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Title: Peril of the Starmen
Author: Kris Neville
Release Date: September 13, 2021 [eBook #66293]
Language: English
Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PERIL OF THE STARMEN ***
Peril Of The Starmen
By Kris Neville
Their space ships landed near Washington, and
they met Earthmen with friendly smiles. It
was a great day--and quite possibly, our last!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
January 1954
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
"I called you three in," the Oligarch said, "because I have some very
important news."
Herb--he would later be assigned that name--was one of the three. He
hated the Oligarch, and he had no doubt that the Oligarch knew it.
"There are," the Oligarch said, "people on the planet. Unfortunately."
Dull rage and frustration and despair and helplessness bubbled up in
Herb. His face remained calm.
"We'll have to keep them from interfering with us," the Oligarch said.
Herb wanted to cry: Find another! Not this one! Not the only one we've
ever found with people on it!
But he said nothing. His anguished thoughts whirled like a dust
storm, handling and rejecting ideas like bits of paper. The remote
and inaccessible Scientists were beyond accounting. Perhaps only this
planet would serve. Perhaps there was insufficient time to locate
another of suitable mass. Perhaps.... But one could not know. One could
only submit to authority. The storm died away, and Herb acknowledged
bitter reality with helplessness. There even seemed a nightmare
inevitability about the selection.
"It would be dangerous to try to work secretly," the Oligarch said. "If
they were to discover us in the midst of planting the explosive, it
would be fatal. We'll go down and ask their permission."
No one protested.
"To that end," the Oligarch said, "I have selected you three competent,
trustworthy men. You will learn their language and when we land, lull
their natural suspicions. It will be your responsibility to see that we
blow up the planet on schedule."
The crush of the responsibility was terrifying. "I don't need to tell
you," the Oligarch said, "that you can't fail."
And it was true. Herb _believed_.
Unless the planet Earth were exploded, the ever-unstable Universe,
itself, would collapse. Already the binding force was dangerously
diminished. If new energy were not released within a month,
disintegration would begin. The Universe would alter and flow and
contract and after the collapse, slowly build itself into a new
form--that form itself containing the inherent stresses of change and
mutability. Only the arrival of starmen to space flight at the critical
time--only their continued vigilance--prevented disaster beyond
accounting for.
Herb _believed_.
CHAPTER II
Well inside the solar system the huge space ship plunged on, released
from the warp drive and slowly braking to establish an orbit around the
third planet.
Herb came up from the deep stupor of the drugs. He had been under their
influence for the last twenty hours while the sleep tapes hammered
information into his unconscious brain.
"All right," said Wezen, their private custodian, "time for exercise.
Two hours of work-outs, and then you eat."
Herb sat up and felt his head. It ached dully. "Give me a minute. Time
to think, Wezen. I'm--"
The other two starmen were also recovering.
"None of that! No time to think! Get up! Get up!"
Herb got reluctantly to his feet. Cold air washed over his nude body,
and he trembled. He wanted to return to sleep, not the drugged sleep
of the sleep tapes, but the genuine, untroubled sleep. Something
frightening and alien was taking place in his mind.
He looked around for a dream form. It was a subconscious response.
He realized with relief that it was not necessary to fill one in.
Technically, he had not been asleep.
The Oligarch came to witness the first awakening. "How goes it, Wezen?"
"Fine."
"I don't know," Herb said. "My mind, it's ... I can't think...."
One of the others said, "There's all kinds of information, but I
can't get at it. I ... can't ... get ... at ... it." He looked
around desperately. "Every time I try, something new comes up. It's
like a volcano. I can't control it. I think, the name of a river is
Mississi--and then I know that leaves are green, and...."
"The sun is 93 million miles away...."
"The day is divided into twenty-four equal periods of sixty minutes...."
"The largest ocean is the Pacific...."
"The Federal Government of the United States of America is composed of
three independent branches...."
They were all talking at once.
"It's awful. Not to be able to control...."
"Good, good," said the Oligarch. He was satisfied with the progress.
By the time they landed, they would be little more than mechanisms
designed to answer questions; they would not be able to think at all:
they would _respond_. Stimuli-response.
"Freedom," said the Oligarch.
"Is," Herb found himself saying, "is the basis of any government that
governs justly."
Wezen made a little intake of air that was loud in the shocked silence.
"I said that," Herb said unbelievingly.
"Excellent," said the Oligarch. "The proper reaction."
Wezen relaxed, but he was visibly shaken. He had _heard_ the heresy.
What might happen to him later, when this job was done?
"The indoctrination is beginning nicely." The Oligarch nodded. They
would be able to soothe suspicion and dispel fear when they arrived on
Earth. They would speak of love and assistance when the time came. "But
you still have much to learn."
"You have a lot of information about them," Herb said. "Their
history ... their.... You got it just in the last few days from their
radio and television shows? I don't see how...."
"We extrapolate; there are machines," the Oligarch said. He regarded
Herb narrowly. "I believe we better step up the pace." He was not going
to give Herb time to rest, to think, to understand, to correlate the
mind staggering mass of information he was receiving. "Let's hurry to
the recreation room for calisthenics."
In the corridor, Herb glanced around for microphones and saw he was in
an unwired stretch. He turned to the starman beside him. Their eyes
met. Identical information had been fed simultaneously to both of them.
"You heard what I said?"
"Yes."
"What kind of a place is this, this Earth?"
The other strained to think. "It's.... It's.... I don't believe it."
"All men are created equal," Herb said.
"And they hold these truths to be self evident...."
"Nor make any laws abridging...."
"Shhhhh!" the third starman whispered. "Microphones up here." They fell
silent.
* * * * *
The Oligarch went to his stateroom and ordered a meal. He had been
indoctrinated by the sleep tapes about Earth well over a Brionimanian
year previously. The tapes had been brought back by an extensive
scouting expedition composed solely of Oligarchs.
He found them a naive race. Weakness, of course, was their short
coming. As was often the case. He imagined his hand touching the lever
that would trigger the explosive. He saw, in imagination, the planet
fly asunder.
He had destroyed before. Five races had died beneath his hands. And
now--
Perhaps, he thought, I am growing old. Why is it I do not want to
destroy this race myself? Am I becoming weak?
He was angry with himself. Weakness! he thought. I'm acting like a
subject, he thought. _I'm an Oligarch._
Oligarch, he thought.
Five races, and now the sixth....
Where will it end? he thought.
_It will never end._
Slowly the smile came. We are supreme, he thought, the lords and
masters, and it will never end.
His scalp prickled with destiny.
Five races. He saw his hand reach out for the sixth.
He shuddered. Weeks ago he had reached his decision.
Bleakly he thought: I can't do it.
Perspiration crept down his spine. If a planet were not blown up, the
whole fabric of his society would collapse. Brionimar must never learn.
But Brionimar _would_ learn. Earth was on the verge of space flight.
Within a generation they would be listening for radio and television
extension-waves in hyperspace that would indicate the existence of
another civilization. In two generations they would be in the skies of
Brionimar. And then the subjects would see salvation: here (they would
reason) is another race capable of preserving the Universe. And there
would be no appeasing their blind and mindless wrath until the last
Oligarch was dismembered and bloodless.
His hand reached out and curled around an imaginary lever. It must be
done, he thought. But not by me. Not by me. Not this hand. He looked
down at his hands: white and immaculate and always clean. He washed
them frequently.
Someone else must pull the lever.
_I must leave a man behind at the bomb site to do it_, he thought.
Psychology was a science on Brionimar; and he was a scientist. There
was only one man he could be sure of out of all the crew. There were
several fanatics, but he distrusted them. There was one idealist who
would, of a psychological certainty, pull that lever and blow himself
up along with Earth in the belief that his action was necessary to
preserve the Universe.
Herb.
CHAPTER III
When the starmen came, they made headlines in the newspapers all over
the world.
They sat down on the east-west runway of the Washington National
Airport.
MEN FROM STARS LAND!
And shortly:
FIRST CONTACT REVEALS STARMEN HUMANOID!
GENERAL SAYS ARMY READY IF STARMEN MENACE!
EARTH WARNS VISITORS!
And on the heels of these:
UNEASINESS SPREADS!
STARMEN SAY PEACE THEIR MISSION!
NO INVASION, SAYS WILKERSON!
PEACE, SAY STARMEN!
And a few hours later:
CONGRESS TO MEET!
CONGRESS FORMS COMMITTEE: WILL REPORT FINDINGS TO AMERICAN PEOPLE!
STARMEN SAY PEACE BETWEEN WORLDS!
Fear and faith combined; courage and cowardice; hatred and optimism.
The great ground swell of popular approval was to come much later. At
first there was naked uncertainty. Could the starmen be trusted?
And suppose they could be trusted?
Suppose that.
What then?
What?
Many were afraid.
Bud Council, freshman senator from the state of Missouri, was one of
them. In the course of events he was to be assigned to the Committee
to investigate the starmen. A weak man, a fearful man, and as such, a
dangerous man....
CHAPTER IV
From his initial statement it was obvious that Bud sided with the group
determined to oppose all contact with the starmen. His reaction was
more frantic than most. He awoke at night from a soggy dream of terror.
_Let us alone_, he sobbed, trembling. _Let us alone._ The future, once
so secure, was now a veiled menace. _Go away_, he whispered into the
night, _let us alone. We don't want you. Go away._
He appeared sleepless for the first hearing. The three starmen filed
in. He hated them.
They testified.
Herb, in the witness stand, peered out at the swarm of white faces; his
head turned automatically from interrogator to interrogator.
"Our government is a modified democracy, much as your own, containing
strong safe guards for individual liberty and civil rights," Herb said.
One would need to look deeply into his eyes to detect the dullness and
the depersonalization that was the true index to the words.
His thoughts were fuzzy, floating upon the periphery of his immediate
existence. A detached part of himself seemed to observe and record
the proceedings without understanding them; there was a fever of
information inside of him.
"We believe in the mutual exchange of knowledge. As proof of our good
will, we will be glad to send in a team of scientists...." And later:
"Our aim is mutually profitable trade."
He rested. One of the starmen took the stand. The drone and whine of
voices lulled Herb. He wanted to relax, to sleep, to recover, to become
master of himself once again.
After a recess, he found himself once more on the stand. Senator
Rawlins, a thin, nervous mid-Westerner, began a line of inquiry. Herb
tested his fingers, feeling the comforting reality of the hard chair
arm. He explored the surface with childish wonder while his voice
responded and waited and responded. Dimly, persistently, doggedly,
stubbornly the ego, the self--that small spark of assertiveness and
awareness--struggled to arrange and order, to reason and make sense
of--to unify and master--the knowledge it possessed. The consistency
with which his spoken lies appealed to human prejudice should have
made him realize the extent to which the Oligarchy was experienced
in dealing with alien civilizations and the extent to which they had
prepared specifically to confront this one. But he was aware only of
the sound of his voice. The words fell away into some lost abyss of
confusion.
"But the theory behind this, now?" Senator Rawlins said.
"I'm sorry, sir. We are technicians aboard this expedition. We have
very little to do with the theoretical aspects. That's up to the
Scientists."
"Well, you are, sir, familiar with the idea that--we'll say--that light
has limited velocity?"
"Yes, sir, that is correct. It wouldn't make sense for it to have
infinite velocity, to be instantaneously everywhere." A tiny sense of
urgency formed in his mind.
"Are you familiar with the fact that the speed of light is a limiting
factor? Nothing in the natural Universe goes faster than light."
"I couldn't say, sir, I really don't know. At an extremely high speed
our space ship makes a, a _transition_, but ... I guess, sir, yes,
sir." The answers weren't coming now. The Oligarch had not dared permit
him scientific knowledge. There was a little vacuum where there should
be information.
"You'll pardon me, but aren't you unusually ignorant, for a technician,
about physical theory: about the action of gases that we were talking
about a moment ago--in fact, even about astronomy?"
Herb did not say that such pursuits were the exclusive prerogatives of
the Oligarchs. He did not say: I am inferior in mental capacity to an
Oligarch; I can never become a Scientist. That was not to be mentioned.
"I am a technician, sir."
Senator Rawlins shook his head and made a few notes.
There was fear somewhere inside of him. What more could he say?
Suppose ... suppose.... Had he answered wrong? It was as if his
knowledge were a river rushing his ego toward the great waterfall of
defeat, and he was powerless to control anything. He must not fail.
Must not, must not, must not fail.
The imminence of collapse made the very sky terrifying, to know that
this apparent order could crumble, and planets fly from suns, and suns
themselves spin blindly nowhere. Every word before the Committee was
vital. The whole wheeling order of existence turned upon it.
He felt the wood beneath his finger tips, smooth and cool and solid.
* * * * *
The second day of the open hearing, Norma flew down from Vermont to
reason with Bud.
Bud was gracious. Years in politics had taught him to mask his real
feelings; taught him so well that he was no longer at all sure what his
real feelings were.
The outbursts of anger and suppressed sadism he unleashed on those
closest to him always the morning after confused him and left him
feeling that the person of the previous day had been someone distinct
and separate from his genuine self.
"It's good to see you," he said. A warm, brotherly and artificial
love flattered his sense of rectitude. He considered her the baby of
the family. He remembered her as a gawky, frightened girl giving a
last long glance at the security of the living room before venturing
into the night of her first date. "I've been meaning to get up your
way." His hands signaled the extent of his confinement to Washington.
"There's so much to do, you can't imagine. I have to take work home
with me. I'm sometimes up half the night with it.... I've been hearing
about you. Very fine, Norma, very fine."
Norma was tense and uncomfortable and, Bud thought, a little over-awed
to be sitting across the desk from her own brother in the rebuilt
Senate Office Building.
She blinked nervously. "Frank will be in this afternoon."
"Yes. Yes?" A trace of petulance haunted Bud's voice. "Terribly busy
just now, but...." Hollow enthusiasm conquered. "That's just fine. I
can always find time to see Frank."
