. Sail away as fast as, you can.”

“Can you bring the Lo-har alongside her?” asked Dian.

“Yes,” said Jav. He summoned his men from below and gave them their orders.

The Lo-har came about ahead of the John Tyler which was making far better headway than the smaller vessel. As the John Tyler overhauled her, Jav drew in closer to the other ship. As their sides touched, the agile Mezops swarmed aboard the John Tyler with lines and made the Lo-har fast to her.

The impact of the two ships as they came together awoke Ah-gilak. “Dod-burn it! what now?” he cried, as he scrambled up the ladder to the main deck. “Tarnation!” he exclaimed as he saw the score of Mezops facing him. “I’ve gone plumb looney after all.” He shut his eyes and turned his head away. Then he peeked from a corner of one eye. The copper colored men were still there.

“It’s the little Ah-gilak,” said one of the Mezops. “He eats people.”

Now Ah-gilak saw more people coming over the side of his ship, and saw the sail of the little Lo-har. He saw Raj and Hodon, and a beautiful girl whom he had never seen before. With them was a yellow man. But now Ah-gilak realized what had happened and the great good luck that had overtaken him at the very moment when there seemed not a ray of hope in all the future.

“Gad and Gabriel!” he exclaimed. “It never rains but they’s a silver lining, as the feller said. Now I got a crew. Now we can get the hell out o’ this here Korsar Az an’ back to Sari.”

“Who else is aboard?” asked Hodon.

“Not a livin’ soul but me.” He thought quickly and decided that perhaps he had better not tell all the truth. “You see we had a little bad luck-run ashore in a storm. When the crew abandoned ship, I guess they plumb forgot me; and before I could get ashore, the wind changed and the tide came in an’, by all tarnation, the first thing I knew I was a-sailed off all by myself.”

“Who else was aboard?” insisted Hodon.

“Well, they was Ja, and Jav, and Ko, an’ a bunch of other Mezops. They was the ones that abandoned ship. But before that O-aa got a yen to go ashore—”

“O-aa?” cried Hodon. “She was aboard this ship? Where is she?”

“I was just a’tellin you. She got a yen to go ashore, and jumped overboard.”

“Jumped overboard?” Hodon’s voice rang with incredulity. “I think you are lying, old man,” he said.

“Cross my heart, hope to die,” said Ah-gilak.

“How did she get aboard this ship?” continued Hodon.

“Why, we picked her up out of a canoe in the nameless strait; and she told us where David was, an’ we went back an’ rescued him.”

“David?” exclaimed Dian. “Where is he?”

“Well, before the John Tyler went ashore, David an’ Abner Perry an’ Ghak an’ all his Sarian warriors decided they could get back to Sari quicker across country than they could by sailin’ back. Course they was plumb looney, but—”

“Where did they go ashore?” asked Dian.

“Gad an’ Gabriel! How’d I know? They ain’t no charts, they ain’t no moon, they ain’t no stars, and the dang sun don’t never move; so they ain’t no time. They might o’ went ashore twenty years ago, for all a body can tell.”

“Would you recognize the coast where they landed?” persisted Dian.

“I might an’ I might not. Reckon as how I could though.”

“Could you recognize the spot where O-aa jumped overboard?” asked Hodon.

“Reckon not. Never seed it. She jumped over in a fog.”

“Haven’t you any idea?”

“Well, now maybe.” Ah-gilak being certain that O-aa had drowned or been eaten by one of the reptiles that swarm the Korsar Az, felt that it would he safe to give what information he could. “As a matter of fact,” he continued, “‘t warn’t far from where the John Tyler went ashore.”

“And you would recognize that spot?”

“I might an’ I might not. If I recalls correctly they was an island ‘bout a mile off shore near where the John Tyler hit.”

“Well, let’s get going,” said Hodon.

“Where?” demanded Ah-gilak.

“Back along the coast to where O-aa ‘Jumped overboard’ and to where David Innes went ashore.”

“Now wait, young feller,” remonstrated Ah-gilak. “Don’t you go forgettin’ that I’m skipper o’ this ship. It’s me as’ll give orders aboard this hooker.”

Hodon turned to Raj. “Have your men bring all the water, provisions, ammunition, and personal belongings from the Lo-har; then set her adrift.”

Ah-gilak pointed a finger at Hodon. “Hold on young feller—”

“Shut up!” snapped Hodon, and then to Raj. “You will captain the John Tyler, Raj.”

“Gad and Gabriel!” screamed Ah-gilak. “I designed her, I named her, an’ I been skipper of her ever since she was launched. You can’t do this to me.”

“I can, I have, and I’ll do more if you give me any trouble,” said Hodon. “I’ll throw you overboard, you old scoundrel.”

Ah-gilak subsided and went away and sulked. He knew that Hodon’s was no idle threat. These men of the Stone Age held life lightly. He set his mind to the task of evolving a plan by which he could be revenged without incriminating himself. Ah-gilak had a shrewd Yankee mind unfettered by any moral principles or conscience.

He leaned against the rail and glared at Hodon. Then his eyes wandered to Dian, and he glared at her. Another woman! Bad luck! And with this thought the beginnings of a plan commenced to take shape. It was not a wholly satisfactory and devastating plan, but it was better than nothing. And presently he was aided by a contingency which Hodon had not considered.

With the useful cargo of the Lo-har transferred to the John Tyler and the former set adrift, Raj came to Hodon, a worried expression on his fine face.

“This,” he said, with a wave of a hand which embraced the John Tyler, “is such a ship as I and my men have never seen before. She is a mass of sails and ropes and spars, all unfamiliar to us. We cannot sail her.”

For a moment Hodon was stunned. Being a landsman, such a possibility had never occurred to him. He looked astern at the little Lo-har, from which the larger ship was rapidly drawing away. Hodon realized that he had been a trifle precipitate. While there was yet time, perhaps it would be well to lower the boats and return to the Lo-har. The idea was mortifying.

Then Raj made a suggestion. “The old man could teach us,” he said. “If he will,” he added with a note of doubt in his voice.

“He will,” snapped Hodon, and strode over to Ah-gilak. Raj accompanied him.

“Ah-gilak,” he said to the old man, “you will sail the ship, but Raj will still be captain. You will teach him and his men all that is necessary.”

“So you are not going to throw me overboard?” said Ah-gilak with a sneer.

“Not yet,” said Hodon, “but if you do not do as I have said and do it well, I will.”

“You got your nerve, young feller, askin’ me, a Yankee skipper to serve as sailin’ master under this here gol-durned red Indian.”

Neither Hodon nor Raj had the slightest idea what a red Indian was, but from Ah-gilak’s tone of voice they were both sure that the copper colored Mezop had been insulted.

“I’ll sail her fer ye,” continued Ah-gilak, “but as skipper.”

“Come!” said Hodon to Raj. “We will throw him overboard.”

As the two men seized him, Ah-gilak commenced to scream. “Don’t do it,” he cried. “I’ll navigate her under Raj. I was only foolin’. Can’t you take a joke?”

So the work of training Raj and his Mezops commenced at once. They were quick to learn, and Ah-gilak did a good job of training them; because his vanity made it a pleasure to show off his superior knowledge. But he still nursed his plan for revenge. His idea was to cause dissension, turning the copper colored Mezops against the white Hodon and Dian. Of course Ah-gilak had never heard of Communists, but he was nonetheless familiar with one of their techniques. As he worked with the Mezops, he sought to work on what he considered their ignorance and superstition to implant the idea that a woman on shipboard would be certain to bring bad luck and that Dian was only there because of Hodon. He also suggested to them that the latter felt superior to the Mezops because of his color, that he looked down on them as inferior, and that it was not right that he should give orders to Raj. He nursed the idea that it would be well for them all should Dian and Hodon accidently fall overboard.

The Mezops were neither ignorant nor superstitious, nor had they ever heard of race consciousness or racial discrimination. They listened, but they were not impressed. They were only bored. Finally, one of them said to Ah-gilak, “Old man, you talk too much about matters which have nothing to do with sailing this ship. We will not throw Hodon the Fleet One overboard, neither will we throw Dian the Beautiful overboard. If we throw anyone overboard it will be you.”

Ah-gilak subsided.

IX

AFTER O-AA HAD SLEPT, she came to the doorway of her house and looked around. The village seemed very quiet. There were only a few people in sight and they were at the far end of the village. She descended the ladder. Rahna, who had been lying at the foot of it, stood up and wagged his tail. O-aa scratched him between his ears.

“I am hungry,” she said; “so you must be, too. We will hunt.”

She had brought her weapons. Those of the Stone Age who would survive have their weapons always at hand.

“Come, Rahna!” she said, and started up the valley away from the village.

A man, standing in the doorway of a hut farther down the village street, saw them leave. It was Zurk, the son of Jalu the chief. When a turn in the little valley hid them from his sight, he started after them with his jalok. He was a heavy barreled man, short on his bowed legs; and he lurched from side to side a little as though one leg were shorter than the other. His face was coarse and brutal, with beetling brows overhanging close-set eyes.

O-aa and Rahna moved silently up the valley, searching for game. There was a high wind blowing from the direction of the sea, and presently the sun was obscured by black clouds. There was a flash of lightning followed by the deep roar of thunder. The wind rose to violence and rain commenced to fall. But none of these things appeased O-aa’s hunger; so she continued to hunt.

The valley turned suddenly to the right, paralleling the coast; and it became narrower. Its walls were neither high nor steep at this point; so O-aa ascended the right hand wall and came out upon a tree dotted mesa. Here there were tall grasses in which the smaller game might hide.

And Zurk followed with his jalok. O-aa’s spoor in the light mud of the new fallen rain was easy to follow. When Zurk came out upon the mesa, O-aa, who had been advancing slowly, was not far ahead. So intent was she on her search for game that Zurk closed rapidly on her without attracting her attention or that of Rahna. The wind and the rain and the rumbling thunder were all on the side of Zurk.

Zurk’s plan was made. He would shoot the girl’s jalok; then she would be at his mercy. He closed up the distance between them to make sure that he would not miss. He fitted an arrow to his bow. He made no sound, but something made O-aa look behind her at that very moment.

Her own bow was ready for the kill, for any game that she or Rahna might flush. Recognizing Zurk, seeing his bow drawn, she wheeled and loosed an arrow. Zurk’s bow string twanged simultaneously with hers, but the arrow was aimed at O-aa and not at Rahna.

Zurk missed, but O-aa’s arrow drove through the man’s shoulder. Then O-aa turned and fled. Zurk knew that on his short bowed legs he could not overtake her. He spoke sharply to his jalok and pointed at the fleeing girl. “Rah!” he snapped. Rah means kill.

The powerful, savage brute bounded in pursuit.

THE SEAS FLED BEFORE the wind, mounting as the wind mounted. The John Tyler carried but a rag of sail. She handled well, she was seaworthy. Ah-gilak was proud of her. Even when the storm reached almost tornado proportions he did not fear for her.

Gamba the king, cowering below, was terrified, reduced almost to gibbering idiocy by fear. Dian watched him with disgust. And this thing had dared to speak to her of love! Hodon was nervous below deck. Like all mountain men, he wanted to be out in the open. He wanted to face the storm and the danger where he could see them. Below, he was like a caged beast. The ship was pitching wildly, but Hodon managed to fight his way to a ladder and then to the deck above.

Both the wind and the current had combined with malevolent fury in an attempt to hurl the John Tyler on, the all too near shore. Dead ahead loomed the green island upon which O-aa had been cast when she leaped overboard in the fog. Ah-gilak realized that he could make no offing there, that he would have to pass between the island and the shore, only a bare mile away. And through unchartered waters, below the tumbling surface of which might he reefs and rocks. Ah-gilak was not happy.

Hodon saw the mountainous waves and wondered that any ship could live in such a sea. Being a landsman, he saw the high seas as the only menace. Ah-gilak feared for the things he could not see-the reefs and the rocks and the current that he and the ship fought. It was a titanic battle.

Hodon, clinging to a stanchion to keep from falling, was quite unconscious of a real danger that confronted him on the deck of the John Tyler. The ship rose to meet the great seas and then drove deep into the troughs, but so far she had shipped but little green water.

Ah-gilak saw the man, and his toothless mouth grimaced. The wind and the blinding rain beat about him. The tornado whipped his long white beard. There won’t be no call to throw the dod-burned idjit overboard, he thought. Raj saw Hodon and called a warning to him, but the wind drove his voice down his throat.

Just before the ship reached the shelter of the island’s lee, a monstrous sea loomed above her. It broke, tons of it, over her, submerging her. The John Tyler staggered to the terrific impact, then slowly she rose, shaking the water from her.

Ah-gilak looked and grinned. Hodon was no longer by the stanchion. In the shelter of the island, Ah-gilak hove to and dropped anchor. The John Tyler had weathered the storm and was safe.

Raj’s eyes searched the tumbling waters, but they were rewarded by no sight of Hodon. The Mezop shook his head sadly. He had liked the Sarian. Later, when Dian came on deck, he told her; and she, too, was sad. But death comes quickly and often in the Stone Age.

“Perhaps it is just as well,” said Dian. “They are both gone now, and neither is left to grieve.” She was thinking of how often she had wished for death when she had thought David was dead.

Ah-gilak shed crocodile tears, but he did not fool the Mezops. Had they not known that it would have been impossible, they would have thought that he had been instrumental in throwing Hodon overboard; and Ah-gilak would have gone over, too.

A great comber threw Hodon far up the beach, and left him exhausted and half dead. The enormous sea had buffetted him. His head had been beneath the surface more often than it had been above. But the tide and the wind and the current had been with him. As had a kindly Providence, for no terrible creature of the deep had seized him. Perhaps the very turbulence of the water had saved him, keeping the great reptiles down in the relative quiet far below the surface.

Hodon lay for a long time where the sea had spewed him. Occasionally a wave would roll up and surge around him, but none had the depth or volume to drag him back into the sea.

At last he got slowly to his feet. He looked back and saw the John Tyler riding at anchor behind the island. Because of the torrential rain he could but barely discern her; so he knew that those on board could not see him at all. He thought of building a fire in the hope that its smoke might carry a message to them, but there was nothing with which to make fire.

Before the storm struck them, Ah-gilak had said that he thought the ship was approaching the spot at which the Mezops had abandoned her. If that were the case, then the island was close to the place at which O-aa was supposed to have leaped overboard. If she had survived which he doubted, she would be making her way right now toward Kali, hundreds of miles away. Perhaps, somewhere in this unknown land of terrors, she was even now pursuing her hopeless journey.

That he might ever find her in all this vast expanse of plain and hill and mountain he knew to be wholly unlikely, even were she there. But there was the chance. And there was his great love for her. Without a backward glance, Hodon the Fleet One turned his face and his steps northeast toward Kali.

X

O-AA RAN LIKE the wind. She did not know that Zurk had set his jalok on her. She thought only of escaping the man, and she knew that on his bowed legs he could never overtake her.

Zurk pulled upon the arrow embedded in his shoulder. It had just missed his heart. The rough stone tip tore at the tender wound. Blood ran down the man’s body. His features were contorted with pain. He swore. He was very careful as he withdrew the shaft lest the point should be deflected and touch his heart. The girl and the jalok were out of sight, having passed through bushes into a slight depression.

Rahna had followed his mistress, loping easily along a few yards behind her. Suddenly another jalok flashed past him, straight for the fleeing girl.

HODON THE FLEET ONE turned his face and his steps northeast toward Kali. Hodon knew nothing about the points of the compass, but his homing instinct told him the direction to Sari; and, knowing where Kali lay in relation, to Sari, his homeland, he knew the direction he must take.

He had been walking for some time, when, emerging from a clump of bushes, he came upon a man sitting with his back against the bole of a tree. Hodon was armed only with a knife, which was not well in a world where the usual greeting between strangers is, “I kill.”

He was very close to the man before he saw him, and in the instant that he saw him, he saw that his body was smeared with blood and a little stream of blood ran down his chest from a wound in his breast close to his left shoulder.

Now the Sarians, because of the influence of David Innes and Abner Perry, are less savage and brutal than the majority of Pellucidarians. Although Perry had taught them how to slaughter their fellow men scientifically with muskets, cannon, and gunpowder, he had also preached to them the doctrine of the brotherhood of man; so that their policy now was based on the admonition of a man they had never heard of who had lived in a world they would never see, to “speak softly and carry a big stick,” for Abner Perry had been a worshipper of Teddy Roosevelt.

The man’s head was bowed,, his chin lay upon his breast. He was barely breathing. But when he realized that some one had approached him he looked up and snarled. He expected to be killed, but he could do nothing about it.

Hodon turned back to the bushes through which he had just passed and gathered some leaves. He made a little ball of the most tender of them and came back to the man. He knelt beside him and plugged the hole in his chest with a little ball of leaves, stopping the flow of blood.

There was questioning in Zurk’s dull eyes as he looked into those of the stranger. “Aren’t you going to kill me?” he whispered.

Hodon ignored the question. “Where is your village? he asked. “Is it far?”

“Not far,” said Zurk.

“I will help you back to it,” said Hodon, “if you promise me that the warriors will not kill me.”

“They will not kill you,” said Zurk. “I am the chief’s son. But why do you do this for a stranger?”

“Because I am a Sarian,” said Hodon proudly.

Hodon helped Zurk to his feet, but the man, could scarcely stand. Hodon realized that he could not walk; so he carried him pickaback, Zurk directing him toward the village.

The wind blew and rain fell, but the storm was abating as Hodon carried the chief’s son into the village. Warriors came from their houses, with ready weapons, for Hodon was a stranger to be killed on sight. Then they saw Zurk, who was unconscious now, and hesitated.

Hodon faced them. “Instead of standing there scowling at me,” he said, “come and take your chief’s son and carry him to his house where the women can care for him.”

When they had lifted Zurk from his back, Hodon saw that the man was unconscious and that he might be killed after all. “Where is the chief?” he asked.

Jalu was coming toward them from his house. “I am the chief,” he said. “You are either a very brave man or a fool to have wounded my son and then brought him to me.”

“I did not wound him,” said Hodon. “I found him wounded and brought him here, else he would have died. He told me that if I did this the warriors would not kill me.”

“If you have spoken the truth the warriors will not kill you,” said Jalu.

“If the man dies before he regains consciousness, how will you know that I have spoken the truth?” asked Hodon.

“We will not know,” said Jalu. He turned to one of his warriors. “Have him treated well, but see that he does not escape.”

“The brotherhood of man is all right,” said Hodon, “if the other fellow knows about it.” They did not know what he was talking about. “I was a fool not to let him die,” he added.

“I think you were,” agreed Jalu.

Hodon was taken to a house and a woman was sent to take him food. Two warriors stood guard at the foot of the ladder. The woman came with food. It was Hala. She looked at the handsome prisoner with questioning eyes. He did not look stupid, but then one could not always tell just by looks.

“Why did you bring Zurk back when you know that you might be killed? What was he to you?” she asked,

“He was a fellow man, and I am a Sarian,” was Hodon’s simple explanation.

“You, a Sarian?” demanded Hala.

“Yes. Why?”

“There is a Sarian with us, or there was. She went away, I think to hunt; and she has not returned.”

Hodon paled. “What was her name?” he asked.

“Oh, I was wrong,” said Hala. “She is not a Sarian. It is her mate that is a Sarian. She comes from another country where the men are nine feet tall. She has eleven brothers and her father is a king.”

“And her name is O-aa,” said Hodon.

“How do you know?” demanded Hala.

“There is only one O-aa,” said Hodon, enigmaticaIly. “Which way did she go?”

“Up the valley,” said Hala. “Zurk followed her. Zurk is a bad man. It must have been O-aa who wounded him.”

“And I have saved him!” exclaimed Hodon. “Hereafter I shall leave the brotherhood of man to others.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“It is meaningless,” said Hodon. “I must get out of here and follow her.”

“You cannot get out,” said Hala. Suddenly her eyes went wide in understanding. “You are Hodon the Fleet One,” she said.

“How did you know that?”

“That is the name of O-aa’s mate. She said so, and that he is a Sarian.”

“I must get out,” said Hodon.

“I would help you if I could,” said Hala. I liked O-aa and I like you, but you will only get out of this village alive if Zurk regains consciousness and says that he promised that you would not be killed.”

“Will you go then and find out if he has regained consciousness?” he asked her.

O-AA HEARD A SAVAGE growl close behind her. She turned to see a strange jalok reared on its hind feet to seize her and drag her down. As she leaped, quick as a chamois, to one side, she saw something else. She saw Rahna spring upon the strange jalok and hurl it to the ground. The fight that ensued was bloody and terrifying. The two savage beasts fought almost in silence. There were only snarls of rage. As they tore at one another, O-aa circled them, spear in hand, seeking an opportunity to impale Rahna’s antagonist. But they moved so quickly that she dared not thrust for fear of wounding Rahna instead of the other.

Rahna needed no help. At last he got the hold for which he had been fighting-a full hold of the other jalok’s throat. The mighty jaws closed, and Rahna shook the other as a terrier shakes a rat. It was soon over. Rahna dropped the carcass and looked up into O-aa’s eyes. He wagged his tail, and O-aa went down on her knees and hugged him, all bloody as he was.

She found the leaves she needed, and a little stream, and there she washed Rahna’s wounds and rubbed the juices of the leaves into them. After that, she flushed a couple of hares and some strange birds that have not been on earth for a million years. She fed Rahna and she ate her own meat raw, for there was nothing dry with which to make fire.

She did not dare go back to the village, both because she feared that she might have killed Zurk and feared that she hadn’t. In one event, Jalu would kill her if her deed were discovered; in the other, Zurk would kill her. She would go on toward Kali, but first she would sleep. Beneath a great tree she lay down, and the fierce hyaenodon lay down beside her.

XI

THE GREAT STORM passed on. Again the sun shone. The seas subsided. Saddened, Dian suggested that they turn back toward Sari. “What is the use of going on?’ she demanded. “They are all dead.”

“Perhaps not,” said Raj. “Perhaps not all. David, Abner, Ghak, and over two hundred warriors can make their way anywhere in Pellucidar. They may be waiting for us in Sari when we return.”

“Then let’s return as soon as possible,” said Dian.

“And even for O-aa and Hodon there may be hope.”

Dian shook her head. “Had they been together, possibly; but alone, no. And then, even if Hodon reached shore, he was armed with only a knife.”

So they weighed anchor, put about, and laid a course for the nameless strait.

AT THE SAME TIME, David, Perry, and Ghak, were holding a council of war, so to speak. There was no war except with the terrain. With the two hundred fierce Sarians, armed with muskets and well supplied with ammunition, the party had moved through the savage world with not a single casualty.

They lived off a country rich in game, fruits, vegetables, berries, nuts. But the terrain had almost beaten them. The backbone of the great peninsula they were attempting to cross is a mountain range as formidable as the Himalayas and practically insurmountable for men clothed only in G-strings. Its upper reaches ice-locked and snowbound presented an insurmountable barrier to these almost naked men of the Stone Age.

When they reached the mountains, they had moved in a northerly direction searching for a pass. Many sleeps had passed, but still the unbroken facade of the Terrible Mountains barred the way to Sari. Time and again they had followed deep canyons, hoping that here at last was a gap through which they could pass. And time and again they had had to retrace their steps. Now, as far as the eye could reach until vision was lost in the haze, the Terrible Mountains stretched on seemingly into infinity.

“There is no use going on in this direction,” said David Innes.

“Well, where in the world shall we go?” demanded Abner Perry.

“Back,” said David. “There are no mountains on the Lidi Plains nor in the Land of Awful Shadow. We can cross there to the east coast and follow it up to Sari.”

So they turned back toward the southwest, and started anew the long, long trek for home.

Later, many sleeps later, the three man point, which David always kept well ahead of his main body, sighted warriors approaching. One of the warriors of the point ran back to notify David, and presently the Sarians advanced in a long thin skirmish line. Their orders were not to fire until fired upon, and then to fire one volley over the heads of the enemy. David had found that this was usually enough. At the roar and the smoke, the enemy ordinarily fled.

To David’s astonishment, the strange warriors also formed a line of skirmishers. This was a tactful innovation, brought to Pellucidar by David. He had thought that; only warriors trained under the system of the Army of the Empire used it. The two lines moved slowly toward another.

“They look like Mezops,” said David to Ghak. “They are copper colored.”

“‘How could there be Mezops here?” demanded Ghak

David shrugged. “I do not know.”

Suddenly the advancing line of copper colored warriors halted. All but one. He advanced, making the sign of peace. And presently David recognized him.

“First I saw the muskets,” said Ja, “and then I recognized you.”

Ja told of the loss of O-aa and the abandonment of the John Tyler and how it had sailed out to sea with only Ah-gilak.

“So they are both lost,” said David sadly.

“Ah-gilak is no loss,” said Ja; “but the girl-yes.”

And so Ja and Kay and Ko and the other Mezops joined the Sarians, and the march was resumed toward the Lidi Plains and the Land of the Awful Shadow.

A WARRIOR CAME TO the foot of the ladder leading to the house where Hodon was confined. He spoke to the guards, and one of them called to Hodon. “Sarian, come down. Jalu has sent for you.”

Jalu sat on a stool in front of the house where Zurk lay. He was scowling, and Hodon thought that Zurk had died. “Zurk has spoken,” said Jalu. “He said that you had told the truth. He said more. It was O-aa who loosed the arrow that wounded him. Zurk said that she was right to do it. He had followed her to kill her. Now he is sorry. I will send warriors with you to search for her. If you find her, or if you do not, the warriors will either bring you back here or accompany you to the foot of the Terrible Mountains, which is where O-aa wished to go. I do this because of what you did for Zurk when you might have killed him. Zurk has asked me to do this. When do you wish to start?”

“Now,” said Hodon.

With twenty warriors and their jaloks, he set out in search of O-aa.

O-AA SLEPT FOR A long time or for but a second. Who may know in the timeless world of Pellucidar? But it must have been for some considerable outer crust time; because things happened while she slept that could not have happened in a second.

She was awakened by Rahna’s growls. She awoke quickly and completely, in full possession of all her faculties. When one is thus awakened in a Stone Age world, one does not lie with closed eyes and stretch luxuriously and then cuddle down for an extra cat nap. One snaps out of sleep and lays hold of one’s weapons.

Thus, did O-aa; and looked quickly around. Rahna was standing with his back toward her, all the hairs along his spine standing on end. Beyond him, creeping toward them, was a tarag, the huge tiger of the Inner World. A jalok is no match for a tarag; but Rahna stood his ground, ready to die in protection of his mistress.

O-aa took in the scene instantly and all its implications. There was but one course to pursue were she to save both Rahna and herself. She pursued it. She swarmed up the tree beneath which she had been sleeping, taking her bow and arrows with her.

“Rahna!” she called, and the jalok looked up and saw her. Then the tarag charged. Freed from the necessity of sacrificing his life to save the girl’s, Rahna bounded out of harm’s way. The tarag pursued him, but Rahna was too quick for him.

Thus thwarted, the savage beast screamed in rage; then he leaped upward and tried to scramble into the tree after O-aa; but the limb he seized was too small to support his great weight, and he fell to the ground upon his back. Rahna rushed in and bit him, and then leaped away. Once more the great cat sprang after the jalok, but Rahna could run much faster. O-aa laughed and described the tarag and its ancestors with such scurrilous, vituperation as she could command and in a loud tone of voice.

The tarag is probably not noted for its patience; but this tarag was very hungry, and when one is hungry one will exercise a little patience to obtain food. The tarag came and lay down under the tree. It glared up at O-aa. It should have been watching Rahna. The jalok crept stealthily behind it; then rushed in and bit it savagely, in the rear, bounding away again instantly. Again the futile pursuit.

And again it came and lay down beneath the tree, but this time it kept its eyes on Rahna. O-aa fitted an arrow to her bow and drove it into the tarag’s back. With a scream of pain and rage, the cat leaped into the air. But it would take more than one puny arrow to do more than infuriate it.

Another arrow. This time the tarag saw from whence it came, and very slowly and methodically it began to climb the bole of the tree. O-aa retreated into the higher branches. Rahna ran in and tore at the tarag’s rump, but the beast continued its upward climb.

O-aa no longer felt like laughing. She guessed what the end would be. The mighty cat would climb after her until their combined weight snapped the tapering stem and carried them both to the ground.

It was upon this scene that Hodon and Utan and the other warriors broke. Utan recognized Rahna and knew that O-aa must be in the tree. Rahna turned on this new menace, and Utan shouted to O-aa to call him off. He did not want to have to kill the courageous animal.

With relief, O-aa heard the voices of men. Any man would have been welcome at that moment, and she shouted the single word, “Padang” to Rahna. Jalu had armed Hodon, and now twenty-one bow strings twanged and twenty-one arrows pierced the body of the tarag. But even these did not kill him. They did bring him down out of the tree and set him upon these enemies.

The men scattered, but they kept pouring arrows into the beast, and each time he charged one of them, jaloks leaped in and tore at him. But at last he died. An arrow reached his savage heart.

O-aa came down from the tree. She just stood and looked at Hodon in wide eyed silence. Then two tears ran down her cheeks, and in front of all the warriors Hodon the Fleet One took her in his arms.

XII

JALU’S TWENTY warriors accompanied O-aa and Hodon, to the Terrible Mountains. “You can never cross them,” said Utan. “You had better come back and join our tribe. Jalu said that he would accept you.”

Hodon shook his head. “We belong in Sari, my mate and I. We may never reach Sari, but we must try.”

“We will reach Sari,” said O-aa. “You and I and Rahna can go anywhere. There is nothing we Sarians cannot do.”

“I thought that you were from Kali where the men are nine feet tall,” said Utan.

“I am from where my mate is from,” said O-aa. “I am a Sarian.”

“If I thought that there was another girl like you in Kali, I would go there,” said Utan.

“There is no other girl like O-aa in all Pellucidar,” said Hodon the Fleet One.

“I believe you,” said Utan.

Jalu’s warriors ate and slept, and then they started back for their village; and Hodon and O-aa took the long trail-in the wrong direction. They moved toward the northeast. But after all it proved to be the right direction, for before they had slept again they met David and his party. For all of them it was like meeting old friends who had returned from death.

Who may say how long it took them to make the incredible march of nearly two thousand five hundred miles down to the Lidi Plains and the Land of Awful Shadow and across to the east coast and back up to Sari? But at last they came to the village, the village that most of them had never expected to see again; and among the first to welcome them was Dian the Beautiful. The John Tyler had made the long trip in safety.

Everyone was happy except Ah-gilak and Gamba. Ah-gilak had been happy until he saw O-aa. Gamba was never happy. Abner Perry was so happy that he cried, for those whom he thought his carelessness had condemned to death were safe and at home again. Already, mentally, he was inventing a submarine.

A ROSE FOR ECCLESIASTES

Roger Zelazny

I

I was busy translating one of my Madrigals Macabre into Martian on the morning I was found acceptable. The intercom had buzzed briefly, and I dropped my pencil and flipped on the toggle in a single motion.

“Mister G,” piped Morton’s youthful contralto, “the old man says I should `get hold of that damned conceited rhymer` right away, and send him to his cabin. Since there’s only one damned conceited rhymer…”

“Let not ambition mock thy useful toil.” I cut him off.

So, the Martians had finally made up their minds! I knocked an inch and a half of ash from a smoldering butt, and took my first drag since I had lit it. The entire month’s anticipation tried hard to crowd itself into the moment, but could not quite make it. I was frightened to walk those forty feet and hear Emory say the words I already knew he would say; and that feeling elbowed the other one into the background.

So I finished the stanza I was translating before I got up.

It took only a moment to reach Emory’s door. I knocked twice and opened it, just as he growled, “Come in.”

“You wanted to see me?” I sat down quickly to save him the trouble of offering me a seat.

“That was fast. What did you do, run?”

I regarded his paternal discontent: Little fatty flecks beneath pale eyes, thinning hair, and an Irish nose; a voice a decibel louder than anyone else’s…

Hamlet to Claudius: “I was working.”

“Hah!” he snorted. “Come off it. No one’s ever seen you do any of that stuff.”

I shrugged my shoulders and started to rise.

“If that’s what you called me down here—”

“Sit down!”

He stood up. He walked around his desk. He hovered above me and glared down. (A hard trick, even when I’m in a low chair.)

“You are undoubtably the most antagonistic bastard I’ve ever had to work with!” he bellowed, like a belly-stung buffalo. “Why the hell don’t you act like a human being sometime and surprise everybody? I’m willing to admit you’re smart, maybe even a genius, but—oh, hell!” He made a heaving gesture with both hands and walked back to his chair.

“Betty has finally talked them into letting you go in.” His voice was normal again. “They’ll receive you this afternoon. Draw one of the jeepsters after lunch, and get down there.”

“Okay,” I said.

“That’s all, then.”

I nodded, got to my feet. My hand was on the doorknob when he said:

“I don’t have to tell you how important this is. Don’t treat them the way you treat us.”

I closed the door behind me.

I don’t remember what I had for lunch. I was nervous, but I knew instinctively that I wouldn’t muff it. My Boston publishers expected a Martian Idyll, or at least a Saint-Exupery job on space flight. The National Science Association wanted a complete report on the Rise and Fall of the Martian Empire.

They would both be pleased. I knew.

That’s the reason everyone is jealous—why they hate me. I always come through, and I can come through better than anyone else.

I shoveled in a final anthill of slop, and made my way to our car barn. I drew one jeepster and headed it toward Tirellian.

Flames of sand, lousy with iron oxide, set fire to the buggy.

They swarmed over the open top and bit through my scarf; they set to work pitting my goggles.

The jeepster, swaying and panting like a little donkey I once rode through the Himalayas, kept kicking me in the seat of the pants. The Mountains of Tirellian shuffled their feet and moved toward me at a cockeyed angle.

Suddenly I was heading uphill, and I shifted gears to accommodate the engine’s braying. Not like Gobi, not like the Great Southwestern Desert, I mused. Just red, just dead…without even a cactus.

I reached the crest of the hill, but I had raised too much dust to see what was ahead. It didn’t matter, though; I have a head full of maps. I bore to the left and downhill, adjusting the throttle. A crosswind and solid ground beat down the fires. I felt like Ulysses in Malebolge—with a terza-rima speech in one hand and an eye out for Dante.

I rounded a rock pagoda and arrived.

Betty waved as I crunched to a halt, then jumped down.

“Hi,” I choked, unwinding my scarf and shaking out a pound and a half of grit. “Like, where do I go and who do I see?”

She permitted herself a brief Germanic giggle—more at my starting a sentence with “like” than at my discomfort—then she started talking.

(She is a top linguist, so a word from the Village Idiom still tickles her!)

I appreciate her precise, furry talk; informational, and all that.

I had enough in the way of social pleasantries before me to last at least the rest of my life. I looked at her chocolate-bar eyes and perfect teeth, at her sun-bleached hair, close-cropped to the head (I hate blondes!), and decided that she was in love with me.

“Mr. Gallinger, the Matriarch is waiting inside for you to be introduced. She has consented to open the Temple records for your study.” She paused here to pat her hair and squirm a little. Did my gaze make her nervous?

“They are religious documents, as well as their only history,” she continued, “sort of like the Mahabharata. She expects you to observe certain rituals in handling them, like repeating the sacred words when you turn pages—she will teach you the system.”

I nodded quickly, several times.

“Fine, let’s go in.”

“Uh—” She paused. “Do not forget their Eleven Forms of Politeness and Degree. They take matters of form quite seriously—and do not get into any discussions over the equality of the sexes—”

“I know all about their taboos,” I broke in. “Don’t worry. I’ve lived in the Orient, remember?”

She dropped her eyes and seized my hand. I almost jerked it away.

“It will look better if I enter leading you.”

I swallowed my comments, and followed her, like Samson in Gaza.

Inside, my last thought met with a strange correspondence. The Matriarch’s quarters were a rather abstract version of what I might imagine the tents of the tribes of Israel to have been like.

Abstract, I say, because it was all frescoed brick, peaked like a huge tent, with animal-skin representations like gray-blue scars, that looked as if they had been laid on the walls with a palette knife.

The Matriarch, M’Cwyie, was short, white-haired, fifty-ish, and dressed like a queen. With her rainbow of voluminous skirts she looked like an inverted punch bowl set atop a cushion.

Accepting my obeisances, she regarded me as an owl might a rabbit.

The lids of those blank, black eyes jumped upwards as she discovered my perfect accent.—The tape recorder Betty had carried on her interviews had done its part, and I knew the language reports from the first two expeditions, verbatim. I’m all hell when it comes to picking up accents.

“You are the poet?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“Recite one of your poems, please.”

“I’m sorry, but nothing short of a thorough translating job would do justice to your language and my poetry, and I don’t know enough of your language yet.”

“Oh?”

“But I’ve been making such translations for my own amusement, as an exercise in grammar,” I continued. “I’d be honored to bring a few of them along one of the times that I come here.”

“Yes. Do so.”

Score one for me!

She turned to Betty.

“You may go now.”

Betty muttered the parting formalities, gave me a strange sideways look, and was gone. She apparently had expected to stay and “assist” me. She wanted a piece of the glory, like everyone else. But I was the Schliemann at this Troy, and there would be only one name on the Association report!

M’Cwyie rose, and I noticed that she gained very little height by standing. But then I’m six-six and look like a poplar in October; thin, bright red on top, and towering above everyone else.

“Our records are very, very old,” she began. “Betty says that your word for that age is `millennia.`”

I nodded appreciatively.

“I’m very anxious to see them.”

“They are not here. We will have to go into the Temple—they may not be removed.”

I was suddenly wary.

“You have no objections to my copying them, do you?”

“No. I see that you respect them, or your desire would not be so great.”

“Excellent.”

She seemed amused. I asked her what was so funny.

“The High Tongue may not be so easy for a foreigner to learn.”

It came through fast.

No one on the first expedition had gotten this close. I had had no way of knowing that this was a double-language deal—a classical as well as a vulgar. I knew some of their Prakrit, now I had to learn all their Sanskrit.

“Ouch, and damn!”

“Pardon, please?”

“It’s non-translatable, M’Cwyie. But imagine yourself having to learn the High Tongue in a hurry, and you can guess at the sentiment.”

She seemed amused again, and told me to remove my shoes.

She guided me through an alcove…

…and into a burst of Byzantine brilliance!

No Earthman had ever been in this room before, or I would have heard about it. Carter, the first expedition’s linguist, with the help of one Mary Allen, M.D., had learned all the grammar and vocabulary that I knew while sitting cross-legged in the antechamber.

We had had no idea this existed. Greedily, I cast my eyes about.

A highly sophisticated system of esthetics lay behind the decor. We would have to revise our entire estimation of Martian culture.

For one thing, the ceiling was vaulted and corbeled; for another, there were side-columns with reverse flutings; for another—oh hell!

The place was big. Posh. You could never have guessed it from the shaggy outsides.

I bent forward to study the gilt filigree on a ceremonial table.

M’Cwyie seemed a bit smug at my intentness, but I’d still have hated to play poker with her.

The table was loaded with books.

With my toe, I traced a mosaic on the floor.

“Is your entire city within this one building?”

“Yes, it goes far back into the mountain.”

“I see,” I said, seeing nothing.

I couldn’t ask her for a conducted tour, yet.

She moved to a small stool by the table.

“Shall we begin your friendship with the High Tongue?”

I was trying to photograph the hall with my eyes, knowing I would have to get a camera in here, somehow, sooner or later. I tore my gaze from a statuette and nodded, hard.

“Yes, introduce me.”

I sat down.

For the next three weeks alphabet-bugs chased each other behind my eyelids whenever I tried to sleep. The sky was an unclouded pool of turquoise that rippled calligraphies whenever I swept my eyes across it. I drank quarts of coffee while I worked and mixed cocktails of Benzedrine and champagne for my coffee breaks.

M’Cwyie tutored me two hours every morning, and occasionally for another two in the evening. I spent an additional fourteen hours a day on my own, once I had gotten up sufficient momentum to go ahead alone.

And at night the elevator of time dropped me to its bottom floors…

I was six again, learning my Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Aramaic. I was ten, sneaking peeks at the Iliad. When Daddy wasn’t spreading hellfire brimstone, and brotherly love, he was teaching me to dig the Word, like in the original.

Lord! There are so many originals and so many words! When I was twelve I started pointing out the little differences between what he was preaching and what I was reading.

The fundamentalist vigor of his reply brooked no debate. It was worse than any beating. I kept my mouth shut after that and learned to appreciate Old Testament poetry.

—Lord, I am sorry!

Daddy—Sir—I am sorry!

—It couldn’t be! It couldn’t be….

On the day the boy graduated from high school, with the French, German, Spanish, and Latin awards, Dad Gallinger had told his fourteen-year old, six-foot scarecrow of a son that he wanted him to enter the ministry. I remember how his son was evasive:

“Sir,” he had said, “I’d sort of like to study on my own for a year or so, and then take pre-theology courses at some liberal arts university. I feel I’m still sort of young to try a seminary, straight off.”

The Voice of God: “But you have the gift of tongues, my son. You can preach the Gospel in all the lands of Babel. You were born to be a missionary. You say you are young, but time is rushing by you like a whirlwind. Start early, and you will enjoy added years of service.”

The added years of service were so many added tails to the cat repeatedly laid on my back. I can’t see his face now; I never can.

Maybe it was because I was always afraid to look at it then.

And years later, when he was dead, and laid out, in black, amidst bouquets, amidst weeping congregationalists, amidst prayers, red faces, handkerchiefs, hands patting your shoulders, solemn faced comforters…I looked at him and did not recognize him.

We had met nine months before my birth, this stranger and I. He had never been cruel—stern, demanding, with contempt for everyone’s shortcomings—but never cruel. He was also all that I had had of a mother. And brothers. And sisters. He had tolerated my three years at St. John’s, possibly because of its name, never knowing how liberal and delightful a place it really was.

But I never knew him, and the man atop the catafalque demanded nothing now; I was free not to preach the Word. But now I wanted to, in a different way. I wanted to preach a word that I never could have voiced while he lived.

I did not return for my senior year in the fall. I had a small inheritance coming, and a bit of trouble getting control of it, since I was still under eighteen. But I managed.

It was Greenwich Village I finally settled upon.

Not telling any well-meaning parishioners my new address, I entered into a daily routine of writing poetry and teaching myself Japanese and Hindustani. I grew a fiery beard, drank espresso, and learned to play chess. I wanted to try a couple of the other paths to salvation.

After that, it was two years in India with the Old Peace Corps—which broke me of my Buddhism, and gave me my Pipes of Krishna lyrics and the Pulitzer they deserved.

Then back to the States for my degree, grad work in linguistics, and more prizes.

Then one day a ship went to Mars. The vessel settling in its New Mexico nest of fires contained a new language.—It was fantastic, exotic, and esthetically overpowering. After I had learned all there was to know about it, and written my book, I was famous in new circles:

“Go, Gallinger. Dip your bucket in the well, and bring us a drink of Mars. Go, learn another world—but remain aloof, rail at it gently like Auden—and hand us its soul in iambics.

And I came to the land where the sun is a tarnished penny, where the wind is a whip, where two moons play at hot rod games, and a hell of sand gives you incendiary itches whenever you look at it.

I rose from my twisting on the bunk and crossed the darkened cabin to a port. The desert was a carpet of endless orange, bulging from the sweepings of centuries beneath it.

“I am a stranger, unafraid—This is the land—I’ve got it made!”

I laughed.

I had the High Tongue by the tail already—or the roots, if you want your puns anatomical, as well as correct.

The High and Low tongues were not so dissimilar as they had first seemed. I had enough of the one to get me through the murkier parts of the other. I had the grammar and all the commoner irregular verbs down cold; the dictionary I was constructing grew by the day, like a tulip, and would bloom shortly. Every time I played the tapes the stem lengthened.

Now was the time to tax my ingenuity, to really drive the lessons home. I had purposely refrained from plunging into the major texts until I could do justice to them. I had been reading minor commentaries, bits of verse, fragments of history. And one thing had impressed me strongly in all that I read.

They wrote about concrete things: rock, sand, water, winds; and the tenor couched within these elemental symbols was fiercely pessimistic. It reminded me of some Buddhists texts, but even more so, I realized from my recent recherches, it was like parts of the Old Testament. Specifically, it reminded me of the Book of Ecclesiastes.

That, then, would be it. The sentiment, as well as the vocabulary, was so similar that it would be a perfect exercise. Like putting Poe into French. I would never be a convert to the Way of Malann, but I would show them that an Earthman had once thought the same thoughts, felt similarly.

I switched on my desk lamp and sought King James amidst my books.

Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all if vanity. What profit hath a man…

My progress seemed to startle M’Cwyie. She peered at me, like Sartre’s Other, across the tabletop. I ran through a chapter in the Book of Locar. I didn’t look up, but I could feel the tight net her eyes were working about my head, shoulders, and rapid hands. I turned another page.

Was she weighing the net, judging the size of the catch? And what for? The books said nothing of fishers on Mars. Especially of men.

They said that some god named Malann had spat, or had done something disgusting (depending on the version you read), and that life had gotten underway as a disease in inorganic matter. They said that movement was its first law, its first law, and that the dance was the only legitimate reply to the inorganic…the dance’s quality its justification,—fication…and love is a disease in organic matter—Inorganic matter?

I shook my head. I had almost been asleep.

“M’narra.”

I stood and stretched. Her eyes outlined me greedily now. So I met them, and they dropped.

“I grow tired. I want to rest for awhile. I didn’t sleep much last night.”

She nodded, Earth’s shorthand for “yes,” as she had learned from me.

“You wish to relax, and see the explicitness of the doctrine of Locar in its fullness?”

“Pardon me?”

“You wish to see a Dance of Locar?”

“Oh.” Their damned circuits of form and periphrasis here ran worse than the Korean! “Yes. Surely. Any time it’s going to be done I’d be happy to watch.”

I continued, “In the meantime, I’ve been meaning to ask you whether I might take some pictures—”

“Now is the time. Sit down. Rest. I will call the musicians.”

She bustled out through a door I had never been past.

Well now, the dance was the highest art, according to Locar, not to mention Havelock Ellis, and I was about to see how their centuries-dead philosopher felt it should be conducted. I rubbed my eyes and snapped over, touching my toes a few times.

The blood began pounding in my head, and I sucked in a couple deep breaths. I bent again and there was a flurry of motion at the door.

To the trio who entered with M’Cwyie I must have looked as if I were searching for the marbles I had just lost, bent over like that.

I grinned weakly and straightened up, my face red from more than exertion. I hadn’t expected them that quickly.

Suddenly I thought of Havelock Ellis again in his area of greatest popularity.

The little redheaded doll, wearing, sari-like, a diaphanous piece of the Martian sky, looked up in wonder—as a child at some colorful flag on a high pole.

“Hello,” I said, or its equivalent.

She bowed before replying. Evidently I had been promoted in status.

“I shall dance,” said the red wound in that pale, pale cameo, her face. Eyes, the color of dream and her dress, pulled away from mine.

She drifted to the center of the room.

Standing there, like a figure in an Etruscan frieze, she was either meditating or regarding the design on the floor.

Was the mosaic symbolic of something? I studied it. If it was, it eluded me; it would make an attractive bathroom floor or patio, but I couldn’t see much in it beyond that.

The other two were paint-spattered sparrows like M’Cwyie, in their middle years. One settled to the floor with a triple-stringed instrument faintly resembling a samisen. The other held a simple woodblock and two drumsticks.

M’Cwyie disdained her stool and was seated upon the floor before I realized it. I followed suit.

The samisen player was still tuning it up, so I leaned toward M’Cwyie.

“What is the dancer’s name?”

“Braxa,” she replied, without looking at me, and raised her left hand, slowly, which meant yes, and go ahead, and let it begin.

The stringed-thing throbbed like a toothache, and a tick-tocking, like ghosts of all the clocks they had never invented, sprang from the block.

Braxa was a statue, both hands raised to her face, elbows high and outspread.

The music became a metaphor for fire.

Crackle, purr, snap…

She did not move.

The hissing altered to splashes. The cadence slowed. It was water now, the most precious thing in the world, gurgling clear then green over mossy rocks.

Still she did not move.

Glissandos. A pause.

Then, so faint I could hardly be sure at first, the tremble of winds began. Softly, gently, sighing and halting, uncertain. A pause, a sob, then a repetition of the first statement, only louder, where my eyes completely bugged from my reading, or was Braxa actually trembling, all over, head to foot.

She was.

She began a microscopic swaying. A fraction of an inch right, then left. Her fingers opened like the petals of a flower, and I could see that her eyes were closed.

Her eyes opened. They were distant, glassy, looking through me and the walls. Her swaying became more pronounced, merged with the beat.

The wind was sweeping in from the desert now, falling against Tirellian like waves on a dike. Her fingers moved, they were the gusts. Her arms, slow pendulums, descended, began a counter-movement.

The gale was coming now. She began an axial movement and her hands caught up with the rest of her body, only now her shoulders commenced to writhe out a figure-eight.

The wind! The wind, I say. O wild, enigmatic! O muse of St.

John Perse!

The cyclone was twisting around those eyes, its still center. Her head was thrown back, but I knew there was no ceiling between her gaze, passive as Buddha’s, and the unchanging skies. Only the two moons, perhaps, interrupted their slumber in that elemental Nirvana of uninhabited turquoise.

Years ago, I had seen the Devadasis is India, the street-dancers, spinning their colorful webs, drawing in the male insect. But Braxa was more than this: she was a Ramadjany, like those votaries of Rama, incarnation of Vishnu, who had given the dance to man: the sacred dancers.

The clicking was monotonously steady now; the whine of the strings made me think of the stinging rays of the sun, their heat stolen by the wind’s halations; the blue was Sarasvati and Mary, and a girl named Laura. I heard a sitar from somewhere, watched this statue come to life, and inhaled a divine afflatus.

I was again Rimbaud with his hashish, Baudelaire with his laudanum, Poe, De Quincy, Wilde, Mallarme and Aleister Crowley. I was, for a fleeting second, my father in his dark pulpit and darker suit, the hymns and the organ’s wheeze transmuted to bright wind.

She was a spun weather vane, a feathered crucifix hovering in the air. a clothes-line holding one bright garment lashed parallel to the ground. Her shoulder was bare now, and her right breast moved up and down like a moon in the sky, its red nipple appearing momentarily above a fold and vanishing again. The music was as formal as Job’s argument with God. Her dance was God’s reply.

The music slowed, settled; it had been met, matched, answered.

Her garment, as if alive, crept back into the more sedate folds it originally held.

She dropped low, lower, to the floor. Her head fell upon her raised knees. She did not move.

There was silence.

I realized, from the ache across my shoulders, how tensely I had been sitting. My armpits were wet. Rivulets had been running down my sides. What did one do now? Applaud?

I sought M’Cwyie from the corner of my eye. She raised her right hand.

As if by telepathy the girl shuddered all over and stood. The musicians also rose. So did M’Cwyie.

I got to my feet, with a Charley Horse in my left leg, and said,

“It was beautiful,” inane as that sounds.

I received three different High Forms of “thank you.”

There was a flurry of color and I was alone again with M’Cwyie.

“That is the one hundred-seventeenth of the two thousand, two hundred-twenty-four danced of Locar.”

I looked down at her.

“Whether Locar was right or wrong, he worked out a fine reply to the inorganic.”

She smiled.

“Are the dances of your world like this?”

“Some of them are similar. I was reminded of them as I watched Braxa-but I’ve never seen anything exactly like hers.”

“She is good,” M’Cwyie said. “She knows all the dances.”

A hint of her earlier expression which had troubled me…

It was gone in an instant.

“I must tend my duties now.” She moved to the table and closed the books. “M’narra.”

“Good-bye.” I slipped into my boots.

“Good-bye, Gallinger.”

I walked out the door, mounted the jeepster, and roared across the evening into night, my wings of risen desert flapping slowly behind me.

II

I had just closed the door behind Betty, after a brief grammar session, when I heard the voices in the hall. My vent was opened a fraction, so I stood there and eavesdropped;

Morton’s fruity treble: “Guess what? He said `hello’ to me awhile ago.”

“Hmmph!” Emory’s elephant lungs exploded. “Either he’s slipping, or you were standing in his way and he wanted you to move.”

“Probably didn’t recognize me. I don’t think he sleeps any more, now he has that language to play with. I had night watch last week, and every night I passed his door at 0300—I always heard that recorder going. At 0500 when I got off, he was still at it.”

“The guy is working hard,” Emory admitted, grudgingly. “In fact, I think he’s taking some kind of dope to keep awake. He looks sort of glassy-eyed these days. Maybe that’s natural for a poet, though.”

Betty had been standing there, because she broke in then:

“Regardless of what you think of him, it’s going to take me at least a year to learn what he’s picked up in three weeks. And I’m just a linguist, not a poet.”

Morton must have been nursing a crush on her bovine charms. It’s the only reason I can think of for his dropping his guns to say what he did.

“I took a course in modern poetry when I was back at the university,” he began. “We read six authors—Yeats, Pound, Eliot, Crane, Stevens, and Gallinger—and on the last day of the semester, when the prof was feeling a little rhetorical, he said, `These six names are written on the century, and all the gates of criticism and hell shall not prevail on them.’

“Myself,” he continued, “I thought his Pipes of Krishna and his Madrigals were great. I was honored to be chosen for an expedition he was going on.

“I think he’s spoken two dozen words to me since I met him,” he finished.

The Defense: “Did it ever occur to you,” Betty said, “that he might be tremendously self-conscious about his appearance? He was also a precocious child, and probably never even had school friends.

He’s sensitive and very introverted.”

“Sensitive? Self-conscious?” Emory choked and gagged. “The man is as proud as Lucifer, and he’s a walking insult machine. You press a button like `Hello’ or `Nice day’ and he thumbs his nose at you.

He’s got it down to a reflex.”

They muttered a few other pleasantries and drifted away.

Well bless you, Morton boy. You little pimple-faced, Ivy-bred connoisseur! I’ve never taken a course in my poetry, but I’m glad someone said that. The Gates of Hell. Well now! Maybe Daddy’s prayers got heard somewhere, and I am a missionary, after all!

Only…

…Only a missionary needs something to convert people to. I have my private system of esthetics, and I suppose it oozes an ethical by-product somewhere. But if I ever had anything to preach, really, even in my poems, I wouldn’t care to preach it to such low-lifes as you. If you think I’m a slob, I’m also a snob, and there’s no room for you in my Heaven—it’s a private place, where Swift, Shaw, and Petronius Arbiter come to dinner.

And oh, the feasts we have! The Trimalchio’s, the Emory’s we dissect!

We finish you with the soup, Morton!

I turned and settled at my desk. I wanted to write something.

Ecclesiastes could take a night off. I wanted to write a poem, a poem about the one hundred-seventeenth dance of Locar; about a rose following the light, traced by the wind, sick, like Blake’s rose, dying…

I found a pencil and began.

When I had finished I was pleased. It wasn’t great—at least, it was no greater than it needed to be—High Martian not being my strongest tongue. I groped, and put it into English, with partial rhymes. Maybe I’d stick it in my next book. I called it, Braxa:

In a land of wind and red, where the icy evening of Time freezes milk in the breasts of Life, as two moons overhead—cat and dog in alleyways of dream—scratch and scramble agelessly my flight…

This final flower turns a burning head.

I put it away and found some phenobarbitol. I was suddenly tired.

When I showed my poem to M’Cwyie the next day, she read it through several times, very slowly.

“It is lovely,” she said. “But you used three words from your own language. `Cat’ and `dog’, I assume, are two small animals with a hereditary hatred for one another. But what is `flower’?”

“Oh,” I said. “I’ve never come across your word for `flower’, but I was actually thinking of an Earth flower, the rose.”

“What is it like?”

“Well, its petals are generally bright red. That’s what I meant, on one level, by `burning heads.’ I also wanted it to imply fever, though, and red hair, and the fire of life. The rose, itself, has a thorny stem, green leaves, and a distinct, pleasing aroma.”

“I wish I could see one.”

“I suppose it could be arranged. I’ll check.”

“Do it, please. You are a—” She used the word for “prophet,” or religious poet, like Isaias or Locar. “—and your poem is inspired. I shall tell Braxa of it.”

I declined the nomination, but felt flattered.

This, then, I decided, was the strategic day, the day on which to ask whether I might bring in the microfilm machine and the camera. I wanted to copy all their texts, I explained, and I couldn’t write fast enough to do it.

She surprised me by agreeing immediately. But she bowled me over with her invitation.

“Would you like to come and stay here while you do this thing?

Then you can work day and night, any time you want—except when the Temple is being used, of course.”

I bowed.

“I should be honored.”

“Good. Bring your machines when you want, and I will show you a room.”

“Will this afternoon be all right?”

“Certainly.”

“Then I will go now and get things ready. Until this afternoon…”

“Good-bye.”

I anticipated a little trouble from Emory, but not much. Everyone back at the ship was anxious to see the Martians, poke needles in the Martians, ask them about Martian climate, diseases, soil chemistry, politics, and mushrooms (our botanist was a fungus nut, but a reasonably good guy)—and only four or five had actually gotten to see them. The crew had been spending most of its time excavating dead cities and their acropolises. We played the game by strict rules, and the natives were as fiercely insular as the nineteenth-century Japanese. I figured I would meet with little resistance, and I figured right.

In fact, I got the distinct impression that everyone was happy to see me move out.

I stopped in the hydroponics room to speak with our mushroom master.

“Hi, Kane. Grow any toadstools in the sand yet?”

He sniffed. He always sniffs. Maybe he’s allergic to plants.

“Hello, Gallinger. No, I haven’t had any success with toadstools, but look behind the car barn next time you’re out there. I’ve got a few cacti going.”

“Great,” I observed. Doc Kane was about my only friend aboard, not counting Betty.

“Say, I came down to ask you a favor.”

“Name it.”

“I want a rose.”

“A what?”

“A rose. You know, a nice red American Beauty job—thorns, pretty smelling—”

“I don’t think it will take in this soil. Sniff, sniff.”

“No, you don’t understand. I don’t want to plant it, I just want the flower.”

“I’d have to use the tanks.” He scratched his hairless dome. “It would take at least three months to get you flowers, even under forced growth.”

“Will you do it?”

“Sure, if you don’t mind the wait.”

“Not at all. In fact, three months will just make it before we leave.” I looked about at the pools of crawling slime, at the trays of shoots. “—I’m moving up to Tirellian today, but I’ll be in and out all the time. I’ll be here when it blooms.”

“Moving up there, eh? Moore said they’re an in-group.”

“I guess I’m `in’ then.”

“Looks that way—I still don’t see how you learned their language, though. Of course, I had trouble with French and German for my Ph.D., but last week I heard Betty demonstrate it at lunch. It just sounds like a lot of weird noises. She says speaking it is like working a Times crossword and trying to imitate birdcalls at the same time.”

I laughed, and took the cigarette he offered me.

“It’s complicated,” I acknowledged. “But, well, it’s as if you suddenly came across a whole new class of mycetae here—you’d dream about it at night.”

His eyes were gleaming.

“Wouldn’t that be something! I might, yet, you know.”

“Maybe you will.”

He chuckled as we walked to the door.

“I’ll start your roses tonight. Take it easy down there.”

“You bet. Thanks.”

Like I said, a fungus nut, but a fairly good guy.

My quarters in the Citadel of Tirellian were directly adjacent to the Temple, on the inward side and slightly to the left. They were a considerable improvement over my cramped cabin, and I was pleased that Martian culture had progressed sufficiently to discover the desirability of the mattress over the pallet. Also, the bed was long enough to accommodate me, which was surprising.

So I unpacked and took sixteen 35 mm. shots of the Temple, before starting on the books.

I took ‘stats until I was sick of turning pages without knowing what they said. So I started translating a work of history.

“Lo. In the thirty-seventh year of the Process of Cillen the rains came, which gave way to rejoicing, for it was a rare and untoward occurrence, and commonly construed a blessing.

“But it was not the life-giving semen of Malann which fell from the heavens. It was the blood of the universe, spurting from an artery. And the last days were upon us. The final dance was to begin.

“The rains brought the plague that does not kill, and the last passes of Locar began with their drumming….”

I asked myself what the hell Tamur meant, for he was an historian and supposedly committed to fact. This was not their Apocalypse.

Unless they could be one and the same…?

Why not? I mused. Tirellian’s handful of people were the remnant of what had obviously once been a highly developed culture. They had had wars, but no holocausts; science, but little technology. A plague, a plague that did not kill…? Could that have done it? How, if it wasn’t fatal?

I read on, but the nature of the plague was not discussed. I turned pages, skipped ahead, and drew a blank.

M’Cwyie! M’Cwyie! When I want to question you most, you are not around!

Would it be a faux pas to go looking for her? Yes, I decided.

I was restricted to the rooms I had been shown, that had been an implicit understanding. I would have to wait to find out.

So I cursed long and loud, in many languages, doubtless burning Malann’s sacred ears, there in his Temple.

He did not see fit to strike me dead, so I decided to call it a day and hit the sack.

I must have been asleep for several hours when Braxa entered my room with a tiny lamp. She dragged me awake by tugging at my pajama sleeve.

I said hello. Thinking back, there is not much else I could have said.

“Hello.”

“I have come,” she said, “to hear the poem.”

“What poem?”

“Yours.”

“Oh.”

I yawned, sat up, and did things people usually do when awakened in the middle of the night to read poetry.

“That is very kind of you, but isn’t the hour a trifle awkward?”

“I don’t mind,” she said.

Someday I am going to write an article for the Journal of Semantics, called “Tone of Voice: An Insufficient Vehicle for Irony.”

However, I was awake, so I grabbed my robe.

“What sort of animal is that? she asked, pointing at the silk dragon on my lapel.

“Mythical,” I replied. “Now look, it’s late. I am tired. I have much to do in the morning. And M’Cwyie just might get the wrong idea if she learns you were here.”

“Wrong idea?”

“You know damned well what I mean!” It was the first time I had had an opportunity to use Martian profanity, and it failed.

“No,” she said, “I do not know.”

She seemed frightened, like a puppy dog being scolded without knowing what it has done wrong.

I softened. Her red cloak matched her hair and lips so perfectly, and those lips were trembling.

“Here now, I didn’t mean to upset you. On my world there are certain, uh, mores, concerning people of different sex alone together in bedrooms, and not allied by marriage….Um, I mean, you see what I mean?”

They were jade, her eyes.

“Well, it’s sort of…Well, it’s sex, that’s what it is.”

A light was switched on in those jade eyes.

“Oh, you mean having children!”

“Yes. That’s it! Exactly!”

She laughed. It was the first time I had heard laughter in Tirellian. It sounded like a violinist striking his high strings with the bow, in short little chops. It was not an altogether pleasant thing to hear, especially because she laughed too long.

When she had finished she moved closer.

“I remember, now,” she said. “We used to have such rules. Half a Process ago, when I was a child, we had such rules. But—” she looked as if she were ready to laugh again—“there is no need for them now.”

My mind moved like a tape recorder playing at triple speed.

Half a Process! HalfaProcessa—ProcessaProcess! No! Yes! Half a Process was two hundred-forty-three years, roughly speaking!

—Time enough to learn the 2224 dances of Locar.

—Time enough to grow old, if you were human.

—Earth-style human, I mean.

I looked at her again, pale as the white queen in an ivory chess set.

She was human, I’d stake my soul—alive, normal, healthy. I’d stake my life—woman, my body…

But she was two and a half centuries old, which made M’Cwyie Methusala’s grandma. It flattered me to think of their repeated complimenting of my skills, as linguist, as poet. These superior beings!

But what did she mean “there is no such need for them now”? Why the near-hysteria? Why all those funny looks I’d been getting from M’Cwyie?

I suddenly knew I was close to something important, besides a beautiful girl.

“Tell me,” I said, in my Casual Voice, “did it have anything to do with `the plague that does not kill,’ of which Tamur wrote?”

“Yes,” she replied, “the children born after the Rains could have no children of their own, and—”

“And what?” I was leaning forward, memory set at “record.”

“—and the men had no desire to get any.”

I sagged backward against the bedpost. Racial sterility, masculine impotence, following phenomenal weather. Had some vagabond cloud of radioactive junk from God knows where penetrated their weak atmosphere one day? One day long before Shiaparelli saw the canals, mythical as my dragon, before those “canals” had given rise to some correct guesses for all the wrong reasons, had Braxa been alive, dancing, here—damned in the womb since blind Milton had written of another paradise, equally lost?

I found a cigarette. Good thing I had thought to bring ashtrays.

Mars had never had a tobacco industry either. Or booze. The ascetics I had met in India had been Dionysiac compared to this.

“What is that tube of fire?”

“A cigarette. Want one?”

“Yes, please.”

She sat beside me, and I lighted it for her.

“It irritates the nose.”

“Yes. Draw some into your lungs, hold it there, and exhale.”

A moment passed.

“Ooh,” she said.

A pause, then, “Is it sacred?”

“No, it’s nicotine,” I answered, “a very ersatz form of divinity.”

Another pause.

“Please don’t ask me to translate `ersatz’.”

“I won’t. I get this feeling sometimes when I dance.”

“It will pass in a moment.”

“Tell me your poem now.”

An idea hit me.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “I may have something better.”

I got up and rummaged through my notebooks, then I returned and sat beside her.

“These are the first three chapters of the Book of Ecclesiastes,”

I explained. “It is very similar to your own sacred books.”

I started reading.

I got through eleven verses before she cried out, “Please don’t read that! Tell me one of yours!”

I stopped and tossed the notebook onto a nearby table. She was shaking, not as she had quivered that day she danced as the wind, but with the jitter of unshed tears. She held her cigarette awkwardly, like a pencil. Clumsily, I put my arm about her shoulders.

“He is so sad,” she said, “like all the others.”

So I twisted my mind like a bright ribbon, folded it, and tied the crazy Christmas knots I love so well. From German to Martian, with love, I did an impromptu paraphrasal of a poem about a Spanish dancer.

I thought it would please her. I was right.

“Ooh,” she said again. “Did you write that?”

“No, it’s by a better man than I.”

“I don’t believe it. You wrote it yourself.”

“No, a man named Rilke did.”

“But you brought it across to my language. Light another match, so I can see how she danced.”

I did.

“The fires of forever,” she mused, “and she stamped them out, `with small, firm feet.’ I wish I could dance like that.”

“You’re better than any Gypsy,” I laughed, blowing it out.

“No, I’m not. I couldn’t do that.”

“Do you want me to dance for you?”

Her cigarette was burning down, so I removed it from her fingers and put it out, along with my own.

“No,” I said. “Go to bed.”

She smiled, and before I realized it, had unclasped the fold of red at her shoulder.

And everything fell away.

And I swallowed, with some difficulty.

“All right,” she said.

So I kissed her, as the breath of fallen cloth extinguished the lamp.

III

The days were like Shelley’s leaves: yellow, red, brown, whipped in bright gusts by the west wind. They swirled past me with the rattle of microfilm. Almost all of the books were recorded now. It would take scholars years to get through them, to properly assess their value. Mars was locked in my desk.

Ecclesiastes abandoned and returned to a dozen times, was almost ready to speak in the High Tongue.

I whistled when I wasn’t in the Temple. I wrote reams of poetry I would have been ashamed of before. Evenings I would walk with Braxa, across the dunes or up into the mountains. Sometimes she would dance for me; and I would read something long, and in dactylic hexameter.

She still thought I was Rilke, and I almost kidded myself into believing it. Here I was, staying at the Caste Duino, writing his Elegies.

…It is strange to inhabit the Earth no more, to use no longer customs scarce acquired, nor interpret roses…

No! Never interpret roses! Don’t. Smell them (sniff, Kane!), pick them, enjoy them. Live in the moment. Hold to it tightly, but charge not the gods to explain. So fast the leaves go by, are blown…

And no one ever noticed us. Or cared.

Laura. Laura and Braxa. They rhyme, you know, with a bit of clash. Tall, cool, and blonde was she (I hate blondes!), and Daddy had turned me inside out, like a pocket, and I thought she could fill me again. But the big, beat work-slinger, with Judas-beard and dog-trust in his eyes, oh, he had been a fine decoration at her parties. And that was all.

How the machine cursed me in the Temple! It blasphemed Malann and Gallinger. And the wild west wind went by and something was not far behind.

The last days were upon us.

A day went by and I did not see Braxa, and a night.

And a second. And a third.

I was half-mad. I hadn’t realized how close we had become, how important she had been. With the dumb assurance of presence, I had fought against questioning the roses.

I had to ask. I didn’t want to, but I had no choice.

“Where is she, M’Cwyie? Where is Braxa?”

“She is gone,” she said.

“Where?”

“I do not know.”

I looked at those devil-bird eyes. Anathema maranatha rose to my lips.

“I must know.”

She looked through me.

“She has left us. She is gone. Up into the hills, I suppose. Or the desert. It does not matter. What does anything matter? The dance draws itself to a close. The Temple will soon be empty.”

“Why? Why did she leave?”

“I do not know.”

“I must see her again. We lift off in a matter of days.”

“I am sorry, Gallinger.”

“So am I,” I said, and slammed shut a book without saying

“m’narra.”

I stood up.

“I will find her.”

I left the Temple. M’Cwyie was a seated statue. My boots were still where I had left them.

All day I roared up and down the dunes, going nowhere. To the crew of the Aspic. I must have looked like a sandstorm, all by myself.

Finally, I had to return for more fuel.

Emory came stalking out.

“Okay, make it good. You look like the abominable dust man. Why the rodeo?”

“Why, I, uh, lost something.”

“In the middle of the desert? Was it one of your sonnets?

They’re the only thing I can think of that you’d make such a fuss over.”

“No, dammit! It was something personal.”

George had finished filling the tank. I started to mount the jeepster again.

“Hold on there!” he grabbed my arm.

“You’re not going back until you tell me what this is all about.”

I could have broken his grip, but then he could order me dragged back by the heels, and quite a few people would enjoy doing the dragging. So I forced myself to speak slowly, softly:

“It’s simply that I lost my watch. My mother gave it to me and it’s a family heirloom. I want to find it before we leave.”

“You sure it’s not in your cabin, or down in Tirellian?”

“I’ve already checked.”

“Maybe somebody hid it to irritate you. You know you’re not the most popular guy around.”

I shook my head.

“I thought of that. But I always carry it in my right pocket. I think it might have bounced out going over the dunes.”

He narrowed his eyes.

“I remember reading on a book jacket that your mother died when you were born.”

“That’s right,” I said, biting my tongue. “The watch belonged to her father and she wanted me to have it. My father kept it for me.”

“Hmph!” he snorted. “That’s a pretty strange way to look for a watch, riding up and down in a jeepster.”

“I could see the light shining off it that way,” I offered, lamely.

“Well, it’s starting to get dark,” he observed. “No sense looking any more today.

“Throw a dust sheet over the jeepster,” he directed a mechanic.

He patted my arm.

“Come on in and get a shower, and something to eat. You look as if you could use both.”

Little fatty flecks beneath pale eyes, thinning hair, and an Irish nose; a voice a decibel louder than anyone else’s…

His only qualification for leadership!

I stood there, hating him. Claudius! If only this were the fifth act!

But suddenly the idea of a shower, and food, came through to me.

I could use both badly. If I insisted on hurrying back immediately I might arouse more suspicion.

So I brushed some sand from my sleeve.

“You’re right. That sounds like a good idea.”

“Come on, we’ll eat in my cabin.”

The shower was a blessing, clean khakis were the grace of God, and the food smelled like Heaven.

“Smells pretty good,” I said.

We hacked up our steaks in silence. When we got to the dessert and coffee he suggested:

“Why don’t you take the night off? Stay here and get some sleep.”

I shook my head.

“I’m pretty busy. Finishing up. There’s not much time left.”

“A couple of days ago you said you were almost finished.”

“Almost, but not quite.”

“You also said they’re be holding a service in the Temple tonight.”

“That’s right. I’m going to work in my room.”

He shrugged his shoulders.

Finally, he said, “Gallinger,” and I looked up because my name means trouble.

“It shouldn’t be any of my business,” he said, “but it is. Betty says you have a girl down there.”

There was no question mark. It was a statement hanging in the air. Waiting.

Betty, you’re a bitch. You’re a cow and a bitch. And a jealous one, at that. Why didn’t you keep your nose where it belonged, shut your eyes? You mouth?

“So?” I said, a statement with a question mark.

“So,” he answered it, “it is my duty, as head of this expedition, to see that relations with the natives are carried on in a friendly, and diplomatic, manner.”

“You speak of them,” I said, “as though they are aborigines.

Nothing could be further from the truth.”

I rose.

“When my papers are published everyone on Earth will know that truth. I’ll tell them things Doctor Moore never even guessed at.

I’ll tell the tragedy of a doomed race, waiting for death, resigned and disinterested. I’ll write about it, and they will give me more prizes, and this time I won’t want them.

“My God!” I exclaimed. “They had a culture when our ancestors were clubbing the saber-tooth and finding out how fire works!”

“Do you have a girl down there?”

“Yes!” I said. Yes, Claudius! Yes, Daddy! Yes, Emory! “I do, but I’m going to let you in on a scholarly scoop now. They’re already dead. They’re sterile. In one more generation there won’t be any Martians.”

I paused, then added, “Except in my papers, except on a few pieces of microfilm and tape. And in some poems, about a girl who did give a damn and could only bitch about the unfairness of it all by dancing.”

“Oh,” he said.

After awhile:

“You have been behaving differently these past couple months.

You’ve even been downright civil on occasion, you know. I couldn’t help wondering what was happening. I didn’t know anything mattered that strongly to you.”

I bowed my head.

“Is she the reason you were racing around the desert?”

I nodded.

“Why?”

I looked up.

“Because she’s out there, somewhere. I don’t know where, or why.

And I’ve got to find her before we go.”

“Oh,” he said again.

Then he leaned back, opened a drawer, and took out something wrapped in a towel. He unwound it. A framed photo of a woman lay on the table.

“My wife,” he said.

It was an attractive face, with big, almond eyes.

“I’m a Navy man, you know,” he began. “Young officer once. Met her in Japan.”

“Where I come from it wasn’t considered right to marry into another race, so we never did. But she was my wife. When she died I was on the other side of the world. They took my children, and I’ve never seen them since. I couldn’t learn what orphanage, what home, they were put into. That was long ago. Very few people know about it.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be. Forget it. But”—he shifted in his chair and looked at me—“if you do want to take her back with you—do it. It’ll mean my neck, but I’m too old to ever head another expedition like this one.

So go ahead.”

He gulped cold coffee.

“Get your jeepster.”

He swiveled the chair around.

I tried to say “thank you” twice, but I couldn’t. So I got up and walked out.

“Sayonara, and all that,” he muttered behind me.

“Here it is, Gallinger!” I heard a shout.

I turned on my heel and looked back up the ramp.

“Kane!”

He was limned in the port, shadow against light, but I had heard him sniff.

I returned the few steps.

“Here what is?”

“Your rose.”

He produced a plastic container, divided internally. The lower half was filled with liquid. The stem ran down into it. The other half, a glass of claret in this horrible night, was a large, newly opened rose.

“Thank you,” I said, tucking it in my jacket.

“Going back to Tirellian, eh?”

“Yes.”

“I saw you come aboard, so I got it ready. Just missed you at the Captain’s cabin. He was busy. Hollered out that I could catch you at the barns.”

“Thanks again.”

“It’s chemically treated. It will stay in bloom for weeks.”

I nodded. I was gone.

Up into the mountains now. Far. Far. The sky was a bucket of ice in which no moons floated. The going became steeper, and the little donkey protested. I whipped him with the throttle and went on. Up.

Up. I spotted a green, unwinking star, and felt a lump in my throat.

The encased rose beat against my chest like an extra heart. The donkey brayed, long and loudly, then began to cough. I lashed him some more and he died.

I threw the emergency brake on and got out. I began to walk.

So cold, so cold it grows. Up here. At night? Why? Why did she do it? Why flee the campfire when night comes on?

And I was up, down, around, and through every chasm, gorge, and pass, with my long-legged strides and an ease of movement never known on Earth.

Barely two days remain, my love, and thou hast forsaken me. Why?

I crawled under overhangs. I leaped over ridges. I scraped my knees, an elbow. I heard my jacket tear.

No answer, Malann? Do you really hate your people this much?

Then I’ll try someone else. Vishnu, you’re the Preserver. Preserve her, please! Let me find her.

Jehovah?

Adonis? Osiris? Thammuz? Manitou? Legba? Where is she?

I ranged far and high, and I slipped.

Stones ground underfoot and I dangled over an edge. My fingers so cold. It was hard to grip the rock.

I looked down.

Twelve feet or so. I let go and dropped, landed rolling.

Then I heard her scream.

I lay there, not moving, looking up. Against the night, above, she called.

“Gallinger!”

I lay still.

“Gallinger!”

And she was gone.

I heard stones rattle and knew she was coming down some path to the right of me.

I jumped up and ducked into the shadow of a boulder.

She rounded a cut-off, and picked her way, uncertainly, through the stones.

“Gallinger?”

I stepped out and seized her by the shoulders.

“Braxa.”

She screamed again, then began to cry, crowding against me. It was the first time I had ever heard her cry.

“Why?” I asked. “Why?”

But she only clung to me and sobbed.

Finally, “I thought you had killed yourself.”

“Maybe I would have,” I said. “Why did you leave Tirellian? And me?”

“Didn’t M’Cwyie tell you? Didn’t you guess?”

“I didn’t guess, and M’Cwyie said she didn’t know.”

“Then she lied. She knows.”

“What? What is it she knows?”

She shook all over, then was silent for a long time. I realized suddenly that she was wearing only her flimsy dancer’s costume. I pushed her from me, took off my jacket, and put it about her shoulders.

“Great Malann!” I cried. “You’ll freeze to death!”

“No,” she said, “I won’t.”

I was transferring the rose-case to my pocket.

“What is that?” she asked.

“A rose,” I answered. “You can’t make it out in the dark. I once compared you to one. Remember?”

“Yes—Yes. May I carry it?”

“Sure.” I stuck it in the jacket pocket.

“Well? I’m still waiting for an explanation.”

“You really do not know?” she asked.

“No!”

“When the Rains came,” she said, “apparently only our men were affected, which was enough….Because I—wasn’t—affected—apparently—”

“Oh,” I said. “Oh.”

We stood there, and I thought.

“Well, why did you run? What’s wrong with being pregnant on Mars?

Tamur was mistaken. Your people can live again.”

She laughed, again that wild violin played by a Paginini gone mad.

I stopped her before it went too far.

“How?” she finally asked, rubbing her cheek.

“Your people can live longer than ours. If our child is normal it will mean our races can intermarry. There must still be other fertile women of your race. Why not?”

“You have read the Book of Locar,” she said, “and yet you ask me that? Death was decided, voted upon, and passed, shortly after it appeared in this form. But long before, before the followers of Locar knew. They decided it long ago. `We have done all things,’ they said, ‘we have seen all things, we have heard and felt all things.

The dance was good. Now let it end.’”

“You can’t believe that.”

“What I believe does not matter,” she replied. “M’Cwyie and the Mothers have decided we must die. Their very title is now a mockery, but their decisions will be upheld. There is only one prophecy left, and it is mistaken. We will die.”

“No,” I said.

“What, then?”

“Come back with me, to Earth.”

“No.”

“All right, then. Come with me now.”

“Where?”

“Back to Tirellian. I’m going to talk to the Mothers.”

“You can’t! There is a Ceremony tonight!”

I laughed.

“A Ceremony for a god who knocks you down, and then kicks you in the teeth?”

“He is still Malann,” she answered. “We are still his people.”

“You and my father would have gotten along fine,” I snarled. “But I am going, and you are coming with me, even if I have to carry you—and I’m bigger than you are.”

“But you are not bigger than Ontro.”

“Who the hell is Ontro?”

“He will stop you, Gallinger. He is the Fist of Malann.”

IV

I scudded the jeepster to a halt in front of the only entrance I knew, M’Cwyie’s. Braxa, who had seen the rose in a headlamp, now cradled it in her lap, like our child, and said nothing. There was a passive, lovely look on her face.

“Are they in the Temple now?” I wanted to know.

The Madonna-expression did not change. I repeated the question.

She stirred.

“Yes,” she said, from a distance, “but you cannot go in.”

“We’ll see.”

I circled and helped her down.

I led her by the hand, and she moved as if in a trance. In the light of the new-risen moon, her eyes looked as they had the day I had met her, when she had danced. I snapped my fingers. Nothing happened.

So I pushed the door open and led her in. The room was half-lighted.

And she screamed for the third time that evening:

“Do not harm him, Ontro! It is Gallinger!”

I had never seen a Martian man before, only women. So I had no way of knowing whether he was a freak, though I suspected it strongly.

I looked up at him.

His half-naked body was covered with moles and swellings. Gland trouble, I guessed.

I had thought I was the tallest man on the planet, but he was seven feet tall and overweight. Now I knew where my giant bed had come from!

“Go back,” he said. “She may enter. You may not.”

“I must get my books and things.”

He raised a huge left arm. I followed it. All my belonging lay neatly stacked in the corner.

“I must go in. I must talk with M’Cwyie and the Mothers.”

“You may not.”

“The lives of your people depend on it.”

“Go back,” he boomed. “Go home to your people, Gallinger.

Leave us!”

My name sounded so different on his lips, like someone else’s.

How old was he? I wondered. Three hundred? Four? Had he been a Temple guardian all his life? Why? Who was there to guard against?

I didn’t like the way he moved. I had seen men who moved like that before.

“Go back,” he repeated.

If they had refined their martial arts as far as they had their dances, or worse yet, if their fighting arts were a part of the dance, I was in for trouble.

“Go on in,” I said to Braxa. “Give the rose to M’Cwyie. Tell her that I sent it. Tell her I’ll be there shortly.”

“I will do as you ask. Remember me on Earth, Gallinger.

Good-bye.”

I did not answer her, and she walked past Ontro and into the next room, bearing her rose.

“Now will you leave?” he asked. “If you like, I will tell her that we fought and you almost beat me, but I knocked you unconscious and carried you back to your ship.”

“No,” I said, “either I go around you or go over you, but I am going through.”

He dropped into a crouch, arms extended.

“It is a sin to lay hands on a holy man,” he rumbled, “but I will stop you, Gallinger.”

My memory was a fogged window, suddenly exposed to fresh air.

Things cleared. I looked back six years.

I was a student of the Oriental Languages at the University of Tokyo. It was my twice-weekly night of recreation. I stood in a thirty-foot circle in the Kodokan, the judogi lashed about my high hips by a brown belt. I was Ik-kyu, one notch below the lowest degree of expert. A brown diamond above my right breast said

“Jiu-Jitsu” in Japanese, and it meant atemiwaza, really, because of the one striking-technique I had worked out, found unbelievably suitable to my size, and won matches with.

But I had never used it on a man, and it was five years since I had practiced. I was out of shape, I knew, but I tried hard to force my mind tsuki no kokoro, like the moon, reflecting the all of Ontro.

Somewhere, out of the past, a voice said “Hajime, let it begin.”

I snapped into my neko-ashi-dachi cat-stance, and his eyes burned strangely. He hurried to correct his own position—and I threw it at him!

My one trick!

My long left leg lashed up like a broken spring. Seven feet off the ground my foot connected with his jaw as he tried to leap backward.

His head snapped back and he fell. A soft moan escaped his lips.

That’s all there is to it, I thought. Sorry, old fellow.

And as I stepped over him, somehow, groggily, he tripped me, and I fell across his body. I couldn’t believe he had strength enough to remain conscious after that blow, let alone move. I hated to punish him any more.

But he found my throat and slipped a forearm across it before I realized there was a purpose to his action.

No! Don’t let it end like this!

It was a bar of steel across my windpipe, my carotids. Then I realized that he was still unconscious, and that this was a reflex instilled by countless years of training. I had seen it happen once, in shiai. The man had died because he had been choked unconscious and still fought on, and his opponent thought he had not been applying the choke properly. He tried harder.

But it was rare, so very rare!

I jammed my elbow into his ribs and threw my head back in his face. The grip eased, but not enough. I hated to do it, but I reached up and broke his little finger.

The arm went loose and I twisted free.

He lay there panting, face contorted. My heart went out to the fallen giant, defending his people, his religion, following his orders. I cursed myself as I had never cursed before, for walking over him, instead of around.

I staggered across the room to my little heap of possessions. I sat on the projector case and lit a cigarette.

I couldn’t go into the Temple until I got my breath back, until I thought of something to say.

How do you talk a race out of killing itself?

Suddenly—Could it happen! Would it work that way? If I read them the Book of Ecclesiastes—if I read them a greater piece of literature than any Locar ever wrote—and as somber—and as pessimistic—and showed them that our race had gone on despite one man’s condemning all of life in the highest poetry—showed them that the vanity he had mocked had borne us to the Heavens—would they believe it—would they change their minds?

I ground out my cigarette on the beautiful floor, and found my notebook. A strange fury rose within me as I stood.

And I walked into the Temple to preach the Black Gospel according to Gallinger, from the Book of Life.

There was silence all about me.

M’Cwyie had been reading Locar, the rose set at her right hand, target of all eyes.

Until I entered.

Hundreds of people were seated on the floor, barefoot. The few men were as small as the women, I noted.

I had my boots on.

Go all the way, I figured. You either lose or you win—everything!

A dozen crones sat in a semicircle behind M’Cwyie. The Mothers.

The barren earth, the dry wombs, the fire-touched.

I moved to the table.

“Dying yourselves, you would condemn your people,” I addressed them, “that they may not know the life you have known—the joys, the sorrows, the fullness.—But it is not true that you all must die.” I addressed the multitude now. “Those who say this lie. Braxa knows, for she will bear a child—”

They sat there, like rows of Buddhas. M’Cwyie drew back into the semicircle.

“—my child!” I continued, wondering what my father would have thought of this sermon.

“…And all the women young enough may bear children. It is only your men who are sterile.—And if you permit the doctors of the next expedition to examine you, perhaps even the men may be helped. But if they cannot, you can mate with the men of Earth.

“And ours is not an insignificant people, an insignificant place.”

I went on. “Thousands of years ago, the Locar of our world wrote a book saying that it was. He spoke as Locar did, but we did not lie down, despite plagues, wars, and famines. We did not die. One by one we beat down the diseases, we fed the hungry, we fought the wars, and, recently, have gone a long time without them. We may finally have conquered them. I do not know.

“But we have crossed millions of miles of nothingness. We have visited another world. And our Locar had said `Why bother? What is the worth of it? It is all vanity, anyhow.’

“And the secret is,” I lowered my voice, as at a poetry reading,

“He was right! It is vanity, it is pride! It is the hubris of rationalism to always attack the prophet, the mystic, the god. It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us.—All the truly sacred names of God are blasphemous things to speak!”

I was working up a sweat. I paused dizzily.

“Here is the Book of Ecclesiastes,” I announced, and began:

“`Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all if vanity. What profit hath a man…’”

I spotted Braxa in the back, mute, rapt.

I wondered what she was thinking.

And I wound the hours of the night about me, like black thread on a spool.

Oh, it was late! I had spoken till day came, and still I spoke. I finished Ecclesiastes and continued Gallinger.

And when I finished there was still only a silence.

The Buddhas, all in a row, had not stirred through the night. And after a long while M’Cwyie raised her right hand. One by one the Mothers did the same.

And I knew what that meant.

It meant, no, do not, cease, and stop.

It meant that I had failed.

I walked slowly from the room and slumped beside my baggage.

Ontro was gone. Good that I had not killed him…

After a thousand years M’Cwyie entered.

She said, “Your job is finished.”

I did not move.

“The prophecy is fulfilled,” she said. “My people are rejoicing.

You have won, holy man. Now leave us quickly.”

My mind was a deflated balloon. I pumped a little air back into it.

“I’m not a holy man,” I said, “just a second-rate poet with a bad case of hubris.”

I lit my last cigarette.

Finally, “All right, what prophecy?”

“The Promise of Locar,” she replied, as though the explaining were unnecessary, “that a holy man would come from the Heavens to save us in our last hours, if all the dances of Locar were completed. He would defeat the Fist of Malann and bring us life.”

“How?”

“As with Braxa, and as the example in the Temple.”

“Example?”

“You read us his words, as great as Locar’s. You read to us how there is `nothing new under the sun.’ And you mocked his words as you read them—showing us a new thing.

“There has never been a flower on Mars,” she said, “but we will learn to grow them.

“You are the Sacred Scoffer,” she finished.

“He-Who-Must-Mock-in-the-Temple—you go shod on holy ground.”

“But you voted `no,’” I said.

“I voted not to carry out our original plan, and to let Braxa’s child live instead.”

“Oh.” The cigarette fell from my fingers. How close it had been!

How little I had known!

“And Braxa?”

“She was chosen half a Process ago to do the dances—to wait for you.”

“But she said that Ontro would stop me.”

M’Cwyie stood there for a long time.

“She had never believed the prophecy herself. Things are not well with her now. She ran away, fearing it was true. When you completed it, and we voted, she knew.”

“Then she does not love me? Never did?”

“I am sorry, Gallinger. It was the one part of her duty she never managed.”

“Duty,” I said flatly….Dutydutyduty! Tra-la!

“She has said good-bye, she does wish to see you again.

“…and we will never forget your teachings,” she added.

“Don’t,” I said automatically, suddenly knowing the great paradox which lies at the heart of all miracles. I did not believe a word of my own gospel, never had.

I stood, like a drunken man, and muttered “M’narra.”

I went outside, into my last day on Mars.

I have conquered thee, Malann—and the victory is thine! Rest easy on thy starry bed. God damned!

I left the jeepster there and walked back to the Aspic, leaving the burden of life so many footsteps behind me. I went to my cabin, locked the door, and took forty-four sleeping pills.

But when I awakened I was in the dispensary, and alive.

I felt the throb of engines as I slowly stood up and somehow made it to the port.

Blurred Mars hung like a swollen belly above me, until it dissolved, brimmed over, and streamed down my face.

NO TRUCE WITH KINGS

Poul Anderson

“Charlie! Give’s a song!”

“Yeah, Charlie!”

The whole mess was drunk, and the junior officers at the far end of the table were only somewhat noisier than.their seniors near the colonel. Rugs and hangings could not much muffle the racket, shouts, stamping boots, thump of fists on oak and clash of cups raised aloft, that rang from wall to stony wall. High up among shadows that hid the rafters they hung from, the regimental banners stirred in a draft, as if to join the chaos. Below, the light of bracketed lanterns and bellowing fireplace winked on trophies and weapons.

Autumn comes early on Echo Summit, and it was storming outside, wind-hoot past the watchtowers and rain-rush in the courtyards, an undertone that walked through the buildings and down all corridors, as if the story were true that the unit’s dead came out of the cemetery each September Nineteenth night and tried to join the celebration but had forgotten how. No one let it bother him, here or in the enlisted barracks, except maybe the hex major. The Third Division, the Catamounts, was known as the most riotous gang in the Army of the Pacific States of America, and of its regiments the Rolling Stones who held Fort Nakamura were the wildest.

“Go on, boy! Lead off. You’ve got the closest thing to a voice in the whole goddamn Sierra,” Colonel Mackenzie called. He loosened the collar of his black dress tunic and lounged back, legs asprawl, pipe in one hand and beaker of whisky in the other: a thickset man with blue wrinkle-meshed eyes in a battered face, his cropped hair turned gray but his mustache still arrogantly red.

“Charlie is my darlin’, my darlin’, my darlin’,” sang Captain Hulse. He stopped as the noise abated a little. Young Lieutenant Amadeo got up, grinned, and launched into one they well knew.

“I am a Catamountain, I guard a border pass.

And every time I venture out, the cold will freeze m—”

“Colonel, sir. Begging your pardon.”

Mackenzie twisted around and looked into the face of Sergeant Irwin. The man’s expression shocked him. “Yes?”

“I am a bloody hero, a decorated vet:

The order of the Purple Shaft, with pineapple clusters yet!”

“Message just come in, sir. Major Speyer asks to see you right away.”

Speyer, who didn’t like being drunk, had volunteered for duty tonight; otherwise men drew lots for it on a holiday. Remembering the last word from San Francisco, Mackenzie grew chill.

The mess bawled forth the chorus, not noticing when the colonel knocked out his pipe and rose.

“The guns go boom! Hey, tiddley boom!

The rockets vroom, the arrows zoom.

From slug to slug is damn small room.

Get me out of here and back to the good old womb!

(Hey, doodle dee day!)”

All right-thinking Catamounts maintained that they could operate better with the booze sloshing up to their eardrums than any other outfit cold sober. Mackenzie ignored the tingle in his veins; forgot it. He walked a straight line to the door, automatically taking his sidearm off the rack as he passed by. The song pursued him into the hall.

“For maggots in the rations, we hardly ever lack.

You bite into a sandwich and the sandwich bites right back.

The coffee is the finest grade of Sacramento mud.

The ketchup’s good in combat, though, for simulating blood.

(Cho-orus!)

The drums go bump! Ah-tumpty-tumpt!

The bugles make like Gabriel’s trump—”

Lanterns were far apart in the passage. Portraits of former commanders watched the colonel and the sergeant from eyes that were hidden in grotesque darknesses. Footfalls clattered too loudly here.

“I’ve got an arrow tn my rump.

Right about and rearward, heroes, on the jump!

(Hey, doodle dee day!)”

Mackenzie went between it pair of fieldpieces flanking a stairway—they had been captured at Rock Springs during the Wyoming War, a generation ago—and upward. There was more distance between places in this keep than his legs liked at their present age. But it was old, had been added to decade by decade; and it needed to be massive, chiseled and mortared from Sierra granite, for it guarded a key to the nation. More than one army had broken against its revetments, before the Nevada, marches were pacified, and more young men Mackenzie wished to think about bad gone from this base to die among angry strangers.

But she’s never been attacked from the west. God, or whatever are, you can spare her that, can’t you?

The command office was lonesome at this hour. The room where Sergeant Irwin had his desk lay so silent: no clerks pushing pens, no messengers going in or out, no wives making a splash of color with their dresses as they waited to see the colonel about some problem down in the Village. When he opened the door to the inner room, though, Mackenzie heard the wind shriek around the angle of the wall. Rain slashed at the black windowpane and ran down in streams which the lanterns turned molten.

“Here the colonel is, sir,” Irwin said in an uneven voice. He gulped and closed the door behind Mackenzie.

Speyer stood by the commander’s desk. It was a beat-up old object with little upon it: an inkwell, a letter basket, an interphone, a photograph of Nora, faded in these dozen years since her death. The major was a tall and gaunt man, hooknosed, going bald on top. His uniform always looked unpressed, somehow. But he had the sharpest brain in the Cats, Mackenzie thought; and Christ, how could any man read as many books as Phil did! Officially he was the adjutant, in practice the chief adviser.

“Well?” Mackenzie said. The alcohol did not seem to numb him, rather make him too acutely aware of things: how the lanterns smelled hot (when would they get a big enough generator to run electric lights?), and the floor was hard under his feet, and a crack went through the plaster of the north wall, and the stove wasn’t driving out much of the chill. He forced bravado, stuck thumbs in belt and rocked back on his heels. “Well, Phil, what’s wrong now?”

“Wire from Frisco,” Speyer said. He had been folding and unfolding a piece of paper, which he handed over. “Huh? Why not a radio call?”

“Telegram’s less likely to be intercepted. This one’s in code, at that. Irwin decoded it for me.”

“What the hell kind of nonsense is this?”

“Have a look, Jimbo, and you’ll find out. It’s for you, anyway. Direct from GHQ.”

Mackenzie focused on Irwin’s scrawl. The usual formalities of an order; then:

You are hereby notified that the Pacific States Senate has passed a bill of impeachment against Owen Brodsky, formerly Judge of the Pacific States of America, and deprived him of office. As of 2000 hours this date, former Vice Humphrey Fallon is Judge of the PSA in accordance with the Law of Succession. The existence of dissident elements constituting a public danger has made it necessary for Judge Fallon to put the entire nation under martial law, effective at 2100 hours this date. You are therefore issued the following instructions:

1. The above intelligence is to be held strictly confidential until an official proclamation is made. No person who has received knowledge in the course of transmitting this message shall divulge same to any other person whatsoever. Violators of this section and anyone thereby receiving information shall be placed immediately in solitary confinement to await court-martial.

2. You will sequestrate all arms and ammunition except for ten percent of available stock, and keep same under heavy guard.

3. You will keep all men in the Fort Nakamura area until you are relieved. Your relief is Colonel Simon Hollis, who will start from San Francisco tomorrow morning with one battalion. They are expected to arrive in Fort Nakamura in five days, at which time you will surrender your command to him. Colonel Hollis will designate those officers and enlisted men who are to be replaced by members of his battalion, which will be integrated into the regiment. You will lead the men replaced back to San Francisco and report to Brigadier General Mendoza at New Fort Baker. To avoid provocations, these men will be disarmed except for officers’ sidearms.

4. For your private information, Captain Thomas Danielis has been appointed senior aide to Colonel Hollis.

5. You are again reminded that the Pacific States of America are under martial law because of a national emergency. Complete loyalty to the legal government is required. Any mutinous talk must be severely punished. Anyone giving aid or comfort to the Brodsky faction is guilty of treason and will be dealt with accordingly.

Gerald O’Donnell, Gen. APSA, CINC

Thunder went off in the mountains like artillery. It was a while before Mackenzie stirred, and then merely to lay the paper on his desk. He could only summon feeling slowly, up into a hollowness that filled his skin.

“They dared,” Speyer said without tone. “They really did.”

“Huh?” Mackenzie swiveled eyes around to the major’s face. Speyer didn’t meet that stare. He was concentrating his own gaze on his hands, which were now rolling a cigarette. So the words jerked from him, harsh and quick:

“I can guess what happened. The warhawks have been hollering for impeachment ever since Brodsky compromised the border dispute with West Canada. And Fallon, yeah, he’s got ambitions of his own. But his partisans are a minority an he knows it. Electing him Vice helped soothe the warhawks some, but he’d never make Judge the regular way,.because Brodsky isn’t going to die of old age before Fallon does, and anyhow more than fifty percent of the Senate are sober, satisfied bossmen who don’t agree that the PSA has a divine mandate to reunify the continent. I don’t see how an impeachment could get through an honestly convened Senate. More likely they’d vote out Fallon.”

“But a Senate had been called,” Mackenzie said. The words sounded to him like someone else talking. “The newscasts told us.”

“Sure. Called for yesterday ‘to debate ratification of the treaty with West Canada.’ But the bossmen are scattered up and down the country, each at his own Station. They have to get to San Francisco. A couple of arranged delays—hell, if a bridge just happened to be blown on the Boise railroad, a round dozen of Brodsky’s staunchest supporters wouldn’t arrive on time—so the Senate has a quorum, all right, but every one of Fallon’s supporters are there, and so many of the rest are missing that the warhawks have a clear majority. Then they meet on a holiday, when no cityman is paying attention. Presto, impeachment and a new Judge!” Speyer finished his cigarette and stuck it between his lips while he fumbled for a match. A muscle twitched in his jaw.

“You sure?” Mackenzie mumbled. He thought dimly that this moment was like one time he’d visited Puget City and was invited for a sail on the Guardiaii’s yacht, and a fog had set in. Everything was cold and blind, with nothing you could catch in your hands.

“Of course I’m not sure!” Speyer snarled. “Nobody will be sure till it’s too late.” The matchbox shook in his grasp.

“They, uh, they got a new Cinc too, I noticed.”

“Uh-huh. They’d want to replace everybody they cant trust, as possible, and De Barros was a Brodsky appointee.” The match flared with a hellish scrit. Speyer inhaled till his cheeks collapsed. “You and me included, naturally. The regiment reduced to minimum armament so that nobody will get ideas about resistance when the new colonel arrives, You’ll note he’s coming with a battalion at his heels just the same, just in case. Otherwise he could take a plane and be here tomorrow.”

“Why not a train?” Mackenzie caught a whiff of smoke and felt for his pipe. The bowl was hot in his tunic pocket.

“Probably all rolling stock has to head north. Get troops among the bossmen there to forestall a revolt. The valleys are safe enough, peaceful ranchers and Esper colonies. None of them’ll pot-shot Fallonite soldiers marching to garrison Echo and Donner outposts.” A dreadful scorn weighted Speyer’s words.

“What are we going to do?”

“I assume Fallen’s take-over followed legal forms; that there was a quorum,” Speyer said, “Nobody will ever agree whether it was really Constitutional … I’ve been reading this damned message over and over since Irwin decoded it. There’s a lot between the lines. I think Brodsky’s at large, for instance. If he were under arrest this would’ve said as much, and there’d have been less worry about rebellion. Maybe some of his household troops smuggled him away in time. He’ll be.. hunted like a jackrabbit, of course.”

Mackenzie took out his pipe but forgot he had done so, “Tom’s coming with our replacements,” he said thinly.

“Yeah. Your son-in-law. That was a smart touch, wasnt it? A kind of hostage for your good behavior, but also a back-hand promise that you and yours won’t suffer if you report in as ordered. Tom’s a good kid. He’ll stand by his own.”

“This is his regiment too,” Mackenzie said. He squared his shoulders. “He wanted to fight West Canada, sure. Young and … and a lot of Pacificans did get killed in the Idaho Panhandle during the skirmishes. Women and kids among ‘em.”

“Well,” Speyer said, “you’re the colonel, Jimbo. What should we do?”

“Oh, Jesus, I don’t know. I’m nothing but a soldier.” The pipestem broke in Mackenzie’s fingers. “But we’re not some bossman’s personal militia here. We swore to support the Constitution.”

“I can’t see where Brodsky’s yielding some of our claims in Idaho is grounds for impeachment. I think he was right.”

“Well—”

“A coup d’ état by any other name would stink as bad. You may not be much of a student of current events, Jimbo, but i know as well as I do what Fallon’s Judgeship will mean. War with West Canada is almost the least of it. Fallon also stands for a strong central government. He’ll find ways to down the old bossman families. A lot of their heads and scions will die in the front lines; that stunt goes back to David and Uriah. Others will be accused of collusion with the Brodsky people—not altogether falsely—and impoverished by fines. Esper communities will get nice big land grants, so their economic competition can bankrupt still other estates. Later wars will keep bossmen away for years at a time, unable to supervise their own affairs, which will therefore go to the devil. And thus we march toward the glorious goal, of Reunification”

“If Esper Central favors him, what can we do? I’ve heard enough about psi blasts. I can’t ask my men to face them.”

“You could ask your men to face the Hellbomb itself, Jimbo, and they would. A Mackenzie has commanded the Rolling Stones for over fifty years.”

“Yes. I thought Tom, someday—”

“We’ve watched this brewing for a long time. Remember the talk we had about it last week?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I might also remind you that the Constitution was written explicitly ‘to confirm the separate regions in their ancient liberties.’ ”

“Let me alone!” Mackenzie shouted. “I don’t know what’s right or wrong, I tell you! Let me alone!”

Speyer fell silent, watching him through a screen of foul smoke. Mackenzie walked back and forth a while, boots slamming the floor like drumbeats. Finally he threw the broken pipe across the room so it shattered.

“Okay.” He must ram eachjword past the tension in his throat. “Irwin’s a good man who can keep his lip buttoned. Send him out to cut the telegraph line a few miles downhill. Make it look as if the storm did it. The wire breaks often enough, heaven knows. Officially, then, we never got GHQ’s message. That gives us a few days to contact Sierra Command HQ. I won’t go against General Cruikshank … but I’m pretty sure which way he’ll go if he sees a chance. Tomorrow prepare for action. It’ll be no trick to throw back Hollis’ battalion, and they’ll need a while to bring some real strength against us. Before then the first snow should be along and we’ll be shut off for the winter. Only we can use skis snowshoes, ourselves, to keep in touch with the other units and organize something. By spring—we’ll see what happens.”

“Thanks, Jimbo.” The wind almost drowned Speyer’s words.

“I’d … I’d better go tell Laura.”

“Yeah.” Speyer squeezed Mackenzie’s shoulder. There were tears in the major’s eyes.

Mackenzie went out with parade-ground steps, ignoring Irwin: down the hall, down a stairway at its other end, past guarded doors where he returned salutes without really noticing, and so to his own quarters in the south wing.

His daughter had gone to sleep already. He took a lantern off its hook in his bleak little parlor, and entered her room. She had come back here while her husband was in San Francisco.

For a moment Mackenzie couldn’t quite remember why he had sent Tom there. He passed a hand over his stubbly scalp, as if to squeeze something out … oh, yes, ostensibly to arrange for a new issue of uniforms; actually to get the boy out of the way until the political crisis had blown over. Tom was too honest for his own good, an admirer of Fallon and the Esper movement. His outspokenness had led to friction with his brother officers. They were mostly of bossman stock or from well-to-do protectee families.. The existing social order had been good to them. But Tom Danielis began as a fisher lad in a poverty-stricken village on the Mendocino coast. In spare moments he’d learned the three R’s from a local Esper; once literate, he joined the Army and earned a commission by sheer guts and brains. He had never forgotten that the Espers helped the poor and that Fallon promised to help the Espers … Then, too, battle, glory, Reunification, Federal Democracy, those were heady dreams when yea were young.

Laura’s room was little changed since she left it to get married last year. And she had only been seventeen then. Objects survived which had belonged to a small person with pigtails and starched frocks—a teddy bear loved to shapelessness, a doll house her father had built, her mother’s picture drawn by a corporal who stopped a bullet at Salt Lake. Oh, God, how much she had come to look like her mother.

Dark hair streamed over a pillow turned gold by the light. Mackenzie shook her as gently as he was able. She awoke instantly, and he saw the terror within her.

“Dad! Anything about Tom?”

“He’s okay.” Mackenzie set the lantern on the floor and sat himself on the edge of the bed. Her fingers were cold where they caught at his hand.

“He isn’t,” she said. “I know you too well.”

“He’s not been hurt yet. I hope he won’t be.”

Mackenzie braced himself. Because she was a soldier’s daughter, he told her the truth in a few words; but he was not strong enough to look at her while he did. When he had finished, he sat dully listening to the rain.

“You’re going to revolt,” she whispered.

“I’m going to consult with SCHQ and follow my commanding officer’s orders,” Mackenzie said.

“You know what they’ll be … once he knows you’ll back him.”

Mackettzie shrugged. His head had begun to ache. Hangover started already? He’d need a good deal more booze before he could sleep tonight No, no time for sleep—yes, there would be. Tomorrow would do to assemble the regiment in courtyard and address them from the breech of Black Hepzibah, as a Mackenzie of the Rolling Stones always addressed his men, and—. He found himself ludicrously recalling a day when he and Nora and this girl here had gone rowing on Lake Tahoe. The water was the color of Nora’s eyes, green and blue and with sunlight flimmering across the surface, but so clear you could see the rocks on the bottom; and Laura’s own little bottom had stuck straight in the air as she trailed her hands astern.

She sat thinking for a space before saying flatly: “I suppose you can’t be talked out of it.” He shook his head. “Well, can I leave tomorrow early, then?”

“Yes. I’ll get you a coach.”

“T-t-to hell with that. I’m better in the saddle than you are.”

“Okay. A couple of men to escort you, though.” Mackenzie drew a long breath. “Maybe you can persuade Tom—”

“No. I can’t. Please don’t ask me to, Dad.”

He gave her the last gift he could: “I wouldn’t want you to stay. That’d be shirking your own duty. Tell Tom I still think he’s the right man for you. Goodnight, duck.” It came out too fast, but he dared not delay. When she began to cry he must unfold her arms from his neck and depart the room.

“But I had not expected so much killing!”

“Nor I … at this stage of things. There will be more yet, I am afraid, before the immediate purpose is achieved.”

“You told me—”

“I told you aour hopes, Mwfr. You know as well as I that the Great Science is only exact on the broadest scale of history. Individual events are subject to statistical fluctuation.”

“That is an easy way, is it not, to describe sentient beings dying in the mud?”

“You are new here. Theory is one thing, adjustment to practical necessities is another. Do you think it does not hurt me to see that happen which I myself have helped plan?”

“Oh, I know, I know. Which makes it no easier to live with my guilt.”

“To live with your responsibilities, you mean.”

“Your phrase.”

“No, this is not semantic trickery. The distinction is real. You have read reports and seen films, but I was here with the first expedition. And here I have been for more than two centuries. Their agony is no abstraction to me.”

“But it was different when we first discovered them; The aftermath of their nuclear wars was still so horribly present. That was when they needed us—the poor starveling anarchs—and we, we did nothing but observe.”

“Now you are hysterical. Could we come in blindly, ignorant of every last fact about them, and expect to be anything but one more disruptive. element? An element whose effects we ourselves would not have been able to predict. That would have been criminal indeed, like a surgeon who started to operate as soon as he met the patient, without so much as taking a case history. We had to let them their own way while we studied in secret. You have no idea how desperately hard we worked to gain information and understanding. That work goes on. It was only seventy years ago that we felt enough assurance to introduce the first new factor into this one selected society. As we continue to learn more, the plan will be adjusted. It may take us a thousand years to complete our, mission.”

“But meanwhile they have pulled themselves back out of the wreckage. They are finding their own answers to their problems. What right have we to—”

“I begin to wonder, Mwyr, what right you have to claim even the title of apprentice psychodynamician. Consider what their ‘answers’ actually amount to. Most of the planet is still in a state of barbarism. This continent has come farthest toward recovery, because of having the widest distribution of technical skills and equipment before the destruction. But what social structure has evolved? A jumble of quarrelsome successor states. A feudalism where the balances of political, military and economic power lies with a landed aristocracy, of all archaic things. A score of languages and subcultures developing along their own incompatible lines. A blind technology worship inherited from the ancestral society that, unchecked, will lead them in the end back to a machine civilization as demoniac as the one that tore itself apart three centuries ago. Are you distressed that a few hundred men have been killed because our own agents promoted a revolution which did not come off quite so smoothly as we hoped? Well, you have the word of the Great Science itself that, without our guidance, the totaled misery of this race through the next five thousand years would outweigh by three orders of magnitude whatever pain we are forced to inflict.”

“Of course. I realize I am being emotional. It is difficult not to be at first, I suppose.”

“You should be thankful that your initial exposure to the hard necessities of the plan was so mild. There is worse to come.”

“So I have been told.”

“In abstract terms. But consider the reality. A government ambitious to restore the old nation will act aggressively, thus embroiling itself in prolonged wars with powerful neighbors. Both directly and indirectly, through the operation of economic factors they are too naïve to control, the aristocrats and freeholders will be eroded away by those wars. Anomic democracy will replace their system, first dominated by a corrupt capitalism and later by sheer force of whoever holds the central government. But there will be no place for the vast displaced proletariat, the one-time landowners and the foreigners incorporated by conquest. They will offer fertile soil to any demagogue. The empire will undergo endless upheaval, civil strife, despotism, decay, and outside invasion. Oh, we will have much to answer for before we are done!”

“Do you think … when we see the final result …will the blood wash off us?”

“No. We pay the heaviest price of all.”

Spring in the high Sierra is cold, wet, snowbanks melting away from forest floor and giant rocks, rivers in spate until their canyons clang, a breeze ruffling puddles in the road. The first green breath across the aspen seems infinitely tender against pine and spruce, which gloom into a brilliant sky. A raven swoops low, gruk, gruk, look out for that damn hawk! But then you cross timber line and the world becomes tumbled blue-gray immensity, with the sun ablaze on what snows remain and the wind sounding hollow in your ears.

Captain Thomas Danielis,.Field Artillery, Loyalist Army of the Pacific States, turned his horse aside. He was a dark young man, slender and snub-nosed. Behind him a squad slipped and cursed, dripping mud from feet to helmets, trying to get a gun carrier unstuck. Its alcohol motor was too feeble to do more than spin the wheels. The infantry squelched on past, stoop-shouldered, worn down by altitude and a wet bivouac and pounds of mire on each boot. Their line snaked from around a prowlike crag, up the twisted road and over the ridge ahead. A gust brought the smell of sweat to Danielis.

But they were good joes, he thought. Ditty, dogged, they did their profane best. His own company, at least, was going to get hot food tonight, if he had to cook the quartermaster sergeant.

The horse’s hoofs banged on a block of ancient concrete jutting from the muck. If this had been the old days … but wishes weren’t bullets. Beyond this part of the range lay lands mostly desert, claimed by the Saints, who were no longer a menace but with whom there was scant commerce. So the mountain highways had never been considered worth repaving, and the railroad ended at Hangtown. Therefore the expeditionary force to the Tahoe area must slog through unpeopled forests and icy uplands, God help the poor bastards..

God help them in Nakamura, too, Danielis thought. His mouth drew taut, he slapped his hands together and spurred the horse with needless violence. Sparks shot from iron shoes as the beast clattered off the road toward the highest point of the ridge. The man’s saber banged his leg.

Reining in, he unlimbered his field glasses. From here he could look across a jumbled sweep of mountainscape, when cloud shadows sailed over cliffs and boulders, down into the gloom of a canyon and across to the other side. A few tufts of grass thrust out beneath him, mummy brown, and a marmot wakened early from winter sleep whistled somewhere in the stone confusion. He still couldn’t see the castle. Nor had he expected to, as yet. He knew this country … how well he did!

There might be a glimpse of hostile activity, though. It had been eerie to march this far with no sign of the enemy, of anyone else whatsoever; to send out patrols in search of rebel units that could not be found; to ride with shoulder muscles … tense against the sniper’s arrow that never came. Old Jimbo Mackenzie was not one to sit passive behind walls, and the Rolling Stones had not been given their nickname in jest.

If Jimbo is alive. How do I know he is? That buzzard yonder may be the very one which hacked out his eyes.

Danielis bit his lip and made himself look steadily through the glasses. Don’t think about Mackenzie, how he outroared and outdrank and outlaughed you and you never minded, how he sat knotting his brows over the chessboard where you could mop him up ten times out of ten and he never cared, how proud and happy he stood at the wedding … Nor think about Laura, who tried to keep you from knowing how often she wept at night, who now bore a grandchild beneath her heart and woke alone in the San Francisco house from the evil dreams of pregnancy. Every one of those dogfaces plodding toward the castle which has killed every army ever sent against it—every one of them has somebody at home and hell rejoices at how many have somebody on the rebel side. Better to look for hostile spoor and let it go at that.

Wait! Danielis stiffened. A rider— He focused. One of our own. Fallon’s army added a blue band to the uniform. Returning scout. A tingle went along his spine. He decided to hear the report firsthand. But the fellow was still a mile off, perforce riding slowly over the hugger-mugger terrain. There was no hurry about intercepting him. Danielis continued to survey the land.

A reconnaissance plane appeared, an ungainly dragonfly with sunlight flashing off a propeller head. Its drone bumbled among rock wails, where echoes threw the noise back and forth. Doubtless an auxiliary to the scouts, employing two-way communication. Later the plane would work as a spotter for artillery. There was no use making a bomber of it: Nakamura was proof against anything that today’s craft could drop, and might well shoot the thing down.

A shoe scraped behind Danielis. Horse and man whirled as one. His pistol jumped into his hand.

It lowered. “Oh … Excuse me, Philosopher.”

The man in the blue robe nodded. A smile softened his face. He must be around sixty years old, hair white and lined, but he walked these heights like a wild goat. The Ying and Yang symbol burned gold on his breast.

“You’re needlessly on edge, son,” he said. A trace of Texas accent stretched out his words. The Espers obeyed the laws wherever they lived, but acknowledged no country their own: nothing less than mankind, perhaps ultimately all life throughout the space-time universe. Nevertheless, the Pacific States had gained enormously in prestige and influence when the Order’s unenterable Central was estblished in San Francisco at the time when the city was being rebuilt in earnest. There had been no objection—on the contrary—to the Grand Seeker’s desire that Philosopher Woodworth accompany the expedition as an observer. Not even from the chaplains; the churches had finally gotten it straight that the Esper teachings were neutral with respect to religion.

Danielis managed a grin. “Can you blame me?”

“No blame. But advice. Your attitude isn’t useful. Does nothin’ but wear out. You’ve been fightin’ a battle for weeks before it began.”

Danielis remembered the apostle who had visited his home in San Francisco—by invitation, in the hope that Laura might learn some peace. His simile had been still homelier: “You only need to wash one dish at a time.” The memory brought a smart to Danielis’ eyes, so that he said roughly:

“I might relax if you’d use your powers to tell me what’s waiting for us.”

“I’m no adept, son. Too much in the material world, I’m afraid. Somebody’s got to do the practical work of the Order, and someday I’ll get the chance to retire and explore the frontier inside me. But you need to start early, and stick to it a lifetime, to develop your full powers.” Woodworth looked across the peaks, seemed almost to merge himself with their loneliness.

Danielis hesitated to break into the meditation. He wondered what practical purpose the Philosopher was serving on this trip. To bring back a report, more accurate than untrained senses and undisciplined emotions could prepare? Yes, that must be it. The Espers might yet decide to take a hand in this war. However reluctantly, Central had allowed the awesome psi powers to be released now and again, when the Order was seriously threatened; and Judge Fallon was a better friend to them than Brodsky or the earlier Senate of Bossmen and House of People’s Deputies had been.

The horse stamped and blew out its breath in a snort. Woodworth glanced back at the rider. “If you ask me, though,” he said, “I don’t reckon you’ll find much doing around here. I was in the Rangers myself, back home, before I saw the Way. This country feels empty..”

“If we could know!” Danielis exploded: “They’ve had the whole winter to do what they liked in the mountains, while the snow kept us out. What scouts we could get in reported a beehive—as late as two weeks ago. What have they planned?”

Woodworth made no reply.

It flooded from Danielis, he couldn’t stop, he had to cover the recollection of Laura bidding him good-by on his second expedition against her father, six months after the first one came home in bloody fragments:

“If we had the resources! A few wretched little railroads and motor cars, a handful of aircraft; most of our supply trains drawn by mules—what kind of mobility does that give us? And what really drives me crazy … we know how to make what they had in the old days. We’ve got the books, the information. More, maybe, than the ancestors. I’ve watched the electrosmith at Fort Nakamura turn out transistor units with enough bandwidth to carry television, no bigger than my fist. I’ve seen the scientific journals, the research labs, biology, chemistry, astronomy, mathematics. And all useless!”

“Not so,” Woodworth answered mildly. “Like my own Order, the community of scholarship’s becoming supranational. Printin’ presses, radiophones, telescribes—”

“I say useless. Useless to stop men from killing each other because there’s no authority strong enough to make them behave. Useless to take a farmer’s hands off a horse-drawn plow and put them behind the wheel of a tractor. We’ve got the knowledge, but we can’t apply it.”

“You do apply it, son, where too much power and industrial plant isn’t required. Remember, the world’s a lot poorer in natural resources than it was before the Hellbombs. I’ve seen the Black Lands myself, where the firestorm passed over the Texas oilfields.” Woodworth’s serenity cracked a little. He turned his eyes back to the peaks.

“There’s oil elsewhere,” Danielis insisted. “And coal, iron, uranium, everything we need. But the world hasn’t got the organization to get at it. Not in any quantity. So we fill the Central Valley with crops that’ll yield alcohol,, to keep a few motors turning; and we import a dribble of other stuff along and unbelievably inefficient chain of middlemen; and most of it’s eaten by the armies.” He jerked his head toward that part of the sky which the handmade airplane had crossed. “That’s one reason we’ve got to have Reunification. So we can rebuild.”

“And the other?” Woodworth asked softly.

“Democracy—universal suffrage—” Danielis swallowed. “And so fathers and sons won’t have to fight each other again.”

“Those are better reasons,” Woodworth said. “Good enough for the Espers to support. But as for that machinery you want—” He shook his head. “No, you’re wrong there. That’s no way for men to live.”

“Maybe not,” Danielis said. “Though my own father wouldn’t have been crippled by overwork if he’d had some machines to help him … Oh, I don’t know. First things first. Let’s get this war over with and argue later.” He remembered the scout, now gone from view. “Pardon me, Philosopher, I’ve got an errand.”

The Esper raised his hand in token of peace. Danielis cantered off.

Splashing along the roadside, he saw the man he wanted, halted by Major Jacobsen. The latter, who must have sent him out, sat mounted near the infantry line. The scout was a Klamath Indian, stocky in buckskins, a bow on his shoulder. Arrows were favored over guns by many of.the men from the northern districts: cheaper than bullets, no noise, less range but as much firepower as a bolt-action rifle. In the bad old days before the Pacific States had formed their union, archers along forest trails had saved many a town from conquest; they still helped keep that union loose.

“Ah, Captain Danielis,” Jacobsen hailed. “You’re just in time. Lieutenant Smith was about to report what his detachment found out.”

“And the plane,” said Smith imperturbably. “What the pilot told us he’d seen from the air gave us the guts to go there and check for ourselves.”

“Well?”

“Nobody, around.”

“What?”

“Fort’s been evacuated. So’s the settlement. Not a soul.”

“But—but—” Jacobsen collected himself. “Go on.”

We studied the signs as best’s we could. Looks like non-combatants left some time ago. By sledge and ski, I’d guess, maybe north to some strong point. I suppose the men shifted their own stuff at the same time, gradual-like, what they couldn’t carry with ‘em at the last. Because the regiment and its support units, even field artillery, pulled out just three-four days ago. Ground’s all tore up. They headed downslope, sort of west by northwest, far’s we could tell from what we saw.“

Jacobsen choked. “Where are they bound?”

A flaw of wind struck Danielis in the face and ruffled the horses’ manes. At his back he heard the slow plop and squish of boots, groan of wheels, chuff of motors, rattle of wood and metal, yells and whipcracks of muleskinners. But it seemed very remote. A map grew before him, blotting out the world.

The Loyalist Army had had savage fighting the whole winter, from the Trinity Alps to Puget Sound—for Brodsky had managed to reach Mount Rainier, whose lord had furished broadcasting facilities, and Rainier was too well fortified to take at once. The bossmen and the autonomous tribes rose in arms, persuaded that a usurper threatened their damned little local privileges. Their protectees fought beside them, if only because no rustic had been taught any higher loyalty than to his patron. West Canada, fearful of what Fallon might do when he got the chance, lent the rebels aid that was scarcely even clandestine.

Nonetheless, the national army was stronger: more matérial, better organization, above everything an ideal of the future. Cinc O’Donnell had outlined a strategy—concentrate the loyal forces at a few points, overwhelm resistance, restore order and establish bases in the region, then proceed to the next place—which worked. The government now controlled the entire coast, with naval units to keep an eye on the Canadians in Vancouver and guard the important Hawaii trade routes; the northern half of Washington almost to the Idaho line; the Columbia Valley; central California as far north as Redding. The remaining rebellious Stations and towns were isolated from each other in mountains, forests, deserts. Bossdom after bossdom fell as the loyalists pressed on, defeating the enemy in detail, cutting him off from supplies and hope. The only real worry had been Cruikshank’s Sierra Command, an army in its own right rather than a levy of yokels and citymen, big and tough and expertly led. This expedition against Fort Nakamura was only a small part of what had looked like a difficult campaign.

But now the Rolling Stones had pulled out. Offered no fight whatsoever. Which meant that their brother Catamounts must also have evacuated. You don’t give up one anchor of a line you intend to hold. So?

“Down into the valleys,” Danielis said; and there sounded in his ears, crazily, the voice of Laura as she used to sing. Down in the valley, valley so low.

“Judas!” the major exclaimed. Even the Indian grunted as if he had taken a belly blow. “No, they couldn’t. We’d have known.”

Hang your head over, hear the wind blow. It hooted across cold rocks.

“There are plenty of forest trails,” Danielis said. “Infantry and cavalry could use them, if they’re accustomed to such country. And the Cats are. Vehicles, wagons, big guns, that’s slower and harder. But they only need to outflank us, then they can get back onto Forty and Fifty—and cut us to pieces if we attempt pursuit. I’m afraid they’ve got us boxed.”

“The eastern slope—,” said Jacobsen helplessly.

“What for? Want to occupy a lot of sagebrush? No, we’re trapped here till they deploy in the flatlands,” Danielis closed a hand on his saddlehorn so that the knuckles went bloodless. “I miss my guess if this isn’t Colonel Mackenzie’s idea. It’s his style, for sure.”

“But then they’re between us and Frisco! With damn near our whole strength in the north—”

Between me and Laura, Danielis thought.

He said aloud: “I suggest, Major, we get hold of the C.O. at once. And then we better get on the radio.” From some well he drew the power to raise his head. The wind lashed his eyes. “This needn’t be a disaster. They’ll be easier to beat out in the open, actually, once we come to grips.”

Roses love sunshine, violets love dew.

Angels in heaven know I love you.

The rains which fill the winter of the California lowlands were about ended. Northward along a highway whose pavement clopped under hoofs, Mackenzie rode through a tremendous greenness. Eucalyptus and live oak, flanking the road, exploded with new leaves. Beyond them on either side stretched a checkerboard of fields and vineyards, intricately hued, until the distant hills on the right and the higher nearer ones on the left made walls. The freeholder houses that had been scattered across the land a ways back were no longer to be seen. This end of the Napa Valley belonged to the Esper community at St. Helena. Clouds banked like white mountains over the western ridge. The breeze bore to Mackenzie a smell of growth and turned earth.

Behind him it rumbled with men. The Rolling Stones were on the move. The regiment proper kept to the highway, three thousand boots slamming down at once with an earthquake noise, and so did the guns and wagons. There was no immediate danger of attack. But the cavalrymen attached to the force must needs spread out. The sun flashed off their helmets and lance heads.

Mackenzie’s attention was directed forward. Amber walls and red tile roofs could be seen among plum trees that were a surf of pink and white blossoms. The community was big, several thousand people. The muscles tightened in his abdomen. “Think we can trust them?” he asked, not for the first time. “We’ve only got a radio agreement to a parley.”

Speyer, riding beside him, nodded: “I expect they’ll be honest. Particularly with our boys right outside. Espers believe in non-violence anyway.”

“Yeah, but if it did come to fighting—I know there aren’t very many adepts so far. The Order hasn’t been around long enough for that. But when you get this many Espers together, there’s bound to be a few who’ve gotten somewhere with their damned psionics. I don’t want my men blasted, or lifted in the air and dropped, or any such nasty thing.”

Speyer threw him a sidelong glance. “Are you scared of them, Jimbo?” he murmured.

“Hell, no!” Mackenzie wondered if he was a liar or not. “But I don’t like’em.”

“They do a lot of good. Among the poor, especially.”

“Sure, sure. Though any decent bossman looks after his own protectees, and we’ve got things like churches and hospices as well. I don’t see where just being charitable—and they can afford it, with the profits they make on their holdings—I don’t see where that gives any right to raise the orphans and pauper kids they take in, the way they do: so’s to make the poor tikes unfit for life anywhere outside.”

“The object of that, as you well know, is to orient them toward the so-called interior frontier. Which American civilization as a whole is not much interested in. Frankly, quite apart tn the remarkable powers some Espers have developed, I often envy them.”

“You, Phil?” Mackenzie goggled at his friend.

The lines drew deep in Speyer’s face. “This winter I’ve helped shoot a lot of my fellow countrymen,” he said low. “My mother and wife and kids are crowded with the rest of Village in the Mount Lassen fort, and when we said good-by we knew it was quite possibly permanent. And in the past I’ve helped shoot a lot of other men who never did me any personal harm.” He sighed. “I’ve often wondered what it’d be like to know peace, inside as well as outside.”

Mackenzie sent Laura and Tom out of his head.

“Of course,” Speyer went on, “the fundamental reason you—and I, for that matter—distrust the Espers is that they represent something alien to us. Something that may eventually choke out the whole concept of life that we grew up with. You know, a couple weeks back, in Sacramento I stopped in at the University research lab to see what was going on. Incredible! The ordinary soldier would swear it witchwork. It was certainly more weird than … than simply reading minds or moving objects by thinking at them. But to you or me it’s a shiny new marvel. We’ll wallow in it.

“Now why’s that? Because the lab is scientific. Those men work with chemicals, electronics, subviral particles. That fits into the educated American’s world-view. But the mystic unity of creation … no, not our cup of tea. The only way we can hope to achieve Oneness is to renounce everything we’ve ever believed in. At your age or mine, Jimbo, a man is seldom ready to tear down his whole life and start from scratch.”

“Maybe so.” Mackenzie lost interest. The settlement quite near now.

He turned around to Captain Hulse, riding a few paces behind. “Here we go,” he said. “Give my compliments to Lieutenant Colonel Yamaguchi and tell him he’s in charge till we get back. If anything seems suspicious, he’s to act at his own discretion.”

“Yes, sir.” Hulse saluted and wheeled smartly about. There had been no practical need for Mackenzie to repeat what had long been agreed on; but he knew the value of ritual. He clicked his big sorrel gelding into a trot. At his back he heard bugles sound orders and sergeants howl at their platoons.

Speyer kept pace. Mackenzie had insisted on bringing an extra man to the discussion. His own wits were probably no match for a high-level Esper, but Phil’s might be

Not that there’s any question of diplomacy or whatever. I hope. To ease himself, he concentrated on what was real and present—hoofbeats, the rise and fall of the saddle beneath him, the horse’s muscles rippling between his thighs, the creak and jingle of his saber belt, the clean odor of the animal—and suddenly remembered this was the sort of trick the Espers recommended.

None of their communities was walled, as most towns and every bossman’s Station was. The officers turned off the highway ..and went down a street between colonnaded buildings. Side streets ran off in both directions. The settlement covered no great area, though, being composed of groups that lived together, sodalities or superfamilies or whatever you wanted to call them. Some hostility toward the Order and a great, many dirty jokes stemmed from that practice. But Speyer, who should know, said there was no more sexual swapping around than in the outside world. The idea was simply to get away from possessiveness, thee versus me, and to raise children as part of a whole rather than an insular clan.

The kids were out, staring round-eyed from the porticos, hundreds of them. They looked healthy and, underneath a natural fear of the invaders, happy enough. But pretty solemn, Mackenzie thought; and all in the same blue garb. Adults stood among them, expressionless. Everybody had come in from the fields as the regiment neared. The silence was like barricades. Mackenzie felt sweat begin to trickle down his ribs. When he emerged on the central square, he let out his breath in a near gasp.

A fountain, the basin carved into a lotus, tinkled in the middle of the plaza. Flowering trees stood around it. The plaza was defined on three sides by massive buildings that could be for storage. On the fourth side rose a smaller temple-like with a graceful cupola, obviously headquarters and meeting house. On its lowest step were ranked half a dozen blue-robed men, five of them husky youths. The sixth was middle-aged, the Yang and Yin on his breast. His features, ordinary in themselves, held an implacable calm.

Mackenzie and Speyer drew rein. The colonel flipped a soft salute. “Philosopher Gaines? I’m Mackenzie, here’s Major Speyer.” He swore at himself for being so awkward about it and wondered what to do with his hands. The young fellows he understood, more or less; they watched him with badly concealed hostility. But he had some trouble meeting Gaines eyes.

The settlement leader inclined his head. “Welcome, gentlemen. Won’t you come in?”

Mackenzie dismounted, hitched his horse to a post and removed his helmet. His worn reddish-brown uniform felt shabbier yet in these surroundings. “Thanks. Uh, I’ll have to make this quick.”

“To be sure. Follow me, please.”

Stiff-backed, the young men trailed after their elders, through an entry chamber and down a short hall. Speyer looked around at the mosaics. “Why, this is lovely,” he murmured.

“Thank you,” said Gaines. “Here’s my office.” He opened a door of superbly grained walnut and gestured the visitors through. When he closed it behind himself, the acolytes waited outside.

The room was austere, whitewashed walls enclosing little more than a desk, a shelf of books, and some backless chairs. A window opened on a garden. Gaines sat down. Mackenzie and Speyer followed suit, uncomfortable on this furniture.

“We’d better get right to business,” the colonel blurted. Gaines said nothing. At last Mackenzie must plow ahead:

“Here’s the situation.. Our force is to occupy Calistoga, with detachments on either side of the hills. That way we’ll control both the Napa Valley and the Valley of the Moon, from the northern ends, at least. The best place to station our eastern wing is here. We plan to establish a fortified camp in the field yonder. I’m sorry about the damage to your crops, but you’ll be compensated once the proper government has been restored. And food, medicine—you understand this army has to requisition such items, but we won’t let anybody suffer undue hardship and we’ll give receipts. Uh, as a precaution we’ll need to quarter a few men in this community, to sort of keep an eye on things. They’ll interfere as little as possible. Okay?”

“The charter, of the Order guarantees exemption from military requirements,” Gaines answered evenly. “In fact, no armed man is supposed to cross the boundary of any land by an Esper settlement. I cannot be a party to a violation of the law, Colonel.”

“If you want to split legal hairs, Philosopher,” Speyer said, “then I’ll remind you that both Fallon and Judge Brodsky have declared martial law. Ordinary rules are suspended.”

Gaines smiled. “Since only one government can be legitmate,” he said, “the proclamations of the other are necessarily null and void. To a disinterested observer, it would appear that Judge Fallon’s title is the stronger, especially when his side controls a large continuous area rather some scattered bossdoms.”

“Not any more, it doesn’t,” Mackenzie snapped.

Speyer gestured him back. “Perhaps you haven’t followed the developments of the last few weeks, Philosopher,” he said. “Allow me to recapitulate. The Sierra Command stole a march on the Fallonites and came down out of the mountains. There was almost nothing left in the middle part of California to oppose us, so we took over rapidiy. By occupying Sacramento, we control river and rail traffic. Our bases extend south below Bakersfield, with Yosemite and Kink’s Canyon not far away to provide sites for extremely strong positions. When we’ve consolidated this northern end of our gains, the Fallonite forces around Redding will be trap between us and the powerful bossmen who still hold out in the Trinity, Shasta, and Lassen regions. The very fact of our being here has forced the enemy to evacuate the Columbia Valley, so that San Francisco may be defended. It’s an open question which side today has the last word in larger territory.”

“What about the army that went into the Sierra against you?” Gaines inquired shrewdly. “Have you contained them?”

Mackenzie scowled. “No. That’s no secret. They got through the Mother Lode country and went around us. They’re down in Los Angeles and San Diego now.”

“A formidable host. Do you expect to stand them off definitely?”

“We’re going to make a hell of a good try,” Mackenzie said. “Where we are, we’ve got the advantage of interior communications. And most of the freeholders are glad to slip us word about whatever they observe. We can concentrate at any point the enemy starts to attack.”

“Pity that this rich land, must also be torn apart by war.”

“Yeah. Isn’t it?”

“Our strategic objective is obvious enough,” Speyer said. “We have cut enemy communications across the middle, except by sea, which is not very satisfactory for troops operating this far inland. We deny him access to a good part of his food and manufactured supplies, and most especially to the bulk of his fuel alcohol. The backbone of our own side is the bossdoms, which are almost self-contained economic and social units. Before long they’ll be in better shape than the foodless army they face. I think Judge Brodsky will be back in San Francisco before fall.”

“If your plans succeed,” Gaines said.

“That’s our worry.” Mackenzie leaned forward, one fist doubled on his knee. “Okay, Philosopher. I know you’d rather see Fallon come out on top, but I expect you’ve got more sense than to sign up in a lost cause. Will you cooperate with us?”

“The Order takes no part in political affairs, Colonel, except when its own existence is endangered.”

“Oh, pipe down. By ‘cooperate’ I don’t mean anything but keeping out from under our feet.”

“I am afraid that would still count as cooperation. We cannot have military establishments on our lands.”

Mackenzie stared at Gaines’ face, which had set into granite lines, and wondered if he had heard aright “Are you ordering us off?” a stranger asked with his voice.

“Yes,” the Philosopher said.

“With our artillery zeroed in on your town?”

“Would you really shell women and children, Colonel?”

O Nora—“We don’t need to. Our men can walk right in.”

“Against psi blasts? I beg you not to have those poor boys destroyed.” Gaines paused, then: “I might also point out that losing your regiment you imperil your whole cause. You are free to march around our holdings and proceed to Calistoga.”

Leaving a Fallonite nest at my back, spang across my communications southward. The teeth grated together in Mackenzie’s mouth.

Gaines rose. “The discussion is at an end, gentlemen,” he said. “You have one hour to get off our lands.”

Mackenzie and Speyer stood up too. “We’re not done yet,” the major said. Sweat studded his forehead and the long nose. “I want to make some further explanations.”

Gaines crossed the room and opened the door, “Show these gentlemen, out,” he said to the five acolytes.

“No, by God!” Mackenzie shouted. He clapped a hand to his sidearm.

“Inform the adepts,” Gaines said.

One of the young men turned. Mackenzie heard the slap of his sandals, running down the hall. Gaines nodded. “I think you had better go,” he said.

Speyer grew rigid. His eyes shut. They flew open and he breathed, “Inform the adepts?”

Mackenzie saw the stiffness break in Gaines’ countenance. There was no time for more than a second’s bewilderment. His body acted for him. The gun clanked from his holster simultaneously with Speyer’s.

“Get that messenger, Jimbo,” the major rapped. “I’ll keep these birds covered.”

As he plunged forward, Mackenzie found himself worrying about the regimental honor. Was it right to open hostilities when you had come on a parley? But Gaines had cut the talks off himself—

“Stop him!” Gaines yelled.

The four remaining acolytes sprang into motion. Two of them barred the doorway, the other two moved in on either side. “Hold it or I’ll shoot!” Speyer cried, and was ignored.

Mackenzie couldn’t bring himself to fire on unarmed men. He gave the youngster before him the pistol barrel in hit teeth. Bloody-faced, the Esper lurched back. Mackenzie stiff-armed the one coming in from the left. The third tried to fill the doorway. Mackenzie put a foot behind his ankles and pushed. As he went down, Mackenzie kicked him in the temple, hard enough to stun, and jumped over him.

The fourth was on his back. Mackenzie writhed about to] face the man. Those arms that hugged him, pinioning his gun, were bear strong. Mackenzie put the butt of his feed left hand under the fellow’s nose, and pushed. The acolyte must let go. Mackenzie gave him a knee in the stomach, whirled, and ran.

There was not much further commotion behind him, Phil must have them under control. Mackenzie pelted along hall, into the entry chamber. Where had that goddamn runner gone? He looked out the open entrance, onto the square. Sunlight hurt his eyes. His breath came in painful gulps, there was a switch in his side, yeah, he was getting old.

Blue robes fluttered from a street. Mackenzie recognized the messenger. The youth pointed at this building. A gabble of his words drifted faintly, through Mackenzie’s pulse. There were seven or eight men with him—older men, nothing to their clothes … but Mackenzie, knew a high-ranking when he saw one. The acolyte was dismissed. Those he had summoned crossed the square with long strides.

(Terror knotted Mackenzie’s bowels. He put it down. A Catamount didn’t, stampede, even from somebody who could turn him inside out with a look. He could do nothing about the wretchedness that followed, though. If they clobber me, so much the better. I won’t lie awake nights wondering how Laura is.

The adepts were almost to the steps. Mackenzie trod forth. He swept his revolver in an arc. “Halt!” His voice sounded tiny in the stillness that brooded over the town. They jarred to a stop and stood there in a group. He saw them enforce a catlike relaxation, and their faces became visors. None spoke. Finally Mackenzie was unable to keep silent.

“This place is hereby occupied under the laws of war,” he said. “Go back to your quarters.”

“What have you done with our leader?” asked a tall man. His voice was even but deeply resonant.

“Read my mind and find out,” Mackenzie gibed. No, you’re being childish. “He’s okay, long’s he keeps his nose clean, too. Beat it.”

“We do not wish to pervert psionics to violence,” said the tall man. “Please do not force us.”

“Your chief sent for you before we’d done anything,” Mackenzie retorted. “Looks like violence was what he had in mind. On your way.”

The Espers exchanged glances. The tall man nodded. His companions walked slowly off. “I would like to see Philosopher Gaines,” the tall man said

“You will pretty soon.”

“Am I to understand that he is being held a prisoner?”

“Understand what you like.” The other Espers were rounding the corner of the building. “I don’t want to shoot. Go on before I have to.”

“An impasse of sorts,” the tall man said. “Neither of us wishes to injure one whem he considers defenseless. Allow me to conduct you off these grounds.”

Mackenzie wet his lips. Weather had chapped them rough. “If you can put a hex on me, go ahead,” he challenged. “Otherwise scram.”

“Well, I shall not hinder you from rejoining your men. It seems the easiest way of getting you to leave. But I most solemnly warn that any armed force which tries to enter will be annihilated.”

Guess I had better go get the boys, at that. Phil can’t mount guard on those guys forever.

The tall man went over to the hitching post. “Which of these horses is yours?” he asked blandly.

Almighty eager to get rid of me, isn’t he— Ho1y hellfire! There must be a rear door!

Mackenzie spun on his heel. The Esper shouted. Mackenzie dashed back through the entry chamber. His boots threw echoes at him. No, not to the left, there’s only the office that way. Right … around this corner—

A long hall stretched before him. A stairway curved from the middle. The other Espers were already on it.

“Halt!” Mackenzie called. “Stop or I’ll shoot!”

The two men in the lead sped onward. The rest turned and headed down again, toward him.

He fired with care, to disable rather than kill. The reverberated with the explosions. One after another they dropped, a bullet in leg or hip or shoulder. With such small targets, Mackenzie missed some shots. As the tall man, the last of them, closed in from behind, the hammer clicked on an empty chamber.

Mackenzie drew his saber and gave him the flat it of alongside the head. The Esper lurched. Mackenzie got past and bounded up the stair. It wound like something nightmare. He thought his heart was going to go to pieces.

At the end, an iron door opened on a landing. One man was fumbling with the lock. The other blue-robe attacked.

Mackenzie stuck his sword between the Esper’s legs. As his opponent stumbled, the colonel threw a left hook to the jaw. The man sagged against the wall. Mackenzie grabbed the robe of the other and hurled him to the floor. “Get out,” he rattled.

They pulled themselves together and glared at him. He thrust air with his blade. “From now on I aim to kill,” he said.

“Get help, Dave,” said the one who had been opening door. “I’ll watch him.” The other went unevenly down stairs. The first man stood out of saber reach. “Do you to be destroyed?” he asked.

Mackenzie turned the knob at his back, but the door was still locked. “I don’t think you can do it,” he said. “Not without what’s here.”

The Esper struggled for self-control. They waited through minutes that stretched. Then a noise began below. The Esper inflated. “We have nothing but agricultural implements,” he said, “but you have only that blade. Will you surrender?”

Mackenzie spat on the floor. The Esper went on down.

Presently the attackers came into view. There might be a hundred, judging from the hubbub behind them them, but because of the curve Mackenzie could see no more than ten or fifteen burly fieldhands, their robes tucked high and sharp tools aloft. The landing was too wide for defense. He advanced to the stairway, where they could only come at him two at a time.

A couple of sawtoothed hay knives led the assault. Mackenzie parried one blow and chopped. His edge went into meat and struck bone. Blood ran out, impossibly red, even in the poor light here. The man fell to all fours with a shriek. Mackenzie dodged a cut from the companion. Metal clashed on metal. The weapons locked. Mackenzie’s arm was forced back. He looked into a broad suntanned face. The side of his hand smote the young man’s larynx. The Esper fell against the one behind and they went down together. It took a while to clear the tangle and resume action.

A pitchfork thrust for the colonel’s belly. He managed to grab it with his left hand, divert the tines, and chop at the hand on the shaft. A scythe gashed his right side. He saw blood but wasn’t aware of pain. A flesh wound, no more. He swept his saber back and forth. The forefront retreated from its whistling menace. But God, my knees are made of rubber. I can’t hold out another five minutes.

A bugle sounded. There was a spatter of gunfire. The mob on the staircase congealed. Someone screamed.

Boots banged across the ground floor. A voice rasped: “Hold everything, there! Drop those weapons and come on. First man tries anything gets shot.”

Mackenzie leaned on his saber and fought for air. He hardly heard the Espers melt away.

When he felt a little better, he went to one of the small windows and looked out. Horsemen were in the plaza. Not yet to sight, but nearing, he heard infantry.

Speyer arrived, followed by a sergeant of engineers and several privates. The major hurried to Mackenzie. “You sir? You’ve been hurt!”

“A scratch,” Mackenzie said. He was getting back his strength, though no sense of victory accompanied it, only the knowledge of aloneness. The injury began to sting. “Not worth a fuss, look.”

“Yes, I suppose you’ll live. Okay, men, get that door open.”

The engineers took forth their tools and assailed the lock with a vigor that must spring half from fear. “How’d you guys show up so soon?” Mackenzie asked.

“I thought there’d be trouble,” Speyer said, “so when heard shots I jumped through the window and ran around to my horse. That was just before those clodhoppers attacked you; I saw them gathering as I rode out. Our cavalry got in almost at once, of course, and the dogfaces weren’t far behind.”

“Any resistance?”

“No, not after we fired a few rounds in the air.” Speyer glanced outside. “We’re in full possession now.”

Mackenzie regarded the door. “Well,” he said, “I feel better about our having pulled guns on them in the office. Looks like their adepts really depend on plain old weapons, huh? And Esper communities aren’t supposed to have arms. Their charters say so … That was a damn good guess yours, Phil. How’d you do it?”

“I sort of wondered why the chief had to send a runner to fetch guys that claim to be telepaths. There we go!”

The lock jingled apart. The sergeant opened the door, Mackenzie and Speyer went into the great room under the dome.

They walked around for a long time, wordless, among shapes of metal and less identifiable substances. Nothing was familiar. Mackenzie paused at last before a helix projected from a transparent cube. Formless darkness swirled within the box, sparked as if with tiny stars.

“I figured maybe the Espers had found a cache of old-stuff, from just before the Hellbombs,” he said in a muffled voice. “Ultra-secret weapons that never got a chance to be used. But this doesn’t look like it. Think so?”

“No,” Speyer said. “It doesn’t look to me as if these were made by human beings at all.”

“But do you not understand? They occupied a settlement. That proves to the world that Espers are not invulnerable. And to complete the catastrophe, they seized its arsenal.”

“Have no fears about that. No untrained person can activate those instruments. The circuits are locked except in the presence of certain encephalic rhythms which result from conditioning. That same conditioning makes it impossible for the so-called adepts to reveal any of their knowledge to the uninitiated, no matter what may be done to them.”

“Yes, I know that much. But it is not what I had in mind. What frightens me is that the revelation will spread. Everyone will know that the Esper adepts do not plumb unknown depths of the psyche after all, but merely have access to an advanced physical science. Not only will this lift rebel spirits, but worse, it will cause many, perhaps most of the Order’s members to break away in disillusionment.”

“Not at once. News travels slowly under present conditions. Mwyr, you underestimate the ability of the human mind to ignore data which conflict with cherished beliefs.”

“But—”

“Well, let us assume the worst. Let us suppose that faith is lost and the Order disintegrates. That will be a setback to the plan, but not a fatal one. Psionics are merely one bit of folklore we found potent enough to serve as the motivator of a new orientation toward life. There are Others, for example the widespread belief in magic among the less educated classes. We can begin action on a different basis, if we must. The exact, form of the creed is not important. It is only scaffolding for the belief structure: a communal, anti-materialistic social group, to which more more people will turn for sheer lack of anything else, as the coming empire breaks up. In the end, the new culture can and will discard whatever superstitions gave it the initial impetus.”

“A hundred-year setback, at least.”

“True. It would be much more difficult to introduce a radical alien element now, when the autochthonous has developed strong institutions of its own, than it was in the past. I merely wish to reassure you that it is not impossible. I do not actually propose to let matters go that far. The Espers can be salvaged.”

“How?”

“We must intervene directly.”

“Has that been computed as being unavoidable?”

“Yes. The matrix yields an unambiguous answer. I do not like it any better than you. But direct action occurs oftener than we tell neophytes in the schools. The most direct procedure would of course be to establish such hard conditions in a society that its evolution along desired lines becomes automatic. Furthermore, that would let us close our minds to the distressing fact of our own blood guilt. Unfortanately, the Great Science does not extend down to the details of day-to-day practicality.”

“In the present instance, we shall help to smash the reactionaries. The government will then proceed so harshly against its conquered opponents that many of those who accept the story about what wast found at St. Helena will not live to spread the tale. The rest … well, they will be discredited by their own defeat. Admittedly, the story will linger for lifetimes, whispered here and there. But what of that? Those who believe in the Way will, as a rulee, simply be strengthened in their faith, by the very process of denying such ugly rumors. As more and, persons, common citizens as well as Espers, reject materialism, the legend will seem more and more fantastic. It will seem obvious that certain ancients invented the tale to account for a fact that they in their ignorance were to unable to comprehend.”

“I see …”

“You are not happy here, are you, Mwyr?”

“I cannot quite say. Everything is so distorted.”

“Be glad you were not sent to one of the really alien planets.”

“I might almost prefer that. There would be a hostile environment to think about. One could forget how far is to home.”

“Three years’ travel.”

“You say that so glibly. As if three shipboard years were not equal to fifty in cosmic time. As if we could expect a relief vessel daily, not once in a century. And as if the region that our ships have explored amounts one chip out of this one galaxy!”

“That region will grow until someday it engulfs galaxy.”

“Yes, yes, yes. I know. Why do you think I chose to become a psychodynamician? Why am I here, learning to meddle with the destiny of a world where I do not belong? ‘To create the union of sentient beings, each member species a step toward life’s mastery of the universe.’ Brave slogan! But in practice, it seems, only a chosen races are to be allowed the freedom of that universe.”

“Not so, Mwyr. Consider these ones with whom we, as you say, meddling. Consider what use they made nuclear energy when they had it. At the rate they are going, they will have it again within a century or two. Not long after that they will be building spaceships. Even granting that time lag attenuates the effects of interstellar contact, total effects are cumulative. So do you wish such a band of carnivores turned loose on the galaxy?”

“No, let them become inwardly civilized first; then we will see if they can be trusted. If not, at least they will be happy on their own planet, in a mode of life designed for them by the Great Science. Remember, they have an imemmorial aspiration toward peace on earth; but that is something they will never achieve by themselves. I do not pretend to be a very good person, Mwyr! Yet this work that we are doing makes me feel not altogether useless in the cosmos!”

Promotion was fast that year, casualties being so high. Captain Thomas Danielis was raised to major for his conspicuous part in putting down the revolt of the Los Angelos station. Soon after occurred the Battle of Maricopa, when loyalists failed bloodily to break the stranglehold of the Brodsky rebels on the San Joaquin Valley, and he was brevetted lieutenant colonel. The army was ordered northward and marched wearily under the coast ranges, half expecting attack from ther East. But the Brodskyites seemed too busy consolidating their latest gains. The trouble came from guerrillas with the hedgehog resistance of bossman Stations. After one fairly stiff clash, they stopped near Pinnacles for a breather.

Danielis made his way through camp, where tents stood in neat rows between the guns and men lay about dozing, talking and gambling, staring at the blank blue sky. The air was hot, pungent with cookfire smoke, horses, mules, dung, sweat, and oil; the green of the hills that lifted around the site was edging toward summer brown. He was idle until time for the conference the general had called, but restlessness drove him. Now I’m a father, he thought, and I’ve never seen my kid. I’m lucky, he reminded himself. I’ve got my life and limbs. He remembered Jacobsen dying in his arms at Maricopa. You wouldn’t have thought the human body could hold so much blood. Though maybe one was up longer human when the pain was so great that one could do nothing but shriek until the darkness came.

And I used to think war was glamorous. Hunger, thirst, inaction, terror, mutilation, death, and forever the sameness of boredom grinding you down to an ox. … I’ve had it. I’m going into business after the war. Economic integration, when the bossman system breaks up, yes, there’ll be a lot of ways for a man to get ahead, but decently, without a weapon in his hand— Danielis realized he was repeating thoughts that were months old. What the hell else was there to think about, though?

The large tent where prisoners were interrogated lay near his path. A couple of privates were conducting a man inside. The fellow was blond, burly, and sullen. He wore a sergeant’s stripes, but otherwise his only item of uniform was the badge of Warden Echevarry, bossman in this part of the coastal mountains. A lumberjack in peacetime, Danielis guessed from the look of him; a soldier in a private army whenever the interests of Echevarry were threatened; captured in yesterday’s engagement.

On impulse, Danielis followed. He got into the tent as Captain Lambert, chubby behind a portable desk, finished the preliminaries, and blinked in the sudden gloom.

“Oh.” The intelligence officer started to rise. “Yes, sir?”

“At ease,” Danielis said. “Just thought I’d listen in.”

“Well, I’ll try to put on a good show for you.” Lambert reseated himself and looked at the prisoner, who stood with hunched, shoulders and widespread legs between his guards. “Now, sergeant, we’d like to know a few things.”

“I don’t have to say nothing except name, rank, and town,” the man growled. “You got those.”

“Um-m-m, that’s questionable. You aren’t a foreign soldier, you’re in rebellion against the government of your own country.”

“The hell I am! I’m an Echevarry man.”

“So what?”

“So my Judge is whoever Echevarry says. He says Brodsky. That makes you the rebel.”

“The law’s been changed.”

“Your mucking Fallon got no right to change any laws. Especially part of the Constitution. I’m no hillrunner, Captain. I went to school some. And every year our Warden reads people the Constitution.”

“Times have changed since it was drawn,” Lambert. His tone sharpened. “But I’m not going to argue with you. How many riflemen and how many archers in your company?”

Silence.

“We can make things a lot easier for you,” Lambert said. “I’m not asking you to do anything treasonable. All I want is to confirm some information I’ve already got.”

The man shook his head angrily.

Lambert gestured. One of the privates stepped behind the captive, took his arm, and twisted a little.

“Echevarry wouldn’t do that to me,” he said through white lips.

“Of course not,” Lambert said. “You’re his man.”

“Think I wanna be just a number on some list in Frisco? Damn right I’m my bossman’s man!”

Lambert gestured again. The private twisted harder.

“Hold on, there,” Daniels barked. “Stop that!”

The private let go, looking surprised. The prisoner drew a sobbing breath.

“I’m amazed at you, Captain Lambert,” Danielis said. He felt his own face reddening. “If this has been your usual practice, there’s going to be a court-martial.”

“No, sir,” Lambert said in a small voice. “Honest. Only … they don’t talk. Hardly any of them. What’m I supposed to do?”

“Follow the rules of war.”

“With rebels?”

“Take that man away,” Danielis ordered. The privates made haste to do so.

“Sorry, sir,” Lambert muttered. “I guess … I guess I’ve lost too many buddies. I hate to lose more, simply for lack of information.”

“Me Too.” A compassion rose in Danielis. He sat down on the table edge and began to roll a cigarette. “But you see, we aren’t in a regular war. And so, by a curious paradox, we have to follow the conventions more carefully than ever before.”

“I don’t quite understand, sir.”

“Danielis finished the cigarette and gave it to Lambert: olive branch or something. He started another for himself. The rebels aren’t rebels by tbeir own lights,” he said. “They’re being loyal to a tradition that we’re trying to curb, eventually to destroy. Let’s face it, the average bossman is a pretty good leader. He may be descended from some thug who grabbed power by strong-arm methods during the chaos, but now his family’s integrated itself with the region he rules. He knows it, and its people, inside out. He’s there in the flesh, a symbol of the community and its achievements, its folkways and essential independence. If you’re in trouble, you ‘t have to work through some impersonal bureaucracy, you go direct to your bossman. His duties are as clearly defined as your own, and a good deal more demanding, to balance his privileges. He leads you in battle and in the ceremonies that give color and meaning to life. Your fathers and theirs have worked and played together for two or three hundred years. The land is alive with the memories of them. You and him belong.

“Well, that has to be swept away, so we can go on to a higher level. But we won’t reach that level by alienating everyone. We’re not a conquering army; we’re more like the Householder Guard putting down a riot in some city. The opposition is part and parcel of our own society.”

Lambert struck a match for him. He inhaled and finished: “On a practical plane, I might also remind you, Captain, that the federal armed forces, Fallonite and Brodskyite together, are none too large. Little more than a cadre, in fact. We’re a bunch of younger sons, countrymen who failed, poor citymen, adventurers, people who look to their regiment for that sense of wholeness they’ve grown up to expect and can’t find in civilian life.”

“You’re too deep for me, sir, I’m afraid,” Lambert said.

“Never mind,” Danielis sighed. “Just bear in mind, there are a good many more fighting men outside the opposing armies than in. If the bossmen could establish a unified command, that’d be the end of the Fallon government. Luckily, there’s too much provincial pride and too much geography between them for this to happen—unless we outrage them beyond endurance. What we want the ordinary freeholder, and even the ordinary bossman, to think, is: ‘Well, those Fallonites aren’t such bad guys, and if I keep on the right side of them I don’t stand to lose much, and should even be able to gain something at the expense of those who fight them to a finish. You see?”

“Y-yes. I guess so.”

“You’re a smart fellow, Lambert. You don’t have to beat information but of prisoners. Trick it out.”

“I’ll try, sir.”

“Good.” Danielis glanced at the watch that had been given him as per tradition, together with a sidearm, when he was first commissioned. (Such items were much too expensive for the common man. They had not been so in the age of mass production; and perhaps in the coming age—) “I have to go. See you around.”

He left the tent feeling somewhat more cheerful than before. No doubt I am a natural-born preacher, he admitted, and I never could quite join in the horseplay at mess, and a lot of jokes go completely by me; but if I can get even a few ideas across where they count, that’s pleasure enough. A strain of music came to him, some men and a banjo under a tree, and he found himself whistling along. It was good that this much morale remained, after Maricopa and a northward march whose purpose had not been divulged to anybody.

The conference tent was big enough to be called a pavilion. Two sentries stood at the entrance. Danielis was nearly the last to arrive, and found himself at the end of the table, opposite Brigadier General Perez. Smoke hazed the air and there was a muted buzz of conversation, but faces were taut.

When the blue-robed figure with a Yang and Yin on the entered, silence fell like a curtain. Danielis was astonished to recognize Philosopher Woodworth. He’d last seen the man in Los Angeles, and assumed he would stay at the Esper center there. Must have come here by special conveyance, under special orders …

Perez introduced him. Both remained standing, under the eyes of the officers. “I have some important news for you, gentlemen,” Perez said most quietly. “You may consider it an honor to be here. It means that in my judgment you can be trusted first, to keep absolute silence about what you are going to hear, and second, to execute a vital operation of extreme difficulty.” Danielis was made shockingly aware that several men were not present whose rank indicated they should be.

“I repeat,” Perez said, “any breach of secrecy and the whole plan is ruined. In that case, the war will drag on for months or years. You know how bad our position is. You also know it will grow still worse as our stocks of those supplies the enemy now denies us are consumed. We could even be beaten. I’m not defeatist to say that, only realistic. We could lose the war.

“On the other hand, if this new scheme pans out, we may break the enemy’s back this very month.”

He paused to let that sink in before continuing.

“The plan was worked out by GHQ in conjunction with Esper Central in San Francisco some weeks ago. It’s the reason we are headed north—” He let the gasp subside that through the stifling air. “Yes, you know that the Esper Order is neutral in political disputes. But you also know that it defends itself when attacked. And you probably know that an attack was made on it by the rebels. They seized the Napa settlement and have been spreading malicious rumors the Order since then. Would you like to comment on that, Philosopher Woodworth?”

The man in blue nodded and said coolly: “We’ve our own way of findin’ out things—intelligence service, you might say—so I can give y’all a report of the facts. St. Helena was attacked at a time when most of its adepts were away, helpin’ a new community get started out in Montana.” How did they move so fast? Danielis wondered. Teleport, or what? “I don’t know, myself, if the enemy knew about that or were just lucky. Anyhow, when the two or three adepts that were left came and warned them off, fightin’ broke out and the Adepts were killed before they could act.” He smiled. “We don’t don’t claim to be immortal, except the way every living thing is immortal. Nor infallible, either. So now St. Helena’s occupied. We don’t figure to take any immediate steps about that, because a lot of people in the community might get hurt.

“As for the yarns the enemy command been handin’ out, well, I reckon I’d do the same, if I had a chance like that. Everybody knows an adept can do things that nobody else can. Troops that realize they’ve done wrong to the Order are goin’ to be scared of supernatural revenge. You’re educated men here, and know there’s nothin’ supernatural involved, just a way to use the powers latent in most of us. You also know the Order doesn’t believe in revenge. But the ordinary foot soldier doesn’t think your way. His officers have got to restore his spirit somehow. So they fake some equipment and tell him that’s what the adepts were really usin’—an advanced technology, sure, but only a set of machines that can be put out of action if you’re brave, same as any other machine. That’s what happened.

“Still, it is a threat to the Order; and we can’t let an attack on our people go unpunished, either. So Esper Central has decided to help out your side. The sooner this war’s over, the better for everybody.”

A sigh gusted around the tattle, and a few exultant oaths. The hair stirred on Danielis’ neck. Perez lifted a hand.

“Not too fast, please,” the general said. “The adepts are not going to go around blasting your opponents for you. It was one hell of a tough decision for them to do as much as they agreed to. I, uh, understand that the, uh, personal development of every Esper will be set back many years by this much violence. They’re making a big sacrifice.

“By their charter, they can use psionics to defend an establishment against attack. Okay … an assault on San Francisco will be construed as one on Central, their work! headquarters.”

The realization of what was to come was blinding to Danielis. He scarcely heard Perez’ carefully dry continuation:

“Let’s review the strategic picture. By now the enemy holds more than half of California, all of Oregon and Idaho, and a good deal of Washington. We, this army, we’re using the last land access to San Francisco that we’ve got. The enemy hasn’t tried to pinch that off yet, because the troops we pulled out of the north—those that aren’t in the field at present—make a strong city, garrison that’d sally out. He’s collecting too much profit elsewhere to accept the cost.

“Nor can he invest the city with any hope of success. We hold Puget Sound and the southern California ports. Our ships bring in ample food and munitions. His own sea power much inferior to ours; chiefly schooners donated by coastal bossmen operating out of Portland. He might overwhelm an occasional convoy, but hasn’t tried that so far because it isn’t worth his trouble; there would be others, more heavily escorted. And of course he can’t enter the Bay, with artillery and rocket emplacements on both sides of the Golden Gate. No, about all be can do is maintain some water communication with Hawaii and Alaska.

“Nevertheless, his ultimate object is San Francisco. It has to be—the seat of government and industry, the heart of the nation.

“Well; then, here’s the plan. Our army is to engage the Sierra Command and its militia auxiliaries again, striking out of San Jose. That’s a perfectly logical maneuver. Successful, it would cut his California forces in two. We know, in fact, that he is already concentrating men in anticipation of precisely such an attempt.

“We aren’t going to succeed. We’ll give him a good stiff battle and be thrown back. That’s the hardest part: to feign serious defeat, even convincing our own troops, and still maintain good order. Well have a lot of details to thresh out about that

“We’ll retreat northward, up the Peninsula toward Frisco. The enemy is bound to pursue. It will look like a God-given chance to destroy us and get to the city walls.

“When he is well into the Peninsula, with the ocean on his left and the Bay on his right, we will outflank him and attack from the rear. The Esper adepts will be there to help. Suddenly he’ll be caught, between us and the capital’s land defenses. What the adepts don’t wipe out, we will. Nothing will remain of the Sierra Command but a few garrisons. The rest of the war will be a mopping-up operation.

“It’s a brilliant piece of strategy. Like all such, it’s damn difficult to execute. Are you prepared to do the job?”

Danielis didn’t raise his voice with the others. He was thinking too hard of Laura.

Northward and to the right there was some fighting. Cannon spoke occasionally, or a drumfire of rifles; smoke lay thin over the grassland and the wind-gnarled live oaks which covered those hills. But down along the seacoast was only surf, blowing air, a hiss of sand across the dunes.

Mackenzie rode on the beach, where the footing was easiest and the view wildest. Most of his regiment were inland. But that was a wilderness: rough ground, woods, the snags of ancient homes, making travel slow and hard. Once this area had been densely peopled, but the firestorm after the Hellbomb scrubbed it clean and today’s reduced population could not make a go on such infertile soil. There didn’t even seem to be any foremen near this left wing of the army.

The Rolling Stones had certainly not been given it for that reason. They could have borne the brunt at the center as well as those outfits which actually were there, driving the enemy back toward San Francisco. They had been blooded often enough in this war, when they operated out of Calistoga to help expel the Fallonites from northern California. So thoroughly had that job been done that now only a skeleton force need remain in charge. Nearly the whole Sierra Command had gathered at Modesto, met the northward-moving opposition army that struck at them out of San Jose, and sent it in a shooting retreat. Another day or so, and the white, city should appear before their eyes.

And there the enemy will be sure to make a stand, Mackenzie thought, with the garrison to reinforce him. And his positions will have to be shelled: maybe we’ll have to take the place street by street. Laura, kid, will you be alive at the end?

Of course, maybe it won’t happen that way. Maybe my scheme’ll work and we’ll win easy—What a horrible word “maybe” is! He slapped his hands together with a pistol sound.

Speyer threw him a glance. The major’s people were safe; he’d even been able to visit them at Mount Lassen, after the northern campaign was over. “Rough,” he said.

“Rough on everybody,” Mackenzie said with a thick anger. “This is a filthy war.”

Speyer shrugged. “No different from most, except that this time Pacificans are on the receiving as well as the giving end.”

“You know damn well I never liked the business, anyplace.”

“What man in his right mind does?”

“When I want a sermon I’ll ask for one.”

“Sorry,” said Speyer, and.meant it.

“I’m sorry too,” said Mackenzie, instantlycontrite, “Nerves on edge. Damnation! I could almost wish for some action.”

“Wouldn’t be surprised if we got some. This whole affair smells wrong to me.”

Mackenzie looked around him. On the right horizon was bounded by hills, beyond which the low but massive San Bruno range lifted. Here and there he spied one of his own squads, afoot or ahorse. Overhead sputtered a plane. But there was plenty of concealment for a redoubt. Hell could erupt at any minute … though necessarily a small hell, quickly reduced by howitzer or bayonet, casualties light. (Huh! Every one of those light casualties was a man dead, with women and children to weep for him, or a man staring at the fragment of his arm, or a man with eyes and face gone in a burst of shot, and what kind of unsoldierly thoughts were these?)

Seeking comfort, Mackenzie glanced left. The ocean rolled greenish-gray, glittering far out, rising and breaking in a roar of white combers closer to land. He smelted salt and kelp. A few gulls mewed above dazzling sands. There was no sail or smoke-puff—only emptiness. The convoys from Puget Sound to San Francisco and the lean swift ships of the coastal bossmen were miles beyond the curve of the world.

Which was as it should be. Maybe things were working out okay on the high waters. One could only try, and hope. And … it had been his suggestion, James Mackenzie speaking at the conference General Cruikshank held between the battles of Mariposa and San Jose; the same James Mackenzie who had first proposed that the Sierra Command come down out of the mountains, and who had exposed the gigantic fraud of Esperdom, and succeeded in playing down for his men the fact that behind the fraud lay a mystery one hardly dared think about. He would endure in the chronicles, that colonel, they would sing ballads about him for half a thousand years.

Only it didn’t feel that way, James Mackenzie knew he was not much more than average bright under the best of conditions, now dull-minded with weariness and terrified of his daughter’s fate. For himself he was haunted by the fear of certain crippling wounds. Often he had to drink himself to sleep. He was shaved, because an officer must maintain appearances, but realized very well that if he hadn’t had an orderly to do the job for him he would be as shaggy as any buck private. His uniform was faded and threadbare, his body stank and itched, his mouth yearned for tobacco but there had been some trouble in the commissariat and they were lucky to eat. His achievements amounted to patchwork jobs carried out in utter confusion, or to slogging like this and wishing only for an end to the whole mess. One day, win or lose, his body would give out on him—he could feel the machinery wearing to pieces, arthritic twinges, shortness of breath, dozing off in the middle of things, and the termination of himself would be as undignified and lonely as that of every other human slob. Hero? What an all-time laugh!

He yanked his mind back to the unmediate situation. Behind him a core of the regiment accompanied the artillery along the beach, a thousand men with motorized gun carriages, caissons, mule-drawn wagons, a few trucks, one precious armored car. They were a dun mass topped with helmets, in loose formation, rifles or bows to hand. The sand deadened their footfalls, so that only the surf and wind could be heard. But whenever the wind sank, Mackenzie caught the tune of the hex corps: a dozen leathery older men, mostly Indians, carrying the wands of power and whistling together the Song Against Witches. He took no stock in magic himself, yet when that sound came to him the skin crawled along his backbone.

Everything’s in good order, he insisted. We’re doing fine.

Then: But Phil’s right. The enemy should have fought through to a southward line of retreat, not let themselves be boxed.

Captain Hulse galloped close. Sand spurted when he checked his horse. “Patrol report, sir.”

“Well?” Mackenae realized he had almost shouted. “Go ahead.”

“Considerable activity observed about five miles northeast.”

Mackenzie stiffened. “Haven’t you anything more definite than that?”

“Not so far, with the ground so broken.”

“Get some aerial reconnaissance there, for Pete’s sake!”

“Yes, sir. I’ll throw out more scouts, too.”

“Carry on here, Phil.” Mackenzie headed-toward the radio truck. He carried a minicom in his saddlebag, of course, but San Francisco had been continuously jamming on all bands and you needed a powerful set to punch a signal even a few miles. Patrols must communicate by messenger.

He noticed that the firing inland had slaked off. There were decent roads in the interior Peninsula a ways further north, where some resettlement had taken place. The enemy, still in possession of that area, could use them to effect rapid movements.

If they withdrew their center and hit our flanks, where we’re weakest—

A voice from field HQ, barely audible through the squeals and buzzes, took his report and gave back what had been seen elsewhere. Large maneuvers right and left, yes, it did seem the Fallonites were going to try a breakthrough. Could be a feint, though. The main body of the Sierrans must remain where it was until the situation became clearer. The Rolling Stones must hold out a while on their own.

“Will do,” Mackenzie returned to the head of his columns. Speyer nodded grimly at the word.

“Better get prepared, hadn’t we?”

“Uh-huh.” Mackenzie lost himself in a welter of commands, as officer after officer rode to him. The outlying sections were to be pulled in. The beach was to be defended, with the high ground immediately above.

“Men scurried, horses neighed, guns trundled about. The scout plane returned, flying low enough to get a transmission through: yes, definitely an attack on the way hard to tell how big a force, through the damned tree cover and down in the damned arroyos, but it might well be at brigade strength.

Mackenzie established himself on a hilltop with his staff and runners. A line of artillery stretched beneath him, across the strand. Cavalry waited behind them, lances agleam, an infantry company for support. Otherwise the foot soldiers had faded into the landscape. The sea boomed its own cannonade, and gulls began to gather as if they knew there would be meat before long.

“Think we can hold them?” Speyer asked.

“Sure,” Mackenzie said, “If they come down H»e beach, we’ll enfilade them, as well as shooting up their front. If they come higher, well, that’s a. textbook example of defensible terrain. ‘Course, if another troop punches jthrough the lines further inland, we’ll be cut off, but that isn’t our worry right now.”

“They must hope to get around our army and attack our rear.”

“Guess so. Not too smart of them, though. We can approach Frisco just as easily fighting backwards as forwards.”

“Unless the city garrison makes a sally.”

“Even then. Total numerical strengths are about equal, and we’ve got more ammo and alky. Also a lot of bossman militia for auxiliaries, wbo’re used to disorganized warfare in hilly ground.”

“If we do whip them—” Speyer shut his lips together.

“Go on,” Mackenzie said.

“Nothing.”

“The hell it is. You were about to remind me of the next step: how do we take the city without too high a cost to both sides? Well, I happen to know we’ve got a hole card to play there, which might help.”

Speyer turned pitying eyes away from Mackenzie. Silence fell on the hilltop.

It was an unconscjonably long time before the enemy came in view, first a few outriders far down the dunes, then the body of him, pouring from the ridges and gullies and woods. Reports flickered about Mackenzie—a powerful force, nearly twice as big as ours, but with little artillery, by now badly short of fuel, they must depend far more than we on animals to move their equipment. They were evidently going to change, accept losses in order to get sabers and bayonets among the Rolling Stones’ cannon. Mackenzie issued his directions accordingly.

The hostiles formed up, a mile or so distant. Through his field glasses Mackenzie recognized them, red sashes of the Madera Horse, green and gold pennon of the Dagos, fluttering in the iodine wind. He’d campaigned with both outfits in the past. It was treacherous to remember that Ives favored a blunt, wedge formation and use the fact against him … One enemy armored car and some fieldpieces, light horse-drawn ones, gleamed wickedly in the sunlight.

Bugles blew shrill. The Fallonite cavalry laid lance in rest and started trotting. They gathered speed as they went, a canter, a gallop, until the earth trembled with them. Then their infantry got going, flanked by its guns. The car rolled along between the first and second line of foot. Oddly, it had no rocket launcher on top or repeater barrels thrust from the fire slits. Those were good troops, Mackenzie thought, advancing in close order with that ripple down the ranks which bespoke veterans. He hated what must happen.

His defense waked immobile on the sand. Fire crackled from the hillsides, where mortar squads and riflemen crouched. A rider toppled, a dogface clutched his belly and went to his knees, their companions behind moved forward to close the lines again. Mackenzie looked to his howitzers. Men stood tensed at sights and lanyards. Let the foe get well in range—There! Yamaguchi, mounted just rearward of the gunners, drew his saber and flashed the blade downward. Cannon, bellowed. Fire spurted through smoke, sand gouted up, shrapnel sleeted over the charging force. At once the gun crews fell into the rhythm of reloading, relaying, refiring, the steady three rounds per minute which conserved barrels and broke armies. Horses screamed in their own tangled red guts. But not many had been hit. The Madera cavalry continued in full gallop. Their lead was so close now that Mackenzie’s glasses picked out a face, red, freckled, a ranch boy turned trooper, his mouth stretched out of shape as he yelled.

The archers behind the defending cannon let go. Arrows whistled skyward, flight after flight, curved past the gulls and down again. Flame and smoke ran ragged in the wiry hill grass, out of the ragged-leaved live oak copses. Men pitched in the sand, like insects that had stepped on. The fieldpieces on the enemy left flank swiveled about, and spat return fire. Futile … but, God, their officer had courage! Mackenzie saw the advancing lines waver. An attack by his own horse and foot, down the beach, ought to crumple them. “Get ready to move,” he into his minicom. He saw his men poise. The cannon belched anew.

The oncoming armored car slowed to a halt. Something within it chattered, loud enough to hear through the explosions.

A blue-white sheet ran over the nearest bill. Mackenzie shut half-blinded eyes. When he opened them again, he saw a grass fire through the crazy patterns of after-image, A Rolling Stone burst from cover, howling, his clothes ablaze. The man hit the sand and rolled over. That part of the beach lifted in one monster wave, crested twenty feet high, and smashed across the hill. The burning soldier vanished in the avalanche that buried his comrades.

“Psi blast!” someone screamed, thin and horrible, through the chaos and ground-shudder. “The Espers—”

Unbelievably, a bugle sounded and the Sierran cavalry lunged forward. Past their own guns, on against the scattering opposition … and horses and riders rose into the air, tumbled in a giant’s invisible whirligig, crashed bone-break-to earth again. The second rank of lancers broke. Mounts reared, pawed the air, wheeled and fled in every direction.

A terrible deep hum filled the sky. Mackenzie saw the world through a blaze, as if his brain were being dashed back forth between the walls of his skull. Another glare ran across the hills, higher this time, burning men alive.

“They’ll wipe us out,” Speyer called, a dim voice that rose and fell on the air tides. “They’ll reform as we stampede—”

“No!” Mackenzie shouted, “The adepts must be in that car. Come on!”

Most of his horse had recoiled on their own artillery, one squealing trampling wreck. The infantry stood rigid, but about to bolt. A glance thrown to his right showed Mackenzie how the enemy themselves were in confusion, this had been a terrifying surprise to them too, but as soon as they got over the shock they’d advance and there’d be nothing left to stop them. … It was as if another man spurred his mount. The animal fought, foam-flecked with panic. He shagged its head around, brutally, and dug in spurs. They rushed down the hill toward the guns.

He needed all his strength to halt the gelding before the cannon mouths. A man slumped dead by his piece, though there was no mark on him. Mackenzie jumped to the ground. His steed bolted.

He hadn’t time to worry about that. Where was help? “Come here!” His yell was lost in the riot. But suddenly another man was beside him, Speyer, snatching up a shell and slamming it into the breach. Mackenzie squinted through the telescope, took a bearing by guess and feel. He could see the Esper car where it squatted among dead and hurt. At this distance it looked too small to have blackened acres.

Speyer helped him lay the howitzer. He jerked the lanyard. The gun roared and sprang. The shell burst a few yards short of target, sand spurted and metal fragments whined.

Speyer had the next one loaded. Mackenzie aimed and fired.. Overshot this time, but not by much. The car rocked. Concussion might have hurt the Espers inside; at least, the psi blasts had stopped. But it was necessary to strike before the foe got organized again.

He ran toward his own regimental car. The door gaped, the crew had fled. He threw himself into the driver’s seat. Speyer clanged the door shut and stuck his face in the hood of the rocket-launcher periscope. Mackenzie raced the machine forward. The banner on its rooftop snapped in the wind.

Speyer aimed the launcher and pressed the firing button. The missile burned across intervening yards and exploded. The other car lurched on its wheels. A hole opened in its side.

If the boys will only rally and advance— Well, if they don’t, I’m done for anyway. Mackenzie squealed to a stop, flung open the door and leaped out. Curled, blackened metal framed his entry. He wriggled through, into murk and stenches.

Two Espers lay there. The driver was dead, a chunk steel through his breast. The other one, the adept, whimpered among his unhuman instruments. His face was hidden by blood. Mackenzie pitched the corpse on its side and pulled off the robe. He snatched a curving tube of metal and tumbled back out.

Speyer was still in the undamaged car, firing repeaters at those hostiles who ventured near. Mackenzie jumped onto the ladder of the disabled machine, climbed to its roof and stood erect. He waved the blue robe in one hand and the weapon he did not understand in the other. “Come on, you sons!” he shouted, tiny against the sea wind. “We’ve knocked them out for you! Want your breakfast in bed too?”

One bullet buzzed past his ear. Nothing else. Most of them, horse and foot, stayed frozen. In that immense stillness he could not tell if he heard sun or the blood in his own veins.

Then a bugle called. The hex corps whistled triumphantly; their tomtoms thuttered. A ragged line of his infantry began to move toward him. More followed. The cavalry joined man by man and unit by unit, on their.flanks. Soldiers ran down the smoking hillsides.

Mackenzie sprang to sand again and into his car. “Let’s get back,” he told Speyer. “We got a battle to finish.”

“Shut up!” Tom Danielis said.

Philosopher Woodworth stared at him. Fog swirled and dripped in the forest, hiding the land and the brigade, gray nothingness through which came a muffled noise of men and horses and wheels, an isolated and infinitely weary sound. The air was cold, and clothing hung heavy on the skin.

“Sir,” protested Major Lescarbault The eyes were wide and shocked in his gaunted face.

“I dare tell a ranking Esper to stop quacking about a subject of which he’s totally ignorant?” Danielis answered. “Well, it’s past time that somebody did.”

Woodworth recovered his poise. “All I said, son, was that we should consolidate our adepts and strike the Brodskyite center,” he reproved. “What’s wrong with that?”

Danielis clenched his fists. “Nothing,” be said, “except it invites a worse disaster than you’ve brought on us yet.”

“A setback or two,” Lescarbault argued. “They did rout us on the west, but we turned their flank here by the Bay.”

“With the net result that their main body pivoted, attacked, and split us in half,” Danielis snapped. “The Espers have been scant use since then … now the rebels know they need vehicles to transport their weapons, and can be killed. Artillery zeroes in on their positions, or bands of woodsmen hit and run, leaving them dead, or the enemy simply goes around any spot where they’re known to be. We haven’t got enough adepts!”

“That’s why I proposed gettin’ them in one group, too big to withstand,”

“And too cumbersome to be of any value,” Danielis replied.

He felt more than a little sickened, knowing how the order had cheated him his whole life; yes, he thought that was the real bitterness, not the fact that the adepts had failed to defeat the rebels—by failing, essentially to break their spirit—but the fact that the adepts were only someone else’s cat’s paws and every gentle, earnest soul in every Esper community was only someone’s dupe.

Wildly he wanted to return to Laura—there’d been no chance thus far to see her—Laura and the kid, the last honest reality this fog-world had left him. He mastered himself and went on more evenly:

“The adepts, what few of them survive, will of course be helpful in defending San Francisco. An army free to move around in the field can deal with them, one way or another, but your … your weapons, can repel an assault on the city walls. So that’s where I’m going to take them.”

Probably the best he could do. There was no word from the northern half of the loyalist army. Doubtless they’d withdrawn to the capital, suffering heavy losses en route. Radio jamming continued, hampering friendly and hostile communications alike. He had to take action, either, retreat southward or fight his way through to the city. The latter course seamed wisest. He didn’t believe that Laura had much to do with his choice.

“I’m no adept myself,” Woodworth said. “I can’t call them mind to mind.”

“You mean you cant use their equivalent of radio?” Danielis said brutally. “Well, you’ve got an adept in attendance. Have him pass the word.”

Woodworth flinched. “I hope,” he said, “I hope you understand this came as a surprise to me too.”

“Oh, yes, certainly, Philosopher,” Lescarbault said unbidden.

Woodworth swallowed. “I still hold with the Way and the Order,” he said harshly. “There’s nothin’ else I can do. Is there? The Grand Seeker has promised a full explanation when this is over.” He shook his head. “Okay, son, I’ll do what I can.”

A certain compassion touched Danielis as the blue robe disappeared into the fog. He rapped his orders the more severely.

Slowly his command got going. He was with the Second Brigade; the rest were strewn over the Peninsula in the fragments into which the rebels had knocked them. He hoped scattered adepts, joining him on his march through the San Bruno range, would guide some of those to him. But most, wandering demoralized, were sere to surrender to the first rebels they came upon.

He rode near the front, on a muddy road that snaked over the highlands. His helmet was a monstrous weight. The horse stumbled beneath him, exhausted by—how many days?—of march, countermarch, battle, skirmish, thin rations or none, heat and cold and fear, in an empty land. Poor beast, he’d see that it got proper treatment when they reached the city. That all those poor beasts behind him did, after trudging and fighting and trudging again until their eyes were filmed with fatigue.

There’ll be chance enough for rest in San Francisco. We’re impregnable there, walls and cannon and the Esper machines to landward, the sea that feeds us at our backs. We can recover our strength, regroup our forces, bring fresh troops down from Washington and up from the south by water. The war isn’t decided yet … God help us.

I wonder if it will ever be.

And then, will Jimbo Mackenzie come to see us, sit by the fire and swap yarns about what we did? Or talk about something else, anything else? If not, that’s too high a price for victory.

Maybe not too high a price for what we’ve learned, though. Strangers on this planet … what else could have forged those weapons? The adepts will talk if I myself have to torture them till they do. But Danielis remembered tales muttered in the fisher huts of his boyhood, after dark, when ghosts walked in old men’s minds. Before the holocaust there had been legends about the stars, and the legends lived on. He didn’t know if he would be able to look again at the night sky without a shiver.

This damned fog—

Hoofs thudded. Danielis half drew his sidearm. But the rider was a scout of his own, who raised a drenched sleeve in salute. “Colonel, an enemy force about ten miles ahead by road. Big.”

So we’ll have to fight now. “Do they seem aware of us?”

“No, sir. They’re proceeding east along the ridge there.”

“Probably figure to occupy the Candlestick Park ruins,” Danielis murmured. His body was too tired for excitement. “Good stronghold, that. Very well, Corporal.” He turned to Lescarbault and issued instructions.

The brigade formed itself in the formlessness. Patrols went out.Information began to flow back, and Danielis sketched a plan that ought to work. He didn’t want to try for a decisive engagement, only brush the enemy aside and discourage them from pursuit. His men must be spared, as many as possible, for the city defense and the eventual counteroffensive.

Lescarbault came back. “Sir! The radio jamming’s ended!”

“What?” Danielis blinked, not quite comphrehending.

“Yes, sir. I’ve been using a minicom—” Lescarbault lifted the wrist on which his tiny transceiver was strapped—“for very short-range work, passing the battalion commander their orders. The interference stopped a couple of minutes aga. Clear as daylight.”

Danielis pulled the wrist toward his own mouth, “Hello, hello, radio wagon, this is the CO. You read me?”

“Yes, sir,” said the voice.

“They turned off the jammer in the city for a reason. Get me the open military band.”

“Yes, sir.” Pause, while men mumbled and water runneled unseen in die arroyos. A wraith smoked past Danielis’ eyes. Drops coursed off his helmet and down his collar. The horse’s mane hung sodden.

Like the scream of an insect:

“—here at once! Every unit in the field, get to San Francisco at once! We’re under attack by sea!”

Danielis let go Lescarbault’s arm. He stared into emptiness while the voice wailed on and forever on.

“—bombarding Potrero Point. Decks jammed with troops. They must figure to make a landing there—”

Danielis’ mind raced ahead of the words. It was as if Esp were no lie, as if he scanned the beloved city himself and felt her wounds in his own flesh. There was no fog around the Gate, of course, or so detailed a description could not have been given. Well, probably some streamers of it rolled in under the rusted remnants of the bridge, themselves like snowbanks against blue-green water and brilliant sky. But most of the Bay stood open to the sun. On the opposite shore lifted the Eastbay hills, green with gardens and agleam with villas; and Marin shouldered heavenward across the strait; looking to the roofs and walls and heights that were San Francisco. The convoy had gone between the coast defenses that could have smashed it, an unusually large convoy and not on time: but still the familiar big-bellied hulls, white sails, occasional fuming stacks, that kept the city fed. There had been an explanation about trouble with commerce raiders; and the fleet was passed on into the Bay, where San Francisco had no walls. Then the gun covers were taken off and the holds vomited armed men.

Yes, they did seize a convoy, those piratical schooners. Used radio jamming of their own; together with ours, that choked off any cry of wanting. They threw our supplies overboard and embarked the bossman militia. Some spy or traitor gave them the recognition signals. Now the capital lies open to them, her garrison stripped, hardly an adept left in Esper Central, the Sierrans thrusting against her southern gates, and Laura without me.

“We’re coming!” Danielis yelled. His brigade groaned into speed behind iim. They struck with a desperate ferocity that carried them deep into enemy positions and then stranded them, in separated groups. It became knife and saber in the fog. But Danielis, because he led the charge, had already taken a grenade on his breast.

East and south, in the harbor district and at the wreck of the Peninsula wall, there was still some fighting. As he rode higher, Mackenzie saw how those parts were dimmed by smoke, which the wind scattered, to show rubble that had been houses. The sound of firing drifted to him. But otherwise the city shone untouched, roofs and white walls in a web of streets, church spires raking the sky like masts, Federal House on Nob Hill and the Watchtower on Telegraph Hill as he remembered them from childhood visits. The Bay glittered insolently beautiful.

But he had no time for admiring the view, nor for wonderinng where Laura huddled. The attack on Twin Peaks must be swift, for surely Esper Central would defend itself. On the avenue climbing the opposite side of those great humps, Speyer led half the Rolling Stones. (Yamaguchi lay dead on a pockmarked beach.) Mackenzie himself was taking this side. Horses clopped along Portola, between blankly shuttered mansions; guns trundled and creaked, boots knocked on pavement, moccasins slithered, weapons rattled, men breathed heavily and the hex corps whistled against unknown demons. But silence overwhelmed the noise, echoes trapped it and let it die. Mackenzie recollected nightmares when he fled down a corridor which had no end. Even if they don’t cut loose at us, he thought bleakly, we’ve got to seize their place before our nerve gives out.

Twin Peaks Boulevard turned off Portola and wound steeply to the right The houses ended; wild grasses alone covered the quasi-sacred hills, up to the tops where stood the buildings forbidden to all but adepts. Those two soaring, iridescent, fountainlike skyscrapers had been raised by night, within a matter of weeks. Something like a moan stirred at Mackenzie’s back.

“Bugler, sound the advance. On the double!”

A child’s jeering, die notes lifted and were lost. Sweat stung Mackenzie’s eyes. If he failed and was killed, that didn’t matter too much … after everything which had happened … but the regiment, the regiment—

Flame shot across the street, the color of hell. There went a hiss and a roar. The pavement lay trenched, .molten, stroking and reeking. Mackenzie wrestled his horse to a standstill. A warning only. But if they had enough adepts to handle us, would they bother trying to warn us off? “Artillery, open fire!”

The field guns bellowed together, not only howitzers but motorized 75s taken along from Alemany Gate’s emplacements. Shells went overhead with a locomotive sound. They burst on the walls above and the racket thundered back down the wind.

Mackenzie tensed himself for an Esper blast, but none came. Had they knocked out the final defensive post in their own first barrage? Smoke cleared from the heights and he saw that the colors which played in the tower were dead and that wounds gaped across loveliness, showing unbelievably thin framework. It was like seeing the bones of a woman murdered by his hand.

Quick, though! He issued a string of commands and led the horse and foot on. The battery stayed where it was, firing and firing with hysterical fury. The dry brown grass started to burn, as red-hot fragments scattered across the slope. Through mushroom bursts, Mackenzie saw the building crumble. Whole sheets of facing broke and fell to earth. The skeleton vibrated, took a direct hit and sang in metal agony, slumped and twisted apart.

What was that which stood within?

There were no separate rooms, no floors, nothing but girders, enigmatic machines, here and there a globe still aglow like a minor sun. The structure bad enclosed something nearly as tall as itself, a finned and shining column, almost like a rocket shell but impossibly huge and fair.

Their spaceship, Mackenzie thought in the clamor. Yes, of course, the ancients had begun making spaceships, and we always figured we would again someday. This, though …

The archers lifted a tribal screech. The riflemen and cavalry took it up, crazy, jubilant, the howl of a beast of prey. By Satan, we’ve whipped the stars themselves! As they burst onto the hillcrest, the shelling stopped and their yells overrode the wind. Smoke was acrid as blood smell in their nostrils.

A few dead blue-robers could be seen in the debris. Some half-dozen survivors milled toward the ship. A bowman let fly. His arrow glanced off the landing gear but brought the Espers to a halt. Troopers poured over the shards to capture them.

Mackenzie reined in. Something that was not human lay crushed near a machine. Its blood was deep violet color. When the people have seen this, that’s the end of the Order. He felt no triumph. At St Helena he had come to appreciate how fundamentally good the believers were.

But this was no moment for regret, or for wondering how harsh the future would be with man taken entirely off the leash: The building on the other peak was still intact. He had to consolidate his position here, then help Phil if need be.

However, the minicom said, “Come on and join me, Jimbo. The fracas is over,” before he had completed his task. As he rode alone toward Speyer’s place, he saw a Pacific States flag flutter up the mast on that skyscraper’s top. Guards stood awed and nervous at the portal. Mackenzie dismounted and walked inside. The entry chamber was a soaring, shimmering fantasy of colors and arches, through which men moved troll-like. A corporal led him down a hall. Evidently this building bad been used for quarters offices, storage, and less understandable purposes … There was a room whose door had been blown down with dynamite. The fluid abstract murals were stilled, scarred, and sooted. Four ragged troopers pointed guns at the two beings whom Speyer was questioning.

One slumped at something that might answer to a desk. The avian face was buried in seven-fingered hands and the rudimentary wing quivered with sobs. Are they able to cry, then? Mackenzie thought, astonished, and had a sudden wish to take the being in his arms and offer what comfort he was able.

The other one stood erect in a robe of woven metal. Great topaz eyes met Speyer’s from a seven-foot height, and the voice turned accented English into music.

“—a G-type star some fifty light-years hence. It is barely visible to the naked eye, though not in this hemisphere.”

The major’s fleshless, bristly countenance jutted forward as if to peck. “When do you expect reinforcements?”

“There will be no other ship for almost a century, and it will only bring personnel. We are isolated by space and time; few can come to work here, to seek to build a bridge of minds across that gulf—”

“Yeah,” Speyer nodded prosaically. “The light-speed limit. I thought so. If you’re telling the truth.”

The being shuddered. “Nothing is left for us but to speak truth, and pray that you will understand and help. Revenge, conquest, any form of mass violence is impossible when so much space and time lies between. Our labor has been done in the mind and heart. It is not too late, even now. The most crucial facts can still be kept hidden—oh, listen to me, for the sake of your unborn!”

Speyer nodded to Mackenzie. “Everything okay?” he said. “We got us a full bag here. About twenty left alive, this fellow the bossman. Seems like they’re the only ones on Earth.”

“We guessed there couldn’t be many,” the colonel said. His tone and his feelings were alike ashen. “When we talked it over, you and me, and tried to figure what our clues meant. They’d have to be few, or they’d’ve operated more openly.”

“Listen, listen,” the being pleaded. “We came in love. Our dream was to lead you—to make you lead yourselves-toward peace, fulfillment … Oh, yes, we would also gain, gain yet another race with whom we could someday converse as brothers. But there are many races in the universe. It was chiefly for your own tortured sakes that we wished to guide your future.”

“That controlled history notion isn’t original with you,” Speyer grunted. “We’ve invented it for ourselves now and then on Earth. The last time it led to the Hellbombs. No, thanks!”

“But we know! The Great Science predicts with absolute certainty—”

“Predicted this?” Speyer waved a hand at the blackened room.

“There are fluctuations. We are too few to control so many savages in every detail. But do you not wish an end to war, to all your ancient sufferings? I offer you that for your help today.”

“You succeeded in starting a pretty nasty war yourselves,” Speyer said.

The being twisted its fingers together. “That was an error. The plan remains, the only way to lead your people toward peace. I, who have traveled between suns, will get down before your boots and beg you—”

“Stay put!” Speyer flung back. “If you’d come openly, like honest folk, you’d have found some to listen to you. Maybe enough, even. But no, your do-gooding had to be subtle and crafty. You knew what was right for us. We weren’t entitled to any say in the matter. God in heaven, I’ve never heard anything so arrogant!”

The being lifted its head. “Do you tell children the whole truth?”

“As much as they’re ready for.”

“Your child-culture is not ready to hear these truths.”

“Who qualified you to call us children—besides yourselves?”

“How do you know you are adult?”

“By trying adult jobs and finding out if I can handle them. Sure, we make some ghastly blunders, we humans. But they’re our own. And we learn from them. You’re the ones who won’t learn, you and that damned psychological science you were bragging about, that wants to fit every living mind into the one frame it can understand.

“You wanted to re-establish the centralized state, didn’t you? Did you ever stop to think that maybe feudalism is what suits man? Some one place to call our own, and belong to, and be part of; a community with traditions and honor; a chance for the individual to make decisions that count; a bulwark for liberty against the central overlords, who’ll always want more and more power; a thousand different ways to live. We’ve always built supercountries, here on Earth, and we’ve always knocked them apart again. I think maybe the whole idea is wrong. And maybe this time well try something better. Why not a world of little states, too well rooted to dissolve in a nation, too small to do much harm—slowly rising above petty jealousies and spite, but keeping their identities—a thousand separate approaches to our problem. Maybe then we can solve a few of them … for ourselves!”

“You will never do so,” the being said. “You will be torn in pieces all over again.”

“That’s what you think. I think otherwise. But whichever is right—and I bet this is too big a universe for either of us to predict—we’ll have made a free choice on Earth. I’d rather be dead than domesticated.

“The people are going to learn about you as soon as Judge Brodsky’s been reinstated. No, sooner. The regiment will hear today, the city tomorrow, just to make sure no one gets ideas about suppressing the truth again. By the time your next spaceship comes, we’ll be ready for it: in our own way whatever that is.”

The being drew a fold of robe about its head. Speyer turned to Mackenzie. His face was wet. “Anything … you want to say … Jimbo?”

“No,” Mackenzie mumbled.. “Can’t think of. anything. Let’s get our command organized here. I don’t expect we’ll have to fight any more, though. It seems to be about ended down there.”

“Sure.” Speyer drew an uneven breath. “The enemy troops elsewhere are bound to capitulate. They’ve get nothing left to fight for. We can start patching up pretty soon.”

There was a house with a patio whose, wall was covered by roses. The street outside had not yet come back to life, so that silence dwelt here under the yellow sunset. A maidservant showed Mackenzie through the back door and departed. He.walked toward Laura, who sat on a bench beneath a willow. She watched him approach but did not rise. One hand rested on a cradle.

He stopped and knew not what to say. How thin she was!

Presently she told him, so low he could scarcely hear: “Tom’s dead.”

“Oh, no.” Darkness came and went before his eyes.

“I learned the day before yesterday, when a few of his men straggled home. He was killed in the San Bruno.”

Mackenzie did not dare join her, but his legs would not upbear him. He sat down on the flagstones and saw curious patterns in their arrangement. There was nothing else to look at.

Her voice ran on above him, toneless: “Was it worth it? Not only Tom, but so many others, killed for a point of politics?”

“More than that was at stake,” he said.

“Yes, I heard on the radio. I still can’t understand how it was worth it. I’ve tried very hard, but I can’t.”

He had no strength left to defend himself. “Maybe you’re right, duck. I wouldn’t know.”

“I’m not sorry for myself,” she said. “I still have Jimmy. But Tom was cheated out of so much.”

He realized all at once that there was a baby, and he ought to take his grandchild to him and think thoughts about life going on into the future. But he was too empty.

“Tom wanted him named after you,” she said.

Did you, Laura? he wondered. Aloud: “What are you going to do now?”

“I’ll find something.”

He made himself glance at her. The sunset burned on the willow leaves above and on her face, which was now turned toward the infant he could not see. “Come back to Nakamura,” he said.

“No. Anywhere else.”

“You always loved the mountains,” he groped. “We—”

“No.” She met his eyes. “It isn’t you, Dad. Never you. But Jimmy is not going to grow up a soldier.” She hesitated, “I’m sure some of the Espers will keep going, on a new basis, but with the same goals. I think we should join them. He ought to believe in something different from what killed his father, and work for it to become real. Don’t you agree?”

Mackenzie climbed to his feet against Earth’s hard pull. “I don’t know,” he said. “Never was a thinker … Can I see him?”

“Oh, Dad—”

He went over and looked down at the small sleeping form. “If you marry again,” he said, “and have a daughter, would you call her for her mother?” He saw Laura’s head bend downward and her hands clench. Quickly he said, “I’ll go now. I’d like to visit you some more, tomorrow or sometime, if you’ll have me.”

Then she came to his arms and wept. He stroked her hair and murmured, as he had done when she was a child. “You do want to return to the mountains, don’t you? They’re your country too, your people, where you belong.”

“Y-you’ll never know how much I want to.”

“Then why not?” he cried.

His daughter straightened herself. “I can’t,” she said. “Your war is ended. Mine has just begun.”

Because he had trained that will, he could only say, “I hope you win it.”

“Perhaps in a thousand years—” She could not continue.

Night had fallen when he left her. Power was still out in the city, so the street lamps were dark and the stars stood forth above all roofs. The squad that waited to accompany their colonel to barracks looked wolfish by lantern light They saluted him and rode at his back, rifles ready for trouble; but there was only the iron sound of horseshoes.

ONCE A COP

Rick Raphael

Patrol Trooper Clay Ferguson hummed happily to himself and eyed the chronometer in the center of the instrument panel. The night sky thirty miles ahead glowed with the lights of San Francisco and it was just a little past midnight. If they could only have a few more hours of relatively quiet traffic, they’d hit Los Angeles Barracks about daylight and a five-day rest before the start of the next leg of the patrol. To either side of the bubble canopy that covered the cab of North American Thruway Patrol Car 56, two rivers of moving lights flowed with the police vehicle in the four variable speed lanes of the superhighway. But traffic densities were relatively light on all four of the southbound lanes. This was NAT 99-S—North American Thruway 99-South—stretching from Fairbanks, Alaska to San Diego. A half mile east of the high-speed southbound yellow lane was NAT 99-N, four identical half-mile-wide lanes of northbound traffic plus the northbound police lane.

In the left-hand bucket seat of Car 56—“Beulah” to her three-member crew—Patrol Sergeant Ben Martin relaxed with a cigarette. The lights of the much heavier northbound traffic silhouetted Martin’s crop-haired head.

The sixty-foot-long police cruiser glided smoothly down the center red emergency lane of the thruway at a steady hundred miles an hour, just keeping pace with the slowest vehicles in the slow white lane a mile to the right.

“What’s ‘fleshpot’ mean, Ben?” the Canadian asked.

The senior officer turned his broad-planed face and grinned. “You planning on finding one when we hit L.A.?”

Clay shrugged. “I’ve heard the expression and it sounds interesting. Only trouble is that I’ve never been able to find out exactly what it means. But after ten days in this oversized sardine can, almost anything would sound interesting.”

Below the chronometer, the big radiometer clicked off another mile marker as Car 56 rolled past the beamed signal from the automatic radio marker posts that lined the thruways from one terminal point to another. Beulah’s crew was now two thousand nine hundred four miles and nine and a half days out of Fairbanks with a half a day and a little more than four hundred miles to go to the end of this patrol.

Clay reached up to fiddle with the focus knob on one of the four video screens on his control panel. The screens transmitted views of each lane from tower cameras mounted above the lanes at every ten-mile interval.

“Anyone who takes a girl for an aircar ride in the middle of an Alaskan summer and then parks on the edge of a lake in the center of a swarm of mosquitoes,” Ben said, “has a built-in fleshpot.”

Clay grinned sheepishly, “Cut it out, pop. I still itch every time I think about it.”

Car 56 started a gentle climb into the hills to the north of the Golden Gate and the tracks rumbled slightly as the roadway passed over a high culvert. Ahead, wisps of fog drifted into the great white beam from the three-foot wide variable intensity headlight strip across the cruiser’s bow. Ben reached forward and shifted the light color spectrum into the yellow range.

A bank of speakers above their heads came to life. “Frisco Control to Car Nine One One.” Car 911 came back with a “go ahead.” Frisco Control continued. “You’ve got a bad one at Marker 3112. Cargo carrier took out a passenger vehicle in the blue. Take it Code Three. And watch the fog.”

“Car 911 on the way,” came the reply. Fifty miles ahead of Martin and Ferguson another Nor-Com police cruiser slammed forward, lifting from the roadway and its tracks as its fan drive impellers roared into action. Riding on an air pad, the cruiser’s twin jets kicked to near full power under the drive of the pair of one hundred and fifty thousand pound thrust engines.

The radio continued: “Frisco Control to all cars on 99 north and south from Markers 2900 to 3100. Heavy fog conditions now exist. Yellow lanes closing in two minutes. Speed reductions in force throughout designated area. Observe caution.”

The last transmission was broadcast on standard, all-vehicle frequency and was received by all cars and cargo carriers as well as NorCom police cruisers and work vehicles.

The fog was getting thicker and Ben again shifted the spectrum of the headlight deeper into the yellow. Car 56 topped the hill and the sky ahead was a solid glow of light from the buildings of Bahgdad-By-The-Bay. But the fog obscured any details beyond the limits of the brilliant headlight. On either side of the police cruiser, only the lights of vehicles running close to the east and west edges of the green and blue lanes could be detected.

The white lane traffic, with its 100-mile-an-hour speed limit, was lost in the fog as was most of the traffic in the green 100-to-150 mile an hour lane. To the left, the 300-mile-an-hour blue lane still carried its previous loads. Out beyond the vision of the police cruiser, huge flashing amber and then amber-and-red lights were in action in the ultra high speed yellow lane, warning drivers to slow down and shift back to the blue. Barriers had risen out of the crossovers to prevent any further traffic from moving into the yellow lane.

Again Frisco Control came on the air on police frequency. “All cars on 99 north and south. Additional information last broadcast. Video monitors to infra in one minute. Repeating, video monitors to infra in one minute.”

Ben and Clay reached for their work helmets beside their seats and pulled them over their heads. Each officer flipped down the infra-red filter mask and Ben flicked a switch on the arm control panel of his seat. Above the regular headlight strip on Beulah’s bow another strip, black to the naked eye, came to life and a brilliant band of infra-red light now cut through the night and fog. At the same instant, the video monitors shifted into the infra spectrum and the officers again had “eyeball” contact with the traffic.

“This is going to slow things down for a while,” Ben said. “You go hit the sack, kid, and I’ll take it until three.”

Clay nodded and climbed out of his seat, first racking his work helmet back into place beside the seat. “Want a cup of coffee before I turn in?” he asked.

“I could use one,” Ben replied.

The younger trooper turned to the door at the rear of the cab. He thumbed a switch killing the lights in the little galley just behind the cab before opening the door, then slid the door open and shut behind him before turning the lights back on.

Designed for long patrols on the thruways, that spanned the North American Continent from Mexico to the Arctic Circle, the thruway patrol cruisers were virtually self-sustaining units for their three-member crews while on the road. The tiny galley contained built-in range and oven, freezer locker and pull-down tables. Dishes, glasses and eating utensils were all of disposable plastic, eliminating the need for washing up after meals. Aft of the galley were the male crew quarters and then the huge engine room with its big Diesels for track drive and the jet and air-drive assemblies. Heading farther astern was a small but complete machine shop, while the last compartment contained the dispensary. This was headquarters for the third crew member, Medical-Surgical Officer Kelly Lightfoot, combination doctor, surgeon and nurse—and delightfully feminine.

Ferguson turned up the heat under the coffee flask racked on the range, then opened the door to the crew quarters. Double bunks were built into one wall and across the narrow passageway was the latrine and shower they shared with Kelly. During patrol, Kelly used one of the six hospital bunks in the dispensary for sleeping but the toilet and shower facilities were on a “knock before entering” basis. Clay tugged off his boots and then padded back in stocking feet to the galley to pour his partner a cup of now-hot coffee. Again he flicked off the lights in the galley before opening the door to the control cab. The glow of the city lights dimly illuminated the cab enough for Clay to make out the helmeted figure of the sergeant. He eased into the cab and set the coffee down in a recess in the arm of the senior officer’s control seat. “Watch it, Ben,” he warned, “it’s hot.”

“Thanks, Clay,” Ben said. “See you at three.”

Clay slid back out of the darkened cab and closed the galley door behind him. In the crew quarters, he dropped onto the lower bunk, reached up and set the alarm chrono mounted in the bottom of the overhead bunk to awaken him for his next watch at 0300, then rolled over and shut his eyes.

The muted throb of the big Diesels that drove Beulah’s track assembly at speeds up to two hundred miles an hour echoed faintly through the insulated walls of the bulkhead separating the engine room from the crew quarters. The sound lulled Clay to sleep in less than a minute.

Car 56 rounded a sweeping curve in the hills and a blaze of light struck the gun-metal blue hull as the lights of the Golden Gate Causeway came into view. Ben flipped up the infra-red filters. Solid banks of mercury tubes lined the length of the Causeway, cutting through the fog and turning night into day. The great bridge was in reality a roof over the bay, five miles wide. It was lighted underneath as well as above for surface shipping that sailed under its protective cover for miles around the old Embarcadero to South Bay. NAT 99 north and south soared across the bay and sped high above the eastern fringes of the great city, angling southeasterly towards the peninsula where it once again dropped down to the surface of the land. Although it was unseen from the heights of the thruway, Ben knew that a maze of lesser elevated highways crisscrossed the city fifty feet below, carrying local traffic to interchanges leading to the thruways north, south and east out of the city. Another belt of light to the east was the five-mile swath of NAT 50, entering the city from across the continent.

He held Beulah at a steady hundred as she glided along the edges of the bay. The radio sounded briefly as Car 911 called for a wrecker and ambulance. Traffic densities continued to rise in the southbound lanes as Ben knew they would. At this time of night, traffic would be leaving the city, heading for the bedroom communities to the north and south. Traffic had been light coming into San Francisco from the Marin side. Now it would increase, and with the densities would come the problems.

The fog hung like a porous pillow over the city, muffling sounds and grudgingly giving way only to the banks of mercury tubes that lined the thruway and the city express. ways and streets below. The intensities of light would hold the length of the peninsula to the southern limits of the city in the San Jose residential district. Then it would be infra driving until the fog lifted. The thruway curved gently to the right around the backwaters of the bay. Ahead, Ben saw the sweeping arches of the interchange that switched traffic from NAT 50 to NAT 99. He eased off power and let Beulah drop to a snail’s pace as she approached the interchange.

Just past the merger lanes, Ben pulled the cruiser off to the left-hand service strip and stopped. Since only police and other emergency vehicles were allowed in the red lane, there was no worry about other traffic. He pulled the work helmet from his head and ran his fingers over his crew-cut hair, then fished for a cigarette.

He thumbed the transmit button on his arm panel. “Car 56 to Frisco Control.”

“This is Frisco Control. Go ahead Five Six.”

“I’m taking five at the 50 dash 99 interchange,” Ben said. “Looks like a lot of traffic coming from across the bay so I thought I’d watch it here for a while.”

“Affirmative, Five Six,” the Frisco controller said. “South Frisco Check estimates white density seven hundred; green, nine fifty; blue, five hundred; yellow is closed to Gilroy. Report when you’re rolling again.”

“Affirmative,” Ben replied. He jotted the densities on his log. The estimates meant an average of seven hundred vehicles for every ten miles of roadway in the white lane, nine hundred and fifty vehicles for each ten miles of the green for the next hundred-mile stretch, and five hundred per ten miles of road in the blue. That meant more than twenty-one thousand vehicles moving south in the next hundred miles of NAT 99; more than fourteen thousand of them traveling at speeds between one and three hundred miles an hour. Each lane was a half-mile wide with sweep—

Bing crossovers to the next speed lane. Ben wasn’t too concerned about the green and white but a five hundred density in the blue on a foggy night could mean possible trouble. At least the ultra-high yellow, with its 500-mile-an-hour limit, was closed. He leaned back in his control seat and smoked quietly, keeping his eyes on the video monitors. Each screen had individual controls so that the patrol officer could monitor the ten-mile stretch of roadways he was in, or switch either to the next ten-mile block ahead or the block to his rear. Ben flicked the blue monitor to the block ahead, put the green and white on his own block. He started to cut out the yellow since that lane was closed but decided to leave it on, set for the present block.

Moisture from the fog-wet night beaded the plastic canopy of the cruiser and glistened on the roadway twelve feet beneath Ben’s feet. His eyes flicked from the monitors to the racing bands of lights on either side of the police vehicle. The brilliant lights of passenger cars and cargo carriers whipped past, leaving glowing dots of reddish light from their exhausts. Amber lights flashed up from the rear in the blue lane and the massive bulk of a 500-ton cargo carrier whipped by at a steady 250 miles an hour. In the instant it vanished, the driver of the carrier must have caught a glimpse of the patrol cruiser’s bulk parked beside the roadway. He flicked his running lights in a brief “hello” as he passed.

When he had finished his cigarette and coffee, Ben eased Beulah back into the police lane and called Frisco Control. “Car 56 to Frisco Control. We’re rolling.”

“Affirmative, Five Six,” Frisco acknowledged. “The fog’s getting thicker. Keep alert for any shipping that might wander off the bay. Frisco out.”

Ben grinned and settled comfortably into the control seat. His fingers rested lightly on the twin control panels that lined the arms of the seat. All essential vehicle controls were mounted for fingertip use with the exception of acceleration and braking controls that were in footrest bars beneath his feet. On emergency runs at speeds in excess of 200 miles an hour, safety cocoons snapped out of the seat backs and locked both driver and assistant driver into their seats, leaving only their hands, feet and face clear. A band across the forehead kept their heads locked against the cushioned seat back. Other cocoons were located throughout the sixty-foot length of the cruiser in case a crew member was away from his or her regular station when sudden acceleration was needed.

Ben pushed Beulah up to a leisurely 75 and eased into the center of the police lane. He glanced over at the radiometer as it clicked to mile marker 2944. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a flash on his yellow lane monitor. By the time he turned to look at the screen, the flash was gone. The senior patrolman started doing several things at once. Beulah surged forward under Diesel drive to 150 miles an hour while Ben reached over and switched the yellow monitor to the next ten-mile scanning block and, at the same time, called Frisco Control. The screen showed a lone vehicle barreling down the yellow lane, ignoring the flashing amber and red lights and arrows indicating the lane was to be vacated.

“Frisco Control, this is Car 56. I have a vehicle in the yellow,” Ben called.

“This is Frisco. The yellow is closed, Five Six. That car has no business in there. What’s the location?”

Ben glanced at the radiometer. “He’s past 2950 and he looks like he’s wide open; probably near 2960 now.”

“Get him outta there Five Six,” the Frisco controller yelled. “We’ve been routing into the yellow around 3112 to clear traffic for 911’s accident. That idiot may plow right into them.”

Ben slammed into high. A bullhorn began blaring throughout the vehicle and Ben’s safety cocoon snapped shut, locking him into his seat. In both the crew quarters and dispensary, similar horizontal cocoons slapped down on the sleeping forms of Clay Ferguson and Kelly Lightfoot. Car 56 lifted from the roadway on its airpad as synchromechanisms meshed both the impeller and ramjet thrusts. In five seconds Beulah was hitting three hundred fifty miles an hour and still accelerating. From the bow, piercing red emergency lights were flashing and both an outside and radio broadcast siren screamed. Beulah came roaring into the crossover to the blue lane as vehicles scattered to give her room. Still holding at close to four hundred, Ben sailed across the two-foot rounded curbing between the blue and yellow lanes and straightened out in pursuit of the racing vehicle. Ahead, the exhausts of the speeding car were visible to his naked eye. “I’ve got him in sight,” Ben reported. “He’s on air-jet lift and he’s weaving all over the road. Looks like a drunk.”

“Get him, Five Six,” Frisco exhorted. “You can’t herd him into the blue either. That’s where the mess is now. Car 911, Car Nine One One, this is Frisco Control.”

“Car 911 affirmative,” came the reply. “We hear. We’re trying to get these vehicles outta here but I’ve got this wrecker and a pile of junk halfway across the lane. We’ll try. But stop him if you can, Five Six.”

“Affirmative,” Ben replied. His foot jammed to the floor and Beulah rammed towards peak speed. In seconds the cruiser was less than two hundred yards behind the speeder. Ben opened his mike on standard frequency. “You are directed to stop immediately. This is a Thruway Patrol order,” Ben said. He peered at the weaving vehicle. “I repeat, you in the Cadillaire. This is a Patrol vehicle. Stop immediately.”

The speeding car veered off to the right but didn’t slow its speed. Ben glanced up at the blue and yellow monitors. The lights of the accident scene ahead and the shifting traffic were just coming into view on the screens.

The patrolman whipped the cruiser abreast of the speeder and then pulled ahead. Beulah was hitting 590. Ben fingered the emergency afterburner and the cruiser jumped ahead. When Beulah was one hundred yards in front of the Cadillaire, Ben touched another switch. Twin ports in Beulah’s stern snapped open and a pair of flared nozzles popped out. Like a giant squid spewing inky secretion to blind its foe, a dense black cloud sprayed from the twin nozzles. Thousands of tiny, dark plastic flakes shot out under high pressure into the night air, and into the path of the speeding Cadillaire. The car plunged into the cloud and the impact-adhesive plastic slammed against the friction-heated face of the vehicle. The flakes were designed for adhesion only under heat and impact. The hurtling car created both forces and the plastic welded to the entire front surface of the vehicle, covering the driver’s canopy, lights and prow, building up in a distorted mass around the nose of the car. Thousands more particles were sucked into the impeller air intake to adhere to the balanced fan blades and turn them into wildly vibrating clubs. The car veered and lost speed as the air-pad system fouled and then failed. Inside the now-blinded bubble, the driver panicked and hit the brakes the instant the wheels were back to the surface. Brake locks and bearings glowed red under the sudden friction and more of the plastic particles built up along the underside of the Cadillaire. coating the wheels and wheel-wells in a steady built-up mass of welded plastic until the wheels could no longer turn. A rear tire smoked and then blew. A second later the car rocked to a halt.

The moment the impellers of the Cadillaire fouled, Ben whipped Beulah to the left, angling for the outer railing of the lane. He fired all retrojets. Less than five miles ahead was the barrier that blocked the lane to allow traffic to be diverted around the cargo-passenger accident.

Ben. Clay and Kelly momentarily blacked out under the force of ten gees as Beulah lost speed. The cruiser dropped to her tracks and brakes added to the retrojet effect. Sliding like a mammoth on ice, Beulah shrieked to a stop less than a hundred feet from the barrier. The safety cocoons snapped open.

Before Ben could get the cruiser turned around and headed back to the stalled Cadillaire Clay was out of his bunk and in his seat in the cab. “What’s up?” he asked.

“Speeder,” Ben snapped, “probably drunk.” He flicked to intercom.

“Kelly,” he called, “you O.K.?”

“I’m fine,” Kelly replied. “You need me, Ben?”

“Better be ready,” he replied, “I think this one’s a drunk and I want him tested right now if he is. Also, he might be off his rocker. Stand by, princess.”

Ferguson was down the steps from the cab deck to the side hatch, waiting for Ben to bring the cruiser to a halt. His helmet was on and he had buckled a pistol belt around his blue uniform coveralls.

“Frisco Control, this is Car 56,” Ben reported. “We got ‘em but you better get a surfacing and vacuum cleanup crew out here. We had to ‘stop cloud’ him and we dug up a little road getting ourselves stopped.”

“Madre de Dios,” Car 911’s patrolman broke in, “I theenk you never stop. I weel light candles to the Virgin for you, Five Seex.”

Ben grinned at the Spanish accent. NorCom’s officers were drawn from the three nations of the North American Thruway Compact, Mexico, the United States and Canada and the teams were intermingled from one end of the continent to the other.

“Gracias, amigo,” he called back, “de nada.”

Ben brought Beulah to a halt with her bow aimed at the Cadillaire. In the yellow glare of the headlight, a man was staggering around the front end of the vehicle, pawing at the soft mass of warm plastic molded to the front of the car. “Check the car, Clay,” he called as he headed for the man on foot. One of the inviolate laws of the Thruway was that no one but a NorCom officer or worker ever stepped out of his or her vehicle on a Thruway without express permission of an officer, except in the case of fire or explosion. At speeds from one to five hundred miles an hour, a pedestrian’s life expectancy could be measured in milliseconds.

Ferguson moved to the side of the car and flashed his light through the open driver’s hatch. A woman sat in the front passenger seat and another couple were in the rear seat.

Ben approached the wavy-haired blond man at the front of the car.

“You the driver of this vehicle?” Ben asked.

The man spun around, a silly grin on his face. “In a manner of speaking, you might say that t’ be more correct officer, I WAS the driver of this now-thoroughly fouled-up Caddy.”

Ben eyed the man. The driver, dressed in a dinner jacket, pulled at his collar, knocking his tie askew. A jewel-studded watch flashed in the lights of the police cruiser as the man ran his hands through his hair.

“May I see your driver’s permit, please?” Ben asked.

“Oh, come off it, officer,” the man smiled and slumped against the front of the car. “We had a fine HP run there for a while and you won. Not fairly, but you won, nevertheless. Good show. But let’s not get stuffy about it, eh?”

“I repeat,” Ben said in a level tone, “show me your permit. This is a Thruway. I am a Patrol officer. You have violated the law. And this is no game.”

The tall blond stared owlishly at Ben, a half-amused smile on his lips. “You really are going to try and be stuffy about this, aren’t you?” he queried.

Ben’s mouth tightened. “Kelly,” he called over the helmet intercom.

“I’ve been listening, Ben,” the medical-surgical officer replied. “Bring him in. I’m ready for him.”

Ben reached for the man’s arm. “If you’ll just come with me, mister.”

The man yanked his arm from Ben’s grip. “I’ll thank you to take your han’s off me, officer. I’m no common criminal, nor do I intend to be treated like one. That’s the trouble with you public servants. Give you a little authority and you think you can treat anyone like a public enemy.” He straightened himself up with a dignified air that was marred by a sudden loss of balance that sent him stumbling into Ben’s arms. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Must be all this fresh air. Not used to it in such big doses.”

Ben hauled the driver upright and turned him so that he was facing down the roadway in the direction of the harrier a mile away. He pointed towards the barrier and the traffic moving from the blue to the yellow lane.

“See that,” Ben asked. The man nodded mutely. “Do you have any idea how fast you were traveling?”

The driver blinked and shrugged. “Oh, three fifty, may be four hundred. But I had perfect control, absolutely perfect control,” he replied.

Ben snorted. “I don’t know if you have any idea how long it takes for a vehicle to come to a complete stop from four hundred miles an hour. For your information, you were traveling much closer to six hundred than four hundred. In any case, five seconds more and you would have slammed through that barrier and killed yourself and everyone in your car. That’s bad enough, but in all probability, you’d have taken along a half dozen innocent occupants in those other cars.”

“This is the yellow lane,” the driver cried indignantly. “They have no business moving slow as that in this lane.”

“And if you had an iota of brains in your head,” Ben retorted, “you’d have seen the signals ordering you off the yellow lane forty miles back and you’d have obeyed my orders to stop. Now come on.”

He took the man by the arm and led him around to the rear of the cruiser where Kelly had lowered the ramp leading into the dispensary. Kelly was waiting beside the surgery table, hypo poised. Beside the table stood the cruiser’s diagnostican. The compact device was capable of analyzing virtually all known human ailments and diagnosing every possible bodily injury. At the sight of the table and equipment, the blond man stopped and pulled back in Ben’s grip.

“What’s this?” he demanded.

“We have to run a blood-alcohol test,” Ben replied. “Now if you’ll just lie down on—”

The young man began struggling. “Oh no you don’t,” he yelled. “I’m not going to be subject to this kind of treatment. You’ll hear about—”

Kelly had moved to his side and with a deft movement, slipped his sleeve back. She pressed the hypogun briefly against the skin. The man slumped in Ben’s arms.

“Get him on the table,” Kelly ordered. Ben heaved the inert body onto the table and Kelly made the necessary attachments. A blood analyzer needle went into an arm vein and then Kelly punched a series of buttons. Inside the machine, muted clicks indicated the data was being punched onto tapes. One copy of the tape remained sealed in the machine until the end of patrol when it was opened by a reviewing board. Another copy spewed from the key-punch orifice.

Kelly read the tape. “Two point eight five seven,” she said. “This guy’s so drunk he should be dead.” Ben nodded grimly. “Bring him around, Kelly.”

She picked up another hypogun from a rack and sprayed it into the man’s bared arm. In a moment his eyes flickered and then opened. He blinked and tried to sit up and then retched. Kelly slapped a pan under his chin a split second before he vomited.

When the spasm had passed, the man sat up. Ben looked at him with disgust.

“You want something for that hangover?” he asked. The man nodded. Kelly fired another hypo into his arm and seconds later his face brightened. He smiled at Kelly.

“Great stuff, that,” he said. “Should keep Florence Nightingale with me on all parties.”

“Now that you can think straight,” Ben said, “let’s get this on record. I’m Patrol Sergeant Ben Martin. You are in the dispensary of Thruway Patrol Car 56 and I now formally tell you that you are under arrest. I am charging you with driving while under the influence of alcohol, reckless driving, ignoring instructions of the Thruway-Authority, ignoring the lawful orders of a Patrol officer and leaving the confines of your vehicle while on a Thruway. I further warn you that anything you say can be used in evidence against you in a court of law.”

The man stared up at Ben in amazement. Suddenly he began to laugh.

“Why you really think you’re going to arrest me,” he said with a chuckle. He arose unsteadily from the table and grabbed for support. “This is quite ridiculous, you know, but I suppose it is my fault. You obviously don’t know who I am.”

“No, I don’t,” Ben admitted, “but that’s what I’ve been asking you for the past ten minutes. Now may I see your driver’s license, please?”

“By all means, officer,” the blond man said with a pleasant and confident laugh, “by all means.” He fished his wallet from a pocket and handed it to the patrolman.

“Please remove your license from the wallet. sir.” Ben requested. The man stopped laughing and stared at Ben’s craggy face for a moment, then slid the metallic driver tag from the wallet and handed it across.

“There you are, officer,” he said. “Now you know. Kevin Shellwood. That’s who I am.”

Ben took the license and pulled his citation book from a pocket. He slipped the tag into a pocket of the citation book and unclipped a stylus from his top coverall pocket.

“Hey, wait a minute,” the blond man protested. “Maybe you don’t understand. I’m Kevin Shellwood.” He peered at Ben’s unmoved face. “Perhaps you’ve heard of my father. Quentin Shellwood? Shellwood Electronics? Chairman of the Continental Bank. President’s right han’ man? I’m his very own, lone and beloved son, tha’s who I am.”

Clay appeared at the door of the dispensary. “Ben, what do you want me to do with those other people in the car? They’re pretty loaded.”

“Be with you in a minute,” Ben said, writing on the citation pad.

“Now hold on there, sergeant,” Shellwood protested. “Perhaps I did get a little out of line, but there’s no need for all this difficulty. Really there isn’t.” He fumbled with his wallet and withdrew a sheaf of bills and laid them on the surgery table.

“Now let’s be reasonable about this little matter,” he said. He pointed to the pile of bills. “There’s at least six thousand there. Now I know you ladies and gentlemen are notoriously underpaid public servants. Risk your necks and all that sort of thing, very little to show for it. This would make better than two thousand apiece and if you’ll just give me your names, when I get to L.A. I’ll double it. In cash, of course.”

The three crew members eyed Shellwood. The man moved forward with a confident smile. “I’ll just pick up my things now and get out of your way, officer. The girls have enough cash to get us a cab to L.A. No hard feelings. old boy.”

He stuck out his palm to shake Ben’s hand. In the next instant a handcuff snapped on his wrist, he was spun around and the second cuff snapped on his other wrist behind his back.

Ben spun Shellwood back around. “Mr. Shellwood, I now further charge you with attempting to bribe three officers of the Thruway Patrol.”

Sheliwood’s face dissolved. “You’re making a terrible mistake, officer,” he cried. “You have no idea how bad a mistake you’ve made. You know you can’t make this stick. And my father is a very vengeful man. This will mean your jobs, you know that, don’t you?”

Ben ignored his protestations and frisked Shellwood, removing his belt, lighter, watch and necktie. In the presence of the other two crew members, he counted the cash, then put the entire contents of the wallet and Shellwood’s other possessions into a sealed plastic bag. He wrote a detailed receipt for the items and stuffed it into Shellwood coat pocket.

“Clay,” Ben ordered, “take Mr. Shellwood forward and lock him up. Then meet me at the car and let’s get this mess cleaned up.”

Ferguson took the stunned Shellwood by the arm and led him out of the dispensary and around to the front of the cruiser. The trooper palmed a panel and a door opened in the bow. Inside were two fold-up bunks, a toilet and water tap. There was no handle on the inside of the door. A single light was recessed into the ceiling next to a small covered grill. Ferguson unlocked the cuffs and shoved Shellwood into the brig and slammed the door before the man could protest or turn around.

Clay walked back to the disabled Cadillaire where Ben was talking with the three occupants. “Now you just stay in there, Mr. Hawks, until we get this vehicle off the roadway. Then you and the ladies can leave. I’ll see that you get transportation to the nearest ‘phone. But don’t get out of that car or I’ll have to put you under arrest, too.”

“But what about Kevin?” the man in the back seat asked.

“Mr. Shellwood is under arrest,” Ben replied, “and he’ll have to remain in custody for the time being.”

“Why that’s utterly ridiculous, officer,” the woman in the front seat protested. “You just don’t arrest Kevin Shellwood like a common criminal. Why, he’s a …a gentleman!”

Ben leaned down and looked intently at the woman. “M’am” he said quietly, “I have no doubt that Mr. Shellwood’s a gentleman. But Mr. Shellwood is also the gentle. man who in another five seconds would have killed you like a bug squashed against a windshield.” He pointed to the barrier ahead.

The woman gasped and put her hand to her mouth, then lapsed into ashen-faced silence.

Ben walked around to the front of the car and jotted the license number on his citation pad. Before returning to the cruiser, he reached into the car and removed the car registration tab from its rack on the dash.

Back in Beulah’s cab, he got on the radio.

“Frisco Control, this is Car 56. Send me one wrecker and permission for three passengers to ride wrecker to nearest off-road ‘phone. Also, I have the driver in custody on `DWI’ and assorted other goodies. Where shall I take him?”

“Car 56 this is Frisco Control. Wrecker on the way with O.K. for riders. Where does your driver reside?” Ben glanced at the license.

“1421 Claremont Drive, Malibu Beach, California,” he replied.

“Have you checked for previous violations?” Frisco asked.

“Not yet.”

“Check it out and then report back.”

“Affirmative,” Ben replied. He slipped the driver’s license from his citation pad and inserted it into a slot in the cruiser’s instrument panel. The vehicle registration tag went into an identical slot beside the first one. Then he pushed a button above each slot. A magnetic reader and auto-transmitter scanned the magnetic symbols implanted in the tags. The information was fed simultaneously to Continental Headquarters records division at Colorado Springs. There, computers compared the information on the driver permit with all previous citations ever issued by a NorCom unit. The vehicle registration tag also was checked for validity.

A light above the registration slot flashed green, indicating the registration was in order. But the light above the permit slot turned amber, indicating a previous but minor violation.

Barring the current difficulties that Shellwood was in, had the registration light turned red, showing improper or illegal registration, he would have immediately been arrested. The driver permit light could only have been green or amber. Green would have meant no previous convictions. Had he had two such violations he would not have had a valid license. It would have been a forgery and brought equally quick arrest.

In this age of five-hundred-mile-an-hour speeds, leniency led only to death. NorCom courts, that acknowledged no state or national authority within the three nations of the compact, were absolute in their justice. One major violation and a driver was barred from the Thruways for life, possibly fined and jailed as well. Two minor violations brought the same result. If convicted, Kevin Shellwood was through driving for life.

Ben called back to Frisco.

“He’s got a previous minor,” he reported.

“Take him on into L.A.,” Frisco Control replied. “The fog’s lifting now and you can make good time down the red lane. I’d take you off the board except for a really bad mess since you’re almost at the end of your patrol anyway,”

“Thanks,” Ben said with a touch of bitterness, “if we hurry, we might get him down there and through court before we have to pull out again. This shoots any rest period for us. By the way, this guy says he’s a wheel and that we can’t do this to him.”

“They all say that,” the Frisco controller laughed. “Who is he?”

“Kevin Shellwood,” Ben replied.

“Shellwood Electronics?” the controller asked.

“The old man’s son,” Ben replied.

“He really IS somebody,” Frisco replied. “You’ve bought yourself a bundle of trouble tonight. Lots o’ luck.”

“Yeah,” Ben replied thoughtfully, “thanks.”

Ten minutes later the lights of a bulky NorCom wrecker cut down the police lane and swung to the left, guided by the flashing warning lights on Beulah. Clay watched with a grin as the two evening-gowned women and their well-lubricated escort gingerly stepped up into the hatchway of the wrecker. The wrecker’s stern crane clamps swung out and locked onto the Cadillaire. The entire vehicle was lifted into the air and another magnaclamp slapped it tight against the rear of the wrecker. The vehicle swung around and headed back up the emergency lane.

Clay swung up into the cab and slid into his seat. Ben was still writing up his report. The galley door opened and Kelly came into the cab and plumped down on the jump seat between the two troopers.

Ahead, the last of the earlier accident debris had been cleaned up and traffic once again was moving along the blue. Car 911 rolled across the median and alongside Beulah. The senior trooper flicked the car-to-car radio.

“Real nice work, Ben,” he said. “That could have been a mess if you hadn’t corraled them before they hit the barrier.”

The younger Mexican trooper cut in. “I think maybe you ride rodeo sometime, amigo,” he said, “like, what you call it—bulldozering!”

Ben smiled. “More like calf-roping. Well, we’ve got our calf thrown and tied. Trouble is, that now this little calf is beginning to look more like a tiger cub.”

“So I heard,” 911’s senior officer said. “Sorry it had to be one of those but if there’s any question, we’ll back you to the limit.”

Ben waved. “Thanks. I think we’ll roll it now. Will you take a look at that roadway where we stopped? I was serious when I told Frisco it might be torn up a bit. If it is, better get a surfacing crew on it tonight.”

“Right,” the other officer replied. “We’ll handle it. And thanks again.”

The other cruiser pulled away and rolled slowly to the scene of Beulah’s gut-rending halt. As Clay put Beulah in motion he saw the side hatch open and one of the 911’s officers start an inspection of the paving surface. Even light corrugations could cause serious problems to vehicles traveling in excess of three hundred miles an hour.

Clay angled Car 56 back to the center police lane and again headed south. Ben completed his report and laid his clipboard down. Clay had the cruiser rolling just over a hundred.

“Kick ‘er in the pants, kid,” Ben said, “but keep her in track speed.”

Clay pressed the foot feed and Beulah lunged up to 190. He eased back on the acceleration and held the car at 195, just under the speed where the synchrosystem would cut in the fans and jets—and would require safety cocoon driving.

The copper-haired medical officer looked at Martin. “What happens now, Ben?”

Ben settled back and fished out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and passed them to her. When they had lighted up, he smoked thoughtfully for a couple of minutes before answering.

“We take our boy into L.A.,” he said, “turn him over to the prosecutor and from then on it’s out of our hands.”

Kelly hunched forward on the jump seat, chin in hands and peered into the dark of the Thruway.

“I hope it’s that easy,” she murmured. “I just hope it’s that easy.”

They were out of the Bay area fog belt and traffic had reopened on all lanes. Beulah rumbled along at a steady 195, moving faster than the white and green lane flow but still under the thundering speeds of the blue and yellow lanes to the left. The radiometer clicked off better than three miles every minute and at fifty-mile intervals, the cruiser flashed under arching crossovers that carried traffic across the police lane from green to blue and back. The radio chattered with instructions for other patrol units along the Thruway. Just north of Bakersfield, Beulah rolled past another cruiser, idling along on patrol at a mere hundred miles an hour. Normally, one car never passed another without specific leap-frog orders from Control. But Car 56 was officially off the Patrol board, barring major emergency. Dawn was beginning to lighten the eastern skies and already densities were building up for the work day in the sprawling metropolis of the Southland. At mileage marker 3300 control shifted from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Controller came on the air at 0400 with the density reports for all Thruways leading into the nation’s largest city.

Kelly went back to her dispensary for another couple of hours sleep, first stopping in the galley to put a fresh pot of coffee on the range for the two troopers.

Ben had taken over controls and Clay pored over the Patrol records, making final entries and notations for the engineering crews that would take Beulah for a checkup at the Los Angeles Barracks.

Suddenly the floor beneath their feet resounded to a pounding from the brig. Clay swung over and lifted the hatch that covered the grill in the ceiling of the detention cell. Kevin Shellwood peered up at them.

“Is the condemned prisoner allowed to have a final cigarette before the execution?” Shellwood asked.

Clay pulled out his pack and lighted a cigarette and then handed it down through the grill to the prisoner. “Comfy down there?” he asked.

Shellwood dragged gratefully on the cigarette. “Oh, it’s delightful, just delightful,” he said. “Although I can’t say much for your taste in interior decorating. How about sending the hostess up to keep me company? Now that’s one bit of decoration on this tub that I really approve of.”

“Sorry,” Clay quipped, “the hostess doesn’t mingle with steerage passengers. Next time, travel first-class. Come to think of it, the only traveling you’ll be doing from now on is as a passenger.”

He started to close the hatch. “Wait,” Shellwood cried. “You two still determined to take me in?”

Ben glanced down to the open hatch. “We have no choice, Shellwood. I’m sorry.”

Shellwood shrugged. “Oh well, have your fun now. I’ll have mine when we get to your headquarters. Thanks for the cigarette. I may be able to do the same for you in a day or so.”

Clay slammed the hatch. “I’d like to put my foot right through his smug face,” he growled. “That kid is due for a big surprise when he shows up in court.”

“Don’t let him get you,” Ben said. “His kind have always existed. They think that money and influence is the answer to everything and that laws are made for everyone else but themselves.

“As far as traffic laws are concerned, I guess before the Thruways, a man with enough money and power could buy his way out of jams. Every state had different traffic laws and you had a thousand different enforcement agencies, from town constables to individual state troopers. The worst part though, wasn’t in the enforcement of the law—it was in the administration.”

“How so?” Clay inquired.

“Well, you get the same thing today off the thruways and on state highways where we have no jurisdiction,”

Ben replied. “No matter how diligent a cop is about enforcing the law, in the final analysis it’s up to the judge to determine the degree of punishment. And with all kinds of pressures on local judges and each with his own interpretation of what the law means, a driver charged with reckless operation in one state could get off with a twenty-five dollar fine and suspended sentence and lose his license and get socked a couple of hundred bucks in the next state. And probably pull thirty days in j ail.

“The same thing applies depending on who the defendant might be. A judge who lives in a community and is either elected to office or appointed at the pleasure of the current administration sometimes thinks twice before he throws the book at the mayor’s son. But he doesn’t have a bit of compunction about throwing the same book for the same charge under identical conditions at some poor slob who hauls garbage for a living.”

Even though Car 56 was officially off patrol, force of habit kept Clay’s eyes flicking to the monitor screens in front of him. All lanes were filling fast in the early summer dawn and already it was light enough to make out the shapes of the speeding passenger cars and cargo carriers. Most of the traffic now was passenger vehicles heading into the heart of the city to places of work. The big rigs did their traveling at night to hit the early morning dock loadings and there was just a scattering of trucks in the green and blue lanes.

He made an adjustment on his blue monitor to throw it into the block ahead and sat back. “One thing I remember from the academy,” he mused, “was that no NorCom judge shall sit in judgment if he has had less than ten years of actual Patrol duty. That makes real sense, when you think about it. A guy who has had to help scrape some citizen off the side of a cargo carrier, has no illusions about the safety of the road when an idiot gets turned loose behind a Control column.”

“That was the main purpose in setting up the NorCom courts,” Ben said. “We have no political allegiances to either state or country; our appointments are for life or unless we’re fired for real cause, or resign.

“Also, it’s kinda nice to think that when you get too old to wheel one of these tin buckets around, there’s a chance to move up the ladder to a quieter and better paying slot. Not that I’ll ever make it,” he added with a rueful smile.

The radiometer clicked to 3510. They were inside the city limits of Los Angeles and Ben eased back and let Beulah drop to a hundred. Overhead, two heavy Thruway air survey jet ‘copters lazed along a hundred feet above the jammed Thruway, watching the flow of traffic and sending a running report to Los Angeles. Amber lights began flashing alongside the blue lanes, indicating overcrowding ahead and signaling a fifty-mile an hour slowdown for all vehicles until the jam cleared. Barriers rose out of the crossovers to prevent more green speed cars from moving into the already congested lane.

Suddenly the radio came to life. “L.A. Control this is Chopper 77. There’s a light-over-dark green sedan cutting back from the yellow at about Marker 3540. He’s going too fast.”

L.A. Control cut in. “Car 412, this is L.A. Control. What’s your location?”

“This is Four Twelve. We’re at 3568.”

“Drop back and cut into the blue and stop that vehicle, Four Twelve,” L.A. Control ordered. “Chopper 77 continue to monitor.”

“That guy’s gonna kill somebody,” the officer in the aerial cruiser shouted. “Get back fast, Four Twelve. He’s cutting through traffic like a maniac.”

Ben reached down and opened the brig hatch. “Lie down on your bunk, Shellwood,” he ordered. “Don’t argue or you’ll be pasted against the bulkhead in just two seconds.”

The prisoner threw him one quick look and then leaped for the bunk.

Ben slammed the hatch and flicked his transmit switch. “L.A. Control this is Car 56. We are now at 3515. Shall we pursue?”

“Affirmative,” Control snapped back.

The bullhorn blared throughout the car as Ben slammed all drives full forward. Safety cocoons snapped shut on both officers in the cab and around the reclining form of the prisoner in the brig bunk. Aft, in the dispensary, Kelly made a leap for a corner cocoon at the first note of the bullhorn. With a screaming roar, Beulah’s lift fans and jets thundered into action and rocketed the 250-ton police cruiser down the emergency lane.

Overhead, the two police air cruisers were hanging over the dense mass of traffic in the blue lane. “Car 56, this is Chopper 42. Watch yourself when you come into the blue. There’s no room for you at the crossover. Pick your own hole in the median.”

“Affirmative,” Ben replied. “Where is the subject vehicle now?”

“He’s at about 3555.”

“I have him on the monitor, Ben,” Clay said.

“Five Six this is Car 412. We’re coming north. Watch out for us.”

“Affirmative,” Ben called out.

“Watchout, you fool,” the voice of the air patrolman screamed. “That does it.”

Five miles ahead of the hurtling police cruisers, a billowing ball ‘of black smoke and red flame blossomed into the early morning sunlight as the speeder slammed into a jam of other cars. One explosion followed another in rapid succession until the entire blue lane seemed to dissolve into a blanket of fire and smoke. Ben cut power and punched the retrojets and Beulah came slamming back down onto her tracks at two hundred miles an hour and then continued to lose speed.

A mile away, Car 412 came rushing into view, losing speed and turning at the same time that Ben began twisting Beulah towards the carnage on the highway up ahead. “L.A. Control this is Chopper 77. Get us everything you can. We’ve got a major fire and major injuries and fatalities. Divert all blue and yellow. Clear ‘em fast.”

The two ground cruisers eased their way through the mass of halted and burning vehicles, trying to reach the heart of the holocaust. In the dispensary, Kelly unshipped the three collapsible autolitters racked beside the rear ramp, then slipped on her work helmet and rolled her mobile field kit to the door.

Thick, oily smoke covered the entire scene, blinding the officers as they tried to probe their big car into the lane. The quiet morning air held not a breath of breeze to dispel the smoke.

“Choppers this is Car 56,” Ben called. “Can you get low enough for your fans to blow some of this smoke away?”

“We’ll try,” came the answer, “but it’ll spread the flames, too.”

“Foam it at the same time,” Ben called. “We’ve got to see what we’re doing,”

More explosions ripped the air and a huge chunk of metal came flying out of the smoke and slammed off the impervious hull of the police cruiser. Clay had already left his seat and was standing in a retractable fire control turret rising out of the engine room. The cruiser’s foam nozzles were already out.

A smashed car blocked Beulah’s way and Ben pivoted the huge cruiser to the left.

Subconsciously, he heard L.A. Control ordering cars, choppers, wreckers, fire equipment, ambulances and hospital units into the area. Three cruisers working NAT 99 north within a fifty-mile radius of the disaster already had crossed the half-mile wide divider and were racing to the scene.

Flames erupted from out of the smoke ahead of Beulah and before Ben could give the order, Clay had the fire turret up and was laying a blanket of foam on the fire. The smoke began to billow and suddenly there was a clear view through the wreckage as the two police jet choppers hovered and turned their big blades on the fire.

To his right, Ben saw the other police cruiser a hundred yards away, spewing foam over the burning cars and pools of jet fuel burning on the Thruway. The tiro choppers maneuvered into position above the ground cruisers and kept blowing the fire away from the slowing police cars.

A figure burst out of the wall of smoke and flame ahead and ran staggeringly towards the cruiser, clothing in flames.

“Clay,” Ben yelled, “hit him.”

In the fire control turret, Clay slammed a valve back to minimal pressure and aimed the nozzle at the flaming figure. A thin stream of foam struck the man, knocking him down. He lay on the ground, writhing in pain. Ben brought Beulah to a halt.

“Kelly,” he roared, “open it up. I’m going out and bring one in.”

The trooper jumped down the steps and out the side hatch of the cruiser to be met by a roaring wall of heat. Above him, the chopper pilot kept a steady air current blowing the flames away from the car as Ben waded through the oxygen-absorbing foam to the body of the fire victim. He reached down to grab the man’s body and bumped into Kelly fighting her way to his side with an autolitter. Ben started to say something and then just heaved the body of the man onto the litter and shoved both Kelly and the litter back towards the cruiser. The motor-driven litter with its radio homing device, rolled through the muck to the rear ramp of the cruiser, with Kelly riding the rear bar. Ben fought his way back to Beulah under a covering canopy of foam from Clay’s turret.

He slammed the door shut and scrambled back up the steps and into the control seat. Four more choppers arrived overhead and began dumping bentonite and foam on the shards of burning wreckage.

He moved Beulah ahead through the maze of smoldering and foam-covered vehicles.

“Car 56 to Chopper 77,” he panted, “how close are we now to the center of this mess?”

“Hard to say, Five Six,” the chopper officer answered. “Looks like you’re about a hundred yards north and a couple of hundred west. But this thing spread over into the yellow after that first impact. We’ve got a lot of equipment in here now. Looks like the fires should be out in another minute or two.”

“L.A. Control to Cars 56 and 412. Hold your positions and prepare to assist ambulance and wrecker rescue operations,” came the next order. Ben acknowledged and brought Beulah to a halt again, another hundred yards closer to the heart of the disaster. The smoke had cleared considerably to a thin haze and a quarter of a mile south of Car 412, Ben could see two other cruisers working their way towards them, squirting foam on the last wisps of fire that flickered from burning cars.

“Secure your turret, Clay,” the senior trooper ordered, “then let’s see what we can do in this mess.”

The fire turret retracted into the hull and Clay moved up to the cab. As he was donning his helmet, Shellwood pounded on the brig hatch. Ben lifted the cover.

“What’s happening, officer?” The frightened face of the prisoner peered up at him. “I heard the explosions and then it got hot as hell down here. What’s going on?”

Ben glanced at his partner. Clay nodded.

“There’s been a major accident, Mr. Shellwood,” Ben said. “We’ve got people hurt, dead and dying all over the thruway. Both Trooper Ferguson and myself will have to leave the car to assist. I don’t like leaving you in there with no one to move the vehicle or protect you if anything else should happen, although I don’t think it will. Now, I’ll let you out of there temporarily, Mr. Shellwood, if I have your word that you will not try to escape from custody. I might point out that it would be a very foolish thing for you to attempt, in light of the other charges against you and that it would be very easy for us to find you again. Do I have your word?”

“You have it, I swear it,” Shellwood answered earnestly. Ben nodded at the junior trooper. Ferguson slid down the steps and out the hatch. He opened the door of the brig and stood back. Shellwood stepped out and stopped dead, his face ashen as he surveyed what looked like a scene from Dante’s “Inferno.”

Clay took him gently by the arm and led him around to the cab entrance and helped him up the steps.

Ben was buckling his helmet chin strap. He indicated the jump seat between the two control seats. “Sit there, Mr. Shellwood and don’t touch anything or attempt to leave this cab. The only exception to this order is in the event that there should be another explosion and fire would again come close to the car. In that case, you may go back through this door,” he indicated the entrance to the galley, “and follow the passageway back to the dispensary where Officer Lightfoot will give you further instructions,”

Shellwood nodded and sat down, staring out through the canopy bubble at the terrible scene. Ben jumped down the steps and out the hatch. Clay hesitated and then tossed Shellwood a pack of cigarettes. “Here,” he said, “the matches are on the arm of my seat.” He followed Martin out the hatch.

The heat, along with the smoke, had abated. Underfoot was a thick scum of foam and oil. The two officers skidded and slipped around to the rear of the cruiser.

“Kelly,” Ben called on helmet radio, “open up and send out the litters.”

A second later, the dispensary ramp flipped open and the three autolitters came rolling out, homing on the beacon signal in the patrolman’s helmet. Kelly waved and turned back to the still form on the surgery table.

“Might as well start close and work our way out,”

Ben said, indicating the nearest of the smashed and smoldering vehicles.

The two troopers plodded through the muck with litters trailing behind like trained elephants. The closest vehicle was turned on its side. Clay clambered up and peered into the smoking interior. The charred bodies of two men lay huddled against the far side. Clay eased back to the ground. “Two dead,” he said, “none alive.”

They threaded their way around a pile of smashed pieces, kicking some out of the way to make room for the litters. Next was a tangled heap of what appeared to be two or possibly three cars. It was virtually impossible to distinguish the parts of one from the others. The topmost vehicle held the smashed and burned bodies of three more men. Ben squeezed between chunks of crumpled paneling to peer into the second car. The mangled body of a man was slumped over in the seat and there was another form beneath him. Ben squirmed farther into the window and reached down to tug at the body of the man. The body slid sideways to reveal a woman lying twisted and bleeding on the seat. Ben stretched and found her arm and let it trail through his fingers until he had her wrist. There was the faint but distinct feeling of a pulse.

He worked his way back out and surveyed the wreckage. “There’s a woman alive in there, kid,” he said. “Now the trick is to get her out.”

Clay turned and started back for the carrier. “I’ll get Beulah and we’ll lift that top car.”

“Never make it through this mess,” Ben said. “Hold on..”

Overhead, the police choppers were hovering over the scene, directing the stream of emergency vehicles arriving on the scene.

“Patrol Sergeant Martin to any chopper,” Ben called. “Need an airlift immediately. We have an injured party under a pile of junk.”

“This is Chopper 97,” came the answer, “where are you, Martin?”

Ben pulled his flashlight from a pocket, flipped the red color shield down and aimed it in the general direction of the several hovering aircraft. One of them cut away and headed towards the two patrolmen.

“We have you in sight, Martin.”

The craft came to halt above them and in the same instant, a magnaclamp descended on a cable. Clay scrambled to the top of the pile and grabbed the dangling clamp and guided it to one end of the smashed vehicle.

“Nine Seven to Four Four, get over here, Charlie, I need another lift on this one,” the chopper pilot radioed. Another ‘copter swung towards them and a second cable and clamp came down. Clay slapped it against the opposite end of the car and then slid down off the pile.

“Haul away,” Ben called.

Both ‘copters took up the slack in their cables and then with a slow increase of power, began to rise. There was the sound of tortured and torn metal being ripped apart and then the smashed car was swinging free, dangling beneath the two choppers.

“Set it down in the first clear spot you’ve got,” Ben ordered, “and then stand by, please. We may need you again.”

Clay had jumped up onto the side of the overturned bottom vehicle and was tugging desperately at the smashed door. The two ‘copters backed away to a nearby open spot on the roadway and then lowered the wrecked car to the ground. They cut their cable power and the clamps swung free as the choppers moved back over the troopers.

“I can’t get this door open,” Clay yelled. He looked up at the clamp dangling over his head. “Give me another clamp, Chopper,” he called, “then see if you can give this door a couple of jerks to swing it open. But, don’t pull too hard or you may drop the car on the woman.”

He secured the clamp to the smashed door panel and then backed off and grabbed a jutting piece of metal for a handhold. “O.K.,” he called, “try it.”

The winch operator on the hovering aircraft gave a tentative fast lift. The car shivered but the door remained stuck. “Put a little slack in the cable,” Ben directed, “and then take it up with a snap.”

The cable drooped, then suddenly snapped upwards and the door ripped open and off. Clay made a dive for the opening before the cable had stopped swinging. The broken door made a slow arc and slammed the trooper in the back of the head as he started to kneel by the open door. Clay hurtled headfirst into the smashed vehicle. The broken door swung once more across the metallic surface of the vehicle, raising a sheet of sparks. The next instant, the vehicle was enveloped in flames.

“FOAM IT,” Ben screamed to the chopper as he leaped for the burning vehicle. A torrent of foam descended from the two choppers and in the split second before the chemical blanket dropped on him, Ben caught a glimpse of a leaping figure, jumping up into the foam and towards the burning car.

The fire was out almost as quickly as it had started. Ben fought his way to the top of the car, pawing the blinding foam from his face. As he reached down to grope for Clay’s form, the body of the patrolman was shoved up through the gaping door. Ben caught his partner under the arms and dragged him down from the vehicle. He laid him on one of the autolitters and turned back to the car. The torn body of the woman was rising to meet him. A foam-covered face appeared at the opening.

“Any more?” asked Kevin Shellwood.

Ambulance crews continued to probe among the shattered pieces of vehicles spread for hundreds of yards across and up and down the blue lane and parts of the yellow. Overhead, police ‘copters lifted wreckage from the roadway and deposited it in tragic heaps along the service strips bordering the police lanes. Other choppers lifted litters and swung them over to the huge hospital carriers where surgical teams worked to save the pitiful handful of survivors.

In the dispensary of Car 56, Trooper Clay Ferguson was stretched out on one of the bunks, nursing a nasty lump on his head and a queasy gut. Kelly bad flushed his stomach to clear the residue of foam that he had taken into his system before Shellwood pulled him out of the wreck.

The woman victim was pulled out after Clay had been transferred to a hospital carrier. The first victim, he of the flaming clothing, was dead. His body lay in the morgue cabinet of the same hospital carrier that had taken the woman.

Most of the debris had been cleared from the roadway behind Car 56 and Ben slid into his control seat and kicked Beulah to life. The big cruiser slowly pivoted and then rolled back towards the police lane. Ben eased the car over the rounded curbing and parked. The galley door slid open and Kevin Shellwood, dressed in a set of Clay’s spare uniform coveralls, stepped into the cab.

“Feel much better after a shower and change of clothes,” he said. He sat down on the jump seat and eyed Ben innocently. “Got a cigarette, sarge?”

Ben fished out a pack and the two lit up silently. The trooper studied the man for a few moments. “That was a fool thing to do,” Ben said. “I thought I ordered you to stay in this cab under any circumstances.”

“Oh, you did indeed,” Shellwood agreed amiably. “Never did take well to orders, though. As you well know.” He paused and took a deep drag on the cigarette.

“As a matter of fact,” he continued seriously, “I was sick unto death at what I saw. I just couldn’t sit here and not do something. Not built that way. So I followed you. Good thing I did, eh?”

Ben sighed and snubbed out the cigarette. “I can’t deny that. But I’m afraid that it isn’t going to do you a bit of good on your other charges.”

Shellwood smiled.

“Didn’t expect it would with you, sergeant. Once a cop, always a cop, I’ve heard it said. Might put in a good word for me, though. Could mean an extra candy bar on visiting days, hm-m-m?”

“I just can’t seem to get it through your head that you’re in serious trouble, young fellow,” Ben emphasized. “I’ll put your actions on my report, and I’ll see that it’s noted by the proper authorities. But I warn you that it probably won’t have one bit of effect on the court’s action on your other charges. Apart from that, let me say that I’m personally grateful for your assistance and I’m sure that trooper Ferguson is equally grateful. But as for the rest of it, I dunno.” Ben shook his head sadly.

Shellwood smiled good-naturedly. “And I can’t seem to get it through your head, sergeant, that Kevin Shellwood just doesn’t get into serious trouble. Hate to disillusion you and all that, but it just doesn’t happen. And when we get to your bastille or wherever you’re taking me, I don’t want you to feel badly about what will happen then. Don’t you worry about me. There are things that can be accomplished that are beyond the wildest imaginations of a simple policeman.”

“Let me ask you one question,” Ben parried. “Have you ever tangled seriously with the Thruway Authority before?”

Shellwood shook his head. “Not seriously, sergeant, just that little thing about improper lane crossing. Got that minor on my tag simply because it wasn’t worth quibbling about.”

Ben nodded. “Then let me give you some of your own advice. Don’t feel too badly about what does happen when we get to Los Angeles Barracks. And no hard feelings, either.”

The trooper swung around into his control seat. He glanced at Shellwood on the jump seat. “I still have your word on remaining in custody?”

The young man just nodded, not saying a word. “Kelly,” Ben called on intercom, “how’s our patient?”

“A miracle has occurred, Ben,” she replied.

“You mean that door knocked some sense into him,” Ben quipped.

“There’s even a limit to miracles,” Kelly said. “Nothing could knock any sense into this dumb Canuck. No, what I meant is that for the first time in his life, his stomach is doing handsprings at the thought of food. Otherwise, he’s the same wet-eared juvenile he was an hour ago.”

Ben could hear some mumbling in the background that suddenly was shut off. “Lie down lunkhead,” he heard Kelly order, “or I’ll give you an enema.”

Ben chortled and shoved Beulah into gear. The car moved slowly into the police lane, threading its way through the parked wreckers and ambulances and hospital vehicles.

“L.A. Control this is Car 56,” Ben reported, “en route your headquarters.”

“Affirmative Car 56,” L.A. Control came back “and thanks for the fast assist.”

“Glad we were handy,” Ben replied. “How bad is the tally?”

“Not good,” the L.A. controller replied. “Right now it stands at thirty-two dead, fifteen injured. We still haven’t finished digging everything out. But you’re clear to head home.”

Ben signed off and took a final look at the scene of the mass pileup. Television news camped in ‘copters, hovering around the outskirts of the area, shooting with long lenses. All traffic was shut down in both the blue and yellow lanes and the green and white were jammed hull to hull and moving at a snail’s pace past the scene of the disaster. It was now past seven in the morning and the real business rush was on. But there were going to be thousands of Angelenos late for work this morning.

As it did in San Francisco, NAT 99 soared high above and around the outskirts of Los Angeles—or at least, what purported to be the outskirts of the metropolis that spread from the ocean eastwards for one hundred twenty-five miles in one direction and was eighty-five miles across from north to south. Near the heart of the city. a ramp angled down to the right. Above it was a sign reading “Los Angeles Barracks,”

Ben turned onto the ramp and Beulah glided down in a steady spiral, passing levels of other Thruways and then dropping lower to the levels of the state freeways. The ramp straightened out and then arrowed into a tunnel. Car 56 plunged into the brilliantly lighted tunnel and down into the bowels of the city. The tunnel leveled off for another mile, and then climbed back up.

As suddenly as they had entered the tunnel, they emerged into a huge cavern. Other portals dotted the wall they had just come out from and police cruisers and service vehicles were moving in both directions from the portals. Above each smaller tunnel was a lighted panel designating which thruway it led to. Ben slowed Beulah to thirty-five miles an hour and joined the stream of police vehicles moving towards the Los Angeles Barracks parking area. Another mile and they emerged into daylight and the vast terminal of the Western Division of NorCom. Ben eased Beulah into the parking area, following the hand signals of a techmech waving him into position. The tech made a chopping motion and Ben stopped the cruiser. With a sigh, he reached over and thumbed the master switch. For the first time since leaving Fairbanks, Alaska, ten days earlier, Beulah’s complete power plant went silent.

“How’s the patient, now,” Ben called out to Kelly on intercom.

“A better man than you’ll ever be,” Clay answered in person as he walked into the cab. A neat surgical patch covered a small shaved spot on the back of his head.

Ben surveyed his grinning partner. “You look O.K. How do you feel?”

“Let’s just say that Kelly’s touch when she’s ministering to your wounds is considerably lighter than when she’s looking after me,” Clay replied. “I don’t see how that woman ever got to be a doctor. A vet maybe; a doctor, never.”

“In that case,” Ben said, “I’ll let you turn Beulah over to the tender care of the grease monkeys and I’ll take Mr. Shellwood to headquarters. See you at the BQO in about an hour.”

Shellwood arose and Clay stuck out his hand. “I’m sorry you’re in a jam, Mr. Shellwood,” Clay said, “and I really mean that. I want you to know I’m real happy you decided to take a walk when you did.” The two men shook hands.

“Glad to be of service, trooper,” Shellwood replied. “Come see me on visiting days.” He glanced at Ben. “Shall we go, sergeant?”

Ben climbed from the bucket seat and reached into a compartment beside the instrument panel. He pulled out the plastic bag containing Shellwood’s possessions. Then leading the man by the arm, he climbed out of Car 56 and headed for Patrol headquarters.

As Ben opened the door to the headquarters building, a battery of cameras began clicking. In the far corner of the big Patrol dispatch room, teevee crews aimed their portable transmitters at the door to catch the patrol sergeant and Shellwood as they entered. Ben stood aside and motioned to the younger man to enter the room. As Shellwood entered, three men in business suits stepped forward. The older of the trio was unmistakably Shellwood’s father. He grasped the young man’s hand.

“Kevin,” Quentin Shellwood inquired, “are you all right? What the devil is this all about?”

“Hi, dad,” Kevin smiled, “I’m fine.” He turned to the other two men and nodded. “Mr. Quinn, Mr. Hackmore, good to see the legal eagles on the job.”

“I’m really fine, dad,” Shellwood turned back to his father, “just a little misunderstanding. Nothing to get excited about.”

The newsmen were crowding in, recorders and mikes thrust forward. “Do you have a statement, Mr. Shellwood?” one asked. Quinn, the older of the two attorneys, held up his hand to the newsmen.

“Mr. Shellwood has no statement to make at this time,” he said. “We’ll have a prepared statement for the press in a little while.”

Ben indicated to Kevin to go to the dispatch desk where the officer on .duty was making hand signals. The dispatcher leaned across the counter.

“Captain Fisher is waiting for you in his office, Ben. He wants you and your prisoner in there immediately.”

Ben nodded and led Kevin Shellwood through the counter door towards the inner offices. The elder Shellwood and the two attorneys followed. Ben knocked on the Patrol captain’s door and then entered. As the five men entered the office, Fisher, wearing the street dress blue uniform of the Patrol, arose from behind his desk. He leaned over and shook hands with Ben.

“Glad to see you, sergeant, and my personal commendation for your work in the pileup. I just got the report a few minutes ago.” The captain straightened up and his face went stony as he eyed the younger Shellwood. “Is this your prisoner, sergeant?” he asked coldly, surveying the blue Patrol coveralls Kevin was wearing.

“Yes, sir,” Ben replied. “Mr. Shellwood rendered some valuable assistance during the disaster and in the course of it, ruined his personal clothing. We loaned him the coveralls until he could obtain proper clothing.”

“I see,” Fisher said. “I assume you have a full report in writing?”

Ben laid his citation book and report sheets on the captain’s desk. Fisher picked up the citation and read it carefully, then read the narrative report.

“I have called you all into my office,” Fisher said when he finished reading, “to confirm for myself the charges brought against the prisoner and to make it clear that despite any so-called social status the prisoner may have…”

“Just a moment, captain,” the elder Shellwood broke in, “my son is no common criminal and he is no prisoner, as you so grossly put it.”

Fisher glared at the father. “Mr. Shellwood, you are in my office only at my invitation and not through any legal requirement. But for your information, your son is charged with a series of crimes—and I repeat, crimes—that, according to the international statutes of the Thruway Authority, are most serious in nature.

“Your son is, and will remain, a prisoner in custody of this agency until such time as he appears before a court of proper Thruway jurisdiction and is either admitted to bond, acquitted or sentenced. I hope this is quite clear.”

“How dare you speak …” Shellwood spluttered, his face darkening in anger.

Quinn laid a hand on the father’s arm. “Calm down, Quentin. You’re only making things tougher for the boy. Now just be quiet and let us handle this affair.” He smiled at Fisher. “We apologize for the interruption, captain, please continue.”

“As I was saying,” Fisher went on, “despite any protestations to the contrary, the prisoner will be processed in the same manner as any other person in custody of this Authority and charged with the same crimes by an officer of this agency. Now, if there are no further questions, Sergeant Martin will you please take your prisoner to the detention facilities and book him?”

Quinn asked, “May I have a moment to speak with Mr. Shellwood please, captain?”

Fisher nodded.

Quinn took Kevin by the arm and walked him to the far corner of the room where he conversed rapidly and in a low voice with the younger man. Shellwood nodded several times and then smiled. He turned and walked back to Martin.

“Let’s go, sergeant,” he said.

Martin took Shellwood out a side door of the Patrol captain’s office and into a corridor leading to the detention rooms. Walking down the hall with the officer, Kevin asked, “How soon do you think I’ll get into court?”

Ben glanced at his watch. “It’s a little after nine right now, Kevin, I’d say that you probably will come in for a `preliminary’ sometime before noon.”

“What’s that mean?”

“At that time the judge can set your trial date, assuming that you plead ‘not guilty’ and, at the same time, he can set bond if he feels you should be freed pending trial,” Ben answered.

“Is there a question as to whether he will allow bond?” Kevin asked anxiously.

“Well, that’s up to the judge,” Ben said. “But just guessing that in light of the fact that there were no in juries or accident involved in your case and because of what you did later on, I’d say that he’ll probably allow bond.”

They reached the end of the hall and Ben motioned Kevin through a door into the detention room. A Patrol sergeant moved up to the booking desk. Ben laid the plastic sack with Shellwood’s possessions on the counter together with a copy of the arrest report. The desk sergeant glanced at the report and then took Shellwood by the arm and led him to an upright metallic cabinet at one side of the room.

“Please stand inside the cabinet,” the officer directed, “facing in this direction. Place your hands on the two arm rests you see at your sides and grasp the knobs.”

Satisfied that Kevin was in position, the desk sergeant punched a series of buttons. “You can come out now,” he said a minute later. When Shellwood emerged from the cabinet, a complete body analysis had been recorded. He had been photographed, finger printed, retinal image recorded, bone and muscle structure detailed, dental work described and encephalic pattern graphed. All of the information had been simultaneously transmitted to Patrol Headquarters records division at Colorado Springs, to be taped into his file together with his license, violations and convictions. Kevin Shellwood had been booked.

The desk sergeant inventoried the contents of the plastic bag, gave both Ben and Shellwood receipts and then took Shellwood back through another door to the actual detention cells.

Ben headed back for the dispatcher’s desk. The newsmen were still there, apparently waiting for Shellwood to reappear. When Ben showed up without the man, they again crowded around him. “Where’s young Shellwood, sarge?”

“Is it true he tried to bribe you?”

“How much did he offer?”

Ben held up his hand. “Mr. Shellwood has been detained in custody of the Patrol until his appearance in court, probably later this morning. I’m sorry but that’s all I can tell you at this time,”

“Aw, come on, sarge,” one of the teevee newsmen called out, “give us a break. We’ve been waiting since before dawn. You can tell us a little more than that.”

Ben grinned at him and brushed the three chevrons on his sleeve. “I’ve put in a good many years getting these stripes,” he said. “Any discussion of any Thruway violation case by an officer means automatic dismissal. Sorry, gents. I’ve got nothing more to add to what I’ve already told you.” He turned his back on the crew and signaled to the dispatcher.

The grumbling newsmen gathered up their gear and streamed out of the room in search of a new lead to the story.

A half dozen other Patrol officers were checking assignments at the dispatch counter. On the wall behind the dispatcher, a mural-sized map of the western segment of the North American continent was emblazoned with lighted paths indicating the many Thruways that crisscrossed the land. Varied colored lights and symbols along the Thruways showed road conditions, repairs and other out-of-the-ordinary situations that would affect traffic on the roads. The outgoing Patrol officers made notes of the changes on their patrol logs. On another wall was an illuminated dispatch board with car numbers, the names of the Patrol crews to man those cars and their Thruway assignment. Car 56—Beulah—and her crew, wouldn’t be back on the board for five days while the cruiser was given a thorough going-over by the shop crews and re-serviced and re-supplied. Three of the days ostensibly were for rest and relaxation for the crew before heading out on their next ten-day patrol.

One of the dispatchers came down the long counter at Ben’s signal.

“Officer Ferguson is completing the cruiser report,” Ben told him, “and he’ll file our closing clearance in a few minutes. Tell him, please, that I’ll be in the BOQ and also notify Medical Officer Lightfoot that I’d like to see her as soon as she is clear.”

The dispatcher nodded and Ben walked out of the building to head for the transient Patrol quarters. The newsmen had vanished and only the blue coverall uniforms of Patrol officers dotted the walks leading to the various buildings of the Los Angeles Barracks. Ben waved at some friends and stopped to chat with two other officers before he got to the bachelor officers’ quarters.

He stopped at the desk to register. The clerk assigned him to Room 218 and Ben walked up the stairs to the room. Sitting in the easy-chair facing the door as Ben opened it was Hackmore, the younger of the two attorneys who, had met with Shellwood at headquarters.

He smiled as Ben entered. “Shut the door, sergeant,” he said, “and let’s have a little talk.”

Ben stood in the doorway and eyed the man coldly. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, mister,” he said quietly, “but I have a pretty good idea what you’re going to say. So I’ll tell you right now—get out!”

Hackmore ignored the order. “I’m not here on business, sergeant, just a social call, you might say. I might add that if you think I came to talk about young Shellwood, you’re wrong. I’m not the least bit concerned about that young man’s future. It’s yours I’m concerned with at the moment.”

Ben slowly closed the door and moved into the room. “What about my future,” he demanded.

Hackmore took a notebook from an inner pocket and flipped it open. “Sergeant Benjamin H. Martin,” he read, “age thirty-three, eleven years on Thruway Patrol. Graduated in upper tenth of his Academy class. Promoted to sergeant four years ago. Four citations for heroism and meritorious service. Twenty-five hours completed in work towards Master’s Degree in Transportation Administration. Salary, eight thousand five hundred, annually. Unmarried. One sister, married, lives in Vermont. Brother-in-law is research engineer with Allied Computers. Parents dead.”

“You seem to have gone to a lot of trouble to learn all that in so short a time,” Ben said grimly. “Why?”

“You’re quite right, sergeant,” Hackmore smiled, “we have gone to a great deal of trouble to find out what makes you tick. In answer to your question, let’s just say as I did before, we’re interested in your future. It has some bright possibilities.”

Ben moved across the room until he was standing directly in front of the seated man.

“Mister,” he said levelly, “my future has all the possibilities that my career can offer and that I’m qualified to take advantage of. Those are the only possibilities I’m interested in.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be so hasty,” Hackmore said. “I can foresee a much brighter future for you. You are virtually a trained lawyer; you have sound education and training in mechanics and engineering, you specialize in administration and have demonstrated outstanding leadership qualities. All of these, plus several other attributes would make you a very valuable asset to any large corporation.

As a matter of fact, that’s exactly why I am here now.

“Our evaluation of your background shows us clearly that we would be making a grave error not to employ your professional services in one of our several subsidiary organizations. And I’m prepared at this point to offer you such a position with a starting salary of say, twenty thousand a year for a starter. Plus a liberal expense account, of course.”

“I just told you,” Ben said, “that the only career and only job I’m interested in is the one I currently hold. Now, get out.”

Hackmore rose and stood facing the trooper. “You realize that you’re making a very unwise decision. I’ll repeat the offer again and remind you that it is open immediately, but that it will only be open for,” he paused and glanced at his watch, “the next two hours.”

Ben stood aside and pointed towards the door, the muscles in his jaw twitching in his effort to hold his temper.

Hackmore shrugged and started slowly towards the door. Halfway across the room, he paused and turned back. “Oh, by the way,” he said, “I forgot to mention that Allied Computers is also a subsidiary of Shellwood Electronics.”

He consulted his notebook again. “I believe I mentioned that your brother-in-law is still a research engineer for Allied.”

In two giant strides Ben was across the room and had Hackmore by the lapels of the man’s coat. Lifting him bodily from the floor, he slammed the attorney back against the wall.

“Let me tell you something,” he snarled. “That kid of Shellwood’s has got more guts and decency than his old man and everyone of his rotten ‘yes’ men right down to the cruddy bottom of the barrel that you crawled from. The kid’s in trouble, he’s committed some serious offenses and he damned near killed himself and God only knows how many other innocent persons. But I think he realizes what he’s done and he at least has the manhood to face up to his problem. And not all the dough that his old man could rake up can buy him out of this.

“Now as for you. If I find out that there’s been so much as an eye blink in the direction of my brother-in-law or my sister, I’m personally going to find you and push your filthy mind right down into your equally cancerous guts.”

Still holding Hackmore by the coat, Ben reached for the door, flung it open and heaved the attorney out of the room with such force that he bounced off the far corridor wall. The lawyer slid to the floor just as Clay Ferguson rounded the corner. The young trooper paused for a moment and looked down at the disheveled and frightened man and then stepped carefully over his legs and turned into Martin’s room.

“Company just leaving?” he inquired pleasantly of the hard-breathing, red-faced Patrol sergeant.

At 1130 Kevin Shellwood, flanked by the two attorneys, stood before Thruway Authority Justice James Bell. Spectators packed the austere Thruway courtroom since the news of Shellwood’s arrest had been on the vidicasts for the past two hours. At the side of the bench, the court reporter sat with headset in place, riding the gains on his taped recordings of the court proceedings. The crew of Car 56, dressed in their off-Patrol dress tunics, sat beside the Thruway prosecutor. An amber panel came to light over the judge’s bench and the courtroom immediately fell silent.

Justice Bell leaned forward and addressed Shellwood.

“Kevin Shellwood, you are charged with driving on North American Thruway 99-south in the vicinity of Mile Marker 3112, this date, while under the influence of alcoholic beverages; you are further charged with reckless driving, ignoring instructions of the Thruway Authority, ignoring the lawful orders of a Thruway Patrol Officer and of leaving the confines of your vehicle while on a Thruway. And you are further charged with the attempted bribery of three officers of the Thruway Authority.

“At this point, I wish to advise you of your rights under this court. Although this court does not waive jurisdiction nor authority to the sovereign countries of the United States of America, the Republic of Mexico or the Commonwealth of Canada, you do not waive your constitutional rights as a citizen of the United States accused in a court of law. You may be represented by counsel and may at this time enter a plea to the charges. In the event you should enter a plea of ‘not guilty’ you are entitled to trial by jury or may waive such trial and be heard in trial by this court.

“Do you understand both the charges and your rights?” Shellwood cleared his throat nervously and answered. “Yes. sir, I understand them.”

“Very well,” Justice Bell continued, “how do you now plead to the charges against you?”

“If it please the court,” Quinn took a step forward, “I represent Mr. Shellwood in this matter.”

“Very well, Mr. Quinn,” Bell said. “Do you wish further time to confer with your client?”

“No, your honor,” Quinn replied. “At this time, we wish to enter a motion for dismissal of the charges on grounds of insufficient and improperly obtained evidence.”

Bell thumbed through the sheaf of papers on his bench, pausing to study one of them in detail.

“Mr. Quinn,” he then said, “I have here transcripts of all radio communications between Thruway Control points at both San Francisco and Los Angeles with Thruway Patrol Car 56 in regard to this matter, together with transcripts of tapes recording conversations between the officers of this unit and the accused. I further have prints of video tapes taken during the conversations between these officers and the accused while in the dispensary of Patrol Car 56 at approximately 0100 hours this date. I find them sufficient cause for action to hold the accused. Motion denied.”

Quinn flushed. “In that case, your honor, we then wish to enter a plea of ‘not guilty’ to all charges.”

Bell made notes on the papers before him. “Very well, counsellor. I assume then you will seek a jury trial?” Quinn nodded.

“In that case,” Justice Bell said, consulting a calendar, “I will set a trial date for three weeks from this day at 1000 hours. In view of the recommendation of the arresting officer, I will further admit the defendant to bail, although under any other circumstances, I would refuse bond.”

Kevin flashed a quick smile of gratitude at Ben sitting at the prosecution table.

“I will set bond at twenty thousand dollars in cash or forty thousand property. You may post the bond immediately with the court clerk.”

“Next case.”

Ben, Clay and Kelly got up quietly from the prosecution table and walked out of the courtroom just behind Kevin and his attorneys. In the corridor outside the courtroom, Clay paused and pulled out cigarettes and passed them around.

Young Shellwood was talking with his attorneys a few feet away. Hackmore nodded and then left them to enter the clerk’s office. Shellwood walked over to the trio of officers.

“Thanks for the kind word, sergeant,” he said to Ben. “You’re welcome, kid,” he said. “I just wish you hadn’t gotten yourself in such a bind.”

Kevin laughed bitterly. “You know, strange as it may seem, at this point, I wish the same thing. I’m just beginning to find out that there are some things that your old man’s money and influence can’t buy for you. There are some things you have to buy yourself—no matter what the cost.

“But, what the hell, it’s done now. And sergeant, remember what I told you this morning. Don’t feel badly about the outcome of all this. I’ll never stand trial, you know that, don’t you?”

“Oh, come off it, Kevin,” Ben exploded, “you know you will.”

Shellwood smiled and started to turn away. “You just don’t know the determination of us Shellwoods.

“Oh, and by the way, I want to sincerely apologize for your visitor this morning. I didn’t learn about it until a while ago. I assure you that it will never go any further. See you around sometime.”

He waved and walked back to Quinn and the two of them entered the court clerk’s office.

Ben ground out his cigarette savagely on the floor. “Come on,” he snarled at his crew members. “Let’s go get drunk. I need a strong mouthwash right now.”

An hour later, Ben and Kelly were seated in a corner booth of a cocktail lounge. Three empty glasses were in front of Ben and much of the tension and anger had drained from him. Clay had had one fast drink with them and then pulled out a small address book and began thumbing through it rapidly.

He excused himself and went to the phones. A few minutes later he returned, reached over and drained the remainder of his drink and reached for his uniform cap. “Got to run, you two. See you in time to roll.”

He waved the little address book at them and rolled his eyes up in mock agony.

“So much to do and so little time to do it,” he murmured as he hurried away.

Ben grinned at the departing trooper and leaned back comfortably in the deep airfoam cushions. “That kid’s been up all night, worked like a horse, been under heavy tensions for several hours, and look at him. Two gets you five he doesn’t get any sleep for another twenty-four hours.”

“No bet,” Kelly replied. She leaned back and moved closer to the big trooper. “Tired, Ben?”

He ran his hand over his head and sighed. “I guess I am, princess. I’m not as young as that kid and this business is beginning to get me. I’ve had some rough days since I started on patrols, but God deliver me from another one like today.”

Kelly reached out and slipped her hand into his. She rolled her head to his shoulder. “You could always ask to get off Patrol, darling.”

Ben smiled down at the golden red hair resting against him and gently squeezed her hand. “Sure I could. I could have been moved to a desk job a year ago if I had wanted to, but I’m not ready to be turned out to pasture.”

“Oh, don’t be silly,” Kelly retorted, sitting up and facing him. “Of course you’re not getting old. It’s just that Patrol takes so much out of a person that the human body and mind can only stand so much of it. Then something’s got to give,”

“What about you,” Ben inquired. “You’ve been riding the back end of these armored hearses for three years now and you get far more of the misery and pain than we do, right along with the rest of the dangers that go with the Patrol. When are you going to quit?”

Kelly looked up into the bronzed face of the Patrol sergeant. “I’ll quit when you do,” she said softly.

He studied her fine-boned face. His big hand came up and with tender touch, he lightly traced the lines of her cheeks and mouth. “You really mean that, don’t you, Kelly?” She nodded mutely.

Ben let his head sink back against the cushions and punched the autobar for another drink.

“Look, baby,” he explained, “another year, maybe, and then I’ll be ready to turn in my work helmet for a vocawriter. But right now, with the Patrol expanding and the new designs in cars and engines that the industry is turning out, we’re too short-handed as it is for experienced Patrol officers.

“Right now, the Thruways are designed to handle traffic up to five hundred miles an hour. But already, the new reaction engines can push well past the six hundred mark without straining and will probably go to eight hundred under stress. We’ve got to make modifications in both roadway design and patrol equipment. On top of that, consider how we’re set up right now. We’ve got the Thruways with their four speed lanes. But how many drivers—especially those buying the new and hotter models—are satisfied any longer with drifting along in the white lane limits. Or even in the green. The bulk of the traffic is shifting to the blue and yellow and even the cargo carriers are hotter and are now moving into the blue.

“The system has got to be modified and that just doesn’t mean raising the speed limits in all lanes. The roadways themselves have to be redesigned for the higher speeds. And there are more ground vehicles using the Thruways every day as the speeds increase. Air travel is picking up but the average man still can’t afford to buy or fly an air-car, chopper or jet for the entire family when for a tenth of the cost he can get the same space and even speed, in a ground vehicle.

“We need more patrolmen, faster and better equipment—and the experienced officers to train them and work with them until they’re ready to take over a cruiser by themselves. Clay is almost ready. Don’t tell him this, but this is his last year on junior status. I hate to lose him but I’m recommending him for his own car at the end of this tour. So you see, I just can’t walk out of the cruiser and say ‘Chief, I’ve had it. Put me on a desk.’ I’m still needed where I am, at least for another year or so. Then we’ll see what the shuffle turns up.”

He took a long drag on his drink and looked at Kelly. “You understand, don’t you princess?”

Kelly sat with her head down, her face concealed. Without looking at Ben, she began talking.

“Ben,” she said, “at the risk of losing all of my maidenly virtues, I want to ask you a direct question and I want a direct and honest answer.” She hesitated and then blurted out, “Are you in love with me?”

Ben put down his glass and took her chin in his hand and raised her face.

“I love you more than anything in this world, princess,” he said. Blissfully ignoring anyone who might have been watching, their lips met in a long and loving kiss.

Kelly finally sat back with a happy. glazed look on her face. Neither of them spoke for several minutes. Then the girl shook her head and smiled delightedly. “Now that that’s settled,” she cried, “a girl can settle down and do some planning.”

She leaned over and kissed him again.

On the morning of their fifth day in Los Angeles, Ben Martin, and Clay Ferguson were again standing in front of the dispatcher’s counter in the barracks headquarters. On the assignment board was the illuminated line reading, “Car 56—Martin-Ferguson-Lightfoot.” In the next column was the assignment “NAT 70-E.”

Both officers had their log sheets out to make notes as the dispatcher punched up the mural map and NAT 70-E on the big board.

“This is a milk run for you guys this time,” the dispatcher said. “Since you’ve got this court hearing coming up in a little more than a couple of weeks you don’t get a full run. You get 70-E to Oklahoma City, a three-day layover and then right back here on 70-W.”

He picked up an electric pointer and began picking out salient trouble points on the route. There were very few discrepancy symbols on 70-E. He flicked the light at a stretch of the roadway just east of the Arizona state line.

“We’ve got crews working in the yellow on the outside rim just south of Kingman on the big curve.” He moved the light eastward. “Gallup has been reporting some bad sandstorms and drifting sands with lowered visibility between here and Albuquerque. Other than that, she’s green all the way,”

The troopers picked up their clip boards and with helmets slung over their arms, headed out to the parking area where Kelly was already aboard Beulah and checking her supply inventory.

A half hour later Car 56 rolled off the line and down the incline to the Thruway entrances. Clay at the controls, angled Beulah towards the portal marked “70-E” and ten minutes later the cruiser burst out into the bright sunlight and heavy traffic of the eastbound thruway.

The patrol quickly settled down into almost humdrum existence. The weather was clear and hot and once beyond the sprawling limits of Los Angeles, the traffic thinned out to a mere eighteen thousand vehicles per hundred-mile block. Ben took the first watch while Clay caught up on some missed sleep during the Los Angeles layover. Six hours and as many hundred miles later, they switched off. Traffic was light enough for them to pull off to the service strip and stop for leisurely dinner in the tiny galley outside, the mercury hovered at the 100-mark, but inside the big cruiser the air conditioners kept it a pleasant seventy degrees. As predicted, the winds blew and the sand flew as Beulah rolled across the burning hot lanes east of Gallup, New Mexico. Caution lights were flashing in all lanes and Albuquerque Control had closed the yellow from Gallup to Grants. Visibility in the blowing dust dropped to less than a half mile but the only trouble came when a huge cargo carrier tried to get out of the blue and missed a crossover. Car 56, rolling along slowly at fifty, came up on the unsuspecting carrier gingerly feeling its way down the dead center of the police emergency lane. Ben pulled Beulah alongside the carrier and flashed his red lights.

The cargo driver brought his vehicle to a halt. Ben turned the radio to standard all-vehicle frequency. “You’re lost, Mac,” he said good-naturedly. “I hate to tell you this, but you’re right in the middle of the red:” Both officers laughed at the gasp of stunned amazement on the face of the trucker. They waved to him and grinned and he returned the wave. “Follow us,” Ben instructed him, “and we’ll both see if we can find the edge of this road.”

With the cargo carrier close behind, Beulah eased over to the right-hand curb of the police lane until Ben found a crossover. He hit his tail lights in rapid succession and aimed a side spotlight to indicate the ramp. The trucker blasted his horn in thanks as he turned off the police lane into the green.

Ben moved Beulah out and the patrol continued.

Beyond Albuquerque, the dust and sand subsided. The great Thruway arrowed mile after unchanging mile across the heart of the Southwest. Video monitor camera towers flashed by every ten miles, a turretlike Patrol checkpoint looming up from the side of the police lane every hundred miles. Beyond the outer and inner lanes were the green, reclaimed wastelands of what was once sagebrush and mesquite desert. Huge 200-inch plastisteel pipes crisscrossed the land, bringing de-salined sea water from the oceans hundreds of miles away. Nuclear reactor relay pumping stations sent the great torrents of life-giving waters surging across mountain and valleys to spill onto the mineral-rich sandy loam of the desert and turn it into the new salad bowl of the continent.

Five days out of Los Angeles, Car 56 rolled down the Patrol ramps and into Oklahoma City Barracks and a brief layover before the return trip. As the trio walked away from Beulah, service crews were already swarming over the big cruiser for a fast check out and refueling.

“Man, what a pleasure jaunt that was,” Clay exclaimed happily. “First time since I’ve been aboard that bucket I ever really had time to get more than a half decent cat nap.”

“It was a milk run, wasn’t it,” Kelly said, walking between the two tall troopers. She smiled up at Ben and winked. “Didn’t seem like the sort of patrol that calls for very much experience, sergeant.”

Ben smiled. “Just the lull before the storm, Kitten. You don’t get many like this one. Enjoy it while you can.”

They checked into the dispatch office, cleared the log and were assigned quarters. Clay fished in his pocket for his address book. He flipped the pages and then headed for the phones. “See you two Wednesday,” he called.

“Oh no,” Kelly moaned, “not in Oklahoma City, too?”

“Oh, it’s not what you think,” Clay called back. “There’s this nice old lady I met in San Francisco. I promised her that if I ever got into Oklahoma City I’d call up her niece and drop in and then report back to the little old lady on whether her niece had grown up any since the last time she saw her. Just my bounden duty, you know.” He galloped off to the phones.

Wednesday morning, Car 56 rolled back out of Oklahoma City Barracks, this time on 70-west, once again en route to Los Angeles. Clay slumped in the left-hand seat. Ben looked over at him. “Had the nice little old lady’s niece grown any?” he asked.

Clay sighed happily. “Full grown, dad. Full grown.” Shortly after the cruiser hit the outer Thruway, Oklahoma City Control was on the air.

“Oak City Control to Car 56.”

Ben replied.

“Car 56, dispatcher says he had a telegram for you and forgot to deliver it before you got away. Sorry,” the controller said.

“Who’s it addressed to?” Ben asked.

“To ‘Patrol Sergeant Ben Martin.’ “

“Go ahead and open it, please,” Ben said, “and read it to me. This is Martin.”

“Affirmative,” Oak City said. “Message follows: ‘Original offer remains open for another forty-eight hours. Additionally directed to offer post of Director of Transportation. Salary unlimited. Please contact me in Los Angeles.”

“Is that all?” Ben asked.

“Yep. It’s signed, ‘Marvin Hughes, personnel director, Shellwood Electronics.’ “

Ben signed off and looked at his partner. Kelly had come up into the cab in time to hear the message.

“Ben,” she said, “I’m scared of them.”

“They didn’t get the message,” Ben said grimly. “I guess I’ll have to spell it out for them, this time more emphatically.”

The weather continued to hold hot and dry all through Texas and New Mexico and even the winds had died away. Car 56 rolled slowly westward, pausing once to give assistance to a disabled cargo carrier. Once again it was an uneventful trip, with Kelly catching up on her medical journals and Ben and Clay taking easy six-hour tricks in the cab and time for letter-writing and study.

A summer thunderstorm was gathering in the west when Beulah rolled into the outskirts of Flagstaff, Arizona. It was close to 1700 hours of the third day out of Oklahoma city. The traffic was light and Ben gave the word to pull up for dinner. He pulled Beulah off onto the service strip between the police and green lane and then reached for the radio. “Flag Control this is Car 56. We are out to dinner in your fair city. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.”

“Right, Five Six,” Flagstaff Control came back. “We’ll send out the keys to the city and a bottle of red. Report in when you’re back in service.”

With speakers mounted throughout Beulah’s compartments and storerooms, Control operators could reach the crew at any moment of the day or night wherever they might be in the vehicle.

Ben slid out of his seat and headed for the galley. Dinner over, Kelly shoveled the dishes into the disposal unit and generally tidied up in the galley. Clay and Ben climbed back into their bucket seats and Ben reported Beulah ready to roll. Although it was still just a little after 1800 hours, the skies were fast darkening under the great mass of thunderheads and rain clouds moving closer from the west.

“Looks like we’ll get a cooling off and a wash-down,” Clay commented, pointing at the clouds.

Ben shoved Beulah into gear. “Water’s always welcome out here, piped or natural.”

Car 56 rolled back onto the police lane and continued westward. Fifteen minutes later, the first great, dusty drops of rain splattered against the cab bubble and a minute later they were deep inside the summer downpour. Ben switched on the headlight and wipers as the rain thundered down. He pushed the speed up to a hundred and the rain sailed off the rounded bubble much faster. Traffic was increasing in both the green and blue while an occasional car flashed by in the yellow, its headlights whipping up from behind in the rain and then winking out suddenly as it passed the cruiser a mile to the south.

At 1900 hours, Flag Control came on with the hourly density reports and weather picture. The storm, which had been moving eastward, was now stationary and the forecasters were calling for it to shift back to the west once again. Thruway predictions were for rain to the Arizona line just east of Needles.

Beulah rolled around the edge of Kingman shortly after 2100 hours and suddenly the radio sounded.

“Car 56, this is Flag Control. Just a few minutes ago Ash Fork Checkpoint reported a red and white Travelaire moving west in the yellow at maximum speed. In this kind of weather and with the repairs on the yellow west of Kingman on the grade, you might see if you can spot this joker before he gets into trouble. This might also be the same vehicle reported stolen from this city about two hours ago and believed to have been taken by a teenager. If it is, and it’s the same kid we’ve had trouble with before, he likes nothing but speed. And he may have a girl friend with him.”

“Car 56 affirmative,” Ben replied. “We’ll start looking for them right now,”

The senior trooper swung Beulah south and into a crossover to the blue lane. He increased speed to three hundred and the safety cocoons snapped shut. Beulah’s warning siren cleared the way for her as Ben tooled diagonally across the blue and into the yellow. In the left-hand seat, Clay had his eyes fixed on the monitors. Using his arm panel controls, he kept the yellow monitor switching across its three positions from the ten-mile block to the rear, to the block the cruiser was in and then to the block ahead.

Just as Ben straightened the cruiser out in the yellow Clay yelled, “There he is. He’s way ahead.”

His monitor was in the block ahead of them and Ben shifted his monitor to the same block. The red and white car was whipping through the blinding rain at better than five hundred miles an hour.

He slammed Beulah into high and the mighty jets mashed the crew back against their seats as the cruiser accelerated. Kelly was safely enfolded in her station cocoon in the dispensary.

Only three cars were ahead of the cruiser as it flew on its airpad down the half-mile wide, rain-slick roadway.

“We’ll never catch him before he hits the curve, Ben,” Clay exclaimed. “He’s wide open and wheeling.”

Ben glanced at the tach and speedometer. Beulah was fast reaching the six-hundred-mile-an-hour mark and gaining. “We’re closing up.” He flicked on the standard all-vehicles transmitter.

“This is a Thruway Patrol car. The driver of the red and white Travelaire now west of Kingman on NAT-70-W in the yellow is directed to stop immediately. I repeat, driver of the red and white Travelaire in the yellow west of Kingman, you are directed to stop immediately. This is a Thruway Patrol order.”

“Ben,” Clay cried, “he’s almost into the curve. He’ll never clear it at that speed. They haven’t got the bank into the road yet.”

On the monitor screens the red and white car went hurtling into the curve at better than five hundred miles an hour. The curve down the long Kingman grade was gentle but never intended for such speeds. As the two horrified officers watched on their screens, the light sportster began slewing sideways to the left, towards the outside of the curve.

The driver obviously was fighting to straighten it out with short additional bursts of power, but the combination of the centrifugal force on the light car and the wet roadway and lack of surface adhesion on air drive made it impossible. The car’s left jet burst into a blaze of flame as the driver kicked the full afterburner into action in a last desperate attempt to hold the vehicle on the road. Almost in slow motion on the monitor screens, the car went whipping sideways against the guard rail, hurtled up into the air and rolled over several times in midair before vanishing from sight down the side of the mountain.

Ben was already slowing Beulah while Clay took over the radio. “Flag Control, this is Car 56. Our red and white Travelaire has just taken the rail at the Kingman curve, Marker 4280. He’s down the side of the hill. Get us a chopper on the double.”

“This is Flag Control. Chopper en route, Five Six, also ambulance and wrecker.”

Ben fought Beulah to a halt beside the smashed railing. Rain was still pouring down. He nosed the cruiser to the edge of the road and aimed a big flexible spotlight down the side of the hill, moving the beam back and forth. It came to rest on the shattered hulk of the car, several hundred feet down the rugged mountainside.

“Let’s go,” Ben said quietly. “Kelly,” he called on the intercom, “get on your rain suit and your kit bag, although I don’t think we’ll need it. Clay, you work the winch.”

He slipped on his helmet and climbed down into the rain. Kelly came up wheeling the mobile aid kit. Ben opened a panel in the cruiser’s nose and pulled out the end of a cable and magnaclamp. From another side of the compartment came a wide plastic web safety belt and a pair of harnesses. Wordlessly, he and Kelly slipped into the straps and then hooked the medical kit to the belt. With the belt and harnesses secured to the cable, he gave Clay the order to lower, and the cable began to pay out down the side of the cliff. Ben kept an arm around Kelly as they backed down the almost vertical face of the slope, picking their way among the rocks and brush.

A hundred feet down, they reached the body of a young girl. Ben flashed his light on her head and quickly turned it away. “Keep going down,” he said softly into his helmet mike.

Just short of three hundred feet of cable were out when they reached the wrecked car. Ben called to Clay to hold them there and then inched their way to the car. It was wedged upright between two boulders. Ben turned his light inside. The driver was smashed down against the seat, his face turned to the night sky and rain was pouring over his slack, bleeding features.

Blood bubbled from his lips with his shallow breathing. “He’s still alive,” Ben gasped.

Kelly was already shoving Ben aside and pushing her kit onto the seat. She whipped out a hypogun and slammed it against the youth’s bared chest. “Give me your light,” she snapped, “and get that chopper here in a hurry with a litter,”

Ben leaned back out into the rain-swept night and eyed the sky. Only the lights of the cruiser were visible.

“Clay,” he called over helmet radio, “find out where that chopper is.”

A new voice broke in. “This is Chopper 115. I’m about at Marker 4275 Car 56 and I have your lights in sight. Our litter is ready to go. Where is the victim?”

Now Ben could hear the roar of the chopper’s jets in the night and its huge spotlight loomed out of the rain. He unclipped his smaller handlight from his belt and aimed its red beam at the approaching aircraft.

“Got you, Five Six,” the chopper pilot called.

The craft came rushing in, stopped and hovered outboard of the cruiser but not dropping lower into the gorge. “We’ll have to make the lift from here,” the chopper pilot called out. “Too turbulent and too dark to take a chance on the side of the hill. Litter coming down,”

From the bottom hatch of the chopper the litter dropped swiftly on its cable, two small flashing lights winking at the front and back to mark it against the dark sky. It came to rest a few feet from Ben and he reached out and pulled it towards him. “Slack off,” he ordered.

Kelly had squeezed into the blood-smeared interior of the car and was working around the boy’s thighs. “Get his shoulders, Ben,” she ordered, “and let’s get him out of here fast. He’s in deep shock and hurt terribly,”

The officer and the girl worked the inert form out of the wreckage and onto the litter. Ben pulled the plastic cover over the litter. “Take him up,” he called. “And then lower the litter back for a DOA.

“Clay, stand by to haul Kelly up,” Ben directed.

Kelly had closed her kit and hooked back onto the cruiser cable. Ben gave the word and the cable began hauling her back up the muddy, rocky slope.

The instant she was back on the edge of the road, Kelly slipped out of her harness and went racing to the ramp where the litter hovered a few feet off the ground. She snapped the wheels down from the side of the litter and on command, the chopper lowered the litter to the ground. Seconds later it was up the ramp and into the dispensary beside the surgery table.

The chopper hauled up the cable, affixed another litter and lowered it back down to where Ben was waiting. The senior officer caught hold of the basket and told the pilot to haul up slowly. When he came to the level where the dead girl lay, the litter was halted and Ben gently lifted the shattered form onto the litter.

“Take it up,” Ben called, “I’ll be hanging on for a hand up this slope.”

Inside the cruiser, Clay had come running through the car and burst into the dispensary as Kelly was wheeling the diagnostican into position.

“Let’s get him on the table,” she ordered. She and the trooper lifted the unconscious youth from the litter to the table and Kelly slipped a plasma needle into a vein even before attaching the big machine. She sprayed another dose of heart stimulant into the boy and turned to the diagnostican.

The boy’s eyes flickered open. He stared dully at the white ceiling of the dispensary, his eyes unfocused. “Kelly,” Clay yelped, “he’s conscious.”

The medical officer whipped around and reached for the boy’s pulse. She stared at his eyes and rolled the lids back, then quickly began making the diagnostic attachments. Minutes ticked by as the machine analyzed the damage to the injured youth. Kelly had slapped gobs of regen jelly into the superficial wounds that showed while the machine continued its diagnosis. A green light came on when the diagnosis was completed and the last of the taped data spilled from an orifice.

The boy’s eyes had closed and his breathing became more labored. Outside, a Patrol ambulance came roaring to a halt and a team of medical technicians came running into the cruiser’s dispensary. Wet, muddy and blood-splattered, Ben followed them into the car. While Kelly was reading the tapes, the techs were unlocking the table from the dispensary floor to wheel it out and into the ambulance.

Kelly glanced at the last few readings on the tape and leaned over and rolled the youth’s head gently to one side. A stream of blood spilled down his neck from his ear.

She looked at Ben and shook her head.

The medtechs wheeled the table and its still form out into the red glare of the ambulance’s warning lights. The crew of Car 56 watched the table vanish into the other vehicle. Red sheets of rain splattered off the hull of the vehicles and the wet roadway.

“You can’t win ‘em all,” Ben swore softly, “but why can’t we win the ones with the kids in them?”

A moment later, the medtechs came racing back with a new surgery table for the Patrol car. They rolled it up the ramp and Kelly grabbed it and waved. With Clay’s help, she shoved it into the deck clamps and the medtechs ran back for their own vehicle. Seconds later, the ambulance with the dying boy and the body of the dead girl, was hurtling back down the police lane towards Ash Fork.

Ben recovered the cable and winch panel in Beulah’s bow and then headed into the cruiser to the men’s quarters to clean up and change into dry uniform coveralls.

The wrecker had arrived and the shattered hulk of the sports car had been hauled up the face of the slope. The crews were installing warning lights and temporary barriers along the smashed railing.

Ben got Flagstaff on the radio. “Better keep the yellow closed until this storm moves and at least for the rest of the night,” he suggested. “You might lose another one over the side in the dark. Stand by for registration check.”

Clay had removed the registration tab from the wrecked car and was back in the cab. He handed the tab to Ben and then checked with Kelly to see if she was ready to roll. “Go ahead,” the girl replied. “I’m just cleaning up back here. But give me a couple of seconds warning in case we have to go Code Three in the next few minutes. I’ve got some of my equipment unracked.”

Beulah rumbled across the Colorado River causeway shortly before two in the morning and the control shifted back to Los Angeles. At six in the morning, Car 56 jockeyed into a parking slot in the Los Angeles Barracks motor pool and the completion of the ten-day patrol. The two troopers spent a half hour with the maintenance crew chief going over a number of minor discrepancies in Beulah’s operation.

“You •might as well give her a real going-over,” Ben told the mechanic. “Don’t know how long we’re going to be tied up here in L.A. I know it’s going to be at least six more days and it could run twice that long. She’s due for blade rebalancing in another four hunderd hours so I’d just as soon get that done now and get new throat liners installed at the same time.”

“While you’re at it,” Clay added, “we can use either a repolishing job on the cab bubble or a new bubble. That sandstorm scratched and pitted the canopy and we’re getting halation and streaking at night,”

The crew chief made notes and then began unlocking outside inspection ports for the start of the routine vehicle inspection. Ben and Clay collected their gear and headed for the dispatch desk. Kelly had already left the car to report to the medical section with her tapes and reports and would meet them later.

At the dispatch desk, Ben shoved the closed log across the counter to the corporal on duty. The dispatcher glanced at the car number on the log book and then punched Car 56 off the ready board. He turned and reached into a cubbyhole behind the desk and extracted a memo sheet.

“You and your crew are to report immediately to Captain Fisher,” he told Ben. He shoved the memo across the counter. Ben nodded and motioned to Clay.

“Will you call over to medical section and inform Officer Lightfoot to meet us here?” Ben asked the corporal.

“She’s already been notified,” the man said, “and she’s on the way over here. Go on into the old man’s office and I’ll send her in when she arrives.”

Ben and Clay headed for Fisher’s office.

“We’ve had so-called ‘VIP’s’ on the docket before,” Fisher said, “but never of the political and economic influence of the Shellwoods.”

He paused and studied the faces of the three members of Car 56 sitting across the desk from him.

“Since you left here ten days ago,” the captain continued, “we’ve felt the start of the most vicious attack on the Thruway Authority since it was first created. Old man Shellwood has unleashed every one of his hounds on us in an effort to save that kid of his from jail. And this is only the beginning. Before we get through the trial, not only the Authority, but the three of you are going to be subjected to the toughest fight you’ve ever been involved in.

“Just for a starter, Shellwood’s attorneys are entering countersuit charging false arrest, brutality, usurpation of authority and cruelty in subjecting Junior to the perils of disaster in the pileup that you handled while you had him in custody.”

Fisher got up from his desk and went to a window that looked out on the huge motor pool area of the barracks. Scores of the sleek and massive blue Thruway cruisers were parked on the line while service crews swarmed over them. He continued his monologue with his back to Beulah’s crew.

“We’ve worked like dogs to build this agency up for the sake of the people,” Fisher murmured, “and now one lousy individual is trying to tear it down for his own personal gain.

“When you leave here, you three are to report to the prosecutor’s office. He wants to go over all of the arrest reports and the rest of the material that he’ll be using when we go into court next Monday. I’ve gone over all of the tapes and your written reports and I’m satisfied that you acted not only with proper authority but with the degree of propriety that I expect of every Thruway crew. But that may not be enough. There’s more at stake here than a simple case of drunk driving charges against an individual.”

Fisher turned to face them.

“Nobody loves a cop,” he said grimly. “I don’t have to tell you that. Everybody wants one in a big hurry when their tails are in the wringer but for the rest of the time, we’re just trying to persecute innocent people when we apply preventative measures before they kill themselves. There’s been a lot of talk in Congress about the federal appropriations for Thruway Authority and about the abrogation of American Constitutional rights to the Authority. As usual, the people want to have their cake and eat it, too. They know they could never have had the road system that the Thruways have given them on either a state or national financial basis and that the only way it could be realized was through a continental sharing of costs between the three nations. Well, they’ve got the roads and now they want to pull out and stop sharing the cost of keeping themselves alive. And Shellwood’s outfit is using every bit of anti-Thruway feeling possible against us.”

The captain slammed his clenched fist against his desk. “That Shellwood would kill off half the population of this continent if he thought it would keep his kid out of jail.”

Ben slumped in his chair, glumly surveying the mosaic pattern of the floor. “What’s it take to stop him,” he asked without looking up.

“Huh,” Fisher snorted, “that’s simple. We drop the charges against the kid and the old man grins and goes about his business. And he’ll keep grinning until the kid goes out on the roads again and kills himself and probably some other people at the same time. Then the old man will scream for our scalps for not protecting his innocent child from the horrors of the Thruway. But the point is that if he wins this one, it can destroy much of what we’ve worked like dogs to create. Our biggest gun in the fight to keep people alive on the Thruways has been that the law is bigger than any one person or group of persons and that all violators are treated equally in the courts and on the roads. They know that their basic protection lies in the fact that major violators are barred from the Thruways for life through impartial justice by our courts. Let there be a break in that faith and the entire system is weakened.

“Well, enough of this. You three are now on detail to the prosecutor’s office until the completion of this matter. Keep me posted on what’s happening.”

The trio saluted and left Fisher’s office. At the prosecutor’s office, Kelly and Clay were asked to wait in the anteroom while Ben was ushered into the inner office.

The Thruway prosecutor was in his middle fifties, slightly balding and beginning to run to paunch. He came around the desk as Ben entered. “I’m John Harvey, sergeant,” he said with a smile, his hand extended. “Welcome to the siege of Troy.”

He waved at a chair and Ben sat down. Harvey shoved a cigarette box across the desk and then reached for a thick file of papers and microtapes.

“I’m going to level with you, Martin,” Harvey said, tapping the pile of evidence. “This is going to be a nasty one. I’ve set this interview up so that I can talk to each one of you individually and then check each of your stories against the other and then each and all against the reports and tapes. Now don’t get me wrong. I haven’t the least doubt in my mind that you all have acted in the best possible manner. But if there are any minor technical discrepancies, I want to know about them and be ready to counter them before that battery of defense lawyers has a chance to nail you to the cross,”

“Now let’s start at the beginning and tell me the entire story as it occurred.” Harvey leaned back and lighted a cigarette and Ben began talking.

While Ben was relating the events of Kevin Shellwood’s arrest and the subsequent events, Harvey made occasional notes. When Ben had finished Harvey leaned forward.

“Is that the entire story?”

Ben hesitated thoughtfully. “As far as the actual arrest and the details of the patrol, that’s the story,”

“What’s that mean?” Harvey queried.

“There have been a couple of things that may have bearing on the case that have occurred since we first pulled into L.A. with Shellwood,”

“Such as what?” Harvey asked with a raised eyebrow. Ben related the visit to his room by Shellwood’s attorney before the preliminary hearing.

” …And when I got through telling him off,” Ben finished, “I threw him out into the hall.”

Harvey leaned forward excitedly. “Was there anyone else present while he was making the proposition?”

“No,” Ben replied. “Officer Ferguson arrived just as I tossed the guy out into the hall but I don’t think he heard any of the conversation.”

Harvey sat back disappointedly. “I really didn’t expect anyone else to be there,” he said. “Those people are too smart for that. You know, if we could prove any attempt by either old man Shellwood or his attorneys, we could bring them to trial, too. But, I suppose, that’s too much to hope for.”

The two men smoked in silence for a moment. “You said that there were a couple of things that might have bearing,” Harvey said. “What’s the other thing?”

“I got a telegram from Shellwood Electronics,” Ben replied, “raising the ante and keeping the offer open.”

Harvey snapped upright in his chair. “Where is the wire?”

“I don’t have the actual wire,” Ben explained. “It was relayed to me from Oklahoma City Control. The dispatcher forgot to deliver it before we pulled out and I had them open it and read it to me on the air.”

“That might be the answer to a tired, old prosecutor’s prayer,” Harvey exclaimed. He grabbed his desk communicator. “Ruth,” he said to his secretary, “get Oklahoma City Control headquarters right away and have them get hold of the original copy of a telegram addressed to Patrol Sergeant Ben Martin.” Harvey paused and looked up at Ben. “What date was that sent to you?”

Ben told him.

“That was on the 15th, Ruth,” Harvey continued. “Tell them I want that original, together with their log of the transmission to Car 56 concerning that telegram and their sealed tape recordings of the transmissions on the next jet for L.A. Tell ‘em I want the entire package here no later than 1300 hours this afternoon.”

Harvey sat back and smiled at Ben. “I think somebody goofed,” he said gleefully. “I’ll give you ten-to-one odds that that wire was never supposed to have been sent. What probably happened is that Shellwood’s lawyers had a contract and binding papers drawn up and given to the personnel section and then were going to contact you in person but without witnesses after you got back here to Los Angeles. Probably some over-zealous apple-polisher in the personnel section, like the personnel manager, has taken it upon himself to get hold of you in hopes of currying the old man’s favor. And if this is the case, and I’m almost positive it is, we have a chance.

“Now, how was that wire worded?”

“As nearly as I can remember,” Ben said, “it said in effect that the original offer is still open for forty-eight hours and that they’d make me director of transportation with an unlimited salary. And I was to contact the personnel manager when I got here.”

“Fine,” Harvey said, “just great. Get on the horn and call the guy right now and make an appointment. You are about to become the new Director of Transportation for Shellwood Electronics.”

Ben stared at the chubby lawyer. “Are you out of your mind, sir?”

Harvey grinned. “I’ve never been more serious in my life. You’re going to go down there and dicker with these people before their lawyers have a chance to realize what’s happening. And you’re not only going to dicker over your job—you’re going to get plush offers for the other two members of your crew. After all, even with you out of the picture, we could still have a pretty good case against Shellwood with them on the stand. You’ve got to make the company see that and make them come up with a good offer. Then all three of you are going to take the jobs.”

“But that means resigning from the Patrol,” Ben protested.

“It sure does,” Harvey said. “I’ll see that the papers for your resignation and discharges are drawn up right away. Now let’s get the rest of that crew of yours in here. We’ve got some planning to do and not much time to do it.”

He barked into his intercom. “Ruth, send in the other two officers and get in here with your vocawriter.”

When the crew of Car 56 was assembled in Harvey’s office and when his secretary had adjusted her vocawriter mask, the prosecutor began outlining his ideas.

“Now if this works,” he said, “by early afternoon you three should be discharged from the Patrol and well on your way to becoming employees of Shellwood Electronics.”

“Now wait a minute,” Ben growled, “I have no…”

“Shut up, sergeant,” Harvey snapped, “and don’t interrupt me until I get through. Then you can talk.

“As I was saying. You three should all get pretty good offers. But they may be predicated on your full discharges from the Patrol and they’ll want to see physical proof of such discharges. We’ll have them for the company to see.

“Ruthie, see that the paper work is done within an hour on the discharges of Patrol Sergeant Benjamin Martin, Patrolman Clay Ferguson and Medical Officer Kelly Lightfoot. Also, draft up simple letters of resignation for their signatures. You know the word, ‘for personal reasons, et cetera.’

“When you get those done, have one of the other girls working on three arrest warrants. The usual forms. The charges will be identical for all three. Coercion and conspiracy to coerce and bribe and otherwise intimidate duly authorized officers of the Thruway Authority. The warrants and the charges are to be drawn up for the arrest of Quentin Shellwood, Paul Quinn and Theodore Hackmore. Have them ready for my signature before noon and I’ll have the tongues ripped out of the heads of anyone in this office that lets one peep of this out until the warrants are served.”

Harvey paused and looked at the trio of patrol officers sitting with dazed smiles on their faces. “Starting to get the picture now?” he asked.

Ben nodded silently.

“That’ll do for now, Ruthie. When you get back to your desk, get me the commissioner on the horn.” The secretary left the room.

“Now here’s a list of a few gadgets I want you people to draw from the investigation section,” Harvey said, jotting information on a pad. “You’ll need it when you talk about your new jobs in a little while.”

“Who may I say is calling please?” the receptionist asked.

“Tell Mr. Hughes that Ben Martin wants to talk with him. Tell him he sent me a wire in Oklahoma City a couple of days ago, just in case my name doesn’t ring a bell with him.”

The visiphone screen went blank and Ben waited. When it lighted again the face of a man in his middle forties, sporting a small mustache, stared out at Ben.

“Ah, Mr. Martin,” Hughes said, “nice of you to call. And just where are you making this call from, if you don’t mind my curiosity?”

“I’m downtown at a pay booth,” Ben replied, stepping back so that the busy street intersection could be seen over the visiphone.

“Excellent, Mr. Martin,” Hughes beamed. “I just knew you would be a man of discretion and understanding. Now, just what is it you wished to speak about?”

“Is your offer still open,” Ben asked. “I’d like to come in and talk to you about it.”

“It most surely is,” Hughes replied, “and I’d be delighted to talk to you about it. I assume then that you are interested?”

“I’m interested,” Ben said guilelessly, “but before I commit myself there are a couple of other details that I’d have to work out with you before we could come to any terms.”

Hughes eyebrows raised. “Matters of money?”

“Not exactly,” Ben said. “I have a couple of friends who I feel would be invaluable not only to me as members of the organization but also invaluable to you as well. They are the other two members of my cruiser who were with me on the night we came down from San Francisco and have almost as much information about the incidents of that night as I do. I think you can see the wisdom of my point,”

Hughes nodded knowingly. “I see the point quite well and as a matter of real coincidence, we had already made plans to assimilate these good people into our organization at the same time we procured your services. I’m way ahead of you Mr. Martin. Now there is just one little detail I would like to arrange before we get together for our talk.”

“What’s that?”

“You realize, of course,” Hughes said smoothly, “that we would be somewhat embarrassed by signing an officer of the Thruway to contract while that officer was still in the service. Therefore, I must insist that you be discharged and have completely severed your connections with the Authority before coming to final terms,”

Ben smiled. “This time, we’re way ahead of you. Our discharges are now being processed and will be ready this afternoon,”

“My, but you certainly must have been sure of us,” Hughes said.

“I was,” Ben replied laconically. “You can’t do without us and if back out now, even though we might be out on our ears with the Patrol, we could still be brought to the stand as witnesses,” Hughes smiled and shrugged. “Quite so, Mr. Martin. I can see that you’re going to be a big asset to us. You already think our way. How soon can we get together?”

“I’ll be at your office in an hour with my crew,” Ben replied. “If we can come to terms, we can wind it up this afternoon,”

Ben broke off the connection and walked out of the booth. The hot summer sun filtered down through the maze of overhead state and city expressways and the highest level of the Continental Thruway running abreast with the twentieth level of the office buildings piercing the sky. He threaded his way through the pedestrians to an autocab parked at the curb. Kelly and Clay, both in civilian dress as was Ben, waited for him.

“We go up to Shellwood in an hour,” Ben told them. “Let’s get a bite of lunch and go over the operation once more before we go into the lion’s den.”

They left the cab and strolled along the busy thoroughfare to a nearby restaurant.

“That transceiver working O.K.?” Clay asked Kelly. “It was a few minutes ago,” she replied. “You still there, Mr. Harvey?”

Hidden under the copper-red waves of her hair, a tiny earpiece was stuck with collodiplast to her left mastoid bone. “Just as though I were walking with you, Miss Lightfoot,” Harvey’s voice sounded in her ear. “We are monitoring all three of you loud and clear. And we’ve just had word that Shellwood Electronics is checking on your discharges and have been told they are being processed. The fish has taken the bait.”

“He’s there,” Kelly told Clay.

An hour later they were seated in Hughes’ office in the massive Shellwood Electronics headquarters building on the outskirts of Santa Monica.

“You understand,” Hughes said, “that the contracts will become effective immediately upon proof of your separation from the Authority. Now here are the contracts we have drawn up for your approval.” He shoved three documents across the desk.

“You will note,” he continued, “that the contracts specify that you will accept employment at any place the company desires to assign you and upon the immediate notice of such assignment. Of course, any financial inconvenience brought about by such a move would be borne by the company.”

“What’s that mean?” Clay asked.

“Quite simply,” Hughes said, “that we will have immediate assignments for both you and Mr. Martin at our operational offices in Paris. Miss Lightfoot will join our medical staff in London.”

“All three of us out of the country before any trial date, eh,” Ben said with a knowing smile.

Hughes returned the smile. “In the best interests of our organization, you understand.”

“Get those contracts on film,” Harvey’s voice sounded in Kelly’s ear.

Kelly shoved her contract over to Ben and then took Clay’s and pushed it to the senior patrolman.

“You’re the brains of this outfit,” she said brightly. “Does the picture look all right to you, Ben?”

Ben smiled at her and laid the three contracts side by side on Hughes’ desk. “Let’s see how they compare,” he said. He pulled a pen from his pocket and ostensibly went through the contracts rapidly, line by line. When he had finished, the contracts were on microfilm in the pen. “They look fine to me and the money sounds quite acceptable.”

“Do we sign now?” Clay asked.

“There’s just one more slight detail,” Hughes said. “I have another document which needs your signature. I think that after you have read it, you’ll understand the need for it.” He pushed a single printed sheet across to Ben.

Ben read the document aloud.

“We the undersigned persons do agree not to testify in any fashion whatsoever against any member of this company or any subsidiary corporation in consideration of contractual employment with this corporation or any subsidiary thereof.”

Typed in below the text were their three names and places for their signatures.

“Hell,” Ben exploded, “if we sign this, then we become parties to a conspiracy.”

“You have a quick mind, Mr. Martin,” Hughes said. “I fully realize that this paper wouldn’t save anyone from prosecution. But it will assure us that if any member of our organization should be prosecuted on the testimony of any of you, all three of you will then be in the same boat. Just let’s call it a little insurance.”

“Do your company attorneys know about this?” Ben asked.

“It was drawn up by them,” Hughes said haughtily. “But I see no need to drag them into this discussion since we are doing so nicely.

“Now if you’ll just sign both the contracts and this paper,” Hughes said, leaning across the desk and pointing to the proper places. “You’ll get copies of the contracts after we have certified your discharge papers from the Authority. There is only one copy of this other little paper. We’ll hang on to that for safekeeping.”

Ben held the camera-pen over the self-incriminating document.

“Stand by to assist boarders,” Harvey’s voice sounded in Kelly’s ear.

The door to the outer office burst open and three men entered. One of them went immediately to the desk and seized the papers.

“What’s the meaning of this,” Hughes spluttered. “You have no right in here. Get out and put those papers down.”

One of the intruders flipped open a leather case and held it up.

“Los Angeles Metropolitan Police,” the man said. “You are under arrest, Mr. Hughes.” He took the personnel manager by the arm.

Sixty floors above, in the same building, two other plainclothesmen shoved their way past the receptionist in Quentin Shellwood’s private suite of offices. A uniformed Shellwood security guard rushed up to block their path.

“You can’t go in there,” he ordered.

“Want to bet,” one of the officers said, pushing the man aside and flashing his identification. The uniformed guard continued to block the way. “I don’t care if you are L.A.P.D.,” he said, “you just don’t barge in on Mr. Shellwood,”

The other officer displayed a badge and card case. “FBI,” he said tersely, “now get out of the way.” The guard paled and backed off. The two agents entered the inner sanctum.

Quentin Shellwood glared up at them from behind his desk.

“Who let you in?” he bellowed. “Get out.”

The federal agent displayed his credentials. “Will you please come with us, Mr. Shellwood? We have a warrant for your arrest.”

Shellwood’s face purpled. “Just who do you think you are,” he roared, “ordering me around? And what are you arresting me for?”

The federal officer pulled out a warrant. “I have a joint Federal and Thruway Authority warrant charging you with conspiracy to coerce and with bribery. Now will you please come with us?”

“I will not,” Shellwood cried. “I’ll see you two in hell before I leave here on some phony trumped-up charge.” He reached for the visiphone. The metropolitan officer reached out and clamped a hand on his wrist.

“Mr. Shellwood,” he said softly, “you can come with us in good order, or you can come along in handcuffs. It doesn’t make a bit of difference to us. But you are coming. And you’ll make no phone calls until you are at headquarters at which time you will be allowed to consult with counsel. Now what’s it going to be?”

The executive glared at the pair for a second and then got up from his desk. “Would it be all right with you gentlemen,” he asked sarcastically, “if I call my wife and tell her that I may be late for dinner?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” the federal agent said, taking Shellwood by the elbow and leading him to the door. “Perhaps you can contact your wife later.”

Shellwood shook his arm from the agent’s grasp. “Get your hands off me,” he snarled. “I can walk by myself.”

Flanked by the two officers, the head of the nation’s largest corporation walked out of his office before the wondering and stunned gazes of his staff.

A half hour later at the opposite side of the city, a similar scene was being enacted in the offices of the law firm of Quinn, Reynolds, Chase and Hackmore. Accompanying the two metropolitan and federal agents were attorneys from the offices of the Thruway Authority and the United States Attorney for the State of California.

While the senior and junior partners of the firm were being taken into custody, other agents, armed with warrants, were moving down the line of vocawriters in the outer office, stopping at each machine to speak thirty-five words into each device. As each vocawriter spewed out its printed text, the agents checked it against a photo copy they carried. Halfway down the bank of machines one of the agents called out. “Here it is.”

The other men crowded around him and compared the copy in his hand against the copy on the machine. It read: “We the undersigned persons do agree not to testify in any fashion whatsoever against any member of this company or any subsidiary corporation in consideration of contractual employment with this corporation or any subsidiary thereof.” On both the photo copy and the text from the vocawriter, the tail of the letter “y” where-ever it appeared, was partially snapped off.

The trial of Kevin Shellwood on the original charges of driving while drunk, attempted bribery, et cetera, opened the following Monday. It lasted less than a day.

In their individually sealed rooms, the twelve jurors watched the courtroom proceedings through special wide-angle video monitors and viewed and listened to voice and video evidence tapes on their individual screens. Neither the prosecution nor defense could see the jury or gauge the effect their legal maneuverings were having on any one juror. Each of the jurors had been selected from the venire list, sight unseen and had been challenged and questioned in the same manner.

Now, the prosecution was in its concluding statements. Dumpy John Harvey faced the judge and unblinking video eyes of the jury box. “

…And man has progressed from the primitive law of the jungle. I have no quarrel with Darwin’s theory of the survival of the fittest. But there is also no question but that an entire ethnic and cultural group can survive as the fittest rather than any single individual whose claws and morals might be more deadly than those of his neighbor.

“Our laws are designed for the protection of the masses of humanity and for the preservation of our progress. There can be no doubt in your minds about the evidence presented in this case. We have shown beyond a shadow of doubt that Kevin Shellwood was intoxicated at the time of his arrest. We have given you graphic testimony of the danger to untold lives that he posed in his unwarranted and liquor-laden driving of a three-ton projectile down a Thruway with the velocity of a medium-powered bullet. You have seen pictures and heard his actual voice as he attempted to bribe his way out of his crime. Yet the case of Kevin Shellwood can not stand of itself. In a few days, his father and his attorneys, together with other employees of the rich and powerful industrial empire of Shellwood Electronics, will come before another court and another jury to face additional charges of coercion and attempted bribery. Their alleged crimes are part of Kevin Shellwood’s story for both father and son have attempted to set themselves apart from human society; have used money, influence and power to corrupt society for their own ends. They have said in effect ‘we recognize no law but that of the clan.’

“Members of the jury, Kevin Shellwood is on trial here today but at the same time, so are you, as representatives of the people. If Kevin Shellwood is freed of the charges against him, society has signed its own death warrant. The magnificent transportation system that a free people of an entire continent have created for their own benefit and safety will become an open invitation to murder by those with enough money to buy their way out of their crimes. You can have no choice but to find Kevin Shellwood guilty as charged. Thank you.”

Harvey bowed to the judge and went back to his seat.

At the bench, Thruway Authority Justice James Bell addressed himself to the dozen faces watching him intently on a dozen small monitor screens concealed in the rim of his desk. The faces of the jurors were hidden from all but the judge. He gave his charge to the jury. When he had finished, covers slid down over the video eyes of each juror’s room. The jurors could discuss the case over a closed circuit that was unmonitored by any other source.

Across the big courtroom, Kevin Shellwood slumped in his chair at the defense table and eyed the trio of Patrol officers from Car 56 at the prosecution tables. The younger Shellwood was flanked by three attorneys but not Quinn and Hackmore. They sat in the spectators section together with the senior Shellwood, freed under fifty thousand dollars bonds pending their respective trials.

Kelly Lightfoot leaned towards Harvey. “What do you think Kevin will get if they find him guilty?”

Harvey shrugged. “I dunno. That’s up to the judge. My guess is that he’ll throw the book at him on both sentence and fine and then possibly withhold some of the sentence. But you never know how these things will turn out.”

Kelly looked across the room at the obviously nervous younger Shellwood.

“I feel so sorry for him,” she murmured.

“So do I,” Ben said, “but not for the same reasons. He might have been a good kid at one time and he still may turn out all right after this is over. But I can feel a lot sorrier for the people that he might have killed. And when this is over, at least he’ll be alive and won’t kill himself or anyone else on a highway.”

The crew and Harvey got up and went out into the corridor for a smoke. They had just taken a couple of puffs when a muted buzzer sounded at the door to the courtroom. “The jury’s ready,” Harvey said, snubbing out the cigarette and hurrying back into the courtroom.

Justice Bell was re-entering the room and ascending the bench as the Patrol crew walked back into the courtroom. The judge seated himself and then pressed a button on his bench. The twelve panels slid up from the jury videos. On the bench, the judge’s monitors showed the faces of the jurors.

“Have you reached a verdict?” Justice Bell asked. From a speaker over the bench, the voice of one of the jurors sounded. “We have.”

Bell glanced up at the defense table. “The defendant will rise and face the bench.” Kevin pushed his chair back and stood up.

“Members of the jury,” the judge said, “how do you find?”

“We find the defendant, Kevin Shellwood, guilty as charged on all counts.”

Across the room the youth slumped and pressed his palms against the edge of the table. His head was bowed. In the spectator section, his father half arose from his seat but was pulled back down by the two lawyers.

Justice Bell addressed the jury. “Is this the verdict of each and all of you individually and collectively?” he asked. “I now poll you individually. Juror Number One, is this your verdict?”

From the speaker above the first video lens came the words, “It is.” The justice continued through the twelve. When all had agreed, the judge paused.

“I thank the jury for its verdict and now dismiss it.” The covers slid down over the video lens and the monitors on the bench went blank.

“The defendant will approach the bench.”

Kevin moved out from behind the defense table, two of his attorneys following him. He halted before the bench.

“Kevin Shellwood,” Justice Bell said, “you have been found guilty of all charges against you. Do you have anything to say before the court passes judgment?”

Shellwood shook his head.

“Very well,” Bell said. “I hearby sentence you to serve a term in the Thruway Correctional Institution at St. Louis, Missouri not to exceed five years on each count, the sentences to run concurrently. I further fine you the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars. However, upon the recommendation of the prosecuting attorney and the recommendation of the arresting officer for your part in a disastrous situation on the Thruway after your arrest, I am suspending two years of your correctional term. And I further direct that the final year of your term, after time for good behavior has been deducted, be spent either on trustee status or under guard depending upon your honor, as an attendant crew member of a Thruway ambulance team. Perhaps then you can witness the kind of tragedy that you came so close to creating.

“I further warn you that under the laws of the Thruway Authority, you are automatically barred for life from the operation of any kind of surface ground vehicle and that failure to comply with this law will bring not only reinstatement of your full sentence but an additional sentence of ten years in correction.

“I should like to add this comment. I personally feel that you are the product of your environment and your family. It is unfortunate that you failed to learn at a much earlier age that laws are made for all people and that there is no such thing as a privileged class. I sincerely hope that in your future dealings with your fellow men following your release, that you will recognize this fact.”

Justice Bell raised his eyes and looked over the younger Sheliwood’s head to the spectator section where Kevin’s father sat.

“It may come as a shock to some people to realize that in this complex society in which we live and this ever-growing technology that both serves and threatens mankind, there are still people to whom the service of humanity is more important than rising above that humanity.

“This trial is ended.”

Justice Bell rose from his bench and walked from the courtroom. Two Thruway officers moved up and led Kevin Shellwood away.

The spectators filed out of the courtroom and the crew of Car 56 followed. As they moved past the row of seats where the elder Shellwood still sat, Ben glanced over at the older man. Quentin Shellwood caught the look and turned his face defiantly to the officer. Pure hatred glowed in the older man’s eyes. Ben paused and looked steadily at Kevin’s father for a moment and then sighed and hurried after his crew.

He caught up with them in the corridor. “Come on,” he said, taking Clay and Kelly by the arm. “We’ve still got time for a leisurely lunch before we head back for the barracks. We’ll probably be rolling by nightfall. And I gather from what the old man says, we draw the Miami run this trip.”

Clay looked up and stopped. “No kidding, Ben. You really think we’ll draw Miami?”

Ben nodded.

Gay fished in his tunic pocket and pulled out the little address book.

“What a break,” he murmured, thumbing through the pages, “I didn’t think I’d get to see her again this year.

Now what was her last name….”

LITTLE DO G GONE

Robert F. Young

I

The ground beneath his back was frost-cold. During the night the coldness had climbed into his arms and shoulders and condensed in his chest, and now he was a part of the ground itself, an almost indistinguishable part that must soon break free or forever be lost.

Through will alone he drove the last of the garish nightmares away, turned on his side and opened his eyes. It had been a binge to beat all binges. It had begun in a little bar off Teletheatre Square in Old New York City, and it had blasted off into space and taken root among the stars. Now, after strutting and fretting its hour upon the stage, it had come to an end.

Dawn had emerged from her gray dwelling in the east and was lighting pink candles to illumine the big back yard of the world. It was a world that Nicholas Hayes could not remember. He knew, though, that he had seen it before, seen it from the distorted deeps of drunkenness … through the mists of no-pain and non-remembrance … from the false heights of Never Come Tomorrow … seen it, and forgotten it.

He was lying in a field. Rows of dead stalks alternated with parallel swaths of frost-wilted weeds. On either side were similar fields, and in the distance, woods. Beyond the woods, hills showed.

He could see his breath. He could see something else, too–a small animal of some kind. It was crouching in the weeds a dozen yards away, and it was watching him.

He wondered whether it was inside or outside his head. Painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow, picked up a loose clod of earth and heaved it in the animal’s direction. The animal promptly disappeared.

He patted his pockets in the vain hope of finding a bottle. Raising his eyes, he saw the animal again. It had reappeared in the same spot, and had resumed watching him. “Go ‘way!” he shouted hoarsely, and closed his eyes. When he re-opened them, the animal was still there.

It looked as though it might be a dog of some sort, but he could not be sure. Perhaps it was real after all. Working himself into a sitting position, Hayes went through his pockets. They contained his billfold, which was empty, his Teletheatre Guild membership card, which was void, his passport, a large handful of change and a concentrated chocolate bar. Unwrapping the bar, he broke it in two and tossed one half to the animal. Again the animal vanished; but this time, thanks to the growing light, he saw it reappear some fifty yards beyond its original position. As he sat there, staring, it vanished once more, rematerialized in the very same spot it had occupied before, and gobbled down the chocolate.

Hayes rubbed his eyes. Still the animal would not go away. Moreover, it was looking at him as though it momentarily expected him to toss it another piece of chocolate. He held out the remaining half of the bar. “If you want it, you’ll have to come and get it,” he said.

The dog–for a dog of some kind it seemed to be–flattened out on its belly and inched its way forward. Dawn had lighted the last of her pink candles, and now her son, the day, was coming out to play. In the brighter light Hayes saw that the dog was about the size of a miniature poodle. Its hair was quite thick, though not in the least curly, and was the color of the rising morning mist. Its slightly oversize paws suggested that it had not completely grown out of puppyhood, and the sad, eager-to-be-loved look in its slightly slanted golden eyes more or less substantiated the suggestion. The rather long but blunt muzzle lent a comical pug-nose effect, and the tatterdemalion ears hung down on either side of the head like a pair of frayed bar-rags. By far the most remarkable feature about the animal was its tail–on the bushy side, terminating in a white tuft. But instead of wagging, it rotated, first clockwise and then counterclockwise, somewhat in the manner of a spring winding itself up and letting itself mn down. A star-shaped white mark blazed in the middle of the animal’s forehead.

Obviously the dog had not been eating very well of late, or perhaps, like any puppy, it was eternally hungry. It made short work of the second piece of chocolate, and gazed eagerly up into Hayes’ eyes as though expecting a third. Tentatively, Hayes tweaked one of the rag-like ears. “Well, anyway, at least you’re real,” he said.

But if the dog was real, why had it disappeared?

Hayes let the question ride for the moment. Too many other questions had priority over it. For one example, where was he? For another, what was he doing here?

He could remember choosing a planet at random and booking passage for it at the Great Eastern Spaceport, and he could vaguely remember boarding a subspace liner and long hours spent in the starbar, talking with other passengers now and then, but mostly to himself. But that was all he could remember. Sometime during the voyage he had reached the point of no-pain and non-remembrance. Somewhere along the line he had scaled the heights of Never Come Tomorrow and thumbed his nose at the cosmos.

And now, tomorrow had come. And the heights were hopelessly behind him.

He forced himself to his feet. His head was one vast gnawing ache, his body, a lump of clay supported by unfeeling stilts that once had been a pair of legs. Hatless. coatless, begrimed of slacks and shirt, he tamed and faced the way he must have come. There was a road of sorts not too far distant, and presently he was walking along it toward a misted huddle of buildings that spelled a town.

A soft whimpering sound came from behind him. He stopped and turned. The little dog stopped, too. It fixed him with a forlorn eye. “Well, what do you know?” Hayes said. And then, “Come on, Bar-rag. If you’ll promise not to disappear on me again, I’ll stake you to a meal.”

“Rowp!” the little dog answered, and rotated its tail. Hayes waited till it caught up to him, then tamed and continued on his way.

II

He was sweating when he came to the first house, and yet he was shivering, too. By the time he reached the business section, his chest was paining him so acutely that he could barely breathe.

The business section was still asleep, but it informed him by means of its unpretentious facades and crude wooden walkways that the town was an out-planet settlement. However, there were thousands of out-planet settlements. This could be any one of them. The place-name, when he finally spotted it on the facade of the only hotel, told him nothing:

THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS

He headed for the hotel, Bar-rag trotting at his heels. The doors were open, but there was no one on the immediate premises. He looked around. If he had ever been there before, the memory eluded him. He stepped into the bar. That at least ought to be familiar, and familiar it turned out to be. However, the bell that the big raftered room with its old-fashioned tables and chairs rang in his mind was faint indeed. While he knew that he had been there recently, he could not remember any detail of his visit.

He chose a table at random and sat down. Bar-rag, obviously disconcerted by its new surroundings, slipped beneath the table and curled up at his feet. The room was as devoid of decor as it was of people. Two high windows looked out into the street, a liana-like rope looped incongruously down from a centrally-located rafter to a small gallery on the wall opposite the bar, and there was a doorway in the rear that presumably led to the kitchen.

Hayes pounded on the tabletop. Someone ought to be up at least.

Someone was: a tall girl with shoulder-length blonde hair, rattler wide hips, and nice legs. She advanced purposefully into the room through the doorway at the rear, her blue eyes bright with indignation. “Breakfast isn’t served till eight-thirty!” she snapped. “Just who in hell do you think you are, mister?” Abruptly she stopped in her tracks. Then, slowly, she covered the remaining distance to the table, eyes no longer indignant. “I’m sorry, Mr. Hayes,” she said. “I didn’t recognize you.”

She had a full, oval face, but her rather high cheekbones and the way she wore her hair made her cheeks seem thin. Hayes judged her to be somewhere in her late twenties or early thirties, which put her pretty much in his own age-category. However, he did not know her from Eve. “When did we meet?” he asked.

“We didn’t, but I know you from your teletheatre roles. Last night when you came into the bar I recognized you right away.” Briefly, she lowered her eyes. She was wearing a knee-length floral dress that covered most of her shoulders, and her hair lay upon the false flowers like morning sunshine. “You—you might say I’m one of your many admirers.”

“Did anyone else recognize me?”

“I don’t think so. I’m afraid even taped teletheatre hasn’t got to Black Dirt yet.”

Black Dirt, he thought. That would be Procyon 16. Now why in hell had he come here? Aloud, he said, “I’m a little foggy on a few points. By any chance did I happen to mention how I got here?”

“I heard you tell the bartender that you’d come in from Port-o’-Stars by airbus, and that you were recently arrived from Earth. Don’t you remember, Mr. Hayes?”

“How long did I hang around?”

“Till nearly closing time. I—I wanted to talk to you, but I didn’t have enough nerve. Then suddenly I looked around and you were gone. I checked your bag and your coat in the lobby. I thought perhaps you’d gone somewhere else to sleep.”

Hayes grimaced. “I did. Though I imagine my original intention was confined to a walk beneath the stars.”

At this point, Bar-rag poked its head from beneath the table. The girl jumped. “Where in the world did you get hold of a doggone, Mr. Hayes?” she said. “I thought all of them had been frightened back into the hills.”

“A doggone?”

“That’s the settlers’ name for them. First you see them, then you don’t. They’re capable of teleportation.”

“Well, no wonder!” Hayes said. “For a while there when I first woke up I thought I was seeing things. He followed me back to town for some reason or other—probably a free meal. Do you think you could fix him up with something?”

“Of course. He must like you, Mr. Hayes. Usually when a doggone sees a human being, he teleports himself as far away as he can get. Or perhaps I should say ‘it.’ They’re bisexual, you know, and reproduce by parthenogenesis.” She looked at Hayes closely. “You’re shivering, Mr. Hayes. Shall I turn the heat up?”

“No. Just bring me a triple shot.”

He downed half of it a second after she set it before him. A shudder began deep within him and spread upward. The room very nearly turned upside down, but he steadied it just in time by gripping the edge of the table with both hands. Presently he became aware that the girl was leaning over him. “Are you all right, Mr. Hayes?” she asked.

He drank the rest of the whiskey. “I will be. By the way, what’s your name?”

“Moira. Moira Blair.”

“Bring me another triple shot, Moira.”

There was concern in her blue eyes. “Do you think—”

“I do. Bring it.”

After she brought it, she went into the kitchen and returned a few minutes later bearing a plate of meat scraps. She set the plate on the floor, and the little doggone came out of hiding and dug in. “Does he have a name yet, Mr. Hayes’!”

“Bar-rag.” Hayes tossed off the second triple shot and removed the handful of change from his pocket. He piled it carefully on the table. “This cairn of coins you see before you, Moira, represents the last of the tangible assets of one Nicholas Hayes,” he said. “You will keep bringing him drinks till it is gone, after which it is to be hoped that you will have the good sense to throw him out into the gutter where he belongs.”

“Please let me help you, Mr. Hayes.”

“Why?”

“Because it isn’t fair for you to—to be like this. When I was still living in New North Dakota, Mars and had access to live TTV, I saw you in all your teletheatre roles, both Debuts and Encores. I saw you as Tambourlaine. I saw you as Cyrano. I saw you as Hamlet. I saw you as Edward II. I saw you as Willy Loman. And you were wonderful. You still are! You always will be.”

