The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lost Kafoozalum, by Pauline Ashwell
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Title: The Lost Kafoozalum
Author: Pauline Ashwell
Illustrator: Schoenherr
Release Date: November 8, 2009 [EBook #30427]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOST KAFOOZALUM ***
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Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction October 1960.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright
on this publication was renewed.
THE LOST KAFOOZALUM
by PAULINE ASHWELL
Illustrated by Schoenherr
_One of the beautiful things about a delusion is that no
matter how mad someone gets at it ... he can't do it any
harm. Therefore a delusion can be a fine thing for prodding
angry belligerents...._
* * * * *
I remember some bad times, most of them back home on Excenus 23; the
worst was when Dad fell under the reaping machine but there was also
the one when I got lost twenty miles from home with a dud radio, at
the age of twelve; and the one when Uncle Charlie caught me practicing
emergency turns in a helicar round the main weather-maker; and the one
on Figuerra being chased by a cyber-crane; and the time when Dad
decided to send me to Earth to do my Education.
This time is bad in a different way, with no sharp edges but a kind of
a desolation.
Most people I know are feeling bad just now, because at Russett
College we finished our Final Examination five days ago and Results
are not due for a two weeks.
My friend B Laydon says this is yet another Test anyone still sane at
the end being proved tough enough to break a molar on; she says also
The worst part is in bed remembering all the things she could have
written and did not; The second worst is also in bed picturing how to
explain to her parents when they get back to Earth that _someone_ has
to come bottom and in a group as brilliant as Russett College Cultural
Engineering Class this is really no disgrace.
I am not worried that way so much, I cannot remember what I wrote
anyway and I can think of one or two people I am pretty sure will come
bottomer than me--or B either.
I would prefer to think it is just Finals cause me to feel miserable
but it is not.
In Psychology they taught us The mind has the faculty of concealing
any motive it is ashamed of, especially from itself; seems
unfortunately mine does not have this gadget supplied.
I never wanted to come to Earth. I was sent to Russett against my will
and counting the days till I could get back to Home, Father and
Excensus 23, but the sad truth is that now the longed-for moment is
nearly on top of me I do not want to go.
Dad's farm was a fine place to grow up, but now I had four years on
Earth the thought of going back there makes me feel like a
three-weeks' chicken got to get back in its shell.
B and I are on an island in the Pacific. Her parents are on Caratacus
researching on local art forms, so she and I came here to be miserable
in company and away from the rest.
It took me years on Earth to get used to all this water around, it
seemed unnatural and dangerous to have it all lying loose that way,
but now I shall miss even the Sea.
The reason we have this long suspense over Finals is that they will
not use Reading Machines to mark the papers for fear of cutting down
critical judgement; so each paper has to be read word by word by three
Examiners and there are forty-three of us and we wrote six papers
each.
What I think is I am sorry for the Examiners, but B says they were the
ones who set the papers and it serves them perfectly right.
I express surprise because D. J. M'Clare our Professor is one of them,
but B says He is one of the greatest men in the galaxy, of course, but
she gave up thinking him perfect _years_ ago.
One of the main attractions on this Island is swimming under water,
especially by moonlight. Dad sent me a fish-boat as a birthday present
two years back, but I never used it yet on account of my
above-mentioned attitude to water. Now I got this feeling of Carpe
Diem, make the most of Earth while I am on it because probably I shall
not pass this way again.
The fourth day on the Island it is full moon at ten o'clock, so I
pluck up courage to wriggle into the boat and go out under the Sea. B
says Fish parading in and out of reefs just remind her of Cultural
Engineering--crowd behavior--so she prefers to turn in early and find
out what nightmares her subconscious will throw up _this_ time.
The reefs by moonlight are everything they are supposed to be, why did
I not do this often when I had the chance? I stay till my oxygen is
nearly gone, then come out and sadly press the button that collapses
the boat into a thirty-pound package of plastic hoops and oxygen cans.
I sling it on my back and head for the chalet B and I hired among the
coconut trees.
* * * * *
I am crossing an open space maybe fifty yards from it when a Thing
drops on me out of the air.
I do not see the Thing because part of it covers my face, and the rest
is grabbed round my arms and my waist and my hips and whatever, I
cannot see and I cannot scream and I cannot find anything to kick. The
Thing is strong and rubbery and many-armed and warmish, and less than
a second after I first feel it I am being hauled up into the air.
I do not care for this at all.
I am at least fifty feet up before it occurs to me to bite the hand
that gags me and then I discover it is plastic, not alive at all. Then
I feel self and encumberance scraping through some kind of aperture;
there is a sharp click as of a door closing and the Thing goes limp
all round me.
I spit out the bit I am biting and it drops away so that I can see.
Well!
I am in a kind of a cup-shaped space maybe ten feet across but not
higher than I am; there is a trap door in the ceiling; the Thing is
lying all around me in a mess of plastic arms, with an extensible
stalk connecting it to the wall. I kick free and it turns over
exposing the label FRAGILE CARGO right across the back.
The next thing I notice is two holdalls, B's and mine, clamped against
the wall, and the next after that is the opening of a trap door in the
ceiling and B's head silhouetted in it remarking Oh there you are Liz.
I confirm this statement and ask for explanations.
B says She doesn't understand all of it but it is all right.
It is not all right I reply, if she has joined some Society such as
for the Realization of Fictitious Improbabilities that is her
privilege but no reason to involve me.
B says Why do I not stop talking and come up and see for myself?
There is a slight hitch when I jam in the trap door, then B helps me
get the boat off my back and I drop it on the Fragile Cargo and emerge
into the cabin of a Hopper, drop-shaped, cargo-carrying; I have been
in its hold till now.
There are one or two peculiar points about it, or maybe one or two
hundred, such as the rate at which we are ascending which seems to be
bringing us right into the Stratosphere; but the main thing I notice
is the pilot. He has his back to us but is recognizably Ram Gopal who
graduated in Cultural Engineering last year, Rumor says next to top of
his class.
I ask him what kind of a melodramatic shenanigan is this?
B says We had to leave quietly in a hurry without attracting attention
so she booked us out at the Hotel _hours_ ago and she and Ram have
been hanging around waiting for me ever since.
I point out that the scope-trace of an Unidentified Flying Object will
occasion a lot more remark than a normal departure even at midnight.
At this Ram smiles in an inscrutable Oriental manner and B gets nearly
as cross as I do, seems she has mentioned this point before.
We have not gone into it properly when the cabin suddenly shifts
through a right angle. B and I go sliding down the vertical floor and
end sitting on a window. There is a jolt and a shudder and Ram mutters
things in Hindi and then suddenly Up is nowhere at all.
B and I scramble off the window and grab fixtures so as to stay put.
The stars have gone and we can see nothing except the dim glow over
the instruments; then suddenly lights go on outside.
We look out into the hold of a ship.
Our ten-foot teardrop is sitting next to another one, like two eggs
in a rack. On the other side is a bulkhead; behind, the curve of the
hull; and directly ahead an empty space, then another bulkhead and an
open door, through which after a few seconds a head pokes cautiously.
The head is then followed by a body which kicks off against the wall
and sails slowly towards us. Ram presses a stud and a door slides open
in the hopper; but the new arrival stops himself with a hand on either
side of the frame, his legs trailing any old how behind him. It is
Peter Yeng Sen who graduated the year I did my Field Work.
He says, Gopal, dear fellow, there was no need for the knocking, we
heard the bell all right.
Ram grumbles something about the guide beam being miss-set, and slides
out of his chair. Peter announces that we have only just made it as
the deadline is in seven minutes time; he waves B and me out of the
hopper, through the door and into a corridor where a certain irregular
vibration is coming from the walls.
Ram asks what is that tapping? And Peter sighs and says The present
generation of students has no discipline at all.
At this B brakes with one hand against the wall and cocks her head to
listen; next moment she laughs and starts banging with her fist on the
wall.
Peter exclaims in Mandarin and tows her away by one wrist like a
reluctant kite. The rapping starts again on the far side of the wall
and I suddenly recognize a primitive signaling system called Regret
or something, I guess because it was used by people in situations they
did not like such as Sinking ships or solitary confinement; it is done
by tapping water pipes and such.
Someone found it in a book and the more childish element in College
learned it up for signaling during compulsory lectures. Interest
waning abruptly when the lecturers started to learn it, too.
I never paid much attention not expecting to be in Solitary
confinement much; this just shows you; next moment Ram opens a door
and pushes me through it, the door clicks behind me and Solitary
confinement is what I am in.
I remember this code is really called Remorse which is what I feel for
not learning when I had the chance.
However I do not have long for it, a speaker in the wall requests
everyone to lie down as acceleration is about to begin. I strap down
on the couch which fills half the compartment, countdown begins and at
zero the floor is suddenly _down_ once more.
I wait till my stomach settles, then rise to explore.
* * * * *
I am in an oblong room about eight by twelve, it looks as though it
had been hastily partitioned off from a larger space. The walls are
prefab plastic sheet, the rest is standard fittings slung in and
bolted down with the fastenings showing.
How many of my classmates are on this ship? _Remorse_ again as
tapping starts on either side of me.
Discarding such Hypotheses as that Ram and Peter are going to hold us
to ransom--which might work for me, since my Dad somehow got to be a
millionaire, but not for B because her parents think money is
vulgar--or that we are being carried off to found an ideal Colony
somewhere--any first-year student can tell you why that won't
work--only one idea seems plausible.