"He thinks it's important that he see you," Norma said.
"Has something happened?" Bud always sought ways to escape from the
anticipated responsibility of sharing a family crisis.
"We want to talk to you."
"I don't quite understand, Norma. What are you talking about?"
"These hearings, Bud."
Instantly the Senator felt the crush of the whole family arrayed
against him, and he wanted to snarl at her in shame and anger and
shout, "Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Leave me alone, for Chrissake!"
"They've got space flight. We can't even begin to guess what else
they've got. What does Senator Stilson do? And you're there on his
side, right with him!"
Bud puffed his cheeks and his skin grew hot and prickly. _It's none of
your damned business_, he thought viciously.
"They have space flight," she repeated doggedly. "Think what that would
mean to us."
"I haven't time to discuss it right now, Sis. We'll have to talk this
out later." He stood up, anger pounding in his temples.
She stood with him. "Tonight. You and I and Frank."
"I don't quite see how...." His voice was weary, and he let the
sentence hang short of blunt refusal.
"Tonight, Bud. We've got to see you tonight. He's flying in."
"Well ..." he sighed resignedly. "My place, then. I'll see you at, nine
o'clock there."
"That will be fine."
"Nine, then. I've got to rush. My place at nine."
"Goodby, Bud."
* * * * *
Less than an hour later flash bulbs popped from all corners of the room
as the starmen entered for their second session of questioning.
Chairman Stilson, in a peevishly thin voice, limited the photographers
to ten minutes and ruled against pictures during the questioning. After
nearly half an hour, the hearing got under way.
Herb was first on the stand. He continued in the same fashion as
yesterday. His answers were polite and informative. Senator Stilson's
attempt to get him to contradict himself proved unfruitful. Herb
surrendered the chair to one of the others and returned to his seat at
the long table reserved for the starmen.
The hearing droned on. He no longer listened. He wanted to sleep.
"Yes," said the starman who was testifying, "that is correct. One
of our main reasons for making this expedition is to offer you
technological information: space flight, medicine...."
"... eventually trade...."
"Initiate a cultural exchange at the first practical moment...."
Herb heard someone say: "But we have limited facilities on this
expedition. A larger one, with your permission, will be dispatched for
Earth within a year." He was not even sure whether it was he who was
speaking. "In the meantime, we would like permission to conduct certain
scientific tests on the surface.... A mineral analysis, sir, primarily.
But we are interested in geological evidence...."
"... whether or not," someone said, "the physical similarity of our two
races is due to parallel evolution or to a forgotten, prehistoric cycle
of colonization by a common ancestor...."
"... These tests can be completed within a few days...."
"In return, sir, we offer...."
"... We must leave within a week. We must have an answer before then."
They described their own planet and their own civilization. They made
an excellent impression.
When it was Bud's turn to question, he asked Herb: "How do we
know--here, you've learned the language, so much about us and all--how
do we know that this isn't a fabrication, a tissue of prevarications
you're telling the American people here today? We have to take
everything on faith. Now, you know so much about us, you have studied
us...."
"We have only a week ..." Herb replied.
* * * * *
They were waiting for Bud at nine o'clock. He was late.
"I'm sorry," Bud said. "Came as quickly as I could. I was at a secret
session.... But for a brother and sister, well, I just had to leave...."
"We appreciate it, Bud," Norma said.
"Drink, anybody?"
"No, thanks," Frank said.
Norma shook her head.
"Mind if I have one? I'm rather upset today--the hearings and all, the
meeting tonight...."
He went to his bar.
Frank was on the sofa. His gaunt, heavy boned body waited motionless.
His blunt fingered, surgeon's hands lay unmoving. His skin was tanned
from the Oklahoma sun. Norma sat stiffly erect in the overstuffed chair.
"I guess you know what we want to see you about," Frank said.
Bud poured carefully without looking around. "Norma said something
about the starmen. Terrifying thing, terrifying thing. You think
they'll really leave when we tell them to?"
"I don't see there's much we can do about it if they make up their
minds to stay," Frank said.
"Look, Bud," Norma said, "think how far ahead of us they are. They must
be friendly, they must be sincere in their offer to help us."
Bud shook his head. "My deep and sincere conviction on this is that
it's a matter of our pride and our independence and our freedom.
They're all at stake. I mean--" He waved helplessly. "You know how I
feel. I mean, my views are in all the papers, in the _Record_. With me
it's a matter of principle. I don't see how we can accept that sort of
offer. It's degrading."
"If we tell them to leave, to go away, to leave us alone, we've lost
the greatest opportunity in history." Norma insisted.
"Norma," Bud said. "You know how I feel about you. You know I'd do
anything in the world for either of you. Anything within my power. All
you need do is ask. Money, anything. But this ... this.... We're proud.
Mankind is proud." His heart swelled with the beauty of renunciation
and righteousness. "We're too proud, too independent, too _free_. I
would not be willing to sacrifice those great, eternal truths, those
historic principles that are the foundation of our way of life, that
have made America great: dignity, pride, self reliance...."
"I think they have about the same metabolism as humans," Frank
said. "Speaking as a medical man, I believe if they'd give us their
medical knowledge, we could conquer disease on Earth. And with their
technology--"
"We are a proud race," Bud said. "We must cling to that. That is more
precious than gold."
When Frank spoke, there was a mixture of contempt and terror in his
voice. "Bud, you're a monument to the basic anarchy of the American
people."
"_Frank!_" Norma cried.
"He is. If the people paid any attention to what they were doing, do
you think they'd elect a man like that?"
Bud's mind darted frantically. What was happening here? What was behind
this? Why was Frank, his own brother, out to get him? What sinister
motive--?
"You underestimate them, though," Frank said. "There's a little trickle
of maturity in this country. For every aberration like you it gains
a drop of experience and knowledge. The war is over. We've had our
emotional jag. We're about to go into one of our rational periods.
We're about to wake up to our responsibilities. Your day is passing. I
don't know if there's enough of you left to keep out the starmen. The
people are coming around. But--I--do--know--this. I know...."
"Stop!" Norma cried. "You don't understand Bud! You're trying to make
him into something dishonest and cynical!"
"I've watched him come up. I've watched him for years. I've seen all
the rotten deals he's pulled. I've seen him smear innocent people--ruin
their careers--and all not for patriotism but for himself. To advance
his career. Keep his name before the public. He doesn't care for
anything but Bud. Bud, and any means to the end that he moves up, gets
power--power for power's sake--power to create and destroy--power to
change and control. I've watched him: I know him. I'm talking the only
language he understands."
Bud was trembling. The sense of indignation, horror, and innocence was
blunted by the shallow dryness of his breathing.
"Frank! Stop this! You're out of your mind!"
"I'm going to see you defeated in the next election, Bud. I'm going to
dig up dirt, I'm going to find out who your mistresses are. I'm your
brother. I'm going to hound you, disgrace you, drive you from office.
You know me. You know I mean what I say. _You know I will do it._"
"What do you want? My, my God, Frank, what are you after?"
* * * * *
Frank's hands were shaking. His mouth worked nervously. "For once in
my life, for once in my life I've got something all-the-way decent to
fight for, and I mean to fight just as dirty as I have to get it. Bud,
you're coming over to my side on this starmen hearing. You're going to
vote for co-operation with them. Do you hear me? Do you hear what I
say?"
Bud, his eyes bulging with shock and disbelief, shook his head dumbly.
His own brother--this terror raging before him--impossible, his own
brother.... His heart pounded. His will was gone. "What do you want?"
he repeated dryly.
"I told you."
"I--I--I'll have to think. I--I--"
"No, you won't," Frank said. He stood before him now. "No, you won't."
Norma jumped between them. "Leave him alone!"
Bud snaked from behind her and fled to the bar. His unprotected back a
crawling mass of chill, he poured himself a drink. "You're ... you're
upset, Frank. You've been, been overworked." He drank the drink in a
feverish gulp. "Now ..." his voice fluttered nervously. "I'll forget
what you've said here tonight. I understand." His breathing was still
tight and frightened. "About the starmen. I haven't, I haven't really
given the matter too, too much ... attention. I still have an ... I was
just today thinking of...."
Frank started to speak.
"I can see both sides of the argument," Bud said rapidly. In the depth
of his stomach he lived with the cold knowledge that Frank would stoop
to anything--any lie, any distortion--to--defeat him. Frank could
defeat him. It wasn't as if Frank were a stranger. It wasn't as if Bud
had been in the Senate for years. No, he was a vulnerable freshman, and
unscrupulous politicians back home were already.... This was terrible.
All his dreams of the future trembled on his words. He was physically
afraid.
"Frank is upset!" Norma said frantically.
"Yes, yes," Bud murmured.
"Frank, you apologize! You hear me! Apologize!"
Frank and Bud found their eyes locked in a moment of silent
communication, and seeing victory in the dull defeat inside of Bud,
Frank said hoarsely, "I apologize, Bud. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have
said those things. I lost my head. I'm sorry."
They both knew it was no apology. The threat was still very much there.
CHAPTER V
The spider ships towered above the surrounding aircraft. Their
construction was utilitarian; their living quarters were cramped;
entrance was achieved from the ground by means of a retractable ladder
from the base platform.
The underbelly dome contained the cutting ray. It could strike
deep into the Earth, burning through shale and granite with equal
efficiency. The portable casing could be sunk almost simultaneously; it
would seem to contain the ray as a hose contains water. While like a
giant rig, the ship would poise on its triple legs above the operation.
As rapidly as the crew could section the casing, the drilling would
proceed.
The three ships would form a triangle. Like insects sending down
stingers they would, when the time came, lance three deep shafts into
the Earth. Then down the casings would plunge the identical charges.
Technicians could compute the point where the three shock waves would
meet. A fourth ray would enter the Earth to the proper depth; and
at that point would be buried the deadly atomic seed. At the proper
time, the charges would be detonated. And where their waves met, under
incredible heat and pressure, there the chain reaction would begin, to
explode, in an instant, the whole of the Earth.
The Oligarch summoned Herb. "You may sit at my table," he said.
Sleep ladened, Herb sank down across from the Oligarch.
"The necessity for rushing them into a hasty decision is unfortunate,"
the Oligarch said.
Herb sat hating. The words scarcely penetrated into his confused being.
The turmoil was worse than ever.
"... I have been studying the reports. Three members of the Committee,
as it stands now, oppose us. And listen...."
"Yes."
"They will be sure to try to end the hearings tomorrow."
"Yes," Herb repeated dully.
"It will go to the full Senate. We have requested a decision within a
week. That may not be sufficient time for the popular sentiment of the
country to crystallize in our favor. A few determined men may be able
to defeat us."
Herb felt a little shudder crawl along his mind. Then his thoughts
whirled away.
"It will be infinitely more difficult to win the crucial support of
Senators Klein, Stilson and Council after the Committee hearings end.
We must bring them to our side. They have become the focal point of
the opposition. We must prolong the Committee hearings until we have
convinced them. If we can convince them, the full Senate will go along.
We'll have ripped the heart out of the opposition."
Herb tried to concentrate on the reasoning. "Yes," he said.
"They will press for an immediate vote. They have known, even if they
don't realize it consciously, that the longer they delay, the surer
they are of being defeated."
"If we don't ... can't...."
_I don't know_, the Oligarch thought. _I don't know. Threats? Try to
plant the charges secretly?_ "We'll have to convince them. And we've
got to do it within a week--maybe a little more, a day or two more."
"What do we do? How? I mean, what do we tell them?" Herb's thoughts
were like fog. He wished he could go back to sleep.
The Oligarch knew he was wasting his time explaining to Herb. He wished
that he could go before the Committee, himself, but he dared not.
Automatic reactions were far more consistent and convincing than his
calculating deceit would be. _He_ could conceivably be caught in a lie.
Not Herb.
"I'll ... I'll try...."
The Oligarch analyzed Herb's potential. _Ten days. Ten days. If he
becomes unreliable, where shall I find another?_
"We have almost three weeks," Herb said. "We could give them fifteen or
sixteen days.... We could plant the charges in one day...."
"You may as well go back to sleep, Herb."
"Yes."
Herb stood up and stumbled away.
The Oligarch returned to his cabin, washed his hands, and went to his
desk.
He fumbled at the newspapers. He saw an editorial: "Council Makes
Starmen Hearing Political Football." The people were slowly coming
to the starmen's support, but how long, how long...? He saw another
headline: STARMEN POSSIBLE MENACE TO EARTH SOCIETY.
* * * * *
The first thing Herb did upon arising the morning of the third hearing
was to fill in his dream form. He had filled in thousands of them
during his life, and yet it was always a frightening experience.
A chill of the Unknown confronted him.
Watchful eyes were, in a way, reassuring; planted microphones could be
circumvented; spies could be recognized. But the dream form could not
be cheated.
What awful secrets did it reveal? Life and death hung in the balance.
Somehow they could tell from the fantasy fiction of a dream how you
felt about the reality around you: about the Oligarchy, about your job,
about your family.
And they could tell when you lied.
And if you said you didn't dream.
Everyone on Brionimar dreamed.
If they didn't like your dreams, they shot you....
Even into his numb and information filled mind, terror crept as his
pencil moved across the dream form.
He breakfasted in the messhall and then left for the hearing. As usual,
there was a group of humans standing outside the guard lines, marveling
at the three starships, standing upon spider legs, looking ready to
whirl skyward at any sign of hostility. Far above, the interstellar
ship waited in the coldness of space for the shuttle ships to complete
their mission and return.
There was an unexpected buzz in the Committee Room when Herb and his
two companions arrived.
An ugly television camera squatted across from the Chairman's desk.
Bud had changed his vote on televising the hearings.
Herb watched Bud cross to Senator Stilson. Until this morning the two
had seemed very friendly.
"Let's get together later," Bud was saying. "I'll explain my position.
I'm sure you'll understand."