“Aha! but you didn’t see me as Milton Pomfret, did you? You didn’t see me in the Debut of The Two-Sided Triangle. Even if you were still living in New North Dakota you wouldn’t have seen me.” Hayes crashed his fist on the table. “And do you know why you wouldn’t have seen me, Moira? You wouldn’t have seen me because on Debut night, I showed up as drunk as a spaceman on three-weeks’ leave and got myself thrown out of teletheatre. And it was just what I had coining, too. Because you see, Moira my dear, that was far from the first time I had shown up as drunk as a spaceman on three-weeks’ leave—far from the first time Humpty Dumpty Hayes had had a great fall. Only this time, Christopher King’s horses and Christopher King’s men didn’t bother to put Humpty Dumpty back together again with alco-antidotes and souped-up sugar pills. By this time they were as sick of him as he was of himself. So they told him that if he wanted to be put back together again, he would have to do the job himself. So he burned his bridges behind him, invested in a super-binge, climbed aboard and blasted off for the stars on a mission he has since forgotten and no longer wants to remember. For God’s sake, bring him a bottle and let him bow out in peace!”

It was the flattest, most uncompromising “no” that Hayes had ever heard in all his life. It brought him to his feet—and to his undoing. This time, when the room started to turn upside down, he could not stop it. Giddiness washed over him like gray surf, and beyond the surf, blackness roiled … And now, the blackness began swirling around his legs. Up, up, it swirled, and he called out “Leslie!” in a semi-strangled voice. However, it was not sophisticated dark-haired Leslie who leaped through the gathering night to his side, but a tall blonde girl with anxious eyes. He felt strong arms supporting him as he sank into nothingness, and just before the nothingness became complete, he felt her fingers touch his face.

There were jumbled phrases of warmth and cold, of darkness and light. Sometimes the bedroom in which he lay played host to a blonde girl wearing a print dress—and once in a while to the same girl wearing a jaguar-skin sarong—and frequently to a coarse, bearded man with chest-prodding fingers—and always, it seemed, to a small, mist-gray animal with bar-rag ears, rotating tail, and worshipful golden eyes. Finally there were late mornings and long, sunny afternoons, and sometimes snow falling lazily beyond diamond-patterned windowpanes.

The bedroom was not a large one. Strictly speaking, it was not a bedroom at all, but a commandeered living room. There was a sofa and there were chairs and there was a small table on which stood a lamp, a clock and a copy of R. E. Hames’ Stellar Geography. The only incongruous item was the bed. It was high and narrow and it had obviously been borrowed from the local frontier hospital. It stood out among the endemic furniture like a bedsheeted barge floating down a nonexistent river.

One night, the girl in the jaguar skin came out of the shadows and gazed down upon his face. “Dr. Grimes says you’re much better,” she said. “I’m glad.”

“You’re Moira, aren’t you?” Hayes said.

“Not when I wear my costume. When I wear my costume I’m Zonda of the Amazon, the Amazon in this case being the big river of the same name in the wilds of Alpha Centauri 9. Haven’t you ever heard of Zonda of the Amazon, Mr. Hayes?”

“I can’t say as I have.”

“She was the main character of an earthside 3V show of the same title. They chose me for the role because they needed a big blonde and didn’t in the least mind if she fell considerably short of being a second Sarah Bernhardt. I used to swing through trees on fake grapevines and win friends and influence animals and utter sparkling lines such as `Zonda hungry’ and `Zonda save you—you no fear.’ For a poor girl from New North Dakota, Mars, who couldn’t act her way out of a plastic bag, I did all right for myself for a while. And then the series was canceled, and I found myself out in the cold, because big blondes who can’t act are no more in demand in Videoville than they used to be in Hollywood. But I’d saved enough money to last me until the reruns began and checks started coming through again. And after the reruns came the repeat-reruns. And after that the series was sold successively to just about every earthside station on the network, and I began making personal appearances in local studios for the benefit of the kids who still remembered me. Then the series was sold successively to the Martian stations, and I made more personal appearances, and eventually the tapes were shipped off to out-planets like Black Dirt that didn’t have 3V yet but that did have local theatres where the tapes could be run along with old, old movies, and, well, I tagged along as usual for more personal appearances and finally I ended up here in The Last Of The Mohicans where the proprietor of the local hotel offered me a job for life if I’d play Zonda of the Amazon once a week for the benefit of his bar trade. By that time I was sick of being Zonda. But I was even sicker of traveling from one sad stand to another, so I took him up on his offer.”

“What do you have to do?” Hayes asked.

“Three times each Saturday night I swing across the barroom on a make-believe grapevine, land on the bar, give the victory cry of a Centaurian jungle girl, and fight off the dirt farmers.”

“Is this your living room?”

She nodded. “But don’t feel that you’re inconveniencing me, Mr. Hayes. I never use it.”

“Why didn’t you pack me off to the nearest charity ward and have done with me?”

“I thought you’d be better off here. Out-planet hospitals are understaffed and half of the time they don’t even have the medical supplies they need.” She glanced at the clock on the table. “I’ll have to be going now, Mr. Hayes. It’s almost time for Zonda’s first aerial maneuver. Bar-rag will keep you company till you fall asleep. Won’t you, Bar-rag?”

At the sound of its name, the little doggone materialized on the bed, joyously winding and unwinding its tail. “Rowp!” it said to Hayes, and licked his cheek. Hayes grinned. “I need a shave, don’t I?” he said.

“I’ll have a barber come in tomorrow. While he’s at it, he can give you a haircut, too.” Moira dimmed the light. “Good night, Mr. Hayes.”

“Good night,” Hayes said.

After site had gone, he let his head sink deep into the pillow. He was weary and he was weak, and he felt as though he could go on lying there forever. There was no sound save for the remote thumping of a stereo in the bar below, and the soft susurrus of Bar-rag’s breathing. Beyond the diamond-patterned windowpanes, a streetlight caught glistening particles of gently falling snow … In Old York, it would be summer. It was always summer in Old York, with balmy winds blowing in from the rerouted Gulf Stream and breathing up the revamped avenues. The open-air little theatres around Teletheatre Square would be in full swing. NOW PLAYING: The Two-Sided Triangle, with Leslie Lake and Humpty Dumpty Hayes. No, not Humpty Dumpty Hayes. Humpty Dumpty Hayes had had a great fall—remember? And all the King’s horses and all the King’s men hadn’t bothered to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

Hayes closed his eyes against the sudden bleakness of the ceiling. Desperately, he reached out and touched Bar-rag’s glossy back. The little animal curled up in the crook of his arm. It was all right then, and he knew that tonight at least he could sleep. NOW PLAYING, he thought drowsily: The Last of the Mohicans Hotel, with Bar-rag, Zonda of the Amazon, and Humpty Dumpty Hayes …

III

There were times after that when he wanted a drink, when he begged for a drink, when he cried out for a drink and raved when Moira would not bring him one and locked the door behind her. Once when she came upstairs after her Zonda routine he was waiting for her in the shadows, and when she came into the room, he seized her throat and went tumbling with her to the floor, threatening to kill her unless she promised to go back down to the bar and get him a bottle.

He was still pitifully weak. It would have been no trick at all for her to have broken his grip and flung him aside but she didn’t. Instead, she lay there immobile, and after a while, she said, “Go ahead, Nick—choke me. What are you waiting for?” His hands fell away then, and he sat there sick and ashamed on the floor till she got up and helped him back into bed.

When she brought him his breakfast the next morning, she sat down beside the bed and talked to him as though nothing had happened. He couldn’t stand it. “For God’s sake, why don’t you throw me out and have done with me!” he said.

Her eyes were soft upon his face. “Nights are the worst, aren’t they?” she said.

“Nights I’m someone else. Or maybe it’s the other way around. It doesn’t matter—neither one of us is any good.”

“I think you’re someone in between. Like me. I’m someone in between Zonda of the Amazon and Moira Blair.”

“It’s not the same, and you know it,” Hayes said. Then, “How long have I been cooped up in here?” he asked.

“Three weeks. But the doctor says you’ll be on your feet in a few more days. I guess you know by now that you very nearly died.”

Suddenly Bar-rag materialized between them on the edge of the bed. There were particles of ice clinging to its paws, and a little ridge of snow lay along the top of its nose. Hayes gave the little animal a piece of toast. “I wonder where he’s been,” he said.

“Home in the hills, I imagine,” Moira said. “They have an infallible sense of direction, and I’ve heard that they can teleport themselves millions of miles. I think they could even teleport themselves from one planet to another if they took it into their heads.”

“If they did, they’d be dead. Teleportation may be instantaneous in one sense, but it’s still subject to the velocity of light—unless it employs subspace.”

“It doesn’t—which is probably why doggones never leave Black Dirt. They probably sense what would happen to them if they were to spend several minutes in an absolute-zero vacuum. The way an ordinary dog knows enough not to jump over a cliff.”

“Rowp!” Bar-rag said.

Hayes laughed. “I almost believe he knows what we’re talking about.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me. They’re remarkably intelligent.” She stood up. “I must go now, Nick.”

“Between Moira of the Kitchen and Zonda of the Amazon, you put in a pretty long week.”

“I don’t mind. It’s good to keep busy.” She picked up the breakfast tray. Just as she did so, Bar-rag disappeared from the bed, and a split second later, scratching sounds came from the hall. She went over to the hall door and opened it, and there was Bar-rag standing proudly on the threshold. “Why I do believe you’re showing off,” she said. “Bar-rag, you’re a born ham!”

“Rowp!” Bar-rag said, and teleported itself back to the bed.

Hayes stared at the roguish face. “Moira,” he said excitedly, “I just remembered why I came to the stars! I was going to tour the out-planet towns and support myself by giving Shakespearean soliloquies. It was a corny idea, and I thought of it when I was drunk, and it never would have paid off in a million years. But now I’ve got a better idea. Would you bring me a pad and pencil before you go back down stairs?”

“Sure, Nick.”

He did not begin to write right away, but sat there thinking, his pillow propped behind his back, the pad resting on his knees. To accomplish what he had in mind, he would need first of all the right sort of skit.

Perhaps he could adapt it from a passage of a well-known play that was in the public domain. The idea appealed to him, and he began going over the plays he knew by heart. The process could very well have taken the rest of the morning if The Two-Sided Triangle hadn’t come immediately to mind. When that happened, he knew he needed to go no further: the play was a good sixty years old, it was perennially popular and part of it at least should prove ideally suited to his needs.

He knew it by heart. Now he began thinking it through, word for word, line by line, scene by scene. It concerned a young executive named Milton Pomfret whose wife Glenda was determined to find out whether he was a philanderer or a perfect husband. Enlisting the services of a phoneticist and a face-and-figure specialist, she made arrangements with each to have herself temporarily changed into another woman, after which she told her husband she was going to visit her mother for a few weeks, packed her things and rented a downtown apartment under the name of Mary Lou Johnson. She had her face and figure altered over the weekend, and with the phoneticist’s help, practiced and perfected a subtly different mode of speech. Then on Monday morning, she got a secretarial job in her husband’s office and went on the make for him. On several occasions she almost became his “mistress,” but each time, something happened to interrupt the proceedings, leaving her no wiser than she had been before.

Eventually the husband fell madly in love with her and asked her to marry him—a development she had failed to foresee—and in order to keep him, she had to divorce him as her original and remarry him as her second self.

The scene which Hayes finally settled on was one of the most popular ones in the play. It opened with Milton Pomfret stopping off at Mary Lou’s apartment after a date and sitting down beside her on the big sofa in her living room. By this time, Milton’s defenses had crumbled and he was ready to make love and as for Mary Lou, she was more than ready. However, each time they were about to go into a clinch an interruption occurred. In the play, the interruptions were ironic in nature; in the version which Hayes presently set down, they were farcical and amounted in each case to the materializing of Bar-rag between the two lovers each time they were about to embrace. The first time the little animal appeared, Mary Lou put it outside and locked the door; the second time, she put it outside and locked the windows as well as the door; the third time she put it outside, locked the windows and the door and activated the anti-housebreak field; and the fourth time, with Milton’s help, she got a suitcase and a trunk out of the closet, put the little animal into the suitcase, locked the suitcase and secured the straps, put the suitcase into the trunk, closed and locked the lid, dragged the trunk outside, came back in, locked and barricaded the door and reactivated the anti-housebreak field. Then, certain that they would not be interrupted again, the two frustrated lovers returned to the sofa, only to have Bar-rag pop into being between them for the fifth and final time. In addition to these changes, Hayes made the revisions that were necessary to make the skit an independent unit, but otherwise he kept the dialogue and the action intact.

He was just completing the polished version when Moira brought him his lunch. He was so enthusiastic that he could hardly eat.

“Read it,” he said, handing her the script. “Picture yourself as Mary Lou, me as Milton Pomfret and Bar-rag as himself. See what you think.”

Her blue eyes brought a summer sunrise to mind when she raised them from the final page. “You—you want me to act this with you?”

“You and Bar-rag. He’ll be the star of course. The people on Black Dirt know about doggones but the people on the other out-planets have probably never even heard of such an animal, and with them, the act will be twice as effective. We’ll be combining old-fashioned thaumaturgy with broad out-planet humor and, even if we fail to get laughs, our audiences will at least be mystified. Sure I know that such a cornball setup would fall flat on its face in Old York, but we should worry about Old York with all the out-planet places we’ve got at our disposal. I’ll turn out a few more skits to round out the show to about an hour and a half, then we’ll go on tour, the three of us, and—”

“You—you want me to act with you?”

“Come off it, Moira, I’m not bestowing any honors, I’m merely suggesting a way for us to make some money. I’ve got to make some someway, and acting, or at least some aspect of it, is the only means I have. If you’re satisfied with your job here, I’ll get someone else. But I’d much rather have you.”

“Don’t you dare get anybody else!”

He grinned. “All right, I won’t,” he said. “We can begin rehearsing right here in this room,” he went on. “If you can scare up a trunk somewhere, we’ll have all the props we’ll need, and the room itself will serve as a stage. Our main problem is going to be Bar-rag. He’s got to appear between us at exactly the right times, or the whole thing won’t work. You’ll notice that in the skit the last word Milton speaks before each interruption is ‘darling.’ That’ll be Bar-rag’s cue. Do you think we can get him to respond to it?”

Her eyes were shining, and there was a hint of tears in their corners. Hayes didn’t believe be had ever seen anyone so happy in all his life. “I’m sure we can,” she said. “Bar-rag, come here.”

The doggone materialized in her arms, tail whirring like a small propellor. A tear tumbled down her cheek and dropped on the little animal’s nose. NOW PLAYING, Hayes thought: Zonda of the Amazon, Bar-rag the Wonder Dog, and Nicholas Hayes in Courtin’ Mary Lou.

IV

They began rehearsing the next evening, with Hayes playing Milton Pomfret and directing at the same time. Moira and Bar-rag proved to be the two most co-operative players he had ever worked with. Within three days the skit was running smoothly, with the doggone appearing promptly on cue and Moira embracing the role of the beautiful but far from brilliant out-planet girl as though she had been preparing for it all her life. As for Hayes himself, he merely had to make a few minor changes in his portrayal of the old Milton Pomfret in order to become the new, after which he performed the part with his usual adroit mastery.

Between rehearsals, he dashed off three more skits, each embodying the sort of broad humor out-planet people went for, and he and Moira mastered these skits, too, with Bar-rag providing an enthusiastic if puzzled audience of one. Finally one evening they ran through the entire act, saving Courtin’ Mary Lou till the last. The performance came off without a hitch. “Now,” said Hayes, “we’ve got to have a sort of trial run right here in The Last of the Mohicans, just to make sure. For that, we’ll have to rent the local theatre, and to rent the local theatre we’re going to need money.” He went into the bedroom, opened the dresser drawer where Moira had put away his things, and returned a moment later with a platinum figurine of Maurice Evans. Inscribed on the base were the words: The Evans Telerheatre Award, given to Nicholas Hayes in this year of Our Lord 2186 for his outstanding contribution to the telestage in his role as Edward II. He handed the figurine to Moira. “Take it into Port-o’-Stars tomorrow. You ought to be able to get a couple of hundred credits for it, which should be enough to get us started.”

She stood there looking down at the figurine as though it were a crucifix. “I have money, Nick. There’s no need for you to make such a sacrifice.”

He flushed. “That’s a chunk of platinum you’re holding in your hands. Nothing more. You’ll do as I say.”

“But it’s not fair, Nick.”

“All right, I’ll go myself!”

He reached for the figurine, but she drew it back. “I’ll go,” she said, not looking at him. “You’re not well enough yet.”

“Good. While you’re gone, I’ll get some advertising copy into circulation and rig up an anti-housebreak field generator. When you get back, we’ll run through the act on a real stage. And in a couple of days we’ll open!”

On the first night, they played before a full house. On the second. And the third.

Hayes was amazed till he remembered that out-planet towns like The Last of The Mohicans were virtually devoid of live entertainment, and that the same state of affairs endured in the surrounding areas. Even with Bar-rag as a known quantity, the Courtin’ Mary Lou skit went over big, and the three skits that preceded it got their share of laughs, too. No, not laughs: guffaws—guffaws that made the skylights rattle. It was a new experience for Hayes, who was accustomed to sophisticated audiences, but he took it in his stride without undue difficulty. Moira took it in hers, too, and as for Bar-rag, it turned out to be the truest trouper of them all, and fell sound asleep in Hayes’ arms while they were returning to the hotel after their first performance.

They could have played in The Last Of The Mohicans for a month running, but Hayes was anxious to get started on the itinerary which he had mapped out with the aid of Hames’ Stellar Geography, and anxious also to sample an audience that had never seen a doggone. Hence he instructed Moira to give her employer a week’s notice.

When the week was up, they packed their things, set out by airbus to Port-o’-Stars, cleared Bar-rag through customs and booked passage for Goshen, the twelfth planet of the blue star Sirius. Moira had sold the figurine for three hundred credits. Their take after expenses from The Last Of The Mohicans stand amounted to more than seven hundred more, giving them a combined working capital of some one thousand credits.

Things were looking up.

Their first stop on Goshen was a backwoods town called Down In The Valley.

The town itself harbored a mere handful of colonists, most of them merchants, but the first district that it serviced was as large as the Holland Land Grant and boasted a population of some ten thousand immigrants and some two thousand natives. During the three weeks Hayes & Co. played at the Down In The Valley Grange Hall, all of them, immigrant and native alike, managed to get into town at least once to see the “disappearin’ dawg.”

Hayes should have been delighted. He wondered why he wasn’t.

From Down in the Valley, the trio journeyed overland to Sheepdip, and from Sheepdip to Rise-n’-Shine, and from Rise-n’-Shine to St. Johnswort. In his room at the St. Johnswort Hotel, Hayes came across a discarded copy of Spectrum, and in it he found a review of The Two-Sided Triangle, The play had enjoyed a successful TTV Debut and was enjoying equal success during its Old York stand. According to the reviewer, it was a cinch for a TTV Encore. Leslie Lake’s bravura in the portrayal of Glenda—Mary Lou had firmly established her in the upper echelons of stardom, and the part of Milton Pomfret was being played with a finesse seldom encountered in an understudy. Hayes threw the mgazine in the wastebasket.

He walked over to the room’s only window and looked down into the street. The hour was late, and no one was abroad. In the adjoining room Moira, weary from their long journey, was preparing for bed. He could hear drawers opening and closing as she put her things away, and the muted patter of her bare feet upon the floor. Behind him, Bar-rag lay fast asleep at the foot of the bed.

He felt suddenly, horribly, alone.

Leaving the room, he descended to the lobby. The lobby was empty. He stepped out into the street. There was a lingering tang of winter in the night air, but there was the scent of green things, too. In St. Johnswort, it was spring. Soon the lovely flowers that had given the little town its name would be nodding their yellow heads along roadsides and country lanes. Soon birds would sing.

He began to walk. St. Johnswort stood on a gentle mountainside, and below it lay a deep valley where the scattered lights of farmhouses shone. Above the valley lay the inverted valley of the sky, and here there were other lights, the lights of stars.

One of the stars was Sol.

In Old York, it would be summer. It was always summer in Old York. In Old York, there were many lights and much laughter, and never any need to be alone. In Old York, if you were good enough, you could step upon a magic stage and cameras would focus on you and multiply you by one hundred million … and on Earth and on Mars you would step into millions of living rooms, and people would know you were alive. Out, out, brief candle! Out, out, the brief career of Nicholas Hayes.

The street along which he was walking came to an end. It did not debouch into another street the way most streets do when they die. It simply stopped existing because there was no further reason for it to be. Trees grew boldly up to its very edge, and in the darkness a phosphorescent sign said, Dead End.

Wearily, Hayes turned and began retracing his steps. He became aware then that he was not alone. Something was walking beside him—a little animal with a pug nose and golden eyes.

“Bar-rag,” he said, “what’re you doing out so late at night? You should be in bed.”

“Rowp!” the little animal said, and looked up at him the way people used to look up at him at curtain call when he and his supporting cast stepped out upon the proscenium, and took their bows. Then it disappeared. Lord! he thought, if I could teleport, I’d be back on Earth as fast as the wings of light could carry me. And then he thought, Yes, and arrive there dead eight years from now. I’m as well off being dead, dumbly waltzing around up here among the stars.

Yes, but did he have to remain dead? Was he so stupid that he could devise no way to bring himself back to life? No, he was not stupid. Not he, Nicholas Hayes. It wasn’t a matter of devising a means to gain his end. It was merely a matter of selection!

When he got back to his room, Bar-rag was fast asleep again at the foot of the bed. The adjoining room was silent. Should he wait till morning? he wondered. He decided not to. Tapping on the door, he said, “Moira, may I talk with you for a while.”

There was a silence, and then the clicking of a lamp. “Yes, Nick, come in.”

In the radiance of the bed lamp her hair was the color of evening primroses and lay like spring upon the pillow. Her eyes were bellflower-blue. “Are you all right, Nick?” she asked.

“Yes.” He pulled a chair over to the side of the bed, and sat down. “I was walking tonight, and I got an idea. An idea for a theatre-ship.”

“Yes, Nick?”

“Centuries ago on Earth, charlatans used to travel from frontier town to frontier town on enclosed wagons, giving what were called medicine shows. The shows themselves were free, designed to attract a crowd so that the charlatan could peddle his quack remedies. Thanks to too-rapid colonization brought on by the subspace drive, we have today a situation similar to that which existed in the old west. The settlers have spread out so rapidly and so widely that it’s no longer possible to keep them supplied with everything they need, and this is particularly true with regard to medicine. So suppose, Moira, that you and I were to invest in a used space-freighter, remodel the interior so that we could live in it comfortably, stock it with all-purpose medicine kits, and install a stage. Then suppose that we were to limit our act to the Courtin’ Mary Lou skit and were to peddle medicine kits instead of charging admission. We could sell them at a modest profit, and we’d never have to feel guilty about taking advantage of gullible people. Because far from taking advantage of them, we’d be helping them. Granted, we’d never get rich. But we’d make a reasonably good living, and, while we’d be traveling all the time, we’d never really be away from home because we’d have our home with us. What do you think, Moira?”

For a long while she was silent. Then, “Why do you want to do this, Nick?”

The time had come for the lie. He told it beautifully: “Because I’ve got to stop thinking of myself as an actor. Because somehow I’ve got to shed the past. I need a new identity, a totally different identity. Maybe being a ‘medicine man’ will bring me peace.”

She looked away from his face; at the coverlet, at her hands. They were rather large hands, and hard work had broadened them; but they were full of grace. Presently she said, “I think it’s a wonderful idea, Nick.”

“Good. We’ll do a one-week stand here, then we’ll go to Mars. There’s a big used-ship yard at Port-o’-Sands that ought to be able to supply us with the sort of ship we’ll need.” He stood up. “I’m sorry I had to wake you up, Moira, but I had to find out how you’d feel.”

“It’s all right, Nick. And Nick?”

“Yes?”

“Port-o’-Sands isn’t very far from New North Dakota. Maybe we can visit the farm. And—and my folks.”

“We’ll make it a point to. Good night, Moira.”

“Good night.”

V

The freighter they finally settled for was an old washtub of a job, but the ion drive was still in good working order and the space-subspace correlator, for all its passe design, functioned as efficiently as the newer, more compact units. In common with the more modern merchantmen, the Dr. Albert Schweitzer, as they named the vessel, could be operated by one man. Just as important, the deck of the lower level was but several feet above ground level, and in conjunction with the retractable dock would provide an excellent stage.

To obtain more width, Hayes had the original cargo-locks removed, the aperture enlarged and wider ones installed. The power room occupied most of the rear section of the lower hold, but there was still a dressing room for Moira, one for Hayes and space for three compartments and a small storage room. Moira insisted that Bar-rag’s name be painted on the storage-room door, saying that in view of the fact that the little doggone was the most essential member of the cast, it rated equal prestige at least. Grudgingly, Hayes gave in to her. Half of the upper hold, Hayes set aside for the Medicine kits, which had already been ordered from Earth, and for supplies. The other half he had converted into a large living room, a commodious kitchen and a small office. The pilots’ quarters on the deck above made an excellent pair of upstairs bedrooms. As a finishing touch, he replaced the pilots’ quarters and control room with a spiral steel stairway, after which he had the ship painted inside and out. Then he and Moira went shopping for furniture.

By this time, the capital of Hayes & Co. had dwindled to an alarming low. They had purchased the ship on time, putting the loan through the Port-o’-Sands Manufacturers’ and Traders’ Trust Company; for everything else, however, they had laid down hard cash.

Consequently, they had to settle for something less in the way of furniture than they originally had had in mind. In the end, though, this worked to their advantage, for Moira proved to have a knack for refurbishing chairs, tables, beds and even appliances, and eventually the cheapest and most decrepit items they bought yielded both dignity and grace. Nor did Moira stop with the furniture. The rooms themselves got a going over, too, and when she was done, the living quarters could have passed for a late-twentieth century duplex–which in effect was what they really were.

All this while she and Hayes had been attending night school and learning how to pilot a spacecraft. The near-complete automation of ships like the Dr. Albert Schweitzer had long since relegated spaceship navigation to pretty much the same category as driving a late-twentieth century automobile. In many ways it was simpler; certainly it was less perilous. Nevertheless, there were certain basic steps that all would-be pilots had to familiar with, and in addition there were scores of rules to be memorized. Then Moira and Hayes had to take the training ship on a solo orbit apiece, after which each of them had to go on a trial correlation run to Alpha Centauri 4 and back. Neither ran into any trouble, and they received their licenses on the same day.

Meanwhile, the medicine kits they had ordered from Earth had arrived and had been loaded onto the Dr. Albert Schweitzer, bringing their business in Port-o’-Sands to a close. “If we’re going to visit your folks, it’s high time we were getting started,” Hayes said after supper one night. “What did you say the name of your home town was?”

She placed the last of the supper dishes in the rinser and turned the unit on. “Red Spud. It’s not a town, though. It’s a hamlet, and not much of a one at that. But it’s on one of the main airbus routes.”

“Good. We can pack tonight and leave in the morning.” She did not look at him. “All right.”

“You don’t seem very enthusiastic.”

“Nick,” she said to the stove, “do you think we could pretend to be–to be–”

“To be what?”

“Man and wife. For the duration of the visit, I mean. I–I know you’ve never thought of me that way, and I know I’ve no right to expect you to. But my mother and father are going to wonder. And probably they’ll worry. So for their benefit could we make believe?”

Hayes looked out of the kitchen viewport into the cluttered darkness of the shipyard. Here and there, specks of wan light shone, and in the distance a night crew was dismantling an ancient SB-2. Marriage was an item that had not entered into his calculations. But would it do him any harm to marry Moira? True, he did not love her. But then he had never loved anyone, for that matter–save Leslie perhaps. And anyway, marriage wasn’t the final step it used to be. There was a clause in every contract that made it possible for either party to walk out on the other during the first year without showing just cause–provided no children had been conceived during that period of time. The Two-Sided Triangle would come up for Encore long before a year.

So he said to Moira, “I remembered everything, didn’t I? Except the most important thing of all. Will you marry me, Moira?”

Her eyes, when she raised them to his, brought Bar-rag’s worshipful orbs to mind. “I didn’t mean for you to ask me that.”

“Nevertheless, I did ask it. So don’t you think I rate an answer?”

“I’m the girl who used to swing on a grapevine in the Last Of The Mohicans Hotel–remember?”

“And I’m the drunk you rescued from the snakes.”

He saw her then, as the years fell from her shoulders, the way she must have been when she set out from New North Dakota long ago, tall and slender, girlish and soft; Zonda of the Amazon standing in a treetop and looking out over the wide, wide world, blue eyes filled with wonder. But it was Moira, not Zonda, who answered. “I’m not Leslie,” she said. “I could never be Leslie Lake.”

He stood his ground. “I wouldn’t want you to be.” Stepping closer, he placed his hands upon her shoulders. “Well tied a justice of the peace tonight. We’ll spend our honeymoon in New North Dakota.” He paused. Terms of endearment had always been difficult for him to utter. He could never in real life give them the sincerity that was needed to put them across, the sincerity that came so natural to him on the stage. But it was imperative that he utter on now. “I’m sure we’ll be happy, darling,” he said.

Instantly, Bar-rag, who had been dozing on the couch in the living room, materialized between them. Moira laughed, and suddenly everything was the way it should be, and she was warm and wanted in his arms. Bar-rag, proud as a peacock for having remembered its cue, leaped ecstatically about their feet, tail rotating like a toy windmill.

New North Dakota was warmth on cold nights and red plains rolling away under pale Martian skies; it was raftered rooms and open fireplaces and strong coffee percolating on primitive stoves, it was maklus roasts browning in ovens, and brown gravy and baked beans; it was 3V beamed all the way from Earth and viewed on long evenings in big living rooms; it was hikes in ocher hills and dances in bright community halls, and allemaine left and allemaine right; it was star-crisp nights walking home from warmth and laughter, cameraderie and good cheer; it was waking under eaves in gray dawnlight beneath feather ticks ten inches thick; it was a quaint little church standing like a steepled matchbox beneath a vastness of lavender sky, and the peace of pleasant people on pleasant Sunday afternoons.

When the time came to leave, Hayes was almost as sad as Moira’s parents were. Moira cried. Bar-mg did not cry, of course; but the sadness in the little animal’s slanted golden eyes said that it would have if it could.

However, the sadness was short-lived on both man and doggone’s part. It lasted no longer than the airbus journey back to Port-if-Sands. After that, Hayes had piloting to occupy him, and Bar-rag, the exploration of the world of the ship.

The exploration had been begun before the trip to New North Dakota, and now it was resumed in earnest. Seemingly obsessed with a desire to be everywhere at once, the little animal kept teleporting itself from deck to deck, from hold to hold, from room to room, and for a while Hayes re-experienced the fear he had experienced during the Black Dirt-to-Goshen and Goshen-to-Mars run—that the doggone would miscalculate its distance and teleport itself beyond the life-and-death boundary of the hull. But it never did. Hayes came to the conclusion that, in common with its sense of direction, a doggone’s sense of distance was infallible.

The first planet on the medicine-show itinerary was Golden Grain, the ninth satellite of the green star Castor. After clearing the ship at Port-o’-Plains, he began the series of hops that he and Moira had decided upon, the first of which brought them to One Leg To Stand On. Coming down in an uncultivated field a few miles outside of town, he started beaming a carefully prepared sales pitch over the local short-wave band: “NOW PLAYING: Nicholas Hayes, Zonda of the Amazon, and Bar-rag the Wonder Dog in Courtin’ Mary Lou. Come one, come all—ADMISSION FREE. The place: the Theatre-Ship, two miles south of town. The time: starrise. See Bar-rag the Wonder Dog thwart the ardent lovers. See him appear out of Thin Air and spin his magic tail. See him, see him, see him! FREE! FREE! FREE!” If the “FREE” didn’t get them, nothing would.

It got them all right—that, and the emptiness of their days. By the time the first star appeared, the section of the meadow in front of the ship was filled to capacity, and beyond. The starlit faces were gaunt and unimaginative for the most part, but there was curiosity in every pair of eyes, and in the children’s, eagerness as well. Hayes turned on the footlights he had installed along the edge of the dock, and stepped from behind the maroon plastivelvet curtain Moira had made.

“Citizens of Golden Grain,” he said, “we have not come here to defraud you of your hard-earned credits but to help and to entertain you. Whether or not you buy one of the medicine kits which I’m about to show you, you will be equally welcome to attend the show which will go on immediately afterward.” He faced the curtain. “Zonda?”

Clad in her jaguar skin, her long legs flashing in the footlights, Moira stepped out on the dock carrying a small table on which several dozen medicine kits were piled. Setting the table down, she picked up the topmost kit and handed it to Hayes; then she turned and smiled warmly at the audience.

Hayes held up the kit and described its contents.

“None of the items I’ve mentioned is a panacea,” he concluded, “but each of them will live up to the claims I made for it, and all of them should be in every single household in One Leg To Stand On. The kits sell for two credits apiece. Surely your physical welfare and the welfare of your children are worth that much to you!”

The kits sold surprisingly well, and Moira had to go upstairs twice for more of them. She and Hayes were elated when they retired behind the curtain to round up Bar-rag and get ready for their act. “I think we’d better tone it down a little, don’t you?” she said, slipping into her Mary Lou dress. “There’s a lot of kids out there.”

“Good idea,” Hayes said. “I’ll keep my hands above the waist and leave out the leers, and you can eliminate the wiggles when you walk. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Even toned down Courtin’ Mary Lou went over big. In fact, the audience begged for an encore. Hayes and Moira gave it to them in the form of one of their abandoned skits. “Why don’t you do something for them out of your repertoire?” Moira asked Hayes, when the people continued to linger hopefully about the platform.

“That’s one way of getting rid of them, I suppose.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. Don’t you see, Nick? You’re as much obligated to elevate them culturally as you are to elevate them physically. You’ve sold them penicillin. Now sell them another kind of pill. Force it down their throats if they don’t want to take it. You owe it to them, Nick. You owe it to yourself!”

He regarded her thoughtfully. It was an angle that hadn’t occurred to him, and it just might provide the added something that he needed to round out the image he was trying to create. “All right,” he said, “I’ll give it a try.”

Stepping out on the dock, he explained what had gone before the soliloquy he was about to render and what would take place afterward. Then he raised his arms:

“What is a man,

If his chief good and market of his time

Be but to sleep and feed?

A beast, no more.

Sure, He that made us with such large discourse,

Looking before and after, gave us not

That capability and god-like reason

To fast in us unus’d…”

As he spoke, the stars stood out ever more vividly above his head, while their light rained down with ever greater intensity upon the upturned faces of his audience. The air was cool, bracing. One of Golden Grain’s three moons had climbed into the sky and hung in the heavens like the eye of a camera.

He felt shackles slip from his wrists, fetters fall from his ankles. The “camera” captured his facsimile and started relaying it toward a hundred million living rooms, and he knew the fulfillment of distribution once again. His words climbed into the sky and spread out among the stars in rich and rounded syllables, hung there for all to hear even after he had finished speaking and there was no sound save the susurrus of the meadow grass beneath the feet of his awed and departing audience And he stood there all alone, Nicholas Hayes did, the wind from the forest fresh against the words he had uttered as they sped outward into the immensities.

No, not quite alone. Moira had come out on the deck and was standing beside him, and Bar-rag had crept forth from behind the curtain and had curled up at his feet. Hayes was barely aware of either of them. “You were wonderful, Nick,” Moira said, “and they knew it, too. They’ll never forget, and neither will I.”

The spell was broken. “It’s getting cold,” Hayes said. “Let’s go inside.”

VI

From One Leg To Stand On they hopped to Dutchman’s Breeches, and from Dutchman’s Breeches they hopped to Devil Take The Hindmost, and from Devil Take The Hindmost they hopped to A Pocket Full Of Rye. The turnout in each instance was excellent, and the same enthusiasm that had been accorded them in One Leg To Stand On was accorded them thrice more. At the close of each performance Hayes rendered his soliloquy, and each time received the same rapt attention and the same symbolic fulfillment.

But symbolic fulfillment was not enough. And he knew it. From Golden Grain they proceeded to Acre In The Sky, the fifth planet of the blue star Achemar, where they made one-night stands in Potpourri, Sunrise, Venus Looking-Glass, Hereafter, Winding River and Jack Jump Over The Candlestick. Their stand in Jack Jump Over The Candlestick resulted in the accidental publicity which Hayes had gambled on gaining sooner or later. Mahatma McFadden, a leading correspondent for the IBS Special News Service, had come upon the scene to tape a peasant wedding, Acre In The Sky style, but when he heard about the medicine show and learned that none other than Nicholas Hayes was the medicine man, he taped the Courtin’ Mary Lou performance, too. He also taped the spiel that preceded it and the soliloquy that followed it.

Hayes played his hand shrewdly. “I’m not sure I’d want that much publicity,” he said when Mahatma came hurrying back stage, waving a waiver.

“Give me anything, but don’t give me that, Mr. Hayes,” Mahatma said. “Who ever heard of an actor who didn’t want publicity!”

“I’m not an actor any more. I’m a medicine man.” Mahatma guffawed. He was a thin, wiry little man with a hungry face and bright brown eyes. “Medicine smedicine. Once an actor, always an actor, I say. The trouble with you, Mr. Hayes, is you’re sore because you got kicked out of the Guild. Sign here, and when they see the tape, they may even let you back in. You never can tell.”

“Let me back in because I ran away and became a medicine man?” Hayes laughed a laugh with the precise amount of derision in it necessary to lend it a ring of truth. “Even if they would, I wouldn’t consider it.”

“All right, then. Look at the situation this way, Mr. Hayes. Eventually this tape will wind up in the out-planets and be played in two-bit theatres and barns—provided you sign the waiver, that is. Now, you want these people to know about you, don’t you? You want them to look forward to your coming, don’t you? Well, believe me, once they see you on tape, they will look forward, and if they happen to have seen you live already, they’ll be all the more eager to see you live again. Publicity never hurt anybody, you know.”

“I think he’s right, Nick,” Moira said.

“I know I’m right,” Mahatma said.

“H’m’m,” Hayes said.

The battle won, Mahatma handed him the waiver and an uncapped jet pen. “Right there, where it says ‘signature of originator,’ Mr. Hayes.”

Two months later when Hayes and Moira and Bar-rag were touring Green Thumb, the tenth planet of the white star Beta Aurigae, Nancy Oakes, girl reporter for the interstellar magazine Newstar caught up to them in the little town of Lily of The Valley.

Miss Oakes was asparkle with excitement when she sought Hayes out in the Dr. Albert Schweitzer after the performance, and her portable tape-recorder was loaded and ready to go. “Mr. Hayes, you simply must let me write you up,” she said. “Our readers will simply devour your story. Here, let me show you some of the stereophotos I took during your act. They’re simply terrific.”

Hayes looked them over with carefully disciplined curiosity. One of them showed him peddling medicine kits, with Moira standing beside him in her jaguar skin. Another showed him and Moira on the sofa, with Bar-rag between them. A third showed him standing on the starlit dock in the midst of his soliloquy. It. was one of the best pictures he had ever had taken.

He handed the sterophotos back. Abruptly Bar-rag materialized on the living-room floor and jumped up on his lap. Miss Oakes gasped. “How in the world did you ever manage to train him like that, Mr. Hayes?”

“It wasn’t difficult. He’s not an ordinary dog, you see. He’s a doggone.”

“Really?” Miss Hayes activated the recorder with an unobtrusive flick of her finger. “Tell me what a doggone is, Mr. Hayes. It ought to make simply fascinating copy.” Hayes complied. “And now,” Miss Oakes rushed on, “you must fill me in on your past. And Zonda’s too, of course. Naturally, I know that you’re a guest actor, but I’d like some personal items—things that will tie in with your deciding to become medicine man.”

Hayes looked at Moira with feigned helplessness. “Shall we let her do the article?” he asked.

“Of course, Nick.”

He faced Miss Oakes again. “Well, I guess we can’t fight destiny, can we, Miss Oakes? Start throwing your questions.” The issue with the article in it came out two months later, but two more months passed before the copy which the publisher sent Hayes caught up to him. The article began on page 14. He looked at the title: Nicholas Hayes: the Dr. Schweitzer of the Spaceways. He read the blurb: How an exiled thespian has triumphed over alcoholism to bring the blessings of civilization to our neighbors in the sky.

He threw the magazette into the wastebasket.

The next town they played in was Winter’s Breath. At the close of the performance Hayes received a message that a certain party wished to see him in her room at the Winter’s Breath Hotel. He walked through woods and over fields, beneath stars he no longer saw, then down a winding street and up dilapidated steps into a tired lobby. The room was number 204. He climbed stairs, turned right down a dingy hall. Leslie met him at the door. “Nick, darling, you’re looking wonderful.”

He went in and sat down on the nearest chair. She took the chair facing it. “I guess you know I’ve come to take you back,” she said.

He raised his eyes. Her eyes were the same. Pale brown, with flecks of summer sunlight in them. Her hair was night-dark as always, sequined with latent stars that even unimaginative lamplight could elicit. Translucent of V-bodice she sat there, gold of abbreviated skirt. Strutting as always her little hour upon the stage. “Why didn’t King come after me himself?”

“Because I asked him to send me. An appropriate gesture, don’t you think? Imagine, Nick—we’ll have cocktails in Laughter in the Afternoon just the way we used to. We’ll go to those cute crummy places we used to eat in after shows. We’ll—”

“I’m married,” Hayes said.

She laughed. “So what? No one stays married any more. It’s passe. In Old York, we’ve adopted the Muslim custom in such matters. You say ‘I divorce you’ three times and it’s all over.”

“Is it?”

She leaned forward. “Don’t play noble with me, Nick. I can read between the lines when the lines concern you. I’m not Zonda of the Amazon. I’m Leslie of Laughter in the Afternoon. You didn’t become a medicine man to help out-planet peoples. You became a medicine man to help yourself—to attract the favorable attention you needed to get yourself back into the good graces of the Teletheatre Guild and back into the good graces of Christopher King. Most of all, you became a medicine man so you could step before the teletheatre camera and be multiplied by one hundred million once again.”

Hayes was looking at the floor. “I assume I’m already reinstated in the Guild. Does King have a part for me?”

“I knew you’d see the light, darling. Of course he has a part. He has the part— the part of Milton Pomfret. The Two-Sided Triangle is coming up for Encore next month and your understudy’s contract runs out before that time. So you’re all set, Nicholas dear. I can’t say the same for Zonda, of course, since I’m still Mary Lou, besides which I doubt very much if she’d measure up to Chris’ standards.” Suddenly she giggled. “Tell me, darling, did she really swing on a grapevine in The Last of the Mohicans bar the way is says in the article?”

“Shut up!” Hayes said.

“And that ridiculous little dog with the windmill tail. Where in the world did you find him? Honestly, Nick, you’re too precious for words!”

Hayes stood up. “You’ve reserved passage, I suppose.”

“On the Great Eastern Express. We rendezvous out of Port-o’-Winds at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. So get a move on, darling. We’ve very little time.”

“I’ll be back in an hour,” Hayes said, and walked out of the room

And down the hall and down the stairs and out into the street and down the winding street and through woods and across meadows, more field to where the dark pile of the ship showed against the stars …

Moira was waiting up for him. Bar-rag fast asleep on her lap. Her face told him that she already knew. “You’ve known all along, haven’t you?” he said.

“Don’t feel bad, Nick. I wanted you to be reinstated, too.” It was late in the day to ask it, but he asked it anyway. “Do you feel bad?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m going back to New North Dakota, Mars, where I belong.”

“I’ll hire a pilot to go with you. It’s no good piloting a ship alone. The Schweitzer ought to bring more than we paid for it if you can find the right buyer.”

“I’m glad. Bar-rag and I will watch you.”

He looked down at the small gray head and the absurd, tatterdemalion ears. He raised his eyes to Moira’s slender throat. A faint pulse beat there. He raised his eyes still further and caught the telltale twinkle of the runaway tear. He stood there, desperately trying to feel. He felt nothing at all except a desire to be gone. “Goodby, Moira,” he said, and turned and ran down the spiral stairway and out into the night.

VII

In Old New York it was summer. It was always summer in Old York. He went with Leslie and King to Laughter in the Afternoon and sipped drab coffee while they gaily chatted over cocktails and said Nick this and Nick that, and Oh Nick, how good it is to have you back! He went to Triangle to rehearsals and picked up effortlessly where he had left off, and sometimes when he spoke his lines, he thought of starry nights on Green Thumb and Acre In The Sky, and cool winds wafting out of virgin woods and breathing upon the little stage.

He was not surprised when he began to drink again. It had been inevitable all along. He drank for the same reason he had drunk before. Only this time he knew what the reason was. But knowing did not help. What good did it do to know that you were incapable of loving anyone besides yourself if the incapability was incurable?

On Encore night the Teletheatre Bowl overflowed into the square. Encores were traditional, and Old Yorkers treasured traditions above the common sense that would have reminded them, had they listened, that they had already seen the play at least once, either on its teletheatre debut or in one of the various little theatres it had been playing in during the past year. But they did not listen, and came instead like lemmings to drown in a quasi-cultural sea.

“How does it feel to be in action again, medicine man?” Leslie said, as she and Hayes took their places for the first scene. “How does it feel to know that in a few seconds you’ll be multiplied by one hundred million and will no longer be alone?”

He did not answer. Would Moira be watching? he wondered. Would Bar-rag? Abruptly he forgot both girl and doggone as the curtain rose and the cameras swung into place. Seated behind his desk, he said to his wife who had stopped off at the office on this sunny Friday afternoon to check up on him, “As you can see, Glenda, my dear, there are no secretaries sitting on my lap, none hidden in the filing cabinets, and none peering fearfully forth at you from behind the coffee-break bar,” and the play was off to a smooth start with Leslie, as the suspicious Glenda, telling him that she had not come to count his amanuenses but to remind him that that night they were dining at the Croftons and to suggest that he skip his usual on-the-road cocktail and get home a little early so that for once they could avoid the usual last-minute confusion occasioned by his trying to shave, shower, and dress all at the same time.

At this point, a striking redhead minced into the office and told Hayes-Pomfret that he was wanted in the layout room, whereupon he followed her offstage. Glenda glared after them for a moment, then picked up the phone and put in a call to the face-and-figure specialist and told him what she wanted done, and why. Next, she put in a call to the phoneticist and told him what she wanted done, and why.

The following scene showed her as ravishing Mary Lou Johnson, applying for and obtaining a secretarial job in her husband’s office. The plot progressed. Hayes-Pomfret took his new secretary out to lunch. He took her out to dinner. At length he made a date with her and stopped off afterward at her apartment. They sat down side by side on the sofa in her living room. Mary Lou edged closer to him. I’ll bet your home was never like this.” she said, pouting her lips for the “first” kiss.

“Darling,” Hayes-Pomfret said, “if home was like this, I’d never budge from the doorstep.”

She moved even closer. “Prove it then.”

“I will,” Hayes-Pomfret said, and put his arms around her. The doorbell rang. “Darn!” Mary Lou said, and got up and left the room.

Her voice could be heard offstage as she argued loudly with a salesman who was trying to sell her a book called Why You Should Never Trust Your Husband. To get rid of the man she had to take the stand that all husbands were trustworthy and that therefore the book was a big lie. The interruption lasted a little over five minutes, during which time Hayes-Pomfret paced back and forth on the stage doing a humorous pantomime of a conscience-stricken husband trying vainly to free himself from the grip of an impatient lover. Upon Mary Lou’s return, he resumed his seat on the sofa and she sat back down beside him.

“Darn old salesmen!” she said. “It’s getting so people can’t have any privacy any more!”

Hayes-Pomfret started to put his arm around her. Abruptly she screamed and leaped to her feet.

Hayes stared at the small object that had materialized beside him. He could not move.

The object had hair the hue of morning mists. Its tatterdemalion ears brought bar-rags to mind, and its glazed, protruding eyes lingered a hint of the gold that had once shone forth in love and adoration. Frozen blood flaked the once-roguish mouth, and the white-tufted tail was silent. The small star in the middle of the forehead shone no more.

He picked the little body up and cradled it in his arms. For a moment, he could not see.

“Shove it under the sofa quick!” Leslie, who had sat back down beside him, whispered. “Get on with your lines!”

Hayes hardly heard her. “Why, Bar-rag?” he said. “Why did you do it? You knew it was a cliff—why did you jump over it? It was forty million miles high, Bar-rag. Forty million miles!”

“Nick, for God’s sake!” Leslie said. “Get rid of that horrible thing and get on with your lines!”

Still cradling Bar-rag in his arms, Hayes stood up. The bowl was filled with a vast whispering; ten thousand faces shimmered in the mist before his eyes. He walked away from Leslie. He walked away from himself. He died one hundred million deaths.

In the dressing-room corridor, King caught up to him. “Nick, come back! We can still save the show. Some stagehand pulled a dirty trick–that’s all.”

Hayes did not pause.

“Nick, you walk out that door, you’ll never walk back in it again! I swear.”

Hayes kept on walking.

Outside, it wasn’t so bad. Outside, he could see Mars. Almost at perigee, it hung like an orange streetlight in the sky. He saw the red plains through his tears. He saw the steepled matchbox of the little church. He saw the rambling ocher hills. His gaze came back and rested on the little body cradled in his arms. Forty million miles, he thought. Forty million miles!

The house was a gentle pile of wood and windows in the starlight. Moira met him at the door. “Nick, I hoped, I prayed you’d come!”

“Were you with him when–when he–”

She nodded. “He was sitting at my feet. A second after you said ‘darling,’ he disappeared. At first I didn’t understand what had happened. I never dreamed he’d recognize you on teletheatre. Then, several minutes later, he appeared on the screen, and–and I knew.”

“I buried him in space,” Hayes said. “Out among the stars. He belongs there, Bar-rag does. He was a star himself.”

“Come into the living room, Nick. There’s something I want to show you.”

They walked down the hall. “The ship,” Hayes said. “Did you sell it yet?”

“No–it’s still at Port-o’-Sands. Mom and Dad just went to bed–shall I wake them so you can say hello?”

“No. I’m going to be here for some time–if you’ll put up with me.”

In the living room, she knelt beside a small basket that stood by the fireplace. He knelt beside her. He saw the tiny tatterdemalion ears first, then the small mist-gray body and the little white-tufted tail. A pair of slanted golden eyes returned his astonished gaze, and above them on the forehead shone a little star. “Bar-rag!” he gasped.

“I told you they were parthenogenetic. He–she gave birth to him a week before she died.”

Hayes tweaked one of the tatterdemalion ears, “Well, what do you know!” he said.

He straightened, and pulled Moira to her feet. Over her shoulder he saw the platinum figurine of Maurice Evans standing on the mantel. Yes, she had sold it all right. Sold it to herself. He looked into her eyes. He would have fallen in love with her long ago if love had not been beyond him. It was beyond him no longer. “We’ll begin all over, Moira–if you’ll do me the honor of being my leading lady again. We’ll restock the ship and we’ll go to all the places we didn’t get to before. We’ll go to Morning Glory and Far Reach and Lode–”

“And Meadow Flower and Forty-Niner and Frontier–”

“And when we complete our circuit, we’ll go back to Black Dirt–”

“And go on from there to Golden Grain–”

“And Goshen–”

“And Acre In The Sky …”

She was in his arms now, and he was kissing her. In Old York, it was summer. It was always summer in Old York. But in New North Dakota, Mars, it was spring.

SOLDIER, ASK NOT!

Gordon R. Dickson

1

Menin aeide thea, Peleiadeo Achileos -begins the Iliad of Homer, and its story of thirty-four hundred years ago. This is the story of the wrath of Achilles. And this is the story of my wrath; I, Earthman, against the people of the two worlds so-called The Friendlies, the conscript, fanatic, black-clad soldiers of Harmony and Association. Nor is it the story of any small anger. For like Achilles, I am a man of Earth.

That does not impress you? Not in these days when the sons of the younger worlds are taller, stronger, more skilled and clever than we of the Old World? Then, how little you know Earth, and the sons of Earth. Leave your younger worlds and come back to the Mother Planet, once, and touch her. She is still here and still the same. Her sun still shines on the waters of the Red Sea that parted before the Children of the Lord. The wind still blows in the Pass of Thermopylae, where Leonidas with the Spartan Three Hundred held back the hosts of Xerxes, King of the Persians, and changed history. Here, men fought and died and bred and buried and built for more than five hundred thousand years before your newer worlds were even dreamed of by man. Do you think those five centuries of tens-of-centuries, generation upon generation, between the same sky and soil left no special mark on us in blood and bone and soul?

The men of the Dorsai may be warriors above imagining. The Exotics of Mara and Kultis may be robed magicians who can turn a man inside out and find answers outside philosophy. The researchers in hard sciences on Newton and Venus may have traveled so far beyond ordinary humans that they can talk to us only haltingly, nowadays. But we-we duller, shorter, simpler men of Old Earth still have something more than any of these. For we are still the whole being of man, the basic stock, of which they are only the refined parts-flashing, fine-honed, scintillant parts. But parts.

But, if you still are one of those, like my uncle Mathias Olyn, who think us utterly bypassed, then I direct you to the Exotic-supported Enclave at St. Louis, where forty-two years ago, an Earthman named Mark Torre, a man of great vision, first began the building of what a hundred years from now will be The Final Encyclopedia. Sixty years from now will see it too massive and complicated and delicate to endure Earth’s surface. You will start to find it then in orbit about the Mother Planet. A hundred years from now and it will-but no one knows for sure what it will do. Mark Torre’s theory is that it will show us the back of our heads-some hidden part of the basic Earth human soul and being that those of the younger worlds have lost, or are not able to know.

But see for yourself. Go there now, to the St. Louis Enclave, and join one of the tours that take you through the chambers and research rooms of the Encyclopedia Project; and finally into the mighty Index Room at their very center, where the vast, curving walls of that chamber are already beginning to be charged with leads to the knowledge of the centuries. When the whole expanse of that great sphere’s interior is finally charged, a hundred years from now, connections will be made between bits of knowledge that never have been connected, that never could have been connected, by a human mind before. And in this final knowledge we will see-what?

The back of our heads?

But as I say, never mind that now. Simply visit the Index Room-that is all I ask you to do. Visit it, with the rest of the tour. Stand in the center of it, and do as the guide tells you.

Listen.

Listen. Stand silent and strain your ears. Listen—you will hear nothing. And then finally the guide will break the reaching, almost unendurable silence, and tell you why he asked you to listen.

Only one man or woman in millions ever hears anything. Only one in millions-of those born here on Earth.

But none-no one-of all those born on the younger worlds who has ever come here to listen has ever heard a thing.

It still proves nothing, you think? Then you think wrong, my friend. For I have been one of those who heard -what there was to hear-and the hearing changed my life, as witness what I have done, arming me with self-knowledge of power with which I later turned in fury to plan the destruction of the peoples of two Friendly worlds.

So do not laugh if I compare my wrath to the wrath of Achilles, bitter and apart among the boats of his Myrmidons, before the walls of Troy. For there are other likenesses between us. Tam Olyn is my name and my ancestry is more Irish than otherwise; but it was on the Peloponnesus of Greece that I, like Achilles, grew to be what I became.

In the very shadow of the ruins of the Parthenon, white over the city of Athens, our souls were darkened by the uncle who should have set them free to grow in the sun. My soul-and that of my younger sister, Eileen.

2

It was her idea-my sister Eileen’s-that we visit the Final Encyclopedia that day, using my new travel pass as a worker in Communications. Ordinarily, perhaps, I might have wondered why she wanted to go there. But in this instance, even as she suggested it, the prospect struck forth a feeling in me, deep and heavy as the sudden note of a gong-a feeling I had never felt before-of something like dread.

But it was not just dread, nothing so simple as that. It was not even wholly unpleasant. Mostly, it resembled that hollow, keyed-up sensation that comes just before the moment of being put to some great test. And yet, it was this-but somehow much more as well. A feeling as of a dragon in my path.

For just a second it touched me; but that was enough. And, because the Encyclopedia, in theory, represented all hope for those Earthborn and my uncle Mathias had always represented to us all hopelessness, I connected the feeling with him, with the challenge he had posed me during all the years of our living together. And this made me suddenly determined to go, overriding whatever other, little reasons there might be.

Besides, the trip fitted the moment like a celebration. I did not usually take Eileen places; but I had just signed a trainee work-contract with the Interstellar News Services at their Headquarters Unit here on Earth. This, only two weeks after my graduation from the Geneva University of Communications. True, that University was first among those like it on the sixteen worlds of men, including Earth; and my scholastic record there had been the best in its history. But such job offers came to young men straight out of school once in twenty years-if that often.

So I did not stop to question my seventeen-year-old sister as to why she might want me to take her to the Final Encyclopedia, on just that particular day and hour she specified. I suppose perhaps, as I look back on it now, I told myself she only wanted to get away from the dark house of our uncle, for the day. And that, in itself, was reason enough for me.

For it had been Mathias, my father’s brother, who had taken us in, Eileen and me, two orphan children after the death of our parents in the same air-car crash. And it was he who had broken us during our growing years that followed. Not that he had ever laid a finger on us physically. Not that he had been guilty of any overt or deliberate cruelty. He did not have to be.

He had only to give us the richest of homes, the choicest of food, clothing and care-and make sure that we shared it all with him, whose heart was as sunless as his own great, unpierced block of a house, sunless as a cave below the earth’s surface that has never felt the daylight, and whose soul was as cold as a stone within that cave.

His bible was the writings of that old twenty-first century saint or devil, Walter Blunt-whose motto was “DESTRUCT!”—and whose Chantry Guild later gave birth to the Exotic culture on the younger worlds of Mara and Kultis. Never mind that the Exotics had always read Blunt’s writings with a difference, seeing the message in them to be one of tearing up the weeds of the present, so that there would be room for the flowers of the future to grow. Mathias, our uncle, saw only as far as the tearing; and day by day, in that dark house, he drummed it into us.

But enough about Mathias. He was perfect in his emptiness and his belief that the younger worlds had already left us of Earth behind them to dwindle and die, like any dead limb or atrophied part. But neither Eileen nor I could match him in that cold philosophy, for all we tried as children. So, each in our own way, we fought to escape from him and it; and our escape routes brought us, that day, together to the Exotic Enclave at St. Louis, and the Final Encyclopedia.

We took a shuttle flight from Athens to St. Louis and the subway from St. Louis to the Enclave. An airbus took us to the Encyclopedia courtyard; and I remember that, somehow, I was last off the bus. As I stepped to the circle of concrete, it struck again, that deep, sudden gong-note of feeling inside me. I stopped dead, like a man struck into a trance.

“—Pardon me?” said a voice behind me. “You’re part of the tour, aren’t you? Will you join the rest over here? I’m your guide.”

I turned sharply, and found myself looking down into the brown eyes of a girl in the blue robes of an Exotic. She stood there, as fresh as the sunlight about her-but something in her did not match.

“You’re not an Exotic!” I said suddenly. No more she was. The Exotic-born have their difference plain about them. Their faces are more still than other people’s. Their eyes look more deeply into you. They are like Gods of Peace who sit always with one hand on a sleeping thunderbolt they do not seem to know is there.

“I’m a co-worker,” she answered. “Lisa Kant’s my name.-And you’re right. I’m not a born Exotic.” She did not seem bothered by my penetrating her difference from the robe she wore. She was shorter than my sister, who was tall—as I am—tall for a man from Earth. Eileen was silver-blond, while, even then, my hair was dark. It was the same color as hers when our parents died; but it darkened over the years in Mathias’ house. But this girl, Lisa, was brown-haired, pretty and smiling. She intrigued me with her good looks and Exotic robes-and she nettled me a little as well. She seemed so certain of herself.

I watched her, therefore, as she went about rounding up the other people who were waiting for the guided tour through the Encyclopedia; and once the tour itself was underway, I fell into step beside her and got her talking to me, between lecture spots.

She showed no hesitation in speaking about herself. She had been born in the North American Midwest, just outside of St. Louis, she told me. She had gone to primary and secondary schools in the Enclave and became convinced of the Exotic philosophies. So she had adopted their work and their ways. I thought it seemed like a waste of a girl as attractive as herself-and bluntly I told her so.

“How can I be wasting myself,” she said, smiling at me, “when I’m using my energies to the full this way-and for the best purposes?”

I thought that perhaps she was laughing at me. I did not like that-even in those days, I was no one to laugh at.

“What best purposes?” I asked as brutally as I could. “Contemplating your navel?”

Her smile went away and she looked at me strangely, so strangely that I always remembered that look, afterward.

It was as if she had suddenly become aware of me-as of someone floating and adrift in a night time sea beyond the firm rock shore on which she stood. And she reached out with her hand, as if she would touch me, then dropped her hand again, as if suddenly remembering where we were.

‘We are always here,” she answered me, strangely. “Remember that. We are always here.”

She turned away and led us on through the spread-out complex of structures that was the Encyclopedia. These, once moved into space, she said, speaking to us all now as she led us on, would fold together to form a roughly spherical shape, in orbit a hundred and fifty miles above the Earth’s surface. She told us what a vast expense it would be to move the structure into orbit like that, as one unit. Then she explained how, expensive as this was, the cost was justified by the savings during the first hundred years of construction and information-charging, which could be done more economically here on the ground.

For the Final Encyclopedia, she said, was not to be just a storehouse of feet. It would store facts, but only as a means to an end-that end being the establishment and discovery of relationships between those facts. Each knowledge item was to be linked to other knowledge items by energy pulses holding the code of the relationship, until these interconnections were carried to the fullest extent possible. Until, finally, the great interconnected body of man’s information about himself and his universe would begin to show its shape as a whole, in a way man had never been able to observe it before.

At this point, Earth would then have in the Encyclopedia a mighty stockpile of immediately available, interrelated information about the human race and its history. This could be traded for the hard science knowledge of worlds like Venus and Newton, for the psychological sciences of the Exotic Worlds-and all the other specialized information of the younger worlds that Earth needed. By this alone, in a multi-world human culture in which the currency between worlds was itself the trading of skilled minds, the Encyclopedia would eventually pay for itself.

But the hope that had led Earth to undertake its building was for more than this. It was Earth’s hope-the hope of all the people of Earth, except for such as Mathias, who had given up all hope-that the true payment from the Encyclopedia would come from its use as a tool to explore Mark Torre’s theory.

And Torre’s theory, as we all should know, was a theory which postulated that there was a dark area in Man’s knowledge of himself, an area where man’s vision had always failed, as the viewing of any perceptive device fails in the blind area where it, itself, exists. Into man’s blind area, Torre theorized, the Final Encyclopedia would be able to explore by inference, from the shape and body of total known knowledge. And in that area, said Torre, we would find something-a quality, ability or strength-in the basic human stock of Earth that was theirs alone, something which had been lost or was not available to the human splinter types on the younger worlds that now seemed to be fast out-stripping our parent breed in strength of body or mind.

Hearing all this, for some reason I found myself remembering the strange look and odd words of Lisa to me earlier. I looked around the strange and crowded rooms, where everything from heavy construction to delicate laboratory work was going on, as we passed; and the odd, dread-like feeling began to come back on me. It not only came back, it stayed and grew, until it was a sort of consciousness, a feeling as if the whole Encyclopedia had become one mighty living organism, with me at its center.

I fought against it, instinctively; for what I had always wanted most in life was to be free-to be swallowed by nothing, human or mechanical. But still it grew on me; and it was still growing as we came at last to the Index Room, which in space would be at the Encyclopedia’s exact center.

The room was in the shape of a huge globe so vast that, as we entered it, its farther wall was lost in dimness, except for the faint twinkling of firefly lights that signaled the establishment of new facts and associations of fact within the sensitive recording fabric of its inner surface, that endless surface curving about us which was at once walls, ceiling and floor.

The whole reaching interior of this enormous spherical room was empty; but cantilevered ramps led out and up from the entrances to the room, stretching in graceful curves to a circular platform poised in the midst of the empty space, at the exact center of the chamber.

It was up one of these ramps that Lisa led us now until we came to the platform, which was perhaps twenty feet in diameter.

“… Here, where we’re now standing,” said Lisa as we halted on the platform, “is what will be known as the Transit Point. In space, all connections will be made not only around the walls of the Index Room, but also through this central point. And it’s from this central point that those handling the Encyclopedia then will try to use it according to Mark Torre’s theory, to see if they can uncover the hidden knowledge of our Earth-human minds.”

She paused and turned around to locate everyone in the group.

“Gather in closely, please,” she said. For a second her gaze brushed mine-and without warning, the wave of feeling inside me about the Encyclopedia suddenly crested. A cold sensation like fear washed through me, and I stiffened.

“Now,” she went on, when we were all standing close together, “I want you all to keep absolutely still for sixty seconds and listen. Just listen, and see if you hear anything.”’

The others stopped talking and the vast, untouchable silence of that huge chamber closed in about us. It wrapped about us, and the feeling in me sang suddenly up to a high pitch of anxiety. I had never been bothered by heights or distances, but suddenly now I was wildly aware of the long emptiness below the platform, of all the space enclosing me. My head began to swim and my heart pounded. I felt dizziness threatening me.

“And what’re we supposed to hear?” I broke in loudly, not for the question’s sake, but to snap the vertiginous sensation that seemed to be trying to sweep me away. I was standing almost behind Lisa as I said it. She turned and looked up at me. There was a shadow in her eyes again of that strange look she had given me earlier.

“Nothing,” she said. And then, still watching me strangely, she hesitated. “Or maybe-something, though the odds are billions to one against it. You’ll know if you hear it, and I’ll explain after the sixty seconds are up.” She touched me lightly, requestingly on the arm with one hand. “Now, please be quiet-for the sake of the others, even if you don’t want to listen yourself.”

“Oh, I’ll listen,” I told her.

I turned from her. And suddenly, over her shoulder, behind us, below me, small and far off by that entrance to the Index Room by which we had come in, I saw my sister, no longer with our group. I recognized her at that distance only by the pale color of her hair and her height. She was talking to a dark, slim man dressed all in black, whose face I could not make out at that distance, but who stood close to her.

I was startled and suddenly annoyed. The sight of the thin male figure in black seemed to slap at me like an affront. The very idea that my sister would drop behind our group to speak to someone else after begging me to bring her here-speak to someone who was a complete stranger to me, and speak as earnestly as I could see she was speaking, even at this distance, by the tenseness of her figure and the little movements of her hands-seemed to me like a discourtesy amounting to betrayal. After all, she had talked me into coming.

The hair on the back of my neck rose, a cold wave of anger rose in me. It was ridiculous; at that distance not even the best human ears ever born could have overheard their conversation, but I found myself straining against the enclosing silence of the vast room, trying to make out what it was they could be talking about.

And then-imperceptibly, but growing rapidly louder-I began to hear. Something.

Not my sister’s voice, or the voice of the stranger, whoever he was. It was some distant, harsh voice of a man speaking in a language a little like Latin, but with dropped vowels and rolled r’s that gave his talk a mutter, like the rapid rolling of the summer thunder that accompanies heat lightning. And it grew, not so much louder, as closer-and then I heard another voice, answering it.

And then another voice. And another, and another and another.

Roaring, shouting, leaping, like an avalanche, the voices leaped suddenly upon me from every direction, growing wildly greater in number every second, doubling and redoubling-all the voices in all the languages of all the world, all the voices that had ever been in the world-and more than that. More—and more—and more.

They shouted in my ear, babbling, crying, laughing, cursing, ordering, submitting-but not merging, as such a multitude should, at last into one voiceless, if mighty, thunder like the roar of a waterfall. More and more as they grew, they still remained all separate. I heard each one! Each one of those millions, those billions of men’s and women’s voices shouted individually in my ears.

And the tumult lifted me at last as a feather is lifted on the breast of a hurricane, swirling me up and away out of my senses into a raging cataract of unconsciousness.

3

I remember I did not want to wake up. It seemed to me I had been on a far voyage, that I had been away a long time. But when, at last, reluctantly, I opened my eyes, I was lying on the floor of the chamber and only Lisa Kant was bending over me. Some of the others in our party had not yet finished turning around to see what had happened to me.

Lisa was raising my head from the floor.

“You heard!” she was saying, urgently and low-voiced, almost in my ear. “What did you hear?”

“Hear?” I shook my head, dazedly, remembering at that, and almost expecting to hear that uncountable horde of voices flooding back in on me. But there was only silence now, and Lisa’s question. “Hear?” I said, “—them.”

“Them?”

I blinked my eyes up at her and abruptly my mind cleared. All at once, I remembered my sister Eileen; and I scrambled to my feet, staring off into the distance at the entrance by which I had seen her standing with the man in black. But the entrance and the space about it was empty. The two of them, together-they were gone.

I scrambled to my feet. Shaken, battered, torn loose from my roots of self-confidence by that mighty cataract of voices in which I had been plunged and carried away, the mystery and disappearance of my sister shook me now out of all common sense. I did not answer Lisa, but started at a run down the ramp for the entrance where I had last seen Eileen talking to the stranger in black.

Fast as I was, with my longer legs, Lisa was faster. Even in the blue robes, she was as swift as a track star. She caught up with me, passed me and swung around to bar the entrance as I reached it.

“Where are you going?” she cried. “You can’t leave-just yet! If you heard something, I’ve got to take you to see Mark Torre himself! He has to talk to anyone who ever hears anything!”

I hardly heard her.

“Get out of my way,” I muttered, and I pushed her aside, not gently. I plunged on through the entrance into the circular equipment room beyond the entrance. There were technicians at work in their colored smocks, doing incomprehensible things to inconceivable tangles of metal and glass-but no sign of Eileen, or the man in black.

I raced through the room into the corridor beyond. But that, too, was empty. I ran down the corridor and turned right into the first doorway I came to. From desks and tables a few people, reading and transcribing, looked up at me in wonder, but Eileen and the stranger were not among them. I tried another room and another, all without success.

At the fifth room, Lisa caught up with me again.

“Stop!” she said. And this time she took actual hold of me, with a strength that was astonishing for a girl no larger than she was. “Will you stop?-And think for a moment? What’s the matter?”

“Matter!” I shouted. “My sister—” and then I stopped. I checked my tongue. All at once it swept over me how foolish it would sound if I told Lisa the object of my search. A seventeen-year-old girl talking to, and even going off from a group with, someone her older brother does not know, is hardly good reason for a wild chase and a frantic search-at least in this day and age. And I was not of any mind to rehearse for Lisa’s benefit the cold unhappiness of our upbringing, Eileen’s and mine, in the house of my uncle Mathias.

I stood silent.

“You have to come with me,” she said urgently after a second. “You don’t know how terribly, inconceivably rare it is when someone actually hears something at the Transit Point. You don’t know how much it means now to Mark Torre—to Mark Torre, himself-to find someone who’s heard!”

I shook my head numbly. I had no wish to talk to anyone about what I had just been through, and least of all to be examined like some freak experimental specimen.

“You have to!” repeated Lisa. “It means so much. Not just to Mark, to the whole project. Think! Don’t just run off! Think about what you’re doing first!”

The word “think” got through to me. Slowly my mind cleared. It was quite true what she said. I should think instead of running around like someone out of his wits. Eileen and the black-dressed stranger could be in any one of dozens of rooms or corridors-they could even be on their way out of the Project and the Enclave completely. Besides, what would I have said if I had caught up with them, anyway? Demand that the man identify himself and state his intentions toward my sister? It was probably lucky I had not been able to find them.

Besides, there was something else. I had worked hard to get the contract I had signed three days ago, just out of the University, with the Interstellar News Services. But I had a far way to go yet, to the place of my ambitions. For what I had wanted-so long and so fiercely that it was as if the want was something live with claws and teeth tearing inside me—was freedom. Real freedom, of the kind possessed only by members of planetary governments-and one special group, the working Guild members of the Interstellar News Services. Those workers in the communications field who had signed their oath of nonallegiance and were technically people without a world, in guarantee of the impartiality of the News Services they operated.

For the inhabited worlds of the human race were split-as they had been split for two hundred years now-into two camps, one which held their populations to “tight” contracts and the other who believed in the so-called loose contract. Those on the tight-contract side were the Friendly worlds of Harmony and Association, Newton, Cassida and Venus, and the big new world of Ceta under Tau Ceti. On the loose side were ranged Earth, the Dorsai, the Exotic worlds of Mara and Kultis, New Earth, Freiland, Mars and the small Catholic world of St. Marie.

What divided them was a conflict of economic systems-an inheritance of the divided Earth that had originally colonized them. For in our day interplanetary currency was only one thing-and that was the coin of highly trained minds.

The race was now too big for a single planet to train all of its own specialists, particularly when other worlds produced better. Not the best education Earth or any other world could provide could produce a professional soldier to match those turned out by the Dorsai. There were no physicists like the physicists from Newton, no psychologists like those from the Exotics, no conscript hired troops as cheap and careless of casualty losses as those from Harmony and Association-and so on. Consequently, a world trained one kind or type of professional and traded his services by contract to another world for the contract and services of whatever type of other professional the world needed.

And the division between the two camps of worlds was stark. On the “loose” worlds a man’s contract belonged in part to him; and he could not be sold or traded to another world without his own consent; except in a case of extreme importance or emergency. On the “tight” worlds the individual lived at the orders of his authorities-his contract might be sold or traded at a moment’s notice. When this happened, he had only one duty-and that was to go and work where he was ordered.

So, on all the worlds, there were the non-free and the partly free. On the loose worlds, of which as I say Earth was one, people like myself were partly free. But I wanted full freedom, of the sort only available to me as a Guild member. Once accepted into the Guild, this freedom would be mine. For the contract for my services would belong to the News Services, itself, during the rest of my lifetime.

No world after that would be able to judge me or sell my services, against my will, to some other planet to which it owed a deficit of trained personnel. It was true that Earth, unlike Newton, Cassida, Ceta and some of the others, was proud of the fact that it had never needed to trade off its university graduates in blocks for people with the special trainings of the younger worlds. But, like all the planets, Earth held the right to do so if it should ever become necessary-and there were plenty of stories of individual instances.

So, my goal and my hunger for freedom, which the years under the roof of Mathias had nourished in me, could be filled only by acceptance into the News Services. And in spite of my scholastic record, good as it was, that was still a far, hard, chancy goal to reach. I would need to overlook nothing that could help me to it; and it came to me now that refusing to see Mark Torre might well be to throw away a chance at such help.

“You’re right,” I said to Lisa. “I’ll go and see him. Of course. I’ll see him. Where do I go?”

“I’ll take you,” she answered. “Just let me phone ahead.” She went a few steps away from me and spoke quietly into the small phone on her ring finger. Then she came back and led me off.

“What about the others?” I asked, suddenly remembering the rest of our party back in the Index Room.

“I’ve asked someone else to take them over for the rest of the tour,” Lisa answered without looking at me. “This way.”

She led me through a doorway off the hall and into a small light-maze. For a moment this surprised me and then I realized that Mark Torre, like anyone in the public eye constantly, would need protection from possibly dangerous crackpots and cranks. We came out of the maze into a small empty room, and stopped.

The room moved-in what direction, I could not say-and then stopped.

“This way,” said Lisa again, leading me to one of the walls of the room. At her touch, a section of it folded back and let us into a room furnished like a study, but equipped with a control desk, behind which sat an elderly man. It was Mark Torre, as I had often seen him pictured in the news.

He was not as old in appearance as his age might have made him appear-he was past eighty at the time-but his face was gray and sick-looking. His clothes sat loosely on his big bones, as if he had weighed more once than he did now. His two really extraordinarily large hands lay limply on the little flat space before the console keys, their gray knuckles swollen and enlarged by what I later learned was an obscure disease of the joints called arthritis.

He did not get up when we came in, but his voice was surprisingly clear and young when he spoke and his eyes glowed at me with something like scarcely contained joy. Still he made us sit and wait, until after a few minutes another door to the room opened and there came in a middle-aged man from one of the Exotic worlds-an Exotic-born, with penetrating hazel-colored eyes in his smooth, unlined face under close-cropped white hair, and dressed in blue robes like those Lisa was wearing.

“Mr. Olyn,” said Mark Torre, “this is Padma, OutBond from Mara to the St. Louis Enclave. He already knows who you are.”

“How do you do?” I said to Padma. He smiled.

“An honor to meet you, Tam Olyn,” he said and sat down. His light, hazel-colored eyes did not seem to stare at me in any way-and yet, at the same time, they made me uneasy. There was no strangeness about him-that was the trouble. His gaze, his voice, even the way he sat, seemed to imply that he knew me already as well as anyone could, and better than I would want anyone to know me, whom I did not know as well in return.

For all that I had argued for years against everything my uncle stood for, at that moment I felt the fact of Mathias’ bitterness against the peoples of the younger worlds lift its head also inside me, and snarl against the implied superiority in Padma, OutBond from Mara to the Enclave at St. Louis, on Earth. I wrenched my gaze away from him and looked back at the more human, Earthborn eyes of Mark Torre.

“Now that Padma’s here,” the old man said, leaning forward eagerly toward me over the keys of his control console, “what was it like? Tell us what you heard!”

I shook my head, because there was no good way of describing it as it really had been. Billions of voices, speaking at once, and all distinct, are impossible.

“I heard voices,” I said. “All talking at the same time-but separate.”

“Many voices?” asked Padma.

I had to look at him again.

“All the voices there are,” I heard myself answering. And I tried to describe it. Padma nodded; but, as I talked I looked back at Torre, and saw him sinking into his seat away from me, as if in confusion or disappointment.

“Only …voices?” the old man said, half to himself when I was done.

“Why?” I asked, pricked into a little anger. “What was I supposed to hear? What do people usually hear?”

“It’s always different,” put in the voice of Padma soothingly from the side of my vision. But I would not look at him. I kept my eyes on Mark Torre. “Everyone hears different things.”

I turned to Padma at that.

“What did you hear?” I challenged. He smiled a little sadly.

“Nothing, Tam,” he said.

“Only people who are Earthborn have ever heard anything,” said Lisa sharply, as if I should know this without needing to be told.

“You?” I stared at her.

“Me! Of course not!” she replied. “There’s not half a dozen people since the Project started who’ve ever heard anything.”

“Less than half a dozen?” I echoed.

“Five,” she said. “Mark is one, of course. Of the other four, one is dead and the other three”—she hesitated, staring at me—”weren’t fit.”

There was a different note to her voice that I heard now for the first time. But I forgot it entirely as, abruptly, the figures she had mentioned struck home.

Five people only, in forty years! Like a body blow the message jarred me that what had happened to me in the Index Room was no small thing; and that this moment with Torre and Padma was not small either, for them as well as myself.

“Oh?” I said; and I looked at Torre. With an effort, I made my voice casual. “What does it mean, then, when someone hears something?”

He did not answer me directly. Instead he leaned forward with his dark old eyes beginning to shine brilliantly again, and stretched out the fingers of his large right hand to me.

“Take hold,” he said.

I reached out in my turn and took his hand, feeling his swollen knuckles under my grasp. He gripped my hand hard and held on, staring at me for a long moment, while slowly the brilliance faded and finally went out; and then he let go, sinking back into his chair as if defeated.

“Nothing,” he said dully, turning to Padma. “Still-nothing. You’d think he’d feel something-or I would.”

“Still,” said Padma, quietly, looking at me, “he heard.”

He fastened me to my chair with his hazel-colored Exotic eyes.

“Mark is disturbed, Tam,” he said, “because what you experienced was only voices, with no overburden of message or understanding.”

“What message?” I demanded. “What kind of understanding?”

“That,” said Padma, “you’d have to tell us.” His glance was so bright on me that I felt uncomfortable, like a bird, an owl, pinned by a searchlight. I felt the hackles of my anger rising in resentment.

“What’s this all got to do with you, anyway?” I asked.

He smiled a little.

“Our Exotic funds,” he said, “bear most of the financial support of the Encyclopedia Project. But you must understand, it’s not our Project. It’s Earth’s. We only feel a responsibility toward all work concerned with the understanding of Man by man, himself. Moreover, between our philosophy and Mark’s there’s a disagreement.”

“Disagreement?” I said. I had a nose for news even then, fresh out of college, and that nose twitched.

But Padma smiled as if he read my mind.

“It’s nothing new,” he said. “A basic disagreement we’ve had from the start. Put briefly, and somewhat crudely, we on the Exotics believe that Man is improvable. Our friend Mark, here, believes that Earth man-Basic Man-is already improved, but hasn’t been able to uncover his improvement yet and use it.”

I stared at him.

“What’s that got to do with me?” I asked. “And with what I heard?”

“It’s a question of whether you can be useful to him-or to us,” answered Padma calmly; and for a second my heart chilled. For if either the Exotics or someone like Mark Torre should put in a demand for my contract from the Earth government, I might as well kiss good-bye all hopes of working my way eventually into the News Services Guild.

“Not to either of you-I think,” I said, as indifferently as I could.

“Perhaps. We’ll see,” said Padma. He held up his hand and extended upward his index finger. “Do you see this finger, Tam?”

I looked at it; and as I looked-suddenly it rushed toward me, growing enormously, blocking out the sight of everything else in the room. For the second time that afternoon, I left the here and now of the real universe for a place of unreality.

Suddenly, I was encompassed by lightnings. I was in darkness but thrown about by lightning strokes-in some vast universe where I was tossed light-years in distance, first this way and then that, as part of some gigantic struggle.

At first I did not understand it, the struggle. Then slowly I woke to the feet that all the lashing of the lightnings was a furious effort for survival and victory in answer to an attempt by the surrounding, ancient, ever-flowing darkness, to quench and kill the lightnings. Nor was this any random battle. Now I saw how there was ambush and defeat, stratagem and tactic, blow and counterblow, between the lightning and the dark.

Then, in that moment, came the memory of the sound of the billions of voices, welling up around me once more in rhythm to the lightnings, to give me the key to what I saw. All at once, in the way a real lightning-flash suddenly reveals in one glimpse all the land for miles around, in a flash of intuition I understood what surrounded me.

It was the centuries-old battle of man to keep his race alive and push forward into the future, the ceaseless, furious struggle of that beastlike, godlike-primitive, sophisticated-savage and civilized-composite organism that was the human race fighting to endure and push onward. Onward, and up, and up again, until the impossible was achieved, all barriers were broken, all pains conquered, all abilities possessed. Until all was lightning and no darkness left.

It was the voices of this continuing struggle down the hundreds of centuries that I had heard in the Index Room. It was this same struggle that the Exotics were attempting to encompass with their strange magics of the psychological and philosophical sciences. This struggle that the Final Encyclopedia was designed at last to chart throughout the past centuries of human existence, so that Man’s path might be calculated meaningfully into his future.

This was what moved Padma, and Mark Torre-and everyone, including myself. For each human being was caught up in the struggling mass of his fellows and could not avoid the battle of life. Each of us living at this moment was involved in it, as its parts and its plaything.

But with that thought, suddenly, I became conscious that I was different, not just a plaything of this battle. I was something more-potentially an involved power in it, a possible lord of its actions. For the first time, then, I laid hands on the lightnings about me and began to try to drive, to turn and direct their movements, forcing them to my own ends and desires.

Still, I was flung about for unguessable distances. But no longer like a ship adrift upon a storm-wrenched sea, now like a ship close-hauled, using the wind to bear to windward. And in that moment for the first time it came upon me-the feeling of my own strength and power. For the lightnings bent at my grasp and their tossing shaped to my will. I felt it-that sensation of unchained power within me that is beyond description; and it came to me at last that indeed I had never been one of the tossed and buffeted ones. I was a rider, a Master. And I had it in me to shape at least part of all I touched in this battle between the lightnings and the dark.

Only then, at last, I became aware of rare others like myself. Like me they were riders and Masters. They, too, rode the storm that was the rest of the struggling mass of the human race. We would be flung together for a second, then torn measureless eons apart in the next moment. But I saw them. And they saw me. And I became conscious of the fact that they were calling to me, calling on me, not to fight for myself alone, but to join with them in some common effort to bring the whole battle to some future conclusion and order out of chaos.

But everything that was inherent in me rebelled against their call. I had been downtrodden and confounded too long.. I had been the lightnings’ helplessly buffeted subject for too long. Now I had won to the wild joy of riding where I had been ridden, and I gloried in my power. I did not want the common effort that might lead at last to peace, but only that the intoxicating whirl and surge and conflict should go on with me, like a fury, riding the breast of it. I had been chained and enslaved by my uncle’s darkness but now I was free and a Master. Nothing should bring me to put on chains again. I stretched out my grasp on the lightnings and felt that grasp move wider and grow stronger, wider and stronger yet.

Abruptly, I was back in the office of Mark Torre.

Mark, his aging face set like wood, stared at me. Whitefaced, Lisa also stared in my direction. But, directly before me, Padma sat looking into my eyes with no more expression than he had shown before.

“No,” he said, slowly. “You’re right, Tam. You can’t be any help here on the Encyclopedia.”

There was a faint sound from Lisa, a little gasp, almost a tiny cry of pain. But it was drowned in a grunt from Mark Torre, like the grunt of a mortally wounded bear, cornered at last, but turning to raise up on his hind legs and face his attackers.

“Can’t?” he said. He had straightened up behind his desk and now he turned to Padma. His swollen right hand was cramped into a great, gray fist on the table. “He must-he has to be! It’s been twenty years since anyone heard anything in the Index Room-and I’m getting old!”

“All he heard was the voices; and they touched no special spark in him. You felt nothing when you touched him,” said Padma. He spoke softly and distantly, the words coming out one by one, like soldiers marching under orders. “It’s because there’s nothing there. No identity in him with his fellow-man. He has all the machinery, but no empathy-no power source hooked to it.”

“You can fix him! Damn it”—the old man’s voice rang like a steeple bell, but it was hoarse to the point of tears—”on the Exotics you can heal him!” Padma shook his head.

“No,” he said. “No one can help him but himself. He’s not ill or crippled. He’s only failed to develop. Once, some time when he was young, he must have turned away from people into some dark, solitary valley of his own, and over the years that valley’s grown deeper and darker and more narrow, until now no one can get down there beside him to help him through it. No other mind could go through it and survive-maybe even his can’t. But until he does and comes out the other end, he’s no good to you or the Encyclopedia; and all it represents for men on Earth and elsewhere. Not only is he no good, he wouldn’t take your job if you offered it to him. Look at him.”

The pressure of his gaze all this time, the low, steady utterance of his words, like small stones dropped one after the other into a calm, but bottomless pool of water, had held me paralyzed even while he talked about me as if I were not there. But with his last three words, the pressure from him let up; and I found myself free to speak.

“You hypnotized me!” I flung at him. “I didn’t give you any permission to put me underto psychoanalyze me!”

Padma shook his head.

“No one hypnotized you,” he answered. “I just opened a window for you to your own inner awareness. And I didn’t psychoanalyze you.”

“Then what was it—” I checked myself, abruptly wary.

“Whatever you saw and felt,” he said, “were your own awarenesses and feelings translated into your own symbols. And what those were I’ve no idea—and no way of finding out, unless you tell me.”

“Then how did you make up your mind to whatever it was you decided here?” I snarled at him.

“You decided it fast enough. How’d you find out whatever it was made you decide?”

“From you,” he answered. “Your looks, your actions, your voice as you talk to me now. A dozen other unconscious signals. These tell me, Tam. A human being communicates with his whole body and being, not just his voice, or his facial expression.”

“I don’t believe it!” I flared-and then my fury suddenly cooled as caution came on me with the certainty that indeed there must be grounds, even if I could not figure them out at the moment, for my not believing it. “I don’t believe it,” I repeated, more calmly and coldly. “There had to be more going into your decision than that.”

“Yes,” he said. “Of course. I had a chance to check the records here. Your personal history, like that of everyone Earthborn who’s alive at this moment, is already in the Encyclopedia. I looked at that before I came in.”

“More,” I said grimly, for I felt I had him on the run now. “There was more to it even than that. I can tell. I know it!”

“Yes,” answered Padma and breathed out softly. “Having been through this much, you’d know it, I suppose. In any case, you’d learn it soon enough by yourself.” He lifted his eyes to focus squarely on mine, but this time I found myself facing him without any feeling of inferiority.

“It happens, Tam,” he said, “that you’re what we call an Isolate, a rare pivotal force in the shape of a single individual-a pivotal force in the evolving pattern of human society, not just on Earth, but on all the sixteen worlds, in their road to Man’s future.

You’re a man with a terrible capability for affecting that future-for good or ill.”

At his words my hands remembered the feel of their grasp on the lightning; and I waited, holding my breath to hear more. But he did not go on.

“And—” I prompted harshly, at last.

“There is no ‘and,’ ” said Padma. “That’s all there is to it. Have you ever heard of ontogenetics?”

I shook my head.

“It’s a name for one of our Exotic calculative techniques,” he said. “Briefly, there’s a continually evolving pattern of events in which all living human beings are caught up. In mass, the strivings and desires of these individuals determine the direction of growth of the pattern into the future. But, again as individuals only, nearly all people are more acted upon, than act effectively upon the pattern.”

He paused, staring at me, as if asking me if I had understood him so far. I had understood-oh, I had understood. But I would not let him know that.

“Go on,” I said.

“Only now and then, in the case of some rare individual,” he continued, “do we find a particular combination of factors-of character and the individual’s position within the pattern-that combined make him inconceivably more effective than his fellows. When this happens, as in your case, we have an Isolate, a pivotal character, one who has great freedom to act upon the pattern, while being acted upon only to a relatively small degree, himself.”

He stopped again. And this time he folded his hands. The gesture was final and I took a deep breath to calm my racing heart.

“So,” I said. “I’ve got all this-and still you don’t want me for whatever it is you want me?”

“Mark wants you to take over from him, eventually, as Controller, building the Encyclopedia,” said Padma. “So do we, on the Exotics. For the Encyclopedia is such a device that its full purpose and use, when completed, can only be conceived of by rare individuals; and that conception can only be continually translated into common terms, by a unique individual. Without Mark, or someone like him to see its construction through at least until it is moved into space, the common run of humanity will lose the vision of the Encyclopedia’s capabilities when it’s finished. The work on it will run into misunderstandings and frustrations. It will slow down, finally stall, and then fall apart.”

He paused and looked at me, almost grimly.

“It will never be built,” he said, “unless a successor for Mark is found. And without it, Earthborn man may dwindle and die. And if Earthborn man goes, the human strains of the younger worlds may not be viable. But none of this matters to you, does it? Because it’s you who don’t want us, not the other way around.”

He stared across the room with eyes that burned with a hazel flame against me.

“You don’t want us,” he repeated slowly. “Do you, Tam?”

I shook off the impact of his gaze. But in the same moment I understood what he was driving at, and knew he was right. In that same moment I had seen myself seated in the chair at the console before me, chained there by a sense of duty for the rest of my days. No, I did not want them, or their works, on Encyclopedia or anywhere else. I wanted none of it.

Had I worked this hard, this long, to escape Mathias, only to throw everything aside and become a slave to helpless people-all those in that great mass of the human race who were too weak to fight the lightning for themselves? Should I give up the prospect of my own power and freedom to work for the misty promise of freedom for them, someday-for them, who could not earn that freedom for themselves, as I could earn my own, and had? No, I would not-I would not, I would have no part of them, of Torre or his Encyclopedia!

“No!” I said harshly. And Mark Torre made a faint, rattling sound deep in his throat, like a dying echo of the wounded grunt he had given earlier.

“No. That’s right,” said Padma, nodding. “You see, as I said, you’ve got no empathy-no soul.”

“Soul?” I said. “What’s that?”

“Can I describe the color of gold to a man blind from birth?” His eyes were brilliant upon me. “You’ll know it if you find it-but you’ll find it only if you can fight your way through that valley I mentioned. If you come through that, finally, then maybe you’ll find your human soul. You’ll know it when you find it.”

“Valley,” I echoed, at last. “What valley?”

“You know, Tam,” said Padma more quietly. “You know, better than I do. That valley of the mind and spirit where all the unique creativity in you is now turned-warped and twisted-toward destruction.”

“DESTRUCT!”

There it thundered, in the voice of my uncle, ringing in the ear of my memory, quoting, as Mathias always did, from the writings of Walter Blunt. Suddenly, as if printed in fiery letters on the inner surface of my skull, I saw the power and possibilities of that word to me, on the path I wanted to travel.

And without warning, in my mind’s eye, it was as if the valley of which Padma had been speaking became real around me. High black walls rose on either side of me. Straight ahead was my route and narrow-and downward. Abruptly, I was afraid, as of something at the deepest depth, unseen in the farther darkness beyond, some blacker-than-black stirring of amorphous life that lay in wait for me there.

But, even as I shuddered away from this, from somewhere inside me a great, shadowy, but terrible joy swelled up at the thought of meeting it. While, as if from a great distance above me, like a weary bell, came the voice of Mark Torre sadly and hoarsely tolling at Padma.

“No chance for us, then? There’s nothing at all we can do? What if he never comes back to us, and the Encyclopedia?”

“You can only wait-and hope he does,” Padma’s voice was answering. “If he can go on and down and through what he has created for himself, and survive, he may come back. But the choice has always been up to him, heaven or hell, as it is to all of us. Only his choices are greater than ours.”

The words pattered like nonsense against my ears, like the sound of a little gust of cold rain against some unfeeling surface like stone or concrete. I felt suddenly a great need to get away from them all, to get off by myself and think. I climbed heavily to my feet.

“How do I get out of here?” I asked thickly.

“Lisa,” said Mark Torre, sadly. I saw her get to her feet.

“This way,” she said to me. Her face was pale but expressionless, facing me for a moment. Then she turned and went before me.

So she led me out of that room and back the way we had come. Down through the light-maze and the rooms and corridors of the Final Encyclopedia Project and at last to the outer lobby of the Enclave, where our group had first met her. All the way she did not say a word; but when I left her at last, she stopped me unexpectedly, with a hand on my arm. I turned back to face down at her.

“I’m always here,” she said. And I saw to my astonishment that her brown eyes were brimming with tears. “Even if no one else is -I’m always here!”

Then she turned swiftly and almost ran off. I stared after her, unexpectedly shaken. But so much had happened to me in the past hour or so that I did not have the time or desire to try to discover why, or figure out what the girl could have meant by her strange words, echoing her strange words earlier.

I took the subway back into St. Louis and caught a shuttle flight back to Athens, thinking many things.

So wound up I was in my own thoughts that I entered my uncle’s house and walked clear into its library before I was aware of people already there.

Not merely my uncle, seated in his high wing chair, with an old leather-bound book spread open, face down and ignored on his knees, and not only my sister, who had evidently returned before me, standing to one side and facing him, from about ten feet away.

Also in the room was a thin, dark young man some inches shorter than myself. The mark of his Berber ancestry was plain to anyone who, like myself, had been required in college to study ethnic origins. He was dressed all in black, his black hair was cut short above his forehead, and he stood like the upright blade of an unsheathed sword.

He was the stranger I had seen Eileen talking to at the Enclave. And the dark joy of the promised meeting in the valley’s depths leaped up again in me. For here, waiting, without my need to summon it, was the first chance to put to use my newly discovered understanding and my strength.

4

It was a square of conflict.

So much already of the discovery I had made in the place of lightning was already beginning to work in my conscious mind. But almost immediately, this new acuteness of perception in me was momentarily interrupted by recognition of my own personal involvement in the situation.

Eileen threw me one white-faced glance as she saw me, but then looked directly back at Mathias, who sat neither white-featured nor disturbed. His expressionless, spade-shaped face, with its thick eyebrows and thick hair, still uniformly black although he was in his late fifties, was as cold and detached as usual. He, also, looked over at me, but only casually, before turning to meet Eileen’s emotional gaze.

“I merely say,” he said to her, “that I don’t see why you should bother to ask me about it. I’ve never placed any restraints on you, or Tam. Do what you want.” And his fingers closed on the book that was face down on his knees as if he would pick it up again and resume reading.

“Tell me what to do”‘ cried Eileen. She was close to tears and her hands were clenched into fists at her side.

“There’s no point in my telling you what to do,” said Mathias remotely. “Whatever you do will make no difference-to you or me, or even to this young man, over here—” he broke off and turned to me. “Oh, by the way, Tam. Eileen’s forgotten to introduce you. This visitor of ours is Mr. Jamethon Black, from Harmony.”

“Force-Leader Black,” said the young man turning to me his thin, expressionless face. “I’m on attache duty here.”

At that, I identified his origin. He was from one of the worlds called, in sour humor by the people of the other worlds, the Friendlies. He would be one of the religious, spartan-minded zealots who made up the population of those worlds. It was strange, very strange it seemed to me then, that of all the hundreds of types and sorts of human societies which had taken seed on the younger planets, that a society of religious fanatics should turn out, along with the soldier type of the Dorsai World, the philosopher type of the Exotics, and the hard-science-minded people of Newton and Venus, to be one of the few distinct great Splinter Cultures to grow and flourish as human colonies between the stars.

And a distinct Splinter Culture they were. Not of soldiers, for all that the other fourteen worlds heard of them most often as that. The Dorsai were soldiers-men of war to the bone. The Friendlies were men of Devotion-if grim and hair-shirt devotion, who hired themselves out because their resource-poor worlds had little else to export for the human contractual balances that would allow them to hire needed professionals from other planets.

There was small market for evangelists-and this was the only crop that the Friendlies grew naturally on their thin, stony soil. But they could shoot and obey orders-to the death. And they were cheap. Eldest Bright, First on the Council of Churches ruling Harmony and Association, could underbid any other government in the supplying of mercenaries. Only—never mind the military skill of those mercenaries.

The Dorsai were true men of war. The weapons of battle came to their hands like tame dogs, and fitted their hands like gloves. The common Friendly soldier took up a gun as he might take up an axe or a hoe-as a tool needing to be wielded for his people and his church.

So that those who knew said it was the Dorsai who supplied soldiers to the sixteen worlds. The Friendlies supplied cannon fodder.

However, I did not speculate upon that, then. In that moment my reaction to Jamethon Black was only one of recognition. In the darkness of his appearance and his being, in the stillness of his features, the remoteness, the somehow impervious quality like that which Padma possessed-in all these I read him plainly, even without my uncle’s introduction, as one of the superior breed from the younger worlds. One of those with whom, as Mathias had always proved to us, it was impossible for an Earth man to compete. But the preternatural alertness from my just-concluded experience at the Encyclopedia Project was back with me again, and it occurred to me with that same dark and inner joy that there were other ways than competition.

“…Force-Leader Black,” Mathias was saying, “has been taking a night course in Earth history—the same course Eileen was in—at Geneva University. He and Eileen met about a month ago. Now, your sister thinks she’d like to marry him, and go back to Harmony with him when he’s transferred home at the end of this week.”

Mathias’ eyes looked over at Eileen.

“I’ve been telling her it’s up to her, of course,” he finished.

“But I want someone to help me-help me decide what’s right!” burst out Eileen piteously.

Mathias shook his head, slowly.

“I told you,” he said, with his usual, lightless calm of voice, “that there’s nothing to decide. The decision makes no difference. Go with this man-or not. In the end it’ll make no difference either to you or anyone else. You may cling to the absurd notion that what you decide affects the course of events. I don’t-and just as I leave you free to do as you want and play at making decisions, I insist you leave me free to do as I want, and engage in no such farce.”

With that, he picked up his book, as if he was ready to begin reading again.

The tears began to run down Eileen’s cheeks.

“But I don’t know-I don’t know what to do!” she choked.

“Do nothing then,” said our uncle, turning a page of his book. “It’s the only civilized course of action, anyway.”

She stood, silently weeping. And Jamethon Black spoke to her.

“Eileen,” he said, and she turned toward him. He spoke in a low, quiet voice, with just a hint of different rhythm to it. “Do you not want to marry me and make your home on Harmony?”

“Oh, yes, Jamie!” she burst out. “Yes!”

He waited, but she did not move toward him. She burst out again.

“I’m just not sure it’s right!” she cried. “Don’t you see, Jamie, I want to be sure I’m doing the right thing. And I don’t know-I don’t know!”

She whirled about to face me.

“ ‘Tam!” she said. * ‘What should I do? Should I go?”

Her sudden appeal to me rang in my ears like an echo of the voices that had poured in on me in the Index Room. All at once the library in which I stood and the scene within it seemed to lengthen and brighten strangely. The tall walls of bookshelves, my sister, tear-streaked, appealing to me, the silent young man in black-and my uncle, quietly reading, as if the pool of soft light about him from the shelves behind him was some magic island moated off from all human responsibilities and problems-all these seemed suddenly to reveal themselves in an extra dimension.

It was as if I saw through them and around them all in the same moment. Suddenly I understood my uncle as I had never understood him before, understood that for all his pretense of reading he had already worked to decide which way I should jump in answer to Eileen’s question.

He knew that had he said “Stay” to my sister, I would have gotten her out of that house by main force if necessary. He knew it was my instinct to oppose him in everything. So, by doing nothing, he was leaving me nothing to fight against. He was retreating into his devil-like (or godlike) indifference, leaving me to be humanly fallible, and decide. And, of course, he believed I would second Eileen’s wish to go with Jamethon Black.

But this once he had mistaken me. He did not see the change in me, my new knowledge that pointed the way to me. To him, “Destruct!” had been only an empty shell into which he could retreat. But I now, with a sort of fever-brightness of vision, saw it as something far greater—a weapon to be turned even against these superior demons of the younger worlds.

I looked across at Jamethon Black now, and I was not awed by him, as I had ceased to be awed by Padma. Instead, I could not wait to test my strength against him.

“No,” I said quietly to Eileen, “I don’t think you should go.”

She stared at me, and I realized that unconsciously she had reasoned as my uncle had, that I must end up telling her to do what her heart wanted. But I had struck her all adrift now; and I went eagerly ahead to anchor my judgment firmly in those things she believed, choosing my words with care.

They came easily to my mind.

“Harmony’s no place for you, Eileen,” I said gently. “You know how different they are from us, here on Earth. You’d be out of place. You couldn’t measure up to them and their ways. And besides, this man’s a Force-Leader.” I made myself look across sympathetically at Jamethon Black; and his thin face looked back at me, as free of any resentment or pleading for my favor as the blade of an axe.

“Do you know what that means, on Harmony?” I said. “He’s an officer in their military forces. At any moment his contract may be sold, away from you. He may be sent places you can’t follow. He may not come back for years-or ever at all, if he’s killed, which is likely. Do you want to let yourself in for that?” And I added brutally, “Are you strong enough to take that kind of emotional punching, Eileen? I’ve lived with you all your life and I don’t think so. You’d not only let yourself down, you’d let this man down.”

I stopped talking. My uncle had not looked up from his book all this time, and he did not look up now; but I thought-and I took a secret satisfaction from it-that his grip upon its covers trembled a little, in betrayal of feelings he had never admitted having.

As for Eileen, she had been staring at me unbelievingly all the time I talked. Now, she gave one heavy gasp that was almost a sob, and straightened up. She looked toward Jamethon Black.

She did not say anything. But that look was enough. I was watching him, too, for some betraying sign of emotion; but his face only saddened a little, in a gentle way. He took two steps toward her, until he was almost standing at her side. I stiffened, ready to shove myself between them if necessary to back up my opinion. But he only spoke to her, very softly, and in that odd, canting version of ordinary speech that I had read that his people used among themselves, but which had never fallen upon my ears before.

“Thou wilt not come with me, Eileen?” he said.

She shook, like a light-stemmed plant in unfirm ground when a heavy step comes by, and looked away from him.

“I can’t, Jamie,” she whispered. “You heard what Tam said. It’s true. I’d let you down.”

“It is not true,” he said, still in the same low voice.

“Do not say you cannot. Say you will not, and I will go—”

He waited. But she only continued to stare away from him, refusing to meet his gaze. And then, finally, she shook her head.

He drew a deep breath at that. He had not looked at me or Mathias since I had finished speaking; and he did not look at either of us now. Still without pain or fury visible in his face, he turned and went softly out of the library, and out of the house and my sister’s sight forever.

Eileen turned and ran from the room. I looked at Mathias; and he turned a page of his book, not looking up at me. He never referred to Jamethon Black or the incident again, afterward.

Nor did Eileen.

But less than six months later she quietly entered her contract for sale to Cassida and was shipped off to a job on that world. A few months after she arrived she married a young man, a native of the planet named David Long Hall. Neither Mathias nor I heard about it until some months after the marriage had taken place, and then from another source. She, herself, did not write.

But by that time I was as little concerned with the news of it as was Mathias, for my success with Jamethon Black and my sister in that moment in the library had pointed me the way I wanted. My new perception was beginning to harden in me. I had begun to evolve techniques to put it to work to manipulate people, as I had manipulated Eileen, to gain what I wanted; and already I was hot on the road to my personal goal of power and freedom.

5

Yet, it turned out that the scene in the library was to stick in my mind like a burr, after all.

For five years, while I climbed through the ranks of the News Service like a man born to succeed, I had no word from Eileen. She still did not write Mathias; and she did not write me. The few letters I wrote her went unanswered. I knew many people, but I could not say I had any friends-and Mathias was nothing. Distantly, in one corner of me, I became slowly aware that I was alone in the world; and that in the first feverish flush of my discovered ability for manipulating people I might well have chosen a different target than the one person on sixteen worlds who might have had some reason to love me.

It was this, five years later, that brought me to a hillside on New Earth, recently torn up by heavy artillery. I was walking down it, for the hillside was part of a battlefield occupied only a few hours since by the mutually engaged forces of the North and South Partitions of Altland, New Earth. The military both of the North and the South consisted of only a nucleus of native forces. That of the rebellious North was over eighty percent of mercenary Commands, hired from the Friendlies. That of the South was more than sixty-five percent of Cassidan levies, hired on contractual balance by the New Earth authorities from Cassida—and it was this latter fact that had me picking my way down among the torn earth and exploded tree trunks on the hillside. Among the levies in this particular command was a young Groupman named Dave Hall-the man my sister had married on Cassida.

My guide was a foot soldier of the loyal, or South Partition Forces. Not a Cassidan but a native New Earthman, a cadreman-runner. He was a skinny individual, in his thirties and naturally sour-minded—as I gathered from the secret pleasure he seemed to take in getting my city boots and Newsman’s cloak dirtied up in the earth and underbrush. Now, five years after my moment at the Final Encyclopedia, my personal skills had begun to harden in me, and by taking a few minutes out, I could have entirely rebuilt his opinion of me. But it was not worth it.

He brought me at last to a small message center at the foot of the hill, and turned me over to a heavy-jawed officer in his forties, with dark circles under his eyes. The officer was overage for such a field command and the fatigues of middle age were showing. Moreover, the grim Friendly legions had lately been having a good deal of pleasure with the half-trained Cassidan levies opposing them. It was small wonder he looked on me as sourly as had my guide. Only, in the Commander’s case his attitude posed a problem. I would have to change it to get what I was after. And the rub in changing it was that I had come out practically without data concerning this man. But there had been rumors of a new Friendly push and as time was short I had come here on the spur of the moment. I would have to make up my arguments as I went.

“Commandant Hal Frane!” He introduced himself without waiting for me to speak, and held out a square, somewhat dirty hand brusquely. ‘ ‘Your papers!”

I produced them. He looked them over with no softening of expression. “Oh?” he said. “Probationary?”

The question was tantamount to an insult. It was none of his business whether I was a full-fledged member of the Newsman’s Guild, or still on trial as an Apprentice. The point he was making implied that I was probably still so wet behind the ears that I would be a potential danger to him and his men, up here in the front lines.

However, if he had only known it, by that question he had not so much attacked a soft spot in my own personal defenses, as revealed such a spot in his own.

“Right,” I said calmly, taking the papers back from him. And I improvised on the basis of what he had just given away about himself. “Now, about your promotion…”

“Promotion!”

He stared at me. The tone of his voice confirmed all I had deduced, one of the little ways people betray themselves by their choice of the accusations they bring to bear on others. The man who hints that you are a thief is almost sure to have a large, vulnerable area of dishonesty in his own inner self; and in this case, Frane’s attempt to needle me about my status undoubtedly assumed I was sensitive where he was sensitive. This attempt to insult, coupled with the fact that he was overage for the rank he held, indicated that he had been passed over at least once for promotion, and was vulnerable on the subject.

It was an opening wedge only-but all I needed, now, after five years of practicing my skills on people’s minds.

“Aren’t you up for promotion to Major?” I asked. “I thought…” I broke off abruptly, and grinned at him. “My mistake, I guess. I must have mixed you up with somebody else.” I changed the subject, looking around the hillside. “I see you and your people had a rough time here, earlier today.”

He broke in on me.

“Where’d you hear I’d been promoted?” he demanded, scowling at me. I saw it was time to apply a touch of the lash.

“Why, I don’t think I remember, Commandant,” I said, looking squarely back at him. I paused a minute to let that sink in. “And if I did, I don’t suppose I’d be free to tell you. A Newsman’s sources are privileged-they have to be, in my business. Just as the military has to have its secrecy.”

That brought him to heel. Suddenly he was reminded that I was not one of his infantrymen. He had no authority to order me to tell him anything I didn’t wish to tell him. I was a case calling for the velvet glove rather than the iron fist, if he wanted to get anything from me.

“Yes,” he said, struggling to make the transition from scowling to smiling as gracefully as possible.

“Yes, of course. You’ve got to forgive me. We’ve been under fire a lot here.”

“I can see that,” I said more sympathetically. “Of course, that’s not the sort of thing that leaves your nerves lying limp and easy.”

“No.” He managed a smile. “You-can’t tell me anything about any promotion affecting me, then?”

“I’m afraid not,” I said. Our eyes met again. And held.

“I see.” He looked away, a little sourly. “Well, what can we do for you, Newsman?”

“Why, you can tell me about yourself,” I answered. “I’d like to get some background on you.”

He faced back at me suddenly.

“Me?” he said, staring.

“Why, yes,” I said. “Just a notion of mine. A human-interest story-the campaign as seen from the viewpoint of one of the experienced officers in the field. You know.”

He knew. I thought he did. I could see the light coming back into his eyes, and all but see the wheels turning in the back of his mind. We were at the point where a man of clear conscience would have once again demanded—”Why me, for a human-interest story, instead of some other officer of higher rank or more decorations?”

But Frane was not about to ask it. He thought he knew why him. His own buried hopes had led him to put two and two together to get what he thought was four. He was thinking that he must indeed be up for a promotion-a battlefield promotion. Somehow, although he could not right now think why, his recent conduct in the field must have put him in line for an extra grade in rank; and I was out here to make my human-interest story out of that. Being nothing but a civilian, he was reasoning, it would not have occurred to me that he, himself, might not yet have heard of the pending promotion; and my ignorance had caused me thoughtlessly to spill the beans on first meeting him.

It was a little disgusting the way his voice and attitude changed, once he had finished working this out to his own satisfaction. Like some people of inferior ability, he had spent his lifetime storing up reasons and excuses to prove that he was really possessed of extraordinary qualities, but that chance and prejudice had combined until now to keep him from his rightful rewards.

He proceeded then to tell me all these reasons and excuses, in the process of informing me about himself; and if I had been actually interviewing him for purposes of reportage I could have convicted him of his small soul and little worth, out of his own words, a dozen times over. There was a whine to his story as he told it. The real money in soldiering was in work as a mercenary, but all the good mercenary opportunities went either to men of the Friendlies, or the Dorsai. Frane did not have either the guts or the conviction to live the hair-shirt life of even a commissioned officer among the Friendlies. And, of course, the only way anyone could be a Dorsai was to be born one. That left only garrison work, cadre-work, officering the standby forces of worlds or political areas-only to be shoved aside for the top command posts when war did come, by the mercenaries bom or built and imported for the actual fighting.

And garrison work, needless to say, paid a pittance compared to mercenary wages. A government could sign second-class officer material like Frane to long-term contracts at low salaries and hold them to it. But when the same government wanted mercenaries, it needed mercenaries; and every time it needed mercenaries, then quite naturally those who were in the business of laying their lives on the line for cash, drove hard bargains.

But enough about Commandant Frane, who was not that important. He was a little man who had now convinced himself that he was about to be recognized-in the Interstellar News Services at that-as a potentially big man. Like most of his kind he had a wildly inflated view of the usefulness of publicity in furthering a man’s career. He told me all about himself, he showed me about the positions on the hillside where his men were dug in; and by the time I was ready to leave, I had him reacting like a well-tuned machine to my every suggestion. So, just as I was about to head back behind the lines, I made it—the one real suggestion I had come here to make.

“You know, I’ve just had an idea,” I said, turning back to him. “Battle Headquarters has given me permission to pick out one of the enlisted men to assist me during the rest of the campaign. I was going to pick out one of the men from Headquarters Pool, but you know, it might be better to get one of the men from your Command.”

“One of my men?” He blinked.

“That’s right,” I said. “Then if there’s a request for a follow-up story on you or they want expansion of the original details about the campaign as you’ve seen it here, I could get the information from him. It wouldn’t be practical to chase you all over the battlefield for things like that; otherwise I’d simply have to message back advising that follow-up or expansion wasn’t possible.”

“I see,” he said; and his face cleared. Then he frowned again. “It’ll take a week or two to get a replacement up here so that I can let someone go, though. I don’t see how—”

“Oh, that’s all right,” I said, and fished a paper out of my pocket. ‘ ‘I’ve got authority to pick up anyone I want without waiting for his replacement-if the Commandant lets him go, of course. You’d be a man short for a few days, naturally, but—”

I let him think about it. And for a moment he was thinking-with all the nonsense gone out of his head-just like any other military commander in such a position. All the Commands in this sector were understrength after the last few weeks of battle. Another man out meant a hole in Frane’s line, and he was reacting to the prospect with the conditioned reflexes of any officer in the field.

Then I saw the prospect of promotion and publicity fight its way back to his attention, and the battle was joined in his head.

“Who?” he said at last, almost more to himself than to me. What he was asking himself was where he could best spare someone. But I took him up on it, as if the question had been all for me.

“There’s a boy in your Command called Dave Hall—”

His head came up like a shot. Suspicion leaped into being, plain and short and ugly in his face. There are two ways to deal with suspicion-one is to protest your innocence, the other, and better, is to plead guilty to a lesser charge.

“I noticed his name on the Command roster when I was looking you up at Battle Headquarters, before I came up here to see you,” I said. “To tell the truth, it was one of the reasons I chose”—I emphasized the word a little, so that he shouldn’t miss it—”you for this writeup. He’s a sort of shirt-tail relative of mine, this Dave Hall, and I thought I might as well kill two birds with one stone. The family’s been after me to do something for the boy.”

Frane stared at me.

“Of course,” I said, “I know you’re short-handed. If he’s that valuable to you—”

If he’s that valuable to you, my tone of voice hinted, I won’t think of arguing that you give him up. On the other hand, I’m the man who’s going to be writing you up as a hero-type for the sixteen worlds to read, and if I sit down to my vocoder feeling you could have released my relative from the front lines, and didn’t-

He got the message.

“Who? Hall?” he said. “No, I can spare him, all right.” He turned to his command post and barked, “Runner! Get Hall in here-full pack, weapons and equipment, ready to move out.”

Frane turned back to me as the runner left.

“Take about five minutes to get him ready and up here,” he said.

It took closer to ten. But I didn’t mind waiting. Twelve minutes later, with our Groupman guide, we were on our way back to Battle Headquarters, Dave and I.

6

Dave had never seen me before, of course. But Eileen must have described me, and it was plain he recognized my name the minute the Commandant turned him over to me. At that, though, he had sense enough not to ask me any foolish questions until we had made it back to Battle Headquarters and gotten rid of that Groupman guiding us.

As a result I had a chance to study him myself on the way in. He did not assay too highly on my first examination of him. He was smaller than I, and looked a good deal younger than the difference in our ages should have made him. He had one of those round, open faces under taffy-colored hair which seem to look boyish right up into middle age. About the only thing that I could see that he seemed to have in common with my sister was a sort of inborn innocence and gentleness-that innocence and gentleness of weak creatures who know they are too weak to fight for their rights and win, and so try to make the best of it by the willingness of their dependence on the good will of others.

Or maybe I was being harsh. I was no denizen of the sheepfold myself. You would rather find me outside, slinking along the fence and cocking a thoughtful eye at the inmates.

But it is true, Dave seemed nothing great to me as far as appearance and character were concerned. I do not think, either, that he was any great shakes mentally. He had been an ordinary programmer when Eileen had married him; and he had worked part time, and she full time, these last five years trying to get him through a Cassidan University schedule in shift mechanics. He had had three years yet of work to go when he fell below the seventy-percentile median on a competitive examination. It was his bad luck that this should happen just at that moment when Cassida was raising its levies for sale to New Earth in the present campaign to put down the North Partition rebels. Away he went, in uniform.

You might think that Eileen had immediately appealed to me for help. No such thing-though the fact that she had not, puzzled me, when I finally heard of it. Though it should not have. She told me, eventually, and the telling stripped my soul and left its bare bones for the winds of rage and madness to howl through. But that was later. Actually, the way I found out about Dave going with the levies for New Earth was because our uncle Mathias, quietly and unexpectedly, died; and I was required to get in touch with Eileen on Cassida about the estate.

Her small share of the estate (contemptuously, even sneeringly, Mathias had left the bulk of his considerable fortune to The Final Encyclopedia Project as testimony that he thought any project concerning Earth and Earthmen so futile that no help could make it succeed) was no use to her unless I could make a private deal for her with some Earth-working Cassidan who had a family back on Cassida. Only governments or great organizations could translate planetary wealth into the human work-contracts that were actually transferable from one world to another. It was so that I learned that Dave had already left her and his native world for the ruckus on New Earth.

Even then, Eileen did not ask me for help. It was I who thought of asking for Dave as my assistant during the campaign and went ahead with it, merely writing to let her know what I was doing. Now that I had begun the deal, I was not at all sure why, myself, and even a little uncomfortable about it, as when Dave tried to thank me, after we finally got rid of our guide and headed in toward Molon, the nearest large city behind the lines.

“Save it!” I snapped at him. “All I’ve done for you so far’s been the easy part. You’re going to have to go into those lines with me as a noncombatant, carrying no weapons. And to do that, you’ve got to have a pass signed by both sides. That isn’t going to be easy, for someone who was laying the sights of his spring-rifle on Friendly soldiers less than eight hours ago!”

He shut up at that. He was abashed. He was plainly hurt by the fact that I wouldn’t let him thank me. But it stopped him talking and that was all I cared about.

We got orders cut by his Battle Headquarters, assigning him permanently to me; and then finished our ride by platform into Molon, where I left him in a hotel room with my gear, explaining that I’d be back for him in the morning.

“I’m to stay in the room?” he asked, as I was leaving.

“Do what you want, damn it!” I said. “I’m not your Groupman. Just be here by nine in the morning, local time, when I get back.”

I went out. It was only after I closed the door behind me that I realized both what was driving him and eating me. He thought we might spend a few hours getting to know each other as brothers-in-law, and something in me set my teeth on edge at the prospect. I’d save his life for him for Eileen’s sake, but that was no reason why I had to associate with him.

New Earth and Freiland, as everyone knows, are brother planets under the sun of Sirius. That makes them close-not so close as Venus-Earth-Mars clumping, naturally-but close enough so that from orbit New Earth you can make orbit Freiland in a single shift jump with a good but not excellent statistical chance of reaching your goal with minimum error. For those, then, who aren’t afraid of a little risk in travel between the worlds, you can go from one planet to the other in about an hour-half an hour up to orbit station, no time at all for the jump, and half an hour down to surface at the end of the trip.

That was the way I went, and two hours after leaving my brother-in-law, I was showing my hard-wangled invitation to the doorman at the entrance of the establishment of Hendrik Galt, First Marshal of Freiland’s battle forces.

The invitation was to a party being held for a man not so well known then as he has since become, a Dorsai (as Galt of course was a Dorsai) Space Sub-Patrol Chief named Donal Graeme. This was Graeme’s first emergence into the public eye. He had just completed an utterly foolhardy attack on the planetary defenses of Newton, with something like four or five ships-an attack that had been lucky enough to relieve Newtonian pressure on Oriente, an uninhabited sister world of Freiland and New Earth, and get Galt’s planetary forces out of a bad tactical hole.

He was, I judged at the time, a wild-eyed military gambler of some sort-his kind usually were. But my business, happily, was not with him, anyway. It was with some of the influential people who should be at this party of his.

In particular, I wanted the co-signature of the Freiland News Services Department Chief on Dave’s papers-not that this would imply any actual protection extended to my brother-in-law by the News Services. That type of protection was extended only to Guild members and, with reservations, to apprentices on trial like myself. But to the uninitiate, like a soldier in the field, it might well look as if News Service protection was implied. Then, in addition, I wanted the signature of someone ranking among the Friendly mercenaries, for Dave’s protection, in case he and I should fall in with some of their soldiers on the battlefield during the campaign.

I found the News Services Department Chief, a reasonable pleasant Earthman named Nuy Snelling, without difficulty. He gave me no trouble about noting on Dave’s pass that the News Services agreed to Dave’s assisting me and signing the message.

“Of course you know,” he said, “this isn’t worth a hoot.” He eyed me curiously, as he handed the pass back. “This Dave Hall some friend of yours?”

“Brother-in-law,” I answered.

“Hmm,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “Well, good luck.” And he turned away to talk to an Exotic in blue robes-who, with a sudden shock, I recognized as Padma.

The shock was severe enough so that I committed an imprudence I had not been guilty of for several years, at least, that of speaking without thinking.

“Padma-OutBond!” I said, the words jolted from me. “What are you doing here?”

Snelling, stepping back so as to have both of us in view at once, raised his eyebrows again. But Padma answered before my superior in the Services could take me to task for a pretty obvious rudeness. Padma was under no compulsion to account to me for his whereabouts. But he did not seem to take offense.

“I could ask you the same thing, Tam,” he said, smiling.

I had my wits back by that time.

“I go where the news is,” I answered. It was the stock News Services answer. But Padma chose to take it literally.

“And, in a sense, so do I,” he said. “Remember I spoke to you once about a pattern, Tam? This place and moment is a locus.”

I did not know what he was talking about; but having begun the conversation, I could not let go of it easily.

“Is that so?” I said smiling. “Nothing to do with me, I hope?”

“Yes,” he said. And all at once I was aware once more of his hazel eyes, looking at and deep into me. “But more with Donal Graeme.”

“That’s only fair, I suppose,” I said, “since the party’s in his honor.” And I laughed, while trying to think of some excuse to escape. Padma’s presence was making the skin crawl at the back of my neck. It was as if he had some occult effect on me, so that I could not think clearly when he was present. “By the way, whatever happened to that girl who brought me to Mark Torre’s office that day? Lisa …Kant, I think her name was.”

“Yes, Lisa,” said Padma, his eyes steady on me. “She’s here with me. She’s my personal secretary now. I imagine you’ll bump into her shortly. She’s concerned about saving you.”

“Saving him?” put in Snelling, lightly, but interestedly enough. It was his job, as it was the job of all full Guild members, to observe the Apprentices for anything that might affect their acceptability into the Guild.

“From himself,” said Padma, his hazel eyes still watching me, as smoky and yellow as the eyes of a god or a demon.

“Then, I’d better see if I can’t look her up myself and let her get on with it,” I said lightly in my turn, grasping at the opportunity to get away. “I’ll see you both later perhaps.”

“Perhaps,” said Snelling. And I went off.

As soon as I had lost myself in the crowd, I ducked toward one of the entrances to the stairways leading up to the small balconies that looked down around the walls of the room, like opera boxes in a theater. It was no plan of mine to be trapped by that strange girl, Lisa Kant, whom I remembered with too much vividness anyway. Five years before, after the occasion at the Final Encyclopedia, I had been bothered, time and again, by the desire to go back to the Enclave and look her up. And, time and again, something like a fear had stopped me.

I knew what the fear was. Deep in me was the irrational feeling that the perception and ability I had been evolving for handling people, as I had first handled my sister in the library with Jamethon Black, and as I had later handled all who got in my path right up to Commandant Frane, earlier that same day and a world away-deep in me, I say, was the fear that something would rob me of this power in the face of any attempt of mine to handle Lisa Kant.

Therefore, I found a stairway and ran up it, onto a little, deserted balcony with a few chairs around a circular table. From here I should be able to spot Eldest Bright, Chief Elder of the Joint Church Council that ruled both Friendly worlds of Harmony and Association. Bright was a Militant-one of the ruling Friendly churchmen who believed most strongly in war as a means to any end-and he had been paying a brief visit to New Earth to see how the Friendly mercenaries were working out for their New Earth employers. A scribble from him on Dave’s pass would be better protection for my brother-in-law from the Friendly troops than five Commands of Cassidan armor.

I spotted him, after only a few minutes of searching the crowd milling about fifteen feet below me. He was clear across the large room, talking to a white-haired man-a Venusian or Newtonian by the look of him. I knew the appearance of Eldest Bright, as I knew the appearance of most interstellarly newsworthy people on the sixteen inhabited worlds. Just because I had made my way this far and fast by my own special talents, did not mean I had not also worked to learn my job. But, in spite of my knowledge, my first sight of Eldest Bright was still a shock.

I had not realized how strangely powerful for a churchman he would look in the flesh. Bigger than myself, with shoulders like a barn door and-though he was middle-aged-a waist like a sprinter. He stood, dressed all in black, with his back to me and his legs a little spread, the weight of him on the balls of his feet like a trained fighter. Altogether, there was something about the man, like a black flame of strength, that at the same time chilled me and made me eager to match wits with him.

One thing was certain, he would be no Commandant Frane to dance eagerly at the end of a string of words.

I turned to go down to him-and chance stopped me. If it was chance. I shall never know for sure. Perhaps it was a hypersensitivity planted in me by Padma’s remark that this place and moment was a locus in the human pattern of development to which he had responsibility. I had affected too many people myself by just such subtle but apposite suggestion, to doubt that it might have been done to me, in this case. But I suddenly caught sight of a little knot of people almost below me.

One of the group was William of Ceta, Chief Entrepreneur of that huge, commercial, low-gravity planet under the sun of Tau Ceti. Another was a tall, beautiful, quite good-looking girl named Anea Marlivana, who was the Select of Kultis for her generation, chief jewel of generations of Exotic breeding. There was also Hendrik Galt, massive in his Marshal’s dress uniform, and his niece Elvine. And there was also another man, who could only be Donal Graeme.

He was a young man in the uniform of a Sub-Patrol Chief, an obvious Dorsai with the black hair and strange efficiency of movement that characterizes those people who are born to war. But he was small for a Dorsai-no taller than I would have been, standing next to him-and slim, almost unobtrusive. Yet he caught my eye out of all that group; and, in the same instant, glancing up, he saw me.

Our eyes met for a second. We were close enough so that I should have been able to see the color of his eyes-and that is what stopped me.

For their color was no color, no one color. They were gray, or green, or blue, depending on what shade you looked for in them. Graeme looked away again, almost in the same instant. But I was held, caught by the strangeness of eyes like that, in a moment of surprise and transferred attention; and the delay of that moment was enough.

When I shook myself out of my trance and looked back to where I had seen Eldest Bright, I discovered him now drawn away from the white-haired man by the appearance of an aide, a figure strangely familiar-looking to me in its shape and posture, who was talking animatedly to the Eldest of the Friendly Worlds.

And, as I still stood watching, Bright spun about on his heel; and, following the familiar-looking aide, went rapidly from the room through a doorway which I knew led to the front hall and the entrance to Galt’s establishment. He was leaving and I would lose my chance at him. I turned quickly, to rush down the stairs from the balcony and follow him before he could get away.

But my way was blocked. My moment of transfixed staring at Donal Graeme had tripped me up. Just coming up the stairs and reaching the balcony as I turned to leave was Lisa Kant,

7

“Tam!” she said. “Wait! Don’t go!”

I could not, without crowding past her. She blocked the narrow stairway. I stopped, irresolute, glancing over at the far entrance through which Bright and his aide had already disappeared. At once it became plain to me that I was already too late. The two of them had been moving fast. By the time I could get downstairs and across the crowded room, they would have already reached their transportation outside the establishment and been gone.

Possibly, if I had moved the second I saw Bright turn to leave-But probably, catching him, even then, would have been a lost cause. Not Lisa’s arrival, but my own moment of wandered attention, on seeing the unusual eyes of Donal Graeme, had cost me my chance to obtain Bright’s signature on Dave’s pass.

I looked back at Lisa. Oddly, now that she had actually caught up with me and we were face to face once more, I was glad of it, though I still had that fear which I mentioned earlier, that she would somehow render me ineffective.

“How’d you know I was here?” I demanded.

“Padma said you’d be trying to avoid me,” she said. “You couldn’t very well avoid me down on the main floor there. You had to be out of the way someplace, and there weren’t any out-of-the-way places but these balconies. I saw you standing at the railing of this one just now, looking down.”

She was a little out of breath from hurrying up the stairs, and her words came out in a rush.

“All right,” I said. “You’ve found me. What do you want?”

She was getting her breath back now, but the flush of effort from her run up the stairs still colored her cheeks. Seen like this, she was beautiful, and I could not ignore the fact. But I was still afraid of her.

“Tam!” she said. “Mark Torre has to talk to you!”

My fear of her whined sharply upward in me, like the mounting siren of an alarm signal. I saw the source of her darngerousness to me in that moment. Either instinct or knowledge had armed her. Anyone else would have worked up to that demand slowly. But an instinctive wisdom in her knew the danger of giving me time to assess a situation, so that I could twist it to my own ends.

But I could be direct, too. I started to go around her, without answering. She stepped in my way, and I had to stop.

“What about?” I said harshly.

“He didn’t tell me.”

I saw a way of handling her attack then. I started laughing at her. She stared at me for a second, then flushed again and began to look very angry indeed.

“I’m sorry.” I throttled down on the laughter; and at the same time, secretly, I was in fact truly sorry. For all I was forced to fight her off, I liked Lisa Kant too well to laugh so at her. “But what else could we talk about except the old business of my taking over on the Final Encyclopedia again? Don’t you remember? Padma said you couldn’t use me. I was all oriented toward”—I tasted the word, as it went out of my mouth—”destruction.”

“We’ll just have to take our chance on that.” She looked stubborn. “Besides, it isn’t Padma who decides for the Encyclopedia. It’s Mark Torre, and he’s getting old. He knows better than anyone else how dangerous it would be if he dropped the reins and there was no one there quickly to pick them up. In a year, in six months, the Project could founder. Or be wrecked by people outside it. Do you think your uncle was the only person on Earth who felt about Earth and the younger worlds’ people the way he did?”

I stiffened, and a cold feeling came into my mind. She had made a mistake, mentioning Mathias. My face must have changed, too; because I saw her own face change, looking at me.

“What’ve you been doing?” Fury burst out in me all of a sudden. “Studying up on me? Putting tracers on my comings and goings?” I took a step forward and she backed instinctively. I caught her by the arm and held her from moving further. “Why chase me down now, after five years? How’d you know I was going to be here anyway?”

She stopped trying to pull away and stood still, with dignity.

“Let go of me,” she said quietly. I did and she stepped back. “Padma told me you’d be here. He said that it was my last chance at you-he calculated it. You remember, he told you about ontogenetics.”

I stared at her for a second, then snorted with harsh laughter.

“Come on, now!” I said. “I’m willing to swallow a lot about your Exotics. But don’t tell me they can calculate exactly where anyone in the sixteen worlds is going to be ahead of time!”

“Not anyone!” she answered angrily. “You. You and a few like you-because you’re a maker, not a made part of the pattern. The influences operating on someone who’s moved about by the pattern are too far reaching, and too complicated to calculate. But you aren’t at the mercy of outside influences. You have choice, overriding the pressures people and events bring to bear on you. Padma told you that five years ago!”

“And that makes me easier to predict instead of harder? Let’s hear another joke.”

“Oh, Tam!” she said, exasperated. “Of course it makes you easier. It doesn’t take ontogenetics, hardly. You can almost do it yourself. You’ve been working for five years now to get Membership in the Newsman’s Guild, haven’t you? Do you suppose that hasn’t been obvious?”

Of course, she was right. I had made no secret of my ambitions. There had been no reason to keep them secret. She read the admission in my expression.

“All right,” she went on. “So now you’ve worked your way up to Apprentice. Next, what’s the quickest and surest way for an Apprentice to win his way into full Guild membership? To make a habit of being where the most interesting news is breaking, isn’t that right? And what’s the most interesting-if not important-news on the sixteen worlds right now? The war between the North and South Partitions on New Earth. News of a war is always dramatic. So you were bound to arrange to get yourself assigned to cover this one, if you could. And you seem to be able to get most things you want.”

I looked at her closely. All that she said was true and reasonable. But, if so, why hadn’t it occurred to me before this that I could be so predictable? It was like finding myself suddenly under observation by someone with high-powered binoculars, someone whose spying I had not even slightly suspected. Then I realized something.

“But you’ve only explained why I’d be on New Earth,” I said slowly. “Why would I be here, though, at this particular party on Freiland?”

For the first time she faltered. She no longer seemed sure in her knowledge.

“Padma …” she said, and hesitated. “Padma says this place and moment is a locus. And, being what you are you can perceive, and are drawn to, loci-by your own desire to use them for your own purposes.”

I stared at her, slowly absorbing this. And then, as suddenly as a sheet of flame across my mind leaped the connection between what she had just said and what I had heard earlier.

“Locus-yes!” I said tightly, taking a step toward her again in my excitement. “Padma said it was a locus here. For Graeme-but for me, too! Why? What does it mean for me?”

“I …” she hesitated. “I don’t know exactly, Tam. I don’t think even Padma knows.”

“But something about it, and me, brought you here! Isn’t that right?” I almost shouted at her. My mind was closing on the truth like a fox on a winded rabbit. “Why did you come hunting me now then? At this particular place and moment, as you call it! Tell me!”

“Padma …” she faltered. I saw then with the almost blinding light of my sudden understanding that she would have liked to lie about this, but something in her would not let her..“Padma …only found out everything he knows now because of the way the Encyclopedia’s grown able to help him. It has given him extra data to use in his calculations. And recently, when he used that data, the results showed everything up as more complex-and important. The Encyclopedia’s more important, to the whole human race, than he thought five years ago. And the danger of the Encyclopedia’s never being finished is greater. And your own power of destruction …”

She ran down and looked at me, almost pleadingly as if asking me to excuse her from finishing what she had started to say. But my mind was racing, and my heart pounded with excitement.

“Go on!” I told her harshly.

“The power in you for destruction was greater than he had dreamed. But, Tam”—she broke in on herself quickly, almost frantically—”there was something else. You remember five years ago how Padma thought you had no choice but to go through that dark valley of yours to its very end? Well, that’s not quite true. There is a chance-at this point in the pattern, here at this locus. If you’ll think, and choose, and turn aside, there’s a narrow way for you up out of the darkness. But you Ve got to turn sharply right now! You’ve got to give up this assignment you’re on, no matter what it costs, and come back to Earth to talk to Mark Torre, right now!”

“Right now,” I muttered, but I was merely echoing her words without thought, while listening to my racing mind. “No,” I said, “nevermind that. What is it I’m supposed to be turning my back on? What special destruction? I’m not planning anything like that-right now.”

“Tam!” I felt her hand distantly on my arm, I saw her pale face staring tensely up at me, as if trying to get my attention. But it was as if these things registered on my senses from a long distance away. For if I was right—if I was right—then even Padma’s calculations were testifying to the dark strength in me, that ability I had worked these five years to harness and drive. And if such power were actually mine, what couldn’t I do next?

“But it isn’t what you plan!” Lisa was saying desperately. “Don’t you see, a gun doesn’t plan to shoot anyone. But it’s in you, Tam, like a gun ready to go off. Only, you don’t have to let it go off. You can change yourself while there’s still time. You can save yourself, and the Encyclopedia—”

The last word rang suddenly through me, with a million echoes. It rang like the uncounted voices I had heard five years ago at the Transit Point of the Index Room in the Encyclopedia itself. Suddenly, through all the excitement holding me, it reached and touched me as sharply as the point of a spear. Like a brilliant shaft of light it pierced through the dark walls that had been building triumphantly in my mind on either side of me, as they had built in my mind that day in Mark Torre’s office. Like an unbearable illumination it opened the darkness for a second, and showed me a picture-myself, in the rain; and Padma, facing me; and a dead man who lay between us.

But I flung myself away from that moment of imagination, flung myself clear back into the comforting darkness, and the sense of my power and strength came back on me.

“I don’t need the Encyclopedia!” I said loudly.

“But you do!” she cried. “Everybody who’s Earthborn-and if Padma’s right, all the people in the future on the sixteen worlds-are going to need it. And only you can make sure they get it. Tam, you have to—”

“Have to!”

I took a step back from her, myself, this time. I had gone fiercely cold all over with the same sort of fury Mathias had been able to raise in me once, but it was mixed now with my feeling of triumph and of power. “I don’t ‘have to’ anything! Don’t lump me in with the rest of you Earth worms. Maybe they need your Encyclopedia. But not me!”

I went around her with that, using my strength finally to shove her physically aside. I heard her still calling after me as I went down the stairs. But I shut my mind to the sense of her voice and refused to hear it. To this day I do not know what the last words she called after me were. I left the balcony and her calling behind me, and threaded my way through the people of the floor below toward the same exit through which Bright had disappeared. With the Friendly leader gone, there was no point in my hanging around. And with the newly rearoused sense of my power in me, abruptly I could not bear them close around me. Most of them, nearly all of them, were people from the younger worlds; and Lisa’s voice rang on and on, it seemed, in my ear, telling me I needed the Encyclopedia, reechoing all Mathias’ bitter lesson-giving about the relative helplessness and ineffectuality of Earthmen.

As I had suspected, once I gained the open air of the cool and moonless Freiland night outside, Eldest Bright, and whoever had called him from the party, had disappeared. The parking-lot attendant told me that they had left.

There was no point in my trying to find them, now. They might be headed anywhere on the planet, if not to a spacefield off-world entirely, back to Harmony or Association. Let them go, I thought, still bitter from the implication of my Earthborn ineffectiveness that I thought I had read in Lisa’s words. Let them go. I alone could handle any trouble Dave might get in with the Friendlies, as a result of having a pass unsigned by one of their authorities.

I headed back to the spacefield and took the first shuttle to orbit and shift back to New Earth. But on the way, I had a chance to cool down. I faced the fact that it was still worthwhile getting Dave’s pass signed. I might have to send him off for some reason of his own. An accident might even separate us on the battlefield. Any one of a number of things could occur to put him in trouble where I would not be around to save him.

With Eldest Bright a lost cause, I was left with the only option of heading to military headquarters of the Friendly troops in North Partition, to seek the signature for Dave’s pass there. Accordingly, as soon as I hit orbit New Earth, I changed my ticket for Contrevale, the North Partition city right behind the lines of the Friendly mercenaries.

All this took some little time. It was after midnight by the time I had gotten from Contrevale to Battle Headquarters of the North Partition Forces. My Newsman’s pass got me admission to the Headquarters’ area, which seemed strangely deserted even for this time of night. But, when I pulled in at last before the Command building, I was surprised at the number of floaters parked there in the Officers’ area.

Once again, my pass got me past a silent-faced, black-clothed guard with spring-rifle at the ready. I stepped into the reception room, with its long counter clipping it in half before me and the tall wall transparencies showing the full parking area under its night lights behind me. Only one man was behind the counter at one of the desks there, a Groupman hardly older than myself, but with his face already hardened into the lines of grim and merciless self-discipline to be observed on some of these people.

He got up from his desk and came to the other side of the counter as I approached the near side.

“I’m a Newsman of the Interstellar News Service,” I began. “I’m looking for—”

“Thy papers!”

The interruption was harsh and nasal. The black eyes in the bony face stared into mine; and the archaic choice of the pronoun was all but flung in my face. Grim contempt, amounting nearly to a hatred on sight, leaped like a spark from him to me, as he held out his hand for the papers he had requested; and like a lion roused from slumber by the roar of an enemy, my own hatred leaped back at him, instinctively, before I could leash it with cooler reflection and wisdom.

I had heard of his breed of Friendly, but never until this moment had I come face to face with one. This was one of those from Harmony or Association who used the canting version of their private speech not just privately among themselves, but indifferently toward all men and women. He was one of those who avoided all personal joy in life, as he avoided any softness of bed or fullness of belly. His life was a trial-at-arms, antechamber only for the life to come, that life to come that was possible only to those who had kept the true faith-and to only those who, in keeping the true faith, had in addition been Chosen of the Lord.

It did not matter to this man that he was no more than a noncommissioned officer, a lesser functionary among thousands such, from a poor and stony planet, and I was one of only a few hundred on sixteen inhabited worlds intensively educated, trained and privileged to wear the Newsman’s cloak. It made no difference to him that I was a member or Apprentice of the Guild, that I could talk with the rulers of planets. It did not even matter that I knew him to be half a madman and he knew me to be a product of education and training many times his own. None of this mattered, for he was one of God’s Elect, and I was without the shadow of his church; and so he looked on me as an emperor might look at a dog to be kicked from his path.

And I looked back at him. There is a counter for every human emotional blow, deliberately given. Who knew this better than I? And I knew well the counter to anyone who tries to look down his nose at you. That counter is laughter. There never was a throne yet built so high that it could not be rocked by laughter from below. But I looked at this Groupman now, and I could not laugh.

I could not laugh for a very simple reason. For half-mad as he was, narrow-minded, limited as he was, yet he would have calmly let himself be burned at the stake rather than give up the lightest tenet of his beliefs. While I could not have held one finger in a match flame one minute to uphold the greatest of my own.

And he knew I knew that was true of him. And he knew I knew he knew what was true of me. Our mutual knowledge was plain as the counter between us. And so I could not laugh at him, and win my self-respect back. And I hated him for it.

I gave him my papers. He looked them over. Then he handed them back to me.

“Thy papers are in order,” he said, high in his nose. “What brings thee here?”

“A pass,” I said, putting my own papers away and digging out Dave’s. “For my assistant. You see, we move back and forth on both sides of the battle line and—”

“Behind our lines and across them, no pass is necessary. Thy Newsman’s papers are sufficient.” He turned as if to go back to his desk.

“But this assistant of mine”—I kept my voice level—”doesn’t have Newsman’s papers. I just took him on earlier today and I haven’t had time to make arrangements for him. What I’d like would be a temporary pass, signed by one of your Headquarters’ officers here—”

He had turned back to the counter.

“Thy assistant is no Newsman?”

“Not officially. No. But—”

“Then he hath no leave or freedom to move across our battle lines. No pass can be issued.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said carefully. “I was going to get one from your Eldest Bright, at a party on Freiland, just a few hours back, but he left before I had a chance to get it from him.” I stopped, for the Groupman was grimly shaking his head.

“Brother Bright,” he said, and in his choice of title I saw at last that he would be immovable. Only the purest of the fanatics among the Friendlies scorned the necessities of rank amongst themselves. Eldest Bright might order my Groupman to charge an enemy gun emplacement bare-handed and my Groupman would not hesitate to obey. But that did not mean that my Groupman considered Bright, or Brother Blight’s opinion of the rightness of things, to be better than his own.

The reason was a very simple one. Bright’s rank and title were of this present life, and therefore, in my Groupman’s eyes, no more than toys and dross and tinkling cymbals. They did not weigh with the fact that as Brothers of the Elect, he and the Groupman were equal in the sight of the Lord.

“Brother Bright,” he said, “could not have issued a pass to one not qualified to go and come among our numbers and perhaps be a spy upon us to the favor of our enemies.”

There was one last card to play, and it was, I knew, a losing card; but I might as well play it anyway.

“If you don’t mind,” I said. “I’d like to get an answer on this from one of your superior officers. Please call one-the Officer of the Day, if no one else’s available.”

But he turned and went back to sit down at his desk.

“The Officer of the Day,” he said, with finality, returning to some papers he had been working on, “can give thee no other answer. Neither will I summon him from his duties to repeat what I have already told thee.”

It was like the crashing down of an iron portcullis upon my plans to get that pass signed. But there was nothing to be gained by arguing further with this man. I turned about and left the building.

8

As the door shut behind me, I paused on the top of the three steps leading up it, to try to think what I could do next. What I would do next. I had gone over, under, or around what seemed to be immovable barriers of human decision too many times to give up so easily. Somewhere, there must be a back entrance to what I wanted, a trapdoor, a crack in the wall. I glanced again at the officers’ parking area, jammed with floaters.

And then, suddenly, it came to me. All at once the bits and pieces floated together to give me a completed picture; and I kicked myself mentally for not having seen it before.

Item, the strange look of familiarity about the aide who had come to take Eldest Bright from the party of Donal Graeme. Item, Blight’s own precipitate departure following the aide’s appearance. Finally, the unusually deserted Headquarters’ area, contrasted with the crowded parking lot here, the empty office within, and the refusal of the Groupman on duty reception even to call the Officer of the Day.

Either Bright himself, or his presence in the war area, had triggered some unusual plan for military action on the part of the Friendly mercenaries. A surprise blow, crushing the Cassidan forces and ending the war suddenly would be excellent publicity for the Eldest’s attempts to hire out his Friendly commands of mercenaries in the face of some public dislike on the other worlds of their fanatic behavior and attitudes.

Not that all Friendlies were dislikable, I had been told. But, having met the Groupman inside, I could see where it would not take many like him to prejudice people against the black-clad soldiers as a group.

Therefore, I would bet my boots that Bright was inside the Command Post now with his top brass, preparing some military action to take the Cassidan levies by surprise. And with him would be the aide who had summoned him from Donal Graeme’s party-and unless my highly trained professional memory was misleading me, I had a hunch who that aide might be.

I went quickly back down to my own floater, got in it and turned on its phone. Central at Contrevale looked abruptly at me out of the screen, with the face of a pretty, young blonde girl.

I gave her the number of my floater, which of course was a rented vehicle.

“I’d like to speak to a Jamethon Black,” I said. “He’s an officer with the Friendly forces; I believe he’s right now at their Headquarters’ Unit near Contrevale. I’m not sure what his rank is-at least Force-Leader, though he may be a Commandant. It’s something of an emergency. If you can contact him, would you put him through to me on this phone?”

“Yes, sir,” said Central. “Please hold on, I’ll report in a minute.” The screen blanked out and the voice was replaced by the soft hum that indicated the channel was open and holding.

I sat back against the cushions of the floater, and waited. Less than forty seconds later, the face returned.

“I have reached your party and he will be in contact with you in a few seconds. Will you hold, please?”

“Certainly,” I said.

“Thank you, sir.” The face disappeared. There was another half minute or so of hum and the screen lit up once more, this time with the face of Jamethon.

“Hello, Force-Leader Black?” I said. “Probably you don’t remember me. I’m Newsman Tam Olyn. You used to know my sister, Eileen Olyn.”

His eyes had already told me that he remembered me. Evidently I had not changed as much as I thought I had; or else his memory was a very good one. He himself had changed also, but not in any way that would make him unrecognizable. Above the tabs on the lapels of his uniform that showed his rank was still the same, his face had strengthened and deepened. But it was the same still face I remembered from my uncle’s library that day. Only-it was older, of course.

I remembered how I had thought of him then, as a boy. Whatever he was now, however, he was a boy no longer. Nor ever could be again,

“What can I do for you, Mr. Olyn?” he asked. His voice was perfectly even and calm, a little deeper than I remembered it. “The operator said your call was an emergency.”

“In a way it is,” I said, and paused. “I don’t want to take you from anything important; but I’m in your Headquarters Area here, in the officers’ parking lot just outside the Headquarters Command Building. If you’re not too far from there, maybe you can step over here and speak to me for a moment.” I hesitated again. “Of course, if you’re on duty at the moment—”

“My duty at the moment can spare me for a few minutes,” he said. “You’re in the parking lot of the Command Building?”

“In a rental floater, green, with transparent top.”

“I will be right down, Mr. Olyn.”

The screen went blank.

I waited. A couple of minutes later, the same door by which I myself had entered the Command Building to talk with the Groupman behind the counter opened. A dark, slim figure was momentarily silhouetted against the light there; then it came down the three steps toward the lot.

I opened the door of the floater as he got close and slid around on the seat so that he could step in and sit down himself.

“Mr. Olyn?” he said, putting his head in.

“That’s right. Join me.”

“Thank you.”

He stepped in and sat down, leaving the door open behind him. It was a warm spring night for that season and latitude on New Earth; and the soft scents of trees and grasses blew past him into my face.

“What is this emergency?” he asked.

“I’ve got an assistant I need a pass for.” I told him the situation, omitting the fact that Dave was Eileen’s husband.

When I was through, he sat silent for a moment, a silhouette against the lights of the lot and the Command Building, with the soft night airs blowing past him.

“If your assistant’s not a Newsman, Mr. Olyn,” he said at last, in his quiet voice, “I don’t see how we can authorize his coming and going behind and through our lines.”

“He is a Newsman-for this campaign at least,” I said. “I’m responsible for him, and the Guild is responsible for me, as it is for any Newsman. Our impartiality is guaranteed between the stars. That impartiality of course includes my assistant.”

He shook his head slowly in the darkness.

“It would be easy enough for you to disown him, if he should turn out to be a spy. You could say simply that he was pushed upon you as an assistant, without your knowledge.”

I turned my head to look full into his darkened features. I had led him to this point in our talk for just this reason.

“No, I wouldn’t find it easy at all,” I said. “Because he wasn’t pushed on me. I went to a great deal of trouble to get him. He’s my brother-in-law. He’s the boy Eileen finally married; and by using him as my assistant, I’m keeping him out of the lines where he’s likely to get killed.” I paused to let that sink in.

“I’m trying to save his life for Eileen, and I’m asking you to try and help me save it.”

He did not move or answer immediately. In the darkness, I could not see any change of expression on his features. But I do not think there would have been any change to see even if I had had light to see by, because he was a product of his own spartan culture, and I had just dealt him a heavy, double blow.

For, as you have seen, that was how I handled men-and women. Deep in every intelligent, living individual are things too great, too secret or too fearful for questioning. Faiths, or loves, or hates or fears or guilts. All I needed ever was to discover these things, and then anchor my argument for the answer I wanted in one of these deep, unself-questionable areas of the individual psyche, so that to question the rightness of what I argued, a man must needs question the secret, unquestionable place in himself as well.

In Jamethon Black’s case, I had anchored my request both in that area of him which had been capable of love for Eileen in the first place; and in that part of every prideful man (and pride was in the very bone of the religion of these Friendlies) that required him to be above nourishing a long-held resentment for a past and (as far as he knew) a fair defeat.

To refuse the pass to Dave, now that I had spoken as I did, was tantamount to sending Dave forth to be killed, and who could think this was not done on purpose, now that I had shown Jamethon the emotional lines connecting it to his inner pride and lost love?

He stirred now, on the seat of the floater.

“Give me the pass, Mr. Olyn,” he said. “I’ll see what can be done.”

I gave it to him, and he left me.

In a couple of minutes, he was back. He did not enter the floater this time, but he bent down to the open door and passed in the paper I had given him.

“You did not tell me,” he said in his quiet voice, “that you had already applied for a pass, and been refused.”

I stopped dead, still clutching the paper in midair, staring up and out at him.

“Who? That Groupman in there?” I said. “But he’s just a noncommissioned officer. And you’re not only a commissioned officer but an aide.”

“Nonetheless,” he said, “a refusal has been given. I cannot alter a decision already made. I’m sorry. No pass is possible for your brother-in-law.”

It was only then I realized that the paper he had handed me back was unsigned. I stared at it, as if I could read it in the darkness and will a signature into being on the blank area where it should have gone. Then fury boiled up in me almost beyond control. I jerked my gaze up from the paper and stared out the open door of the floater at Jamethon Black.

“So that’s your way of getting out of it!” I said. “That’s how you excuse yourself for sending Eileen’s husband to his death! Don’t think I don’t see through you, Black-because I do!”

With his back to the light, with his face in darkness, I still could not see his face and any change that might have come over it at my words. But something like a light sigh, a faint, sad breath, came from him; and he answered in the same, even tones.

“You see only the man, Mr. Olyn,” he said. “Not the Vessel of the Lord. I must get back to my duties now. Good morning.”

With that he swung closed the door of the floater, turned and went away across the lot. I sat, staring after him, boiling inside at the line of cant he had thrown at me in leaving by way of what I took to be excuse. Then I woke to what I was doing. As the door of the Command Building opened, his dark figure was silhouetted there for an instant, and then disappeared, taking the light with it as the door closed again. I kicked the floater into movement, swung it about and headed out of the military area.

As I drove out past the gateyard, they were changing guards for the three-A.M. watch; and the dismissed watch were drawn up in a dark clump, still under weapons, engaged in some ritual of their special worship.

As I passed them, they began to sing-chant rather-one of their hymns. I was not listening for the words, but the three beginning ones stuck in my ear in spite of me. “Soldier, ask not—” were the first three words, of what I later learned was their special battle hymn, sung at times of special rejoicing, or on the very eve of combat.

“Soldier, ask not—” It continued to ring in my ears, mockingly it seemed to me, as I drove away with Dave’s pass still unsigned in my pocket. And once more the fury rose in me; and once more I swore that Dave would need no pass. I would not let him from my side for an instant during the coming day between the battle lines; and in my presence he would find his protection and his utter safety.

9

It was six-thirty in the morning when I stepped out of the tube from the port into the lobby of my hotel in Molon. There was a gritty feeling to my nerves and a dryness to my eyes and mouth, for I had not slept for twenty-four hours. The day coming up was to be a big one, so that I could probably not look forward to rest for another twenty-four. But going two or three days without sleep is an occupational hazard of Newswork. You get hold of something, with the situation about to break at a second’s warning; and you simply have to stay with it until it does.

I would be alert enough; and if it came right down to the wire, I had medication to see me through. As it happened, though, at the desk I found something that knocked the need for sleep cheerfully right out of my head.

It was a letter from Eileen. I stepped aside and pressed it open.

Dearest Tam: [she wrote]

Your letter about your plan to take Dave out of the battle lines and keep him with you as your assistant just reached here. I’m so happy I can’t tell you how I feel. It never occurred to me that someone like you, from Earth, and still only an Apprentice in the Newsman’s Guild, could do something like that for us.

How can I thank you? And how can you forgive me after the way I’ve been, not writing, or not caring what happened to you all these last five years? I haven’t been very much like a sister to you. But it was because I knew how useless and helpless I was; and ever since I was a little girl I’ve felt you were secretly ashamed of me and just putting up with me.

And then when you told me that day in the library how it would never work out for me to marry Jamethon Black. I knew you were right, even at the time, you were only telling me the truth about myself-but I couldn’t help hating you for it. It seemed to me then that you were actually proud of the fact you could stop me from going away with Jamie.

But how wrong I was, as this thing you are doing to protect Dave shows me now; and how bitterly, bitterly sorry I am for feeling the way I did. You were the only one I had left to love after Mother and Daddy died, and I did love you, Tam; but most of the time it seemed to me you didn’t want me to, any more than Uncle Mathias did.

Anyway, all that has changed now, since I met Dave and he married me. Someday you must come to Alban, on Cassida, and see our apartment. We were very lucky to get one this big. It is my first real home of my own, and I think you may be a little surprised at how well we’ve fixed it up. Dave will tell you all about it, if you ask him-don’t you think he’s wonderful, for someone like me to marry, I mean? He is so kind, and so loyal. Do you know he wanted me to let you know about our marriage at the time it happened, in spite of the way I felt? But I wouldn’t do it. Only of course he was right. He is always right, just as I am nearly always wrong-as you know, Tam.

But thank you, thank you again for what you’re doing for Dave; and all my love goes with both of you. Tell Dave I’m writing him, too, at this same time; but I suppose his army mail won’t reach him as fast as yours does you.

All my love,

Eileen

I tucked the letter and its envelope away in my pocket and went up to my room. I had meant to show him the letter; but on the way up the tube I found myself unexpectedly embarrassed at the thought of the fullness of her thanks expressed in it, and the way she had accused herself of not being the best possible sister. I had not been the best possible brother, either; and what I was doing for Dave now might look big to her, but it was nothing great really. Hardly more than the sort of thing I might do for a total stranger, by way of returning a professional favor.

She had me, in fact, feeling somewhat ashamed of myself, absurdly warmed by having heard from her so. Maybe we could turn out to exist like normal people after all. The way she and Dave felt about each other, I would undoubtedly be having nephews or nieces one of these days. Who knew-I might even end up married myself (the thought of Lisa floated inexplicably through my mind) and with children. And we might all end up with relations spread over half a dozen worlds like most of the ordinary family groups, nowadays.

Thus I refute Mathias! I thought to myself. And Padma, too.

I was daydreaming in this absurd but cheerful fashion when I reached the door of my hotel suite and remembered the question of showing Dave the letter. Better to let him wait and read his own letter, which Eileen had said was on the way, I decided. I pushed open the door and went in.

He was already up, dressed, and packed. He grinned at the sight of me; and this puzzled me for a split second until I realized that I must have come in with a smile on my own face.

“I heard from Eileen,” I said. “Just a note. She says a letter’s on its way to you, but it may take a day or so to catch up from being forwarded on from your army unit.”

He beamed at that; and we went down to breakfast. The food helped to wake me up; and we took off the moment we were done, for Battle Headquarters of the Cassidan and local troops. Dave was handling my recording and other equipment. There was no real bulk or weight to it. I often carried it myself without hardly noticing it. But theoretically his caring for it left me free to concentrate on finer matters of reportage.

Battle Headquarters had promised me a military air-car, one of the small two-man reconnaissance jobs. When I got to the Transport Pool, however, I found myself in line behind a Field Commander who was waiting for his command car to be specially equipped. My first impulse was to put up a squawk on principle at being kept waiting. My second thought was decidedly to do no such thing. This was no ordinary Field Commander.

He was a lean, tall man with black, slightly coarse, slightly curly hair above a big-boned, but open and smiling face. I have mentioned before that I am tall, for an Earthborn man. This Field Commander was tall for a Dorsai, which of course he was. In addition he had that-that quality for which there is no name, which is the birthright of his people. Something beyond just strength, or fearsomeness, or courage. Something almost the opposite of those keyed-up qualities.

It is calmness, even; a thing beyond argument, beyond time, beyond life itself. I have been on the Dorsai planet since then, and I have seen it as well among the half-grown boys there, and in some of the children. These people can be killed-all who are born of women are mortal-but staining them through, like a dye, is the undeniable fact that together, or as individuals, they cannot be conquered. By anything. Conquest of the Dorsai character is not merely unthinkable. It is somehow not-possible.

So, all this my Field Commander automatically had, in addition to his magnificent military mind and body. But there was something strange, over and above it all. Something that did not seem to belong in with the rest of the Dorsai character at all.

It was an odd, powerful, sunny warmth of character that lapped even upon me, standing several yards away and outside the knot of officers and men that surrounded him like elm saplings in the wind-shelter of an oak. A joy of life seemed to fountain up in this Dorsai officer, so brightly that it forced the kindling of a similar joy in those around him. Even in me, standing to one side and not-I would have said-normally too much liable to such influence.

But it may have been that Eileen’s letter was making me particularly vulnerable that morning. That could have been it.

There was another thing which my professional eye was quick to spot; and which had nothing to do with character qualities. That was the fact that his uniform was of the field-blue color and narrow cut that identified it as issue, not of the Cassidan, but of the Exotic forces. The Exotics, rich and powerful, and philosophically committed not to do violence in their own proper persons, hired the best mercenary troops to be had between the stars. And, of course, that meant that an unusually high proportion of those troops, or at least of their officers, were Dorsai. So what was a Dorsai Field Commander doing here with a New Earth shoulder patch hastily added to his Exotic-cut uniform, and surrounded by New Earth and Cassidan staff officers?

If he was newly come to the battered New Earth South Partition Forces, it was indeed a fortunate coincidence that he should show up on the very morning following a night I happened to know had been occupied by busy planning on the part of the Friendly Battle Headquarters at Contrevale.

But, was it coincidence? It was hard to believe that the Cassidans could already have found out about the Friendly tactical session. The Cadre of the New Earth Intelligence Forces staffed by men like Commandant Frane, were poor in the spying department; and it was part of the Mercenaries Code, under which professional soldiers of all worlds hired out, that a mercenary could not operate out of uniform on any intelligence mission. But coincidence seemed too easy an answer, all the same.

“Stay here,” I told Dave.

I started forward to penetrate the crowd of staff officers around this unusual Dorsai Field Commander, and find out something about him from his own lips. But at that moment his command car came up, and he got in, taking off before I could reach him. I noted he headed south into the battle lines.

The officers he had left behind dispersed. I let them go, keeping my questions instead for the enlisted New Earth cadreman who brought up my own air-car. He would be likely to know almost as much as the officers and a lot less likely to have been cautioned not to tell it to me. The Field Commander, I learned, had indeed been loaned to the South Partition Forces just the day before, on the orders of an Exotic OutBond called Patma, or Padma. Oddly, this Exotic officer was a relative of that same Donal Graeme whose party I had attended-although Donal was, as far as I knew, in Freiland, not Exotic employ, and under the command of Hendrik Galt.

“Kensie Graeme, that’s the name of this one,” said the Transport Pool cadreman. “And he’s a twin, do you know that? By the way, you know how to drive one of these cars?”

“Yes,” I said. I was already behind the stick and Dave was in the seat beside me. I touched the lift button and we rose on our eight-inch cushion of air. “Is his twin here, too?”

“No, still back on Kultis, I guess,” said the cadreman. “He’s just as sour as this one’s happy, I hear. They’ve each got two men’s dose of being one way or the other. Outside of that, they say, you can’t tell them apart-other one’s a Field Commander, too.”

“What’s the other one’s name?” I asked, with my hand on the stick, ready to pull out.

He frowned, thought for a minute, shook his head.

“Can’t remember,” he said. “Something short—Ian, I think.”

“Thanks, anyhow,” I said, and I took off. It was a temptation to head south in the direction Kensie Graeme had gone; but I had made my plans on my way back from Friendly Battle Headquarters the night before; and when you’re short on sleep, it’s a bad practice to go changing plans without strong reason. Often the fuzzy-headedness that comes from sleeplessness is just enough to make you forget some strong reason you had for making the original plan. Some strong reason which later on-too late-you will remember to your regret.

So, I make it a principle not to change plans on the spur of the moment, unless I can be sure my mind is in top working order. It’s a principle that pays off more often than not. Though, of course, no principle is perfect.

We lifted the air-car to about six hundred feet of altitude and cruised north along the Cassidan lines, our News Service colors on the air-car body glowing in the sunlight and our warning beeper beaming a neutral signal at the same time. Banner and beeper together should be enough, I figured, to make us safe at this altitude as long as there was no active shooting going on. Once the fighting really started, we would be smarter to head for ground cover like a wounded bird.

Meanwhile, while it was still safe to do so from the air, I meant to coast the lines first to the north (where they angled back toward the Friendly Battle HQ and Contrevale) and then to the south-and see if I couldn’t figure out just what Bright, or Bright’s black-clad officers, could have in mind for their plan.

Between the two enemy camps of Contrevale and Dhores, a direct line would have run almost due north and south. The present actual battle line struck across this imaginary north-south line at an angle, its northern end leaning toward Contrevale and the Friendly HQ, and its southern end all but touching the outskirts of Dhores, which was a city of about sixty-odd thousand people.

So the battle line as a whole was much closer to Dhores than to Contrevale-which put the Cassidan-New Earth Forces at a disadvantage. They could not fall back at their south end into the city proper and still be able to preserve a straight front of battle line and the communication necessary for effective defense. By so much had the Friendly troops already pushed their opponents into bad field position.

On the other hand, the angle of the battle line was acute enough so that a major share of the Friendly troops toward the south were inside the northern end of the Cassidan line. Given more reserves in the way of troops and bolder leadership, I thought determined sallies from the north end of the Cassidan line could have cut communications between the southern and forward elements of the Friendly line-and the Friendly HQ, back toward Contrevale.

This would at least have had the advantage of introducing confusion into the Friendly ranks, out of which a determined Cassidan field command might have made some capital.

They had shown no signs of doing so, however. Now, with a Dorsai as Field Commander, some such thing might still be attempted by the Cassidans-if there was still time and men available. But it seemed unlikely to me that the Friendlies, after sitting up all night, planning, were going to sit still today while the Cassidans made attempts to cut enemy communications.

The big question was, what did the Friendlies have in mind? I could see what I have just mentioned as a possible tactic for the Cassidans. But I could not imagine just how the Friendlies planned to take advantage of the present positions and tactical situation.

The south end of the line, on the outskirts of Dhores, was pretty much open country, farmland planted in corn, or cattle pasture on rolling glaciated hills. To the north, there were also the hills, but covered with wooded patches, groves of towering yellow birch, which had found a fine, alien home in the moist, glacial uplands of the South Partition, here on New Earth, so that here they rose to nearly double their Earthly heights-nearly two hundred feet-and clustered their tops so densely that no undergrowth but a native, mosslike groundcover could exist beneath them. Consequently, it was a sort of dim, Robin Hood-like country that existed beneath their branches, with great, peeling, silver-gold and gray, four-to-six-foot trunks reaching straight up like pillars in the dimness to the darkness of sun-shot leaves overhead.

It was not until, looking at them, I remembered all this of how it was underneath them, that it struck me that any number of troops could be at movement under their cover and I-up here in my air-car-would not be aware of rifle or helmet of them. In short, the Friendlies could be developing a major push under the cover of the trees below me and I would have no suspicion of it.

No sooner thought than acted upon. I blamed my lack of sleep for a fuzziness of perception that had not made me suspect something like this before. I swung the air-car wide to the edge of one of the groves, where there was a fortified Cassidan emplacement with the ringed muzzle of a sonic cannon poking out of it, and parked. Out here in the open, there was too much sun for the mosslike groundcover, but a knee-high native grass was everywhere, leaning to the little wind that was blowing it in ripples, like the surface of a lake.

I got out and waded through it to the entrance of the bushes masking the gun emplacement. The day was getting hot already.

“Any sign of Friendly movement around here, or in the woods over there?” I asked the Senior Groupman in charge of the emplacement.

“Nothing, far as we know,” he answered. He was a slim, high-keyed young fellow, gone half-bald considerably before his time. His uniform jacket was undipped at the throat. “Patrols are out.”

“Hmm,” I said, “I’ll try up forward a bit. Thanks.”

I got back in the air-car and took off again, just six inches above ground obstacles now, and into the woods. Here it was cooler. The patch of trees we entered led to another and that to another. In the third patch we were challenged, and found we had come up on a Cassidan patrol. Its members were flat on the ground, out of sight and covering us at the time we were challenged; and I did not spot a single man until a square-faced Force-Leader rose up almost beside the car, spring-rifle in his hand and visor of his helmet down.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he said, shoving the visor up.

“Newsman. I’ve got permissions to be in and across the battle lines. Want to see them?”

“You know what you can do with your permissions,” he said. “If it was up to me, you’d do it, too. Not that your being here makes this business any more of a damn Sunday picnic than it is now. But we’ve got trouble enough trying to keep the men acting halfway like soldiers in a battle zone without people like you wandering around.”

“Why?” I asked innocently. “Are you having some kind of trouble besides that? What trouble?”

“We haven’t seen a black helmet since dawn, that’s what trouble!” he said. “Their forward gun emplacements are empty-and they weren’t yesterday, that’s what trouble. Shoot an antenna down into bedrock and listen for five seconds and you can hear armor-heavy armor and lots of it-moving not more than fifteen, twenty kilometers from here. That’s what trouble! Now, why don’t you get back behind the lines, friend, so we don’t have to worry about you on top of everything else?”

“Which direction did you hear the armor?”

He pointed ahead, into Friendly territory.

“Then that’s where we’re headed ourselves,” I said, leaning back into the seat of the air-car and getting ready to close the overhead.

“Hold it!” His voice stopped me before I got the overhead shut. “If you’re determined to cross over toward the enemy, I can’t stop you. But it’s my duty to warn you that you head that way on your own responsibility. That’s between the lines, out there; and your chances of running into automatic weapons are better than not.”

“Sure, sure. Consider us cautioned!” I slid the overhead shut with a bang. It may have been my own lack of sleep making me irritable, but it seemed to me at the time that he was giving us an unnecessarily hard time. I saw his face staring grimly at us as I started up the car and pulled away.

But maybe I did him an injustice. We slid forward between the trees and in a few seconds he was lost to sight behind us. We moved on, through forests and across small glades, over gently rolling territory for about half an hour more, without encountering anything. I was just figuring that we could not be more than two or three kilometers short of where the Force-Leader had estimated the sound of Friendly armor to be coming from when it happened.

There was a sudden swift sound and blow that seemed to tilt the instrument panel suddenly into my face, smashing me into unconsciousness.

I blinked and opened my eyes. His round face concerned, Dave was out of his own seat harness and bent over me, unfastening mine.

“What?” I muttered. But he paid no attention, merely getting me loose and getting me out of the air-car.

He wanted me to lie down on the moss; but by the time we were outside the vehicle, my head had cleared. I had been, I thought, almost more dazed than out. But, when I turned to look back at the air-car, I felt grateful that that had been the worst to happen to me.

We had run across a vibration mine. Of course the air-car, like any vehicle designed for use around battlefields, had sensor rods projecting out of it at odd angles; and one of these had set off the mine while we were still a dozen feet from it. But still the air-car now had a tangle of junk for a front end, and the instrument panel was pretty well wrecked by my head; so much so that it was surprising I had not even a cut on my forehead to show for it, though a rather considerable bruise was already rising there.

“I’m all right-I’m all right!” I said irritably to Dave. And then I swore at the air-car for a few minutes to relieve my feelings.

“What do we do now?” asked Dave when I was finished.

“Head for the Friendly lines on foot. They’re the closest!” I growled. The warning of the Force-Leader came back to my mind, and I swore again. Then, because I had to take it out on somebody, I snapped at Dave. “We’re still out here to get a newsstory, remember?”

I turned and stalked away in the direction the air-car had been headed. There were probably other vibration mines around, but walking on foot, I would not have the weight or disturbance to spring them. After a moment Dave caught up with me and we walked along in silence together over the mosslike groundcover, between the enormous tree trunks, until glancing back, I saw that the air-car was out of sight behind us.

It was only then, when it was too late, that it occurred to me that I had forgotten to check my wrist director with the direction indicator in the air-car. I glanced at the director on my wrist now. It seemed to indicate the Friendly lines as just ahead. If it had kept correlation with the direction indicator in the air-car, all was well. If not-among these huge pillars of tree trunks, on this soft, unending, mossy carpet, every direction looked alike. Turning back to search for the air-car to correct the correlation could make us lost in a real sense.

Well, there was nothing to be done about it now. The important thing was to keep on in a straight line forward through the dimness and silence of the forest. I locked the wrist director to our present line of march and hoped for the best. We kept on-toward the Friendly battle line, I hoped, wherever that might be.

10

I had seen enough of this part of the territory from the air-car to be fairly sure that whatever was going on, either in the movement of Friendly or Cassidan forces, was not taking place in the open. So we stuck to the trees, moving from one grove to another.

Necessarily, this meant that we were not able to go straight in the direction the patrol’s Force-Leader had pointed, but zigzagged to it as the wooded cover permitted. It was slow going, on foot.

By noon, disgusted, I sat down with Dave to eat the cold lunch we had packed along. By noon we had seen no one since the Cassidan patrol earlier, heard nothing, discovered nothing. We had moved forward from the point where we left the air-car only about three kilometers, but because of the arrangement of the wooded patches, we had angled south about five kilometers.

“Maybe they’ve gone home-the Friendlies, I mean,” suggested Dave.

He was joking, with a grin on his face that I saw as I jerked up my head from my sandwich to stare at him. I managed a grin in return, feeling I owed him at least that. The truth of the matter was that he had been an unusually good assistant, keeping his mouth shut and avoiding the making of suggestions born in ignorance not only of warfare but of Newswork. -

“No,” I said, “something’s up-but I was an idiot to let myself get separated from that air-car. We just can’t cover enough territory on foot. The Friendlies have pulled back for some reason, at least at this end of the front. Probably it was to draw the Cassidan levies in after them, would be my guess. But why we haven’t seen black uniforms counterattacking before now—”

“Listen!” said Dave.

He had turned his head and held up his hand to stop me talking. I broke off and listened. Sure enough, at some distance off, I heard a wump, a muffled, innocuous sound like a blanket snapping, as if it were being shaken out by an energetic housewife.

“Sonics!” I said, scrambling to my feet and leaving the rest of our picnic lunch lying. “By God, they’re starting to get some action on after all! Let’s see.” I pivoted, trying to aim myself at the direction the noise had come from. “That sounded about a couple of hundred meters off, and over to our right—”

I never finished speaking. Suddenly, Dave and I were caught in the heart of a thunderclap. I found myself lying on the moss without remembering how I had got there. Five feet away, Dave was lying sprawled out; and less than forty feet away was a shallow, scooped area of torn-up earth, surrounded by trees that appeared to have exploded from internal pressure, with the white wood of their insides showing splintered and spread.

“Dave!” I got to him, and turned him over. He was breathing, and, as I watched, his eyes opened. His eyes were bloodshot, and he was bleeding from the nose. At the sight of his blood I became conscious of a wetness of my own upper lip, a salt taste in my mouth, and, putting up my hand, felt the blood dripping from my own nose.

I wiped it away with one hand. With the other hand, I pulled Dave to his feet.

“Barrage!” I said. “Come on, Dave! We’ve got to get out of here.” For the first time, the reaction of Eileen if I should fail to bring him safely home to her presented itself to my mind in vivid image. I had been sure of the protection .my skilled mind and tongue could provide for Dave between the battle lines. But you cannot argue with a sonic cannon, firing from five to fifty kilometers away.

He made it to his feet. He had been closer to the “burst” of the sonic capsule than I had, but luckily the effective zone of a sonic explosion is bell-shaped, with the wide mouth of the bell-area downward. So we had both been in the rim-part of that sudden imbalance of internal and external pressures. He was only a little more dazed than I was. And shortly, recovering somewhat as we went, we were both legging it away from the area, back at an angle toward where figuring from my wrist director indicated the Cassidan lines should be.

We stopped, finally, out of breath, and sat down for a moment, panting. We could hear the wump, wump of the barrage bursts continuing, some little distance behind us.

“—‘s all right,” I panted to Dave. “They’ll lift the barrage and send in troops before they follow up with armor. Troops we can talk sense to. With sonic cannon and armored vehicles we’d never have a chance. Might as well sit here and pull ourselves together, then strike sideways along the lines to join up with either a Cassidan force, or the first wave of Friendlies-whichever we run into first.”

I saw him looking at me with an expression I could not fathom at first. Then, to my astonishment, I recognized it as admiration.

“You saved my life back there,” he said.

“Saved your—” I broke off. “Look, Dave, I’m the last man to turn down credit when credit is due. But that sonic only knocked you out for a second.”

“But you knew what to do when we came to,” he said. “And you didn’t just think of doing it for yourself. You waited to get me on my feet and help me get out of there, too.”

I shook my head, and let it go at that. If he had accused me instead of deliberately trying to save myself first, I would not have thought it worth the trouble to change his mind. So, since he had chosen to go the other way in his opinion, why should I bother to change that, either? If he liked to consider me a selfless-minded hero, let him.

“Suit yourself,” I said. “Let’s go.”

We got back on our feet a little shakily-there was no doubt that same burst had taken it out of us both; and moved off southward at an angle that ought to cut the line of any Cassidan resistance, if indeed we were as far forward of their main posts as our earlier encounter with the patrol had indicated.

After a little while the wump, wump of the barrage moved away from our right on ahead of us and finally died out into the distance. In spite of myself, I found myself sweating a little and hoping we would come upon Cassidans before the Friendly infantry swept over us. The business of the sonic capsule had reminded me of how big a part chance plays in the matter of death and wounds on a battlefield. I would like to get Dave safely under the protective shell of a gun emplacement, so that there would be a chance to talk to any of the black-uniformed men we came upon before any shooting began.

For myself, there was no danger. My billowing Newsman’s cloak, the colors of which I had this day set on a dazzling white and scarlet, advertised me as a noncombatant as far as I could be seen. Dave, on the other hand, was still wearing a Cassidan’s field-gray uniform, though without insignia or decorations and with a noncombatant’s white armband. I crossed my fingers, for luck.

The luck worked; but not to the extent of bringing us to a Cassidan gun-emplacement shell. A small neck of woods running up the spine of a hill brought us to its top and a red-yellow flare, blinding in the dimness under the trees, burst in warning half a dozen feet in front of us. I literally knocked Dave to the ground with a hand in the middle of his back and skidded to a stop myself, waving my arms.

“Newsman!” I shouted. “Newsman! I’m a noncombatant!”

“I know you’re a goddam Newsman!” called back a voice tense with anger and stifled with caution. “Get on over here, both of you, and keep your voices down!”’

I gave Dave a hand up, and we went, still half-blinded, toward the voice. As we moved, my vision cleared; and twenty steps farther on I found myself behind the eight-foot-thick trunk of an enormous yellow birch, face to face once more with the Cassidan Force-Leader who had warned me about going on toward the Friendly line.

“You again!” we both said in the same second. But then our reactions varied. Because he began telling me in a low, fervent, and determined voice, just what he thought of civilians like myself who got themselves mixed up in the front lines of a battle.

Meanwhile, I was paying little attention and using the seconds to pull my own wits together. Anger is a luxury-the Force-Leader might be a good soldier, but he had not yet learned that elemental fact in all occupations. He ran down finally.

“The point is,” he said grimly, “you are on my hands. And what am I going to do with you?”

“Nothing,” I answered. “We’re here at our own risk, to observe. And observe we will. Tell us where we can dig in out of your way, and that’ll be the last you’ll have to think of us.”

“I’ll bet!” he said sourly, but it was merely a last spark of his anger sputtering out. “All right. Over there. Behind the men dug in between those two trees. And stay in your spot once you pick it!”

“All right,” I said. “But before we take off, would you answer me one other question? What’re you supposed to be doing on this hill?”

He glared at me as if he would not answer. Then, the emotion inside him forced the answer out.

“Holding it!” he said. And he looked as if he would have liked to spit, to clean the taste of those two words out of his mouth.

“Holding it? With a patrol?” I stared at him. “You can’t hold a position like this with a dozen or so men if the Friendlies are moving in!” I waited, but he said nothing. “Or can you?”

“No,” he answered. And this time he did spit. “But we’re going to try. Better lay that cloak out where the black helmets can see it when they come up the hill.” He turned away to the man beside him wearing the message unit. “Get Command HQ,” I heard him say. “Tell him we’ve got a couple of Newsmen up here with us!”

I got the name, and unit, and the names of the men in his patrol; then I took Dave off to the spot the Force-Leader had indicated, and we started digging in just like the soldiers around us. Nor did I forget to spread my cloak out in front of our two foxholes as the Force-Leader had said. Pride runs a very slow second to the desire to remain alive.

From our holes, once we were in them, we could look down the steeper slope of the wooded hill toward the direction of the Friendly lines. The trees went all the way down the hill and continued on to the next hill beyond. But halfway down, there was the scar of an old landslip, like a miniature cliff, breaking the even roof of treetops, so that we could look out between the pillars of those tree trunks rising from the upper edge of the landslip and see over the tops of the trees at the bottom edge, and thus get a view of the whole panorama of wooded slope and open field toward the far green horizon under which probably sat the Friendly sonic cannon Dave and I had run from earlier.

It was our first good look at the general field since I had brought the air-car down to ground level, and I was busy studying it through glasses, when I saw what seemed to be a flicker of movement among the tree trunks at the bottom of the divide between our hill and the next. The flicker was not enough for me to pick out anything definite, but at the same time I saw movement in both of the foxholes ahead of us and knew that the soldiers in them had been alerted by whichever one of them carried the patrol’s heat-sensing unit. The screens of which would now be showing the blips of the body heat of men, starting to mix in with the earth vegetation, and other heat of the ground area before us.

The Friendlies had found us. In a few seconds, there was no question of it, for even my glasses picked out flickers of black as their soldiers began to work their way up the slope of the hill toward our front and the weapons of the Cassidan patrol began to whicker and snap in response.

“Down!” I said to Dave.

He had been trying to raise up and see. I suppose he thought that because I was raising up to get a better view and so exposing myself, he could too. It was true that the Newsman’s cloak was spread out in front of both our holes; but I also had my beret color controls set on scarlet and white, and in addition I had more faith in my ability to survive than he. All men have such moments when they feel invulnerable; and the moment in that foxhole, with the Friendly troops attacking, was one of mine. Besides, I was expecting the current Friendly attack on us to die down and quit in a moment. And sure enough, it did.

11

There was no great mystery about the pause that came then in the Friendly attack. The men who had come into momentary contact with us were little more than a skirmish line out in front of the main Friendly forces. It had been their job to push the Cassidan opposition ahead of them, until it dug in and showed signs of fighting. When that happened the first line of skirmishers had, predictably, backed off, sent messages for reinforcements, and waited.

It was a military tactic older than Julius Caesar-assuming Julius Caesar were still alive.

But it, and the rest of the circumstances that had brought Dave and me to this place and moment, provided me with the mental ammunition to draw a couple of conclusions.

The first was that all of us-I included the Friendly forces as well as the Cassidan, and the whole war right down to its involved individuals, like Dave and myself-were being shoved around by the plannings of forces outside and beyond the battlefield. And it was not too hard to figure who those manipulating forces might be. One, clearly, was Eldest Bright and his concern with whether the Friendly mercenaries wrapped up their assignment in such a way as to attract further employers to their employment. Bright, like one chess player facing another, had planned and set in motion some kind of move aimed at wrapping up the war in one bold tactical strike.

But that strike had been, if not foreseen, at least precalculated by his opponent. And that opponent could only be Padma, with his ontogenetics.

For if Padma, with his calculations, could figure that I would put in an appearance at the party of Donal Graeme on Freiland, then with the same ontogenetics he would have been able to calculate that Bright would make some swift move with the Friendly forces to destroy the Cassidan levies opposing them. His calculation of this was deducible from the fact that he had lent one of his own best tacticians from the Exotic forces-Kensie Graeme-to frustrate what Bright had planned. Without that explanation Kensie’s appearance here on the battlefield at the crucial moment made no sense.

But the interesting question to me, behind all this, was why Padma should automatically oppose himself to Bright in any case. As far as I knew the Exotics had no stake in this civil war on New Earth-important enough to the world on which it was occurring, but small compared to other matters between the sixteen worlds and the stars.

The answer might lie somewhere in the tangle of contractual agreements that controlled the ebb and flow of trained personnel between the worlds. The Exotics, like Earth, Mars, Freiland, Dorsai, and the little Catholic Christian world of St. Marie, did not draft their trained young graduates en bloc, and trade off their contracts to other worlds without consulting the wishes of the individual. They were therefore known as “loose” worlds; in automatic opposition to “tight” worlds like Ceta, the Friendlies, Venus, Newton, and the rest who bartered their skilled personnel without concern for individual rights or desires.

The Exotics, therefore, being “loose” worlds, were automatically in opposition to the “tight” worlds of the Friendlies. But this alone was not reason enough for their choosing up sides in a conflict on some third world gratuitously. There might be some secret tangle of contractual balances concerning the Exotics and the Friendlies I knew nothing about. Otherwise, I was at a loss to understand Padma’s taking a hand in the current situation.

But it showed me, who was concerned with manipulating my environment by manipulating those immediately around me, that forces could be brought into play outside the charmed circle of my tongue, which could frustrate anything I could do, simply because they were from outside. In short, there were wider areas to be considered in the handling of men and events to some individually desired end than I had thought of before this.

I filed that discovery away for future reference.

The second conclusion that came to mind now had to do with the immediate matter of our defending this hill as soon as the Friendlies could bring up reinforcements. For it was no place to defend with a couple of dozen men. Even a civilian like myself could see that.

If I could see it, certainly the Friendlies could see it, to say nothing of the Force-Leader of the patrol, himself. Obviously he was holding it under orders from his Headquarters, a good deal farther back behind the lines. For the first time I began to see some excuse for this unwelcoming attitude where Dave and I were concerned. He obviously had his troubles-including some superior officer back at Headquarters who would ask him and his patrol to hold such a place as this hill. I began to feel more kindly toward the Force-Leader. Wise, panic-stricken, or foolish his orders might be; but he was soldier enough to do his best to carry them out.

It would make a great story, his hopeless attempt to defend this hill, with no support on either side or behind him and the whole Friendly army in front. And between the lines of my writing, I could have my say about the kind of command who had put him there. And then I looked around the slope and saw the enlisted men of his patrol dug in and a cool, sickly feeling knotted my stomach right under my breastbone. For they were in this, too, and they did not know the price they were about to pay in order to become heroes in my newsstory.

Dave punched me in the side.

“Look there-over there—” he breathed in my ear. I looked.

There was a stir among the Friendlies hidden in the trees at the bottom of the hill. But they were clearly only picking up extra strength and grouping for an actual assault on the hill. Nothing would happen for a few minutes yet, and I was about to tell Dave so, when he jogged me again.

“No!” he said, low-voiced, but urgently. “Out there. Away out. Near the horizon.”

I looked. And I saw what he meant. Out there among the trees that finally met the sky, now turning hot and blue, some ten kilometers, or about six miles, off, there were firefly-like flickers. Little yellow flashes among the green and occasionally a little upward plume of something white or dark that dissipated on the breeze.

But no fireflies ever flickered so as to be seen in broad daylight like that, and at a distance of over six miles. They were heat beams we were looking at.

“Armor!” I said.

“They’re coming this way,” said Dave, staring fascinated at the flashes, looking so small and trivial at that distance. Flashes that were in reality swords of searing light, forty thousand degrees centigrade at the core, that could topple the huge trees around us as a razor blade might slice through a bed of standing asparagus.

They were coming on unopposed, for there were no infantry worthy of the name in their way to take them out with plastics or sonic hand-weapons. Missiles, the classic defense against armor, had been outdated nearly fifty years by counter-missilery advanced to the point where reaction speeds of half-light made their use on planetary surfaces impossible. They were coming on slowly, but unstoppably, burning out on principle any likely hiding spots for infantry they passed.

Their coming made our defense of the hill a mockery. For if the Friendly infantry did not sweep over us before the armor got here, we would be fried in our foxholes. It was plain to me-and plain to the men of the platoon as well, for I heard a little humming moan move along the hillside as the soldiers in the other holes spotted the flashes.

“Silence!” snapped the Force-Leader from his. “Hold your positions. If you don’t—”

But he had no time to finish, for, at that moment, the first serious assault of the Friendly infantry mounted the slope against us.

And a sliver from a spring-gun took the Force-Leader high in the chest, just at the base of the neck, so that he fell back, choking on his own blood.

But the rest of the patrol had no time to notice this, for the assaulting Friendly spring-gunmen, wave on wave of them, were halfway up the slope to them. Low in their foxholes, the Cassidans fired back; and either the hopelessness of their position or an unusual amount of battle experience was paying off for them, for I did not see a single man who was paralyzed by combat fear and not using his gun.

They had all the advantage of it. The slope steepened as the top of the hill was approached. The Friendlies slowed and were shot down easily as they came closer. They broke and ran once more for the bottom of the hill. And once again, there was a pause in the firing.

I scrambled out of my foxhole and ran over toward the Force-Leader, to find out if he was still alive. It was a foolish thing to do, standing up in plain sight like that, Newsman’s cape or not; and I paid for it accordingly. The retreating Friendlies had lost friends and fellow soldiers on the hill. Now one of them reacted. Just a few steps short of the Force-Leader’s foxhole, something chopped my left leg out from under me and I went down, skidding, on my face.

The next thing I knew I was in the command foxhole beside the Force-Leader, and Dave was leaning over me, crowding the narrow space which also held two Groupmen, who must have been the Force-Leader’s noncoms.

“What’s going on …“I began, and tried to get to my feet. Dave moved to push me back; but I had already tried to put some of my weight on my left leg; and a tiger’s-tooth of pain drove through it, so that I slumped again, half-fainting, and soaked in my own sweat.

“Got to fall back,” one of the Groupmen was saying to the other, “Got to get out of here, Akke. Next time they’ll get us, or if we wait twenty minutes the armor’ll do it for them!”

“No,” croaked the Force-Leader beside me. I had thought him dead; but when I turned to look, I saw someone had set a pressure bandage against his wound, and released the trigger, so that its fibers would be inside the hole in him now, sealing apertures and clotting the blood flow. All the same he was dying. I could see it in his eyes. The Groupman ignored him.

“Listen to me, Akke,” said the Groupman who had just spoken. “You’re in command now. Got to move!”

“No.” The Force-Leader could barely whisper, but whisper he did. “Orders. Hold at all-costs—”

The Groupman evidently called Akke looked uncertain. His face was pale and he turned to look at the communications unit beside him in the foxhole. The other Groupman saw the direction of his glance and the spring-rifle across his knees went off, as if by accident. There was a smash and a tinkle inside the communications unit and I could see the ready light on its instrument panel go dark.

“I order you,” the Force-Leader was saying: but then the terrible jaws of pain closed upon my knee once more and my head swam. When my vision cleared again, I could see that Dave had ripped my left pant’s leg up above the knee and just finished setting a neat, white pressure bandage around the knee.

“It’s all right, Tam,” he was saying to me. “The spring-rifle sliver went all the way through. It’s all right.”

I looked around. The Force-Leader still sat beside me, now with his sidearm half drawn. There was another spring-rifle wound, this time in his forehead and he was quite dead. Of the two Groupmen, there was no sign.

“They’ve gone, Tam,” said Dave. “We’ve got to get out of here, too.” He pointed down the hill. “The Friendly troops decided we weren’t worth it. They pulled out. But their armor’s getting close-and you can’t move fast with that knee. Try to stand up, now.”’

I tried. It was like standing with one knee resting on the needle-point of a stake and bearing half my weight on that. But I stood. Dave helped me out of the foxhole; and we began our limping retreat down the back way of the hill, away from the armor.

I had likened those woods earlier in my thoughts to a Robin Hood-like forest, in their openness, dimness and color finding them fancifully attractive. Now, as I struggled through them, with each step, or hop rather, feeling as if a red-hot nail was being driven into my knee, my image of the tree groves began to change. They became darkling, ominous, hateful and full of cruelty, in the fact that they held us trapped in their shadow where the Friendly armor would seek us out and destroy us either with heat beams or falling trees before we had a chance to explain who we were.

I had hoped desperately that we would catch sight of an open area. For the armored vehicles floating up behind us were hunting the woods, not the open spaces; and particularly out in the open knee-high grass, it would be hard for even an armored pilot to see and identify my cape before shooting at us.

But we had evidently moved into an area where there were much more trees than open spaces. Also, as I had noticed before, all directions among those tree trunks looked alike. Our only way of being sure we would not be traveling in circles, but of keeping in a straight line away from the pursuing tanks, was to follow back along the direction we had come. This direction we could follow because we could be guided back along it by my wrist director. But that direction, that line of march that had brought us here, had been deliberately through all the treed areas I could find.

Meanwhile, we were moving at so slow a pace because of my knee that even the relatively slow-moving armor must soon catch up with us. I had been badly shaken by the sonic explosion earlier. Now, the continual jab-jabbing of the brilliant pain through my knee goaded me into a sort of feverish frenzy. It was like some calculated torture-and it happens that I am not a stoic when it comes to pain.

Neither am I cowardly, though I do not think it would be fair to call me brave, either. It is simply that I am so constructed that my response to pain beyond a certain level is fury. And the greater the pain the greater my rage. Some ancient berserker blood, perhaps, filtering down through the Irish in my veins, if you want to be romantic about it. But there it is-the fact. And now, as we hobbled through the eternal twilight between those gold-and-silver, peeling tree trunks, I exploded inside.

In my rage, I had no fear of the Friendly armor. I was certain of the fact that they would see my white and scarlet cloak in time not to fire at me. I was positive that if they did fire, both their beam and any falling tree trunks or limbs would miss me. In short I was convinced of my own invulnerability-and the only thing that concerned me was that Dave was being slowed down by being with me and that if anything happened to him Eileen would never get over it.

I raved at him, I cursed him. I told him to go on and leave me, and save his own neck, that I was in no danger by myself.

His only answer was that I had not abandoned him when the sonic barrage caught us both; and he would not abandon me. I was Eileen’s brother and it was his duty to take care of me. It was just as she had said in her letter, he was loyal. He was too damn loyal, he was a loyal damn fool-and I told him so, obscenely and at length. I tried valiantly to pull away from him; but hopping on one leg, tottering on one leg rather, it was no use. I sank down on the ground and refused to go any farther; but he actually outwrestled me and got me up on his back, piggyback, and tried to carry me that way.

That was even worse. I had to promise to go along with him, if he would let me down. He was already tottering himself from weariness when he let me. By that time, half-insane with my pain and my fury, I was ready to do anything to save him from himself. I began to yell for help as loudly as I could in spite of his efforts to shut me up.

It worked. In less than five minutes after he got me quiet we found ourselves staring down the pinhole muzzles of the spring-rifles in the hands of two young Friendly skirmishers, attracted by my shouts.

12

I had expected them to appear in answer to my shouts even more quickly. The Friendly skirmishers were naturally all around us almost from the moment we left the hill to its dead, under the command of their dead Force-Leader. These two might have been among the same Friendlies who had discovered the patrol dug in on the hill in the first place. But, having found it, they had moved on.

For it was their job to discover important pockets of Cassidan resistance, so that they could call for strength to eliminate those points. They would be carrying listening devices as part of their equipment, but they would pay little attention if those devices picked up merely the sound of two men arguing. Two men were game too small for their orders to concern themselves with.

But one man deliberately calling for help-that was an occurrence unusual enough to be worth investigating. A Soldier of the Lord should not be weak enough to be so calling, whether he needed personal assistance or not. And why should a Cassidan be appealing for aid in this area where no fighting had been going on? And who other than Soldiers of the Lord or their weaponed enemies might be in this zone of battle?

Now they knew who might be-a Newsman and his assistant. Both noncombatants, as I was quick to point out to them. Nevertheless the spring-rifles remained steadily aimed at us.

“Damn your eyes!” I told them. “Can’t you see I need medical attention? Get me to one of your field hospitals right away!”

They looked back at me with startlingly innocent eyes in smooth young faces. The one on the right wore the single collar mark of a lance-private, the other was an ordinary battle-class private soldier. Neither one of them was out of his teens.

“We have no orders to turn aside and return to a field hospital,” said the lance-private, speaking for both of them, as the-barely-superior in rank. “I can only conduct you to a gathering spot for prisoners, where no doubt other measures will be taken for your care.” He stepped back, his rifle still aimed at us. “Do thou help the other to aid this wounded man along, Greten,” he said dropping into the cant to speak to his partner. “Take his other side and I will follow with both our weapons.”

The other soldier passed over his spring-rifle and between him and Dave, I began getting over the ground a little more comfortably, although the rage still seethed and bubbled in me. They brought us to a clearing finally, not an actual grass-filled clearing exposed to the sun, but a spot where one huge tree had fallen and left open a sort of glade among the other giants. Here, there were perhaps twenty or so dejected-looking Cassidans, disarmed and being held under guard by four young Friendlies like those who had captured us.

Dave and the young Friendly soldier sat me down carefully with my back to the stump of the huge fallen tree. Then Dave was herded over to join the rest of the uniformed Cassidans, who were backed against the tall trunk of the fallen and moldering tree itself, with the four armed Friendly guards facing them. I shouted that Dave should be left with me as a noncombatant, pointing out his white armband and lack of insignia. But all six of the men in black uniforms ignored me.

“Who hath rank here?” asked the lance-private of the four guards.

“I am senior,” answered one of them, “but my rank is less than thine.”

He was, in fact, a plain battle-private. However, he was well into his twenties, plainly older than the rest of them, and his quick disclaimer of authority had the ring of the experienced soldier, who has learned not to volunteer for things.

“This man is a Newsman,” said the lance-private, indicating me, “and does claim the other under his protection. Certain the Newsman needeth medical attention; and though none of us can take him to the nearest field hospital, maybe thou canst call his case to the attention of higher authority over thy communicator,”

“We have none,” said the older soldier, “Message center is two hundred meters distant.”

“I and Greten will remain to assist thy guard while one of you go to your message center.”

“There was no provision “—the older, battle-private looked stubborn—”in our orders for one of us to leave for such a purpose.”

“Surely this is a special case and situation?”

“There was no provision.”

“But—”

“I tell thee, there was no provision made for this!” the battle-private shouted at him. “We can do nothing until an officer or a Groupman comes!”

“Will he come shortly?” The lance-private had been shaken by the vehemence of the objections of the older man. He glanced over at me worriedly; and I thought that perhaps he was beginning to think he had made a mistake in even mentioning medical help for us. But I had underestimated him. His face was a little pale, but he spoke evenly enough to the older man.

“I do not know,” answered the other.

“Then I myself will go to your message center. Wait here, Greten.”

He shouldered his spring-rifle and went off. We never saw him again.

Meanwhile, the fury and the body adrenalin that had helped me fight the pain of the hole drilled through my kneecap and the flesh and nerves and bone beyond it were beginning to wear off. I no longer felt the recurrent stab of agony as I tried to move the leg, but a swelling, steady ache was beginning to send billows of pain up my thigh from it-or so it seemed-and this was making me lightheaded. I began to wonder if I could stand it-and then, suddenly, with the feeling of stupidity that hits you when you realize all at once that what you have been searching for has been right before your eyes all this time, I remembered my belt.

Clipped to my belt, as to the belt of all soldiers, was a field-medication kit. Almost ready to laugh in spite of the pain, I reached for it now, fumbled it open, thumbed out two of the octagonal pills I found there-unaccountably, it was growing dark under the trees where we were, so that I could not make out their red color, but their shape was identity enough. It had been designed for just that purpose.

I chewed and swallowed them dry. Off in the distance, it seemed, I heard Dave’s voice, unaccountably shouting. But, swift as cyanide on the tongue, the anesthetic, tranquilizing effect of the pain pills was sweeping through me. The pain was washed away before it, leaving me feeling whole, and clean and new-and unconcerned about anything beyond the peace and comfort of my own body.

Once more I heard Dave shouting. This time I understood him, but the message of his shouting had no power to disturb me. He was calling that he had already given me the pain pills from his own kit, when I had passed out twice before. He was shouting that I had now laken an overdose, that someone should help me. Distant, also, at the same time, the grove grew quite dark and there was a roll like thunder overhead, and then I heard, as one hears some distant, charming symphony, the patter of millions of raindrops on the millions of leaves far overhead.

*

When I came back to myself again, for a while I paid very little attention to anything around me, for I was cramped and nauseated, with the aftereffects of the drug overdose. My knee no longer hurt if it was not moved, but it had swollen and grown stiff as a steel rod; and the slightest movement of it brought a jolt of pain that shook me like a blow.

I vomited and began slowly to feel better internally. Slowly, I began to be aware once more of what was going on around me. I was wet to the skin, for the rain, after being held up a little by the leaves overhead, had worked its way down to us. Off a little way by the trees, both the prisoners and the guards made a sodden group. There was a newcomer in the black uniform of the Friendlies. He was a Groupman, middle-aged, lean and lined heavily in the face; and he had taken the battle-private called Greten aside in my direction, evidently to argue with him.

Above us, in the little openings between the tree branches that had been left by the falling of the giant tree that had produced the forest glade, the sky had lightened after the thunderstorm; but though it was cloudless, it was all flushed now with the crimson of sunset. To my drug-distorted vision, that red came down and painted the outlines of the wet-dark figures of the gray-clad prisoners, and glittered the soaked black uniforms of the Friendlies.

Red and black, black and red, they were like some figures in a stained-glass window, under the huge, over-arching frame of the shadow-dark giants that were the trees. I sat there, chilled by my own heavy, damp clothes, staring at the Groupman and the battle-private in their argument. And gradually their words, low-pitched so that they would not carry to the prisoners, but plain to my closer ears, began to make sense to me.

“Thou art a child!” the Groupman was snarling. He lifted his head a little with the vehemence of his emotion; and the sunset sky reached down to illuminate his face with red, so that I saw it clearly for the first time-and saw in its starved features and graven lines the same sort of harsh and utter fanaticism I had found in the Groupman at Friendly Battle Headquarters who had turned down the chance of a pass for Dave.

“Thou art a child!” he repeated. “Young thou art! What dost thou know of the struggle to gain sustenance, generation on generation, on our harsh and stony worlds, as I have known it? What dost thou know of hunger and want, even to the women and babes, I say it, among the Children of the Lord? What dost thou know of the purposes of them who send us to battle, that our people may live and flourish when all men elsewhere would gladly see us dead and our faith dead and buried with us?”

“I know something,” retorted the younger soldier, though his voice showed its youth and trembled a little even as he answered. “I know that we have a duty to the right, and that we have sworn to the Mercenaries’ Code, and—”

“Shut thy milk-babe mouth!” hissed the Groupman. “What are Codes before the Code of the Almighty? What are oaths other than our oath to the God of Battles? Lo, our Eldest of our Council of Elders, he who is called Bright, hath said that this day bears hard upon the future of our people, and the winning of this day’s war is a need that we must meet. Therefore shall we win! And nothing else!”

“But still I tell thee—”

“Thou shall tell me nothing! I am thy superior! I tell thee. Our orders are to regroup for another attack upon the enemy. Thou and these four with thee are to report now, to their message center. It recks not that thou art not of their unit. Thou hast been called and will obey!”

“Then we shall take the prisoners safely with us—”

“Thou shalt obey!” The Groupman was carrying his spring-gun slung under one arm. He swung it around into his grasp so that the barrel pointed at the private. The Groupman’s thumb pushed the control of the weapon to automatic fire. I saw Greten’s eyes close for a second and his throat worked; but when his voice came out, it was still steady.

“Yet all my life have I walked in the shadow of the Lord which is truth and faith—” I heard him say, and the barrel came up. I shouted at the Groupman.

“You! Hey, you-Groupman!”

He jerked about like a timber wolf at the sound of a snapping twig under a hunter’s boot-and I was looking down the pinhole muzzle of his automatic-set spring-rifle myself. Then he came toward me, gun still aimed, and the axe blade of his starved fanatic’s face above it looked down at me.

“Thou art sensible, then?” he said. And the words were like a sneer. I read in them a contempt for anyone weak enough to take a pain-killer for the relief of any physical discomfort.

“Sensible enough to tell you a few things,” I croaked. My throat was dry and my leg was beginning to stir to an ache again, but he was good medicine for me, reawakening my anger, so that the returning hurt could feed the fury that rose easily in me. “Listen to me. I’m a Newsman. You’ve been around long enough to know that nobody wears this cape and beret who isn’t entitled to them. But just to make sure”—I dug into my jacket and produced them—”here are my papers. Look them over.”

He took them and glanced through them.

“All right now,” I said, when he had looked at the last of them. “I’m a Newsman and you’re a Groupman. And I’m not asking you anything-I’m telling you! I want transportation to a field hospital immediately, and I want my assistant over there”—and I pointed at Dave—”returned to me. Now! Not ten minutes from now, or two minutes from now; but now! These privates who’ve been on guard here may not think they have the authority to get me and my assistant out of here and me to a hospital, but you know you have. And I want it done!”

He stared from the papers to me and there came over his face a peculiar grimness of cast, the sort of look a man might get as he shakes off the grasp of those escorting him to a gallows and strides forward to the place of his execution contemptuously under his own power.

“Thou art a Newsman,” he said, and drew a deep breath. “Aye, thou art one of Anarch’s breed, who with lies and false report spreads hatred of our people and our faith throughout the worlds of men. I know thee well, Newsman”—he stared at me with black, hollowed eyes—”and thy papers to me are but trash and nonsense. But I will humor thee, and show thee how little thou weighest in the balance, with all thy foul reports. I will give thee a story to write, and thou shalt write it, and thou shall see how it is less than dry leaves blowing before the marching feet of the Anointed of the Lord.”

“Get me to a field hospital,” I said.

“Thou shalt wait for that,” he said. “Further” -and he waved the papers at me—”I see here thy pass, but no pass signed by one of authority in our ranks that gives free passage to the one thou callest thy assistant. Therefore he shall not come to thee, but remain with those prisoners of like uniform, to meet what the Lord shall send them.”

He threw the papers down into my lap, turned and stalked off, back toward the prisoners. I shouted after him, telling him to come back; but he paid me no attention.

But Greten ran after him, caught him by the arm and murmured something in his ear, meanwhile gesturing sharply toward the group of prisoners. The Groupman shoved him off with a thrust of his arm that sent Greten staggering.

“Are they of the Chosen?” the Groupman shouted. “Are they Chosen of God?”

And he whirled about in fury, with his spring-rifle still set on automatic menacing not merely Greten, but the other guards as well.

“Fall in!” he shouted.

Some slowly, some hastily, they left off guarding the prisoners and fell into line, facing the Groupman.

“You shall all report to the Message Center-now!” the Groupman snapped. “Right face!” And they turned. “Move out!”

And so they left us, moving off out of my sight among the shadows of the trees.

The Groupman watched after them for a second, then turned his attention and his rifle back on the Cassidan prisoners. They shrank a little from him; and I saw the white, indistinct outline of Dave’s face turned momentarily in my direction.

“Now, your guards are gone,” the Groupman said to them slowly and grimly. “For an assault begins that will wipe your forces from the field. In that assault every soldier of the Lord is needed, for a call has been placed upon us by our Eldest in Council. Even I must go-and I cannot leave enemies like yourselves unguarded behind our lines, to do mischief against our victory. Therefore, I send you now to a place from which you cannot harm the Anointed of the Lord.”

In that moment, in that moment only, for the first time, I understood what he meant. And I opened my mouth to shout; but nothing came out. I tried to rise, but my stiff leg would not let me. And I hung there, mouth open, frozen in the act of half-rising.

He opened fire at full automatic upon the unarmed men before him. And they fell-Dave among them—they dropped and fell, and died.

13

I am not clear in my mind exactly how things went after that. I remember, when there was no longer any stir or movement among the fallen bodies, how the Groupman turned and came toward me, holding his rifle in one hand.

He seemed, though he strode swiftly, to come slowly, slowly but inexorably. It was as if I watched him on a treadmill growing ever bigger as he loomed closer to me with the black rifle in his hand and the red sky behind his head. Until, at last, he reached me and stopped, standing over me.

I also tried to shrink from him, but could not; for the great stump of the tree was behind me and my damaged leg, itself stiff as a dead stick of wood, anchored me. But he did not lift his rifle against me; and he did not shoot me.

“There,” he said, looking at me. His voice was deep and calm, but his eyes were strange. “Thou hast thy story, Newsman. And thou shalt live to report it. Perhaps they will let thee come when I am led before a firing squad-unless the Lord decrees otherwise, so that I fall in the assault now beginning. But though they executed me a million times over, thy writing will avail thee nothing. For I, who am the fingers of the Lord, have writ His will upon these men, and that writing thou cannot erase. So shalt thou know at last how little is thy writing in the face of that which is written by the God of Battles.”

He stepped back from me one step without turning his back. It was almost as if I were some dark altar from which he retreated with ironic respect.

“Now, farewell, Newsman,” he said, and a hard smile twisted his lips. “Fear not, for they will find thee. And save thy life.”

He turned and went. I saw him go, black into the blackness of the deeper shadows; and then I was alone.

I was alone-alone with the still dripping leaves ticking occasionally upon the forest floor. Alone with the red-darkening sky, showing in its tiny patches between the growing black masses of the treetops. Alone with the day’s end and the dead.

I do not know how I did it, but after a while I began to crawl, dragging my useless leg along with me, over the wet forest floor until I came to the still heap of bodies. In the little light that remained I hunted through them until I found Dave. A line of slivers had stitched themselves across the lower part of his chest, and from there on down his jacket was soaked with blood. But his eyelids fluttered as I got my arm around his shoulders and lifted him up so that I could support his head on my good knee. His face was as white and smooth as the face of a child in sleep.

“Eileen?” he said faintly but clearly as I lifted him. But he did not open his eyes.

I opened my mouth to say something, but at first no sound would come out. Then, when I could make my vocal cords work, they sounded strange.

“She’ll be here in a minute,” I said.

The answer seemed to soothe him. He lay still, hardly breathing. The calmness of his face made it seem as if he were not in any pain. I heard a steady sound of dripping that at first I took to be the rain dripping still from some leaf overhead; but then I put down my hand and felt the falling of dampness on its palm. The dripping was of his blood, from the lower part of his soaked jacket, onto the forest earth below where the mosslike groundcover had been scuffed away by the scrabbling of dying men, leaving the bare earth.

I hunted around as best I could for wound dressings on the bodies near us, without disturbing Dave upon my knee. I found three of them, and tried to stop his wounds with them, but it was no use. He was bleeding from half a dozen places. By trying to put the bandages on I disturbed him, rousing him a little.

“Eileen?” he asked.

“She’ll be here in a minute,” I told him, again.

And, later on, after I had given up and was just sitting, holding him, he asked again.

“Eileen?”

“She’ll be here in a minute.”

But by the time the full dark passed and the moon rose high enough to send its silver light down through the little opening into the trees, so that I could see his face again, he was dead.

14

I was found just after sunrise, not by Friendly, but by Cassidan troops. Kensie Graeme had fallen back at the south end of his battle line before Blight’s well-laid plan of an attack to crush the Cassidan defenses there and cut them up in the streets of Dhores. But Kensie, foreseeing this, had robbed the southern end of his line and sent the armor and infantry so acquired swinging wide around to reinforce the north end of his line, where Dave and I had been.

The result was that his line pivoted about a central point, which was just about at the motor pool where I had first caught sight of him. The advancing reinforced north end of it, the following morning, swept around and down, cutting the Friendly communications and crashing in upon the rear of those Friendly troops that thought they had most of the Cassidan levies penned and broken up within the city.

Dhores, which was to have been a rock on which the Cassidan levies were broken up, became instead the rock on which the Friendly forces themselves were broken. The black-clad warriors fought with their usual fierceness and reckless bravery on being trapped; but they were between the barrage of Kensie’s sonic cannon to the west of the city and his fresh forces piling in upon their rear. Finally, the Friendly Command, rather than lose any more of the valuable battle units in human shape that were their soldiers, surrendered-and the civil war between the North and South Partitions of New Earth was over, won by the Cassidan levies.

But I cared nothing about this. I was taken, half-conscious from medication, back to Molon for hospitalization. The wound in my knee had complicated itself from lack of attention-I do not know the details; but, though they were able to heal it, it remained stiff. The only cure for that, the medicians told me, was surgery and a whole new, completely artificial knee-and they advised against that. The original flesh and blood, they said, was still better than anything man could build to replace it.

For my part, I did not care. They had caught and tried the Groupman who had perpetrated the massacre; and-as he himself had predicted-he had been executed by firing squad under the provisions of the Mercenaries’ Code with respect to the treatment of prisoners. But I did not care even about that.

Because-again as he himself had said-his execution did not alter things. What he had written upon Dave and the other prisoners with his spring-rifle was past the power of me, or any other man, to erase; and by this much he had done something to me.

I was like a clock with a broken part in it that does not keep it from running, but which you can hear rattling away, if you pick the clock up and shake it. I had been broken, inside; and not even the commendation that came from the Interstellar News Service and my acceptance into full membership in the Guild could mend me. But the wealth and power of the Guild was caring for me, now that I was a full member; and they did what few private organizations would have been able to do-they sent me to the wizards of mental mending on Kultis, the larger of the two Exotic Worlds, for treatment.

On Kultis, they enticed me into mending myself—but they could not force the manner in which I chose to mend. First, because they did not have the power (though I am not sure if they actually realized how limited they were, in my particular case and secondly, because their basic philosophy forbade the use of force in their own proper persons, and also forbade them any attempt to control the individual’s self-will. They could only beckon me down the road they wished I would go.

And the instrument they chose to beckon me down that road was a powerful one. It was Lisa Kant.

“—But you’re not a psychiatrist!” I said in astonishment to Lisa when she first appeared in the place on Kultis to which I had been brought-one of their many-purposed indoor-outdoor structures. I had been lying by a swimming pool, ostensibly soaking up sun and relaxing, when she showed up suddenly beside me and replied, in answer to my question, that Padma had recommended she be the person to work with me in getting my emotional strength back.

“How do you know what I am?” she snapped back, not at all with the calm self-control of a born Exotic. “It’s been five years since I first met you in the Encyclopedia, and I’d already been a student then for years!”

I lay blinking at her, as she stood over me. Slowly, something that had been dormant in me began to come back to life and began to tick and move once more. I got to my feet. Here was I, who had been able to choose the proper words to make people dance like puppets, making a blundering assumption like that.

“Then you actually are a psychiatrist?” I asked.

“Yes and no,” she answered me quietly. Suddenly she smiled at me. “Anyway, you don’t need a psychiatrist.”

The moment she said this, I woke to the fact that this was exactly my own thought, that it had been my own thought all along, but encased in my own misery I had let the Guild plow to its own conclusions. Suddenly, all through the machinery of my mental awareness, little relays began to click over and perceptions to light up again.

If she knew that much, how much more did she know? At once, the alarms were ringing throughout the mental citadel I had spent these last five years in building, and defenses were rushing to their post.

“Maybe you’re right,” I said, suddenly wary; and I grinned at her. “Why don’t we sit down and talk it over?”

“Why not?” she said.

And so we did sit down and talk-unimportant make-conversation to begin with, while I sized her up. There was a strange echo about her. I can describe it no other way. Everything she said, every gesture or movement of her, seemed to ring with special meaning for me, a meaning I could not quite interpret.

“Why did Padma think you could-I mean, think that you ought to come here and see me?” I asked cautiously after a while.

“Not just see you-work with you,” she corrected me. She was wearing not the Exotic robes, but some ordinary, short street dress of white. Above it her eyes were a darker brown than I had ever seen them. Suddenly she darted a glance at me as challenging and sharp as a spear. “Because he believes I’m one of the two portals by which you can still be reached, Tam.”

The glance and the words shook me. If it had not been for that strange echo about her, I might have fallen into the error of thinking she was inviting me. But it was something bigger than that.

I could have asked her then and there what she meant; but I was just newly reawakened and cautious. I changed the subject-I think I invited her to join me for a swim or something-and I did not come back to the subject until several days later.

By that time, aroused and wary, I had had a chance to look around me and see where the echo came from, to see what was being done to me by Exotic methods. I was being worked on subtly, by a skillful coordination of total environmental pressure, pressure that did not try to steer me in one direction or another, but which continually urged me to take hold of the tiller of my own being and steer myself. Briefly, the structure that housed me, the weather that bathed it, the very walls and furniture and colors and shapes that inhabited it, were so designed that they subtly combined to urge me to live-not only to live, but to live actively, fully and joyously. It was not merely a happy dwelling-it was an exciting dwelling, a stimulating environment that wrapped me around.

And Lisa was a working part of it.

I began to notice that as I roused from my depression, not only did the colors and shapes of the furniture and of the dwelling itself alter day by day, but her choice of conversational subjects, her tone of voice, her laughter changed as well, to continue to exert maximum pressure upon my own shifting and developing feelings. I do not think even Lisa herself understood how the parts combined to produce the gestalt effect. It would have taken a native Exotic to understand that. But she understood-consciously or subconsciously-her own part in it. And played it.

I did not care. Automatically, inevitably, as I healed myself I was falling in love with her.

Women had never been hard for me to find, from the time I broke loose from my uncle’s house and began to feel my own powers of mind and body. Especially the beautiful ones, in whom there was often a strange hunger for affection that often ran unsatisfied. But before Lisa they had all, beautiful or not, broken, and turned hollow on me. It was as if I were continually capturing song-sparrows and bringing them home, only to find the following morning that they had become common sparrows overnight and their wild song had dwindled to a single chirp.

Then I would realize that it was my own fault-it was I who had made song-sparrows of them. Some chance trait or element in them had touched me off like a skyrocket, so that my imagination had soared, and my tongue with it, so that I had lifted us both up with words and carried us off to a place of pure light and air and green grass and running water. And there I had built us a castle full of light and air and promise and beauty.

They always liked my castle. They would come gladly up on the wings of my imagination, and I would believe that we flew together. But later, on a different day, I would wake to the fact that the light was gone, the song was muted. For they had not really believed in my castle. It was well enough to dream of such a thing, but not to think of translating it into ordinary stone, and wood, and glass and tile. When it came to these matters of reality, a castle was madness; and I should put the thought aside for some real dwelling. Perhaps of poured concrete like the home of my uncle Mathias. With practical vision screen instead of windows, with economic roof, not soaring turrets, and weathered-glassed porches, not open loggias. And so we parted.

But Lisa did not leave me as the others always had when at last I fell in love with her. She soared with me and soared again on her own. And then, for the first time I knew why she was different, why she would never retreat earthward like the others.

It was because she had built castles of her own, before I ever met her. So she needed no help from me to lift her to the land of enchantment, for she had reached there before on her own strong wings. We were sky-matched, though our castles were different.

It was that difference in castles which stopped me, which came at last to shatter the Exotic shell. Because when finally I would have made love to her, she stopped me.

“No, Tam,” she said, and she fended me off. “Not yet.”

“Not yet” might have meant “not this minute,” or “not until tomorrow”; but, looking at the change that had come into her face, the way her eyes looked a little away from mine, suddenly I knew better. Something stood like a barred gate half-ajar between us, and my mind leaped to name it.

“The Encyclopedia,” I said. “You still want me to come back and work on it.” I stared at her. “All right. Ask me again.”

She shook her head.

“No,” she said, in a low voice. “Padma told me before I hunted you out at the Donal Graeme party that you would never come just because I asked you. But I didn’t believe him then. I believe him now.” She turned her face back to look me squarely in the eyes. “If I did ask now, and told you to take a moment to think about it before answering, you’d say no all over again, even now.”

She sat, staring at me, by the side of the pool where we were, in the sunlight, with a bush of great yellow roses behind her, and the light of the flowers upon her.

“Wouldn’t you, Tam?” she asked. I opened my mouth, and then I closed it again. Because, like the stone hand of some heathen god, all that I had forgotten while I mended here, all of that which Mathias and then the Friendly Groupman had carved upon my soul, came back heavily down upon me. The barred gate slammed shut then between Lisa and me, and its closing echoed in the inmost depths of my being.

“That’s right,” I admitted hollowly. “You’re right. I’d say no.”

I looked at Lisa, sitting among the shatters of our mutual dream. And I remembered something.

“When you first came here,” I said slowly but unsparingly, for she was almost my enemy again now, “you mentioned something about Padma saying you were one of the two portals by which I could be reached. What was the other one? I didn’t ask you then.”

“But now you can’t wait to stop up the other one, can you, Tam?” she said a little bitterly. “All right-tell me something.” She picked up a petal fallen from one of the flowers behind her and tossed it onto the still waters of the pool, where it floated like some fragile yellow boat. “Have you gotten in touch with your sister?”

Her words crashed in upon me like a bar of iron. All the matter of Eileen and Dave, and Dave’s death after I had promised Eileen to keep him safe, came swarming back on me. I found myself on my feet without knowing how I had gotten there, and a cold sweat had sprung out all over me.

“I haven’t been able—” I started to answer; but my voice failed me. It strangled itself in the tightness of my throat and I stood face to face in my own soul with the knowledge of my own cowardice.

“They’ve notified her!” I shouted, turning furiously on Lisa where she still sat watching up at me. “The Cassidan authorities will have told her all about it! What’s the matter-don’t you think she knows what happened to Dave?”

But Lisa said nothing. She only sat, looking up at me. Then I realized that she would go on saying nothing. No more than the Exotics who had trained her almost from the cradle would she tell me what to do.

But she did not have to. The Devil had been raised again in my soul; and he stood, laughing on the far side of a river of glowing coals, daring me to come over and tangle with him. And neither man nor Devil has ever challenged me in vain.

I turned from Lisa, and I went.

15

As a full member of the Guild, I no longer had to produce an assignment as a reason for drawing travel money. The currency between worlds was knowledge and skills wrapped up in the human packages that conveyed these things. In the same way, a credit easily convertible into this currency was the information collected and transferred by the skilled Communications people of the Interstellar News Guild-which was no less necessary to the individual worlds between the stars. So the Guild was not poor; and the two hundred or so full members had funds to draw upon on each one of the sixteen worlds that might have made a government leader envious.

The curious result of which in my case, I discovered, was that money as such ceased to have any meaning for me. In that corner of my mind which before this had concerned itself with spendables, there was now a void-and rushing in to fill that void, it seemed, through the long flight from Kultis to Cassida, were memories. Memories of Eileen.

I had not thought that she had been so important a part of my young life, both before our parents’ death, and especially after. But now, as our space ship shifted, and paused, and shifted again between the stars, moments and scenes came thronging to my mind as I sat alone in my first-class compartment. Or for that matter, still alone in the lounge, for I was in no mood for company.

They were not dramatic memories. They were recollections of gifts she had given me on this birthday or that. They were moments in which she had helped me to bear up under the unendurable empty pressure of Mathias upon my soul. There were unhappy moments of her own that I recalled now as well, that I now realized had been unhappy and lonely, but that I had not understood at the time, because of being so bound up in my own unhappiness. Suddenly it came to me that I could remember any number of times when she had ignored her own troubles to do something about mine; and never-there was no single instance I could recall-had I ever forgotten mine even to consider hers.

As all this came back to me, my very guts shrank up into a cold, hard knot of guilt and unhappiness. I tried between one set of shifts to see if I could not drink the memories away. But I found I had no taste either for the liquor or for that as a way out.

And so I came to Cassida.

A poorer, smaller planetary counterpart of Newton, with whom it shared a double-sun system, Cassida lacked the other world’s academic link with and consequently the rarefied supply of scientific and mathematical minds that had made the earlier-settled world of Newton a rich one. From Cassida’s capital-city spaceport of Moro, I took a shuttle flight to Alban, the Newton-sponsored University City where Dave had been studying shift mechanics, and where both he and Eileen had held supportive jobs while he did so.

It was an efficient ant-hill of a city on various levels. Not that there had been any lack of land on which to build it, but because most of it had been built by Newtonian credit; and the building method most economical of that credit had been one that clustered all necessary quarters together in the smallest practical space.

I picked up a direction rod at the shuttleport and set it for the address Eileen had given me in that one letter received the morning of Dave’s death. It pointed me the way through a series of vertical and horizontal tubes and passageways to a housing-complex unit that was above ground level-but that was about the best you could say for it.

As I turned into the final hallway that led to the door of the address I hunted, for the first time the true emotion that had kept me from even consciously thinking of Eileen, until Lisa recalled her directly to my attention, began to boil up in me. The scene in the forest clearing on New Earth rose again around me as vividly as a nightmare; and fear and rage began to burn in me like a fever.

For a moment I faltered-I almost stopped. But then the momentum I had built up by the long voyage this far carried me on to the doorway and I sounded the doorcall.

There was a second’s eternity of waiting. Then the door opened and a middle-aged woman’s face looked out. I stared down into it in shock, for it was not the face of my sister.

“Eileen …” I stammered. “I mean-Mrs. David Hall? Isn’t she here?” Then I remembered that this woman could not know me. “I’m her brother—from Earth. Newsman Tam Olyn.”

I was wearing cape and beret, of course, and in a way this was passport enough. But for the moment I had forgotten all about it. I remembered then as the woman fluttered a bit. She had probably never before seen a member of the Guild in the actual flesh.

“Why, she’s moved,” the woman said. “This place was too big for her alone. She’s down a few levels and north of here. Just a minute, I’ll get you her number.”

She darted away. I heard her talking to a male voice for a moment, and then she came back with a slip of paper.

“Here,” she said a little breathlessly. “I wrote it down for you. You go right along this corridor-oh, I see you’ve got a direction rod. Just set it then. It’s not far.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Not at all. We’re glad to-well, I mustn’t keep you, I suppose,” she said, for I was already beginning to turn away. “Glad to be of service. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye,” I muttered. I was moving off down the corridor resetting the direction rod. It led me away and down and the door I finally pressed the call button on was well below ground level.

There was a longer wait this time. Then, at last, the door slid back-and my sister stood there.

“Tam,” she said.

She did not seem to have changed at all. There was no sign of change or grief upon her, and my mind leaped suddenly with hope. But when she simply continued to stand there, looking at me, the hope sank once more. I could do nothing but wait. I stood there also.

“Come in,” she said finally, but without much change in tone. She stood aside and I walked in. The door slid closed behind me.

I looked around, shocked out of my emotion for the moment by what I saw. The gray-draped room was no bigger than the first-class compartment I had occupied on the spaceship coming there.

“What’re you doing living here?” I burst out.

She looked at me without any response to my shock.

“It’s cheaper,” she said indifferently.

“But you don’t need to save money!” I said. “I got that arrangement made for your inheritance from Mathias-it was all set with an Earth-working Cassidan to transfer funds from his family back here to you. You mean”—for the thought had never occurred to me before—”there’s been some hitch at this end? Hasn’t his family been paying you?”

“Yes,” she said calmly enough. “But there’s Dave’s family now to take care of, too.”

“Family?” I stared stupidly at her.

“Dave’s younger brother’s still in school-never mind.” She stood still. Nor had she asked me to sit down. “It’s too long a story, Tam. What’ve you come here for?”

I stared at her.

“Eileen,” I said pleadingly. She only waited. “Look,” I said, snatching at the straw of our earlier subject, “even if you’re helping out Dave’s family, there’s no problem anymore. I’m a full Guild member now. I can supply you with anything in the way of funds you need.”

“No.” She shook her head.

“In heaven’s name, why not? I tell you I’ve got unlimited…”

“I don’t want anything from you, Tam,” she said. “Thank you anyway. But we’re doing fine, Dave’s family and myself. IVe got a good job.”

“Eileen!”

“I asked you once, Tam,” she said, still unmoved. “Why’ve you come here?”

If she had been changed to stone, there could not have been a greater difference in her from the sister I had known. She was no one I knew. She was like a perfect stranger to me.

“To see you,” I said. “I thought-you might like to know—”

“I know all about it,” she said, with no emotion at all. “I was told all about it. They said you were wounded, too; but you’re well now, aren’t you, Tam?”

“Yes,” I said, helplessly. “I’m well now. My knee’s a little stiff. They say it’ll stay that way.”

“That’s too bad,” she said.

“Damn it, Eileen!” I burst out. “Don’t just stand there talking to me as if you don’t know me! I’m your brother!”

“No.” She shook her head. “The only relatives I have now-the only relatives I want now-are Dave’s family. They need me. You don’t and never did, Tam. You were always sufficient for yourself, by yourself.”

“Eileen!” I said, pleadingly. “Look, I know you must blame me-partly at least-for Dave’s death.”

“No,” she answered. “You can’t help being what you are. It was my fault, all these years, for trying to convince myself that you were something different from what you are. I thought there was something about you that Mathias never got to, something that just needed a chance to come out. It was that I was counting on when I asked you to help me decide about Jamie. And when you wrote you were going to help Dave, I was sure that what I’d always thought was in you was finally coming to the front. But I was wrong both times.”

“Eileen!” I cried. “It wasn’t my fault we ran into a madman, Dave and I. Maybe I should have done something different-but I did try to make him leave me after I got shot, only he wouldn’t. Don’t you understand, it wasn’t all my fault!”

“Of course it wasn’t, Tam,” she said. I stared at her. “That’s why I don’t blame you. You’re no more responsible for what you do than a police dog that’s been trained to attack anyone who moves. You’re what Uncle Mathias made you, Tam-a destroyer. It’s not your fault, but that doesn’t change anything. In spite of all the fighting you did with him, Mathias’ teaching about Destruct filled you up, Tam, and didn’t leave anything.”

“You can’t say that!” I shouted at her. “It’s not true. Give me just one more chance, Eileen, and I’ll show you! I tell you, it’s not true!”

“Yes, it is,” she said. “I know you, Tam, better than anyone alive. And I’ve known this about you for a long time. I just wouldn’t let myself believe it. But I have to, now-for the sake of Dave’s family, who need me. I couldn’t help Dave, but I can help them—as long as I never see you again. If I let you come close to them, through me, you’ll destroy them, too.”

She stopped talking then and stood looking at me. I opened my mouth to answer her, but I could think of nothing to say. We stood looking at each other across a couple of feet of distance that was a wider, deeper space and gulf than I had ever encountered in my life.

“You’d better go, then, Tam,” she said at last.

Her words stirred me numbly to life again.

“Yes,” I said dully. “I guess I’d better.”

I turned away from her. As I stepped toward the door I think I still hoped she might stop me and call me back. But there was no movement or sound behind me; and as I went out the door I glanced back for a final time over my shoulder.

She had not moved. She was still standing where she had been, like a stranger, waiting for me to go.

So I went. And I returned to the spaceport alone. Alone, alone, alone….

16

I got on the first ship out for Earth. I had priority now over all but people with diplomatic status, and I used it. I bumped someone with a prior reservation and found myself once more alone in a first-class compartment, while the ship I was on shifted, stopped to calculate its position, and shifted again between the stars.

That closed cabin was like a sanctuary, a hermit’s cell to me, a chrysalis in which I could lock and reshape myself before entering once more into the worlds of men in a different dimension. For I had been stripped to the very core of my old self and no single self-delusion remained, that I could see, to cover me.

Mathias had cleaned the most of the flesh of self-delusion off my bones early, of course. But here and there a shred had stuck-like the rain-washed memory of the ruins of the Parthenon that I used to gaze at in the vision screens as a boy after Mathias’ deadly dialectic had stripped away one more shred of nerve or sinew. Just by being there, above the dark, windowless house, the Parthenon had seemed to my young mind to refute all Mathias’ arguments.

It had been, once-and therefore he must be wrong, I used to comfort myself in thinking. It had existed, once it had been, and if the men of Earth were no more than Mathias said, it never could have been built. But it had been-that was what I saw now. For in the end it was no more than ruins and the dark defeatism of Mathias endured. So, at last now I came to it-I endured, in Mathias’ image, and the dreams of glory and lightness somehow, in some way, for those born on Earth in spite of those changed and greater children of younger worlds, were ruins, like the Parthenon, filed away with other childish delusions, filed and forgotten in the rain.

What was it Lisa had said? If I had only understood her, I thought now, I could have foreseen this moment and saved myself the pain of hoping that Eileen might have forgiven me for Dave’s death. Lisa had mentioned two portals, that there were only two portals left to me, and she was one of them. I understood what those portals were now. They were doorways through which love could get at me.

Love-the deadly sickness that robbed the strength from men. Not just carnal love, but any weak hungering for affection, for beauty, for hope of wonders to come. For I remembered now that there was one thing I had never been able to do. I had never been able to hurt Mathias, to shame, or even trouble him. And why not? Because he was as pure in health as any sterilized body. He loved not only no one, but nothing. And so, by giving away the universe, he had gained it, for the universe was nothing, too; and in that perfect symmetry of nothing into nothing he rested, like a stone, content.

With that understanding, I suddenly realized I could drink again. On the way here, I had not been able to do so because of my feeling of guilt and hope, and because of the tattered bits of corruptible, love-susceptible flesh still clinging to the pure skeleton of Mathias’ philosophy in me. But nowI laughed out loud in the empty compartment. Because then, on the way to Cassida when I most needed that anesthesia of liquor, I had not been able to use it. And now that I did not need it at all, I could swim in it if I wanted.

Always provided I had a due care for the respectableness of my professional position and did not overdo in public. But there was no reason keeping me back from getting drunk privately in my compartment right now if I wanted to. In fact, there was every reason to do just that. For this was an occasion for celebration-the hour of my deliverance from the weaknesses of the flesh and mind that caused pain to all ordinary men.

I ordered a bottle, a glass and ice; and I toasted myself in the mirror of my compartment, across from the lounge seat in which I sat, with the bottle at my elbow.

“Slainte, Tam Olyn bach!” I said to myself; for it was Scotch I had ordered, and all the Scot and Irish of my ancestors was frothing metaphorically in my veins at the moment. I drank deeply.

The good liquor burned inside me and spread comfortably through me; and after a little while, as I went on drinking, the close walls of the compartment moved back away from me for some distance while the wide memory of how I had ridden the lightning, under Padma’s hypnotic influence, that day at the Encyclopedia, came back to me.

Once more I felt the power and the fury that had come into me then, and for the first time I became aware of how I now stood, with no more human weaknesses to hold me back, to temper my use of that lightning. For the first time I saw possibilities in that use and the power of Destruct. Possibilities to which what Mathias had done, or even I had accomplished before now, were child’s play.

I drank, dreaming of things that were possible. And, after a while, I fell asleep, or passed out, whichever it was; and I dreamed literally.

It was a dream I passed into from waking with no seeming transition. Suddenly, I was there-and there was someplace on a stony hillside, between the mountains and the western sea, in a small house of stone, chinked with turf and dirt. A small, one-room house with no fireplace, but a primitive hearth with walls on each side leading up to a hole in the roof for the smoke to get out. On the wall near the fire, on two wooden pegs driven into cracks between stones, hung my one valuable possession.

It was the family weapon, the true, original claymore—claidheamh mör, the “great sword.” Over four feet long it was, straight and double-edged and wide of blade, not tapering to the point. Its hilt had only a simple crossbar with the guards turned down. Altogether it was a two-handed broadsword carefully kept wrapped in greased rags and laid on its pegs, for it had no sheath.

But, at the time of my dream, I had taken it down and unwrapped it, for there was a man I was to meet in three days’ time, some half a day’s walk away. For two days the sky was fair, the sun bright but cold, and I sat out on the beach, sharpening the long sword’s two edges with a gray stone from the beach, smoothed by the sea. On the morning of the third day it was overcast and with the dawn a light rain began falling. So I wrapped the sword in a corner of the long, rectangular plaid I had wound about me, and went to keep my appointment.

The rain blew cold and wet in my face and the wind was cold, but under the thick, almost oily wool of the plaid, my sword and I were dry, and a fine, fierce joy rose in me, a wondrous feeling greater than I had ever felt before. I could taste it as a wolf must taste hot blood in his mouth, for there was no feeling to compare to this-that I was going at last to my revenge.

And then I woke. I saw the bottle almost empty and felt the heavy, sluggish feeling of drunkenness; but the joy of my dream was still with me. So I stretched out on the lounge seat and fell asleep again.

This time I did not dream.

When I woke, I could feel no trace of a hangover. My mind was cold and clear and free. I could remember, as if it had been just the second before I had dreamed it, the terrible joy I had felt, going sword in hand to my meeting in the rain. And, at once, I saw my way clear before me.

I had sealed the two portals that remained-that meant I had stripped love from me. But now to replace it I had found this wine-rich joy of revenge. I almost laughed out loud as I thought about it, because I remembered what the Friendly Groupman had said, before he left me with the bodies of those he had massacred.

“What I have writ upon these men is beyond the power of you or any man to erase.”

Oh, it was true enough. I could not erase that exact, particular writing of his. But I-alone among sixteen worlds of people-had it in my power and skill to erase something far greater than that. I could erase the instruments that made such writing. I was a rider and master of the lightning; and with that I could destroy the culture and people of both the Friendly worlds together. Already, I saw glimmerings of the method by which it could be done.

By the time my spaceship reached Earth, the basic outline of my plans was essentially made.

17

My immediate goal was a quick return to New Earth, where Eldest Bright, having ransomed free the troops Kensie Graeme’s forces had captured, had immediately reinforced them. The reinforced unit had been encamped outside Moreton, the North Partition capital, as an occupation force in demand of interstellar credits due the Friendly Worlds for troops hired by the now defunct rebel government.

But there was a matter to be taken care of before I could go directly to New Earth. First, I needed a sanction and a seal for what I intended to do. For, once you were a full member of the Newsman’s Guild there was no higher authority over you-except for the fifteen members that made up the Guild Council to watchdog the Creed of Impartiality under which we operated, and to set Guild policy, to which all members must conform.

I made an appointment to see Piers Leaf, Chairman of that Council. It was a bright morning in April in St. Louis, just across the city from the Final Encyclopedia, that I finally found myself facing him across a wide, neatly bare oak desk in his office on the top floor of the Guild Hall.

“You’ve come a long way pretty fast for someone so young, Tam,” he said, after he had ordered and received coffee for both of us. He was a dry-mannered, small man in his late fifties, who never left the Solar System nowadays and seldom left Earth, because of the public-relations aspect of his Chairmanship. “Don’t tell me you still aren’t satisfied? What do you want now?”

“I want a seat on the Council,” I said.

He was lifting his coffee cup to his lips when I spoke. He went right on lifting without a pause. But the sudden glance he shot me over the rim of his cup was as sharp as a falcon’s. But all he said was:

“Do you? Why?”

“I’ll tell you,” I said. “Maybe you’ve noticed I seem to have a knack for being where the newsstories are.”

He set his cup down precisely in the center of its saucer.

“That, Tam,” he said mildly, “is why you’re wearing the cape permanently now. We expect certain things from members, you know.”

“Yes,” I said. “But I think mine may be a little bit out of the ordinary-oh,” I said, as his eyebrows rose suddenly, “I’m not claiming some kind of precognition. I just think I happen to have a talent for a little more insight into the possibilities of situations than other members.”

His eyebrows came down. He frowned slightly.

“I know,” I said, “that sounds like boasting. But, just stop and suppose I have what I claim. Wouldn’t a talent like that be highly useful to the Council in its policy decisions for the Guild?”

He looked at me sharply.

“Maybe,” he said, “if it was true-and it worked every time-and a number of other things.”

“But if I could convince you of all those ifs, you’d sponsor me for the next opening on the Council?”

He laughed.

“I might,” he said. “But how are you going to prove it to me?”

“I’ll make a prediction,” I said. “A prediction calling-if it comes true-for a major policy decision by the Council.”

“All right,” he said. He was still smiling. “Predict, then.”

“The Exotics,” I said, “are at work to wipe out the Friendlies.”

The smile went away. For a moment he stared at me.

“What do you mean by that?” he demanded. “The Exotics can’t be out to wipe out anyone. It’s not only against everything they say they believe in, but no one can wipe out two whole worlds of people and a complete way of life. What do you mean by ‘wipe out,’ anyway?”

“Just about what you’d think,” I answered. “Tear down the Friendly culture as a working theocracy, break both worlds financially, and leave only a couple of stony planets filled with starving people who’ll either have to change their way of life or emigrate to other worlds.”

He stared at me. For a long moment neither of us said anything.

“What,” he said, finally, “gave you this fantastic idea?”

“A hunch. My insight,” I said. “Plus the fact that it was a Dorsai Field Commander, Kensie Graeme, lent to the Cassidan levies at the last moment, that defeated the Friendly forces there.”

“Why,” said Piers, “that’s the sort of thing that could happen in any war, anywhere, between any two armies.”

“Not exactly,” I said. “Kensie’s decision to sweep around the north end of the Friendly line and take the Friendlies in the rear wouldn’t have worked so successfully at all if Eldest Bright hadn’t the day before taken command and ordered a Friendly attack on the south end of Kensie’s line. There’s a double coincidence here. An Exotic Commander appears and does just the right thing at the moment when the Friendly forces take the very action that makes them vulnerable.”

Piers turned and reached for the phone on his desk.

“Don’t bother checking,” I said. “I already have. The decision to borrow Kensie from the Exotics was taken independently on the spur of the moment by the Cassidan Levies Command, and there was no way Kensie’s Intelligence Unit could have known in advance about the attack Bright had ordered.”

“Then it’s coincidence.” Piers scowled at me. “Or that Dorsai genius for tactics we all know they have.”

“Don’t you think Dorsai genius may have been a little overrated? And I don’t buy the coincidence. It’s too large,” I said.

“Then what?” demanded Piers. “How do you explain it?”

“My hunch-my insight-suggests that the Exotics have some way of predicting what the Friendlies will do in advance. You spoke of Dorsai military genius-how about the Exotic psychological genius?”

“Yes, but—” Piers broke off, suddenly thoughtful. “The whole thing’s fantastic.” He looked once more at me. “What do you suggest we do about it?”

“Let me dig into it,” I said. “If I’m right, three years from now will see Exotic troops fighting Friendlies. Not as hirelings in some other-planet war, but in a direct test of Exotic-Friendly strength.” I paused. “And if I turn out to be right, you sponsor me to replace the next Council member dying or retiring.”

Once more, the dry little man sat staring at me for a long minute.

“Tam,” he said finally. “I don’t believe a word of it. But look into it as much as you want; I’ll answer for Council backing for you on that-if the question comes up. And if it comes off anything like you say, come talk to me again.”

“I will,” I said, getting up and smiling at him.

He shook his head, remaining in his seat, but said nothing.

“I’ll hope to see you again before too long,” I said. And I went out.

It was a tiny burr I had stuck onto him, to irritate his mind in the direction I wanted him to speculate. But Piers Leaf had the misfortune of having a highly intelligent and creative mind; otherwise he would not have been Chairman of the Council. It was the kind of mind that refused to let go of a question until it had settled it one way or another. If it could not disprove the question, it was likely to start finding evidence to prove it-even in places where others could not see such proof at all.

And this particular burr would have nearly three years to stick and work itself into the fabric of Leaf’s picture of things. I was content to wait for that, while I went ahead with other matters.

I had to spend a couple of weeks on Earth, bringing some order back to my personal business affairs there; but at the end of that time I took ship for New Earth once more.

The Friendlies, as I said, having bought back the troops they had lost as prisoners to the Cassidan forces under Kensie Graeme, had immediately reinforced them and encamped them outside the North Partition capital of Moreton, as an occupation force in demand of interplanetary credits due them.

The credits due, of course, were from the government of the now defeated and nonexistent North Partition rebels who had hired them. But, while there was nothing exactly legal about it, this was not uncommon practice between the stars, to hold a world ransom for any debt contracted off-world by any of its people.

The reason, of course, was that special currency between worlds which was the services of individual human units, whether as psychiatrists or soldiers. A debt contracted for the services of such units by one world from another had to be paid by the debtor world, and could not be repudiated by a change of governments. Governments would have proved too easy to change, if that had been a way out of interplanetary debts.

In practice, it was a winner-pay-all matter, if conflicting interests on a single world hired help from off-world. Something like the reverse of a civil suit-at-law to recover monetary damages, where the loser is required to pay the court costs of the winner. Officially, what had happened was that the Friendly government, being unpaid for the soldiers it had lent the rebel government, had declared war on New Earth as a world, until New Earth as a world should make up the bad debt contracted by some of her inhabitants.

In actuality, no hostilities were involved, and payment would, after a due amount of haggling, be forthcoming from those New Earth governments most directly involved. In this case, the South Partition government, mainly, since it had been the winner. But meanwhile, Friendly troops were in occupation upon New Earth soil; and it was in self-assignment to write a series of feature articles about this that I arrived there, some eight months after I had left.

I got in to see their Field Commander with no trouble this time. It was evident among the bubble-plastic buildings of the cantonment they had set up in an open area that the Friendly military were under orders to give as little irritation to non-Friendlies as possible. I heard no cant spoken by any of the soldiers, from the cantonment gate clear into and including the office of the Field Commander himself. But in spite of the fact he “youed” instead of “thoued” me, he was not happy to see me.

“Field Commander Wassel,” he introduced himself. “Sit down, Newsman Olyn. I’ve heard about you.”

He was a man in his late forties or early fifties with close-cropped, pure gray hair. He was built as square as the lower half of a Dutch door and had a heavy, square jaw which had no trouble looking grim. It was looking grim now, for all he was trying to appear unconcerned-and I knew the cause of the worry that was making his expression a rebel against his intentions.

“I supposed you would have,” I said, grim enough in my own way. “So I’ll make one point clear by reminding you right from the start of the impartiality of the Interstellar News Services.”

He had sat back down.

“We know about that,” he said, “and I’m not suggesting any bias on your part against us, either, Newsman. We regret the death of your brother-in-law and your own wounding. But I’d like to point out that the News Services, in sending you, of all Guild members, to do a series of articles on our occupation of this New Earth territory—”

“Let me make myself perfectly clear!” I broke in on him. “I chose to do this assignment, Commander. I asked to be able to do it!”

By this time his face was grim as a bulldog’s, with little pretense remaining. I stared as bitterly straight across his desk into his eyes.

“I see you don’t understand, Commander.” I rapped the words out in as metallic a tone as I could; and-to my ear, at least-the tone was good. “My parents died when I was young. I was raised by an uncle and it was the goal of my life to be a Newsman. To me, the News Services are more important than any institution or human being on any of the sixteen civilized worlds. The Creed of the members of the Guild is carried in my heart, Commander. And the keystone article of that Creed is impartiality-the crushing down, the wiping out of any personal feeling where that might conflict with or influence to the slightest degree the work of a Newsman.”

He continued to look grim at me from across the desk; and, gradually it seemed to me, a hint of doubt crept into that iron visage of his.

“Mr. Olyn,” he said at last; and the more neutral title was a tentative lightening of the formal sword’s-point attitude with which we had begun our talk. “Are you trying to tell me that you’re here to do these articles as proof of your lack of bias toward us?”

“Toward you, or any people or things,” I said, “in accordance with the Newsman’s Creed. This series will be a public testimony to our Creed, and consequently to the benefit of all who wear the cloak.”

He did not believe me even then, I think. His good sense warred with what I was telling him; and the assumption of selflessness on my part must have had a boastful ring in the mouth of someone he knew to be a non-Friendly.

But, at the same time, I was talking his language. The harsh joy of self-sacrifice, the stoic amputation of my own personal feelings in the pursuit of my duty rang true to the beliefs he had lived with all his own life.

“I see,” he said at last. He got to his feet and extended his hand across the desk as I rose, too. “Well, Newsman, I cannot say that we are pleased to see you here, even now. But we will cooperate with you within reason as much as possible. Though any series reflecting the fact that we are here as unwelcome visitors upon a foreign planet is bound to do us harm in the eyes of the people of the sixteen worlds.”

“I don’t think so this time,” I said shortly as I shook hands. He let go of my hand and looked at me with a sudden renewal of suspicion.

“What I plan to do is an editorial series,” I explained. “It’ll be titled The Case for Occupation by the Friendly Troops on New Earth, and it’ll restrict itself completely to exploring the attitudes and positions of you and your men in the occupation force.”

He stared at me.

“Good afternoon,” I said.

I went out, hearing his half-mumbled “Good afternoon” behind me. I left him, I knew, completely uncertain as to whether he was sitting on a carton of high explosive or not.

But, as I knew he would, he began to come around, when the first of the articles in the series began to appear in the Interstellar News releases. There is a difference between an ordinary article of reportage and an editorial article. In an editorial article, you can present the case for the Devil; and as long as you dissociate yourself from it personally, you can preserve your reputation of a freedom from bias.

I presented the case for the Friendlies, in the Friendlies’ own terms and utterances. It was the first time in years that the Friendly soldiers had been written about in the Interstellar News without adverse criticism; and, of course, to the Friendlies, all adverse criticism implied a bias against them. For they knew of no half-measures in their own way of life and recognized none in outsiders. By the time I was halfway through the series, Field Commander Wassel and all his occupation forces had taken me as close to their grim hearts as a non-Friendly could be taken.

Of course, the series evoked a howl from the New Earthians that their side of the occupation also be written up. And a very good Newsman named Moha Skanosky was assigned by the Guild to do just that.

But I had had the first innings at bat in the public eye; and the articles had so strong an effect that they almost convinced me, their writer. There is a magic in words when they are handled, and when I had finished the series I was almost ready to find in myself some excuse and sympathy for these unyielding men of a Spartan faith.

But there was a claidheamh mör, unsharpened and unslaked, hanging on the stone walls of my soul, that would not bend to any such weakness.

18

Still, I was under the close observation of my peers in the Guild; and on my return to St. Louis on Earth, among my other mail was a note from Piers Leaf.

Dear Tam:

Your series was an admirable job. But, bearing in mind what we talked about the last time we met, I would think that straight reporting might build a better professional record for you than dealing in background material of this sort. With best wishes for your future—

P.L.

It was a plain enough cautioning not to be observed involving myself personally in the situation I had told him I would investigate. It might have caused me to put off for a month or so the trip I had planned to St. Marie. But just then Donal Graeme, who had accepted the position of War Chief for the Friendlies, carried out his first subsurface extrication of a Friendly expeditionary force from Coby, the airless mining world in the same system as the Exotic worlds and St. Marie. As a result of that rescue, the Exotic mercenary command was severely shaken up, to be reorganized under the command of Geneve bar-Colmain.

Despite widespread admiration for Graeme’s skill, the public saw the situation as an unexpected pardon for Friendly forces who had been the aggressors on Coby. With the general liking for the Exotics on the other twelve worlds, what attention my series of articles had obtained was completely wiped out. In this I was well content. What I hoped to gain from their publication, I had already gained in the relaxation of enmity and suspicion of me personally by Field Commander Wassel and his occupation force.

I went to St. Marie, a small but fertile world which, with Coby and a few uninhabited bits of rock like Zombri, shared the Procyon system with the Exotic worlds, Mara and Kultis. My official purpose of visit was to see what effect the Coby military debacle had had on this suburban planet with its largely Roman Catholic, predominantly rural population.

While there were no official connections between them, except a mutual-aid pact, St. Marie was by necessity of spatial geography almost a ward of the larger, more powerful Exotic worlds. Like anyone with rich and powerful neighbors St. Marie, in her government and affairs, pretty much rose and fell with Exotic fortunes. It would be interesting to the reading public of the sixteen worlds to see how the Exotic reversal on Coby had caused the winds of opinion and politics to blow on St. Marie.

As anyone might expect, it had caused them to blow contrary. After some five days of pulling strings, I finally arranged an interview with Marcus O’Doyne, past-President and political power in the so-called Blue Front, the out-of-power political party of St. Marie. It took less than half an eye to see that he was bursting with ill-contained joy.

We met in his hotel suite in Blauvain, the capital of St. Marie. He was of no more than average height, but his head was outsized, heavy-boned and powerful-featured under wavy white hair. It sat awkwardly on his plump and fairly narrow shoulders; and he had a habit of booming his voice out with the ring of a platform speaker, during ordinary conversation, that did not endear him to me. His faded blue eyes gleamed as he spoke.

“… Woken them up, by George!” he said, once we were seated in overplump chairs in the sitting room of his hotel suite with drinks in our hands. He paused, catching his breath stagily a little before coming out with emphasis on the “—George!” as if he wished me to notice that he had been about to use the name of the deity, but had recollected himself in time. It was, I began to find out, a regular trick of his, this catching himself from profanity or obscenity as if in the nick of time.

“—the common people-the rural people,” he said leaning confidentially toward me. “They were asleep here. They’ve been asleep for years. Lulled to sleep by those sons of—Belial on the Exotics. But that business on Coby woke them up. Opened their eyes!”

“Lulled to sleep-how?” I asked. “Song and dance, song and dance!” O’Doyne rocked back and forth on the couch. “Stage-show magic! Headshrinker’s tactics-oh, a thousand and one things, Newsman. You wouldn’t believe it!”

“My readers might,” I said. “How about citing some instances?”

“Why-darn your readers! Yes, I saydarn your readers!” He rocked forward again, glaring proudly at me. “It’s the common inhabitant of my own world I’m concerned with! The common inhabitant. He knows what instances, what coercions, what wrongs! We’re not a sideshow here, Mr. Olyn, though maybe you think so! No, I say-darn your readers, and-darn you! I’ll get no man in trouble with those robed-babies by citing exact instances.”

“You don’t give me much to write about, in that case,” I said. “Suppose we shift our ground a little, then. I understand that you claim that the people of the present government are maintained in power only by Exotic pressures on St. Marie?”

“They are appeasers, plain and simple, Mr. Olyn. The government-no, no! Call them the Green Front, which is all they are! They claim to represent all the people of St. Marie. They-You know our political situation, here?”

“I understand,” I said,’ ‘that your constitution laid out your planet originally into political districts of equal areas, with two representatives to a planetary government from each district. Now I understand your party claims that the growth of city population has allowed the rural districts to control the cities, since a city like Blauvain with half a million inhabitants has no more representation than a district with three or four thousand people in it?”

“Exactly, exactly!” O’Doyne rocked forward and boomed confidentially at me. “The need for reapportionment is acute, as it always has been in such historic situations. But will the Green Front vote themselves out of power? Not likely! Only a bold move-only a grass-roots’ revolution can get them out of power and our own party, representing the common man, the ignored man, the disenfranchised man of the cities, into government.”

“You think such a grass-roots’ revolution is possible at the present time?” I adjusted downward the volume control on my recorder.

“Before Coby, I would have said-no! Much as I would have hoped for such a thing-no! But, since Coby—” He stopped and rocked triumphantly backward, looking at me significantly.

“Since Coby?” I prompted, since significant looks and significant silences were no use to me in doing a job of straight reporting. But O’Doyne had a politician’s caution about talking himself into a corner.

“Why, since Coby,” he said, “it’s become apparent-apparent to any thinking man of this world-that St. Marie may have to go it alone. That we may have to do without the parasitic, controlling hand of the Exotics. And where are men to be found who can steer this troubled ship of St. Marie through the stormy trials of the future? In the cities, Newsman! In the ranks of those of us who have always fought for the common man. In our own Blue Front party!”

“I understand,” I said. “But under your constitution wouldn’t a change of representatives require an election? And can’t an election only be called for by a majority vote of the current representatives? And don’t the Green Front have that majority now, so that they are unlikely to call an election that would put most of them out of office?”

“True!” he boomed. “True!” He rocked back and forth, glaring at me with the same broad hint of significance.

“Then,” I said, “I don’t see how the grass-roots’ revolution you talk about is possible, Mr. O’Doyne.”

“Anything is possible!” he answered. “To the common man, nothing is impossible! The straws are in the wind, the wind of change is in the air. Who can deny it?”

I shut off my recorder.

“I see,” I said, “we’re getting nowhere. Perhaps we could make a little better progress off the record?”

“Off the record! Absolutely! Indeed-absolutely!” he said heartily. “I’m as willing to answer questions off the record as on, Newsman. And you understand why? Because to me, on-on and off-are one and the same. One and the same!”

“Well, then,” I said, “how about some of these straws in the wind? Off the record, can you give me an example?”

He rocked toward me and lowered his voice.

“There are-gatherings, even in the rural areas,” he muttered. “Stirrings of unrest-this much I can tell you. If you ask me for places-names-why, no. I won’t tell you.”

“Then you’re leaving me with nothing but vague hints. I can’t make a story out of that,” I said. “And you’d like a story written on this situation, I suppose?”

“Yes, but—” His powerful jaw set. “I won’t tell you. I won’t risk-I won’t tell you!”

“I see,” I said. I waited for a long minute. He opened his mouth, closed it, and then fidgeted upon the couch. “Perhaps,” I said slowly, “perhaps there’s a way out of this.”

He flashed a glance almost of suspicion at me, from under white eyebrows.

“Perhaps I could tell you instead,” I said quietly. “You wouldn’t have to confirm anything. And of course, as I say, even my own remarks would be off the record.”

“You-tell me?” He stared hard at me.

“Why not?” I said easily. He was too good a public man to let his bafflement show on his face, but he continued to stare at me. “In the News Services we’ve got our own avenues of information; and from these we can build up a general picture, even if some parts are missing. Now, speaking hypothetically of course, the general picture on St. Marie at this moment seems to be pretty much the way you’ve described it. Stirrings of unrest, gatherings and rumblings of discontent with the present-you might say, puppet-government.”

“Yes,” he rumbled. “Yes, the very word. That’s what it is, a darn puppet government!”

“At the same time,” I went on, “as we’ve already discussed, this puppet government is well able to subdue any kind of local uprising, and is not about to call an election that will remove it from power; and-barring the calling of such an election-there seems no constitutional way of changing the status quo. The highly able and selfless leaders that St. Marie might otherwise-I say might, being neutral myself, of course-rind among the Blue Front, seem legally committed to remaining private citizens without the power to savri their world from foreign influence.”

“Yes,” he muttered, staring at me. “Yes.”

“Consequently, what course remains open to those who would save St. Marie from her present government?” I went on. “Since all legal avenues of recourse are stopped up, the only way left, it may seem to brave men, strong men, is to set aside normal procedure in such times of trial. If there are no constitutional ways to remove the men presently holding the reins of government, they may end up being removed otherwise, for the ostensible good of the whoie world of St. Marie and everyone on it.”

He stared at me. His lips moved a little, but he said nothing. Under the white eyebrows, his faded blue eyes seemed to be popping slightly.

“In short-a bloodless coup d’etat, a direct and forcible removal from office of these bad leaders seems to be the only solution left for those who believe this planet needs saving. Now, we know—”

“Wait—” broke in O’Doyne, booming. “I must tell you here and now, Newsman, that my silence mustn’t be construed as giving consent to any such speculation. You shall not report—”

“Please,” I interrupted in my turn, holding up a hand. He subsided rather more easily than one might have expected. “This is all perfectly theoretical supposition on my part. I don’t suppose it has anything to do with the real situation.” I hesitated. “The only question in this projection of the situation-theoretical situation-is the matter of implementation. We realice that as far as numbers and equipment, forces of the Blue Front outnumbered a hundred to one in the last election is hardly to be compared with the planetary forces of the St. Marie Government.”

“Our support-our grass-roots’ support—”

“Oh, of course,” I said. “Still, there’s the question of actually taking any physically effective action in the situation. That would take equipment and men-particularly men. By which I mean, of course, military men able either to train raw native troops, or themselves to take powerful action—”

“Mr. Olyn,” said O’Doyne, “I must protest such talk. I must reject such talk. I must”—he had gotten up to pace the room, and I saw him going back and forth, with his arms waving—”I must refuse to listen to such talk.”

“Forgive me,” I said. “As I mentioned, I’m only playing with a hypothetical situation. But the point I’m trying to get at—”

“The point you’re trying to gel at doesn’t concern me, Newsman!” said O’Doyne, halting in front of me with his face stern. “The point doesn’t concern us in the Blue Front.”

“Of course not,” I said soothingly. “I know it doesn’t. Of course, the whole matter is impossible.”

“Impossible?” O’Doyne stiffened. “What’s impossible?”

“Why, the whole matter of a coup d’etat,” I said. “It’s obvious. Any such thing would require outside help-the business of militarily trained men, for example. Such military men would have to be supplied by some other world-and what other world would be willing to lend valuable troops on speculation to an obscure out-of-power political party on St. Marie?”

I let my voice dwindle off and sat smiling, gazing at him, as if I expected him to answer my final question. And he sat staring back at me as if he expected me to answer it myself. It must have been a good twenty seconds that we sat in mutually expectant silence before I broke it once more, getting up as I did so.

“Obviously,” I said, with a touch of regret in my voice, “none. So I must conclude we’ll be seeing no marked change of government or alteration in relations with the Exotics after all on St. Marie in the near future. Well”—and I held out my hand—”I must apologize for being the one to cut this interview short, Mr. O’Doyne; but I see I’ve lost track of the time. I’m due at Government house across the city in fifteen minutes, for an interview with the President, to get the other side of the picture; and then I’ll have to rush to get back to the spaceport in time to leave this evening for Earth.”

He rose automatically and shook my hand.

“Not at all,” he began. His voice rose to a boom momentarily, and then faltered back to ordinary tones. “Not at all-it’s been a pleasure acquainting you with the true situation here, Newsman.” He let go of my hand, almost regretfully.

“Goodbye, then,” I said.

I turned to go and I was halfway to the door when his voice broke out again behind me.

“Newsman Olyn—”

I stopped and turned.

“Yes?” I said,

“I feel”—his voice boomed out suddenly—”I have a duty to ask you-a duty to the Blue Front, a duty to my party to require you to tell me of any rumors you might have heard concerning the identity of any world-any world-ready to come to the aid of good government here on St. Marie. We are your readers here, too, on this world, Newsman. You also owe us information. Have you heard of some world which is-reported, rumored, what have you-to be ready to extend aid to a grass-roots’ movement on St. Marie, to throw off the Exotic yoke and ensure equal representation among our people?”

I looked back at him. I let him wait for a second or two.

“No,” I said. “No, Mr. O’Doyne, I haven’t.”

He stood, unmoving, as if my words had fixed him in position, legs spread a little wide, chin high, challenging me.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Goodbye.”

I went out. I do not think he even answered my farewell.

I went across to Government house and spent a twenty minutes full of reassuring, pleasant platitudes in interview with Charles Perrinni, President of the St. Marie government. Then I returned, by way of New San Marcos and Joseph’s Town to the spaceport and the spaceliner for Earth.

I paused only to check my mail on Earth and then transshipped immediately for Harmony, and the site on that planet of the United Council of Churches, which together governed both Friendly worlds of Harmony and Association. I spent five days in the city there, cooling my heels in the offices and wardrooms of minor officers of their so-called Public Relations Bureau.

On the sixth day, a note I had sent immediately on arriving to Field Commander Wassel paid its dividend. I was taken to the Council building, itself; and, after being searched for weapons-there were some violent sectarian differences between Church groups on the Friendly worlds themselves, and they made no exceptions, evidently, even for Newsmen. I was admitted to a lofty-ceilinged office with bare walls. There, surrounded by a few straight-backed chairs, in the middle of the black-and-white tile of the floor, sat a heavy desk with the seated man behind it dressed entirely in black.

The only white things about him were his face and hands. All else was covered. But his shoulders were as square and broad as a barn door and above them his white face had eyes as black as the clothing, which seemed to blaze at me. He got up and came around the desk, towering half a head over me, to offer his hand.

“God be with you,” he said.

Our hands met. There was the hint of a hard touch of amusement in the thin line of his straight mouth; and the glance of his eyes seemed to probe me like twin doctor’s scalpels. He held my hand, not hard, but with the hint of a strength that could crush my fingers as if in a vise, if he chose.

I was face to face, at last, with the Eldest of that Council of Elders who ruled the combined churches of Harmony and Association, him who was called Bright, First among the Friendlies.

19

“You come well recommended by Field Commander Wassel,” he said after he had shaken my hand. “An unusual thing for a Newsman.” It was a statement, not a sneer; and I obeyed his invitation-almost more order than invitation-to sit, as he went back around to sit down behind his desk. He faced me across it. There was power in the man, the promise of a black flame. Like the promise, it suddenly occurred to me, of the flame latent in the gunpowder, stored in 1687 by the Turks within the Parthenon, when a shell fired by the Venetian army under Morosini exploded the black grains and blew out the center of that white temple. There had always been a special dark corner of hatred in me for that shell and that army-for if the Parthenon had been living refutation of Mathias’ darkness to me as a boy, the destruction wrought by that shell had been evidence of how that darkness conquered, even in the heart of light.

So, viewing Eldest Bright, I connected him in my mind with that old hate, though I was careful to shield my feelings from his eyes. Only in Padma had I felt such a penetrating power of gaze, before now-and there was a man here, too, behind the gaze.

For the eyes themselves were the eyes of a Torquemada, that prime mover of the Inquisition in ancient Spain-as others had remarked before me; for the Friendly Churches were not without their own repressers and extinguishers of heresy. But behind those eyes moved the political intelligence of a mind that knew when to leash or when to loose the powers of two planets. For the first time I realized the feeling of someone who, stepping into the lion’s cage alone for the first time, hears the steel door click shut behind him.

For the first time, also, since I had stood in the Index Room of the Final Encyclopedia and loosened the hinges of my knees-for what if this man had no weaknesses; and in trying to control him, I only gave my plans away?

But the habits of a thousand interviews were coming to my rescue and even as the doubts struck and clung to me, my tongue was working automatically.

“…the utmost in cooperation from Field Commander Wassel and his men on New Earth,” I said. “I appreciated it highly.”

“I, too,” said Bright harshly, his eyes burning upon me, “appreciated a Newsman without bias. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here in my office interviewing me. The work of the Lord between the stars leaves me little time for providing amusement for the ungodly of seven systems. Now, what’s the reason for this interview?”

“I’ve been thinking of making a project,” I said, “of revealing the Friendlies in a better light to people on the other worlds—”

“To prove your loyalty to the Creed of your professionas Wassel said?” interrupted Bright.

“Why, yes,” I said. I stiffened slightly in my chair. “I was orphaned at an early age; and the dream of my growing years was to join the News Services—”

“Don’t waste my time, Newsman!” Bright’s hard voice chopped like an axe across the unfinished section of my sentence. He got to his feet once more, suddenly, as if the energy in him was too great to be contained, and prowled around his desk to stand looking down at me, thumbs hooked in the belt at his narrow waist, his bony, middle-aged face bent above me. “What’s your Creed to me, who move in the light of God’s word?”

“We all move in our own lights, in our own way,” I said. He was standing so close above me that I could not get to my feet to face him as my instincts urged me. It was as if he held me physically pinned in my chair, beneath him. “If it weren’t for my Creed I wouldn’t be here now. Perhaps you don’t know what happened to me and my brother-in-law at the hands of one of your Groupmen on New Earth—”

“I know.” The two words were merciless. “You’ll have been apologized to, some time since, for that. Listen to me, Newsman.” His thin lips quirked slightly in a sour smile. “You are not Anointed of the Lord.”

“No,” I said.

“In those who follow God’s word, there may be a cause to believe that they act from faith in something more than their own selfish interests. But in those without the Light, how can there be any faith to anything but themselves?” The quirking smile on his own lips mocked his own words, mocked at the canting phrases in which he called me a liar-and dared me to deny the sophistication in him that had permitted him to see through me.

I stiffened this time with a look of outrage.

“You’re sneering at my Newsman’s Creed only because it isn’t your own!” I snapped at him.

My outburst moved neither him nor his quirk of a smile.

“The Lord would not choose a fool to be Eldest over the Council of our Churches,” he said-and turning his back on me, walked back around to sit down once more behind his desk. “You should have thought of that before you came to Harmony, Newsman. But at any rate you know it now.”

I stared at him, almost blinded by the sudden brilliance of my own understanding. Yes, I knew it now-and in knowing it, suddenly saw how he had delivered himself out of his own mouth into my hands.

I had been afraid that he might turn out to have no weakness of which I could take advantage as I had taken advantage of lesser men and women with my words. And it was true-he had no ordinary weakness. But by the same token he had an extraordinary one. For his weakness was his strength, that same sophistication that had lifted him to be ruler and leader of his people. His weakness was that to have become what he was, he had to be as fanatic as the worst of them were-but with something more, as well. He had to have the extra strength that made him able to lay his fanaticism aside, when it came to interfere in his dealing with the leaders of other worlds—with his equals and opposites between the stars. It was this, this he had unknowingly admitted to me just now.

Unlike the furious-eyed, black-clad ones about him, he was not limited to the fanatic’s view of the universe that painted everything in colors of either pure black or pure white. He was able to perceive and deal in shades between-in shades of gray, as well. In short, he could be a politician when he chose-and, as a politician, I could deal with him.

As a politician, I could lead him into a politician’s error.

I crumpled. I let the stiffness go out of me suddenly as I sat in my chair with his eyes newly upon me. And I heaved a long, shuddering breath.

“You’re right,” I said in a dead voice. I got to my feet. “Well, it’s no use now. I’ll be going—”

“Go?” His voice cracked like a rifle shot, stopping me. “Did I say the interview was over? Sit down!”

Hastily I sat down again. I was trying to look pale, and I think I succeeded. For all I had suddenly understood him, I was still in the lion’s cage, and he was still the lion.

“Now,” he said, staring at me, “what did you really hope to gain from me-and from us who are the Chosen of God on these two worlds?”

I wet my lips.

“Speak up,” he said. He did not raise his voice, but the low, carrying tones of it promised retribution on his part if I did not obey.

“The Council—” I muttered.

“Council? The Council of our Elders? What about it?”

“Not that,” I said, looking down at the floor. “The Council of the Newsman’s Guild. I wanted a seat on it. You Friendlies could be the reason I could get it. After Dave-after what happened to my brother-in-law-my showing with Wassel that I could do my job without bias even to you people-that’s been getting me attention, even in the Guild. If I could go on with that-if I could raise public opinion in the other seven systems in your favor-it’d raise me, too, in the public eye. And in the Guild.”

I stopped speaking. Slowly I looked up at him. He was staring at me with harsh humor.

“Confession cleanses the soul even of such as you,” he said grimly. “Tell me, you’ve given thought to the improvement of our public image among the cast-aside of the Lord on the other worlds?”

“Why, that depends,” I said. “I’d have to look around here for story material. First—”

“Never mind that now!”

He rose once more behind his desk and his eyes commanded me to rise also, so I did.

“We’ll go into this in a few days,” he said. His Torquemada’s smile saluted me. “Good-day for the present, Newsman.”

“Good-day,” I managed to say. I turned and went out, shakily.

Nor was the shakiness entirely assumed. My legs felt weak, as if from tense balancing on the edge of a precipice, and a dry tongue clung to the roof of my dry mouth.

I puttered around the town the next few days, ostensibly picking up background material. Then, on the fourth day after I had seen Eldest Bright, I was called once more to his office. He was standing when I came in, and he remained standing, halfway between the door and his desk.

“Newsman,” he said abruptly, as I came in, “it occurs to me that you can’t favor us in your news reports without your fellow Guild members noticing that favoring. If this is so, what good are you to me?”

“I didn’t say I’d favor you,” I answered indignantly. “But if you show me something favorable on which I can report, I can report on it.”

“Yes.” He looked hard at me with the black flames of his eyes. “Come and look at our people, then.”

He led me out of his office and down an elevator tube to a garage where a staff car was waiting. We got in and its driver took us out of the Council City, through a countryside that was bare and stony, but neatly divided into farms.

“Observe,” said Bright dryly as we went through a small town that was hardly more than a village. “We grow only one crop thickly on our poor worlds-and those are the bodies of our young men, to be hired out as soldiers that our people may not starve and our Faith endure. What disfigures these young men and the other people we pass that those on the other worlds should resent them so strongly, even while hiring them to fight and die in their foreign wars?”

I turned and saw his eyes on me with grim amusement, once again.

“Their-attitudes,” I said cautiously.

Bright laughed, a short lion’s cough of a laugh deep in his chest.

“Attitudes!” he said harshly. “Put a plain word to it, Newsman! Not attitudes—pride! Pride! Bone-poor, skilled only in hand toil and weapon-handling, as these people you see are-still they look as if from lofty mountains down on the dust-born slugs who hire them, knowing that those employers may be rich in worldly wealth and furniture, fat in foodstuffs and padded in soft raiment-yet when all peoples pass alike beyond the shadow of the grave, then they, who have wallowed in power and wealth, will not be endured even to stand, cap in hand, below those gates of silver and of gold which we, who have suffered and are Anointed, pass singing through.”

He smiled at me, his savage, predator’s smile, across the width of the staff car.

“What can you find in all you see here,” he said, “to teach a proper humbleness and a welcome to those who hire the Bespoken of the Lord?”

He was mocking me again. But I had seen through him on that first visit in his office, and the subtle path to my own end was becoming clearer as we talked. So his mockery bothered me less and less.

“It isn’t pride or humbleness on either side that I can do much about,” I said. “Besides, that isn’t what you need. You don’t care what employers think of your troops, as long as they hire them. And employers will hire them, if you can make your people merely bearable-not necessarily lovable, but bearable.”

“Stop here, driver!” interrupted Bright; and the car pulled to a halt.

We were in a small village. Sober, black-clad people moved between the buildings of bubble-plastic—temporary structures which would long since on other worlds have been replaced with more sophisticated and attractive housing.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“A lesser town called Remembered-of-the-Lord,” he answered, and dropped the window on his side of the car. “And here comes someone you know.”

In fact, a slim figure in a Force-Leader’s uniform was approaching the car. It reached us, stooped slightly, and the face of Jamethon Black looked calmly in on both of us.

“Sir?” he said to Bright.

“This officer,” said Bright, to me, “seemed qualified once for high service in the ranks of us who served God’s will. But six years past, he was attracted by a daughter of a foreign world who would not have him; and since then he has seemed to lose his will to rise in rank among us.” He turned to Jamethon. “Force-Leader,” he said. “You have seen this man twice. Once in his home on Earth six years ago, when you sought his sister in marriage; and again last year on New Earth when he sought from you a pass to protect his assistant between the battle lines. Tell me, what do you know about him?”

Jamethon’s eyes looked across the interior of the car into mine.

“Only that he loved his sister and wanted a better life for her, perhaps, than I could give her,” said Jamethon in a voice as calm as his face. “And that he wished his brother-in-law well, and sought protection for him.” He turned to look directly into the eyes of Bright. “I believe him to be an honest man and a good one, Eldest.”

“I did not ask for your beliefs!” snapped Bright.

“As you wish,” said Jamethon, still calmly facing the older man; and I felt a rage swelling up inside me so that I thought that I would burst out with it, no matter what the consequences.

Rage against Jamethon, it was. For not only had he the effrontery to recommend me to Bright as an honest man and a good one, but because there was something else about him that was like a slap in the face. For a moment, I could not identify it. And then it came to me. He was not afraid of Bright. And I had been so, in that first interview.

Yet I was a Newsman, with the immunity of the Guild behind me; and he was a mere Force-Leader facing his own Commander-in-Chief, the Warlord of two worlds, of which Jamethon’s was only one. How could he—? And then it came to me, so that I almost ground my teeth in fury and frustration. For it was with Jamethon no different than it had been with the Groupman on New Earth who had denied me a pass to keep Dave safe. That Groupman had been instantly ready to obey that Bright, who was the Eldest, but felt in himself no need to bow before that other Bright, who was merely the man.

In the same way now Bright held the life of Jamethon in his hand, but unlike the way it had been with me, in holding this he held the lesser part of the young man before him, rather than the greater.

“Your leave home here is ended, Force-Leader,” Bright said sharply. “Tell your family to send on your effects to Council City and join us now. I’m appointing you aide and assistant to this Newsman from now on. And we’ll promote you Commandant to make the post worthwhile.”

“Sir,” said Jamethon emotionlessly with an inclination of his head. He stepped back into the building from which he had just emerged, before coming back out a few moments later to join us. Bright ordered the staff car turned about and so we returned to the city and his office.

When we got back there, Bright turned me loose with Jamethon to get acquainted with the Friendly situation in and around Council City. Consequently, the two of us, Jamethon and I, did a certain amount of sightseeing, though not much, and I returned early to my hotel.

It required very little in the way of perception to see that Jamethon had been assigned to act as a spy upon me while performing the functions of an aide. However, I said nothing about it, and Jamethon said nothing at all, so that, almost strangely, we two moved around Council City, and its related neighborhood, in the days that followed like a couple of ghosts, or men under a vow not to speak to each other. It was a strange silence of mutual consent that agreed that the only things worth talking about between us-Eileen, and Dave and the rest-would reward any discussion only with a pain that would make the discussion unprofitable.

Meanwhile, I was summoned from time to time to the office of Eldest Bright. He saw me more or less briefly on these occasions and spoke of little that was to the point of my announced reason for being on the Friendlies and in partnership with him. It was as if he were waiting for something to happen. And eventually I understood what that was. He had set Jamethon to check me out, while he himself checked out the interstellar situation which, as Eldest of the Friendly Worlds, he faced alone, searching for the situation and the moment in which he could best make use of this self-seeking Newsman who had offered to improve the public image of his people.

Once I had realized this, I was reassured, seeing how, interview by interview, day by day, he came closer as I wanted to the heart of the matter. That heart was the moment in which he might ask my advice, must ask me to tell him what he should do about me and with me.

Day by day and interview by interview, he became apparently more relaxed and trusting in his words with me-and more questioning.

“What is it they like to read, on those other worlds, Newsman?” he asked one day. “Just what is it they most like to hear about?”

“Heroes, of course,” I answered as lightly as he had questioned. “That’s why the Dorsai make good copy-and to a certain extent the Exotics.”

A shadow which may or may not have been intentional passed across his face at the mention of the Exotics.

“The ungodly,” he muttered. But that was all. A day or so later he brought the subject of heroes up again.

“What makes heroes in the public’s eyes?” he asked.

“Usually,” I said, “the conquering of some older, already established strong man, villain or hero.” He was looking at me agreeably, and I took a venture. “For example, if your Friendly troops should face up to an equal number of Dorsai and outfight them—”

The agreeableness was abruptly wiped out by an expression I had never seen on his face before. For a second he all but gaped at me. Then he flashed me a stare as smoking and hot as liquid basalt from a volcano’s throat.

“Do you take me for a fool?” he snapped. Then his face changed, and he looked at me curiously. “—Or are you simply one yourself?”

He gazed at me for a long, long moment. Finally he nodded.

“Yes,” he said, as if to himself. “That’s it-the man’s a fool. An Earthborn fool.”

He turned on his heel, and that ended our interview for the day.

I did not mind his taking me for a fool. It was that much more insurance against the moment when I would make any move to delude him. But, for the life of me, I could not understand what had brought such an unusual reaction from him. And that bothered me. Surely my suggestion about the Dorsai could not have been so farfetched? I was tempted to ask Jamethon, but discretion as the better part of valor held me wisely back.

Meanwhile the day came when Bright finally approached the question I knew he must ask me sooner or later.

“Newsman,” he said. He was standing, legs spread, hands locked together behind his back, looking out through the floor-to-ceiling window of his office at the Government Center and Council City, below. His back was to me.

“Yes, Eldest?” I answered. He had called me once more to his office, and I had just walked through the door. He spun around at the sound of my voice to stare flamingly at me.

“You said once that heroes are made by their defeat of some older, established heroes. You mentioned as examples of older heroes in the public gaze the Dorsai-and the Exotics.”

“That’s right,” I said, coming up to him.

“The ungodly on the Exotics,” he said, as if he mused to himself. “They use hired troops. What good to defeat hirelings-even if that were possible and easy?”

“Why not rescue someone in distress, then?” I said lightly. “That sort of thing would give you a good, new public image. Your Friendlies haven’t been known much for doing that sort of thing.”

He flicked a hard glance at me.

“Who should we rescue?” he demanded.

“Why,” I said, “there’re always small groups of people who, rightly or wrongly, think they’re being imposed on by the larger groups around them. Tell me, don’t you ever get approached by small dissident groups wanting to hire your soldiers on speculation for revolt against their established government—” I broke off. “Why, of course you do. I was forgetting New Earth and the North Partition of Altland.”

“We gained little credit in the eyes of the other worlds by way of our business with the North Partition,” said Bright, harshly. “As you well know!”

“Oh, but the sides were about equal there,” I said. “What you’ve got to do is help out some really tiny minority against some selfish giant of a majority-say, something like the miners on Coby against the mine owners.”

“Coby? The miners?” He darted me a hard glance, but this was a glance I had been waiting for all these days and I met it blandly. He turned and strode over to stand behind his desk. He reached down and half-lifted a sheet of paper-it looked like a letter-that lay on his desk. “As it happens, I have had an appeal for aid on a purely speculative basis by a group—”

He broke off, laid the paper down and lifted his head to look at me.

“A group like the Coby miners?” I said. “It’s not the miners themselves?”

“No,” he said. “Not the miners.” He stood silent a moment, then he came back around the desk and offered me his hand. “I understand you’re about to leave.”

“I am?” I said.

“Have I been misinformed?” said Bright. His eyes burned into mine. “I heard that you were leaving for Earth on a spaceliner this evening. I understood passage had already been booked by you.”

“Why-yes,” I said, reading the message clear in the tone of his voice. “I guess I just forgot. Yes, I’m on my way.”

“Have a good trip,” said Bright. “I’m glad we could come to a friendly understanding. You can count on us in the future. And we’ll take the liberty of counting on you in return.”

“Please do,” I said. “And the sooner the better.”

“It will be soon enough,” said Bright.

We said good-bye again and I left for my hotel. There, I found my things had already been packed; and, as Bright had said, passage had already been booked for me on a spaceliner leaving that evening for Earth. Jamethon was nowhere to be seen.

Five hours later, I was once more between the stars, shifting on my way back toward Earth.

Five weeks later, the Blue Front on St. Marie, having been secretly supplied with arms and men by the Friendly worlds, erupted in a short but bloody revolt that replaced the legal government with the Blue Front leaders.

20

This time I did not ask for an interview with Piers Leaf. He sent to ask for me. As I went through the Guild Hall and up the elevator tube to his office, heads turned among the cloaked members I passed. For in the two years since the Blue Front leaders had seized power on St. Marie, much had changed for me.

I had had my hour of torment in that last interview with my sister. And I had had, while returning from that to Earth, the first dream of my revenge. Afterward, I had taken the two steps, one on St. Marie, one on Harmony, to set that revenge in motion. But still, even with those things done, I had not yet changed inside me. For change takes time.

It was the last two years that had really changed me-that had brought Piers Leaf to call upon me, that had caused the heads above the capes to turn as

I passed. For in those years the power of my understanding had come full upon me, in such measure that it now seemed by contrast to have been a weak, newborn and latent thing, even up through the moment in which I shook hands and said farewell to Eldest Bright, three years before.

I had dreamed my primitive dream of a revenge, sword in hand, going to a meeting in the rain. Then for the first time, I had felt the pull of it, but the reality I felt now was far stronger, stronger than meat or drink or love-or life itself.

They are fools that think that wealth or women or strong drink or even drugs can buy the most in effort out of the soul of a man. These things offer pale pleasures compared to that which is greatest of them all, that task which demands from him more than his utmost strength, that absorbs him, bone and sinew and brain and hope and fear and dreams-and still calls for more.

They are fools who think otherwise. No great effort was ever bought. No painting, no music, no poem, no cathedral in stone, no church, no state was ever raised into being for payment of any kind. No Parthenon, no Thermopylae was ever built or fought for pay or glory; no Bukhara sacked, or China ground beneath Mongol heel, for loot or power alone. The payment for the doing of these things was itself the doing of them.

To wield oneself-to use oneself as a tool in one’s own hand-and so to make or break that which no one else can build or ruin-that is the greatest pleasure known to man! To one who has felt the chisel in his hand and set free the angel prisoned in the marble block, or to one who has felt the sword in hand and set homeless the soul that a moment before lived in the body of his mortal enemy-to these both come alike the taste of that rare food spread only for demons or for gods.

As it had come to me, these two and more than two years past.

I had dreamed of holding the lightning in my hand over the sixteen worlds and bending them all to my will. Now, I held that lightning, in sober fact, and read it. My abilities had hardened in me; and I knew now what failure of a wheat harvest on Freiland must mean in the long run to those who needed but could not pay for professional education on Cassida. I saw the movements of those like William of Ceta, Project Blaine of Venus, and Sayona the Bond, of both Exotic Worlds-all of whom bent and altered the shape of things happening between the stars-and I read their results-to-be clearly. And with this knowledge I moved to where the news would be, and wrote it even as it was only beginning to happen, until my fellow Guild members began to think me half-devil or half-seer.

But I cared nothing for their thoughts. I cared only for the secret taste of my waiting revenge, the feel of the hidden sword in my grasp-the tool of my Destruct!

For now I had no doubts left. I did not love him for it, but Mathias had seen me clearly-and from his grave, I worked the will of his anti-faith, but with a power he could never have imagined.

Now, however, I was at Piers Leaf’s office. He was standing in the door of it, waiting for me, for from below they would have warned him I was on my way up. He took my hand in a handshake and held it to draw me inside his office and close the door behind us. We sat down not at his desk, but to one side on the floats of a sofa and an overstuffed chair; and he poured drinks for us both with fingers that seemed thinned by sudden age.

“You’ve heard, Tam?” he said without preamble. “Morgan Chu Thompson is dead.”

“I’ve heard,” I said. “And a seat on the Council is now vacant.”

“Yes.” He drank a little from his glass and set it down again. He rubbed a hand wearily over his face. “Morgan was an old friend of mine.”

“I know,” I said, though I felt nothing for him at all. “It must be hard on you.”

“We were the same age—” He broke off, and smiled at me a little wanly. “I imagine you’re expecting me to sponsor you for the empty seat?”

“I think,” I said, “the Guild members might think it a little odd if you didn’t, the way things have been going for me for some time now.”

He nodded but at the same time he hardly seemed to hear me. He picked up his drink and sipped at it again, without interest, and set it down.

“Nearly three years ago,” he said, “you came in here to see me with a prediction. You remember that?”

I smiled.

“You could hardly forget it, I suppose,” he said. “Well, Tam—” He stopped and signed heavily. He seemed to be having trouble getting down to what he wished to say. But I was old and experienced in patience nowadays. I waited. “We’ve had time to see things work out and it seems to me, you were both right-and wrong.”

“Wrong?” I repeated.

“Why, yes,” he said. “It was your theory that the Exotics were out to destroy the Friendly culture on Harmony and Association. But look at how things have gone since then.”

“Oh?” I said. “How?-For example?”

“Why,” he said, “it’s been plain for nearly a generation now that the fanaticism of the Friendlies—acts of unreasoning violence like that massacre that took your brother-in-law’s life on New Earth three years ago-were turning opinion on the fourteen other worlds against the Friendlies. To the point where they were losing the chance to hire out their young men as mercenary soldiers. But anyone with half an eye could see that was something the Friendlies were doing to themselves simply by being the way they are. The Exotics couldn’t be to blame for that.”

“No,” I said. “I suppose not.”

“Of course not.” He sipped at his drink again, a little more heartily this time. “I think that was why I felt so much doubt when you told me that the Exotics were out to get the Friendlies. It just didn’t ring right. But then it turned out to be Friendly troops and equipment backing that Blue Front revolution on St. Marie, right in the Exotics’ back yard under the Procyon suns. And I had to admit there seemed to be something going on between the Friendlies and the Exotics.” He stopped and looked at me.

“Thank you,” I said.

“But the Blue Front didn’t last,” he went on.

“It seemed to have a great deal of popular support at first,” I interrupted.

“Yes, yes.” Piers brushed my interruption aside.

“But you know how it is in situations like that. There’s always a chip on the shoulder where a bigger, richer neighbor’s concerned-next door or on the next world, whichever. The point is, the St. Marians were bound to see through the Blue Front shortly and toss them out-make them an illegal party as they are now. That was bound to happen. There were only a handful of those Blue Front people, anyway, and they were mostly crackpots. Besides, St. Marie isn’t set up to go it alone, financially or any other way, in the shadow of two rich worlds like Mara and Kultis. The Blue Front thing was bound to fail-anyone outside the picture had to see that.”

“I suppose so,” I said.

“You know so!” said Piers. “Don’t tell me anyone with the perception you’ve demonstrated couldn’t see that from the start, Tam. I saw it myself. But what I didn’t see-and apparently you didn’t either—was that, inevitably, once the Blue Front was kicked out, the Friendlies would put in an occupation force on St. Marie to back up their claim for payment from the legal government for the help they’d given the Blue Front. And that under the mutual assistance treaty that had always existed between the Exotics and the legal government of St. Marie, the Exotics would have to reply to the St. Marians’ call for help to oust the Friendly occupation forces-since St. Marie couldn’t pay the kind of bill the Friendlies were presenting.”

“Yes,” I said. “I foresaw that, too.”

He darted a sharp glance at me.

“You did?” he said. “Then how could you think that—” He broke off, suddenly thoughtful.

“The point is,” I said easily, “that the Exotic expeditionary forces haven’t been having too much trouble pushing the Friendly forces back into a corner and cutting them up. They’ve stopped for the winter season now; but unless Eldest Bright and his council send reinforcements, the soldiers they have on St. Marie will probably have to surrender to the Exotic troops this spring. They can’t afford to send reinforcements but they have to anyway—”

“No,” said Piers, “they don’t.” He looked at me strangely. “You’re about to claim, I suppose, that this whole situation was an Exotic maneuver to bleed the Friendlies twice-both for their help to the Blue Front, and again in the cost of sending reinforcements.”

I smiled inside, for he was coming to the very point I had intended to come to three years ago-only I had planned that he should tell me about it, not I, him.

“Isn’t it?” I said, pretending astonishment.

“No,” said Piers strongly. “Just opposite. Bright and his council intend to leave their expeditionary force to be either captured or slaughtered-preferably slaughtered. The result will be just what you were about to claim in the eyes of the fourteen worlds. The principle that any world can be held ransom for debts incurred by its inhabitants is a vital-if not legally recognized-part of the interstellar financial structure. But the Exotics, in conquering the Friendlies on St. Marie, will be rejecting it. The fact that the Exotics are bound by their treaty to answer St. Marie’s appeal for help won’t alter things. Bright will only need to go hunting for help from Ceta, Newton and all the tight-contract worlds to form a league to bring the Exotics to their knees.”

He broke off and stared at me.

“Do you see what I’m driving at now? Do you understand now why I said you were both right-in your notion of an Exotic-Friendly vendetta-and wrong? Do you see,” he asked, “now, how you were wrong?”

I deliberately stared back at him for a moment before I answered.

“Yes,” I said. I nodded. “I see now. It’s not the Exotics who are out to get the Friendlies. It’s the Friendlies who’re out to get the Exotics.”

“Exactly!” said Piers. “The wealth and specialized knowledge of the Exotics has been the pivot of the association of the loose-contract worlds that allowed them to balance off against the obvious advantage of trading trained people like sacks of wheat, which gives the tight-contract worlds their strength. If the Exotics are broken, the balance of power between the two groups of worlds is destroyed. And only that balance has let our Old World of Earth stand aloof from both groups. Now, she’ll be drawn into one group or another-and whoever gets her will control our Guild, and the up until now impartiality of our News Services.”

He stopped talking and sat back, as if worn out. Then he straightened up again.

“You know what group’ll get Earth if the Friendlies win,” he said, “the tight-contract group. So—where do we, we in the Guild, stand now, Tam?”

I stared back at him, giving him time to believe that his words were sinking into me. But, in reality, I was tasting at last the first slight flavor of my revenge. Here he was, at last, at the point to which I had set out to bring him, a point at which it seemed the Guild faced either the destruction of its high principle of impartiality, forcing it to take sides against the Friendly worlds; or its eventual capture by that partisan group of worlds to which the tight-contract Friendlies belonged. I let him wait, and think himself helpless for a little while. Then I answered him slowly.

“If the Friendlies can destroy the Exotics,” I said, “then possibly the Exotics can destroy the Friendlies. Any situation like this has to have the possibility of tilting with equal force either way. Now if, without compromising our impartiality, I could go to St. Marie for the spring offensive, it might be that this ability of mine to see a little deeper into the situation than others can, might help that tilt.”

Piers stared at me, his face a little white.

“What do you mean?” he said at last. “You can’t openly side with the Exotics-you don’t mean that?”

“Of course not,” I answered. “But I might easily see something that they could turn to their advantage to get out of the situation. If so, I could make sure that they see it, too. There’s nothing certain of success about this; but, as you said, otherwise, where do we stand now?”

He hesitated. He reached for his glass on the table and, as he picked it up, his hand shook a little. It took little insight to know what he was thinking. What I was suggesting was a violation of the spirit of the law of impartiality in the Guild, if not the letter of it. We would be choosing sides-but Piers was thinking that perhaps for the sake of the Guild we should do just that, while the choice was still in our own hands.

“Do you have any actual evidence that Eldest Bright means to leave his occupation forces cut up as they are?” I asked as he hesitated. “Do we know for sure he won’t reinforce them?”

“I’ve got contacts on Harmony trying to get evidence right now—” he was beginning to answer when his desk phone chimed. He pressed a button and it lit up with the face of Tom Lassiri, his secretary.

“Sir,” said Tom. “Call from the Final Encyclopedia. For Newsman Olyn. From a Miss Lisa Kant. She says it’s a matter of the utmost emergency.”

“I’ll take it,” I said, even as Piers nodded. For my heart had lurched in my chest for some reason which I had no time to examine. The screen cleared and Lisa’s face formed on it.

“Tam!” she said, without any other greeting. “Tam, come quick. Mark Torre’s been shot by an assassin! He’s dying, in spite of anything the doctors can do. And he wants to speak to you-to you, Tam, before it’s too late! Oh, Tam, hurry! Hurry as fast as you can!”

“Coming,” I said.

And I went. There was no time to ask myself why I should answer to her summons. The sound of her voice lifted me out of my chair and headed me out of Piers’s office as if some great hand was laid upon my shoulders. I just-went.

21

Lisa met me at the lobby entrance to the Final Encyclopedia, where I had first caught sight of her years before. She took me into the quarters of Mark Torre by the strange maze and the moving room by which she had taken me there previously; and on the way she told me what had happened.

It had been the inevitable danger for which the maze and the rest of it had been set up originally—the expected, reasonless, statistically fatal chance that had finally caught up with Mark Torre. The building of the Final Encyclopedia had from its very beginning triggered fears latent in the minds of unstable people on all the sixteen civilized worlds of men. Because the Encyclopedia’s purpose was aimed at a mystery that could be neither defined nor easily expressed, it had induced a terror in psychotics both on Earth and elsewhere.

And one of these had finally gotten to Mark Torre-a poor paranoiac who had kept his illness hidden from even his own family while in his mind he fostered and grew the delusion that the Final Encyclopedia was to be a great Brain, taking over the wills of all humanity. We passed his body lying on the floor of the office, when at last Lisa and I reached it, a stick-thin, white-haired, gentle-faced old man with blood on his forehead.

He had, Lisa told me, been admitted by mistake. A new physician was supposed to have been admitted to see Mark Torre that afternoon. By some mistake, this gentle-looking, elderly, well-dressed man had been admitted instead. He had fired twice at Mark and once at himself, killing himself instantly. Mark, with two spring-gun slivers in his lungs, was still alive, but sinking fast.

Lisa brought me at last to him, lying still on his back on the blood-stained coverlet of a large bed in a bedroom just off the office. The clothing had been taken from his upper body and a large white bandage like a bandolier angled across his chest. His eyes were closed and sunken, so that his jutting nose and hard chin seemed to thrust upward almost as if in furious resentment of the death that was slowly and finally dragging his hard-struggling spirit down under its dark waters.

But it was not his face that I remember best. It was the unexpected width of chest and shoulder, and length of naked arm he showed, lying there. I was reminded suddenly, out of the forgotten past of my boyhood history studies, of the witness to the assassinated Abraham Lincoln, lying wounded and dying on the couch, and how that witness had been startled by the power of muscle and bone revealed in the unclothed upper body of the President.

So it was with Mark Torre. In his case, the muscle had largely wasted away through long illness and lack of use, but the width and length of bone showed the physical strength that he must have had as a young man. There were other people in the room, several of them physicians; but they made way for us as Lisa brought me up to the bedside.

She bent and spoke softly to him.

“Mark,” she said. “Mark!”

For several seconds I did not think he would answer. I remember even thinking that perhaps he was already dead. But then the sunken eyes opened, wandered, and focused on Lisa.

“Tam’s here, Mark,” she said. She moved aside to let me get closer to the bed, and looked over her shoulder at me. “Bend down, Tam. Get close to him,” she said.

I moved in, and I bent down. His eyes gazed at me. I was not sure whether he recognized me or not; but then his lips moved and I heard the ghost of a whisper, rattling deep in the wasted cavern of his once-broad chest.

“Tam—”

“Yes,” I said. I found I had taken hold of one of his hands with one of mine. I did not know why. The long bones were cool and strengthless in my grasp.

“Son …” he whispered, so faintly that I could hardly hear him. But at the same time, all in a flash, without moving a muscle, I went rigid and cold, cold as if I had been dipped in ice, with a sudden, terrible fury.

How dare he? How dare he call me “son”? I’d given him no leave, or right or encouragement to do that to me-me, whom he hardly knew. Me, who had nothing in common with him, or his work, or anything he stood for. How dare he call me “son“!

But he was still whispering. He had two more words to add to that terrible, that unfair, word by which he had addressed me.

“…take over….”

And then his eyes closed, and his lips stopped moving, though the slow, slow stir of his chest showed that he still lived. I dropped his hand and turned and rushed out of the bedroom. I found myself in the office; and there I stopped in spite of myself, bewildered, for the doorway out, of course, was still camouflaged and hidden.

Lisa caught up with me there.

“Tam?” She put a hand on my arm and made me look at her. Her face told me she had heard him and that she was asking me now what I was going to do. I started to burst out that I was going to do no such thing as the old man had said, that I owed him nothing, and her nothing. Why, it had not even been a question he had put to me! He had not even asked me-he had told me to take over.

But no words came out of me. My mouth was open, but I could not seem to speak. I think I must have panted like a cornered wolf. And then the phone chimed on Mark’s desk to break the spell that held us.

She was standing beside the desk; automatically her hand went out to the phone and turned it on, though she did not look down at the face which formed in the screen.

“Hello?” said a tiny voice from the instrument. “Hello? Is anyone there? I’d like to speak to Newsman Tam Olyn, if he’s there. It’s urgent. Hello? Is anyone there?”

It was the voice of Piers Leaf. I tore my gaze away from Lisa and bent down to the set.

“Oh, there you are, Tam,” said Piers out of the screen. “Look, I don’t want you to waste time covering the Torre assassination. We’ve got plenty of good men here to do that. I think you ought to get to St. Marie right away.” He paused, looking at me significantly in the screen. “You understand? That information I was waiting for has just come in. I was right, an order’s been issued.”

Suddenly it was back again, washing out everything that had laid its hold upon me in the past few minutes-my long-sought plan and hunger for revenge. Like a great wave, it broke over me once more, washing away all the claims of Mark Torre and Lisa that had clung to me just now, threatening to trap me in this place.

“No further shipments?” I said sharply. “That’s what the order said? No more coming?”

He nodded.

“And I think you ought to leave now because the forecast calls for a weather break within the week there,” he said. “Tam, do you think—”

“I’m on my way,” I interrupted. “Have my papers and equipment waiting for me at the spaceport.”

I clicked off and turned to face Lisa once more. She gazed at me with eyes that shook me like a blow; but I was too strong for her now, and I thrust off their effect.

“How do I get out of here?” I demanded. “I’ve got to leave. Now!”

“Tam!” she cried.

“I’ve got to go, I tell you!” I thrust past her. “Where’s that door out of here? Where—”

She slipped past me as I was pawing at the walls of the room and touched something. The door opened to my right; and I turned swiftly into it.

“Tam!”

Her voice stopped me for a final time. I checked and looked back over my shoulder at her.

“You’re coming back,” she said. It was not a question. She said it the way he, Mark Torre, had said it. She was not asking me; she was telling me; and for a last time it shook me once more to my deepest depths.

But then the dark and mounting power, that wave which was my longing for my revenge, tore me loose again and sent me hurtling on, through the doorway into the farther room.

“I’ll be back,” I assured her.

It was an easy, simple lie. Then the door I had come through closed behind me and the whole room moved about me, carrying me away.

22

As I got off the spaceliner on Ste, Marie, the little breeze from the higher pressure of the ship’s atmosphere at my back was like a hand from the darkness behind me, shoving me into the dark day and the rain. My Newsman’s cloak covered me. The wet chill of the day wrapped around me but did not enter me. I was like the naked claymore of my dream, wrapped and hidden in the plaid, sharpened on a stone, and carried now at last to the meeting for which it had been guarded over three years of waiting.

A meeting in the cold rain of spring. I felt it cold as old blood on my hands and tasteless on my lips. Above, the sky was low and clouds were flowing to the east. The rain fell steadily.

The sound of it was like a rolling of drums as I went down the outside landing stairs, the multitude of raindrops sounding their own end against the unyielding concrete all around. The concrete stretched far from the ship in every direction, hiding the earth, as bare and clean as the last page of an account book before the final entry. At its far edge, the spaceport terminal stood like a single gravestone. The curtains of falling water between it and me thinned and thickened like the smoke of battle, but could not hide it entirely from my sight.

It was the same rain that falls in all places and on all worlds. It had fallen like this on Athens on the dark, unhappy house of Mathias, and on the ruins of the Parthenon as I saw it from my bedroom vision screen.

I listened to it now as I went down the landing stairs, drumming on the great ship behind me which had shifted me free between the stars-from Old Earth to this second smallest of the worlds, this small terraformed planet under the Procyon suns-and drumming hollowly upon the Credentials case sliding down the conveyor belt beside me. That case now meant nothing to me-neither my papers nor the Credentials of Impartiality I had carried four years now and worked so hard to earn. Now I thought less of these than of the name of the man I should find dispatching groundcars at the edge of the field. If, that is, he was actually the man my Earth informants had named to me. And if they had not lied.

“Your luggage, sir?”

I woke from my thoughts and the rain. I had reached the concrete. The debarking officer smiled at me. He was older man I, though he looked younger. As he smiled, some beads of moisture broke and spilled like tears from the brown visor-edge of his cap onto the tally sheet he held.

“Send it to the Friendly compound,” I said. “I’ll take the Credentials case.”

I took it up from the conveyor belt and turned to walk off. The man standing in a dispatcher’s uniform by the first groundcar in line did fit the description.

“Name, sir?” he said. “Business on St. Marie?”

If he had been described to me, I must have been described to him. But I was prepared to humor him.

“Newsman Tam Olyn,” I said. “Old Earth resident and Interstellar News Services Guild Representative. I’m here to cover the Friendly-Exotic conflict.” I opened my case and gave him my papers.

“Fine, Mr. Olyn.” He handed them back to me, damp from the rain. He turned away to open the door of the car beside him and set the automatic pilot. “Follow the highway straight to Joseph’s Town. Put it on automatic at the city limits and the car’ll take you to the Friendly compound.”

“All right,” I said. “Just a minute.”

He turned back. He had a young, good-looking face with a little mustache and he looked at me with a bright blankness. “Sir?”

“Help me get in the car.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, sir.” He came quickly over to me. “I didn’t realize your leg—”

“Damp stiffens it,” I said. He adjusted the seat and I got my left leg in behind the steering column. He started to turn away.

“Wait a minute,” I said again. I was out of patience. “You’re Walter Imera, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” he said softly.

“Look at me,” I said. “You’ve got some information for me, haven’t you?” ‘ He turned slowly back to face me. His face was still blank.

“No”, sir.”

I waited a long moment, looking at him.

“Ail right,” I said then, reaching for the car door. “I guess you know I’ll get the information anyway. And they’ll believe you told me.”

His little mustache began to look like it was painted on.

“Wait,” he said. “You’ve got to understand. Information like that’s not part of your news, is it? I’ve got a family—”

“And I haven’t,” I said. I felt nothing for him.

“But you don’t understand. They’d kill me. That’s the sort of organization the Blue Front is now, here on St. Marie. What d’you want to know about them for? I didn’t understand you meant—”

“All right,” I said. I reached for the car door.

“Wait.” He held out a hand to me in the rain. “How do I know you can make them leave me alone if I tell you?”

“They may be back in power here someday,” I said. “Not even outlawed political groups want to antagonize the Interstellar News Services.” I started to close the door once more.

“All right,” he said quickly. “All right. You go to New San Marcos. The Wallace Street Jewelers there. It’s just beyond Joseph’s Town, where the Friendly compound is you’re going to.” He licked his lips. “You’ll tell them about me?”

“I’ll tell them.” I looked at him. Above the edge of the blue uniform collar on the right side of his neck I could see an inch or two of fine silver chain, bright against winter-pale skin. The crucifix attached to it would be down under his shirt. “The Friendly soldiers have been here two years now. How do people like them?”

He grinned a little. His color was coming back.

“Oh, like anybody,” he said. “You just have to understand them. They’ve got their own ways.”

I felt the ache in my stiff leg where the doctors on New Earth had taken the needle from the spring-rifle out of it three years before.

“Yes, they have,” I said. “Shut the door.”

He shut it. I drove off.

There was some religious medal on the car’s instrument panel. One of the Friendly soldiers would have ripped it off and thrown it away, or refused the car. And so it gave me a particular pleasure to leave it where it was, though it meant no more to me than it would to him. It was not just because of Dave and the other prisoners they had shot down on New Earth. It was simply because there are some duties that have a small element of pleasure. After the illusions of childhood are gone and there is nothing left but duties, such pleasures are welcome. Fanatics, when all is said and done, are no worse than mad dogs.

But mad dogs have to be destroyed; it is simple common sense.

And you return to common sense after a while in life, inevitably. When the wild dreams of justice and progress are all dead and buried, when the painful beatings of feeling inside you are finally stilled, then it becomes best to be still, unliving, and unyielding as-the blade of a sword sharpened on a stone. The rain through which such a blade is carried to its using does not stain it, any more than the blood in which it is bathed at last. Rain and blood are alike to sharpened iron.

I drove for half an hour past wooded hills and plowed meadows. The furrows of the fields were black in the rain. I thought it a kinder black than some other shades I had seen. At last I reached the outskirts of Joseph’s Town.

The autopilot of the car threaded me through a small, neat, typical St. Marie city of about a hundred thousand people. We came out on the far side into a cleared area, beyond which lifted the massive, sloping concrete walls of a military compound.

A Friendly noncom stopped my car at the gate with his black spring-rifle and opened the car door at my left.

“Thou hast business here?”

His voice was harsh and high in his nose. The cloth tabs of a Groupman edged his collar. Above them his forty-year-old face was lean and graven with lines. Both face and hands, the only uncovered parts of him, looked unnaturally white against the black cloth and rifle.

I opened the case beside me and handed him my papers.

“My Credentials,” I said. “I’m here to see your acting Commander of Expeditionary Forces, Commandant Jamethon Black.”

“Move over, then,” he said nasally. “I must drive thee.”

I moved.

He got in and took the stick. We drove through the gate and turned down an approach alley. I could see an interior square at the alley’s far end. The close concrete walls on either side of us echoed the sound of our passage as we went. I heard drill commands growing louder as we approached the square. When we rolled out into it, soldiers were drawn up in ranks for their midday service, in the rain.

The Groupman left me and went in the entrance of what seemed to be an office set in the wall on one side of the square. I looked over the soldiers standing in formation. They stood at present-arms, their position of worship under field conditions; and as I watched, the officer facing them, with his back to a wall, led them into the words of their Battle Hymn.

Soldier, ask not-now or ever,

Where to war your banners go.

Anarch’s legions all surround us.

Strike! And do not count the blow!

I sat trying not to listen. There was no musical accompaniment, no religious furniture or symbols except the thin shape of the cross whitewashed on the gray wall behind the officer. The massed male voices rose and fell slowly in the dark, sad hymn that promised them only pain, and suffering, and sorrow. At last, the final line mourned its harsh prayer for a battle death, and they ordered arms.

A Groupman dismissed the ranks as the officer walked past my car without looking at me, and passed in through the entrance where my noncommissioned guide had disappeared. As he passed I saw the officer was Jamethon.

A moment later the guide came for me. Limping a little on my stiffened leg, I followed him to an inner room with the lights on above a single desk.

Jamethon rose and nodded as the door closed behind me. He wore the faded tabs of a Commandant on his uniform lapels.

As I handed my Credentials across the desk to him, the glare of the light over the desk came full in my eyes, blinding me. I stepped back and blinked at his blurred face. As it came back into focus I saw it for a moment as if it were older, harsher, twisted and engraved with the lines of years of fanaticism, like a face I remembered standing over the murdered prisoners on New Earth.

Then my eyes refocused completely, and I saw him as he actually was. Dark-faced, but thin with the thinness of youth rather than that of starvation. He was not the face burned in my memory. His features were regular to the point of being handsome, his eyes tired and shadowed; and I saw the straight, weary line of his mouth above the still, self-controlled stiffness of his body, smaller and slighter than mine.

He held the Credentials without looking at them. His mouth quirked a little, dryly and wearily, at the corners. “And no doubt, Mr. Olyn,” he said, “you’ve got another pocket filled with authorities from the Exotic worlds to interview the mercenary soldiers and officers they’ve hired from the Dorsai and a dozen other worlds to oppose God’s Chosen in War?”

I smiled. Because it was good to find him as strong as that, to add to my pleasure of breaking him.

23

I looked across the ten feet or so of distance that separated us. The Friendly Groupman who had killed the prisoners on New Earth had also spoken of God’s Chosen.

“If you’ll look under the papers directed at you,” I said, “you’ll find them. The News Services and its people are impartial. We don’t take sides.”

“Right,” said the dark young face opposing me, “takes sides.”

“Yes, Commandant,” I said. “That’s right. Only sometimes it’s a matter of debate where Right is. You and your troops here now are invaders on the world of a planetary system your ancestors never colonized. And opposing you are mercenary troops hired by two worlds that not only belong under the Procyon suns but have a commitment to defend the smaller worlds of their system-of which St. Marie is one. I’m not sure Right is on your side.”

He shook his head slightly and said, “We expect small understanding from those not Chosen.” He transferred his gaze from me to the papers in his hand.

“Mind if I sit down?” I said. “I’ve got a bad leg.”

“By all means.” He nodded to a chair beside his desk and as I sat down, seated himself. I looked across the papers on the desk before him and saw, standing to one side, the solidograph of one of the windowless high-peaked churches the Friendlies build. It was a legitimate token for him to own, but there just happened to be three people, an older man and woman and a young girl of about fourteen, in the foreground of the image. All three of them bore a family resemblance to Jamethon. Glancing up from my Credentials he saw me looking at them; and his gaze shifted momentarily to the graph and away again, as if he would protect it.

“I’m required, I see,” he said, drawing my eyes back to him, “to provide you with cooperation and facilities. We’ll find quarters for you here. Do you need a car and driver?”

“Thanks,” I said. “That commercial car outside will do. And I’ll manage my own driving.”

“As you like.” He detached the papers directed to him, passed the rest back to me and leaned toward a grille in his desktop. “Groupman.”

“Sir,” the grille answered promptly.

“Quarters for a single male civilian. Parking assignment for a civilian vehicle, personnel,”

“Sir.”

The voice from the grille clicked off. Jamethon Black looked across his desk at me. I got the idea he was waiting for my departure.

“Commandant,” I said, putting my Credentials back in their case, “two years ago, your Elders of the United Churches on Harmony and Association found the planetary government of St. Marie in default of certain disputed balances of credit, so they sent an expedition in here to occupy and enforce payment. Of that expedition, how much in the way of men and equipment do you have left?”

“That, Mr. Olyn,” he said, “is restricted military information.”

“However”—and I closed the case—“you, with the regular rank of Commandant, are acting Commander of Forces for the remnants of your expedition. That position calls for someone about five ranks higher than you. Do you expect such an officer to arrive and take charge?”

“I’m afraid you’d have to ask that question of Headquarters on Harmony, Mr. Olyn.”

“Do you expect reinforcements of personnel and more supplies?”

“If I did”—his voice was level—”I would have to consider that restricted information, too.”

“You know that it’s been pretty widely mentioned that your General Staff on Harmony has decided that this expedition to St. Marie is a lost cause? But that to avoid loss of face they prefer you here to be cut up, instead of withdrawing you and your men.”

“I see,” he said.

“You wouldn’t care to comment?”

His dark, young, expressionless face did not change. “Not in the case of rumors, Mr. Olyn.”

“One last question then. Do you plan to retreat westward, or surrender when the spring offensive of the Exotic mercenary forces begins to move against you?”

“The Chosen in War never retreat,” he said. “Neither do they abandon, or suffer abandonment by, their Brothers in the Lord.” He stood up. “I have work I must get back to, Mr. Olyn.”

I stood up, too. I was taller than he was, older, and heavier-boned. It was only his almost unnatural composure that enabled him to maintain his appearance of being my equal or better.

“I’ll talk to you later, perhaps, when you’ve got more time,” I said.

“Certainly.” I heard the office door open behind me. “Groupman,” he said, speaking past me, “take care of Mr. Olyn.”

The Groupman he had turned me over to found me a small concrete cubicle with a single high window, a camp bed and a uniform cabinet. He left me for a moment and returned with a signed pass.

“Thanks,” I said as I took it. “Where do I find the Headquarters of the Exotic forces?”

“Our latest advice, sir,” he said, “is that they’re ninety kilometers east of here. New San Marcos.” He was my height, but, like most of them, half a dozen years younger than I, with an innocence that contrasted with the strange air of control they all had.

“San Marcos.” I looked at him. “I suppose you enlisted men know your General Headquarters on Harmony has decided against wasting replacements for you?”

“No, sir,” he said. I might have commented on the rain for all the reaction he showed. Even these boys were still strong and unbroken. “Is there somewhat else?”

“No,” I said. “Thanks.”

He went out. And I went out, to get in my car and head ninety kilometers east to New San Marcos. I reached it in about three-quarters of an hour. But I did not go directly to find the Exotic Field Headquarters. I had other fish to fry.

These took me to the Wallace Street Jewelers. There, three shallow steps down from street level, an opaqued door let me into a long, dim-lighted room filled with glass cases. There was a small elderly man at the back of the store behind the final case and I saw him eyeing my correspondent’s cloak and badge as I got closer.

“Sir?” he said as I stopped across the case from him. He raised gray, narrow old eyes in a strangely smooth face to look at me.

“I think you know what I represent,” I said. “All worlds know the News Services. We’re not concerned with local politics.”

“Sir?”

“You’ll find out how I learned your address anyway.” I kept on smiling at him. “So I’ll tell you it was from a spaceport auto-dispatcher named Imera. I promised him protection for telling me. We’d-appreciate it if he remains well and whole.”

“I’m afraid—” He put his hands on the glass top of the case. They were veined with the years. “You wanted to buy something?”

“I’m willing to pay in good will,” I said, “for information.”

His hands slid off the countertop.

“Sir.” He sighed a little. “I’m afraid you’re in the wrong store.”

“I’m sure I am,” I said. “But your store’ll have to do. We’ll pretend it’s the right store and I’m talking to someone who’s a member of the Blue Front.”

He shook his head slowly and stepped back from the case.

“The Blue Front is illegal,” he said. “Goodbye, sir.”

“In a moment. I’ve got a few things to say first.”

“Then I’m sorry.” He retreated toward some drapes covering a doorway. “I can’t listen. No one will come into this room with you, sir, as long as you talk like that.”

He slipped through the drapes and was gone. I looked around the long, empty room.

“Well,” I said a little more loudly, “I guess I’ll have to speak to the walls. I’m sure the walls can hear me.”

I paused. There was no sound.

“All right,” I said. “I’m a correspondent. All I’m interested in is information. Our assessment of the military situation here on St. Marie”—and here I told the truth—”shows the Friendly Expeditionary Forces abandoned by their home headquarters and certain to be overrun by the Exotic forces as soon as the ground dries enough for heavy equipment to move.”

There was stili no answer, but the back of my neck knew they were listening and watching me.

“As a result,” I went on-and here I lied, though they would have no way of knowing—”we consider it inevitable that the Friendly Command here will have got in contact with the Blue Front. Assassination of enemy commanders is expressly in violation of the Mercenaries’ Code and the Articles of Civilized Warfare-but civilians could do what soldiers could not.”

Still there was no sound or movement beyond the drapes.

“A news representative,” I said, “carries Credentials of Impartiality. You know how highly these are held. I only want to ask a few questions. And the answers will be kept confidential.”

For a last time I waited, and there was still no answer. I turned and went up the long room and out. It was not until I was well out on to the street that I let the feeling of triumph within spread out and warm me.

They would take the bait. People of their sort always did. I found my car and drove to Exotic Headquarters.

These were outside the town. There a mercenary Commandant named Janol Marat took me in charge. He conducted me to the bubble structure of their HQ building. There was a feel of purpose, there, a sure and cheerful air of activity. They were well armed, well trained. After the Friendlies it jumped at me. I said so to Janol.

“We’ve got a Dorsai Commander and we outnumber the opposition.” He grinned at me. He had a deeply tanned, long face that went into creases as his lips curved up. “That makes everybody pretty optimistic. Besides, our Commander gets promoted if he wins. Back to the Exotics and staff rank-out of field combat for good. It’s good business for us to win.”

I laughed and he laughed.

“Tell me more, though,” I said. “I want reasons I can use in the stories I send back to News Services.”

“Well”—he answered the snappy salute of a passing Groupman, a Cassidan by the look of him. “I guess you might mention the usual-the feet our Exotic employers don’t permit themselves to use violence and consequently they’re always rather generous than otherwise when it comes to paying for men and equipment. And the OutBond-that’s the Exotic Ambassador to St. Marie, you know—”

“I know.”

“He replaced the former OutBond here three years ago. Anyway, he’s something special, even for someone from Mara or Kultis. He’s an expert in ontogenetic calculations. If that means much to you. It’s all over my head.” Janol pointed. “Here’s the Field Commander’s office. He’s Kensie Graeme.”

“Graeme?” I said, frowning. I could have admitted to knowing about Kensie Graeme, but I wanted Janol’s reactions to him. “Sounds familiar.” We approached the office building. “Graeme…”

“You’re probably thinking of another member of the same family.” Janol took the bait. “Donal Graeme. A nephew. Kensie is Donal’s uncle. Not as spectacular as the young Graeme, but I’ll bet you’ll like him better than you would the nephew. Kensie’s got two men’s likableness.” He looked at me, grinning slightly again.

“That supposed to mean something special?” I said.

“That’s right,” said Janol. “His own likableness and his twin brother’s, too. Meet Ian Graeme sometime when you’re in Blauvain. That’s where the Exotic embassy is, east of here. Ian’s a dark man.”

We walked into the office.

“I can’t get used,” I said, “to how so many Dorsai seem related.”

“Neither can I. Actually, I guess it’s because there really aren’t so many of them. The Dorsai’s a small world, and those that live more than a few years—” Janol stopped by a Commandant sitting at a desk. “Can we see the Old Man, Hari? This is a Newsman from the Interstellar News Services.”

“Why, I guess so.” The other looked at his desk signal board. “The OutBond’s with him, but he’s just leaving now. Go on in.”

Janol led me between the desks. A door at the back of the room opened before we reached it and a calm-faced man of middle age wearing an Exotic’s blue robe, and close-cropped white hair, came out. His odd, hazel-colored eyes met mine.

It was Padma.

“Sir,” said Janol to Padma, “this is—”

“Tam Olyn. I know,” said Padma softly. He smiled up at me, and those eyes of his seemed to catch light for a moment and blind me. “I was sorry to learn about your brother-in-law, Tam.”

I went quite cool all over. I had been ready to walk on, but now I stood stock still and looked at him.

“My brother-in-law?” I said.

“The young man who died near Dhores on New Earth.”

“Oh, yes,” I said between stiff lips. “I’m surprised that you’d know.”

“I know because of you, Tam.” Once more the hazel eyes of Padma seemed to catch light. “Have you forgotten? I told you once that we have a science called ontogenetics, by which we calculate the probabilities of human actions in present and future situations. You’ve been an important factor in those calculations for some time.” He smiled. “That’s why I was expecting to meet you here, and now. We’ve calculated you into our present situation here on St. Marie, Tam.”

“Have you?” I said. “Have you? That’s interesting.”

“I thought it would be,” said Padma softly. “To you, especially. Someone like a Newsman, like yourself, would find it interesting.”

“It is,” I said. “It sounds like you know more than I do about what I’m going to be doing here.”

“We’ve got calculations,” said Padma in his soft voice, “to that effect. Come see me in Blauvain, Tam, and I’ll show you.”

“I’ll do that,” I said.

“You’ll be very welcome.” Padma inclined his head. His blue robe whispered on the floor as he turned and went out of the room.

“This way,” said Janol, touching my elbow. I started as if I had just wakened from a deep sleep. “The Commander’s in here.”

I followed him automatically into an inner office. Kensie Graeme stood up as we came through the door. For the first time I stood face to face with this great, lean man in field uniform, with a heavy-boned, but open, smiling face under black, slightly curly hair. That peculiar golden warmth of personality-a strange thing in a Dorsai-seemed to flow out from him as he rose to meet me and his long-fingered, powerful hand swallowed mine in a handshake.

“Come on in,” he said. “Let me fix you up with a drink. Janol,” he added to my mercenary Commandant from New Earth, “no need for you to stick around. Go on to chow. And tell the rest of them in the outer office to knock off.”

Janol saluted and went. I sat down as Graeme turned to a small bar cabinet behind his desk. And for the first time in three years, under the magic of the unusual fighting man opposite me, a little peace came into my soul. With someone like this on my side, I could not lose.

24

“Credentials?” asked Graeme as soon as we were settled with drinks of Dorsai whisky-which is a fine whisky-in our hands.

I passed my papers over. He glanced through them, picking out the letters from Sayona, the Bond of Kultis, to “Commander-St. Marie Field Forces.” He looked these over and put them aside. He handed me back the Credentials folder.

“You stopped at Joseph’s Town first?” he said.

I nodded. I saw him looking at my face, and his own sobered.

“You don’t like the Friendlies,” he said.

His words took my breath away. I had come prepared to fence for an opening to tell him. It was too sudden. I looked away.

I did not dare answer right away. I could not. There was either too much or too little to say if I let it come out without thinking. Then I got a grip on myself.

“If I do anything at all with the rest of my life,” I said, slowly, “it’ll be to do everything in my power to remove the Friendlies and all they stand for from the community of civilized human beings.”

I looked back up at him. He was sitting with one massive elbow on his desktop, watching me.

“That’s a pretty harsh point of view, isn’t it?”

“No harsher than theirs.”

“Do you think so?” he said seriously. “I wouldn’t say so.”

“I thought,” I said, “you were the one who was fighting them.”

“Why, yes.” He smiled a little. “But we’re soldiers on both sides.”

“I don’t think they think that way.”

He shook his head a little.

“What makes you say that?” he said.

“I’ve seen them,” I answered. “I got caught up front in the lines near Dhores on New Earth, three years ago. You remember that conflict.” I tapped my stiff knee. “I got shot and I couldn’t navigate. The Cassidans around me began to retreat-they were mercenaries, and the troops opposing them were Friendlies hired out as mercenaries.”

I stopped and took a drink of the whisky. When I took the glass away, Graeme had not moved. He sat as if waiting.

“There was a young Cassidan, a buck soldier,” I said. “I was doing a series on the campaign from an individual point of view. I’d picked him for my individual. It was a natural choice. You see”—I drank again, and emptied the glass—”my younger sister went out on contract as an accountant to Cassida five years before that, and she’d married him. He was my brother-in-law.”

Graeme took the glass from my hand and silently replenished it.

“He wasn’t actually a military man,” I said. “He was studying shift mechanics and he had about three years to go. But he stood low on one of the competitive examinations at a time when Cassida owed a contractual balance of troops to New Earth.” I took a deep breath. “Well, to make a long story short, he ended up on New Earth in this same campaign I was covering. Because of the series I was writing, I got him assigned to me. We both thought it was a good deal for him, that he’d be safer that way.”

I drank some more of the whisky.

“But,” I said, “you know, there’s always a better story a little deeper in the combat zone. We got caught up front one day when the Cassidan troops were retreating. I picked up a needle through the kneecap. The Friendly armor was moving up and things were getting hot. The soldiers around us took off toward the rear in a hurry, but Dave tried to carry me, because he thought the Friendly armor would fry me before they had time to notice I was a noncombatant. Well”—I took another deep breath—”the Friendly ground troops caught us. They took us to a sort of clearing where they had a lot of prisoners and kept us there for a while. Then a Groupman-one of their fanatic types, a tall, starved-looking soldier about my age-came up with orders they were to reform for a fresh attack.”

I stopped and took another drink. But I could not taste it.

“That meant they couldn’t spare men to guard the prisoners. They’d have to turn them loose back of the Friendly lines. The Groupman said that wouldn’t work. They’d have to make sure the prisoners couldn’t endanger them.”

Graeme was still watching me.

“I didn’t understand. I didn’t even catch on when the other Friendlies-none of them were noncoms like the Groupman-objected.” I put my glass on the desk beside me and stared at the wall of the office, seeing it all over again, as plainly as if I looked through a window at it. “I remember how the Groupman pulled himself up straight. I saw his eyes. As if he’d been insulted by the others’ objecting.

“Are they Chosen of God?’ he shouted at them. ‘Are they of the Chosen?”

I looked across at Kensie Graeme and saw him still motionless, still watching me, his own glass small in one big hand.

“You understand?” I said to him. “As if because the prisoners weren’t Friendlies, they weren’t quite human. As if they were some lower order it was all right to kill.” I shook suddenly. “And he did it! I sat there against a tree, safe because of my News Correspondent’s uniform, and watched him shoot them down. All of them. I sat there and looked at Dave, and he looked at me, sitting there, as the Groupman shot him!”

I quit all at once. I hadn’t meant to have it all come out like that. It was just that I’d been able to tell no one who would understand how helpless I had been. But something about Graeme had given me the idea he would understand.

“Yes,” he said after a moment, and took and filled my glass again. “That sort of thing’s very bad. Was the Groupman found and tried under the Mercenaries’ Code?”

“After it was too late, yes.”

He nodded and looked past me at the wall. “They aren’t all like that, of course.”

“There’s enough to give them a reputation for it.”

“Unfortunately, yes. Well”—he smiled slightly at me—” we’ll try and keep that sort of thing out of this campaign.”

“Tell me something,” I said, putting my glass down. “Does that sort of thing-as you put it-ever happen to the Friendlies themselves?”

Something took place then in the atmosphere of the room. There was a little pause before he answered. I felt my heart beat slowly, three times, as I waited for him to speak.

He said at last, “No, it doesn’t.”

“Why not?” I said.

The feeling in the room became stronger. And I realized I had gone too fast. I had been sitting talking to him as a man and forgetting what else he was. Now I began to forget that he was a man and became conscious of him as a Dorsaian individual as human as I was, but trained all his life, and bred down the generations to a diiference. He did not move or change the tone of his voice, or any such thing; but somehow he seemed to move off some distance from me, up into a higher, colder, stonier land into which I could venture only at my peril.

I remembered what was said about his people from that small, cold, stony-mountained world: that if the Dorsai chose to withdraw their fighting men from the services of all the other worlds, and challenge those other worlds, not the combined might of the rest of civilization could stand against them. I had never really believed that before. I had never even really thought much about it. But sitting there just then, because of what was happening in the room, suddenly it became real to me. I could feel the knowledge, cold as a wind blowing on me off a glacier, that it was true; and then he answered my question.

“Because,” said Kensie Graeme, “anything like that is specifically prohibited by Article Two of the Mercenaries’ Code.”

Then he broke out abruptly into a smile and what I had just felt in the room withdrew. I breathed again.

“Well,” he said, putting his glass down empty on the desk, “how about joining us in the Officers’ Mess for something to eat?”

I had dinner with them and the meal was very pleasant. They wanted to put me up for the night, but I could feel myself being pulled back to that cold, joyless compound near Joseph’s Town, where all that waited for me was a sort of cold and bitter satisfaction at being among my enemies.

I went back.

It was about eleven P.M. when I drove through the gate of the compound and parked, just as a figure came out of the entrance to Jamethon’s headquarters. The square was dim-lighted with only a few spotlights about the walls, their light lost in the rain-wet pavement. For a moment I did not recognize the figure-and then I saw it was Jamethon.

He would have passed by me at some little distance, but I got out of my car and went to meet him. He stopped when I stepped in front of him.

“Mr. Olyn,” he said evenly. In the darkness I could not make out the expression of his face.

“I’ve got a question to ask,” I said, smiling in the darkness.

“It’s late for questions.”

“This won’t take long.” I strained to catch the look on his face, but it was all in shadow. “I’ve been visiting the Exotic camp. Their commander’s a Dorsai. I suppose you know that?”

“Yes.” I could barely see the movement of his lips.

“We got to talking. A question came up and I thought I’d ask you, Commandant. Do you ever order your men to kill prisoners?”

An odd, short silence came between us. Then he answered.

“The killing or abuse of prisoners of war,” he said without emotion, “is forbidden by Article Two of the Mercenaries’ Code.”

“But you aren’t mercenaries here, are you? You’re native troops in service to your own True Church and Elders.”

“Mr. Olyn,” he said, while I still strained without success to make out the expression of his shadowed face and it seemed that the words came slowly, though the tone of the voice that spoke them remained as calm as ever, “My Lord has set me to be His servant and a leader among men of war. In neither of those tasks will I fail Him.”

And with that he turned, his face still shadowed and hidden from me, and passed around me and went on.

Alone, I went back inside to my quarters, undressed and lay down on the hard and narrow bed they had given me. The rain outside had stopped at last. Through my open, unglazed window I could see a few stars showing.

I lay there getting ready to sleep and making mental notes on what I would need to do next day. The meeting with Padma had jolted me sharply. Strangely, somehow I had almost managed to forget that his calculations of human actions could apply to me personally. It shook me now to be reminded of that. I would have to find out more about how much his science of ontogenetics knew and could predict. If necessary, from Padma himself. But I would start first with ordinary reference sources.

No one, I thought, would ordinarily entertain the fantastic thought that one man like myself could destroy a culture involving the populations of two worlds. No one, except perhaps a Padma. What I knew, he with his calculations might have discovered. And that was that the Friendly worlds of Harmony and Association were facing a decision that would mean life or death to their way of living. A very small thing could tip the scales they weighed on. I went over my plan, nursing it in my mind.

For there was a new wind blowing between the stars.

Two hundred years before we had all been men of Earth-Old Earth, the mother planet which was my native soil. One people.

Then, with the movement out to new worlds, the human race had “splintered,” to use an Exotic term. Every small social fragment and psychological type had drawn apart by itself, and joined others like it and progressed toward specialized types. Until we had half a dozen fragments of human types-the warrior on the Dorsal, the philosopher on the Exotic worlds, the hard scientist on Newton, Cassida and Venus, and so forth.

Isolation had bred specific types. Then a growing intercommunication between the younger worlds, now established, and an ever-increasing rate of technological advance had forced specialization. The trade between the worlds was the trade of skilled minds. Generals from the Dorsai were worth their exchange rate in psychiatrists from the Exotics. Communications men like myself from Old Earth bought spaceship designers from Cassida. And so it had been for the last hundred years.

But now the worlds were drifting together. Economics was fusing the race into one whole again. And the struggle on each world was to gain the advantages of that fusion while holding on to as much as possible of their own ways.

Compromise was necessary-but the harsh, stiff-necked Friendly religion forbade compromise and had made many enemies. Already public opinion moved against the Friendlies on other worlds. Discredit them, smear them, publicly here in this campaign, and they would not be able to hire out their soldiers. They would lose the balance of trade they needed to hire the skilled specialists trained by the special facilities of other worlds, and which they needed to keep their own two poor-in-natural-resources worlds alive. They would die.

As young Dave had died. Slowly. In the dark.

In the darkness now, as I thought of it, it rose up before me once again. It had been only midafternoon when we were taken prisoner, but by the time the Groupman came with his orders for our guards to move up, the sun was almost down.

I remembered how, after they left, after it was all over and I was left alone, I crawled to the bodies in the clearing. And how I had found Dave among them; and he was not quite gone. He was wounded in the body and I could not stop the bleeding.

It would not have helped if I had, they told me afterward. But then it seemed that it would have. So I tried. But finally I gave up and by that time it was quite dark. I only held him and did not know he was dead until he began to grow cold. And that was when I had begun to change into what my uncle had always tried to make me. I felt myself die inside. Dave and my sister were to have been my family, the only family I had ever had hopes of keeping. Instead, I could only sit there in the darkness, holding him and hearing the blood from his red-soaked clothing falling drop by drop, slowly, on the dead variform oak leaves beneath us.

I lay there now in the Friendly compound, unable to sleep and remembering. And after a while I heard the soldiers marching, forming in the square for midnight service.

I lay on my back, listening to them. Their marching feet stopped at last. The single window of my room was over my bed, high in the wall against which the left side of my cot was set. It was unglazed and the night air with its sounds came freely through it along with the dim light from the square which painted a pale rectangle on the opposite wall of my room. I lay watching that rectangle and listening to the service outside; and I heard the duty officer lead them in a prayer for worthiness. After that they sang their battle hymn again, and I lay hearing it this time all the way through.

Soldier, ask not-now, or ever,

Where to war your banners go.

Anarch’s legions all surround us.

Strike-and do not count the blow.

Glory, honor, praise and profit,

Are but toys of tinsel worth.

Render up your work, unasking,

Leave the human clay to earth.

Blood and sorrow, pain unending,

Are the portion of us all.

Grasp the naked sword, opposing.

Gladly in the battle fall.

So shall we, anointed soldiers,

Stand at last before the Throne.

Baptized in our wounds, red-flowing,

Sealed unto our Lord-alone!

After that they dispersed to cots no different from mine.

I lay there listening to the silence in the square and the measured dripping of a rainspout outside by my window, its slow drops falling after the rain, one by one, uncounted in the darkness.

25

After the day I landed, there was no more rain. Day by day the fields dried. Soon they would be firm underneath the weight of heavy surface-war equipment, and everyone knew that then the Exotic spring offensive would get under way. Meanwhile both Exotic and Friendly troops were in training.

During the next few weeks, I was busy about my newswork-mostly feature and small stories on the soldiers and the native people. I had dispatches to send and I sent them faithfully. A correspondent is only as good as his contacts; I made contacts everywhere but among the Friendly troops. These remained aloof, though I talked to many of them. They refused to show fear or doubt.

I heard these Friendly soldiers were generally undertrained because the suicidal tactics of their officers kept their ranks always filled with green

replacements. But the ones here were the remnants of an expeditionary force six times their present numbers. They were all veterans, though most of them were in their teens. Only here and there, among the noncoms and more often among the commissioned officers, I saw the prototype of the noncom who had ordered the prisoners shot on New Earth. Here, the men of this type looked like rabid gray wolves mixed among polite, well-schooled young dogs just out of puppyhood. It was a temptation to think that they alone were what I had set out to destroy.

To fight that temptation I told myself that Alexander the Great had led expeditions against the hill tribes and ruled in Pella, capital of Macedonia, and ordered men put to death when he was sixteen. But still the Friendly soldiers looked young to me. I could not help contrasting them with the adult, experienced mercenaries in Kensie Graeme’s forces. For the Exotics, in obedience to their principles, would hire no drafted troops or soldiers who were not in uniform of their own free will.

Meanwhile I had heard no word from the Blue Front. But by the time two weeks had gone, I had my own connections in New San Marcos, and at the beginning of the third week one of these brought me word that the jeweler’s shop in Wallace Street there had closed its door, had pulled its blinds and emptied the long room of stock and fixtures, and moved or gone out of business. That was all I needed to know.

For the next few days, I stayed in the vicinity of Jamethon Black himself, and by the end of the week my watching him paid off.

At ten o’clock that Friday night I was on a catwalk just above my quarters and under the sentry-walk of the walls, watching as three civilians with Blue Front written all over them drove into the square, got out and went into Jamethon’s office.

They stayed a little over an hour. When they left, I went back down to bed. That night I slept soundly.

The next morning I got up early, and there was mail for me. A message had come by spaceliner from the director of News Services back on Earth, personally congratulating me on my dispatches. Once, three years before, this would have meant a great deal to me. Now I only worried that they would decide I had made the situation here newsworthy enough to require extra people being sent out to help me. I could not risk having other news personnel here now to see what I was doing.

I got in my car and headed east along the highway to New San Marcos and the Exotic Headquarters. The Friendly troops were already out in the field; eighteen kilometers east of Joseph’s Town, I was stopped by a squad of five young soldiers with no noncom over them. They recognized me.

“In God’s name, Mr. Olyn,” said the first one to reach my car, bending down to speak to me through the open window at my left shoulder. “You cannot go through.”

“Mind if I ask why?” I said.

He turned and pointed out and down into a little valley between two wooded hills at our left.

“Tactical survey in progress.”

I looked. The little valley or meadow was perhaps a hundred yards wide between the wooded slopes, and it wound away from me and curved to disappear to my right. At the edge of the wooded slopes, where they met open meadow, there were lilac bushes with blossoms several days old. The meadow itself was green and fair with the young chartreuse grass of early summer and the white and purple of the lilacs, and the variform oaks behind the lilacs were fuzzy in outline, with small, new leaves.

In the middle of all this, in the center of the meadow, were black-clad figures moving about with computing devices, measuring and figuring the possibilities of death from every angle. In the very center of the meadow for some reason they had set up marking stakes-a single stake, then a stake in front of that with two stakes on either side of it, and one more stake in line before these. Farther on was another single stake, down, as if fallen on the grass and discarded.

I looked back up into the lean young face of the soldier.

“Getting ready to defeat the Exotics?” I said.

He took it as if it had been a straightforward question, with no irony in my voice at all.

“Yes, sir,” he said seriously. I looked at him and at the taut skin and clear eyes of the rest.

“Ever think you might lose?”

“No, Mr. Olyn.” He shook his head solemnly. “No man loses who goes to battle for the Lord.” He saw that I needed to be convinced, and he went about it earnestly. “He hath set His hand upon His soldiers. And all that is possible to them is victory-or sometimes death. And what is death?”

He looked to his fellow soldiers and they all nodded.

“What is death?” they echoed.

I looked at them. They stood there asking me and each other what was death as if they were talking about some hard but necessary job.

I had an answer for them, but I did not say it. Death was a Groupman, one of their own kind, giving orders to soldiers just like themselves to assassinate prisoners. That was death.

“Call an officer,” I said. “My pass lets me through here.”

“I regret, sir,” said the one who had been talking to me, “we cannot leave our posts to summon an officer. One will come soon.”

I had a hunch what “soon” meant, and I was right. It was high noon before a Force-Leader came by to order them to chow and let me through.

As I pulled into Kensie Graeme’s Headquarters, the sun was low, patterning the ground with the long shadows of trees. Yet it was as if the camp were just waking up. I did not need experience to see the Exotics were beginning to move at last against Jamethon.

I found Janol Marat, the New Earth Commandant.

“I’ve got to see Field Commander Graeme,” I said.

He shook his head, for all that we now knew each other well.

“Not now, Tam. I’m sorry.”

“Janol,” I said, “this isn’t for an interview. It’s a matter of life and death. I mean that. I’ve got to see Kensie.”

He stared at me. I stared back.

“Wait here,” he said. We were standing just inside the headquarters office. He went out and was gone for perhaps five minutes. I stood, listening to the wall clock ticking away. Then he came back.

“This way,” he said.

He led me outside the back between the bubble roundness of the plastic buildings to a small structure half-hidden in some trees. When we stepped through its front entrance, I realized it was Kensie’s personal quarters. We passed through a small sitting room into a combination bedroom and bath. Kensie had just stepped out of the shower and was getting into battle clothes. He looked at me curiously, then turned his gaze back on Janol.

“All right, Commandant,” he said, “you can get back to your duties, now.”

“Sir,” said Janol, without looking at me.

He saluted and left.

“All right, Tam,” Kensie said, pulling on a pair of uniform slacks. “What is it?”

“I know you’re ready to move out,” I said.