This is that Finals were not final and we are in for a Test of some
sort.
After ten minutes I get some evidence; a Reading Machine is trundled
in, the door immediately slamming shut so I do not see who trundles
it.
I prowl round it looking for tricks but it seems standard; I take a
seat in it, put on the headset and turn the switch.
Hypothesis confirmed, I suppose.
There is a reel in place and it contains background information on a
problem in Cultural Engineering all set out the way we are taught to
do it in Class. The Problem concerns developments on a planet got
settled by two groups during the Exodus and been isolated ever since.
Well while a Reading Machine is running there is no time to think, it
crams in data at full speed and evaluation has to wait. However my
subconscious goes into action and when the reel stops it produces a
Suspicion full grown.
The thing is too tidy.
When we were First Year we dreamed up situations like this and argued
like mad over them, but they were a lot too neat for real life and too
dramatic as well.
However one thing M'Clare said to us, and every other lecturer too,
just before the Finals, was Do not spend time trying to figure what
the examiner was after but answer the question as set; I am more than
halfway decided this is some mysterious Oriental idea of a joke but I
get busy thinking in case it is not.
* * * * *
The Problem goes like this:
The planet is called Incognita in the reel and it is right on the edge
of the known volume of space, it got settled by two groups somewhere
between three and three and a half centuries ago. The rest of the
human race never heard of it till maybe three years back.
(Well it happens that way, inhabited planets are still turning up
eight or ten a century, on account of during the Exodus some folk were
willing to travel a year or more so as to get away from the rest).
The ship that spotted the planet as inhabited did not land, but
reported to Central Government, Earth, who shipped observers out to
take a look.
(There was a rumor circulating at Russett that the Terry Government
might employ some of us on that kind of job, but it never got
official. I do not know whether to believe this bit or not.)
It is stated the observers landed secretly and mingled with the
natives unobserved.
(This is not physically impossible but sounds too like a Field Trip to
be true.)
The observers are not named but stated to be graduates of the Cultural
Engineering Class.
They put in a few months' work and sent home unanimous Crash Priority
reports the situation is _bad_, getting worse and the prognosis is
War.
Brother.
I know people had wars, I know one reason we do not have them now is
just that with so many planets and cheap transportation, pressure has
other outlets; these people scrapped their ships for factories and
never built more.
But.
There are only about ten million of them and surely to goodness a
whole planet gives room enough to keep out of each other's hair?
Well this is not Reasoning but a Reaction, I go back to the data for
another look.
The root trouble is stated to be that two groups landed on the planet
without knowing the others were there, when they met thirty years
later they got a disagreeable shock.
I cannot see there was any basic difference between them, they were
very similar, especially in that neither lot wanted anything to do
with people they had not picked themselves.
So they divided the planet along a Great Circle which left two of the
main land-masses in one hemisphere and two in another.
They agree each to keep to its own section and leave the other alone.
Twenty years later, trading like mad; each has certain minerals the
other lacks; each has certain agricultural products the other finds it
difficult to grow.
You think this leads to Co-operation Friendship and ultimate
Federation?
I will not go into the incidents that make each side feel it is being
gypped, it is enough that from time to time each has a scarcity or
hold-up on deliveries that upsets the other's economy; and they start
experimenting to become self-sufficient: and the exporter's economy is
upset in turn. And each thinks the other did it on purpose.
This sort of situation reacts internally leading to Politics.
There are troubles about a medium-sized island on the dividing line,
and the profits from interhemispherical transport, and the laws of
interhemispherical trade.
It takes maybe two hundred years, but finally each has expanded the
Police into an army with a whole spectrum of weapons not to be used on
any account except for Defense.
This situation lasts seventy years getting worse all the time, now
Rumors have started on each side that the other is developing an
Ultimate Weapon, and the political parties not in power are agitating
to move first before the thing is complete.
The observers report War not maybe this year or the next but within
ten, and if neither side was looking for an Ultimate Weapon to begin
with they certainly are now.
Taking all this at face value there seems an obvious solution.
I am thinking this over in an academic sort of way when an itchy
trickle of sweat starts down my vertebrae.
Who is going to apply this solution? Because if this is anything but
another Test, or the output of a diseased sense of humor, I would be
sorry for somebody.
I dial black coffee on the wall servitor and wish B were here so we
could prove to each other the thing is just an exercise; I do not do
so well at spotting proofs on my own.
Most of our class exercises have concerned something that happened,
once.
* * * * *
After about ninety minutes the speaker requests me to write not more
than one thousand words on any scheme to improve the situation and the
equipment required for it.
I spent ten minutes verbalizing the basic idea and an hour or so on
"equipment"; the longer I go on the more unlikely it all seems. In the
end I have maybe two hundred words which acting on instructions I post
through a slit in the door.
Five minutes later I realize I have forgotten the Time Factor.
[Illustration]
If the original ship took a year to reach Incognita, it will take at
least four months now; therefore it is more than four months since
that report was written and will be more than a year before anyone
arrives and War may have started already.
I sit back and by transition of ideas start to wonder where this ship
is heading? We are still at one gee and even on Mass-Time you cannot
juggle apparent acceleration and spatial transition outside certain
limits; we are not just orbiting but must be well outside the Solar
System by now.
The speaker announces Everyone will now get some rest; I smell
sleep-gas for one moment and have just time to lie down.
I guess I was tired, at that.
When I wake I feel more cheerful than I have for weeks; analysis
indicates I am glad something is _happening_ even if it is another
Exam.
I dial breakfast but am too restless to eat; I wonder how long this
goes on or whether I am supposed to show Initiative and break out; I
am examining things with this in mind when the speaker comes to life
again.
It says, "Ladies and gentlemen. You have not been told whether the
problem that you studied yesterday concerned a real situation or an
imaginary one. You have all outlined measures which you think would
improve the situation described. Please consider, seriously, whether
you would be prepared to take part yourself in the application of your
plan."
Brother.
There is no way to tell whether those who say No will be counted
cowardly or those who say Yes rash idiots or what, the owner of that
voice has his inflections too well trained to give anything away
except intentionally.
D. J. M'Clare.
Not in person but a recording, anyway M'Clare is on Earth surrounded
by exam papers.
I sit back and try to think, honestly, if that crack-brained notion I
wrote out last night were going to be tried in dead earnest, would I
take a hand in it?
The trouble is, hearing M'Clare's voice has convinced me it is a Test,
I don't know whether it is testing my courage or my prudence in fact I
might as well toss for it.
Heads I am crazy, Tails a defaulter; Tails is what it is.
I seize my styler and write the decision down.
There is the slit in the door.
I twiddle the note and think Well nobody asked for it yet.
Suppose it is real, after all?
I remember the itchy, sweaty feeling I got yesterday and try to
picture really embarking on a thing like this, but I cannot work up
any lather today.
I begin to picture M'Clare reading my decision not to back up my own
idea.
I pick up the coin and juggle it around.
The speaker remarks When I am quite ready will I please make a note
of my decision and post it through the door.
I go on flipping the coin up and presently it drops on the floor, it
is Heads this time.
Tossing coins is a pretty feeble way to decide.
I drop the note on the floor and take another sheet and write "YES.
Lysistrata Lee."
Using that name seems to make it more legal.
I slip the paper in the slit and poke till it falls through on the
other side of the door.
I am suddenly immensely hungry and dial breakfast all over again.
* * * * *
Just as I finish M'Clare's voice starts once more.
"It's always the minor matters that cause the most difficulty. The
timing of this announcement has cost me as much thought as any aspect
of the arrangements. The trouble is that however honest you are--and
your honesty has been tested repeatedly--and however strong your
imagination--about half of your training has been devoted to
developing it--you can't possibly be sure, answering a hypothetical
question, that you are giving the answer you would choose if you knew
it was asked in dead earnest.
"Those of you who answered the question in the negative are out of
this. They have been told that it was a test, of an experimental
nature, and have been asked to keep the whole thing a secret. They
will be returning to Earth in a few hours' time. I ask the rest of
you to think it over once again. Your decision is still private. Only
the two people who gathered you together know which members of the
class are in this ship. The list of possible helpers was compiled by a
computer. I haven't seen it myself.
"You have a further half hour in which to make up your minds finally.
Please remember that if you have any private reservations on the
matter, or if you are secretly afraid, you may endanger us all. You
all know enough psychology to realize this.
"If you still decide in favor of the project, write your name on a
slip of paper and post it as before. If you are not absolutely certain
about it, do nothing. Please think it over for half an hour."
Me, I had enough thinking. I write my name--just L. Lee--and post it
straight away.
However I cannot stop thinking altogether. I guess I think very hard,
in fact. My Subconscious insists afterwards that it did register the
plop as something came through the slit, but my Conscious failed to
notice it at all.
Hours later--my watch says twenty-five minutes but I guess the
Mass-Time has affected it--anyway I had three times too much solitary
confinement--when will they let me out of here?--there is a knock at
the door and a second later it slides apart.
I am expecting Ram or Peter so it takes me an appreciable fraction of
a moment to realize I am seeing D. J. M'Clare.
Then I remember he is back on Earth buried in Exam papers and
conclude I am having a hallucination.
This figment of my imagination says politely, "Do you mind if I sit
down?"
He collapses on the couch as though thoroughly glad of it.
It is a strange thing, every time I see M'Clare I am startled all over
again at how good-looking he is; seems I forget it between times which
is maybe why I never fell for him as most female students do.
However what strikes me this time is that he looks tired,
three-days-sleepless tired with worries on top.