Senator Stilson refused to acknowledge that Bud was there.
"Look, Eddy, boy, don't act like that. Listen, I was thinking this over
last night, and I think it's only right...."
"The Socialists have gotten to you, Bud. That's all there is to say."
Bud swallowed in shocked disbelief. "Oh, now...." More than anything
else in the world Bud wanted to refute this slander. Desperation
gripped him: _the socialists have gotten to you_! No! God damn you!
Take that back, you son of a bitch! His hands clenched.
He swallowed again, stiffly, with difficulty. Relax. For the love of
God, relax. "Oh, now...."
Senator Stilson walked away.
Bud sat down weakly. I'll show him, he thought. I'll.... I'll.... It
was frightening to have Senator Stilson call you a Socialist.
Bud tried not to think about Frank's face ... Frank's threats had
nothing to do with him changing his mind. A man can change his mind.
That he _had_ changed his mind seemed to Bud a measure of his honesty
and fairness. It was nothing less than that.
One of the other starmen whispered to Herb: "That one's changed sides."
Herb nodded. The Senators were beginning to respond to pressure from
their constituents. But even as the tension was sinking, even as
elation rose, a second emotion swept through him. It was not enough to
deceive those in this room. Now he must also lie to innocent watching
millions all over the planet. His fists clenched. He hated Bud.
Early in his testimony he noticed a girl in the audience. There was
something in her face that made his eyes return to it time after time.
Gradually he came to concentrate exclusively on her and try to explain
everything to her alone. He smiled uncertainly, and she smiled back
encouragement.
And Norma--this situation suddenly became immediate and personal to
her. She watched Herb, listening intently, wanting desperately to
communicate her encouragement to him and her belief in him.
* * * * *
Bud caught a taxi to attend the executive session of the hearings that
had been set for eight o'clock that evening. The starmen would not be
present.
Bud was ill at ease. "Hurry up, damn it!" he snapped at his driver.
Telegrams from all over the country had been pouring into his office.
They had awakened him to certain possibilities. His changed vote on
television had brought him unprecedented publicity, even from normally
hostile newspapers. He realized that the longer the hearings continued
the more familiar his name would become.
He was convinced by now that the majority of the people (even as
himself) were inclined to approve an agreement with the starmen.
Surely they weren't thinking of ending the hearings and taking the
matter to the full Senate? They wouldn't dare flush headlines down the
drain like that.
Would they?
He grumbled to himself. Of course they wouldn't. Here was a fulcrum, a
lever.... Look at the publicity.... After all, another Missourian had
made it from a Congressional Committee. Perhaps the starmen hearings
had really seized the imagination of the American people ... Harry S.
Truman had made it....
He experienced a moral awakening, a sharp clear call to duty that
transcended morality. All things changed. The world was suddenly
portentious and thrilling, and secret enemies lurked and unseen
disasters hovered.
His mind was humming with the exultation. He thought of himself dying
at the end of his ... sixth ... eighth ... tenth ... term of office. He
pictured the universal sorrow. He wanted to cry. They would mourn for
a year: for two years. They would build huge monuments to his memory.
Monuments bigger than any monuments ever built.
The taxi stopped.
Perhaps after forty years in office, he would be assassinated. The
public wrath....
"Here we are," the driver said.
Getting out, he knew that he would fight to see the hearings continued.
* * * * *
He was late. Already the other four Senators were seated. Bud nodded to
them and took his place. He put his brief case (it gave him a sense of
importance to carry one) on the table before him and unzipped it as if
to be ready to delve into its contents to document his every statement.
The atmosphere was tense. Bud looked from face to face. Senator
Stilson was granite hostility. Senator Gutenleigh avoided his eyes.
Senator Klein glared at him truculently.
"It was called for eight," Senator Stilson said icily.
"Good evening, gentlemen," he said. "Sorry I'm late."
"Good evening," Senator Rawlins said. "These gentlemen here," he
included everyone but Bud in his gesture, "intend to dispense with a
report and merely issue the Committee's recommendation. They've already
decided to close the hearings and present the matter to the Senate
tomorrow."
Bud was stunned. This was unbelievable. That meant ... that.... The
friends! Somehow they had gotten to Gutenleigh, the Senator from
Hawaii. Bud had counted on him--on the basis of his television vote--to
oppose Klein and Stilson. What outrageous, Un-American pressure had
been exerted to cause him to surrender?
"But ... but ... Senator Guten--"
"Has," Senator Stilson said in his thin, peevish tenor, "reconsidered."
Enmity and hostility flared silently from the Chairman. An almost
baffled look crossed his face as if the implications had finally
arrived in his consciousness: here was a Senator, Senator Council, a
member of--as he thought of it--his _team_, who had had the temerity to
transgress his leadership. One would expect opposition from a radical
like Rawlins. But from a Council...! He had always felt that Bud was
one of his. The insult was compounded by heresy.
"I feel," Senator Rawlins said, "that two questions require further
exploration: how is it that the starmen are so ignorant of basic
scientific principles; and for what reason do they insist that we reach
such a momentous decision in such a limited time? To ask the Senate to
vote now would force an honest man to perhaps a hasty decision. For
myself, until these points are clarified, I would be very reluctant to
reach any sort of an agreement with them. I want to ask this Committee
to reconsider its decision, and I hope the Honorable Senator from
Missouri will join with me, and that between us we can prevail upon the
other gentlemen."
A sincere democrat, he spoke with quiet desperation, "In order to
expect the people to choose wisely, we must be sure that they are given
an opportunity to receive all the pertinent facts."
Bud was howling inwardly with the fury of a thwarted child. Headlines
were flying away from him. His stand in the full Senate would command
only one one-hundredth of the attention it would receive here. He
arose, trembling with rage.
Shaking a quivering finger at Senator Stilson he cried, "You have
bribed Gutenleigh!"
Gutenleigh looked uncomfortable.
"What did they promise you, Sam?" he thundered, wondering wildly what
counter promises he could make.
Even Senator Stilson was shocked by Bud's violent outburst. Bud was
famous for his rabid thundering against subversives, but no one had
expected him to have the courage to open such hysterical fire on his
Senate colleagues. Senator Stilson said, "I resent your attitude, sir!"
"Gentlemen, Gentlemen," Senator Rawlins said. "A little moderation,
please."
"I'm for them, damn you!" Bud cried. "You're all in a conspiracy--a
filthy conspiracy--against me!"
"If you don't sit down, I will summon an officer and have you removed
bodily from this Chamber," Senator Stilson said.
They were all looking at Bud. With a great display of reluctance, he
sank to his seat. He refused to look at Senator Stilson. He sulked and
plotted revenge. And remembered Frank and hated everybody.
The vote proceeded routinely. Three members voted to recommend that the
Senate reject the starmen's offer. Senator Rawlins abstained, and Bud
voted that the Senate accept it.
The committee meeting broke up. Senators Klein and Stilson went out to
gather up opposition Senators. They lobbied far into the night.
Nor was Bud to be outdone.
CHAPTER VI
The three spider ships waited in the late evening darkness. Only a few
spectators loitered. The television cameras were quiet. Army sentries
patroled the area to keep the starmen inside and the curious out.
Norma's heels clicked sharply on the runway as she approached. At the
ropes she stopped and showed the guard the entry permit her brother had
obtained for her.
"Come under," the guard said, lifting the rope.
"The one called Herb?"
"He's in that one over there."
She moved in the indicated direction. A moment before, the night had
been warm. Now an uncomfortably chill breeze whispered around her as
she moved into the starship's shadow. The thought of the distance it
had come, the countless millions of miles of space its hull had shed,
was enough to dwarf her into less than insignificance. She wanted to
run back to the guard, and to the protection of the familiar.
The ladder was down, and when she reached it, the door above opened and
a starman looked out.
"I'd like to come up."
The starman went away. In a moment, he was back with one of the three
who could speak English.
"I'd like to come up," Norma repeated.
"We've already given the official tour for today."
"I have an authorization from our government. I'd like to talk to Herb.
You tell him I'm from Senator Council. It's about the report."
"Just a moment." He disappeared inside. Norma teetered nervously back
and forth. Wonderingly she put out her hand to touch the hard, icy
metal of the ladder.
"Come up."
She began to climb toward the opening. Looking behind her, she saw
Washington, real and solid and reassuring.
The starman at the top helped her inside.
Herb was coming down the narrow corridor. She smiled at him. "Hello."
"Hello...."
"I want to talk to you a moment."
He gestured her inside.
In the first room off the main corridor, Herb stopped. Several starmen
hovered nearby to listen.
"Can I talk to you for just a couple of seconds alone?"
"Why--why, yes, I guess." He looked around for permission.
The Oligarch, towering imperiously on the fringe of the group, said,
"Why don't you interview her in my office, Herb?"
"Come along," Herb said.
In contrast to the Spartan plainness of the rest of the ship, the
Oligarch's office was richly furnished. Its private corridor led past
the messhall and opened upon the main corridor that led forward to the
second level: it was strategically located; from its doorway, one could
interdict entrance and escape.
It was the first time Herb had been in the room. Automatically his eyes
searched the walls.
"Senator Council asked me to talk to you," Norma said. "He wants you
to understand about the report. You've heard? It's going to the full
Senate tomorrow. We'd like you to...."
"I'm only a technician, Miss."
"My name is Norma."
"Norma." His emotions were tangled beyond solution. He wanted to say,
'I'll stay behind when the others leave, will that make everything all
right, you won't blame me, you won't blame me for it if I stay behind,
will you?' His mind hurt with the confusion.
"We thought, if you'd go away, if the people thought we'd actually lost
you...."
"It's not for me to make any kind of decision. I'll have to ask. Would
that be all right, sir?"
Norma blinked. She did not understand to whom the question was
addressed. Her eyes followed his to the wall, a concealed microphone?
She felt a little prickle of fear.
The Oligarch stood in the doorway behind her. "That will be agreeable
with us."
She whirled guiltily.
"Bud wanted to, to see Herb tonight...." Norma felt resentment against
this man in the doorway. "I was told to bring Herb."
"I will be able to speak for my government."
"I was told to bring Herb," Norma said stubbornly. Bud had not
specified, but she told herself that she would not yield to a stranger.
She did not consider Herb a stranger. "Isn't it all right to take him?"
"He may come, too, if you wish." He smiled. "Whatever you wish."
His voice was not reassuring. "Thank you." She modified her tone. Some
of the iciness went out of it. "I'll leave now. Bud will send two
C.I.D. men over for you."
* * * * *
Sitting at his desk in his Georgetown apartment, Bud looked through a
stack of letters.
Norma, waiting, tried to become interested in a _Saturday Evening Post_
story and failed. She put the magazine aside.
The knock they were waiting for came.
Bud rose and crossed quickly to the door.
"Ah, hello," he said with a genial smile. "If you gentlemen will wait
downstairs, I'll call you when they are ready to leave." The C.I.D. men
withdrew. "Hello, young fellow. Herb, I believe? And?"
"George.... How would George be?"
"George," the Senator said, pumping the Oligarch's hand and drawing him
across the threshold. "I like your people's way of using first names.
Very democratic. Just call me Bud."
They arranged themselves around the room.
"I don't suppose you'd care for a drink?"
"I'd be delighted," George said.
Bud, solemn faced, mixed the drinks, talking over his shoulder. "I hope
you haven't taken our Committee report as a rejection of your generous
offer.... You understand? I want to explain my position--what we, you
and I, can do.... There we are." He turned from his labors and handed
the drinks around.
"Norma, Herb. I wonder if you'd mind if George and I stepped in there?"
"It's all right with us," Norma said.
Bud and the Oligarch went into the study. Bud closed the door.
"Now," he said. Ambition was a sickness in him. _This is the boy I've
got to sell_, he thought. That's all I've got to do: sell him. Once
he's sold, the rest will follow. Ambition was like a hunger, and
success hung in the air like smoke. "We can have a nice, private talk.
I'm sure you'll appreciate my rather delicate position."
George swirled ice and smiled.
"Norma tells me you can speak for your government?"
George nodded.
"Let's sit down."
"Thank you."
"Now here's the way I feel about it. I'm on your team. We're both on
the same team. I want to help you all I can, and I know you'll want to
help me."
George nodded.
"I was thinking: if you would leave. Not tell anybody. Leave tonight. I
don't mean for good, but make it look that way. You see?"
"Our leaving would serve as an emotional shock?"
"Yes, exactly. Your leaving might be just what the people need to
wake them up and get them on our team. I don't need to tell you that
the Senate is likely to reject your offer. I mean, right now. The
way things stand now. My first mail is coming in. It's predominantly
unfavorable. But some telegrams I've gotten, I think the people are
coming around. But they're still not around yet. We need a couple of
weeks. My idea is, I'd like to be the one that--more or less--handles
it."
"You want us to work through you?"
"You have put your finger on it, George. If there's just one Earthman
you can trust and work through, who knows the ropes...."
"I believe I understand."
"And when you come back, you make it plain that it was Bud Council
who brought you back--it was Bud Council who really convinced you to
return."
"You and I," George said, "will probably be able to work out a deal."
Jubilation rang in Bud's ears. This was it. The talk of working out a
deal was an assurance of victory. President Bud--no, perhaps it would
be better, more dignified, to be President _Phil_. He would write it
out and see which looked best: President Philip Council or President
Bud Council.... History lay heavily upon his thoughts.... For the first
time he actually felt at home with a starman.
"Perhaps you would do something for us?" George said.
Bud found himself looking deep into George's eyes. Instinctively he
knew that George knew him better than he knew himself, and that George
had carefully studied him according to no one could tell what alien
science.
"Why, why, yes, yes, of course."
"Well," George said, rising and going to Bud and dropping a hand across
his shoulder, "just to be sure that you really are on our team, perhaps
you could give us a little token of loyalty."