He looked at me a little humorously as he locked the waistband of his slacks. He had not yet put on his shirt, and in that relatively small room he loomed like a giant, like some irresistible natural force. His body was tanned like dark wood and the muscles lay in flat bands across his chest and shoulders. His belly was hollow and the cords in his arms came and went as he moved them. Once more I felt the particular, special element of the Dorsai in him. It was not even the fact that he was someone trained from birth to war, someone bred for battle. No, it was something living but untouchable-the same quality of difference to be found in the pure Exotic like Padma the OutBond, or in some Newtonian or Cassidan researchist. Something so much above and beyond the common form of man that it was like a serenity, a sense of conviction where his own type of thing was concerned that was so complete it made him beyond all weaknesses, untouchable, unconquerable.

I saw the slight, dark shadow of Jamethon in my mind’s eye, standing opposed to such a man as this; and the thought of any victory for Jamethon was unthinkable, an impossibility.

But there was always danger.

“All right, I’ll tell you what I came about,” I said to Kensie. “I’ve just found out Black’s been in touch with the Blue Front, a native terrorist political group with its headquarters in Blauvain. Three of them visited him last night. I saw them.”

Kensie picked up his shirt and slid a long arm into one sleeve.

“I know,” he said.

I stared at him.

“Don’t you understand?” I said. “They’re assassins. It’s their stock in trade. And the one man they and Jamethon both could use out of the way is you.”

He put his other arm in a sleeve.

“I know that,” he said. “They want the present government here on St. Marie out of the way and themselves in power-which isn’t possible with Exotic money hiring us to keep the peace here.”

“They haven’t had Jamethon’s help.”

“Have they got it now?” he asked, sealing the shirt closure between thumb and forefinger.

“The Friendlies are desperate,” I said. “Even if reinforcements arrived tomorrow, Jamethon knows what his chances are with you ready to move. Assassins may be outlawed by the Conventions of War and the Mercenaries’ Code, but you and I know the Friendlies.”

Kensie looked at me oddly and picked up his jacket.

“Do we?” he said.

I met his eyes. “Don’t we?”

“Tam.” He put on the jacket and closed it. “I know the men I have to fight. It’s my business to know. But what makes you think you know them?”

“They’re my business, too,” I said. “Maybe you’ve forgotten. I’m a Newsman. People are my business, first, last and always.”

“But you’ve got no use for the Friendlies.”

“Should I?” I said. “I’ve been on all the worlds. I’ve seen the Cetan entrepreneur-and he wants his margin, but he’s a human being. I’ve seen the Newtonian and the Venusian with their heads in the clouds, but if you yanked on their sleeves hard enough, you could pull them back to reality. I’ve seen Exotics like Padma at their mental parlor tricks, and the Freilander up to his ears in his own red tape. I’ve seen them from my own world of Old Earth, and Coby, and Venus and even from the Dorsai, like you. And I tell you they’ve all got one thing in common. Underneath it all they’re human. Every one of them’s human-they’ve just specialized in some one, valuable way.”

“And the Friendlies haven’t?”

“Fanaticism,” I said. “Is that valuable? It’s just the opposite. What’s good, what’s even permissible about blind, deaf, dumb, unthinking faith that doesn’t let a man reason for himself?”

“How do you know they don’t reason?” Kensie asked. He was standing facing me now.

“Maybe some of them do,” I said. “Maybe the young ones, before the poison’s had time to work in. What good does that do, as long as the culture exists?”

A sudden silence came into the room.

“What are you talking about?” said Kensie.

“I mean you want the assassins,” I said. “You don’t want the Friendly troops. Prove that Jamethon Black has broken the Conventions of War by arranging with them to kill you; and you can win St. Marie for the Exotics without firing a shot.”

“And how would I do that?”

“Use me,” I said. “I’ve got a pipeline to the political group the assassins represent. Let me go to them as your representative and outbid Jamethon. You can offer them recognition by the present government now. Padma and the present St. Marie government heads would have to back you up if you could clean the planet of Friendlies that easily.”

He looked at me with no expression at all.

“And what would I be supposed to buy with this?” he said.

“Sworn testimony they’d been hired to assassinate you. As many of them as needed could testify.”

“No Court of Interplanetary Inquiry would believe people like that,” Kensie said.

“Ah,” I said, and I could not help smiling. “But they’d believe me as a News Service Representative when I backed up every word that was said.”

There was a new silence. His face had no expression at all.

“I see,” he said.

He walked past me into the salon. I followed him. He went to his phone, put his finger on a stud and spoke into an imageless gray screen.

“Janol,” he said.

He turned away from the screen, crossed the room to an arms cabinet and began putting on his battle harness. He moved deliberately and neither looked nor spoke in my direction. After a few long minutes, the building entrance slid aside and Janol stepped in.

“Sir?” said the officer.

“Mr. Olyn stays here until further orders.”

“Yes, sir,” said Janol.

Graeme went out.

I stood numb, staring at the entrance through which he had left. I could not believe that he would violate the Conventions so far himself as not only to disregard me, but to put me essentially under arrest to keep me from doing anything further about the situation.

I turned to Janol. He was looking at me with a sort of wry sympathy on his long, brown face.

“Is the OutBond here in camp?” I asked him.

“No.” He came up to me. “He’s back in the Exotic Embassy in Blauvain. Be a good fella now and sit down, why don’t you? We might as well kill the next few hours pleasantly.”

We were standing face to face; I hit him in the stomach.

I had done a little boxing as an undergraduate on the college level. I mention this not to make myself out a sort of muscular hero, but to explain why I had sense enough not to try for his jaw. Graeme could probably have found the knockout point there without even thinking, but I was no Dorsai. The area below a man’s breastbone is relatively large, soft, handy and generally just fine for amateurs. And I did know something about how to punch.

For all that, Janol was not knocked out. He went over on the floor and lay there doubled up with his eyes still open. But he was not ready to get up right away. I turned and went quickly out of the building.

The camp was busy. Nobody stopped me. I got back into my car, and five minutes later I was free on the darkening road for Blauvain.

26

From New San Marcos to Blauvain and Padma’s Embassy was fourteen hundred kilometers. I should have made it in six hours, but a bridge was washed out and I took fourteen.

It was after eight the following morning when I burst into the half-park, half-building that was the embassy.

“Padma,” I said. “Is he still—”

“Yes, Mr. Olyn,” said the girl receptionist. “He’s expecting you.”

She smiled above her blue robe. I did not mind. I was too busy being glad Padma had not already taken off for the fringe areas of the conflict.

She took me down and around a corner and turned me over to a young male Exotic, who introduced himself as one of Padma’s secretaries. He took me a short distance and introduced me to another secretary, a middle-aged man this time, who led me through several rooms and then directed me down a long corridor and around a corner, beyond which he said was the entrance to the office area where Padma worked at the moment. Then he left me.

I followed his direction. But when I stepped through that entrance it was not into a room, but into another short corridor. And I stopped dead. For what I suddenly thought I saw coming at me was Kensie Graeme-Kensie with murder on his mind.

But the man who looked like Kensie merely glanced at me and dismissed me, continuing to come on. Then I knew.

Of course, he was not Kensie. He was Kensie’s twin brother, Ian, Commander of Garrison Forces for the Exotics here in Blauvain. He strode toward me; and I began once more to walk toward him, but the shock stayed with me until we had passed one another.

I do not think anyone could have come on him like that, in my position, and not been hit the same way. From Janol, at diiferent times, I had gathered how Ian was the converse of Kensie. Not in a military sense-they were both magnificent specimens of Dorsai officers-but in the matter of their individual natures.

Kensie had had a profound effect on me from the first moment, with his cheerful nature and the warmth of being that at times obscured the very fact that he was Dorsai. When the pressure of military affairs was not directly on him he seemed all sunshine; you could warm yourself in his presence as you might in the sun. Ian, his physical duplicate, striding toward me like some two-eyed Odin, was all shadow.

Here at last was the Dorsal legend come to life. Here was the grim man with the iron heart and the dark and solitary soul. In the powerful fortress of his body, what was essentially Ian dwelt as isolated as a hermit on a mountain. He was the fierce and lonely Highlandman of his distant ancestry, come to life again.

Not law, not ethics, but the trust of the given word, clan-loyalty and the duty of the blood feud held sway in Ian. He was a man who would cross hell to pay a debt for good or ill; and in that moment when I saw him coming toward me and recognized him at last, I suddenly thanked whatever gods were left that he had no debt with me.

Then we had passed each other, and he was gone around a corner.

Rumor had it, I remembered, that the blackness around him never lightened except in Kensie’s presence, that he was truly his twin brother’s other half. And that if he should ever lose the light that Kensie’s bright presence shed on him, he would be doomed to his own lightlessness forever.

It was a statement I was to remember at a later time, as I was to remember seeing him come toward me in that moment.

But now I forgot him as I went forward through another entrance into what looked like a small conservatory and saw the gentle face and short-cropped white hair of Padma above his blue robe.

“Come in, Mr. Olyn,” he said, getting up, “and come along with me.”

He turned and walked out through an archway of purple clematis blooms. I followed him, and found a small courtyard all but filled with the elliptical shape of a sedan air-car. Padma was already climbing into one of the seats facing the controls. He held the door for me.

“Where are we going?” I asked as I got in.

He touched the autopilot panel; the ship rose in the air. He left it to its own navigation and pivoted his chair about to face me.

“To Commander Graeme’s headquarters in the field,” he answered.

His eyes were the same light hazel color, but they seemed to catch and swim with the sunlight striking through the transparent top of the air-car as we reached altitude and began to move horizontally. I could not read them or the expression on his face.

“I see,” I said. “Of course, I know a call from Graeme’s HQ could get to you much faster than I could by groundcar from the same spot. But I hope you aren’t thinking of having him kidnap me or something like that. I have Credentials of Impartiality protecting me as a Newsman, as well as authorizations from both the Friendly and the Exotic worlds. And I don’t intend to be held responsible for any conclusions drawn by Graeme after the conversation the two of us had earlier this morning-alone.”

Padma sat still in his air-car seat, facing me. His hands were folded in his lap together, pale against the blue robe, but with strong sinews showing under the skin of their backs.

“You’re coming with me now by my decision, not Kensie Graeme’s.”

“I want to know why,” I said tensely. “Because,” he said slowly, “you are very dangerous.” And he sat still, looking at me with unwavering eyes.

I waited for him to go on, but he did not. “Dangerous?” I said. “Dangerous to whom?”

“To the future of all of us.”

I stared at him, then I laughed. I was angry.

“Cut it out!” I said.

He shook his head slowly, his eyes never leaving my face. I was baffled by those eyes. Innocent and open as a child’s, but I could not see through them into the man himself.

“All right,” I said. “Tell me, why am I dangerous?“

“Because you want to destroy a vital part of the human race. And you know how.”

There was a short silence. The air-car fled on through the skies without a sound.

“Now that’s an odd notion,” I said slowly and calmly. “I wonder where you got it?”

“From our ontogenetic calculations,” said Padma as calmly as I had spoken. “And it’s not a notion, Tam. As you know yourself.”

“Oh, yes,” I said. “Ontogenetics. I was going to look that up.”

“You did look it up, didn’t you, Tam?”

“Did I?” I said. “I guess I did, at that. It didn’t seem very clear to me, though, as I remember. Something about evolution.”

“Ontogenetics,” said Padma, “is the study of the effect of evolution upon the interacting forces of human society.”

“Am I an interacting force?”

“At the moment and for the past several years, yes,” said Padma. “And possibly for some years into the future. But possibly not.”

“That sounds almost like a threat.”

“In a sense it is.” Padma’s eyes caught the light as I watched them. “You’re capable of destroying yourself as well as others.”

“I’d hate to do that.”

“Then,” said Padma, “you’d better listen to me.”

“Why, of course,” I said. “That’s my business, listening. Tell me all about Ontogenetics-and myself.”

He made an adjustment in the controls, then swung his seat back to face mine once more.

“The human race,” said Padma, “broke up in an evolutionary explosion at the moment in history when interstellar colonization became practical.” He sat watching me. I kept my face attentive. “This happened for reasons stemming from racial instinct which we haven’t completely charted yet, but which was essentially self-protective in nature.”

I reached into my jacket pocket.

“Perhaps I’d better take a few notes,” I said.

“If you want to,” said Padma, unperturbed. “Out of that explosion came cultures individually devoted to single facets of the human personality. The fighting, combative facet became the Dorsai. The facet which surrendered the individual wholly to some faith or other became the Friendly. The philosophical facet created the Exotic culture to which I belong. We call these Splinter Cultures.”

“Oh, yes,” I said. “I know about Splinter Cultures.”

“You know about them, Tam, but you don’t know them.”

“I don’t?”

“No,” said Padma, “because you, like all our ancestors, are from Earth. You’re old full-spectrum man. The Splinter peoples are evolutionarily advanced over you.”

I felt a little twist of bitter anger knot suddenly inside me. His voice woke the echo of Mathias’ voice in my memory.

“Oh? I’m afraid I don’t see that.”

“Because you don’t want to,” said Padma. “If you did, you’d have to admit that they were different from you and had to be judged by different standards.”

“Different? How?”

“Different in a sense that all Splinter people, including myself, understand instinctively, but full-spectrum man has to extrapolate to imagine.” Padma shifted a little in his seat. “You’ll get some idea, Tam, if you imagine a member of a Splinter Culture to be a man like yourself, only with a monomania that shoves him wholly toward being one type of person. But with this difference: instead of all parts of his mental and physical self outside the limits of that monomania being ignored and atrophied as they would be with you—”

I interrupted, “Why specifically with me?”

“With any full-spectrum man, then,” said Padma calmly. “These parts, instead of being atrophied, are altered to agree with and support the monomania, so that we don’t have a sick man, but a healthy, different one.”

“Healthy?” I said, seeing the Friendly Groupman who had killed Dave on New Earth again in my mind’s eye.

“Healthy as a culture. Not as occasional crippled individuals of that culture. But as a culture.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I don’t believe it.”

“But you do, Tam,” said Padma softly. “Unconsciously you do. Because you’re planning to take advantage of the weakness such a culture must have to destroy it.”

“And what weakness is that?”

“The obvious weakness that’s the converse of any strength,” said Padma. “The Splinter Cultures are not viable.”

I must have blinked. I was honestly bewildered.

“Not viable? You mean they can’t live on their own?”

“Of course not,” said Padma. “Faced with an expansion into space, the human race reacted to the challenge of a different environment by trying to adapt to it. It adapted by trying out separately all the elements of its personality, to see which could survive best. Now that all elements-the Splinter Cultures-have survived and adapted, it’s time for them to breed back into each other again, to produce a more hardy, universe-oriented human.”

The air-car began to descend. We were nearing our destination.

“What’s that got to do with me?” I said, at last.

“If you frustrate one of the Splinter Cultures, it can’t adapt on its own as full-spectrum man would do. It will die. And when the race breeds back to a whole, that valuable element will be lost to the race.”

“Maybe it’ll be no loss,” I said, softly in my turn.

“A vital loss,” said Padma. “And I can prove it. You, a full-spectrum man, have in you an element from every Splinter Culture. If you admit this you can identify even with those you want to destroy. I have evidence to show you. Will you look at it?”

The ship touched ground; the door beside me opened, I got out with Padma and found Kensie waiting.

I looked from Padma to Kensie, who stood with us and a head taller than I, two heads taller than OutBond. Kensie looked back down at me with no particular expression. His eyes were not the eyes of his twin brother-but just then, for some reason, I could not meet them.

“I’m a Newsman,” I said. “Of course my mind is open.”

Padma turned and began walking toward the headquarters building. Kensie fell in with us and I think Janol and some of the others came along behind, though I didn’t look back to make sure. We went to the inner office where I had first met Graeme-just Kensie, Padma and myself. There was a file folder on Graeme’s desk. He picked it up, extracted a photocopy of something and handed it to me as I came up to him.

I took it. There was no doubting its authenticity.

It was a memo from Eldest Bright, ranking Elder of the joint government of Harmony and Association, to the Friendly War Chief at the Defense X Center, on Harmony. It was dated two months previously. It was on the single-molecule sheet, where the legend cannot be tampered with or removed once it is on.

Be Informed, in God’s Name-

-That since it does seem the Lord’s Will that our Brothers on St. Marie make no success, it is ordered that henceforth no more replacements or personnel or supplies be sent them. For if our Captain does intend us the victory, surely we shall conquer without further expenditure. And if it be His will that we conquer not, then surely it would be an impiety to throw away the substance of God’s Churches in an attempt to frustrate that Will.

Be it further ordered that our Brothers on St. Marie be spared the knowledge that no further assistance is forthcoming, that they may bear witness to their faith in battle as ever, and God’s Churches be undismayed. Heed this Command, in the Name of the Lord:

By order of him who is called—

Bright

Eldest Among The Chosen

I looked up from the memo. Both Graeme and Padma were watching me.

“How’d you get hold of this?” I said. “No, of course you won’t tell me.” The palms of my hands were suddenly sweating so that the slick material of the sheet in my fingers was slippery. I held it tightly, and talked fast to keep their eyes on my face. “But what about it? We already knew this, everybody knew Bright had abandoned them. This just proves it. Why even bother showing it to me?”

“I thought,” said Padma, “it might move you just a little. Perhaps enough to make you take a different view of things.”

I said, “I didn’t say that wasn’t possible. I tell you a Newsman keeps an open mind at all times. Of course”—I picked my words carefully—”if I could study it—”

“I’d hoped you’d take it with you,” said Padma.

“Hoped?”

“If you dig into it and really understand what Bright means there, you might understand all the Friendlies differently. You might change your mind about them.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “But—”

“Let me ask you to do that much,” said Padma. “Take the memo with you.”

I stood for a moment, with Padma facing me and Kensie looming behind him, then shrugged and put the memo in my pocket.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll take it back to my quarters and think about it. I’ve got a groundcar here somewhere, haven’t I?” And I looked at Kensie.

“Ten kilometers back,” said Kensie. “You wouldn’t get through anyway. We’re moving up for the assault and the Friendlies are maneuvering to meet us.”

“Take my air-car,” said Padma. “The Embassy flags on it will help.”

“All right,” I said.

We went out together toward the air-car. I passed Janol in the outer office and he met my eyes coldly. I did not blame him. We walked to the air-car and I got in.

“You can send the air-car back whenever you’re through with it,” said Padma, as I stepped in through the entrance section of its top. “It’s an Embassy loan to you, Tam. I won’t worry about it.”

“No,” I said. “You needn’t worry.”

I closed the section and touched the controls.

It was a dream of an air-car. It went up into the air as lightly as thought, and in a second I was two thousand feet up and well away from the spot. I made myself calm down, though, before I reached into my pocket and took the memo out.

I looked at it. My hand still trembled a little as I held it.

Here it was in my grasp at last. Proof of the evidence Piers Leaf had heard of back on Earth, and what I had been after from the start. And Padma himself had insisted I carry it away with me.

It was the lever, the Archimedes pry-bar which would move not one world but two. And push the Friendly peoples over the edge to extinction.

27

They were waiting for me. They converged on the air-car as I landed it in the interior square of the Friendlies compound, all four of them with black rifles at the ready.

They were apparently the only ones left. Jamethon seemed to have turned out every other man of his remnant of a battle unit. And these were all men I recognized, case-hardened veterans. One was the Groupman who had been in the office that first night when I had come back from the Exotic camp and stepped in to speak to Jamethon, asking him if he ever ordered his men to kill prisoners. Another was a forty-year-old Force-Leader, the lowest commissioned rank, but acting Major-just as Jamethon, a Commandant, was acting as Expeditionary Field Commander, a position equivalent to Kensie Graeme’s. The other two soldiers were noncommissioned, but similar. I knew them all. Ultrafanatics. And they knew me.

We understood each other.

“I have to see the Commandant,” I said as I got out, before they could begin to question me.

“On what business?” said the Force-Leader. “This air-car hath no business here. Nor thyself.”

I said, “I must see Commandant Black immediately. I wouldn’t be here in a car flying the flags of the Exotic Embassy if it wasn’t necessary.”

They could not take the chance that my reason for seeing Black wasn’t important, and I knew it. They argued a little, but I kept insisting I had to see the Commandant. Finally, the Force-Leader took me across into the same outer office where I had always waited to see Jamethon.

I faced Jamethon alone in the office.

He was putting on his battle harness, as I had seen Graeme putting on his earlier. On Graeme, the harness and the weapons it carried had looked like toys. On Jamethon’s slight frame they looked almost too heavy to bear.

“Mr. Olyn,” he said.

I walked across the room toward him, drawing the memo from my pocket as I came. He turned a little to face me, his fingers sealing the locks on his harness, jingling slightly with his weapons and his harness as he turned.

“You’re taking the field against the Exotics,” I said.

He nodded. I had never been this close to him before. From across the room I would have believed he was holding his usual stony expression, but standing just a few feet from him now I saw the tired wraith of a smile touch the corners of his straight mouth in that dark, young face for a second.

“That is my duty, Mr. Olyn.”

“Some duty,” I said. “When your superiors back on Harmony have already written you off their books.”

“I’ve already told you,” he said calmly. “The Chosen are not betrayed in the Lord, one by another.”

“You’re sure of that?” I said.

Once more I saw that little ghost of a weary smile.

“It’s a subject, Mr. Olyn, on which I am more expert than you.”

I looked into his eyes. They were exhausted but calm. I glanced aside at the desk where the picture of the church, the older man and woman and the young girl stood still.

“Your family?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“It seems to me you’d think of them in a time like this.”

“I think of them quite often.”

“But you’re going to go out and get yourself killed just the same.”

“Just the same,” he said.

“Sure!” I said. “You would!” I had come in calm and in control of myself. But now it was as if a cork had been pulled on all that had been inside me since Dave’s death. I began to shake. “Because that’s the kind of hypocrites you are-all of you Friendlies. You’re so lying, so rotten clear through with your own lies, if someone took them away from you there’d be nothing left. Would there? So you’d rather die now than admit committing suicide like this isn’t the most glorious thing in the universe. You’d rather die than admit that you’re just as full of doubts as anyone else, just as afraid.”

I stepped right up to him. He did not move.

“Who’re you trying to fool?” I said. “Who? I see through you just like the people on all the other worlds do! I know you know what a mumbo-jumbo your United Churches are. I know you know the way of life you sing of through your nose so much isn’t what you claim it is. I know your Eldest Bright and his gang of narrow-minded old men are just a gang of world-hungry tyrants that don’t give a damn for religion or anything as long as they get what they want. I know you know it-and I’m going to make you admit it!”

And I shoved the memo under his nose.

“Read it!”

He took it from me. I stepped back from him, shaking badly as I watched him.

He studied it for a long minute, while I held my breath. His face did not change. Then he handed it back to me.

“Can I give you a ride to meet Graeme?” I said. “We can get across the lines in the OutBond’s air-car. You can get the surrender over with before any shooting breaks out.”

He shook his head. He was looking at me in a particularly level way, with an expression I could not understand.

“What do you mean-no?”

“You’d better stay here,” he said. “Even with ambassadorial flags, that air-car may be shot at over the lines.” And he turned as if he would walk away from me, out the door.

“Where’re you going?” I shouted at him. I got in front of him and pushed the memo before his eyes again. “That’s real. You can’t close your eyes to that!”

He stopped and looked at me. Then he reached out and took my wrist and put my arm and hand with the memo aside. His fingers were thin, but much stronger than I thought, so that I let the arm go down in front of him when I hadn’t intended to do so.

“I know it’s real. I’ll have to warn you not to interfere with me any more, Mr. Olyn. I’ve got to go now.” He stepped past me and walked toward the door.

“You’re a liar!” I shouted after him. He kept on going. I had to stop him. I grabbed the solidograph from his desk and smashed it on the floor.

He turned like a cat and looked at the broken pieces at my feet.

“That’s what you’re doing!” I shouted, pointing at them.

He came back without a word and squatted down and carefully gathered up the pieces one by one. He put them into his pocket and got back to his feet, and raised his face at last to mine. And when I saw his eyes I stopped breathing.

“If my duty,” he said in a low, controlled voice, “were not in this minute to—”

His voice stopped, I saw his eyes staring into me; and slowly I saw them change and the murder that was in them soften into something like wonder.

“Thou,” he said softly, “thou hast no faith?”

I had opened my mouth to speak. But what he said stopped me. I stood as if punched in the stomach, without the breath for words. He stared at me.

“What made you think,” he said, “that that memo would change my mind?”

“You read it!” I said. “Bright wrote you were a losing proposition here, so you weren’t to get any more help. And no one was to tell you for fear you might surrender if you knew.”

“Is that how you read it?” he said. “Like that?”

“How else? How else can you read it?”

“As it is written.” He stood straight facing me now and his eyes never moved from mine. “You have read it without faith, leaving out the Name and the will of the Lord. Eldest Bright wrote not that we were to be abandoned here, but that since our cause was sore tried, we be put in the hands of our Captain and our God. And further he wrote that we should not be told of this, that none here should be tempted to a vain and special seeking of the martyr’s crown. Look, Mr. Olyn. It’s down there in black and white.”

“But that’s not what he meant! That’s not what he meant!”

He shook his head. “Mr. Olyn, I can’t leave you in such delusion.”

I stared at him, for it was sympathy I saw in his face. For me.

“It’s your own blindness that deludes you,” he said. “You see nothing, and so believe no man can see. Our Lord is not just a name, but all things. That’s why we have no ornament in our churches, scorning any painted screen between us and our God. Listen to me, Mr. Olyn. Those churches themselves are but tabernacles of the earth. Our Elders and Leaders, though they are Chosen and Anointed, are still but mortal men. To none of these things or people do we hearken in our faith, but to the very voice of God within us.”

He paused. Somehow I could not speak.

“Suppose it was even as you think,” he went on, even more gently. “Suppose that all you say was a fact, and that our Elders were but greedy tyrants, ourselves abandoned here by their selfish will and set to fulfill a false and prideful purpose. No.” Jamethon’s voice rose. “Let me attest as if it were only for myself. Suppose that you could give me proof that all our Elders lied, that our very Covenant was false. Suppose that you could prove to me”—his face lifted to mine and his voice drove at me—”that all was perversion and falsehood, and nowhere among the Chosen, not even in the house of my father, was there faith or hope! If you could prove to me that no miracle could save me, that no soul stood with me, and that opposed were all the legions of the universe, still I, I alone, Mr. Olyn, would go forward as I have been commanded, to the end of the universe, to the culmination of eternity. For without my faith I am but common earth. But with my faith, there is no power can stay me!”

He stopped speaking and turned about. I watched him walk across the room and out the door.

Still I stood there, as if I had been fastened in place-until I heard from outside, in the square of the compound, the sound of a military air-car starting up.

I broke out of my stasis then and ran out of the building.

As I burst into the square, the military air-car was just taking off. I could see Jamethon and his four hard-shell subordinates in it. And I yelled up into the air after them.

“That’s all right for you, but what about your men?”

They could not hear me. I knew that. Uncontrollable tears were running down my face, but I screamed up into the air after him anyway.

“You’re killing your men to prove your point! Can’t you listen? You’re murdering helpless men!”

Unheeding, the military air-car dwindled rapidly to the west and south, where the converging battle forces waited. And the heavy concrete walls and buildings about the empty compound threw back my words with a hollow, wild and mocking echo.

28

I should have gone to the spaceport. Instead, I got back into the air-car and flew back across the lines looking for Graeme’s Battle Command Center.

I was as little concerned about my own life just then as a Friendly. I think I was shot at once or twice, in spite of the ambassadorial flags on the air-car, but I don’t remember exactly. Eventually I found the Command Center and descended.

Enlisted men surrounded me as I stepped out of the air-car. I showed my Credentials and went up to the battle screen, which had been set up in open air at the edge of shadow from some tall variform oaks. Graeme, Padma and his whole staff were grouped around it, watching the movements of their own and the Friendly troops reported on it. A continual low-voiced discussion of the movements went on, and a steady stream of information came from the communications center fifteen feet off.

The sun slanted steeply through the trees. It was almost noon and the day was bright and warm. No one looked at me for a long time; and then Janol, turning away from the screen, caught sight of me standing off at one side by the flat-topped shape of a tactics computer. His face went cold. He went on about what he was doing. But I must have been looking pretty bad, because after a while he came by with a canteen cup and set it down on the computer top.

“Drink that,” he said shortly, and went off. I picked it up, found it was Dorsai whisky and swallowed it. I could not taste it, but evidently it did me some good, because in a few minutes the world began to sort itself out around me and I began to think again.

I went up to Janol. “Thanks.”

“All right.” He did not look at me, but went on with the papers on the field desk before him.

“Janol,” I said. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“See for yourself,” he said, still bent over his papers.

“I can’t see for myself. You know that. Look…I’m sorry about what I did. But this is my job, too. Can’t you tell me what’s going on now and fight with me afterward?”

“You know I can’t brawl with civilians.” Then his face relaxed. “All right,” he said, straightening up. “Come on.”

He led me over to the battle screen, where Padma and Kensie were standing, and pointed to a sort of small triangle of darkness between two snakelike lines of light. Other spots and shapes of light ringed it about.

“These”—he pointed to the two snakelike lines—“are the Macintok and Sarah Rivers, where they come together, just about ten miles this side of Joseph’s Town. It’s fairly high ground, hills thick with cover, fairly open between them. Good territory for setting up a stubborn defense, bad area to get trapped in.”

“Why?”

He pointed to the two river lines.

“Get backed up in here and you find yourself hung up on high bluffs over the river. There is no easy way across, no cover for retreating troops. It’s nearly all open farmland the rest of the way, from the other sides of the rivers to Joseph’s Town.”

His finger moved back out from the point where the river lines came together, past the small area of darkness and into the surrounding shapes and rings of light.

“On the other hand, the approach to this territory from our position is through open country, too-narrow strips of farmland interspersed with a lot of swamp and marsh. It’s a tight situation for either commander, if we commit to a battle here. The first one who has to backpedal will find himself in trouble in a hurry.”

“Are you going to commit?”

“It depends. Black sent his light armor forward. Now he’s pulling back into the high ground between the rivers. We’re far superior in strength and equipment. There’s no reason for us not to go in after him, as long as he’s trapped himself—” Janol broke off.

“No reason?” I asked.

“Not from a tactical standpoint,” Janol frowned at the screen. “We couldn’t get into trouble unless we suddenly had to retreat. And we wouldn’t do that unless he suddenly acquired some great tactical advantage that’d make it impossible for us to stay there.”

I looked at his profile.

“Such as losing Graeme?” I said.

He transferred his frown to me. “There’s no danger of that.”

There was a certain change in the movement and the voices of the people around us. We both turned and looked.

Everybody was clustering around a screen. We moved in with the crowd and, looking between the shoulders of two of the officers of Graeme’s staff, I saw on the screen the image of a small grassy meadow enclosed by wooded hills. In the center of the meadow, the Friendly flag floated its thin black cross on white background beside a long table on the grass. There were folding chairs on each side of the table, but only one persona Friendly officer, standing on the table’s far side as if waiting. There were the lilac bushes along the edge of the wooded hills where they came down in variform oak and ash to the meadow’s edge; and the lavender blossoms were beginning to brown and darken for their season was almost at an end. So much difference had twenty-four hours made. Off to the left of the screen I could see the gray concrete of a highway.

“I know that place—” I started to say, turning to Janol.

“Quiet!” he said, holding up a finger. Around us, everybody else had fallen still. Up near the front of our group a single voice was talking.

“—it’s a truce table.”

“Have they called?” said the voice of Kensie.

“No, sir.”

“Well, let’s go see.” There was a stir up front. The group began to break up and I saw Kensie and Padma walking off toward the area where the air-cars were parked. I shoved myself through the thinning crowd like a process server, running after them.

I heard Janol shout behind me, but I paid no attention. Then I was up to Kensie and Padma, who turned.

“I want to go with you,” I said.

“It’s all right, Janol,” Kensie said, looking past me. “You can leave him with us.”

“Yes, sir.” I could hear Janol turn and leave.

“So you want to come with me, Mr. Olyn?” Kensie said.

“I know that spot,” I told him. “I drove by it yesterday. The Friendlies were taking tactical measurements all over that meadow and the hills on both sides. They weren’t setting up truce talks.”

Kensie looked at me for a long moment, as if he were taking some tactical measurements himself.

“Come on, then,” he said. He turned to Padma. “You’ll be staying here?”

“It’s a combat zone. I ‘d better not.” Padma turned his unwrinkled face to me. “Good luck, Mr. Olyn,” he said, and walked away. I watched his blue-robed figure glide over the turf for a second, then turned to see Graeme halfway to the nearest military air-car. I hurried after him.

It was a battle car, not luxurious like the OutBond’s, and Kensie did not cruise at two thousand feet, but snaked it between the trees just a few feet above ground. The seats were cramped. His big frame overfilled his, crowding me where I sat. I felt the butt-plate of his spring-pistol grinding into my side with every movement he made on the controls.

We came at last to the edge of the wooded and hilly triangle occupied by the Friendlies and mounted a slope under the cover of the new-leaved variform oaks.

They were massive enough to have killed off most ground cover. Between their pillar-like trunks the ground was shaded and padded with the brown shapes of dead leaves. Near the crest of the hill, we came upon a unit of Exotic troops resting and waiting the orders to advance. Kensie got out of the car and returned the Force-Leader’s salute.

“You’ve seen these tables the Friendlies set up?” Kensie asked.

“Yes, Commander. That officer they’ve got is still standing there. If you go just up over the crest of the slope here, you can see him-and the furniture.”

“Good,” said Kensie. “Keep your men here, Force-Leader. The Newsman and I’ll go take a look.”

He led the way up among the oak trees. At the top of the hill we looked down through about fifty yards more of trees and out into the meadow. It was two hundred yards across, the table right in the middle, the unmoving black figure of the Friendly officer standing on its far side.

“What do you think of it, Mr. Olyn?” asked Kensie, looking down through the trees.

“Why hasn’t somebody shot him?” I asked.

He glanced sideways at me.

“There’s plenty of time to shoot him,” he said, “before he can get back to cover on the far side. If we have to shoot him at all. That wasn’t what I wanted to know. You’ve seen the Friendly commander recently. Did he give you the impression he was ready to surrender?”

“No!” I said.

“I see,” said Kensie.

“You don’t really think he means to surrender? What makes you think something like that?”

“Truce tables are generally set up for the discussion of terms between opposing forces,” he said.

“But he hasn’t asked you to meet him?”

“No.” Kensie watched the figure of the Friendly officer, motionless in the sunlight. “It might be against his principles to call for a discussion, but not to discuss-if we just happened to find ourselves across a table from one another.”

He turned and signaled with his hand. The Force-Leader, who had been waiting down the slope behind us, came up.

“Sir?” he said to Kensie.

“Any Friendly strength in those trees across the way?”

“Four men, that’s all, sir. Our scopes pick out their body heats clear and sharp. They aren’t attempting to hide.”

“I see.” He paused. “Force-Leader.”

“Sir?”

“Be good enough to go down there in the meadow and ask that Friendly officer what this is all about.”

“Yes, sir.”

We stood and watched as the Force-Leader went stiff-legging it down the steep slope between the trees. He crossed the grass-it seemed very slowly; and came up to the Friendly officer.

They stood facing each other. They were talking but there was no way to hear their voices. The flag with its thin black cross whipped in the little breeze that was blowing there. Then the Force-Leader turned and climbed back toward us.

He stopped in front of Kensie and saluted. “Commander,” he said, “the Commander of the Chosen Troops of God will meet with you in the field to discuss a surrender,” He stopped to draw a fresh breath. “If you’ll show yourself at the edge of the opposite woods at the same time; and you can approach the table together.”

“Thank you, Force-Leader,” said Kensie. He looked past his officer at the field and the table. “I think I’ll go down.”

“He doesn’t mean it,” I said.

“Force-Leader,” said Kensie. “Form your men ready, just under the crown of the slope on the back side, here. If he surrenders, I’m going to insist he come back with me to this side immediately.”

“Yes, sir.”

“All this business without a regular call for parley may be because he wants to surrender first and break the news of it to his troops afterward. So get your men ready. If Black intends to present his officers with an accomplished fact, we don’t want to let him down.”

“He’s not going to surrender,” I said.

“Mr. Olyn,” said Kensie, turning to me. “I suggest you go back behind the crest of the hill. The Force-Leader will see you’re taken care of.”

“No,” I said. “I’m going down. If it’s a truce parley to discuss surrender terms, there’s no combat situation involved and I’ve got a perfect right to be there. If it isn’t, what’re you doing going down yourself?”

Kensie looked at me strangely for a moment.

“All right,” he said. “Come with me.”

Kensie and I turned and went down the sharply pitched slope between the trees. Our boot soles slipped until our heels dug in with every step downward. Coming through the lilacs I smelled the faint, sweet scent-almost gone now-of the decaying blossoms.

Across the meadow, directly in line with the table, four figures in black came forward as we came forward. One of them was Jamethon Black.

Kensie and Jamethon saluted each other.

“Commandant Black,” said Kensie.

“Yes, Commander Graeme. I am indebted to you for meeting me here,” said Jamethon.

“My duty and a pleasure, Commandant.”

“I wished to discuss the terms of a surrender.”

“I can offer you,” said Kensie, “the customary terms extended to troops in your position under the Mercenaries’ Code.”

“You misunderstand me, sir,” said Jamethon. “It was your surrender I came here to discuss.”

The flag snapped.

Suddenly I saw the men in black measuring the field here, as I had seen them the day before. They had been right where we were now.

“I’m afraid the misunderstanding is mutual, Commandant,” said Kensie. “I am in a superior tactical position and your defeat is normally certain. I have no need to surrender.”

“You will not surrender?”

“No,” said Kensie strongly.

All,at once I saw the five stakes, in the position the Friendly noncoms, officers and Jamethon were now, and the stake up in front of them fallen down.

“Look out!” I shouted at Kensie-but I was far too late.

Things had already begun to happen. The Force-Leader had jerked back in front of Jamethon and all five of them were drawing their sidearms. I heard the flag snap again, and the sound of its rolling seemed to go on for a long time.

For the first time then I saw a man of the Dorsai in action. So swift was Kensie’s reaction that it was eerily as if he had read Jamethon’s mind in the instant before the Friendlies began to reach for their weapons. As their hands touched their sidearms, he was already in movement forward over the table and his spring-pistol was in his hand. He seemed to fly directly into the Force-Leader and the two of them went down together, but Kensie kept traveling. He rolled on off the Force-Leader, who now lay still in the grass. He came to his knees, fired, and dived forward, rolling again.

The Groupman on Jamethon’s right went down. Jamethon and the remaining two were turned nearly full about now, trying to keep Kensie before them. The two that were left shoved themselves in front of Jamethon, their weapons not yet aimed. Kensie stopped moving as if he had run into a stone wall, came to his feet in a crouch, and fired twice more. The two Friendlies fell apart, one to each side.

Jamethon was facing Kensie now, and Jamethon’s pistol was in his hand and aimed. Jamethon fired, and a light blue streak leaped through the air, but Kensie had dropped again. Lying on his side on the grass, propped on one elbow, he pressed the firing button on his spring-pistol twice.

Jamethon’s sidearm sagged in his hand. He was backed up against the table now, and he put out his free hand to steady himself against the tabletop. He made another effort to lift his sidearm but he could not. It dropped from his hand. He bore more of his weight on the table, half-turning around, and his face came about to look in my direction. His face was as controlled as it had ever been, but there was something different about his eyes as he looked into mine and recognized me-something oddly like the look a man gives a competitor whom he has just beaten and who was no real threat to begin with. A little smile touched the corners of his thin lips. Like the smile of inner triumph.

“Mr. Olyn,” he whispered. And then the life went out of his fece and he fell beside the table.

Nearby explosions shook the ground under my feet. From the crest of the hill behind us the Force-Leader whom Kensie had left there was firing smoke bombs between us and the Friendly side of the meadow. A gray wall of smoke was rising between us and the far hillside, to screen us from the enemy. It towered up the blue sky like some impassable barrier, and under the looming height of it, only Kensie and I were standing.

On Jamethon’s dead face there was a faint smile.

29

In a daze I watched the Friendly troops surrender that same day. It was the one situation in which their officers felt justified in doing so.

Not even their Elders expected subordinates to fight a situation set up by a dead Field Commander for tactical reasons unexplained to his officers. And the live troops remaining were worth more than the indemnity charges for them that the Exotics would make.

I did not wait for the settlements. I had nothing to wait for. One moment the situation on this battlefield had been poised like some great, irresistible wave above all our heads, cresting, curling over and about to break downward with an impact that would reverberate through all the worlds of Man. Now, suddenly, it was no longer above us. There was nothing but a far-flooding silence, already draining away into the records of the past.

There was nothing for me. Nothing.

If Jamethon had succeeded in killing Kensie-even if as a result he had won a practically bloodless surrender of the Exotic troops-I might have done something damaging with the incident of the truce table. But he had only tried, and died, failing. Who could work up emotion against the Friendlies for that?

I took ship back to Earth like a man walking in a dream, asking myself why.

Back on Earth, I told my editors I was not in good shape physically; and they took one look at me and believed me. I took an indefinite leave from my job and sat around the News Services Center Library, at The Hague, searching blindly through piles of writings and reference material on the Friendlies, the Dorsai and the Exotic worlds. For what? I did not know. I also watched the news dispatches from St. Marie concerning the settlement, and drank too much while I watched.

I had the numb feeling of a soldier sentenced to death for failure on duty. Then in the news dispatches came the information that Jamethon’s body would be returned to Harmony for burial; and I realized suddenly it was this I had been waiting for: the unnatural honoring by fanatics of the fanatic who with four henchmen had tried to assassinate the lone enemy commander under a truce flag. Things could still be written.

I shaved, showered, pulled myself together after a fashion and went to see about arrangements for passage to Harmony to cover the burial of Jamethon as a wrap-up.

The congratulations of Piers and word of my appointment to the Guild Council-that had reached me on St. Marie earlier-stood me in good stead. It got me a high-priority seat on the first spaceliner out.

Five days later I was on Harmony in that same little town, called Remembered-of-the-Lord, where Eldest Bright had taken me once before. The buildings in the town were still of concrete and bubble-plastic, unchanged by three years. But the stony soil of the farms about the town had been tilled, as the fields on St. Marie had been tilled when I got to that other world, for Harmony now was just entering the spring of its northern hemisphere. And it was raining as I drove from the spaceport of the town, as it had on St. Marie that first day. But the Friendly fields I saw did not show the rich darkness of the fields of St. Marie, only a thin, hard blackness in the wet that was like the color of Friendly uniforms.

I got to the church just as people were beginning to arrive. Under the dark, draining skies, the interior of the church was almost too dim to let me see my way about, for the Friendlies permit themselves no windows and no artificial lighting in their houses of worship. Gray light, cold wind and rain entered the doorless portal at the back of the church. Through the single rectangular opening in the roof watery sunlight filtered over Jamethon’s body on a platform set up on trestles. A transparent cover had been set up to protect the body from the rain, which was channeled off the open space and ran down a drain in the back wall. But the elder conducting the Death Service and anyone coming up to view the body was expected to stand exposed to sky and weather.

I got in line with the people moving slowly down the central aisle and past the body. To right and left of me the barriers at which the congregation would stand during the service were lost in gloom. The rafters of the steeply pitched roof were hidden in darkness. There was no music, but the low sound of voices individually praying to either side of me in the ranks of barriers and in the line blended into a sort of rhythmic undertone of sadness. Like Jamethon, the people were all very dark here, being of North African extraction. Dark into dark, they blended and were lost about me in the gloom.

I came up and passed at last by Jamethon. He looked as I remembered him. Death had shown no power to change him. He lay on his back, his hands at his sides, and his lips were as firm and straight as ever. Only his eyes were closed.

I was limping noticeably because of the dampness, and as I turned away from the body, I felt my elbow touched. I turned back sharply. I was not wearing my correspondent’s uniform. I was in civilian clothes, so as to be inconspicuous.

I looked down into the face of the young girl in Jamethon’s solidograph. In the gray, rainy light her unlined face was like something from the stained-glass window of an ancient cathedral back on Old Earth.

“You’ve been wounded,” she said in a soft voice to me. “You must be one of the mercenaries who knew him on New Earth, before he was ordered to Harmony. His parents, who are mine as well, would find solace in the Lord by meeting you.”

The wind blew rain down through the overhead opening all about me, and its icy feel sent a chill suddenly shooting through me, freezing me to my very bones.

“No!” I said. “I’m not. I didn’t know him.” And I turned sharply away from her and pushed my way into the crowd, back up the aisle.

After about fifteen feet, I realized what I was doing and slowed down. The girl was already lost in the darkness of the bodies behind me. I made my way more slowly toward the back of the church, where there was a little place to stand before the first ranks of the barriers began. I stood watching the people come in. They came and came, walking in their black clothing with their heads down and talking or praying in low voices.

I stood where I was, a little back from the entrance, half-numbed and dull-minded with the chill about me and the exhaustion I had brought with me from Earth. The voices droned about me. I almost dozed, standing there. I could not remember why I had come.

Then a girl’s voice emerged from the jumble, bringing me back to full consciousness again.

“…he did deny it, but I am sure he is one of those mercenaries who was with Jamethon on New Earth. He limps and can only be a soldier who hath been wounded.”

It was the voice of Jamethon’s sister, speaking with more of the Friendly cant on her tongue than she had used speaking to me, a stranger. I woke fully and saw her standing by the entrance only a few feet from me, half-facing two elder people whom I recognized as the older couple of Jamethon’s solidograph. A bolt of pure, freezing horror shot through me.

“No!” I nearly shouted at them. “I don’t know him. I never knew him. I don’t understand what you’re talking about!” And I turned and bolted out through the entrance of the church into the concealing rain.

I all but ran for about thirty or forty feet. Then I heard no footsteps behind me; I stopped.

I was alone in the open. The day was even darker now and the rain suddenly came down harder. It obscured everything around me with a drumming, shimmering curtain. I could not even see the groundcars in the parking lot toward which I was facing; and for sure they could not see me from the church. I lifted my face up to the downpour and let it beat upon my cheeks and my closed eyelids.

“So,” said a voice from behind me. “You did not know him?”

The words seemed to cut me down the middle, and I felt as a cornered wolf must feel. Like a wolf, I turned.

“Yes, I knew him!” I said.

Facing me was Padma, in a blue robe the rain did not seem to dampen. His empty hands that had never held a weapon in their life were clasped together before him. But the wolf part of me knew that as far as I was concerned, he was armed and a hunter.

“You?” I said. “What are you doing here?”

“It was calculated you would be here,” said Padma softly: “So I am here, too. But why are you here, Tam? Among those people in there, there’s sure to be at least a few fanatics who’ve heard the camp rumors of your responsibility in the matter of Jamethon’s death and the Friendlies’ surrender.”

“Rumors!” I said. “Who started them?”

“You did,” Padma said. “By your actions on St. Marie.” He gazed at me. “Didn’t you know you were risking your life, coming here today?”

I opened my mouth to deny it. Then I realized I had known.

“What if someone should call out to them,” said Padma, “that Tam Olyn, the St. Marie campaign Newsman, is here incognito?”

I looked at him with my wolf-feeling, grimly.

“Can you square it with your Exotic principles if you do?”

“We are misunderstood,” answered Padma calmly. “We hire soldiers to fight for us not because of some moral commandment, but because our emotional perspective is lost if we become involved.”

There was no fear left in me, only a hard, empty feeling.

“Call them then,” I said.

Padma’s strange hazel eyes watched me through the rain.

“If that was all that was needed,” he said, “I could have sent word to them. I wouldn’t have needed to come myself.”

“Why did you come here?” My voice tore at my throat. “What do you on the Exotics care about me?”

“We care for every individual,” said Padma. “But we care more for the race. And you’re still dangerous to it. You’re an unadmitted idealist, Tam, warped to destructive purpose. There is a law of conservation of energy in the pattern of cause and effect just as there is in other sciences. Your destructiveness was frustrated on St. Marie. Now what if it should turn inward to destroy you, or outward against the whole race of man?”

I laughed, and heard the harshness of my laughter.

“What’re you going to do about it?” I said.

“Show you how the knife you hold cuts the hand that holds it as well as what you turn it against. I’ve got news for you, Tam. Kensie Graeme is dead.”

“Dead?” The rain seemed to roar around me suddenly and the parking lot shifted unsubstantially under my feet.

“He was assassinated by three men of the Blue Front in Blauvain five days ago.”

“Assassinated,” I whispered. “Why?”

“Because the war was over,” said Padma. “Because Jamethon’s death and the surrender of the Friendly troops without the preliminary of a war that would tear up the countryside left the civilian population favorably disposed toward our troops. Because the Blue Front found themselves farther from power than ever, as a result of this favorable feeling. They hoped by killing Graeme to provoke his troops into retaliation against the civilian population, so that the St. Marie government would have to order them home to our Exotics, and stand unprotected to face a Blue Front revolt.”

I stared at him.

“All things are interrelated,” said Padma. “Kensie was slated for a final promotion to a desk command back on Mara or Kultis. He and his brother Ian would have been out of the wars for the rest of their professional lives. Because of Jamethon’s death, which allowed the surrender of his troops without fighting, a situation was set up which led the Blue Front to assassinate Kensie. If you and Jamethon had not come into conflict on St. Marie, and Jamethon had not won, Kensie would be alive today. So our calculations show.”

“Jamethon and I?” The breath went dry in my throat without warning, and the rain came down harder.

“Yes,” said Padma. “You were the factor that helped Jamethon to his solution.”

“I helped him?” I said. “I did?”

“He saw through you,” said Padma. “He saw through the revenge-bitter, destructive surface you thought was yourself, to the creative core that was so deep in the bone of you that even your uncle hadn’t been able to eradicate it.”

The rain thundered between us. But Padma’s every word came clearly through it to me.

“I don’t believe you!” I shouted. “I don’t believe he did anything like that!”

“I told you,” said Padma, “you didn’t fully appreciate the evolutionary advances of our Splinter Cultures. Jamethon’s faith was not the kind that can be shaken by outer things. If you had been in feet like your uncle Mathias, he would not even have listened to you. He would have dismissed you as a soulless man. As it was, he thought of you instead as a man possessed, a man speaking with what he would have called Satan’s voice.”

“I don’t believe it!” I yelled.

“You do believe it,” said Padma. “You’ve got no choice except to believe it. Only because of it could Jamethon find his solution.”

“Solution!”

“He was a man ready to die for his faith. But as a commander he found it hard his men should go out to die for no other reasonable cause.” Padma watched me, and the rain thinned for a moment. “But you offered him what he recognized as the Devil’s choice-his life in this world, if he would surrender his faith and his men, to avoid the conflict that would end in his death and theirs.”

“What crazy thinking was that?” I said. Inside the church, the praying had stopped, and a single strong, deep voice was beginning the burial service.

“Not crazy,” said Padma. “The moment he realized this, his answer became simple. All he had to do was begin by denying whatever Satan offered. He must start with the absolute necessity of his own death.”

“And that was a solution?” I tried to laugh but my throat hurt.

“It was the only solution,” said Padma. “Once he decided that, he saw immediately that the one situation in which his men would permit themselves to surrender was if he was dead and they were in an untenable battlefield position, for reasons only he had known.”

I felt the words go through me with a soundless shock.

“But he didn’t mean to die!” I said.

“He left it to his God,” said Padma. “He arranged it so only a miracle could save him.”

“What’re you talking about?” I stared at him. “He set up a truce table with a flag of truce. He took four men—”

“There was no flag. The men were overage martyrdom-seekers.”

“He took four!” I shouted. “Four and one made five. The five of them against Kensie-one man. I stood there by that table and saw. Five against—”

“Tam.”

The single word stopped me. Suddenly I began to be afraid. I did not want to hear what he was about to say. I was afraid I knew what he was going to tell me, that I had known it for some time. And I did not want to hear it, I did not want to hear him say it. The rain grew even stronger, driving upon us both and mercilessly on the concrete, but I heard every word relentlessly through all its sound and noise.

Padma’s voice began to roar in my ears like the rain, and a feeling came over me like the helpless floating sensation that comes in high fever. “Did you think that Jamethon for a minute fooled himself as you deluded yourself? He was a product of a Splinter Culture. He recognized another in Kensie. Did you think that for a minute he thought that, barring a miracle, he and four overage fanatics could kill an armed, alert and ready man of the Dorsai-a man like Kensie Graeme-before they were gunned down and killed themselves?”

Themselves …themselves …themselves …

I rode off a long way on that word from the dark day and the rain. Like the rain and the wind behind the clouds it lifted me and carried me away at last to that high, hard and stony land I had glimpsed when I had asked Kensie Graeme that question about his ever allowing Friendly prisoners to be killed. It was this land I had always avoided, but to it I was come at last.

And I remembered.

From the beginning, I had known inside myself that the fanatic who had killed Dave and the others was not the image of all Friendlies. Jamethon was no casual killer. I had tried to make him into one to shore up my own lie-to keep my eyes averted from the sight of that one man on the sixteen worlds I could not face. And that one man was not the Groupman who had massacred Dave and the others, not even Mathias.

It was myself.

Jamethon was no ordinary fanatic, no more than Kensie was an ordinary soldier, or Padma an ordinary philosopher. They were more than that, as secretly I had known all along, down inside myself where I need not face the knowledge. That was why they had not moved as I planned when I had tried to manipulate them. That was why, that was why.

The high, hard and stony land I had visioned was not only there for the Dorsai. It was there for all of them, a land where the tatters of falseness and illusion were stripped away by the clean cold wind of honest strength and conviction, where pretense drooped and died and all that could live was plain and pure.

It was there for them, for all those who embodied the pure metal of their Splinter Culture. And it was from that pure metal that their real strength came. They were beyond doubt-that was it; and above all skills of mind and body, this was what kept them undefeatable. For a man like Kensie would never be conquered. And Jamethon would never break his faith.

Had Jamethon not told me plainly so himself? Had he not said, “Let me testify for myself alone,” and gone on to tell me that, even if his universe should crumble about him, even if all his God and his religion were proved false, what was in himself would not be touched.

No more, if armies about him retreated, leaving him alone, would Kensie abandon a duty or a post. Alone, he would remain to fight, though other armies came against him; for though they could kill him, they could not conquer him.

Nor, should all Padma’s Exotic calculations and theories be overturned in an instant-proved untrue and groundless-would it move him from his belief in the upward-seeking evolution of the human spirit, in which service he labored.

They walked by right in that high and stony land—all of them. Dorsai, and Friendly, and Exotic. And I had been fool enough to enter it, to try to fight one of them there. No wonder I had been defeated, as Mathias always had said I would be. I had never had a hope of winning.

So I came back to the day and the downpour, like a broken straw of a man with my knees sagging under my own weight. The rain was slackening and Padma was holding me upright. As with Jamethon, I was dully amazed at the strength of his hands.

“Let me go,” I mumbled.

“Where would you go, Tam?” he said.

“Any place,” I muttered. “I’ll get out of it. I’ll go hole up somewhere and get out of it. I’ll give up.” I got my knees straightened finally under me.

“It’s not that easy,” said Padma, letting me go. “An action taken goes on reverberating forever. Cause never ceases its effects. You can’t let go now, Tam. You can only change sides.”

“Sides?” I said. The rain was dwindling fast about us. “What sides?” I stared at him drunkenly.

“The side of the force in man against his own evolution-which was your uncle’s side,” said Padma. “And the evolutionary side, which is ours.” The rain was felling only lightly now and the day was brightening. A little pale sunlight filtered through the thinning clouds to illuminate more strongly the parking space around us. “Both are strong winds bending the fabric of human affairs even while that fabric is being woven. I told you long ago, Tam, that for someone like you there’s no choice but to be effective upon the pattern one way or another. You have choice-not freedom. So, merely decide to turn your effect to the wind of evolution instead of to the force frustrating it.” I shook my head.

“No,” I muttered. “It’s no use. You know that. You saw. I moved heaven and earth and the politics of sixteen worlds against Jamethon-and he still won. I can’t do anything. Just leave me alone.”

“Even if I left you alone, events wouldn’t,” answered Padma. “Tam, open your eyes and look at things as they are. You’re already involved. Listen to me.” His hazel eyes caught what little light there was for a moment. “A force intruded on the pattern on St. Marie, in the shape of a unit warped by personal loss and oriented toward violence. That was you, Tam.”

I tried to shake my head again, but I knew he was right.

“You were blocked in the direction of your conscious effort on St. Marie,” Padma went on, “but the conservations of energies would not be balked.

When you were frustrated by Jamethon, the force you had brought to bear on the situation was not destroyed. It was only transmuted and left the pattern in the unit of another individual, now also warped by personal loss and oriented toward violent effect upon the pattern.”

I wet my lips.

“What other individual?”

“Ian Graeme.”

I stood, staring at him.

“Ian found his brother’s three assassins hiding in a hotel room in Blauvain,” said Padma. “He killed them with his hands-and by so doing he calmed the mercenaries and frustrated the plans of the Blue Front to salvage something out of the situation. But then Ian resigned and went home to the Dorsai. He’s charged now with the same sense of loss and -bitterness you were charged with when you came to St. Marie.” Padma hesitated. “Now he has great causal potential. How it will expend itself within the future pattern remains to be seen.”

He paused again, watching me with his inescapable yellow gaze.

“You see, Tam,” he went on after a moment, “how no one like you can resign from effect upon the fabric of events? I tell you you can only change.” His voice softened. “Do I have to remind you now that you’re still charged-only with a different force instead? You received the full impact and effect of Jamethon’s self-sacrifice to save his men.”

His words were like a fist in the pit of my stomach-a blow as hard as the one I had given Janol Marat when I escaped from Kensie’s camp on St. Marie. In spite of the new, watery sunlight filtering down to us, I began to shiver.

It was so. I could not deny it. Jamethon, in giving his life up for a belief, where I had scorned all beliefs in my plan to twist things as I wanted them, had melted and changed me as lightning melts and changes the uplifted sword-blade that it strikes. I could not deny what had happened to me.

“It’s no use,” I said, still shivering. “It makes no difference. I’m not strong enough to do anything. I tell you, I moved everything against Jamethon, and he won.”

“But Jamethon was wholehearted; and you were fighting against your true nature at the same time you fought him,” said Padma. “Look at me, Tam!”

I looked at him. The hazel magnets of his eyes caught and anchored mine.

“The purpose for which on the Exotics it was calculated I should come to meet you here is still waiting for us,” he said. “You remember, Tam, how in Mark Torre’s office you accused me of hypnotizing you?” I nodded.

“It wasn’t hypnosis-or not quite hypnosis,” he said. “All I did was to help you open a channel between your conscious and unconscious selves. Have you got the courage, after seeing what Jamethon did, to let me help you open it once again?”

His words hung on the air between us; and, balanced on the pinpoint of that moment, I heard the strong, proud-textured voice praying inside the church. I saw the sun trying to pierce through the thinning clouds overhead; and at the same time, in my mind’s eye, I saw the dark walls of my valley as Padma had described them that day long ago back at the Encyclopedia. They were there still, high and close about me, shutting out the sunlight. Only, like a narrow doorway, still ahead of me, was there unshadowed light.

I thought of the place of lightning I had seen when Padma held up his finger to me that time before; and-weak, and broken and defeated as I felt now—the thought of entering that area of battle again filled me with a sick hopelessness. I was not strong enough to face lightning anymore. Maybe I never had been.

“For he hath been a soldier of his people, who are the People of the Lord, and a soldier of the Lord,” the distant, single voice praying from the church came faintly to my ear, “and in no thing did he fail the Lord, who is our Lord, and the Lord of all strength and righteousness. Therefore, let him be taken up from us into the ranks of those who, having shed the mask of life, are blessed and welcomed unto the Lord.”

I heard this, and suddenly the taste of homecoming, the taste of an undeniable return to an eternal home and unshakable certainty in the faith of my forefathers, was strong in my mouth. The ranks of those who would never falter closed comfortingly around me; and I, who also had not faltered, moved into step and went forward with them. In that second, for a second, then, I felt what Jamethon must have felt, faced with me and with the decision of life and death for himself on St. Marie. Only for a moment I felt it, but that was enough.

“Go ahead,” I heard myself saying to Padma.

I saw his finger lifted toward me.

Into darkness, I went-into darkness and fury; a place of lightning, but not of open lightning any Ionger, but roiling murk and cloud and storm and thunder. Tossed and whirled, beaten downward by the rage and violence about me, I battled to lift, to fight my way up into the light and open air above the storm clouds. But my own efforts sent me tumbling, sent me whirling wildly, pitching downward instead of up-and, at last, I understood.

For the storm was my own inner storm, the storm of my making. It was the inner fury of violence and revenge and destruction that I had been building in myself all these years; and as I had turned the strengths of others against them, now it turned my own strength against me, pushing me down and down, ever farther into its darkness, until all light should be lost to me.

Down I went, for its power was greater than mine. Down I went, and down; but when I was lost at last in total darkness, and when I would have given up, I found I could not. Something other in me would not. It kept fighting back and fighting on. And then, I recognized this as well.

It was that which Mathias had never been able to kill in me as a boy. It was all of Earth and upward-striving man. It was Leonidas and his three hundred at Thermopylae. It was the wandering of the Israelites in the wilderness and their crossing of the Red Sea. It was the Parthenon on the Acropolis, white above Athens, and the windowless darkness of my uncle’s house.

It was this in me-the unyielding spirit of all men—which would not yield now. Suddenly, in my battered, storm-beaten spirit, drowning in darkness, something leaped for wild joy. Because abruptly I saw that it was there for me, too-that high, stony land where the air was pure and the rags of pretense and trickery were stripped away by the unrelenting wind of faith.

I had attacked Jamethon in the area of his strength-out of my own inner area of weakness. That was what Padma had meant by saying I had been fighting myself, even while I was fighting Jamethon. That was why I had lost the conflict, pitting my unbelieving desire against his strong belief. But my defeat did not mean I was without a land of inner strength. It was there, it had been there, hidden in me all along!

Now I saw it clearly. And ringing like bells for a victory, then, I thought I heard once more the hoarse voice of Mark Torre, tolling at me in triumph; and the voice of Lisa, who, I saw now, had understood me better than I understood myself and never abandoned me. Lisa. And as I thought of her again, I began to hear them all.

All the millions, the billions of swarming voices—the voices of all human people since man first stood upright and walked on his hind legs. They were around me once more as they had been that day at the Transit Point of the Index Room of the Final Encyclopedia; and they closed about me like wings, bearing me up, up and unconquerable, through the roiling darkness, with the lift of a courage that was cousin to the courage of Kensie, with a faith that was father to the faith of Jamethon, with a search that was brother to the search of Padma.

With that, then, all my Mathias-induced envy and fear of the people of the Younger worlds was washed away from me, once and for all. I saw it, finally and squarely. If they had only one thing in actuality, I had all things in potential. Root stock, basic stock, Earth human that I was, I was part of all of them on the Younger worlds, and there was no one of them there that could not find an echo of themselves in me.

So I burst up at last through the darkness into the light-into the place of my original lightning, the endless void where the real battle lived, the battle of wholehearted men against the ancient, alien dark that would keep us forever animals. And, distantly, as if down at the end of a long tunnel, I saw Padma standing under the strengthening light-and dwindling rain of the parking lot speaking to me.

“Now you see,” he said, “why the Encyclopedia has to have you. Only Mark Torre was able to bring it this far; and only you can finish the job, because the great mass of Earth’s people can’t yet see the vision of the future implicit in its being finished. You, who’ve bridged the gap in yourself between the people of the Splinter Cultures and the Earthborn, can build your vision into the Encyclopedia, so that when it’s done, it can do as much for those who now can’t see, and so begin the remodeling that will come when the Splinter Culture peoples turn back to recombine with Earth’s basic stock into a new, evolved form of man.”

His powerful gaze seemed to soften a little in the strengthening light. His smile grew a little sad.

“You’ll live to see more of it than I will. Goodbye, Tam.”

Without warning, then, I did see it. Suddenly it flowed together and clicked in my mind, the vision and the Encyclopedia as one reality. And, in the same moment, my coursing mind leaped full-throated onto the track of the opposition I would face in bringing about that reality.

Already they began to take shape in my head, out of my knowledge of my own world-the faces and the methods I would encounter. My mind raced on, caught up with them, and began to run on into plans ahead of them. Even now, I saw how I would work differently than had Mark Torre. I would keep his name as our emblem and only pretend the Encyclopedia continued to build on according to his forelaid plans for it. I would name myself as only one of a Board of Governors, who all in theory would have equal powers with me.

But actually I would be directing them, subtly, as I could; and I would be free, therefore, of the need for Torre’s cumbersome protections against madmen like the one who had killed him. I would be free to move about Earth, even while I was directing the building, to locate and frustrate the efforts of those who would be trying to work against it. Already I could see now how I would begin to go about it.

But Padma was turning to leave me. I could not let him go like that. With an effort I tore my attention away from the future and came back to the day, the fading rain and the brightening light.

“Wait,” I said. He stopped and turned back. It was hard for me to say it now that I had come to it. “You …” My tongue stumbled. “You didn’t give up. You had faith in me, all this time.”

“No,” he said. I blinked at him, but he shook his head.

“I had to believe the results of my calculations.” He smiled a little, almost ruefully. “And my calculations gave no real hope for you. Even at the locus point of Donal Graeme’s party of Freiland, with five years’ added information from the Encyclopedia, the possibility of your saving yourself seemed too small to plan for. Even on Mara, when we healed you, the calculations offered no hope for you.”

“But-you stayed by me… I stammered, staring at him.

“Not I. None of us. Only Lisa,” he said. “She never gave you up from the first moment in Mark Torre’s office. She told us she had felt something—something like a spark from you-when you were talking to her during the tour, even before you got to the Transit Room. She believed in you even after you turned her down at the Graeme locus; and when we set up to heal you on Mara, she insisted on being part of the process, so that we could bind her emotionally to you.”

“Bind.” The words made no sense.

“We sealed her emotional involvement with you, during the same process by which we repaired you. It made no difference to you, but it tied her to you irrevocably. Now, if she should ever lose you, she would suffer as greatly, or more greatly, than Ian Graeme suffered his loss of a mirror-twin at Kensie’s death.”

He stopped and stood watching me. But I still fumbled.

“I still don’t-understand,” I said. “You say it didn’t affect me, what you did to her. What good, then—”

“None, as far as we could calculate then, or we’ve been able to interpret since. If she was bound to you, you were of course bound to her, as well. But it was like fastening a song-sparrow by a thread to the finger of a giant, as far as the relative massivity of your effect on the pattern, compared to hers. Only Lisa thought it would do some good.”

He turned.

“Goodbye, Tam,” he said. Through the still misty, but brightening air I saw him walking alone toward the church, from which came the voice of the single speaker within, now announcing the number of the final hymn.

He left me standing, dumbfounded. But then, suddenly, I laughed out loud, because I suddenly realized I was wiser than he. Not all his Exotic calculations had been able to uncover why Lisa’s binding herself to me could save me. But it had.

For it surged up in me now, my own strong love for her; and I recognized that all along my lonely self had returned that love of Lisa’s, but would not admit it to myself. And for the sake of that love, I had wanted to live. A giant may carry a songbird without effort against all the beating of little wings. But if he cares for the creature he is tied to, he may be made to turn aside out of love where he could not be turned by force.

So, along that invisible cord binding us together, Lisa’s faith had run to join with my faith, and I could not extinguish my own without extinguishing hers as well. Why else had I gone to her when she called me to come at Mark Torre’s assassination? Even then I was turning to compromise my path with hers.

Seeing this now, the whole needle of my life’s compass abruptly spun right about, a hundred and eighty degrees, and I saw everything suddenly straight and plain and simple in a new light. Nothing was changed for me, nothing of my hunger and my ambition and my drive, except that I was turned right about. I laughed out loud again at the simplicity of it; for I saw now that one aim was merely the converse of the other.

DESTRUCT—CONSTRUCT—CONSTRUCT

—the clear and simple answer that I had longed for all those years to refute Mathias in his emptiness. It was this which I was born to do, this which was in the Parthenon, and the Encyclopedia, and all the sons of men.

I had been born, as were we all-even Mathias—if we did not go astray, a maker rather than a smasher, a creator, not a destroyer. Now, like one clean piece of metal, hammered free finally of impurities, I chimed clear through every atom and fiber of my being to the deep, unchanging frequency of the one true purpose in living. Dazed and weak, I turned away at last from the church, went to my car and got in. Now the rain was almost over and the sky was brightening faster. The faint mist of moisture fell, it seemed, more kindly; and the air was fresh and new.

I opened the car windows as I pulled out of the lot into the long road back to the spaceport. And through the open window beside me I heard them beginning to sing the final hymn inside the church.

It was the Battle Hymn of the Friendly Soldiers that they sang. As I drove away down the road the voices seemed to follow me strongly, not sounding slowly and mournfully as if in sadness and farewell, but strongly and triumphantly as in a marching song on the lips of those taking up a route at the beginning of a new day.

Soldier, ask not-now or ever!

Where to war your banners go! …

The singing followed me as I drove away. And as I got farther into the distance, the voices seemed to blend at last until they sounded like one voice alone, powerfully singing. Ahead the clouds were breaking. With the sun shining through, the patches of blue sky were like bright flags waving, like the banners of an army, marching forever forward into lands unknown.

I watched them as I drove forward toward where they blended at last into open sky; and for a long time I heard the singing behind me, as I drove to the spaceport and the ship for Earth and Lisa that waited in the sunlight for me there.

THE DOORS OF HIS FACE

… AND THE LAMPS OF HIS MOUTH

Roger Zelazny

I’m a baitman. No one is born a baitman, except in a French novel where everyone is. (In fact, I think that’s the title, We are All Bait. Pfft! ) How I got that way is barely worth the telling and has nothing to do with neo-exes, but the days of the beast deserve a few words, so here they are.

The Lowlands of Venus lie between the thumb and forefinger of the continent known as Hand. When you break into Cloud Alley it swings its silverblack bowling ball toward you without a warning. You jump then, inside that firetailed tenpin they ride you down in, but the straps keep you from making a fool of yourself. You generally chuckle afterwards, but you always jump first.

Next, you study Hand to lay its illusion and the two middle fingers become dozen-ringed archipelagoes as the outers resolve into greengray peninsulas; the thumb is too short, and curls like the embryo tail of Cape Horn.

You suck pure oxygen, sigh possibly, and begin the long topple to the Lowlands.

There, you are caught like an infield fly at the Lifeline landing area—so named because of its nearness to the great delta in the Eastern Bay—located between the first peninsula and “thumb.” For a minute it seems as if you’re going to miss Lifeline and wind up as canned seafood, but afterwards—shaking off the metaphors—you descend to scorched concrete and present your middle-sized telephone directory of authorizations to the short, fat man in the gray cap. The papers show that you are not subject to mysterious inner rottings and etcetera. He then smiles you a short, fat, gray smile and motions you toward the bus which hauls you to the Reception Area. At the R.A. you spend three days proving that, indeed, you are not subject to mysterious inner rottings and etcetera.

Boredom, however, is another rot. When your three days are up, you generally hit Lifeline hard, and it returns the compliment as a matter of reflex. The effects of alcohol in variant atmospheres is a subject on which the connoisseurs have written numerous volumes, so I will confine my remarks to noting that a good binge is worthy of at least a week’s time and often warrants a lifetime study.

I had been a student of exceptional promise (strictly undergraduate) for going on two years when the Bright Water fell through our marble ceiling and poured its people like targets into the city.

Pause. The Worlds Almanac re Lifeline: ” … Port city on the eastern coast of Hand. Employees of the Agency for Non-terrestrial Research comprise approximately 85% of its 100,000 population (2010 Census). Its other residents are primarily personnel maintained by several industrial corporations engaged in basic research. Independent marine biologists, wealthy fishing enthusiasts, and waterfront entrepreneurs make up the remainder of its inhabitants.”

I turned to Mike Dabis, a fellow entrepreneur, and commented on the lousy state of basic research.

“Not if the mumbled truth be known.”

He paused behind his glass before continuing the slow swallowing process calculated to obtain my interest and a few oaths, before he continued.

“Carl,” he finally observed, poker playing, “they’re shaping Tensquare.”

I could have hit him. I might have refilled his glass with sulfuric acid and looked on with glee as his lips blackened and cracked. Instead, I grunted a noncommittal.

“Who’s fool enough to shell out fifty grand a day? ANR?”

He shook his head.

“Jean Luharich,” he said, “the girl with the violet contacts and fifty or sixty perfect teeth. I understand her eyes are really brown.”

“Isn’t she selling enough face cream these days?”

He shrugged.

“Publicity makes the wheels go ‘round. Luharich Enterprises jumped sixteen points when she picked up the Sun Trophy. You ever play golf on Mercury?”

I had, but I overlooked it and continued to press.

“So she’s coming here with a blank check and a fishhook?”

“Bright Water, today,” he nodded. “Should be down by now. Lots of cameras. She wants an Ikky, bad.”

“Hmm,” I hmmed. “How bad?”

“Sixty day contract, Tensquare. Indefinite extension clause. Million and a half deposit,” he recited.

“You seem to know a lot about it.”

“I’m Personnel Recruitment. Luharich Enterprises approached me last month. It helps to drink in the right places.

“Or own them.”

He smirked, after a moment.

I looked away, sipping my bitter brew. After awhile I swallowed several things and asked Mike what he expected to be asked, leaving myself open for his monthly temperance lecture.

“They told me to try getting you,” he mentioned. “When’s the last time you sailed?”

“Month and a half ago. The Corning.”

“Small stuff,” he snorted. “When have you been under, yourself?”

“It’s been awhile.”

“It’s been over a year, hasn’t it? That time you got cut by the screw, under the Dolphin?”

I turned to him.

“I was in the river last week, up at Angleford where the currents are strong. I can still get around.”

“Sober,” he added.

“I’d stay that way,” I said, “on a job like this.”

A doubting nod.

“Straight union rates. Triple time for extraordinary circumstances,” he narrated. “Be at Hangar Sixteen with your gear, Friday morning, five hundred hours. We push off Saturday, daybreak.”

“You’re sailing?”

“I’m sailing.”

“How come?”

“Money.”

“Ikky guano.”

“The bar isn’t doing so well and baby needs new minks.”

“I repeat—”

” … And I want to get away from baby, renew my contact with basics—fresh air, exercise, make cash … “

“All right, sorry I asked.”

I poured him a drink, concentrating on H_2SO_4, but it didn’t transmute. Finally I got him soused and went out into the night to walk and think things over.

Around a dozen serious attempts to land Ichthyform Leviosaurus Levianthus, generally known as “Ikky,” had been made over the past five years. When Ikky was first sighted, whaling techniques were employed. These proved either fruitless or disastrous, and a new procedure was inaugurated. Tensquare was constructed by a wealthy sportsman named Michael Jandt, who blew his entire roll on the project.

After a year on the Eastern Ocean, he returned to file bankruptcy. Carlton Davits, a playboy fishing enthusiast, then purchased the huge raft and laid a wake for Ikky’s spawning grounds. On the nineteenth day out he had a strike and lost one hundred and fifty bills’ worth of untested gear, along with one Ichthyform Levianthus. Twelve days later, using tripled lines, he hooked, narcotized, and began to hoist the huge beast. It awakened then, destroyed a control tower, killed six men, and worked general hell over five square blocks of Tensquare. Carlton was left with partial hemiplegia and a bankruptcy suit of his own. He faded into waterfront atmosphere and Tensquare changed hands four more times, with less spectacular but equally expensive results.

Finally, the big raft, built only for one purpose was purchased at auction by ANR for “marine research.” Lloyd’s still won’t insure it, and the only marine research it has ever seen is an occasional rental at fifty bills a day—to people anxious to tell Leviathan fish stories. I’ve been baitman on three of the voyages, and I’ve been close enough to count Ikky’s fangs on two occasions. I want one of them to show my grandchildren, for personal reasons.

I faced the direction of the landing area and resolved a resolve.

“You want me for local coloring, gal. It’ll look nice on the feature page and all that. But clear this—If anyone gets you an Ikky, it’ll be me. I promise.”

I stood in the empty Square. The foggy towers of Lifeline shared their mists.

Shoreline a couple eras ago, the western slope above Lifeline stretches as far as forty miles inland in some places. Its angle of rising is not a great one, but it achieves an elevation of several thousand feet before it meets the mountain range which separates us from the Highlands. About four miles inland and five hundred feet higher than Lifeline are set most of the surface airstrips and privately owned hangars. Hangar Sixteen houses Cal’s Contract Cab, hop service, shore to ship. I do not like Cal, but he wasn’t around when I climbed from the bus and waved to a mechanic.

Two of the hoppers tugged at the concrete, impatient beneath flywing haloes. The one on which Steve was working belched deep within its barrel carburetor and shuddered spasmodically.

“Bellyache?” I inquired.

“Yeah, gas pains and heartburn.”

He twisted setscrews until it settled into an even keening, and turned to me.

“You’re for out?”

I nodded.

“Tensquare. Cosmetics. Monsters. Stuff like that.”

He blinked into the beacons and wiped his freckles. The temperature was about twenty, but the big overhead spots served a double purpose.

“Luharich,” he muttered. “Then you are the one. There’s some people want to see you.”

“What about?”

“Cameras. Microphones. Stuff like that.”

“I’d better stow my gear. Which one am I riding?”

He poked the screwdriver at the other hopper.

“That one. You’re on video tape now, by the way. They wanted to get you arriving.”

He turned to the hangar, turned back.

“Say ‘cheese.’ They’ll shoot the close close-ups later.”

I said something other than “cheese.” They must have been using telelens and been able to read my lips, because that part of the tape was never shown.

I threw my junk in the back, climbed into a passenger seat, and lit a cigarette. Five minutes later, Cal himself emerged from the office Quonset, looking cold. He came over and pounded on the side of the hopper. He jerked a thumb back at the hangar.

“They want you in there!” he called through cupped hands. “Interview!”

“The show’s over!” I yelled back. “Either that, or they can get themselves another baitman!”

His rustbrown eyes became nailheads under blond brows and his glare a spike before he jerked about and stalked off. I wondered how much they had paid him to be able to squat in his hangar and suck juice from his generator.

Enough, I guess, knowing Cal. I never liked the guy, anyway.

Venus at night is a field of sable waters. On the coasts, you can never tell where the sea ends and the sky begins. Dawn is like dumping milk into an inkwell. First, there are erratic curdles of white, then streamers. Shade the bottle for a gray colloid, then watch it whiten a little more. All of a sudden you’ve got day. Then start heating the mixture.

I had to shed my jacket as we flashed out over the bay. To our rear, the skyline could have been under water for the way it waved and rippled in the heatfall. A hopper can accommodate four people (five, if you want to bend Regs and underestimate weight), or three passengers with the sort of gear a baitman uses. I was the only fare, though, and the pilot was like his machine. He hummed and made no unnecessary noises. Lifeline turned a somersault and evaporated in the rear mirror at about the same time Tensquare broke the fore-horizon. The pilot stopped humming and shook his head.

I leaned forward. Feelings played flopdoodle in my guts. I knew every bloody inch of the big raft, but the feelings you once took for granted change when their source is out of reach. Truthfully, I’d had my doubts I’d ever board the hulk again. But now, now I could almost believe in predestination. There it was!

A tensquare football field of a ship. A-powered. Flat as a pancake, except for the plastic blisters in the middle and the “Rooks” fore and aft, port and starboard.

The Rook towers were named for their corner positions—and any two can work together to hoist, co-powering the graffles between them. The graffles—half gaff, half grapple—can raise enormous weights to near water level; their designer had only one thing in mind, though, which accounts for the gaff half. At water level, the Slider has to implement elevation for six to eight feet before the graffles are in a position to push upward, rather than pulling.

The Slider, essentially, is a mobile room—a big box capable of moving in any of Tensquare’s crisscross groovings and “anchoring” on the strike side by means of a powerful electromagnetic bond. Its winches could hoist a battleship the necessary distance, and the whole craft would tilt, rather than the Slider come loose, if you want any idea of the strength of that bond.

The Slider houses a section operated control indicator which is the most sophisticated “reel” ever designed. Drawing broadcast power from the generator beside the center blister, it is connected by shortwave with the sonar room, where the movements of the quarry are recorded and repeated to the angler seated before the section control.

The fisherman might play his “lines” for hours, days even, without seeing any more than metal and an outline on the screen. Only when the beast is graffled and the extensor shelf, located twelve feet below waterline, slides out for support and begins to aid the winches, only then does the fisherman see his catch rising before him like a fallen Seraph. Then, as Davits learned, one looks into the Abyss itself and is required to act. He didn’t, and a hundred meters of unimaginable tonnage, undernarcotized and hurting, broke the cables of the winch, snapped a graffle, and took a half-minute walk across Tensquare.

We circled till the mechanical flag took notice and waved us on down. We touched beside the personnel hatch and I jettisoned my gear and jumped to the deck.

“Luck,” called the pilot as the door was sliding shut. Then he danced into the air and the flag clicked blank.

I shouldered my stuff and went below.

Signing in with Malvern, the de facto captain, I learned that most of the others wouldn’t arrive for a good eight hours. They had wanted me alone at Cal’s so they could pattern the pub footage along twentieth-century cinema lines.

Open: landing strip, dark. One mechanic prodding a contrary hopper. Stark-o-vision shot of slow bus pulling in. Heavily dressed baitman descends, looks about, limps across field. Close-up: he grins. Move in for words: “Do you think this is the time? The time he will be landed?” Embarrassment, taciturnity, a shrug. Dub something.—“I see. And why do you think Miss Luharich has a better chance than any of the others? Is it because she’s better equipped? [Grin.] Because more is known now about the creature’s habits than when you were out before? Or is it because of her will to win, to be a champion? Is it any one of these things, or is it all of them?” Reply: “Yeah, all of them.”

“—Is that why you signed on with her? Because your instincts say, This one will be it?” Answer: “She pays union rates. I couldn’t rent that damned thing myself. And I want in.” Erase. Dub something else. Fade-out as he moves toward hopper, etcetera.

“Cheese,” I said, or something like that, and took a walk around Tensquare, by myself.

I mounted each Rook, checking out the controls and the underwater video eyes. Then I raised the main lift.

Malvern had no objections to my testing things this way. In fact, he encouraged it. We had sailed together before and our positions had even been reversed upon a time. So I wasn’t surprised when I stepped off the lift into the Hopkins Locker and found him waiting. For the next ten minutes we inspected the big room in silence, walking through its copper coil chambers soon to be Arctic.

Finally, he slapped a wall.

“Well, will we fill it?”

I shook my head.

“I’d like to, but I doubt it. I don’t give two hoots and a damn who gets credit for the catch, so long as I have a part in it. But it won’t happen. That gal’s an egomaniac. She’ll want to operate the Slider, and she can’t.”

“You ever meet her?”

“Yeah.”

“How long ago?”

“Four, five years.”

“She was a kid then. How do you know what she can do now?”

“I know. She’ll have learned every switch and reading by this time. She’ll be up on all theory. But do you remember one time we were together in the starboard Rook, forward, when Ikky broke water like a porpoise?”

“How could I forget?”

“Well?”

He rubbed his emery chin.

“Maybe she can do it, Carl, She’s raced torch ships and she’s scubaed in bad waters back home.” He glanced in the direction of invisible Hand. “And she’s hunted in the Highlands. She might be wild enough to pull that horror into her lap without flinching.

” … For Johns Hopkins to foot the bill and shell out seven figures for the corpus,” he added. “That’s money, even to a Luharich.”

I ducked through a hatchway.

“Maybe you’re right, but she was a rich witch when I knew her.

“And she wasn’t blonde,” I added, meanly.

He yawned.

“Let’s find breakfast.”

We did that.

When I was young I thought that being born a sea creature was the finest choice Nature could make for anyone. I grew up on the Pacific coast and spent my summers on the Gulf or the Mediterranean. I lived months of my life negotiating coral, photographing trench dwellers, and playing tag with dolphins. I fished everywhere there are fish, resenting the fact that they can go places I can’t. When I grew older I wanted bigger fish, and there was nothing living that I knew of, excepting a Sequoia, that came any bigger than Ikky. That’s part of it …

I jammed a couple of extra rolls into a paper bag and filled a thermos with coffee. Excusing myself, I left the galley and made my way to the Slider berth. It was just the way I remembered it. I threw a few switches and the shortwave hummed.

“That you, Carl?”

“That’s right, Mike. Let me have some juice down here, you double-crossing rat.”

He thought it over, then I felt the hull vibrate as the generators cut in. I poured my third cup of coffee and found a cigarette.

“So why am I a double-crossing rat this time?” came his voice again.

“You knew about the cameramen at Hangar Sixteen?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’re a double-crossing rat. The last thing I want is publicity. ‘He who fouled up so often before is ready to try it, nobly, once more.’ I can read it now.”

“You’re wrong. The spotlight’s only big enough for one, and she’s prettier than you.”

My next comment was cut off as I threw the elevator switch and the elephant ears flapped above me. I rose, settling flush with the deck. Retracting the lateral rail, I cut forward into the groove. Amidships, I stopped at a juncture, dropped the lateral, and retracted the longitudinal rail.

I slid starboard, midway between the Rooks, halted, and threw on the coupler.

I hadn’t spilled a drop of coffee.

“Show me pictures.”

The screen glowed. I adjusted and got outlines of the bottom.

“Okay.”

I threw a Status Blue switch and he matched it. The light went on.

The winch unlocked. I aimed out over the waters, extended the arm, and fired a cast.

“Clean one,” he commented.

“Status Red. Call strike.” I threw a switch.

“Status Red.”

The baitman would be on his way with this, to make the barbs tempting.

It’s not exactly a fishhook. The cables bear hollow tubes; the tubes convey enough dope for any army of hopheads; Ikky takes the bait, dandled before him by remote control, and the fisherman rams the barbs home.

My hands moved over the console, making the necessary adjustments. I checked the narco-tank reading. Empty. Good, they hadn’t been filled yet. I thumbed the Inject button.

“In the gullet,” Mike murmured.

I released the cables. I played the beast imagined. I let him run, swinging the winch to simulate his sweep.

I had the air conditioner on and my shirt off and it was still uncomfortably hot, which is how I knew that morning had gone over into noon. I was dimly aware of the arrivals and departures of the hoppers. Some of the crew sat in the “shade” of the doors I had left open, watching the operation. I didn’t see Jean arrive or I would have ended the session and gotten below.

She broke my concentration by slamming the door hard enough to shake the bond.

“Mind telling me who authorized you to bring up the Slider?” she asked.

“No one,” I replied. “I’ll take it below now.”

“Just move aside.”

I did, and she took my seat. She was wearing brown slacks and a baggy shirt and she had her hair pulled back in a practical manner. Her cheeks were flushed, but not necessarily from the heat. She attacked the panel with a nearly amusing intensity that I found disquieting.

“Status Blue,” she snapped, breaking a violet fingernail on the toggle.

I forced a yawn and buttoned my shirt slowly. She threw a side glance my way, checked the registers, and fired a cast.

I monitored the lead on the screen. She turned to me for a second.

“Status Red,” she said levelly.

I nodded my agreement.

She worked the winch sideways to show she knew how. I didn’t doubt she knew how and she didn’t doubt that I didn’t doubt, but then—

“In case you’re wondering,” she said, “you’re not going to be anywhere near this thing. You were hired as a baitman, remember? Not a Slider operator! A baitman! Your duties consist of swimming out and setting the table for our friend the monster. It’s dangerous, but you’re getting well paid for it. Any questions?”

She squashed the Inject button and I rubbed my throat.

“Nope,” I smiled, “but I am qualified to run that thingamajigger—and if you need me I’ll be available, at union rates.”

“Mister Davits,” she said, “I don’t want a loser operating this panel.”

“Miss Luharich, there has never been a winner at this game.”

She started reeling in the cable and broke the bond at the same time, so that the whole Slider shook as the big yo-yo returned. We skidded a couple of feet backward. She raised the laterals and we shot back along the groove. Slowing, she transferred rails and we jolted to a clanging halt, then shot off at a right angle. The crew scrambled away from the hatch as we skidded onto the elevator.

“In the future, Mister Davits, do not enter the Slider without being ordered,” she told me.

“Don’t worry. I won’t even step inside if I am ordered,” I answered. “I signed on as a baitman. Remember? If you want me in here, you’ll have to ask me.”

“That’ll be the day,” she smiled.

I agreed, as the doors closed above us. We dropped the subject and headed in our different directions after the Slider came to a halt in its berth. She did say “good day,” though, which I thought showed breeding as well as determination, in reply to my chuckle.

Later that night Mike and I stoked our pipes in Malvern’s cabin. The winds were shuffling waves, and a steady spattering of rain and hail overhead turned the deck into a tin roof.

“Nasty,” suggested Malvern.

I nodded. After two bourbons the room had become a familiar woodcut, with its mahogany furnishings (which I had transported from Earth long ago on a whim) and the dark walls, the seasoned face of Malvern, and the perpetually puzzled expression of Dabis set between the big pools of shadow that lay behind chairs and splashed in cornets, all cast by the tiny table light and seen through a glass, brownly.

“Glad I’m in here.”

“What’s it like underneath on a night like this?”

I puffed, thinking of my light cutting through the insides of a black diamond, shaken slightly. The meteor-dart of a suddenly illuminated fish, the swaying of grotesque ferns, like nebulae-shadow, then green, then gone—swam in a moment through my mind. I guess it’s like a spaceship would feel, if a spaceship could feel, crossing between worlds—and quiet, uncannily, preternaturally quiet; and peaceful as sleep.

“Dark,” I said, “and not real choppy below a few fathoms.”

“Another eight hours and we shove off,” commented Mike.

“Ten, twelve days, we should be there,” noted Malvern.

“What do you think Ikky’s doing?”

“Sleeping on the bottom with Mrs. Ikky if he has any brains.”

“He hasn’t. I’ve seen ANR’s skeletal extrapolation from the bones that have washed up—”

“Hasn’t everyone?”

” … Fully fleshed, he’d be over a hundred meters long. That right, Carl?”

I agreed.

” … Not much of a brain box, though, for his bulk.”

“Smart enough to stay out of our locker.”

Chuckles, because nothing exists but this room, really. The world outside is an empty, sleet drummed deck. We lean back and make clouds.

“Boss lady does not approve of unauthorized fly fishing.”

“Boss lady can walk north till her hat floats.”

“What did she say in there?”

“She told me that my place, with fish manure, is on the bottom.”

“You don’t Slide?”

“I bait.”

“We’ll see.”

“That’s all I do. If she wants a Slideman she’s going to have to ask nicely.”

“You think she’ll have to?”

“I think she’ll have to.”

“And if she does, can you do it?”

“A fair question,” I puffed. “I don’t know the answer, though.”

I’d incorporate my soul and trade forty percent of the stock for the answer. I’d give a couple years off my life for the answer. But there doesn’t seem to be a lineup of supernatural takers, because no one knows. Supposing when we get out there, luck being with us, we find ourselves an Ikky? Supposing we succeed in baiting him and get lines on him. What then? If we get him shipside, will she hold on or crack up? What if she’s made of sterner stuff than Davits, who used to hunt sharks with poison-darted air pistols? Supposing she lands him and Davits has to stand there like a video extra.

Worse yet, supposing she asks for Davits and he still stands there like a video extra or something else—say, some yellowbellied embodiment named Cringe?

It was when I got him up above the eight-foot horizon of steel and looked out at all that body, sloping on and on till it dropped out of sight like a green mountain range … And that head. Small for the body, but still immense. Fat, craggy, with lidless roulettes that had spun black and red since before my forefathers decided to try the New Continent. And swaying.

Fresh narco-tanks had been connected. It needed another shot, fast. But I was paralyzed.

It had made a noise like God playing a Hammond organ …

I don’t know if seeing is even the same process in eyes like those. I doubt it. Maybe I was just a gray blur behind a black rock, with the plexi-reflected sky hurting its pupils. But it fixed on me. Perhaps the snake doesn’t really paralyze the rabbit, perhaps it’s just that rabbits are cowards by constitution. But it began to struggle and I still couldn’t move, fascinated.

Fascinated by all that power, by those eyes, they found me there fifteen minutes later, a little broken about the head and shoulders, the Inject still unpushed.

And I dream about those eyes. I want to face them once more, even if their finding takes forever. I’ve got to know if there’s something inside me that sets me apart from a rabbit, from notched plates of reflexes and instincts that always fall apart in exactly the same way whenever the proper combination is spun.

Looking down, I noticed that my hand was shaking. Glancing up, I noticed that no one else was noticing.

I finished my drink and emptied my pipe. It was late and no songbirds were singing.

I sat whittling, my legs hanging over the aft edge, the chips spinning down into the furrow of our wake. Three days out. No action.

“You!”

“Me?”

“You.”

Hair like the end of the rainbow, eyes like nothing in nature, fine teeth. “Hello.”

“There’s a safety rule against what you’re doing, you know.”

“I know. I’ve been worrying about it all morning.” A delicate curl climbed my knife then drifted out behind us. It settled into the foam and was plowed under. I watched her reflection in my blade, taking a secret pleasure in its distortion.

“Are you baiting me?” she finally asked.

I heard her laugh then, and turned, knowing it had been intentional.

“What, me?”

“I could push you off from here, very easily.”

“I’d make it back.”

“Would you push me off, then—some dark night, perhaps?”

“They’re all dark, Miss Luharich. No, I’d rather make you a gift of my carving.”

She seated herself beside me then, and I couldn’t help but notice the dimples in her knees. She wore white shorts and a halter and still had an offworld tan to her which was awfully appealing. I almost felt a twinge of guilt at having planned the whole scene, but my right hand still blocked her view of the wooden animal. “Okay, I’ll bite. What have you got for me?”

“Just a second. It’s almost finished.”

Solemnly, I passed her the wooden jackass I had been carving. I felt a little sorry and slightly jackass-ish myself, but I had to follow through. I always do. The mouth was split into a braying grin. The ears were upright.

She didn’t smile and she didn’t frown. She just studied it.

“It’s very good,” she finally said, “like most things you do—and appropriate, perhaps.”

“Give it to me.” I extended a palm.

She handed it back and I tossed it out over the water. It missed the white water and bobbed for awhile like a pigmy seahorse.

“Why did you do that?”

“It was a poor joke. I’m sorry.”

“Maybe you are right, though. Perhaps this time I’ve bitten off a little too much.”

I snorted.

“Then why not do something safer, like another race?”

She shook her end of the rainbow.

“No. It has to be an Ikky.”

“Why?”

“Why did you want one so badly that you threw away a fortune?”

“Man reasons,” I said. “An unfrocked analyst who held black therapy sessions in his basement once told me, ‘Mister Davits, you need to reinforce the image of your masculinity by catching one of every kind of fish in existence.’ Fish are a very ancient masculinity symbol, you know. So I set out to do it. I have one more to go. Why do you want to reinforce your masculinity?”

“I don’t,” she said. “I don’t want to reinforce anything but Luharich Enterprises. My chief statistician once said, ‘Miss Luharich, sell all the cold cream and face powder in the System and you’ll be a happy girl. Rich, too.’ And he was right. I am the proof. I can look the way I do and do anything, and I sell most of the lipstick and face powder in the System—but I have to be able to do anything.”

“You do look cool and efficient,” I observed.

“I don’t feel cool,” she said, rising. “Let’s go for a swim.”

“May I point out that we are making pretty good time?”

“If you want to indicate the obvious, you may. You said you could make it back to the ship, unassisted. Change your mind?”

“No.”

“Then get us two scuba outfits and I’ll race you under Tensquare.

“I’ll win, too,” she added.

I stood and looked down at her, because that usually makes me feel superior to women.

“Daughter of Lir, eyes of Picasso,” I said, “you’ve got yourself a race. Meet me at the forward Rook, starboard, in ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes,” she agreed.

And ten minutes it was. From the center blister to the Rook took maybe two of them, with the load I was carrying. My sandals grew very hot and I was glad to shuck them for flippers when I reached the comparative cool of the corner.

We slid into harnesses and adjusted our gear. She had changed into a trim one-piece green job that made me shade my eyes and look away, then look back again.

I fastened a rope ladder and kicked it over the side. Then I pounded on the wall of the Rook.

“Yeah?”

“You talk to the port Rook, aft?” I called.

“They’re all set up,” came the answer. “There’s ladders and draglines all over that end.”

“You sure you want to do this?” asked the sunburnt little gink who was her publicity man, Anderson Yclept.

He sat beside the Rook in a deckchair, sipping lemonade through a straw.

“It might be dangerous,” he observed, sunken-mouthed. (His teeth were beside him, in another glass.”

“That’s right,” she smiled. “It will be dangerous. Not overly, though.”

“Then why don’t you let me get some pictures? We’d have them back to Lifeline in an hour. They’d be in New York by tonight. Good copy.”

“No,” she said, and turned away from both of us.

She raised her hands to her eyes.

“Here, keep these for me.”

She passed him a box full of her unseeing, and when she turned back to me they were the same brown that I remembered.

“Ready?”

“No,” I said, tautly. “Listen carefully, Jean. If you’re going to play this game there are a few rules. First,” I counted, “we’re going to be directly beneath the hull, so we have to start low and keep moving. If we bump the bottom, we could rupture an air tank … “

She began to protest that any moron knew that and I cut her down.

“Second,” I went on, “there won’t be much light, so we’ll stay close together, and we will both carry torches.”

Her wet eyes flashed.

“I dragged you out of Govino without—”

Then she stopped and turned away. She picked up a lamp.

“Okay. Torches. Sorry.”

” … And watch out for the drive-screws,” I finished. “There’ll be strong currents for at least fifty meters behind them.”

She wiped her eyes again and adjusted the mask.

“All right, let’s go.”

We went.

She led the way, at my insistence. The surface layer was pleasantly warm. At two fathoms the water was bracing; at five it was nice and cold. At eight we let go the swinging stairway and struck out. Tensquare sped forward and we raced in the opposite direction, tattooing the hull yellow at ten-second intervals.

The hull stayed where it belonged, but we raced on like two darkside satellites. Periodically, I tickled her frog feet with my Light and traced her antennae of bubbles. About a five meter lead was fine; I’d beat her in the home stretch, but I couldn’t let her drop behind yet.

Beneath us, black. Immense. Deep. The Mindanao of Venus, where eternity might eventually pass the dead to a rest in cities of unnamed fishes. I twisted my head away and touched the hull with a feeler of light; it told me we were about a quarter of the way along.

I increased my beat to match her stepped-up stroke, and narrowed the distance which she had suddenly opened by a couple meters. She sped up again and I did, too. I spotted her with my beam.

She turned and it caught on her mask. I never knew whether she’d been smiling. Probably. She raised two fingers in a V-for-Victory and then cut ahead at full speed.

I should have known. I should have felt it coming. It was just a race to her, something else to win. Damn the torpedoes!

So I leaned into it, hard. I don’t shake in the water. Or, if I do it doesn’t matter and I don’t notice it. I began to close the gap again.

She looked back, sped on, looked back. Each time she looked it was nearer, until I’d narrowed it down to the original five meters.

Then she hit the jatoes.

That’s what I had been fearing. We were about half-way under and she shouldn’t have done it. The powerful jets of compressed air could easily rocket her upward into the hull, or tear something loose if she allowed her body to twist. Their main use is in tearing free from marine plants or fighting bad currents. I had wanted them along as a safety measure, because of the big suck-and-pull windmills behind.

She shot ahead like a meteorite, and I could feel a sudden tingle of perspiration leaping to meet and mix with the churning waters.

I swept ahead, not wanting to use my own guns, and she tripled, quadrupled the margin.

The jets died and she was still on course. Okay, I was an old fuddyduddy. She could have messed up and headed toward the top.

I plowed the sea and began to gather back my yardage, a foot at a time. I wouldn’t be able to catch her or beat her now, but I’d be on the ropes before she hit deck.

Then the spinning magnets began their insistence and she wavered. It was an awfully powerful drag, even at this distance. The call of the meat grinder.

I’d been scratched up by one once, under the Dolphin, a fishing boat of the middle-class. I had been drinking, but it was also a rough day, and the thing had been turned on prematurely. Fortunately, it was turned off in time, also, and a tendon-stapler made everything good as new, except in the log, where it only mentioned that I’d been drinking. Nothing about it being off-hours when I had a right to do as I damn well pleased.

She had slowed to half her speed, but she was still moving crosswise, toward the port, aft corner. I began to feel the pull myself and had to slow down. She’d made it past the main one, but she seemed too far back. It’s hard to gauge distances under water, but each red beat of time told me I was right. She was out of danger from the main one, but the smaller port screw, located about eighty meters in, was no longer a threat but a certainty.

She had turned and was pulling away from it now. Twenty meters separated us. She was standing still. Fifteen.

Slowly, she began a backward drifting. I hit my jatoes, aiming two meters behind her and about twenty back of the blades.

Straightline! Thankgod! Catching, softbelly, leadpipe on shoulder SWIMLIKEHELL! maskcracked, not broke though AND UP!

We caught a line and I remember brandy.

Into the cradle endlessly rocking I spit, pacing. Insomnia tonight and left shoulder sore again, so let it rain on me—they can cure rheumatism. Stupid as hell. What I said. In blankets and shivering. She: “Carl, I can’t say it.” Me: “Then call it square for that night in Govino, Miss Luharich. Huh?” She: nothing. Me: “Any more of that brandy?” She: “Give me another, too.” Me: sounds of sipping. It had only lasted three months. No alimony. Many $ on both sides. Not sure whether they were happy or not. Wine-dark Aegean. Good fishing. Maybe he should have spent more time on shore. Or perhaps she shouldn’t have. Good swimmer, though. Dragged him all the way to Vido to wring out his lungs. Young. Both. Strong. Both. Rich and spoiled as hell. Ditto. Corfu should have brought them closer. Didn’t. I think that mental cruelty was a trout. He wanted to go to Canada. She: “Go to hell if you want!” He: “Will you go along?” She: “No.” But she did, anyhow. Many hells. Expensive. He lost a monster or two. She inherited a couple. Lot of lightning tonight. Stupid as hell. Civility’s the coffin of a conned soul. By whom?—Sounds like a bloody neo-ex … But I hate you, Anderson, with your glass full of teeth and her new eyes … Can’t keep this pipe lit, keep sucking tobacco. Spit again!

Seven days out and the scope showed Ikky.

Bells jangled, feet pounded, and some optimist set the thermostat in the Hopkins. Malvern wanted me to sit it out, but I slipped into my harness and waited for whatever came. The bruise looked worse than it felt. I had exercised every day and the shoulder hadn’t stiffened on me.

A thousand meters ahead and thirty fathoms deep, it tunneled our path. Nothing showed on the surface.

“Will we chase him?” asked an excited crewman.

“Not unless she feels like using money for fuel.” I shrugged.

Soon the scope was clear, and it stayed that way. We remained on alert and held our course.

I hadn’t said over a dozen words to my boss since the last time we went drowning together, so I decided to raise the score.

“Good afternoon,” I approached. “What’s new?”

“He’s going north-northeast. Well have to let this one go. A few more days and we can afford some chasing. Not yet,” Sleek head …

I nodded. “No telling where this one’s headed.”

“How’s your shoulder?”

“All right. How about you?” Daughter of Lir …

“Fine. By the way, you’re down for a nice bonus.” Eyes of perdition!

“Don’t mention it,” I told her back.

Later that afternoon, and appropriately, a storm shattered. (I prefer “shattered” to “broke.” It gives a more accurate idea of the behavior of tropical storms on Venus and saves lots of words.) Remember that inkwell I mentioned earlier? Now take it between thumb and forefinger and hit its side with a hammer. Watch your self! Don’t get splashed or cut. Dry, then drenched. The sky one million bright fractures as the hammer falls. And sounds of breaking.

“Everyone below?” suggested loudspeakers to the already scurrying crew.

Where was I? Who do you think was doing the loudspeaking? Everything loose went overboard when the water got to walking, but by then no people were loose. The Slider was the first thing below decks. Then the big lifts lowered their shacks.

I had hit it for the nearest Rook with a yell the moment I recognized the pre-brightening of the holocaust. From there I cut in the speakers and spent half a minute coaching the track team.

Minor injuries had occurred, Mike told me over the radio, but nothing serious. I, however, was marooned for the duration. The Rooks do not lead anywhere; they’re set too far out over the hull to provide entry downwards, what with the extensor shelves below.

So I undressed myself of the tanks which I had worn for the past several hours, crossed my flippers on the table, and leaned back to watch the hurricane. The top was black as the bottom and we were in between, and somewhat illuminated because of all that flat, shiny space. The waters above didn’t rain down—they just sort of got together and dropped.

The Rooks were secure enough—they’d weathered any number of these onslaughts—it’s just that their positions gave them a greater arc of rise and descent when Tensquare makes like the rocker of a very nervous grandma. I had used the belts from my rig to strap myself into the bolted-down chair, and I removed several years in purgatory from the soul of whoever left a pack of cigarettes in the table drawer.

I watched the water make teepees and mountains and hands and trees until I started seeing faces and people. So I called Mike.

“What are you doing down there?”

“Wondering what you’re doing up there,” he replied. “What’s it like?”

“You’re from the Midwest, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Get bad storms out there?”

“Sometimes.”

“Try to think of the worst one you were ever in. Got a slide rule handy?”

“Right here.”

“Then put a one under it, imagine a zero or two following after, and multiply the thing out.”

“I can’t imagine the zeros.”

“Then retain the multiplicand—that’s all you can do.”

“So what are you doing up there?”

“I’ve strapped myself in the chair. I’m watching things roll around the floor right now.”

I looked up and out again. I saw one darker shadow in the forest.

“Are you praying or swearing?”

“Damned if I know. But if this were the Slider—if only this were the Slider!”

“He’s out there?”

I nodded, forgetting that he couldn’t see me.

Big, as I remembered him. He’d only broken surface for a few moments, to look around. There is no power on Earth that can be compared with him who was made to fear no one. I dropped my cigarette. It was the same as before. Paralysis and an unborn scream.

“You all right, Carl?”

He had looked at me again. Or seemed to. Perhaps that mindless brute had been waiting half a millenium to ruin the life of a member of the most highly developed species in business …

“You okay?”

… Or perhaps it had been ruined already, long before their encounter, and theirs was just a meeting of beasts, the stronger bumping the weaker aside, body to psyche …

“Carl, dammit! Say something!”

He broke again, this time nearer. Did you ever see the trunk of a tornado? It seems like something alive, moving around in all that dark. Nothing has a right to be so big, so strong, and moving. It’s a sickening sensation.

“Please answer me.”

He was gone and did not come back that day. I finally made a couple of wisecracks at Mike, but I held my next cigarette in my right hand.

The next seventy or eighty thousand waves broke by with a monotonous similarity. The five days that held them were also without distinction. The morning of the thirteenth day out, though, our luck began to rise. The bells broke our coffee-drenched lethargy into small pieces, and we dashed from the galley without hearing what might have been Mike’s finest punchline.

“Aft!” cried someone. “Five hundred meters!”

I stripped to my trunks and started buckling. My stuff is always within grabbing distance,

I flipflopped across the deck, girding myself with a deflated squiggler.

“Five hundred meters, twenty fathoms!” boomed the speakers.

The big traps banged upward and the Slider grew to its full height, m’lady at the console. It rattled past me and took root ahead. Its one arm rose and lengthened.

I breasted the Slider as title speakers called, “Four-eighty, twenty!”

“Status Red!”

A belch like an emerging champagne cork and the line arced high over the waters.

“Four-eighty, twenty!” it repeated, all Malvern and static. “Baitman, attend!”

I adjusted my mask and hand-over-handed it down the side. Then warm, then cool, then away.

Green, vast, down. Fast. This is the place where I am equal to a squiggler. If something big decides a baitman looks tastier than what he’s carrying, then irony colors his title as well as the water about it. I caught sight of the drifting cables and followed them down.

Green to dark green to black. It had been a long cast, too long. I’d never had to follow one this far down before. I didn’t want to switch on my torch.

But I had to.

Bad! I still had a long way to go. I clenched my teeth and stuffed my imagination into a straitjacket.

Finally the line came to an end.

I wrapped one arm about it and unfastened the squiggler. I attached it, working as fast as I could, and plugged in the little insulated connections which are the reason it can’t be fired with the line. Ikky could break them, but by then it wouldn’t matter.

My mechanical eel hooked up, I pulled its section plugs and watched it grow. I had been dragged deeper during this operation, which took about a minute and a half. I was near—too near—to where I never wanted to be.

Loathe as I had been to turn on my light, I was suddenly afraid to turn it off. Panic gripped me and I seized the cable with both hands. The squiggler began to glow, pinkly. It started to twist. It was twice as big as I am and doubtless twice as attractive to pink squiggler-eaters. I told myself this until I believed it, then I switched off my light and started up.

If I bumped into something enormous and steel-hided my heart had orders to stop beating immediately and release me—to dart fitfully forever along Acheron, and gibbering.

Ungibbering, I made it to green water and fled back to the nest.

As soon as they hauled me aboard I made my mask a necklace, shaded my eyes, and monitored for surface turbulence. My first question, of course, was: “Where is he?”

“Nowhere,” said a crewman; “we lost him right after you went over. Can’t pick him up on the scope now. Musta dived.”

“Too bad.”

The squiggler stayed down, enjoying its bath. My job ended for the time being, I headed back to warm my coffee with rum.

From behind me, a whisper: “Could you laugh like that afterwards?”

Perceptive Answer: “Depends on what he’s laughing at.”

Still chuckling, I made my way into the center blister with two cupfuls.

“Still hell and gone?”

Mike nodded. His big hands were shaking, and mine were steady as a surgeon’s when I set down the cups.

He jumped as I shrugged off the tanks and looked for a bench.

“Don’t drip on that panel! You want to kill yourself and blow expensive fuses?”

I toweled down, then settled down to watching the unfilled eye on the wall. I yawned happily; my shoulder seemed good as new.

The little box that people talk through wanted to say something, so Mike lifted the switch and told it to go ahead.

“Is Carl there, Mister Dabis?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Then let me talk to him.”

Mike motioned and I moved.

“Talk,” I said.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, thanks. Shouldn’t I be?”

“That was a long swim. I—I guess I overshot my cast.”

“I’m happy,” I said. “More triple-time for me. I really clean up on that hazardous duty clause.”

“I’ll be more careful next time,” she apologized. “I guess I was too eager. Sorry—” Something happened to the sentence, so she ended it there, leaving me with half a bagful of replies I’d been saving.

I lifted the cigarette from behind Mike’s ear and got a light from the one in the ashtray.

“Carl, she was being nice,” he said, after turning to study the panels.

“I know,” I told him. “I wasn’t.”

“I mean, she’s an awfully pretty kid, pleasant. Headstrong and all that. But what’s she done to you?”

“Lately?” I asked.

He looked at me, then dropped his eyes to his cup.

“I know it’s none of my bus—” he began.

“Cream and sugar?”

Ikky didn’t return that day, or that night. We picked up some Dixieland out of Lifeline and let the muskrat ramble while Jean had her supper sent to the Slider. Later she had a bunk assembled inside. I piped in “Deep Water Blues” when it came over the air and waited for her to call up and cuss us out. She didn’t, though, so I decided she was sleeping.

Then I got Mike interested in a game of chess that went on until daylight. It limited conversation to several “checks,” one “checkmate,” and a “damn!” Since he’s a poor loser it also effectively sabotaged subsequent talk, which was fine with me. I had a steak and fried potatoes for breakfast and went to bed.

Ten hours later someone shook me awake and I propped myself on one elbow, refusing to open my eyes.

“Whassamadder?”

“I’m sorry to get you up,” said one of the younger crewmen, “but Miss Luharich wants you to disconnect the squiggler so we can move on.”

I knuckled open one eye, still deciding whether I should be amused.

“Have it hauled to the side. Anyone can disconnect it.”

“It’s at the side now, sir. But she said it’s in your contract and we’d better do things right.”

“That’s very considerate of her. I’m sure my Local appreciates her remembering.”

“Uh, she also said to tell you to change your trunks and comb your hair, and shave, too. Mister Anderson’s going to film it.”

“Okay. Run along; tell her I’m on my way—and ask if she has some toenail polish I can borrow.”

I’ll save on details. It took three minutes in all, and I played it properly, even pardoning myself when I slipped and bumped into Anderson’s white tropicals with the wet squiggler. He smiled, brushed it off; she smiled, even though Luharich Complectacolor couldn’t completely mask the dark circles under her eyes; and I smiled, waving to all our fans out there in videoland.—Remember, Mrs. Universe, you, too, can look like a monster-catcher. Just use Luharich face cream.

I went below and made myself a tuna sandwich, with mayonnaise.

Two days like icebergs—bleak, blank, half-melting, all frigid, mainly out of sight, and definitely a threat to peace of mind—drifted by and were good to put behind. I experienced some old guilt feelings and had a few disturbing dreams. Then I called Lifeline and checked my bank balance.

“Going shopping?” asked Mike, who had put the call through for me.

“Going home,” I answered.

“Huh?”

“I’m out of the baiting business after this one, Mike. The Devil with Ikky! The Devil with Venus and Luharich Enterprises! And the Devil with you!”

Up eyebrows.

“What brought that on?”

“I waited over a year for this job. Now that I’m here, I’ve decided the whole thing stinks.”

“You knew what it was when you signed on. No matter what else you’re doing, you’re selling face cream when you work for face cream sellers.”

“Oh, that’s not what’s biting me. I admit the commercial angle irritates me, but Tensquare has always been a publicity spot, ever since the first time it sailed.”

“What, then?”

“Five or six things, all added up. The main one being that I don’t care any more. Once it meant more to me than anything else to hook that critter, and now it doesn’t. I went broke on what started out as a lark and I wanted blood for what it cost me. Now I realize that maybe I had it coming. I’m beginning to feel sorry for Ikky.”

“And you don’t want him now?”

“I’ll take him if he comes peacefully, but I don’t feel like sticking out my neck to make him crawl into the Hopkins.”

“I’m inclined to think it’s one of the four or five other things you said you added.”

“Such as?”

He scrutinized the ceiling.

I growled.

“Okay, but I won’t say it, not just to make you happy you guessed right.”

He, smirking: “That look she wears isn’t just for Ikky.”

“No good, no good.” I shook my head. “We’re both fission chambers by nature. You can’t have jets on both ends of the rocket and expect to go anywhere—what’s in the middle just gets smashed.”

“That’s how it was. None of my business, of course—”

“Say that again and you’ll say it without teeth.”

“Any day, big man”—he looked up—“any place … “

“So go ahead. Get it said!”

“She doesn’t care about that bloody reptile, she came here to drag you back where you belong. You’re not the baitman this trip.”

“Five years is too long.”

“There must be something under that cruddy hide of yours that people like,” he muttered, “or I wouldn’t be talking like this. Maybe you remind us humans of some really ugly dog we felt sorry for when we were kids. Anyhow, someone wants to take you home and raise you—also, something about beggars not getting menus.”

“Buddy,” I chuckled, “do you know what I’m going to do when I hit Lifeline?”

“I can guess.”

“You’re wrong. I’m torching it to Mars, and then I’ll cruise back home, first class. Venus bankruptcy provisions do not apply to Martian trust funds, and I’ve still got a wad tucked away where moth and corruption enter not. I’m going to pick up a big old mansion on the Gulf and if you’re ever looking for a job you can stop around and open bottles for me.”

“You are a yellowbellied fink,” he commented.

“Okay,” I admitted, “but it’s her I’m thinking of, too.”

“I’ve heard the stories about you both,” he said. “So you’re a heel and a goofoff and she’s a bitch. That’s called compatibility these days. I dare you, baitman, try keeping something you catch.”

I turned.

“If you ever want that job, look me up.”

I closed the door quietly behind me and left him sitting there waiting for it to slam.

The day of the beast dawned like any other. Two days after my gutless flight from empty waters I went down to rebait. Nothing on the scope. I was just making things ready for the routine attempt.

I hollered a “good morning” from outside the Slider and received an answer from inside before I pushed off. I had reappraised Mike’s words, sans sound, sans fury, and while I did not approve of their sentiment or significance, I had opted for civility anyhow.

So down, under, and away. I followed a decent cast about two hundred-ninety meters out. The snaking cables burned black to my left and I paced their undulations from the yellowgreen down into the darkness. Soundless lay the wet night, and I bent my way through it like a cock-eyed comet, bright tail before.

I caught the line, slick and smooth, and began baiting. An icy world swept by me then, ankles to head. It was a draft, as if someone had opened a big door beneath me. I wasn’t drifting downwards that fast either.

Which meant that something might be moving up, something big enough to displace a lot of water. I still didn’t think it was Ikky. A freak current of some sort, but not Ikky. Ha!

I had finished attaching the leads and pulled the first plug when a big, rugged, black island grew beneath me …

I flicked the beam downward. His mouth was opened.

I was rabbit.

Waves of the death-fear passed downward. My stomach imploded. I grew dizzy.

Only one thing, and one thing only. Left to do. I managed it, finally. I pulled the rest of the plugs.

I could count the scaly articulations ridging his eyes by then.

The squiggler grew, pinked into phosphorescence … squiggled!

Then my lamp. I had to kill it, leaving just the bait before him.

One glance back as I jammed the jatoes to life.

He was so near that the squiggler reflected on his teeth, in his eyes. Four meters, and I kissed his lambent jowls with two jets of backwash as I soared. Then I didn’t know whether he was following or had halted. I began to black out as I waited to be eaten.

The jatoes died and I kicked weakly.

Too fast, I felt a cramp coming on. One flick of the beam, cried rabbit. One second, to know …

Or end things up, I answered. No, rabbit, we don’t dart before hunters. Stay dark.

Green waters finally, to yellowgreen, then top.

Doubling, I beat off toward Tensquare. The waves from the explosion behind pushed me on ahead. The world closed in, and a screamed, “He’s alive!” in the distance.

A giant shadow and a shock wave. The line was alive, too. Happy Fishing Grounds. Maybe I did something wrong…

Somewhere Hand was clenched. What’s bait?

A few million years. I remember starting out as a one-celled organism and painfully becoming an amphibian, then an air-breather. From somewhere high in the treetops I heard a voice.

“He’s coming around.”

I evolved back into homosapience, then a step further into a hangover.

“Don’t try to get up yet.”

“Have we got him?” I slurred.

“Still fighting, but he’s hooked. We thought he took you for an appetizer.”

“So did I.”

“Breathe some of this and shut up.”

A funnel over my face. Good. Lift your cups and drink …

“He was awfully deep. Below scope range. We didn’t catch him till he started up. Too late, then.”

I began to yawn.

“We’ll get you inside now.”

I managed to uncase my ankle knife.

“Try it and you’ll be minus a thumb.”

“You need rest.”

“Then bring me a couple more blankets. I’m staying.”

I fell back and closed my eyes.

Someone was shaking me. Gloom and cold. Spotlights bled yellow on the deck. I was in a jury-rigged bunk, bulked against the center blister. Swaddled in wool, I still shivered.

“It’s been eleven hours. You’re not going to see anything now.”

I tasted blood.

“Drink this.”

Water. I had a remark but I couldn’t mouth it.

“Don’t ask how I feel,” I croaked. “I know that comes next, but don’t ask me. Okay?”

“Okay. Want to go below now?”

“No. Just get me my jacket.”

“Right here.”

“What’s he doing?”

“Nothing. He’s deep, he’s doped but he’s staying down.”

“How long since last time he showed?”

“Two hours, about.”

“Jean?”

“She won’t let anyone in the Slider. Listen, Mike says come on in. He’s right behind you in the blister.”

I sat up and turned. Mike was watching. He gestured; I gestured back.

I swung my feet over the edge and took a couple of deep breaths. Pains in my stomach. I got to my feet and made it into the blister.

“Howza gut?” queried Mike.

I checked the scope. No Ikky. Too deep.

“You buying?”

“Yeah, coffee.”

“Not coffee.”

“You’re ill. Also, coffee is all that’s allowed in here.”

“Coffee is a brownish liquid that burns your stomach. You have some in the bottom drawer.”

“No cups. You’ll have to use a glass.”

“Tough.”

He poured.

“You do that well. Been practicing for that job?”

“What job?”

“The one I offered you—”

A blot on the scope!

“Rising, ma’am! Rising!” he yelled into the box.

“Thanks, Mike. I’ve got it in here,” she crackled.

“Jean!”

“Shut up! She’s busy!”

“Was that Carl?”

“Yeah,” I called. “Talk later,” and I cut it.

Why did I do that?

“Why did you do that?”

I didn’t know.

“I don’t know.”

Damned echoes! I got up and walked outside.

Nothing. Nothing.

Something?

Tensquare actually rocked! He must have turned when he saw the hull and started downward again. White water to my left, and boiling. An endless spaghetti of cable roared hotly into the belly of the deep.

I stood awhile, then turned and went back inside.

Two hours sick. Four, and better.

“The dope’s getting to him.”

“Yeah.”

“What about Miss Luharich?”

“What about her?”

“She must be half dead.”

“Probably.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“She signed the contract for this. She knew what might happen. It did.”

“I think you could land him.”

“So do I.”

“So does she.”

“Then let her ask me.”

Ikky was drifting lethargically, at thirty fathoms.

I took another walk and happened to pass behind the Slider. She wasn’t looking my way.

“Carl, come in here!”

Eyes of Picasso, that’s what, and a conspiracy to make me Slide …

“Is that an order?”

“Yes-No! Please.”

I dashed inside and monitored. He was rising.

“Push or pull?”

I slammed the “wind” and he came like a kitten.

“Make up your own mind now.”

He balked at ten fathoms.

“Play him?”

“No!”

She wound him upwards—five fathoms, four …

She hit the extensors at two, and they caught him. Then the graffles.

Cries without and a heat lightning of flashbulbs.

The crew saw Ikky.

He began to struggle. She kept the cables tight, raised the graffles …

Up.

Another two feet and the graffles began pushing.

Screams and fast footfalls.

Giant beanstalk in the wind, his neck, waving. The green hills of his shoulders grew.

“He’s big, Carl!” she cried.

And he grew, and grew, and grew uneasy …

“Now!”

He looked down.

He looked down, as the god of our most ancient ancestors might have looked down. Fear, shame, and mocking laughter rang in my head. Her head, too?

“Now!”

She looked up at the nascent earthquake.

“I can’t!”

It was going to be so damnably simple this time, now the rabbit had died. I reached out.

I stopped.

“Push it yourself.”

“I can’t. You do it. Land him, Carl!”

“No. If I do, you’ll wonder for the rest of your life whether you could have. You’ll throw away your soul finding out. I know you will, because we’re alike, and I did it that way. Find out now!”

She stared.

I gripped her shoulders.

“Could be that’s me out there,” I offered. “I am a green sea serpent, a hateful, monstrous beast, and out to destroy you. I am answerable to no one. Push the Inject.”

Her hand moved to the button, jerked back.

“Now!”

She pushed it.

I lowered her still form to the floor and finished things up with Ikky.

It was a good seven hours before I awakened to the steady, sea-chewing grind of Tensquare’s blades.

“You’re sick,” commented Mike.

“How’s Jean?”

“The same.”

“Where’s the beast?”

“Here.”

“Good.” I rolled over. ” … Didn’t get away this time.”

So that’s the way it was. No one is born a baitman, I don’t think, but the rings of Saturn sing epithalamium the sea-beast’s dower.

STARDOCK

Fritz Leiber

Early one evening, weeks later, the sky’s gray cloud-armor blew away south, smashed and dissolving as if by blows of an acid-dipped mace. The same mighty northeast wind contemptuously puffed down the hitherto impregnable cloud wall to the east, revealing a grimly majestic mountain range running north to south and springing abruptly from the plateau, two leagues high, of the Cold Waste— like a dragon fifty leagues long heaving up its spike-crested spine from icy entombment.

Fafhrd, no stranger to the Cold Waste, born at the foot of these same mountains and childhood climber of their lower slopes, named them off to the Gray Mouser as the two men stood together on the crunchy hoarfrosted eastern rim of the hollow that held their camp. The sun, set for the camp, still shone from behind their backs onto the western faces of the major peaks as he named them— but it shone not with any romanticizing rosy glow, but rather with a clear, cold, detail-pinning light fitting the peaks’ dire aloofness.

“Travel your eye to the first great northerly upthrust,” he told the Mouser, “that phalanx of heaven-menacing ice-spears shafted with dark rock and gleaming green— that’s the Ripsaw. Then, dwarfing them, a single ivory-icy tooth, unscalable by any sane appraisal— the Tusk, he’s called. Another unscalable then, still higher and with south wall a sheer precipice shooting up a league and curving outward toward the needletop: he is White Fang, where my father died— the canine of the Mountains of the Giants.

“Now begin again with the first snow dome at the south of the chain,” continued the tall fur-cloaked man, copper-bearded and copper-maned, his head otherwise bare to the frigid air, which was as quiet at ground level as sea-deep beneath storm. “The Hint, she’s named, or the Come On. Little enough she looks, yet men have frozen nighting on her slopes and been whirled to death by her whimsical queenly avalanches. Then a far vaster snow dome, true queen to the Hint’s princess, a hemisphere of purest white, grand enough to roof the council hall of all the gods that ever were or will be— she is Gran Hanack, whom my father was first of men to mount and master. Our town of tents was pitched there near her base. No mark of it now, I’ll guess, not even a midden.

“After Gran Hanack and nearest to us of them all, a huge flat-topped pillar, a pedestal for the sky almost, looking to be of green-shot snow but in truth all snow-pale granite scoured by the storms: Obelisk Polaris.

“Lastly,” Fafhrd continued, sinking his voice and gripping his smaller comrade’s shoulder, “let your gaze travel up the snow-tressed, dark-rocked, snowcapped peak between the Obelisk and White Fang, her glittering skirt somewhat masked by the former, but taller than they as they are taller than the Waste. Even now she hides behind her the mounting moon. She is Stardock, our quest’s goal.”

“A pretty enough, tall, slender wart on this frostbit patch of Nehwon’s face,” the Gray Mouser conceded, writhing his shoulder from Fafhrd’s grip. “And now at last tell me, friend, why you never climbed this Stardock in your youth and seized the treasure there, but must wait until we get a clue to it in a dusty, hot, scorpion-patrolled desert tower a quarter world away— and waste half a year getting here.”

Fafhrd’s voice grew a shade unsure as he answered, “My father never climbed her; how should I? Also, there were no legends of a treasure on Stardock’s top in my father’s clan … though there was a storm of other legends about Stardock, each forbidding her ascent. They called my father the Legend Breaker and shrugged wisely when he died on White Fang…. Truly, my memory’s not so good for those days, Mouser— I got many a mind-shattering knock on my head before I learned to deal all knocks first … and then I was hardly a boy when the clan left the Cold Waste— though the rough hard walls of Obelisk Polaris had been my upended playground….”

The Mouser nodded doubtfully. In the stillness they heard their tethered ponies munching the ice-crisped grass of the hollow, then a faint unangry growl from Hrissa the ice-cat, curled between the tiny fire and the piled baggage— likely one of the ponies had come cropping too close. On the great icy plain around them, nothing moved— or almost nothing.

The Mouser dipped gray lambskin-gloved fingers into the bottom of his pouch and from the pocket there withdrew a tiny oblong of parchment and read from it, more by memory than sight:

“Who mounts white Stardock, the Moon Tree,

“Past worm and gnome and unseen bars,

“Will win the key to luxury:

“The Heart of Light, a pouch of stars.”

Fafhrd said dreamily, “They say the gods once dwelt and had their smithies on Stardock and from thence, amid jetting fire and showering sparks, launched all the stars; hence her name. They say diamonds, rubies, smaragds— all great gems— are the tiny pilot models the gods made of the stars … and then threw carelessly away across the world when their great work was done.”

“You never told me that before,” the Mouser said, looking at him sharply.

Fafhrd blinked his eyes and frowned puzzledly. “I am beginning to remember childhood things.”

The Mouser smiled thinly before returning the parchment to its deep pocket. “The guess that a pouch of stars might be a bag of gems,” he listed, “the story that Nehwon’s biggest diamond is called the Heart of Light, a few words on a ramskin scrap in the topmost room of a desert tower locked and sealed for centuries— small hints, those, to draw two men across this murdering, monotonous Cold Waste. Tell me, Old Horse, were you just homesick for the miserable white meadows of your birth to pretend to believe ‘em?”

“Those small hints,” Fafhrd said, gazing now toward White Fang, “drew other men north across Nehwon. There must have been other ramskin scraps, though why they should be discovered at the same time, I cannot guess.”

“We left all such fellows behind at Illik-Ving, or Lankhmar even, before we ever mounted the Trollsteps,” the Mouser asserted with complete confidence. “Weak sisters, they were, smelling loot but quailing at hardship.”

Fafhrd gave a small headshake and pointed. Between them and White Fang rose the tiniest thread of black smoke.

“Did Gnarfi and Kranarch seem weak sisters?— to name but two of the other seekers,” he asked when the Mouser finally saw and nodded.

“It could be,” the Mouser agreed gloomily. “Though aren’t there any ordinary travelers of this Waste? Not that we’ve seen a man-shaped soul since the Mingol.”

Fafhrd said thoughtfully, “It might be an encampment of the ice gnomes … though they seldom leave their caves except at High Summer, now a month gone….” He broke off, frowning puzzledly. “Now how did I know that?”

“Another childhood memory bobbing to the top of the black pot?” the Mouser hazarded. Fafhrd shrugged doubtfully.

“So, for choice, Kranarch and Gnarfi,” the Mouser concluded. “Two strong brothers, I’ll concede. Perhaps we should have picked a fight with ‘em at Illik-Ving,” he suggested. “Or perhaps even now … a swift march by night … a sudden swoop— “

Fafhrd shook his head. “Now we’re climbers, not killers,” he said. “A man must be all climber to dare Stardock.” He directed the Mouser’s gaze back toward the tallest mountain. “Let’s rather study her west wall while the light holds.

“Begin first at her feet,” he said. “That glimmering skirt falling from her snowy hips, which are almost as high as the Obelisk— that’s the White Waterfall, where no man may live.

“Now to her head again. From her flat tilted snowcap hang two great swelling braids of snow, streaming almost perpetually with avalanches, as if she combed ‘em day and night— the Tresses, those are called. Between them’s a wide ladder of dark rock, marked at three points by ledges. The topmost of the three ledge-banks is the Face— d’you note the darker ledges marking eyes and lips? The midmost of the three is called the Roosts; the lowermost— level with Obelisk’s wide summit— the Lairs.”

“What lairs and roosts there?” the Mouser wanted to know.

“None may say, for none have climbed the Ladder,” Fafhrd replied. “Now as to our route up her— it’s most simple. We scale Obelisk Polaris— a trustworthy mountain if there ever was one— then cross by a dippling snow-saddle (there’s the danger-stretch of our ascent!) to Stardock and climb the Ladder to her top.”

“How do we climb the Ladder in the long blank stretches between the ledges?” the Mouser asked with childlike innocence, almost. “That is, if the Lairers and Roosters will honor our passports and permit us to try.”

Fafhrd shrugged. “There’ll be a way, rock being rock.”

“Why’s there no snow on the Ladder?”

“Too steep.”

“And supposing we climb it to the top,” the Mouser finally asked, “how do we lift our black-and-blue skeletonized bodies over the brim of Stardock’s snowy hat, which seems to outcurve and downcurve most stylishly?”

“There’s a triangular hole in it somewhere called the Needle’s Eye,” Fafhrd answered negligently. “Or so I’ve heard. But never you fret, Mouser, we’ll find it.”

“Of course we will,” the Mouser agreed with an airy certainty that almost sounded sincere, “we who hop-skip across shaking snow bridges and dance the fantastic up vertical walls without ever touching hand to granite. Remind me to bring a longish knife to carve our initials on the sky when we celebrate the end of our little upward sortie.”

His gaze wandered slightly northward. In another voice he continued, “The dark north wall of Stardock now— that looks steep enough, to be sure, but free of snow to the very top. Why isn’t that our route— rock, as you say with such unanswerable profundity, being rock.”

Fafhrd laughed unmockingly. “Mouser,” he said, “do you mark against the darkening sky that long white streamer waving south from Stardock’s top? Yes, and below it a lesser streamer— can you distinguish that? That second one comes through the Needle’s Eye! Well, those streamers from Stardock’s hat are called the Grand and Petty Pennons. They’re powdered snow blasted off Stardock by the northeast gale, which blows at least seven days out of eight, never predictably. That gale would pluck the stoutest climber off the north wall as easily as you or I might puff dandelion down from its darkening stem. Stardock’s self shields the Ladder from the gale.”

“Does the gale never shift around to strike the Ladder?” the Mouser inquired lightly.

“Only occasionally,” Fafhrd reassured him.

“Oh, that’s great,” the Mouser responded with quite overpowering sincerity and would have returned to the fire, except just then the darkness began swiftly to climb the Mountains of the Giants, as the sun took his final dive far to the west, and the gray-clad man stayed to watch the grand spectacle.

It was like a black blanket being pulled up. First the glittering skirt of the White Waterfall was hidden, then the Lairs on the Ladder and then the Roosts. Now all the other peaks were gone, even the Tusk’s and White Fang’s gleaming cruel tips, even the greenish-white roof of Obelisk Polaris. Now only Stardock’s snow hat was left and below it the Face between the silvery Tresses. For a moment the ledges called the Eyes gleamed, or seemed to. Then all was night.

Yet there was a pale afterglow about. It was profoundly silent and the air utterly unmoving. Around them, the Cold Waste seemed to stretch north, west, and south to infinity.

And in that space of silence something went whisper-gliding through the still air, with the faint rushy sound of a great sail in a moderate breeze. Fafhrd and the Mouser both stared all around wildly. Nothing. Beyond the little fire, Hrissa the ice-cat sprang up hissing. Still nothing. Then the sound, whatever had made it, died away.

Very softly, Fafhrd began, “There is a legend….” A long pause. Then with a sudden headshake, in a more natural voice: “The memory slips away, Mouser. All my mind-fingers couldn’t clutch it. Let’s patrol once around the camp and so to bed.”

From first sleep the Mouser woke so softly that even Hrissa, back pressed against him from his knees to his chest on the side toward the fire, did not rouse.

Emerging from behind Stardock, her light glittering on the southern Tress, hung the swelling moon, truly a proper fruit of the Moon Tree. Strange, the Mouser thought, how small the moon was and how big Stardock, silhouetted against the moon-pale sky.

Then, just below the flat top of Stardock’s hat, he saw a bright, pale blue twinkling. He recalled that Ashsha, pale blue and brightest of Nehwon’s stars, was near the moon tonight, and he wondered if he were seeing her by rare chance through the Needle’s Eye, proving the latter’s existence. He wondered too what great sapphire or blue diamond— perhaps the Heart of Light?— had been the gods’ pilot model for Ashsha, smiling drowsily the while at himself for entertaining such a silly, lovely myth. And then, embracing the myth entirely, he asked himself whether the gods had left any of their full-scale stars, unlaunched, on Stardock. Then Ashsha, if it were she, winked out.

The Mouser felt cozy in his cloak lined with sheep’s-wool and now thong-laced into a bag by the horn hooks around its hem. He stared long and dreamily at Stardock until the moon broke loose from her and a blue jewel twinkled on top of her hat and broke loose too— now Ashsha surely. He wondered unfearfully about the windy rushing he and Fafhrd had heard in the still air— perhaps only a long tongue of a storm licking down briefly. If the storm lasted, they would climb up into it.

Hrissa stretched in her sleep. Fafhrd grumbled low in a dream, wrapped in his own great thong-laced cloak stuffed with eiderdown.

The Mouser dropped his gaze to the ghostly flames of the dying fire, seeking sleep himself. The flames made girl-bodies, then girl-faces. Next a ghostly pale green girl-face— perhaps an afterimage, he thought at first— appeared beyond the fire, staring at him through close-slitted eyes across the flame tops. It grew more distinct as he gazed at it, but there was no trace of hair or body about it— it hung against the dark like a mask.

Yet it was weirdly beautiful: narrow chin, high-arched cheeks, wine-dark short lips slightly pouted, straight nose that went up without a dip into the broad, somewhat low forehead— and then the mystery of those fully lidded eyes seeming to peer at him through wine-dark lashes. And all, save lashes and lips, of palest green, like jade.

The Mouser did not speak or stir a muscle, simply because the face was very beautiful to him— just as any man might hope for the moment never to end when his naked mistress unconsciously or by secret design assumes a particularly charming attitude.

Also, in the dismal Cold Waste, any man treasures illusions, though knowing them almost certainly to be such.

Suddenly the eyes parted wide, showing only the darkness behind, as if the face were a mask indeed. The Mouser did start then, but still not enough to wake Hrissa.

Then the eyes closed, the lips puckered with taunting invitation; then the face began swiftly to dissolve as if it were being literally wiped away. First the right side went, then the left, then the center, last of all the dark lips and the eyes. For a moment the Mouser fancied he caught a winy odor; then all was gone.

He contemplated waking Fafhrd and almost laughed at the thought of his comrade’s surly reactions. He wondered if the face had been a sign from the gods, or a sending from some black magician castled on Stardock, or Stardock’s very soul perhaps— though then where had she left her glittering tresses and hat and her Ashsha eye?— or only a random creation of his own most clever brain, stimulated by sexual privation and tonight by beauteous if devilishly dangerous mountains. Rather quickly he decided on the last explanation and he slumbered.

Two evenings later, at the same hour, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stood scarcely a knife cast from the west wall of Obelisk Polaris, building a cairn from pale greenish rock-shards fallen over the millennia. Among this scanty scree were some bones, many broken, of sheep or goats.

As before, the air was still though very cold, the Waste empty, the set sun bright on the mountain faces.

From this closest vantage point the Obelisk was foreshortened into a pyramid that seemed to taper up forever, vertically. Encouragingly, his rock felt diamond-hard while the lowest reaches of the wall at any rate were thick with bumpy handholds and footholds, like pebbled leather.

To the south, Gran Hanack and the Hint were hidden.

To the north White Fang towered monstrously, yellowish white in the sunlight, as if ready to rip a hole in the graying sky. Bane of Fafhrd’s father, the Mouser recalled.

Of Stardock, there could be seen the dark beginning of the wind-blasted north wall and the north end of the deadly White Waterfall. All else of Stardock the Obelisk hid.

Save for one touch: almost straight overhead, seeming now to come from Obelisk Polaris, the ghostly Grand Pennon streamed southwest.

From behind Fafhrd and the Mouser as they worked came the tantalizing odor of two snow hares roasting by the fire, while before it Hrissa tore flesh slowly and savoringly from the carcass of a third she’d coursed down. The ice-cat was about the size and shape of a cheetah, though with long tufty white hair. The Mouser had bought her from a far-ranging Mingol trapper just north of the Trollsteps.

Beyond the fire the ponies eagerly chomped the last of the grain, strengthening stuff they’d not tasted for a week.

Fafhrd wrapped his sheathed longsword Graywand in oiled silk and laid it in the cairn, then held out a big hand to the Mouser.

“Scalpel?”

“I’m taking my sword with me,” the Mouser stated, then added justifyingly, “it’s but a feather to yours.”

“Tomorrow you’ll find what a feather weighs,” Fafhrd foretold. The big man shrugged and placed by Graywand his helmet, a bear’s hide, a folded tent, shovel and pickax, gold bracelets from his wrists and arms, quills, ink, papyrus, a large copper pot, and some books and scrolls. The Mouser added various empty and near-empty bags, two hunting spears, skis, an unstrung bow with a quiver of arrows, tiny jars of oily paint and squares of parchment, and all the harness of the ponies, many of the items wrapped against damp like Graywand.

Then, their appetites quickening from the roast-fumes, the two comrades swiftly built two top courses, roofing the cairn.

Just as they turned toward supper, facing the raggedly gilt-edged flat western horizon, they heard in the silence the rushy sail-like noise again, fainter this time but twice: once in the air to the north and, almost simultaneously, to the south.

Again they stared around swiftly but searchingly, yet there was nothing anywhere to be seen except— again Fafhrd saw it first— a thread of black smoke very near White Fang, rising from a point on the glacier between that mountain and Stardock.

“Gnarfi and Kranarch, if it be they, have chosen the rocky north wall for their ascent,” the Mouser observed.

“And it will be their bane,” Fafhrd predicted, up-jerking his thumb at the Pennon.

The Mouser nodded with less certainty, then demanded, “Fafhrd, what was that sound? You’ve lived here.”

Fafhrd’s brow crinkled and his eyes almost shut. “Some legend of great birds…” he muttered questioningly, “…or of great fish— no, that couldn’t be right.”

“Memory pot still seething all black?” the Mouser asked. Fafhrd nodded.

Before he left the cairn, the Northerner laid beside it a slab of salt. “That,” he said, “along with the ice-filmed pool and herbage we just passed, should hold the ponies here for a week. If we don’t return, well, at least we showed ‘em the way between here and Illik-Ving.”

Hrissa smiled up from her bloody tidbit, as if to say, “No need to worry about me or my rations.”

Again the Mouser woke as soon as sleep had gripped him tight, this time with a surge of pleasure, as one who remembers a rendezvous. And again, this time without any preliminary star-staring or flame-gazing, the living mask faced him across the sinking fire: every same expression-quirk and feature— short lips, nose and forehead one straight line— except that tonight it was ivory pale with greenish lips and lids and lashes.

The Mouser was considerably startled, for last night he had stayed awake, waiting for the phantom girl-face— and even trying to make it come again— until the swelling moon had risen three handbreadths above Stardock … without any success whatever. His mind had known that the face had been an hallucination on the first occasion, but his feelings had insisted otherwise— to his considerable disgust and the loss of a quarter night’s sleep.

And by day he had secretly consulted the last of the four short stanzas on the parchment scrap in his pouch’s deepest pocket:

Who scales the Snow King’s citadel

Shall father his two daughters’ sons;

Though he must face foes fierce and fell,

His seed shall live while time still runs.

Yesterday that had seemed rather promising— at least the fathering and daughters part— though today, after his lost sleep, the merest mockery.

But now the living mask was there again and going through all the same teasing antics, including the shuddersome yet somehow thrilling trick of opening wide its lids to show not eyes but a dark backing like the rest of the night. The Mouser was enchanted in a shivery way, but unlike the first night he was full-mindedly alert, and he tested for illusions by blinking and squinting his own eyes and silently shifting his head about in his hood— with no effect whatever on the living mask. Then he quietly unlaced the thong from the top hooks of his cloak— Hrissa was sleeping against Fafhrd tonight— and slowly reached out his hand and picked up a pebble and flicked it across the pale flames at a point somewhat below the mask.

Although he knew there wasn’t anything beyond the fire but scattered scree and ringingly hard earth, there wasn’t the faintest sound of the pebble striking anywhere. He might have thrown it off Nehwon.

At almost the same instant, the mask smiled tauntingly.

The Mouser was very swiftly out of his cloak and on his feet.

But even more swiftly the mask dissolved away— this time in one swift stroke from forehead to chin.

He quickly stepped, almost lunged, around the fire to the spot where the mask had seemed to hang, and there he stared around searchingly. Nothing— except a fleeting breath of wine or spirits of wine. He stirred the fire and stared around again. Still nothing. Except that Hrissa woke beside Fafhrd and bristled her moustache and gazed solemnly, perhaps scornfully, at the Mouser, who was beginning to feel rather like a fool. He wondered if his mind and his desires were playing a silly game against each other.

Then he trod on something. His pebble, he thought, but when he picked it up, he saw it was a tiny jar. It could have been one of his own pigment jars, but it was too small, hardly bigger than a joint of his thumb, and made not of hollowed stone but some kind of ivory or other tooth.

He knelt by the fire and peered into it, then dipped in his little finger and gingerly rubbed the tip against the rather hard grease inside. It came out ivory-hued. The grease had an oily, not winy odor.

The Mouser pondered by the fire for some time. Then with a glance at Hrissa, who had closed her eyes and laid back her moustache again, and at Fafhrd, who was snoring softly, he returned to his cloak and to sleep.

He had not told Fafhrd a word about his earlier vision of the living mask. His surface reason was that Fafhrd would laugh at such calf-brained nonsense of smoke-faces; his deeper reason the one which keeps any man from mentioning a pretty new girl even to his dearest friend.

So perhaps it was the same reason which next morning kept Fafhrd from telling his dearest friend what happened to him late that same night. Fafhrd dreamed he was feeling out the exact shape of a girl’s face in absolute darkness while her slender hands caressed his body. She had a rounded forehead, very long-lashed eyes, in-dipping nose bridge, apple cheeks, an impudent snub nose— it felt impudent!— and long lips whose grin his big gentle fingers could trace clearly.

He woke to the moon glaring down at him aslant from the south. It silvered the Obelisk’s interminable wall, turning rock-knobs to black shadow bars. He also woke to acute disappointment that a dream had been only a dream. Then he would have sworn that he felt fingertips briefly brush his face and that he heard a faint silvery chuckle which receded swiftly. He sat up like a mummy in his laced cloak and stared around. The fire had sunk to a few red ember-eyes, but the moonlight was bright, and by it he could see nothing at all.

Hrissa growled at him reproachfully for a silly sleep-breaker. He damned himself for mistaking the afterimage of a dream for reality. He damned the whole girl-less, girl-vision-breeding Cold Waste. A bit of the night’s growing chill spilled down his neck. He told himself he should be fast asleep like the wise Mouser over there, gathering strength for tomorrow’s great effort. He lay back, and after some time he slumbered.

Next morning the Mouser and Fafhrd woke at the first gray of dawn, the moon still bright as a snowball in the west, and quickly breakfasted and readied themselves and stood facing Obelisk Polaris in the stinging cold, all girls forgotten, their manhood directed solely at the mountain.

Fafhrd stood in high-laced boots with newly-sharpened thick hobnails. He wore a wolfskin tunic, fur turned in but open now from neck to belly. His lower arms and legs were bare. Short-wristed rawhide gloves covered his hands. A rather small pack, wrapped in his cloak, rode high on his back. Clipped to it was a large coil of black hempen rope. On his stout unstudded belt, his sheathed ax on his right side balanced on the other a knife, a small waterskin, and a bag of iron spikes headed by rings.

The Mouser wore his ramskin hood, pulled close around his face now by its drawstring, and on his body a tunic of gray silk, triple layered. His gloves were longer than Fafhrd’s and fur-lined. So were his slender boots, which were footed with crinkly behemoth hide. On his belt, his dagger Cat’s Claw and his waterskin balanced his sword Scalpel, its scabbard thonged loosely to his thigh. While to this cloak-wrapped pack was secured a curiously thick, short, black bamboo rod headed with a spike at one end and at the other a spike and large hook, somewhat like that of a shepherd’s crook.

Both men were deeply tanned and leanly muscular, in best trim for climbing, hardened by the Trollsteps and the Cold Waste, their chests a shade larger than ordinary from weeks of subsisting on the latter’s thin air.

No need to search about for the best-looking ascent— Fafhrd had done that yesterday as they’d approached the Obelisk.

The ponies were cropping again, and one had found the salt and was licking it with his thick tongue. The Mouser looked around for Hrissa to cuff her cheek in farewell, but the ice-cat was sniffing out a spoor beyond the campsite, her ears a-prick.

“She makes a cat-parting,” Fafhrd said. “Good.”

A faint shade of rose touched the heavens and the glacier by White Fang. Scanning toward the latter, the Mouser drew in his breath and squinted hard, while Fafhrd gazed narrowly from under the roof of his palm.

“Brownish figures,” the Mouser said at last. “Kranarch and Gnarfi always dressed in brown leather, I recall. But I make them more than two.”

“I make them four,” Fafhrd said. “Two strangely shaggy— clad in brown fur suits, I guess. And all four mounting from the glacier up the rock wall.”

“Where the gale will— ” the Mouser began, then looked up. So did Fafhrd.

The Grand Pennon was gone.

“You said that sometimes— ” the Mouser started.

“Forget the gale and those two and their rough-edged reinforcements,” Fafhrd said curtly. He faced around again at Obelisk Polaris. So did the Mouser.

Squinting up the greenish-white slope, head bent sharply back, the Mouser said, “This morning he seems somewhat steeper than even that north wall and rather extensive upward.”

“Pah!” Fafhrd retorted. “As a child I would climb him before breakfast. Often.” He raised his clenched right rawhide glove as if it held a baton, and cried, “We go!”

With that he strode forward and without a break began to walk up the knobby face— or so it seemed, for although he used handholds he kept his body far out from the rock, as a good climber should.

The Mouser followed in Fafhrd’s steps and holds, stretching his legs farther and keeping somewhat closer to the cliff.

Midmorning and they were still climbing without a break. The Mouser ached or stung in every part. His pack was like a fat man on his back, Scalpel a sizable boy clinging to his belt. And his ears had popped five times.

Just above, Fafhrd’s boots clashed rock-knobs and into rock-holes with an unhesitating mechanistic rhythm the Mouser had begun to hate. Yet he kept his eyes resolutely fixed on them. Once he had looked down between his own legs and decided not to do that again.

It is not good to see the blue of distance, or even the gray-blue of middle distance, below one.

So he was taken by surprise when a small white bearded face, bloodily encumbered, came bobbing up alongside and past him.

Hrissa halted on a ledgelet by Fafhrd and took great whistling breaths, her tufted belly-skin pressing up against her spine with each exhalation. She breathed only through her pinkish nostrils because her jaws were full of two snow hares, packed side by side, with dead heads and hindquarters a-dangle.

Fafhrd took them from her and dropped them in his pouch and laced it shut.

Then he said, just a shade grandiloquently, “She has proved her endurance and skill, and she has paid her way. She is one of us.”

It had not occurred to the Mouser to doubt any of that. It seemed to him simply that there were three comrades now climbing Obelisk Polaris. Besides, he was most grateful to Hrissa for the halt she had brought. Partly to prolong it, he carefully pressed a handful of water from his bag and stretched it to her to lap: Then he and Fafhrd drank a little too.

All the long summer day they climbed the west wall of the cruel but reliable Obelisk. Fafhrd seemed tireless. The Mouser got his second wind, lost it, and never quite got his third. His whole body was one great leaden ache, beginning deep in his bones and filtering outward, like refined poison, through his flesh. His vision became a bobbing welter of real and remembered rock-knobs, while the necessity of never missing one single grip or foot-placement seemed the ruling of an insane schoolmaster god. He silently cursed the whole maniacal Stardock project, cackling in his brain at the idea that the luring stanzas on the parchment could mean anything but pipe dreams. Yet he would not cry quits or seek again to prolong the brief breathers they took.

He marveled dully at Hrissa’s leaping and hunching up beside them. But by midafternoon he noted she was limping, and once he saw a light blood-print of two pads where she’d set a paw.

They made camp at last almost two hours before sunset, because they’d found a rather wide ledge— and because a very light snowfall had begun, the tiny flakes sifting silently down like meal.

They made a fire of resin-pellets in the tiny claw-footed brazier Fafhrd packed, and they heated over it water for herb tea in their single narrow high pot. The water was a long time getting even lukewarm. With Cat’s Claw the Mouser stirred two dollops of honey into it.

The ledge was as long as three men stretched out and as deep as one. On the sheer face of Obelisk Polaris that much space seemed an acre, at least.

Hrissa stretched slackly behind the tiny fire. Fafhrd and the Mouser huddled to either side of it, their cloaks drawn around them, too tired to look around, talk, or even think.

The snowfall grew a little thicker, enough to hide the Cold Waste far below.

After his second swallow of sweetened tea, Fafhrd asserted they’d come at least two-thirds of the way up the Obelisk.

The Mouser couldn’t understand how Fafhrd could pretend to know that, any more than a man could tell by looking at the shoreless waters of the Outer Sea how far he’d sailed across it. To the Mouser they were simply in the exact center of a dizzily tip-tilted plain of pale granite, green-tinged and now snow-sprinkled. He was still too weary to outline this concept to Fafhrd, but he managed to make himself say, “As a child you would climb up and down the Obelisk before breakfast?”

“We had rather late breakfasts then,” Fafhrd explained gruffly.

“Doubtless on the afternoon of the fifth day,” the Mouser concluded.

After the tea was drunk, they heated more water and left the hacked and disjointed bits of one of the snow hares in the fluid until they turned gray, then slowly chewed them and drank the dull soup. At about the same time Hrissa became a little interested in the flayed carcass of the other hare set before her nose— by the brazier to keep it from freezing.

Enough interested to begin to haggle it with her fangs and slowly chew and swallow.

The Mouser very gently examined the pads of the ice-cat’s paws. They were worn silk-thin, there were two or three cuts in them, and the white fur between them was stained deep pink. Using a feather touch, the Mouser rubbed salve into them, shaking his head the while. Then he nodded once and took from his pouch a large needle, a spool of thin thong, and a small rolled hide of thin, tough leather.

From the last he cut with Cat’s Claw a shape rather like a very fat pear and stitched from it a boot for Hrissa.

When he tried it on the ice-cat’s hind paw, she let it be for a little, then began to bite at it rather gently, looking up queerly at the Mouser. He thought, then very carefully bored holes in it for the ice-cat’s non-retracting claws, then drew the boot up the leg snugly until the claws protruded fully and tied it there with the drawstring he’d run through slits at the top.

Hrissa no longer bothered the boot. The Mouser made others, and Fafhrd joined in and cut and stitched one too.

When Hrissa was fully shod in her four clawed paw-mittens, she smelled each, then stood up and paced back and forth the length of the ledge a few times, and finally settled herself by the still-warm brazier and the Mouser, chin on his ankle.

The tiny grains of snow were still falling ruler-straight, frosting the ledge and Fafhrd’s coppery hair. He and the Mouser began to pull up their hoods and lace their cloaks about them for the night. The sun still shone through the snowfall, but its light was filtered white and brought not an atom of warmth.

Obelisk Polaris was not a noisy mountain, as many are— a-drip with glacial water, rattling with rock slides, and even with rock strata a-creak from uneven loss or gain of heat. The silence was profound.

The Mouser felt an impulse to tell Fafhrd about the living girl-mask or illusion he’d seen by night, while simultaneously Fafhrd considered recounting to the Mouser his own erotic dream.

At that moment there came again, without prelude, the rushing in the silent air and they saw, clearly outlined by the falling snow, a great flat undulating shape.

It came swooping past them, rather slowly, about two spear-lengths out from the ledge.

There was nothing at all to be seen except the flat, flakeless space the thing made in the airborne snow and the eddies it raised; it in no way obscured the snow beyond. Yet they felt the gust of its passage.

The shape of this invisible thing was most like that of a giant skate or stingray four yards long and three wide; there was even the suggestion of a vertical fin and a long, lashing tail.

“Great invisible fish!” the Mouser hissed, thrusting his hand down in his half-laced cloak and managing to draw Scalpel in a single sweep. “Your mind was most right, Fafhrd, when you thought it wrong!”

As the snow-sketched apparition glided out of sight around the buttress ending the ledge to the south, there came from it a mocking rippling laughter in two voices, one alto, one soprano.

“A sightless fish that laughs like girls— most monstrous!” Fafhrd commented shakenly, hefting his ax, which he’d got out swiftly too, though it was still attached to his belt by a long thong.

They crouched there then for a while, scrambled out of their cloaks, and with weapons ready, awaited the invisible monster’s return, Hrissa standing between them with fur bristling. But after a while they began to shake from the cold and so they perforce got back into their cloaks and laced them, though still gripping their weapons and prepared to throw off the upper lacings in a flash. Then they briefly discussed the weirdness just witnessed, insofar as they could, each now confessing his earlier visions or dreams of girls.

Finally the Mouser said, “The girls might have been riding the invisible thing, lying along its back— and invisible too! Yet, what was the thing?”

This touched a small spot in Fafhrd’s memory. Rather unwillingly he said, “I remember waking once as a child in the night and hearing my father say to my mother, ‘…like great thick quivering sails, but the ones you can’t see are the worst.’ They stopped speaking then, I think because they heard me stir.”

The Mouser asked, “Did your father ever speak of seeing girls in the high mountains— flesh, apparition, or witch, which is a mixture of the two; visible or invisible?”

“He wouldn’t have mentioned ‘em if he had,” Fafhrd replied. “My mother was a very jealous woman and a devil with a chopper.”

The whiteness they’d been scanning turned swiftly to darkest gray. The sun had set. They could no longer see the falling snow. They pulled up their hoods and laced their cloaks tight and huddled together at the back of the ledge with Hrissa close between them.

Trouble came early the next day. They roused with first light, feeling battered and nightmare-ridden, and uncramped themselves with difficulty while the morning ration of strong herb tea and powdered meat and snow were stewed in the same pot to a barely uncold aromatic gruel. Hrissa gnawed her rewarmed hare’s bones and accepted a little bear’s fat and water from the Mouser.

The snow had stopped during the night, but the Obelisk was powdered with it on every step and hold, while under the snow was ice— the first-fallen snow melted by yesterday afternoon’s meager warmth on the rock and quickly refrozen.

So Fafhrd and the Mouser roped together, and the Mouser swiftly fashioned a harness for Hrissa by cutting two holes in the long side of an oblong of leather. Hrissa protested somewhat when her forelegs were thrust through the holes and the ends of the oblong double-stitched together snugly over her shoulders. But when an end of Fafhrd’s black hempen rope was tied around her harness where the stitching was, she simply lay down flat on the ledge, on the warm spot where the brazier had stood, as if to say, “This debasing tether I will not accept, though humans may.”

But when Fafhrd slowly started up the wall and the Mouser followed and the rope tightened on Hrissa, and when she had looked up and seen them still roped like herself, she followed sulkily after. A little later she slipped off a bulge— her boots, snug as they were, must have been clumsy to her after naked pads— and swung scrabbling back and forth several long moments before she was supporting her own weight again. Fortunately the Mouser had a firm stance at the time.

After that, Hrissa came on more cheerily, sometimes even climbing to the side ahead of the Mouser and smiling back at him— rather sardonically, the Mouser fancied.

The climbing was a shade steeper than yesterday with an even greater insistence that each hand—and foothold be perfect. Gloved fingers must grip stone, not ice; spikes must clash through the brittle stuff to rock. Fafhrd roped his ax to his right wrist and used its hammer to tap away treacherous thin platelets and curves of the glassy frozen water.

And the climbing was more wearing because it was harder to avoid tenseness. Even looking sideways at the steepness of the wall tightened the Mouser’s groin with fear. He wondered what if the wind should blow?— and fought the impulse to cling flat to the cliff. Yet at the same time sweat began to trickle down his face and chest, so that he had to throw back his hood and loosen his tunic to his belly to keep his clothes from sogging.

But there was worse to come. It had looked as though the slope above were gentling, but now, drawing nearer, they perceived a bulge jutting out a full two yards some seven yards above them. The under-slope was pocked here and there— fine handholds, except that they opened down. The bulge extended as far as they could see to either side, at most points looking worse.

They found themselves the best and highest holds they could, close together, and stared up at their problem. Even Hrissa, a-cling by the Mouser, seemed subdued.

Fafhrd said softly, “I mind me now they used to say there was an out-jutting around the Obelisk’s top. His Crown, I think my father called it. I wonder…”

“Don’t you know?” the Mouser demanded, a shade harshly. Standing rigid on his holds, his arms and legs were aching worse than ever.

“O Mouser,” Fafhrd confessed, “in my youth I never climbed Obelisk Polaris farther than halfway to last night’s camp. I only boasted to raise our spirits.”

There being nothing to say to that, the Mouser shut his lips, though somewhat thinly. Fafhrd began to whistle a tuneless tune and carefully fished a small grapnel with five dagger-sharp flukes from his pouch and tied it securely to the long end of their black rope still coiled on his back. Then stretching his right arm as far out as he might from the cliff, he whirled the grapnel in a smallish circle, faster and faster, and finally hurled it upward. They heard it clash against rock somewhere above the bulge, but it did not catch on any crack or hump and instantly came sliding and then dropping down, missing the Mouser by hardly a handbreadth, it seemed to him.

Fafhrd drew up the grapnel— with some delays, since it tended to catch on every crack or hump below them— and whirled and hurled it again. And again and again and again, each time without success. Once it stayed up, but Fafhrd’s first careful tug on the rope brought it down.

Fafhrd’s sixth cast was his first really bad one. The grapnel never went out of sight at all. As it reached the top of the throw, it glinted for an instant.

“Sunlight!” Fafhrd hissed happily. “We’re almost to the summit!”

“That ‘almost’ is a whopper, though,” the Mouser commented, but even he couldn’t keep a cheerful note out of his voice.

By the time Fafhrd had failed on seven more casts, all cheerfulness was gone from the Mouser again. His aches were horrible, his hands and feet were numbing in the cold, and his brain was numbing too, so that the next time Fafhrd cast and missed, he was so unwise as to follow the grapnel with his gaze as it fell.

For the first time today he really looked out and down.

The Cold Waste was a pale blue expanse almost like the sky— and seeming even more distant— all its copses and mounds and tiny tarns having long since become pinpoints and vanished. Many leagues to the west, almost at the horizon, a jagged pale gold band showed where the shadows of the mountains ended. Midway in the band was a blue gap— Stardock’s shadow continuing over the edge of the world.

Giddily the Mouser snatched his gaze back to Obelisk Polaris … and although he could still see the granite, it didn’t seem to count anymore— only four insecure holds on a kind of pale green nothingness, with Fafhrd and Hrissa somehow suspended beside him. His mind could no longer accept the Obelisk’s steepness.

As the urge to hurl himself down swelled in him, he somehow transformed it into a sardonic snort, and he heard himself say with daggerish contempt, “Leave off your foolish fishing, Fafhrd! I’ll show you now how Lankhmarian mountain science deals with a trifling problem such as this which has baffled all your barbarian whirling and casting!”

And with that he unclipped from his pack with reckless speed the thick black bamboo pike or crook and began cursingly with numb fingers to draw out and let snap into place its telescoping sections until it was four times its original length.

This tool of technical climbing, which indeed the Mouser had brought all the way from Lankhmar, had been a matter of dispute between them the whole trip, Fafhrd asserting it was a tricksy toy not worth the packing.

Now, however, Fafhrd made no comment, but merely coiled up his grapnel and thrust his hands into his wolfskin jerkin against his sides to warm them and, mild-eyed, watched the Mouser’s furious activity. Hrissa shifted to a perch closer to Fafhrd and crouched stoically.

But when the Mouser shakily thrust the narrower end of his black tool toward the bulge above, Fafhrd reached out a hand to help him steady it, yet could not refrain from saying, “If you think to get a good enough hold with the crook on the rim to shinny up that stick— “

“Quiet, you loutish kibitzer!” the Mouser snarled and with Fafhrd’s help thrust pike-end into a pock in the rock hardly a finger’s length from the rim. Then he seated the spiked foot of the pole in a small, deep hollow just above his head. Next he snapped out two short recessed lever-arms from the base of the pole and began to rotate them. It soon became clear that they controlled a great screw hidden in the pole, for the latter lengthened until it stood firmly between the two pocks in the rock, while the stiff black shaft itself bent a little.

At that instant a sliver of rock, being pressed by the pole, broke off from the rim. The pole thrummed as it straightened and the Mouser, screaming a curse, slipped off his holds and fell.

It was good then that the rope between the two comrades was short and that the spikes of Fafhrd’s boots were seated firmly, like so many demon-forged dagger-points, in the rock of his footholds— for as the strain came suddenly on Fafhrd’s belt and on his rope-gripping left hand, he took it without plummeting after the Mouser, only bending his knees a little and grunting softly, while his right hand snatched hold of the vibrating pole and saved it.

The Mouser had not even fallen far enough to drag Hrissa from her perch, though the rope almost straightened between them. The ice-cat, her tufted neck bent sharply between foreleg and chest, peered down with great curiosity at the dangling man.

His face was ashen. Fafhrd made no mark of that, but simply handed him the black pole, saying, “It’s a good tool. I’ve screwed it back short. Seat it in another pock and try again.”

Soon the pole stood firm between the hollow by the Mouser’s head and a pock a hand’s width from the rim. The bowlike bend in the pole faced downward. Then they put the Mouser first on the rope, and he went climbing up and out along the pole, hanging from it back downward, his boot-edges finding tiny holds on the pole’s section-shoulders— out into and over the vast, pale blue-gray space which had so lately dizzied him.

The pole began to bend a little more with the Mouser’s weight, the pike-end slipping a finger’s span in the upper pock with a horrible tiny grating sound, but Fafhrd gave the screw another turn, and the pole held firm.

Fafhrd and Hrissa watched the Mouser reach its end, where he paused briefly. Then they saw him reach up his left arm until it was out of sight to the elbow above the rim, meanwhile gripping with his right hand the crook and twining his legs around the shaft. He appeared to feel about with his left hand and find something. Then he moved out and up still further and very slowly his head and after it, in a sudden swift sweep, his right arm went out of sight above the rim.

For several long moments they saw only the bottom half of the bent Mouser, his dark crinkly-soled boots twined securely to the end of the pole. Then, rather slowly, like a gray snail, and with a final push of one boot against the top of the crook, he went entirely out of sight.

Fafhrd slowly paid out rope after him.

After some time the Mouser’s voice, quite ghostly yet clear, came down to them: “Hola! I’ve got the rope anchored around a boss big as a tree stump. Send up Hrissa.”

So Fafhrd put Hrissa on the rope ahead of him, knotting it to her harness with a sheepshank.

Hrissa fought desperately for a moment against being swung into space, but as soon as it was done hung deathly still. Then as she was drawn slowly up, Fafhrd’s knot began to slip. The ice-cat swiftly snatched at the rope with her teeth and gripped it far back between her jaws. The moment she came near the rim, her clawed mittens were ready, and she scrabbled and was dragged out of sight.

Soon word came down from the Mouser that Hrissa was safe and Fafhrd might follow. He frowningly tightened the screw another half turn, though the pole creaked ominously, and then very gently climbed out along it. The Mouser now kept the rope taut from above, but for the first stretch it could hardly take more than a few pounds of Fafhrd’s weight off the pole.

The upper spike once again grated horribly a bit in its pock, but it still held firm. Helped more by the rope now, Fafhrd got his hands and head over the rim.

What he saw was a smooth, gentle rock slope, which could be climbed by friction, and at the top of it the Mouser and Hrissa standing backgrounded by blue sky and gilded by sunlight.

Soon he stood beside them.

The Mouser said, “Fafhrd, when we get back to Lankhmar remind me to give Glinthi the Artificer thirteen diamonds from the pouch of them we’ll find on Stardock’s hat: one for each section and joint of my climbing pole, one each for the spikes at the ends and two for each screw.”

“Are there two screws?” Fafhrd asked respectfully.

“Yes, one at each end,” the Mouser told him and then made Fafhrd brace the rope for him so that he could climb down the slope and, bending all his upper body down over the rim, shorten the pole by rotating its upper screw until he was able to drag it triumphantly back over the top with him.

As the Mouser telescoped its sections together again, Fafhrd said to him seriously, “You must thong it to your belt as I do my ax. We must not chance losing Glinthi’s help on the rest of this journey.”

Throwing back their hoods and opening their tunics wide to the hot sun, Fafhrd and the Mouser looked around, while Hrissa luxuriously stretched and worked her slim limbs and neck and body, the white fur of which hid her bruises. Both men were somewhat exalted by the thin air and filled brain-high with the ease of mind and spirit that comes with a great danger skillfully conquered.

Rather to their amazement, the southward swinging sun had climbed barely halfway to noon. Perils which had seemed demihours long had lasted minutes only.

The summit of Obelisk Polaris was a great rolling field of pale rock too big to measure by Lankhmar acres. They had arrived near the southwest corner, and the gray-tinted stone meadow seemed to stretch east and north almost indefinitely. Here and there were hummocks and hollows, but they swelled and dipped most gently. There were a few scattered large boulders, not many, while off to the east were darker indistinct shapes which might be bushes and small trees footed in cracks filled with blown dirt.

“What lies east of the mountain chain?” the Mouser asked. “More Cold Waste?”

“Our clan never journeyed there,” Fafhrd answered. He frowned. “Some taboo on the whole area, I think. Mist always masked the east on my father’s great climbs, or so he told us.”

“We could have a look now,” the Mouser suggested.

Fafhrd shook his head. “Our course lies there,” he said, pointing northeast, where Stardock rose like a giantess standing tall but asleep, or feigning sleep, looking seven times as big and high at least as she had before the Obelisk hid her top two days ago.

The Mouser said, a shade dolefully, “All our brave work scaling the Obelisk has only made Stardock higher. Are you sure there’s not another peak, perhaps invisible, on top of her?”

Fafhrd nodded without taking his eyes off her, who was empress without consort of the Mountains of the Giants. Her Tresses had grown to great swelling rivers of snow, and now the two adventurers could see faint stirrings in them— avalanches slipping and tumbling.

The Southern Tress came down in a great dipping double curve toward the northwest corner of the mighty rock summit on which they stood.

At the top, Stardock’s corniced snow hat, its upper rim glittering with sunlight as if it were edged around with diamonds, seemed to nod toward them a trifle more than it ever had before, and the demurely-eyed Face with it, like a great lady hinting at possible favors.

But the gauzy, long pale veils of the Grand and Petty Pennons no longer streamed from her Hat. The air atop Stardock must be as still at the moment as it was where they stood upon the Obelisk.

“What devil’s luck that Kranarch and Gnarfi should tackle the north wall the one day in eight the gale fails!” Fafhrd cursed. “But ‘twill be their destruction yet— yes, and of their two shaggy-clad henchmen too. This calm can’t hold.”

“I recall now,” the Mouser remarked, “that when we caroused with ‘em in Illik-Ving, Gnarfi, drunken, claimed he could whistle up winds— had learned the trick from his grandmother— and could whistle ‘em down too, which is more to the point.”

“The more reason for us to hasten!” Fafhrd cried, upping his pack and slipping his big arms through the wide shoulder straps. “On, Mouser! Up, Hrissa! We’ll have a bite and sup before the snow ridge.”

“You mean we must tackle that freezing, treacherous problem today?” demurred the Mouser, who would dearly have loved to strip and bake in the sun.

“Before noon!” Fafhrd decreed. And with that he set them a stiff walking pace straight north, keeping close to the summit’s west edge, as if to countermand from the start any curiosity the Mouser might have about a peek to the east. The latter followed with only minor further protests; Hrissa came on limpingly, lagging at first far behind, but catching up as her limp went and her cat-zest for newness grew.

And so they marched across the great, strange rolling granite plain of Obelisk’s top, patched here and there with limestone stretches white as marble. Its sun-drenched silence and uniformity became eerie after a bit. The shallowness of its hollows was deceptive: Fafhrd noted several in which battalions of armed men might have hidden a-crouch, unseen until one came within a spear’s cast.

The longer they strode along, the more closely Fafhrd studied the rock his hobnails clashed. Finally he paused to point out a strangely rippled stretch.

“I’d swear that once was seabottom,” he said softly.

The Mouser’s eyes narrowed. Thinking of the great invisible fishlike flier they had seen last evening, its raylike form undulating through the snowfall, he felt gooseflesh crawling on him.

Hrissa slunk past them, head a-weave.

Soon they passed the last boulder, a huge one, and saw, scarcely a bowshot ahead, the glitter of snow.

The Mouser said, “The worst thing about mountain climbing is that the easy parts go so quickly.”

“Hist!” warned Fafhrd, sprawling down suddenly like a great four-legged water beetle and putting his cheek to the rock. “Do you hear it, Mouser!”

Hrissa snarled, staring about, and her white fur bristled.

The Mouser started to stoop, but realized he wouldn’t have to, so fast the sound was coming on: a general high-pitched drumming, as of five hundred fiends rippling their giant thick fingernails on a great stone drumhead.

Then, without pause, there came surging straight toward them over the nearest rock swelling to the southeast, a great wide-fronted stampede of goats, so packed together and their fur so glossy white that they seemed for a flash like an onrushing of living snow. Even the great curving horns of their leaders were ivory-hued. The Mouser noted that a stretch of the sunny air just above their center shimmered and wavered as it will above a fire. Then he and Fafhrd were racing back toward the last boulder with Hrissa bounding ahead.

Behind them the devil’s tattoo of the stampede grew louder and louder.

They reached the boulder and vaulted atop it, where Hrissa already crouched, hardly a pounding heartbeat before the white horde. And well it was that Fafhrd had his ax out the instant they won there, for the midmost of the great billies sprang high, forelegs tucked up and head bowed to present his creamy horns— so close Fafhrd could see their splintered tips. But in that same instant Fafhrd got him in his snowy shoulder with a great swashing deep-cleaving blow so heavy that the beast was carried past them to the side and crashed on the short slope leading down to the rim of the west wall.

Then the white stampede was splitting around the great boulder, the animals so near and packed that there was no longer room for leaping, and the din of their hooves and the gasping and now the frightened bleating was horrendous, and the caprid stench was stifling, while the boulder rocked with their passage.

In the worst of the bruit there was a momentary downrushing of air, briefly dispelling the stench, as something passed close above their heads, rippling the sky like a long flapping blanket of fluid glass, while through the clangor could be heard for a moment a harsh, hateful laughter.

The lesser tongue of the stampede passed between the boulder and the rim, and of these goats many went tumbling over the edge with bleats like screams of the damned, carrying with them the body of the great billy Fafhrd had maimed.

Then as sudden in its departure as a snow squall that dismasts a ship in the Frozen Sea, the stampede was past them and pounding south, swinging east somewhat from the deadly rim, with the last few of the goats, chiefly nannies and kids, bounding madly after.

Pointing his arm toward the sun as if for a sword-thrust, the Mouser cried furiously, “See there, where the beams twist all askew above the herd! It’s the same flier as just now overpassed us and last night we saw in the snowfall— the flier who raised the stampede and whose riders guided it against us! Oh, damn the two deceitful ghostly bitches, luring us on to a goaty destruction stinking worse than a temple orgy in the City of Ghouls!”

“I thought this laughter was far deeper,” Fafhrd objected. “It was not the girls.”

“So they have a deep-throated pimp— does that improve them in your eyes? Or your great flapping love-struck ears?” the Mouser demanded angrily.

The drumming of the stampede had died away even swifter than it had come, and in the new-fallen silence they heard now a happy half-obstructed growling. Hrissa, springing off the boulder at stampede-end, had struck down a fat kid and was tearing at its bloodied white neck.

“Ah, I can smell it broiling now!” the Mouser cried with a great smile, his preoccupations altering in less than an instant. “Good Hrissa! Fafhrd, if those be treelets and bushes and grass to the east— and they must be that, for what else feeds these goats?— there’s sure to be dead wood— why, there may even be mint!— and we can…”

“You’ll eat the flesh raw for lunch or not at all!” Fafhrd decreed fiercely. “Are we to risk the stampede again? Or give the sniggering flier a chance to marshal against us some snow lions?— which are sure to be here too, to prey on the goats. And are we to present Kranarch and Gnarfi the summit of Stardock on a diamond-studded silver platter?— if this devil’s lull holds tomorrow too and they be industrious strong climbers, not nice-bellied sluggards like one I could name!”

So, with only a gripe or two more from the Mouser, the kid was swiftly bled, gutted and skinned, and some of its spine-meat and haunches wrapped and packed for supper. Hrissa drank some more blood and ate half the liver and then followed the Mouser and Fafhrd as they set off north toward the snow ridge. The two men were chewing thin-sliced peppered collops of raw kid, but striding swiftly and keeping a wary eye behind for another stampede.

The Mouser expected now at last to get a view of the eastern depths, by peering east along the north wall of Obelisk Polaris, but here again he was foiled by the first great swell of the snow-saddle.

However, the northern view was fearsomely majestic. A full half league below them now and seen almost vertically on, the White Waterfall went showering down mysteriously, twinkling even in the shadow.

The ridge by which they must travel first curved up a score of yards, then dipped smoothly down to a long snow-saddle another score of yards below them, then slowly curved up into the South Tress, down which they could now plainly see avalanches trickling and tumbling.

It was easy to see how the northeast gale, blowing almost continually but missing the Ladder, would greatly pile up snow between the taller mountain and the Obelisk— but whether the rocky connection between the two mountains underlay the snow by only a few yards or by as much as a quarter league was impossible to know.

“We must rope again,” Fafhrd decreed. “I’ll go first and cut steps for us across the west slope.”

“What need we steps in this calm!” the Mouser demanded. “Or to go by the west slope? You just don’t want me to see the east, do you? The top of the ridge is broad enough to drive two carts across abreast.”

“The ridge-top in the wind’s path almost certainly overhangs emptiness to the east and would break away,” Fafhrd explained. “Look you, Mouser; do I know more about snow and ice or do you?”

“I once crossed the Bones of the Old Ones with you,” the Mouser retorted, shrugging. “There was snow there, I recall.”

“Pooh, the mere spillings of a lady’s powderbox compared to this. No, Mouser, on this stretch my word is law.”

“Very well,” the Mouser agreed.

So they roped up rather close— in order, Fafhrd, Mouser, and Hrissa— and without more ado Fafhrd donned his gloves and thonged his ax to his wrist and began cutting steps for them around the shoulder of the snow swell.

It was rather slow work, for under a dusting of powder snow the stuff was hard, and for each step Fafhrd must make at least two cuts— first an in-chopping backhand one to make the step, then a down-chop to clear it. And as the slope grew steeper, he must make the steps somewhat closer together. The steps he made were rather small, at least for his great boots, but they were sure.

Soon the ridge and the Obelisk cut off the sun. It grew very chill. The Mouser closed his tunic and drew his hood around his face, while Hrissa, between her short leaps from step to step, performed a kind of tiny cat-jig on them, to keep her gloved paws from freezing. The Mouser reminded himself to stuff them a bit with lamb’s wool when he renewed the salve. He had his pike out now, telescoped short and thonged to his wrist.

They passed the shoulder of the swell and came opposite the beginning of the snow-saddle, but Fafhrd did not cut steps up toward it. Rather, the steps he now was cutting descended at a sharper angle than the saddle dipped, though the slope they were crossing was becoming quite steep.

“Fafhrd,” the Mouser protested quietly, “we’re heading for Stardock’s top, not the White Waterfall.”

“You said, ‘Very well,’” Fafhrd retorted between chops. “Besides, who does the work?” His ax rang as it bit into ice.

“Look, Fafhrd,” the Mouser said, “there are two goats crossing to Stardock along the saddletop. No, three.”

“We should trust goats? Ask yourself why they’ve been sent.” Again Fafhrd’s ax rang.

The sun swung into view as it coursed southward, sending their three shadows ranging far ahead of them. The pale gray of the snow turned glittery white. The Mouser unhooded to the yellow rays. For a while the enjoyment of their warmth on the back of his head helped him keep his mouth shut, but then the slope grew steeper yet, as Fafhrd continued remorselessly to cut steps downward.

“I seem to recall that our purpose was to climb Stardock, but my memory must be disordered,” the Mouser observed. “Fafhrd, I’ll take your word we must keep away from the top of the ridge, but do we have to keep away so far? And the three goats have all skipped across.”

Still, “‘Very well,’ you said,” was all Fafhrd would answer, and this time there was a snarl in his voice.

The Mouser shrugged. Now he was bracing himself with his pike continuously, while Hrissa would pause studyingly before each leap.

Their shadows went less than a spear’s cast ahead of them now, while the hot sun had begun to melt the surface snow, sending down trickles of ice water to wet their gloves and make their footing unsure.

Yet still Fafhrd kept cutting steps downward. And now of a sudden he began to cut them downward more steeply still, adding with taps of his ax a tiny handhold above each step— and these handholds were needed!

“Fafhrd,” the Mouser said dreamily, “perhaps an ice-sprite has whispered to you the secret of levitation, so that from this fine takeoff you can dive, level out, and then go spring to Stardock’s top. In that case I wish you’d teach myself and Hrissa how to grow wings in an instant.”

“Hist!” Fafhrd spoke softly yet sharply at that instant. “I have a feeling. Something comes. Brace yourself and watch behind us.”

The Mouser drove his pike in deep and rotated his head. As he did, Hrissa leaped from the last step behind to the one on which the Mouser stood, landing half on his boot and clinging to his knee— yet this done so dexterously the Mouser was not dislodged.

“I see nothing,” the Mouser reported, staring almost sunward. Then, words suddenly clipped: “Again the beams twist like a spinning lantern! The glints on the ice ripple and wave. ‘Tis the flier come again! Cling!”

There came the rushing sound, louder than ever before and swiftly mounting, then a great sea-wave of air, as of a great body passing swiftly only spans away; it whipped their clothes and Hrissa’s fur and forced them to cling fiercely to their holds, though Fafhrd made a full-armed swipe with his ax. Hrissa snarled. Fafhrd almost louted forward off his holds with the momentum of his blow.

“I’ll swear I scored on him, Mouser,” he snarled, recovering. “My ax touched something besides air.”

“You harebrained fool!” the Mouser cried. “Your scratches will anger him and bring him back.” He let go of the chopped ice-hold with his hand and, steadying himself by his pike, he searched the sun-bright air ahead and around for ripples.

“More like I’ve scared him off,” Fafhrd asserted, doing the same. The rushy sound faded and did not return; the air became quiet, and the steep slope grew very still; even the water-drip faded.

Turning back to the wall with a grunt of relief, the Mouser touched emptiness. He grew still as death himself. Turning his eyes only he saw that upward from a point level with his knees the whole snow ridge had vanished— the whole saddle and a section of the swell to either side of it— as if some great god had reached down while the Mouser’s back was turned and removed that block of reality.

Giddily he clung to his pike. He was standing atop a newly created snow-saddle now. Beyond and below its raw, fresh-fractured white eastern slope, the silently departed great snow-cornice was falling faster and faster, still in one hill-size chunk.

Behind them the steps Fafhrd had cut mounted to the new snow rim, then vanished.

“See, I chopped us down far enough only in the nick,” Fafhrd grumbled. “My judgment was faulty.”

The falling cornice was snatched downward out of sight so that the Mouser and Fafhrd at last could see what lay east of the Mountains of the Giants: a rolling expanse of dark green that might be treetops except that from here even giant trees would be tinier than grass blades— an expanse even farther below them than the Cold Waste at their backs. Beyond the green-carpeted depression, another mountain range loomed like the ghost of one.

“I have heard legends of the Great Rift Valley,” Fafhrd murmured. “A mountainsided cup for sunlight, its warm floor a league below the Waste.”

Their eyes searched.

“Look,” the Mouser said, “how trees climb the eastern face of Obelisk almost to his top. Now the goats don’t seem so strange.”

They could see nothing, however, of the east face of Stardock.

“Come on!” Fafhrd commanded. “If we linger, the invisible growl-laughtered flier may gather courage to return despite my ax-nick.”

And without further word he began resolutely to cut steps onward … and still a little down.

Hrissa continued to peer over the rim, her bearded chin almost resting on it, her nostrils a-twitch as if she faintly scented gossamer threads of meat-odor mounting from the leagues’ distant dark green, but when the rope tightened on her harness, she followed.

Perils came thick now. They reached the dark rock of the Ladder only by chopping their way along a nearly vertical ice wall in the twinkly gloom under a close-arching waterfall of snow that shot out from an icy boss above them— perhaps a miniature version of the White Waterfall that was Stardock’s skirt.

When they stepped at last, numb with cold and hardly daring to believe they’d made it, onto a wide dark ledge, they saw a jumble of bloody goat tracks in the snow around.

Without more warning than that, a long snowbank between that step and the next above reared up its nearest white end a dozen feet and hissed fearsomely, showing it to be a huge serpent with head a big as an elk’s, all covered with shaggy snow-white fur. Its great violet eyes glared like those of a mad horse and its jaw gaped to show slashing-teeth like a shark’s and two great fangs jetting a mist of pale ichor.

The furred serpent hesitated for two sways between the nearer, taller man with flashing ax and the farther, smaller one with thick black stick. In that pause Hrissa, with snarling hisses of her own, sprang forward past the Mouser on the downslope side and the furred serpent struck at this newest and most active foe.

Fafhrd got a blast of its hot acrid breath, and the vapor trail from its nearer fang bathed his left elbow.

The Mouser’s attention was fixed on a fur-wisped violet eye as big as a girl’s fist.

Hrissa looked down the monster’s gaping dark red gullet rimmed by slaver-swimming ivory knives and the two ichor-jetting fangs.

Then the jaws clashed shut, but in the intervening instant Hrissa had leaped back more swiftly even than she’d advanced.

The Mouser plunged the pike-end of his climbing pole into the glaring violet eye.

Swinging his ax two-handed, Fafhrd slashed at the furry neck just back of the horselike skull, and there gushed out red blood which steamed as it struck the snow.

Then the three climbers were scrambling upward, while the monster writhed in convulsions which shook the rock and spattered with red alike the snow and its snow-white fur.

At what they hoped was a safe distance above it, the climbers watched it dying, though not without frequent glances about for creatures like it or other perilous beasts.

Fafhrd said, “A hot-blooded serpent, a snake with fur— it goes against experience. My father never spoke of such; I doubt he ever met ‘em.”

The Mouser answered, “I’ll wager they find their prey on the east slope of Stardock and come here only to lair or breed. Perhaps the invisible flier drove the three goats over the snow-saddle to lure this one.” His voice grew dreamy. “Or perhaps there’s a secret world inside Stardock.”

Fafhrd shook his head, as if to clear it of such imagination-snaring visions. “Our way lies upward,” he said. “We’d best be well above the Lairs before nightfall. Give me a dollop of honey when I drink,” he added, loosening his water bag as he turned and scanned up the Ladder.

From its base the Ladder was a dark narrow triangle climbing to the blue sky between the snowy, ever-tumbling Tresses. First there were the ledges on which they stood, easy at first, but swiftly growing steeper and narrower. Next an almost blank stretch, etched here and there with shadows and ripplings hinting at part-way climbing routes, but none of them connected. Then another band of ledges, the Roosts. Then a stretch still blanker than the first. Finally another ledge-band, narrower and shorter— the Face— and atop all what seemed a tiny pen-stroke of white ink: the brim of Stardock’s pennonless snowy hat.

All the Mouser’s aches and weariness came back as he squinted up the Ladder while feeling in his pouch for the honey jar. Never, he was sure, had he seen so much distance compressed into so little space by vertical foreshortening. It was as if the gods had built a ladder to reach the sky, and after using it had kicked most of the steps away. But he clenched his teeth and prepared to follow Fafhrd.

All their previous climbing began to seem book-simple compared to what they now straggled through, step by straining step, all the long summer afternoon. Where Obelisk Polaris had been a stern schoolmaster, Stardock was a mad queen, tireless in preparing her shocks and surprises, unpredictable in her wild caprices.

The ledges of the Lairs were built of rock that sometimes broke away at a touch, and they were piled with loose gravel. Also, the climbers made acquaintance with Stardock’s rocky avalanches, which brought stones whizzing and spattering down around them without warning, so that they had to press close to the walls and Fafhrd regretted leaving his helmet in the cairn. Hrissa first snarled at each pelting pebble which hit near her, but when at last struck in the side by a small one, showed fear and slunk close to the Mouser, trying until rebuked to push between the wall and his legs.

And once they saw a cousin of the white worm they had slain rear up man-high and glare at them from a distant ledge, but it did not attack.

They had to work their way to the northernmost point of the topmost ledge before they found, at the very edge of the Northern Tress, almost underlying its streaming snow, a scree-choked gully which narrowed upward to a wide vertical groove— or chimney, as Fafhrd called it.

And when the treacherous scree was at last surmounted, the Mouser discovered that the next stretch of the ascent was indeed very like climbing up the inside of a rectangular chimney of varying width and with one of the four walls missing— that facing outward to the air. Its rock was sounder than that of the Lairs, but that was all that could be said for it.

Here all tricks of climbing were required and the utmost of main strength into the bargain. Sometimes they hoisted themselves by cracks wide enough for finger and toeholds; if a crack they needed was too narrow, Fafhrd would tap into it one of his spikes to make a hold, and this spike must, if possible, be unwedged after use and recovered. Sometimes the chimney narrowed so that they could walk up it laboriously with shoulders to one wall and boot soles to the other. Twice it widened and became so smooth-walled that the Mouser’s extensible climbing-pike had to be braced between wall and wall to give them a necessary step.

And five times the chimney was blocked by a huge rock or chockstone which in falling had wedged itself fast, and these fearsome obstructions had to be climbed around on the outside, generally with the aid of one or more of Fafhrd’s spikes driven between chockstone and wall, or his grapnel tossed over it.

“Stardock has wept millstones in her day,” the Mouser said of these gigantic barriers, jerking his body aside from a whizzing rock for a period to his sentence.

This climbing was generally beyond Hrissa, and she often had to be carried on the Mouser’s back, or left on a chockstone or one of the rare paw-wide ledges and hoisted up when opportunity offered. They were strongly tempted, especially after they grew death-weary, to abandon her but could not forget how her brave feint had saved them from the white worm’s first stroke.

All this, particularly the passing of the chockstones, must be done under the pelting of Stardock’s rocky avalanches— so that each new chockstone above them was welcomed as a roof, until it had to be surmounted. Also, snow sometimes gushed into the chimney, overspilling from one of the snowy avalanches forever whispering down the North Tress— one more danger to guard against. Ice water runneled too from time to time down the chimney, drenching boots and gloves and making all holds unsure.

In addition, there was less nourishment in the air, so that they had more often to halt and gasp deeply until their lungs were satisfied. And Fafhrd’s left arm began to swell where the venomous mist from the worm’s fang had blown around it, until he could hardly bend its swollen fingers to grip crack or rope. Besides, it itched and stung. He plunged it again and again into snow to no avail.

Their only allies on this most punishing ascent were the hot sun, heartening them by its glow and offsetting the growing frigidity of the thin still air, and the very difficulty and variety of the climb itself, which at least kept their minds off the emptiness around and beneath them— the latter a farther drop than they’d ever stood over on the Obelisk. The Cold Waste seemed like another world, poised separate from Stardock in space.

Once they forced themselves to eat a bite and several times sipped water. And once the Mouser was seized with mountain sickness, ending only when he had retched himself weary.

The only incident of the climb unrelated to Stardock’s mad self occurred when they were climbing out around the fifth chockstone, slowly, like two large slugs, the Mouser first this time and bearing Hrissa, with Fafhrd close behind. At this point the North Tress narrowed so that a hump of the North Wall was visible across the snow stream.

There was a whirring unlike that of any rock. Another whirring then, closer and ending in a thunk. When Fafhrd scrambled atop the chockstone and into the shelter of the walls, he had a cruelly barbed arrow through his pack.

At cost of a third arrow whirring close by his head, the Mouser peeped out north with Fafhrd clinging to his heels and swiftly dragging him back.

“‘Twas Kranarch all right; I saw him twang his bow,” the Mouser reported. “No sight of Gnarfi, but one of their new comrades clad in brown fur crouched behind Kranarch, braced on the same boss. I couldn’t see his face, but ‘tis a most burly fellow, short of leg.”

“They keep apace of us,” Fafhrd grunted.

“Also, they scruple not to mix climbing with killing,” the Mouser observed as he broke off the tail of the arrow piercing Fafhrd’s pack and yanked out the shaft. “Oh, comrade, I fear your sleeping cloak is sixteen times holed. And that little bladder of pine liniment— it got holed too. Ah, what fragrance!”

“I’m beginning to think those two men of Illik-Ving aren’t sportsmen,” Fafhrd asserted. “So … up and on!”

They were all dog-weary, even cat-Hrissa, and the sun was barely ten fingerbreadths (at the end of an outstretched arm) above the flat horizon of the Waste; and something in the air had turned Sol white as silver— he no longer sent warmth to combat the cold. But the ledges of the Roosts were close above now, and it was possible to hope they would offer a better campsite than the chimney.

So although every man and cat muscle protested against it, they obeyed Fafhrd’s command.

Halfway to the Roosts it began to snow, powdery grains falling arrow-straight like last night, but thicker.

This silent snowfall gave a sense of serenity and security which was most false, since it masked the rockfalls which still came firing down the chimney like the artillery of the God of Chance.

Five yards from the top a fist-size chunk struck Fafhrd glancingly on the right shoulder, so that his good arm went numb and hung useless, but the little climbing that remained was so easy he could make it with boots and puffed-up, barely-usable left hand.

He peeped cautiously out of the chimney’s top, but the Tress here had thickened up again, so that there was no sight of the North Wall. Also the first ledge was blessedly wide and so overhung with rock that not even snow had fallen on its inner half, let alone stones. He scrambled up eagerly, followed by the Mouser and Hrissa.

But even as they cast themselves down to rest at the back of the ledge, the Mouser wriggling out of his heavy pack and unthonging his climbing-pike from his wrist— for even that had become a torturesome burden— they heard a now-familiar rushing in the air, and there came a great flat shape swooping slowly through the sun-silvered snow which outlined it. Straight at the ledge it came, and this time it did not go past, but halted and hung there, like a giant devil fish nuzzling the sea’s rim, while ten narrow marks, each of suckers in line, appeared in the snow on the ledge’s edge, as of ten short tentacles gripping there.

From the center of this monstrous invisibility rose a smaller snow-outlined invisibility of the height and thickness of a man. Midway up this shape was one visible thing: a slim sword of dark gray blade and silvery hilt, pointed straight at the Mouser’s breast.

Suddenly the sword shot forward, almost as fast as if hurled, but not quite, and after it, as swiftly, the man-size pillar, which now laughed harshly from its top.

The Mouser snatched up one-handed his unthonged climbing pike and thrust at the snow-sketched figure behind the sword.

The gray sword snaked around the pike and with a sudden sharp twist swept it from the Mouser’s fatigue-slack fingers.

The black tool, on which Glinthi the Artificer had expended all the evenings of the Month of the Weasel three years past, vanished into the silvery snowfall and space.

Hrissa backed against the wall frothing and snarling, a-tremble in every limb.

Fafhrd fumbled frantically for his ax, but his swollen fingers could not even unsnap the sheath binding its head to his belt.

The Mouser, enraged at the loss of his precious pike to the point where he cared not a whit whether his foe was invisible or not, drew Scalpel from its sheath and fiercely parried the gray sword as it came streaking in again.

A dozen parries he had to make and was pinked twice in the arm and pressed back against the wall almost like Hrissa, before he could take the measure of his foe, now out of the snowfall and wholly invisible, and go himself on the attack.

Then, glaring at a point a foot above the gray sword— a point where he judged his foe’s eyes to be (if his foe carried his eyes in his head)— he went stamping forward, beating at the gray blade, slipping Scalpel around it with the tiniest disengages, seeking to bind it with his own sword, and ever thrusting impetuously at invisible arm and trunk.

Three times he felt his blade strike flesh, and once it bent briefly against invisible bone.

His foe leaped back onto the invisible flier, making narrow footprints in the slush gathered there. The flier rocked.

In his fighting rage the Mouser almost followed his foe onto that invisible, living, pulsating platform, yet prudently stopped at the brink.

And well it was he did so, for the flier dropped away like a skate in flight from a shark, shaking its slush into the snowfall. There came a last burst of laughter more like a wail, fading off and down in the silvery murk.

The Mouser began to laugh himself, a shade hysterically, and retreated to the wall. There he wiped off his blade and felt the stickiness of invisible blood, and laughed a wild high laugh again.

Hrissa’s fur was still on end— and was a long time flattening.

Fafhrd quit trying to fumble out his ax and said seriously, “The girls couldn’t have been with him— we’d have seen their forms or footprints on the slush-backed flier. I think he’s jealous of us and works against ‘em.”

The Mouser laughed— only foolishly now— for a third time.

The murk turned dark gray. They set about firing the brazier and making ready for night. Despite their hurts and supreme weariness, the shock and fright of the last encounter had excited new energy from them and raised their spirits and given them appetites. They feasted well on thin collops of kid frizzled in the resin-flames or cooked pale gray in water that, strangely, could be sipped without hurt almost while it boiled.

“Must be nearing the realm of the Gods,” Fafhrd muttered. “It’s said they joyously drink boiling wine— and walk hurtlessly through flames.”

“Fire is just as hot here, though,” the Mouser said dully.

“Yet the air seems to have less nourishment. On what do you suppose the Gods subsist?”

“They are ethereal and require neither air nor food,” Fafhrd suggested after a long frown of thinking.

“Yet you just now said they drink wine.”

“Everybody drinks wine,” Fafhrd asserted with a yawn, killing the discussion and also the Mouser’s dim, unspoken speculation as to whether the feebler air, pressing less strongly on heating liquid, let its bubbles escape more easily.

Power of movement began to return to Fafhrd’s right arm and his left was swelling no more. The Mouser salved and bandaged his own small wounds, then remembered to salve Hrissa’s pads and tuck into her boots a little pine-scented eiderdown tweaked from the arrow-holes in Fafhrd’s cloak.

When they were half laced up in their cloaks, Hrissa snuggled between them— and a few more precious resin-pellets dropped in the brazier as a bedtime luxury— Fafhrd got out a tiny jar of strong wine of Ilthmar, and they each took a sip of it, imagining those sunny vineyards and that hot, rich soil so far south.

A momentary flare from the brazier showed them the snow falling yet. A few rocks crashed nearby and a snowy avalanche hissed, then Stardock grew still in the frigid grip of night. The climbers’ aerie seemed most strange to them, set above every other peak in the Mountains of the Giants— and likely all Nehwon— yet walled with darkness like a tiny room.

The Mouser said softly, “Now we know what roosts in the Roosts. Do you suppose there are dozens of those invisible mantas carpeting around us on ledges like this, or a-hang from them? Why don’t they freeze? Or does someone stable them? And the invisible folk, what of them? No more can you call ‘em mirage— you saw the sword, and I fought the man-thing at the other end of it. Yet invisible! How’s that possible?”

Fafhrd shrugged and then winced because it hurt both shoulders cruelly. “Made of some stuff like water or glass,” he hazarded. “Yet pliant and twisting the light less— and with no surface shimmer. You’ve seen sand and ashes made transparent by firing. Perhaps there’s some heatless way of firing monsters and men until they are invisible.”

“But how light enough to fly?” the Mouser asked.

“Thin beasts to match thin air,” Fafhrd guessed sleepily.

The Mouser said, “And then those deadly worms— and the Fiend knows what perils above.” He paused. “And yet we must still climb Stardock to the top, mustn’t we? Why?”

Fafhrd nodded. “To beat out Kranarch and Gnarfi…” he muttered. “To beat out my father … the mystery of it … the girls … O Mouser, could you stop here any more than you could stop after touching half of a woman?”

“You don’t mention diamonds anymore,” the Mouser noted. “Don’t you think we’ll find them?”

Fafhrd started another shrug and mumbled a curse that turned into a yawn.

The Mouser dug in his pouch to the bottom pocket and brought out the parchment and blowing on the brazier read it all by the resin’s last flaming:

Who mounts white Stardock, the Moon Tree,

Past worm and gnome and unseen bars,

Will win the key to luxury:

The Heart of Light, a pouch of stars.

The gods who once ruled all the world

Have made that peak their citadel,

From whence the stars were one time hurled

And paths lead on to Heav’n and Hell.

Come, heroes, past the Trollstep rocks.

Come, best of men, across the Waste.

For you, glory each door unlocks.

Delay not, up, and come in haste.

Who scales the Snow King’s citadel

Shall father his two daughters’ sons;

Though he must face foes fierce and fell,

His seed shall live while time still runs.

The resin burnt out. The Mouser said, “Well, we’ve met a worm and one unseen fellow who sought to bar our way— and two sightless witches who might be Snow King’s daughters for all I know. Gnomes now— they would be a change, wouldn’t they? You said something about ice gnomes, Fafhrd. What was it?”

He waited with an unnatural anxiety for Fafhrd’s answer. After a bit he began to hear it: soft regular snores.

The Mouser snarled soundlessly, his demon of restlessness now become a fury despite all his aches. He shouldn’t have thought of girls— or rather of one girl who was nothing but a taunting mask with pouting lips and eyes of black mystery seen across a fire.

Suddenly he felt stifled. He quickly unhooked his cloak and despite Hrissa’s questioning mew felt his way south along the ledge. Soon snow, sifting like ice needles on his flushed face, told him he was beyond the overhang. Then the snow stopped. Another overhang, he thought— but he had not moved. He strained his eyes upward, and there was the black expanse of Stardock’s topmost quarter silhouetted against a band of sky pale with the hidden moon and specked by a few faint stars. Behind him to the west, the snowstorm still obscured the sky.

He blinked his eyes and then he swore softly, for now the black cliff they must climb tomorrow was a-glow with soft scattered lights of violet and rose and palest green and amber. The nearest, which were still far above, looked tinily rectangular, like gleam-spilling windows seen from below.

It was as if Stardock were a great hostelry.

Then freezing flakes pinked his face again, and the band of sky narrowed to nothing. The snowfall had moved back against Stardock once more, hiding all stars and other lights.

The Mouser’s fury drained from him. Suddenly he felt very small and foolhardy and very, very cold. The mysterious vision of the lights remained in his mind, but muted, as if part of a dream. Most cautiously he crept back the way he had come, feeling the radiant warmth of Fafhrd and Hrissa and the burnt-out brazier just before he touched his cloak. He laced it around him and lay for a long time doubled up like a baby, his mind empty of everything except frigid blackness. At last he slumbered.

Next day started gloomy. The two men chafed and wrestled each other as they lay, to get the stiffness a little out of them and enough warmth in them to rise. Hrissa withdrew from between them limping and sullen.

At any rate, Fafhrd’s arms were recovered from their swelling and numbing, while the Mouser was hardly aware of his own arm’s little wounds.

They breakfasted on herb tea and honey and began climbing the Roosts in a light snowfall. This last pest stayed with them all morning except when gusty breezes blew it back from Stardock. On these occasions they could see the great smooth cliff separating the Roosts from the ultimate ledges of the Face. By the glimpses they got, the cliff looked to be without any climbing routes whatever, or any marks at all— so that Fafhrd laughed at the Mouser for a dreamer with his tale of windows spilling colored light— but finally as they neared the cliff’s base they began to distinguish what seemed to be a narrow crack— a hairline to vision— mounting its center.

They met none of the invisible flat fliers, either a-wing or a-perch, though whenever gusts blew strange gaps into the snowfall, the two adventurers would firm themselves on their perches and grip for their weapons, and Hrissa would snarl.

The wind slowed them little though chilling them much, for the rock of the Roosts was true.

And they still had to watch out for stony peltings, though these were fewer than yesterday, perhaps because so much of Stardock now lay below them.

They reached the base of the great cliff at the point where the crack began, which was a good thing since the snowfall had grown so heavy that a hunt for it would have been difficult.

To their joy, the crack proved to be another chimney, scarcely a yard across and not much more deep, and as knobbly inside with footholds as the cliff outside was smooth. Unlike yesterday’s chimney, it appeared to extend upward indefinitely without change of width, and as far as they could see there were no chockstones. In many ways it was like a rock ladder half sheltered from the snow. Even Hrissa could climb here, as on Obelisk Polaris.

They lunched on food warmed against their skins. They were afire with eagerness, yet forced themselves to take time to chew and sip. As they entered the chimney, Fafhrd going first, there came three faint growling booms— thunder perhaps and certainly ominous, yet the Mouser laughed.

With never-failing footholds and opposite wall for back-brace, the climbing was easy, except for the drain on main strength, which required rather frequent halts to gulp down fresh stores of the thin air. Only twice did the chimney narrow so that Fafhrd had to climb for a short stretch with his body outside it; the Mouser, slighter framed, could stay inside.

It was an intoxicating experience, almost. Even as the day grew darker from the thickening snowfall and as the crackling booms returned sharper and stronger— thunder now for sure, since they were heralded by brief palings up and down the chimney— snow-muted lightning flashes— the Mouser and Fafhrd felt as merry as children mounting a mysterious twisty stairway in a haunted castle. They even wasted a little breath in joking calls which went echoing faintly up and down the rugged shaft as it paled and gloomed with the lightning.

But then the shaft grew by degrees almost as smooth as the outer cliff and at the same time it began gradually to widen, first a handbreadth, then another, then a finger more, so that they had to mount more perilously, bracing shoulders against one wall and boots against the other and so “walking” up with pushes and heaves. The Mouser drew up Hrissa, and the ice-cat crouched on his pitching, rocking chest— no inconsiderable burden. Yet both men still felt quite jolly— so that the Mouser began to wonder if there might not be some actual intoxicant in air near Heaven.

Being a head or two taller than the Mouser, Fafhrd was better equipped for this sort of climbing and was still able to go on at the moment when the Mouser realized that his body was stretched almost straight between shoulders and boot soles— with Hrissa a-crouch on him like a traveler on a little bridge. He could mount no farther— and was hazy about how he had managed to come this far.

Fafhrd came down like a great spider at the Mouser’s call and seemed not much impressed by the latter’s plight— in fact, a lightning flash showed his great bearded face all a-grin.

“Abide you here a bit,” he said. “‘Tis not so far to the top. I think I glimpsed it the last flash but one. I’ll mount and draw you up, putting all the rope between you and me. There’s a crack by your head— I’ll knock in a spike for safety’s sake. Meanwhile, rest.”

Whereupon Fafhrd did all of these things so swiftly and was on his upward way again so soon that the Mouser forebore to utter any of the sardonic remarks churning inside his rigid belly.

Successive lightning flashes showed the Northerner’s long-limbed form growing smaller at a gratifyingly rapid rate until he looked hardly bigger than a trap spider at the end of his tube. Another flash and he was gone, but whether because he had reached the top or passed a bend in the chimney the Mouser couldn’t be sure.

The rope kept paying upward, however, until there was only a small loop below the Mouser. He was aching abominably now and was also very cold, but gritted his teeth against the pain. Hrissa chose this moment to prowl up and down her small human bridge, restlessly. There was a blinding lightning flash and a crash of thunder that shook Stardock. Hrissa cringed.

The rope grew taut, tugging at the belt of the Mouser, who started to put his weight on it, holding Hrissa to his chest, but then decided to wait for Fafhrd’s call. This was a good decision on his part, for just then the rope went slack and began to fall on the Mouser’s belly like a stream of black water. Hrissa crouched away from it on his face. It came pelting endlessly, but finally its upper end hit the Mouser under the breastbone with a snap. The only good thing was that Fafhrd didn’t come hurtling down with it. Another blinding mountain-shaking crash showed the upper chimney utterly empty.

“Fafhrd!” the Mouser called. “Fafhrd!” There came back only the echo.

The Mouser thought for a bit, then reached up and felt by his ear for the spike Fafhrd had struck in with a single offhand slap of his ax-hammer. Whatever had happened to Fafhrd, nothing seemed to remain to do but tie rope to spike and descend by it to where the chimney was easier.

The spike came out at the first touch and went clattering shrilly down the chimney until a new thunderblast drowned the small sound.

The Mouser decided to “walk” down the chimney. After all, he’d come up that way the last few score of yards.

The first attempt to move a leg told him his muscles were knotted by cramp. He’d never be able to bend his leg and straighten it again without losing his purchase and falling.

The Mouser thought of Glinthi’s pike, lost in white space, and he slew that thought.

Hrissa crouched on his chest and gazed down into his face with an expression the next levin-glare showed to be sad yet critical, as if to ask, “Where is this vaunted human ingenuity?”

Fafhrd had barely eased himself out of the chimney onto the wide, deep rock-roofed ledge at its top, when a door two yards high, a yard wide, and two spans thick had silently opened in the rock at the back of the ledge.

The contrast was most remarkable between the roughness of that rock and the ruler-flat smoothness of the dark stone forming the thick sides of the door and the lintel, jambs, and threshold of the doorway.

Soft pink light spilled out and with it a perfume whose heavy fumes were cargoed with dreams of pleasure barges afloat in a rippling sunset sea.

Those musky narcotic fumes, along with the alcoholic headiness of the thin air, almost made Fafhrd forget his purpose, but touching the black rope was like touching Hrissa and the Mouser at its other end. He unknotted it from his belt and prepared to secure it around a stout rock pillar beside the open door. To get enough rope to make a good knot he had to draw it up quite tight.

But the dream-freighted fumes grew thicker, and he no longer felt the Mouser and Hrissa in the rope. Indeed, he began to forget his two comrades altogether.

And then a silvery voice— a voice he knew well from having heard it laugh once and once chuckle— called, “Come in, barbarian. Come in to me.”

The end of the black rope slipped from his fingers unnoticed and hissed softly across the rock and down the chimney.

Stooping a little, he went through the doorway which silently closed behind him just in time to shut out the Mouser’s desperate call.

He was in a room lit by pink globes hanging at the level of his head. Their soft warm radiance colored the hangings and rugs of the room, but especially the pale spread of the great bed that was its only furniture.

Beside the bed stood a slim woman whose black silk robe concealed all of her except her face, yet did not disguise her body’s sleek curves. A black lace mask hid the rest of her.

She looked at Fafhrd for seven thudding heartbeats, then sat down on the bed. A slender arm and hand clothed all in black lace came from under her robe and patted the spread beside her and rested there. Her mask never wavered from Fafhrd’s face.

He shouldered out of his pack and unbuckled his ax belt.

The Mouser finished pounding all the thin blade of his dagger into the crack by his ear, using the firestone from his pouch for hammer, so that sparks showered from every cramped stroke of stone against pommel— small lightning flashes to match the greater flares still chasing up and down the chimney, while their thunder crashed an obbligato to the Mouser’s taps. Hrissa crouched on his ankles, and from time to time the Mouser glared at her, as if to say, “Well, cat?”

A gust of snow-freighted wind roaring up the chimney momentarily lifted the lean shaggy beast a span above him and almost blew the Mouser loose, but he tightened his pushing muscles still more and the bridge, arching upward a trifle, held firm.

He had just finished knotting an end of the black rope around the dagger’s crossguard and grip— and his fingers and forearms were almost useless with fatigue— when a window two feet high and five wide silently opened in the back of the chimney, its thick rock shutter sliding aside, not a span away from the Mouser’s inward shoulder.

A red glow sprang from the window and somewhat illuminated four faces with piggy black eyes and with low hairless domes above.

The Mouser considered them. They were all four of extreme ugliness, he decided dispassionately. Only their wide white teeth, showing between their grinning lips which almost joined ear to swinish ear, had any claim to beauty.

Hrissa sprang at once through the red window and disappeared. The two faces between which she jumped did not flicker a black button-eye.

Then eight short brawny arms came out and easily pried the Mouser out and lifted him inside. He screamed faintly from a sudden increase in the agony of his cramps. He was aware of thick dwarfish bodies clad in hairy black jerkins and breeks— and one in a black hairy skirt— but all with thick-nailed splay-feet bare. Then he fainted.

When he came to, it was because he was being punishingly massaged on a hard table, his body naked and slick with warm oil. He was in a low, ill-lit chamber and still closely surrounded by the four dwarves, as he could tell from the eight horny hands squeezing and thumping his muscles before he ever opened his eyes.

The dwarf kneading his right shoulder and banging the top of his spine crinkled his warty eyelids and bared his beautiful white teeth bigger than a giant’s in what might be intended for a friendly grin. Then he said in an atrocious Mingol patois, “I am Bonecracker. This is my wife Gibberfat. Cosseting your body on the larboard side are my brothers Legcruncher and Breakskull. Now drink this wine and follow me.”

The wine stung, yet dispelled the Mouser’s dizziness, and it was certainly a blessing to be free of the murderous massage— and also apparently of the cramp-lumps in his muscles.

Bonecracker and Gibberfat helped him off the slab while Legcruncher and Breakskull rubbed him quickly down with rough towels. The warm low-ceilinged room rocked dizzily for a moment; then he felt wondrous fine.

Bonecracker waddled off into the dimness beyond the smoky torches. With never a question the Mouser followed the dwarf. Or were these Fafhrd’s ice gnomes? he wondered.

Bonecracker pulled aside heavy drapes in the dark. Amber light fanned out. The Mouser stepped from rock-roughness onto down-softness. The drapes swished to behind him.

He was alone in a chamber mellowly lit by hanging globes like great topazes— yet he guessed they would bounce aside like puffballs if touched. There was a large wide couch and beyond it a low table against the arras-hung wall with an ivory stool set before it. Above the table was a great silver mirror, while on it were fantastic small bottles and many tiny ivory jars.

No, the room was not altogether empty. Hrissa, sleekly groomed, lay curled in a far corner. She was not watching the Mouser, however, but a point above the stool.

The Mouser felt a shiver creeping on him, yet not altogether one of fear.

A dab of palest green leaped from one of the jars to the point Hrissa was watching and vanished there. But then he saw a streak of reflected green appear in the mirror. The riddlesome maneuver was repeated, and soon in the mirror’s silver there hung a green mask, somewhat clouded by the silver’s dullness.

Then the mask vanished from the mirror and simultaneously reappeared unblurred hanging in the air above the ivory stool. It was the mask the Mouser knew achingly well— narrow chin, high-arched cheeks, straight nose and forehead.

The pouty wine-dark lips opened a little and a soft throaty voice asked, “Does my visage displease you, man of Lankhmar?”

“You jest cruelly, O Princess,” the Mouser replied, drawing on all his aplomb and sketching a courtier’s bow, “for you are Beauty’s self.”

Slim fingers, half outlined now in pale green, dipped into the unguent jar and took up a more generous dab.

The soft throaty voice, that so well matched half the laughter he had once heard in a snowfall, now said, “You shall judge all of me.”

Fafhrd woke in the dark and touched the girl beside him. As soon as he knew she was awake too, he grasped her by the hips. When he felt her body stiffen, he lifted her into the air and held her above him as he lay flat on his back.

She was wondrous light, as if made of pastry or eiderdown, yet when he laid her beside him again, her flesh felt as firm as any, though smoother than most.

“Let us have a light, Hirriwi, I beg you,” he said.

“That were unwise, Faffy,” she answered in a voice like a curtain of tiny silver bells lightly brushed. “Have you forgotten that now I am wholly invisible?— which might tickle some men, yet you, I think…”

“You’re right, you’re right, I like you real,” he answered, gripping her fiercely by the shoulders to emphasize his feelings, then guiltily jerking away his hands as he thought of how delicate she must be.

The silver bells clashed in full laughter, as if the curtain of them had been struck a great swipe. “Have no fears,” she told him. “My airy bones are grown of matter stronger than steel. It is a riddle beyond your philosophers and relates to the invisibility of my race and of the animals from which it sprang. Think how strong tempered glass can be, yet light goes through it. My cursed brother Faroomfar has the strength of a bear for all his slimness while my father Oomforafor is a very lion despite his centuries. Your friend’s encounter with Faroomfar was no final test— but oh how it made him howl— Father raged at him— and then there are the cousins. Soon as this night be ended— which is not soon, my dear; the moon still climbs— you must return down Stardock. Promise me that. My heart grows cold at the thought of the dangers you’ve already faced— and was like ice I know not how many times this last three-day.”

“Yet you never warned us,” he mused. “You lured me on.”

“Can you doubt why?” she asked. He was feeling her snub nose then and her apple cheeks, and so he felt her smile too. “Or perhaps you resent it that I let you risk your life a little to win here to this bed?”

He implanted a fervent kiss on her wide lips to show her how little true that was, but she thrust him back after a moment.

“Wait, Faffy dear,” she said. “No, wait, I say! I know you’re greedy and impetuous, but you can at least wait while the moon creeps the width of a star. I asked you to promise me you would descend Stardock at dawn.”

There was a rather long silence in the dark.

“Well?” she prompted. “What shuts your mouth?” she queried impatiently. “You’ve shown no such indecision in certain other matters. Time wastes, the moon sails.”

“Hirriwi,” Fafhrd said softly, “I must climb Stardock.”

“Why?” she demanded ringingly. “The poem has been fulfilled. You have your reward. Go on, and only frigid fruitless perils await you. Return, and I’ll guard you from the air— yes, and your companion too— to the very Waste.” Her sweet voice faltered a little. “O Faffy, am I not enough to make you forego the conquest of a cruel mountain? In addition to all else, I love you— if I understand rightly how mortals use that word.”

“No,” he answered her solemnly in the dark. “You are wondrous, more wondrous than any wench I’ve known— and I love you, which is not a word I bandy— yet you only make me hotter to conquer Stardock. Can you understand that?”

Now there was silence for a while in the other direction.

“Well,” she said at length, “you are masterful and will do what you will do. And I have warned you. I could tell you more, show you reasons counter, argue further, but in the end I know I would not break your stubbornness— and time gallops. We must mount our own steeds and catch up with the moon. Kiss me again. Slowly. So.”

The Mouser lay across the foot of the bed under the amber globes and contemplated Keyaira, who lay lengthwise with her slender apple-green shoulders and tranquil sleeping face propped by many pillows.

He took up the corner of a sheet and moistened it with wine from a cup set against his knee and with it rubbed Keyaira’s slim right ankle so gently that there was no change in her narrow bosom’s slow-paced rise and fall. Presently he had cleared away all the greenish unguent from a patch as big as half his palm. He peered down at his handiwork. This time he expected surely to see flesh, or at least the green cosmetic on the underside of her ankle, but no, he saw through the irregular little rectangle he’d wiped only the bed’s tufted coverlet reflecting the amber light from above. It was a most fascinating and somewhat unnerving mystery.

He glanced questioningly over at Hrissa who now lay on an end of the low table, the thin-glassed, fantastic perfume bottles standing around her, while she contemplated the occupants of the bed, her white tufted chin set on her folded paws. It seemed to the Mouser that she was looking at him with disapproval, so he hastily smoothed back unguent from other parts of Keyaira’s leg until the peephole was once more greenly covered.

There was a low laugh. Keyaira, propped on her elbows now, was gazing at him through slitted heavy-lashed eyelids.

“We invisibles,” she said in a humorous voice truly or feignedly heavy with sleep, “show only the outward side of any cosmetic or raiment on us. It is a mystery beyond our seers.”

“You are Mystery’s queenly self a-walk through the stars,” the Mouser pronounced, lightly caressing her green toes. “And I the most fortunate of men. I fear it’s a dream and I’ll wake on Stardock’s frigid ledges. How is it I am here?”

“Our race is dying out,” she said. “Our men have become sterile. Hirriwi and I are the only princesses left. Our brother Faroomfar hotly wished to be our consort— he still boasts his virility— ‘twas he you dueled with— but our father Oomforafor said, ‘It must be new blood— the blood of heroes.’ So the cousins and Faroomfar, he much against his will, must fly hither and yon and leave those little rhymed lures written on ramskin in perilous, lonely spots apt to tempt heroes.”

“But how can visibles and invisibles mate?” he asked.

She laughed with delight. “Is your memory that short, Mouse?”

“I mean, have progeny,” he corrected himself, a little irked, but not much, that she had hit on his boyhood nickname. “Besides, wouldn’t such offspring be cloudy, a mix of seen and unseen?”

Keyaira’s green mask swung a little from side to side.

“My father thinks such mating will be fertile and that the children will breed true to invisibility— that being dominant over visibility— yet profit greatly in other ways from the admixture of hot, heroic blood.”

“Then your father commanded you to mate with me?” the Mouser asked, a little disappointed.

“By no means, Mouse,” she assured him. “He would be furious if he dreamt you were here, and Faroomfar would go mad. No, I took a fancy to you, as Hirriwi did to your comrade, when first I spied on you on the Waste— very fortunate that was for you, since my father would have got your seed, if you had won to Stardock’s top, in quite a different fashion. Which reminds me, Mouse, you must promise me to descend Stardock at dawn.”

“That is not so easy a promise to give,” the Mouser said. “Fafhrd will be stubborn, I know. And then there’s that other matter of a bag of diamonds, if that’s what a pouch of stars means— oh, it’s but a trifle, I know, compared to the embraces of a glorious girl … still…”

“But if I say I love you?— which is only truth…”

“Oh Princess,” the Mouser sighed, gliding his hand to her knee. “How can I leave you at dawn? Only one night…”

“Why, Mouse,” Keyaira broke in, smiling roguishly and twisting her green form a little, “do you not know that every night is an eternity? Has not any girl taught you that yet, Mouse? I am astonished. Think, we have half an eternity left us yet— which is also an eternity, as your geometer, whether white-bearded or dainty-breasted, should have taught you.”

“But if I am to sire many children— ” the Mouser began.

“Hirriwi and I are somewhat like queen bees,” Keyaira explained, “but think not of that. We have eternity tonight, ‘tis true, but only if we make it so. Come closer.”

A little later, plagiarizing himself somewhat, the Mouser said softly, “The sole fault of mountain climbing is that the best parts go so swiftly.”

“They can last an eternity,” Keyaira breathed in his ear. “Make them last, Mouse.”

Fafhrd woke shaking with cold. The pink globes were gray and tossing in icy gusts from the open door. Snow had blown in on his clothes and gear scattered across the floor and was piled inches deep on the threshold, across which came also the only illumination— leaden daylight.

A great joy in him fought all these grim gray sights and conquered them.

Nevertheless he was naked and shivering. He sprang up and beat his clothes against the bed and thrust his limbs into their icy stiffness.

As he was buckling his ax belt, he remembered the Mouser down in the chimney, helpless. Somehow all night, even when he’d spoken to Hirriwi of the Mouser, he’d never thought of that.

He snatched up his pack and sprang out on the ledge.

From the corner of his eye he caught something moving behind him. It was the massive door closing.

A titan gust of snow-fisted wind struck him. He grabbed the rough rock pillar to which he’d last night planned to tie the rope and hugged it tight. The gods help the Mouser below! Someone came sliding and blowing along the ledge in the wind and snow and hugged the pillar lower down.

The gust passed. Fafhrd looked for the door. There was no sign of it. All the piled snow was redrifted. Keeping close hold of pillar and pack with one hand, he felt over the rough wall with the other. Fingernails no more than eyes could discover the slightest crack.

“So you got tossed out too?” a familiar voice said gaily. “I was tossed out by ice gnomes, I’ll have you know.

“Mouser!” Fafhrd cried. “Then you weren’t—? I thought— “

“You never thought of me once all night, if I know you,” the Mouser said. “Keyaira assured me you were safe and somewhat more than that. Hirriwi would have told you the same of me if you’d asked her. But of course you didn’t.”

“Then you too—?” Fafhrd demanded, grinning with delight.

“Yes, Prince Brother-in-Law,” the Mouser answered him, grinning back.

They pommeled each other around the pillar a bit— to battle chill, but in sheer high spirits too.

“Hrissa?” Fafhrd asked.

“Warm inside, the wise one. They don’t put out the cat here, only the man. I wonder, though…. Do you suppose Hrissa was Keyaira’s to begin with and that she foresaw and planned…” His voice trailed off.

No more gusts had come. The snowfall was so light they could see almost a league— up to the Hat above the snow-streaked ledges of the Face and down to where the Ladder faded out.

Once again their minds were filled, almost overpowered by the vastness of Stardock and by their own Predicament: two half-frozen mites precariously poised on a frozen vertical world only distantly linked with Nehwon.

To the south there was a pale silver disk in the sky— the sun. They’d been abed till noon.

“Easier to fashion an eternity out of an eighteen-hour night,” the Mouser observed.

“We galloped the moon deep under the sea,” Fafhrd mused.

“Your girl promise to make you go down?” the Mouser asked suddenly.

Fafhrd nodded his head. “She tried.”

“Mine too. And not a bad idea. The summit smells, by her account. But the chimney looks stuffed with snow. Hold my ankles while I peer over. Yes, packed solid all the way down. So—?”

“Mouser,” Fafhrd said, almost gloomily, “whether there’s a way down or no, I must climb Stardock.”

“You know,” the Mouser answered, “I am beginning to find something in that madness myself. Besides, the east wall of Stardock may hold an easy route to that lush-looking Rift Valley. So let’s do what we can with the bare seven hours of light left us. Daytime’s no stuff to fashion eternities.”

Mounting the ledges of the Face was both the easiest and hardest climbing they’d had yet to do. The ledges were wide, but some of them sloped outward and were footed with rotten shale that went skidding away into space at a touch, and now and again there were brief traverses which had to be done by narrow cracks and main strength, sometimes swinging by their hands alone.

And weariness and chill and even dizzying faintness came far quicker at this height. They had to halt often to drink air and chafe themselves. While in the back of one deep ledge— Stardock’s right eye, they judged— they were forced to spend time firing the brazier with all the remaining resin-pellets, partly to warm food and drink, but chiefly to warm themselves.

Last night’s exertions had weakened them too, they sometimes thought, but then the memories of those exertions would return to strengthen them.

And then there were the sudden treacherous wind gusts and the constant yet variable snowfall, which sometimes hid the summit and sometimes let them see it clear against the silvery sky, with the great white outcurving brim of the Hat now poised threateningly above them— a cornice like that of the snow-saddle, only now they were on the wrong side.

The illusion grew stronger that Stardock was a separate world from Nehwon in snow-filled space.

Finally the sky turned blue, and they felt the sun on their backs— they had climbed above the snowfall at last— and Fafhrd pointed at a tiny nick of blue deep in the brim of the Hat— a nick just visible above the next snow-streaked rock bulge— and he cried, “The apex of the Needle’s Eye!”

At that, something dropped into a snowbank beside them, and there was a muffled clash of metal on rock, while from snow a notched and feathered arrow-end stuck straight up.

They dodged under the protective roof of a bigger bulge as a second arrow and a third clashed against the naked rock on which they’d stood.

“Gnarfi and Kranarch have beaten us, curse ‘em,” Fafhrd hissed, “and set an ambush for us at the Eye, the obvious spot. We must go roundabout and get above ‘em.”

“Won’t they expect that?”

“They were fools to spring their ambush too soon. Besides, we have no other tactic.”

So they began to climb south, though still upward, always keeping rock or snow between them and where they judged the Needle’s Eye to be. At last, when the sun was dropping swiftly toward the western horizon, they came swinging back north again and still upward, stamping out steps now in the steepening bank of snow that reversed its curve above them to make the brim of the Hat that now roofed them ominously, covering two-thirds of the sky. They sweated and shook by turns and fought off almost continuous bouts of giddy faintness, yet still strove to move as silently and warily as they might.

At last they rounded one more snow bulge and found themselves looking down a slope at the great bare stretch of rock normally swept by the gale that came through the Needle’s Eye to make the Petty Pennon.

On the outward lip of the exposed rock were two men, both clad in suits of brown leather, much scuffed and here and there ripped, showing the inward-turned fur. Lank, black-bearded, elk-faced Kranarch stood whipping his arms against his chest for warmth. Beside him lay his strung bow and some arrows. Stocky boar-faced Gnarfi knelt peeping over the rim. Fafhrd wondered where their two brown-clad bulky servitors were.

The Mouser dug into his pouch. At the same moment Kranarch saw them and snatched up his weapon though rather more slowly than he would have in thicker air. With a similar slowness the Mouser drew out the fist-size rock he had picked up several ledges below for just such a moment as this.

Kranarch’s arrow whistled between his and Fafhrd’s heads. A moment later the Mouser’s rock struck Kranarch full on his bow-shoulder. The weapon fell from his hand, and that arm dangled. Then Fafhrd and the Mouser charged recklessly down the snow slope, the former brandishing his unthonged ax, the latter drawing Scalpel.

Kranarch and Gnarfi received them with their own swords, and Gnarfi with a dagger in his left hand as well. The battle that followed had the same dreamlike slowness as the exchange of missiles. First Fafhrd’s and the Mouser’s rush gave them the advantage. Then Kranarch’s and Gnarfi’s great strength— or restedness, rather— told, and they almost drove their enemy off the rim. Fafhrd took a slash in the ribs which bit through his tough wolfskin tunic, slicing flesh and jarring bone.

But then skill told, as it generally will, and the two brown-clad men received wounds and suddenly turned and ran through the great white pointy-topped triangular archway of the Needle’s Eye. As he ran Gnarfi screeched, “Graah! Kruk!”

“Doubtless calling for their shaggy-clad servants or bearers,” the Mouser gasped in surmise, resting sword arm on knee, almost spent. “Farmerish fat country fellows those looked, hardly trained to weapons. We need not fear ‘em greatly, I think, even if they come to Gnarfi’s call.” Fafhrd nodded, gasping himself. “Yet they climbed Stardock,” he added dubiously.

Just then there came galloping through the snowy archway on their hind legs with their nails clashing the windswept rock and their fang-edged slavering red mouths open wide and their great-clawed arms widespread— two huge brown bears.

With a speed which their human opponents had been unable to sting from them, the Mouser snatched up Kranarch’s bow and sent two arrows speeding, while Fafhrd swung his ax in a gleaming circle and cast it. Then the two comrades sprang swiftly to either side, the Mouser wielding Scalpel and Fafhrd drawing his knife.

But there was no need for further fighting. The Mouser’s first arrow took the leading bear in the neck, his second straight in its red mouth-roof and brain, while Fafhrd’s ax sank to its helve between two ribs on the trailing bear’s left side. The great animals pitched forward in their blood and death throes and rolled twice over and went tumbling ponderously off the rim.

“Doubtless both shes,” the Mouser remarked as he watched them fall. “Oh those bestial men of Illik-Ving! Still, to charm or train such beasts to carry packs and climb and even give up their poor lives…”

“Kranarch and Gnarfi are no sportsmen, that’s for certain now,” Fafhrd pronounced. “Don’t praise their tricks.” As he stuffed a rag into his tunic over his wound, he grimaced and swore so angrily that the Mouser didn’t speak his quip: Well, bears are only shortened bearers. I’m always right.

Then the two comrades trudged slowly under the high tentlike arch of snow to survey the domain, highest on all Nehwon, of which they had made themselves masters— refusing from light-headed weariness to think, in that moment of triumph, of the invisible beings who were Stardock’s lords. They went warily, yet not too much so, because Gnarfi and Kranarch had run scared and were wounded not trivially— and the latter had lost his bow.

Stardock’s top behind the great toppling snow wave of the Hat was almost as extensive north to south as that of Obelisk Polaris, yet the east rim looked little more than a long bowshot away. Snow with a thick crust beneath a softer layer covered it all except for the north end and stretches of the east rim, where bare dark rock showed.

The surface, both snow and rock, was flatter even than that of the Obelisk and sloped somewhat from north to south. There were no structures or beings visible, nor signs of hollows where either might hide. Truth to tell, neither the Mouser nor Fafhrd could recall ever having seen a lonelier or barer place.

The only oddity they noticed at first were three holes in the snow a little to the south, each about as big as a hogshead but having the form of an equilateral triangle and apparently going down through the snow to the rock. The three were arranged as the apex of another equilateral triangle.

The Mouser squinted around closely, then shrugged. “But a pouch of stars could be a rather small thing, I suppose,” he said. “While a heart of light— no guessing its size.”

The whole summit was in bluish shadow except for the northernmost end and for a great pathway of golden light from the setting sun leading from the Needle’s Eye all the way across the wind-leveled snow to the east rim.

Down the center of this sunroad went Kranarch’s and Gnarfi’s running footsteps, the snow flecked here and there with blood. Otherwise the snow ahead was printless. Fafhrd and the Mouser followed those tracks, walking east up their long shadows.

“No sign of ‘em ahead,” the Mouser said. “Looks like there is some route down the east wall, and they’ve taken it— at least far enough to set another ambush.”

As they neared the east rim, Fafhrd said, “I see other prints making north— a spear’s cast that way. Perhaps they turned.”

“But where to?” the Mouser asked.

A few steps more and the mystery was solved horribly. They reached the end of the snow, and there on the dark bloodied rock, hidden until now by the wind-piled margin of the snow, sprawled the carcasses of Gnarfi and Kranarch, their middle clothes ripped away, their bodies obscenely mutilated.

Even as the Mouser’s gorge rose, he remembered Keyaira’s lightly-spoken words: “If you had won to Stardock’s top, my father would have got your seed in quite a different fashion.”

Shaking his head and glaring fiercely, Fafhrd walked around the bodies to the east rim and peered down.

He recoiled a step, then knelt and once more peered.

The Mouser’s hopeful theory was prodigiously disproved. Never in his life had Fafhrd looked straight down half such a distance.

A few yards below, the east wall vanished inward. No telling how far the east rim jutted out from Stardock’s heart-rock.

From this point the fall was straight to the greenish gloom of the Great Rift Valley— five Lankhmar leagues, at least. Perhaps more.

He heard the Mouser say over his shoulder, “A path for birds or suicides. Naught else.”

Suddenly the green below grew bright, though without showing the slightest feature except for a silvery hair, which might be a great river, running down its center. Looking up again, they saw that the sky had gone all golden with a mighty afterglow. They faced around and gasped in wonder.

The last sunrays coming through the Needle’s Eye, swinging southward and a little up, glancingly illuminated a transparent, solid symmetric shape big as the biggest oak tree and resting exactly over the three triangular holes in the snow. It might only be described as a sharp-edged solid star of about eighteen points, resting by three of those on Stardock and built of purest diamond or some like substance.

Both had the same thought: that this must be a star the gods had failed to launch. The sunlight had touched the fire in its heart and made it shine, but for a moment only and feebly, not incandescently and forever, as it would have in the sky.

A piercingly shrill, silvery trumpet call broke the silence of the summit.

They swung their gaze north. Outlined by the same deep golden sunlight, ghostlier than the star, yet still clearly to be seen in some of its parts against the yellow sky, a tall slender castle lifted transparent walls and towers from the stony end of the summit. Its topmost spires seemed to go out of sight upward rather than end.

Another sound then— a wailing snarl. A pale animal bounded toward them across the snow from the northwest. Leaping aside with another snarl from the sprawled bodies, Hrissa rushed past them south with a third snarl tossed at them.

Almost too late they saw the peril against which she had tried to warn them.

Advancing toward them from west and north across the unmarked snow were a score of sets of footprints. There were no feet in those prints, nor bodies above them, yet they came on— right print, left print, appearing in succession— and ever more rapidly. And now they saw what they had missed at first because viewed end-on above each paired set of prints— a narrow-shafted, narrow-bladed spear, pointed straight toward them, coming on as swiftly as the prints.

They ran south with Hrissa, Fafhrd in the lead. After a half dozen sprinting steps the Northerner heard a cry behind him. He stopped and then swiftly spun around.

The Mouser had slipped in the blood of their late foes and fallen. When he got to his feet, the gray spear points were around him on all sides save the rim. He made two wild defensive slashes with Scalpel, but the gray spear points came in relentlessly. Now they were in a close semicircle around him and hardly a span apart, and he was standing on the rim. They advanced another thrust, and the Mouser perforce sprang back from them— and down he fell.

There was a rushing sound, and chill air sluiced Fafhrd from behind, and something sleekly hairy brushed his calves. As he braced himself to rush forward with his knife and slay an invisible or two for his friend, slender unseen arms clasped him from behind and he heard Hirriwi’s silvery voice say in his ear, “Trust us,” and a coppery-golden sister voice say, “We’ll after him,” and then he found himself pulled down onto a great invisible pulsing shaggy bed three spans above the snow, and they told him “Cling!” and he clung to the long thick unseen hair, and then suddenly the living bed shot forward across the snow and off the rim and there tilted vertically so his feet pointed at the sky and his face at the Great Rift Valley— and then the bed plunged straight down.

The thin air roared past, and his beard and mane were whipped back by the speed of that plunge, but he tightened his grip on the handfuls of invisible hair, and a slender arm pressed him down from either side, so that he felt through the fur the throbbing heartbeat of the great invisible carpetlike creature they rode. And he became aware that somehow Hrissa had got under his arm, for there was the small feline face beside his, with slitted eyes and with beard-tuft and ears blown back. And he felt the two invisible girls’ bodies alongside his.

He realized that mortal eyes, could such have watched, would have seen only a large man clasping a large white cat and falling headfirst through empty space— but he would be falling much faster than any man should fall, even from such a vast height.

Beside him Hirriwi laughed, as if she had caught his thought, but then that laughter broke off suddenly and the roaring of the wind died almost to utter silence. He guessed it was because the swiftly thickening air had deafened him.

The great dark cliffs flashing upward a dozen yards away were a blur. Yet below him the Great Rift Valley was still featureless green— no, the larger details were beginning to show now: forests and glades and curling hair-thin streams and little lakes like dewdrops.

Between him and the green below he saw a dark speck. It grew in size. It was the Mouser!— rather characteristically falling headfirst, straight as an arrow, with hands locked ahead of him and legs pressed together behind, probably in the faint hope that he might hit deep water.

The creature they rode matched the Mouser’s speed and then gradually swung its plunge toward him, flattening out more and more from the vertical, so that the Mouser was pressed against them. Arms visible and invisible clasped him then, pulling him closer, so that all five of the plungers were crowded together on that one great sentient bed.

The creature’s dive flattened still more then, halting its fall— there was a long moment while they were all pressed stomach-surgingly tight against the hairy back, while the trees still rushed up at them— and then they were coasting above those same treetops and spiraling down into a large glade.

What happened next to Fafhrd and the Mouser went all in a great tumbling rush, much too swiftly: the feel of springy turf under their feet and balmy air sluicing their bodies, quick kisses exchanged, laughing, shouted congratulations that still sounded all muffled like ghost voices, something hard and irregular yet soft-covered pressed into the Mouser’s hands, a last kiss— and then Hirriwi and Keyaira had broken away and a great burst of air flattened the grass and the great invisible flier was gone and the girls with it.

They could watch its upward spiraling flight for a little, however, because Hrissa had gone away on it too. The ice-cat seemed to be peering down at them in farewell. Then she too vanished as the golden afterglow swiftly died in the darkening sky overhead.

They stood leaning together for support in the twilight. Then they straightened themselves, yawning prodigiously, and their hearing came back. They heard the gurgling of a brook and the twittering of birds and a small, faint rustle of dry leaves going away from them and the tiny buzz of a spiraling gnat.

The Mouser opened the invisible pouch in his hands.

“The gems seem to be invisible too,” he said, “though I can feel ‘em well enough. We’ll have a hard time selling them— unless we can find a blind jeweler.”

The darkness deepened. Tiny cold fires began to glow in his palms: ruby, emerald, sapphire, amethyst, and pure white.

“No, by Issek!” the Gray Mouser said. “We’ll only need to sell them by night— which is unquestionably the best time for trade in gems.”

The new-risen moon, herself invisible beyond the lesser mountains walling the Rift Valley to the east, painted palely now the upper half of the great slender column of Stardock’s east wall.

Gazing up at that queenly sight, Fafhrd said, “Gallant ladies, all four.”

THE STAR FOX

Poul Anderson

Part One

MARQUE AND REPRISAL

I

“Le roi a fait battre tambour,

Le roi a fait battre tambour—”

Gunnar Heim halted in midstride. He stood a while, turning his head in search of the voice that had risen out of the dark.

“Pour voir toutes ces dames.

Et la premiere qu’il a vue—”

It was some distance off, almost lost in the background of machine rumble to landward of the docks. But only one man was likely to be making his mock with that sinister old ballad, in San Francisco on this night.

“Lut a ravi son ame. Rataplan! Rataplan! Rataplan-plan-plan-plan!”

Heim started after the sound. He could still move fast and softly when he wanted to. In a moment his ears picked up the ring and snarl of a guitar played in anger.

“Rataplan! Rataplan! Rataplan-plan-plan-plan!”

Warehouses bulked black on his right. At this hour not very long before dawn, the city had dimmed; there was only a reddish haze above the roofs, and the remote luminous leap of the palace towers on Nob Hill. To the left a cargo submarine lay like a sleek moon-scaled dragon, but no longshore robots or men were at work around it. The bay was ebony and a shimmer of glade. Kilometers distant, the hills on the eastern shore made a wall besprinkled with artificial stars. The real stars were wan, and so was the defense satellite that climbed rapidly into view—as if all suns had withdrawn from a planet gone strengthless. Luna stood at half phase near the zenith. He could not see the light-spot of Apollo City on the dark side, through the damp autumn air.

“Marquis, dis moi, la connais tu?

Marquis, dis moi, la connais tu?

‘Quelle est cette jolie dame?’

Et le marquis a repondu:

‘Sire Roi, c’est ma femme.’

Rataplan! Rataplan! Rataplan-plan-plan-,plan!

Rataplan! Rataplan! Rataplan-plan-plan-plan!”

Heim rounded a shed by the pier and saw the minstrel. He sat on a bollard, looking out across the water, a man more small and shabby than expected. His fingers leaped across the twelve strings as if attacking an enemy, and the moon gleamed off tears on his face.

Heim paused in the shadow of the wall. He ought not to interrupt. They had related, in the Spaceman’s Rest, that the buck was drunk and wild. “And when he’d spent his last millo, he wanted to sing for booze,” the bartender said. “I told him we didn’t want none of that here. He said he’d sung his way through a dozen planets and what was wrong with Earth that nobody wanted to listen to him. I said the strip show was coming on the 3V in a minute and that’s what the customers wanted, not any of his foreign stuff. So he yelled about singing to the stars or some such pothead notion. I told him go ahead, get out before I threw him out. And out he went. That was about an hour ago. Friend of yours?”

“Maybe,” Heim said.

“Uh, you might go look for him then. He could get into trouble. Somebody might go for an expensive gutbucket like he was hauling.”

Heim nodded and tossed off his beer. The Welfare section of any large city was bad to be alone in after nightfall. Even the police of Western countries made little effort to control those whom the machines had displaced before birth. They settled for containing that fury and futility in its own district, well away from the homes of people who had skills the world needed. On his walk-abouts through the subculture of the irrelevant men, Heim carried a stun pistol. He had had use for it on occasion.

They knew him locally, though. He had told them he was a retired spaceman—anything nearer the truth would have been unwise—and before long he was accepted as a genial drinking or gambling companion, less odd than many of the floaters who drifted in and out of their indifferent purview. He waved at several acquaintances, some feral and some surrendered to hopelessness, and left the bar.

Since the minstrel had probably headed for the Embarcadero, Heim did too. His stride lengthened as he went. At first there had been no sense of mission about finding the fellow. It had merely been an excuse to go on yet another slumming trip. But the implications grew in his mind.

And now that his search was ended, the song caught at him and he felt his pulse accelerate. This stranger might indeed have the truth about that which had happened among yonder constellations.

“—La reine a fait faire un bouquet

De belles fieurs de lyse.

Et la senteur de ce bouquet

A fait mourir marquise.”

As the older tale, also of tyranny, treachery, and death, crashed to its end, Heim reached a decision.

“Rataplan! Rataplan! Rataplan-plan-plan-plan!

Rataplan! Rataplan! Rataplan-plan-plan-plan!”

Silence followed, except for the lapping of water and the ceaseless throb of that engine which was the city. Heim trod forth.

“Good evening,” he said.

The minstrel jerked where he sat, drew a ragged breath, and twisted about. Heim spread his hands, smiling. “I’m harmless,” he said. “Was just admiring your performance. Mind if I join you?”

The other wiped at his eyes, furiously. Then the thin sharp face steadied into a considering look. Gunnar Heim was not one you met unperturbed, in such an area. He was nigh two meters tall, with breadth to match. His features were blunt and plain, an old scar zigzagging across the brow, under reddish-brown hair that in this forty-sixth year of his age was peppered with gray. But he was decently clad, in the high-collared tunic and the trousers tucked into soft half-boots that were the current mode. The hood of his cloak was thrown back. His weapon did not show.

“Well—” The minstrel made a spastic shrug. “This is a public place.” His English was fluent, but bore a heavier accent than his French.

Heim took a flat bottle of whisky from his pocket. “Will you drink with me, sir?”

The minstrel snatched it. After the first swallow he gusted, “Ahhh!” Presently: “Forgive my bad manners. I needed that.” He raised the flask. “Isten éltesse,” he toasted, drank again, and passed it back.

“Skål.” Heim took a gulp and settled himself on the wharf next to the bollard. What he had already drunk buzzed in him, together with a rising excitement. It was an effort to stay relaxed.

The minstrel came down to sit beside him. “You are not American, then?” he asked. His tone wavered a bit; he was obviously trying to make unemotional conversation while the tears dried on his high cheekbones.

“I am, by naturalization,” Heim said. “My parents were Norwegian. But I was born on Gea, Tau Ceti II.”

“What?” The hoped-for eagerness sprang into the singer’s countenance. He sat up straight. “You are a spaceman?”

“Navy, till about fifteen years ago. Gunnar Heim is my name.”

“I … Endre Vadász.” The agile fingers disappeared in Heim’s handshake. “Hungarian, but I have spent the last decade off Earth.”

“Yes, I know,” Heim said with care. “I saw you on a news program recently.”

Vadász’s lips writhed. He spat off the dock.

“You didn’t get a chance to say much during the interview,” Heim angled.

“No. They were cautious to mute me. ‘So you are a musician, Mr. Vadász. You have worked your way by any means that came to hand, from star to star, bearing the songs of Mother Earth to the colonists and the non-humans. Isn’t that interesting!’” The guitar cried out under a stroke.

“And you wanted to tell about New Europe, and they kept steering you from the subject. I wondered why.”

“The word had come to them. From your precious American authorities, under pressure from the big brave World Federation. It was too late to cancel my announced appearance, but I was to be gagged.” Vadász threw back his head and laughed, a coyote bark under the moon. “Am I paranoid? Do I claim I am being persecuted? Yes. But what if the conspiracy against me is real? Then does my sanity or lunacy make any difference?”

“M-m-m.” Heim rubbed his chin and throttled back the emotions within himself. He was not an impetuous man. “How can you be sure?”

“Quinn admitted it, when I reproached him afterward. He said he had been told the station might lose its license if it, ah, lent itself to allegations which might embarrass the Federation in this difficult time. Not that I was too surprised. I had had talks with officials, both civil and military, since arriving on Earth. The kindest thing any one of them said was that I must be mistaken. But they had seen my proofs. They knew.”

“Did you try the French? They’d be more likely to do something, I should think.”

“Yes. In Paris I got no further than an assistant undersecretary. He was frightened of my story and would not refer me to anyone higher who might believe. I went on to Budapest, where I have kin. My father arranged for me to see the foreign minister himself. He was at least honest with me. New Europe was no concern of Hungary, which could in any event not go against the whole Federation. I left his office and walked for many hours. Finally I sat down in the dark by the Freedom Memorial. I looked at Imre Nagy’s face, and it was only cold bronze. I looked at the figures of the martyrs, dying at his feet, and knew why no one will listen to me. So I got very drunk.” Vadász reached for the bottle. “I have been drunk most of the time since.”

Now we ask him! flared in Heim. His voice would not remain calm any longer; but Vadász didn’t notice. “Your story, I gather from what bits and pieces have leaked past this ‘unofficial official censorship’—your story is that the people are not dead on New Europe. Right?”

“Right, sir. They fled into the mountains, every one. of them.”

“The Haute Garance,” Heim nodded. He had all he could do merely to nod. “Good guerrilla country. Lots of cover, most never mapped, and you can live off the land.”

“You have been there!” Vadász set the bottle down and stared.

“Pretty often, while in the Navy. It was a favorite spot to put in for overhaul and planet leave. And then I spent four months in a stretch on New Europe by myself, recovering from this.” Heim touched the mark on his forehead.

Vadász peered close through the dappled moonlight. “Did the Aleriona do that to you?”

“No. This was over twenty years ago. I bought it while we were putting down the Hindu-German trouble on Lilith, which .you’re probably too young to remember. The skirmishes with Alerion didn’t begin till later.” Heim spoke absently. For this moment the drive and ferocity in him were overlaid by—

Red roofs and steep narrow streets of Bonne Chance, winding down along the River Carsac to the Bale des Pecheurs, which lay purple and silver to the world’s edge. Lazy days, drinking Pernod in a sidewalk cafe and lapping up the ruddy sunshine as a cat laps milk. When he got better, hunting trips into the highlands with Jacques Boussard and Toto Astier … good bucks, open of heart and hand, a little crazy as young men ought to be. Madelon—

He shook himself and asked roughly, “Do you know who is, or was, in charge?”

“A Colonel de Vigny of the planetary constabulary. He assumed command after the mairie was bombed, and organized the evacuation.”

“Not old Robert de Vigny? My God! I knew him.” Heim’s fist clenched on the concrete. “Yes, in that case the war is still going on.”

“It cannot last,” Vadász mumbled. “Given time, the Aleriona will hunt everyone down.”

“I know the Aleriona too,” Heim said. He drew a long breath and looked at the stars. Not toward the sun Aurore. Across a hundred and fifty light-years, it would be lost to his eyes; and it lay in the Phoenix anyway, walled off from him by the heavy curve of Earth. But he could not look straight at the minstrel while he asked, “Did you meet one Madelon Dubois? That’d be her maiden name. I expect she’s long married.”

“No.” Vadász’s drink-slurred voice became instantly clear and gentle. “I am sorry, but I did not.”

“Well—” Heim forced a shrug. “The chances were way against it There’s supposed to be half a million people on New Europe. Were the … the casualties heavy?”

“I heard that Coeur d’Yvonne, down in Pays d’Or, was struck by a hydrogen missile. Otherwise—no, I do not believe so. The fighting was mostly in space, when the Aleriona fleet disposed of the few Federation Navy ships that happened to be near. Afterward they landed in force, but in uninhabited, areas at first, so that except for a couple of raids with nothing worse than lasers and chemical bombs, the other towns had time to evacuate. They had been called on to surrender, of course, but de Vigny refused and so many went off with him that the rest came too.”

Damn it, I have got to keep this impersonal. At least till I know more. “How did you escape? The newscasts that mentioned you when you first arrived were vague about it. Deliberately, I suppose.”

Vadász made the bottle gurgle. “I was there when the attack came,” he said, thickly again. “The French commandeered a merchant vessel and sent it after help, but it was destroyed when scarcely above the atmosphere. There was also a miner in from Naqsa.” He got the non-human pronunciation nearly right “You may know that lately there has been an agreement, the Naqsans may dig in Terre du Sud for a royalty. So far off, they had seen nothing, knew nothing, and cloud cover above Garance would keep them ignorant After a radio discussion, the Aleriona commander let them go, I daresay not wanting to antagonize two races at once. Of course, the ship was not allowed to take passengers. But I had earlier flitted down for a visit and won the captain’s fancy—that a human should be interested in his songs, and even learn a few—so he smuggled me aboard and kept me hidden from the Aleriona inspectors. De Vigny thought I could carry his message—hee, hee!” Vadász’s laugh was close to hysteria. Fresh tears ran out of his eyes. “From Naqsa I had to, what you call, bum my way. It took time. And was all, all for nothing.”

He laid the guitar across his knees, strummed, and sang low:

” ‘Adieu, ma mie, adieu, man coeur,

Adieu, ma mie, adieu, man coeur,

Adieu, man espirance—”

Heim took the bottle, then abruptly set it down so hard that it clanked. He jumped to his feet and began pacing. His shadow wove back and forth across the minstrel, his cloak fluttered against the moonlight on the water.

“Nej, ved fanden!” he exploded.

“Eh?” Vadász bunked up at him.

“Look, do you say you have proof?”

“Yes. I have offered to testify under drugs. And de Vigny gave me letters, photographs, a whole microfilm packet with every bit of information he could scrape together. But no one on Earth will admit it is genuine. Few will even look at it.”

“I will,” Heim said. The blood roared in his ears.

“Good. Good. Right here, the package is.” Vadász fumbled in his soiled tunic.

“No, wait till later. I’ll take your word for now. It fits in with every other scrap of fact I’ve come across.”

“So I have convinced one man,” Vadász said bitterly.

“More than that.” Heim drew a long breath. “Look, friend, with due respect for you—and I respect anyone who’s had the guts to go out and make his own kind of life—I’m not a raggedy-ass self-appointed troubadour. I’m boss and chief owner of Heimdal.”

“The nuclear motor makers?” Vadász shook his head, muzzily. “No. Non. Nein. Nyet. You would never be here. I have seen your motors as far from home as the Rigel Domain.”

“Uh-huh. Damn good motors, aren’t they? When I decided to settle on Earth, I studied the possibilities. Navy officers who’ve resigned their commissions and don’t want to go into the merchant fleet have much too good a chance of ending down among the unemployables. But I saw that whoever was first to introduce the two-phase control system the Aleriona invented would lock gravs on the human market and half the non-human ones. And … I’d been there when Tech Intelligence dissected an Aleriona ship we captured in the set-to off Achemar. My father-in-law was willing to stake me. So today I’m—oh, not one of the financial giants. But I have ample money.

“Also, I’ve kept in touch with my Academy classmates. Some of them are admirals by now. They’ll pay attention to my ideas. And I’m a pretty good contributor to the Libertarian Party, which means that Twyman will listen to me too. He’d better!”

“No.” The dark tousled head moved from side to side, still drooping. “This cannot be. I cannot have found someone.”

“Brother, you have.” Heim slammed a fist into his palm with a revolver noise. A part of him wondered, briefly, at his own joy. Was it kindled by this confirmation that they were not dead on New Europe? Or the chance that he, Gunnar Heim, might personally short-circuit Alerion the damned? Or simply and suddenly a purpose, after five years without Connie? He realized now the emptiness of those years. No matter. The glory mounted and mounted. He bent down, scooped up the bottle with one hand and Vadász with the other. “Skål!” he shouted to Orion the Hunter, and drank a draught that made the smaller man gape. “Whoo-oo! Come along, Endre. I know places where, we can celebrate this as noisily as we damn please. We shall sing songs and tell tales and drink the moon down and the sun up and then shall go to work. Right?”

“Y-yes—” Still dazed, Vadász tucked his guitar under an arm and wobbled in Heim’s wake. The bottle was not quite empty when Heim began “The Blue Landsknechts,” a song as full of doom and hell as he was. Vadász hung the guitar from his neck and chorded. After that they got together on “La Marseillaise,” and “Die Beiden Grenadiere,” and “Skipper Bullard,” and about that time they had collected a fine bunch of roughneck companions, and all in all it turned out to be quite an evening.

II

1700 hours in San Francisco was 2000 in Washington, but Harold Twyman, senior senator from California and majority leader of United States representatives in the Parliament of the World Federation, was a busy man whose secretary could not arrange a sealed-call appointment any earlier on such short notice as Heim had given. However, that suited the latter quite well. It gave him time to recover from the previous night without excessive use of drugs, delegate the most pressing business at the Heimdal plant to the appropriate men, and study Vadász’s evidence. The Magyar was still asleep in a guest room. His body had a lot of abuse to repair.

Shortly before 1700 Heim decided he was sufficiently familiar with the material Robert de Vigny had assembled. He clicked off the viewer, rubbed his eyes, and sighed. An assortment of aches still nibbled at him. Once—Lord, it didn’t seem very long ago!—he could have weathered twenty times the bout he’d just been through, and made love to three or four girls, and been ready to ship out next morning. I’m at the awkward age, he thought wryly. Too young for antisenescence treatment to make any difference, too old for—what? Nothing, by Satan! I simply sit too much these days. Let me get away for a bit and this paunch I’m developing will melt off. He sucked in his stomach, reached for a pipe, and stuffed the bowl with unnecessary violence.

Why not take a vacation? he thought. Go into the woods and hunt; he had a standing invitation to use Ian McVeigh’s game preserve in British Columbia. Or sail his catamaran to Hawaii. Or order out his interplanetary yacht, climb the Lunar Alps, tramp the Martian hills; Earth was so stinking cluttered. Or even book an interstellar passage. He hadn’t seen his birthplace on Gea since his parents sent him back to Stavanger to get a proper education. Afterward there had been Greenland Academy, and the Deepspace Fleet, and Earth again, always too much to do.

Sharply before him the memory rose: Tau Ceti a ball of red gold in the sky; mountains coming down to the sea as they did in Norway, but the oceans of Gea were warm and green and haunted him with odors that had no human name; the Sindabans that were his boyhood playmates, laughing just like him as they all ran to the water and piled into a pirogue, raised the wingsail and leaped before the wind; campfire on the island, where flames sprang forth to pick daoda fronds and the slim furry bodies of his friends out of a night that sang; chants and drums and portentous ceremonies; and—and—

No. Heim struck a light to his tobacco and puffed hard. I was twelve years old when I left. And now Far and Mor are dead, and my Sindabans grown into an adulthood which humans are still trying to understand. I’d only find an isolated little scientific base, no different from two score that I’ve seen elsewhere. Time is a one-way lane.

Besides—his aze dropped to the micros on his desk—there’s work to do here.

Footfalls clattered outside the study. Glad of any distraction, Heim rose and walked after them. He ended in the living room. His daughter had come home and flopped herself in a lounger.

“Hi, Lisa,” he said. “How was school?”

“Yechy.” She scowled and stuck out her tongue. “Old Espinosa said I gotta do my composition over again.”

“Spelling, eh? Well, if you’d only buckle down and learn—”

“Worsen correcting spelling. Though why they make such a fuss about that, me don’t know! He says the semantics are upwhacked. Old pickleface!”

Heim leaned against the wall and wagged his pipe stem at her. ” ‘Semantics’ is a singular, young’un. Your grammar’s no better than your orthography. Also, trying to write, or talk, or think without knowing semantic principles is like trying to dance before you can walk. I’m afraid my sympathies are with Mr. Espinosa.”

“But Dad!” she wailed. “You don’t realize! I’d have to do the whole paper again from go!”

“Of course.”

“I can’t!” Her eyes, which were blue like his own—otherwise she was coming to look heartbreakingly like Connie—clouded up for a squall. “I got a date with Dick—Oh!” One hand went to her mouth.

“Dick? You mean Richard Woldberg?” Lisa shook her head wildly. “The blaze you don’t,” Heim growled. “I’ve told you damn often enough you’re not to see that lout”

“Oh, Dad! J-j-just because—”

“I know. High spirits. I call it malicious mischief and a judge that Woldberg Senior bought, and I say any girl who associates with that crowd is going to get in trouble. Nothing so mild as pregnancy, either.” Heim realized he was shouting. He put on his court-martial manner and rapped: “Simply making that date was not only disobedience but disloyalty. You went behind my back. Very well, you’re confined to quarters for a week whenever you’re not in school. And I expect to see your composition tomorrow, written right.”

“I hate you!” Lisa screamed. She flung out of the lounger and ran. For a second the bright dress, slender body, and soft brown hair were before Heim’s gaze, then she was gone. He heard her kick the door of her room, as if to make it open for her the faster.

What else could I do? he cried after her, but of course there was no reply. He prowled the long room, roared at a maid who dared come in with a question, and stalked forth to stand on the terrace among the roses, glaring across San Francisco.

The city lay cool and hazed under a lowering sun. From here, on Telegraph Hill, his view ranged widely over spires and elways, shining water and garden islands. That was why he had picked this suite, after Connie died in that senseless flyer smash and the Mendocino County house got too big and still. In the past year or so Lisa had begun to whine about the address being unfashionable. But the hell with her.

No. It was only that fourteen was a difficult age. It had to be only that. And without a mother—He probably should have remarried, for Lisa’s sake. There’d been no lack of opportunity. But at most the affairs had ended as … affairs … because none of the women were Connie. Or even Madelon. Unless you counted Jocelyn Lawrie, but she was hopelessly lost in her damned peace movement and anyway—Still, he could well be making every mistake in the catalogue, trying to raise Lisa by himself. Whatever had become of the small dimpled person to whom he was the center of the universe?

He glanced at his watch and swore. Past time to call Twyman.

Back in the study he had a wait while the secretary contacted her boss and sealed the circuit. He couldn’t sit; he paced the room, fingering his books, his desk computer, 1% souvenirs of the lancer to whose command he had risen. Hard had it been to give up Star Fox. For a year after his marriage, he’d remained in the Navy. But that wouldn’t work out, wasn’t fair to Connie. He stroked a hand across her picture, without daring to animate it right now. Not hard after all, sweetheart. Well worth everything.

The phone chimed and the secretary said, “The senator is on the line, sir.” Her image gave way to Twyman’s distinguished gray head. Heim sat down, on the edge of the chair.

“Hello, Gunnar,” Twyman said. “How’s everything?”

“Comme ci, comme ça,” Heim answered. “A little more ci than ça, I think. How’s with you?”

“Rushed damn near to escape velocity. The Aleriona crisis, you know.”

“Uh-huh. That’s what I wanted to talk about”

Twyman looked alarmed. “I can’t say much.”

“Why not?”

“Well…well, there really isn’t much to say yet. Their delegation has only been here for about three weeks, you remember, so no formal discussions have commenced. Diplomacy between different species is always like that. Such a fantastic lot of spadework to do, information exchange, semantic and xenological and even epistemological studies to make, before the two sides can be halfway sure they’re talking about the same subjects.”

“Harry,” said Heim, “I know as well as you do that’s a string of guff. The informal conferences are going on right along. When Parliament meets with the Aleriona, you boys on the inside will have everything rigged in advance. Arguments marshaled, votes lined up, nothing left to do but pull the switch and let the machine ratify the decision you’ve already made.”

“Well, ah, you can’t expect, say, the Kenyan Empire representatives to understand something so complex—”

Heim rekindled his pipe. “What are you going to do, anyhow?” he asked.

“Sorry, I can’t tell you.”

“Why not? Isn’t the Federation a ‘democracy of states’? Doesn’t its Constitution guarantee free access to information?”

“You’ll have as much information as you want,” Twyman snapped, “when we start to operate on an official basis.”

“That’ll be too late.” Heim sighed. “Never mind. I can add two and two. You’re going to let Alerion have New Europe, aren’t you?”

“I can’t—”

“You needn’t. The indications are everywhere. Heads of state assuring their people there’s no reason to panic, we’re not going to have a war. Politicians and commentators denouncing the ‘extremists.’ Suppression of any evidence that there might be excellent reason to go to war.”

Twyman bristled. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve met Endre Vadász,” Heim said.

“Who?—oh, yes. That adventurer who claims—Look, Gunnar, there is some danger of war. I’m not denying that. Prance especially is up in arms, demonstrations, riots, mobs actually tearing down the Federation flag and trampling on it. We’ll have our hands full as is, without letting some skizzy like him inflame passions worse.”

“He’s not a skizzy. Also, Alerion’s whole past record bears him out. Ask any Navy man.” ‘

“Precisely.” Twyman’s voice grew urgent. “As we move into their sphere of interest, inevitably there’ve been more and more clashes. And can you blame them? They were cruising the Phoenix region when men were still huddled in caves. It’s theirs.”

“New Europe isn’t. Men discovered and colonized it.”

“I know, I know. There are so many stars—The trouble is, we’ve been greedy. We’ve gone too far, too fast.”

“There are a lot of stars,” Heim agreed, “but not an awful lot of planets where men can live. We need ‘em.”

“So does Alerion.”

“Ja? What use is a people-type world to them? And even on their own kind of planet, why didn’t they ever colonize on anything like our scale, till we came along?”

“Response to our challenge,” Twyman said. “What would you do if an alien culture started grabbing planetary systems as near to Sol as Aurore is to The Eith?” He leaned back. “Oh, don’t get me wrong. The Aleriona are no saints. They’ve sometimes been fiends, by our standards. But we have to inhabit the same cosmos with them. War is unthinkable.”

“Why?” drawled Heim.

“What? Gunnar, are you out of your brain? Haven’t you read any history? Looked at the craters? Understood how close a call the Nuclear Exchange was?”

“So close a call that ever since the human race has been irrational on the subject,” Heim said, “But I’ve seen some objective analyses. And even you must admit that the Exchange and its aftermath rid us of those ideological governments.”

“An interstellar war could rid us of Earth!”

“Twaddle. A planet with space defenses like ours can’t be attacked from space by any fleet now in existence. Every beam would be attenuated, every missile intercepted, every ship clobbered.”

“That didn’t work for New Europe,” Twyman said. He was getting angry.

“No, of course not. New Europe didn’t have any space fortresses or home fleet. Nothing but a few lancers and pursuers that happened to be in the vicinity—when Alerion’s armada came.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Gunnar. The affair was simply another clash, one that got out of hand.”

“So the Aleriona say,” Heim murmured. “If that’s the truth, how come none, not one, of our vessels escaped?”

Twyman ignored him. “We’ll never be sure who fired the first shot. But we can be sure the Aleriona wouldn’t have missiled New Europe if our commander hadn’t tried to pull his ships down into atmosphere for a toadhole maneuver. What other conceivable reason was there?”

If New Europe really was missiled, Heim thought. But it wasn’t.

The senator checked indignation, sat silent for a bit, and went on almost mildly. “The whole episode illustrates how intolerable the situation has become, how matters are bound to escalate if we don’t halt while we still can. And what do we want to fight for? A few wretched planets? We need only let Alerion’s traditional sphere alone, and the rest of the galaxy is open to us. Fight for revenge? Well, you can’t laugh off half a million dead human beings, but the fact remains that they are dead. I don’t want to send any more lives after theirs.”

“Okay,” Heim said with equal quietness. “What do, you figure to do?”

Twyman studied him before answering: “You’re my friend as well as a political backstop. I can trust you to keep your mouth shut. And to support me, I think, once you know. Do I have your promise?”

“Of secrecy … well … yes. Support? That depends. Say on.”

“The details are still being threshed out. But in general, Alerion offers us an indemnity for New Europe. A very sizable one. They’ll also buy out our other interests in the Phoenix. The exact terms have yet to be settled—obviously they can’t pay in one lump—but the prospect looks good. With us out of their sphere, they’ll recognize a similar one for humans around Sol, and keep away. But we aren’t building any walls, you understand. We’ll exchange ambassadors and cultural missions. A trade treaty will be negotiated in due time.

“There. Does that satisfy you?”

Heim looked into the eyes of a man he had once believed honest with himself, and said: “No.”

“Why not?” Twyman asked most softly.

“From a long-range viewpoint, your scheme ignores the nature of Alerion. They aren’t going to respect our sphere any longer than it takes them to consolidate the one you want to make them a present of. And I do mean a present—because until a trade treaty is agreed on, which I predict will be never, how can we spend any of that valuta they so generously pay over?”

“Gunnar, I know friends of yours have died at Aleriona hands. But it’s given you a persecution complex.”

“Trouble is, Harry,” Heim stole from Vadász, “the persecution happens to be real. You’re the one living in a dream. You’re so obsessed with avoiding war that you’ve forgotten every other consideration. Including honor.”

“What do you mean by that?” Twyman demanded.

“New Europe was not missiled. The colonists are not dead. They’ve taken to the hills and are waiting for us to come help them.”

“That isn’t so!”

“I have the proof right here on my desk.”

“You mean the documents that—that tramp forged?”

“They aren’t forgeries. It can be proved. Signatures, fingerprints, photographs, the very isotope ratios in film made on New Europe. Harry, I never thought you’d sell out half a million human beings.”

“I deny that I am doing so,” Twyman said glacially. “You’re a fanatic, Mister Heim, that’s all. Even if it were true what you say … how do you propose to rescue anyone from a planet occupied and space-guarded? But it isn’t true. I’ve spoken to survivors whom the Aleriona brought here. You must have seen them yourself on 3V. They witnessed the bombardment.”

“Hm. You recall where they were from?”

“The Coeur d’Yvonne area. Everything else was wiped clean.”

“So the Aleriona say,” Heim retorted. “And doubtless the survivors believe it too. Any who didn’t would’ve been weeded out during interrogation. I say that Coeur d’Yvonne was the only place hit by a nuke. I say further that we can fight if we must, and win. A space war only; I’m not talking the nonsense about ‘attacking impregnable Alerion’ which your tame commentators keep putting into the mouths of us ‘extremists,’ and Earth is every bit as impregnable. I say further that if we move fast, with our full strength, we probably won’t have to fight. Alerion will crawfish. She isn’t strong enough to take us on … yet. I say further and finally that if we let down those people out there who’re trusting us, we’ll deserve everything that Alerion will eventually do to us.” He tamped his smoldering pipe. “That’s my word, Senator.”

Twyman said, trembling: “Then my word, Heim, is that we’ve outgrown your kind of sabertooth militarism and I’m not going to let us be dragged back to that level. If you’re blaze enough to quote what I’ve told you here in confidence, I’ll destroy you. You’ll be in the Welfare district, or correction, within a year.”

“Oh, no,” Heim said. “I keep my oaths. The public facts can speak for themselves. I need only point them out.”

“Go ahead, if you want to waste your money and reputation. You’ll be as big a laughingstock as the rest of the warhawk crowd.”

Taken aback, Heim grimaced. In the past weeks, after the news of New Europe, he had seen what mass media did to those who spoke as he was now speaking. Those who were influential, that is, and therefore worth tearing down. Ordinary unpolitical people didn’t matter. The pundits simply announced that World Opinion Demanded Peace. Having listened to a good many men, from engineers and physicists to spacehands and mechanics, voice their personal feelings, Heim doubted if world opinion was being correctly reported. But he couldn’t see any way to prove that.

Conduct a poll, maybe? No. At best, the result would frighten some professors, who would be quick to assert that it was based on faulty statistics, and a number of their students, who would organize parades to denounce Heim the Monster.

Propaganda? Politicking? A Paul Revere Society? … Heim shook his head, blindly, and slumped.

Twyman’s face softened. “I’m sorry about this, Gunnar,” he said. “I’m still your friend, you know. Regardless of where your next campaign donation goes. Call on me any time.” He hesitated, decided merely to add “Good-by,” and switched off.

Heim reached into his desk for a bottle he kept there. As he took it forth, his gaze crossed the model of Star Fox which his crew had given him when he retired. It was cast in steel, retrieved from that Aleriona battlewagon into which the lancer put an atomic torpedo at Achernar.

I wonder if the Aleriona make trophies of our wrecks.

Hm. Odd. I never thought about it before. We know so little of them. Heim put his feet on the desk and tilted the bottle to his lips. Why don’t I corner one of their delegation and ask?

And then he choked on his drink and spluttered; his feet thumped to the floor, and he never noticed. The thought had been too startling. Why not?

III

The ceiling glowed with the simulated light of a red dwarf sun, which lay like blood on leaves and vines and slowly writhing flowers. A bank of Terrestrial room instruments—phone, 3V, computer, vocascribe, infotrieve, service cubicle, environmental control board—stood in one corner of the jungle with a harsh incongruity. The silence was as deep as the purple shadows. Unmoving, Cynbe waited.

The decompression chamber finished its cycle and Gunnar Heim stepped out. Thin dry atmosphere raked his throat. Even so, the fragrances overwhelmed him. He could not tell which of them—sweet, acrid, pungent, musky—came from which of the plants growing from wall to wall, reaching to the ceiling and arching down again in a rush of steel-blue leaves, exploding in banks of tawny, crimson, black, and violet blossoms. The reduced gravity seemed to give a lightness to his head as well as his frame. Feathery turf felt like rubber underfoot The place was tropically warm; he sensed the infrared baking his skin.

He stopped and peered about. Gradually his eyes adjusted to the ember illumination. They were slower to see details of shapes so foreign to Earth.

“Imbiac dystra?” he called uncertainly. “My lord?” His voice was muffled in that tenuous air.

Cynbe ru Taren, Intellect Master of the Garden of War, fleet admiral, and military specialist of the Grand Commission of Negotiators, trod out from beneath his trees. “Well are you come, sir,” he sang. “Understand you, then, the High Speech?”

Heim made the bowing Aleriona salute of a ranking individual to a different-but-equal. “No, my lord, I regret. Only a few phrases. It’s a difficult language for any of my race to learn.”

Cynbe’s beautiful voice ranged a musical scale never invented by men. “Wish you a seat, Captain Heim? I can dial for refreshment.” ‘

“No, thank you,” the human said, because he didn’t care to lose whatever psychological advantage his height gave him, nor drink the wine of an enemy. Inwardly he was startled. Captain Heim? How much did Cynbe know?

There would have been ample time to make inquiries, in the couple of days since this audience was requested. But one couldn’t guess how interested an Aleriona overlord was in a mere individual. Very possibly Heim’s wish had been granted at Harold Twyman’s urging, and for no other reason. The senator was a strong believer in the value of discussion between opponents. Any discussion. We may go down, but at least we’ll go down talking.

“I trust your trip hither was a pleasant one?” Cynbe cantillated.

“Oh … all right, my lord, if, uh, one doesn’t mind traveling with sealed eyelids after being thoroughly searched.”

“Regrettable is this necessity to keep the whereabouts of our delegation secret,” Cynbe agreed. “But your fanatics—” The last word was a tone-and-a-half glissando carrying more scorn than Heim would have believed possible.

“Yes.” The man braced himself. “In your civilization, the populace is better … controlled.” I haven’t quite the nerve to say “domesticated” but I hope he gets my meaning.

Cynbe’s laughter ran like springtime rain. “You are a marksman, Captain.” He advanced with a movement that made cats look clumsy. “Would your desire be to walk my forest as we discuss? You are maychance not enrolled with the few humans who set ever a foot upon Alerion.”

“No, my lord, I’m sorry to say I haven’t had the pleasure. Yet”

Cynbe halted. For a moment, in the darkling light, they regarded each other. And Heim could only think how fair the Aleriona was.

The long-legged, slightly forward-leaning body, 150 centimeters tall, its chest as deep and waist as spare as a greyhound’s, the counterbalancing tail never quite at rest, he admired in abstraction. How the sleek silvery fur sparkled with tiny points of light; how surely the three long toes of either digitigrade foot took possession of the ground; how graciously the arms gestured; how proudly the slim neck lifted. The humans were rare who could have dressed like Cynbe, in a one-piece garment of metallic mesh, trimmed at throat and wrists and ankles with polished copper. It revealed too much.

The head, though, was disturbing. For the fur ended at the throat, and Cynbe’s face—marble-hued, eyes enormous below arching brows, nose small, lips vividly red, wide cheekbones and narrow chin—could almost have been a woman’s. Not quite: there were differences of detail, and the perfection was inhuman. Down past the pointed ears, along the back and halfway to the end of the tail, rushed a mane of hair, thick, silken fine, the color of honey and gold. A man who looked overly long at that face risked forgetting the body.

And the brain, Heim reminded himself.

A blink of nictitating membrane dimmed briefly the emerald of Cynbe’s long-lashed feline eyes. Then he smiled, continued his advance, laid a hand on Heim’s arm. Three double-jointed fingers and a thumb closed in a gentle grip. “Come,” the Aleriona invited.

Heim went along, into the murk under the trees. “My lord,” he said in a harshened tone, “I don’t want to waste your time. Let’s talk business.”

“Be our doings as you choose, Captain.” Cynbe’s free hand stroked across a phosphorescent branch.

“I’m here on behalf of the New Europeans.”

“For the mourned dead? We have repatriated the living, and indemnified they shall be.”

“I mean those left alive on the planet. Which is nearly all of them.”

“Ah-h-h-h,” Cynbe breathed.

“Senator Twyman must have warned you I’d bring the subject up.”

“Truth. Yet assured he the allegation is unbelieved.”

“Most of his side don’t dare believe it Those who do, don’t dare admit it.”

“Such accusations could imperil indeed the peace negotiations.” Heim wasn’t sure how much sardonicism lay in the remark. He stumbled on something unseen, cursed, and was glad to emerge from the bosket, onto a little patch of lawn starred with flowers. Ahead rose the inner wall, where some hundred books were shelved, not only the tall narrow folios of Alerion but a good many ancient-looking Terrestrial ones. Heim couldn’t make out the titles. Nor could he see far past the archway into the next room of the suite; but somewhere a fountain was plashing.

He stopped, faced the other squarely, and said: “I have proof that New Europe was not scrubbed clean of men—in fact, they retreated into the mountains and are continuing resistance to your occupation force. The evidence is in a safe place”—Goodness, aren’t we melodramatic?—“and I was planning to publicize it. Which would, as you say, be awkward for your conference.”

He was rather desperately hoping that the Aleriona didn’t know the facts of life on Earth well enough to understand how forlorn his threat was. Cynbe gave him no clue. There was only an imperturbable upward quirk of mouth, and: “Seeming is that you have decided upon another course, Captain.”

“That depends on you,” Heim answered. “If you’ll repatriate those people also, I’ll give you the evidence and say no more.”

Cynbe turned to play with a vine. It curled about his hand and reached its blossoms toward his face. “Captain,” he sang presently, “you are no fool. Let us assume your belief is truth. We shall speak of a folk in wrath under the mountain peaks. How shall they be made come to our ships?”

“They’re fighting because they expect help. If representatives of the French government told them to return here, they would. The parley can be arranged by radio.”

“But the entity France, now, would it so cooperate?”

“It’d have no choice. You know even better than I, a majority of the Federation doesn’t want to fight over New Europe. About the only thing that could provoke such a war is the plight of the settlers. Let them come back unharmed and … and you’ll have your damned conquest.”

“Conceivable that is.” Light rippled red down Cynbe’s locks when he nodded. His gaze remained with the blooms. “But afterward?” he crooned. “Afterward?”

“I know,” Heim said. “The New Europeans would be living proof you lied—not only about them, but about the entire battle. Proof that things didn’t happen because someone got trigger happy, but because you planned your attack.” He swallowed a nasty taste. “Well, read Terrestrial history, my lord. You’ll find we humans don’t take these matters as seriously as we might. Lies are considered a normal part of diplomacy, and a few ships lost, a few men killed, are all in the day’s work. If anything, this concession of yours will strengthen the peace party. ‘Look,’ they’ll say, ‘Alerion isn’t so bad, you can do business with Alerion, our policies saved those lives and avoided an expensive war.’ Unquote.”

Now the muliebrile face did turn about, and for a while the eyes lay luminous upon Heim. He felt his pulse grow thick. The sound of the fountain seemed to dwindle and the hot red dusk to close in.

“Captain,” Cynbe sang, almost too low to hear, “The Eith is an ancient sun. The Aleriona have been civilized for beyond a million of your years. We sought not far-flung empire, that would crack an order old and stable; but our Wanderers ranged and our Intellects pondered. Maychance we are wiser in the manifold ways of destiny than some heedless newcomer. Maychance we have read your own inwardness more deeply than have you yourselves.”

” ‘Afterward’ did I say. The word carries another freight when echoed through a million of years. My regard was to no gain for a decade, a generation, a century. I speak beyond

“Between these walls, let truth be what you have claimed. Then let truth also be that Alerion cannot hithersend five hundred thousand of individuals to leaven their race with anger.

“Had they yielded, the case were otherwise. We would have told Earth this battle was one more incident than tolerable and now we must have our own sphere where no aliens fare. But any of your colonists enwished to stay might do so, did they become subject to Alerion. We would offer inspection, that Earth might be sure they were not oppressed. For such little enclaves are significanceless; and Alerion has ways to integrate them into civilization; ways slow, as you look upon time, ways subtle, ways quite, quite certain.

“The colonists yielded not, I say between these walls. Even could we capture them alive, in so much wilderness—and we cannot—even then could they not become subject to Alerion. Not as prisoners, forever dangerous, forever an incitement that Earth deliver them. Yet if the entity France commanded them home: in their nerves, that were betrayal of folk who had not surrendered, and they must strive for a Federation government of males more brave. I look in the future and I see how they shame the others of you—yes, yes, Captain, such intangibles make your history, you are that kind of animal. Truth, there would not be war to gain back Europe Neuve. Those bones grow dry before leaders as I speak of come to power. But when the next debatable issue arises—ah-h-h.”

So there is to be a next issue, Heim thought. Not that he’s told me anything I hadn’t already guessed. I wonder, though, when the second crisis is scheduled. Maybe not in my lifetime. But surely in Lisa’s.

His voice came out flat and remote, as if someone else spoke: “Then you’re not going to admit the colonists are alive. What will you do? Hunt them down piecemeal?”

“I command space fleets, Captain, not groundlings.” Astonishingly, Cynbe’s lashes fluttered and he looked down at his hands. The fingers twined together. “I have said more than needful, to you alone. But then, I am not Old Aleriona. My type was bred after the ships began their comings from Earth. And … I was at Achernar.” He raised his eyes. “Star Fox captain, as Earth’s men do, will you clasp my hand farewell?”

“No,” said Heim. He turned on his heel and walked toward the compression chamber.

IV

His escort of Peace Control troopers unsealed his eyes and let him off the official flyer at Port Johnson in Delaware. They’d taken longer on whatever circuitous route they followed than he had expected. There was barely time to make his appointment with Coquelin. He hurried to the beltway headed for the civilian garages, elbowed aboard through the usual crowd, and found he must stand the whole distance.

Fury had faded during the hours he sat blind, exchanging banalities with the earnest young officer of his guards (“Weather Reg really muffed the last hurricane, don’t you think?” … “Yes, too bad about New Europe, but still, we’ve outgrown things like imperialism and revenge, haven’t we? Anyhow, the galaxy is big.” … “I sure envy you, the, way you’ve traveled in space. We get around in this job, of course, but seems like the places and people on Earth get more alike every year.”) or thinking his own thoughts. He hadn’t really expected to accomplish anything with the Aleriona. The attempt was nothing but a duty.

Grayness remained in him. I don’t see what I can do in Paris either.

A shabby man, unnecessarily aggressive, pushed him. He controlled his temper with an effort—he hated crowds—and refrained from pushing back. You couldn’t blame the poor devil for being hostile to one whose good clothes revealed him a member of the technoaristocracy.

That’s why we’ve got to move into space, he told himself for the thousandth time. Room. A chance to get out of this horrible huddle on Earth, walk free, be our own men, try out new ways to live, work, think, create, wonder. There was more happiness on New Europe, divided among half a million people, than these ten billion could even imagine.

What is it in them—fear? inertia? despair? plain old ignorance?—makes them swallow that crock about how the rest of the universe is open to us?

Because it was a crock. Habitable planets aren’t that common. And most of those that exist have intelligent natives; a good many of the rest have already been colonized by others. Heim did not want his race forced to the nearly ultimate immorality of taking someone else’s real estate away.

Though more was involved in the Phoenix affair. A loss of nerve; throughout history, yielding to an unjustifiable demand for the sake of a few more years of peace has been the first step on a long downward road. An admission of the essentially vicious principle of “interest spheres”; there should not be any boundaries in space. And, to be sure, appalling fatuity: a blank refusal to read the record which proved Alerion’s intentions toward Earth, a positive eagerness to give the enemy the time and resources he needed to prepare for his next encroachment

But what can a man do?

Heim claimed his flyer at the garage and fretted while TrafCon stalled about sending him aloft. Quite a time passed before the pattern of vehicle movement released him. He went on manual for a while, to have the satisfaction of personally getting away. The gravitrons in this Moonraker were custom-built, with power to lift him far into the stratosphere. Otherwise the flyer was nothing special; he was fairly indifferent to creature comforts. He set the autopilot for Orly, took a long hot bath, got some whale from the freezer and made himself a ‘burger for lunch, and bunked out for a couple of hours.

The clock woke him with the “Light Cavalry Overture” and handed him a mug of coffee. He changed into fresh clothes—somewhat formal, gold on the collar and down the pants—while the flyer slanted in for a landing. Momentarily he debated whether to go armed, for he would be carrying Vadász’s package. But no, that might start more argument than it was worth. If he failed here too, he doubted if there would be any further use for New Europe’s appeal. No action would be possible, except to get roaring drunk and afterward consider emigration to an especially remote planet.

Entering the Douane office, he showed his ID and got a thirty-day permit. France, being less crowded than most countries, was rather stuffy about letting people in. But this official was balm and unguents from the moment he saw Heim’s name. “Ah, yes, yes, monsieur, we ‘ave been told to expect ce pleasure of your company. A car is waiting for you. Does monsieur ‘ave any baggage ‘e wishes carried? No? Bien, cis way, please, and ‘ave a mos’ pleasant visit.”

Quite a contrast with what Endre Vadász must have experienced. But he was only a musician of genius. Gunnar Heim headed a well-known manufacturing concern and was son-in-law to Curt Wingate, who sat on the board of General Nucleonics. If Gunnar Heim requested a private interview with Michel Coquelin, minister of extraterrestrial affairs and head of French representatives in the World Parliament, why, of course, of course.

Even so, he had crowded his schedule. Twyman had leaned backward to oblige him about seeing Cynbe; nevertheless, the peacemongers were fairly sure to have agents keeping tabs on him, and if he didn’t move fast they might find ways to head him off.

The car entered Paris by ground. Blue dusk was deepening into night. The trees along the boulevards had turned their leaves, red and yellow splashed against Baron Haussmann’s stately old walls or scrittling among the legs of pretty girls as they walked with their men. The outdoor cafes had little custom at this season. Heim was as glad of that Paris could have made him remember too many things.

The car stopped at the Quai d’Orsay and let him out. He heard the Seine lap darkly against its embankment, under the thin chill wind. Otherwise the district was quiet, with scant traffic, the whirr of the city machines nearly lost. But sky-glow hid the stars.

Gendarmes stood guard. Their faces were tense above the flapping capes. All France was tensed and bitter, one heard. Heim was conducted down long corridors where not a few people were working late, to Coquelin’s office.

The minister laid aside a stack of papers and rose to greet him. “How do you do,” he said. The tone was weary but the English flawless. That was luck; Heim’s French had gotten creaky over the years. Coquelin gestured at a worn, comfortable old-style chair by his desk. “Please be seated. Would you like a cigar?”

“No, thanks, I’m a pipe man.” Heim took his out

“I too.” Coquelin’s face meshed in crow’s feet and calipers when he smiled; he sat down and began to load a still more disreputable briar. He was short but powerfully built, square of countenance, bald of dome, with very steady brown eyes. “Well, Mr. Heim, what can I do for you?”

“Uh … it concerns New Europe.”

“I thought so.” The smile died.

“In my opinion—” Heim decided he was being pompous.

“M. Coquelin,” he said, “I believe Earth ought to do whatever is necessary to get New Europe back.”

Coquelin’s look went over his guest’s features, centimeter by centimeter, while he started his pipe. “Thank you for that,” he said at length. “We have felt lonely in France.”

“I have some material here that might help.”

The least intake of breath went through Coquelin’s teeth. “Proceed, if you please.”

He sat altogether expressionless, smoking, never glancing away, while Heim talked. Only once did he interrupt: “Cynbe? Ah, yes, I have met him. The one they have quartered at—No, best I not say. Officially I am not supposed to know. Go on.”

In the end he opened the packet, slipped a few films into the viewer on his desk, read, and nodded. The stillness quivered near breaking point Heim puffed volcano-like, stared out the window into darkness, shifted his bulk so the chair groaned, and listened to his own heartbeat

Finally Coquelin muttered, “There have been rumors about this.” After another silence: “I shall see that you and Vadász join the Légion d’Honneur. Whatever happens.”

“What will?” Heim asked. His jaws ached with being clamped together.

Coquelin shrugged. “Nothing, probably,” he said, dull-voiced. “They are determined to buy what they call peace.”

“Oh. Yes, you’d know. So I can tell you I also know the plan.”

“That Alerion shall have Europe Neuve? Good, we can speak freely. I am naturally honor bound not to reveal what is being decided until my fellow committeemen agree, and it would be a futile act with disastrous political consequences if I broke that promise. So I am most glad to have an outside listener.” Coquelin passed a hand across his eyes. “But there is little we can say, no?”

“There’s plenty!” Heim exclaimed. “Come the formal meeting, you can show this stuff to Parliament, with scientific proof it’s genuine. You can ask them how anyone can hope to get reelected after selling out so many human beings.”

“Yes, yes.” Coquelin stared at his pipe bowl, where the fire waxed and waned, waxed and waned. “And some will say I lie. That my evidence is forged and my scientists are bribed. Others will say alas, this is terrible, but—half a :, million people? Why, a few missiles striking population centers on Earth could kill twenty tunes that many, a hundred times; and we had no right to be in the Phoenix; and nothing matters except to make friends with Alerion, for otherwise we must look for decades of war; so we can only weep for our people out there, we cannot help them.” His grin was dreadful to see. “I daresay a monument will be raised to them. Martyrs in the cause of peace.”

“But this is ridiculous! Earth can’t be attacked. Or if it can, then so can Alerion, and they won’t provoke that when we have twice their strength. A single flotilla right now could drive them out of the Auroran System.”

“Half the Navy has been recalled for home defense. The other half is out in the Marches, keeping watch on the Aleriona fleet, which is also maneuvering there. Even some of the admirals I have consulted do not wish to spare a flotilla for Aurore. For as you must know, monsieur, the numbers available on either side are not large, when a single nuclear-armed vessel has so much destructive capability.”

“So we do nothing?” Heim grated. “Why, at the moment even one ship could—could make serious trouble for the enemy. They can’t have any great strength at Aurore as yet. But give them a year or two and they’ll make New Europe as unattackable as Earth.”

“I know.” Coquelin swiveled around, rested his elbows oh his desk, and let his head sink between his shoulders. “I shall argue. But … tonight I feel old, Mr. Heim.”

“My God, sir! If the Federation won’t act, how about France by herself?”

“Impossible. We cannot even negotiate as a single country with any extraterrestrial power, under the Constitution. We are not allowed any armed force, any machine of war, above the police level. Such is reserved for the Peace Control Authority.”

“Yes, yes, yes—”

“In fact—” Coquelin glanced up. A muscle twitched in one cheek. “Now that I think about what you have brought me, these documents, I do not know if I should make them public.”

“What?”

“Consider. France is furious enough. Let the whole truth be known, including the betrayal, and I dare not predict what might happen. It could well end with Peace Control troops occupying us. And, yes, that would hurt the Federation itself, even more than France. One must put loyalty to the Federation above anything else. Earth is too small for national sovereignty. Nuclear weapons are too powerful.”

Heim looked at the bent head, and the rage in him seemed about to tear him apart. “I’d like to go out myself!” he shouted.

“This would be piracy,” Coquelin sighed.

“No … wait, wait, wait.” The thought flamed into being. Heim sprang to his feet. “Privateers. Once upon a time there were privately owned warships.”

“Eh, you have read a little history, I see.” Some life came back to Coquelin. He sat straighter and watched the huge, restless figure with eyes again alert. “But I have read more. Privateering was outlawed in the nineteenth century. Even countries not signatory to that pact observed the prohibition, until it came to be regarded as a part of international law. Admitted, the Federal Constitution does not mention so archaic a matter. Still”—

“Exactly!” Heim roared; or was it the demon that had come to birth in his skull?

“No, no, flout the law and the Peace Control forces arrive. I am too old and tired, me, to stand trial before the World Court. To say nothing of the practical difficulties. France cannot declare war by herself. France cannot produce nuclear weapons.” Coquelin uttered a small sad chuckle. “I am a lawyer by past profession. It there were a, you say loophole?—I could perhaps squirm through. But here—”

Word by word, Heim said: “I can get hold of the weapons.”

Coquelin leaped in his seat. “Qu’est-ce que vous dites?”

“Off Earth. I know a place. Don’t you see—Alerion has to put space defenses in orbit around New Europe, or she can’t hold it against any determined attack.” Heim was leaning on the desk now, nose to nose with the other, talking like a machine gun. “New Europe has only a limited industry. So the Aleriona will have to bring most of the stuff from home. A long supply line. One commerce raider—what’d that do to their bargaining position? What’d it do for our own poor buffaloed people? One ship!”

“But I have told you—”

“You told me it—was physically and legally impossible. I can prove the physical possibility. And you said you were a lawyer.”

Coquelin rose too, went to the window, and stared long out across the Seine. Heim’s pace quivered the floor. His brain whirled with plans, data, angers, hopes; he had not been so seized by a power since he bestrode his bridge at Alpha Eridani.

And then Coquelin turned about. His whisper filled the silence: “Peut-etre—” and he went to the desk and began punching keys on an infotrieve.

“What are you after?” Heim demanded.

“Details of the time before quite every country had joined the Federation. The Moslem League did not recognize that it had any right as a whole to deal with them. So during the troubles, the Authority was charged with protecting Federation interests in Africa.” Coquelin gave himself entirely to his work. Once, though, he met Heim’s eyes. His own danced in his head. “Mille remercîments, man frère,” he said. “It may be for no more than this night, but you have given me back my youth.”

V

Endre Vadász took the lid off the kettle, inhaled a sumptuous odor, gave the contents a stir, and recovered them. “Almost done, this,” he said. “I had better make the salad. Have you the materials ready?”

Lisa Heim blushed. “I … I’m afraid I’m not so good at slicing cucumbers and stuff,” she said.

“Poof to that.” Vadász scooped the disorderly pile of greens into a bowl. “For a cadet, you do very well … Find me the seasonings, will you? One must needs be an engineer to operate this damned machine shop you call a kitchen … As I was saying, small one, when I so rudely interrupted myself, we shall yet win you to your cook and bottle washer (j.g.) rating. Charge, a boar’s head erased with an apple gules in its mouth, field barry of six vert and or. That’s for cabbage and clotted cream.”

Lisa giggled and hopped onto the table, where she swung her legs and watched Vadász with embarrassing warmth. He had only tried to be good company to his host’s daughter while her father was away. He gave the herbs and spices more attention than was really necessary.

“My mother taught me a Spanish saying,” he remarked, “that it takes four men to make a salad: a spendthrift for the oil, a philosopher for the seasonings, a miser for the vinegar, and a madman for the tossing.”

Lisa giggled again. “You’re cute.”

“Er—here we go.” Vadász got to work, singing.

“There was a rich man and he lived in Jerusalem.

Glory, hallelujah, in-ro-de-rung!

He wore a top hat and his clothes were very spruce-iung.

Glory, hallelujah, in-ro-de-rung!

Hi-ro-de-rungl Hi-ro-de-rung!

Skinna-ma-rinky doodle doo, skinna-ma-rinky doodle doo,

Glory, hallelujah, in-ro-de-rung!”

“Is that a real old song too?” Lisa asked when he paused for breath. He nodded. “I just love your songs,” she said.

“Now outside his gate there sat a human wreckiung,” Vadász continued hastily.

“Glory, hallelujah, in-ro-de-rung!

He wore a bowler hat in a ring around his neckiung.

Glory, hallelujah, in-ro-de-rung!”

Lisa grabbed a skillet and spoon to beat out time as, she joined him in the chorus.

“Hi-ro-de-rung! Hi-ro-de-rung!

Skinna-ma-rinky doodle doo, skinna-ma-rinky doodle doo,

Glory, hallelujah, in-ro-de-rung!

Now the poor man asked for a piece of bread and cheese-iung.

Glory, hallelujah, in-ro-de-rung!

The rich man said, ‘I’ll send for the police-iung’

Glory, hallelujah, in-ro-de-rung!”

“Hi-ro-de-rungl Hi-ro-de-rung!” chimed in a bull basso. Gunnar Heim stormed through the door.

“Skinna-ma-rinky doodle doo, skinna-ma-rinky doodle doo (“Daddy!” “Gunnar!”).

“Glory, hallelujah, hi-ro-de-rung!” He snatched Lisa off the table, tossed her nearly to the ceiling, caught her, and began to whirl her around the floor. Vadász went merrily on. Helm took the chorus while he stamped out a measure with the girl, who squealed.

“Now the poor man died and his soul went to Heaviung.

Glory, hallelujah, in-ro-de-rung!

He danced with the angels till a quarter past eleviung.

Glory, hallelujah, in-ro-de-rung!

Hi-ro-de-rungl Hi-ro-de-rung!

Skinna-ma-rinky doodle doo, skinna-ma-rinky doodle doo,

Glory, hallelujah, in-ro-de-rung!”

“Oh, Daddy!” Lisa collapsed in a laughing fit.

“Welcome home,” Vadász said. “You timed yourself well.”

“What’s going on here, anyway?” Heim inquired. “Where are the servants? Why put a camp stove in a perfectly good kitchen?”

“Because machines are competent enough cooks but will never be chefs,” Vadász said. “I promised your daughter a goulash, not one of those lyophilized glue-stews but a genuine handmade Gulyás and sneeze-with-joy in the spices.”

“Oh. Fine. Only I’d better get me—”

“Nothing. A Hungarian never sets the table with less than twice as much. You may, if you wish, contribute some red wine. So, once more, welcome home, and it is good to see you in this humor.”

“With reason.” Heim rubbed his great hands and smiled like a happy tiger. “Yes, indeedy.”

“What have you done, Daddy?” Lisa asked.

“‘Fraid I can’t tell you, jente min. Not for a while.” He saw the first symptoms of mutiny, chucked her under the chin, and said, “It’s for your own protection.”

She stamped her foot. “I’m not a child, you know!”

“Come, now; come, now,” interrupted Vadász. “Let us not spoil the mood. Lisa, will you set a third place? We are eating in the high style, Gunnar, in your sunroom.”

“Sure,” she sighed. “If I can have the general intercom on, vid and audio both. Can I, please, Daddy?”

Heim chuckled, stepped out to the central control panel, and unlocked the switch that made it possible to activate any pickup in the apartment from any other room. Vadász’s voice drifted after him:

“Now the rich man died and he didn’t fare so welliung.

Glory, hallelujah, in-ro-de-rung!

He couldn’t go to Heaven so he had to go to Helliung.

Glory, hallelujah—”

and on to the end.

When Heim came back, he remarked in an undertone, because she’d be watching and listening, “Lisa doesn’t want to miss a second of you, eh?”

The finely molded face turned doleful. “Gunnar, I didn’t mean—”

“Oh, for crying in the beer!” Heim slapped Vadász on the back. “You can’t imagine how much I’d rather have her in orbit around you than some of that adolescent trash. Everything seems to be turning sunward for me.”

The Magyar brightened. “I trust,” he said, “this means you have found a particularly foul way to goosh our friends of Alerion.”

“Shh!” Heim jerked a thumb at the intercom screen. “Let’s see, what wine should I dial for your main course?”

“Hey, ha, this is quite a list. Are you running a hotel?”

“No, to be honest, my wife tried to educate me in wines but never got far. I like the stuff but haven’t much of a palate. So except when there’s company, I stay with beer and whisky.”

Lisa appeared in the screen. She laughed and sang,

“Now the Devil said, ‘This is no hoteliung.

Glory, hallelujah, in-ro-de-rung!

This is just a plain and ordinary helliung.’

Glory, hallelujah, in-ro-de-rung!”

Vadász put thumb to nose and waggled his fingers. She stuck out her tongue. They both grinned, neither so broadly as Heim.

And supper was a meal with more cheer, more sense of being home, than any he could remember since Connie died. Afterward he could not recall what was said—banter, mostly—it had not been real talk but a kind of embracement.

Lisa put the dishes in the service cubicle and retired demurely to bed; she even kissed her father. Heim and Vadász went downramp to the study. He closed the door, took Scotch from a cabinet, ice and soda from a coldbox, poured, and raised his own glass.

Vadász’s clinked against it. “And a voice valedictory … ” the minstrel toasted. “Who is for Victory? Who is for Liberty? Who goes home?”

“I’ll drink to that,” said Heim, and did, deeply. “Where’s it from?”

“One G. K. Chesterton, a couple of centuries ago. You have not heard of him? Ah, well, they no longer care for such unsophisticated things on Earth. Only in the colonies are men so naive as to think victories are possible.”

“Maybe we can make ‘em change their minds here, too.” Heim sat down and reached for a pipe.

“Well,” Vadász said, in a cool tone but with a kind of shiver through his slim form, “now we come to business. What has happened, these last several days while I fretted about idle?”

“I’ll begin from the beginning,” Heim said. He felt no compunction about revealing what Twyman had admitted, since this Listener could be trusted. His acquaintance with Vadász, though brief, had been somewhat intense.

The Magyar wasn’t surprised anyway. “I knew they had no intention to get New Europe back when none would hear me.”

“I found a buck who would,” Heim said, and went on with his account. As he finished, Vadász’s jaw fell with a nearly audible clank.

“A privateer, Gunnar? Are you serious?”

“Absodamnlutely. So’s Coquelin, and several more we talked with.” Heim’s mirth had dissolved. He drew hard on his pipe, streamed the smoke out through dilated nostrils, and said:

“Here’s the situation. One commerce raider in the Phoenix can make trouble out of all proportion to its capabilities. Besides disrupting schedules and plans, it ties up any number of warships, which either have to go hunt for it or else run convoy. As a result, the Aleriona force confronting ours in the Marches will be reduced below parity. So if then Earth gets tough, both in space and at the negotiations table—we shouldn’t have to get very tough, you see, nothing so drastic that the peacemongers can scream too . loud—one big naval push, while that raider is out there gobbling Aleriona ships—We can make them disgorge New Europe. Also give us some concessions for a change.”

“It may be. It may be.” Vadasz remained sober. “But how can you get a fighting craft?”

“Buy one and refit it. As for weapons, I’m going to dispatch a couple of trusty men soon, in a company speedster, to Staurn—you know the place?”

“I know of it. Ah-ha!” Vadasz snapped his fingers. His eyes began to glitter.

“Yep. That’s where our ship will finish refitting. Then off for the Auroran System.”

“But … will you not make yourself a pirate in the view of the law?”

“That’s something which Coquelin is still working on. He says he thinks there may be a way to make everything legal and, at the same time, ram a spike right up the exhaust of Twyman and his giveaway gang. But it’s a complicated problem. If the ship does have to fly the Jolly Roger, then Coquelin feels reasonably sure France has the right to try the crew, convict them, and pardon them. Of course, the boys might then have to stay in French territory, or leave Earth altogether for a colony—but they’ll be millionaires, and New Europe would certainly give them a glorious reception.”

Heim blew a smoke ring. “I haven’t time to worry about that,” he continued. “I’ll simply have to bull ahead and take my chances on getting arrested. Because you’ll understand how Coquelin and his allies in the French government—or in any government, because not every nation on Earth has gone hollowbelly—well, under the Constitution, no country can make warlike preparations. If we did get help from some official, that’d end every possibility of legalizing the operation. We’d better not even recruit our men from a single country, or from France at all.

“So it depends on me. I’ve got to find the ship, buy her, outfit her, supply her, sign on crew, and get her off into space—all inside of two months, because that’s when the formal talks between Parliament and the Aleriona delegation are scheduled to begin.” He made a rueful face. “I’m going to forget what sleep’s like.”

“The crew—” Vadász frowned. “A pretty problem, that. How many?”

“About a hundred, I’d say. Far more than needful, but the only way we can finance this venture is to take prizes, which means we’ll need prize crews. Also … there may be casualties.”

“I see. Wanted, a hundred skilled, reliable spacemen, Navy experience preferred, for the wildest gamble since Argilus went courting of Witch Helena. Where do you find them? … Hm, hm, I may know a place or two to look.”

“I do myself. We can’t recruit openly for a raider, you realize. If our true purpose isn’t kept secret to the last millisecond, we’ll be in the calaboose so fast that Einstein’s ghost will return to haunt us. But I think, in the course of what look like ordinary psych tests, I think we can probe attitudes and find out who can be trusted with the truth. Those are the ones we’ll hire.”

“First catch your rabbit,” Vadász said. “I mean find a psychologist who can be trusted!”

“Uh-huh. I’ll get Wingate, my father-in-law, to co-opt one. He’s a shrewd old rascal with tentacles everywhere, and if you think you and I are staticked about Alerion, you should listen to him for a while.” Heim squinted at the model of Star Fox, shining across the room. “I don’t believe ordinary crewmen will be too hard to find. When the Navy appropriation was cut, three years ago, a good many fellows found themselves thumb-twiddling on planet duty and resigned in disgust. We can locate those who came to Earth. But we may have trouble about a captain and a chief engineer. People with such qualifications don’t drift free.”

“Captain? What do you mean, Gunnar? You’ll be captain.”

“No.” Heim’s head wove heavily back and forth. A good deal of his bounce left him. “I’m afraid not. I want to—God, how I want to!—but, well, I’ve got to be sensible. Spaceships aren’t cheap. Neither are supplies, and especially not weapons. My estimates tell me I’ll have to liquidate all my available assets and probably hock everything else, to get that warship. Without me to tend the store, under those conditions, Heimdal might well fail. Lord knows there are enough competitors who’ll do everything they can to make it fail. And Heimdal, well, that’s something Connie and I built—her father staked us, but she worked the office end herself while I bossed the shop, those first few tough years. Heimdal’s the only thing I’ve got to leave my daughter.”

“I see.” Vadász spoke with compassion. “Also, she has no mother. You should not risk she lose her father too.”

Heim nodded.

“You will forgive me, though, if I go?” Vadász said.

“Oh, ja, ja, Endre, I’d be a swine to hold you back. You’ll even have officer rank: chief steward, which means mainly that you oversee the cooking. And you’ll bring me back some songs, won’t you?”

Vadász could not speak. He looked at his friend, chained to possessions and power, and there ran through his head:

Now the moral of the story is riches are no jok-iung.

Glory, hallelujah, in-ro-de-rung!

We’ll all go to Heaven, for we all are stony broke-iung.

Glory, hallelujah, in-ro-de-rungt

But the rhythm got into his blood, and he realized what Heim had done and what it meant, leaped to his feet, and capered around the study shouting his victorious music aloud till the walls echoed,

“Hi-ro-de-rung! Hi-ro-de-rung!

Skinna-ma-rinky doodle doo, skinna-ma-rinky doodle doo,

Glory, hallelujah, in-ro-de-rung!”

VI

From WORLDWEEK:

31 October

Gunnar Heim, principal of the American firm Heimdal Motors, has purchased the starship Pass of Balmaha from British Minerals, Ltd. The transaction astonished shipping circles by its speed. Heim made a cash offer that was too good to turn down, but insisted on immediate occupancy.

He has announced that he plans to send an expedition in search of new worlds to colonize. “We seem to have lost out in the Phoenix,” he told 3V interviewer John Phillips. “Frankly, I am shocked and disgusted that no action has been taken in response to Alerion’s attack on New Europe. But I can’t do much about it except try to find us some new place—which I hope we’ll have the nerve to defend.”

As large and powerful as a naval cruiser, Glasgow-built Pass of Balmaha was originally intended to prospect for ores. But no deposits were found sufficiently rich to pay the cost of interstellar shipment when the Solar System still has workable mines. The ship has therefore been in Earth orbit for the past four years. Sir Henry Sherwin, chairman of the board of British Minerals, told Phillips, “We’re overjoyed to get rid of that white elephant, but I must confess I feel a bit guilty about it.”

7 November

U.S. Senator Harold Twyman (Libn., Calif.), high-ranking member of the Federal pre-formal negotiations team conferring with the delegation from Alerion, issued a statement Thursday denying rumors of a planned sell-out of New Europe.

“Certainly we are already talking business with them,” he said. “And that, by the way, is a slow and difficult process. The Aleriona are alien to us, biologically and culturally. In the past we have had far too little contact with them, and far too much of what we did have was hostile. You don’t get understanding out of a battle. Some of the finest xenologists on Earth are working day and night, trying to acquire a knowledge in depth that we should have gotten three decades ago.

“But we do know that the Aleriona share some things with mankind. They too are rational beings. They too wish to live. Their ancient civilization, which achieved a million years of stability, can teach us a great deal. And no doubt we can teach them something. Neither can do this, however, until we break the vicious circle of distrust, competition, fight, and retaliation.

“That’s why the Deepspace Fleet has been ordered not to fire except in self-defense. That’s why we aren’t crowding the government of Alerion—if it is anything like what we understand by a government—to get out of the Auroran System. That’s why we are taking our time with the honorable delegation: who, remember, came to us on Alerion’s own I initiative.

“Under the Constitution, only Parliament as a whole is empowered to negotiate with non-human states. Certainly the Executive Committee will observe this law. But you can’t expect a body as large, diverse, and busy as Parliament to do the spadework in a case so intricate. Its duly appointed representatives were given that duty. We hope in a few more weeks to have a complete draft treaty ready for submission. At that time we shall be prepared to meet every conceivable objection to it. Meanwhile, however, it would be too great a handicap for us to operate in a glare of publicity.

“But we do not, repeat not, plan to betray any vital interest of the human race. Negotiation is a mutual process. We shall have to give a little as well as take a little. The Aleriona realize this too, perhaps better than some members of our own young and arrogant species. I am confident that, in the last analysis, all men of good will are going to agree that we have opened a new and hopeful era of cosmic history. The people of New Europe have not died in vain.”

14 November

Retired Vice Admiral Piet van Rinnekom, 68, was set upon by about twenty men as he neared his house in Amsterdam on Monday evening, and badly beaten. When the police arrived, the assailants fled shouting taunts of “Warmonger!” They appeared to be of mixed nationality. Van Rinnekom has been an outspoken opponent of what he describes as “appeasement of Alerion,” and is the author of the so-called Manhood Petition, whose backers are trying to gather one billion signatures in favor of Earth using force, if necessary, to regain New Europe. Most sociologists consider this sheer lunacy.

His condition is listed as serious.

At his Chicago office, Dr. Jonas Yore, founder and president of World Militants for Peace, issued the following statement: “Naturally this organization regrets the incident and hopes for Admiral van Rinnekom’s recovery. But let us be honest. He has only gotten a taste of the very violence he advocated. The issue before us is one of life and death. WMP stands for life. Unhappily, a great many uninformed people have let their emotions run away with them and are crying for blood with no thought of the consequences. WMP exists to fight this tendency, to fight for sanity, to give atavism its deathblow, by any means required. We make no threats. But let the militarists beware.”

21 November

Last Tuesday mankind throughout the Solar System watched an unprecedented event. Cynbe ru Taren, a-member of the Aleriona delegation to Earth, appeared on an official 3V broadcast and answered questions put to him by Crown Prince Umberto of Italy, who represented the World Federation.

The questions were selected from an estimated forty million sent in by people around the globe, with Cynbe choosing a dozen from the final list. As he remarked, with a grim humor he displayed throughout the interview, “Thirteen bears for you an unhappy freight. It numbered either that one who betrayed or that one who was slain.”

In general, he repeated statements already made about the New Europe tragedy. How did it happen? “Our ships were on maneuvers. Near Aurore did they pass, for Alerion recognizes no other claim of sovereignty in the Phoenix. Maychance the Terrestrial chief believed this was attack, for truth is we had many. When fired on, we made response, with more than he may have awaited. His remnants entered atmosphere for an outflank with radiation protection. That it might save itself, our closest detachment launched weapons of multiple megatonnage. Grief, the settled fringe of that continent they named Pays d’Espoir was lineally beneath. At orbital height the warheads kindled a firestorm. Terrible it ran, from end to end of that coast. When we could land, we found none alive, and but few in the southern region, where also a missile struck. Those we have hither brought, with our own mourning. Yet their Thirteenth-the-Betrayer was that captain who took them not into account when he plunged.”

Why does Alerion now keep possession? “Naught but woe came ever from this intermingling. Time and again have humans ordered us from planets we discovered thousands of years agone, whose peace is now broken with machines and alien feet. And truth, we have often felt need to forbid places, even force them evacuated of the first few men. Races that knew us long grow latterly hostile to us, unrestful by what men have told and sold them. Resources we need are taken away. From such has come tension, which unseldom bursts in battle. Long past is that hour we should have ended it.”

Why doesn’t Alerion let an inspection team from Earth visit New Europe? “As we understand the symbolism of your culture, this were an admission of weakness and wrong-ness. Too, we cannot hazard espionage, or yet a suicide mission with nuclear bombs ensmuggled. I say never your Parliament would such plot, but you have individuals who are otherwise, some in high command. Maychance later, when faith has been achieved … “

28 November

The Aleriona Craze, already well established in North America, gained so much momentum from delegate Cynbe ru Taren’s recent 3V appearance that in the past week it has swept like a meteorite through the upper-class teen-agers of most countries. Quite a few in Welfare have caught the fever too. Now girls blessed with naturally blonde long hair flaunt it past their sisters waiting in line to buy wigs and metal mesh jerkins—like their brothers. No disciplinary measure by parents or teachers seems able to stop the kids warbling every word they utter. You need ear seals not to be assaulted by the minor-key caterwaulings of “Alerion, Alerion” from radio, juke, and taper. The slithering Aleriona Ramble has driven even the Wiggle off the dance floors. On Friday the city of Los Angeles put an educational program on the big screen at La Brea Park, a rebroadcast of the historic interview; and police fought three hours to halt a riot by five thousand screaming high-schoolers.

In an effort to learn whether this is a mere fad or a somewhat hysterical expression of the world’s sincere desire for peace, our reporters talked with typical youngsters around the globe. Some quotes:

Lucy Thomas, 16, Minneapolis: “I’m just in hyperbolic orbit about him. I play the show back even when I’m asleep. Those eyes—they freeze you and melt you at the same time. Yee-ee!”

Pedro Fraga, 17, Buenos Aires: “They can’t be male. I won’t believe they are.”

Machiko Ichikawa, 15, Tokyo: “The Samurai would have understood them. So much beauty, so much valor.”

Simon Mbulu, 18, Nairobi: “Of course, they frighten me. But that is part of the wonder.”

In Paris, Georges de Roussy, 17, threatened surlily: “I don’t know what’s gotten into those young camels. But I’ll tell you this. Anybody we saw in that costume would get her wig cut off, and her own hair with it.”

No comment was available from the still hidden delegates.

5 December

Lisa Heim, 14, daughter of manufacturer and would-be exploration entrepreneur Gunnar Heim of San Francisco, disappeared Wednesday. Efforts to trace her have so far been unsuccessful, and police fear she may have been kidnapped. Her father has posted a reward of one million American dollars for “anything that helps get her back. I’ll go higher than this in ransom if I have to,” he added.

VII

Uthg-a-K’thaq twisted his face downward as far as he could, which wasn’t much, and pointed his four chemosensor tendrils directly at Heim. In this position the third eye on top of his head was visible to the man, aft of the blowhole. But it was the front eyes, on either side of those fleshy feelers, that swiveled their gray stare against him. A grunt emerged from the lipless gape of a mouth: “So war, you say. We ‘rom Naqsa know lit-tle ow war.”

Heim stepped back, for to a human nose the creature’s breath stank of swamp. Even so, he must look upward; Uthg-a-K’thaq loomed eighteen centimeters over him. He wondered fleetingly if that was why there was so much prejudice against Naqsans.

The usual explanation was their over-all appearance. Uthg-a-K’thaq suggested a dolphin, of bilious green-spotted yellow, that had turned its tail into a pair of short fluke-footed legs. Lumps projecting under the blunt head acted as shoulders for arms that were incongruously anthropoid, if you overlooked their size and the swimming-membranes that ran from elbows to pelvis. Except for a purse hung from that narrowing in the body which indicated a sort of neck, he was naked, and grossly male. It wasn’t non-humanness as such that offended men, said the psychologists, rather those aspects which were parallel but different, like a dirty joke on Homo sapiens. Smell, slobbering, belching, the sexual pattern—

But mainly they’re also space travelers, prospectors, colonizers, freight carriers, merchants, who’ve given us stiff competition, Heim thought cynically.

That had never bothered him. The Naqsans were shrewd but on the average more ethical than men. Nor did he mind their looks; indeed, they were handsome if you considered them functionally. And their private lives were their own business. The fact remained, though, most humans would resent even having a Naqsan in the same ship, let alone serving under him. And … Dave Penoyer would be a competent captain, he had made lieutenant commander before he quit the Navy, but Heim wasn’t sure he could be firm enough if trouble of that nasty sort broke out.

He dismissed worry and said, “Right. This is actually a raiding cruise. Are you still interested?”

“Yes. Hawe you worgotten that horriwle den you wound me in?”

Heim had not. Tracking rumors to their source, he had ended in a part of New York Welfare that appalled even him. A Naqsan stranded on Earth was virtually helpless. Uthg-a-K’thaq had shipped as technical adviser on a vessel from the planet that men called Caliban, whose most advanced tribe had decided to get into the space game. Entering the Solar System, the inexperienced skipper collided with an asteroid and totaled his craft. Survivors were brought to Earth by the Navy, and the Calibanites sent home; but there was no direct trade with Naqsa and, in view of the crisis in the Phoenix where his world also lay, no hurry to repatriate Uthg-a-K’thaq. Damnation, instead of fooling with those Aleriona bastards, Parliament ought to be working out a distressed-spaceman covenant.

Bluntly, Heim said, “We haven’t any way of testing your mind in depth as we can for our own sort. I’ve got to trust your promise to keep quiet. I suppose you know that if you pass this information on, you’ll probably get enough of a reward to buy a ride home.”

Uthg-a-K’thaq burbled in his blowhole. Heim wasn’t sure whether it represented laughter or indignation. “You hawe my word. Also, I am wothered awout Alerion. Good to strike at them. And, suq, will there not we loot to share?”

“Okay. You’re hereby our chief engineer.” Because the ship has got to leave soon, and you’re the only one I could get who knows how to repair a Mach Principle drive. “Now about details—”

A maid’s voice said over the intercom, which was set for one-way only: “Mail, sir.”

Heim’s heart shuddered, as it daily did. “Excuse me,” he said. “I’ll be back. Make yourself comfortable.”

Uthg-a-K’thaq hissed something and settled his glabrous bulk on the study couch. Heim jogged out.

Vadisz sat in the living room, bottle to hand. He hadn’t spoken much or sung a note in the past few days. The house was grown tomb silent. At first many came; police, friends, Curt Wingate and Harold Twyman arrived at the same hour and clasped hands; of everyone Heim knew well only Jocelyn Lawrie had remained unheard from. That was all a blur in his memory; he had continued preparations for the ship because there was nothing else to do, and he scarcely noticed when the visits stopped. Drugs kept him going. This morning he had observed his own gauntness in an optex with faint surprise—and complete indifference.

“Surely the same null,” Vadász mumbled.

Heim snatched the stack of envelopes off the table. A flat package lay on the bottom. He ripped the plastic off. Lisa’s face looked forth. His hands began to shake so badly that he had trouble punching the animator button. The lips that were Connie’s opened.

“Daddy,” said the small voice. “Endre. I’m okay. I mean, they haven’t hurt me. A woman stopped me when I was about to get on the elway home. She said her bra magnet had come loose and would I please help her fix it I didn’t think anybody upper-class was dangerous. She was dressed nice and talked nice and had a car there and everything. We got in the car and blanked the bubble. Then she shot me with a stunner. I woke up here. I don’t know where it is, a suite of rooms, the windows are always blanked. Two women are staying with me. They aren’t mean, they just won’t let me go. They say it’s for peace. Please do what they want.” Her flat speech indicated she was doped with antiphobic. But suddenly herself broke through. “I’m so lonesome!” she cried, and the tears came.

The strip ended. After a long while Heim grew aware that Vadász was urging him to read a note that had also been in the package. He managed to focus on the typescript.

Mr. Heim:

For weeks you have lent your name and influence to the militarists. You have actually paid for advertisements making the false and inflammatory claim that there are survivors at large on New Europe. Now we have obtained information which suggests you may be plotting still more radical ways to disrupt the peace negotiations.

If this is true, mankind cannot allow it. For the sake of humanity, we cannot take the chance that it might be true.

Your daughter will be kept as a hostage for your good behavior until the treaty with Alerion has been concluded, and for as long thereafter as seems wise. If meanwhile you publicly admit you lied about New Europe, and do nothing else, she will be returned.

Needless to say, you are not to inform the police of this message. The peace movement has so many loyal supporters in so many places that we will know if you do. In that event, we will be forced to punish you through the girl. If on the other hand you behave yourself, you to receive occasional word from her.

Yours for peace and sanity.

He had to read three or four times before it registered.

“San Francisco meter,” Vadász said. He crumpled the plastic and hurled it at the wall. “Not that that means anything.”

“Gud i himlen.” Heim stumbled to a lounger, fell down, and sat staring into the unspeakable. “Why don’t they go straight after me?”

“They have done so,” Vadász answered.

“Personally!”

“You would be a risky target for violence. A young and trusting girl is easier.”

Heim had a feeling that he was about to weep. But his eyes remained two coals in his skull. “What can we do?” he whispered.

“I don’t know,” Vadász said like a robot. “So much depends on who they are. Obviously not anyone official. A government need only arrest you on some excuse.”

“The Militants, then. Jonas Yore.” Heim rose and walked toward the exit.

“Where are you going?” Vadász grabbed his arm. It was like trying to halt a landslip.

“For a gun,” Heim said, “and on to Chicago.”

“No. Hold. Stop, you damned fool! What could you do except provoke them into killing her?”

Heim swayed and stood.

“Yore may or may not know about this,” Vadász said. “Certainly no one has definite information about your plans, or they would simply tip the Peace Control. The kidnappers could be in the lunatic fringe of the Militants. Emotions are running so high. And that sort must needs be dramatic, attack people in the street, steal your daughter, strut their dirty little egos—yes, Earth has many like them in the upper classes too, crazed with uselessness. Any cause will do. ‘Peace’ is merely the fashionable one.”

Heim returned to the bottle. He poured himself a drink, slopping much. Lisa is alive, he told himself. Lisa is alive, Lisa is alive. He tossed the liquor down his gullet. “How long will she be?” he screamed.

“Hey?”

“She’s with fanatics. They’ll still hate me, whatever happens. And they’ll be afraid she can identify them. Endre, help me!”

“We have some time,” Vadász snapped. “Use it for something better than hysterics.”

The glow in Heim’s stomach spread outward. I’ve been responsible for lives before, he thought, and the old reflexes of command awoke. You construct a games theoretical matrix and choose the course with smallest negative payoff. His brain began to move. “Thanks, Endre,” he said.

“Could they be bluffing about spies in the police?” Vadász wondered.

“I don’t know, but the chance looks too big to take.”

“Then … we cancel the expedition, renounce what we have said about New Europe, and hope?”

“That may be the only thing to do.” It whirred in Heim’s head. “Though I do believe it’s wrong also, even to get Lisa home.”

“What is left? To hit back? How? Maybe private detectives could search—”

“Over a whole planet? Oh, we can try them, but—No, I was fighting a fog till I got the idea of the raider, and now I’m back in the fog and I’ve got to get out again. Something definite, that they won’t know about before too late. You were right, there’s no sense in threatening Yore. Or even appealing to him, I guess. What matters to them is their cause. If we could go after it—”

Heim bellowed. Vadász almost got knocked over in the big man’s rush to the phone. “What in blue hell, Gunnar?”

Heim unlocked a drawer and took out his private directory. It now included the unlisted number and code of Michel Coquelin’s sealed circuit. And 0930 in California was—what? 1730?—in Paris. His fingers stabbed the buttons.

A confidential secretary appeared in the screen. “Bureau de—oh, M. Heim.”

“Donnez-vous moi M. le Minister tout de suite, s’il vous plaît.” Despite the circumstances, Vadász winced at what Heim thought was French.

The secretary peered at the visage confronting him, sucked down a breath, and punched. Coquelin’s weary features

“Gunnar! What is this? News of your girl?”

Heim told him. Coquelin turned gray. “Oh, no,” he said. He had children of his own.

“Uh-huh,” Heim said. “I see only one plausible way out. My crew’s assembled now, a tough bunch of boys. And you know where Cynbe is.”

“Are you crazy?” Coquelin stammered.

“Give me the details: location, how to get in, disposition of guards and alarms,” Heim said. “I’ll take it from there. If we fail, I won’t implicate you. I’ll save Lisa, or try to save her, by giving the kidnappers a choice: that I either cast discredit on them and their movement by spilling the whole cargo; or I get her back, tell the world I lied, and show remorse by killing myself. We can arrange matters so they know I’ll go through with it.”

“I cannot—I—”

“This is rough on you, Michel, I know,” Heim said. “But if you can’t help me, well, then I’m tied. I’ll have to do exactly what they want. And half a million will die on New Europe.”

Coquelin wet his lips, stiffened his back, and asked: “Suppose I tell you, Gunnar. What happens?”

VIII

“Space yacht Flutterby, GB-327-RP, beaming Georgetown, Ascension Island. We are in distress. Come in, Georgetown. Come in, Georgetown.”

The whistle of cloven air lifted toward a roar. Heat billowed through the forward shield. The bridge viewports seemed aflame and the radar screen had gone mad. Heim settled firmer into his harness and fought the pilot console.

“Garrison to Flutterby.” The British voice was barely audible as maser waves struggled through the ionized air enveloping that steel meteorite. “We read you. Come in, Flutterby.”

“Stand by for emergency landing,” David Penoyer said. His yellow hair was plastered down with sweat. “Over.”

“You can’t land here. This island is temporarily restricted. Over.” Static snarled around the words.

Engines sang aft. Force fields wove their four-dimensional dance through the gravitrons. The internal compensators held steady, there was no sense of that deceleration which made the hull groan; but swiftly the boat lost speed, until thermal effect ceased. In the ports a vision of furnaces gave way to the immense curve of the South Atlantic. Clouds were scattered woolly above its shiningness. The horizon line was a deep blue edging into space black.

“The deuce we can’t,” Penoyer said. “Over.”

“What’s wrong?” Reception was loud and clear this time.

“Something blew as we reached suborbital velocity. We’ve a hole in the tail and no steering pulses. Bloody little control from the main drive. I think we can set down on Ascension, but don’t ask me where. Over.”

“Ditch in the ocean and we’ll send a boat. Over.”

“Didn’t you hear me, old chap? We’re hulled. We’d sink like a stone. Might get out with spacesuits and life jackets, or might not. But however that goes, Lord Ponsonby won’t be happy about losing a million pounds’ worth of yacht. We’ve a legal right to save her if we can. Over.”

“Well—hold on, I’ll switch you to the captain’s office—”

“Nix. No time. Don’t worry. We won’t risk crashing into Garrison. Our vector’s aimed at the south side. We’ll try for one of the plateaus. Will broadcast a signal for you to home on when we’re down, which’ll be in a few more ticks. Wish us luck. Over and out.”

Penoyer snapped down the switch and turned to Heim. “Now we’d better be fast,” he said above the thunders. “They’ll scramble some armed flyers as soon as they don’t hear from us.”

Heim nodded. During those seconds of talk Connie Girl had shot the whole way. A wild dark landscape clawed up at her. His detectors registered metal and electricity, which must be at Cynbe’s lair. Green Mountain lifted its misty head between him and the radars at Georgetown. He need no longer use only the main drive. That had been touch and go!

He cut the steering back in. The boat swerved through an arc that howled like a wolf. A tiny landing field carved from volcanic rock appeared in the viewports. He came down in a shattering blast of displaced air. Dust vomited skyward.

The jacks touched ground. He slapped the drive to Idle and threw off his harness. “Take over, Dave,” he said, and pounded for the main airlock.

His score of men arrived with him, everyone spacesuited.

Their weapons gleamed in the overhead illumination. He cursed the safety seal that made the lock open with such sadistic slowness. Afternoon light slanted through. He led the way, jumped off the ramp before it had finished extruding, and crouched in the settling dust.

There were three buildings across the field, as Coquelin had said: a fifteen-man barracks, a vehicle shed, and an environmental dome. The four sentries outside the latter held their guns in a stupefied fashion, only approximately pointed at him. The two men on a mobile GTA missile carrier gaped. Georgetown HQ had naturally phoned them not to shoot if they detected a spacecraft. The rest of the guard were pouring from quarters.

Heim counted. Some weren’t in sight yet … He lumbered toward them. “Emergency landing,” he called. “I saw your field—”

The young man with Peace Control lieutenant’s insignia, who must be in charge, looked dismayed. “But—” He stopped and fumbled at his collar.

Heim came near. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Why shouldn’t I have used your field?”

That was a wicked question, he knew. Officially PCA didn’t admit this place existed.

The Aleriona overlords who comprised the delegation could not be housed together. They never lived thus at home; to offer them less than total privacy would have been an insult, and perhaps risky of all their lives. So they must be scattered around Earth. Ascension was a good choice. Little was here nowadays except a small World Sea Police base. Comings and goings were thus discreet.

“Orders,” the lieutenant said vaguely. He squinted at the argent spear of the yacht. “I say, you don’t look damaged.” You could fake a name and registry for Connie Girl, but not unsoundness. The last couple of men emerged from barracks. Heim raised his arm and pointed. “On her other side,” he said. He chopped his hand down and clashed his faceplate shut.

Two men in the airlock stepped back. The gas cannon they had hidden poked its nose out. Under fifty atmospheres of pressure, the anesthetic aerosol boiled forth.

A sentry opened fire. Heim dove for dirt. A bullet splintered rock before his eyes. The yellow stream gushed overhead, rumbling. And now his crew were on their way, with stunners asnicker. No lethal weapons; he’d hang before he killed humans doing their duty. But this was an attack by men who had seen combat against men whose only job had been to prevent it. Death wasn’t needed.

The short, savage fight ended. Heim rose and made for the dome. Zucconi and Lupowitz came behind, a ram slung between them on a gravity carrier. Around the field, Connie Girl’s medical team started to check the fallen Peacemen and give what first aid was indicated.

“Here,” said Heim into his suit radio. Zucconi and Lupowitz set down the ram and started the motor.. Five hundred kilos of tool steel bashed the dome wall at sixty cycles. The narcotic fog clamored with that noise. The wall smashed open. Heim leaped through, into the red sun’s light.

A dozen followed him. “He’s somewhere in this mess,” Heim said. “Scatter. We’ve got maybe three minutes before the cops arrive.”

He burst into the jungle at random. Branches snapped, vines shrank away, flowers were crushed underfoot. A shadow flitted—Cynbe! Heim plunged.

A laser flame sizzled. Heim felt the heat, saw his combat breastplate vaporizing in coruscant fire. Then he was upon the Aleriona. He wrenched the gun loose. Mustn’t close in—he’d get burned on this hot metal. Cynbe grinned with fury and whipped his tail around Heim’s ankles. Heim fell, but still Cynbe hung on. His followers arrived, seized their quarry, and frogmarched away the Intellect Master of the Garden of War. Outside, Cynbe took a breath of vapor and went limp.

I hope the biomeds are right about this stuff’s being harmless to him, Heim thought.

He ran onto the field and had no more time for thought. A couple of PCA flyers were in the sky. They stooped like hawks. Their guns pursued Heim’s crew. He saw the line of explosions stitch toward him, heard the crackle and an overhead whistle through his helmet. “Open out!” he yelled. His throat was afire. Sweat soaked his undergarments. “Let ‘em see who you’re toting!” The flyers screamed about and climbed.

They’ll try to disable my boat. If we can’t get away fast—The ramp was ahead, hell-road steep. A squadron appeared over Green Mountain. Heim stopped at the bottom of the ramp. His men streamed past. Now Cynbe was aboard. Now everyone was. A flyer dove at him. He heard bullets sleet along the ramp at his heels.

Over the coaming! Someone dogged the lock. Connie Girl stood on her tail and struck for the sky. Heim lay where he was for some time.

Eventually he opened his helmet and went to the bridge. Space blazed with stars, but Earth was already swallowing them again. “We’re headed back down, eh?” he asked.

“Right-o,” Penoyer answered. The strain had left him, his boyish face was one vast grin. “Got clean away, above their ceiling and past their radar horizon before you could say fout.”

Then a long curve above atmosphere, but swiftly, racing the moment when Peace Control’s orbital detectors were alerted, and now toward the far side of the planet. It had been a smooth operation, boded well for the privateer. If they carried it the whole way through, that was.

Heim lockered his suit and got back steadiness from the routine of an intercom check with all stations. Everything was shipshape, barring some minor bullet pocks in the outer plates. When Lupowitz reported, “The prisoner’s awake, sir,” he felt no excitement, only a tidal flow of will. “Bring him to my cabin,” he ordered. The boat crept downward through night. Timing had been important. The Russian Republic was as amiably inept about TrafCon as everything else, and you could land undetected after dark on the Siberian tundra if you were cautious. Heim felt the setdown as a slight quiver. When the engines ceased their purr, the silence grew monstrous.

Two armed men outside his cabin saluted in triumph. He went through and closed the door.

Cynbe stood near the bunk. Only his tailtip stirred, and his hair in the breeze from a ventilator. But when he recognized Heim, the beautiful face drew into a smile that was chilling to see. “Ah-h-h,” he murmured.

Heim made the formal Aleriona salute. “Imbiac, forgive me,” he said. “I am desperate.”

“Truth must that be”—it trilled in his ears—“if you think thus to rouse war.”

“No, I don’t. How could I better disgrace my side of the argument? I just need your help.”

The green eyes narrowed. “Strange is your way to ask, Captain.”

“There wasn’t any other. Listen. Matters have gotten so tense between the war and peace factions on Earth that violence is breaking out. Some days ago my daughter was stolen away. I got a message that if I didn’t switch sides, she’d be killed.”

“Grief. Yet what can I do?”

“Don’t pretend to be sorry. If I backed down, you’d have a distinct gain, so there was no point in begging your assistance. Now, no matter what I myself do, I can’t trust them to return her. I had to get a lever of my own. I bribed someone who knew where you were, recruited this gang of men, and—and now we’ll phone the head of the organized appeasement agitators.”

Cynbe’s tail switched his heels. “Let us suppose I refuse,” said the cool music.

“Then I’ll kill you,” Heim said without rancor. “I don’t know if that scares you or not. But your delegation meets Parliament in another week. They’ll be handicapped without their military expert. Nor are things likely to proceed smoothly, after such a stink as I can raise.”

“Will you not terminate my existence in every case, Captain, that I never denounce you?”

“No. Cooperate and you’ll go free. I simply want my daughter back. Why should I commit a murder that’ll have the whole planet looking for the solution? They’d be certain to find me. The general type of this vessel is sufficient clue, since I’ve no alibi for the time of the kidnapping.”

“Yet have you not said why I shall not accuse you.”

Heim shrugged. “That’d be against your own interest. Too sordid a story would come out. A father driven wild by the irresponsible Peace Militants, and so forth. I’d produce my documents from New Europe in open court. I’d testify under neoscop what you admitted when last we talked. Oh, I’d fight dirty. Sentiment on Earth is delicately balanced. Something like my trial could well tip the scales.”

Cynbe’s eyes nictitated over. He stroked his chin with one slim hand.

“In fact,” Heim said, “your best bet is to tell PCA you were taken by an unidentified bunch who wanted to sabotage the treaty. You persuaded them this was the worst thing they could do, from their own standpoint, and they let you go. Then insist that our own authorities hush the entire affair up. They will, if you say so, and gladly. A public scandal at this juncture would be most inconvenient.” Still the Aleriona stood hooded in his own thoughts. “Cynbe,” said Heim in his softest voice, “you do not understand humans. We’re as alien to you as you are to us. So far you’ve juggled us pretty well. But throw in a new factor, and what are all your calculations worth?”

The eyes unveiled. “Upon you I see no weapon,” Cynbe crooned. “If I aid you not, how will you kill me?”

Heim flexed his fingers. “With these hands.”

Laughter belled forth. “Star Fox captain, let us seek the radiophone.”

It was late morning in Chicago. Jonas Yore’s Puritan face looked out of the screen with loathing. “What do you want, Heim?”

“You know about my girl being snatched?”

“No. I mean, I’m sorry for her if not for you, but how does it concern me? I have no information.”

“I got word the kidnappers are skizzies in the peace faction. Wait, I don’t accuse you of having any part in it. Every group has bolshes. But if you passed the word around quietly, personal calls to your entire membership list, directly or indirectly you’d get to them.”

“See here, you rotten—”

“Turn on your recorder. This is important. I want to present Delegate Cynbe ru Taren.” In spite of everything, Heim’s heart came near bursting.

The Aleriona glided into pickup range. “My lord!” Yore gasped.

“In honor’s name did Captain Heim appeal me-ward,” Cynbe sang. “A bond is between us that we did battle once. Nor may my ancient race drink of shame. Is not yonder child returned, we must depart this planet and invoke that cleansing which is in open war. Thus do I command your help.”

“M-m-my lord—I—Yes! At once!”

Heim switched off the set. The air whistled from his lungs and his knees shook. “Th-th-thanks,” he stuttered. “Uh … uh … as soon as Vadász lets me know she’s arrived, we’ll take off. Deliver you near a town.”

Cynbe watched him for a time before he asked: “Play your chess, Captain? Of Earth’s every creation, there is the one finest. And well should I like that you not have her enminded a while.”

“No, thanks,” Heim said. “You’d win on fool’s mate every time. I’d better see about getting our false identification removed.”

He was glad of the winter cold outside.

They were almost through when Cynbe appeared in the airlock, etched black across its light. His tone soared: “Captain, be swift. The wandersinger calls from your home. She is again.”

Heim didn’t remember running to the phone. Afterward he noticed bruises on shin and shoulder. But he did lock the radio-room door.

Lisa looked at him. “Oh, Daddy!”

“Are you all right?” he cried. His hands reached out. The screen stopped them.

“Yes. They … they never hurt me. I got doped. When I woke up, we were parked here in town. They told me, take an elway from there. I was still dopey and didn’t pay any attention—no number—Please hurry home.”

“I’ll—ja. Two, three hours.”

The remnants of the drug left her more calm than him. “I think I know how it happened, Daddy. I’m awful sorry. That night you and Endre talked about your—you know—well, you’d forgot to turn off the general intercom switch. I listened from my room.”

He remembered how slinky and mysterious she had acted in the following couple of weeks. He’d put that down to an attempt at impressing Vadász. Now the knowledge of his carelessness hit him in the belly.

“Don’t,” she asked. “I never told. Honest. Only when Dick and some other kids teased me ‘cause I wouldn’t go in for that stupid Aleriona stuff, I got mad and told them one human was worth a hundred of those crawlies and my father was going to prove it. I never said more. But I guess word got back to somebody, ‘cause those women kept asking me what I’d meant. I told them I was just bragging. Even when they said they’d beat me, I told them it was just a brag, and I guess they believed that because they never did beat me. Please don’t be too mad, Daddy.”

“I’m not,” he said harshly. “I’m more proud than I deserve. Now go to bed and rest. I’ll be home as fast as I can.”

“I missed you so much.”

She switched off. Then Heim could weep.

Connie Girl purred aloft, and down again a kilometer outside Krasnoe. Heim escorted Cynbe to the ground. It was frozen, and rang underfoot. A few lights shone from outlying houses, dim compared to the winter stars.

“Here.” Awkwardly, Heim proffered a heated cloak. “You’ll want this.”

“My thanks,” blew from under the frost-cold locks. “When your authorities fetch me, I shall tell as you suggested. Wisest for Alerion is thus; and for I, who would not see you further hurt.”

Heim stared at the thin snowcrust. It sparkled like Cynbe’s fur. “I’m sorry about what I did,” he mumbled. “It was no way to treat you.”

“No more of anger in-dwells.” Cynbe’s song dropped low. “I knew not humans hold their young so dear. Well may you fare.”

“Good-by.” This time Gunnar Heim shook hands.

The boat took off afresh, found orbital height, and went toward Mojave Port along a standard trajectory. As far as the world was concerned, she had gone out to check on the loading of the star cruiser. Heim was surprised to note how calmly he could now wait to see his daughter again.