I guess he is real, at that.
He says, "Don't look so accusing, Lizzie, I only just got on this ship
myself."
This does not make sense; you cannot just arrive on a ship twenty-four
hours after it goes on Mass-Time; or can you?
M'Clare leans back and closes his eyes and inquires whether I am one
of the Morse enthusiasts?
So that is the name; I say when we get back I will learn it first
thing.
"Well," says he, "I did my best to arrange privacy for all of you;
with so many ingenious idiots on board I'm not really surprised that
they managed to circumvent me. I had to cheat and check that you
really were on the list; and I knew that whoever backed out you'd
still be on board."
So I should hope he might: Horrors there is my first answer screwed
up on the floor and Writing side top-most.
However he has not noticed it, he goes on "Anyway you of all people
won't be thought to have dropped out because you were afraid."
I have just managed to hook my heel over the note and get it out of
sight, M'Clare has paused for an answer and I have to dredge my
Sub-threshold memories for--
WHAT?
* * * * *
M'Clare opens his eyes and says like I am enacting Last Straw, "Have
some sense, Lizzie." Then in a different tone, "Ram says he gave you
the letter half an hour ago."
What letter?
My brain suddenly registers a small pale patch been occupying a corner
of my retina for the last half hour; it turns out to be a letter
postmarked Excenus 23.
I disembowel it with one jerk. It is from my Dad and runs like this:
My dear Liz,
Thank you for your last letter, glad you are keeping fit and
so am I.
I just got a letter from your College saying you will get a
degree conferred on you on September 12th and parents if on
Earth will be welcome.
Well Liz this I got to see and Charlie says the same, but
the letter says too Terran Authority will not give a permit
to visit Earth just for this, so I wangled on to a
Delegation which is coming to discuss trade with the
Department of Commerce. Charlie and I will be arriving on
Earth on August 24th.
Liz it is good to think I shall be seeing you again after
four years. There are some things about your future I meant
to write to Professor M'Clare about, but now I shall be able
to talk it over direct. Please give him my regards.
Be seeing you Lizzie girl, your affectionate Dad
J. X. Lee.
Dear old Dad, after all these years farming with a weather-maker on a
drydust planet I want to see his face the first time he sees real
rain.
Hell's fires and shades of darkness, I shan't be there!
M'Clare says, "Your father wrote to me saying that he will be arriving
on Earth on 24th August. I take it your letter says the same. I came
on a dispatch boat; you can go back on it."
_Now_ what is he talking about? Then I get the drift.
I say, "Look. So Dad will be on Earth before we get back. What
difference does that make?"
"You can't let him arrive and find you missing."
Well I admit to a qualm at the thought of Dad let loose on Earth
without me, but after all Uncle Charlie is a born Terrie and can keep
him in line; Hell he is old enough to look after himself anyway.
"You met my Dad," I point out. "You think J. X. Lee would want any
daughter of his backing out on a job so as to hold his hand? I can
send him a letter saying I am off on a job or a Test or whatever I
please and hold everything till I get back; what are you doing about
people's families on Earth already?"
M'Clare says we were all selected as having families not on Earth at
present, and I must go back.
I say like Hell I will.
He says he is my official guardian and responsible for me.
I say he is just as responsible for everyone else on this ship.
I spent years and years trying to think up a remark would really get
home to M'Clare; well I have done it now.
I say, "Look. You are tired and worried and maybe not thinking so well
just now.
"I know this is a very risky job, don't think I missed that at all. I
tried hard to imagine it like you said over the speaker. I cannot
quite imagine dying but I know how Dad will feel if I do.
"I did my level best to scare myself sick, then I decided it is just
plain worth the risk anyway.
"To work out a thing like this you have to have a kind of arithmetic,
you add in everybody's feelings with the other factors, then if you
get a plus answer you forget everything else and go right ahead.
"I am not going to think about it any more, because I added up the sum
and got the answer and upsetting my nerves won't help. I guess you
worked out the sum, too. You decided four million people were worth
risking twenty, even if they do have parents. Even if they are your
students. So they are, too, and you gave us all a chance to say No.
"Well nothing has altered that, only now the values look different to
you because you are tired and worried and probably missed breakfast,
too."
Brother some speech, I wonder what got into me? M'Clare is wondering,
too, or maybe gone to sleep sitting, it is some time before he answers
me.
"Miss Lee, you are deplorably right on one thing at least. I don't
know whether I was fit to make such a decision when I made it, but I'm
not fit now. As far as you personally are concerned...." He trails off
looking tireder than ever, then picks up again suddenly. "You are
again quite right, I am every bit as responsible for the other people
on board as I am for you."
He climbs slowly to his feet and walks out without another word.
The door is left open and I take this as an invitation to freedom and
shoot through in case it was a mistake.
No because Ram is opening doors all along the corridor and ten of
Russett's brightest come pouring out like mercury finding its own
level and coalesce in the middle of the floor.
The effect of release is such that after four minutes Peter Yeng Sen's
head appears at the top of a stairway and he says the crew is lifting
the deck plates, will we for Time's sake go along to the Conference
Room which is soundproof.
* * * * *
The Conference Room is on the next deck and like our cabins shows
signs of hasty construction; the soundproofing is there but the
acoustics are kind of muffled and the generator is not boxed in but
has cables trailing all over, and the fastenings have a strong but
temporary look.
Otherwise there is a big table and a lot of chairs and a small
projection box in front of each with a note-taker beside.
It is maybe this very functional setup or maybe the dead flatness of
our voices in the damped room, but we do not have so much to talk
about any more. We automatically take places at the table, all at one
end, leaving seven vacant chairs near the door.
Looking round, I wonder what principle we were selected on.
Of my special friends Eru Te Whangoa and Kirsty Lammergaw are present
but Lily Chen and Likofo Komom'baratse and Jean LeBrun are not; we
have Cray Patterson who is one of my special enemies but not Blazer
Weigh or the Astral Cad; the rest are P. Zapotec, Nick Howard, Aro
Mestah, Dillie Dixie, Pavel Christianovitch, Lennie DiMaggio and
Shootright Crow.
Eru is at the end of the table, opposite the door, and maybe feels
this position puts it up to him to start the discussion; he opens by
remarking "So nobody took the opportunity to withdraw."
Cray Patterson lifts his eyebrows ceilingwards and drawls out that the
decision was supposed to be a private one.
B says "Maybe but it did not work out that way, everyone who learned
Morse knows who was on the ship, anyway they are all still here so
what does it matter? And M'Clare would not have picked people who were
going to funk it, after all."
My chair gets a kick on the ankle which I suppose was meant for B; Eru
is six foot five but even his legs do not quite reach; he is the only
one of us facing the door.
M'Clare has somehow shed his weariness; he looks stern but fresh as a
daisy. There are four with him; Ram and Peter looking serious, one
stranger in Evercleans looking determined to enjoy the party and
another in uniform looking as though nothing would make him.
M'Clare introduces the strangers as Colonel Delano-Smith and Mr.
Yardo. They all sit down at the other end of the table; then he frowns
at us and begins like this:
"Miss Laydon is mistaken. You were not selected on any such grounds as
she suggests. I may say that I was astonished at the readiness with
which you all engaged yourselves to take part in such a desperate
gamble; and, seeing that for the last four years I have been trying to
persuade you that it is worth while, before making a decision of any
importance, to spend a certain amount of thought on it, I was
discouraged as well."
Oh.
"The criterion upon which you were selected was a very simple one. As
I told you, you were picked not by me but by a computer; the one in
the College Office which registers such information as your home
addresses and present whereabouts. You are simply that section of the
class which could be picked up without attracting attention, because
you all happened to be on holiday by yourselves or with other members
of the class; and because your nearest relatives are not on Earth at
present."
Oh, well.
All of us can see M'Clare is doing a job of deflation on us for
reasons of his own, but it works for all that.
He now seems to feel the job is complete and relaxes a bit.
"I was interested to see that you all, without exception, hit on
variations of the same idea. It is of course the obvious way to deal
with the problem." He smiles at us suddenly and I get mad at myself
because I know he is following the rules for introducing a desired
state of mind, but I am responding as meant. "I'll read you the most
succinct expression of it; you may be able to guess the author."
Business with bits of paper.
"Here it is. I quote: 'Drag in some outsider looks like he is going
for both sides; they will gang up on him.'"
Yells of laughter and shouts of "Lizzie Lee!" even the two strangers
produce sympathetic grins; I do not find it so funny as all that
myself.
"Ideas as to the form the 'outsider' should take were more varied.
This is a matter I propose to leave you to work out together, with the
assistance of Colonel Delano-Smith and Mr. Yardo. Te Whangoa, you
take the chair."
Exit M'Clare.
* * * * *
This leaves the two halves of the table eying one another. Ram and
Peter have been through this kind of session in their time; now they
are leaning back preparing to watch us work. It is plain we are
supposed to impress the abilities of Russett near-graduates on the two
strangers, and for some moments we are all occupied taking them in.
Colonel Delano-Smith is a small, neat guy with a face that has all the
muscular machinery for producing an expression; he just doesn't care
to use it. Mr. Yardo is taller than any of us except Eru and flesh is
spread very thin on his bones, including his face which splits now and
then in a grin like an affable skeleton. Where the colonel fits is
guessable enough, Mr. Yardo is presumably Expert at something but no
data on _what_.
Eru rests his hands on the table and says we had better start; will
somebody kindly outline an idea for making the Incognitans "gang up"?