Bud grew cold in anticipation. But the crowds cheering and the banners
waving.... No! Not now, they couldn't snatch it away now! What was
it George wanted? Money? A signed agreement? Patronage? "Why, yes,
naturally."
George's hand tightened in friendly reassurance. He knew that he had
found his man. "Your brother's head. I believe his name is Frank. His
head. We'll expect you to have it for us when we return in two weeks.
Two weeks from tomorrow."
He no longer needed to count on Herb.
CHAPTER VII
The starmen had vanished into the night that is deepest just before
dawn, when the sky is black and most mysterious. They had ordered the
guards away, their lifts had whirled, they rose, and far above the
Earth there were ruby tongues of jets and the volcanic roar of power.
The airport lay desolate.
... In his ship, Herb could not sleep. He kept reviewing the time he
had spent alone with Norma. It was difficult to remember clearly. What
few things he could remember would, he was afraid, be lost forever in
the jungle of confusion that was his mind unless he went over them
again and again and planted them firmly and deeply into his being.
What an alien and lovely name, Norma. Something about her was so quiet
and reassuring. He wanted to bury his head against her breasts and
whisper, "I wish I could save your planet, but I can't." He had wanted
to confess to her, but he could not. If she had discovered.... But now,
in the darkness, on the narrow cot, he thought about her and buried his
head against her soft breasts, and he smelled the cool darkness of the
perfume, and he spoke to her and told her the truth, and she understood
his hurt and knew the necessity and forgave him....
* * * * *
The trouble began one week after the take off. The Oligarch read well
the signals of its arrival, but he did nothing. A scene would be bad
for the crew's morale. He thought it would be a tonic to his own. It
would prove the validity of his conclusion: that the indoctrinated
starman called Leslie would crack up on the seventh day.
It happened, as he imagined it would, shortly after Leslie had filled
out his dream form.
It was in the messhall.
Without warning Leslie kicked over his chair. His face twisted. His
hands whitened at the knuckles. There was an insane expression in his
eyes. He looked slowly around the table.
With his first movement there came silence; it was instantaneous; it
was as though the clock had stopped in a parlor of corpses. No one
moved.
He screamed a great, searing curse. The word was English.
The crew waited. No one breathed.
Leslie began to break things with mounting fury. He shattered his plate
by slamming it savagely to the table. He threw his cup against the far
wall.
They waited. Many of them cried inward encouragement to insanity.
"Lies!" he screamed in English. "Lies! _There is no Universe!_"
He fell to his hands and knees and growled and snapped like an animal.
The Oligarch felt his detachment shatter. Hurriedly he left his table
and went to Leslie and killed him.
Breathing with difficulty, he arose and addressed the crew. "This
is what happens to a man who lies on his dream form." They rustled
uneasily. "Go back to your meal."
One by one they resumed eating. Slowly conversation grew and expanded
from whispers to abnormal loudness and then back to whispers again.
The ubiquitous microphones peered up eagerly from the tables, and the
hungry record tapes consumed the sounds.
The food lodged in Herb's throat. There seemed no moisture anywhere in
his body. He fought down an irrational impulse to get to his own feet
and scream forever.
Once again at his private table, the Oligarch was amazed to find that
the complete justification of his own logic left him feeling empty and
unsatisfied and disappointed. The matter was behind him. In the future
could he expect equal success? Insatiable doubt grew.
He stood up. The compulsion to wash his hands was irresistible. He left
the mess hall hurriedly.
As he watched the cool cleanness of the water flow over his hands, he
felt at peace.
He was a god, playing with men, knowing them as they would never know
themselves, seeing into their inmost souls, moving them to his will.
He was tempted to greater accomplishment. Could he--could he--? Unsure
of himself, he was doomed to seek endless reassurance.
Herb. Now Herb. There was a dangerous man. At least, he would become
one, in another three days. It would be like playing with fire to play
with Herb. It would be exciting, too.
He dried his hands. His heart was beating faster.
Herb would soon begin to doubt. William was already doubting. He
should have done something about them both before now. About Leslie
before now....
I will see that Herb ... that Herb ... what?
His mouth was dry. Excitement swelled and made his breath catch. His
throat ached.
He would help William to doubt. None of them must return to Brionimar.
It was intensely rewarding to play God, if you could get your hands
clean.
The Oligarch rang the buzzer. He would leave the mike tapes and the
dream forms until this afternoon.
He would interview William now.
He was washing his hands when William entered.
* * * * *
After the interview, William came in and sat on Herb's cot.
In recent days, their common knowledge had drawn them together; before,
they had scarcely spoken. Whenever they talked now, they used English,
partly as a recognition of their kindred uniqueness, partly as a futile
subconscious attempt to outwit the spy tapes.
"It's a ridiculous planet," Herb said.
"Yes, a ridiculous planet," William agreed.
"Freedom," Herb said. "That is nonsense."
"Equality," William said. "Equality. They are down right silly."
"You wouldn't think a place like that could exist, a silly place like
that, where a man can actually say whatever silly idea pops into his
mind."
"Yes," William said. "They should be destroyed--even if it wasn't
necessary, they should be destroyed."
Herb was silent for a moment. The microphones listened. Then: "Imagine
how awful it would be to live down there, with no one to do your
thinking for you."
"The natural leaders aren't even recognized. You can't tell an Oligarch
from a Subject."
"I'd never like to live in a place like that," Herb said. _I dreamed of
it_, he wanted to say, _and I dreamed that Brionimar had been changed
into Earth, and there was no Oligarchy, and a man was free._ "It's like
a nightmare," he said.
They fell silent.
William wanted to say: _If only we could take that dream back with us,
if only our people could see._
"Yes," Herb said suddenly. "God, yes, yes."
"Eh?"
"... nothing."
"_He_ called me in today," William said.
"Oh?"
"We talked."
"What did you talk about?"
"Not much ... I don't see what he was trying to get at." William stood
up. He looked at the microphone. He felt courage grow in him. "I've
been ... _thinking_...."
Herb nodded. He dared not speak.
"You know what I mean?"
Herb nodded.
"We'll talk later."
* * * * *
After the fourth daily meal, William came once more. He took Herb's arm
and gestured with his head that Herb should follow. Herb arose; his
heart stood wildly beating in the cage of his chest; his blood ran with
conspiracy and excitement.
They walked down the corridor until they were in a section free of
microphones. It was, although they did not know it, intentionally
unwired. It provided the crew a harmless escape valve for their
emotions. It was not (as any Oligarch could have told you) necessary
to watch a Subject all the time. Most of the spy tapes, as a matter of
fact, were never even inspected.
William was sweating. Herb could not account for the intensity of
emotional strain he seemed to be under. Herb imagined they would talk
briefly--and plan vaguely--about ways to carry some of the idea and
the feel of freedom back to Brionimar. They would bear a message of
hope, they would tell that Earth had not been destroyed in vain, that
a civilization could function in freedom without chaos. And perhaps,
someday, not in their time, but someday....
"It's not perfect," Herb said. "We dream of perfection, do you
understand, but even Earth is not perfect. I think we ought to remember
that. I can feel it, I can tell it. I.... We want to take that back
with us, too."
William was scarcely listening. His muscles were tense and crawling
with danger. He had to speak, to confide, to know that he was not
alone. To have Herb help him. Herb, too, must know.
"Listen," he hissed. "You know what I meant when I said I've been
thinking?"
"Yes," Herb said. "So have I."
William licked his lips. His heart seemed to stop. He took a deep
breath.
"_How can we stop him from blowing it up?_"
The Universe wheeled. Herb could not believe what he had heard. A
Destructionist!
"_He_ dropped some hints, he didn't mean to, but he did," William
said. "I finally realized. You must have known longer than I have. It's
all a lie. He as good as told me so."
Herb took half a step backward. His skin crawled with horror.
William, oblivious to everything but his own words, said, "We've got to
stop and plan carefully. I will kill him myself, and then you get to
the control room.... We'll have to hold the crew off. They might not
believe us. Not at first. That will be the big trouble...."
Herb continued to back away. All the training of a lifetime surged into
his mind. There is scarcely a way to express the detestation a starman,
properly conditioned, felt toward a Destructionist. His reason was
destroyed. He wanted to leap at William and tear at his face with his
naked hands.
I've got to warn _him_! Herb thought.
He turned and ran. The Oligarch! I've got to warn him! Breath sobbed in
his throat.
William watched the fleeing figure. He reached out a hand to stay
him. He could not believe his own miscalculation. He stood, limp and
defeated. There was no will left in him. Bleak betrayal was a heavy
winged vampire.
There was no place to go.
He sat down.
It was all very logical for the first time in his life. Some where
in time the Oligarchy had invented the menace as a device to gain
(or to retain) power. They had saturated the people with ignorance,
ridiculed thought, and eliminated freedom until the menace could not be
challenged. They had established a closed and consistent system that
could justify anything. And now that he had gotten outside, stepped
beyond it, by denying its ultimate premise, the immensity of the fraud
was mind staggering. There was no combating it as long as one lived
inside. There have, he thought, been other Earths. Nothing outside the
system must be permitted to intrude.
He put his head in his arms and began to cry.
That was how they found him when they came to kill him.
* * * * *
Herb did not watch the kill. He went straight to his cot and lay down
and waited for the news to come. He heard the rustle of voices in the
corridor as the hunt was being organized.
He was still trembling with disgust: a Destructionist! The very word
sent a shudder through his body. To think that William, of them all,
that William, would have been one seemed impossible. Still, you could
never tell. A neighbor, a friend.... You could never tell who might be.
How could they think? What sort of creatures could they be? Herb's
imagination shrank from the task. It was one thing to hate the
Oligarchy, but it was quite another to favor the end of the Universe.
The rustle of voices diminished. They were after him. They would get
him.
Herb thought: Perhaps with this one action I have saved the Universe.
When this becomes known on Brionimar, when it is learned how I, single
handed, exposed the menace, then they will....
_But suppose William was right?_
Never before had such a thought even fought for recognition, and now,
without warning, it erupted in naked completeness. It was an electric
shock.
No! he shrieked, _no!_
He was sitting erect. He was clammy with icy perspiration. His whole
body was suddenly silent and listening, every muscle and nerve strained
in the direction of the hunt.
He lay back.
No, he thought.
* * * * *
The next day the Oligarch called him in.
"I want to thank you again, Herb." He watched his words sink into
naked flesh. "If you had not told me, I would never have suspected. But
for you, he--he might have succeeded."
Herb refused to look into the Oligarch's face. I did right, he thought.
I did what I had to do, what anyone would have done.
"I know it has been a shock," the Oligarch said. "You were very fond of
William."
Herb's lips twisted silently.
"I want to tell you a story," the Oligarch said. "Listen, listen
carefully. It is about a man called Bud and what he did."
Herb was not listening; and then suddenly he was listening. The
Oligarch told the story, and when he was done, leaned forward, waiting.
It was as if Herb had just heard the most important story in the world.
"His brother's head," the Oligarch whispered, "he traded his brother's
head for power...."
There was something about the idea that reached deep into the ancient
folk shadows of Herb's mind and stood as a symbol. But he did not
understand about symbols: only their compulsive effects. All his rage
and frustration and guilt crystalized around Bud. If he could only see
Bud fall and gasp and die, he would have vindicated morality and done
all that he could do in the name and cause of justice.
"You may go," the Oligarch said. "Think about what I've told you."
CHAPTER VIII
Norma missed Herb. There was the glamor of the unknown about him and
the appeal of the familiar. He was two individuals, a little boy,
confused and puzzled and mute and needing her, and a man, strong and
wise and belonging to a strange world she could not enter as she had
entered all too easily the masculine world of Earth.
She was with Frank when Bud made his television announcement.
Bud beamed happily in the glare of uncounted millions of dollars of
publicity. "At my invitation," he said, "the starmen have consented to
return."
Frank winced to see what he thought to be a decent cause advancing the
personal fortunes of a fool, a hypocrite, and a coward.
Bud--it was a little difficult to imagine (without having heard it) how
he managed it--at the high point of his speech inserted a few remarks
about home, mother, and the virtues of honesty and hard work. He was,
he explained, a poor but honest man, holding certain principles dear to
his heart. He was at a loss to account for the fact that he had been
chosen to lead this great crusade for the starmen. "We can thank All
Mighty God that they have consented to return. _They will return._ I do
not believe there are enough Communists in the country today to prevent
it."
Frank shuddered to think what might happen now. Suppose Bud
should--God, no!--become President out of all this; suppose the people,
in gratitude, or the politicians seeking a popular hero, contrived his
election.
Frank felt that he might have erred in using bad means to gain good
ends. For Bud, hunting subversives, socialists, liberals, and critics,
could rapidly reduce the country to conformism and with native
ingenuity, pervert starscience into a political weapon.
The first radio message, on Earth frequency, to the President requested
that Bud be given the job of handling all negotiations. If, it said,
Senator Council finds it in his heart to accept the responsibility.
Many people did not understand the last.
Bud did.
* * * * *
The morning of the day the starmen returned, Norma came into Bud's
office. She was practically bursting with excitement. Thoughts of what
their knowledge would contribute to Earth, the marvelous advances in
medicine, in physics, in art that hovered just within reach....
On her way through the secretary's office, she passed a slight, nattily
dressed man wearing a hat.
For a puzzled second she furrowed her brow. Then memory came. He had
been investigated by the Senate Crime Committee. She bit her lip in
exasperation. Why would Bud be willing to see someone like that?
"Wasn't that--?" she demanded, bursting into Bud's office.
He got up with quick awkwardness. His face was bloodless. "Ohhhhhh," he
sighed. "I didn't expect--Hello, Sis."
"Wasn't that--?" she began again.
"It's, it's, it's, he, he...." Bud indicated the box on his desk. "From
an old friend."
"What's wrong? Don't you feel well, Bud?"
"Fine, fine," Bud said. "I feel fine.... I'm very busy just now."