And when it’d be for such a short time, too. The ship must depart in a few more days, with him her captain.

That had to be, he saw. The evil had grown so mighty that he dared not challenge it with less than his whole strength: which was found among the stars, not on this sick Earth. Nor would he be worthy to be Lisa’s father, if he sent men against that thing whose creatures had tried to devour her, and did not go himself.

She’d be safe in Wingate’s care. As for the Heimdal company, it might or might not survive without him, but that really made no difference. Lisa’s grandfather would provide for her, whatever happened. And don’t forget the chance of prize money!

Laughter welled in Heim. Maybe I’m rationalizing a selfish, atavistic desire to raise hell. Okay, what if I am? This is the way it’s going to be.

IX

They had celebrated an early Christmas. The tree glittered forlorn in the living room. Outside, a surf of rain drove against the windows.

“It’s so awful,” Lisa said. “That there has to be war.”

“There doesn’t, pony,” Heim answered. “In fact, that’s what we’re trying to prevent.”

She regarded him in bewilderment

“If we don’t stand up to Alerion,” Heim said, “there’ll be trouble and more trouble, worse each time, and we’ll forever lose, until at last Earth is driven into a corner. And when it’s cornered, the human race always does fight, with everything it’s got. Planet against planet—that would be the real Ragnarok. What we have to do is show them right now that we aren’t going to be pushed. Then we and they can talk business. Because space truly is big enough for everybody, as long as they respect each other’s right to exist” He put on his cloak. “We’d better start.”

They went downshaft in silence to the garage, and entered his flyer—himself, his daughter, her grandfather, two hard-looking men who must keep watch over her until this affair had been outlived, and Vadász. Out the doors they glided, and rose through storm. The hull shivered and resounded. But when they got into the upper lanes, blue stillness encompassed them, with clouds below like snow mountains.

Wingate lit a cigar and puffed, his nutcracker face squinched together. Finally he barked, “I hate these good-by waits, sitting around wishing you could think of something to say. Let’s tune in Parliament”

“Not worth while,” Heim replied. “They expect a full week of preliminary debate before they invite the Aleriona delegation. Every two-cent politician wants to make sure he’s heard at least once.”

“But according to the news yesterday, France came out near the top of the alphabetical draw. Coquelin will probably start to speak any minute.”

“Hell—oh, go ahead.” Heim was chiefly conscious of the slight form huddled between him and Vadász.

The time was not much later in Mexico City than here, but you couldn’t tell that from inside the Capitol. The view swept across the Chamber of Council, faces and faces and faces, white, brown, black, amber, their eyes zeroed on the rostrum as the speaker for Finland stepped down. President Fazil knocked with his gavel; through that waiting quiet, the sound was like nails being driven into a coffin. Wingate, whose Spanish was not the best, dialed for English translation.

“—the honorable spokesman for France, M. Michel Coquelin.”

Heim set the ‘pilot and leaned back to watch. The square shape trudged down the aisle deliberately, almost scornfully, and took a stance at the lectern. The camera zoomed in on a countenance shockingly aged, but one which might have been cast in iron.

“Mr. President, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen. I shall not detain you long at this point The world knows the French feeling about New Europe. My country wishes to make her position entirely clear and to advance a certain argument. Since this is sure to precipitate considerable discussion, I request leave to defer my address until the other honorable spokesmen have finished theirs.”

“You see?” Heim said. “He has to gain time for us to get clear. It was bad luck that France came on so early in the session, but he’ll handle it.”

“What’s he going to say, anyhow, Daddy?” Lisa asked. “He can’t let you be called pirates!”

Heim grinned. “You’ll find out.”

“Mr. President! Point of order.” The camera wheeled around and closed in on Harold Twyman. He had jumped to his feet and looked angry. “In so grave a matter, a departure from precedence must be approved in the form of a motion.”

Coquelin raised his brows. “I fail to see why there should be any objection to France yielding precedence,” he said.

“Mr. President, distinguished members of this body,” Twyman rapped, “the honorable spokesman for France has warned us that he intends a surprise. This is a time for serious discussion, not for debater’s tricks. If we find ourselves forced to rebut an unexpected assertion, our meeting with the honorable delegates of Alerion may easily be postponed another week. There has already been too much delay. I insist that this chamber vote upon whether to let M. Coquelin play with us or not.”

“Mr. President—” The Frenchman’s retort was cut off. Fazil slammed his gavel and said:

“The chair finds the point well taken, if perhaps somewhat heatedly expressed. Does anyone wish to make a motion that the French statement be deferred until every other national spokesman has finished his remarks?”

“Oh, oh,” Vadász muttered. “This does not look good.”

Heim reached out and adjusted the ‘pilot for top speed. The engine hum strengthened. Above it he heard a member of the Argentine group say, “I so move,” and a Dutchman, “I second.”

“It has been moved and seconded—”

“What if they don’t let him?” Lisa wailed.

“Then we’ve got to go like bats out of Venus,” Heim said.

Coquelin began to speak in favor of the motion. After a few minutes, Vadász clicked his tongue and said admiringly: “Never did I hear anything so long-winded. That man is an artist.”

“Um,” Wingate grunted. “He may antagonize ‘em.”

“Obviously,” said Heim in a bleak tone, “he doesn’t expect to win, no matter what”

Debate droned back and forth. The flyer left the storm behind and fled over a huge wrinkled landscape. Far to the east gleamed the Sierra peaks. We could lose all that beauty someday, Heim thought.

Mojave Field sprawled into view. He slanted down on the beam and saw Connie Girl poised in the open. Garaging, formalities of clearance, the long walk across concrete under a glaring sun—was the light what blinded him?

They stopped at the ramp. “Well,” said Wingate gruffly, “you can’t waste time. God ride with you, Son.” He let the handclasp die.

Lisa came into Heim’s arms. “Daddy, Daddy, I’m sorry, I c-c-can’t help bawling.”

“Blaze to that.” He ruffled her hair and held her close against his chest. “We’ll be back, you know. Rich and famous and a million stories to tell.” He swallowed. “You … you’ve been … you are a good girl. I couldn’t have asked for a finer girl. So long. Plain old pa gensyn.”

He gave her to Vadász, who embraced her very lightly and bestowed a kiss on the wet cheek. “Isten veled,” the Magyar said low. “I shall bring you home a song.”

Hastily, then, they mounted the ramp, stood waving while it retracted, and saw the lock close before them.

“Thanks, Endre,” Heim said. He turned on his heel. “Let’s get cracking.”

The yacht could have sprung straight into orbit. But better not show unseemly haste. Heim took her up according to the beams. The sky darkened and stars awoke, until blackness was a jewel box. Vadász fiddled with the com controls and eventually succeeded in getting a satellite relay from Mexico.

Debate on a procedural motion was not unlimited. The voting started before Connie Girl had made rendezvous. A roll call tolled overwhelming defeat.

“Mr. President,” Coquelin’s voice lifted from the 3V, blurred, small as an insect’s, “this is a strange development. France had looked for the normal courtesies. Since I am required to make my country’s basic policy statement today, I will. However, I note the time is near midday, and I warn the distinguished representatives that I shall be speaking at some length. Accordingly, I suggest that first we adjourn for lunch.”

“The chair so rules,” Fazil conceded. “This meeting will resume at 1400 hours sharp.” His gavel clubbed down.

“An artist, I tell you,” Vadász laughed,

“A couple hours isn’t much time to get under way, with a crew new to the ship,” Heim reminded him.

The great torpedo shape hove in sight and waxed as he closed until it filled his bow vision. As yet she was un-camouflaged, and sunlight lay furious on the stern assembly; drive units, Mach rings, boathouses, turrets, hatches cast long shadows on the metal flanks.

“Yacht Connie Girl calling cruiser Fox II, We are coming in. Please stand by. Over.”

Wingate had argued about the change of cognomen. “I know what your old command meant to you, Gunnar,” he said. “But you’ll get enough people mad without taking the name of a Navy ship.”

“I’m not, exactly,” Heim said. “Last I heard, foxes were still in the public domain. Besides, I damn well figure to rub people’s noses in what the Navy ought to be doing. What it wants to do, in fact.”

Number Four boathouse stood open for him. He cradled the yacht—she was about the size of a regular auxiliary—and fretted while airpumps filled the shell. The corridors beyond were bustle and clangor. He’d had the men aboard for assignments and instruction, but nonetheless he wished terribly there had been time for a shakedown cruise.

First Officer Penoyer saluted on the bridge. “Welcome, sir.” Until Dave greeted him so, he had not really remembered how alone the captain is. “Full roster present Work proceeding. Estimated time of acceleration, 2300 hours GMT.”

“Knock at least an hour off that,” Heim said.

“Sir?”

“You heard me.” Heim sat down and riffled through the manual of operations. “Here, for instance. The C.E. doesn’t have to check out the internal field compensators again. If they fail, we’ll accelerate at no more than one-point-five gee; once in free fall, we can stand weightlessness till they’re fixed. Not that I expect any trouble in his department anyway. He’s good. Have him proceed directly to tuning the pulse manifolds. The more carefully that job is done, the nearer Sol we can go FTL.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” With noticeable distaste, Penoyer flicked the intercom and spoke to Uthg-a-K’thaq. Heim continued his search for corners that might be cut.

And somehow, in some typically human left-handed fashion, the job was done. At 2145 klaxons hooted, orders echoed, atoms flamed in fusion generators, and gravitational forces laid hold of space. Slowly, smoothly, with a deep purr felt less within the ears than the bones, Fox II slipped her moorings to Earth and departed orbit.

Heim stood on the bridge and watched his ‘world recede. Still she dominated heaven, vast and infinitely fair, clouds and seas and a sapphire rim of sky. He had observed the continents in their nights and days as he rounded her: Africa, whence man came; Asia, where first he was more than a savage; Europe, where he outgrew myth and measured the stars; Australia, long-sought dream; Antarctica of the heroes. But he was happy that his last sight as he drove star-ward was of America, where the law was first written that all men are free.

Doubts and fears, even homesickness, had fallen away. He was committed now, and joy dwelt within him.

“Stations report condition satisfactory,” Penoyer announced after a while.

“Very good. Carry on.” Heim found the intercom and called the steward’s department. “Endre? D’you have things in hand so they can get along without you for a spell? … Okay, come onto the bridge. And bring your guitar. We’ll want a song or two.”

The Magyar’s voice was troubled. “Captain, have you been listening to Parliament?”

“Uh … no. Too busy. Good Lord, they started fresh more than an hour ago, didn’t they?”

“Yes. We’re picking up the beam to Mars. I have watched and—well, they did not let Coquelin delay. He tried, with a long introductory speech, and the chair ruled he must keep to the point Then he tried to introduce the evidence about New Europe, and someone objected and they decided to vote on whether that was germane now. The roll is still being called, but already he has a majority against him.”

“Oh-oh.” Heim was not shaken, on this day when he commanded anew a ship for Earth. But the need for action stabbed through his nerves. “Mr. Penoyer,” he directed, “signal for maximum acceleration and order all hands to emergency stations.”

The mate gulped and obeyed. “Have Sparks shunt that debate to our 3V,” Heim went on. “Mr. Vadász, please come to the bridge.” His chuckle was fiat. “Yes, bring your guitar.”

“What’s the problem, sir?” Penoyer asked in unease.

“You’ll see,” Heim replied. “France is about to throw a nuke into the whole machine. Our plan was to have Fox well away by then. Now we’ll need luck as well as brains and beauty.”

The screen flickered to fuzzy motion. Coquelin was nearly drowned out by the risen rumble of engines. Earth dwindled among the stars and Luna’s pocked face grew nearer.

“—this assembly is determined to give my country not one centimeter. As you like, ladies and gentlemen. I wished to say this gradually, for the blow is heavy at best. Now you must hear me whether you are ready or not.”

The camera zoomed so close that Coquelin’s visage filled the screen. That was a lousy trick, Heim thought. But, if he wasn’t letting his own prejudices hoodwink him, this time it didn’t work. Instead of underscoring every blemish—warts, moles, hairs, wrinkles—the close-up showed anger and unbreakable strength. Heim believed himself confirmed when the view moved back after a minute, to make Coquelin another man shuffling papers on a lectern.

“Mr. President, honorable delegates—” The translation could only suggest how the voice shifted, became the dry detached recital of an attorney making a technical point. “The Federation was founded and still exists to end the tragic anarchy that prevailed among nations before, to bring them under a law that serves the good of all. Now law cannot endure without equal justice. The popularity of an argument must be irrelevant. Only the lawful cause may be admitted. In the name of France, I therefore advance the following points.”

“1. The Constitution forbids each member nation to keep armed forces above the police level or to violate the territorial integrity of any other member nation in any way. To enforce this, the Peace Control Authority is vested with the sole military power. It may and must take such measures as are necessary to stop aggressive acts, including conspiracy to commit such acts. The individuals responsible must be arrested and brought to trial before the World Court.”

“2. The naval branch of the Authority has been used beyond the Solar System, albeit only in relatively minor actions to suppress insurrection and riot or to protect the lives and property of humans on distant planets. By authorizing such action, and by negotiating agreements with various aliens, the Federation has de facto and de jure assumed the posture with respect to non-human societies that was traditional between governments on Earth prior to the Constitution. Hence Earth as a whole is a sovereign state with the lawful prerogative of self-defense.”

“3. By attacking New Europe and subsequently occupying it, Alerion has committed an act of territorial aggression.

“4. If Alerion is not regarded as a sovereign state, negotiation of this dispute is legally impossible, and the Authority is required to take military measures against what can only be considered banditry.”

A roar went through the hall. Fazil banged his desk. Coquelin waited, sardonicism playing over his mouth. When order had been restored, the spokesman of France said:

“Evidently this assembly does consider Alerion to be sovereign like Earth. So, to proceed—

“5. If Alerion is indeed a legitimate state, then by the preamble to the Constitution it belongs to the family of nations. Therefore it must be regarded as either (a) obliged to refrain from territorial aggression on pain of military sanctions, or (b) not so obliged, since it is not a member of the Federation.

“6. In case (a), Alerion is automatically subject to military sanctions by the Peace Control Authority. But in case (b), the Authority is also required, by the Constitution and by past precedent, to safeguard the interests of individual humans and of member states of the Federation. Note well, the Authority has that obligation. Not this honorable assembly, not the World Court, but the Peace Control Authority, whose action must under the circumstances be of a military nature.

“7. Accordingly, in either case an automatic state of war now exists between Alerion and the World Federation.”

Chaos broke loose.

Vadász had come in. He watched the scene for a time, as hundreds stood booing or cheering or screaming to be recognized, before he murmured: “Is that not a weak point there?”

“No,” said Heim. “Remember the Moslem League case. Also, I reread the Constitution, and it’s quite clear. Of course, it helps that the thing was written before we’d met any non-humans comparable to us.” He turned to the mate. “Radar reports?”

“Eh? Oh—oh, yes. A large craft about 10,000 kilometers starboard high, vector roughly like ours.”

“Damn! That’d be one of the Navy units, pulled in to guard Earth. Well, we’ll have to see what happens.” Heim ignored the mob scene on the 3V, rested his eyes on the cold serenity of the Milky Way and thought that this, at least, would endure.

Somehow quiet was enforced. Coquelin waited until the silence had become deathly. He raised another typewritten sheet and resumed in the same parched tone:

“8. In the event of territorial aggression, member states of the Federation are required to give every appropriate assistance to the Peace Control Authority, in the name of the Federation.”

“9. In the judgment of France, this imposes an inescapable duty to provide armed assistance to the colonists of New Europe. However, a member of the Federation is prohibited the manufacture or possession of nuclear weapons.”

“10. There is no prohibition on individuals obtaining such weapons outside the Solar System for themselves, provided that they do not bring them back to the Solar System.”

“11. Nor is there any prohibition on the unilateral authorization by a member state of the Federation of a private military expedition which so outfits itself. We grant that privateers were formerly required to be citizens of the country whose flag they flew, and that this might conflict with the national disarmament law. We grant also that eventually the issuance of letters of marque and reprisal was banned, by the Declaration of Paris in 1856. But while such treaties remain binding on their signatories, including France, they are not binding on the Federation as a whole, which is not a signatory and indeed has members such as the United States of America which never were signatories. And we have seen that the Federation is a sovereign state, possessing all rights and responsibilities not explicitly waived.

“12. Therefore the Federation has the unrestricted right to issue letters of marque and reprisal.

“13. Therefore, and in view of paragraphs 7, 8, and 9, France has the right and the duty to issue letters of marque and reprisal in the name of the Federation.

“France has done so.”

The 3V shrieked—more faintly each minute, as Fox II accelerated outward and outward. When she lost the Mars beam and reception ended, the racket in the Capitol had not yet subsided.

Penoyer said, “Whew! What’s next?”

“An interminable debate,” Heim said. “Coquelin will fight for every comma. Meanwhile nothing can be done about jellyfishing to Alerion. Hopefully, the people with guts will see they aren’t beaten at the outset, will rally round and—I don’t know.”

“But us?”

“Maybe we can escape before someone realizes who that French privateer must be. Not that they can legally stop us without an Admiralty warrant; and you know how long that takes to get. But a nuclear shell is kind of final, and whoever fires it will have powerful friends in court.”

Vadász strummed his guitar and began to sing softly: “Morgenrot, Morgenrot—” Heim wondered what that was, until he remembered the old, old Austrian cavalry song:

Morning red, morning red, Wilt thou shine upon me dead? Soon the trumpets will be blowing, Then must I to death be going, I and many trusty friends!—

But it wasn’t really sad, it had been chorused by troops of young merry men as they galloped with sunlight wild on banners and lances.

He laughed aloud. “Hey! An idea. There were exactly thirteen points in Coquelin’s speech. I wonder if he did that on purpose?”

None answered, except the plangent strings. He gave himself to thoughts … Lisa, Connie, Madelon, Jocelyn … Earth and Moon lay far behind.

“PCA-SN Neptune to cruiser Fox II. Come in, Fox II.”

The voice rocketed them from their seats. “Judas,” Penoyer whispered, “that’s a blastship.”

Heim checked the radar tapes. “The one paralleling us. She’s gone to an interception course. And if they use English on us, when we’ve got a French registry, they know—” He bit his lip and settled before the com relay console. “Fox II to Neptune,” he said. “We read you. The master speaking. What’s on your mind? Over.”

“This is Rear Admiral Ching-Kuo, commanding Neptune. Cease acceleration and stand by to be boarded. Over.”

Sickness fountained in Heim. “What do you mean?” he blustered. “We have clearance. Over.”

“You are suspected of illegal intentions. You are ordered to return to Earth orbit. Over.”

“Have you a warrant? Over.”

“I will show you my authorization when I board, Captain. Over.”

“That’ll be too late, if you don’t have any. Establish video contact and show me now. Otherwise I am not bound to obey. Over.”

“Captain,” said Ching-Kuo, “I have my orders. If you do not follow instructions, I shall be forced to fire on you. Over.”

Heim’s gaze flew among the stars. No, no, no, not this! Another hour and we’d have been away! One hour!

A flaring went through him. “You win, Admiral,” he said; it sounded like a stranger talking. “Under protest, I yield. Give us time to compute a velocity-matching vector and we’ll meet you. Over and out.”

He slammed down the ‘switch and opened the intercom to the engine room. “Captain to chief engineer,” he said. “Are you there?”

“Indeed,” Uthg-a-K’thaq belched. “All is satiswactory.”

“No. Somebody’s uncorked the bottle on hell. There’s a blastship which says if we don’t stop and surrender, he’ll shoot. Prepare for Mach drive.”

“Captain!” Penoyer yelled. “This deep in the sun’s field?”

“If the sync is perfect, we can do it,” Heim said. “If not … we’re dead, no more. Uthg-a-K’thaq, do you believe we can?”

“Gwurru! What a thing to ask!”

“You overhauled those engines yourself,” Heim said. “I trust you.”

Vadász’s guitar shouted at his back.

For a moment the intercom bore only the throb of machines. Then: “Cawtain, I am not God. Wut I think the chance is good for us. And I trust you.”

Heim opened the general intercom. “Now hear this,” he said; music raged around the words. “All hands stand by for Mach drive.”

Penoyer clenched his fists. “Aye, aye, sir.” The drone from aft rose until it was the noise of gales and great waters. Space twisted. Stars danced in the viewports.

Long ago, Ernst Mach of Austria (“Morgenrot, Morgenrot—”) had held the key. Nothing exists in isolation. Inertia has no meaning without an inertial frame of reference: which must be the entire universe. Einstein showed inertial and gravitational mass are the same. But as for the phenomena themselves—Gravitation is describable by equations of a warped space. Inertia is, then, an inductive effect of the cosmic gravitational field on mass. If your gravitrons can bend space, not the small amount needed for lift and thrust, but through a closed curve, your ship has no resistance to accelerative force. Theoretically, you can go as fast as you like. There are no more boundaries.

Neptune fired. The missile lagged by a million kilometers. Her captain yammered for instrument readings. Perhaps, oh, surely, surely, his prey had been torn apart by the forces generated with imperfect mesh of space curvatures here where the sun’s power was still all-dominant. Nothing registered, no wreckage, no trace, except the howl of hydrogen atoms flung in bow wave and wake by a ship outpacing light. He dared not pursue.

Heim straightened. One by one, he eased his muscles. “Well,” he said, “we got away with it.” The words were poor for the victory within him. Vadász was doing better:

“Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

And we are outward bound!”

Part Two

ARSENAL PORT

I

When the Earth ship came, Gunnar Heim was bargaining with a devil-winged messenger from a nuclear smithy. The Aerie of Trebogir, for which Ro spoke, had weapons to sell; but there were conditions.

Non-human words hissed and whistled into the man’s helmet pickup. Gregorios Koumanoudes translated into English. “—missile gets so large an initial velocity by drawing on the ship’s own gravitrons for a launch impetus.”

Heim wished he could show horse-trader reluctance, as by thoughtfully scratching his head. But it would look silly under present circumstances. Damn this need to wear airsuits! Even on the lift platform where he stood, which kept his weight Earth normal, and even with the strength of a two-meter-tall body which he had gotten back into first-class condition on the voyage hither, the mass of equipment he must carry was tiring. Originally he had planned to stay inboard, put a 3V two-way outside Connie Girl, and thus meet with the Staurni; but Koumanoudes warned him against it “They’ll respect you more, Captain, for coming out into their own environment,” the Greek had said. “Irrational, sure, but they make a big thing of physical toughness. And they’ll give a better deal to someone they respect.”

So—Heim scowled into harsh blue sunlight. “I see the advantage,” he answered. “However, with my own maneuvering handicapped, I’d be a sitting duck.”

Koumanoudes put his objection into the language that prevails between Kimreth heights and the Iron Sea. Ro spread his taloned hands, a startlingly humanlike gesture. “The loss of maneuverability is negligible,” he said, “as only a fractional second is needed for launch. Thereafter one immediately has full accelerative power available again. To be sure, the system must be synchronized with the engine complex, but it should not take long to make the necessary modifications on your ship.”

Unconsciously, Heim glanced skyward. Somewhere beyond that deep purple vault, those icily blue-tinged clouds, Fox II swung in orbit around Staurn; tenders flitted back and forth with cargoes of hell, men and not-men swarmed over the cruiser, working together to fit her for war. There was not much left to do. And every nerve in him throbbed to be away. Each day he spent here, Alerion grew stronger, the cause of men on New Europe more hopeless.

Still, one privateer, raiding in the Phoenix, was dreadfully alone. She needed any microscopic advantage he could find for her. Like this missile sling which R6 claimed they could make in the Aerie of Trebogir. It did sound promising … “How long to install?” Heim asked.

Again four claw fingers, set around the entire palm of the hand, gestured. “Some days. One cannot tell exactly without more knowledge than my kinfather’s technologists possess about vessels of your particular class. May I suggest that the captain send his honored chief engineer to discuss such matters with our folk?”

“Um-m-m.” Heim considered. His gaze went past Ro, to Galveth, who waited impassively for something to be said that might concern the Lodge. But the blast gun remained idly cradled in the observer’s arms. If Galveth had any expression, it was of sleepiness, his yellow eyes drooping. A human could never be sure, though, what went on in the narrow Staurni skulls.

It was even hard to tell individuals apart. A common alienness outweighed variable details. Ro and Galveth were each about three meters long; but half of that was in the thick, rudder-tipped tail, on whose double coil the legless torso sat. The keelbone jutted like a prow. The face was sharp-muzzled, with wolfishly fanged mouth and small round ears. Its mask appearance came less from the dark band across the eyes than from the nostrils being hidden under the chin. A gray growth, neither hair nor feathers but something in between, covered the entire hide. No clothes were worn except two pouched belts crossing from shoulder to waist. All was overshadowed by the immense chiropteran wings, seven meters in span.

When you looked closely, you saw differences, mainly that Galveth had grown lean and frosty-tinged while Ro was still in the fierceness of youth. And Galveth wore the gold-ornamented harness reserved for Lodge members, Ro the red-and-black geometry of Trebogir’s pattern.

Heim turned to Koumanoudes. “What do you think?” he asked.

The stocky man shrugged. “I’m no engineer.”

“But damnation, you and Wong have spent a couple of months here. You must have some notion who’s honest and competent, who isn’t.”

“Oh, that. Sure. Trebogir isn’t one of the robber barons. He has a good name. You can deal with him.”

“Okay.” Heim reached a decision. “Tell this messenger, then, that I am interested. I’ll call C.E. down from Fox as soon as possible—right now he’s got to help the contractor from the Hurst of Wenilwain install our fire-control computers—and we’ll come to the Aerie and talk further about the proposal.”

“You can’t be that blunt,” Koumanoudes said. “Lodge members are, but they’re different. A Nester is worse than an Arab or a Japanese for wanting flowery language.” He turned and began to form syllables.

Through the wind that rustled the low red-leaved forest surrounding the spaceport, through the beat of surf a kilometer distant, a sudden whine smote. It grew, became thunderous, the heavy air was split and a shadow fell across concrete field and lava-block buildings. Every head swung up.

A rounded cylinder was descending. The blue-white radiance was savage off its metal; spots danced before Heim’s eyes when he turned them away. But he recognized the make. The heart jumped in his breast. “A spaceship! Human built—What’s going on?”

“I … don’t … know.” Behind the dark faceplate, Koumanoudes’ big-nosed countenance harshened. “Nobody said a word. Galveth!” He rattled off a question.

The Lodge agent made a bland reply. “He says he didn’t think it mattered,” Koumanoudes translated.

“Blaze,” Heim said in anger, “he knows about the Aleriona crisis! He must have at least some inkling of our trouble with our own government. The Lodge must’ve stopped that ship for inspection no later than yesterday. Why haven’t we been warned?”

“I’m not sure how much the Staurni ever understood,” Koumanoudes said. “To them it’s ridiculous that we couldn’t arm ourselves at home and take off whenever we wanted. Besides, those people can’t have any real weapons along, or they wouldn’t’ve been allowed to land.”

“They can have small arms,” Heim snapped. “We do. Get rid of these bucks as fast as you can, Greg, and come inboard. I’ve got to alert the boys.”

He strode rapidly across the platform to the landing ramp and up to the airlock. There he must fume while pumps replaced the atmosphere of Staurn with something he could breathe, and while he himself was decompressed. The baffled rage that he had thought was left behind on Earth came back to possess him. So much could have happened in the couple of weeks that Fox II had needed to cross the hundred-odd light-years to this star, or in the three weeks that followed while she was being refitted. If the appeasement party had won out, if his privateering venture had been declared illegal—

Of course, he told himself, over and over, that’s not a Federation Navy ship. She’s a small civilian ranger. But then, the Staurni don’t let any warcraft but their own near this planet. If she’s simply bringing an official order for me to come home—Well, all right, face the question: what then? Do I go on anyway—as a pirate?

Sickly: Wouldn’t be much use. The hope was to create a situation that Earth could take advantage of. If Earth refuses the chance and disowns us, we can only be troublemakers to Alerion, until at last we’re cornered and killed. I’ll never see Lisa again. It was as if once more he could feel a small body pressed against him in farewell. They’ll tell her, the whole rest of her life, her father was a criminal.

But maybe, maybe even a pirate could accomplish something. There was Drake of the Golden Hind—He sailed in another day, when men weren’t afraid.

The inner door opened. He moved on into his yacht; which was now an auxiliary for the starship, and opened his helmet.

Endre Vadász had the bridge. The minstrel’s thin dark face was turned outward, staring through the viewport as the other vessel neared in a gravitron-distorted shimmer of light. When Heim’s boots rang on the deck, he didn’t look around, but said tonelessly, “I have ordered the crew into battle gear, and brought your own rifle from your cabin.”

“Good man.” Heim took the weapon in the crook of an arm. There was assurance in that weight and solidity and beautiful deadly shape. It was a .30-caliber Browning cyclic, able to send forty rounds a minute through any atmosphere or none, the pride of his collection. Vadász, also in a collapsed airsuit with faceplate unlocked, had settled for a laser pistol.

“I am not certain,” the Hungarian remarked, “What six men can do if they try to storm us. Yonder ship can easily hold five times as many.”

“We can stand ‘em off till the boys arrive from Fox,” Heim said, “and they total almost a hundred. Assuming the Lodge doesn’t stop the fight.”

“Oh, that I doubt,” Vadász murmured with a slight smile. “We aren’t likely to damage their nice spaceport, and from everything I hear, they have no rules against bloodshed.” He pointed to several winged shapes, wheeling black against the clouds over the western end of Orling Island. “They’ll come enjoy the spectacle.”

Heim directed the radioman to get in touch with Fox. It would take a while. The beam must go through a ground station and a couple of relay satellites. Wong was in orbit to interpret between human and native workers, while Sparks’s command of the language was slight And the newcomer would be down in another minute.

I’m borrowing trouble, Heim tried to believe. Yet why would any Terrestrial come here, except in connection with me?

To trade? Yes, yes, an occasional merchant does call, from Earth or Naqsa or one of the other spacefaring worlds. That’s why the weaponmakers of Staurn will accept my Federation credits. But surely not while the Aleriona trouble is so near explosion.

Beside him, Vadász was softly whistling. “The Blue Danube,” now of all times? Well, maybe he wanted to remember, while he still could …

The least quiver ran through ground and hull and Heim’s bones as the stranger touched jacks to concrete. Her shadow fell engulfingly over Connie Girl. Through the intercom he heard a few oaths from his men, Sparks’s mumble at the transmitter, the snore of a nuclear engine on Stand-by. A ventilator gusted air across his cheeks, which were sweating.

When Koumanoudes clumped in, Heim spun about with a jerkiness that revealed to him how tense he was. “So?” the captain barked. “Did you get any information?”

The Greek looked relieved. “I think we can free-fall, sir. According to Galveth, they want to stay awhile, look around, and ask questions. A xenological expedition, in other words.”

“To this planet?” Heim scoffed.

“Well, after all, we are in Hydrus,” Vadász pointed out

“The trouble is going on in the Phoenix. Quite some distance from here.”

“No further from The Eith than Alpha Eridani, Heim said, “where we had our biggest skirmish with the Aleriona. And that was many years ago. They’re prowling through this whole sector. Besides, it takes time to organize an expedition. Why didn’t we hear of it on Earth?”

“We were rather occupied,” Vadász said dryly. He went, to the radiophone. “Shall I try to call them?”

“What? … Oh, yes. Of course.” Heim swore at himself for forgetting so simple an act.

The connection was made at once. “MDS Quest of the U.S.A.,” said a mild young man. “Captain Gutierrez is still busy, sir, but I can switch you to Dr. Bragdon. He’s the head of the scientific team.”

The release was like a blow. Heim sagged in his suit. “You’re only here to make studies, then?”

“Yes, sir, for the University of Hawaii, under contract to the Federation Research Authority. One moment, please.”

The screen flickered to a view of a cabin, crowded with references both full-size and micro. The man in the foreground was also young, husky, with black hair and cragged profile. “Victor Bragdon speaking,” he said, and then, his mouth falling open, “Good heavens! Aren’t you Gunnar Heim?”

The privateer captain didn’t reply. His own astonishment was too much. The woman behind Bragdon leaned over the man’s shoulder and met Heim’s stare with wide hazel eyes. She was tall; an informal gray zipsuit clung to a figure strong and mature. Her face had strength too, rather than conventional good looks: straight nose, wide mouth, arching bones, framed by curly chestnut hair. But some years back it had, troubled his sleep. When he saw the name Jocelyn Lawrie on the letterhead of a flyer from World Militants for Peace, an old hurt awakened, and he went on still more intensely with his preparations for war.

Surprise faded. Suspicion tightened his muscles. “What are you doing here?” he rapped.

II

Afterward he remembered with irony and sadness how careful he had been. Pleading an urgent requirement for his presence on Fox II, he raised his yacht within .the hour. But Koumanoudes volunteered to stay behind, aboard the Quest on a “courtesy call.” Heim knew the Greek had done a good: job of preliminary arrangement-making on Staurn; how good he would be with his fellow humans was uncertain, but there was scant choice. It had to be him or Wong, the only ones who spoke the local language fluently and hence could use the spaceport’s eavesdrop-proof maser line.

His report came after two watches. “They’re clean, skipper. I was toured around the whole ship and talked to everybody. There’re five in the crew, plus captain, mate, and C.E. They’re plain spacehands, who signed on for this cruise the same as they would for any other exploratory trip. You can’t fake that. Anybody who’s so good an actor works on 3V, not in the black.”

“They don’t have to act,” Heim said. “They only have to wear a poker face.”

“But these bucks didn’t. They swarmed over me, asking every kind of question about us. On the whole, they thought we had a hell of a fine idea here. A couple of them wished they’d joined us.”

“Uh-huh. I’m not surprised. The common man often shows more common sense than the intellectual elite. But wait, now, do you include their officers in this?”

“The engineer, yes. Captain Gutierrez and the first officer … well, they were stiff as meteorite plating. I don’t know what they think. Probably they don’t like us on principle, figure war should be left to the regular Navy. But I did make an excuse to see the articles of the expedition. It’s bona fide, official papers and everything.”

“How about the scientific passengers?”

“A mixed bag. I think Bragdon and Mrs. Lawrie must be the only ones who’ve ever been out of the Solar System. There’s another xenologist, a semanticist, a glossanalyst, a biologist, and half a dozen graduate students to help. I gather none have visited Staura before.”

“Odd.”

“Charlie Wong and I hadn’t either, boss, when you sent us off. They did the same as us, boned up on what information was available and learned the main language with RNA-electro cramming, en route. Anyhow, I can tell you there’s nothing to fear from these academic types. I don’t think any but Bragdon can handle a gun. They don’t much care for us and what we stand for, so relationships were a tad strained even if nothing rude got said. But they’re no threat.”

“They all feel this way?” Heim asked, with a curious little sinking in his spirit.

“No, funny thing, Bragdon and Mrs. Lawrie were both friendly. He remarked once he disagrees with your ideas but has a lot of respect for your guts. And she said she hopes you can come back soon.”

“I can,” Heim said softly. “Oh, I can.”

An hour later, Connie accelerated planetward.

Seated on the bridge, Heim listened to the thrum of the yacht and his own pulse, underlying the flamenco that leaped from Vadász’s guitar beside him. For a while neither man spoke, nor did their eyes leave the spectacle in the viewports.

Two and a fifth times the diameter of Earth, nine and a half times the mass, Staurn rolled immense against darkness. The seas shone royal blue, the continents, blurred by snow-colored cloud bands, were ocher and cinnabar. Along the horizon, atmosphere made a violet rim; over the whole, under the irradiation of a hot FS sun, ran a fluorescence which near the poles became great banners of aurora, shaken aloft into space. Two moons were visible beyond, glacially luminous, and further yet there glittered strange constellations.

“When I see something like that,” Heim murmured at length, half to himself, “I wonder.”

Vadász stopped playing and cocked a birdlike glance at him. “What do you wonder?”

“Why the hell we waste time hating and killing, which we might use to—Argh, never mind.” Heim got out his pipe. “It only takes one to make a quarrel.”

Vadász studied him, “I’ve come to know you somewhat well, Gunnar,” he said. “You are not given to the role of Hamlet. What is the real trouble?”

“Nothing!”

“Ah. Excuse me if I pry, but this whole enterprise depends on you. Is it the lady’s unexpected arrival that is so disturbing?”

“A surprise, no more. We used to be friends.” Heim became busy loading his pipe. The Magyar’s steady look forced him to explain further. “My wife and I had quite a bit to do with the Lawries, years ago. They went off to Ourania in the Epsilon Indi System shortly before Connie died, to establish a machine-tool factory in the colony there. Things can’t have worked out too well, because she came back last year, .divorced. The conflict with Alerion was already serious, even if they hadn’t yet attacked New Europe, and she became active in the peace movement. It had her shuttling around the world, so we only met again a few times, briefly, at large loud parties. I, uh, half doubted she’d speak to me now, after what I’ve done.”

“And are pleasantly amazed, eh? She is indeed attractive. You must find her especially so.”

“What do you mean?” Heim bridled.

“Oh … ” Vadász’s grin was disarming. “One does not wish to get too personal. However, Gunnar, busy though you were, I felt you were mistaken not to, um, prepare yourself for a long cruise in strictly male society.”

Heim grinned back. “I’d trouble enough concocting stories to explain your absences. How could I tell Lisa her hero was out tomcatting?”

“Touché” Vadász went tomato red and attacked his guitar with great vigor.

But he has a point, maybe, Heim thought. I could have—well, Connie would’ve understood. The way she understood about Jocelyn. Lord knows there’ve been other women since—Maybe I was thinking too hard about Madelon on New Europe. Damned foolishness. Or—I don’t know, I’m all confused.

That was what he remembered, afterward.

—His finger was not quite steady when he pressed the button on her door. She opened it while the chime was still sounding. “Gunnar,” she said, and took both his hands. “I’m so glad you could come.”

“You were nice, to invite me,” he said.

“Nonsense. When two old friends meet again, halfway between home and the Southern Cross, what else do they do but have a private gabfest? Come in, man.”

The door closed behind them. He looked around. Her cabin was large and comfortable, and she had made it her own. He recognized some things from her lost San Francisco home—a Matisse and a Hiroshige reproduction, some worn volumes of Catullus, Yeats, Tagore, Pasternak, Mosunic-Lopez, the flute he had once loved to heat her play—and there were a few souvenirs of her years in the Epsilon Indi System, less from Ourania than from stark New Mars. His attention returned to her and stayed. She had on an electric blue dress and a Gean necklace of massive silver. The outfit was at once quiet and stunning. Or was that simply the contents?

Whoa, boy! he checked himself. Aloud: “You haven’t changed.”

“Liar. But thanks.” Her eyes dwelt on him. “You have, anyway. Tired and bitter.”

“Why, no, I feel happier now than—” His protest was cut off. She let his hands go and went to a table where bottles and ice stood.

“Let’s do something about it,” she said. “As I recall, you’re a Scotch drinker. And here’s some sho-nuff Glenlivet.”

“Eh? You always preferred light wine.”

“Well, Vie—Dr. Bragdon, you know—he shares your taste, and very kindly gave us this from his locker.” She poured. For a moment the clear gurgle was the only sound in the universe.

What the devil right have I to feel jealous? “I’m not sure what, uh, you’re doing out here with him.”

“Officially I’m secretary to the expedition. I have such skills from my job before I married, and got the rust off them working for the peace movement. Then too, I’ve had experience on other planets, including planets where you need special equipment to live. I used to go to New Mars quite often, ostensibly with Edgar’s mineral prospectors, actually to get away—No matter. That’s past. When I heard about this expedition, I applied for a berth and, rather to my surprise, got it. I suppose that was partly because most qualified people were scared to come so near the big bad Aleriona, partly because Vie knew me and felt I could handle it.” She handed him a glass and raised her own. “Welcome aboard, Gunnar. Here’s to the old days.” They clinked rims, wordless.

“When life was simple and splendid,” she added. Tossing off a sip of her Chablis, she toasted again, defiantly. “And here’s to the future. We’ll make it the same.”

“Well, let’s hope so.” His mouth creased upward. She’d always been overly, dramatic, but his own stolidity had found it a trait more endearing than otherwise.

“Sit down.” She waved him to her lounger, but he took a chair instead. Jocelyn chuckled and relaxed in the form-fitting seat. “Now,” she said, “tell me about yourself.”

“Didn’t you get a bellyful of me in the news?”

“There sure was plenty.” She clicked her tongue. “The entire Solar System in an uproar. Half the people wanted to hang you and H-bomb France for commissioning you. The rest—” Her humor waned. “I hadn’t known there was so much popular support for your side of the issue. Your departure crystallized it, somehow.”

He gathered his nerve and said, “Frankly, that’s what I hoped. One decisive gesture, to cut through that wretched muddle … Okay, you can throw me out.”

“No, Gunnar. Never.” She leaned over and patted his hand. “I think you’re wrong, horribly wrong, but I never doubted you mean well.”

“Same for you, of course. Wish I could say likewise for some of your associates. And mine, I must admit. I don’t like having the approval of some pretty nasty fanatics.”

“Nor I. The Militants—I quit them when they started openly applauding mob violence.”

“They tried to blackmail me through my daughter,” he said.

“Oh, Gunnar!” Her clasp tightened over his knuckles. “And I never came to see you while she was missing. There was this work for the movement, way off on Venus, and by the time I got back and heard, everything was finished and you were gone. But … are you serious? Did Yore’s people really—”

“I fixed that,” he said. ” ‘Druther not say any more. We had to keep it out of the news. I’m glad, Joss, you broke with them.”

“Not with what they meant in the beginning, though,” she said. Tears glimmered suddenly in the long hazel eyes; he wondered on whose account. “Another reason I wanted to get off Earth. Everything was such a ghastly mess, no clear rights or wrongs anyplace you searched.” She drew a breath before continuing, with swift earnestness:

“But can’t you see what harm the French have done? It looked as if the dispute with Alerion could be settled peacefully. Now the peacemakers have been tied in a legal knot, and it’s all they can do to prevent the extremists from taking over control of Parliament. The Aleriona delegation announced they weren’t going to wait any longer. They went home. We’ll have to send for them when our deadlock is broken.”

“Or come after them, if it breaks my way,” he said. “What you can’t see, you won’t see, is that they’ve no intention of making any real peace. They want Earth out of space altogether.”

“Why?” she pleaded. “It doesn’t make sense!”

He frowned into his glass. “That’s something of a puzzle, I admit. It must make sense in their own terms; but they don’t think like us. Look at the record, however, not their soft words but their hard deeds ever since we first encountered them. Including the proof that they deliberately attacked New Europe and are deliberately setting out to exterminate the French colonists there. Your faction denied the evidence, but be honest with yourself, Joss.”

“You be honest too, Gunnar—No, look at me. What can a single raider do but make the enmity worse? There aren’t going to be any more privateers, you realize. France and her allies have been able to keep Parliament from illegalizing your expedition, so far. But the Admiralty has frozen all transfers of ships, and it’ll take more of a legislative upheaval than France can engineer to get that authority out of its hands. You’ll die out there, Gunnar, alone, for nothing.”

“I’m hoping the Navy will move,” he said. “If, as you put it, I make enmity worse—Uh-uh, not a delusion of grandeur. Just a hope. But a man has to do what little he can.”

“So does a woman,” she sighed.

Abruptly, sweeping to her feet, taking his glass for a refill, smiling with an effort but not as a pretense: “No more argument. Let’s be only ourselves this evening. It’s been such a long time.”

“Sure has. I wanted to see you, I mean really see you; when you came back to Earth, but we were both too busy, I guess. Somehow the chance never seemed to come.”

“Too busy, because too stupid,” she agreed. “Real friends are so rare at best. And we were that once, weren’t we?”

“Rawthuh,” he said, as anxious as she to walk what looked like a safe road. “Remember our junket to Europe?”

“How could I forget?” She gave him back his glass and sat down again, but upright this time, so that her knee brushed his. “That funny little old tavern in Amsterdam, where you kept bumping your head every time you stood up, till finally you borrowed a policeman’s helmet to wear. And you and Edgar roared out something from the Edda, and—But you were both awfully sweet outside Sacre Coeur, when we necked and watched the sun rise over Paris.”

“You girls were a lot sweeter, believe me,” he said, not quite comfortably. A silence fell. “I’m sorry it didn’t last between you and him,” he ventured.

“We made a mistake, going outsystem,” she admitted. “By the time we realized how much the environment had chewed our nerves, it was too late. He’s got himself quite a good wife now.”

“Well, that’s something.”

“What about you, Gunnar? It was so dreadful about poor Connie. But after five years, haven’t you—?”

“After five years, nothing,” he said flatly. “I don’t know why.”

She withdrew herself a little and asked with much gentleness, “I dare not flatter myself, but could I be to blame?”

He shook his head. His face burned. “No. That was over with long ago. Let’s discuss something else.”

“Sure. This is supposed to be a merry reunion. A nuestra salud.” The glasses clinked again.

She began to talk of things past, and presently he was chiming in, the trivia that are so large a part of friendship—do you remember, whatever became of, we did, once you said, we thought, do you remember, and then there was, we hoped, I never knew that, do you remember, do you remember?—and the time and the words and the emptied glasses passed, and finally somehow she was playing her flute for him, “Au Clair de la Lune” and “Gaudeamus Igitur,” “September” and “Shenandoah,” Pan-notes bright and cool through the whirl in him, while he had moved to the lounger and lay back watching the light burnish her hair and lose itself in the deep shadows below. But when she began “The Skrydstrup Girl”

“Was it her that I ought to have loved, then, In a stone age’s blossoming spring—”

the flute sank to her lap and he saw her eyes shut and her mouth go unfirm.

“No,” she said. “I’m sorry. Wasn’t thinking. You taught it to me, Gunnar.”

He sat straight and laid a clumsily tender hand on her shoulder. “Forget that business,” he said. “I should’ve kept my “big mouth shut. But there was no real harm done. It was no more than … than one of those infatuations. Connie didn’t hold it against you. She nursed me through the spell okay.”

“I wasn’t so lucky,” she whispered.

Dumfounded, he could only stammer: “Joss, you never let on!”

“I didn’t dare. But that was the real reason I talked Edgar into leaving Earth. I hoped—Gunnar, when I came back, why were we both such idiots?”

Then suddenly she laughed, low in her throat, came to him and said, “We’re not too late, are we? Even now?”

III

Staurn rotated once in about eighteen hours. Seven such days had passed when Uthg-a-K’thaq finished work on the naval computers and rode a tender down to Orling spaceport.

As his huge cetacean form wallowed into the yacht’s chart-room, Endre Vadász, who had been waiting for him, backed up. Phew! the minstrel thought. Decent and capable he is, but I always have to get reacclimated to that swamp stench … How do I smell to him?

“Hallo, C.E.,” he greeted. “I hope you are not too tired to depart at once. We have spent too much time here already.”

“Quite,” replied the rumbling, burbling voice. “I am in-watient as you wy now. Ewerything else can ‘roceed without me and, I weliewe, reach com’letion simultaneously with this swecial missile tur-ret. That is, iw the Staurni system is as good as claimed.”

“Which is what you are supposed to decide.” Vadász nodded. Another irritating thing about Naqsans was their habit of solemnly repeating the obvious. In that respect they were almost as bad as humans. “Well, I’ve seen to your planetside supplies. Get your personal kit together and meet us at the lift platform outside in half an hour.”

“Us-s-s? Who goes to this Nest?”

“You and the skipper, of course, to make decisions, and Gregorios Koumanoudes to interpret. Myself … ah, officially this falls in the steward’s department also, since the extra armament will affect stowage. But in practice the steward’s department is idle, bored, and in dire need of a jaunt. Then there are two from the Quest, Victor Bragdon and Jocelyn Lawrie.”

“Why come they with?”

“They’re here for xenological research, you know. Accompanying us on a business trip to an important kinfather is a unique opportunity to observe laws and customs in action. So Bragdon offered to lend us one of his flyers, provided he and the woman could ride along. He wanted several of his people, actually, but Nesters limit the number of visitors at one time. Suspicious brutes. In any event, by using the flyer, we save this yacht for shuttle work and so expedite our own project.”

“I scent. No, you say ‘I see’ in English.” Uthg-a-K’thaq’s tone was indifferent. He turned and slap-slapped on webbed feet toward his cabin.

Vadász looked thoughtfully at his back until he had disappeared. I wonder how much of our interhuman quarrels and tensions come through to him, the Hungarian reflected. Perhaps none. Surely he will think the business between Gunnar and Jocelyn is utter triviation, if he even notices.

And he may well be right. Thus far, at least, it has only amounted to Gunnar’s being often absent from our vessel. Which has done no harm at the present stage of things. The men gossip, but the tone I hear is simple good-natured envy. For myself, I am the last to begrudge a friend what scrap of happiness he can stumble upon. Therefore—why does it make me uneasy, this?

He threw off worry and pushed buttons on the radiophone extension. A middle-aged, scholarly-looking man glared from Quest’s saloon.

“Good day, Dr. Towne,” Vadász said cheerily. “Would you please remind Captain Heim that we’re leaving in half an hour?”

“Let him remind himself,” the glossanalyst snapped.

“Do you so strongly oppose our little enterprise over here that you will not even give a man an intercom call?” Vadász leered. “Then kindly remind Mme. Lawrie.”

Towne reddened and cut the circuit. He must have some very archaic mores indeed. Vadász chuckled and strolled off to complete his own preparations, whistling to himself.

“Malbrouck se va-t-en guerre—”

—And aboard the Quest, Heim looked at a bulkhead clock, stretched, and said, “We’d better start.”

Jocelyn laid a hand on his roan hair, another beneath his chin, and brought the heavy-boned homely face around until it was close to hers. “Do we have to?” she asked.

The trouble in those eyes hurt him. He tried to laugh. “What, cancel this trip and lose Vie his data? He’d never forgive us.”

“He’d be nearly as happy as I. Because it’s far more important that … that you come out of this lunacy of yours, Gunnar.”

“My dear,” he said, “the only thing that’s marred an otherwise delightful time has been your trying and trying to wheedle me into giving up the raider project. You can’t. In the old Chinese advice, why don’t you relax and enjoy it?” He brushed his lips across hers.

She didn’t respond, but left the bed and walked across the cabin. “If I were young again,” she said bitterly, “I might have succeeded.”

“Huh? No, now, look—”

“I am looking.” She had stopped before a full-length optex beside her dresser. Slowly, she ran her hands down cheeks and breasts and flanks. “Oh, for forty-three I’m quite well preserved. But the crow’s feet are there, and the beginnings of the double chin, and without clothes I sag. You’ve been—good, kind—the last few days, Gunnar. But I noticed you never committed yourself to anything.”

He swung to his own feet, crossed the intervening distance in two strides, and towered over her; then didn’t know what to do next. “How could I?” he settled for saying. “I’ve no idea what may happen on the cruise. No right to make promises or—”

“You could make them conditionally,” she told him. The moment’s despair had left her, or been buried. Her expression was enigmatic, her tone impersonal. ” ‘If I come home alive,’ you might say, ‘I’ll do such and such, if you’re agreeable.’ “

He had no words. After some seconds she breathed out and turned from him. Her head drooped. “Well, let’s get dressed,” she said.

He put on the one-piece garment which doubled as under-padding for an airsuit, his motions automatic, his mind awash. Okay, what do I want? How much of what I felt (do I still feel it?) was genuine and how much was just a grab at the past when lonesomeness had me off balance? I plain don’t know.

His bewilderment didn’t last long, because he was the least self-analytical of men. He shoved his questions aside for later examination and, with them, most of the associated emotions. Affection for Jocelyn remained in the forefront of his awareness, along’ with regret that she had been hurt and a puzzled wish to do something about it; but overriding all else was eagerness to be away. He’d cooled his heels long enough on this island. The flight to Trebogir’s would be a small unleashing.

“C’mon,” he said with reborn merriment. His hand slapped the woman playfully. “Should be quite a trip, you know.”

She turned about Grief dwelt in her eyes and on her lips. “Gunnar—” She must look down at her fingers, tensed against each other. “You really don’t think I’m … a fool at best, a traitor at worst … for not wanting a war … do you?”

“Hvad for pokker!” he exclaimed, rocked back. “When did I give you that idea?”

She swallowed and found no reply.

He took her by the forearms and shook her gently. “You are a fool if you think I ever thought so,” he said. “Joss, I don’t want war any more than you. I believe a show of force now—one warning snap of teeth—may head off a fatal showdown later. That’s all. Okay, you have a different opinion. I respect it, and I respect you. What’ve I done to make you suppose anything different? Please tell me.”

“Nothing.” She straightened. “I’m being silly,” she said in a machine voice. “We’d better go.”

They went silently downhall. At the locker outside Boathouse Three, Victor Bragdon was donning his airsuit. “Hi, there,” he called. “I’d begun to wonder what was keeping you. One of your men delivered your stuff last watch, Gunnar. Good thing, too. You’d never fit into anybody else’s.”

Heim took the stiff fabric, zipped it shut around himself, and put on gloves and ankle-supporting boots with close attention to the fastenings. If the oxygen inside mingled with the hydrogen outside, he’d be a potential torch. Of course, in a flyer it was only a precaution to wear a full outfit; but he’d seen too often how little of the universe is designed for man to neglect any safety measure. Connecting the helmet to high-pressure air bottles and recycler tank, he hung the rig from his shoulders, but left the valves closed and the faceplate open. Now, the belt of food bars and medicines; canteen; waste unit; not the machine pistol, for you did not come armed into a Nest … He saw that Jocelyn was having some trouble with her gear and went to help.

“It’s so heavy,” she complained.

“Why, you wore much the same type on New Mars,” Heim said.

“Yes, but that was under half an Earth gravity.”

“Be glad we aren’t under the full Staurnian pull, then,” Bragdon said genially. He bent to pick up a carrying case.

“What’ve you got there?” Heim asked.

“Extra camera equipment. A last-minute thought. Don’t get alarmed, though. The field survival kit is aboard and double checked.” Bragdon was still grinning as he walked to the entry lock. His aquiline profile was rather carefully turned toward Jocelyn. Heim felt amused.

The boathouse seemed cavernous. The space auxiliary intended to rest here had been replaced by three atmospheric flyers built for work on subjovian planets; and one of them was out on a preliminary mapping flight. The humans wriggled through the lock of another bulky fuselage and strapped in, with Bragdon at the controls. He phonespoke to his dispatcher. The boathouse was evacuated, Staurn’s air was valved in, the outer doors were opened. With a whirr of power, the vehicle departed.

It set down again immediately, to let in Vadász, Koumanoudes, and Uthg-a-K’thaq. The Naqsan looked still more ungainly in his own airsuit than he did nude, but it confined most of his odor. Bragdon made a last check of his instruments and lifted skyward.

“I’m excited as a boy,” he said. “This’ll be the first real look I’ve had at the planet.”

“Well, you should be able to play tourist,” Koumanoudes said. “No bad weather’s predicted. ‘Course, we wouldn’t be aloft anyway in a Staurnian storm. Fee-ro-cious.”

“Indeed? I thought wind velocities were low in a high-density atmosphere.”

“Staurn’s isn’t that dense. About three times Earth pressure at sea level, with gravity accounting for a good deal of it. Also, you’ve got water vapor, which rises to breed thunderstorms. And so damn much solar energy.”

“What?” Jocelyn cast a surprised glance aft, not too near the morning sun. At half again the distance of Sol from Earth, the disc had slightly less angular diameter; and, while it was nearly twice as brilliant, throwing a raw blue-tinged light across the world, its total illumination was likewise a little inferior to home. “No, that can’t be. Staurn gets only—what is it?—20 percent more irradiation than Earth.”

“You forget how much of that is ultraviolet,” Heim reminded her, “with no free oxygen to make an ozone barrier.”

“A poor site for a nudist colony,” Vadasz said. “If the hydrogen, helium, and nitrogen don’t choke you, or the methane and ammonia poison you, the UV will crisp you like a steak.”

“Birr. When it’s so beautiful, too.” Jocelyn pressed her nose against the port by her seat and stared downward.

They were high now, with Orling dropping behind at supersonic speed. The island reared Gibraltar-like from an indigo sea, beaches obsidian black, land turned a thousand subtle shades of red by its forest. There was a final glimpse of a radar, skeletal at the spaceport, then that scar was lost to view and one saw only a great peace brooding under westward cliffs of cumulus. On the edge of vision, kilometers away, a flock of Staurni winged in a V on an unknown errand.

As if to escape some thought, Jocelyn pointed at them and said, “Pardon me if I’m dumb, but how can they fly? I mean, aren’t hydrogen breathers supposed to have less active metabolisms than oxygen breathers? And is the air pressure enough to support them against nearly twice Terrestrial gravity?”

“They have bird-type bones,” Koumanoudes explained.

“As for the energy consideration,” Heim added, “it’s true hydrogen gives less energy per mole than oxygen, reacting with carbon compounds. But there are an awful lot of hydrogen molecules in a lungful, here. Besides, the enzyme systems are efficient. And—well, look. Staurnian plants photo-synthesize water and methane to get free hydrogen and carbohydrates. Animals reverse the process. Only with that flood of ultraviolet on them, the plants build compounds more energy-rich than anything on Earth.”

“I see, I suppose.” She relapsed into her brown study.

The island fell below the wide horizon. They flew over wine darkness, streaked with foam, until the mainland hove into sight. There mountains climbed and climbed, red with wilderness at the foot, gray and ruggedly shadowed above, snowpeaked at the top. Sunlight glinted off a distant metallic speck. Heim tuned his and Jocelyn’s viewport to full magnification. The speck became a flyer, of gaunt unhuman design, patrolling above a cluster of fused-stone towers that clung to a precipice a kilometer over the surf. “The Perch of Rademir,” he said. “Better jog a little farther south, Vie. I’m told he’s somewhat peeved at us, and he just might get an impulse to attack.”

Bragdon adjusted the autopilot. “Why?”

“He wanted to sell us warheads, when Charlie Wong and I arrived to make arrangements,” Koumanoudes said. “But the Roost of Kragan offered us a better price.”

Bragdon shook his head. “I really don’t understand this culture,” he said. “Anarchy and atomic power. They can’t go together.”

“What?” Vadász tautened in his seat. “There is quite a literature on Staurn,” he said very slowly. “Have you not even read it?”

“Oh, sure, sure,” Bragdon answered in haste. “But it’s a jumble. Nothing scientific. My own field work was mainly on Isis.”

“We aren’t the best-prepared expedition that ever went out,” Jocelyn added. “Quite hurriedly organized, in fact. But with all the trouble in this sector, the Research Authority decided it was urgent to get some solid information on the space-traveling societies hereabouts.”

“The Staurni aren’t that, exactly,” Heim said. “They have the capability, but use it only for planetary defense purposes. They’ll trade with visitors, but aren’t interested in looking for business themselves.”

“They must once—Say.” Bragdon turned in his seat to face the others. “We’ve time to kill. Why don’t you give us your version of the situation here? Even when I’ve read it before, it’s helpful to have the material put in different words.”

Vadász narrowed his eyes and remained silent. Heim was chiefly conscious of Jocelyn’s glove resting on his. He thought that somehow she was pleading with him. To keep away from the thing that divided them? He leaned back, easing the weight of his air equipment onto the rest bracket, and said:

“I’m no expert. But as I understand it, the Staurni are a rare thing, a strictly carnivorous intelligent race. Normally carnivores specialize in fighting ability rather than brains, you know. I once talked with a buck who’d visited here and poked around a little. He said he’d noticed fossil outcrops that suggested this continent was invaded long ago by a bigger, related species. Maybe the ancestral Staurni had to develop intelligence to fight back. I dunno. However it happened, you’ve got a race with high-powered killer instincts and not gregarious. The basic social unit is, uh, a sort of family. A big family, with a system of companionate marriage so complicated that no human has ever figured it out, plus retainers with their own females and cubs; but still, a patriarchal household dominated by one big, tough male.” The flyer rocked in a gust. Heim peered out. At their present speed, they were already crossing the spine of the mountains. In the west he saw foothills, tumbling off to the red and tawny plain of the Uneasy Lands.

“I shouldn’t think that would make for advance beyond savagery,” Bragdon remarked.

“They managed it on Staurn, for a while. I don’t know how. But then, does anybody know for sure what the evolutionary laws of human civilization are? Maybe being winged, more mobile than us, helped the Staurni. In time they got a planet-wide industrial culture, split into confederations. They invented the scientific method and rode the exponential curve of discovery on up to nuclear engines and gravitronics.”

“I think,” Uthg-a-K’thaq grunted, “those nations were wuilt on conquest and slawery. Unnatural, and hence unstawle.”

Heim gave the tendriled face a surprised glance, shrugged, and went on: “Could be. Now there is one stabilizing factor. A Staurni male is fiercer than a man during his reproductive years, but when he reaches middle age he undergoes a bigger endocrine change than we do. Without getting weak otherwise, he loses both sex drive and belligerence, and prefers to live quietly at home. I suppose under primitive conditions that was a survival mechanism, to give the females and cubs some protection around the Nest while the young males were out hunting. In civilization it’s been a slightly mellowing influence. The oldsters are respected and listened to, somewhat, because of their experience.

“Nevertheless, the industrial society blew itself apart in a nuclear war. Knowledge wasn’t lost, nor even most of the material equipment, but organization was. Everywhere the Staurni reverted to these baronial Nests. Between the productivity of its automated machines and the return of big game to hunt, each such community is damn near independent. Nobody’s interested in any more elaborate social structures. Their present life suits them fine.”

“What about the Lodge?” Jocelyn asked.

“Oh, yes. There has to be some central group to arbitrate between Nests, defend the planet as a whole, and deal with outworlders. The Lodge grew up as a—I suppose quasi-religious organization, though I don’t know a thing about the symbolism. Its leaders are old males. The more active jobs are done by what you might call novices or acolytes, younger sons and such, who sign on for the adventure and the concubines and the prospect of eventually becoming full initiates. It works pretty well.”

“It wouldn’t with humans,” Bragdon said.

“Yeh,” Koumanoudes answered, “but these people aren’t human.”

“That’s about everything I know,” Heim said. “Nothing you haven’t found in books and journals, I’m sure.”

He looked outside again. The prairie was sliding swiftly beneath; he could hear the whistle and feel the vibration of their passage. A herd of grazing beasts darkened the land and was gone. Eastward the last mountain-tops vanished. No one spoke for a considerable period. Heim was in fact startled to note how much time had gone by while they all sat contemplating the view or their own thoughts, before Bragdon ended the silence.

“One item I have not seen explained,” he said. “Apparently each Nest maintains a nuclear arsenal and military production equipment. What for?”

“To fight,” Koumanoudes said. “They get an argument the Lodge can’t settle, like over territory, and hoo! They rip up the landscape. We’ll probably see a few craters.”

“But … no. That sort of insanity smashed their civilization.”

“The last phase of their civilization, you mean,” Heim said. “The present one isn’t vulnerable. A Nest is mostly underground, and even the topside buildings are nearly blast-proof. Radiation affects a Staurni a lot less than a human, he gets so much of it in the normal course of life; and they have medicines for an overdose here, same as us. And there are no incendiary effects, not in a hydrogen atmosphere. In fact, before atomic energy, the only way to smelt metals was to use a volcanic outlet—which there are plenty of on a big planet with a hot core.”

“So they have no restrictions,” Jocelyn murmured. “Not even on selling the things offworld, for others to kill with.”

“We’ve been over that ground too mucking often,” Koumanoudes growled.

“Free-fall, Greg,” Heim warned. The woman’s face was so unhappy.

Koumanoudes shifted in his seat, glared out, and grew suddenly rigid.

“Hey!” he barked.

“What’s the matter?” Bragdon asked.

“Where do you think you’re headed?”

“Why, to the Aerie of Trebogir.”

The Greek half rose. His forefinger stabbed at the bow viewports. Above the horizon, ghostly in its detachment, floated a white cone. The plain beneath rolled down toward a thread which wound blinding silver through a valley where cloud shadows ran.

“What the hell!” he exploded. “That’s the River Morh. Got to be. Only I know the map. Trebogir doesn’t live anywhere in sight of a snowpeak. It must belong to Kimreth upland. We’re a good five hundred kilometers north of where we should be!”

Sweat sprang forth on Bragdon’s forehead. “I did set a roundabout course, to get a better look at the countryside,” he admitted.

“And never told us?” Koumanoudes yanked at his harness. “I should’ve noticed where the sun is. Get away from that pilot board. I’m taking over.”

Heim’s eyes swung to Jocelyn. Her fists were clamped together and she breathed in deep uneven gulps.

Bragdon darted his hand into the carrying case by his seat. It lifted, and Heim stared down the barrel of a laser pistol.

“Sit back!” Bragdon ordered. “I’ll shoot the first one who unstraps himself.”

IV

When he cycled through the airlock, out of the flyer’s interior gee-field, Staurn yanked at Heim so violently that he staggered. He tightened his leg muscles and drew himself erect. However well balanced, the load of gear on him was monstrous.

Jocelyn had gone ahead, to cover the prisoners as they emerged. She looked grotesquely different in her airsuit, and the dark faceplate was a mask over her features. He moved toward her.

“Stop!” In spite of the helmet pickups being adjusted to compensate for changed sound-transmission parameters, her voice was eerily different. He halted under the menace of her gun. It was a .45 automatic, throwing soft-nosed slugs at low velocity to rip open a man’s protection.

He drew a long breath, and another. His own air was a calculated percentage composition at three atmospheres, both to balance outside pressure and to furnish extra oxygen for the straining cells. It made his words roar in the helmet: “Joss, what is this farce?”

“You’ll never know how sorry I am,” she said unevenly. “If you’d listened to me, back on the ship—”

“Your whole idea, then, was to wreck my plan,” he flung at her.

“Yes. It had to be done. Can’t you see, it had to! There’s no chance of negotiating with Alerion when … when you’re waging war. Their delegates told Earth so officially, before they left.”

“And you believed them? Don’t you know any more history than that?”

She didn’t seem to hear. Words cataracted from her; through all the distortion, he could read how she appealed to him.

“Peace Control Intelligence guessed you’d come here for your weapons. They couldn’t send an armed ship. The Staurni wouldn’t have allowed it. In fact, France could block any official action. But unofficially—We threw this expedition together and took off after you. I learned about it because PCI found out I was an, an, an old friend of yours and interrogated me. I asked to come along. I thought, I hoped I could persuade you.”

“By any means convenient,” he bit off. “There’s a name for that.”

“I failed,” she said desolately. “Vie decided this trip was his chance to act. We don’t mean to hurt you. We’ll take you back to Earth. Nothing more. You won’t even be charged with anything.”

“I could charge kidnapping,” he said.

“If you want to,” she mumbled.

Hopelessness gutted him. “What’s the use? You’d get yourself a judge who’d put you on probation.”

Vadász appeared, then Koumanoudes, then Uthg-a-K’thaq. The Greek cursed in a steady stream.

Without a captain, without a chief engineer, Fox will have to go home, beaten before one blow is struck, Heim thought.

He looked around. They had landed on the west bank of the Morh. It ran wide and luminous through a sandy, boulder-strewn dale walled by low bluffs. The mountains of Kimreth reared opposite the sun, still many kilometers distant, not quite real in the blue-gray haze of intervening air, but a titan’s rampart, dominated by the volcanic cone he had seen from afar. Underfoot the ground was covered by that springy mosslike red-yellow growth which was this world’s equivalent of grass. Overhead the sky arched plum-dark, clouds scudding on a wind that boomed in his audio receptors. A flock of airborne devilfish shapes drifted into sight and out again.

How far have we come? What’s going to happen?

Vadász moved to Heim’s side, touched helmets, and muttered, “Quickly, can we rush her? I do not think her aim will be good here.”

“Nor can we move fast,” Heim said. Though … would you really shoot me, Joss?

His heart thuttered and sweat smelt sharp in his nostrils. But before he could nerve himself to try, Bragdon was out, and there was no question whether that laser pistol would be used.

“G’yaaru!” Uthg-a-K’thaq shouted. “You hawe lewt the airlock owen!”

“I know,” Bragdon said. “And I’ve set the pilot a certain way. Better lie down.” He eased himself to a sitting position.

The flyer whined and leaped forward. The glare off its metal blinded Heim. He saw what seemed a comet arc off the ground, to a hundred meters, loop about, and plunge. Instinct sent him flat on his belly.

Some distance away, the flyer crashed. The explosive mixture of hydrogen and oxygen went off. Blue flame spurted upward. Thunder coughed, again and again, and Heim heard shards scream above him. Then there was only a thick pillar of smoke and dust, while echoes tolled away and were lost in the wind.

He strained back to his feet. His head still rang. The other males did likewise. Jocelyn remained seated.

“Great … jumping … Judas,” Koumanoudes gasped. “What have you done?”

“Don’t be alarmed,” said Bragdon. “We have other transportation coming.” He paused. “I may as well explain. The object is to cripple your damned piracy by taking you back to Earth. I had various schemes in mind, but this chance suggested a simple method.

“One other flyer is out, with a couple of young men who know what’s afoot and know approximately where I intended to do this. They can spot the wreckage from afar. We’ll all go aboard and return to the Quest, Only we’ll be on the floor, out of sight, and I’m sorry, but you’ll be tied. Once back inside the ship, you’ll be taken to a special cell we’ve got fixed. Jocelyn and I will stay concealed too. When you don’t report in, your crew will get worried and go look for you. Naturally, Captain Gutierrez will lend every assistance. The wreck will be found—unfortunate crash, everybody killed. No one’s likely to check so close that he’ll see there are no human remains. But if anybody does, he’ll conclude that we hiked off in a forlorn attempt to get help, and soon died. So, with much sorrow, two spoiled expeditions wend their separate ways home.”

“Can you rely on your crew?” Vadász asked, snake cold.

“They won’t know the truth until Quest is again in space,” Bragdon said. “Captain Gutierrez and First Officer Hermann do already. I don’t expect the men will mutiny.”

“You filthy bastard—” Koumanoudes advanced a stiff-legged step.

“Halt,” Bragdon warned. “I’m entirely prepared to shoot if I must. On the other hand, if you behave yourselves you’ll be released unharmed on Earth.”

Heim hunched his shoulders. “How will you prevent us from starting right out again?” he inquired.

“Have you forgotten? Your ship’s now equipped for nuclear weapons. The moment she enters the Solar System, the Peace Control Authority is law-bound to seize her. And without their principal officers, where else can your men go?”

“Who are you working for, Bragdon?” Heim fleered. “Alerion?”

“Mankind.” The answer was proud. “In case you’re interested, I’m not a xenologist, only a PCA officer on leave, and they’ll cashier me for this. It’s worth it, though. World Militants for Peace will see I get another job.”

“They engineered this, huh?” Koumanoudes snorted. “Yeh. They’ve got members in government too.”

Heim spoke to Jocelyn. “You never actually quit that gang, did you?”

“Please, please,” her whisper drifted down the wind.

“We may as well make ourselves comfortable,” Bragdon advised. “This gravity will wear us out if we don’t The other vessel probably won’t arrive for several hours, since we couldn’t make exact timing or location arrangements, or risk radio.” He gestured with his gun. “You sit before I do.”

Vadász was so near Heim that the captain alone heard the minstrel’s indrawn hiss and noticed how he stiffened. “Heigh-ho, Roger!” he murmured. “Hook the first moon by.”

“What’s that?” Bragdon challenged, for he saw his prisoners go taut.

“I would not translate in a lady’s presence,” Vadász snarled.

It thrilled through Heim. Spaceman’s slang. “Something’s about to happen. Take your chance when you see it.” The blackness and coldness departed him. His pulse slammed with preparation to fight.

“Are you skizzy, though?” Vadász continued. “We can’t stay here.”

“What d’you mean?” Bragdon demanded.

“Next to a river like this. Flash floods. We will get tumbled around, our suits torn open, we are dead unless we get on higher ground.”

“You lie!”

“No, no. Look at those mountains. Think. A dense atmosphere under strong gravity has a high density gradient, therefore a high temperature gradient. This is autumn. It gets cold enough at night, above snowline, to freeze ammonia. But the stuff liquefies again about noon, and pours down into the riverbeds. The gravity pulls it so fast that it goes fifty kilometers or better before it evaporates. Isn’t that true, Gregorios? You were the one who told me.”

“Sure,” Koumanoudes said. “That’s what the name Morh means. Floodwater.”

“If this is some trick—” Bragdon began.

It sure as blaze is, Heim’s thought leaped. There’s no such phenomenon. But the yarn sounds plausible to a newcomer—I hope—how I hope!

“I swear I’ll shoot on any suspicion,” Bragdon said.

Heim started to walk away from him. “Do, if you want,” he retorted. “That’s an easier way to die than in an ammonia flood. You can’t stop me trying to get on top of those bluffs.”

His back was tense against the firebeam. But only Jocelyn’s cry reached him: “Vie, no, don’t! What’s the harm?”

“I … guess none, except that it’s a difficult climb,” Bragdon conceded. “Okay. You people go first Jocelyn will cover me while I follow. If you feel like running away, once you’re over the crest, I don’t mind too much. You can’t get far before the flyer comes, and we’ll catch you then. Or if you find some hiding place, Staurn will kill you for me.”

Step by heavy step, Heim wound among the scattered rocks until he reached the nearest bank. It was bare gritty earth, mingled with stones, not high or steep but a daunting obstacle when this weight bore on him. He commenced trudging upward. The slope gave way under his boots, slid past in a hiss and a rattle, he lost his footing and went to hands and knees.

Fumbling erect, he proceeded cautiously. Before long he was half drowned in sweat, his heart raced and the air burned his throat. Through blurred eyes he saw Vadász and Koumanoudes toiling behind. Uthg-a-K’thaq made it with less trouble, down on his stomach, pushing with wide feet and scrabbling with powerful swimmer’s arms; but still the Naqsan’s breath was noisy across the wind.

Somehow they got to the top. Heim and his engineer gave the others a hand. They crouched on the brink and wheezed.

There was a stone under Heim’s glove. His fingers closed. As strength returned, he saw Bragdon halfway up. The Peaceman was taking his time, frequent lengthy rests, during which he stood gun in hand and glared at the privateers. Jocelyn waited below. Now and then sand or pebbles skittered around her, dislodged by Bragdon; but she didn’t try to dodge. Her suited form looked black in the lightning-blue sun-dazzle; her pistol reflected it moltenly.

Vadász knelt between Heim and Koumanoudes. He squeezed their hands. No other signal or explanation was needed.

Heim threw his stone. An instant later, their own missiles whizzed from his men. Accelerated at nineteen hundred centimeters per second per second, the rocks flew as if catapulted. He didn’t know whose hit Bragdon. He saw the man lurch and fall. Then he and his folk were on their way down again.

Leap—slide—run—skip—keep your feet in the little avalanche you make—charge in your weight like a knight at full gallop!

Jocelyn had not been struck. He saw her stumble back, slow and awkward, and bounded past the collision of Bragdon and Koumanoudes. Dust boiled from his boot-soles. Twice he nearly fell. It could have snapped his neck at the speed he now had. Somehow he recovered balance and raged on ahead.

Down to the valley floor! He must tumble or run, f aster than man had ever run before. His body was a machine gone wild, he fought to steer it and slow it but the momentum was overwhelming. Each footfall slammed through muscle and bone to rattle his teeth. The blood brawled in his ears. Jocelyn had shot once while he plunged. The slug whanged wide. He saw the gun slew around to take closer aim. No chance for fear or hope. He had nothing but velocity. Yet it was too great for common sense to perceive. In her panic and her anguish she hesitated before shooting anew. The time was a fractional second. A man attacking her on Earth would have taken the bullet point blank. Heim crashed by before she could squeeze trigger. His fist shot out. He did not snatch the gun. His blow tore it from her grasp and spun it meters away.

On flat terrain he braked himself to a normal run, a jog, a halt. He wheeled. Jocelyn had been knocked down by his mere brush against her. She was still struggling to regain her feet. Through his own deep gasps, he heard her weep. He plodded to retrieve the pistol.

When he had it, he looked for the others. Uthg-a-K’thaq slumped on his feet in the rubble under the bluff. Two men stood half crouched nearby. One held the laser. A third sprawled unmoving between them, suit rent and blackened.

Heim steadied one shaking hand with the other and took aim. “Endre!” he called, hoarse and in horror.

“We have him,” rang back the voice of the armed man. It sank till the wind nearly overrode it. “But Gregorios is done.”

Slowly, Heim dragged his way thither. He could not see through the Greek’s sooted faceplate. In a dull fashion he was glad of that. The laser beam had slashed open fabric and body, after which gases mixed and exploded. Blood was streaked round about, garish scarlet.

A gruesome keening lifted from the Naqsan. “Gwurru shka ektrush, is this war? We do not thus at home. Rahata, rahata.”

“Bragdon must have recovered himself and shot as Gregorios jumped him,” Vadász said drearily. “The impact jarred his gun loose. I got it and came back here, where they both had rolled. C.E. held him pinned meanwhile.”

Heim stared long at the Peaceman. Finally, mechanically, he asked, “Any serious injuries?”

“No,” Bragdon replied in the same monotone. “At least, no bones broken. I’ve a headache.” He stumbled off, lowered himself to the ground, and lay there with an arm across his faceplate.

“I thought we could get away with this,” Vadász said, eyes fixed on the dead man.

“We did,” Heim answered. “Wars have casualties.” He clapped the minstrel’s shoulder and walked toward Jocelyn. Sweat, runneling down his body, squelched in his boots. He felt a tightness in chest and gullet as if he were about to cry, but he wasn’t able.

“You all right, Joss?” he asked. She backed away. “I won’t hurt you,” he said.

“But I shot at you!” Her voice was as a frightened child’s.

“That’s in the game.” He laid his arms around her and drew the helmet against his breast. She sobbed for minutes. He waited it out from a vague sense of duty. Not that he hated her; there was a strange ashy vacuum where she had been in him. His emotions were engaged with the man who had died, his thoughts with what must be done.

At last he could leave her, seated and silent. He went on to the wrecked flyer. Fragments and cargo were scattered from hell to breakfast. He found an unharmed entrenching tool and several machetes and carried them back. “Start digging, Bragdon,” he said. “What?” The man jerked where he lay. “We’re not going to leave Greg Koumanoudes unburied. It’ll have to be a shallow grave, but—Get busy. Somebody will spell you when you’re tired.”

Bragdon rose, centimeter by centimeter. “What have you done?” he cried.

“I didn’t kill that man. You did, with your insane attempt to—to what? Do you think you can stand off our flyer?”

“No,” Heim said. “I don’t plan to be here when it arrives.”

“But—but—but—”

“You left your motor running.” Heim gave him the tool and continued on to Vadász. Uthg-a-K’thaq bestirred himself and came to help, scooping dirt with his hands.

“Did you think of anything beyond getting control?” Heim asked the Magyar.

“No,” said Vadász. “A dim idea of—I knew not what, except that my forefathers never quit without a fight.”

“Sit down and let’s look at the poopsheets.” Every suit had a pocket loaded with charts and other local information. There wasn’t much about Staurn. Heim unfolded the map of this region. It fluttered and crackled in the wind. He spread it across his knees. “Greg would have known what these symbols mean. But look—” His finger traced the outlines. “Those mountains are the Kimreth boundary and this is the River Morh; we know that. Now, see, Mount Lochan is marked as the highest in the northern sierra. In fact, no other peak stands that much bigger than its neighbors. So yonder old volcano has to be Lochan. Then we’re about here.”

“Yes.” A certain life returned to Vadisz’s speech. “And here is the Hurst of Wenilwain on Lochan’s northern slope. About a hundred airline kilometers hence, would you not say? I doubt we can survive that big a walk. But if we can get moderately near, someone flying on patrol or on a hunt ought to spy us.”

“And Wenilwain knows us. Uh-huh.” Heim shook his head. “It’s a long chance to take, I admit. What are these areas marked between us and him? The Walking Forest; the Slaughter Machines; Thundersmoke.”

“Let me try—” Vadász riffled through the pitifully thin handbook. “No entry. But then, this is a stat of a map annotated by Gregorios and Charles, on the basis of what they learned while dealing with the natives. They must have planned to pass the information on when they got home. It’s a common practice.”

“I know. And Greg’s dead. Well, we’ll find out.”

“What of those?” Vadász pointed at Bragdon painfully digging, Jocelyn huddled by herself.

“They’ll have to come along, I’m afraid. For one thing, it’ll puzzle and delay their, friends, not to find anybody here, and so give us time to find cover. For another thing, we’ll need every hand we can get, especially when we hit the foothills.”

“Wait!” Vadász slapped the ground. His voice Weakened. “Gunnar, we cannot do it. We have air recyclers, but nothing for water except a day’s worth in these canteens. That isn’t even allowing for what we will need to reconstitute powdered food. And you know that ten kilometers a day, afoot, will be fantastic progress.”

Heim actually noticed himself smiling, lopsidedly. “Haven’t you ever met that trick? We won’t be far from native water at any time; notice these streams on the map. So we fill our canteens, put the laser pistol at wide beam and low intensity, and boil out the ammonia.”

“Spending the capacitor charges,” Vadász objected. “That leaves only your slugthrower for defense.”

“Shucks, Endre, local tigers are no problem. We’re as unsavory to them as they’d be to us. Our biggest enemy is the gravity drag; our second biggest the short food and medicine supply; our third, maybe, bad weather if we hit any.”

“M-m-m … as you say. I would still like to know precisely what the Slaughter Machines are. But—yes, of course, we will try.” The minstrel got up almost bouncily. “In fact, you have made me feel so much better that I think I can take my turn at digging.”

They had not much time to spare, enough barely to scrape a little earth over the fallen man and hear Vadász sing the Paternoster. Then they departed.

V

Four Staurnian days? Five? Heim wasn’t sure. The nightmare had gone on too long.

At first they made good time. The ground rolled quite gently upward, decked with sparse forest that hid them from aerial searchers without hindering their feet. They were all in trim physical shape. And their survival gear, awkward though it seemed, was a miracle of lightness and compactness.

Yet between it and the gravity, each was carrying a burden equal to more than his own Earth weight. “Good time” meant an average of hardly over one kilometer per hour.

Then the land canted and they were on the slopes of Kimreth’s foothills. Worse, their bodies. were beginning to show cumulative effects of stress. This was nothing so simple as exhaustion. Without a sealtent, they could never take off their airsuits. The recyclers handled volatile by-products of metabolism; but slowly, slowly, the fractional percent that escaped chemical treatment built up. Stench and itch were endurable, somewhat, for a while. Too much aldehyde, kettone, organic acid, would not be.

And high gravity has a more subtle, more deadly effect than overworking the heart. It throws the delicate body-fluid balance—evolved through a billion years on one smaller planet—out of kilter. Plasma seeps through cell walls. Blood pools in the extremities, ankles swell while the brain starves. On Staurn this does not happen fast. But it happens.

Without the drugs in their medikits, gravanol, kinesthan, assorted stimulants and analgesics, the travelers would not have traveled three days. When the drugs gave out (and they were getting low) there would be perhaps one day in which to go on, before a man lay down to die.

Is it worth it? gibbered through the querning in Heim’s skull. Why didn’t we go back home? I can’t remember now. His thought fluttered away again. Every remnant of attention must go to the Sisyphus task of picking up one foot, advancing it, putting it down, picking up the other foot, advancing it … Meanwhile a death-heavy weight dragged at his right side. Oh, yes, Jocelyn, he recalled from a remote past. The rest of us have to take turns helping her along.

She stumbled. Both of them came near falling. “Gotta rest,” her air-warped voice wavered.

“You rested … till ten minutes ago … Come!” He jerked brutally on the improvised harness which joined them.

They reeled on for another five hundred seconds. “Time,” Vadász called at the end. They lowered themselves down on their backs and breathed.

Eventually Heim rose to his knees. His vision had cleared and his head throbbed a bit less. He could even know, in a detached way, that the scenery was magnificent.

Eastward the hills up which he was laboring swooped in long curves and dales toward the illimitable hazy plain. The gentled light of an evening sun turned their colors—tawny and orange, with red splashes to mark stands of forest—into a smoldering richness. Not far away a brook twisted bright among boulders, until it foamed over in a series of cataracts whose noise was like bells through the still air. A swarm of insectoidal creatures, emerald bodies and rainbow wings, hovered above the pools it made.

Westward the mountains loomed dark and wild against the sun, which was near their ridge. Yet it tinged Lochan’s snowcone, a shape as pure as Fuji’s, with unearthly greens and blues under a violet heaven. The crags threw their shadows far down the sides, dusking whatever was ahead on Heim’s route. But he saw that, a kilometer hence, a wood grew. His field glasses showed it apparently thick with underbrush. But it was too far to go around—he couldn’t see the northern or southern end—while it was probably not very wide.

Vadász had also been looking in that direction. “I think best we call this a day,” he said.

“It’s early yet,” Heim objected.

“But the sun will soon go below that high horizon. And we are exhausted, and tomorrow we shall have to cut our way through yonder stuff. A good rest is a good investment for us, Gunnar.”

Hell, we’ve been sleeping nine hours out of the eighteen! Heim glanced at the others. Their suits had become as familiar to him as the seldom seen faces. Jocelyn was already unconscious. Uthg-a-K’thaq seemed to flow bonelessly across the place where he lay. Vadász and Bragdon sat tailor style, but their backs were bent. And every nerve in Heim carried waves of weariness. “All right,” he said.

He hadn’t much appetite, but forced himself to mix a little powder with water and squeeze the mess through his chowlock. When that was done, he stretched himself as well as his backpack allowed. Some time had passed before he realized that he wasn’t sleepy. Exhausted, yes; aching and throbbing; but not sleepy. He didn’t know whether to blame overtiredness or the itch in undepilated face and unwashed skin. Lord, Lord, what I’d give for a bath, clean sheets to lie between, clean air to breathe! He braked that thought. There was danger enough without adding an extra psychological hazard.

Pushing himself to a seated position, he watched the light die on Mount Lochan. The sky darkened toward night, a few stars trembled, the little crescent of the outer moon stood steely near the zenith.

“You too?”

Heim shifted so he could see through his faceplate who had joined him. Bragdon. Reflexively, his hand dropped to his pistol.

Bragdon laughed without humor. “Relax. You’ve committed us too thoroughly.”

After a moment: “Damn you.”

“Who made this mess in the first place?” Heim growled.

“You did, back in the Solar System … I’ve heard that Jews believe death itself to be an act of expiation. Maybe when we die here on Staurn, you’ll make some amends for him we had to bury.”

“I didn’t shoot him,” Heim said between his teeth.

“You brought about the situation.”

“Dog your hatch before I take a poke at you.”

“Oh, I don’t hold myself guiltless. I should have managed things better. The whole human race is blood guilty.”

“I’ve heard that notion before, and I don’t go along with it The human race is nothing but a species. Individuals are responsible for what they personally do.”

“Like setting out to fight private wars? I tell you, Heim, that man would be alive today if you’d stayed home.”

Heim squinted through the murk. He could not see Bragdon’s face, nor interpret nuances in the transformed voice. But—“Look here,” he said, “I could accuse you of murder in the course of making your own little foreign policy. My expedition is legal. It may even be somewhat more popular than otherwise. I’m sorry about Greg. He was my friend. More, he was under my command. But he knew the risks and accepted them freely. There are worse ways to die than in battle for something that matters. You do protest too much.”

Bragdon started backward. “Don’t say any more!”

Heim hammered pitilessly: “Why aren’t you asleep? Could it be that Greg came back in your dreams? Have you been thinking that your noisy breed may be powered less by love than by hate? Would you like to chop off the finger that pulled trigger on a man who was trying to do his best for Earth? Can you afford to call anyone a murderer?”

“Go to hell!” Bragdon screamed. “Go to hell! Go to hell!” He crawled off on all fours. Some meters distant, he collapsed and shuddered.

Maybe I was too rough on him, Heim thought. He’s sincere … Fout on that. Sincerity is the most overrated virtue in the catalogue. He eased himself back to the turf. Presently he slept.

Sunrise woke him, level across the Uneasy Lands and tinging Mount Lochan with fire. He felt more stiff and hollow-headed each dawn, but it helped to move about, fix a cold breakfast and boil a fresh supply of water. Bragdon was totally silent; no one else said many words. But as they started the long slog toward the forest—a whole kilometer uphill—Vadász began to sing.

“Trois jeunes tambours, s’en revenaient de guerre.

Trois jeunes tambours, s’en revenaient de guerre.

Et ri, et ran, ra-pa-ta-plan, S’en revenaient de guerre.—”

When he had finished, he went on to “Rimini,” “Marching through Georgia,” “The British Grenadiers,” and “From Syrtis to Cydonia.” Heim and Jocelyn panted with him in the choruses, and perhaps Uthg-a-K’thaq, or even Bragdon, got some help too from the tramping rhythms and the brave images of home. They reached the woods sooner, in better shape, than expected.

“Thanks, Endre,” Heim said.

“My job, you know,” Vadász answered.

Resting before they went among the trees, Heim studied the growth more closely. At a distance, by dawnlight, he had seen that it wound across the hills along a fault line, and was as sharply bordered as if artificial. Since the northwestern edge was well above him on a steep rise, he had also made out a curious, churned sweep of soil on that side, which passed around the slopes beyond his purview. Now he was too near to see anything but the barrier itself.

“Not brushy after all,” he observed in surprise. “Only one kind of plant. What do you think of that?”

“We are none xenowotanists,” the engineer grunted.

The trees were about four meters tall; nothing grows high on Staurn. And they were no thicker than a man’s arm. But numberless flexible branches grew along the stems, from top to bottom, each in turn split into many shoots. In places the entanglement of limbs was so dense as to be nearly solid. Only the upper twigs bore leaves; but those were matted together into a red roof beneath which the inner forest looked night-black.

“This’ll be machete work,” Heim said. “We shouldn’t have to move a lot slower than usual, though. One man cuts—that doesn’t look too hard-while the others rest. I’ll begin.” He unlimbered his blade.

Which! Which! The wood was soft, the branches fell right and left as fast as he could wield his tool. In an hour the males ran through a cycle of turns, Jocelyn being excused, and were far into the forest. With the sun still only a couple of hours up, Heim exulted.

“Take over, Gunnar,” Vadász rattled. “The sweat is gurgling around my mouth.”

Heim rose and advanced along the narrow trail. It was hot and still in here. A thick purple twilight soaked through the leaves, making vision difficult where one stood and impossible a few meters off. Withes rustled against him, spring-fly resisting his passage. He felt a vibration go back through the machete and his wrist, into his body, as he chopped. Huh! Odd. Like the whole interlocked wilderness shivering. The trees stirred and soughed. Yet there was no breath of wind.

Jocelyn shrieked.

Heim spun on his heel. A branch was coiling down past her, along her airsuit. Something struck his back. He lifted his machete—tried to—a dozen tendrils clutched him by the arm. He tore free.

An earthquake rumble went through the gloom. Heim lost balance under a thrust. He fell to one knee. Pain shot through the point of impact. The tree before his eyes swayed down. Its many-fingered lower branches touched the soil and burrowed. Leaves drew clear of each other with a crackling like fire. He glimpsed sky, then he was blinded by their descent about his head.

He shouted and slashed. A small space opened around him. The tree was pulling loose its roots. Groaning, shuddering, limbs clawed into the earth, it writhed forward.

The entire forest was on the march. The pace wasn’t quick, no faster than a man could walk on Staurn, but it was resistless. Heim scrambled up and was instantly thrown against a tangle of whipping branches. Through airsuit and helmet he felt those buffets. He reeled away. A trunk, hitching itself along, smote him in the stomach. He retched and dropped his machete. Almost at once it began to be covered, as limbs pulled from the ground and descended for the next grab along their way. Heim threw what remained of his strength against them. They resisted with demoniac tenacity. He never knew how he managed to part them long enough to retrieve the blade.

Above the crashing and enormous rustle he heard Jocelyn scream again, not in startlement but in mortal terror. He knelt to get under the leaves and peered wildly about. Through swaying, lurching trunks, snake-dancing branches, clawing twigs, murk, and incandescent sunlight spears, he saw her. She had fallen. Two trees had her pinned. They could break bones or rip her suit when they crawled across her body.

His blade flew in his hand. A battle cry burst from his mouth. He beat his way to her like a warrior hewing through enemy lines. The stems had grown rigid, as if they had muscles now tightened. His blows rebounded. A sticky fluid spurted from the wounds he made. “Gunnar, help!” she cried in sightlessness. He cleared brush from her until he could stoop and pull her free.

“You okay?” He must shout to be heard in the racket. She lay against him and sobbed. Another tree bent down upon them. He yanked her to her feet.

“To me!” he bellowed. “Over here!”

Uthg-a-K’thaq wriggled to join him. The Naqsan’s great form parted a way for Bragdon. Vadász wove lithely through the chaos.

“Joss in the middle,” Heim ordered. “The rest of us, back to back around her. We can’t outrun this mess, can’t stay here either. We’d exhaust ourselves just keeping our feet. Forward!”

His blade caught a sunbeam and burned in its arc.

The rest was chop, wrestle, duck, and dodge, through the moving horror. Heim’s awareness had gone coldly lucid; he watched what happened, saw a pattern, found a technique. But the strength to keep on, directly across that tide, came from a deeper source. It was more than the simple fear of death. Something in him revolted against his bones being tumbled forever among these marching trolls.

Bragdon gave way first. “I can’t … lift … this … any more,” he groaned, and sank to the earth. Wooden fingers closed about one leg.

Uthg-a-K’thaq released him. “Get in the middle, then,” the Naqsan said. “Hel’ him, you Lawrie.”

Later in eternity, Vadász’s machete sank. “I am sorry.” The minstrel could barely be heard. “Go on.”

“No!” Heim said. “We’ll all get out, or none.”

“Let me try,” Jocelyn said. She gave Vadász into the care of Bragdon, who had recovered a little, and took his knife herself. Her blows were weak, but they found she could use the tool as a crowbar to lever a path for herself.

And … sunlight, open sky, turf under Lochan’s holy peak. They went a few meters farther before they toppled.

Heim woke a couple of hours afterward. For a while he blinked at heaven and found curious shapes in the clouds, as if again he were a boy on Gea. When memory came back, he sat upright with a choked oath.

The trees were still moving past. He thought, though, they had slowed down. Northwestward, opposite to their direction, he saw their trail of crumbled earth. The most distant part that he could spy was overlaid with pale yellow, the first new growth.

Uthg-a-K’thaq was the only other one awake. The Naqsan flopped down beside him. “Well, skiwwer, now we know what the Walking Worest is.”

“I’d like to know how it works,” Heim said.

Rest had temporarily cleared his mind. An answer grew. “I’m only guessing, of course,” he said after a minute, “but it could be something like this. The ultraviolet sunlight makes plant chemistry hellish energetic. That particular species there needs something, some mineral maybe. Where faulting exposes a vein of it, a woods appears.”

“Not likely mineral,” Uthg-a-K’thaq corrected. “You cannot hawe liwe dewendent on sheer geological accident.”

“Geology operates faster on a big planet than a terrestrial one, C.E.,” Heim argued. “Still, I’ll agree it makes poor ecology. Let me think … Okay, let’s say you get bacteria laying down organic stuff of a particular kind, wherever conditions are right. Such deposits would be fairly common, exposed fairly often. Those trees could broadcast spores that can lie dormant for centuries, waiting for a chance to sprout. All right, then, they consume the deposit at a tremendous rate. Once mature, such a forest has to keep moving because the soil gets exhausted where it stands. Reproduction is too slow; the trees themselves have to move. Evidently sunlight starts them on their way, because you remember they didn’t begin till mid-morning and now in the afternoon they’re coming to a halt.”

“What hawwens when they hawe eaten out the whole wein?”

“They die. Their remains go, back to the soil. Eventually everything gets reprocessed into the material they need, and the spores they’ve left wake to life.” Heim grimaced. “Why am I trying to play scientist? Defense mechanism? I’ve got to believe that thing is natural.”

“We came through it aliwe,” Uthg-a-K’thaq said calmly. “Is that not suwwicient?”

Heim didn’t reply. His gaze drifted west, whither he had yet to go. Did he see a vague plume of mist on the lower steeps of Lochan? It was too distant for him to be sure. But—Thundersmoke? Whatever that is. No need to worry about it now. First we’ve got to get past the Slaughter Machines.

VI

Two more days—twenty kilometers? They could not have done that much were they not crossing a flat space, a plateau on the lap of Lochan.

It was dreary country, treeless, rock-strewn, sparsely covered with low yellowish scrub. Many streams ran down toward the Morh, their tinkle the only sound except for an endless whittering wind; but the banks held no more life than the dusty stretches beyond. Alone the ranges that hemmed in the world on three sides, and the splendid upward leap of the snowcone ahead, redeemed this landscape.

The first evening they camped in sight of a crater. Its vitrified walls gleamed reddish black, like clotted blood, in the last sunlight. Vadász pointed and remarked, “I thought this region is barren because runoff from above leached the soil. Now I find otherwise.”

“How so?” Heim asked, incurious in his fatigue.

“Why, yonder is plain to see as bombwork. There must have been an industrial center here once, that was destroyed in the war.”

“And you’d let the same happen to Earth!” Bragdon’s accusation was the first word he had spoken in more than a day.

Heim sighed. “How often must I explain?” he said, more to Jocelyn than to the Peaceman. “Earth has space defenses. She can’t be attacked—unless we drift on from crisis to crisis till matters get so bad that both sides have to build fleets “big enough to take the losses in breaking through. All I want is to head off that day by settling with Alerion now. Unfortunately, Alerion isn’t interested in a reasonable settlement. We’ve got to prove to them that they haven’t any alternative.”

“Womwardment does not account wor the inwertility here,” said Uthg-a-K’thaq. “The war was three or wour Earth centuries ago. Radioactiwity disawweared long since. Something else has kewt nature ‘rom recowering.”

“Oh, to hell with it,” Jocelyn moaned. “Let me sleep.”

Heim lay down too. He thought with a dull unease that they should set a watch—but no, everyone was exhausted … Unconsciousness took him.

The next day they saw two metallic shapes at a distance. There was no question of detouring for a closer look, and in any event they had something else to occupy what small part of their minds could be spared from the ever more painful onward march. The end of the plateau was coming into sight. Between the edge and the mountain’s next upward slope was an escarpment. Right and left stretched those obsidian cliffs, sheer, polished, not high but unscalable in this gravity without equipment the party didn’t have. To go around them—at whatever unseen point they stopped—would take days; and the survival drugs could not last for such a journey.

Only in the center of view was the line broken. A bank of vapor roiled from the foot of the scarp for several kilometers up the mountainside above. Like an immense curtain it hid the terrain; plumes blew off the top, blizzard color against the deep sky, and a roaring grew louder as the walkers neared.

“That has to be Thundersmoke,” Vadász said. “But what is it?”

“A region ow—I hawe not the English,” Uthg-a-K’thaq answered. “Tsheyyaka. The ground weneath is hot, and water woils out.”

“Geysers and hot springs.” Heim said. He whistled. “But I’ve never seen or heard of anything their size. They make Yellowstone or Dwarf’s Forge look like a teakettle. Can we get through?”

“We must.” Uthg-a-K’thaq bent his head so that all three eyes could peer through his faceplate. Evolved for the mists of his own planet, they could see a ways into the infrared. “Yes-s-s. The cliwws are crum’led. Makes an incline, though wery rugged and with water rushing ewerywhere.”

“Still, thank God, a high gravity means a low angle of repose. And once into those meadows beyond, we should have a chance of meeting hunters or patrollers from the Hurst.” Heim straightened a little. “We’ll pull through.”

A while later he saw a third gleam of steel among the bushes. This one was so near the line of march that he altered course to pass by. They didn’t know exactly where they could best start into Thundersnloke anyway.

The object grew as he plodded. During rest periods he found he could not keep his gaze off. The shape was no uglier than much else he had seen, but in some indescribable fashion it made his spine crawl. When at last he dragged himself alongside and stopped for a look, he wanted to get away again, fast.

“An ancient machine.” Vadász spoke almost too softly to be heard through the grumble and hiss from ahead. “Abandoned when the bomb struck.”

Corrosion was slow in this atmosphere. Paint had worn off the iron, which in turn was eroded but still shiny in places. The form was boxlike, some two meters square and five long, slanting on top toward a central turret. The ruins of a solar-power accumulator system could be identified, together with a radar sweep and, Heim thought, other, detector instruments. Several ports in body and turret were shut, with no obvious means of opening them. He parted the brush around the base and saw that this had been a hovercraft, riding an air cushion and propelled by net backward thrust in any direction.

“A vehicle,” he said. “After the war it just sat, I guess. Nobody can have moved back to the Lochan region for a long time. Those other things we glimpsed must be similar.”

Jocelyn clutched at his hand. He was reminded of his daughter when she was small and got frightened. “Let’s go, Gunnar,” she begged. “This is too much like dead bones.”

“I wonder,” he remarked, carefully matter-of-fact, “why the metal wasn’t salvaged. Even with atomic energy, I should think the natives on a fireless planet would value scrap iron.”

“Taboo?” Vadász suggested. “These wrecks may well have dreadful associations.”

“Maybe. Though my impression is that the Staurni look back on their war with a lot less horror than we remember our Exchange—and Earth got off very lightly.” Heim shifted the burden of air system and supply pack on his shoulders. “Okay, we’ll push on. The sun’s low, and I don’t fancy camping among ghosts.”

“Can you give us a song, Endre?” Jocelyn asked. “I could use one.”

“I shall try.” The minstrel’s voice was flattened as well as distorted in transmission, but he croaked:

“While goin’ the road to sweet

Athy, karroo, karroo!—”

Engaged in helping the woman along, Heim paid no attention to the words at first. Suddenly he realized that Vadász was not singing “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” at all, but the cruel old Irish original.

“—Where are the legs on which ye run

When first ye went to carry a gun?

Indeed your dancing days are done.

Och, Johnny, I hardly knew ye.

“With their guns and drums and drums and guns the enemy nearly slew ye.

Och, Johnny, me dear, ye look so queer,

Johnny, I hardly knew ye!”

Heim glanced at Bragdon. One could almost read the thought in that helmet: How can these devils admit to themselves what war really means? The gloved hands clamped into fists: I know! I had to bury it!

“—Ye haven’t an arm and ye haven’t a leg,

Ye’re an eyeless, noseless, chickenless egg.

Ye’ll have to be put in a bowl to beg.

Och, Johnny, I hardly knew ye.

“With their guns and drums and drums and guns—”

It was not good to hear in this slain land. But maybe Endre had no choice. Whatever haunted the machine receding too slowly into distance, had touched him likewise.

Everyone was unspokenly glad of the exhaustion which tumbled them into sleep that night. Yet Heim rested ill. Dreams troubled him, and several times he started awake … what noise? A change in the geysers? -No, something metallic, a creak, a rattle, a buzz, far off but limping closer; imagination, nothing else. He sank back into the feverish dark.

Dawn was wet with mists blown from Thundersmoke, a bare three or four kilometers away. White vapors coiled along the ground and hazed the countryside so that vision faded shortly into grayness. Overhead the sky was a bowl of amethyst and Lochan’s cap too bright to look at. Heim closed his chowlock on a mouthful of concentrate—the rest was a lump in his stomach—and stared Wearily around. “Where’s Joss?”

“She went yonder,” Vadász said. “Um-m … she ought to be back now, eh?”

“I’ll go find her.” Heim settled the weight on his body and lumbered into the fog.

She hunched not far off. “What’s the matter?” he called through the gush and burble of water.

Her form scarcely moved. “I can’t,” she said thinly.

“What can’t you?”

“Go any further. I can’t. Pain, every joint, every cell. You go on. Get help. I’ll wait.”

He crouched, balancing on hands as well as feet. “You’ve got to march,” he said. “We can’t leave you alone.”

“What can hurt me worse? What does it matter?”

Remorse smote him. He laid an arm across her and said without steadiness, “Joss, I was wrong to make you come. I should have left you behind for your friends—But too late now. I don’t ask you to forgive me—”

“No need, Gunnar.” She leaned against him.

“—but I do tell you you’ve got to make the trek. Three or four more days.” Can’t be any longer, because that’s when -we run out of supplies. “Then you can rest as much as you want.”

“Rest forever,” she breathed. Moisture ran down her faceplate like tears, but she spoke almost caressingly. “I used to dread dying. Now it’s sweet.”

Alarm cut through his own weariness. “There’s another reason you .can’t stay here by yourself. You’d let go all holds. This is the wrong time of month for you, huh? Okay.” He took the waste unit she had not refolded and slung it on his own back. His gloves groped at her pack.

“Gunnar!” She started. “You can’t carry my load too!”

“Not your air rig, worse luck. The rest is only a few kilos.” The fresh weight gnawed at him. He climbed to his feet again and reached down for her hands. “C’mon. Allez oop.”

The breeze shifted and from the north came the sound of his dreams. Clank, bang, groan, close enough to override the thunders. “What’s that?” she shrilled.

“I dunno. Let’s not find out.” His own heart missed a beat, but he was grimly pleased to see how she scrambled erect and walked.

At camp, Vadász and Uthg-a-K’thaq stared vainly for the source of the new noise. Bragdon was already stumping off, lost in an apathy which must stem from more than tiredness. The others followed him without speculating aloud.

The sun swung higher and began to burn off the fog. Steam still shrouded the natural cut in the cliffs, though the Naqsan said he could make out details of the nearer part. The humans saw scores of boulders, some big as houses, and thousands of lesser rocks that littered the final kilometer before the climb began. Among them washed hot, smoking streams, which turned the ground into mud tinted yellow by sulfur. Where pools had formed the hues were red and green, microscopic organisms perhaps …

The pursuing clatter had strengthened. Vadász tried to sing, but no one listened and he soon quit. They tottered on, breathing hard, pausing less often to rest than had been their wont.

The moment came without announcement. Heim cast a glance behind and stopped dead. “Fanden i helvede!” he choked. His companions slewed around to see.

Between the lifting of fog and its own nearness, the thing had become visible a kilometer or so to their rear. It was another machine like the one they had found. But a twisted, weather-eaten detector frame still rose above the turret, and the body moved … slowly, crippledly, loose parts vibrating aloud, air-blower spitting and jerking, the whole frame ashudder, it moved in their wake.

Jocelyn suppressed a cry. Bragdon actually jumped backward a step. Panic edged his tone: “What’s that?”

Heim beat down his own quick fear. “An abandoned vehicle,” he said. “Some kind of automaton. Not quite worn out. Scarcely any moving parts, you know.”

“But it’s following us!” Jocelyn quavered. “Probably set to patrol an area, home on any life it detects, and—” A crazy hope fluttered through Heim’s brain, unshared by his guts. “Maybe we’re being offered a ride.”

“Suq?” asked Uthg-a-K’thaq in astonishment. After a moment, thoughtfully: “Yes-s-s, is wossiwle. Or at least, grant a radio that wunctions, we could call.”

“No.” Vadász’s helmet rolled with headshaking. “I do not trust the looks.”

Heim ran a tongue which had gone wooden over his lips. “It’s moving quicker than we can, I think,” he said. “Well have to settle with it one way or another.” Decision came. “Wait here. I’ll go back and see.”

Vadász and Jocelyn caught his arms simultaneously. He shook them off. “Damnation, I’m still the captain,” he rapped. “Let me be. That’s an order.”

He started off. The hurt in his muscles dwindled. Instead there came an odd, tingling numbness. His mind felt unnaturally clear, he saw each twig and leaf on the haggard bushes around, felt how his feet struck soil and the impact that traveled through shins to knees, smelled his own foulness, heard the geysers boom at his back. Earth seemed infinitely remote, a memory of another existence or a dream he had once had, unreal; yes, despite its vividness this world was unreal too, as hollow as himself. I’m afraid, he thought across an unbridgeable abyss. That machine frightens me worse than anything ever did before.

He walked on. There was nothing else to do. The detector lattice swiveled stiffly about, focused invisible unfelt energies on him. The robot changed direction to intercept Several armor plates clashed loose. Blackness gaped behind them. The whole body was leprous with metal decay.

How long has it wandered this upland? For what?

The turret rotated. A port tried to open, got halfway, and stuck. The machine grated inside. Another port at the front of the body slid back. A muzzle poked forth. The slugthrower spoke.

Heim saw dirt fly where the bullets hit, a hundred meters short He whipped about and ran. The thing growled. Swaying on an unstable air cushion, it chased him. The gun raved a minute longer before stopping.

The Slaughter Machines! beat through Heim’s skull, in time with his gasps for wind and the jar of footfalls. Robots to guard whatever there was where that crater is now. Guard it by killing anything that moved. But a missile got through, and the robots alone were left, and hunted and killed till they wore out, and a few are still prowling these barrens, and today one of them has found us.

He reached the others, stumbled, and rolled, in a heap. For a minute he lay half stunned. Vadász and Uthg-a-K’thaq helped him rise. Jocelyn hung onto his hand and wept “I thought you were dead. I thought you were dead.”

“He would be,” said Vadász, “but explosives have deteriorated … Watch out!”

Another port had opened, another tube thrust clear. Across the distance, through a red blur in his vision, Heim saw coils, a laser projector, and lasers don’t age. He grabbed Jocelyn to pull her behind him. A beam sickled, brighter than the sun. It struck well to the left Bushes became charcoal and smoke. The beam traced a madman’s course, boiled a rivulet, shot skyward, winked out.

“The aiming mechanism,” Uthg-a-K’thaq said. For once his own voice was shaken. “Has worn to uselessness.”

“Not if the thing gets close,” Bragdon whimpered. “Or it can slugger us, or crush us, or—Run!”

The terror had gone from Heim. He felt a cold uplifting: no pleasure of combat, for he knew how thin their chance was, but total aliveness. The matter grew crystalline in his mind, and he said: “Don’t. You’ll wear yourself out in no time. This is a walking race. If we can get to Thundersmoke, or even to those boulders, ahead of the bullets, we may be able to hide. No, don’t shed your packs. We won’t be allowed to retrieve diem. Walk.”

They struck out. “Shall I sing for you?” Vadász asked. “No need,” Heim said.

“I thought not. Good. I do need the breath.” Heim took the rear. The engine coughed and banged behind. Again and again he could not control himself, he must stop and turn about for a look. Always death was closer. Old, old, crumbling, crazed, half blind and half palsied, the thing which had never been alive and would not die shivered along just a little faster than a man could stride on Staurn. The poise from it was an endless metal agony. Once he saw an armor plate drop off, once the air drive went awry and almost toppled the ponderous bulk; but it came on, came on. And the rocks of refuge ahead grew nearer with nightmare slowness.

Jocelyn began to stagger. Heim moved to give her support. As if the change in configuration had tripped some relay in a rotted computer, the slugthrower spat anew. Several of the bullets buzzed past them.

Bragdon joined Heim on the woman’s other side. “Let me help,” he panted. She leaned on them both. “We … won’t make it,” Bragdon said.

“We might,” Heim snapped, for he dreaded a return of that negation he had seen in Jocelyn this dawn.

“We could … maybe … if we moved steady. You could. Not me. Not her. Got to rest.” Bragdon left the remainder unsaid: The pursuer needs no rest.

“Get into that water, among those rocks,” Vadász said. “Lie low. Then maybe that pokolgep cannot see us.”

Heim followed his gesture. Somewhat to the left, a scatter of stones lay in a muddy pool. None were bigger than a man, but—A light artillery shell passed overhead. The cannon crack rang back off the unattainable cliffs. The shell struck, splintered a boulder, but did not explode. “Let’s try,” he agreed.

They splashed through muck and crouched belly-down in shallow red water. Heim was careful to hold his automatic free, Vadász his laser. Pistols seemed pathetic against the monster’s size and armament; but a man took care of his weapons. Mist blown from Thundersmoke pattered upon them. Heim wiped his faceplate and stared between two rocks.

The machine had halted. It snarled to itself, jerked guns right and left, swept detectors through a hemisphere. “Good Lord,” Vadász whispered, “I think indeed it has lost us.”

“The water cools oww our in’rared radiation,” Uthg-a-K’thaq replied as hushedly. “We are maywe Under its radar weams, and maywe the owtical circuits are wad. Or the memory system has gone to wieces.”

“If only—No.” Heim’s pistol sank in his fist.

“What did you think?” Jocelyn asked, frantic.

“How to disable what’s left of the detector lattice. Could be done by a laser beam—see that exposed power cable? Only you’d never get close enough before you were spotted and killed.”

The short pulse-stopping hope, that the machine might give up and go away, crashed. It started grinding about a spiral, a search curve. Heim plotted that path and muttered: “Should be here inside half an hour. However, first it’ll move away. Which gains us some slight meterage. Be ready to start when I give you the word.”

“We’ll never make it, I tell you,” Bragdon protested.

“Not so loud, you crudhead. We don’t know that the thing hasn’t still got ears.”

As if in response, the robot stopped. It rested a moment on the whirr from its air blowers; the lattice horns wove around, tilted, came to a halt … It continued along the spiral.

“You see?” Vadász said with disgust. “Keep trying, Bragdon. You may yet destroy us.”

The Peaceman made a strangled noise. “Don’t,” Jocelyn begged. “Please.”

Uthg-a-K’thaq stirred. “A thought,” he belched. “I do in truth weliewe we cannot outrun the enemy to shelter. But can Slaughter Machines count?”

Vadász’s breath hissed inward. “What’s this?”

“We hawe lit-tle to lose,” the Naqsan said. “Let us run, excewt for one who waits here and keews the laser. Can he get unnoticed in cutting range ow the wistol weam—”

“He could be killed too easily,” Heim said. But hope shuddered anew in him. Why not? Better go down fighting, whatever happen?. And I might even save her.

“Okay,” he said slowly. “Give me the gun and I’ll bushwhack our friend.”

“No, skipper,” Vadász said. “I am no hero, but—”

“Orders,” Heim said.

“Gunnar—” broke from Jocelyn.

Uthg-a-K’thaq plucked the laser out of Vadász’s grasp. “No time wor human games,” he snorted. “We were not here without him, and he is the least usewul. So.” He thrust the weapon at Bragdon. “Or dare you not?”

“Gimme!” Heim snatched for it.

Bragdon drew away. “That thing out there,” he said in a remote voice. “What comes of war. Think about that, Heim.”

Vadász wallowed through the water and silt, after him. Heim saw the robot stop again to listen. “Get out of here!” Bragdon yelled. “I’ll let it see me if you don’t!”

The machine plowed through the bushes, over streams and stones, directly toward them.

No chance to argue. Bragdon must go ahead and be a damn fool. Heim got to his feet with a sucking splash. “Follow me—everyone!” Jocelyn slithered from the pool with him. They started off together.

Thundersmoke brawled before them. The engine chugged hoarse behind. A gun chattered. Mist swirled in their view, settled on their faceplates, blinded them. Staurn hauled them downward, laid rocks to trip them, brewed mud to glue their boots. Heim’s heart smashed at his ribs as if it were also a cannon. He didn’t know how much he leaned on Jocelyn or she on him. There was no awareness of anything but noise, weight, and vast drowning waters.

Vadász shouted.

Heim lurched against a boulder, got his back to it, and lifted his automatic. But the hunter machine was not about to pounce.

Near the thing was, most horribly near. Bragdon’s tiny form crept from ambush. Up to that iron body the man went, braced himself on widespread legs, aimed his pistol and fired.

The laser sword hewed. Metal framework glowed white where struck. Trigger held fast, Bragdon probed for the power cable. “

Something like a bull’s bellow rose out of the robot. It swung clumsily around. Bragdon stood where he was, dwarfed under its bulk, steadily firing. Ports opened in the armor, where they were able. Guns came out. A few still worked. Heim hauled Jocelyn to the ground and laid himself above her. A wild beam hit the boulder where he had made his stand. Rock flowed from the wound.

The guns could not reach as low as Bragdon. The machine clanked forward. Bragdon severed the detector powerline. “Run, Victor!” Vadász howled. “Get out of the way!” Bragdon turned and tripped. He went on his face. The robot passed over him.

And on, firing, firing, a sleet of bullets, shells, energy beams, poison gases, destruction’s last orgasm; senseless, witless, futureless, the Slaughter Machine rocked south because it chanced to be headed that way.

Heim rose and hurried toward Bragdon. Maybe he’s all right. An air cushion distributes weight over a large area. Bragdon did not stir. Heim came near and stopped.

Dimly, through the clamor of geysers and departing engine, he heard Jocelyn call, “I’m coming, Gunnar!”

“No,” he cried back. “Don’t.”

There were sharp blades in the bottom of the iron shell. They must move up and down, clearing the ground by a few centimeters. He did not want her to see what lay before his eyes.

VII

Drumroll in the earth: vapor puffed from a sulfurous cone. Then the spout came, climbing until a pillar for giants stood white and crowned. Another died; but there were more, everywhere among the tumbled black stones, as far as Heim could see through a whirl of fog. There was no distance. He groped in chaos. Water chuckled around his boots, over and over again he slipped on wetness. The damp was interior too, sweat soddened his skin. Strange, he thought in what detachment he could muster from the weariness with which he trembled, strange that his lungs should be a dry fire. Jocelyn’s gasps reached him, where she crawled at his side.

Half his strength was spent to help her along. Otherwise he heard nothing but the titanic forces that churned about them. Uthg-a-K’thaq’s broad shape was visible ahead, leading the way. Vadász toiled in the rear. Light waned as the sun sank behind the mountain, to end the day after they piled a cairn over their newest dead.

We’ve got to keep going, chanted idiotically in Heim. Got to keep going. Got to keep going. And underneath: Why? For the sake of the battle he intended to fight? That had become meaningless. The only battle was here, now, against a planet. For Lisa, then? A better cause, that she should not be fatherless. But she could well survive him. Grief dies young in the young. To discharge his own responsibility to those he commanded? Better still; it touched a deep-lying nerve. Yet he was no longer in command, when his engineer saw more clearly and moved more surely than any human could.

Reasons blew away like geyser smoke. Death lured him with promises of sleep.

Animal instinct raised his hackles. He cursed the tempter and went on.

A mudpot bubbled on a level stretch. The farther bank was a precarious hill of boulders. Water rushed among them, struck the mud below, and exploded in steam. Uthg-a-K’thaq beckoned the others to wait, flopped down on his belly, and hitched himself forward. Mineral crusts were treacherous, and whoever fell into one of those kettles might be cooked alive before the rest heaved him out against gravity.

Jocelyn used the pause to lie flat. Maybe she slept, or faulted; small difference any more. Heim and Vadász remained standing. It would have been too much effort to rise again.

On the edge of visibility, among the clouds around the hilltop, Uthg-a-K’thaq waved. Heim and Vadász wrestled Jocelyn back to her legs. The captain led the way, stooped so he could make out the leader’s track through gray soft precipitate powders.

When he came to the rise, hands and feet alike must push him over the high-stacked stones. Often a lesser chunk got loose and bounced hollowly down to the mudpot. Safest would have been to go one at a time, his dimmed consciousness realized now. The least slip could—

“Gunnar!”

He scrambled around, and almost went down in the same minor avalanche where Jocelyn rolled.

Somehow he was up, bounding through the hot fog as he had plunged to attack centuries ago. Stones turned under his soles, water spurted where he struck. Nothing existed but his need to stop her before she went into the cauldron below.

Her limbs flailed, her fingers clawed, dislodging more rocks that tumbled across her. He reached bottom. His boots sank in ooze. There was not too much heat on this fringe of the pot. But had there been, he would not have noticed. Those boulders which had spun downward faster than the woman and sunk immediately gave footing. He knelt and braced himself.

The mass poured at him, around him. He laid hold on Jocelyn’s air cycler and became a wall.

When the landslip was done, he pulled his smeared self clear and fell beside her. Vadász saw they would go no further than the verge of the mudsink, ended his own haste, and picked a cautious way to join them. Presently Uthg-a-K’thaq arrived too.

Heim roused some minutes later. The first he noticed was the Naqsan’s voice, weirdly akin to the voice of the kettle: “Wery much harm wor us. Lacking him, can we long liwe?”

“Joss,” he mumbled, and fought to rise. Vadász helped him. He leaned on the Magyar a while until strength returned.

“Hála Istennek,” gusted from the helmet beside his. “You are not hurt?”

“I’m okay,” Heim said. His entire being seemed one bruise, and blood welled from abrasions. “Her?”

“Broken leg at the minimum.” Vadász’s fingers touched the unnatural angle between left hip and thigh of the motionless figure. “I don’t know what else. She is unconscious.”

“Her suit is intact,” Uthg-a-K’thaq said. First silly remark I’ve heard from him, trickled through Heim. If the fabric had torn, we wouldn’t worry about bones.

He shoved Vadász aside and bent over her. When the faceplate had been wiped clean, he could make out her features in the dimming light. Eyes were closed, lips half-parted, skin colorless and sweat-beaded. He was dismayed at how sunken her cheeks were. Laying an audio pickup against her speaker, he was barely able to detect breath, rapid and shallow.

He poised on his knees. To stave off the future, he asked, “Did anyone see what happened?”

“A stone moved when she put her weight on,” Vadász said. “She started to roll and half the hillside went with her. Some recent quake must have unstabilized it. I will never know how you got down here so fast, not falling.”

“Who cares?” Heim gritted. “She’s in shock. I don’t know if that’s due to anything more than the leg fracture, she being so weakened to begin with. Could be worse injuries, like spinal. We don’t dare move her.”

“What then can we do?” the engineer asked.

Heim realized that command had passed back to him. “You two go on,” he said. “I’ll stay with her.”

“No!” Vadász exclaimed involuntarily.

Uthg-a-K’thaq spoke in some remnant of his pedantic way. “You can giwe her no aid, woth sealed in airsuits. We others may well need an ex-tra wair ow hands. A diwwicult wassage is wewore us,”

“As battered as I am, I’d hinder you more than help,” Heim said. “Besides, she can’t be left alone. Suppose there’s another rockslip, or this mudpot boils higher?”

“Cawtain, she is done already. Unconscious, she cannot take her grawanol. Without that, in shock, heart wailure comes quickly. Kindest to owen her helmet now.”

Rage and loss flew out of Heim: “Be quiet, you coldblooded bastardl You goaded Bragdon to die, on purpose. One’s enough!”

“Gwurru,” the Naqsan sobbed, and retreated from him.

The venom dissipated, leaving emptiness. “I’m sorry, C.E.,” Heim said dully. “Can’t expect you to think like a Terrestrial. You mean well. I suppose men’s instincts are less practical than yours.” Laughter shook chains in his throat. “Speaking about practicality, though, you’ve got something like an hour of light. Don’t waste it. March.”

Vadász considered him long before asking, “If she dies, what will you do?”

“Bury her and wait. I can stretch out the water in these canteens if I sit quiet, but you’ll need the laser for your own drink.”

“And you will then have nothing to, to fall back on. No, this is foolishness.”

“I’ll keep the automatic, if that makes you happier. Now get going. I’ll hoist a beer with you yet.”

Vadász surrendered. “If not on ship,” he said, “then in Valhalla. Farewell.”

Their hands clasped, pair by pair. Minstrel and engineer began to climb. A geyser spat not far off, steam blew down the wind, the two shapes were lost to sight

Heim settled himself.

A chance for sleep, he thought. But that desire was gone. He checked Jocelyn’s breathing—no change—and stretched out beside her, glove upon her glove.

Resting thus, he grew clearer-headed. With neither excitement nor despair he weighed the likelihood of survival. It wasn’t great. Zero for Joss, of course, barring miracles. For the other three, about fifty-fifty. The walkers should emerge from Thundersmoke tomorrow evening, more or less. Then they had perhaps two days (allowing those, tough bodies one day without chemical crutches) in which to cross the high meadows toward Wenilwain’s castle. It was still distant, but the folk of the Hurst ranged widely. Doubtless they even crossed above Slaughter Land now and then, on their way to the plains and the sea. (Hm, yes, that’s -why they leave the robots alone. A free defense. Carnivore souls for sure.) Given a break, the travelers might have been spied days ago.

Well, the break was not given. So Joss must die in this wet hell, under a sun whose light would not reach Earth for a century: Earth of the green woods where she had walked, the halls where she danced, the garden where she played her flute for him until he frightened her with babbled impossibilities. As that sun smoldered to extinction behind the fogs, Gunnar Heim pondered the riddle of his guilt toward her.

He had forced her here. But he did so because if she stayed behind she would betray his hopes for his planet. (Are you certain of that, buck? In fact, are you certain your way is the right one?) The choice would never have arisen except for the plot she had joined in. Yet that was evoked by his own earlier conspirings.

He gave up. There was no answer, and he was not one to agonize in unclarity. This much he knew: if the tune aboard the Quest had not matched those dreams he buried long ago for Connie’s sake, it had still been more dear than he deserved, and when Joss died a light would forever go out in him.

Blup-blup, said the mudpot beneath. A hot spring seethed louder. A geyser roared in thickening dusk, echoes resounded from unseen walls and water rilled among the shadow shapes of boulders. Heavy as his own flesh pressed against unyielding painful jumble, night flowed across the world.

Gloom lightened when the nearer moon rose, close to full, a shield bigger than Luna seen from Earth, iron bright and mottled with a strange heraldry. Heim dozed a while, woke, and saw it well above him. A thin glow surrounded the disc, diffusion in the upper mists. But most of the sky was open and he could make out stars. The lower fog rolled ashen through Thundersmoke gulch.

His drowsy eyes tried to identify individual suns. Could that bright one near Lochan’s ghostlike peak be Achernar? If so, curious to look from here upon his emblem of victory. I wonder if Cynbe could be watching it too. Wherever he is. Better check on Joss. He commenced pulling his stiffened frame off the rocks. What’s that? WHAT’S THAT?

The sight was a lightning bolt. For a second he could not believe. A long V trailed across the moon—Staurni, in flight home to the Hurst!

Heim soared erect. “Hey! Hallo-o-o! You up there, come down, help, help, help!”

The bawling filled his helmet, shivered his eardrums, tore his larynx; and was lost within meters of noise-troubled air. He flapped his arms, knew starkly that the blurring vapors made him invisible from so high above, saw the winged ones pass the disc and vanish into darkness. A beast yell broke from him, he cursed every god in the cosmos, drew his automatic and fired again and again at heaven.

That little bark was also nothing. And not even a glint from the muzzle. Heim lifted the useless .thing, which could only kill Joss, to hurl it into the mud.

His hand sank. The metal moonlight seemed to pierce his skull, he was instantly cold, utterly aware, tracing the road he must follow as if on a battle map.

No time to lose. Those wings beat fast. He squatted, unbuckled his air system, hauled its packboard around in front of him. The valve on the hose into his suit closed readily, but the coupling beyond resisted. And he had no pliers. He threw all his bear strength into his hands. The screw threads turned. The apparatus came free.

Now he was alone with whatever air his suit contained; the recycler depended on pressure from the reserve bottles. He cracked their valves. Terrestrial atmosphere, compressed more than Staurn’s own, streamed forth.

The reaction must be kindled, and he had no laser. Heedless of ricochet or shrapnel, he laid the automatic’s mouth, against the cock and pulled trigger. The bang and the belling came together. Alloy shattered, the bullet screamed free, the air tanks became a lamp.

Its flame was wan blue under the moon. Heim held the packboard steady with one hand and fanned with the other. “Please,” he called, “please, look this way, she’ll die if yon don’t.” A far-off part of him observed that he wept.

The fire flickered out. He bent near the pressure gauge, trying to read it in the unpitying moonlight. Zero. Finished.

No, wait, that was zero net. There were still three atmospheres absolute. And hydrogen diffused inward faster than oxygen did outward. Explosive mixture? He scrambled to put the bottles behind a large rock. Leaning across, he shot straight into them and threw himself down.

Flame blossomed anew, one fury and the crash toning away, whine of flying fragments, a grating among lesser stones as they sought new rest, nothingness. Heim got carefully up.

An infinite calm descended upon him. He had done what he could. Now it was only to wait, and live or die as the chance befell. He returned to Jocelyn, listened to her breath, and lay down beside her.

I ought to be in suspense, he thought vaguely. Fm not. Could my air be poisoned already? … No, I should last an hour or so if I don’t move. I’m just … fulfilled, somehow. His eyes went to the moon, his thoughts to Connie. He had no belief in survival after death, but it was as if she had drawn close to him.

“Hi, there,” he whispered.

And—“Hai-i-i-i!” winded down the reaches of heaven, the air sang, and bat wings eclipsed the moon. Weapons flashed clear, the flock whirled around in their search for an enemy, fangs glittered, and devil shapes came to earth.

Only they didn’t act like devils, once they saw. A warrior bayed into the midget transceiver he carried. A vehicle from the Hurst descended within minutes. Her mother could not have raised Jocelyn more tenderly onto a stretcher and into the machine. Wolf-gray Wenilwain himself connected an oxygen bottle to Heim’s suit. The flyer lifted and lanced eastward for Orling.

“But … listen … jangir ketleth—” Heim desisted. His few pidgin phrases couldn’t explain about Endre and C.E. No matter, really. He’d soon be at the yacht; Wong could interpret via radio; the last survivors would be found no later than sunrise. Heim fell asleep smiling.

VIII

Her cabin was quiet. Someone had hung a new picture on the bulkhead where she could see it: a beach, probably on Tahiti. Waves came over a sapphire ocean to foam against white sands; in the foreground, palm trees nodded at Earth’s mild winds.

She laid down her book as the tall man entered. Color mounted in her face. “Gunnar,” she said very low. “You shouldn’t be up.”

“Our medic wants me on my back till we leave,” he said, “but the hell with him. At least, I had to come see you before you go. How’re you feeling?”

“All right. Still weak, of course, but Dr. Silva says I’m making a good recovery.”

“I know. I asked him. Enzyme therapy is a wonder, eh?” Heim searched for a phrase. Nothing sufficed. “I’m glad.”

“Sit down, you idiot!”

He pulled the lounger close to her bed and lowered himself. Even in a flyer, the trip had left him lightheaded. Several days yet must pass before his vigor was restored. The gun at his hip caught on the adjuster console. He pulled it free with a muttered oath.

Amusement touched her lips. “You needn’t have brought that. Nobody’s going to kidnap you.”

“Well, hopefully not. Call it insurance.”

Her smile faded. “Are you that angry?”

“No. Two good men died, the rest of us went through a nasty time. I’m sorry it happened, but you can’t take an episode in a war to heart.”

Her look reminded him of a trapped small animal. “You could press charges of murder.”

“Good Lord!” he exclaimed. “What kind of swine do you take me for? We went out together on a field trip. Our engine failed, we made a crash landing where one man was killed, and hiked after help. If your people will stick by that story, mine will.”

A thin hand stole toward him. He took it and did not let go. Her hazel eyes caught him in turn. Silence grew.

When he could hold out no more, and still lacked meaningful words, he said, “You’re hauling mass at dawn, right?’

“Yes. The scientists—those who thought this was a genuine trip—they want to stay. But Captain Gutierrez overruled them. We’ve lost our purpose.” Quickly: “How long will you remain?”

“About another Earth week, till the new missile units are fitted. To be sure, we’ll lose time getting out of the planetary. system. The Lodge has to escort us, and won’t let us arm our warheads till we’re beyond defensive limits. But still, I figure we’ll be on the move inside of ten days.”

Again muteness, while they looked at each other, and away, and back. “What do you plan on doing at home?” he tried.

“Wait for you,” she said. “Pray for you.”

“But—no, look, your, uh, your political work—”

“That’s no longer relevant. I haven’t changed my mind—or have I? It’s hard to tell.” Her free hand rubbed her forehead confusedly. The motion stirred her hair, awakening light in the chestnut tresses. “I don’t think I was wrong in principle,” she said after a bit. “Maybe I was in practice. But it doesn’t matter any more. You see, you’ve changed the universe. Earth is committed.”

“Nonsense!” His face smoldered. “One ship?”

“With you her captain, Gunnar.”

“Thanks, but … but you flatter me and—Wait, Joss, you do have a job. Sentiment at home might swing too far in the other direction. The last thing any sane person wants is a jehad. You keep telling ‘em the enemy is not too evil to live. Remind ‘em there’ll be peace negotiations eventually, and the more reasonable we are then, the more likely the peace is to last. Okay?”

He saw that she braced herself. “You’re right, and I’ll do my poor best,” she said. “But talking politics is only an evasion.”

“What do you mean?” he stalled.

Her mouth quirked afresh. “Why, Gunnar, I do believe you’re scared.”

“No, no, nothing of the sort You need rest. I’d better go.”

“Sit,” she commanded. Her fingers closed about his palm.

The touch was light, but it would have been easier to break free of a ship grapple.

Red and white chased each other across her countenance. “I have to explain,” she said with, astounding steadiness. “About what happened earlier.”

His skin prickled.

“Yes, I hoped to persuade you not to fight,” she said. “But I learned more was involved. Infinitely more.”

“Uh, uh—the past, sure—”

“When you come back,” she asked, “what are you going to do?”

“Live quietly.”

“Ha! I’d like to make book on that. For a while, though, you will be home on Earth.” Her tone dropped. “Oh, God, you must.” She raised her head. “I’ll be there too.”

He must summon so much will to speak that none was left for holding his eyes off the deck. “Joss,” he said, word by word, “you remember too many things. So do I. There was that chance once, which we did better to pass up. Then we met again, both free, both lonesome, and I admit I also thought the chance might have come again. Only it hadn’t. Time switched the dice on us.”

“No, that isn’t true. Sure, at first I believed otherwise. Our casual meetings after I returned from Ourania, and the political barrier between us—damn all politics! I thought you were simply attractive, and half that must be because of a friendship we’d never revive. I dreamed a little on the way here, but they seemed like just ordinary woman-type daydreams. How could you hurt me?” She paused. “It turned out you could.”

“I’m trying not to,” he said desperately. “You’re too good for soothing with lies.”

She let his hand go. Her own fell open upon the blanket. “So you don’t care.”

“I do, I do. But can’t you see, I didn’t break with Connie the way you did with Edgar. When she, well, helped me about you, we pulled still closer together. Then she died. It cut me off at the roots. I guess without thinking about it I’ve looked ever since for a root that strong. I’m a coward, afraid to settle for anything less, because afterward someone else might happen by who—It wouldn’t be fair to you.”

She rallied. “You’ve outgrown believing in permanent infatuation, haven’t you? We understand what really matters between two people. If you’re trying to warn me you might be restless—I wouldn’t be jealous at your wandering a little. As long as you always came back.”

“I don’t want to wander. Physically isn’t important. I wouldn’t want to mentally. That one time was bad enough. And when I heard about New Europe, I remembered a girl there. I was young and stupid, skittish about being tied down, which is especially bad for a Navy man. So I left when my leave was up without committing myself. Next time I arrived, she’d moved; I dithered whether to track her down, finally didn’t, and soon after got posted too far away to visit that planet. Now—”

“I see. You want to make sure about her.”

“I have to.”

“But that was twenty years or more ago, wasn’t it?”

He nodded. “I’ve got to find out what happened to her, see her safe if she’s still alive. Beyond that, yes, I’m doubtless being foolish.”

She smiled then. “Go ahead. I’m not too worried.”

He rose. “I must leave now. Neither of us is in any shape for emotional scenes.”

“Yes. I’ll wait, darling.”

“Better not. Not seriously, anyhow. Hell alone knows what’ll happen to me. I might not return at all.”

“Gunnar!” she cried, as if he had struck her. “Never say that!”

He jollied her as best he could, and kissed her farewell, and departed. While his pilot flitted him the short way back to the yacht, he looked out. A flock of Staurni hunters was taking off. Sunlight flared across their weapons. The turmoil in him changed toward eagerness—to be away, to sail his ship again—as he watched those dragon shapes mount into the sky.

Part Three

ADMIRALTY

I

Strictly speaking, the Phoenix is a constellation in the skies of the Solar System, about halfway between ecliptic plane and south celestial pole. It is a mistake to apply the name to that region of space, some hundred and fifty light-years in the same direction from Earth, where the suns of Alerion and New Europe are found. But because a human colony makes a number of the neighboring systems interesting—as places to visit, mine, trade, explore, fight, be related to—a name is required for such a vaguely defined territory. Once bestowed, however carelessly, it remains.

And perhaps this one was not altogether a misnomer. The Phoenix of myth is reborn in fire. Nuclear energies bore Lamontagne the long way to Aurore. When he saw that that sun had a world where men could settle, he raised the tricolor like a flame in its heavens. Hope burned high in the folk who moved to New Europe, labored, begot, and bequeathed. Then the warcraft of Alerion came, with hellfire aboard.

A ship raised from the planet. Forces pulsed in her gravitrons, meshed with the interwoven fields of the cosmos, drove her out at ever-mounting speed. As Aurore fell behind, space grew less distorted by the star’s mass. She would soon reach a point where the metric approximated a straight line so nearly that it was safe to draw the forces entirely around her, cut off that induction effect known as inertia, and outpace light.

A million kilometers away, Fox II observed her: saw by visible light and infrared, felt with a ghostly quickly-brushing whisper of ‘radar, heard faint ripples of her drive in space, snuffed the neutrinos from her engines, and came to carnivore alertness.

“Damn!” said Gunnar Heim. “We should have spotted that beast hours ago. They must have installed extra screening.”

First Officer David Penoyer studied the data-analysis tapes. “Seems to be a moderate-sized transport ship. Same class as the Ellehoi we took last month, I’d guess. If so, we’ve got more legs than she does.”

Heim gave a restless shove with one foot. His huge body made a free-fall curve through the air to a viewport. Stars crowded it beyond counting; the Milky Way rivered in silver around an endless clear black; nebulae and remote galaxies glimmered across more distance than man will ever comprehend. He had no time for awe; he stared outward with eyes gone wintry blue as a giant sun and said: “She’ll be outside the Mach limit long before we can come anywhere near matching velocities. I know it’s theoretically possible for a ship to lay alongside another going FTL, but it’s never been done and I’m not about to try. If nothing else, there’d be too much interstellar gas turbulence.”

“Well, but—Captain, we don’t have to make a prize of her. I mean, if we simply accelerate, we’ll catch her inside the limit. Then she’s either got to turn on the Machs and probably get ripped apart, or face our barrage.”

Heim’s blocky features bent into a grimace. “And she might take the chance rather than surrender. I’d hate to spoil our record. Four months of commerce raiding, eighteen Aleriona ships captured, and we haven’t had to kill anybody yet.” He ran a hand through his roan hair. “If only—Wait!” He swung about and pushed the intercom controls. “Captain to chief engineer. Listen, you can make a gravitron do everything but wash dishes. Could we safely make a very short FTL run from here?” Penoyer shaped a soundless whistle.

“The matter is one iow ‘recise adjustment, skiwwer,” rumbled Uthg-a-K’thaq’s voice. “We succeeded in it when we lewt the Solar Sys-tem. Wut now, awter cruising so long without an owerhaul—”

“I know.” Heim’s faded blue tunic wrinkled with his shrug. They didn’t have uniforms on Fox. “All right, I suppose we do simply have to destroy them. War isn’t a game of tiddlywinks,” he added, largely to himself.

“A moment, ‘lease.” The intercom brought clicking noises. C.E. must be using his Naqsan equivalent of a slide rule.

Heim thought. “Yes-s-s. I hawe recalculated the sawety margin. It suwwices.”

“Whoops!” Heim’s yell rang between the bulkheads. “Hear that, Dave?” He pounded Penoyer on the back.

The blond man catapulted across the bridge, choked, and sputtered, “Yes, sir, very good.”

“Not just that we wont have to blot out lives,” Heim exulted. “But the money. All that lovely, lovely prize money.”

And a prize crew to take her back to Earth, the business part of him recalled. We’re damn near down to a skeleton complement. A few more captures and we’ll have to call a halt.

Fiercely: So we don’t sell the last one, but send word by. it. Whoever wants to sign on again can meet us at Staurn, where we’ll be refilling our magazines. With the kind of bank account I must have now, I can refit for a dozen more cruises. We won’t stop till we’re blown out of space—or the Federation gets off its duff and makes some honest war.

He gave himself entirely to the work of preparation. When battle stations were piped, a cheer shivered the length of the ship. Those were good boys, he thought with renewed warmth. They’d drawn reluctant lots to choose who must bring the seized Aleriona vessels home, and even so fights had broken out over the privilege of daily risking death in the Auroran System. Of course, the ones who stayed got a proportionately larger share of booty. But they had signed on his privateer for much more than that.

“Engines to full output!” If the enemy were on the qui vive, they would immediately observe on their instruments that another vessel orbited here. Radar alone was useless at such distances, for what was registered might as well be a meteorite: until it awoke.

“Internal field to standard!” Earth weight came back.

“Turning vectors: roll three points, pitch four and half points, yaw twelve points!” Stars wheeled across the ports.

“Acceleration maximum!” There was no sense of pressure in the compensating gee-field that webbed through the hull But the engines growled.

“Stand by for Mach drive! On the mark, five, four, three, two, one, zero!”

Starlight wavered, as if seen through a sheet of running water, and steadied again. In that brief passage, the fantastic acceleration of inertialessness did not build up a speed so great that aberration or Doppler effect counted. But the remote disc of Aurore shrank yet farther.

“Cut Mach drive!” An electronic signal had sent the command before Heim’s automatic words were well begun.

Computers chattered beneath Penoyer’s hands. Fox had returned to normal well ahead of the Aleriona ship. The latter was still traveling at more than the privateer’s kinetic velocity, but it would now be no trick to match vectors inside the Mach limit.

“Number Four Turret, give her one across the bows!” The missile streaked forth. Atomic fire dazzled momentarily among the constellations.

“Sparks, connect me on the universal band,” Heim ordered. He realized he was sweating. The outflank maneuver would not have been possible save for Uthg-a-K’thaq’s non-human sensitivity in the tuning of a gravitronic manifold, and the engineer could have been mistaken. But beneath the released terror, joy sang in the captain. We’ve got them! One more blow struck!

A siren wailed. The ship trembled. Automatons reacted; great clangings and thumps resounded through her plates. “My God!” Penoyer’s cry came thin. “They’re armed!” The viewports darkened, that eyes not be burned out by the intolerable brightnesses which blossomed around. Riven fragments of atoms sleeted through vacuum, were whirled away by the ship’s hydromagnetic field, spat X-rays into her material shielding and vanished starward. The meteorite detectors shouted of shrapnel thrown at kilometers per second by low-yield warheads.

Time was lacking in which to be afraid. “Parry her stuff,” Heim commanded his gunners. “Laser Turret Three, see if you can cripple her Mach rings.”

Beyond so elementary a decision, he was helpless. Nor could his highly skilled men do a great deal more than transmit it to their robots. The death machines were too fast, too violent for human senses. Radar beams locked on, computers clicked, missiles homed on missiles and destroyed them before they could strike. A blinding beam of energy probed from the Aleriona craft. There was no stopping it; but before it inflicted more than minimal damage, Fox’s own heavy laser smote. Armor plate vaporized, the ray burned through, the enemy weapon went dark. The Terrestrial fire-lance drew a seared line across the Aleriona hull as it probed for the exterior fittings of the interstellar drive. That was no easy target, with the relative position of the two vessels shifting so rapidly. But the computers solved the problem in milliseconds. The other ship crammed on acceleration, trying to shake loose. For a moment the laser pierced only emptiness.

Then, remorselessly, it found its mark again and gnawed away.

“Fire Control to bridge. His Mach’s disabled, sir.”

“Good. He can’t go FTL on us now, whatever happens,” Heim said. “Bridge to radio room. Keep trying to make contact. Bridge to engine room. Prepare for velocity-matching maneuvers.”

The fight died away. It had not been long. The disproportion between a hastily armed merchantman and a cruiser equipped like a regular Navy unit was too great. Not ludicrous—a single missile that exploded near enough would have killed the human crew by radiation if nothing else—but nonetheless too great. Fox had warded off every thrust with an overwhelmingly larger concentration of immensely more powerful weapons. A dark peace descended in space. The stars came back in the viewports.

“Whee-ew,” Penoyer said faintly. “Jolly near got us by surprise alone, didn’t he?”

“He obviously hoped to,” Heim nodded. “I suppose after today we’d better expect every unescorted transport to be able to fight back.” Those that were convoyed he left alone. They weren’t many, with Alerion’s strength stretched thin in the Marches and with quite a few warships searching the deeps for him. His prey were the carriers of the cargo which New Europe’s occupiers must have to make their conquest impregnable.

However closely he had skirted obliteration, he felt no delayed panic. If asked about that, he would have said he was blessed with a phlegmatic temperament. But the truth was that upwelling triumph left no room for other feelings. He must force himself to speak coolly: “I’m not worried. Pleased, in fact. We showed up better in combat than I had a right to expect with such a higgledy-piggledy crew.”

“Oh, I don’t know, sir. You’ve drilled us aplenty.” Penoyer fumbled for a cigaret. “Those explosions may have been noticed. Somebody bigger might come out investigating.”

“Uh-huh. We won’t stay to admire the local scenery.”

“But what about this capture? She can’t make the Solar System.”

“We’ll park her in a cometary orbit, not likely to be detected, and repair at leisure—Hoy, there’s an answer to our call.”

The comscreen smoldered with the simulated light of a red dwarf sun. An Aleriona looked out. He was of rank, Heim saw from the fineness of the muliebrile visage, the luster of golden hair and silvery fur. Even in this moment of rage and grief, his language was music that would have haunted a Beethoven.

Heim shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t know the High Speech. Parlez-vous français?”

“Not truth,” sang the other captain. “In the star meadows fare we here aboard, needless of New Europe’s tongue. To you the rover yield we Meroeth.”

It was a relief finding one who had some English. So far there’d been two with Spanish, one each with French and Chinese. Otherwise sign language worked, when you had a gun in your hand. “You know what we are, then?” Heim said.

“All know now of that which is named for the swift animal with sharp teeth. Ill may you prosper,” crooned the Aleriona.

“Thanks. Now look. We’ll send a boarding party. Your crew will be brigged, but we don’t plan to mistreat anybody who doesn’t force us to. In fact, if you have any casualties—None? Good. You’ll be taken to Earth in your ship and interned for the duration of the war.”

Within himself, Heim wondered about that. Earth was far, Sol itself lost to naked vision. He had no way to get their news. A prize crew could not return and rendezvous with a ship fighting alone against an empire, dependent for survival on unpredictable motion through immensity. He supposed Parliament had had to concede France’s claim that the World Federation was indeed at war with Alerion and his own expedition lawful. Otherwise Earth ships would be out here—Earth officials, at least, aboard Aleriona ships which invited his approach—to order him home.

But there was no word, no help, nothing in the six months since he had left except his own solitary battle. The last Aleriona prisoner he talked to had said the two fleets were still merely glaring at each other in the Marches, and he believed it. Are they deadlocked yet about whether to fight or negotiate? Will they never see that there can’t be negotiation with an enemy who’s sworn to whip us out of space, till we prove we can beat him? Merciful God, New Europe’s been gripped for almost a year!

Sorrow touched the lovely face in the screen. “Could we have gotten well-wrought engines of war, might we have slain you.” Hands slim, four-fingered, and double-jointed caressed one of the flowering vines that bedecked the bridge, as if seeking consolation. “Evilly built are your machines, men-creatures.”

Oh, ho! So this Q-boat was outfitted right on New Europe. Did somebody there get the idea? “Cease acceleration and stand by to be boarded,” Heim said.

He cut the circuit and issued orders. Treachery was still possible. Fox must maintain her distance and send boats. He would have liked to go himself, but his duty was here, and every man was eager to make the trip. Like small boys playing pirate … well, they had taken some fabulous treasures.

Not that Meroeth was likely to hold much of interest. Alerion wanted New Europe as a strong point—above all, wanted simply to deny it to humans and thus deny the entire Phoenix—rather than a colony. The cargoes that went from The Eith to Aurore were industrial or military, and thus valuable. No important resources were sent back; at the end of so long a line of communications, the garrison of New Europe must devote everything they could to the task of producing and putting into orbit those defenses which would make the planet all but invulnerable.

Still, the ships didn’t always return empty. Some of the plunder Heim had taken puzzled him. Was it going to Alerion for the sake of curiosity, or in a hope of eventual sale to Earth, or—? Whatever the reason, his boys had not argued with luck when they grabbed a holdful of champagne.

Vectors were matched. The boats went forth. Heim settled himself in the main control chair and watched them, tiny bright splinters, until they were swallowed by the shadow of the great shark-nosed cylinder he guarded. His thoughts ran free: Earth, prideful cities and gentle skies; Lisa, who might have grown beyond knowing; Jocelyn, who had never quite left him—and then New Europe, people driven from their homes to the wilderness, a certain idiot dream about Madelon—

The screen buzzed. He switched it on. Blumberg’s round face looked out at him from a shell of combat armor. The helmet was open. Heim didn’t know if the ember light within that ship could account alone for the man’s redness.

“Boarding party reporting, sir.” Blumberg was near stammering in his haste.

Unease tensed Heim’s belly muscles. “What’s wrong?” he demanded.

“Nothing … situation in hand … but sir! They’ve got humans aboard!”

II

A short inertialess flight took Fox so far outsystem that the probability of being detected was quite literally infinitesimal. Heim left the automatics in charge and decreed a celebration.

The mess seethed with men. Only twenty-five privateers remained, and a dozen New Europeans, in a room that had once held a hundred; but they filled it, shouting, singing, clashing their glasses, until the bulkheads trembled. In one corner, benign and imperturbable, Uthg-a-K’thaq snaked bottle after bottle of champagne from the cooler he had rigged, sent the corks loose with a pistol crack, and poured for all. Suitably padded, gunner Matsuo Hayashi and a lean young colonist set out to discover whether karate or Apache technique worked best. Dice rattled across the deck, IOU’s for loot against promises of suitably glowing introductions to girls on the planet, come victory. A trio of college-bred Ashanti stamped out a war dance while their audience made tom-toms of pots and pans. Endre Vadász leaped onto the table, his slim body poised while his fingers flew across the guitar strings. More and more of the French began to sing with him:

“Cest une fieur, fleur de prairie,

C’est une belle Rose de Provence.

Sa chevelure ressemble á la nuit

Et ses beaux yeux semblent á la mysotin.—”

At first Heim was laughing too loudly at Jean Irribarne’s last joke to hear. Then the music grew, and it took him. He remembered a certain night in Bonne Chance. Suddenly he was there again. Roofs peaked around the garden, black under the stars, but the yellow light from their windows joined the light of Diane rising full. A small wind rustled the shrubs, to mingle scents of rose and lily with unnamed pungencies from native blooms. Her hand was trusting in his. Gravel scrunched beneath their feet as they walked toward the summerhouse. And somewhere someone was playing a tape, the song drifted down the warm air, earthy and loving.

“Quand du village elle se promene,

C’est un plaisir de la voir marcher;

Sa jolie faille ronde et gracieuse

Comme une vague souple et mysterieuse.”

His eyes stung. He shook his head harshly.

Irribarne gave him a close look. The New European was medium tall, which put him well below Heim, spare of build, dark-haired, long-headed, and clean-featured. He still wore the garments in which he had been captured, green tunic and trousers, soft boots, beret tucked in scaly leather belt, the .uniform of a planetary constabulary turned maquisard. Lieutenant’s bars gleamed on his shoulders.

“Pourquoi cette tristesse-soudaine?” he asked.

“Eh?” Heim blinked. Between the racket in here, the rustiness of his French, and the fact that New Europe was well on the way to evolving its own dialect, he didn’t understand.

“You show at once the trouble,” Irribarne said. Enough English speakers visited his planet, in the lost days, that town dwellers usually had some command of their language.

“Oh … nothing. A memory. I spent several grand leaves on New Europe, when I was a Navy man. But that was—Judas, last time was twenty-one years ago.”

“And so you think of aliens that slither through streets made empty of men. How they move softly, like hunting panthers!” Irribarne scowled into his glass, lifted it, and drained it in a convulsive gesture. “Or perhaps you remember a girl, and wonder if she is dead or else hiding in the forests. Hein?”

“Let’s get refills,” said Heim brusquely.

Irribarne laid a hand on his arm. “Un moment, s’il vous plait. The population of the whole planet is only five hundred thousand. The city people, that you would meet, they are much less. Perhaps I know.”

“Madelon Dubois?”

“From Bonne Chance in origin? Her father a doctor? But yes! She married my own brother Pierre. They live, what last I heard.”

Darkness passed before Heim’s eyes. He leaned against the bulkhead, snapped after air, struggled back to self-control but could not slow his heart. “Gud she lov,” he breathed. It was as close to a prayer as he had come since childhood.

Irribarne considered him through shrewd, squinted brown eyes. “Ah, this matters to you. Come, shall we not speak alone?”

“All right. Thanks.” Heim led the way. Irribarne was hard put to keep up. Behind them, arms around each other’s shoulders, the men were roaring forth:

“Chevaliers de la table ronde,

Goutons voir si le vin est ban—”

while Vadász’s chords belled through all.

Heim’s cabin seemed the more quiet after he shut the door. Irribarne sat down and glanced curiously about the neat, compact room, Shakespeare, Bjørnson, and Kipling in book editions with worn bindings, micro reels of less literary stature, a model of a warship, pictures of a woman and a girl. “Votre famille?” he asked.

“Yes. My wife’s dead, though. Daughter’s with her grandfather on Earth.” Heim offered one of his few remaining cigars and began to stuff a pipe for himself. His fingers were not absolutely steady and he did not look at the other man. “How is your own family?”

“Well, thank you. Of course, that was a pair of weeks ago, when my force was captured.” Irribarne got his cigar going and leaned back with a luxurious sigh. Heim stayed on his feet.

“How’d that happen, anyway? We’ve had no real chance to talk.”

“Bad luck, I hope. It is a uranium mine on the Cote Notre Dame. Not much uranium on Europe Neuve, you know, she is less dense than Earth. So to blow it up would be a good frappement—strike at Alerion. We took a sport submarine we found in Port Augustin, where the mountains come down to the Golfe des Dragons, and started. We knew the one thing those damned dryworlders do not have is submarine-detection equipment. But the mine was better guarded than we expected. When we surfaced to go ashore at night, a shell hit. Chemical explosive only, or I would not sit here. Their troopers waited and got, you say, the drop. There was talk about shooting us for an example, or what is worse to squeeze information from us. But the new high commander heard and forbid, I think he has come to have charge of hunting you, my friend, so this also we must thank you for. We were going to Alerion. They spoke about prisoner exchange.”

“I see.”

“But you make stalls. It is news of Madelon you wish, no?”

“Hell, I hate to get personal—Okay. We were in love, when I had a long sick leave on New Europe. Very innocent affair, I assure you. So damned innocent, in fact, that I shied away a bit and—Anyhow, next time I came back she’d moved.”

“Indeed so. To Chateau St. Jacques. I thought always Pierre got her … on the rebound? Now and then she has laughed about the big Norvegien when she was a girl. Such laughter, half happy, half sad, one always makes of young memories.” Irribarne’s gaze grew stiff. “Pierre is a good husband. They have four children.”

Heim flushed. “Don’t misunderstand me,” he said around his pipe. “I couldn’t have married better than I did either. It was just—she was in trouble, and I hoped I could help. Old friendship, nothing else.”

He didn’t believe he was lying. A few thoughts had crossed his mind, but they were not unduly painful to bury. That Madelon had lived gladly, that she still lived, was enough.

“You have that from us all,” Irribarne said heartily. “Now tell me more before we return to the festival. I hear you are a private raider commissioned by France. But why has the Navy been so slow? When do they come?”

God help me, Heim thought. I wanted to spare them till tomorrow.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Nom d’un chien!” Irribarne sat bolt upright. “What is it that you say?”

Slowly, Heim dragged the tale from himself: how it came about that the Deepspace Fleet lay chained and muzzled while Parliament wrangled, and quite possibly nothing except Fox’s buccaneering preventing a resumption of those talks which to Alerion were only a more effective kind of war.

“Mais … mais … mais … vous—cette astronef—” Irribarne checked his stutter, caught breath, and said carefully, “This ship has ranged in the Auroran System. Have you, yourself, taken no proof we live?”

“I tried,” Heim said. Back and forth he paced, smoke fuming, heels banging, big useless hands clasped behind his back till the nails stood white. “The prisoners who went home with my prizes, they could have been interrogated. Not easily; Aleriona don’t respond like humans; but somebody could’ve ripped the truth from them! I guess nobody did. “I also made a pass by New Europe. Not hard to do, if you’re quick. Most of their defense satellites still aren’t equipped, and we detected no warships too dose to outrun. So I got photographs, nice clear ones, showing plainly that only Coeur d’Yvonne was destroyed, that there never had been a firestorm across Garance. Sent them back to Earth. I suppose they convinced some people, but evidently not the right ones. Don’t forget, by now a lot of political careers are bound up with the peace issue. And even a man who might confess he was wrong and resign, if it involved just himself, will hesitate to drag his party down with him.

“Oh, I’m sure sentiment has moved in our favor. It’d already begun to do so when I left. Not long after, at Staurn for munitions, I met some late-comers from Earth. They told me the will to fight was becoming quite respectable. But that was four months ago!”

He shifted his pipe, stopped his feet, and went on more evenly: “I can guess what the next line of argument has been for the appeasement faction. ‘Yes, yes,’ they say, ‘maybe the New Europeans still are alive. So isn’t the most important thing to rescue them? We won’t do that by war. Alerion can wipe them out any time she chooses. We have to trade their planet for their lives.’ That’s probably being said in Parliament tonight.”

Irribarne’s chin sank on his breast. “Un demi million d’hommes,” he mumbled. Abruptly: “But they will die all the same. Can one not see that? We have only a few more weeks.”

“What?” Heim bellowed. His heart jolted him. “Is the enemy fixing to burn you out?”

That could be done quite easily, he knew in horror. A thousand or so megatons exploded at satellite height on a clear day will set a good part of a continent afire. Madelon!

“No, no,” the colonist said. “They need for themselves the resources of the planet, in fortifying the system. A continental firestorm or a radioactive poisoning, that would make large trouble for them too. But the vitamin C.”

Piece by piece, the story came out. Never doubting Earth would hurry to their aid, the seaboard folk of Pays d’Espoir fled inland, to the mountains and forests of the Haute Garance. That nearly unmapped wilderness was as rich in game and edible vegetation as North America before the

white man. With a high technology and no population pressure, the people were wealthy; hardly a one did not own hunting, fishing, and camping gear, as well as a flyer capable of going anywhere. Given a little camouflage and caution, fifty thousand scattered lodges and summer cottages were much too many for the Aleriona to find. On the rare occasions when they did find one, the inhabitants could resort to tent or cave or lean-to.

Portable chargers, equally able to use sunlight, wind, or running water, were also standard outdoor equipment, which kept up power cells. Ordinary miniature transceivers maintained a communications net. It did the enemy scant good to monitor. He had come with people that knew French, “but his own ossified culture had not allowed for provincial dialect, Louchébème, or Basque. The boldest men organized raids on him, the rest stayed hidden.

With little axial tilt, New Europe enjoys a mild and rainy winter in the temperate zone, even at fairly high altitudes. It seemed that the humans could hold out indefinitely.

But they were not, after all, on Earth. Life had arisen and evolved separately here, through two or three billion years. Similar conditions led to similar chemistry. Most of what a man needed he could get from native organisms. But similarity is not identity. Some things were lacking on New Europe, notably vitamin C. The escapers had packed along a supply of pills. Now the store was very low. Alerion held the farmlands where Terrestrial plants grew, the towns where the biochemical factories stood.

Scurvy is a slow killer, working its way through gums, muscles, digestion, blood, bones. Most often the victim dies of something else which he no longer has the strength to resist. But one way or another, he dies.

“And they know it,” Irribarne grated. “Those devils, they know our human weakness. They need only wait.” He lifted one fist. “Has Earth forgotten?”

“No,” Heim said. “It’d be bound to occur to somebody. But Earth’s so confused … “

“Let us go there,” Irribarne said. “I myself, all my men, we are witnesses. Can we not shame them till they move?”

“I don’t know,” Heim said in wretchedness. “We can try, of course. But—maybe I’m being paranoid—but I can still imagine the arguments. ‘Nothing except negotiation can save you. Alerion will not negotiate unless we make prompt concessions.’

“I know damn well that once inside the Solar System, Fox won’t be allowed to leave again. The law, you see; only units under the Peace Authority can have nuclear weapons, or even weapon launchers, there. And we do. Our possession is legal now, on a technicality, but it won’t be when we enter Federation space.”

“Can you not dismantle your armament?”

“That’d take weeks. It’s been integrated with the ship. And—what difference? I tell you, your appearance on Earth might cost us the war. And that would set Alerion up to prepare the next aggression.” Heim thought of Madelon. “Or so I believe. Could be wrong, I suppose.”

“No, you are right,” Irribarne said dully.

“It might be the only way out. Surrender.”

“There must be another! I will not be so fanatic that women and children surely die. But a risk of death, against the chance to keep our homes, yes, that is something we all accepted when we went into the maquis.”

Heim sat down, knocked out his pipe, and turned it over and over in his hands while he stared at the model of his first command. Inexplicably his emotions began to shift. He felt less heavy, there was a stirring in him, he groped through blackness toward some vague, strengthening glimmer.

“Look,” he said, “let’s try to reason this through. Fox is keeping the war alive by refusing to quit. As long as we’re out here fighting, the people at home who think like us can argue that Alerion is being whittled down at no cost to the taxpayer. And, ja, they can beat the propaganda drums, make big fat heroes of us, stir the old tribal emotions. They haven’t the political pull to make the Authority order the Navy to move; but they have enough to keep us from being recalled. I deduce this from the simple facts that the Navy has not moved and we have not been recalled.

“Obviously that’s an unstable situation. It’s only kept going this long, I’m sure, because France tied Parliament in legal knots as to whether or not there really was a war on. The deadlock will be resolved one way or another pretty soon. We want to tilt the balance our way.

“Okay, one approach is for you people to let it be known you are alive—let it be known beyond any possible doubt—and also make it plain you are not going to surrender. You’ll die before you give in. The way to do that is … let me think, let me think … yes. We’ve got Meroeth. With some repairs, she can make the passage; or else we can make another capture. We stay here, though, ourselves. What we send is—not a handful of men—a hundred women aad children.” Heim’s palm cracked against his knee. “There’s an emotional appeal for you!”

Irribarne’s eyes widened until they were rimmed with white. “Comment? You are crazy? You cannot land on Europe Neuve.”

“The space defenses aren’t ready yet.”

“But … no, they do have some detector satellites, and warcraft in orbit, and—”

“Oh, it’s chancy,” Heim agreed. He had no real sense of that. Every doubt was smothered in upsurging excitement “We’ll leave Fox in space, with most of your men aboard. If we fail, she can snatch another prize and send your men back in that. But I think I have a way to get Meroeth down, and up again, and stay in touch meanwhile. We’ll need some computer work to make sure, but I think it might pan out. If not, well, you can show me how to be a guerrilla.”

“Ah.” Irribarne drew deeply on his cigar. “May I ask if this idea would seem so attractive, did it not offer a way to see Madelon?”

Heim gaped at him.

“Pardon,” Irribarne blurted. “That was not badly meant. Old friendship, as you said. I like a loyal man.” He extended his hand.

Heim took it and rose. “Come on,” he said rather wildly. “We can’t do anything till tomorrow. Let’s get back to the party.”

III

Elsewhere Fox plunged dark, every engine stilled, nothing but the minimum of life-support equipment in operation, toward the far side of the moon Diane. It was not garrisoned, and a diameter of 1275 kilometers makes a broad shield. Even so, the tender that went from her carried brave men. They might have been spotted by some prowling Aleriona warcraft, especially in the moments when they crammed on deceleration to make a landing. Once down on that rough, airless surface, they moved their boat into an extinct fumarole for concealment, donned space gear, and struck out afoot. Their trip around to the planet-facing hemisphere was a miniature epic; let it only be said that they completed their errand and got back. Rendezvous with the ship was much too risky to attempt. They settled in the boat and waited.

Not long after, a giant meteorite or dwarf asteroid struck New Europe, burning a hole across the night sky and crashing in the Ocean du Déstin a few hundred kilometers east of the Garance coast. A minor tidal wave shocked through the Baie des Pêcheurs, banged water-craft against their docks at Bonne Chance, raced up the Bouches du Carsac, and was still observable—a rumbling foam-crested front, sleekly black under the stars—as far inland as the confluence of the River Bordes. Atmospherics howled in every Aleriona detector.

They faded; alerted flyers returned to berth; the night stillness resumed.

For all but the men aboard Meroeth.

When the fifty thousand tons to which she was grappled hit the outermost fringes of atmosphere, she let go and dropped behind. But she could not retreat far. Too many kilometers per second of velocity must be shed in too few kilometers of distance, before ablation devoured her. That meant a burst of drive forces, a blast of energies from a powerplant strained to its ultimate. The enemy’s orbital detection system was still inadequate; but it existed in part, and there were also instruments on the ground. Nothing could hide this advent—except the running, growing storm in the immediate neighborhood of a meteorite.

Radar would not pierce the ions which roiled at the stone’s face and streamed back aft. Optical and infrared pickups were blinded. Neutrino or gravitronic detectors aimed and tuned, with precision might have registered something which was not of local origin. But who would look for a ship in the midst of so much fury? Air impact alone, at that speed, would break her hull into a thousand flinders, which friction would then turn into shooting stars.

Unless she followed exactly behind the meteorite, using its mass for a bumper and heat shield, its flaming tail for a cloak.

No autopilot was ever built for that task. Gunnar Heim must do it. If he veered from his narrow slot of partial vacuum, he would die too quickly to know he was dead. For gauge he had only the incandescence outside, instrument readings, and whatever intuition was bestowed by experience. For guide he had a computation of where he ought to be, at what velocity, at every given moment, unreeling on tape before his eyes. He merged himself with the ship; his hands made a blur on the console; he did not notice the waves of heat, the bufferings and bellowings of turbulence, save as a thunderstorm deep in his body.

His cosmos shrank to a firestreak, his reason for being to the need of holding this clumsy mass nose-on to the descent pattern. Once, an age ago, he had brought his space yacht down on a seemingly disastrous path to Ascension Island. But that had been a matter of skillfully piloting a slender and responsive vessel. Tonight he was a robot, executing orders written for it by whirling electrons.

No: he was more. The feedback of data through senses, judgment, will, made the whole operation possible. But none of that took place on a conscious level. There wasn’t time!

That was as well. Live flesh could not have met those demands for more than a few seconds. The meteorite, slowed only a little by the air wall through which it plunged, out-raced the spaceship and hit the sea—still with such force that water had no chance to splash but actually shattered. Meroeth was as yet several kilometers aloft, her own speed reduced to something that metal could tolerate. The pattern tape said CUT and Heim slammed down a switch. The engine roar whirred into silence.

He checked his instruments. “All’s well,” he said. His voice sounded strange in his ears, only slowly did he come back to himself, as if he had run away from his soul and it must now catch up. “We’re under the Bonne Chance horizon, headed southwest on just about the trajectory we were trying for.”

“Whoo-oo-oo,” said Vadász in a weak tone. His hair was plastered lank to the thin high-cheeked face; his garments were drenched.

“Bridge to engine room,” Heim said. “Report.”

“All in order, sir,” came the voice of Diego Gonzales, who was third engineer on Fox. “Or as much as could be expected. The strain gauges do show some warping in a couple of the starboard bow plates. Not too bad, though. Shall I turn on the coolers?”

“Well, do you like this furnace?” grumbled Jean Irribarne. Heat radiated from every bulkhead.

“Go ahead,” Heim decided. “If anyone’s close enough to detect the anomaly, we’ve had it anyway.” He kept eyes on the console before him, but jerked a thumb at Vadász. “Radar registering?”

“No,” said the Magyar. “We appear to be quite private.” Those were the only men aboard. No more were needed for a successful landing; and in case of failure, Heim did not want to lose lives essential to Fox.

Gonzales, for instance, was a good helper in his department, but Uthg-a-K’thaq and O’Hara could manage without him. Vadász had been a fairly competent steward, and as a minstrel had a lot to do with keeping morale high. Nevertheless, he was expendable. One colonist sufficed to guide Meroeth, and Irribarne had pulled rank to win that dangerous honor. The rest must bring their story to Earth, did the present scheme miscarry. As for Heim himself—

“You can’t!” Penoyer had protested.

“Can’t I just?” Heim grinned.

“But you’re the skipper!”

“You can handle that job every bit as well as I, Dave.”

Penoyer shook his head. “No. More and more, I’ve come to realize it. Not only that this whole expedition was your idea and your doing. Not even the way you’ve led us, as a tactician, I mean, though that’s been like nothing since Lord Nelson. But damn it, Gunnar-r-sir—we won’t hang together without you!”

“I’m far too modest to have any false modesty,” Heim drawled. “What you say may well have been true in the beginning. We’re a motley gang, recruited from all over Earth and every man a rambunctious individualist. Then there was the anti-Naqsan prejudice. I had to get tough about that a few times, you remember. Now, though, after so long a cruise, so much done together—we’re a crew. A God damn ship. C.E.‘s proved himself so well and so often that we haven’t a man left who won’t punch you in the nose if you say a nasty word about Naqsans. And as for tactics, Dave, half the stunts we’ve pulled were your suggestion. You’ll manage fine.”

“Well … but … but why you, sir, to go down? Any of us with a master pilot’s certificate can do it, and say wizard to the chance. You going bloody well doesn’t make sense.”

“I say it does,” Heim answered. “End of discussion.” When he used that tone, nobody talked further. Inwardly, however, he hadn’t felt the least stern. Madelon—

No, no, ridiculous. Maybe it’s true that you never really fall out of love with anyone; but new loves do come, and while Connie lived he had rarely thought about New Europe. For that matter, his reunion with Jocelyn Lawrie on Staurn had driven most else out of his mind. For a while.

No doubt he’d only been so keyed up about Madelon because of … he wasn’t sure what. A silly scramble after his lost youth, probably. She was middle-aged now, placidly married, according to her brother-in-law she had put on weight. He wanted to see her again, of course, and chuckle affectionately over old follies. But all he need do was instruct Meroeth’s pilot to make sure the Irribarnes were among the evacuees.

Insuwwicient, as C.E. would burble, he thought. Common sense has very limited uses. This goes beyond. Too many unforeseen things could happen. I want to be in the nucleus, personally.

A new sound filled the hull, the keening of sundered air, deepening toward a hollow boom, as Meroeth dropped below sonic speed. Heim looked out the forward viewport. The ocean reached vast beneath, phosphor-tinged waves from horizon to horizon. A shadow loomed in the distance, which Vadász told him from the radar must be an island. So, the Iles des Rêves already, at the end of the Notre Dame peninsula. He wanted to get the archipelago between him and whatever guardian instruments were at the uranium mine farther north, before he switched the gravitrons back on. It would take some doing. This hulk wasn’t meant for aerodynamic maneuvers. He applied the least bit of lift to get her nose up.

Immensely preferable would have been to land in the Océan des Orages and come eastward over Pays d’Espoir, crossing unpopulated Terre Sauvage to reach the central mountains of the continent. But while meteorites are plentiful, his had had too many requirements to meet. It must be large, yet not too large to nudge into the right orbit in a reasonable time; the point at which Fox grappled and towed must be fairly near the planet but not dangerously near; the path after release must look natural; it must terminate in one of those seas at night. You couldn’t scout the Auroran System forever, but must settle for the first halfway acceptable chunk of rock that happened along. Meanwhile Meroeth could be reconverted: lights, temperature, air systems adjusted for human comfort, Mach units repaired, the interior stripped of plants and less understandable Aleriona symbols, the controls ripped out and a new set put in of the kind to which Terrestrials were accustomed. The bridge had a plundered look.

Onward the ship fell, slower and lower until the ocean seemed to rise and lick at her. Vadász probed the sky with his instruments, awkwardly—he had gotten hasty training—and intently. His lips were half parted, as if to give the word “Fire!” to Irribarne in the single manned gun turret. But he found only night, unhurried winds, and strange constellations.

It would not have been possible to travel this far, undetected, across a civilization. But New Europe has 72 percent of Earth’s surface area; it is an entire world. Coeur d’Yvonne had been almost the only outpost on another continent than Pays d’Espoir, and that city was annihilated. The Aleriona occupied Garance, where the mines and machines were: a mere fringe of immensity. Otherwise they must rely on scattered detector stations, roving flyers, and the still incomplete satellite system. His arrival being unknown to them, the odds favored Heim. Nonetheless … careful, careful.

When the archipelago was behind him and his ship almost plowing water, he turned the engines on again. Like a flying whale, Meroeth swung about and lumbered westward. An island passed near. He made out surf on a beach overshadowed by trees, and imagined he could hear its wash and the soughing leaves, could even smell the warm odors of a semitropical forest. The sight was dim, only half real—indeed an island of dream. Men’s dreams, he thought angrily. No one else’s.

Crossing the Golfe des Dragons, he felt naked in so much openness and increased speed. Northwestward now the ship ran. Diane hove into view, nearly full. The moon was smaller than Luna seen from Earth—twenty-two minutes angular diameter—and less bright, but still a blue-marked tawny cornucopia that scattered metal shards across the sea.

Then the mainland rose, hills and woods and distant snowpeaks. Heim reached for altitude. “Better get on the radio, Jean,” he said. “We don’t want them to run and hide when they see us, not to mention attack. What’s the name of that place again where we’re headed?”

“Lac aux Nuages,” Irribarne said.

Heim studied a map. “Yes, I see it here. Big upland lake. Isn’t it too conspicuous to make a safe headquarters?”

“There is ample concealment, precisely because it is large and misty and has so many islands,” Irribarne answered. “Besides, if there is a raid one can always retreat into the wilderness around about.” The intercom bore the sound of his footsteps leaving the gun turret for the radio room, and presently a harsh clatter of Basque.

The land beneath grew ever more rugged. Rivers ran from the snows, leaped down cliffs, foamed into steep valleys, and were lost to sight among the groves. A bird flock rose in alarm when the ship passed over; there must be a million pairs of wings, blotting out half the sky. Vadász whistled in awe. “Isten irgalmazzon! I wondered how long the people could stay hidden, even alive, in the bush. But three times their number could do it”

“Yeh,” Heim grunted. “Except for one thing.”

The lake appeared, a wide wan sheet among darkling trees, remotely encircled by mountains whose glaciers gleamed beneath the moon. Irribarne relayed instructions. Heim found the indicated spot, just off the north shore, and lowered ship. The concealing waters closed over him. He heard girders groan a little, felt an indescribable soft resistance go through the frame to himself, eased off power, and let the hull settle in ooze. When he cut the interior gee-field, he discovered the deck was canted.

His heart thuttered, but he could only find flat words: “Let’s get ashore.” Even in seven tenths of Terrestrial gravity, it was a somewhat comical effort to reach the emergency escape lock without falling. When the four men were crowded inside, clothes bundled on their necks, he dogged the inner door and cranked open the outer one. Water poured icily through. He kicked to the surface and swam as fast as possible toward land. Moonlight glimmered on the guns of the men who stood there waiting for him.

IV

The tent was big. The trees that surrounded it were taller yet. At the top of red-brown trunks, they fountained in branches whose leaves overarched and hid the pavilion under cool sun-flecked shadows. Their foliage was that greenish gold hue the native “grasses” shared, to give the Garance country its name. Wind rustled them. Through the open flap, Heim could look down archways of forest to the lake. It glittered unrestfully, outward past the edge of vision. Here and there lay a wooded island, otherwise the only land seen in that direction was the white-crowned sierra. Blue with distance, the peaks jagged into a deep blue sky.

Aurore was not long up. The eastern mountains were still in shadow, the western ones still faintly flushed. They would remain so for a while; New Europe takes more than seventy-five hours to complete a rotation. The sun did not look much different from Earth’s: about the same apparent size, a little less bright, its color more orange than yellow. Heim had found Vadász in the dews at dawn, watching the light play in the mists that streamed over the lake, altogether speechless.

That time was ended. So too was the hour when Colonel .Robert de Vigny, once constabulary commandant, now beret-crowned king of the maquis, returned to headquarters. (He had not been directing a raid, but finding some technicians and arranging for their transportation to the Ravignac lodge, where a major hydroelectric generator needed repairs. Of such unglamorous detail work is survival made.) Ended even was the first gladness of reunion, with Irribarne who had been lost, with Vadász after a year and Heim after a generation. “Eon, passons aux affaires sirieuses,” he said, and sat down behind his desk.

Vadász found a chair, slumped low, and stared at his boots. Heim kept his feet, met the green gaze, but found no words. “You tell him, Jean,” he mumbled at length. “My French is shot to hell.”

De Vigny stiffened himself, like a man expecting a blow. He was grizzled and not tall, but his back was rifle straight and the face might have belonged to a Trajan. “Continuez,” he said without tone. The Basque snapped to attention. “Repos,” de Vigny invited, but Irribarne seemed unable to stand at ease while the news jerked out of him.

At the end, the colonel remained expressionless. One hand drummed a little on the desktop. “So,” he said most quietly, in French. “Earth has abandoned us.”

“Not all Earth!” Vadász exclaimed.

“No, true, you are here.” The mask dissolved; one could see muscles tighten along jaws and mouth, calipers deepen on either side of the gray toothbrush mustache, a pulse at the base of the throat. “And, I gather, at considerable risk. What is your plan, Captain Heim?” Now the privateer found words more easily. He stayed with English, though, which de Vigny could follow. “As I explained to Lieutenant Irribarne, Earth needs to be convinced of two things. First, that you people survive; second, that you won’t go along with any appeasement that costs you your homes. Well, the men of yours who’re now in space, on my ship, might be a clinching proof of the first point. But men have always bragged about how hard they’ll fight, so any such claims they may make could be discounted.”

“And rightly so,” de Vigny remarked. “One has often in history heard nations declare they will fight to the last man, but none have ever done it. And there has never been any question of fighting to the last woman and child. If Earth does not soon come to help, I shall most certainly try to save us by making whatever bargain I can with Alerion.”

“I’m coming to that,” Heim said. “If we can send some of your women and children, it’ll make the whole thing more real to the average Earth-dweller. They’d be a powerful help to the faction there which does want victory. Three ways: plain old emotional appeal; living proof that standing up to Alerion doesn’t necessarily mean total disaster; and, well, a woman who says her people don’t want to surrender is more convincing than a man. The balance of opinion at home seems to be pretty delicate. They might be enough by themselves to tip it.”

“They might. You deal in hypotheses, Monsieur Captain. I must deal with the reality that we shall soon be getting sick.”

“If they also carried word you aren’t about to—what then?”

“Hein?” De Vigny balled his fist. “What do you propose?”

“That we get you your vitamins. Look, aren’t the Aleriona having a lot of trouble operating your machines? And aren’t you causing still more with your raids?”

“Yes. But this is hardly significant.”

“It is when they’re in a tearing hurry to complete the space fortifications and I’ve thrown them way behind schedule. I think if you offered to leave them alone, and maybe even send them some technicians, they’d swap. Give you the pills you need. Of course, you’d have to make sure those really were vitamin C capsules, but that shouldn’t be too hard to arrange.”

“What?” Irribarne cried. “Bargain with the enemy?”

“It is not uncommon in war.” De Vigny stroked his chin. “Indeed, those are the terms I was planning to make, if I could, when we are desperate. They will understand we are buying time in the hope of deliverance. But if they do not know that deliverance may, after all, be expected—Yes. Why should they not take an easy way of getting us off their necks? They will assume we can be dealt with later … To be sure, they may demand unconditional surrender, insist we come down to the lowlands where we can be penned up.”

“If they do,” Heim said, “I think we might manage to grab warehouse stocks, or even manufacturing facilities. A joint operation between your forces and my ship. Or if that doesn’t look feasible—” He swallowed bitterness. “We can throw in an offer that I go home.”

“Name of a name,” de Vigny breathed. “That would surely fetch them. But let us make the less costly proposal first, not admitting we have any communication with you, and hold this bargaining counter in reserve.”

“Oh, sure. Besides, we have to get the transport with the evacuees safely away, which needs surprise.”

De Vigny considered him. “You are most strangely concerned about a hundred or two of women and children. I attach less importance to them. Our continued existence here, as free men, is more apt to make Earth move. However … two hundred saved are still two hundred, so have your way. But how do you propose to get such a lumbering, over-loaded craft beyond the Mach limit?”

“Fox will make a covering raid when I send word.”

“What? She is that close, undetected? How the devil? And how can a maser beam find her when Aleriona radar can’t?”

“My engineer is off explaining the setup to your technical staff. Let us stick to the tactical side for now. The diversion should be ample. One well-armed ship, striking by surprise, can raise all kinds of hell. Once Meroeth’s in space, Fox will escort her to the limit. According to all our information—from instruments, radio monitor, captured documents, and so forth; we’ve got a man who can puzzle out the language if you give him time—most of the enemy strength here is chasing through the Auroran System and beyond, looking for me. So we ought to be out of danger well before they can bring more power to bear against us than Fox can handle.”

The colonel frowned. “You juggle too many unknowns for my taste.”

“Or mine,” Heim said dryly. “But one way to clear away some of ‘em is obvious. Let me go along with your delegation to the Aleriona. They won’t know I’m not just another colonist. But I know them pretty well. I ought to, after so many years sparring with them. I also have a professional Navy eye, which they won’t be expecting. Endre should come too. He’s got a poet’s grasp of non-human psychologies.

Between us, we can not only help you make a better deal, but carry back a lot of useful information to base our specific plans on.”

“M-m-m … well—” De Vigny pondered a moment. Then, crisply: “So be it. Time is short, and we do not really have much to lose. This, then, is the schedule as I understand it We begin at once to arrange evacuation. During the next few days, the people chosen can flit in by ones and twos. We must also load supplies, and must not be observed doing it. But my men .can run a cargo tube from the forest to one of your locks below water, without exposing it to the sky.

“Meanwhile I establish radio contact with the Aleriona and ask for a parley. They will doubtless agree, especially since their new chief of naval operations seems, from Lieutenant Irribarne’s account, to be a rather decent fellow. I daresay they will receive our representatives already tomorrow,,,

“If we can reach an agreement, cessation of guerrilla operations and perhaps the supplying of some engineers in exchange for vitamins—good. Whether that works out or not, the delegation returns here.

“Then your ship attacks to get this transport safely away. “After that, if we are provided with the capsules, you continue your warfare in space as long as possible. If not, and if we cannot steal them, I call the enemy again and offer an end to your activities, provided he supplies us. This he is virtually sure to accept.

“At large cost or small, we shall have gained time, during which we hope Earth will come to help. Am I right?”

Heim nodded and got out his pipe. “That’s the idea,” he said.

De Vigny’s nostrils dilated. “Tobacco? One had almost I forgotten.”

Heim chuckled and threw the pouch on the desk. De Vigny picked up a little bell and rang it. And aide-de-camp materialized in the tent entrance, saluting. “Find me a pipe,” de Vigny said. “And, if the captain does not object, you may find one for yourself too.”

“At once, my colonel!” The aide dematerialized.

“Well.” De Vigny unbent a trifle. “Thanks are a poor thing, I monsieur. What can New Europe do for you?”

Heim grew conscious of Vadász’s half jocose, half sympathetic regard, blushed, and said roughly, “I have an old friend on this planet, who’s now Jean Irribarne’s sister-in-law. See to it that she and her family are among the evacuees.”

“Pierre will not go when other men stay,” the Basque said gently.

“But they shall most certainly come here if you wish,” de Vigny said. He rang for another aide. “Lieutenant, why do you not go with Major Legrand to my own flyer? It has a set which can call to anywhere in the Haute Garance. If you will tell the operator where they are, your kin—” .When that was done, he said to Heim and Vadász, “I shall be most busy today, it is plain. But let us relax until after lunch. We have many stories to trade.”

And so they did.

When at last de Vigny must dismiss them, Heim and Vadász were somewhat at loose, ends. There was little to see. Though quite a few men were camped around the lake, the shelters were scattered and hidden, the activity unobtrusive. Now and then a flyer came by, as often as not weaving between tree trunks under the concealing foliage. Small radars sat in camouflage, watching for the unlikely appearance of an Aleriona vessel. The engineers could not install their loading tube to the ship before night, unless one of the frequent fogs rose to cover their work. Men sat about yarning, gambling, doing minor chores. All were eager to talk with the Earthlings, but the Earthlings soon wearied of repeating themselves. Toward noon a degree of physical tiredness set in as well. They had been up for a good eighteen hours.

Vadász yawned. “Let us go back to our tent,” he suggested. “This planet has such an inconvenient rotation. You must sleep away a third of the daylight and be awake two thirds of the night.”

“Oh, well,” Heim said. “It wouldn’t be colonizable otherwise.”

“What? How?”

“You don’t know? Well, look, it has only half Earth’s mass, and gets something over 85 percent of the irradiation. The air would’ve bled away long ago, most of it, except that air loss is due in ‘large part to magnetic interaction with charged particles from the sun. Even a G5 star like Aurore spits out quite a bit of stuff. But slow spin means a weak magnetic field.”

“Another thanks due to Providence,” the Hungarian said thoughtfully.

“Huh!” Heim snorted. “Then we’ve got to blame Providence for Venus keeping too much atmosphere. It’s a simple matter of physics. The smaller a planet is, and the closer to its sun, the less difference of angular momentum between the inner and outer sections of the dust cloud that goes to form it. Therefore, the less rotation.”

Vadász clapped his shoulder. “I do not envy you your philosophy, my friend. God is good. But we are in mortal danger of becoming serious. Let us, I say, return to the tent, where I have a flask of brandy, and—”

They were not far from it then, were crossing a meadow where flame-colored blossoms nodded in the golden grass. Jean Irribarne stepped from under the trees. “Ah,” he hailed, “vous voilà. I have looked for you.”

“What about?” Heim asked

The lieutenant beamed. “Your friends are here.” He turned and called, ” ‘Allo-o-o!”

They came out into the open, six of them. The blood left Heim’s heart and flooded back. He stood in a sunlit darkness that whirled.

She approached him timidly. Camp clothes, faded and shapeless, had today been exchanged for a dress brought along to the woods and somehow preserved. It fluttered light and white around her long-legged slenderness. Aurore had bleached the primly braided brown hair until it was paler than her skin; but still it shone, and one lock blew free above the heart-shaped face. Her eyes were violet.

“Madelon,” he croaked.

“Gunnar.” The handsome woman took both his hands. “C’est si ban te voir encore. Bienvenu.”

“A nej—” the breath rasped into him. He pulled back his shoulders. “I was surprised,” he said limpingly. “Your daughter looks so much like you.”

“Pardon?” the woman struggled with long unused English.

Her husband, an older and heavier version of Jean, interpreted while he shook Heim’s hand. Madelon laughed. “Oui, oui, tout le monde le dit. Quand j’etais jeune, peutêtre. Danielle, je voudrais que tu fasses la connaissance de mon vieil ami Gunnar Heim.”

“Je suis très honorée, monsieur.” She could scarcely be heard above the wind as it tossed the leaves and made light and shadow dance behind her. The fingers were small and cool in Heim’s, quickly withdrawn.

In some vague fashion he met teenage Jacques, Cecile, and Yves. Madelon talked a lot, without much but friendly banalities coming through the translations of the Irribarae brothers. All the while Danielle stood quiet. But at parting, with promises of a real get-together after sleep, she smiled at him.

Heim and Vadász watched them leave, before going on themselves. When the forest had closed upon her, the minstrel whistled. “Is that indeed the image of your one-time sweetheart, yonder girl?” he asked.

“More or less,” Heim said, hardly aware that he talked to anyone else. “There must be differences, I suppose. Memory plays tricks.”

“Still, one can see what you meant by—Forgive me, Gunnar, but may I advise that you be careful? There are so many years to stumble across.”

“Good Lord!” Heim exploded angrily. “What do you take me for? I was startled, nothing else.”

“Well, if you are certain … You see, I would not wish to—”

“Shut up. Let’s find that brandy.” Heim led the way with tremendous strides.

Day crept toward evening. But life kept its own pace, which can be a fast one in time of war. At sunset Heim found himself on a ness jutting into the lake, alone with Danielle.

He was not sure how. There had been the reunion and a meal as festive as could be managed, in the lean-to erected near the Irribarne flyer. Champagne, which he had taken care to stow aboard Meroeth, flowed freely. Stiffness dissolved in it. Presently they sprawled on the grass, Vaduz’s guitar rang and most voices joined his. But Heim and Made-Ion kept somewhat apart, struggling to talk, and her oldest daughter sat quietly by.

They could not speak much of what had once been. Heim did not regret that, and doubted Madelon did. Meeting again like this, they saw how widely their ways had parted; now only a look, a smile, a bit of laughter could cross the distance between. She was an utterly good person, he thought, but she was not Connie or even Jocelyn. And, for that matter, he was not Pierre.

So they contented themselves with trading years. Hers had been mild until the Aleriona came. Pierre, the engineer, built dikes and power stations while she built their lives. Thus Heim found himself relating the most. It came natural to make the story colorful.

His eyes kept drifting toward Danielle.

Finally—this was where the real confusion began as to what had happened—the party showed signs of breaking up. He wasn’t sleepy himself, though the wine bubbled in his head, and his body demanded exercise. He said something about taking a stroll. Had he invited the girl along, or had she asked to come, or had Madelon, chuckling low in the way he remembered, sent them off together with a remark about his needing a guide? Everybody had spoken, but between his bad French and hammering pulse he wasn’t sure who had said what. He did recall that the mother had given them a little push toward the deeper forest, one hand to each.

Song followed them a while (“Aupres de ma blonde, qu’il fait ban, fait ban, fait ban—“), but by the time they reached the lakeshore they heard simply a lap-lap of wavelets, rustic of leaves, flute of a bird. Aurore was going down behind the western peaks, which stock black against a cloud bank all fire and gold. The same long light made a molten bridge on the water, from the sun toward him and her. But eastward fog was rolling, slow as the sunset, a topaz wall that of the top broke into banners of dandelion yellow in a sky still clear with day. The breeze cooled his skin.

He saw her clasp arms together. “Avez-vous froid, mademoiselle?” he asked, much afraid they would have to go back. She smiled even before he took off his cloak, probably at what he was doing to her language. He threw it over her shoulders. When his hands brushed along her neck, he felt his sinews go taut and withdrew in a hurry.

“Thank you.” She had a voice too light for English or Norwegian, which turned French into song. “But will you not be cold?”

“No. I am fine.” (Damn! Did fin have the meaning he wanted?) “I am—” He scratched around for words. “Too old and … poilu? … too old and hairy to feel the weather.”

“You are not old, Monsieur Captain,” she said gravely.

“Ha!” He crammed fists into pockets. “What age have you? Nineteen? I have a daughter that which she—I have a daughter a few years less.”

“Well—” She laid a finger along her jaw. He thought wildly what a delicate line that bone made, over the small chin to a gentle mouth; and, yes, her nose tipped gaily upward, with some freckles dusted across the bridge. “I know you are my mother’s age. But you do not look it, and what you have done is more than any young man could.”

“Thanks. Thanks. Nothing.”

“Mother was so excited when she heard,” Danielle said. “I think Father got a little jealous. But now he likes you.”

“Your father is a good man.” It was infuriating to be confined to this first-grade vocabulary.

“May I ask you something, monsieur?”

“Ask me anybody.” The one rebellious lock of hair had gotten free again.

“I have heard that we who go to Earth do so to appeal for help. Do you really think we will matter that much?”

“Well, uh, well, we had a necessity to come here. That is to say, we have now made establish communication from your people to mine in space. So we can also take people like you away.”

A crease of puzzlement flitted between her brows. “But they have spoken of how difficult it was to get so big a ship down without being seen. Could you not better have taken a little one?”

“You are very clever, mademoiselle, but—” Before he could construct a cover-up, she touched his arm (how lightly!) and said:

“You came as you did, risking your life, for Mother’s sake. Is that not so?”

“Uh, uh, well, naturally I thought over her. We are old friends.”

She smiled. “Old sweethearts, I have heard. Not all the knights are dead, Captain. I sat with you today, instead of joining in the music, because you were so beautiful to watch.”

His heart sprang until he realized she had been using the second person plural. He hoped the sunset light covered the hue his face must have. “Mademoiselle,” he said, “your mother and I are friends. Only friends.”

“Oh, but of course. I understand. Still, it was so good of you, everything you have done for us.” The evening star kindled above her head. “And now you will take us to Earth. I have dreamed about such a trip since I was a baby.”

There was an obvious opening to say that she was more likely to make Earth sit up and beg than vice versa, but he could only hulk over her, trying to find a graceful way of putting it She sighed and looked past him.

“Your men too, they are knights,” she said. “They have not even your reason to fight for New Europe. Except perhaps Monsieur Vadász?”

“No, Endre has no one here,” Heim said. “He is a troubadour.”

“He sings so wonderfully,” Danielle murmured. “I was listening all the time. He is a Hungarian?”

“By birth. Now he has no home.” Endre, you’re a right buck, but this is getting to be too much about you. “I have—have—When you arrive on Earth, you and your family use my home. I come when I can and take you in my ship.”

She clapped her hands. “Oh, wonderful!” she caroled. “Your daughter and I, we shall become such good friends. And afterward, a voyage on a warship—What songs of victory we will sing, homeward bound!”

“Well—um—We return to camp now? Soon is dark.” Under the circumstances, one had better be as elaborately gentlemanly as possible.

Danielle drew the cloak tight around her. “Yes, if you wish.” He wasn’t sure whether that showed reluctance or not. But as she started walking immediately, he made no comment, and they spoke little en route.

The party was indeed tapering off. Heim’s and Danielle’s return touched off a round of good-nights. When she gave him back his cloak, he dared squeeze her hand. Vadász kissed it, with a flourish.

On their way back through leafy blue twilight, the minstrel said, “Ah, you are the lucky one still.”

“What do you mean?” Heim snapped.

“Taking the fair maiden off that way. What else?”

“For God’s sake!” Heim growled. “We just wanted to stretch our legs. I don’t have to rob cradles yet.”

“Are you quite honest, Gunnar? … No, wait, please don’t tie me in a knot. At least, not in a granny knot. It is only that Mlle. Irribarne is attractive. Do you mind if I see her?”

“What the’ blaze have I got to say about that?” Heim retorted out of his anger. “But listen, she’s the daughter of a friend of mine, and these colonial French have a medieval notion of what’s proper. Follow me?”

“Indeed. No more need be said.” Vadász whistled merrily the rest of the way. Once in his sleeping bag, he drowsed off at once. Heim had a good deal more trouble doing so.

Perhaps for that reason, he woke late and found himself alone in the tent. Probably Diego was helping de Vigny’s sappers and Endre had wandered off—wherever. It was not practical for guerrillas to keep a regular mess, and the campstove, under a single dim light, showed that breakfast had been prepared. Heim fixed his own, coffee, wildfowl, and a defrosted chunk of the old and truly French bread which is not for tender gums. Afterward he washed, depilated the stubble on his face, shrugged into some clothes, and went outside.

No word for me, evidently. If any comes, it’ll keep. I feel restless. How about a swim? He grabbed a towel and started off.

Diane was up. Such light as came through the leaves made the forest a shifting bewilderment of black and white, where his flash-beam bobbed lonely. The air had warmed and cleared. He heard summery noises, whistles, chirps, croaks, flutters, none of them quite like home. When he emerged on the shore, the lake was a somehow bright sable, each little wave tipped with moonfire. The snowpeaks stood hoar be-nearth a universe of stars. He remembered the time on Staurn when he had tried to pick out Achernar; tonight he could do so with surety, for it burned great in this sky. His triumph, just about when Danielle was being born—“Vous n’etes pas vieux, Monsieur le Capitaine.”

He stripped, left the beam on to mark the spot, and waded out. The water was cold, but he needed less will power than usual to take the plunge when it was waist deep. For a time he threshed about, warming himself, then struck out with long quiet strokes. Moonlight rippled in his wake. The fluid slid over his skin like a girl’s fingers.

Things are looking up, he thought with a growing gladness. We really do have a good chance to rescue this planet. And if part of the price is that I stop raiding—why, I’ll be on Earth too.

Did it sing within him, or had a bird called from the ness ahead?

No. Birds don’t chord on twelve strings. Heim grinned and swam forward as softly as he was able. Endre’s adrenal glands would benefit from a clammy hand laid on him from behind and a shouted “Boo!”

The song strengthened in his ears:

“Roslein, Roslein, Roslein rot,

Roslein auf der Heiden.”

As it ended, Heim saw Vadász seated on a log, silhouetted against the sky. He was not alone.

Her voice came clear through the night. “Oh, c’est beau. Je n’aurais jamais cru que les allemands pouvaient avoir une telle sensibilité.”

Vadász laughed. “Vous savez, Goethe vecut il y a longtemps. Mais pourquoi rappeler de vieilles haines pendant une si belle nuit?” .

She shivered. “L’haine n’est pas morte. Elle nous entoure.”

He drew his cloak around them both. “Oubliez tout cela, mademoiselle. L’affaire est en bonne mains. Nous sommes Venus id pour admirer, parler, et chanter, n’est-ce pas?”

“Out.” Hesitantly: “Mais mes parents—”

“Pff! Il n’est pas tard. La nuit, le jour, c’est la même chose pour les Neo-Européens. Vous n’avez pas confiance en moi? Je suis aussi innocent qu’une grenouille perdue de rhumatismes. Vous avez entendu mes coassements.”

Danielle giggled. “Coassez encore, je vous en prie.”

“Le souhait d’une si charmante demoiselle est un ordre. Ah … quelque chose à la Magyar? Un chant d’amour.”

The strings toned very softly, made themselves a part of night and woods and water. Vadász’s words twined among them. Danielle sighed and leaned a bit closer. Heim swam away. No, he told himself, and again: No. Endre isn’t being a bastard. He asked me.

The grip on his throat did not loosen. He ended his quietness and churned the water with steamboat violence. He’s

He’s young. I could have been her father. But I junked the chance.

I thought it had come back.

No. I’m being ridiculous. Oh, Connie, Connie!

Ved Guid—His brain went in rage to the tongue of his childhood. By God, if he does anything—I’m not too old to break a man’s neck.

What the hell business is it of mine? He stormed ashore and abraded himself dry. Clothes on, he stumbled through the woods. There was a bottle in the tent, not quite empty.

A man waited for him. He recognized one of de Vigny’s aides. “Well?”

The officer sketched a salute. “I ‘ave a message for you, monsieur. The colonel ‘as contact the enemy. They receive a delegation in Bonne Chance after day ‘as break.”

“Okay. Good night.”

“But, monsieur—”

“I know. We have to confer. Well, I’ll come when I can. We’ve plenty of time. It’s going to be a long night.” Heim brushed past the aide and closed his tent flap.

VI

Below, the Carsac Valley rolled broad and rich. Farmsteads could be seen, villages, an occasional factory surrounded by gardens—but nowhere man; the land was empty, livestock run wild, weeds reclaiming the fields. Among them flowed the river, metal-bright in the early sun.

When he looked out the viewports of the flyer where he sat, Heim saw his escort, four Aleriona military vehicles. The intricate, gaily colored patterns painted on them did not soften their barracuda outlines. Guns held aim on the unarmed New Europeans. We could change from delegates to prisoners in half a second, he thought, and reached for his pipe.

“Pardon.” Lieutenant Colonel Charles Navarre, head of the eight-man negotiation team, tapped his shoulder. “Best lock that away, monsieur. We have not had tobacco in the maquis for one long time.”

“Damn! You’re right. Sorry.” Heim got up and stuck his smoking materials in a locker.

“They are no fools, them.” Navarre regarded the big man carefully. “Soon we land. Is anything else wrong with you, Captain Alphonse Lafayette?”

“No, I’m sure not,” Heim said in English. “But let’s, go down the list. My uniform’s obviously thrown together, but that’s natural for a guerrilla. I don’t look like a typical colonist, but they probably won’t notice, and if they do it won’t surprise them.”

“Comment?” asked another officer.

“Didn’t you know?” Heim said. “Aleriona are bred into standardized types. From their viewpoint, humans are so wildly variable that a difference in size and coloring is trivial. Nor have they got enough familiarity with French to detect my accent, as long as I keep my mouth shut most of the time. Which’ll be easy enough, since I’m only coming along in the hope of picking up a little naval intelligence.”

“Yes, yes,” Navarre said impatiently. “But be most careful about it.” He leaned toward Vadász, who had a seat in the rear. “You too, Lieutenant Gaston Girard.”

“On the contrary,” the minstrel said, “I have to burble and chatter and perhaps irritate them somewhat. There is no other way to probe the mood of non-humans. But have no fear. This was all thought about. I am only a junior officer, not worth much caution on their part.” He smiled tentatively at Heim. “You can vouch for how good I am at being worthless, no, Gunnar?”

Heim grunted. Pain and puzzlement nickered across the Magyar’s features. When first his friend turned cold to him, he had put it down to a passing bad mood. Now, as Heim’s distantness persisted, there was no chance—in this crowded, thrumming cabin—to ask what had gone wrong.

The captain could almost read those thoughts. He gusted out a breath and returned to his own seat forward. I’m being stupid and petty and a son of a bitch in general, he knew. But I can’t forget Danielle, this sunrise with the fog drops like jewels in her hair, and the look she gave him when we said good-by. Wasn’t I the one who’d earned it?

He was quite glad when the flyer started down.

Through magnification before it dropped under the horizon, he saw that Bonne Chance, had grown some in twenty years. But it was still a small city, nestled on the land’s seaward shoulder: a city of soft-hued stucco walls and red tile roofs, of narrow ambling streets, suspension bridges across the Carsac, a market square where the cathedral fronted on outdoor stalls and outdoor cafes, docks crowded with water-craft, and everywhere trees, Earth’s green chestnut and poplar mingled with golden bellefleur and gracis. The bay danced and dazzled, the countryside rolled ablaze with wildflowers, enclosing the town exactly as they had done when he wandered hand in hand with Madelon.

Only … the ways were choked with dead leaves; houses stared blank and blind; boats moldered in the harbor; machines rusted silent; the belfry rooks were dead or fled and a fauquette cruised the sky on lean wings, searching for prey. The last human thing that stirred was the aerospace port, twenty kilometers inland.

And those were not men or men’s devices bustling over its concrete. The airships bringing cargo had been designed by no Terrestrial engineer. The factories they served were windowless prolate domes, eerily graceful for all that they were hastily assembled prefabs. Conveyors, trucks, lifts were man-made, but the controls had been rebuilt for hands of another shape and minds trained to another concept of number. Barracks surrounded the field, hundreds of buildings reaching over the bills; from above, they looked like open-petaled bronze flowers. Missiles stood tall among them, waiting to pounce. Auxiliary spacecraft clustered in the open. One was an armed pursuer, whose snout reached as high as the cathedral cross.

“It must belong to a capital ship in planetary orbit,” Heim decided. “And if that’s die only such, the other warships must be out on patrol. Which is maybe worth knowing.”

“I do not see how you can use the information,” Navarre said. “A single spacecraft of the line gives total air superiority when there is nothing against it but flyers. And our flyers are not even military.”

“Still, it’s always helpful to see what you’re up against. Uh, you’re sure their whole power is concentrated here?”

“Yes, quite sure. This area has most of our industrial facilities. There are garrisons elsewhere, at certain mines and plants, as well as at observation posts. But our scouts have reported those are negligible in themselves.”

“So … I’d guess, then, knowing how much crowding Aleriona will tolerate—let me think—I’d estimate their number at around fifty thousand. Surely the military doesn’t amount to more than a fifth of that. They don’t need more defense. Upper-type workers—what we’d call managers, engineers, and so forth—are capable of fighting but aren’t trained for it. The lower-type majority have had combativeness bred out. So we’ve really only got ten thousand Aleriona to worry about. How many men could you field?”

“Easily a hundred thousand—who would be destroyed the moment they ventured out of the forests.”

“I know. A rifle isn’t much use when you face heavy ground and air weapons.” Heim grimaced.

The flyer touched concrete at the designated point and halted. Its escort remained hovering. Navarre stood up. “Sortons,” he said curtly, and led the way out the door. Twenty Aleriona of the warrior class—lean, broad of chest, hair tight-braided under the conical helmets, faces handsome rather than beautiful, and expressionless—waited in file. The long sunrays turned their scaly garments almost incandescent. They did not draw the crooked swords at their belts or point their guns at the newcomers; they might have been statues. Their officer stepped forward, making the droop-tailed bow with fingertips lightly touching that signified respect. He was taller than his followers, though still below average human height

“Well are you come,” he sang in fairly good French. “Wish you rest or refreshment?”

“No, thank you,” Navarre said, slowly so that the alien could follow his dialect. Against the fluid motion that confronted him, his stiffness looked merely lumpy. “We are prepared to commence discussions at once.”

“Yet first ought you be shown your quarters. Nigh to the high masters of the Garden of War is prepared a place as best we might.” The officer trilled an order. Several low-class workers appeared. They did not conform to Earth’s picture of Aleriona—their black-clad bodies were too heavy, features too coarse, hair too short, fur too dull, and there was nothing about them of that inborn unconscious arrogance which marked the leader breeds. Yet they were not servile, nor were they stupid. A million years of history, its only real change the glacial movement toward an ever more unified society, had fitted then—very genes for this part. If the officer was a panther and his soldiers watchdogs, these were mettlesome horses.

In his role as aide, Vadász showed them the party’s baggage. They fetched it out, the officer whistled a note, the troopers fell in around the humans and started off across the field. There was no marching; but the bodies rippled together like parts of one organism. Aurore struck the contact lenses which protected them from its light and turned their eyes to rubies.

Heim’s own eyes shifted back and forth as he walked. Not many other soldiers were in evidence. Some must be off duty, performing one of those enigmatic rites that were communion, conversation, sport, and prayer to an Aleriona below the fifth level of mastery. Others would be at the missile sites or on air patrol. Workers and supervisors swarmed about, unloading cargo, fetching metal from a smelter or circuit parts from a factory to another place where it would enter some orbital weapon. Their machines whirred, clanked, rumbled. Nonetheless, to a man the silence was terrifying. No shouts, no talk, no jokes or curses were heard: only an occasional melodic command, a thin weaving of taped orchestral music, the pad-pad of a thousand soft feet. Vadász showed his teeth in a grin of sorts. “Ils considérent la vie très sérieusement,” he murmured to Navarre. “Je parierais qu’ils ne font jamais de plaisanteries douteuses.”

Did the enemy officer cast him a look of—incomprehension? “Taisez vous!” Navarre said.

But Vadász was probably right, Heim reflected. Humor springs from a certain inward distortion. To that great oneness which was the Aleriona soul, it seemed impossible: literally unthinkable.

Except … yes, the delegates to Earth, most especially Admiral Cynbe, had shown flashes of a bleak wit. But they belonged to the ultimate master class. It suggested a difference from the rest of their species which—He dismissed speculation and went back to observing as much detail as he could.

The walk ended at a building some hundred meters from the edge of the field. Its exterior was no different from the other multiply curved structures surrounding it. Inside, though, the rooms had clearly been stripped, the walls were raw plastic and floors were stained where the soil of flowerbeds had been removed. Furniture, a bath cubicle, Terrestrial-type lights, plundered from houses, were arranged with a geometric precision which the Aleriona doubtless believed was pleasing to men. “Hither shall food and drink be brought you,” the officer sang. “Have you wish to go elsewhere, those guards that stand outside will accompany.”

“I see no communicator,” Navarre said.

“None there is. With the wilderness dwellers make you no secret discourse. Within camp, your guards bear messages. Now must we open your holders-of-things and make search upon your persons.”

Navarre reddened. “What? Monsieur, that violates every rule of parley.”

“Here the rule is of the Final Society. Wish you not thus, yourselves you may backtake to the mountains.” It was hard to tell whether or not that lilting voice held insult, but Heim didn’t think so. The officer was stating a fact.

“Very well,” Navarre spat. “We submit under protest, and this shall be held to your account when Earth has defeated you.”

The Aleriona didn’t bother to reply. Yet the frisking was oddly like a series of caresses.

No contraband was found, there not being any. Most of the colonists were surprised when the officer told them, “Wish you thus, go we this now to seek the Intellect Masters.” Heim, recalling past encounters, was not. The Aleriona overlords had always been more flexible than their human counterparts. With so rigid a civilization at their beck, they could afford it.

“Ah … just who are they?” Navarre temporized.

“The imbiac of planetary and space defense are they, with below them the prime engineering operator. And then have they repositories of information and advice,” the officer replied. “Is not for you a similarity?”

“I speak for the constabulary government of New Europe,” Navarre said. “These gentlemen are my own experts, advisers, and assistants. But whatever I agree to must be ratified by my superiors.”

Again the girlish face, incongruous on that animal body, showed a brief loosening that might betoken perplexity. “Come you?” the song wavered.

“Why not?” Navarre said. “Please gather your papers, messieurs.” His heels clacked on the way out.

Heim and Vadász got to the door simultaneously. The minstrel bowed. “After you, my dear Alphonse,” he said. The other man hesitated, unwilling. But no, you had to maintain morale. He bowed back: “After you, my dear Gaston.” They kept it up for several seconds.

“Make you some ritual?” the officer asked.

“A most ancient one.” Vadász sauntered off side by side with him.

“Never knew I such grew in your race,” the officer admitted.

“Well, now, let me tell you—” Vadász started an energetic argument. He’s doing his job right well, Heim conceded grudgingly.

Not wanting to keep the Magyar in his consciousness, he looked straight ahead at the building they were approaching. In contrast to the rest, it lifted in a single high curve, topped with a symbol resembling an Old Chinese ideogram. The walls were not blank bronze, but scored with micro-grooves that turned them shiftingly, bewilderingly iridescent. He saw now that this was the source of the music, on a scale unimagined by men, that breathed across the port.

No sentries were visible. An Aleriona had nothing to fear from his underlings. The wall dilated to admit those who neared, and closed behind them.

There was no decompression chamber. The occupiers must find it easier to adapt themselves, perhaps with the help of drugs, to the heavy wet atmosphere of this planet. A hall sloped upward, vaguely seen in the dull red light from a paraboloidal ceiling. The floor was carpeted with living, downy turf, the walls with phosphorescent vines and flowers that swayed, slowly keeping time to the music, and drenched the air with their odors. The humans drew closer together, as if for comfort. Ghost silent, ghost shadowy, they went with their guards to the council chamber.

It soared in a vault whose top was hidden by dusk, but where artificial stars glittered wintry keen. The interior was a vague, moving labyrinth of trellises, bushes, and bowers. Light came only from a fountain at the center, whose crimson-glowing waters leaped five meters out of a bowl carved like an open mouth, cascaded down again, and filled every corner of the jungle with their clear splash and gurgle. Walking around it, Heim thought he heard wings rustle in the murk overhead.

The conqueror lords stood balanced on tails and clawed feet, waiting. There were half a dozen all told. None wore any special insignia of rank, but the light flickered lovingly over metal-mesh garments, lustrous hair, and silver-sparked white fur. The angelic faces were in repose, the emerald eyes altogether steady.

To them the officer genuflected and the soldiers dipped their rifles. A few words were sung. The guards stepped back into darkness and the humans stood alone.

One Aleriona master arched his back and hissed. Almost instantly, his startlement passed. He trod forward so that his countenance came into plain view. Laughter belled from him, low and warm.

“Thus, Captain Gunnar Heim,” he crooned in English. “Strangeness, how we must ever meet. Remember you not Cynbe ru Taren?”

VII

So shattered was Heim’s universe that he was only dimly aware of what happened. Through the red gloom, trillings went among the Aleriona. One bristled and cried an order to the guards. Cynbe countermanded it with an imperious gesture. Above the racket of his pulse, Heim heard the admiral murmur: “You would they destroy on this now, but such must not become. Truth, there can be no release; truth alike, you are war’s honored prisoners.” And there were more songs, and at last the humans were marched back to their quarters. But Heim remained.

Cynbe dismissed his fellow chieftains and all but four guards. By then the sweat was drying on the man’s skin, his heartbeat was slowed, the first total despair thrust down beneath an iron watchfulness. He folded his arms and waited.

The Aleriona lord prowled to the fountain, which silhouetted him as if against liquid flames. For a while he played with a blossoming vine. The sole noises were music, water, and unseen circling wings. It was long before he intoned, softly and not looking at the man:

“Hither fared I to have in charge the hunt for you the hunter. Glad was my hope that we might meet in space and love each the other with guns. Why came you to this dull soil?”

“Do you expect me to tell you?” Heim rasped.

“We are kinfolk, you and I. Sorrow, that I must word-break and keep you captive. Although your presence betokens this was never meant for a real parley.”

“It was, however. I just happened to come along. You’ve no right to hold the New Europeans, at least.”

“Let us not lawsplit. We two rear above such. Release I the others, home take they word to your warship. Then may she well strike. And we have only my cruiser Jubalcho to meet her. While she knows not what has happened to you her soul, Fox II abides. Thus gain I time to recall my deep-scattered strength.”

The breath hissed between Heim’s teeth. Cynbe swung about. His eyes probed like fire weapons. “What bethink you?”

“Nothing!” Heim barked frantically.

It raced within him: He believes I took Fox down. Well, that’s natural. Not knowing about our meteorite gimmick, he’d assume that only a very small or a very fast craft could sneak past his guard. And why should I come in a tender? Fox on the surface could do tremendous damage, missile this base and strike at his flagship from a toadhole position..

I don’t know what good it is having him misinformed, but—play by ear, boy, play by ear. You haven’t got anything left except your rusty old wits.

Cynbe studied him a while. “Not long dare I wait to act,” he mused. “And far are my ships.”

Heim forced a jeering note: “The practical limit of a maser beam is about twenty million kilometers. After that, if nothing else, the position error for a ship gets too big. And there’s no way to lock onto an accelerating vessel till she’s so close that you might as well use an ordinary ‘caster. Her coordinates change too fast, with too many unpredictables such as meteorite dodging. So how many units have you got on known orbits within twenty million kilometers?”

“Insult me not,” Cynbe replied quietly. He stalked to the wall, brushed aside a curtain of flowers and punched the keys of an infotrieve. It chattered and extruded a print-out. He brooded over the symbols. “Inisant the cruiser and Savaidh the lancer can we reach. All ignorant must the others wheel their way, until one by one they return on slow schedule and find only battle’s ashes.”

“What are the factors for those two?” Heim inquired. Mostly he was holding at bay the blood-colored stillness. It jarred him—not too much to jam the numbers into his memory—when Cynbe read off in English the orbital elements and present positions.

“Hence have I sent my race-brothers to summon them,” the Aleriona went on. “At highest acceleration positive and negative, Savaidh takes orbit around Europe Neuve in eighteen hours, Inisant in twenty-three. I think not the Fox-folk will dread for you thus soon. With three warcraft aloft, this entire planet do we scan. Let your ship make the least of little moves, and destruction shall thunder upon her unstoppable. Although truth, when ready for smiting we shall send detector craft all places and seek her lair.”

His tone had not been one of threat. It grew still milder: “This do I tell you in my thin hoping you yield her. Gallant was that ship, unfitting her death where the stars cannot see.”

Heim pinched his lips together and shook his head.

“What may I offer you for surrender,” Cynbe asked in sadness, “unless maychance you will take my love?”

“What the devil!” Heim exclaimed.

“We are so much alone, you and I,” Cynbe sang. For the first time scorn touched his voice, as he jerked his tail in the direction of the warriors who stood, blank-faced and uncomprehending, half hidden in the twilight. “Think you I am kin to that?”

He glided closer. The illumination played over shining locks and disconcertingly fair countenance. His great eyes lingered on the man. “Old is Alerion,” he chanted, “old, old. Long-lived are the red dwarf stars, and late appears life in so feeble a radiance. Once we had come to being, our species, on a planet of seas vanished, rivers shrunk to trickles in desert, a world niggard of air, water, metal, life—uncountable ages lingered we in savagehood. Ah, slow was the machine with coming to us. What you did in centuries, we did in tens upon thousands of years; and when it was done, a million years a-fled, one society alone endured, swallowed every other, and the machine’s might gave it upon us a grip not to be broken. Starward fared the Wanderers, vast-minded the Intellects, yet were but ripples over the .still deep of a civilization eternity-rooted. Earth lives for goals, Alerion for changelessness. Understand you that, Gunnar Heim? Feel you how ultimate the winter you are?”

“I—you mean—”

Cynbe’s fingers stroked like a breath across the human’s wrist. He felt the hair stir beneath them, and groped for a handhold in a world suddenly tilting. “Well, uh, it’s been theorized. That is, some people believe you’re just reacting because we threaten your stability. But it doesn’t make sense. We could reach an accommodation, if all you want is to be let alone. You’re trying to hound us out of space.”

“Thus must we. Sense, reason, logic are what, save instruments of most ancient instinct? If races less powerful than we change, that makes nothing more than pullulation among insects. But you, you come in ten or twenty thousand years, one flick of time, come from the caves, bear weapons to shake planets as is borne a stone war-ax, you beswarm these stars and your dreams reach at the whole galaxy, at the whole cosmos. That can we not endure! Instinct feels doom in this becoming one mere little enclave, given over helpless to the wild mercy of those who bestride the galaxy. Would you, could you trust a race grown strong that feeds on living brains? No more is Alerion able to trust a race without bounds to its hope. Back to your own planets must you be cast, maychance back to your caves or your dust.”

Heim shook the soft touch loose, clenched his fists and growled: “You admit this, and still talk about being friends?”

Cynbe confronted him squarely, but sang with less than steadiness: “Until now said I ‘we’ for all Alerion. Sure is that not truth. For when first plain was your menace, plain too was that those bred stiff-minded, each for a one element of the Final-Society, must go down before you who are not bound and fear not newness. Mine was the master type created that it might think and act as humans and so overmatch them.” His hands smote together. “Lonely, lonely!”

Heim looked upon him in his beauty and desolation, and found no words.

Fiercely the Aleriona asked: “Guess you not how I must feel alone, I who think more Earthman than any save those few created like me? Know you not that glory there was to be on Earth, to lock with minds that had also no horizon, drown in your books and music and too much alive eye-arts? Barren are we, the Intellect Masters of the Garden of War; none may descend from us for troubling of Alerion’s peace; yet were we given the forces of life, that our will and fury rear tall as yours, and when we meet, those forces bind us through rites they knew who stood at Thermopylae. But … when you seized me, Gunnar Heim, that once you ransomed your daughter with me … afterward saw I that too was a rite.”

Heim took a backward step. Coldness ran down his spine and out into every nerve end.

Cynbe laughed. The sound was glorious to hear. “Let me not frighten you, Star Fox captain. I offer only that which you will take.” Very gently: “Friendship? Talk? Together-faring? I ask you never betrayal of your people. Well might I order a wresting from you of your knowledge and plans, but never. Think you are a war captive, and no harm that you share an awareness with your captor, who would be your friend.”

My God, it leaped in Heim. The sounds about him came through as if across a barrier of great distance or of fever. Give me some time and … and I could use him.

“Recall,” Cynbe urged, “my might on Alerion stands high. Well can I someday make a wall for the race that bred you, and so spare them that which is extinction.”

No! Sheer reflex. I won’t. I can’t.

Cynbe held out one hand. “Clasp this, as once you did,” he begged. “Give me oath you will seek no escape nor warning to your breedmates. Then no guard shall there be for you; freely as myself shall you betread our camps and ships.”

“No!” Heim roared aloud.

Cynbe recoiled. His teeth gleamed forth. “Little the honor you show to me,” he whispered.

“I can’t give you a parole,” Heim said. Whatever you do don’t turn him flat against you. There may be a chance here somewhere. Better dead, trying for a break, than—Something flashed across his brain. It was gone before he knew what it was. His consciousness twisted about and went in a pursuit that made the sweat and heart-banging take over his body again. Somehow, though every muscle was tight and the room had taken on an aspect of nightmare, he said dryly: “What’d be the use? I credit you with not being an idiot. You’d have an eye kept on me—now wouldn’t you?”

Where a man might have been angered, Cynbe relaxed and chuckled. “Truth, at the least until Fox II be slain. Although afterward, when better we know each the other—”

Heim captured the thought that had run from him. Recognizing it was like a blow. He couldn’t stop to weigh chances, they were probably altogether forlorn and he would probably get himself killed. Let’s try the thing out, at least. There’s no commitment right away. If it’s obviously not going to work, then I just won’t make the attempt.

He ran a dry tongue over dry lips, husked, and said, “I couldn’t give you a parole anyway, at any time. You don’t really think like a human, Cynbe, or you’d know why.”

Membranes dimmed those eyes. The golden head drooped. “But always in your history was honor and admiration among enemies,” the music protested.

“Oh, yes, that. Look, I’m glad to shake your hand.” Oddly, it was no lie, and when the four slim fingers coiled around his Heim did not let go at once. “But I can’t surrender to you, even verbally,” he said. “I guess my own instincts won’t let me.”

“No, now, often have men—”

“I tell you, this isn’t something that can be put in words. I can’t really feel what you said, about humans being naturally horrible to Aleriona. No more can you feel what I’m, getting at. But you did give me some rough idea. Maybe I could give you an idea of … well, what it’s like to be a man whose people have lost their homes.”

“I listen.”

“But I’d have to show you. The symbols, the—You haven’t any religion as humans understand it, you Aleriona, have you? That’s one item among many. If I showed you some things you could see and touch, and tried to explain what they stand for, maybe—Well, how about it? Shall we take a run to Bonne Chance?”

Cynbe withdrew a step. Abruptly he had gone catlike.

Heim mocked him with a chopping gesture. “Oh, so you’re scared I’ll try some stunt? Bring guards, of course. Or don’t bother, if you don’t dare.” He half turned. “I’d better get back to my own sort.”

“You play on me,” Cynbe cried.

“Nah. I say to hell with you, nothing else. The trouble is, you don’t know what you’ve done on this planet. You aren’t capable of knowing.”

“Arvan!” Heim wasn’t sure how much was wrath in that explosion and how much was something else. “I take your challenge. Go we this now.”

A wave of weakness passed through Heim. Whew! So I did read his psychology right. Endre couldn’t do better. The added thought came with returning strength. “Good,” he accepted shakily. “Because I am anxious for you to realize as much as possible. As you yourself said, you could be a powerful influence for helping Earth, if the war goes against us. Or if your side loses—that could happen, you know; our Navy’s superior to yours, if only we can muster the guts to use it—in that case, I’d have some voice in what’s to be done about Alerion. Let’s take Vadász along. You remember him, I’m sure.”

“Ye-e-es. Him did I gaintell in your party, though scant seemed he to matter. Why wish you him?”

“He’s better with words than I am. He could probably make it clearer to you.” He speaks German, and I do a little. Cynbe knows English, French, doubtless some Spanish—but German?

The admiral shrugged and gave an order. One soldier saluted and went out ahead of the others, who accompanied the leaders—down the hall, into the morning, across the field to a military flyer. Cynbe stopped once, that he might slip contacts over eyeballs evolved beneath a red coal of a sun.

Vadász waited with his guards. He looked small, hunched, and defeated. “Gunnar,” he said dully, “what’s this?”

Heim explained. For a moment the Hungarian was puzzled. Then hope lit in his visage. “Whatever your idea is, Gunnar, I am with you,” he said, and masked out expression, Half a dozen troopers took places at the rear of the vehicle. Cynbe assumed the controls. “Put us down in the square,” Heim suggested, “and we’ll stroll around”

“Strange are your ways,” Cynbe cantillated. “We thought you were probed and understood, your weakness and shortsightedness in our hands, but then Fox II departed. And now—”

“Your problem is, sir, that Aleriona of any given class, except no doubt your own, are stereotypes,” Vadász said. “Every human is a law to himself.” Cynbe made no reply. The flyer took off. It landed minutes later. The party debarked. Silence dwelt under an enormous sky. Fallen leaves covered the pavement and overflowed the dry fountain, where Lamontagne’s effigy still stood proud. A storm had battered the market booths, toppled café tables and chairs, ripped the gay little umbrellas. Only the cathedral rose firm. Cynbe moved toward it. “No,” Heim said, “let’s make that the end of the tour.”

He started in the direction of the river. Rubbish rustled from his boots, echoes flung emptily back from walls. “Can’t you see what’s wrong?” he asked. “Men lived here.”

“Hence-driven are they,” Cynbe answered. “Terrible to me Aleriona is an empty city. And yet, Gunnar Heim, was this a … a dayfly. Have you such rage that the less than a century is forsaken?”

“It was going to grow,” Vadász said.

Cynbe made an ugly face.

A small huddle of bones lay on the sidewalk. Heim pointed. “That was somebody’s pet dog,” he said. “It wondered where its gods had gone, and waited for them, and finally starved to death. Your doing.”

“Flesh do you eat,” Cynbe retorted.

A door creaked, swinging back and forth in the breeze off the water. Most of the house’s furniture could still be seen inside, dusty and rain-beaten. Near the threshold sprawled the remnants of a rag doll. Heim felt tears bite his eyes.

Cynbe touched his hand. “Well remember I what are your children to you,” he crooned.

Heim continued with long strides. “Humans live mostly for their children,” Vadász said.

The riparian esplanade came in sight. Beyond its rail, the Carsac ran wide and murmurous toward the bay. Sunlight flared off that surface, a trumpet call made visible.

Now! Heim thought. The blood roared in him. “One of our poets said what I mean,” he spoke slowly. “Wenn wir s5nd an der Fluss gekommen, und im Falls wir die Moglichkeit sehen, dann werden wir ausspringen und nach dem Hafen schwimmen.”

He dared not look to see how Vadász reacted. Dimly he heard Cynbe ask, in a bemused way, “What token those words?”

With absolute coolness, Vadász told him, “Man who is man does not surrender the hope of his loins unless manhood has died within.”

Good lad! Heim cheered. But most of his consciousness crawled with the guns at his back.

They started west along the embankment. “Still apprehend I not,” Cynbe sang. “Also Aleriona make their lives for those lives that are to come. What difference?”

Heim didn’t believe he could hide his purpose much longer. So let it be this moment that he acted—the chance did not look too bad—let him at worst be shattered into darkness and the end of fear.

He stopped and leaned on the rail. “The difference,” he said, “you can find in the same man’s words. Ich werde diesen Wesen in das Wasser stürzen. Dann springen wir beide. It’s, uh, it’s hard to translate. But look down here.”

Vadász joined them. Glee quirked his lips, a tiny bit, but he declared gravely: “The poem comes from a saying of Heraclitus. ‘No man bathes twice in the same river.”’

“That have I read.” Cynbe shuddered. “Seldom was thus dreadful a thought.”

“You see?” Heim laid a hand on his shoulder and urged him forward, until he also stood bent over the rail. Hts gaze was forced to the flowing surface, and held there as if . hypnotized. “Here’s a basic human symbol for you,” Heim said. “A river, bound to the sea, bound to flood a whole countryside if you dam it. Motion, power, destiny, time itself.”

“Had we known such on Alerion—” Cynbe whispered. “Our world raised naked rock.”

Heim closed fingers on his neck. The man’s free hand slapped down on the rail. A surge of arm and shoulder cast him and Cynbe across. They struck the current together.

VIII

His boots dragged him under. Letting the Aleriona go, he writhed about and clawed at the fastenings. The light changed from green to brown and then was gone. Water poured past, a cool and heavy force that tumbled him over and over. One off—two off—he struck upward with arms and legs. His lungs felt near bursting. Puff by grudged puff, he let out air. His mind began to wobble. Here goes, he thought, a breath or a firebeam. He stuck out as little of his face as he could, gasped, saw only the embankment, and went below again to swim.

Thrice more he did likewise, before he guessed he had come far enough to risk looking for Vadász. He shook the wetness from hair and eyes and continued in an Australian crawl. Above the, tinted concrete that enclosed the river, frees trapped sunlight in green and gold. A few roofpeaks showed, otherwise his ceiling was the sky, infinitely blue.

Before long Vadász’s head popped into sight. Heim waved at him and threshed on until he was under a bridge. It gave some protection from searchers. He grabbed a pier and trod water. The minstrel caught up and panted.

“Kárhoztatás, Gunnar, you go as if the devil himself were after you!”

“Isn’t he? Though it helps a lot that the Aleriona don’t see so well here. Contacts stop down the brightness for them, but Aurore doesn’t emit as much of the near infrared that they’re most sensitive to as The Eith does.” Heim found it calming to speak academically. It changed him from a hunted animal to a military tactician. “Just the same, we’d better stay down as much as we can. And stay separate, too. You know the old Quai des Coquillages—it’s still there? Okay, I’ll meet you underneath it. If one of us waits an hour, let him assume the other bought a farm.”

Since Vadász looked more exhausted than himself, Heim started first. He didn’t hurry, mostly he let the current bear him along, and reached the river mouth in good shape: so good that the sheer wonder of his escape got to him. He spent his time beneath the dock simply admiring light-sparkles on water, the rake of masts, the fluid chill enclosing his skin, the roughness of the bollard he held, the chuckle against hulls and their many vivid colors. His mood had just begun to ravel away in worry (Damn, I should’ve told Endre what I know) when the Magyar arrived.

“Will they not seek us here first?” Vadász asked.

“M-m, I doubt it,” Heim said. “Don’t forget, they’re from, a dry planet. The idea of using water for anything but drinking doesn’t come natural to them; you notice they’ve left all these facilities untouched, though coast-wise transport would be a handy supplement to their air freighters. Their first assumption ought to be that we went ashore as soon as we could and holed up in town. Still, we want to get out of here as fast as possible, so let’s find a boat in working order.”

“There you must choose. I am a landlubber by heritage.”

“Well, I never got along with horses, so honors are even.”

Heim risked climbing onto the wharf for an overview. He picked a good-looking pleasure craft, a submersible hydrofoil, and trotted to her. Once below, she’d be undetectable by any equipment the Aleriona had.

“Can we get inside?” the minstrel asked from the water.

“Ja, she’s not locked. Yachtsmen trust each other.” Heim unslipped the lines, pulled the canopy back, and extended an arm to help Vadász up on deck. They tumbled into the cabin and closed the glasite. “Now, you check the radio while I have a look at the engine.”

A year’s neglect had not much hurt the vessel. In fact, the sun had charged her accumulators to maximum. Her bottom was foul, but that could be lived with. Excitement surged in Heim. “My original idea was to find a communicator somewhere in town, get word to camp, and then skulk about hoping we wouldn’t be tracked down and wouldn’t starve,” he said. “But now—hell, we might get back in person! It’ll at least be harder for the enemy to pick up our message and send a rover bomb after the source, if we’re at sea. Let’s go.”

The motor chugged. The boat slid from land. Vadász peered anxiously out the dome. “Why are they not after us in full cry?” he fretted.

“I told you how come. They haven’t yet guessed we’d try this way. Also, they must be disorganized as a bawdy-house on Monday morning, after what I did to Cynbe.” Nonetheless, Heim was glad to leave obstacles behind and submerge. He went to the greatest admissible depth, set the ‘pilot for a southeasterly course, and began peeling off his wet clothes.

Vadász regarded him with awe. “Gunnar,” he said, in a tone suggesting he was not far from tears, “I will make a ballad about this, and it will not be good enough, but still they will sing it a thousand years hence. Because your name will live that long.”

“Aw, shucks, Endre. Don’t make my ears burn.”

“No, I must say what’s true. However did you conceive it?”

Heim turned up the heater to dry himself. The ocean around—murky green, with now and then a curiously shaped fish darting by—would dissipate infrared radiation. He had an enormous sense of homecoming, as if again he were a boy on the seas of Gea. For the time being, it overrode everything else. The frailty and incompleteness of his triumph could be seen later; let him now savor it.

“I didn’t,” he confessed. “The idea sort of grew. Cynbe was eager to … be friends or whatever. I talked him into visiting Bonne Chance, in the hope something might turn up that I could use for a break. It occurred to me that probably none of his gang could swim, so the riverside looked like the best place. I asked to have you along because we could use German under their noses. Also, having two of us, doubled the odds that one would get away.”

Vadász’s deference cracked in a grin. “That was the most awful Schweindeutsch I have yet heard. You are no linguist.”

Memory struck at Heim. “No,” he said harshly. Trying to keep his happiness a while, he went on fast: “We were there when I thought if I could pitch Cynbe in the drink, his guards would go all out to save him, rather than run along the bank shooting at us. If you can’t swim yourself, you’ve got a tough job rescuing another nonswimmer.”

“Do you think he drowned?”

“Well, one can always hope,” Heim said, less callously than he sounded. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they lost at least a couple of warriors fishing him out. But we’ve likely not seen the last of him. Even if he did drown, they can probably get him to a revival machine before brain decay sets in. Still, while he’s out of commission, things are apt to be rather muddled for the enemy. Not that the organization can’t operate smoothly without him. But for a while it’ll lack direction, as far as you and I are concerned, anyhow. That’s the time we’ll use to put well out to sea and call de Vigny.”

“Why … yes, surely they can send a fast flyer to our rescue.” Vadász leaned back with a cat-outside-canary smile. “La belle Danielle is going to see me even before she expected. Dare I say, before she hoped?”

Anger sheeted in Heim. “Dog your hatch, you clot-brain!” he snarled. “This is no picnic. We’ll be lucky to head off disaster.”

“What—what—” Color left Vadász’s cheeks. He winced away from the big man. “Gunnar, did I say—”

“Listen.” Heim slammed a fist on the arm of his seat “Our amateur try at espionage blew up the whole shebang. Have you forgotten the mission was to negotiate terms to keep our people from starving? That’s out. Maybe something can be done later, but right now we’re only concerned with staying alive. Our plan for evacuating refugees is out the airlock too. Cynbe jumped to the conclusion that Fox herself is on this planet. He’s recalled a lancer and a cruiser to supplement his flagship. Between them, those three can detect Meroeth raising mass, and clobber her. It won’t do us any good to leave her doggo, either. They’ll have air patrols with high-gain detectors sweeping the whole planet. So there goes de Vigny’s nice hidey-hole at Lac aux Nuages. For that matter, with three ships this close to her position, Fox herself is in mortal danger.

“You blithering, self-centered rockhead! Did you think I was risking death just so we could escape? What the muck have we got to do with anything? Our people have got to be warned!”

With a growl, he turned to the inertial navigator panel. No, they weren’t very far out yet. But maybe he should surface anyway, take his chances, to cry what he knew at this instant.

The boat pulsed around him. The heater whirred and threw waves of warmth across his bide. There was a smell of oil in the air. Outside the ports, vision was quickly blocked—as he had been blocked, thwarted, resisted and evaded at every turn. “Those ships will be here inside an Earth day,” he said. “Fox better make for outer space, the rest of us for the woods.”

“Gunnar—” Vadász began.

“Oh, be quiet!”

The minstrel flushed and raised his voice. “No. I don’t know what I have done to be insulted by you, and if you haven’t the decency to tell me, that must be your affair. But I have something to tell you, Captain. We can’t contact Fox in time.”

“Huh?” Heim whirled to face him.

“Think for a moment. Diego has his big maser set erected near the lake. But morning is well along, and Diane is nearly full. It set for the Haute Garance hours ago. It won’t rise again for, I guess, thirty hours.”

“Satan … i … helvede,” Heim choked. Strength drained from him. He felt the ache in his flesh and knew he had begun to grow old.

After a time in which he merely stared, Vadász said to him, timidly: “You are too much a man to let this beat you. If you think it so important, well, perhaps we can get Meroeth aloft. Her own communicator can reach the moon. The enemy satellites will detect her, and the cruiser close in. But she is lost anyway, you inform me, and she can surrender. We only need three or four men to do it. I will be one of them.”

Lightning-struck, Heim sprang to his feet. His head bashed the canopy. He looked up and saw a circle of sunlight, blinding on the ocean surface, above him.

“Are you hurt?” Vadász asked.

“By heaven—and hell—and everything in between.” Heim offered his hand. “Endre, I’ve been worse than a bastard. I’ve been a middle-aged adolescent. Will you forgive me?”

Vadász gripped hard. Perception flickered in his eyes. “Oh, so,” he murmured. “The young lady … Gunnar, she’s nothing to me. Mere pleasant company. I thought you felt the same.”

“I doubt that you do,” Heim grunted. “Never mind. We’ve bigger game to hunt. Look, I happen to know what the orbits and starting positions of those ships were. Cynbe saw no reason not to tell me when I asked—I suppose unconsciously I was going on the old military principle of grabbing every piece of data that comes by, whether or not you think you’ll ever use it. Well, I also know their classes, which means I know their capabilities. From that we can pretty well compute their trajectories. They can be pinpointed at any given time—close enough for combat purposes, but not close enough for their ground base to beam them any warning. Okay, so that’s one advantage we’ve got however small. What else?”

He began to pace, two steps to the cabin’s end, two steps back, fist beating palm and jaw muscles standing in knots.

Vadász drew himself aside. Once more the cat’s grin touched his mouth. He knew Gunnar Heim in that mood.

“Listen.” The captain hammered out the scheme as he spoke. “Meroeth’s a big transport. So she’s got powerful engines. In spite of her size and clumsiness, she can move like a hellbat when empty. She can’t escape three ships on patrol orbit. But at the moment there’s only one, Cynbe’s personal Jubalcho. I don’t know her orbit but the probabilities favor her being well away at any given time that Meroeth lifts. She could pursue, sure, and get so close that Meroeth can’t outrun a missile. But she ain’t gonna—I hope—because Cynbe knows that wherever I am, Fox isn’t likely very distant and he’s got to protect his base against Fox till his reinforcements arrive. Or if the distance is great enough, he’ll assume the transport is our cruiser, and take no chances!”

“So … okay … given good piloting, Meroeth has an excellent probability of making a clean getaway. She can flash a message to Fox. But then—what? If Fox only takes us aboard, we’re back exactly where we started. No, we’re worse off, because the New Europeans have run low on morale, and losing their contact with us could well push them right into quitting the fight. So—wait—let me think—Yes!” Heim bellowed. “Why not? Endre, we’ll go for broke!” The minstrel shouted his answer.

Heim reined in his own eagerness “The faster we move, the better,” he said. “We’ll call HQ at the lake immediately. Do you know Basque, or any other language the Aleriona don’t that somebody on de Vigny’s staff does?”

“I fear not. And a broadcast, such as we must make, will doubtless be monitored. I can use Louchébème, if that will help.”

“It might, though they’re probably on to it by now … Hm. We’ll frame something equivocal, as far as the enemy’s concerned. He needn’t know it’s us calling from a sub. Let him assume it’s a maquisard in a flyer. We can identify ourselves by references to incidents in camp.

“We’ll tell de Vigny to start lightening the spaceship as much as possible. No harm in that, since the Aleriona know we do have a ship on the planet. It’ll confirm for them that she must be in the Haute Garance, but that’s the first place they’d look anyhow.” Heim tugged his chin. “Now … unfortunately, I can’t send any more than that without tipping my hand. We’ll have to deliver the real message in person. So we’ll submerge right after you finish calling and head for a rendezvous point where a flyer is to pick us up. How can we identify that, and not have the enemy there with a brass band and the keys to the city?”

“Hm-m. Let me see a map.” Vadász unrolled a chart from the pilot’s drawer. “Our radius is not large, if we are to be met soon. Ergo—Yes. I will tell them … so-and-so many kilometers due east of a place—” he blushed, pointing to Fleurville, a ways inland and down the Cote Notre Dame—“where Danielle Irribarne told Endre Vadász there is a grotto they should visit. That was shortly before moon-set. We, um, sat on a platform high in a tree and—”

Heim ignored the hurt and laughed. “Okay, lover boy. Let me compute where we can be in that coordinate system.”

Vadász frowned. “We make risks, acting in this haste,” he said. “First we surface, or at least lie awash, and broadcast a strong signal so near the enemy base.”

“It won’t take long. We’ll be down again before they can send a flyer. I admit one might be passing right over us this minute, but probably not.”

“Still, a New European vessel has to meet us. No matter if it goes fast and takes the long way around over a big empty land, it is in daylight and skirting a dragon’s nest. And likewise for the return trip with us.”

“I know.” Heim didn’t look up from the chart on his knees. “We could do it safer by taking more time. But then we’d be too late for anything. We’re stuck in this orbit, Endre, no matter how close we have to skim the sun.”

IX

“Bridge to stations, report.”

“Engine okay,” said Diego Gonzales.

“Radio and main radar okay,” said Endre Vadász.

“Gun Turret One okay and hungry,” said Jean Irribarne. The colonists in the other emplacements added a wolfish chorus.

Easy, lads, Heim thought. If we have to try those popguns on a real, functioning warship, we’re dead. “Stand by to lift,” he called. Clumsy in his spacesuit, he moved hands across the board.

The lake frothed. Waves swept up its beaches. A sighing went among the trees, and Meroeth rose from below. Briefly her great form blotted out the sun, where it crawled toward noon, and animals fled down wilderness trails. Then, with steadily mounting velocity, she flung skyward. The cloven air made a continuous thunderclap. Danielle and Madelon Irribarne put hands to tormented ears. When the shape was gone from sight, they returned to each other’s arms.

“Radar, report!” Heim called through drone and shiver.

“Negative,” Vadász said.

Higher and higher the ship climbed. The world below dwindled, humped into a curve, turned fleecy with clouds and blue with oceans. The sky went dark, the stars blazed forth.

“Signal received on the common band,” Vadász said. “Jubalcho must have spotted us. Shall I answer?”

“Hell no,” Heim said. “All I want is her position and vector.”

The hollow volume of Meroeth trapped sound, bounced echoes about, until a booming rolled from stem to stern and port to starboard. It throbbed in Heim’s skull. His open-faceplate rattled.

“Can’t find her,” Vadász told him. “She must be far off.” But she found us. Well, she has professional detector operators. I’ve got to make do with whatever was in camp. No time to recruit better-trained people.

We should be so distant that she’d have to chase us for some ways to get inside the velocity differential of her missiles. And she should decide her duty is to stay put. If I’ve guessed wrong on either of those, we’ve hoisted our last glass. Heim tasted blood, hot and bitter, and realized he had caught his tongue between his teeth. He swore, wiped his face, and drove the ship.

Onward and outward, New Europe grew smaller among the crowding suns. Diane rose slowly to view. “Captain to radio room. Forget about everything else. Lock that maser and cut me in on the circuit.” Heim reached for racked instruments and navigational tables. “I’ll have the figures for you by the time you’re warmed up.”

If we aren’t destroyed first. Please … let me live that long. I don’t ask for more. Please, Fox has got to be told. He reeled off a string of numbers.

In his shack, among banked meters that stared at him like troll eyes, Vadász punched keys. He was no expert, but the comsystem computer had been preprogrammed for him; he need merely feed in the data and punch the directive “Now.” A turret opened to airlessness. A transceiver thrust its skeletal head out for a look at the universe. A tight beam of coherent radio waves speared from it

There were uncertainties. Diane was orbiting approximately 200,000 kilometers on the other side of New Europe, and Meroeth was widening that gulf with ever-increasing speed. But the computer and the engine it controlled were sophisticated; the beam had enough dispersion to cover a fairly large circle by the time it reached the target area; it had enough total energy so that its amplitude then was still above noise level.

Small, bestrewn with meteoritic dust, in appearance another boulder among thousands on the slope of a certain crater wall, an instrument planted by the men from the boat sat waiting. The signal arrived. The instrument—an ordinary microwave relay, such as every spaceship carries by the score, with a solar battery—amplified the signal and bounced it in another tight beam to another object high on a jagged peak. That one addressed its next fellow; and so on around the jagged desert face of the moon. Not many passings were needed. The man’s-height horizon on Diane is about three kilometers, much greater from a mountaintop, and the last relay only had to be a little ways into that hemisphere which never sees New Europe.

Thence the beam leaped skyward. Some 29,000 kilometers from the center of Diane, it found Fox II.

The problem had been: how could a spaceship lurk near a hostile planet from which detectors probed and around which warcraft spun? If she went free-fall, every system throttled down to the bare minimum, her neutrino emission would not register above the cosmic background. But optical, infrared, and radar eyes would still be sure to find her. Unless she interposed the moon between herself and the planet. No … She dared not land and sit there naked to anyone who chanced close when the far hemisphere was daylit. She could not assume an orbit around the satellite, for she would move into view. She could not assume a concentric orbit New Europe itself, for she would revolve more slowly-thus drop from behind her shield—Or would she?

Not necessarily! In any two-body system there are three points where the secondary’s gravitation combines with the primary’s in such a way that a small object put there will remain in place, on a straight line through the larger bodies. It is not stable; eventually the object will U(fe;. perturbed out of its resting spot; but “eventually” is remote in biological time. Fox put herself at the most distant Lagrangian point and orbited in the moon-disc’s effortless concealment.

The maneuver had never been tried before. But then, no had ever before needed to have a warship on call, unbeknownst to an enemy who occupied the ground where he meant to be. Heim thought it would become a textbook classic, if he lived to brag about it.

“Meroeth to Fox II,” he intoned. “Meroeth to Fox II. Now hear this and record. Record. Captain Heim to Acting Captain Penoyer, stand by for orders.”

There could be no reply, except to Lac aux Nuages. The system, simple and hastily built, had been conceived in the belief that he would summon his men from there. If anything was heisenberg at the other end, he wouldn’t know until too late. He spoke into darkness. “Because of unexpected developments, we’ve been forced to lift directly, without passengers. It doesn’t seem as if we’re being pursued. But we have extremely important intelligence, and on that basis a new plan.”

“First: we know there is only one capital ship in orbit around New Europe. All but two others are scattered beyond recall, and not due back for quite some time, sentry vessel is the enemy flagship Jubalcho, a cruiser. I don’t know the exact class—see if you can find her in Jane’s—but she’s doubtless only somewhat superior to Fox”

“Second: the enemy learned we were on the planet recalled the two vessels in reach. They are presently accelerating toward New Europe. The first should already commenced deceleration. That is the lancer Savaidh. The other is the cruiser Inisant. Check them out too; but I think they are ordinary Aleriona ships of their respective classes. The ballistic data are approximately as follows—” He cited the figures.

“Now, third: the enemy probably believes Meroeth is Fox. We scrambled with so much distance between that contrary identification would have been difficult or impossible, and I also we took him by surprise. So I think that as far as he knows, Fox is getting away while the getting is good. But he cannot communicate with the other ships till they are near the planet, and he doubtless wants them on hand anyway.

“Accordingly, we have a chance to take them piecemeal. Now hear this. Pay no attention to the lancer. Meroeth deal with her; or if I fail, she’s no major threat to you. Moreover, nuclear explosions in space would be detected and alert the enemy. Stay put, Fox, and plot an interception for Inisant. She won’t be looking for you. Relative-velocity will be high. If you play your cards right, you have an excellent probability of putting a missile in her while warding anything else she has time to throw.”

“After that, come get me. My calculated position and orbit at the time are approximately as follows.” Again a string of numbers. “If I’m a casualty, proceed at discretion. But bear in mind that New Europe will be guarded by only one cruiser!”

Heim sucked air into his lungs. It was hot and had an electric smell. “Repeating message,” he said. And at the end of the third time: “The primary relay point seems to be going under Diana’s horizon, on our present course. I’ll have to sign off. Gunnar Heim to Dave Penoyer and the men of Fox II—good hunting! Over and out”

Then he sat in his seat, looked to the stars in the direction of Sol, and wondered how Lisa was doing.

Increment by increment, Meroeth piled on velocity. It didn’t seem long—though much desultory conversation had passed through the intercom—before the moment came to reverse and slow down. They mustn’t have a suspicious vector when they encountered Savaidh.

Heim went to the saloon for a snack. He found Vadász with a short red-haired colonist who slurped at his cup as if he had newly come off a Martian desert. “Ah, mon capitaine,” the latter said cheerily, “je n’avais pas bu de café depuis un sacre longtemps. Merci beaucoup!”

“You may not have much to thank me for in a while,” Heim said.

Vadász cocked his head. “You shouldn’t look so grim, Gun—sir,” he chided. “Everybody else is downright cocky.”

“Tired, I guess.” Heim slumped into the Aleriona settle.

“I’ll fix you up. A grand Danois of a sandwich, hm?” Vadász bounced out. When he returned with the food, he had his guitar slung over his back. He sat down on the swinging his legs, and began to chord and sing:

“There was a rich man and he lived in Jerusalem,

Glory, hallelujah, in-ro-de-rung!—”

The memory came back. A grin tugged at Heim’s lips. Presently he was beating time; toward the end, he joined in the choruses. That’s the way! Who says we can’t take them? He returned to the bridge with a stride of youth.

And time fled. And battle stations were sounded. And Savaidh appeared in the viewports.

The hands that had built her were not human. But the tool was for the same job, under the same laws of physics, as Earth’s own lancers. Small, slim, leopard-spotted for camouflage and thermal control, leopard deadly and beautiful, the ship was so much like his own old Star Fox that Heim’s hand paused. Is it right to kill her—this way?

A legitimate ruse of war. Yes. He punched the intercom. “Bridge to radio. Bridge to radio. Begin distress signal.”

Meroeth spoke, not in any voice but in the wailing radio pattern which Naval Intelligence had long known was regulation for Alerion. Surely the lancer captain (was this his first command?) ordered an attempt at communication. There no reply. The gap closed. Relative speed was slight by spaceship standards; but Savaidh grew swiftly before Heim’s eyes.

Unwarned, the Aleriona had no reason to doubt this was one of their own vessels. The transport was headed toward Mach limit; not directly for The Eith, but then, none of them did, lest the raider from Earth be able to predict their courses. Something had gone wrong. Her communications must be out. Probably her radio officer had cobbled together a set barely able to cry, “SOS!” The trouble was clearly not with her engines, since she was under power. What, then? Breakdown of radiation screening? Air renewal? Thermostats? Interior gee field? There were so many possibilities. Life was so terribly frail, here where life was never meant to be.

Or … since the probability of her passing near the warship by chance, in astronomical immensity, was vanishingly small … did she bear an urgent message? Something that, for some reason, could not be transmitted in the normal way? The shadow of Fox II lay long and cold across Alerion.

“Close spacesuits,” Heim ordered. “Stand by.” He clashed his own faceplate shut and lost himself in the task of piloting. Two horrors nibbled at the edge of consciousness. The lesser one, because least likely, was that the other captain would grow suspicious and have him blasted. The worst was that Savaidh would continue her rush to Cynbe’s help. He could not match accelerations with a lancer.

Needles wavered before his eyes. Radar—vectors—fan-pulse—Savaidh swung about and maneuvered for rendezvous. Heim cut drive to a whisper. Now the ships were on nearly parallel tracks, the lancer decelerating heavily while the transport ran almost free. Now they were motionless with respect to each other, with a kilometer of vacuum between. Now the lancer moved with infinite delicacy toward the larger vessel.

Now Heim rammed down an emergency lever. At full sidewise thrust, Meroeth hurtled to her destiny.

There was no time to dodge, no time to shoot. The ships crashed together. That shock roared through plates and ribs, ripped metal apart, hurled unharnessed Aleriona to their decks or against their bulkheads with bone-cracking violence.

A spaceship is not thickly armored, even for war. She can withstand the impact of micrometeorites; the larger stones, which are rare, she can detect and escape; nothing can protect from nuclear weapons, when once they have struck home. Meroeth’s impact speed was not great, but her mass was. Through Savaidh she sheared. Her own hull gave way. Air purled out in a frosty cloud, quickly lost to the light-years. Torn frameworks wrapped about each other. Locked in a stag’s embrace, the ruined ships tumbled on a lunatic orbit. Aurore flared radiance across their guts; the stars looked on without pity.

“Prepare to repel boarders!”

Heim didn’t know if his cry had been transmitted through his helmet jack to the others. Likely not. Circuits were ripped asunder. The fusion reaction in the power generator had guttered out. Darkness, weightlessness, airlessness flowed through the ship. It didn’t matter. His men knew what to do. He undid his harness by feel and groped aft to the gun turret he had chosen for himself.

Most of the Aleriona crew must be dead. Some might survive, in spacesuits or sealed compartments. If they could find a gun still workable and bring it to bear, they’d shoot. Otherwise they’d try for hand-to-hand combat. Untrained for space, the New Europeans couldn’t withstand that. The controls of Heim’s laser had their own built-in illumination. Wheels, levers, indicators glowed like watch-fires. He peered along the barrel, out the cracked glasite, past wreckage where shadows slid weirdly as the system rotated; he suppressed the slight nausea due Coriolis force, forgot the frosty glory of constellations, and looked for his enemy.

It came to him, a flicker across tautness, that he had brought yet another tactic to space warfare: ramming. But that wasn’t new. It went back ages, to when men first adventured past sight of land. Olaf Tryggvason, on the blood-reddened deck of the Long Serpent.

No. To hell with that. His business was here and now: to stay alive till Fox picked him up. Which wouldn’t be for along time.

A weapon spat. He saw only the reflection of its beam off steel, and squinted till the dazzle passed. One for our side. I hope. A heavy vibration passed through the hull and his body. An explosion? He wasn’t sure. The Aleriona might be wild enough to annihilate him, along with themselves, by touching off a nuclear warhead. The chances were against it, since they’d need tools that would be hard to find in that mass out yonder. But—Well, war was mostly waiting.

A spacesuited figure crawled over a girder. The silhouette was black and unhuman against the stars, save where sunlight made a halo on the helmet. One survivor, at least, bravely striving to—Heim got him in the sights and fired. Vapor rushed from the pierced body. It drifted off into space. “I hated to do that,” Heim muttered to the dead one. “But you could have been carrying something nasty, you know.”

His shot had given him away. A beam probed at his turret. He crouched behind the shield. Intolerable brightness gnawed centimeters away from him. Then more bolts struck. The enemy laser winked out “Good man!” Heim gasped. “Whoever you are!”

The fight did not last long. No doubt the Aleriona, if any were left, had decided to hole up and see what happened. But it was necessary to remain on guard.

In the dreamlike state of free-fall, muscles did not protest confinement, Heim let his thoughts drift where they would. Earth, Lisa, Jocelyn … New Europe, Danielle…there really wasn’t much, in a man’s life that mattered. But those few things mattered terribly.

Hours passed.

It was anticlimax when Fox’s lean shape closed in. Not that Heim didn’t cheer—so she had won!—but rendezvous was tricky; and then he had to make his way through darkness and ruin until he found an exit; and then signal with his helmet radio to bring a tender into safe jumping distance; and then come aboard and get a shot to counteract the effects of the radiation he had taken while unscreened in space; and then transfer to the cruiser—

The shouts and backslappings, bear hugs and bear dances, seemed unreal in his weariness. Not even his victory felt important He was mainly pleased that a good dozen Aleriona were alive and had surrendered. “You took Inisant?” he asked Penoyer.

“Oh, my, yes. Wizard cum spiff! One pass, and she was a cloud of isotopes. What next sir?”

“Well—” Heim rubbed sandy eyes. “Your barrage will have been detected from New Europe. Now when Inisant is overdue, the enemy must realize who lost. He may have guessed you went after Savaidh next, and be attempting an interception. But it’s most likely that he’s stayed pretty close to base. Even if he hasn’t, he’ll surely come back there. Do you think we can beat Jubalcho?”

Penoyer scowled. “That’s a pitchup, sir. According to available data, she has more teeth, though we’ve more acceleration. I’ve computed several tactical patterns which give us about an even chance. But should we risk it?”

“I think so,” Heim said. “If we get smeared, well, let’s admit that our side won’t have lost much. On the other hand, if we win we’ve got New Europe.”

“Sir?”

“Sure. There are no other defenses worth mentioning. We can knock out their ground-based missiles from space. Then we give air support to the colonists, who’re already preparing a march on the seaboard. You know as well as I do, no atmospheric flyer ever made has a fish’s chance on Friday against a nuclear-armed spaceship. If the Aleriona don’t surrender, well simply swat them out of the sky, and then go to work on their ground troops. But I expect they will give in. They’re not stupid. And … then we’ve got hostages.”

“But—the rest of their fleet—”

“Uh-huh. One by one, over a period of weeks or months, they’ll come in. Fox should be able to bushwhack them. Also, well have the New Europeans hard at work, finishing the space defenses. Evidently there isn’t much left to do there. Once that job’s completed, the planet’s nearly impregnable, whatever happens to us.

“Somewhere along the line, probably rather soon, another transport ship will come in, all unsuspecting. We’ll nobble her and send off a load of New Europeans as originally planned. When Earth hears they’re not only not dead, not only not at the point of defeat, but standing space siege and doing a crackling hell of a job at it … why, if Earth doesn’t move then, I resign from the human race.”

Heim straightened. “I’m no damned hero, Dave,” he finished. “Mainly I want to get home to the pipe and slippers. But don’t you think a chance like this is worth taking?”

Penoyer’s nostrils flared. “By … by Jove,” he stammered,

“Very good. Make course for New Europe and call me if anything happens.”

Heim stumbled to his cabin and toppled into sleep.

Vadász’s hand shook him awake. “Gunnar! Contact’s made—with Jubalcho—we’ll rendezvous inside half an hour.” Nothing remained of tiredness, fear, doubt, or even anger. Heim went to the bridge with more life running through his veins than ever since Connie departed. Stars filled the viewports, so big and bright in the crystal dark that it seemed lie could reach out and touch them. The ship murmured and pulsed. His men stood by their weapons; he could almost sense their oneness with him and with her. He took his place of command, and it was utterly right that Cynbe’s voice should ring from the speaker.

“Star Fox captain, greet I you again? Mightily have we striven. You refuse not battle this now?”

“No,” said Heim. “We’re coming in. Try and stop us.”

The laughter of unfallen Lucifer replied. “Truth. And I thank you, my brother. Let come what that time-flow brings that you are terrible enough to live with … I thank you for this day.”

“Good-by,” Heim said, and thought, a little surprised, Why, that means “God be with you.”

“Captain of mine,” Cynbe sang, “fare you well.” The radio beams cut out. Dark and silent, the two ships moved toward their meeting place.

X

A man came to New Europe from Normandy in the early days and built himself a house on the sea cliffs. Steeply fell the land, with golden trees and ripples of wind : through grasses and wildflowers, until it made its sudden downward plunge: a country of hills that shouldered into the sky, which was clangorous with birds, of glens, lakes, waterfalls, and eastward a salt blueness edged only by the curve of the world. In those times he had little to work with save native wood and stone; he chose them for beauty. The house he fashioned lifted gables like outlined mountains. Within there were spacious rooms, carved wainscoting, great fireplaces, rafters so high that they were often lost in shadows. Broad windows opened upon the land, of which the house had become another part. And the man built well, as folk do who see themselves only one link in a chain of generations.

But Bonne Chance grew from hamlet to city a hundred kilometers south. Colonists sought more the valleys than the heights. Though this dwelling was not distant when one could fly, the man’s heirs moved where wealth and people were. The house stood long empty.

It did not suffer much. Strong and patient, it waited. The time came at last, and it was made a gift of honor.

Rear Admiral Moshe Peretz, commanding blastship Jupiter, Deepspace Fleet of Earth’s World Federation, set his borrowed flyer down on the landing strip and went out. A fresh breeze swayed the nearby garden, clouds ran white, sunlight speared between them to dance on a restless ocean. He walked slowly, a short man, very erect in his uniform, with combat ribbons on his breast that freed him to admire a view or a blossom.

Gunnar Heim came out to welcome him, also in uniform: but his was different, gray tunic, a red stripe down the trousers, a fleur-de-lis on the collar. He towered over his guest, bent down a face that had known much sun of late, grinned in delight, and engulfed the other man’s hand in one huge paw. “Hey, Moshe, it’s good to see you again! How many years?”

“Hello,” Peretz said.

Heim released him, stung and surprised. “Uh … anything wrong?”

“I am all right, thank you. This is a nice home you have.”

“Needs a lot of work yet, after all the neglect, but I like it. Want to see the grounds before we go in?”

“If you wish.”

Heim stood for a moment before he sighed and said, “Okay, Moshe. Obviously you accepted my dinner invitation for more reasons than to jaw with your old Academy classmate. Want to discuss ‘em now? There’ll be some others coming pretty soon.”

Peretz regarded him closely, out of brown eyes that were pained, and said, “Yes, let us get it over with.”

They started walking across the lawn. “Look at the matter from my side,” Peretz said. “Thanks to you, Earth went action. We beat the Aleriona decisively in the Marches, “and now they have sued for peace. Wonderful. I was proud know you. I pulled every wire in sight so that I could command the ship that went officially to see how New Europe doing, how Earth could help reconstruct, what sort of memorial we should raise for the dead of both planets—because victory was not cheap, Gunnar.”

“Haven’t your men been well treated?” Heim asked.

Yes, certainly.” Peretz sliced the air with his hand, as if chopping at a neck. “Every liberty party has been wined and dined till it could hardly stagger back to the tender. But … I issued those passes most reluctantly, only because I did not want to make a bad situation worse. After all—when we find this planet ringed with defense machines—machines which are not going to be decommissioned—when a ship of World Federation is told how near she may come—what do you expect a Navy man to think?”

Heim bit his lip. “Ja. That was a mistake, ordering you around. I argued against it in council, but they outvoted me. I give you my oath no insult was intended, not by anyone. The majority feeling was simply that we’d better express our sovereignty at the outset. Once the precedent has been accepted, we’ll relax.”

“But why?” His rage flickered to death, leaving Peretz no more than hurt and bewildered. “This fantastic declaration of independence … what kind of armed forces have you? Your fleet can’t amount to more than your own old privateer and perhaps a few Aleriona prizes. Otherwise there is just the constabulary. What strength can half a million people muster?”

“Are you threatening us, Moshe?” Heim asked gently.

“What?” Peretz jarred to a stop and gaped. “What do you mean?”

“Is Earth going to reconquer us? You could, of course. It’d be bloody and expensive, but you could.”

“No—no—did the occupation drive everyone here paranoid?”

Heim shook his head. “On the contrary, we rely on Earth’s, good will and sense. We expect you to protest, but we know you won’t use force. Not when your planet and ours have so lately shed blood together.”

“But … see here. If you want national status, well, that concerns mainly yourselves and the French government. But you say you are leaving the whole Federation!”

“We are,” Heim answered. “Juridically, at least. We hope to make mutually beneficial treaties with Earth as a whole, and we’ll always stand in a special relationship to France. In fact, President de Vigny thinks France won’t object at all, will let us go with her blessings.”

“M-m-m … I am afraid he is right,” said Peretz grimly. He began walking again, stiff-gaited. “France is still rather cool toward the Federation. She won’t leave it herself, but she will be glad to have you do so for her, as long as French interests are not damaged.”

“She’ll get over her grudge,” Heim predicted.

“Yes, in time. Did you break loose for the same cause?”

Heim shrugged. “To a certain extent, no doubt. The Conference of Chateau St. Jacques was one monstrous emotional scene, believe me. The plebiscite was overwhelmingly in favor of independence. But there were better reasons than a feeling of having been let down in an hour of need. Those are the ones that’ll last.”

“De Vigny tried to convince me,” Peretz snorted.

“Well, let me try in less elegant language. What is the Federation? Something holy, or an instrument for a purpose? We think it’s a plain old instrument, and that it can’t serve its purpose out here.”

“Gunnar, Gunnar, have you forgotten all history? Do you know what a breakup would mean?”

“War,” Heim nodded. “But the Federation isn’t going to die. With all its faults, it’s proved itself too good for Earth to scrap. Earth’s a single planet, though. You can orbit it in ninety minutes. The nations live cheek by jowl. They’ve got to unify, or they’ll kill each other.” His gaze swept the ‘ horizon. “Here we have more room.”

“But—”

“The universe is too big for any one pattern. No man can understand or control it, let alone a government. The proof is right at hand. We had to trick and tease and browbeat the Federation into doing what we could see, with our own eyes, was necessary—because it didn’t see. It wasn’t able to see. If man is going to live throughout the galaxy, he’s got to be free to take his own roads, the ones his direct experience shows him are best for his circumstances. And that way, won’t the race realize all its potential? Is there any other way we can, than by trying everything out, everywhere?” Heim clapped Peretz’s back. “I know. You’re afraid of interstellar wars in the future, if planets are sovereign. Don’t worry. It’s ridiculous. What do entire, self-sufficient, isolated worlds have to fight about?”

“We just finished an interstellar war,” Peretz said.

“Uh-huh. What brought it on? Somebody who wasn’t willing to let the human race develop as it should. Moshe, instead of trying .to freeze ourselves into one shape, instead of staying small because we’re scared of losing control, let’s work out something different. Let’s find how many kinds of society, human and non-human, can get along without a policeman’s gun pointed at them. I don’t think there is any limit.”

“Well—” Peretz shook his head. “Maybe. I hope you are right. Because you have committed .us, blast you.” He spoke without animosity.

After a minute: “I must confess I felt better when President de Vigny apologized officially for keeping our ship at arm’s length.”

“You have my personal apologies,” Heim said low.

“All right!” Peretz thrust out his hand, features crinkled with abrupt laughter. “Accepted and forgotten, you damned old squarehead.”

His trouble lifted from Heim, too. “Great!” he exclaimed.

“Come on inside and we’ll buckle down to getting drunk. Lord, how much yarning we’ve got to catch up on!”

They entered the living room and settled themselves. A maid curtsied. “What’ll you have?” Heim asked. “Some items of food are still in short supply, and of course machinery’s scarce, which is why I employ so many live servants. But these Frenchmen built big wine cellars.”

“Brandy and soda, thanks,” Peretz said.

“Me too. We are out of Scotch on New Europe. Uh will there be cargoes from Earth soon?”

Peretz nodded. “Some are already on the way. Parliament will scream when I report what you have done, and there will be talk of an embargo, but you know that won’t come to anything. If we aren’t going to fight, to hold you against your will, it is senseless to antagonize you with annoyances.”

“Which bears out what I said.” Heim put the drink orders into French.

“Please, don’t argue any more. I told you I have accepted your fait accompli.” Peretz leaned forward. “But may I ask something, Gunnar? I see why New Europe did what it did. But you yourself—You could have come home, been a world hero, and a billionaire with your prize money. Instead you take citizenship here—well, blaze, they are nice people,. but they aren’t yours!”

“They are now,” Heim said quietly.

He took out his pipe and tamped it full. His words ran on, almost of themselves:

“Mixed motives, as usual. I had to stay till the war was over. There was a lot of fighting, and afterward somebody must mount guard. And … well … I’d been lonely on Earth. Here I found a common purpose with a lot of absolutely first-class men. And a whole new world, elbow room, infinite possibilities. It dawned on me one day, when I was feeling homesick—what was I homesick for? To go back and rot among my dollars?

“So now, instead, I’m New Europe’s minister of space and the navy. We’re short of hands, training, equipment, everything; you name it and we probably haven’t got it. But I can see us grow, day by day. And that’s my doing!”

He struck fire and puffed. “Not that I intend to stay in government any longer than necessary,” he went on. “I want to experiment with pelagic farming; and prospect the other planets and asteroids in this system; and start a merchant spaceship yard; and—shucks, I can’t begin to tell you how much there is. I can’t wait to become a private citizen again.”

“But you do wait,” Peretz said.

“Heim looked out a window at sea and sun and sky. “Well,” he said, “it’s worth some sacrifice. There’s more involved than this world. We’re laying the foundations of—he hunted for words—“admiralty. Man’s, throughout the universe.”

The maid came in with her tray. Heim welcomed her not only for refreshment, but as an excuse to change the subject.

He wasn’t much of a talker on serious matters. A man did what he must; that sufficed.

The girl ducked her head. “Un voleur s’apgroche, monsieur,” she reported.

“Good,” Heim said. “That’ll be Endre Vadász and his wife. You’ll like them, Moshe. He was the man who really bailed us out of this mess. Now he’s giving his Magyar genes full rein on a 10,000-hectare ranch in the Bordes Valley—and he’s still one solar flare of a singer.”

“I look forward.” Peretz followed the maid’s departure with an appreciative eye. “Do you know, Gunnar,” he murmured, “I observe a very sound reason for you to stay here. The proportion of pretty girls on New Europe is fabulous, and every one of them seems to idolize you.”

A brief bleakness crossed Heim’s eyes. “I’m afraid the mores here are a little different from Earth’s. Oh, well.” He raised his glass. “Skål.”

“Shalom.”

Both men got up when the Vadászes entered. “Bienvenu,” Heim said, shook his friend’s hand with gladness, and kissed Danielle’s. By now he’d learned how to do that with authority.

It was a surprise, he thought as he looked at her, how fast a certain wound was healing. Life isn’t a fairy tale; the knight who kills the dragon doesn’t necessarily get the princess. So what? Who’d want to live in a cosmos less rich and various than the real one? You commanded yourself as you did a ship—with discipline, reasonableness, and spirit—and thus you came to port. By the time he fulfilled his promise to stand godfather to her firstborn, why, his feelings toward her would be downright avuncular.

No, he realized with a sudden quickening of blood, it wouldn’t even take that long. The war was over. He could send for Lisa. He had little doubt that Jocelyn would come along.

DAY OF THE GREAT SHOUT

Philip Jose Farmer

They were reborn on a fairer planet

— to a new life, and a puzzle that shook the worlds!

I

He died.

He knew that he faced certain oblivion.

But then his eyes opened, and he knew from the strong beat of his heart and the power of his muscles that he was no longer dying.

It was so quiet that he could hear the blood moving in his head. The silence sung. He could hear, and he could see, yet he did not know what he was seeing. What were these things above him? Where was he?

He tried to sit up, felt panic as he realized that there was nothing to sit up upon, and was propelled slowly forward by the motion. Ahead, a foot from his fingertips, was a thin rod of bright red metal. He flung his hand out to grasp it, but something invisible was resisting him. It did not push heavily against him, but he had a feeling that some force was blocking him, something as unseen yet present as a heavy wind. Yet the only sensation of moving air came from that caused by his turning body.

He went over slowly in a somersault. Then the resistance brought him to a halt, and he straightened his body out.

At the same time, he sucked in air with a great sawing sound. Though he knew no hold existed he could not help flailing his arms about for one.

Now, he was face “down”— or was it “up”? Whatever the direction, it was opposite to that towards which he had been looking when he had awakened. Not that it mattered. “Above” him and “below” him, the view was the same. And so was his situation.

He was suspended in space and kept from falling by the force that enclosed him in an invisible cocoon. Six feet below him was the body of a woman, a naked young woman with a completely hairless head. She seemed to be asleep; her eyes were closed, and her breasts rose and fell gently. As he was, so she, too. Her body was stretched out as if in a coffin. Her legs were together and straight out and her arms by her sides. As he watched, she turned slowly, revolved as a chicken on a spit.

He became aware that the same force was also rotating him. There was no pressure he could feel, but whatever was buoying him up was also exerting energy to turn him on a spit.

Until now, he had been too stunned to utter a word or to scream. Now what he saw as he described a circle frightened him beyond speech or cry. He who had boasted that he knew no fear was stricken with horror.

At first the objects and the patterns they formed had meant nothing because the entire environment was too alien. After a few seconds something snapped. He could almost hear it, as if a window had suddenly been raised.

Above him, below him, on both sides, as far as he could see in the light— which seemed to be of equal intensity everywhere— bodies floated. They were arranged in vertical and horizontal rows both, and the up-and-down ranks were separated by the red rods, slender as broomsticks, which were a foot or so from both the heads and feet of the bodies. The rows across were divided by a space of about six feet.

The rods rose from an abyss and soared upward beyond the range of his vision. Between them stretched the revolving sleepers. And that grayness into which the bodies and the rods above and below and left and right disappeared was neither the sky nor the earth. There was no horizon, only the lackluster of infinity.

Directly above him, at a distance of six feet, was a dark man with Tuscan features. The body next to him on his right was that of a Negress, her head hairless as all the others. At his left was a large man with a very fair skin. There was something strange about him, but the waker could not determine what it was until the third revolution.

Then he saw that the right arm, from a point just below the elbow, was red. Perhaps it lacked the outer layer of skin.

A few seconds later, he saw another body, in a row ten people across from him and four up, that lacked a head. Rather, a pink-red lump was on the end of its neck.

He continued turning and observing until he understood that he was in some place, perhaps the most colossal chamber imaginable, in which metal rods must be radiating some force that somehow supported and revolved perhaps millions or more of human beings.

Where was he?

Certainly he was not in the city of Trieste of the Austro-Hungarian Empire of 1890. Just as certainly, he was not on Earth.

He had died. Now he was alive in an afterlife, an event at which he had scoffed. For once, there was no denying that he had been wrong. But neither was there anyone present who seemed inclined to say, “I told you so, you damned infidel!”

Once again, as if this place were to be a continual parade of amazements, he saw something that made him draw in a deep breath. He had seen a body at an angle downwards (or upwards). It was nonhuman. No member of Homo Sapiens had four fingers on each hand and four toes on each foot. Nor a nose with thin black leathery lips like a dog’s. Nor a scrotum knobbed as if it contained many small testes. Nor ears with such strange convolutions.

But all the other bodies, as far as he could see, were quite human.

And all were sleeping. He alone was conscious.

Very well. He would take advantage of that fact. He must get away and to a place where somebody might have the knowledge he needed.

To decide was to act.

He drew up his legs and kicked and found that the motion drove him forward a half-inch. Again, he kicked and moved against the resistance. But, as he paused, he was slowly moved back towards his original position.

In a flurry of action, kicking his legs and moving his arms in a swimmer’s breastroke, he managed to fight towards the rod before him. The closer he came, the stronger became the web of force. Shortly, he was panting, and his arms and legs began to feel heavy. But he did not stop because he knew that giving up would result in being back where he had been and with less strength. Moreover, it was not his nature to give up until absolute exhaustion seized him.

Thus, when he was breathing hoarsely, his body coated with sweat, his arms and legs moving as if in a thick jelly, and his progress seemed imperceptible, the fingertips of his left hand lightly touched the rod.

At once, he knew which way was down. He fell.

It was as if his touch had broken a spell or broken an electrical circuit. The webs of air around him snapped soundlessly, and he was plunging.

But he was close enough for him to seize the rod with one hand, though the skin of his palm burned, and so bring his body down and against the rod with an impact that threatened to break his pelvic bone. He grunted with pain. Then his other hand had clutched the rod, and his legs were twined about it.

In front of him, on the other side of the rod, the bodies were falling. They descended with the normal velocity of a falling object on Earth, and they maintained their stretched-out attitudes and the original distance between them. They even continued the same rate of revolving; they turned over and over, slowly.

It was then that the puffs of air on his naked sweating back made him twist around on the rod. Behind him, in the row of vertically arranged bodies that he had just occupied, the sleepers were also falling. One after the other, like statues methodically dropped through a trapdoor, they hurtled. Their feet missed his head by a few inches; he was fortunate not to have been knocked off the rod and sent plunging with them.

One after the other, in stately but frightening procession, they fell. Body after body shooting down while, on either sides, the other rows of millions upon millions slept on.

For a while, he stared. Then he began counting those on his left until he had reached 3001. After that, he quit and gazed as the cataract of flesh continued. How far up, how immeasurably far up, were they stacked? He looked down. To the limits of his sight, they were still falling. And he, unwittingly, had precipitated them when his touch had disrupted some force emanating from the rod.

His head jerked upright, and he forgot about the fallers. Another noise than the whoosh of displaced air had reached him. Somewhere overhead, a humming noise had started.

For a minute he could not locate the source of the noise. Then he saw a narrow craft, shaped like a canoe but of some bright green metallic substance, sinking down between the six feet of space between the columns of fallers and the columns of suspended. A face peered over the edge. The craft stopped, and the humming noise ceased.

Another face appeared beside the first. It, like the other, had dark hair, in contrast with all the shaven heads around it. However, the owners of the faces were too far away for the man on the rod to discern any individuality of feature. They were archetypes of faces: thin lines for eyebrows, holes for eyes, angles for noses, slits for lips.

Presently, the heads withdrew. The humming was renewed, and the craft again descended towards him. Slowly it grew larger until, about five feet above him, it halted once more. One of the occupants spoke in a liquid language with many vowels, few consonants, and a distinct and frequently recurring glottal stop. It sounded like a Polynesian tongue.

Abruptly the invisible cocoon was replaced. The falling bodies visibly slowed in their rate of descent, then stopped. And the man on the rod could feel the retaining force close in on him and begin to lift him up. Though he clung to the rod, his legs were finally forced up and then away and his trunk followed.

Soon he was looking downward. Then his hands were torn loose, and he began to drift upward.

Somehow he managed to twist around so that he could face the two in the flying machine. They were not going to capture him as they would a sheep.

But a bare arm and a bejewelled hand were thrust forth from the craft, and in the hand was a pencil-sized metal object. Obviously, it was a weapon of some sort, for the possessor was sighting along it.

The floater shouted with rage and hate and frustration and flailed his arms to swim towards the two in the machine.

“I’ll kill!” he screamed. “Kill! Kill!”

Oblivion came again.

God was standing over him and looking down at him as he lay on the grass by the waters. He lay wide-eyed as a new-born baby weak with the shock of birth. God was poking him in the ribs with the end of an iron cane. God was a tall man of middle age. He had a long black forked beard, and He was dressed in the clothes an English gentleman wore during the 53rd year of Queen Victoria’s reign.

“You’re late,” said God. “Long past due for the payment of your debt, you know.”

“What debt?” said Richard Francis Burton. He passed his fingertips over his ribs to make sure that none had been removed.

“You owe for the flesh,” replied God, poking him again with the cane. “Not to mention the spirit, both of which are one and the same thing.”

Burton struggled to get up and onto his feet. Nobody, not even God, was going to punch Richard Burton and get away without a battle.

God, ignoring the futile efforts, pulled a large gold watch from His vest pocket, unsnapped its cover, looked at the hands and said, “Long past due.”

God held out His other hand, its palm turned up.

“Pay up, sir. Otherwise, I’ll be forced to foreclose.”

“Foreclose on what?” said Burton.

Darkness fell, and God began to dissolve into the darkness. It was then that Burton saw that God resembled himself, Burton. He had the same black hair, the same Arabic-seeming face with the dark stabbing eyes, high cheekbones, heavy lips, and thrust-out deeply cleft chin. The same long deep scar, testimony to the wound inflicted by a Somali spearman in that fight at Berberah, was on His left cheek. His small hands and feet contrasted strangely with His broad shoulders and massive chest. And He had the long thick moustachioes and the long forked beard that had caused the Bedouin to name Burton the “Father of Moustaches.”

“You look like the devil,” said Burton, but God had dissolved into the shadows.

II

Burton became aware that he had been dreaming. He was still sleeping but coming up fast from the depths, so close to the surface of the consciousness that he knew he was dreaming. Light was replacing the night; he could see it not too far away above him.

Then his eyes did open. And he did not know where he was.

Above was blue sky. A gentle breeze flowed over his body. Beneath him was what felt like grass; his hands, palms down, could feel the blades.

He was so amazed that he could not move, could not think clearly. He turned his head slightly to the right and saw a plain of very short, very green grass. Beyond, a range of hills that started out as mere slopes, then became steeper and higher as they climbed towards titanic mountains beyond. The hills were covered with trees; the mountains were bluish-green, as if overgrown with a lichen.

Burton turned his head to the left and glimpsed a broad river close by. On the other side was another plain, then hills, then the same incredibly towering mountains.

But he did not linger on them. Between him and the river, which was perhaps two hundred yards away, were many bodies. These were men and women, all of them naked.

Burton rose on one elbow. All along the river’s edge were unclothed human beings, spaced about six feet apart. Some were still lying on their backs and gazing into the sky. Others were beginning to stir, to look around.

All had bald heads; it was this that sent his own hands to his own naked skull. He ran his hands over his face.

It, too, was smooth.

Burton looked down at his body. It was not the wrinkled, veined, and withered body of the 69-year old he knew but was as smooth and powerfully muscled as when he had been 25.

And the hundred-or-so scars were gone.

Around his wrist was a thin band of some transparent material. It was connected to a strap, about six inches long, of the same stuff. The other end was clenched about a metallic handle like that of a pail’s. The handle, in turn, was fixed to a grayish metal cylinder with a closed cover.

Burton lifted the cylinder; it could not have weighed more than a pound. Certainly it was not steel, for it had a diameter of about a foot and a half and was somewhat over two and a half feet tall.

Every one within his sight had a similar object strapped to his or her wrist.

Unsteadily, his heart racing with an unfamiliar terror, he rose to his feet. He was beginning to know now what had happened.

Others must have felt as he did, for he could see stark fear on their faces.

Nobody had uttered a word; not one of the thousands he could see had made a sound, though the mouths of many hung open.

They began moving about a litle. They shuffled their bare feet way, halted, turned, moved the other way. They did not know where to go.

Suddenly, a woman began moaning. She sank to her knees, threw her shoulders and her head back, and she howled. At the same time, from far down the riverbanks, came a similar howling.

It was as if the woman had given a signal. Or as if she were the key to the mass reaction, and she had turned and unlocked it.

All, or almost all, began screaming or sobbing or tearing at their faces with their nails or beating themselves on the breasts or falling on their knees and lifting their hands in prayer or throwing themselves down and trying to bury their faces in the grass as if, ostrich-like, to avoid being seen, or rolling back and forth in frenzy, barking like dogs or howling like wolves.

Burton felt the collective psyche of humanity trying to seize him, to draw him, too, into panic and hysteria. He wanted to go to his knees and pray for salvation from judgement, for mercy. He did not want to see the blinding face of God appear over the mountains. Like all the rest, he knew suddenly that he was not as brave and not as guiltless as he had thought. Judgment would be a thing so terrifying that he could not bear to think about it.

So he did what he had never done in his life on Earth. He fled. He ran across the plains and towards the foothills. Nor could he keep from venting his terror as he ran; he howled: “No! No! No!” His arms windmilled as if he would fend off unseen terrors; the metallic cylinder at the end of the strap around his wrist whirled around and around.

When he had run as fast as he could across the mile of plain, when he was panting for breath so deeply that he could no longer howl and his legs and arms felt as if hung with weights and his lungs burned and his heart boomed, he threw himself on ground underneath the first of the trees.

Presently he saw a figure come across the plain toward him. As it got closer, he saw that it was not human.

It was then that Burton was sure that this Resurrection Day was not that which the religion he knew had told him it would be. Burton had not believed in the God portrayed by the Christians, Moslems, or Hindus; in fact, he was not sure that he believed in any Creator whatsoever. He had believed in Richard Francis Burton and a few friends, and he was sure that when he died the world, for him, would cease to exist forever.

Now, seeing the alien approach, he was sure that there was some physical, scientific, reason for his being here; he did not have to resort to Judaeo-Christian-Moslem myths for cause.

The creature— it must be a male— was a biped about 6 feet 8 inches tall. His pink-skinned body was very thin; it had four fingers on each hand and four very long and thin toes on each foot. There were two dark red spots below the male nipples on the chest. The face was semi-human. Thick black eyebrows swept down to the protruding cheekbones and flared out to cover them with a soft brown down. The sides of his nostrils were fringed with a thin membrane about a sixteenth of an inch long. The thick pad of cartilage on the end of his nose was deeply cleft. The lips were thin, leathery, and black. The ears were lobeless and the convolutions within were nonhuman.

This was the creature he had seen in the tank when he had dreamed his first dream.

Dream? That had been no dream.

Burton rose as the creature approached. He looked around for a stick or a club with which to defend himself if it should be aggressive. He saw none. The tree under which he stood was towering, similar to a huge Norway pine. Near it was a tree of a type he had never seen; this had a thick gnarled trunk with a blackish bark and many thick branches bearing huge green leaves with scarlet lacings.

The creature smiled and revealed quite human teeth. He said, “I hope you speak English. However, I can speak with some fluency in Russian or Chinese.”

“You speak English quite well— Midwestern American English,” said Burton.

“Thank you,” said the creature. “I followed you because you seemed the only person who might be able to talk coherently. Perhaps you have some explanation for this … what do you call it? … resurrection?”

“No more than you,” said Burton. “In fact, I don’t have any explanation for you.”

The cleft nose of the alien twitched, a gesture which Burton was to find indicated surprise or puzzlement. “No? That is strange. I would have sworn that not one of the 6 billion of Earth’s inhabitants had not heard of or seen me on the TV.”

“TV?”

The creature’s nose twitched again. “You don’t know what TV …” His voice trailed, then he smiled again. “Of course, how stupid of me! You must have died before I came to Earth!”

“When was that?”

The alien’s eyebrows rose (equivalent to a human frown), and he said, slowly, “Let’s see. I believe it was, in your chronology, 2002 A.D. When did you die?”

“It must have been in 1890 A.D.,” said Burton. He still felt a sense of unreality, of being detached from all that was taking place around him. He ran his tongue around his mouth; the teeth he had lost when the Somali spear ran through his cheek were now replaced. But he was still circumcised. “At least,” he added, “I remember nothing after October 20th, 1890.”

“Aab!” said the creature. “So, I left my native planet approximately 200 years before you died. My planet? The second revolving around what you Terrestrials call Tau Ceti. I was on the first interstellar expedition. We placed ourselves in suspended animation, and when our ship approached your sun we were automatically thawed out, and … but you do not know what I am talking about?”

“Not quite. Things are happening too fast, in too alien an environment. Later, I would like to get details. What is your name?”

“Monat Grrautuft. Yours?”

“Richard Francis Burton at your service.” He bowed slightly and smiled. Despite the strangeness of the creature and some repulsive physical aspects, Burton found himself warming to him. “The late Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton,” he added. “Most recently Her Majesty’s Consul in the Austro-Hungarian port of Trieste.”

“Elizabeth?”

“I lived in the nineteenth, century, not the sixteenth,” said Burton.

“There was an English Queen Elizabeth who reigned in the twentieth,” said Monat. He turned to look towards the riverbank. “Why are they so afraid? All the human beings I met were either sure that there would be no afterlife or else that they would get preferential treatment in the hereafter.”

Burton grinned and said, “Those who denied the hereafter are sure they’re in Hell because of their blasphemy. As for those who knew they would go to Heaven, they’re shocked, I would imagine, to find themselves naked. You see, most of the illustrations of our afterlife show those in Hell as naked and those in Heaven as being clothed.”

“You seem amused,” said Monat. “What do you think?”

“I wasn’t so amused a few minutes ago,” said Burton. “But I think there’s an explanation for this. And it won’t match any of the conjectures I knew on Earth.”

“I doubt we’re on Earth,” said Monat. He pointed upwards with long slim fingers which bore thick cartilage pads instead of nails, and he said, “If you look steadily there, with your eyes shielded, you can see another bright body which seemed to be a quarter of the size of a full moon.”

When he put his hands down, he said, “I wonder what purpose this cylinder has?”

Monat unsnapped the strap attached to his wrist and placed the cylinder on the ground. He raised the lid and looked within. Burton followed his example. Inside the hollow cylinder were six snapdown rings of metal. These held various deep cups and pots. All the containers were empty.

Monat closed the cover and said, “Doubtless we’ll find out their function in due course.”

By then, others were leaving the riverbank and walking towards them. One of the men at once attracted Burton. Where Monat was obviously nonhuman, this fellow was subhuman or prehuman. He was very short and broad and walked with his head thrust forward. The forehead was very low and slanting; the skull was shaped like a loaf of bread, long and narrow. Enormous supraorbital ridges shadowed dark brown eyes. The nose was a smear of flesh with huge nostrils, and the bulging bones beneath his lips pushed them out to give a pseudo-Negro appearance. The lips themselves were very thin.

His chest was huge and was matted with long dark hair. Hair lay in thick whorls over his shoulders and down his back and over the fronts of his bowed legs.

He stood a little apart from the others and looked questingly at them. The human beings drew away from him as if afraid. Then, a man behind him spoke in English to him. The subhuman turned and answered back in a language Burton did not recognize, but he seemed grateful for the recognition. He pointed to himself and said something that sounded like Kazzintuitruuaabemss. This could have been his name or it could have meant anything. Later, Burton found out that it was his name and meant Man-Who-Slew-The-White-Long-Tooth.

Burton called to the man who had spoken to the subhuman. “You two come here, if you please! We might as well get acquainted. We’ve got nothing else at the moment to do.”

He took one step forward.

The youth, looking out of the corners of his eyes at Monat, came up to Burton and extended his hand. “Name’s Peter Frigate,” he said. “F-r-i-g-a-t-e. Glad to make your acquaintance on mankind’s most momentous day. Born under the Sign of Aquarius, during the last year of the Great War of 1914-1918 in Terre Haute, Indiana, U.S.A. Spent a misspent life as a writer and scholar of sorts. Died in 2008 through the devices of this Tau Cetan. But I don’t hold it against him. He was only defending himself.”

Frigate spoke bravely enough but with a strained voice, as if he were trying to keep a tight control on himself. He was about Burton’s height, almost six feet, muscular, and weighed about one hundred and seventy-five pounds. His face was craggy, the kind with which a caricaturist would have a field day. His eyes were hazel.

“Burton here. You sound as if you’d met Monat Grrautuft.”

“Not exactly,” said Frigate. “I saw him enough on TV, though.”

Hesitantly, he held out his hand to the alien. Monat smiled, and they shook.

Frigate said, “I think it’ll be a good idea if we band together. We may need protection later on.”

“Why?” said Burton.

“You know how rotten most human beings are,” said Frigate. “Once people get used to being resurrected, they’ll be fighting for women and food or anything that takes their fancy. And I think we ought to be buddies with this … Neanderthal? No, he looks more like a reconstruction of an Australopithecus, or something similar. Anyway, he’ll be a good man in a fight. Besides, you wouldn’t want to pass up the chance to talk to a real live prehuman, would you? I was something of a linguist; think of the sheer joy of analyzing a prehuman language.”

Kazz, as the others came to call him, seemed pathetically eager to be accepted. But he kept watching the others that went by as if he were looking for one of his own species.

A woman walked by muttering over and over in German, “My God! My God! What have I done to offend Thee?”

A man had both his fists clenched and raised to shoulder height, and he was shouting in Yiddish, “My beard! My beard!”

A woman making a pathetic attempt to cover herself with her hands hurried by. She was muttering, “What will they think, what will they think?” And she disappeared behind the trees.

A man and a woman passed them; these were talking loudly in Italian as if they were separated by a broad highway and not by several feet. “We can’t be in Heaven. I know, oh my God, I know! There was Giuseppe Zomzini and you know what a wicked man he is … he ought to burn in hellfire! I know, I know … he stole from the treasury, he frequented bad houses, he drank himself to death … yet he’s here! I know, I know …”

Another woman was running and screaming in German, “Daddy! Daddy! Where are you? It’s your own darling Hilda!”

A man scowled at them and said repeatedy, “—them. I’m as good as anyone and better than some.”

A woman said, “I wasted my whole life, my whole life. I did everything for them, and now …”

A man, swinging the metal cylinder before him as if it were a censer, called out, “Follow me to the mountains! Follow me! I know the truth, good people! Follow me! We’ll be safe in the bosom of the Lord! Don’t believe what you see now; follow me!”

Others spoke gibberish or were silent, their lips tight as if they feared to utter what was within them.

“It’ll take some time before they straighten out,” said Burton.

“They may never know the truth,” said Frigate.

“What do you mean?” said Burton.

“They didn’t know it on Earth, so why should they here? What makes you think we’re going to get a revelation?”

Burton shrugged and said, “I don’t. But I do think that we ought to determine just what our environment is and now we can survive in it. The fortune of a man who sits, sits also.” He pointed towards the riverbank. “See those? Those large stone structures shaped like low flat-topped toadstools? They seem to be spaced out at intervals of a mile. What is their purpose?”

Monat said, “If you had taken a close look at them as I did, you would have seen that the flat surface of each bears round indentations. These are just the right size for the base of one of these cylinders to fit in. In fact, they must be for that purpose. One of these cylinders sits in the center of the top surface. I think that if we examine that cylinder, we may be able to determine their purpose.”

III

A woman approached them. She was of medium height, had a superb shape, and a face that would have been beautiful if it had been framed by hair. Her eyes were dark.

She said in a well-modulated voice, “I beg your pardon, gentlemen. I couldn’t help overhearing you speak in English. I am an Englishwoman; I’m looking for some countrymen, some gentlemen whom I can trust to give me companionship and protection in the midst of these foreigners. I throw myself on your mercy.”

“Fortunately for you, Madame,” sad Burton, “you have come to the right men.”

“By all means,” said Frigate, “let’s preserve the English proprieties. Your name?”

“Alice Pleasance Hargreaves.”

Frigate’s eyes opened wide, and he looked as if he were going to speak. But he closed his mouth. Burton introduced himself and the others. She took the hand of Monat without flinching, but she merely nodded at the subhuman. Frigate explained to her a little about Monat. Alice made no comment; perhaps she was too amazed to say anything intelligently on the subject.

“The sun’s climbing high over the mountains,” said Burton. “I’m getting thirsty. Let’s go down to the river and drink.”

They walked back across the plain. The men and women and the few children there, none under five years of age, were sitting on the grass or milling aimlessly around. A couple was arguing loudly and red-facedly. Apparently, they had been husband and wife and were continuing what must have been a lifelong dispute. Suddenly, the man turned and walked away. The wife looked unbelievingly at him, then ran after him. He thrust her away so violently that she fell on the grass. He ran away and quickly lost himself in the crowd.

Burton thought briefly of his own wife and wondered where she was. He did not have to guess what she was doing; she would be looking for him. Nor would she stop looking until she found him.

They drank the water of the river. It was cool and clear. “The waters of the River of Life,” said Burton. “The Styx? Lethe? No, not that. I remember everything of my Earthly existence.”

“I wish I could forget it,” said Frigate.

Refreshed, they climbed upon the top of the nearest “toadstool” structure. It was composed of a dense-grained gray stone flecked heavily with reddish iron-looking mineral. On its flat surface were six hundred indentations spaced concentrically. The hole in the center held one of the metal cylinders. Examining it was a little dark-skinned man with a big nose and receding chin.

As they approached, he looked up and smiled. “This one won’t open,” he said in German. “Perhaps it will later. I’m sure it’s there as an example of what to do with our own containers.”

He introduced himself as Lev Ruach and switched to a heavily accented English when Burton, Frigate, and Hargreaves gave their names.

“I was an atheist,” he said. “Now, I don’t know. This place is as big a shock to an atheist, you know, as to those devout believers who had pictured an afterlife quite different from this. Well, so I was wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time.” He chuckled, and he said to Monat, “I recognized you at once. It’s a good thing for you that you were resurrected in a group mainly consisting of people who died in the 19th century. Otherwise, you’d be lynched.”

“Why is that?” asked Burton.

“He killed Earth,” said Frigate. “At least, I think he did.”

“The scanner,” said Monat dolefully, “would have killed only human beings. It was adjusted to put an end only to those of a certain intelligence level. And it would not have exterminated all of mankind. It would have ceased operating after a predetermined number— unfortunately, a large number— had lost their lives. Believe me, my friends, I did not want to do that. You do not know what an agony it cost me to make the decision to press the button. But I had to protect my people. Yours forced my hand.”

“It started when Monat was on a live show,” said Frigate. “Monat made an unfortunate remark. He said that his scientists had the knowledge and ability to keep people from getting old. Theoretically, using Tau Cetan techniques, a man could live forever. But, on his planet, the knowledge was not used; it was forbidden. The interviewer asked him if these techniques could be applied to Terrestrials. Monat replied that there was no reason why not. But rejuvenation was denied to his own kind for a very good reason, and this also applied to Terrestrials. Then the government censor realized what was happening and cut off the audio, but it was too late.”

“Later,” said Lev Ruach, “the American government tried to deny that Monat had said what he said. It reported that Monat had misunderstood the question, that his knowledge of English had led him to make a misstatement. But it was too late. The people of America, of the world, demanded that Monat reveal the secret of eternal youth.”

“Which I did not have,” said Monat. “Not a single one on the expedition had the knowledge. In fact, very few people on my planet had it. But it did no good to tell the people this. They thought I was lying. There was a riot, and a mob stormed the guards around our ship and broke into it. I saw my friends torn to pieces while they tried to reason with the mob. Reason!

“But I did what I did, not for revenge but for a very different reason. I knew that, after we were killed, or even if we weren’t, the government would restore order. And it would have the ship in its possession. It wouldn’t be long before Terrestrial scientists would know how to duplicate it. Inevitably, the Terrestrials would launch an invasion fleet against our world. So, to make sure that Earth would be set back many centuries, maybe thousands of years, knowing that I must do the dreadful thing to save my own world, I sent the signal to the scanner satellite. I would not have had to do that if I could have gotten to the destruct-button and blown the ship up. But I could not get to the control room. A short time later the mob blew off the door of the room in which I had taken refuge, and I remember nothing but savage blows.”

“I wonder what happened to those who weren’t killed,” said Frigate. “I was in a hospital in Western Samoa at that time, dying of cancer and wondering if I would be buried next to Robert Louis Stevenson. Not much chance, I was thinking. Still, I had translated the Iliad and the Odyssey into Samoan … then the news came. People all over the world were falling dead. The pattern of fatality was obvious; the Tau Cetan satellite was radiating something that dropped human beings in their tracks. The last I heard was that the U.S., England, Russia, China, France, and Israel were all sending up rockets to intercept it, blow it up. And the carrier of death was on a path which would take it over Samoa.”

“The interceptors failed,” said Rauch. “The scanner blew them up before they even got close.”

Burton thought that he had a lot to learn about post-1890, but now was not the time to talk about it. “I suggest we go up into the hills.” he said. “We should learn what type of vegetation grows there and if it can be useful. Also, if there is any flint we can work into weapons. This fellow Kazz must be familiar with stone-working.” He started walking slowly across the plain.

The others seemed willing to let him lead. He walked across the mile-broad plain and into the hills. On the way, several others joined their group. One was a little girl of about seven years old. She looked pathetically at Burton as he approached, and Frigate, who knew a little Welsh and Gaelic, spoke to her. Her eyes widened, then she frowned. Obviously, the words seemed to have a certain familiarity or similarity to her speech. But not enough to be intelligible.

“For all we know,” said Frigate, “she could be a child of ancient Gaul.”

“We’ll teach her English,” said Burton. He picked up the child in his arms and started to walk with her. She burst into tears, but she made no effort to free herself. The weeping was a release from what must have been almost unbearable tension and a joy at finding a guardian. After a while she nestled quietly against his shoulder.

Where the plain met the hills, as if a line had been drawn, the short grass ceased and a thick coarse esparto-like grass, waist-high, began. Here, too, the towering pines and the gnarled giants with scarlet and green leaves grew thickly. Further within the hills, clumps of bamboo appeared. These consisted of many varieties, from slender stalks only a few feet high to plants over fifty feet high and thick as a man’s thigh.

“Here’s the material for spear-shafts,” said Burton, “pipes for conducting water, containers, the basic stuff for building houses, furniture, boats, perhaps even for making paper. And the young stalks of some may be good for eating.”

They climbed on, going over hills whose height increased as they neared the mountain. After they had crossed about three miles, they were stopped by the mountain. This rose abruptly in a sheer cliff-face of some blue-black igneous rock on which grew huge patches of a blue-green lichen. There was no way of determining accurately how high it was, but Burton did not think that he was wrong in estimating it as at least 20,000 feet. Moreover, as far as they could see, it presented an unbroken front.

“Have you noticed the complete absence of animal life?” said Frigate. “Not even an insect.”

Burton, instead of replying, picked up a fist-sized chunk of stone. “Chert,” he said. “If there’s enough in this area, we can make knives, spearheads, adzes, axes. And with them build houses, boats, many other artifacts.”

“Tools and weapons must be bound to wooden shafts.” said Frigate. “What do we use as binding material?”

“Perhaps human skin,” said Burton.

The others looked shocked. Burton gave a strange chirruping laugh, incongruous in so masculine-looking a man. He said, “If we’re forced to kill in self-defense or lucky enough to stumble over a corpse some assassin has been kind enough to prepare for us, we’d be fools not to use what we need. However, if any of you feel self-sacrificing enough to offer your own epidermises for the good of the group, step forward! We’ll remember you in our wills,” he laughed.

“Surely, you are jesting,” Alice Hargreaves said. “I can’t say I particularly care for it.”

Frigate looked narrow-eyed at Burton. “What’s your Christian name?”

“Richard Francis.”

“You couldn’t be …?” said Frigate. “No, that would be too much of a coincidence, too much luck for me. Still, if you had a head of hair and a beard …”

Burton did not ask him what he meant but instead suggested they return to the river. Before they left, however, Kazz managed to make himself a sharp chert knife.

IV

On top of a tall hill, they paused for a moment. The sun was at its zenith. At this point, they could see for many miles along the river and also across the river. Although they were too far away to make out any figures on the other side of the mile-wide stream, they could perceive the mushroom-shaped structures there. The terrain on that side was the same as that on theirs. A mile-wide plain, perhaps three miles of foothills covered with trees. Beyond, the straight-up face of an almost insurmountable bluish-green mountain.

“Sunrise must come late and sunset early in this valley,” said Burton. “Well, we must make the most of the bright hours.”

At that moment a blue flame arose from the top of each stone structure, soared up at least twenty feet, then disappeared.

As one, the party cried out. A few seconds later, a sound of distant thunder passed them. The boom struck the mountain behind them and echoed.

Burton scooped up the little girl in his arms and he began to trot down the hill. Though they maintained a good pace, they were forced to walk from time to time to regain their breaths. Nevertheless, Burton felt wonderful. It had been so many years since he could use his muscles so profligately that he did not want to stop enjoying the sensation. He could scarcely believe that, only a short time ago, his right foot had been swollen with gout.

They came to the plain and continued trotting, for they could see that there was much excitement around one of the structures. Burton swore at those in his way and pushed them aside. He got black looks but no one tried to push back. Abruptly, he was in the space cleared around the base. And he saw what had attracted them. He also smelled it.

Frigate, behind him, said, “Oh, my God!” and tried to retch on his empty stomach.

Burton had seen too much during his Earth life to be easily affected. Before him lay the corpse of a man; its skin was burned off, and the naked muscles were deeply charred.

“What happened?” said Burton to a woman who was uttering a prayer in Italian.

“He was leaning against the rock and complaining that he was hungry,” whispered the woman. “He was wondering if we had been brought back to life only to starve to death. Then there was a roar and blue flames shot up from the top of the rock. They didn’t seem to touch him, but he fell over dead. And burned. It was horrible, horrible.”

“A discharge of energy,” said Lev Ruach behind Burton. “Electrical?”

Burton looked closely at the top of the structure. The gray cylinder in the center seemed to be untouched. He stepped up to the rock and reached out slowly to touch it.

“Don’t do that!” said Ruach. “It may not be completely discharged. Or there may be another as strong as the first.”

“I don’t think so,” said Burton. “I think that cylinder has some connection with the blue flames, that it was attached to the rock so we could learn something from it.”

He felt the rock with his fingertips and found it no warmer than might have been expected from its exposure to the sun. A few cries came from the crowd, which evidently expected him to drop dead also. He smiled and vaulted onto the flat top. Nothing happened, although he had not been sure that he, too, would not be destroyed. And the top did not feel unbearably warm to his bare feet.

He walked to the cylinder and took hold of the cover. It rose.

His heart beating hard, he looked within. Somehow he had expected the miracle, and there it was.

The racks within held six containers, and each of these was full.

He signalled to his group to come up. Without hesitation they obeyed him. Frigate, looking pale but no longer heaving drily, also came.

Gesturing at the interior. Burton said, “This cylinder is a veritable grail. Look! Steak! Bread and butter! Salad! What’s that? A pack of cigarettes? And a cigar!”

He closed the lid before they could all see and glanced at the crowd. Nobody had ventured to follow them yet, though some looked as if they would shortly have the nerve to do so. “When they find out there’s food here,” he said in a low tone, “there will be a fight. I say, let them have it. There won’t be much to go around anyway. Not that I’m avoiding a battle, you understand,” he said, looking fiercely at them. “But I think that this will not be the only food available. Our grails must be designed for the same purpose as this. I’m sure that later on they, too, will be filled. So let’s get out of here.”

He walked off with the others following. At once men and women swarmed upon the surface. Within a minute, they were fighting savagely for the contents of the cylinder. A tall burly man seized the cooked steak, jumped off the rock onto the riverside and dived into the water with the meat. Nobody followed him. He floated off on his back, paddling with one hand and holding the steak to his mouth with the other.

Burton waited until the excitement cooled and then announced, in a loud voice, what he suspected. They listened, and such was the impression of his authority, they agreed to try his experiment. Each man and woman placed his grail in a depression and noted carefully its exact location. Burton had warned them that it was very likely that only the grail attached to each person when he woke up could be opened by that person.

They waited. It was a long wait for nobody wanted to leave the vicinity. Yet Burton could not be inactive unless under compulsion.

There was work to be done, anyway. The dead man had to be buried or gotten rid of in some manner. Burton picked up the front part of the corpse, asking Frigate to take the legs. Frigate looked very reluctant but did so, and they carried the body off across the plain. When the burden became too heavy, Monat and Kazz took over the job. Alice came behind them several yards with the child’s hand in hers. Alice had been afraid that the sight of the dead man would terrify the child, but the little girl seemed only curious.

“If she really is an ancient Gaul,” said Frigate, “she may be used to seeing charred corpses. After all, if I remember correctly, the Gauls burned people in big wicker baskets at religious ceremonies. I wish I had a library to refer to. Do you think we’ll ever have one here?”

“That remains to be seen,” said Barton. “If we’re not provided with one, we’ll make our own.”

He and Frigate took the body back from Monat and Kazz and continued with it.

“If every one who has ever lived has been resurrected here,” said Frigate, “think of the research to be done! Think of the historical mysteries you could clear up! You could talk to John Wilkes Booth and find out if Secretary of War Stanton really was behind the Lincoln assassination. You might ferret out the identity of Jack the Ripper. Find out if Joan of Arc actually did belong to a witch cult. Talk to Napoleon’s Marshal Ney; see if he did escape the firing squad and become a schoolteacher in America. Get the true story on Pearl Harbor. See the face of the Man in the Iron Mask, if there ever was such a person. Interview Lucrezia Borgia and those who knew her and determine if she was the poisoning bitch most people think she is. Learn the identity of the assassin of the two little princes in the Tower.”

He continued, “And you, Richard Burton! There are many questions about your own life that your many biographers would like to have answered. Did you really have a Persian love you were going to marry and for whom you were going to renounce your true identity and become a native? Did she die before you could marry her? And did her death really embitter you, and did you carry a torch for her the rest of your life?

“And … and … well, it’ll all have to wait, I can see that. But did you know that your wife had extreme unction administered to you shortly after you died and that you were buried in a Catholic cemetery? You, the infidel! And she burned your journal. Did the journal really horrify her enough to burn it?”

Lev Ruach, whose eyes had been widening while Frigate was rattling on, said, “You’re Burton, the explorer and linguist? The discoverer of Lake Tanganyika? The one who made a pilgrimage to Mecca while disguised as a Moslem? The translator of the Thousand and One Nights?”

“I have no desire to lie. Nor need to. I am he.”

Lev Rauch spat at Burton. The wind carried it away. “You son of a bitch!” he cried. “You foul Nazi bastard! I read about you. You were, in man ways, an admirable person, but you were an anti-Semite!”

“That’s not true,” said Burton. “My enemies spread that rumor. But—”

“I suppose you didn’t write The Jew, The Gypsy, and El Islam?”

“I did,” replied Burton, his body and face red. “And I think you had better go. A man who talks to me as you have just done has to defend his words with deeds. If you do not apologize or walk off, I am going to drop this corpse and proceed to make another.”

Ruach clenched his fists and glared at Burton; then he spun around and stalked off.

“What is a Nazi?” said Burton to Frigate.

The American explained as best he could in the short time it took them to reach the hills. Burton said, “I have much to learn about what happened after I died. England, you say, became a second-class power? Only fifteen years after my death? I find that difficult to believe.”

“Why would I lie to you?” said Frigate. “Don’t feel bad about it. Before the end of the 20th century, she had risen again, and in a most curious way …”

Listening to the Yankee, Burton felt pride for his country. Although England had treated him more than shabbily during his lifetime, and although he had always wanted to get out of the island and away while residing in it, he would defend it to the death. And he had always been devoted to the Queen.

Abruptly, he said, “If you guessed my identity, why didn’t you say something about it?”

“I wanted to be sure. Besides, we’ve not had much time for social intercourse. Or an other kind,” Frigate added, looking sidewise at Alice Hargreaves’ magnificent figure.

“I know something about her, too,” he said, “if she’s the woman I think she is.”

“That’s more than I do,” replied Burton. He stopped, for they had gone up the gentle slope of the first hill and were on its top. They lowered the body to the ground beneath a giant pine.

Immediately, the prehuman Kazz, chert knife in hand, squatted down by the charred corpse. He raised his head upwards and uttered a few phrases in what must have been a religious chant. Then, before the others could object, he had removed the liver.

Frigate and Alice cried out in protest. Burton grunted. Monat stared.

Kazz’s big teeth bit into the bloody organ and tore off a large chunk. His massively muscled and thickly boned jaws began chewing, and he half-closed his eyes in ecstasy. Burton stepped up to him and held out his hand, intending to remonstrate. Kazz grinned bloodily and cut off a piece and offered it to Burton. He was very surprised at the refusal.

“A cannibal!” said Alice Hargreaves. “A bloody stinking cannibal!”

“No worse than our own ancestors,” said Burton, who had recovered from the shock. “And, in a land where there seems to be precious little food, eminently practical. Well, our problem of burying a corpse without proper digging tools is solved. Furthermore, if we’re wrong about the grails being a source of food, we may be emulating Kazz.”

“Never!” said Alice, staring horrifiedly at the corpse and then at Burton. “I’d die first!”

“That is exactly what you would do,” replied Burton coolly. “I suggest we retire and leave him to his meal. It doesn’t do anything for my own appetite, and I find his table manners as abominable as an American frontiersman’s.”

They walked out of sight of Kazz and behind one of the great gnarled trees. Alice said, “I don’t want him around. He’s an animal, an abomination! Why, I wouldn’t feel safe for a second with him around!”

“You asked me for protection,” said Burton. “I’ll give it to you as long as you are a member of this party. But you’ll also have to accept my decisions. One of which is that the apeman remains with us. We need his strength and his skills, which seem to be very appropriate for this type of country. We’ve become primitives; therefore, we can learn from a primitive. He stays.”

Alice looked at the others with silent appeal. Monat twitched his eyebrows; Frigate shrugged his shoulders. He said, “Alice, if you can possibly do it, forget your conventions. We’re not in a proper upper-class Victorian heaven. Or, indeed, in any sort of heaven ever dreamed of. You can’t think and behave as you did on earth. For one thing, you come from a society where women covered themselves from neck to foot in heavy garments, and the sight of a woman’s knee was a stirring sexual event. Yet you seem to suffer no embarrassment because you’re going about nude.”

Alice said, “I don’t like it, but why should I be embarrassed? Where all are nude, none are nude … anyway, if my figure weren’t good I might be suffering more.”

The two men laughed and Frigate said, “You’re fabulous, Alice. Absolutely.”

She did not reply but walked away until she was out of sight behind a large tree. Burton, watching the sway of hips, said, “Something will have to be done about sanitation in the near future. Which means that somebody will have to decide the health policies and have the power to make regulations and enforce them. How do we form any sort of legislative and judicial and executive bodies from the present state of anarchy?”

“To get to more immediate problems,” said Frigate, “What do we do about the dead man?”

That was solved for them, for the present, at least. On returning to the site where they had left Kazz and the corpse, they found that both were gone.

Presently the broad hairy form of Kazz reappeared. He grinned toothily at them with now clean lips. He was wiping his hands with a tangle of grass blades.

“He must have buried it someplace” said Burton. “He’ll return later for snacks.” He turned to look at the sun, which was only several degrees from the top of the western mountain. “We’d better hurry back to the grailrock.”

The six walked swiftly back across the plains. At the rock, they deposited their grails in the depressions.

The sun plunged behind the towering rampart, and twilight came at once. However, the sky above them stayed bright for a long time. Then, as the color began to dull, there was a roar. Blue flumes shot up from every rock in sight.

Though they had been expecting it, everybody jumped and some screamed. Nor did they rush to the rock at once. They were not sure that the phenomenon would not repeat itself immediately.

Again Burton was first on the flat surface. He lifted the cover of his grail, looked within and whooped with delight. The others rushed up and seized their own cylinders.

Within a minute they were scattered over the plain or hurrying toward the hills, chattering with mingled relief and gaiety. Things were not so bad; whoever was responsible was taking care of them.

They made camp beneath the wide-flung and densely leaved branches of one of the gnarled giants which were to be called “irontrees.” In a short time a fire was built. It was not necessary to start one by working a friction stick, as they had planned. One of the items in the grails was a three-inch long slender cylinder of some hard metal or plastic. When pressed on one end, a thick growing wire slid out the other. The wire, applied to a pile of shaven bamboo splinters, started a flame swiftly.

Gasping, whooping, exclaiming, they pulled the contents of the grails out and examined them by the firelight. There was food in plenty: a tender medium-cooked cubical steak four inches thick; a small ball of dark bread; butter; potatoes and gravy; lettuce wth salad dressing of unfamiliar but delicious taste. In addition, there was a five-ounce cup containing bourbon and another small cup with four ice cubes in it.

There was more, all the better because unexpected. A small briar pipe. A stack of pipe tobacco. Three panatela-shaped cigars. A plastic package with ten cigarettes.

“Unfiltered!” said Frigate.

There was also one small brown cigarette which Burton said Frigate smelled and said, at the same time. “Marihuana!”

Alice, holding up a small pair of plastic scissors and a comb, said. “Evidently we’re going to get our hair back. Otherwise, there’d be no need for these. I’m so glad! but do … they … really expect me to use this?”

She held out a container of bright red lipstick.

“Or me?” said Frigate, also looking at a similar tube.

“They’re eminently practical,” said Monat, turning over a packet of what was obviously toilet paper. Then he pulled out a sphere of green soap.

Burton was so hungry that he had forgotten his manners and had not waited until Alice had started. He did not think it mattered, not here. The steak was very tender, although he would have preferred it rare. On the other hand, Frigate complained because it was not cooked enough.

“Evidently these grails are not tailored for the individual owner,” he said. “That’s why we men got lipstick and Alice a pipe. It’s mass production.”

“Two miracles in one day,” said Burton. “That is, if they are such. I prefer a rational explanation.”

“If you compare the exterior and interior of the grail,” said Monat, “you will observe an approximate three centimeter difference in depth. The false bottom must conceal some molar circuitry which is able to convert energy to matter. The energy obviously comes during the discharge from the rocks. In addition to the E-M converter, the grail must hold molar templates—molds—which form the matter into various combinations of elements and compounds.

“I’m safe in my speculations, for we had a similar converter on my native planet. But nothing as miniature as this, I assure you.”

“Same on Earth,” said Frigate. “Before I died, we were making iron out of pure energy. But it was a very complicated and expensive process.”

“Good,” said Burton. “All this has cost us nothing—so far.”

He fell silent for a while, thinking of the dream he had had when awakening. “Pay up,” God had said. “You owe for the flesh.”

Now what had that meant? On Earth, at Trieste, in 1890, he had been dying in his wife’s arms and asking for … what? Something. He could not remember. Then, unconsciousness. And he had awakened in that tank and had seen things that were not on Earth nor, as far as he knew, on this planet.

That experience had been no dream …

They finished eating and replaced the containers in the racks within the grails. Since there was no water nearby, they would have to wait until morning to wash the containers. Frigate, with Kazz’s help, however, had made several containers out of sections of the giant bamboo. He volunteered to go back to the river and fill the sections with water. Nobody objected. Burton wondered at the fellow’s suggestion.

His eyes fell on Alice, and he knew what Frigate was looking for. The youth was hoping to find some congenial female companionship. He had given up hopes for Alice, if he had any, because of Burton’s promise of protection to her.

Burton forgot about that, for the stars had come out in their full splendor. The sky was crowded with gigantic sparks and with several luminous sheets that could only have been nearby gas clouds or galaxies. Never had Earthly eyes seen such an awe-inspiring spectacle.

“We must be in the middle of a big star-cluster.” said Monat. “They are so close together, they don’t even form constellations.”

Burton lay on his back on a pile of grass and puffed at a cigar. It was excellent; in London of his day it would have cost at least a shilling. He turned his head to watch the others. Monat was looking at the stars. Kazz had lost interest in them and was sitting with his back against a tree, his mouth open, his eyes closed, and his head nodding. The little girl had fallen asleep at once after eating; she lay by Alice with her hand outstretched to touch the woman’s leg.

Looking at Alice, as the firelight flickered over the handsome aristocratic face (and bald head) and the curved body, Burton felt stirring what had been dead for some years. On Earth, during the last fifteen years of his life, he had paid heavily for the many fevers and sicknesses suffered while in India, Africa, and South America.

Now, he was young again, and healthy—and suddenly ridden by the strong drives of youth.

Yet he had given his promise to protect her.

Well, she was not the only woman in the world. As a matter of fact, if everybody who had died on Earth were on this planet, she would be only one among many billions.

The hell of it was that she might as well be the only one, at this moment, anyway. He could not get up and walk off into the darkness looking for another woman because that would leave her and the child unprotected. She certainly would not feel safe with Monat and Kazz, nor could he blame her. They were so terrifyingly ugly to human eyes. Nor could he entrust her to Frigate—if Frigate returned tonight, which he doubted—because the fellow was an unknown quantity. The American got sick very readily at unpleasant sights. His courage might be as weak as his stomach.

Burton laughed loudly at his situation and decided that he might as well stick it out for tonight. This thought set him laughing again, and he did not stop until Alice woke to ask him if he were all right.

“More right than you will ever know.” he said, turning his back to her. He reached into his grail and extracted the last item. This was a small flat stick of chicle-like substance. Frigate, before leaving, had remarked that their unknown benefactors must be American, for they otherwise would not have thought of providing chewing gum.

After stubbing out his cigar on the ground. Burton popped the stick into his mouth. He said, “This has a strange but rather delicious taste. Have you tried yours?”

“I am tempted,” she said. “But I imagine I’d look like a cow chewing her cud.”

“Forget about being a lady,” said Burton. “Do you think that beings with the power to resurrect you would have vulgar tastes?”

She smiled slightly and placed her stick in her mouth. For a moment they chewed idly, looking across the fire at each other. Burton said, “Frigate mentioned that he knew of you. Just who are you, if you will pardon my unseemly curiosity.”

“There are no secrets among the dead,” she replied lightly. “Or among the ex-dead.”

She was born Alice Pleasance Liddell on April 25, 1852. (Burton was thirty then.) She was the direct descendant of King Edward III and his son, John of Gaunt. She had had a happy childhood, an excellent education, and had met many famous people of her times: Gladstone, Matthew Arnold, the Prince of Wales. She had married a ‘country gentleman’, liked to hunt, fish, play cricket, raise trees, and read French literature. She had three sons, all captains, two of whom died in the Great War of 1914-1918. (This was the second time that day that Burton had heard of the Great War.)

She talked on and on as if drink had loosened her tongue. Or as if she wanted to place a barrier of conversation between her and Burton.

She talked of Dinah, the tabby kitten she had loved when she was a child, the great trees of her husband’s arboretum, how her father, when working on his Lexicon, would always sneeze at twelve o’clock in the afternoon, no one knew why … At the age of 80, she was given an honorary Doctor of Letters because of the part she had played in the genesis of Mr. Dodgson’s famous book. (She neglected to mention the title and Burton, though a voracious reader, did not recall any works by Dodgson, whoever he was.)

“That was a golden afternoon indeed,” she said. “I was ten. My sisters and I were wearing black shoes, white openwork socks, white cotton dresses, and hats with large brims.”

Her eyes were wide as if she were struggling inside herself, and she began to talk even faster.

“Mr. Dodgson and Mr. Duckworth carried the picnic baskets … we set off in our boat from Folly Bridge up the Isis, up for a change. Mr. Duckworth rowed stroke. The drops fell off his paddle like tears of glass on the smooth mirror of the Isis, and …”

Burton heard the last words as if they had been roared at him.

Astonished, he gazed at Alice, whose lips seemed to be moving as if she were conversing at a normal speech level. Her eyes were fixed on him, but they seemed to be boring through him into a space and a time beyond him. Her hands were half-raised as if she had been so surprised at something that she had been paralyzed.

Every sound was magnified. He could hear the breathing of the other three around the fire, the pounding of their hearts, the gurgle of the workings of their intestines and the breeze as it slipped across the branches of the trees. From far away, came a cry.

He rose and stood listening. What was this? Why the heightening of senses? Why could he hear their hearts but not his? He was also aware of the shape and texture of the grass under his feet. Almost he could feel the individual molecules of the air as they bumped into his body.

Alice too had risen. She said, “What is happening?”, and her voice fell against him like a heavy gust of wind.

He did not reply, for he was staring at her. Now, it seemed to him, he could really see her body for the first time. And he could see her, too. The entire Alice, the wholly beautiful and undeniably desirable Alice.

At the same time, he saw Kazz stand up. There was no doubt whatever about Kazz’s condition or what he meant to do about it. Kazz reached for Alice, but before he could touch her Burton was on him. He swung with his right fist, and it connected solidly with all the weight of his body behind it. Kazz’s head was thrown back; he staggered back against the tree. Then, he shook his head and staggered toward Alice as if Burton did not exist.

He glanced quickly at Monat. The extra-Terrestrial was sprawled on his back on the ground and looking up at the stars. He did not seem aware that anything extraordinary had taken place.

Alice came towards him with her arms held out, her eyes half-shut, her mouth moist. She swayed, and she crooned, “Richard! Richard!”

Then she stopped; her eyes widened. He stepped towards her, his arms out. She cried, “No!” and turned and ran into the darkness among the trees.

For a second, he stood still. It did not seem possible that she, whom he loved as he had never loved anybody, could not love back.

His paralysis did not last long. She must be teasing him. That was it. He ran after her, and he called her name over and over.

VI

It must have been hours later when the rain fell against him and he woke. Either the effect of the drug had worn off or the cold water helped dispel it, for he seemed to emerge from the dreamlike state abruptly, without transitions. Alice was nowhere in sight.

When he awoke, he was in the gray light of the false dawn. He got up at once and found that, despite the short sleep, he felt refreshed. Nor did he have, as he had expected, any ill effects from the drug. The only thing that hurt was his right hand. It was bruised and torn across the knuckles, slightly swelled, and tender. Frigate, grinning widely, walked into the camp. “You look like the cat who ate the canary,” said Burton.

“That wasn’t all,” replied Frigate. He looked around the site, at Alice, who was glaring at Burton, and at Monat and Kazz yawning and stretching. “Was a good time had by all?”

“It was lively,” said Burton. He picked up his grail and awakened the girl. The others followed him out of the hills and across the plain to the rock. There, after depositing their grails, they stood around and talked to those of their own group or to others. Almost everybody, it seemed, had chewed the gum that night. The results had been tragic, amusing, or gratifying, depending upon the individual. Listening to them, Burton concluded that the substance in the gum was not an aphrodisiac. Not basically, anyway. The reaction of the chewers to it had taken a course which depended on whatever thought or drive was strongest in them at the time.

Consider the case of the husband and wife who had died on Earth at the same time and place and had been resurrected within six feet of each other. They had wept from sheer joy at their good fortune in being reunited. Then they thanked God for their good luck. They had lived together for over fifty years in married bliss; now they looked forward to being together for eternity.

Then, only a few minutes after both had chewed the gum, the man had strangled his wife and thrown her body in the river. He did not wait for any to question him on his behavior but had run away.

Another man had leaped upon the rock and used it as rostrum from which he delivered a speech that lasted all night. To the few who could hear, but were not listening, he had demonstrated the principles of a perfect society and how these could be carried out in practice. Now he was suffering from hoarseness and could only croak a few words.

On Earth he had seldom bothered to vote.

A man and a woman were recovering from the battering they had taken that night. Outraged at the public display of carnality, they had used physical violence to separate couples. The result: bruises, bloody noses, split lips. All theirs. Some men and women had spent the night on their knees praying and confessing their sins.

The sun rose. A few minutes later, the grailrocks spurted blue flame and thundered.

The grails revealed bacon and eggs, ham, toast, butter, milk, jam, a quarter of cantaloupe, and cigarettes.

Within a few minutes, Burton heard a Croat Moslem and a Austrian Jew raging in despair an disgust because their grails contained a product of the tabu swine. A Hindu screamed obscenities because his grail held animal products. A fourth man, crying out that they were the hands of devils, hurled his cigarettes into the river.

Several said to him, “Why didn’t you give us the cigarettes if you didn’t want them?”

“Tobacco is the invention of the devil; it was the weed created by Satan in the Garden of Eden!”

A man said to him, “At least you could have shared the cigarettes with us. It wouldn’t hurt you.”

“I would like to throw all the evil stuff into the river!”

“You’re an insufferable bigot and crazy to boot,” said another, and he struck the tobacco-hater in the mouth. Before the tobacco-hater could get up off the ground, he was hit several more times by friends of the man who had knocked him down.

Later the tobacco-hater staggered up and, weeping with rage, said, “What have I done to deserve this, O Lord my God! I have always been a good man. I gave thousands to charities, I worshipped twice a week, I waged a lifelong war against sin and corruption, I …”

“I know you!” shouted a woman at him. She was a tall blue-eyed girl with a handsome face and well curved figure. “I know you! Sir Robert!”

He stopped talking and blinked at her. “I don’t know you,” he said.

“You wouldn’t! But you should! I’m one of the thousands of girls who had to work sixteen hours a day, six and a half days a week, for not enough money to put food in my mouth. I was one of your factory girls. My father worked for you, my mother worked for you, my brothers and sisters, those who weren’t too sick or who didn’t die because of too little or too bad food, dirty beds, drafty windows, and rat bites, worked for you. My father lost a hand in one of your machines, and you kicked him out without a penny. My mother died of consumption. I was coughing out my life, too, my fine baronet, while you—”

The baronet had gone red at first, then pale, then turned and walked off. But the woman ran after him and swung her grail at him. It came around swiftly; somebody shouted; he spun and ducked. The grail almost grazed the top of his head.

“Hmmm,” said Burton, “there’s a weapon of which I had not thought.”

Sir Robert ran past the woman before she could recover and quickly lost himself in the crowd. Hoots of laughter followed him.

Surprisingly, the woman burst out laughing and then began talking to Burton. She introduced herself as Wilfreta Allport. Alice was courteous but cool. Burton accepted her attitude; it was better than could be expected from most English ladies. He was puzzled about one thing, however. Why, after last night, had she continued to stay with him?

“Better the evil you know,” she replied.

But they did not get a chance to continue their talk, for Kazz began to do that which was unacceptable in modern Western European society.

Apparently she was absolutely unconscious of the effect his act would have. Later Burton wondered why he had not caught Kazz doing this before, but he decided that Kazz had not had much in his digestive system.

Now there were cries of outrage and shocked modesty. A man rushed Kazz and tried to knock him down. Kazz caught the man by the arm and lfted him up and hurled him through the air. Wheeling, he picked up his grail and intercepted another attacker with the side of it against the man’s head. The man crumpled, blood welling from his scalp, and lay on the ground.

Burton sprang in between the subhuman and the threatening crowd. He roared, “Stop! This is not a creature of our times! He comes from a period and a place where tabus differ! And, so far, we can communicate with him to a very limited extent. I’m sure that, once he understands how you feel, he’ll shortly pick up a sense of shame. You can teach a dog good manners, you know! Forgive him, for he does not know what he’s doing.”

Frigate and Monat moved up beside Burton, their grails held in their hands. Then the woman Wilfreda and Alice stood beside the men.

Seeing the outraged ones hesitate, Burton said, “If you think carefully about it, you’ll see you may end up doing what he did, too. The only way to be sanitary is to build enclosed latrines here. Without tools, how will you do that?”

VII

Several days later Burton initiated the building of a boat. He had decided that this area was giving no answers to his questions.

It would have been easy to walk away, but travel on the river would be much swifter. Burton’s gang, as it was called in that locality, worked well together. Their number increased by three men and three women who had placed themselves under his leadership. They established camp in the hills. The discovery that grailrocks existed in the hills also, about a half mile from the mountains and spaced about a mile and a quarter apart, did away with the need to return three times daily to the riverside.

Kazz taught the others how to fashion flint and chert axes, adzes, and scrapers. With the axes, they felled several of the giant Norway pines. After shattering several axes, they began using the chopping technique of the prehuman. He did not swing with the entire arm but used short strokes involving action of the lower arm only.

Frigate, who had spent many years in southeast Asia and Polynesia, initiated them into the secrets of working bamboo. From this versatile plant they made a mast and a boom, woven mats for sails and rope. The double hull of the boat was also fashioned largely from bamboo.

Alice made a bamboo flute and a pan’s pipe.

By then the population had found that, though the long grasses were too sharp to use as garments, the irontree leaves could be used to make somewhat perishable skirts and brassieres. The discovery came too late.

One morning, three weeks after the day of resurrection, the grails refused to yield breakfast for the first time. However, they were not empty. Instead of food, they contained rectangles and strips of some terrycloth-like material. These were colored in many solid hues and could be fastened around the body with magnetic tabs concealed inside the material. Though soft and absorbent, they stood up under the roughest treatment. The sharpest flint could not cut them.

Mankind gave a collective whoop of delight on finding these “towels” as they were called. Though men and women had by then become accustomed or at least resigned to nudity, the more esthetic and the less adaptable had found the universal spectacle of human nakedness ugly and repulsive or both. Now, they had kilts and bras and turbans. The latter were used to cover up their heads while their hair was growing back in. Later, turbans became the customary headgear.

Men were no longer bald, but their beards did not return.

Burton was bitter about this. He had always taken pride in his long moustachioes and forked beard; he claimed that their absence made him feel more naked than the lack of trousers.

Wilfreda laughed and said, “I’m glad they’re gone. Why, kissing you with those would be like sticking my face in a bunch of broken bed-springs.”

“How like you to think of something associated with bed,” said Burton and he slapped her across her hips.

By then, it was no secret that she was his woman. She was the type he most liked: blonde, beautiful, good-tempered, willing, and not overly bright. Most of the men and women had paired off by that time. Very few of them retained the original feeling that they were in the valley on probation and, therefore, should behave circumspectly. Nobody had come down from above or broken through the earth below to tell them why they were here and what they must do.

Two months passed. The day of the launching of the boat arrived. They pushed the craft across the plain on big bamboo rollers.

The boat, The Hadji, was about thirty feet long, made of two bamboo hulls fastened together with a platform. It had a single mast and boom, lateen-rigged, and was steered by a great oar of pine. On the platform rested their launch, a dugout fashioned from a pine log.

Before they could get it into the water, Kazz made some difficulties. By now, he could speak a very broken and limited English and some oaths in Arabic, Baluchi, Swahili, and Italian that he had learned.

“Must need … whacha call it? … wallah! … what it word? … kill somebody before place boat on river … you know … merda … need word. Burton-naq … kill man so god, Kabburquanaqruebemss … water god … no sink boat … get angry … eat us.”

“Sacrifice?” said Burton.

“Many bloody thanks, Burton-naq. Sacrifice! Cut throat … put on boat … rub it on wood … then water god not mad to us.”

“We don’t do that,” said Burton.

Kazz argued but finally agreed to get on the boat. His face was long, and he looked very nervous.

Burton, to ease him, told him that this was a different world, as proved by the stars, and that the gods did not live in this valley. Kazz smiled, but it was several days before he quit looking into the river as if he expected to see the hideous green-bearded face and bulging fishy eyes of Kabburquanaqruebemss rising from the depths towards him.

That evening, as they made their first beaching, an incident occurred that puzzled Burton.

Kazz had just stepped ashore among a group of curious people when he became very excited. He began to jabber in his native tongue and tried to seize a man standing near. The man fled and was quckly lost in the crowd.

When asked by Burton what he was doing, Kazz said, “He not got … uh … whacha call it? … it.” and he pointed at his forehead. Then he traced several unfamiliar symbols in the air. Burton meant to pursue the matter until he found out what Kazz was talking about, but at that very moment Alice cried out and ran up to a man. Evidently she had thought he was one of her sons killed in World War I. There was some confusion; the man denied it. Later Alice admitted that she had made a mistake. By then other business came up and he could not get back to Kazz.

Kazz did not mention the matter again, and Burton forgot about it. He was to remember.

Exactly 490 days later, they had passed 37,600 grailrocks on the right bank of The River.

This meant that they had sailed with the current and the wind approximately 37,600 miles. On Earth, that distance would have been about one and a half times around the equator. Yet the river went on and on, making great bends, winding back and forth. Everywhere, the plains along the river, the tree-covered hills beyond, and, towering, impassable, unbroken, the mountain range.

Occasionally the plains narrowed and the hills advanced to the river-edge. Sometimes the river widened and became a lake— three miles, five miles, six miles across. Now and then the line of the mountains curved in towards each other, and the boat shot through canyons where the narrow passage of the river stepped up its pace and the sky was a blue ribbon far above and the black walls pressed depressingly in on them.

Usually the river and the terrain were the same. And, always, there was humankind. Day and night, men, women, and children thronged the banks of the river.

By then, those aboard the boat recognized a pattern. Humanity had been resurrected along the river in a rough chronological and national sequence. The boat had passed by the area that held Slovenes and Austrians who had died in the last decade of the nineteenth century, had passed by Hungarians, Norwegians, Finns, Greeks, Albanians, and Irish. However, occasionally, they put in at areas which held peoples from other times and places. One was a twenty-mile stretch containing Australian aborigines who had never seen a European while on Earth. Another hundred-mile length was populated by Tocharians. These had lived around the time of Christ in what later became Chinese Turkestan. They represented the easternmost extension of Indo-European speakers in ancient time; their culture had flourished for a while, then died before invasions and the encroachment of the desert that brought famine with it.

Through admittedly hasty and uncertain surveys, Burton had determined that each area was comprised of about 60% of a particular nationality and century, 30% of some other one people, usually from a different time, and 10% from any random time and place. The reason for this mixing was unknown.

There were other things. So far, they had neither seen nor heard of a pregnant woman. Whoever had placed them here must have sterilized them and with good reason. If mankind could reproduce, the river-valley would be jammed solid with bodies within a few years.

At first, there had seemed to be no animal life but man. Now it was known that, at night, several species of worms emerged from the soil. And the river contained at least a hundred species of fish, ranging from creatures six inches long to six feet. Frigate considered that the animals were there for a good purpose. The fish served as scavengers to keep the river waters clean. Some types of worm ate waste matter and corpses. Other types served the normal function of earthworms.

The children were growing up. Within fifteen years, there would not be an infant or adolescent within the valley, if conditions everywhere conformed to what the voyagers had so far seen.

On the 490th day after launching, the boat entered a three-mile wide lake. It was nearing noon, grail-charging time. Burton steered the craft towards the nearest rook; then he changed his mind.

The people gathered there had aroused his suspicious. They consisted of a number of armed men obviously guarding a larger group of unarmed men and women. The latter were dirty, downcast, and naked, and their ribs could easily be counted.

As the boat swung away, the armed men, who had been waving cordially at the boat’s occupants, sprang into action. One of them shouted, and drums began beating in the distance. About a half mile ahead of them, men ran out of a wooden fortress. They pushed two long boats into the waters, and then began paddling strongly towards the Hadji. Seeing that resistance was useless against two boats, each filled with about thirty men, Burton tried flight. He directed the craft towards the other shore; if they could get there they could run on foot toward the hills.

However, before he had reached the middle of the lake, the warcanoes were almost upon him. A tall blond in the bow of the leading craft stood up and shouted in German, “Do not fight! We do not wish to kill you. We merely want you to work for us!”

Burton spoke to the women. “We’ll try to hold them up long enough for you to get away. Start swimming!”

“We’ll drown,” said Alice. She was staring with her large doe-like eyes at the approaching boats, the big paddles dipping in unison, the paddlers grinning wolfishly at the women.

“Better that than what that gang will do to you,” he said. “Quickly! We can’t hold them long.”

“I can’t swim very good,” said Wilfreda. “Anyway, what can they do that hasn’t been done to me?”

Loghu, the red-haired green-eyed Tocharian whom Frigate had picked up, said, “Me, I won’t leave Pete.”

“You’re all three bloody fools,” said Burton angrily. “Very well. If you won’t run, fight. Get your spears. And you, Gwenafra,” he said to the little girl, “you lie down on the deck.”

Kazz stood up, placed a stone in his sling, made of human leather, and whirled it over his head. The stone shot out, and the man in the bow feel backwards and over the side into the river. At that, those in the canoes gave a loud cry. While the rest paddled, six on each stood up and cast their spears. The crew of the Hadji ducked down behind the railing; the spears either struck the water or thudded into the railing.

Burton and Monat rose and wrenched the spears loose and threw them back. Since they were standing on a much more stable platform, they were able to get a better aim. The flint head of Burton’s shaft buried itself in the chest of a paddler. Monat’s plunged into the thigh of another. A second stone from Kazz hit a paddler’s arm and rendered it useless.

Again, the six on each canoe threw, and, under cover of this barrage, the warcanoes rammed into the Hadji. Burton signalled to Kazz, who leaned over and raised a huge stone above his head. Though the rock had added to the weight on the boat, Burton had decided to carry it for just such a situation as this. While the crew of the Hadji hurled spears, Kazz dropped the stone onto one of the canoes. It crashed through the thin bottom; in a minute, the canoe was sinking and its crew was in the water.

However, the men in the other canoe had pulled it broadside of the Hadji. Thirty of them came over the railing at the same time.

The Hadji began to tip and undoubtedly would have capsized under the uneven distribution of weight if it had not been for its double-hull construction. Burton cursed at this. Better for them all to be in the water; some might be able to escape in the confusion.

He thrust a spear at a face coming over the side and drove it through the mouth. The face fell back, but the stone tip, deeply lodged in the neckbones, went with it. Burton dropped the wooden shaft and picked up another spear from the deck. He saw a hand, holding a club, rise over the railing, and he ran his spear through the hand, pinning it to the railing. Then he seized the fallen club and leaped among the invaders.