The simpler the better and it does not matter whether it is workable
or not; pulling it to pieces will give us a start.
We all wait to see who will rush in; then I catch Eru's eye and see I
am elected Clown again. I say "Send them a letter postmarked Outer
Space signed BEM saying we lost our own planet in a nova and will take
over theirs two weeks from Tuesday."
Mr. Yardo utters a sharp "Ha! Ha!" but it is not seconded; the
colonel having been expressionless all along becomes more so; Eru
says, "Thank you, Lizzie." He looks across at Cray who is opposite me;
Cray says there are many points on which he might comment; to take
only one, two weeks from Tuesday leaves little time for 'ganging up',
and what happens when the BEMs fail to come?
We are suddenly back in the atmosphere of a seminar; Eru's glance
moves to P. Zapotec sitting next to Cray, and he says, "These BEMs who
lost their home planet in a nova, how many ships have they? Without a
base they cannot be very dangerous unless their fleet is very large."
It goes round the table.
Pavel: "How would BEMs learn to write?"
Nick: "How are they supposed to know that Incognita is inhabited? How
do they address the letter?"
The Crow: "Huh. Why write letters? Invaders just invade."
Kirsty: "We don't want to inflame these people against alien races. We
might find one some day. It seems to me this idea might have all sorts
of undesirable by-products. Suppose each side regards it as a ruse on
the part of the other. We might touch off a war instead of preventing
it. Suppose they turn over to preparations for repelling the invaders,
to an extent that cripples their economy? Suppose a panic starts?"
Dilly: "Say, Mr. Chairman, is there any of this idea left at all? How
about an interim summary?"
Eru coughs to get a moment for thought, then says:
"In brief, the problem is to provide a menace against which the two
groups will be forced to unite. It must have certain characteristics.
"It must be sufficiently far off in time for the threat to last
several years, long enough to force them into a real combination.
"It must obviously be a plausible danger and they must get to know of
it in a plausible manner. Invasion from outside is the only threat so
far suggested.
"It must be a limited threat. That is, it must appear to come from one
well-defined group. The rest of the Universe should appear benevolent
or neutral."
He just stops, rather as though there is something else to come; while
the rest of us are waiting B sticks her oar in to the following
effect.
"Yes, but look, suppose this goes wrong; it's all very well to make
plans but suppose we get some of Kirsty's side-effects just the same,
well what I mean is suppose it makes the mess worse instead of better
we want some way we can sort of switch it off again.
"Look this is just an illustration, but suppose the Menace was
pirates, if it went wrong we could have an Earth ship make official
contact and they could just happen to say By the way have you seen
anything of some pirates, Earth fleet wiped them up in this sector
about six months ago.
"That would mean the whole crew conniving, so it won't do, but you
see what I mean."
There is a bit of silence, then Aro says, "I think we should start
fresh. We have had criticisms of Lizzie's suggestion, which was not
perhaps wholly serious, and as Dilly says there is little of it left,
except the idea of a threat of invasion. The idea of an alien
intelligent race has objections and would be very difficult to fake.
The invaders must be men from another planet. Another unknown one. But
how do the people of Incognita come to know that they exist?"
More silence, then I hear my own voice speaking although it was my
intention to keep quiet for once: it sounds kind of creaky and it
says: "A ship. A crashed ship from Outside."
Whereupon another voice says, "Really! Am I expected to swallow this?"
* * * * *
We had just about forgotten the colonel, not to mention Mr. Yardo who
contributes another "Ha! Ha!" so this reminder comes as a slight
shock, nor do we see what he is talking about but this he proceeds to
explain.
"I don't know why M'Clare thought it necessary to stage this
discussion. I am already acquainted with his plan and have had orders
to co-operate. I have expressed my opinion on using undergraduates in
a job like this and have been overruled. If he, or you, imagine that
priming you to bring out his ideas like this is going to reconcile me
to the whole business you are mistaken. He might have chosen a more
suitable mouthpiece than that child with the curly hair--"
Here everybody wishes to reply at once; the resulting jam produces a
moment of silence and I get in first.
"As for curly hair I am rising twenty-four and I was only saying what
we all thought, if we have the same ideas as M'Clare that is because
he taught us for four years. How else would you set about it anyway?"
My fellow students pick up their stylers and tap solemnly three times
on the table; this is the Russett equivalent of "Hear! Hear!" and the
colonel is surprised.
Eru says coldly, "This discussion has not been rehearsed. As Lizzie ... as
Miss Lee says, we have been working and thinking together for four years
and have been taught by the same people."
"Very well," says Delano-Smith testily. "Tell me this, please: Do you
regard this idea as practicable?"
Cray tilts his chair back and remarks to the ceiling, "This is rather
a farce. I suppose we had to go through our paces for the colonel's
benefit--and Mr. Yardo's of course--but can't we be briefed properly
now?"
"What do you mean by that?" snaps the colonel.
"It's been obvious right along," says Cray, balancing his styler on
one forefinger, "so obvious none of us has bothered to mention it,
that accepting the normal limitations of Mass-Time, the idea of
interfering in Incognita was doomed before it began. No conventional
ship would have much hope of arriving before war broke out; and if it
did arrive it couldn't do anything effective. Therefore I assume that
this is not a conventional ship. I might accept that the Government
has sent us out in a futile attempt to do the impossible, but I
wouldn't believe that of M'Clare."
Cray is the only Terry I know acts like an Outsider's idea of one;
many find this difficult to take and the colonel is plainly one of
them. Eru intervenes quickly.
"I imagine we all realized that. Anyway this ship is obviously not a
conventional model. If you accept the usual Mass-Time relationship
between the rate of transition and the fifth power of the apparent
acceleration, we must have reached about four times the maximum
already."
"Ram!" says B suddenly, "What did you do to stop the Hotel scope
registering the little ship you picked up me and Lizzie in?"
Everybody cuts in with something they have noticed about the
capabilities of this ship or the hoppers, and Lenny starts hammering
on the table and chanting! "Brief! Brief! Brief!" and others are just
starting to join in when Eru bangs on the table and glares us all
down.
Having got silence, he says very quietly, "Colonel Delano-Smith, I
doubt whether this discussion can usefully proceed without a good deal
more information; will you take over?"
The colonel looks round at all the eager earnest interested maps
hastily put on for his benefit and decides to take the plunge.
"Very well. I suppose it is ... very well. The decision to use
students from Russett was made at a very high level, and I suppose--"
Instead of saying "Very well" again he shrugs his shoulders and gets
down to it.
"The report from the planet we decided to call 'Incognita' was
received thirty-one days ago. The Department of Spatial Affairs has
certain resources which are not generally known. This ship is one of
them. She works on a modified version of Mass-Time which enables her
to use about a thousand channels instead of the normal limit of two
hundred; for good and sufficient reasons this has not been generally
released."
Pause while we are silently dared to doubt the Virtue and sufficiency
of these reasons which personally I do not.
"To travel to Incognita direct would take about fifteen days by the
shortest route. We shall take eighteen days as we shall have to make a
detour."
But presumably we shall take only fifteen days back. Hurrah we can
spend a week round the planet and still be back in time for
Commemoration. We shall skip maybe a million awkward questions and I
shall not disappoint Dad.
It is plain the colonel is not filled with joy; far from it, he did
not enjoy revealing a Departmental secret however obvious, but he
likes the next item even less.
"We shall detour to an uninhabited system twelve days' transit time
from here and make contact with another ship, the _Gilgamesh_."
* * * * *
At which Lennie DiMaggio who has been silent till now brings his fist
down on the table and exclaims, "You _can't_!"
Lennie is much upset for some reason; Delano-Smith gives him a
peculiar look and says what does he know about it? and Lennie starts
to stutter.
Cray remarks that Lennie's childhood hobby appears to have been
spaceships and he suffers from arrested development.
B says it is well known Lennie is mad about the Space Force and why
not? It seems to have uses Go on and tell us Lennie.
Lennie says "_G-Gilgamesh_ was lost three hundred years ago!"
"The flaw in that statement," says Cray after a pause, "is that this
may be another ship of the same name."
"No," says the colonel. "Explorer Class cruiser. They went out of
service two hundred eighty years back."
The Space Force, I remember, does not re-use names of lost ships: some
says Very Proper Feeling some say Superstitious Rot.
B says, "When was she found again?"
[Illustration]
Lennie says it was j-just thirty-seven revolutions of his native
planet which means f-f-fifty-three Terrestrial years ago, she was
found by an Interplanetary scout called _Crusoe_.
Judging by the colonel's expression this data is Classified; he does
not know that Lennie's family come from one of the oldest settled
planets and are space-goers to a man, woman, and juvenile; they pick
up ship gossip the way others hear about the relations of people next
door.
Lennie goes on to say that the Explorer Class were the first official
exploration ships sent out from Earth when the Terries decided to find
out what happened to the colonies formed during the Exodus.
_Gilgamesh_ was the first to re-make contact with Garuda, Legba,
Lister, Cor-bis and Antelope; she vanished on her third voyage.
"Where was she found?" asks Eru.
"Near the p-p-pole of an uninhabited planet--maybe I shouldn't say
where because that may be secret, but the rest's History if you know
where to look."
* * * * *
Maybe the colonel approves this discretion; anyway his face thaws very
slightly unless I am Imagining it.