Norma sat down. The box rested on the desk between them. Warily Bud
sank into his chair. She saw his face framed above the box, almost
as if the head were hanging suspended and bodiless, and she felt an
unaccountable tremor of superstitious fear.
"You poor dear," she said. "You've been worrying so much about the
starmen.... You're losing weight. Have Frank give you a checkup, Bud;
you ought to take things easier."
"... I will. I've been intending to.... I'll have him look me over.
Where is he; do you know where he is?"
"He went out last night. I expect him back any time."
He stood up. He was calmer now. He rested one hand on the box. "Yes, I
wouldn't worry. He'll show up. I am tired, terribly tired. You saw the
Secret Service men out there? They're out to kill me, Norma! _Senator
Stilson is hiring them!_"
Norma started to protest.
"I tell you, they are. If the Secret Service weren't out there to
protect me, I'd be dead right now. But God has given me a job to do. I
can't let them kill me until I have done His will."
"Bud, you're just overworked. Nobody's trying to do a thing like that.
Frank says it's just publicity, and I thought...."
"Ahhhhh," Bud said darkly. "Would the President have assigned me a body
guard if it weren't true? _Would he?_ There are extremists in this
country--Communists and Socialists--who stop at nothing to prevent the
starmen from coming back. Even Frank...."
Norma's face grew a shade paler. "But he's the one...."
"You can never tell! But I'll tell you this. I pray every night, Sis.
I get down on my knees, and I pray that God will let me live long
enough." Bud's mind suddenly flashed back to his childhood, and he
remembered praying that God would let him assassinate Stalin. God
needed only to arm him and transport him to the Kremlin. He could have
done the rest. He shook his head darkly again. "You don't understand
the dangers." He felt courageous. It took _guts_ to face the Communist
menace.
She wanted to run. She clenched her fists. This is Bud, your brother,
she thought. He's just upset. "I just wanted to see you for a moment,"
she said. "It wasn't about anything important."
Bud rubbed his hand caressingly over the box. "Yes?"
"I'll let you get back to work."
She stood up and started for the door.
"Don't worry about Frank!" Bud said sharply. "He's all right. Nothing's
happened to him."
Norma was gone.
Bud began to cry, and looking at the box, he whispered, "It's all your
fault. You made me do it. You did, _you made me_!"
CHAPTER IX
Herb knew, even before the spider ships touched ground, that he was
going to murder Bud.
The ships were motionless. Slowly suspense mounted. At last one ship
opened its port. The landing ladder spun away.
Down came the Oligarch, alone, dressed simply in a solid color double
breasted suit. A businessman's suit. There was something reassuring and
normal about him. There was initial silence, and then the cheer rose
and thundered.
He went directly to the platform. President Wilkerson advanced to meet
him. Their hands joined, and a pleasantry passed unheard beneath the
cheering. The Oligarch surveyed the welcoming party of Congressmen,
foreign diplomats, and government officials. He saw Bud. He crossed to
him.
The cheer became deafening.
They exchanged a few whispered words. Lip readers might have caught
the question and the assent. Then, smiling, they turned to the public.
Nodding, waving, Bud (visibly upset about something) tried to give the
impression of recognizing each face individually. The Oligarch bowed
his head modestly.
Herb watched from the port of the spider ship. He clenched his fists
angrily. If only he had a weapon of some sort.
The President spoke briefly.
Then, as the Oligarch moved toward the speaker's platform, Herb dropped
swiftly down the ladder. His feet touched the ground.
The Oligarch watched from the corner of his eye. Herb moved toward the
crowd. The crowd leaned forward to catch the Oligarch's every word.
And he was cleansed. He was free of all responsibility: it was now
between Herb and Bud. If Herb succeeded....
"Ladies and gentlemen," he began.
They were hushed.
"Thank you for your reception. I stand today before...." His voice
translated into a billion volts, blanketed the world with supersonic
vibrations made audible by millions of loudspeakers.
He needed pay no attention to his speech. His mind was floating free,
and his body was light and youthful. There were only a few more things
to be done, and then his role would be finished.
"On this momentous occasion," the Oligarch continued.
Herb was free of the worst of the crowd. He resisted an impulse to
run. He, too, was wearing a businessman's suit. It was the same one
he had worn for the hearings. In it, he was indistinguishable from an
Earthman. He pulled his hat lower over his face and pushed his way
outward. Faces turned, eyes alerted with curiosity, shoulders shrugged,
faces turned away. Herb did not know that Norma had seen him and was
now trying to fight her way free of humanity to follow him.
The Oligarch continued his speech. His grim and gloomy reflections
vanished. He peered out at the Earth faces with genuine benevolence.
_It's not in my hands any longer_, he wanted to tell them. _One of your
Senators will make the ultimate decision, unless one of my starmen
kills him first._
And then inwardly he chuckled. Or perhaps, he could have said, _my
starman will experience some incident, perhaps even a trivial one,
that will awaken him to the fact that the universe is not in danger.
In which event, he will not be able to convince you of the danger to
Earth. For in due time, I will announce his escape as a dangerous
lunatic._
* * * * *
Herb's feet moved rhythmically against the sidewalk. For one moment,
there was a sense of freedom and impending loss. No more dream forms,
his feet seemed to echo.
No
more
dream
forms....
And coloring it, the perception of the world around him, the bright
air, the hot sun, the colors and the gentle wind. Perhaps the colors
were most startling, for on Brionimar there was universal drabness that
approached decay. The Oligarchy struck out at all frivolity, sensing
danger to itself in all sensuous pleasure.
And then the beauty, the sheer, heart-stopping beauty of freedom and
color burst on him; his conditioning collapsed. Earth knowledge surged
across his memories.
It must not die, he thought, forgetting hatred in beauty. It must not,
because there is so much that is good, that is noble, that is sad and
mighty....
"Hello," Norma said breathlessly.
He whirled. For an instant he was terrified. He saw that she was alone.
He relaxed. Warmth grew within him. "Hello." Until now, it had not
occurred to him that he might have been followed.
"Why did you--?"
A radio was blaring somewhere, and as he looked at her, both of
them half laughing, they both heard the announcement that would be
headlined shortly in the papers, as:
RENEGADE STARMAN ESCAPES SHIP. FEAR INSANE, SAYS GEORGE.
EARTH AUTHORITIES ALERTED. (Full description of escapee on page two.)
THIS MAN IS ARMED AND DANGEROUS.
CHAPTER X
Herb hunched his shoulders as if to ward off a suspected blow. Norma's
eyes mirrored fright and uncertainty, and she moved half a step from
him.
Grasping her arm at the elbow, he said, "We have to get off the
streets."
Norma wanted to twist away from him and run.
"You've got to help me hide!" The pressure seemed threatening.
"Let me go!"
He dropped his hand instantly. "You've got to help me."
From the expression on his face, she knew that she had nothing to fear.
She felt ashamed of herself.
"We can go to my hotel," she said.
Once in the hotel, Herb's eyes darted around the four walls of the
living room.
"There are no microphones," Norma said.
They stood just inside the door. Norma turned and walked decisively to
the divan. She sat down. "I think you'd better explain."
"I ... I need some money," Herb said. "There's something I have to get."
"What is it?"
"I.... Please trust me, _please_," he said.
She hesitated; then: "How much do you need?"
"A ... hundred dollars. Could you let me have--loan me--that much?"
Norma knew he was not insane; there was something here that she did
not understand, but it was not insanity. Her emotions went out to
him. She saw the present situation only in personal terms, their own
relationship. She saw no wider implications. Intuition, she would have
called it. Decisively, she phoned for the bellboy and when he came,
gave him a check for the management to cash.
While they were waiting for the money, she said, "Won't you tell me--?"
"I can't. I can't. I wish I could. Please, if you'll--" he hesitated,
and then, with sickness and loathing, said, "trust me...."
The money came.
"I'll try to pay you back; make it up to you some way...."
"That's all right. Where are you going? What are you going to buy?"
Perhaps it was the desire to shock her, to destroy her faith in him,
perhaps and more probably, it was the need to confess (and hope for
absolution) that he said: "I want to buy a gun."
"Why do you want a gun?"
Herb, still standing, tried to memorize her face. He was acutely aware
of his isolation. He wanted to go to her side, to talk rapidly, to
reveal the cruel and horrible compulsion that was driving him--and most
of all, to enlist her aid and her understanding. He needed to know
that one single individual in the whole Universe could appreciate his
attempt to meet his own standard of truth and morality.
"Tell me. Maybe Bud will be able to help you out of your trouble....
He's my brother...."
The complexity of emotions that burst upon him was almost impossible to
understand. He had thought of her--if he had actually thought of the
connection at all--as an employee of Bud's, perhaps, but no more than
that. He asked incredulously: "Frank was your brother?"
"You mean ... is my brother?"
"Yes ... I, yes, of course."
"What did you mean: was my brother?" Uneasiness settled deep inside
her. "Has something happened to him?"
"No. No. It was a grammatical error." Herb thought the sentence too
stiff for credence. But she seemed reassured.
"I'll get Bud to help you. And Frank, too. Perhaps the three of us can
get you out of any trouble you're in. I'm sure the starmen will be
fair. If it's something you've done...."
"No! Don't talk to Bud! Don't tell him you've seen me. You mustn't!"
"Herb, you're being silly." She stood up. "You make it sound like I've
got something to be afraid of from my own brother."
Herb bit his lips in anguish and ran from the room.
Norma heard his feet on the carpet, running, running....
The empty room became a thing of terror. She was entangled in something
beyond her understanding, and the world seemed less secure than at any
time since her parents had died. Should she go after Herb, or...?
She started toward the telephone, stopped, turned away--and then turned
back.
She got the switchboard.
"Get me Senator Council's office.... Hello, oh, hello, John. Norma. Is
Bud in yet? Oh, still. Have him call me as soon as he--oh. All right.
I'll be over in an hour then. And John: have you heard anything from
Frank? I'm beginning to get worried about him. He isn't in yet...."
She hung up slowly, wondering if she had done the proper thing.
* * * * *
She was early for the appointment with Bud, and she was waiting in the
outer office when he came in. His two guards nodded recognition and Bud
said, "What is it, Norma?" His tone was irritable, and she wanted to
cry.
"Please, may I talk to you a minute?"
Bud shifted his weight nervously.
"_Please_, Bud!"
"Come on. I haven't got all day." Letting her enter the main office
before him, he said. "What's it about this time?"
He drew the door to his private office closed after them, and went to
his desk where he picked up a letter and pretended to read it. "Well?
Well?"
"I've talked to Herb."
Bud's face sagged. The letter began to tremble ever so slightly. Norma
did not notice. He did not look up. How much did Herb know? About
Frank? Did he know? "Yes?"
He felt weakness dissolve his arm muscles and dissolve the muscles of
his thighs and calves. He was afraid that he was about to suffer a
heart attack. He had difficulty breathing. "What--what did he have to
say?"
"He wanted me to buy a gun for him."
"What for? What for? What did he want a gun for?"
Norma twisted her hands nervously. "I don't know. He wouldn't say. He's
in trouble. I thought maybe we could help him."
"He didn't say anything else?" Bud demanded sharply, feeling the fear
fade. "He didn't tell you, he didn't say anything else?"
"No, just that he needed a gun--"
"Where is he now?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know? You don't know? He's trying to get a gun, and you
don't know where he is?"
"I--I--"
"No telling what kind of a crazy fool idea he's got. No telling what
kind of lies he'd tell about me!"
"He's in trouble, Bud. We ought to--"
"You listen to me! You do what I say! Don't pay any attention to
anything he says. If you see him again, you call me!"
"I think I'd better talk to Frank about it, Bud. Have you seen him?"
Bud was on his feet and around the desk. He grabbed her shoulders and
began to shake her. Her face drained of color. His nostrils flared
white.
"Bud! Bud! What's got into you?"
"Frank's all right!" Bud cried. "Now, get out, get out, GET OUT!" He
shoved her away from him. "Get out," he sobbed.
Half dazed, she backed away, opened the door, and disappeared.
Trembling, Bud sank into his chair. It was a long time before his
breathing returned to normal. He counted his pulse with intense
concentration, feeling it flutter like a wounded bird beneath his
finger tips.
CHAPTER XI
Herb had no real hope of eluding capture. After he fled from Norma, he
pulled his hat low over his face and hurried down the street. At the
first hotel, he entered and registered and was shown his room.
He fell on the bed; the room was fuzzy and dull. He wanted nothing more
than to sleep. His mind was such a searing agony of doubt that he had
to escape from it. He curled up warmly and nestled against the softness
of the mattress and closed his eyes, trying to drive all thought from
him, and he slept....
When he awoke, the room was heavy with darkness and silence, and he lay
still, trying to feel the vibration of the ship's motors. The memory of
a formless dream clung to his mind, and he tried to clarify it for the
dream form.
Awareness of his location came. He relaxed, wanted to sleep again,
thought: no more dream forms, no more.... Other memories stirred and
returned, and he was uneasily awake. He opened his eyes, growing tense.
He held his breath. The dark around him concealed unknown dangers. He
was still fully clothed, and he stood up. He found the light switch.
With the bright flame of electricity he became aware of how heavy his
head was; how incoherent his thoughts were; and there was a sour taste
in his mouth. He blinked his eyes. The room was reassuringly normal.
He went back to bed and lay down. His thoughts whirled. Beyond thought
there was a great, tugging emptiness in his stomach, a sense of despair
that seemed to dwell in every tiny muscle and radiate outward from
every tiny blood vessel. The light made him naked, and he could not
face his own nakedness.
He turned out the light and returned to the bed. The dark was
protective and reassuring now, and he closed his eyes.
Bit by bit the sense of unreality fled.
Dawn came.
* * * * *
The TV set sat squatly on the table across the room. Morning sunshine
fell brightly through the Venetian blinds. Herb turned on the set to
discover the latest news of his pursuit.