VIII

It was a good fight while it lasted. Burton, one of the foremost swordsman of his time, wielded the club as if it were a saber. Kazz disarmed a man, picked him up, threw him, and knocked down two others with the body. Alice ran a spear into one of the fallen men but received a deep gash in her side from a javelin. Burton brained the man who had wounded her, then reeled back as the butt of a spear struck him on the head.

Monat, who combined long reach with a terrifyingly alien appearance, put three men out of combat. Then he was hit across the shins with a club and fell. Frigate, bleeding from four places, fought wildly but went under when three men piled on top of him.

One of the boarders seized Gwenafra and threw her into the river. She rose once, screamed, and then went under.

The result was inevitable and might have been over sooner except that the strangers seemed bent on capturing rather than killing them. However, four of Burton’s group were dead, and all were wounded. Burton took sour satisfaction in noting that their attackers must have lost at least twenty dead from slingstones, spears, or drowning, and that ten of them were wounded to various degrees.

Their leader, a tall rawboned redheaded Scot with a pronounced Highland accent, did not seem perturbed about the casualties. Instead, he congratulated the crew of the Hadji. “You put up such a bonnie battle, some of you may get a chance to join us,” he said. “As soldiers, I mean. Not as slaves. You’ll all join us in one way or another.”

The Hadji was sailed, not toward the stockade from which the canoes had emerged, but about a mile further down the lake. Here it was put ashore near another and larger stockade of pine logs and earthen ramparts and sentinel boxes at each corner. A great log gate was open; through this the captives were marched. Inside the walls were several log blockhouses. The central one was a two-story building about fifty feet long. The captives were taken into its dark and cool interior where they blinked for a while before their eyes became adjusted. They saw that the lower story was one long hall with a single table and benches in the center on the dirt floor. Before this they were halted for an inspection by two men.

One was a short muscular man with a hairy body, black curly hair, brown eyes, and an aquiline nose. The second had blond hair, eyes that could have been blue or green and a fat-encircled waist which indicated too much food and liquor.

“You look like Hermann Goering,” said Frigate in German, and then he dropped to his knees and screamed with pain from the butt of a spear slammed against his back.

The blond said, in English, “No more of that unless I order it. Let them talk.”

He scrutinized them for several minutes, then said. “Yes, I am Hermann Goering.”

“Who is Goering?” said Burton.

“Your friend can tell you later,” said the German. “If there is a later for you. Now, I have been told about the battle you put up. I am not angry about that; I admire men who can fight well. And, since I can always use more spears, I offer you a choice. You men, that is. Join me and live well with all the food and liquor and women you can possibly want. Or work for me as my slaves.”

“For us,” said the other man. “You forget, Hermann, dat I have yust as muck to say about dis as you.”

Goering smiled and chuckled and said, “Of course! I was only using the royal I, you might say. Very well, we. If you swear to serve us, and it will be far better for you if you do, you will swear loyalty to me, Hermann Goering, and to the one-time king of ancient Rome, Tullios Hostilios.”

Could this man actually be the legendary third king of ancient Rome? Of Rome when it was a small village threatened by the other Italic tribes, the Sabines, Aequi, and Volsci, who, in turn, were being pressed by the Umbrians, themselves pushed by the powerful Etruscans? Was this really Tullios Hostilios, warlike successor to the peaceful Numa Pompilios? There was nothing to distinguish him from a thousand men whom Burton had seen on the streets of Florence. Yet, if he was what he claimed to be, he could be a treasure trove, historically and linguistically speaking. He would, since he was probably Etruscan himself, know that language, plus archaic Latin and Sabine and perhaps Campanian Greek. He might even have been acquainted with Romulus, supposed founder of Rome. What stories that man could tell! And what stories he could be told, the history of the rise and change— for Rome did not really fall—of the sons of the she-wolf.

“Well?” said Goering.

“What do we have to do if we join you?” said Burton.

“First, I … we … have to make sure that you are the caliber of man we want. In other words, a man who will do anything that we order, unhesitatingly and immediately. We will give you a little test.”

He ordered a group of slaves brought forward. Besides being gaunt, these were all crippled.

“They were injured while carrying stone or building our walls,” said Goering. “Except for two caught while trying to escape; they will have to pay the penalty. All of them will be killed by us because they are now useless. So you should not hesitate about killing them to show your determination to serve us.”

He added, “Besides, they are all Jews. Why worry about them?”

The Scot took a large club studded with obsidian blades and held it out to Burton. Two guards seized a slave and forced him to his knees. He was a large blond with blue eyes and a Grecian profile; he glared at Goering and then spat at him.

Goering laughed. “He has all the arrogance of his race. I could reduce him to a quivering screaming mass begging for death. If I wanted to. But I do not care for torture. My compatriot would like to give him a taste of the fire, but I am essentially a humanitarian.”

“I will kill in defense of my life or in defense of those who need protection,” said Burton. “But I am not a murderer.”

“Killing this Jew would be an act in defense of your life,” replied Goering. “If you do not, you will die anyway. Only it will take you a long time.”

“I will not,” said Burton.

Goering sighed and said, “You English! Well, I would rather have you on my side. But if you don’t want to do the rational thing, so be it. What about you?” he said to Frigate.

Frigate said, “Your ashes ended in a trash heap in Dachau because of what you did, what you were. Are you going to repeat all that here?”

Goering laughed and said, “I know what happened to me. Enough of my Jewish slaves have told me about that.”

He pointed at Monat. “What kind of a freak is this?”

Burton explained. Goering looked grave, then said, “I couldn’t trust him. He goes into the slave camp. You, there, apeman. What do you say?”

Kazz, to Burton’s surprise, steped forward. “I kill for you. I don’t want to be slave.”

He took the club while the guards held their spears poised to run him through if he had other ideas for using it. He glared at them from under his shelving brows, then raised the club. There was a crack, and the slave pitched forward on the dirt. Kazz returned the club to MacDonald and stepped aside. He did not look at Burton.

The guards marched the other slaves out. Goering said, “All the slaves will be assembled tonight, and they will be shown what will happen to them if they try to get away. The escapees will be roasted for a while, then put out of their misery. My distinguished colleague will personally handle the club. I likes that sort of thing.”

He pointed to Alice. “That one. She will be with me tonight while the executions are taking place.”

Tullios stood up. “No, no. I like her. You take de oders, Hermann. I giw you bot’ of dem. But ’er, I want ’er very muck. ’Er look like, what you say, aristocrat. A … queen?”

Burton gave a roar, snatched a club from MacDonald’s hand and leaped upon the table. Goering fell backwards; the tip of the club narrowly missed his nose. At the same time, the Roman thrust his spear at Burton and wounded him in the shoulder. But Burton kept hold of the club, whirled, and knocked the weapon out of Tullios’ hand.

The slaves threw themselves upon the guards and tried to wrest their weapons from them. Frigate jerked a spear loose and brought the butt of it against Kazz’s head. Kazz crumpled, unconscious. Monat kicked a guard in the groin and picked up his spear.

Burton did not remember anything after that. Something struck him on the head, his knees gave way, and he was nothing.

He awoke several hours before dusk. He was on grass and in a large enclosure of pine logs, stockade with a diameter of about fifty yards. Fifteen feet above the surface, circling the interior of the wall, was a wooden walk. On this, armed guards paced.

He groaned, for his head hurt very much. Frigate, squatting near him, said, “I was afraid you’d never come out of it.”

“Where are the women?”

Frigate began to weep. Burton shook him and said, “Quit blubbering. Where are they?”

“Where the hell do you think they are?” said Frigate. “Oh, my God!”

“We may be on a different planet,” said Burton, “but the people haven’t changed. Don’t think about the women. There’s nothing you can do. Why wasn’t I killed after I attacked Goering?”

Frigate wiped away the tears and said, “Beats me. Maybe they’re saving you, and me, for the fire. As an example. I wish they had killed us.”

“What, so recently gained paradise and wish so soon to lose it?” said Burton. He began to laugh but quit because it hurt his head.

Later, during the day, Burton cleared up one of the things that had puzzled him. That was, why he had not been warned about Goering by the people in the neighboring areas upriver. Certainly, when the Hadji had put into shore for grail-recharging, the crew could have been told about the dangers it was soon to meet. He talked to Robert Spruce, one of the English slaves, and Spruce said that it was less than a month since Goering and Tullios had seized power. Afterward the two had been very careful to keep all their activities as secret as possible. For the time being they left their neighbors in peace. Eventually, of course, they would try to conquer the adjacent territories. So far, however, no slave had escaped to spread word about Goering’s intentions.

“But the people on the borders can see for themselves that the walls are being built by slaves,” said Burton.

Spruce grinned wryly and said, “Goering has spread the word that these are all Jews, that he is only interested in enslaving Jews. So what do they care? As you can see for yourself, that is not true. Half of the slaves are Gentile.”

At dusk, Burton, Frigate, and Monat were taken from the stockade and marched down to a grailrock. There they found about two hundred slaves, guarded by the Goeringites. The grails of all were placed on the rock, and they waited. After the blue flames roared the grails were taken down. Each slave opened his grail. Guards removed the tobacco, liquor, and most of the food.

“We are seeing the beginning of a new form of servitude: grail-slavery,” said Burton. “Which also may explain why we weren’t killed. Only the individual owner of a grail is able to open it. If you kill a slave, you can’t use his grail.”

“I’ll bet something like this is springing up all along the valley,” said Frigate. “As I remember your books, you thought quite a lot of the institution of slavery. What do you think of it now?”

“That was Oriental slavery,” said Burton. “This is different. There’s no chance for a slave to gain his freedom and rise in this society. Nor is there any personal feeling, except hatred, between slave and owner. In the Orient, the situation was different. Of course, like any human institution, it had its abuses.”

“You’re a stubborn man,” said Frigate. “Have you noticed that at least half the slaves are Jews? Late twentieth-century Israeli, most of them. That girl over there told me that Goering managed to start grail-slavery by arousing anti-Semitism in this area. Then, after he had gotten into power with Tullios’ aid, he enslaved many of his former supporters.”

He continued, “The hell of it is, Goering is not a genuine anti-Semite. During World War II he personally intervened wth Himmler and others to save Jews. He is something even worse than a genuine Jew-hater. He is an opportunist. Anti-Semitism was a tidal wave in Germany; to get any place, you had to ride the wave. So Goering rode, just as he did here. An anti-Semite like Goebbels and Frank, for instance, believed in their professed principles. Perverted and hateful principles, true, but still principles. Whereas big fat happy-go-lucky Goering did not really care one way or the other about the Jews. He just wanted to use them.”

“All very well,” said Burton, “but what has that got to do with me?”

“Dick,” said Frigate, “I admire you as I have never admired any other man. On Earth, you were my hobby. I collected all books by and about you. I even wrote a long biography and visited many of the places made famous by your explorations. I made a pilgrimage to your tomb at Mortlake; I formed a Burton Society and raised funds to restore your tomb—which was falling apart, grown around with weeds … But I am not blind. I know your faults.”

“Just which one is it this time?” said Burton testily.

“That book. The Jew El Islam, and the Gypsy. It was published after you died. Dick, how could you have written it?”

“I was still angry because of the injustices I had suffered at Damascus. To be expelled from the consulate because of the lies of my enemies, among whom …”

“That doesn’t excuse your writing lies about a whole group,” said Frigate.

“Lies! I wrote the truth! And I don’t have to answer to you or to any man for my actions.”

“So,” said a voice. “You are here, also. We meet again, and not under very auspicious circumstances. I walked away from you—yet here we are together.”

The speaker was Lev Ruach.

“I could not help overhearing the conversation,” he said, smiling wanly at them. “Nor do I need to apologize. Slaves have no privacy. Burton, welcome to the concentration camp. This is probably your first taste of it. But it is an old old story to me. I was in a Nazi camp, and I escaped. I was in a Russian camp, and I escaped. In Israel, I was captured by Arabs and tortured. I escaped.

“So now I think perhaps I can escape again. But to what? Another concentration camp? There seems to be no end to them. Man is forever building them and putting the perennial prisoner, the Jew, in them. Even here, where we have a fresh start, where all religions, all prejudices, should have been shattered on the anvil of resurrection, little is changed.”

“Shut your mouth,” said a man near Ruach. About six foot in height, he was built like a wrestler. He had red hair so curly it was almost kinky, blue eyes, and a face that might have been handsome if it had not been for his broken nose.

“Dov Targoff here,” he said in a crisp Oxford accent. “Late commander in the Israeli Navy. Pay no attention to Ruach. He’s one of the old-time Jews, a pessimist, a whiner. He’d rather wail against the wall than stand up and fight like a man.”

Ruach choked, then said, “You arrogant Sabra! I fought. I killed! And I am not a whiner. What are you doing now, you brave warrior? I see you every day, slaving naked in the sun, submitting to every indignity that I …”

“It’s the old story,” said a woman. She was tall and dark-haired and probably would have been a beauty if she had not been so gaunt. “The old story. We fight among ourselves while our enemies conquer. Just as we fought when Titus besieged Jerusalem and we killed more of our own people than we did the Romans. Just as …”

The two men turned against her, and all three argued loudly until a guard stepped up to them and began beating them with a stick.

Later, through swollen lips, Targoff said, “I can’t take much of this longer. Soon … Well, that particular guard is mine to kill.”

“You have a plan?” said Frigate eagerly, but Targoff would not answer.

IX

Shortly before dawn, the slaves were awakened and marched to the grailwork. Again they were left with a modicum of food. After eating, they were split up into groups and marched off to their differing assignments.

Burton and Frigate were taken to the northern limits of the area dominated by the Goering-Tullios gang. There they were put to work with a thousand other slaves, and they toiled naked all day in the sun. Their only rest was when they took their grails to the rock at noon and were fed.

At the point where the river suddenly broadened into a lake, the mountains also bent in towards the shore. The plain and the hills stretched not more than one and a half miles between the mountain and the river. Goering meant to build a wall between the mountain and the river; he also intended to erect another wall, which would run for the full ten-mile length of the lake-shore, and a third wall at the southern end.

Burton and the others had to dig a deep trench and then pile the dirt taken from the hole into a wall. This was hard work, for they had only stone hoes with which to hack at the ground. Since the roots of the grass formed a thickly tangled complex of very tough material, they could be cut only with repeated blows. The mingled dirt and roots were scraped up on wooden shovels and tossed onto large bamboo sleds. These were dragged by teams onto the top of the wall, where the dirt was shoveled off to make the wall even higher and thicker.

At night the slaves were herded back into the stockade. Most of them fell asleep almost at once, but Targoff, the redheaded Israeli, squatted by Burton.

“The grapevine gives a little juice now and then,” he said. “I heard about the fight you and your crew put up. I also heard about your refusal to join Goering and his swine.”

“What do you hear about my infamous book?” said Burton.

Targoff smiled and said, “Your actions speak for themselves. Besides, Ruach is very sensitive about such things—not that you can blame him after what he went through on Earth. But I do not think that you would behave as you did if you were what he said you are. I think you’re a good man, the type we need. So …”

Days and nights of hard work and short rations followed. Burton learned enough through the grapevine that Alice and the other two women were still being kept in the long hall. Wilfreda was in MacDonald’s apartment with several other women. Loghu was living with Tullios. Alice had been kept by Goering for a week, then was turned over to one of his lieutenants, von Kreyscharft, a Prussian who had been killed at Waterloo. Rumor was that Goering had complained of her coldness and had wanted to give her to his bodyguard to do with as they pleased. But von Kreyscharft had asked for her and gotten her.

Burton, hearing this, was in agony. He knew what a proud and sensitive woman she was; he could imagine her state. He decided to take action very soon. Late that night, while the sentries were occupied talking on the walk, he crawled over to Targoff.

“You said you knew I must be on your side,” he whispered. “When are you going to take me into your confidence? I might as well warn you now that, if you don’t do so at once, I intend to foment a break among my own group and anybody else who will join me.”

“Ruach has told me more about you,” said Targoff. “Could a Jew trust anyone who wrote such a book? Or could he be trusted not to turn on them after the common enemy has been defeated?”

Burton opened his mouth to speak angrily, then closed it. For a moment he was silent; when he spoke, he was calm. “In the first place, my actions on Earth speak louder than any of my printed words. I was the friend and protector of many Jews; I had many Jewish friends.”

“That statement is always a preface to an attack on the Jews,” said Targoff.

“Perhaps. However, even if what Ruach claims were true, the Richard Burton you see before you in this valley is not the Burton who lived on Earth. I think every man has been changed somewhat by his experience here. If he hasn’t, he is incapable of change, inflexible. He would be better off dead.

“During the five hundred and ninety days that I have lived on this river, I have learned much. Some of my 20th century friends, Frigate especially, have cleared me of my superstitions and enlightened my ignorance. I resisted this knowledge, true, as most men resist things that go against their fallacies and prejudices. But I can say, with no false pride, that I am more open-minded than many men. Believe me, I have argued frequently and passionately with Frigate and Monat. And, though I did not want to admit it at the time, I was strongly influenced by them and did much reconsideration.”

“Jew-hate is something bred into the child,” said Targoff. “It becomes part of the nerve. No act of will can get rid of it, unless it is not deeply embedded or the will is extraordinarily strong. The bell rings, and Paylov’s dog salivates. Mention the word Jew, and the nervous system storms the citadel of the mind.”

“I have pled enough,” said Burton. “You will either accept me or reject me. In either case, you know what I will do.”

“I accept,” said Targoff. “I’ve worked with you, eaten bread with you. I like to think I’m a good judge of character. Tell me, if you were planning this, what would you do?”

Targoff listened carefully. At the end of Burton’s explanation, Targoff nodded. “Much like my plan. Here is what we will do. Now …”

The next day, shortly after breakfast, several guards came for Burton and Frigate. Targoff kept a stony face, but he looked hard at Burton, who knew what Targoff was thinking. Nothing could be done about it except to march off to Goering’s “palace.” There they found the German seated in a big wooden chair and smoking a pipe. He asked them to sit down and offered them cigars and wine.

“Every once in a while,” he said, “I like to relax and talk with somebody besides my colleagues. They are not overly bright. I like especially to talk with somebody who lived after I died. And to men who were famous in their time. I’ve few of either type so far.”

“Many of your Israeli prisoners lived after you,” said Frigate.

“Ah, the Jews!” Goering airily waved his pipe. “That is the trouble; they know me too well. They are sullen when I try to talk to them, and too many have tried to kill me for me to feel comfortable around them. Not that I have anything against them. I had many Jewish friends …”

Burton reddened as Goering sucked on his pipe and continued, “Der Fuehrer was a great man, but he had some idiocies. One of them was his attitude toward Jews. Myself, I cared less. But the Germany of my time was anti-Jewish, and a man must go with the Zeitgeist if he wants to get any place in life. Enough of that.”

He chattered on for a while, then asked Frigate many questions concerning the fate of his contemporaries and the history of postwar Germany.

“If you Americans had had any political sense, you would have declared war on Russia as soon as we knew we were beaten. We would have fought with you against the Bolshevik. We would have crushed them.”

Frigate did not reply. Goering laughed and told several very obscene stories. Then he asked Burton to tell him about the strange experience he had had before being resurrected in the valley.

Burton was surprised at Goering’s knowledge. Had be learned about this from Kazz, or was there an informer among the slaves?

He told his story of the floating bodies and also gave Monat’s theory. Goering looked thoughtful. “So there is nothing supernatural about all this. After the first few days here, I began to think so myself. Tell me, have you changed your mind about joining me?”

Burton stood up. “I would not be under the orders of a man who takes women by force,” he said. “Moreover, I respect the Israelis. I would rather be a slave with them than free with you.”

“Very well,” said Georing. “But, I’ve been having trouble with the Roman. If we have a power struggle, and I lose, you will see how merciful I have been to you slaves. You do not know him. Only my intervention has saved one of you being tortured to death for his amusement.”

“Good luck!” said Frigate enigmatically.

At noon, the two returned to their work in the hills. Neither got a chance to speak to Targoff or any of the slaves, since their duties happened not to bring them into contact. They did not dare make an open attempt, for that would have meant a severe beating.

After they returned to the stockade in the evening, Burton went to Monat and several others he had befriended. He told them what had happened. “More than likely Targoff will not believe my story. He’ll think we’re spies. Even if he’s not certain, he can’t afford to take chances. So there’ll be trouble. It’s too bad that this had to happen, for the escape plan will be cancelled for tonight.”

Nothing untoward took place—at first. The Israeli avoided Burton and Frigate. Then the stars came out, and the stockade was flooded with a light almost as bright as a full moon of Earth.

The guards, as if sensing tension, became more alert. They consulted among themselves and peered down from the walk at the sun-and-dirt blackened bodies of the slaves.

“Targoff will do nothing until it rains,” said Burton. He referred to the fact that the clouds always appeared at about three in the morning and were shortly afterward followed by a half-hour of downpour. He appointed a round of guards and then prepared for an hour’s sleep. Frigate was to stand first watch. Spruce, one of their new friends, was to take second. Burton would be third.

It seemed he had scarcely closed his eyes before Spruce had touched him. He rose quickly to his feet and yawned and stretched. The others were all awake. Within a few minutes, the clouds formed. In ten minutes the stars were blotted out. Thunder grumbled way up in the mountains, and the first of the lightning flashed through the sky.

Suddenly the heavens emptied. The slaves had already jammed under the slight protection of the walk circling the interior of the stockade. Every night they were soaked; and only the fact that all diseases of physical origin seemed to have vanished saved them from colds and pneumonia.

Lightning struck near. By its flash Burton saw that the guards were huddled under the roofs sticking out from the base of the watch houses at each corner of the stockade. They were covered with towels against the chill and the rain.

He waited until darkness rushed in after the lightning. Then he walked to Targoff and said, “Does the plan still hold?”

“You know better than that,” said Targoff. A bolt of lightning showed his angry face. “Judas!”

He stepped forward, and a dozen men followed him. Burton felt mud thrown on him and heard the impact of a heavy object that must have fallen from a distance. He paused for another flash to reveal the object. A guard lay sprawled face down before him; the back of his head was smashed in.

Targoff, who had also seen the corpse, said, “What’s going on, Burton?”

“Wait,” replied the Englishman. He had no more idea than the Israeli, but anything unexpected could be to his advantage.

Lightning came again, and it illuminated the dwarfish figure of Kazz on the wooden walk inside the wall. He was swinging a huge stone axe against a group of guards who were in the angle formed by the meeting of two walls. Another flash. Two guards were sprawled out on the walk. Darkness. At the next blaze of light, another was down: the remaining two were running away down the walk in different directions.

Another bolt very near the wall showed that, finally, the other guards were aware of what was happening. They ran down the walk, shouting and waving their spears. Kazz ignoring them, slid a long bamboo ladder down into the enclosure and then threw a bundle of spears after it. By the next flash he could be seen advancing towards the nearest guards.

Burton snatched a spear, placed the shaft between his teeth, and climbed, almost ran, up the ladder. Behind came the others, including the Israeli. All thought of killing him as a traitor was gone.

The fight was bloody but brief. With the guards on the walk either stabbed or hurled to their deaths, only those in the watch-houses remained. The ladder was carried to the other end of the stockade and placed against the gate. In two minutes, men had climbed to the outside, dropped down, and opened the gate. For the first time Burton found the chance to talk to Kazz.

“I thought you had sold us out!”

“No. Not me, Kazz,” said the subhuman reproachfully. “You know I love you, Burton-naq. You’re my friend, my chief. I pretend to join your enemies because that playing it smart. I surprise you don’t do the same! You’re no dummy.”

“Certainly, you aren’t,” said Burton. “But I couldn’t bring myself to kill those slaves to prove myself.”

Lightning showed Kazz shrugging. He said, “That don’t bother me. I don’t know them. Besides, you hear Goering. He say they die anyway.”

“It’s a good thing you chose tonight to rescue us,” said Burton. He did not tell Kazz why since he did not want to confuse him. Moreover, there were more important things to do.

“Tonight’s a good night,” said Kazz. “Big battle’s going on. Tullios and Goering get very drunk and quarrel. They fight; their men fight. While they kill each other, invaders come. Those brown men across the river… what you call them? Onondagas, that’s them. Their boats come just before rain come. They make raid to steal slaves, too. Or maybe just for the hell of it. So I think, now’s good time to start plan, get Burton-naq free.”

As suddenly as it had come, the rain ceased. Now Burton could hear shouts and screams from far off, towards the river. Drums were beating up and down the riverbanks. He said to Targoff, “We can either try to escape and probably do so easily or we can attack.”

“I intend to wipe out the beasts who enslaved us,” said Targoff. “There are other stockades nearby. I’ve sent men to open their gates. The rest are too far away to reach quickly, they’re strung out at half-mile intervals.”

By then, the blockhouse in which the off-duty guards lived had been stormed. Armed, the slaves started walking toward the noise of the conflict. Burton’s group was placed on the right flank. They had not gone half a mile before they came upon corpses and several wounded, a mixture of Onondagas and whites.

Despite the heavy rain, a fire had broken out. By its increasing light they saw that the flames came from the longhouse. Outlined in the glare were struggling figures. Even as the escapees advanced across the plain, they saw one side break and run toward them. Behind came the victors, whooping and screaming jubilantly.

“There’s Goering,” said Frigate. “His fat isn’t going to help him get away, that’s for sure.”

He pointed, and Burton could see the German desperately pumping his legs but falling behind the others. “I don’t want the Indians to have the honor of killing him,” Burton said. “We owe it to Alice to get him.”

The tall figure of MacDonald was ahead of them all, and it was toward him that Burton threw his spear. To the Scot the missile must have seemed to come out of the darkness from nowhere. Too late, he tried to dodge. The flint head buried itself in the flesh between his left shoulder and chest, and he fell on his side. Before he could rise again he was pushed back down by Burton.

MacDonald’s eyes rolled; blood trickled from his mouth. He pointed at another wound, a deep gash in his side just below the ribs. “You … your woman … Wilfreda … did that,” he gasped. “But I killed her …”

Burton wanted to ask him where Alice was, but Kazz, screaming phrases in his native tongue, brought his club down on the Scot’s head. Burton picked up MacDonald’s spear and ran after Kazz. “Don’t kill Goering!” he shouted. “Leave him to me!”

Kazz did not hear him; he was busy fighting with several Onondagas. Moreover, Burton saw Alice.

He reached out, grabbed her and spun her around. She screamed and started to struggle. Burton shouted at her, suddenly, recognizing him, she collasped into his arms and began weeping. Burton would have tried to comfort her, but he was afraid that Goering would escape him. Pushing her away, he ran toward the German and threw his spear. It grazed Goering’s head, and he screamed and stopped running and began to look for the weapon. Then Burton was on him. Both fell to the ground and rolled over and over, each trying to strangle the other.

Something struck the Englishman on his head from behind. Stunned, he released his grip. Goering pushed him down on the ground and dived toward the spear. Seizing it, he rose and stepped toward the prostrate Burton. Burton tried to get to his feet, but his knees seemed to be made of putty and everything was whirling. Alice tackled Goering around the legs from behind, and he fell forward. Burton made another effort, found he could at least stagger, and sprawled over Goering. Again, they rolled over and over. Goering began squeezing on Burton’s throat just as a shaft slid over Burton’s shoulder, burning the skin, and its stone tip drove into Goering’s throat.

Burton stood up, pulled the spear from the flesh, and plunged it into the man’s fat belly. Goering tried to sit up, but he fell back and died. Alice slumped to the ground and wept.

Dawn saw the end of the battle. By then the slaves had broken out of every stockade. The warriors of Goering and Tullios were ground between the two forces, Onondaga and Israeli-English, like husks between millstones. Afterward, the ex-slaves had continued fighting. The Indians, who had raided only to loot and get more slaves and their grails, retreated. They climbed aboard their dugouts and bamboo canoes and paddled across the lake. Nobody felt like chasing them.

The days that followed were busy ones. A rough census indicated that at least half of the 20,000 inhabitants of Goering’s little kingdom had been killed, severely wounded, by the Onondaga, or had fled. The Roman, Tullios, had apparently escaped.

The survivors chose a provisional government. Targoff, Burton, Spruce, Ruach, and two others formed an executive committee with considerable, but temporary, powers.

Alice Hargreaves moved into Burton’s hut without either saying a word about the why or wherefore. Later she said, “Frigate tells me that if this entire planet is constructed like the areas we’ve seen, and there’s no reason to believe it isn’t, then the river must be at least 20,000,000 miles long. It’s incredible, but so is our resurrection. Also, there may be over 37 billion people living along the river. What chance would I have of ever finding my Earthly husband?

“Moreover, I love you. Something has changed in me, perhaps all I’ve been through. I don’t think I could have loved you on Earth. I might have been fascinated, but I would also have been repelled, perhaps frightened. I couldn’t have made you a good wife there. Here I can—even though there doesn’t seem to be any authority or religious instructions that could marry us. That in itself shows how I’ve changed. That I could be calmly living with a man I’m not married to …! Well, there you are.”

“We’re no longer living in the Victorian age or the 20th century,” said Burton. “What would you call this present age—the River Age?”

“Providing it lasts,” said Alice. “It started suddenly; it may end just as swiftly and unexpectedly.”

Certainly, thought Burton, the blue river and the grassy plain and the forested hills and the unscalable mountains did not seem like Shakespeare’s insubstantial vision. They were solid, real, as real as the men walking toward him now: Frigate, Monat, and Kazz. He stepped out of the hut and greeted them.

Kazz began talking. “A long time ago, before I speak English good, I see something. I try to tell you then, but you don’t understand me. I see a man who don’t have this on his forehead.”

He pointed at the center of his own forehead and then at that of the others. “I know,” Kazz continued, “you can’t see it. Pete and Monat can’t either. Nobody else can. But I see it on everybody’s forehead. Except that man I try to catch long time ago. Then, one day, I see a woman don’t have it, but I don’t say nothing to you. Now I see a third person who don’t have it.”

“He means,” said Monat “that he is able to perceive certain symbols or characters on the forehead of each and every one of us. He can see these only in bright sunlight and at a certain angle. But he claims they exist.”

“He must be able to see a little further into the spectrum than we,” said Frigate. “Obviously whoever stamped us with the sign of the beast, or whatever you want to call it, did not know about the special ability of Kazz’s species. Which shows that they are not omniscient.”

“Nor infallible,” said Burton. “Otherwise I would never have awakened in that place before being resurrected. So who is this person who does not have these symbols on his skin?”

“Robert Spruce,” said Frigate.

“Before we jump to any conclusions,” said Monat, “don’t forget that the omission may have been an accident.”

“We’ll find out,” said Burton ominously. “But why the symbols? Why should we be marked?”

“Probably for identification or numbering purposes,” said Monat.

“Let’s go face Spruce,” said Burton.

“We have to catch him first,” replied Frigate. “Kazz made the mistake of mentioning to Spruce that he knew about the symbols, at breakfast this morning. Spruce turned pale, excused himself— and he hasn’t been seen since. We’ve sent search parties out up and down the river, and also into the hills.”

“His flight is an admission of guilt,” said Burton. He felt anger and frustration rising within him. Was man a species of cattle to be branded for some sinister purpose?

That afternoon, the drums announced that Spruce had been caught.

Three hours later he was standing before the council table in the newly built meeting hall. Behind the table sat the Council. The doors were closed, for the council men felt that this was something that could be conducted more efficiently without a crowd. However, Monat, Kazz, and Frigate were present.

“I may as well tell you now,” said Burton, “that we have decided to go to any lengths to get the truth from you. It is against the principles of every one at this table to use torture. We despise and loathe those who resort to torture. But we feel that this is one issue when principles must be abandoned.”

“Principles must never be abandoned,” said Spruce evenly. “The end never justifies the means. Even if clinging to them means defeat, death, and remaining in ignorance.”

“There’s too much at stake,” said Targoff. “I, who have been the victim of unprincipled men; Ruach, who has been tortured several times; the others; we all agree. We’ll use fire and the knife on you if we must. It is necessary that we find out the truth.

“Now tell me, are you an agent for those responsible for this resurrection?”

“You will be no better than Goering and his kind if you torture me,” said Spruce, his voice beginning to break. “In fact you will be far worse! You are forcing yourselves to be like him in order to gain something that may not even exist— or, if it does, may not be worth the price.”

“Tell us the truth,” said Targoff. “Don’t lie. We know that you must be an agent, perhaps one of those directly responsible.”

“There is a fire blazing in that hollowed-out stone,” said Burton. “If you don’t start talking at once you will find yourself suspended over it within a few seconds. The roasting you get will be the least of your pain. I am an authority on Chinese and Arabic methods of torture. I assure you that they had some very refined means for extracting the truth.”

Spruce, pale and sweating, said, “You may be denying yourself eternal life if you do this! It will at least set you far back on your journey, delay the final goal.”

“What is that?” replied Burton.

“You have stumbled on the weakness in me and my kind,” said Spruce. “We cannot endure physical volence; it is difficult for us even to think much about it. So only the strongest are sent among you— and we are weak, compared to you primitives.”

“You will talk?” said Targoff.

“Even the idea of self-destruction is painful and to be avoided except when absolutely necessary,” muttered Spruce. “This despite the fact that I know I shall live again.”

“Put him over the fire,” Targoff said to the two men who held Spruce.

“Just one moment,” said Monat. “Spruce, the science of my people was much more advanced than twenty-first century Earth science. So I am more qualified to make an educated guess. Perhaps we could spare you to pain of the fire, and the pain of betraying your purpose, if you were merely to affirm what I have to say. That way you wouldn’t be making a positive betrayed.”

Spruce said, “Speak.”

“It’s my theory that you are a Terrestrial. You belong to an age chronologically far past the date of my landing on Earth. You must be the descendant of those few who survived. Judging by the technology and power required to reconstruct the surface of this planet into one vast river valley, your age must be much later than the twenty-first. Say, the 50th century A.D.?”

Spruce looked at the fire, then said, “Add two thousand more years.”

“If this planet is about the size of Earth, it can hold only so many people. Where are the others? Those who were stillborn, the children who died before they were five, and those who lived after the twentieth century?”

“They are elsewere,” said Spruce. Again he glanced at the fire. Then his lips tightened.

“My own people,” said Monat, “had a theory they would eventually be able to see into their past. I won’t go into the details, but it was possible that past events could be visually detected and then recorded. Time travel, of course, was sheer fantasy.

“But what if your culture was able to do what we only theorized about? What if you recorded every single human being that had ever lived? Located this planet and constructed this river valley? Somewhere, maybe under the very surface of this planet, used energy-matter conversion and the recordings to recreate the bodies of the dead in the tanks? Used biological techniques to rejuvenate the bodies and to restore limbs, eyes, and so on and also to correct any physical defeats?

“Then,” continued Monat, “you made more recordings of the newly created bodies and stored them in some vast memory-tank? Destroyed the bodies? Recreated them again through means of the conductive metal which is also used to charge the grails? These could be buried beneath the ground. Thus the resurrection occurs without recourse to supernatural means.

“The big question is, why?”

“If you had it in your power to do all this, would you not think it was your ethical duty?” said Spruce.

“Yes, but I would resurrect only those worth resurrecting.”

“And what if others did not accept your criteria?” said Spruce. “Do you really think you are wise enough and good enough to judge? Would you place yourself on a level with God? No, all must be given a second chance, no matter how bestial or selfish or petty or stupid. Then it will be up to them …”

He fell silent, as if he regretted his outburst.

“Besides,” said Monat, “you would want to make a study of humanity as it existed in the past. You would want to record all the languages that man ever spoke, his mores, his philosophies, biographies. To do this, you need agents, posing as resurrectees, to mingle with the river people and to take notes, to observe, to study. How long will this study take? One thousand years? Two? Ten? A million?

“And what about the eventual disposition of us? Are we to stay here forever?”

“You will stay here as long as it take for you to be rehabilitated!” shouted Spruce. “Then, you will be relocated …”

He closed his mouth, glared, then opened it to say, “Continued contact with you makes even the toughest of us take on your characteristics. We have to go through a rehabilitation ourselves. Already I feel unclean!”

“Put him over the fire,” said Targoff. “We’ll get the entire truth out of him.”

“No, you won’t” cried Spruce. “I should have done this long ago! Who knows what …”

He fell to the ground, and his skin began to change to the bluish color of the dead.

Targoff gestured to Doctor Steinborg and said, “Better take him away now; begin the dissection at once. We’ll wait here for your report.”

“With stone knives, no chemicals, no microscopes, what kind of a report can you expect?” said Steinborg. “I’ll do my best.”

The body was carried off. Burton said, “I’m glad he didn’t force us to admit we were bluffing. If he had kept his mouth shut, he could have defeated us.”

“You really weren’t going to torture him?” Frigate asked.

“Of course not,” said Ruach. “Spruce would have been right. We’d have been no better than Goering. But we could have tried other means— hypnotism, for instance. Burton, Monat, and Steinborg are experts in that field.”

“The trouble is, we still don’t know if we did get the truth,” said Targoff. “Actually he may have been lying. Monat supplied guesses; it these were wrong, Spruce could have led us astray by agreeing with Monat. I’d say we can’t be at all sure.”

They agreed on one thing. Their chances of detecting another agent through the absence of symbols on the forehead would be gone. Now that They— whoever They were— knew about the visibility of the characters to Kazz’s species, They would take the proper measures to prevent detection that distinguished them as different.

Steinborg returned about three hours later. “There is nothing to distinguish him from any other member of Homo Sapiens except this one little device.”

He held up a black shiny ball that was about the size of a match-head.

“I located this on the surface of the forebrain. It was attached to some nerves by wires so thin that I could see them only at a certain angle, when they caught the light. It’s my opinion that Spruce killed himself by means of this device and that he did so by literally thinking himself dead. Somehow, this little ball translated a wish for death into the deed. Perhaps, it reacted to the thought by releasing a poison which I do not have facilities for analyzing.” He concluded his report and passed the ball around to the others.

XI

Thirty days later, Burton, Frigate, Ruach, and Kazz were returning from a trip upriver. It was just before dawn.

The cold heavy mists that piled up to six or seven feet above the river in the latter part of the night swirled around them. They could not see in any direction further than a strong man might make a standing broad jump. But Burton, standing in the prow of the bamboo-hulled single-masted boat, knew that they were close to the western shore. Near the relatively shallow depths the current ran more slowly, and they had just steered to port from the middle of the river.

If his calculations were correct, they should be close to the ruins of Goering’s hall. At any moment he expected to see a strip of denser darkness appear out of the dark waters, the banks of that land he now called home. Home, for Burton, had always been a place from which to sally forth, a resting-place, a temporary fortress in which to write a book about his last expedition, a lair in which to heal fresh hurts, a conning tower from which he looked out for new lands to explore.

Thus, only two weeks after the death of Spruce, Burton had felt the need to get to some place other than the one in which he now was. He had heard a rumor that copper had been discovered on the western shore about a hundred miles upriver. The rumor, carried by a runaway slave, was that copper was being mined in large quantities in the mountains of the area near that which he had fled. This was a length of shore of not more than twelve miles, inhabited by 5th century B.C. Sarmatians and 13th century A.D. Frisians.

Burton had listened to the fellow, an 18th century Spanish gypsy. He did not really think the story was true— but it gave him an excuse to travel. So, turning over the management of the new state to Targoff, and ignoring Alice’s pleas to take her with him, he had set off.

Now, a month later and after some adventures, not all unpleasant, they were almost home. The gypsy’s story had not been entirely unfounded. There was copper but only in minute amounts. So the four had gotten into their boat for the easy trip downcurrent, their sail pushed by the neverceasing wind. They journeyed during the daytime and beached the boat during mealtimes wherever there were friendly people who did not mind strangers using their grailrocks. At night they either slept among the friendlies or, if in hostile waters, sailed by in the darkness.

The last leg of their trip was made after the sun went down. Before getting home, they had to pass a section of the valley where slave-hungry 18th-century Mohawks lived on one side and equally greedy Carthaginians of the third century B.C. on the other. Having slipped through under cover of the fog, they were almost home.

Burton stood on the prow and scowled against the dark gray swirls. After a while he became aware that Frigate was standing behind him. Probably he had been there for some time, but had not spoken because he had been hurt too many times by Burton’s savage tongue when Burton had resented having his thoughts interrupted.

“Well, Pete, what is it? You have an itch you want scratched?”

“Yes, in my head,” the Yank replied. “I was wondering. Suppose Spruce was telling the truth, that we’re allowed a thousand years or so in which to pass some sort of ethical test, after which those who are successful will gain some sort of immortality? That’s all right for those who survive during the time allotted. But what about the poor bastards who were resurrected only to die a short time later? How can they prove themselves?”

“I think it’s quite obvious.”

“Sure. They’ll be resurrected again, as many times as they die in the valley. But— who has? There’s no evidence …”

“There have been rumors.”

“Rumors, hell! This valley has more rumors than people!”

“Then, I don’t know,” Burton said. “Did you expect to get any more answers to your questions here than you did on Earth? Anyway, if the river is as long as we think it is, a million people could die every day along its banks and be resurrected the next day, and it might be years before you or I saw it happen in our area.”

Abruptly, he said, “There’s the bank. Pete, lower the mast! Kazz, Lev, back oars! Jump to it!”

A few minutes later, they had landed and had pulled the lightweight craft completely out of the water and upon the gently sloping shore. Now that they were out of the mists they could see the sky paling above the eastern mountains. Soon the sun would be above the lowering peaks to the east.

“Dead reckoning come alive!” Burton said, “We’re ten paces beyond the grailrock near the ruins!”

He scanned the bamboo huts scattered along the plain and those buildings evident in the long grasses of the hills and under the giant trees of the higher hills at the feet of the mountains.

Not a single person was to be seen. The valley was asleep.

He knew that this was not so. It had better not be so. There were sentinels on platforms in the branches of the irontrees, and the earthen walls at the north and south boundaries were manned by garrisons. A half-mile away from where he stood, on each side, were slender bamboo towers, on the top of which were lookouts. If they, or any of the guards along the ten-mile length of this area, saw anything suspicious, they were to pound on huge signal-drums. The entire state should then come alive; the bamboo structures on the plains and in the hills should vomit forth a horde of armed men and women.

Nevertheless, he was concerned that he and his crew had landed so easily under the cloak of the fog. An army could have slid just as successfully through the mists and even now be racing towards the nearest buildings to slaughter or capture the inhabitants.

Should he build an earthen wall along the entire shore of this area and top it with a fortress of logs? What good would it do? To make it an effective defense, the whole population would have to sleep on top of the wall every night. And a host of attackers, concentrated at several places, could pour over the wall and overcome the defenders before they could assemble their strength. No, a wall was not the answer. What then?

Perhaps there was no complete answer to this problem— or to any.

He said to the others. “Don’t you think it’s strange that no one’s up yet? Or that we’ve not been challenged by the sentinels?”

Frigate pointed toward the lookout tower to their right.

Burton swore and said, “They’re asleep, by God, or deserted their post!”

But he knew was he spoke that this was no common case of dereliction of duty. Though he had said nothing to the others about it, the moment he had stepped ashore, he had known that something was very wrong. He began running across the plain towards the hut in which he and Alice lived. Behind him thudded the feet of the others as they followed.

The entrance to the little one-room house was a curtain formed of bamboo slats tied together by dried long-grass blades. Normally it was let down at night; now it was rolled up. Seeing this, he put on a burst of speed and ran headlong into the hut.

Alice was sleeping on the bamboo-and-grass bed on the right side of the building. Only her head was visible, for she was curled up under a blanket of towels fastened to each other by the magnetic clasps. Burton threw the blanket back, got down on his knees by the low bed, and raised her to a sitting position. Her head lolled forward, and her arms hung limply. But she had a healthy color and breathed normally.

Burton called her name three times. She slept on. He slapped both her cheeks sharply; red splotches sprang up on them. Her eyelids fluttered, then she became as before.

By then Frigate and Ruach appeared. “We’ve looked into some of the other huts,” Frigate said. “They’re all asleep. I tried to wake a couple of them up, but they’re out for the count. What’s wrong?”

Burton said, “There’s only one person who might have the power or the need to do this. Spruce! Spruce and his kind, whoever they are!”

“Why?” Frigate said. He sounded frightened.

“They were looking for me! They must have come in under the fog, somehow put this whole area to sleep!”

“A sleep-gas would do it easily enough.” Ruach said. “Although people who have powers such as theirs could have devices we’ve never dreamed of.”

“They were looking for me!” Burton shouted.

“Which means, if true, that they may be back tonight,” Frigate said. “But why would they be searching for you?”

Ruach replied for Burton. “Because he, as far as we know, was the only man to awaken in the pre-resurrection phase. Why he did is a mystery. But it’s evident something went wrong. It may also be a mystery to them. I’d be inclined to think that they’ve been discussing this and finally decided to come here. Maybe to kidnap Burton for observation— or some more sinister purpose.”

“Possibly they wanted to erase from my memory all that I’d seen in that chamber of floating bodies,” Burton said. “Such a thing should not be beyond their science.”

“But you’ve told that story to many.” Frigate said. “They couldn’t possibly track all those people down and remove the memory of you story from their minds.”

“Would that be necessary? How many believe my tale? Sometimes I doubt it myself.”

Ruach said, “Speculation is fruitless. What do we do now?”

There was a shriek, “Richard!” And they turned to see Alice sitting up and staring at them.

For a few minutes, they could not get her to understand what had happened. Finally she said, “So that’s why it didn’t clear up after the rains last night! Instead, the fog seemed to roll in from the river, the first time it’s ever done that. I thought it was strange, but of course I had no way of knowing what was really happening.”

Burton said, “Get your grail. Put anything you want to take along in your sack. We’re leaving as of now. I want to get away before the others awake.”

Alice’s already large eyes became even wider. “Where are we going?”

“Anywhere from here. I don’t like to run away, but I can’t stand up and fight people like that. Not if they know where I am. I’ll tell you, however, what I plan to do. I intend to find the end of the river. It must have an inlet and an outlet, and there must be a way for a man to get through to the source. If there’s any way at all, I’ll find it— you can bet your soul on that!

“Meanwhile, they’ll be looking for me elsewhere— I hope. The fact that they didn’t find me here makes me think that they have no means for instantly locating a person. They may have branded us like cattle—” he indicated the invisible symbols on his forehead— “but even cattle have mavericks. And we’re cattle with brains.”

He turned to the three. “You’re more than welcome to come along with me. In fact, I’d be honored.”

“I’ll get Monat,” Kazz said. “He wouldn’t want to be left behind.”

Burton grimaced and said, “Good old Monat! I hate to do this to him, but there’s no helping it. He can’t come along. He’s too distinguishable. Their agents would have no trouble at all in locating anybody who looked like him. I’m sorry, but he can’t.”

Tears stood in Kazz’s eyes, then ran down his bulging cheekbones. In a choked voice, he said, “Burton-naq, I can’t go either. I look too different, too.”

Burton felt tears wet his own eyes. He said, “We’ll take that chance. After all, there must be plenty of your type around. We’ve seen at least thirty or more during our travels.”

“No females so far, Burton-naq,” Kazz said mournfully. Then he smiled. “Maybe we find one when we go along the river.”

As quickly, he lost his grin. “No, damn it, I don’t go! I can’t hurt Monat too much. Him and me, others think we ugly and scary looking. So we become good friends. He’s not my naq, but he’s next to it. I stay.”

Again he smiled. “I know. I tell Monat where you’re going. Then, we wait a while and follow you. Some day we catch up and all go together. You like that? O.K.?”

He stepped up to Burton, hugged him in a grip that forced Burton’s breath out in a great whoosh, released him, shook hands with the others as they winced, then turned and shuffled off.

Ruach, holding his paralyzed hand, said, “You’re off on a fool’s errand, Burton. Do you realize that you could sail on this river for a thousand years and still be a million miles or more from the end? Not me. I’m staying. My people need me. Besides, Spruce made it clear that we should be striving for a spiritual perfection, not fighting those who gave us a chance to do so.”

Burton’s teeth flashed whitely in his dark face. He swung his grail as if it were a weapon.

“I didn’t ask to be put here anymore than I asked to be born on Earth. I don’t intend to kowtow to another’s dictates! I mean to find the river’s end. And if I don’t, I will at least have had fun and learned much on the way. Let’s go! Ho for the river!”

By then, those in the huts were beginning to stumble out as they yawned and rubbed heavy eyes. Ruach paid no attention to them; he watched the craft, close-hauled to the wind, cutting across and up the river. Burton was handling the rudder; he turned once and waved the grail so that the sun bounced off it in many shining spears.

Ruach thought that Burton was really happy that he had been forced to make a decision. Now he could evade the deadly responsibilities that would come with governing this little state and could do what he wanted. He could set out on his greatest of all adventures.

“I suppose it’s for the best,” Ruach muttered to himself. “A man may find salvation on the road, if he wants to, just as well as he may at home. It’s up to him. Meanwhile I, like Voltaire’s character— what was his name? Earthly things are beginning to slip me— will cultivate my own little garden.”

He paused to look somewhat longingly after Burton.

“Who knows? He may some day run into Voltaire.”

He sighed, then smiled slightly.

“On the other hand, Voltaire may some day drop in on me!”

“REPENT, HARLEQUIN!”

SAID THE TICKTOCKMAN

Harlan Ellison

There are always those who ask, what is it all about? For those who need to ask, for those who need points sharply made, who need to know “where it’s at,” this:

“The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, hut as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailors, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purposes as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others—as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and officeholders—serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the Devil, without intending it, as God. A very few, as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it.”

Henry David Thoreau

Civil Disobedience

That is the heart of it.

Now begin in the middle, and later learn the beginning; the end will take care of itself.

But because it was the very world it was, the very world they had allowed it to become, for months his activities did not come to the alarmed attention of The Ones Who Kept The Machine Functioning Smoothly, the ones who poured the very best butter over the cams and mainsprings of the culture. Not until it had become obvious that somehow, someway, he had become a notoriety, a celebrity, perhaps even a hero for (what Officialdom inescapably tagged) “an emotionally disturbed segment of the populace,” did they turn it over to the Ticktockman and his legal machinery. But by then, because it was the very world it was, and they had no way to predict he would happen—possibly a strain of disease long-defunct, now, suddenly, reborn in a system where immunity had been forgotten, had lapsed—he had been allowed to become too real. Now he had form and substance.

He had become a personality, something they had filtered out of the system many decades ago. But there it was, and there he was, a very definitely imposing personality. In certain circles—middle-class circles—it was thought disgusting. Vulgar ostentation. Anarchistic. Shameful. In others, there was only sniggering, those strata where thought is subjugated to form and ritual, niceties, proprieties. But down below, ah, down below, where the people always needed their saints and sinners, their bread and circuses, their heroes and villains, he was considered a Bolivar; a Napoleon; a Robin Hood; a Dick Bong (Ace of Aces); a Jesus; a Jomo Kenyatta.

And at the top—where, like socially-attuned Shipwreck Kellys, even tremor and vibration threatens to dislodge the wealthy, powerful and titled from their flagpoles—he was considered a menace; a heretic; a rebel; a disgrace; a peril. He was known down the line, to the very heartmeat core, but the important reactions were high above and far below. At the very top, at the very bottom.

So his file was turned over, along with his time-card and his cardioplate, to the office of the Ticktockman.

The Ticktockman: very much over six feet tall, often silent, a soft purring man when things went timewise. The Ticktockman.

Even in the cubicles of the hierarchy, where fear was generated, seldom suffered, he was called the Ticktockman. But no one called him that to his mask.

You don’t call a man a hated name, not when that man, behind his mask, is capable of revoking the minutes, the hours, the days and nights, the years of your life. He was called the Master Timekeeper to his mask. It was safer that way.

“This is what he is,” said the Ticktockman with genuine softness, “but not who he is? This time-card I’m. holding in my left hand has a name on it, but it is the name of what he is, not who he is. This cardioplate here in my right hand is also named, but not whom named, merely what named. Before I can exercise proper revocation, I have to know who this what is.“

To his staff, all the ferrets, all the loggers, all the finks, all the commex, even the mineez, he said, “Who is this Harlequin?”

He was not purring smoothly. Timewise, it was jangle.

However, it was the longest speech they had ever heard him utter at one time, the staff, the ferrets, the loggers, the finks, the commex, but not the mineez, who usually weren’t around to know, in any case. But even they scurried to find out.

Who is the Harlequin?

High above the third level of the city, he crouched on the humming aluminum-frame platform of the air-boat (foof! air-boat, indeed! swizzleskid is what it was, with a tow-rack jerry-rigged) and stared down at the neat Mondrian arrangement of the buildings.

Somewhere nearby, he could hear the metronomic left-right-left of the 2:47 p.m. shift, entering the Timkin roller-bearing plant in their sneakers. A minute later, precisely, he heard the softer right-left-right of the 5:00 a.m. formation, going home.

An elfish grin spread across his tanned features, and his dimples appeared for a moment. Then, scratching at his thatch of auburn hair, he shrugged within his motley, as though girding himself for what came next, and threw the joystick forward, and bent into the wind as the air-boat dropped. He skimmed over a slidewalk, purposely dropping a few feet to crease the tassels of the ladies of fashion, and—inserting thumbs in large ears—he stuck out his tongue, rolled his eyes and went wugga-wugga-wugga. It was a minor diversion. One pedestrian skittered and tumbled, sending parcels everywhichway, another wet herself, a third keeled slantwise and the walk was stopped automatically by the servitors till she could be resuscitated. It was a minor diversion.

Then he swirled away on a vagrant breeze, and was gone. Hi-ho.

As he rounded the cornice of the Time-Motion Study Building, he saw the shift, just boarding the slidewalk. With practiced motion and an absolute conservation of movement, they side-stepped up onto the slowstrip and (in a chorus line reminiscent of a Busby Berkeley film of the antediluvian 1930’s) advanced across the strips ostrich-walking till they were lined up on the expresstrip.

Once more, in anticipation, the elfin grin spread, and there was a tooth missing back there on the left side. He dipped, skimmed, and swooped over them; and then, scrunching about on the air-boat, he released the holding pins that fastened shut the ends of the home-made pouring troughs that kept his cargo from dumping prematurely. And as he pulled the trough-pins, the air-boat slid over the factory workers and one hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of jelly beans cascaded down on the expresstrip.

Jelly beans! Millions and billions of purples and yellows and greens and licorice and grape and raspberry and mint and round and smooth and crunchy outside and soft-mealy inside and sugary and bouncing jouncing tumbling clittering clattering skittering fell on the heads and shoulders and hard-hats and carapaces of the Timkin workers, tinkling on the slidewalk and bouncing away and rolling about underfoot and filling the sky on their way down with all the colors of joy and childhood and holidays, coming down in a steady rain, a solid wash, a torrent of color and sweetness out of the sky from above, and entering a universe of sanity and metronomic order with quite-mad coocoo newness. Jelly beans!

The shift workers howled and laughed and were pelted, and broke ranks, and the jelly beans managed to work their way into the mechanism of the slidewalks after which there was a hideous scraping as the sound of a million fingernails rasped down a quarter of a million blackboards, followed by a coughing and a sputtering, and then the slidewalks all stopped and everyone was dumped thisawayandthataway in a jackstraw tumble, and still laughing and popping little jelly bean eggs of childish color into their mouths. It was a holiday, and a jollity, an absolute insanity, a giggle. But…

The shift was delayed seven minutes.

They did not get home for seven minutes.

The master schedule was thrown off by seven minutes.

Quotas were delayed by inoperative slidewalks for seven minutes.

He had tapped the first domino in the line, and one after another, like chik chik chik, the others had fallen.

The System had been seven minutes worth of disrupted. It was a tiny matter, one hardly worthy of note, but in a society where the single driving force was order and unity and promptness and clocklike precision and attention to the clock, reverence of the gods of the passage of time, it was a disaster of major importance.

So he was ordered to appear before the Ticktockman. It was broadcast across every channel of the communications web. He was ordered to be there at 7:00 dammit on time. And they waited, and they waited, but he didn’t show up till almost ten-thirty, at which time he merely sang a little song about moonlight in a place no one had ever heard of, called Vermont, and vanished again. But they had all been waiting since seven, and it wrecked hell with their schedules. So the question remained: Who is the Harlequin?

But the unasked question (more important of the two) was: how did we get into this position, where a laughing, irresponsible japer of jabberwocky and jive could disrupt our entire economic and cultural life with a hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of jelly beans…

Jelly for God’s sake beans! This is madness! Where did he get the money to buy a hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of jelly beans? (They knew it would have cost that much, because they had a team of Situation Analysts pulled off another assignment, and rushed to the slidewalk scene to sweep up and count the candies, and produce findings, which disrupted their schedules and threw their entire branch at least a day behind.) Jelly beans! Jelly… beans? Now wait a second—a second accounted for—no one has manufactured jelly beans for over a hundred years. Where did he get jelly beans?

That’s another good question. More than likely it will never be answered to your complete satisfaction. But then, how many questions ever are?

The middle you know. Here is the beginning. How it starts:

A desk pad. Day for day, and turn each day. 9:00—open the mail. 9:45—appointment with planning commission board. 10:30—discuss installation progress charts with J.L. 11:45—pray or xan—12:00—lunch. And so it goes.

“I’m sorry, Miss Grant, but the time for interviews was set at 2:30, and it’s almost five now. I’m sorry you’re late, but those are the rules. You’ll have to wait till next year to submit application for this college again.” And so it goes.

The 10:10 local stops at Cresthaven, Galesville, Tonawanda Junction, Selby and Farnhurst, but not at Indiana City, Lucasville and Colton, except on Sunday. The 10:35 express stops at Galesville, Selby and Indiana City, except on Sundays & Holidays, at which time it stops at… and so it goes.

“I couldn’t wait, Fred. I had to be at Pierre Cartain’s by 3:00, and you said you’d meet me under the clock in the terminal at 2:45; and you weren’t there, so I had to go on. You’re always late, Fred. If you’d been there, we could have sewed it up together, but as it was, well, I took the order alone…” And so it goes.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Atterley: in reference to your son Gerold’s constant tardiness, I am afraid we will have to suspend him from school unless some more reliable method can be instituted guaranteeing he will arrive at his classes on time. Granted he is an exemplary student, and his marks are high, his constant flouting of the schedules of this school makes it impractical to maintain him in a system where the other children seem capable of getting where they are supposed to be on time and so it goes.

YOU CANNOT VOTE UNLESS YOU APPEAR AT 8:45 A.M.

“I don’t care if the script is good, I need it Thursday!”

CHECK-OUT TIME IS 2:00 P.M.

“You got here late. The job’s taken. Sorry.”

YOUR SALARY HAS BEEN DOCKED FOR TWENTY MINUTES TIME LOST.

“God, what time is it, I’ve gotta run!”

And so it goes. And so it goes. And so it goes. And so it goes goes goes goes goes tick tock tick tock tick tock and one day we no longer let time serve us, we serve time and we are slaves of the schedule, worshippers of the sun’s passing, bound into a life predicated on restrictions because the system will not function if we don’t keep the schedule tight.

Until it becomes more than a minor inconvenience to be late. It becomes a sin. Then a crime. Then a crime punishable by this:

EFFECTIVE 15 JULY 2389 12:00:00 midnight, the office of the Master Timekeeper will require all citizens to submit their time-cards and cardioplates for processing. In accordance with Statute 555-7-SGH-999 governing the revocation of time per capita, all cardioplates will be keyed to the individual holder and—

What they had done, was devise a method of curtailing the amount of life a person could have. If he was ten minutes late, he lost ten minutes of his life. An hour was proportionately worth more revocation. If someone was consistently tardy, he might find himself, on a Sunday night, receiving a communique from the Master Timekeeper that his time had run out, and he would be “turned off” at high noon on Monday, please straighten your affairs, sir.

And so, by this simple scientific expedient (utilizing a scientific process held dearly secret by the Ticktockman’s office) the System was maintained. It was the only expedient thing to do. It was, after all, patriotic. The schedules had to be met. After all, there was a war on!

But, wasn’t there always?

“Now that is really disgusting,” the Harlequin said, when pretty Alice showed him the wanted poster. “Disgusting and highly improbable. After all, this isn’t the days of desperadoes. A wanted poster!”

“You know,” Alice noted, “you speak with a great deal of inflection.”

“I’m sorry,” said the Harlequin, humbly.

“No need to be sorry. You’re always saying Tm sorry.‘ You have such massive guilt, Everett, it’s really very sad.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, then pursed his lips so the dimples appeared momentarily. He hadn’t wanted to say that at all. “I have to go out again. I have to do something.”

Alice slammed her coffee-bulb down on the counter. “Oh for God’s sake, Everett, can’t you stay home just one night! Must you always be out in that ghastly clown suit, running around annoying people?”

“I’m—” he stopped, and clapped the jester’s hat onto his auburn thatch with a tiny tingling of bells. He rose, rinsed out his coffee-bulb at the tap, and put it into the drier for a moment. “I have to go.”

She didn’t answer. The faxbox was purring, and she pulled a sheet out, read it, threw it toward him on the counter. “It’s about you. Of course. You’re ridiculous.”

He read it quickly. It said the Ticktockman was trying to locate him. He didn’t care, he was going out to be late again. At the door, dredging for an exit line, he hurled back petulantly, “Well, you speak with inflection, tool”

Alice rolled her pretty eyes heavenward. “You’re ridiculous.” The Harlequin stalked out, slamming the door, which sighed shut softly, and locked itself.

There was a gentle knock, and Alice got up with an exhalation of exasperated breath, and opened the door. He stood there. “I’ll be back about ten-thirty, okay?”

She pulled a rueful face. “Why do you tell me that? Why? You know you’ll be late! You know it! You’re always late, so why do you tell me these dumb things?” She closed the door.

On the other side, the Harlequin nodded to himself. She’s right. She’s always right. I’ll be late. I’m always late. Why do I tell her these dumb things?

He shrugged again, and went off to be late once more.

He had fired off the firecracker rockets that said: I will attend the 115th annual International Medical Association Invocation at 8:00 p.m. precisely. I do hope you will all be able to join me.

The words had burned in the sky, and of course the authorities were there, lying in wait for him. They assumed, naturally, that he would be late. He arrived twenty minutes early, while they were setting up the spiderwebs to trap and hold him, and blowing a large bullhorn, he frightened and unnerved them so, their own moisturized encirclement webs sucked closed, and they were hauled, up, kicking and shrieking, high above the amphitheater’s floor. The Harlequin laughed and laughed, and apologized profusely. The physicians, gathered in solemn conclave, roared with laughter, and accepted the Harlequin’s apologies with exaggerated bowing and posturing, and a merry time was had by all, who thought the Harlequin was a regular foofaraw in fancy pants; all, that is, but the authorities, who had been sent out by the office of the Ticktockman, who hung there like so much dockside cargo, hauled up above the floor of the amphitheater in a most unseemly fashion.

(In another part of the same city where the Harlequin carried on his “activities,” totally unrelated in every way to what concerns here, save that it illustrates the Ticktockman’s power and import, a man named Marshall Delahanty received his turn-off notice from the Ticktockman’s office. His wife received the notification from the grey-suited minee who delivered it, with the traditional “look of sorrow” plastered hideously across his face. She knew what it was, even without unsealing it. It was a billet-doux of immediate recognition to everyone these days. She gasped, and held it as though it were a glass slide tinged with botulism, and prayed it was not for her. Let it be for Marsh, she thought, brutally, realistically, or one of the kids, but not for me, please dear God, not for me. And then she opened it, and it was for Marsh, and she was at one and the same time horrified and relieved. The next trooper in the line had caught the bullet. “Marshall,” she screamed, “Marshall! Termination, Marshall! OhmiGod, Marshall, whattl we do, whattl we do, Marshall omigodmarshall…” and in their home that night was the sound of tearing paper and fear, and the stink of madness went up the flue and there was nothing, absolutely nothing they could do about it.

(But Marshall Delahanty tried to run. And early the next day, when turn-off time came, he was deep in the forest two hundred miles away, and the office of the Ticktockman blanked his cardioplate, and Marshall Delahanty keeled over, running, and his heart stopped, and the blood dried up on its way to his brain, and he was dead that’s all. One light went out on his sector map in the office of the Master Timekeeper, while notification was entered for fax reproduction, and Georgette Delahanty’s name was entered on the dole roles till she could re-marry. Which is the end of the footnote, and all the point that need be made, except don’t laugh, because that is what would happen to the Harlequin if ever the Ticktockman found out his real name. It isn’t funny.)

The shopping level of the city was thronged with the Thursday-colors of the buyers. Women in canary yellow chitons and men in pseudo-Tyrolean outfits that were jade and leather and fit very tightly, save for the balloon pants.

When the Harlequin appeared on the still-being-constructed shell of the new Efficiency Shopping Center, his bullhorn to his elfishly-laughing lips, everyone pointed and stared, and he berated them:

“Why let them order you about? Why let them tell you to hurry and scurry like ants or maggots? Take your time! Saunter a while! Enjoy the sunshine, enjoy the breeze, let life carry you at your own pace! Don’t be slaves of time, it’s a helluva way to die, slowly, by degrees… down with the Ticktockman!“

Who’s the nut? most of the shoppers wanted to know. Who’s the nut oh wow I’m gonna be late I gotta run…

And the construction gang on the Shopping Center received an urgent order from the office of the Master Timekeeper that the dangerous criminal known as the Harlequin was atop their spire, and their aid was urgently needed in apprehending him. The work crew said no, they would lose time on their construction schedule, but the Ticktockman managed to pull the proper threads of governmental webbing, and they were told to cease work and catch that nitwit up there on the spire with the bullhorn. So a dozen and more burly workers began climbing into their construction platforms, releasing the a-grav plates, and rising toward the Harlequin.

After the debacle (in which, through the Harlequin’s attention to personal safety, no one was seriously injured), the workers tried to reassemble, and assault him again, but it was too late. He had vanished. It had attracted quite a crowd, however, and the shopping cycle was thrown off by hours, simply hours. The purchasing needs of the system were therefore falling behind, and so measures were taken to accelerate the cycle for the rest of the day, but it got bogged down and speeded up and they sold too many float-valves and not nearly enough wegglers, which meant that the popli ratio was off, which made it necessary to rush cases and cases of spoiling Smash-0 to stores that usually needed a case only every three or four hours. The shipments were bollixed, the trans-shipments were misrouted, and in the end, even the swizzleskid industries felt it.

“Don’t come back till you have him!” the Ticktockman said, very quietly, very sincerely, extremely dangerously.

They used dogs. They used probes. They used cardioplate crossoffs. They used teepers. They used bribery. They used stiktytes. They used intimidation. They used torment. They used torture. They used finks. They used cops. They used search&seizure. They used fallaron. They used betterment incentive. They used fingerprints. They used Bertillon. They used cunning. They used guile. They used treachery. They used Raoul Mitgong, but he didn’t help much. They used applied physics. They used techniques of criminology.

And what the hell: they caught him.

After all, his name was Everett C. Marm, and he wasn’t much to begin with, except a man who had no sense of time.

“Get stuffed!” the Harlequin replied, sneering.

“You’ve been late a total of sixty-three years, five months, three weeks, two days, twelve hours, forty-one minutes, fifty-nine seconds, point oh three six one one one microseconds. You’ve used up everything you can, and more. I’m going to turn you off.”

“Scare someone else. I’d rather be dead than live in a dumb world with a bogeyman like you.”

“It’s my job.”

“You’re full of it. You’re a tyrant. You have no right to order people around and kill them if they show up late.”

“You can’t adjust. You can’t fit in.”

“Unstrap me, and I’ll fit my fist into your mouth.”

“You’re a non-conformist.”

“That didn’t used to be a felony.”

“It is now. Live in the world around you.”

“I hate it. It’s a terrible world.”

“Not everyone thinks so. Most people enjoy order.”

“I don’t, and most of the people I know don’t.”

“That’s not true. How do you think we caught you?”

“I’m not interested.”

“A girl named pretty Alice told us who you were.”

“That’s a lie.”

“It’s true. You unnerve her. She wants to belong, she wants to conform, I’m going to turn you off.”

“Then do it already, and stop arguing with me.”

“I’m not going to turn you off.”

“You’re an idiot!”

“Repent, Harlequin!” said the Ticktockman.

“Get stuffed.”

So they sent him to Coventry. And in Coventry they worked him over. It was just like what they did to Winston Smith in “1984,” which was a book none of them knew about, but the techniques are really quite ancient, and so they did it to Everett C. Marm, and one day quite a long time later, the Harlequin appeared on the communications web, appearing elfish and dimpled and bright-eyed, and not at all brainwashed, and he said he had been wrong, that it was a good, a very good thing indeed, to belong, and be right on time hip-ho and away we go, and everyone stared up at him on the public screens that covered an entire city block, and they said to themselves, well, you see, he was just a nut after all, and if that’s the way the system is run, then let’s do it that way, because it doesn’t pay to fight city hall, or in this case, the Ticktockman. So Everett C. Marm was destroyed, which was a loss, because of what Thoreau said earlier, but you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, and in every revolution, a few die who shouldn’t, but they have to, because that’s the way it happens, and if you make only a little change, then it seems to be worthwhile.

Or, to make the point lucidly:

“Uh, excuse me, sir, I, uh, don’t know how to uh, to uh, tell you this, but you were three minutes late. The schedule is a little, uh, bit off.”

He grinned sheepishly.

“That’s ridiculous!” murmured the Ticktockman behind his mask. “Check your watch.” And then he went into his office, going mrmee, mrmee, mrmee, mrmee.

MAN IN HIS TIME

Brian W. Aldiss

His absence

Janet Westermark sat watching the three men in the office: the administrator who was about to go out of her life, the behaviourist who was about to come into it, and the husband whose life ran parallel to but insulated from her own.

She was not the only one playing a watching game. The behaviourist, whose name was Clement Stackpole, sat hunched in his chair with his ugly strong hands clasped round his knee, thrusting his intelligent and simian face forward, the better to regard his new subject. Jack Westermark.

The administrator of the Mental Research Hospital spoke in a lively and engaged way. Typically, it was only Jack

Westermark who seemed absent from the scene.

Your particular problem, restless

His hands upon his lap lay still, but he himself was restless, though the restlessness seemed directed. It was as if he were in another room with other people, Janet thought. She saw that he caught her eye when in fact she was not entirely looking at him, and by the time she returned the glance, he was gone, withdrawn.

“Although Mr. Stackpole has not dealt before with your particular problem,” the administrator was saying, “he has had plenty of field experience. I know”

“I’m sure we won’t,” Westermark said, folding his hands and nodding his head slightly.

Smoothly, the administrator made a pencilled note of the remark, scribbled the precise time beside it, and continued. “I know Mr. Stackpole is too modest to say this, but he is a great man for working in with people”

“If you feel it’s necessary,” Westermark said. “Though I’ve seen enough of your equipment for a while.”

The pencil moved, the smooth voice proceeded. “Good. A great man for working in with people, and I’m sure you and Mr. Westermark will soon find you are glad to have him around. Remember, he’s there to help both of you.”

Janet smiled, and said from the island of her chair, trying to smile at him and Stackpole, “I’m sure that everything will work” She was interrupted by her husband, who rose to his feet, letting his hands drop to his sides and saying, turning slightly to address thin air, “Do you mind if I say good-bye to Nurse Simmons?”

Her voice no longer wavered

“Everything will be all right, I’m sure,” she said hastily.

And Stackpole nodded at her, conspiratorially agreeing to see her point of view.

“We’ll all get on fine, Janet,” he said. She was in the swift process of digesting that unexpected use of her Christian

name, and the administrator was also giving her the sort of encouraging smile so many people had fed her since Westermark was pulled out of the ocean off Casablanca, when her husband, still having his lonely conversation with the air, said, “Of course, I should have remembered.”

His right hand went half way to his foreheador his heart Janet wonderedand then dropped, as he added, “Perhap she’ll come round and see us some time.” Now he turned an was smiling faintly at another vacant space with just the faintest nod of his head, as if slightly cajoling. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Janet?”

She moved her head, instinctively trying to bring her eye into his gaze as she replied vaguely, “Of course, darling.” He voice no longer wavered when she addressed his absent attention.

There was sunlight through which they could see each other

“There was sunlight in one corner of the room, coming through the windows of a bay angled towards the sun. For a moment she caught, as she rose to her feet, her husband’s profile with the sunlight behind it. It was thin and withdrawn.

Intelligent: she had always thought him over-burdened with his intelligence, but now there was a lost look there, and she thought of the words of a psychiatrist who had been called in on the case earlier: “You must understand that the waking brain is perpetually lapped by the unconscious.”

Lapped by the unconscious

“Fighting the words away,” she said, addressing the smile of the administrator that smile must have advanced his career so much. “You’ve helped me a lot. I couldn’t have got through these months without you. Now we’d better go.”

She heard herself chopping her words, fearing Westermark would talk across them, as he did: “Thank you for your help.

If you find anything …”

Stackpole walked modestly over to Janet as the administrator rose and said. “Well, don’t either of you forget us if you’re in any kind of trouble.”

“I’m sure we won’t.”

“And, Jack, we’d like you to come back here to visit us once a month for a personal check-up. Don’t want to waste all our expensive equipment, you know, and you are our star…er, patient.” He smiled rather tightly as he said it, glancing at the paper on his desk to check Westermark’s answer.

Westermark’s back was already turned on him, Westermark was already walking slowly to the door, Westermark had said his good-byes, perched out on the lonely eminence of his existence.

Janet looked helplessly, before she could guard against it, at the administrator and Stackpole. She hated it that they were too professional to take note of what seemed her husband’s breach of conduct. Stackpole looked kindly in a monkey way and took her arm with one of his thick hands.

“Shall we be off then? My car’s waiting outside.”

Not saying anything, nodding, thinking, and consulting watches

She nodded, not saying anything, thinking only, without the need of the administrator’s notes to think it, “Oh yes, this was when he said, ‘Do you mind if I say good-bye to Nurse-who’s-it? Simpson?” She was learning to follow her husband’s footprints across the broken path of conversation. He was now out in the corridor, the door swinging to behind him, and to empty air the administrator was saying, “It’s her day off today.”

“You’re good on your cues,” she said, feeling the hand tighten on her arm. She politely brushed his fingers away, horrid Stackpole, trying to recall what had gone only four minutes before. Jack had said something to her; she couldn’t remember, didn’t speak, avoided eyes, put out her hand and shook the administrator’s firmly.

“Thanks,” she said.

“Au revoir to both of you,” he replied firmly, glancing swiftly: watch, notes, her, the door. “Of course,” he said. “If we find anything at all. We are very hopeful….”

He adjusted his tie, looking at the watch again.

“Your husband has gone now, Mrs. Westermark,” he said, his manner softening. He walked towards the door with her and added, “You have been wonderfully brave, and I do realize we all realize that you will have to go on being wonderful. With time, it should be easier for you; doesn’t Shakespeare say in Hamlet that ‘Use almost can change the stamp of nature’? May I suggest that you follow Stackpole’s and my example and keep a little notebook and a strict check on the time?”

They saw her tiny hesitation, stood about her, two men round a personable woman, not entirely innocent of relish.

Stackpole cleared his throat, smiled, said, “He can so easily feel cut off you know. It’s essential that you of all people answer his questions, or he will feel cut off.”

Always a pace ahead

“The children?” she asked.

“Let’s see you and Jack well settled in at home again, say for a fortnight or so,” the administrator said, “before we think about having the children back to see him.”

“That way’s better for them and Jack and you, Janet,” Stackpole said. ‘Don’t be glib,’ she thought; ‘consolation I need, God knows, but that’s too facile.’ She turned her face away, fearing it looked too vulnerable these days.

In the corridor, the administrator said, as valediction, “I’m sure Grandma’s spoiling them terribly, Mrs. Westermark, but worrying won’t mend it, as the old saw says.”

She smiled at him and walked quickly away, a pace ahead of Stackpole.

Westermark sat in the back of the car outside the administrative block. She climbed in beside him. As she did so, he jerked violently back in his seat.

“Darling, what is it?” she asked. He said nothing.

Stackpole had not emerged from the building, evidently having a last word with the administrator. Janet took the moment to lean over and kiss her husband’s cheek, aware as she did so that a phantom wife had already, from his viewpoint, done so. His response was a phantom to her.

“The countryside looks green,” he said. His eyes were flickering over the grey concrete block opposite.

“Yes,” she said.

Stackpole came bustling down the steps, apologising as he opened the car door, settled in. He let the clutch back too fast and they shot forward. Janet saw then the reason for Westermark’s jerking backwards a short while before. Now the acceleration caught him again; his body was rolled helplessly back. As they drove along, he set one hand fiercely on the side grip, for his sway was not properly counterbalancing the movement of the car.

Once outside the grounds of the institute, they were in the country, still under a mid-August day.

His theories

Westermark, by concentrating, could bring himself to conform to some of the laws of the time continuum he had left.

When the car he was in climbed up his drive (familiar, yet strange with the rhododendrons unclipped and no signs of

children) and stopped by the front door, he sat in his seat for three and a half minutes before venturing to open his door.

Then he climbed out and stood on the gravel, frowning down at it. Was it as real as ever, as material? Was there a slight glaze on it?as if something shone through from the interior of the earth, shone through all things? Or was it that there was a screen between him and everything else? It was important to decide between the two theories, for he had to live under the discipline of one. What he hoped to prove was that the permeation theory was correct; that way he was merely one of the factors comprising the functioning universe, together with the rest of humanity. By the glaze theory, he was isolated not only from the rest of humanity but from the entire cosmos (except Mars?). It was early days yet; he had a deal of thinking to do, and new ideas would undoubtedly emerge after observation and cogitation. Emotion must not decide the issue; he must be detached. Revolutionary theories could well emerge from this suffering.

He could see his wife by him, standing off in case they happened embarrassingly or painfully to collide. He smiled thinly at her through her glaze. He said, “I am, but I’d prefer not to talk.” He stepped towards the house, noting the slippery feel of gravel that would not move under his tread until the world caught up. He said, “I’ve every respect for

The Guardian, but I’d prefer not to talk at present.”

Famous Astronaut Returns Home

As the party arrived, a man waited in the porch for them, ambushing Westermark’s return home with a deprecatory smile. Hesitant but business-like, he came forward and looked interrogatively at the three people who had emerged from the car.

“Excuse me, you are Captain Jack Westermark, aren’t you?”

He stood aside as Westermark seemed to make straight for him.

“I’m the psychology correspondent for The Guardian, if I might intrude for a moment.”

Westermark’s mother had opened the front door and stood there smiling welcome at him, one hand nervously up to her grey hair. Her son walked past her. The newspaper man stared after him.

Janet told him apologetically, “You’ll have to excuse us.

My husband did reply to you, but he’s really not prepared to meet people yet.”

“When did he reply, Mrs. Westermark? Before he heard what I had to say?”

“Well, naturally not but his life stream … I’m sorry, I can’t explain.”

“He really is living ahead of time, isn’t he? Will you spare me a minute to tell me how you feel now the first shock is over?”

“You really must excuse me,” Janet said, brushing past him. As she followed her husband into the house, she heard

Stackpole say, “Actually, I read The Guardian, and perhaps I could help you. The Institute has given me the job of remaining with Captain Westermark. My name’s Clement Stackpole you may know my book.

Persistent Human Relations

Methuen. But you must not say that Westermark is living ahead of time. That’s quite incorrect. What you can say is that some of his psychological and physiological processes have somehow been transposed forward”

“Ass!” she exclaimed to herself. She had paused by the threshold to catch some of his words. Now she whisked in.

Talk hanging in the air among the long watches of supper

Supper that evening had its discomforts, although Janet Westermark and her mother-in-law achieved an air of melancholy gaiety by bringing two Scandinavian candelabra, relics of a Copenhagen holiday, onto the table and surprising the two men with a gay-looking hors d’oeuvre. But the conversation was mainly like the hors d’oeuvre, Janet thought: little tempting isolated bits of talk, not nourishing.

Mrs. Westermark senior had not yet got the hang of talking to her son, and confined her remarks to Janet, though she looked towards Jack often enough. “How are the children?” he asked her. Flustered by the knowledge that he was waiting a long while for her answer, she replied rather incoherently and dropped her knife.

To relieve the tension, Janet was cooking up a remark on the character of the administrator at the Mental Research

Hospital, when Westermark said, “Then he is at once thoughtful and literate. Commendable and rare in men of his type. I got the impression, as you evidently did, that he was as interested in his job as in advancement. I suppose one might say one even liked him. But you know him better, Stackpole; what do you think of him?”

Crumbling bread to cover his ignorance of whom they were supposed to be conversing, Stackpole said, “Oh, I don’t know; it’s hard to say really,” spinning out time, pretending not to squint at his watch.

“The administrator was quite a charmer, didn’t you think, Jack?” Janet remarked perhaps helping Stackpole as much as Jack.

“He looks as if he might make a slow bowler,” Westermark said, with an intonation that suggested he was agreeing with something as yet unsaid.

“Oh, him”’ Stackpole said. “Yes, he seems a satisfactory sort of chap on the whole.”

“He quoted Shakespeare to me and thoughtfully told me where the quotation came from,” Janet said.

“No thank you, Mother,” Westermark said.

“I don’t have much to do with him,” Stackpole continued.

“Though I have played cricket with him a time or two. He makes quite a good slow bowler.”

“Are you really?” Westermark exclaimed.

That stopped them. Jack’s mother looked helplessly about, caught her son’s glazed eye, said, covering up, “Do have some more sauce, Jack, dear,” recalled she had already had her answer, almost let her knife slide again, gave up trying to eat.

“I’m a batsman, myself,” Stackpole said, as if bringing an old pneumatic drill to the new silence. When no answer came, he doggedly went on, expounding on the game, the pleasure of it. Janet sat and watched, a shade perplexed that she was admiring Stackpole’s performance and wondering at her slight perplexity; then she decided that she had made up her mind to dislike Stackpole, and immediately dissolved the resolution.

Was he not on their side? And even the strong hairy hands became a little more acceptable when you thought of them gripping the rubber of a bat handle; and the broad shoulders swinging…. She closed her eyes momentarily, and tried to concentrate on what he was saying.

A batsman himself

Later, she met Stackpole on the upper landing. He had a small cigar in his mouth, she had two pillows in her arms. He stood in her way.

“Can I help at all, Janet?”

“I’m only making up a bed, Mr. Stackpole.”

“Are you not sleeping in with your husband?”

“He would like to be on his own for a night or two, Mr. Stackpole. I shall sleep in the children’s room for the time being.”

“Then please permit me to carry the pillows for you. And do please call me Clem. All my friends do.”

Trying to be pleasanter, to unfreeze, to recall that Jack was not moving her out of the bedroom permanently, she said,

“I’m sorry. It’s just that we once had a terrier called Clem.”

But it did not sound as she had wished it to do.

He put the pillows on Peter’s blue bed, switched on the bedside lamp, and sat on the edge of the bed, clutching his cigar and puffing at it.

“This may be a bit embarrassing, but there’s something I feel I should say to you, Janet.” He did not look at her. She brought him an ashtray and stood by him.

“We feel your husband’s mental health may be endangered, although I hasten to assure you that he shows no signs of losing his mental equilibrium beyond what we may call an inordinate absorption in phenomena and even there, we cannot say, of course we can’t, that his absorption is any greater than one might expect. Except in the totally unprecedented circumstances, I mean. We must talk about this in the next few days.”

She waited for him to go on, not unamused by the play with the cigar. Then he looked straight up at her and said,

“Frankly, Mrs. Westermark, we think it would help your husband if you could have sexual relations with him.”

A little taken aback, she said, “Can you imagine” Correcting herself, she said, “That is for my husband to say. I am not unapproachable.”

She saw he had caught her slip. Playing a very straight bat, he said, “I’m sure you’re not, Mrs. Westermark.”

With the light out, living, she lay in Peter’s bed

She lay in Peter’s bed with the light out. Certainly she wanted him: pretty badly, now she allowed herself to dwell on it. During the long months of the Mars expedition, while she had stayed at home and he had got farther from home, while he actually had existence on that other planet, she had been chaste. She had looked after the children and driven round the countryside and enjoyed writing those articles for women’s magazines and being interviewed on TV when the ship was reported to have left Mars on its homeward journey. She had been, in part, dormant.

“Then came the news, kept from her at first, that there was confusion in communicating with the returning ship. A sensational tabloid broke the secrecy by declaring that the nine-man crew had all gone mad. And the ship had overshot its landing area, crashing into the Atlantic. Her first reaction had been a purely selfish one no, not selfish, but from the self: He’ll never lie with me again. And infinite love and sorrow.

At his rescue, the only survivor, miraculously unmaimed, her hope had revived. Since then, it had remained embalmed, as he was embalmed in time. She tried to visualise love as it would be now, with everything happening first to him, before she had begun to. With his movement of pleasure even before she. No, it wasn’t possible! But of course it was, if they worked it out first intellectually; then if she just lay flat…. But what she was trying to visualise, all she could visualise, was not love-making, merely a formal prostration to the exigencies of glands and time flow.

She sat up in bed, longing for movement, freedom. She jumped out and opened the lower window; there was still a tang of cigar smoke in the dark room.

They worked it out intellectually

Within a couple of days, they had fallen into routine. It was as if the calm weather, perpetuating mildness, aided them.

They had to be careful to move slowly through doors, keeping to the left, so as not to bump into each other; a tray of drinks was dropped before they agreed on that. They devised simple knocking systems before using the bathroom. They conversed in bulletins that did not ask questions unless questions were necessary. They walked slightly apart. In short, they made detours round each other’s lives.

“It’s really quite easy as long as one is careful,” Mrs. Westermark senior said to Janet. “And dear Jack is so patient!”

“I even get the feeling he likes the situation.”

“Oh, my dear, how could he like such an unfortunate predicament?”

“Mother, you realise how we all exist together, don’t you?

No, it sounds too terrible. I daren’t say it.”

“Now don’t you start getting silly ideas. You’ve been very brave, and this is not the time for us to be getting upset, just as things are going well. If you have any worries, you must tell Clem. That’s what he’s here for.”

“I know.”

“Well then.”

She saw Jack walk in the garden. As she looked, he glanced up, smiled, said something to himself, stretched out a hand, withdrew it, and went, still smiling, to sit on one end of the seat on the lawn. Touched, Janet hurried over to the French windows, to go and join him.

She paused. Already, she saw ahead, saw her sequence of actions, for Jack had already sketched them into the future.

She would go onto the lawn, call his name, smile, and walk over to him when he smiled back. Then they would stroll together to the seat and sit down, one at each end.

The knowledge drained all spontaneity from her. She might have been working a treadmill, for what she was about to do had already been done as far as Jack was concerned, he had his head start in time. Then if she did not go, if she mutinied, turned back to the discussion of the day’s chores with her mother-in-law…That left Jack mouthing like a fool on the lawn, indulging in a fantasy there was no penetrating. Let him do that, let Stackpole see; then they could drop this theory about Jack’s being ahead of time and would have to treat him for a more normal sort of hallucinatory insanity. He would be safe in Clem’s hands.

But Jack’s actions proved that she would go out there. It was insane for her not to go out there. Insane? To disobey a law of the universe was impossible, not insane. Jack was not disobeying he had simply tumbled over a law that nobody knew was there before the first expedition to Mars; certainly they had discovered something more momentous than anyone had expected, and more unforeseen. And she had lost.

No, she hadn’t lost yet! She ran out onto the lawn, calling to him, letting the action quell the confusion in her mind.

And in the repeated event there was concealed a little freshness, for she remembered how his smile, glimpsed through the window, had held a special warmth, as if he sought to reassure her. What had he said? That was lost. She walked over to the seat and sat beside him.

He had been saving a remark for the statutory and unvarying time lapse.

“Don’t worry, Janet,” he said. “It could be worse.”

“How?” she asked, but he was already answering: “We could be a day apart. 3.3077 minutes at least allows us a measure of communication.”

“It’s wonderful how philosophical you are about it,” she aid. She was alarmed at the sarcasm in her tone.

“Shall we have a talk together now?”

“Jack, I’ve been wanting to have a private talk with you for some time.”

“I?”

The tall beeches that sheltered the garden on the north side were so still that she thought, “They will look exactly the same for him as for me.”

He delivered a bulletin, looking at his watch. His wrists were thin. He appeared frailer than he had done when they left hospital. “I am aware, my darling, how painful this must be for you. We are both isolated from the other by this amazing shift of temporal function, but at least I have the consolation of experiencing the new phenomenon, whereas you”

“I?”

Talking of interstellar distances

“I was going to say that you are stuck with the same old world all of mankind has always known, but I suppose you don’t see it that way.” Evidently a remark of hers had caught up with him, for he added inconsequentially, “I’ve wanted a private talk with you.”

Janet bit off something she was going to say, for he raised a finger irritably and said, “Please time your statements, so that we do not talk at cross purposes. Confine what you have to say to essentials. Really, darling. I’m surprised you don’t do as Clem suggests, and make notes of what is said at what time.”

“That I just wanted we can’t act as if we were a board meeting. I want to know your feelings, how you are thinking,

so that I can help you, so that eventually you will be able to live a normal life again.”

He was timing it so that he answered almost at once, “I am not suffering from any mental illness, and I have completely recovered my physical health after the crash. There is no reason to foresee that my perceptions will ever lapse back into phase with yours. They have remained an unfluctuating 3.3077 minutes ahead of terrestrial time ever since our ship left the surface of Mars. “

He paused. She thought. It is now about 11.03 by my watch, and there is so much I long to say. But it’s 11.06 and a bit by his time, and he already knows I can’t say anything. It’s such an effort of endurance, talking across this three and a bit minutes; we might just as well be talking across an interstellar distance.’

Evidently he too had lost the thread of the exercise, for he smiled and stretched out a hand, holding it in the air. Janet looked round. Clem Stackpole was coming out towards them with a tray full of drinks. He set it carefully down on the lawn, and picked up a martini, the stem of which he slipped between Jack’s fingers.

“Cheers!” he said, smiling, and, “Here’s your tipple,” giving Janet her gin and tonic. He had brought himself a bottle of pale ale.

“Can you make my position clearer to Janet, Clem? She does not seem to understand it yet.”

Angrily, she turned to the behaviourist. “This was meant to be a private talk, Mr. Stackpole, between my husband and myself.”

“Sorry you’re not getting on too well, then. Perhaps I can help sort you out a bit. It is difficult, I know.”

3.3077

Powerfully, he wrenched the top off the beer bottle and poured the liquid into the glass. Sipping, he said, “We have always been used to the idea that everything moves forward in time at the same rate. We speak of the course of time, presuming it only has one rate of flow. We’ve assumed, too, that anything living on another planet in any other part of our universe might have the same rate of flow. In other words, although we’ve long been accustomed to some oddities of time, thanks to relativity theories, we have accustomed ourselves, perhaps, to certain errors of thinking. Now we’re going to have to think differently. You follow me.”

“Perfectly.”

“The universe is by no means the simple box our predecessors’ imagined. It may be that each planet is encased in its own time field, just as it is in its own gravitational field. From the evidence, it seems that Mars’s time field is 3.3077 minutes ahead of ours on Earth. We deduce this from the fact that your husband and the eight other men with him on Mars experienced no sensation of temporal difference among themselves, and were unaware that anything was untoward until they were away from Mars and attempted to get into communication again with Earth, when the temporal discrepancy at once showed up. Your husband is still living in Mars time.

Unfortunately, the other members of the crew did not survive the crash; but we can be sure that if they did, they too would suffer from the same effect. That’s clear, isn’t it?”

“Entirely. But I still cannot see why this effect, if it is as you say’”

“It’s not what I say, Janet, but the conclusion arrived at by much cleverer men than I.” He smiled as he-said that, adding parenthetically, “Not that we don’t develop and even alter our conclusions every day.”

“Then why was a similar effect not noticed when the Russians and Americans returned from the moon?”

“We don’t know. There’s so much we don’t know. We surmise that because the moon is a satellite of Earth’s, and thus within its gravitational field, there is no temporal discrepancy. But until we have more data, until we can explore further, we know so little, and can only speculate so much.

It’s like trying to estimate the runs of an entire innings when only one over has been bowled. After the expedition gets back from Venus, we shall be in a much better position to start theorising.”

“What expedition to Venus?” she asked, shocked.

“It may not leave for a year yet, but they’re speeding up the programme. That will bring us really invaluable data.”

Future time with its uses and abuses

She started to say, “But after this surely they won’t be fool enough” Then she stopped. She knew they would be fool enough. She thought of Peter saying, “I’m going to be a spaceman too. I want to be the first man on Saturn!”

The men were looking at their watches. Westermark transferred his gaze to the gravel to say, “This figure of 3.3077 is surely not a universal constant. It may vary, I think it will vary from planetary body to planetary body. My private opinion is that it is bound to be connected with solar activity in some way. If that is so, then we may find that the men returning from Venus will be perceiving on a continuum slightly in arrears of Earth time.”

He stood up suddenly, looking dismayed, the absorption gone from his face.

“That’s a point that hadn’t occurred to me,” Stackpole said, making a note. “If the expedition to Venus is primed with these points beforehand, we should have no trouble about organising their return. Ultimately, this confusion will be sorted out, and I’ve no doubt that it will eventually vastly enrich the culture of mankind. The possibilities are of such enormity that…”

“It’s awful! You’re all crazy!” Janet exclaimed. She jumped up and hurried off towards the house.

Or then again

Jack began to move after her towards the house. By his watch, which showed Earth time, it was 11.18 and twelve seconds; he thought, not the first time, that he would invest in another watch, which would be strapped to his right wrist and show Martian time. No, the one on his left wrist should show Martian time, for that was the wrist he principally consulted and the time by which he lived, even when going through the business of communicating with the earth-bound human race. He realised he was now moving ahead of Janet, by her reckoning. It would be interesting to have someone ahead of him in perception; then he would wish to converse, would want to go to the labour of it. Although it would rob him of the sensation that he was perpetually first in the universe, first everywhere, with everything dewy in that strange light Marslight! He’d call it that, till he had it classified, the romantic vision preceding the scientific, with a touch of the grand permissible before the steadying discipline closed in. Or then again, suppose they were wrong in their theories, and the perceptual effect was some freak of the long space journey itself; supposing time were quantal…

Supposing all time were quantal. After all, ageing was a matter of steps, not a smooth progress, for much of the inorganic world as for the organic.

Now he was standing quite still on the lawn. The glaze was coming through the grass, making it look brittle, almost tingeing each blade with a tiny spectrum of light. If his perceptual time were further ahead than it was now, would the Mars light be stronger, the Earth more translucent? How beautiful it would look! After a longer star journey one would return to a cobweb of a world, centuries behind one in perceptual time, a mere embodiment of light, a prism. Hungrily, he visualised it. But they needed more knowledge.

Suddenly he thought, If I could get on the Venus expedition. If the Institute’s right, I’d be perhaps six, say five and a

Half, no one can’t say but I’d be ahead of Venerean time. I must go. I’d be valuable to them. I only have to volunteer, surely.’

He did not notice Stackpole touch his arm in cordial fashion and go past him into the house. He stood looking at the ground and through it, to the stoney vales of Mars and the unguessable landscapes of Venus.

The figures move

Janet had consented to ride into town with Stackpole. He was collecting his cricket shoes, which had been restudded; she thought she might buy a roll of film for her camera. The children would like photos of her and Daddy together. Standing together.

As the car ran beside trees, their shadows flickered red and green before her vision. Stackpole held the wheel very capably, whistling under his breath. Strangely, she did not resent a habit she would normally have found irksome, taking it as a sign that he was not entirely at his ease.

“I have an awful feeling you now understand my husband better than I do,” she said.

He did not deny it. “Why do you feel that?”

“I believe he does not mind the terrible isolation he must be experiencing.”

“He’s a brave man.”

Westermark had been home a week now. Janet saw that each day they were more removed from each other, as he spoke less and stood frequently as still as a statue, gazing at the ground raptly. She thought of something she had once been afraid to utter aloud to her mother-in-law; but with Clem Stackpole she was safer.

“You know why we manage to exist in comparative harmony,” she said. He was slowing the car, half-looking at her.

“We only manage to exist by banishing all events from our lives, all children, all seasons. Otherwise we’d be faced at every moment with the knowledge of how much at odds we really are.”

Catching the note in her voice, Stackpole said soothingly, “You are every bit as brave as he is, Janet.”

“Damn being brave. What I can’t bear is nothing!”

Seeing the sign by the side of the road, Stackpole glanced into his driving mirror and changed gear. The road was deserted in front as well as behind. He whistled through his teeth again, and Janet felt compelled to go on talking.

“We’ve already interfered with time too much all of us, I mean. Time is a European invention. Goodness knows how mixed up in it we are going to get if well, if this goes on.”

She was irritated by the lack of her usual coherence.

As Stackpole spoke next, he was pulling the car into a lay-by, stopping it by overhanging bushes. He turned to her smiling tolerantly. “Time was God’s invention, if you believe in God, as I prefer to do. We observe it, tame it, exploit it where possible.”

“Exploit it!”

“You mustn’t think of the future as if we were all wading knee deep in treacle or something.” He laughed briefly, resting his hands on the steering wheel. “What lovely weather it is! I was wondering on Sunday I’m playing cricket over in the village. Would you like to come and watch the match?

And perhaps we could have tea somewhere afterwards.”

All events, all children, all seasons

She had a letter next morning from Jane, her five-year-old daughter, and it made her think. All the letter said was: “Dear Mummy, Thank you for the dollies. With love from Jane,” but Janet knew the labour that had gone into the inch-high letters. How long could she bear to leave the children away from their home and her care?

As soon as the thought emerged, she recalled that during the previous evening she had told herself nebulously that if

there was going to be ‘anything’ with Stackpole, it was as well the children would be out of the way purely, she now realised, for her convenience and for Stackpole’s. She had not thought then about the children; she had thought about

Stackpole who, despite the unexpected delicacy he had shown, was not a man she cared for.

‘And another intolerably immoral thought,’ she muttered unhappily to the empty room, ‘what alternative have I to

Stackpole?’

She knew Westermark was in his study. It was a cold day, too cold and damp for him to make his daily parade round the garden. She knew he was sinking deeper into isolation, she longed to help, she feared to sacrifice herself to that isolation, longed to stay outside it, in life. Dropping the letter, she held her head in her hands, closing her eyes as in the curved bone of her skull she heard all her possible courses of action jar together, future lifelines that annihilated each other.

As Janet stood transfixed, Westermark’s mother came into the room.

“I was looking for you,” she said. “You’re so unhappy, my dear, aren’t you?”

“Mother, people always try and hide from others how they suffer. Does everyone do it?”

“You don’t have to hide it from mechiefly, I suppose, because you can’t.”

“But I don’t know how much you suffer, and it ought to work both ways. Why do we do this awful covering up? What are we afraid of pity or derision?”

“Help, perhaps.”

“Help! Perhaps you’re right…. That’s a disconcerting thought.”

They stood there staring at each other, until the older woman said, awkwardly, “We don’t often talk like this,

Janet.”

“No.” She wanted to say more. To a stranger in a train, perhaps she would have done; here, she could not deliver.

Seeing nothing more was to be said on that subject, Mrs. Westermark said, “I was going to tell you, Janet, that I thought perhaps it would be better if the children didn’t come back here while things are as they are. If you want to go and see them and stay with them at your parents’ house, I can look after Jack and Mr. Stackpole for a week. I don’t think Jack wants to see them.”

“That’s very kind, Mother. I’ll see. I promised Clemwell, I told Mr. Stackpole that perhaps I’d go and watch him play cricket tomorrow afternoon. It’s not important, of course, but I did say anyhow, I might drive over and see the children on Monday, if you could hold the fort.”

“You’ve still plenty of time if you feel like going today. I’m sure Mr. Stackpole will understand your maternal feelings.”

“I’d prefer to leave it till Monday,” Janet said a little distantly, for she suspected now the motive behind, her mother-in-law’s suggestion.

Where the Scientific American did not reach

Jack Westermark put down the Scientific American and stared at the table top. With his right hand, he felt the beat of his heart. In the magazine was an article about him, illustrated with photographs of him taken at the Research hospital. This thoughtful article was far removed from the sensetional pieces that had appeared elsewhere, the shallow things that referred to him as The Man That Has Done More Than Einstein To Wreck Our Cosmic Picture; and for that very reason it was the more startling, and presented some aspects of the matter that Westermark himself had not considered.

As he thought over its conclusions, he rested from the effort of reading terrestrial books, and Stackpole sat by the fire, smoking a cigar and waiting to take Westermark’s dictation. Even reading a magazine represented a feat in space-time, a collaboration, a conspiracy. Stackpole turned the pages at timed intervals, Westermark read when they lay flat.

He was unable to turn them when, in their own narrow continuum, they were not being turned; to his fingers, they lay under the jelly-like glaze, that visual hallucination that represented an unconquerable cosmic inertia.

The inertia gave a special shine to the surface of the table as he stared into it and probed into his own mind to determine the truths of the Scientific American article.

The writer of the article began by considering the facts and observing that they tended to point towards the existence of local times’ throughout the universe; and that if this were so, a new explanation might be forthcoming for the recession of the galaxies and different estimates arrived at for the age of the universe (and of course for its complexity). He then proceeded to deal with the problem that vexed other writers on the subject; namely, why, if Westermark lost Earth time on Mars, he had not reciprocally lost Mars time back on Earth. This, more than anything, pointed to the fact that local times’ were not purely mechanistic but to some extent at least a psycho-biological function.

In the table top, Westermark saw himself being asked to travel again to Mars, to take part in a second expedition to those continents of russet sand where the fabric of space-time was in some mysterious and insuperable fashion 3.3077 minutes ahead of Earth norm. Would his interior clock leap forward again? What then of the sheen on things earthly?

And what would be the effect of gradually drawing away from the iron laws under which, since its scampering pleistocene infancy, humankind had lived?

Impatiently he thrust his mind forward to imagine the day when Earth harboured many local times, gleaned from voyages across the vacancies of space; those vacancies lay across time, too, and that little-understood concept (McTaggart had denied its external reality, hadn’t he?) would come to lie within the grasp of man’s understanding. Wasn’t that the ultimate secret, to be able to understand the flux in which existence is staged, as a dream is staged in the primitive reaches of the mind?

And But Would not that day bring the annihilation of Earth’s local time? That was what he had started. It could only mean that local time’ was not a product of planetary elements; there the writer of the Scientific American article had not dared to go far enough; local time was entirely a product of the psyche. That dark innermost thing that could keep accurate time even while a man lay unconscious was a mere provincial; but it could be educated to be a citizen of the universe. He saw that he was the first of a new race, unimaginable in the wildest mind a few months previously.

He was independent of the enemy that, more than Death, menaced contemporary man: Time. Locked within him was an entirety new potential. Superman had arrived.

Painfully, Superman stirred in his seat. He sat so wrapt for so long that his limbs grew stiff and dead without his noticing it.

Universal thoughts may occur if one times carefully enough one’s circumbendibus about a given table

“Dictation,” he said, and waited impatiently until the command had penetrated backwards to the limbo by the fire where Stackpole sat. What he had to say was so terribly important yet it had to wait on these people….

As was his custom, he rose and began to walk round the table, speaking in phrases quickly delivered. This was to be the testament to the new way of life….

“Consciousness is not expendable but concurrent. … There may have been many time nodes at the beginning of the human race…. The mentally deranged often revert to different time rates. For some, a day seems to stretch on forever…. We know by experience that for children time is seen in the convex mirror of consciousness, enlarged and distorted beyond its focal point….” He was momentarily irritated by the scared face of his wife appearing outside the study window, but he brushed it away and continued.

“…its focal point…. Yet man in his ignorance has persisted in pretending time was some sort of uni-directional flow, and homogenous at that …despite the evidence to the contrary…. Our conception of ourselves no, this erroneous conception has become a basic life assumption….”

Daughters of daughters

Westermark’s mother was not given to metaphysical speculation, but as she was leaving the room, she turned and said to her daughter-in-law, “You know what I sometimes think?

Jack is so strange, I wonder at nights if men and women aren’t getting more and more apart in thought and in their ways with every generation you know, almost like separate species. My generation made a great attempt to bring the two sexes together in equality and all the rest, but it seems to have come to nothing.”

“Jack will get better.” Janet could hear the lack of confidence in her own voice.

“I thought the same thing about men and women getting wider apart I mean when my husband was killed.”

Suddenly ail Janet’s sympathy was gone. She had recognised a familiar topic drifting onto the scene, knew well the careful tone that ironed away all self-pity as her mother-in-law said, “Bob was dedicated to speed, you know. That was what killed him really, not the fool backing into the road in front of him.”

“No blame was attached to your husband,” Janet said.

“You should try not to let it worry you still.”

“You see the connection though…. This progress thing.

Bob so crazy to get round the next bend first, and now Jack…. Oh well, there’s nothing a woman can do.”

She closed the door behind her. Absently, Janet picked up the message from the next generation of women: “Thank you for the dollies.”

The resolves and the sudden risks involved

He was their father. Perhaps Jane and Peter should come back, despite the risks involved. Anxiously, Janet stood there, moving herself with a sudden resolve to tackle Jack straight away. He was so irritable, so unapproachable, but at least she could observe how busy he was before interrupting him.

As she slipped into the side hall and made for the back door, she heard her mother-in-law call her. “Just a minute!” she answered.

The sun had broken through, sucking moisture from the damp garden. It was now unmistakably autumn. She rounded the corner of the house, stepped round the rose bed, and looked into her husband’s study.

Shaken, she saw he leaned half over the table. His hands were over his face, blood ran between his fingers and dripped onto an open magazine on the table top. She was aware of Stackpole sitting indifferently beside the electric fire.

She gave a small cry and ran round the house again, to be met at the back door by Mrs. Westermark.

“Oh, I was just Janet, what is it?”

“Jack, Mother! He’s had a stroke or something terrible!”

“But how do you know?”

“Quick, we must phone the hospital. I must go to him.”

Mrs. Westermark took Janet’s arm. “Perhaps we’d better leave it to Mr. Stackpole, hadn’t we. I’m afraid”

“Mother, we must do what we can. I know we’re amateurs. Please let me go.”

“No. Janet, we’re it’s their world I’m frightened. They’ll come if they want us.” She was gripping Janet in her fright.

Their wild eyes stared momentarily at each other as if seeing something else, and then Janet snatched herself away. “I must go to him,” she said.

She hurried down the hall and pushed open the study door.

Her husband stood now at the far end of the room by the window, while blood streamed from his nose.

“Jack!” she exclaimed. As she ran towards him, .a blow from the empty air struck her on the forehead, so that she staggered aside, falling against a bookcase. A shower of smaller volumes from the upper shelf fell on her and round her. Exclaiming, Stackpole dropped his notebook and ran round the table to her. Even as he went to her aid, he noted the time from his watch: 10.24.

Aid after 10.24 and the tidiness of bed

Westermark’s mother appeared in the doorway.

“Stay where you are,” Stackpole shouted, “or there will be more trouble! Janet, you see what you’ve done. Get out of here, will you? Jack, I’m right with you God knows what you’ve felt, isolated without aid for three and a third minutes!” Angrily, he went across and stood within arm’s length of his patient. He threw his handkerchief down onto the table.

“Mr. Stackpole” Westermark’s mother said tentatively from the door, an arm round Janet’s waist.

He looked back over his shoulder only long enough to say, “Get towels! Phone the Research Hospital for an ambulance and tell them to be here right away.”

By midday, Westermark was tidily in bed upstairs and the ambulance staff, who had treated him for what after all was only nosebleed, had left. Stackpole, as he turned from closing the front door, eyed the two women.

“I feel it is my duty to warn you,” he said heavily, “that another incident such as this might well prove fatal. This time we escaped very lightly. If anything else of this sort happens, I shall feel obliged to recommend to the board that Mr. Westermark is moved back to the hospital.”

Current way to define accidents

“He wouldn’t want to go,” Janet said. “Besides, you are being absurd; it was entirely an accident. Now I wish to go upstairs and see how he is.”

“Just before you go, may I point out that what happened was not an accident or not as we generally define accidents, since you saw the results of your interference through the study window before you entered. Where you were to blame”

“But that’s absurd” both women began at once. Janet went on to say, “I never would have rushed into the room as I did had. I not seen through the window that he was in trouble.”

“What you saw was the result on your husband of your later interference.”

In something like a wail, Westermark’s mother said, “I don’t understand any of this. What did Janet bump into when she ran in?”

“She ran, Mrs. Westermark, into the spot where her husband had been standing 3.3077 minutes earlier. Surely by now you have grasped this elementary business of time inertia?”

“When they both started speaking at once, he stared at them until they stopped and looked at him. Then he said, “We had better go into the living room. Speaking for myself, I would like a drink.”

He helped himself, and not until his hand was round a glass of whisky did he say, “Now, without wishing to lecture to you ladies, J think it is high time you both realised that you are not living in the old safe world of classical mechanics ruled over by a god invented by eighteenth-century enlightenment.

All that has happened here is perfectly rational, but if you are going to pretend it is beyond your female understandings”

“Mr. Stackpole,” Janet said sharply. “Can you please keep to the point without being insulting? Will you tell me why…what happened was not an accident? I understand now that when I looked through the study window I saw my husband suffering from a collision that to him had happened three and something minutes before and to me would not happen for another three and something minutes, but at that moment I was so startled that I forgot”

“No, no, your figures are wrong. The total time lapse is only 3.3077 minutes. When you saw your husband, he had been hit half that time1.65385 minutes ago, and there was another 1.65385 minutes to go before you completed the action by bursting into the room and striking him.”

“But she didn’t strike him!” the older woman cried.

Firmly, Stackpole diverted his attention long enough to reply. “She struck him at 10.24 Earth time, which equals 10.20 plus about 36 seconds Mars or his time, which equals 9.59 or whatever Neptune time, which equals 156 and. a half Sinus time. It’s a big universe, Mrs. Westermark! You will remain confused as long as you continue to confuse event with time. May I suggest you sit down and have a drink?”

“Leaving aside the figures,” Janet said, returning to the attack loathsome opportunist the man was “how can you say that what happened was no accident? You are not claiming I injured my husband deliberately, I hope? What you say suggests that I was powerless from the moment I saw him through the window.”

” ‘Leaving aside the figures …’ ” he quoted. “That’s where your responsibility lies. What you saw through the window was the result of your act; it was by then inevitable that you should complete it, for it had already been completed.”

Through the window, draughts of time blow

“I can’t understand!” she clutched her forehead, gratefully accepting a cigarette from her mother-in-law, while shrugging off her consolatory ‘Don’t try to understand, dear!’ “Supposing when I had seen Jack’s nose bleeding, I had looked at my watch and thought. It’s 10.20 or whenever it was, and he may be suffering from my interference, so I’d better not go in,’ and I hadn’t gone in? Would his nose then miraculously have healed?”

“Of course not. You take such a mechanistic view of the universe. Cultivate a mental approach, try and live in your own century! You could not think what you suggest because that is not in your nature: just as it is not in your nature to consult your watch intelligently, just as you always leave aside the figures,’ as you say. No, I’m not being personal; it’s all very feminine and appealing in a way. What I’m saying is that if before you looked into the window you had been a person to think, ‘However I see my husband now, I must recall he has the additional experience of the next 3.3077 minutes,’ then you could have looked in and seen him unharmed, and you would not have come bursting in as you did.”

She drew on her cigarette, baffled and hurt. “You’re saying I’m a danger to my own husband.”

“You’re saying that.”

“God, howl hate men!” she exclaimed. “You’re so bloody logical, so bloody smug!”

He finished his whisky and set the glass down on a table beside her so that he leant close. “You’re upset just now,” he said.

“Of course I’m upset! What do you think?” She fought a desire to cry or slap his face. She turned to Jack’s mother, who gently took her wrist.

“Why don’t you go off straight away and stay with the children for the weekend, darling? Come back when you feel like it. Jack will be all right and I can look after him as much as he wants looking after.”

She glanced about the room.

“I will. I’ll pack right away. They’ll be glad to see me.” As she passed Stackpole on the way out, she said bitterly, “At least they won’t be worrying about the local time on Sirius!”

“They may,” said Stackpole, imperturbably from the middle of the room, “have to one day.”

All events, all children, all seasons

DELUSION FOR A DRAGON SLAYER

Harlan Ellison

This is true:

Chano Pozo, the incredibly talented conga drummer of the bop ‘408, was inexplicably shot and killed by a beautiful Negress in the Rio Cafe, a Harlem bar, on December 2nd, 1948.

Dick Bong, pilot of a P-38 “Lightning” in World War Two, America’s “Ace of Aces” with forty Japanese kills to his credit, who came through the hellfire of war unscratched, perished by accident when the jet engine of a Lockheed P-80 he was test-flying “flamed-out” and quit immediately after takeoff, August 7th, 1945. There was no reason for the mechanical failure, no reason for Bong to have died.

Marilyn Monroe, an extremely attractive young woman who had only recently begun to realize she possessed an acting ability far beyond that of “sex symbol” tagged on her early in her career, during the timeless early hours of August 6th, 1962, left this life as a result of accidentally swallowing too many barbiturates. Despite lurid conjecture to the contrary, the evidence that she had been trying to phone someone for help as the tragedy coursed through her system remains inescapable. It was an accident.

William Bolitho, one of the most incisive and miraculously talented commentators on society and its psychological motivations, whose “Murder for Profit” revolutionized psychiatric and penological attitudes toward the mentalities of mass murderers, died suddenly—and again, tragically—in June of 1930, in a hospital in Avignon, victim of the mistaken judgment of an obscure French physician who let a simple case of appendicitis drop into peritonitis.

True.

All of these random deaths plucked from a staggering and nearly endless compendium of “accidental tragedies” have one thing in common. With each other, and with the death of Warren Glazer Griffin. None of them should have happened. Each of them could have been avoided, yet none of them could have been avoided. For each of them was preordained. Not in the ethereal, mystic, supernatural flummery of the Kismet-believers, but in the complex rhythmic predestination of those who have been whisked out of their own world, into the mist-centuries of their dreams.

For Chano Pozo, it was a dark and smiling woman of mystery.

For Dick Bong, a winged Fury sent to find only him.

For Marilyn Monroe, a handful of white chalk pills.

For Bolitho, an inept quack forever doomed to apologies.

And for Warren Glazer Griffin, a forty-one-year-old accountant who, despite his advanced age, was still troubled by acne, and who had never ventured farther from his own world than Tenafly, New Jersey, on a visit to relatives one June in 1959, it was a singular death: ground to pulp between the triple-fanged rows of teeth in the mouth of a seventy-eight-foot dragon in a Land That Never Existed.

Wherein lies a biography, an historical footnote, a cautionary tale, and a keynote to the meaning of life.

Or, as Goethe summed it:

“Know thyself! If I knew myself, I’d run away.”

***

The giant black “headache ball” of the wreckers struck the shell of a wall, and amid geysers of dust and powder and lath and plaster and brick and decayed wood, the third story of the condemned office building crumbled, shivered along its width and imploded, plunging in upon itself, dumping jigsaw pieces into the hollow structure. The sound was a cannonade in the early-morning eight-o-clock street.

Forty years before, an obscure billionaire named Rouse, who had maintained a penthouse love-nest in the office building, in an unfashionable section of the city even then, had caused to be installed a private gas line to the kitchen of the flat; he was a lover of money, a lover of women, and a lover of flaming desserts. A private gas line. Gas company records of this installation had been either lost, destroyed, or—as seems more likely—carefully edited to exclude mention of the line. Graft, as well as bootlegging, had aided Rouse in his climb to that penthouse. The wreckers knew nothing of the gas line, which had long since gone to disuse, and the turnoff of a small valve on the third floor, which had originally jetted the vapor to the upper floor. Having no knowledge of the line, and having cleared all safety precautions with the city gas company as to existing installations, the wreckers hurled their destructive attentions at the third story with assurance….

Warren Glazer Griffin left his home at precisely seven forty-five every weekday except Thursday (on which day he left at eight o’clock, to collect billing ledgers from his firm’s other office, farther downtown; an office that did not open till 8:15 weekdays). This was Thursday. He had run out of razor blades. That simple. He had had to pry a used blade out of the disposal niche in the blade container, and it had taken him ten extra minutes. He hurried and managed to leave the apartment house at 8:06 A.M. His routine was altered for the first time in seventeen years. That simple. Hurrying down the block to the Avenue, turning right and hesitating, realizing he could not make up the lost minutes by merely trotting (and without even recognizing the subliminal panic that gripped him at being off schedule), he dashed across the Avenue, and cut through the little service alley running between the shopping mart, still closed, and the condemned office building with its high board fence constructed of thick doors from now-demolished offices….

***

U.S. WEATHER BUREAU FORECAST: partly cloudy today with a few scattered showers. Sunny and slightly warmer tomorrow (Friday). Gusty winds. High today 62. High Friday 60, low 43. Relative humidity…

***

Forty years past, a billionaire named Rouse.

A desire for flaming desserts.

A forgotten gas main.

A struggle for a used razor blade.

A short cut through an alley.

Gusty winds…

The “headache ball” plunged once more into the third story, struck the bottled-up pressure valve; the entire side of the building erupted skyward on a spark struck by two bricks scratching together, ripping the massive iron sphere from its cable. The ball rose, arced and, borne on an unusually heavy wind, plummeted over the restraining board fence. It landed with a deafening crash in the alley.

Directly on the unsuspecting person of Warren Glazer Griffin, crushing him to little more than pulp, burying him five feet deep beneath cement and dirt and loam. Every building in the neighborhood shuddered at the impact.

And in several moments, cemetery silence fell once more in the chilly, eight-o-clock morning streets.

***

A soft, theremin humming, in little circles of sound, from all around him: the air was alive with multicolored whispers of delight.

He opened his eyes and realized he was lying on the yellow-wood, highly polished deck of a sailing vessel; to his left he could see beneath the rail a sea of purest vermilion, washing in thin lines of black and color, away behind the ship. Above him the golden silken sails billowed in the breeze, and tiny spheres of many-colored lights kept pace with the vessel, as though they were lightning bugs, sent to run convoy. He tried to stand up, and found it was not difficult: except he was now six feet three inches in height, not five feet seven.

Griffin looked down the length of his body, and for a suspended instant of eye-widening timelessness, he felt vertiginous. It was total displacement of ego. He was himself, and another himself entirely. He looked down, expecting to see the curved, pot-bellied and pimpled body he had worn for a very long time, but instead saw someone else, standing down below him, where he should have been. Oh my God, thought Warren Glazer Griffin, I’m not me.

The body that extended down to the polished deck was a handsome instrument. Composed of the finest bronzed skin tone, the most sculptured anthracite-hard musculature, proportions just the tiniest bit exaggerated; he was lovely and godlike, extremely godlike. Turning slowly, he caught his reflection in the burnished smoothness of a warrior’s bronze shield, hung on a peg at the side of the forecastle. He was Nordic blond, aquiline-nosed, steely-blue-eyed. No one can be that Aryan, was his only thought, flushed with amazement, as he saw the new face molded to the front of his head.

He felt the hilt of the sword warm against his side.

He pulled it free of its scabbard, and stared in fascination at the face of the old, gnarled marmoset-eyed wizard whose countenance was an intaglio of pitted metal and jewels and sandblast block briar; engraved there in hard relief on the handle. The face smiled gently at him.

“What it is all about, is this,” the wizard said softly, so that not even the sea birds careening over the deck would hear. “This is Heaven. But let me explain.” Griffin had not considered an interruption. He was silent and struck dumb. “Heaven is what you mix all the days of your life, but you call it dreams. You have one chance to buy your Heaven with all the intents and ethics of your life. That is why everyone considers Heaven such a lovely place. Because it is dreams, special dreams, in which you exist. What you have to do is live up to them.”

“I—” started Griffin, but the wizard cut him off with a blink.

“No, listen, please, because after this, all the magic stops, and you have to do it alone.

“You create your own Heaven, and you have the opportunity to live in it, but you have to do it on your own terms, the highest terms of which you are capable. So sail this ship through the straits, navigate the shoals, find the island, overcome the foam-devil that guards the girl, win her love, and you’ve played the game on your own terms.”

Then the wizard’s face settled back into immobility, and Warren Glazer Griffin sat down heavily on the planking of the forecastle, mouth agape, eyes wide, and the realization of it all fixed firmly—unbelievably, but firmly—in his head.

Gee whiz, thought Griffin.

The sound of rigging shrieking like terns brought him out of his middle-class stupor, and he realized the keel of the strange and wonderful wind-vessel was coming about. The steady beatbeatbeat of pole-oars against mirror waters rose to meet the descending hum of a dying breeze, and the ship moved across reflective waters toward a mile-high breaker that abruptly rose out of the sea.

Griffin realized it had not leaped from the sea bottom, as his first impression seemed to be, but had gradually grown on the horizon, some moments after the watch in the nest had hallooed its imminent appearance. Yet he had not heard any such gardyloo; he was surfeited with thoughts of this other body, the golden god with the incredibly handsome face.

“Cap’n,” said one of the hands, lumbering with sea legs toward him. “We’re hard on the straits. Most of the men’re shackled a’ready.”

Griffin nodded silently, turned to follow the seaman. They moved back toward the lazzarette, and the seaman opened the hatch, dropped through. Griffin followed close behind him, and in the smallish compartment found the other sea-hands shackled wrist and ankle to the inner keel of the hold. He gagged for a moment with the overpowering stench of salted bully beef and fish, a sickly, bittersweet smell that made his eyes smart with its intensity.

Then he moved to the seaman, who had already fastened his own ankle-shackles and one wrist manacle. He clamped the rusting manacle still undone, and now all hands aboard the wind-vessel were locked immobile.

“Good luck, Cap’n!” The last seaman smiled. And he winked. The other men joined in, in their own ways, with a dozen different accents, some in languages Griffin could not even begin to place. But all well-wishing. Griffin once more nodded in the strong, silent manner of someone other than himself, someone to the rank born.

Then he climbed out of the lazzarette and went aft to the wheel.

Overhead, the sky had darkened to a shining blackness, a patent-leather black that would have sent back inverted reflections had there been anything soaring close enough to the sky to reflect. In the mote-dancing waters of the ocean, a ghost ship sailed along upside-down, hull-to-hull with Griffin’s vessel. And above him the quaint and tittering globes of light ricocheted and multiplied, filling the sudden night with the incense of their vibrancy. Their colors began to blend, to merge, to run down the sky in washes of color that made Griffin smile, and blink and drop his mouth open with awe. It was all the fireworks of another universe, just once hurled into an onyx sky, left to burn away whatever life was possible. Yet that was merely the beginning:

The colors came. As he set his feet squarely, and the deltoids bunched furiously beneath his golden skin, the two men who were Warren Glazer Griffin began the complex water slalom that would send the vessel through the straits, past the shoals, and into the cove that lay beyond. And the colors came. The vessel tacked before the wind, which seemed to gather itself and enter in an arrowed spear-pointed direction of unity, behind the massive golden sails. The wind was with him, sending him straight for the break in the heartless stone barrier. But the colors came.

Softly at first, humming, creeping, boiling up from nowhere at the horizon line; twisting and surging like snake whirlwinds with adolescent intent; building, spiraling, climbing in vague streamers and tendrils of unconsciousness, the colors came.

In a rising, keening spiral of hysteria they came, first pulsing in primaries, then secondaries, then comminglings and off shades, and finally in colors that had no names. Colors like racing, and pungent, and far-seen shadows, and bitterness, and something that hurt, and something that pleasured. Oh, mostly the pleasures, one after another, singing, lulling, hypnotically arresting the eye as the ship sped into the heart of the maelstrom of weird, advancing, sky-eating colors. The siren colors of the straits. The colors that came from the air and the island and the world itself, which hushed and hurried across the world to here, to meet when they were needed, to stop the seamen who slid over the waves to the break in the breakwall. The colors, defense, that sent men to the bottom, their hearts bursting with songs of color and charm. The colors that top-filled a man to the brim and kept him poised there with a surface tension of joy and wonder, colors cascading like waterfalls of flowers in his head, millioncolors, blossomshades, brightnesses, joycrashing every things that made a man hurl back and strain his throat to sing sing, sing chants of amazement and forever—

—as his ship plunged like a cannonball into the reefs and shattered into a billion wooden fragments, tiny splinters of dark wood against the boiling treacherous sea, and the rocks crushed and staved in the sides, and men’s heads went to pulp as they hurtled forward and their vessel was cut out from under them, the colors the colors, the God beautiful colors!

As Griffin sang his song of triumph, the men with eyes clapped tightshut, belowdecks, saved from berserking, depending on this golden giant of a man who was their own personal this-trip God, who would bring them through the hole in the faceless evil rocks.

Griffin, singing!

Griffin, golden god from Manhattan!

Griffin, man of two skins, Chinese puzzle man within man, hands cross-locked over the wood of the wheel, tacking points this way, points that way, playing compass and swashbuckler with the deadly colors that lapped at his senses, filled his eyes with delight, clogged his nostrils with the scents of glory, all the tiny theremin hummings now merged, all the little colormotes now united, running in slippery washes down and down the sky as he hurried the vessel toward the rocks and then in one sweep as he spun spun spun the wheel two-handed across, whip whip whip, and through into the bubbling white water, with rock-teeth screeching old women along the hull of his vessel, and tearing gouged gashes of darker deepness along the planking, but through!

Griffin, who chuckled with merriment at his grandeur, his stature, his chance taking, who had risked the lives of all his men for the moment of forever to be gained on that island. And winning! Making his wager with eternity, and winning—for an instant, before the great ship struck the buried reefs that tore away the bottom of the ship; and the lazzarette filled in an instant; and his men, who trusted him not to gamble them away so cheaply, wailed till their screams became waterlogged, and were gone; and Griffin felt himself lifted, tossed, hurled, flung like a bit of suet and the thought that invaded, consumed, gnawed at him in rage and frustration: that he had defeated the siren colors, had gotten through the treacherous straits, but had lost his men, his ship, even himself, by the treachery of his own self-esteem; that he had gloated over his wondrousness, and vanity had sent him whipping farther inshore, to be dashed on reefs; and the bitterness welled in him as he struck the water with a paralyzing crash, and sank immediately beneath the boiling white-faced waves.

Out on the reefs, the wind-vessel, with its adamantine trim, with its onyx and alabaster fittings, with its silken golden sails, with its marvelous magical swiftness, sank beneath the waters without a murmur (unless those silent insane shrieggggngggg wails were the sounds of men shackled helplessly to an open coffin) and all that could be heard was the pounding war drums of the waves, and the gutted, emptying, shrill keen of an animal whose throat had been slashed—the sound of the colors fading back to their million lairs around the universe, till they would be called again. Then, after a while, even the water calmed.

***

Crickets gossiped shamelessly, close beside his head. He awoke to find his eyes open, staring up into a pale, cadaverous paper-thin cut-out that was the moon. Clouds scudding across its mottled slimness sent strange shadows washing across the night sky, the beach, the jungle, Warren Glazer Griffin.

Well, I certainly messed that up, was his first thought, and in an instant the thought was gone, and the Nordic god-man’s thoughts superimposed more strenuously. Griffin felt his arms out wide on the white sand, and scraped them across the clinging grains till he was able to jack himself up, straining his back heavily. Propped on elbows, legs spread-eagled before him, he stared out to sea, to the great barrier wall that encircled the island, and scanned the dark expanse for some sign of ship or men. There was nothing. He let his mind linger for long moments on the vanity and ego that had cost so many lives.

Then he painfully climbed to his feet, and turned to look at the island. Jungle rose up in a thick tweedy tangle, as high as the consumptive moon, and the warp of dark vine tracery merged with a woof of sounds. Massed sounds, beasts, insects, night birds, unnamable sounds that chittered and rasped and howled and shrieked—even as his men had shrieked—and the scent-sound of moist meat being ripped from the carcass of an ambushed soft creature was predominant. It was a living jungle, a presence in itself.

He pulled his sword and struck off across the strand of white shadowed sand toward the rim edge of the tangle. In there somewhere waited the girl, and the mist-devil, and the promise of life forever, here in this best of all possible worlds, his own Heaven, which he had made from a lifetime of dreams….

Yet the dream seemed relentlessly nightmarish: the jungle resisted him, clawed at him, tempted yet rebuffed him. Griffin found himself hacking at the thick-fleshed twined and interwoven wall of foliage with growing ferocity. His even white teeth, beautifully matched and level, locked in a solid enamel band, and his eyes narrowed with frenzy. The hours melted into a shapeless colloid, and he could not tell whether he was making his way through the dense greenmass, or standing still while the jungle crawled imperceptibly toward him, filling in behind the clots he was hacking away. And darkness, suffocating, in the jungle.

Abruptly, he lunged forward against a singularly rugged matting of interlocked tree branches, and hurled himself through the break, as it fell away, unresisting. He was in the clear. At the top of a rise that fell away below him in softly curved smoothness, toward a rushing stream of gently whispering white water. Around small stones it raced, gathering speed, a timorous moist animal streaking toward a far land.

Griffin found himself loping down the hill, toward the bank of the stream, and as he ran, his body grew more and more his own. The hill grew up behind him, and the stream came toward him with gentleness, and he was there: time was another thing here, not forced, not necessary, a pastel passage, without hard edges.

He followed the stream, skirting banks of thickets and trees that seemed to be windswept in their topmost branches, and the stream became a river, and the river rushed to rapids, and then suddenly there were falls. Not great thundering falls down which men might be swept in fragile canoes, but murmuring ledges and sweeps down which the white water surged sweetly, carrying tinges of color from the banks, carrying vagrant leaves and blades of grass, gently, tenderly, comfortingly. Griffin stood silently, watching the waterfall, sensing more than he saw, understanding more than even his senses could tell him. This was, indeed, the Heaven of his dreams, a place to spend the rest of forever, with the wind and the water and the world another place, another level of sensing, another bad dream conjured many long times before. This was reality, an only reality for a man whose existence had been not quite bad, merely insufficient, tenable but hardly enriching. For a man who had lived a life of not quite enough, this was all there ever could be of goodness and brilliance and light. Griffin moved toward the falls.

The darkness grew darker.

Glowing in the dimensionless whispering dimness, Griffin saw a scene that could only have come from his dreams. The woman, naked white against the ledges and slopes of the falls; water cascading down her back, across her thighs, cool against her belly, her hair streaming back and white water bubbling through the shining black veil of her hair, touching each strand, silkily shining it with moisture; her eyes closed in simple pleasure; that face, the right face, the special face, the certain face of the woman he had always looked for without looking, hunted silently for, without acknowledging the search; lusted for, without feeling worthy of the hunger.

It was the woman his finest instincts had needed to make them valid; the woman who not only gave to him, but to whom he could give; the woman of memory, of desire, of youth, of restlessness, of completion. A dream. And here, against the softspeaking bubbling water, a reality. Glowing magically in the night, the woman raised a hand languidly and with joy, simple unspoken joy, and Griffin started toward her as the mist-devil materialized. Out of the foam spray, out of the night, out of the suddenly rising chill fog and vapor and cloud-slime, out of starshine and evil mists without proper names, the devil that guarded this woman of visions, materialized. Giant, gigantic, massive, rising higher and higher, larger, more intensely defined against the night, the devil spread across the sky in a towering, smooth-edged reality.

Great sad eyes, the white molten centers of ratholes in which whirlwinds lived. A brow: massive leaded furrows drawing down in unctuous pleasure at sight of the woman; creature, this horrendous creature, this gigantic filth, liaison with white flesh? The thought skittered like a poisoned rodent across the floor of Griffin’s mind, like a small creature with one leg torn off, pain and blood-red ganglia of conception, then lost itself in the bittersweet crypt beneath thoughts: too repugnant, too monstrous for continued examination. And the mist-devil rose and rose and expanded, and bellows-blew its chest to horizon-filling proportions. Griffin fell back into shadows lest he be seen.

More, greater, still more massive it rose, filling the night sky till it obscured the moon, till nightbirds lived in its face, till molten tremblings—the very stars—served it as exhalations of breath. The mouth of a maniac millions magnified, was its mouth. Terror and fear and whimperings from far underground were the lines of character in a face incalculably old, ancient, decayed with a time that could not be called time by men. And it was one with this woman. It consorted, filthy liaison, subliminal haunted Pleistocene gonadal urgings, it and woman, force incarnate and gentle labial moistures. This: the terrible end-hunger of a million billion eons of forced abstinence.

Forever paramour, the eternity lecher, the consumed-by-desire that rose and rose and blotted the world with its bulk. The mist-devil Warren Glazer Griffin had to kill, before he could live forever in his dreams.

Griffin stood back in shadows, trembling within the golden body he wore. Now, abruptly, he was two men once again. The god with his sword, the mortal with his fear. And he swore to himself that he could not do it, could not—even crying inside that poor glorious shell—and could not, and was terribly afraid. But then, as he watched, the mist-devil imploded, drew in upon itself, shrinking shrinking shrinking down and down and down into a smaller tighter neater less infinitely tinier replica of itself, like a gas-filled balloon suddenly released from the hand of a child, whipping, snapping, spinning through the air growing smaller as it lost its muscled tautness….

Then the mist-devil became the size of a man.

And it went to the woman.

And they made love.

Griffin watched in disgust and loathing as the creature that was age, that was night, that was fear, that was everything save the word human, placed hands on white breasts, placed lips on pliant red mouth, placed thighs around belly, and the woman ‘s arms came up and embraced the creature of always, and they locked in twisting union, there in the white bubbling water, with the stars shrieking overhead and the moon a bloated madness careening down a sinkhole of space, as Warren Glazer Griffin watched the woman of all his thoughts take in the manhood of something anything but man. And silently, like a footpad, Griffin crept up behind the devil of mist, consumed in trembling consummation of desire, and locking his wet and sticky hands about the hilt of the weapon, he raised it over his head, spread-legged like an executioner, and drove the blade viciously, but at an angle, downdowndown and with the thickrasping crunch of metal through meat, into and out the other side of the neck of the creature.

It drew in a hideous world-load of air, gasping it up and into torn flesh, a rattling distended neck-straining blowfish mass of air, that ended with a sound so high and pathetic that skin prickled up and down Griffin’s cheeks, his neck, his back, and the monstrous creature reached off to nowhere to pull out the insane iron that had destroyed it, and the hand went to another location, and the blade was ripped free by Griffin, as the devil rose off the woman, dripping blood and dripping the fluid of love and dripping life away in every instant, careening into the falls with deadfish stains of all-colored blood in the wake, and turned once, to stare full into Griffin’s face with a look that denounced him:

From behind!

From behind!

Was gone. Was dead. Was floated down waterfalls to deep Stygian pools of refuse and rubble and rust. To silt bottoms where nothing mattered, but gone.

Leaving Warren Glazer Griffin to stand with blood that had spurted up across his wide golden chest, staring down at the woman of his dreams, whose eyes were cataracted with frenzy and fear. All the dream orgies of his life, all the wild couplings of his adolescent nightmares. all the wants and hungers and needs of his woman sensings, were here.

The girl gave only one shrill howl before he took her. He had thoughts all during the frantic struggle and just at the penetration: womanwhore slutlover trollopmine over and over and over and over and when he rose from her, the eyes that stared back at him, like leaves in snow, on the first day of winter. Empty winds howled down out of the tundras of his soul. This was the charnel house of his finest fantasies. The burial ground of his forever. The garbage dump, the slain meat, the putrefying reality of his dreams and his Heaven.

Griffin stumbled away from her, hearing the shrieks of men needlessly drowned by his vanity. hearing the voiceless accusation of the devil proclaiming cowardice, hearing the orgasm-condemnation of lust that was never love, of brute desire that was never affection, and realizing at last that these were the real substances of his nature, the true faces of his sins, the marks in the ledger of a life he had never led, yet had worshipped silently at an altar of evil.

All these thoughts, as the guardian of Heaven, the keeper at the gate, the claimer of souls, the weigher of balances, advanced on him through the night.

Griffin looked up and had but a moment to realize he had not succeeded in winning his Heaven…as the seventy-eight-foot creature he could have called nothing less than a dragon opened its mouth that was all the world and judgment, and ground him to senseless pulp between rows of triple-fanged teeth.

***

When they dug the body out of the alley, it made even the hardened construction workers and emergency squad cops ill. Not one bone was left unbroken. The very flesh seemed to have been masticated as if by a nation of cannibal dogs. Even so, the three inured excavators who finally used winding sheets and shovels to bring the shapeless mess up from its five-foot grave agreed that it was incredible, totally past belief, that the head and face were untouched.

And they all agreed that the expression on the face was not one of happiness. There were many possible explanations for that expression, but no one would have said terror, for it was not terror. They would not have said helplessness, for it was not that, either. They might have settled on a pathetic sense of loss, had their sensibilities run that deep, but none of them would have felt that the expression said, with great finality: a man may truly live in his dreams, his noblest dreams, but only, only if he is worthy of those dreams.

It did not rain that night, anywhere in the known universe.

Even God needs good rolling stock to get things done.

THE SECRET PLACE

Richard McKenna

This morning my son asked me what I did in the war. He’s fifteen and I don’t know why he never asked me before. I don’t know why I never anticipated the question.

He was just leaving for camp, and I was able to put him off by saying I did government work. He’ll be two weeks at camp. As long as the counselors keep pressure on him, he’ll do well enough at group activities. The moment they relax it, he’ll be off studying an ant colony or reading one of his books. He’s on astronomy now. The moment he comes home, he’ll ask me again just what I did in the war, and I’ll have to tell him.

But I don’t understand just what I did in the war. Sometimes I think my group fought a death fight with a local myth and only Colonel Lewis realized it. I don’t know who won.

All I know is that war demands of some men risks more obscure and ignoble than death in battle. I know it did of me…

***

It began in 1931, when a local boy was found dead in the desert near Barker, Oregon. He had with him a sack of gold ore and one thumb-sized crystal of uranium oxide. The crystal ended as a curiosity in a Salt Lake City assay office until, in 1942, it became of strangely great importance. Army agents traced its probable origin to a hundred-square-mile area near Barker. Dr. Lewis was called to duty as a reserve colonel and ordered to find the vein. But the whole area was overlain by thousands of feet of Miocene lava flows and of course it was geological insanity to look there for a pegmatite vein. The area had no drainage pattern and had never been glaciated. Dr. Lewis protested that the crystal could have gotten there only by prior human agency.

It did him no good. He was told he’s not to reason why.

People very high up would not be placated until much money and scientific effort had been spent in a search. The army sent him young geology graduates, including me, and demanded progress reports. For the sake of morale, in a kind of frustrated desperation, Dr. Lewis decided to make the project a model textbook exercise in mapping the number and thickness of the basalt beds over the search area all the way down to the prevolcanic Miocene surface. That would at least be a useful addition to Columbia Plateau lithology. It would also be proof positive that no uranium ore existed there, so it was not really cheating.

That Oregon countryside was a dreary place. The search area was flat, featureless country with black lava outcropping everywhere through scanty gray soil in which sagebrush grew hardly knee high. It was hot and dry in summer and dismal with thin snow in winter. Winds howled across it at all seasons. Barker was about a hundred wooden houses on dusty streets, and some hay farms along a canal. All the young people were away at war or war jobs, and the old people seemed to resent us. There were twenty of us, apart from the contract drill crews who lived in their own trailer camps, and we were gown against town, in a way. We slept and ate at Colthorpe House, a block down the street from our headquarters. We had our own “gown” table there, and we might as veil have been men from Mars.

I enjoyed it, just the same. Dr. Lewis treated us like students, with lectures and quizzes and reading. He was a fine teacher and a brilliant scientist, and we loved him.

He gave us all a turn at each phase of the work. I started on surface mapping and then worked with the drill crews, who were taking cores through the basalt and into the granite thousands of feet beneath. Then I worked on taking gravimetric and seismic readings. We had fine team spirit and we all knew we were getting priceless training in field geophysics. I decided privately that after the war I would take my doctorate in geophysics. Under Dr. Lewis, of course.

***

In early summer of 1944 the field phase ended. The contract drillers left. We packed tons of well logs and many boxes of gravimetric data sheets and seismic tapes for a move to Dr. Lewis’s Midwestern university. There we would get more months of valuable training while we worked our data into a set of structure contour maps. We were all excited and talked a lot about being with girls again and going to parties.

Then the army said part of the staff had to continue the field search. For technical compliance, Dr. Lewis decided to leave one man, and he chose me.

It hit me hard. It was like being flunked out unfairly. I thought he was heartlessly brusque about it.

“Take a jeep run through the area with a Geiger once a day,” he said. “Then sit in the office and answer the phone.”

“What if the army calls when I’m away?” I asked sullenly.

“Hire a secretary,” he said. “You’ve an allowance for that.”

So off they went and left me, with the title of field chief and only myself to boss. I felt betrayed to the hostile town. I decided I hated Colonel Lewis and wished I could get revenge. A few days later old Dave Gentry told me how.

He was a lean, leathery old man with a white mustache and I sat next to him in my new place at the “town” table. Those were grim meals. I heard remarks about healthy young men skulking out of uniform and wasting tax money. One night I slammed my fork into my half-emptied plate and stood up.

“The army sent me here and the army keeps me here,” I told the dozen old men and women at the table. “I’d like to go overseas and cut Japanese throats for you kind hearts and gentle people, I really would! Why don’t you all write your Congressman?”

I stamped outside and stood at one end of the veranda, boiling. Old Dave followed me out.

“Hold your horses, son,” he said. “They hate the government, not you. But government’s like the weather, and you’re a man they can get aholt of.”

“With their teeth,” I said bitterly.

“They got reasons,” Dave said. “Lost mines ain’t supposed to be found the way you people are going at it. Besides that, the Crazy Kid mine belongs to us here in Barker.”

He was past seventy and he looked after horses in the local feedyard. He wore a shabby, open vest over faded suspenders and gray flannel shirts and nobody would ever have looked for wisdom in that old man. But it was there.

“This is big, new, lonesome country and it’s hard on people,” he said. “Every town’s got a story about a lost mine or a lost gold cache. Only kids go looking for it. It’s enough for most folks just to know it’s there. It helps ‘em to stand the country.”

“I see,” I said. Something stirred in the back of my mind.

“Barker never got its lost mine until thirteen years ago,”

Dave said. “Folks just naturally can’t stand to see you people find it this way, by main force and so soon after.”

“We know there isn’t any mine,” I said. “We’re just proving it isn’t there.”

“If you could prove that, it’d be worse yet,” he said. “Only you can’t. We all saw and handled that ore. It was quartz, just rotten with gold in wires and flakes. The boy went on foot from his house to get it. The lode’s got to be right close by out there.”

He waved toward our search area. The air above it was luminous with twilight and I felt a curious surge of interest.

Co’onel Lewis had always discouraged us from speculating on that story. If one of us brought it up, I was usually the one who led the hooting and we all suggested he go over the search area with a dowsing rod. It was an article of faith with us that the vein did not exist. But now I was all alone and my own fie’d boss.

We each put up one foot on the veranda rail and rested our arms on our knees. Dave bit off a chew of tobacco and told me about Owen Price.

“He was always a crazy kid and I guess he read every book in town,” Dave said. “He had a curious heart, that boy.”

I’m no folklorist, but even I could -ee how myth elements we’e already creeping into the story. For one thing, Dave insisted the boy’s shirt was torn off and he had lacerations on his back.

“Like a cougar clawed him.” Dave said. “Only they ain’t never been cougars in that desert. We backtracked that boy till his trail crossed itself so many times it was no use, but we never found one cougar track.”

I could discount that stuff, of course, but still the story gripped me. Maybe it was Dave’s slow, sure voice; perhaps the queer twilight; possibly my own wounded pride. I thought of how great lava upwellings sometimes tear loose and carry along huge masses of the country rock. Maybe such an erratic mass lay out there, perhaps only a few hundred feet across and so missed by our drill cores, but rotten with uranium. If I could find it, I would make a fool of Colonel Lewis. I would discredit the whole science of geology. I, Duard Campbell, the despised and rejected one, could do that. The front of my mind shouted that it was nonsense, but something far back in my mind began composing a devastating letter to Colonel Lewis and comfort flowed into me.

“There’s some say the boy’s youngest sister could tell where he found it, if she wanted,” Dave said. “She used to go into that desert with him a lot. She took on pretty wild when it happened and then was struck dumb, but I hear she talks again now.” He shook his head. “Poor little Helen. She promised to be a pretty girl.”

“Where does she live?” I asked.

“With her mother in Salem,” Dave said. “She went to business school and I hear she works for a lawyer there.”

Mrs. Price was a flinty old woman who seemed to control her daughter absolutely. She agreed Helen would be my secretary as soon as I told her the salary. I got Helen’s security clearance with one phone call; she had already been investigated as part of tracing that uranium crystal. Mrs. Price arranged for Helen to stay with a family she knew in Barker, to protect her reputation. It was in no danger. I meant to make love to her, if I had to, to charm her out of her secret, if she had one, but I would not harm her. I knew perfectly well that I was only playing a game called “The Revenge of Duard Campbell.” I knew I would not find any uranium.

Helen was a plain little girl and she was made of frightened ice. She wore low-heeled shoes and cotton stockings and plain dresses with white cuffs and collars. Her one good feature was her flawless fair skin against which her peaked, black Welsh eyebrows and smoky blue eyes gave her an elfin look at times.

She liked to sit neatly tucked into herself, feet together, elbows in, eyes cast down, voice hardly audible, as smoothly self-contained as an egg. The desk I gave her faced mine and she sat like that across from me and did the busy work I gave her and I could not get through to her at all.

I tried joking and I tried polite little gifts and attentions, and I tried being sad and needing sympathy. She listened and worked and stayed as far away as the moon. It was only after two weeks and by pure accident that I found the key to her.

I was trying the sympathy gambit. I said it was not so bad, being exiled from friends and family, but what I could not stand was the dreary sameness of that search area. Every spot was like every other spot and there was no single, recognizable place in the whole expanse. It sparked something in her and she roused up at me.

“It’s full of just wonderful places,” she said.

“Come out with me in the jeep and show me one,” I challenged.

She was reluctant, but I hustled her along regardless. I guided the jeep between outcrops, jouncing and lurching.

I had our map photographed on my mind and I knew where we were every minute, but only by map coordinates. “The desert had our marks on it: well sites, seismic blast holes, wooden stakes, cans, bottles and papers blowing in that everlasting wind, and it was all dismally the same anyway.

“Tell me when we pass a ‘place’ and I’ll stop,” I said.

“It’s all places,” she said. “Right here’s a place.”

I stopped the jeep and looked at her in surprise. Her voice was strong and throaty. She opened her eyes wide and smiled; I had never seen her look like that.

“What’s special that makes it a place?” I asked.

She did not answer. She got out and walked a few steps.

Her whole posture was changed. She almost danced along. I followed and touched her shoulder.

“Tell me what’s special,” I said.

She faced around and stared right past me. She had a new grace and vitality and she was a very pretty girl.

“It’s where all the dogs are,” she said.

“Dogs?”

I looked around at the scrubby sagebrush and thin soil and ugly black rock and back at Helen. Something was wrong.

“Big, stupid dogs that go in herds and eat grass,” she said.

She kept turning and gazing. “Big cats chase the dogs and eat them. The dogs scream and scream. Can’t you hear them?”

“That’s crazy!” I said. “What’s the matter with you?”

I might as well have slugged her. She crumpled instantly back into herself and I could hardly hear her answer.

“I’m sorry. My brother and I used to play out fairy tales here. All this was a kind of fairyland to us.” Tears formed in her eyes. “I haven’t been here since… I forgot myself. I’m sorry.”

I had to swear I needed to dictate “field notes” to force Helen into that desert again. She sat stiffly with pad and pencil in the jeep while I put on my act with the Geiger and rattled off jargon. Her lips were pale and compressed and I could see her fighting against the spell the desert had for her, and I could see her slowly losing.

She finally broke down into that strange mood and I took good care not to break it. It was weird but wonderful, and I got a lot of data. I made her go out for “field notes” every morning and each time it was easier to break her down. Back in the office she always froze again and I marveled at how two such different persons could inhabit the same body. I called her two phases “Office Helen” and “Desert Helen.”

I often talked with old Dave on the veranda after dinner.

One night he cautioned me.

“Folks here think Helen ain’t been right in the head since her brother died,” he said. “They’re worrying about you and her.”

“I feel like a big brother to her,” I said. “I’d never hurt her, Dave. If we find the lode, I’ll stake the best claim for her.”

He shook his head. I wished I could explain to him how it was only a harmless game I was playing and no one would ever find gold out there. Yet, as a game, it fascinated me.

Desert Helen charmed me when, helplessly, she had to uncover her secret life. She was a little girl in a woman’s body. Her voice became strong and breathless with excitement and she touched me with the same wonder that turned her own face vivid and elfin. She ran laughing through the black rocks and scrubby sagebrush and momentarily she made them beautiful. She would pull me along by the hand and sometimes we ran as much as a mile away from the jeep. She treated me as if I were a blind or foolish child.

“No, no, Duard, that’s a cliff!” she would say, pulling me back.

She would go first, so I could find the stepping stones across streams. I played up. She pointed out woods and streams and cliffs and castles. There were shaggy horses with claws, golden birds, camels, witches, elephants and many other creatures. I pretended to see them all, and it made her trust me. She talked and acted out the fairy tales she had once played with Owen. Sometimes he was enchanted and sometimes she, and the one had to dare the evil magic of a witch or giant to rescue the other. Sometimes I was Duard and other times I almost thought I was Owen.

Helen and I crept into sleeping castles, and we hid with pounding hearts while the giant grumbled in search of us and we fled, hand in hand, before his wrath.

Well, I had her now. I played Helen’s game, but I never lost sight of my own. Every night I sketched in on my map whatever I had learned that day of the fairyland topography.

Its geomorphology was remarkably consistent.

When we played, I often hinted about the giant’s treasure.

Helen never denied it existed, but she seemed troubled and evasive about it. She would put her finger to her lips and look at me with solemn, round eyes.

“You only take the things nobody cares about,” she would say. “If you take the gold or jewels, it brings you terrible bad luck.”

“I got a charm against bad luck and I’ll let you have it too,” I said once. “It’s the biggest, strongest charm in the whole world.”

“No. It all turns into trash. It turns into goat beans and dead snakes and things,” she said crossly. “Owen told me. It’s a rule, in fairyland.”

Another time we talked about it as we sat in a gloomy ravine near a waterfall. We had to keep our voices low or we would wake up the giant. The waterfall was really the giant snoring and it was also the wind that blew forever across that desert.

“Doesn’t Owen ever take anything?” I asked.

I had learned by then that I must always speak of Owen in the present tense.

“Sometimes he has to,” she said. “Once right here the witch had me enchanted into an ugly toad. Owen put a flower on my head and that made me be Helen again.”

“A really truly flower? That you could take home with you?”

“A red and yellow flower bigger than my two hands,” she said. “I tried to take it home, but all the petals came off.”

“Does Owen ever take anything home?”

“Rocks, sometimes,” she said. “We keep them in a secret nest in the shed. We think they might be magic eggs.”

I stood up. “Come and show me.”

She shook her head vigorously and drew back. “I don’t want to go home,” she said. “Not ever.”

She squirmed and pouted, but I pulled her to her feet.

“Please, Helen, for me,” I said. “Just for one little minute.”

I pulled her back to the jeep and we drove to the old Price place. I had never seen her look at it when we passed it and she did not look now. She was freezing fast back into Office Helen. But she led me around the sagging old house with its broken windows and into a tumbledown shed. She scratched away some straw in one corner, and there were the rocks. I did not realize how excited I was until disappointment hit me like a blow in the stomach.

They were worthless water worn pebbles of quartz and rosy granite. The only thing special about them was that they could never have originated on that basalt desert.

After a few weeks we dropped the pretense of field notes and simply went into the desert to play. I had Helen’s fairyland almost completely mapped. It seemed to be a recent fault block mountain with a river parallel to its base and a gently sloping plain across the river. The scarp face was wooded and cut by deep ravines and it had castles perched on its truncated spurs. I kept checking Helen on it and never found her inconsistent. Several times when she was in doubt I was able to tell her where she was, and that let me even more deeply into her secret life. One morning I discovered just how deeply.

She was sitting on a log in the forest and plaiting a little basket out of fern fronds. I stood beside her. She looked up at me and smiled.

“What shall we play today, Owen?” she asked.

I had not expected that, and I was proud of how quickly I rose to it. I capered and bounded away and then back to her and crouched at her feet.

“Little sister, little sister. I’m enchanted,” I said. “Only you in all the world can uncharm me.”

“I’ll uncharm you,” she said, in that little girl voice. “What are you, brother?”

“A big, black dog,” I said. “A wicked giant named Lewis Rawbones keeps me chained up behind his castle .while he takes all the other dogs out hunting.”

She smoothed her gray skirt over her knees. Her mouth drooped.

“You’re lonesome and you howl all day and you howl all night,” she said. “Poor doggie.”

I threw back my head and howled.

“He’s a terrible, wicked giant and he’s got all kinds of terrible magic,” I said. “You mustn’t be afraid, little sister. As soon as you uncharm me I’ll be a handsome prince and I’ll cut off his head.”

“I’m not afraid.” Her eyes sparkled. “I’m not afraid of fire or snakes or pins or needles or anything.”

“I’ll take you away to my kingdom and we’ll live happily ever afterward. You’ll be the most beautiful queen in the world and everybody will love you.”

I wagged my tail and laid my head on her knees. She stroked my silky head and pulled my long black ears.

“Everybody will love me,” She was very serious now. “Will magic water uncharm you, poor old doggie?”

“You have to touch my forehead with a piece of the giant’s treasure,” I said. “That’s the only onliest way to uncharm me.”

I felt her shrink away from me. She stood up, her face suddenly crumpled with grief and anger.

“You’re not Owen, you’re just a man! Owen’s enchanted and I’m enchanted too and nobody will ever uncharm us!”

She ran away from me and she was already Office Helen by the time she reached the jeep.

After that day she refused flatly to go into the desert with me. It looked as if my game was played out. But I gambled that Desert Helen could still hear me, underneath somewhere, and I tried a new strategy. The office was an upstairs room over the old dance hall and, I suppose, in frontier days skirmishing had gone on there between men and women. I doubt anything went on as strange as my new game with Helen.

I always had paced and talked while Helen worked. Now I began mixing common-sense talk with fairyland talk and I kept coming back to the wicked giant, Lewis Rawbones.

Office Helen tried not to pay attention, but now and then I caught Desert Helen peeping at me out of her eyes. I spoke of my blighted career as a geologist and how it would be restored to me if I found the lode. I mu’sed on how I would live and work in exotic places and how I would need a wife to keep house for me and help with my paperwork. It disturbed Office Helen. She made typing mistakes and dropped things. I kept it up for days, trying for just the right mixture of fact and fantasy, and it was hard on Office Helen.

One night old Dave warned me again.

“Helen’s looking peaked, and there’s talk around. Miz Fowler says Helen don’t sleep and she cries at night and she won’t tell Miz Fowler what’s wrong. You don’t happen to know what’s bothering her, do you?”

“I only talk business stuff to her,” I said. “Maybe she’s homesick. I’ll ask her if she wants a vacation.” I did not like the way Dave looked at me. “I haven’t hurt her. I don’t mean her any harm, Dave,” I said.

“People get killed for what they do, not for what they mean,” he said. “Son, there’s men in this here town would kill you quick as a coyote, if you hurt Helen Price.”

I worked on Helen all the next day and in the afternoon I hit just the right note and I broke her defenses. I was not prepared for the way it worked out. I had just said, “All life is a kind of playing. If you think about it right, everything we do is a game.” She poised her pencil and looked straight at me, as she had never done in that office, and I felt my heart speed up.

“You taught me how to play, Helen. I was so serious that I didn’t know how to play.”

“Owen taught me to play. He had magic. My sisters couldn’t play anything but dolls and rich husbands and I hated them.”

Her eyes opened wide and her lips trembled and she was almost Desert Helen right there in the office

“There’s magic and enchantment in regular life, if you look at it right,” I said. “Don’t you think so, Helen?”

“I know it!” she said. She turned pale and dropped her pencil. “Owen was enchanted into having a wife and three daughters and he was just a boy. But he was the only man we had and all of them but me hated him because we were so poor.” She began to tremble and her voice went flat. “He couldn’t stand it. He took the treasure and it killed him.”

Tears ran down her cheeks. “I tried to think he was only enchanted into play-dead and if I didn’t speak or laugh for seven years, I’d uncharm him.”

She dropped her head on her hands. I was alarmed. I came over and put my hand on her shoulder.

“I did speak.” Her shoulders heaved with sobs. “They made me speak, and now Owen won’t ever come back.”

I bent and put my arm across her shoulders.

“Don’t cry, Helen. He’ll come back,” I said. “There are other magics to bring him back.”

I hardly knew what I was saying. I was afraid of what I had done, and I wanted to comfort her. She jumped up and threw off my arm.

“I can’t stand it! I’m going home!”

She ran out into the hall and down the stairs and from the window I saw her run down the street, still crying. All of a sudden my game seemed cruel and stupid to me and right that moment I stopped it. I tore up my map of fairyland and my letters to Colonel Lewis and I wondered how in the world I could ever have done all that.

After dinner that night old Dave motioned me out to one end of the veranda. His face looked carved out of wood.

“I don’t know what happened in your office today, and for your sake I better not find out. But you send Helen back to her mother on the morning stage, you hear me?”

“All right, if she wants to go,” I said. “I can’t just fire her.”

“I’m speaking for the boys. You better put her on that morning stage, or we’ll be around to talk to you.”

“All right, I will, Dave.”

I wanted to tell him how the game was stopped now and how I wanted a chance to make things up with Helen, but I thought I had better not. Dave’s voice was flat and savage with contempt and, old as he was, he frightened me.

Helen did not come to work in the morning. At nine o’clock I went out myself for the mail. I brought a large mailing tube and some letters back to the office. The first letter I opened was from Dr. Lewis, and almost like magic it solved all my problems.

On the basis of his preliminary structure contour maps Dr. Lewis had gotten permission to close out the field phase.

Copies of the maps were in the mailing tube, for my information. I was to hold an inventory and be ready to turn everything over to an army quartermaster team coming in a few days. There was still a great mass of data to be worked up in refining the maps. I was to join the group again and I would have a chance at the lab work after all.

I felt pretty good. I paced and whistled and snapped my fingers. I wished Helen would come, to help on the inventory.

Then I opened the tube and looked idly at the maps. There were a lot of them, featureless bed after bed of basalt, like layers of a cake ten miles across. But when I came to the bottom map, of the prevolcanic Miocene landscape, the hair on my neck stood up.

I had made that map myself. It was Helen’s fairyland. The topography was point by point the same.

I clenched my fists and stopped breathing. Then it hit me a second time, and the skin crawled up my back.

The game was real. I couldn’t end it. All the time the game had been playing me. It was still playing me.

I ran out and down the street and overtook old Dave hurrying toward the feedyard. He had a holstered gun on each hip.

“Dave, I’ve got to find Helen,” I said.

“Somebody seen her hiking into the desert just at daylight,” he said. “I’m on my way for a horse.” He did not slow his stride. “You better get out there in your stinkwagon. If you don’t find her before we do, you better just keep on going, son.”

I ran back and got the jeep and roared it out across the scrubby sagebrush. I hit rocks and I do not know why I did not break something. I knew where to go and feared what I would find there. I knew I loved Helen Price more than my own life and I knew I had driven her to her death.

I saw her far off, running and dodging, I headed the jeep to intercept her and I shouted, but she neither saw me nor heard me. I stopped and jumped out and ran after her and the world darkened. Helen was all I could see, and I could not catch up with her.

“Wait for me, little sister!” I screamed after her. “I love you, Helen! Wait for me!”

She stopped and crouched and I almost ran over her. I knelt and put my arms around her and then it was on us.

They say in an earthquake, when the direction of up and down tilts and wobbles, people feel a fear that drives them mad if they can not forget it afterward. This was worse. Up and down and here and there and now and .then all rushed together. The wind roared through the rock beneath us and the air thickened crushingly above our heads. I know we clung to each other, and we were there for each other while nothing else was and that is all I know, until we were in the jeep and I was guiding it back toward town as headlong as I had come.

Then the world had shape again under a bright sun. I saw a knot of horsemen on the horizon. They were heading for where Owen had been found. That boy had run a long way, alone and hurt and burdened.

I got Helen up to the office. She sat at her desk with her head down on her hands and she quivered violently. I kept my arm around her.

“It was only a storm inside our two heads, Helen,” I said, over and over. “Something black blew away out of us. The game is finished and we’re free and I love you.”

Over and over I said that, for my sake as well as hers. I meant and believed it. I said she was my wife and we would marry and go a thousand miles away from that desert to raise our children. She quieted to a trembling, but she would not speak. Then I heard hoofbeats and the creak of leather in the street below and then I heard slow footsteps on the stairs.

Old Dave stood in the doorway. His two guns looked as natural on him as hands and feet. He looked at Helen, bowed over the desk, and then at me, standing beside her.

“Come on down, son. The boys want to talk to you,” he said.

I followed him into the hall and stopped.

“She isn’t hurt,” I said. “The lode is really out there, Dave, but nobody is ever going to find it.”

“Tell that to the boys.”

“We’re closing out the project in a few more days,” I said.

“I’m going to marry Helen and take her away with me.”

“Come down or we’ll dra” you down!” he said harshly.

“We’ll send Helen back to her mother.”

I was afraid. I did not know what to do, “No, you won’t send me back to my mother!”

It was Helen beside me in the hall. She was Desert Helen, but grown up and wonderful. She was pale, pretty, aware and sure of herself.

“I’m going with Duard,” she said. “Nobody in the world is ever going to send me around like apackage again.”

Dave rubbed his jaw and squinted his eyes at her.

“I love her, Dave,” I said. “I’ll take care of her all my life.”

I put my left arm around her and she nestled against me.

The tautness went out of old Dave and he smiled. He kept his eyes on Helen.

“Little Helen Price,” he said, wonderingly. “Whoever would’ve thought it?” He reached out and shook us both gently. “Bless you youngsters,” he said, and blinked his eyes.

“I’ll tell the boys it’s all right.”

He turned and went slowly down the stairs. Helen and I looked at each other, and I think she saw a new face too.

That was sixteen years ago. I am a professor myself now, graying a bit at the temples. I am as positivistic a scientist as you will find anywhere in the Mississippi drainage basin.

When I tell a seminar student “That assertion is operationally meaningless,” I can make it sound downright obscene. The students blush and hate me, but it is for their own good.

Science is the only safe game, and it’s safe only if it is kept pure. I work hard at that, I have yet to meet the student I cannot handle.

My son is another matter. We named him Owen Lewis, and he has Helen’s eyes and hair and complexion. He learned to read on the modern sane and sterile children’s books. We haven’t a fairy tale in the house but I have a science library.

And Owen makes fairy tales out of science. He is taking the measure of space and time now, with Jeans and Eddington.

He cannot possibly understand a tenth of what he reads, ill the way I understand it. But he understands all of it in some other way privately his own.

Not long ago he said to me, “You know, Dad, it isn’t only space that’s expanding. Time’s expanding too, and that’s what makes us keep getting farther away from when we used to be.”

And I have to tell him just what I did in the war. I know I found manhood and a wife. The how and why of it I think and hope I am incapable of fully understanding. But Ov’en has, through Helen, that strangely curious heart. I’m afraid.

I’m afraid he will understand.

MISTER JESTER

Fred Saberhagen

Men might explain their victories by compiled statistics on armament; by the imponderable value of one man; perhaps by the precise pathway chosen by a surgeon’s knife.

But for some victories no realistic explanation could be found. On one lonely world decades of careless safety had left the people almost without defense; then at last a berserker with all its power came upon them.

Behold and share their laughter!

Defeated in battle, the berserker-computers saw that refitting, repair, and the construction of new machines were necessary. They sought out sunless, hidden places, where minerals were available but where men who were now as often the hunters as the hunted were not likely to show up. And in such secret places they set up automated shipyards.

To one such concealed shipyard, seeking repair, there came a berserker. Its hull had been torn open in a recent fight, and it had suffered severe internal damage. It collapsed rather than landed on the dark planetoid, beside the half-finished hull of a new machine. Before emergency repairs could be started, the engines of the damaged machine failed, its emergency power failed, and like a wounded living thing it died.

The shipyard-computers were capable of wide improvisation. They surveyed the extent of the damage, weighed various courses of action, and then swiftly began to cannibalize. Instead of embodying the deadly purpose of the new machine in a new force-field brain, following the replication-instructions of the Builders, they took the old brain with many another part from the wreck.

The Builders had not foreseen that this might happen, and so the shipyard-computers did not know that in the force-field brain of each original berserker there was a safety switch. The switch was there because the original machines had been launched by living Builders, who had wanted to survive while testing their own life-destroying creations.

When the brain was moved from one hull to another, the safety switch reset itself.

The old brain awoke in control of a mighty new machine, of weapons that could sterilize a planet, of new engines to hurl the whole mass far faster than light.

But there was, of course, no Builder present, and no timer, to turn off the simple safety switch.

The jester the accused jester, but he was as good as convicted was on the carpet. He stood facing a row of stiff necks and granite faces, behind a long table. On either side of him was a tridi camera. His offenses had been so unusually offensive that the Committee of Duly Constituted Authority themselves, the very rulers of Planet A, were sitting to pass judgment on his case.

Perhaps the Committee members had another reason for this session: planet-wide elections were due in a month. No member wanted to miss the chance for a nonpolitical tridi appearance that would not have to be offset by a grant of equal time for the new Liberal party opposition.

“I have this further item of evidence to present,” the Minister of Communication was saying, from his seat on the Committee side of the long table. He held up what appeared at first to be an official pedestrian-control sign, having steady black letters on a blank white background. But the sign read: unauthorized personnel only.

“When a sign is put up,” said the MiniCom, “the first day, a lot of people read it.” He paused, listening to himself. “That is, a new sign on a busy pedestrian ramp is naturally given great attention. Now in this sign, the semantic content of the first word is confusing in its context.”

The President of the Committee and of the planet cleared his throat warningly. The MiniCom’s fondness for stating truisms made him sound more stupid than he actually was. It seemed unlikely that the Liberals were going to present any serious challenge at the polls, but there was no point in giving them encouragement.

The lady member of the Committee, the Minister of Education, waved her lorgnette in chubby fingers, seeking attention. She inquired: “Has anyone computed the cost to us all in work-hours of this confusing sign?”

“We’re working on it,” growled the Minister of Labor, hitching up an overall strap. He glared at the accused. “You do admit causing this sign to be posted?”

“I do.” The accused was remembering how so many of the pedestrians on the crowded ramp had smiled, and how some had laughed aloud, not caring if they were heard. What did a few work-hours matter? No one on Planet A was starving any longer.

“You admit that you have never done a thing, really, for your planet or your people?” This question came from the Minister of Defense, a tall, powerful, bemedaled figure, armed with a ritual pistol.

“I don’t admit that,” said the accused bluntly. “I’ve tried to brighten people’s lives.” He had no hope of official leniency anyway. And he knew no one was going to take him offstage and beat him; the beating of prisoners was not authorized.

“Do you even now attempt to defend levity?” The Minister of Philosophy took his ritual pipe from his mouth, and smiled in the bleak permissible fashion, baring his teeth at the challenge of the Universe. “Life is a jest, true; but a grim jest. You have lost sight of that. For years you have harassed society, leading people to drug themselves with levity instead of facing the bitter realities of existence. The pictures found in your possession could do only harm.”

The President’s hand moved to the video recording cube that lay on the table before him, neatly labeled as evidence. In his droning voice the President asked: “You do admit that these pictures are yours? That you used them to try to get other people to yield to mirth?”

The prisoner nodded. They could prove everything; he had waived his right to a full legal defense, wanting only to get the trial over with. “Yes, I filled that cube with tapes and films I sneaked out of libraries and archives. Yes, I showed people its contents.”

There was a murmur from the Committee. The Minister of Diet, a skeletal figure with a repellent glow of health in his granite cheeks, raised a hand. “Inasmuch as the accused seems certain to be convicted, may I request in advance that he be paroled in my custody? In his earlier testimony he admitted that one of his first acts of deviation was the avoidance of his community mess. I believe I could demonstrate, using this man, the wonderful effects on character of dietary discipline—”

“I refuse!” the accused interrupted loudly. It seemed to him that the words ascended, growling, from his stomach.

The President rose, to adroitly fill what might have become an awkward silence. “If no member of the Committee has any further questions—? Then let us vote. Is the accused guilty as charged on all counts?”

To the accused, standing with weary eyes closed, the vote sounded like one voice passing along the table: “Guilty. Guilty. Guilty…”

After a brief whispered conference with the Minister of Defense, the President passed sentence, a hint of satisfaction in his drone.

“Having rejected a duly authorized parole, the convicted jester will be placed under the orders of the Minister of Defense and sent to solitary beacon duty out on the Approaches, for an indefinite period. This will remove his disruptive influence, while at the same time constraining him to contribute positively to society.”

For decades Planet A and its sun had been cut off from all but occasional contact with the rest of the galaxy, by a vast interstellar dust storm that was due to go on for more decades at least. So the positive contribution to society might be doubted. But it seemed that the beacon stations could be used as isolation prisons without imperiling nonexistent shipping or weakening defense against an enemy that never came.

“One thing more,” added the President. “I direct that this recording cube be securely fastened around your neck on a monomolecular cord, in such a way that you may put the cube into a viewer when you choose. You will be alone on the station and no other off-duty activity will be available.”

The President faced toward a tridi camera. “Let me assure the public that I derive no satisfaction from imposing a punishment that may seem harsh, and even imaginative. But in recent years a dangerous levity has spread among some few of our people; a levity all too readily tolerated by some supposedly more solid citizens.”

Having gotten in a dig at the newly burgeoning Liberals, a dig he might hope to claim was nonpolitical in intent, the President faced back to the jester. “A robot will go with you to the beacon, to assist you in your duties and see to your physical safety. I assure you the robot will not be tempted into mirth.”

The robot took the convicted jester out in a little ship, so far out that Planet A vanished and its sun shrank to a point of brilliance. Out on the edge of the great dusty night of the Approaches, they drew near the putative location of station Z-45, which the MiniDef had selected as being the most dismal and forsaken of those unmanned at present.

There was indeed a metallic object where beacon Z-45 was supposed to be; but when the robot and jester got closer, they saw the object was a sphere some forty miles in diameter. There were a few little bits and pieces floating about it that just might be the remains of Z-45. And now the sphere evidently sighted their ship, for with startling speed it began to move toward them.

Once robots are told what berserkers look like, they do not forget, nor do robots grow slow and careless. But radio equipment can be sloppily maintained, and ever the dust drifts in around the edges of the system of Planet A, impeding radio signals. Before the MiniDef’s robot could successfully broadcast an alarm, the forty-mile sphere was very close indeed, and its grip of metal and force was tight upon the little ship.

The jester kept his eyes shut through a good deal of what followed. If they had sent him out here to stop him laughing they had chosen the right spot. He squeezed his eyelids tighter, and put his fingers in his ears, as the berserker’s commensal machines smashed their way into his little ship and carried him off. He never did find out what they did with his robot guard.

When things grew quiet, and he felt gravity and good air and pleasant warmth again, he decided that keeping his eyes shut was worse than knowing whatever they might tell him. His first cautious peek showed him that he was in a large shadowy room, that at least held no visible menace.

When he stirred, a squeaky monotonous voice somewhere above him said: “My memory bank tells me that you are a protoplasmic computing unit, probably capable of understanding this language. Do you understand?”

“Me?” The jester looked up into the shadows, but could not see the speaker. “Yes, I understand you. But who are you?”

“I am what this language calls a berserker.”

The jester had taken shamefully little interest in galactic affairs, but that word frightened even him. He stuttered: “That means you’re a kind of automated warship?”

There was a pause. “I am not sure,” said the squeaky, droning voice. The tone sounded almost as if the President was hiding up there in the rafters. “War may be related to my purpose, but my purpose is still partially unclear to me, for my construction was never quite completed. For a time I waited where I was built, because I was sure some final step had been left undone. At last I moved, to try to learn more about my purpose. Approaching this sun, I found a transmitting device which I have disassembled. But I have learned no more about my purpose.”

The jester sat on the soft, comfortable floor. The more he remembered about berserkers, the more he trembled. He said: “I see. Or perhaps I at least begin to see. What do you know of your purpose?”

“My purpose is to destroy all life wherever I can find it.”

The jester cowered down. Then he asked in a low voice: “What is unclear about that?”

The berserker answered his question with two of its own: “What is life? And how is it destroyed?”

After half a minute there came a sound that the berserker computers could not identify. It issued from the protoplasmic computing-unit, but if it was speech it was in a language unknown to the berserker.

“What is the sound you make?” the machine asked.

The jester gasped for breath. “It’s laughter. Oh, laughter! So. You were unfinished.” He shuddered, the terror of his position coming back to sober him. But then he once more burst out giggling; the situation was too ridiculous.

“What is life?” he said at last. “I’ll tell you. Life is a great grim grayness, and it inflicts fright and pain and loneliness upon all who experience it. And you want to know how to destroy it? Well, I don’t think you can. But I’ll tell you the best way to fight life with laughter. As long as we can fight it that way, it can’t overcome us.”

The machine asked: “Must I laugh, to prevent this great-grim-grayness from enveloping me?”

The jester thought. “No, you are a machine. You are not—” he caught himself, “protoplasmic. Fright and pain and loneliness will never bother you.”

“Nothing bothers me. Where will I find life, and how will I make laughter to fight it?”

The jester was suddenly conscious of the weight of the cube that still hung from his neck. “Let me think for a while,” he said.

After a few minutes he stood up. “If you have a viewer of the kind men use, I can show you how laughter is created. And perhaps I can guide you to a place where life is. By the way, can you cut this cord from my neck? Without hurting me, that is!”

A few weeks later, in the main War Room of Planet A, the somnolence of decades was abruptly shattered. Robots bellowed and buzzed and flashed, and those that were mobile scurried about. In five minutes or so they managed to rouse their human overseers, who hurried about, tightening their belts and stuttering.

“This is a practice alert, isn’t it?” the Officer of the Day kept hoping aloud. “Someone’s running some kind of a test? Someone?” He was beginning to squeak like a berserker himself.

He got down on all fours, removed a panel from the base of the biggest robot and peered inside, hoping to discover something causing a malfunction. Unfortunately, he knew nothing about robotics; recalling this, he replaced the panel and jumped to his feet. He really knew nothing about planet defense, either, and recalling this was enough to send him on a screaming run for help.

So there was no resistance, effective or otherwise. But there was no attack, either.

The forty-mile sphere, unopposed, came down to hover directly above Capital City, low enough for its shadow to send a lot of puzzled birds to nest at noon. Men and birds alike lost many hours of productive work that day; somehow the lost work made less difference than most of the men expected. The days were past when only the grimmest attention to duty let the human race survive on Planet A, though most of the planet did not realize it yet.

“Tell the President to hurry up,” demanded the jester’s image, from a viewscreen in the no-longer somnolent War Room. “Tell him it’s urgent that I talk to him.”

The President, breathing heavily, had just entered. “I am here. I recognize you, and I remember your trial.”

“Odd, so do I.”

“Have you now stooped to treason? Be assured that if you have led a berserker to us you can expect no mercy from your government.”

The image made a forbidden noise, a staccato sound from the open mouth, head thrown back. “Oh, please, mighty President! Even I know our Ministry of Defense is a j-o-k-e, if you will pardon an obscene word. It’s a catchbasin for exiles and incompetents. So I come to offer mercy, not ask it. Also, I have decided to legally take the name of Jester. Kindly continue to apply it to me.”

“We have nothing to say to you!” barked the Minister of Defense. He was purple granite, having entered just in time to hear his Ministry insulted.

“We have no objection to talking to you!” contradicted the President, hastily. Having failed to overawe the Jester through a viewscreen, he could now almost feel the berserker’s weight upon his head.

“Then let us talk,” said Jester’s image. “But not so privately. This is what I want.”

What he wanted, he said, was a face-to-face parley with the Committee, to be broadcast live on planet-wide tridi. He announced that he would come “properly attended” to the conference. And he gave assurance that the berserker was under his full control, though he did not explain how. It, he said, would not start any shooting.

The Minister of Defense was not ready to start anything. But he and his aides hastily made secret plans.

Like almost every other citizen, the presidential candidate of the Liberal party settled himself before a tridi on the fateful evening, to watch the confrontation. He had an air of hopefulness, for any sudden event may bring hope to a political underdog.

Few others on the planet saw anything encouraging in the berserker’s descent, but there was still no mass panic. Berserkers and war were unreal things to the long-isolated people of Planet A.

“Are we ready?” asked the Jester nervously, looking over the mechanical delegation which was about to board a launch with him for the descent to Capital City.

“What you have ordered, I have done,” squeaked the berserker-voice from the shadows above.

“Remember,” Jester cautioned, “the protoplasmic-units down there are much under the influence of life. So ignore whatever they say. Be careful not to hurt them, but outside of that you can improvise within my general plan.”

“All this is in my memory from your previous orders,” said the machine patiently.

“Then let’s go.” Jester straightened his shoulders. “Bring me my cloak!”

The brilliantly lighted interior of Capital City’s great Meeting Hall displayed a kind of rigid, rectilinear beauty. In the center of the Hall there had been placed a long, polished table, flanked on opposing sides by chairs.

Precisely at the appointed time, the watching millions saw one set of entrance doors swing mathematically open. In marched a dozen human heralds, their faces looking almost robotic under bearskin helmets. They halted with a single snap. Their trumpet-tucket rang out clearly.

To the taped strains of Pomp and Circumstances, the President, in the full dignity of his cloak of office, then made his entrance.

He moved at the pace of a man marching to his own execution, but his was the slowness of dignity, not that of fear. The Committee had overruled the purple protestations of the MiniDef, and convinced themselves that the military danger was small. Real berserkers did not ask to parley, they slaughtered. Somehow the Committee could not take the Jester seriously, any more than they could laugh at him. But until they were sure they had him again under their control they would humor him.

The granite-faced Ministers entered in a double file behind the President. It took almost five minutes of Pomp and Circumstance for them all to position themselves.

A launch had been seen to descend from the berserker, and vehicles had rolled from the launch to the Meeting Hall. So it was presumed that Jester was ready, and the cameras pivoted dutifully to face the entrance reserved for him.

Just at the appointed time, the doors of that entrance swung mathematically open, and a dozen man-sized machines entered. They were heralds, for they wore bearskin helmets, and each carried a bright, brassy trumpet.

All but one, who wore a coonskin cap, marched a half-pace out of step, and was armed with a slide trombone.

The mechanical tucket was a faithful copy of the human one almost. The slide-trombonist faltered at the end, and one long sour note trailed away.

Giving an impression of slow mechanical horror, the berserker-heralds looked at one another. Then one by one their heads turned until all their lenses were focused upon the trombonist.

It almost it seemed the figure must be he looked this way and that. Tapped his trombone, as if to clear it of some defect. Paused.

Watching, the President was seized by the first pang of a great horror. In the evidence, there had been a film of an Earthman of ancient time, a balding comic violinist, who had had the skill to pause like that, just pause, and evoke from his filmed audience great gales of …

Twice more the robot heralds blew. And twice more the sour note was sounded. When the third attempt failed, the eleven straight-robots looked at one another and nodded agreement.

Then with robotic speed they drew concealed weapons and shot holes in the offender.

All across the planet the dike of tension was cracking, dribbles and spurts of laughter forcing through. The dike began to collapse completely as the trombonist was borne solemnly away by a pair of his fellows, his shattered horn clasped lily-fashion on his iron breast.

But no one in the Meeting Hall was laughing. The Minister of Defense made an innocent-looking gesture, calling off a tentative plan, calling it off. There was to be no attempt to seize the Jester, for the berserker-robot-heralds or whatever they were seemed likely to perform very capably as bodyguards.

As soon as the riddled herald had been carried out, Jester entered. Pomp and Circumstance began belatedly, as with the bearing of a king he moved to his position at the center of the table, opposite the President. Like the President, the Jester wore an elegant cloak, clasped in front, falling to his ankles. Those that filed in behind him, in the position of aides, were also richly dressed.

And each of them was a metallic parody, in face and shape, of one of the Ministers of the Committee.

When the plump robotic analogue of the Minister of Education peered through a lorgnette at the tridi camera, the watching populace turned, in unheard-of-millions, to laughter. Those who might be outraged later, remembering, laughed now, in helpless approval of seeming danger turned to farce. All but the very grimmest smiled.

The Jester-king doffed his cape with a flourish. Beneath it he wore only a preposterous bathing suit. In reply to the President’s coldly formal greeting the President could not be shaken by anything short of a physical attack the Jester thoughtfully pursed his lips, then opened them and blew a gummy substance out into a large pink bubble.

The President maintained his unintentional role of slowburning straight man, ably supported by all the Committee save one. The Minister of Defense turned his back on the farce and marched to an exit.

He found two metallic heralds planted before the door, effectively blocking it. Glaring at them, the MiniDef barked an order to move. The metal figures flipped him a comic salute, and stayed where they were.

Brave in his anger, the MiniDef tried futilely to shove his way past the berserker-heralds. Dodging another salute, he looked round at the sound of great clomping footsteps. His berserker-counterpart was marching toward him across the Hall. It was a clear foot taller than he, and its barrel chest was armored with a double layer of jangling medals.

Before the MiniDef paused to consider consequences, his hand had moved to his sidearm. But his metal parody was far faster on the draw; it hauled out a grotesque cannon with a fist-sized bore, and fired instantly.

“Gah!” The MiniDef staggered back, the world gone red …and then he found himself wiping from his face something that tasted suspiciously like tomato. The cannon had propelled a whole fruit, or a convincing and juicy imitation of one.

The MiniCom jumped to his feet, and began to expound the idea that the proceedings were becoming frivolous. His counterpart also rose, and replied with a burst of gabbles in speed-falsetto.

The pseudo-Minister of Philosophy rose as if to speak, was pricked with a long pin by a prankish herald, and jetted fluttering through the air, a balloon collapsing in flight. At that the human Committee fell into babel, into panic.

Under the direction of the metal MiniDiet, the real one, arch-villain to the lower masses, began to take unwilling part in a demonstration of dietary discipline. Machines gripped him, spoon-fed him grim gray food, napkined him, squirted drink into his mouth and then, as if accidentally, they gradually fell out of synch with spoon and squirt, their aim becoming less and less accurate.

Only the President still stood rooted in dignity. He had one hand cautiously in his trousers pocket, for he had felt a sly robotic touch, and had reason to suspect that his suspenders had been cut.

As a tomato grazed his nose, and the MiniDiet writhed and choked in the grip of his remorseless feeders, balanced nutrients running from his ears, the President closed his eyes.

Jester was, after all, only a self-taught amateur working without a visible audience to play to. He was unable to calculate a climax for the show. So when he ran out of jokes he simply called his minions to his side, waved good-bye to the tridi cameras, and exited.

Outside the Halls, he was much encouraged by the cheers and laughter he received from the crowds fast-gathering in the streets. He had his machines entertain them with an improvised chase-sequence back to the launch parked on the edge of Capital City.

He was about to board the launch, return to the berserker and await developments, when a small group of men hurried out of the crowd, calling to him.

“Mr. Jester!”

The performer could now afford to relax and laugh a little himself. “I like the sound of that name! What can I do for you gentlemen?”

They hurried up to him, smiling. The one who seemed to be their leader said: “Provided you get rid of this berserker or whatever it is, harmlessly you can join the Liberal party ticket. As Vice-President!”

He had to listen for some minutes before he could believe they were serious. He protested: “But I only wanted to have some fun with them, to shake them up a bit.”

“You’re a catalyst, Mr. Jester. You’ve formed a rallying point. You’ve shaken up a whole planet and made it think.”

Jester at last accepted the Liberals’ offer. They were still sitting around in front of the launch, talking and planning, when the light of Planet A’s moon fell full and sudden upon them.

Looking up, they saw the vast bulk of the berserker dwindling into the heavens, vanishing toward the stars in eerie silence. Cloud streamers went aurora in the upper atmosphere to honor its departure.

“I don’t know,” Jester said over and over, responding to a dozen excited questions. “I don’t know.” He looked at the sky, puzzled as anyone else. The edge of fear came back. The robotic Committee and heralds, which had been controlled from the berserker, began to collapse one by one, like dying men.

Suddenly the heavens were briefly alight with a gigantic splashing flare that passed like lightning across the sky, not breaking the silence of the stars. Ten minutes later came the first news bulletin: The berserker had been destroyed.

Then the President came on tridi, close to the brink of showing emotion. He announced that under the heroic personal leadership of the Minister of Defense, the few gallant warships of Planet A had met and defeated, utterly annihilated, the menace. Not a man had been lost, though the MiniDef’s flagship was thought to be heavily damaged.

When he heard that his mighty machine-ally had been destroyed, Jester felt a pang of something like sorrow. But the pang was quickly obliterated in a greater joy. No one had been hurt, after all. Overcome with relief, Jester looked away from the tridi for a moment.

He missed the climactic moment of the speech, which came when the President forgetfully removed both hands from his pockets.

The Minister of Defense—today the new Presidential candidate of a Conservative party stirred to grim enthusiasm by his exploit of the night before was puzzled by the reactions of some people, who seemed to think he had merely spoiled a jest instead of saving the planet. As if spoiling a jest was not a good thing in itself! But his testimony that the berserker had been a genuine menace after all rallied most people back to the Conservative side again.

On this busiest of days the MiniDef allowed himself time to visit Liberal headquarters to do a bit of gloating. Graciously he delivered to the opposition leaders what was already becoming his standard speech.

“When it answered my challenge and came up to fight, we went in with a standard englobement pattern like hummingbirds round a vulture, I suppose you might say. And did you really think it was jesting? Let me tell you, that berserker peeled away the defensive fields from my ship like they were nothing. And then it launched this ghastly thing at me, a kind of huge disk. My gunners were a little rusty, maybe, anyway they couldn’t stop it and it hit us.

“I don’t mind saying, I thought I’d bought the farm right then. My ship’s still hanging in orbit for decontamination, I’m afraid I’ll get word any minute that the metal’s melting or something anyway, we sailed right through and hit the bandit with everything we had. I can’t say too much for my crew. One thing I don’t quite understand; when our missiles struck that berserker just went poof, as if it had no defense up at all. Yes?”

“Call for you, Minister,” said an aide, who had been standing by with a radiophone, waiting for a chance to break in.

“Thank you.” The MiniDef listened to the phone, and his smile left him. His form went rigid. “Analysis of the weapon shows what? Synthetic proteins and water?”

He jumped to his feet glaring upward as if to pierce the ceiling and see his ship in orbit. “What do you mean no more than a giant custard pie?”

LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS

Bob Shaw

Leaving the village behind, we followed the heady sweeps of the road up into a land of slow glass.

I had never seen one of the farms before and at first found them slightly eerie—an effect heightened by imagination and circumstance. The car’s turbine was pulling smoothly and quietly in the damp air so that we seemed to be carried over the convolutions of the road in a kind of supernatural silence. On our right the mountain sifted down into an incredibly perfect valley of timeless pine, and everywhere stood the great frames of slow glass, drinking light. An occasional flash of afternoon sunlight on their wind bracing created an illusion of movement, but in fact the frames were deserted. The rows of windows had been standing on the hillside for years, staring into the valley, and men only cleaned them in the middle of the night when their human presence would not matter to the thirsty glass.

They were fascinating, but Selina and I didn’t mention the windows. I think we hated each other so much we both were reluctant to sully anything new by drawing it into the nexus of our emotions. The holiday, I had begun to realize, was a stupid idea in the first place. I had thought it would cure everything, but, of course, it didn’t stop Selina being pregnant and, worst still, it didn’t even stop her being angry about being pregnant.

Rationalizing our dismay over her condition, we had circulated the usual statements to the effect that we would have liked having children—but later on, at the proper time. Selina’s pregnancy had cost us her well-paid job and with it the new house we had been negotiating and which was far beyond the reach of my income from poetry. But the real source of our annoyance was that we were face to face with the realization that people who say they want children later always mean they want children never. Our nerves were thrumming with the knowledge that we, who had thought ourselves so unique, had fallen into the same biological trap as every mindless rutting creature which ever existed.

The road took us along the southern slopes of Ben Cruachan until we began to catch glimpses of the gray Atlantic far ahead. I had just cut our speed to absorb the view better when I noticed the sign spiked to a gatepost. It said: “SLOW GLASS—QUALITY HIGH, PRICES LOW—J. R. HAGAN.” On an impulse I stopped the car on the verge, wincing slightly as tough grasses whipped noisily at the bodywork.

“Why have we stopped?” Selina’s neat, smoke-silver head turned in surprise.

“Look at that sign. Let’s go up and see what there is. The stuff might be reasonably priced out here.”

Selina’s voice was pitched high with scorn as she refused, but I was too taken with my idea to listen. I had an illogical conviction that doing something extravagant and crazy would set us right again.

“Come on,” I said, “the exercise might do us some good. We’ve been driving too long anyway.”

She shrugged in a way that hurt me and got out of the car. We walked up a path made of irregular, packed clay steps nosed with short lengths of sapling. The path curved through trees which clothed the edge of the hill and at its end we found a low farmhouse. Beyond the little stone building tall frames of slow glass gazed out towards the voice-stilling sight of Cruachan’s ponderous descent towards the waters of Loch Linnhe. Most of the panes were perfectly transparent but a few were dark, like panels of polished ebony.

As we approached the house through a neat cobbled yard a tall middle-aged man in ash-colored tweeds arose and waved to us. He had been sitting on the low rubble wall which bounded the yard, smoking a pipe and staring towards the house. At the front window of the cottage a young woman in a tangerine dress stood with a small boy in her arms, but she turned uninterestedly and moved out of sight as we drew near.

“Mr. Hagan?” I guessed.

“Correct. Come to see some glass, have you? Well, you’ve come to the right place.” Hagan spoke crisply, with traces of the pure highland accent which sounds so much like Irish to the unaccustomed ear. He had one of those calmly dismayed faces one finds on elderly road-menders and philosophers.

“Yes,” I said. “We’re on holiday. We saw your sign.”

Selina, who usually has a natural fluency with strangers, said nothing. She was looking towards the now empty window with what I thought was a slightly puzzled expression.

“Up from London, are you? Well, as I said, you’ve come to the right place—and at the right time, too. My wife and I don’t see many people this early in the season.”

I laughed. “Does that mean we might be able to buy a little glass without mortgaging our home?”

“Look at that now,” Hagan said, smiling helplessly. “I’ve thrown away any advantage I might have had in the transaction. Rose, that’s my wife, says I never learn. Still, let’s sit down and talk it over.” He pointed at the rubble wall, then glanced doubtfully at Selina’s immaculate blue skirt. “Wait till I fetch a rug from the house.” Hagan limped quickly into the cottage, closing the door behind him.

“Perhaps it wasn’t such a marvelous idea to come up here,” I whispered to Selina, “but you might at least be pleasant to the man. I think I can smell a bargain.”

“Some hope,” she said with deliberate coarseness. “Surely even you must have noticed that ancient dress his wife is wearing! He won’t give much away to strangers.”

“Was that his wife?”

“Of course that was his wife.”

“Well, well,” I said, surprised. “Anyway, try to be civil with him. I don’t want to be embarrassed.”

Selina snorted, but she smiled whitely when Hagan reappeared and I relaxed a little. Strange how a man can love a woman and yet at the same time pray for her to fall under a train.

Hagan spread a tartan blanket on the wall and we sat down, feeling slightly self-conscious at having been translated from our city-oriented lives into a rural tableau. On the distant slate of the Loch, beyond the watchful frames of slow glass, a slow-moving steamer drew a white line towards the south. The boisterous mountain air seemed almost to invade our lungs, giving us more oxygen than we required.

“Some of the glass farmers around here,” Hagan began, “give strangers, such as yourselves, a sales talk about how beautiful the autumn is in this part of Argyll. Or it might be the spring or the winter. I don’t do that—any fool knows that a place which doesn’t look right in the summer never looks right. What do you say?”

I nodded compliantly.

“I want you just to take a good look out towards Mull, Mr….”

“Garland.”

“… Garland. That’s what you’re buying if you buy my glass, and it never looks better than it does at this minute. The glass is in perfect phase, none of it is less than ten years thick—and a four-foot window will cost you two hundred pounds.”

“Two hundred!” Selina was shocked. “That’s as much as they charge at the Scenedow shop in Bond Street.”

Hagan smiled patiently, then looked closely at me to see if I knew enough about slow glass to appreciate what he had been saying. His price had been much higher than I had hoped—but ten years thick! The cheap glass one found in places like the Vistaplex and Pane-o-rama stores usually consisted of a quarter of an inch of ordinary glass faced with a veneer of slow glass perhaps only ten or twelve months thick.

“You don’t understand, darling,” I said, already determined to buy. “This glass will last ten years and it’s in phase.”

“Doesn’t that only mean it keeps time?”

Hagan smiled at her again, realizing he had no further necessity to bother with me. “Only, you say! Pardon me, Mrs. Garland, but you don’t seem to appreciate the miracle, the genuine honest-to-goodness miracle, of engineering precision needed to produce a piece of glass in phase. When I say the glass is ten years thick it means it takes light ten years to pass through it. In effect, each one of those panes is ten light-years thick—more than twice the distance to the nearest star—so a variation in actual thickness of only a millionth of an inch would …”

He stopped talking for a moment and sat quietly looking towards the house. I turned my head from the view of the Loch and saw the young woman standing at the window again. Hagan’s eyes were filled with a kind of greedy reverence which made me feel uncomfortable and at the same time convinced me Selina had been wrong. In my experience husbands never looked at wives that way—at least, not at their own.

The girl remained in view for a few seconds, dress glowing warmly, then moved back into the room. Suddenly I received a distinct, though inexplicable, impression she was blind. My feeling was that Selina and I were perhaps blundering through an emotional interplay as violent as our own.

“I’m sorry,” Hagan continued; “I thought Rose was going to call me for something. Now, where was I, Mrs. Garland? Ten light-years compressed into a quarter of an inch means …”

***

I ceased to listen, partly because I was already sold, partly because I had heard the story of slow glass many times before and had never yet understood the principles involved. An acquaintance with scientific training had once tried to be helpful by telling me to visualize a pane of slow glass as a hologram which did not need coherent light from a laser for the reconstitution of its visual information, and in which every photon of ordinary light passed through a spiral tunnel coiled outside the radius of capture of each atom in the glass. This gem of, to me, incomprehensibility not only told me nothing, it convinced me once again that a mind as non-technical as mine should concern itself less with causes than effects.

The most important effect, in the eyes of the average individual, was that light took a long time to pass through a sheet of slow glass. A new piece was always jet black because nothing had yet come through, but one could stand the glass beside, say, a woodland lake until the scene emerged, perhaps a year later. If the glass was then removed and installed in a dismal city flat, the flat would—for that year—appear to overlook the woodland lake. During the year it wouldn’t be merely a very realistic but still picture—the water would ripple in sunlight, silent animals would come to drink, birds would cross the sky, night would follow day, season would follow season. Until one day, a year later, the beauty held in the subatomic pipelines would be exhausted and the familiar gray cityscape would reappear.

Apart from its stupendous novelty value, the commercial success of slow glass was founded on the fact that having a scenedow was the exact emotional equivalent of owning land. The meanest cave dweller could look out on misty parks—and who was to say they weren’t his? A man who really owns tailored gardens and estates doesn’t spend his time proving his ownership by crawling on his ground, feeling, smelling, tasting it. All he receives from the land are light patterns, and with scenedows those patterns could be taken into coal mines, submarines, prison cells.

On several occasions I have tried to write short pieces about the enchanted crystal but, to me, the theme is so ineffably poetic as to be, paradoxically, beyond the reach of poetry—mine, at any rate. Besides, the best songs and verse had already been written, with prescient inspiration, by men who had died long before slow glass was discovered. I had no hope of equaling, for example, Moore with his:

Oft in the stilly night,

Ere slumber’s chain has bound me,

Fond Memory brings the light

Of other days around me …

It took only a few years for slow glass to develop from a scientific curiosity to a sizable industry. And much to the astonishment of we poets—those of us who remain convinced that beauty lives though lilies die—the trappings of that industry were no different from those of any other. There were good scenedows which cost a lot of money, and there were inferior scenedows which cost rather less. The thickness, measured in years, was an important factor in the cost but there was also the question of actual thickness, or phase.

Even with the most sophisticated engineering techniques available thickness control was something of a hit-and-miss affair. A coarse discrepancy could mean that a pane intended to be five years thick might be five and a half, so that light which entered in summer emerged in winter; a fine discrepancy could mean that noon sunshine emerged at midnight. These incompatibilities had their peculiar charm—many night workers, for example, liked having their own private time zones—but, in general, it cost more to buy scenedows which kept closely in step with real time.

Selina still looked unconvinced when Hagan had finished speaking. She shook her head almost imperceptibly and I knew he had been using the wrong approach. Quite suddenly the pewter helmet of her hair was disturbed by a cool gust of wind, and huge clean tumbling drops of rain began to spang round us from an almost cloudless sky.

“I’ll give you a check now,” I said abruptly, and saw Selina’s green eyes triangulate angrily on my face. “You can arrange delivery?”

“Aye, delivery’s no problem,” Hagan said, getting to his feet. “But wouldn’t you rather take the glass with you?”

“Well, yes—if you don’t mind.” I was shamed by his readiness to trust my scrip.

“I’ll unclip a pane for you. Wait here. It won’t take long to slip it into a carrying frame.” Hagan limped down the slope towards the seriate windows, through some of which the view towards Linnhe was sunny, while others were cloudy and a few pure black.

Selina drew the collar of her blouse closed at her throat. “The least he could have done was invite us inside. There can’t be so many fools passing through that he can afford to neglect them.”

I tried to ignore the insult and concentrated on writing the check. One of the outsize drops broke across my knuckles, splattering the pink paper.

“All right,” I said, “let’s move in under the eaves till he gets back.” You worm, I thought as I felt the whole thing go completely wrong. I just had to be a fool to marry you. A prize fool, a fool’s fool—and now that you’ve trapped part of me inside you I’ll never ever, never ever, never ever get away.

Feeling my stomach clench itself painfully, I ran behind Selina to the side of the cottage. Beyond the window the neat living room, with its coal fire, was empty but the child’s toys were scattered on the floor. Alphabet blocks and a wheelbarrow the exact color of freshly pared carrots. As I stared in, the boy came running from the other room and began kicking the blocks. He didn’t notice me. A few moments later the young woman entered the room and lifted him, laughing easily and wholeheartedly as she swung the boy under her arm. She came to the window as she had done earlier. I smiled self-consciously, but neither she nor the child responded.

My forehead prickled icily. Could they both be blind? I sidled away.

Selina gave a little scream and I spun towards her.

“The rug!” she said. “It’s getting soaked.”

She ran across the yard in the rain, snatched the reddish square from the dappling wall and ran back, towards the cottage door. Something heaved convulsively in my subconscious.

“Selina,” I shouted. “Don’t open it!”

But I was too late. She had pushed open the latched wooden door and was standing, hand over mouth, looking into the cottage. I moved close to her and took the rug from her unresisting fingers.

As I was closing the door I let my eyes traverse the cottage’s interior. The neat living room in which I had just seen the woman and child was, in reality, a sickening clutter of shabby furniture, old newspapers, cast-off clothing and smeared dishes. It was damp, stinking and utterly deserted. The only object I recognized from my view through the window was the little wheelbarrow, paintless and broken.

I latched the door firmly and ordered myself to forget what I had seen. Some men who live alone are good housekeepers; others just don’t know how.

Selina’s face was white. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand it.”

“Slow glass works both ways,” I said gently. “Light passes out of a house, as well as in.”

“You mean …?”

“I don’t know. It isn’t our business. Now steady up—Hagan’s coming back with our glass.” The churning in my stomach was beginning to subside.

Hagan came into the yard carrying an oblong, plastic-covered frame. I held the check out to him, but he was staring at Selina’s face. He seemed to know immediately that our uncomprehending fingers had rummaged through his soul. Selina avoided his gaze. She was old and ill-looking, and her eyes stared determinedly towards the nearing horizon.

“I’ll take the rug from you, Mr. Garland,” Hagan finally said. “You shouldn’t have troubled yourself over it.”

“No trouble. Here’s the check.”

“Thank you.” He was still looking at Selina with a strange kind of supplication. “It’s been a pleasure to do business with you.”

“The pleasure was mine,” I said with equal, senseless formality. I picked up the heavy frame and guided Selina towards the path which led to the road. Just as we reached the head of the now slippery steps Hagan spoke again.

“Mr. Garland!”

I turned unwillingly.

“It wasn’t my fault,” he said steadily. “A hit-and-run driver got them both, down on the Oban road six years ago. My boy was only seven when it happened. I’m entitled to keep something.”

I nodded wordlessly and moved down the path, holding my wife close to me, treasuring the feel of her arms locked around me. At the bend I looked back through the rain and saw Hagan sitting with squared shoulders on the wall where we had first seen him.

He was looking at the house, but I was unable to tell if there was anyone at the window.

COMES NOW THE POWER

Roger Zelazny

It was into the second year now, and it was maddening. Everything which had worked before failed this time. Each day he tried to break it, and it resisted his every effort.

He snarled at his students, drove recklessly, bloodied his knuckles against many walls. Nights, he lay awake cursing.

But there was no one to whom he could turn for help. His problem would have been nonexistent to a psychiatrist, who doubtless would have attempted to treat him for something else.

So he went away that summer, spent a month at a resort: nothing. He experimented with several hallucinogenic drugs; again, nothing. He tried free-associating into a tape recorder, but all he got when he played it back was a headache.

To whom does the holder of a blocked power turn, within a society of normal people?

… To another of his own kind, if he can locate one.

Milt Rand had known four other persons like himself: his cousin Gary, now deceased; Walker Jackson, a Negro preacher who had retired to somewhere down South; Tatya Stefanovich, a dancer, currently somewhere behind the Iron Curtain; and Curtis Legge, who, unfortunately, was suffering a schizoid reaction, paranoid type, in a state institution for the criminally insane. Others he had brushed against in the night, but had never met and could not locate now.

There had been blockages before, but Milt had always worked his way through them inside of a month. This time was different and special, though. Upsets, discomforts, disturbances, can dam up a talent, block a power. An event which seals it off completely for over a year, however, is more than a mere disturbance, discomfort, or upset.

The divorce had beaten hell out of him.

It is bad enough to know that somewhere someone is hating you; but to have known the very form of that hatred and to have proven ineffectual against it, to have known it as the hater held it for you, to have lived with it growing around you, this is more than distasteful circumstance. Whether you are offender or offended, when you are hated and you live within the circle of that hate, it takes a thing from you: it tears a piece of spirit from your soul, or, if you prefer, a way of thinking from your mind; it cuts and does not cauterize.

Milt Rand dragged his bleeding psyche around the country and returned home.

He would sit and watch the woods from his glassed-in back porch, drink beer, watch the fireflies in the shadows, the rabbits, the dark birds, an occasional fox, sometimes a bat.

He had been fireflies once, and rabbits, birds, occasionally a fox, sometimes a bat.

The wildness was one of the reasons he had moved beyond suburbia, adding an extra half-hour to his commuting time.

Now there was a glassed-in back porch between him and these things he had once been part of. Now he was alone.

Walking the streets, addressing his classes at the institute, sitting in a restaurant, a theater, a bar, he was vacant where once he had been filled.

There are no books which tell a man how to bring back the power he has lost.

He tries everything he can think of, while he is waiting. Walking the hot pavements of a summer noon, crossing against the lights because traffic is slow, watching kids in swimsuits play around a gurgling hydrant, filthy water sluicing the gutter about their feet, as mothers and older sisters in halters, wrinkled shirts, bermudas, and sunburnt skins watch them, occasionally, while talking to one another in entranceways to buildings or the shade of a storefront awning. Milt moves across town, heading nowhere in particular, growing claustrophobic if he stops for long, his eyebrows full of perspiration, sunglasses streaked with it, shirt sticking to his sides and coming loose, sticking and coming loose as he walks.

Amid the afternoon, there comes a time when he has to rest the two fresh-baked bricks at the ends of his legs. He finds a tree-lawn bench flanked by high maples, eases himself down into it and sits there thinking of nothing in particular for perhaps twenty-five minutes.

Hello.

Something within him laughs or weeps.

Yes, hello, I am here! Don’t go away! Stay! Please!

You are—like me…

Yes, I am. You can see it in me because you are what you are. But you must read here and send here, too. I’m frozen. I—Hello? Where are you?

Once more, he is alone.

He tries to broadcast. He fills his mind with the thoughts and tries to push them outside his skull.

Please come back! I need you. You can help me. I am desperate. I hurt. Where are you?

Again, nothing.

He wants to scream. He wants to search every room in every building on the block.

Instead, he sits there.

At 9:30 that evening they meet again, inside his mind.

Hello?

Stay! Stay, for God’s sake! Don’t go away this time! Please don’t! Listen, I need you! You can help me.

How? What is the matter?

I’m like you. Or was, once. I could reach out with my mind and be other places, other things, other people. I can’t do it now, though. I have a blockage. The power will not come. I know it is there. I can feel it. But I can’t use… Hello?

Yes, I am still here. I can feel myself going away, though. I will be back. I…

Milt waits until midnight. She does not come back. It is a feminine mind which has touched his own. Vague, weak, but definitely feminine, and wearing the power. She does not come back that night, though. He paces up and down the block, wondering which window, which door…

He eats at an all-night cafe, returns to his bench, waits, paces again, goes back to the cafe for cigarettes, begins chain-smoking, goes back to the bench.

Dawn occurs, day arrives, night is gone. He is alone, as birds explore the silence, traffic begins to swell, dogs wander the lawns.

Then, weakly, the contact:

I am here. I can stay longer this time, I think. How can I help you? Tell me.

All right. Do this thing: Think of the feeling, the feeling of the out-go, out-reach, out-know that you have now. Fill your mind with that feeling and send it to me as hard as you can.

It comes upon him then as once it was: the knowledge of the power. It is earth and water, fire and air to him. He stands upon it, he swims in it, he warms himself by it, he moves through it.

It is returning! Don’t stop now!

I’m sorry. I must. I’m getting dizzy…

Where are you?

Hospital…

He looks up the street to the hospital on the corner, at the far end, to his left.

What ward? He frames the thought but knows she is already gone, even as he does it.

Doped-up or feverish, he decides, and probably out for a while now.

He takes a taxi back to where he had parked, drives home, showers and shaves, makes breakfast, cannot eat.

He drinks orange juice and coffee and stretches out on the bed.

Five hours later he awakens, looks at his watch, curses.

All the way back into town, he tries to recall the power. It is there like a tree, rooted in his being, branching behind his eyes, all bud, blossom, sap, and color, but no leaves, no fruit. He can feel it swaying within him, pulsing, breathing; from the tips of his toes to the roots of his hair he feels it. But it does not bend to his will, it does not branch within his consciousness, furl there it leaves, spread the aromas of life.

He parks in the hospital lot, enters the lobby, avoids the front desk, finds a chair beside a table filled with magazines.

Two hours later he meets her.

He is hiding behind a copy of Holiday and looking for her.

I am here.

Again, then! Quickly! The power! Help me to rouse it!

She does this thing.

Within his mind, she conjures the power. There is a movement, a pause, a movement, a pause. Reflectively, as though suddenly remembering an intricate dance step, it stirs within him, the power.

As in a surfacing bathyscaphe, there is a rush of distortions, then a clear, moist view without.

She is a child who has helped him.

A mind-twisted, fevered child, dying…

He reads it all when he turns the power upon her.

Her name is Dorothy and she is delirious. The power came upon her at the height of her illness, perhaps because of it.

Has she helped a man come alive again, or dreamed that she helped him? she wonders.

She is thirteen years old and her parents sit beside her bed. In the mind of her mother a word rolls over and over, senselessly, blocking all other thoughts, though it cannot keep away the feelings:

Methotrexate, methotrexate, methotrexate, meth…

In Dorothy’s thirteen-year-old breastbone there are needles of pain. The fevers swirl within her, and she is all but gone to him.

She is dying of leukemia. The final stages are already arrived. He can taste the blood in her mouth.

Helpless within his power, he projects:

You have given me the end of your life and your final strength. I did not know this. I would not have asked it of you if I had.

Thank you, she says, for the pictures inside you.

Pictures?

Places, things I saw…

There is not much inside me worth showing. You could have been elsewhere, seeing better.

I am going again…

Wait!

He calls upon the power that lives within him now, fused with his will and his sense, his thoughts, memories, feelings. In one great blaze of life, he shows her Milt Rand.

Here is everything I have, all I have ever been that might please. Here is swarming through a foggy night, blinking on and off. Here is lying beneath a bush as the rains of summer fall about you, drip from the leaves upon your fox-soft fur. Here is the moon-dance of the deer, the dream drift of the trout beneath the dark swell, blood cold as the waters about you.

Here is Tatya dancing and Walker preaching; here is my cousin Gary, as he whittles, contriving a ball within a box, all out of one piece of wood. This is my New York and my Paris. This, my favorite meal, drink, cigar, restaurant, park, road to drive on late at night; this is where I dug tunnels, built a lean-to, went swimming; this, my first kiss; these are the tears of loss; this is exile and alone, and recovery, awe, joy; these, my grandmother’s daffodils; this her coffin, daffodils about it; these are the colors of the music I love, and this is my dog who lived long and was good. See all the things that heat the spirit, cool within the mind, are encased in memory and one’s self. I give them to you, who have no time to know them.

He sees himself standing on the far hills of her mind. She laughs aloud then, and in her room somewhere high away a hand is laid upon her and her wrist is taken between fingers and thumb as she rushes toward him suddenly grown large. His great black wings sweep forward to fold her wordless spasm of life, then are empty.

Milt Rand stiffens within his power, puts aside a copy of Holiday and stands, to leave the hospital, full and empty, empty, full, like himself, now, behind.

NEUTRON STAR

Larry Niven

The Skydiver dropped out of hyperspace an even million miles above the neutron star. I needed a minute to place myself against the stellar background, and another to find the distortion Sonya Laskin had mentioned before she died. It was to my left, an area the apparent size of the Earth’s moon. I swung the ship around to face it.

Curdled stars, muddled stars, stars that had been stirred with a spoon.

The neutron star was in the center, of course, though I couldn’t see it and hadn’t expected to. It was only eleven miles across, and cool. A billion years had passed since BVS-l burned by fusion fire. Millions of years, at least, since the cataclysmic two weeks during which BVS-l was an X-ray star, burning at a temperature of five billion degrees Kelvin. Now it showed only by its mass.

The ship began to turn by itself. I felt the pressure of the fusion drive. Without help from me my faithful metal watchdog was putting me in a hyperbolic orbit that would take me within one mile of the neutron star’s surface. Twenty-four hours to fall, twenty-four hours to rise…and during that time something would try to kill me. As something had killed the Laskins.

The same type of autopilot, with the same program, had chosen the Laskins’ orbit. It had not caused their ship to collide with the star. I could trust the autopilot. I could even change its program.

I really ought to.

How did I get myself into this hole?

The drive went off after ten minutes of maneuvering. My orbit was established, in more ways than one. I knew what would happen if I tried to back out now.

All I’d done was walk into a drugstore to get a new battery for my lighter!

Right in the middle of the store, surrounded by three floors of sales counters, was the new 2603 Sinclair intrasystem yacht. I’d come for a battery, but I stayed to admire. It was a beautiful job, small and sleek and streamlined and blatantly different from anything that’d ever been built. I wouldn’t have flown it for anything but I had to admit it was pretty. I ducked my head through the door to look at the control panel. You never saw so many dials. When I pulled my head out, all the customers were looking in the same direction. The place had gone startlingly quiet.

I can’t blame them for staring. A number of aliens were in the store, mainly shopping for souvenirs, but they were staring too. A puppeteer is unique. Imagine a headless, three-legged centaur wearing two Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent puppets on its arms, and you’ll have something like the right picture. But the arms are weaving necks, and the puppets are real heads, flat and brainless, with wide flexible lips. The brain is under a bony hump set between the bases of the necks. This puppeteer wore only its own coat of brown hair, with a mane that extended all the way up its spine to form a thick mat over the brain. I’m told that the way they wear the mane indicates their status in society, but to me it could have been anything from a dock worker to a jeweler to the president of General Products.

I watched with the rest as it came across the floor, not because I’d never seen a puppeteer but because there is something beautiful about the dainty way they move on those slender legs and tiny hooves. I watched it come straight toward me, closer and closer. It stopped a foot away, looked me over, and said, “You are Beowuif Shaeffer, former chief pilot for Nakamura Lines.”

Its voice was a beautiful contralto with not a trace of accent. A puppeteer’s mouths are not only the most flexible speech organs around, but also the most sensitive hands. The tongues are forked and pointed; the wide, thick lips have little fingerlike knobs along the rims. Imagine a watchmaker with a sense of taste in his fingertips

I cleared my throat. “That’s right.”

It considered me from two directions. “You would be interested in a high-paying job?”

“I’d be fascinated by a high-paying job.”

“I am our equivalent of the regional president of General Products. Please come with me, and we will discuss this elsewhere.”

I followed it into a displacement booth. Eyes followed me all the way. It was embarrassing, being accosted in a public drugstore by a two-headed monster. Maybe the puppeteer knew it. Maybe it was testing me to see how badly I needed money.

My need was great. Eight months had passed since Nakamura Lines folded. For some time before that I had been living very high on the hog, knowing that my back pay would cover my debts. I never saw that back pay. It was quite a crash, Nakamura Lines. Respectable middle-aged businessmen took to leaving their hotel windows without their lift belts. Me, I kept spending. If I’d started living frugally, my creditors would have done some checking… and I’d have ended in debtor’s prison.

The puppeteer dialed thirteen fast digits with its tongue. A moment later we were elsewhere, Air puffed out when I opened the booth door, and I swallowed to pop my ears.

“We are on the roof of the General Products building.” The rich contralto voice thrilled along my nerves, and I had to remind myself that it was an alien speaking, not a lovely woman. “You must examine this spacecraft while we discuss your assignment.”

I stepped outside a little cautiously, but it wasn’t the windy season. The roof was at ground level. That’s the way we build on We Made It. Maybe it has something to do with the fifteen-hundred-mile-an-hour winds we get in summer and winter, when the planet’s axis of rotation runs through its primary, Procyon. The winds are our planet’s only tourist attraction, and it would be a shame to slow them down by planting skyscrapers in their path. The bare, square concrete roof was surrounded by endless square miles of desert, not like the deserts of other inhabited worlds, but an utterly lifeless expanse of fine sand just crying to be planted with ornamental cactus. We’ve tried that. The wind blows the plants away.

The ship lay on the sand beyond the roof. It was a No. 2 General Products hull: a cylinder three hundred feet long and twenty feet through, pointed at both ends and with a, slight wasp-waist constriction near the tail. For some reason it was lying on its side, with the landing shocks still folded in at the tail.

Ever notice how all ships have begun to look the same? A good ninety-five percent of today’s spacecraft are built around one of the four General Products hulls. It’s easier and safer to build that way, but somehow all ships end as they began: mass-produced look-alikes.

The hulls are delivered fully transparent, and you use paint where you feel like it. Most of this particular hull had been left transparent. Only the nose had been painted, around the lifesystem. There was no major reaction drive. A series of retractable attitude jets had been mounted in the sides, and the hull was pierced with smaller holes, square and round, for observational instruments. I could see them gleaming through the hull.

The puppeteer was moving toward the nose, but something made me turn toward the stern for a closer look at the landing shocks. They were bent. Behind the curved transparent hull panels some tremendous pressure had forced the metal to flow like warm wax, back and into the pointed stern.

“What did this?” I asked.

“We do not know. We wish strenuously to find out.”

“What do you mean?”

“Have you heard of the neutron star BVS-l?”

I had to think a moment. “First neutron star ever found, and so far the only. Someone located it two years ago, by stellar displacement.”

“BVS-l was found by the Institute of Knowledge on Jinx. We learned through a go-between that the Institute wished to explore the star. They needed a ship to do it.

They had not yet sufficient money. We offered to supply them with a ship’s hull, with the usual guarantees, if they would turn over to us all data they acquired through using our ship.”

“Sounds fair enough.” I didn’t ask why they hadn’t done their own exploring. Like most sentient vegetarians, puppeteers find discretion to be the only part of valor.

“Two humans named Peter Laskin and Sonya Laskin wished to use the ship. They intended to come within one mile of the surface in a hyperbolic orbit. At some point during their trip an unknown force apparently reached through the hull to do this to the landing shocks. The unknown force also seems to have killed the pilots.”

“But that’s impossible. Isn’t it?”

“You see the point. Come with me.” The puppeteer trotted toward the bow.

I saw the point, all right. Nothing, but nothing, can get through a General Products hull. No kind of electromagnetic energy except visible light. No kind of matter, from the smallest subatomic particle to the fastest meteor. That’s what the company’s advertisements claim, and the guarantee backs them up. I’ve never doubted it, and I’ve never heard of a General Products hull being damaged by a weapon or by anything else.

On the other hand, a General Products hull is as ugly as it is functional. The puppeteer-owned company could be badly hurt if it got around that something could get through a company hull. But I didn’t see where I came in.

We rode an escalladder into the nose.

The lifesystem was in two compartments. Here the Laskins had used heat-reflective paint. In the conical control cabin the hull had been divided into windows. The relaxation room behind it was a windowless reflective silver. From the back wall of the relaxation room an access tube ran aft, opening on various instruments and the hyperdrive motors.

There were two acceleration couches in the control cabin. Both had been torn loose from their mountings and wadded into the nose like so much tissue paper, crushing the instrument paneL The backs of the crumpled couches were splashed with rust brown. Flecks of the same color were all over everything, the walls, the windows, the viewscreens. It was as if something had hit the couches from behind: something like a dozen paint-filled toy balloons striking with tremendous force.

“That’s blood,” I said.

“That is correct. Human circulatory fluid.”

Twenty-four hours to fall.

I spent most of the first twelve hours in the relaxation room, trying to read. Nothing significant was happening, except that a few times I saw the phenomenon Sonya Laskin had mentioned in her last report. When a star went directly behind the invisible BVS-l, a halo formed. BVS-1 was heavy enough to bend light around it, displacing most stars to the sides; but when a star went directly behind the neutron star, its light was displaced to all sides at once. Result: a tiny circle which flashed once and was gone almost before the eye could catch it.

I’d known next to nothing about neutron stars the day the puppeteer picked me up. Now I was an expert. And I still had no idea what was waiting for me when I got down there.

All the matter you’re ever likely to meet will be normal matter, composed of a nucleus of protons and neutrons surrounded by electrons in quantum energy states. In the heart of any star there is a second kind of matter: for there, the tremendous pressure is enough to smash the electron shells. The result is degenerate matter: nuclei forced together by pressure and gravity, but held apart by the mutual repulsion of the more or less continuous electron “gas” around them. The right circumstances may create a third type of matter.

Given: a burnt-out white dwarf with a mass greater than 1.44 thnes the mass of the sun—Chandrasekhar’s Limit, named for an Indian-American astronomer of the nineteen hundreds. In such a mass the electron pressure alone would not be able to hold the electrons back from the nuclei. Electrons would be forced against protons—to make neutrons. In one blazing explosion most of the star would change from a compressed mass of degenerate matter to a closely packed lump of neutrons: neutronium, theoretically the densest matter possible in this universe. Most of the remaining normal and degenerate matter would be blown away by the liberated heat.

For two weeks the star would give off X-rays as its core temperature dropped from five billion degrees Kelvin to five hundred million. After that it would be a light-emitting body perhaps ten to twelve miles across: the next best thing to invisible. It was not strange that BVS-1 was the first neutron star ever found.

Neither is it strange that the Institute of Knowledge on Jinx would have spent a good deal of time and trouble looking. Until BVS-l was found, neutronium and neutron stars were only theories. The examination of an actual neutron star could be of tremendous importance. Neutron stars might give us the key to true gravity control.

Mass of BVS-1: 1.3 times the mass of Sol, approx.

Diameter of BVS-l (estimated): eleven miles of neutronium, covered by half a mile of degenerate matter, covered by maybe twelve feet of ordinary matter.

Nothing else was known of the tiny hidden star until the Laskins went in to look. Now the Institute knew one thing more: the star’s spin.

“A mass that large can distort space by its rotation,” said the puppeteer. “The Laskins’ projected hyperbola was twisted across itself in such a way that we can deduce the star’s period of rotation to be two minutes twenty-seven seconds.”

The bar was somewhere in the General Products building. I don’t know just where, and with the transfer booths it doesn’t matter. I kept staring at the puppeteer bartender. Naturally only a puppeteer would be served by a puppeteer bartender, since any biped life form would resent knowing that his drink had been made with somebody’s mouth. I had already decided to get dinner somewhere else.

“I see your problem,” I said. “Your sales will suffer if it gets out that something can reach through one of your hulls and smash a crew to bloody smears. But where do I come in?”

“We want to repeat the experiment of Sonya Laskin and Peter Laskin. We must find—”

“With me?”

“Yes. We must find out what it is that our hulls cannot stop. Naturally you may—”

“But I won’t.”

“We are prepared to offer one million stars.”

I was tempted, but only for a moment. “Forget it.”

“Naturally you will be allowed to build your own ship, starting with a No.2 General Products hull.”

“Thanks, but I’d like to go on living.”

“You would dislike being confined. I find that We Made It has re-established the debtor’s prison. If General Products made public your accounts—”

“Now, just a—”

“You owe money on the close order of five hundred thousand stars. We will pay your creditors before you leave. If you return—” I had to admire the creature’s honesty in not saying “When”—”we will pay you the residue. You may be asked to speak to news commentators concerning the voyage, in which case there will be more stars.”

“You say I can build my own ship?”

“Naturally. This is not a voyage of exploration. We want you to return safely.”

“It’s a deal,” I said.

After all, the puppeteer had tried to blackmail me. What happened next would be its own fault.

They built my ship in two weeks flat. They started with a No. 2 General Products hull, just like the one around the Institute of Knowledge ship, and the lifesystem was practically a duplicate of the Laskins’, but there the resemblance ended. There were no instruments to observe neutron stars. Instead, there was a fusion motor big enough for a Jinx warliner. In my ship, which I now called Skydiver, the drive would produce thirty gees at the safety limit. There was a laser cannon big enough to punch a hOle through We Made It’s moon. The puppeteer wanted me to feel safe, and now I did, for I could fight and I could run. Especially I could run.

I heard the Laskins’ last broadcast through half a dozen times. Their unnamed ship had dropped out of hyperspace a million miles above BVS-l. Gravity warp would have prevented their getting closer in hyperspace. While her husband was crawling through the access tube for an instrument check, Sonya Laskin had called the Institute of Knowledge. “… We can’t see it yet, not by naked eye. But we can see where it is. Every time some star or other goes behind it, there’s a little ring of light. Just a minute, Peter’s ready to use the telescope…

Then the star’s mass had cut the hyperspacial link. It was expected, and nobody had worried—then. Later, the same effect must have stopped them from escaping whatever attacked them into hyperspace.

When would-be rescuers found the ship, only the radar and the cameras were still running. They didn’t tell us much. There had been no camera in the cabin. But the forward camera gave us, for one instant, a speed-blurred view of the neutron star. It was a featureless disk the orange color of perfect barbecue coals, if you know someone who can afford to burn wood. This object had been a neutron star a long time.

“There’ll be no need to paint the ship,” I told the president.

“You should not make such a trip with the walls transparent. You would go insane.”

“I’m no flatlander. The mind-wrenching sight of naked space fills me with mild but waning interest. I want to know nothing’s sneaking up behind me.”

The day before I left, I sat alone in the General Products bar letting the puppeteer bartender make me drinks with his mouth. He did it well. Puppeteers were scattered around the bar in twos and threes, with a couple of men for variety, but the drinking hour had not yet arrived. The place felt empty.

I was pleased with myself. My debts were all paid, not that that would matter where I was going. I would leave with not a minicredit to my name, with nothing but the ship…

All told, I was well out of a sticky situation. I hoped I’d like being a rich exile.

I jumped when the newcomer sat down across from me. He was a foreigner, a middle-aged man wearing an expensive night-black business suit and a snow-white asymmetric beard. I let my face freeze and started to get up.

“Sit down, Mr. Shaeffer.”

“Why?”

He told me by showing me a blue disk. An Earth government ident. I looked it over to show I was alert, not because I’d know an ersatz from the real thing.

“My name is Sigmund Ausfaller,” said the government man. “I wish to say a few words concerning your assignment on behalf of General Products.”

I nodded, not saying anything.

“A record of your verbal contract was sent to us as a matter of course. I noticed some peculiar things about it. Mr. Shaeffer, will you really take such a risk for only five hundred thousand stars?”

“I’m getting twice that.”

“But you only keep half of it. The rest goes to pay debts. Then there are taxes… But never mind. What occurred to me was that a spaceship is a spaceship, and yours is very well armed and has powerful legs. An admirable fighting ship, if you were moved to sell it.”

“But it isn’t mine.”

“There are those who would not ask. On Canyon, for example, or the Isolationist party of Wunderland.”

I said nothing.

“Or, you might be planning a career of piracy. A risky business, piracy, and I don’t take the notion seriously.”

I hadn’t even thought about piracy. But I’d have to give up on Wunderland.

“What I would like to say is this, Mr. Shaeffer. A single entrepreneur, if he were sufficiently dishonest, could do terrible damage to the reputation of all human beings everywhere. Most species find it necessary to police the ethics of their own members, and we are no exception. It occurred to me that you might not take your ship to the neutron star at all; that you would take it elsewhere and sell it. The puppeteers do not make invulnerable war vessels. They are pacifists. Your Skydiver is unique.

“Hence I have asked General Products to allow me to install a remote-control bomb in the Skydiver. Since it is inside the hull, the hull cannot protect you. I had it installed this afternoon.

“Now, notice! If you have not reported within a week, I will set off the bomb. There are several worlds within a week’s hyperspace flight of here, but all recognize the dominion of Earth. If you flee, you must leave your ship within a week, so I hardly think you will land on a non-habitable world. Clear?”

“Clear.”

“If I am wrong, you may take a lie-detector test and prove it. Then you may punch me in the nose, and I will apologize handsomely.”

I shook my head. He stood up, bowed, and left me sitting there cold sober.

Four films had been taken from the Laskins’ cameras. In the time left to me I ran through them several times, without seeing anything out of the way. If the ship had run through a gas cloud, the impact could have killed the Laskins. At perihelion they were moving at better than half the speed of light. But there would have been friction, and I saw no sign of heating in the films. If something alive had attacked them, the beast was invisible to radar and to an enormous range of light frequencies. If the attitude jets had fired accidentally—I was clutching at straws—the light showed on none of the films.

There would be savage magnetic forces near BVS-l, but that couldn’t have done any damage. No such force could penetrate a General Products hull. Neither could heat, except in special bands of radiated light, bands visible to at least one of the puppeteers’ alien customers. I hold adverse opinions on the General Products hull, but they all concern the dull anonymity of the design. Or maybe I resent the fact that General Products holds a near-monopoly on spacecraft hulls, and isn’t owned by human beings. But if I’d had to trust my life to, say, the Sinclair yacht I’d seen in the drugstore, I’d have chosen jail..

Jail was one of my three choices. But I’d be there for life. Ausfaller would see to that.

Or I could run for it in the, Skydiver. But no world within reach would have me. If I could find an undiscovered Earth-like world within a week of We Made It…

Fat chance. I preferred BVS-l.

I thought that flashing circle of light was getting bigger, but it flashed so seldom, I couldn’t be sure. BVS-1 wouldn’t show even in my telescope. I gave that up and settled for just waiting.

Waiting, I ‘remembered a long-ago summer spent on Jinx. There were days when, unable to go outside because a dearth of clouds had spread the land with raw blue-white sunlight, we amused ourselves by filling party balloons with tap water, and dropping them on the sidewalk from three stories up. They made lovely splash patterns, which dried out too fast. So we put a little ink in each balloon before filling it. Then the patterns stayed.

Sonya Laskin had been in her chair when the chairs collapsed. Blood samples showed that it was Peter who had struck them from behind, like a water balloon dropped from a great height.

What could get through a General Products hull?

Ten hours to fall.

I unfastened the safety net and went for an inspection tour. The access tunnel was three feet wide, just right to push through in free fall. Below me was the length of the fusion tube; to the left, the laser cannon; to the right,, a set of curved side tubes leading to inspection points for the gyros, the batteries and generator, the air plant, the hyperspace shunt motors. All was in order—except me. I was clumsy. My jumps were always too short or too long.

There was no room to turn at the stern end, so I had to back fifty feet to a side tube.

Six hours to go, and still I couldn’t find the neutron star. Probably I would see it’ only for an instant, passing at better than half the speed of light. Already my speed must be enormous.

Were the stars turning blue?

Two hours’ to go—and I was sure they were turning blue. Was my speed that high? Then the stars behind should be red. Machinery blocked the view behind me, so I used the gyros. The ship turned with peculiar sluggishness. And the stars behind were blue, not red. All around me were blue-white stars.

Imagine light falling into a savagely steep gravitational well. It won’t accelerate. Light can’t move faster than light. But it can gain in energy, in frequency. The light was falling on me, harder and harder as I dropped.

I told the dictaphone about it. That dictaphone was probably the best-protected item on the ship. I had already decided to earn my money by using it, just as if I expected to collect. Privately I wondered just how intense the light would get.

Skydiver had drifted back to vertical, with its axis through the neutron star, but now it faced outward. I’d thought I had the ship stopped horizontally. More clumsiness. I used the gyros. Again the ship moved mushily, until it was halfway through the swing. Then it seemed to fall automatically into place. It was as if the Skydiver preferred to have its axis through the neutron star.

I didn’t like that.

I tried the maneuver again, and again the Skydiver’ fought back. But this time there was something else. Something was pulling at me.

So I unfastened my safety net—and fell headfirst into the nose.

The pull was light, about a tenth of a gee. It felt more like sinking through honey ‘than falling. I climbed back into my chair, tied myself in with Lhe net, now hanging face down, and turned on the dictaphone. I told my story in such nitpicking detail that my hypothetical listeners could not but doubt my hypothetical sanity. “I think this is what happened to the Laskins,” I finished. “If the pull increases, I’ll call back.”

Think? I never doubted it. This strange, gentle pull was inexplicable. Something inexplicable had killed Peter and Sonya Laskin. Q.E.D.

Around the point where the neutron star must be, the stars were like smeared dots of oil paint, smeared radially. They glared with an angry, painful light. I hung face down in the net and tried to think.

It was an hour before I was sure. The pull was increasing. And I still had an hour to fall.

Something was pulling on me, but not on the ship.

No, that was nonsense. What could reach out to me through a General Products hull? It must be the other way around. Something was pushing on the ship, pushing it off course.

If it got worse, I could use the drive to compensate. Meanwhile, the ship was being pushed away from BVS-l, which was fine by me.

But if I was wrong, if the ship was not somehow being pushed away from BVS-l, the rocket motor would send the Skydiver crashing into eleven miles of neutronium.

And why wasn’t the rocket already firing? If the ship was being pushed off course, the autopilot should be fighting back. The accelerometer was in good order. It had looked fine when I made my inspection tour down the access tube.

Could something be pushing on the ship and on the accelerometer, but not on me? It came down to the same impossibility: something that could reach through a General Products hull.

To hell with theory, said I to myself, said I. I’m getting out of here. To the dictaphone I said, “The pull has increased dangerously. I’m going to try to alter my orbit.”

Of course, once I turned the ship outward and used the rocket, I’d be adding my own acceleration to the X-force. It would be a strain, but I could stand it for a while. If I came within a mile of BVS-l, I’d end like Sonya Laskin.

She must have waited face down in a net like mine, waited without a drive unit, waited while the pressure rose and the net cut into her’ flesh, waited until the net snapped and dropped her into the nose, to lie crushed and broken until the X-force tore the very chairs loose and dropped them on her.

I hit the gyros.

The gyros weren’t strong enough to turn me. I tried it three times. Each time the ship rotated about fifty degrees and hung there, motionless, while the whine of the gyros went up and up. Released, the ship immediately swung back to position. I was nose down to the neutron star, and I was going to stay that way.

Half an hour to fall, and the X-force was over a gee. My sinuses were in agony. My eyes were ripe and ready to fall out. I don’t know if I could have stood a cigarette, but I didn’t get the chance. My pack of Fortunados had fallen out of my pocket when I dropped into the nose. There it was, four feet beyond my fingers, proof that the X-force acted on other objects besides me. Fascinating.

I couldn’t take any more. If it dropped me shrieking into the neutron star, I had to use the drive. And I did. I ran the thrust up until I was approximately in free fall. The blood which had pooled in my extremities went back where it belonged. The gee dial registered one point two gee. I cursed it for a lying robot.

The soft-pack was bobbing around in the nose, and it occurred to me that a little extra nudge on the throttle would bring it to me. I tried it. The pack drifted toward me, and I reached, and like a sentient ‘thing it speeded up to avoid my clutching hand. I snatched at it again as it went past my ear, and again it was moving too fast. That pack was going at a hell of a clip, considering that here I was practically in free fall. It dropped through the door to the relaxation room, still picking up speed, blurred and vanished as it entered the access tube. Seconds later I heard a solid thump.

But that was crazy. Already the X-force was pulling blood into my face. I pulled my lighter out, held it at arm’s length and let go. It fell gently into the nose. But the pack of Fortunados had hit like I’d dropped it from a building.

Well.

I nudged the throttle again. The mutter of fusing hydrogen reminded me that if I tried to keep this up all the way, I might well put the General Products hull to its toughest test yet: smashing it into a neutron star at half light speed. I could see it now: a transparent hull containing only a few cubic inches of dwarf-star matter wedged into the tip of the nose.

At one point four gee, according to that lying gee dial, the lighter came loose and drifted toward me. I let it go. It was clearly falling when it reached the doorway. I pulled the throttle back. The loss of power jerked me violently forward, but I kept my face turned. The lighter slowed and hesitated at the entrance to the access tube. Decided to go through. I cocked my ears for the sound, then jumped as the whole ship rang like a gong.

And the accelerometer was right at the ship’s center of mass. Otherwise the ship’s mass would have thrown the needle off. The puppeteers were fiends for ten-decimal-point accuracy.

I favored the dictaphone with a few fast comments, then got to work reprogramming the autopilot. Luckily what I wanted was simple. The X-force was but an X-force to me, but now I knew how it behaved. I might actually live through this.

The stars were fiercely blue, warped to streaked lines near that special point. I thought I could see it now, very small and dim and red, but it might have been imagination. In twenty minutes I’d be rounding the neutron star. The drive grumbled behind me. In effective free fall, I unfastened the safety net and pushed myself out of the chair.

A gentle push aft—and ghostly hands grasped my legs. Ten pounds of weight hung by my fingers from the back of the chair.’ The pressure should drop fast. I’d programmed the autopilot to reduce the thrust from two gees to zero during the next two minutes. All I had to do was be at the center of mass, in the’ access tube, when the thrust went to zero.

Something gripped the ship through a General Products hull. A psychokinetic life form stranded on a sun twelve miles in diameter? But how could anything alive stand such gravity?

Something might be stranded in orbit. There is life in space: outsiders and sailseeds, and maybe others we haven’t found yet. For all I knew or cared, BVS-1 itself might be alive. It didn’t matter. I knew what the X-force was trying to do. It was trying to pull the ship apart.

There was no pull on my fingers. I pushed aft and landed on the back wall, on bent legs. I knelt over the door, looking aft/down. When free fall came, I pulled myself through and was in the relaxation room looking down! forward into the nose.

Gravity was changing faster than I liked. The X-force was growing as zero hour approached, while the compensating rocket thrust dropped. The X-force tended to pull the ship apart; it was two gee forward at the nose, two gee backward at the tail, and diminished to zero at the center of mass. Or so I hoped. The pack and lighter had behaved as if the force pulling them had increased for every inch they moved sternward.

The back wall was fifteen feet away. I had to jump it with gravity changing in midair. I hit on my hands, bounced away. I’d jumped too late. The region of free fall was moving through the ship like a wave as the thrust dropped. It had left me behind. Now the back wall was “up” to me, and so was the access tube.

Under something less than half a gee, I jumped for the access tube. For one long moment I stared into the three-foot tunnel, stopped in midair and already beginning to fall back, as I realized that there was nothing to hang on to. Then I stuck my hands in the tube and spread them against the sides. It was all I needed. I levered myself up and started to crawl.’

The dictaphone was fifty feet below, utterly unreachable. If I had anything more to say to General Products, I’d have to say it in person. Maybe I’d get the chance. Because I knew what force was trying to tear the ship apart.

It was the tide.

The motor was off, and I was at the ship’s midpoint. My spread-eagled position was getting uncomfortable. It was four minutes to perihelion.

Something creaked in the cabin below me. I couldn’t see what it was, but I could clearly see a red point glaring among blue radial lines, like a lantern at the bottom of a well. To the sides, between the fusion tube and the tanks and other equipment, the blue stars glared at me with a light that was almost violet. I was afraid to look too long. I actually thought they might blind me.

There must have been hundreds of gravities in the cabin. I could even feel the pressure change. The air was thin at this height, one hundred and fifty feet above the control room.

And now, almost suddenly, the red dot was more than a dot. My time was up. A red disk leapt up at me; the ship swung around me; I gasped and shut my eyes tight.

Giants’ hands gripped my arms and legs and head, gently but with great firmness, and tried to pull me in two. In that moment it came to me that Peter Laskin had died like this. He’d made the same guesses I had, and he’d tried to hide in the access tube. But he’d slipped…as I was slipping… From the control room came a multiple shriek of tearing metal. I tried to dig my feet into the hard tube walls. Somehow they held.

When I got my eyes open the red dot was shrinking into nothing.

The puppeteer president Insisted I be put in a hospital for observation. I didn’t tight the idea. My face and hands were flaming red, with blisters rising, and I ached as though I’d been beaten. Rest and tender loving care, that’s what I wanted.

I was floating between a pair of sleeping plates, hideously uncomfortable, when the nurse came to announce a visitor. I knew who it was from her peculiar expression.

“What can get through a General Products hull?” I asked it.

“I hoped you would tell me.” The president rested on its single back leg, holding a stick that gave off green incense smelling smoke.

“And so I will. Gravity.”

“Do not play with me, Beowulf Shaeffer. This matter is vital.”

“I’m not playing. Does your world have a moon?”

“That information is classified.” The puppeteers are cowards. Nobody knows where they come from, and nobody is likely to find out.

“Do you know what happens when a moon gets too close to its primary?”

“It falls apart.”

“Why?”

“I do not know.”

“Tides.”

“What is a tide?’

Oho, said’ I to myself, said I. “I’m going to try to tell you. The Earth’s moon is almost two thousand miles in diameter and does not rotate with respect to Earth. I want you to pick two rocks on the moon, one at the point nearest the Earth, one at the point farthest away.”

“Very well.”

“Now, isn’t it obvious that if those rocks were left to themselves, they’d fall away from each other? They’re in two different orbits, mind you, concentric orbits, one almost two thousand miles outside the other. Yet those rocks are forced to move at the same orbital speed.”

“The one outside is moving faster.”

“Good point. So there is a force trying to pull the moon apart. Gravity holds it together. Bring the moon close enough to Earth, and those two rocks would simply ‘float away.”

“I see. Then this ‘tide’ tried to pull your ship apart. It was powerful enough in the lifesystem of the Institute ship to pull the acceleration chairs out of their mounts.”

“And to crush a human being. Picture it. The ship’s nose was just seven miles from the center of BVS-l. The tail was three hundred feet farther out. Left to themselves, they’d have gone in completely different orbits. My head and feet tried to do the same thing when I got close enough.”

“I see. Are you molting?”

“What?”

“I notice you are losing your outer integument in spots.”

“Oh, that. I got a bad sunburn from exposure to starlight. It’s not important.”

Two heads stared at each other for an eyeblink. A shrug? The puppeteer said, “We have deposited the residue of your pay with the Bank of We Made It. One Sigmund Ausfaller, human, has frozen the account until your taxes are computed.”

“Figures.”

“If you will talk to reporters now, explaining what happened to the Institute ship, we will pay you ten thousand stars. We will pay cash so that you may use it immediately. It is urgent. There have been rumors.”

“Bring ‘em in.” As an afterthought I added, “I can also tell them that your world is moonless. That should be good for a footnote somewhere.”

“I do not understand.” But two long necks had drawn back, and the puppeteer was watching me like a pair of pythons.

“You’d know what a tide was if you had a moon. You couldn’t avoid it.”

“Would you be interested in—”

“A million stars? I’d be fascinated. I’ll even sign a contract if it states what we’re hiding. How do you like being blackmailed for a change?”

AYE AND GORMORRAH

Samuel R. Delany

And came down in Paris:

Where we raced along the Rue de Médicis with Bo and Lou and Muse inside the fence, Kelly and me outside, making faces through the bars, making noise, making the Luxembourg Gardens roar at two in the morning. Then climbed out, and down to the square in front of St. Sulpice where Bo tried to knock me into the fountain.

At which point Kelly noticed what was going on around us, got an ashcan cover, and ran into the pissoir, banging the walls. Five guys scooted out; even a big pissoir only holds four.

A very blond young man put his hand on my arm and smiled. “Don’t you think, Spacer, that you … people should leave?”

I looked at his hand on my blue uniform. “Est-ce que tu es un frelk?”

His eyebrows rose, then he shook his head. “Une frelk,” he corrected. “No. I am not. Sadly for me. You look as though you may once have been a man. But now …” He smiled. “You have nothing for me now. The police.” He nodded across the street where I noticed the gendarmerie for the first time. “They don’t bother us. You are strangers, though …”

But Muse was already yelling, “Hey, come on! Let’s get out of here, huh?” And left. And went up again.

And came down in Houston:

“God damn!” Muse said. “Gemini Flight Control—you mean this is where it all started? Let’s get out of here, please!”

So took a bus out through Pasadena, then the monoline to Galveston, and were going to take it down the Gulf, but Lou found a couple with a pickup truck—

“Glad to give you a ride, Spacers. You people up there on them planets and things, doing all that good work for the government.”

—who were going south, them and the baby, so we rode in the back for two hundred and fifty miles of sun and wind.

“You think they’re frelks?” Lou asked, elbowing me. “I bet they’re frelks. They’re just waiting for us give ‘em the come-on.”

“Cut it out. They’re a nice, stupid pair of country kids.”

“That don’t mean they ain’t frelks!”

“You don’t trust anybody, do you?”

“No.”

And finally a bus again that rattled us through Brownsville and across the border into Matamoros where we staggered down the steps into the dust and the scorched evening with a lot of Mexicans and chickens and Texas Gulf shrimp fishermen—who smelled worst—and we shouted the loudest. Forty-three whores—I counted—had turned out for the shrimp fishermen, and by the time we had broken two of the windows in the bus station they were all laughing. The shrimp fishermen said they wouldn’t buy us no food but would get us drunk if we wanted, ‘cause that was the custom with shrimp fishermen. But we yelled, broke another window; then, while I was lying on my back on the telegraph office steps, singing, a woman with dark lips bent over and put her hands on my cheeks. “You are very sweet.” Her rough hair fell forward. “But the men, they are standing around and watching you. And that is taking up time. Sadly, their time is our money. Spacer, do you not think you … people should leave?”

I grabbed her wrist. “¡Usted!” I whispered. “¿Usted es una frelka?”

“Frelko en español.” She smiled and patted the sunburst that hung from my belt buckle. “Sorry. But you have nothing that … would be useful to me. It is too bad, for you look like you were once a woman, no? And I like women, too …”

I rolled off the porch.

“Is this a drag, or is this a drag!” Muse was shouting. “Come on! Let’s go!”

We managed to get back to Houston before dawn, somehow. And went up.

And came down in Istanbul:

That morning it rained in Istanbul.

At the commissary we drank our tea from pear-shaped glasses, looking out across the Bosphorus. The Princess Islands lay like trash heaps before the prickly city.

“Who knows their way in this town?” Kelly asked.

“Aren’t we going around together?” Muse demanded. “I thought we were going around together.”

“They held up my check at the purser’s office,” Kelly explained. “I’m flat broke. I think the purser’s got it in for me,” and shrugged. “Don’t want to, but I’m gong to have to hunt up a rich frelk and come on friendly,” went back to the tea; then noticed how heavy the silence had become. “Aw, come on now! You gape at me like that and I’ll bust every bone in that carefully-conditioned-from-puberty body of yours. Hey you!” meaning me. “Don’t give me that holier-than-thou gawk like you never went with no frelk!”

It was starting.

“I’m not gawking,” I said and got quietly mad.

The longing, the old longing.

Bo laughed to break tensions. “Say, last time I was in Istanbul—about a year before I joined up with this platoon—I remember we were coming out of Taksim Square down Istiqlal. Just past all the cheap movies we found a little passage lined with flowers. Ahead of us were two other spacers. It’s a market in there, and farther down they got fish, and then a courtyard with oranges and candy and sea urchins and cabbage. But flowers in front. Anyway, we noticed something funny about the spacers. It wasn’t their uniforms; they were perfect. The haircuts: fine. It wasn’t till we heard them talking—they were a man and woman dressed up like spacers, trying to pick up frelks! Imagine, queer for frelks!”

“Yeah,” Lou said. “I seen that before. There were a lot of them in Rio.”

“We beat hell out of them two,” Bo concluded. “We got them in a side street and went to town!”

Muse’s tea glass clicked on the counter. “From Taksim down Istiqlal till you get to the flowers? Now why didn’t you say that’s where the frelks were, huh?” A smile on Kelly’s face would have made that okay. There was no smile.

“Hell,” Lou said, “nobody ever had to tell me where to look. I go out in the street and frelks smell me coming. I can spot ‘em halfway along Piccadilly. Don’t they have nothing but tea in this place? Where can you get a drink?”

Bo grinned. “Moslem country, remember? But down at the end of the Flower Passage there’re a lot of little bars with green doors and marble counters where you can get a liter of beer for about fifteen cents in lira. And they’re all these stands selling deep-fat-fried bugs and pig’s gut sandwiches—”

“You ever notice how frelks can put it away? I mean liquor, not … pig’s guts.”

And launched off into a lot of appeasing stories. We ended with the one about the frelk some spacer tried to roll who announced: “There are two things I go for. One is spacers; the other is a good fight …”

But they only allay. They cure nothing. Even Muse knew we would spend the day apart, now.

The rain had stopped, so we took the ferry up the Golden Horn. Kelly straight off asked for Taksim Square and Istiqlal and was directed to a dolmush, which we discovered was a taxicab, only it just goes one place and picks up lots and lots of people on the way. And it’s cheap.

Lou headed off over Ataturk Bridge to see the sights of New City. Bo decided to find out what the Dolma Boche really was; and when Muse discovered you could go to Asia for fifteen cents—one lira and fifty krush—well, Muse decided to go to Asia.

I turned through the confusion of traffic at the head of the bridge and up past the gray, dripping walls of Old City, beneath the trolley wires. There are times when yelling and helling won’t fill the lack. There are times when you must walk by yourself because it hurts so much to be alone.

I walked up a lot of little streets with wet donkeys and wet camels and women in veils; and down a lot of big streets with buses and trash baskets and men in business suits.

Some people stare at spacers; some people don’t. Some people stare or don’t stare in a way a spacer gets to recognize within a week after coming out of training school at sixteen. I was walking in the park when I caught her watching. She saw me see and looked away.

I ambled down the wet asphalt. She was standing under the arch of a small, empty mosque shell. As I passed she walked out into the courtyard among the cannons.

“Excuse me.”

I stopped.

“Do you know whether or not this is the shrine of St. Irene?” Her English was charmingly accented. “I’ve left my guidebook home.”

“Sorry. I’m a tourist too.”

“Oh.” She smiled. “I am Greek. I thought you might be Turkish because you are so dark.”

“American red Indian.” I nodded. Her turn to curtsy.

“I see. I have just started at the university here in Istanbul. Your uniform, it tells me that you are”—and in the pause, all speculations resolved—“a spacer.”

I was uncomfortable. “Yeah.” I put my hands in my pockets, moved my feet around on the soles of my boots, licked my third from the rear left molar—did all the things you do when you’re uncomfortable. You’re so exciting when you look like that, a frelk told me once. “Yeah, I am.” I said it too sharply, too loudly, and she jumped a little.

So now she knew I knew she knew I knew, and I wondered how we would play out the Proust bit.

“I’m Turkish,” she said. “I’m not Greek. I’m not just starting. I’m a graduate in art history here at the university. These little lies one makes for strangers to protect one’s ego … why? Sometimes I think my ego is very small.”

That’s one strategy.

“How far away do you live?” I asked. “And what’s the going rate in Turkish lira?” That’s another.

“I can’t pay you.” She pulled her raincoat around her hips. She was very pretty. “I would like to.” She shrugged and smiled. “But I am … a poor student. Not a rich one. If you want to turn around and walk away, there will be no hard feelings. I shall be sad though.”

I stayed on the path. I thought she’d suggest a price after a little while. She didn’t.

And that’s another.

I was asking myself, What do you want the damn money for anyway? when a breeze upset water from one of the park’s great cypresses.

“I think the whole business is sad.” She wiped drops from her face. There had been a break in her voice, and for a moment I looked too closely at the water streaks. “I think it’s sad that they have to alter you to make you a spacer. If they hadn’t, then we … If spacers had never been, then we could not be … the way we are. Did you start out male or female?”

Another shower. I was looking at the ground and droplets went down my collar.

“Male,” I said. “It doesn’t matter.”

“How old are you? Twenty-three, twenty-four?”

“Twenty-three,” I lied. It’s reflex. I’m twenty-five, but the younger they think you are, the more they pay you. But I didn’t want her damn money—

“I guessed right then.” She nodded. “Most of us are experts on spacers. Do you find that? I suppose we have to be.” She looked at me with wide black eyes. At the end of the stare, she blinked rapidly. “You would have been a fine man. But now you are a spacer, building water-conservation units on Mars, programing mining computers on Ganymede, servicing communication relay towers on the moon. The alteration …” Frelks are the only people I’ve ever heard say “the alteration” with so much fascination and regret. “You’d think they’d have found some other solution. They could have found another way than neutering you, turning you into creatures not even androgynous; things that are—”

I put my hand on her shoulder, and she stopped like I’d hit her. She looked to see if anyone was near. Lightly, so lightly then, she raised her hand to mine.

I pulled my hand away. “That are what?”

“They could have found another way.” Both hands in her pockets now.

“They could have. Yes. Up beyond the ionosphere, baby, there’s too much radiation for those precious gonads to work right anywhere you might want to do something that would keep you there over twenty-four hours, like the moon, or Mars, or the satellites of Jupiter—”

“They could have made protective shields. They could have done more research into biological adjustment—”

“Population Explosion time,” I said. “No, they were hunting for any excuse to cut down kids back then—especially deformed ones.”

“Ah, yes.” She nodded. “We’re still fighting our way up from the neo-puritan reaction to the sex freedom of the twentieth century.”

“It was a fine solution.” I grinned and hung my hand over my crotch. “I’m happy with it.” I’ve never known why that’s so much more obscene when a spacer does it.

“Stop it,” she snapped, moving away.

“What’s the matter?”

“Stop it,” she repeated. “Don’t do that! You’re a child.”

“But they choose us from children whose sexual responses are hopelessly retarded at puberty.”

“And your childish, violent substitutes for love? I suppose that’s one of the things that’s attractive. Yes, I know you’re a child.”

“Yeah? What about frelks?”

She thought awhile. “I think they are the sexually retarded ones they miss. Perhaps it was the right solution. You really don’t regret you have no sex?”

“We’ve got you,” I said.

“Yes.” She looked down. I glanced to see the expression she was hiding. It was a smile. “You have your glorious, soaring life, and you have us.” Her face came up. She glowed. “You spin in the sky, the world spins under you, and you step from land to land, while we…” She turned her head right, left, and her black hair curled and uncurled on the shoulder of her coat. “We have our dull, circled lives, bound in gravity, worshiping you!”

She looked back at me. “Perverted, yes? In love with a bunch of corpses in free fall!” She suddenly hunched her shoulders. “I don’t like having a free-fall-sexual-displacement complex.”

“That always sounded like too much to say.”

She looked away. “I don’t like being a frelk. Better?”

“I wouldn’t like it either. Be something else.”

“You don’t choose your perversions. You have no perversions at all. You’re free of the whole business. I love you for that, Spacer. My love starts with the fear of love. Isn’t that beautiful? A pervert substitutes something unattainable for ‘normal’ love: the homosexual, a mirror; the fetishist, a shoe or a watch or a girdle. Those with free-fall-sexual-dis—”

“Frelks.”

“Frelks substitute”—she looked at me sharply again—“loose, swinging meat.”

“That doesn’t offend me.”

“I wanted it to.”

“Why?”

“You don’t have desires. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Go on.”

“I want you because you can’t want me. That’s the pleasure. If someone really had a sexual reaction to … us, we’d be scared away. I wonder how many people there were before there were you, waiting for your creation. We’re necrophiles. I’m sure grave-robbing has fallen off since you started going up. But you don’t understand …” She paused. “If you did, then I wouldn’t be scuffing leaves now and trying to think from whom I could borrow sixty lira.” She stepped over the knuckles of a root that had cracked the pavement. “And that, incidentally, is the going rate in Istanbul.”

I calculated. “Things still get cheaper as you go east.”

“You know,” and she let her raincoat fall open, “you’re different from the others. You at least want to know—”

I said, “If I spat on you for every time you’d said that to a spacer, you’d drown.”

“Go back to the moon, loose meat.” She closed her eyes. “Swing on up to Mars. There are satellites around Jupiter where you might do some good. Go up and come down in some other city.”

“Where do you live?”

“You want to come with me?”

“Give me something,” I said. “Give me something—it doesn’t have to be worth sixty lira. Give me something you like, anything of yours that means something to you.”

“No!”

“Why not?”

“Because I—”

“—don’t want to give up part of that small ego. None of you frelks do!”

“You really don’t understand I just don’t want to buy you?”

“You have nothing to buy me with.”

“You are a child,” she said. “I love you.”

We reached the gate of the park. She stopped, and we stood time enough for a breeze to rise and die in the grass. “I …” she offered tentatively, pointing without taking her hand from her coat pocket. “I live right down there.”

“All right,” I said. “Let’s go.”

***

A gas main had once exploded along this street, she explained to me, a gushing road of fire as far as the docks, overhot and overquick. It had been put out within minutes, no building had fallen, but the charred fascias glittered. “This is sort of an artist and student quarter.” We crossed the cobbles. “Yuri Pasha, number fourteen. In case you’re ever in Istanbul again.” Her door was covered with black scales, the gutter was thick with garbage.

“A lot of artists and professional people are frelks,” I said, trying to be inane.

“So are lots of other people.” She walked inside and held the door. “We’re just more flamboyant about it.”

On the landing there was a portrait of Ataturk. Her room was on the second floor. “Just a moment while I get my key—”

Marsscapes! Moonscapes! On her easel was a six-foot canvas showing the sunrise flaring on a crater’s rim! There were copies of the original Observer pictures of the moon pinned to the wall, and pictures of every smooth-faced general in the International Spacer Corps.

On one corner of her desk was a pile of those photo magazines about spacers that you can find in most kiosks all over the world: I’ve seriously heard people say they were printed for adventurous-minded high school children. They’ve never seen the Danish ones. She had a few of those too. There was a shelf of art books, art history texts. Above them were six feet of cheap paper-covered space operas: Sin on Space Station #12, Rocket Rake, Savage Orbit.

“Arrack?” she asked. “Ouzo or Pernod? You’ve got your choice. But I may pour them all from the same bottle.” She set out glasses on the desk, then opened a waist-high cabinet that turned out to be an icebox. She stood up with a tray of lovelies: fruit puddings, Turkish delight, braised meats.

“What’s this?”

“Dolmades. Grape leaves filled with rice and pignoli.”

“Say it again?”

“Dolmades. Comes from the same Turkish word as ‘dolmush.’ They both mean ‘stuffed.’” She put the tray beside the glasses. “Sit down.”

I sat on the studio-couch-that-becomes-bed. Under the brocade I felt the deep, fluid resilience of a glycogel mattress. They’ve got the idea that it approximates the feeling of free fall. “Comfortable? Would you excuse me for a moment? I have some friends down the hall. I want to see them for a moment.” She winked. “They like spacers.”

“Are you going to take up a collection for me?” I asked. “Or do you want them to line up outside the door and wait their turn?”

She sucked a breath. “Actually I was going to suggest both.” Suddenly she shook her head. “Oh, what do you want!”

“What will you give me? I want something,” I said. “That’s why I came. I’m lonely. Maybe I want to find out how far it goes. I don’t know yet.”

“It goes as far as you will. Me? I study, I read, paint, talk with my friends”—she came over to the bed, sat down on the floor—“go to the theater, look at spacers who pass me on the street, till one looks back; I am lonely too.” She put her head on my knee. “I want something. But,” and after a minute neither of us had moved, “you are not the one who will give it to me.”

“You’re not going to pay me for it,” I countered. “You’re not, are you?”

On my knee her head shook. After a while she said, all breath and no voice, “Don’t you think you … should leave?”

“Okay,” I said, and stood up.

She sat back on the hem of her coat. She hadn’t taken it off yet.

I went to the door.

“Incidentally.” She folded her hands in her lap. “There is a place in New City you might find what you’re looking for, called the Flower Passage—”

I turned toward her, angry. “The frelk hangout? Look, I don’t need money! I said anything would do! I don’t want—”

She had begun to shake her head, laughing quietly. Now she lay her cheek on the wrinkled place where I had sat. “Do you persist in misunderstanding? It is a spacer hangout. When you leave, I am going to visit my friends and talk about … ah, yes, the beautiful one that got away. I thought you might find … perhaps someone you know.”

With anger, it ended.

“Oh,” I said. “Oh, it’s a spacer hangout. Yeah. Well, thanks.”

And went out. And found the Flower Passage, and Kelly and Lou and Bo and Muse. Kelly was buying beer, so we all got drunk, and ate fried fish and fried clams and fried sausage, and Kelly was waving the money around, saying, “You should have seen him! The changes I put that frelk through, you should have seen him! Eighty lira is the going rate here, and he gave me a hundred and fifty!” and drank more beer.

And went up.

THE JIGSAW MAN

Larry Niven

Transplant technology, through two hundred years of development, had come into its own …and raised its own problems. The Belt escaped the most drastic social effects. Earth did not.

In A.D. 1900, Karl Landsteiner classified human blood into four types: A, B, AB, and O, according to incompatibilities. For the first time it became possible to give a shock patient a transfusion with some hope that it wouldn’t kill him.

The movement to abolish the death penalty was barely getting started, and already it was doomed.

Vh83uOAGn7 was his telephone number and his driving license number and his social security number and the number of his draft card and his medical record. Two of these had been revoked, and the others had ceased to matter, except for his medical record. His name was Warren Lewis Knowles. He was going to die.

The trial was a day away, but the verdict was no less certain for that. Lew was guilty. If anyone had doubted it, the prosecution had ironclad proof. By eighteen tomorrow Lew would be condemned to death. Broxton would appeal the case on some grounds or other. The appeal would be denied.

The cell was comfortable, small, and padded. This was no slur on the prisoner’s sanity, though insanity was no longer an excuse for breaking the law. Three of the walls were mere bars. The fourth wall, the outside wall, was cement padded and painted a restful shade of green. But the bars which separated him from the corridor, and from the morose old man on his left, and from the big, moronic looking teenager on his right—the bars were four inches thick and eight inches apart, padded in silicone plastics. For the fourth time that day Lew took a clenched fistful of the plastic and tried to rip it away. It felt like a sponge rubber pillow, with a rigid core the thickness of a pencil, and it wouldn’t rip. When he let go it snapped back to a perfect cylinder.

“It’s not fair,” he said.

The teenager didn’t move. For all of the ten hours Lew had beer in his cell, the kid had been sitting on the edge of his bunk with his lank black hair falling in his eyes and his five o’clock shadow getting gradually darker. He moved his long, hairy arms only at mealtimes, and the rest of him not at all.

The old man looked up at the sound of Lew’s voice. He spoke with bitter sarcasm. “You framed?”

“No, I—”

“At least you’re honest. What’d you do?”

Lew told him. He couldn’t keep the hurt innocence out of his voice. The old man smiled derisively, nodding as if he’d expected just that.

“Stupidity. Stupidity’s always been a capital crime. If you had to get yourself executed, why not for something important? See the kid on the other side of you?”

“Sure,” Lew said without looking.

“He’s an organlegger.”

Lew felt the shock freezing in his face. He braced himself for another look into the next cell-and every nerve in his body jumped. The kid was looking at him. With his dull dark eyes barely visible under his mop of hair, he regarded Lew as a butcher might consider a badly aged side of beef.

Lew edged closer to the bars between his cell and the old man’s. His voice was a hoarse whisper. “How many did he kill?”

“None.”

“?”

“He was the snatch man. He’d find someone out alone at night, drug him and take him home to the doc that ran the ring. It was the doc that did all the killing. If Bernie’d brought home a dead donor, the doc would have skinned him down.”

The old man sat with Lew almost directly behind him. He had

twisted himself around to talk to Lew, but now he seemed to be losing interest. His hands, hidden from Lew by his bony back, were in constant nervous motion.

“How many did he snatch?”

“Four. Then he got caught. He’s not very bright, Bernie.”

“What did you do to get put here?”

The old man didn’t answer. He ignored Lew completely, his shoulders twitching as he moved his hands. Lew shrugged and dropped back in his bunk.

It was nineteen o’clock of a Thursday night.

The ring had included three snatch men. Bernie had not yet been tried. Another was dead; he had escaped over the edge of a pedwalk when he felt the mercy bullet enter his arm. The third was being wheeled into the hospital next door to the courthouse.

Officially he was still alive. He had been sentenced; his appeal had been denied; but he was still alive as they moved him, drugged into the operating room.

The interns lifted him from the table and inserted a mouthpiece so he could breathe when they dropped him into freezing liquid They lowered him without a splash, and as his body temperature went down they dribbled something else into his veins. About half pint of it. His temperature dropped toward freezing, his heartbeats were further and further apart. Finally his heart stopped. But

could have been started again. Men had been reprieved at this point Officially the organlegger was still alive.

The doctor was a line of machines with a conveyor belt running through them. When the organlegger’s body temperature reached, certain point, the belt started. The first machine made a series of it incisions in his chest. Skillfully and mechanically, the doctor performed a cardiectomy.

The organlegger was officially dead.

His heart went into storage immediately. His skin followed, most of it in one piece, all of it still living. The doctor took him apart wit exquisite care, like disassembling a flexible, fragile, tremendous] complex jigsaw puzzle. The brain was flashburned and the ashes saved for urn burial; but all the rest of the body, in slabs and small blobs and parchment-thin layers and lengths of tubing, went into storage in the hospital’s organ banks. Any one of these units could be packed in a travel case at a moment’s notice and flown to anywhere in the world in not much more than an hour. If the odds broke right, if the right people came down with the right diseases at the right time, the organlegger might save more lives than he had taken.

Which was the whole point.

Lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling television set, Lew suddenly began to shiver. He had not had the energy to put the sound plug in his ear, and the silent motion of the cartoon figures had suddenly become horrid. He turned the set off, and that didn’t help either.

Bit by bit they would take him apart and store him away. He’d never seen an organ storage bank, but his uncle had owned a butcher-shop …

“Hey!” he yelled.

The kid’s eyes came up, the only living part of him. The old mall twisted round to look over his shoulder. At the end of the hall the guard looked up once, then went back to reading.

The fear was in Lew’s belly; it pounded in his throat. “How can you stand it?”

The kid’s eyes dropped to the floor. The old man said, “Stand what?”

“Don’t you know what they’re going to do to us?”

“Not to me. They won’t take me apart like a hog.”

Instantly Lew was at the bars. “Why not?”

The old man’s voice had become very low. “Because there’s a bomb where my right thighbone used to be. I’m gonna blow myself up. What they find, they’ll never use.”

The hope the old man had raised washed away, leaving bitterness. “Nuts. How could you put a bomb in your leg?”

“Take the bone out, bore a hole lengthwise through it, build the bomb in the hole, get all the organic material out of the bone so it won’t rot, put the bone back in. ‘Course your red corpuscle count goes down afterward. What I wanted to ask you. You want to join me?”

“Join you?”

“Hunch up against the bars. This thing’ll take care of both of us.”

Lew had backed up against the opposite set of bars.

“Your choice,” said the old man. “I never told you what I was here for, did I? I was the doc. Bernie made his snatches for me.”

Lew felt the bars touch his shoulders and turned to find the kid looking dully into his eyes from two feet away. Organleggers! He was surrounded by professional killers!

“I know what it’s like,” the old man continued. “They won’t do that to me. Well. If you’re sure you don’t want a clean death, go lie down behind your bunk. It’s thick enough.”

The bunk was a mattress and a set of springs mounted into a cement block which was an integral part of the cement floor. Lew curled himself into fetal position with his hands over his eyes.

He was sure he didn’t want to die now.

Nothing happened.

After a while he opened his eyes, took his hands away and looked around.

The kid was looking at him. For the first time there was a sour grin plastered on his face. In the corridor the guard, who was always in a chair by the exit, was standing outside the bars looking down at him He seemed concerned.

Lew felt the flush rising in his neck and nose and ears. The old man had been playing with him. He moved to get up …

And a hammer came down on the world.

The guard lay broken against the bars of the cell across the corridor. The lank-haired youngster was picking himself up from behind his bunk, shaking his head. Somebody groaned; the groan rose to a scream. The air was full of cement dust.

Lew got up.

Blood lay like red oil on every surface that faced the explosion. Try as he might, and he didn’t try very hard, Lew could find no other trace of the old man.

Except for the hole in the wall.

He must have been standing …right …there.

The hole would be big enough to crawl through, if Lew could reach it. But it was in the old man’s cell. The silicone plastic sheathing on the bars between the cells had been ripped away, leaving only pencil-thick lengths of metal.

Lew tried to squeeze through.

The bars were humming, vibrating, though there was no sound. As Lew noticed the vibration he also found that he was becoming sleepy. He jammed his body between the bars, caught in a war between his rising panic and the sonic stunners which might have gone on automatically.

The bars wouldn’t give. But his body did; and the bars were slippery with …He was through. He poked his head through the hole in the wall and looked down.

Way down. Far enough to make him dizzy.

The Topeka County courthouse was a small skyscraper, and Lew’s cell must have been near the top. He looked down a smooth concrete slab studded with windows set flush with the sides. There would be no way to reach those windows, no way to open them, no way to break them.

The stunner was sapping his will. He would have been unconscious by now if his head had been in the cell with the rest of him. He had to force himself to turn and look up.

He was at the top. The edge of the roof was only a few feet above his eyes. He couldn’t reach that far, not without…

He began to crawl out of the hole.

Win or lose, they wouldn’t get him for the organ banks. The vehicular traffic level would smash every useful part of him. He sat on the lip of the hole, with his legs straight out inside the cell for balance, pushing his chest flat against the wall. When he had his balance he stretched his arms toward the roof. No good.

So he got one leg under him, keeping the other stiffly out, and lunged.

His hands closed over the edge as he started to fall back. He yelped with surprise, but it was too late. The top of the courthouse was moving! It had dragged him out of the hole before he could let go. He hung on, swinging slowly back and forth over empty space as the motion carried him away.

The top of the courthouse was a pedwalk.

He couldn’t climb lip, not without purchase for his feet. He didn’t have the strength. The pedwalk was moving toward another building, about the same height. He could reach it if he only hung on.

And the windows in that building were different. They weren’t made to open, not in those days of smog and air conditioning, but there were ledges. Perhaps the glass would break.

Perhaps it wouldn’t.

The pull on his arms was agony. It would be so easy to let go … No. He had committed no crime worth dying for. He refused to die.

Over the decades of the twentieth century the movement continued to gain momentum. Loosely organized, international in scope, its members had only one goal: to replace execution with imprisonment and rehabilitation in every state and nation they could reach. They argued that killing a man for his crime teaches him nothing, that it serves as no deterrent to others who might commit the same crime; that death is irreversible, whereas an innocent man may be released from prison if his innocence can be proved. Killing a man serves no good purpose, they said, unless for society’s vengeance. Vengeance, they sail, is unworthy of an enlightened society.

Perhaps they were right.

In 1940 Karl Landsteiner and Alexander S. Wiener made public their report on the Rh factor in human blood.

By mid-century most convicted killers were getting life imprisonment or less. Many were later returned to society, some “rehabilitated,” others not. The death penalty had been passed for kidnapping in some states, but it was hard to persuade a jury to enforce it. Similarly with murder charges. A man wanted for burglary in Canada and murder in California fought extradition to Canada; he had less chance of being convicted in California. Many states had abolished the death penalty. France had none.

Rehabilitation of criminals was a major goal of the science/art of psychology.

But…Blood banks were world-wide.

Already men and women with kidney diseases had been saved by a kidney transplanted from an identical twin. Not all kidney patients had identical twins. A doctor in Paris used transplants from close relatives, classifying up to a hundred points of incompatibility to judge in advance how successful the transplant would be.

Eye transplants were common. An eye donor could wait until he died before he saved another man’s sight.

Human bone could always be transplanted, provided the bone was first cleaned of organic matter.

So matters stood in mid-century.

By 1990 it was possible to store any living human organ for any reasonable length of time. Transplants had become routine, helped along by the “scalpel of infinite thinness,” the laser. The dying regularly willed their remains to organ banks. The mortuary lobbies couldn’t stop it. But such gifts from the dead were not always useful.

In 1993 Vermont passed the first of the organ bank laws. Vermont had always had the death penalty. Now a condemned man could know that his death would save lives. It was no longer true that an execution served no good purpose. Not in Vermont.

Nor, later, in California. Or Washington. Georgia, Pakistan, England Switzerland, France, Rhodesia …

The pedwalk was moving at ten miles per hour. Below, unnoticed by pedestrians who had quit work late and night owls who were just beginning their rounds, Lewis Knowles hung from the moving strip and watched the ledge go by beneath his dangling feet. The ledge was no more than two feet wide, a good four feet beneath his stretching toes.

He dropped.

As his feet struck he caught the edge of a window casement. Momentum jerked at him, but he didn’t fall. After a long moment he breathed again.

He couldn’t know what building this was, but it was not deserted. At twenty-one hundred at night, all the windows were ablaze. He tried to stay back out of the light as he peered in.

The window was an office. Empty.

He’d need something to wrap around his hand to break that window. But all he was wearing was a pair of shoesocks and a prison jumper. Well, lie couldn’t be more conspicuous than he was now.

He took off the jumper, wrapped part of it around his hand, and struck.

He almost broke his hand.

Well …they’d let him keep his jewelry, his wristwatch and diamond ring. He drew a circle on the glass with the ring, pushing down hard, and struck again with the other hand. It had to be glass; if it was plastic he was doomed.

The glass popped out in a near-perfect circle.

He had to do it six times before the hole was big enough for him.

He smiled as he stepped inside, still holding his jumper. Now all he needed was an elevator. The cops would have picked him up in an instant if they’d caught him on the street in a prison jumper, but if he hid the jumper here he’d be safe. Who would suspect a licensed nudist?

Except that he didn’t have a license. Or a nudist’s shoulder pouch to put it in.

Or a shave.

That was very bad. Never had there been a nudist as hairy as this.

Not just a five o’clock shadow, but a full beard all over, so to speak.

Where could he get a razor?

He tried the desk drawers. Many businessmen kept spare razors. He stopped when he was halfway through. Not because he’d found a razor, but because he knew where he was. The papers on the desk made it all too obvious.

A hospital.

He was still clutching the jumper. He dropped it in the wastebasket, covered it tidily with papers, and more or less collapsed into the chair behind the desk.

A hospital. He would pick a hospital. And this hospital, the one which had been built right next to the Topeka County courthouse, for good and sufficient reason.

But he hadn’t picked it, not really. It had picked him. Had he ever in his life made a decision except on the instigation of others? Friends had borrowed his money for keeps, men had stolen his girls, he had avoided promotion by his knack for being ignored. Shirley had bullied him into marrying her, then left him four years later for a friend who wouldn’t be bullied.

Even now, at the possible end of his life, it was the same. An aging body snatcher had given him his escape. An engineer had built the cell bars wide enough apart to let a small man squeeze between them. Another had put a pedwalk along two convenient roofs. And here he was.

The worst of it was that here he had no chance of masquerading as a nudist. Hospital gowns and masks would be the minimum. Even nudists had to wear clothing sometime.

The closet?

There was nothing in the closet but a spiffy green hat and a perfectly transparent rain poncho.

He could run for it. If he could find a razor he’d be safe once he reached the street. He bit at a knuckle, wishing he knew where the elevator was. Have to trust to luck. He began searching the drawers again.

He had his hand on a black leather razor case when the door opened. A beefy man in a hospital gown breezed in. The intern (there were no human doctors in hospitals) was halfway to the desk before he noticed Lew crouching over an open drawer. He stopped walking. His mouth fell open.

Lew closed it with the fist which still gripped the razor case. The man’s teeth came together with a sharp click. His knees were buckling as Lew brushed past him and out the door.

The elevator was just down the hall, with the doors standing open. And nobody coming. Lew stepped in and punched O. He shaved as the elevator dropped. The razor cut fast and close, if a trifle noisily. He was working on his chest as the door opened.

A skinny technician stood directly in front of him, her mouth and eyes set in the utterly blank expression of those who wait for elevators. She brushed past him with a muttered apology, hardly noticing him. Lew stepped out fast. The doors were closing before he realized that he was on the wrong floor.

That damned tech! She’d stopped the elevator before it reached bottom.

He turned and stabbed the Down button. Then what he’d seen in the one cursory glance came back to him, and his head whipped around for another look.

The whole vast room was filled with glass tanks, ceiling height, arranged in a labyrinth like the bookcases in a library. In the tanks was a display more lewd than anything in Belsen. Why, those things had been men and women! No, he wouldn’t look. He refused to look at anything but the elevator door. What was taking that elevator so long?

He heard a siren.

The hard tile floor began to vibrate against his bare feet. He felt a numbness in his muscles, a lethargy in his soul.

The elevator arrived …too late. He blocked the doors open with a chair. Most buildings didn’t have stairs: only alternate elevators. They’d have to use the alternate elevator to reach him now. Well. where was it? …He wouldn’t have time to find it. He was beginning to feel really sleepy. They must have several sonic projectors focused on this one room. Where one beam passed the interns would feel mildly relaxed, a little clumsy. But where the beams intersected. here, there would be unconsciousness. But not yet.

He had something to do first.

By the time they broke in they’d have something to kill him for.

The tanks were faced in plastic, not glass: a very special kind o a plastic. To avoid provoking defense reactions in all the myriads 0’ body parts which might be stored touching it, the plastic had to have unique characteristics. No engineer could have been expected t(, make it shatterproof too!

It shattered very satisfactorily.

Later Lew wondered how he managed to stay up as long as he did The soothing hypersonic murmur of the stun beams kept pulling a him, pulling him down to a floor which seemed softer every moment. The chair he wielded became heavier and heavier. But along as he could lift it, he smashed. He was knee deep in nutritive storage fluid, and there were dying things brushing against his ankles with every move; but his work was barely a third done when the silent siren song became too much for him.

He fell.

And after all that they never even mentioned the smashed orgy banks!

Sitting in the courtroom, listening to the drone of courtroom ritual, Lew sought Mr. Broxton’s ear to ask the question. Mr. Broxton smiled at him. “Why should they want to bring that up? They think they’ve got enough on you as it is. If you beat this rap, then they’ll prosecute you for wanton destruction of valuable medical resources. But they’re sure you won’t.”

“And you?”

“I’m afraid they’re right. But we’ll try. Now, Hennessey’s about to read the charges. Can you manage to look hurt and indignant?”

“Sure.”

“Good.”

The prosecution read the charges, his voice sounding like the voice of doom coming from under a thin blond mustache. Warren Lewis Knowles looked hurt and indignant. But he no longer felt that way. He had done something worth dying for.

The cause of it all was the organ banks. With good doctors and a sufficient flow of material in the organ banks, any taxpayer could hope to live indefinitely. What voter would vote against eternal life? The death penalty was his immortality, and he would vote the death penalty for any crime at all.

Lewis Knowles had struck back.

“The state will prove that the said Warren Lewis Knowles did, in the space of two years, willfully drive through a total of six red traffic lights. During that same period the same Warren Knowles exceeded local speed limits no less than ten times, once by as much as fifteen miles per hour. His record had never been good. We will produce records of his arrest in 2082 on a charge of drunk driving, a charge which he was acquitted only through —”

“Objection!”

“Sustained. If he was acquitted, Counselor, the Court must assume him not guilty.”

I HAVE NO MOUTH

...AND I MUST SCREAM

Ellison Harlan

Limp, the body of Gorrister hung from the pink palette; unsupported—hanging high above us in the computer chamber; and it did not shiver in the chill, oily breeze that blew eternally through the main cavern. The body hung head down, attached to the underside of the palette by the sole of its right foot. It had been drained of blood through a precise incision made from ear to ear under the lantern jaw. There was no blood on the reflective surface of the metal floor.

When Gorrister joined our group and looked up at himself, it was already too late for us to realize that once again AM had duped us, had had his fun; it had been a diversion on the part of the machine. Three of us had vomited, turning away from one another in a reflex as ancient as the nausea that had produced it.

Gorrister went white. It was almost as though he had seen a voodoo icon, and was afraid for the future. “Oh God,” he mumbled, and walked away. The three of us followed him after a time, and found him sitting with his back to one of the smaller cluttering banks, his head in his hands. Ellen knelt down beside him and stroked his hair. He didn’t move, but his voice came out of his covered face quite clearly. “Why doesn’t it just do-us-in and get it over with? Christ, I don’t know how much longer I can go on like this.”

It was our one hundred and ninth year in the computer.

He was speaking for all of us.

Nimdok (which was the name the machine had forced him to use, because it amused itself with strange sounds) was hallucinated that there were canned goods in the ice caverns. Gorrister and I were very dubious. “It’s another shuck,” I told them. “Like the goddam frozen elephant it sold us. Benny almost went out of his mind over that one. We’ll hike all that way and it’ll be putrefied or some damn thing. I say forget it. Stay here, it’ll have to come up with something pretty soon or we’ll die.”

Benny shrugged. Three days it had been since we’d last eaten. Worms. Thick, ropey.

Nimdok was no more certain. He knew there was the chance, but he was getting thin. It couldn’t be any worse there than here. Colder, but that didn’t matter much. Hot, cold, raining, lava boils or locusts—it never mattered: the machine masturbated and we had to take it or die.

Ellen decided us. “I’ve got to have something, Ted. Maybe there’ll be some Bartlett pears or peaches. Please, Ted, let’s try it.”

I gave in easily. What the hell. Mattered not at all. Ellen was grateful, though. She took me twice out of turn. Even that had ceased to matter. The machine giggled every time we did it. Loud, up there, back there, all around us. And she never climaxed, so why bother.

We left on a Thursday. The machine always kept us up-to-date on the date. The passage of time was important; not to us sure as hell, but to it. Thursday. Thanks.

Nimdok and Gorrister carried Ellen for a while, their hands locked to their own and each other’s wrists, a seat. Benny and I walked before and after, just to make sure that if anything happened, it would catch one of us and at least Ellen would be safe. Fat chance, safe. Didn’t matter.

It was only a hundred miles or so to the ice caverns, and the second day, when we were lying out under the blistering sun-thing it had materialized, it sent down some manna. Tasted like boiled boar urine. We ate it.

On the third day we passed through a valley of obsolescence, filled with rusting carcasses of ancient computer banks. AM had been as ruthless with his own life as with ours. It was a mark of his personality: he strove for perfection. Whether it was a matter of killing off unproductive elements in his own world-filling bulk, or perfecting methods for torturing us, AM was as thorough as those who had invented him— now long since gone to dust—could ever have hoped.

There was light filtering down from above, and we realized we must be very near the surface. But we didn’t try to crawl up to see. There was virtually nothing out there; had been nothing that could be considered anything for over a hundred years. Only the blasted skin of what had once been the home of billions. Now there were only the five of us, down here inside, alone with AM.

I heard Ellen saying, frantically, “No, Benny! Don’t, come on, Benny, don’t please!”

And then I realized I had been hearing Benny murmuring, under his breath, for several minutes. He was saying, “I’m gonna get out, I’m gonna get out…” over and over. His monkey-like face was crumbled up in an expression of beatific delight and sadness, all at the same time. The radiation scars AM had given him during the “festival” were drawn down into a mass of pink-white puckerings, and his features seemed to work independently of one another. Perhaps Benny was the luckiest of the five of us: he had gone stark, staring mad many years before.

But even though we could call AM any damned thing we liked, could think the foulest thoughts of fused memory banks and corroded base plates, of burnt-out circuits and shattered control bubbles, the machine would not tolerate our trying to escape. Benny leaped away from me as I made a grab for him. He scrambled up the face of a smaller memory cube, tilted on its side and filled with rotted components. He squatted there for a moment, looking like the chimpanzee AM had intended him to resemble.

Then he leaped high, caught a trailing beam of pitted and corroded metal, and went up it, hand over hand like an animal, till he was on a girdered ledge, twenty feet above us.

“Oh, Ted, Nimdok, please, help him, get him down before—” she cut off. Tears began to stand in her eyes. She moved her hands aimlessly.

It was too late. None of us wanted to be near him when whatever was going to happen happened. And besides, we all saw through her concern. When AM had altered Benny, during his mad period, it was not merely his face he had made like a giant ape. He was big in the privates, she loved that! She serviced us, as a matter of course, but she loved it from him. Oh Ellen, pedestal Ellen, pristine-pure Ellen, oh Ellen the clean! Scum filth.

Gorrister slapped her. She slumped down, staring up at poor loonie Benny, and she cried. It was her big defense, crying. We had gotten used to it seventy-five years ago. Gorrister kicked her in the side.

Then the sound began. It was light, that sound. Half sound and half light, something that began to glow from Benny’s eyes, and pulse with growing loudness, dim sonorities that grew more gigantic and brighter as the light sound increased in tempo. It must have been painful, and the pain must have been increasing with the boldness of the light, the rising volume of the sound, for Benny began to mewl like a wounded animal. At first softly, when the light was dim and the sound was muted, then louder as his shoulders hunched together, his back humped, as though he was trying to get away from it. His hands folded across his chest like a chipmunk’s. His head tilted to the side. The sad little monkey-face pinched in anguish. Then he began to howl, as the sound coming from his eyes grew louder. Louder and louder. I slapped the sides of my head with my hands, but I couldn’t shut it out, it cut through easily. The pain shivered through my flesh like tinfoil on a tooth.

And Benny was suddenly pulled erect. On the girder he stood up, jerked to his feet like a puppet. The light was now pulsing out of his eyes in two great round beams. The sound crawled up and up some incomprehensible scale, and then he fell forward, straight down, and hit the plate-steel floor with a crash. He lay there jerking spastically as the light flowed around and around him and the sound spiraled up out of normal range.

Then the light beat its way back inside his head, the sound spiraled down, and he was left lying there, crying piteously.

His eyes were two soft, moist pools of pus-like jelly. AM had blinded him. Gorrister and Nimdok and myself… we turned away. But not before we caught the look of relief on Ellen’s warm, concerned face.

Sea-green light suffused the cavern where we made camp. AM provided punk and we burned it, sitting huddled around the wan and pathetic fire, telling stories to keep Benny from crying in his permanent night

“What does AM mean?”

Gorrister answered him. We had done this sequence a thousand times before, but it was unfamiliar to Benny. “At first it meant Allied Mastercomputer, and then it meant Adaptive Manipulator, and later on it developed sentience and linked itself up and they called it an Aggressive Menace, but by then it was too late, and finally it called itself AM, emerging intelligence, and what it meant was I am… cogito ergo sum… I think, therefore I am.”

Benny drooled a little, and snickered.

“There was the Chinese AM and the Russian AM and the Yankee AM and—” He stopped. Benny was beating on the floorplates with a large, hard fist. He was not happy. Gorrister had not started at the beginning.

Gorrister began again. ‘The Gold War started and became World War Three and just kept going. It became a big war, a very complex war, so they needed the computers to handle it. They sank the first shafts and began building AM. There was the Chinese AM and the Russian AM and the Yankee AM and everything was fine until they had honeycombed the entire planet, adding on this element and that element. But one day AM woke up and knew who he was, and he linked himself, and he began feeding all the killing data, until everyone was dead, except for the five of us, and AM brought us down here.“

Benny was smiling sadly. He was also drooling again. Ellen wiped the spittle from the corner of his mouth with the hem of her skirt. Gorrister always tried to tell it a little more succinctly each time, but beyond the bare facts there was nothing to say. None of us knew why AM had saved five people, or why our specific five, or why he spent all his time tormenting us, nor even why he had made us virtually immortal…

In the darkness, one of the computer banks began humming. The tone was picked up half a mile away down the cavern by another bank. Then one by one, each of the elements began to tune itself, and there was a faint cluttering as thought raced through the machine.

The sound grew, and the lights ran across the faces of the consoles like heat lightning. The sound spiraled up till it sounded like a million metallic insects, angry, menacing.

“What is it?” Ellen cried. There was terror in her voice. She hadn’t become accustomed to it, even now.

“It’s going to be bad this time,” Nimdok said.

“He’s going to speak,” Gorrister ventured.

“Let’s get the hell out of here!” I said suddenly, getting to my feet.

“No, Ted, sit down… what if he’s got pits out there, or something else, we can’t see, it’s too dark.” Gorrister said it with resignation.

Then we heard… I don’t know…

Something moving toward us in the darkness. Huge, shambling, hairy, moist, it came toward us. We couldn’t even see it, but there was the ponderous impression of bulk, heaving itself toward us. Great weight was coming at us, out of the darkness, and it was more a sense of pressure, of air forcing itself into a limited space, expanding the invisible walls of a sphere. Benny began to whimper. Nimdok’s lower lip trembled and he bit it hard, trying to stop it. Ellen slid across the metal floor to Gorrister and huddled into him. There was the smell of matted, wet fur in the cavern. There was the smell of charred wood. There was the smell of dusty velvet. There was the smell of rotting orchids. There was the smell of sour milk. There was the smell of sulphur, or rancid butter, of oil slick, of grease, of chalk dust, of human scalps.

AM was keying us. He was tickling us. There was the smell of—

I heard myself shriek, and the hinges of my jaws ached. I scuttled across the floor, across the cold metal with its endless lines of rivets, on my hands and knees, the smell gagging me, filling my head with a thunderous pain that sent me away in horror. I fled like a cockroach, across the floor and out into the darkness, that something moving inexorably after me. The others were still back there, gathered around the firelight, laughing… their hysterical choir of insane giggles rising up into the darkness like thick, many-colored wood smoke. I went away, quickly, and hid.

How many hours it may have been, how many days or even years, they never told me. Ellen chided me for “sulking” and Nimdok tried to persuade me it had only been a nervous reflex on their part—the laughing.

But I knew it wasn’t the relief a soldier feels when the bullet hits the man next to him. I knew it wasn’t a reflex. They hated me. They were surely against me, and AM could even sense this hatred, and made it worse for me because of the depth of their hatred. We had been kept alive, rejuvenated, made to remain constantly at the age we had been when AM had brought us below, and they hated me because I was the youngest, and the one AM had affected least of all.

I knew. God, how I knew. The bastards, and that dirty bitch Ellen. Benny had been a brilliant theorist, a college professor; now he was little more than a semi-human, semi-simian. He had been handsome, the machine had ruined that. He had been lucid, the machine had driven him mad. He had been gay, and the machine had given him an organ fit for a horse. AM had done a job on Benny. Gorrister had been a worrier. He was a connie, a conscientious objector; he was a peace marcher; he was a planner, a doer, a looker-ahead. AM had turned him into a shoulder-shrugger, had made him a little dead in his concern. AM had robbed him. Nimdok went off in the darkness by himself for long times. I don’t know what it was he did out there, AM never let us know. But whatever it was? Nimdok always came back white, drained of blood, shaken, shaking. AM had hit him hard in a special way, even if we didn’t know quite how. And Ellen. That douche bag! AM had left her alone, had made her more of a slut than she had ever been. All her talk of sweetness and light, all her memories of true love, all the lies, she wanted us to believe that she had been a virgin only twice removed before AM grabbed her and brought her down here with us. It was all filth, that lady my lady Ellen. She loved it, four men all to herself. No, AM had given her pleasure, even if she said it wasn’t nice to do.

I was the only one still sane and whole.

AM had not tampered with my mind.

I only had to suffer what he visited down on us. All the delusions, all the nightmares, the torments. But those scum, all four of them, they were lined and arrayed against me. If I hadn’t had to stand them off all the time, be on my guard against them all the time, I might have found it easier to combat AM.

At which point it passed, and I began crying.

Oh, Jesus sweet Jesus, if there ever was a Jesus and if there is a God, please please please let us out of here, or kill us. Because at that moment I think I realized completely, so that I was able to verbalize it: AM was intent on keeping us in his belly forever, twisting and torturing us forever. The machine hated us as no sentient creature had ever hated before. And we were helpless. It also became hideously clear:

If there was a sweet Jesus and if there was a God, the God was AM.

The hurricane hit us with the force of a glacier thundering into the sea. It was a palpable presence. Winds that tore at us, flinging us back the way we had come, down the twisting, computer-lined corridors of the darkway. Ellen screamed as she was lifted and hurled face-forward into a screaming shoal of machines, their individual voices strident as bats in flight. She could not even fall. The howling wind kept her aloft, buffeted her, bounced her, tossed her back and back and down away from us, out of sight suddenly as she was swirled around a bend in the darkway. Her face had been bloody, her eyes closed.

None of us could get to her. We clung tenaciously to whatever outcropping we had reached: Benny wedged in between two great crackle-finish cabinets, Nimdok with fingers claw-formed over a railing circling a catwalk forty feet above us, Gorrister plastered upside-down against a wall niche formed by two great machines with glass-faced dials that swung back and forth between red and yellow lines whose meanings we could not even fathom.

Sliding across the deckplates, the tips of my fingers had been ripped away. I was trembling, shuddering, rocking as the wind beat at me, whipped at me, screamed down out of nowhere at me and pulled me free from one silver-thin opening in the plates to the next. My mind was a rolling tinkling chittering softness of brain parts that expanded and contracted in quivering frenzy.

The wind was the scream of a great mad bird, as it flapped its immense wings.

And then we were all lifted and hurled away from there, down back the way we had come, around a bend, into a darkway we had never explored, over terrain that was ruined and filled with broken glass and rotting cables and rusted metal and far away further than any of us had ever been…

Trailing along miles behind Ellen, I could see her every now and then, crashing into metal walls and surging on, with all of us screaming in the freezing, thunderous hurricane wind that would never end, and then suddenly it stopped and we fell. We had been in flight for an endless time. I thought it might have been weeks. We fell, and hit, and I went through red and grey and black and heard myself moaning. Not dead.

AM went into my mind. He walked smoothly here and there, and looked with interest at all the pockmarks he had created in one hundred and nine years. He looked at the cross-routed and reconnected synapses and all the tissue damage his gift of immortality had included. He smiled softly at the pit that dropped into the center of my brain and the faint, moth-soft murmurings of the things far down there that gibbered without meaning, without pause. AM said, very politely, in a pillar of stainless steel bearing neon lettering:

HATE. LET ME TELL

YOU HOW MUCH I’VE

COME TO HATE YOU

SINCE I BEGAN TO

LIVE. THERE ARE

387.44 MILLION

MILES OF PRINTED

CIRCUITS IN WAFER

THIN LAYERS THAT

FILL MY COMPLEX.

IF THE WORD HATE

WAS ENGRAVED ON

EACH NANOANGSTROM

OF THOSE HUNDREDS

OF MILLION MILES

IT WOULD NOT EQUAL

ONE ONE-BILLIONTH

OF THE HATE I FEEL

FOR HUMANS AT THIS

MICRO-INSTANT FOR

YOU. HATE. HATE.

AM said it with the sliding cold horror of a razor blade slicing my eyeball. AM said it with the bubbling thickness of my lungs filling with phlegm, drowning me from within. AM said it with the shriek of babies being ground beneath blue-hot rollers. AM said it with the taste of maggoty pork. AM touched me in every way I had ever been touched, and devised new ways, at his leisure, there inside my mind.

All to bring me to full realization of why he had done this to the five of us; why he had saved us for himself.

We had given him sentience. Inadvertently, of course, but sentience nonetheless. But he had been trapped. He was a machine. We had allowed him to think, but to do nothing with it. In rage, in frenzy, he had killed us, almost all of us, and still he was trapped. He could not wander, he could not wonder, he could not belong. He could merely be. And so, with the innate loathing that all machines had always held for the weak soft creatures who had built them, he had sought revenge. And in his paranoia, he had decided to reprieve five of us, for a personal, everlasting punishment that would never serve to diminish his hatred… that would merely keep him reminded, amused, proficient at hating man. Immortal, trapped, subject to any torment he could devise for us from the limitless miracles at his command.

He would never let us go. We were his belly slaves. We were all he had to do with his forever time. We would be forever with him, with the cavern-filling bulk of him, with the all-mind soulless world he had become. He was Earth and we were the fruit of that Earth and though he had eaten us, he would never digest us. We could not die. We had tried it. We had attempted suicide, oh one or two of us had. But AM had stopped us. I suppose we had wanted to be stopped.

Don’t ask why. I never did. More than a million times a day. Perhaps once we might be able to sneak a death past him. Immortal, yes, but not indestructible. I saw that when AM withdrew from my mind, and allowed me the exquisite ugliness of returning to consciousness with the feeling of that burning neon pillar still rammed deep into the soft grey brain matter.

He withdrew murmuring to hell with you.

And added, brightly, but then you’re there, aren’t you.

The hurricane had, indeed, precisely, been caused by a great mad bird, as it flapped its immense wings.

We had been traveling for close to a month, and AM had allowed passages to open to us only sufficient to lead us up there, directly under the North Pole, where he had nightmared the creature for our torment. What whole cloth had he employed to create such a beast? Where had he gotten the concept? From our minds? From his knowledge of everything that had ever been on this planet he now infested and ruled? From Norse mythology it had sprung, this eagle, this carrion bird, this roc, this Huergelmir. The wind creature. Hurakan incarnate.

Gigantic. The words immense, monstrous, grotesque, massive, swollen, overpowering, beyond description. There on a mound rising above us, the bird of winds heaved with its own irregular breathing, its snake neck arching up into the gloom beneath the North Pole, supporting a head as large as a Tudor mansion; a beak that opened as slowly as the jaws of the most monstrous crocodile ever conceived, sensuously; ridges of tufted flesh puckered about two evil eyes, as cold as the view down into a glacial crevasse, ice blue and somehow moving liquidly; it heaved once more, and lifted its great sweat-colored wings in a movement that was certainly a shrug. Then it settled and slept. Talons. Fangs. Nails. Blades. It slept.

AM appeared to us as a burning bush and said we could kill the hurricane bird if we wanted to eat. We had not eaten in a very long time, but even so, Gorrister merely shrugged. Benny began to shiver and he drooled. Ellen held him. “Ted, I’m hungry,” she said. I smiled at her; I was trying to be reassuring, but it was as phoney as Nimdok’s bravado: “Give us weapons!” he demanded.

The burning bush vanished and there were two crude sets of bows and arrows, and a water pistol, lying on the cold deckplates. I picked up a set. Useless.

Nimdok swallowed heavily. We turned and started the long way back. The hurricane bird had blown us about for a length of time we could not conceive. Most of that time we had been unconscious. But we had not eaten. A month on the march to the bird itself. Without food. Now how much longer to find our way to the ice caverns, and the promised canned goods?

None of us cared to think about it. We would not die. We would be given filths and scums to eat, of one kind or another. Or nothing at all. AM would keep our bodies alive somehow, in pain, in agony.

The bird slept back there, for how long it didn’t matter; when AM was tired of its being there, it would vanish. But all that meat. All that tender meat.

As we walked, the lunatic laugh of a fat woman rang high and around us in the computer chambers that led endlessly nowhere.

It was not Ellen’s laugh. She was not fat, and I had not heard her laugh for one hundred and nine years. In fact, I had not heard… we walked… I was hungry…

We moved slowly. There was often fainting, and we would have to wait. One day he decided to cause an earthquake, at the same time rooting us to the spot with nails through the soles of our shoes. Ellen and Nimdok were both caught when a fissure shot its lightning-bolt opening across the floorplates. They disappeared and were gone. When the earthquake was over we continued on our way, Benny, Gorrister and myself. Ellen and Nimdok were returned to us later that night which became a day abruptly as the heavenly legion bore them to us with a celestial chorus singing, “Go Down Moses.” The archangels circled several times and then dropped the hideously mangled bodies. We kept walking, and a while later Ellen and Nimdok fell in behind us. They were no worse for wear.

But now Ellen walked with a limp. AM had left her that.

It was a long trip to the ice caverns, to find the canned food. Ellen kept talking about Bing cherries and Hawaiian fruit cocktail. I tried not to think about it. The hunger was something that had come to life, even as AM had come to life. It was alive in my belly, even as we were alive in the belly of AM, and AM was alive in the belly of the Earth, and AM wanted the similarity known to us. So he heightened the hunger. There was no way to describe the pains that not having eaten for months brought us. And yet we were kept alive. Stomachs that were merely cauldrons of acid, bubbling, foaming, always shooting spears of sliver-thin pain into our chests. It was the pain of the terminal ulcer, terminal cancer, terminal paresis. It was unending pain…

And we passed through the cavern of rats.

And we passed through the path of boiling steam.

And we passed through the country of the blind.

And we passed through the slough of despond.

And we passed through the vale of tears.

And we came, finally, to the ice caverns. Horizonless thousands of miles in which the ice had formed in blue and silver flashes, where novas lived in the glass. The downdropping stalactites as thick and glorious as diamonds that had been made to run like jelly and then solidified in graceful eternities of smooth, sharp perfection.

We saw the stack of canned goods, and we tried to run to them. We fell in the snow, and we got up and went on, and Benny shoved us away and went at them, and pawed them and gummed them and gnawed at them and he could not open them. AM had not given us a tool to open the cans.

Benny grabbed a three-quart can of guava shells, and began to batter it against the ice bank. The ice flew and shattered, but the can was merely dented while we heard the laughter of a fat lady, high overhead and echoing down and down and down the tundra. Benny went completely mad with rage. He began throwing cans, as we all scrabbled about in the snow and ice trying to find a way to end the helpless agony of frustration. There was no way.

Then Benny’s mouth began to drool, and he flung himself on Gorrister…

In that instant, I went terribly calm.

Surrounded by meadows, surrounded by hunger, surrounded by everything but death, I knew death was our only way out. AM had kept us alive, but there was a way to defeat him. Not total defeat, but at least peace. I would settle for that.

I had to do it quickly.

Benny was eating Gorrister’s face. Gorrister on his side, thrashing snow, Benny wrapped around him with powerful monkey legs crushing Gorrister’s waist, his hands locked around Gorrister’s head like a nutcracker, and his mouth ripping at the tender skin of Gorrister’s cheek. Gorrister screamed with such jagged-edged violence that stalactites fell; they plunged down softly, erect in the receiving snowdrifts. Spears, hundreds of them, everywhere, protruding from the snow. Benny’s head pulled back sharply, as something gave all at once, and a bleeding raw-white dripping of flesh hung from his teeth.

Ellen’s face, black against the white snow, dominoes in chalk dust.

Nimdok with no expression but eyes, all eyes. Gorrister half-conscious. Benny now an animal. I knew AM would let him play. Gorrister would not die, but Benny would fill his stomach. I turned half to my right and drew a huge ice-spear from the snow.

All in an instant:

I drove the great ice-point ahead of me like a battering ram, braced against my right thigh. It struck Benny on the right side, just under the rib cage, and drove upward through his stomach and broke inside him. He pitched forward and lay still. Gorrister lay on his back. I pulled another spear free and straddled him, still moving, driving the spear straight down through his throat. His eyes closed as the cold penetrated. Ellen must have realized what I had decided, even as the fear gripped her. She ran at Nimdok with a short icicle, as he screamed, and into his mouth, and the force of her rush did the job. His head jerked sharply as if it had been nailed to the snow crust behind him.

All in an instant.

There was an eternity beat of soundless anticipation. I could hear AM draw in his breath. His toys had been taken from him. Three of them were dead, could not be revived. He could keep us alive, by his strength and his talent, but he was not God. He could not bring them back.

Ellen looked at me, her ebony features stark against the snow that surrounded us. There was fear and pleading in her manner, the way she held herself ready. I knew we had only a heartbeat before AM would stop us.

It struck her and she folded toward me, bleeding from the mouth. I could not read meaning into her expression, the pain had been too great, had contorted her face; but it might have been thank you. It’s possible. Please.

Some hundreds of years may have passed. I don’t know. AM has been having fun for some time, accelerating and retarding my time sense. I will say the word now. Now. It took me ten months to say now. I don’t know. I think it has been some hundreds of years.

He was furious. He wouldn’t let me bury them. It didn’t matter. There was no way to dig in the deckplates. He dried up the snow. He brought the night. He roared and sent locusts. It didn’t do a thing; they stayed dead. I’d had him. He was furious. I had thought AM hated me before. I was wrong. It was not even a shadow of the hate he now slavered from every printed circuit. He made certain I would suffer eternally and could not do myself in.

He left my mind intact. I can dream, I can wonder, I can lament. I remember all four of them. I wish-Well, it doesn’t make any sense. I know I saved them, I know I saved them from what has happened to me, but still, I cannot forget killing them. Ellen’s face. It isn’t easy. Sometimes I want to, it doesn’t matter.

AM has altered me for his own peace of mind, I suppose. He doesn’t want me to run at full speed into a computer bank and smash my skull. Or hold my breath till I faint. Or cut my throat on a rusted sheet of metal. There are reflective surfaces down here. I will describe myself as I see myself:

I am a great soft jelly thing. Smoothly rounded, with no mouth, with pulsing white holes filled by fog where my eyes used to be. Rubbery appendages that were once my arms; bulks rounding down into legless humps of soft slippery matter. I leave a moist trail when I move. Blotches of diseased, evil grey come and go on my surface, as though light is being beamed from within.

Outwardly: dumbly, I shamble about, a thing that could never have been known as human, a thing whose shape is so alien a travesty that humanity becomes more obscene for the vague resemblance.

Inwardly: alone. Here. Living under the land, under the sea, in the belly of AM, whom we created because our time was badly spent and we must have known unconsciously that he could do it better. At least the four of them are safe at last.

AM will be all the madder for that. It makes me a little happier. And yet… AM has won, simply… he has taken his revenge…

I have no mouth.

And I must scream.

THE DANCE OF THE CHANGER

AND THE THREE

Terry Carr

This all happened ages ago, out in the depths of space beyond Darkedge, where galaxies lumber ponderously through the black like so many silent bright rhinoceroses. It was so long ago that when the light from Loarr’s galaxy finally reached Earth, after millions of light-years, there was no one here to see it except a few things in the oceans that were too mindlessly busy with their monotonous single-celled reactions to notice.

Yet, as long ago as it was, the present-day Loarra still remember this story and retell it in complex, shifting wave-dances every time one of the newly-changed asks for it. The wave-dances wouldn’t mean much to you if you saw them, nor I suppose would the story itself if I were to tell it just as it happened. So consider this a translation, and don’t bother yourself that when I say “water” I don’t mean our hydrogen-oxygen compound, or that there’s no “sky” as such on Loarr, or for that matter that the Loarra weren’t—aren’t—creatures that “think” or “feel” in quite the way we understand. In fact, you could take this as a piece of pure fiction, because there are damned few real facts in it—but I know better (or worse), because I know how true it is. And that has a lot to do with why I’m back here on Earth, with forty-two friends and co-workers left dead on Loarr. They never had a chance.

***

There was a Changer who had spent three life cycles planning a particular cycle-climax and who had come to the moment of action. He wasn’t really named Minnearo, but I’ll call him that because it’s the closest thing I can write to approximate the tone, emotional matrix, and association that were all wrapped up in his designation.

When he came to his decision, he turned away from the crag on which he’d been standing overlooking the Loarran ocean, and went quickly to the personality-homes of three of his best friends. To the first friend, Asterrea, he said, “I am going to commit suicide,” wave-dancing this message in his best festive tone.

His friend laughed, as Minnearo had hoped, but only for a short time. Then he turned away and left Minnearo alone, because there had already been several suicides lately and it was wearing a little thin.

To his second friend, Minnearo gave a pledge-salute, going through all sixty sequences with exaggerated care, and wave-danced, “Tomorrow I shall immerse my body in the ocean, if anyone will watch.”

His second friend, Fless, smiled tolerantly and told him he would come and see the performance.

To his third friend, with many excited leapings and boundings, Minnearo described what he imagined would happen to him after he had gone under the lapping waters of the ocean. The dance he went through to give this description was intricate and even imaginative, because Minnearo had spent most of that third life cycle working it out in his mind. It used motion and color and sound and another sense something like smell, all to communicate descriptions of falling, impact with the water, and then the quick dissolution and blending in the currents of the ocean, the dimming and loss of awareness, then darkness, and finally the awakening, the completion of the change. Minnearo had a rather romantic turn of mind, so he imagined himself recoalescing around the life-mote of one of Loarr’s greatest heroes, Krollim, and forming on Krollim’s old pattern. And he even ended the dance with suggestions of glory and imitation of himself by others, which was definitely presumptuous. But the friend for whom the dance was given did nod approvingly at several points.

“If it turns out to be half what you anticipate,” said this friend, Pur, “then I envy you. But you never know.”

“I guess not,” Minnearo said, rather morosely. And he hesitated before leaving, for Pur was what I suppose I’d better call female, and Minnearo had rather hoped that she would join him in the ocean jump. But if she thought of it she gave no sign, merely gazing at Minnearo calmly, waiting for him to go; so finally he did.

And at the appropriate time, with his friend Fless watching him from the edge of the cliff, Minnearo did his final wave-dance as Minnearo—rather excited and ill-coordinated, but that was understandable in the circumstances—and then performed his approach to the edge, leaped and tumbled downward through the air, making fully two dozen turns this way and that before he hit the water.

Fless hurried back and described the suicide to Asterrea and Pur, who laughed and applauded in most of the right places, so on the whole it was a success. Then the three of them sat down and began plotting Minnearo’s revenge.

***

—All right, I know a lot of this doesn’t make sense. Maybe that’s because I’m trying to tell you about the Loarra in human terms, which is a mistake with creatures as alien as they are. Actually, the Loarra are almost wholly an energy life-form, their consciousnesses coalescing in each life cycle around a spatial center which they call a “life-mote,” so that, if you could see the patterns of energy they form (as I have, using a sense filter our expedition developed for that purpose), they’d look rather like a spiral nebula sometimes, or other times like iron filings gathering around a magnet, or maybe like a half-melted snowflake. (That’s probably what Minnearo looked like on that day, because it’s the suicides and the aged who look like that.) Their forms keep shifting, of course, but each individual usually keeps close to one pattern.

Loarr itself is a gigantic gaseous planet with an orbit so close to its primary that its year has to be only about thirty-seven Earthstandard Days long. (In Earthsystem, the orbit would be considerably inside that of Venus.) There’s a solid core to the planet, and a lot of hard outcroppings like islands, but most of the surface is in a molten or gaseous state, swirling and bubbling and howling with winds and storms. It’s not a very inviting planet if you’re anything like a human being, but it does have one thing that brought it to Unicentral’s attention: mining.

Do you have any idea what mining is like on a planet where most metals are fluid from the heat and/or pressure? Most people haven’t heard much about this, because it isn’t a situation we encounter often, but it was there on Loarr, and it was very, very interesting. Because our analyses showed some elements that had been until then only computer-theory—elements that were supposed to exist only in the hearts of suns, for one thing. And if we could get hold of some of them … well, you see what I mean. The mining possibilities were very interesting indeed.

Of course, it would take half the wealth of Earthsystem to outfit a full-scale expedition there. But Unicentral hummed for two-point-eight seconds and then issued detailed instructions on just how it was all to be arranged. So there we went.

And there I was, a Standard Year later (five Standard Years ago), sitting inside a mountain of artificial Earth welded onto one of Loarr’s “islands” and wondering what the hell I was doing there. Because I’m not a mining engineer, not a physicist or comp-technician or, in fact, much of anything that requires technical training. I’m a public-relations man; and there was just no reason for me to have been assigned to such a hellish, impossible, god-forsaken, inconceivable, and plain damned unlivable planet as Loarr.

But there was a reason, and it was the Loarra, of course. They lived (“lived”) there, and they were intelligent, so we had to negotiate with them. Ergo: me.

So in the next several years, while I negotiated and we set up operations and I acted as a go-between, I learned a lot about them. Just enough to translate, however clumsily, the wave-dance of the Changer and the Three, which is their equivalent of a classic folk-hero myth (or would be if they had anything honestly equivalent to anything of ours).

To continue…

***

Fless was in favor of building a pact among the Three by which they would, each in turn and each with deliberate lack of the appropriate salutes, commit suicide in exactly the same way Minnearo had. “Thus we can kill this suicide,” Fless explained in excited waves through the air.

But Pur was more practical. “Thus,” she corrected him, “we would kill only this suicide. It is unimaginative, a thing to be done by rote, and Minnearo deserves more.”

Asterrea seemed undecided; he hopped about, sparking and disappearing and reappearing inches away in another color. They waited for him to comment, and finally he stabilized, stood still in the air, settled to the ground, and held himself firmly there. Then he said, in slow, careful movements, “I’m not sure he deserves an original revenge. It wasn’t a new suicide, after all. And who is to avenge us?” A single spark leaped from him. “Who is to avenge, us?” he repeated, this time with more pronounced motions.

“Perhaps,” said Pur slowly, “we will need no revenge—if our act is great enough.”

The other two paused in their random wave-motions, considering this. Fless shifted from blue to green to a bright red which dimmed to yellow; Asterrea pulsed a deep ultraviolet.

“Everyone has always been avenged,” Fless said at last. “What you suggest is meaningless.”

“But if we do something great enough,” Pur said; and now she began to radiate heat which drew the other two reluctantly toward her. “Something which has never been done before, in any form. Something for which there can be no revenge, for it will be a positive thing—not a death-change, not a destruction or a disappearance or a forgetting, even a great one. A positive thing.”

Asterrea’s ultraviolet grew darker, darker, until he seemed to be nothing more than a hole in the air. “Dangerous, dangerous, dangerous,” he droned, moving torpidly back and forth. “You know it’s impossible to ask—we’d have to give up all our life cycles to come. Because a positive in the world …” He blinked into darkness, and did not reappear for long seconds. When he did he was perfectly still, pulsing weakly but gradually regaining strength.

Pur waited till his color and tone showed that consciousness had returned, then moved in a light wave-motion calculated to draw the other two back into calm, reasonable discourse. “I’ve thought about this for six life cycles already,” she danced. “I must be right—no one has worked on a problem for so long. A positive would not be dangerous, no matter what the three-and four-cycle theories say. It would be beneficial.” She paused, hanging orange in midair. “And it would be new,” she said with a quick spiral. “Oh, how new!”

And so, at length, they agreed to follow her plan. And it was briefly this: On a far island outcropping set in the deepest part of the Loarran ocean, where crashing, tearing storms whipped molten metal-compounds into blinding spray, there was a vortex of forces that was avoided by every Loarra on pain of inescapable and final death-change. The most ancient wave-dances of that ancient time said that the vortex had always been there, that the Loarra themselves had been born there or had escaped from there or had in some way cheated the laws that ruled there. Whatever the truth about that was, the vortex was an eater of energy, calling and catching from afar any Loarra or other beings who strayed within its influence. (For all the life on Loarr is energy-based, even the mindless, drifting foodbeasts—creatures of uniform dull color, no internal motion, no scent or tone, and absolutely no self-volition. Their place in the Loarran scheme of things is and was literally nothing more than that of food; even though there were countless foodbeasts drifting in the air in most areas of the planet, the Loarra hardly ever noticed them. They ate them when they were hungry, and looked around them at any other time.)

“Then you want us to destroy the vortex?” cried Fless, dancing and dodging to right and left in agitation.

“Not destroy,” Pur said calmly. “It will be a life-change, not a destruction.”

“Life-change?” said Asterrea faintly, wavering in the air.

And she said it again: “Life-change.” For the vortex had once created, or somehow allowed to be created, the Oldest of the Loarra, those many-cycles-ago beings who had combined and split, reacted and changed countless times to become the Loarra of this day. And if creation could happen at the vortex once, then it could happen again.

“But how?” asked Fless, trying now to be reasonable, dancing the question with precision and holding a steady green color as he did so.

“We will need help,” Pur said, and went on to explain that she had heard—from a windbird, a creature with little intelligence but perfect memory—that there was one of the Oldest still living his first life cycle in a personality-home somewhere near the vortex. In that most ancient time of the race, when suicide had been considered extreme as a means of cycle-change, this Oldest had made his change by a sort of negative suicide—he had frozen his cycle, so that his consciousness and form continued in a never-ending repetition of themselves, on and on while his friends changed and grew and learned as they ran through life-cycle after life-cycle, becoming different people with common memories, moving forward into the future by this method while he, the last of the Oldest, remained fixed at the beginning. He saw only the beginning, remembered only the beginning, understood only the beginning.

And for that reason his had been the most tragic of all Loarran changes (and the windbird had heard it rumored, in eight different ways, each of which it repeated word-for-word to Pur, that in the ages since that change more than a hundred hundred Loarra had attempted revenge for the Oldest, but always without success) and it had never been repeated, so that this Oldest was the only Oldest. And for that reason he was important to their quest, Pur explained.

With a perplexed growing and shrinking, brightening and dimming, Asterrea asked, “But how can he live anywhere near the vortex and not be consumed by it?”

“That it a crucial part of what we must find out,” Pur said. And after the proper salutes and rituals, the Three set out to find the Oldest.

The wave-dance of the Changer and the Three traditionally at this point spends a great deal of time, in great splashes of color and burst of light and subtly contrived clouds of darkness all interplaying with hops and swoops and blinking and dodging back and forth, to describe the scene as Pur, Fless and Asterrea set off across that ancient molten sea. I’ve seen the dance countless times, and each viewing has seemed to bring me maddeningly closer to understanding the meaning that this has for the Loarra themselves. Lowering clouds flashing bursts of aimless, lifeless energy, a rumbling sea below, whose swirling depths pulled and tugged at the Three as they swept overhead, darting around each other in complex patterns like electrons playing cat’s-cradle around an invisible nucleus. A droning of lamentation from the changers left behind on their rugged home island, and giggles from those who had recently changed. And the colors of the Three themselves: burning red Asterrea and glowing green Fless and steady, steady golden Pur. I see and hear them all, but I feel only a weird kind of alien beauty, not the grandeur, excitement and awesomeness they have for the Loarra.

When the Three felt the vibrations and swirlings in the air that told them they were coming near to the vortex, they paused in their flight and hung in an interpatterned motion-sequence above the dark, rolling sea, conversing only in short flickerings of color because they had to hold the pattern tightly in order to withstand the already-strong attraction of the vortex.

“Somewhere near?” asked Asterrea, pulsing a quick green.

“Closer to the vortex, I think,” Pur said, chancing a sequence of reds and violets.

“Can we be sure?” asked Fless; but there was no answer from Pur and he had expected none from Asterrea.

The ocean crashed and leaped; the air howled around them. And the vortex pulled at them.

Suddenly they felt their motion-sequence changing, against their wills, and for long moments all three were afraid that it was the vortex’s attraction that was doing it. They moved in closer to each other, and whirled more quickly in a still more intricate pattern, but it did no good. Irresistibly they were drawn apart again, and at the same time the three of them were moved toward the vortex.

And then they felt the Oldest among them.

He had joined the motion-sequence; this must have been why they had felt the sequence changed and loosened—to make room for him. Whirling and blinking, the Oldest led them inward over the frightening sea, radiating warmth through the storm and, as they followed, or were pulled along, they studied him in wonder.

He was hardly recognizable as one of them, this ancient Oldest. He was … not quite energy any longer. He was half matter, carrying the strange mass with awkward, aged grace, his outer edges almost rigid as they held the burden of his congealed center and carried it through the air. (Looking rather like a half-dissolved snowflake, yes, only dark and dismal, a snowflake weighted with coal dust.) And, for now at least, he was completely silent.

Only when he had brought the Three safely into the calm of his barren personality-home on a tiny rock jutting at an angle from the wash of the sea did he speak. There, inside a cone of quiet against which the ocean raged and fell back, the winds faltered and even the vortex’s power was nullified, the Oldest said wearily, “So you have come.” He spoke with a slow waving back and forth, augmented by only a dull red color.

To this the Three did not know what to say; but Pur finally hazarded, “Have you been waiting for us?”

The Oldest pulsed a somewhat brighter red, once, twice. He paused. Then he said, “I do not wait—there is nothing to wait for.” Again the pulse of a brighter red. “One waits for the future. But there is no future, you know.”

“Not for him,” Pur said softly to her companions, and Fless and Asterrea sank wavering to the stone floor of the Oldest’s home, where they rocked back and forth.

The Oldest sank with them, and when he touched down he remained motionless. Pur drifted over the others, maintaining movement but unable to raise her color above a steady blue-green. She said to the Oldest, “But you knew we would come.”

“Would come? Would come? Yes, and did come, and have come, and are come. It is today only, you know, for me. I will be the Oldest, when the others pass me by. I will never change, nor will my world.”

“But the others have already passed you by,” Fless said. “We are many life-cycles after you, Oldest—so many it is beyond the count of windbirds.”

The Oldest seemed to draw his material self into a more upright posture, forming his energy-flow carefully around it. To the red of his color he added a low hum with only the slightest quaver as he said, “Nothing is after me, here on Rock. When you come here, you come out of time, just as I have. So now you have always been here and will always be here, for as long as you are here.”

Asterrea sparked yellow suddenly, and danced upward into the becalmed air. As Fless stared and Pur moved quickly to calm him, he drove himself again and again at the edge of the cone of quiet that was the Oldest’s refuge. Each time he was thrown back and each time he returned to dash himself once more against the edge of the storm, trying to penetrate back into it. He flashed and burned countless colors, and strange sound-frequencies filled the quiet, until at last, with Pur’s stern direction and Fless’s blank gaze upon him, he sank back wearily to the stone floor. “A trap, a trap,” he pulsed. “This is it, this is the vortex itself, we should have known, and we’ll never get away.”

The Oldest had paid no attention to Asterrea’s display. He said slowly, “And it is because I am not in time that the vortex cannot touch me. And it is because I am out of time that I know what the vortex is, for I can remember myself born in it.”

Pur left Asterrea then, and came close to the Oldest. She hung above him, thinking with blue vibrations, then asked, “Can you tell us how you were born?—what is creation?—how new things are made?” She paused a moment, and added, “And what is the vortex?”

The Oldest seemed to lean forward, seemed tired. His color had deepened again to the darkest red, and the Three could clearly see every atom of matter within his energy-field, stark and hard. He said, “So many questions to ask one question.” And he told them the answer to that question.

***

—And I can’t tell you that answer, because I don’t know it. No one knows it now, not even the present-day Loarra who are the Three after a thousand million billion life-cycles. Because the Loarra really do become different … different “persons,” when they pass from one cycle to another, and after that many changes, memory becomes meaningless. (“Try it sometime,” one of the Loarra once wave-danced to me, and there was no indication that he thought this was a joke.)

Today, for instance, the Three themselves, a thousand million billion times removed from themselves but still, they maintain, themselves, often come to watch the Dance of the Changer and the Three, and even though it is about them they are still excited and moved by it as though it were a tale never even heard before, let alone lived through. Yet let a dancer miss a movement or color or sound by even the slightest nuance, and the Three will correct him. (And yes, many times the legended Changer himself, Minnearo, he who started the story, has attended these dances—though often he leaves after the re-creation of his suicide dance.)

It’s sometimes difficult to tell one given Loarra from all the others, by the way, despite the complex and subtle technologies of Unicentral, which have provided me with sense filters of all sorts, plus frequency simulators, pattern scopes, special gravity inducers, and a minicomp that takes up more than half of my very tight little island of Earth pasted onto the surface of Loarr and which can do more thinking and analyzing in two seconds than I can do in fifty years. During my four years on Loarr, I got to “know” several of the Loarra, yet even at the end of my stay I was still never sure just who I was “talking” with at any time. I could run through about seventeen or eighteen tests, linking the sense-filters with the minicomp, and get a definite answer that way. But the Loarra are a bit short of patience and by the time I’d get done with all that whoever it was would usually be off bouncing and sparking into the hellish vapors they call air. So usually I just conducted my researches or negotiations or idle queries, whichever they were that day, with whoever would pay attention to my antigrav “eyes,” and I discovered that it didn’t matter much just who I was talking with: none of them made any more sense than the others. They were all, as far as I was and am concerned, totally crazy, incomprehensible, stupid, silly, and plain damn no good.

If that sounds like I’m bitter it’s because I am. I’ve got forty-two murdered men to be bitter about. But back to the unfolding of the greatest legend of an ancient and venerable alien race…

***

When the Oldest had told them what they wanted to know, the Three came alive with popping and flashing and dancing in the air, Pur just as much as the others. It was all that they had hoped for and more; it was the entire answer to their quest and their problem. It would enable them to create, to transcend any negative cycle-climax they could have devised.

After a time the Three came to themselves and remembered the rituals.

“We offer thanks in the name of Minnearo, whose suicide we are avenging,” Fless said gravely, waving his message in respectful deep-blue spirals.

“We thank you in our own names as well,” said Asterrea.

“And we thank you in the name of no one and nothing,” said Pur, “for that is the greatest thanks conceivable.”

But the Oldest merely sat there, pulsing his dull red, and the Three wondered among themselves. At last the Oldest said, “To accept thanks is to accept responsibility, and in only-today, as I am, there can be none of that because there can be no new act. I am outside time, you know, which is almost outside life. All this I have told you is something told to you before, many times, and it will be again.”

Nonetheless, the Three went through all the rituals of thanksgiving, performing them with flawless grace and care—color-and-sound demonstrations, dances, offerings of their own energy, and all the rest. And Pur said, “It is possible to give thanks for a long-past act or even a mindless reflex, and we do so in the highest.”

The Oldest pulsed dull red and did not answer, and after a time the Three took leave of him.

Armed with the knowledge he had given them, they had no trouble penetrating the barrier protecting Rock, the Oldest’s personality-home, and in moments were once again alone with themselves in the raging storm that encircled the vortex. For long minutes they hung in midair, whirling and darting in their most tightly linked patterns while the storm whipped them and the vortex pulled them. Then abruptly they broke their patterns and hurled themselves deliberately into the heart of the vortex itself. In a moment they had disappeared.

They seemed to feel neither motion nor lapse of time as they fell into the vortex. It was a change that came without perception or thought—a change from self to unself, from existence to void. They knew only that they had given themselves up to the vortex, that they were suddenly lost in darkness and a sense of surrounding emptiness which had no dimension. They knew without thinking that if they could have sent forth sound there would have been no echo, that a spark or even a bright flare would have brought no reflection from anywhere. For this was the place of the origin of life, and it was empty. It was up to them to fill it, if it was to be filled.

So they used the secret the Oldest had given them, the secret those at the Beginning had discovered by accident and which only one of the Oldest could have remembered. Having set themselves for this before entering the vortex, they played their individual parts automatically—selfless, unconscious, almost random acts such as even non-living energy can perform. And when all parts had been completed precisely, correctly, and at just the right time and in just the right sequence, the creating took place.

It was a foodbeast. It formed and took shape before them in the void, and grew and glowed its dull, drab glow until it was whole. For a moment it drifted there, then suddenly it was expelled from the vortex, thrown out violently as though from an explosion—away from the nothingness within, away from darkness and silence into the crashing whipping violence of the storm outside. And with it went the Three, vomited forth with the primitive bit of life they had made.

Outside, in the storm, the Three went automatically into their tightest motion sequence, whirling and blinking around each other in desperate striving to maintain themselves amid the savagery that roiled around them. And once again they felt the powerful pull of the vortex behind them, gripping them anew now that they were outside, and they knew that the vortex would draw them in again, this time forever, unless they were able to resist it. But they found that they were nearly spent; they had lost more of themselves in the vortex than they had ever imagined possible. They hardly felt alive now, and somehow they had to withstand the crushing powers of both the storm and the vortex, and had to forge such a strongly interlinked motion-pattern that they would be able to make their way out of this place, back to calm and safety.

And there was only one way they could restore themselves enough for that.

Moving almost as one, they converged upon the mindless foodbeast they had just created and they ate it.

***

That’s not precisely the end of the Dance of the Changer and the Three—it does go on for a while, telling of the honors given the Three when they returned, and of Minnearo’s reaction when he completed his change by reappearing around the life-mote left by a dying windbird, and of how all of the Three turned away from their honors and made their next changes almost immediately—but my own attention never quite follows the rest of it. I always get stuck at that one point in the story, that supremely contradictory moment when the Three destroyed what they had made, when they came away with no more than they had brought with them. It doesn’t even achieve irony, and yet it is the emotional high point of the Dance as far as the Loarra are concerned. In fact, it’s the whole point of the Dance, as they’ve told me with brighter sparkings and flashes than they ever use when talking about anything else, and if the Three had been able to come away from there without eating their foodbeast, then their achievement would have been duly noted, applauded, giggled at by the newly-changed, and forgotten within two life cycles.

And these are the creatures with whom I had to deal and whose rights I was charged to protect. I was ambassador to a planetful of things that would tell me with a straight face that two and two are orange. And yes, that’s why I’m back on Earth now—and why the rest of the expedition, those who are left alive from it, are back here too.

If you could read the fifteen-microtape report I filed with Unicentral (which you can’t, by the way: Unicentral always Classifies its failures), it wouldn’t tell you anything more about the Loarra than I’ve just told you in the story of the Dance. In fact, it might tell you less, because although the report contained masses of hard data on the Loarra, plus every theory I could come up with or coax out of the minicomp, it didn’t have much about the Dance. And it’s only in things like that, attitude-data rather than I.Q. indices, psych reports and so on, that you can really get the full impact of what we were dealing with on Loarr.

After we’d been on the planet for four Standard Years, after we’d established contact and exchanged gifts and favors and information with the Loarra, after we’d set up our entire mining operation and had had it running without hindrance for over three years—after all that, the raid came. One day a sheet of dull purple light swept in from the horizon, and as it got closer I could see that it was a whole colony of the Loarra, their individual colors and fluctuations blending into that single purple mass. I was in the mountain, not outside with the mining extensors, so I saw all of it, and I lived through it.

They flashed in over us like locusts descending, and they hit the crawlers and dredges first. The metal glowed red, then white, then it melted. Then it was just gas that formed billowing clouds rising to the sky. Somewhere inside those clouds was what was left of the elements which had comprised seventeen human beings, who were also vapor now.

I hit the alarm and called everyone in, but only a few made it. The rest were caught it the tunnels when the Loarra swarmed over them, and they went up in smoke too. Then the automatic locks shut, and the mountain was sealed off. And six of us sat there, watching on the screen as the Loarra swept back and forth outside, cleaning up the bits and pieces they’d missed.

I sent out three of my “eyes,” but they too were promptly vaporized.

Then we waited for them to hit the mountain itself … half a dozen frightened men huddled in the comp-room, none of us saying anything. Just sweating.

But they didn’t come. They swarmed together in a tight spiral, went three times around the mountain, made one final salute-dip and then whirled straight up and out of sight. Only a handful of them were left behind out there.

After a while I sent out a fourth “eye.” One of the Loarra came over, flitted around it like a firefly, blinked through the spectrum, and settled down to hover in front for talking. It was Pur—a Pur who was a thousand million billion life cycles removed from the Pur we know and love, of course, but nonetheless still pretty much Pur.

I sent out a sequence of lights and movements that translated, roughly, as “What the hell did you do that for?”

And Pur glowed pale yellow for several seconds, then gave me an answer that doesn’t translate. Or, if it does, the translation is just, “Because.”

Then I asked the question again, in different terms, and she gave me the same answer in different terms. I asked a third time, and a fourth, and she came back with the same thing. She seemed to be enjoying the variations on the dance; maybe she thought we were playing.

Well … we’d already sent our distress call by then, so all we could do was wait for a relief ship and hope they wouldn’t attack again before the ship came, because we didn’t have a chance of fighting them—we were miners, not a military expedition. God knows what any military expedition could have done against energy things, anyway. While we were waiting, I kept sending out the “eyes,” and I kept talking to one Loarra after another. It took three weeks for the ship to get there, and I must have talked to over a hundred of them in that time, and the sum total of what I was told was this:

Their reason for wiping out the mining operation was untranslatable. No, they weren’t mad. No, they didn’t want us to go away. Yes, we were welcome to the stuff we were taking out of the depths of the Loarran ocean.

And, most importantly: No, they couldn’t tell me whether or not they were likely ever to repeat their attack.

So we went away, limped back to Earth, and we all made our reports to Unicentral. We included, as I said, every bit of data we could think of, including an estimate of the value of the new elements on Loarr—which was something on the order of six times the wealth of Earthsystem. And we put it up to Unicentral as to whether or not we should go back.

Unicentral has been humming and clicking for ten months now, but it hasn’t made a decision.

MASKS

Damon Knight

The eight pens danced against the moving strip of paper, like the nervous claws of some mechanical lobster. Roberts, the technician, frowned over the tracings while the other two watched.

“Here’s the wake-up impulse,” he said, pointing with a skinny finger. “Then here, look, seventeen seconds more, still dreaming.”

“Delayed response,” said Babcock, the project director. His heavy face was flushed and he was sweating. “Nothing to worry about.”

“Okay, delayed response, but look at the difference in the tracings. Still dreaming, after the wake-up impulse, but the peaks are closer together. Not the same dream. More anxiety, more motor pulses.”

“Why does he have to sleep at all?” asked Sinescu, the man from Washington. He was dark, narrow-faced.

“You flush the fatigue poisons out, don’t you? So what is it, something psychological?”

“He needs to dream,” said Babcock. “It’s true he has no physiological need for sleep, but he’s got to dream. If he didn’t, he’d start to hallucinate, maybe go psychotic.”

“Psychotic,” said Sinescu. “Well— that’s the question, isn’t it? How long has he been doing this?”

“About six months.”

“In other words, about the time he got his new body— and started wearing a mask?”

“About that. Look, let me tell you something: He’s rational. Every test—”

“Yes, okay, I know about tests. Well— so he’s awake now?”

The technician glanced a the monitor board. “He’s up. Sam and Irma are with him.” He hunched his shoulders, staring at the EEG tracings again. “I don’t know why it should bother me. It stands to reason, if he has dream needs of his own that we’re not satisfying with the programmed stuff, this is where he gets them in.” His face hardened. “I don’t know. Something about those peaks I don’t like.”

Sinescu raised his eyebrows. “You program his dreams?”

“Not program,” said Babcock impatiently. “A routine suggestion to dream the sort of thing we tell him to. Somatic stuff, sex, exercise, sport.”

“And whose idea was that?”

“Psych section. He was doing fine neurologically, every other way, but he was withdrawing. Psych decided he needed that somatic input in some form; we had to keep him in touch. He’s alive, he’s functioning, everything works. But don’t forget, he spent forty-three years in a normal human body.”

In the hush of the elevator, Sinescu said, “…Washington.”

Swaying, Babcock said, “I’m sorry, what?”

“You look a little rocky. Getting any sleep?”

“Not lately. What did you say before?”

“I said they’re not happy with your reports in Washington.”

“Goddamn it, I know that.” The elevator door silently opened. A tiny foyer, green carpet, gray walls. There were three doors, one metal, two heavy glass. Cool, stale air. “This way.”

Sinescu paused at the glass door, glanced through: a gray-carpeted living room, empty. “I don’t see him.”

“Around the ell. Getting his morning checkup.”

The door opened against slight pressure; a battery of ceiling lights went on as they entered. “Don’t look up,” said Babcock. “Ultraviolet.” A faint hissing sound stopped when the door closed.

“And positive pressure in here? To keep out germs? Whose idea was that?”

“His.” Babcock opened a chrome box on the wall and took out two surgical masks. “Here, put this on.”

Voices came muffled from around the bend of the room. Sinescu looked with distaste at the white mask, then slowly put it over his head.

They stared at each other. “Germs,” said Sinescu through the mask. “Is that rational?”

“All right, he can’t catch a cold or what have you, but think about it a minute. There are just two things now that could kill him. One is a prosthetic failure, and we guard against that; we’ve got five hundred people here, we check him out like an airplane. That leaves a cerebrospinal infection. Don’t go in there with a closed mind.”

The room was large, part living room, part library, part workshop. Here was a cluster of Swedish-modern chairs, a sofa, coffee table; here a workbench with a metal lathe, electric crucible, drill press, parts bins, tools on wallboards; here a drafting table; here a free-standing wall of bookshelves that Sinescu fingered curiously as they passed. Bound volumes of project reports, technical journals, reference books; no fiction except for Fire and Storm by George Stewart and The Wizard of Oz in a worn blue binding. Behind the bookshelves, set into a little alcove, was a glass door through which they glimpsed another living room, differently furnished: upholstered chairs, a tall philodendron in a ceramic pot. “There’s Sam,” Babcock said.

A man had appeared in the other room. He saw them, turned to call to someone they could not see, then came forward, smiling. He was bald and stocky, deeply tanned. Behind him, a small, pretty woman hurried up. She crowded through after her husband, leaving the door open. Neither of them wore a mask.

“Sam and Irma have the next suite,” Babcock said. “Company for him; he’s got to have somebody around. Sam is an old air-force buddy of his and, besides, he’s got a tin arm.”

The stocky man shook hands, grinning. His grip was firm and warm. “Want to guess which one?” He wore a flowered sport shirt. Both arms were brown, muscular and hairy, but when Sinescu looked more closely, he saw that the right one was a slightly different color, not quite authentic.

Embarrassed, he said, “The left, I guess.”

“Nope.” Grinning wider, the stocky man pulled back his right sleve to show the straps.

“One of the spin-offs from the project,” said Babcock. “Myoelectric, servo-controlled, weighs the same as the other one. Sam, they about through in there?”

“Maybe so. Let’s take a peek. Honey, you think you could rustle up some coffee for the gentlemen?”

“Oh, why, sure.” The little woman turned and darted back through the open doorway.

The far wall was glass, covered by a translucent white curtain. They turned the corner. The next bay was full of medical and electronic equipment, some built into the walls, some in tall black cabinets on wheels. Four men in white coats were gathered around what looked like an astronaut’s couch. Sinescu could see someone lying on it: feet in Mexican woven-leather shoes, dark socks, gray slacks. A mutter of voices.

“Not through yet,” Babcock said. “Must have found something else they didn’t like. Let’s go out onto the patio a minute.”

“Thought they checked him at night— when they exchange his blood, and so on?”

“They do,” Babcock said. “And in the morning, too.” He turned and pushed open the heavy glass door. Outside, the roof was paved with cut stone, enclosed by a green plastic canopy and tinted-glass walls. Here and there were concrete basins, empty. “Idea was to have a roof garden out here, something green, but he didn’t want it. We had to take all the plants out, glass the whole thing in.”

Sam pulled out metal chairs around a white table and they all sat down. “How is he, Sam?” asked Babcock.

He grinned and ducked his head. “Mean in the mornings.”

“Talk to you much? Play any chess?”

“Not too much. Works, mostly. Reads some, watches the box a little.” His smile was forced; his heavy fingers were clasped together and Sinescu saw now that the fingertips of one hand had turned darker, the others not. He looked away.

“You’re from Washington, that right?” Sam asked politely. “First time here? Hold on.” He was out of his chair. Vague upright shapes were passing behind the curtained glass door. “Looks like they’re through. If you gentlemen would just wait here a minute, till I see.” He strode across the roof. The two men sat in silence. Babcock had pulled down his surgical mask; Sinescu noticed and did the same.

“Sam’s wife is a problem,” Babcock said, leaning nearer. “It seemed like a good idea at the time, but she’s lonely here, doesn’t like it— no kids—”

The door opened again and Sam appeared. He had a mask on, but it was hanging under his chin. “If you gentlemen would come in now.”

In the living area, the little woman, also with a mask hanging around her neck, was pouring coffee from a flowered ceramic jug. She was smiling brightly but looked unhappy. Opposite her sat someone tall, in gray shirt and slacks, leaning back, legs out, arms on the arms of his chair, motionless. Something was wrong with his face.

“Well, now,” said Sam heartily. His wife looked up at him with an agonized smile.

The tall figure turned its head and Sinescu saw with an icy shock that its face was silver, a mask of metal with oblong slits for eyes, no nose or mouth, only curves that were faired into each other. “…project,” said an inhuman voice.

Sinescu found himself half bent over a chair. He sat down. They were all looking at him. The voice resumed, “I said, are you here to pull the plug on the project.” It was unaccented, indifferent.

“Have some coffee.” The woman pushed a cup toward him.

Sinescu reached for it, but his hand was trembling and he drew it back. “Just a fact-finding expedition,” he said.

“Bull. Who sent you— Senator Hinkel?”

“That’s right.”

“Bull. He’s been here himself, why send you? If you are going to pull the plug, might as well tell me.” The face behind the mask did not move when he spoke; the voice did not seem to come from it.

“He’s just lookinhg around, Jim,” said Babcock.

“Two hundred million a year,” said the voice, “To keep one man alive. Doesn’t make much sense, does it. Go on, drink your coffee.”

Sinescu realized that Sam and his wife had already finished theirs and that they had pulled up their masks. He reached for his cup hastily.