"_Gilgamesh_ crashed," he says. "Near as we can make out from the log,
she visited Seleucis system. That's a swarmer sun. Fifty-seven
planets, three settled; and any number of fragments. The navigator
calculated that after a few more revolutions one of the fragments was
going to crash on an inhabited planet. Might have done a lot of
damage. They decided to tow it out of the way.
[Illustration]
"Grappling-beams hadn't been invented. They thought they could use
Mass-Time on it a kind of reverse thrust--throw it off course.
"Mass-Time wasn't so well understood then. Bit off more than they
could chew. Set up a topological relation that drained all the free
energy out of the system. Drive, heating system--everything.
"She had emergency circuits. When the engines came on again they took
over--landed the ship, more or less, on the nearest planet. Too late,
of course. Heating system never came on--there was a safety switch
that had to be thrown by hand. She was embedded in ice when she was
found. Hull breached at one point--no other serious damage."
"And the ... the crew?"
Dillie ought to know better than that.
"Lost with all hands," says the colonel.
"How about weapons?"
We are all startled. Cray is looking whitish like the rest of us but
maintains his normal manner, i.e. offensive affection while pointing
out that _Gilgamesh_ can hardly be taken for a Menace unless she has
some means of aggression about her.
Lennie says The Explorer Class were all armed--
Fine, says Cray, presumably the weapons will be thoroughly obsolete
and recognizable only to a Historian--
Lennie says the construction of no weapon developed by the Space
Department has ever been released; making it plain that anyone but a
Nitwit knows that already.
Eru and Kirsty have been busy for some time writing notes to each
other and she now gives a small sharp cough and having collected our
attention utters the following Address.
"There is a point we seem to have missed. If I may recapitulate, the
idea is to take this ship _Gilgamesh_ to Incognita and make it appear
as though she had crashed there while attempting to land. I understand
that the ship has been buried in the polar cap; though she must have
been melted out if the people on _Crusoe_ examined the engines. Of
course the cold--All the same there may have been ... well ...
changes. Or when ... when we thaw the ship out again--"
I find I am swallowing good and hard, and several of the others look
sick, especially Lennie. Lennie has his eyes fixed on the colonel; it
is not prescience, but a slight sideways movement of the colonel's eye
causes him to blurt out, "What is _he_ doing here?"
Meaning Mr. Yardo who seems to have been asleep for some time, with
his eyes open and grinning like the spikes on a dog collar. The
colonel gives him another sideways look and says, "Mr. Yardo is an
expert on the rehabilitation of space-packed materials."
This is stuff transported in un-powered hulls towed by
grappling-beams; the hulls are open to space hence no need for
refrigeration, and the contents are transferred to specially equipped
orbital stations before being taken down to the planet. But--
Mr. Yardo comes to life at the sound of his name and his grin widens
alarmingly.
"Especially meat," he says.
* * * * *
It is maybe two hours afterwards, Eru having adjourned the meeting
abruptly so that we can ... er ... take in the implications of the new
data. Lennie has gone off somewhere by himself; Kirsty has gone after
him with a view to Mothering him; Eru, I suspect, is looking for
Kirsty; Pavel and Aro and Dillie and the Crow are in a cabin arguing
in whispers; Nick and P. Zapotec are exploring one of the Hoppers,
cargo-carrying, drop-shaped, and I only hope they don't hop through
the hull in it.
B and I having done a tour of the ship and ascertained all this have
withdrawn to the Conference Room because we are tired of our cabins
and this seems to be the only other place to sit.
B breaks a long silence with the remark that However often you see it
M'Clare's technique is something to watch, like choosing my statement
to open with, it broke the ice beautifully.
I say, "Shall I tell you something?"
B says Yes if it's interesting.
"My statement," I inform her, "ran something like this: The best hope
of inducing a suspension of the aggressive attitude of both parties,
long enough to offer hope of ultimate reconciliation, lies in the
intrusion of a new factor in the shape of an outside force seen to be
impartially hostile to both."
B says: "Gosh. Come to think of it Liz you have not written like that
in years, you have gone all pompous like everyone else; well that
makes it even _more_ clever of M'Clare."
Enter Cray Patterson and drapes himself sideways on a chair,
announcing that his own thoughts begin to weary him.
I say this does not surprise me, at all.
"Lizzie my love," says he, "you are twice blessed being not only witty
yourself but a cause of wit in others; was that bit of Primitive Lee
with which M'Clare regaled us really not from the hand of the
mistress, or was it a mere pastiche?"
I say Whoever wrote that it was not me anyway.
"It seemed to me pale and luke-warm compared with the real thing,"
says Cray languidly, "which brings me to a point that, to quote dear
Kirsty, seems to have been missed."
I say, "Yep. Like what language it was that these people wrote their
log in that we can be _certain_ the Incognitans won't know."
"More than that," says B, "we didn't decide who they are or where they
were coming from or how they came to crash or anything."
"Come to think of it, though," I point out, "the language and a good
many other things must have been decided already because of getting
the right hypnotapes and translators on board."
B suddenly lights up.
"Yes, but look, I bet that's what we're here for, I mean that's why
they picked us instead of Space Department people--the ship's got to
have a past history, it has to come from a planet somewhere only no
one must ever find out _where_ it's supposed to be. Someone will have
to fake a log, only I don't see how--"
"The first reel with data showing the planet of origin got damaged
during the crash," says Cray impatiently.
"Yes, of course--but we have to find a reason why they were in that
part of Space and it has to be a _nice_ one, I mean so that the
Incognitans when they finally read the log won't hate them any more--"
"Maybe they were bravely defending their own planet by hunting down an
interplanetary raider," I suggest.
Cray says it will take only the briefest contact with other planets to
convince the Incognitans that interplanetary raiders can't and don't
exist, modern planetary alarm and defense systems put them out of the
question.
"That's all he knows," says B, "some interplanetary pirates raided
Lizzie's father's farm once. Didn't they, Liz?"
"Yes in a manner of speaking, but they were bums who pinched a
spaceship from a planet not many parsecs away, a sparsely inhabited
mining world like my own which had no real call for an alarm system,
so that hardly alters the argument."
"Well," says B, "the alarm system on Incognita can't be so hot or the
observation ships could not have got in, or out, for that matter,
unless of course they have some other gadget we don't know about."
"On the other hand," she considers, "to mention Interplanetary raiders
raises the idea of Menace in an Unfriendly Universe again, and this is
what we want to cancel out.
"These people," she says at last with a visionary look in her eye,
"come from a planet which went isolationist and abandoned space
travel; now they have built up their civilization to a point where
they can build ships of their own again, and the ones on Gilgamesh
have cut loose from the ideas of their ancestors that led to their
going so far afield--"
"How far afield?" says Cray.
"No one will ever know," I point out to him. "Don't interrupt."
"Anyway," says B, "they set out to rejoin the rest of the Human Race
just like the people on _Gilgamesh_ _really_ did, in fact, a lot of
this is the truth only kind of backwards--they were looking for the
Cradle of the Race, that's what. Then there was some sort of disaster
that threw them off course to land on an uninhabited section of a
planet that couldn't understand their signals. And when Incognita
finally does take to space flight again I bet the first thing the
people do is to try and follow back to where _Gilgamesh_ came from and
make contact with them. It'll become a legend on Incognita--the Lost
People ... the Lost ... Lost--"
"The Lost Kafoozalum," says Cray. "In other words we switch these
people off a war only to send them on a wild goose chase."
At which a strange voice chimes in, "No, no, no, son, you've got it
all _wrong_."
* * * * *
Mr. Yardo is with us like a well-meaning skeleton.
During the next twenty-five minutes we learn a lot about Mr. Yardo
including material for a good guess at how he came to be picked for
this expedition; doubtless there are many experts on Reversal Of
Vacuum-Induced Changes in Organic Tissues but maybe only one of them a
Romantic at heart.
Mr. Yardo thinks chasing the Wild Goose will do the Incognitans all
the good in the galaxy, it will take their minds off controversies
over interhemispherical trade and put them on to the quest of the
Unobtainable; they will get to know something of the Universe outside
their own little speck. Mr. Yardo has seen a good deal of the Universe
in the course of advising on how to recondition space-packed meat and
he found it an Uplifting Experience.
We gather he finds this desperate bit of damfoolery we are on now
pretty Uplifting altogether.
Cray keeps surprisingly quiet but it is as well that the rest of the
party start to trickle in about twenty minutes later the first
arrivals remarking Oh _that's_ where you've got to!
Presently we are all congregated at one end of the table as before,
except that Mr. Yardo is now sitting between B and me; when M'Clare
and the colonel come in he firmly stays where he is evidently
considering himself One of Us now.
"The proposition," says M'Clare, "is that we intend to take
_Gilgamesh_ to Incognita and land her there in such a way as to
suggest that she crashed. In the absence of evidence to the contrary
the Incognitans are bound to assume that that was her intended
destination, and the presence of weapons, even disarmed, will suggest
that her mission was aggressive. Firstly, can anyone suggest a better
course of action? or does anyone object to this one?"
We all look at Lennie who sticks his hands in his pockets and mutters
"No."
Kirsty gives her little cough and says there is a point which has not
been mentioned.
If a heavily-armed ship crashes on Incognita, will not the government
of the hemisphere in which it crashes be presented with new ideas for
offensive weapons? And won't this make it _more_ likely that they will
start aggression? And won't the fear of this make the other hemisphere
even more likely to try and get in first before the new weapons are
complete?
Hell, I ought to have thought of that.
From the glance of unwilling respect which the colonel bestows on
M'Clare it is plain these points have been dealt with.