The screen lighted and on its surface formed the deadly trinity of the
starships. It was a long shot from a sound truck, and the camera panned
an expanse of desert beyond to focus briefly on the Arizona sunrise.
An announcer was commenting on the riot of color that was quite obvious
to the viewer: the flame of dawn in the sky and the blood red of the
prairie flowers that covered the desert.
Herb watched and listened.
The starships were in place. Their cutting beams lanced out, there were
puffs of destruction, and the tubings struck into the ground.
The camera near one of the ships observed the operation intently.
A scientist was commenting on the technology of the starmen.
"The information inherent in one of these ships alone," he said
(characteristically underestimating the pace of advancement), "would
be enough to thrust Earth a hundred years--in terms of scientific
knowledge--into the future."
A shudder spun through Herb's body. He paced the room restlessly.
Somewhere at a distance a clock struck the hour. Outside the open
window, English sparrows chattered shrill, imperative commands.
Herb was hungry. He phoned the desk and ordered breakfast. He was in
the bath room when the bellboy arrived; he called, "The money's on the
dresser." For fear of being recognized, he remained hidden until the
bellboy left.
He came out. The tray was on the night table. Eating, he continued to
watch the progress of the starships.
The voice of the Oligarch now came from the TV. He fabricated plausible
details about what they were discovering of Earth's early physical
history.
Sweaty faces advanced and receded from the cameras. The three tubes
continued into the Earth, going deeper by the minute.
A sense of urgency and desperation filled Herb. He must hurry to kill
Bud. By noon the desert operation would be completed. Earth would be a
mined planet. Destruction could then be accomplished by the flick of a
switch.
He looked at his face in the mirror. Black stubble pricked his skin in
a thousand places, and he ran his hand across his cheek. He shrugged
and found his hat.
Until sunset, he told himself, he would have until sunset to accomplish
his self-imposed assignment.
Bud, he thought (and revulsion mounted in him), is her brother, and
she, his sister; and Frank, Frank is dead and forgotten and hidden
somewhere, as soon will be now the Earth and all its beauty.
He was in the street. The sunshine was bright. He walked.
A gun, he thought, for a hand that is hungry for--and he thought: To
cup the hand behind Norma's head, and stroke her hair, and look deeply
into her eyes. He looked at his hands; strange, hungry hands, he
thought. He felt them tighten against the metallic iciness of a gun....
"You can't," the man behind the counter said, "buy a pistol without
a permit. You'll have to get a police permit before I can sell you a
gun." His eyes shifted uneasily from Herb's face, and Herb thanked the
man and started back toward the sunshine.
"Wait a minute!" the man said.
The harsh command froze Herb. He turned. He found himself looking into
reward-hungry eyes. The hand below them held an automatic. The hand was
trembling with greed.
"You're that starman," the proprietor said.
Herb caught his breath. He jerked to his left and spun around. He ran.
* * * * *
The harsh roar of the automatic burst behind him. The proprietor
had taken flight for an admission of identity; but perhaps latent
uncertainty had carried the bullet high. It smashed into the window
pane above Herb's head, and glass fragments erupted upon the pavement.
"Stop him! Stop him!" cried the proprietor as Herb fled.
The sunlight was bright. Herb bolted across an intersection, narrowly
missed being run down by a car, dodged around a heavy truck and ran to
the left.
There was no more shooting. There was a hub-hub behind him. A
policeman's whistle sounded.
Herb jerked around another corner. There was the sound of pursuit.
He ran a block, doubled back, entered a department store, lost himself
in the crowd, took the elevator up to the third floor.
He tried to look interested in the merchandise. Each second cost him
an extra heart beat. He left a counter and went to the stairs. He
became inconspicuously preoccupied with distant thoughts. He was once
more on the ground floor. He left the building by the opposite entrance.
He hailed a taxi. His heart beat desperately.
Once settled in the rear seat, he felt almost secure. The worst was
over. He told the driver, "Down town."
After a dozen blocks, he got out. When the cab was gone, he walked back
the way he had come. He found a hotel, registered, and was shown his
room.
He stood at the window. A police car cruised by. For a moment, he was
afraid it would stop.
_I must get a gun_, he thought. Time seemed to be falling swiftly in
the bright air.
_I must, I must._
He went to the television set and switched it on.
The starships were still occupying the screen. The sun was slanting its
rays across the desert.
An announcer spoke in a dryly excited voice.
Herb sat down, and when at length one starship lumbered into the
center of the triangle and its beam struck out, weariness and futility
possessed him. They were planting the atomic seed. Within an hour
there would be no hope of reprieve. There was none now; and yet it
seemed, doom was not irreversible until this last act was accomplished
and the seed in place.
Herb spun the selector. He did not want to witness the climactic moment.
What was the name of Norma's hotel?
He remembered.
He went to the telephone....
* * * * *
When Norma arrived in answer to the call, she found an unshaven Herb
nervously pacing the floor.
"Where have you been?" she asked breathlessly.
He seated himself on the bed and wrinkled the coverlet in his hands,
working with it furiously.
"They're going to blow up the world," he said.
"Who--What?"
"I helped them. It's my fault. I was a fool. I couldn't know, you see
that? I couldn't _know_...."
Norma was ashen.
Herb stood up and crossed to her side and looked down at her. "Out in
the desert, they have just finished planting the charge. That's what
they came here for. They're going to blow up the world."
"The starmen?"
"Yes."
Norma was on her feet. She was too terrified to ask why. She did not
question.... _It was true!_
"We've got to stop them!"
"We can't, it's too late," Herb said.
"Why not, why is it?"
"It's too late."
"We've got to stop them."
"It's too late. There's nothing we can do. Listen. Get me a gun. I want
to--"
He loomed wild-eyed above her. She didn't understand what he intended
to do: only that some impossible fury was driving him. "You've got to
help me stop them. There must be some way."
"Get me a gun! Get me a gun!" Every atom of his being cried out to her:
he had to have the gun. His thoughts were warped and twisted. With the
gun everything would be clear in his mind. Everything would follow step
by step. The gun could spout a great, purifying flame.
He was alone in the room. He looked down. She had dropped her purse,
and it had spilled open. He walked to the gun that had fallen from it.
* * * * *
Norma ran, wild and terrified. To whom could she turn?
Frank! Where was he?
Frank....
Bud?
No. No, not Bud. He--
There was no one else. Bud. Her breath was fire. He would have to do
something. Bud.
She hailed a cab.
"Bud!" she called as she opened the car door. "The Senate Office
Building! Hurry!" Bud, she sobbed under her breath. He can do something
to stop it.
* * * * *
Herb examined the gun carefully. He weighed it in his hand. It would do
nicely. He pocketed it.
He would need only an instant. A taxi from here to the Senator's
office. A trip in the elevator. Perhaps a slight wait: and then Senator
Council framed in the doorway. He had--how long? Several hours, he told
himself.
He touched the gun again. No hurry. No real hurry.
Several hours.
* * * * *
Norma was hysterical when she burst into Bud's office. One of Bud's
hands darted for the drawer where he had taken to keeping an automatic.
The hand stopped.
Norma's lips were trembling uncontrollably. "Bud!" she gasped. "_Bud,
they're planning to blow up the world!_"
"What are you talking about?" he demanded angrily. "What do you mean?"
"The starmen! I saw Herb. He told me. I had to come to you, Bud. You've
got to make them stop it!"
"Nonsense," Bud said. "You're out of your mind. You're crazy." He
surged to his feet. "Where is Herb? I told you to come see me if you
found him. Where is he?"
"It's true!" Norma cried. "I know it's true! They've been lying to us.
They spy on each other. They have hidden microphones everywhere. They
want to destroy the world, Bud! Oh, please, please, please, you've got
to believe me...."
Bud came toward her. She was insane, of course. It was astonishing how
many people were insane. Sometimes Bud thought he was the only sane
person left. "Now, now, you just tell me where Herb is, and I'll go
have a nice long talk with him." He pocketed the automatic.
"_You don't believe me._"
"Oh, I do. Dear, I do, of course, I do. They're going to blow up the
world.... I'd like to see Herb and talk it over with him." He made
soothing motions with his hands.
Bud's face, round and smiling and vacant, peered down. She wanted to
throw something at it. She wanted to launch herself upon him and shake
him and make him listen to her. He was a monolithic caricature of
stupidity. She had to force herself into his mind and make him _see_.
Bud came no closer to her. "Now, now, everything's going to be all
right," he said. "Now, now, brother's little sister is...." He took a
half step backward.
She was able to see him for the first time as Frank saw him. A little
sense of horror was born and began to grow. She stared at him with
slowly vanishing disbelief. How could someone like this be her brother?
He was some cold, unfeeling, insensitive thing, wrapped up in a world
that embraced no one but himself.
"What have you done to Frank?" she demanded. "Bud, _what have you done
to my brother_?"
Bud half snarled.
And the Oligarch stepped out of the little room to the left. "I think
it's about time I take over."
Norma felt her heart pulse and stop cold. Ice filled the air.
Bud said, staring at her with fascination, "She's going crazy, George."
Norma turned to the Oligarch. "What did you make him do to Frank?"
"Not here," Bud said softly. "Don't kill her yet. She knows where Herb
is."
Norma wanted to scream. She only half opened her mouth when the
Oligarch's hand slapped sharply against her neck. Her knees buckled and
she dropped unconscious to the heavy carpet.
"She knows where Herb is," Bud said again. "We've got to find him
before he tells someone--tells someone else about Frank."
"She was telling the truth," the Oligarch said. "We are going to blow
up the world. That's what I came back to Washington to tell you."
* * * * *
Herb arrived at the new Senate Office Building. He paid his fare and
dismissed the cab. No one noticed him as he entered the lobby. He took
the elevator to Senator Council's office. He was taking his time; he
had several hours.
The secretary, John, was behind his desk. The reception room was empty.
Herb felt his stomach muscles tighten, and his hands clenched the
pocketed gun tightly and grew damp.
"Yes?"
"I want to see the Senator."
"What is the nature of your business?"
"I want to talk about, about some private matters. I can wait until he
can see me." Herb felt the gun, heavy and reassuring.
"The Senator isn't in right now. Perhaps I can help you?"
"No," Herb said sharply. "My business is with him. It's just between
the two of us."
"He just left with his sister and George, the starman."
Herb bent forward intently. Time telescoped. An hour was no longer a
practical infinity. "Where did they go?"
"I don't know, sir."
To the spider ship, Herb thought. They came back to Washington. They
came back--to give Bud his reward for betrayal....
Herb was at the door. He almost tore it from the hinges when he jerked
it open.
John picked up his telephone and placed a call to the C.I.D. "The
starman, Herb," he said, "has just left Senator Council's office. You
can pick him up outside. If you hurry."
* * * * *
Bud dismissed his bodyguard, and he and George supported Norma between
them as they left the building by private elevator and subway to the
garage. Bud's face was grey, his lips bloodless.
The Oligarch had presented him with a choice. Tomorrow morning, some
high government official would receive in the mail Frank's head, along
with Bud's signed confession. If Bud did not, before then, speak the
key words that would blow up the planet. Bud, in the first stunned
instant, cried: "Take me with you!" But even as he spoke, he knew that
he was doomed. Knowledge did not prevent appeal, but it helped develop
resignation. Bud thrust out with entreaties and debased himself with
cowardly promises, and seeing them fail, tried threats which failed
equally. His mind splintered into a thousand shards and reality became
abstracted fragments of himself: the world ceased then to exist for
him, and he lived in a phantom land, and his ego seized upon icebergs
that drifted across the chill sea of thought.
He became noble.
Norma came to consciousness as the car, driven inexpertly by the
Senator, rolled toward the airport. Early afternoon sunlight slanted
down across the Capitol.
She lay very quiet in the back seat, listening to the hiss of the
tires. Her neck was swollen and throbbing. _Don't kill her yet_, her
own brother had said, and then, out of the silence of the car, came his
own voice again, contradicting what had gone before.
"Dearer to me than all gold," Bud said. "Child of my beloved mother."
"We will take her with us," the starman answered soothingly,
reassuringly.
"She's all that's left," Bud said.
Norma lay quiet, unmoving, not daring to open her eyes.
"You can't know what she means to me," Bud said. "You must tell her
that. You must promise to tell her."
"I will do it. I promise you."
Bud said intently, "You must promise, I must know."
"I promise."
"Nothing will happen to her? She's all I have left. All. Child of my
beloved mother."
Tension accumulated between Bud and the starman. Norma realized that
her brother was no longer sane.
The car slowed and stopped. Still Norma did not move. She was too
terrified. They came to her door and opened it.
George pulled her roughly from the seat. She moaned but she did
not open her eyes. His hard muscles against her were deadly and
threatening, and her knees were so weak that, had she wanted to, she
could not have supported herself.
She heard a starman's feet on the steel ladder that descended from the
spider ship. She felt herself scooped up and dropped over his shoulder.
In the background she heard her brother's voice, "Child of...." The
agony of the voice was almost unendurable. "You must tell her what I
did to save her."
And she was jolted harshly upon the starman's shoulder as he swung her
up the ladder.
George's feet clanged behind her on the steel, and she heard the sharp,
laboring hiss of the breath of the man carrying her.
They were at the port. They entered, and the starman dropped her
roughly to the floor, and George clanged the door.
"You attended to the other ships?" George asked in the alien tongue of
Brionimar.
"Yes," the starman said. "They will both explode shortly after takeoff."
"The others are all aboard? We are the only ones on this one?"
"Yes."
"Good. I will remember this. You have done a good day's work. You
follow instructions well. I won't forget."
"Thank you."
"Watch the girl. I'll give the signal to leave."
"What do we do with her?"
"Dump her out as soon as we hit open space."