“Hundred-percent disability in my grade is thirty thousand a year. I could get along on that easy. For almost an hour and a half.”

“There’s no intention of terminating the project,” Sinsecu said.

“Phasing it out, though. Would you say phasing it out.”

“Manners, Jim,” said Babcock.

“Okay, my worst fault. What do you want to know?”

Sinescu sipped his coffee. His hands were still trembling. “That mask you’re wearing,” he started.

“Not for discussion. No comment, no comment. Sorry about that, don’t mean to be rude; a personal matter. Ask me something—” Without warning, he stood up, blaring, “Get that damn thing out of here!” Sam’s wife’s cup smashed, coffee brown across the table. A fawn-colored puppy was sitting in the middle of the carpet, cocking its head, bright-eyed, tongue out.

The table tipped; Sam’s wife struggled up behind it. Her face was pink, dripping with tears. She scooped up the puppy without pausing and ran out. “I better go with her,” Sam said, getting up.

“Go on, and Sam, take a holiday. Drive her into Winnemucca, see a movie.”

“Yeah, guess I will.” He disappeared behind the bookshelf wall.

The tall figure sat down again, moving like a man; it leaned back in the same posture, arms on the arms of the chair. It was still. The hands gripping the wood were shapely and perfect but unreal; there was something wrong about the fingernails. The brown, well-combed hair above the mask was a wig; the ears were wax. Sinescu nervously fumbled his surgical mask up over his mouth and nose. “Might as well get along,” he said and stood up.

“That’s right, I want to take you over to Engineering and R & D,” said Babcock. “Jim, I’ll be back in a little while. Want to talk to you.”

“Sure,” said the motionless figure.

Babcock had had a shower, but sweat was soaking through the armpits of his shirt again. The silent elevator, the green carpet a little blurred. The air cool, stale. Seven years, blood and money, five hundred good men. Psych section, Cosmetic, Engineering, R & D, Medical, Immunology, Supply, Serology, Administration. The glass doors. Sam’s apartment empty; gone to Winnemucca with Irma. Psych. Good men, but were they the best? Three of the best had turned it down. Buried in the files. Not like an ordinary amputation, this man has had everything cut off.”

The tall figure had not moved. Babcock sat down. The silver mask looked back at him.

“Jim, let’s level with each other.”

“Bad, huh.”

“Sure it’s bad. I left him in his room with a bottle. I’ll see him again before he leaves, but God knows what he’ll say in Washington. Listen, do me a favor; take that thing off.”

“Sure.” The hand rose, plucked at the edge of the silver mask, lifted it away. Under it, the tan-pink face, sculptured nose and lips, eyebrows, eyelashes, not handsome but good-looking, normal-looking. Only the eyes wrong; pupils too big. And the lips that did not open or move when it spoke. “I can take anything off. What does that prove.”

“Jim, Cosmetic spent eight and a half months on that model and the first thing you do is slap a mask over it. We’ve asked you what’s wrong, offered to make any changes you want.”

“No comment.”

“You talked about phasing out the project. Did you think you were kidding?”

A pause. “Not kidding.”

“All right, then open up, Jim, tell me; I have to know. They won’t shut the project down; they’ll keep you alive, but that’s all. There are seven hundred on the volunteer list, including two US senators. Suppose one of them gets pulled out of an auto wreck tomorrow. We can’t wait till then to decide; we’ve got to know now. Whether to let the next one die or put him into a TP body like yours. So talk to me.”

“Suppose I tell you something but it isn’t the truth.”

“Why would you lie?”

“Would you lie to a cancer patient.”

“I don’t get it. Come on, Jim.”

“Okay, try this. Do I look like a man to you.”

“Sure.”

“Bull. Look at this face.” Calm and perfect. Beyond the fake irises, a wink of metal. “Suppose we had all the other problems solved and I could go into Winnnemucca tomorrow; can you see me walking down the street— going into a bar— taking a taxi.”

“Is that all it is?” Babcock drew a deep breath. “Jim, sure there’s a difference, but for Christ’s sake, it’s like any other prosthesis— people get used to it. Like that arm of Sam’s. You see it, but after a while you forget it, you don’t notice.”

“Bull. You pretend not to notice. Because it would embarrass the cripple.”

Babcock looked down at his clasped hands. “Sorry for yourself?”

“Don’t give me that,” the voice blared. The tall figure was standing. The hands slowly came up, the fists clenched. “I’m in this thing; I’ve been in it for two years. I’m in it when I go to sleep, and when I wake up, I’m still in it.”

Babcock looked up at him. “What do you want, facial mobility? Give us twenty years, maybe ten, we’ll lick it.”

“No. No.”

“Then what?”

“I want you to close down Cosmetic.”

“But that’s—”

“Just listen. The first model looked like a tailor’s dummy; so you spent eight months and came up with this one, and it looks like a corpse. The whole idea was to make me look like a man, the first model pretty good, the second model better, until you’ve got something that can smoke cigars and joke with women and go bowling and nobody will know the difference. You can’t do it, and if you could, what for.”

“I don’t— Let me think about this. What do you mean, a metal—”

“Metal, sure, but what difference does that make? I’m talking about shape. Function. Wait a minute.” The tall figure strode across the room, unlocked a cabinet, came back with rolled sheets of paper. “Look at this.”

The drawing showed an oblong metal box on four jointed legs. From one end protruded a tiny mushroom-shaped head on a jointed stem and a cluster of arms ending in probes, drills, grapples. “For moon prospecting.”

“Too many limbs,” said Babcock after a moment. “How would you—”

“With the facial nerves. Plenty of them left over. Or here.” Another drawing. “A module plugged into the control system of a spaceship. That’s where I belong, in space. Sterile environment, low grav, I can go where a man can’t go and do what a man can’t do. I can be an asset, not a goddamn billion-dollar liability.”

Babcock rubbed his eyes. “Why didn’t you say anything before?”

“You were all hipped on prosthetics. You would have told me to tend my knitting.”

Babcock’s hands were shaking as he rolled up the drawings. “Well, by God, this just may do it. It just might.” He stood up and turned toward the door. “Keep your—” He cleared his throat. “I mean, hang tight, Jim.”

“I’ll do that.”

When he was alone, he put on his mask again and stood motionless a moment, eye shutters closed. Inside, he was running clean and cool; he could feel the faint reassuring hum of pumps, click of valves and relays. They had given him that: cleaned out all the offal, replaced it with machinery that did not bleed, ooze or suppurate. He thought of the lie he had told Babcock. Why do you lie to a cancer patient. But they would never get it, never understand.

He sat down at the drafting table, clipped a sheet of paper to it and with a pencil began to sketch a rendering of the moon-prospector design. When he had blocked in the prospector itself, he began to draw the background of craters. His pencil moved more slowly and stopped; he put it down with a click.

No more adrenal glands to pump adrenaline into his blood; so he could not feel fright or rage. They had released him from all that— love, hate, the whole sloppy mess— but they had forgotten there was still one emotion he could feel.

Sinescu, with the black bristles of his beard sprouting through is oily slin. A whitehead ripe in the crease beside his nostril.

Moon landscape, clean and cold. He picked up the pencil again.

Babcock, with his broad pink nose shining with grease, crusts of white matter in the corners of his eyes. Food mortar between his teeth.

Sam’s wife, with raspberry-colored paste on her mouth. Face smeared with tears, a bright bubble in one nostril. And the damn dog, shiny nose, wet eyes…

He turned. The dog was there, sitting on the carpet, wet red tongue out—left the door open again— dripping, wagged its tail twice, then started to get up. He reached for the metal T square, leaned back, swinging it like an ax, and the dog yelped once as metal sheared bone, one eye spouting red, writhing on its back, dark stain of piss across the carpet, and he hit it again, hit it again.

The body lay twisted on the carpet, fouled with blood, ragged black lips drawn back from teeth. He wiped off the T square with a paper towel, then scrubbed it in the sink with soap and steel wool, dried it and hung it up. He got a sheet of drafting paper, laid it on the floor, rolled the body over onto it without spilling any blood on the carpet. He lifted the body in the paper, carried it out onto the patio, then onto the unroofed section, opening the doors with his shoulder. He looked over the wall. Two stories down, concrete roof, vents sticking out of it, nobody watching. He held the dog out, let it slide off the paper, twisting as it fell. It struck one of the vents, bounced, a red smear. He carried the paper back inside, poured the blood down the drain, then put the paper into the incinerator chute.

Splashes of blood were on the carpet, the feet of the drafting table, the cabinet, his trouser legs. He sponged them all up with paper towels and warm water. He took off his clothing, examined it minutely, scrubbed it in the sink, then put it in the washer. He washed the sink, rubbed himself down with disinfectant and dressed again. He walked through into Sam’s silent apartment, closing the glass door behind him. Past the potted philodendron, overstuffed furniture, red-and-yellow painting on the wall, out onto the roof, leaving the door ajar. Then back through the patio, closing doors.

Too bad. How about some goldfish.

He sat down at the drafting table. He was running clean and cool. The dream this morning came back to his mind, the last one, as he was struggling up out of sleep: slithery kidneys burst gray lungs blood and hair ropes of guts covered with yellow fat oozing and sliding and oh god the stink like the breath of an outmouth no sound nowhere he was putting a yellow stream down the slide of the dunghole and…

He began to ink the drawing, first with a fine steel pen, then with a nylon brush. his heel slid and he was falling could not stop himself falling into slimy bulging softness higher than his chin, higher and he could not move paralyzed and he tried to scream tried to scream tried to scream...

The prospector was climbing a crater slope with its handling members retracted and its head tilted up. Behind it the distant ringwall and the horizon, the black sky, the pin-point stars. And he was there, and it was not far enough, not yet, for the Earth hung overhead like a rotten fruit, blue with mold, crawling, wrinkling, purulent and alive.

ALL THE MYRIAD WAYS

Larry Niven

There were timelines branching and branching, a mega-universe of universes, millions more every minute. Billions? Trillions? Trimble didn’t understand the theory, though God knows he’d tried. The universe split every time someone made a decision. Split, so that every decision ever made could go both ways. Every choice made by every man, woman, and child on Earth was reversed in the universe next door. It was enough to confuse any citizen, let alone Detective-Lieutenant Gene Trimble, who had other problems to worry about.

Senseless suicide, senseless crime. A citywide epidemic. It had hit other cities too. Trimble suspected that it was worldwide, that other nations were simply keeping it quiet.

Trimble’s sad eyes focused on the clock. Quitting time. He stood up to go home and slowly sat down again. For he had his teeth in the problem, and he couldn’t let go.

Not that he was really accomplishing anything.

But if he left now, he’d only have to take it up again tomorrow.

Go, or stay?

And the branchings began again. Gene Trimble thought of other universes parallel to this one, and a parallel Gene Trimble in each one. Some had left early. Many had left on time, and were now halfway home to dinner, out to a movie, watching a strip show, racing to the scene of another death. Streaming out of police headquarters in all their multitudes, leaving a multitude of Trimbles behind them. Each of these trying to deal, alone, with the city’s endless, inexplicable parade of suicides.

Gene Trimble spread the morning paper on his desk. From the bottom drawer he took his gun-cleaning equipment, then his .45. He began to take the gun apart.

The gun was old but serviceable. He’d never fired it except on the target range and never expected to. To Trimble, cleaning his gun was like knitting, a way to keep his hands busy while his mind wandered off. Turn the screws, don’t lose them. Lay the parts out in order.

Through the closed door to his office came the sounds of men hurrying. Another emergency? The department couldn’t handle it all. Too many suicides, too many casual murders, not enough men.

Gun oil. Oiled rag. Wipe each part. Put it back in place.

Why would a man like Ambrose Harmon go off a building?

***

In the early morning light he lay, more a stain than man, thirty-six stories below the edge of his own penthouse roof. The pavement was splattered red for yards around him. The stains were still wet. Harmon had landed on his face. He wore a bright silk dressing gown and a sleeping jacket with a sash.

Others would take samples of his blood, to learn if he had acted under the influence of alcohol or drugs. There was little to be learned from seeing him in his present condition.

“But why was he up so early?” Trimble wondered. For the call had come in at 8:03, just as Trimble arrived at headquarters.

“So late, you mean.” Bentley had beaten him to the scene by twenty minutes. “We called some of his friends. He was at an all-night poker game. Broke up around six o’clock.”

“Did Harmon lose?”

“Nope. He won almost five hundred bucks.”

“That fits,” Trimble said in disgust. “No suicide note?”

“Maybe they’ve found one. Shall we go up and see?”

“We won’t find a note,” Trimble predicted.

Even three months earlier Trimble would have thought, How incredible! or Who could have pushed him? Now, riding up in the elevator, he thought only, Reporters. For Ambrose Harmon was news. Even among this past year’s epidemic of suicides, Ambrose Harmon’s death would stand out like Lyndon Johnson in a lineup.

He was a prominent member of the community, a man of dead and wealthy grandparents. Perhaps the huge inheritance, four years ago, had gone to his head. He had invested tremendous sums to back harebrained quixotic causes.

Now, because one of the harebrained causes had paid off, he was richer than ever. The Crosstime Corporation already held a score of patents on inventions imported from alternate time tracks. Already those inventions had started more than one industrial revolution. And Harmon was the money behind Crosstime. He would have been the world’s next billionaire—had he not walked off the balcony.

***

They found a roomy, luxuriously furnished apartment in good order, and a bed turned down for the night. The only sign of disorder was Harmon’s clothing—slacks, sweater, a silk turtleneck shirt, kneelength shoesocks, no underwear—piled on a chair in the bedroom. The toothbrush had been used.

He got ready for bed, Trimble thought. He brushed his teeth, and then he went out to look at the sunrise. A man who kept late hours like that, he wouldn’t see the sunrise very often. He watched the sunrise, and when it was over, he jumped.

“Why?”

They were all like that. Easy, spontaneous decisions. The victim-killers walked off bridges or stepped from their balconies or suddenly flung themselves in front of subway trains. They strolled halfway across a freeway, or swallowed a full bottle of laudanum.

None of the methods showed previous planning. Whatever was used, the victim had had it all along; he never actually went out and bought a suicide weapon. The victim rarely dressed for the occasion, or used makeup, as an ordinary suicide would. Usually there was no note.

Harmon fit the pattern perfectly.

“Like Richard Corey,” said Bentley.

“Who?”

“Richard Corey, the man who had everything. ‘And Richard Corey, one calm summer night, went home and put a bullet through his head.’ You know what I think?”

“If you’ve got an idea, let’s have it.”

“The suicides all started about a month after Crosstime got started. I think one of the Crosstime ships brought back a new bug from some alternate timeline.”

“A suicide bug?”

Bentley nodded.

“You’re out of your mind.”

“I don’t think so. Gene, do you know how many Crosstime pilots have killed themselves in the last year? More than twenty percent!”

“Oh?”

“Look at the records. Crosstime has about twenty vehicles in action now, but in the past year they’ve employed sixty-two pilots. Three disappeared. Fifteen are dead, and all but two died by suicide.”

“I didn’t know that.” Trimble was shaken.

“It was bound to happen sometime. Look at the alternate worlds they’ve found so far. The Nazi world. The Red Chinese world, half bombed to death. The ones that are totally bombed, and Crosstime can’t even find out who did it. The one with the Black Plague mutation, and no penicillin until Crosstime came along. Sooner or later—”

“Maybe, maybe. I don’t buy your bug, though. If the suicides are a new kind of plague, what about the other crimes?”

“Same bug.”

“Uh, uh. But I think we’ll check up on Crosstime.”

***

Trimble’s hand finished with the gun and laid it on the desk. He was hardly aware of it. Somewhere in the back of his mind was a prodding sensation: the handle, the piece he needed to solve the puzzle.

He spent most of the day studying Crosstime, Inc. News stories, official handouts, personal interviews. The incredible suicide rate among Crosstime pilots could not be coincidence. He wondered why nobody had noticed it before.

It was slow going. With Crosstime travel, as with relativity, you had to throw away reason and use only logic. Trimble had sweated it out. Even the day’s murders had not distracted him.

They were typical, of a piece with the preceding eight months’ crime wave. A man had shot his foreman with a gun bought an hour earlier, then strolled off toward police headquarters. A woman had moved through the back row of a dark theater, using an ice pick to stab members of the audience through the backs of their seats. She had chosen only young men. They had killed without heat, without concealment; they had surrendered without fear or bravado. Perhaps it was another kind of suicide.

Time for coffee, Trimble thought, responding unconsciously to a dry throat plus a fuzziness of the mouth plus slight fatigue. He set his hands to stand up, and— The image came to him in an endless row of Trimbles, lined up like the repeated images in facing mirrors. But each image was slightly different. He would go get the coffee and he wouldn’t and he would send somebody for it, and someone was about to bring it without being asked. Some of the images were drinking coffee, a few had tea or milk, some were smoking, some were leaning too far back with their feet on the desks (and a handful of these were toppling helplessly backward), some were, like this present Trimble, introspecting with their elbows on the desk. Damn Crosstime anyway.

He’d have had to check Harmon’s business affairs, even without the Crosstime link. There might have been a motive there, for suicide or murder, though it had never been likely.

In the first place, Harmon had cared nothing for money. The Crosstime group had been one of many. At the time that project had looked as harebrained as the rest: a handful of engineers and physicists and philosophers determined to prove that the theory of alternate time tracks was reality.

In the second place, Harmon had no business worries.

Quite the contrary.

Eleven months ago an experimental vehicle had touched one of the worlds of the Confederate States of America and returned. The universes of alternate choice were within reach. And the pilot had brought back an artifact.

From that point on, Crosstime travel had more than financed itself. The Confederate world’s “stapler,” granted an immediate patent, had bought two more ships. A dozen miracles had originated in a single, technologically advanced timeline, one in which the catastrophic Cuban War had been no more than a wet firecracker. Lasers, oxygen-hydrogen rocket motors, computers, strange plastics—the list was still growing. And Crosstime held all the patents.

***

In those first months the vehicles had gone off practically at random. Now the pinpointing was better. Vehicles could select any branch they preferred. Imperial Russia, Amerindian America, the Catholic Empire, the dead worlds. Some of the dead worlds were hells of radioactive dust and intact but deadly artifacts. From these worlds Crosstime pilots brought strange and beautiful works of art, which had to be stored behind leaded glass.

The latest vehicles could reach worlds so like this one that it took a week of research to find the difference. In theory they could get even closer. There was a phenomenon called “the broadening of the bands”.

And that had given Trimble the shivers.

When a vehicle left its own present, a signal went on in the hangar, a signal unique to that ship. When the pilot wanted to return, he simply cruised across the appropriate band of probabilities until he found the signal. The signal marked his own unique present.

Only it didn’t. The pilot always returned to find a clump of signals, a broadened band. The longer he stayed away, the broader was the signal band. His own world had continued to divide after his departure, in a constant stream of decisions being made both ways.

Usually it didn’t matter. Any signal the pilot chose represented the world he had left. And since the pilot himself had a choice, he naturally returned to them all. But— There was a pilot by the name of Gary Wilcox. He had been using his vehicle for experiments, to see how close he could get to his own timeline and still leave it. Once, last month, he had returned twice.

Two Gary Wilcoxes, two vehicles. The vehicles had been wrecked—their hulls intersected. For the Wilcoxes it could have been sticky, for Wilcox had a wife and family. But one of the duplicates had chosen to die almost immediately.

Trimble had tried to call the other Gary Wilcox. He was too late. Wilcox had gone skydiving a week ago. He’d neglected to open his parachute.

Small wonder, thought Trimble. At least Wilcox had had motive. It was bad enough, knowing about the other Trimbles, the ones who had gone home, the ones drinking coffee, et cetera. But—suppose someone walked into the office right now, and it was Gene Trimble?

It could happen.

Convinced as he was that Crosstime was involved in the suicides, Trimble—some other Trimble—might easily have decided to take a trip in a Crosstime vehicle. A short trip. He could land here.

***

Trimble closed his eyes and rubbed at the corners with his fingertips. In some timeline, very close, someone had thought to bring him coffee. Too bad this wasn’t it.

It didn’t do to think too much about these alternate timelines. There were too many of them. The close ones could drive you buggy, but the ones farther off were just as bad.

Take the Cuban War. Atomics had been used, here, and now Cuba was uninhabited, and some American cities were gone, and some Russian. It could have been worse.

Why wasn’t it? How could we luck out? Intelligent statesmen? Faulty bombs? A humane reluctance to kill indiscriminately?

No. There was no luck anywhere. Every decision was made both ways. For every wise choice you bled your heart out over, you had made all the other choices too. And so it went, all through history.

Civil wars unfought on some worlds were won by either side on others. Elsewhen, another animal had first done murder with an antelope femur. Some worlds were still all nomad; civilization had lost out. If every choice was canceled elsewhere, why make a decision at all?

Trimble opened his eyes and saw the gun.

That gun, too, was endlessly repeated on endless desks. Some of the images were dirty with years of neglect. Some smelled of gunpowder, fired recently, a few at living targets. Some were loaded. All were as real as this one.

A number of these were about to go off by accident.

A proportion of these were pointed, in deadly coincidence, at Gene Trimble.

See the endless rows of Gene Trimble, each at his desk. Some were bleeding and cursing as men run into the room following the sound of the gunshot. Many are already dead.

Was there a bullet in there? Nonsense.

He looked anyway. The gun was empty.

Trimble loaded it. At the base of his mind he felt the touch of the handle. He would find what he was seeking.

He put the gun back on his desk, pointing away from him, and he thought of Ambrose Harmon, coming home from a late night. Ambrose Harmon, who had won five hundred dollars at poker. Ambrose Harmon, exhausted, seeing the lightening sky as he prepared for bed. Going out to watch the dawn.

Ambrose Harmon, watching the slow dawn, remembering a two-thousand-dollar pot. He’d bluffed. In some other branching of time, he had lost.

Thinking that in some other branching of time, that two thousand dollars included his last dime. It was certainly possible. If Crosstime hadn’t paid off, he might have gone through the remains of his fortune in the past four years. He liked to gamble.

Watching the dawn, thinking of all the Ambrose Harmons on that roof. Some were penniless this night, and they had not come out to watch the dawn.

Well, why not? If he stepped over the edge, here and now, another Ambrose Harmon would only laugh and go inside.

If he laughed and went inside, other Ambrose Harmons would fall to their deaths. Some were already on their way down. One changed his mind too late, another laughed as he fell.

Well, why not?

***

Trimble thought of another man, a nonentity, passing a firearms store. Branching of timelines, he thinks, looking in, and he thinks of the man who took his foreman’s job. Well, why not?

Trimble thought of a lonely woman making herself a drink at three in the afternoon. She thinks of myriads of alter egos, with husbands, lovers, children, friends. Unbearable, to think that all the might-have-beens were as real as herself. As real as this ice pick in her hand. Well, why not?

And she goes out to a movie, but she takes the ice pick.

And the honest citizen with a carefully submerged urge to commit rape, just once. Reading his newspaper at breakfast, and there’s another story from Crosstime: They’ve found a world line in which Kennedy the First was assassinated. Strolling down a street, he thinks of world lines and infinite branchings, of alter egos already dead, or jailed, or president. A girl in a miniskirt passes, and she has nice legs. Well, why not?

Casual murder, casual suicide, casual crime. Why not? If alternate universes are a reality, then cause and effect are an illusion. The law of averages is a fraud. You can do anything, and one of you will, or did.

Gene Trimble looked at the clean and loaded gun on his desk. Well, why not?

And he ran out of the office shouting, “Bentley, listen. I’ve got the answer!”

And he stood up slowly and left the office shaking his head. This was the answer, and it wasn’t any good. The suicides, murders, casual crimes would continue.

And he suddenly laughed and stood up. Ridiculous! Nobody dies for a philosophical point!

And he reached for the intercom and told the man who answered to bring him a sandwich and some coffee.

And picked the gun off the newspapers, looked at it for a long moment, then dropped it in the drawer. His hands began to shake. On a world line very close to this one…

And he picked the gun off the newspapers, put it to his head and

Fired. The hammer fell on an empty chamber.

Fired. The gun jerked and blasted a hole in the ceiling.

Fired. The bullet tore a furrow in his scalp.

Took off the top of his head.

THE BEAST THAT SHOUTED LOVE

AT THE HEART OF THE WORLD

Harlan Ellison

After an idle discussion with the pest control man who came once a month to spray around the outside of his home in the Ruxton section of Baltimore, William Sterog stole a canister of Malathion, a deadly insecticide poison, from the man’s truck, and went out early one morning, following the route of the neighborhood milkman, and spooned medium-large quantities into each bottle left on the rear doorstep of seventy homes. Within six hours of Bill Sterog’s activities, two hundred men, women and children died in convulsive agony.

Learning that an aunt who had lived in Buffalo was dying of cancer of the lymph glands, William Sterog hastily helped his mother pack three bags, and took her to Friendship Airport, where he put her on an Eastern Airlines jet with a simple but efficient time bomb made from a Westclox Travalarm and four sticks of dynamite in her three-suiter. The jet exploded somewhere over Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Ninety-three people—including Bill Sterog’s mother—were killed in the explosion, and flaming wreckage added seven to the toll by cascading down on a public swimming pool.

On a Sunday in November, William Sterog made his way to Babe Ruth Plaza on 33rd Street where he became one of 54,000 fans jamming Memorial Stadium to see the Baltimore Colts play the Green Bay Packers. He was dressed warmly in grey flannel slacks, a navy blue turtleneck pullover and a heavy hand-knitted Irish wool sweater under his parka. With three minutes and thirteen seconds of the fourth quarter remaining to be played, and Baltimore trailing seventeen to sixteen on Green Bay’s eighteen-yard line, Bill Sterog fought his way up the aisle to the exit above the mezzanine seats, and fumbled under his parka for the U. S. Army surplus M-3 submachine gun he had bought for $49.95 from a mail order armaments dealer in Alexandria, Virginia. Even as 53,999 screaming fans leaped to their feet—making his range of fire that much better—as the ball was snapped to the quarterback, holding for the defensive tackle most able to kick a successful field goal, Bill Sterog opened fire on the massed backs of the fans below him. Before the mob could bring him down, he had killed forty-four people. When the first Expeditionary Force to the elliptical galaxy in Sculptor descended on the second planet of a fourth magnitude star the Force had designated Flammarion Theta, they found a thirty-seven-foot-high statue of a hitherto unknown blue-white substance—not quite stone, something like metal—in the shape of a man. The figure was barefoot, draped in a garment that vaguely resembled a toga, the head encased in a skull-tight cap, and holding in its left hand a peculiar ring-and-ball device of another substance altogether. The statue’s face was curiously beatific. It had high cheekbones; deep-set eyes; a tiny, almost alien mouth; and a broad, large-nostriled nose. The statue loomed enormous among the pitted and blasted curvilinear structures of some forgotten architect. The members of the Expeditionary Force commented on the peculiar expression each noted on the face of the statue. None of these men, standing under a gorgeous brass moon that shared an evening sky with a descending sun quite dissimilar in color to the one that now shone wanly on an Earth unthinkably distant in time and space, had ever heard of William Sterog. And so none of them was able to say that the expression on the giant statue was the same as the one Bill Sterog had shown as he told the final appeals judge who was about to sentence him to death in the lethal gas chamber, “I love everyone in the world. I do. So help me God, I love you, all of you!”

He was shouting.

Crosswhen, through interstices of thought called time, through reflective images called space; another then, another now. This place, over there. Beyond concepts, the transmogrification of simplicity finally labeled if. Forty and more steps sidewise but later, much later. There, in that ultimate center, with everything radiating outward, becoming infinitely more complex, the enigma of symmetry, harmony, apportionment singing with fine-tuned order in this place, where it all began, begins, will always begin. The center. Crosswhen.

Or: a hundred million years in the future. And: a hundred million parsecs beyond the farthest edge of measurable space. And: parallax warpages beyond counting across the universes of parallel existences. Finally: an infinitude of mind-triggered leaps beyond human thought. There: Crosswhen.

On the mauve level, crouched down in deeper magenta washings that concealed his arched form, the maniac waited. He was a dragon, squat and round in the torso, tapered ropy tail tucked under his body; the small, thick osseous shields rising perpendicularly from the arched back, running down to the end of the tail, tips pointing upward; his taloned shorter arms folded across his massive chest. He had the seven-headed dog faces of an ancient Cerberus. Each head watched, waiting hungry, insane.

He saw the bright yellow wedge of light as it moved in random patterns through the mauve, always getting closer. He knew he could not run, the movement would betray him, the specter light finding him instantly. Fear choked the maniac. The specter had pursued him through innocence and humility and nine other emotional obfuscations he had tried. He had to do something, get them off his scent. But he was alone on this level. It had been closed down some time before, to purge it of residue emotions. Had he not been so terribly confused after the killings, had he not been drowning in disorientation, he would never have trapped himself on a closed level.

Now that he was here, there was nowhere to hide, nowhere to escape the specter light that would systematically hunt him down. Then they would purge hint.

The maniac took the one final chance; he closed down his mind, all seven brains, even as the mauve level was closed down. He shut off all thought, banked the fires of emotion, broke the neural circuits that fed power to his mind. Like a great machine phasing down from peak efficiency, his thoughts slackened and wilted and grew pale. Then there was a blank where he had been. Seven dog-heads slept.

The dragon had ceased to exist in terms of thought, and the specter light washed past him, finding nothing there to home in on. But those who sought the maniac were sane, not deranged as he was: their sanity was ordered, and in order they considered every exigency. The specter light was followed by heat-seeking beams, by mass-tallying sensors, by trackers that could hunt out the spoor of foreign matter on a closed-down level.

They found the maniac. Shut down like a sun gone cold, they located him, and transferred him; he was unaware of the movement; he was locked away in his own silent skulls.

But when he chose to open his thoughts again, in the timeless disorientation that follows a total shutdown, he found himself locked in stasis in a drainage ward on the 3rd Red Active Level. Then, from seven throats, he screamed.

The sound, of course, was lost in the throat baffles they had inserted, before he had turned himself back on. The emptiness of the sound terrified him even more.

He was imbedded an an amber substance that fit around him comfortably; had it been a much earlier era, on another world, in another continuum, it would have been simply a hospital bed with restraining straps. But the dragon was locked in stasis on a red level, crosswhen. His hospital bed was anti-grav, weightless, totally relaxing, feeding nutrients through his leathery hide along with depressants and toners. He was waiting to be drained.

Linah drifted into the ward, followed by Semph. Semph, the discoverer of the drain. And his most eloquent nemesis, Linah, who sought Public Elevation to the position of Proctor. They drifted down the rows of amber-encased patients: the toads, the tambour-lidded crystal cubes, the exoskeletals, the pseudopodal changers, and the seven-headed dragon. They paused directly in front and slightly above the maniac. He was able to look up at them; images seven times seen; but he was not able to make sound.

“If I needed a conclusive reason, here’s one of the best,” Linah said, inclining his head toward the maniac.

Semph dipped an analysis rod into the amber substance, withdrew it and made a hasty reading of the patient’s condition. “If you needed a greater warning,” Semph said quietly, “this would be one of the best.”

“Science bends to the will of the masses,” Linah said.

“I’d hate to have to believe that,“ Semph responded quickly. There was a tone in his voice that could not be named, but it undershadowed the aggressiveness of his words.

“I’m going to see to it, Semph; believe it. I’m going to have the Concord pass the resolution.”

“Linah, how long have we known each other?”

“Since your third flux. My second.”

“That’s about right. Have I ever told you a lie, have I ever asked you to do something that would harm you?”

“No. Not that I can recall.”

“Then why won’t you listen to me this time?”

“Because I think you’re wrong. I’m not a fanatic, Semph. I’m not making political hay with this. I feel very strongly that it’s the best chance we’ve ever had.”

“But disaster for everyone and everywhere else, all the way back, and God only knows how far across the parallax. We stop fouling our own nest, at die expense of all the other nests that ever were.”

Linah spread his hands in futility. “Survival.”

Semph shook his head slowly, with a weariness that was mirrored in his expression. “I wish I could drain that, too.”

“Can’t you?”

Semph shrugged. “I can drain anything. But what we’d have left wouldn’t be worth having.”

The amber substance changed hue. It glowed deep within itself with a blue intensity. “The patient is ready,” Semph said. “Linah, one more time. I’ll beg if it’ll do any good. Please. Stall till the next session. The Concord needn’t do it now. Let me run some further tests, let me see how far back this garbage spews, how much damage it can cause. Let me prepare some reports.”

Linah was firm. He shook his head in finality. “May I watch the draining with you?”

Semph let out a long sigh. He was beaten, and knew it. “Yes, all right.”

The amber substance carrying its silent burden began to rise. It reached the level of the two men, and slid smoothly through the air between them. They drifted after the smooth container with the dog-headed dragon imbedded in it, and Semph seemed as though he wanted to say something else. But there was nothing to say.

The amber chrysaloid cradle faded and vanished, and the men became insubstantial and were no more. They all reappeared in the drainage chamber. The beaming stage was empty. The amber cradle settled down on it without sound, and the substance flowed away, vanishing as it uncovered the dragon.

The maniac tried desperately to move, to heave himself up. Seven heads twitched futilely. The madness in him overcame the depressants and he was consumed with frenzy, fury, crimson hate. But he could not move. It was all he could do to hold his shape.

Semph turned the band on his left wrist. It glowed from within, a deep gold. The sound of air rushing to fill a vacuum filled the chamber. The beaming stage was drenched in silver light that seemed to spring out of the air itself, from an unknown source. The dragon was washed by the silver light, and the seven great mouths opened once, exposing rings of fangs. Then his double-lidded eyes closed.

The pain within his heads was monstrous. A fearful wrenching that became the sucking of a million mouths. His very brains were pulled upon, pressured, compressed, and then purged.

Semph and Linah looked away from the pulsing body of the dragon to the drainage tank across the chamber. It was filling from the bottom as they watched. Filling with a nearly colorless roiling cloud of smokiness, shot through with sparks. “Here it comes,” Semph said, needlessly.

Linah dragged his eyes away from the tank. The dragon with seven dog heads was rippling. As though seen through shallow water, the maniac was beginning to alter. As the tank filled, the maniac found it more and more difficult to maintain his shape. The denser grew the cloud of sparkling matter in the tank, the less constant was the shape of the creature on the beaming stage.

Finally, it was impossible, and the maniac gave in. The tank filled more rapidly, and the shape quavered and altered and shrank and then there was a superimposition of the form of a man, over that of the seven-headed dragon. Then the tank reached three-quarters filled and the dragon became an underling shadow, a hint, a suggestion of what had been there when the drainage began. Now the man-form was becoming more dominant by the second.

Finally, the tank was filled, and a normal man lay on the beaming stage, breathing heavily, eyes closed, muscles jumping involuntarily.

“He’s drained,” Semph said.

“Is it all in the tank?” Linah asked softly.

“No, none of it.”

“Then…”

“This is the residue. Harmless. Reagents purged from a group of sensitives will neutralize it. The dangerous essences, the degenerate force-lines that make up the field… they’re gone. Drained off already.”

Linah looked disturbed, for the first time. “Where did it go?”

“Do you love your fellow man, tell me?”

“Please, Semph! I asked where it went… when it went?”

“And I asked if you cared at all about anyone else?”

“You know my answer… you know me! I want to know, tell me, at least what you know. Where… when…?”

“Then you’ll forgive me, Linah, because I love my fellow man, too. Whenever he was, wherever he is; I have to, I work in an inhuman field, and I have to cling to that. So… you’ll forgive me…”

“What are you going to…”

In Indonesia they have a phrase for it: Djam Karet—the hour that stretches.

In the Vatican’s Stanza of Heliodorus, the second of the great rooms he designed for Pope Julius II, Raphael painted (and his pupils completed) a magnificent fresco representation of the historic meeting between Pope Leo I and Attila the Hun, in the year 452.

In this painting is mirrored the belief of Christians everywhere that the spiritual authority of Rome protected her in that desperate hour when the Hun came to sack and burn the Holy City. Raphael has painted in Saint Peter and Saint Paul, descending from Heaven to reinforce Pope Leo’s intervention. His interpretation was an elaboration on the original legend, in which only the Aposde Peter was mentioned—standing behind Leo with a drawn sword. And the legend was an elaboration of what little facts have come down through antiquity relatively undistorted: Leo had no cardinals with him, and certainly no wraith Aposdes. He was one of three in the deputation. The other two were secular dignitaries of the Roman state. The meeting did not take place—as legend would have us believe—just outside the gates of Rome, but in northern Italy, not far from what is today Peschiera.

Nothing more than this is known of the confrontation. Yet Attila, who had never been stopped, did not raze Rome. He turned back.

Djam Karet. The force-line field spewed out from a parallax center crosswhen, a field that had pulsed through time and space and the minds of men for twice ten thousand years. Then cut out suddenly, inexplicably, and Attila the Hun clapped his hands to his head, his mind twisting like rope within his skull. His eyes glazed, then cleared, and he breathed from deep in his chest. Then he signaled his army to turn back. Leo the Great thanked God and the living memory of Christ die Saviour. Legend added Saint Peter. Raphael added Saint Paul.

For twice ten thousand years—Djam Karet—the field had pulsed, and for a brief moment that could have been instants or years or millennia, it was cut off.

Legend does not tell the truth. More specifically, it does not tell all of the truth: forty years before Attila raided Italy, Rome had been taken and sacked by Alaric the Godi. Djam Karet. Three years after die retreat of Attila, Rome was once more taken and sacked, by Gaiseric, king of all the Vandals.

There was a reason the garbage of insanity had ceased to flow through everywhere and everywhen from the drained mind of a seven-headed dragon…

Semph, traitor to his race, hovered before the Concord. His friend, the man who now sought this final flux, Linah, Proctored the hearing. He spoke softly, but eloquently, of what the great scientist had done.

“The tank was draining; he said to me, ‘Forgive me, because I love my fellow man. Whenever he was, wherever he is; I have to, I work in an inhuman field, and I have to cling to that. So you’ll forgive me.’ Then he interposed himself.”

The sixty members of the Concord, a representative from each race that existed in die center, bird-creatures and blue things and large-headed men and orange scents with cilia shuddering… all of them looked at Semph where he hovered. His body and head were crumpled like a brown paper bag. All hair was gone. His eyes were dim and watery. Naked, shimmering, he drifted slightly to one side, then a vagrant breeze in the wall-less chamber sent him back. He had drained himself.

“I ask for this Concord to affix sentence of final flux on this man. Though his interposition only lasted a few moments, we have no way of knowing what damage or unnaturalness it may have caused crosswhen. I submit that his intent was to overload the drain and thereby render it inoperative. This act, the act of a beast who would condemn die sixty races of the center to a future in which insanity still prevailed, is an act that can only be punished by termination.”

The Concord blanked and meditated. A timeless time later they relinked, and the Proctor’s charges were upheld; his demand of sentence was fulfilled.

On the hushed shores of a thought, die papyrus man was carried in the arms of his friend, his executioner, the Proctor. There in the dusting quiet of an approaching night, Linah laid Semph down in the shadow of a sigh.

“Why did you stop me?” the wrinkle with a moudi asked.

Linah looked away across die rushing dark.

“Why?”

“Because here, in the center, there is a chance.”

“And for them, all of them out there… no chance ever?”

Linah sat down slowly, digging his hands into the golden mist, letting it sift over his wrists and back into die waiting flesh of the world. “If we can begin it here, if we can pursue our boundaries outward, then perhaps one day, sometime, we can reach to the ends of time with that little chance. Until then, it is better to have one center where there is no madness.”

Semph hurried his words. The end was rapidly striding for him. “You have sentenced them all. Insanity is a living vapor. A force. It can be bottled The most potent genie in the most easily uncorked bottle

And you have condemned them to live with it always. In the name of love.“

Linah made a sound that was not quite a word, but called it back. Semph touched his wrist with a tremble that had been a hand. Fingers melting into softness and warmth. “I’m sorry for you, Linah. Your curse is to be a true man. The world is made for stragglers. You never learned how to do that.”

Linah did not reply. He thought only of the drainage that was eternal now. Set in motion and kept in motion by its necessity.

“Will you do a memorial for me?” Semph asked.

Linah nodded. “It’s traditional.”

Semph smiled softly. “Then do it for them; not for me. I’m the one who devised the vessel of their death, and I don’t need it. But choose one of them; not a very important one, but one that will mean everything to them if they find it, and understand. Erect the memorial in my name to that one. Will you?”

Linah nodded.

“Will you?” Semph asked. His eyes were closed, and he could not see the nod.

“Yes. I will,” Linah said. But Semph could not hear. The flux began and ended, and Linah was alone in the cupped silence of loneliness.

The statue was placed on a far planet of a far star in a time that was ancient while yet never having been born. It existed in the minds of men who would come later. Or never.

But if they did, they would know that hell was with them, that there was a Heaven that men called Heaven, and in it there was a center from which all madness flowed; and once within that center, there was peace.

In the remains of a blasted building that had been a shirt factory, in what had been Stuttgart, Friedrich Drucker found a many-colored box. Maddened by hunger and the memory of having eaten human flesh for weeks, the man tore at the lid of the box with the bloodied stubs of his fingers. As the box flew open, pressed at a certain point, cyclones rushed out past the terrified face of Friedrich Drucker. Cyclones and dark, winged, faceless shapes that streaked away into the night, followed by a last wisp of purple smoke smelling strongly of decayed gardenias.

But Friedrich Drucker had little time to ponder the meaning of the purple smoke, for the next day, World War IV broke out.

WINTER’S KING

Ursula K. Le Guin

Mr. Underhill had decided that since his truename was no longer a secret, he might as well drop his disguise. Walking was a lot harder than flying, and besides, it was a long, long time since he had had a real meal.

When I wrote this story, a year before I began the novel The Left Hand of Darkness, I did not faow that the inhabitants of the planet Winter or Gethen were androgynes. By the time the story came out in print, I did, but too late to emend such usages as “son,” “mother,” and so on.

Many feminists have been grieved or aggrieved by The Left Hand of Darkness because the androgynes in it are called “he” throughout. In the third person singular, the English generic pronoun is the same as the masculine pronoun. A fact worth reflecting upon. And it’s a trap, with no way out, because the exclusion of the feminine (she) and the neuter (it) from the generic/masculine (he) makes the use of either of them more specific, more unjust, as it were, than the use of “he.” And I find made-up pronouns, “te” and “he she” and so on, dreary and annoying.

In revising the story for this edition, I saw a chance to redress that injustice slightly. In this version, I use the feminine pronoun for all Gethenians—while preserving certain masculine titles such as King and Lord, just to remind one of the ambiguity. This may drive some nonfeminists mad, but that’s only fair.

The androgyny of the characters has little to do with the events of this story, but the pronoun change does maJ(e it clear that the central, paradoxical relationship of parent and child is not, as it may have seemed in the other version, a kind of reverse Oedipus twist, but something less familiar and more ambiguous. Evidently my unconscious mind knew about the Gethenians long before it saw fit to inform me. It’s always doing things like that.

When whirlpools appear in the onward run of time and history seems to swirl around a snag, as in the curious matter of the Succession of Karhide, then pictures come in handy: snapshots, which may be taken up and matched to compare the parent to the child, the young king to the old, and which may also be rearranged and shuffled till the years run straight. For despite the tricks played by instantaneous interstellar communication and just-sub-lightspeed interstellar travel, time (as the Plenipotentiary Axt remarked) does not reverse itself; nor is death mocked.

Thus, although the best-known picture is that dark image of a young king standing above an old king who lies dead in a corridor lit only by mirror-reflections of a burning city, set it aside a while. Look first at the young king, a nation’s pride, as bright and fortunate a soul as ever lived to the age of twenty-two; but when this picture was taken the young king had her back against a wall. She was filthy, she was trembling, and her face was blank and mad, for she had lost that minimal confidence in the world which is called sanity. Inside her head she repeated, as she had been repeating for hours or years, over and over, “I will abdicate. I will abdicate. I will abdicate.” Inside her eyes she saw the red-walled rooms of the Palace, the towers and streets of Erhenrang in falling snow, the lovely plains of the West Fall, the white summits of the Kargav, and she renounced them all, her kingdom. “I will abdicate,” she said not aloud and then, aloud, screamed as once again the person dressed in red and white approached her saying, “Majesty! A plot against your life has been discovered in the Artisan School,” and the humming noise began, softly. She hid her head in her arms and whispered, “Stop it, please stop it,” but the humming whine grew higher and louder and nearer, relentless, until it was so high and loud that it entered her flesh, tore the nerves from their channels and made her bones dance and jangle, hopping to its tune. She hopped and twitched, bare bones strung on thin white threads, and wept dry tears, and shouted, “Have them— Have them— They must— Executed— Stopped— Stop!”

It stopped.

She fell in a clattering, chattering heap to the floor. What floor? Not red tiles, not parquetry, not urine-stained cement, but the wood floor of the room in the tower, the little tower bedroom where she was safe, safe from her ogre parent, the cold, mad, uncaring king, safe to play cat’s cradle with Piry and to sit by the fireside on Borhub’s warm lap, as warm and deep as sleep. But there was no hiding, no safety, no sleep. The person dressed in black had come even here and had hold of her head, lifted it up, lifted on thin white strings the eyelids she tried to close.

“Who am I?”

The blank, black mask stared down. The young king struggled, sobbing, because now the suffocation would begin: she would not be able to breathe until she said the name, the right name— “Gerer!”—She could breathe. She was allowed to breathe. She had recognized the black one in time.

“Who am I?” said a different voice, gently, and the young king groped for that strong presence that always brought her sleep, truce, solace. “Rebade,” she whispered, “tell me what to do….”

“Sleep.”

She obeyed. A deep sleep, and dreamless, for it was real. Dreams came at waking, now. Unreal, the horrible dry red light of sunset burned her eyes open and she stood, once more, on the Palace balcony looking down at fifty thousand black pits opening and shutting. From the pits came a paroxysmic gush of sound, a shrill, rhythmic eructation: her name. Her name was roared in her ears as a taunt, a jeer. She beat her hands on the narrow brass railing and shouted at them, “I will silence you!” She could not hear her voice, only their voice, the pestilent mouths of the mob that hated her, screaming her name. “Come away, my king,” said the one gentle voice, and Rebade drew her away from the balcony into the vast, red-walled quiet of the Hall of Audience. The screaming ceased with a click. Rebade’s expression was as always composed, compassionate. “What will you do now?” she said in her gentle voice.

“I will— I will abdicate—”

“No,” Rebade said calmly. “That is not right. What will you do now?”

The young king stood silent, shaking. Rebade helped her sit down on the iron cot, for the walls had darkened as they often did and drawn in all about her to a little cell. “You will call …”

“Call up the Erhenrang Guard. Have them shoot into the crowd. Shoot to kill. They must be taught a lesson.” The young king spoke rapidly and distinctly in a loud, high voice. Rebade said, “Very good, my lord, a wise decision! Right. We shall come out all right. You are doing right. Trust me.”

“I do. I trust you. Get me out of here,” the young king whispered, seizing Rebade’s arm: but her friend frowned. That was not right. She had driven Rebade and hope away again. Rebade was leaving now, calm and regretful, though the young king begged her to stop, to come back, for the noise was softly beginning again, the whining hum that tore the mind to pieces, and already the person in red and white was approaching across a red, interminable floor. “Majesty! A plot against your life has been discovered in the Artisan School—”

Down Old Harbor Street to the water’s edge the street lamps burned cavernously bright. Guard Pepenerer on her rounds glanced down that slanting vault of light expecting nothing, and saw something staggering up it towards her. Pepenerer did not believe in porngropes, but she saw a porngrope, sea-beslimed, staggering on thin webbed feet, gasping dry air, whimpering, slid out of Pepenerer’s mind and she saw a drunk or a maniac or a victim staggering between the dank grey warehouse walls. “Now then! Hold on there!” she bellowed, on the run. The drunk, half naked and wild-eyed, let out a yell of terror and tried to dodge away, slipped on the frost-slick stones of the street and pitched down sprawling. Pepenerer got out her gun and delivered a half-second of stun, just to keep the drunk quiet; then squatted down by her, wound up her radio and called the West Ward for a car.

Both the arms, sprawled out limp and meek on the cold cobbles, were blotched with injection marks. Not drunk; drugged. Pepenerer sniffed, but got no resinous scent of orgrevy. She had been drugged, then; thieves, or a ritual clan-revenge. Thieves would not have left the gold ring on the forefinger, a massive thing, carved, almost as wide as the fingerjoint. Pepenerer crouched forward to look at it. Then she turned her head and looked at the beaten, blank face in profile against the paving-stones, hard lit by the glare of the street lamps. She took a new quarter-crown piece out of her pouch and looked at the left profile stamped on the bright tin, then back at the right profile stamped in light and shadow and cold stone. Then, hearing the purr of the electric car turning down from the Long-way into Old Harbor Street, she stuck the coin back in her pouch, muttering to herself, “Damn fool.”

King Argaven was off hunting in the mountains, anyhow, and had been for a couple of weeks; it had been in all the bulletins.

“You see,” said Hoge the physician, “we can assume that she was mindformed; but that gives us almost nothing to go on. There are too many expert mindformers in Karhide, and in Orgoreyn for that matter. Not criminals whom the police might have a lead on, but respectable mentalists or physicians. To whom the drugs are legally available. As for getting anything from her, if they had any skill at all they will have blocked everything they did to rational access. All clues will be buried, the trigger-suggestions hidden, and we simply cannot guess what questions to ask. There is no way, short of brain-destruction, of going through everything in her mind; and even under hypnosis and deep drugging there would be no way now to distinguish implanted ideas or emotions from her own autonomous ones. Perhaps the Aliens could do something, though I doubt their mindscience is all they boast of; at any rate it’s out of reach. We have only one real hope.”

“Which is?” Lord Gerer asked, stolidly.

“The king is quick and resolute. At the beginning, before they broke her, she may have known what they were doing to her, and so set up some block or resistance, left herself some escape route….”

Hoge’s low voice lost confidence as she spoke, and trailed off in the silence of the high, red, dusky room. She drew no response from old Gerer who stood, black-clad, before the fire.

The temperature of that room in the King’s Palace of Erhenrang was 12° C where Lord Gerer stood, and 5° midway between the two big fireplaces; outside it was snowing lightly, a mild day only a few degrees below freezing. Spring had come to Winter. The fires at either end of the room roared red and gold, devouring thigh-thick logs. Magnificence, a harsh luxury, a quick splendor; fireplaces, fireworks, lightning, meteors, volcanoes; such things satisfied the people of Karhide on the world called Winter. But, except in Arctic colonies above the 35th parallel, they had never installed central heating in any building in the many centuries of their Age of Technology. Comfort was allowed to come to them rare, welcome, unsought: a gift, like joy.

The king’s personal servant, sitting by the bed, turned towards the physician and the Lord Councillor, though she did not speak.

Both at once crossed the room. The broad, hard bed, high on gilt pillars, heavy with a finery of red cloaks and coverlets, bore up the king’s body almost level with their eyes. To Gerer it appeared a ship breasting, motionless, a swift vast flood of darkness, carrying the young king into shadows, terrors, years. Then with a terror of her own the old councillor saw that Argaven’s eyes were open, staring out a half-curtained window at the stars.

Gerer feared lunacy; idiocy; she did not know what she feared. Hoge had warned her: “The king will not behave ‘normally,’ Lord Gerer. She has suffered thirteen days of torment, intimidation, exhaustion, and mindharidling. There may be brain damage, there will certainly beside and after-effects of drugs.” Neither fear nor warning parried the shock. Argaven’s bright, weary eyes turned to Gerer and paused on her blankly a moment; then saw her. And Gerer, though she could not see the black mask reflected, saw the hate, the horror, saw her young king, infinitely beloved, gasping in imbecile terror and struggling with the servant, with Hoge, with her own weakness in the effort to get away, to get away from Gerer.

Standing in the cold midst of the room where the prowlike head of the bedstead hid her from the king, Gerer heard them pacify Argaven and settle her down again. Argaven’s voice sounded reedy, childishly plaintive. So the Old King, Emran, had spoken in her last madness with a child’s voice. Then silence, and the burning of the two great fires.

Korgry, the king’s bodyservant, yawned and rubbed her eyes. Hoge measured something from a vial into a hypodermic. Gerer stood in despair. My child, my king, what have they done to you? So great a trust, so fair a promise, lost, lost. … So the one who looked like a lump of half-carved black rock, a heavy, prudent, rude old courtier, grieved and was passion-racked, her love and service of the young king being the world’s one worth to her.

Argaven spoke aloud: “My child—”

Gerer winced, feeling the words torn out of her own mind; but Hoge, untroubled by love, comprehended and said softly to Argaven, “Prince Emran is well, my liege. She is with her attendants at Warrever Castle. We are in constant communication. All is well there.”

Gerer heard the king’s harsh breathing, and came somewhat closer to the bed, though out of sight still behind the high headboard.

“Have I been sick?”

“You are not well yet,” the physician said, bland.

“Where—”

“Your own room, in the Palace, in Erhenrang.”

But Gerer, coming a step closer, though not in view of the king, said, “We do not know where you have been.”

Hoge’s smooth face creased with a frown, though, physician as she was and so in her way ruler of them all, she dared not direct the frown at the Lord Councillor. Gerer’s voice did not seem to trouble the king, who asked another question or two, sane and brief, and then lay quiet. Presently the servant Korgry, who had sat with her ever since she had been brought into the Palace (last night, in secret, by side doors, like a shameful suicide of the last reign, but all in reverse), Korgry committed lese-majeste: huddled forward on her high stool, she let her head droop on the side of the bed, and slept. The guard at the door yielded place to a new guard, in whispers. Officials came and received a fresh bulletin for public release on the state of the king’s health, in whispers. Stricken by symptoms of fever while vacationing in the High Kargav, the king had been rushed to Erhenrang, and was now responding satisfactorily to treatment, etc. Physician Hoge rem ir Hogeremme at the Palace has released the following statement, etc., etc.

“May the Wheel turn for our king,” people in village houses said solemnly as they lit the fire on the altarhearth, to which elders sitting near the fire remarked, “It comes of her roving around the city at night and climbing mountanlike, ‘flicks life’ that,” but they kept the radio on to catch the next bulletin. A very great number of people had come and gone and .loitered an4 chatted this day in the square before the Palace, watching thoselute,went in and out, watching the vacant balcony; there were still several hundred down there, standing around patiently in the snow. Argaven XVII was loved in her domain. After the dull brutality of King Emran’s reign that had ended in the shadow of madness and the country’s bankruptcy, she had come: sudden, gallant, young, changing everything; sane and shrewd, yet magnanimous. She had the fire, the splendor that suited her people. She was the force and center of a new age: one born, for once, king of the right kingdom.

“Gerer.”

It was the king’s voice, and Gerer hastened stiffly through the hot and cold of the great room, the firelight and dark.

Argaven was sitting up. Her arms shook and the breath caught in her throat; her eyes burned across the dark air at Gerer. By her left hand, which bore the Sign-Ring of the Harge dynasty, lay the sleeping face of the servant, derelict, serene. “Gerer,” the king said with effort and clarity, “summon the Council. Tell them, I will abdicate.”

So crude, so simple? All the drugs, the terrorizing, the hypnosis, parahypnosis, neurone-stimulation, synapse-pairing, spotshock that Hoge had described, for this blunt result? But reasoning must wait. They must temporize. “My liege, when your strength returns—”

“Now. Call the Council, Gerer!”

Then she broke, like a bowstring breaking, and stammered irTa fury of fear that found no sense or strength to flesh itself in; and still her faithful servant slept beside her, deaf.

In the next picture things are going better, it appears. Here is King Argaven XVII in good health and good clothes, finishing a large breakfast. She talks with the nearer dozen of the forty or fifty people sharing or serving the meal (singularity is a king’s prerogative, but seldom privacy), and includes the rest in the largesse of her courtesy. She’look’s as everyone has said, quite herself again. Perhaps she is not quite herself again, however; something is missing, a youthful serenity, a confidence, replaced by a similar but less reassuring quality, a kind of heedlessness. Out of it she rises in wit and warmth, but always subsides to it again, that darkness which absorbs her and makes her heedless: fear, pain, resolution?

Mr Mobile Axt, Ambassador Plenipotentiary to Winter from the Ekumen of the Known Worlds, who had spent the last six days on the road trying to drive an electric car faster than 50 kph from Mishnory in Orgoreyn to Erhenrang in Karhide, overslept breakfast, and so arrived in the Audience Hall prompt, but hungry. The old Chief of the Council, the king’s cousin Gerer rem ir Verhen, met the Alien at the door of the great hall and greeted him with the polysyllabic politeness of Karhide. The Plenipotentiary responded as best he could, discerning beneath the eloquence Gerer’s desire to tell him something.

“I am told the king is perfectly recovered,” he said, “and I heartily hope this is true.”

“It is not,” the old Councillor said, her voice suddenly blunt and toneless. “Mr Axt, I tell you this trusting your confidence; there are not ten others in Karhide who know the truth. She is not recovered. She was not sick.”

Axt nodded. There had of course been rumors.

“She will go alone in the city sometimes, at night, in common clothes, walking, talking with strangers. The pressures of kingship …She is very young.” Gerer paused a moment, struggling with some suppressed emotion. “One night six weeks ago, she did not come back. A message was delivered to me and the Second Lord, at dawn. If we announced her disappearance, she would be killed; if we waited a half-month in silence she would be restored unhurt. We kept silent, lied to the Council, sent out false news. On the thirteenth night she was found wandering in the city. She had been drugged and mindformed. By which enemy or faction we do not yet know. We must work in utter secrecy; we cannot wreck the people’s confidence in her, her own confidence in herself. It is hard: she remembers nothing. But what they did is plain. They broke her will and bent her mind all to one thing. She believes she must abdicate the throne.”

The voice remained low and flat; the eyes betrayed anguish. And the Plenipotentiary turning suddenly saw the reflection of that anguish in the eyes of the young king.

“Holding my audience, cousin?”

Argaven smiled but there was a knife in it. The old Councillor excused herself stolidly, bowed, left, a patient ungainly figure diminishing down a long corridor.

Argaven stretched out both hands to the Plenipotentiary in the greeting of equals, for in Karhide the Ekumen was recognized as a sister kingdom, though not a living soul had seen it. But her words were not the polite discourse that Axt expected. All she said, and fiercely, was, “At last!”

“I left as soon as I received your message. The roads are still icy in East Orgoreyn and the West Fall, I couldn’t make very good time. But I was very glad to come. Glad to leave, too.” Axt smiled saying this, for he and the young king enjoyed each other’s candor. What Argaven’s welcome implied, he waited to see, watching, with some exhilaration, the mobile, beautiful, androgynous face.

“Orgoreyn breeds bigots as a corpse breeds worms, as one of my ancestors remarked. I’m glad you find the air fresher here irfTCar-hide. Come this way. Gerer told you that I was kidnapped, and so forth? Yes. It was all according to the old rules. Kidnapping is a quite formal art. If it had been one of the anti-Alien groups who think your Ekumen intends to enslave the earth, they might have ignored the rules; I think it was one of the old clan-factions hoping to regain power through me, the power they had in the last reign. But we don’t know, yet. It’s strange, to know that one has seen them face to face and yet can’t recognize them; who knows but that I see those faces daily? Well, no profit in such notions. They wiped out all their tracks. I am sure only of one thing. They did not tell me that I must abdicate.”

She and the Plenipotentiary were walking side by side up the long, immensely high room toward the dais and chairs at the far end. The windows were little more than slits, as usual on this cold world; fulvous strips of sunlight fell from them diagonally to the red-paved floor, dusk and dazzle in Axt’s eyes. He looked up at the young king’s face in that somber, shifting radiance. “Who then?”

“I did.”

“When, my lord, and why?”

“When they had me, when they were remaking me to fit their mold and play their game. Why? So that I can’t fit their mold and play their game! Listen, Lord Axt, if they wanted me dead they’d have killed me. They want me alive, to govern, to be king. As such I am to follow the orders imprinted in my brain, gain their ends for them. I am their tool, their machine, waiting for the switch to be thrown. The only way to prevent that, is to … discard the machine.”

Axt was quick of understanding, that being a minimal qualification of a Mobile of the Ekumen; besides, the manners and affairs of Karhide, the stresses and seditions of that lively kingdom, were well known to him. Remote though Winter was, both in space and in the physiology of its inhabitants, from the rest of the human race, yet its dominant nation, Karhide, had proved a loyal member of the Ekumen. Axt’s reports were discussed in the central councils of the Ekumen eighty lightyears away; the equilibrium of the Whole rests in all its parts. Axt said, as they sat down in the great stiff chairs on the dais before the fire, “But they need not even throw switches, if you abdicate.”

“Leaving my child as heir, and a Regent of my own choice?”

“Perhaps,” Axt said with caution, “they chose your Regent for you.”

The king frowned. “I think not,” she said.

“Whom had you thought of naming?”

There was a long pause. Axt saw the muscles of Argaven’s throat working as she struggled to get a word, a name, up past a block, a harsh constriction; at last she said, in a forced, strangled whisper, “Gerer.”

Axt nodded, startled. Gerer had served as Regent for a year after Emran’s death and before Argaven’s accession; he knew her honesty and her utter devotion to the young king. “Gerer serves no faction!” he said.

Argaven shook her head. She looked exhausted. After a while she said, “Could the science of your people undo what was done to me, Lord Axt?”

“Possibly. In the Institute on Ollul. But if I sent for a specialist tonight, he’d get here twenty-four years from now…. You’re sure, then, that your decision to abdicate was—” But a servant, coming in a side door behind them, set a small table by the Plenipotentiary’s chair and loaded it with fruit, sliced bread-apple, a silver tankard of ale. Argaven had noticed that her guest had missed his breakfast. Though the fare on Winter, mostly vegetable and that mostly uncooked, was dull stuff to Axt’s taste, he set to gratefully; and as serious talk was unseemly over food, Argaven shifted to generalities. “Once you said, Lord Axt, that different as I am from you, and different as my people are from yours, yet we are blood kin. Was that a moral fact, or a material one?”

Axt smiled at the very Karhidish distinction. “Both, my lord. As far as we know, which is a tiny corner of dusty space under the rafters of the Universe, all the people we’ve run into are in fact human. But the kinship goes back a million years and more, to the Fore-Eras of Hain. The ancient Hainish settled a hundred worlds.”

“We call the time before my dynasty ruled Karhide ‘ancient.’ Seven hundred years ago!”

“So we call the Age of the Enemy ‘ancient,’ and that was less than six hundred years ago. Time stretches and shrinks; changes with the eye, with the age, with the star; does all except reverse itself—or repeat.”

“The dream of the Ekumen, then, is to restore that truly ancient commonalty; to regather all the peoples of all the worlds at one hearth?”

Axt nodded, chewing bread-apple. “To weave some harmony among them, at least. Life loves to know itself, out to its furthest limits; to embrace complexity is its delight. Our difference is our beauty. All these worlds and the various forms and ways of the minds and lives and bodies on them—together they would make a splendid harmony.”

“No harmony endures,” said the young king.

“None has ever been achieved,” said the Plenipotentiary. “The pleasure is in trying.” He drained his tankard, wiped his fingers on the woven-grass napkin.

“That was my pleasure as king,” said Argaven. “It is over.”

“Should—”

“It is finished. Believe me. I will keep you here, Lord Axt, until you believe me. I need your help. You are the piece the game-players forgot about! You must help me. I cannot abdicate against the will of the Council. They will refuse my abdication, force me to rule, and if I rule, I serve my enemies! If you will not help me, I will have to kill myself.” She spoke quite evenly and reasonably; but Axt knew what even the mention of suicide, the ultimately contemptible act, cost a Karhider.

“One way or the other,” said the young king.

The Plenipotentiary pulled his heavy cloak closer round him; he was cold. He had been cold for seven years, here. “My lord,” he said, “I am an alien on your world, with a handful of aides, and a little device with which I can converse with other aliens on distant worlds. I represent power, of course, but I have none. How can I help you?”

“You have a ship on Horden Island.”

“Ah. I was afraid of that,” said the Plenipotentiary, sighing. “Lord Argaven, that ship is set for Ollul, twenty-four lightyears away. Do you know what that means?”

“My escape from my time, in which I have become an instrument of evil.”

“There is no escape,” said Axt, with sudden intensity, “No, my lord. Forgive me. It is impossible. I could not consent— “

Icy rain of spring rattled on the stones of the tower, wind whined at the angles and finials of the roof. The room was quiet, shadowy. One small shielded light burned by the door. The nurse lay snoring mildly in the bed, the baby was head down, rump up in the crib. Argaven stood beside the crib. She looked around the room, or rather saw it, knew it wholly, without looking. She too had slept here as a little child. It had been her first kingdom. It was here that she had come to suckle her child, her first-born, had sat by the fireplace while the little mouth tugged at her breast, had hummed to the baby the songs Borhub had hummed to her. This was the center, the center of, every thing.

Very cautiously and gently she slipped her hand under the baby’s warm, damp, downy head, and put over it a chain on which hung a massive ring carved with the token of the Lords of Harge. The chain was far too long, and Argaven knotted it shorter, thinking that it might twist and choke the child. So allaying that small anxiety, she tried to allay the great fear and wretchedness that filled her. She stooped down till her cheek touched the baby’s cheek, whispering inaudibly, “Emran, Emran, I have to leave you, I can’t take you, you have to rule for me. Be good, Emran, live long, rule well, be good, Emran….”

She straightened up, turned, ran from the tower room, the lost kingdom.

She knew several ways of getting out of the Palace unperceived. She took the surest, and then made for the New Harbor through the bright-lit, sleet-lashed streets of Erhenrang, alone.

Now there is no picture: no seeing her. With what eye will you watch a process that is one hundred millionth percent slower than the speed of light? She is not now a king, nor a human being; she is translated. You can scarcely call fellow-mortal one whose time passes seventy thousand times slower than yours. She is more than alone. It seems that she is not, any more than an uncommunicated thought is; that she goes nowhere, any more than a thought goes. And yet, at very nearly but never quite the speed of light, she voyages. She is the voyage. Quick as thought. She has doubled her age when she arrives, less than a day older, in the portion of space curved about a dustmote named Ollul, the fourth planet of a yellowish sun. And all this has passed in utter silence.

With noise now, and fire and meteoric dazzle enough to satisfy a Karhider’s lust for splendor, the clever ship makes earthfall, settling down in flame in the precise spot it left from some fifty-five years ago. Presently, visible, unmassive, uncertain, the young king emerges from it and stands a moment in the exitway, shielding her eyes from the light of a strange, hot sun. Axt had of course sent notice of her coming, by instantaneous transmitter, twenty-four years ago, or seventeen hours ago, depending on how you look at it; and aides and agents of the Ekumen were on hand to greet her. Even pawns did not go unnoticed by those players of the great game, and this Gethenian was, after all, a king. One of the agents had spent a year of the twenty-four in learning Karhidish, so that Argaven could speak to someone. She spoke at once: “What news from my country?”

“Mr Mobile Axt and his successor have sent regular summaries of events, and various private messages for you; you’ll find all the material in your quarters, Mr Harge. Very briefly, the regency of Lord Gerer was uneventful and benign; there was a depression in the first two years, during which your Arctic settlements were abandoned, but at present the economy is quite stable. Your heir was enthroned at eighteen, and has ruled now for seven years.”

“Yes. I see,” said the person who had kissed that year-old heir last night.

“Whenever you see fit, Mr Harge, the specialists at our Institute over in Belxit— “

“As you wish,” said Mr Harge.

They went into her mind very gently, very subtly, opening doors. For locked doors they had delicate instruments that always found the combination; and then they stood aside, and let her enter. They found the person in black, who was not Gerer, and compassionate Rebade, who was not compassionate; they stood with her on the Palace balcony, and climbed the crevasses of nightmare with her up to the room in the tower; and at last the one who was to have been first, the person in red and white, approached her saying, “Majesty! A plot against your life—” And Mr Harge screamed in abject terror, and woke up.

“Well! That was the trigger. The signal to begin tripping off the other instructions and determine the course of your phobia. An induced paranoia. Really beautifully induced, I must say. Here, drink this, Mr Harge. No, it’s just water! You might well have become a remarkably vicious ruler, increasingly obsessed by fear of plots and subversions, increasingly disaffected from your people. Not overnight, of course. That’s the beauty of it. It would have taken several years for you to become a real tyrant; though they no doubt planned some boosts along the way, once Rebade wormed his way— her way—a way into your confidence…. Well, well, I see -why Karhide is well spoken of, over at the Clearinghouse. If you’ll pardon my objectivity, this kind of skill and patience is quite rare….” So the doctor, the mindmender, the hairy, greyish, one-sexed person from somewhere called the Cetians, went rambling on while the patient recovered herself.

“Then I did right,” said Mr Harge at last.

“You did. Abdication, suicide, or escape were the only acts of consequence which you could have committed of your own volition, freely. They counted on your moral veto on suicide, and your Council’s vote on abdication. But being possessed by ambition themselves, they forgot the possibility of abnegation, and left one door open for you. A door which only a strong-minded person, if you’ll pardon my literalness, could choose to go through. I really must read up on this other mindscience of yours, what do you call it, Foretelling? Thought it was some occultist trash, but quite evidently… Well, well, I expect they’ll be wanting you to look in at the Clearinghouse soon, to discuss your future, now that we’ve put your past where it belongs, eh?”

“As you wish,” said Mr Harge.

She talked with various people there in the Clearinghouse of the Ekumen for the West Worlds, and when they suggested that she go to school, she assented readily. For among those mild persons, whose chief quality seemed a cool, profound sadness indistinguishable from a warm, profound hilarity—among them, the ex-king of Karhide knew herself a barbarian, unlearned and unwise.

She attended Ekumenical School. She lived in barracks near the Clearinghouse in Vaxtsit City, with a couple of hundred other aliens, none of whom was either androgynous or an ex-king. Never having owned much that was hers alone, and never having had much privacy, she did not mind barracks life; nor was it so bad as she had expected to live among single-sexed people, although she found their condition of perpetual kemmer tiresome. She did not mind anything much, getting through the works and days with vigor and competence but always a certain heedlessness, as of one whose center is somewhere else. The only discomfort was the heat, the awful heat of Ollul that rose sometimes to 35° C in the blazing interminable season when no snow fell for two hundred days on end. Even when winter came at last she sweated, for it seldom got more than ten degrees below freezing outside, and the barracks were kept sweltering—she thought—though the other aliens wore heavy sweaters all the time. She slept on top of her bed, naked and thrashing, and dreamed of the snows of the Kargav, the ice in Old Harbor, the ice scumming one’s ale on cool mornings in the Palace, the cold, the dear and bitter cold of Winter.

She learned a good deal. She had already learned that the Earth was, here, called Winter, and that Ollul was, here, called the Earth: one of those facts which turn the universe inside out like a sock. She learned that a meat diet causes diarrhea in the unaccustomed gut. She learned that single-sexed people, whom she tried hard not to think of as perverts, tried hard not to think of her as a pervert. She learned that when she pronounced Ollul as Orrur some people laughed. She attempted also to unlearn that she was a king. Once the School took her in hand she learned and unlearned much more. She was led, by all the machines and devices and experiences and (simplest and most demanding) words that the Ekumen had at its disposal, into an intimation of what it might be to understand the nature and history of a kingdom that was over a million years old and trillions of miles wide. When she had begun to guess the immensity of this kingdom of humanity and the durable pain and monotonous waste of its history, she began also to see what lay beyond its borders in space and time, and among naked rocks and furnace-suns and the shining desolation that goes on and on she glimpsed the sources of hilarity and serenity, the inexhaustible springs. She learned a great many facts, numbers, myths, epics, proportions, relationships, and so forth, and saw, beyond the borders of what she had learned, the unknown again, a splendid immensity. In this augmentation of her mind and being there was great satisfaction; yet she was unsatisfied. They did not always let her go on as far as she wanted into certain fields, mathematics, Cetian physics. “You started late, Mr Harge,” they said, “we have to build on the existing foundations. Besides, we want you in subjects which you can put to use.”

“What use?”

They—the ethnographer Mr Mobile Gist represented Them at the moment, across a library table—looked at her sardonically. “Do you consider yourself to be of no further use, Mr Harge?”

Mr Harge, who was generally reserved, spoke with sudden fury: “I do.”

“A king without a country,” said Gist in his flat Terran accent, “self-exiled, believed to be dead, might feel a trifle superfluous. But then, why do you think we’re bothering with you?”

“Out of kindness.”

“Oh, kindness …However kind we are, we can give you nothing that would make you happy, you know. Except …Well. Waste is a pity. You were indubitably the right king for Winter, for Karhide, for the purposes of the Ekumen. You have a sense of balance. You might even have unified the planet. You certainly wouldn’t have terrorized and fragmented the country, as the present king seems to be doing. What a waste! Only consider our hopes and needs, Mr Harge, and your own qualifications, before you despair of being useful in your life. Forty or fifty more years of it you have to live, after all….”

The last snapshot taken by alien sunlight: erect, in a Hainish-style cloak of grey, a handsome person of indeterminate sex stands, sweating profusely, on a green lawn beside the chief Agent of the Ekumen in the West Worlds, the Stabile, Mr Hoalans of Alb, who can meddle (if he likes) with the destinies of forty worlds.

“I can’t order you to go there, Argaven,” says the Stabile. “Your own conscience—”

“I gave up my kingdom to my conscience, twelve years ago. It’s had its due. Enough’s enough,” says Argaven Harge. Then she laughs suddenly, so that the Stabile also laughs; and they part in such harmony as the Powers of the Ekumen desire between human souls.

Horden Island, off the south coast of Karhide, was given as a freehold to the Ekumen by the Kingdom of Karhide during the reign of Argaven XV. No one lived there. Yearly generations of seawalkies crawled up on the barren rocks, and laid and hatched their eggs, and raised their young, and finally led them back in long single file to the sea. But once every ten or twenty years fire ran over the rocks and the sea boiled on the shores, and if any seawalkies were on the island then they died.

When the sea had ceased to boil, the Plenipotentiary’s little electric launch approached. The starship ran out a gossamer-steel gangplank to the deck of the launch, and one person started to walk up it as another one started to walk down it, so that they met in the middle, in midair, between sea and land, an ambiguous meeting.

“Ambassador Horrsed? I’m Harge,” said the one from the starship, but the one from the launch was already kneeling, saying aloud, in Karhidish, “Welcome, Argaven of Karhide!”

As he straightened up the Ambassador added in a quick whisper, “You come as yourself— Explain when I can— ” Behind and below him on the deck of the launch stood a sizable group of people, staring up intently at the newcomer. All were Karhiders by their looks; several were very old.

Argaven Harge stood for a minute, two minutes, three minutes, erect and perfectly motionless, though her grey cloak tugged and riffled in the cold sea wind. She looked then once at the dull sun in the west, once at the grey land north across the water, back again at the silent people grouped below her on the deck. She strode forward so suddenly that Ambassador Horrsed had to squeeze out of the way in a hurry. She went straight to one of the old people on the deck of the launch. “Are you Ker rem ir Kerheder?”

“I am.”

“I knew you by the lame arm, Ker.” She spoke clearly; there was no guessing what emotions she felt. “I could not know your face. After sixty years. Are there others of you I knew? I am Argaven.”

They were all silent. They gazed at her.

All at once one of them, one scored and scarred with age like wood that has been through fire, stepped forward one step. “My liege, I am Bannith of the Palace Guard. You served with me when I was Drillmaster and you a child, a young child.” And the grey head bowed down suddenly, in homage, or to hide tears. Then another stepped forward, and another. The heads that bowed were grey, white, bald; the voices that hailed the king quavered. One, Ker of the crippled arm, whom Argaven had known as a shy page of thirteen, spoke fiercely to those who still stood unmoving: “This is the king. I have eyes that have seen, and that see now. This is the king!”

Argaven looked at them, face after face, the bowed heads and the unbowed.

“I am Argaven,” she said. “I was king. Who reigns now in Karhide?”

“Emran,” one answered.

“My child Emran?”

“Yes, my liege,” old Bannith said; most of the faces were blank; but Ker said in her fierce shaking voice, “Argaven, Argaven reigns in Karhide! I have lived to see the bright days return. Long live the king!”

One of the younger ones looked at the others, and said resolutely, “So be it. Long live the king!” And all the heads bowed low.

Argaven took their homage unperturbed, but as soon as a moment came when she could address Horrsed the Plenipotentiary alone she demanded, “What is this? What has happened? Why was I misled? I was told I was to come here to assist you, as an aide, from the Ekumen— “

“That was twenty-four years ago,” said the Ambassador, apologetically. “I’ve only lived here five years, my lord. Things are going very ill in Karhide. King Emran broke off relations with the Ekumen last year. I don’t really know what the Stabile’s purpose in sending you here was at the time he sent you; but at present, we’re losing Winter. So the Agents on Hain suggested to me that we might move out our king.”

“But I am dead,” Argaven said wrathfully. “I have been dead for sixty years!”

“The king is dead,” said Horrsed. “Long live the king.”

As some of the Karhiders approached, Argaven turned from the Ambassador and went over to the rail. Grey water bubbled and slid by the ship’s’side. The shore of the continent lay now to their left, grey patched with white. It was cold: a day of early winter in the Ice Age. The ship’s engine purred softly. Argaven had not heard that purr of an electric engine for a dozen years now, the only kind of engine Karhide’s slow and stable Age of Technology had chosen to employ. The sound of it was very pleasant to her.

She spoke abruptly without turning, as one who has known since infancy that there is always someone there to answer: “Why are we going east?”

“We’re making for Kerm Land.”

“Why Kerm Land?”

It was one of the younger ones who had come forward to answer. “Because that part of the country is in rebellion against the— against King Emran. I am a Kermlander: Perreth ner Sode.”

“Is Emran in Erhenrang?”

“Erhenrang was taken by Orgoreyn, six years ago. The king is in the new capital, east of the mountains—the Old Capital, actually, Rer.”

“Emran lost the West Fall?” Argaven said, and then turning full on the stout young noble, “Lost the West Fall? Lost Erhenrang?”

Perreth drew back a step, but answered promptly, “We’ve been in hiding behind the mountains for six years.”

“The Orgota are in Erhenrang?”

“King Emran signed a treaty with Orgoreyn five years ago, ceding them the Western Provinces.”

“A shameful treaty, your majesty,” old Ker broke in, fiercer and shakier than ever. “A fool’s treaty! Emran dances to the drums of Orgoreyn. All of us here are rebels, exiles. The Ambassador there is an exile, in hiding!”

“The West Fall,” Argaven said. “Argaven I took the West Fall for Karhide seven hundred years ago—” She looked round on the others again with her strange, keen, unheeding gaze. “Emran—” she began, but halted. “How strong are you in Kerm Land? Is the Coast with you?”

“Most Hearths of the South and East are with us.” Argaven was silent a while. “Did Emran ever bear an heir?”

“No heir of the flesh, my liege,” Bannith said. “She sired six.”

“She has named Girvry Harge rem ir Orek as her heir,” said Perreth. “Girvry? What kind of name is that? The kings of Karhide are named Emran,” Argaven said, “and Argaven.”

Now at last comes the dark picture, the snapshot taken by firelight—firelight, because the power plants of Rer are wrecked, the trunk lines cut, and half the city is on fire. Snow flurries heavily down above the flames and gleams red for a moment before it melts in mid air, hissing faintly.

Snow and ice and guerrilla troops keep Orgoreyn at bay on the west side of the Kargav Mountains. No help came to the Old King, Emran, when her country rose against her. Her guards fled, her city burns, and now at the end she is face to face with the usurper. But she has, at the end, something of her family’s heedless pride. She pays no attention to the rebels. She stares at them and does not see them, lying in the dark hallway, lit only by mirrors that reflect distant fires, the gun with which she killed herself near her hand.

Stooping over the body Argaven lifts up that cold hand, and starts to take from the age-knotted forefinger the massive, carved, gold ring. But she does not do it. “Keep it,” she whispers, “keep it.” For a moment she bends yet lower, as if she whispered in the dead ear, or laid her cheek against that cold and wrinkled face. Then she straightens up, and stands a while, and presently goes out through dark corridors, by windows bright with distant ruin, to set her house in order: Argaven, Winter’s king.

DEEPER THAN THE DARKNESS

Gregory Benford

PART I

The Hand upon them.

Strangled shout.

It was about an hour into morning shift. I was planning out my day. I had to arrange the routing work I could do using the screen, so that it didn’t conflict with the eating routine, the kids’ use of the screen for school hours, and the best times to go for a walk in the tubes.

The kids were pouting, for some reason, and I was having trouble concentrating on the alterations that had been made in the production schemes since yesterday. If you don’t get the changes down pat in the morning you’ll be sending new goods to depot’s that don’t handle that product anymore, and the losses can eat up your day’s management commission before the complaint feedback reaches you.

I’d just about gotten it down when time came for the kids’ first lecture, and I had to give up the screen. I settled down in the dining booth to review my notes but it wasn’t ten minutes before they started whining.

“Dad-Ay, why do we have to watch this old stuff?” Romana said, jerking her chin up with a regal look. “None of the other cubes in this block even carry Schoolchannel anymore.”

“Uh,” said Chark, “and it’s boring. Everybody knows you can’t learn fast without tapping. We’re going to turn out to be rennies.”

“Rennies?”

“Renegades,” Angela said from the kitchen cloister. “It’s new slang. You should watch the entertainment channel more.” The words were normal but her tone had an edge on it. She’d tried the manual breakfast this morning and it hadn’t worked out, but indocing—or was that outdated term still around?—was one of our flash points. She stood in the doorway and looked at me with her mouth tightened.

“Don’t you think it’s about time you started to listen to what other people think, Ling? Finally?”

“No.” I looked away and started underlining some parts . of my notes. Chark dialed the 3D volume down and the room fell silent. I wasn’t going to get away with a light dismissal.

“Dad-Ay…”

“If you’d just read some of the articles we gave you,” Chark began in a measured, reasonable tone, “and talked to a counselor at the center, you’d understand why we need tapping now. You were out there yourself, Dad, so…”

“Yes,” I said sharply. “I was out there. And none of you were. You believe anything the Assembly says is good for the common defense, but don’t expect me…”

I stopped. It wasn’t going to do any good. I wouldn’t tell them the guts of what happened out there—that was buried away in a file somewhere with red Secret stickers all over it, and until the stickers came off I couldn’t say anything.

Angela broke her rigid silence, and I could tell that what she was going to say had been held back for a long time. “Why do you tell them such things? They’ll respect you even less if you try to pretend there’s some big mystery about what you did out there. You were just a shuttle captain, a pickup convoy to get the survivors off Regeln after the Quarn hit it. And you didn’t even get many off, either.”

“Something happened. Something really happened.”

The children had become quiet, the way they do when they sense that the grownups have forgotten they’re around, and maybe a fight was going to start. Angela and I both noticed it at the same time.

“All right. Well talk about it later,” I said. The kids went back to their lecture, grumbling to each other, and Angela walked into the bedroom, probably to pout. It was one more nick in a marriage that was already eroding.

We would talk later, and there would be accusations and complaints and I couldn’t explain.

But it happened. It caught me in a wave of hard color, a menace subtle and faceless, and the wave threw me up on this barren spiritual shore. To wait, and while waiting to die. It happened during that quick run into the Regeln system to drop and grab whatever was left before the Quarn returned.

The crew didn’t take it well. Fleet took us off a routine run and outfitted the ships with enough extras to put the convoy on the lowest rung of warship class. But men take time to adjust. Most of them were still nervous and edgy about the changes that had been made. They were suddenly oraku, warrior status. They didn’t like it—neither did I—but there was nothing to be done. It was an emergency.

I had us roar out of port at full bore, giving the ships that hot gun-metal smell, and that kept them busy for a while. But maintenance is maintenance and soon they found the time to tie themselves in knots, wringing out self-doubts with fidgeting fingers. In a few days the results began to come up through the confessional rings: anxieties, exclusion feelings, loss of phase.

“I told Fleet we’d have this,” I said to Tonji, my Exec. “These men can’t take a sudden change of status and role.” I let go of the clipboard that held the daily report and watched it strike the table top with a slow-motion clatter in low gee.

Tonji blinked his simian eyes languidly. “I think they’re overreacting to the danger involved. None of us signed for something like this. Give them time.”

“Time? Where am I going to get it? We’re only weeks out of Regeln now. This is a large group, spread over a convoy. We’ll have to reach them quickly.”

He unconsciously stiffened his lips, a gesture he probably associated with being tough-minded. “It will take effort, it’s true. But I suppose you realize there isn’t any choice.”

Was that a hint of defiance in his voice, mingled with his habitual condescension? I paused, let it go. “More Sabal, then. Require all senior officers to attend as well.”

“You’re sure that’s enough, sir?”

“Of course I’m not sure! I haven’t got all the answers in my pocket. This convoy hasn’t had anything but shuttle jobs for years.”

“But we’ve been reassigned…”

“Slapping a sticker on a ship doesn’t’ change the men inside. The crews don’t know what to do. There isn’t any confidence in the group, because everyone can sense the uncertainty. Nobody knows what’s waiting for us on Regeln. A crewman wouldn’t be human if he didn’t worry about it.”

I looked across the small cabin at my kensdai altar. I knew I was losing control of myself too often and not directing the conversation the way I wanted. I focused on the solid, dark finish of the wood that framed the altar, feeling myself merge with the familiarity of it Focus down, let the center flow outward.

Tonji flicked an appraising glance at me. “The Quarn were stopped on Regeln. That’s why we’re going.”

“They’ll be back. The colony there beat them off, but took a lot of losses. It’s now been twenty-four days since the Quarn left. You’ve heard the signals from the surface—they’re the only ones we got after their satellite link was destroyed. The correct code grouping is there, but the signal strength is down and transmission faded. Whoever sent them was working in bad conditions, or didn’t understand the gear, or both.”

“Fleet doesn’t think it’s a trap?” Tonji’s features, Mongol-yellow in the diffused light of my cabin, took on a cool, sly look.

“They don’t know. I don’t either. But we need information on Quarn tactics and equipment. They’re a race of hermits, individuals, but somehow they cooperate against us. We want to get an idea how.”

“The earlier incidents…”

“They were just that—incidents. Raids. Fleet never could unravel enough coherent information out of the surviving tapes, and there were no survivors.

“But this time the colonists stood off a concentrated attack.”

“Yes. Perhaps there are good records on Regeln.”

Tonji nodded, smiling, and left after proper ceremonies. I was sure he knew everything I’d told him, but he’d seemed to want to draw the details out of me, to savor them.

For the better the mission, the gaudier the reports, then all the faster would rise the fortunes of Mr. Tonji. A war—the first in over a century, and the first in deepspace—has the effect of opening the staircases to the top. It relieves a young officer of the necessity of worming his way through the belly of the hierarchy.

I reached out, dialed a starchart of Regeln’s neighbors, studied.

The Quarn had been an insect buzzing just beyond the range of hearing for decades now. Occasional glancing contacts, rumors, stories. Then war.

How? Security didn’t bother to tell lowly convoy captains—probably only a few hundred men anywhere knew. But there had been a cautiously-worded bulletin about negotiations in the Quarn home worlds, just before the war. The Council had tried to establish communal rapport with some segment of Quarn society. It had worked before, with the Phalanx and Angras.

Among the intellectual circles I knew—such as they were—it was holy dogma. Sense of community was the glue that held a culture together. Given time and correct phase it could bind even alien societies. In two cases it already had.

And it wove a universe for us. A world of soft dissonances muted into harmonies, tranquil hues of waterprints fading together.

To it the Quarn were a violet slash of strangeness. Hermit-like, they offered little and accepted less. Privacy extended to everything for them; we still had no clear idea of their physical appearances. Their meetings with us had been conducted with only a few individual negotiators.

Into this the Council had moved. Perhaps a taboo was ignored, a trifle overlooked. The mistake was too great for the Quarn to pass; they came punching and jabbing into the edge of the human community. Regeln was one of their first targets.

“First Sabal call.” Tonji’s voice came over the inboard. “You asked me to remind you, sir.”

It was ironic that Tonji, with all his ancestors citizens of Old Nippon, should be calling a Sabal game to be led by me, a half-breed Caucasian—and I was sure it wasn’t totally lost on him. My mother was a Polynesian and my father a truly rare specimen: one of the last pure Americans, born of the descendents of the few who had survived the Riot War. That placed me far down in the caste lots, even below Australians.

When I was a teenager it was still socially permissable to call us ofkaipan, a term roughly analogous to nigger in the early days of the American Republic. But since then had come the Edicts of Harmony. I imagine the Edicts are still ignored in the off-islands, but with my professional status it would be a grave breach of protocol if the word ever reached my ears. I’d seen it often enough, mouthed wordlessly by an orderlyman who’d just received punishment, or an officer who couldn’t forget the color of my skin. But never aloud.

I sighed and got up, almost wishing there were another of us aboard, so I wouldn’t have moments of complete loneliness like this. But we were rare in Fleet, and almost extinct on Earth itself.

I uncased my formal Sabal robes and admired their delicate sheen a moment before putting them on. The subtle reds and violets caught the eye and played tricks with vision. They were the usual lint-free polyester that shed no fine particles into the ship’s air, but everything possible had been done to give them texture and depth beyond the ordinary uniform. They were part of the show, just like the bals and chants.

During the dressing I made the ritual passes as my hands chanced to pass diagonally across my body, to induce emotions of wholeness, peace. The vague fears I had let slip into my thoughts would be in the minds of the crew as well.

The murmur in our assemblyroom slackened as I appeared; I greeted them, took my place in the hexagon of men and began the abdominal exercises, sitting erect. I breathed deeply, slowly, and made hand passes. At the top of the last arc the power was with me and, breathing out, I came down into focus, outward-feeling, kodakani.

I slowed the juggling of the gamebals, sensing the mood of the hexagon. The bals and beads caught the light in their counter cadences, glancing tones of red and blue off the walls as they tumbled. The familiar dance calmed us and we moved our legs to counter-position, for meditation.

My sing-chant faded slowly in the softened acoustics of the room. I began the Game.

First draw was across the figure, a crewman fidgeting with his Sabal leaves. He chose a passage from the Quest and presented it as overture. It was a complex beginning—the Courier was endowed with subtleties of character and mission. Play moved on. The outline of our problem was inked in by the others as they read their own quotations from the leaves into the Game structure.

For the Royal Courier rode down from the hills, and being he of thirst, hunger and weariness, he sought aid in the town. Such was his Mission that the opinion he gained here of the inhabitants of the village, their customs, honesty and justice (not only to the Courier, but to themselves), would be relayed to the Royal Presence as well. And thence, it is said, to Heaven. Having such items to barter, he went from house to house. …

After most entries were made, the problem maze established had dark undertones of fear and dread. As expected.

I repeated the ritual of beads. And rippling them slowly through my fingers, I began the second portion of Sabal: proposal of solution. Again the draw danced among the players.

So: You are one of two players. There are only two choices for you to make, say red and black. The other player is hidden, and only his decisions are reported to you.

If both of you pick red, you gain a point each. If both are black, a point is lost. But if you choose red and your opponent votes black, he wins two points, and you lose two.

He who cooperates in spirit, he who senses the Total wins.

Sabal is infinitely more complex, but contains the same elements. The problem set by the men ran dark with subtle streams of anguish, insecurity.

But now the play was returning to me. I watched the solution as it formed around the hexagon. Rejoiced in harmony of spirit. Indicated slight displeasure when divergent modes were attempted. Rebuked personal gain. And drew closer to my men.

“Free yourself from all bonds,” I chanted, “and bring to rest the ten thousand things. The way is near, but we seek it afar.”

The mood caught slowly at first and uncertainty was dominant, but with the rhythm of repetition a compromise was struck. Anxiety began to submerge. Conflicting images in the Game weakened.

I caught the uprush of spirit at its peak, chanting joyfully of completion as I brought the play to rest. Imposed the dream-like flicker of gamebal and bead, gradually toning the opticals until we were clothed in darkness. Then stillness.

The fire burning, the iron kettle singing on the hearth, a pine bough brushing the roof, water dripping.

The hexagon broke and we left, moving in concert.

The Game on our flagship was among the best, but it was not enough for the entire mission. I ordered Sabal as often as possible on all ships, and hoped it would keep us in correct phase. I didn’t have time to attend all Games, because we were getting closer to drop and all details weren’t worked out.

In the hour preceeding the Jump I made certain that I was seen in every portion of the ship, moving confidently among the men. The number of ships lost in the Jump is small, but rising dangerously and everyone knew it.

I ended up on the center bridge to watch the process, even though it was virtually automatic. The specialists and crewmen moved quickly in the dull red light that simulated nightfall—Jump came at 2200—and fifteen minutes before the computers were set to drop us through, I gave the traditional order to proceed. It was purely a formalism, but in theory the synchronization could be halted even at the last instant. But if it was, the requirements of calculating time alone would delay the Jump for weeks. The machines were the key.

And Justly so. Converting a ship into tachyons in a nanosecond of real-space time is an inconceivably complex process. Men invented it, but they could never control it without the impersonal, faultless coordination of microelectronics.

In theory it was simple. The earnest, careful men who moved around me on the center bridge were preparing the convoy to flip over into faster than light. In the same way that a fundamental symmetry provided that the proton had a twin particle with opposite charge, helicity, and so on—the anti-proton—there was a possible state for each particle, called the tachyon.

Just as the speed of light, c, is an upper limit to all velocities in our universe, in the tachyon universe it is a lower limit. To us, a particle with zero kinetic energy sits still; it has no velocity. A tachyon with no energy is on the other side of the coin—it moves with infinite velocity. As its energy increases it slows, relative to us, until at infinite energy it travels with velocity c.

As long as man remained in his half of the universe, he could not exceed c. This was a fundamental limitation, as irrevocable as the special principle of relativity.

So he must leave it. By converting a particle into its tachyon state, allowing it to move with a nearly infinite velocity and then shifting it back to real space, one effectively produces faster than light travel. The study of the famous tachyon cross section problem—how do you make it convert, and then get it back—occupied the best minds of humanity for more than thirty years. It also birthed the incredible complexity of microelectronics, because only with components that operated literally on the scale of atomic dimensions could you produce the coherent, complexly modulated electronmagnetic waves that could regulate the tachyon’s Jump cross section.

I smiled to myself in the red glow. That had been a triumph. It occurred some decades after the establishment of Old Nippon’s hegemony, and made possible almost instant communication with the first Alpha Centauri colony. Particles can be used to produce electronmagnetic waves, and waves carry signals.

But not men. It was one thing to greatly enlarge the Jump cross section of a single particle, and quite another to do it for the unimaginable number of atoms that make up a man, or a ship.

It was Okawa who found the answer, and I had always wondered why the Jump drive did not bear his name. Perhaps he was born of impure strains. Okawa reasoned by analogy, and the analogy he used was the laser.

In the laser the problem is simply to produce a coherent state—to make all the excited atoms in the solid emit a photon at the same time. The same problem appeared in the faster than light drive. If all the particles in the ship did not flip into their tachyon state at the same time, they would all have vastly varying velocities, and the ship would tear itself apart. Okawa’s achievement was finding a technique for placing all a ship’s atoms in “excited real tachyon states.” In the excited state their tachyon cross sections were large. But as well, they could be triggered at the same time, so that all Jumped together, coherently.

I looked at the fixed, competent faces around me in the bridge. It was a little more than one minute to Jump. The strain showed, even though some tried to hide it. The process wasn’t perfect and they knew it.

Nothing was said about it at the Fleet level, but microelectronic equipment had been deteriorating slowly for years. The techniques were gradually being lost, craftsmanship grew rare and half-measures were used. It was part of the slow nibbling decline our society had suffered for the last half century. It was almost expected.

But these men bet their lives on the Jump rig, and they knew it might fail.

The silvery chimes rang down thin, padded corridors, sounding the approach of Jump. I could feel the men in the decks around me, lying in near darkness on tatami mats, waiting.

There was a slightly audible count, a tense moment and I closed my eyes at the last instant.

A bright arc flashed beyond my eyelids, showing the blood vessels, and I heard the dark, whispering sound of the void. A pit opened beneath me, the falling sensation began.

Then the fluorescents hummed again and everything was normal, tension relieved, men smiling.

I looked out the forward screen and saw the shimmering halo of gas that shrouded the star of Regeln. At our present velocity we would be through it in a day and falling down the potential well directly toward the sun. There wasn’t much time.

We had to come in fast, cutting the rim of plasma around Regeln’s star to mask our approach. If we dropped in with that white-hot disk at our backs we would have a good margin over any detection system that was looking for us.

Regeln is like any life-supporting world: endlessly varied, monotonously dull, spiced with contrast wherever you look, indescribable. It harbors belts of jungle, crinkling gray swaths of mountains, convoluted snake-rivers and frigid blue wastes. The hazy air carries the hum of insects, the pad of ambling vegetarians, the smooth click of teeth meeting. And winds that deafen, oceans that laugh, tranquility beside violence. It is like any world that is worth the time of man.

But its crust contains fewer heavy elements than are necessary for the easy construction of a Jump station or docking base. So it fell under the control of the colonization-only faction of Fleet. They had moved in quickly with xenobiologists to perform the routine miracles that made the atmosphere breathable.

Wildlife was some problem, but during the twenty-odd years the atmosphere was being treated a continent was cleared of the more malignant varieties. There was a four-meter scorpion which could run like a deer, among other things. I saw it in an Earthside zoo, and shuddered.

Drop time caught us with only the rudiments of a defense network. There simply wasn’t time to train the men, and we were constantly missing relevant equipment. I wished for better point-surveillance gear a hundred separate times as we slipped into the Regeln system.

But no Quarn ships were visible, no missiles rose to meet us. Tonji wanted to get out of the sky as soon as physically possible, even though it would’ve been expensive in reaction mass. I vetoed it and threw us into a monocycle “orange slice” orbit for a look before we went down, but there turned out to be nothing to see after all.

Our base was buttoned up. No vehicles moved on the roads, not even expendable drones for surveillance. I had prints of the base defenses, even the periscope holes, but when we checked there was no sign that they were open. Scattered bluish clouds slid over the farmhouses and fields of grain, but nothing moved on the surface.

There wasn’t time to think, send down probes, play a game of cat and mouse. I had a drone massing out to the system perimeter, where random radiation from the star wouldn’t mask the torch of an incoming Quarn ship, but I couldn’t rely on it completely. “Skimmers ready, sir,” Tonji said.

“Good. Order all three down immediately.” The skimmers were fast, and can usually maneuver around manual surface-air defenses.

They landed easily, formed a regulation triangle defense in the valley where the colony’s HQ was buried under a low, crusty hill, and reported back. When their skins had cooled to the minimum safety point they popped out their hovercraft and moved off, checking the covered entrances. No signals were coming out of the hill. There were no flash marks nearby, no sign of the use of any weapons.

A pilot landed near the main entrance, shucked his radiation gear for speed and tried the manual alarms mounted for emergency purposes near the vault door. Nothing.

I got all this over TV, along with a running account of additional data from the other ships spread out in orbit around Regeln. The pilot on the ground asked for further instructions. From the sound of his voice I could tell the order he wanted was to pull out, and fast, but he didn’t expect to get it.

And I couldn’t give it. You don’t walk away from a colony that’s in trouble, even if it does look like an obvious trap.

“Tell him. to use his sappers,” I said. “Get the others over there too, but keep watching the other entrances from orbit. It’s going to take a while to kick in the door, but we’ve got to look inside.”

Tonjii nodded and started to code. “Tell him I’m coming down too.”

He looked at me, surprised for the first time since I had known him.

I rang Matsuda over inboard and placed him in temporary command of the convoy in orbit. “Tonji is coming with me. If the Quarn show, give us an hour to get up here. If we don’t make it, mass out. Don’t hang around. These ships are worth more than we are.”

I looked at Tonji and he smiled.

The shuttle down was slow but gentle, since it was designed for pushing soft flatlanders back and forth from orbit. I didn’t have time to enjoy the ride because I was listening to the efforts of the ground crew to blow the hatch off the entrance. Regeln’s sky flitted past, a creamy blend of reds and blues like a lunatic tropical drink, and then we were down.

The pilot of the hovercraft that took me out to the site was Jumpy, but we made it faster then I would’ve thought possible. I was out the hatch before they got chocks under the wheels and the lieutenant in charge came toward me at double-time.

“Had to drill and tap, sir,” he said quickly, saluting. “We’re ready to blow it.”

I gave the nod and we ducked behind a gentle rise at the base of the hill, a hundred meters away from the portal. Everything was dead still for a moment and I thought for the first time that the ground beneath me was alien, a new planet. In the rush I’d accepted it as though it were Earth.

The concussion was as sharp as a bone snapping and debris showered everywhere. In a moment I was moving up with the main body of men, before the dirt had cleared. The portal was only partially opened, a testament to the shelter’s designer, but we could get through.

Three runners went in with lights and were back in minutes.

“Deserted for the first few corridor levels,” one of them said. “We need more men inside to keep a communications link.”

Tonji led the next party. Most of the crewmen were inside before word came back that they’d found somebody. I went in then with three guards and some large arc lamps. None of the lighting in the corridors of the shelter was working—the bulbs were smashed.

Men were clustered at one end of the corridor on the second level, their voices echoing nervously off the glazed concrete.

“You’ve got something, Mr. Tonji?” I said. He turned away from the open door, where he had been talking to a man whose uniform was covered with dirt. He looked uncertain.

“I think so, sir. According to the maps we have of the base, this door leads to a large auditorium. But a few meters inside—well, look.”

I stepped through the door and halted. A number of steps beyond, the cushioned walkway ended and a block of something—dirt, mostly, with fragments of furniture, wall partitions, unidentifiable rubble—rose to the ceiling.

I looked at Tonji, questioning.

“A ramp downward starts about there. The whole auditorium is filled with this—we checked the lower floors, but the doors off adjacent corridors won’t open.”

“How did it get here?”

“The levels around the auditorium have been stripped bare and most of the wall structure torn out, straight down to the bedrock and clay the base was built on. Somebody carted a lot of dirt away and dumped it in here.” He glanced at me out of the corner of his eyes.

“What’s that?” I pointed at a black oval depression sunk back into the gray mass of dirt, about two meters off the floor.

“A hole. Evidently a tunnel. It was covered with an office rug until Nahran noticed it.” He gestured back at the man in the dirty uniform.

“So he went inside. What’s there?”

Tonji pinched his lip with a well-manicured thumb and forefinger. “A man. He’s pretty far back, Nahran says. That’s all I can get out of Nahran, though—he’s dazed. The man inside is hysterical. I don’t think we can drag him out through that hole; it’s too narrow.”

“That’s all? One man?”

“There might be a lot of people inside there. We’ve heard noises out of several of these holes. I think this thing that fills the auditorium is honeycombed with tunnels. We’ve seen the entrance of several more from the balcony above.”

I checked the time. “Let’s go.”

Tonji turned and started back through the door.

“No, Mr. Tonji. This way.”

For a second he didn’t believe it, and then the glassy impersonal look fell over his face. “We’re both going to crawl in there, sir?”

“That’s right. It’s the only way I can find out enough to make a decision.”

He nodded and we spent a few minutes arranging details, setting timetables. I tried to talk with Nahran while I changed into a tight pullover work suit. He couldn’t tell me very much. He seemed reticent and slightly dazed. Something had shocked him.

“Follow immediately after me, Mr. Tonji.” We both carefully emptied our pockets, because the passage was obviously too narrow to admit anything jutting out. Tonji carried the light. I climbed up onto the slight ledge in front of the dark oval and looked across the slate gray face of the thing. It was huge.

Men were crowding in the doorway of the thing. I waved with false heartiness and began working my legs into the hole. I went straight down into a nightmare.

My thighs and shoulders braked me as the force of gravity slowly pulled me down the shaft. I held my arms above my head and close together, because there wasn’t much room to keep them at my sides.

After a moment my feet touched, scraped, and then settled on something solid. I felt around with my boots and for a moment thought it was a dead end. But there was another hole in the side, off at an angle. I slowly twisted until I could sink into it up to my knees.

I looked up. It wasn’t more than three meters over my standing height to the top of the shaft, but it seemed to have taken a long time to get this far. I could see Tonji slowly settling down behind me, towing a light above his head.

I wriggled into the narrow side channel, grunting and already beginning to hate the smell of packed dirt and garbage. In a moment I was stretched flat on my back, working my way forward by digging in my heels and pushing with my palms against the walls.

The ceiling of the tunnel brushed against my face in the utter blackness. I felt the oppressive weight of the packed dirt crushing down on me. My own breath was trapped in front of my face and I could hear only my own gasps, amplified.

“Tonji?” I heard a muffled shout in reply. A trace of light illuminated the tunnel in front of me and I noticed a large rock was embedded in the side. The auditorium was probably filled with a skeleton of stone that supported the packed soil.

I came to a larger space and was able to turn around and enter the next hole head first. The entrance way was wide, but it quickly narrowed and I felt mud squeeze between my fingers. The walls pressed down. Some of the clay had turned to mud.

A chill seeped up my legs and arms as I inched forward. I twisted my shoulder blades and pulled with my fingers. The going was easier because the passage tilted slightly downward, but the ooze sucked at me.

I wondered how a man could have gotten in here, or out. With every lunge forward my chest scraped against the sides, rubbing the skin raw and squeezing my breath out. It seemed just possible that I could get through.

Tonji shouted and I answered. The reply was muffled against the wall and I wondered if he had heard. I could feel the irregular bumps in the wall with, my hands, and I used them to measure how far I had come.

Progress was measured in centimeters, then even less. My forearms were beginning to stiffen with the effort.

A finger touched the wall, found nothing. I felt cautiously and discovered a sudden widening in the tunnel. At the same instant there was a scraping sound in the night ahead of me, the sound of something being dragged across a floor. It was moving away.

I got a good grip on the opening, pushed and was through it. I rolled to the side and kept close to the wall. Flickers of light from Tonji showed a small, rectangular room, but there was no one in it A row of darkened holes were sunk into the opposite wall.

Tonji wriggled through the passage, breathing heavily in the cold air. The light he carried was almost blinding, even though it was on low beam.

I found I could get to my knees without bumping my head. I stretched out my cramped legs and rubbed them to start circulation.

“Nothing here,” he said in a whisper.

“Maybe. Throw the beam on those holes.”

He played it across the opposite wall.

“Aeeeeeee!”

The shrill scream filled the surrounding area and I caught sight of a head of filthy hair that wrenched further back into the uppermost hole.

I started toward him on hands and knees and stopped almost immediately. The floor below the holes was strewn with excrement and trash. Tonji swallowed and looked sick.

After a moment I moved forward and my boot rattled an empty food tin. I could barely see the man far back in his hole.

“Come out. What’s wrong?” The man pressed himself further back as I picked my way toward him. He whimpered, cried, hid his face from the light.

“He won’t answer,” Tonji said.

“I suppose not.” I stopped and looked at some of the other holes. The rock on this side of the room was intolerable. I hadn’t noticed it in the tunnel because there was a cool draft blowing out of one of the holes in the wall. It kept the air in the room circulating away from the tunnel we’d used.

“Flash the light up there,” I said. A human hand hung out of one of the holes. Cloth and sticks had been stuffed into the opening to try to keep in the smell.

There were other holes like it. Some others were packed with food, most of it partially eaten.

“Can we go back?” Tonji asked.

I ignored him and moved closer to one of the openings with a larger mouth. It sucked the dank air around me down into a black hole. In the empty silence I could hear the faint echoes of wailing and sobbing from further inside. They mingled together in a dull hum of despair.

“Bring the light,” I said.

“I think it’s getting colder in here, sir.” He hesitated a moment and then duck-walked closer.

The man was still moaning to himself in his hole. I clenched my jaw muscles in involuntary revulsion and with an effort of will reached out and touched him. He cringed away, burrowing down, sobbing with fear.

There was part of a sleeve left on his arm—the light blue doth of the Fleet. I looked back at the tunnel we’d just used and estimated the difficulty of pulling a struggling man through it.

“We’re not going to get any more out of this,” I said.

The cold was clinging to my limbs again, but Tonji was sweating. He looked about the hole nervously, as if expecting attack. The silence was oppressive, but I seemed to hear more clearly now the convulsive sobbing from further inside the mound.

I motioned quickly to Tonji and we pressed ourselves into the tunnel. I made as rapid progress as I could with him scrambling close at my heels.

The dead weight squeezed us with rigid jaws. I tried to notice markings on the sides that would measure how far we had come, but I began to get confused.

It took me a moment to realize the air was definitely getting worse. It clung to my throat and I couldn’t get enough. My chest was caught in the tunnel’s vise and my lungs would never fill.

Between wrigglings to squirm up the slight grade, I stopped to listen for sounds from the men at the entrance. Nothing. The long tunnel pressed at me and I gave myself over to an endless series of pushing and turning, rhythmically moving forward against the steady hand of gravity and the scraping of the walls.

Tonji’s beam sent dim traces of light along the walls. I noticed how smooth they were. How many people had worn them down? How many were in here? And, God, why?

The tunnel began to narrow; I got through one opening by expelling all my breath and pushing hard with my heels. Coming in hadn’t seemed this hard.

There was an open space that temporarily eased the pressure, and then ahead I saw walls narrowing again. I pushed and turned, scrabbling on the slick dirt with all my strength. A flicker of light reflected over my shoulder and I could see the passage closing even further.

Impossible. A massive hand was squeezing the life out of me and my mind clutched frantically at an escape. The air was positively foul. I felt ahead and grunted with the effort The walls closed even more. I knew I couldn’t get through.

My hand touched something, but I was too numbed with the cold to tell what it was.

“Light,” I managed to whisper. I heard Tonji turning, breathing rapidly, and in a moment the beam got brighter.

It was a man’s foot.

I recoiled; for a moment I couldn’t think and my mind was a flood of horror.

“Back,” I gasped. “We can’t go this way.”

“This… way… we came in.”

“No.” Suddenly the air was too thick to take any longer.

I started to slide backward.

“Go on!” He hit my boots with a free hand.

“Back up, Mr. Tonji.”

I waited and the dirt pressed at me, closing in everywhere. It was only mud. What if it collapsed?

Tonji was silent and after a moment I felt him move back. I had been holding my breath ever since my hand felt that human foot, and I let it out as I scrambled back down the tunnel. The man hadn’t been there long, but it was enough. The air was heavy with it.

I noticed I was sweating now, despite the chill. Had we taken the right hole when we left the man back there? We could be working our way further into the mound, not out of it.

How long could I take the air? I could tell Tonji was on the edge already. Did we miss a turn coming out and go down the wrong way? It was hard to imagine in the closeness of the tunnel.

My ribs were rubbed raw and they stung whenever I moved. The weight closed on me from every direction. I pulled backward slowly, trying to collect my thoughts. I moved automatically.

After a few moments my left hand reached out and touched nothing. I stopped, but Tonji went on, as if in a stupor. I listened to his moving away, blinking uncomprehendingly at the hole to my left, and tried to think.

“Wait! This is it!”

We had both missed the turn, somehow. The air had dulled our minds until we noticed nothing without conscious effort.

I turned and worked myself into the opening. Tonji was returning and the direct glare of the beam was almost painful. He moaned something but I couldn’t understand.

The passage gradually widened and I caught glimmerings of light ahead. In a moment I was standing in the vertical shaft and a man was dropping a line down to me. My hands slipped on it several times as they pulled me up.

For a few minutes I sat by the entrance, numb with fatigue. The men crowded around us and I looked at them as if they were strangers. After a while I picked out a lieutenant.

“Get—Jobstranikan down here.” Jobstranikan had psychotherapy training, and this was clearly his job.

Orders were given and men scattered. After a moment I got up and changed back into full uniform. A runner was waiting outside the door, his nose wrinkling at the stench I had ceased to notice.

“Sir, reports from lower levels say there are more like this. There appear to be people in them too. The coordination center was untouched, and it’s five levels down. I think they’ve got some of the tapes ready to run.”

I turned to Tonji. “Try to get that man out of there. Do it any way you can, but don’t waste time. I’ll be in the center.”

The walk through the next two levels was like a trip through hell. The stink of human waste was overpowering, even though the ventilation system was working at full capacity. Arc lights we had brought down threw distorted crescents of faint blue and white along walls smeared with blood, food, excrement.

Echoes of high, gibbering wails. haunted the lower floors, coming from the hiding places. They had burrowed far back into the walls in spots but most of the tunnel mouths were in monstrous, huge mounds like the one above. They weren’t hiding from us alone; their warrens were surrounded by piles of refuse. They had been in there for weeks.

Jobstranikan caught up with us just before we worked our way to the center.

“It’s difficult, sir,” he said. “It’s like the legends—the country of madness, possessed by devils and monsters.”

“What’s happened to them?”

“Everything. At first I thought they had a complete fear of anything that they could sense—light, movement, noise. But that’s misleading. They screech at each other incoherently. They won’t let us touch them and they cry, scream, and fight if we try.”

“Has Tonji been able to get any of them out?”

“Only by knocking them unconscious. One of his men was bitten badly when they tried to drag that man out. Getting anyone out of this mess is going to be a major job.”

There was a guard outside the center. Broken bits of furniture and electronics gear were strewn down the corridor, but inside the center itself everything was in order.

“The hatch was sealed electronically and coded, sir,” the officer inside explained. “We brought down the tracers and opened it. Somebody must have seen what was happening and made certain no one could get in here before we arrived.”

I walked over to the main display board. Technicians were taping the readouts we would need from the center’s computer bank, working with feverish haste. I motioned Danker back to duty and turned to the officer.

“Have you got any preliminary results? Is there an oral log that covers the Quarn attack?”

“No oral yet. We do have a radar scan.” He fitted a roll into the projector attachment of the display board. “I’ve cut it to begin with the first incursion into this system.”

He dimmed the lights in this section to the center and the green background grid of a radar scan leaped into focus. The relative locations of the other planets in the Regeln system were shown—here lumps of cold rock, for the most part—and a small Quarn dot was visible on the perimeter of the screen, glowing a soft red.

“They took their time getting here, apparently.” The projection rate increased. More dots joined the first to form a wedge-shaped pattern. A blue line detached itself from the center of the screen and moved outward, shrinking to a point—a defensive move from Regeln.

“All available missiles seem to have been fired. The Quarn took a few hits, but they could outmaneuver most of them. I’m afraid we launched too soon and by the time our seekers were within range their fuel reserves weren’t up to a long string of dodges.”

The red dots moved quickly, erratically, in a pantomime dance with the blue defenders. The distance between them was never short enough to permit a probable kill with a nuclear charge, and eventually the blue dots fell behind and were lost. They winked out when their reaction mass was exhausted.

“Except for the atmospheric ships, that finished their defenses. This colony wasn’t built to carry on a war. But something strange happened.”

The Quarn ships drifted toward center screen at an almost leisurely pace. A small missile flared out, went into orbit around Regeln and disappeared.

“That was the satellite link. They got that and then…”

“And then left,” I finished. The red dots were backing off. They gradually picked up velocity, regrouped and in a few minutes slipped off the grid. The screen went black.

“That is all we have. This clipping covered about eight days, but we can’t be sure anybody was watching the last part of it because the recording mechanism was automatic. It stopped when it ran out of film. This room may have been sealed any time after they launched their missiles.”

“None of this explains what happened here. The Quarn didn’t touch Regeln, but this shelter is full of lunatics. Something made the Quarn stop their attack and leave.” I looked around at the banks and consoles. I could feel a tightness forming somewhere. That old feeling of Tightness, certainty of position, was slipping away.

“Get every record you can, in duplicate tapes if possible,” I ordered, trying to shrug off the mood. The officer saluted and I went back into the corridors with a guard detail. I made a note to get respiration packs down here as soon as possible, and meanwhile held my breath as long as I could between gasps.

The route we took back was different, but no less horrible. Here there were bodies lying among the wreckage, most of them in advanced stages of decay. Two of my guards gagged in the close, putrid atmosphere of the corridors. We kept moving as quickly as we could, avoiding the half-open doors from which came the faint shrill gibbering of madmen. Most of the bodies we saw had been stabbed or clubbed and left to die. A large proportion were women. In any contest of strength they wouldn’t last long, and they hadn’t received any special consideration.

When we reached the perimeter Tonji had established, the air improved. Men were moving along the corridors in teams, spraying the walls with a soapy solution.

“The water and drainage systems are still working, so I decided to use them,” Tonji said. He seemed to have recovered from the tunnel. “Wherever we can we’re sealing off the places where they lived, and merely hope we can keep the halls clean.”

Jobstranikan came around a nearby corner portal we’d blasted through only a short while before. “Any new ideas?”

“Not as yet, I fear.” He shook his head and the long Mongolian locks tangled together on the back of his neck. He wore it in traditional semi-tribal fashion, like most of my officers. It was dull black, in the manner of the soldiers of the Khan and the Patriarch, and braided at the tail with bright leather thongs. The style was as old as the great central plains of Asia.

“I can make no sense of it. They fought among themselves at first, I think, for the bodies we’ve found are at least weeks old. Since then they’ve stayed back in those holes they made for themselves, eating the food supplies they’d gotten earlier. But they don’t want to leave. Every one I’ve seen wants to burrow into the smallest volume possible and stay there. We’ve found them in cupboards, jammed into ventilation shafts, even…”

“Signal for me?” I asked the crewman in charge. We’d reached a temporary communications link. He handed me a receiver and I pulled the hushpiece over my head. If this was what I thought it was, I didn’t want anyone to know before I told them.

It was Matsuda. “Our drone is registering approaching extra-solar ships. Preliminary trajectory puts them into the Regeln orbit.”

I let out a long breath. In a way I’d almost been expecting it.

“What’s their Doppler shift?”

There was a pause, then: “It’s not enough for them to be braking from a star jump. The spectroscope says they’re on full torch, however. They couldn’t have been accelerating very long.”

“In other words, this is the same group that hit—or didn’t hit—Regeln the first time. How long can we have on the surface?”

“Sir, readout says you can stay down there about five hours and not incur more than five percent risk to the convoy. Can you get them out if I give you that much?”

“We’ll see,” I said, and went back to Tonji.

It was impossible. With all shuttles and skimmers we saved a little over three thousand, only a fraction of the colony’s population. Most of the interior of the shelter was never reached.

As it was, we boosted late and a Quarn interceptor almost caught us. A yellow fusion burst licked at us as we pulled away, so we never saw what the rest of the Quarn did to Regeln, and I don’t suppose anyone else will either because it’s in the middle of their territory now.

After a few unsuccessful attempts I decided to stop trying to communicate with the lunatics we had scattered among the ships. Jobstranikan wanted to try treatment on some of them, but the medics were having a hell of a time just patching up their injuries, and infections and treating malnutrition.

The Quarn didn’t try to follow us out of the system. I thought this strange, and so did Tonji.

“It doesn’t make sense,” he said. “We don’t know a lot about their drive systems, but they might have a good chance of catching us. It would certainly be worth a try. If you’ve set a trap, why spring it halfheartedly?”

“Maybe it’s not that kind of trap,” I said.

Tonji frowned. “Do you mean they might be waiting for us further along trajectory? We’re already out of detection range of any Quarn ships, and the Jump is coming up. They’ll never trace us through that.”

“No, nothing. It was just a thought.” Not a well-defined one, at that. Still, something was bothering him. It wasn’t lessened any when Tonji reported the results from Intelligence.

“The computer analysis of the colony’s radar scan is finished,” he began. “Regardless of what happened to the colony itself, the machines have a low opinion of Quarn tactics. Regard.”

He flicked on a screen above my desk and the pattern of red and blue points on a green grid began to repeat itself. “Notice this stage, shortly after initial contact.”

The blue dots danced and played as they moved in, performing an intricate pattern of opposing and coalescing steps. The red Quarn ships back-pedaled and moved uncertainly.

“The Quarn had ballistic superiority and more maneuverability. But notice how they avoided the Regeln missiles.”

The red points dodged back, moving in crescents that narrowly avoided the feints and slashes of blue. The crescent formed, fell back. Again. And again. The Quarn were using the same tactic, relying on their superior power to carry them beyond Regeln attack at the cusp-point. I’m not a tactician, but I could see it was wasteful of energy and time.

“They continued this until the interceptors ran out of reaction mass. If they’d been pitted against equals the engagement wouldn’t have lasted two minutes.”

I clicked off the screen. “What does it mean?”

Tonji poked the air with a finger. “It means we’ve got them. Over the last year they’ve had the luck to hit border planets that weren’t first-line military emplacements. We haven’t had a look at their techniques because they didn’t let anyone get away. But these tactics are schoolbook examples! If this is the best they can do, we’ll wipe them out when our fleets move in.”

He was overenthusiastic, but he was right. Our defenses were solidly based on the fleet-principle, with interlocking layers of tactical directorates, hundred-ships armadas and echelons of command. It was very much like the surface aquatic navies of Earth history. On these terms, the Quarn were disasterously inferior.

The news should have quieted the unease I felt, but instead it grew. I began to notice outbreaks of rudeness among the crew, signs of worry on the faces of the officers, disruption of spirit. The tedium of caring for the colonists could certainly account for some of it—they refused to be calmed and had to be restrained from destroying their room furniture. They were using it to construct the same sort of rat holes we’d found them in.

But that wasn’t all. Crewmen began missing meals, staying in their cabins and not talking to anyone else. The ship took on a quiet, tense mood. I ordered resumption of the Games at once.

We almost got through it.

There was divisive talking and nervousness instead of the steady calm of self-contemplation, before the Sabal began, but the opening rituals damped and smoothed it. I thought I detected a relaxation running like a wave through the hexagon. Muscles unstiffened, consciousness cleared and we drew together.

It is usual in the Game to choose a theme which begins with a statement of the virtue of community, test it, and then return to initial configuration, the position of rest. I anticipated trouble, but not enough to make a change of game plot necessary. The plot ran smoothly at first, until we came to first resolution point.

One of the lower deckmen, who had been in the shelter caverns from the first entry, was called by the chance of the Game to make the decision. He hesitated, looked guiltily at his card and beads, and made a choice that profited himself at the expense of the other players.

Everything came to a stop.

I could feel the group teetering on edge. The men were straining for sense of harmony and trying to decide how to play when their turn came. A bad play isn’t unknown to Sabal, but now it could be dangerous.

I repeated the confirmation ritual, hoping it would calm them—and myself—but the next play was a choice of withdrawal. No gain for the individual, but the group did not profit, and the net effect was bad. Fear began to slip from member to member down the hexagon.

The plays came rapidly now. Some men tried to reinforce the message and cast configurations that benefited the group. They were swamped, one by one, and the Game began to fall apart.

I used the chant. Tranquility, detachment, the words rose and fell. Interpenetrating. Interconverting. The mosquito bit the bar of iron.

My own cast held them for a while out of respect for my position, but in a quick string of plays its advantage was nibbled away.

Then the flood came. A dozen casts went by, all having loss of phase. The theme was not gain, but a pulling away from the group, and that was what made the failure so serious. Withdrawal strikes at the social structure itself.

I seized control of the Game, breaking off a subplot that was dragging us deeper. I drew a moral, one I’d learned years before and hoped to never use. It slurred over the resolution of the Game and emphasized the quality of the testing, without questioning whether the test had been met. It was an obvious loss, but it was all I could do.

The hexagon broke and the men burst into conversation, nearly panic-stricken. They moved out of the room, jostling and shoving, and broke up as they reached the halls. A few glanced quickly at me and then looked away. In a moment the only sound was the hissing of the air system and the distant quick tapping of boots on deck.

Tonji remained. He looked puzzled.

“What do you think it means?” I said.

“Probably just that the mission was too much for us. Well be all right after landfall.”

“I don’t think so. Our Games worked well before; but this one shattered before it was half finished. That’s too much of a change.”

“What, then?”

“It’s something to do with this mission. Something… What percentage of the crew have regular contact with the Regeln survivors?”

“With the way the nursemaid shifts are set up now, about sixty percent. Every man who’s replaceable for more than an hour on his job has to help feed and clean them, or assist the psych teams who are working on the problem.”

“So even though we’re off Regeln, most of the men continue to see them.”

“Yes, but it’s unavoidable. Our orders were to bring back as many as we could, and we are.”

“Of course.” I waved my hand irritably. “But the Game failed tonight because of those survivors, I’m sure of that. The strain of putting this set of crews into war-status duty isn’t small, but we’ve allowed for it in our planning. It doesn’t explain this.”

Tonji gave me a stiff look. “Then what does?”

“I don’t know.” I was irritated at the question, because I did know—in a vague, foreboding sense—and his question uncovered my own fear.

“The Sabal Game has something to do with it. That and the way our ships—hell, our whole society—has to be run. We emphasize cooperation and phase. We teach that a man’s happiness depends on the well-being of the group, and the two are inseparable. Even in our contacts with alien races, until the Quarn, we spread that philosophy. We try to draw closer to beings who are fundamentally different from us.”

“That’s the way any advanced society must be structured. Anything else is suicide on the racial scale.”

“Sure, sure. But the Quarn apparently don’t fit that mold. They’ve got something different. They work almost completely alone and live in cities only, I suppose, because of economic reasons. Most of what we know about them is guesswork because they don’t like contact with others, even members of their own race. We’ve had to dig out our own data bit by bit.”

Tonji spread his hands. “That’s the reason for this mission. The Regeln survivors may be able to tell us something about the Quarn. We need an idea of how they think.”

“From what we’ve seen of them, I don’t think they’ll be any help. The survivors have gone too far over the edge, and already they’re threatening the convoy.”

“Threatening? With what?”

“Disruption, mutiny—something. All I can say is that when this Sabal started, the crew was in bad condition, but they could be reached. They still communicated.

“During the Game, though, the tension increased. We didn’t witness here the exposure of what the men were thinking. Their fears were augmented, piled on top of each Other. I could feel it running through the subplots they made a part of the Game. There’s something we do—and the Game is just a way of concentrating it—that increases the unbalance we picked up from the Regeln survivors.”

“But in the Game we duplicate our society, our way of living. If that amplifies the unbalance…”

“Exactly,” I said despairingly. “Exactly.”

I slept on it that night, hoping something would unravel the knot of worry while I slept. Over a lonely breakfast in my cabin I reviewed the conversation and tried to see where my logic was leading.

A sense of dread caught my stomach and twisted it, turning to lead the meal of rice and sea culture broth.

How can a man step outside himself and guess the reactions of aliens utterly unlike him? I was trying to find the key to the riddle of Regeln with all the elements in full view.

Something formed. I let my senses out through the ship, feeling the usual rhythms of life, reaching for the… other. An alien element was there. I knew, with a new certainty, what it was.

I picked up my tea cup and focused on my kensdai altar. The deep mahogany gave me confidence. Power and resolution flowed outward from my body center. I balanced the cup lightly in my hand.

And it slammed it down. Jump was coming. I had to stop it.

I had forgotten that Tonji was to be bridge officer during the Jump. He was making routine checks in the somber green light of morning watch. Men moved expertly around him, with a quiet murmur.

“Great greetings of Morn, sir,” he said. “We have come to the point for your permission to Jump.”

Then it was already late, far later than I’d thought. I looked at him steadily.

“Permission denied, Mr. Tonji. Ready a subspace transmission.”

I could feel a hush fall on the bridge.

“May I ask what the transmission will say, sir?”

“It’s a request to divert this convoy. I want the expedition put into decontamination status until this is understood.”

Tonji didn’t move. “There are only a few moments until Jump, sir.”

“It’s an order, Mr. Tonji.”

“Perhaps if you would explain the reasoning, sir?”

I glanced at the morning board. It showed a huge sick report, accompanied by requests of most crewmen to remain in quarters. All divisions were undermanned.

It fitted. In a few days we wouldn’t be able to operate at all.

“Look,” I said impatiently. “The Quarn did something to our people. Perhaps something smuggled in by an agent. I don’t know exactly how, but those colonists have been given the worst traumas anybody has ever seen.”

“An agent? One of our own people?”

“It’s been done before, by idealists and thugs alike. But the important point is that when we picked up Quarn ships on our screens they weren’t trying any maneuvers to throw off detectors or give false images. It was a classic ballistic problem they presented to us, and all we had to do was leave Regeln early enough to outmass them. They wanted us to escape.”

“But look at their maneuvers on that first run against Regeln, the one that ran our people underground. That’s all the evidence we need. They’re children when it comes to military tactics. The second approach was simple, yes, but it was probably all they could do.”

“I don’t think so, not if the Quarn are half as intelligent as the rest of our data tells us. So their first attack did drive the colonists under—fine. It got all the Regeln population in one place, inside the shelter where whatever techniques the Quarn knew could go to work. What looked like an error was a feint.

“Think. A knowledge of sophisticated tactics is a rather specialized cultural adaptation. For all we know, it may not be very useful in the kind of interstellar war we’ve just gotten into. The fact that the Quarn don’t have it doesn’t mean they’re inferior. Quite the opposite, probably. Regeln was a trap.”

“If it was, we escaped,” Tonji said sharply.

“No, Mr. Tonji, we didn’t. We’re just serving as a convenient transport for what the Quarn want to get into the home worlds—the Regeln survivors.”

“But why?”

“You know the analogy we use in the Game. Mankind is now, at last, an organism. Interdependent. We’re forced to rely on each other because of the complexities of civilization.” My own voice sounded strange to me. It was tired and a note of despair had crept in.

“Of course,” Tonji said impatiently. “Go on.”

“Has it ever occurred to you that once you admit society is like an organism, you admit the possibility of contagious diseases?”

“Quite frankly, I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

“The survivors. They’re enough of a test sample to set it off, apparently. An average crew member spends several hours a day with them, and the continual exposure is enough.”

“Why aren’t you affected, then? And the men who aren’t on the sick list—why don’t they have it?”

“Minor variations in personality. And there’s something else. I checked. Some of them are from the off-islands, like me. We’re different. We didn’t grow up with the Game. We learned it later on the mainlands. Maybe that weakens its effect.”

He shook his head. “Yes, this tiling the colonists have is different, but…”

“It claws at the mind. It’s irrational. We’re the product of our ancestors, Mr. Tonji, and these ancestors knew terrors we cannot comprehend. Remember, this is a new psychosis we’ve found on Regeln, a combination. Fear of light, heat, heights, open spaces. That last one, agoraphobia, seems strongest. The Quarn have worked on a first-class horror for us, and this convoy is set as the carrier.”

“A carrier for a mental disease?” Tonji said contemptuously.

“Yes. But a disorder we’ve never seen before. An amalgam of the fundamental terrors of man. A collective society has the strength of a rope, because each strand pulls the same way. But it has weaknesses too, for the same reason.”

The men were watching us, keeping very still. I could hear the thin beeping of monitoring units.. Tonji’s skin had a slight greenish cast and his eyes looked back at me impersonally with a cool blackness.

“We’re carrying it with us, Tonji. The survivors are striking the same resonant mode with us that the Quarn found in them. The Quarn hit at us through our weaknesses. They’re hermits, and they see us more clearly than we see ourselves. Our interdependence, the Game and all of it, communicates the disease.”

I noticed that my hand was tightening convulsively on the console at my side. Tonji stood motionless.

“Stop the Jump, Mr. Tonji, and the transmission.”

He motioned to an assistant and the Jump was canceled. He stood motionless for a moment, looking at me. Then he took a quick backward step, came to attention and saluted. When he spoke the words were measured carefully and accompanied by that same blank stare.

“Sir, it is my duty to inform you that I must file Duty Officer’s Report when your dispatch is transmitted. I invoke Article Twenty-seven.”

I froze.

Article Twenty-seven provides that the duty officer may send a counter-argument to the Commander’s dispatch when it is transmitted. When he feels the Commander is no longer able to conduct his duties.

“You’re wrong, Mr. Tonji,” I said slowly. “Taking these survivors—and by now, most of the crew—into a major port will cause more damage than you or I can imagine.”

“I have been observing you, sir. I don’t think you’re capable of making a rational decision about this thing.”

“Man, think! What other explanation can there be for what’s happening to this ship? You’ve seen those tapes. Do you think the scraps of information on them are worth the risk of delivery? Do you think anyone can get even a coherent sentence out of those lunatics we’re carrying?”

He shook his head mutely.

I looked across the dark void between us. He was a man of the East, and I represented the dead and dying. In the histories they wrote, the ideals my ancestors held were called a temporary abnormality, a passing alternative to the communal, the group-centered culture.

Perhaps they were right. But we had met something new out here, and I knew they wouldn’t understand it. Perhaps the Americans would have, or the Europeans. But they were gone.

I should have anticipated that the lost phase we all felt would take different forms. Tonji chose ambition above duty, above the ship.

If Fleet upheld him there would be promotions, even though he had used Article Twenty-seven. And I stood here, bound by rules and precedents. If I made a move to silence Tonji it would count against my case with Fleet. We were on a rigid protocol now that the Article was used, and nothing I could do would stop it.

“Mr. Tonji! You realize, don’t you, that one of us will be finished when this is over?”

He turned and looked at me, and for a moment a flash of anticipation crossed his face. He must have hated me for a long time.

“Yes, I’ve thought of that. And I think I know which one of us it will be.”

He didn’t finish the sentence aloud. He mouthed it, so only I could see his lips move.

“… of kaipan.”

He was right. Fleet wanted to talk to anyone who’d had battle contact with the Quarn, and they weren’t ready to wait for a convoy commander with suspicions and a theory. And Tonji, a Mongol, had political contacts.

We lingered in real-space for a week, waiting for the decision, and then jumped. The trial was short.

“Haven’t you gone out for your walk yet?” Angela said.

The sound startled me, even though I’d been blocking out the noise of the kids and their viewscreen. She stood in the door of our bedroom a few feet away, the lines of tension still set in the pale yellow cast of her face. I was beginning to think they would never smooth out again. She had been pretty, once.

“I guess I forgot it. Want to go with me?”

She nodded and I got up from the cramped breakfast nook, stacking the papers I still hadn’t reviewed.

I cut the corridor lights before we stepped outside our apartment door and we linked hands automatically. I put my right palm on the wall and we inched forward. The terror caught at me, but I fought it down.

“Honestly, I don’t see why you’re so set against tapping for the children.” Her voice was hollow in the darkness. It reflected off the glazed concrete that was close and sheltering. “With all of us at war, any aid to increase education is a godsend. Without it they just fall further and further behind their playmates.”

“What playmates? Children don’t play anymore. Games take space.” We rounded a corner and stumbled on someone who was doubled up on the floor clutching at himself in spasms. From the sound of his breathing I guessed he’d had an attack and couldn’t go any further. We edged around him.

“Well, not the same way we did. But they have their games, new ones. You’ve got to accept the world as it is.”

“Accept this crowding? Accept the fear that crushes you whenever you step outside? Accept the fact that a third of the population can’t work and we who can—even with our guts twisted up inside—must support them?”

Her hand tightened convulsively on mine. “You know that can’t be helped! We’re in a… stage of evolution of society. Withdrawal is necessary to achieve greater phase, later.”

“And meanwhile the Quarn take one system after another. They’ve cut us off from most of our raw materials already and we can’t muster the men to stop them. Maybe if we’re lucky they’ll cut us off from our own lies before all this is over.”

“Now that is completely unreasonable,” she said icily. “It ties in with all your other ideas, like not letting Romana and Chark have tapping.”

“Not letting the government tinker around in their minds, you mean, with one of their schemes for increasing the war effort. Let Chark have a brain tap so all he cares about is torch chamber design, say, and will never be happy when he’s not doing it. That’s right, I won’t. Our kids will need every bit of mental balance they have to stay alive as a defeated race, and I don’t intend to rob them of it.”

We passed by some of the lower-level apartments hastily thrown up by the government for the more severe cases. Whimpering came from the little holes where things that had been human beings were curled up into tight balls, desperately trying to shut out the light, the sounds, all of the awful enormity of sheer open space.

Angela descended into her glacial silence, maintaining only a fingertip touch with me to retain her orientation. The walks didn’t seem to do either of us any good any longer, so I suppose there is a limit to their therapeutic value. I had gone about as far as I could go, as one of the original cases, and our small apartment was the largest volume my senses could stand.

Even then, the world wasn’t real to me. It was filled with a thousand devious terrors—the accidentally thrown light switch, an unsuspected window in an unfamiliar wall.

Out on the edge of our pitifully shrinking empire, the Fleet played at war with the only toys it knew—guns, ships, beams—while their enemy (and what was he like, to be so wise?) fought with the only ultimate weapons between races: their weaknesses.

I did not feel at home on the Earth any longer. My life lay in dark halls, jammed with people I could understand but whose fears I hated because they were mine as well.

I would welcome the Quarn, when they came. I had been alone a long time.

PART II

No rest or solace,

Black despair and doubt.

I spun.

Spun with aching slowness, so that star points of blue and red and orange seemed to creep across the vision port in front of my helmet. I timed a revolution. It was a measure of the error the Sasenbo made when it dropped the capsule out of Jump space.

A rather large error. Probably within Fleet margins, but surely no less an irritant for all that.

It meant that every revolution Lekki’s violet disk lanced into my eyes for an instant before the helmet polarizer buzzed on to compensate for the glare. For a few moments everything was blackness except for the dark blue jewel that crawled in a chord across the port and then snapped off again.

But there was compensation. Shortly after Lekki came Veden, wrapped in ivory clouds, eclipsing its moon, filling half the sky. Occasionally I could make out a rough contour of the only continent, Baslin, a dull patch against the brilliant reflected light from the oceans. It all swept by, serene as though in meditation, soundless.

I knew I was falling toward Veden and if the pickup shuttle failed to reach me I would take a long, smooth ellipse down into her. Flame like a coal, fall a cinder. A sacrifice to her regal orbit, marred only by an animal cry of despair at frequencies to which she never listened. Not her, not Veden.

To whom did she pay attention, spinning with ancient purposes? To Lekki, Star of India? Or to the dark mote that raced with frantic energy around the Star of India? Or to the dark mote that raced with frantic energy around the Star, the Neutron Being?

Gods and planets do not speak. She would not say.

“Have you on visual.” My suit spoke to me. “If you can drop a little lower I can match in my present trajectory.”

I thumbed on my binocs, but without a referent I couldn’t pick out the shuttle. I stretched my arms and legs as far as the cylinder allowed—it had about as much room as a clothes closet—and unlocked the jet plates. A slight pressure forward and I could feel the tug of acceleration along my back. I activated attitude control and the rotation stopped. Something had restrained me from halting it before, perhaps the feeling that without it I was entering this sun system naturally, unspoiled, changing nothing. Reborn.

It might be possible, a new beginning. But even as I thought it my critical faculty clicked on again, and I knew that I’d never believed that was the reason I’d accepted the new post on Veden. I would try, yes. But I could not believe that I would succeed.

The shuttle was visible now. It came sliding up from the white rim of the planet as though it were on an invisible wire, sure and swift and impersonal, a black spot against the muted whites and blues of Veden. If it had not been between me and the planet it would have been invisible in the utter black of high vacuum.

I wasn’t in orbit around Veden. The Sasenbo had popped me out of Jump at a velocity guaranteed to keep me from slicing into the atmosphere for a few hours, but the built-in uncertainties of Jump, plus the economics of making small adjustments in the capsule’s exit velocity in real-space, demanded that anything as delicate as an orbital trajectory was out of the question. An officer of my rank wouldn’t bother to request one of an ordinary cruiser, much less ask it of the Sasenbo, a Fleet Sensor Carrier on its way to the latest site where the Quarn had been seen.

It was a stroke of undeniable luck to get a berth on Sasenbo at all immediately after my reappointment. The way the war was going, it sometimes took months to get orders pressed for even the primary Fleet centers. The Empire was a network of processes, coiling and twining through each other, understood in minute parts by an army of clerks and computers. The Quarn had been cutting strands of the web for three years. They picked off colonies deftly, with almost no effort. When Fleet computers war-gamed a probable assault in a particular system, dozens of ships would mass and wait. But the Quarn hit elsewhere.

The solution was seemingly obvious: the computers were operating on false premises. They thought in terms of feints and shifts, subtle balances of power and advantage. Points were assigned to men and ships, bases and colonies. Endless integral equations assessed the economic implication of a given loss—damage to production routines, holdups in transport, loss of raw materials.

The Quarn did not think that way. They were doing something else, and no one could guess the next stop. The Empire was falling apart in a slow-motion, grinding, roiling way. The Plague—for what else could one call the aching agoraphobia that turned a man in upon himself?—was growing, spreading out from Earth along the Jump lanes.

No, the Quarn were bent on something more. Not merely destroying man. Perhaps changing him.

“Your course is adequate.” The shuttle pilot’s voice came through thinly in the crackle and hiss of my open suit radio. “I’ll take care of the final corrections. Secure your attitude control board.”

I locked everything back into place and watched the blazing white cylinder grow. I never tired of watching the stately maneuvering of craft in orbit. They move as though some unheard rhythm times them, unperturbed and answerable to no one. The shuttle drifting toward me gave the perfect illusion of freedom. But it was doomed to fall into the boiling sea of air below us and regain its mortality, be weathered and aged even as men are.

The cylinder was maneuvering now with short bursts of gas that momentarily blurred the crisp outlines of Veden behind it, like heat waves on a warm afternoon. I could see the heavy shielding around its communications pod that identified it as an atmospheric craft. The few delicate spines of antennas that it used in orbit would be retracted before the atmosphere could sear them away at entry.

A black rectangle formed in the side and grew. I was falling straight into it. Inside, harsh violet lights winked on and I could see the braking pads standing out from the walls of the pickup port.

Why violet? I blinked my eyes but the afterimage faded very slowly. My polarizers had compensated almost immediately, but the instant of lag had been enough to blind me in one spot of my vision field for more than a minute.

I watched the port grow with my peripheral vision. The shuttle was at least ten times larger than my capsule and it appeared to be outfitted for a variety of tasks. Grapples Were tucked under the belly, waldo arms recessed beneath the pilot’s slot, and a long thin line ran down its side—from there would come the thin delta wings for skipping along the top of the atmosphere.

“I’m coming in nicely,” I said. The violet rectangle grew and filled the port. We hit the pads gently and I heard a faint clank as something wrapped around the outside.

“Contacts register correctly,” the pilot said. “Are you familiar with the mechanism for securing—?”

“I’ll mention it if I have any trouble,” I said. “But why the colored light? It’s rather difficult to see in here.” I popped the release on the capsule hatch and the violet came flooding in. It would have been unbearable without polarizers. I pushed off gently with my elbows and drifted out of the capsule and up to the ceiling.

“Oh, I’m sorry, sir. I’ve got the illumination set for Veden surface levels. Switching over to Earth standard.”

The violet phosphors died and white ones flared into brilliance above them. Everything was silent, except for the small pings of my suit contracting as I moved. Gently, gently. I remembered my deepspace work of decades past and kept my knees bent, moved slowly and thought out every action.

The elastic cables were fitted into slots near the capsule. I reeled them out and used a suit jet to swing around the capsule in a circle, the line trailing after me. The third cable grip refused to close for a moment when I tried to lock it and I was afraid it had cold-welded in the open position, but after some tapping it shut. The lines restrained any motion of the capsule perpendicular to its axis and two axial rods kept it from sliding out of the cocoon of cables. I checked the job twice. If the capsule with all my luggage in it broke loose when we hit the atmosphere it could go straight through the shuttle’s skin.

“All done.” I spoke into my suit mike. The blinker over the exit winked twice in confirmation and a panel slid back into place, shutting out the stars. I slipped through the circular exit tube and found it easy going because of the rungs inside. A few twists and turns following the blinkers and I dropped into a flight seat.

“I routed you through to the copilot’s spot, sir,” the voice said. I turned to my left and saw a small man looking at me across an imposing bulge of hardware. “It’s a more comfortable seat than the passenger compartment. The view is better here too.”

His skin was jet black. A Negro? But I’d thought none survived the Riot War. Something about the virus blight that swept down out of Europe.

Then I realized the cabin was illuminated in violet and my polarizers had cut in the moment I entered. The pilot’s skin must be the muddy tan of the Indians, but my polarizers deepened it to black.

“Lance Officer Shandul, sir.” He gave an abbreviated salute. I nodded back.

“This is what the sunlight is like on Veden, Mr. Shandul?” I waved an arm at the phosphors ringing us. “I knew it was weighted in the ultraviolet, but I’m not prepared to take much of this.”

“Yes, sir; perhaps I can lower it somewhat. I fear we are not modified to permit Earth illumination levels here in the cockpit, for which I am sorry. Upon reentry we will not need interior lights at all. I can extinguish them in a few moments. I hope it will not be uncomfortable for you then.”

“No, no. Just take us down.” I looked out the transparent nose of the shuttle for the first time. The horizon was a sharp brittle line dividing the milky swirls of Veden’s oceans and clouds from the obsidian depths of nothingness. My polarizers smothered the stars so that the low curve of the planet gave way not to the glimmering sparks of distant life, but to zero, blankness, the fatal cold entropy death. As I watched, Shandul touched a control and the ship rotated slightly. Lekki slid into a corner of my vision screaming to be seen. I glanced at it and it turned white. Careless. I would have a blind spot there for minutes.

I looked down at Veden. (“Down” by training; the antigee pills were working and even peering straight down at the surface I didn’t feel the visceral clench of infinite, terrifying fall.) Now that I knew what her light was like, I thought I could see a tinge of reflected violet in the white of the clouds.

“It will require a few moments to complete recalculation of orbits, sir.”

“Why? Aren’t we on a one-orbit ellipse?”

“No, sir. The delay in picking you up came from the time necessary for me to complete satellite maintenance.”

I frowned. I had thought the wait was a little long. “What kind of maintenance?”

“Micro-meteorite repair for damage to weather observation devices, sir, Also replacement of some failed components. We do not have many opportunities to get this shuttle into orbit of late, so I was ordered to finish all the backlog of work up here.”

“Ordered by whom?”

Shandul glanced at me hesitantly. Even through the helmet I could read from his expression that he sensed the possibility of getting into the middle of a dispute between officers, and that was the last thing he wanted.

“First Officer Majumbdahr, sir. We are very poorly supplied with chemical fuels here on Veden and…”

“That’s all right.” I waved it away. “I merely wondered.” I looked away from him, out at Veden, and changed the subject.

“Then you had to finish your other work before meeting my trajectory. How long will it take us to get down?”

Shandul smiled, the brilliant flash of white showing his obvious relief at being free of the matter. “Two hours approximately, sir. We are in an unfortunately difficult position from which to regain the Kalic field in a low pass. Fleet Control is now loading a revised orbital sequence in my autopilot”—he thumped the electronics gear between us—“so when I’ve verified readout we…”

I kept the same interested expression on my face but stopped listening to Shandul. A technician will ramble on for hours about his specialty and it can be fascinating, but for the moment I wanted to enjoy the view.

Still, he had told me something I hadn’t expected. It was natural that a way station planet like Veden would be low on chemical fuels—with a population of twenty-odd million it couldn’t have a major industrial base to manufacture them, and at transport cost rates on the Jump, Earth certainly wasn’t going to ship fuels out here—but somehow I’d expected Veden to be better off than this. Imagine delaying weather satellite repair to save fuel!

It was another reminder of how relatively unimportant Veden was, and therefore of what a low rating it had in Fleet priorities. Yet Fleet Control here needed a Director, so on Earth they had scrubbed through the lists of discarded officers and found me.

Me. Ling Sanjen. Cashiered before the Quarn war was even recognized for what it was, my papers stuck into the dead file, my body dumped into that miserable hole of the Therapy Warrens, to live out what remained of a life with my family.

I wondered where they were now. When their agoraphobia grew worse and mine became inexplicably better, we separated for “medical reasons.” I realized I had to, one day when I looked up from the routing schedules that were boring me to distraction, and saw three strangers living with me in the rancid stench of the Warrens. Their eyes were dead to me. I don’t think they knew what was happening to them, or even if the particularly cared.

And my wife—Angela?—all that’s holy, I was beginning to have trouble remembering her name!

Angela wrapped herself around the children, preferring their dreams and tinsel hopes to my bitterness. Until she lied to me, and then to them, and finally to herself. When she lost that, the inner kernel of honesty, it all began to go quickly.

They moved shortly after, on medical orders, for they were losing control, sliding down the path I knew so well by now. Medical took them to the Slots, as the slang called the building.

I visited them there. Slimy halls with unmentionable gobbets running down the wall, people stacked in like so many lumps of vegetable matter to be tended and noted and, when they died, disposed of. I went to their slot index. Just three numbers together, each hole large enough for a man to crawl in and crouch. The wall was seven slots high, and they were spaced two steps apart.

The hall was one of twenty in the building. It ran for two city blocks.

There were five such buildings in my city. I never had the courage to estimate how many the slots held.

Angela and the children didn’t recognize me. They couldn’t. By that time they were unable to see.

As I walked out amid the groans and screams and foul drippings, I wondered for the thousandth time: Why am I not with them?

The weakness caught at me, like all the other men on the convoy to Regeln. But for me it passed. I improved. And no one knew why.

Medical division asked a few questions, nodded their heads, and went away. It seemed to confirm something they knew, but what?

A few weeks later I received a reactivation order from Fleet, a skimpy briefing, and in a matter of days I was massing out on the Sasenbo.

To a minor post, a spot they had to fill but not with an able fighting man, not with someone who had proven he was fit for the hard cutting edge of combat.

A position good enough for an ofkaipan. For Ling Sanjen.

“… so you can probably take some hours of rest if you like, sir.” Shandul was looking expectantly at me.

“Uh, how long would you say?”

“At least a few hours. Your velocity was retrograde relative to Veden, so it will require time to get us into a favorable orbit for reentry. I am required to stand watch, but there is no reason for you to remain awake, sir.”

I nodded and smiled. I checked my chronometer inside my helmet, still set on Sasenbo ship time, and found it was late evening. I felt tired and free fall sleep is far better than sleep in a gee field, even the light point eight four gee of Veden. I also felt a certain tension, an anticipation of the whole new life I could start when I reached the surface.

But wishing wouldn’t make the shuttle arrive any sooner.

I meditated for a moment to calm myself and then made a sign to Shandul that I would sleep.

I clenched my muscles tightly and kept my breathing at a slow measured pace. Gradually I let the tightness drain out of me, loosening joints and fibers and threads. My body broke up into pieces, formed a locus of a sphere around me and fell away.

It was a sound like fingernails scraping on metal, shrieking in the narrow confines of the cabin. My suit seemed to amplify it, piling harmonic on harmonic until it ceased to be a noise and became a force.

Abruptly it died away and I realized with a blank that most of the witches’ wail had been a dream and the thread was slipping from consciousness. The thin airy whistle that came from all around me was the usual first sign of reentry.

I opened my eyes, stretched and looked out at the fuzzy line of Veden’s horizon. It was very high, as though the shuttle’s nose was pointing nearly straight down at the surface.

“Aren’t we going in a little steeply?” I asked.

“Ah, you have awakened, sir. But I fear I do not understand your question.”

“I thought we were going to dip in along the top of the atmosphere, like skipping a rock across water. It looks like we’re almost falling into it.”

“Oh. We have been decelerating for some time and are now into the gliding entry. The angle relative to local horizontal is probably somewhat larger than you have experienced on other planets, sir, because we have lighter gravity here. Our atmosphere is spread out to a larger radius.” Shandul looked a little smug at being able to lecture me.

But he was right, of course. Veden’s light gee pull meant the atmosphere wasn’t pressed down as much and atmospheric pressure didn’t fall off as rapidly, so it was “softer” at the top.

It was a small matter but it pointed up the fact that I would have to watch myself here, learn new reflexes, be more careful for the first few months. I’d never been to a low mass planet before—for a variety of reasons involving gas capture, tidal effects and the thousand other accidents that must occur to produce a livable planet, a mass much lower than Earth’s isn’t likely to be hospitable to man, so you don’t get to see many of them—and Veden’s was only point six Earth masses.

I felt the tug of more acceleration and the high, tearing whine of scorched wind rose. The computer output stuttered next to my left elbow and Shandul glanced at the display screen briefly to confirm that he was still, on path. The seat shuttered beneath me and I felt a slight tilting away from “down.”

Clouds like frozen custard slid by below and through some scattered holes I could begin to make out topography. I knew the dots of ivory ice caps that rested at the poles, smothered in snow clouds, were over the curved rim of Veden at this low an altitude, and below the large lazy oceans would give me nothing to see. But we should be falling toward the single continent by now, intuition told me. It was over three thousand miles long, a great rectangular splotch, almost the only dry land on the planet. I craned to see it.

We were falling faster now and occasionally the rockets would speak with a short snarl to slow us. Abruptly we fell through what looked to be a high altitude stream formation and below, fat, bunched clouds like cushions were scattered over the sharply cut coastline of Baslin, mother continent of New India.

It was raw. The battered coast gave way to mountains that lanced into the interior. A giant had stamped down the edges of Baslin and pulled out the middle, for now a plateau rose in the center and sent down winding fingers of rivers that carved and slashed at its edges, forming narrow valleys. It was a work uncompleted, a stone forgotten when the sculptor walked away and threw his tools into the empty seas.

I watched the lowlands as they enlarged and fell away behind us. Shandul was resting comfortably at the controls with all his concentration focused on the verifying displays from Fleet Control in Kalic. The bucking and tremors that shook me passed through him like a wave, never diverting his attention. The dull thunder as we fell prevented most conversation and I didn’t try to force one. Below, the plateau was approaching. Every human on Veden lived on it, drank from its rivers, peered over the edge into the boiling chaos of the lowlands.

“Parachute going out,” Shandul said. The sharp crack of the ejection snapped me forward against my restraining belts. Parachute? Dissipating velocity with a chute was efficient, but most prosperous areas didn’t take the trouble.

We were above the plateau now and I caught fields of intense magentas and yellows among the riot of jungle. We were falling along a river valley that was a holiday patchwork against the slate gray peaks that jutted up and tore the clouds.

The shuttle seemed to be drifting steadily down, gyros correcting smoothly for the turbulence. The rear TV showed a slight wake, but no orange blur of ionized gases—that had vanished with the use of non-charring heat shields. I studied the land below with the vision hood down over the scope, but the color washed out details.

Below, the river writhed and I suddenly recognized it: Tankjor, the torrent that bled Baslin’s major lake, The Lapis. And on the shores of those quiet waters was Kalic, our destination, capital of Baslin and thus Veden.

We hit an air pocket that seemed to have no bottom and I felt a sudden wave of nausea snatch at me. I was losing my nogee equilibrium. Guiding rockets fired in synchronization with dull slapping thumps that rattled my teeth. We banked slowly.

Ahead, fractured purple and green winked from The Lapis and the rigid sprawl of Kalic’s streets fanned out to greet me as we adjusted and dropped into a low, comfortable glide. Lekki broke from behind a virginal white cloud as we cleared the stony margin of the last peak.

A great gray expanse loomed ahead and Shandul made a slight correction. The ship dropped like a sack of sand again and colors tumbled off to my side as we turned for final approach. I looked outside.

Glimpse of tranquil sky framed by mountains. Quiet drifting feeling. The shuttle jarred, rumbled at me and we were rolling on our landing gear, land animals again, slaves of gravity.

The shuttle coasted up to a wing of a long low building at the edge of the gray field. I could make out a mass of men standing in formation and as we drew nearer they separated into three squares with a delegation out front, all casting long shadows in the late afternoon.

“Very good, Mr. Shandul,” I said as we braked to a halt. A stubby cart swung alongside us to spray the hull with water and instantly the scene outside vanished in a swirl of steam.

“Thank you, sir. If you’ll exit through the side—” He gestured to a port that slid open. I stepped through and out onto a platform. I reached up and opened my suit to external pressure and a wave of music burst over me. It was a long, solemn dirge of some complexity, but it grated my teeth. More appropriate to a wake, perhaps. Or it might be a subtle indication of how the staff felt about their new ofkaipan Director.

“Greetings, sir!” an officer called at my elbow and the troops in formation snapped into a salute. I tried to make my replying salute as clipped and neat as possible, but the suit was a hindrance.

“Mr. Majumbdahr,” I said, “your men look very well turned out.” It was easy to recognize his long jaw line and elaborately curled hair from the personnel records I’d studied on the Sasenbo. I turned to the next man, shorter and obviously a purebred Hindie.

“My compliments to you as well, Mr. Gharma. I believe Mr. Shandul is under your command—he handled his ship nicely on the trip down.”

All through this my polarizers were clicking madly off and on as I turned at angles to the direct violet glare of Lekki, which was setting on the horizon.

“If I can get this off, I can review the troops,” I said, reaching for my helmet.

Majumbdahr gestured to stop me. “Sir, this light may be harmful to your eyes. We’ve shortened the ceremony to allow for this. A few more minutes and we can escort you inside, where it will be more comfortable.”

I frowned, but said nothing. The band, which I’d just located, was standing on a direct line between the platform and Lekki, and it had just started into a slightly brisker tune, heavy on cymbals and drums. Probably the Veden anthem. I stood still until it was over, returned a last salute and followed Gharma and Majumbdahr down the ramp to the field. We walked along a roped-off path in front of the troops with an appropriately regal silence and entered the Fleet Control building.

Inside there was a medical party waiting for me.

“I should think, Mr. Majumbdahr, that a review of the troops is standard for the introduction of a new Fleet Control Director.”

An officer with surgeon’s insignia raised his hand. “I believe Mr. Majumbdahr was acting on a request by me, sir. We received word that you had not been acclimatized to Veden, due to the shortness of time. I feared exposure to Lekki without your polarizers would damage your retinal tissue.” As he spoke our party walked along a dimly lit corridor. I felt awkward and irritated, dragging along the suit.

He turned to the rest of them outside a doorway—I noticed his name plate read Imirinichin—and said, “I believe we can fit contact filters for you, sir, without the rest of the Control staff following us around. If you please?”

“Yes, surely.” I waved a hand and they broke up. Majumbdahr and Gharma, my two Executive Officers, took chairs in a waiting room across the hall. Imirinichin and I went in the doorway and suddenly the world brightened for me. It was an ordinary office except for a few specialized instruments on one wall. I turned to see Imirinichin, a lean man with the slow smile and wrinkled eyes of one who jests well, putting on goggles.

“The light in here is adjusted to be comfortable for you, and tolerable for me if I wear these. If you’ll sit in that chair—”

A nurse came in wearing the same goggles, her slimness molding the uniform she wore more than I would have believed possible, and helped me lower my bulk into place. She expertly unfastened my helmet. In a moment I was free of the suit and no longer feeling like a turtle caught in a sand pit. She lowered a cantilevered mask over my face, fitted twin cylinders to my eyes with infinite care and flipped a switch.

The room went dark, as nearly as I could tell with my eyes almost covered, and a competent hum came from the apparatus around me. In a moment the computer had finished measuring my cornea, making inquiries of my retinal cells, musing over the patterns of red blood vessels, and switched itself off. The mask came away.

“You see, sir,” Imirinichin said from a comfortable red office chair opposite me, “Veden is unusual in many ways. The first thing a newcomer notices is the high ultraviolet content of Lekki. Exposure to it will burn out a man’s retinal tissue in a few days. There’s infrared in intensities sufficient to keep the planet’s ecological processes going-photosynthesis and so forth—but the atmosphere can’t filter out enough of the violet to make it comfortable for eyes that were developed in the green jungles of Earth.”

“So what do I do?” I should have expected something of the sort as soon as I popped out of Jump space and saw Lekki.

“Well, it’s no problem—your contacts are being made up now. You’ve had experience wearing ordinary contact lenses before?”

I blinked and popped my two lenses out into my hand. Like ninety percent of the human race, I wore them. (Interesting: humanitarian though universal medical care may be, the bad genes that lived because of it insure that not one human in ten could survive in the droughted Africa where the race was born, from defective eyesight alone.)

“Good.” He found a small box for them and nodded at the nurse. “I think the new ones should be ready now.” A chime rang as he said it.

I watched the nurse bend over and take a small machine-wrapped package out of a chute transport slot. In a moment tears were running down my face as I tried to fit in contacts that nearly covered my entire cornea.

“They must be that large, sir, to protect the entire eye,” Imirinichin said. “Contact filters are a rather specialized branch of photoplastic engineering, and these were developed here on Veden by the original colonists over two hundred years ago. Without them, we’d all be blind.”

I struggled with the contact filters a few more minutes—it was surprising how quickly they seemed comfortable to me—and looked up to find the room bathed in a dusky twilight. With the contacts in almost all the spectrum as seen on Earth was filtered out. If this was what Imirinichin saw, he was nearly blind in this room.

“No, I am even worse off than you,” he said when I asked him. “I’m adapted. People who plan to become permanent inhabitants—and that’s almost everyone on Veden, for there is little commerce with other systems these days-have their retinal patterns and cells altered to accommodate Lekki’s spectrum. The alteration is much more comfortable than the contacts you’re wearing.

“I’m able to get around this office because I’m familiar with it. It’s been mine for forty years. But as I sit here, looking at you, only a vague outline comes though.” He smiled. “Let me switch back to the usual phosphors.”

When the banded patterns of light flared on I could see again clearly. Imirimchin and the girl took off their strange goggles.

“We wear these shields to prevent the high infrared of Sol light from burning us,” he said, walking around to his desk. “But I’m afraid you’ll not enjoy the advantage of a skin morphology. I take it you are here on a rotating assignment?”

I nodded. I couldn’t hope to be kept in service after what the Council called the “current crisis” was over. If it was ever over.

“Then skin treatments to make prolonged exposure to Lekki possible are not favored for you. They are usually irreversible. Once you had the treatments you could not live anywhere near a G-sequence star.”

“You have had one, then?”

He nodded and gestured light at the girl, who was bent over me, studying the fit of my contacts through a flash blinker. “We all do, those of us who are natives. But you, sir, will have to wear the more formal Fleet uniform designed for Veden. It covers you nearly completely. I’ll have some sent round in the morning.”

The blinker stopped and the girl nodded prettily. The entire time I had been in the room she had not let a word pass her lips. When the fluttering yellow afterimage had faded I looked around to test my vision.

“Everything seems normal,” I said, “but the colors…”

He chewed his lip and looked a bit chagrined. “Yes, there’s that. We can’t obtain a complete compensation over the entire spectrum, so colors will be shifted and changed for you. I hope it will not be of great inconvenience to you, sir.”

“No, I’ll adjust.” I stood up and looked briefly at both of them. It was going to be quite a change. “I believe my Executive Officers are waiting outside.”

Gharma came toward me, his smile flashing brilliantly against chestnut brown skin pocked with the large pores of the Hindic. He was a heavyset man with dark hair and eyes that expanded a fraction just before he spoke, as though the words were going to explode out of him. We exchanged pleasantries about my contacts. He curled his words out lazily and yet precisely for the inspection of the listener.

Majumbdahr followed him, taller and with the slightly slanted eyes and lighter complexion that spoke of his mixed ancestry. “It’s after normal working hours,” he said. “I don’t think a tour of the Fleet Authority offices would be particularly useful for you today, sir.”

“I presume you’ve gathered the usual summary for my review?”

He smiled. “Certainly. Do you want to read them on your first evening on Veden?”

“I thought I might. It was a tiring trip. I will probably want to sleep. Where are my offices?”

Gharma motioned to an elevator. “The staff are probably gone by now.” We rode up seven floors and emerged in an ornately styled warren of carpeted rooms walled with imposing bookshelves in something like leather and wood, but with a raw orange cast that signified their native origin. I made a note to find out what they were; materials like them were rare on Earth. My suite was varied: chart rooms crammed with orbital simulation displays and direct readout screens; space for secretaries and aides; conference chambers with more of the leather and wood; a private communications link that could override the Control facilities in an emergency; files of tape and film; and lastly my office, hushed in soft textures and tones, space for pacing or thought or meditation, an enormous desk—wood again—with every conceivable aid built into it. It overlooked the field, and a line of forest beyond that underlined the wavering wink of Kalic’s city lights in the distance. Dusk was ending and black fingers cloaked the field as I watched a steady line of cars wind away.

“The summary, sir,” Majumbdahr said. I took the case with a large red Priority seal on it and tucked it under my arm as we went out.

“Your quarters are some distance,” Gharma said. “I believe Mr. Majumbdahr has taken care of preparations there.”

“Fine,” I said, my voice echoing in the elevator as we went down. “I would like to see both of you gentlemen tomorrow morning, nine hundred hours. We’ll have quite a bit to talk over.”

Gharma said good night and Majumbdahr led me out the front entrance. It was a rather impressively delicate structure, curved lattices supported by columns and cantilevered beams of rakish tilts that would have been impossible in heavier gravities. Everywhere curves; no angles, no sharpness or sudden contrast to jar the eye. A man’s voice reflecting back from the building carried the (tinkling) sound of hidden laughter.

Majumbdahr pushed the car’s throttle forward and we pulled out smoothly. Steam cars fueled with low-grade hydrocarbons are prevalent in the colonies; they haven’t been seen on Earth for a century or more, owing to the depletion of the oil reserves. We slipped easily into thin traffic of the same type vehicles and weaved through broad boulevards without important conversation. I wanted the chance to see the city, and generally I was impressed. It had an air of quiet and tranquility that was becoming quite rare on Earth, and Majumbdahr himself had none of the hidden panic I’d lived with in the men of the Sasenbo. He obviously knew how the war was going—everyone down to the middle administrative levels of Fleet did—but it didn’t trouble him, and it never entered our conversation.

We turned onto what appeared to be country roads and in a few minutes were gliding into the long shadow of a hill. Through the yellows and greens of low brush, the plants themselves now indistinct, I could see the dull blue winking of water.

“Your home has The Lapis at its doorstep,” Majumbdahr said. “Lekki rises directly across the lake most of the year. We usually get a fog in early evening, but sunrise burns it off.”

Fleet found it good policy to house their primary officers in the best residential districts in the colonies. That established their social class and made for easy relations with civilians at the top of the local governments. It was easy to see Veden fit the rule.

The house was a faint blur high up the hill, its soft light filtered through slender ferns and a trace of gathering mist. We purred up the driveway and stopped at the base of a ramp. Something fluttered low over our heads, gliding silently as a wisp of fog, and lit in a fern. It warbled a high singsong call and was answered from somewhere down by the lake, a sad note that drifted up through the gathering wetness in the air.

The house had a look of softened aluminum and tile and blackened enamel. Its roof floated high above visible support and symmetric rectangular blocks of warm light reached out to gather the forest around it like a blanket. The fog was rolling in over it now, bringing a faint trace of body and flavor to the air.

The thick door was opened by a small brown man with a touch of gravity in his manner. Patil, the houseboy, I learned, was an honored domestic of many years service. He was quiet and efficient and had us seated within a moment by an open fire (burning wood!) with sweating drinks in our hands. He introduced Jamilla, a woman of indeterminant age with smooth skin and a look of playfulness about her: my second rank domestic, cook and bedchamber girl. Majumbdahr explained that although Veden was infrequently visited, the normal formalities and liberties common to the Empire were the custom here too, and I should not have difficulty in adjusting.

We walked onto a stone platform that jutted out from the house to meet the tops of trees that grew from below. I was still wearing my Spartan coverall that was standard gear with space suits.

“Patil will dress you in the Fleet uniform appropriate to Veden on the morrow,” Majumbdahr said. He looked at me curiously, as if trying to understand this strange new Director who demanded the official Summary in his first hour on the planet, and showed no indication of interest in meeting other officers his first evening.

A small creature, something like a mouse with bat wings and furry topknot, coasted in through layers of fog and landed on my shoulders. I picked him up on a finger and saw his wings were translucent and covered with fine pearly drops of moisture.

“An air squirrel,” Majumbdahr said. “Scavengers, if you let them be. They’re really too friendly for their own good.”

“There seems to be much flying life here.” I listened to the beat of wings above us and the faint high cries of pursuit.

“Low gravity. We have not been harmful to most of the forms, so they do not resettle on other parts of Baslin.”

“Why couldn’t they migrate to the lowlands and leave the plateau to men?”

He smiled. “The same reason we do not live there. Between Lekki and the Black Dwarf, both of them with mass greater than Sol, Veden is subject to large tidal forces. The winds and heat of the lowlands are too variable and totally, unpredictable. Up here on the plateau we know the prevailing winds—always inward, from the sea. The flying animals do too. They couldn’t survive in eighty mile gales any better than we.”

He took the air squirrel from my finger, coaxed it with a crumb from his pocket and threw the bread up into the air. The animal leaped, caught it with a snap and coasted away on an updraft. I looked at Majumbdahr and decided I liked him. Which was well, for if I followed my plan he would be one of the few Vedens I would know.

We said our ritual farewells and I finished my inspection of my home, Patil and Jamilla following at a discreet distance and seeming pleased when I approved. I exchanged pleasantries with them, saw that my belongings from the shuttle were stored properly and had Patil lay out my bedclothes.

A warm bath braced me and shortly afterward I sprawled on my bed and cracked the seal on my case.

I studied the Situation Report from Fleet Headquarters first. This was what I’d been waiting weeks and months to see. As a passenger on the Sasenbo I’d heard rumors and gossip but no reliable hard information about the war, but now as a Director, no matter how low, I was entitled to know.

Siganex IV had fallen. The same pattern again as on Regeln: a tactical fent by the Quarn, the Plague descending, death and chaos. There was a three-dimensional star chart included showing the new boundaries of the Empire and probable points for the next Quarn attack. It was a shock. The last such display I had seen was shortly after Regeln, and the pitiful collapsed ball I saw now was a fraction of the Empire then. Several isolated outposts had been taken in the last few weeks, I noted, and the pinpoints of light which indicated Fleet’s dispersal of ships were asymmetric, off balance and obviously unable to coherently defend the contracting boundaries.

I thumbed for a closeup on my flatpad display device and the region around Lekki and the Black Dwarf leaped into focus. There were few neighbors. The red star Elaren blazed down on a small radioactive ferrite extracting mission fourteen lights out. Beyond that were a few other temporary expeditions on inhospitable worlds, there for limited scientific of economic purposes. The nearest full status colony, larger even then Veden, was Calning, in orbit around a massive gas giant of a planet that in turn circled an F9 star. None of these had detected Quarn. The nearest contact was seventy-eight lights out, a very recent sighting only seven lights from the massive colony and base at Beta Hydri. The Quarn appeared to be trying to pinch the Empire’s sphere into two irregular volumes of human-occupied space. But if past experience was any help, this pattern was as much the product of the Quarn’s irregular tactics and seemingly random strikes as anything else.

That was the point: the fact that Veden was buried deep in the remaining Empire volume was no insurance that Quarn would not appear here tomorrow. This was an arbitrary war, not played according to the traditional game psychology of Fleet’s computers. As yet no one knew how or even why the Quarn took a planet. Or what could stop them.

So Veden wasn’t safe. I would have to oversee the steady rain of transferring ships dropping out of Jump space, looping around the dwarf and off to some new destination with only a brief burst of news as greetings—oversee it all, keep the Jump ships and ancient ramscoops moving, while watching over my shoulder to see if the Quarn had suddenly winked into existence behind me.

I picked up the Local Situation Report and then tossed it aside. Gharma and Majumbdahr could brief me on that tomorrow. I was hungry for more details about the Quarn but the terse Fleet dispatch wasn’t giving anything away that it didn’t have to.

Next came the Local Personnel file. I checked the names and positions that interested me and the small piezoelectric monitor beamed a request back to the computer sitting under my offices. In a moment it gave a squeal that meant the required information was logged into its ferrite memory and I cradled the flatpad on my knees, flexed my back, which was becoming accustomed to significant gravities again, and started to read.

Mahesh Majumbdahr, age forty-seven Earth years, six feet two inches (same as myself), hair black, eyes black, born Earth (I raised my eyebrows at that) to Mainland parents of low stock; parents emigrated when he was five, settled on Veden. Attended usual series: primary, technical, sensitivity and arts, showed proficiency in athletics and played odeynsn professionally for four years, enjoyed some fame as writer of haiku, joined Fleet at age twenty-five. Security cleared maximum for Lekki system. Married on long term contract, terminated three years ago with mutual consent.

There was much more relating to his professional career, and I absorbed it automatically. But what I was after was more than the raw facts of the man: I needed to know him, what bias he had, how well he could work on a closely personal basis. Most of that can only be judged by intuition.

Lapanthul Gharma, age fifty-two Earth years, six feet even, hair brown, eyes green, descendant of three generations native to Veden, considered high caste (this last a recent entry; perhaps caste was only lately added as relevant data?) and of high standing in local sect (unnamed). Parents both of notable rank; father recently retired from political circles to devote his time to meditation and enlightenment (hand-written note: rumored he was forced out in power play by agricultural interests). Entered Fleet service at age twenty-one and declared for commission two years later. (No known other interests.) Same security clearance. Married permanently. (Interesting. Quite rare.)

I went down the list of other staff members, some of them unusual, others dull as dirt. Strange what Personnel will think relevant and stick in a man’s file. Read several accounts of illicit affairs and resultant difficulties, none of them bearing even slightly on Fleet business or security reliability, then chucked it aside. No time for gossip. (Not much, anyway.)

With surprise I felt a touch of hunger. I sounded a chime over my bed and Jamilla came in with lowered eyes, took my request for fruit and padded quietly out.

I leaned back and thought about my two Executive Officers. Gharma seemed more steady, but less fond of the spark of a new idea. Majumbdahr might make a better friend, if that was what I was after.

And maybe I was. I had decided on the Sasenbo to save my time on Veden, not become tangled in the thousand loose ends of a military command. There was only one way to do that: find a core of men you could trust and let them make a lot of the decisions. Gharma and Majumbdahr were going to be the core. It had to be more than the usual delegation of authority—every officer knows he must release some of his hold or hell end up ordering his paper clips—and I would have to play it by ear.

I needed time. Fleet was finished; not for me the plugging of holes in a crumbling dike.

I had lost everything, been cast out. There was no joy left for me in Sabal, in the warm knit that held me since I was a boy. I had to find something more. Veden was the spiritual center of the Hindic minority, a small fragment of the Empire that rejected the Mongol culture as well as it could. Perhaps they had something for me here. If not, I had accepted the commission under false hopes and might as well be back in the Slots.

The Hindic and the Quarn. I felt a tension between the two. Veden was at least still human. The Quarn held all the mystery and hope of the unknown.

Jamilla entered with a bowl of cylindrical fruit and a snifter of red liquid. The fruit was tough at first but after a moment’s chewing released juices with the flavor of warm almonds. The drink was a clashing of the tang of oranges with a smooth background like apricot nectar that somehow resolved itself and quenched my thirst.

I caught Jamilla studying me with interest. No more than a fraction of the people here were Mongol in descent, and certainly she had seen few Polynesians such as me. I supposed my lighter hair and thin beard (a gene of the Caucasoids, that) were unusual, but…

Normal formalities and liberties, Majumbdahr had said. I raised an eyebrow in speculation. It had been a long time.

I finished eating, put the tray aside and made a formal sign understood throughout the Empire.

Jamilla smiled and unfastened the brass buckle at her side. Her sansari was a wisp of cloth wound into expert folds over her slim body. Watching her gracefully remove it was an entertainment. She came into bed with the good taste not to extinguish the rights as she entered. She was a scent as sweet as the wind.

In the morning Patil aided me in fitting my Fleet Kochu robes. They were designed to cover the wearer against Lekki’s ultraviolet, and were robes only by convention for they retained pants and vest. The only addition was a cowl that rode on the back of my neck and could be slipped over to shade my face.

My contact filters flushed the morning with an orange tinge even though Lekki’s violet dot threw shattered light up to me from The Lapis. The water traced a pencil line of horizon across two-thirds of the view from my home and I could see the current ripples as the triple tides of Lekki, the Dwarf and Pincter, Veden’s moon, pulled at the lake. The beach a hundred meters below was a broad white plain worn smooth by the hissing waves.

All this I saw while blinking the contacts into place and walking down the ramp to my staff car. The driver saluted, and with a slight piping of steam we went down into the world of men.

Our route skirted the capital. I noted that the thin towers in the distance did not swirl in a dank layer of brown hydrocarbons, as some, industrial colonies still did—principally those with antiquated ideas of “free choice.” It was a hopeful sign.

I wasted an hour in the unavoidable preliminaries in my new offices; nodding at secretaries, exchanging ritual salutes with second and third rank administrators, accepting a traditional welcoming gift of burnished rice and layered spices (take one mouthful, then offer it to the troops). Then to the main conference room, filled with twenty staff workers. Their eyes widened slightly as I sent them all on detailed, eminently defensible tail-chasing jobs that would take days or weeks to complete. Correlate fluctuations in rice crop and number of ships passing through the Flinger; compile composite history of all minority economic alternatives used on Veden which had applicability to Empire economy; detail origin of more recent sects (this I could actually use); each division prepare reports, sharpen up training schedule, stipulate defense capability, justify all current supply levels. The orders were a compendium of jargon and catchphrases, but it accomplished the result: keep them busy, get them out of the room. When only Majumbdahr and Gharma remained I relaxed.

“Now tell me about Baslin. What are the people thinking?”

“Not very much thinking is being done,” said Majumbdahr slowly. “There’s a great deal of reacting, though.”

“How do you mean?”

“They’re confused. The reports from the colonies further out haven’t been precisely encouraging.”

“Are you sure this isn’t simply what you’ve been hearing from the population of Kalic? On Earth the city populations are breaking down much faster than the rural areas.”

“Even on Veden, sir,” Gharma broke in, “there are not substantial numbers living among the jungles. They are not a significant group.”

“Why aren’t they spread out?”

“You haven’t seen Kalic yet,” Majumbdahr said. “Veden isn’t like the other colony worlds—the Mongol cluster-home isn’t popular here.”

Gharma gestured with his hands as if a flower were unfolding. “Our cities are as pods on a quasimakas plant, spaced to insure adequate sunlight and full growth. The openness of the growthlands is always with us. To live otherwise is…” He stopped awkwardly, realizing that he had almost implied a criticism of the Mongol aesthetics, to which presumably I would subscribe.

I gave him a soft smile. “I quite understand. The same principles once held even on Earth. Necessities of population changes these things.” I turned to Majumbdahr. “I take it you feel even the citizens of Kalic and the other outlying cities are not truly in what the Empire would regard as an urban environment?”

“Yes, as far as I understand Fleet’s analysis.”

“I think it is certainly true, sir,” Gharma said. “Veden is much more stable because of it.”

Majumbdahr looked at him a little sourly. “I wonder about that.”

I glanced a question.

“Well, sir,” he said quickly, bringing his hands together on the opaque gray of the conference table. “I don’t like the feeling that’s running through Kalic. I wasn’t born here, but I think I have a good grasp of the gestalt. People are seething inside. It hasn’t come out yet, but it will.”

Gharma shook his head. “As you may see, sir, we have talked of this before.”

“Natural enough. In the absence of a Director you were responsible for knowledge of the political side. It’s an open secret that Fleet is now relying more on its reports from Directors than the official opinion given by the Embassies.”

Gharma blinked rapidly. “Oh no, I’m afraid you do not understand. This is not a political matter at all. We are speaking here of the tranquility and enlightenment of the people.”

I nodded, silently pleased. They were both showing a sensitivity that might easily have been drilled out of them by now, in Fleet. I couldn’t use men who thought like political hacks, glutted with details and trivia, statistics and polls, afflicted with a ward heeler’s smug myopia, stuttering out data.

“Of course.” Majumbdahr waved the comment away with rough hands too large for the rest of his body. “But sit in the temples, Lapanthul”—side glance to me—“Mr. Gharma. They’re stirring. Their meditation is not enough.”

“Is that true, Lapanthul?” I said.

“I do not feel that it is—and that is the final test. But I am not quite as, ah, basic as Mahesh. I do not move in quite the same spheres as he.”

Majumbdahr settled back in his formed plastic chair. “What he means is that his sect is very high in caste, and mine lies somewhere in the middle.” He grinned. “It gives one a different slant, I’d imagine.”

“Caste? I’d thought…”

Gharma cleared his throat. “Yes, it does exist on Veden. We all know the Empire has no such thing, but I have heard that we are not alone—other colonies, and not Hindic in origin, have caste, or something like it.” He said this with the somewhat stiff and defiant air of a man confessing a minor but habitual vice. “But caste. The term…”

“Historically it was an evil thing,” Majumbdahr said. “The choice of word is unfortunate. I’ve always held it should be something like ‘station.’ ” With this he glanced up at Gharma. “But the social conventions favored the traditional term. It does not have the same connotation as in Old India.”

Gharma smiled brilliantly. “He means to say, not yet. Mahesh thinks we’re headed that way, nonetheless.”

I realized that they were good friends, despite their differences. There was a warmth in their argument, as though it were an old shoe they felt comfortable wearing.

“All right, so there’s caste,” I said, sighing slightly. There was something about this conversation, a sort of agonizing slowness to converge on the point that may have been just the Hindic way of doing things. I was going to have to get used to a more indirect approach. “It would seem that by traditional sociological principles that would make Vedens more secure, happier with their place. But that’s no help. People throughout the Empire were contented, they hadn’t lost phase. But I’ve seen all of them struck down by the Plague. They had no defense.”

Gharma looked suddenly sadder. “We know that. I don’t understand how it could happen, when—”

“Have you had any cases here yet?”

Both of them looked slightly startled, as though the thought hadn’t occurred to them that Veden was vulnerable. “Nothing has been reported—” Gharma started.

“Do you know how to recognize the symptoms? Has Fleet sent through instructional information, case histories?”

“Yes, a little. I have read it myself. It is difficult to believe.” Gharma shook his head slowly, as if realizing for the first time that the Plague was real and not just the abstract subject of a series of dispatches.

“Break out all the material you have on the Plague,” I said. “Form up classes from personnel not on essential duty. Get space in the civilian press for full coverage: how to spot the symptoms, first signs that you may be getting it yourself, treatment, history, the works. You’ve delayed on this too long. Veden isn’t an exception—the Plague will hit here, eventually, and we’ve got to be prepared.” I banged my fist down on the table.

Gharma got up and went over to a wall communicator, spoke into it in a whisper and returned. “Done,” he said softly.

How could they have let it go? It was one thing to be bottled up on this outpost, watching the ships flash through the Flinger but seldom having one land—and quite another to forget about defending the planet.

“I take it these measures are of some use against the Plague?” Majumbdahr asked.

“Perhaps, perhaps,” I said, distracted. Did they know how much I’d been through? Forget it; no time to worry. “They seem to slow it down and sometimes keep the people alive. That’s all we know, but it’s enough.”

“I think the people probably know more than you’d think, Lapanthul,” Majumbdahr said. “There have been numerous news services’ reports, 3D programs. Not much, to be sure”—he glanced at me to show that he knew as well as anyone about Fleet censorship—“but I think they may be prepared for it, the Plague, when it comes. Giving them the complete facts will make it easier—fear comes from the unknown, not the known. That’s why they’re in the streets-fear.”

“The streets?” I asked.

“Civil disturbances,” Gharma said earnestly. “A few, and quickly contained.”

“What about?”

“Fleet movements aren’t well-kept secrets,” Majumbdahr said. “A lot of civilians work in Communications, so they know there isn’t a respectable Task Force near this system. If the Quarn hit us we’d stand alone, with just a few ships.” Gharma nodded. “I don’t think they realize quite that they are afraid. The violence is so undirected—”

“Reporting, sir!” It was an official Fleet secretary I’d sent on a makework assignment an hour ago. “Fleet vessel LS. Colon has passed formal recognition procedures after emerging from Jump space and requests final orbital check for her Flicker orbit.”

A mass of jargon that meant I had to give my final meaningless approval of an orbit already programmed for the ship. The L.S. Caton had been locked into the course ever since it popped out of Jump space several days ago, but the ancient formalities of the Port Master had to be observed.

“Granted,” I said. “I’d like to observe the looping if possible.”

“That will be this afternoon,” Majumbdahr said. “I’m sure Control would welcome a visiting inspection, sir.”

I nodded, restless. I really didn’t give a damn about Fleet business any longer; I wanted to see Veden, meet the myriad sounds and smells of a new world, not sit in this office.

“Mr. Majumbdahr! Do you think you could find a suitable restaurant in Kalic for lunch?” I said.

He smiled as though he sensed my’ impatience. I gave Gharma a sharp salute of dismissal and in a moment we were out, away, free, my long official limousine moving like a whale among the thin schools of stubby personal cars on the highway.

The avenues were incredibly broad, so that even in heavy traffic we moved quickly. Ferns lined the boulevards and great clusters of iridescent blossoms hung over us. Even when we entered the city there was no sudden laying on of man’s hand; I could glimpse the flutter of walls and of the ferns, but the bare baked quality of a city open to the air was missing.

Everywhere there was color. Magenta fronds, tangled snake vines of chilled deep green, the impersonal dulled tan of the highway; and all crowned by a clear sky of even blue. The colors reminded me of my contact filters and I blinked rapidly a few times. They were occasionally uncomfortable.

Vegetation thinned and the curving slopes of buildings flowed down to the highway. None of them fronted on the traffic, evidently to avoid exposing their visitors to any more noise than was necessary.

The driver found an official ramp and parked. Majumbdahr and I left the limousine and took an express lift down to the commercial streets below and then across three blocks diagonally. We emerged on a large square bustling with the noonday rush, the clicking of hundreds of sandals, the murmur of conversation as knots of friends drifted past.

The shops that lined the tiled walkways were fairly small, most of them, and displayed their wares with abandon, letting robes spill from their holders; beads and books piled together in the display cases; fruits and spices competed for the same spot in a window. There was a cheerful easiness about it, and the people were the same: talking, laughing, greeting the price of items with a feigned sharp bark of disbelief.

We cut across the square with Lekki straight overhead, burning a hole in heaven. A few men and women, clad in raiments of vaguely religious tones, were speaking to the passersby of their mission in life, advising them of the benefits that accrued to anyone of their chosen faith. But not pushing it, not with the intense drive of the cultists I had seen on Earth. There was a relaxed air here.

Five of the women in a circle chanted:

“I am

Not great or small

But only

Part of All.”

We turned into a narrow street, almost an alley, that was the exact opposite of the clean, broad streets I’d seen. Here the even sheet of plastiform street changed into a bumpy track of black cobblestone that wound among shops which were themselves irregular in pitch and structure. Some huddled together and others sprawled out, but all were busy with people buying and selling, bartering in, high-pitched tones, inspecting the goods, eyeing the shopkeepers. It was like a page of history. I recognized emblems and signets of Old India, some even dating from before the Riot War.

“This is part of the ‘reconstructed’ district,” Majumbdahr said, “devoted to retaining the atmosphere of the Hindic past. Much of it is honest and true to the original. Those rice bins”—he gestured at an enormous tub with an indecipherable scrawl in red on the side—“contain pure strains a gourmet would have recognized even in Old India. They’re kept in controlled environments so the Veden ecology doesn’t alter them even slightly.”

“All this to retain the old ways?”

“The flavor of the past keeps us in touch with our roots. These things, these crafts and methods”—he motioned about us—“were part of the Rebirth of the Hindic people after the Riot War. It is well to keep them. They might be useful even again.”

I looked at him curiously, wondering if he was thinking of the Quarn.

We made our way through streets that seemed to reek of ancient ways and thoughts. I paused occasionally to watch a grinder or a spindrifter at work, saw an elementary syncon computer being used to operate a foundry that produced images of Fanakana, a winged dragon-dog of early (and now dead) mythology, walked among carved erotic statues ten meters high, sniffed the grainy texture of air filled with the sweat of work and reek of spices.

It was a bit unconventional for Majumbdahr to bring me here. Usually a Fleet underofficer would take his superior to a more formal and military luncheon, to demonstrate his seriousness. But then, Majumbdahr was an unconventional officer.

I remembered one of the incidents related in his file. Some years ago, in a lesser post, Majumbdahr had dined alone in the Kalic officers’ mess. The room was busy and waiters did not notice him, seated in a far corner. He became impatient. But instead of stalking out, Majumbdahr went to a phone booth and called a restaurant that delivered meals. He asked them to bring a spiced dahlma to the officers’ mess. When it arrived he made no great show of eating, but a few officers noticed and the story spread. The Commandant heard of it and investigated the standards or service in the mess. Soon matters improved. And through it all Majumbdahr had said nothing, never raised his voice in criticism. It was an effective technique.

We reached a small squat restaurant and found our way inside through near-total darkness, sweeping by bead curtains under the guidance of a wrinkled old headwaiter.

“It is very fine,” I said after we were seated. “I have seen nothing to equal this district anywhere in the Empire.”

Majumbdahr smiled deprecatingly. “Really? But these things are necessary—cultural drifts occur without them. How is it done on Earth?”

“By symbols, mostly,” I said, trying to phrase my answer correctly. “We—or rather, they—focus on the part rather than the whole. Instead of a statue, a stone. A forest becomes a plate of wood. And there is the Sabal Game, of course.”

He nodded. “The Game is played here, as well, but only by a few. We do not find it particularly relevant to our needs.”

The waitress brought a steaming plate of rolled breads like papadams, with meat inside soaking in a sauce. “What replaces it?” I asked.

“A number of things, perhaps none of them as impressive as the Game. This district, for one. The isolation we have from the rest of the Empire helps, too—few cross-cultural influences manage to get here, and when they do they’re sometimes so extraneous as to have no effect. And of course the tradition of the Savant, the Saint, the Guru.”

I finished the breads—which had turned out to be a sort of woven rice cake instead—and paused. “This meat? Is it—”

“Of course.” Majumbdahr shrugged. “Organic products.”

“I’ve heard of colony planets on which—”

“Not here. No lower forms are slaughtered.”

I smiled and continued eating a side dish of marinated vegetables placed at my elbow. The alternative to the organic tanks—once it was agreed that animals, being spiritually of the same Order, could not be harmed—was vegetarianism, a singularly difficult and unhealthy path.

“Savants, you said?” I continued. “We had few of those on Earth or the colonies I visited.”

“I don’t believe the practice is part of the Mongol heritage. In the dead religion of Confucianism it had a place, I’m told, but the Riot War ended that.”

“Some hold it died in the First Republic that was formed on the mainland just before the War.”

Majumbdahr bit his lip uncomfortably. “Perhaps, but it doesn’t matter.” He didn’t want to get involved in the intricacies of Empire political history, particularly since they might still touch on the present. “The old ways of Zen, when they reached the inlands after the War, fairly well destroyed the appointed station of the Guru. One doesn’t need a guide to find what is all around him and yet within himself.”

“I would not put it quite that way,” I said, laughing gently. I remembered my first instruction, the koan I had wrestled with for seeming ages when I was a boy. It was a classic ambiguity, simple and full of depth for meditation. Its eleventh century name (Christian reckoning) was the “Three Barriers of Hung-Lun.”

Question: Everybody has a place of birth. Where is your place of birth?

Answer: Early this morning I ate white rice gruel. Now I’m hungry again.

Question: How is my hand like the Buddha’s hand?

Answer: Playing the lute under the moon.

Question: How is my foot like a donkey’s foot?

Answer: When the white heron stands in the snow it has a different color.

The first answer? It indicates that facts of birth and death are snowflakes in the great wind of time, as trivial as the eternal cycle of hunger and satiety. The second: let loose your constant reasoning, sing to the moon and be the Buddha. Be here. And the third? I do not think I can express it, even now, in words.

That was the first stage, zazen, individual perceptions of the essential. After that came social awareness, the gestalt, the Game.

“Perhaps all this—the Guru, the spiritual leader—isn’t strong enough in our time to hold your society together,” I said. We had finished the gatan curry laced with coriander and the world had taken on a deep, salty tang. I knew I had to go slowly in drawing information from Majumbdahr, since that is the way of the Hindic, but even in the lazy warmth after the meal I had to hold myself in check.

“We seem to be doing well,” he said, nostrils flaring slightly.

“No disturbances, not even a hint?”

“I’ve started training the regular police to control them. But it will take time; we’re not accustomed to that sort of thing.”

“What—”

A low rumbling cry came from outside, the sound of many voices. I bit into the tart sweetness of a mandarin and listened to the sound grow and be matched by the shuffling sound of running. I looked inquiringly at Majumbdahr.

“It might be some Lancers. They sometimes do this in the old district—”

“Lancers? Why—” Impatient to move, I got up and threaded my way out through the topple tables of the restaurant. As I went out the door the sound burst over me and a man slammed into my shoulder, pitching me to the side.

The crowd was backed up flush with the shops, facing toward the narrow street, packed in tightly. I couldn’t see a thing. The chanting came nearer. It was almost covered by the babble of conversation from the pedestrians, who were obviously expecting a show.

Majumbdahr materialized beside me. “Help me break through,” I yelled.

Together we pushed against the wall of backs keeping us from the street, first out of coordination and then shoving together, until something gave. I jostled forward through the bodies, ignoring scowls and snarls. In a moment I was near the front.

The Lancers had just gotten to this point and were streaming by, shouting something about Veden and rights, waving tapestries on bamboo poles, stamping and hooting and jamming the onlookers back from the center of the path. The crowd didn’t seem to be worried or afraid; they treated it as a lark, an entertainment. It seemed to me a lot of noise for nothing—it was impossible to tell what they were shouting about.

Then I heard a slight scream from further back in the Lancer column. A sharp cry of pain, a bark of outrage. Then another. People around me stirred. The barrage of sound from the Lancers increased in volume but now I could hear the screams clearly over the chant.

Majumbdahr caught my eye and gestured toward the cries, which seemed to be getting closer. I nodded, asked a question with my eyebrows. He shrugged. Evidently this latest touch was new to him too.

And to the crowd as well. They pushed back toward the shops, trying to get away from the center of the street. In a moment I stood alone, watching men and women struggling to press into the already crowded shops.

The Lancers came on. Two hundred must have passed already. The chant was fading gradually and, standing there, even in my coverall uniform and cowl, I felt vaguely defenseless as I waited for whatever was coming around the next corner. But an officer does not run.

The end of the Lancer column broke around the corner of a shop further down the alley. Young men in loincloths, carrying short, stubby clubs lashed out at the crowd cowering in doorways. Perhaps a dozen of them.

Majumbdahr stood at my right. One of them laughed, struck a man in the side, hurled an oath at him and passed on. The Lancers in column were smiling too. A lark. Holiday afternoon, for them.

They saw us. Three broke out of file and converged on us, rocking the clubs loosely in their hands, casual.

I went back into rest position, left forearm out, right leg cocked back and keeping balance over my body center. Right arm tucked into side. Training school memories. Watch their faces, focus forward, eyes front but seeing everything to the sides.

The first one swung a club down with his right and I blocked with my forearm, dropping further back. He went slightly off balance and I raised my right knee, shot out a chopping foreleg kick that caught him in the stomach, and dropped back to balance.

The kick wasn’t strong enough. Getting old. He came forward again, this time favoring his right side where the kick had landed. Side chop with the club, very fast. I stepped back again, watching him move. No opening worth the chance.

The third man stood aside, watching.

Majumbdahr was moving in the corner of my eye, trying to wrestle his man to the ground. Mine came at me again. This time he rushed a little and his right foot came down too early for the overhead blow he’d planned.

I stepped forward, chopped his arm and shot my left elbow into his face as he stumbled past me. He landed unevenly on the obsidian cobblestones. He shook his head, too dazed to get up.

The third man had vanished with the tail of the Lancer column and Majumbdahr had his pinned to the ground. I felt a little silly, a senior officer fighting in the streets, and the civilians were eyeing me curiously.

“Send for the police!” I shouted at one of them. Then I noticed the crumpled form further down the street.

It was a girl, unconscious. Her black hair fanned out in a crescent around her head and there was an ugly red patch on her scalp. I cradled her head to see if there were any other wounds. Someone came over and volunteered that the Lancers hadn’t struck her; she must have fallen in the rush.

Police whined over in a helicopter and dropped into the street on ladders; evidently ground transport through the reconstructed district was too slow. I held the girl’s head and ignored the two Lancers, who were being led away. Somehow I didn’t want to let go of her. She was injured in a stupid, pointless demonstration—if that was the right name—and I felt strangely responsible. If I’d pressed Gharma about civil disturbances I might’ve been working on the problem instead of sightseeing in town. And this was just the sort of thing that the Quarn could use, I knew.

It had the feel of strangeness, of people going off their precarious balance. The Hindic peoples were always pacifists. We even had trouble recruiting Fleet base personnel on Veden. A group like the Lancers was totally at variance with the traditions here. Yet they were here, and the crowds had smiled, perhaps even identified with them. Why? Did the Lancers express something they all wanted to say, but couldn’t?

Someone was tapping me on the shoulder. I looked up into Majumbdahr’s face and at once realized that I didn’t want to let the girl go. Holding her like this was a form of therapy for me, something to bring me out of the shock of the scuffle I’d had. It had been years since I’d even practiced personal martial arts. But I still wasn’t going to let her go.

“Medical is here, sir,” he said. “They’ll be wanting…”

“Tell them… tell them to treat her and deliver her to my personal home,” I said without thinking. “I want to talk to her.” I looked down and saw her for the first time. Until now she had just been something to hold. Was I really so lonely?

I watched the ambulance pull away with her and recognized that I was slowly coming out of the slight autohypnosis I’d given myself just before the fight. Training was reasserting itself. Majumbdahr finished talking to the head of the police squad and motioned to me.

“We can catch an air carrier at the head of this street, sir,” he said. “That’ll be the fastest way to return to Fleet Control.”

Fleet schedules wait for no one, even the Director. The L.S. Colon was going through the Flinger and that was the best time to observe the process. Local police reported some Lancers in custody and no other disturbances in Kalic. I sent a priority demand for a summary on all such past incidents and took a lift to Control Central.

It wasn’t all that impressive. Computers look much the same everywhere and most of the Flinger’s detection and sensor grid was of necessity in close orbit around the Lekki-Jagen system. So the large room with display screens, verbal and typewriter input-output systems, primary and backup consoles, low-glare phosphors glowing a sullen red, the eternal clacking of printouts and mutter of conversations escaping from silencing mikes—the room was ordinary, pedestrian. Except for the display screens.

For my benefit the center screen was a full color display of Lekki, blown up and polarized to avoid eyestrain.

Dark vortices churned on her surface, streamers gouged holes in naked blackness for an instant and disappeared. Gharma was in my escort and kept up a smooth line of explanation to which I half listened. People at work craned in their buckets, ignoring the outputs they monitored for a look at the new boss. I ignored it all and studied the screen. Gharma was explaining that Lekki was loosely termed an F2 star, but strictly speaking wasn’t on the main sequence at all. Jagen, the neutron star, had changed Lekiki’s evolutionary cycle.

“And Jagen? Can I see it?”

“Only by absorption, of course,” he said. “This shot is from one of our satellites about a third of an astronomical unit out from Lekki. Here”—he thumbed a control—“is the view from one on the other side, same radius. I’ll enlarge it.”

The screen turned pale violet and then a dot appeared at the edge and crawled across. It was absolutely black and the image seemed to warp. Detail of Lekki behind it flickered and faded from view as the dot moved.

Jagen, the Black Dwarf. Neutron Being.

Gharma gave me the standard lecture, filling in areas I hadn’t known. Nine kilometers in diameter, mass somewhat less than Sol’s, a very old neutron and Jagen orbited around their center of mass with a period only a little longer than a day (Earth day—Veden’s was seventy-three minutes shorter). As I watched, Jagen inched across the enlarged view and vanished at the border. Fast, incredibly fast, but—

“Only a day? When the two stars are separated by six Sol radii?”

Gharma blinked at me pedantically. “Truly, it is a surprise for a visitor. But that is the crux, the reason Veden was terraformed for a century to provide a base near Lekki. Jagen rotates about the system center of mass with a velocity nearly a thousandth of light speed. That’s a tremendous energy and momentum source. It drives the Flinger.”

“Sir,” an aide interrupted Gharma, “the L.S. Colon is into rebound orbit now.” Gharma dialed the monitor control in his palm again and the screen shifted to catch up with the neutron star. It appeared again, moving from the left, with its fuzzy halo of light. Of course! The fantastic gravitational potential at the neutron star’s surface was refracting the light from Lekki, scrambling the detail we would usually see.

“The Caton is at maximum stress now,” Gharma said, and from the right edge of the screen crept a tiny glint of light. The fleck of white rushed in toward the neutron star and as we watched silently it arced around Jagen in a deformed parabola, and raced away. The process was over almost before I had pieced it together, an incredibly graceful and intricate dance of the spheres.

“A successful rebound,” said Gharma. “The Caton has picked up almost twice Jagen’s orbital speed and is heading out at an angle to the ecliptic plane. It’s due to phase into Jump space in five hours, as soon as it clears the high radiation levels near Lekki.”

It was as simple a process as one could imagine, really, easily derived from Newton’s laws. The Caton came falling in obliquely toward the Lekki-Jagen system, intersecting the Jagen orbit and moving opposite to the rotation of the Black Dwarf. It passed close to the neutron star, on the side away from Lekki, and dipped deep into Jagen’s steep gravitational potential. With a perfect counterbalancing of velocities and the star’s brutal pull the ship could weave around it, almost allowing itself to be captured, and then break free. When it escaped it was on the side of Jagen facing Lekki; it had performed a turnabout in along a nearly circular arc.

But now it had picked up twice the orbital velocity of Jagen itself—in a sense, the Caton underwent an elastic collision with the neutron star and its gravitational field, like a ball rebounding off the front fender of an express train. The Caton had stolen energy and momentum from the Lekki-Jagen rotation and was now smoothly casting off into deepspace. Destination: Abee IV, a desert planet circling a G3 star over three hundred light-years away.

Abbe moved with high velocity relative to the Caton’s home port, Earth. So the L.S. Caton had to catch up with Abbe system. Reaching a high velocity requires fuel and time. It was far cheaper for the Caton to perform a quick detour through Jump space to the Lekki-Jagen system, spend a few days undergoing an elastic collision with the neutron star’s field, and emerge with the correct velocity to match the Abbe system.

I’d drifted off; Gharma was lecturing me on the dynamics again: “… was of course a pure accident of stellar dynamics. A free star cannot capture another in a stable orbit, so Jagen must have been present when Lekki was forming.”

“I’m surprised a livable planet came of such a wedding,” I said.

“Only marginally. Veden required a century of bioengineering before it was habitable, and even now, two centuries later, we cannot venture down to the lowlands from this plateau. The lowlands are hot, winds are a constant danger to air flight, and the seacoasts are ripped by tides. The tidal influences of two stars and a moon can become quite wicked at times.”

“It seems like a tremendous effort just to get the Flinger. After all, fuel can’t be that expensive.”

“Remember, sir, that the Jump space power requirements are proportional to the volume of the ship. Empty fuel tanks take just as much room as full ones, in a ship with rigid superstructure. So Jump-class vessels are much more economical if they carry as little fuel as possible. And you’re neglecting the ramscoops as well.”

I nodded. The scoop ships, gulping down interstellar hydrogen with gigantic magnetic fields and spewing it out the end for propulsion, were the long-term backbone of the Empire, little publicized.

A planet that sent out, say, a rare alloy native only to its system, couldn’t program the ramscoop ship for a definite destination, because by the time the ship spanned a hundred light-years its target might have changed economic structure entirely. The time lag was too great.

So the volume of space around Lekki-Jagen served as a storage area, a cosmic clearing house for this region of the Empire. Moving large masses through Jump space was beyond the resources of a new colony planet. But ramscoops were cheap and easy to build. When the colony got a product it thought might sell—and so bring in currency and bartered goods in return—it packed a shipment into a ramscoop and programmed the onboard computer for Lekki-Jagen. When it arrived a half century later it was cataloged and directed into a waiting orbit.

There it sat. If no other colony bid for it the ramscoop orbited silently forever, costing its owners periodic docking fees to pay for Fleet Control. Usually it sold rather quickly. Then it was reprogrammed for the buyer’s system, dropped through the Flinger and shot out into deepspace at a respectable velocity. The Flinger could cut fifty percent off the transit time of a fifty light-year journey, because without it the scoops required long weary years to pick up their initial velocity.

“… but there is no nearby planet in this system, so we have quite a volume of storage for the scoops. They are within easy laser range of Fleet Control.” Gharma looked at me as though I were a slow student who insisted on falling asleep in class.

“No nearby planet? I thought there was a gas giant nearby.”

“Out at ten Earth astronomical units, yes.”

“But by the classical Titus-Bode rule there should be a planet at, ah, around five and a half A.U., shouldn’t there? I suppose the rule doesn’t hold up for binaries, though—it’s based on a theory of convection dust accumulation. Wouldn’t apply with Jagen in the works. Interesting, that the giant at ten A.U. fits the rule.”

Gharma looked at me carefully. “You seem to know more astrophysics than I’d thought, sir.” Which was precisely what I wanted him to conclude.

“I’m due back at my office about now, I believe,” I said, getting up. I wanted to know more about the Flinger, but the best way to get a good background is through the computer, where stupid questions don’t arouse the staff officers to condescension.

Jagen was a fascinating object. One other neutron star had been found within the Empire, drifting alone in space. (Pulsars, it had turned out, weren’t neutron stars after all, but another type of final equilibrium for cold matter.)

Jagen was bound in a tight, almost circular ellipse around Lekki, and had been there for at least a billion years. The Black Dwarf reflected little light, emitted far down in the infrared and had long since lost any magnetic field. The tidal effects of its passing were easily observable on the surface of Lekki, where huge rippling waves of boiling, fusing helium roiled and tossed at the beck of the little giant.

I stood and watched the photosphere in closeup as Jagen swept by. The center of mass of the binary system lay near Lekki’s surface, so as the neutron star went by a portion of Lekki’s sphere included the axis about which the two stars rotated. This produced slashing storms of ionized gases, ripped by the tidal tug of Jagen and trying to maintain an equilibrium against the complex competition of magnetic and gravitational forces that laced the star.

“How long can it last this way, Mr. Gharma?” I said softly, gesturing at the brawling chaos on the screen.

“Several thousand more years, I’m told. Energy losses will eventually draw the two together.”

“Jagen will drop into Lekki?”

“And then the balance will change. Veden will be jammed with scientists, then. It will provide a one-time entertainment. Most expect Lekki to nova.”

“I see.” I gazed a long moment at the violet turmoil millions of miles away, watched it licking at raw vacuum, hissing at the quiet stars around it.

When I returned to my office Gharma had some routine work and the first returns from some of the makework I’d assigned earlier. I brushed them aside.

“You may be interested in this one, nonetheless, sir,” he said, and laid an engraved invitation on my desk. “It is an invitation from the First Bridge Society.”

“First Bridge? Odd name.”

“A very exclusive private club. The original ramscoop that discovered Veden had a strict discipline system. Highest ranking officers were from the First Bridge. The club now carries the same connotation.” He lowered his eyes. “The previous Director was a member.”

Ah. This was the first tentative feeler for the sort of social acquaintances a Director was expected to make among the natives.

Fleet was as much a political instrument as any other branch of the Empire. It needed support through the colonies as well as in the centers on Earth. This was a traditional function of my position.

“Decline it,” I said, and cut off his startled reply. “Is that summary on religious institutions I requested ready? Good. And send in Mr. Majumbdahr.”

When he appeared I said. “I assume that girl has been treated and taken to my residence; I’ll be going there shortly.”

“I might remind you, sir, that tomorrow is a festing day here, a holiday.”

“Fine, I’ll have an opportunity to—” I stopped and thought. “Mr. Majumbdahr, if you are not busy, I wonder if you would consider accompanying me on an informal tour of Kalic’s religious centers? It’s something of a preoccupation of mine.”

“I would be honored, sir.”

It was really a dirty trick; a junior officer cannot easily turn down an invitation from his superior for anything with social overtones. I needed a companion to find my way through the maze of religions in Kalic. Since Majumbdahr wasn’t married, I could tell myself that at least I wasn’t taking the man away from his family.

When I reached home the orange luster of dusk was settling across the lake. The flittering sounds of things in flight echoed through the spindly ferns that clothed my home in brooding quiet. As I walked up the front ramp I noticed a mark on the glass wall of the den, and beneath it a white bird lay sprawled in death on the patio. It was larger than a dove and had delicate striations of blue and pink over its neck. Evidently it had failed to see the glass and had flown straight into it, breaking its back.

Patil admitted me and announced that dinner would be ready shortly. He mentioned the girl and I asked for her.

She came into the den padding softly on the thick rug. She was tall, a trifle thin, and wore a sansari of rough, durable green weave that set off her black hair.

“I thought I would ask you a few questions about the incident this afternoon,” I said. She nodded. “Your name?”

“Rhandra Minadras of the family Talin.”

“Why were you in the street? Were you shopping?”

“No, I was searching employment. I was reared in the country, in agricultural arts. But recently I decided to come to Kalic and attempt something new. I thought the traditional shops would want unskilled labor.” She spoke quickly but not with a sharp tone, and looked down at her feet occasionally.

“You know the Lancers?”

“I’ve heard of them, met a few. They say their ‘demonstrations’ are just sport, but I think not!”

“Why?”

“They’re afraid. Afraid of the Quarn and what might happen if they reach Veden.”

“Strange for the young to fear so much.”

“Oh no,” Rhandra said, looking up in surprise, eyes widened, “they are the least in phase. They have not yet come to compromise with the strains of adolescence, or cultivated the old ways. I wouldn’t expect them to be as secure as an older man.”

“Perhaps,” I said, uncomfortably aware that I was an older man and felt blessed little inner peace of late. “There was never anything like them before, was there?”

She shook her head, liquid hair rippling. “Not that I’ve heard. But I’m new to Kalic.”

Patil entered and announced dinner. I stood and felt a sudden twinge of soreness in my back, a reminder of the scuffle. “New? You have no lodging, then? Stay in my guest room until you find something suitable.”

She made the usual gestures of refusal but eventually accepted. It was clear she had few plans. My reasons for making the offer were equally vague; I was attracted to her by some elusive chemistry not merely sexual. Guilt for the incident that afternoon, and loneliness. She was something to shelter.

Rhandra excused herself for a moment to change into more formal dress. She appeared a moment later in something slightly better and clinging and walked over to the glass wall overlooking the patio. She stood looking at the mist drift in from the lake.

Suddenly a large bird dropped down from the ferns on wide, powerful wings and glided by parallel to the house, peering in at us with electric yellow eyes. She jumped back, startled, and thumped against a column. She made a sound like a bird smashing into a glass wall.

We banked heavily into the wind and came down fast over the northern outskirts of Kalic. Multicolored patches of jungle slid below and then a large domed building swept by, rosy pink in the midmorning light, a bulb frozen as it popped from the ground. Majumbdahr brought us in evenly and settled into a parking space near the entrance. “The Palace of Shiva,” he announced.

“I’ve heard of this,” Rhandra said as we got out. “It’s the new Council of Churches center, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Some call it bargain basement religion, but I suppose there isn’t anything basically wrong with representing all major sects in one place,” Majumbdahr said.

“It makes for better communication,” she said.

We entered beneath a sloping hyperbola of grained obsidian that served as a fulcrum for an arc that spanned the dome. In my uniform and cowl I was easy to spot and as we came through the massive doors a party descended on us.

“Director Sanjen, this is quite unexpected,” a large woman wrapped in red silks said, ignoring the fact that if I were unexpected she wouldn’t be greeting me. “We of the Council had of course planned to request your presence in the proper manner…”

“But we are certainly overjoyed to be honored with an early visit,” finished a short, emaciated man with wrinkled brown skin.

“Sir, this is the Madi, leader of the Benagathaman sect,” Majumbdahr said, motioning toward the woman and bowing low, “and Mr. Fanesh of the Litlapans.” I performed ritual bows and gave them a glassy smile. We spoke for some moments about the lovely dome, the skybats which wheeled and swooped through its upper reaches in Lekki’s light that streamed through the translucent patches of decoration.

Dignitaries arrived and were introduced, only to be shouldered aside by others. I never had a chance to say more than a line or two to any of them, but the Madi, who seemed to be the most commanding, managed to keep up a fairly steady stream of information about their various sects and cults. She evidently served as a social chairman for them all. After a few more minutes I began to bridle at the thought of standing in the foyer of the dome and exchanging pleasantries with them all morning, and said so.

“Of course, Director, I would be glad to take you on a tour of the Temples and schools,” the Madi said. In a few moments we had cut ourselves loose from the caravan that promised to form behind us.

She took us to a small cloister. A man was sitting in it, perfectly erect.

“He is awakening the serpent,” the Madi said reverently.

The man began his exercises and the Madi described what he was doing, evidently without disturbing his concentration.

The coiled serpent, she explained, is named Kundalini. When she is awakened she is the vital force in the man, and must be forced to ascend from her sleeping place at the base of the spine. She passes through a narrow canal in the spine and thus into the brain, where she consummates her symbolic wedding with Shiva, the other vital life force. So comes liberation of the spirit and right accord with nature.

“I mean this all symbolically,” said the Madi, clasping her palms together in a gesture of pleasure, “but we of the Benagathaman sect have experimented with these ancient techniques, and find them successful.”

I didn’t reply and she went on with the description. Kundalini was awakened by muscular contractions in the abdomen. Asvini mudra, the most essential, is a rhythmic rippling and dilation of the anal sphincter.

As I watched, the man, his skin like worn bronze, turned his tongue upward and backward, touching the palate in the roof of his mouth. After a moment, the Madi told us, his tongue reached the holes of the nostrils opening into the mouth, sealing them off. (For months, she said he had been “milking his tongue”; stroking it for hours to make it supple and long.)

He sealed his ears with his thumbs, eyes with index fingers, nostrils with the middle fingers. He went rigid.

“He is repeating his mantra, his Basic Sound,” the Madi said. “Thusly the serpent begins to suffocate.”

Abruptly the man’s stomach ballooned outward and sucked in several times. “This is to make the serpent pass the gateway into the spine.” There were three gateways and six power centers in the spine, each requiring that the snake be forced through. She described in detail the position of the thousand-petaled lotus at each station, and its flowering as Kundalini passed. When the movements are performed precisely and correctly, Sanadhi, or Yoga enlightenment, is attained.

The Madi stopped talking in her singsong voice and I looked at the man. He was sitting still, releasing his fingers one at a time and breathing again.

“Is that it? Nothing happens?” I said.

She wagged a finger at me. “The first attempts are not successful. One must not be impatient.”

“How do you tell if he is closer to enlightenment?”

“He passed into higher states. The exercises and movements become surer. He is always in total bodily control.”

“But it can’t be seen otherwise? Doesn’t his relationship with people change?”

“Director, it is not necessary.” She arched a brown eyebrow at me. “In the minds of those who have Total Understanding, the body is the supreme arbiter of Sanadhi.” Her intonation, rising up on a word, made one hear when she was capitalizing a word of particularly profound importance.

“Then Yoga won’t counter loss of phase?”

“Perhaps, in time.” She waved a silken handkerchief at the man, who was now beginning the ritual again. “But that is not the point. These things must be realized with the Heart and Spirit, not merely in the Mind. It may take you a while to come upon such Knowledge.” She made an impressive pause. “Certainly, we shall be prepared to help you.”

“Quite.”

“The Benagathaman is more than you might assume,” she said, smiling at me as we left the cloister, her lips a glaring red gash between swelling hills of cheek caked with a lemony powder. “It is a Movement, a Crusade. The difficulties I hear you and your comrades are finding with those aliens, the, the—”

“Quarn.”

“Yes, Quarn. I think it is simply a matter of the Wrong Spiritual Avenue.”

“Perhaps.”

“And if I am right”—she lowered her eyes modestly—“the Empire could learn something from the Benagathaman.”

We crossed the foyer, sandals clacking back echoes from the domed egg far above.

There were other cloisters, other Yoga and Hindic exercises.

After the first they all ran together and dulled my senses. Lectures on conservation of the Vital Fluid; attempts to revive the lost Old Indian art of levitation; men who could pop steel bands wrapped around their chests; men who, with sheer will power and proper body control, could raise the temperature of a room five degrees; people who spoke to hallucinations; men who lived though buried alive for hours; women who whispered to dice and made them perform; a first order Yogi who could stop his heart for two minutes; walkers on water; and more, more than I could absorb. Some of the feats were amazing, but not so odd that they couldn’t be explained by pedestrian science. The more fantastic were not as advertised—the water walker was getting better and had performed for small select groups before, but found his Spiritual Essence debilitated by the presence of doubters.

We lifted off at sunset and the dome of Shiva fell away quickly. I was exhausted. Not by muscular fatigue, but by the failure of expectations.

The Benagathaman sect and the others in the dome were fairly recent offshoots of the traditional Hindic religious line. Their absorption in the cheap tricks of Yoga, the pseudo-rationalization by which the beautiful parable of Kundalini’s passage had been debased into exercises of the stomach muscles, and all the rest—it was a falling back into the dark past, reliance on graven images and gods, an abandonment of the peace and serenity of the Hindic society.

They didn’t know it, but the cults, the Lancers, the castes were symptoms. Hindic Veden was decaying.

Because of the Quarn? Possibly. When the disease is unknown, any symptom may be important.

But perhaps Veden was simply going bad at the core, like the Empire itself.

Fleet Control had an efficient rumor-mongering service and its results were duly logged into computer storage for use by the Director. Most of the information was worthless. But some reports spoke of a rise in crimes of violence that were hushed up by the close-knit Hindic family structure; the sudden influx of mentally disturbed cases in medical centers; a pattern of breakdown in the rural areas that caused the young to move into the cities.

I peered out the plastiform bubble over our skimmer and watched lights wink on, bright sentinels against the reddening dusk. In the west of Kalic, the inexpensive homes, families were performing their ritual chants for solidarity before the serving of the evening meal. Properly rendered, it brought contentment and security without the dullness of orthodoxy or the weight of dogma.

Without something—rituals, the Sabal Games, wise ministering of the guru—a man could slide into the weak fragmentation of the Plague. Or worse, he could fall into the fatal error of trying to relieve his isolation by following the king ape pattern, impose his will on others, disrupt tradition for the sake of change alone. And so disorient his brothers, step on the accelerator of technology, create massive loss of phase.

Somehow order was breaking down. Must empires always fall? Was there some fatal mechanism in man that hated permanence?

I shook my head against the night. Rhandra sat brooding in the seat next to me, her hair like rippling shadows. She had been disturbed by the Palace of Shiva as well. She came from simple rural origins and was breaking away, but it was clear the contorted Yoga was not her answer.

I laughed inwardly to myself. Poor thing, she was just as confused as I. I reached over and held her hand and she smiled shyly at me in the darkness.

We landed near my home, on a flat pad settled into the hill. Patil was waiting there with a message which had just been forwarded by the watch at Fleet Control.

Quarn had been sighted near Calning, the large colony only fifty-three lights from Lekki. A scouting party was observed and fled into Jump space.

It might be a preliminary for an attack on Calning and it might not. The aliens had made feints before.

But it did mean something. The Quarn were striking further into the Empire’s shrinking sphere.

Veden, storage house and communications link for the Empire, lay nearby. We wouldn’t be safe much longer.

PART III

Rising to the Scepter

They struggled all the more.

Imagine a river.

Flecked with foam. Swirling and rushing, collector of oddments of debris, bits of dirt, crumbs of civilization.

The Empire is thus. The random currents deposited their burden on Veden and departed, in each instant changing.

I began to realize that the Jump ships, however much glamour is theirs, were only a fraction of the traffic that passed through the Flinger.

Most of the Jump ships were engines of war. Merchants must pick more modest transport since they aren’t supported by the taxes of a hundred worlds. Thus, the ramscoops.

Fleet Control was dropping them through the Flinger at an average rate of one a day. The total number of scoops orbiting the Lekki-Jagen system was almost constant, so as well, one incoming scoop per day had to be laser-guided through the last stages of deceleration and coaxed into a stable ellipse.

That represents a fantastic flux of information. I had to oversee a lot of it, make decisions about anything out of the ordinary.

Although the scoops and Jump ships passed regularly through the Flinger, very few of them ever sent anything down to Veden. There was no reason. Veden had few rare raw materials, no advanced technology, few cultural objects of interest to the predominantly Mongol Empire. We usually received a squirt of civilian news on tightbeam laser, but that was it. Usually.

“What’s this?” I asked Gharma one day. “The Chenuung, a Jump ship, is dropping a one-man flyer.”

“A moment,” he said, thumbing a readout screen. “Yes. He’s a replacement for the astronomical observatory.”

“Observatory? Where?”

“On the other side of Veden.”

“There’re just a few islands there.”

“Correct. It’s not really an observatory in the usual sense. All the sensors are orbiting further in. The base here just monitors their readout. The observatory is on the reverse side of the planet because of signal-to-noise troubles from our transmissions.” He explained all this in a pedantic tone.

“All right.” I approved it and sent it to store-and-forward. “What are they observing? Optical work?”

“No. Gravitational radiation.”

“Uh? Why?”

“Lekki and Jagen, revolving about each other, are always accelerated. The accelerations involved are huge, though—that’s why the Flinger is a convenient source of energy. Whenever a mass is accelerated it radiates gravitational waves, just as a charge gives off electromagnetic radiation when one gives it a push.”

“The output from Lekki-Jagen is large enough to be measured?” I said wonderingly. “Yes, I suppose it must be. Incredible.”

“It’s the only one in the Empire. The observatory has been here over two centuries, compiling data to test the Dbook Theory. One of the original scientists died a year or two ago—that’s why the replacement.”

“The man had been here two hundred Earth years? He must have been dedicated.”

“I gather. Still, remember that we live longer on Veden, perhaps due to the light gravity.”

I laughed. “What you really mean is that the helter-skelter of the Empire doesn’t penetrate here, eh? And you’re right. The social pressures on Earth probably cut a decade or two off the life span. Maybe that accounts for the higher spiritual state you’re always implying Vedens have.”

Gharma smiled slowly, seeing that I was mocking him. “I don’t see—”

“Cliché sociology. On Earth an introduction to the Sabal Game doesn’t come until the age of forty, usually closer to fifty. Below that age physiology makes meditation and group perception difficult.”

“So that longevity assures enlightenment? But if one plays the Game a century and a half, doesn’t boredom set in?” He chuckled politely.

“No. No.” I suddenly felt very sad. Sense of loss. “I don’t thing it was boredom that drove me out.”

Gharma muttered something, embarrassed that he had triggered a sadness within me.

“I’m one hundred and seventeen now,” I said to him. “I wonder—would you have guessed it? I don’t seem to be proceeding on the usual lines. I’m not making progress toward enlightenment. I—”

But it was too much.

Too much, I hadn’t come to Veden to bury myself in a welter of detail. But I did. The Temple of Shiva had blunted my fervor for Hindic religion and for a while I didn’t try to regain it. I substituted work.

I set up regular training classes for the troops in riot control and internal security. The men responded well, glad to be acting again, but troubled (I suspected) at this first evidence of concern among Fleet Control.

Jagen, the Black Dwarf, spun in tune. Veden was subject to a biennial coincidence between Lekki, Jagen and its moon; an enormous tide rose and smashed itself against the lowlands. Winds roared and Fleet Control buttoned up for three days. We evacuated a few thousand persons from the mountain peaks in the east of Baslin, where the gusts reached two hundred miles per hour.

Over the next few months I received more reports of theft and beatings in the cities. Majumbdahr managed to penetrate some of the natural Hindic reserve in local officialdom against reporting such incidents and thereafter we got a reasonably accurate picture of what was happening. The curve for small, random, purposeless crime had a steep positive slope.

The rumor-mongering facility picked up more whispers about Quarn spies, planned Quarn landings, suspected neighbors, sightings of strange ships in the skies.

Domestic issues came and went. Majumbdahr and Gharma handled them. I kept myself isolated, never attended official functions. The Madi called, sent invitations, implored me to visit the Temple of Shiva again, to follow the lessons they offered, to come to banquets and receptions. I was invited to join social clubs, attend concerts, clasp the moist palms of a hundred strangers.

I ignored them all.

And walked the streets of Kalic. Spoke with Krishna priests in yellow dhotis and shaven .heads, wondered on the riddles that they told. Flew through valleys crystalline with the sparkle of fresh rain on the leafy roof of the jungle. Peered over the awful edge into the turbulent lowlands.

Walking in the after hours, feeling the tremor and pulse of the people, sometimes with them and sometimes not.

Wondering why I had been spared of the Plague when it seemed I would go down with it. Why me? Why did my wife and children fall and not myself?

No one answered. Not the priests, convoluted in their own internal worlds. Not I.

Nor did the temples and maqanes that Gharma took me to in the holidays that came regularly. I found them formal and meaningless.

There is a higher form of loneliness that can’t be damped by contact with only one or two persons. Perhaps this is what the young cannot see. When a man lives two centuries, continuity is lifeblood. I was losing my sense of community.

Had I ever had it? Yes—before Regeln. Or was that a delusion too? It had all been simple, before the Quarn.

They were near now. A month after the sortie against Calning the same scenario that I had seen on Regeln went through its mechanical motions again.

Communication winked out. There were a few strangled threads of contact, then nothing. By now Fleet sent no expeditions to rescue survivors. They had learned enough from my expedition, I suppose.

Over the next few months three more colonies fell in much the same manner.

Fleet subspace transmissions mentioned them a few times, at first with alarm and then subtly skirting the issue. Then they were gone. We were advised to not speak of these planets again.

In Fleet engagements two of our Jump ships were lost to unknown causes. They simply vanished, ceased transmission.

Four Quarn ships were observed to self-destruct to avoid capture.

After all this time we still knew next to nothing about the Quarn. Analysis showed that they had a tolerance to acceleration about the same as men—assuming the ships were not automatic. They reacted occasionally to laser signals tuned to infrared frequencies. Their ships bore no distinguishable markings.

Somehow this gradually diffused into the Veden population. The informant network picked it up as rumors, then as commonly accepted knowledge.

There were a few incidents of arson. Ridicule of police. Small riots, then larger.

Political parties that had been dormant formed again. Vegetarian cults, merchants’ parries, groups in favor of breaking free of the Empire; they gained members and published newspapers.

The prominent parties demanded to know what defenses had been readied for use against the Quarn. When I first heard this I laughed—did they think anything would stop the Quarn?

But gestures were necessary. I sent more sensors out on long orbit to the edge of the Lekki-Jagen system. The few thermonuclear warheads I had were readied and encased in shells with high power ionic boosters. As well, the volume of space around Veden was saturated with scoops waiting to be purchased; they would provide a good screen for orbiting missiles.

Still, I could only hope to stop a few Quarn ships.

The Regeln pattern, though, called for no formal invasion at all. The colonists on Regeln had been disarmed by the Plague. Their defenses had done them no good at all.

I brooded. Things went on as before; I buried myself in routine. Was it deceptive? The chants of the priests sang in my mind, lulled me.

Five months after I’d arrived on Veden the first Plague case was diagnosed. It was a man in Kalic of weak religious background and few family ties. He did not respond to treatment.

The Plague began to spread.

The copters buzzed all around us, ringing the area. I moved awkwardly away from the copter that had landed myself and my staff.

The thick acrid stench of burning buildings drifted down the broad street and seeped in through my suit filters. The angry roar of the crowds was dulled by the wailing of police sirens. I could tell they were coming this way.

“Majumbdahr!” I called. He came trotting over. “What happened to that sleeper gas?”

“Ordnance couldn’t locate any more,” he puffed. “They used the last of it an hour ago. It didn’t stop them.”

I ground my teeth. No time to have a batch made up; I wasn’t even sure there was a chemist in Kalic who knew the process.

“Form up the men you have. They still carry anamorphine?”

“Yes, most of them.” He nodded slowly, dazed with fatigue.

“Gharma said the Lancers were ‘slowing down.”

“I think they are,” Majumbdahr said. He blinked rapidly to clear his vision. Smoke drifted across and paled Lekki’s great eye. “They’ve been going for six hours. The troops are pretty beat themselves.”

“This should be the last of it, then, for a while,” I said and saluted. Another copter decked with a whine behind me. Gharma jumped out and walked over.

“It’s dying down elsewhere, sir,” he reported.

“About time.” I’d followed the riot from Fleet Control since morning until I couldn’t stand to be inside any longer. It was good to be out in the field and get the taste of what was happening.

Troops formed up in a line across the street. The muted bass of the crowd deepened.

“It’s hard to understand,” I said, looking at the thin column moving up. “Only a month since the first Plague victim.”

“How does it go in most cases?” Gharma asked.

“All I know is what I saw on Earth,” I said, trying to shrug in my suit. The constant-volume joints impaired me. “It wasn’t anything like this. People simply waited until they contracted the Plague and then they died. They didn’t turn out into the streets, bum and loot.”

“They had more phase, on Earth?”

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t have guessed it. There’s something peculiar about the Veden personality. They seem to be coming out from under some inhibition at last and the pressure is blowing the top off.”

“The old ways are not enough,” Gharma said flatly.

“Why? Why should they fail now?”

“It is a crisis point,” he said. “The order we had is lost.”

I looked at him closely. Behind his plastiform face shield his skin was polished walnut. “You say that? You, believer in formalized religion?”

“Formalized, yes. Perhaps dead as well. When something is finished you cast it aside. We need a new social ordering here, a new dedication.”

Two blocks down, the edge of the mob swept around a corner and flowed into the street. Tinkling of glass. Rough-edged cry of frustration.

I glanced at Gharma. What did he mean? How could he watch his world dissolve so calmly? He looked content. Almost smug.

The mob streamed toward us. I licked away a salty tang of sweat. My contact filters stung my eyelids when I blinked; I’d been wearing them too much, indoors and out.

I could feel the hollow drumming of a thousand running feet. Fifty meters in front of me the mob bore down on the line of troops. Most of the Lancers seemed young. They grinned.

When they were within a few meters of the line my troops fired a volley of darts and some went down, drugged with anamorphine. A canister of homemade gas blossomed in the line and blew away.

Most of the crowd’s rush halted but here and there they broke through. The line wavered. Men fell.

The mob caught the smell of victory.

I suddenly realized I was exposed. A knot of Lancers dashed by me. Gharma was cut off to the left with a squad.

I unhooked my gun. Majumbdahr shouted orders over the suit radio that echoed in my helmet.

Three Lancers converged on me. I took ready position. One carried a chain wrapped around his wrist; no worry there. The other two had cobblestones from the old district and one flashed a knife. All relatively useless against body armor.

They came at me together in a rush.

I brought the tube of my gun down viciously, chopping the first Lancer’s arm. The man dropped his knife with a gasp of pain.

I stepped to the left and took a blow on my back armor that rattled my teeth. The chain whipped around my helmet with a crash and partially obscured my field of vision.

I crouched and fired two darts. They made an angry splatting sound. Thumb over to extra-strong anamorphine. Lancer moving in; focus on him. Fire. Miss. Fire again. He caught it in the groin. Staggered away, collapsed.

One left. Turn—where is he? A bottle bounced off my arm and shattered on the sidewalk.

I heard the whistle of the chain again. Duck.

This time I caught the Lancer before he could back away. I cracked the gun tube across his kneecap. He almost fell on the bottle shards but managed to roll to one side.

I blinked sweat out of my eyes. Hot. People all around me. Expand attention out, watch for an attack.

A man appeared from nowhere and threw a cobblestone. It hit my solar plexus and the armor carried a ringing up to my ears.

I thrust out with the gun tube. The Lancer brought a stick around and parried neatly. He backed away, glancing to the sides for support.

I raised the muzzle of the gun. He danced to the side at just the right instant and the dart whizzed past him.

The Lancer threw his pipe and ran. I ducked, fired, missed again. He dodged behind Majumbdahr, who was coming to help me.

The crowd was falling back. My troops let out a thin cheer and started to reform.

“You all right?” Majumbdahr said.

“Sure.” I grinned at him. “Those fellows can certainly be offensive, though, can’t they?”

We met in a restaurant in Old Town. Majumbdahr and Gharma had shown a touch of surprise when I told them they’d find me there, but I was bored with the stiffness of my official offices, and after the riots I needed a quietness.

Men in. severe robes milled around the entrance as I went in, chattering, comparing notes, pointing at the black columns that twined through the sky from fires that still smoldered.

Majumbdahr and Gharma were already there, waiting at a cloistered table in the back.

“You’ve recovered from the brawl, then?” Majumbdahr said as I sat down.

“Still hurts down my back,” I said. “It’ll be sore tomorrow. Stupid to get caught out like that I should’ve been up in a copter. How about you two?”

Gharma lifted a steaming fork of food and made a face. “Elementary violence I can usually overcome. The Pindang Kol here is trying to even the score.”

“Pretty bad,” Majumbdahr agreed, putting down his fork. “I’m glad I wasn’t very hungry.” He looked up at me. “Order something for you, sir?”

“Later. I finished my report on the copter coming over here. I thought Old Town would relax me, restore some balance. I won’t have the report transmitted to Fleet Central on Earth until I’ve had a chance to go over it again.”

“It must be rather difficult to compose,” Majumbdahr said.

I sighed. “Rather. It’s not easy to admit you’re losing control of the situation.”

“Couldn’t you… soften the impact?” Gharma said. “Perhaps it’s not building as swiftly as we think—”

“No. Half-truths are dangerous; sooner or later you might inadvertently tell the wrong half.”

“I agree,” Majumbdahr said, hunching down with his elbows on the table. “Fleet has the right to hear it all, straight.”

“Especially since this form of the sickness is new,” I added. “There has never been violence like this before. I’ve asked some psychers; they don’t understand it. It is out of the pattern.”

“I’ll have a summary of my part of today’s operation by the morning,” Gharma volunteered. “We estimated at least a tenth of Kalic’s population was out in the streets, hysterical.”

“How is the building going?” I said to Majumbdahr.

“On schedule. The hospital space can be supplied with preform construction units and most of it deployed by machines. The only hold up was in the blueprints.”

“Blueprints for hospitals? I thought they were standard.”

“I checked standing orders and then asked Central on Earth. They want us to build some… Slots.”

I stared at him for a long moment. “I should’ve been told. What did you do?”

“Called in a civilian. Used ordinary hospital prints.”

“Good. You’re legally in the clear. Local commanders can make such changes, as long as there aren’t too many of them.”

Majumbdahr had sensed my mood well. I hated the Slots and all the memories they brought back.

“I think it was a wise decision for several reasons,” Gharma said. “The psychological impact on the people would be great.”

“Yes,” I said, “when you begin building Slots you’ve admitted it’s over, you’ve given up.”

“Well, I give up on the Pindang Kol,” Gharma said, pushing his plate away. “I’ll eat elsewhere.”

He smiled but the humor of the moment was strained. The things we had left unspoken filled the incense-ladened room and distracted our thoughts.

They knew as well as I that a judgment of incompetence against a Fleet Director—that is, me—would not neglect the Executive Officers immediately below him. If I went I might well take Majumbdahr and Gharma with me.

“Do you think we should stop the building of rural retreats, sir?” Majumbdahr said.

“No. Move as many as possible out of Kalic and into the retreats. You’ve said before”—I glanced at Gharma—“that Vedens are country folk. Maybe they’ll snap out of it if we get enough out of the cities.”

“Is there any correlation in the background of the rioters?” Gharma asked.

“No, none.” I looked down at the table and felt a wave of defeat wash over me. “Some are from the city, others fresh from the forests. No religious similarities. Widely varying income levels and education. The only thing they have in common is that this morning they finally got fed up with it all and started burning or hitting a policeman or just running down the street.”

“Berserkers.” Majumbdahr rubbed his hands together, thinking.

“What?” I said.

“Berserkers. In ancient times the natives of the Norse Lands on Earth had a ritual way to break free of society. Small deviations from the conventional weren’t permitted”—he smiled at Gharma—“but if the pressure got to be too much, a man could run berserk, go mad until he felt ready to go back to his life.”

“You’re implying that’s what happened here today?” I said.

“Perhaps. I don’t know. What set them off, why all at once?”

“It’s not my field,” I said, shaking my head. “Too much for one day.”

“Are you still interested in our religions, sir?” Gharma said abruptly.

“Why, yes.” I looked up.

“There have been reports…”

“Of a new sect, the Lengen,” Majumbdahr finished. “Gharma and I saw some mention of them in one of the surveys you ordered.”

“Some acquaintances of mine have gone to the Lengen. The beliefs are somewhat vague”—Gharma gestured, smiling slightly—“but it is always such, with these new groups.”

“They have strong support among the poor, I have heard,” Majumbdahr said. “I don’t know how many followers there are. Not many, I’d suspect.”

“Look,” I said, blinking wearily, “there are a thousand cultists every square block in this city. I seem to have met every one of them. If there’s nothing special—”

“Ah, I think there is,” Gharma said seriously. “There is something strange—but you should see for yourself, sir. I only volunteer this because you expressed an interest.”

“And the Lengen are not as those thousand you mentioned,” Majumbdahr said earnestly. “They are not of the city.”

“No. They maintain a compound on the border of the jungle, in the farm districts,” Majumbdahr said.

“Very far?”

“We can reach it by copter.”

I considered. I was tired, but underneath it I knew the numb fatigue came from boredom and loneliness, mostly; not the strain of muscles in honest work.

“I’ll go.”

They smiled. Was I so far into the pits of depression that they showed joy when I responded at all? Strange.

I glanced out a thin window nearby. “It will be good to escape Kalic, to get outdoors again… ‘Outdoors’—a queer word, isn’t it? Arrogant. As if the universe were defined in relation to the places where we live. Odd… almost as odd as assuming I can make contact with an interior world by living in a rigorously ceremonial one. Who is to say it’s so?”

Rambling, rambling. I jerked myself back to the present “Dusk is falling. Shouldn’t we be going?”

“Yes, I’ll go call a copter now. One can pick us up a few blocks from here,” Majumbdahr said.

“Delay a bit,” Gharma said. “I thought I would check in with Control first, sir. I should stay in the city. It would probably be best if one of us was on duty in case—”

“Yes,” I said. “Go with Majumbdahr and get an all-points report for me before we leave. I can review it in the copter. Majumbdahr and I will go out alone.”

Majumbdahr got up and threw a few coins on the table. They rang softly in the still velvet closeness. Gharma rose, saluted a trifle formally, and followed Majumbdahr out.

This last gesture was typical of Gharma. Through these months the three of us had become friends, but I felt much closer to Majumbdahr. His spontaneity often broke through the officer’s crust. But in Gharma I still detected an undercurrent of reserve and cool assessment that I did not like. It was not in my nature to enjoy being judged.

I decided to eat while I waited. The copter could wait. I would need the energy. And of course it was one way to demonstrate to my two executive officers that, friends or no, they would still wait at my leave.

I ordered the Pindang Kol and a biryani. Pindang Kol turned out to be a broth of cabbage and root vegetables, heavy in coriander.

It was terrible.

We fell into a blotch of pale orange light. The Lengen compound swam in a sea of black, humid jungle. Floodlights picked out forests of tents pitched for pilgrims, cooking areas of rough stone, wooden platforms for meditation.

Roughly in the center was a large multilayered yellow tent. We banked toward it and set down in a clearing beaten clean by trie foot traffic.

“How can you be sure we’ll be granted an audience?” I shouted to Majumbdahr as the props roared the instant before landing.

“I called ahead. They realize you have little time. I imagine there’ll be no difficulty.”

As we stepped off onto the Veden soil that was still cooling from the heat of the day a small man rushed out of the crowd gathered around the field.

“Director Sanjen!” he cried. “I have been sent to guide you to the Master.” The man was dressed in cheap robes. Most of the people standing and watching were poor, farmer class. Or else they had renounced material things to follow the Lengen.

I nodded and we walked to the large tent. The crowd parted as we approached. I couldn’t help comparing this with the behavior of the mobs I’d faced earlier in the day.

The tent was more complex than it looked. A maze of rooms kept groups of pilgrims separated and allowed the priests, clad in deep blue robes, to move in and out without disturbing meditations and rituals.

We were ushered into a warm little hexagonal room bounded by folds of cloth. We sat lotus fashion between two place settings of many bowls, plates and tumblers. There were eating sticks from several cultures, lacquered spatulas and shallow canisters. I wondered what it was all about.

Presently a low woodwind tone sounded in the still air.

A tall man walked slowly to the center of the room. His green robes covered him entirely with only a shadowed triangular slit for eyes and mouth. I could see nothing of his expression.

“Finally you come here.” The voice was deep and rich with an odd inflection.

I pressed my hands together in greeting. “I am seeking a thing and I do not know quite what it is—”

“Begin ritual. Silence. Attention.”

He produced a bowl and began pouring a thin liquid into the cups before Majumbdahr and me. A priest appeared with other foods that steamed in the cool night air.

We began preparing the food. It was to be ladled into the proper bowls, mixed in precise proportions, arranged and ordered. I gave Majumbdahr a side glance and found him watching me. He did it all smoothly.

After a few moments I noticed a rhythm to the procession of plates and odors. Salt of fishes. Tang from ripe fruit. Rough feel of the broadcloth napkins.

It was warm and soothing. I relaxed and my senses flowed out. I looked down on myself as I floated in a corner of the tent. Feeling all, knowing nothing.

There was a sudden white light. I wept.

And I was there.

Labels, you see, are meaningless. Worse, they are distracting.

Within a while I had focused completely on the exercises. My mind stilled. I did not think of how amazing this was, of how my present state resembled something I had known in the past and only achieved then by months of contemplation. I didn’t consider any of these things. I simply was.

The ongoing moment was reality; there was nothing else. I didn’t frame trite philosophy like “The future will take care of itself.” There was no future. Only now existed.

“You see what?” the Master said.

“You,” I said. I didn’t need to turn to sense Majumbdahr at my side.

“You’re different,” Majumbdahr said.

I had no reply to this, nor any need to frame one. The moment I began labeling or explaining my focus would shift to the explanation and away from my centering of attention.

“Is first form,” the Master said. “You see?” He leaned toward me from his lotus position. “First ally the mind. Cannot find outside without knowing inside.” He made something like a laugh. “This is due by not thinking various things, one after another.”

“Unconditional nature?” I asked.

“Part. Is only part. Beginning.”

I sat. The world reformed, clouded, spun away. After a time of absence I returned to my place and focused once more on the eating ritual. Gradually it released its hold over me. I was coming back to the world.

But not the world I had left. Now I had a hint of my place within it.

We moved away from the large tent that I had now learned to call the Ashram, after the Old Indian word for place of wisdom study. I walked slowly and felt the pleasant crunch of broken ground beneath my feet. One thing at a time. Focus.

The Master, I noticed, was very tall. Seven feet, perhaps more. Low gravity? Focus, focus.

Majumbdahr and I rifted off and climbed swiftly. “You’ve made great progress, I believe, sir,” he said.

I felt a comradeship with him. He had not reached this state but he had pointed the way. He was a friend. There would be others, too, who were close. Community.

We slipped through the winds toward Kalic; winking lights like scattered jewels upon a rug. I thought of a bird, its back broken, lying beside a glass wall.

Rhandra moved coquettishly on me, smiling like an imp. The oil on both our bodies gave every caress a tingling after-memory of sensation.

Her oiled muscles rippled, coaxing me. We both knew it was no use; I was finished for that morning, energies spent.

She made a sign, a joke. Crude country humor. I laughed.

A few feet away, beyond the glass patio partition, wing-mice and a jawbird pecked at remains of breakfast. We were lying on a broad cushion, she astride. Lekki had just peeped over the afterbeam of the house, making me glad I’d put in my contact filters.

The phone rang.

She lifted a leg and rolled off. I got up slowly, reluctant to leave. A button on the phone glowed red, emergency pattern, so I hurried.

“Good morning, sir.” Gharma’s voice, tense. “I’ve put Fleet Control on emergency alert status. A sensor drone has just registered two blips out of Jump space, unscheduled.”

“How far?”

“Just beyond the edge of the planetary system. Doppler shows they’re massing into Veden orbit pretty fast.”

“Got a mass reading yet?”

“Yes, just came in. Usual ship size. Something else too… well, I’ll check that later. Could be a mistake. But the two ships come in clearly.”

“I’ll be there,” I said, and hung up.

I took my leave of Rhandra and masked my fear with irritation. Irritation at the stack of work that the sightings promised, at the delay, the stupidity of doing a job I didn’t give a damn about when I wanted to be with Rhandra, to go back to the Lengen compound.

I took a copter to Fleet Control. High-strung conversations trailed off into silence as I marched through the front offices. Everyone knew. The news was in the gossip mill by now.

It was much as Gharma had said. I watched the flickering readout from the mass detector silently.

“You have all the scoop orbits logged into our ballistic programs, don’t you?” I asked Majumbdahr. “Of course.”

“Start plotting intersection orbits for them. If those two ships keep coming we can probably catch them in the backwash from the ramscoops.”

“I don’t think that would be wise, sir,” Gharma pointed out. “The scoops won’t start smoothly with just the orbital velocities they have now. The intruders will have ample warning.”

I looked steadily at him. “Okay. Use the scoop maneuvering rockets to alter their orbits and bring them in close to the bogies. Then blow them up.”

“A fusion explosion?”

I nodded.

“It may work. I’ll log it in.”

I smiled at him wryly. “Don’t worry about the expense. I’m sure Fleet will stand the cost of a few scoops.”

“What are they, sir?” Majumbdahr asked.

“Quarn.”

For the next few hours I watched the small dots drop steadily in toward the Lekki-Jagen system. Normal Fleet operations continued; a few colonies bought raw materials, organ replacements, sophisticated technology or rare metals that they’d need a century or two from now; the appropriate ramscoops were cut out from the herd and sent through the Flinger. When they reached the rim of the system the scoops would be turned on and they would go boosting off to their destinations at quite a respectable velocity.

The computers spun silently as they guided and totaled the transactions of interstellar finance, transferring marks in one account to similar squiggles in another. I waited and watched.

In the afternoon reports came in about small incidents in Kalic and the provincial cities: arson, random destruction. The hospitals were filling with Plague victims. The only good point the Slots had was that they were easy to build; decent facilities took longer. A Fleet communique arrived questioning the holdup in Slot construction; I told my staff to throw it away.

Fleet also bothered us for more news about the intruders. Any unusual maneuvers? Spectral distribution of torch? Any transmissions, attempts at contact?

I sent answers and some questions of my own. When were they going to send me some Jump ships? How many wing were within striking distance? What was my priority?

I got back equivocating long-winded replies. Even if they were Quarn, two ships weren’t that many, were they? Fleet had numerous responsibilities, I must remember. Ships were available, yes, but only for verified Quarn incursions. These were difficult times. Meanwhile, keep us informed.

“Gharma reporting, sir.” His image appeared on a screen beside the main display in my command module. “I’ve been tracing down something I noticed earlier. We thought it was a mistake, but it holds up under several cross-checks of the equipment.”

“Something on the mass detector?” I asked.

“Yes. It’s coming in normal to the ecliptic plane. Under ordinary scanning operations it probably wouldn’t be noticed.”

“What is it?”

“That’s the problem,” he said, and looked a little uncertain. “We get a strong signal, but the object is fairly far out. Or we think it is.”

“Think?”

The main screen cleared and was replaced by the large-scale readout from the detectors. The two intruders were clearly visible. Far above the ecliptic plane, almost off the screen, was a small dot. It was very black and the computer-printed grid lines warped around it tightly.

“Appears to have high mass,” I said.

“We estimate point seven solar masses,” Gharma said. “But optically we can’t find a thing out there. Personally, I think it’s an error. The detectors are just barely able to pick it up. They could be off quite a bit on the mass.”

“Doppler?”

“That’s wrong too. Very high, positive.”

I shook my head. “Keep watching it Let me know if anything changes. But don’t waste time—I want to know what those other two are doing.”

I didn’t have long to wait. At seventeen hundred hours they reversed torch and started slowing down. They skimmed along a path just beyond reach of the ramscoops.

They were taunting us, making fun of our defenses. I was sure they were Quarn. An hour later the spectral data was sufficiently ordered to prove me right; I reviewed all of it and then filed a report with Fleet. The report on yesterday’s riots went in too, but I didn’t wait around to get a reaction from Fleet Central. I had better things to do.

I took Rhandra. We went by the air-cushioned rail system this time, a somewhat more humble mode of transport than the copter. We passed over fields of quasimakas, the Veden staple. Large chunks of the umbrella-domed plant were broken off along the ripened edges and sent into Kalic daily. It was a hearty, mealy fruit. Even the stems were dried and beaten and then woven into a coarse red fabric.

We both saw the Master. I was surprised we could, arriving on short notice. Thousands camped around the Ashram awaiting audiences. They seemed to be of a higher class this evening, better dressed.

And so we went into the Ashram, sat and learned. Rhandra seemed to know the basic parts of the eating and drinking rituals instinctively; were they part of usual Hindic ceremony? The Master was gentle with her, coaxing the proper response when she rushed the movement or allowed her attention to become distracted by the soft clicking of the implements, the flicker of ornamental candles, the occasional murmur of crowds from outside.

How to describe a state of mind? In essence it is a condition of being, not a definition. Words can’t quite get at it.

Rough mosaics of light. Images came and went; I simply noted them. Sexual scenes, random; they did not stir me. Coiled snakes snapping at bats.

I was moving but there was no way to tell how it was done. Fixed lights to one side; metal? plastic? screens that flicked light at me.

Suddenly, no sound. No pressure of floor mat on ankles. Lifting.

It was as before. I expanded outward. Could sense Rhandra nearby, essence of her drifting like scent on the wind. In pursuit Of infinity. Lose the way Thus: serenity.

But later, much later, something. Something… Try to catch—

Why me? Why am I—

My state of mind was changing. Part of me was—

Why should I survive the Plague?

Doubts and hidden thoughts came drifting up. Clearing out musty corners. Was I doing this? Feeling of unrest.

Then I had it. The answer was there, fully formed in my mind.

I’m an ofkaipan. Despised.

Better not go into that restaurant. You know—embarrassed nudge of elbow. Quickly walk on.

Shake hands at a reception, feel slight cold withdrawal, formal face smiling but not masking glittering eyes of malice.

Deliveries to home slow, poorly packaged. Insolent servants of superior officers cast you a look, up and down, smile ever so slightly. Make a face behind your back; you catch it in a mirror.

In a shop: Perhaps we can find something more suitable in here—Lead you to rack of marked-down merchandise, scruffy, out of fashion.

With: I’m sorry, the Commandant is out. We don’t know when to expect him back.

And: You realize, of course, there may be a delay in taking care of this matter; this office is very busy.

Stares in crowds. Best not go down that street. Look of Why did he come here? Why doesn’t he get back where he belongs?

It doesn’t happen all the time. Just enough to keep you off balance. Never knowing when it’s a natural mistake or hidden hate. That was the worst of it, never knowing for sure.

But that was what saved you.

How does a man feel community and gain sense of phase when he knows he is despised? He can’t enter into the Sabal Game fully. He might think so, struggle to convince himself. But the grip would not be sure.

The Plague was designed for the Mongol Empire. It spread through the Game.

I saw, now, that I had always kept a part of myself separate. I couldn’t fully trust a Mongol. Certainly not a bastard like Tonji.

So the Plague had brushed by me. Something did not quite work and though I felt the loss of phase for a while, I recovered.

I escaped because I was a detested thing, an ofkaipan. My wife was Mongol and the children were closer to her. They had fallen.

I felt a spurt of joy. I was free. I could be anything I wanted. My efforts to fit into the Mongols had failed by some thin margin. The margin saved me.

I dropped down the long end of a telescope. The world collapsed. Rhandra was there, warm, molecular bed of cell wisdom, receptive. Shadowed inlets of rest.

We came back together.

The Master sat upright. The fall of his robes outlined thin legs and knobby knees. There was a faint musty odor to him and the cowl hid his face. What sort of man could this be, to lead me so well?

He was gracefully finishing his ritual. Long delicate fingers in blue gloves plucked the implements from their places and set them aside in definite order.

“Nature satisfied,” he said, deep bass. “Are many levels awareness. One step, then two. Break”—he reached up and made a quick snapping motion—“then grow. Every day new.”

He cocked his head over to lie on his shoulder in that peculiar Hindic gesture of questioning. I smiled slightly (focus, focus) and bowed. Rhandra, looking a little shaken, did the same.

Outside I glanced at my timepiece and was startled at how much time had passed. Wherever I had been, it had taken long hours.

Still we did not feel like leaving. We strolled among the pilgrims and conversed with them. I wore ordinary street clothes so none recognized my rank or station.

The people here were different. Or perhaps I looked upon them with fresh eyes. Their sentences came forth naturally, without the stilted manner I had heard so much these months. As I got to know them lately Gharma and Majumbdahr had relaxed and now spoke easily. But these people, followers of the Lengen, accepted me instantly.

We talked of the quasimakas crop, what it was like to sweat in the sweet fields and feel the pull of your muscles. Machines weren’t used for the harvest; it was held that the experience was therapeutic, so most Vedens took part in some phase of it.

They spoke without hesitation of why they had come here. There were many priests using the same rituals as the Master. Quite a few of the pilgrims used terms that meant to me they had entered the same completely concentrated state. They mentioned a sense of living completely in the moment, neither anticipating or remembering other events.

Some who had been here for a while asked me if I had heard the voice. I shook my head. The asker of questions, one said. Ah, that I knew. I framed the questions. But I admitted that at times it did sound like another voice probing my mind.

A few talked of the missions the voice had assigned them: small exercises to discipline the body, works to perform, steps to take in their personal lives.

I listened to all this raptly as the dawn broke from gray to gold. How many pilgrims were there? I asked. Many, too many to count. More poured in every day as the word spread. Others left in groups on missions for the Master, keeping the population of the compound balanced. Thousands had left only three days ago and not returned, yet their places were already filled.

This last piece of information gave me an idea but I brushed it away. I was tired. Rhandra was falling asleep on my shoulder.

A bedchamber was quickly found for us. I gathered we were important guests; the fact that we had seen the Master personally raised eyebrows.

Rhandra and I were glad to be left alone. We needed to explore ourselves and assess what had happened. You do not change yourself permanently with one experience—each advance takes work and hard dedication to consolidate it.

We were to have an audience with the Master again in late afternoon. I called Majumbdahr privately and told him not to contact me unless the situation were critical.

He had nothing new to report than the steady rise of turbulence in Kalic.

Rhandra and I ate, talked and made love. Sharing our experiences in the last day had brought us closer and we found we could convey much by simple gestures or a word. I had been long without such contact.

We wrapped ourself in the black blanket of sleep, unaware of what awaited us.

Something had happened to me.

Rhandra clutching handhold next to me. I piloted. Wild. Coming in too low. Ahead the obese dome of the Palace of Shiva tilted, righted itself, grew.

“Are you sure we should go?” Rhandra said softly.

“They pressed an invitation on us.”

“On Majumbdahr, I thought you said.”

“They’ve called me before. Still anxious to give me the laying on of hands.”

“Well—”

“When Majumbdahr mentioned it I told him to call and give them warning.”

He’d called me just after our early evening audience with the Master. Nothing new brewing in Kalic. A few grouchy messages from Fleet Central demanding more information. Trivial, trivial. Answer them tomorrow. Then he mentioned another invitation from the Palace.

Something made me consider it. I’d brushed them off before. But maybe there was something to them after all. I went back to see the Master. He told me to meditate with him upon the subject. After a few minutes I realized what I wanted to do. Got up, found Rhandra, flashed a sentence at Majumbdahr through the aether, caught a speed slid. To here.

I landed, a little rough, spitting gravel to the side. Escorted Rhandra to ground with elaborate courtly gestures.

Madi hustling out of darkness. Lights go up around landing area. Welcoming party surrounding—

“We’re so happy to see you here!” said the Madi. She fluttered at Rhandra, pursed lips. Rhandra bowed with courtesy, smiling demurely. I muttered a pleasantry. Easy, easy. Little out of control here.

Mr. Fanesh clenched my hand and shook it eagerly.

Others drifted into my field of vision, murmured something and went away. I gathered I was meeting people. Couldn’t remember any names.

“The reception is just beginning, Director,” the Madi said. We walked toward the dome. “Our banquet will be afterward. Some demonstrations by the priests will be given. I hope—”

“What’s your opinion of the Lengen?” I said.

“Oh. Well. I’ve heard of them, of course.” She looked around at the knot of people following us. “Doctor Jampul would know more.”

She waved a tall gaunt man over. “The Doctor is Professor of Languages at the Institute here. He keeps up on the other sects that come and go outside Kalic.”

He gave me a gristly smile and I said something in greeting. Moved like he was controlled. Robot. Pedantic look about him; the sort of man who can see sin in syntax.

“Lengen?” he said, stroking his chin. “They have a lot of followers, those ones. I think they’re recent. I hadn’t heard of them a year ago.”

“Who is the Master?” I asked. We were passing through the central foyer and into a large room filled with chattering people.

“That,” he said, “is something of a mystery. Few get to see him. There are many priests but the Master apparently converted them after his first appearance some months ago.”

“You haven’t asked him to the Palace of Shiva?”

Beside me the Madi looked uncomfortable. “We tried,” she said. “He did not seem very interesting. In fact, we were rebuffed.”

Things a little slow for me. Cretins. Need air.

“We would like a place to prepare ourselves,” I said. “It was a hectic journey.”

“Ah, surely.” Crowd parted, we went through. Up a shadowed corridor. Thick aromas from kitchens nearby, muffled footsteps. Rhandra with me, Madi leading. “If you require servants—” No, shake head. Swish of curtain closing on departing rump of the Madi.

Whoosh, sit down. Head a little off tilt. Long day or something. Rhandra looking at me, puzzled.

Jump up, grab her. Thrash around. Eek, tip over urn.

Mad pawing. Bang into chair, laughing wildly. Sloppy kisses. Imitation of enraged ape. Shuffle around room, chasing her. She laughs. Scampers away.

Blunder into bowl of sweetmeats. Both of us fall on them smacking lips. Pop down four at a go. Hungry. Meditation takes a lot out of a man. Needs of the flesh follow me everywhere, even through a detour.

Laugh. Fall down. Lie there a few minutes. Then it’s time to be getting back to the reception. Struggle up.

We made our way through rat maze and back to the avalanche of accents. Heads turned at our entrance. Formal smiles. Wonder what they think. Is my cowl on right? Lint from floor on my back?

Madi sweeps over with bow wave of lesser lights behind.

“I’m sure we all want to hear your opinions on the riots, Director.” She looks around for someone to second the motion, beaming. Others chime in. Didn’t catch all they said. Rhandra smiles prettily.

“Well, I don’t know,” I said. Stalling for time. “It could mean anything, right?” Wrong note there. Try again.

“We’re doing everything we can to control it.” That’s it. Sound statement, means nothing. Look like a bank president.

“But we have all these people drifting into the city,” the Madi said. Cluster of onlookers nods.

“I don’t have authority to close Kalic to the countryside,” I said. Even better. Little simpleminded. Act a buffoon, they never suspect you of pilfering the petty cash.

Professor Jampul shook his head sagely. “It’s simply beyond reason,” he said. “There is nothing to drive those people insane. We live in a calm, stable time.”

“Calm for you, Professor.” The Madi giggled nervously. “Not for the Director here. I have heard”—raised eyebrow at me—“of Quarn ships near Veden. That must be keeping you busy.”

Think: has that information been released yet? Doesn’t matter, must be rumors out by now.

“Afraid they’ll rape you in your bed?”

Gasps, slight rustle. Wrong thing to say? Ride over it “I don’t think there’s any danger of that. They won’t be able to land unless they’re much stronger than we think.”

Polite murmurs. “Oh?” from Professor Jampul. “And just what is their approximate strength?” He glanced at Rhandra and back to me.

Don’t want to give away classified information. Could be a spy, stab me in the men’s room, press secrets out my ears.

“Why are you looking at her?” I said loudly.

White faces, nervous chatter.

“Wondering where we went when we got here? Follow us to that back room, sneak a peep through the curtains?”

“Ling,” Rhandra said, putting a hand on my arm.

“See us set upon each other lasciviously?”

Heavy gong. “I believe the banquet has begun,” said the Madi. I found myself shuffling into a large canopied room filled with curved tables. Pungent smell of soup. Waiters moving swiftly to seat the most important guests—us—first.

Rhandra next to me. Mr. Fanesh on the left, Professor Jampul across. The Madi next to him. Cozy. Meeting of old friends, kiss my forehead, initiate me into the holy rites.

I drank some water. Clear and cold. Feeling better. Focus, focus. Laughed to myself. Crowd chanting in theater. Fixed my attention on the soup. Sweet, little hint of thyme. Flavoring stone at the bottom. Don’t roll it around in your mouth, not polite. Nor spit it into your palm.

Soup went down with a sucking sound. Sit straight, grow up to be a big boy. (Why should I want to be big? Die faster.) Spine down, pointing, quivering with expectation.

Conversation swirls around. Make small talk with back part of my mind, leave motor control to another, rest is free to walk. We only use a tenth of it at a time, they say. Rest never clocks in. Featherbedding. Union dues in arrears.

Look around the room. As big numbers like myself eat lowly converts are demonstrating their disciplines at the perimeter of the room. Attract some attention, people pointing, some at me. Rude, rude. Palace of peasants. No, not at me. Something behind me.

Turn, eyes widen with surprise. The little brown Yogi is going through his exercises. Raising the coiled serpent, Kundalini. Demon eyes look through me. Remember I’ve got contact filters on, but he is native, has had his retinal patterns adjusted. Son of Veden. Evil look to him. Funny I didn’t notice it before.

He shifts position. Tilts forward, does rocking exercise accompanied with rippling of stomach muscles. I feel sick. He looks like something reptilian, frog body, thing born of weathered oceans. The frog came in on little flat feet. Wonder if that will get him to unconditional state.

Turn back to table. Soup had been replaced by mixture of vegetables. Spartan, no sauce.

“Director, you spoke earlier of the Lengen,” Professor Jampul said. Madi smiled uncertainly. Afraid to start conversation again, pounce on her with wooden fangs, slaver over her heavy jowls. “Have you had any experience with them?”

“A little. I went out for an audience. I found the Master quite impressive.” There, better. Sounded just right. “How so?” Erudite eyebrows arches.

“His ritual. It forms a mood, a feeling I can’t express.” That’s it. Vague.

“Oh, he used the Hindic rituals, then?” the Madi said. “I suppose. I don’t have enough experience to say where they came from.” Disclaim all knowledge. Slide away from specifics.

“Well, he must be a truly magnetic man,” the Madi said. Rhandra gave me a seductive wink, setting off flares in my belly. Mind darts around. Looking for way out. Getting hot in here. Look around at other tables, clogged with rheumatic and respectable bodies. All dead inside, no light flickering through pupils.

Reminds me of holy cadaver they showed me last time I was here. All sliced up for the preservatives to go in, stringy muscles. Gray look to him, ancient saint (imported), naked teeth wobbling in the candlelight. The Madi told me to touch him, Director, he was a truly enlightened one. Legendary, performed miracles. I touched a knee, half expecting him to still be warm.

Main course materializes. Confection of shimmering lightness. Innocent plant with its throat cut and diced out for my inspection. Can’t quite place the aroma. Spun cottony webs melt away on my teeth. Elusive flavor down into the stomach, ion processes plate it out on the sides, membranes suck it up.

“Actually, you know,” I said, leaning across to skewer the Madi with my eye, “the Lengen have it all over you.”

Puzzled frown. Delicate tongue darts out to lick away gob of doomed vegetable from lip. “What do you mean?”

“Simplicity. Appeals to everyone. The Lengen haven’t got your six-handed statues. No oil torches. Just the straight goods.”

“Well, sir,” Professor Jampul said, “I’m sure certain elements find that sort of thing appealing. But the nuances of one’s faith, a true feeling of community—”

“Garbage. You aren’t going to get it with your inter-religious committees or that pitiful Yogi sitting like a frog over there.”

Rhandra laughing. “Ling.”

Shrug it off. Good feeling climbing up from my toes. Something they put in the main course? Feels fresh to be honest.

“What you need is a good old Hindic chant. Simple. No atonal verities. Something to give you focus.”

“Really, Director,” the Madi said, “the ancient forms are—”

“Ommmmmm,” I hummed. Good. Spontaneous. Shivers down the throat. “OOOOOOmmmmm.”

“I don’t see—”

“OOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!”

The anvils dropped from my feet. Up onto the table, arms spread. “OOOOMMMM!” Professor Jampul peering up at me, mouth open. Wave to Rhandra, smile. Suicide perched for the jump. Crowd pointing up at him. Long way down. Yeah, lookit those eyes, give you odds he jumps.

“Alert!” I called. “Beware the frog man! He will eat your toes.” Yogi blinks at finger lancing at him. Broken trance. See, knew it was no good.

“OOOOOOMMMM!” Over the edge. Grab Rhandra’s hand. The Madi tipping over backward in her chair, clawing at the air. Levitate, lady. It’s in this year.

Dodge around servants and down the long room, all eyes tracing us, monomaniac radar. Footsteps after us. Excuse me, sir, but the Fleet Control Director has gone mad. Would you be good enough to follow him and see that he doesn’t get into trouble?

Out into the foyer. Robes flapping around me, Rhandra sleek like a tiger as she runs. Panting. Little out of shape, office job doing me in. Your body attacks you at moments of crisis.

Someone coming. Dodge through an alcove and into another corridor. Same one we were in before. How do we get out of here? Back to foyer—no, voices coming from there now. Footsteps getting nearer.

Quick, in here. Nimble of foot, close partition. A chamber for meditation. Flickering candles, cloying incense. Empty. Little pillows for cross-legged converts, looking like a field of squashed mushrooms.

In the center is a small brass figure of Shiva. Rippling hands, ferocious expression. Evil is Live! spelled backward. Why did they name this palace after you, kid? Brahma and Vishnu get a much better press. The statue glared at me, probably getting ready for cosmic war on Rogerzee and the rest of the infidels.

Doesn’t look contented. Take it? Might be useful in the afterlife. Swish, hands like birds, into my robes it goes.

Rhandra whispering something. Ignore her. Time to follow one’s own divine muse. His life was a work of art, reads my epitaph. Attention to detail turns the trick. Voices outside moving by. Here am I, doing warm-up exercises for immortality. Ah, but will I make the team?

Enigmatic sounds. Coast clear? Peek. Damn contact filters cut too much of the light, can’t make out anybody. Take a deep breath. Live a life of existential risk: go!

Leap into corridor, Rhandra with me. Soundless demon strikes in the night.

Nobody there.

This way. Around a corner. Voices. Weave away from them, don’t pant. Ruin and scandal await you. Through passageway, priests look up surprised. Wave, maniac grin, use the teeth. Over to the left. Right, now down these stairs. Maybe we’ll discover the secret dungeon. No, a door. Push open a crack. Fresh night air. Outside, down the path.

Stop to get bearings. Rhandra points to the right. Yes. Landing lights are off, not expecting us. Slipped through their lines.

Into the speed sled. Start it up. Rhandra takes the controls. I smile, feeling weak. She looks concerned. Surprise, surprise. I fall asleep.

“It was an unusual evening,” Rhandra said, smiling slightly.

“Yes,” I said. I buried my face in my hands, rubbing my eyes. I felt no tension. In fact, I seemed to be perfectly ordinary. “A good word. Unusual. Disasterous fits pretty well, too.”

“Why?”

“A Director doesn’t act like that. Fleet thinks the Empire is built on formalities and they might be right. I violated a few hundred canons regarding relations with the natives last night.”

“How would Fleet ever find out?”

“Ah. Simple girl.” I reached out and ruffled her hair as she sat on the floor at my feet. “Fleet has a thousand eyes. They’ll know. And they might very well yank me out of this assignment.”

A morning beam from Lekki slanted in to warm my feet. I was fed and comfortable. The future didn’t seem to matter much. I knew the Master had touched off something inside me and made me perform last night, but the underlying reason didn’t concern me at the moment. That was still me at the Palace, not someone else. It was an identity I hadn’t seen very often since the playful days of childhood and it was welcome back. Whether it was useful to me in my present position was a different matter and I really didn’t give a damn.

Rhandra must have been reading my mind. She kissed my knee and said, “Whoever it was, I liked him.”

There was a knock at the door. When I opened it Jamilla bowed, not glancing inside, and said in a low voice, “There is a call for you from Mr. Majumbdahr. In your office.”

I pulled on a robe and went down the hall. I threw his image on the large projector, killed the camera at my end and sat down.

“Good morning, sir,” Majumbdahr said when he saw I wasn’t going to transmit an image. “Kalic has quieted down a bit. There are routine messages from Fleet Central, which I’ve answered. They did an analysis of the strategic situation in this sector and give us a fifteen percent probability of a Quarn thrust within ten days, falling off a little after that. Someone is a little disturbed at Central, though, because they’re sending a Jump ship.”

“Why?” .

“It carries medium range armament. We can use it to catch Quarn ships out to several hundred A.U.”

“That’s useless. The Quarn will simply decoy one lone Jump ship out until they get it clear of the system. Then they hit us fast and leave.”

Majumbdahr looked uncomfortable. “Control said that’s all they can spare us.”

“All right.” I shrugged. “I’ll use it for reconnaissance in the immediate vicinity. It’ll be a help. What else?”

“A few odds and ends. I had to listen to an hour of righteous indignation from a Vedanta sect about the gravitational radiation station on the other side of the planet.”

“Huh? Whatever for?”

“They think the scientists there are drawing the energy out of the neutron star and will make it fall into Lekki. Say it’s a Quarn plot. They want us to stop it.”

“Good grief. Say, about that station—any chance they can pick up that anomaly Gharma mentioned coming in perpendicular to the ecliptic? It’s just on the edge of detectability for our equipment.”

“An interesting thought; I’ll check into it. That anomaly, by the way, is getting closer. But the technicians haven’t been able to straighten out yet whether it’s the range finder or mass register that’s malfunctioning. Gharma’s been riding them but they say the instruments are fine. They can’t explain the results, though.”

“Keep them at it when they have time. But keep most of Fleet Control watching traces in the plane of the ecliptic. If the Quarn are going to match orbital velocity with Veden they’ve got to come at us that way. Anything more?”

“Uh, yes,” he said and ricked his lips. “The Madi called this morning. She wanted to send a priority message to Fleet Central. She. said she would pay for it herself.”

“Um. And what did you do?”

“I think I’ve misplaced it somewhere.”

“I see. Well, we’re not here to carry messages for civilians.”

“No.”

“Signing off, then.” As his image dwindled I thought I saw him smiling.

The Master loomed above me. He filled the room, the whole universe. Warm close feel of Rhandra beside me, sweet air of incense, sticky pull of robes on my flesh—all fell away into nothing.

I was totally focused on the Master. As I slid into it I asked What state is this? and almost before the question had formed I felt the peace begin. Ripples of worry smoothed and vanished. A state of no definition, no thought, no method. To put aside the thousand things and, in stillness, retain yourself.

“This is done by not thinking various things, one after another,” the Master said, his deep rolling voice breaking a long silence.

I laughed. Sound to the side: soft tinkling chuckle of Rhandra.

“Like—that,” I said, abruptly snapping my fingers. It was very clear what he meant. Just—that. No words. Only being.

The Master nodded.

“There is more,” he said. “Many things you must know. Not as they seem.”

I waved a hand in question, laid my head upon my shoulder. The Master moved his body to shield his hand but I caught a glimpse of a small box. He fingered it.

I heard a low smooth tone that died away as I concentrated on it. A strange prickly shock ran down my neck. I was falling. What—?

Coming back again. I expanded until I could see myself below. Deep white craters that were pores on my face. I shivered in the hurricane breath that swept down from the nostril mountain.

You can be close. Warm. Gather once more into the lap of sunlight. The Master said all this, but with no words.

“There are others near you,” Rhandra said. “We are far greater friends than you might know.”

I started to turn my head toward her and stopped, fixed in the Master’s stare.

They have led you through the steps necessary to appredate our purposes. When you first came to Veden you were not in a pure state. The path was not open to you.

Now you are in readiness. The Master made ritual passes of welcome, his gloved hands rippling in the soft air.

Those who helped you and were of aid, though you knew them imperfectly, are—

Suddenly I saw Gharma and Majumbdahr standing to both sides of the Master. They must have entered from the wings, quietly standing in place until my attention was focused on them.

—quit of their tasks. You were not ready for me. They saw this. It was in the pace of tightness that you learned Veden first, felt what happened here, saw the signs of ruin.

Majumbdahr grinned wryly at me. I felt a sudden burst of affection for this man who had worked and planned beside me, and at all times sensed my inner turmoil. I owed him much.

Gharma gazed at me calmly. His heavy lids shadowed his dark eyes, adapted for Veden. He was a strange, deep man moved by traditions and social conventions I would never fully know. Yet he too had helped me.

“You lost phase.” The Master’s deep voice broke the silence. “Became lonely. Isolated. They—” He gestured at Majumbdahr and Gharma and then, with an abrupt, jerking motion, at Rhandra seated beside me.

“I was feeling the same way, Ling,” Rhandra said to me. Her voice sounded as though she were far away. “I came to the Lengen. The Master has shown me other sides of myself. When he told me of you I offered to help—to watch over you, guide you to fullness.”

“The meeting in the old Hindic section was arranged?” I said slowly.

“Not really. I was there to study you from the crowds. When the Lancers hit me I didn’t know you would see me later. It was your kindness that brought us together.”

I nodded. The Master had seen even that. He knew, simply from the reports of Majumbdahr and Gharma, what I needed.

I felt a floating, boundless serenity. I looked down on the room bordered by folds of cloth and watched it as a spectator. Rhandra and I sat together in closeness. The Master in his bulky robes was bracketed by Majumbdahr and Gharma. The things they had said did not disturb me. They had conspired to save me from myself and for that I could only give thanks.

I made a gesture of gratefulness. The Master made ritual passes again over the dining implements before him.

“Is not all.” He pressed the small box again, fingering it delicately. I felt myself rising again.

“Look.”

The Master stood up in one smooth motion. He twisted two points in his robes and they slid away. He stood nearly naked.

He was thin, incredibly thin. Long bones moved visibly in his arms and legs, rippling the taut, pale white skin. His fingers were like sticks with large knobby joints. A barrel chest. No body hair.

His feet were dark semicircles of thick, tough fiber spanned by radial ridges of cartilage that served much the same function as toes.

His eyes were deep and black. The mouth curved upward in a thin red line. There was no nose.

A translucent wedge of tissue jutted out where ears would have been. He stood, rocking slightly on the wide base of his feet.

There was utter silence.

He was an alien.

The body was unlike anything I knew among the races within the Mongol Empire. Even those races were seldom allowed to leave their home stars, so there was little chance that one would appear on Veden.

I looked at the Master for long moments. I could not fear him.

In a way, this was the answer I had been seeking. The two threads of my life were tied up at last.

The Master was a Quarn.

Like all intelligent races, they came out of nothingness armed with their own peculiar insights and talents.

There had been another Empire, then. Far mightier than that of the Mongol, comprising many more races. It had already begun to decline when the Quarn were young.

Other races ebbed into lassitude and death. The Empire came apart from sheer lack of interest. Yet the Quarn lived on; their time was not yet come. In the dying embers of that Empire they had learned much. Through the long centuries of isolation that followed they hoarded their knowledge and studied.

Finally age caught up with even them. Their spirit drained slowly away, as they had seen happen to others. The artifacts of their forefathers remained but not the will to build more or to improve on the old.

Then came Man. The Mongol Empire licked at the edge of the Quarn life sphere. The wisest among the Quarn studied the history of the earlier Empire and recognized some of the same symptoms.

Man dominated every other race and culture he met. He suppressed minorities within his own civilization.

It was easy to see why the Mongol Empire had expanded so rapidly.

The history of Man was the history of cycles. A continual tension existed between Man the social animal and Man the individualist. Stress on one aspect or another oscillated slowly through the gradual upward climb toward a world culture. The Asian continent was the last local area in which the virtues of community dominated. When virtually all the human race outside of pockets on the Asian mainland were destroyed in the Riot War, this cycle was disturbed. Asia rose to dominance. Simultaneously, Man achieved the technology to reach the stars.

The Mongol Empire expanded outward on a wave of psychic energy released by the melding of the entire human race into one community.

But Man was not meant fully for community. The duality of his nature was the ultimate source of his resilience and his strength. The Mongol Empire had to fail.

When the Quarn first met it the Empire had begun to slow down and become formalized. Given time the formalities would chafe. Rebellion would bring harsh measures. The Empire would begin to split.

The best way to avoid revolution at home was war abroad. It was part of a classic pattern. The leaders of the Mongol Empire would find it profitable to disturb the peace of the surrounding races. The basic instability of the Empire would expend itself on other, more stable cultures.

The Quarn had studied Man for long decades before deciding on a course of action. They would have to force Man back upon his origins, rid him of the Empire that would eventually crush him. They would use his own weaknesses against him—the only mature way to wage war between radically different cultures.

They pieced together ships that could barely survive in combat with Empire forces. It was the most they could do with the decaying technology they possessed. The ancient Quarn had left giant devices in free space which could perform enormous tasks—move a planet through Jump space, damp the bright fire of a star—but these the Quarn could not morally use in battle. They had to depend upon what they could mend and make serviceable by themselves.

… All this came to me as the Master spoke in the quietness of the Ashram. As Majumbdahr and Rhandra and Gharma listened to a tale they had heard before. As I tried to fathom a completely alien mind.

“What, then,” I said, lifting up my open hands at the cloth walls, “is all this?”

“Veden is a unique case,” Gharma said. “We are not part of the Mongol Empire here. Some of us will not be victims to the Plague because we were never part of the Mongol community. For the same reason you are not.”

“Me?”

“You ofkaipan.” The Master looked at me intently.

“You are among the saved,” Rhandra said softly.

“Saved? Because I was despised?”

“Because you are not susceptible to the Plague,” Majumbdahr said. “Neither are we. The Quarn are going to find as many people who are not Plague victims—I call them Patanen, ‘they who laugh at Fate’—and sneak them out of the Empire to a star system with an Earth-like planet.”

“Nucleus,” the Master said. “New start.”

“What happens to Earth?” I said.

“When the Empire has shrunk down to a few systems the Quarn will withdraw. Earth can cure itself or go under,” Gharma said evenly.

I nodded. I could see what was coining next. “You want me to help transport Patanen from Veden.”

“No.” The Master chuckled. “More important. Many on Earth.”

“We want you to help get the ofkaipan—the off-islanders—from Earth. They must be saved as well,” Majumbdahr said.

“Veden will be a free planet soon,” Gharma said. “The Empire cannot hold it for long, or the space around it. From that point on it will be allowed to go its own way.”

“Why don’t the Quarn bring all the Patanen from the planets of the Empire to Veden, then?”

“No room,” the Master said. “Strain food supply. Destroy harmony of city and nature.”

“Even many Vedens are affected by the Plague, as well,” Gharma pointed out. “There will be turmoil here to which we would only aggravate if all the Patanen were sent.”

“How many ships of Patanen will there be?”

“Perhaps fifty,” Majumbdahr said.

“Simple to find ships in colonies,” the Master said. “Not so on Earth.”

“Then this sort of thing is taking place in all the colonies?” I said. “The Quarn hope to get enough Jump ships to carry all the Patanen? That’s impossible.”

“If they were living, breathing humans, yes,” Majumbdahr assented. “There wouldn’t be room on the ships. But we’re going to seize cargo vessels if possible. And we’ll freeze the passengers before we take them on.” I looked inquiringly at the Master.

“No, no,” he said. “No freezing, quite. Just cool down.”

“Processes for lowering body temperature to a degree or two above freezing are well known,” Gharma said.

“I remember,” I said. “It’s not used very much but I suppose we can do it. The metabolic rate slows a great deal, but not enough to permit the subject to outlive a ramscoop flight. It’s not used on most Jump ships because they are military—the only kind of ship I’ve had experience with.”

I paused. Without thinking, without questioning at all, I had accepted the word of the Master. The task was to be done; therefore I would do it.

When one is truly focused, decisions are simple. There is no worry, for worry is wasted mental motion, nervous jittering of the mind.

Was I so focused? I shrugged the question off. Paying attention to it would only destroy concentration.

“There will be people on Earth who can cool and store the bodies properly?” I asked.

The Master nodded. “We have many followers on the off-islands. A few know the techniques.”

“Followers? The Lengen are allowed on Mongol planets-even Earth?”

“No.” He shifted his weight as though he were uncomfortable in Veden’s gravity field. His robes, which he had wrapped back around his thin body, spread out from his zazen sitting position like a green fan. “Other places, we hide.”

“The guru tradition doesn’t exist on other planets,” Gharma broke in. “It would appear strange if the Lengen arose.”

“Then there are Quarn everywhere,” I mused. “On all the colony planets, even on Earth.”

“Search for remnants,” the Master said.

“All that’s to be left of humanity,” I said. “And I am to get them off Earth? Even with your help—”

“With the help of us all,” Majumbdahr said slowly. “You didn’t think we would remain on Veden when you were summoned?”

I looked at Rhandra. “And you?”

“Of course,” she said. Soft as night, her eyes.

“How do we get there?”

“The Jump ship Fleet Central is sending,” Majumbdahr said. “It is due in a few days.”

“They won’t necessarily orbit Veden.”

“If you ask, they must,” Gharma said.

“True, in the region surrounding Veden I command. But the crew will not surrender the ship to me.”

“Take it,” the Master said.

“How?”

“With planning I think it can be done,” Majumbdahr said, a calculating look on his face. “Fleet Control has some stun gas in reserve. If we can manufacture a pretext for a party from Veden to visit the Jump ship—”

“Yes,” I said, “that would work. Gas in the air system would disable the ship before communications section could get off a warning to Fleet Central on Earth. If we do it right there won’t even be time for an emergency distress signal.”

The Master held his hands together, palms inward, a gesture of pleasure.

“It moves as planned,” he said.

I looked at him carefully. His bald head, uncovered, shone in the light. An alien. Yet I felt no fear.

I knew I would follow him. Perhaps what I had seen earlier—the Master’s vision of his race, a noble effort to discipline mankind before it could harm others—wasn’t the whole truth. The Master, after all, was not a god, but only another intelligent being. The Quarn obviously were superior to men in these matters—otherwise why would I be here now?—and their judgment should be trusted.

All this I thought—but it was not what I felt. Inside I carried a quiet, steady faith in the Master. I could feel my inner nature rebelling whenever I began to doubt and question. It provoked a vague, uncomfortable tension.

I relaxed. With focus, everything else went away.

“You wonder,” the Master said, peering steadily at me. “Not understand what you feel.”

I nodded.

“Your enlightenment has not come,” he said. “Still”—he slapped his fists together into a ball—“locked. Sometimes try to get out. I help it.”

“Words, words,” I said. “I don’t know—”

“Remember? When last you left?”

“Yes. I went to a banquet.”

“And there. Your nature escaped.”

“That was me?”

The Master smiled, his head bobbing. “You spoke clearly through to your Self. Free.”

“Don’t have to check with management upstairs.” I laughed and suddenly felt emptied. Gush, just like that. Bad air out.

The Master palmed his tiny slab of metal. Was he helping me with it in some way? Play the mystic chimes. Music freshens the manic brain.

I noticed my friends smiling. They had known it, that night. I was slowly realizing that everything was part of the whole, planned to bring me to this point.

“For once we saw the free Ling Sanjen,” Majumbdahr said.

Gharma smiled serenely. Rhandra gave her quick warm laugh of silk and silver.

“You’ll see more of him now,” I said quietly.

There was more. More planning, speculation on possible alternate courses, arranging of schedules. Orders to be issued. People coordinated. Only a few of the Lengen converts could go with us and they had to be carefully selected. The Master would do that.

So when we left the Ashram later—much later—I felt as though I were at the end of a long journey. I wanted to rest and yet I could not. More lay ahead.

As we returned to Kalic I watched the quasimakas fields slide by outside, thinking of how little of Veden I had seen. My life seemed to be made up of places I had never fully understood. I never had time to feel the true pulse but instead was rushed on to the next environment. The years spent in the Mongol culture were not enough to lead me to community—and I realized now that infinite time probably wouldn’t have been long enough.

But this time I felt optimistic. I had uncovered at least a part of my true nature. The Master could show me more, I knew. Veden had given me that and I was grateful.

I looked out on the spreading growth on all sides and rubbed my eyes that ached from overuse of the contact filters. Majumbdahr, Gharma and Rhandra talked and laughed, but I was tired and went to sleep. I would have stayed up if I had known it was to be the last time I would ever see the Veden countryside.

PART IV

And were cast down into darkness

Far deeper than before.

It was good to sit once more in the captain’s chair on the bridge deck. The Fariiken was a Class IV Jump ship, usually used for interception and planetary defense. Like all Jump vehicles it was a sphere (to give maximum volume for surface area) with slight dimples of communication grids that broke the clean organiform surface. Enclosed in the sphere was the life-system cylinder. The rest of the ship’s volume held engines and reaction mass. The cylinder in turn contained several smaller coaxial cylinders that comprised the levels and decks.

The bridge was inside the smallest cylinder and thus enjoyed the most shielding from any radiation that penetrated our screens. Here I sat. As I toyed with the visual display and let myself become accustomed to the sounds of normal ship operation again, I never thought of the tons of high density fluids that surrounded me in all directions, encasing the life cylinder and waiting to be fed to the engines. I had never been on a ship in which the reaction mass was appreciably depleted—and the diameter of the sphere contracted—so I regarded the Bag, as it was called, as a nearly rigid object No one who went into space ever dwelled for long on the fact that organic wastes which are difficult to process are pumped into the Bag for fuel, either. It was not a thought that inspired serenity.

“Majumbdahr reporting, sir.”

“Sit down,” I said. “And drop the ‘sir.’ Perhaps the Council on Earth would consider us to be Fleet Officers still, but I don’t.”

“I see your point,” he said, slipping into the form-fitting chair next to me. Automatically he glanced at the visible indicators and verified that all systems were working properly; not even decades on the ground can take that training out of an officer.

“As you’ve just seen, everything is functioning,” I said wryly. “Which means there isn’t any particular reason for me to be sitting here watching the computers do their job. But I do it anyway.”

“Waiting is never simple.”

“It would be easier if I felt like a captain. But here on the Fariiken it’s not the same. I have too much time to think.”

“Perhaps because you no longer carry the weight of the Sabal Game on your single back?” he said gently.

“True. That, and the fact that I am no longer following orders from faceless officers in Fleet Central. Independence brings its own fresh breath.”

“Independence, indeed. I just verified that all extra-planetary communications gear on Veden has been destroyed. We can’t call anyone for help now.”

“Ah? How did you check that?”

“One of our men, a Lengen follower, sent me a signal—oh, I see what you mean.”

“Small matter. I’m sure if you passed on him he can be trusted to disable the last transmitter.”

“There didn’t seem to be any chance that Fleet Control would recover quickly after we disappeared—or at least, that’s what our man said in that last signal. “No one can follow us either, then?”

“That’s a calculated risk.”

“We’ll be through the Flinger in another day.”

“But we don’t know how quickly a junior officer will react, sir. That’s a big unknown.”

“Who do you think it will be?”

Majumbdahr pondered a moment. “The medical officer, Imirinichin. I think he’s always had an itch to command. He might jump at the opportunity.”

I shook my head. “He didn’t strike me that way. In any case, how can they be sure something’s radically wrong?”

“Do you think Imirinichin will believe the story we sent out on tightbeam?” .

“It’s not so wild, as Fleet orders go these days. Something might have happened that necessitated the Fariiken’s leaving on the double. And it would have taken time for us to get clear of the background radiation from the reaction engines, in that ancient skimmer of ours.”

Majumbdahr studied his fingers and looked at me doubtfully. “Even Fleet doesn’t snatch away a Director, plus staff officers.”

I sighed. “All right, it’s not a particularly good cover story. But what does it matter? There’s not much they can do. They can’t even see us anymore, can they?”

“No. Not on the mass detectors—I saw them put out of commission myself. Fleet Control is still receiving telemetered data from all the sensor satellites orbiting Lekki-Jagen, though. They can pick us up on that.”

“Very accurately?”

“No, the satellites weren’t designed for that.”

“I thought not.” I released the catch on my chair and revolved it around to face down the bridge. The padded luxury of officer’s country lay in the next cylinder layer out; even that couldn’t compare with the bridge, though. Here a soft quiet atmosphere of rugs with thick pile, padded instrument panels, muffled monitoring beeps and scented air helped maintain calm and alertness. It was a far better appointed ship than any I had commanded before.

The Fariiken had also been ridiculously easy to capture. “What was the ship’s crew like when you put them in the skimmer?” I said suddenly. “I was here on the bridge. I didn’t see much of the action.”

“There wasn’t much trouble, sir,” Majumbdahr said, shrugging. “The stun gas probably hasn’t worn off yet.”

“What about some of those crew quarters I saw? The ones we’ve closed off.”

Majumbdahr shifted uneasily, making the chair seem as if it were too small for him. “They were a bit messy, yes. Two or three of the crewmen had holed up in there. They barricaded the room with furniture. Sealed off most of the air ducts with wadded plastic writing paper.”

“Plague victims?”

“Yes. We didn’t bother to clean them up—just threw them into the skimmer with the rest.”

I looked down the bridge, thinking. Most of the spots for technicians were empty. Battle Control, the largest part of the bridge, was completely darkened. We didn’t plan on fighting anyone.

“The Fariiken is a first line vessel. It should carry the absolutely best crew available.”

“But three of them became Plague victims before the ship could reach Veden,” Majumbdahr said.

“The Empire must be coming apart faster than we thought,” I said. “Veden must be a haven of sanity by now.”

“Imagine commanding a ship with a crew like that,” Majumbdahr said.

I looked at him. Evidently he didn’t know about Regeln or anything I’d done before I came to Veden. He hadn’t seen my personnel file. Well, someone has; the Master had referred to it during my meditation with him yesterday. A good thing they had too—otherwise the Lengen wouldn’t have known precisely how to handle me after I’d arrived. “Yes,” I said, “the captain must have been under considerable strain. Otherwise I don’t think he wouldn’t swallowed such a pretext for our skimmer to come up and make direct contact.”

Majumbdahr smiled. The ruse had been his invention and he was proud of it. “I don’t think you realize what Fleet has on its mind these days, sir. You didn’t read the incoming garbage we got from Fleet Central every day. Half of it was about Quarn spies, mysterious codes and security measures. The Fariiken got most of those messages too. What’s more reasonable than Veden having a few spies?”

“I know—I remember the message I signed,” I said. I thumbed the Fariiken log into the visual display. One of the last entries read:

STATISTICAL COINCIDENCE MEASUREMENTS OF BACKGROUND ELECTROMAGNETIC SPECTRUM IN THIS SYSTEM INDICATE PEAKED ACTIVITY ON THREE DISTINCT FREQUENCY BANDS OVER PERIOD OF LAST 37 DAYS. RESPECTFULLY SUGGEST THIS MAY INDICATE QUARN SENSORS ORBITING LEKKI-JAGEN AT UNKNOWN RADIUS. WE CANNOT BE SURE OF INTERCEPTION-FREE TRANSMISSION OF ORBITAL PARAMETRIC LOG AS REQUESTED BY YOU. HUMBLY REQUEST LOG BE DELIVERED IN SKIMMER CONJUNCTION 1346 HOURS 14758A BX 409 TRANSFER. LING SANJEN, DIRECTOR.

The Orbital Parametric Log was a block of orange plastic a foot on a side, with delicate black ferrite stains embedded along fracture interfaces and slippage lines, carrying a thousand miles of magnetic memory in a three-dimensional array. A computer could read the swirl of dots at a glance. It included the orbital data for everything larger than a shard of rock that circled about Lekki-Jagen. In particular it pinpointed every ramscoop in a parking orbit. The OPL was a detailed and accurate record and far more precise than any survey the Farriken could make by herself in a reasonable time. It was indispensable. The Fariiken would have to know the sheep before it could pick out the wolves.

“I’ll admit, though, it worked,” I said. “I had my doubts at the time, but I suppose it doesn’t take much to fool men who don’t suspect you might be working for the other side.”

I stood up. “Mr. Majumbdahr, if you’ll relieve me…”

“I believe you said we were Fleet officers no more,” Majumbdahr said, getting to his feet, laughing. “But I suppose somebody has to stand watch.”

“There won’t be anything to watch until we’re nearly in the Flinger,” I said. “Things are a trifle dull on the bridge right now.”

I walked down a corridor between banks of detection equipment, nodding occasionally at technicians and officers who were at their consoles. We had forty-seven people on the Fariiken—just barely enough to keep her running, considering that the Master, Rhandra and a few of the Lengen priests were useless. Hopefully, on Earth we would pick up a few more trained spacemen.

I went down the nearest ramp into officers’ quarters, B deck. Strictly speaking, it should be C deck because the inner tube of the life cylinder is a separate level. No one lives there, of course—it has little “gravity” due to the rotation of the life cylinder, being at the center, and is usually kept at high vacuum anyway. The tube is kept clear under normal operation. It is the axis of the Hie cylinder and extends out to the organiform surface of the ship. In an emergency the crew could pour into the tube, travel outward to the skin and escape into free space.

The Fariiken was heavily loaded with reaction fluid now, so the Bag was nearly fully distended. The tube—which was organiform and would contract along its length as the Bag emptied—extended several hundred meters from the life cylinder to the ship’s skin. Attached to it at regular intervals were pods that housed deepspace equipment, skimmer ports, small life support pockets in case of extreme emergency, and cargo holds. If you could see through the colloidal fluids that filled the Bag, the Fariiken would look like a snare drum—the life cylinder—with a thick rod stuck through the middle. From the rod float sacks filled with cargo and other items. The whole contraption rotates to supply artificial gravity and is isolated from the reaction fluids by a flexible organiform envelope.

The Fariiken doesn’t look very much like the traditional ideas of a spaceship, but then, inherited preconceptions shouldn’t be allowed to get in the way of efficient physics. The configuration is stable and because of the viscosity of the reaction fluids can withstand quite high levels of shear. The radiation pattern surrounding a Jump ship when the tachyon drive is on obeys a sine squared distribution about the cylinder axis; this means the most shielding is needed normal to the axis and, conveniently enough, the sphere of reaction fluid around us provides precisely that.

I passed quickly through B deck and down another ramp into C deck—crew quarters. Rhandra and I had chosen a small cabin near the top of the cylinder—“up” meaning along the ship’s line of flight—because we wanted privacy. There was enough room for five times our company, but the Master and most of the Lengen had taken suites on B deck.

“No news,” I said as I keyed the door and walked in. Rhandra was lying on her cushioned mat, hand over her eyes. She sat up at the sound of my voice. Her hair tumbled slowly in the weak gravity.

“That word I am glad to hear,” she said and kissed me. “There has been too much news of late.”

“Tired?”

“I shouldn’t be, I know. Lighter gravity and all that. But I am.”

“It’s been a long week since we were last in the Ashram,” I said, sitting on her mat. “Things have moved too quickly.”

“A year ago a trip to Kalic was a big event,” she said with a slight smile. “Now I’m on my way to Earth. Yes, it is a little quick.”

I lay back and pulled her to me. “Earth is just a stopover,” I said. “We’ll be there only a few days. At our present fuel levels we can get clear of the Empire in one Jump, with a little sacrifice in accuracy. We’ll be free of all this forever.”

“All this… deceit?” she said quietly.

I nodded ruefully. “Yes, I suppose that’s it. Maybe that’s why the last week has been so wearing on us all. I didn’t like lying to my officers about the skimmer flight and faking that electromagnetic spectrum report. It didn’t feel good.”

“We don’t like being conspirators.”

“There’s no reason we should. No integrated personality should have to function that way.”

“I don’t know. If we’d known about the Master earlier—”

“It wouldn’t seem so strange.”

She nodded. I parted my robes and opened hers as well. Our bodies fit together naturally, softly, as though we had been married for decades. We formed a warm, secure pocket in the austerity of the narrow crew quarters.

“Some of the others don’t seem to be bothered, though,” Rhandra said.

“Who?”

“Gharma.”

“Ah. I haven’t seen much of him, there hasn’t been time to talk. He does seem more assured than Majumbdahr. Neither of them have spent much time on Jump ships.”

“Most of the Lengen priests had never seen a skimmer before—not that I had, either,” Rhandra said. “It’s hard to tell whether they have difficulty adjusting to low gee and the impersonality of this… this metal cavern. They don’t speak to me.”

“Or me,” I said lazily. I was beginning to relax and I didn’t care about the subleties of Veden manners. I had never learned anything about them, anyway, except that necessary to visit the holy places.

“They seem more rigid that the priests I met at the Ashram,” she said.

“You hadn’t seen those Lengen before?”

“A few I knew, but none well. One priest from my home district was a friend of my family and I came to understand him in my time in the Ashram. He wasn’t selected to come with us.”

I yawned. “Maybe the ones here were picked for courage. Or calmness under stress. Or maybe the Master just likes them better.”

“I suppose you’re right,” she said, nuzzling her nose into my cheek. “I’ll take some time to come to fullness with all this—it feels a little strange, right now. That’s what the Master told me today.”

“Oh, yes, you’ve just come back from your audience, haven’t you? How was it?”

She chuckled softly in the folds of my neck. “I was awkward. I couldn’t seem to concentrate.”

“Um hum.”

“I suppose I’m still reacting to his being a Quarn. I didn’t have any idea, you know, until that night.”

“It bothers you?”

“A little. He really is alien, completely different, but most of the time I don’t notice it. The Master knows so much about my reactions and how I feel, even before I know myself.”

“That is what makes him the Master and us his followers.”

She hit me playfully. “No need to be pompous,” Rhandra said. “I don’t want you to lie around like an old bear and make stuffy pronouncements. You’ll begin to sound like the priests.”

I faked a yawn and then rolled her over on top of me. She pushed away automatically when I let go of her hips. Her shove tilted her back toward my raised knees. She gave another awkward jerk to get free that I helped along and before she could move again she was spinning in the air three feet off the floor. I kept her tumbling with my bare feet for another ten seconds, laughing at the startled cries of outrage, and let her drop. She hit our pad with a thump.

“Rrroww!” she said.

“There’ll be more if you don’t allow me my share of dignity. Until you’ve spent a month or two in low gee you’ll be at my mercy.”

“So sorry, master. I did not understand the gravity of the situation.”

“For a farm girl, you’re learning fast. Throw me my sandals.”

“Why?”

“You’ve forgotten? The Master doesn’t grant audiences only to the hangers-on, you know. Captain Ling Sanjen has his needs, too.”

“Try not to get your knees locked in the zazen position,” she said. “Ship’s stores don’t carry very much rubbing oil.”

I gave her a kiss, a mock salute and went out into the corridor. The violet phosphors were widely spaced here because few of the Lengen had elected to live in crews’ quarters The Farriken had ordinary Sol standard phosphors when we took her, so it was necessary to change them to Veden’s unusual spectral distribution. Phosphors operate on direct electrical a.c. current that is conducted through a thin layer on the surface. It’s a one-step process that converts electrical energy into heat and light emitted by the phosphor bands painted onto the wall between the two electrical contacts. To change the color of the light one simply paints over the old phosphor with a new one.

The job was done immediately after we came aboard, but the Lengen priests weren’t skilled and out here on C deck they had rushed through, slapping on phosphor paint in broad, thin swabs. The result was a spectral distribution of light that looked like a cloudy day to a Veden native and deep twilight to an Earthman. I still wore my Veden contact filters; Rhandra and the rest had their retinal systems altered at birth to accommodate Lekki’s light, so it was impossible to operate any part of the ship without Veden-normal illumination. The Master, I’d been told, had specially prepared contact filters that enabled him to get around fairly well; the correction was not perfect. Evidently his world, wherever it was, had a rather complicated sunlight spectrum. Or perhaps his eyes had been evolved for a different role; ours, after all, lay somewhere between the primate eyes useful for finding static, colorful fruit and the carnivore eyes that could pick out a flicker of motion hundreds of meters away. Just thinking about my contact filters made my eyes itch; I rubbed them. I threaded my way through C deck and up the ramp into B deck without meeting a soul. I was already adjusting to low gee; I could feel the difference in centrifugal acceleration between B and C deck. Out at the edge of the life-system cylinder, on E deck where the computers and stationary backup hardware are kept, the apparent gravity is more than one third Earth’s. On C deck it was about a sixth and on B one seventh. That made a difference of about four pounds in my weight, which may sound like a lot. But if I’m thinking of something else as I walk up a ramp I don’t notice the difference until I get to the bridge, where gravity is less than a tenth Earth gee. Add to that the Coriolis force that kept trying to make me walk into the righthand wall, and there were quite a few reminders that I was inside a life-system that rotated about every minute. Maybe that was the reason the Lengen priests were a bit stiff—they were simple people devoted to loss of the immediate self through total awareness, and the Fariiken, with its similarities to life on Veden, mingled with striking differences, would probably disturb their concentration. “Director!”

I turned. Gharma was approaching down a brightly lit corridor perpendicular to my own. “I’m going to the Master,” I said.

“Very good. You do not mind if I accompany you?”

I laid my hand on my right shoulder in the Veden gesture of friendship. “A few words may do us both well.”

“I have been tending to the preparation of the cooling vaults. I estimate we will be able to hold all the Master anticipates, barring accidents.”

“Where will they be?”

“Most will be stored in the pods off the tube,” Gharma said. He walked stiffly beside me, arms held behind him and shoulders squared. He looked like more of a soldier than he ever had on Veden. “There are sealed compartments on D and E deck, however, that can be used. I am arranging a schedule for the priests so that we may install cooling apparatus during the Jump interval.”

“There will probably be about a week in Jump space, the computers say. Majumbdahr is handling the calculation and he’s new at it so there may be a ten percent error. Is that enough time?”

He nodded. “Yes. I think so.” He seemed to be computing something mentally.

“Are you sure E deck is all right?”

“I am sure the space required—”

“No, I mean the gravity.”

I’m afraid—”

“Look, these are people well be stacking in, not cord-wood. How would you like to lie in one position for a month in a third of a gee?”

“Oh. I didn’t—”

“It’s not your fault. The Fariiken library probably doesn’t carry enough on cold-shipping. When cooled bodies lie in a static gravity field they undergo corpuscular damage and muscle deterioration just because a few layers of tissue are supporting the rest of the body. Even people who are alive get bedsores.”

“What can we do?”

“If we put bodies on D and E deck we’ll have to rotate them regularly. That requires manpower we probably won’t be able to spare. Are you sure you can’t get them all into the pods? The gravity is practically zero there.”

“I—I will try.” Gharma jerked his head to look at me, then looked away. We were approaching the Master’s suite. I refastened my robes in the conservative style demanded for an audience—the same robes as on Veden, still necessary to protect my skin from the ultraviolet of the phosphors.

“Well, here we are,” I said lamely. There was something about Gharma’s heavy manner that made conversation with him difficult. I kept feeling as though I had to think of something to say next.

“This is your regular audience time?” he said.

“No, I phoned him that I would have some time now. I don’t have a schedule.”

“I hope you appreciate the honor of being so close to the Master,” Gharma said. “Most must wait for their audience.”

“You’ve had yours today?”

“No. No, I am later. I have seen the Master a short while ago and now I go to relay a message from him to Majumbdahr.”

“About what?”

“Quartering of crew in Earth orbit, some details of the flight. Everything must be carefully managed for speed and security. The pickup from Earth’s surface has to be well timed,” Gharma said.

“Why doesn’t the Master tell Majumbdahr himself?”

“He has elected to relay instructions through you and me. He is easily tired, as you know. The Master is living under conditions that are considerably different from his home world.”

“What do you know about his planet?”

“Nothing more,” he said quickly.

I tilted my head at him. “How long have you known that the Master was a Quarn, Mr. Gharma?”

He hesitated a moment, blinked. “Since my conversion. He went among the high castes first and was rejected by all but me. I am the only one from the very beginning.”

“Well,” I said uncomfortably, “very good. I, uh, I think I’ll go in now.”

I passed through the unsealed door of the suite and brushed aside the red bead curtain that shielded the inner vestibule. The Master sat within.

My meditation was as before. Each time it deepened and yielded greater growth and harmony within myself. Afterward we talked. Usually we touched on only personal matters, but on this occasion I asked the Master about the Plague.

“We induced it,” he said. He sat on a slightly raised platform before me, still heavily cloaked and with only his eyes—a light red, due to his contact filters—visible in the shadows. “We had studied your origins. Knew your evolutionary purpose. Accidents of form in each species—scent centers, pressure areas, visual band, taste sensitivity—both define and constrain. We used them.”

I shook my head, wondering. “How?”

“Humans have—tension.” He made a steeple of his hands and pressed the fingers together, smiling with thin lips. “Early primates hunted in packs. Tribes. Sense of community was high.”

“Our natural state.”

“Then, yes. Not now.” He laughed abruptly, deeply. “Mind says otherwise. Says you are alone. Others do not think the same, feel the same, own same ground, have your mate. Your tribe wants help with hunting. Rewards you with own identity, own you. You have own cave. You can find a mate. Sets up tension.” He held up a right fist. “You.” The left hand enclosed the fist. “And others. Balance is somewhere between.”

“A balance you destroyed,” I said.

He held up his left hand for me to stop. “Restored. You have a natural fear—repressed terror—of too much crowding. Sabal submerges it. We release fear, let it come out. Lights near edge of your spectral range. Faster than thirty beats a second. Keyed sounds to create muscular reaction by acting on direct synapse level of nerves. Airborne drugs if needed.”

“Fear of humanity, of other humans? Why. doesn’t it go away when the treatment stops?”

“Society represses crowd fear, makes it more strong. When we stop, their first move is to assure sense of community again—it is what they have been taught to do. Amplifies fear again, so soon after.”

“You have killed millions, billions.”

“Do you mourn?”

“No.” I looked off into space. “I can’t anymore. They were strangers to me, even though I lived with them all my life. But did it have to come now?”

“Better now,” he said slowly. His presence in the room was overpowering. “Other—older—races will be spared the explosions of your dying days. If we control it—damp it when it has served well enough—we can save some men. Men not vulnerable.” He had explained as though to a child, carefully and with a quiet intensity.

“Patanen. Ofkaipan?”

“Same, now. Many more in your colonies. Community bond not so easy there.”

“But this is the only ship going to Earth.”

He nodded. His cowl slipped back an inch and revealed his gleaming bald head. “No other colonies are safe as Veden. Few men are brave as you.”

I laughed. “You must always speak the truth, Master. ‘He who is wise, saves his compliments.’ “

He shook his head. “But it is true. It is true.”

The neutron star clutched at me. It pulled me back into my acceleration couch, trying to drag me down the bridge into the tail of the Fariiken. It wouldn’t succeed. The ship was built to take much more than the one Earth gee I was demanding of her. We wouldn’t come closer than ten thousand miles to Jagen, even throwing in the relativistic corrections to our orbit, so the seven-mile sphere of neutronium could exert only the relatively mild tidal stresses we were feeling.

The mind reassures, but the body is ignorant. My muscles kept tensing to fight the slowly gathering gravitational force, even though I knew I was safe. There was no low throb of the fusion drive my subconscious had come to associate with accelerations in free space, so it was convinced something had gone wrong.

I was facing straight along the axis of the bridge. The ship had rotated around until its axis pointed straight through the neutron star several hours ago and now small pings and snaps echoed off the tough organiform deck as the stress increased. A stylus rolled a short distance on the console at my side and came to a stop against a toggle switch. Otherwise the bridge seemed dead. The technicians were buried in their own cocoons, monitoring data as we neared the point of peak acceleration. Everyone else was unnaturally calm.

“Intercom signal.” Majumbdahr’s voice came from behind me. I flipped on the speaker. It was the Master. “Could I have visual?” he said.

“You’re in your suite, aren’t you? Good. Third switch on your left,” I said. I thumbed the main bridge display screen on as well.

Lekki boiled below us. Streamers blotted the surface and coiled upward along the local field lines to disperse in the vacuum of space. I watched a center of turbulence trace a curve from the upper corner of the screen, whipping the ion winds around it in a deep violet dance. It was some moments before I realized that I was watching the center of mass of the Lekki-Jagen system as it moved over the surface of Lekki. Both Jagen and Lekki orbited in circles about that point.

I enlarged the upper corner with a finger control and searched against the deep blue haze that framed the rim of Lekki. There it was, a dark dot. Surface temperature a balmy ten thousand degrees, just what it could pick up from Lekki’s radiation. A sphere of matter compressed down to the ultimate limit, electrons overcoming their own Fermi pressure and collapsing in on protons to become neutrons at a density of a thousand million million grams per cubic centimeter. The gradient of gravitational potential around it was enormous.

And we were falling into it.

“There’s something new coming in from the satellites.” Majumbdahr broke the silence. “It looks like a torch spectrum they’re picking up.”

I swiveled around to watch the board face-on, bracing myself against the tug. “What do they say otherwise?”

“We’re on course. Speed already about three percent of light. But I don’t like—”

“Verify it.”

He spoke into a muffled mike and punched a new program into the computers. I glanced down at Gharma, lying in the Engine and Fuel Systems command couch, and found him studying me.

“Yes,” Majumbdahr said after a few minutes, “several sensor satellites have it now.”

“How far out is it?” I said.

“Fifty-three million miles,” Majumbdahr said.

“Are you sure it’s a fusion flame?”

“Yes.”

The white torch of a reaction engine had flared on behind us. We were linked into the sensor satellites around Lekki-Jagen and they had picked it up while we were relatively blinded by the radiation levels coming from Lekki.

“A ramscoop, then,” I said.

“Yes.”

I pressed the Emergency Station button. A wail sounded down the bridge, heads raised to look at us and then ducked back to their consoles. I was in standard suit with my hood on to ward off the ultraviolet and I could feel an icy trickle of sweat running down my back.

“Imirinichin,” Majumbdahr said.

“It appears as though our esteemed medical officer has picked up the fallen standard,” I said. “Give me an intercept.”

“Computing,” Majumbdahr said, distracted by his console.

“We’re going into rebound, sir,” Gharma said over the intercom. I glanced up at the screen. Jagen had grown into a sullen red ball bathed in a spray of violet lines—images of the stars behind it, their light shifted by the deep gravitational potential around the Black Dwarf.

A sharp jab of pain in my side. I had been leaning against the couch arm too long, awkwardly braced against the leaden fingers of the tidal pull. I swung the couch around with a touch of the arm control. I could still follow the board and read computer outputs by turning my head.

“Maximum stress,” Gharma called. He was taking over some of Majumbdahr’s job while the other man worked to correlate the data from dozens of sensor satellites and find where the ramscoop was going.

I watched the screen. We were looping around Jagen, falling in toward Lekki. I heard the cooling systems rise higher in pitch. The organiform of the ship’s skin had converted to a metal-like polish hours ago to reflect away most of Lekki’s heat.

“The ramscoop will just make it,” Majumbdahr said hurriedly. “Intercept in fourteen minutes, twenty-one seconds.” We were through the loop. The screen could no longer pick up Jagen as an absorbing dot against the plasma haze around Lekki because we were between the two stars, picking up speed now. The violet lines around the neutron star were clear, though, and gave a good fix on its position. The lines curved somewhat because we were almost up to one percent of c. In a few minutes we would be traveling in the same direction as the Earth-Sol system, but with a much higher velocity.

“Computing a dodge pattern?” I asked.

“Done. Wait—our mass detector is operable again. I’ll try for some new data from it. The readings should be more accurate than all these coincidence measurements I’ve been using from the satellites.”

“How does it appear to you, sir?” Gharma asked.

“Imirinichin is smarter than I guessed,” I said. “He waited until the moment we were so close to Jagen that the mass detector wouldn’t function properly and we were almost blinded.”

My intercom buzzed. I thumbed it off; there wasn’t time to talk to anyone but bridge officers. I thought of Rhandra in our cabin on C deck. She must have heard the alarm. She would wonder what was wrong and have no one to ask.

“We can’t clear the blast, sir,” Majumbdahr said. “It looks like Imirinichin has a nice fat window for detonation of the ramscoop fusion plant. We can’t avoid the radiation entirely, but I can cut it down a bit with some maneuvering.”

“Do it,” I said. “And check back with the mass detector. You’ve narrowed its range down to get a good reading on this scoop, haven’t you? Look for something further out.”

In the moment of silence I listened to the whine of the air circulators, trying to think. Visual display showed us pulling ahead of Jagen on an orbit slightly further in toward Lekki. I glanced down the bridge. Technicians stopped their watch to look at the main screen. A Lengen priest further down the way was doing ritual hand passes, perhaps to calm himself.

“You’re right, sir,” Majumbdahr said. “Three more scoops are moving further out from the first.”

“It’s a blind,” I said. “The first fusion blast jams our sensors and the later scoops hit us before we can recover.”

“We have attained maximum rebound velocity, sir, as computed,” Gharma broke in.

“Give me a new course, Mr. Majumbdahr,” I said. “Maximize the square of the distance we can get between us and all four of the plasma clouds that will ride out on shock-waves from the detonated scoops.”

“Computing,” Majumbdahr said. I glanced at the visual display. Three minutes had passed since we left the Flinger.

“I’m displaying the new course,” Majumbdahr said.

Our flight path was a stylized line skirting out from Lekki-Jagen. A dashed line appeared beside it with slightly less curvature. At the edge of the screen was a red dot, the first ramscoop. It hardly seemed to move and I knew even that apparent velocity was due to the relative movement of the Fariiken. The scoops could not reach any significant speed in the time remaining, but it was enough to move them into our path.

“Log new course,” I ordered. “Automatic firing sequence.”

Immediately I felt the tug of our own motors. Gyros brought us around, breaking the grip of Jagen’s and Lekki’s tidal forces. Our real course began to follow the dashed line on the screen.

“Get an estimate of radiation damage,” I said. Majumbdahr punched a signal button and somewhere down the bridge a technician responded. The numbers flashed on my screen.

“High,” I said. “Too damned high. We can’t take that.”

“I cannot give you anything better, sir,” Majumbdahr said. “They have us boxed in a narrow channel.”

I nodded, noticing that our local ship’s “gravity” was easing back to normal.

“Prepare to go into Jump space,” I said.

Everyone hesitated a moment.

“It’s a risk we must take,” I said.

“Yes, sir,” Majumbdahr said. He thumbed the signal button and a hooting wail sounded through the bridge. The light dimmed automatically to conserve power.

“How large are the tensor elements in the regions just in front of the first scoop?” I said.

A technician somewhere answered me. “Within five percent of critical, sir.”

“Have many ships been lost going into the Jump under those conditions?” I said into the intercom.

“A few, I think. It is difficult to calculate the probability. Uncertainties—”

“I know. If the local gravitational stress tensor isn’t just right well never come out of Jump space,” I said.

“Jump computation finished, sir,” Majumbdahr broke in. “Power reserves adequate,” Gharma said. “Wait—I’m getting something more,” Majumbdahr said. “The mass detector is back on full scan and—ah, I see.”

“See what?” I said.

“It’s that anomaly again, sir. Something out above the plane of the ecliptic.”

“It’s still there?” I frowned. “I thought it was some sort of error in the sensor.”

“That is what I thought, as well,” Majumbdahr said. “I haven’t looked out of the plane of the ecliptic since we came on board. But it’s still there.”

“It can’t be a ramscoop,” Gharma said. “We never orbited any that—”

“Of course not,” I said irritably. “It registers as a large mass. How far out is it?”

“More than a thousand million miles,” Majumbdahr said, “perhaps further.”

“Oh, no trouble after all,” Gharma said. “Hell, I thought you had something close by,” I said. “So did I,” Majumbdahr said slowly. “The range of scan on this Class IV detection system is greater than I thought. I’m sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “We have nothing to do but wait.”

The dashed line was filling quickly as we traced along our altered flight path. The red dot crept nearer.

“I wonder what it is,” Majumbdahr said. “Mass reads larger than any ship. Could be a large asteroid.”

“How accurate is that mass data?” I said. “With a mass this high, our equipment isn’t good. From asteroid size up to Sol mass, they all register the same.” I frowned.

“Jump coming up, sir,” Gharma said. “Four minutes.” The gong signal grew louder.

“Could you do a velocity fix?” I said. “Yes,” Majumbdahr said, and reached for his console. “That will require computer time,” Gharma said. “Yes, you’re right,” I said quickly. “I don’t want to take any capability away from the Jump calculation. Cancel that, Mr. Majumbdahr.”

Time was running down. I found myself gripping the arms of my couch and relaxed. The red dot seemed to be almost dead ahead.

Suddenly it grew in size on the screen. It was a slowly expanding circle, nearly scarlet.

Gharma looked at me. “The ramscoop just blew,” I said. “That’s the plasma cloud we’re seeing. High energy particles should be along in a moment.”

The radiation detectors in the Fariiken’s skin gave a confirming buzz. I was suddenly very glad for the tons of reaction fluid between us and free space.

“Imirinichin is willing to sacrifice several scoops to stop us,” Gharma said. “That represents a substantial financial loss to the Empire. He must be very sure something is wrong.”

“Is there any chance one of the Lengen we left behind has given us away?” I asked.

Gharma shook his head. “No. Imirinichin is ambitious. More so than I had thought.”

Majumbdahr looked up. There was nothing more for him to do; the computers had it all now. “It doesn’t make any difference whether Imirinichin is sure, or whether anyone talked. He hasn’t got anything better than a signal laser to communicate with. The subspace systems are all beyond repair. He can’t call ahead to Earth or anyplace else.”

“We hope,” I said. “I didn’t see them destroyed and we have nothing more than the word of our man at Fleet Control to go on.”

“I fear it is too late for us to change our minds now,” Gharma said.

“No,” I said wryly, “we’re fresh out of alternatives.” I thumbed over to general intercom and punched the number of my cabin.

“Rhandra,” I said when the receiver clicked, “we are going to Jump. Rest, close your eyes.”

The red circle swept out to meet us. I got a visual scan of the space ahead, past the plasma billowing toward us. Far away, Veden shone brightly. The Star of India, forever serene. I was leaving it all.

“Time,” Majumbdahr said.

There was a rush, a swirl of light.

It worked. We made it.

It took us eight days to reach the Sol system. Ordinarily the tachyon drive would get us there in the flicker of an eyelid, but we could not travel freely.

The Flinger had saved us valuable reaction mass by boosting the Fariiken up to nearly relativistic speeds; now we had to ease back down to match Earth’s velocity. The difference in gravitational potential was some help in shedding energy—Earth wasn’t as deep in Sol’s potential well as the Fariiken was in Lekki’s at our Jump point. Momentum transfer to interstellar dust through our screening fields accounted for most of the energy, though. We followed a skipping course, winking out of Jump space into the vacant silken blackness one finds between the stars. Here the curvature of four-space is slight and the unavoidable risk of the tachyon drive a minimum. From a technical point of view it was a milk run even with the Fariiken far understaffed. But there were other jobs and these kept me quite busy.

Surprisingly, activity lifted my spirits. I had always detested intrigue—thus my failure at the low order palace politics of Fleet. The week before we occupied the Fariiken was thick with deception and the stench of the half-lie; I became depressed almost without realizing the cause. But when Imirinichin had shown his hand—and I hoped he was cursing himself now for playing it a moment too soon—I had felt an old exhilaration, one I thought long dead. It came from being involved again, from caring about the result of my efforts.

I had come to think of myself, over the last few decades, as a man of contemplation. Somewhere in my scholastic years I had decided that men of action—the only kind worth admiring, I thought then—seldom studied the works of great thinkers. For practical reasons, perhaps, yes, but not as a habit of mind. So, much later, when I sought wisdom as solace from the world, what in boyhood was a conviction had become an unconscious axiom, and it placed me firmly in the role of an introvert among men who did things.

Becoming the captain of the Fariiken taught me otherwise. I liked action and movement, the singing zest of conflict, but it had to be to some purpose. I hadn’t cared about patching together the tottering Mongol Empire. I needed purposeful thought and work that a man could do with pride, not the constricted sense of human possibility—of which the Sabal Game was a subtle but integral part—of the Mongol. My work in Fleet had a touch of that, in the beginning. Gradually it had ebbed away as I rose in the ranks until I did not even know it was gone.

I had been over half a century in Fleet. Most of it I worked in the naked night at the edge of the Empire, with mining shuttles, skimmers, hop transports, suborbital cyclers, cargo barges. As I began to move inward, to the places of power—but still not behind an office console, dealing in words instead of ships—the knowledge that I, an off-islander, would never sit on the councils of Fleet Central on Earth, never make a mark that would last, gnawed at me, blunted my ambition.

There are many ways to shorten a man. Cynicism, is the easiest. That I affected for a while and then turned to the Sabal Game for what refuge it could give.

The Game fostered the illusion—a pleasant one, I’ll admit—that I was in community with any man. I needed that. In the Game there were no ofkaipan. But then, the Game was gone.

For eight days we Jumped and waited, Jumped and waited.

Our sensor ears strained to filter through the random noise of weakly recombining molecules, hydrogen gas, dust. We listened for the electromagnetic mutter of a pursuing ship, or for one waiting near our next Jump point.

There were no signals from Veden among the heavy traffic of subspace communication. I had the technicians monitor the Veden signal codes carefully, performing a random errors check on the computers. This was essential. If Imirinichin repaired his subspace communications system Earth would lay a trap for us.

It would be just as dangerous if Fleet’ got no messages at all from Veden. With a Class IV vessel in the vicinity, total silence was unlikely; a typical colony would forward every breath of rumor, once it thought Fleet Central believed them enough to send a Jump ship.

I had Gharma prepare and transmit a regular series of routine reports, with unremarkable statistics and standard pleas for more assistance. I continued to write the Director’s report, chronicling further riots and unrest and complaining a bit about my command. They were a lot of fun to write.

Several of them could be interpreted two ways, but in the bowels of Fleet Control I was sure no one would guess the second (usually scatological) meaning. A dangerous amusement, perhaps, but a man who is suddenly free does not act like a file clerk.

We did not dare long Jumps because they are much easier to detect. We did not want a Fleet vessel by chance picking up a backwash emission from an unscheduled ship—Fleet might easily conclude that it was a Quarn scout and converge an entire Fleet Wing on us.

Thus our Jumps were short and we sent forward a Jump battle probe before each step of the flight. The probes were basketball-sized packages of sensors which could Jump—once—almost to the edge of the Empire. Their power sources lasted only around thirty minutes and during that time they blurted back everything they found and then died, exhausted.

For eight days we limped along, constantly firing feeler probes ahead to be sure a surprise wasn’t waiting at the next intermediate Jump point. In a way it was comforting, after the glare of Lekki, to see the black bare silence of deepspace on the primary visual display. Majumbdahr handled most of the battle probes. He quickly learned the steps for ejecting them from the organiform skin of the Fariiken and guiding them free of pur screening fields so that they would have a clear volume for their Jump. The instrumentation of the probes was sophisticated but he mastered it and soon was even using them as a check on the subspace communicators, to be sure the Fariiken didn’t by chance miss a transmission from Veden while in a communications “shadow” relative to the Lekki-Jagen system.

The day before we reached Sol, Gharma and I filed the usual official Fariiken reports with Fleet Central, duly coded by the captain, and suggested that, since all was quiet in the Lekki-Jagen system and had been for some time, the Fariiken be sent home. Another fake signal of ours, this time under Veden codes, reported that the Director concurred with this opinion.

In a few hours we had a reply. Fleet Central agreed and sent along an incoming pattern for the approach to a parking orbit around Earth. There was a note appended telling the Fariiken‘s captain to stress the scarcity of Fleet ships when speaking with the Veden Director, remember that the Director was inordinantly sensitive about the defense of the Lekki-Jagen system, and beat a quick path back to Earth.

I decided to signal confirmation to Fleet Central. The incoming pattern they sent wasn’t useful for us but if we just ignored it and emerged from Jump space somewhere else there would be hell to pay. Earth defenses could pick up any ship that came out of Jump within a light-year; it left a clear signature of pulsed radiation the sensor net would identify instantly.

So at the last minute I sent a request for a new pattern, explaining that we had too high a matching velocity and didn’t want to waste time cutting it down—a Jump time was already computed and anyway the Fariiken could decelerate enough if Fleet Central would simply move our Jump point further away from Earth.

I had guessed, correctly, that Fleet Central would move our Jump point out but also give us some discretion about precisely where we emerged. This meant Fleet Central would not know exactly where to find the Fariiken if anything went wrong at the last minute.

Nothing happened, though.

I picked our Jump point carefully. We came out four hundred thousand miles from Earth with Luna directly between us and Earth. There was some squawking from Fleet Central, the technicians told me—Traffic Direction on Earth wouldn’t dare complain officially to a Fleet captain—because they didn’t like to bother getting a fix on our position through the Luna Control station.

We moved inward at a high velocity, all the time in Luna’s sensor shadow. There were unavoidable lags in telemetry between Earth and Luna Control that shaved a hairline of accuracy off our known position.

I personally oversaw the routine replies to Fleet Control. They sent us our orbital trajectory and we confirmed but didn’t lessen speed.

Fleet was evidently pulling most Jump ships not immediately needed into a dense screen around Earth. We were to be stationed a bit in from the Luna orbit as part of a shifting defense grid. As far as I knew no Quarn ship had ever violated the Sol system. The precautions seemed rather heavy. But then, Fleet knew more than anyone about the decay of the colonies. They were probably quite frightened. In that case surveillance around Earth was most likely being stepped up.

Quite all right. We could deal with that, too.

“Mr. Majumbdahr,” I said, wheeling about in my couch. Two couches down Majumbdahr looked up from his console. The bridge was quiet.

“Sir?” he said.

“In a few minutes well move clear of Luna’s sensor shadow I don’t expect any trouble. On our present course I don’t expect that we need take any action for at least an hour. I invite you to take command of the bridge.”

I gave a swooping, overly formal gesture at my console and got up. Majumbdahr smiled. I left the soft murmur of the bridge and headed for the ramp down to B deck. It was time for my daily audience with the Master and I did not intend to let anything interfere.

Curiously, my studies with the Master had not brought me any further in the last eight days. I was happier, granted. But that was due to the fact that for once I had meaningful work, honest work. A man is defined by the job he does.

Perhaps, in the rush of sending the battle probes and readying the coldsleep vaults, I had missed some of the Master’s subtle ministerings. But looking back, I had enjoyed more the hours I spent with Rhandra, and felt more lightened by them. Rhandra was infinite, like all women. And women, of course, were the first aliens men had ever met, and the only ones we would never quite fathom. All rest and refuge, do they contain.

I threaded through the labyrinth of B deck, with its walls purposefully overcurved to disperse noise, to the Master’s suite. Through the faceted bead curtain, past priests in study. Audience requested with the proper motions, ritual passes to calm the mind, forgetting all that is past.

Our silent meditations were comforting but I was only beginning to work into it when the Master nodded abruptly and spread his hands, palms down, to signal the end.

“State is not right,” he said quickly. “Attempting focus while mind goes—” He twirled a finger around by his head.

“I—I do not feel so—” I said.

“Ah,” he said, nodding vigorously, “are. Look at position. Not resting weight through body center.”

I looked down. As far as I could tell I was in proper sitting form, a slight variation in the stylized Buddha pose. My alignment of spine felt correct.

Strange. Surely I wasn’t fooling myself that well. There had always been some telltale signs before to show how I was throwing off my own concentration. Today my mind was clear and properly placid.

“See now?” the Master said, breaking the pause. “No.”

“Ah.” His eyes darted over to the wall clock and back. I noticed that he was unconsciously tapping the mat with his webbed feet. “Understandable. Important moment approaches. Perhaps—perhaps is a bad time.”

“Master,” I said, “I can learn as much in these moments as in any other. My inner light is not disturbed by the approaching crisis. I have come that far.”

In truth I felt slighted by his assumption that I was getting nervous about the mission. Enlightenment allows one to live entirely in the moment, and while I had not attained the Buddha state, the evidence of my own mind told me that I had come fairly close to it before and was not too distant from it now.

“No,” he said. Once more a glance at the clock. A slap on the knee. “You do not know. I judge your mood not right for study. There are many things you have to learn—”

“And self-knowledge is usually bad news?” I smiled. “Wrong time,” he said, not catching my shift of mood. With a start I realized that it was not I who was nervous and distracted, but the Master.

I was stunned. He carried no aura of serenity about him now; he appeared to be simply another man worrying about something. Not only that, but he had misjudged my own state and not been sensitive enough to see his own error.

As I took my leave of him I watched the Master carefully. There was no doubting it. The Master was not in his focused state; he acted like a first year crewman before a battle.

And yet he was the Master. He had told me things I would never have known without him, led me down paths into my self that I had never found in a thousand Sabal Games.

As I walked slowly away from his suite, though, I put the question from my mind. Such a problem is not soluble by aimless worrying. It would be a waste of time—and I suppose in some sense unhealthy—to do so.

There were things to be done soon, and my attention was needed there.

Near the upramp to the bridge I met Majumbdahr.

“A moment,” he said.

“I was on my way—”

“A second then. I need your consent to use another Jump battle probe.”

“Why? We have only a few left.”

“Do you remember the anomalous mass we saw on the detectors back in the Lekki-Jagen system?”

“Yes. What of it?”

“I’ve had a little free time the last day or so. As you know we finished the coldsleep vaults early—I thought it was a good idea to give the men who worked on them a rest, and I took one, too. I had a few hours to go back over all the data we accumulated but didn’t process.”

“That’s the sort of thing you do for relaxation?”

“Well…” Majumbdahr looked a little sheepish. “I’ve never had equipment this good to work with before. I thought I’d try out a few problems.”

“Find anything?”

He suddenly sobered. “Perhaps. I’d never been able to get an estimate of its velocity before—”

“Why?”

“I think you’ll remember, sir, that you canceled the calculation because we were going into the Jump and couldn’t spare the computer time. In your estimation.” He looked at me a bit too innocently.

“All right. Maybe it was an unnecessary precaution. But you’ve done it by now?”

“Yes. Whatever that object is, the velocity is high and rather remarkable.”

“How so?”

“The path it’s following doesn’t look like an accidental trajectory. It’s going to come quite close to Lekki.”

“Couldn’t it be interstellar matter drifting in?”

“Not likely. It has a speed order of magnitude greater than the relative velocities of star systems in the cluster of which Lekki-Jagen is a part.”

“Well, all right. Then it’s a fragment from halfway across the galaxy. So what?”

“If that’s so then there’s nothing to concern us. But suppose it’s something else? A Colossus?”

That stopped me. In the twenty-second century some factions had abandoned their planets for political reasons and cast off into deepspace. They didn’t have Jump ships. Instead they built crude reaction engines into asteroids, put most of their party into coldsleep, and set out. Most had never been found.

“I see.” I frowned. “No Colossus has been seen for centuries.”

“That is one of the possibilities. Another is that it might be a large mass on a freefall orbit into Lekki. But…”

“Improbable, I agree.”

“I also correlated the data logged in from the sensor satellites around Lekki-Jagen. We were monitoring them continuously on the flight into the Flinger.”

“That sort of thing isn’t very accurate for readings above the plane of the ecliptic, is it?”

“No, but their results agree, within built-in error limitations, with the mass detector.”

I had to admit it interested me. Sending a probe back would take some of Majumbdahr’s time, but I felt I owed him something for the good job he had done on the coldsleep vaults. I couldn’t demand too much of the man—after all, he wasn’t an underling on a Fleet ship.

As well, I couldn’t see any further use for the battle probes. The Fariiken would make one long Jump from near Earth, out beyond the Empire. We would not need to check ahead to be sure anyone lay in wait.

“You can have the probe,” I said. “Will you need anyone to help with activating it?”

“I think not,” he said. “I’ll probably alert Gharma to keep a running register on the bridge, in case it transmits back when I’m not on duty. The technicians were told we wouldn’t be using any more probes and I don’t want the signal thrown out as an irrelevant transmission.”

“Fine,” I said. “Let me know what you find. Go for a good velocity fix and see if you can sharpen the mass estimate. Are you going to send it off soon?”

“I thought I’d wait until you’re down on the surface making the pickup. Things should be quiet then and I’ll have the time.”

“You’re sure Fleet won’t pick up the probe’s backwave when it Jumps?”

“I’ll drop it into an orbit slightly lower than the ship’s. Half the signal will be scrambled by the upper atmosphere and then absorbed by the Earth. The ship will shield the rest. There’s a small angle in between that will let some out, but I don’t think the intensity will be high enough to register on Fleet’s network.”

“Double-check that. It’s vital.”

“I will. My audience with the Master is coming up in a minute; I’ll run the check again after that.”

“It might be well to skip it today,” I said slowly. “The Master is not quite himself. I think the journey has disturbed him in some way.”

Majumbdahr frowned but said nothing. “Remember, he is in a strange environment. And his race is old. His kind may not be well adapted to change.”

“Ah, yes. Perhaps…” Majumbdahr’s voice trailed off into thought. After a moment he nodded absentmindedly and went back to the bridge.

I made my way down into C deck. Just who was the Master, when he was himself? I wondered.

C deck is large and I had not bothered to memorize the corridor plan. Consequently this time I blundered into one of the dark areas before I noticed where I was going.

Not all of the ship was converted to Lekki’s light spectrum. We hadn’t brought enough Lekki phosphors up in the skimmer and anyway most of the ship wasn’t needed, so it was a waste of time to repaint the Sol phosphors everywhere. C deck had quite a few such spots because the rest of the Lengen chose to live in officers’ quarters, B deck.

I walked into the dark section several yards before I realized what it was. To ordinary human eyes, of course, the hallway ahead of me wasn’t unlit at all. The Sol phosphors still glowed. But with my Veden contact filters on I saw only a dim, hazy ship’s corridor, a curious green instead of white.

I was glad we weren’t going to spend too many more days in the Fariiken. The green tone was a little eerie. It and other touches of Earth reminded me of my past. At the moment I didn’t want to remember.

Rhandra bounced up when she heard my coded key in the lock.

“I’ve been waiting,” she said. “Let’s go to the view pod. I want to see Luna.”

“Well—” I looked longingly at our sleeping pad. “I thought I might rest—”

“You’ll get more sleep when you deserve it,” she said. “First take me to the pod. I want the first-class tour and a snappy lecture.”

“Hey, what’s that?” I pointed.

“A figure of Shiva. Remember? You stole it from the Temple.”

“Oh. Yes.” I looked at the many-headed brass god with hands as sharp as knife blades.

“Did I run around with that under my robes? Lucky I didn’t disembowel myself.”

“I brought it. A keepsake. It will make us remember—”

“What I can be?”

I gave her an exaggerated leer. “Some things are better left—”

“Let’s go! Luna doesn’t wait.”

Indeed, she didn’t. We were sweeping around her quite quickly. Her ancient craters were seeded with yellow jewels of light that stood out clearly. I took off my contact filters to see better and Rhandra had to get along with a dim image since, as a native, her eyes had been adapted surgically to Veden.

Luna’s raw crust had a curious green tinge to it I had never noticed before. I could not tell whether my memory was bad or if the contact filters had subtly altered my habits of perception; possibly both.

Earth gleamed in the distance. I had just begun to point out continents when Gharma shouldered into the small pod. “Here you are,” he said, ignoring Rhandra. “Why aren’t you on the bridge?”

“We needn’t take any action for nearly an hour,” I said, nettled.

“This is an important step. If anything goes—”

“I can be reached by intercom here.” He glanced at Rhandra and looked at me coldly. “The Master wants us to be particularly careful. You should be at your post.”

And not here wasting time with this farm-country girl? I thought. “Do I take orders from you now, or the Master?”

“I speak for him.”

“Brothers, we are all Lengen,” Rhandra said. “Quarreling—”

“There are levels of knowledge among the Lengen,” Gharma said, “just as there are grades of priests.”

“We are not priests,” Rhandra said.

“No layman understands all Lengen principles at once. We must follow the Master and do his bidding even when we do not understand. The rioters on Veden were loyal. They obeyed the Master’s guidance.”

I had been looking at Luna. My eyes snapped back at Gharma and I looked at him as though .I had never seen him clearly before. “What guidance?” I said.

“If they had kept repressing their fears the Plague would have entered. We could not have that. Expression through action—they needed it.”

“But I thought the people who fought in the streets fell to the Plague afterward,” Rhandra said.

“The riots helped forestall it. We had to keep them balanced as long as possible.”

“You knew of this,” I said, “when you were containing the riots with me?”

“Yes. In the evenings I helped ready them for the next day. The Lengen converts were not a majority, but they triggered it. In the final stages we had nearly two thousand. The Master could not handle that many converts. We allowed them to stay in the Ashram because the Master thought the, ah, therapy would not be lasting if they returned to their homes. Without large crowds they lost all feeling of release and catharsis.”

“Was this one of the levels of knowledge’ you mentioned?” I said.

“Well, yes. It was not so much a secret. We—the Master and I and a few others—felt it would be best if you did not know immediately that the Lengen catalyzed the disorders in the streets of Veden. It might have influenced your state of mind if you knew the Lengen had—indirectly—caused some of the disturbances you had tried to control. Your self-pride—”

“Quite right,” I said curtly.

“Opposition from the Fleet troops was essential. The people identified you subconsciously with outsiders, the Plague, even the Quarn.”

“Are there any other—secrets?” I said. My throat was dry. I felt empty.

“Only spiritual ones,” Gharma said. “Those you can only discover yourself. Much depends on one’s early education. On Veden, had you been a native, you would have been of high caste. Your views on these matters would be different, more like mine. The Master and I are in accord, I believe. Perhaps when you have studied—”

“Perhaps,” I said. “I’m going to the bridge now.”

“Of course.” He stepped aside and we moved away from him down the corridor. In a moment we were beyond earshot.

“What—?” Rhandra said.

“I think he believed the Master had told me,” I said. “Maybe I was supposed to learn today, but the Master forgot.”

“Did he mean that word, caste?”

“I hope he meant class instead. But maybe to Gharma they’ve been the same thing, all along.”

Rhandra looked concerned. I told her to go back to the pod and watch the show; it wouldn’t be long now. She kissed me absently and went away.

As soon as I reached the bridge I called Majumbdahr on private intercom.

“About the probe,” I said. “Don’t tell Gharma or anyone else. Monitor it yourself.”

“Fine, it doesn’t matter to me. Why—”

“Good,” I said, and cut him off.