"The weapons on Gilgamesh were disarmed when she was rediscovered," he
says. "Essential sections were removed. The Incognitans won't be able
to reconstruct how they worked."
_Another_ fact for which we shall have to provide an explanation. Well
how about this: The early explorers sent out by these people--the
people in Gilgamesh ... oh, use Cray's word and call them Lost
Kafoozalum anyway their ships were armed, but they never found any
enemies and the Idealists of B's story refused even to carry arms any
more.
(Which is just about what happened when the Terries set out to
rediscover the colonies, after all.)
So the Lost Kafoozalum could not get rid of their weapons completely
because it would have meant rebuilding the ship; so they just
partially dismantled them.
Mr. Yardo suddenly chips in, "About that other point, girlie, surely
there must be some neutral ground left on a half-occupied planet like
that?" He beams round, pleased at being able to contribute.
B says, "The thing is," and stops.
We wait.
We have about given up hope when she resumes, "The thing is, it will
have to be neutral ground of course, only that might easily become a
thingummy ... I mean a, a _casus belli_ in itself. So the _other_
thing is it ought to be a place which is very hard to get at, so
difficult that neither side can really get to it first, they'll have
to reach an agreement and co-operate."
"Yeah," says Dillie "that sounds fine, but what sort of place is
that?"
I am sorting out in my head the relative merits of mountains,
deserts, gorges, et cetera, when I an seized with inspiration at the
same time as half the group; we say the same thing in different words
and for a time there is Babel, then the idea emerges:
"Drop her into the sea!"
The colonel nods resignedly.
"Yes," he says, "that's what we're going to do."
He presses a button and our projection-screens light up, first with a
map of one pole of Incognita, expanding in scale till finally we are
looking down on one little bit of coast on one of the polar islands. A
glacier descends on to it from mountains inland and there is a bay
between cliffs. Then we get a stereo scene of approximately the least
hospitable of scenery I ever did see--except maybe when Parvati Lal
Dutt's brother made me climb up what he swore was the smallest peak in
the Himalayas.
It is a small bay backed by tumbled cliffs. A shelving beach can be
deduced from contour and occasional boulders big enough to stick
through the snow that smothers it all. A sort of mess of rocks and mud
at the back may be glacial moraine. Over the sea the ice is split in
all directions by jagged rifts and channels; the whole thing is a bit
like Antarctica but nothing is high enough or white enough to uplift
the spirit, it looks not only chilly but kind of mean.
"This place," says the colonel, "is the only one, about which we have
any topographical information, that seems to meet the requirements.
Got to know about it through an elementary planetography. One of the
observers had the sense to see we might need something of the sort.
This place"--the stereo jigs as he taps his projector--"seems it's the
center of a rising movement in the crust ... that's not to the point.
Neither side has bothered to claim the land at the poles...."
I see their point if it's all like this--
"... And a ship trying to land on those cliffs might very well pitch
over into the sea. That is, if she were trying to land on emergency
rockets."
Rockets--that brings home the ancientness of this ship
_Gilgamesh_--but after all the ships that settled Incognita probably
carried emergency rockets, too.
This settled, the meeting turns into a briefing session and merges
imperceptibly with the beginning of the job.
* * * * *
The job of course is Faking the background of the crash; working out
the past history and present aims of the Lost Kafoozalum. We have to
invent a planet and what's more difficult convey all the essential
information about it by the sort of sideways hints you gather among
peoples' personal possessions; diaries, letters et cetera; and what is
even _more_ difficult we have to leave out anything that could lead to
definite identification of our unknown world with any known one.
We never gave that world a name; it might be dangerous. Who speaks of
their world by name, except to strangers? They call it "home"--or
"Earth," as often as not.
Some things have been decided for us. Language, for instance--one of
two thousand or so Earth tongues that went out of use late enough to
be plausible as the main language of a colonized planet. The settlers
on Incognita were not of the sort to take along dictionaries of the
lesser-known tongues, so the computers at Russett had a fairly wide
choice.
We had to take a hypnocourse in that language. Ditto the script, one
of several forgotten phonetic shorthands. (Designed to enable the
tongues of Aliens to be written down; but the Aliens have never been
met. It is plausible enough that some colony might have kept the
script alive; after all Thasia uses something of the sort to this
day.)
The final result of our work looks pretty small. Twenty-three
"Personal Background Sets"--a few letters, a diary in some, an
assortment of artifacts. Whoever stocked this ship we are on supplied
wood, of the half-dozen kinds that have been taken wherever men have
gone; stocks of a few plastics--known at the time of the Exodus, or
easily developed from those known, and not associated with any
particular planet. Also books on Design, a Form-writer for translating
drawings into materials, and so on. Someone put in a lot of work
before this voyage began.
Most of the time it is like being back on Russet doing a group
Project. What we are working on has no more and no less reality than
that. Our work is all read into a computer and checked against
everybody else's. At first we keep clashing. Gradually a consistent
picture builds up and gets translated finally into the Personal
Background Kits. The Lost Kafoozalum start to exist like people in a
History book.
Fifteen days hard work and we have just about finished; then we
reach--call it Planet Gilgamesh.
I wake in my bunk to hear that there will be brief cessation of
weight; strap down, please.
We are coming off Mass-Time to go on planetary drive.
Colonel Delano-Smith is in charge of operations on the planet, with
Ram and Peter to assist. None of the rest of us see the melting out of
fifty years' accumulation of ice, the pumping away of the water, the
fitting and testing of the holds for the grappling-beams. We stay
inside the ship, on five-eighths gee which we do not have time to get
used to, and try to work, and discard the results before the computer
can do so. There is hardly any work left to do, anyway.
It takes nearly twelve hours to get the ship free, and caulked, and
ready to lift. (Her hull has to be patched because of Mr. Yardo's
operations which make use of several sorts of vapors). Then there is a
queer blind period with Up now one way, now another, and sudden jerks
and tugs that upset everything not in gimbals or tied down;
interspersed with periods when weightlessness supervenes with no
warning at all. After an hour or two of this it would be hard to say
whether Mental or physical discomfort is more acute; B consulted,
however, says my autonomic system must be quite something, after five
minutes _her_ thoughts were with her viscera entirely.
Then, suddenly, we are back on Mass-Time again.
Two days to go.
* * * * *
At first being on Mass-Time makes everything seem normal again. By
sleep time there is a strain, and next day it is everywhere. I know as
well as any that on Mass-Time the greater the mass the faster the
shift; all the same I cannot help feeling we are being slowed, dragged
back by the dead ship coupled to our live one.
When you stand by the hull _Gilgamesh_ is only ten feet away.
I should have kept something to work on like B and Kirsty who have not
done their Letters for Home in Case of Accidents; mine is signed and
sealed long ago. I am making a good start on a Neurosis when
Delano-Smith announces a Meeting for one hour ahead.
Hurrah! now there is a time-mark fixed I think of all sorts of things
I should have done before; for instance taking a look at the controls
of the Hoppers.
I have been in one of them half an hour and figured out most of the
dials--Up down and sideways are controlled much as in a helicar, but
here a big viewscreen has been hooked in to the autopilot--when
across the hold I see the air lock start to move.
_Gilgamesh_ is on the other side.
It takes forever to open. When at last it swings wide on the dark
tunnel what comes through is a storage rack, empty, floating on
antigrav.
What follows is a figure in a spacesuit; modern type, but the windows
of the hopper are semipolarized and I cannot make out the face inside
the bubble top.
He slings the rack upon the bulkhead, takes off the helmet and hangs
that up, too. Then he just stands. I am beginning to muster enough
sense to wonder why when he comes slowly across the hold.
Reaching the doorway he says: "Oh it's you, Lizzie. You'll have to
help me out of this. I'm stuck."
M'Clare.
The outside of the suit is still freezing cold; maybe this is what has
jammed the fastening. After a few minutes tugging it suddenly gives
away. M'Clare climbs out of the suit, leaving it standing, and says,
"Help me count these, will you?"
_These_ are a series of transparent containers from a pouch slung at
one side of the suit. I recognize them as the envelopes in which we
put what are referred to as Personal Background Sets.
I say, "There ought to be twenty-three."
"No," says M'Clare dreamily, "twenty-two, we're saving one of them."
"What on earth is the use of an extra set of faked documents and
oddments--"
He seems to wake up suddenly and says: "What are you doing here,
Lizzie?"
I explain and he wanders over to the hopper and starts to explain the
controls.
There is something odd about all this. M'Clare is obviously dead
tired, but kind of relaxed; seeing that the hour of Danger is only
thirty-six hours off I don't understand it. Probably several of his
students are going to have to risk their lives--
I am on the point of seeing something important when the speaker
announces in the colonel's voice that Professor M'Clare and Miss Lee
will report to the Conference Room at once please.
M'Clare looks at me and grins. "Come along, Lizzie. Here's where we
take orders for once, you and I."
It is the colonel's Hour. I suppose that having to work with
Undergraduates is something he could never quite forget, but from the way
he looks at us we might almost be Space Force personnel,--low-grade of
course but respectable.
Everything is at last worked out and he has it on paper in front of
him; he puts the paper four square on the table, gazes into the middle
distance and proceeds to recite.
"One. This ship will go off Mass-Time on 2nd August at 11.27 hours
ship's time....
"Thirty-six hours from now.
"... At a point one thousand miles vertically above Co-ordinates
165OE, 7320S, on Planet Incognita, approximately one hour before
midnight local time.