George's feet went forward. It was over, he was done. The issue lay
between Bud and himself and between Bud and Herb, an exciting and
dangerous situation that held, in its solution, the Oligarch's (and the
Oligarchy's) fate: the fate of two worlds. The stakes were high. The
Oligarch, thinking how free he was of the final responsibility, went
first to wash the Earth germs from his contaminated hands.
Norma had not understood the conversation that muttered above her.
But her terror was replaced by a sense of desperation. She moaned and
opened her eyes.
The starman, looking down at her with a cold, impersonal gaze, grunted
something unintelligible.
Norma struggled to her feet. He made no move to prevent or assist her.
She steadied herself against the wall. Near her hand, in a clip holder,
was a short, steel fire extinguishing rod. When the starman drew back
his hand to hit her, she cringed away. Instinctively she found the
rod and jerked it loose. Before she was aware of the action with her
conscious mind, the starman sank to the floor, and the bar clattered
from her nerveless fingers.
Heart racing, she turned for the door. A moment later, she was outside,
clambering down the ladder.
* * * * *
There were no taxis in sight. A jeep, driven by a uniformed messenger,
drew to the curb. Herb, holding his breath, crossed to it. The driver
cut the motor and got out. When he disappeared in the building across
the street, Herb slipped behind the wheel. He was a technician. He
began to experiment. Recently acquired knowledge came to his aid.
After what seemed a timeless heat and an endless exposure, he had the
motor running.
The C.I.D. man, who had come over on the subway from the House, stepped
out into the sunshine. He surveyed the street with a practiced eye.
Herb spun the jeep away from the curb and sent it careening erratically
toward the airport. The C.I.D. man (fairly confident of his
identification of Herb) fired twice. Herb heard one of the bullets make
an explosive pop as it passed near his ear. He hunched over the wheel
and gunned the motor.
* * * * *
Norma stumbled from the ladder and started to run. The spider ships
loomed menacingly behind her. An army guard started forward to question
her, and a jeep leaped suddenly into sight from around the corner of
the Administration Building. A heart beat later the jeep skewed around
beside her, and Herb, his face twisted with hate and fury cried,
"Where's Bud?"
One of the spider ships behind them became airborne; and then a second
leaped away.
CHAPTER XII
George was at the controls of the ship. As his hand hovered at the
firing stud, he heard someone enter behind him. He turned.
It was the starman. His hair was matted with blood. There was a wild,
rebellious glint in his eyes. He snarled like an animal.
"She hit me!" he cried. And then he smashed a fist into George's face.
George went down and the starman stepped across him to the control
panel. His resentment had been accumulating for a life time. He had
just sabotaged two ships and sent his fellow starmen to death at the
orders of the Oligarch; and he must have known (even if he told himself
otherwise) that he, too, would not return to Brionimar: that alone of
all who had been on the surface of Earth, the Oligarch would survive.
But even in this knowledge, he had still remained loyal, caught like
Herb, like his whole civilization, by the specter of chaos and held
helpless. But now, thinking the destruction of Earth a certainty,
his resentment rechanneled, he was able to strike--even kill, if
necessary--the Oligarch in order to revenge himself upon the Earth girl
who had struck him.
He snapped on the scanner and searched the airport. He saw Norma climb
into the jeep. He sent the spider ship lumbering toward her. The jeep
began to run.
The spider legs moved faster, and the ship, like a drunk, lurched
awkwardly across the runway in pursuit. He was no pilot, but his hands
jerked levers and twisted wheels and the ship moved. He sighted the
underbelly heat ray.
Just as he depressed the firing lever, the ship stumbled across a
transport plane that lay passively interdicting its path. The ship
veered sharply to the left, throwing the sighting off target and
causing the ray to turn the ground molten short of the speeding car.
The starman struggled to right his vehicle.
George found his weapon. He was numb and horrified. _If Norma were
actually killed ... if Bud found out...!_
George moved his weapon slowly so as not to attract the starman's
attention. He was terribly, desperately frightened and unsure of
himself.
The starman reached again for the firing lever. George shot twice. The
starman's hand fluttered as if in indecision, and George shot again.
The starman fell backwards, and the ship shuddered to a stop.
George rolled to his feet. If Norma were not already dead, he must
recapture her.
* * * * *
The C.I.D. man arrived in time to see the fantastic sight of a red and
silver, tri-legged Leviathan from space stumbling after a surplus jeep.
He slammed his car to a halt before the army guard station and cried,
"Shoot him! Shoot him!" Demonstrating, he fired wildly in the direction
of the jeep. "C.I.D.!" he cried. "Shoot, damn it!"
Herb heard the sinister pop of the hand gun and, glancing out of the
corner of his eye, saw the rifles aligning themselves in his direction.
He huddled lower over the wheel and screamed to Norma, "Hold on!"
Norma was transfixed with terror. The huge spider ship seemed almost
upon them.
Herb was going too fast for the quick turn he attempted. The steering
wheel was wrenched from his hand, and the jeep, like a tripped animal,
twisted and threw itself to the ground and rolled over.
At the first bone shattering crash, Norma slammed into Herb, and his
head cracked the steering wheel solidly.
Far to the west, the sky flashed dull red as the first spider ship
exploded in flight. The sky flashed red again. Soldiers were running
toward the wreck when the first shock wave rolled in.
In giant strides, George brought his own ship to the overturned jeep.
It straddled the wreck like a defiant parent and seemed to challenge
the advancing soldiers. George hurried to the port.
He slammed the door back and cried, "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" The
outer ladder fell away at the touch of his hand, and a second later his
feet were hurrying down it.
Once on the ground, he was at the jeep in a heart beat. There was no
blood, but both figures were very still. "Help me!" he cried to the
arriving soldiers.
Two came forward, laid aside their guns, and together, with gentle
hands, lifted Norma and then Herb free of the wreckage.
When they were stretched out on the ground, George knelt. Perspiration
wetted his upper lip. He poised above Norma, seeking some sign of life,
and he was aware of Herb stirring uneasily to his rear. Norma's eyelids
fluttered, and a wave of relief and exultation enveloped George.
"She's all right," George said loudly. "Make sure the newspapers carry
that. The girl is all right."
"Who is she?"
"She's one of ours," the Oligarch said with nice possessiveness. Bud
would know better: that was all that mattered. He would know that the
girl was Norma and that the girl was safe. The delicate equation of his
decision was once more in balance. "Help me get them aboard the ship."
A small crowd was gathering, and an Army major pushed his way forward.
The C.I.D. man, over-awed by the Oligarch's presence, and uncertain of
what to do now, held back watching.
"What's this?" the major demanded. "What's this?"
George stood up. "It's our personal problem. This renegade--"
"Is he the one who escaped from you? The nutty one?"
"Yes," George said.
"What about your other two ships? They exploded. They just exploded."
Instantly the surrounding Earthmen rustled suspiciously.
"He--" George said.... "It was sabotage. He is responsible. Terrible.
Terrible. I'm stunned. We haven't any time to waste. I've got to
get this girl back to our big ship out there in space for medical
attention."
"We've sent for a doctor," the major said stiffly.
"We have doctors. For God's sake, man, help me get them aboard. There's
no time to stand here talking. We have advanced techniques, if I can
only get there in time, that may mean the difference between life and
death...."
The major hesitated. "All right. You two soldiers--take the girl up the
ladder."
"Herb, too," the Oligarch said. "If he survives, he will be tried."
The major grunted at two more soldiers.
* * * * *
George followed them up the ladder. He greeted the capture of Herb with
bitterness. The game was over; he had been denied the excitement of it
being played out. And yet there was relief: although he had once more
been thrust into a role of player, it was not of his own volition. The
conspiracy of events had released him from free choice. It was not his
fault that it was necessary to remove Herb prematurely from the arena.
He was uncomfortably aware that the major was following him.
Inside the ship, George directed the soldiers to put their burdens
in the first compartment to the left. Then he turned to the major.
"Your prompt action may well have saved her life." He was tense and
frightened. Now that he was sure it would be reported that a girl had
been returned to the ship and hurried to medical attention, it was of
paramount importance to get the soldiers and the major out of the ship.
If Norma were unexpectedly to recover and begin to talk, the major
might prove difficult to handle.
The crush of danger hung upon him. An instant, in which he wished to
surrender and confess, was transplanted by dedication to victory. The
sense of mission returned.
"I don't think I should permit you to leave, sir," the major said
politely. "I've thought it over."
"Sir?"
"In view of what happened to the other two ships. How do you know this
one hasn't been sabotaged, too? In your understandable anxiousness to
get this girl...."
"I'm sure," George said evenly. "I tell you this ship is all right."
"Well, how do you know? Obviously, you knew the other two ships were
all right, too; only they weren't...."
The Oligarch restrained an impulse to command. "This is too important a
matter to delay with explanations."
The four soldiers clustering around the major seemed ominous.
"Our doctor will be here in a moment. Immediate aid can be given the
girl."
George's hands trembled with rage and maddening anxiety. "I am going to
takeoff immediately. Explanations can come later when the girl has been
treated. I will hold you personally responsible for any further delay."
He went toward the control room.
The major started to follow.
The Oligarch whirled to face him. "You will be responsible for her
death. I am going to leave. If necessary, I will take all of you with
me. You will have to use force to stop me."
The major stood with his hands clenched into fists at his sides. There
was silence. The fists slowly unclenched.
"I would advise you to get off the ship at once," George said. He
turned once more. This time he did not look back.
A thrill of uncertainty grew within the major. He swallowed stiffly
and then snapped angrily to the waiting soldiers, "All right, get the
lead out! Let's go! Let's go, let's go!" He seemed to want to push them
physically toward the exit.
* * * * *
The Oligarch was in the control room by the time they dropped off the
ladder to the ground. A flick of the switch, and the ladder retreated.
The ship trembled. A savage jab, and the ship became airborne. It was
too late now for them to stop him. He had made a successful escape. He
was weak with reaction. A few moments more....
He studied the dials. Earth fell away.
He could hurry. He only need save enough fuel for a tie in. He waited
impatiently for altitude. Earth shrank. The features of her surface
blurred. A cloud occluded her face completely. The air resistance
lessened. Gravity weakened. He was able to pour the fuel into the space
jets. He fired the first and second banks. Fuel gauges descended.
Acceleration pressed against him like a hand. More jets. He was in
a hurry. His mission was accomplished. Within two hours he would be
out of the danger area of the Earth explosion. But he was not overly
worried about that. He did not expect it until an hour or so after
sunrise over Washington.
He locked the ship on automatic. Time enough later to finish computing
the trajectory.
He was now free to dispose of Herb and Norma.
The sense of elation increased as he left the control room. He fingered
his hand weapon and smiled to himself. Less than a minute later, he
stepped into the doorway of the room containing the two people, his gun
raised.
CHAPTER XIII
Herb had regained consciousness.
Herb shot, and flame leaped toward the Oligarch. The room roared with
the explosion.
George jerked back, and in mid-motion, something caught him low in his
chest, on the left side of his body and slapped him savagely off his
feet.
Incredibly, he had been hit!
He shook his head and got one knee under him. His left side was numb.
He looked down and saw blood start to color his shirt.
He got to his feet and backed along the corridor. His knees were weak.
He covered the door with a trembling hand and prayed for Herb to show
himself.
The ship was silent.
He had to sit down. He wanted to be sick.
Perhaps Herb had taken the other door out!
He whirled.
No movement.
He had to have a place to hide. He had to hide, and wait, and when Herb
came searching for him--
He staggered back. His side began to throb dully.
The ship was very quiet.
"He's out there," Herb said, knowing that his words would carry over
the hidden microphones. "I will manage to kill him before we reach the
big ship."
Norma was breathing shallowly, not yet fully recovered from the wreck.
"What about Earth?"
"It's too late."
"If we could--if we could destroy the ... that ship ... if we could ram
it: prevent it from setting off the charge...."
"It's too late," Herb said doggedly. But even with the words, he
felt the first hesitant flicker of hope. If he could take over this
ship, and with it assault the great ship in space, there capture the
remote-control mechanism by which the charge would be detonated then
perhaps Earth could really be saved. First kill the Oligarch. Then....
Norma whimpered to herself.
"You stay here," he hissed, too softly, he hoped for the microphones to
pick up his voice.
Her eyes widened in protest. "Don't go. He'll...."
"Shhhhhh," he silenced her. Bending, he whispered, "I'll find him
first. You'll be all right."
He left her. At the doorway, he looked back. She seemed crumpled and
lifeless and defeated.
The Oligarch was somewhere to his left. In the corridor, waiting? Herb
could not know. There was only one way to find out. He stepped from the
room, gun ready to fire.
The corridor was empty.
Where? In the control room? In the office? In the kitchen? The messhall?
Herb moved forward silently.
* * * * *
The Oligarch had backed across the messhall. One hand clutched at his
left side. His breathing was too loud. Herb would surely hear it.
He stood in the far doorway that opened into the short corridor leading
to his office and that extended beyond his office to open into the main
corridor. Herb would have to cross before its open face should he come
forward. From the doorway, the Oligarch also commanded a view of the
main messhall entrance, should Herb stop to inspect that room first.
By ducking either in or out, he could place a protecting wall between
himself and his pursuer. The Oligarch knew that Herb would come. His
left side was terrifying testimony that the lifetime of conditioning
had been stripped away.
It would be so easy to dart to his own office; but the unprotected
space between him and it was a barrier more solid than a rock cliff. If
Herb should emerge as he was making the exposed crossing, he would be
a perfect target. His movements were sluggish. He had to locate Herb
in order to know in which direction safety lay. But to be safe in the
office, with the door barricaded....
* * * * *
Herb saw the drops of blood drying slowly along the floor of the
corridor.
The Oligarch had entered the messhall. Herb approached cautiously.
Standing just outside, not exposing himself, he could see a clot of
blood beyond the main door. Probably the Oligarch had hesitated there,
undecided--or resting.
He held the gun more tightly. His heart beat rapidly, and his mouth was
dry. But he was not afraid. There was an iciness far down inside of him.