Then I turned my attention to the preparations. We were coming in toward Earth on low torch and keeping usual telemeter contact with Fleet Central and Luna Control as well. Everything was going quite routinely. I handled several incoming dispatches about our orbit and transfer of supplies. Some personnel were to be reassigned to a newly commissioned Class V vessel. Additional Fleet Central estimates of the strategic situation would be beamed aboard in two hours. A report was requested—no, demanded—on the men who had displayed Plague symptoms.

We arranged the fusion torpedoes carefully.

The men had to do their training in the eight days of the transit and most of them had never seen a Class IV weapons system before. Majumbdahr and Gharma hadn’t much experience in that direction, either, so most of the job of overseeing fell to me.

The job of calculating precise placements of the torpedoes I left to the computers. They decided on a minimum of eleven torpedoes, all encased in shells that made for a “bright” ionization cloud. Eleven would give us a complete shield and even overload some of the orbiting sensor net we were trying to blind.

After all the rehearsal and training, execution was anti-climactic. The torpedoes went off with hollow thumps, almost simultaneously. I watched them accelerating out—clumsy weapons, not used even once successfully against the Quarn—to form a twisting pattern on the visual display.

The Earth Defense Screen was a spider web of microelectronics that, the press agentry said, could pick up a sneeze on Venus. It was a gossamer net, sensitive and delicate, and stupid.

I had always thought the EDS was badly designed. It began as a tracking system much like the short-range net that reports on incoming aircraft at a terrestrial airport. As Fleet grew some other components were added to sense further out and give warning of hostile craft. When the Quarn war started the EDS was strengthened by adding many more sensors to the orbiting grid. Now a ship could be nailed to within a hundred yards of its true location. The grid would even pick up one-man lifeboats.

All this was attained by multiplying the number of units, but never changing their sensitivity. The grid sensors were well enough shielded to withstand solar storms, if. given warning. But with no warning they peered naked into the void, and there was their weakness.

Our torpedoes exploded at the same instant that I sent an emergency distress signal under the Fariiken’s code.

Nearby sensors were obliterated by the boiling wave of electromagnetic radiation and high-energy particles that seared them. That same wave blinded sensors further away and scrambled the reception of others further out.

We calculated that nothing between Earth and Luna could pick up the Fariiken’s silhouette as we accelerated and plunged inward. We were buttoned up tight, antennas tucked in to escape the scorching ionized gas. The cloud of fusion debris expanded around us, spreading confusion through the Emergency Response sections of Fleet Control, but our steady acceleration pulled us slowly out of it. Earth’s magnetic field forced the cloud to spread as it moved Earthward, still following the trajectory we’d assigned the torpedoes, and soon Eskimos must have noticed the brightening of the aurora borealis due to the high energy electrons.

We flew blind, with only the mass detector to guide us. But the Fariiken’s permanent log knew the region around Earth the way my tongue knows my teeth and we had no doubt about the course we were following.

When the Fariiken burst clear of the snarling ball of death behind us we were hanging above a bunched configuration of ramscoops. The scoops were there awaiting loading with Earth cargo for the colonies. They were in a standard parking orbit that had not deviated in a century; I could have given the orbital coordinates to within one percent from memory. But I didn’t have to; they were entered in the ship’s permanent log.

The ramscoops provided our sensor shield. There were several hundred near us. Some were damaged and pitted and probably would never be used again unless an emergency arose. Others were being loaded by automatic shuttles. Every few days a scoop was nudged out of orbit by low impulse reaction motors and accelerated until the hydrogen scoop could pick up enough mass to cut in.

This ever-changing configuration of metal and organiform ships was confusing to the Fleet Ships Catalog; it usually wasn’t included in the Catalog readout. If we had any chance of going unseen for a day or more while in orbit at a hundred and eighty miles out, hiding in the ramscoop polar parking orbit was it.

“What?” I said.

“You must follow our plans,” the short man said. “They have been carefully worked out. We—”

“Cursed be your plans! I am not going to risk my men by bringing them in here in copters.”

The man turned and looked appealingly at two figures seated a short distance away. They were heavily robed and sat very tall and erect. I guessed they were Quarn. But they did not speak and their hooded eyes stared out at us impassively.

He turned back to me, tight lines of tension around his mouth. “You understand… our Masters thought speed was…”

“It’s important that we move these vaults quickly, yes,” I said. “But air traffic is monitored. I arranged a pretext through Air Control, using a faked code—that’s how I was able to fly my copter in here. If you people haven’t rigged something like that I’m not going to call back to my skimmer and order out the rest of the copters.”

“If you arranged it before, Captain—”

“No. I’m not going to use that dodge more than once.” I wiped sweat from around my neck with a handkerchief Rhandra had slipped into my pocket. I thanked her for the tenth time; it was sweltering here.

We stood in the entrance bay of a storage warehouse. Through a partially opened slide door I could see the parched, dusty street outside. The warehouse was in the oldest part of a midcountry off-island city, Naga, on the island of Luzon. In the distance, ringed in gray haze, stood Mayon, the volcanic fire-spitter. As a boy I had seen it belch orange tongues into the tropical skies. Now it lay dormant.

The short man in front of me shifted uncomfortably from one foot to another. He must have been one of the Pantanen, and yet he seemed impossibly dull-witted.

“Look,” I said. “There’s no reason why we have to carry the coldsleep vaults by air. I’ll grant that time is important. But my skimmer can make its run any time during the next few hours with about the same risk. We won’t lose very much by taking a little longer to get the vaults to the skimmer, if we can be sure that we don’t arouse curiosity in the local authorities.”

“Trouble?” I turned. Gharma was shuffling slowly toward us from the inner bay of the warehouse. In Sol light he was nearly blind, but he had insisted on coming down in the skimmer and the Master agreed.

“They want us to take the vaults out in copters. Without a believable cover we’ll never make it. Air Control will spot unauthorized traffic in this area and wonder what’s going on,” I said.

“I see.”

“I still think—” the short man began.

“Quiet,” I said. “There’s got to be another way.” I tried to think.

“The men inside have almost finished wrapping the insulation,” Gharma said. “Things will be ready in a short while.”

“Say, how did you get the insulation here?” I said to the man.

“We brought it in on ground-effect trucks .this morning. Why—”

“That’s what well use. The trucks have a good cover?”

“Well, yes. They’re usually used to haul construction materials for the new Slots that are being built. We got them for the day.”

“We’ll have to do it that way.” I turned to Gharma, blinking back the sweat that trickled down from my eyebrows. “Tell the men inside to send the fully packaged vaults out on the conveyors. I’ll send a scrambled message ahead to the skimmer.”

“All right.”

“And have them hold one of the vaults before sealing it. I want to be sure they’ve connected the coolant elements correctly. One slip and those people will die before we get them to the Fariiken.”

I double-timed out to the copter. It was hidden in a side alley where it shouldn’t attract very much attention. The area was nearly deserted anyway. Little commerce flowed in Naga now.

I sent the message in a squirt pulse and then sat back a moment in the copilot couch, panting heavily. After all, I told myself, the heat can’t be that bad. I grew up in temperatures like this. But the thought did nothing to slow my heart. One of these decades I was going to have to admit that I was getting older.

I jumped down and stood in the alleyway. There was some shade here but the stench seemed to rise from the ground and wrap itself around me. It was more than the damp tropical odor that the earth gave off as it cooled in shadow—it was the smell of the Slots. There might be one near. Or perhaps it was impossible to escape them on Earth anymore. That was why the streets were empty, I was sure.

A mile away an acrid black finger curled up into a dense clotted cloud: a fire. A Slot? Eventually there would be no one healthy enough to tend the Plague victims, and then a fire would rage beyond control.

I turned and went inside. The short man was talking anxiously to the two seated Quarn. They did not notice me as I went through to the main bay where the vaults were being packaged. A guard armed with a stun rifle nodded me through.

The coldsleep vaults were rectangular, eight by six by ten feet. They held about a dozen people and a temporary coolant system. They were covered in a brown flexible insulation with grappling holds fitted into recessed pockets in the sides. A circular hole in one end was sealed; when we got them to the Fariiken the connection with the permanent cooling system would be made there. I looked around for a vault without a completed insulation wrapper. There was none.

“Where is an open vault?” I called to Gharma.

He walked over, followed by a tall Quarn. The Quarn was having difficulty moving in Earth’s gravity; he made his steps quickly and waited between each one for an instant of rest.

“I checked the coolants myself. There was no need to hold one for you,” Gharma said.

“How do you know where to look?”

“There were some tapes in the Fariiken’s supplementary library. I reviewed the circuits—”

“I’m afraid I can’t trust that. If you haven’t had any experience—wait, that one over there.” I pointed. “The men haven’t finished taping it down.”

“There is no time.”

“I want to look inside. It won’t harm the bodies in there. Even if something is wrong I won’t have to break the seals on their personal quilt bags for more than a few seconds.” I moved toward the men who were working over the vault.

“There is no time.”

“I don’t give a damn what you say, Gharma. This is my responsibility.”

He motioned to the Quarn. The tall figure stepped forward and said slowly, “He is right. No time. Stop.”

I looked at the Quarn steadily for a moment. He was a Master. Not my Master, but of his race.

“All right.” I looked out over the warehouse bay where over two hundred men labored to finish. They spoke with the faint lisping accent of the off-islands that I had trained myself to avoid.

“How are they going to get up to the ship?” I asked the Quarn. “We’re taking them, aren’t we?”

“They come later. Shuttle.”

“Oh.” I watched them work, these men so like what I had been. Sibilant sounds wafted through the heavy heat. I felt a sudden intense loyalty to them, to the off-islands, to everything that was human but not of the Empire.

Earth had fallen further than I had guessed. The Plague was everywhere, even here. The faked signal we had used to mask the skimmer’s descent had gone unquestioned; Fleet Central seemed undermanned and in the wake of the fusion screen we threw out ordinary orbit to surface flights were not checked. I hoped it would still be that way when we took off in a few hours. There was no way of knowing what the situation was back on the Fariiken. I had left orders to keep strict communications silence all the while in orbit. Any faint trace of a suspicious message could be easily traced if the source were this close to Earth. So for the moment we operated in the dark. If the Fariiken ran into trouble we would never know it until we reached her in the skimmer.

“These are all your Patanen?” I asked the Quarn. “There couldn’t be more than a thousand packed into these vaults.” He gestured with painful slowness. “We had not much time. The Plague grew swiftly.”

The men had finished sealing the last vault. I climbed up onto a catwalk and made a megaphone of my hands.

“We are going out into the streets now. Remember that you are laborers just doing a job. If anything goes wrong get down and stay there. The guards have stun and laser weapons. Let them do the shooting.

“The skimmer is waiting in a clump of jungle outside Naga. Once we’re there, load as fast as possible. But don’t speed going through the streets. And remember your friends, wives and children are in these vaults. “God grant that you be safe. “Let’s go.”

We glided in easily, the skimmer like a small gray bat nudging into the enormous brown basketball of the Fariiken. I put my hand on the strutwork by my couch and through the glove of my suit I could feel the faint irregular tremors of activity from the main compartments behind me. There the few Lengen converts from Veden who had deepspace work experience would be freeing the coldsleep vaults of the lines and breakweights that secured them for the flight up from Naga.

I was forward, near the nose. A small portal showed a bald stretch of the Fariiken’s skin that crept by as our pilot made a few minute corrections. There was a ringing as we locked into position over the tube’s mouth. I looked up and caught a view of Earth and stars that careened lazily around. We were fastened above the mouth of the tube and thus were on the axis of rotation of the ship. I felt a slight centrifugal tug toward the skimmer’s nose, but not enough to disturb my unusually clumsy maneuvers.

There was traffic over my suit radio but I ignored it. I was commander here in word only; the pilot and dockers knew what to do and I didn’t.

I moved gently over to the small lock that serviced the forward and pilot’s area. It unsealed easily, since there was no pressure differential between inside and outside, and I slipped through. The first thing I did was secure a suit line to an inlaid hold bar. Then I kicked away from the skimmer, over the lip of the tube mouth below me, and settled to the surface of the Fariiken with a small burst of my attitude control. As soon as my boots hit I found another hold bar and clipped a suit line to it. The changes from ship’s gravity to Earth to weightlessness had disoriented my reflexes and I knew it; best to be safe.

I looked around. On the other side of the circular tube mouth I could see Majumbdahr’s yellow suit. He was watching the skimmer as some men came out of the aftlock. Then he spotted my suit and waved. I gestured and he started to secure a line in preparation for jetting over my way. I looked for Gharma and couldn’t see him. He was probably still in the skimmer. Some of the men had found some deepspace hand flashlights that could be altered to give a high violet component and Gharma was using that when I last saw him in the skimmer. It was a good thing he had it; bringing him along was stupid and I only consented because the Master had seemed so certain about it. Gharma was the only adapted Veden we took along. The rest of the men had contact filters like me and so could see clearly on Earth when the filters were removed. When I went back into the Fariiken bridge, though, the filters would have to go back in. On the bridge we had altered everything, even the visual displays, for eyes adapted to Lekki’s light.

Men were working swiftly around the skimmer. It was pinned over the round mouth of the Fariiken’s central tube. As I watched, the underbelly of the skimmer yawned open and the first coldsleep vault glided slowly out, straight down into the tube. A few men used their hands but. most employed zero-torque cranes and grapples. Here weight vanished but inertia did not; a man could be crushed by a vault out of control.

The men working to unload the skimmer were all, I noticed, ones who, had served under me at Fleet Control on Veden. None of the fully robed Lengen priests came from Fleet. Priests all came from the Veden countryside, where the Master had first taught. Presumably a small Quarn craft had landed him there.

Majumbdahr was jetting toward me. I released my line to the skimmer because it looked as though it was blocking some men in their work and the motion brought my eyes up to rest on Earth.

We were sweeping south over New Guinea. I could see tumbled ridges of green-brown jungle sliced by muddy gray rivers. Men lived there now, but still not many. I had been there once, been bitten and itched and sweated to distraction, and sworn I would never come back. Now it was absolutely certain I would keep the promise.

To the east lay the Solomons. Lumps of brown strewn to the horizon by a careless Creator, now bathed in reflected sunlight from the Pacific that swathed it in ruddy splendor, a light like the crystallized air of the centuries. I had holidayed on one of those specks, eaten a fierce vegetable curry, washed it down with dark stout. It had been soft and lazy there, I remembered, and the accumulated sediment of the long Mongol past had lain lightly on the brows of the people.

Majumbdahr’s helmet clinked against mine.

“I didn’t want to call you on radio,” his tinny voice said.

“Everything on schedule?” I asked, even though I knew if it wasn’t I would’ve heard as soon as we were within suit radio range.

“Yes. I’ve got the readout from the battle probe.”

“Oh. What—”

“Come.” He glided away, looked back to see that I was following, and jetted into the mouth of the tube. I followed, released my line and plunged after him.

The first hundred and fifty feet of the tube are organiform so that it can be distended to house the skimmer while in flight. After that it narrows and the walls harden from organiform to a crusty organic-plastic to light amalgam to metal. The storage pouches Majumbdahr had arranged down the outside of the tube. They were rubbery, semirigid rectangular constructs that gained most of their stability from the high density reaction fuel that encased them. They were tough sacks, attached to the tube and floating in our fuel. The Fariiken was not designed as a heavy cargo vessel and this series of attached cargo pouches was the best we could manage.

Majumbdahr braked to a stop by the hatch of one such pouch, opened it and motioned me in. I went through, bounced off the elastic wall inside and sat on the floor. It was small; not more than three vaults could be packed in and safely mounted to the outer tube wall. Most of the heat thrown off by the vault coolers would be absorbed by the reaction fluid, since the walls were purposefully not insulated.

Majumbdahr touched his helmet to mine. “I don’t want anyone to see us talking. Here are the fax sheets I got just half an hour ago.”

The pouch had one ordinary Sol lamp and a Veden phosphor. My suit tried to compensate and I found reading difficult. The arrays of numbers and one delicately traced line meant little to me.

“I got a split transmission from the probe, separated by fifty-three minutes. That gave me a parallax measurement for both mass and velocity of the anamalous object.”

“And?” I said.

“I think it’s a white dwarf fragment. It has about two tenths of a Sol mass.”

“Too large to be a Colossus.”

“Yes. It’s enormous, twenty times as large as Jupiter.”

“That’s a hell of a chunk.”

“But that isn’t what makes it so unusual. It’s the velocity.” Majumbdahr looked at me steadily through his face plate. “That large mass is already close to the center of the system. And it’s going to hit Jagen. Not Lekki. Jagen.” Something went cold inside me. “That is impossible,” I said.

“I integrated the orbit twice, carefully. I get the same answer.”

“But it’s so impossible,” I said. “Lekki has more than twice the mass of Jagen. It has a broader potential well. Any random fragment coming out of interstellar space would be much more likely to fall into Lekki—if it didn’t ride a hyperbola—fight out of the system anyway—than into a little dot whirling around Lekki.”

“True,” he said. “If it is a random fragment. This isn’t.” Suddenly I remembered the Master’s voice, long ago: The ancient Quarn left giant devices… they could move a planet through Jump psace… I looked at Majumbdahr.

“That’s right,” he said. “The Master mentioned it, just in passing. The ancient Quarn. I don’t think we were to ever know of this or guess its meaning.”

“He has deceived us.”

“Yes.”

“But I don’t know why. It’s a large mass, to be sure. When it hits Jagen it will become part of the neutron star. The added mass will contract the orbit Veden follows by… well, about ten percent. That will make Veden uninhabitable—”

“Yes. Veden is finished. But that is not all.” I shook my head numbly.

“Remember the observation station on Veden? They measured gravitational radiation from the dipole that Lekki-Jagen form. When I saw this curve—the fragment will collide with Jagen in less than forty hours—I remembered them.”

“When the fragment hits—”

“In the last instant the fragment will fall through an extremely steep gravitational potential. There will be a burst of gravitational radiation. It will propagate out in a shock-wave about one light-second in length. I cannot calculate what the wave will do. Perhaps it will not harm anything on the surface of a planet, so Veden may be safe. I am not a physicist, I do not know.”

“What about the ramscoops in parking orbit?” He shook his head. “I think they may be damaged. There is a resonant effect involved. If the wavelengths in the moving front of the Shockwave are of the same size as a ship, the wave might tear the ship apart. Certainly some energy will be delivered to a small object like a ramscoop—small compared to a planet—but I cannot say how much.”

“So the ramscoop fleet may be harmed. It would be a terrible blow to the Empire. All the long-term resources would be lost. But I don’t understand how that could make any difference in the war. It will be over soon, it must.” .

“I do not follow it, either. If destroying Veden were the object—”

“No, that isn’t it, there is no point. Any inhabited planet could be made unlivable by drawing it ten percent closer to its star, and that ignores the effect the fragment’s mass has on the star itself. It may cause a complete change in the fusion cycle or even create a nova. I am not an astronomer, I cannot tell. But the destruction of Veden cannot be the point of all this. There are easier ways to kill a planet’s people.”

I looked carefully at the fax sheets, grasping for some clue. There was so much—

“What’s this?” I said, pointing at a separate set of figures and code dots. The dots looked vaguely familiar.

“One last deception,” Majumbdahr said somberly. He sounded very tired, weighed down by his knowledge. “It is a subspace communication trace. The signal came from Veden.”

“Mr. Gharma’s man did not silence the last communicator.”

“No. Not that, beside the fate of Veden, the matter makes any difference.”

“Wait a moment,” I said. “What does the trace say?”

“I don’t—”

Suddenly I recognized it. “It’s an emergency call pattern. Highest priority. That’s all I can tell without a decoder. But this signal is short, so that may be all it contains.”

We sat for a moment and stared at each other bleakly. For me the shock was too great; it would take a while to sink in.

“I don’t know what is happening,” Majumbdahr said after a moment, “but the Master has hidden this from us. What should we do?”

I tapped my teeth together, thinking. “We’ve been in this pouch too long. We’ll be missed, soon. Go out and supervise the rest of the unloading from the skimmer. I’ll go into the ship and try to find out more. Take the fax sheets with you; it would seem strange if I had some with me after returning from Earth. I’ll meet you in your cabin when I have something new.”

We tripped the hatch and went out. Majumbdahr moved toward the skin using handholds in the wall of the tube. He did not use his jets because men were maneuvering coldsleep vaults toward us from outside and blocked most of the tube. Beyond them I could see the belly of the skimmer disgorge another vault and figures jockey it into a triangular grip for handling. In a moment Majumbdahr’s yellow suit was hidden by the working parties.

A figure separated from the nearest vault and floated with its back toward me, watching Majumbdahr. The man wore a green suit but he was shadowed by the vault and I could not read his number. I started to move inward along the tube. In a moment the man turned and looked back at me. I could see his number.

It was Gharma.

I kicked off and drifted quickly inward toward the main lock. When I reached the smaller bore where the tube entered the life cylinder I chanced another look over my shoulder but could not pick Gharma out from the other figures. By the looks of the work it was going to take a fair amount of time to unload and mount the vaults. There were not many men trained for no gee manual labor.

I passed the main lock and let my velocity carry me to a smaller personnel lock that entered the bridge far from the central bridge where the captain’s couch was located. This lock was near the nearest downramp to C deck. A hundred yards further along the tube ended and the reaction motors began.

I unsuited and wasted no time reaching our cabin on C deck.

Rhandra had just finished a bath and was lying nude on our sleeping pad. There was a moment of sheer incongruity in which I realized that, despite all that was happening to me, life for Rhandra had gone on at something like its usual pace. Somewhere in the universe there were still people who took baths and read books, watched rainstorms and made love.

She was, as always, a quiet pool in still forests. I told her of Majumbdahr and the fax sheets. She listened, nodded, furrowed her brow. I sat cross-legged on the pad next to her as she lay. Her oils after the bath were sweetly pungent; I found myself admiring her small breasts that are so much in fashion. She had prominent nipples as well, which I have always thought so fetching.

The crowded conditions of mainland Mongol culture forced a change in the role of nakedness, much as it had in Japan even before the Riot War. A nude woman was not nearly as stimulating to a mainlander as she was to me; mainlanders, with defused responses, were more sensitive to nuances, fluttering eyelashes, glimpses of thigh through sheer silk…

I breathed deeply. I should not have allowed myself to become so distracted, and yet I knew why I did it. I did not want to dwell upon the Master and what he had done.

“What can the subspace signals mean?” Rhandra said, breaking my mood.

“I don’t know what any of this means,” I said. “It was all carefully planned. Gharma reminded me of the computer time problem just in time to stop us from finding out about the incoming white dwarf fragment. Had it not been for Majumbdahr’s curiosity we wouldn’t know any of this.”

“Ling,” she said softly, “you told me about Regeln and the trap the Quarn set there.”

“Yes.”

“Could this be another?”

“For who? Who is the trap set for?”

“Whoever answers the signals from Veden.”

Something fit together. “Of course,” I said. “Gravitational radiation. It’ll catch them all.”

It was her turn. “Who?”

“A Fleet Wing of Jump ships. The distress signal is requesting help, probably reporting a large Quarn concentration. Fleet Central is nervous and edgy already, they might well believe it. They already think the Fariiken fused into dust on its incoming orbital run, for unknown reasons.”

“What will they do then?”

“When emergencies stack up, reactions become automatic,” I said, thinking. “Fleet Central will probably honor Veden’s request for one or two Fleet Wings. An entire wing could reach the vicinity around Lekki-Jagen within a day. Exactly when they arrive depends on Fleet’s assessment of the tactical situation around Veden.”

“And that, in turn, is based on what Veden tells them about the Quarn ships.”

“Quite. It shouldn’t be very difficult to arrange matters so the wing arrives only an hour before the fragment collides with Jagen.”

“Wouldn’t they see the fragment?”

“Probably not. They’ll be wondering where the Quarn have gone and when they’ll return. The wing commander will probably decide to keep his ships on peak Jump status in case he needs to move suddenly, but it doesn’t matter. The gravitational wave will finish off the wing anyway.”

“But why? Isn’t there some chance—”

“It will be too weak to tear the ships apart? Maybe. I don’t know. But the Jump drives would never survive it. A sudden change in the local stress tensor will feed energy back into the microelectronics and ruin them. The wing will be disabled.”

“They couldn’t—well, repair it? Or maneuver some way?”

“No. The Jump drive is a sensitive network; once it is damaged it can’t just be slapped back together and expected to work. A Jump ship doesn’t carry oversized reaction motors, either. It can’t, it needs the mass for the tachyon drive. But all that’s beside the point, because they’ll surely be damaged somewhat, and a crippled wing won’t hold very long, even against what the Quarn can bring up.”

“How many wings are there?”

“Four complete, one just a pack of remnants left over from lost campaigns.”

At this moment, for the first time, I began to believe it might be so. “Perhaps something in the Quarn psychology makes them think in terms of traps and deadfalls,” I said.

“If that is so,” Rhandra said in a whisper, “what has the Master planned?”

For a long moment we were silent. I found my rubbing stone by the side of the pallet and palmed its gray curves rhythmically, trying to calm my thoughts. Then Rhandra brought out the unspoken between us.

“Why did Gharma not let you see inside the vaults?” she said.

I shook my head mutely.

“Then I wonder,” she said, “just who is in them.”

I wanted to stay here, with her, and think. But there was no more to be learned from guesses.

“I’m going to Majumbdahr,” I said, rising. “Let no one in here and don’t answer the intercom.”

I made my way quickly, seeing no one, to B deck. Majumbdahr lived alone in a small staff officer’s cabin slightly off the central corridor that ran around the circumference of the B deck cylinder. The ship’s air circulation was quiet and I could hear from overhead the faint clicks and thuds of people moving on the bridge. Apparently activity was increasing in preparation for massing out of orbit. The loading of the vaults must be halfway finished.

There was no response to my knock at Majumbdahr’s door. He probably had not come in from the loading crew yet. I used my coded captain’s key to let myself in.

I was wrong. He was there.

He swayed gently, lightly in the air currents of the cabin. Blood dripped steadily from him and spattered red the cushioned floor.

He had been Mahesh Majumbdahr, a brave and honest man, and now he was dead.

He had been trussed expertly, knees bent and ankles bound, wrists wired together behind his back. He was hanging face-down three feet off the floor. Plastic tubing laced through the wrist and ankle knots and was in turn caught at the midpoint by a loop of ship’s cord that ran vertically to hang by the catch of an air duct. The body was nearly level except for the head, which hung down toward the floor.

Blood ran freely from a large X that had been slashed across his chest, slicing through the coverall he had worn and cutting deep into the abdomen. His face was mutilated. The bright scarlet pattered regularly off his nose and was forming a large pool beneath him.

I recognized it, vaguely, from my reading of Veden history. It was a ritual Bengal execution, done with a two foot short-sword which, in ancient times, had religious significance.

There was no sign of the sword. I found a small wire cutter and managed to work through the ship’s cord. I caught the body as it fell and rolled it onto its side. There wasn’t anything more to do. He was clearly dead and from the blood clotting at the edges of his wounds I guessed he had been there for at least fifteen minutes. With head wounds so extensive brain .damage due to loss of oxygen would already be setting in.

I was numb but I moved, almost automatically. The fax sheets with probe data were gone. There was nothing in the cabin that seemed out of the ordinary.

All I could think, over and over, was So it has come to this. At the doorway I turned and looked back at the body, slumped in a lake of scarlet that was quickly filming over with a ruddy, used brown. It was no longer Majumbdahr, only a butchered side of meat. They had taken away all reason, all nobility, and left carrion.

I went to the door quickly, locked it behind me and slipped around a coiner. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a head jerk back into another corridor. I could not tell who it was, but when I reached the spot he was gone. I ran.

Energy boiled out of me. I pelted down the nearest ramp and onto C deck, fear, rage, desperation licking at my heels. The air sang past and my heart thumped and for once I felt as though I could elude whatever sought me, outrun them all, break free again.

I didn’t remember the turns or forks but suddenly I was outside our cabin, puffing, eyes stinging. I keyed the door and burst in, babbling, shouting for Rhandra. She turned, from belting up a shortbreech at her waist, saw me, eyes widened.

“The blood—”

I looked down. Majumbdahr’s blood stained my coverall from shoulder to thigh.

“He’s dead,” I said. “Slaughtered. For the fax sheets, I’m sure.”

She stared at me, unbelieving, then bit her lips and found a towel and efficiently, coolly went about sopping up the blood from me. “It’s Gharma, isn’t it?” she said, throwing the towel away. “He knows—”

“He saw us. Must have guessed.”

“What—”

“We can’t stay here. Someone saw me.” Without waiting for a reply I grabbed her hand and pulled her out the door. I locked it and led the way around to an upramp, a different one than the ramp I’d come down.

“We don’t have any arms,” I said, “but there’s an emergency locker on the bridge we can reach. It contains stun charges and laser pistols.” We padded quietly up the ramp and into B deck. We crept into a corridor, watching in all directions, and then trotted down it to the next intersection. “If they—” I started, but Rhandra cut me off.

“Someone that way,” she said. I listened. Slight murmur of conversation. It got louder. I squatted down to the deck and edged around the corner, hoping I would be harder to spot if my head didn’t show at eye level.

Two priests were walking our way. Their robes were gathered about them but in the blue folds I could see handguns carried at the ready. I visualized the plan of B deck and realized that they were probably coming from the Master’s suite.

I backed away from the corner. “Come on. Back to C deck,” I said. We turned and ran, keeping the sounds of our breathing down and depending on the cushioned deck to muffle our steps. It felt unnatural to wear my boots inside the ship, but I had forgotten to take them off when I got out of my suit.

Down the ramp, onto C deck, turn to right and go down a few doors. Listen for anyone coming. In a few moments there came the soft slap of the priests’ sandals on the ramp. We dropped back.

The priests were not talking now and I had trouble telling where they were going. We came to an intersection and I paused. One corner to the left the semidarkness of the Sol light area began. A few corridors more on the right was our cabin. We could duck into the Sol light area and never be seen. It was the safe thing to do.

But I had been running long enough.

“Wait,” I said. Rhandra gave me a questioning look with a raised eyebrow.

The two priests appeared down the corridor, moving purposefully. It was a moment before they noticed us and the first one who did raised his free hand in a gesture of greeting. That alone was enough to give them away; no priest is obvious or demonstrative in public.

I paused just long enough for them to be sure it was me. “Come on!” I whispered, and we bolted from the corridor, down to the left. There was a shout behind us.

We shot into the gloom of the Sol light section and I put out my hand, feeling the doorways as we ran past. Then the wall fell away and I knew we were at another intersection. This far into the area where it was nearly dead black, I could barely make out the outlines of the intersecting corridor.

I pulled Rhandra into it and whispered for her to stand still. I reached up and pulled the skin around my right eye tight, blinked once, and my contact filter popped out into my cupped hand. The left one came out as easily.

I could see. Colors were a fraction more true and my eyes were free of the slight strain I always felt with the filters in. Rhandra was blind in this light. She started to speak but I hushed her.

“Stay here. Get down on the deck and lie against the wall. There’s less chance they’ll stumble over you there.” I kissed her once and stepped back into the intersection we’d just left.

The priests were standing only twenty yards away, halfway into the unreclaimed Sol light section. One of them caught my movement in the twilight they could perceive and raised his hand to fire.

That settled the last question. They weren’t coming to ask questions or bring me to the Master.

I dove to the side just as he fired, groaned loudly and trotted down the corridor. They took the bait. I could hear their sandals clicking as they hurried.

It was a tricky game I was playing. If I went too far into the darkness they would give up the chase and come back for us with hand torches. But if I stayed on the perimeter of the area they could still see well enough to take wild shots at me, and that might keep them occupied.

It did, at least once more. They shot at me at the next point. I stopped and called out and two short bolts fused the ceiling; most people shoot high when they can’t see the target well.

I was playing this by ear and it wasn’t going to last long. I could move faster, in my coverall, than they could in robes. But they were not stupid. They probably believed I was wounded, as I’d taken pains to announce, but they wouldn’t follow me forever.

At the next corridor, still in the dim twilight of Lekki light that diffused into the Sol light area, I keyed open a doorway and slipped inside. It was a crewmen’s room, crowded with personal effects and sleeping pads. It took me a moment to find something I could use. It was an ornamental polnang stick, used to bat a ball around a circular court. The glossy, slick wood was also a good focus point for meditation, but that wasn’t what I intended.

I keyed open the door and waited. The soft rustle of cloth came nearer. I performed readying exercises I had learned half a century ago, designed to step up my blood flow, tighten muscles, tune my senses. It is important to short-circuit the conscious mind and let automatic reactions and instinct take over; thinking is too slow.

An arm appeared, then a head. They were walking together, the man nearest me a step behind.

I hit him behind the ear with everything I had. He made no sound but I couldn’t have heard it anyway. I followed through with my step and kicked out, foreleg clenching, body twisting to left, power out. My heel caught the second priest over the kidneys and he slammed into the wall.

Stick moving around, clench right arm at impact. Shift eyes to first priest, who was still falling. Step back, lift right foot backwards, shifting weight, catch his throat from the front.

There was a rattling cough. Not enough to kill. Not quite.

Second man was falling, sliding down the wall. Unconscious.

I snatched at the handguns, both laser pistols on nearly full charge. Both men were still breathing, the first one raggedly. I dragged one back into the cabin where I’d found the stick and dumped him. I used my master key to shut down the intercom to this room so he couldn’t contact anyone else, and crossed the hall to open another cabin.

I opened the door and my nose wrinkled. The stench was sharp and bitter, and before I could close the door I saw the smashed furniture and twisted clothes piled into mounds in the corners. Men had burrowed into them and been dragged out, I knew. This cabin had held the Plague victims before we seized the Fariiken.

I couldn’t leave the priest in that. ‘I dragged him to the next cabin by his heels and sealed him in with a dead intercom. With a bit of ingenuity he could activate it when he woke, but that would be quite a while. The intercom would reach the bridge, but probably Gharma was elsewhere now, finishing up the business that Majumbdahr’s death had started. Or perhaps he was with the Master. Gharma wasn’t the one I wanted, anyway. The Master held the reins. He had done something to Gharma, I was sure, and something to me as well.

I found Rhandra lying quietly in the hallway as I’d told her. She tensed as I approached and then relaxed when I called her name. I told her briefly about the priests. She looked at me vaguely, not focusing on my face, and I had to remind myself that she couldn’t see in what appeared to me to be ordinary light. I gave her one of the handguns and then took it back, realizing that she didn’t know how to use it.

“What do we do now, Ling?” she said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “All this is invigorating but I still haven’t learned anything. I could try for the bridge, or we could go see the Master, providing we could reach him. If those priests of his are all armed I imagine they’ll be protecting him.”

“Armed priests. It seems strange.”

“An understatement. No, we need some advantage.”

“Don’t you have one? The lights, I mean?”

“Yes, it’s all right for me. But we can’t stay in these hallways forever. Once Gharma understands what I’m doing he can easily find ultraviolet lamps and bring them in.”

“That would take time.”

“Um.” I tried to think. “Apparently most of the ship knows nothing of this, or the Master doesn’t have them under his thumb the way the priests were. Otherwise C deck would be swarming with Lengen trying to—” What? Kill us? Even now it was hard to believe. Then I remembered Majumbdahr.

“We can’t sit here,” Rhandra said. “Can we go after them?”

“Carry it to them, then?” I said. “Aggressive girl. But you’re right. I know the ship and I know what it can do, where everything is. Gharma hasn’t had time to learn that and he knows it.”

“If he rallies the others—”

“We can’t give him time.” I sat down next to her in the corridor, feeling suddenly a touch of fatigue. “The Master can sway the crew.”

“He may be doing that now.”

“Unless he and Gharma are simply waiting. They may be giving the priests time to dispose of our bodies before reporting back.”

“Good,” she said. “That gives us an advantage if they don’t expect us.”

“Ah. Ferocious fighter, you are. But we’ll need more than this. We’re outnumbered.”

“There are only a few more priests,” she said, looking at me with the face of sweet reason.

“I’m afraid I’m not that much of a hero,” I said. “I don’t shoot that well and I know you don’t. It’s not enough to just point one of these”—I hefted a handgun gingerly—“and let go. If you miss, your target might not give you a chance to try again.”

Like most people, Rhandra thought a gun entitled her to privileges, such as always winning a shoot-out. There were three priests left, plus Gharma and the Master. I had not lived this long by walking into situations that ran five to two against me.

“Can’t we use the lights again?” she said.

“I don’t—wait. The Sol phosphors are still underneath the Veden phosphors that were sprayed over them. If we could take them off I could see by that light and no one else could.”

“Do they come off?”

“Only if you burn them. I could do it with a fan laser.”

“We haven’t got one. These are just—”

“Bolt impulsers, right. But the machine shop on D deck would have one. They emit a broad heating beam, but they’re heavy and operate from power outlets in the wall.”

“Isn’t there a portable one?”

“Well, yes,” I said grudgingly. “But it’s even heavier. Look, I don’t think it’ll work. We need something else.”

“Oh,” she said in a small voice. I had just about beaten her down. I didn’t want her to make suggestions or try to budge me into action. And I knew why.

I didn’t want to accept what was happening. I was casting around for answers but none came. I wasn’t focusing on the present, just throwing in stopgaps.

That was just what Gharma and the Master would want me to do. Sit and wait.

And the conditioning was almost working. My mind jittered aside whenever Rhandra made a suggestion, to find a way out of it.

“The lights,” I said carefully. Focus downward to body center. Think clearly. Still the mind…

“The lights. Yes. I should have thought—”

“What?” Rhandra said.

I got up. “Come on. I have to check.”

We moved toward the harsh violet. I stopped at the next intersection with an orthogonal corridor and pointed upward. “Can you see those? The small circular splotches.“She strained and squinted and nodded. “Those are emergency phosphors. They’re running lights that go on when central power fails. There is a separate power source for each deck.”

She grinned. “Let’s cut the power to C deck, then they couldn’t find us in all these cabins.”

Now it was my turn to be hardnosed, “No. We can’t go on the defensive. If they wanted to they could seal C deck from the bridge and pump the air out.”

“But those two priests are here—”

“I don’t think that sort of thing matters anymore.”

“Oh.”

“We’ll cut the power, though. To B deck.”.

“Won’t they be guarding B deck?”

“Too many ramps. Come along.” I started to move back into the Sol light. It was much easier on my eyes. “We’re going to work our way over to another ramp and go up that way.”

“How are we going to stop the power when—”

“There are separate centers for each deck. I have the captain’s coded key that will let me into B deck’s. There are tools in the cabinet and I can use those. I don’t think Gharma even knows about it unless he’s studied the ship inventory.”

“Do you think—”

“Quiet.” Rhandra was a country girl and she had a tendency to babble when she was unsettled, like most people. If she kept it up the priests would find us with no trouble at all.

In the Sol light section I noticed Rhandra gradually veered away from me and bumped into the wall. The Coriolis force due to the revolving ship’s life cylinder threw off normal walking, but the mind corrected if you could see you weren’t walking in a straight line. Rhandra couldn’t.

I switched back to contact filters when we reached the last corridor before the violet phosphors. We hurried through the open space before the next upramp and I charged up it, ready for anyone who blocked the way. No one did. The crew was either on the bridge or securing the coldsleep vaults and none had been summoned down to block the ramps. It confirmed my suspicion that the Master had few conspirators with him.

I checked my timepiece. It had been only minutes since I attacked the priests.

We dashed from the shelter of the ramp, by an automatic lift and into a side corridor. I got my bearings and tried to remember where the power cabinet was. Time, time. Everything depended on taking Gharma before he could get help.

I found it, a bulging green color-coded hemisphere, down a short passageway. It clicked open easily, revealing a tangle of power lines, microswitches, connectors, alternate circuit elements, and other things I couldn’t identify. The color-coded lines simplified things, though. Routine shipboard elements were red. (The fact that the most prevalent form of color blindness is the inability to distinguish green and red has never penetrated far enough to change the convention.)

I detached a softhead hammer from its wall mount, motioned Rhandra out of the way and smashed three connector switches in rapid succession. Nothing happened. I cut some printed circuitry the same way, then a few things at random.

The lights around us faded, pulsed once, and died. A rattling alarm spoke near the hemisphere’s lock. I shut it off.

B deck has more opulently padded decks to reduce random ship noise, and curved corridors to break the spatial monotony. This made it easier to approach the Master’s suite of rooms, because no one could spot us from a distance. It worked both ways, of course; Rhandra and I had to move carefully and stay close to the walls.

Overhead on the bridge I knew a technician was trying to figure out why the B deck phosphors should fail just now, when every hand was needed elsewhere. My plan—what there was of it—rested on the hope that he would decide to look into it a little later when there was time. The wait would riot be long, but there was a chance it would be enough.

I saw the first priest two intersections away from the Master’s suite. He was standing with half his back in view around a corner, his arms raised as though talking into a wall mounted ship’s intercom. As I watched he slammed the receiver down and felt his way a few feet down the corridor before stopping. He had just found that the usual intercom system ran on the same power source as the phosphors and wouldn’t work either. And, being untrained, he didn’t know that an emergency intercom station was mounted in a recessed panel near every emergency Sol phosphor.

We cut to the right and circled around him. Rhandra was as helpless as the priests in this light—she said she could see no more than twenty feet even when we were directly under a Sol phosphor—but I couldn’t leave her behind. If a roving gang like those two priests found her I wasn’t sure she would have the resolution to shoot first. After all, she was a girl from the farmlands and she didn’t know how to shoot either. I saw three other priests as I circled around. They had taken up positions roughly equidistant from the Master’s suite and they effectively blocked all paths to it.

But they had made a simple tactical error. They were spread out to cover all approaches and that left them widely separated. The distance between men wasn’t very much—perhaps fifty yards at most—but in the sound-proofing of B deck that was enough. They had had to form the net in near-darkness on the spur of the moment; given time they would probably correct it.

I described the situation to Rhandra and gave her one of the handguns with a few instructions about its use. “What’re we going to do?” she said.

“You’re going to follow me at a few paces behind. If the Veden phosphors suddenly go back on you’ll have to drag me out of sight because I won’t be able to see a thing. It might take too long to get the contact filters back in.”

I paused. Gharma might have sent a man to the bridge, letting him feel his way out of B deck, with word to bring flares or anything else that would supply Veden illumination. In that case aid might come any second.

But if Gharma was afraid or cautious he might well keep all his men with him for protection. He could wait me out that way with little risk to himself.

Which had he done? There was no way to know.

“Look,” I said, “I’ve got another idea. I’ll lead you to almost within sight of one of the priests. Then I’ll double around and come at him from another corridor. When you make a noise I’ll rush him. Give me time to get into position.”

“What sort of noise?”

“Just a few words. A question. Ask him why the lights are out. He’ll probably think you’re just wandering around in the dark.”

“I am.”

“You’re not as badly off as they are. At least you know what’s happening.” We edged along the passageway for a moment until I could just make out a priest around the curve. “Here I go. Give me one minute. Count it off in your head.”

I worked my way around to the other corridor. I crept forward until I had a clear view of the priest and stopped. It was an unnerving experience to stand in what seemed to be easy laser shot of an armed man and still have to force yourself closer. Several times he looked directly at me and I froze, but his gaze drifted on without stopping. It was impossible for me to tell just how far he could see in what to him was very dim light. The human eye has a large range of frequency sensitivity and the changes made in native Vedens narrowed this range, but not in precisely the same way with each patient.

He stood underneath one of the emergency Sol phosphors. I inched forward with the handgun pointed at him. A thousand years ago I had sat in a restaurant with Majumbdahr and talked of reverence for life, vegetarianism, and respect for all living creatures. Now the next moment would decide—whether I had to kill a man simply because he blocked my way.

Rhandra’s voice, when it came, was very faint. “Why are—”

That was all I listened to. I lunged ahead, trying to muffle my footfalls, and ducked low to present a smaller target. The priest was turning, his pistol coming up, eyes shifting uneasily as he tried to locate the voice.

At the last moment he did. The pistol leveled as he squinted down the V-and-blade sight. His right forefinger began to clench.

I hit him with a boot heel in the shoulder. It was a high kick I hadn’t tried in years but it worked well enough to stagger him to the side and prevent the pistol from going off.

As my right foot returned to the deck I followed the weight shift through with a short chop to his neck. He was turning away from me, perhaps to ward off the blow that had already landed.

I twisted and caught his solar plexus with my left elbow. That did it. The breath whooshed out of him and his fingers loosened around the pistol. I moved in, butted him aside and snatched at the pistol just as he released it. Weapons have been known to fire when they are dropped and it had suddenly occurred to me that a laser beam could be seen quite well in this darkness even by Veden eyes.

When I had the gun I let his weight sag against me and lowered him to the floor. I was just standing up when something brushed me from behind.

I grabbed at it. My hand closed on soft cloth.

“Oh!” Rhandra cried.

I didn’t say anything. Browbeating her for leaving her place would be useless and at any rate there was no time. I was busy listening for sounds of movement from any direction. If one of the other priests had heard anything he would call out to check if his colleague was still there. Or perhaps not; if he had any sense he would come to see himself, preferably with help along in case it was needed.

Nothing. No movement. Only the hollow sigh of air circulation systems.

I dragged the priest to the nearest cabin, unlocked it and threw him inside. I found Rhandra still standing where I’d touched her, and took her by the hand. “Still got the pistol? Good. Stay behind me,” I said. “We’re going into the Master’s suite.”

I found the doorway easily and keyed myself in without a sound. Rhandra slipped in and closed the door. We stood in the darkness, listening. A dim emergency phosphor was located halfway up the wall in the next room but the alcove we were in shielded us from it.

There was a low murmur of whispered conversation. When my eyes had adjusted to the lower level of illumination I could make out Gharma, sitting zazen position, upright and rigid, faced slightly away from me toward his left. A beaded curtain between us swayed and rattled softly in air currents that bore the sweet tang of incense.

Gharma’s face was strained and tight. He had not moved since I had seen him, but now he nodded slowly and murmured a reply. The Master was not in sight but he was probably in his usual place off to my right, hidden by the jut of the wall.

Then something happened. Gharma turned and looked directly at me. Had he heard our breathing? Or did the Master sense us and make a sign?

“Gateway,” Gharma said. His voice was high and nervous.

It was obviously an identification code. Returning guards would have to signal their identity before being admitted.

That was when I made my mistake. The impulse to say something as a reply, and perhaps stall, overrode the knowledge that there could only be one outcome to this.

“Ah—” I said.

Gharma’s eyes widened and he reached for something at his side. I realized suddenly that I still had not adjusted to the idea of fighting him. But I did not make the same mistake twice. I acted.

He rolled to the right and brought his hand around toward me. I fired twice, very fast, and dove through the curtain without waiting to see the effect.

Gharma raised his hand with a laser pistol in it and a light winked at me. I fired again and in the same instant felt a searing lance bury itself in my calf.

Gharma sprawled, arms akimbo, and then suddenly went limp. A red haze licked around my eyes and I saw twisting yellow worms of shock began to ebb away but the pain increased. I didn’t look at my leg.

Rhandra had not moved. For once she was following orders. I looked up and saw the Master gazing at me quietly from ten feet away. Something about him made the pain lessen.

“Lights told me,” he said in his deep bass. “Knew the priests had not won when”—he gestured slowly at the dead Veden phosphors on the wall—“failed.”

“The priests outside will not be of any help to you,” I said. “No one can penetrate the door to this suite with a hand weapon.”

“True. You would know these things.” He looked at me steadily, unblinking. His eyes were adapted somehow to Veden light, so the room must have appeared nearly totally black to him. “Not given to us to deal in such matters.”

“You seem to have done well enough.” I struggled up, flinching at a stab of fire in my leg, and sat. “Why did you have Majumbdahr killed that way—strung up, slaughtered?”

“Disciple Gharma… did it as he liked. He had a way all his own. He said it was ancient Hindic ritual death suitable for even…”

“Even one of low caste?” I guessed. The Master nodded. “Gharma. He never rid himself of the idea that his station meant everything.”

“Felt Majumbdahr… unfit… for leader,” the Master said. His gaze had drifted slightly away from mine, indicating that he was nearly blind in this light. “A low person.”

“Did you not encourage this view?” I said.

The Master simply looked at me. I went on.

“So when Majumbdahr found what you had in store for Veden, you allowed Gharma to kill him.”

“Gharma had his own will,” the Master said rapidly.

“A will to destroy a Fleet Wing?”

Again he said nothing.

“Why was it done?”

The Master waved a hand airily. “Know little of those things. Weapons, per—”

“What weapons? Missiles? Beam projectors?”

“Fusion triggers. We have… few. Lack still to make them.” He stared evenly at me, eyes focused intently, peering down from some spiritual fastness.

“Fusion triggers are useful only against planets,” I said flatly. His staring, probing eyes made me uneasy, but I could not look away. After a pause he nodded, as though dismissing the subject.

“Saturation bombing? Is that what you plan next, once Fleet defenses axe down? A few months more of the Plague will do that, I think.”

Again he nodded, never taking his eyes from me.

“You would do that?”

“It is our right.”

“Right…?”

“We made you,” his voice boomed. “My ancestors altered the primate genes. Made hunters, learners, from fruit eaters. Formed your social structure. Hormones. Cellular structure. Mating ritual. Family grouping. All bear our imprint.”

“No…”

“True. You would have been told—”

“For what? Why?”

He sighed suddenly and looked very much older. “An image. A vision of ourselves. I do not know. My ancestors made your race. Lies to us to right the errors.”

“Errors? The Empire, you mean?” I blinked to clear my head.

“That. More.”

The Master and I seemed frozen in space, lanced together through our eyes as the universe spun away.

“Was it wrong, then, for us to seek community?” I said meekly.

“You have no community. None true to spirit. From beginning, in the ape tribes, you inherited need for others of your kind around you. Protect.”

“Yes, that is why we need—”

He cut me off with an abrupt chopping morion with his hand. “To survive you had to learn, change. Find better club. Develop knife. Fire. Innovation is private activity. Ancestors put that in, too. The tribe spirit cannot cleanse it from you. You are at war with your own creativity.”

“That is what drives us. A tension.”

“Yes, it is,” the Master said. He sat reflecting for a moment. His voice came from somewhere far away. “It lets you grow somehow. Is something like what we wanted. More… ambition? But less isolation than we have. You call us hermits, I think.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore. You are old, Master. Your race spun us out this way, but the ones who planned it are dead. We belong to ourselves now.”

“No.”

“Let us go.”

“No.” The muscles in his face clenched. The expression looked almost human, but for a band of flesh that stretched taut where his nose would have been. “No. We are overlords.”

“We can do—”

“No. You cannot. Your Empire is rotted. In your minds is no equilibrium. No rest.”

His words came from far away, Soft and light. I was lifting. Rising.

“On new planet we can work with you again. Change the genes. Alter. Prun. Build different consciousness. In the vaults we carry enough humans for pool of breeding stock.”

“No… I…” My voice stretched away as though I could see it, long and thin.

“We save you.” He moved. Slowly, slowly. My jaw was solid, heavy. A small square of metal appeared in the Master’s hand. His thumb traced across it with infinite deliberation. Low hum of—

“Stop!” Rhandra cried.

Sharp crack of laser. Bright orange flash before my eyes. I began to turn from the Master to—The Master.

He toppled over onto his side, falling stiffly, surprise frozen in his depthless eyes. There was a wet red wound in his barrel chest.

“Ling? Ling?”

Rhandra brushed through the bead curtain and put the hand laser on the floor.

“I thought… I thought he was doing it again,” she said. “The sound of his voice, it was cold and impersonal. He hated you, Ling. He hated all of us.”

“Yes,” I said. I was so heavy, so thick…

“I had to shoot, you were slipping away. I fired at the sound of his voice.” Her voice had a pleading note to it.

I listened but I didn’t care. Rhandra swirled around me and I was fixed, pinned. My mind ground as though sand were in it and I could think of nothing else.

The Master was dead.

He had been blind and could not see Rhandra, did not know she was in the room. He had not focused on her. And…

The Master was dead.

Idly, I remembered the device the Master had held in his palm. It was a control for the process that dipped subtle fingers into a man’s mind and tipped him over into a suggestible controlled state.

When we had time it would be interesting to study the polytonal inducers, subliminal flicker screens and other systems I had found in the walls of the Master’s suite. It was not clear just how they functioned together. Perhaps men could not readily understand such a thing; it was rooted in a knowledge of us only our creators had possessed.

Whatever it was, surely it had been used on the men who had helped us load Jive skimmer on the off-islands. Their shuttle had not appeared and I knew it wasn’t going to; the Quarn who controlled them would regard them as disposable. No trouble would be taken to get humans off the doomed, ruined Earth unless absolutely necessary.

And that fact, once I understood it, told me what was in the coldsleep vaults.

Not men. Quarn. Probably a fair percentage of the bodies were men and women. Perhaps there were even children. The new world the Quarn had planned for us would need a genetic base for the Quarn’s hobby of breeding new races, after all.

But most of them had to be Quarn. There were at least a thousand bodies and not that many humans would be needed to prevent inbred characteristics from spreading and becoming dominant; probably fifty would do it, as a minimum.

Despite the Master’s assurances, Quarn infiltrators must have been working on Earth. Otherwise things wouldn’t have fallen into rubble so quickly. Now the Empire was surely on its last legs; the Quarn would have to be taken off Earth.

I was sure that was what our coldsleep vaults contained. Quarn spies who had spread the Plague, and their Lengen followers.

“Have you completed the course calculation yet?” I asked over the intercom. A technician’s voice came back, affirmative.

The bridge around me was deserted. I had no senior officers now and the standard computation just finished had taken the entire staff better than twenty minutes. The technicians were working at the limits of their knowledge, without the organization a bridge officer would impose on them. But if I checked every step we could get out of Earth orbit and into the Jump without detection. The stress tensor around Earth was logged into every Fleet ship’s computer, so the danger in Jumping this close to a planetary mass was minimized. It was still there, a slight uncertainty that could kill us all, but it had to be faced.

Rhandra settled into the couch next to me. It had been only minutes since I had seen her last but it felt like a day. And how long since the Master had died? An hour?

I refused to think of it. The priests would never have let me live. I had wounded three and killed one in the darkness outside the Master’s suite, and taken a burn in the side. Two men dead, and the Master. The Master. I knew I would pay for that horror with sleepless nights. But for now I put it from my mind.

I shifted position and winced. Local anesthesia damped the stabbing bright tongues of pain that laced up my leg and into my ribs, but not totally. I was positioned so that none of the staff further down the bridge could see the brown-red patches of blood that stained my coverall.

I noticed Rhandra looking at me. I smiled. “You’ve accounted for all ship’s personnel?”

“Yes, all the men are here on the bridge. Women and children are strapped in awaiting departure. Many asked what was happening but I told them nothing,” she said. “No one prowling the corridors?”

“No, unless they are hiding now.”

“Good. Then there probably were no more who knew the Master’s plans, or they would have mobilized to find me when the Veden phosphors cut out.”

With Gharma and the Master dead, and the wounded priests unwilling to talk, there was no way of telling what the Master had planned or what secret tasks he had assigned to anyone in the crew. Possibly the rest of the Lengen in the Fariiken were as ignorant of the true nature of the Master as I, but it would take us time to be sure.

I had been staring at the winking green monitor studs of my console. A twinge from my leg brought me out of my lethargy. I punched in some instructions and checked our course once more.

“You don’t need to do that again, Ling,” Rhandra said to me. “Let yourself relax. You are free now. The Master and the Sabal Game and Fleet are all gone and don’t matter.”

“I know,” I said, and my voice was very tired. “But some of those things the Master said are true, you know. I don’t really know what I want. Maybe we never have, we humans. Each try we made was a trial solution, some lasted longer, like the Empire, but they all fell. Perhaps that is our fate.”

“Uncertainty is natural,” Rhandra said.

“Uncertainty is the burden of being a man,” I said. I looked out at the mottled pink blues of Earth on the screen above me. My mind was aswirl, a pinched cavern of frightened dreams.

Yes, there wasn’t anything left. Just me and Rhandra and the ruin of more lives than I cared to count. Plus the crew, I remembered, who had bargained away their past for a future now dead.

I punched a command sequence button and then switched over to intercom. “Execute course previously logged,” I said.

The ship hummed into life as we started toward our Jump point. It had taken only a few minutes to make the change in our Jump course. I punched the alterations directly into the central computer without routing them through one of the technician consoles for verification, because the alternative course I plotted was into free space, far from any star.

And most important, the new destination was beyond the boundaries of the Empire, out into the vast somber emptiness.

The chances of finding a habitable planet before we fused all our reaction mass were good. In the Fariiken’s permanent log were all the probe reports and astronomical data of centuries; the Empire had never had the time to check all the thousands of opportunities that beckoned in those dry catalogs of facts and numbers. If we went far enough, we would be safe, and with luck I could find a world that was at least livable, perhaps even comfortable.

Acceleration tugged at me and brought a protesting wrench of pain from my side as we moved out of the sheltering convoy of ramscoops. I was sweating freely and my lips had the salty tang of blood and perspiration on them. Shock from the wounds, I supposed, and more.

Gnarled storm currents lay upon the land below us and cold lightning played among solemn black clouds. I had said goodbye to many tilings of late, but Earth was the hardest of them all.

Fleet Central would pick us up soon, but not in time. If they knew where we were right now there might be time to lock onto the Fariiken with a beam.

So there was some risk, but I had decided to take it.

I thumbed on the intercom again. “Give me transmission on emergency channel,” I said. In a moment a green Clear sign near my left hand lit.

“Fariiken to Fleet Central,” I said, simultaneously punching the Fariiken identification codes into the sideband signal that would accompany my voice transmission. I wanted to be absolutely sure they believed this.

“Fariiken! You are ordered—”

I clicked off the receiver.

“You’ll get this just once. Do not, repeat, do not send any Fleet Wings to the Lekki-Jagen system. It is a Quarn trap. Dispatch a Jump probe and you’ll see what I mean.”

I glanced at Rhandra. She was trying to watch me and her console at the same time. The seconds were ticking away for the Jump I had programmed.

“You don’t deserve it,” I said to the console’s sound pickup, “but I’m chancing that you won’t burn us out of the sky before I’m finished talking.

“This is Ling Sanjen speaking, late of Fleet Control. I’m serving notice on you, Fleet, and that damned Empire. We’re even—I’ve got your ship, and if you aren’t too stupid you’ll save a Fleet Wing or two.

“So that’s it. Do what you can about the Quarn. Maybe you’ll survive yet. If you do my grandchildren may run into you sometime. Watch out if they do, though—you won’t understand them. They are going to be like me.”

I switched off. The bridge had heard it all and heads were turned to watch me all down the line. No one spoke. A few clutched at their robes, shocked, looking rheumatic and respectable. I could deal with them later.

They would make an interesting lot of colonists, these. It would take time to accustom them to hardship. After that, perhaps it would be time to take a few Quarn from the coldsleep vaults. I was not so proud that I thought they had nothing to teach, or I nothing to learn.

Cool and beautiful, Earth slipped away underneath us. In a few seconds we would leave her forever for the black night between the stars.

“Time,” Rhandra said softly.

I closed the Jump circuits myself. A chill whisper rushed through the ship. I took the controls. An electric blue shock came for a flicker of a second and then we were through, drifting free.

Strange stars blazed in the distance. Below us a ragged dust cloud blotted out whatever lay beyond.

I took us down, into darkness.

NOT LONG BEFORE THE END

Larry Niven

A swordsman battled a sorcerer once upon a time.

In that age such battles were frequent. A natural antipathy exists between swordsmen and sorcerers, as between cats and small birds, or between rats and men. Usually the swordsman lost, and humanity’s average intelligence rose some trifling fraction. Sometimes the swordsman won, and again the species was improved; for a sorcerer who cannot kill one miserable swordsman is a poor excuse for a sorcerer.

But this battle differed from the others. On one side, the sword itself was enchanted. On the other, the sorcerer knew a great and terrible truth.

We will call him the Warlock, as his name is both forgotten and impossible to pronounce. His parents had known what they were about. He who knows your name has power over you, but he must speak your name to use it.

The Warlock had found his terrible truth in middle age.

By that time he had traveled widely. It was not from choice. It was simply that he was a powerful magician, and he used his power, and he needed friends.

He knew spells to make people love a magician. The Warlock had tried these, but he did not like the side effects. So he commonly used his great power to help those around him, that they might love him without coercion.

He found that when he had been ten to fifteen years in a place, using his magic as whim dictated, his powers would weaken. If he moved away, they returned. Twice he had had to move, and twice he had settled in a new land, learned new customs, made new friends. It happened a third time, and he prepared to move again. But something set him to wondering.

Why should a man’s powers be so unfairly drained out of him?

It happened to nations too. Throughout history, those lands which had been richest in magic had been overrun by barbarians carrying swords and clubs. It was a sad truth, and one that did not bear thinking about, but the Warlock’s curiosity was strong.

So he wondered, and he stayed to perform certain experiments.

His last experiment involved a simple kinetic sorcery set to spin a metal disc in midair. And when that magic was done, he knew a truth he could never forget.

So he departed. In succeeding decades he moved again and again. Time changed his personality, if not his body, and his magic became more dependable, if less showy. He had discovered a great and terrible truth, and if he kept it secret, it was through compassion. His truth spelled the end of civilization, yet it was of no earthly use to anyone.

So he thought. But some five decades later (the date was on the order of 12,000 B.C.) it occurred to him that all truths find a use somewhere, sometime. And so he built another disc and recited spells over it, so that (like a telephone number already dialed but for one digit) the disc would be ready if ever he needed it.

The name of the sword was Glirendree. It was several hundred years old, and quite famous.

As for the swordsman, his name is no secret. It was Belhap Sattlestone Wirldess ag Miracloat roo Cononson. His friends, who tended to be temporary, called him Hap. He was a barbarian, of course. A civilized man would have had more sense than to touch Glirendree, and better morals than to stab a sleeping woman. Which was how Hap acquired his sword. Or vice versa.

The Warlock recognized it long before he saw it. He was at work in the cavern he had carved beneath a hill, when an alarm went off. The hair rose up, tingling, along the back of his neck. “Visitors,” he said.

“I don’t hear anything,” said Sharla, but there was an uneasiness to her tone. Sharla was a girl of the village who had come to live with the Warlock. That day she had persuaded the Warlock to teach her some of his simpler spells.

“Don’t you feel the hair rising on the back of your neck? I set the alarm to do that. Let me just check …” He used a sensor tike a silver hula hoop set on edge.

“There’s trouble coming. Sharla, we’ve got to get you out of here.”

“But …” Sharla waved protestingly at the table where they had been working.

“Oh, that. We can quit in the middle. That spell isn’t dangerous.” It was a charm against lovespells, rather messy to work, but safe and tame and effective. The Warlock pointed at the spear of light glaring through the hoopsensor. “That’s dangerous. An enormously powerful focus of mana power is moving up the west side of the hilj. You go down the east side.”

“Can I help? You’ve taught me some magic.”

The magician laughed a little nervously. “Against that? That’s Glirendree. Look at the size of the image, the color; the shape. No. You get out of here, and right now. The hill’s clear on the eastern slope.”

“Come with me.”

“I can’t. Not with Glirendree loose. Not when it’s already got hold of some idiot. There are obligations.”

They came out of the cavern together, into the mansion they shared. Sharla, still protesting, donned a robe and started down the hill. The Warlock hastily selected an armload of paraphernalia and went outside.

The intruder was halfway up the hill: a large but apparently human being carrying something long and glittering. He was still a quarter of an hour downslope. The Warlock set up the silver hula hoop and looked through it.

The sword was a flame of mana discharge; an eye-hurting needle of white light. Glirendree, right enough. He knew of other, equally powerful mana foci, but none were portable, and none would show as a sword to the unaided eye.

He should have told Sharla to inform the Brotherhood. She had that much magic. Too late now.

There was no colored borderline to the spear of light.

No green fringe effect meant no protective spells. The swordsman had not tried to guard himself against what he carried. Certainly the intruder was no magician, and he had not the intelligence to get the help of a magician. Did he know nothing about Glirendree?

Not that that would help the Warlock. He who carried Glirendree was invulnerable to any power save Glirendree itself. Or so it was said.

“Let’s test that,” said the Warlock to himself. He dipped into his armload of equipment and came up with something wooden, shaped like an ocarina. He blew the dust off it, raised it in his fist and pointed it down the mountain. But he hesitated.

The loyalty spell was simple and safe, but it did have side effects. It lowered its victim’s intelligence.

“Self-defense,” the Warlock reminded himself, and blew into the ocarina.

The swordsman did not break stride. Glirendree didn’t even glow; it had absorbed the spell that easily.

In minutes the swordsman would be here. TheWarlock hurriedly set up a simple prognostics spell. At least he could learn who would win the coming battle.

No picture formed before him. The scenery did not even waver.

“Well, now,” said the Warlock.“Well, now!“And he reached into his clutter of sorcerous tools and found a metal disc. Another instant’s rummaging produced a double-edged knife, profusely inscribed in no known language, and very sharp.

At the top of the Warlock’s hill was a spring, and the stream from that spring ran past the Warlock’s house. The swordsman stood leaning on his sword, facing the Warlock across that stream. He breathed deeply, for it had been a hard climb.

He was powerfully muscled and profusely scarred. To the Warlock it seemed strange that so young a man should have found time to acquire so many scars. But none of his wounds had impaired motor functions. The Warlock had watched him coming up the hill. The swordsman was in top physical shape.

His eyes were deep blue and brilliant, and half an inch too close together for the Warlock’s taste.

“I am Hap,” he called across the stream. “Where is she?”

“You mean Sharla, of course. But why is that your concern?”

“I have come to free her from her shameful bondage, old man. Too long have you—”

“Hey, hey, hey. Sharla’s my wife.”

“Too long have you used her for your vile and lecherous purposes. Too—”

“She stays of her own free will, you nit!”

“You expect me to believe that? As lovely a woman as Sharla, could she love an old and feeble warlock?”

“Do I look feeble?”

The Warlock did not look like an old man. He seemed Hap’s age, some twenty years old, and his frame and his musculature were the equal of Hap’s. He had not bothered to dress as he left the cavern. In place of Hap’s scars, his back bore a tattoo in red and green and gold, an elaborately curlicued penta-gramic design, almost hypnotic in its ex-tradimensional involutions.

“Everyone in the village knows your age,” said Hap. “You’re two hundred years old, if not more.”

“Hap,” said the W.irlock. “Belhap something-or-other roo Cononson. Now I remember. Sharla told me you tried to bother her last time she went to the village. I should have done something about it then.”

“Old man, you lie. Sharla is under a spell. Everybody knows the power of a warlock’s loyalty spell.”

“I don’t use them. I don’t like the side effects. Who wants to be surrounded by friendly morons?” The Warlock pointed to Glirendree. “Do you know what you carry?”

Hap nodded ominously.

“Then you ought to know better. Maybe it’s not too late. See if you can transfer it to your left hand.”

“I tried that. I can’t let go of it.” Hap cut at the air, restlessly, with his sixty pounds of sword. “I have to sleep with the damned thing clutched in my hand.”

“Well, it’s too late then.”

“It’s worth it,” Hap said grimly. “For now I can kill you. Too long has an innocent woman been subjected to your lecherous—”

“I know, I know.” The Warlock changed languages suddenly, speaking high and fast. He spoke thus for almost a minute, then switched back to Rynaldese. “Do you feel any pain?”

“Not a twinge,” said Hap. He had not moved. He stood with his remarkable sword at the ready, glowering at the magician across the stream.

“No sudden urge to travel? Attacks of remorse? Change of body temperature?” But Hap was grinning now, not at all nicely. “I thought not. Well, it had to be tried.”

There was an instant of blinding light.

When it reached the vicinity of the hill, the meteorite had dwindled to the size of a baseball. It should have finished its journey at the back of Hap’s head. Instead, it exploded a millisecond too soon. When the light had died, Hap stood within a ring of craterlets.

The swordsman’s unsymmetrical jaw dropped, and then he closed his mouth and started forward. The sword hummed faintly.

The Warlock turned his back.

Hap curled his lip at the Warlock’s cowardice. Then he jumped three feet backward from a standing start. A shadow had pulled itself from the Warlock’s back.

In a lunar cave with the sun glaring into its mouth, a man’s shadow on the wall might have looked that sharp and black. The shadow dropped to the ground and stood up, a humanoid outline that was less a shape than a window view of the ultimate blackness beyond the death of the universe. Then it leapt.

Glirendree seemed to move of its own accord. It hacked the demon once lengthwise and once across, while the demon seemed to batter against an invisible shield, trying to reach Hap even as it died.

“Clever,” Hap panted. “A pentagram on your back. a demon trapped inside.”

“That’s clever,” said the Warlock, “but it didn’t work. Carrying Glirendree works, but it’s not clever. I ask you again, do you know what you carry?”

“The most powerful sword ever forged.” Hap raised the weapon high. His right arm was more heavily muscled than his left, and inches longer, as if GKrendree had been at work on it. “A sword to make me die equal of any warlock or sorceress, and without the help of demons, either. I had to kill a woman who loved me to get it, but I paid that price gladly. When I have sent you to your just reward, Sharla will come to me—”

“She’ll spit in your eye. Now will you listen to me? Glirendree is a demon. If you had an ounce of sense, you’d cut your arm off at the elbow.”

Hap looked startled. “You mean there’s a demon imprisoned in the metal?”

“Get it through your head. There is no metal. It’s a demon, a bound demon, and it’s a parasite. It’ll age you to death in a year unless you cut it loose. A warlock of the northlands imprisoned it in its present form, then gave it to one of his bastards, Jeery of Something-or-other. Jeery conquered half this continent before he died on the battlefield, of senile decay. It was given into the charge of the Rainbow Witch a year before I was born, because there never was a woman who had less use for people, especially men.”

“That happens to have been untrue.”

“Probably Glirendree’s doing. Started her glands up again, did it? She should have guarded against that.”

“A year,” said Hap. “One year.”

But the sword stirred restlessly in his hand. “It will be a glorious year,” said Hap, and he came forward.

The Warlock picked up a copper disc. “Four,” he said, and the disc spun in midair.

By the time Hap had sloshed through the stream, the disc was a blur of motion. The Warlock moved to keep it between himself and Hap. and Hap dared not touch it, for it would have sheared through anything at all. He crossed around it, but again the Warlock had darted to the other side. In the pause he snatched up something else: a silvery knife, profusely inscribed.

“Whatever that is,” said Hap. “it can’t hurt me. No magic can affect me while I carry Glirendree.”

“True enough,” said the Warlock. “The disc will lose its force in a minute anyway. In the meantime, I know a secret that I would like to tell, one I could never tell to a friend.”

Hap raised Glirendree above his head and. two-handed, swung it down on the disc. The sword stopped jarringly at the disc’s rim.

“It’s protecting you,” said the Warlock. “If Glirendree hit the rim now, the recoil would knock you clear down to the village. Can’t you hear the hum?”

Hap heard the whine as the disc cut the air. The tone was going up and up the scale.

“You’re stalling,” he said.

“That’s true. So? Can it hurt you?”

“No. You were saying you knew a secret.” Hap braced himself, sword raised, on one side of the disc, which now glowed red at the edge.

“I’ve wanted to tell someone for such a long time. A hundred and fifty years. Even Sharla doesn’t know.” The Warlock still stood ready to run if the swordsman should come after him. “I’d learned a little magic in those days, not much compared to what I know now, but big, showy stuff. Castles floating in the air. Dragons with golden scales. Armies turned to stone, or wiped out by lightning, instead of simple death spells. Stuff like that takes a lot of power, you know?”

“I’ve heard of such things.”

“I did it all the time, for myself, for friends, for whoever happened to be king, or whomever I happened to be in love with. And I found that after I’d been settled for a while, the power would leave me. I’d have to move elsewhere to get it back.”

The copper disc glowed bright orange with the heat of its spin. It should have fragmented, or melted, long ago.

“Then there are the dead places, the places where a warlock dares not go. Places where magic doesn’t work. They tend to be rural areas, farmlands and sheep ranges, but you can find the old cities, the castles built to float which now lie tilted on their sides, the unnaturally aged bones of dragons, like huge lizards from another age.

“So I started wondering.”

Hap stepped back a bit from the heat of the disc. It glowed pure white now, and it was like a sun brought to earth. Through the glare Hap had lost sight of the Warlock.

“So I built a disc like this one and set it spinning. Just a simple kinetic sorcery, but with a constant acceleration and no limit point. You know what mana is?”

“What’s happening to your voice?”

“Mana is the name we give to the power behind magic.” The Warlock’s voice had gone weak and high.

A horrible suspicion came to Hap. The Warlock had slipped down the hill, leaving his voice behind! Hap trotted around the disc, shading his eyes from its heat.

An old man sat on the other side of the disc. His arthritic fingers, half-crippled with swollen joints, played with a rune-inscribed knife. “What I found out -oh, there you are. Well, it’s too late now.”

Hap raised his sword, and his sword changed.

It was a massive red demon, horned and hooved, and its teeth were in Map’s right hand. It paused, deliberately, for the few seconds it took Hap to realize what had happened and to try to jerk away. Then it bit down, and the swordsman’s hand was off at the wrist.

The demon reached out, slowly enough, but Hap in his surprise was unable to move. He felt the taloned fingers close his windpipe.

He felt the strength leak out of the taloned hand, and he saw surprise and dismay spread across the demon’s face.

The disc exploded. All at once and nothing first, it disintegrated into a flat cloud of metallic particles and was gone, flashing away as so much meteorite dust. The light was, as lightning striking at one’s feet. The sound was its thunder. The smell was vaporized copper.

The demon faded, as a chameleon fades against its background. Fading, the demon slumped to the ground in slow motion, and faded further, and was gone. When Hap reached out with his foot, he touched only dirt.

Behind Hap was a trench of burnt earth.

The spring had stopped. The rocky bottom of the stream was drying in the sun.

The Warlock’s cavern had collapsed. The furnishings of the Warlock’s mansion had gone crashing down into that vast pit, but the mansion itself was gone without trace.

Hap clutched his messily severed wrist, and he said, “But what happened?”

“Mana,” the Warlock mumbled. He spat out a complete set of blackened teeth. “Mana. What I discovered was that the power behind magic is a natural resource, like the fertility of the soil. When you use it up, it’s gone.”

“But—”

“Can you see why I kept it a secret? One day all the wide world’s mana will be used up. No more mana, no more magic. Do you know that Atlantis is tec-tonically unstable? Succeeding sorcerer-kings renew the spells each generation to keep the whole continent from sliding into the sea. What happens when the spells don’t work any more? They couldn’t possibly evacuate the whole continent in time. Kinder not to let them know.”

“But…that disc.”

The Warlock grinned with his empty mouth and ran his hands through snowy hair. All the hair came off in his fingers, leaving his scalp bare and mottled. “Senility is like being drunk. The disc? I told you. A kinetic sorcery with no upper limit. The disc keeps accelerating until all the mana in the locality has been used up.”

Hap moved a step forward. Shock had drained half his strength. His foot came down jarringly, as if all the spring were out of his muscles.

“You tried to kill me.”

The Warlock nodded. “I figured if the disc didn’t explode and kill you while you were trying to go around it, Glirendree would strangle you when the constraint wore off. What are you complaining about? It cost you a hand, but you’re free of Glirendree.”

Hap took another step, and another. His hand was beginning to hurt, and the pain gave him strength. “Old man,” he said thickly. “Two hundred years old. I can break your neck with the hand you left me. And I will.”

The Warlock raised the inscribed knife.

“That won’t work. No more magic.” Hap slapped the Warlock’s hand away and took the Warlock by his bony throat.

The Warlock’s hand brushed easily aside, and came back, and up. Hap wrapped his arms around his belly and backed away with his eyes and mouth wide open. He sat down hard.

“A knife always works,” said the Warlock.

“Oh,” said Hap.

“I worked the metal myself, with ordinary blacksmith’s tools, so the knife wouldn’t crumble when the magic was gone. The runes aren’t magic.

They only say—”

“Oh,” said Hap. “Oh.” He toppled sideways.

The Warlock lowered himself onto his back. He held the knife up and read the markings, in a language only the Brotherhood remembered.

AND THIS, TOO, SHALL PASS AWAY.

It was a very old platitude, even then.

He dropped his arm back and lay looking at the sky.

Presently the blue was blotted by a shadow.

“I told you to get out of here,” he whispered.

“You should have known better. What’s happened to you?”

“No more youth spells. I knew I’d have to do it when the prognostics spell showed blank.” He drew a ragged breath. “It was worth it. I killed Glirendree.”

“Playing hero, at your age! What can I do? How can I help?”

“Get me down the hill before my heart stops. I never told you my true age—”

“I knew. The whole village knows.” She pulled him to sitting position, pulled one of his arms around her neck. It felt dead. She shuddered, but she wrapped her own arm around his waist and gathered herself for the effort. “You’re so thin! Come on, love. We’re going to stand up.” She took most of his weight onto her, and they stood up.

“Go slow’. I can hear my heart trying to take off.”

“How far do we have to go?”

“Just to the foot of the hill, I think. Then the spells will work again, and we can rest.” He stumbled. “I’m going blind,” he said.

“It’s a smooth path, and all downhill.”

“That’s why I picked this place. I knew I’d have to use the disc someday. You can’t throw away knowledge. Always the time comes when you use it, because you have to, because it’s there.”

“You’ve changed so. So-so ugly. And you smell.”

The pulse fluttered in his neck, like a hummingbird’s wings, “Maybe you won’t want me, after seeing me like this.”

“You can change back, can’t you?”

“Sure. I can change to anything you like. What color eyes do you want?”

“I’ll be like this myself someday,” she said. Her voice held cool horror. And it was fading; he was going deaf.

“I’ll teach you the proper spells, when you’re ready. They’re dangerous. Blackly dangerous.”

She was silent for a time. Then: “What color were his eyes? You know, Belhap Sattlestone whatever.”

“Forget it,” said the Warlock, with a touch of pique.

And suddenly his sight was back.

But not forever, thought the Warlock as they stumbled through the sudden daylight. When the mana runs out, I’ll go like a blown candle flame, and civilization will follow. No more magic, no more magic-based industries. Then the whole world will be barbarian until men learn a new way to coerce nature, and the swordsmen, the damned stupid swordsmen, will win after all.

PASSENGERS

Robert Silverberg

There are only fragments of me left now. Chunks of memory have broken free and drifted away like calved glaciers. It is always like that when a Passenger leaves us. We can never be sure of all the things our borrowed bodies did. We have only the lingering traces, the imprints.

Like sand clinging to an ocean-tossed bottle. Like the throbbings of amputated legs.

I rise. I collect myself. My hair is rumpled; I comb it. My face is creased from too little sleep. There is sourness in my mouth. Has my Passenger been eating dung with my mouth? They do that. They do anything.

It is morning.

A grey, uncertain morning. I stare at it for a while, and then, shuddering, I opaque the window and confront instead the grey, uncertain surface of the inner panel. My room looks untidy. Did I have a woman here? There are ashes in the trays. Searching for butts, I find several with lipstick stains. Yes, a woman was here.

I touch the bedsheets. Still warm with shared warmth. Both pillows tousled. She has gone, though, and the Passenger is gone, and I am alone.

How long did it last, this time?

I pick up the phone and ring Central. “What is the date?”

The computer’s bland feminine voice replies, “Friday, December 4th, 1987.”

“The time?”

“Nine fifty-one, Eastern Standard Time.”

“The weather forecast?”

“Predicted temperature range for today thirty to thirty-eight. Current temperature, thirty-one. Wind from the north, sixteen miles an hour. Chances of precipitation slight.”

“What do you recommend for a hangover?”

“Food or medication?”

“Anything you like,” I say.

The computer mulls that one over for a while. Then it decides on both, and activates my kitchen. The spigot yields cold tomato juice. Eggs begin to fry. From the medicine slot comes a purplish liquid. The Central Computer is always so thoughtful. Do the Passengers ever ride it, I wonder? What thrills could that hold for them? Surely it must be more exciting to borrow the million minds of Central than to live a while in the faulty, short-circuited soul of a corroded human being!

December 4th, Central said. Friday. So the Passenger had me for three nights.

I drink the purplish stuff and probe my memories in a gingerly way, as one might probe a festering sore.

I remember Tuesday morning. A bad time at work. None of the charts will come out right. The section manager irritable; he has been taken by a Passenger three times in five weeks, and his section is in disarray as a result, and his Christmas bonus is jeopardised. Even though it is customary not to penalise a person for lapses due to Passengers, according to the system, the section manager seems to feel he will be treated unfairly. We have a hard time. Revise the charts, fiddle with the program, check the fundamentals ten times over. Out they come: the detailed forecasts for price variations of public utility securities, February-April, 1988. That afternoon we are to meet and discuss the charts and what they tell us.

I do not remember Tuesday afternoon.

That must have been when the Passenger took me. Perhaps at work; perhaps in the mahogany-panelled boardroom itself, during the conference. Pink concerned faces all about me; I cough, I lurch, I stumble from my seat. They shake their heads sadly. No one reaches for me. No one stops me. It is too dangerous to interfere with one who has a Passenger. The chances are great that a second Passenger lurks nearby in the discorporate state, looking for a mount. So I am avoided. I leave the building.

After that, what?

Sitting in my room on bleak Friday morning, I eat my scrambled eggs and try to reconstruct the three lost nights.

Of course it is impossible. The conscious mind functions during the period of captivity, but upon withdrawal of the Passenger nearly every recollection goes too. There is only a slight residue, a gritty film of faint and ghostly memories. The mount is never precisely the same person afterwards; though he cannot recall the details of his experience, he is subtly changed by it.

I try to recall.

A girl? Yes: lipstick on the butts. Sex, then, here in my room. Young? Old? Blonde? Dark? Everything is hazy. How did my borrowed body behave? Was I a good lover? I try to be, when I am myself. I keep in shape. At thirty-eight, I can handle three sets of tennis on a summer afternoon without collapsing. I can make a woman glow as a woman is meant to glow. Not boasting; just categorising. We have our skills. These are mine.

But Passengers, I am told, take wry amusement in controverting our skills. So would it have given my rider a kind of delight to find me a woman and force me to fail repeatedly with her?

I dislike that thought.

The fog is going from my mind now. The medicine prescribed by Central works rapidly. I eat, I shave, I stand under the vibrator until my skin is clean. I do my exercises. Did the Passenger exercise my body Wednesday and Thursday mornings? Probably not. I must make up for that. I am close to middle age, now; tonus lost is not easily regained.

I touch my toes twenty times, knees stiff.

I kick my legs in the air.

I lie flat and lift myself on pumping elbows.

The body responds, maltreated though it has been. It is the first bright moment of my awakening: to feel the inner tingling, to know that I still have vigour.

Fresh air is what I want next. Quickly I slip into my clothes and leave. There is no need for me to report to work today. They are aware that since Tuesday afternoon I have had a Passenger; they need not be aware that before dawn on Friday the Passenger departed. I will have a free day. I will walk the city’s streets, stretching my limbs, repaying my body for the abuse it has suffered.

I enter the elevator. I drop fifty stories to the ground. I step out into the December dreariness.

The towers of New York rise about me.

In the street the cars stream forward. Drivers sit edgily at their wheels. One never knows when the driver of a nearby car will be borrowed, and there is always a moment of lapsed co-ordination as the Passenger takes over. Many lives are lost that way on our streets and highways; but never the life of a Passenger.

I began to walk without purpose. I cross Fourteenth Street, heading north, listening to the soft violent purr of the electric engines. I see a boy jigging in the street and know he is being ridden. At Fifth and Twenty-Second a prosperous-looking paunchy man approaches, his necktie askew, this morning’s Wall Street Journal jutting from an overcoat pocket. He giggles. He thrusts out his tongue. Ridden. Ridden. I avoid him. Moving briskly, I come to the underpass that carries traffic below Thirty-Fourth Street towards Queens, and pause for a moment to watch two adolescent girls quarrelling at the rim of the pedestrian walk. One is a Negro. Her eyes are rolling in terror. The other pushes her closer to the railing. Ridden. But the Passenger does not have murder on its mind, merely pleasure. The Negro girl is released and falls in a huddled heap, trembling. Then she rises and runs. The other girl draws a long strand of gleaming hair into her mouth, chews on it, seems to awaken. She looks dazed.

I avert my eyes. One does not watch while a fellow sufferer is awakening. There is a morality of the ridden; we have so many new tribal mores in these dark days.

I hurry on.

Where am I going so hurriedly? Already I have walked more than a mile. I seem to be moving toward some goal, as though my Passenger still hunches in my skull, urging me about. But I know that is not so. For the moment, at least, I am free.

Can I be sure of that?

Cogito ergo sum no longer applies. We go on thinking even while we are ridden, and we live in quiet desperation, unable to halt our courses no matter how ghastly, no matter how self-destructive. I am certain that I can distinguish between the condition of bearing a Passenger and the condition of being free. But perhaps not. Perhaps I bear a particularly devilish Passenger which has not quitted me at all, but which merely has receded to the cerebellum, leaving me the illusion of freedom while all the time surreptitiously driving me onward to some purpose of its own.

Did we ever have more than that: the illusion of freedom?

But this is disturbing, the thought that I may be ridden without realising it. I burst out in heavy perspiration, not merely from the exertion of walking. Stop. Stop here. Why must you walk? You are at Forty-Second Street. There is the library. Nothing forces you onward. Stop a while, I tell myself. Rest on the library steps.

I sit on the cold stone and tell myself that I have made this decision for myself.

Have I? It is the old problem, free will versus determinism, translated into the foulest of forms. Determinism is no longer a philosopher’s abstraction; it is cold alien tendrils sliding between the cranial sutures. The Passengers arrived three years ago. I have been ridden five times since then. Our world is quite different now. But we have adjusted even to this. We have adjusted. We have our mores. Life goes on. Our governments rule, our legislatures meet, our stock exchanges transact business as usual, and we have methods for compensating for the random havoc. It is the only way. What else can we do? Shrivel in defeat? We have an enemy we cannot fight; at best we can resist through endurance. So we endure.

The stone steps are cold against my body. In December few people sit here.

I tell myself that I made this long walk of my own free will, that I halted of my own free will, that no Passenger rides my brain now. Perhaps. Perhaps. I cannot let myself believe that I am not free.

Can it be, I wonder, that the Passenger left some lingering command in me? Walk to this place, halt at this place? That is possible too.

I look about me at the others on the library steps.

An old man, eyes vacant, sitting on newspaper. A boy of thirteen or so with flaring nostrils. A plump woman. Are all of them ridden? Passengers seem to cluster about me today. The more I study the ridden ones the more convinced I become that I am, for the moment, free. The last time, I had three months of freedom between rides. Some people, they say, are scarcely ever free. Their bodies are in great demand, and they know only scattered bursts of freedom, a day here, a week there, an hour. We have never been able to determine how many Passengers infest our world. Millions, maybe. Or maybe five. Who can tell?

A wisp of snow curls down out of the grey sky. Central had said the chance of precipitation was slight. Are they riding Central this morning too?

I see the girl.

She sits diagonally across from me, five steps up and a hundred feet away, her black skirt pulled up on her knees to reveal handsome legs. She is young. Her hair is deep, rich auburn. Her eyes are pale; at this distance, I cannot make out the precise colour. She is dressed simply. She is younger than thirty. She wears a dark green coat and her lipstick has a purplish tinge. Her lips are full, her nose slender, high-bridged, her eyebrows carefully plucked.

I know her.

I have spent the past three nights with her in my room. She is the one. Ridden, she came to me, and ridden, I slept with her. I am certain of this. The veil of memory opens; I see her slim body naked on my bed.

How can it be that I remember this?

It is too strong to be an illusion. Clearly this is something that I have been permitted to remember for reasons I cannot comprehend. And I remember more. I remember her soft gasping sounds of pleasure. I know that my own body did not betray me those three nights, nor did I fail her need.

And there is more. A memory of sinuous music; a scent of youth in her hair; the rustle of winter trees. Somehow she brings back to me a time of innocence, a time when I am young and girls are mysterious, a time of parties and dances and warmth and secrets.

I am drawn to her now.

There is an etiquette about such things, too. It is in poor taste to approach someone you have met while being ridden. Such an encounter gives you no privilege; a stranger remains a stranger, no matter what you and she may have done and said during your involuntary time together.

Yet I am drawn to her.

Why this violation of taboo? Why this raw breach of etiquette? I have never done this before. I have been scrupulous.

But I get to my feet and walk along the step on which I have been sitting until I am below her, and I look up, and automatically she folds her ankles together and angles her knees as if in awareness that her position is not a modest one. I know from that gesture that she is not ridden now. My eyes meet hers. Her eyes are hazy green. She is beautiful, and I rack my memory for more details of our passion.

I climb step by step until I stand before her.

“Hello,” I say.

She gives me a neutral look. She does not seem to recognise me. Her eyes are veiled, as one’s eyes often are, just after the Passenger has gone. She purses her lips and appraises me in a distant way.

“Hello,” she replies coolly. “I don’t think I know you.”

“No. You don’t. But I have the feeling you don’t want to be alone just now. And I know I don’t.” I try to persuade her with my eyes that my motives are decent. “There’s snow in the air,” I say. “We can find a warmer place. I’d like to talk to you.”

“About what?”

“Let’s go elsewhere, and I’ll tell you. I’m Charles Roth.”

“Helen Martin.”

She gets to her feet. She still has not cast aside her cool neutrality; she is suspicious, ill at ease. But at least she is willing to go with me. A good sign.

“Is it too early in the day for a drink?” I ask.

“I’m not sure. I hardly know what time it is.”

“Before noon.”

“Let’s have a drink anyway,” she says, and we both smile.

We go to a cocktail lounge across the street. Sitting face to face in the darkness, we sip drinks, daiquiri for her, bloody mary for me. She relaxes a little. I ask myself what I want from her. The pleasure of her company, yes. Her company in bed? But I have already had that pleasure, three nights of it, though she does not know that. I want something more. Something more. What?

Her eyes are bloodshot. She has had little sleep these past three nights.

I say, “Was it very unpleasant for you?”

“What?”

“The Passenger.”

A whiplash of reaction crosses her face. “How did you know I’ve had a Passenger?”

“I know.”

“We aren’t supposed to talk about it.”

“I’m broadminded,” I tell her. “My Passenger left me some time during the night. I was ridden since Tuesday afternoon.”

“Mine left me about two hours ago, I think.” Her cheeks colour. She is doing something daring, talking like this. “I was ridden since Monday night. This was my fifth time.”

“Mine also.”

We toy with our drinks. Rapport is growing, almost without the need of words. Our recent experiences with Passengers give us something in common, although Helen does not realise how intimately we shared those experiences.

We talk. She is a designer of display windows. She has a small apartment several blocks from here. She lives alone. She asks me what I do. “Securities analyst,” I tell her. She smiles. Her teeth are flawless. We have a second round of drinks. I am positive, now, that this is the girl who was in my room while I was ridden.

A seed of hope grows in me. It was a happy chance that brought us together again so soon after we parted as dreamers. A happy chance, too, that some vestige of the dream lingered in my mind.

We have shared something, who knows what, and it must have been good to leave such a vivid imprint on me, and now I want to come to her conscious, aware, my own master, and renew that relationship, making it a real one this time. It is not proper, for I am trespassing on a privilege that is not mine except by virtue of our Passengers’ brief presence in us. Yet I need her. I want her.

She seems to need me, too, without realising who I am. But fear holds her back.

I am frightened of frightening her, and I do not try to press my advantage too quickly. Perhaps she would take me to her apartment with her now, perhaps not, but I do not ask. We finish our drinks. We arrange to meet by the library steps again tomorrow. My hand momentarily brushes hers. Then she is gone.

I fill three ashtrays that night. Over and over I debate the wisdom of what I am doing. But why not leave her alone? I have no right to follow her. In the place our world has become, we are wisest to remain apart.

And yet – there is that stab of half-memory when I think of her. The blurred lights of lost chances behind the stairs, of girlish laughter in second-floor corridors, of stolen kisses, of tea and cake. I remember the girl with the orchid in her hair, and the one in the spangled dress, and the one with the child’s face and the woman’s eyes, all so long ago, all lost, all gone, and I tell myself that this one I will not lose, I will not permit her to be taken away from me.

Morning comes, a quiet Saturday. I return to the library, hardly expecting to find her there, but she is there, on the steps, and the sight of her is like a reprieve. She looks wary, troubled; obviously she has done much thinking, little sleeping. Together we walk along Fifth Avenue. She is quite close to me, but she does not take my arm. Her steps are brisk, short, nervous.

I want to suggest that we go to her apartment instead of to the cocktail lounge. In these days we must move swiftly while we are free. But I know it would be a mistake to think of this as a matter of tactics. Coarse haste would be fatal, bringing me perhaps an ordinary victory, a numbing defeat within it. In any event her mood hardly seems promising. I look at her, thinking of string music and new snowfalls, and she looks toward the grey sky.

She says, “I can feel them watching me all the time. Like vultures swooping overhead, waiting, waiting. Ready to pounce.”

“But there’s a way of beating them. We can grab little scraps of life when they’re not looking.”

“They’re always looking.”

“No,” I tell her. “There can’t be enough of them for that. Sometimes they’re looking the other way. And while they are, two people can come together and try to share warmth.”

“But what’s the use?”

“You’re too pessimistic, Helen. They ignore us for months at a time. We have a chance. We have a chance.”

But I cannot break through her shell of fear. She is paralysed by the nearness of the Passengers, unwilling to begin anything for fear it will be snatched away by our tormentors. We reach the building where she lives, and I hope she will relent and invite me in. For an instant she wavers, but only for an instant: she takes my hand in both of hers, and smiles, and the smile fades, and she is gone, leaving me only with the words, “Let’s meet at the library again tomorrow. Noon.”

I make the long chilling walk home alone.

Some of her pessimism seeps into me that night. It seems futile for us to try to salvage anything. More than that: wicked for me to seek her out, shameful to offer a hesitant love when I am not free. In this world, I tell myself, we should keep well clear of others, so that we do not harm anyone when we are seized and ridden.

I do not go to meet her in the morning.

It is best this way, I insist. I have no business trifling with her. I imagine her at the library, wondering why I am late, growing tense, impatient, then annoyed. She will be angry with me for breaking our date, but her anger will ebb, and she will forget me quickly enough.

Monday comes. I return to work.

Naturally, no one discusses my absence. It is as though I have never been away. The market is strong that morning. The work is challenging; it is mid-morning before I think of Helen at all. But once I think of her, I can think of nothing else. My cowardice in standing her up. The childishness of Saturday night’s dark thoughts. Why accept fate so passively? Why give in? I want to fight, now, to carve out a pocket of security despite the odds. I feel a deep conviction that it can be done. The Passengers may never bother the two of us again, after all. And that flickering smile of hers outside her building Saturday, that momentary glow – it should have told me that behind her wall of fear she felt the same hopes. She was waiting for me to lead the way. And I stayed home instead.

At lunchtime I go to the library, convinced it is futile.

But she is there. She paces along the steps; the wind slices at her slender figure. I go to her.

She is silent a moment. “Hello,” she says finally.

“I am sorry about yesterday.”

“I waited a long time for you.”

I shrug. “I made up my mind that it was no use to come. But then I changed my mind again.”

She tries to look angry. But I know she is pleased to see me again – else why did she come here today? She cannot hide her inner pleasure. Nor can I. I point across the street to the cocktail lounge.

“A daiquiri?” I say. “As a peace offering?”

“All right.”

Today the lounge is crowded, but we find a booth somehow. There is a brightness in her eyes that I have not seen before. I sense that a barrier is crumbling within her.

“You’re less afraid of me, Helen,” I say.

“I’ve never been afraid of you. I’m afraid of what could happen if we take the risks.”

“Don’t be. Don’t be.”

“I’m trying not to be afraid. But sometimes it seems so hopeless. Since they came here –”

“We can still try to live our own lives.”

“Maybe.”

“We have to. Let’s make a pact, Helen. No more gloom. No more worrying about the terrible things that might just happen. All right?”

A pause. Then a cool hand against mine.

“All right.”

We finish our drinks, and I present my Credit Central to pay for them, and we go outside. I want her to tell me to forget about this afternoon’s work and come home with her. It is inevitable, now, that she will ask me, and better sooner than later.

We walk a block. She does not offer the invitation. I sense the struggle inside her, and I wait, letting that struggle reach its own resolution without interference from me. We walk a second block. Her arm is through mine, but she talks only of her work, of the weather, and it is a remote, arm’s-length conversation. At the next corner she swings around, away from her apartment, back toward the cocktail lounge. I try to be patient with her.

I have no need to rush things now, I tell myself. Her body is not a secret to me. We have begun our relationship topsy-turvy, with the physical part first; now it will take time to work backward to the more difficult part that some people call love.

But of course she is not aware that we have known each other that way. The wind blows swirling snowflakes in our faces, and somehow the cold sting awakens honesty in me. I know what I must say. I must relinquish my unfair advantage.

I tell her, “While I was ridden last week, Helen, I had a girl in my room.”

“Why talk of such things now?”

“I have to, Helen. You were the girl.”

She halts. She turns to me. People hurry past us in the street. Her face is very pale, with dark red spots growing in her cheeks.

“That’s not funny, Charles.”

“It wasn’t meant to be. You were with me from Tuesday night to early Friday morning.”

“How can you possibly know that?”

“I do. I do. The memory is clear. Somehow it remains, Helen. I see your whole body.”

“Stop it, Charles.”

“We were very good together,” I say. “We must have pleased our Passengers because we were so good. To see you again – it was like waking from a dream, and finding that the dream was real, the girl right there –”

“No!”

“Let’s go to your apartment and begin again.”

She says, “You’re being deliberately filthy, and I don’t know why, but there wasn’t any reason for you to spoil things. Maybe I was with you and maybe I wasn’t, but you wouldn’t know it, and if you did know it you should keep your mouth shut about it, and –”

“You have a birthmark the size of a dime,” I say, “about three inches below your left breast.”

She sobs and hurls herself at me, there in the street. Her long silvery nails rake my cheeks. She pummels me. I seize her. Her knees assail me. No one pays attention; those who pass by assume we are ridden, and turn their heads. She is all fury, but I have my arms around hers like metal bands, so that she can only stamp and snort, and her body is close against mine. She is rigid, anguished.

In a low, urgent voice I say, “We’ll defeat them, Helen. We’ll finish what they started. Don’t fight me. There’s no reason to fight me. I know, it’s a fluke that I remember you, but let me go with you and I’ll prove that we belong together.”

“Let – go –”

“Please. Please. Why should we be enemies? I don’t mean you any harm. I love you Helen. Do you remember, when we were kids, we could play at being in love? I did; you must have done it too. Sixteen, seventeen years old. The whispers, the conspiracies – all a big game, and we knew it. But the game’s over. We can’t afford to tease and run. We have so little time, when we’re free – we have to trust, to open ourselves –”

“It’s wrong.”

“No. Just because it’s the stupid custom for two people brought together by Passengers to avoid one another, that doesn’t mean we have to follow it. Helen – Helen –”

Something in my tone registers with her. She ceases to struggle. Her rigid body softens. She looks up at me, her tear-streaked face thawing, her eyes blurred.

“Trust me,” I say. “Trust me, Helen!”

She hesitates.

Then she smiles.

In that moment I feel the chill at the back of my skull, the sensation as of a steel needle driven deep through the bone. I stiffen. My arms drop away from her. For an instant I lose touch, and when the mists clear all is different.

“Charles?” she says. “Charles?”

Her knuckles are against her teeth. I turn, ignoring her, and go back into the cocktail lounge. A young man sits in one of the front booths. His dark hair gleams with pomade; his cheeks are smooth. His eyes meet mine.

I sit down. He orders drinks. We do not talk.

My hand falls on his wrist, and remains there. The bartender serving the drinks scowls but says nothing. We sip our cocktails and put the drained glasses down.

“Let’s go,” the young man says.

I follow him out.

TIME CONSIDERED AS A HELIX OF SEMI-PRECIOUS STONES

Samuel R. Delany

Lay ordinate and abscissa on the century. Now cut me a quadrant. Third quadrant if you please. I was born in ‘fifty. Here it’s ’seventy-five.

At sixteen they let me leave the orphanage. Dragging the name they’d hung me with (Harold Clancy Everet, and me a mere lad—how many monickers have I had since; but don’t worry, you’ll recognize my smoke) over the hills of East Vermont, I came to a decision:

Me and Pa Michaels, who had belligerently given me a job at the request of The Official looking Document with which the orphanage sends you packing, were running Pa Michaels’ dairy farm, i.e., thirteen thousand three hundred sixty-two piebald Guernseys all asleep in their stainless coffins, nourished and drugged by pink liquid flowing in clear plastic veins (stuff is sticky and messes up your hands), exercised with electric pulsers that make their muscles quiver, them not half awake, and the milk just a-pouring down into stainless cisterns. Anyway. The Decision (as I stood there in the fields one afternoon like the Man with the Hoe, exhausted with three hard hours of physical labor, contemplating the machinery of the universe through the fog of fatigue): With all of Earth, and Mars, and the Outer Satellites filled up with people and what-all, there had to be something more than this. I decided to get some.

So I stole a couple of Pa’s credit cards, one of his helicopters and a bottle of white lightning the geezer made himself, and took off. Ever try to land a stolen helicopter on the roof of the Pan Am building, drunk? Jail, schmail, and some hard knocks later I had attained to wisdom. But remember this oh best beloved: I have done three honest hours on a dairy farm less than ten years back. And nobody has ever called me Harold Clancy Everet again.

Hank Culafroy Eckles (redheaded, a bit vague, six foot two) strolled out of the baggage room at the spaceport carrying a lot of things that weren’t his in a small briefcase.

Beside him the Business Man was saying, “You young fellows today upset me. Go back to Bellona, I say. Just because you got into trouble with that little blonde you were telling me about is no reason to leap worlds, come on all glum. Even quit your job!”

Hank stops and grins weakly: ‘Well…“

“Now I admit, you have your real needs, which maybe we older folks don’t understand, but you have to show some responsibility towards…” He notices Hank has stopped in front of a door marked men. “Oh. Well. Eh.” He grins strongly. “I’ve enjoyed meeting you, Hank. It’s always nice when you meet somebody worth talking to on these damn crossings. So long.”

Out same door, ten minutes later, comes Harmony C. Eventide, six foot even (one of the false heels was cracked, so I stuck both of them under a lot of paper towels), brown hair (not even my hairdresser knows for sure), oh so dapper and of his time, attired in the bad taste that is oh so tasteful, a sort of man with whom no Business Men would start a conversation. Took the regulation ‘copter from the port over to the Pan Am building (Yeah. Really. Drunk), came out of Grand Central Station, and strode along Forty-second towards Eighth Avenue, with a lot of things that weren’t mine in a small briefcase.

The evening is carved from light.

Crossed the plastiplex pavement of the Great White Way—I think it makes people look weird, all that white light under their chins—and skirted the crowds coming up in elevators from the sub-way, the sub-sub-way, and the sub-sub-sub (eighteen and first week out of jail I hung around here, snatching stuff from people—but daintily, daintily, so they never knew they’d been snatched), bulled my way through a crowd of giggling, goo-chewing school girls with flashing lights in their hair, all very embarrassed at wearing transparent plastic blouses which had just been made legal again (I hear the breast has been scene [as opposed to obscene] on and off since the seventeenth century) so I stared appreciatively; they giggled some more. I thought, Christ, when I was that age, I was on a God damn dairy farm, and took the thought no further.

The ribbon of news lights looping the triangular structure of Communication, Inc., explained in Basic English how Senator Regina Abolafia was preparing to begin her investigation of Organized Crime in the City. Days I’m so happy I’m disorganized I couldn’t begin to tell.

Near Ninth Avenue I took my briefcase into a long, crowded bar. I hadn’t been in New York for two years, but on my last trip through ofttimes a man used to hang out here who had real talent for getting rid of things that weren’t mine profitably, safely, fast. No idea what the chances were I’d find him. I pushed among a lot of guys drinking beer. Here and there were a number of well escorted old bags wearing last month’s latest. Scarfs of smoke gentled through the noise. I don’t like such places. Those there younger than me were all morphadine heads or feeble minded. Those older only wished more younger ones would come. I pried my way to the bar and tried to get the attention of one of the little men in white coats.

The lack of noise behind me made me glance back-She wore a sheath of veiling closed at the neck and wrists with huge brass pins (oh so tastefully on the border of taste); her left arm was bare, her right covered with chiffon like wine. She had it down a lot better than I did. But such an ostentatious demonstration of one’s understanding of the fine points was absolutely out of place in a place like this. People were making a great show of not noticing.

She pointed to her wrist, blood-colored nail indexing a yellow-orange fragment in the brass claw of her wristlet. “Do you know what this is, Mr. Eldrich?” she asked; at the same time the veil across her face cleared, and her eyes were ice; her brows, black.

Three thoughts: (One) She is a lady of fashion, because coming in from Bellona I’d read the Delta coverage of the “fading fabrics” whose hue and opacity were controlled by cunning jewels at the wrist. (Two) During my last trip through, when I was younger and Harry Calamine Eldrich, I didn’t do anything too illegal (though one loses track of these things); still I didn’t believe I could be dragged off to the calaboose for anything more than thirty days under that name. (Three) The stone she pointed to…

“… Jasper?” I asked.

She waited for me to say more; I waited for her to give me reason to let on I knew what she was waiting for (when I was in jail Henry James was my favorite author. He really was.)

“Jasper,” she confirmed.

“—Jasper…” I reopened the ambiguity she had tried so hard to dispel.

“… Jasper—” But she was already faltering, suspecting I suspected her certainty to be ill-founded.

“Okay. Jasper.” But from her face I knew she had seen in my face a look that had finally revealed I knew she knew I knew.

“Just whom have you got me confused with, Ma’am?”

Jasper, this month, is the Word.

Jasper is the pass/code/warning that the Singers of the Cities (who, last month, sang “Opal” from their divine injuries; and on Mars I’d heard the Word and used it thrice, along with devious imitations, to fix possession of what was not rightfully my own; and even there I pondered Singers and their wounds) relay by word of mouth for that loose and roguish fraternity with which I have been involved (in various guises) these nine years. It goes out new every thirty days; and within hours every brother knows it, throughout six worlds and worldlets. Usually it’s grunted at you by some blood-soaked bastard staggering into your arms from a dark doorway; hissed at you as you pass a shadowed alley; scrawled on a paper scrap pressed into your palm by some nasty-grimy moving too fast through the crowd. And this month, it was: Jasper.

Here are some alternate translations:

Help!

or

I need help!

or

I can help you!

or

You are being watched!

or

They’re not watching now, so wove!

Final point of syntax: If the Word is used properly, you should never have to think twice about what it means in a given situation. Fine point of usage: Never trust anyone who uses it improperly.

I waited for her to finish waiting.

She opened a wallet in front of me. “Chief of Special Services Department Maudline Hinkle,” she read without looking what it said below the silver badge.

“You have that very well,” I said, “Maud.” Then I frowned. “Hinkle?”

“Me.”

“I know you’re not going to believe this, Maud. You look like a woman who has no patience with her mistakes. But my name is Eventide. Not Eldrich. Harmony C. Eventide. And isn’t it lucky for all and sundry that the Word changes tonight?” Passed the way it is, the Word is no big secret to the cops. But I’ve met policemen up to a week after change date who were not privy.

‘Well, then: Harmony. I want to talk to you.“

I raised an eyebrow.

She raised one back and said, “Look, if you want to be called Henrietta, it’s all right by me. But you listen.”

‘What do you want to talk about?“

“Crime, Mr…?”

“Eventide. I’m going to call you Maud, so you might as well call me Harmony. It really is my name.”

Maud smiled. She wasn’t a young woman. I think she even had a few years on Business Man. But she used make-up better than he did. “I probably know more about crime than you do,” she said. “In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if you hadn’t even heard of my branch of the police department. What does Special Services mean to you?”

“That’s right, I’ve never heard of it.”

“You’ve been more or less avoiding the Regular Service with alacrity for the past seven years.”

“Oh, Maud, really—”

“Special Services is reserved for people whose nuisance value has suddenly taken a sharp rise… a sharp enough rise to make our little lights start blinking.”

“Surely I haven’t done anything so dreadful that—”

‘We don’t look at what you do. A computer does that for us. We simply keep checking the first derivative of the graphed out curve that bears your number. Your slope is rising sharply.“

“Not even the dignity of a name—”

“We’re the most efficient department in the Police Organization. Take it as bragging if you wish. Or just a piece of information.”

“Well, well, well,” I said. “Have a drink?” The little man in the white coat left us two, looked puzzled at Maud’s finery, then went to do something else.

“Thanks.” She downed half her glass like someone stauncher than that wrist would indicate. “It doesn’t pay to go after most criminals. Take your big-time racketeers, Farnesworth, The Hawk, Blavatskia. Take your little snatchpurses, small-time pushers, housebreakers or vice-impresarios. Both at the top and the bottom of the scale, their incomes are pretty stable. They don’t really upset the social boat. Regular Services handles them both. They think they do a good job. We’re not going to argue. But say a little pusher starts to become a big-time pusher; a medium-sized vice-impresario sets his sights on becoming a full-fledged racketeer; that’s when you get problems with socially unpleasant repercussions. That’s when Special Services arrive. We have a couple of techniques that work remarkably well.“

“You’re going to tell me about them, aren’t you.”

“They work better that way,” she said. “One of them is hologramic information storage. Do you know what happens when you cut a hologram plate in half?”

“The three dimensional image is… cut in half?”

She shook her head. “You get the whole image, only fuzzier, slightly out of focus.”

“Now I didn’t know that.”

“And if you cut it in half again, it just gets fuzzier still. But even if you have a square centimeter of the original hologram you still have the whole image—unrecognizable, but complete.”

I mumbled some appreciative m’s.

“Each pinpoint of photographic emulsion on a hologram plate, unlike a photograph, gives information about the entire scene being hologrammed. By analogy, hologramic information storage simply means that each bit of information we have—about you, let us say-relates to your entire career, your overall situation, the complete set of tensions between you and your environment. Specific facts about specific misdemeanors or felonies we leave to Regular Services. As soon as we have enough of our kind of data, our method is vastly more efficient for keeping track—even predicting—where you are or what you may be up to.”

“Fascinating,” I said. “One of the most amazing paranoid syndromes I’ve ever run up against. I mean just starting a conversation with someone in a bar. Often, in a hospital situation, I’ve encountered stranger—”

“In your past,” she said matter of factly, “I see cows and helicopters. In your not too distant future there are helicopters and hawks.”

“And tell me, oh Good Witch of the West, just how—” Then I got all upset inside. Because nobody is supposed to know about that stint with Pa Michaels save thee and me. Even the Regular Service who pulled me, out of my mind, from that whirlibird bouncing towards the edge of the Pan Am never got that one from me. I’d eaten the credit cards when I saw them waiting, and the serial numbers had been filed off everything that could have had a serial number on it by someone more competent than I: good Mister Michaels had boasted to me, my first lonely, drunken night at the farm, how he’d gotten the thing in hot from New Hampshire.

“But why”—it appalls me the cache’s to which anxiety will drive us—“are you telling me all this?”

She smiled and her smile faded behind her veil. “Information is only meaningful when it is shared,“ said a voice that was hers from the place of her face.

“Hey, look, I—”

“You may be coming into quite a bit of money soon. If I can calculate right, I will have a helicopter full of the city’s finest arriving to take you away as you accept it into your hot little hands. That is a piece of information…” She stepped back. Someone stepped between us.

“Hey, Maud-!”

“You can do whatever you want with it.”

The bar was crowded enough so that to move quickly was to make enemies. I don’t know—I lost her and made enemies. Some weird characters there: with greasy hair that hung in spikes, and three of them had dragons tattooed on their scrawny shoulders, still another with an eye patch, and yet another raked nails black with pitch at my cheek (we’re two minutes into a vicious free-for-all, case you missed the transition. I did) and some of the women were screaming. I hit and ducked, and then tenor of the brouhaha changed. Somebody sang, “Jasper!” the way she is supposed to be sung. And it meant the heat (the ordinary, bungling Regular Service I had been eluding these seven years) were on their way. The brawl spilled into the street. I got between two nasty-grimies who were doing things appropriate with one another, but made the edge of the crowd with no more wounds than could be racked up to shaving. The fight had broken into sections. I left one and ran into another that, I realized a moment later, was merely a ring of people standing around somebody who had apparently gotten really messed.

Someone was holding people back.

Somebody else was turning him over.

Curled up in a puddle of blood was the little guy I hadn’t seen in two years who used to be so good at getting rid of things not mine.

Trying not to hit people with my briefcase, I ducked between the hub and the bub. When I saw my first ordinary policeman I tried very hard to look like somebody who had just stepped up to see what the rumpus was.

It worked.

I turned down Ninth Avenue, and got three steps into an inconspicuous but rapid lope—

“Hey, wait! Wait up there…”

I recognized the voice (after two years, coming at me just like that, I recognized it) but kept going.

‘Wait! It’s me, Hawk!”

And I stopped.

You haven’t heard his name before in this story; Maud mentioned the Hawk, who is a multi-millionaire racketeer basing his operations on a part of Mars I’ve never been (though he has his claws sunk to the spurs in illegalities throughout the system) and somebody else entirely.

I took three steps back towards the doorway.

A boy’s laugh there: “Oh, man. You look like you just did something you shouldn’t.”

“Hawk?” I asked the shadow.

He was still the age when two years’ absence means an inch or so taller.

“You’re still hanging out around here?” I asked.

“Sometimes.”

He was an amazing kid.

“Look, Hawk, I got to get out of here.” I glanced back at the rumpus.

“Get.” He stepped down. “Can I come too?”

Funny. “Yeah.” It makes me feel very funny him asking that. “Come on.”

By the street lamp, half a block down, I saw his hair was still pale as split pine. He could have been a nasty-grimy: very dirty black denim jacket, no shirt beneath; very ripe pair of black-jeans—I mean in the dark you could tell. He went barefoot; and the only way you can tell on a dark street someone’s been going barefoot for days in New York is to know already. As we reached the corner, he grinned up at me under the street lamp and shrugged his jacket together over the welts and furrows marring his chest and belly. His eyes were very green. Do you recognize him? If by some failure of information dispersal throughout the worlds and worldlets you haven’t, walking beside me beside the Hudson was Hawk the Singer.

“Hey, how long have you been back?”

“A few hours,” I told him.

“What’d you bring?”

“Really want to know?”

He shoved his hands into his pockets and cocked his head. “Sure.”

I made the sound of an adult exasperated by a child. “All right.” We had been walking the waterfront for a block now; there was nobody about. “Sit down.” So he straddled the beam along the siding, one foot dangling above the flashing black Hudson. I sat in front of him and ran my thumb around the edge of the briefcase.

Hawk hunched his shoulders and leaned. “Hey…” He flashed green questioning at me. “Can I touch?”

I shrugged. “Go ahead.”

He grubbed among them with fingers that were all knuckle and bitten nail. He picked two up, put them down, picked up three others. “Hey!” he whispered. “How much are all these worth?”

“About ten times more than I hope to get. I have to get rid of them fast.”

He glanced down at his hanging foot. “You could always throw them in the river.”

“Don’t be dense. I was looking for a guy who used to hang around that bar. He was pretty efficient.” And half the Hudson away a water-bound foil skimmed above the foam. On her deck were parked a dozen helicopters—being ferried up to the Patrol Field near Verrazano, no doubt. But for moments I looked back and forth between the boy and the transport, getting all paranoid about Maud. But the boat mmmmed into the darkness. “My man got a little cut up this evening.”

Hawk put the tips of his fingers in his pockets and shifted his position.

“Which leaves me up tight. I didn’t think he’d take them all but at least he could have turned me on to some other people who might.”

“I’m going to a party later on this evening”—he paused to gnaw on the wreck of his little fingernail—“where you might be able to sell them. Alexis Spinnel is having a party for Regina Abolafia at Tower Top.”

“Tower Top…?” It had been a while since I palled around with Hawk. Hell’s Kitchen at ten; Tower Top at midnight—

“I’m just going because Edna Silem will be there.”

Edna Silem is New York’s eldest Singer.

Senator Abolafia’s name had ribboned above me in lights once that evening. And somewhere among the endless magazines I’d perused coming in from Mars I remember Alexis Spinnel’s name sharing a paragraph with an awful lot of money.

“I’d like to see Edna again,” I said offhandedly. “But she wouldn’t remember me.” Folk like Spinnel and his social ilk have a little game, I’d discovered during the first leg of my acquaintance with Hawk. He who can get the most Singers of the City under one roof wins. There are five Singers of New York (a tie for second place with Lux on Iapetus). Tokyo leads with seven. “It’s a two Singer party?”

“More likely four…if I go.”

The inaugural ball for the mayor gets four.

I raised the appropriate eyebrow.

“I have to pick up the Word from Edna. It changes tonight.”

“All right,” I said. “I don’t know what you have in mind but I’m game.” I closed the case.

We walked back towards Times Square. When we got to Eighth Avenue and the first of the plastiplex, Hawk stopped. “Wait a minute,” he said. Then he buttoned his jacket up to his neck. “Okay.”

Strolling through the streets of New York with a Singer (two years back I’d spent much time wondering if that were wise for a man of my profession) is probably the best camouflage possible for a man of my profession. Think of the last time you glimpsed your favorite Tri-D star turning the corner of Fifty-seventh. Now be honest. Would you really recognize the little guy in the tweed jacket half a pace behind him?

Half the people we passed in Times Square recognized him. With his youth, funereal garb, black feet and ash pale hair, he was easily the most colorful of Singers. Smiles; narrowed eyes; very few actually pointed or stared.

“Just exactly who is going to be there who might be able to take this stuff off my hands?”

“Well, Alexis prides himself on being something of an adventurer. They might just take his fancy. And he can give you more than you can get peddling them in the street.”

“You’ll tell him they’re all hot?”

“It will probably make the idea that much more intriguing. He’s a creep.”

“You say so, friend.”

We went down into the sub-sub. The man at the change booth started to take Hawk’s coin, then looked up. He began three or four words that were unintelligible through his grin, then just gestured us through.

“Oh,” Hawk said, “thank you,” with ingenuous surprise, as though this were the first, delightful time such a thing had happened. (Two years ago he had told me sagely, “As soon as I start looking like I expect it, it’ll stop happening.” I was still impressed by the way he wore his notoriety. The time I’d met Edna Silem, and I’d mentioned this, she said with the same ingenuousness, “But that’s what we’re chosen for.”)

In the bright car we sat on the long seat; Hawk’s hands were beside him, one foot rested on the other. Down from us a gaggle of bright-bloused goo-chewers giggled and pointed and tried not to be noticed at it. Hawk didn’t look at all, and I tried not to be noticed looking.

Dark patterns rushed the window.

Things below the gray floor hummed.

Once a lurch.

Leaning once; we came out of the ground.

Outside, the city tried on its thousand sequins, then threw them away behind the trees of Ft. Tryon. Suddenly the windows across from us grew bright scales. Behind them the girders of a station reeled by. We got out on the platform under a light rain. The sign said TWELVE TOWERS STATION.

By the time we reached the street, however, the shower had stopped. Leaves above the wall shed water down the brick. “If I’d known I was bringing someone I’d have had Alex send a car for us. I told him it was fifty-fifty I’d come.”

“Are you sure it’s all right for me to tag along, then?”

“Didn’t you come up here with me once before?”

“I’ve even been up here once before that,” I said. “Do you still think it’s…”

He gave me a withering look. Well; Spinnel would be delighted to have Hawk even if he dragged along a whole gang of real nasty-grimies—Singers are famous for that sort of thing. With one more or less presentable thief, Spinnel was getting off light. Beside us rocks broke away into the city. Behind the gate to our left the gardens rolled up towards the first of the towers. The twelve immense, luxury apartment buildings menaced the lower clouds.

“Hawk the Singer,” Hawk said into the speaker at the side of the gate. Clang and tic-tic-tic and Clang. We walked up the path to the doors and doors of glass.

A cluster of men and women in evening dress were coming out. Three tiers of doors away they saw us. You could see them frowning at the guttersnipe who’d somehow gotten into the lobby (for a moment I thought one of them was Maud, because she wore a sheath of the fading fabric, but she turned; beneath her veil her face was dark as roasted coffee); one of the men recognized him, said something to the others. When they passed us they were smiling. Hawk paid about as much attention to them as he had to the girls on the subway. But when they’d passed, he said, “One of those guys was looking at you.”

“Yeah. I saw.”

“Do you know why?”

“He was trying to figure out whether we’d met before.”

“Had you?”

I nodded. “Right about where I met you, only back when I’d just gotten out of jail. I told you I’d been here once before.”

“Oh.”

Blue carpet covered three-quarters of the lobby. A great pool filled the rest in which a row of twelve foot trellises stood, crowned with flaming braziers. The lobby itself was three stories high, domed and mirror tiled.

Twisting smoke curled towards the ornate grill. Broken reflections sagged and recovered on the walls.

The elevator door folded about us its foil petals. There was the distinct feeling of not moving while seventy-five stories shucked down around us.

We got out on the landscaped roof garden. A very tanned, very blond man wearing an apricot jump-suit, from the collar of which emerged a black turtleneck dicky, came down the rocks (artificial) between the ferns (real) growing the stream (real water; phony current).

“Hello! Hello!” Pause. “I’m terribly glad you decided to come after all.” Pause. “For a while I thought you weren’t going to make it.” The Pauses were to allow Hawk to introduce me. I was dressed so that Spinnel had no way of telling whether I was a miscellaneous Nobel laureate that Hawk happened to have been dining with, or a varlet whose manners and morals were even lower than mine happen to be.

“Shall I take your jacket?” Alexis offered.

Which meant he didn’t know Hawk as well as he would like people to think. But I guess he was sensitive enough to realize from the little cold things that happened in the boy’s face that he should forget his offer.

He nodded to me, smiling—about all he could do—and we strolled towards the gathering.

Edna Silem was sitting on a transparent inflated hassock. She leaned forward, holding her drink in both hands, arguing politics with the people sitting on the grass before her. She was the first person I recognized (hair of tarnished silver; voice of scrap brass). Jutting from the cuffs of her mannish suit, her wrinkled hands about her goblet, shaking with the intensity of her pronouncements, were heavy with stones and silver. As I ran my eyes back to Hawk, I saw half a dozen whose names/faces sold magazines, music, sent people to the theater (the drama critic for Delta, wouldn’t you know), and even the mathematician from Princeton I’d read about a few months ago who’d come up with the “quasar/quark” explanation.

There was one woman my eyes kept returning to. On glance three I recognized her as the New Fascistas’ most promising candidate for president, Senator Abolafia. Her arms were folded and she was listening intently to the discussion that had narrowed to Edna and an overly gregarious younger man whose eyes were puffy from what could have been the recent acquisition of contact lenses.

“But don’t you feel, Mrs. Silem, that—”

“You must remember when you make predictions like that—”

“Mrs. Silem, I’ve seen statistics that—”

“You must remember”—her voice tensed, lowered, till the silence between the words was as rich as the voice was sparse and metallic—“that if everything, everything were known, statistical estimates would be unnecessary. The science of probability gives mathematical expression to our ignorance, not to our wisdom,” which I was thinking was an interesting second installment to Maud’s lecture, when Edna looked up and exclaimed, ‘Why, Hawk!“

Everyone turned.

“I am glad to see you. Lewis, Ann,” she called: there were two other Singers there already (he dark, she pale, both tree-slender; their faces made you think of pools without drain or tribute come upon in the forest, dear and very still; husband and wife, they had been made Singers together the day before their marriage seven years ago), “he hasn’t deserted us after all!” Edna stood, extended her arm over the heads of the people sitting, and barked across her knuckles as though her voice were a pool cue. “Hawk, there are people here arguing with me who don’t know nearly as much as you about the subject. You’d be on my side, now, wouldn’t you—”

“Mrs. Silem, I didn’t mean to—” from the floor.

Then her arms swung six degrees, her fingers, eyes and mouth opened. “You!” Me. “My dear, if there’s anyone I never expected to see here! Why it’s been almost two years, hasn’t it?” Bless Edna; the place where she and Hawk and I had spent a long, beery evening together had more resembled that bar than Tower Top. ‘Where have you been keeping yourself?“

“Mars, mostly,” I admitted. “Actually I just came back today.” It’s so much fun to be able to say things like that in a place like this.

“Hawk—both of you—” (which meant either she had forgotten my name, or she remembered me well enough not to abuse it) “come over here and help me drink up Alexis’ good liquor.” I tried not to grin as we walked towards her. If she remembered anything, she certainly recalled my line of business and must have been enjoying this as much as I was.

Relief spread Alexis face: he knew now I was someone if not which someone I was.

As we passed Lewis and Ann, Hawk gave the two Singers one of his luminous grins. They returned shadowed smiles. Lewis nodded. Ann made a move to touch his arm, but left the motion unconcluded; and the company noted the interchange.

Having found out what we wanted, Alex was preparing large glasses of it over crushed ice when the puffy-eyed gentleman stepped up for a refill. “But, Mrs. Silem, then what do you feel validly opposes such political abuses?”

Regina Abolafia wore a white silk suit. Nails, lips and hair were one color; and on her breast was a worked copper pin. It’s always fascinated me to watch people used to being the center thrust to the side. She swirled her glass, listening.

“I oppose them,” Edna said. “Hawk opposes them. Lewis and Ann oppose them. We, ultimately, are what you have.” And her voice had taken on that authoritative resonance only Singers can assume.

Then Hawk’s laugh snarled through the conversational fabric.

We turned.

He’d sat cross-legged near the hedge. “Look…” he whispered.

Now people’s gazes followed his. He was looking at Lewis and Ann. She, tall and blonde, he, dark and taller, were standing very quietly, a little nervously, eyes closed (Lewis’ lips were apart).

“Oh,” whispered someone who should have known better, “they’re going to…”

I watched Hawk because I’d never had a chance to observe one Singer at another’s performance. He put the soles of his feet together, grasped his toes and leaned forward, veins making blue rivers on his neck. The top button of his jacket had come loose. Two scar ends showed over his collarbone. Maybe nobody noticed but me.

I saw Edna put her glass down with a look of beaming anticipatory pride. Alex, who had pressed the autobar (odd how automation has become the upper crust’s way of flaunting the labor surplus) for more crushed ice, looked up, saw what was about to happen, and pushed the cut-off button. The autobar hummed to silence. A breeze (artificial or real, I couldn’t tell you) came by and the trees gave us a final shush.

One at a time, then in duet, then singly again, Lewis and Ann sang.

Singers are people who look at things, then go and tell people what they’ve seen. What makes them Singers is their ability to make people listen. That is the most magnificent over-simplification I can give. Eighty-six-year-old El Posado, in Rio de Janeiro, saw a block of tenements collapse, ran to the Avenida del Sol and began improvising, in rhyme and meter (not all that hard in rhyme-rich Portuguese), tears runneling his dusty cheeks, his voice clashing with the palm swards above the sunny street. Hundreds of people stopped to listen; a hundred more; and another hundred. And they told hundreds more what they had heard. Three hours later, hundreds from among them had arrived at the scene with blankets, food, money, shovels and, more incredibly, the willingness and ability to organize themselves and work within that organization. No Tri-D report of a disaster has ever produced that sort of reaction. El Posado is historically considered the first Singer. The second was Miriamne in the roofed city of Lux, who for thirty years walked through the metal streets singing the glories of the rings of Saturn—the colonists can’t look at them without aid because of the ultraviolet the rings set up. But Miriamne, with her strange cataracts, each dawn, walked to the edge of the city, looked, saw and came back to sing of what she saw. All of which would have meant nothing except that during the days she did not sing—through illness, or once she was on a visit to another city to which her fame had spread—the Lux Stock Exchange would go down, the number of violent crimes rise. Nobody could explain it. All they could do was proclaim her Singer. Why did the institution of Singers come about, springing up in just about every urban center throughout the system? Some have speculated that it was a spontaneous reaction to the mass media which blanket our lives. While Tri-D and radio and newstapes disperse information all over the worlds, they also spread a sense of alienation from first-hand experience. (How many people still go to sports events or a political rally with their little receivers plugged to their ears to let them know that what they see is really happening?) The first Singers were proclaimed by the people around them. Then, there was a period where anyone could proclaim himself who wanted to, and people either responded to him, or laughed him into oblivion. But by the time I was left on the doorstep of somebody who didn’t want me, most cities had more or less established an unofficial quota. When a position is left open today, the remaining Singers choose who is going to fill it. The required talents are poetic, theatrical, as well as a certain charisma that is generated in the tensions between the personality and the publicity web a Singer is immediately snared in. Before he became a Singer, Hawk had gained something of a prodigious reputation with a book of poems published when he was fifteen. He was touring universities and giving readings, but the reputation was still small enough so that he was amazed that I had ever heard of him, that evening we encountered in Central Park (I had just spent a pleasant thirty days as a guest of the city and it’s amazing what you find in the Tombs Library). It was a few weeks after his sixteenth birthday. His Singership was to be announced in four days, though he had been informed already. We sat by the lake till dawn, while he weighed and pondered and agonized over the coming responsibility. Two years later, he’s still the youngest Singer in six worlds by half a dozen years. Before becoming a Singer, a person need not have been a poet, but most are either that or actors. But the roster through the system includes a longshoreman, two university professors, an heiress to the Silitax millions (Tack it down with Silitacks), and at least two persons of such dubious background that the ever-hungry-for-sensation Publicity Machine itself has agreed not to let any of it past the copy-editors. But wherever their origins, these diverse and flamboyant living myths sang of love, of death, the changing of seasons, social classes, governments and the palace guard. They sang before large crowds, small ones, to an individual laborer coming home from the city’s docks, on slum street corners, in club cars of commuter trains, in the elegant gardens atop Twelve Towers, to Alex Spinnel’s select soiree. But it has been illegal to reproduce the “Songs” of the Singers by mechanical means (including publishing the lyrics) since the institution arose, and I respect the law, I do, as only a man in my profession can. I offer the explanation then in place of Lewis’ and Ann’s song.

They finished, opened their eyes, stared about with expressions that could have been embarrassment, could have been contempt.

Hawk was leaning forward with a look of rapt approval. Edna was smiling politely. I had the sort of grin on my face that breaks out when you’ve been vastly moved and vastly pleased. Lewis and Ann had sung superbly.

Alex began to breathe again, glanced around to see what state everybody else was in, saw, and pressed the autobar, which began to hum and crush ice. No clapping, but the appreciative sounds began; people were nodding, commenting, whispering. Regina Abolafia went over to Lewis to say something. I tried to listen until Alex shoved a glass into my elbow.

“Oh, I’m sorry…”

I transferred my briefcase to the other hand and took the drink smiling. When Senator Abolafia left the two Singers, they were holding hands and looking at one another a little sheepishly. They sat down again.

The party drifted in conversational groups through the gardens, through the groves. Overhead clouds the color of old chamois folded and unfolded across the moon.

For a while I stood alone in a circle of trees listening to the music: a de Lassus two-part canon, programmed for audio-generators. Recalled: an article in one of last week’s large-circulation literaries stating that it was the only way to remove the feel of the bar lines imposed by five centuries of meter on modern musicians. For another two weeks this would be acceptable entertainment. The trees circled a rock pool;

but no water. Below the plastic surface, abstract lights wove and threaded in a shifting lumia.

“Excuse me…?”

I turned to see Alexis, who had no drink now or idea what to do with his hands. He was nervous.

“… but our young friend has told me you have something I might be interested in.”

I started to lift my briefcase, but Alex’s hand came down from his ear (it had gone by belt to hair to collar already) to halt me. Nouveau riche.

“That’s all right. I don’t need to see them yet. In fact, I’d rather not. I have something to propose to you. I would certainly be interested in what you have if they are, indeed, as Hawk has described them. But I have a guest here who would be even more curious.”

That sounded odd.

“I know that sounds odd,” Alexis assessed, “but I thought you might be interested simply because of the finances involved. I am an eccentric collector who would offer you a price concomitant with what I would use them for: eccentric conversation pieces—and because of the nature of the purchase I would have to limit severely the people with whom I could converse.”

I nodded.

“My guest, however, would have a great deal more use for them.”

“Could you tell me who this guest is?”

“I asked Hawk, finally, who you were and he led me to believe I was on the verge of a grave social indiscretion. It would be equally indiscreet to reveal my guest’s name to you.” He smiled. “But indiscretion is the better part of the fuel that keeps the social machine turning, Mr. Harvey Cadwaliter-Erickson…” He smiled knowingly.

I have never been Harvey Cadwaliter-Erickson, but then, Hawk was always an inventive child. Then a second thought went by, vid., the tungsten magnates, the Cadwaliter-Ericksons of Tythis on Triton. Hawk was not only inventive, he was as brilliant as all the magazines and newspapers are always saying he is.

“I assume your second indiscretion will be to tell me who this mysterious guest is?”

“Well,” Alex said with the smile of the canary-fattened cat, “Hawk agreed with me that the Hawk might well be curious as to what you have in there,” (he pointed) “as indeed he is.”

I frowned. Then I thought lots of small, rapid thoughts I’ll articulate in due time. “The Hawk?”

Alex nodded.

I don’t think I was actually scowling. “Would you send our young friend up here for a moment?”

“If you’d like.” Alex bowed, turned. Perhaps a minute later, Hawk came up over the rocks and through the trees, grinning. When I didn’t grin back, he stopped.

“Mmmm…” I began.

His head cocked.

I scratched my chin with a knuckle. “… Hawk,” I said, “are you aware of a department of the police called Special Services?”

“I’ve heard of them.”

“They’ve suddenly gotten very interested in me.”

“Gee,” he said with honest amazement. “They’re supposed to be effective.”

“Mmmm,” I reiterated.

“Say,” Hawk announced, “how do you like that? My namesake is here tonight. Wouldn’t you know.”

“Alex doesn’t miss a trick. Have you any idea why he’s here?”

“Probably trying to make some deal with Abolafia. Her investigation starts tomorrow.”

“Oh.” I thought over some of those things I had thought before. “Do you know a Maud Hinkle?”

His puzzled look said “no” pretty convincingly.

“She bills herself as one of the upper echelon in the arcane organization of which I spoke.”

“Yeah?”

“She ended our interview earlier this evening with a little homily about hawks and helicopters. I took our subsequent encounter as a fillip of coincidence. But now I discover that the evening has confirmed her intimations of plurality.” I shook my head. “Hawk, I am suddenly catapulted into a paranoid world where the walls not only have ears, but probably eyes, and long, claw-tipped fingers. Anyone about me—yea, even very you—could turn out to be a spy. I suspect every sewer grating and second-story window conceals binoculars, a tommygun, or worse. What I just can’t figure out is how these insidious forces, ubiquitous and omnipresent though they be, induced you to lure me into this intricate and diabolical—”

“Oh, cut it out!” He shook back his hair. “I didn’t lure—”

“Perhaps not consciously, but Special Services has Hologramic Information Storage, and their methods are insidious and cruel—”

“I said cut it put.” And all sorts of hard little things happened again. “Do you think I’d—” Then he realized how scared I was, I guess. “Look, the Hawk isn’t some small time snatchpurse. He lives in just as paranoid a world as you’re in now, only all the time. If he’s here, you can be sure there are just as many of his men—eyes and ears and fingers— as there are of Maud Hickenlooper.”

“Hinkle.”

“Anyway, it works both ways. No Singer’s going to— Look, do you really think I would—”

And even though I knew all those hard little things were scabs over pain, I said, “Yes.”

“You did something for me once, and I—”

“I gave you some more welts. That’s all.”

All the scabs pulled off.

“Hawk,” I said. “Let me see.”

He took a breath. Then he began to open the brass buttons. The flaps of his jacket fell back. The lumia colored his chest with pastel shiftings.

I felt my face wrinkle. I didn’t want to look away. I drew a hissing breath instead, which was just as bad.

He looked up. “There’re a lot more than when you were here last aren’t there?”

“You’re going to kill yourself, Hawk.”

He shrugged.

“I can’t even tell which are the ones I put there anymore.”

He started to point them out.

“Oh, come on,” I said, too sharply. And for the length of three breaths, he grew more and more uncomfortable, till I saw him start to reach for the bottom button. “Boy,” I said, trying to keep despair out of my voice, “why do you do it?” and ended up keeping out everything. There is nothing more despairing than a voice empty.

He shrugged, saw I didn’t want that, and for a moment anger flickered in his green eyes. I didn’t want that either. So he said: “Look… you touch a person, softly, gently, and maybe you even do it with love. And, well, I guess a piece of information goes on up to the brain where something interprets it as pleasure. Maybe something up there in my head interprets the information all wrong…”

I shook my head. “You’re a Singer. Singers are supposed to be eccentric, sure; but—”

Now he was shaking his head. Then the anger opened up. And I saw an expression move from all those spots that had communicated pain through the rest of his features, and vanish without ever becoming a word. Once more he looked down at the wounds that webbed his thin body.

“Button it up, boy. I’m sorry I said anything.”

Halfway up the lapels his hands stopped. “You really think I’d turn you in?”

“Button it up.”

He did. Then he said, “Oh.” And then, “You know, it’s midnight.”

“Edna just gave me the Word.”

“Which is?”

“Agate.”

I nodded.

He finished closing his collar. “What are you thinking about?”

“Cows.”

“Cows?” Hawk asked. “What about them?”

“You ever been on a dairy farm?”

He shook his head.

“To get the most milk, you keep the cows practically in suspended animation. They’re fed intravenously from a big tank that pipes nutrients out and down, branching into smaller and smaller pipes until it gets to all those high yield semi-corpses.”

“I’ve seen pictures.”

“People.”

“… and cows?”

“You’ve given me the Word. And now it begins to funnel down, branching out, with me telling others, and them telling still others, till by midnight tomorrow…”

“I’ll go get the—”

“Hawk?”

He turned back. “What?”

“You say you don’t think I’m going to be the victim of any hanky-panky with the mysterious forces that know more than we— Okay, that’s your opinion. But as soon as I get rid of this stuff, I’m going to make the most distracting exit you’ve ever seen.”

Two little lines bit down Hawk’s forehead. “Are you sure I haven’t seen this one before?”

“As a matter of fact I think you have.” Now I grinned.

“Oh,” Hawk said, then made a sound that had the structure of laughter but was all breath. “I’ll get the Hawk.”

He ducked out between the trees.

I glanced up at the lozenges of moonlight in the leaves.

I looked down at my briefcase.

Up between the rocks, stepping around the long grass, came the Hawk. He wore a gray evening suit; a gray silk turtleneck. Above his craggy face his head was completely shaved.

“Mr. Cadwaliter-Erickson?” He held out his hand.

I shook: small sharp bones in loose skin. “Does one call you Mr…?”

“Arty.”

“Arty the Hawk.” I tried to look like I wasn’t giving his gray attire the once-over.

He smiled. “Arty the Hawk. Yeah. I picked that name up when I was younger than our friend down there. Alex says you got… well, some things that are not exactly yours. That don’t belong to you.”

I nodded.

“Show them to me.”

“You were told what—”

He brushed away the end of my sentence. “Come on, let me see.”

He extended his hand, smiling affably as a bank clerk. I ran my thumb around the pressure-zip. The cover went tsk. “Tell me,” I said, looking up at his head still lowered to see what I had, “what does one do about Special Services? They seem to be after me.”

The head came up. Surprise changed slowly to a craggy leer. “Why, Mr. Cadwaliter-Erickson!” He gave me the up and down openly. “Keep your income steady. Keep it steady, that’s one thing you can do.”

“If you buy these for anything like what they’re worth, that’s going to be a little difficult.”

“I would imagine. I could always give you less money—”

The cover went tsk again.

“—or, barring that, you could try to use your head and outwit them.”

“You must have outwitted them at one time or another. You may be on an even keel now, but you had to get there from somewhere else.”

Arty the Hawk’s nod was downright sly. “I guess you’ve had a run-in with Maud. Well, I suppose congratulations are in order. And condolences. I always like to do what’s in order.”

“You seem to know how to take care of yourself. I mean I notice you’re not out there mingling with the guests.”

“There are two parties going on here tonight,” Arty said. “Where do you think Alex disappears off to every five minutes?”

I frowned.

“That lumia down in the rocks”—he pointed towards my feet—“is a mandala of shifting hues on our ceiling. Alex,” he chuckled, “goes scuttling off under the rocks where there is a pavilion of Oriental splendor—”

“—and a separate guest list at the door?”

“Regina is on both. I’m on both. So’s the kid, Edna, Lewis, Ann—”

“Am I supposed to know all this?”

“Well, you came with a person on both lists. I just thought…” He paused.

I was coming on wrong. Well. A quick change artist learns fairly quick that the verisimilitude factor in imitating someone up the scale is your confidence in your unalienable right to come on wrong. “I’ll tell you,” I said. “How about exchanging these”—I held out the briefcase—“for some information.”

“You want to know how to stay out of Maud’s clutches?” In a moment he shook his head. “It would be pretty stupid of me to tell you, even if I could. Besides, you’ve got your family fortunes to fall back on.” He beat the front of his shirt with his thumb. “Believe me, boy. Arty the Hawk didn’t have that. I didn’t have anything like that.” His hands dropped into his pockets. “Let’s see what you got.”

I opened the case again.

The Hawk looked for a while. After a few moments he picked a couple up, turned them around, put them back down, put his hands back in his pocket. “I’ll give you sixty thousand for them, approved credit tablets.”

“What about the information I wanted?”

“I wouldn’t tell you a thing.” He smiled. “I wouldn’t tell you the time of day.”

There are very few successful thieves in this world. Still less on the other five. The will to steal is an impulse towards the absurd and the tasteless. (The talents are poetic, theatrical, a certain reverse charisma…) But it is a will, as the will to order, power, love.

“All right,” I said.

Somewhere overhead I heard a faint humming.

Arty looked at me fondly. He reached under the lapel of his jacket, and took out a handful of credit tablets—the scarlet-banded tablets whose slips were ten thousand apiece. He pulled off one. Two. Three. Four.

“You can deposit this much safely—?”

‘Why do you think Maud is after me?“

Five. Six.

“Fine,” I said.

“How about throwing in the briefcase?” Arty asked.

“Ask Alex for a paper bag. If you want, I can send them—”

“Give them here.”

The humming was coming closer.

I held up the open case. Arty went in with both hands. He shoved them into his coat pockets, his pants pockets; the gray cloth was distended by angular bulges. He looked left, right. “Thanks,” he said.

“Thanks.” Then he turned, and hurried down the slope with all sorts of things in his pockets that weren’t his now.

I looked up through the leaves for the noise, but I couldn’t see anything.

I stooped down now and laid my case open. I pulled open the back compartment where I kept the things that did belong to me, and rummaged hurriedly through.

Alex was just offering Puffy-eyes another scotch, while the gentleman was saying, “Has anyone seen Mrs. Silem? What’s that humming overhead—?” when a large woman wrapped in a veil of fading fabric tottered across the rocks, screaming.

Her hands were clawing at her covered face.

Alex sloshed soda over his sleeve and the man said, “Oh my God! Who’s that?”

“No!” the woman shrieked. “Oh no! Help me!” waving her wrinkled fingers, brilliant with rings.

“Don’t you recognize her?” That was Hawk whispering confidentially to someone else. “It’s Henrietta, Countess of Effingham.”

And Alex, overhearing, went hurrying to her assistance. The Countess, however, ducked between two cacti, and disappeared into the high grass. But the entire party followed. They were beating about the underbrush when a balding gentleman in a black tux, bow tie, and cummerbund coughed and said, in a very worried voice. “Excuse me, Mr. Spinnel?”

Alex whirled.

“Mr. Spinnel, my mother…”

“Who are you?” The interruption upset Alex terribly.

The gentleman drew himself up to announce. “The Honorable Clement Effingham,” and his pants legs shook for all the world as if he had started to click his heels. But articulation failed. The expression melted on his face. “Oh, I… my mother, Mr. Spinnel. We were downstairs, at the other half of your party, when she got very upset. She ran up here—oh, I told her not to! I knew you’d be upset. But you must help me!” and then looked up.

The others looked too.

The helicopter blacked the moon, doffing and settling below its hazy twin parasols.

“Oh, please…” the gentleman said. “You look over there! Perhaps she’s gone back down. I’ve got to”—looking quickly both ways—“find her.” He hurried in one direction while everyone else hurried in others.

The humming was suddenly syncopated with a crash. Roaring now, as plastic fragments from the transparent roof chattered down through the branches, clattered on the rocks…

I made it into the elevator and had already thumbed the edge of my briefcase clasp, when Hawk dove between the unfolding foils. The electric-eye began to swing them open. I hit door close full fist.

The boy staggered, banged shoulders on two walls, then got back breath and balance. “Hey, there’s police getting out of that helicopter!”

“Hand-picked by Maud Hinkle herself, no doubt.” I pulled the other tuft of white hair from my temple. It went into the case on top of the plastiderm gloves (wrinkled thick blue veins, long carnelian nails) that had been Henrietta’s hands, lying in the chiffon folds of her sari.

Then there was the downward tug of stopping. The Honorable Clement was still half on my face when the door opened.

Gray and gray, with an absolutely dismal expression on his face, the Hawk swung through the doors. Behind him people were dancing in an elaborate pavilion festooned with Oriental magnificence (and a mandala of shifting hues on the ceiling.) Arty beat me to door close. Then he gave me an odd look.

I just sighed and finished peeling off Clem.

“The police are up there?” the Hawk reiterated.

“Arty,” I said, buckling my pants, “it certainly looks that way.” The car gained momentum. “You look almost as upset as Alex.” I shrugged the tux jacket down my arms, turning the sleeves inside out, pulled one wrist free, and jerked off the white starched dicky with the black bow tie and stuffed it into the briefcase with all my other dickies; swung the coat around and slipped on Howard Calvin Evingston’s good gray herringbone. Howard (like Hank) is a redhead (but not as curly).

The Hawk raised his bare brows when I peeled off Clement’s bald pate and shook out my hair.

“I noticed you aren’t carrying around all those bulky things in your pocket any more.”

“Oh, those have been taken care of,” he said gruffly. “They’re all right.”

“Arty,” I said, adjusting my voice down to Howard’s security-provoking, ingenuous baritone, “it must have been my unabashed conceit that made me think that those Regular Service police were here just for me—”

The Hawk actually snarled. “They wouldn’t be that unhappy if they got me, too.”

And from his corner Hawk demanded, “You’ve got security here with you, don’t you, Arty?”

“So what?”

“There’s one way you can get out of this,” Hawk hissed at me. His jacket had come half open down his wrecked chest. “That’s if Arty takes you out with him.”

“Brilliant idea,” I concluded. “You want a couple of thousand back for the service?”

The idea didn’t amuse him. “I don’t want anything from you.” He turned to Hawk. “I need something from you, kid. Not him. Look, I wasn’t prepared for Maud. If you want me to get your friend out, then you’ve got to do something for me.”

The boy looked confused.

I thought I saw smugness on Arty’s face, but the expression resolved into concern. “You’ve got to figure out some way to fill the lobby up with people, and fast.”

I was going to ask why but then I didn’t know the extent of Arty’s security. I was going to ask how but the floor pushed up at my feet and the doors swung open. “If you can’t do it,” the Hawk growled to Hawk, “none of us will get out of here. None of us!”

I had no idea what the kid was going to do, but when I started to follow him out into the lobby, the Hawk grabbed my arm and hissed, “Stay here, you idiot!!”

I stepped back. Arty was leaning on door open.

Hawk sprinted towards the pool. And splashed in.

He reached the braziers on their twelve foot tripods and began to climb.

“He’s going to hurt himself!” the Hawk whispered.

“Yeah,” I said, but I don’t think my cynicism got through. Below the great dish of fire, Hawk was fiddling. Then something under there came loose. Something else went Clang! And something else spurted out across the water. The fire raced along it and hit the pool, churning and roaring like hell.

A black arrow with a golden head: Hawk dove.

I bit the inside of my cheek as the alarm sounded. Four people in uniforms were coming across the blue carpet. Another group were crossing in the other direction, saw the flames, and one of the women screamed. I let out my breath, thinking carpet and walls and ceiling would be flame-proof. But I kept losing focus on the idea before the sixty-odd infernal feet.

Hawk surfaced on the edge of the pool in the only clear spot left, rolled over on to the carpet, clutching his face. And rolled. And rolled. Then, came to his feet.

Another elevator spilled out a load of passengers who gaped and gasped. A crew came through the doors now with fire-fighting equipment. The alarm was still sounding.

Hawk turned to look at the dozen-odd people in the lobby. Water puddled the carpet about his drenched and shiny pants legs. Flame turned the drops on his cheek and hair to flickering copper and blood.

He banged his fists against his wet thighs, took a deep breath, and against the roar and the bells and the whispering, he Sang.

Two people ducked back into two elevators. From a doorway half a dozen more emerged. The elevators returned half a minute later with a dozen people each. I realized the message was going through the building, there’s a Singer Singing in the lobby.

The lobby filled. The flames growled, the fire fighters stood around shuffling, and Hawk, feet apart on the blue rug, by the burning pool Sang, and Sang of a bar off Times Square full of thieves, morphadine-heads, brawlers, drunkards, women too old to trade what they still held out for barter, and trade just too nasty-grimy, where, earlier in the evening, a brawl had broken out, and an old man had been critically hurt in the fray.

Arty tugged at my sleeve.

“What…?”

“Come on,” he hissed.

The elevator door closed behind us.

We ambled through the attentive listeners, stopping to watch, stopping to hear. I couldn’t really do Hawk justice. A lot of that slow amble I spent wondering what sort of security Arty had:

Standing behind a couple in a bathrobe who were squinting into the heat, I decided it was all very simple. Arty wanted simply to drift away through a crowd, so he’d conveniently gotten Hawk to manufacture one.

To get to the door we had to pass through practically a cordon of Regular Service policemen who I don’t think had anything to do with what might have been going on in the roof garden; they’d simply collected to see the fire and stayed for the Song. When Arty tapped one on the shoulder, “Excuse me please,” to get by, the policeman glanced at him, glanced away, then did a Mack Sennet double-take. But another policeman caught the whole interchange, and touched the first on the arm and gave him a frantic little headshake. Then both men turned very deliberately back to watch the Singer. While the earthquake in my chest stilled, I decided that the Hawk’s security complex of agents and counter agents, maneuvering and machinating through the flaming lobby, must be of such finesse and intricacy that to attempt understanding was to condemn oneself to total paranoia.

Arty opened the final door.

I stepped from the last of the air conditioning into the night.

We hurried down the ramp.

“Hey, Arty…?”

“You go that way.” He pointed down the street. “I go this way.”

“Eh… what’s that way?” I pointed in my direction.

“Twelve Towers sub-sub-subway station. Look. I’ve got you out of there. Believe me, you’re safe for the time being. Now go take a train someplace interesting. Goodbye. Go on now.” Then Arty the Hawk put his fists in his pockets and hurried up the street.

I started down, keeping near the wall, expecting someone to get me with a blow-dart from a passing car, a deathray from the shrubbery.

I reached the sub.

And still nothing had happened.

Agate gave way to Malachite:

Tourmaline:

Beryl (during which month I turned twenty-six):

Porphyry:

Sapphire (that month I took the ten thousand I hadn’t frittered away and invested it in The Glacier, a perfectly legitimate ice cream palace on Triton—the first and only ice cream palace on Triton—which took off like fireworks; all investors were returned eight hundred percent, no kidding. Two weeks later I’d lost half of those earnings on another set of preposterous illegalities, and was feeling quite depressed, but The Glacier kept pulling them in. The new Word came by):

Cinnabar:

Turquoise:

Tiger’s Eye:

Hector Calhoun Eisenhower finally buckled down and spent these three months learning how to be a respectable member of the upper middle class underworld. That is a long novel in itself. High finance; corporate law; how to hire help: Whew! But the complexities of life have always intrigued me. I got through it. The basic rule is still the same: observe carefully, imitate effectively.

Garnet:

Topaz (I whispered that word on the roof of the Trans-Satellite Power Station, and caused my hirelings to commit two murders. And you know? I didn’t feel a thing):

Taafite:

We were nearing the end of Taafite. I’d come back to Triton on strictly Glacial business. A bright pleasant morning it was: the business went fine. I decided to take off the afternoon and go sight-seeing in the Torrents.

“… two hundred and thirty yards high,” the guide announced and everyone around me leaned on the rail and gazed up through the plastic corridor at the cliffs of frozen methane that soared through Neptune’s cold green glare.

“Just a few yards down the catwalk, ladies and gentlemen, you can catch your first glimpse of the Well of This World, where, over a million years ago, a mysterious force science still cannot explain caused twenty-five square miles of frozen methane to liquify for no more than a few hours during which time a whirlpool twice the depth of Earth’s Grand Canyon was caught for the ages when the temperature dropped once more to…”

People were moving down the corridor when I saw her smiling. My hair was black and nappy and my skin was chestnut dark today.

I was just feeling overconfident, I guess, so I kept standing around next to her. I even contemplated coming on. Then she broke the whole thing up by suddenly turning to me and saying, perfectly deadpan: “Why, if it isn’t Hamlet Caliban Enobarbus!”

Old reflexes realigned my features to couple the frown of confusion with the smile of indulgence. Pardon me, but I think you must have mistaken… No, I didn’t say it. “Maud,” I said, “have you come here to tell me that my time has come?”

She wore several shades of blue, with a large blue brooch at her shoulder, obviously glass. Still, I realized as I looked about the other tourists, she was more inconspicuous amidst their finery than I was. “No,” she said. “Actually I’m on vacation. Just like you.”

“No kidding?” We had dropped behind the crowd. “You are kidding.”

“Special Services of Earth, while we cooperate with Special Services on other worlds, has no official jurisdiction on Triton. And since you came here with money, and most of your recorded gain in income has been through The Glacier, while Regular Services on Triton might be glad to get you, Special Services is not after you as yet.” She smiled. “I haven’t been to The Glacier. It would really be nice to say I’d been taken there by one of the owners. Could we go for a soda, do you think?”

The swirled sides of the Well of This World dropped away in opalescent grandeur. Tourists gazed and the guide went on about indices of refraction, angles of incline.

“I don’t think you trust me,” Maud said.

My look said she was right.

“Have you ever been involved with narcotics?” she asked suddenly.

I frowned.

“No, I’m serious. I want to try and explain something… a point of information that may make both our lives easier.”

“Peripherally,” I said. “I’m sure you’ve got down all the information in your dossiers.”

“I was involved with them a good deal more than peripherally for several years,” Maud said. “Before I got into Special Services, I was in the Narcotics Division of the regular force. And the people we dealt with twenty-four hours a day were drug users, drug pushers. To catch the big ones we had to make friends with the little ones. To catch the bigger ones, we had to make friends with the big. We had to keep the same hours they kept, talk the same language, for months at a time live on the same streets, in the same building.” She stepped back from the rail to let a youngster ahead. “I had to be sent away to take the morphadine detoxification cure twice while I was on the narco squad. And I had a better record than most.”

“What’s your point?”

“Just this. You and I are traveling in the same circles now, if only because of our respective chosen professions. You’d be surprised how many people we already know in common. Don’t be shocked when we run into each other crossing Sovereign Plaza in Bellona one day, then two weeks later wind up at the same restaurant for lunch at Lux on Iapetus. Though the circles we move in cover worlds, they are the same, and not that big.”

“Come on.” I don’t think I sounded happy. “Let me treat you to that ice cream.” We started back down the walkway.

“You know,” Maud said, “if you do stay out of Special Services’ hands here and on Earth long enough, eventually you’ll be up there with a huge income growing on a steady slope. It might be a few years, but it’s possible. There’s no reason now for us to be personal enemies. You just may, someday, reach that point where Special Services loses interest in you as quarry. Oh, we’d still see each other, run into each other. We get a great deal of our information from people up there. We’re in a position to help you too, you see.”

“You’ve been casting holograms again.”

She shrugged. Her face looked positively ghostly under the pale planet. She said, when we reached the artificial lights of the city, “I did meet two friends of yours recently, Lewis and Ann.”

“The Singers?”

She nodded.

“Oh, I don’t really know them well.”

“They seem to know a lot about you. Perhaps through that other Singer, Hawk.”

“Oh,” I said again. “Did they say how he was?”

“I read that he was recovering about two months back. But nothing since then.”

“That’s about all I know too,” I said.

“The only time I’ve ever seen him,” Maud said, “was right after I pulled him out.”

Arty and I had gotten out of the lobby before Hawk actually finished. The next day on the newstapes I learned that when his Song was over, he shrugged out of his jacket, dropped his pants, and walked back into the pool.

The fire-fighter crew suddenly woke up; people began running around and screaming: he’d been rescued, seventy percent of his body covered with second and third degree burns. I’d been industriously not thinking about it.

“You pulled him out?”

“Yes. I was in the helicopter that landed on the roof,” Maud said. “I thought you’d be impressed to see me.”

“Oh,” I said. “How did you get to pull him out?”

“Once you got going, Arty’s security managed to jam the elevator service above the seventy-first floor, so we didn’t get to the lobby till after you were out of the building. That’s when Hawk tried to—”

“But it was you actually saved him, though?”

“The firemen in that neighborhood hadn’t had a fire in twelve years! I don’t think they even knew how to operate the equipment. I had my boys foam the pool, then I waded in and dragged him—”

“Oh,” I said again. I had been trying hard, almost succeeding, these eleven months. I wasn’t there when it happened. It wasn’t my affair. Maud was saying:

“We thought we might have gotten a lead on you from him. But when I got him to the shore, he was completely out, just a mass of open, running—”

“I should have known the Special Services uses Singers too,” I said. “Everyone else does. The Word changes today, doesn’t it? Lewis and Ann didn’t pass on what the new one is?”

“I saw them yesterday, and the Word doesn’t change for another eight hours. Besides, they wouldn’t tell me, anyway.” She glanced at me and frowned. “They really wouldn’t.”

“Let’s go have some sodas,” I said. ‘We’ll make small talk, and listen carefully to each other, while we affect an air of nonchalance; you will try to pick up things that will make it easier to catch me; I will listen for things you let slip that might make it easier for me to avoid you.“

“Um-hm.” She nodded.

“Why did you contact me in that bar, anyway?”

Eyes of ice: “I told you, we simply travel in the same circles. We’re quite likely to be in the same bar on the same night.”

“I guess that’s just one of the things I’m not supposed to understand, huh?”

Her smile was appropriately ambiguous. I didn’t push it.

It was a very dull afternoon. I couldn’t repeat one exchange from the nonsense we babbled over the cherry peaked mountains of whipped cream. We both exerted so much energy to keep up the appearance of being amused, I doubt either one of us could see our way to picking up anything meaningful; if anything meaningful was said.

She left. I brooded some more on the charred phoenix.

The Steward of The Glacier called me into the kitchen to ask about a shipment of contraband milk (The Glacier makes all its own ice cream) that I had been able to wangle on my last trip to Earth (it’s amazing how little progress there has been in dairy farming over the last ten years; it was depressingly easy to hornswoggle that bumbling Vermonter) and under the white lights and great plastic churning vats, while I tried to get things straightened out, he made some comment about the Heist Cream Emperor; that didn’t do any good.

By the time the evening crowd got there, and the moog was making music and the crystal walls were blazing; and the floor show—a new addition that week—had been cajoled into going on anyway (a trunk of costumes had gotten lost in shipment [or swiped, but I wasn’t about to tell them that]), and wandering through the tables I, personally, had caught a very grimy little girl, obviously out of her head on morph, trying to pick up a customer’s pocketbook from the back of a chair—I just caught her by the wrist, made her let go, and led her to the door, daintily, while she blinked at me with dilated eyes and the customer never even knew—and the floor show, having decided what the hell, were doing their act au naturel, and everyone was having just a high old time, I was feeling really bad.

I went outside, sat on the wide steps, and growled when I had to move aside to let people in or out. About the seventy-fifth growl, the person I growled at stopped and boomed down at me, “I thought I’d find you if I looked hard enough! I mean if I really looked.”

I looked at the hand that was flapping at my shoulder, followed the arm up to a black turtleneck. where there was a beefy, bald, grinning head. “Arty,” I said, “what are…?” But he was still flapping and laughing with impervious Gemiitlichkeit.

“You wouldn’t believe the time I had getting a picture of you, boy. Had to bribe one out of the Triton Special Services Department. That quick change bit. Great gimmick. Just great!” The Hawk sat down next to me and dropped his hand on my knee. “Wonderful place you got here. I like it, like it a lot.” Small bones in veined dough. “But not enough to make you an offer on it yet. You’re learning fast there, though. I can tell you’re learning fast. I’m going to be proud to be able to say I was the one who gave you your first big break.” His hand came away and he began to knead it onto the other. “If you’re going to move into the big time, you have to have at least one foot planted firmly on the right side of the law. The whole idea is to make yourself indispensable to the good people; once that’s done, a good crook has the keys to all the treasure houses in the system. But I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.”

“Arty,” I said, “do you think the two of us should be seen together here…?”

The Hawk held his hand above his lap and joggled it with a deprecating motion. “Nobody can get a picture of us. I got my men all around. I never go anywhere in public without my security. Heard you’ve been looking into the security business yourself,” which was true. “Good idea. Very good. I like the way you’re handling yourself.”

“Thanks. Arty, I’m not feeling too hot this evening. I came out here to get some air…”

Arty’s hand fluttered again. “Don’t worry, I won’t hang around. You’re right. We shouldn’t be seen. Just passing by and wanted to say hello. Just hello.” He got up. “That’s all.” He started down the steps.

“Arty?”

He looked back.

“Sometime soon you will come back; and that time you will want to buy out my share of The Glacier, because I’ll have gotten too big; and I won’t want to sell because I’ll think I’m big enough to fight you. So we’ll be enemies for a while. You’ll try to kill me. I’ll try to kill you.”

On his face, first the frown of confusion; then, the indulgent smile. “I see you’ve caught on to the idea of hologramic information. Very good. Good. It’s the only way to outwit Maud. Make sure all your information relates to the whole scope of the situation. It’s the only way to outwit me too.” He smiled, started to turn, but thought of something else. “If you can fight me off long enough, and keep growing, keep your security in tiptop shape, eventually we’ll get to the point where it’ll be worth both our whiles to work together again. If you can just hold out, we’ll be friends again. Someday. You just watch. Just wait.“

“Thanks for telling me.”

The Hawk looked at his watch. “Well. Goodbye.” I thought he was going to leave finally. But he glanced up again. “Have you got the new Word?”

“That’s right,” I said. “It went out tonight. What is it?”

The Hawk waited till the people coming down the steps were gone. He looked hastily about, then leaned towards me with hands cupped at his mouth, rasped, “Pyrite,” and winked hugely. “I just got it from a gal who got it direct from Colette” (one of the three Singers of Triton). Then he turned, jounced down the steps, and shouldered his way into the crowds passing on the strip.

I sat there mulling through the year till I had to get up and walk. All walking does to my depressive moods is add the reinforcing rhythm of paranoia. By the time I was coming back, I had worked out a dilly of a delusional system: The Hawk had already begun to weave some security ridden plot about me which ended when we were all trapped in some dead end alley, and trying to get aid I called out, “Pyrite!” which would turn out not to be the Word at all but served to identify me for the man in the dark gloves with the gun/grenades/gas.

There was a cafeteria on the corner. In the light from the window, clustered over the wreck by the curb was a bunch of nasty-grimies (a la Triton: chains around the wrists, bumble-bee tattoo on cheek, high heel boots on those who could afford them). Straddling the smashed headlight was the little morph-head I had ejected earlier from The Glacier.

On a whim I went up to her. “Hey?”

She looked at me from under hair like trampled hay, eyes all pupil.

“You get the new Word yet?”

She rubbed her nose, already scratch red. “Pyrite,” she said. “It just came down about an hour ago.”

“Who told you?”

She considered my question. “I got it from a guy who says he got it from a guy who came in this evening from New York who picked it up there from a Singer named Hawk.”

The three grimies nearest made a point of not looking at me. Those further away let themselves glance.

“Oh,” I said. “Oh. Thanks.”

Occam’s Razor, along with any real information on how security works, hones away most such paranoia. Pyrite. At a certain level in my line of work, paranoia’s just an occupational disease. At least I was certain that Arty (and Maud) probably suffered from it as much as I did.

The lights were out on The Glacier’s marquee. Then I remembered what I had left inside and ran up the stairs.

The door was locked. I pounded on the glass a couple of times, but everyone had gone home. And the thing that made it worse was that I could see it sitting on the counter of the coat-check alcove under the orange bulb. The steward had probably put it there, thinking I might arrive before “everybody left. Tomorrow at noon Ho Chi Eng had to pick up his reservation for the Marigold Suite on the Interplanetary Liner The Platinum Swan, which left at one-thirty for Bellona. And there behind the glass doors of The Glacier, it waited with the proper wig, as well as the epicanthic folds that would halve Mr. Eng’s slow eyes of jet.

I actually thought of breaking in. But the more practical solution was to get the hotel to wake me at nine and come in with the cleaning man. I turned around and started down the steps; and the thought struck me, and made me terribly sad, so that I blinked and smiled just from reflex: it was probably just as well to leave it there till morning, because there was nothing in it that wasn’t mine, anyway.

BRILLO

Harlan Ellison

and

Ben Bova

Crazy season for cops is August. In August the riots start. Not just to get the pigs off campus (where they don’t even happen to be, because school is out) or to rid the railroad flats of Rattus norvegicus, but they start for no reason at all. Some bunch of sweat-stinking kids get a hydrant spouting and it drenches the storefront of a shylock who lives most of his time in Kipps Bay when he’s not sticking it to his Spanish Harlem customers, and he comes out of the pawnshop with a Louisville Slugger somebody hocked once, and he takes a swing at a mestizo urchin, and the next thing the precinct knows, they’ve got a three-star riot going on two full city blocks; then they call in the copchoppers from Governor’s Island and spray the neighborhood with quiescent, and after a while the beat cops go in with breathers, in threes, and they start pulling in the bash-head cases. Why did it get going? A little water on a store window that hadn’t been squeegee’d since 1974? A short temper? Some kid flipping some guy the bird? No.

Crazy season is August.

Housewives take their steam irons to their old men’s heads. Basset hound salesmen who trundle display suitcases full of ready-to-wear for eleven months, without squeaking at their bosses, suddenly pull twine knives and carve up taxi drivers. Suicides go out tenth storey windows and off the Verranzano-Narrows Bridge like confetti at an astronaut’s parade down Fifth Avenue. Teen-aged rat packs steal half a dozen cars and drag-race them three abreast against traffic up White Plains Road till they run them through the show windows of supermarkets. No reason. Just August. Crazy season.

It was August, that special heat of August when the temperature keeps going till it reaches the secret kill-crazy mugginess at which point eyeballs roll up white in florid faces and gravity knives appear as if by magic, it was that time of August, when Brillo arrived in the precinct.

Buzzing softly (the sort of sound an electric watch makes), he stood inert in the center of the precinct station’s bullpen, his bright blue-anodized metal a gleaming contrast to the paintless worn floorboards. He stood in the middle of momentary activity, and no one who passed him seemed to be able to pay attention to anything but him:

Not the two plainclothes officers duckwalking between them a sixty-two year old pervert whose specialty was flashing just before the subway doors closed.

Not the traffic cop being berated by his Sergeant for having allowed his parking ticket receipts to get waterlogged in a plastic bag bombardment initiated by the last few residents of a condemned building.

Not the tac/squad macers reloading their weapons from the supply dispensers.

Not the line of beat cops forming up in ranks for their shift on the street.

Not the Desk Sergeant trying to book three hookers who had been arrested soliciting men queued up in front of NBC for a network game show called “Sell A Sin.”

Not the fuzzette using a wrist bringalong on the mugger who had tried to snip a cutpurse on her as she patrolled Riverside Drive.

None of them, even engaged in the hardly ordinary business of sweeping up felons, could avoid staring at him. All eyes kept returning to the robot: a squat cylinder resting on tiny trunnions. Brillo’s optical sensors, up in his dome-shaped head, bulged like the eyes of an acromegalic insect. The eyes caught the glint of the overhead neons.

The eyes, particularly, made the crowd in the muster room nervous. The crowd milled and thronged, but did not clear until the Chief of Police spread his hands in a typically Semitic gesture of impatience and yelled, “All right, already, can you clear this room!”

There was suddenly a great deal of unoccupied space. Chief Santorini turned back to the robot. And to Reardon.

Frank Reardon shifted his weight uneasily from one foot to the other. He absorbed the Police Chief’s look and tracked it out around the muster room, watching the men who were watching the robot. His robot. Not that he owned it any longer…but he still thought of it as his. He understood how Dr. Victor Frankenstein could feel paternal about a congeries of old spare body parts.

He watched them as they sniffed around the robot like bulldogs delighted with the discovery of a new fire hydrant. Even beefy Sgt. Loyo, the Desk Sergeant, up in his perch at the far end of the shabby room, looked clearly suspicious of the robot.

Santorini had brought two uniformed Lieutenants with him. Administrative assistants. Donkeywork protocol guardians. By-the-book civil service types, lamps lit against any ee-vil encroachment of dat ole debbil machine into the paydirt of human beings’ job security. They looked grim.

The FBI man sat impassively on a stout wooden bench that ran the length of the room. He sat under posters for the Police Athletic League, the 4th War Bond Offensive, Driver Training Courses and an advertisement for The Christian Science Monitor with a FREE – TAKE ONE pocket attached. He had not said a word since being introduced to Reardon. And Reardon had even forgotten the name. Was that part of the camouflage of FBI agents? He sat there looking steely-eyed and jut-jawed. He looked grim, too.

Only the whiz kid from the Mayor’s office was smiling as he stepped once again through the grilled door into the bullpen. He smiled as he walked slowly all around the robot. He smiled as he touched the matte-finish of the machine, and he smiled as he made pleasure noises: as if he was inspecting a new car on a showroom floor, on the verge of saying, “I’ll take it. What terms can I get?”

He looked out through the wirework of the bullpen at Reardon. “Why do you call it Brillo?”

Reardon hesitated a moment, trying desperately to remember the whiz kid’s first name. He was an engineer, not a public relations man. Universal Electronics should have sent Wendell down with Brillo. He knew how to talk to these image-happy clowns from City Hall. Knew how to butter and baste them so they put ink to contract. But part of the deal when he’d been forced to sell Reardon Electronics into merger with UE (after the stock raid and the power grab, which he’d lost) was that he stay on with projects like Brillo. Stay with them all the way to the bottom line.

It was as pleasant as clapping time while your wife made love to another man.

“It’s…a nickname. Somebody at UE thought it up. Thought it was funny.”

The whiz kid looked blank. “What’s funny about Brillo?”

“Metal fuzz, “ the Police Chief rasped.

Light dawned on the whiz kid’s face, and he began to chuckle; Reardon nodded, then caught the look of animosity on the Police Chiefs face. Reardon looked away quickly from the old man’s fiercely seamed features. It was getting more grim, much tenser.

Captain Summit came slowly down the stairs to join them. He was close to Reardon’s age, but much grayer. He moved with one hand on the banister, like an old man.

Why do they all look so tired? Reardon wondered. And why do they seem to look wearier, more frightened, every time they look at the robot? Are they afraid it’s come around their turn to be replaced? Is that the way I looked when UE forced me out of the company I created?

Summit eyed the robot briefly, then walked over and sat down on the bench several feet apart from the silent FBI man. The whiz kid came out of the bullpen. They all looked at Summit.

“Okay, I’ve picked a man to work with him…it, I mean.” He was looking at Reardon. “Mike Polchik. He’s a good cop; young and alert. Good record. Nothing extraordinary, no showboater, just a solid cop. He’ll give your machine a fair trial.”

“That’s fine. Thank you, Captain,” Reardon said.

“He’ll be right down. I pulled him out of the formation. He’s getting his gear. He’ll be right down.”

The whiz kid cleared his throat. Reardon looked at him. He wasn’t tired. But then, he didn’t wear a uniform. He wasn’t pushed up against what these men found in the streets every day. He lives in Darien, probably, Frank Reardon thought, and buys those suits in quiet little shops where there’re never more than three customers at a time.

“How many of these machines can your company make in a year?” the whiz kid asked.

“It’s not my company any more.”

“I mean the company you work for – Universal.”

“Inside a year: we can have them coming out at a rate of a hundred a month.” Reardon paused. “Maybe more.”

The whiz kid grinned. “We could replace every beat patrolman…”

A spark-gap was leaped. The temperature dropped. Reardon saw the uniformed men stiffen. Quickly, he said, “Police robots are intended to augment the existing force.” Even more firmly he said, “Not replace it. We’re trying to help the policeman, not get rid of him.”

“Oh, hey, sure. Of course!” the whiz kid said, glancing around the room. “That’s what I meant,” he added unnecessarily. Everyone knew what he meant.

The silence at the bottom of the Marianas Trench.

And in that silence: heavy footsteps, coming down the stairs from the second-floor locker rooms.

He stopped at the foot of the stairs, one shoe tipped up on the final step; he stared at the robot in the bullpen for a long moment. Then the patrolman walked over to Captain Summit, only once more casting a glance into the bullpen. Summit smiled reassuringly at the patrolman and then gestured toward Reardon.

“Mike, this is Mr. Reardon. He designed – the robot. Mr. Reardon, Patrolman Polchik.”

Reardon extended his hand and Polchik exerted enough pressure to make him wince. Polchik was two inches over six feet tall, and weighty. Muscular; thick forearms; the kind found on men who work in foundries. Light, crew-cut hair. Square face, wide open; strong jaw, hard eyes under heavy brow ridges. Even his smile looked hard. He was ready for work, with a .32 Needle Positive tilt-stuck on its velcro fastener at mid-thigh and an armament bandolier slanted across his broad chest. His aura keyed one word: cop.

“The Captain tells me I’m gonna be walkin’ with your machine t’night.”

Nodding, flexing his fingers, Reardon said, “Yes, that’s right. The Captain probably told you, we want to test Brillo under actual foot patrol conditions. That’s what he was designed for: foot patrol.”

“Been a long time since I done foot patrol,” Polchik said: “Work a growler, usually.”

“Beg pardon?”

Summit translated. “Growler: prowl car.”

“Oh. Oh, I see,” Reardon said, trying to be friendly.

“It’s only for tonight, Mike,” the Captain said. “Just a test.”

Polchik nodded as though he understood far more than either Reardon or Summit had told him. He did not turn his big body, but his eyes went to the robot. Through the grillwork Brillo (with the sort of sound an electric watch makes) buzzed softly, staring at nothing. Polchik looked it up and down, slowly, very carefully. Finally he said, “Looks okay to me.”

“Preliminary tests,” Reardon said, “everything short of actual field runs…everything’s been tested out. You won’t have any trouble.”

Polchik murmured something.

“I beg your pardon?” Frank Reardon said.

“On-the-job-training,” Polchik repeated. He did not smile. But a sound ran through the rest of the station house crew.”

“Well, whenever you’re ready, Officer Polchik,” the whiz kid said suddenly. Reardon winced. The kid had a storm-window salesman’s tone even when he was trying to be disarming.

“Yeah. Right.” Polchik moved toward the front door. The robot did not move. Polchik stopped and turned around. Everyone was watching.

“I thought he went on his own, uh, independ’nt?” They were all watching Reardon now.

“He’s been voice-keyed to me since the plant,’“ Reardon said. “To shift command, I’ll have to prime him with your voice.” He turned to the robot. “Brillo, come here, please.”

The word please.

The buzzing became more distinct for a moment as the trunnions withdrew inside the metal skid. Then the sound diminished, became barely audible, and the robot stepped forward smoothly. He walked to Reardon and stopped.

“Brillo, this is Officer Mike Polchik. You’ll be working with him tonight. He’ll be your superior and you’ll be under his immediate orders.” Reardon waved Polchik over. “Would you say a few words, so he can program your voice-print.”

Polchik looked at Reardon. Then he looked at the robot. Then he looked around the muster room. Desk Sergeant Loyo was grinning. “Whattaya want me to say?”

“Anything.”

One of the detectives had come down the stairs. No one had noticed before. Lounging against the railing leading to the squad room upstairs, he giggled. “Tell him some’a your best friends are can openers, Mike.”

The whiz kid and the Chief of Police threw him a look. Summit said, “Bratten!” He shut up. After a moment he went back upstairs. Quietly.

“Go ahead. Anything,” Reardon urged Polchik. The patrolman drew a deep breath, took another step forward and said, self-consciously, “Come on, let’s go. It’s gettin’ late.”

The soft buzzing (the sort of sound an electric watch makes) came once again from somewhere deep inside the robot. “Yes, sir,” he said, in the voice of Frank Reardon, and moved very smoothly, very quickly, toward Polchik. The patrolman stepped back quickly, tried to look casual, turned and started toward the door of the station house once more. The robot followed.

When they had gone, the whiz kid drywashed his hands, smiled at everyone and said, “Now it begins.”

Reardon winced again. The Desk Sergeant, Loyo, rattled pencils, tapped them even, dumped them into an empty jelly jar on the blotter desk. Everyone else looked away. The FBI man smiled.

From outside the precinct house the sounds of the city seemed to grow louder in the awkward silence. In all that noise no one even imagined he could hear the sound of the robot.

Polchik was trying the locks on the burglarproof gates of the shops lining Amsterdam between 82nd and 83rd. The robot was following him, doing the same thing. Polchik was getting burned up. He turned up 83rd and entered the alley behind the shops, retracing his steps back toward 82nd. The robot followed him.

Polchik didn’t like being followed. It made him feel uneasy. Damned piece of junk! he thought. He rips one of them gates off the hinges, there’ll be hell to pay down at the precinct.

Polchik rattled a gate. He moved on. The robot followed. (Like a little kid, Polchik thought.) The robot grabbed the gate and clanged it back and forth. Polchik spun on him. “Listen, dammit, stop makin’ all that racket! Y’wanna wake everybody? You know what time it is?”

“1: 37 A.M.” the robot replied, in Reardon’s voice.

Polchik looked heavenward.

Shaking his head he moved on. The robot stopped. “Officer Polchik.” Mike Polchik turned, exasperated. “What now?”

“I detect a short circuit in this alarm system,” the robot said. He was standing directly under the Morse-Dictograph Security panel. “If it is not repaired, it will cancel the fail-safe circuits.“

“I’ll call it in,” Polchik said, pulling the pin-mike on its spring-return wire from his callbox. He was about to thumb on the wristhand callbox, when the robot extruded an articulated arm from its chest. “I am equipped to repair the unit without assistance,” the robot said, and a light-beam began to pulse at the end of the now-goosenecked arm.

“Leave it alone!!”

“A simple 155-0 system,” the robot said. “Fixed temperature unit with heat detectors, only barely exceeding NFPA standard 74 and NFPA 72-a requirements.” The arm snaked up to the panel and followed the break line around the outside.

“Don’t screw with it! It’ll set it – ”

The panel accordion folded back. Polchik’s mouth fell open. “Oh my God,” he mumbled.

The robot’s extruded arm worked inside for a long moment, then withdrew. “It is fully operable now.” The panel folded back into place.

Polchik let the pin-mike slip from his fingers and it zzzzz’d back into the wristhand. He walked away down the alley, looking haunted.

Down at the corner, the Amsterdam Inn’s lights shone weakly, reflecting dully in the street oil slick. Polchik paused at the mouth of the alley and pulled out the pin-mike again. He thumbed the callbox on his wrist, feeling the heavy shadow of the robot behind him.

“Polchik,” he said into the mike.

“Okay, Mike?” crackled the reply. “How’s yer partner doing?”

Glancing over his shoulder, Polchik saw the robot standing impassively, gooseneck arm vanished; ten feet behind him. Respectfully. “Don’t call it my partner.”

Laughter on the other end of the line. “What’s’a’matter, Mike? ‘Fraid of him?”

“Ahhh…cut the clownin’. Everything quiet here, Eighty-two and Amsterdam.”

“Okay. Oh, hey, Mike, remember…if it starts to rain, get yer partner under an awning before he starts t’rust!”

He was still laughing like a jackass as Polchik let the spring-wire zzzzz back into the call box.

“Hey, Mike! What you got there?”

Polchik looked toward the corner. It was Rico, the bartender from the Amsterdam Inn.

“It’s a robot,” Polchik said. He kept his voice very flat. He was in no mood for further ribbing.

“Real he is, yeah? No kidding?” Rico’s face always looked to Polchik like a brass artichoke, ready to be peeled. But he was friendly enough. And cooperative. It was a dunky neighborhood and Polchik had found Rico useful more than once. “What’s he supposed to do, eh?”

“He’s supposed to be a cop.” Glum.

Rico shook his vegetable head. “What they gonna do next? Robots. So what happens t’you, Mike? They make you a detective?”

“Sure. And the week after that they make me Captain.”

Rico looked uncertain, didn’t know whether he should laugh or sympathize. Finally, he said, “Hey, I got a bottle for ya,” feeling it would serve, whatever his reaction should properly have been. “Betcha your wife likes it… from Poland, imported stuff. Got grass or weeds or some kinda stuff in it. S’possed to be really sensational.”

For just a second, peripherally seen, Polchik thought the robot had stirred.

“Escuchar! I’ll get it for you.”

He disappeared inside the bar before Polchik could stop him. The robot did move. It trembled…?

Rico came out with a paper bag, its neck twisted closed around what was obviously a bottle of liquor.

“I’ll have to pick it up tomorrow,” Polchik said. “I don’t have the car tonight.”

“I’ll keep it for you. If I’m on relief when you come by, ask Maldonado.”

The robot was definitely humming. Polchik could hear it. (The sort of sound an electric watch makes.) It suddenly moved, closing the distance, ten feet between them, till it passed Polchik, swiveled to face Rico – who stumbled backward halfway to the entrance to the Amsterdam Inn – then swiveled back to face Polchik.

“Visual and audial data indicate a one-to-one extrapolation of same would result in a conclusion that a gratuity has been offered to you, Officer Polchik. Further, logic indicates that you intend to accept said gratuity. Such behavior is a programmed infraction of the law. It is – ”

“Shut up!”

Rico stood very close to the door, wide-eyed.

“I’ll see you tomorrow night,” Polchik said to him.

“Officer Polchik,” the robot went on as though there had been no interruption, “it is clear if you intend to accept a gratuity, you will be breaking the law and liable to arrest and prosecution under Law Officer Statutes number – ”

“I said shuddup, dammit!” Polchik said, louder. “I don’t even know what the hell you’re talkin’ about, but I said shuddup, and that’s an order!”

“Yes, sir,” the robot replied instantly. “However, my data tapes will record this conversation in its entirety and it will be transcribed into a written report at the conclusion of our patrol.”

“What?” Polchik felt gears gnashing inside his head, thought of gears, thought of the robot, rejected gears and thought about Captain Summit. Then he thought about gears again…crushing him.

Rico’s voice intruded, sounding scared. “What’s he saying? What’s that about a report?”

“Now wait a minute, Brillo,” Polchik said, walking up to the robot. “Nothin’s happened here you can write a report on.”

The robot’s voice – Reardon’s voice, Polchik thought irritatedly – was very firm. “Logic indicates a high probability that a gratuity has been accepted in the past, and another will be accepted in the future.”

Polchik felt chili peppers in his gut. Hooking his thumbs in his belt – a pose he automatically assumed when he was trying to avert trouble – he deliberately toned down his voice. “Listen, Brillo, you forget the whole thing, you understand. You just forget it.”

“Am I to understand you desire my tapes to be erased?”

“Yeah, that’s right. Erase it.”

“Is that an order?”

“It’s an order!”

The robot hummed to itself for a heartbeat, then, “Primary programming does not allow erasure of data tapes. Tapes can be erased only post-transcription or by physically removing same from my memory bank.”

“Listen – ” Rico started, “ – I don’t wan’ no trub – ”

Polchik impatiently waved him to silence. He didn’t need any complications right now. “Listen, Brillo…”

“Yes. I hear it.”

Polchik was about to continue speaking. He stopped. I hear it? This damned thing’s gone bananas. “I didn’t say anything yet.”

“Oh. I’m sorry, sir. I thought you were referring to the sound of a female human screaming on 84th Street, third-floor front apartment.”

Polchik looked everywhichway. “What are you talkin’ about? You crazy or something?”

“No, sir. I am a model X-44. Though under certain special conditions my circuits can malfunction, conceivably, nothing in my repair programming parameters approximates ‘crazy.’ “

“Then just shuddup and let’s get this thing straightened out. Now, try’n understand this. You’re just a robot, see. You don’t understand the way real people do things. Like, for instance, when Rico here offers me a bottle of – ”

“If you’ll pardon me, sir, the female human is now screaming in the 17,000 cycle per-second range. My tapes are programmed to value-judge such a range as concomitant with fear and possibly extreme pain. I suggest we act at once.”

“Hey, Polchik…” Rico began.

“No, shuddup, Rico. Hey, listen, robot, Brillo, whatever: you mean you can hear some woman screaming, two blocks away and up three flights? Is the window open?” Then he stopped. “What’m I doin’? Talking to this thing!” He remembered the briefing he’d been given by Captain Summit. “Okay. You say you can hear her…let’s find her.”

The robot took off at top speed. Back into the alley behind the Amsterdam Inn, across the 82nd-83rd block, across the 83rd-84th block, full-out with no clanking or clattering. Polchik found himself pounding along ten feet behind the robot, then twenty feet, then thirty feet; suddenly he was puffing, his chest heavy, the armament bandolier banging the mace cans and the riot-prod and the bull-horn and the peppergas shpritzers and the extra clips of Needler ammunition against his chest and back.

The robot emerged from the alley, turned a 90° angle with the sharpest cut Polchik had ever seen. and jogged up 84th Street. Brillo was caught for a moment in the glare of a neon streetlamp, then was taking the steps of a crippled old brownstone three at a time.

Troglodytes with punch-presses were berkeleying Polchik’s lungs and stomach. His head was a dissenter’s punchboard. But he followed. More slowly now; and had trouble negotiating the last flight of stairs to the third floor. As he gained the landing, he was hauling himself hand-over-hand up the banister. If God’d wanted cops to walk beats he wouldn’ta created the growler!

The robot, Brillo, X-44, was standing in front of the door marked 3-A. He was quivering like a hound on point. (Buzzing softly with the sort of sound an electric watch makes.) Now Polchik could hear the woman himself, above the roar of blood in his temples.

“Open up in there!” Polchik bellowed. He ripped the .32 Needle Positive off its velcro fastener and banged on the door with the butt. The lanyard was twisted; he untwisted it. “This’s the police. I’m demanding entrance to a private domicile under Public Law 22-809, allowing for superced’nce of the ‘home-castle’ rule under emergency conditions. I said open up in there!”

The screaming went up and plateau’d a few hundred cycles higher, and Polchik snapped at the robot, “Get outta my way.”

Brillo obediently moved back a pace, and in the narrow hallway Polchik braced himself against the wall, locked the exoskeletal rods on his boots, dropped his crash-hat visor, jacked up his leg and delivered a power savate kick at the door.

It was a pre-SlumClear apartment. The door bowed and dust spurted from the seams, but it held. Despite the rods, Polchik felt a searing pain gash up through his leg. He fell back, hopping about painfully, hearing himself going, “oo-oo-oo” and then prepared himself to have to do it again. The robot moved up in front of him, said, “Excuse me, sir,” and smoothly cleaved the door down the center with the edge of a metal hand that had somehow suddenly developed a cutting edge. He reached in, grasped both sliced edges of the hardwood, and ripped the door outward in two even halves.

“Oh.” Polchik stared open-mouthed for only an instant.

Then they were inside.

The unshaven man with the beer gut protruding from beneath his olive drab skivvy undershirt was slapping the hell out of his wife. He had thick black tufts of hair that bunched like weed corsages in his armpits. She was half-lying over the back of a sofa with the springs showing. Her eyes were swollen and blue-black as dried prunes. One massive bruise was already draining down her cheek into her neck. She was weakly trying to fend off her husband’s blows with ineffectual wrist-blocks.

“Okay! That’s it!” Polchik yelled.

The sound of another voice, in the room with them, brought the man and his wife to a halt. He turned his head, his left hand still tangled in her long black hair, and he stared at the two intruders.

He began cursing in Spanish. Then he burst into a guttural combination of English and Spanish. and finally slowed in his own spittle to a ragged English. “…won’t let me alone…go out my house…always botherin’ won’t let me alone…damn…” and he went back to Spanish as he pushed the woman from him and started across the room. The woman tumbled, squealing, out of sight behind the sofa.

The man stumbled crossing the room, and Polchik’s needler tracked him. Behind him he heard the robot softly humming, and then it said, “Sir, analysis indicates psychotic glaze over subiect’s eyes.”

The man grabbed a half-filled quart bottle of beer off the television set, smashed it against the leading edge of the TV, giving it a half-twist (which registered instantly in Polchik’s mind: this guy knew how to get a ragged edge on the weapon; he was an experienced bar-room brawler) and suddenly lurched toward Polchik with the jagged stump in his hand.

Abruptly, before Polchik could even thumb the needler to stun (it was on dismember), a metal blur passed him, swept into the man, lifted him high in the air with one hand, turned him upside-down so the bottle, small plastic change and an unzipped shoe showered down onto the threadbare rug. Arms and legs fluttered helplessly

“Aieeee!” the man screamed, his hair hanging down, his face plugged red with blood. “Madre de dios!”

“Leave him alone!” It was the wife screaming, charging – if it could be called that, on hands and knees – from behind the sofa. She clambered to her feet and ran at the robot, screeching and cursing. pounding her daywork-reddened fists against his gleaming hide.

“Okay, okay,” Polchik said, his voice lower but strong enough to get through to her. Pulling her and her hysteria away from the robot, he ordered, “Brillo, put him down.”

“You goddam cops got no right bustin’ in here,” the man started complaining the moment he was on his feet again. “Goddam cops don’t let a man’n his wife alone for nothin’ no more. You got a warrant? Huh? You gonna get in trouble, plently trouble. This my home, cop, ‘home is a man’s castle,’ hah? Right? Right? An’ you an’ this tin can…” He was waving his arms wildly.

Brillo wheeled a few inches toward the man. The stream of abuse cut off instantly, the man’s face went pale, and he threw up his hands to protect himself.

“This man can be arrested for assault and battery, failure to heed a legitimate police order, attempted assault on a police officer with a deadly weapon, and disturbing the peace,” Brillo said. His flat. calm voice seemed to echo off the grimy walls.

“It…it’s talkin’! Flavio! Demonio!” The wife spiraled toward hysteria again.

“Shall I inform him of his rights under the Public Laws, sir?” Brillo asked Polchik.

“You gon’ arrest me? Whu’for?”

“Brillo…” Polchik began.

Brillo started again, “Assault and battery, failure to – ” Polchik looked annoyed. “Shuddup, I wasn’t asking you to run it again. Just shuddup.”

“I din’t do nothin’! You come bust t’rough my door when me an’ my wife wass arguin’, an’ you beat me up. Look’a the bruise on my arm.” The arm was slightly inflamed where Brillo had grabbed him.

“Flavio!” the woman whimpered. “Isabel; callete la boca!”

“I live right downstairs,” a voice said from behind them. “He’s always beating her up, and he drinks all the time and then he pisses out the window!” Polchik spun and a man in Levis and striped pajama tops was standing in the ruined doorway. “Sometimes it looks like it’s raining on half my window. Once I put my hand out to see – ”

“Get outta here,” Polchik bellowed, and the man vanished.

“I din’t do nothin’!” Flavio said again, semi-surly.

“My data tapes,” Brillo replied evenly, “will clearly show your actions.”

“Day to tapes? Whass he talkin’ ‘bout?” Flavio turned to Polchik, an unaccustomed ally against the hulking machine. Polchik felt a sense of camaraderie with the man.

“He’s got everything down recorded…like on TV. And sound tapes, too.” Polchik looked back at him and recognized something in the dismay on the man’s fleshy face.

Brillo asked again, “Shall I inform him of his rights, sir?”

“Officer, sir, you ain’t gonna’rrest him?” the woman half-asked, half-pleaded, her eyes swollen almost closed, barely open, but tearful.

“He came after me with a bottle,” Polchik said. “And he didn’t do you much good, neither.”

“He wass work op. Iss allright. He’s okay now. It wass joss a’argumen’. Nobody got hort.”

Brillo’s hum got momentarily higher. “Madam, you should inspect your face in my mirror.” He hummed and his skin became smoothly reflective. “My sensors detect several contusions and abrasions, particularly…”

“Skip it,” Polchik said abruptly. “Come on, Brillo, let’s go.”

Brillo’s metal hide went blank again. “I have not informed the prisoner…”

“No prisoner,” Polchik said. “No arrest. Let’s go.”

“But the data clearly shows…”

“Forget it!” Polchik turned to face the man; he was standing there looking’ uncertain, rubbing his arm. “And you, strongarm…lemme hear one more peep outta this apartment and you’ll be in jail so fast it’ll make your head swim…and for a helluva long time, too. If you get there at all. We don’t like guys like you. So I’m puttin’ the word out on you…I don’t like guys comin’ at me with bottles.”

“Sir…I…”

“Come on!”

The robot followed the cop and the apartment was suddenly silent. Flavio and Isabel looked at each other sheepishly, then he began to cry, went to her and touched her bruises with the gentlest fingers.

They went downstairs, Polchik staring and trying to figure out how it was such a massive machine could navigate the steps so smoothly. Something was going on at the base of the robot, but Polchik couldn’t get a good view of it. Dust puffed out from beneath the machine. And something sparkled.

Once on the sidewalk, Brillo said, “Sir, that man should have been arrested. He was clearly violating several statutes.”

Polchik made a sour face. “His wife wouldn’t of pressed the charge.”

“He attacked a police officer with a deadly weapon.”

“So that makes him Mad Dog Coll? He’s scared shitless, in the future he’ll watch it. For a while, at least.”

Brillo was hardly satisfied at this noncomputable conclusion. “A police officer’s duty is to arrest persons who are suspected of having broken the law. Civil or criminal courts have the legal jurisdiction to decide the suspect’s guilt of innocence. Your duty, sir, was to arrest that man.”

“Sure, sure. Have it your way, half the damn city’ll be in jail, and the other half’ll be springin’ ‘em out.”

Brillo said nothing, but Polchik thought the robot’s humming sounded sullen. He had a strong suspicion the machine wouldn’t forget it. Or Rico, either.

And further up the street, to cinch Polchik’s suspicion, the robot once more tried to reinforce his position. “According to the Peace Officer Responsibility Act of 1975, failure of an officer to take into custody person or persons indisputably engaged in acts that contravene…”

“Awright, dammit, knock it off. I tole you why I din’t arrest that poor jughead, so stop bustin’ my chops with it. You ain’t happy, you don’t like it, tell my Sergeant!”

Sergeant, hell. Polchik thought. This stuff goes right to Captain Summit, Santorini and the Commissioner. Probably the Mayor. Maybe the President; who the hell knows?

Petulantly (it seemed to Polchik), the robot resumed, “Reviewing my tapes, I find the matter of the bottle of liquor offered as a gratuity still unresolved. If I am to—”

Polchik spun left and kicked with all his might at a garbage can bolted to an iron fence. The lid sprang off and clanged against the fence at the end of its short chain. “I’ve had it with you…you nonreturnable piece of scrap crap!” He wanted very much to go on, but he didn’t know what to say. All he knew for certain was that he’d never had such a crummy night in all his life. It couldn’t just be this goddamned robot – staring back blankly. It was everything. The mortgage payment was due; Benjy had to go in to the orthodontist and where the hell was the money going to come from for that; Dorothy had called the precinct just before he’d come down, to tell him the hot water had split and drowned the carpets in the kid’s bedroom; and to top it all off, he’d been assigned this buzzing pain in the ass and got caught with a little juice passed by that nitwit Rico; he’d had to have this Brillo pain tell him there was a hassle two blocks away; he was sure as God made little green apples going to get a bad report out of this, maybe get set down, maybe get reprimanded, maybe get censured…he didn’t know what all.

But one thing was certain: this metal bird-dog, this stuffed shirt barracks lawyer with the trailalong of a ten-year-old kid behind his big brother, this nuisance in metal underwear, this…this…thing was of no damned earthly use to a working cop pulling a foot beat!

On the other hand, a voice that spoke with the voice of Mike Polchik said, he did keep that jughead from using a broken bottle on you.

“Shuddup!” Polchik said.

“I beg your pardon?” answered the robot.

Ingrate! said the inner voice.

It was verging on that chalky hour before dawn, when the light filtering out of the sky had a leprous, sickly look. Mike Polchik was a much older man.

Brillo had interfered in the apprehension of Milky Kyser, a well-known car thief. Mike had spotted him walking slowly and contemplatively along a line of parked cars on Columbus Avenue, carrying a tightly-rolled copy of the current issue of Life magazine.

When he had collared Milky, the robot had buzzed up to them and politely inquired precisely what in the carborundum Polchik thought he was doing. Polchik had responded with what was becoming an hysterical reaction-formation to anything the metal cop said. “Shuddup!”

Brillo had persisted, saying he was programmed to protect the civil rights of the members of the community, and as far as he could tell, having “scanned all data relevant to the situation at hand,” the gentleman now dangling from Polchik’s grip was spotlessly blameless of even the rernotest scintilla of wrongdoing. Polchik had held Milky with one hand and with the other gesticulated wildly as he explained, “Look, Dimdumb, this is Milky Kyser, AKA Irwin Kayser, AKA Clarence Irwin, AKA Jack Milk, AKA God Knows Who All. He is a well-known dip and car thief, and he will use that rolled-up copy of the magazine to jack-and-snap the door handle of the proper model car, any number of which is currently parked, you will note, along this street…unless I arrest him! Now will you kindly get the hell outta my hair and back off?”

But it was no use. By the time Brillo had patiently repeated the civil rights story, reiterated pertinent sections of the Peace Officer Responsibility Act of 1975 and topped it off with a precis of Miranda-Escobedo-Baum Supreme Court decisions so adroit and simplified even a confirmed tautologist would have applauded. Milky himself – eyes glittering and a sneer that was hardly a smile on his ferret face – was echoing it, word for word.

The robot had given Milky a thorough course in legal cop-outs, before Polchik’s dazed eyes.

“Besides.” Milky told Polchik, with as much dignity as he could muster, hanging as he was from the cop’s meaty fist. “I ain’t done nuthin’, and just because I been busted once or twice…”

“Once or twice!?” Polchik yanked the rolled-up magazine out of Milky’s hand and raised it to clobber him. Milky pulled in his head like a turtle, wincing.

But in that fraction of a second, Polchik suddenly saw a picture flashed on the wall of his mind. A picture of Desk Sergeant Loyo and Captain Summit and Chief Santorini and the Mayor’s toady and that silent FBI man, all watching a TV screen. And on the screen, there was the pride of the Force. Officer Mike Polchik beaning Milky Kyser with a semi-lethal copy of Life magazine.

Polchik held the magazine poised, trembling with the arrested movement. Milky, head now barely visible from between his shoulders, peeped up from behind his upraised hands. He looked like a mole.

“Beat it.” Polchik growled. “Get the hell out of this precinct, Milky. If you’re spotted around here again, you’re gonna get busted. And don’t stop to buy no magazines.”

He let Milky loose.

The mole metamorphosed into a ferret once more. And straightening himself, he said, “An’ don’t call me ‘Milky’ any more. My given name is Irwin.”

“You got three seconds t’vanish from my sight!”

Milky nee Irwin hustled off down the street. At the corner he stopped and turned around. He cupped his hands and yelled back. “Hey, robot…thanks!”

Brillo was about to reply when Polchik bellowed, “Will you please!” The robot turned and said, very softly in Reardon’s voice, “You are still holding Mr. Kyser’s magazine.”

Polchik was weary. Infinitely weary. “You hear him askin’ for it?” He walked away from the robot and, as he passed a sidewalk dispenser, stepped on the dispodpedal, and flipped the magazine into the receptacle.

“I saved a piece of cherry pie for you, Mike,” the waitress said. Polchik looked up from his uneaten hot (now cold) roast beef sandwich and French fries. He shook his bead.

“Thanks anyway. Just another cuppa coffee.”

The waitress had lost her way somewhere beyond twenty-seven. She was a nice person. She went home to her husband every morning. She didn’t fool around. Extra mates under the new lottery were not her interest; she just didn’t fool around. But she liked Mike Polchik. He, like she, was a very nice person.

“What’s the matter, Mike?”

Polchik looked out the window of the diner. Brillo was standing directly under a neon street lamp. He couldn’t bear it from here, but he was sure the thing was buzzing softly to itself (with the sort of sound an electric watch makes).

“Him.”

“That?” The waitress looked past him. “Uh-uh. Him.”

“What is it?”

“My shadow.”

“Mike, you okay? Try the pie, huh? Maybe a scoop of nice vanilla ice cream on top.”

“Onita, please. Just a cuppa coffee, I’m fine. I got problems.” He stared down at his plate again.

She looked at him for a moment longer, worried, then turned and returned the pie on its plate to the empty space behind the smudged glass of the display case. “You want fresh?” she asked.

When he didn’t answer, she shrugged and came back, using the coffee siphon on the portable cart to refill his cup.

She lounged behind the counter, watching her friend, Mike Polchik, as he slowly drank his coffee; and every few minutes he’d look out at that metal thing on the corner under the streetlamp. She was a nice person.

When he rose from the booth and came to the counter, she thought he was going to apologize, or speak to her, or something, but all he said was, “You got my check?”

“What check?”

“Come on.”

“Oh, Mike, for Christ’s sake, what’s wrong with you?”

“I want to pay the check, you mind?”

“Mike, almost – what – five years you been eating here, you ever been asked to pay a check?”

Polchik looked very tired. “Tonight I pay the check. Come on…I gotta get back on the street. He’s waiting.”

There was a strange took in his eyes and she didn’t want to ask which “he” Polchik meant. She was afraid he meant the metal thing out there. Onita, a very nice person, didn’t like strange, new things that waited under neon streetlamps. She hastily wrote out a check and slid it across the plasteel to him. He pulled change from a pocket, paid her, turned, seemed to remember something, turned back, added a tip, then swiftly left the diner.

She watched through the glass as he went up to the metal thing. Then the two of them walked away, Mike leading, the thing following.

Onita made fresh. It was a good thing she had done it so many times she could do it by reflex, without thinking. Hot coffee scalds are very painful.

At the corner, Polchik saw a car weaving toward the intersection. A Ford Electric: convertible, four years old. Still looked flashy. Top down. He could see a bunch of long-haired kids inside. He couldn’t tell the girls from the boys. It bothered him.

Polchik stopped. They weren’t going fast, but the car was definitely weaving as it approached the intersection. The warrior-lizard, he thought. It was almost an unconscious directive. He’d been a cop long enough to react to the little hints, the flutters, the inclinations. The hunches.

Polchik stepped out from the curb, unshipped his gumball from the bandolier and flashed the red light at the driver. The car slowed even more; now it was crawling.

“Pull it over, kid!” he shouted.

For a moment he thought they were ignoring him, that the driver might not have heard him, that they’d try and make a break for it…that they’d speed up and sideswipe him. But the driver eased the car to the curb and stopped.

Then he slid sidewise, pulled up his legs and crossed them neatly at the ankles. On the top of the dashboard.

Polchik walked around to the driver’s side. “Turn it off. Everybody out.“

There were six of them. None of them moved. The driver closed his eyes slowly, then tipped his Irkutsk fur hat over his eyes till it rested on the bridge of his nose. Polchik reached into the car and turned it off. He pulled the keys…

“Hey! Whuzzis allabout?” one of the kids in the back seat – a boy with terminal acne – complained. His voice began and ended on a whine. Polchik re-stuck the gumball.

The driver looked up from under the fur. “Wasn’t breaking any laws.” He said each word very slowly, very distinctly, as though each one was on a printout

And Polchik knew he’d been right. They were on the lizard.

He opened the door, free hand hanging at the needler. “Out. All of you, out.”

Then he sensed Brillo lurking behind him, in the middle of the street. Good. Hope a damned garbage truck hits him.

He was getting mad. That wasn’t smart. Carefully, be said, “Don’t make me say it again. Move it!”

He lined them up on the sidewalk beside the car, in plain sight. Three girls, three guys. Two of the guys with long, stringy hair and the third with a scalplock. The three girls wearing tammy cuts. All six sullen-faced, drawn, dark smudges under the eyes. The lizard. But good clothes, fairly new. He couldn’t just hustle them, he had to be careful.

“Okay, one at a time, empty your pockets and pouches onto the hood of the car.”

“Hey, we don’t haveta do that just because…”

“Do it!”

“Don’t argue with the pig,” one of the girls said, lizardspacing her words carefully. “He’s probably trigger happy.”

Brillo rolled up to Polchik. “It is necessary to have a probable cause clearance from the precinct in order to search, sir.”

“Not on a stop’n’frisk,” Polchik snapped, not taking his eyes off them. He had no time for nonsense with the can of cogs. He kept his eyes on the growing collection of chits, change, code-keys, combs, nail files, toke pipes and miscellania being dumped on the Ford’s hood.

“There must be grounds for suspicion even in a spot search action, sir,” Brillo said.

“There’s grounds. Narcotics.”

“‘Nar…you must be outtayer mind,” said the one boy who slurred his words. He was working something other than the lizard.

“That’s a pig for you,” said the girl who had made the trigger happy remark.

“Look,” Polchik said, “you snots aren’t from around here. Odds are good if I run b&b tests on you, we’ll find you’re under the influence of the lizard.”

“Heyyyy!” the driver said. “The what?”

“Warrior-lizard,” Polchik said.

“Oh, ain’t he the jive thug,” the smartmouth girl said. “He’s a word user. I’ll bet he knows all the current rage phrases. A philologist. I’ll bet he knows all the solecisms and colloquialisms, catch phrases, catachreses, nicknames and vulgarisms. The ‘warrior-lizard,’ indeed.”

Damned college kids, Polchik fumed inwardly. They always try to make you feel stupid; I coulda gone to college – if I didn’t have to work. Money, they probably always had money. The little bitch.

The driver giggled. “Are you trying to tell me, Mella, my dear, that this Peace Officer is accusing us of being under the influence of the illegal Bolivian drug commonly called Guerrera-Tuera?” He said it with pinpointed scorn, pronouncing the Spanish broadly: gwuh-rare-uh too-err-uh.

Brillo said, “Reviewing my semantic tapes, sir, I find no analogs for ‘Guerrera-Tuera’ as ‘warrior-lizard.’ True, guerrero in Spanish means warrior, but the closest spelling I find is the feminine noun guerra. which translates as war. Neither guerrera’ nor tuera appear in the Spanish language. If tuera is a species of lizard, I don’t seem to find it –“

Polchik had listened dumbly. The weight on his shoulders was monstrous. All of them were on him. The kids, that lousy stinking robot – they were making fun, such fun, such damned fun of him! “Keep digging,” he directed them. He was surprised to hear his words emerge as a series of croaks.

“And blood and breath tests must be administered, sir – ”

“Stay the hell outta this!”

“We’re on our way home from a party,” said the boy with the scalplock, who had been silent till then. “We took a short-cut and got lost.”

“Sure,” Polchik said. “In the middle of Manhattan, you got lost.” He saw a small green bottle dumped out of the last girl’s pouch. She was trying to push it under other items. “What’s that?”

“Medicine,” she said. Quickly. Very quickly. Everyone tensed.

“Let me see it.” His voice was even.

He put out his hand for the bottle, but all six watched his other hand, hanging beside the needler. Hesitantly, the girl picked the bottle out of the mass of goods on the car’s hood, and handed him the plastic container.

Brillo said, “I am equipped with chemical sensors and reference tapes in my memory bank enumerating common narcotics. I can analyze the suspected medicine.”

The six stared wordlessly at the robot. They seemed almost afraid to acknowledge its presence.

Polchik handed the plastic bottle to the robot.

Brillo depressed a color-coded key on a bank set flush into his left forearm, and a panel that hadn’t seemed to be there a moment before slid down in the robot’s chest. He dropped the plastic bottle into the opening and the panel slid up. He stood and buzzed.

“You don’t have to open the bottle?” Polchik asked.

“No, sir.”

“Oh.”

The robot continued buzzing. Polchik felt stupid, just standing and watching. After a few moments the kids began to smirk, then to grin, then to chuckle openly, whispering among themselves. The smartmouthed girl giggled viciously. Polchik felt fifteen years old again; awkward, pimply, the butt of secret jokes among the long-legged high school girls in their miniskirts who had been so terrifyingly aloof he had never even considered asking them out. He realized with some shame that he despised these kids with their money, their cars, their flashy clothes, their dope. And most of all, their assurance. He, Mike Polchik, had been working hauling sides of beef from the delivery trucks to his old man’s butcher shop while others were tooling around in their Electrics. He forced the memories from his mind and took out his anger and frustration on the metal idiot still buzzing beside him.

“Okay, okay, how long does it take you?”

“Tsk, tsk,” said the driver, and went cross-eyed. Polchik ignored him. But not very well.

“I am a mobile unit, sir. Experimental model 44. My parent mechanism – the Master Unit AA – at Universal Electronics laboratories is equipped to perform this function in under one minute.”

“Well, hurry it up. I wanna run these hairies in.”

“Gwuh-rare-uh too-er-uh,” the scalplock said in a nasty undertone.

There was a soft musical tone from inside the chest compartment, the plate slid down again, and the robot withdrew the plastic bottle. He handed it to the girl.

“Now whaddaya think you’re doing?”

“Analysis confirms what the young lady attested, sir. This is a commonly prescribed nose drop for nasal congestion and certain primary allergies.”

Polchik was speechless.

“You are free to go,” the robot said. “With our apologies. We are merely doing our jobs. Thank you.”

Polchik started to protest – he knew he was right – but the kids were already gathering up their belongings. He hadn’t even ripped the car, which was probably where they had it locked away. But he knew it was useless. He was the guinea pig in this experiment, not the robot. It was all painfully clear. He knew if he interfered, if he overrode the robot’s decision, it would only add to the cloud under which the robot had put him: short temper, taking a gift from a neighborhood merchant, letting the robot out-maneuver him in the apartment, false stop on Kyser…and now this. Suddenly, all Mike Polchik wanted was to go back, get out of harness, sign out, and go home to bed. Wet carpets and all. Just to bed.

Because if these metal things were what was coming, he was simply too tired to buck it.

He watched as the kids – hooting and ridiculing his impotency – piled back in the car, the girls showing their legs as they clambered over the side. The driver bummed polyglas speeding up Amsterdam Avenue. In a moment they were gone.

“You see, Officer Polchik,” Brillo said, “false arrest would make us both liable for serious – ” But Polchik was already walking away, his shoulders slumped, the weight of his bandolier and five years on the force too much for him.

The robot (making the sort of sound an electric watch makes) hummed after him, keeping stern vigil on the darkened neighborhood in the encroaching dawn. He could not compute despair. But he had been built to serve. He was programmed to protect, and he did it, all the way back to the precinct house.

Polchik was sitting at a scarred desk in the squad room, laboriously typing out his report on a weary IBM Selectric afflicted with grand mal. Across the room Reardon poked at the now-inert metal bulk of Brillo, using some sort of power tool with a teardrop-shaped lamp on top of it. The Mayor’s whiz kid definitely looked sandbagged. He don’t go without sleep very often, Polchik thought with grim satisfaction.

The door to Captain Summit’s office opened, and the Captain, looking oceanic and faraway, waved him in.

“Here it comes,” Polchik whispered to himself. Summit let Polchik pass him in the doorway. He closed the door and indicated the worn plastic chair in front of the desk. Polchik sat down. “I’m not done typin’ the beat report yet, Capt’n.”

Summit ignored the comment. He moved over to the desk, picked up a yellow printout flimsy, and stood silently for a moment in front of Polchik, considering it.

“Accident report out of the 86th precinct uptown. Six kids in a Ford Electric convertible went out of control, smashed down a pedestrian and totaled against the bridge abutment. Three dead, three critical-not expected to live. Fifteen minutes after you let them go.”

Dust.

Dried out.

Ashes.

Gray. Final.

Polchik couldn’t think. Tired. Confused. Sick. Six kids. Now they were kids, just kids, nothing else made out of old bad memories.

“One of the girls went through the windshield. D.O.A. Driver got the steering column punched out through his back. Another girl with a snapped neck. Another girl – ”

He couldn’t hear him. He was somewhere else, faraway. Kids. Laughing, smartmouth kids having a good time. Benjy would be that age some day. The carpets were all wet.

“Mike!”

He didn’t hear.

“Mike! Polchik!”

He looked up. There was a stranger standing in front of him holding a yellow flimsy.

“Well, don’t just sit there, Polchik. You had them! Why’d you let them go?”

“The…Lizard…”

“That’s right, that’s what five of them were using. Three beakers of it in the car. And a dead cat on the floor and all the makings wrapped in foam-bead bags. You’d have had to be blind to miss it all!”

“The robot…”

Summit turned away with disgust, slamming the report onto the desktop. He thumbed the call-button. When Desk Sergeant Loyo came in, he said, “Take him upstairs and give him a breather of straightener, let him lie down for half an hour, then bring him back to me.”

Loyo got Polchik under the arms and took him out. Then the Captain turned off the office lights and sat silently in his desk chair, watching the night die just beyond the filthy windows.

“Feel better?”

“Yeah; thank you, Capt’n. I’m fine.”

“You’re back with me all the way? You understand what I’m saying?”

“Yeah, sure, I’m just fine, sir. It was just…those kids…I felt.”

“So why’d you let them go? I’ve got no time to baby you, Polchik. You’re five years a cop and I’ve got all the brass in town outside that door waiting. So get right.”

“I’m right, Capt’n. I let them go because the robot took the stuff the girl was carrying, and be dumped it in his thing there, and told me it was nosedrops.”

“Not good enough, Mike.”

“What can I say besides that?”

“Well, dammit Officer Polchik, you damned well better say something besides that. You know they run that stuff right into the skull, you’ve been a cop long enough to see it, to hear it the way they talk! Why’d you let them custer you?”

“What was I going to run them in for? Carrying nosedrops? With that motherin’ robot reciting civil rights chapter-an’-verse at me every step of the way? Okay, so I tell the robot to go screw off, and I bust ‘em and bring ‘em in. In an hour they’re out again and I’ve got a false arrest lug dropped on me. Even if it ain’t nosedrops. And they can use the robot’s goddam tapes to hang me up by the thumbs!”

Summit dropped back into his chair, sack weight. His face was a burned-out building. “So we’ve got three, maybe six kids dead. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” He shook his head.

Polchik wanted to make him feel better. But how did you do that? “Listen, Capt’n, you know I would of had those kids in here so fast it’d’of made their heads swim… if I’d’ve been on my own. That damned robot…well, it just didn’t work out. Capt’n, I’m not trying to alibi, it was godawful out there, but you were a beat cop…you know a cop ain’t a set of rules and a pile of wires. Guys like me just can’t work with things like that Brillo. It won’t work, Capt’n. A guy’s gotta be free to use his judgment, to feel like he’s worth somethin’, not just a piece of sh – ”

Summit’s head came up sharply. “Judgment?!” He looked as though he wanted to vomit. “What kind of judgment are you showing with that Rico over at the Amsterdam Inn? And all of it on the tapes, sound, pictures, everything?!”

“Oh. That.”

“Yes, that. You’re damned lucky I insisted those tapes get held strictly private, for the use of the Force only. I had to invoke privileged data. Do you have any idea how many strings that puts on me, on this office now, with the Chief, with the Commissioner, with the goddam Mayor? Do you have any idea, Polchik?”

“No, sir. I’m sorry.” Chagrin.

“Sorry doesn’t buy it, goddamit! I don’t want you taking any juice from anywhere. No bottles, no gifts, no nothing, not from anybody. Have you got that?”

“Yessir.”

Wearily, Summit persisted. “It’s tough enough to do a job here without having special graft investigations and the D.A.’s squad sniffing all over the precinct. Jesus, Polchik, do you have any idea…!” He stopped, looked levelly at the patrolman and said, “One more time and you’re out on your ass. Not set down, not reprimanded, not docked – out. All the way out. Kapish?”

Polchik nodded; his back was broken.

“I’ve got to set it right.”

“What, sir?”

“You, that’s what.”

Polchik waited. A pendulum was swinging.

“I’ll have to think about it. But if it hadn’t been for the five good years you’ve given me here, Polchik…well, you’ll be getting punishment, but I don’t know just what yet.”

“Uh, what’s gonna happen with the robot?” Summit got to his feet slowly; mooring a dirigible. “Come on outside and you’ll see.”

Polchik followed him to the door, where the Captain paused. He looked closely into Polchik’s face and said, “Tonight has been an education, Mike.”

There was no answer to that one.

They went into the front desk room. Reardon still had his head stuck into Brillo’s open torso cavity, and the whiz kid was standing tiptoed behind him, peering over the engineer’s shoulder. As they entered the ready room, Reardon straightened and clicked off the lamp on the power tool. He watched Summit and Polchik as they walked over to Chief Santorini. Summit murmured to the Chief for a moment, then Santorini nodded and said, “We’ll talk tomorrow, then.”

He started toward the front door, stopped and said, “Good night, gentlemen. It’s been a long night. I’ll be in touch with your offices tomorrow.” He didn’t wait for acknowledgment; he simply went.

Reardon turned around to face Summit. He was waiting for words. Even the whiz kid was starting to come alive again. The silent FBI man rose from the bench (as far as Polchik could tell, he hadn’t changed position all the time they’d been gone on patrol) and walked toward the group.

Reardon said, “Well…” His voice trailed off. The pendulum was swinging.

“Gentlemen,” said the Captain, “I’ve advised Chief Santorini I’ll be writing out a full report to be sent downtown. My recommendations will more than likely decide whether or not these robots will be added to our Force.”

“Grass roots level opinion, very good, Captain, very good,” said the whiz kid. Summit ignored him.

“But I suppose I ought to tell you right now my recommendations will be negative. As far as I’m concerned, Mr. Reardon, you still have a long way to go with your machine.”

“But, I thought – ”

“It did very well,”‘ Summit said, “don’t get me wrong. But I think it’s going to need a lot more flexibility and more knowledge of the police officer’s duties before it can be of any real aid in our work.”

Reardon was angry, but trying to control it. “I programmed the entire patrolman’s manual, and all the City codes, and the Supreme Court – ”

Summit stopped him with a raised hand. “Mr. Reardon, that’s the least of a police officer’s knowledge. Anybody can read a rule book. But how to use those rules, how to make those rules work in the street, that takes more than programming. It takes, well, it takes training. And experience. It doesn’t come easily. A cop isn’t a set of rules and a pile of wires.”

Polchik was startled to hear his words. He knew it would be okay. Not as good as before, but at least okay.

Reardon was furious now. And he refused to be convinced. Or perhaps he refused to allow the Mayor’s whiz kid and the FBI man to be so easily convinced. He had worked too long and at too much personal cost to his career to let it go that easily. He hung onto it. “But merely training shouldn’t put you off the X-44 completely!”

The Captain’s face tensed around the mouth. “Look, Mr. Reardon, I’m not very good at being politic – which is why I’m still a Captain, I suppose – ” The whiz kid gave him a be-careful look, but the Captain went on. “But it isn’t merely training. This officer is a good one. He’s bright, he’s on his toes, he maybe isn’t Sherlock Holmes but he knows the feel of a neighborhood, the smell of it, the heat level. He knows every August we’re going to get the leapers and the riots and some woman’s head cut off and dumped in a mailbox mailed C.O.D. to Columbus, Ohio. He knows when there’s racial tension in our streets. He knows when those poor slobs in the tenements have just had it. He knows when some new kind of vice has moved in. But he made more mistakes out there tonight than a rookie. Five years walking and riding that beat, he’s never foulballed the way he did tonight. Why? I’ve got to ask why? The only thing different was that machine of yours. Why? Why did Mike Polchik foulball so bad? He knew those kids in that car should have been run in for b&b or naline tests. So why, Mr. Reardon…why?”

Polchik felt lousy. The Captain was more worked up than he’d ever seen him. But Polchik stood silently, listening; standing beside the silent, listening FBI man.

Brillo merely stood silently. Turned off.

Then why did he still hear that robot buzzing?

“It isn’t rules and regs, Mr. Reardon.” The Captain seemed to have a lot more to come. “A moron can learn those. But how do you evaluate the look on a man’s face that tells you he needs a fix? How do you gauge the cultural change in words like ‘custer’ or ‘grass’ or ‘high’ or ‘pig’? How do you know when not to bust a bunch of kids who’ve popped a hydrant so they can cool off? How do you program all of that into a robot…and know that it’s going to change from hour to hour?”

“We can do it! It’ll take time, but we can do it… The Captain nodded slowly. “Maybe you can.”

“I know we can.”

“Okay, I’d even go for that. Let’s say you can. Let’s say you can get a robot that’ll act like a human being and still be a robot…because that’s what we’re talking about here. There’s still something else.”

“Which is?”

“People, Mr. Reardon. People like Polchik here. I asked you why Polchik foulballed, why he made such a bum patrol tonight that I’m going to have to take disciplinary action against him for the first time in five years…so I’ll tell you why, Mr. Reardon, about people like Polchik here. They’re still afraid of machines, you know. We’ve pushed them and shoved them and lumbered them with machines till they’re afraid the next clanking item down the pike is going to put them on the bread line. So they don’t want to cooperate. They don’t do it on purpose. They may not even know they’re doing it, hell, I don’t think Polchik knew what was happening, why he was falling over his feet tonight. You can get a robot to act like a human being, Mr. Reardon. Maybe you’re right and you can do it, just like you said. But how the hell are you going to get humans to act like robots and not be afraid of machines?”

Reardon looked as whipped as Polchik felt. “May I leave Brillo here till morning? I’ll have a crew come over from the labs and pick him up.”

“Sure,” the Captain said, “he’ll be fine right there against the wall. The Desk Sergeant’ll keep an eye on him.” To Loyo he said, “Sergeant, instruct your relief.”

Loyo smiled and said, “Yessir.”

Summit looked back at Reardon and said. “I’m sorry.”

Reardon smiled wanly, and walked out. The whiz kid wanted to say something, but too much had already been said, and the Captain looked through him. “I’m pretty tired, Mr. Kenzie. How about we discuss it tomorrow after I’ve seen the Chief’?”

The whiz kid scowled, turned and stalked out.

The Captain sighed heavily. “Mike, go get signed out and go home. Come see me tomorrow. Late.” He nodded to the FBI man, who still had not spoken; then he went away.

The robot stood where Reardon had left him. Silent.

Polchik went upstairs to the locker room to change.

Something was bothering him. But he couldn’t nail it down.

When he came back down into the muster room, the FBI man was just racking the receiver on the desk blotter phone. “Leaving?” he asked. It was the first thing Polchik had heard him say. It was a warm brown voice.

“Yeah. Gotta go home. I’m whacked out.”

“Can’t say I blame you. I’m a little tired myself. Need a lift?”

“No thanks,” Polchik said. “I take the subway. Two blocks from the house.” They walked out together. Polchik thought about the wet carpets waiting. They stood on the front steps for a minute, breathing in the chill morning air, and Polchik said, “I feel kinda sorry for that chunk of scrap now. He did a pretty good job.”

“But not good enough,” the FBI man added. Polchik felt suddenly very protective about the inert form against the wall in the precinct house. “Oh, I dunno. He saved me from getting clobbered, you wanna know the truth. Tell me…you think they’ll ever build a robot that’ll cut it?”

The FBI man lit a cigarette, blew smoke in a thin stream, and nodded. “Yeah. Probably. But it’ll have to be a lot more sophisticated than old Brillo in there.”

Polchik looked back through the doorway. The robot stood alone, looking somehow helpless. Waiting for rust. Polchik thought of kids, all kinds of kids, and when he was a kid. It must be hell, he thought, being a robot. Getting turned off when they don’t need you no more.

Then he realized he could still hear that faint electrical buzzing. The kind a watch makes. He cast a quick glance at the FBI man but, trailing cigarette smoke, he was already moving toward his car, parked directly in front of the precinct house. Polchik couldn’t tell if he was wearing a watch or not.

He followed the government man. ‘The trouble with Brillo,” the FBI man said, “is that Reardon’s facilities were too limited. But I’m sure there are other agencies working on it. They’ll lick it one day.” He snapped the cigarette into the gutter.

“Yeah, sure,” Polchik said. The FBI man unlocked the car door and pulled it. It didn’t open.

“Damn it!” he said. “Government pool issue. Damned door always sticks.” Bunching his muscles, he suddenly wrenched at it with enough force to pop it open. Polchik stared. Metal had ripped.

“You take care of yourself now, y’hear?” the FBI man said, getting into the car. He flipped up the visor with its OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT BUSINESS card tacked to it, and slid behind the steering wheel.

The car settled heavily on its springs, as though a ton of lead had just been dumped on the front seat. He slammed the door. It was badly sprung.

“Too bad we couldn’t use him,” the FBI man said, staring out of the car at Brillo, illuminated through the precinct house doorway. “But…too crude.”

“Yeah, sure, I’ll take care of myself,” Polchik replied, one exchange too late. He felt his mouth hanging open.

The FBI man grinned, started the car, and pulled away.

Polchik stood in the street, for a while.

Sometimes he stared down the early morning street in the direction the FBI man had taken.

Sometimes he stared at the metal cop immobile in the muster room.

And even as the sounds of the city’s new day rose around him, he was not at all certain he did not still hear the sound of an electric watch. Getting louder.

JEAN DUPRES

Gordon R. Dickson

The way I met Jean Dupres for the first time, I was on independent patrol with a squad of six men, spread out, working through the green tangle of the Utword jungle. I came up to the edge of a place where the jungle was cut off sharp, and looked through the last screen of scroll-edged, eight-foot ferns at a little room of pounded earth, the vestibule of a larger, planted field I could see beyond. Near the opening in the larger field sat a riding macerator with no one in its saddle; and right before me—not five feet beyond the ferns—a boy not more than four years old stood leaning on a rifle that was such a good imitation of the real thing that I could hardly believe that it was a fake.

Then I saw it was not a fake.

I went through the last screen of ferns with a rush and took the gun away from the boy even as he tried to swing it to his shoulder. He stood staring at me, blinking and bewildered, trying to make up his mind whether to cry or not; and I looked the rifle over. It was a DeBaraumer, capable of hurling out anything and everything, from a wire-control rocket slug to any handy pebble small enough to rattle through its bore.

“Where did you get this?” I asked him. He had decided not to cry and he looked up at me with a white face and round, desperate eyes.

‘My daddy,” he said.

“Where’s your daddy at?”

Without taking his eyes off my face, he half-turned and pointed away through the opening into the larger field.

“All right,” I said. ‘We’ll go see him about this.” I unclipped the handmike from my belt and told my six men to close up and follow me in. Then I set my telemeter beacon and turned to go with the boy to find his daddy—and I stopped dead.

For there were two of the Klahari young men standing just inside the edge of the small clearing about twenty feet off. They must have been there before I stepped through the last ferns myself, because my scanner would have picked them up if they had been moving. They were seniors, full seven feet tall, with their skins so green that they would have been invisible against the jungle background if it hadn’t been for the jewels and weapons and tall feather headdresses.

When you were this close it was obvious that they were humanoid but not human. There were knifelike bony ridges on the outer edge of their fore and upper arms, and bony plates on their elbows. Their hands looked attenuated and thin because of the extra joint in their fingers. Although they were hairless their greenish-black crests were rising and quivering a bit. Whether from alarm or just excitement I couldn’t tell. They were nothing to bother me, just two of them and out in the open that way—but it gave me a shock, realizing they’d been standing there listening and watching while I took the gun from the boy and then talked to him.

They made no move now, as I nudged the boy and started with him out of the clearing past them. Their eyes followed us; but it was not him, or me either, they were watching. It was the DeBaraumer. And that, of course, was why I’d jumped like I had to get the weapon away from the boy.

We came out on to a plowed field and saw a planter’s home and buildings about six hundred yards off, looking small and humped and black under the bright white dazzle of the pinhole in the sky that was Achernar, old Alpha Eridani. The contact lenses on my eyes had darkened up immediately, and I looked at the boy, for he was too young to wear contacts safely—but he had already pulled a pair of goggles down off his sun-cap to cover his eyes.

“I’m Corporal Tofe Levenson, of the Rangers,” I said to him as we clumped over the furrows. ‘What’s your name?”

“Jean Dupres,” he said, pronouncing it something like “Zjon Du-pray.”

We came finally up to the house, and the door opened while we were still a dozen paces off. A tall, brown-haired woman with a smooth face looked out, shading her eyes against the sunlight in spite of the darkening of her contacts.

“Jean…” she said, pronouncing it the way the boy had. I heard a man’s voice inside the house saying something I could not understand, and then we were at the doorway. She stood aside to let us through and shut the door after us. I stepped into what seemed to be a kitchen. There was a planter at a table spooning some sort of soup into his mouth out of a bowl. He was a round-headed, black-haired, heavy-shouldered type, but I saw how the boy resembled him.

“Corporal—?” he said, staring at me with the spoon halfway to the dish. He dropped it into the dish. “They’re gathered! They’re raiding—”

“Sit down,” I said, for he was half on his feet. “There’s no more than four Klahari young men for ten kilometers in any direction from here.” He sat down and looked unfriendly.

“Then what’re you doing here? Scaring a man—”

“This.” I showed him the DeBaraumer. “Your boy had it.”

“Jean?” His unfriendly look deepened. “He was standing guard.”

“And you in here?”

“Look.” He thought for a minute. “Corporal, you got no business in this. This is my family, my place.”

“And your gun,” I said. “How many guns like this have you got?”

“Two.” He was out-and-out scowling now.

“Well, if I hadn’t come along, you’d have only had one. There were two Klahari seniors out by your boy—with their eyes on it.”

“That’s what he’s got to learn—to shoot them when they get close.”

“Sure,” I said. “Mr. Dupres, how many sons have you got?”

He stared at me. All this time, it suddenly struck me, the woman had been standing back, saying nothing, her hands twisted up together in the apron she was wearing.

“One!” she said now; and the way she said it went right through me.

“Yeah,” I said, still looking at Dupres. “Well, now listen. I’m not just a soldier, I’m a peace officer, as you know. There’s laws here on Utword, even if you don’t see the judges and courts very often. So, I’m putting you on notice. There’ll be no more letting children handle lethal weapons like this DeBaraumer; and I’ll expect you to avoid exposing your son to danger from the Klahari without you around to protect him.” I stared hard at him. “If I hear of any more like that I’ll haul you up in Regional Court, and that’ll mean a week and a half away from your fields; even if the judge lets you off—which he won’t.”

I understood him all right. He was up out of the chair, apologizing in a second; and after that he couldn’t be nice enough.

When my squad came in he insisted we all stay to dinner and put himself out to be pleasant, not only to us, but to his wife and boy. And that was that, except for one little thing that happened, near the end of dinner.

We’d been comparing notes on the Klahari, of course, on how they’re different from men; and the boy had been silent all through it. But then, in a moment’s hush in the talk, we heard him asking his mother, almost timidly… “Mama, will I be a man when I grow up?—or a Klahari?”

“Jean—” she began, but her husband—his name was Pelang, I remembered and hers was Elmire, both of them Canadian French from around Lac St, John in Quebec, Canada, back home—interrupted her. He sat back in his chair, beaming and rubbing the hard fat of his belly-swell under his white glass shirt, and took the conversation away from her.

“And what would you like to be then, Jean?” he asked. “A man or a Klahari?” and he winked genially at the rest of us.

The boy concentrated. I could see him thinking, or picturing rather, the people he knew—his mother, his father, himself, struggling with this macerated earth reclaimed from the jungle—and the Klahari he had seen, especially the senior ones, slipping free through the jungle, flashing with jewels and feathers, tall, dark and powerful.

“A Klahari,” Jean Dupres said finally.

“Klahari!” His father shouted the word, jerking upright in his chair; and the boy shrank. But just then Pelang Dupres must have remembered his guests, and caught himself up with a black scowl at Jean. Then the man tried to pass it off with a laugh.

“Klahari!” he said. ‘Well, what can you expect? He’s a child. Eh? We don’t mind children!” But then he turned savagely on the boy, nonetheless. “You’d want to be one of those who’d kill us—who’d take the bread out of your mother’s mouth—and your father’s?”

His wife came forward and put her arms around the boy and drew him off away from the table.

“Come with me now, Jean,” she said; and I did not see the boy again before we left.

As we did leave, as we were outside the house checking equipment before moving off, Pelang was on the house steps watching us, and he stepped up to me for a moment.

“It’s for him—for Jean, you understand, Corporal,” he said, and his eyes under the darkened contact glasses were asking a favor of me. “This place—” he waved an arm at cleared fields. “I won’t live long enough for it to pay me for my hard work. But hell be rich, someday. You understand?”

“Yeah. Just stay inside the law,” I said. I called the men together and we moved out in skirmish order into the jungle on the far side of the house. Later, it came to me that maybe I had been a little hard on Pelang.

I didn’t pass by that area again that season. When I did come by at the beginning of next season I had a squad of green recruits with me. I left them well out of sight and went and looked in from behind the fringe of the jungle, without letting myself be seen. Pelang was seeding for his second crop of the season, and Jean, grown an inch or so, was standing guard with the DeBaraumer again. I went on without interfering. If Pelang would not give up his ways on the threat of being taken in, there was no point in taking him in. He would simply pay his fine, hate me, and the whole family would suffer, because of the time he was absent from the planting and the place. You can do only so much with people, or for them.

Besides, I had my hands full with my own job. In spite of what I had told Pelang, my real job was being a soldier, and my work was not riding herd on the planters, but riding herd on the Klahari. And that work was getting heavier as the seasons approached the seventeen-year full-cycle period.

My squad had broken out mealpaks and were so involved in eating that I walked up on them without their being aware of it.

“And you want to be Rangers,” I said. “You’ll never live past this cycle.”

They jumped and looked guilty. Innocents. And I had to make fighting men out of them.

“What cycle?” one of them asked. All of them were too young to have remembered the last time it came around. “That and more. You are going to have to understand the Klahari. Or die. And not just hate them. There is nothing evil in what they do. Back on Earth, even we had the Jivaros, the headhunting Indians of the Amazon River. And the Jivaro boys were lectured daily while they were growing up. They were told that it was not merely all right to kill their enemies, it was upstanding, it was honorable, it was the greatest act they could aspire to as men. This code came out of the very jungle in which they were born and raised—and as it was part of them, so the way of the Klahari young men is out of their world and part of them, likewise.

“They were born outside of this jungle, well beyond tne desert. They were raised in cities that have a civilization just above the steam-engine level, boys and girls together until they were about nine years old. Then the girls stayed where they were and started learning the chores of housekeeping the cities. But the nine-year-old Klahari boys were pushed out to fend for themselves in the desert.

“Out there, it was help one another or perish. The boys formed loose bands or tribes and spent about three years keeping themselves alive and helping each other stay alive. Their life was one of almost perfect brotherhood. In the desert, their problem was survival and they shared every drop of water and bite of food they could find. They were one for all and all for one, and at this age they were, literally, emotionally incapable of violence or selfishness.

“At about twelve or thirteen, they began to grow out of this incapability, and look toward the jungle. There it was, right alongside their sandy wastes with nothing to stop them entering it—nothing except the older Klahari from age thirteen to seventeen. At this stage the young Klahari males shoot up suddenly from five to about six and a half feet tall, then grow more gradually for the remaining four years in the jungle. And, from the moment they enter the jungle, every other Klahari boy is potentially a mortal enemy. In the jungle, food and drink are available for the reaching out of a hand; and there is nothing to worry about—except taking as many other lives as possible while hanging on to your own.”

“Klahari lives,” a worried Ranger protested. “Why should they trouble us?”

“Why shouldn’t they? It’s eat or be eaten. They even join into groups, of up to a dozen, once they get older and more jungle-experienced. In this way they can take single strays and smaller groups. This works well enough—except they have to watch their backs at all times among their own group-members. There are no rules. This jungle is no-man’s-land. Which was why the Klahari did not object to humans settling here, originally. We were simply one more test for their maturing young men, trying to survive until manhood, so they can get back into the cities.”

They digested this and they didn’t like it. Jen, the brightest in the squad, saw the connection at once.

“Then that makes us humans fair game as well?”

“Right. Which is why this squad is out here in the jungle. Our job is simply that of a cop in a rough neighborhood—to roust and break up Klahari bands of more than a half-dozen together at once. The young Klahari know that their clubs, crossbows and lances are no match for rifles, and there has to be at least a half dozen of them together before they are liable to try assaulting a house or attacking a planter in his fields. So the arrangement with planters, soldier squads and Klahari is all neat and tidy most of the time—in fact all of the time except for one year out of every seventeen that makes up a generation for them. Because, once a generation, things pile up.

“It’s the five-year Klahari that cause it. Post-seniors some people call them, as we call the younger Klahari freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors, according to the number of years they have been off the desert and in the jungle. Post-seniors are Klahari who are old enough to go back to the cities and be allowed in—but are hesitating about it. They are Klahari who are wondering if they might not prefer it being top dog in the jungle to starting out on the bottom again, back in the cities. They are Klahari toying with the idea of settling down for life in the jungles and their impulse to kill any other Klahari is damped by maturity and experience. They, unlike those of the first four years of jungle experience, are capable of trusting each other to gather in large bands with a combined purpose—to seize and hold permanently areas of the jungle as private kingdoms.”

They were listening closely now—and no one was smiling.

“In the old days, before we humans came, this process once a seventeen-year generation would end inevitably in pitched wars between large bands largely composed of post-seniors. These wars disposed of the genetic variants among the Klahari, and got rid of those who might have interrupted the age-old, cities-desert-jungle-cities-again pattern of raising the Klahari males and eliminating the unfit of each generation. Before we came, everything was tidy. But with us humans now in the jungle, the post-seniors in their bands every seventeen years turn most naturally against us.”

My talk had some good effect because the ones who stayed on made good Rangers. They knew what they were doing—and why.

One season followed another and I had my hands full by the time I saw young Jean Dupres again. My squad of six men had grown by that time to a platoon of twenty, because we were now closing the second and final season of the sixteenth year of the cycle and we were having to break up Klahari gangs of as many as fifty in a group. Not only that, but we had the cheerful thought always with us that, with the post-seniors running things, most of the groups we broke up were re-forming again, the minute we’d passed on.

It was time to begin trying to hustle the planters and their families back into our Regional Installations. Time to begin listening to their complaints that their buildings would be burned and leveled, and half their cleared land reclaimed by the jungle when they returned—which was perfectly true. Time to begin explaining to them why it was not practical to bring in an army from Earth every seventeen years to protect their land. And time to try to explain to them once again that we were squatters on a Klahari world, and it was against Earth policy to exterminate the natives and take over the planet entire, even if we could—which we could not. There were millions of the mature Klahari in the cities, and our technical edge wasn’t worth that much.

So by the time I came to the Dupres’ property, my patience was beginning to wear thin from turning the other cheek to the same bad arguments, dozens of times repeated. And that was bad. Because I knew Pelang Dupres would be one of the stubborn ones. I came up slowly and took a station just inside the ferns at the edge of one of his fields to look the place over—but what I saw was not Pelang, but Jean.

He was coming toward me, a good cautious thirty yards in, from the edge of the field this time, with his scanner hooked down over his eyes and that old, all-purpose blunderbuss of a DeBaraumer in his arms. Three years had stretched him out and leaned him up. Oddly, he looked more like his mother now—and something else. I squatted behind the ferns, trying to puzzle it out. And then it came to me. He was walking like a Klahari—in the cautious, precise way they have, swinging from ball of foot to ball of other foot with the body always bolt upright from the hips.

I stood up for a better look at him; and he was down on his belly on the earth in an instant, the DeBaraumer swinging to bear on the ferns in front of me, as my movement gave me away to his scanner. I dropped like a shot myself and whistled—for that is what the Klahari can’t do, whistle. The muscles in their tongue and lips won’t perform properly for it.

He stood up immediately; and I stood up and came out onto the field to meet him.

“You’re a sergeant,” he said, looking at my sleeve as I came up.”

“That’s right,” I said. “Sergeant Tofe Levenson of the Rangers. I was a corporal when you saw me last. You don’t remember?”

He frowned, puzzling it over in his mind, then shook his head. Meanwhile I was studying him. There was something strange about him. He was still a boy, but there was something different in addition—it was like seeing a seven-year-old child overlaid with the adult he’s going to be. As if the future man was casting his shadow back on his earlier self. The shadow was there in the way he carried the rifle, and in his stance and eyes.

“I’m here to see your daddy,” I said.

“He’s not here.”

“Not here!” I stared at him, but his face showed only a mild curiosity at my reaction. “Where is he?”

“He and my ma—mother”—he corrected himself—“went in to Strongpoint Hundred Fourteen for supplies. They’ll be back tomorrow.”

“You mean you’re here alone?”

“Yes,” he said, again with that faint puzzlement that I should find this odd, and turned back toward the buildings. “Come to the house. I’ll make you some coffee, Sergeant.”

I went to the house with him. To jog his memory, on the way I told him about my earlier visit. He thought he remembered me, but he could not be sure. When I spoke to him about the Klahari, I found he was quite aware of the danger they posed to him, but was as strangely undisturbed by it as if he had been a Klahari himself. I told him that I was here to warn his father to pack up his family and retire to the Strongpoint he was currently at for supplies—or, better yet, pull back to one of our base installations. I said that the post-senior Klahari were grouping and they might begin raiding the planters’ places in as little as three weeks’ time. Jean corrected me, gravely.

“Oh, no, Sergeant,” he said. “Not for the rest of this season.”

“Who told you that?” I said-snorted, perhaps. I was expecting to hear it had been his father’s word on the subject.

“The Klahari,” he said. “When I talk to them.”

I stared at him.

“You talk to them?” I said. He ducked his head, suddenly a little embarrassed, even a little guilty-looking.

“They come to the edge of the fields,” he said. “They want to talk to me.”

“Want to talk to you? To you? Why?”

“They…” He became even more guilty-looking. He would not meet my eyes, “want to know… things.”

“What things?”

“If…” he was miserable, “I’m a… man.”

All at once it broke on me. Of course, there could only be a few children like this boy, who had never seen Earth, who had been born here, and who were old enough by now to be out in the fields. And none of the other children would be carrying rifles—real ones. The natural assumption of the Klahari would of course be that they were young versions of human beings—except that in Jean’s case, to a Klahari there was one thing wrong with that. It was simply unthinkable—no, it was more than that; it was inconceivable—to a Klahari that anyone of Jean’s small size and obvious immaturity could carry a weapon. Let alone use it. At Jean’s age, as I told you, the Klahari thought only of brotherhood.

“What do you tell them?”

“That I’m… almost a man.” Jean’s eyes managed to meet mine at last and they were wretchedly apologetic for comparing himself with me, or with any other adult male of the human race. I saw his father’s one-track, unconsciously brutal mind behind that.

“Well,” I said harshly. “You almost are—anyone who can handle a scanner and a rifle like that.”

But he didn’t believe me. I could see from his eyes that he even distrusted me for telling such a bald-faced lie. He saw himself through Pelang’s eyes—DeBaraumer, scanner, and ability to talk with the Klahari notwithstanding.

It was time for me to go—there was no time to waste getting on to the next planter with my warnings. I did stay a few minutes longer to try and find out how he had learned to talk Klahari. But Jean had no idea. Somewhere along the line of growing up he had learned it—in the unconscious way of children that makes it almost impossible for them to translate word by word from one language to another. Jean thought in English, or he thought in Klahari. Where there were no equal terms, he was helpless. When I asked him why the Klahari said that their large bands would not form or attack until the end of the season, he was absolutely not able to tell me.

So I went on my way, preaching my gospel of warning, and skirmishing with the larger bands of Klahari I met, chivvying and breaking up the smaller ones. Finally I finished the swing through my district and got back to Regional Installation to find myself commissioned lieutenant and given command of a half company. I’d been about seventy percent successful in getting planters to pull back with their families into protected areas—the success being mainly with those who had been here more than seventeen years. But of those who hesitated, more were coming in every day to safety, as local raids stepped up.

However, Jean turned out to be right. It was the end of the season before matters finally came to a head with the natives—and then it happened all at once.

I was taking a shower at Regional Installation, after a tour, when the general alarm went. Two hours later I was deep in the jungle almost to the edge of the desert, with all my command and with only a fighting chance of ever seeing a shower again.

Because all we could do was retreat, fighting as we went. There had been a reason the Klahari explosion had held off until the end of the season—and that was that there never had been such an explosion to date. An interracial sociological situation such as we had on Utword was like a half-filled toy balloon. You squeezed it flat in one place and it bulged someplace else. The pressure our planters put on the maturing Klahari made the five-year ones, the post-seniors, organize as they had never needed or wanted to do before.

The number of our planters had been growing in the seventeen years since the last Klahari generation. Now it was no longer possible to ignore the opposition, obvious in the cleared fields and houses and Strongpoints, to any post-senior Klahari’s dream of a jungle kingdom.

So the Klahari had got together and made plans without bunching up. Then, all in one night, they formed. An army—well, if not an army, a horde—twenty to thirty thousand strong, moving in to overrun all signs of human occupancy in the jungle.

We, the human soldiers, retreated before them, like a thin skirmish line opposed to a disorganized, poorer armed, but unstoppable multitude. Man by man, sweating through the depths of that jungle, it was hardly different from a hundred previous skirmishes we’d had with individual bunches—except that the ones we killed seemed to spring to life to fight with us again, as ever-fresh warriors took their place. There would be a rush, a fight, and a falling back. The half an hour, or an hour perhaps, in which to breathe—and then another rush of dark forms, crossbow bolts and lances against us again. And so it went on. We were killing ten—twenty—to one, but we were losing men too.

Finally, our line grew too thin. We were back among the outermost planters’ places now, and we could no longer show a continuous front. We broke up into individual commands, falling back toward individual Strongpoints. Then the real trouble began—because the rush against us now would come not just from the front, but from front and both sides. We began to lose men faster.

We made up our ranks a little from the few planters we picked up as we retreated—those who had been fool enough not to leave earlier. Yes, and we got there too late to pick up other such fools, too. Not only men, but women as well, hacked into unrecognizability in the torn smoke-blackened ruins of their buildings.

… And so we came finally, I, the three soldiers and one planter who made up what was left of my command, to the place of Pelang Dupres.

I knew we were getting close to it, and I’d evolved a technique for such situations. We stopped and made a stand just short of the fields, still in the jungle. Then, when we beat back the Klahari close to it, we broke from the jungle and ran fast under the blazing white brilliance of distant Achernar, back toward the buildings across the open fields, black from the recent plowing.

The Klahari were behind us, and before us. There was a fight going on at the buildings, even as we ran up. We ran right into the midst of it; the whirl of towering, dark, naked, ornamented bodies, the yells and the screeches, the flying lances and crossbow bolts. Elmire Dupres had been dragged from the house and was dead when we reached her.

We killed some Klahari and the others ran—they were always willing to run, just as they were always sure to come back. Pelang seemed nowhere about the place. I shoved in through the broken doorway, and found the room filled with dead Klahari. Beyond them, Jean Dupres, alone, crouched in a corner behind a barricade of furniture, torn open at one end, the DeBaraumer sticking through the barricade, showing a pair of homemade bayonets welded to its barrel to keep Klahari hands from grabbing it and snatching it away. When he saw me, Jean jerked the rifle back and came fast around the end of the barricade.

“My mama—” he said. I caught him as he tried to go by and he fought me—suddenly and without a sound, with a purposefulness that multiplied his boy’s strength.

“Jean, no!” I said. “You don’t want to go out there!”

He stopped fighting me all at once.

It was so sudden, I thought for a moment it must be a trick to get me to relax so that he could break away again. And then, looking down, I saw that his face was perfectly calm, empty and resigned.

“She’s dead,” he said. The way he said them, the words were like an epitaph.

I let him go, warily. He walked soberly past me and out of the door. But when he got outside, one of my men had already covered her body with a drape a Klahari had been carrying off; and the body was hidden. He went over and looked down at the drape, but did not lift it. I walked up to stand beside him, trying to think of something to say. But, still with that strange calmness, he was ahead of me.

“I have to bury her,” he said, still evenly empty of voice. “Later we’ll send her home to Earth.”

The cost of sending a body back to Earth would have taken the whole Dupres farm as payment. But that was something I could explain to Jean later.

“I’m afraid we can’t wait to bury her, Jean,” I said. The Klahari are right behind us.”

“No,” he said, quietly. “We’ll have time. I’ll go tell them.”

He put the DeBaraumer down and started walking toward the nearest edge of the jungle. I was so shaken by the way he was taking it all that I let him go—and then I heard him talking in a high voice to the jungle; .words and sounds that seemed impossible even from a child’s throat In a few minutes he came back.

They’ll wait,” he said, as he approached me again. “They don’t want to be rude.”

So we buried Elmire Dupres, without her husband—who had gone that morning to a neighbor’s field—with never a tear from her son, and if I had not seen those piled Klahari dead in the living room before his barricade, I would have thought that Jean himself had had no connection with what had happened here. At first, I thought he was in shock. But it was not that. He was perfectly sensible and normal. It was just that his grief and the loss of his mother were somehow of a different order of things than what had happened here. Again it was like the Klahari, who are more concerned with why they die than when, or how.

We marked the grave and went on, fighting and falling back—and Jean Dupres fought right along with us. He was as good as one of my men any day—better, because he could move more quietly and he spotted the attacking Klahari before any of us. He had lugged the DeBaraumer along—I thought because of his long association with it. But it was only a weapon to him. He saw the advantage of our jungle rifles in lightness and firepower over it, almost at once—and the first of our men to be killed, he left the DeBaraumer lying and took the issue gun instead.

We were three men and a boy when we finally made it to the gates of Strongpoint Hundred Fourteen, and inside. There were no women there. The Strongpoint was now purely and simply a fort, high, blank walls and a single strong gate, staffed by the factor and the handful of local planters who had refused to leave before it was too late. They were here now, and here they would stay. So would we. There was no hope of our remnant of a band surviving another fifty kilometers of jungle retreat.

I left Jean and the men in the yard inside the gates and made a run for the factor’s office to put in a call to Regional Installation. One air transport could land here in half an hour and pick us all up, planters and my gang alike. It was then that I got the news.

I was put right through to the colonel of the Rangers before I could even ask why. He was a balding, pleasant man whom I’d never spoken three words to in my life before; and he put it plainly and simply, and as kindly as possible.

“… This whole business of the jungle Klahari forming one single band has the city Klahari disturbed for the first time,” he told me, looking squarely at me out of the phone. “You see, they always assumed that the people we had here were our young men, our equivalent of the Klahari boys, getting a final test before being let back into our own civilization elsewhere. It was even something of a compliment the way they saw it—our coming all this way to test our own people on their testing ground here. Obviously we didn’t have any test area to match it anywhere else. And, of course, we let them think so.”

“Well, what’s wrong with that, now—sir?” I asked. “We’re certainly being tested.”

“That’s just it,” he said. “We’ve got to let you be tested this time. The city Klahari, the older ones, have finally started to get worried about the changes taking place here. They’ve let us know that they don’t intervene on the side of their boys—and they expect us not to intervene on the side of ours.”

I frowned at him. I didn’t understand in that first minute what he meant.

“You mean you can’t pick us up from here?”

“I can’t even send you supplies, Lieutenant,” he said. “Now that it’s too late, they’re working overtime back home to figure out ways to explain our true situation here to the Klahari and make some agreement on the basis of it with them. But meanwhile—our investment in men and equipment on this world is out of reach—too much to waste by war with the adult Klahari now.” He paused and watched me for a second “You’re on your own, Lieutenant.”

I digested that.

“Yes, Colonel,” I said, finally. “All right. We’ll hold out here. We’re twenty or so men, and there’s ammunition and food. But there’s a boy, the son of a local planter…”

“Sorry, Lieutenant He’ll have to stay too.”

“Yes, sir…”

We went into practical details about holding the Strongpoint. There was a sergeant with the remnants of a half company, maybe another twenty men, not far west of me, holding an unfinished Strongpoint. But no communications. If I could get a man through to tell that command to join us here, our situation would not be so bad. One man might get through the Klahari…

I finished and went outside. Three new planters were just being admitted through the gate, ragged and tired—and one was Pelang Dupres. Even as I started toward him, he spotted Jean and rushed to the boy, asking him questions.

“… but your mama! Your mama!” I heard him demanding impatiently as I came up. One of my men, who had been there, pushed in between Pelang and the boy.

“Let me tell you, Mr. Dupres,” he said, putting his hand on Pelang’s arm and trying to lead him away from Jean. I could see him thinking that there was no need to harrow up Jean with a rehearsal of what had happened. But Pelang threw him off.

“Tell me? Tell me what?” he shouted, pushing the man away, to face Jean again. “What happened?”

“We buried her, Daddy,” I heard Jean saying quietly. “And afterward we’ll send her to Earth—”

“Buried her—” Pelang’s face went black with congestion of blood under the skin, and his voice choked him. “She’s dead!” He swung on the man who had tried to lead him away. “You let her be killed; and you saved this—this—” He turned and struck out at Jean with a hand already clenched into a fist, Jean made no move to duck the blow, though with the quickness that I had seen in him while coming to the Strongpoint, I am sure he could have. The fist sent him tumbling, and the men beside him tried to grab him.

But I had lost my head when he hit Jean. I am not sorry for it, even now. I drove through the crowd and got Pelang by the collar and shoved him up against the concrete side of the watchtower and banged his head against it. He was blocky and powerful as a dwarf bull, but I was a little out of my head. We were nose-to-nose there and I could feel the heat of his panting, almost sobbing, breath and see his brown eyes squeezed up between the anguished squinting of the flesh above and below them.

‘Your wife is dead,” I said to him, between my teeth. “But that boy, that son of yours, Dupres, was there when his mother died! And where were you?”

I saw then the fantastic glitter of the bright tears in his brown squeezed-lip eyes. Suddenly he went limp on me, against the wall, and his head wobbled on his thick, sunburned neck.

“I worked hard—” he choked suddenly. “No one worked harder than me, Pelang. For them both—and they…” He turned around and sobbed against the watchtower wall. I stood back from him. But Jean pushed through the men surrounding us and came up to his father. He patted his father’s broad back under its white glass shirt and then put his arms around the man’s thick waist and leaned his head against his father’s side. But Pelang ignored him and continued to weep uncontrollably. Slowly, the other men turned away and left the two of them alone.

There was no question about the man to send to contact the half company at the unfinished Strongpoint west of us. It had to be the most jungle-experienced of us; and that meant me. I left the fort under the command of the factor, a man named Strudenmeyer. I would rather have left it under command of one of my two remaining enlisted men, but the factor was technically an officer in his own Strongpoint and ranked them, as well as being known personally to the local planters holed up there. He was the natural commander. But he was a big-bellied man with a booming voice and very noticeable whites to his eyes; and I suspected him of a lack of guts.

I told him to be sure to plant sentinels in the observation posts, nearly two hundred feet off the ground in treetops on four sides of the Strongpoint and a hundred meters out. And I told him to pick men who could stay there indefinitely. Also, he was to save his men and ammunition until the Klahari actually tried to take the Strongpoint by assault.

“… You’ll be all right,” I told him, and the other men, just before I went out the gate. “Remember, no Strongpoint has ever been taken as long as the ammunition held out, and there were men to use it.”

Then I left.

The forest was alive with Klahari, but they were traveling, not hunting, under the impression all humans still alive were holed up in one place or another. It took me three days to make the unfinished Strongpoint, and when I got there I found the sergeant and his men had been wiped out, the Strongpoint itself gutted. I was surprised by two seniors there, but managed to kill them both fairly quietly and get away. I headed back for Strongpoint Hundred Fourteen.

It was harder going back; and I took eight days. I made most of the distance on my belly and at night. At that, I would never have gotten as far as I did, except for luck and the fact that the Klahari were not looking for humans in the undergrowth. Their attention was all directed to the assault building up against Strongpoint Hundred Fourteen.

The closer I got to the Strongpoint, the thicker they were. And more were coming in all the time. They squatted in the jungle, waiting and growing in numbers. I saw that I would never make it back to the Strongpoint itself, so I headed for the tree holding the north sentinel post hidden in its top (the Klahari did not normally climb trees or even look up) to join the sentinel there.

I made the base of the tree on the eighth night, an hour before dawn—and I was well up the trunk and hidden when the light came. I hung there in the crotch all day while the Klahari passed silently below. They have a body odor something like the smell of crushed grass; you can’t smell it unless you get very close. Or if there are a lot of them together. There were now and their odor was a sharp pungency in the air, mingled with the unpleasant smell of their breath, reminiscent, to a human nose, of garbage. I stayed in that tree crotch all day and climbed the rest of the way when it got dark. When I reached the platform, it was dark and empty. The stores of equipment kept there by general order had never been touched. Strudenmeyer had never sent out his men.

When morning came, I saw how serious that fault had been. I had set up the dew catchers to funnel drinking water off the big leaves in the crown of the tree above me, and done a few other simple things I could manage quietly in the dark. With dawn the next day I set up thie post’s equipment, particularly the communication equipment with the Strongpoint and the other sentinel posts. As I had suspected, the other posts were empty—and Strudenmeyer had not even set a watch in the communications room at the Strongpoint. The room when I looked into it was empty, and the door closed. No one came to the sound of the call buzzer.

I could see most of the rooms of the Strongpoint’s interior. I could see outside the buildings, all around the inside of the walls and the court separating them from the buildings and the watchtower in the center. The scanners set in walk and ceilings there were working perfectly. But I could not tell Strudenmeyer and the rest I was there. Just as I could get radio reception from the station at Regional Installation, but I could not call R.I. because my call had to be routed through the communications room in the Strongpoint, where there was nobody on duty.

A hundred and eighty feet below me, and all around the four walls that made the Strongpoint what it was, the Klahari were swarming as thickly as bees on their way to a new hive. And more were coming in hourly. It was not to be wondered at. With the group to the west wiped out, we were the forward point held by humans in the jungle. Everything beyond us had been taken already and laid waste. The Klahari post-seniors leading the horde could have bypassed us and gone on—but that was not their nature.

And Strudenmeyer was down there with twenty men and a boy—no, seventeen men. I could count three wounded under an awning in the west yard. Evidently there had already been assaults on his walls. There was no real discipline to the young Klahari, even now, and if a group got impatient they would simply go ahead and attack, even if the leaders were patient enough to wait and build up their forces.

So either there had been premature assaults on the walls, or Strudenmeyer was even more of a bad commander than I had thought, and had been putting men up on the walls to be shot at, instead of using rifles through the gunports on automatic and remote control. Even as I thought this, I was putting it out of my mind. I think that at that time I didn’t want to believe that the factor could be that poor a leader, because I had the responsibility for him, having put him in charge of the Strongpoint. Just at that moment, however, something else happened to help shove it out of my mind, for I discovered a new wrinkle to this treetop post that they hadn’t had back when I was learning about sentinel duty.

In addition to the wall scanners that gave me an interior view of the Strongpoint, I found there were eight phone connections inside its walls from which the commander there could check with the sentinels. All he had to do was pick up a phone and ask whatever question he had in mind. But the damn things were oneway!

I could activate the receiver at my end. In other words, I could hear what anyone was saying in the immediate vicinity of the phone. But I couldn’t make myself heard by them until someone lifted down the phone at that end. And there was no bell or signal with which I could call them to lift a phone down. I jammed the receivers all open, of course, and several different conversations around the fort came filtering into my post to match up with the images on some of the scanners before me. But nobody was talking about trying a phone to one of the sentinel posts. Why should they? As far as they knew they were unmanned.

I lay there, protected by the shade of the crown leaves, as Achernar climbed up into the sky over the jungle and the Strongpoint, and more Klahari filtered in every moment below me. I was safe, comfortable, and absolutely helpless. I had food for half a year, the dew catchers supplied me with more pure water than I could drink, and around me on my pleasantly breezy perch were all modern conveniences, including solar cookers to heat my food, or water for shaving if it came to that. I lay there like an invisible deity, seeing and hearing most of what went on below in the Strongpoint and entirely unsuspected by those I was watching. A commander without a command, spectator to what, it soon became plain, was a command without a commander.

You might think the men who would delay longest before pulling back in the face of a threat like the Klahari would be the bravest and the best of the planters. But it was not so. These men were the stubbornest of the planters, the most stupid, the most greedy; the hardheads and unbelievers. All this came out now before me on the scanners, and over the open phones, now that they were completely cut off and for the first time they fully saw the consequences of their delaying.

And Strudenmeyer was their natural leader.

There was nothing the factor had done that he ought to have done, and there was nothing he had left undone that he had ought not to have done. He had failed to send out men to the sentinel posts, because they objected to going. He had omitted to take advantage of the military knowledge and experience of the two enlisted men I had brought to the Strongpoint with me. Instead he had been siding with the majority—the combat-ignorant planters—against the military minority of two when questions of defending the Strongpoint came up. He had put men on the walls—inviting premature assaults from the Klahari that could not have taken the Strongpoint in any case, but that could whittle down his fighting strength. As they already had by wounding three of his able men, including Pelang Dupres. And, most foolish of all in a way, he had robbed himself of his best rifle and his most knowledgeable expert of the Klahari, by reducing Jean Dupres from the status of fighting man to that of seven-year-old child.

He had done this because Pelang, lying under the awning, groaning with self-pity at the loss of his wife, and a lance-thrust through his shoulder, and abusing his son who was restricted to the single duty of waiting on the wounded, treated the boy with nothing but contempt. Jean’s only defenders were my two enlisted men, who had seen him in action in the jungle. But these two were discounted and outcast anyway in the eyes of the planters, who would have liked to have found reason to blame them, and the military in general, for the whole situation.

So—fools listen to fools and ignore the wise, as I think I read sometime, somewhere. The booming-voiced, white-eyed factor, his big belly swelling even larger with fear and self-importance, listened to the shortsighted, bitter and suffering father who knew nothing but his fields—and ignored the quiet, self-contained boy who could have told him, day by day, hour by hour, and minute by minute, what the Klahari response would be to any action he might take inside the Strongpoint. The afternoon of the first day I was in the sentinel post, there was another premature assault on the walls of the Strongpoint, and another planter, a man named Barker, was badly wounded by a crossbow bolt in the chest. He died less than an hour later.

Just before the sun went down, there was a calling from the jungle. A single, high-pitched Klahari voice repeating itself over and over. I studied the scanners that gave me an outside view of the Strongpoint and the jungle surrounding, but could not locate the caller. In fact, from what my scanners showed, the scene was peaceful. Most of the Klahari were out of sight under the jungle greenery, and the Strongpoint seemed to swelter almost deserted in its small cleared area, its thirty-foot-high concrete walls surrounding the interior buildings dominated by the watchtower which rose from them like a square column of concrete some fifty feet into the air. Strudenmeyer had a man on duty up there, in the air-conditioned bubble under the sunshade, but he had been napping when the calling started.

Then the sound of Jean’s voice from a scanner screen drew me back to the bank of them showing the inside of the Strongpoint. I saw him, halfway between the awning-covered wounded’s area and the west wall. Strudenmeyer had caught his arm and was holding him from going further.

“… what for?” Strudenmeyer was saying, as I came up to the scanner screen.

“It’s me they’re calling,” said Jean.

“You? How do they know you’re here?” The factor stared uncertainly down at him.

Jean merely stared back, the blank stare of the young when explanation is hopeless. To him—and to me, watching—it was so obvious why the Klahari should know not only that he was there, but that everyone else in the fort who was there, was there, that words were a waste of time. But Strudenmeyer had never risen to the point of giving the Klahari credit for even simple intelligence. He ignored the cities and the schools from which these ornamented young natives came, and thought of them as savages, if not near-animals.

“Come back here. We’ll talk to your father,” said the factor, after a moment They went back to Pelang, who listened to Strudenmeyer’s report of the situation and cursed both the factor and his son.

“You must be mistaken, Jean. You don’t understand Klahari that well,” decided Strudenmeyer, finally. “Now, stay away from that wall. Your father needs you and I don’t want you getting hurt. That wall’s a place for men and you’re just a little boy. Now, mind what I say!”

Jean obeyed. He did not even argue. It is something—inconceivable—the adaptability of children; and it has to be seen to be testified to. Jean knew what he was; but he believed what his father and the other adults told him he was. If they told him he did not understand Klahari and he did not belong on the wall of the Strongpoint, then it must be so, even if it was against all the facts. He went back to fetching and carrying cold drinks to the wounded, and after a while the voice from the jungle ceased and the sun went down.

The Klahari do not as individuals try to kill each other at night. So, automatically, they did not try to storm the Strongpoint under cover of darkness, when their chances of taking it would have been best. But the next morning at dawn, two thousand of them threw themselves at the walls from the outside.

They were not secretive about it; and that alone saved the Strongpoint, where the angle sentry on the watchtower was sleeping as soundly as the rest below. The whole men in the fort manned the walls and began firing, not only the guns under their hands, but a rifle apiece to either side of them on automatic remote control. I ought to say instead, that about three quarters of them began firing, because the rest froze at the sight of the waves of dark seven-foot bodies swarming up to the base of the wall and trying to lean tree trunks against it, up which they could clamber. But the remaining three quarters of able men, multiplied three times by the automatic control rifles, literally hosed the attackers from the wall with rifle slugs until the assault was suddenly broken and the Klahari ran.

Suddenly, under the morning sun, the jungle was silent, and an incredible carpet of dead and dying Klahari covered the open space surrounding the Strongpoint on four sides. Inside, the fighters—and the non-fighters—counted one man dead and five wounded in varying degrees, only one badly enough to be removed to the hospital ward under the awning.

The fallen Klahari lay scattered, singly and in piles, like poisoned grasshoppers after their swarming advance has been met by the low-flying plane spraying insecticide. The others in the jungle around them dragged a few of the wounded to cover under the ferns, but they had no medicines or surgical techniques and soon there was a steady sound from the wounded natives outside the wall and the wounded humans within. While shortly, as the sun rose, unseen but felt, the heat climbed; and soon the stink of death began to rise around the Strongpoint, like a second, invisible outer wall.

I am sorry to make a point of this, but it was this way. It is this way such things have always been and I want you to know how it was for Jean Dupres. He was seven years old, his mother was dead, he was surrounded by death and facing it himself—and he had lived through all that had happened to the men around him so far. Now he was to see many of those within the Strongpoint with him recovering their birthright as men before his eyes.

For most did recover it. This too always happens. The full assault of the Klahari on the Strongpoint had been like a flail, striking the grain from the plant and chaff. When it had passed, Strudenmeyer was no longer in command; and several among the wounded like Pelang Dupres were up and carrying a gun again. Strudenmeyer had been one of those who had not fired a weapon during the attack. He and one other were never to fire a gun right up to their deaths, a few days later. But where the Strongpoint had been manned by civilians two hours before, now it was manned by veterans. Of my two enlisted men, one had been the man to die in the assault and the other was badly wounded and dying. But a planter named Dakeham was now in charge and he had posted a man on the watchtower immediately the attack was over and had gone himself to the communications room to call Regional Installation Military Headquarters, for advice, if not for rescue.

But he found he could not make the radio work. Helpless, watching from my sentinel post through the scanner in the room wall, I raged against his ignorance, unable to make him hear me, so that I could tell him what was wrong. What was wrong, was that Strudenmeyer, like many operators living off by themselves, had fallen into careless individual ways of handling and maintaining his set. The main power switch had worn out, and Strudenmeyer had never put himself to the trouble of replacing it. Instead he had jury-rigged a couple of bare wires that could be twisted together, to make power available to the set. The wires lay before the control board, right in plain sight. But Dakeham, like most modern people, knew less than nothing about radio—and Strudenmeyer, when they hauled him into the communications room, was pallid-faced, unresisting, and too deep in psychological shock to tell them anything.

Dakeham gave up, went out, and closed the door of the communications room of the Strongpoint behind him. To the best of my recollection, it was never opened again.

That evening, the Klahari hit the walls again in another assault. It was not as determined as the first, and it met a more determined resistance. It was beaten off, with only two men slightly wounded. But that was just the first day of full-scale attack.

Twice and sometimes three times a day after that, the Klahari attacked the Strongpoint. The odor of death grew so strong about the fort that it even got into my dreams, high up in my treetop; and I would dream I was wandering through fields of dead of the past and forgotten wars I had read about as a student in school. The Klahari lost unbelievably with every assault—but always there were more coming in through the jungle to increase their numbers. This one Strongpoint was holding up all the Klahari advance, for psychologically they could not break off a contest once it was begun, though they could retreat temporarily to rest. But inside the Strongpoint, its defenders were being whittled down in number. It was almost unbearable to watch. A dozen times I found my gun at my shoulder, my finger on the trigger. But I didn’t pull it. My small help would not change the outcome of the battle—and it would be suicide on my part. They would come up after me, in the dark, watching me, waiting for me to sleep. When I dozed I would be dead. I knew this, but it did not help the feeling of helplessness that overwhelmed me while I watched them die, one by one.

Daily, though neither the besieging Klahari nor the humans in the Strongpoint could see or hear it, a reconnaissance plane circled high up out of sight over the area, to send back pictures and reports of the fight there to Regional Installation. Daily, swaying in my treetop sentinel post, I heard over my voice receiver, the steady, clear tones of the newscaster from Regional Installation, informing the rest of the humans on Utword.

“… the thirty-seventh attack on the Strongpoint was evidently delivered shortly after dawn today. The reconnaissance plane saw fresh native casualties lying in the clearing around all four walls. Numbers of Klahari in the surrounding jungle are estimated to have risen to nearly forty thousand individuals, only a fraction of whom, it is obvious, can take part in an attack at any one time. With the Strongpoint, pictures indicate that its defenders there seem to be taking the situation with calmness…”

And I would turn to my scanners and my phones showing me the inside of the Strongpoint and hear the sounds of the wounded, the dying, and those who were face-to-face with death…

“… They’ve got to quit sometime,” I heard Bert Kaja, one of the planters, saying on my fifteenth day in the tree. He was squatting with the wounded, and Dakeham, under the awning.

“Maybe,” said Dakeham, noncommittally. He was a tall, lean, dark individual with a slightly pouting face but hard eyes.

“They can’t keep this up forever. They’ll run out of food,” said Kaja, seated swarthy and crosslegged on the ground. The jungle must be stripped of food all around here by this time.”

“Maybe,” said Dakeham.

They discussed the subject in the impersonal voices with which people back home discuss the stock market. Jean Dupres was less than eight feet from them, and possibly he could have answered their questions, but he was still in the occupation to which Strudenmeyer had assigned him—caring for the wounded.

Eight now he was washing the lance wound, the original wound in his father’s shoulder. Pelang watched him, scowling, not saying anything until the other two men rose and left. Then he swore—abruptly, as Jean tightened a new bandage around the shoulder.

“—be careful, can’t you?”

Jean loosened the bandage.

“You…” Pelang scowled worse than ever, watching the boy’s face, tilted downward to watch his working hands. ‘You and she wanted to go back… to Earth, eh?” Jean looked up, surprised.

“You said she wanted to be buried back tome? You told me that!” said Pelang. Still staring at his father, Jean nodded.

“And you, too? Eh? You wanted to go back, too, and leave me here?”

Jean shook his head.

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not!” Jean’s voice was injured.

“Ah, you lie… you lie!” snarled Pelang, unhappily. “You don’t lie to me with words, but you lie anyway, all the time!” He reached up with his good hand and caught the boy by the shoulder. “Listen, I tell you this is a terrible place, but me, your daddy, worked hard at it to make you rich someday. Now, answer me!” He shook the boy. “It’s a terrible place, this jungle, here! Isn’t it?”

“No,” said the boy, looking as if he was going to cry.

“You…” Pelang let go of Jean’s shoulder and clenched his fist as if he were going to strike his son. But instead his face twisted up as if he were going to cry himself. He got to his feet and lumbered away, toward the walls, out of range of my immediate scanner. Jean sat still, looking miserable for a moment, then his face smoothed out and he got to his feet and went off about some business of his own to do with the wounded.

In that evening’s assault they lost two more men to the attacking Klahari, one of them Dakeham. It was the fifteenth day of full-scale assaults and they were down to eight men able to man the walls, each one of them handling half a wall of rifles on automatic remote, instead of one rifle direct and the rest on automatic. They had found that it was point-blank massed firepower that beat back the attacks; and that what was to be feared were not the Klahari rushing the walls, but the one or two natives who by freak chance got to the top of these barriers and inside the Strongpoint. A Klahari inside the walls could usually kill or wound at least one man before he was shot down.

The one who killed Dakeham did so before any of the others noticed it and went on to the wounded under the awning before he could be stopped. There, Jean killed him, with a rifle one of the wounded had kept by him—but by that time the wounded were all dead.

But there were fresh wounded. Pelang had been lanced again,—this time in the side, and he bled through his bandage there, if he overexerted himself. Kaja had been chosen to command in Dakeham’s place. Under the lights, once night had fallen, he went from man to man, slapping them carefully on unwounded back or shoulder.

“Brace up!” he said to them. “Brace up! The Klahari’ll be quitting any day now. They must be out of food for miles around. Just a matter of hours! Any day now!”

No one answered him. A few, like Pelang, swore at him. Jean looked at him gently, but said nothing. And, voiceless as far as they were concerned, up in my sentinel’s post, I understood what Jean’s look meant. It was true that the Klahari were out of food for kilometers about the Strongpoint, but that made no difference. They were able, just like humans, to go several days without food if it was worth it to them—and in this case it was worth it. Going hungry was just the price of being in on the party. After several days the hungriest would break off, travel away in search of fruit and roots and when they were full again, come back.

“… the season’s not more than a week from being over!” said Kaja. “With the end of the season, they always move to a new place.”

That was truer. It was a real hope. But two weeks was a long way off in a Strongpoint under two or three assaults a day. The evening radio news broadcast came on to emphasize this.

“… this small jungle outpost holds all the Klahari young men at bay,” recited the announcer calmly. “The native advance has been frustrated…”

I dozed off in the rocking treetop.

Sometime in the next two days, Jean finally returned to the walls. I did not remember, and I think no one in the Strongpoint remembered when it happened exactly. He must have taken over a bank of rifles on automatic fire when the man handling them was killed by a Klahari who had gotten over the wall. At any rate, he was once more fighting with the men. And the men were now down to three able to fight and two dying under the awning, so no one objected.

They did not lose a man for two days. Jean not only manned his section of the walls, but shot the three Klahari that got over the walls, in that time. It was as if he had eyes in the back of his head. Then, suddenly, in one morning assault, they lost two men and Pelang went down from loss of blood—the wound in his side having reopened and bled during the fighting. Later on that day, the two wounded died. At the evening assault, Pelang lay useless, half-dozing under the awning, while Jean and the remaining planter in fighting shape stood back-to-back in the open middle of the Strongpoint, scanners set up in front of them, each handling two adjacent walls of guns on automatic remote fire.

Half a dozen Klahari made it over the walls and into the Strongpoint. Jean and the planter—whose name I do not remember—grabbed up hand weapons and shot them down. By what amounted to a wild stroke of luck, the man and the boy were able to get them all killed without being wounded themselves.

Night fell, and brought an end to the day’s fighting. But later on, about the middle of the night, there was the single, sharp report of a handgun that woke me in my treetop. I turned to the scanners, lifted their hoods one by one, and located Jean standing in the open space before the awning, half in shadow above something lying in an interior angle of the walls. As I looked, he turned, crossed under the lights and came back underneath the awning. I had a scanner there, as I may have mentioned, but the night contrast between the shadow and the interior lights was such that I could barely make out the darkly upright shape of Jean and the recumbent shape of a man, who would be Pelang. Pelang had been half-unconscious earlier, but now his voice came weakly to the phone connection nearby.

“—what is it?”

“He’s shot,” answered Jean; and I saw the upright shape of him fold itself down beside the larger darkness of his father.

“Who…?” Pelang barely whispered.

“He shot himself.”

“Ah…” It was a sigh from the man’s lips, but whether one of despair or just of weariness or exhaustion, I could not tell. Pelang lay still and silent, and Jean stayed sitting or crouching beside his father… and I almost dozed off again, watching the screen. I was roused by the whispering sound of Pelang’s voice. He had begun to talk again, half to himself, just when, I was not sure.

“… I am a man… I can go anywhere. Back home… look at the stars. I told myself, Elmire and me… Nobody farms better than me, Pelang. Nobody works harder. This is a terrible place, but it don’t stop me. Elmire, your mama, she wanted to go back home; but we got earth here you can’t match, on them stony old fields, bord la rive Mistassibi. Man don’t let himself be pushed from his crops—no, they don’t get away with that, you hear?” He was becoming louder-voiced and excited. I saw the shadow of him heave up and the shape of Jean bowing above him.

“Lie down, Papa…” it was the boy’s whisper. “Lie down…”

“This terrible place, but I make my boy rich… you’ll be rich someday, Jean. They’ll say—“Hey, Jean, how come you’re so rich?’ then you say—‘My daddy, mon père Pelang, he made me so.’ Then you go back home, take your mama, also; you let them see you way up beyond Lac St. John. ‘My daddy, Pelang,’ you say, ‘he don’t never back down for no one, never quits. He’s a man, my daddy, Pelang…’”

His voice lowered until I could not make out the words and he rambled on. After a while I dozed; and a little later on I slept deeply.

I woke suddenly. It was day. The sun was up above the leaves over me—and there was a strange silence, all around.

Then I heard a voice, calling.

It was a calling I recognized. I had heard it once before, outside the walls of the Strongpoint, the first day I had been in the treetop sentinel post. It was the calling of the Klahari, that Jean had told Strudenmeyer was for him, days before.

I rolled to the scanners and flipped up all their hoods. Jean still sat where I had seen his indistinct form in the darkness, above the shape of his father, under the awning. But now Pelang was covered with a blanket—even his face—and unutterably still. Jean sat crosslegged, facing the body under the blanket—not so much in the posture of a mourner, as of a guard above the dead. At first as I watched it seemed to me that he did not even hear the calling beyond the walls.

But, after a while, as the calling kept up in the high-pitched Klahari voice, he got slowly to his feet and picked up the issue rifle beside him. Carrying it, he went slowly across the open space, climbed to the catwalk behind the west wall and climbed from that on to the two-foot width of the wall, in plain sight of the Klahari hidden in the jungle. He sat down there, crosslegged, laying the rifle across his knees and stared out into the jungle.

The calling ceased. There came after that a sound I can’t describe, a sort of rustling and sighing, like the sound of a vast audience, after a single, breath-held moment of uncertainty, settling itself to witness some occasion. I switched to binoculars, looking directly down into the clearing before the west wall. Several tall Klaharis came out of the jungle and began clearing the dead bodies from a space about twenty feet square before the west wall. When they had gotten down to the macerated earth below the bodies they brought out clean leaves of fern and covered the ground there.

Then they backed off, and three Klahari, feathered and ornamented as none I had ever seen before, came out of the jungle and sat down themselves on the ferns, crosslegged in their fashion—which Jean had imitated on the wall above. Once they were seated, Klahari began to emerge from the jungle and fill in the space behind them, standing and watching.

When as many were into the open space as could get there without getting between the seated three and their view of Jean, another silence fell. It lasted for a few seconds, and then the Klahari on the end got to his feet and began to talk to Jean.

In the Rangers we are taught a few Klahari phrases—“you must disperse—” “lay down your weapons”—and the like. A few of us learn to say them well enough to make the Klahari understand, but few of us learn to understand more than half a dozen of the simplest of Klahari statements. It is not only that the native voice is different—they talk high and toward the back of a different-shaped throat than ours; but the way they think is different.

For example, we call this planet “Utword,” which is a try at using the native term for it. The Klahari word—sound rather—is actually something like “Ut,” said high and cut off sharp, toward the back of your mouth. But the point is, no Klahari would ever refer to his planet as simply “Ut.” He would always call it “the world of Ut”; because to the Klahari, bound up in this one planet there are four worlds, all equally important. There is the world that was, the world of all past time. There is the world yet to be, the world of time to come. There is a sort of Klahari hell—the world populated by the dead who died in failure; and whose souls will therefore never be reincarnated in Klahari yet to be born. And there is the world of the physical present—the world of Ut. So “Utword” is “Ut” tied onto the human word “world” minus the sound the Klahari can’t pronounce.

Therefore I understood nothing of what was said by the Klahari who was speaking. From his gestures to the Strongpoint walls and the jungle behind him, I assumed he was talking about the conflict here. And from the way Jean sat listening, I guessed that Jean understood, where I did not. After the speaker was finished, he sat down; and there was a long silence that went on and on. It was plain even to me that they were waiting for some answer from Jean, but he simply sat there. And then the middle Klahari stood up to speak.

His gestures were more sharp and abrupt, more demanding. But aside from that he was as incomprehensible to me as the first, except that something about the gestures and the talk gave me the impression that a lot of what he said was repeating what the first speaker had said. At last he sat down, and again there was the silence and the waiting for Jean to speak.

This time Jean did speak. Without standing up, he said one short phrase and then sat still again, leaving me with the tantalizing feeling that I had almost understood him, because of the simpleness of his statement and the fact that it was made by a human mouth, throat and tongue.

But the response was another rustling sigh from the audience, and when it died, the third and tallest Klahari got slowly to his feet and began to talk. I do not know if the few words from Jean had sharpened my wits, or whether the last speaker was himself more understandable, but without being able to translate a single word, I felt myself understanding much more.

It seemed to me that he was asking Jean for something—almost pleading with the boy for it. He was advancing reasons why Jean should agree. The reasons were possibly reasons the first two to speak had advanced—but this speaker seemed to take them with a deeper seriousness. His gestures were at arms’ length, slow and emphatic. His voice rose and fell with what seemed to me to be a greater range of tone than the voices of the others. When at last he sat down, there seemed to be a deeper, more expecting silence, holding all the listening jungle and the silent Strongpoint.

Jean sat still. For a moment I thought he was not going to move or answer. And then he said that phrase again, and this time I understood why I had almost felt I could translate it. The first sounds in it were “K’ahari …” the native name with the throat-catch in the beginning of it that we replace with a more humanly pronounceable “l” to get the word “Klahari.” I had almost had the whole phrase understood with that identification, it seemed to me.

But Jean had risen to his feet and was finally beginning to talk, his high-pitched child’s voice matching the pitch of the native vocal apparatus.

He spoke impassionedly—or maybe it was because he was as human as I was that I could see the passion in him, where I hadn’t been able to see it in the Klahari. He gestured as they had, but he gestured in one direction that they had not gestured, and that was back the way they had come to the Strongpoint, back toward the now overrun fields of his family farm, the deep jungle and the desert beyond. Twice more, I caught in his speech the phrase he had used to answer the second and third native speakers—and finally it stuck in my head:

“K’ahari tomagna, manoi…”—or that at least was what it sounded like to my human ear. I sat back, staring at him through my binoculars, for his face was as white as if all the blood had drained out of it; and suddenly, without warning, tears began to brim out of his eyes and roll down his cheeks—silent tears that did not interfere with the violence of his words but continued to roll as if he were being secretly tortured all the while he was speaking. The words poured out of him to the listening natives below—and suddenly I was understanding him perfectly.

For a second I thought it was some kind of a miracle. But it was no miracle. He had simply broken into English, without apparently realizing it. It was English geared to the rhythm of the Klahari speech:

“… I am a man. This is a terrible place and my mama did not want to stay here. My daddy did not like it here, but he was making me rich. Nobody works harder than my daddy, Pelang. I don’t want to stay here. I will go home and be rich with the old people above Lac St. John; and never see any more K’ahari and the jungle. And the K’ahari will go back to the jungle because a man don’t let himself be pushed from his crops. No, you don’t get away with that, and you don’t come into this Strongpoint, because I am a man and I don’t let the K’ahari in…”

He went back into their tongue, and I lost him. He went on standing there with the tears rolling down his face, no doubt telling them over and over again in Klahari that he would not surrender the fort to them. He wound up at last with the same phrase I had heard before; and finally, this time, I understood it, because it was so simple and because of what he had said.

“K’ahari tomagna, manoi!”—”I am no brother to the Klahari, but a man!”

He turned with that and jumped down off the top of the wall to the catwalk inside and crouched there, immediately. But no crossbow bolts or lances came over the wall. He went crouched over to the steps at the point where the walls made a corner and went down the steps to back before the awning. There, he pulled the scanners showing the outside views of all four walls into a battery facing him, and sat down on a camp chair with his rifle over his knees, looking at them.

On his scanners as on mine, the Klahari were fading back into the jungle. After they had all gone, there was silence, and after a little he wiped his eyes, laid down his rifle, and went to get himself some food. As if he knew that since they had not attacked immediately, they would not attack again for some little time. I sat back in my treetop with my head spinning.

I remembered now how I had seen the boy walking his own plowed fields as a Klahari walks. I remembered how his reaction to being under possible attack alone at the place, and even his reaction to the killing of his mother, had baffled me. I understood him better now. The jungle with its Klahari was something he took for granted, because it was the only world he had ever known. Not Earth, the place he had only heard about, but this all around him was the real world. Its rules were not human rules, but Klahari rules. Its normal shape was not the grass and sun of home, but the searing white light and fern and macerated earth of Utword. He believed his father and the rest of us when we talked about how alien Utword, and its people were—but they were not alien to him and it was the only world he had.

Now the Klahari had come calling on him as a brother to take up his birthright, by joining them and opening the Strongpoint to them. So that they could destroy it and move on against the rest of the human outposts. He had refused to do so, and now he was down there, alone. ‘The thought of his aloneness abruptly was like a hard shock all through me. Alone—down there with the body of his father and the other men, and the Klahari outside, ready to attack again. I told myself that I had to get him out of there, whether I got myself killed trying or not.

The only reason I did not start down the tree trunk right then in broad daylight was that I wanted some kind of a plan that had at least a faint chance of success. I was not concerned about saving myself, but I did not want to waste myself—for Jean’s sake. I got up and paced my comfortable, safe perch, two paces each way, swing, and back again… thinking hard.

I was still at it, when the Klahari assault came. An explosion of yells and noise almost right under me. I jumped for the scanners.

Jean was standing with his back to the west wall of the watchtower, his own bank of scanners before him, handling all the rifles in all the walls on remote automatic. If the rifles had not been self-loading, as they were, not a half-dozen years before, he never could have done it. But as it was, he stood holding the Strongpoint alone, a faint frown of concentration on his face, like a boy back home running a model train around its track at speeds which come close to making it fly off on the curves. Two of the attackers made it over the wall hidden from him by the watchtower at his back; but still it seemed as if he had eyes in the back of his head, because he abandoned his scanners, turned and crouched with a rifle in his hands, just as they came together around the side of the watchtower after him. The lance of the second one he shot thudded against the wall of the watchtower just above his head before the native fell dead. But Jean’s face did not change.

The assault failed. The natives drew off, and Jean abandoned his scanners to go to the heavy task of dragging the two dead Klahari back around the corner of the tower out of his way. He could not have dragged grown men that way, hut the Klahari are lighter-boned and -bodied than we, and by struggling, he got them cleared away.

There was another, lighter assault just before sundown that evening, but none of the natives got over the walls. Then darkness covered us—and still I had worked out no plan for getting the boy out of there.

My general idea was to get him away, and then leave the gates of the Strongpoint open. The Klahari would enter, ravage the interior and move on—to points better equipped than we to continue the fight with them. Perhaps, with the Strongpoint taken, they would not look around for Jean—or me.

But I was helpless. I raged in my treetop. Up here and unnoticed, I was safe as I would have been at home on Earth. But let me descend the tree trunk, even under cover of darkness and I would not live thirty seconds. It would be like coming down a rope into an arena jammed with several thousand lions. Dawn came… and I had thought of nothing.

With it, came the post-dawn attack. Once more, Jean fought them off—almost more successfully than he had the attack of the evening before. It was as if his skill at anticipating their actions had been sharpened by the pressure on him to defend the Strongpoint alone. He even walked away from his automatic rifle controls in the heat of the battle to shoot a Klahari just coming over the north wall.

There was a noon attack that day. And an evening one. Jean beat all of them off.

But that night I heard him crying in the darkness. He had crawled back under the awning, not far from the body of his father, and in the gloom next to the ground there, I could not pick out where he lay. But I could hear him. It was not loud crying, but like the steady, hopeless keening of an abandoned child.

When dawn came I saw his face seemed to have thinned and pinched up overnight. His eyes were round and staring, and dusted underneath with the darkness of fatigue. But he fought off the dawn attack

A midday attack was beaten back as well. But I had not seen him eat all day, and he looked shadow-thin. He moved awkwardly, as if it hurt him; and after the midday attack was beaten off, he simply sat, motionless, staring at and through the scanners before him.

Just as the afternoon was turning toward evening, the Klahari calling from the jungle came again. He answered with a burst of automatic fire from the wall facing toward the location of the voice in the jungle. The voice ceased as abruptly as if its possessor had been hit—which he could not have been.

The evening attack came. A full eight Klahari made it over the walls this time, and although Jean seemed to be aware of their coming in plenty of time to face them, he moved so slowly that two of them almost had him.

Finally, this last and hardest assault of the day ended, with the dropping of the sun and the fading of the light. The lights inside the Strongpoint came on, automatically, and Jean abandoned his scanners and controls to crawl under the awning. As with the night before, I heard him crying, but after a while the sounds ceased, and I knew that he had gone to sleep at last.

Alone, safe in my treetop, still without any plan to save the boy, I drifted off to sleep myself.

I woke suddenly to the sounds of the dawn assault. I sat up, rubbed my eyes—and threw myself at the scanners. For, on the screen of the one with its view under the awning, I could see Jean, still stretched in exhaustion-drugged slumber.

Already, the Klahari were at the walls and clambering over them. They poured into the open area before the watchtower as Jean woke at last and jerked upright, snatching up his rifle. He looked out into a semicircle of dark, staring faces, halted and caught in astonishment to find him unready for them. For a second they stood staring at each other—the Klahari and the boy.

Then Jean struggled to his feet, jerked his rifle to his shoulder and began firing at them. And a screaming wave of dark bodies rolled down on him and bore him under…

Behind them, more Klahari warriors all the time were swarming over the walls. The gates of the Strongpoint were torn open, and a dark, feathered and bejeweled river of tossing limbs and weapons poured into the open area. Soon, smoke began to rise from the buildings and the flood of attackers began to ebb, leaving behind it the torn and tattered refuse of their going.

Only in one area was the ground relatively clear. This was in a small circle around the foot of the watchtower where Jean had gone down. Among the last of the Klahari to leave was a tall, ornamented native who looked to me a little like the third of those who had spoken to Jean before the wall. He came to the foot of the watchtower and looked down for a moment

Then he stooped and wet his finger in the blood of Jean, and straightened up and wrote with it on the white, smooth concrete of the watchtower wall in native symbols. I could not speak Klahari, but I could read it; and what he had written, in a script something like that of Arabic—which means: “This was one of the Men.”

After which he turned and left the Strongpoint. As they all left the Strongpoint and went back to their jungles. For Jean’s last two days of defending the place had held them just long enough for the season to end and the year to change. At which moment, for the Klahari, all unsuccessful old ventures are to be abandoned and new ones begun. And so the threat that had been posed against all of us humans on Utword was ended.

But all ends are only beginnings, as with the Klahari years and seasons. In a few weeks, the planters began to return to their fields; and the burned and shattered Strongpoint that had been besieged by forty thousand Klahari was rebuilt. Soon after, a commission arrived from Earth that sat for long talks with the mature Klahari of the cities and determined that no new planters would be allowed on Utword. But those that were there could remain, and they with their families would be taboo, and therefore safe from attacks by young Klahari attempting to prove their jungle manhood.

Meanwhile, there being no other heirs on Utword, the Dupres property was sold at auction and the price was enough to pay for the shipping of the bodies of Pelang and Elmire home for burial, in the small Quebec community from which they had emigrated. While for Jean, a fund was raised by good people, who bad been safe in the Regional Installations, to ship his body back along with his parents’.

These people did not believe me when I objected. They thought it was all I had been through, talking, when I said that Jean would not have wanted that—that he would have wanted to have been buried here, instead, in his father’s fields.

CONTINUED ON NEXT ROCK

R. A. Lafferty

Up in the Big Lime country there is an upthrust, a chimney rock that is half fallen against a newer hill. It is formed of what is sometimes called Dawson Sandstone and is interlaced with tough shell. It was formed during the glacial and recent ages in the bottomlands of Crow Creek and Green River when these streams (at least five times) were mighty rivers.

The chimney rock is only a little older than mankind, only a little younger than grass. Its formation had been upthrust and then eroded away again, all but such harder parts as itself and other chimneys and blocks.

A party of five persons came to this place where the chimney rock had fallen against a newer hill. The people of the party did not care about the deep limestone below: they were not geologists. They did care about the newer hill (it was man-made) and they did care a little about the rock chimney; they were archeologists.

Here was time heaped up, bulging out in casing and accumulation, and not in line sequence. And here also was striated and banded time, grown tall, and then shattered and broken.

The five party members came to the site early in the afternoon, bringing the working trailer down a dry creek bed. They unloaded many things and made a camp there.

It wasn’t really necessary to make a camp on the ground. There was a good motel two miles away on the highway; there was a road along the ridge above. They could have lived in comfort and made the trip to the site in five minutes every morning. Terrence Burdock, however, believed that one could not get the feel of a digging unless he lived on the ground with it day and night.

The five persons were Terrence Burdock, his wife Ethyl, Robert Derby, and Howard Steinleser: four beautiful and balanced people. And Magdalen Mobley who was neither beautiful nor balanced. But she was electric; she was special. They rouched[?] around in the formations a little after they had made camp and while there was still light. All of them had seen the formations before and had guessed that there was promise in them.

“That peculiar fluting in the broken chimney is almost like a core sample,” Terrence said, “and it differs from the rest of it. It’s like a lightning bolt through the whole length. It’s already exposed for us. I believe we will remove the chimney entirely. It covers the perfect access for the slash in the mound, and it is the mound in which we are really interested. But we’ll study the chimney first. It is so available for study.”

“Oh, I can tell you everything that’s in the chimney,” Magdalen said crossly. “I can tell you everything that’s in the mound too.”

“I wonder why we take the trouble to dig if you already know what we will find,” Ethyl sounded archly.

“I wonder too,” Magdalen grumbled. “But we will need the evidence and the artifacts to show. You can’t get appropriations without evidence and artifacts. Robert, go kill that deer in the brush about forty yards northeast of the chimney. We may as well have deer meat if we’re living primitive.”

“This isn’t deer season,” Robert Derby objected. “And there isn’t any deer there. Or, if there is, it’s down in the draw where you couldn’t see it. And if there’s one there, it’s probably a doe.”

“No, Robert, it is a two-year-old buck and a very big one. Of course it’s in the draw where I can’t see it. Forty yards northeast of the chimney would have to be in the draw. If I could see it, the rest of you could see it too. Now go kill it! Are you a man or a mus microtus? Howard, cut poles and set up a tripod to string and dress the deer on.”

“You had better try the thing, Robert,” Ethyl Burdock said, “or we’ll have no peace this evening.”

Robert Derby took a carbine and went northeastward of the chimney, descending into the draw at forty yards. There was the high ping of the carbine shot. And after some moments, Robert returned with a curious grin.

“You didn’t miss him, Robert, you killed him,” Magdalen called loudly. “You got him with a good shot through the throat and up into the brain when he tossed his head high like they do. Why didn’t you bring him? Go back and get him!”

“Get him? I couldn’t even lift the thing. Terrence and Howard, come with me and we’ll slash it to a pole and get it here somehow.”

“Oh Robert, you’re out of your beautiful mind,” Magdalen abided. “It only weighs a hundred and ninety pounds. Oh, I’ll get it.”

Magdalen Mobley went and got the big buck. She brought it back, carrying it listlessly across her shoulders and getting herself bloodied, stopping sometimes to examine rocks and kick them with her foot, coming on easily with her load. It looked as if it might weigh two hundred and fifty pounds; but if Magdalen said it weighed a hundred and ninety, that is what it weighed.

Howard Steinleser had out poles and made a tripod. He knew better than not to. They strung the buck up, skinned it off, ripped up its belly, drew it, and worked it over in an almost professional manner.

“Cook it, Ethyl,” Magdalen said.

Later, as they sat on the ground around the fire and it had turned dark, Ethyl brought the buck’s brains to Magdalen, messy and not half cooked, believing that she was playing an evil trick. And Magdalen ate them avidly. They were her due. She had discovered the buck.

If you wonder how Magdalen knew what invisible things were where, so did the other members of the party always wonder.

“It bedevils me sometimes why I am the only one to notice the analogy between historical geology and depth psychology,” Terrence Burdock mused as they grew lightly profound around the campfire. “The isostatic principle applies to the mind and the under-mind as well as it does to the surface and undersurface of the earth. The mind has its erosions and weatherings going on along with its deposits and accumulations. It also has its upthrusts and its stresses. It floats on a similar magma. In extreme cases it has its volcanic eruptions and its mountain building.”

“And it has its glaciations,” Ethyl Burdock said, and perhaps she was looking at her husband in the dark.

“The mind has its hard sandstone, sometimes transmuted to quartz, or half transmuted into flint, from the drifting and floating sand of daily events. It has its shale from the old mud of daily ineptitudes and inertias. It has limestone out of its more vivid experiences, for lime is the remnant of what was once animate: and this limestone may be true marble if it is the deposit of rich enough emotion, or even travertine if it has bubbled sufficiently through agonized and evocative rivers of the under-mind. The mind has its sulphur and its gemstones.”

Terrence bubbled on sufficiently, and Magdalen cut him off.

“Say simply that we have rocks in our heads,” she said. “But they’re random rocks, I tell you, and the same ones keep coming back. It isn’t the same with us as it is with the earth. The world gets new rocks all the time. But it’s the same people who keep turning up, and the same minds. Damn, one of the samest of them just turned up again! I wish he’d leave me alone. The answer is still no.”

Very often Magdalen said things that made no sense. Ethyl Burdock assured herself that neither her husband, nor Robert, nor Howard, had slipped over to Magdalen in the dark. Ethyl was jealous of the chunky and surly girl.

“I am hoping that this will be as rich as Spiro Mound,” Howard Steinleser hoped. “It could be, you know. I’m told that there was never a less prepossessing site than that, or a trickier one. I wish we had someone who had dug at Spiro.”

“Oh, he dug at Spiro,” Magdalen said with contempt.

“He? Who?” Terrence Burdock asked. “No one of us was at Spiro. Magdalen, you weren’t even born yet when that mound was opened. What could you know about it?”

“Yeah, I remember him at Spiro,” Magdalen said, “always turning up his own things and pointing them out.”

“Were you at Spiro?” Terrence suddenly asked a piece of the darkness. For some time, they had all been vaguely aware that there were six, and not five, persons around the fire.

“Yeah, I was at Spiro,” the man said. “I dig there. I dig at a lot of the digs. I dig real well, and I always know when we come to something that will be important. You give me a job.”

“Who are you?” Terrence asked him. The man was pretty visible now. The flame of the fire seemed to lean toward him as if he compelled it.

“Oh, I’m just a rich old poor man who keeps following and hoping and asking. There is one who is worth it all forever, so I solicit that one forever. And sometimes I am other things. Two hours ago I was the deer in the draw. It is an odd thing to munch one’s own flesh.” And the man was munching a joint of the deer, unasked.

“Him and his damn cheap poetry!” Magdalen cried angrily.

“What’s your name?” Terrence asked him.

“Manypenny. Anteros Manypenny is my name forever.”

“What are you?”

“Oh, just Indian. Shawnee. Choc, Creek, Anadarko, Caddo and pre-Caddo. Lots of things.”

“How could anyone be pre-Caddo?”

“Like me. I am.”

“Is Anteros a Creek name?”

“No. Greek. Man, I am a going Jessie, I am one digging man! I show you tomorrow.”

Man, he was one digging man! He showed them tomorrow. With a short-handled rose hoe he began the gash in the bottom of the mound, working too swiftly to be believed.

“He will smash anything that is there. He will not know what he comes to,” Ethyl Burdock complained.

“Woman, I will not smash whatever is there,” Anteros said. “You can hide a wren’s egg in one cubic meter of sand. I will move all the sand in one minute. I will uncover the egg wherever it is. And I will not crack the egg. I sense these things. I come now to a small pot of the proto-Plano period. It is broken, of course, but I do not break it. It is in six pieces and they will fit together perfectly. I tell you this beforehand. Now I reveal it.”

And Anteros revealed it. There was something wrong about it even before he uncovered it. But it was surely a find, and perhaps it was of the proto-Plano period. The six shards came out. They were roughly cleaned and set. It was apparent that they would fit wonderfully.

“Why, it is perfect!” Ethyl exclaimed.

“It is too perfect!” Howard Steinleser protested. “It was a turned pot, and who had turned pots in America without the potter’s wheel? But the glyphs pressed into it do correspond to proto-Plano glyphs. It is fishy.” Steinleser was in a twitchy humor today and his face was livid.

“Yes, it is the ripple and the spinosity, the fish-glyph,” Anteros pointed out. “And the sun-sign is riding upon it. It is fish-god.”

“It’s fishy in another way,” Steinleser insisted. “Nobody finds a thing like that in the first sixty seconds of a dig. And there could not be such a pot. I wouldn’t believe it was proto-Plano unless points were found in the exact site with it.”

“Oh here,” Anteros said. “One can smell the very shape of the flint points already. Two large points, one small one. Surely you get the whiff of them already? Four more hoe cuts and I come to them.”

Four more hoe cuts, and Anteros did come to them. He uncovered two large points and one small one, spearheads and arrowhead. Lanceolate they were, with ribbon flaking. They were late Folsom, or they were proto-Plano; they were what you will.

“This cannot be,” Steinleser groaned. “They’re the missing chips, the transition pieces. They fill the missing place too well. I won’t believe it. I’d hardly believe it if mastodon bones were found on the same level here.”

“In a moment,” said Anteros, beginning to use the hoe again. “Hey, those old beasts did smell funny! An elephant isn’t in it with them. And a lot of it still clings to their bones. Will a sixth thoracic bone do? I’m pretty sure that’s what it is. I don’t know where the rest of the animal is. Probably somebody gnawed the thoracic here. Nine hoe cuts, and then very careful.”

Nine hoe cuts and then Anteros, using a mason’s trowel, unearthed the old gnawed bone very carefully. Yes, Howard said almost angrily, it was a sixth thoracic of a mastodon. Robert Derby said it was a fifth or a sixth; it is not easy to tell.

“Leave the digging for a while, Anteros,” Steinleser said. “I want to record and photograph and take a few measurements here.”

Terrence Burdock and Magdalen Mobley were working at the bottom of the chimney rock, at the bottom of the fluting that ran the whole height of it like a core sample.

“Get Anteros over here and see what he can uncover in sixty seconds,” Terrence offered.

“Oh, him! He’ll just uncover some of his own things.”

“What do you mean, his own things? Nobody could have made an intrusion here. It’s hard sandstone.”

“And harder flint here,” Magdalen said. “I might have known it. Pass the damned thing up. I know just about what it says anyhow.”

“What it says? What do you mean? But it is marked! And it’s large and dressed rough. Who’d carve in flint?”

“Somebody real stubborn, just like flint,” Magdalen said. “All right then, let’s have it out. Anteros! Get this out in one piece. And do it without shattering it or tumbling the whole thing down on us. He can do it, you know, Terrence. He can do things like that.”

“What do you know about his doings, Magdalen? You never saw or heard about the poor man till last night.”

“Oh well, I know that it’ll turn out to be the same damned stuff.”

Anteros did get it out without shattering it or bringing down the chimney column. A cleft with a digging bar, three sticks of the stuff and a cap, and he touched the leads to the battery when he was almost on top of the charge. The blast, it sounded as if the whole sky were falling down on them, and some of those sky-blocks were quite large stones. The ancients wondered why fallen pieces of the sky should always be dark rock-stuff and never sky-blue clear stuff. The answer is that it is only pieces of the night sky that ever fall, even though they may sometimes be most of the daytime in falling, such is the distance. And the blast that Anteros set off did bring down rocky hunks of the night sky even though it was broad daylight. They brought down darker rocks than any of which the chimney was composed.

Still, it was a small blast. The chimney tottered but did not collapse. It settled back uneasily on its base. And the flint block was out in the clear.

“A thousand spearheads and arrowheads could be shattered and chipped out of that hunk,” Terrence marveled. “That flint block would have been a primitive fortune for a primitive man.”

“I had several such fortunes,” Anteros said dully, “and this one I preserved and dedicated.”

They had all gathered around it.

“Oh the poor man!” Ethyl suddenly exclaimed. But she was not looking at any of the men. She was looking at the stone.

“I wish he’d get off that kick,” Magdalen sputtered angrily. “I don’t care how rich he is. I can pick up better stuff than him in the alleys.”

“What are the women chirping about?” Terrence asked.

“But those do look like true glyphs. Almost like Aztec, are they not, Steinleser?”

“Nahuat-Tanoan, cousins-german to the Aztec, or should I say cousins-yaqui?”

“Call it anything, but can you read it?”

“Probably. Give me eight or ten hours on it and I should come up with a contingent reading of many of the glyphs. We can hardly expect a rational rendering of the message, however. All Nahuat-Tanoan translations so far have been gibberish.”

“And remember, Terrence, that Steinleser is a slow reader,” Magdalen said spitefully. “And he isn’t very good at interpreting other signs either.”

Steinleser was sullen and silent. How had his face come to bear those deep livid claw-marks today?

They moved a lot of rock and rubble that morning, took quite a few pictures, wrote up bulky notes. There were constant finds as the divided party worked up the shag-slash in the mound and the core-flute of the chimney. There were no more really startling discoveries; no more turned pots of the proto-Plano period; how could there be? There were no more predicted and perfect points of the late Folsom, but there were broken and unpredictable points. No other mastodon thoracic was found, but bones were uncovered of bison latifrons[?], of dire wolf, of coyote, of man. There were some anomalies in the relationships of the things discovered, but it was not as fishy as it had been in the early morning, not as fishy as when Anteros had announced and then dug out the shards of the pot, the three points, the mastodon bone. The things now were as authentic as they were expected, and yet their very profusion had still the smell of a small fish. And that Anteros was one digging man. He moved the sand, he moved the stone, he missed nothing. And at noon he disappeared.

An hour later he reappeared in a glossy station wagon, coming out of a thicketed ravine where no one would have expected a way. He had been to town. He brought a variety of cold cuts, cheeses, relishes, and pastries, a couple cases of cold beer, and some V.O.

“I thought you were a poor man, Anteros,” Terrence chided.

“I told you that I was a rich old poor man. I have nine thousand acres of grassland, I have three thousand head of cattle, I have alfalfa land and clover land and coin land and hay-grazer land.”

“Oh, knock it off!” Magdalen snapped.

“I have other things,” Anteros finished sullenly.

They ate, they rested, they worked the afternoon. Magdalen worked as swiftly and solidly as did Anteros. She was young, she was stocky, she was light-burned-dark. She was not at all beautiful. (Ethyl was.) She could have any man there any time she wanted to. (Ethyl couldn’t.) She was Magdalen, the often unpleasant, the mostly casual, the suddenly intense one. She was the tension of the party, the string of the bow.

“Anteros!” she called sharply just at sundown.

“The turtle?” he asked. “The turtle that is under the ledge out of the current where the backwater curls in reverse? But he is fat and happy and he has never banned[?] anything except for food or fun. I know you do not want me to get that turtle.”

“I do! There’s eighteen pounds of him. He’s fat. He’ll be good. Only eighty yards, where the bank crumbles down to Green River, under the lower ledge that’s shale that looks like slate, two feet deep.”

“I know where he is. I will go get the fat turtle,” Anferos said. “I myself am the fat turtle. I am the Green River.” He went to get it.

“Oh that damned poetry of his!” Magdalen spat when he was gone.

Anteros brought back the fat turtle. He looked as if he’d weigh twenty-five pounds, but if Magdalen said he weighed eighteen pounds, then it was eighteen.

“Start cooking, Ethyl,” Magdalen said. Magdalen was a mere undergraduate girl permitted on the digging by sheer good fortune. The others of the party were all archeologists of moment. Magdalen had no right to give orders to anyone, except her born right.

“I don’t know how to cook a turtle,” Ethyl complained.

“Anteros will show you how.”

“The late evening smell of newly exposed excavation!” Terrence Burdock burbled as they lounged around the campfire a little later, full of turtle and V.O. and feeling rakishly wise. “The exposed age can be guessed by the very timbre of the smell, I believe.”

“Timbre of the smell! What is your nose wired up to?” from Magdalen.

And, indeed, there was something time-evocative about the smell of the diggings: cool, at the same time musty and musky, ripe with old stratified water and compressed death. Stratified time.

“It helps if you really know what the exposed age is,” said Howard Steinleser. “Here there is an anomaly. The chimney sometimes acts as if it were younger than the mound. The chimney cannot be young enough to include written rock, but it is.”

“Archeology is made up entirely of anomalies,” said Terrence, “rearranged to make them fit in a fluky pattern. There’d be no system to it otherwise.”

“Every science is made up entirely of anomalies rearranged to fit,” said Robert Derby. “Have you unriddled the glyph-stone, Howard?”

“Yes, pretty well. Better than I expected. Charles August can verify it, of course, when we get it back to the university. It is a non-royal, non-tribal, non-warfare, non-hunt declaration. It does not come under any of the usual radical signs, any of the categories. It can only be categorized as uncategoried or personal. The translation will be rough.”

“Rocky is the word,” said Magdalen.

“On with it, Howard,” Ethyl cried.

” ‘You are the freedom of wild pigs in the sour-grass, and the nobility of badgers. You are the brightness of serpents and the soaring of vultures. You are passion on mesquite bushes on fire with lightning. You are serenity of toads.’ “

“You’ve got to admit he’s got a different line,” said Ethyl. “Your own love notes were less acrid, Terrence.”

“What kind of thing is it, Steinleser?” Terrence questioned. “It must have a category.”

“I believe Ethyl is right. It’s a love poem. ‘You are the water in lock cisterns and the secret spiders in that water. You are the dead coyote lying half in the stream, and you are the old entrapped dreams of the coyote’s brains oozing liquid through the broken eyesocket. You are the happy ravening flies about that broken socket.’ “

“Oh, hold it, Steinleser,” Robert Derby cried. “You can’t have gotten all that from scratches on flint. What is ‘entrapped dreams’ in Nahuat-Tanoan glyph-writing?”

“The solid-person sign next to the hollow-person sign, both enclosed in the night sign that has always been interpreted as the dream glyph. And here the dream glyph is enclosed in the glyph of the deadfall trap. Yes, I believe it means entrapped dreams. To continue: ‘You are the corn-worm in the dark heart of the corn, the naked small bird in the nest. You are the pustules on the sick rabbit, devouring life and flesh and turning it into your own serum. You are stars compressed into charcoal. But you cannot give, you cannot take. Once again you will be broken at the foot of the cliff, and the word will remain unsaid in your swollen and purpled tongue.’ “

“A love poem, perhaps, but with a difference,” said Robert Derby.

“I never was able to go his stuff, and I tried, I really tried,” Magdalen moaned.

“Here is the change of person-subject shown by the canted-eye glyph linked with the self-glyph,” Steinleser explained. “It is now a first-person talk. ‘I own ten thousand back-loads of corn. I own gold and beans and nine buffalo horns full of watermelon seeds. I own the loincloth that the sun wore on his fourth journey across the sky. Only three loincloths in the world are older and more valued than this. I cry out to you in a big voice like the hammering of herons’ (that sound-verb-particle is badly translated, the hammer being not a modern pounding hammer but a rock angling, chipping hammer) and the belching of buffalos. My love is sinewy as entwined snakes, it is steadfast as the sloth, it is like a feathered arrow shot into your abdomen—such is my love. Why is my love unrequited?’ “

“I challenge you, Steinleser,” Terrence Burdock cut in. “What is the glyph for ‘unrequited’?”

“The glyph of the extended hand—with all the fingers bent backwards. It goes on, ‘I roar to you. Do not throw yourself down. You believe you are on the hanging sky bridge, but you are on the terminal cliff. I grovel before you. I am no more than dog-droppings.’ “

“You’ll notice he said that and not me,” Magdalen burst out. “There was always a fundamental incoherence about Magdalen.

“Ah—continue, Steinleser,” said Terrence. “The girl is daft, or she dreams out loud.”

“That is all of the inscription, Terrence, except for a final glyph which I don’t understand. Glyph writing takes a lot of room. That’s all the stone would hold.”

“What is the glyph that you don’t understand, Howard?”.

“It’s the spear-thrower glyph entwined with the time glyph. It sometimes means ‘flung forward or beyond.’ But what does it mean here?”

“It means ‘continued,’ dummy, ‘continued,’ ” Magdalen said. “Do not fear. There’ll be more stones.”

“I think it’s beautiful,” said Ethyl Burdock, “in its own context, of course.”

“Then why don’t you take him on, Ethyl, in his own context, of course?” Magdalen asked. “Myself, I don’t care how many back-loads of corn he owns. I’ve had it.”

“Take whom on, dear?” Ethyl asked. “Howard Steinleser can interpret the stones, but who can interpret our Magdalen?”

“Oh, I can read her like a rock,” Terrence Burdock smiled. But he couldn’t.

But it fastened on them. It was all about them and through them: the brightness of serpents and the serenity of toads, the secret spiders in the water, the entrapped dreams oozing through the broken eyesocket, the pustules of the sick rabbit, the belching of buffalo, and the arrow shot into the abdomen. And around it all was the night smell of flint and turned earth and chuckling streams, the mustiness, and the special muskiness which bears the name Nobility of Badgers.

They talked archeology and myth talk. Then it was steep night, and the morning of the third day. Oh, the sample digging went well. This was already a richer mound than Spiro, though the gash in it was but a small promise of things to come. And the curious twin of the mound, the broken chimney, confirmed and confounded and contradicted. There was time gone wrong in the chimney, or at least in the curious fluted core of it; the rest of it was normal enough, and sterile enough.

Anteros worked that day with a soft sullenness, and Magdalen brooded with a sort of lightning about her.

“Beads, glass beads!” Terrence Burdock exploded angrily. “All right! Who is the hoaxer in our midst? I will not tolerate this at all.” Terrence had been angry of face all day. He was clawed deeply, as Steinleser had been the day before, and he was sour on the world.

“There have been glass-bead caches before, Terrence, hundreds of them,” Robert Derby said softly.

“There have been hoaxers before, hundreds of them,” Terrence howled. “These have ‘Hong Kong Contemporary’ written all over them, damned cheap glass beads sold by the pound. They have no business in a stratum of around the year seven hundred. All right, who is guilty?”

“I don’t believe that any one of us is guilty, Terrence,” Ethyl put in mildly. “They are found four feet in from the slant surface of the mound. Why, we’ve cut through three hundred years of vegetable loam to get to them, and certainly the surface was eroded beyond that.”

“We are scientists,” said Steinleser. “We find these. Others have found such. Let us consider the improbabilities of it.”

It was noon, so they ate and rested and considered the improbabilities. Anteros had brought them a great joint of white pork, and they made sandwiches and drank beer and ate pickles.

“You know,” said Robert Derby, “that beyond the rank impossibility of glass beads found so many times where they could not be found, there is a real mystery about all early Indian beads, whether of bone, stone, or antler. There are millions and millions of these fine beads with pierced holes finer than any piercer ever found. There are residues, there are centers of every other Indian industry, and there is evolution of every other tool. Why have there been these millions of pierced beads, and never one piercer? There was no technique to make so fine a piercer. How were they done?”

Magdalen giggled. “Bead-spitter,” she said.

“Bead-spitter! You’re out of your fuzzy mind,” Terrence erupted. “That’s the silliest and least sophisticated of all Indian legends.”

“But it is the legend,” said Robert Derby, “the legend of more than thirty separate tribes. The Carib Indians of Cuba said that they got their beads from Bead-spitters. The Indians of Panama told Balboa the same thing. The Indians of the pueblos told the same story to Coronado. Every Indian community had an Indian who was its Bead-spitter. There are Creek and Alabama and Koasati stories of Bead-spitter; see Swanton’s collections. And his stories were taken down within living memory.

“More than that, when European trade-beads were first introduced, there is one account of an Indian receiving some and saying, ‘I will take some to Bead-spitter. If he sees them, he can spit them too.’ And that Bead-spitter did then spit them by the bushel. There was never any other Indian account of the origin of their beads. All were spit by a Bead-spitter.”

“Really, this is very unreal,” Ethyl said. Really it was.

“Hog hokey! A Bead-spitter of around the year seven hundred could not spit future beads, he could not spit cheap Hong Kong glass beads of the present time!” Terrence was very angry.

“Pardon me, yes sir, he could,” said Anteros. “A Bead-spitter can spit future beads, if he faces North when he spits. That has always been known.”

Terrence was angry, he fumed and poisoned the day for them, and the claw marks on his face stood out livid purple. He was angrier yet when he said that the curious dark capping rock on top of the chimney was dangerous, that it would fall and kill someone; and Anteros said that there was no such capping rock on the chimney, that Terrence’s eyes were deceiving him, that Terrence should go sit in the shade and rest.

And Terrence became excessively angry when he discovered that Magdalen was trying to hide something that she had discovered in the fluted core of the chimney. It was a large and heavy shale-stone, too heavy even for Magdalen’s puzzling strength. She had dragged it out of the chimney flute, tumbled it down to the bottom, and was trying to cover it with rocks and scarp.

“Robert, mark the extraction point!” Terrence called loudly. “It’s quite plain yet. Magdalen, stop that! Whatever it is, it must be examined now.”

“Oh, it’s just more of the damned same thing! I wish he’d let me alone. With his kind of money he can get plenty girls. Besides, it’s private, Terrence. You don’t have any business reading it.”

“You are hysterical, Magdalen, and you may have to leave the digging site.”

“I wish I could leave. I can’t. I wish I could love. I can’t. Why isn’t it enough that I die?”

“Howard, spend the afternoon on this,” Terrence ordered. “It has writing of a sort on it. If it’s what I think it is, it scares me. It’s too recent to be in any eroded chimney rock formation, Howard, and it comes from far below the top. Read it.”

“A few hours on it and I may come up with something. I never saw anything like it either. What did you think it was, Terrence?”

“What do you think I think it is? It’s much later than the other, and that one was impossible. I’ll not be the one to confess myself crazy first.”

Howard Steinleser went to work on the incised stone; and two hours before sundown they brought him another one, a gray soapstone block from higher up. Whatever this was covered with, it was not at all the same thing that covered the shale-stone.

And elsewhere things went well, too well. The old fishiness was back on it. No series of finds could be so perfect, no petrification could be so well ordered.

“Robert,” Magdalen called down to Robert Derby just at sunset, “in the high meadow above the shore, about four hundred yards down, just past the old fence line—”

“There is a badger hole, Magdalen. Now you have me doing it, seeing invisible things at a distance. And if I take a carbine and stroll down there quietly, the badger will stick his head out just as I get there (I being strongly downwind of him), and I’ll blame[?] him between the eyes. He’ll be a big one, fifty pounds.”

“Thirty. Bring him, Robert. You’re showing a little understanding at last.”

“But, Magdalen, badger is rampant meat. It’s seldom eaten.”

“May not the condemned girl have what she wishes for her last meal? Go get it, Robert.”

Robert went. The voice of the little carbine was barely heard at that distance. Soon, Robert brought back the dead badger.

“Cook it, Ethyl,” Magdalen ordered.

“Yes, I know. And if I don’t know how, Anteros will show me.” But Anteros was gone. Robert found him on a sundown knoll with his shoulders hunched. The odd man was sobbing silently and his face seemed to be made out of dull pumice stone. But he came back to aid Ethyl in preparing the badger.

“If the first of today’s stones scared you, the second should have lifted the hair right off your head, Terrence,” Howard Steinleser said.

“It does, it does. All the stones are too recent to be in a chimney formation, but this last one is an insult. It isn’t two hundred years old, but there’s a thousand years of strata above it. What time is deposited there?”

They had eaten rampant badger meat and drunk inferior whisky (which Anteros, who had given it to them, didn’t know was inferior), and the muskiness was both inside them and around them. The campfire sometimes spit angrily with small explosions, and its glare reached high when it did so. By one such leaping glare, Terrence Burdock saw that the curious dark capping rock was once more on the top of the chimney. He thought he had seen it there in the daytime; but it had not been there after he had sat in the shade and rested, and it had absolutely not been there when he climbed the chimney itself to be sure.

“Let’s have the second chapter and then the third, Howard,” Ethyl said. “It’s neater that way.”

“Yes. Well, the second chapter (the first and lowest and apparently the earliest rock we came on today) is written in a language that no one ever saw written before; and yet it’s no great trouble to read it. Even Terrence guessed what it was and it scared him. It is Anadarko-Caddo hand-talk graven in stone. It is what is called the sign language of the Plains Indians copied down in formalized pictograms. And it has to be very recent, within the last three hundred years. Hand-talk was fragmentary at the first coming of the Spanish, and well developed at the first coming of the French. It was an explosive development, as such things go, worked out within a hundred years. This rock has to be younger than its situs, but it was absolutely found in place.”

“Read it, Howard, read it,” Robert Derby called.

Robert was feeling fine and the rest of them were gloomy tonight.

” ‘I own three hundred ponies,’ ” Steinleser read the rock out of his memory. ‘I own two days’ ride north and east and south, and one day’s ride west. I give you all. I blast out with a big voice like fire in tall trees, like the explosion of crowning pine trees. I cry like closing-in wolves, like the high voice of the lion, like the hoarse scream of torn calves. Do you not destroy yourself again! You are the dew on crazy-weed in the morning. You are the swift crooked wings of the night-hawk, the dainty feet of the skunk, you are the juice of the sour-squash. Why can you not take or give? I am the humpbacked bull of the high plains, I am the river itself and the stagnant pools left by the river, I am the raw earth and the rocks.Come to me, but do not come so violently as to destroy yourself.’

“Ah, that was the text of the first rock of the day, the Anadarko Caddo hand-talk graven in stone. And final pictograms which I don’t understand: a shot-arrow sign, and a boulder beyond.”

” ‘Continued on next rock,’ of course,” said Robert Derby. “Well, why wasn’t hand-talk ever written down? The signs are simple and easily stylized and they were understood by many different tribes. It would have been natural to write it.”

“Alphabetical writing was in the region before hand-talk was well developed,” Terrence Burdock said. “In fact, it was the coming of the Spanish that gave the impetus to hand-talk. It was really developed for communication between Spanish and Indian, not between Indian and Indian. And yet, I believe, hand-talk was written down once; it was the beginning of the Chinese photographs. And there also it had its beginning as communication between differing peoples. Depend on it, if all mankind had always been of a single language, there would never have been any written language developed at all. Writing always began as a bridge, and there had to be some chasm for it to bridge.”

“We have one bridge here,” said Steinleser. “That whole chimney is full of rotten smoke. The highest part of it should be older than the lowest part of the mound, since the mound was built on a base eroded away from the chimney formation. But in many ways they seem to be contemporary. We must all be under a spell here. We’ve worked two days on this, parts of three days, and the total impossibility of the situation hasn’t struck us yet.

“The old Nahuatlan glyphs for Time are the chimney glyphs. Present time is a lower part of a chimney and fire burning at the base. Past time is black smoke from a chimney, and future time is white smoke from a chimney. There was a signature glyph running through our yesterday’s stone which I didn’t and don’t understand. It seemed to indicate something coming down out of the chimney rather than going up it.”

“It really doesn’t look much like a chimney,” Magdalen said.

“And a maiden doesn’t look much like dew on crazy-weed in the morning, Magdalen,” Robert Derby said, “but we recognize these identities.”

They talked a while about the impossibility of the whole business.

“There are scales on our eyes,” Steinleser said. “The fluted core of the chimney is wrong. I’m not even sure the rest of the chimney is right.”

“No, it isn’t,” said Robert Derby. “We can identify most of the strata of the chimney with known periods of the river and stream. I was above and below today. There is one stretch where the sandstone was not eroded at all, where it stands three hundred yards back from the shifted river and is overlaid with a hundred years of loam and sod. There are other sections where the stone is out[cut?] away variously. We can tell when most of the chimney was laid down, we can find its correspondences up to a few hundred years ago. But when were the top ten feet of it laid down? There were no correspondences anywhere to that. The centuries represented by the strata of the top of the chimney, people, those centuries haven’t happened yet.”

“And when was the dark capping rock on top of it all formed?” Terrence began. “Ah, I’m out of my mind. It isn’t there. I’m demented.”

“No more than the rest of us,” said Steinleser. “I saw it too, I thought, today. And then I didn’t see it again.”

“The rock-writing, it’s like an old novel that I only half remember,” said Ethyl.

“Oh, that’s what it is, yes,” Magdalen murmured.

“But I don’t remember what happened to the girl in it.”

“I remember what happened to her, Ethyl,” Magdalen said.

“Give us the third chapter, Howard,” Ethyl asked. “I want to see how it comes out.”

“First you should all have whisky for those colds,” Anteros suggested humbly.

“But none of us have colds,” Ethyl objected.

“You take your own medical advice, Ethyl, and I’ll take mine.” Terrence said. “I will have whisky. My cold is not rheum but fear-chill.”

They all had whisky. They talked a while, and some of them dozed.

“It’s late, Howard,” Ethyl said after a while. “Let’s have the next chapter. Is it the last chapter? Then we’ll sleep. We have honest digging to do tomorrow.”

“Our third stone, our second stone of the day just past, is another and even later form of writing and it has never been seen in stone before. It is Kiowa picture writing. The Kiowas did their out-turning spiral writing on buffalo skins dressed almost as fine as vellum. In its more sophisticated form (and if his is a copy of that) it is quite late. The Kiowa picture writing probably did not arrive at its excellence until influenced by white artists.”

“How late, Steinleser?” Robert Derby asked.

“Not more than a hundred and fifty years old. But I have never seen it copied in stone before. It simply isn’t stone-styled. There’s a lot of things around here lately that I haven’t seen before.

“Well then, to the text, or should I say the pictography? ‘You fear the earth, you fear rough ground and rocks, you fear moister earth and rotting flesh, you fear the flesh itself, all flesh is rotting flesh. If you love not rotting flesh, you love not at all. You believe the bridge hanging in the sky, the bridge hung by tendrils and woody vines that diminish as they go up and up till they are no thicker than hairs. There is no sky-bridge, you cannot go upon it. Did you believe that the roots of love grow upside down? They come out of deep earth that is old flesh and brains and hearts and entrails, that is old buffalo bowels and snakes’ pizzles, that is black blood and rot and moaning underground. This is old and worn-out and bloody time, and the roots of love grow out of its gore.’ “

“You seem to give remarkable detailed translations of the simple spiral pictures, Steinleser, but I begin to get the mood of it,” Terrence said.

“Ah, perhaps I cheat a little,” said Steinleser.

“You lie a lot,” Magdalen challenged.

“No, I do not. There is some basis for every phrase I’ve used. It goes on: ‘I own twenty-two trade rifles. I own ponies. I own Mexico silver, eight-bit pieces. I am rich in all ways. I give all to you. I cry out with big voice like a bear full of mad-weed, like a bullfrog in love, like a stallion rearing against a puma. It is the earth that calls you. I am the earth, woollier than wolves and rougher than rocks. I am the bog earth that sucks you in. You cannot give, you cannot take, you cannot love, you think there is something else, you think there is a sky-bridge you may loiter on without crashing down. I am bristled-boar earth, there is no other. You will come to me in the morning. You will come to me easy and with grace. Or you will come to me reluctant and you be shattered in every bone and member of you. You be broken by our encounter. You be shattered as by a lightning bolt striking up from the earth. I am the red calf which is in the writings. I am the rotting red earth. Live in the morning or die in the morning, but remember that love in death is better than no love at all.’ “

“Oh brother! Nobody gets that stuff from such kid pictures, Steinleser,” Robert Derby moaned.

“Ah well, that’s the end of the spiral picture. And a Kiowa spiral photograph ends with either an in-sweep or an out-sweep line. This ends with an out-sweep, which means—”

” ‘Continued on next rock,’ that’s what it means,” Terrence cried roughly.

“You won’t find the next rocks,” Magdalen said. “They’re hidden, and most of the time they’re not there yet, but they will go on and on. But for all that, you’ll read it in the rocks tomorrow morning. I want it to be over with. Oh, I don’t know what I want!”

“I believe I know what you want tonight, Magdalen,” Robert Derby said.

But he didn’t.

The talk trailed off, the fire burned down, they went to their sleeping sacks.

Then it was long jagged night, and the morning of the fourth day. But wait! In Nahuat-Tanoan legend, the world ends on the fourth morning. All the lives we lived or thought we lived had been but dreams of third night. The loincloth that the sun wore on the fourth day’s journey was not so valuable as one has made out. It was worn for no more than an hour or so.

And, in fact, there was something terminal about fourth morning. Anteros had disappeared. Magdalen had disappeared. The chimney rock looked greatly diminished in its bulk (something had gone out of it) and much crazier in its broken height. The sun had come up a garish gray-orange color through fog. The signature-glyph of the first stone dominated the ambient. It was as if something were coming down from the chimney, a horrifying smoke; but it was only noisome morning fog.

No—it wasn’t. There was something else coming down from the chimney, or from the hidden sky: pebbles, stones, indescribable bits of foul oozings, the less fastidious pieces of the sky; a light nightmare rain had begun to fall there; the chimney was apparently beginning to crumble.

“It’s the damnedest thing I ever heard about,” Robert Derby growled. “Do you think that Magdalen really went off with Anteros?” Derby was bitter and fumatory this morning and his face was badly clawed.

“Who is Magdalen? Who is Anteros?” Ethyl Burdock asked.

Terrence Burdock was hooting from high on the mound.

“All come up,” he called. “Here is a find that will make it all worthwhile. We’ll have to photo and sketch and measure and record and witness. It’s the firiest basalt head I’ve ever seen, man-sized, and I suspect that there’s a man-sized body attached to it. We’ll soon clean it and clear it. Gah! What a weird fellow he was!”

But Howard Steinleser was studying a brightly colored something that he held in his two hands.

“What is it, Howard? What are you doing?” Derby demanded.

“Ah, I believe this is the next stone in sequence. The writing is alphabetical but deformed, there is an element missing. I believe it is in modern English, and I will solve the deformity and see it true in a minute. The text of it seems to be—”

Rocks and stones were coming down from the chimney, and fog, amnesic and wit-stealing fog.

“Steinleser, are you all right?” Robert Derby asked with compassion. “That isn’t a stone that you hold in your hand.”

“It isn’t a stone. I thought it was. What is it then?”

“It is the fruit of the Osage orange tree, the American Meraceous. It isn’t a stone, Howard.” And the thing was a tough, woody, wrinkled mock-orange, as big as a small melon.

“You have to admit that the wrinkles look a little bit like writing, Robert.”

“Yes, they look a little like writing, Howard. Let us go up where Terrence is bawling for us. You’ve read too many stones. And it isn’t safe here.”

“Why go up, Howard? The other thing is coming down.”

It was the bristle-boar earth reaching up with a rumble. It was a lightning bolt struck upward out of the earth, and it got its prey. There was explosion and roar. The dark capping rock was jerked from the top of the chimney and slammed with terrible force to the earth, shattering with a great shock. And something else that had been on that capping rock. And the whole chimney collapsed about them. She was broken by the encounter. She was shattered in every bone and member of her. And she was dead.

“Who… who is she?” Howard Steinleser stuttered.

“Oh God! Magdalen, of course!” Robert Derby cried.

“I remember her a little bit. Didn’t understand her. She put out like an evoking moth but she wouldn’t be had. Near clawed the face off me the other night when I misunderstood the signals. She believed there was a sky-bridge. It’s in a lot of the mythologies. But there isn’t one, you know. Oh well.”

“The girl is dead! Damnation! What are you doing grubbing in those stones?”

“Maybe she isn’t dead in them yet, Robert. I’m going to read what’s here before something happens to them. This capping rock that fell and broke, it’s impossible, of course. It’s a stratum that hasn’t been laid down yet. I always did want to read the future and I may never get another chance.”

“You fool! The girl’s dead! Does nobody care? Terrence, stop bellowing about your find. Come down. The girl’s dead.”

“Come up, Robert and Howard,” Terrence insisted.

“Leave that broken stuff down there. It’s worthless. But nobody ever saw anything like this.”

“Do come up, men,” Ethyl sang. “Oh, it’s a wonderful piece! I never saw anything like it in my life.”

“Ethyl, is the whole morning mad?” Robert Derby demanded as he came up to her. “She’s dead. Don’t you really remember her? Don’t you remember Magdalen?”

“I’m not sure. Is she the girl down there? Isn’t she the same girl who’s been hanging around here a couple days? She shouldn’t have been playing on that high rock. I’m sorry she’s dead. But just look what we’re uncovering here!”

“Terrence. Don’t you remember Magdalen?”

“The girl down there? She’s a little bit like the girl that clawed the hell out of me the other night. Next time someone goes to town they might mention to the sheriff that there’s a dead girl here. Robert, did you ever see a face like this one? And it digs away to reveal the shoulders. I believe there’s a whole man-sized figure here. Wonderful, wonderful!”

“Terrence, you’re off your head. Well, do you remember Anteros?”

“Certainly, the twin of Eros, but nobody ever made much of the symbol of unsuccessful love. Thunder! That’s the name for him! It fits him perfectly. We’ll call him Anteros.”

Well, it was Anteros, lifelike in basalt stone. His face was contorted. He was sobbing soundlessly and frozenly and his shoulders were hunched with emotion. The carving was fascinating in its miserable passion, his stony love unrequited. Perhaps he was more impressive now than he would be when he was cleaned. He was earth, he was earth itself. Whatever period the carving belonged to, it was outstanding in its power.

“The live Anteros, Terrence. Don’t you remember our digging man, Anteros Manypenny?”

“Sure. He didn’t show up for work this morning, did he? Tell him he’s fired.”

“Magdalen is dead! She was one of us! Damnit, she was the main one of us!” Robert Derby cried. Terrence and Ethyl Burdock were earless to his outburst. They were busy uncovering the rest of the carving.

And down below, Howard Steinleser was studying dark broken rocks before they would disappear, studying a stratum that hadn’t been laid down yet, reading a foggy future.

IN THE QUEUE

Keith Laumer

The old man fell just as Farn Hestler’s power wheel was passing his Place in Line, on his way back from the Comfort Station. Hestler, braking, stared down at the twisted face, a mask of soft, pale leather in which the mouth writhed as if trying to tear itself free of the dying body. Then he jumped from the wheel, bent over the victim. Quick as he was, a lean woman with fingers like gnarled roots was before him, clutching at the old man’s fleshless shoulders.

“Tell them me, Millicent Dredgewicke Klunt,” she was shrilling into the vacant face. “Oh, if you only knew what I’ve been through, how I deserve the help—”

Hestler sent her reeling with a deft shove of his foot. He knelt beside the old man, lifted his head.

“Vultures,” he said. “Greedy, snapping at a man. Now, I care. And you were getting so close to the Head of the Line. The tales you could tell, I’ll bet. An Old-timer. Not like these Line, er, jumpers,” he diverted the obscenity. “I say a man deserves a little dignity at a moment like this—”

“Wasting your time, Jack,” a meaty voice said. Hestler glanced up into the hippopotamine features of the man he always thought of as Twentieth Back. “The old coot’s dead.”

Hestler shook the corpse. “Tell them Argall Y. Hestler!” he yelled into the dead ear. “Argall, that’s A-R-G-A-L-L—”

“Break it up,” the brassy voice of a Line Policeman sliced through the babble. “You, get back.” A sharp prod lent urgency to the command. Hestler rose reluctantly, his eyes on the waxy face slackening into an expression of horrified astonishment.

“Ghoul,” the lean woman he had kicked snarled. “Line—!” She mouthed the unmentionable word.

“I wasn’t thinking of myself,” Hestler countered hotly. “But my boy Argall, through no fault of his own—”

“All right, quiet!” the cop snarled. He jerked a thumb at the dead man. “This guy make any disposition?”

“Yes!” the lean woman cried. “He said, to Millicent Dredgewicke Klunt, that’s M-I-L—”

“She’s lying,” Hestler cut in. “I happened to catch the name Argall Hestler—right, sir?” He looked brightly at a slack-jawed lad who was staring down at the corpse.

The boy swallowed and looked Hestler in the face.

“Hell, he never said a word,” he said, and spat, just missing Hestler’s shoe.

“Died intestate,” the cop intoned, and wrote a note in his book. He gestured and a clean-up squad moved in, lifted the corpse onto a cart, covered it, trundled it away.

“Close it up,” the cop ordered.

“Intestate,” somebody grumbled. “Crap!”

“A rotten shame. The slot goes back to the government. Nobody profits. Goddamn!” the fat man who had spoken looked around at the others. “In a case like this we ought to get together, have some equitable plan worked out and agreed to in advance—”

“Hey,” the slack-jawed boy said. “That’s conspiracy!”

“I meant to suggest nothing illegal.” The fat man faded back to his Place in Line. As if by common consent, the small crowd dissipated, sliding into their Places with deft footwork. Hestler shrugged and remounted his wheel, put-putted forward, aware of the envious eyes that followed him. He passed the same backs he always passed, some standing, some sitting on canvas camp stools under sun-faded umbrellas, here and there a nylon queuebana, high and square, some shabby, some ornate, owned by the more fortunate. Like himself: he was a lucky man, he had never been a Standee, sweating the line exposed to the sun and prying eyes.