"Going on planetary drive as close as that will indicate that
something is badly wrong to begin with.
"Two. This ship will descend, coupled to _Gilgamesh_ as at present, to
a point seventy miles above the planetary surface. It will then
uncouple, discharge one hopper, and go back on Mass-Time. Estimated
time for this stage of descent forty minutes.
"Three. The hopper will then descend on its own engines at the maximum
speed allowed by the heat-disposal system; estimated at thirty-seven
minutes. _Gilgamesh_ will complete descent in thirty-three minutes.
Engines of _Gilgamesh_ will not be used except for the heat-disposal
and gyro auxiliaries. The following installations have been made to
allow for the control of the descent; a ring of eight rockets in
peltathene mounts around the tail and, and one outsize antigrav unit
inside the nose. "Sympathizer" controls hooked up with a visiscreen
and a computer have also been installed in the nose.
"Four. _Gilgamesh_ will carry one man only. The hopper will carry a
crew of three. The pilot of _Gilgamesh_ will establish the ship on the
edge of the cliff, supported on antigrav a foot or so above the ground
and leaning towards the sea at an angle of approximately 20° with the
vertical. Except for this landing will be automatic.
"Five."
The colonel's voice has lulled us into passive acceptance; now we are
jerked into sharper attention by the faintest possible check in it.
"The greatest danger attaching to the expedition is that the
Incognitans may discover that the crash has been faked. This would be
inevitable if they were to capture (a) the hopper; (b) any of the new
installations in Gilgamesh, especially the antigrav; (c) any member of
the crew.
"The function of the hopper is to pick up the pilot of _Gilgamesh_ and
also to check that ground appearances are consistent. If not, they
will produce a landslip on the cliff edge, using power tools and
explosives carried for the purpose. That is why the hopper has a crew
of three, but the chance of their having to do this is slight."
So I should think; ground appearances are supposed to show that
_Gilgamesh_ landed using emergency rockets and then toppled over the
cliff and this will be exactly what happened.
"The pilot will carry a one-frequency low-power transmitter activated
by the change in magnetic field on leaving the ship. The hopper will
remain at five hundred feet until this signal is received. It will
then pick up the pilot, check ground appearances, and rendezvous with
this ship at two hundred miles up at 18.27 hours."
The ship and the hopper both being radar-absorbent will not register
on alarm systems, and by keeping to planetary nighttime they should
be safe from being seen.
"Danger (b) will be dealt with as follows. The rocket-mounts being of
peltathene will be destroyed by half an hour's immersion in water. The
installations in the nose will be destroyed with Andite."
Andite produces complete colecular disruption in a very short range,
hardly any damage outside it; the effect will be as though the nose
broke off on impact; I suppose the Incognitans will waste a lot of
time looking for it on the bed of the sea.
"Four ten-centimeter cartridges will be inserted within the nose
installations. The fuse will have two alternative settings. The first
will be timed to act at 12.50 hours, seven minutes after the estimated
time of landing. It will not be possible to deactivate it before 12.45
hours. This takes care of the possibility of the pilot's becoming
incapacitated during the descent.
"Having switched off the first fuse the pilot will get the ship into
position and then activate a second, timed to blow in ten minutes. He
will then leave the ship. When the antigrav is destroyed the ship
will, of course, fall into the sea.
"Six. The pilot of _Gilgamesh_ will wear a spacesuit of the pattern
used by the original crew and will carry Personal Background Set
number 23. Should he fail to escape from the ship the crew of the
hopper will on no account attempt to rescue him."
The colonel takes up the paper, folds it in half and puts it down one
inch further away.
"The hopper's crew," he says, "will give the whole game away should
one of them fall into Incognitan hands, alive or dead. Therefore they
don't take any risks of it."
He lifts his gaze ceilingwards. "I'm asking for three volunteers."
Silence. Manning the hopper is definitely second best. Then light
suddenly bursts on me and I lift my hand and hack B on the ankle.
"I volunteer," I say.
B gives me a most dubious glance and then lifts her hand, too.
Cray on the other side of the table is slowly opening his mouth when
there is an outburst of waving on the far side of B.
"Me too, colonel! I volunteer!"
Mr. Yardo proceeds to explain that his special job is over and done,
he can be more easily spared than anybody, he may be too old to take
charge of _Gilgamesh_ but will back himself as a hopper pilot against
anybody.
The colonel cuts this short by accepting all three. He then unfolds
his paper again.
"Piloting _Gilgamesh_," he says. "I'm not asking for volunteers now.
You'll go to your cabins in four hours' time and those who want to
will volunteer, secretly. To a computer hookup, Computer will select
on a random basis and notify the one chosen. Give him his final
instructions, too. No one need know who it was till it's all over. He
can tell anyone he likes, of course."
[Illustration]
A very slight note of triumph creeps into the next remark. "One point.
Only men need volunteer."
Instant outcry from Kirsty and Dilly: B turns to me with a look of
awe.
"Nothing to do with prejudice," says the colonel testily. "Just facts.
The crew of _Gilgamesh_ were all men. Can't risk one solitary woman
being found on board. Besides--spacesuits, personal background
sets--all designed for men."
Kirsty and Dilly turn on me looks designed to shrivel and B whispers
"Lizzie how wonderful you are."
* * * * *
The session dissolves. We three get an intensive session course of
instruction on our duties and are ordered off to sleep. After
breakfast next morning I run into Cray who says, Before I continue
about what is evidently pressing business would I care to kick him,
hard?
Not right now I reply, what for anyway?
"Miss Lee," says Cray, dragging it out longer than ever, "although I
have long realized that your brain functions in a way much superior to
logic I had not sense enough yesterday to follow my own instinct and
do what you do as soon as you did it; therefore that dessicated meat
handler got in first."
I say: "So you weren't picked for pilot? It was only one chance in
ten."
"Oh," says Cray, "did you really think so?" He gives me a long look
and goes away.
I suppose he noticed that when the colonel came out with his remarks
about No women in Gilgamesh I was as surprised as any.
Presently the three of us are issued with protective clothing; we just
might have to venture out on the planet's surface and therefore we get
white one-piece suits to protect against Cold, heat, moisture,
dessication, radioactivity, and mosquitoes, and they are quite
becoming, really.
[Illustration]
B and I drag out dressing for thirty minutes; then we just sit while
Time crawls asymptotically towards the hour.
Then the speaker calls us to go.
We are out of the cabin before it says two words and racing for the
hold; so that we are just in time to see a figure out of an Historical
movie--padded, jointed, tin bowl for head and blank reflecting glass
where the face should be--stepping through the air lock.
The colonel and Mr. Yardo are there already. The colonel packs us into
the hopper and personally closes the door, and for once I know what
he is thinking; he is wishing he were not the only pilot in this ship
who could possibly rely on bringing the ship off and on Mass-Time at
one particular defined spot of Space.
Then he leaves us; half an hour to go.
The light in the hold begins to alter. Instead of being softly
diffused it separates into sharp-edged beams, reflecting and
crisscrossing but leaving cones of shadow between. The air is being
pumped into store.
Fifteen minutes.
The hull vibrates and a hatch slides open in the floor so that the
black of Space looks through; it closes again.
Mr. Yardo lifts the hopper gently off its mounts and lets it back
again.
Testing; five minutes to go.
I am hypnotized by my chronometer; the hands are crawling through
glue; I am still staring at it when, at the exact second, we go off
Mass-Time.
No weight. I hook my heels under the seat and persuade my esophagus
back into place. A new period of waiting has begun. Every so often
comes the impression we are falling head-first; the colonel using
ship's drive to decelerate the whole system. Then more free fall.
The hopper drifts very slowly out into the hold and hovers over the
hatch, and the lights go. There is only the glow from the visiscreen
and the instrument board.
One minute thirty seconds to go.
The hatch slides open again. I take a deep breath.
I am still holding it when the colonel's voice comes over the speaker:
"Calling _Gilgamesh_. Calling the hopper. Good-by and Good luck.
You're on your own."
The ship is gone.
Yet another stretch of time has been marked off for us. Thirty-seven
minutes, the least time allowable if we are not to get overheated by
friction with the air. Mr. Yardo is a good pilot; he is concentrating
wholly on the visiscreen and the thermometer. B and I are free to look
around.
I see nothing and say so.
I did not know or have forgotten that Incognita has many small
satellites; from here there are four in sight.
* * * * *
I am still looking at them when B seizes my arm painfully and points
below us.
I see nothing and say so.
B whispers it was there a moment ago, it is pretty cloudy down
there--Yes Lizzie there it is _look_.
And I see it. Over to the left, very faint and far below, a pin-prick
of light.
Light in the polar wastes of a sparsely inhabited planet, and since we
are still five miles up it is a very powerful light too.
No doubt about it, as we descend farther; about fifty miles from our
objective there are men, quite a lot of them.
I think it is just then that I understand, _really_ understand, the
hazard of what we are doing. This is not an exercise. This is in dead
earnest, and if we have missed an essential factor or calculated
something wrong the result will be not a bad mark or a failed exam, or
even our personal deaths, but incalculable harm and misery to millions
of people we never even heard of.
Dead earnest. How in Space did we ever have cheek enough for this?
The lights might be the essential factor we have missed, but there is
nothing we can do about them now.
Mr. Yardo suddenly chuckles and points to the screen.
"There you are, girlies! He's down!"
There, grayly dim, is the map the colonel showed us; and right on the
faint line of the cliff-edge is a small brilliant dot.