He stepped across the threshold, and just as suddenly, leaped back.
He heard the stumble of the Oligarch's fleeing feet, heard the office
door open and slam.
Herb waited, listening: a feint?
No. There was no sound.
Again he stepped into the messhall. It was empty.
"Herb!" Norma called. "Herb! Are you all right?" She was running down
the corridor toward him.
"Get back!" Herb called, but she came on, and then she was beside him.
"He's in the office. I'm going after him. You stay here."
"No. Leave him there. Prop the door. Keep him in. Take the ship...."
"I'm going in after him," Herb said. "I've got to. It's more than him,
more than killing or getting killed. I've got to."
"It's so senseless," she said. "If we could get control of the ship...."
He shook his head. "You stay here!"
He walked across the messhall. He stepped out into the narrow corridor.
"Get away!" the Oligarch cried frantically. His voice was no longer
vigorous, and it sounded pathetic and child-like through the door.
Herb, going toward it, said, "I'm coming in!" He tried the door. Locked.
He fired twice at the lock. He stepped back and kicked. The door swung
inward.
The Oligarch did not fire. Herb, pressed against the wall, could not
see into the room.
"I'm coming in, damn you!"
"Don't," the Oligarch cried weakly. "Please, don't. Don't _now_!"
Herb heard a gun clatter to the floor.
"Don't," the Oligarch moaned. "I've thrown it away. I'm helpless."
Herb balanced on the balls of his feet. Then, taking a deep breath, he
stepped into the doorway, his body framed beautifully between the two
jambs. He held his gun at ready and then lowered it.
The Oligarch was slumped over his desk.
Herb heard Norma come up behind him.
"He's dying," she said.
Reaction set in, and Herb's knees almost collapsed. His body was
trembling and drenched with perspiration.
The Oligarch coughed.
* * * * *
The Oligarch said something in his own language.
"What?" Herb asked.
"Make him tell us. How we can keep them from setting off the
explosion!" Norma said.
The Oligarch wanted to talk, and he made a motion--a feeble one--to
silence them both. The girl's pathetic conviction that the explosion
could be prevented infuriated the Oligarch. There was nothing she could
do. The cleverness with which he had executed his mission defied time
and eternity.
"It won't be set off in the big ship," the Oligarch said. "I had
intended to leave you at the site, Herb, to trigger it personally."
He spoke English and was disappointed to see that his vision began to
mist. He would have liked to watch the girl's face. "But your later
dream forms made me deny you martyrdom. I think I might have done it
any way, if you hadn't left. You have the idealism. You were the one I
had counted on. And after you, of course, there was only Bud."
Norma choked weakly and her knees half gave way. The sound was
satisfying to the Oligarch.
"I told Bud the explosion was planted," the Oligarch said. "Then I ...
I told him...." He coughed again. "I told him that I had mailed his
brother's head along with his confession to ... to.... Then I gave him
a telephone number. He phones long distance, gives the number. At the
bomb site, the receiver ... lifts automatically.... He says, 'Frank
Council' ... his brother's name ... the key.... The trigger falls."
The Oligarch's hands scrabbled on the desk. "Don't you think he'll do
it, in the knowledge of his own personal destruction?... Oh, he will,
yes.... And this is the final...." Blood dribbled from the Oligarch's
mouth. "I didn't mail his brother's head.... I lied to him. Don't you
see what a beautiful ... what a satisfying lie that was?" He laughed,
coughed again, and slumped forward. And the chase ended.
And Herb, looking at death, grabbed Norma by the arm and ran toward
the control room.
... And back on Earth, Bud Council sat sick and trembling, his eyes
fastened on the telephone beside him....
CHAPTER XIV
Herb thought first of the bomb site. The chill desert night would be
fresh upon it. Overhead, the pale moon would ride toward the terrible
Apocalypse of dawn--if Bud waited until then to make his phone call.
In a few hours (he thought) he could bring the spider ship down upon
the desert. The long dark night beyond would give him time....
He visualized the scene as he remembered it from TV: the single sentry
shack where an Army guard protected the alien handiwork.
"I'll talk to them when we land. I'll explain about Bud. They'll find
him and keep him away from the telephone. They'll tell long distance
operators not to place any calls until they can find him. All I need is
a few hours to convince someone that Bud, that Bud...."
Norma was in his arms, shaking hysterically. "He ... he did that to
_Frank_. Bud did that!"
"We've got to hurry," Herb said.
She shivered against him. Gently he disengaged himself.
"In an hour, now...." he said. His hand rested on the forward firing
stud.
Rested and withdrew.
"What's wrong?" Norma asked.
"The fuel. I haven't got enough left to brake the ship, to turn it, and
then land against Earth gravity."
"No," Norma said. "No! That can't be right!"
* * * * *
Herb re-sorted the information available from the dials, seeking a
method to defy the dictates of inertia. Once more he weighed the
remaining fuel against that necessary to brake and turn the ship, and
still there was none left over to counteract Earth's gravity and the
long planetfall. He projected trajectories.
"Maybe I can throw the ship in a long orbit," he said. "If I can kill
the speed against the atmosphere...."
"Can you do it?"
Herb's hands eased fuel into the forward port jet and sparked it. "I'm
tilting for the orbit."
The gauge dropped alarmingly, and as momentum changed, the center of
gravity shifted. The ship nosed up and fell sideways and slipped away
to the right.
Norma held her breath, afraid to interrupt even with encouragement.
"It's an ellipse," Herb said. "It's a long fall now, but I'm afraid to
make it shorter." He set the controls.
"How long will it take?" Norma asked.
"I'll have to make half a dozen bounces. The first one won't be for
nearly six hours.... We won't be able to land until sunup."
Norma bit her lip. "But that's...."
"We won't have much time. We'll have to try to get to Bud ourselves."
* * * * *
When the time came, he turned to her. "I've got to hit the atmosphere
now. We'll have to strap down."
Numb with tension, she sat in one of the shock-chairs and buckled
herself in. Then, in his chair before the panel, Herb adjusted the
buckles and waited the few remaining minutes. "This will be the worst,"
he said.
The ship hit the upper gases--gases, made by speed into an iron
curtain; and as the air clawed at the strange shape of the ship,
and as the interior cooling system whined into overdrive, he fought
against wild, erratic movements, firing precious fuel to brake and
stabilize.... And then they were free, and shooting away along a
shortened and slower ellipse.
Finally they were well into the atmosphere, but they were very high,
too high to be more than a speck, so high that the sound spread too
thinly to be heard on the surface.
"I'll set down outside Washington," Herb said. "Somewhere outside,
where we can get away from the ship before they get there to start
asking questions."
He released his blast, and the ship turned nose up. Gravity became
heavier. The ship plummeted down.
"Here's the last of the jets," Herb hissed, and he eased them in,
slowing the fall, slowing it....
Down the ship came.
The Earth expanded and a fantastically fast painter seemed to be
sketching in the details of the landscape.
The sun was cut off by the horizon. A few lights sparkled in slowly
waking Washington.
The jets sputtered, and the ship slipped; the jets caught, sputtered,
and died.
Herb slammed on the low lift controls. The aerodynamically designed
platform-like wings spun and hissed against the air. For a long moment,
Herb was afraid they would not brake the fall, but the lifts caught,
and the ship jerked, and Herb felt the buoyancy through the ship and
through his mind and through his body.
CHAPTER XV
Less than five minutes later, they were stationary. The slowing lifts
purred and the landing ladder hissed down.
Herb and Norma were upon it.
"About a--five hundred yards," Herb said. "Over that way: the highway.
Let's go!"
Running at his side, Norma prayed desperately for a car to come soon.
They sprinted the last short distance because of growing headlights
from the south. The car was coming fast, and Herb jumped into the
roadway, waving his hands.
The car came on, sounding its horn hysterically. Herb waved and brakes
squealed, and the car, at almost the last instant, veered away from
him. The wind of its passing rustled his hair, and the horn still
bleating, it slowly dwindled as the red tail lights faded into the
darkness.
They waited. Five minutes passed.
"One's got to come!"
Early fire hung over the ocean from the as yet invisible sun. Dew lay
on the plowed field behind them. The air was chill.
It seemed that the sun was symbolic fire slowly creeping and coloring
the sky, slowly spreading over the world.
"What time is it?" Herb asked.
"Here's a car! Here's a car!"
Both of them leaped into the highway, waving and jumping up and down.
A long way away, the driver set his brakes, and the car coasted slowly,
passed them, and finally stopped.
They ran to it. Herb jerked open the door. "You've got to take us to
Washington!" Herb said.
Norma, arriving behind him, said, "It's a matter of life and death!"
"Then get in," the man said.
Overhead a jet thundered in to locate the spider ship.
They were in the car.
"You've got to drive us to an apartment in Georgetown," Norma said.
"Lady, I've been driving all night."
"You've got to!" The urgency in her voice was nearly that of hysteria.
The driver started the car. "If it's that urgent...."
"It is," Herb said.
"Hurry, please, please hurry. Don't ask us to explain. Just hurry."
The driver stepped down on the gas. The car leaped ahead.
CHAPTER XVI
The new buildings pressed against the new sidewalks. The streets were
empty except for their car and a turret-like Mobile Sweeper whose
gutter broom whispered against the curb. A light here and there in a
window heralded the end of sleep. A lone car crossed at an intersection
ahead, moving slowly as if fatigued by a night-long vigil.
The sun seemed reluctant to plunge the world into daylight; it balanced
on the horizon in indecision. The moon was high and tiny and rode the
growing blueness with a ghostlike pallor.
Herb, leaning forward tensely, thought: _Suppose Bud isn't there?
Suppose he's somewhere else?_
"Turn left up here," Norma said. "It's only a few blocks."
The buildings anchored time to the Earth, encapsulating the past in
steel and concrete. Morning shadows walked before the onrushing future.
"Here!" Norma cried.
The car braked to a stop.
The driver watched them run wildly, and an uneasiness settled upon him.
He glanced to the east. The morning was chill. The excitement their
urgency had generated had not vanished with their departure. What the
devil? he thought. Whadda you suppose it's all about?
* * * * *
Inside, Norma said, "Third floor. He's got guards. I'll take the
elevator. You take the stairs. I'll try to get the guards' attention."
Herb nodded. He bolted for the stairway. The carpet blanketed his
footfalls. He heard the elevator doors click and the cage rattle upward.
First landing.
Silence.
Second landing.
His heart was loud. His feet became delicate, and he balanced on his
toes, moving toward the final encounter.
There.
Norma had the guard. There was only one. She was speaking intently. The
guard faced away from Herb.
Herb was in the corridor. He moved like a sigh, and the space between
him and the guard shortened.
The guard turned, and Herb sprang. He crashed into the guard before the
police automatic was clear of the shiny holster. The impact of his body
spun the gun away.
They were down, wrestling viciously. Herb felt his head ring. He
stifled a cry. Pain nestled in his groin. He struck out.
The guard smashed an elbow into Herb's nose. He got up and kicked Herb
in the face, and Herb jerked his leg savagely. Unbalanced, he went
down. Herb was upon him. Breath hissed out, and Herb struck viciously
with his gun butt. Panting, he stood.
"It's locked," he said, testing the door. Norma had recovered the
guard's automatic. Whitefaced she stood.
Bloody nosed, bleeding, Herb threw himself into the panel. There was
a great, kettle drum boom and the panel held. Again he slammed into
it. It splintered away. He fought through the shards of maple; and was
halfway into the room when Bud, looking up from the telephone, fired.
Herb sighed and fell to the left and his gun slipped from his hand.
CHAPTER XVII
Bud, drained of color, cried "Hurry that call, operator!"
His gun was on the door when Norma filled it. "Stop, Bud!"
His eyes dulled. Conflicting emotions ran jagged edges over his face.
One hand held the phone, the other the gun. Norma was afraid to fire
for fear she would miss. "I'll kill you if you try to stop me!" he
screamed. He could not place the person in the doorway. And then he
realized that it was the Devil cleverly disguised as his sister.
Norma stepped into the room, drawing closer. Her hand trembled
violently. Bud was perspiring.
"Bud," she said. Her voice choked. "He didn't mail ... he didn't mail
the ... package ... the ... the package." Tears ran down her cheeks.
"Get away! _Get away!_"
"He didn't mail it! No one need ... you're safe ... your secret.... Put
down the phone, Bud. Please, now. _Put down the phone!_"
Very clever nonsense, Bud thought, not believing it for a moment. What
package? There was no.... He must shoot this creature, now, before
she....
The operator said in his ear: "Here is your number, sir."
"Put me on!"
The Devil was nearer. It was too late, he thought. Norma thought: Now,
now, _now_.
Bud's hand whitened at the knuckles. His throat was dry. He was ready
to scream the Name. He did not see Herb's hand close on the weapon nor
see the muzzle elevate.
"Bud, Bud, Bud, please, please, Bud!" Norma said. The trigger of her
gun would not respond.
"Get away," Bud said. He opened his mouth. "Frank C----"
And Herb fired until the weapon was empty.
There was echoing silence, and then Bud fell.
Norma was upon the telephone, ripping it free from the wall.
Herb staggered erect. Blood covered his suit. It hurt to move. A broken
collar bone, he thought. Too high for the lungs.
He found Norma weeping hysterically in his arm. The other arm hung
limp, and he winced with pain as he drew her tight.
He choked and bent to her ear and said, "Yes, yes," and suddenly he
bent to kiss her tear stained lips, and he wanted to brush away the
hair from her face, but that arm refused to move. She trembled against
him, and he whispered, "Yes."
The sunlight came in the broad windows and slanted across Bud's face,
boyish and petulant still in death; the sun, moving toward noon, bathed
the whole awakening world with light, and far beyond it, in space but
not in time, lay other stars.
And Herb felt free. For the first time in his life. Here, on Earth....
It was a wonderful feeling.
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