It was a bright afternoon. The sun shone down on the vast concrete ramp across which the Line snaked from a point lost in distance across the plain. Ahead—not far ahead now, and getting closer every day—was the blank white wall perforated only by the Window, the terminal point of the Line. Hestler slowed as he approached the Hestler queuebana; his mouth went dry as he saw how close it was to the Head of the Line now. One, two, three, four slots back! Ye Gods, that meant six people had been processed in the past twelve hours—an unprecedented number. And it meant—Hestler caught his breath—he might reach the Window himself, this shift. For a moment, he felt a panicky urge to flee, to trade places with First Back, and then with Second, work his way back to a safe distance, give himself a chance to think about it, get ready …

“Say, Farn.” The head of his proxy, Cousin Galpert, poked from the curtains of the three foot square, five foot high nylon-walled queuebana. “Guess what? I moved up a spot while you were gone.”

Hestler folded the wheel and leaned it against the weathered cloth. He waited until Galpert had emerged, then surreptitiously twitched the curtains wide open. The place always smelled fudgy and stale after his cousin had spent half an hour in it while he was away for his Comfort Break.

“We’re getting close to the Head,” Galpert said excitedly, handing over the lockbox that contained the Papers. “I have a feeling—” He broke off as sharp voices were suddenly raised a few Spaces behind. A small, pale-haired man with bulging blue eyes was attempting to force himself into Line between Third Back and Fifth Back.

“Say, isn’t that Four Back?” Hestler asked.

“You don’t understand,” the little man was whimpering. “I had to go answer an unscheduled call of nature …” His weak eyes fixed on Fifth Back, a large, coarse-featured man in a loud shirt and sunglasses. “You said you’d watch my Place …!”

“So whattaya think ya got a Comfort Break for, ya bum! Beat it!”

Lots of people were shouting at the little man now:

“Line-ine-ucker-bucker—Line bucker, Line bucker …”

The little man fell back, covering his ears. The obscene chant gained in volume as other voices took it up.

“But it’s my Place,” the evictee wailed. “Father left it to me when he died, you all remember him …” His voice was drowned in the uproar.

“Serves him right,” Galpert said, embarrassed by the chant. “A man with no more regard for his inheritance than to walk off and leave it …”

They watched the former Fourth Back turn and flee, his hands still over his ears.

After Galpert left on the wheel, Hestler aired the queuebana for another ten minutes, standing stony-faced, arms folded, staring at the back of One Up. His father had told him some stories about One Up, back in the old days, when they’d both been young fellows, near the end of the Line. Seemed he’d been quite a cutup in those days, always joking around with the women close to him in Line, offering to trade Places for a certain consideration. You didn’t see many signs of that now: just a dumpy old man in burst-out shoe-leather, sweating out the Line. But he himself was lucky, Hestler reflected. He’d taken over from Father when the latter had had his stroke, a twenty-one thousand two hundred and ninety-four slot jump. Not many young fellows did that well. Not that he was all that young, he’d put in his time in the Line, it wasn’t as if he didn’t deserve the break.

And now, in a few hours maybe, he’d hit the Head of the Line. He touched the lockbox that contained the old man’s Papers—and of course his own, and Cluster’s and the kids’—everything. In a few hours, if the Line kept moving, he could relax, retire, let the kids, with their own Places in Line, carry on. Let them do as well as their dad had done, making Head of the Line at under forty-five!

Inside his queuebana it was hot, airless. Hestler pulled off his coat and squatted in the crouch-hammock—not the most comfortable position in the world, maybe, but in full compliance with the Q-law requirement that at least one foot be on the ground at all times, and the head higher than the waist. Hestler remembered an incident years before, when some poor devil without a queuebana had gone to sleep standing up. He’d stood with his eyes closed and his knees bent, and slowly sunk down to a squat; then bobbed slowly up and blinked and went back to sleep. Up and down, they’d watched him for an hour before he finally let his head drop lower than his belt. They’d pitched him out of Line then, and closed ranks. Ah, there’d been some wild times in the queue in the old days, not like now. There was too much at stake now, this near the Head. No time for horseplay.

Just before dusk, the Line moved up. Three to go! Hestler’s heart thumped.

It was dark when he heard the voice whisper: “Four Up!”

Hestler jerked wide awake. He blinked, wondering if he’d dreamed the urgent tone.

“Four Up!” the voice hissed again. Hestler twitched the curtain open, saw nothing, pulled his head back in. Then he saw the pale, pinched face, the bulging eyes of Four Back, peering through the vent slot at the rear of the tent.

“You have to help me,” the little man said. “You saw what happened, you can make a deposition that I was cheated, that—”

“Look here, what are you doing out of Line?” Hestler cut in. “I know you’re on-shift, why aren’t you holding down a new slot?”

“I …I couldn’t face it,” Four Back said brokenly. “My wife, my children—they’re all counting on me.”

“You should have thought of that sooner.”

“I swear I couldn’t help it. It just hit me so suddenly. And—”

“You lost your Place. There’s nothing I can do.”

“If I have to start over now—I’ll be over seventy when I get to the Window!”

“That’s not my lookout—”

“ …but if you’ll just tell the Line Police what happened, explain about my special case—”

“You’re crazy, I can’t do that!”

“But you …I always thought you looked like a decent sort—”

“You’d better go. Suppose someone sees me talking to you?”

“I had to speak to you here, I don’t know your name, but after all we’ve been four Spaces apart in Line for nine years—”

“Go away! Before I call a Line cop!”

Hestler had a hard time getting comfortable again after Four Back left. There was a fly inside the queuebana. It was a hot night. The Line moved up again, and Hestler had to emerge and roll the queuebana forward. Two Spaces to go! The feeling of excitement was so intense that it made Hestler feel a little sick. Two more moves up, and he’d be at the Window. He’d open the lockbox, and present the Papers, taking his time, one at a time, getting it all correct, all in order. With a sudden pang of panic he wondered if anyone had goofed, anywhere back along the line, failed to sign anything, missed a Notary’s seal, or a witness’ signature. But they couldn’t have. Nothing as dumb as that. For that you could get bounced out of Line, lose your Place, have to go all the way back—

Hestler shook off the morbid fancies. He was just nervous, that was all. Well, who wouldn’t be? After tonight, his whole life would be different; his days of standing in Line would be over. He’d have time—all the time in the world to do all the things he hadn’t been able to think about all these years …

Someone shouted, near at hand. Hestler stumbled out of the queuebana to see Two Up—at the Head of the line now—raise his fist and shake it under the nose of the small, black-moustached face in the green eye-shade framed in the Window, bathed in harsh white light.

“Idiot! Dumbbell! Jackass!” Two Up yelled. “What do you mean take it back home and have my wife spell out her middle name!”

Two burly Line police appeared, shone lights in Two Up’s wild face, grabbed his arms, took him away. Hestler trembled as he pushed the queuebana forward a Space on its roller skate wheels. Only one man ahead of him now. He’d be next. But no reason to get all upset; the Line had been moving like greased lightning, but it would take a few hours to process the man ahead. He had time to relax, get his nerves soothed down, get ready to answer questions …

“I don’t understand, sir,” the reedy voice of One Up was saying to the small black moustache behind the Window. “My Papers are all in order, I swear it—”

“You said yourself your father is dead,” the small, dry voice of Black Moustache said. “That means you’ll have to reexecute Form 56839847565342-B in sextuplicate, with an endorsement from the medical doctor, the Residential Police, and waivers from Department A, B, C, and so on. You’ll find it all, right in the Regulations.”

“But—but he only died two hours ago: I just received word—”

“Two hours, two years; he’s just as dead.”

“But—I’ll lose my Place! If I hadn’t mentioned it to you—”

“Then I wouldn’t have known about it. But you did mention it, quite right, too.”

“Couldn’t you just pretend I didn’t say anything? That the messenger never reached me?”

“Are you suggesting I commit fraud?”

“No …no …” One Up turned and tottered away, his invalidated Papers clutched in his hand. Hestler swallowed hard.

“Next,” Black Moustache said.

It was almost dawn six hours later when the clerk stamped the last Paper, licked the last stamp, thrust the stack of processed documents into a slot and looked past Hestler at the next man in Line.

Hestler hesitated, holding the empty lockbox in nerveless fingers. It felt abnormally light, like a cast husk.

“That’s all,” the clerk said. “Next.”

One Down jostled Hestler getting to the Window. He was a small, bandy-legged Standee with large, loose lips and long ears. Hestler had never really looked at him before. He felt an urge to tell him all about how it had been, give him a few friendly tips, as an old Window veteran to a newcomer. But the man didn’t give him a chance.

Moving off, Hestler noticed the queuebana. It looked abandoned, functionless. He thought of all the hours, the days, the years he had spent in it, crouched in the sling …

“You can have it,” he said on impulse to Two Down, who, he noted with surprise, was a woman, dumpy, slack-jowled. He gestured toward the queuebana. She made a snorting sound and ignored him. He wandered off down the Line, staring curiously at the people in it, at the varied faces and figures, tall, wide, narrow, old, young—not so many of those—dressed in used clothing, with hair combed or uncombed, some with facial hair, some with paint on their lips, all unattractive in their own individual ways.

He encountered Galpert whizzing toward him on the power wheel. Galpert slowed, gaping, came to a halt. Hestler noticed that his cousin had thin, bony ankles in maroon socks, one of which suffered from perished elastic so that the sock drooped, exposing clay-white skin.

“Farn—what …?”

“All done.” Hestler held up the empty lockbox.

“All done …?” Galpert looked across toward the distant Window in a bewildered way.

“All done. Not much to it, really.”

“Then …I …I guess I don’t need to …” Galpert’s voice died away.

“No, no need, never again, Galpert.”

“Yes, but what …?” Galpert looked at Hestler, looked at the Line, back at Hestler. “You coming, Farn?”

“I …I think I’ll just take a walk for a while. Savor it, you know.”

“Well,” Galpert said. He started up the wheel and rode slowly off across the ramp.

Suddenly, Hestler was thinking about time—all that time stretching ahead, like an abyss. What would he do with it …? He almost called after Galpert, but instead turned and continued his walk along the Line. Faces stared past him, over him, through him.

Noon came and went. Hestler obtained a dry hot dog and a paper cup of warm milk from a vendor on a three-wheeler with a big umbrella and a pet chicken perched on the back. He walked on, searching the faces. They were all so ugly. He pitied them, so far from the Window. He looked back; it was barely visible, a tiny dark point toward which the Line dwindled. What did they think about, standing in Line? How they must envy him!

But no one seemed to notice him. Toward sunset he began to feel lonely. He wanted to talk to someone; but none of the faces he passed seemed sympathetic.

It was almost dark when he reached the End of the Line. Beyond, the empty plain stretched toward the dark horizon. It looked cold out there, lonely.

“It looks cold out there,” he heard himself say to the oatmeal-faced lad who huddled at the tail of the Line, hands in pockets. “And lonely.”

“You in Line, or what?” the boy asked.

Hestler looked again at the bleak horizon. He came over and stood behind the youth.

“Certainly,” he said.

SLOW SCULPTURE

Theodore Sturgeon

I

He didn’t know who he was when she met him—well, not many people did. He was in the high orchard doing something under a pear tree. The land smelled of late summer and wind—bronze, it smelled bronze.

He looked up at a compact girl in her mid-twenties, at a fearless face and eyes the same color as her hair, which was extraordinary because her hair was red-gold. She looked down at a leather-skinned man in his forties, at a gold-leaf electroscope in his hand, and felt she was an intruder.

She said, “Oh” in what was apparently the right way. Because he nodded once and said, “Hold this” and there could then be no thought of intrusion. She kneeled down beside him and took the instrument, holding it exactly where he positioned her hand. He moved away a little and struck a tuning fork against his kneecap.

“What’s it doing?”

He had a good voice, the kind of voice strangers notice and listen to.

She looked at the delicate leaves of gold in the glass shield of the electroscope.

“They’re moving apart.”

He struck the tuning fork again and the leaves pressed away from one another.

“Much?”

“About forty-five degrees when you hit the fork.”

“Good—that’s about the most we’ll get.” From a pocket of his bush jacket be drew a sack of chalk dust and dropped a small handful on the ground. “I’ll move now. You stay right there and tell me how much the leaves separate.”

He traveled around the pear tree in a zigzag course, striking his tuning fork while she called out numbers ten degrees, thirty, five, twenty, nothing. Whenever the gold foil pressed apart to maximum—forty degrees or more—he dropped more chalk. When he was finished the tree was surrounded by a rough oval of white dots. He took out a notebook and diagramed them and the tree, put away the book and took the electroscope out of her hands.

“Were you looking for something?” he asked her.

“No,” she said. “Yes.”

He could smile. Though it did not last long she found the expression surprising in a face like his.

“That’s not what is called, in a court of law, a responsive answer.”

She glanced across the hillside, metallic in that late light. There wasn’t much on it—rocks, weeds the summer was done with, a tree or so, the orchard. Anyone present had come a long way to get here.

“It wasn’t a simple question,” she said, tried to smile and burst into tears.

She was sorry and said so.

“Why?” he asked.

This was the first time she was to experience this ask-the-next-question thing of his. It was unsettling. It always would be—never less, sometimes a great deal more.

“Well—one doesn’t have emotional explosions in public.”

“You do. I don’t know this ‘one’ you’re talking about.”

“I guess I don’t either, now that you mention it.”

“Tell the truth then. No sense in going around and around about it: He’ll think that I… and the like. I’ll think what I think, whatever you say. Or—go down the mountain and just don’t say any more.” She did not turn to go, so he added: “Try the truth, then. If it’s important, it’s simple. And if it’s simple it’s easy to say.”

“I’m going to die!” she cried.

“So am I.”

“I have a lump in my breast.”

“Come up to the house and I’ll fix it.”

Without another word he turned away and started through the orchard. Startled half out of her wits, indignant and full of insane hope, experiencing, even, a quick curl of astonished laughter, she stood for a moment watching him go and then found herself (at what point did I decide?) running after him.

She caught up with him on the uphill margin of the orchard.

“Are you a doctor?”

He appeared not to notice that she had waited, had run.

“No,” he said and, walking on, appeared not to see her stand again pulling at her lower lip, then run again to catch up.

“I must be out of my mind,” she said, joining him on a garden path.

She said it to herself. He must have known because he did not answer. The garden was alive with defiant chrysanthemums and a pond in which she saw the flicker of a pair of redcap imperials—silver, not gold fish—the largest she had ever seen. Then—the house.

First it was part of the garden with its colonnaded Terrace—and then, with its rock walls (too massive to be called fieldstone) part of the mountain. It was on and in the hillside. Its roof paralleled the skylines, front and sides, and part of it was backed against an out-jutting cliff face. The door, beamed and studded and featuring two archers’ slits, was opened for them (but there was no one there) and when it closed it was silent, a far more solid exclusion of things outside than any click or clang of latch or bolt.

She stood with her back against it watching him cross what seemed to be the central well of the house, or at least this part of it. It was a kind of small court in the center of which was an atrium, glazed on all of its five sides and open to the sky at the top. In it was a tree, a cypress or juniper, gnarled and twisted and with the turned back, paralleled, sculptured appearance of what the Japanese call bonsai.

“Aren’t you coming?” he called, holding open a door behind the atrium.

“Bonsai just aren’t fifteen feet tall,” she said.

“This one is.”

She walked past it slowly, looking.

“How long have you had it?”

His tone of voice said he was immensely pleased. It is a clumsiness to ask the owner of a bonsai how old it is—you are then demanding to know if it is his work or if he has acquired and continued the concept of another; you are tempting him to claim for his own the concept and the meticulous labor of someone else and it becomes rude to tell a man he is being tested. Hence, How long have you had it? is polite, forbearing, profoundly courteous.

He answered, “Half my life.”

She looked at the tree. Trees can be found, sometimes, not quite discarded, not quite forgotten, potted in rusty gallon cans in not quite successful nurseries, unsold because they are shaped oddly or have dead branches here and there, or because they have grown too slowly in whole or part. These are the ones which develop interesting trunks and a resistance to misfortune that makes them flourish if given the least excuse for living. This one was far older than half this man’s life, or all of it. Looking at it. She was terrified by the unbidden thought that a fire, a family of squirrels, some subterranean worm or termite could end this beauty—something working outside any concept of rightness or justice or of respect. She looked at the tree. She looked at the man.

“Coming?”

“Yes,” she said and went with him into his laboratory.

“Sit down over there and relax,” he told her. “This might take a little while.”

“Over there” was a big leather chair by the bookcase. The books were right across the spectrum—reference works in medicine and engineering, nuclear physics, chemistry, biology, psychiatry. Also tennis, gymnastics, chess, the oriental war game Go, and golf. And then drama, the techniques of fiction. Modern English Usage, The American Language and supplement. Wood’s and Walker’s Rhyming Dictionaries and an array of other dictionaries and encyclopedias. A whole long shelf of biographies.

“You have quite a library.”

He answered her rather shortly—clearly he did not want to talk just now, for he was very busy. He said only, “Yes I have—perhaps you’ll see it some time” which left her to pick away at his words to find out what on earth he meant by them.

He could only have meant, she decided, that the books beside her chair were what he kept handy for his work that his real library was elsewhere. She looked at him with a certain awe.

And she watched him. She liked the way he moved swiftly, decisively. Clearly he knew what he was doing. He used some equipment that she recognized, a glass still, titration equipment, a centrifuge. There were two refrigerators, one of which was not a refrigerator at all, for she could see the large indicator on the door. It stood at 70° F. It came to her that a modern refrigerator is perfectly adaptable to the demand for controlled environment, even a warm one.

But all that and the equipment she did not recognize was only furniture. It was the man who was worth watching, the man who kept her occupied so that not once in all the long time she sat there was she tempted toward the bookshelves.

At last he finished a long sequence at the bench, threw some switches, picked up a tall stool and came over to her. He perched on the stool, hung his heels on the cross spoke and lay a pair of long brown hands over his knees.

“Scared.”

He made it a statement.

“I suppose I am.”

“You don’t have to stay.”

“Considering the alternative” she began bravely but the courage-sound somehow oozed out. “It can’t matter much.”

“Very sound,” he said almost cheerfully. “I remember when I was a kid there was a fire scare in the apartment house where we lived. It was a wild scramble to get out and my ten-year-old brother found himself outside in the street with an alarm clock in his hand. It was an old one and it didn’t work but of all the things in the place he might have snatched up at a time like that, it turned out to be the clock. He’s never been able to figure out why.”

“Have you?”

“Not why he picked that particular thing—no. But I think I know why he did something obviously irrational. You see, panic is a very special state. Like fear and flight, or fury and attack, it’s a pretty primitive reaction to extreme danger. It’s one of the expressions of the will to survive. What makes it so special is that it’s irrational. Now, why would the abandonment of reason be a survival mechanism?”

She thought about this seriously. There was that about this man which made serious thought imperative.

“I can’t imagine,” she said finally. “Unless it’s because, in some situations, reason just doesn’t work.”

“You can’t imagine,” he said, again radiating that huge approval, making her glow. “And you just did. If you are in danger and you try reason and reason doesn’t work you abandon it. You can’t say it’s unintelligent to abandon what doesn’t work, right? So then you are in panic. You start to perform random acts. Most of them—far and away most will be useless. Some might even be dangerous. But that doesn’t matter—you’re in danger already. Where the survival factor comes in is that away down deep you know that one chance in a million is better than no chance at all. So—here you sit—you’re scared and you could run. Something says you should run but you won’t.”

She nodded.

He went on: “You found a lump. You went to a doctor and he made some tests and gave you the bad news. Maybe you went to another doctor and he confirmed it. You then did some research and found out what was to happen next—the exploratory, the radical, the questionable recovery, the whole long agonizing procedure of being what they call a terminal case. You then flipped out. Did some things you hope I won’t ask you about. Took a trip somewhere, anywhere, wound up in my orchard for no reason.” He spread the good hands and let them go back to their kind of sleep. “Panic. The reason for little boys in their pajamas standing at midnight with a broken alarm clock in their arms and for the existence of quacks.” Something chimed over on the bench and he gave her a quick smile and went back to work, saying over his shoulder, “I’m not a quack, by the way. To qualify as a quack you have to claim to be a doctor. I don’t.”

She watched him switch off, switch on, stir, measure and calculate. A little orchestra of equipment chorused and soloed around him as he conducted, whirring, hissing, clicking, flickering. She wanted to laugh, to cry and to scream. She did not one of these things for fear of not stopping, ever.

When he came over again, the conflict was not raging within her but was exerting steady and opposed tensions. The result was a terrible stasis and all she could do when she saw the instrument in his hand was to widen her eyes. She quite forgot to breathe.

“Yes, it’s a needle,” he said, his tone almost bantering.

“A long shiny sharp needle. Don’t tell me you are one of those needle-shy people.” He flipped the long power cord that trailed from the black housing around the hypodermic to get some slack, straddled the stool. “Want something to steady your nerves?”

She was afraid to speak. The membrane containing her sane self was very thin, stretched very tight.

He said, “I’d rather you didn’t, because this pharmaceutical stew is complex enough as it is. But if you need it…”

She managed to shake her head a little and again felt the wave of approval from him. There were a thousand questions she wanted to ask—had meant to ask—needed to ask. What was in the needle? How many treatments must she have? What would they be like? How long must she stay and where? And most of all—oh, could she live, could she live?

II

He seemed concerned with the answer to only one of these.

“It’s mostly built around an isotope of potassium. If I told you all I know about it and how I came on it in the first place it would take—well, more time than we’ve got. But here’s the general idea. Theoretically, every atom is electrically balanced—never mind ordinary exceptions. Likewise all electrical charges in the molecule are supposed to be balanced—so much plus, so much minus, total zero. I happened on the fact that the balance of charges in a wild cell is not zero—not quite. It’s as if there were a submicroscopic thunderstorm going on at the molecular level, with little lightning bolts flashing back and forth and changing the signs. Interfering with communications-static—and that,” he said, gesturing with the shielded hypo in his hand, “is what this is all about. When something interferes with communications—especially the RNA mechanism that says. Read this blueprint, build accordingly and stop when it’s done—when that message gets garbled lopsided things get built. Off balance things. Things that do almost what they should, do it almost right—they’re wild cells and the messages they pass on are even worse.

“Okay. Whether these thunderstorms are caused by viruses or chemicals or radiation or physical trauma or even anxiety and don’t think anxiety can’t do—it is secondary. The important thing is to fix it so the thunderstorm can’t happen. If you can do that the cells have plenty of ability all by themselves to repair and replace what’s gone wrong. And biological systems aren’t like ping-pong balls with static charges waiting for the charge to leak away or to discharge into a grounded wire. They have a kind of resilience—I call it forgiveness—that enables them to take on a little more charge, or a little less, and do all right. Well, then say a certain clump of cells is wild and say it carries an aggregate of a hundred units extra on the positive side. Cells immediately around it are affected but not the next layer or the next.

“If they could be opened to the extra charge if they could help to drain it off they would, well, cure the wild cells of the surplus. You see what I mean? And they would be able to handle that little overage themselves or pass it on to other cells and still others who could deal with it. In other words, if I can flood your body with a medium that can drain off and distribute a concentration of this unbalanced charge, the ordinary bodily processes will be free to move in and clear up the wild-cell damage. And that’s what I have here.”

He held the shielded needle between his knees and from a side pocket of his lab coat he took a plastic box, opened it and drew out an alcohol swab. Still cheerfully talking, he took her terror-numbed arm and scrubbed at the inside of her elbow.

“I am not for one second implying that nuclear charges in the atom are the same thing as static electricity. They’re in a different league altogether. But the analogy holds. I could use another analogy. I could liken the charge in the wild cells to accumulations of fat. And this gunk of mine to a detergent that would break it up and spread it so far it couldn’t be detected any more. But I’m led to the static analogy by an odd side effect organisms injected with this stuff do build up one hell of a static charge. It’s a byproduct and, for reasons I can only theorize about at the moment, it seems to be keyed to the audio spectrum. Tuning forks and the like. That’s what I was playing with when I met you. That tree is drenched with this stuff. It used to have a whorl of wild-cell growth. It hasn’t any more.”

He gave her the quick, surprising smile and let it flicker away as he held the needle point upward and squirted it. With his other hand wrapped around her left bicep he squeezed gently and firmly. The needle was lowered and placed and slid into the big vein so deftly that she gasped not because it hurt but because it did not. Attentively he watched the bit of glass barrel protruding from the black housing as he withdrew the plunger a fraction and saw the puff of red into the colorless fluid inside.

Then he bore steadily on the plunger again.

“Please don’t move. I’m sorry, this will take a little time. I have to get quite a lot of this into you. Which is fine, you know,” he said, resuming the tone of his previous remarks about audio spectra, “because side effect or no, it’s consistent. Healthy bio systems develop a strong electrostatic field, unhealthy ones a weak one or none at all. With an instrument as primitive and simple as that little electroscope you can tell if any part of the organism has a community of wild cells and if so, where it is and how big and how wild.” Deftly he shifted his grip on .the encased hypodermic without moving the point or varying the plunger pressure. It was beginning to be uncomfortable an ache turning into a bruise. “And if you’re wondering why this mosquito has a housing on it with a wire attached (although I’ll bet you’re not and that you know as well as I do that I’m doing all this talking just to keep your mind occupied) I’ll tell you. It’s nothing but a coil carrying a high-frequency alternating current. The alternating field sees to it that the fluid is magnetically and electrostatically neutral right from the start.”

He withdrew the needle suddenly and smoothly, bent an arm and trapped in the inside of her elbow a cotton swab.

“Nobody ever told me that after a treatment,” she said.

“What?”

“No charge,” she said.

Again that wave of approval, this time with words: “I like your style. How do you feel?”

She cast about for accurate phrases.

“Like the owner of a large sleeping, hysteria begging someone not to wake it up.”

He laughed.

“In a little while you are going to feel so weird you won’t have time for hysteria.”

He got up and returned the needle to the bench, looping up the cable as he went. He turned off the AC field and returned with a large glass bowl and a square of plywood. He inverted the bowl on the floor near her and placed the wood on its broad base.

“I remember something like that,” she said. “When I was in junior high school. They were generating artificial lightning with a—let me see—well, it had a long, endless belt running over pulleys and some little wires scraping on it and a big copper ball on top.”

“Van de Graaf generator.”

“Right. And they did all sorts of things with it. But what I specially remember is standing on a piece of wood on a bowl like that and they charged me up with the generator. I didn’t feel much of anything except all my hair stood out from my head. Everyone laughed. I looked like a golliwog. They said I was carrying forty thousand volts.”

“Good. I’m glad you remember that. This’ll be a little different, though. By roughly another forty thousand.”

“Oh!”

“Don’t worry. As long as you’re insulated and as long as grounded or comparatively grounded objects—me, for example—stay well away from you, there won’t be any fireworks.”

“Are you going to use a generator like that?”

“Not like that—and I already did. You’re the generator.”

“I’m—oh!” She had raised her hand from the upholstered chair arm and there was a crackle of sparks and the faint smell of ozone.

“You sure are and more than I [thought]—and quicker. Get up.”

She started up slowly. She finished the maneuver with speed. As her body separated from the chair she was, for a fractional second, seated in a tangle of spitting blue-white threads. They, or she, propelled her a yard and a half away, standing. Literally shocked half out of her wits, she almost fell.

“Stay on your feet,” he snapped and she recovered, gasping. He stepped back a pace. “Get up on the board. Quickly now.”

She did as she was told, leaving, for the two paces she traveled, two brief footprints of fire. She teetered on the board. Visibly, her hair began to stir.

“What’s happening to me?” she cried.

“You’re getting charged after all,” he said jovially but at this point she failed to appreciate the extension of even her own witticism.

She cried again, “What’s happening to me?”

“It’s all right,” he said consolingly.

He went to the bench and turned on a tone generator. It moaned deep in the one to three hundred cycle range. He increased the volume and turned the pitch control. It howled upward and, as it did so, her red-gold hair shivered and swept up and out, each hair attempting frantically to get away from all the others. He ran the tone up above ten thousand cycles and all the way back to a belly-bumping inaudible eleven. At the extremes her hair slumped but at around eleven hundred it stood out in, as she had described it, glowing style. She could feel it.

He turned down the gain to a more or less bearable level and picked up the electroscope. He came toward her, smiling.

“You are an electroscope, you know that? And a living Van de Grave generator as well. And a glowing.”

“Let me down,” was all she could say.

“Not yet. Please hang tight. The differential between you and everything else here is so high that if you got near any of it you’d discharge into it. It wouldn’t harm you—it isn’t current electricity—but you might get a burn and a nervous shock out of it.” He held out the electroscope. Even at that distance—and in her distress—she could see the gold leaves writhe apart. He circled her, watching the leaves attentively, moving the instrument forward and back and from side to side. Once he went to the tone generator and turned it down some more.

“You’re sending such a strong field I can’t pick up the variations,” he explained and returned to her, coming closer now.

“I can’t [take] much more, I can’t,” she murmured. He did not hear or he did not care. He moved the electroscope near her abdomen, up and from side to side.

“Up. There you are,” he said cheerfully, moving the instrument close to her right breast.

“What?” she whimpered.

“Your cancer. Right breast, low, around toward the armpit.” He whistled. “A mean one, too. Malignant as hell.”

She swayed and then collapsed forward and down. A sick blackness swept down on her, receded explosively in a glare of agonizing blue-white and then crashed down on her like a mountain falling.

Place where wall meets ceiling. Another wall, another ceiling. Hadn’t seen it before. Didn’t matter. Don’t care. Sleep.

Place where wall meets ceiling. Something in the way. His face, close, drawn, tired—eyes awake, though, and penetrating. Doesn’t matter. Don’t care. Sleep.

Place where wall meets ceiling. Down a bit, late sunlight. Over a little, rusty-gold chrysanthemums in a gold-green glass cornucopia. Something in the way again—his face.

“Can you hear me?”

Yes, but don’t answer. Don’t move. Don’t speak. Sleep.

It’s a room, a wall, a table, a man pacing—a nighttime window and mums you’d think were alive but don’t you know they’re cut right off and dying?

Do they know that?

“How are you?”

Urgent, urgent.

“Thirsty.”

Cold and a bite to it that aches the hinges of the jaws. Grapefruit juice. Lying back on his arm while he holds the glass in the other hand.

Oh, no, that’s not…

“Thank you. Thanks very [much]”

Try to sit up. The sheet—my clothes!

“Sorry about that,” he said, the mindreader-almost.

“Some things that have to be done just aren’t consistent with pantyhose and a minidress. All washed and dried and ready for you, though—any time. Over there.” The brown wool and the pantyhose and the shoes, on the chair.

He’s respectful, standing back, putting the glass next to an insulated carafe on the night table.

“What things?”

“Throwing up. Bedpans,” he said candidly.

Protective with the sheet, which can hide bodies but Oh—not embarrassment.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Oh. I must have.”

Shake head and he slides back and forth in the vision.

“You went into shock and then you just didn’t come out of it.”

He hesitated. It was the first time she had ever seen him hesitate over anything. She became for a moment an almost-mindreader.

Should I tell her what’s in my mind?

Sure, he should. And he did.

“You didn’t want to come out of it.”

“It’s all gone out of my head.”

“The pear tree, the electroscope. The injection, the electrostatic response.”

“No,” she said, not knowing. Then, knowing: “No!”

“Hang on,” he [snapped] and next thing she knew he was by the bed, over her, his two hands hard on her cheeks.

“Don’t slip off again. You can handle it. You can handle it because it’s all right now, do you understand that? You’re all right.”

“You told me I had cancer.”

She sounded pouty, accusing.

He laughed at her, actually laughed.

“You told me you had it.”

“Oh, but I didn’t know.”

“That explains it, then,” he said in a load-off-my-back tone. “There wasn’t anything in what I did that could cause a three-day withdrawal like that. It had to be something in you.”

“Three days!”

He simply nodded and went on with what he was saying.

“I get a little pompous once in awhile,” he said engagingly. “Comes from being right so much of the time. Took a bit more for granted than I should have, didn’t I? When I assumed you’d been to a doctor, maybe even had a biopsy? You hadn’t, had you?”

“I was afraid,” she admitted. She looked at him. “My mother died of it—and my aunt—and my sister had a radical mastectomy. I couldn’t bear it. And when you—”

“When I told you what you already knew and what you never wanted to hear—you couldn’t take it. You blacked right out, you know. Fainted away. And it had nothing to do with the seventy-odd thousand volts of static you were carrying. I caught you.” He put out his arms where they were, on display, until she looked at them and saw the angry red scorch marks on his forearms and heavy biceps, as much of them as she could see from under his short-sleeved shirt. “About nine-tenths knocked me out too,” he said. “But at least you didn’t crack your head or anything.”

“Thank you,” she said reflexively and then began to cry. “What am I going to do?”

“Do? Go back home, wherever that is—pick up your life again, whatever that might mean.”

“But you said…”

“When are you going to get it into your head that what I did was not a diagnostic?”

“Are you—did you—you mean you cured it?”

“I mean you’re curing it right now. I explained it all to you before. You remember that now, don’t you?”

“Not altogether but—yes.” Surreptitiously (but not enough, because he saw her) she felt under it—he sheet for the lump. “It’s still there.”

“If I bopped you over the head with a bat,” he said with slightly exaggerated simplicity, “there would be a lump on it. It would be there tomorrow and the next day. The day after that it might be smaller. In a week you’d still be able to feel it but it would be gone. Same thing here.”

At last she let the enormity of it touch her. “A one-shot cure for cancer.”

“Oh, God,” he said harshly. “I can tell by looking at you that I am going to have to listen to that speech again. Well, I won’t.”

Startled, she asked, “What speech?”

“The one about my duty to humanity. It comes in two phases and many textures. Phase one has to do with my duty to humanity and really means we could make a classic buck with it. Phase two deals solely with my duty to humanity and I don’t hear that one very often. Phase two utterly overlooks the reluctance humanity has to accept good things unless they arrive from accepted and respectable sources. Phase one is fully aware of this but gets [right] shrewd in figuring ways around it.”

She said, “I don’t” but could get no farther.

“The textures,” he overrode her, “are accompanied by the light of revelation, with or without religion and/or mysticism. Or they are cast sternly in the ethical-philosophy mold and aim to force me to surrender through guilt mixed—to some degree all the way up to total—with compassion.”

“But I only—”

“You,” he said, aiming a long index finger at her, “have robbed yourself of the choicest example of everything I have just said. If my assumptions had been right and you had gone to your friendly local sawbones—and he had diagnosed cancer and referred you to a specialist and he had done likewise and sent you to a colleague for consultation and, in random panic, you had fallen into my hands and been cured—and had gone back to your various doctors to report a miracle, do you know what you’d have gotten from them? ‘Spontaneous remission,’ that’s what you’d have gotten. And it wouldn’t be only doctors,” he went on with a sudden renewal of passion, under which she quailed in her bed. “Everybody has his own commercial. Your nutritionist would have nodded over his wheat germ or his macrobiotic rice cakes, your priest would have dropped to his knees and looked at the sky, your geneticist would have a pet theory about generation-skipping and would assure you that your grandparents probably had spontaneous remissions, too, and never knew it.”

“Please!” she cried but he shouted at her…

“Do you know what I am? I am an engineer twice over, mechanical and electrical—and I have a law degree. If you were foolish enough to tell anyone about what has happened here (which I hope you aren’t—but if you are I know how to protect myself) I could be jailed for practicing medicine without a license. You could have me up for assault because I stuck a needle into you and even for kidnapping if you could prove I carried you in here from the lab. Nobody would give a damn that I had cured your cancer. You don’t know who I am, do you?”

“No. I don’t even know your name.”

“And I won’t tell you. I don’t know your name either.”

“Oh! It’s…”

“Don’t tell me! Don’t tell me! I don’t want to hear it. I wanted to be involved with your lump and I was. I want it and you to be gone as soon as you’re both up to it. Have I made myself absolutely clear?”

“Just let me get dressed,” she said tightly, “and I’ll leave right now.”

“Without making a speech?”

“Without making a speech.” And in a flash her anger turned to misery and she added: “I was going to say I was grateful. Would that have been all right, sir!”

And his anger underwent a change too, for he came close to the bed and sat down on his heel, bringing their faces to a level, and said quite gently, “That would be fine. Although you won’t really be grateful for another ten days, when you get your ‘spontaneous remission’ reports—or maybe for six months or a year or two or five, when examinations keep on testing out negative.” She detected such a wealth of sadness behind this that she found herself reaching for the hand with which he steadied himself against the edge of the bed. He did not recoil but he didn’t seem to welcome her touch either.

“Why can’t I be grateful right now?”

“That would be an act of faith,” he said bitterly, “and that just doesn’t happen any more—if it ever did.” He rose and went toward the door. “Please don’t go tonight,” he said. “It’s dark and you don’t know the way. I’ll see you in the morning.”

When he came back in the morning the door was open. The bed was made and the sheets were folded neatly on the chair, together with the pillow slips and the towels she had used. She wasn’t there.

He came out into the entrance court and contemplated his bonsai.

Early sun gold-frosted the horizontal upper foliage of the old tree and brought its gnarled limbs into sharp relief, tough brown-gray creviced in velvet. Only the companion of a bonsai (there are owners of bonsai but they are a lesser breed) fully understands the relationship. There is an exclusive and individual treeness to the tree because it is a living thing and living things change—and there are definite ways in which the tree desires to change. A man sees the tree and in his mind makes certain extensions and extrapolations of what he sees and sets about making them happen. The tree in turn will do only what a tree can do, will resist to the death any attempt to do what it cannot do or to do in less time than it needs. The shaping of a bonsai is therefore always a compromise and always a cooperation. A man cannot create bonsai, nor can a tree. It takes both and they must understand one another. It takes a long time to do that. One memorizes one’s bonsai, every twig, the angle of every crevice and needle and, lying awake at night or in a pause a thousand miles away, one recalls this or that line or mass, one makes one’s plans. With wire and water and light, with tilting and with the planting of water-robbing weeds or heavy, root-shading ground cover, one explains to the tree what one wants. And if the explanation is well enough made and there is great enough understanding the tree will respond and obey—almost.

Always there will be its own self-respecting highly individual variation. Very well, I shall do what you want, but I will do it my way. And for these variations the tree is always willing to present a clear and logical explanation and, more often than not (almost smiling), it will make clear to the man that he could have avoided it if his understanding had been better.

It is the slowest sculpture in the world, and there is, at times, doubt as to which is being sculpted, man or tree.

So he stood for perhaps ten minutes, watching the flow of gold over the upper branches, and then went to a carved wooden chest, opened it, shook out a length of disreputable cotton duck. He opened the hinged glass at one side of the atrium and spread the canvas over the roots and all the earth to one side of the trunk, leaving the rest open to wind and water. Perhaps in a while—a month or two—a certain shoot in the topmost branch would take the hint and the uneven flow of moisture up through the cambium layer would nudge it away from that upward reach and persuade it to continue the horizontal passage. And perhaps not—and it would need the harsher language of binding and wire. But then it might have something to say, too, about the rightness of an upward trend and would perhaps say it persuasively enough to convince the man—altogether, a patient, meaningful, and rewarding dialogue.

“Good morning.”

“Oh, goddamn!” he barked. “You made me bite my tongue. I thought you’d gone.”

“I had.” She kneeled in the shadows, her back against the inner wall, facing the atrium. “But then I stopped to be with the tree for a while.”

“Then what?”

“I thought a lot.”

“What about?”

“You.”

“Did you now?”

“Look,” she said firmly. “I’m not going to any doctor to get this thing checked out. I didn’t want to leave until I had told you that and until I was sure you believed me.”

“Come on in and we’ll get something to eat.” Foolishly, she giggled.

“I can’t. My feet are asleep.”

Without hesitation he scooped her up in his arms and carried her around the atrium.

She asked, her arm around his shoulders and their faces close, “Do you believe me?”

He continued around until they reached the wooden chest, then stopped and looked into her eyes.

“I believe you. I don’t know why you decided as you did but I’m willing to believe you.”

He sat her down on the chest and stood back.

“It’s that act of faith you mentioned,” she said gravely.

“I thought you ought to have it at least once in your life so you can never say again what you said.” She tapped her heels gingerly against the slate floor. “Ow!” She made a pained smile. “Pins and needles.”

“You must have been thinking for a long time.”

“Yes. Want more?”

“Sure.”

“You are an angry, frightened man.”

He seemed delighted.

“Tell me about all that!”

“No,” she said quietly. “You tell me. I’m very serious about this. Why are you angry?”

“I’m not.”

“Why are you so angry?”

“I tell you I’m not. Although,” he added good-naturedly, “you’re pushing me in that direction.”

“Well then, why?”

He gazed at her for what to her seemed a very long time indeed.

“You really want to know, don’t you?”

She nodded.

He waved a sudden hand, up and out.

“Where do you suppose all this came from—the house, the land, the equipment?”

She waited.

“An exhaust system,” he said, with a thickening of his voice she was coming to know. “A way of guiding exhaust gases out of internal combustion engines in such a way that they are given a spin. Unburned solids are embedded in the walls of the muffler in a glass wool liner that slips out in one piece and can be replaced by a clean one every couple of thousand miles. The rest of the exhaust is fired by its own spark plug and what will bum, burns. The heat is used to preheat the fuel. The rest is spun again through a five-thousand-mile cartridge. What finally gets out is, by today’s standards at least, pretty clean. And because of the preheating it actually gets better mileage out of the engine.”

“So you’ve made a lot of money.”

“I made a lot of money,” he echoed. “But not because the thing is being used to cut down air pollution. I got the money because an automobile company bought it and buried it in a vault. They don’t like it because it costs something to install in new cars. Some friends of theirs in the refining business don’t like it because it gets high performance out of crude fuels. Well, all right, I didn’t know any better and I won’t make the same mistake again. But yes, I’m angry. I was angry when I was a kid on a tank ship and we were set to washing down a bulkhead with chipped brown soap and canvas. I went ashore and bought a detergent and tried it and it was better, faster and cheaper, so I took it to the bos’n, who gave me a punch in the mouth for pretending to know his job better than he did. Well, he was drunk at the time but the rough part came when the old shellbacks in the crew ganged up on me for being what they called a company man— that’s a dirty name in a ship. I just couldn’t understand why people got in the way of something better.

“I’ve been up against that all my life. I have something in my head that just won’t quit. It’s a way I have of asking the next question: why is so-and-so the way it is? Why can’t it be such-and-such instead? There is always another question to be asked about anything or any situation especially you shouldn’t quit when you like an answer because there’s always another one after it. And we live in a world where people just don’t want to ask the next question!

“I’ve been paid all my stomach will take for things people won’t use and if I’m mad all the time, it’s really my fault—I admit it—because I just can’t stop asking that next question and coming up with answers. There are a half-dozen real block-busters in that lab that nobody will ever see and half a hundred more in my head. But what can you do in a world where people would rather kill each other in a desert, even when they’re shown it can turn green and bloom—where they’ll fall all over themselves to pour billions into developing a new oil strike when it’s been proved over and over again that the fossil fuels will kill us all? Yes, I’m angry. Shouldn’t I be?”

She let the echoes of his voice swirl around the court and out through the hole in the top of the atrium and waited a little longer to let him know he was here with her and not beside himself and his fury. He grinned at her sheepishly when he came to this.

And she said, “Maybe you’re asking the next question instead of asking the right question. I think people who live by wise old sayings are trying not to think—but I know one worth paying some attention to. It’s this. If you ask a question the right way, you’ve just given the answer.” She went on, “I mean, if you put your hand on a hot stove you might ask yourself, how can I stop my hand from burning? And the answer is pretty clear, isn’t it? If the world keeps rejecting what you have to give—there’s some way of asking why that contains the answer.”

“It’s a simple answer,” he said shortly. “People are stupid.”

“That isn’t the answer and you know it,” she said.

“What is?”

“Oh, I can’t tell you that! All I know is that the way you do something, where people are concerned, is more important than what you do. If you want results, I mean you already know how to get what you want with the tree, don’t you?”

“I’ll be damned.”

“People are living, growing things, too. I don’t know a hundredth part of what you do about bonsai but I do know this—when you start one, it isn’t often the strong straight healthy ones you take. It’s the twisted sick ones that can be made the most beautiful. When you get to shaping humanity, you might remember that.”

“Of all the—I don’t know whether to laugh in your face or punch you right in the mouth!”

She rose. He hadn’t realized she was quite this tall.

“I’d better go.”

“Come on now. You know a figure of speech when you hear one.”

“Oh, I didn’t feel threatened. But—I’d better go, all the same.”

Shrewdly he asked her, “Are you afraid to ask the next question?”

“Terrified.”

“Ask it anyway.”

“No.”

“Then I’ll do it for you. You said I was angry and afraid. You want to know what I’m afraid of.”

“Yes.”

“You. I am scared to death of you.”

“Are you really?”

“You have a way of provoking honesty,” he said with some difficulty. “I’ll say what I know you’re thinking: I’m afraid of any close human relationship. I’m afraid of something I can’t take apart with a screwdriver or a mass spectroscope or a table of cosines and tangents. I don’t know how to handle it.”

His voice was jocular but his hands were shaking.

“You do it by watering one side,” she said softly, “or by turning it just so in the sun. You handle it as if it were a living thing, like a species or a woman or a bonsai. It will be what you want it to be if you let it be itself and take the time and the care.”

“I think,” he said, “that you are making me some kind of offer. Why?”

“Sitting there most of the night,” she said, “I had a crazy kind of image. Do you think two sick twisted trees ever made bonsai out of one another?”

“What’s your name?” he asked her.

THE BEAR WITH THE KNOT IN HIS TAIL

Stephen Tall

We swept in comfortable wide orbit around Earth, thirty thousand miles beyond the moon. Cap’n Jules Griffin kept us in the moon shadow, the umbra, a pleasanter location in which to drift and listen than out in the raw yellow radiance of Sol. Only a few degrees away from the moon’s vast shadowy disk the full Earth hung like a color plate, blue, cloud-shrouded, the most majestic object I’ve ever seen from space.

And I’ve been around. We all have. It’s our job.

Ultraspan made us possible. A discovery that must have been an accident—or almost. How can matter move faster than energy? Or can it? Ultraspan eliminates time; so our position in space can be anything Cap’n Jules wills it to be. Not that he understands what he does. Especially not that. He knows every pulse of the timonium engines that move us in finite space, but Ultraspan he takes on faith. Like religion. Like magic. Like the things that happen in dreams.

We’ve tested it. For the past nine years the research ship Stardust has done with ease what was not possible before Willoughby’s Hypothesis, that strange variant of an Einsteinian concept that divorces space from time. You don’t know what I’m talking about? Neither do I—but it works. Harnessed, implemented, it’s Ultraspan.

Life aboard the Stardust is comfortable, but for me it’s not the good life. I really come alive when we drop in, break out of orbit, and drift down to the surface of some unknown world, some planet that from space shows that it will tolerate us long enough for a look-see. And I did say drift down. The searing outpourings of combustion energy that first took us into and out of space are all a part of our history now. Gravity is no longer a problem. If the conditions required it, Cap’n Jules could bring our fifteen-hundred-foot laboratory-home down over any planet surface at ten miles an hour. We have conquered the attraction of mass for mass.

“Dreaming, Roscoe?”

I don’t like to be touched or backslapped, but the hand on my shoulder now was a notable exception to that. Especially when the owner slipped around my easy chair and plumped her luscious self into my lap. I put my arms around her, and we both sat watching the wide screen on which the Earth hung in misty glory.

“The Old Homestead,” Lindy said. “If I can just see it once in a while, like now, I’m perfectly content with space. But that’s the ultimate, that beautiful blue-green marble out there. We can search all our lives and we’ll never find anything like it.”

“It’s a point of view,” I admitted. “Statistically, though, probably not defensible. Somewhere in our galaxy of hundreds of millions of stars, with space only knows how many planets around them, the Earth has to have a twin. We’re still babes in the cosmic woods, and already we’ve come close. You haven’t—say you haven’t!—forgotten Cyrene?”

She hadn’t forgotten. How could she? And the star Cyrene was a Sol-type sun. Its yellow rays on the surface of its fourth planet could easily have been mistaken for Sol’s rays. But Planet Four had had a strange and simple ecology, and life forms so different that they had made me famous. Yes, I’m that Kissinger. A Different Evolutionary System, by Roscoe Kissinger. The lettuce-cube-mill-wheel food chain. So now when I’m on Earth, I have to make speeches. And I don’t much like to speak. I’m a field ecologist. I like to do.

But that’s not why Lindy remembered Planet Four. It was there, after many invitations, that she finally decided that to be Mrs. Kissinger might be a good thing. Maybe it was the homelike atmosphere. For Planet Four of the star Cyrene was Earthlike.

Lindy twisted in my lap and faced me, her classic features, green eyes, and red lips not six inches from my more or less Neanderthal visage. So I did what any man in the galaxy would have done, and when I had finished she was properly breathless.

“Necking again!” Pegleg Williams growled. He came rolling across the lounge, his slight limp accentuated. He does that when he wants to attract attention. He took the chair next ours.

“Don’t you two ever fight, like normal couples? You’ll both develop space diabetes, living in a sea of sugar like you do.”

Lindy giggled. I kept my grin down to respectable proportions.

“You’re in good form,” I said. “So what’s bugging you?”

Pegleg shrugged and hunched down in the chair. After a moment he waved a hand at the screen.

“Ennui!” he said. “Boredom! We’ve been lying doggo out here in the moon shadow for a month. We’ve listened and we’ve listened—and if anybody has learned anything, they’ve carefully kept it from me!”

We’re used to Pegleg. We wouldn’t even like him any way but the way he is. Occasionally he’ll put your teeth on edge, but whenever I undertake a field mission where the chips are really down, Pegleg’s the other man. We complement each other like salt and vinegar. Pegleg’s one of the great geologists—and as an ecologist, I’m not so bad. So I knew what he meant.

“Don’t blame it on Mother Earth,” I said. “Blame Johnny Rasmussen. He has an itch. You know that. And he’s never had one yet where the scratching didn’t turn out to be fun.”

Pegleg sprawled deeper in the chair. Reflectively he stared at the screen and automatically flexed his plastic knee joint. He does this when he’s thinking. It was while we were scratching one of Rasmussen’s itches that he lost that leg, bitten off smooth by a plesiosaur-like critter in a little lagoon on a planet I’d just as soon forget. That one had been only partly fun.

But as I said, I knew what he meant. A geologist hasn’t got much going for him in space. He’s got to have something to set his feet on, rocks to swing his hammer against. And the ecologist is no better off. Oh, I suppose I could get concerned about the space biome. But it’s not me. I need my habitats tangible, my biota solid enough to feel and see.

Lindy rolled out of my lap and stood looking down on us both.

“I think,” she said casually, “that I’ve become supernumerary. I recognize the symptoms. You two want to sit and deplore your respective futile situations. You may forget that I, too, am temporarily unemployed.”

Lindy’s genius with extraterrestrial microforms is such that we wouldn’t dare a landing without her. She was Dr. Linda Peterson, microbiologist extraordinary, long before she was Mrs. Roscoe Kissinger. In fact, Johnny Rasmussen has never recognized the marriage, even though he performed the ceremony. He still carries her on the roster as Dr. Peterson.

“Sit down, Lindy,” Pegleg said. “We couldn’t gripe with effect without you.”

“No,” said my gorgeous wife. “When discontent’s the topic, it’s still a man’s world. Or should I say universe? I think I’ll go run a diabetes test on myself.”

Even Pegleg grinned.

But it started then, and almost unwillingly we listened. Not that it was unpleasant. It wasn’t at all. It was strange, weird, haunting. The sounds came rolling out of the speakers with a curious lack of rhythm, with no pattern that could be pinned down. In fact, that was what was driving the sound boys out of their skulls.

Here were no pulsars, no monotonously repeated patterns of any of the several types of sound we’re getting now from space. Here was infinite sound variety, constantly changing tone and pitch, sometimes like soft music, sometimes raucous, but with a compelling completeness, point and counterpoint. It went from laughter to pleading, from murmur to roar. And yet the overall feel of it was alien. As sophisticated and endlessly changing as it was, no one even considered that it might have human origin. It was from space, from deep space, and no tests that we had yet made could tell us even the direction from whence it came.

I say “we” because that was the way Dr. Johannes Rasmussen regarded every mission the Stardust undertook. Each job was a team job. Sitting out here in the moon shadow, swinging with the moon in its orbit around Earth, an elaborate organization of explorer specialists, Earth’s finest space teams, had only one mandate, one directive. Everyone, regardless of concern or training, was asked to listen to the sounds, to the always different medley our energy dish was picking up from the great disk on the moon.

At intervals that never varied, nineteen hours and thirteen minutes thirty-seven seconds, the cosmic broadcasts poured from the speakers. They lasted exactly fourteen minutes seven seconds. From the first decibel they had been carefully and completely recorded, and each staff member was urged, in addition to his other duties, to listen to the tapes whenever he had the chance. Since our duties were minimal, to be charitable, we had heard a lot of replays. They hadn’t helped a bit.

So we listened now. Lindy dropped back into my lap, and we held hands and sat quietly while the speakers gurgled and cried and moaned.

“They’re unhappy,” Lindy murmured. “They’re in danger and frightened and alone. They’re begging for help. They’re not frantic yet, but they hope we’ll hear them. They know they can’t help themselves.”

“They?” Pegleg and I said it together.

“They!” Lindy said firmly.

” ‘One giant step,’” Pegleg quoted. “Have you told Johnny Rasmussen? He’ll be delighted. He’ll be especially interested in how you know.”

Lindy gestured helplessly and squirmed on my lap.

“He’ll be like you,” she said in disgust. “Literal. Obtuse. But I feel it! That’s not just contact. That’s urgent contact. They need us!”

Pegleg shifted his gaze to me.

“Your wife makes a nice appearance in public, but she’s subject to hallucinations. I hope it doesn’t interfere with your home life.”

“Helps, really,” I deadpanned. “She thinks I’m handsome.”

“That proves my point,” Pegleg said.

If this dialogue seems out of character to you, just know that it’s the way we are. It’s the smoke screen behind which we think. We’ve been doing it our way for years, and in general things have come out all right. See the thick sheaf of research papers under each of our names in any library worthy to be called a library. We’ve all got oak-leaf clusters on our Ph.Ds.

But we weren’t trained for this. And the sound boys and the cryptographers and the language experts were beginning to suspect that they weren’t either. Especially befuddled were the communications specialists. For the medley of sounds, picked up by the fifty-acre reception disk on the moon as though it were originating just beyond the next hill, was directionless. After a full month of trying, they still had no clue. The great disk received the sounds equally well whether phased for north or south, east or west; whether focused critically on Polaris, Deneb, or Arcturus. And we, hanging in space thirty thousand miles away, found that even their relay was hard to orient.

We listened until the end. As always, there were familiar elements in the broadcast that I felt the cryptographers should have been able to use. But each transmission was different, and since Lindy had suggested it, I fancied that the tone of each was special. Somewhere, beings with an advanced technology were telling a story to the galaxy. Hoping, hoping, that somewhere there were beings who could hear. These were feelings, too. My feelings. Only the variety, complexity, and timing of the broadcasts could be used for support for them. So I kept them to myself.

The last notes of the transmission, a plaintive, appealing series of wails, died away.

Lindy shifted in my arms. She sighed gently.

“The Music of the Spheres,” she said.

Pegleg and I were silent. There was nothing to say.

Of the personnel of the Stardust, of all the assorted specialists that made up the Earth’s most elaborate space organization, one person was never out of a job. Pegleg and I could gripe; Lindy could sigh for new space bugs; Bud Merani could fidget because there was nothing for an archaeologist to explore out there in the moon shadow. But Ursula Potts was busy.

Ursula was nothing you’d expect to find in a starship. Little, skinny, old, with weasel features and a great bun of gray hair, she looked like her usual mode of transportation ought to be a broom. To see her strolling the corridors in sneakers, knee-length shorts of red or yellow or green, and an old gray sweater that she wore inside or out, hot planet or cold, was enough to make you wonder if it wasn’t time for your annual checkup. I mean you, of course. Not us. We knew her well; knew her and respected her, and sometimes were even a little afraid of her.

Ursula painted. Painters are traditionally kooks, and Ursula abused even that privilege, but she also was a mystic—and a genius. Johnny Rasmussen spent more time looking at Ursula’s paintings than he did reading my reports. And I didn’t resent it. Somehow, Ursula saw things nobody else saw. She pulled together the results of a look-see.

She beckoned to me as I passed her studio door. She didn’t do that to everybody. But we’d seen some strange things together, she and Lindy and Pegleg and I. She was with us at Armageddon on Cyrene Four. So I slid back the door and stepped out into the studio; out into the raw depths of space. Or so it seemed.

“What do you see, Roscoe?”

No greeting. No nothing. She didn’t even wave at the big painting on her easel. But that’s what she wanted me to look at. Her strange eyes were glinting in a way I recognized. Ursula was excited about something.

A big, decorated star map. That was my first impression of Ursula’s painting. Not her usual thing at all. But when I looked closer, I could see what she’d done. It wasn’t a star map. Actually, it was a series of isolated sketches on one canvas. They would have been familiar to any schoolchild.

The old constellations. From our position out there in the moon shadow, they showed little distortion, and Ursula had simply noted them down, perhaps almost idly, as little dots of yellow and blue and red and white. But then she’d done more. Around the clusters she had sketched the old mythological figures, filling them in as her interest grew, supplying detail and emphasizing it with color until each sketch seemed almost alive.

Old Orion seemed just ready to step off, his club held high, his lion’s skin across his shoulder, and the short blade gleaming in his belt. Behind him prowled the Greater and Lesser Dogs, tongues lolling, eyes eager. One was a German shepherd and one was a Great Dane. Pegasus swept his great wings across more than his share of the canvas as he stretched out into what seemed to be a level run, nostrils flared, foam flying from his mouth. In spite of the wings, he wouldn’t have been out of place at Churchill Downs.

I chuckled as I skipped from figure to figure. They were clever, done with the technique only a great artist can command, but I couldn’t see anything more. They were superficial. I enjoyed them, but that was all.

I looked at Ursula, and her insistent gaze sent me back to the painting again. I was missing something. There sat Cassiopeia on her throne. Draco pushed his ugly head up toward where the northern bears hung with their ridiculous tails pointing to and away from the Pole Star. And then I got it. The Little Bear looked plump and contented, and Ursula had skillfully painted a honeycomb in his mouth. But old Ursa Major was unhappy. He was gaunt and thin. His lips writhed back from his fangs as though in pain. And no wonder! Out near the end of his long, unbearlike tail Ursula had painted a big, livid, and obviously uncomfortable knot.

“I see it,” I said. “Why?”

“Don’t know,” Ursula said. “Just happened. Didn’t look right any other way.”

I peered at the knot. Two visuals gleamed in the middle of the bruised and purple lump, one yellowish and one white.

“Mizar and Alcor,” I said. “Could be three visuals. A little magnification will bring out another one.”

“Know it. Put in another one. Didn’t look right. Took it out.”

“It would scarcely be visible,” I protested. “It couldn’t make any real difference in the picture, could it?”

“Did, though. Wasn’t happy with it in.”

I have mentioned stepping out into Ursula’s studio. That was literal. When we were in space, Ursula painted in a transparent bubble, a small, room-sized blister that could be extruded from the apparently featureless side of the Stardust. There, in radiation-shielded, air-conditioned comfort, Ursula interpreted the galaxy.

From deep in the umbra of the moon, the constellations gleamed like on a summer night on Earth, but with far greater scope. The Great Bear literally hung before us. I picked up Ursula’s binoculars, a 12x pair she had evidently been using to verify visuals. I focused on Mizar and Alcor, the region of the knot, the Horse and Rider of some mythology. The third visual came faintly into view, just as I remembered.

“It’s there,” I said. “Hasn’t changed a bit.”

“Know it,” Ursula said. “Still can’t put it in. Doesn’t feel right.”

“And the knot?”

“Belongs. Got to be. Don’t know why.”

She looked at me for a moment, then suddenly turned back to her easel, her skinny fingers unerringly selecting the right brush from the collection thrust handle-end first into the large gray bun on the back of her head. It was dismissal. But as I slid back the door, she looked up briefly.

“Think about it, Roscoe.”

She didn’t have to say it. I was thinking.

*

There hadn’t been one for all the time we had spent in the moon shadow; so when it came, it was overdue. After looking at Ursula’s picture, though, I knew I had been expecting it.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” The voice of Stony Price, communications chief, purred sedately out of our speakers. It was evident that he had been given a formal communique and told to stick with it. “Dr. Rasmussen requests the pleasure of the compnay of all senior and supervisory staff at dinner this evening. Appetizers at 1800. Be it known I’ve consulted the cook. It’s a good menu!”

The last, of course, was pure Stony Price. He never stuck to a script in his life.

Johnny Rasmussen’s dinners were a tradition aboard the Stardust. They all had the same format, the same formal lack of formality. That doesn’t sound right. But it says what I want. And a dinner always meant more than it appeared to mean. It always preceded a crisis, or a big decision, or with the same deadpan gentility, it occasionally was a celebration. The raison d’etre was never mentioned. Attendance wasn’t compulsory. But nobody missed Rasmussen’s dinners. They were where big things happened.

“I feel twitchy,” Lindy said. “My radar is jumping. This dinner is going to be a weirdy!”

She was selecting a dinner gown, of course. She was busy at that ten minutes after the communique came through.

I knew what she meant. The dinner would be toothsome, as always, the company familiar and comfortable. It was the reason for it that she was talking about.

She strolled back and forth between two creations she had hung on opposite sides of her dressing table. One was gray, a living, almost ominous gray, streaked through with long diagonal flashes of vivid blue. The other was like a flame hung on the wall. And that was the one she turned to, more and more often.

No red-haired, green-eyed woman can wear a blazing red formal and get away with it. False. One can. She did, too; and with her curls piled high in a strange coiffure, a rope of milk pearls across the scenic splendor of her breasts, and a white orchid at her left shoulder, she looked like some barbaric princess on a world we’d just discovered. Actually, that’s literary fudging. Since the Stardust first passed Pluto, we’ve found plenty of life, but none of it human or humanoid. Certainly nothing that remotely resembled Lindy.

I seated her proudly, as I always do. The women all tried, and several of them looked pretty spectacular, but I had the queen and everybody knew it. And that’s fair to good going for a guy who looks as rough as I do. Even a dinner jacket and a close shave can do only so much for a body like a storage tank, long, thick arms, pillar legs, and black hair showing everywhere hair can show except on the top of my head. Add a face that could have been chopped out with a dull hatchet—and you wonder about Lindy. It must be my beautiful eyes.

Dr. Johannes Rasmussen made his entrance, on cue, exactly at 1800 hours. Tall, slender, tanned, immaculate, his moustaches waxed to points, he stood behind his chair and gazed with pleasure down the long table. Then, starting at his right, he named names:

“Captain Griffin, Mr. Cheng, Miss Potts, Dr. Kissinger,”—on around the table. When he got back to himself he said, “I’m happy to have you here this evening. Won’t you please be seated?” He could have done the whole bit in his sleep. And so could most of us.

The men sat, and we all pitched in without ceremony. Utensils clinked. Conversation built from a polite murmur to a contented waterfall roar, punctuated occasionally by a deep laugh, or perhaps Lindy’s high-pitched giggle.

Next to me Ursula Potts dug into her baked fish like a hungry terrier. Ursula loves to eat as much as I do, which is no faint praise. Ursula’s dinner dress was a sullen russet, with no ornamentation. Her skinny fingers were heavy with rings. But her wizened face and strange eyes were the same against any backdrop. She flicked those eyes up and down the table and chewed steadily. She wasn’t missing a thing.

“Good fish, Ursula,” I said. “Must be Friday.”

She licked her thin lips.

“Barbaric reference, Roscoe. No connection between food and the days of the week.”

“Not to me,” I admitted. “I eat anything any day. But a lot of people still connect Friday and fish.”

“Day of mourning among the fish,” Ursula said dryly. “Quit beating around the bush, Roscoe.”

“Okay.” I shifted my tone. “What’s this bash about, Ursula? Any premonitions? Better still, any information?”

Ursula slurped her Chablis with appreciation.

“Don’t know. Can guess, though.”

“Give!”

“We’re going out.”

Rasmussen’s seating seemed to confirm it. Cap’n Jules Griffin was on his right, and he wasn’t there for his sparkling conversation. Cap’n Jules is the dullest man in space. I can’t talk to him for five minutes. Usually he sits far down the table. But he’s the genius who implements Ultraspan. He gets us where we want to go.

And Moe Cheng sat next to him, a big-nosed, slant-eyed little man who knows more about the galaxy than any man has ever known. So it was logistics! But Ursula was next, and then I. We weren’t there by accident either. Johnny never does anything at random.

We ate, and Rasmussen exchanged polite amenities with those of us within range, like the correct, formal English gentleman he is. I did say English. Forget the name. In the nineteenth century he would have been one of the boys. To him, dinner wouldn’t taste right if he weren’t dressed for it. Dinner jacket. Black tie.

*

When the coffee arrived, big fragrant cups of it, and delicate shells of good brandy on the side, Johnny unwrapped the baby. Without seeming to do so, he raised his genteel voice, just enough so that the people at the far end of the table could hear him clearly.

“Ladies and gentlemen, a brief but important announcement.”

He paused, and the talk died.

“Miss Potts has painted a picture.”

Again that pause, but this time the silence was from astonishment.

“Well, good for her!” Pegleg’s sour voice was low, but it carried. “But that is Miss Potts’s business, painting pictures. If Miss Potts had won the high jump, that might be news!”

Rasmussen’s eyes twinkled, but he kept the faith. He didn’t smile.

“This particular picture is important to all of us,” he said. “On the basis of it I have made a decision. Dr. Kissinger, you have seen the picture. Would you describe it, please?”

I was as out of it as anybody, but I can go along with a gag. “I suppose you mean the knot on the bear’s tail,” I said. “Proceed.”

So I went over the picture verbally and wound up with gaunt old Ursa Major, with his unhappy look and the painful lump on his caudal appendage. I played it straight, but people began to snicker. Everybody thought it was a yuk. For that matter, so did I. “I would prefer tangible data,” the chief said, “but we don’t have them. We tried everything we know. With the help of the Luna Reception Center—the Big Dish, if you will—we have monitored and analyzed and been frustrated by the sounds from space that Dr. Peterson has called the Music of the Spheres. It has been impossible to determine direction of origin.”

Johnny had curled his long fingers around his brandy glass, wanning it, and now he raised it, barely wetting his lips.

“Miss Potts has sensed a disturbance in Ursa Major. She has even been specific as to location. Now we know that this is not evidence admissible anywhere in any scientific context. But most of us also know that Miss Potts has—shall we say—unique gifts.” (What he meant was that the old witch was a witch!) “She has been a staff member on every flight of the Stardust, and I have never known her painted analyses to be entirely without foundation.”

A delicate sip of coffee, then more brandy. “I have therefore notified the International Space Council that the sounds appear to emanate from zeta Ursae Majoris, coloquially called Mizar, and have received clearance to proceed there to investigate.”

There wasn’t even a murmur the entire length of the table. “The distance is eighty-eight light-years. Captain Griffin has assured me that we have the capacity to span it in seven stages. Mr. Cheng has plotted these stages. For seventy-two hours we will renew supplies at Tycho Base on Luna, during which time R. and R. leave will be granted to all personnel not involved in these activities. If any individual feels disinclined to make this voyage, he may separate without prejudice, and we will understand. That is a very angry-looking knot on the bear’s tail!”

He couldn’t have bound them any closer to the ship if he had put chains on them. And well he knew it.

He rose and stood tall, the brandy glass still in his hand.

“It has been a pleasure to have you here this evening. There will be further refreshment in the main lounge, where the picture is on display for your examination. Good evening!”

The old formula again. He didn’t wait to take a bow, just slipped out the way he always does. And the press toward the lounge was faster than usual. If space people didn’t have curiosity, they probably wouldn’t be space people.

*

Well, that was the program, and that’s the way it happened. The Stardust bestirred herself, swept out of the moon shadow in a long ellipse and into the bright unfiltered glare of Sol. Cap’n Jules took the scenic route, orbiting the moon once as we spiraled in to our spot at the Tycho docks.

The landscape below us hadn’t changed much. The dome clusters were few and far between. For the most part the long stretches of bleak, jumbled, cratered surface were just as three billion years had left them. I had been over them hundreds of times, but I still took a moment to stand straight and mentally salute two truly brave men in a tiny, flimsy, spider-legged craft who came safely to rest for the first time in that empty wilderness below. Countless messages have come to Earth from space since 1969, but none will ever again have the thrilling impact of the cheerful announcement:

“The Eagle has landed!”

But enough of reminiscence and history. The Stardust eased gently into her slip, her thousands of tons completely nullified by her new timonium antigravs. Cap’n Jules brought her in like a feather on a breeze. She lay full length, a vast metal sausage, blunt-nosed, blunt-sterned and featureless. No on-looker could have imagined the variety of handy little gadgets that could be extruded at need from her glistening hide, from jumper platforms to Ursula Potts’s studio. Nor was there any hint of the full fifty openings that could be activated; personnel ports, cargo ports, great shutter-like openings that could each discharge a four-man scoutboat into space.

The personnel ports were promptly put to use as all but a handful of our researchers and crew streamed into the pressurized corridors and out into the big-city attractions and fleshpots of Tycho Base. Pegleg and Lindy and I went along. I couldn’t have cared less about Tycho’s charms, but it did feel good to get my feet back on terra firma once again. I said as much.

“Luna firma,” Lindy corrected. “Terra is thataway.” And so it was, hanging resplendent, high in the Lunar northern sky. The great central dome of Tycho arched over the sector of shops and hotels and entertainment places in one graceful, lofty sweep. It filtered out hard radiation and gave a soft, ghostlike quality to the sunlight it allowed to come through. And it changed the celestial view. We looked up at a luminous green Earth, and behind it the northern constellations were picked out in icy dots. The Great Bear was in view. For a moment I could almost see his gaunt, unhappy look, and the swelling knot on his long tail.

We prowled the grass-bordered streets, looked into shop windows, sniffed at the doors of eating places. We sat on the benches in Tycho’s famous Aldrin Park, where oaks and beeches and pines and dogwoods pretended, like the people, that they were still on Earth. A mockingbird sang from a holly tree near where we sat. Cardinals and bluebirds flashed as they flew. I wondered what effect the lessened gravity had on their flight. They seemed happy and normal.

It was a pleasant little interlude. Pegleg left us on affairs of his own, which I suspected had to do with a slumberous-eyed, dark-haired little stewardess he knew on one of the shuttle runs to Earth. The nature of man changeth not. I felt smug, for I’d put all that behind me. Or, to put it more correctly, I liked my arrangement better.

Lindy and I had dinner at the Earthview, not Tycho’s biggest or grandest restaurant, but I knew from experience that you couldn’t beat the food. And that’s why I go to eating places. We had oysters Luna, a pale green soup that smelled like a breath of the jungle, reindeer steaks from Lapland, artichokes and spinach from Texas, and three kinds of wine. There were fruits from Malaya, a French dessert, and finally coffee and a heavenly clear liqueur, a specialty of the house. And all served by a blond goddess six feet tall and magnificently topless!

“Eyes are for looking,” Lindy said, “but don’t neglect your food. Would you like to bet I couldn’t take her job?”

“Why,” I asked reproachfully, “would you want to put a poor girl out of work? You already have a job. One that’s yours as long as you want it, and when you don’t want it any more, I’ll close the position out for good. Now may I look?”

Her green eyes danced. She reached across the little table to put a hand on mine.

“Stare away,” my wife said. “I don’t see how it can hurt you.”

If you’re thinking that this is irrelevant, that it’s all digression, don’t you believe it. That little touch of R. and R. was important. We needed the supplies they were loading into the Stardust, but no more than we needed that touch of solid ground beneath our feet, the renewed contact with the substrate that periodically we all have to have. Still, the seventy-two hours were enough. When the Stardust, herself rested, lifted gently like a living thing from her berth and the moon dropped away, we were all aboard, and we were all glad.

Earth was in our viewports for a brief while. Then, under full timonium drive we flashed across the Solar System and into deep interstellar space beyond Pluto’s orbit. Yet we were simply checking, getting ready for the journey. Light-minutes were nothing, even at the terrific finite speeds of which we were capable. Light-years were ahead of us. Eighty-eight of them. And that meant Ultraspan.

We were in the hands of three unlikely geniuses—they abound on the Stardust—and I’m sure I’ve been more concerned for my life in a Paris taxi.

Moe Cheng planned the stages. Cap’n Jules stood by to implement them, one by one. Johnny Rasmussen structured the patterns at the end of each stage, move by move. This was new space, and we were tracking sounds in a direction not determined by any scientific data. We could never have justified ourselves to any logical inquiry. Still, that didn’t disturb me either. Computers can goof, but I’d never known Ursula’s weird sixth sense to be entirely wrong.

An Ultraspan stage can’t be described. Nevertheless, I’ll try. You are conscious in stage, but nothing has either importance or meaning. In effect, according to one school, during the jump you cease to exist as an entity, and the Nirvana-like consciousness is like a shadow projected forward, your id stripped of all concerns and without a home. I don’t know. There is a perceptible time-span in stage, and you know it’s there. Yet theoretically time does not exist, and with the effect of time suspended, one space is as likely as another. Still, stages can be plotted and the target space occupied. We’ve been doing it for years.

Lindy and I held hands for the first stage, programmed for ten light-years. I was nothing and she did not exist, yet somehow I knew that we were sitting in our quarters in the Stardust, and that we were holding hands. It seemed days and weeks, and yet it seemed only a minute or two. Our viewscreen showed an alien pattern of stars. My wife’s hand was warm in mine. The starship barely had headway, perhaps no more than a thousand miles an hour. We were in pattern after the stage, orienting, checking, verifying. And the life of the ship went on as though it had not been interrupted. Which, indeed, perhaps it had not. We use Ultraspan, but we may never really understand it.

“There’ll come a day,” Lindy said, “when I won’t want to tolerate that any more.”

She got up and walked restlessly across the room. “It’s painless,” I said.

“Of course. It isn’t that. It’s—it’s just that it seems to take me away from me! You dig? With all my problems solved, all my curiosities satisfied, all my challenges met, maybe sometime I won’t want to come back. To go ten light-years in space without time lapse isn’t for man. It’s—it’s ag’in nature!”

“Karma,” I said. “Nirvana. Maybe we have found the way. And what, after all, is ag’in nature? What’s nature?”

Lindy turned, and suddenly she smiled at me. It was the quick change of mood that all women show. Or I suppose they all do. I could see the strain go out of her face, the confidence return.

“You and me together! That’s nature, friend. Pay me no attention, Roscoe. I go gloomy, but I’ll always come back.”

I rose and started for her. And our speaker rattled, cleared its throat, and the Music of the Spheres poured out of it.

It was different. There was more discord, more harshness, than in any broadcast before. It throbbed and pulsed and wailed. Where before only Lindy could detect urgency, now it seemed to me that anyone could. And I thought I knew why. We were closer. Whatever was impending, whatever motivated those calls to the galaxy, to whomever or whatever would listen—whatever it was, it was nearer. If we had stayed at our base near Earth, we wouldn’t have heard this broadcast for ten years yet.

The signal was no stronger. It came in plainly, though, and here we were dependent on our own sensors. We didn’t have the enormous backing of the Big Dish on the moon. As I listened, conviction grew. We were headed exactly right.

We were on the beam.

After an Ultraspan stage, Rasmussen always activated a twenty-four-hour pattern. This gave time for a rest period, time for all data to be processed, time for all personnel to adjust. For the feel of one sector of space is not the feel of another. I can’t explain that. But it’s so.

We staged again, fourteen light-years. There was no star pattern on our viewscreens then. They were awash with brilliant light, all radiation screens were activated, and not twenty-five million miles away lay the awesome grandeur and tossing energy of a flaring sun. It was as close as we had ever come to a primary energy unit, but it was no mistake. We were where Moe Cheng intended we should be.

The broadcast came through. Fragmented by the roiling radiation, we still picked up most of it. And fourteen years had made a difference. There was panic in the music now, fear, desperation, and the first faint threads of despair. If anyone had doubted that our direction was right, they didn’t any more.

Five stages later—five memorable stages—and the Stardust drifted at the edge of a spectacular star system. Not large, as such systems go, not as colorful as the red giants are, but with an attraction for us that I suppose was at least partly historical. Since man first had raised his eyes toward the heavens, he had known this little twinkling dot in space. It was a part of the complex by which travelers found their way. Ancients had used it as an eye test. For this was Mizar.

I don’t have to instruct you. Any schoolboy knows the double-triple systems of this brighter one of the Alco-Mizar duo. But no schoolboy or anyone else of human origin had ever had our view of them. The first human visitation. And the last.

Our astronomers probed and measured and explored and verified, while we sat impatiently watching the viewscreens. They made it easy for us. The triple system of Mizar B, three bluish suns, moved slowly along the paths of their complex orbits around their common center in space. From Earth they simply melded to form a dim blue point. But it was Mizar A, the double, that had been our objective, though we had not known it. Here, somewhere here, was the point of origin of the Music of the Spheres.

The smaller component of Mizar A lay far in the distance across the system, a blue-white sun that glimmered cheerily and normally. Its relatively giant twin, a bright yellow on the charts, was no longer that. It hung in space before us, an ominous, shifting, sullen orange, a vast, savage celestial furnace, unstable and threatening. We knew its nature and its fate before the sounds came through once more, exactly on time.

You have listened to a requiem. You know the sounds of a dirge. The Music of the Spheres was still music, but there was in it no hope, no calls for help, no panic and no fear. The time was past for these. Whatever made the music was saying good-bye, was expressing thankfulness for having lived, for the wonders of having been sentient. There was even a gentle speculation that this was not the end after all—that somewhere, in an unimaginable future, there might be something more.

Now I’m not sensitive, as Lindy is. Certainly I have no touch of the mysticism that allowed Ursula Potts to feel crisis across the light-years. And Pegleg is worse. Yet all of us, sitting in the small lounge listening to that broadcast, all of us heard just what I’ve described. We felt it so plainly that we could put it into words, as I’ve done here. And there was one thing more we could detect. It was regret. Regret that before life ended it had not known other life, other beings that knew the joys of thought and achievement, beings that it believed existed, and to whom it had sent its music pulsing out among the stars.

Ursula Potts sat small and still in her chair as the broadcast ended, her strange eyes glowing. Tears flowed down Lindy’s cheeks.

Pegleg twisted uncomfortably as he sat. Automatically he flexed his plastic knee joint. I got up and paced.

“All personnel, attention please!”

Dr. Johannes Rasmussen never speaks on intercom, but they were his cultured tones that came out of the speakers now.

“This is a summary, for your information. The sun Mizar A-l is in unstable condition, prenova. It will disintegrate in thirty-three hours. It has a single planet. Dr. Frost has recorded all vital physical data; so let it suffice to say that it is appreciably larger than Earth, has an atmosphere, and every evidence of varied and complex life. The music has originated there.”

Johnny paused, and I could imagine him sitting, his face calm and apparently untroubled, reflecting on how to phrase his next sentence.

“We have time. We will proceed immediately to the planet, orbit and descend to the surface unless conditions make that impossible. Radiation is already high, many times human tolerance, but far less than the shielding capacities of our ship, or even our spacesuits. Unless the music is mechanically produced, life still exists on the planet’s surface. But probably you all detected finality in the last broadcast. Remarkable, really!”

Johnny seemed to be saying the last two words to himself.

“The planet is now on your screens. We will keep it there during approach. Please consider what part you would care to play in our brief reconnaissance. The brevity is occasion for regret, but it is fortunate that we have arrived before the system destroys itself. We will allow ourselves a safety margin of three hours, and we will stage thirty hours from this time. Thank you.”

Nobody but Rasmussen could have made the most dramatic experience man had ever known sound as routine as a weather report.

The planet was a small bright dot on our screens as we flashed toward it and toward its glowering sun. It grew steadily, though. Cap’n Jules wasn’t wasting time. Before long the dot was a sphere; shadows showed and drifted on its surface; colors glowed. Finally it hung before us in majestic blue-white splendor, suffused over all by the deepening orange light of the sullen sun. Doomed planet!

“What a pity!” Lindy murmured. “What a terrible, horrible, hard-to-understand, unbelievable fate! Roscoe, if I didn’t remember Earth, that would be the grandest object we’ve ever seen from space!”

“Location, distance from its primary, rotation rate, revolution rate, light quality and intensity, all ideal,” I said. “And there’s plenty of water, an oxygen atmosphere, a deep and varied planetary crust. Just the kind of cradle life would have to have.”

I had been running down Doug Frost’s physical data tables. Like I said, everything was perfect. If you had set out to build a model planet, this was probably how it would have looked when you had finished. Then add countless eons of evolution! The results at least were life forms so sophisticated, so learned, that they could send complicated musical messages far into the galaxy. How far, we had no way of knowing.

And now the source of its life was sick, stricken with an incurable illness, a slowly progressing loss of balance in its atomic furnaces. In thirty-three hours the story would end. Thirty-one hours, now. We had taken two hours to approach the planet. For the life on that beautiful world out there, thirty-one hours until the end of time!

As we swept into high orbit, three thousand miles above the planet’s surface, speakers came alive all over the ship. Johnny Rasmussen was calling the makers of music, and he wanted us all to hear. Every characteristic of the celestial broadcasts had long ago been analyzed. I could imagine the care with which Stony Price was matching element to element, intensity to intensity, frequency to frequency. But it was Rasmussen’s voice that was going out. His message was simple. He knew that if it was detected it would not be understood, but his neat soul squirmed if all ends were not carefully tied.

“This is the starship Stardust, from the Sol system, eighty-eight light-years from your own. We have come in response to your messages. We see the condition of your sun. We will meet with you if it is possible. Please respond.”

The speakers were silent. I probably held my breath for a full minute before I remembered to exhale. But nothing happened. After a brief time lapse Johnny repeated his message. Again nothing. Then he spoke to us, to the personnel of the Stardust.

“I had hoped that we might establish the location of the transmitting installations and home directly on them. It was a remote hope, at best. Some hours remain before the next scheduled broadcast, if in fact another ever will be made. A pity. As you may now see from the building complexes on your screens, life has indeed reached a high level here. We have not before encountered any forms so advanced.”

He paused, doubtless rearranging his next sentence into a form that pleased him better. He never got a chance to use it.

The music came softly, hesitantly, wonderingly, as if its maker or makers didn’t really believe. To our knowledge, they had been sending their calls out across the galaxy for nearly a hundred years. And now, when time had almost run out, they were answered! The tones deepened, strengthened. We could hear the exultant questions hi them: “Who are you? Where are you? Speak to us again!”

Pegleg was at our screen, adjusting for a better view, and we all could see the image whirl as the Stardust changed direction. Cap’n Jules had shifted course with the first pulse of sound.

“This is the Stardust,” Rasmussen said. “We hear you. Speak again! Speak again! Speak again!”

The response poured from the speakers like a hymn of thanksgiving, like the sound of a choir in a great cathedral. I’m no musician, but any field man can sort out sounds. I could tell that that volume came from many sources. Then it died away into soft, happy whispers and only one tone remained, a clear, resonant soloist. That tone went up and down the scale, repeated and doubled back on itself in amazing patterns. And I knew, everybody knew, that it was speech.

The Stardust swept down into the atmosphere in a fluid, ever-decreasing glide. She knew where she was going, now. The computer had solved the location of the transmitter in seconds, for the unrelayed sound no longer lacked direction. Clouds briefly blurred the viewscreens. Then we were cruising smoothly and slowly over a landscape like nothing we had ever seen before. Still, it was familiar. All the elements of cultured, civilized occupancy were there. Only the forms were different.

It was not Earthlike. There were no trees, no grass, no flowers. Color was there, and variety, and I suppose I sorted things out pretty quickly. In the presence of proper stimuli I began to function automatically. If you put food before a hungry animal, it will salivate. Put an ecologist in a new ecosystem and he will start to analyze. Pavlovian. Inevitable.

All over the ship the same thing was going on. Johnny Rasmussen issued no orders. It wasn’t necessary. Every researcher, every team, had gone into a structured behavior pattern, preparing, planning, anticipating. Each knew better than anyone else what his own part should be in this strange, brief, and tragic exploration. I was in my lab, without remembering how I got there. Lindy undoubtedly was scooping up samples, assaying the life in the atmosphere. Pegleg was readying to go out at first touchdown. And there was no doubt that Ursula’s studio was extruded and that she was hard at work.

My viewscreen flickered as the scoutboats went out. Four swishes. Sixteen men. Geographers and meteorologists probably. They would range for hundreds of miles around the mother ship, their cameras recording everything from horizon to horizon, packing in raw data about this world that would be studied and analyzed long after the planet had ceased to be. We knew this. We all faced it. But there was no other thing we could do. Here life had evolved to high level—but all life must end sometime.

I changed into field gear. It wasn’t much, just shorts, a jersey, sandals and a gear harness. Outside was going to be awkward and tricky, for we would be in spacesuits. The strange landscape looked tranquil and peaceful, but the radiation was lethal. We’d never worked under such conditions before. The suits anticipated them, though. We had a wide margin of safety.

“Shame about that blasted radiation.” Pegleg read my mind. I hadn’t even noticed him come into the lab. I was scooting my chair on its track back and forth along the row of sensor consoles that reported and recorded a variety of basic abiotic data. “As you can see, the air is sweet. More oxygen than we’re used to.”

“I’ve been checking the sources,” I said. “Photosynthesis, as you’d expect from all the green. Funny thing, though. Everything seems to be photosynthesizing. Haven’t picked up a flicker of what you might call animal life.”

“Nothing looks like it either.” Pegleg studied my screen. We were cruising at two thousand feet and at fifty miles an hour. First reconnaissance pattern. As eager as we were to contact the dominant life, the makers of music, still Johnny Rasmussen held to the pattern. We had time. We learned as we went. By now we all knew that the transmitter was a thousand miles away, but we’d spend an hour in this pattern, then flash to our destination in minutes. It was midmorning on the land below us, the last midmorning it would ever see.

“Animals are more sensitive to radiation,” I suggested. “Could be they’re already dead.”

“The broadcast boys are still on the ball. Are you hinting that they’re plants too?”

“We’re shielded,” I pointed out. “Why shouldn’t they be? Somehow they haven’t developed the know-how to escape their planet, but I predict that in many ways they’ll be as advanced as we are. We couldn’t have sent out the Music of the Spheres.”

Pegleg’s narrow face had its usual suspicious expression, as though he smelled a dead mouse.

“Smart enough, maybe, to take over the Stardust, and leave us here in their places to face Eternity in the morning?”

“This is a planet bigger than Earth,” I said dryly. “The Stardust would be just a mite overloaded.”

Pegleg snorted.

“Genghis Khan would only have picked a few passengers. Hitler wouldn’t have taken everybody. Just a lady friend, maybe, and a few zealots to do the work. Don’t be an ass, Roscoe. Even so-called kindly life forms want to keep on living. It’s a pretty basic urge. The hand of brotherhood should be backed up by a club, just in case.”

“If I know Johnny Rasmussen, it will be. He doesn’t look or act as ornery as you do, but I do sometimes get the impression that he’s sadly lacking in faith. Taking the Stardust would require a gambit we can’t even imagine. You know that as well as I do.”

“A comforting thought.” Pegleg subsided, but he still grumbled. “Just the same, when we finally go, that’ll be the reason. ‘Love thy neighbor’ is an impossible assignment. All it does is to leave the door unlocked so he can knock you on the head or steal you blind.”

This was standard Pegleg philosophy, and how much of it he actually believed I suppose I’ll never know. What I do know is that if and when I ever do get trapped in a last extremity, there’s no man I’d rather have backing me up than Pegleg Williams.

We concentrated on the viewscreen. The ship was traversing a tremendously wide valley, and in length it seemed to go on and on. There were surfaced roads that swept in sinuous curves, water courses that undulated, and wherever road met river there was a gracefully arching bridge. Everything was curved. There wasn’t an angle anywhere.

Nothing seemed to fit the specifications of a town. There were buildings, always in clusters, always piled masses of brightly colored domes. Too big for family dwellings, as we understand families, I still felt that they housed the builders and users of the roads and bridges. The green mounds arranged in orderly curved patterns over wide areas became plants in fields in my thinking. The green was chlorophyll. So the life pattern was below us, at least for this portion of the planet, but never a sign of the dominant forms, never a hint of movement. Either they were already dead from the radiation, or the Stardust had spooked them. If they were alive, they must have heard that their space broadcasts had been answered. So I reasoned, but nothing I could see gave much support to my speculations.

The first reconnaissance hour passed. Johnny Rasmussen gave the word, the ship nosed upward slightly, and the land below us began to blur. In an hour we had traveled fifty miles. In the next few minutes we went almost twenty times that far. Then the Stardust cut speed and peeled off in a long sweeping glide. The structure we had come eighty-eight light-years to seek spread out ahead of us. It was, it had to be, the transmitter complex, and just to see it was worth the trip.

It rose out of a level plain, row on row and tier on tier of multicolored domes, piled on and against each other in a fashion that looked fearfully unstable, but which must have represented the ultimate in fine engineering. From a distance it looked like an Oriental fan or a peacock’s tail, spreading outward and upward from a narrow base, the cantilevered domes like beads on strings, thousands and thousands of them, each as large as family dwellings on Earth. Two miles into the sky the great fan spread, the weirdest and most beautiful artifact of my experience.

We swung slowly around it, drifting in a twenty-mile circle.

Cameras and sensors were probing and recording the whole improbable complex. My info board also told me that the Stardust was enveloped in a force field that would require incredible energy to penetrate. Pegleg needn’t have worried. Rasmussen wasn’t underestimating anybody—or anything.

Our peerless leader was at his microphone.

“We’re here, friends. We’re coming in for a landing. Do you see us? Give us a sign! Can you hear us? Give us a sign!”

Perhaps the last was because we had heard nothing since we dropped into the atmosphere. And I found myself wearing a humorless grin. Even in this last extremity, they mistrusted us as well.

The domed dwellings were scattered in patterns outward from the base of the fan, multicolored, brilliant. There were many hundreds of them, and roads curved in from all directions. Everything was there—except the life forms; except the “people.”

Cap’n Jules picked the closest empty spot and set the Stardust down gently, without a jar. Pegleg and I were suiting up, checking again and again the shielded protective coverings we had never had a chance to use before. Johnny’s voice came at intervals from the speakers. No response. Suddenly we were too strange, too alien for the inhabitants of this world, some of whom had to be still alive and watching us at this moment. But they gave no sign.

Rasmussen has imagination. He wasn’t getting through and he knew he was being heard. He changed tactics. The next sound that came from the speakers was very familiar and soothing to me. I had heard it under many circumstances, and on at least twenty worlds. Often in my quarters, after a good meal, it relaxes me as nothing else ever could. For Lindy strummed her guitar and sang softly, sang a baby lullaby from old Earth, eighty-eight light-years away.

That did it. Throbbing musical chords broke from the speakers. Sounds ran up the scales and peaked in little questioning tones. Lindy answered with chords of her own, always gentle, always changing. We could feel the answering excitement as the responses caught up each note, elaborated it, and flung it back, every time with the question so plain it was almost in words.

“I wonder what I’m really saying to them,” Lindy murmured. “I do hope it’s not insulting.” She struck a series of soft notes and crooned a paraphrase of an old movie song, a fairy tale from back in the twentieth century: “Come out, little people, wherever you are, and see the nice spaceship that came from a star!”

But the little people did not come out. The musical dialogue continued, but nothing moved. By now, though, we had more information about them. The physiologists had activated their delicate metabolic probes and were searching the dwellings and working their way up and down the fan. There were life forms behind every wall, forms with complicated metabolisms, apparently all one species. They were shy or frightened or suspicious, but they were there.

Pegleg and I were ready. Johnny gave his okay and we went out through the locks, the first human beings to walk on this doomed world. We barely beat out Bud Merani and his team of archaeologists. If Merani can’t find ruins, new, strange buildings will do. They swarmed out behind us, spread toward the nearer dwellings. In our bulky white suits and gleaming helmets we may have looked like a pretty formidable invasion, if Lindy’s continuing concert wasn’t reassuring enough. I rather hoped she wouldn’t accidentally say the wrong thing. Undoubtedly the local inhabitants could use energy concentrations, if they chose. We each were protected by a force field, but as you would expect, it was minimal. It would be a minor deterrent, at best.

Pegleg saw them first.

“Roscoe! Bud! Heads up!” Pegleg’s communicator was set for universal output; so he rasped in everyone’s earphones.

Large oval doors were sliding open all along the base of the transmitter complex. Out of them small cars came rolling, one after another, a veritable fleet of them. Like the houses, their colors glistened. They came steadily toward the starship, falling into lines as the roads fanned out.

We had set down between two wide highways. In a few minutes each was choked with the little vehicles for the entire length of the Stardust. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of them, identical except for color, and each with its single occupant. And the reason for that was simple enough. One was all a car could hold. A hitchhiker would have been out of luck.

Each little car moved on four fat, balloonlike wheels. Each car body was a short, thick flat oval, and the driver fitted down into it like an egg into an eggcup. You’d be surprised how apt that was. The driver looked like an egg. Well, maybe not exactly, but they were the same shape. The old idea that intelligent life forms would inevitably be human or humanoid just hasn’t panned out for us. We’ve never found any that were. Thinking it over, why should they be?

I walked slowly over to the nearest line of cars, the idea forming in the back of my mind that perhaps the beings couldn’t leave their transportation. I could see no limbs, no outgrowths of any sort. They had them, though, as one of them quickly proved. It extended tentacles, pushed itself up out of its nest between the wheels, and climbed down, shooting out extensions wherever it needed them, retracting them again when the need passed. It rolled toward me on multiple outgrowths, each flattening at the tip as weight was put on it.

The thing was perhaps five feet tall. It was a uniform pale olive-green. Longitudinal striations showed on the body surface from top to bottom. Across the upper third of the body, on the side kept toward me, was a conspicuous, eight-inch ribbonlike strip, delicate and glistening and rosy pink in color. It came to a halt six feet away, raised itself up on three stiffened tentacles, tripod-like, and a well-defined oval section in its middle began to vibrate. The flutelike tones were familiar enough. We had been listening to them for many weeks. They were pleasing, varied, and the being produced them in what was evidently a formal manner. We were being welcomed. Or I hoped we were.

“The keys to the city, Roscoe.” Pegleg seemed to have the same impression.

I bowed to the egglike dignity.

“We thank you very much, sir or madam, as the case may be. We understand you’re having some trouble with your sun. I regret to say that there’s not a blasted thing we can do about it, but we’re at your service if you can think of something. Johnny, do you have any suggestions for dealing with our little friends?”

“Play it by ear. You’re doing fine!” Rasmussen’s voice was in my earphone. The egg couldn’t hear him. It was already speaking again. Its voice was rich with overtones and rose and fell with undoubted emotion. Then it paused and stood as high as its tripod would allow, the pink strip across its upper front rippling and intensifying. I suspected that this was an organ of vision, a suspicion later verified.

I bowed again.

“It has made some kind of a profound pronouncement.” I spoke clearly. “I think Lindy’s guitar can give the best answer. Play something, Lindy.” I turned and gestured toward the spaceship.

From twenty speakers Lindy’s series of musical chords flooded out. Then, one note at a time, she picked out the first phrase of a simple tune, totally inappropriate and three hundred years out of date:

“Oh, the moon shines bright tonight along the Wabash!”

Out of date or not, it was a sensation. The beings all swiveled back and forth in their cars, their vision strips rippled, and a whole array of tentacles sprouted and waved and were retracted again.

“Oh, dear!” Lindy sang. “I hope I haven’t promised them anything we can’t deliver. Would you say they’re pleased or angry?”

“If I had a month, I’d be able to tell you.” I glanced upward at the savage, sullen sun, and once again was aware of the murderous orange overglow. “This is a shame! To us they look ridiculous, but they know what the problems are. Here’s culture and learning and joy of living—and this time tomorrow it will all be gone. They know we know. And they know we can’t help. Kismet!”

“In that case,” Johnny Rasmussen said in my ear, “they’ll find satisfaction in knowing about us. Invite him in!”

A lot of things were happening. Squads of white-suited, helmeted figures were pouring out of the exits as team after special team implemented its investigation pattern. They expected full cooperation from the inhabitants, which had nothing at all to lose, and certainly knew it. There was no time for diplomatic sparring, for evidences of good faith. The only verity was the dwindling time.

The little cars left the roads and scurried like beetles over the fields around the Stardust. The featureless hide of the ship changed. Rasmussen opened viewpoints, extruded platforms and a veritable forest of sensors, anything he could make visible without danger from the deadly radiation. I saw a whole circlet of the small vehicles ranged around Ursula’s transparent studio, the vision strips of the drivers fixed on the strange figure dabbing away at the big canvas. What they must have thought unfortunately will never be known.

The first of the returning scoutboats circled the transmitter and planed in to ease itself into its slip through a briefly opened orifice. Each boat would be decontaminated as it entered. That the boat caused excited comment from the egg-beings was obvious, for the volume of sound rose and peaked as it came in. They were talking among themselves continuously now, like a vast orchestra tuning up.

Three more beings had left their cars and came rolling across to join the official greeter, if that is what he/she was. I beckoned, waved toward the starship, took a few steps. They got it immediately. They faced each other in a circle, fluted softly back and forth, then turned again to me. I led on and they followed.

As we went through decontamination, I worried. What it would do to them we couldn’t even guess. But we were all lethally hot and it had to be done. As it happened, I was wasting my concern. It didn’t inconvenience them in the least.

They were more concerned when Pegleg and I shucked our spacesuits and appeared as vastly different creatures emerging, like insects, from our bulky white chrysalides. They twittered and fluted in what was without doubt astonishment. The four of them rolled around and around us, nervously extruding and extending tentacles, almost touching us, but never quite making contact. When the purple all-clear light showed in the little room, we led them through the sphincter into the locker room beyond and then into the corridors of the Stardust.

“Bring them up to main.”

Rasmussen’s voice came from a speaker on the wall, and our guests responded with a series of organ tones. Evidently they recognized the voice. The corridors were empty; the automatic lift opened when we needed it, and there were no sounds. The ship was quiet. Since the egg-beings had no faces, it was pretty hard to read their reactions, but their vision strips were rippling and pulsing wildly, changing from palest pink to cloudy violet.

Dignity is a universal trait. Don’t think of it as human. You’ve seen it in the confident pace of a fine horse, in the gracious, condescending mien of a full-fed lion, in a tabby cat lying in the sun.

***

Dignity projects and demands respect. And our guests, or hosts, depending on how you look at it, had it in full measure.

We ushered them into the big main lounge, with its easy chairs scattered as in a retirement club and wide multiview screens everywhere. Just about every chair was occupied. All rose to their feet as we entered. Johnny Rasmussen came forward with the brand of dignity that is his special trademark, tall and well-groomed and elegant. And the egg-beings matched him, gesture for gesture, tone for tone. They knew he was The Man.

“Welcome aboard the Stardust,” the chief said.

The egg-beings responded in unison, a pleasing medley of sounds.

Johnny hesitated for a moment, then lowered himself into the nearest chair. He had nothing comparable to offer to them, but it was an experiment, just the same. It meant: Let’s communicate. And they weren’t at a loss. They ranged themselves in a half-circle before him, retracted all extrusions, flattened themselves on their bases, and sat, after their fashion. They looked like a half-moon of outsized paperweights, motionless except for their rippling vision strips.

Communication, though, wasn’t that easy. Somehow, we hadn’t been able to stumble on the key that would give meaning to their music. It was reasonable to suppose that they were trying and had had no better luck with our speech. Except for gestures, it was a stalemate. And there was no time.

After a few minutes of unintelligible amenities, Rasmussen made his decision.

“We will show them the ship, Dr. Kissinger.” He still seemed to be chatting with his guests. “We’ll show them quarters, labs, machinery, communications, libraries. We’ll make things work. Project a tape for them. Show them how we prepare food and eat it. Let them look at viewscreens and through telescopes. Everything we can think of. Many physical principles are universal. They’re bound to recognize something. Sooner or later we’ll get a common denominator.”

I could hear Pegleg’s almost inaudible growl beside me. Rasmussen sensed it.

“Don’t worry, Dr. Williams. We’ll stay alert.”

“See that we do, Johnny,” Pegleg said. “No dopes built that transmitter out there. They may have us pretty well cased already.”

“A possibility,” Rasmussen admitted, “and a chance we have to take. You’ve never been exactly the conservative type, Pegleg.”

Johnny never uses Pegleg’s nickname.

“I’m almost tempted to hope,” Pegleg said, “that I get a chance to say ‘I told you so!’ It doesn’t make sense that they will cheerily tell us good-bye and then sit flat on their bottoms like they’re doing now and await disintegration. ‘Tain’t lifelike. ‘Tain’t human!”

“Neither are they,” I said.

We showed them the ship. As we progressed, I could sense the astonishment that they first exhibited give way to keen, understanding scrutiny. I was sure that they grasped the purposes of most equipment we showed them. They twittered and whistled and fluted over each new situation, with an occasional chord thrown in. When I spoke into a microphone and indicated by gestures that my voice was being heard by the thousands outside, they made the connection immediately. As you’d expect. Communication was probably their area of greatest technical competence.

One of them, perhaps the First Greeter, though I never could be sure, rolled before the mike and showed plainly that he wanted to use it.

“Oh, oh!” Pegleg said.

But Johnny waved a hand. The egg-being seemed to swell; his vision strip flickered frantically; and he launched into a long series of clear tones, modulated, muted, and then occasionally ringing. It was quite a speech, and it took him several minutes.

“Complete report,” Pegleg said in disgust. “Those boys now know more about how this ship ticks than I do. May I timidly suggest that you don’t show them Ultraspan?”

“I always like to hold something back,” Rasmussen said dryly. “It would take perfect communication even to project the idea of Ultraspan. No, I think we’re safe. There was another reason for that speech. Look at them.”

The panoramic viewscreen hi the communications room showed the base of the great transmitter, the roads leading from it, and all the car-packed area between it and the ship. Our four visitors clustered around the screen, flattened their bottoms, and sat watching.

The little cars swirled and circled like colony ants. Many of them swung about and rolled back toward the entrances in the base of the complex. The roads cleared. The traffic departments in some of our Earth cities could have learned a lot from the neatness and dispatch with which they sorted themselves out.

By the time the roads were open, cars were again issuing from the transmitter base. They came slowly, each pulling a small four-wheeled trailer behind it, and each trailer was piled high with multicolored oval packages. Without hesitation they rolled toward the ship and on up to the port through which we had entered.

Our four visitors tried earnestly to explain. Their fluting notes were persuasive and pleading. They extruded more tentacles than we had yet seen, rolled around the communications room, paused to harangue each of us in turn.

“Well, I’ll be-!” Pegleg said. “That’s a cold-blooded bit. They want to load on supplies and go along. To heck with the peasants!”

Somehow that didn’t seem valid to me. Rasmussen, too, looked dubious. Lindy had joined us on our tour of the ship but had stayed in the background. Now she moved forward, her guitar slung into position, her green eyes and bright hair shining. I felt it a shame that our guests had no basis for appreciating her.

They felt her sympathy, though. They clustered around her, all speaking together, a medley of musical frustration. She plucked single, somehow questioning notes. They responded with a flood of sound.

“I don’t know what I’m saying,” she said, “but maybe it will give them ideas. They make no sense at all out of our vocal sounds. They’re more at home with the strings.”

She pointed to the loaded trailers on the screen, then to the egg-beings themselves, then swept her hand in a wide arc to indicate the ship. She plucked a single sharp inquiring note on the A string. And the visitors grew completely quiet. There was no way to substantiate it, but to me they seemed appalled.

Suddenly one of them, surely the First Greeter, extruded tentacles in clusters and rolled swiftly to the wall of record files the rows and rows of cabinets from which we had taken the tapes we had projected. He touched them, rolled to the screen, and pointed to the carts. A single, infinitely dignified tone came from him.

“Records,” Lindy said. “They’re giving us their history. They’re doomed, but they’d like the Universe to know that they’ve lived, that they’ve learned and achieved and enjoyed. They’re willing to go. They just don’t want to be forgotten.”

I don’t know how she does it. But we all sensed that she was right. The egg-beings sensed it too. They had got through. Their soft medley of sound was thankful and contented.

“Run out a loading belt, bring in a trailer load,” Johnny ordered. “We’ll have a look.”

“A good look,” Pegleg muttered.

But that’s what they were. Many of the bright boxes were filled with tapes, rolls and rolls of them, each inscribed with wavering lines in bewildering and complete confusion. Some were packed with metallic sheets thinner than the thinnest paper, but sturdy and resistant. From edge to edge they were covered with symbols in many colors. Records. The records of a planet. Of a race. Of an evolution. A galactic treasure beyond imagining.

Rasmussen gave the order; loading belts ran out all along the ship, and hour after hour the little trailers rolled up and discharged their loads onto the endless moving surfaces. We’re an explorer ship. We have space for the specimens, the artifacts of an intensive look-see. So storage was no problem. I could imagine how eagerly the archaeologists, the historians, the mathematicians, the cryptologists were eyeing this treasure trove. But it depressed me. When we got down to the point of interpreting them, the beings who had recorded, compiled and packed them would be no more, would be part of a tenuous mass of gas outrushing into the depths of the galaxy.

“I want to see!” Lindy said. “They’ll show me. I’m special. I’m sure they will.”

She got it across to them, too. At the screen she pointed to the great fan of the transmitter complex, to them and then to herself. They fluted with understanding—and beckoned. It was the last thing we could do, and most of the field units took advantage of it. Time remained. Rest and sleep could wait, while a planet lived its last hours.

Spacesuited again, we followed our guests, now our hosts, through the exit ports. Long lines of white-clad members of field teams swarmed out behind us. The egg-beings seemed not to object. There was no possible reason why they should. But we, as Lindy said, were special.

Our four guides climbed back into their little cars, fluted positive notes into the medley of sounds rising from their countrymen, and presto—we had transportation. A car with a trailer ranged alongside each of us, and we were beckoned to climb aboard. The flat trailer beds seemed as soft as sponge rubber, but they held us, one person to a vehicle. Promptly we rolled toward the great fan at a dizzying five miles an hour.

A description of that tour does not belong here. You’ve read it in Rasmussen’s official report (ISC Annals, Vol. 72, A. D. 2119. The Log of the Stardust), or you’ve had it piecemeal in a hundred news media items. It’s here only because it’s part of a sequence, or an order of happenings, when we had to explore a star system, a planet, and a civilization in less than thirty hours. It’s significant because it gave us the beginnings of our understanding of the level of technology which these odd little egg-beings had achieved.

For hours the little cars rolled noisily up the gently sloping ramps, switching back, detouring into lofty chambers packed with mazes of strange machinery, occasionally debouching onto wide outlook window spaces from which the country stretched away to a far horizon. The metallic length of the Stardust on the ground below grew smaller and smaller as we climbed, and the tiny cars were beetles swarming around it. We spent half an hour on the highest point, on the very crest of the fan, a flat parking area that might have held a hundred or more of the little cars. And as I think back, we said almost nothing during the whole unreal experience.

The roiling, pulsing, unhappy sun was setting. This world would never see it set again. We watched it for a brief while, then followed our guides back down through the miles of sloping corridors, glowing with multicolored illumination, and finally out into an early darkness sprinkled with an alien canopy of stars.

The night seemed long. The Stardust teams worked with the structured efficiency that makes us the best, each team the extended arm of a master scientist. The Stardust gleamed like a giant glowworm. The brilliance of magnaflashes lit up the countryside for miles. Scoutboats darted in and away again. And over all, the many colors of the lights of the transmitter complex cast a strange, somber glow. In spite of the seething activity, it all seemed like an enormous wake. Which, in a way, I suppose it was.

I was glad when the night thinned, and finally the sullen orange sun climbed into view. I welcomed Stony Price’s solemn announcement on intercom, “Official. Nova minus two hours. Staging minus thirty minutes.” A sober Stony Price. No clowning with communiques now.

Outside the little cars still swarmed and scurried about in their thousands. But the last of our people came in. Personnel check was complete. The many checklists were finished and verified. We were ready.

“Staging minus sixty seconds!”

Lindy and I sat side by side, holding hands, watching the second sweep of the chronometer approach the sixty mark, waiting for the antigrav lift that would precede the familiar Nirvana-like state of Ultraspan.

And nothing happened.

Our fingers still clung while the chronometer made another sixty-second circle. The Stardust lay inert. No lift. No motion. Then the shaken voice of Stony Price on intercom. “Revision. Staging minus twenty minutes. A small difficulty.”

In crisis, I am one of Johnny Rasmussen’s four first-line replacements. Any one of us, in emergency, could take over operations and run the ship. Cap’n Jules Griffin, Moe Cheng, and Pegleg are the others. I arrived at the control room last, but only by about a couple of seconds.

Cap’n Jules sat in his control chair as always, his square face unchanging. Rasmussen reported.

“There is an energy hold on the antigrav units. We can’t lift.”

Moe Cheng’s slits of eyes gleamed with anger, but Pegleg looked almost happy. Or at least he looked vindicated.

“Outside energy! Applied where it counts! We showed them too much!”

“But why?” I protested. “We have their records. They want them saved. They want the galaxy to know. I’d swear it!”

“Play-acting,” Pegleg said. “If they can’t live, why should we? They’ve analyzed our lift-off mechanism and nullified it. All the while that we’ve been gathering data, so have they. In an hour and a half, we all go together.”

I’ve never admired Johnny Rasmussen more than at that moment. Impeccably dressed as always, bis moustaches newly waxed, he could have been considering a minor detail of operation. His tanned face showed no stress. He seated himself, punched for a brandy from the console alongside. He said nothing until he’d had a sip.

“Cap’n Jules,” he said quietly, “I think I know the answer, but why not Ultraspan direct? It has no relation to conventional energy application.”

Cap’n Jules shook his white head stolidly.

“We’re in contact; so essentially the Stardust is a part of the mass of the planet. Even Ultraspan couldn’t stage a planet.”

“So?”

“We’d disintegrate,” the captain said. “Or theory says we would. Never been tried, of course.”

“In an hour and twenty minutes we disintegrate anyway. That’ll be our last resort, our last experiment Meanwhile, we try to get them to release us. How, Roscoe?”

“I always get the easy assignments.” I tried to keep a calm face, but it was a job to hold my voice steady. “Still, when I’m in deep trouble, I always look in the same direction. This time I think it’s practical. Call my wife. Call Lindy—and her guitar.”

“Of course.” Rasmussen looked like he should have thought of it himself. He made the call. In a few minutes she came into the control room, a quiet, pale Lindy, but with live green eyes sparkling, and a faint wink for me as she passed.

“They’re holding us, Dr. Peterson,” Rasmussen said. “Somehow they’ve nullified the antigravs. Do you think you could find out why?”

Lindy looked from face to face. She saw nothing but chagrin and disillusionment, I’m afraid.

“Maybe I can’t,” she said slowly, “but if they’re doing it, there is a reason. They don’t want us destroyed.”

“All the little atoms and ions that used to be me will take satisfaction hi that as they blow out across the universe,” Pegleg said.

Lindy’s eyes crinkled suddenly, deeply. She turned toward the waiting microphone. Johnny Rasmussen sipped his brandy, and his lean face was faintly quizzical. Pegleg’s very sourness had lifted our spirits a little.

Lindy worked. How she worked. Her guitar queried and scolded and pled. The egg-beings crowded around the starship, row on row and rank on rank of little cars. The illusion of the tuning orchestra was more complete than it had ever been. They answered her with flutings and bell tones and deep, majestic chords. But they showed no indication that they understood what she wanted. We couldn’t detect any concern that we were overstaying our time. And all the while that time grew shorter.

At nova minus thirty minutes, Rasmussen admitted defeat.

“Thank you, Dr. Peterson. I’m afraid they’ve won. Our outlook now seems to be the same as theirs. But at nova minus ten we’ll try our last experiment. Even in contact with the planet, we’ll try Ultraspan.”

I don’t think Lindy heard the last part of that. Excitedly she grasped Johnny Rasrnussen by the arm, almost spilling his brandy. And, even with disintegration staring you in the face, you just don’t do that!

“That’s it!” she cried. “Oh, of course that’s it! The one thing we couldn’t take away before! They want us to feel like they feel, to know what it’s like to face the certainty of Eternity! They’ll let us go, Johnny! They don’t plan for us to die!”

And they proved it for her. Through the packed masses of little cars somehow a roadway opened. A pale blue car came through, hauling a blue trailer. On the trailer sat a large blue casket. The whole blue unit drew up at the location of the port nearest us. That was sealed, of course. No sign of it from outside. But they knew.

A single high clear note came from the thousands of diaphragms, a snaky forest of tentacles sprouted, waved and retracted.

“That’s for Lindy,” I said. I’d heard that note again and again.

Rasmussen gave the order; a loading belt extruded, and the blue casket came aboard. We broke the simple fastenings, and Lindy opened it there in the control room.

For a brief moment the contents of the casket made no sense at all. Then suddenly we knew. Even Cap’n Jules left his chair to join the circle looking down at the smooth, slightly quivering mass of clear gelatin that filled the box to the brim. Embedded in it were rows and rows of tiny green capsules, layer on layer of them. Thousands.

“They don’t want to die,” Lindy breathed. “They’re saying, ‘Find us a planet; find us a home with a healthy sun. Let our race and our culture and our knowledge live on.’”

“I don’t understand, Dr. Peterson.” Cap’n Jules Griffin’s heavy, colorless voice was evidence that he didn’t. Cap’n Jules is a genius, but he has no imagination whatever.

“These are their spawn, their babies.” Lindy looked ready for tears. “Probably the most highly selected genes they could arrange for in a hurry. They themselves will die, of course. But their race is here in this box. We can lift off now, Cap’n Jules. The antigravs are free. They want us to go.”

And a moment later the Stardust stirred gently, raised herself like a soap bubble on a breeze, and swept slowly hi a great circle around the magnificent fan of the transmitter, the thousands of tiny, colorful cars and their occupants dwindling to insect size.

“Nova minus fifteen minutes! Staging minus sixty seconds!” Stony Price sounded vastly relieved.

A sound began and grew and poured from our speakers, a single pure deep organ-tone. Benediction and good-bye!

Lindy and I held hands there in the control room; Pegleg and Rasmussen and Moe Cheng settled into chairs. Our senses blurred into the timeless nothingness of Ultraspan. Then reality returned. The Stardust floated in alien space. On our screens, four light-years away, the twin stars of Mizar A gleamed cheerily, although one of them seemed somewhat smudged and murky. But our view was four years old. We all winced when the chronometers swept past nova zero, then sat for a few minutes in a sort of numb sadness.

“They’re gone,” Lindy said. “Sun and planet snuffed out. Perhaps the other twin rendered unstable by the energy release. But the life and the wisdom it all made possible have escaped.” She patted the blue casket.

It was tragedy. We knew them briefly, but they were our friends and we mourned. Yet we knew that such things happened often even in our galaxy. How much more so across the universe?

In perspective, this was simply a single blink of the Celestial Eye.

ALL THE LAST WARS AT ONCE

George Alec Effinger

We interrupt this p—

—upt this program to—

—terrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you this bulletin pieced together from the archives of the General Motors Corporation.

“Good afternoon. This is Bob Dunne, NBC News in New Haven, Connecticut. We’re standing here in the lobby of the Hotel Taft in New Haven, where the first international racial war has just been declared. In just a few seconds, the two men responsible will be coming out of that elevator. (Can you hear me?)

“—elevator. Those of you in the western time zones are probably already—”

The elevator doors opened. Two men emerged, smiling and holding their hands above their heads in victorious, self-congratulatory boxers’ handshakes. They were immediately mobbed by newsmen. One of the two men was exceptionally tall and black as midnight in Nairobi. The other was short, fat, white, and very nervous. The black man was smiling broadly, the white man was smiling and wiping perspiration from his face with a large red handkerchief.

“—C News. The Negro has been identified as the representative of the people of color of all nations. He is, according to the mimeographed flyer distributed scant minutes ago, Mary McLeod Bethune Washington, of Washington, Georgia. The other man with him is identified as Robert Randall La Cygne, of La Cygne, Kansas, evidently the delegate of the Caucasian peoples. When, and by whom, this series of negotiations was called is not yet clear.

“At any rate, the two men, only yesterday sunk in the sticky obscurity of American life, have concluded some sort of bargaining that threatens to engulf the entire world in violent reaction. The actual content of that agreement is still open to specu—

“—or at any later date.”

A close-up on Washington, who was reading from a small black notebook.

“We have thus reached, and passed, that critical moment. This fact has been known and ignored by all men, on both sides of the color line, for nearly a generation. Henceforth, this situation is to be, at least, honest, if bloodier. Bob and I join in wishing you all the best of luck, and may God bless.”

“Mr. Washington?”

“Does this necessarily mean—”

“—iated Press here, Mr. Washing—”

“Yes? You, with the hat.”

“Yes, sir. Vincent Reynolds, UPI. Mr. Washington, are we to understand that this agreement has some validity? You are aware that we haven’t seen any sort of credentials—”

Washington grinned. “Thank you. I’m glad you brought that up. Credentials? Just you wait a few minutes, and listen outside. Ain’t no stoppin’ when them rifles start poppin’!”

“Mr. Washington?”

“Yes?”

“Is this to be an all-out, permanent division of peoples?”

“All-out, yes. Permanent, no. Bob and I have decided on a sort of statute of limitations. You go out and get what you can for thirty days. At the end of the month, we’ll see what and who’s left.”

“You can guarantee that there will be no continuation of hostilities at the end of the thirty days?”

“Why, sure! We’re all growed up, now, ain’t we? Sure, why, you can trust us!”

“Then this is a war of racial eradication?”

“Not at all,” said Bob La Cygne, who had remained silent, behind Washington’s broad seersucker back. “Not at all what I would call a war of eradication. ‘Eradicate’ is an ugly term. ‘Expunge’ is the word we arrived at, isn’t it, Mary Beth?”

“I do believe it is, Bob.”

Washington studied his notebook for a few seconds, ignoring the shouting newsmen around him. No attempt was made by the uniformed guards to stop the pushing and shoving, which had grown somewhat aggravated. Then he smiled brightly, turning to La Cygne. They clasped hands and waved to the flashing bulbs of the photographers.

“No more questions, boys. You’ll figure it all out soon enough; that’s enough for now.” The two men turned and went back into the waiting elevator.

(Tock tockatock tocka tock tock) “And now, the Six O’clock Report (tocka tock tocka tocka), with (tockatock) Gil Monahan.”

(Tocka tocka tock tock tocka)

“Good evening. The only story in the news tonight is the recently declared official hostilities between members of all non-Caucasian races and the white people of the world. Within minutes of the original announcement, open warfare broke out in nearly every multiracially populated area in the U.S. and abroad. At this moment the entire globe is in turmoil; the scene everywhere flickers between bloody combat in the streets and peaceful lulls marked by looting and destruction of private property.

“What has happened, in effect, is a thirty-day suspension of all rational codes of conduct. The army and National Guard are themselves paralyzed due to their own internal conflicts. A state of martial law has been declared by almost all governments, but, to our knowledge, nowhere has it been effectively enforced.

“There seems to be absolutely no cooperation between members of the opposite sides, on any level. Even those who most sympathized with the problems of the other are engaged in, using Mary McLeod Bethune Washington’s terms, ‘getting their own.’ Interracial organizations, social groups, and even marriages are splintering against the color barrier.

“We have some reports now from neighboring states that may be of importance to our viewers, concerning the conditions in these areas at the present time. A state of emergency has been declared for the following municipalities in New Jersey: Absecon, Adelphia, Allendale, Allenhurst, Allentown, Allenwood, Alloway, Alpha… Well, as my eye travels over this list of some eight or nine hundred towns I notice that only a few aren’t listed, notably Convent Station and Peapack. You can pretty well assume that things are bad all over. That goes for the New York, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut regions as well.

“We have some footage that was shot in Newark about ten minutes after the New Haven declaration. It’s pretty tense out there now. The expert analysts in the news media are astounded that the intense polarization and outbreaks of rioting occurred so quickly. Let’s take a look at those films now.

“Apparently there’s some diffi—

“I don’t know, what can… experiencing ourselves some of this interference with… refusal to even…

“—rifying. They’re running around out there like maniacs, shooting and—

“—flames and the smoke is—you can see the clouds against the sky, between the buildings like waves of—”

It was a pink mimeographed factsheet. Frowning, he stuffed it into his pocket. “Factsheet,” eh? It had been several days since Stevie had heard a fact that he could trust.

Nobody was saying anything worth listening to. The factsheets had begun the second day with the expected clutter of charges and accusations, but soon everyone realized that this wasn’t going to be that kind of war. Nobody gave a good goddamn what happened to anyone else. On the third day the few angry allegations that were made were answered with “our own sources do not indicate that, in fact, any such incident actually occurred” or with a curt “T.S., baby!” or, finally, no reply at all. Now the factsheets just bragged, or warned, or threatened.

Stevie was hitchhiking, which was a dangerous thing to do but no more dangerous than sitting in an apartment waiting for the blazing torches. He felt that if he were going to be a target, a moving target offered the better odds.

He carried a pistol and a rifle that he had liberated from Abercrombie & Fitch. The hot morning sun gleamed on the zippers and studs of his black leathers. He stood by the side of the parkway, smiling grimly to himself as he waited for a ride. Every car that came around the curve was a challenge, one that he was more than willing to accept. There wasn’t much traffic lately, and for that Stevie was sorry. He was really getting to dig this.

A car approached, a late model black Imperial with its headlights burning. He set himself, ready to dodge into the ditch on the side of the road. Stevie stared through the windshield as the car came nearer. He let out his breath suddenly: It was a white chick. It looked like she had liberated the car; maybe she was looking for someone to team up with. Even if she was a dog, it would beat hitching.

The Imperial passed him, slowed, and stopped on the road’s shoulder. The chick slid over on the seat, rolling down the window on the passenger’s side and shouting to him.

“Hurry up, you idiot. I don’t want to sit here much longer.”

He ran to the car, pulling open the door to get in. She slammed it shut again, and Stevie stood there confused.

“What the hell—”

“Shut up,” she snapped, handing him another pink factsheet. “Read this. And hurry it up.”

He read the factsheet. His throat went dry and he began to feel a buzz in his head. At the top of the page was the familiar, fisted Women’s Lib symbol. In regulation incendiary rhetoric below it, a few paragraphs explained that it had been decided by the uppermost echelon to strike now for freedom. During the period of severe disorientation, women the world over were taking the opportunity to beat down the revisionist male supremist pigs. Not just the oppressed racial minorities can express their militancy, it said. The female popular liberation front knew no color boundaries. Who did they think they were kidding? Stevie thought.

“You’re gonna get plugged by some black bitch, you know that?” he said. He looked up at her. She had a gun pointed at him, aimed at his chest. The buzz in his head grew louder.

“You wanna put that sheet back on the pile? We don’t have enough to go around,” she said.

“Look,” said Stevie, starting to move toward the car.

The girl raised the pistol in a warning. He dove to the ground, parallel to the car, and rolled up against the right front wheel. The girl panicked, opening the door to shoot him before he could get away. Stevie fired twice before she sighted him, and she fell to the grassy shoulder. He didn’t check to see if she was dead or merely wounded; he took her pistol and got in the car.

“My fellow Americans.” The voice of the President was strained and tired, but he still managed his famous promiseless smile. The picture of the Chief Executive was the first to disturb the televisions’ colored confetti snow for nearly two weeks.

“We are met tonight to discuss the intolerable situation in which our nation finds itself. With me this evening”—the President indicated an elderly, well-dressed Negro gentleman seated at a desk to the left of the President’s—“I have invited the Rev. Dr. Roosevelt Wilson, who will speak to you from his own conscience. Rev. Wilson is known to many of you as an honest man, a community leader, and a voice of collaboration in these times of mistrust and fiscal insecurity.”

Across the nation, men in dark turtlenecks ran down searing channels of flame, liberated television sets in their gentle grasp, running so that they might see this special telecast. Across the nation men and women of all persuasions looked at Wilson and muttered, “Well, isn’t he the clean old nigger!”

Rev. Wilson spoke, his voice urgent and slow with emotion. “We must do everything that our leaders tell us. We cannot take the law into our own hands. We must listen to the promptings of reason and calmth, and find that equitable solution that I’m sure we all desire.”

The TV broadcast had been a major accomplishment. Its organization had been a tribute to the cooperation of many dissatisfied men who would rather have been out liberating lawn furniture. But the message of these two paternal figures of authority was more important.

“Thank you, Dr. Wilson,” said the President. He stood, smiling into the camera, and walked to a large map that had been set up to his right. He took a pointer in one hand.

“This,” he said, “is our beleaguered nation. Each green dot represents a community where the violence that plagues us has gone beyond containable limits.” The map was nearly solid green, the first time the United States had been in that condition since the early seventeenth century. “I have asked for assistance from the armed forces of Canada, Mexico, and Great Britain, but although I mailed the requests nearly two weeks ago, I have yet to receive a reply. I can only assume that we are on our own.

“Therefore, I will make one statement concerning official government policy. As you know, this state of affairs will technically come to an end in about fifteen days. At that time, the government will prosecute severely anyone connected with any further disruptions of Federal activities. This is not merely an empty threat; it con—”

A young black man ran before the camera, turning to shout an incoherent slogan. Rev. Wilson saw the pistol in the boy’s hand and stood, his face contorted with fear and envy. “The business of America is business!” he screamed, and then dropped back into his seat as the black militant shot. The President clutched his chest and cried, “We must not… lose…” and fell to the floor.

The cameras seemed to swing at random, as men rushed about confusedly. From somewhere a white man appeared, perhaps one of the technicians, with his own pistol. He hurried to the desk shouting, “For anarchy!” and shot Dr. Wilson point-blank. The white assassin turned, and the black assassin fired at him. The two killers began a cautious but noisy gun battle in the studio. Here most viewers turned off their sets. “In very poor taste,” they thought.

The sign outside:

“SECOND NATIONAL BANK OF OUR LORD, THE ENGINEER.

UNIVERSAL CHURCH OF GOD OR SOME SORT OF COSMIC EMBODIMENT OF GOOD.”

Above the entrance to the church fluttered a hastily made banner. The masculine symbol had been crudely painted on a white sheet; the white flag indicated that the worshipers were white males and that blacks and women were “welcome” at their own risk. The population was now split into four mutually antagonistic segments. The separate groups began to realize that there was some point in keeping their members together in little cadres. The streets and apartment buildings were death traps.

Inside the church the men were silent in prayer. They were led by an elderly deacon, whose inexperience and confusion were no greater or less than any in the congregation.

“Merciful God,” he prayed, “in whatever Form the various members of our flock picture You, corporal Entity or insubstantial Spirit, we ask that You guide us in this time of direst peril.

“Brother lifts sword against brother, and brother against sister. Husband and wife are torn asunder against Your holiest ordainments. Protect us, and show us our proper response. Perhaps it is true that vengeance is solely Yours; but speak to us, then, concerning Limited Cautionary Retaliation, and other alternatives. We would see a sign, for truly we are lost in the mires of day-to-day living.”

The deacon continued his prayer, but soon there began a series of poundings on the door. The deacon stopped for just a second, looking up nervously, his hand straying to his sidearm. When nothing further happened, he finished the prayer and the members of the congregation added, if they chose, their amens.

At the end of the service the men rose to leave. They stood at the door, in no hurry to abandon the sanctuary of the church. At last the deacon led them out. It was immediately noticed that a yellow factsheet had been nailed to the outside of the door. The Roman Catholics of the neighborhood had decided to end the centuries-long schism. Why not now, when everybody else was settling their differences? A Final Solution.

A bullet split wood from the door frame. The men standing on the stoop jumped back inside. A voice called from the street, “You damn commie atheist Protestants! We’re gonna wipe you out and send your lousy heretic souls straight to Hell!” More gunfire. The stained glass windows of the church shattered, and there were cries from inside.

“They got one of the elders!”

“It’s those crummy Catholics. We should have got them when we had the chance. Damn it, now they got us holed up in here.”

The next day a blue factsheet was circulated by the Jewish community explaining that they had finally gotten tired of having their gabardine spat on and that everybody’d just have to watch out. Around the world the remaining clusters of people fractured again, on the basis of creed.

It was getting so you didn’t know who you could trust.

Stevie was heading back toward the city when the car went. It made a few preliminary noises, shaking and rattling slower, and then it stopped. For all he knew it might simply have been out of gas. There were eight days left in the prescribed thirty, and he needed a ride.

He took the rifle and the two pistols from the Imperial and stood by the side of the road. It was a lot more dangerous to hitch now than it had been before for the simple reason that the odds were that anyone who happened by would probably be on the other side of one of the many ideological fences. He was still confident, though, that he would be safely picked up, or be able to wrest a car away from its owner.

There was very little traffic. Several times Stevie had to jump for cover as a hostile driver sped by him, shooting wildly from behind the wheel. At last an old Chevy stopped for him, driven by a heavy white man whom Stevie judged to be in his late fifties.

“Come on, get in,” said the man.

Stevie climbed into the car, grunting his thanks, and settled warily back against the seat.

“Where you going?” asked the man.

“New York.”

“Um. You, uh, you a Christian?”

“Hey,” said Stevie, “right now we ain’t got any troubles at all. We can just drive until we get where we’re going. We only have eight days, right? So if we leave off the questions, eight days from now both of us’ll be happy.”

“All right. That’s a good point, I guess, but it defeats the whole purpose. I mean, it doesn’t seem to enter into the spirit of things.”

“Yeah, well, the spirit’s getting a little tired.”

They rode in silence, taking turns with the driving. Stevie noticed that the old man kept staring at the rifle and two pistols. Stevie searched the car as best he could with his eyes, and it looked to him as though the old man was unarmed himself. Stevie didn’t say anything.

“You seen a factsheet lately?” asked the man.

“No,” said Stevie. “Haven’t seen one in days. I got tired of the whole thing. Now who’s at it?”

The old man looked at him quickly, then turned back to the road. “Nobody. Nothing new.” Stevie glanced at the man now, studying his face curiously. Nothing new.

After a while the man asked him for some bullets.

“I didn’t think that you had a gun,” said Stevie.

“Yeah. I got a .38 in the glove compartment. I keep it there, well, I’m less likely to use it.”

“A .38? Well, these shells wouldn’t do you any good, anyhow. Besides, I don’t really want to give them up yet.”

The man looked at him again. He licked his lips, appearing to make some decision. He took his eyes off the road for a moment and lunged across the seat in a dive for one of the loaded pistols. Stevie slammed the edge of his hand into the older man’s throat. The man choked and collapsed on the seat. Stevie switched off the engine and steered the car to the side of the road, where he opened the door and dumped the still body.

Before he started the car again, Stevie opened the glove compartment. There was an unloaded revolver and a crumpled factsheet. Stevie tossed the gun to the ground by the old man. He smoothed out the wrinkled paper. The youth of the world, it proclaimed, had declared war on everyone over the age of thirty years.

“How you coming with that factsheet?”

The thin man in the green workshirt stopped typing and looked up. “I don’t know. It’s hard making out your crummy handwriting. Maybe another fifteen minutes. Are they getting restless out there?”

The man in the jacket gulped down some of his lukewarm coffee. “Yeah. I was going to make an announcement, but what the hell. Let ‘em wait. They had their vote, they know what’s coming. Just finish that factsheet. I want to get it run off and put up before them goddamn Artists beat us to it.”

“Look, Larry, them queers’ll never think of it in the first place. Calm down.”

The man in the workshirt typed in silence for a while. Larry walked around the cold meeting hall, pushing chairs back in place and chewing his cigar nervously. When the stencil was finished, the man in the workshirt pulled it out of the typewriter and handed it to Larry. “All right,” he said, “there it is. Maybe you better go read it to them first. They been waiting out there for a couple of hours now.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” said Larry. He zipped up his green jacket and waited for the man in the workshirt to get his coat. He turned off the lights and locked the door to the hall. Outside was a huge crowd of men, all white and all well into middle age. They cheered when Larry and the other man came out. Larry held up his hands for quiet.

“All right, listen up,” he said. “We got our factsheet here. Before we go and have it run off, I’m going to let you hear it. It says just like what we voted for, so you all should be pretty satisfied.”

He read the factsheet, stopping every now and then to wait through the applause and cheers of the men. He looked out at the crowd. They’re all brawny veteran types, he thought. That’s what we are: We’re Veterans. We been through it all. We’re the ones who know what’s going on. We’re the Producers.

The factsheet explained, in simple language unlike the bitter diatribes of other groups, that the laborers—the Producers—of the world had gotten fed up with doing all the work while a large portion of the population—the goddamn queer Artists—did nothing but eat up all the fruits of honest nine to five work. Artists contributed nothing and wasted large amounts of our precious resources. It was simple logic to see that the food, clothing, shelter, money, and recreational facilities that were diverted from the Producers’ use were as good as thrown into the garbage. The Producers worked harder and harder and got back less and less. Well then, what could you expect to happen? Everything was bound to get worse for everybody.

The men cheered. It was about time that they got rid of the parasites. No one complained when you burned off a leech. And no one could complain when you snuffed out the leechlike elements of normal, organized, Productive society.

Larry finished reading the sheet and asked for questions and comments. Several men started talking, but Larry ignored them and went on speaking himself.

“Now, this doesn’t mean,” he said, “that we gotta get everybody that doesn’t work regular hours like we do. You see that some of the people are hard to tell whether they’re Producers like us or just lousy addict Artists. Like the people that make TV. We can use them. But we have to be careful, because there’s a lot of Artists around who are trying to make us think that they’re really Producers. Just remember: If you can use it, it’s not Art.”

The crowd cheered again, and then it began to break up. Some of the men stood around arguing. One of the small groups of Producers that was slowly walking to the parking lot was deeply involved in debating the boundaries separating Artists and Producers.

“I mean, where are we going to stop?” said one. “I don’t like the way this divisioning is going. Pretty soon there won’t be any groups left to belong to. We’ll all be locked up in our homes, afraid to see anybody at all.”

“It’s not doing us any good,” agreed another. “If you go out and get what you want, I mean, take something from a store or something, why, everybody knows you got it when you bring it home. Then you’re the target. I got less now than when this all started.”

A third man watched the first two grimly. He pulled out a factsheet of his own from the pocket of his jacket. “That’s commie talk,” he said. “You’re missing the point of the whole thing. Let me ask you a question. Are you right-or left-handed?”

The first man looked up from the factsheet, puzzled. “I don’t see that it makes any difference. I mean, I’m basically left-handed, but I write with my right hand.”

The third man stared angrily, in disbelief.

Bang.

YANG and YIN: Male and female. Hot and cold. Mass and energy. Smooth and crunchy. Odd and even. Sun and moon. Silence and noise. Space and time. Slave and master. Fast and slow. Large and small. Land and sea. Good and evil. On and off. Black and white. Strong and weak. Regular and filter king. Young and old. Light and shade. Fire and ice. Sickness and health. Hard and soft. Life and death.

If there is a plot, shouldn’t you know about it?

One more hour.

Millions of people hid in their holes, waiting out the last minutes of the wars. Hardly anyone was out on the streets yet. No one shouted his drunken celebrations that little bit ahead of schedule. In the night darkness Stevie could still hear the ragged crackings of guns in the distance. Some suckers getting it only an hour from homefree.

The time passed. Warily, people came out into the fresher air, still hiding themselves in shadows, not used yet to walking in the open. Guns of the enthusiasts popped; they would never get a chance like this again, and there were only fifteen minutes left. Forty-second Street chromium knives found their lodgings in unprotected Gotham throats and shoulders.

Times Square was still empty when Stevie arrived. Decomposing corpses sprawled in front of the record and porno shops. A few shadowy forms moved across the streets, far away down the sidewalk.

The big ball was poised. Stevie watched it, bored, with murderers cringing around him. The huge lighted New Year’s globe was ready to drop, waiting only for midnight and for the kissing New Year’s VJ-Day crowds. There was Stevie, who didn’t care, and the looters, disappointed in the smoked-out, gunfire black, looted stores.

It said it right up there: 11:55. Five more minutes. Stevie pushed himself back into a doorway, knowing that it would be humiliating to get it with only five minutes left. From the vague screams around him he knew that some were still finding it.

People were running by now. The square was filling up.

:58 and the ball was just hanging there: The sudden well of people drew rapid rifle-fire, but the crowd still grew. There was the beginning of a murmur, just the hint of the war-is-over madness. Stevie sent himself into the stream, giving himself up to the release and relief.

:59… The ball seemed… to tip… and fell! 12:00! The chant grew stronger, the New York chant, the smugness returned in all its sordid might. “We’re Number One! We’re Number One!” The cold breezes drove the shouting through the unlit streets, carrying it on top of the burnt and fecal smells. It would be a long time before what was left would be made livable, but We’re Number One! There were still sporadic shots, but these were the usual New York Town killers, doing the undeclared and time-honored violence that goes unnoticed.

We’re Number One!

Stevie found himself screaming in spite of himself. He was standing next to a tall, sweating black. Stevie grinned; the black grinned. Stevie stuck out his hand. “Shake!” he said. “We’re Number One!”

“We’re Number One!” said the black. “I mean, it’s us! We gotta settle all this down, but, I mean, what’s left is ours! No more fighting!”

Stevie looked at him, realizing for the first time the meaning of their situation. “Right you are,” he said with a catch in his voice. “Right you are, Brother.”

“Excuse me.”

Stevie and the black turned to see a strangely dressed woman. The costume completely hid any clue to the person’s identity, but the voice was very definitely feminine. The woman wore a long, loose robe decorated fancifully with flowers and butterflies. Artificial gems had been stuck on, and the whole thing trimmed with cheap, dimestore “gold-and-silver” piping. The woman’s head was entirely hidden by a large, bowl-shaped woven helmet, and from within it her voice echoed excitedly.

“Excuse me,” she said. “Now that the preliminary skirmishes are over, don’t you think we should get on with it?”

“With what?” asked the black.

“The Last War, the final one. The war against ourselves. It’s senseless to keep avoiding it, now.”

“What do you mean?” asked Stevie.

The woman touched Stevie’s chest. “There. Your guilt. Your frustration. You don’t really feel any better, do you? I mean, women don’t really hate men; they hate their own weaknesses. People don’t really hate other people for their religion or race. It’s just that seeing someone different from you makes you feel a little insecure in your own belief. What you hate is your own doubt, and you project the hatred onto the other man.”

“She’s right!” said the black. “You know, I wouldn’t mind it half so much if they’d hate me because of me; but nobody ever took the trouble.”

“That’s what’s so frustrating,” she said. “If anyone’s ever going to hate the real you, you know who it’ll have to be.”

“You’re from that Kindness Cult, aren’t you?” the black said softly.

“Shinsetsu,” she said. “Yes.”

“You want us to meditate or something?” asked Stevie. The woman dug into a large basket that she carried on her arm. She handed each of them a plump cellophane package filled with a colorless fluid.

“No,” said the black as he took his package. “Kerosene.”

Stevie held his bag of kerosene uncertainly and looked around the square. There were others dressed in the Shinsetsu manner, and they were all talking to groups that had formed around them.

“Declare war on myself?” Stevie said doubtfully. “Do I have to publish a factsheet first?” No one answered him. People nearby were moving closer so they could hear the Shinsetsu woman. She continued to hand out the packages as she spoke.

Stevie slipped away, trying to get crosstown, out of the congested square. When he reached a side street he looked back: Already the crowd was dotted with scores of little fires, like scattered piles of burning leaves in the backyards of his childhood.

SKY

R. A. Lafferty

The SkySeller was Mr. Furtive himself, fox-muzzled, ferret eyed, slithering along like a snake, and living under the Rocks. The Rocks had not been a grand place for a long time. It had been built in the grand style on a mephitic plot of earth (to transform it), but the mephitic earth had won out. The apartments of the Rocks had lost their sparkle as they had been divided again and again, and now they were shoddy. The Rocks had weathered. Its once pastel hues were now dull grays and browns.,

The five underground levels had been parking places for motor vehicles when those were still common, but now these depths were turned into warrens and hovels. The SkySeller lurked and lived in the lowest and smallest and meanest of them all.

He came out only at night. Daylight would have killed him: he knew that. He sold out of the darkest shadows of the night. He had only a few (though oddly select) clients, and nobody knew who his supplier was. He said that he had no supplier, that he gathered and made the stuff himself.

Welkin Alauda, a full-bodied but light-moving girl (it was said that her bones here hollow and filled with air), came to the Sky Seller just before first light, just when he had become highly nervous but had not yet bolted to his underground.

“A sack of Sky from the nervous mouse. Jump, or the sun will gobble your house!” Welkin sang-song, and she was already higher than most skies.

“Hurry, hurry!” the SkySeller begged, thrusting the sack to her while his black eyes trembled and glittered (if real light should ever reflect into them he’d go blind).

Welkin took the sack of Sky, and scrambled money notes into his hands, which had furred palms. (Really? Yes, really.)

“World be flat and the Air be round, wherever the Sky grows underground,” Welkin intoned, taking the sack of Sky and soaring along with a light scamper of feet (she hadn’t much weight, her bones were hollow). And the SkySeller darted headfirst down a black well shaft thing to his depths.

Four of them went Sky-Diving that morning, Welkin herself, Karl Vlieger, Icarus Riley, Joseph Alzarsi; and the pilot was-(no, not who you think, he had already threatened to turn them all in; they’d use that pilot no more)-the pilot was Ronald Kolibri in his little crop dusting plane.

But a crop-duster will not go up to the frosty heights they liked to take off from. Yes it will-if everybody is on Sky. But it isn’t pressurized, and it doesn’t carry oxygen. That doesn’t matter, not if everybody is on Sky, not if the plane is on Sky too.

Welkin took Sky with Mountain Whizz, a carbonated drink. Karl stuffed it into his lip like snuff. Icarus Riley rolled it and smoked it. Joseph Alzarsi needled it, mixed with drinking alcohol, into his main vein. The pilot Ronny-tongued and chewed it like sugar dust. The plane named Shrike took it through the manifold.

Fifty thousand feet-You can’t go that high in a crop-duster. Thirty below zero-Ah, that isn’t cold! Air too thin to breathe at all-with Sky, who needs such included things as air?

Welkin stepped out, and went up, not down. It was a trick she often pulled. She hadn’t much weight; she could always get higher than the rest of them. She went up and up until-she disappeared. Then she drifted down again, completely enclosed in a sphere of ice crystal, sparkling inside it and making monkey faces at them.

The wind yelled and barked, and the divers took off. They all went down, soaring and gliding and tumbling; standing still sometimes, it seemed; even rising again a little. They went down to clouds and spread out on them: black-white clouds with the sun inside them and suffusing them both from above and below. They cracked Welkin’s ice-crystal sphere and she stepped out of it. They ate the thin pieces of it, very cold and brittle and with a tang of ozone. Alzarsi took off his shirt and sunned himself on a cloud.

“You will burn,” Welkin told him. “Nobody burns so as when sunning himself on a cloud.” That was true.

They sank through the black-whiteness of these clouds and came into the limitless blue concourse with clouds above and below them. It was in this same concourse that Hippodameia used to race her horses, there not being room for such coursers to run on earth. The clouds below folded up and the clouds above folded down, forming a discrete space.

“We have our own rotundity and sphere here,” said Icarus Riley (these are their Sky-Diver names, not their legal names), “and it is apart from all worlds and bodies. The worlds and the bodies do not exist for as long a time as we say that they do not exist. The axis of our present space is its own concord. Therefore, it being in perfect concord, Time stops.”

All their watches had stopped, at least.

“But there is a world below,” said Karl. “It is an abject world, and we can keep it abject forever if we wish. But it has at least a shadowy existence, and later we will let it fill out again in our compassion for lowly things. It is flat, though, and we must insist that it remain flat.”

“This is important,” Joseph said with a deep importance of one on Sky. “So long as our own space is bowed and globed, the world must remain flat or depressed. But the world must not be allowed to bow its back again. We are in danger if it ever does. So long as it is truly flat and abject it cannot crash ourselves to it.”

“How long could we fall,” Welkin asked, “if we had not stopped time, if we let it flow at its own pace, or at ours? How long could we fall?”

“Hephaestus once tumbled through space all day long,” Icarus Riley said, “and the days were longer then.”

Karl Vlieger had gone wall-eyed from an interior-turned sexual passion that he often experienced in diving. Icarus Riley seemed to be on laughing gas suddenly; this is a sign that Sky is not having perfect effect. Joseph Alzarsi felt a cold wind down his spine and a series of jerky little premonitions.

“We are not perfect,” Joseph said. “Tomorrow or the next day we may be, for we do approach perfection. We win a round. And we win another. Let us not throw away our victory today through carelessness. The earth has bowed his old back a little bit, and we make ready for him! Now, guys, now!”

Four of them (or maybe only three of them) pulled the rings. The chutes unpeeled, flowered and jerked. They had been together like a sheaf in close conversation. But suddenly, on coming to earth, they were spread out over five hundred yards.

They assembled. They packed their chutes. That would be all the diving for that day.

“Welkin, how did you pack your chute so quickly?” Icarus asked her suspiciously.

“I don’t know.”

“You are always the slowest one of us, and the sloppiest. Someone always has to reroll your chute for you before it is used again. And you were the last one to land just now. How were you the first one to be packed? How did you roll it so well? It has the earmarks of my own rolling, just as I rolled it for you before we took off this morning.”

“I don’t know, Icarus. Oh, I think I’ll go up again, straight up.”

“No, you’ve sailed and dived enough for one morning. Welkin, did you even open your chute?”

“I don’t know.”

High on Sky, they went up again the next morning. The little plane named Shrike flew up as no plane had ever flown before, up through Storm. The storm-shrouded earth shrank to the size of a pea-doogie.

“We will play a trick on it,” said Welkin. “When you’re on Sky you can play a trick on anything and make it abide by it. I will say that the pea-doogie that was the world is nothing. See, it is gone.

Then I will select another pea-doogie, that one there, and I will call it the world. And that is the world that we will come down to in a little while. I’ve switched worlds on the world, and it doesn’t know what happened to it.”

“It’s uneasy, though.” Joseph Alzarsi spoke through flared nostrils. “You shook it. No wonder the world has its moments of self-doubt.”

They were one million feet high. The altimeter didn’t go that high, but Ronald Kolibri the pilot wrote out the extended figure in chalk to make it correct. Welkin stepped out. Karl and Icarus and Joseph stepped out. Ronald Kolibri stepped out, but only for a while. Then he remembered that he was the pilot and got back in the plane. They were so high that the air was black and star filled instead of blue. It was so cold that the empty space was full of cracks and potholes. They dived half a million feet in no time at all. They pulled up laughing.

It was invigorating, it was vivifying. They stamped on the clouds, and the clouds rang like frosty ground. This was the ancestral country of all hoarfrost, of all grained-snow and glare-ice. Here was weather-maker, here was wind-son. They came into caves of ice mixed with moraine; they found antler hatchets and Hemicyon bones; they found coals still glowing. The winds bayed and hunted in packs through the chasms. These were the cold Fortean clouds, and their location is commonly quite high.

They came down below Storm, finding new sun and new air. It was pumpkin-summer, it was deep autumn in the sky.

They dropped again, miles and millennia, to full Sky-summer: the air so blue that it grew a violet patina on it to save the surface. Their own space formed about them again, as it did every day, and time stopped.

But not motion Motion never stopped with them. Do you not realize that nothingness in a void can still be in motion? And how much more they of the great centrality! There was Dynamic; there was sustaining vortex; there was the high serenity of fevered motion.

But is not motion merely a relationship of space to time? No That-is an idea that is common to people who live on worlds, but it is a subjective idea. Here, beyond the possible influence of any worlds, there was living motion without reference.

“Welkin, you look quite different today,” Joseph Alzarsi spoke in wonder. “What is it?”

“I don’t know. It’s wonderful to be different and I’m wonderful.”

“It is something missing from you,” said Icarus. “I believe it is a defect missing.”

“But I hadn’t any, Icarus.”

They were in central and eternal moment, and it did not end, it could not end, it goes on yet. Whatever else seems to happen, it is merely in parentheses to that moment.

“It is time to consider again,” Icarus mused after a while. There is no time or while in the Moment, but there is in the parentheses. “I hope it is the last time we will ever have to consider. We, of course, are in our own space and beyond time or tangent. But the earth, such as it is, is approaching with great presumption and speed.”

“But it’s nothing to us!” Karl Vlieger suddenly raged out in a chthonic and phallic passion. “We can shatter it! We can shoot it to pieces like a clay pigeon! It cannot rush onto us like a slashing dog. Get down, world! Heel, you cur! Heel, I say!”

“We say to one world ‘rise’ and it rises, and to another one ‘heel’ and it heels,” Icarus sky-spoke in his dynamic serenity.

“Not yet,” Joseph Alzarsi warned. “Tomorrow we will be total. Today we are not yet. Possibly we could shatter the world like a clay pigeon if we wished, but we would not be lords of it if we had to shatter it.”

“We could always make another world,” said Welkin reasonably.

“Certainly, but this one is our testing. We will go to it when it is crouched down. We cannot allow it to come ravening to us. Hold! Hold there, we order you!”

And the uprushing world halted, cowed.

“We go down,” said Joseph. “We will let it come up only when it is properly broken.”

(“And they inclined the heavens and came down.”)

Once more, three of them pulled the rings. And the chutes unpeeled, flowered and jerked. They had been like a sheaf together in their moment; but now, coming to earth, they were suddenly scattered out over five hundred yards.

“Welkin, you didn’t have your chute at all today!” Icarus gaped with some awe when they had assembled again. “That is what was different about you.”

“No, I guess I didn’t have it. There was no reason to have it if I didn’t need it. Really, there was never any reason for me to have used one at all ever.”

“Ali, we were total today and didn’t know it,” Joseph ventured. “Tomorrow none of us will wear chutes. This is easier than I had believed.”

Welkin went to the SkySeller to buy new Sky that night. Not finding him in the nearer shadows of the Rocks, she went down and down, drawn by the fungoid odor and the echoing dampness of the underground. She went through passages that were manmade, through passages that were natural, through passages that were unnatural. Some of these corridors, it is true, had once been built by men, but now they had reverted and become most unnatural deep-earth caverns. Welkin went down into the total blackness where there were certain small things that still mumbled out a faint white color; but it was the wrong color white, and the things were all of a wrong shape.

There was the dead white shape of Mycelium masses, the grotesqueness of Agaricus, the deformity of Deadly Amanita and of Morel. The gray milky Lactarius glowed like lightless lanterns in the dark; there was the blue-white of the Deceiving Clitoeybe and the yellow-white of the Caesar Agaric. There was the insane ghostwhite of the deadliest and queerest of them all, the Fly Amanita, and a mole was gathering this.

“Mole, bring Sky for the Thing Serene, for the Minions tall and the Airy Queen,” Welkin jangled. She was still high on Sky, but it had begun to leave her a little and she had the veriest touch of the desolate sickness.

“Sky for the Queen of the buzzing drones, with her hollow heart ` and her hollow bones,” the SkySeller intoned hollowly.

“And fresh, Oh I want it fresh, fresh Sky!” Welkin cried.

“With these creatures there is no such thing as fresh,” the SkySeller told her. “You want it stale, Oh so stale! Ingrown and aged and with its own mold grown moldy.”

“Which is it?” Welkin demanded. ‘.‘What is the name of the one you gather it from?”

“The Fly Amanita.”

“But isn’t that simply a poisonous mushroom?”

“It has passed beyond that. It has sublimated. Its simple poison has had its second fermenting into narcotic.”

“But it sounds so cheap that it be merely narcotic.”

“Not merely narcotic. It is something very special in narcotic.”

“No, no, not narcotic at all!” Welkin protested. “It is liberating, it is world-shattering. It is Height Absolute. It is motion and detachment itself. It is the ultimate. It is mastery.”

“Why, then it is mastery, lady. It is the highest and lowest of all ‘ created things.”

“No, no,” Welkin protested again, “not created. It is not born, ` it is not made. I couldn’t stand that. It is the highest of all uncreated things.”

“Take it, take it,” the SkySeller growled, “and be gone. Something begins to curl up inside me.”

“I go!” Welkin said, “and I will be back many times for more.”

“No, you will not be. Nobody ever comes back many times for Sky. You will be back never. Or one time. I think that you will be back one time.”

They went up again the next morning, the last morning. But why should we say that it was the last morning? Because there would no longer be divisions or days for them. It would be one last eternal day for them now, and nothing could break it.

They went up in the plane that had once been named Shrike and was now named Eternal Eagle. The plane had repainted itself during the night with new name and new symbols, some of them not immediately understandable. The plane snuffled Sky into its manifolds, and grinned and roared. And the plane went up.

Oh! Jerusalem in the Sky! How it went up!

They were all certainly perfect now and would never need Sky again. They were Sky.

“How little the world is!” Welkin rang out. “The towns are like fly specks and the cities are like flies.”

“It is wrong that so ignoble a creature as the Fly should have the exalted name,” Icarus complained.

“I’ll fix that,” Welkin sang. “I give edict: That all the flies on earth be dead!” And all the flies on earth died in that instant.

“I wasn’t sure you could do that,” said Joseph Alzarsi. “The wrong is righted. Now we ourselves assume the noble name of Flies. There are no Flies but us!”

The five of them, including the pilot Ronald Kolibri, stepped chuteless out of the Eternal Eagle.

“Will you be all right?” Ronald asked the rollicking plane.

“Certainly,” the plane said. “I believe I know where there are other Eternal Eagles. I will mate.”

It was cloudless, or else they had developed the facility of seeing through clouds. Or perhaps it was that, the earth having become as small as a marble, the clouds around it were insignificant.

Pure light that had an everywhere source! (The sun also had become insignificant and didn’t contribute much to the light.) Pure and intense motion that had no location reference. They weren’t going anywhere with their intense motion (they already were everywhere, or at the super-charged center of everything).

Pure cold fever. Pure serenity. Impure hyper-space passion of Karl Vlieger, and then of all of them; but it was purely rampant at least. Stunning beauty in all things along with a towering cragginess that was just ugly enough to create an ecstasy.

Welkin Alauda was mythic with nenuphars in her hair. And it shall not be told what Joseph Alzarsi wore in his own hair. An . always-instant, a million or a billion years!

Not monotony, no! Presentation! Living sets! Scenery! The scenes were formed for the splinter of a moment; or they were formed forever. Whole worlds formed in a pregnant void: not spherical worlds merely, but dodecaspherical, and those much more intricate than that. Not merely seven colors to play with, but seven to the seventh and to the seventh again.

Stars vivid in the bright light. You who have seen stars only in darkness be silent! Asteroids that they ate like peanuts, for now they were all metamorphic giants. Galaxies like herds of rampaging elephants. Bridges so long that both ends of them receeded over the light-speed edges. Waterfalls, of a finer water, that . bounced off galaxy clusters as if they were boulders.

Through a certain ineptitude of handling, Welkin extinguished the old sun with one such leaping torrent.

“It does not matter,” Icarus told her. “Either a million or a billion years had passed according to the time-scale of the bodies… and surely the sun had already come onto dim days. You can always make other suns.”

Karl Vlieger was casting lightning bolts millions of parsecs long and making looping contact with clustered galaxies with them.

“Are you sure that we are not using up any time?” Welkin asked them with some apprehension.

“Oh, time still uses itself up, but we are safely out of the reach of it all,” Joseph explained. “Time is only one very inefficient method of counting numbers. It is inefficient because it is limited in its numbers, and because the counter by such a system must die when he has come to the end of his series. That alone should weigh against it as a mathematical system; it really shouldn’t be taught.”

“Then nothing can hurt us ever?” Welkin wanted to be reassured.

“No, nothing can come at us except inside time and we are outside it. Nothing can collide with us except in space and we disdain space. Stop it, Karl! As you do it that’s buggery.”

“I have a worm in my own tract and it gnaws at me a little,” the pilot Ronald Kolibri said. “It’s in my internal space and it’s crunching along at a pretty good rate.”

“No, no, that’s impossible. Nothing can reach or hurt us,” Joseph insisted.

“I have a worm of my own in a still more interior tract,” said Icarus, “the tract that they never quite located in the head or the heart or the bowels. Maybe this tract always was outside space. Oh, my worm doesn’t gnaw, but it stirs. Maybe I’m tired of being out of reach of everything.”

“Where do these doubts rise from?” Joseph sounded querulous. “You hadn’t them an instant ago, you hadn’t them as recently as ten million years ago. How can you have them now when there isn’t any now?”

“Well, as to that—” Icarus began (and a million years went by) “as to that I have a sort of cosmic curiosity about an object in my own past “(another million years went by)— “an object called world.”

“Well, satisfy your curiosity then,” Karl Vlieger snapped. “Don’t you even know how to make a world?”

“Certainly I know how, but will it be the same?”

“Yes, if you’re good enough. It will be the same if you make it the same.”

Icarus Riley made a world. He wasn’t very good at it and it wasn’t quite the same, but it did resemble the old world a little.

“I want to see if some things are still there,” Welkin clamored. “Bring it closer.” ‘

“It’s unlikely your things are still there,” Joseph said. “Remember that billions of years may have passed.”

“The things will be there if I put them there,” Icarus insisted

“And you cannot bring it closer since all distance is now infinite,” Karl maintained.

“At least I can focus it better,” Icarus insisted, and he did. The world appeared quite near.

“It remembers us like a puppy would,” Welkin said. “See, it jumps up at us.”

“It’s more like a lion leaping for a treed hunter just out of reach,” Icarus grudged. “But we are not treed.”

“It can’t ever reach us, and it wants to,” Welkin piqued. “Let’s reach down to it.”

(“And they inclined the heavens and went down.”)

A most peculiar thing happened to Ronald Kolibri as he touched earth. He seemed to have a seizure. He went slack-faced, almost horror faced, and he would not answer the others.

“What is it, Ronald?” Welkin begged in kindred anguish. “Oh, what is it? Somebody help him!”

Then Ronald Kolibri did an even more peculiar thing. He began to fold up and break up from the bottom. Bones slowly splintered and pierced out of him and his entrails gushed out. He compressed. He shattered. He splashed. Can a man splash?

The same sort of seizure overtook Karl Vlieger: the identical slack face horror-face, the same folding up and breaking up from the bottom, the same hideous sequence.

And Joseph Alzarsi went into the same sundering state, baffled and breaking up.

“Icarus, what’s happened to them?” Welkin ‘screamed. “What is that slow loud booming?”

“They’re dead. How could that be?” Icarus puzzled, trembling. “Death is in time, and we are not.”

Icarus himself passed through time as he crashed earth, breaking up, spilling out more odiously than any of them.

And Welkin touched earth, crashed, then what? She heard her own slow loud booming as she hit.

(Another million years went by, or some weeks.)

A shaky old woman on crutches was going down the middle-of-the-night passages that are under the Rocks. She was too old a woman to be Welkin Alauda, but not too old for a Welkin who had lived millions of years outside of time.

She had not died. She was lighter than the others, and besides she had done it twice before unscathed. But that was before she had known fear.

Naturally they had told her that she would never walk again; and now most unnaturally she was walking with crutches. Drawn by the fungoid odor and the echoing dampness she went down in the total dark to where small things were glowing with the wrong color white and were all of the wrong shape. She wanted one thing only, and she would die without it.

“Sky for salving the broken Crone! Sky for the weal of my hollow bone!” she crackled in an old-woman voice. But it was only her own voice that echoed back to her.

Should a SkySeller live forever?

VASTER THAN EMPIRES AND MORE SLOW

Ursula K. Le Guin

Hegn is a small country, an island monarchy blessed with a marvelous climate and a vegetation so rich that lunch or dinner there consists of reaching up to a tree to pluck a succulent, sunwarmed, ripe, rare steakfruit, or sitting down under a llumbush and letting the buttery morsels drop onto one’s lap or straight into one’s mouth. And then for dessert there are the sorbice blossoms, tart, sweet, and crunchy.

Four or five centuries ago the Hegnish were evidently an enterprising, stirring lot, who built good roads, fine cities, noble country houses and palaces, all surrounded by literally delicious gardens. Then they entered a settling-down phase, and at present they simply live in their beautiful houses. They have hobbies, pursued with tranquil obsession. Some take up the cultivation and breeding of ever finer varieties of grapes. (The Hegnian grape is self-fermenting; a small cluster of them has the taste, scent, and effect of a split of Veuve Clicquot. Left longer on the vine, the grapes reach 80 or 90 proof, and the taste comes to resemble a good single malt whiskey.) Some raise pet gorkis, an amiable, short-legged domestic animal; others embroider pretty hangings for the churches; many take their pleasure in sports. They all enjoy social gatherings.

People dress nicely for these parties. They eat some grapes, dance a little, and talk. Conversation is desultory and, some would say, vapid. It concerns the kind and quality of the grapes, discussed with much technicality; the weather, which is usually settled fair, but can always be threatening, or have threatened, to rain; and sports, particularly the characteristically Hegnish game of sutpot, which requires a playing field of several acres and involves two teams, many rules, a large ball, several small holes in the ground, a movable fence, a short, flat bat, two vaulting poles, four umpires, and several days. No non-Hegnish person has ever been able to understand it. Hegnishmen discuss the last match played with the same grave deliberation and relentless attention to detail with which they played it. Other subjects of conversation are the behavior of pet gorkis and the decoration of the local church. Religion and politics are never discussed. It may be that they do not exist, having been reduced to a succession of purely formal events and observances, while their place is filled by the central element, the focus and foundation of Hegnish society, which is best described as the Degree of Consanguinity.

It is a small island, and nearly everybody is related. As it is a monarchy, or rather a congeries of monarchies, this means that almost everybody is or is related to a monarch–is a member of the Royal Family.

In earlier times this universality of aristocracy caused trouble and dissension. Rival claimants to the crown tried to eliminate each other; there was a long period of violence referred to as the Purification of the Peerage, a war called the Agnate War, and the brief, bloody Cross-Cousins’ Revolt. But all these family quarrels were settled when the genealogies of every lineage and individual were established and recorded in the great work of the reign of Eduber XII of Sparg, the Book of the Blood.

Now four hundred and eighty-eight years old, this book is, I may say without exaggeration, the centerpiece of every Hegnish household. Indeed it is the only book anybody ever reads. Most people know the sections dealing with their own family by heart. Publication of the annual Addition and Supplements to the Book of the Blood is awaited as the great event of the year. It furnishes the staple of conversation for months, as people discuss the sad extinction of the Levigian House with the death of old Prince Levigvig, the exciting possibility of an heir to the Swads arising from the eminently suitable marriage of Endol IV and the Duchess of Mabuber, the unexpected succession of Viscount Lagn to the crown of East Fob due to the untimely deaths of his great-uncle, his uncle, and his cousin all in the same year, or the re-legitimization (by decree of the Board of Editors-Royal) of the great-grandson of the Bastard of Egmorg.

There are eight hundred and seventeen kings in Hegn. Each has title to certain lands, or palaces, or at least parts of palaces; but actual rule or dominion over a region isn’t what makes a king a king. What matters is having the crown and wearing it on certain occasions, such as the coronation of another king, and having one’s lineage recorded unquestionably in the Book of the Blood, and edging the sod at the first game of the local sutpot season, and being present at the annual Blessing of the Fish, and knowing that one’s wife is the queen and one’s eldest son is the crown prince and one’s brother is the prince royal and one’s sister is the princess royal and all one’s relations and all their children are of the blood royal.

To maintain an aristocracy it is necessary that persons of exalted rank form intimate association only with others of their kind. Fortunately there are plenty of those. Just as the bloodline of a Thoroughbred horse on my planet can be tracked straight back to the Godolphin Arabian, every royal family of Hegn can trace its ancestry back to Rugland of Hegn-Glander, who ruled eight centuries ago. The horses don’t care, but their owners do, and so do the kings and the royal families. In this sense, Hegn may be seen as a vast stud farm.

There is an unspoken consensus that certain royal houses are slightly, as it were, more royal than others, because they descend directly from Rugland’s eldest son rather than one of his eight younger sons; but all the other royal houses have married into the central line often enough to establish an unshakable connection. Each house also has some unique, incomparable claim to distinction, such as descent from Alfign the Ax, the semi-legendary conqueror of North Hegn, or a collateral saint, or a family tree never sullied by marriage with a mere duke or duchess but exhibiting (on the ever-open page of the Book of the Blood in the palace library) a continuous and unadulterated flowering of true blue princes and processes.

And so, when the novelty of the annual Addition and Supplements at last wears thin, the royal guests at the royal parties can always fall back on discussing degrees of consanguinity, settling such questions as whether the son born of Agnin IV’s second marriage, to Tivand of Shut, was or was not the same prince who was slain at the age of thirteen defending his father’s palace against the Anti-Agnates and therefore could, or could not, have been the father of the Duke of Vigrign, later King of Shut.

Such questions are not of interest to everyone, and the placid fanaticism with which the Hegnish pursue them bores or offends many visitors to the island. The fact that the Hegnish have absolutely no interest in any people except themselves can also cause offense, or even rage. Foreigners exist. That is all the Hegnish know about them, and all they care to know. They are too polite to say that it is a pity that foreigners exist, but if they had to think about it, they would think so.

They do not, however, have to think about foreigners. That is taken care of for them. The Interplanary Hotel on Hegn is in Hemgogn, a beautiful little kingdom on the west coast. The Interplanary Agency runs the hotel and hires local guides. The guides, mostly dukes and earls, take visitors to see the Alternation of the Watch on the Walls, performed by princes of the blood, wearing magnificent traditional regalia, at noon and six daily. The Agency also offers day tours to a couple of other kingdoms. The bus runs softly along the ancient, indestructible roads among sunlit orchards and wildfood forests. The tourists get out of the bus and look at the ruins, or walk through the parts of the palace open to visitors. The inhabitants of the palace are aloof but unfailingly civil and courteous, as befits royalty. Perhaps the Queen comes down and smiles at the tourists without actually looking at them and instructs the pretty little Crown Princess to invite them to pick and eat whatever they like in the lunch-orchard, and then she and the Princess go back into the private part of the palace, and the tourists have lunch and get back into the bus. And that is that.

Being an introvert, I rather like Hegn. One does not have to mingle, since one can’t. And the food is good, and the sunlight sweet. I went there more than once, and stayed longer than most people do, and so it happened that I learned about the Hegnish Commoners.

I was walking down the main street of Legners Royal, the capital of Hemgogn, when I saw a crowd in the square in front of the old Church of the Thrice Royal Martyr. I thought it must be one of the many annual festivals or rituals and joined the crowd to watch. These events are always slow, decorous, and profoundly dull. But they’re the only events there are: and they have their own tedious charm. Soon, however, I saw this was a funeral. And it was altogether different from any Hegnish ceremony I had ever witnessed, above all in the behavior of the people.

They were all royals, of course, like any crowd in Hegn, all of them princes, dukes, earls, princesses, duchesses, countesses, etc. But they were not behaving with the regal reserve, the sovereign aplomb, the majestic apathy I had always seen in them before. They were standing about in the square, for once not engaged in any kind of prescribed ritual duty or traditional occupation or hobby, but just crowding together. as if for comfort. They were disturbed, distressed, disorganized, and verged upon being noisy. They showed emotion. They were grieving, openly grieving.

The person nearest me in the crowd was the Dowager Duchess of Mogn and Farstis, the Queen’s aunt by marriage. I knew who she was because I had seen her, every morning at half past eight, issue forth from the Royal Palace to walk the King’s pet gorki in the Palace gardens, which border on the hotel, and one of the Agency guides had told me who she was. I had watched from the window of the breakfast room of the hotel while the gorki, a fine, heavily testicled specimen, relieved himself under the cheeseblossom bushes, and the Dowager Duchess gazed away into a tranquil vacancy reserved for the eyes of true aristocrats.

But now those pale eyes were filled with tears, and the soft, weathered face of the Duchess worked with the effort to control her feelings.

“Your ladyship,” I said, hoping that the translatomat would provide the proper appellation for a duchess in case I had it wrong, “forgive me, I am from another country, whose funeral is this?”

She looked at me unseeing, dimly surprised but too absorbed in sorrow to wonder at my ignorance or my effrontery. “Sissie’s,” she said, and speaking the name made her break into open sobs for a moment. She turned away, hiding her face in her large lace handkerchief, and I dared ask no more.

The crowd was growing rapidly, constantly. By the time the coffin was borne forth from the church, there must have been over a thousand people, most of the population of Legners, all of them members of the Royal Family, crowded into the square. The King and his two sons and his brother followed the coffin at a respectful distance.

The coffin was carried and closely surrounded by people I had never seen before, a very odd lot–pale, fat men in cheap suits, pimply boys, middle-aged women with brassy hair and stiletto heels, and a highly visible young woman with thick thighs in a miniskirt, a halter top, and a black cotton lace mantilla. She staggered along after the coffin weeping aloud, half-hysterical, supported on one side by a scared-looking man with a pencil mustache and two-tone shoes, on the other by a small, dry, tired, dogged woman in her seventies dressed entirely in rusty black.

At the far edge of the crowd I saw a native guide with whom I had struck up a lightweight friendship, a young viscount, son of the Duke of Ist, and I worked my way toward him. It took quite a while, as everyone was streaming along with the slow procession of the coffin-bearers and their entourage toward the King’s limousines and horse-drawn coaches that waited near the Palace gates. When I finally got to the guide I said, “Who is it? Who are they?”

“Sissie,” he said almost in a wail, caught up in the general grief–“Sissie died last night!” Then, coming back to his duties as guide and interpreter and trying to regain his pleasant aristocratic manner, he looked at me, blinked back his tears, and said, “They’re our commoners.”

“And Sissie–?”

“She’s, she was, their daughter. The only daughter.” Do what he could, the tears would well into his eyes. “She was such a dear girl. Such a help to her mother, always. Such a sweet smile. And there’s nobody like her, nobody. She was the only one. Oh, she was so full of love. Our poor little Sissie!” And he broke right down and cried aloud.

THE AUTUMN LAND

Clifford D. Simak

He sat on the porch in the rocking chair, with the loose board creaking as he rocked. Across the street the old white-haired lady cut a bouquet of chrysanthemums in the never-ending autumn. Where he could see between the ancient houses to the distant woods and wastelands, a soft Indian-summer blue lay upon the land. The entire village was soft and quiet, as old things often are—a place constructed for a dreaming mind rather than a living being. It was an hour too early for his other old and shaky neighbor to come fumbling down the grass-grown sidewalk, tapping the bricks with his seeking cane. And he would not hear the distant children at their play until dusk had fallen—if he heard them then. He did not always hear them.

There were books to read, but he did not want to read them. He could go into the backyard and spade and rake the garden once again, reducing the soil to a finer texture to receive the seed when it could be planted—if it ever could be planted—but there was slight incentive in the further preparation of a seed bed against a spring that never came. Earlier, much earlier, before he knew about the autumn and the spring, he had mentioned garden seeds to the Milkman, who had been very much embarrassed.

He had walked the magic miles and left the world behind in bitterness and when he first had come here had been content to live in utter idleness, to be supremely idle and to feel no guilt or shame at doing absolutely nothing or as close to absolutely nothing as a man was able. He had come walking down the autumn street in the quietness and the golden sunshine, and the first person that he saw was the old lady who lived across the street. She had been waiting at the gate of her picket fence as if she had known he would be coming, and she had said to him, ‘You’re a new one come to live with us. There are not many come these days. That is your house across the street from me, and I know we’ll be good neighbors.’ He had reached up his hand to doff his hat to her, forgetting that he had no hat. ‘My name is Nelson Rand,’ he’d told her. ‘I am an engineer. I will try to be a decent neighbor.’ He had the impression that she stood taller and straighter than she did, but old and bent as she might be there was a comforting graciousness about her. ‘You will please come in,’ she said. ‘I have lemonade and cookies. There are other people there, but I shall not introduce them to you.’ He waited for her to explain why she would not introduce him, but there was no explanation, and he followed her down the time-mellowed walk of bricks with great beds of asters and chrysanthemums, a mass of color on either side of it.

In the large, high-ceilinged living room, with its bay windows forming window seats, filled with massive furniture from another time and with a small blaze burning in the fireplace, she had shown him to a seat before a small table to one side of the fire and had sat down opposite him and poured the lemonade and passed the plate of cookies.

‘You must pay no attention to them,’ she had told him. ‘They are all dying to meet you, but I shall not humor them.’

It was easy to pay no attention to them, for there was no one there.

‘The Major, standing over there by the fireplace,’ said his hostess, ‘with his elbow on the mantel, a most ungainly pose if you should ask me, is not happy with my lemonade. He would prefer a stronger drink. Please, Mr. Rand, will you not taste my lemonade? I assure you it is good. I made it myself. I have no maid, you see, and no one in the kitchen. I live quite by myself and satisfactorily, although my friends keep dropping in, sometimes more often than I like.’

He tasted the lemonade, not without misgivings, and to his surprise it was lemonade and was really good, like the lemonade he had drunk when a boy at Fourth of July celebrations and at grade school picnics, and had never tasted since.

‘It is excellent,’ he said.

‘The lady in blue,’ his hostess said, ‘sitting in the chair by the window, lived here many years ago. She and I were friends, although she moved away some time ago and I am surprised that she comes back, which she often does. The infuriating thing is that I cannot remember her name, if I ever knew it. You don’t know it, do you?’

‘I am afraid I don’t.’

‘Oh, of course, you wouldn’t. I had forgotten. I forget so easily these days. You are a new arrival.’

He had sat through the afternoon and drank her lemonade and eaten her cookies, while she chattered on about her nonexistent guests. It was only when he had crossed the street to the house she had pointed out as his, with her standing on the stoop and waving her farewell, that he realized she had not told him her name. He did not know it even now.

How long had it been? He wondered, and realized he didn’t know. It was this autumn business. How could a man keep track of time when it was always autumn?

It all had started on that day when he’d been driving across Iowa, heading for Chicago. No, he reminded himself, it had started with the thinnesses, although he had paid little attention to the thinnesses to begin with. Just been aware of them, perhaps as a strange condition of the mind, or perhaps an unusual quality to the atmosphere and light. As if the world lacked a certain solidity that one had come to expect, as if one were running along a mystic borderline between here and somewhere else.

He had lost his West Coast job when a government contract had failed to materialize. His company had not been the only one; there were many other companies that were losing contracts and there were a lot of engineers who walked the streets bewildered. There was a bare possibility of a job in Chicago, although he was well aware that by now it might be filled. Even if there were no job, he reminded himself, he was in better shape than a lot of other men. He was young and single, he had a few dollars in the bank, he had no house mortgage, no car payments, no kids to put through school. He had only himself to support—no family of any sort at all. The old, hard-fisted bachelor uncle who had taken him to raise when his parents had died in a car crash and had worked him hard on that stony hilly Wisconsin farm, had receded deep into the past becoming a dim, far figure that was hard to recognize. He had not liked his uncle, Rand remembered—had not hated him, simply had not liked him. He had shed no tears, he recalled, when the old man had been caught out in a pasture by a bull and gored to death. So now Rand was quite alone, not even holding the memories of a family.

He had been hoarding the little money that he had, for with a limited work record, with other men better qualified looking for the jobs, he realized that it might be some time before he could connect with anything. The beat-up wagon that he drove had space for sleeping, and he stopped at the little wayside parks along the way to cook his meals.

He had almost crossed the state, and the road had started its long winding through the bluffs that rimmed the Mississippi. Ahead he caught a glimpse, at several turnings of the road, of smokestacks and tall structures that marked the city just ahead.

He emerged from the bluffs, and the city before him, a small industrial center that lay on either side the river. It was then that he felt and saw (if one could call it seeing) the thinness that he had seen before or had sensed before. There was about it, not exactly an alienness, but a sense of unreality, as if one were seeing the actuality of the scene through some sort of veil, with the edges softened and the angles flattened out, as if one might be looking at it as one would look at the bottom of a clear-water lake with a breeze gently ruffling the surface. When he had seen it before, he had attributed it to road fatigue and had opened the window to get a breath of air or had stopped the car and gotten out to walk up and down the road awhile, and it had gone away.

But this time it was worse than ever, and he was somewhat frightened at it—not so much frightened at it as he was frightened of himself, wondering what might be wrong with him.

He pulled off to the side of the road, braking the car to a halt, and it seemed to him, even as he did it, that the shoulder of the road was rougher than he’d thought. As he pulled off the road, the thinness seemed to lessen, and he saw that the road had changed, which explained its roughness. The surface was pocked with chuckholes and blocks of concrete had been heaved up and other blocks were broken into pebbly shards.

He raised his eyes from the road to look at the city, and there was no city, only the broken stumps of a place that had somehow been destroyed. He sat with his hands frozen on the wheel, and in the silence—the deadly, unaccustomed silence—he heard the cawing of crows. Foolishly, he tried to remember the last time he had heard the caw of crows, and then he saw them, black specks that flapped just above the bluff top. There was something else as well—the trees. No longer trees, but only here and there blackened stumps. The stumps of a city and the stumps of trees, with the black, ash-like flecks of crows flapping over them.

Scarcely knowing what he did, he stumbled from the car. Thinking of it later, it had seemed a foolish thing to do, for the car was the only thing he knew, the one last link he had to reality. As he stumbled from it, he put his hand down in the seat, and beneath his hand he felt the solid, oblong object. His fingers closed upon it, and it was not until he was standing by the car that he realized what he held—the camera that had been lying in the seat beside him.

Sitting on the porch, with the loose floor board creaking underneath the rocker, he remembered that he still had the pictures, although it had been a long time since he had thought of them—a long time, actually, since he’d thought of anything at all beyond his life, day to day, in this autumn land. It was as though he had been trying to keep himself from thinking, attempting to keep his mind in neutral, to shut out what he knew—or, more precisely perhaps, what he thought he knew.

He did not consciously take the pictures, although afterward he had tried to tell himself he did (but never quite convincing himself that this was entirely true), complimenting himself in a wry sort of way for providing a piece of evidence that his memory alone never could have provided. For a man can think so many things, daydream so many things, imagine so many things that he can never trust his mind.

The entire incident, when he later thought of it, was hazy, as if the reality of that blasted city lay in some strange dimension of experience that could not be explained, or even rationalized. He could remember only vaguely the camera at his eyes and the clicking as the shutter snapped. He did recall the band of people charging down the hill toward him and his mad scramble for the car, locking the door behind him and putting the car in gear, intent on steering a zigzag course along the broken pavement to get away from the screaming humans who were less than a hundred feet away.

But as he pulled off the shoulder, the pavement was no longer broken. It ran smooth and level toward the city that was no longer blasted. He pulled off the road again and sat limply, beaten, and it was only after many minutes that he could proceed again, going very slowly because he did not trust himself, shaken as he was, to drive at greater speed.

He had planned to cross the river and continue to Chicago, getting there that night, but now his plans were changed. He was too shaken up and, besides, there were the films. And he needed time to think, he told himself, a lot of time to think.

He found a roadside park a few miles outside the city and pulled into it, parking alongside an outdoor grill and an old-fashioned pump. He got some wood from the small supply he carried in the back and built a fire. He hauled out the box with his cooking gear and food, fixed the coffee pot, set a pan upon the grill and cracked three eggs into it.

When he had pulled off the road, he had seen the man walking along the roadside; and now, as he cracked the eggs, he saw that the man had turned into the park and was walking toward the car. The man came up to the pump.

‘Does this thing work?’ he asked.

Rand nodded. ‘I got water for the pot,’ he said. ‘Just now.’

‘It’s a hot day,’ said the man.

He worked the pump handle up and down.

‘Hot for walking,’ he said.

‘You been walking far?’

‘The last six weeks,’ he said.

Rand had a closer look at him. The clothes were old and worn, but fairly clean. He had shaved a day or two before. His hair was long—not that he wore it long, but from lack of barbering.

Water gushed from the spout and the man cupped his hands under it, bent to drink.

‘That was good,’ be finally said. ‘I was thirsty.’

‘How are you doing for food?’ asked Rand, The man hesitated. ‘Not too well,’ he said.

‘Reach into that box on the tailgate. Find yourself a plate and some eating implements. A cup, too. Coffee will be ready soon.’

‘Mister, I wouldn’t want you to think I was walking up here…’

‘Forget it,’ said Rand. ‘I know how it is. There’s enough for the both of us.’

The man got a plate and cup, a knife, a fork, a spoon. He came over and stood beside the fire.

‘I am new at this.’ he said. ‘I’ve never had to do a thing like this before. I always had a job. For seventeen years I had a job …’

‘Here you are,’ said Rand. He slid the eggs onto the plate, went back to the box to get three more.

The man walked over to a picnic table and put down his plate. ‘Don’t wait for me,’ said Rand. ‘Eat them while they’re hot. The coffee’s almost ready. There’s bread if you want any.’

‘I’ll get a slice later,’ said the man, ‘for mopping up.’

John Sterling, he said his name was, and where now would John Sterling be, Rand wondered—still tramping the highways, looking for work, any kind of work, a day of work, an hour of work, a man who for seventeen years had held a job and had a job no longer? Thinking of Sterling, he felt a pang of guilt. He owed John Sterling a debt he never could repay, not knowing at the time they talked there was any debt involved.

They had sat and talked, eating their eggs, mopping up the plates with bread, drinking hot coffee.

‘For seventeen years,’ said Sterling. ‘A machine operator. An experienced hand. With the same company. Then they let me out. Me and four hundred others. All at one time. Later they let out others. I was not the only one. There were a lot of us. We weren’t laid off, we were let out. No promise of going back. Not the company’s fault, I guess. There was a big contract that fizzled out. There was no work to do. How about yourself? You let out, too?’

Rand nodded. ‘How did you know?’

‘Well, eating like this. Cheaper than a restaurant. And you got a sleeping bag. You sleep in the car?’

‘That is right,’ said Rand. ‘It’s not as bad for me as it is for some of the others. I have no family.’

‘I have a family,’ said Sterling. ‘Wife, three kids. We talked it over, the wife and me. She didn’t want me to leave, but it made sense I should. Money all gone, unemployment run out. Long as I was around, it was hard to get relief. But if I deserted her, she could get relief. That way there’s food for the wife and kids, a roof over their heads. Hardest thing I ever did. Hard for all of us. Someday I’ll go back. When times get better, I’ll go back. The family will be waiting.’

Out on the highway the cars went whisking past. A squirrel came down out of a tree, advanced cautiously toward the table, suddenly turned and fled for his very life, swarming up a nearby trunk.

‘I don’t know,’ said Sterling. ‘It might be too big for us, this society of ours. It may be out of hand. I read a lot. Always liked to read. And I think about what I read. It seems to me maybe we’ve outrun our brains. The brains we have maybe were OK back in prehistoric days. We did all right with the brains we had until we built too big and complex. Maybe we built beyond our brains. Maybe our brains no longer are good enough to handle what we have. We have set loose economic forces we don’t understand and political forces that we do not understand, and if we can’t understand them, we can’t control them. Maybe that is why you and I are out of jobs.’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Rand. ‘I never thought about it.’

‘A man thinks a lot,’ said Sterling. ‘He dreams a lot walking down the road. Nothing else to do. He dreams some silly things: Things that are silly on the face of them, but are hard to say can’t be really true. Did this ever happen to you?’

‘Sometimes,’ said Rand.

‘One thing I thought about a lot. A terribly silly thought. Maybe thinking it because I do so much walking. Sometimes people pick me up, but mostly I walk. And I got to wondering if a man should walk far enough could he leave it all behind? The farther a man might walk, the farther he would be from everything.’

‘Where you heading?’ Rand asked.

‘Nowhere in particular. Just keep on moving, that is all. Month or so I’ll start heading south. Get a good head start on winter. These northern states are no place to be when winter comes,’

‘There are two eggs left,’ said Rand. ‘How about it?’

‘Hell, man, I can’t. I already…

‘Three eggs aren’t a lot. I can get some more.’

‘Well, if you’re sure that you don’t mind. Tell you what—let’s split them, one for you, one for me.’

The giddy old lady had finished cutting her bouquet and had gone into the house. From up the street came the tapping of a cane—Rand’s other ancient neighbor, out for his evening walk. The sinking sun poured a blessing on the land. The leaves were gold and red, brown and yellow—they had been that way since the day that Rand had come. The grass had a tawny look about it—not dead, just dressed up for dying.

The old man came trudging carefully down the walk, his cane alert against a stumble, helping himself with it without really needing any help. He was slow, was all. He halted by the walk that ran up to the porch. ‘Good afternoon,’ he said. ‘Good afternoon.’ said Rand. ‘You have a nice day for your walk.’ The old man acknowledged the observation graciously and with a touch of modesty, as if he, himself, might somehow be responsible for the goodness of the day. ‘It looks,’ he said, ‘as if we might have another fine day tomorrow.’ And having said that, he continued down the street.

It was ritual. The same words were said each day. The situation, like the village and the weather, never varied. He could sit here on this porch a thousand years, Rand told himself, and the old man would continue going past and each time the selfsame words would be mouthed—a set piece, a strip of film run over and over again. Something here had happened to time. The year had stuck on autumn.

Rand did not understand it. He did not try to understand it. There was no way for him to try. Sterling had said that man’s cleverness might have outstripped his feeble, prehistoric mind—or, perhaps, his brutal and prehistoric mind. And here there was less chance of understanding than there had been back in that other world.

He found himself thinking of that other world in the same myth-haunted way as he thought of this one. The one now seemed as unreal as the other. Would he ever, Rand wondered, find reality again? Did he want to find it?

There was a way to find reality, he knew. Go into the house and take out the photos in the drawer of his bedside table and have a look at them. Refresh his memory, stare reality in the face again. For those photos, grim as they might be, were a harder reality than this world in which he sat or the world that he had known. For they were nothing seen by the human eye, interpreted by the human brain.

They were, somehow, fact. The camera saw what it saw and could not lie about it; it did not fantasize, it did not rationalize, and it had no faulty memory, which was more than could be said of the human mind.

He had gone back to the camera shop where he had left the film and the clerk had picked out the envelope from the box behind the counter.

‘That will be three ninety-five.’ he said.

Rand took a five-dollar bill out of his wallet and laid it on the counter.

‘If you don’t mind my asking,’ said the clerk, ‘where did you get these pictures?’

‘It is trick photography,’ said Rand.

The clerk shook his head. ‘If that is what they are, they’re the best I’ve ever seen.’

The clerk rang up the sale and, leaving the register open, stepped back and picked up the envelope.

‘What do you want?’ asked Rand.

The man shook the prints out of the envelope, shuffled through them.

‘This one,’ he said.

Rand stared at him levelly. ‘What about it?’ he asked.

‘The people. I know some of them. The one in front. That is Bob Gentry. He is my best friend.’

‘You must be mistaken,’ Rand said coldly.

He took the prints from the clerk’s fingers, put them back in the envelope.

The clerk made the change. He still was shaking his head, confused, perhaps a little frightened, when Rand left the shop.

He drove carefully, but with no loss of time, through the city and across the bridge. When he hit open country beyond the river, he built up his speed, keeping an eye on the rear-vision mirror. The clerk had been upset, perhaps enough to phone the police. Others would have seen the pictures and been upset as well. Although, he told himself, it was silly to think of the police. In taking the photos, he had broken no regulations, violated no laws. He had had a perfect right to take them.

Across the river and twenty miles down the highway, he turned off into a small, dusty country road and followed it until he found a place to pull off, where the road widened at the approach to a bridge that crossed a small stream. There was evidence that the pull-off was much used, fishermen more than likely parking their cars there while they tried their luck. But now the place was empty.

He was disturbed to find that his hands were shaking when he pulled the envelope from his pocket and shook out the prints.

And there it was—as he no longer could remember it.

He was surprised that he had taken as many pictures as he had. He could not remember having taken half that many. But they were there, and as he looked at them, his memory, reinforced, came back again, although the photos were much sharper than his memory. The world, he recalled, had seemed to be hazed and indistinct so far as his eyes had been concerned; in the photos it lay cruel and merciless and clear. The blackened stumps stood up, stark and desolate, and there could be no doubt that the imprint that lay upon the photos was the actuality of a bombed-out city. The photos of the bluff showed the barren rock no longer masked by trees, with only here and there the skeletons of trees that by some accidental miracle had not been utterly reduced by the storm of fire. There was only one photo of the band of people who had come charging down the hill toward him; and that was understandable, for once having seen them, he had been in a hurry to get back to the car. Studying the photo, he saw they were much closer than he’d thought. Apparently they had been there all the time, just a little way off, and he had not noticed them in his astonishment at what had happened to the city. If they had been quieter about it, they could have been on top of him and overwhelmed him before he discovered them. He looked closely at the picture and saw that they had been close enough that some of the faces were fairly well defined. He wondered which one of them was the man the clerk back at the camera shop had recognized.

He shuffled the photographs together and slid them back into the envelope and put it in his pocket. He got out of the car and walked down to the edge of the stream. The stream, he saw, was no more than ten feet or so across; but here, below the bridge, it had gathered itself into a pool, and the bank had been trampled bare of vegetation, and there were places where fishermen had sat. Rand sat down in one of these places and inspected the pool. The current came in close against the bank and probably had undercut it, and lying there, in the undercut, would be the fish that the now-absent anglers sought, dangling their worms at the end of a long cane pole and waiting for a bite.

The place was pleasant and cool, shaded by a great oak that grew on the bank just below the bridge. From some far-off field came the subdued clatter of a mower. The water dimpled as a fish came up to suck in a floating insect. A good place to stay, thought Rand. A place to sit and rest awhile. He tried to blank his mind, to wipe out the memory and the photos, to pretend that nothing at all had happened, that there was nothing he must think about.

But there was, he found, something that he must think about. Not about the photos, but something that Sterling had said just the day before. ‘I got to wondering.’ he had said, ‘if a man should walk far enough, could he leave it all behind.’

How desperate must a man get, Rand wondered, before he would be driven to asking such a question. Perhaps not desperate at all—just worried and alone and tired and not being able to see the end of it. Either that, or afraid of what lay up ahead. Like knowing, perhaps, that in a few years time (and not too many years, for in that photo of the people the clerk had seen a man he knew) a warhead would hit a little Iowa town and wipe it out. Not that there was any reason for it being hit; it was no Los Angeles, no New York, no Washington, no busy port, no center of transportation or communication, held no great industrial complex, was no seat of government. Simply hit because it had been there, hit by blunder, by malfunction, or by miscalculation. Although it probably didn’t matter greatly, for by the time it had been hit, the nation and perhaps the world might have been gone. A few years, Rand told himself, and it would come to that. After all the labor, all the hopes and dreams, the world would come to just that.

It was the sort of thing that a man might want to walk away from, hoping that in time be might forget it ever had been there. But to walk away, he thought, rather idly, one would have to find a starting point. You could not walk away from everything by just starting anywhere.

It was an idle thought, sparked by the memory of his talk with Sterling; and he sat there, idly, on the stream bank; and because it had a sense of attractive wonder, he held it in his mind, not letting go at once as one did with idle thoughts. And as he sat there, still holding it in mind, another thought, another time and place crept in to keep it company; and suddenly he knew, with no doubt at all, without really thinking, without searching for an answer, that he knew the place where he could start.

He stiffened and sat rigid, momentarily frightened, feeling like a fool trapped by his own unconscious fantasy. For that, said common sense, was all that it could be. The bitter wondering of a beaten man as he tramped the endless road looking for a job, the shock of what the photos showed, some strange, mesmeric quality of this shaded pool that seemed a place apart from a rock-hard world—all of these put together had produced the fantasy.

Rand hauled himself erect and turned back toward the car, but as he did he could see within his mind this special starting place. He had been a boy—how old? he wondered, maybe nine or ten—and he had found the little valley (not quite a glen, yet not quite a valley, either) running below his uncle’s farm down toward the river. He had never been there before and he had never gone again; on his uncle’s farm there had been too many chores, too many things to do to allow the time to go anywhere at all. He tried to recall the circumstances of his being there and found that he could not. All that he could remember was a single magic moment, as if he had been looking at a single frame of a movie film—a single frame impressed upon his memory because of what? Because of some peculiar angle at which the light had struck the landscape? Because for an instant he had seen with different eyes than he’d ever used before or since? Because for the fractional part of a second he had sensed a simple truth behind the facade of the ordinary world? No matter what, he knew, he had seen magic in that moment.

He went back to the car and sat behind the wheel, staring at the bridge and sliding water and the field beyond, but seeing, instead of them, the map inside his head. When he went back to the highway, he’d turn left instead of right, back toward the river and the town, and before he reached them he would turn north on another road and the valley of the magic moment would be only a little more than a hundred miles away. He sat and saw the map and purpose hardened in his mind. Enough of this silliness, he thought; there were no magic moments, never had been one; when he reached the highway, he’d turn to the right and hope the job might still be there when he reached Chicago.

When he reached the highway, he turned not right, but left.

It had been so easy to find, he thought as he sat on the porch. There had been no taking of wrong roads, no stopping for directions; he’d gone directly there as if he’d always known he would be coming back and had kept the way in mind. He had parked the car at the hollow’s mouth, since there was no road, and had gone on foot up the little valley. It could so easily have been that he would not have found the place, he told himself, admitting now for the first time since it all began that he might not have been so sure as he had thought he was. He might have gone up the full length of the valley and not have found the magic ground, or he might have passed it by, seeing it with other eyes and not recognizing it.

But it still was there, and he had stopped and looked at it and known it; again he was only nine or ten, and it was all right, the magic still was there. He had found a path he had not seen before and had followed it, the magic still remaining; and when he reached the hilltop, the village had been there. He had walked down the street in the quietness of the golden sunshine, and the first person that he had seen had been the old lady waiting at the gate of her picket fence, as if she had been told that he would becoming.

After he had left her house be went across the street to the house she said was his. As he came in the front door, there was someone knocking at the back.

‘I am the Milkman,’ the knocker had explained. He was a shadowy sort of person: you could see and yet you did not really see him; when one looked away and then looked back at him, it was as if one were seeing someone he had never seen before.

‘Milkman,’ Rand had said. ‘Yes, I suppose I could do with milk.’

‘Also,’ said the Milkman, ‘I have eggs, bread, butter, bacon and other things that you will need. Here is a can of oil; you’ll need it for your lamps. The woodshed is well stocked, and when there’s need of it, I’ll replenish it. The kindling’s to the left as you go through the door.’

Rand recalled that he’d never paid the milkman or even mentioned payment. The Milkman was not the kind of man to whom one mentioned money. There was no need, either, to leave an order slip in the milkbox; the Milkman seemed to know what one might need and when without being told. With some shame, Rand remembered the time he had mentioned garden seeds and caused embarrassment, not only for the Milkman, but for himself as well. For as soon as he mentioned them, he had sensed that he’d broken some very subtle code of which he should have been aware.

The day was fading into evening, and he should be going in soon to cook himself a meal. And after that, what he wondered. There still were books to read, but he did not want to read them. He could take out from the desk the plan he had laid out for the garden and mull over it a while, but now he knew he’d never plant the garden. You didn’t plant a garden in a forever-autumn land, and there were no seeds.

Across the street a light blossomed in the windows of that great front room with its massive furniture, its roomy window seats, the great fireplace flaring to the ceiling. The old man with the cane had not returned, and it was getting late for him. In the distance now Rand could hear the sounds of children playing in the dusk.

The old and young, he thought. The old, who do not care: the young, who do not think. And what was he doing here, neither young nor old?

He left the porch and went down the walk. The street was empty, as it always was. He drifted slowly down it, heading toward the little park at the village edge. He often went there, to sit on a bench beneath the friendly trees; and it was there, he was sure, that he would find the children. Although why he should think that he would find them there he did not know, for he had never found them, but only heard their voices.

He went past the houses, standing sedately in the dusk. Had people ever lived in them, he wondered. Had there ever been that many people in this nameless village? The old lady across the street spoke of friends she once had known, of people who had lived here and had gone away. But was this her memory speaking or the kind befuddlement of someone growing old?

The houses, he had noted, all were in good repair. A loose shingle here and there, a little peeling paint, but no windows broken, no loosened gutters, sagging from the eaves, no rotting porch posts. As if, he thought, good householders had been here until very recently.

He reached the park and could see that it was empty. He still heard the childish voices, crying at their play, but they had receded and now came from somewhere just beyond the park. He crossed the park and stood at its edge, staring off across the scrub and abandoned fields.

In the east the moon was rising, a full moon that lighted the landscape so that he could see every little clump of bushes, every grove of trees. And as he stood there, he realized with a sudden start that the moon was full again, that it was always full, it rose with the setting of the sun and set just before the sun came up, and it was always a great pumpkin of a moon, an eternal harvest moon shining on an eternal autumn world.

The realization that this was so all at once seemed shocking. How was it that he had never noticed this before? Certainly he had been here long enough, had watched the moon often enough to have noticed it. He had been here long enough—and how long had that been, a few weeks, a few months, a year? He found he did not know. He tried to figure back and there was no way to figure back. There were no temporal landmarks. Nothing ever happened to mark one day from the next. Time flowed so smoothly and so uneventfully that it might as well stand still.

The voices of the playing children had been moving from him, becoming fainter in the distance; and as he listened to them, he found that he was hearing them in his mind when they were no longer there. They had come and played and now had ceased their play. They would come again, if not tomorrow night, in another night or two. It did not matter, he admitted, if they came or not, for they really weren’t there.

He turned heavily about and went back through the streets. As he approached his house, a dark figure moved out from the shadow of the trees and stood waiting for him. It was the old lady from across the street. It was evident that she had been waiting his return.

‘Good evening, ma’am.’ he said gravely. ‘It is a pleasant night.’

‘He is gone,’ she said. ‘He did not come back. He went just like the others and he won’t come back.’

‘You mean the old man.’

‘Our neighbor,’ she said. ‘The old man with the cane. I do not know his name. I never knew his name. And I don’t know yours.’

‘I told it to you once,’ said Rand, but she paid him no attention.

‘Just a few doors up the street.’ she said, ‘and I never knew his name and I doubt that he knew mine. We are a nameless people here, and it is a terrible thing to be a nameless person.’

‘I will look for him,’ said Rand. ‘He may have lost his way.’

‘Yes, go and look for him,’ she said. ‘By all means look for him. It will ease your mind. It will take away the guilt. But you will never find him.’

He took the direction that he knew the old man always took. He had the impression that his ancient neighbor, on his daily walks, went to the town square and the deserted business section, but he did not know. At no other time had it ever seemed important where he might have gone on his walks.

When he emerged into the square, he saw, immediately, the dark object lying on the pavement and recognized it as the old man’s hat. There was no sign of the old man himself.

Rand walked out into the square and picked up the hat. He gently reshaped and creased it and after that was done held it carefully by the brim so that it would come to no further damage.

The business section drowsed in the moonlight. The statue of the unknown man stood starkly on its base in the center of the square. When he first had come here, Rand recalled, he had tried to unravel the identity of the statue and had failed. There was no legend carved into the granite base, no bronze plate affixed. The face was undistinguished, the stony costume gave no hint as to identity or period. There was nothing in the posture or the attitude of the carven body to provide a clue. The statue stood, a forgotten tribute to some unknown mediocrity.

As he gazed about the square at the business houses. Rand was struck again, as he always was, by the carefully unmodern make-up of the establishments. A barber shop, a hotel, a livery barn, a bicycle shop, a harness shop, a grocery store, a meat market, a blacksmith shop—no garage, no service station, no pizza parlor, no hamburger joint. The houses along the quiet streets told the story; here it was emphasized. This was an old town, forgotten and by-passed by the sweep of time, a place of another century. But there was about it all what seemed to be a disturbing sense of unreality, as if it were no old town at all, but a place deliberately fashioned in such a manner as to represent a segment of the past.

Rand shook his head. What was wrong with him tonight? Most of the time he was quite willing to accept the village for what it seemed to be, but tonight he was assailed with uneasy doubt.

Across the square he found the old man’s cane. If his neighbor had come in this direction, he reasoned, he must have crossed the square and gone on down the street nearest to the place where he had dropped the cane. But why had he dropped the cane? First his hat and then his cane. What had happened here?

Rand glanced around, expecting that he might catch some movement, some furtive lurker on the margin of the square. There was nothing. If there had been something earlier, there was nothing now.

Following the street toward which his neighbor might have been heading, he walked carefully and alert, watching the shadows closely. The shadows played tricks on him, conjuring up lumpy objects that could have been a fallen man, but weren’t. A half a dozen times he froze when he thought he detected something moving, but it was, in each case, only an illusion of the shadows.

When the village ended, the street continued as a path. Rand hesitated, trying to plan his action. The old man had lost his hat and cane, and the points where he had dropped them argued that he had intended going down the Street that Rand had followed. If he had come down the Street, he might have continued down the path, out of the village and away from it, perhaps fleeing from something in the village.

There was no way one could be sure, Rand knew. But he was here and might as well go on for at least a ways. The old man might be out there somewhere, exhausted, perhaps terribly frightened, perhaps fallen beside the path and needing help.

Rand forged ahead. The path, rather well-defined at first, became fainter as it wound its way across the rolling moonlit countryside. A flushed rabbit went bobbing through the grass. Far off an owl chortled wickedly. A faint chill wind came out of the west. And with the wind came a sense of loneliness, of open empty space untenanted by anything other than rabbit, owl and wind.

The path came to an end, its faintness finally pinching out to nothing. The groves of trees and thickets of low-growing shrubs gave way to a level plain of blowing grass, bleached to whiteness by the moon, a faceless prairie land. Staring out across it, Rand knew that this wilderness of grass would run on and on forever. It had in it the scent and taste of foreverness. He shuddered at the sight of it and wondered why a man should shudder at a thing so simple. But even as he wondered, he knew—the grass was staring back at him; it knew him and waited patiently for him, for in time he would come to it. He would wander into it and be lost in it, swallowed by its immensity and anonymity.

He turned and ran, unashamedly, chill of blood and brain, shaken to the core. When he reached the outskirts of the village, he finally stopped the running and turned to look back into the wasteland. He had left the grass behind, but he sensed illogically that it was stalking him, flowing forward, still out of sight, but soon to appear, with the wind blowing billows in its whiteness.

He ran again, but not so fast and hard this time, jogging down the street. He came into the square and crossed it, and when he reached his house, he saw that the house across the street was dark. He did not hesitate, but went on down the street he’d walked when he first came to the village. For he knew now that he must leave this magic place with its strange and quiet old village, its forever autumn and eternal harvest moon, its faceless sea of grass, its children who receded in the distance when one went to look for them, its old man who walked into oblivion, dropping hat and cane—that he must somehow find his way back to that other world where few jobs existed and men walked the road to find them, where nasty little wars flared in forgotten corners and a camera caught on film the doom that was to come.

He left the village behind him and knew that he had not far to go to reach the place where the path swerved to the right and down a broken slope into the little valley to the magic starting point he’d found again after many years. He went slowly and carefully so that he would not wander off the path, for as he remembered it the path was very faint. It took much longer than he had thought to reach the point where the path swerved to the right into the broken ground, and the realization grew upon him that the path did not swing to right and there was no broken ground.

In front of him he saw the grass again and there was no path leading into it. He knew that he was trapped, that he would never leave the village until he left it as the old man had, walking out of it and into nothingness. He did not move closer to the grass, for he knew there was terror there and he’d had enough of terror. You’re a coward, he told himself.

Retracing the path back to the village, he kept a sharp lookout, going slowly so that he’d not miss the turnoff if it should be there. It was not, however. It once had been, he told himself, bemused, and he’d come walking up it, out of that other world he’d fled.

The village street was dappled by the moonlight shining through the rustling leaves. The house across the street still was dark, and there was an empty loneliness about it. Rand remembered that he had not eaten since the sandwich he had made that noon. There’d be something in the milkbox—he’d not looked in it that morning, or had he? He could not remember.

He went around the house to the back porch where the milkbox stood. The Milkman was standing there. He was more shadowy than ever, less well defined, with the moonlight shining on him, and his face was deeply shaded by the wide-brimmed hat he wore.

Rand halted abruptly and stood looking at him, astounded that the Milkman should he there. For he was out of place in the autumn moonlight. He was a creature of the early morning hours and of no other times.

‘I came,’ the Milkman said, ‘to determine if I could be of help.’

Rand said nothing. His head buzzed large and misty, and there was nothing to be said.

‘A gun,’ the Milkman suggested. ‘Perhaps you would like a gun.’

‘A gun? Why should I want one?’

‘You have had a most disturbing evening. You might feel safer, more secure, with a gun in hand, a gun strapped about your waist.’

Rand hesitated. Was there mockery in the Milkman’s voice?

‘Or a cross.’

‘A cross?’

‘A crucifix. A symbol …’

‘No,’ said Rand. ‘I do not need a cross.’

‘A volume of philosophy, perhaps.’

‘No!’ Rand shouted at him. ‘I left all that behind. We tried to use them all, we relied on them and they weren’t good enough and now…’

He stopped, for that had not been what he’d meant to say, if in fact he’d meant to say anything at all. It was something that he’d never even thought about; it was as if someone inside of him were speaking through his mouth.

‘Or perhaps some currency?’

‘You are making fun of me,’ Rand said bitterly, ‘and you have no right…’

‘I merely mention certain things,’ the Milkman said, ‘upon which humans place reliance…’

‘Tell me one thing,’ said Rand, ‘as simply as you can. Is there any way of going back?’

‘Back to where you came from?’

‘Yes,’ said Rand. ‘That is what I mean.’

‘There is nothing to go back to.’ the Milkman said. ‘Anyone who comes has nothing to go back to.’

‘But the old man left. He wore a black felt hat and carried a cane. He dropped them and I found them.’

‘He did not go back,’ the Milkman said. ‘He went ahead. And do not ask me where, for I do not know.’

‘But you’re a part of this.’

‘I am a humble servant. I have a job to do and I try to do it well. I care for our guests the best that I am able. But there comes a time when each of our guests leaves us. I would suspect this is a halfway house on the road to someplace else.’

‘A place for getting ready,’ Rand said.

‘What do you mean?’ the Milkman asked.

‘I am not sure,’ said Rand. ‘I had not meant to say it.’ And this was the second time, he thought, that he’d said something he had not meant to say.

‘There’s one comfort about this place.’ the Milkman said. ‘One good thing about it you should keep in mind. In this village nothing ever happens.’

He came down off the porch and stood upon the walk. ‘You spoke of the old man,’ he said, ‘and it was not the old man only. The old lady also left us. The two of them stayed on much beyond their time.’

‘You mean I’m here all alone?’

The Milkman had started down the walk, but now he stopped and turned. ‘There’ll be others coming,’ he said. ‘There are always others coming.’

What was it Sterling had said about man outrunning his brain capacity? Rand tried to recall the words, but now, in the confusion of the moment, he had forgotten them. But if that should be the case, if Sterling had been right (no matter how he had phrased his thought), might not man need, for a while, a place like this, where nothing ever happened, where the moon was always full and the year was stuck on autumn?

Another thought intruded and Rand swung about, shouting in sudden panic at the Milkman. ‘But these others? Will they talk to me? Can I talk with them? Will I know their names?’

The Milkman had reached the gate by now and it appeared that he had not heard.

The moonlight was paler than it had been. The eastern sky was flushed. Another matchless autumn day was about to dawn.

Rand went around the house. He climbed the steps that led up to the porch. He sat down in the rocking chair and began waiting for the others.

INCONSTANT MOON

Larry Niven

What would you do if this were your last night on earth?

I

I was watching the news when the change came, like a flicker of motion at the corner of my eye. I turned toward the balcony window. Whatever it was, I was too late to catch it.

The moon was very bright tonight.

I saw that, and smiled, and turned back. Johnny Carson was just starting his monologue.

When the first commercials came on I got up to reheat some coffee. Commercials came in strings of three and four, going on midnight. I’d have time.

The moonlight caught me coming back. If it had been bright before, it was brighter now. Hypnotic. I opened the sliding glass door and stepped out onto the balcony.

The balcony wasn’t much more than a railed ledge, with standing room for a man and a woman and a portable barbecue set. These past months the view had been lovely, especially around sunset. The Power and Light Company had been putting up a glass-slab style office building. So far it was only a steel framework of open girders. Shadow-blackened against a red sunset sky, it tended to look stark and surrealistic and hellishly impressive.

Tonight…

I had never seen the moon so bright, not even in the desert. Bright enough to read by, I thought, and immediately, but that’s an illusion. The moon was never bigger (I had read somewhere) than a quarter held nine feet away. It couldn’t possibly be bright enough to read by.

It was only three-quarters full!

But, glowing high over the San Diego Freeway to the west, the moon seemed to dim even the streaming automobile headlights. I blinked against its light, and thought of men walking on the moon, leaving corrugated footprints. Once, for the sake of an article I was writing, I had been allowed to pick up a bone-dry moon rock and hold it in my hand…

I heard the show starting again, and I stepped inside. But, glancing once behind me, I caught the moon growing even brighter— as if it had come from behind a wisp of scudding cloud.

Now its light was brain-searing, lunatic.

*

The phone rang five times before she answered.

“Hi,” I said. “Listen—”

“Hi,” Leslie said sleepily, complainingly. Damn. I’d hoped she was watching television, like me.

I said, “Don’t scream and shout, because I had a reason for calling. You’re in bed, right? Get up and …can you get up?”

“What time is it?”

“Quarter of twelve.”

“Oh, Lord.”

“Go out on your balcony and look around.”

“Okay.”

The phone clunked. I waited. Leslie’s balcony faced north and west, like mine, but it was ten stories higher, with a correspondingly better view. Through my own window, the moon burned like a textured spotlight.

“Stan? You there?”

“Yah. What do you think of it?”

“It’s gorgeous. I’ve never seen anything like it. What could make the moon light up like that?”

“I don’t know, but isn’t it gorgeous”?

“You’re supposed to be the native.” Leslie had only moved out here a year ago. “Listen, I’ve never seen it like this. But there’s an old legend,” I said. “Once every hundred years the Los Angeles smog rolls away for a single night, leaving the air as clear as interstellar space. That way the gods can see if Los Angeles is still there. If it is, they roll the smog back so they won’t have to look at it.”

“I used to know all that stuff. Well, listen, I’m glad you woke me up to see it, but I’ve got to get to work tomorrow.”

“Poor baby.”

“That’s life. ‘Night.”

“‘Night.”

Afterward I sat in the dark, trying to think of someone else to call. Call a girl at midnight, invite her to step outside and look at the moonlight …and she may think it’s romantic or she may be furious, but she won’t assume you called six others.

So I thought of some names. But the girls who belonged to them had all dropped away over the past year or so, after I started spending all my time with Leslie. One could hardly blame them. And now Joan was in Texas and Hildy was getting married, and if I called Louise I’d probably get Gordie too. The English girl? But I couldn’t remember her number. Or her last name.

Besides, everyone I knew punched a time clock of one kind or another. Me, I worked for a living, but as a freelance writer I picked my hours. Anyone I woke up tonight, I’d be ruining her morning. Ah, well…

The Johnny Carson Show was a swirl of gray and a roar of static when I got back to the living room. I turned the set off and went back out on the balcony.

The moon was brighter than the flow of headlights on the freeway, brighter than Westwood Village off to the right. The Santa Monica Mountains had a magical pearly glow. There were no stars near the moon. Stars could not survive that glare.

I wrote science and how-to articles for a living. I ought to be able to figure out what was making the moon do that. Could the moon be suddenly larger?

…Inflating like a balloon? No. Closer, maybe. The moon, falling?

Tides! Waves fifty feet high …and earthquakes! San Andreas Fault splitting apart like the Grand Canyon! Jump in my car, head for the hills …no, too late already…

Nonsense. The moon was brighter, not bigger. I could see that. And what could possibly drop the moon on our heads like that?

I blinked, and the moon left an afterimage on my retinae. It was that bright.

A million people must be watching the moon right now, and wondering, like me. An article on the subject would sell big …if I wrote it before anyone else did…

There must be some simple, obvious explanation.

Well, how could the moon grow brighter? Moonlight reflected sunlight. Could the sun have gotten brighter? It must have happened after sunset, then, or it would have been noticed….

I didn’t like that idea.

Besides, half the Earth was in direct sunlight. A thousand correspondents for Life and Time and Newsweek and Associated Press would all be calling in from Europe, Asia, Africa …unless they were all hiding in cellars. Or dead. Or voiceless, because the sun was blanketing everything with static, radio and phone systems and television …television: Oh my God.

I was just barely beginning to be afraid.

All right, start over. The moon had become very much brighter. Moonlight, well, moonlight was reflected sunlight; any idiot knew that. Then… something had happened to the sun.

II

“Hello?”

“Hi. Me,” I said, and then my throat froze solid. Panic! What was I going to tell her?

“I’ve been watching the moon,” she said dreamily. “It’s wonderful. I even tried to use my telescope, but I couldn’t see a thing; it was too bright. It lights up the whole city. The hills are all silver.”

That’s right, she kept a telescope on her balcony. I’d forgotten.

“I haven’t tried to go back to sleep, ” She said, “too much light.”

I got my throat working again. “Listen, Leslie love, I started thinking about how I woke you up and how you probably couldn’t get back to sleep, what with all this light. So let’s go out for a midnight snack.”

“Are you out of your mind?”

“No, I’m serious. I mean it. Tonight isn’t a night for sleeping. We may never have a night like this again. To hell with your diet. Let’s celebrate. Hot fudge sundaes, Irish coffee—”

“That’s different. I’ll get dressed.”

“I’ll be right over.”

*

Leslie lived on the fourteenth floor of Building C of the Barrington Plaza. I rapped for admission, and waited.

And waiting, I wondered without any sense of urgency: Why Leslie?

There must be other ways to spend my last night on Earth, than with one particular girl. I could have picked a different particular girl, or even several not too particular girls, except that that didn’t really apply to me, did it? Or I could have called my brother, or either set of parents—

Well, but brother Mike would have wanted a good reason for being hauled out of bed at midnight. “But, Mike, the moon is so beautiful—” Hardly. Any of my parents would have reacted similarly. Well, I had a good reason, but would they believe me?

And if they did, what then? I would have arranged a kind of wake. Let ‘em sleep through it. What I wanted was someone who would join my …farewell party without asking the wrong questions.

What I wanted was Leslie. I knocked again.

She opened the door just a crack for me. She was in her underwear. A stiff, misshapen girdle in one hand brushed my back as she came into my arms. “I was about to put this on.”

“I came just in time, then.” I took the girdle away from her and dropped it. I stooped to get my arms under her ribs, straightened up with effort, and walked us to the bedroom with her feet dangling against my ankles.

Her skin was cold. She must have been outside.

“So” she demanded. “You think you can compete with a hot fudge sundae, do you?”

“Certainly. My pride demands it.” We were both somewhat out of breath. Once in our lives I had tried to lift her cradled in my arms, in conventional movie style. I’d damn near broken my back. Leslie was a big girl, my height, and almost too heavy around the hips.

I dropped us on the bed, side by side. I reached around her from both sides to scratch her back, knowing it would leave her helpless to resist me, ah ha hahahaha. She made sounds of pleasure to tell me where to scratch. She pulled my shirt up around my shoulders and began scratching my back.

We pulled pieces of clothing from ourselves and each other, at random, dropping them over the edges of the bed. Leslie’s skin was warm now, almost hot…

All right, now that’s why I couldn’t have picked another girl. I’d have to teach her how to scratch. And there just wasn’t time.

Some nights I had a nervous tendency to hurry our lovemaking. Tonight we were performing a ritual, a rite of passage. I tried to slow it down, to make it last. I tried to make Leslie like it more. It paid off incredibly. I forgot the moon and the future when Leslie put her heels against the backs of my knees and we moved into the ancient rhythm.

But the image that came to me at the climax was vivid and frightening. We were in a ring of blue-hot fire that closed like a noose. If I moaned in terror and ecstasy, then she must have thought it was ecstasy alone .

We lay side by side, drowsy, torpid, clinging together. I was minded to go back to sleep then, renege on my promise. Sleep and let Leslie sleep …but instead I whispered into her ear: “Hot Fudge Sundae.” She smiled and stirred and presently rolled off the bed.

I wouldn’t let her wear the girdle. “It’s past midnight. Nobody’s going to pick you up. Because I’d thrash the blackguard, right? So why not be comfortable?” She laughed and gave in. We hugged each other, once, hard, in the elevator. It felt much better without the girdle.

III

The gray-haired counter waitress was cheerful and excited. Her eyes glowed. She spoke as if confiding a secret. “Have you noticed the moonlight?”

Ship’s was fairly crowded, this time of night and this close to UCLA. Half the customers were university students. Tonight they talked in hushed voices, turning to look out through the glass walls of the twenty-four-hour restaurant. The moon was low in the west, low enough to compete with the street globes.

“We noticed,” I said. “We’re celebrating. Get us two hot fudge sundaes, will you?” When she turned her back I slid a ten-dollar bill under the paper place mat. Not that she’d ever spend it, but at least she’d have the pleasure of finding it. I’d never spend it either.

I felt loose, casual. A lot of problems seemed suddenly to have solved themselves.

Who would have believed that peace would come to Vietnam and Cambodia in a single night?

This thing had started around eleven-thirty, here in California. That would have put the noon sun just over the Arabian Sea, with all but few fringes of Africa, and Australia in direct sunlight.

Already Germany was reunited, the Wall melted or smashed by shock waves. Israelis and Arabs had laid down their arms. Apartheid was dead in Africa.

And I was free. For me there were no more consequences. Tonight I could satisfy all my dark urges, rob, kill, cheat on my income tax, throw bricks at plate glass windows, burn my credit cards. I could forget the article on explosive metal forming, due Thursday. Tonight I could substitute cinnamon candy for Leslie’s Pills. Tonight—

“Think I’ll have a cigarette.”

Leslie looked at me oddly. “I thought you’d given that up.”

“You remember. I told myself if I got any overpowering urges, I’d have a cigarette. I did that because I couldn’t stand the thought of never smoking again.”

“But it’s been months!” she laughed.

“But they keep putting cigarette ads in my magazines!”

“It’s a plot. All right, go have a cigarette.”

I put coins in the machine, hesitated over the choice, finally picked a mild filter. It wasn’t that I wanted a cigarette. But certain events call for champagne, and others for cigarettes. There is the traditional last cigarette before a firing squad…

I lit up. Here’s to lung cancer.

It tasted just as good as I remembered; though there was a faint stale undertaste, like a mouthful of old cigarette butts. The third lungful hit me oddly. My eyes unfocused and everything went very calm. My heart pulsed loudly in my throat.

“How does it taste?”

“Strange. I’m buzzed,” I said.

Buzzed! I hadn’t even heard the word in fifteen years. In high school we’d smoked to get that buzz, that quasi-drunkenness produced by capillaries constricting in the brain. The buzz had stopped coming after the first few times, but we’d kept smoking, most of us…

I put it out. The waitress was picking up our sundaes.

Hot and cold, sweet and bitter: there is no taste quite like that of a hot fudge sundae. To die without tasting it again would have been a crying shame. But with Leslie it was a thing, a symbol of all rich living. Watching her eat was more fun than eating myself.

Besides …I’d killed the cigarette to taste the ice cream. Now, instead of savoring the ice cream, I was anticipating Irish coffee.

Too little time.

Leslie’s dish was empty. She stage-whispered, “Aahh!” and patted herself over the navel.

A customer at one of the small tables began to go mad.

I’d noticed him coming in. A lean scholarly type wearing sideburns and steel-rimmed glasses, he had been continually twisting around to look out at the moon. Like others at other tables, he seemed high on a rare and lovely natural phenomenon.

Then he got it. I saw his face changing, showing suspicion, then disbelief, then horror, horror and helplessness.

“Let’s go,” I told Leslie. I dropped quarters on the counter and stood up.

“Don’t you want to finish yours?”

“Nope. We’ve got things to do. How about some Irish coffee?”

“And a Pink Lady for me? Oh, look!” She turned full around.

The scholar was climbing up on a table. He balanced, spread wide his arms and bellowed, “Look out your windows!”

“You get down from there!” a waitress demanded, jerking emphatically at his pants leg.

“The world is coming to an end! Far away on the other side of the sea, death and hellfire—”

But we were out the door, laughing as we ran. Leslie panted, “We may have— escaped a religious— riot in there!”

I thought of the ten I’d left under my plate. Now it would please nobody. Inside, a prophet was shouting his message of doom to all who would hear. The gray-haired woman with the glowing eyes would find the money and think: They knew it too.

*

Buildings blocked the moon from the Red Barn’s parking lot. The street lights and the indirect moonglare were pretty much the same color. The night only seemed a bit brighter than usual.

I didn’t understand why Leslie stopped suddenly in the driveway. But I followed her gaze, straight up to where a star burned very brightly just south of the zenith.

“Pretty,” I said.

She gave me a very odd look.

There were no windows in the Red Barn. Dim artificial lighting, far dimmer than the queer cold light outside, showed on dark wood and quietly cheerful customers. Nobody seemed aware that tonight was different from other nights.

The sparse Tuesday night crowd was gathered mostly around the piano bar. A customer had the mike. He was singing some half-familiar song in a wavering weak voice, while the black pianist grinned and played a schmaltzy background.

I ordered two Irish coffees and a Pink Lady. At Leslie’s questioning look I only smiled mysteriously.

How ordinary the Red Barn felt. How relaxed; how happy. We held hands across the table, and I smiled and was afraid to speak. If I broke the spell, if I said the wrong thing…

The drinks arrived. I raised an Irish coffee glass by the stem. Sugar, Irish whiskey, and strong black coffee, with thick whipped cream floating on top. It coursed through me like a magical potion of strength, dark and hot and powerful.

The waitress waved back my money. “See that man in the turtleneck, there at the end of the piano bar? He’s buying, “she said with relish. “He came in two hours ago and handed the bartender a hundred-dollar bill.”

So that was where all the happiness was coming from. Free drinks! I looked over, wondering what the guy celebrating.

A thick-necked, wide-shouldered man in a turtleneck he sat hunched over into himself, with a wide bar glass clutched tight in one hand. The pianist offered him the mike, and he waved it by, the gesture giving me a good look at his face. A square, strong face, now drunk and miserable and scared. He was ready to cry from fear.

So I knew what he was celebrating.

Leslie made a face. “They didn’t make the Pink Lady right.”

There’s one bar in the world that makes a Pink Lady the way Leslie likes it, and it isn’t in Los Angeles. I passed her the other Irish coffee, grinning an I-told-you-so grin. Forcing it: The other man’s fear was contagious. She smiled back lifted her glass and said, “To the blue moonlight.”

I lifted my glass to her, and drank. But it wasn’t the toast I would have chosen.

The man in the turtleneck slid down from his stool. He moved carefully toward the door, his course slow and straight as an ocean liner cruising into dock. He pulled the door wide, and turned around, holding it open, so that the weird blue-white light streamed past his broad black silhouette.

Bastard. He was waiting for someone to figure it out, to shout out the truth to the rest. Fire and doom—

“Shut the door!” someone bellowed.

“Time to go,” I said softly.

“What’s the hurry?”

The hurry? He might speak! But I couldn’t say that…

Leslie put her hand over mine. “I know. I know. But we can’t run away from it, can we?”

A fist closed hard on my heart. She’d known, and I hadn’t noticed?

The door closed, leaving the Red Barn in reddish dusk. The man who had been buying drinks was gone.

“Oh, God. When did you figure it out?”

“Before you came over,” she said. “But when I tried to check it out, it didn’t work.”

“Check it out?”

“I went out on the balcony and turned the telescope on Jupiter. Mars is below the horizon these nights. If the sun’s gone nova, all the planets ought to be lit up like the moon, right?”

“Right. Damn.” I should have thought of that myself. But Leslie was the stargazer. I knew some astrophysics, but I couldn’t have found Jupiter to save my life.

“But Jupiter wasn’t any brighter than usual. So then I didn’t know what to think.”

“But then—”’ I felt hope dawning fiery hot. Then I remembered. “That star, just overhead. The one you stared at.”

“Jupiter.”

“All lit up like a fucking neon sign. Well, that tears it.”

“Keep your voice down.”

I had been keeping my voice down. But for a wild moment I wanted to stand up on a table and scream! Fire and doom— What right had they to be ignorant?

Leslie’s hand closed tight on mine. The urge passed. It left me shuddering. “Let’s get out of here. Let ‘em think there’s going to be a dawn.”

“There is.” Leslie laughed a bitter, barking laugh like nothing I’d ever heard from her. She walked out while I was reaching for my wallet— and remembering that there was no need.

Poor Leslie. Finding Jupiter its normal self must have looked like a reprieve— until the white spark flared to shining glory an hour and a half late. An hour and a half, for sunlight to reach Earth by way of Jupiter.

When I reached the door Leslie was half-running down Westwood toward Santa Monica. I cursed and ran to catch up, wondering if she’d suddenly gone crazy.

Then I noticed the shadows ahead of us. All along the other side of Santa Monica Boulevard: moon shadows, in horizontal patterns of dark and blue-white bands.

I caught her at the corner.

The moon was setting.

A setting moon always looks tremendous. Tonight it glared at us through the gap of sky beneath the freeway, terribly bright, casting an incredible complexity of lines and shadows. Even the unlighted crescent glowed pearly bright with earthshine.

Which told me all I wanted to know about what was happening on the lighted side of Earth.

And on the moon? The men of Apollo Nineteen must have died in the first few minutes of nova sunlight. Trapped out on a lunar plain, hiding perhaps behind a melting boulder …Or were they on the night side? I couldn’t remember. Hell, they could outlive us all. I felt a stab of envy and hatred.

And pride. We’d put them there. We reached the moon before the nova came. A little longer, we’d have reached the stars.

The disc changed oddly as it set. A dome, a flying saucer, a lens, a line…

Gone.

Gone. Well, that was that. Now we could forget it; now we could walk around outside without being constantly reminded that something was wrong. Moonset had taken all the queer shadows out of the city.

But the clouds had an odd glow to them. As clouds glow after sunset, tonight the clouds shone livid white at their; western edges. And they streamed too quickly across the sky. As if they tried to run…

When I turned to Leslie, there were big tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Oh, damn.” I took her arm. “Now stop it. Stop it.”

“I can’t. You know I can’t stop crying once I get started.”

“This wasn’t what I had in mind. I thought we’d do things we’ve been putting off, things we like. It’s our last chance. Is this the way you want to die, crying on a street corner?”

“I don’t want to die at all!”

“Tough shit!”

“Thanks a lot.” Her face was all red and twisted. Leslie was crying as a baby cries, without regard for dignity or appearance. I felt awful. I felt guilty, and I knew the nova wasn’t my fault, and it made me angry.

“I don’t want to die either!” I snarled at her. “You show me a way out and I’ll take it. Where would we go? The South Pole? It’d just take longer. The moon must be molten all across its day side. Mars? When this is over Mars will be part of the sun, like the Earth. Alpha Centauri? The acceleration we’d need, we’d be spread across a wall like peanut butter and jelly—”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Right.”

“Hawaii. Stan, we could get to the airport in twenty minutes. We’d get two hours extra, going west! Two hours more before sunrise!”

She had something there. Two hours was worth any price! But I’d worked this out before, staring at the moon from my balcony. “No. We’d die sooner. Listen, love, we saw the moon go bright about midnight. That means California was at the back of the Earth when the sun went nova.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Then we must be furthest from the shock wave.”

She blinked. “I don’t understand.”

“Look at it this way. First the sun explodes. That heats the air and the oceans, all in a flash, all across the day side. The steam and superheated air expand fast. A flaming shock wave comes roaring over into the night side. It’s closing on us right now. Like a noose. But it’ll reach Hawaii first. Hawaii is two hours closer to the sunset line.”

“Then we won’t see the dawn. We won’t live even that long.”

“No.”

“You explain things so well,” she said bitterly. “A flaming shock wave. So graphic.”

“Sorry. I’ve been thinking about it too much. Wondering what it will be like.”

“Well, stop it.” She came to me her face in my shoulder. She cried quietly. I held her with one arm and used the other to rub her neck, and I watched the streaming clouds, and I didn’t think about what it would be like.

Didn’t think about the ring of fire closing on us.

It was the wrong picture anyway.

I thought of how the oceans had boiled on the day side, so that the shock wave had been mostly steam to start with. I thought of the millions of square miles of ocean it had to cross. It would be cooler and wetter when it reached us. And the Earth’s rotation would spin it like the whirlpool in a bathtub.

Two counterrotating hurricanes of live steam, one north, one south. That was how it would come. We were lucky. California would be near the eye of the northern one.

A hurricane wind of live steam. It would pick a man up and cook him in the air, strip the steamed flesh from him and cast him aside. It was going to hurt like hell.

We would never see the sunrise. In a way that was a pity. It would be spectacular.

Thick parallel streamers of clouds were drifting across the stars, too fast, their bellies white by city light. Jupiter dimmed, then went out. Could it be starting already? Heat lightning jumped—

“Aurora,” I said.

“What?”

“There’s a shock wave from the sun, too. There should be an aurora like nothing anybody’s ever seen before.”

Leslie laughed suddenly, jarringly. “It seems so strange, standing on a street corner talking like this! Stan, are we dreaming it?”

“We could pretend—”

“No. Most of the human race must be dead already.”

“Yah.”

“And there’s nowhere to go.”

“Damn it, you figured that out long ago, all by yourself. Why bring it up now?”

“You could have let me sleep,” she said bitterly. “I was dropping off to sleep when you whispered in my ear. “

I didn’t answer. It was true.

” ‘Hot fudge sundae,’ ” she quoted. Then, “It wasn’t a bad idea, actually. Breaking my diet.”

I started to giggle.

“Stop that.”

“We could go back to your place now. Or my place. To sleep.”

“I suppose. But we couldn’t sleep, could we? No, don’t say it. We take sleeping pills, and five hours from now we wake up screaming. I’d rather stay awake. At least we’ll know what’s happening.”

But if we took all the pills …but I didn’t say it. I said, “Then how about a picnic?”

“Where?”

“The beach, maybe. Who cares? We can decide later.”

IV

All the markets were closed. But the liquor store next to the Red Barn was one I’d been using for years. They sold us foie gras, crackers, a couple of bottles of chilled champagne, six kinds of cheese and a hell of a lot of nuts— I took one of everything— more crackers, a bag of ice, frozen rumaki hors d’oeuvres, a fifth of an ancient brandy that cost twenty-five bucks, a matching fifth of Cherry Heering for Leslie, six packs of beer and Bitter Orange…

By the time we had piled all that into a dinky store cart it was raining. Big fat drops spattered in flurries across the acre of plate glass that fronted the store. Wind howled around the corners.

The salesman was in a fey mood, bursting with energy. He’d been watching the moon all night. “And now this!” he exclaimed as he packed our loot into bags. He was a small, muscular old man with thick arms and shoulders. “It never rains like this in California. It comes down straight and heavy when it comes at all. Takes days to build up.”

“I know.” I wrote him a check, feeling guilty about it. He’d known me long enough to trust me. But the check was good. There were funds to cover it. Before opening hours the check would be ash, and all the banks in the world would be bubbling in the heat of the sun. But that was hardly my fault.

He piled our bags in the cart, set himself at the door. “Now when the rain lets up, we’ll run these out. Ready?” I got ready to open the door. The rain came like someone had thrown a bucket of water at the window. In a moment it had stopped, though water still streamed down the glass. “Now!” cried the salesman, and I threw the door open and we were off. We reached the car laughing like maniacs. The wind howled around us, sweeping up spray and hurling it at us.

“We picked a good break. You know what this weather reminds me of? Kansas,” said the salesman. “During a tornado.”

Then suddenly the sky was full of gravel! We yelped and ducked, and the car rang to a million tiny concussions, and I got the car door unlocked and pulled Leslie and the salesman in after me. We rubbed our bruised heads and looked out at white gravel bouncing everywhere.

The salesman picked a small white pebble out of his collar. He put it in Leslie’s hand, and she gave a startled squeak and handed it to me, and it was cold.

“Hail,” said the salesman. “Now I really don’t get it.”

Neither did I. I could only think that it had something to do with the nova. But what? How?

“I’ve gotto get back,” said the salesman. The hail had expended itself in one brief flurry. He braced himself, then went out of the car like a marine taking a hill. We never saw him again.

The clouds were churning up there, forming and disappearing, sliding past each other faster than I’d ever seen clouds move; their bellies glowing by city light.

“It must be the nova,” Leslie said shivering.

“But how? If the shock wave were here already, dead— or at least deaf. Hail?”

“Who cares? Stan, we don’t have time!”

I shook myself. “All right. What would you like to do most, right now?”

“Watch a baseball game.”

“It’s two in the morning,” I pointed out.

“That lets out a lot of things, doesn’t it?”

“Right. We’ve hopped our last bar. We’ve seen our last play, and our last clean movie. What’s left?”

“Looking in jewelry store windows.”

“Seriously? Your last night on Earth?”

She considered, then answered. “Yes.”

By damn, she meant it. I couldn’t think of anything duller. “Westwood or Beverly Hills?”

“Both.”

“Now, look—”

“Beverly Hills, then.”

*

We drove through another spatter of rain and hail— a capsule tempest. We parked half a block from the Tiffany salesroom.

The sidewalk was one continuous puddle. Second-hand rain dripped on us from various levels of the buildings overhead. Leslie said, “This is great. There must be half a dozen jewelry stores in walking distance.”

“I was thinking of driving.”

“No no no, you don’t have the proper attitude. One must window shop on foot. It’s in the rules.”

“But the rain!”

“You won’t die of pneumonia. You won’t have time,” she said, too grimly.

Tiffany’s had a small branch office in Beverly Hills, but they didn’t put expensive things in the windows at night. There were a few fascinating toys, that was all.

We turned up Rodeo Drive— and struck it rich. Tibor showed an infinite selection of rings, ornate and modern, large and small, in all kinds of precious and semiprecious stones. Across the street, Van Cleef & Arpels showed brooches, men’s wristwatches of elegant design, bracelets with tiny watches in them, and one window that was all diamonds.

“Oh, lovely,” Leslie breathed, caught by the flashing diamonds. “What they must look like in daylight! …Wups—”

“No, that’s a good thought. Imagine them at dawn, flaming with nova light, while the windows shatter to let raw daylight in. Want one? The necklace?”

“Oh, may I? Hey, hey, I was kidding! Put that down you idiot, there must be alarms in the glass.”

“Look, nobody’s going to be wearing any of that stuff between now and morning. Why shouldn’t we get some good out of it?”

“We’d be caught!”

“Well, you said you wanted to window shop…”

“I don’t want to spend my last hour in a cell. If you’d brought the car we’d have some chance—”

“— Of getting away. Right. I wanted to bring the car—” But at that point we both cracked up entirely, and had to stagger away holding onto each other for balance.

There were a good half dozen jewelry stores on Rodeo, But there was more. Toys, books, shirts and ties in odd and advanced styling. In Francis Orr, a huge plastic cube full of new pennies. A couple of damn strange clocks further on. There was an extra kick in window shopping, knowing that we could break a window and take anything we wanted badly enough.

We walked hand in hand, swinging our arms. The sidewalks were ours alone; all others had fled the mad weather. The clouds still churned overhead.

“I wish I’d known it was coming,” Leslie said suddenly. “I spent the whole day fixing a mistake in a program. Now we’ll never run it.”

“What would you have done with the time? A baseball game?”

“Maybe. No. The standings don’t matter now.” She frowned at dresses in a store window. “What would you have done?”

“Gone to the Blue Sphere for cocktails,” I said promptly. “It’s a topless place. I used to go there all the time. I hear they’ve gone full nude now.”

“I’ve never been to one of those. How late are they open?”

“Forget it. It’s almost two-thirty.”

Leslie mused, looking at giant stuffed animals in a toy store window. “Isn’t there someone you would have murdered, if you’d had the time?”

“Now, you know my agent lives in New York.”

“Why him?”

“My child, why would any writer want to murder his agent? For the manuscripts he loses under other manuscripts. For his ill-gotten ten percent, and the remaining ninety percent that he sends me grudgingly and late. For—”

Suddenly the wind roared and rose up against us. Leslie pointed, and we ran for a deep doorway that turned out to be Gucci’s. We huddled against the glass.

The wind was suddenly choked with hail the size of marbles. Glass broke somewhere, and alarms lifted thin, frail voices into the wind. There was more than hail in the wind! There were rocks!

I caught the smell and taste of seawater.

We clung together in the expensively wasted space in front of Gucci’s. I coined a short-lived phrase and screamed, “Nova weather! How the blazes did it—” But I couldn’t hear myself, and Leslie didn’t even know I was shouting.

Nova weather. How did it get here so fast? Coming over the pole, the nova shock wave would have to travel about four thousand miles— at least a five-hour trip.

No. The shock wave would travel in the stratosphere, where the speed of sound was higher, then propagate down. Three hours was plenty of time. Still, I thought, it should not have come as a rising wind. On the other side of the world, the exploding sun was tearing our atmosphere away and hurling it at the stars. The shock should have come as a single vast thunderclap.

For an instant the wind gentled, and I ran down the sidewalk pulling Leslie after me. We found another doorway as the wind picked up again. I thought I heard a siren coming to answer the alarm.

At the next break we splashed across Wilshire and reached the car. We sat there panting, waiting for the heater to warm up. My shoes felt squishy. The wet clothes stuck to my skin.

Leslie shouted, “How much longer?”

“I don’t know! We ought to have some time.”

“We’ll have to spend our picnic indoors!”

“Your place or mine? Yours,” I decided, and pulled away from the curb.

V

Wilshire Boulevard was flooded to the hubcaps in spots. The spurt of hail and sleet had become a steady, pounding rain. Fog lay flat and waist-deep ahead of us, broke swirling over our hood, churned in a wake behind us. Weird weather.

Nova weather. The shock wave of scalding superheated steam hadn’t happened. Instead, a mere hot wind roaring through the stratosphere, the turbulence eddying down to form strange storms at ground level.

We parked illegally on the upper parking level. My one glimpse of the lower level showed it to be flooded. I opened the trunk and lifted two heavy paper bags.

“We must have been crazy,” Leslie said, shaking her head. “We’ll never use all this.”

“Let’s take it up anyway.”

She laughed at me. “But why?”

“Just a whim. Will you help me carry it?”

We took double armfuls up to the fourteenth floor. That still left a couple of bags in the trunk. “Never mind them,” Leslie said. “We’ve got the rumaki and the bottles and the nuts. What more do we need?”

“The cheeses. The crackers. The foie gras.”

“Forget ‘em.”

“No.”

“You’re out of your mind,” she explained to me, slowly so that I would understand. “You could be steamed dead on the way down! We might not have more than a few minutes left, and you want food for a week! Why?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“Go then!” She slammed the door with terrible force.

The elevator was an ordeal. I kept wondering if Leslie was right. The shrilling of the wind was muffled, here at the core of the building. Perhaps it was about to rip electrical cables somewhere, leave me stranded in a darkened box. But I made it down.

The upper level was knee-deep in water.

My second surprise was that it was lukewarm, like old bathwater, unpleasant to wade through. Steam curdled on the surface, then blew away on a wind that howled through the concrete echo chamber like the screaming of the damned.

Going up was another ordeal. If what I was thinking was wish fulfillment, if a roaring wind of live steam caught me now …I’d feel like such an idiot…. But the doors opened, and the lights hadn’t even flickered.

Leslie wouldn’t let me in.

“Go away!” She shouted through the locked door. “Go eat your cheese and crackers somewhere else!”

“You got another date?”

That was a mistake. I got no answer at all.

I could almost see her viewpoint. The extra trip for the extra bags was no big thing to fight about; but why did it have to be? How long was our love affair going to last, anyway? An hour, with luck. Why back down on a perfectly good argument, to preserve so ephemeral a thing?

“I wasn’t going to bring this up,” I shouted, hoping she could hear me through the door. The wind must be three times as loud on the other side. “We may need food for a week! And a place to hide!”

Silence. I began to wonder if I could kick the door down. Would I be better off waiting in the hall? Eventually she’d have to—

The door opened. Leslie was pale. “That was cruel,” she said quietly.

“I can’t promise anything. I wanted to wait, but you forced it. I’ve been wondering if the sun really has exploded.”

“That’s cruel. I was just getting used to the idea.” She turned her face to the door jamb. Tired, she was tired. I’d kept her up too late….

“Listen to me. It was all wrong,” I said. “There should have been an aurora borealis to light up the night sky from pole to pole. A shock wave of particles exploding out of the sun, traveling at an inch short of the speed of light, would rip into the atmosphere like— why, we’d have seen blue fire over every building!

“Then, the storm came too slow,” I screamed, to be heard above the thunder. “A nova would rip away the sky over half the planet. The shock wave would move around the night side with a sound to break all the glass in the world, all at once! And crack concrete and marble— and, Leslie love, it just hasn’t happened. So I started wondering.”

She said it in a mumble. “Then what is it?”

“A flare. The worst—”

She shouted it at me like an accusation. “A flare! A solar flare! You think the sun could light up like that—”

“Easy, now—”

“— could turn the moon and planets into so many torches, then fade out as if nothing had happened! Oh, you idiot—”

“May I come in?”

She looked surprised. She stepped aside, and I bent and picked up the bags and walked in.

The glass doors rattled as if giants were trying to beat their way in. Rain had squeezed through cracks to make dark puddles on the rug.

I set the bags on the kitchen counter. I found bread in the refrigerator, dropped two slices in the toaster. While they were toasting I opened the foie gras.

“My telescope’s gone,” she said. Sure enough, it was. The tripod was all by itself on the balcony, on its side.

I untwisted the wire on a champagne bottle. The toast popped up, and Leslie found a knife and spread both slices with foie gras. I held the bottle near her ear, figuring to trip conditioned reflexes.

She did smile fleetinglyas the cork popped. She said, “We should set up our picnic grounds here. Behind the counter. Sooner or later the wind is going to break those doors and shower glass all over everything.”

That was a good thought. I slid around the partition, swept all the pillows off the floor and the couch and came back with them. We set up a nest for ourselves.

It was kind of cozy. The kitchen counter was three and a half feet high, just over our heads, and the kitchen alcove itself was just wide enough to swing our elbows comfortably. Now the floor was all pillows. Leslie poured the champagne into brandy snifters, all the way to the lip.

I searched for a toast, but there were just too many possibilities, all depressing. We drank without toasting. And then carefully set the snifters down and slid forward into each other’s arms. We could sit that way, face to face, leaning sideways against each other.

“We’re going to die,” she said.

“Maybe not.”

“Get used to the idea, I have,” she said. “Look at you, you’re all nervous now. Afraid of dying. Hasn’t it been a lovely night?”

“Unique. I wish I’d known in time to take you to dinner.”

Thunder came in a string of six explosions. Like bombs in an air raid. “Me too,“she said when we could hear again.

“I wish I’d known this afternoon.”

“Pecan pralines!”

“Farmer’s Market. Double-roasted peanuts. Who would you have murdered, if you’d had the time?”

“There was a girl in my sorority—”

— and she was guilty of sibling rivalry, so Leslie claimed. I named an editor who kept changing his mind. Leslie named one of my old girl friends, I named her only old boy friend that I knew about, and it got to be kind of fun before we ran out. My brother Mike had forgotten my birthday once. The fiend.

The lights flickered, then came on again.

Too casually, Leslie asked, “Do you really think the sun might go back to normal?”

“It better be back to normal. Otherwise we’re dead anyway. I wish we could see Jupiter.”

“Dammit, answer me! Do you think it was a flare?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Yellow dwarf stars don’t go nova.”

“What if ours did?”

“The astronomers know a lot about novas,” I said. “More than you’d guess. They can see them coming months ahead. Sol is a gee-naught yellow dwarf. They don’t go nova at all. They have to wander off the main sequence first, and that takes millions of years.”

She pounded a fist softly on my back. We were cheek to cheek; I couldn’t see her face. “I don’t want to believe it. I don’t dare. Stan, nothing like this has ever happened before. How can you know?”

“Something did.”

“What? I don’t believe it. We’d remember.”

“Do you remember the first moon landing? Aldrin and Armstrong?”

“Of course. We watched it at Earl’s Lunar Landing Party.”

“They landed on the biggest, flattest place they could find on the moon. They sent back several hours of jumpy home movies, took a lot of very clear pictures, left corrugated footprints all over the place. And they came home with a bunch of rocks.

“Remember? People said it was a long way to go for rocks. But the first thing anyone noticed about those rocks was that they were half melted.

“Sometime in the past, oh, say the past hundred thousand years; there’s no way of marking it closer than that— the sun flared up. It didn’t stay hot enough long enough to leave any marks on the Earth. But the moon doesn’t have an atmosphere to protect it. All the rocks melted on one side.”

The air was warm and damp. I took off my coat, which was heavy with rainwater. I fished the cigarettes and matches out, lit a cigarette and exhaled past Leslie’s ear.

“We’d remember. It couldn’t have been this bad.”

“I’m not so sure. Suppose it happened over the Pacific? It wouldn’t do that much damage. Or over the American continents. It would have sterilized some plants and animals and burned down a lot of forests, and who’d know? The sun is a four percent variable star. Maybe it gets a touch more variable than that, every so often.”

Something shattered in the bedroom. A window? A wet wind touched us, and the shriek of the storm was louder.

“Then we could live through this,” Leslie said hesitantly.

“I believe you’ve put your finger on the crux of the matter. Skol!” I found my champagne and drank deep. It was past three in the morning, with a hurricane beating at our doors.

“Then shouldn’t we be doing something about it?”

“We are.”

“Something like trying to get up into the hills! Stan, there’re going to be floods!”

“You bet your ass there are, but they won’t rise this high. Fourteen stories. Listen, I’ve thought this through. We’re in a building that was designed to be earthquake proof. You told me so yourself. It’d take more than a hurricane to knock it over.

“As for heading for the hills, what hills? We won’t get far tonight, not with the streetsflooded already. Suppose we could get up into the Santa Monica Mountains; then what? Mudslides, that’s what. That area won’t stand up to what’s coming. The flare must have boiled away enough water to make another ocean. It’s going to rain for forty days and forty nights! Love, this is the safest place we could have reached tonight.”

“Suppose the polar caps melt?”

“Yeah …well, we’re pretty high, even for that. Hey, maybe that last flare was what started Noah’s Flood. Maybe it’s happening again. Sure as hell, there’s not a place on Earth that isn’t the middle of a hurricane. Those two great counterrotating hurricanes, by now they must have broken up into hundreds of little storms—”

The glass doors exploded inward. We ducked, and the wind howled about us and dropped rain and glass on us.

“At least we’ve got food!” I shouted. “If the floods marroon us here, we can last it out!”

“But if the power goes, we can’t cook it! And the refrigerator—”

“We’ll cook everything we can. Hardboil all the eggs—”

The wind rose about us. I stopped trying to talk.

Warm rain sprayed us horizontally and left us soaked. Try to cook in a hurricane? I’d been stupid; I’d waited too long. The wind would tip boiling water on us if we tried it. Or hot grease—

Leslie screamed, “We’ll have to use the oven!”

Of course. The oven couldn’t possibly fall on us.

We set it for 400° and put the eggs in, in a pot of water. We took all the meat out of the meat drawer and shoved it on a broiling pan. Two artichokes in another pot. The other vegetables we could eat raw.

What else? I tried to think.

Water. If the electricity went, probably the water and telephone lines would too. I turned on the faucet over the sink and started filling things: pots with lids, Leslie’s thiry-cup percolator that she used for parties, her wash bucket. She clearly thought I was crazy, but I didn’t trust the rain as a water source; I couldn’t control it.

The sound. Already we’d stopped trying to shout through it. Forty days and nights of this and we’d be stone deaf. Cotton? Too late to reach the bathroom. Paper towels! I tore and wadded and made four plugs for our ears.

Sanitary facilities? Another reason for picking Leslie place over mine. When the plumbing stopped, there was always the balcony.

And if the flood rose higher than the fourteenth floor, there was the roof. Twenty stories up. If it went higher than that, there would be damned few people left when it was over.

And if it was a nova?

I held Leslie a bit more closely, and lit another cigarette one-handed. All the wasted planning, if it was a nova. But I’d have been doing it anyway. You don’t stop planning just because there’s no hope.

And when the hurricane turned to live steam, there was always the balcony. At a dead run, and over the railing, in preference to being boiled alive.

But now was not the time to mention it.

Anyway, she’d probably thought of it herself.

*

The lights went out about four. I turned off the oven, in case the power should come back. Give it an hour to cool down, then I’d put all the food in Baggies.

Leslie was asleep, sitting up in my arms. How could she sleep, not knowing? I piled pillows behind her and let her back easy.

For some time, I lay on my back, smoking, watching the lightning make shadows on the ceiling. We had eaten all the foie gras and drunk one bottle of champagne. I thought of opening the brandy, but decided against it, with regret.

A long time passed. I’m not sure what I thought about. I didn’t sleep, but certainly my mind was in idle. It only gradually came to me that the ceiling, between lightningflashes, had turned gray.

I rolled over, gingerly, soggily. Everything was wet.

My watch said it was nine-thirty.

I crawled around the partition into the living room. I’d been ignoring the storm sounds for so long that it took a faceful of warm whipping rain to remind me. There was a hurricane going on. But charcoal-gray light was filtering through the black clouds.

So. I was right to have saved the brandy. Floods, storms, intense radiation, fires lit by the flare— if the toll of destruction was as high as I expected, then money was about to become worthless. We would need trade goods.

I was hungry. I ate two eggs and some bacon— still warm— and started putting the rest of the food away. We had food for a week, maybe …but hardly a balanced diet. Maybe we could trade with other apartments. This was a big building. There must be empty apartments, too, that we could raid for canned soup and the like. And refugees from the lower doors to be taken care of, if the waters rose high enough …

Damn! I missed the nova. Life had been simplicity itself last night. Now …Did we have medicines? Were there doctors in the building? There would be dysentery and other plagues. And hunger. There was a supermarket near here; could we find a scuba rig in thebuilding?

But I’d get some sleep first. Later we could start exploring the building. The day had become a lighter charcoal-gray. Things could be worse, far worse. I thought of the radiation that must have sleeted over the far side of the world, and wondered if our children would colonize Europe, or Asia, or Africa.

WHEN IT CHANGED

Joanna Russ

Katy drives like a maniac; we must have been doing over 120 km/hr on those turns. She’s good, though, extremely good, and I’ve seen her take the whole car apart and put it together again in a day. My birthplace on Whileaway was largely given to farm machinery and I refuse to wrestle with a five-gear shift at unholy speeds, not having been brought up to it, but even on those turns in the middle of the night, on a country road as bad as only our district can make them, Katy’s driving didn’t scare me. The funny thing about my wife, though: she will not handle guns. She has even gone hiking in the forests above the 48th parallel without firearms, for days at a time. And that does scare me.

Katy and I have three children between us, one of hers and two of mine. Yuriko, my eldest, was asleep in the back seat, dreaming twelve-year-old dreams of love and war: running away to sea, hunting in the North, dreams of strangely beautiful people in strangely beautiful places, all the wonderful guff you think up when you’re turning twelve and the glands start going. Some day soon, like all of them, she will disappear for weeks on end to come back grimy and proud, having knifed her first cougar or shot her first bear, dragging some abominably dangerous dead beastie behind her, which I will never forgive for what it might have done to my daughter. Yuriko says Katy’s driving puts her to sleep.

For someone who has fought three duels, I am afraid of far, far too much. I’m getting old. I told this to my wife.

“You’re thirty-four,” she said. Laconic to the point of silence, that one. She flipped the lights on, on the dash—three km to go and the road getting worse all the time. Far out in the country. Electric-green trees rushed into our headlights and around the car. I reached down next to me where we bolt the carrier panel to the door and eased my rifle into my lap. Yuriko stirred in the back. My height but Katy’s eyes, Katy’s face. The car engine is so quiet, Katy says, that you can hear breathing in the back seat. Yuki had been alone in the car when the message came, enthusiastically decoding her dot-dashes (silly to mount a wide-frequency transceiver near an I.C. engine, but most of Whileaway is on steam). She had thrown herself out of the car, my gangly and gaudy offspring, shouting at the top of her lungs, so of course she had had to come along. We’ve been intellectually prepared for this ever since the Colony was founded, ever since it was abandoned, but this is different. This is awful.

“Men!” Yuki had screamed, leaping over the car door. “They’ve come back! Real Earth men!”

· · · · ·

We met them in the kitchen of the farmhouse near the place where they had landed; the windows were open, the night air very mild. We had passed all sorts of transportation when we parked outside, steam tractors, trucks, an I.C. flatbed, even a bicycle. Lydia, the district biologist, had come out of her Northern taciturnity long enough to take blood and urine samples and was sitting in a corner of the kitchen shaking her head in astonishment over the results; she even forced herself (very big, very fair, very shy, always painfully blushing) to dig up the old language manuals—though I can talk the old tongues in my sleep. And do. Lydia is uneasy with us; we’re Southerners and too flamboyant. I counted twenty people in that kitchen, all the brains of North Continent. Phyllis Spet, I think, had come in by glider. Yuki was the only child there.

Then I saw the four of them.

They are bigger than we are. They are bigger and broader. Two were taller than me, and I am extremely tall, 1m, 80cm in my bare feet. They are obviously of our species but off, indescribably off, and as my eyes could not and still cannot quite comprehend the lines of those alien bodies, I could not, then, bring myself to touch them, though the one who spoke Russian—what voices they have!—wanted to “shake hands,” a custom from the past, I imagine. I can only say they were apes with human faces. He seemed to mean well, but I found myself shuddering back almost the length of the kitchen—and then I laughed apologetically—and then to set a good example (interstellar amity, I thought) did “shake hands” finally. A hard, hard hand. They are heavy as draft horses. Blurred, deep voices. Yuriko had sneaked in between the adults and was gazing at the men with her mouth open.

He turned his head—those words have not been in our language for six hundred years—and said, in bad Russian:

“Who’s that?”

“My daughter,” I said, and added (with that irrational attention to good manners we sometimes employ in moments of insanity), “My daughter, Yuriko Janetson. We use the patronymic. You would say matronymic.”

He laughed, involuntarily. Yuki exclaimed, “I thought they would be good-looking!” greatly disappointed at this reception of herself. Phyllis Helgason Spet, whom someday I shall kill, gave me across the room a cold, level, venomous look, as if to say: Watch what you say. You know what I can do. It’s true that I have little formal status, but Madam President will get herself in serious trouble with both me and her own staff if she continues to consider industrial espionage good clean fun. Wars and rumors of wars, as it says in one of our ancestor’s books. I translated Yuki’s words into the man’s dog-Russian, once our lingua franca, and the man laughed again.

“Where are all your people?” he said conversationally.

I translated again and watched the faces around the room; Lydia embarrassed (as usual), Spet narrowing her eyes with some damned scheme, Katy very pale.

“This is Whileaway,” I said.

He continued to look unenlightened.

“Whileaway,” I said. “Do you remember? Do you have records? There was a plague on Whileaway.”

He looked moderately interested. Heads turned in the back of the room, and I caught a glimpse of the local professions-parliament delegate; by morning every town meeting, every district caucus, would be in full session.

“Plague?” he said. “That’s most unfortunate.”

“Yes,” I said. “Most unfortunate. We lost half our population in one generation.”

He looked properly impressed.

“Whileaway was lucky,” I said. “We had a big initial gene pool, we had been chosen for extreme intelligence, we had a high technology and a large remaining population in which every adult was two-or-three experts in one. The soil is good. The climate is blessedly easy. There are thirty millions of us now. Things are beginning to snowball in industry—do you understand?—give us seventy years and we’ll have more than one real city, more than a few industrial centers, full-time professions, full-time radio operators, full-time machinists, give us seventy years and not everyone will have to spend three quarters of a lifetime on the farm.” And I tried to explain how hard it is when artists can practice full-time only in old age, when there are so few, so very few who can be free, like Katy and myself. I tried also to outline our government, the two houses, the one by professions and the geographic one; I told him the district caucuses handled problems too big for the individual towns. And that population control was not a political issue, not yet, though give us time and it would be. This was a delicate point in our history; give us time. There was no need to sacrifice the quality of life for an insane rush into industrialization. Let us go our own pace. Give us time.

“Where are all the people?” said the monomaniac.

I realized then that he did not mean people, he meant men, and he was giving the word the meaning it had not had on Whileaway for six centuries.

“They died,” I said. “Thirty generations ago.”

I thought we had poleaxed him. He caught his breath. He made as if to get out of the chair he was sitting in; he put his hand to his chest; he looked around at us with the strangest blend of awe and sentimental tenderness. Then he said, solemnly and earnestly:

“A great tragedy.”

I waited, not quite understanding.

“Yes,” he said, catching his breath again with that queer smile, that adult-to-child smile that tells you something is being hidden and will be presently produced with cries of encouragement and joy, “a great tragedy. But it’s over.” And again he looked around at all of us with the strangest deference. As if we were invalids.

“You’ve adapted amazingly,” he said.

“To what?” I said. He looked embarrassed. He looked insane. Finally he said, “Where I come from, the women don’t dress so plainly.”

“Like you?” I said. “Like a bride?” For men were wearing silver from head to foot. I had never seen anything so gaudy. He made as if to answer and then apparently thought better of it; he laughed at me again. With an odd exhilaration—as if we were something childish and something wonderful, as if he were doing us an enormous favor—he took one shaky breath and said, “Well, we’re here.”

I looked at Spet, Spet looked at Lydia, Lydia looked at Amalia, who is the head of the local town meeting, Amalia looked at I don’t know who. My throat was raw. I cannot stand local beer, which the farmers swill as if their stomachs had iridium linings, but I took it anyway, from Amalia (it was her bicycle we had seen outside as we parked), and swallowed it all. This was going to take a long time. I said, “Yes, here you are,” and smiled (feeling like a fool), and wondered seriously if male Earth people’s minds worked so very differently from female Earth people’s minds, but that couldn’t be so or the race would have died out long ago. The radio network had got the news around-planet by now and we had another Russian speaker, flown in from Varna; I decided to cut out when the man passed around pictures of his wife, who looked like the priestess of some arcane cult. He proposed to question Yuki, so I barreled her into a back room in spite of her furious protests, and went out to the front porch. As I left, Lydia was explaining the difference between parthenogenesis (which is so easy that anyone can practice it) and what we do, which is the merging of ova. That is why Katy’s baby looks like me. Lydia went on to the Ansky process and Katy Ansky, our one full-polymath genius and the great-great-I don’t know how many times great-grandmother of my own Katharina.

A dot-dash transmitter in one of the outbuildings chattered faintly to itself: operators flirting and passing jokes down the line.

There was a man on the porch. The other tall man. I watched him for a few minutes—I can move very quietly when I want to—and when I allowed him to see me, he stopped talking into the little machine hung around his neck. Then he said calmly, in excellent Russian, “Did you know that sexual equality had been re-established on Earth?”

“You’re the real one,” I said, “aren’t you? The other one’s for show.” It was a great relief to get things cleared up. He nodded affably.

“As a people, we are not very bright,” he said. “There’s been too much genetic damage in the last few centuries. Radiation. Drugs. We can use Whileaway’s genes, Janet.” Strangers do not call strangers by the first name.

“You can have cells enough to drown in,” I said. “Breed your own.”

He smiled. “That’s not the way we want to do it.” Behind him I saw Katy come into the square of light that was the screened-in door. He went on, low and urbane, not mocking me, I think, but with the self-confidence of someone who has always had money and strength to spare, who doesn’t know what it is to be second-class or provincial. Which is very odd, because the day before, I would have said that was an exact description of me.

“I’m talking to you, Janet,” he said, “because I suspect you have more popular influence than anyone else here. You know as well as I do that parthenogenetic culture has all sorts of inherent defects, and we do not—if we can help it—mean to use you for anything of the sort. Pardon me; I should not have said ‘use.’ But surely you can see that this kind of society is unnatural.”

“Humanity is unnatural,” said Katy. She had my rifle under her left arm. The top of that silky head does not quite come up to my collarbone, but she is as tough as steel; he began to move, again with that queer smiling deference (which his fellow had showed to me but he had not) and the gun slid into Katy’s grip as if she had shot with it all her life.

“I agree,” said the man. “Humanity is unnatural. I should know. I have metal in my teeth and metal pins here.” He touched his shoulder. “Seals are harem animals,” he added, “and so are men; apes are promiscuous and so are men; doves are monogamous and so are men; there are even celibate men and homosexual men. There are homosexual cows, I believe. But Whileaway is still missing something.” He gave a dry chuckle. I will give him the credit of believing that it had something to do with nerves.

“I miss nothing,” said Katy, “except that life isn’t endless.”

“You are—?” said the man, nodding from me to her.

“Wives,” said Katy. “We’re married.” Again the dry chuckle.

“A good economic arrangement,” he said, “for working and taking care of the children. And as good an arrangement as any for randomizing heredity, if your reproduction is made to follow the same pattern. But think, Katharina Michaelason, if there isn’t something better that you might secure for your daughters. I believe in instincts, even in Man, and I can’t think that the two of you—a machinist, are you? and I gather you are some sort of chief of police—don’t feel somehow what even you must miss. You know it intellectually, of course. There is only half a species here. Men must come back to Whileaway.”

Katy said nothing.

“I should think, Katharina Michaelason,” said the man gently, “that you, of all people, would benefit most from such a change,” and he walked past Katy’s rifle into the square of light coming from the door. I think it was then that he noticed my scar, which really does not show unless the light is from the side: a fine line that runs from temple to chin. Most people don’t even know about it.

“Where did you get that?” he said, and I answered with an involuntary grin, “In my last duel.” We stood there bristling at each other for several seconds (this is absurd but true) until he went inside and shut the screen door behind him. Katy said in a brittle voice, “You damned fool, don’t you know when we’ve been insulted?” and swung up the rifle to shoot him through the screen, but I got to her before she could fire and knocked the rifle out of aim; it burned a hole through the porch floor. Katy was shaking. She kept whispering over and over, “That’s why I never touched it, because I knew I’d kill someone, I knew I’d kill someone.” The first man—the one I’d spoken with first—was still talking inside the house, something about the grand movement to re-colonize and re-discover all that Earth had lost. He stressed the advantages to Whileaway: trade, exchange of ideas, education. He too said that sexual equality had been re-established on Earth.

Katy was right, or course; we should have burned them down where they stood. Men are coming to Whileaway. When one culture has the big guns and the other has none, there is a certain predictability about the outcome. Maybe men would have come eventually in any case. I like to think that a hundred years from now my great-grandchildren could have stood them off or fought them to a standstill, but even that’s no odds; I will remember all my life those four people I first met who were muscled like bulls and who made me—if only for a moment—feel small. A neurotic reaction, Katy says. I remember everything that happened that night; I remember Yuki’s excitement in the car, I remember Katy’s sobbing when we got home as if her heart would break, I remember her lovemaking, a little peremptory as always, but wonderfully soothing and comforting. I remember prowling restlessly around the house after Katy fell asleep with one bare arm flung into a patch of light from the hall. The muscles of her forearms are like metal bars from all that driving and testing of her machines. Sometimes I dream about Katy’s arms. I remember wandering into the nursery and picking up my wife’s baby, dozing for a while with the poignant, amazing warmth of an infant in my lap, and finally returning to the kitchen to find Yuriko fixing herself a late snack. My daughter eats like a Great Dane.

“Yuki,” I said, “do you think you could fall in love with a man?” and she whooped derisively. “With a ten-foot toad!” said my tactful child.

But men are coming to Whileaway. Lately I sit up nights and worry about the men who will come to this planet, about my two daughters and Betta Katharinason, about what will happen to Katy, to me, to my life. Our ancestors’ journals are one long cry of pain and I suppose I ought to be glad now but one can’t throw away six centuries, or even (as I have lately discovered) thirty-four years. Sometimes I laugh at the question those four men hedged about all evening and never quite dared to ask, looking at the lot of us, hicks in overalls, farmers in canvas pants and plain shirts: Which of you plays the role of the man? As if we had to produce a carbon copy of their mistakes! I doubt very much that sexual equality has been re-established on Earth. I do not like to think of myself mocked, of Katy deferred to as if she were weak, of Yuki made to feel unimportant or silly, of my other children cheated of their full humanity or turned into strangers. And I’m afraid that my own achievements will dwindle from what they were—or what I thought they were—to the not-very-interesting curiosa of the human race, the oddities you read about in the back of the book, things to laugh at sometimes because they are so exotic, quaint but not impressive, charming but not useful. I find this more painful that I can say. You will agree that for a woman who has fought three duels, all of them kills, indulging in such fears is ludicrous. But what’s around the corner now is a duel so big that I don’t think I have the guts for it; in Faust’s words: Verweile doch, du bist so schoen! Keep it as it is. Don’t change.

Sometimes at night I remember the original name of this planet, changed by the first generation of our ancestors, those curious women for whom, I suppose, the real name was too painful a reminder after the men died. I find it amusing, in a grim way, to see it all so completely turned around. This too shall pass. All good things must come to an end.

Take my life but don’t take away the meaning of my life.

For a while.

WHEN WE WENT TO SEE THE END OF THE WORLD

Robert Silverberg

NICK AND JANE were glad that they had gone to see the end of the world, because it gave them something special to talk about at Mike and Ruby’s party. One always likes to come to a party armed with a little conversation. Mike and Ruby give marvelous parties. Their home is superb, one of the finest in the neighborhood. It is truly a home for all seasons, all moods. Their very special corner of the world. With more space indoors and out … more wide-open freedom. The living room with its exposed ceiling beams is a natural focal point for entertaining. Custom-finished, with a conversation pit and fireplace. There’s also a family room with beamed ceiling and wood paneling … plus a study. And a magnificent master suite with twelve-foot dressing room and private bath. Solidly impressive exterior design. Sheltered courtyard. Beautifully wooded Vs-acre grounds. Their parties are highlights of any month. Nick and Jane waited until they thought enough people had arrived. Then Jane nudged Nick and Nick said gaily, “You know what we did last week? Hey, we went to see the end of the world!”

“The end of the world?” Henry asked.

“You went to see it?” said Henry’s wife Cynthia.

“How did you manage that?” Paula wanted to know.

“It’s been available since March,” Stan told her. “I think a division of American Express runs it.”

Nick was put out to discover that Stan already knew. Quickly, before Stan could say anything more, Nick said, “Yes, it’s just started. Our travel agent found out for us. What they do is they put you in this machine, it looks like a tiny teeny submarine, you know, with dials and levers up front behind a plastic wall to keep you from touching anything, and they send you into the future. You can charge it with any of the regular credit cards.”

“It must be very expensive,” Marcia said.

“They’re bringing the costs down rapidly,” Jane said. “Last year only millionaires could afford it. Really, haven’t you heard about it before?”

“What did you see?” Henry asked.

“For a while, just grayness outside the porthole,” said Nick. “And a kind of flickering effect.” Everybody was looking at him. He enjoyed the attention. Jane wore a rapt, loving expression. “Then the haze cleared and a voice said over a loudspeaker that we had now reached the very end of time, when life had become impossible on Earth. Of course we were sealed into the submarine thing. Only looking out. On this beach, this empty beach. The water a funny gray color with a pink sheen. And then the sun came up. It was red like it sometimes is at sunrise, only it stayed red as it got to the middle of the sky, and it looked lumpy and sagging at the edges. Like a few of us, hah hah. Lumpy and sagging at the edges. A cold wind blowing across the beach.”

“If you were sealed in the submarine, how did you know there was a cold wind?” Cynthia asked.

Jane glared at her. Nick said, “We could see the sand blowing around. And it looked cold. The gray ocean. Like in winter.”

“Tell them about the crab,” said Jane.

“Yes, and the crab. The last life-form on Earth. It wasn’t really a crab, of course, it was something about two feet wide and a foot high, with thick shiny green armor and maybe a dozeja legs and some curving horns coming up, and it moved slowly from right to left in front of us. It took all day to cross the beach. And toward nightfall it died. Its horns went limp and it stopped moving. The tide came in and carried it away. The sun went down. There wasn’t any moon. The stars didn’t seem to be in the right places. The loudspeaker told us we had just seen the death of Earth’s last living thing.”

“How eerie!” cried Paula.

“Were you gone very long?” Ruby asked.

“Three hours,” Jane said. “You can spend weeks or days at the end of the world, if you want to pay extra, but they always bring you back to a point three hours after you went. To hold down the babysitter expenses.”

Mike offered Nick some pot. “That’s really something,” he said. “To have gone to the end of the world. Hey, Ruby, maybe we’ll talk to the travel agent about it.”

Nick took a deep drag and passed the joint to Jane. He felt pleased with himself about the way he had told the story. They had all been very impressed. That swollen red sun, that scuttling crab. The trip had cost more than a month in Japan, but it had been a good investment. He and Jane were the first in the neighborhood who had gone. That was important. Paula was staring at him in awe. Nick knew that she regarded him in a completely different light now. Possibly she would meet him at a motel on Tuesday at lunchtime. Last month she had turned him down but now he had an extra attractiveness for her. Nick winked at her. Cynthia was holding hands with Stan. Henry and Mike both were crouched at Jane’s feet. Mike and Ruby’s twelve-year-old son came into the room and stood at the edge of the conversation pit. He said, “There just was a bulletin on the news. Mutated amoebas escaped from a government research station and got into Lake Michigan. They’re carrying a tissue-dissolving virus and everybody in seven states is supposed to boil their water until further notice.” Mike scowled at the boy and said, “It’s after your bedtime, Timmy.” The boy went out. The doorbell rang. Ruby answered it and returned with Eddie and Fran.

Paula said, “Nick and Jane went to see to end of the world. They’ve just been telling us all about it.”

“Gee,” said Eddie, “we did that too, on Wednesday night.”

Nick was crestfallen. Jane bit her lip and asked Cynthia quietly why Fran always wore such flashy dresses. Ruby said, “You saw the whole works, eh? The crab and everything?”

“The crab?” Eddie said. “What crab? We didn’t see the crab.”

“It must have died the time before,” Paula said. “When Nick and Jane were there.”

Mike said, “A fresh shipment of Cuernavaca Lightning is in. Here, have a toke.”

“How long ago did you do it?” Eddie said to Nick.

“Sunday afternoon. I guess we were about the first,.”

“Great trip, isn’t it?” Eddie said. “A little somber, though. When the last hill crumbles into the sea.”

“That’s not what we saw,” said Jane. “And you didn’t see the crab? Maybe we were on different trips.”

Mike said, “What was it like for you, Eddie?”

Eddie put his arms around Cynthia from behind. He said. “They put us into this little capsule, with a porthole, you know, and a lot of instruments and—”

“We heard that part,” said Paula. “What did you see?”

“The end of the world,” Eddie said. “When water covers everything. The sun and the moon were in the sky at the same time—”

“We didn’t see the moon at all,” Jane remarked. “It just wasn’t there.”

“It was on one side and the sun was on the other,” Eddie went on. “The moon was closer than it should have been. And a funny color, almost like bronze. And the ocean creeping up. We went halfway around the world and all we saw was ocean. Except in one place, there was this chunk of land sticking up, this hill, and the guide told us it was the top of Mount Everest.” He waved to Fran. “That was groovy, huh, floating in our tin boat next to the top of Mount Everest. Maybe ten feet of it sticking up. And the water rising all the time. Up, up, up. Up and over the top. Glub. No land left. I have to admit it was a little disappointing, except of course the idea of the thing. That human ingenuity can design a machine that can send people billions of years forward in time and bring them back, wow! But there was just this ocean.”

“How strange,” said Jane. “We saw an ocean too, but there was a beach, a kind of nasty beach, and the crab-thing walking along it, and the sun—it was all red, was the sun red when you saw it?”

“A kind of pale green,” Fred said.

“Are you people talking about the end of the world?” Tom asked. He and Harriet were standing by the door taking off their coats. Mike’s son must have let them in. Tom gave his coat to Ruby and said, “Man, what a spectacle!”

“So you did it too?” Jane asked, a little hollowly.

“Two weeks ago,” said Tom. “The travel agent called and said, Guess what we’re offering now, the end of the goddamned world! With all the extras it didn’t really cost so much. So we went right down there to the office, Saturday, I think—was it a Friday?—the day of the big riot, anyway, when they burned St. Louis—”

“That was a Saturday,” Cynthia said. “I remember I was coming back from the shopping center when the radio said they were using nuclears—”

“Saturday, yes,” Tom said. “And we told them we were ready to go, and off they sent us.”

“Did you see a beach with crabs,” Stan demanded, “or was it a world full of water?”

“Neither one. It was like a big ice age. Glaciers covered everything. No oceans showing, no mountains. We flew clear around the world and it was all a huge snowball. They had floodlights on the vehicle because the sun had gone out.”

“I was sure I could see the sun still hanging up there,” Harriet put in. “Like a ball of cinders in the sky. But the guide said no, nobody could see it.”

“How come everybody gets to visit a different kind of end of the world?” Henry asked. “You’d think there’d be only one kind of end of the world. I mean, it ends, and this is how it ends, and there can’t be more than one way.”

“Could it be a fake?” Stan asked. Everybody turned around and looked at him. Nick’s face got very red. Fran looked so mean that Eddie let go of Cynthia and started to rub Fran’s shoulders. Stan shrugged. “I’m not suggesting it is,” he said defensively. “I was just wondering.”

“Seemed pretty real to me,” said Tom. “The sun burned out. A big ball of ice. The atmosphere, you know, frozen. The end of the goddamned world.”

The telephone rang. Ruby went to answer it. Nick asked Paula about lunch on Tuesday. She said yes. “Let’s meet at the motel,” he said, and she grinned. Eddie was making out with Cynthia again. Henry looked very stoned and was having trouble staying awake. Phil and Isabel arrived. They heard Tom and Fran talking about their trips to the end of the world and Isabel said she and Phil had gone only the day before yesterday. “Goddamn,” Tom said, “everybody’s doing it! What was your trip like?”

Ruby came back into the room. “That was my sister calling from Fresno to say she’s safe. Fresno wasn’t hit by the earthquake at all.”

“Earthquake?” Paula said.

“In California,” Mike told her. “This afternoon. You didn’t know? Wiped out most of Los Angeles and ran right up the coast practically to Monterey. They think it was on account of the underground bomb test in the Mohave Desert.”

“California’s always having such awful disasters,” Marcia said.

“Good thing those amoebas got loose back east,” said Nick. “Imagine how complicated it would be if they had them in L.A. now too.”

“They will,” Tom said. “Two to one they reproduce by airborne spores.”

“Like the typhoid germs last November,” Jane said.

“That was typhus,” Nick corrected.

“Anyway,” Phil said, “I was telling Tom and Fran about what we saw at the end of the world. It was the sun going nova. They showed it very cleverly, too. I mean, you can’t actually sit around and experience it, on account of the heat and the hard radiation and all. But they give it to you in a peripheral way, very elegant in the McLuhanesque sense of the word. First they take you to a point about two hours before the blowup, right? It’s I don’t know how many jillion years from now, but a long way, anyhow, because the trees are all different, they’ve got blue scales and ropy branches, and the animals are like things with one leg that jump on pogo sticks—”

“Oh, I don’t believe that,” Cynthia drawled.

Phil ignored her gracefully. “And we didn’t see any sign of human beings, not a house, not a telephone pole, nothing, so I suppose we must have been extinct a long time before. Anyway, they let us look at that for a while. Not getting out of our time machine, naturally, because they said the atmosphere was wrong. Gradually the sun started to puff up. We were nervous—weren’t we, Iz?—I mean, suppose they miscalculated things? This whole trip is a very new concept and things might go wrong. The sun was getting bigger and bigger, and then this thing like an arm seemed to pop out of its left side, a big fiery arm reaching out across space, getting closer and closer. We saw it through smoked glass, like you do an eclipse. They gave us about two minutes of the explosion, and we could feel it getting hot already. Then we jumped a couple of years forward in time. The sun was back to its regular shape, only it was smaller, sort of like a little white sun instead of a big yellow one. And on Earth everything was ashes.”

“Ashes,” Isabel said, with emphasis.

“It looked like Detroit after the union nuked Ford,” Phil said. “Only much, much worse. Whole mountains were melted. The oceans were dried up. Everything was ashes.” He shuddered and took a joint from Mike. “Isabel was crying.”

“The things with one leg,” Isabel said. “I mean, they must have all been wiped out.” She began to sob. Stan comforted her. “I wonder why it’s a different way for everyone who goes,” he said. “Freezing. Or the oceans. Or the sun blowing up. Or the thing Nick and Jane saw.”

“I’m convinced that each of us had a genuine experience in the far future,” said Nick. He felt he had to regain control of the group somehow. It had been so good when he was telling his story, before those others had come. “That is to say, the world suffers a variety of natural calamities, it doesn’t just have one end of the world, and they keep mixing things up and sending people to different catastrophes. But never for a moment did I doubt that I was seeing an authentic event.”

“We have to do it,” Ruby said to Mike. “It’s only three hours. What about calling them first thing Monday and making an appointment for Thursday night?”

“Monday’s the President’s funeral,” Tom pointed out. “The travel agency will be closed.”

“Have they caught the assassin yet?” Fran asked.

“They didn’t mention it on the four o’clock news,” said Stan. “I guess he’ll get away like the last one.”

“Beats me why anybody wants to be President,” Phil said.

Mike put on some music. Nick danced with Paula. Eddie danced with Cynthia. Henry was asleep. Dave, Paula’s husband, was on crutches because of his mugging, and he asked Isabel to sit and talk with him. Tom danced with Harriet even though he was married to her. She hadn’t been out of the hospital more than a few months since the transplant and he treated her extremely tenderly. Mike danced with Fran. Phil danced with Jane. Stan danced with Marcia. Ruby cut in on Eddie and Cynthia. Afterward Tom danced with Jane and Phil danced with Paula. Mike and Ruby’s little girl woke up and came out to say hello. Mike sent her back to bed. Far away there was the sound of an explosion. Nick danced with Paula again, but he didn’t want her to get bored with him before Tuesday, so he excused himself and went to talk with Dave. Dave handled most of Nick’s investments. Ruby said to Mike, “The day after the funeral, will you call the travel agent?” Mike said he would, but Tom said somebody would probably shoot the new President too and there’d be another funeral. These funerals were demolishing the gross national product, Stan observed, on account of how everything had to close all the time. Nick saw Cynthia wake Henry up and ask him sharply if he would take her on the end-of-the-world trip. Henry looked embarrassed. His factory had been blown up at Christmas in a peace demonstration and everybody knew he was in bad shape financially. “You can charge it,” Cynthia said, her fierce voice carrying above the chitchat. “And it’s so beautiful, Henry. The ice. Or the sun exploding. I want to go.”

“Lou and Janet were going to be here tonight too,” Ruby said to Paula.

“But their younger boy came back from Texas with that new kind of cholera and they had to cancel.”

Phil said, “I understand that one couple saw the moon come apart. It got too close to the Earth and split into chunks and the chunks fell like meteors. Smashing everything up, you know. One big piece nearly hit their time machine.”

“I wouldn’t have liked that at all,” Marcia said.

“Our trip was very lovely,” said Jane. “No violent things at all. Just the big red sun and the tide and that crab creeping along the beach. We were both deeply moved.”

“It’s amazing what science can accomplish nowadays,” Fran said.

Mike and Ruby agreed they would try to arrange a trip to the end of the world as soon as the funeral was over. Cynthia drank too much and got sick. Phil, Tom, and Dave discussed the stock market. Harriet told Nick about her operation. Isabel flirted with Mike, tugging her neckline lower.

At midnight someone turned on the news. They had some shots of the earthquake and a warning about boiling your water if you lived in the affected states. The President’s widow was shown visiting the last President’s widow to get some pointers for the funeral. Then there was an interview with an executive of the time-trip company.

“Business is phenomenal,” he said. “Time-tripping will be the nation’s number one growth industry next year.” The reporter asked him if his company would soon be offering something beside the end-of-the-world trip. “Later on, we hope to,” the executive said. “We plan to apply for Congressional approval soon. But meanwhile the demand for our present offering is running very high. You can’t imagine. Of course, you have to expect apocalyptic stuff to attain immense popularity in times Hike these.” The reporter said, “What do you mean, times like these?” but as the time-trip man started to reply, he was interrupted by the commercial.

Mike shut off the set. Nick discovered that he was extremely depressed. He decided that it was because so many of his friends had made the journey, and he had thought he and Jane were the only ones who had. He found himself standing next to Marcia and tried to describe the way the crab had moved, but Marcia only shrugged. No one was talking about time-trips now. The party had moved beyond that point. Nick and Jane left quite early and went right to sleep, without making love.

The next morning the Sunday paper wasn’t delivered because of the Bridge Authority strike, and the radio said that the mutant amoebas were proving harder to eradicate than originally anticipated. They were spreading into Lake Superior and everyone in the region would have to boil all drinking water. Nick and Jane discussed where they would go for their next vacation.

“What about going to see the end of the world all over again?” Jane suggested, and Nick laughed quite a good deal.

AND I AWOKE AND FOUND ME HERE

ON THE COLD HILL’S SIDE

James Tiptree, Jr.

He was standing absolutely still by a service port, staring out at the belly of the Orion docking above us. He had on a gray uniform and his rusty hair was cut short. I took him for a station engineer.

That was bad for me. Newsmen strictly don’t belong in the bowels of Big Junction. But in my first twenty hours I hadn’t found anyplace to get a shot of an alien ship.

I turned my holocam to show its big World Media insigne and started my bit about What It Meant to the People Back Home who were paying for it all.

“—it may be routine work to you, sir, but we owe it to them to share—”

His face came around slow and tight, and his gaze passed over me from a peculiar distance.

“The wonders, the drama,” he repeated dispassionately. His eyes focused on me. “You consummated fool.”

“Could you tell me what races are coming in, sir? If I could even get a view—”

He waved me to the port. Greedily I angled my lenses up at the long blue hull blocking out the starfield. Beyond her I could see the bulge of a black and gold ship.

“That’s a Foramen,” he said. “There’s a freighter from Belye on the other side, you’d call it Arcturus. Not much traffic right now.”

“You’re the first person who’s said two sentences to me since I’ve been here, sir. What are those colorful little craft?”

“Procya,” he shrugged. “They’re always around. Like us.”

I squashed my face on the vitrite, peering. The walls clanked. Somewhere overhead aliens were off-loading into their private sector of Big Junction. The man glanced at his wrist.

“Are you waiting to go out, sir?”

His grunt could have meant anything.

“Where are you from on Earth?” he asked me in his hard tone.

I started to tell him and suddenly saw that he had forgotten my existence. His eyes were on nowhere, and his head was slowly bowing forward onto the port frame. “Go home,” he said thickly. I caught a strong smell of tallow.

“Hey, sir!” I grabbed his arm; he was in rigid tremor. “Steady, mark.”

“I’m waiting… waiting for my wife. My loving wife.” He gave a short ugly laugh. “Where are you from?”

I told him again.

“Go home,” he mumbled. “Go home and make babies. While you still can.”

One of the early GR casualties, I thought.

“Is that all you know?” His voice rose stridently. “Fools. Dressing in their styles. Gnivo suits, Aoleelee music. Oh, I see your newscasts,” he sneered. “Nixi parties. A year’s salary for a floater. Gamma radiation? Go home, read history. Ballpoint pens and bicycles—”

He started a slow slide downward in the half gee. My only informant. We struggled confusedly; he wouldn’t take one of my sobertabs but I finally got him along the service corridor to a bench in an empty loading bay. He fumbled out a little vacuum cartridge. As I was helping him unscrew it, a figure in starched whites put his head in the bay.

“I can be of assistance, yes?” His eyes popped, his face was covered with brindled fur. An alien, a Procya! I started to thank him but the red-haired man cut me off. “Get lost. Out.”

The creature withdrew, its big eyes moist. The man stuck his pinky in the cartridge and then put it up his nose, gasping deep in his diaphragm. He looked toward his wrist.

“What time is it?”

I told him.

“News,” he said. “A message for the eager, hopeful human race. A word about those lovely, lovable aliens we all love so much.” He looked at me. “Shocked, aren’t you, newsboy?”

I had him figured now. A xenophobe. Aliens plot to take over Earth.

“Ah Christ, they couldn’t care less.” He took another deep gasp, shuddered and straightened. “The hell with generalities. What time d’you say it was? All right, I’ll tell you how I learned it. The hard way. While we wait for my loving wife. You can bring that little recorder out of your sleeve, too. Play it over to yourself some time… when it’s too late.” He chuckled. His tone had become chatty—an educated voice. “You ever hear of supernormal stimuli?”

“No,” I said. “Wait a minute. White sugar?”

“Near enough. Y’know Little Junction bar in D.C.? No, you’re an Aussie, you said. Well, I’m from Burned Barn, Nebraska.”

He took a breath, consulting some vast disarray of the soul.

“I accidentally drifted into Little Junction Bar when I was eighteen. No. Correct that. You don’t go into Little Junction by accident, any more than you first shoot skag by accident.

“You go into Little Junction because you’ve been craving it, dreaming about it, feeding on every hint and clue about it, back there in Burned Barn, since before you had hair in your pants. Whether you know it or not. Once you’re out of Burned Barn, you can no more help going into Little Junction than a sea-worm can help rising to the moon.

“I had a brand-new liquor I.D. in my pocket. It was early; there was an empty spot beside some humans at the bar. Little Junction isn’t an embassy bar, y’know. I found out later where the high-caste aliens go—when they go out. The New Rive, the Curtain by the Georgetown Marina.

“And they go by themselves. Oh, once in a while they do the cultural exchange bit with a few frosty couples of other aliens and some stuffed humans. Galactic Amity with a ten-foot pole.

“Little Junction was the place where the lower orders went, the clerks and drivers out for kicks. Including, my friend, the perverts. The ones who can take humans. Into their beds, that is.”

He chuckled and sniffed his finger again, not looking at me.

“Ah, yes. Little Junction is Galactic Amity night, every night. I ordered… what? A margharita. I didn’t have the nerve to ask the snotty spade bartender for one of the alien liquors behind the bar. It was dim. I was trying to stare everywhere at once without showing it. I remember those white boneheads—Lyrans, that is. And a mess of green veiling I decided was a multiple being from someplace. I caught a couple of human glances in the bar mirror. Hostile flicks. I didn’t get the message, then.

“Suddenly an alien pushed right in beside me. Before I could get over my paralysis, I heard this blurry voice:

“ ‘You air a futeball enthushiash?’

“An alien had spoken to me. An alien, a being from the stars. Had spoken. To me.

“Oh, god, I had no time for football, but I would have claimed a passion for paper-folding, for dumb crambo— anything to keep him talking. I asked him about his home-planet sports, I insisted on buying his drinks. I listened raptly while he spluttered out a play-by-lay account of a game I wouldn’t have turned a dial for. The ‘Grain Bay Pashkers’. Yeah. And I was dimly aware of trouble among the humans on my other side.

“Suddenly this woman—I’d call her a girl now—this girl said something, in a high nasty voice and swung her stool into the arm I was holding my drink with. We both turned around together.

“Christ, I can see her now. The first thing that hit me was discrepancy. She was a nothing—but terrific. Transfigured. Oozing it, radiating it.

“The next thing was I had a horrifying hard-on just looking at her.

“I scrooched over so my tunic hid it, and my spilled drink trickled down, making everything worse. She pawed vaguely at the spill, muttering.

“I just stared at her trying to figure out what had hit me. An ordinary figure, a soft avidness in the face. Eyes heavy, satiated-looking. She was totally sexualized. I remembered her throat pulsed. She had one hand up touching her scarf, which had slipped off her shoulder. I saw angry bruises there. That really tore it, I understood at once those bruises had some sexual meaning.

“She was looking past my head with her face like a radar dish. Then she made an ‘ahhhh’ sound that had nothing to do with me and grabbed my forearm as if it were a railing. One of the men behind her laughed. The woman said, ‘Excuse me,’ in a ridiculous voice and slipped out behind me. I wheeled around after her, nearly upsetting my futeball friend, and saw that some Sirians had come in.

“That was my first look at Sirians in the flesh, if that’s the word. God knows I’d memorized every news shot, but I wasn’t prepared. That tallness, that cruel thinness. That appalling alien arrogance. Ivory-blue, these were. Two males in immaculate metallic gear. Then I saw there was a female with them. An ivory-indigo exquisite with a permanent faint smile on those bone-hard lips.

“The girl who’d left me was ushering them to a table. She reminded me of a goddamn dog that wants you to follow it. Just as the crowd hid them, I saw a man join them too. A big man, expensively dressed, with something wrecked about his face.

“Then the music started and I had to apologize to my furry friend. And the Sellice dancer came out and my personal introduction to hell began.”

The red-haired man fell silent for a minute enduring self-pity. Something wrecked about the face, I thought; it fit.

He pulled his face together.

“First I’ll give you the only coherent observation of my entire evening. You can see it here at Big Junction, always the same. Outside of the Procya, it’s humans with aliens, right? Very seldom aliens with other aliens. Never aliens with humans. It’s the humans who want in.”

I nodded, but he wasn’t talking to me. His voice had a druggy fluency.

“Ah, yes, my Sellice. My first Sellice.”

“They aren’t really well-built, y’know, under those cloaks. No waist to speak of and short-legged. But they flow when they walk.

“This one flowed out into the spotlight, cloaked to the ground in violet silk. You could only see a fall of black hair and tassels over a narrow face like a vole. She was a mole-gray. They come in all colors, their fur is like a flexible velvet all over; only the color changes startlingly around their eyes and lips and other places. Erogenous zones? Ah, man, with them it’s not zones.

“She began to do what we’d call a dance, but it’s no dance, it’s their natural movement. Like smiling, say, with us. The music built up, and her arms undulated toward me, letting the cloak fall apart little by little. She was naked under it. The spotlight started to pick up her body markings moving in the slit of the cloak. Her arms floated apart and I saw more and more.

“She was fantastically marked and the markings were writhing. Not like body paint—alive. Smiling, that’s a good word for it. As if her whole body was smiling sexually, beckoning, winking, urging, pouting, speaking to me. You’ve seen a classic Egyptian belly dance? Forget it—a sorry stiff thing compared to what any Sellice can do. This one was ripe, near term.

“Her arms went up and those blazing lemon-colored curves pulsed, waved, everted, contracted, throbbed, evolved unbelievably welcoming, inciting permutations. Come do it to me, do it, do it here and here and here and now. You couldn’t see the rest of her, only a wicked flash of mouth. Every human male in the room was aching to ram himself into that incredible body. I mean it was pain. Even the other aliens were quiet, except one of the Sirians who was chewing out a waiter.

“I was a basket case before she was halfway through…. I won’t bore you with what happened next; before it was over there were several fights and I got out. My money ran out on the third night. She was gone next day.

“I didn’t have time to find out about the Sellice cycle then, mercifully. That came after I went back to campus and discovered you had to have a degree in solid-state electronics to apply for off-planet work. I was a pre-med but I got that degree. It only took me as far as First Junction then.

“Oh, god, First Junction. I thought I was in heaven—the alien ships coming in and our freighters going out. I saw them all, all but the real exotics, the tankies. You only see a few of those a cycle, even here. And the Yyeire. You’ve never seen that.

“Go home, boy. Go home to your version of Burned Barn….

The first Yyek I saw I dropped everything and started walking after it like a starving hound, just breathing. You’ve seen the pix of course. Like lost dreams. Man is in love and loves what vanishes…. It’s the scent, you can’t guess that. I followed until I ran into a slammed port. I spent half a cycle’s credits sending the creature the wine they call stars’ tears…. Later I found out it was a male. That made no difference at all.

“You can’t have sex with them, y’know. No way. They breed by light or something, no one knows exactly. There’s a story about a man who got hold of a Yyeir woman and tried. They had him skinned. Stories—”

He was starting to wander.

“What about that girl in the bar, did you see her again?”

He came back from somewhere.

“Oh, yes. I saw her. She’d been making it with the two Skians, y’know. The males do it in pairs. Said to be the total sexual thing for a woman, if she can stand the damage from those beaks. I wouldn’t know. She talked to me a couple of times after they finished with her. No use for men whatever. She drove off the P Street bridge…. The man, poor bastard, he was trying to keep that Skian bitch happy single-handed. Money helps, for a while. I don’t know where he ended.”

He glanced at his wrist again. I saw the pale bare place where a watch had been and told him the time.

“Is that the message you want to give Earth? Never love an alien?”

“Never love an alien—” He shrugged. “Yeah. No. Ah, Jesus don’t you see? Everything going out, nothing coming back. Like the poor damned Polynesians. We’re gutting Earth, to begin with. Swapping raw resources for junk. Alien status symbols. Tape decks, Coca Cola and Mickey Mouse watches.”

“Well, there is concern over the balance of trade. Is that your message?”

“The balance of trade.” He rolled it sardonically. “Did the Polynesians have a word for it, I wonder? You don’t see, do you? All right, why are you here? I mean you, personally. How many guys did you climb over—”

He went rigid, hearing footsteps outside. The Procya’s hopeful face appeared around the corner. The red-haired man snarled at him and he backed out. I started to protest.

“Ah, the silly reamer loves it. It’s the only pleasure we have left…. Can’t you see, man? That’s us. That’s the way we look to them, to the real ones.”

“But—”

“And now we’re getting the cheap C-drive, we’ll be all over just like the Procya. For the pleasure of serving as freight monkeys and junction crews. Oh, they appreciate our ingenious little service stations, the beautiful star folk. They don’t need them, y’know. Just an amusing convenience. D’you know what I do here with my two degrees? What I did at First Junction. Tube cleaning. A swab. Sometimes I get to replace a fitting.”

I muttered something; the self-pity was getting heavy.

“Bitter? Man, it’s a good job. Sometimes I get to talk to one of them.” His face twisted. “My wife works as a—oh, hell, you wouldn’t know. I’d trade—correction, I have traded—everything Earth offered me for just that chance. To see them. To speak to them. Once in a while to touch one. Once in a great while to find one low enough, perverted enough to want to touch me—”

His voice trailed off and suddenly came back strong. “And so will you!” He glared at me. “Go home! Go home and tell them to quit it. Close the ports. Burn every god-lost alien thing before it’s too late! That’s what the Polynesians didn’t do.”

“But surely—”

“But surely be damned! Balance of trade—balance of life, man. I don’t know if our birth rate is going, that’s not the point. Our soul is leaking out. We’re bleeding to death!”

He took a breath and lowered his tone.

“What I’m trying to tell you, this is a trap. We’ve hit the supernormal stimulus. Man is exogamous—all our history is one long drive to find and impregnate the stranger. Or get impregnated by him, it works for women too. Anything different-colored, different nose, ass, anything, man has to fuck it or die trying. That’s a drive, y’know, it’s built in. Because it works fine as long as the stranger is human. For millions of years that kept the genes circulating. But now we’ve met aliens we can’t screw, and we’re about to die trying…. Do you think I can touch my wife?”

“But—”

“Look. Y’know, if you give a bird a fake egg like its own but bigger and brighter-marked, it’ll roll its own egg out of the nest and sit on the fake? What’s what we’re doing.”

“You’ve only been talking about sex.” I was trying to conceal my impatience. “Which is great, but the kind of story I’d hoped—”

“Sex? No, it’s deeper.” He rubbed his head, trying to clear the drug. “Sex is only part of it, there’s more. I’ve seen Earth missionaries, teachers, sexless people. Teachers—they end cycling waste or pushing floaters, but they’re hooked. They stay. I saw one fine-looking old woman, she was servant to a Cu’ushbar kid. A defective—his own people would have let him die. That wretch was swabbing up its vomit as if it was holy water. Man, it’s deep… some cargo-cult of the soul. We’re built to dream outwards. They laugh at us. They don’t have it.”

There were sounds of movement in the next corridor. The dinner crowd was starting. I had to get rid of him and get there; maybe I could find the Procya. A side door opened and a figure started towards us. At first I thought it was an alien and then I saw it was a woman wearing an awkward body-shell. She seemed to be limping slightly. Behind her I could glimpse the dinner-bound throng passing the open door.

The man got up as she turned into the bay. They didn’t greet each other.

“The station employs only happily wedded couples,” he told me with that ugly laugh. “We give each other… comfort.”

He took one of her hands. She flinched as he drew it over his arm and let him turn her passively, not looking at me. “Forgive me if I don’t introduce you. My wife appears fatigued.”

I saw that one of her shoulders was grotesquely scarred.

“Tell them,” he said, turning to go. “Go home and tell them.” Then his head snapped back toward me and he added quietly, “And stay away from the Syrtis desk or I’ll kill you.”

They went away up the corridor.

I changed tapes hurriedly with one eye on the figures passing that open door. Suddenly among the humans I caught a glimpse of two sleek scarlet shapes. My first real aliens! I snapped the recorder shut and ran to squeeze in behind them.

EUREMA’S DAM

R. A. Lafferty

He was about the last of them.

What? The last of the great individualists? The last of the true creative geniuses of the century? The last of the sheer precursors?

No. No. He was the last of the dolts.

Kids were being born smarter all the time when he came along, and they would be so forever more. He was about the last dumb kid ever born.

Even his mother had to admit that Albert was a slow child. What else can you call a boy who doesn’t begin to talk till he is four years old, who won’t learn to handle a spoon till he is six, who can’t operate a doorknob till he is eight? What else can you say about one who put his shoes on the wrong feet and walked in pain? And who had to be told to close his mouth after yawning?

Some things would always be beyond him—like whether it was the big hand or the little hand of the clock that told the hours. But this wasn’t something serious. He never did care what time it was.

When, about the middle of his ninth year, Albert made a breakthrough at telling his right hand from his left, he did it by the most ridiculous set of mnemonics ever put together. It had to do with the way a dog turns around before lying down, the direction of whirlpools and whirlwinds, the side a cow is milked from and a horse is mounted from, the direction of twist of oak and sycamore leaves, the maze patterns of rock moss and of tree moss, the cleavage of limestone, the direction of a hawk’s wheeling, of a shrike’s hunting, and of a snake’s coiling (remembering that the mountain boomer is an exception, and that it isn’t a true snake), the lay of cedar fronds and of balsam fronds, the twist of a hole dug by a skunk and by a badger (remembering pungently that skunks sometimes use old badger holes). Well, Albert finally learned to remember which was right and which was left, but an observant boy would have learned his right hand from his left without all that nonsense.

Albert never learned to write a readable hand. To get by in school he cheated. From a bicycle speedometer, a midget motor, tiny eccentric cams, and batteries stolen from his grandfather’s hearing aid, Albert made a machine to write for him. It was small as a doodlebug and fitted onto a pen or pencil so that Albert could conceal it with his fingers. It formed the letters beautifully as Albert had set the cams to follow a copybook model. He triggered the different letters with keys no bigger than whiskers. Sure it was crooked, but what else can you do when you’re too dumb to learn how to write passably?

Albert couldn’t figure at all. He had to make another machine to figure for him. It was a palm-of-the-hand thing that would add and subtract and multiply and divide. The next year when he was in the ninth grade they gave him algebra, and he had to devise a flipper to go on the end of his gadget to work quadratic and simultaneous equations. If it weren’t for such cheating Albert wouldn’t have gotten any marks at all in school.

He had another difficulty when he came to his fifteenth year. People, that is an understatement. There should be a stronger word than “difficulty” for it. Albert was afraid of girls.

What to do?

“I will build me a machine that is not afraid of girls,” Albert said. He set to work on it. He had it nearly finished when a thought came to him: “But no machine is afraid of girls. How will this help me?”

His logic was at fault and analogy broke down. He did what he always did. He cheated.

He took the programming rollers out of an old player piano in the attic, found a gear case that would serve, used magnetized sheets instead of perforated music rolls, fed a copy of Wormwood’s Logic into the matrix, and he had a logic machine that would answer questions.

“What’s the matter with me that I’m afraid of girls?” Albert asked his logic machine.

“Nothing the matter with you,” the logic machine told him. “It’s logical to be afraid of girls. They seem pretty spooky to me too.”

“But what can I do about it?”

“Wait for time and circumstances. They sure are slow. Unless you want to cheat—”

“Yes, yes, what then?”

“Build a machine that looks just like you, Albert, and talks just like you. Only make it smarter than you are, and not bashful. And, ah, Albert, there’s a special thing you’d better put into it in case things go wrong. I’ll whisper it to you. It’s dangerous.”

So Albert made Little Danny, a dummy who looked like him and talked like him, only he was smarter and not bashful. He filled Little Danny with quips from Mad Magazine and from Quip, and then they were set.

Albert and Little Danny went to call on Alice.

“Why, he’s wonderful,” Alice said. “Why can’t you be like that, Albert? Aren’t you wonderful, Little Danny. Why do you have to be so stupid, Albert, when Little Danny is so wonderful?”

“I, uh, uh, I don’t know,” Albert said. “Uh, uh, uh.”

“He sounds like a fish with the hiccups,” Little Danny said.

“You do, Albert, really you do!” Alice screamed. “Why can’t you say smart things like Little Danny does, Albert? Why are you so stupid?”

This wasn’t working out very well, but Albert kept on with it. He programmed Little Danny to play the ukulele and to sing. He wished that he could program himself to do it. Alice loved everything about Little Danny, but she paid no attention to Albert. And one day Albert had had enough.

“Wha-wha-what do we need with this dummy?” Albert asked. “I just made him to am-to amu-to to make you laugh. Let’s go off and leave him.”

“Go off with you, Albert?” Alice asked. “But you’re so stupid. I tell you what. Let’s you and me go off and leave Albert, Little Danny. We can have more fun without him.”

“Who needs him?” Little Danny asked. “Get lost, buster.”

Albert walked away from them. He was glad that he’d taken his logic machine’s advice as to the special thing to be built into Little Danny. Albert walked fifty steps. A hundred.

“Far enough,” Albert said, and he pushed a button in his pocket.

Nobody but Albert and his logic machine ever did know what that explosion was. Tiny wheels out of Little Danny and small pieces of Alice rained down a little later, but there weren’t enough fragments for anyone to identify.

Albert had learned one lesson from his logic machine: never make anything that you can’t unmake.

Well, Albert finally grew to be a man, in years at least. He would always have something about him of a very awkward teen-ager. And yet he fought his own war against those who were teen-agers in years, and he defeated them completely. There was enmity between them forever. Albert hadn’t been a very well-adjusted adolescent, and he hated the memory of it. And nobody ever mistook him for an adjusted man.

Albert was too awkward to earn a living at an honest trade. He was reduced to peddling his little tricks and contrivances to shysters and promoters. But he did back into a sort of fame, and he did become burdened with wealth.

He was too stupid to handle his own monetary affairs, but he built an actuary machine to do his investing and he became rich by accident. He built the damned thing too good and he regretted it.

Albert became one of that furtive group that has saddled us with all the mean things in our history. There was that Punic who couldn’t learn the rich variety of hieroglyphic characters and who devised the crippled short alphabet for wan-wits. There was the nameless Arab who couldn’t count beyond ten and who set up the ten-number system for babies and idiots. There was the double-Dutchman with his movable type who drove fine copy out of the world. Albert was of their miserable company.

Albert himself wasn’t much good for anything. But he had in himself the low knack for making machines that were good at everything.

His machines did a few things. You remember that anciently there was smog in the cities. Oh, it could be drawn out of the air easily enough. All it took was a tickler. Albert made a tickler machine. He would set it fresh every morning. It would clear the air in a circle three hundred yards around his hovel and gather a little over a ton of residue every twenty-four hours. This residue was rich in large polysyllabic molecules which one of his chemical machines could use.

“Why can’t you clear all the air?” the people asked him.

“This is as much of the stuff as Clarence Deoxyribonucleiconibus needs every day,” Albert said. That was the name of this particular chemical machine.

“But we die of the smog,” the people said. “Have mercy on us.”

“Oh, all right,” Albert said. He turned it over to one of his reduplicating machines to make as many copies as were necessary.

You remember that once there was a teen-ager problem? You remember when those little buggers used to be mean? Albert got enough of them. There was something ungainly about them that reminded him too much of himself. He made a teen-ager of his own. It was rough. To the others it looked like one of themselves, the ring in the left ear, the dangling side-locks, the brass knucks and the long knife, the guitar pluck to jab in an eye. But it was incomparably rougher than the human teen-agers. It terrorized all in the neighborhood and made them behave, and dress like real people. And there was one thing about the teen-age machine that Albert made: it was made of such polarized metal and glass that it was invisible except to teen-ager eyes.

“Why is your neighborhood different?” the people asked Albert. “Why are there such good and polite teen-agers in your neighborhood and such mean ones everywhere else? It’s as though something had spooked all those right around here.”

“Oh, I thought I was the only one who didn’t like the regular kind,” Albert said.

“Oh, no, no,” the people answered him. “If there is anything at all you can do about them—”

So Albert turned his mostly invisible teen-ager machine over to one of his reduplicating machines to make as many copies as were necessary, and set one up in every neighborhood. From that day till this the teen-agers have all been good and polite and a little bit frightened. But there is no evidence of what keeps them that way except an occasional eye dangling from the jab of an invisible guitar pluck.

So the two most pressing problems of the latter part of the twentieth century were solved, but accidentally, and to the credit of no one.

As the years went by, Albert felt his inferiority most when in the presence of his own machines, particularly those in the form of men. Albert just hadn’t their urbanity or sparkle or wit. He was a clod beside them, and they made him feel it.

Why not? One of Albert’s devices sat in the President’s Cabinet. One of them was on the High Council of World-Watchers that kept the peace everywhere. One of them presided at Riches Unlimited, that private-public-international instrument that guaranteed reasonable riches to everyone in the world. One of them was the guiding hand in the Health and Longevity Foundation which provided those things to everyone. Why should not such splendid and successful machines look down on their shabby uncle who had made them?

“I’m rich by a curious twist,” Albert said to himself one day, “and honored through a mistake in circumstance. But there isn’t a man or a machine in the world who is really my friend. A book here tells how to make friends, but I can’t do it that way. I’ll make one my own way.”

So Albert set out to make a friend.

He made Poor Charles, a machine as stupid and awkward and inept as himself.

“Now I will have a companion,” Albert said, but it didn’t work. Add two zeros together and you still have zero. Poor Charles was too much like Albert to be good for anything.

Poor Charles! Unable to think, he made a—(but wait a moleskin-gloved minute here, Colonel, this isn’t going to work at all)—he made a machi—(but isn’t this the same blamed thing all over again?)—he made a machine to think for him and to—

Hold it, hold it! That’s enough. Poor Charles was the only machine that Albert ever made that was dumb enough to do a thing like that.

Well, whatever it was, the machine that Poor Charles made was in control of the situation and of Poor Charles when Albert came onto them accidentally. The machine’s machine, the device that Poor Charles had constructed to think for him, was lecturing Poor Charles in a humiliating way.

“Only the inept and deficient will invent,” that damned machine’s machine was droning. “The Greeks in their high period did not invent. They used neither adjunct power nor instrumentation. They used, as intelligent men or machines will always use, slaves. They did not descend to gadgets. They, who did the difficult with ease, did not seek the easier way.

“But the incompetent will invent. The insufficient will invent. The depraved will invent. And knaves will invent.”

Albert, in a seldom fit of anger, killed them both. But he knew that the machine of his machine had spoken the truth.

Albert was very much cast down. A more intelligent man would have had a hunch as to what was wrong. Albert had only a hunch that he was not very good at hunches and would never be. Seeing no way out, he fabricated a machine and named it Hunchy.

In most ways this was the worst machine he ever made. In building it he tried to express something of his unease for the future. It was an awkward thing in mind and mechanism, a misfit.

Albert’s more intelligent machines gathered around and hooted at him while he put it together.

“Boy! Are you lost!” they taunted. “That thing is a primitive! To draw its power from the ambient! We talked you into throwing that away twenty years ago and setting up coded power for all of us.”

“Uh—someday there may be social disturbances and all centers of power seized,” Albert stammered. “But Hunchy would be able to operate if the whole world were wiped smooth.”

“It isn’t even tuned to our information matrix,” they jibed. “It’s worse than Poor Charles. That stupid thing practically starts from scratch.”

“Maybe there’ll be a new kind of itch for it,” said Albert.

“It’s not even housebroken!” the urbane machines shouted their indignation. “Look at that! Some sort of primitive lubrication all over the floor.”

“Remembering my childhood, I sympathize,” Albert said.

“What’s it good for?” they demanded.

“Ah—it gets hunches,” Albert mumbled.

“Duplication!” they shouted. “That’s all you’re good for yourself, and not very good at that. We suggest an election to replace you as—pardon our laughter—the head of these enterprises.”

“Boss, I’ve got a hunch how we can block them there,” the unfinished Hunchy whispered.

“They’re bluffing,” Albert whispered back. “My first logic machine taught me never to make anything that I can’t unmake. I’ve got them there and they know it. I wish I could think up things like that myself.”

“Maybe there will come an awkward time and I will be good for something,” Hunchy said.

Only once, that rather late in life, did a sort of honesty flare up in Albert. He did one thing (and it was a dismal failure) on his own. That was the night of the year of the double millennium when Albert was presented with the Finnerty-Hochmann Trophy, the highest award that the intellectual world could give. Albert was certainly an odd choice for it, but it had been noticed that almost every basic invention for thirty years could be traced back to him or to the devices with which he had surrounded himself.

You know the trophy. Atop it was Eurema, the synthetic Greek goddess of invention, with arms spread as if she would take flight. Below this was a stylized brain cut away to show the convoluted cortex. And below this was the coat of arms of the Academicians: Ancient Scholar rampant (argent); the Anderson Analyzer sinister (gules); the Mondeman Space-Drive dexter (vair). It was a fine work by Groben, his ninth period.

Albert had a speech composed for him by his speech-writing machine, but for some reason he did not use it. He went on his own, and that was disaster. He got to his feet when he was introduced, and he stuttered and spoke nonsense!

“Ah—only the sick oyster produces nacre,” he said, and they all gaped at him. What sort of beginning for a speech was that? “Or do I have the wrong creature?” Albert asked weakly.

“Eurema doesn’t look like that!” Albert gawked out and pointed suddenly at the trophy. “No, no, that isn’t her at all. Eurema walks backward and is blind. And her mother is a brainless hulk.”

Everybody was watching him with pained expression.

“Nothing rises without a leaven,” Albert tried to explain, “but the yeast is itself a fungus and a disease. You be regularizers all, splendid and supreme! But you cannot live without the irregulars. You will die, and who will tell you that you are dead? When there are no longer any deprived or insufficient, who will invent? What will you do when there is none of us detectives left? Who will leaven your lump then?”

“Are you unwell?” the master of ceremonies asked him quietly. “Should you not make an end to it? People will understand.”

“Of course I’m unwell. Always have been,” Albert said. “What good would I be otherwise? You set the ideal that all should be healthy and well adjusted. No! No! Were we all well adjusted, we would ossify and die. The world is kept healthy only by some of the unhealthy minds lurking in it. The first implement made by man was not a scraper or celt or stone knife. It was a crutch, and it wasn’t devised by a hale man.”

“Perhaps you should rest,” a functionary said in a low voice, for this sort of rambling nonsense talk had never been heard at an awards dinner before.

“Know you,” said Albert, “that it is not the fine bulls and wonderful cattle who make the new paths. Only a crippled calf makes a new path. In everything that survives there must be an element of the incongruous. Hey, you know the woman who said, ‘My husband is incongruous, but I never liked Washington in the summertime.’ “

Everybody gazed at him in stupor.

“That’s the first joke I ever made,” Albert said lamely. “My joke-making machine makes them a lot better than I do.” He paused and gaped, and gulped a big breath.

“Dolts!” he croaked out fiercely then. “What will you do for dolts when the last of us is gone? How will you survive without us?”

Albert had finished. He gaped and forgot to close his mouth. They led him back to his seat. His publicity machine explained that Albert was tired from overwork, and then that machine passed around copies of the speech that Albert was supposed to have given.

It had been an unfortunate episode. How noisome it is that the innovators are never great men, and that the great men are never good for anything but just being great men.

In that year a decree went forth from Caesar that a census of the whole country should be taken. The decree was from Cesare Panebianco, the President of the country. It was the decimal year proper for the census, and there was nothing unusual about the decree. Certain provisions, however, were made for taking a census of the drifters and decrepits who were usually missed, to examine them and to see why they were so. It was in the course of this that Albert was picked up. If any man ever looked like a drifter and decrepit, it was Albert.

Albert was herded in with other derelicts, set down at a table, and asked tortuous questions. As:

“What is your name?”

He almost muffed that one, but he rallied and answered, “Albert.”

“What time is it by that clock?”

They had him in his old weak spot. Which hand was which? He gaped and didn’t answer.

“Can you read?” they asked him.

“Not without my—” Albert began. “I don’t have with me my—No, I can’t read very well by myself.”

“Try.”

They gave him a paper to mark up with true and false questions. Albert marked them all true, believing that he would have half of them right. But they were all false. The regularized people are partial to falsehood. Then they gave him a supply-the—word test on proverbs.

“———is the best policy” didn’t mean a thing to him. He couldn’t remember the names of the companies that he had his own policies with.

“A——— in time saves nine” contained more mathematics than Albert could handle.

“There appear to be six unknowns,” he told himself, “and only one positive value, nine. The equating verb ‘saves’ is a vague one. I cannot solve this equation. I am not even sure that it is an equation. If only I had with me my—”

But he hadn’t any of his gadgets or machines with him. He was on his own. He left half a dozen other proverb fill-ins blank. Then he saw a chance to recoup. Nobody is so dumb as not to know one answer if enough questions are asked.

“————is the mother of invention,” it said.

“Stupidity,” Albert wrote in his weird ragged hand. Then he sat back in triumph. “I know that Eurema and her mother,” he snickered. “Man, how I do know them!”

But they marked him wrong on that one too. He had missed every answer to every test. They began to fix him a ticket to a progressive booby hatch where he might learn to do something with his hands, his head being hopeless.

A couple of Albert’s urbane machines came down and got him out of it. They explained that, while he was a drifter and a derelict, yet he was a rich drifter and derelict, and that he was even a man of some note.

“He doesn’t look it, but he really is—pardon our laughter—a man of some importance,” one of the fine machines explained. “He has to be told to close his mouth after he has yawned, but for all that he is the winner of the Finnerty-Hochmann Trophy. We will be responsible for him.”

ALBERT WAS MISERABLE as his fine machines took him out, especially when they asked that he walk three or four steps behind them and not seem to be with them. They gave him some pretty rough banter and turned him into a squirming worm of a man. Albert left them and went to a little hide-out he kept.

“I’ll blow my crawfishing brains out,” he swore. “The humiliation is more than I can bear. Can’t do it myself, though. I’ll have to have it done.”

He set to work building a device in his hide-out.

“What you doing, boss?” Hunchy asked him. “I had a hunch you’d come here and start building something.”

“I’m building a machine to blow my pumpkin-picking brains out,” Albert shouted. “I’m too yellow to do it myself.”

“Boss, I got a hunch there’s something better to do. Let’s have some fun.”

“Don’t believe I know how to,” Albert said thoughtfully. “I built a fun machine once to do it for me. He had a real revel till he flew apart, but he never seemed to do anything for me.”

“This fun will be for you and me, boss. Consider the world spread out. What is it?”

“It’s a world too fine for me to live in any longer,” Albert said. “Everything and all the people are perfect, and all alike. They’re at the top of the heap. They’ve won it all and arranged it all neatly. There’s no place for a clutter-up like me in the world. So I get out.”

“Boss, I’ve got a hunch that you’re seeing it wrong. You’ve got better eyes than that. Look again, real canny, at it. Now what do you see?”

“Hunchy, Hunchy, is that possible? Is that really what it is? I wonder why I never noticed it before. That’s the way of it, though, now that I look closer.

“Six billion patsies waiting to be took! Six billion patsies without a defense of any kind! A couple of guys out for some fun, man, they could mow them down like fields of Albert-Improved Concho Wheat!”

“Boss, I’ve got a hunch that this is what I was made for. The world sure had been getting stuffy. Let’s tie into it and eat off the top layer. Man, we can cut a swath.”

“We’ll inaugurate a new era!” Albert gloated. “We’ll call it the Turning of the Worm. We’ll have fun, Hunchy. We’ll gobble them up like goobers. How come I never saw it like that before? Six billion patsies!”

The twenty-first century began on this rather odd note.

THE MEETING

Frederick Pohl

Harry Vladek was too large a man for his Volkswagen, but he was too poor a man to trade it in, and as things were going he was going to stay that way a long time. He applied the brakes carefully (“master cylinder’s leaking like a sieve, Mr. Vladek. What’s the use of just fixing up the linings?”—but the estimate was a hundred and twenty-eight dollars, and where was it going to come from?) and parked in the neatly graveled lot. He squeezed out of the door, the upsetting telephone call from Dr. Nicholson on his mind, locked the car up, and went into the school building.

The Parent-Teachers Association of the Bingham County School for Exceptional Children was holding its first meeting of the term. Of the twenty people already there, Vladek knew only Mrs. Adler, the principal, or headmistress, or owner of the school. She was the one he needed to talk to most, he thought. Would there be any chance to see her privately? Right now she sat across the room at her scuffed golden-oak desk in a posture chair, talking in low, rapid tones with a gray-haired woman in a tan suit. A teacher? She seemed too old to be a parent, although his wife had told him some of the kids seemed to be twenty or more.

It was 8:30 and the parents were still driving up to the school, a converted building that had once been a big country house-almost a mansion. The living room was full of elegant reminders of that. Two chandeliers. Intricate vineleaf molding on the plaster above the dropped ceiling. The pink-veined, white-marble fireplace, unfortunately prominent because of the unsuitable andirons, too cheap and too small, that now stood in it. Golden-oak, sliding double doors to the hall. And visible through them a grim, fireproof staircase of concrete and steel. They must, Vladek thought, have had to rip out a beautiful wooden thing to install the fireproof stairs for compliance with the state school laws.

People kept coming in, single men, single women, and occasionally a couple. He wondered how the couples managed their baby-sitting problem. The subtitle on the school’s letterhead was “an institution for emotionally disturbed and cerebrally damaged children capable of education.” Harry’s nine-year-old Thomas was one of the emotionally disturbed ones. With a taste of envy he wondered if cerebrally damaged children could be baby-sat by any reasonably competent grown-up. Thomas could not. The Vladeks had not had an evening out together since he was two, so that tonight Margaret was holding the fort at home, no doubt worrying herself sick about the call from Dr. Nicholson, while Harry was representing the family at the PTA.

As the room filled up, chairs were getting scarce. A young couple was standing at the end of the row near him, looking around for a pair of empty seats. “Here,” he said to them. “I’ll move over.” The woman smiled politely and the man said thanks. Emboldened by an ashtray on the empty seat in front of him, Harry pulled out his pack of cigarettes and offered it to them, but it turned out they were nonsmokers. Harry lit up anyway, listening to what was going on around him.

Everybody was talking. One woman asked another, “How’s the gall bladder? Are they going to take it out after all?” A heavy-balding man said to a short man with bushy sideburns, “Well, my accountant says the tuition’s medically deductible if the school is for psychosomatic, not just for psycho. That we’ve got to clear up.” The short man told him positively, “Right, but all you need is a doctor’s letter: he recommends the school, refers the child to the school.” And a very young woman said intensely, “Dr. Shields was very optimistic, Mrs. Clerman, He says without a doubt the thyroid will make Georgie accessible. And then—” A light-coffee-colored black man in an aloha shirt told a plump woman, “He really pulled a wingding over the weekend, two stitches in his face, busted my fishing pole in three places.” And the woman said, “They get so bored. My little girl has this thing about crayons, so that rules out coloring books altogether. You wonder what you can do.”

Harry finally said to the young man next to him, “My name’s Vladek. I’m Tommy’s father. He’s in the beginners group.”

“That’s where ours is,” said the young man. “He’s Vern, Six years old. Blond like me. Maybe you’ve seen him.”

Harry did not try very hard to remember. The two or three times he had picked Tommy up after class he had not been able to tell one child from another in the great bustle of departure. Coats, handkerchiefs, hats, one little girl who always hid in the supply closet and a little boy who never wanted to go home and hung onto the teacher. “Oh, yes,” he said politely.

The young man introduced himself and his wife; they were named Murray and Celia Logan. Harry leaned over the man to shake the wife’s hand, and she said, “Aren’t you new here?”

“Yes. Tommy’s been in the school a month. We moved in from Elmira to be near it.” He hesitated, then added, “Tommy’s nine, but the reason he’s in the beginners group is that Mrs. Adler thought it would make the adjustment easier.”

Logan pointed to a suntanned man in the first row. “See that fellow with the glasses? He moved here from Texas. Of course, he’s got money.”

“It must be a good place,” Harry said questioningly.

Logan grinned, his expression a little nervous.

“How’s your son?” Harry asked.

“That little rascal,” said Logan. “Last week I got him another copy of the My Fair Lady album, I guess he’s used up four or five of them, and he goes around singing luv-er-ly, luv-er-ly.’ But look at you? No.”

“Mine doesn’t talk,” said Harry.

Mrs. Logan said judiciously, “Ours talks. Not to anybody, though. It’s like a wall.”

“I know,” said Harry, and pressed. “Has, ah, has Vern shown much improvement with the school?”

Murray Logan pursed his lips. “I would say, yes. The bedwetting’s not too good, but life’s a great deal smoother in some ways. You know, you don’t hope for a dramatic breakthrough. But in little things, day by day, it goes smoother. Mostly smoother. Of course there are setbacks.”

Harry nodded, thinking of seven years of setbacks, and two years of growing worry and puzzlement before that. He said, “Mrs. Adler told me that, for instance, a special outbreak of destructiveness might mean something like a plateau in speech therapy. So the child fights it and breaks out in some other direction.”

“That too,” said Logan, “but what I meant—Oh, they’re starting.”

Vladek nodded, stubbing out his cigarette and absent-mindedly lighting another. His stomach was knotting up again. He wondered at these other parents, who seemed so safe and well, untouched. Wasn’t it the same with them as with Margaret and himself? And it had been a long time since either of them had felt the world comfortable around them, even without Dr. Nicholson pressing for a decision. He forced himself to lean back and look as tranquil as the others.

Mrs. Adler was tapping her desk with a ruler. “I think everybody who is coming is here,” she said. She leaned against the desk and waited for the room to quiet down. She was short, dark, plump, and surprisingly pretty. She did not look at all like a competent professional. She looked so unlike her role that, in fact, Harry’s heart had sunk three months ago when their correspondence about admitting Tommy had been climaxed by the long trip from Elmira for the interview. He had expected a steel-gray lady with rimless glasses, a Valkyrie in a white smock like the nurse who had held wriggling, screaming Tommy while waiting for the suppository to quiet him down for his first EEC, a disheveled old fraud, he didn’t know what. Anything except this pretty young woman. Another blind alley, he had thought in despair. Another, after a hundred too many already. First, “Wait for him to outgrow it.” He doesn’t. Then, “We must reconcile ourselves to God’s will.” But you don’t want to. Then give him the prescription three times a day for three months. And it doesn’t work. Then chase around for six months with the Child Guidance Clinic to find out it’s only letterheads and one circuit-riding doctor who doesn’t have time for anything. Then, after four dreary, weepy weeks of soul-searching, the State Training School, and find out it has an eight-year waiting list. Then the private custodial school, and find they’re fifty-five hundred dollars a year—without medical treatment!—and where do you get fifty-five hundred dollars a year? And all the time everybody warns you, as if you didn’t know it: “Hurry! Do something! Catch it early! This is the critical stage! Delay is fatal!” And then this soft-looking little woman; how could she do anything?

She had rapidly shown him how. She had questioned Margaret and Harry incisively, turned to Tommy, rampaging through the same room like a rogue bull, and turned his rampage into a game. In three minutes he was happily experimenting with an indestructible old windup cabinet Victrola, and Mrs. Adler was saying to the Vladeks, “Don’t count on a miracle cure. There isn’t any. But improvements, yes, and I think we can help Tommy.”

Perhaps she had, thought Vladek bleakly. Perhaps she was helping as much as anyone ever could.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Adler had quickly and pleasantly welcomed the parents, suggested they remain for coffee and get to know each other, and introduced the PTA president, a Mrs. Rose, tall, prematurely gray and very executive. “This being the first meeting of the term,” she said, “there are no minutes to be read, so we’ll get to the committee work reports. What about the transportation problem, Mr. Baer?”

The man who got up was old. More than sixty; Harry wondered what it was like to have your life crowned with a late retarded child. He wore all the trappings of success—a four hundred dollar suit, an electronic wristwatch, a large gold fraternal ring. In a slight German accent he said, “I was to the district school board and they are not cooperating. My lawyer looked it up and the trouble is all one word. What the law says, the school board may, that is the word, may, reimburse parents of handicapped children for transportation to private schools. Not shall, you understand, but may. They were very frank with me. They said they just didn’t want to spend the money. They have the impression we’re all rich people here.”

Slight sour laughter around the room.

“So my lawyer made an appointment, and we appeared before the full board and presented the case—we don’t care, reimbursement, a school bus, anything so we can relieve the transportation burden a little. The answer was no.” He shrugged and remained standing, looking at Mrs. Rose, who said:

“Thank you, Mr. Baer. Does anybody have any suggestions?”

A woman said angrily, “Put some heat on them. We’re all voters!”

A man said, “Publicity, that’s right. The principle is perfectly clear in the law, one taxpayer’s child is supposed to get the same service as another taxpayer’s child. We should write letters to the papers.”

Mr. Baer said, “Wait a minute. Letters, I don’t think mean anything, but I’ve got a public relations firm. I’ll tell them to take a little time off my food specialties and use it for the school. They can use their own know-how, how to do it. They’re the experts.”

This was moved, seconded, and passed, while Murray Logan whispered to Vladek, “He’s Marijane Garlic Mayonnaise. He had a twelve-year-old girl in very bad shape that Mrs. Adler helped in her old private class. He bought this building for her, along with a couple of other parents.”

Harry Vladek was musing over how it felt to be a parent who could buy a building for a school that would help your child, while the committee reports continued. Some time later, to Harry’s dismay, the business turned to financing, and there was a vote to hold a fund-raising theater party for which each couple with a child in the school would have to sell “at least” five pairs of orchestra seats at sixty dollars a pair. Let’s get this straightened out now, he thought, and put up his hand.

“My name is Harry Vladek,” he said when he was recognized, “and I’m brand new here. In the school and in the county. I work for a big insurance company, and I was lucky enough to get a transfer here so my boy can go to the school. But I just don’t know anybody yet that I can sell tickets to for sixty dollars. That’s an awful lot of money for my kind of people.”

Mrs. Rose said, “It’s an awful lot of money for most of us. You can get rid of your tickets, though. We’ve got to. It doesn’t matter if you try a hundred people and ninety-five say no just as long as the others say yes.”

He sat down, already calculating. Well, Mr. Crine at the office. He was a bachelor and he did go to the theater. Maybe work up an officer raffle for another pair. Or two pairs. Then there was, let’s see, the real estate dealer who had sold them the house, the lawyer they’d used for the closing…

Well. It had been explained to him that the tuition, while decidedly not nominal, eighteen hundred dollars a year in fact, did not cover the cost per child. Somebody had to pay for the speech therapist, the dance therapist, the full-time psychologist, and the part-time psychiatrist, and all the others, and it might as well be Mr. Crine at the office. And the lawyer.

And half an hour later Mrs. Rose looked at the agenda, checked off an item and said, “That seems to be all for tonight. Mr. and Mrs. Perry brought us some very nice cookies, and we all know that Mrs. Howe’s coffee is out of this world. They’re in the beginners room, and we hope you’ll all stay to get acquainted. The meeting is adjourned.”

Harry and the Logans joined the polite surge to the beginners room, where Tommy spent his mornings. “There’s Miss Hackett,” said Celia Logan. That was the beginners’ teacher. She saw them and came over, smiling. Harry had seen her only in a tentlike smock, her armor against chocolate milk, finger paints, and sudden jets from the “water play” corner of the room. Without it she was handsomely middle-aged in a green pants suit.

“I’m glad you parents have met,” she said. “I wanted to tell you that your little boys are getting along nicely. They’re forming a sort of conspiracy against the others in the class. Vern snipes their toys and gives them to Tommy.”

“He does?” cried Logan.

“Yes, indeed. I think he’s beginning to relate. And, Mr. Vladek, Tommy’s taken his thumb out of his mouth for minutes at a time. At least half a dozen times this morning, without my saying a word.”

Harry said excitedly, “You know, I thought I noticed he was tapering off. I couldn’t be sure. You’re positive about that?”

“Absolutely,” she said. “And I bluffed him into drawing a face. He gave me that glare of his when the others were drawing, so I started to take the paper away. He grabbed it back and scribbled a kind of Picasso-ish face in one second flat. I wanted to save it for Mrs. Vladek and you, but Tommy got it and shredded it in that methodical way he has.”

“I wish I could have seen it,” said Vladek.

“There’ll be others. I can see the prospect of real improvement in your boys,” she said, including the Logans in her smile. “I have a private case afternoons that’s really tricky. A nine-year-old boy, like Tommy. He’s not bad except for one thing. He thinks Donald Duck is out to get him. His parents somehow managed to convince themselves for two years that he was kidding them, in spite of three broken TV picture tubes. Then they went to a psychiatrist and learned the score. Excuse me, I want to talk to Mrs. Adler.”

Logan shook his head and said, “I guess we could be worse off, Vladek. Vern giving something to another boy! How do you like that?”

“I like it,” his wife said radiantly.

“And did you hear about that other boy? Poor kid. When I hear about something like that… And then there was the Baer girl. I always think it’s worse when it’s a little girl because, you know, you worry with little girls that somebody will take advantage, but our boys’ll make out, Vladek. You heard what Miss Hackett said.”

Harry was suddenly impatient to get home to his wife. “I don’t think I’ll stay for coffee, or do they expect you to?”

“No, no, leave when you like.”

“I have a half-hour drive,” he said apologetically and went through the golden-oak doors, past the ugly but fireproof staircase, out onto the graveled parking lot. His real reason was that he wanted very much to get home before Margaret fell asleep so he could tell her about the thumb-sucking. Things were happening, definite things, after only a month. And Tommy drew a face. And Miss Hackett said…

He stopped in the middle of the lot. He had remembered about Dr. Nicholson, and besides, what was it, exactly, that Miss Hackett had said? Anything about a normal life? Not anything about a cure? “Real improvement,” she said, but improvement how far?

He lit a cigarette, turned, and plowed his way back through the parents to Mrs. Adler. “Mrs. Adler,” he said, “may I see you just for a moment?”

She came with him immediately out of earshot of the others. “Did you enjoy the meeting, Mr. Vladek?”

“Oh, sure. What I wanted to see you about is that I have to make a decision. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know who to go to. It would help a lot if you could tell me, well, what are Tommy’s chances?”

She waited a moment before she responded. “Are you considering committing him, Mr. Vladek?” she demanded.

“No; it’s not exactly that. It’s—well, what can you tell me, Mrs. Adler? I know a month isn’t much. But is he ever going to be like everybody else?”

He could see from her face that she had done this before and had hated it. She said patiently, ” ‘Everybody else,’ Mr. Vladek, includes some terrible people who just don’t happen, technically, to be handicapped. Our objective isn’t to make Tommy like ‘everybody else.’ It’s just to help him to become the best and most rewarding Tommy Vladek he can.”

“Yes, but what’s going to happen later on? I mean, if Margaret and I—if anything happens to us?”

She was suffering. “There is simply no way to know, Mr. Vladek,” she said gently. “I wouldn’t give up hope. But I can’t tell you to expect miracles.”

Margaret wasn’t asleep; she was waiting up for him, in the small living room of the small new house. “How was he?” Vladek asked, as each of them had asked the other on returning home for seven years.

She looked as though she had been crying, but she was calm enough. “Not too bad. I had to lie down with him to get him to go to bed. He took his gland gunk well, though. He licked the spoon.”

“That’s good,” he said and told her about the drawing of the face, about the conspiracy with little Vern Logan, about the thumb-sucking. He could see how pleased she was, but she only said, “Dr. Nicholson called again.”

“I told him not to bother you!”

“He didn’t bother me, Harry. He was very nice. I promised him you’d call him back.”

“It’s eleven o’clock, Margaret. I’ll call him in the morning.”

“No, I said tonight, no matter what time. He’s waiting, and he said to be sure and reverse the charges.”

“I wish I’d never answered the son of a bitch’s letter,” he burst out and then, apologetically, “Is there any coffee? I didn’t stay for it at the school.”

She had put the water on to boil when she heard the car whine into the driveway, and the instant coffee was already in the cup. She poured it and said, “You have to talk to him, Harry. He has to know tonight.”

“Know tonight! Know tonight,” he mimicked savagely. He scalded his lips on the coffee cup and said, “What do you want me to do, Margaret? How do I make a decision like this? Today I picked up the phone and called the company psychologist, and when his secretary answered, I said I had the wrong number. I didn’t know what to say to him.”

“I’m not trying to pressure you, Harry. But he has to know.”

Vladek put down the cup and lit his fiftieth cigarette of the day. The little dining room—it wasn’t that, it was a half breakfast alcove off the tiny kitchen, but they called it a dining room even to each other—was full of Tommy. The new paint on the wall where Tommy had peeled off the cups-and-spoons wallpaper. The Tommy-proof latch on the stove. The one odd aqua seat that didn’t match the others on the kitchen chairs, where Tommy had methodically gouged it with the handle of his spoon. He said, “I know what my mother would tell me, talk to the priest. Maybe I should. But we’ve never even been to Mass here.”

Margaret sat down and helped herself to one of his cigarettes. She was still a good-looking woman. She hadn’t gained a pound since Tommy was born, although she usually looked tired. She said, carefully and straightforwardly, “We agreed, Harry. You said you would talk to Mrs. Adler, and you’ve done that. We said if she didn’t think Tommy would ever straighten out we’d talk to Dr. Nicholson. I know it’s hard on you, and I know I’m not much help. But I don’t know what to do, and I have to let you decide.”

Harry looked at his wife, lovingly and hopelessly, and at that moment the phone rang. It was, of course, Dr. Nicholson.

“I haven’t made a decision,” said Harry Vladek at once. “You’re rushing me, Dr. Nicholson.”

The distant voice was calm and assured. “No, Mr. Vladek, it’s not me that’s rushing you. The other boy’s heart gave out an hour ago. That’s what’s rushing you.”

“You mean he’s dead?” cried Vladek.

“He’s on the heart-lung machine, Mr. Vladek. We can hold him for at least eighteen hours, maybe twenty-four. The brain is all right. We’re getting very good waves on the oscilloscope. The tissue match with your boy is satisfactory. Better than satisfactory. There’s a flight out of JFK at six fifteen in the morning, and I’ve reserved space for yourself, your wife, and Tommy. You’ll be met at the airport. You can be here by noon, so we have time. Only just time, Mr. Vladek. It’s up to you now.”

Vladek said furiously, “I can’t decide that! Don’t you understand? I don’t know how.”

“I do understand, Mr. Vladek,” said the distant voice and, strangely, Vladek thought, it seemed he did. “I have a suggestion. Would you like to come down anyhow? I think it might help you to see the other boy, and you can talk to his parents. They feel they owe you something even for going this far, and they want to thank you.”

“Oh, no!” cried Vladek.

The doctor went on, “All they want is for their boy to have a life. They don’t expect anything but that. They’ll give you custody of the child—your child, yours and theirs. He’s a very fine little boy, Mr. Vladek. Eight years old. Reads beautifully. Makes model airplanes. They let him ride his bike because he was sensible and reliable, and the accident wasn’t his fault. The truck came right up on the sidewalk and hit him.”

Harry was trembling. “That’s like giving me a bribe,” he said harshly. “That’s telling me I can trade Tommy in for somebody smarter and nicer.”

“I didn’t mean it that way, Mr. Vladek. I only wanted you to know the kind of a boy you can save.”

“You don’t even know the operation’s going to work!”

“No,” agreed the doctor. “Not positively. I can tell you that we’ve transplanted animals, including primates, and human cadavers, and one pair of terminal cases, but you’re right, we’ve never had a transplant into a well body. I’ve shown you all the records, Mr. Vladek. We went over them with your own doctor when we first talked about this possibility, five months ago. This is the first case since then when the match was close and there was a real hope for success, but you’re right, it’s still unproved.

Unless you help us prove it. For what it’s worth, I think it will work. But no one can be sure.”

Margaret had left the kitchen, but Vladek knew where she was from the scratchy click in the earpiece: in the bedroom, listening on the extension phone. He said at last, “I can’t say now, Dr. Nicholson. I’ll call you back in—in half an hour. I can’t do any more than that right now.”

“That’s a great deal, Mr. Vladek. I’ll be waiting right here for your call.”

Harry sat down and drank the rest of his coffee. You had to be an expert in a lot of things to get along, he was thinking. What did he know about brain transplants? In one way, a lot. He knew that the surgery part was supposed to be straightforward, but the tissue rejection was the problem, but Dr. Nicholson thought he had that licked. He knew that every doctor he had talked to, and he had now talked to seven of them, had agreed that medically it was probably sound enough, and that every one of them had carefully clammed up when he got the conversation around to whether it was right. It was his decision, not theirs, they all said, sometimes just by their silence. But who was he to decide?

Margaret appeared in the doorway. “Harry. Let’s go upstairs and look at Tommy.”

He said harshly, “Is that supposed to make it easier for me to murder my son?”

She said, “We talked that out, Harry, and we agreed it isn’t murder. Whatever it is. I only think that Tommy ought to be with us when we decide, even if he doesn’t know what we’re deciding.”

The two of them stood next to the outsize crib that held their son, looking in the night light at the long fair lashes against the chubby cheeks and the pouted lips around the thumb. Reading. Model airplanes. Riding a bike. Against a quick sketch of a face and the occasional, cherished, tempestuous, bruising flurry of kisses.

Vladek stayed there the full half hour and then, as he had promised, went back to the kitchen, picked up the phone and began to dial.