The map is expanding rapidly, great lengths of coastline shooting out
of sight at the edge of the screen. Mr. Yardo has the cross-hairs
centered on the dot which is _Gilgamesh_. The dot is changing shape;
it is turning into a short ellipse, a longer one. The gyros are
leaning her out over the sea.
I look at my chronometer; 12.50 hours exactly. B looks, too, and grips
my hand.
Thirty seconds later the Andite has not blown; first fuse safety
turned off. Surely she is leaning far enough out by now?
We are hovering at five hundred feet. I can actually see the white
edge of the sea beating at the cliff. Mr. Yardo keeps making small
corrections; there is a wind out there trying to blow us away. It is
cloudy here: I can see neither moons nor stars.
Mr. Yardo checks the radio. Nothing yet.
I stare downwards and fancy I can see a metallic gleam.
Then there is a wordless shout from Mr. Yardo; a bright dot hurtles
across the screen and at the same time I see a streak of blue flame
tearing diagonally downwards a hundred feet away.
The hopper shudders to a flat concussion in the air, we are all thrown
off balance, and when I claw my way back to the screen the moving dot
is gone.
So is _Gilgamesh_.
B says numbly, "But it wasn't a meteor. It can't have been."
"It doesn't matter what it was," I say. "It was some sort of missile,
I think. They must be even nearer to war than we thought."
We wait. What for, I don't know. Another missile, perhaps. No more
come.
At last Mr. Yardo stirs. His voice sounds creaky.
"I guess," he says, then clears his throat, and tries again. "I guess
we have to go back up."
B says, "Lizzie, who was it? Do you know?"
Of course I do. "Do you think M'Clare was going to risk one of us on
that job? The volunteering was a fake. He went himself."
B whispers, "You're just guessing."
"Maybe," says Mr. Yardo, "but I happened to see through that face
plate of his. It was the professor all right."
He has his hand on the controls when my brain starts working again. I
utter a strangled noise and dive for the hatch into the cargo hold. B
tries to grab me but I get it open and switch on the light.
Fifty-fifty chance--I've lost.
_No_, this is the one we came in and the people who put in the new
cargo did not clear out my fish-boat, they just clamped it neatly to
the wall.
I dive in and start to pass up the package. B shakes her head.
"No, Lizzie. We can't. Don't you remember? If we got caught, it would
give everything away. Besides ... there isn't any chance--"
"Take a look at the screen," I tell her.
Sharp exclamation from Mr. Yardo. B turns to look, then takes the
package and helps me back.
* * * * *
Mr. Yardo maneuvers out over the sea till the thing is in the middle
of the screen; then drops to a hundred feet. It is sticking out of the
water at a fantastic angle and the waves are hardly moving it. The
nose of a ship.
"The antigrav," whispers B. "The Andite hasn't blown yet."
"Ten minutes," says Mr. Yardo thoughtfully. He turns to me with sudden
briskness. "What's that, Lizzie girl? A fish-boat? Good. We may need
it. Let's have a look."
"It's mine," I tell him.
"Now look--"
"Tailor made," I say. "You might get into it, though I doubt it. You
couldn't work the controls."
It takes him fifteen seconds to realize there is no way round it; he
is six foot three and I am five foot one. Even B would find it hard.
His face goes grayish and he stares at me helplessly. Finally he nods.
"All right, Lizzie. I guess we have to try it. Things certainly can't
be much worse than they are. We'll go over to the beach there."
On the beach there is wind and spray and breakers but nothing
unmanageable; the cliffs on either side keep off the worst of the
force. It is queer to feel moving air after eighteen days in a ship.
It takes six minutes to unpack and expand the boat and by that time it
is ten minutes since the missile hit and the Andite has not blown.
I crawl into the boat. In my protective clothing it is a fairly tight
fit. We agree that I will return to this same point and they will
start looking for me in fifty minutes' time and will give up if I have
not returned in two hours. I take two Andite cartridges to deal with
all eventualities and snap the nose of the boat into place. At first I
am very conscious of the two little white cigars in the pouch of my
suit, but presently I have other things to think about.
I use the "limbs" to crawl the last few yards of shingle into the
water and on across the sea bottom till I am beyond the line of
breakers; then I turn on the motor. I have already set the controls to
"home" on _Gilgamesh_ and the radar will steer me off any
obstructions. This journey in the dark is as safe as my trip around
the reefs before all this started--though it doesn't feel that way.
It takes twelve minutes to reach _Gilgamesh_, or rather the fragment
that antigrav is supporting; it is about half a mile from the beach.
The radar stops me six feet from her and I switch it off and turn to
Manual and inch closer in.
Lights, a very small close beam. The missile struck her about one
third of her length behind the nose. I know, because I can see the
whole of that length. It is hanging just above the water, sloping at
about 30° to the horizontal. The ragged edge where it was torn from
the rest is just dipping into the sea.
If anyone sees this, I don't know what they will make of it but no one
could possibly think an ordinary spaceship suffered an ordinary crash,
and very little investigation would show up the truth.
I reach up with the forward set of "limbs" and grapple on to the
break. I now have somehow to get the hind set of "limbs" up without
losing my grip. I can't.
It takes several minutes to realize that I can just open the nose and
crawl out.
Immediately a wave hits me in the face and does its best to drag me
into the sea. However the interior of the ship is relatively sheltered
and presently I am inside and dragging the boat up out of reach.
I need light. Presently I manage to detach one of the two from the
boat. I turn it down to minimum close beam and hang it round my neck;
then I start up the black jag-edged tunnel of the ship.
I have to get to the nose, find the fuse, change the setting to twenty
minutes--maximum possible--and get out before it blows--out of the
water I mean. The fish-boat is not constructed to take explosions even
half a mile away. But the first thing is to find the fuse and I cannot
make out how _Gilgamesh_ is lying and therefore cannot find the door
through this bulkhead; everything is ripped and twisted. In the end I
find a gap between the bulkhead itself and the hull, and squeeze
through that.
In the next compartment things are more recognizable and I eventually
find the door. Fortunately ships are designed so that you can get
through doors even when they are in the ceiling; actually here I have
to climb up an overhang, but the surface is provided with rungs which
make it not too bad. Finally I reach the door. I shall have to use
antigrav to get down ... why didn't I just turn it on and jump? I
forgot I had it.
The door was a little way open when the missile struck; it buckled in
its grooves and is jammed fast. I can get an arm through. No more. I
switch on antigrav and hang there directing the light round the
compartment. No rents anywhere, just buckling. This compartment is
divided by a partition and the door through that is open. There will
be another door into the nose on the other side.
I bring back my feet ready to kick off on a dive through that doorway.
Behind me, something stirs.
* * * * *
My muscles go into a spasm like the one that causes a falling dream,
my hold tears loose and I go tumbling through the air, rebound from a
wall, twist, and manage to hook one foot in the frame of the door I
was aiming for. I pull myself down and turn off the antigrav; then I
just shake for a bit.
The sound was--
This is stupid, with everything torn to pieces in this ship there is
no wonder if bits shake loose and drop around--
But it was not a metallic noise, it was a kind of soft dragging, very
soft, that ended in a little thump.
Like a--
Like a loose piece of plastic dislodged from its angle of rest and
slithering down, pull yourself together Lizzie Lee.
I look through the door into the other half of this level. Shambles.
Smashed machinery every which way, blocking the door, blocking
everything. No way through at all.
Suddenly I remember the tools. Mr. Yardo loaded the fish-boat with all
it would take. I crawl back and return with a fifteen inch expanding
beam-lever, and overuse it; the jammed trap door does not slide back
in its grooves but flips right out of them, bent double; it flies off
into the dark and clangs its way to rest.
I am halfway through the opening when I hear the sound again. A soft
slithering; a faint defeated thump.
I freeze where I am, and then I hear the sigh; a long, long weary
sound, almost musical.
An air leak somewhere in the hull and wind or waves altering the air
pressure below.
All the same I do not seem able to come any farther through this door.
Light might help; I turn the beam up and play it cautiously around.
This is the last compartment, right in the nose; a sawn-off
cone-shape. No breaks here, though the hull is buckled to my left and
the "floor"--the partition, horizontal when the ship is in the normal
operating position, which holds my trap door--is torn up; some large
heavy object was welded to a thin surface skin which has ripped away
leaving jagged edges and a pattern of girders below.
There is no dust here; it has all been sucked out when the ship was
open to space; nothing to show the beam except the sliding yellow
ellipse where it touches the wall. It glides and turns, spiraling
down, deformed every so often where it crosses a projection or a dent,
till it halts suddenly on a spoked disk, four feet across and standing
nearly eighteen inches out from the wall. The antigrav.
I never saw one this size, it is like the little personal affairs as a
giant is like a pigmy, not only bigger but a bit different in
proportion. I can see an Andite cartridge fastened among the spokes.
The fuse is a "sympathizer" but it is probably somewhere close. The
ellipse moves again. There is no feeling that I control it; it is
hunting on its own. To and fro around the giant wheel. Lower. It halts
on a small flat box, also bolted to the wall, a little way below. This
is it, I can see the dial.
The ellipse stands still, surrounding the fuse. There is something at
the very edge of it.
When _Gilgamesh_ was right way up the antigrav was bolted to one wall,
about three feet above the floor. Now the lowest point is the place
where this wall joins what used to be the floor. Something has fallen
down to that point and is huddled there in the dark.
The beam jerks suddenly up and the breath whoops out of me; a round
thing sticking out of the wall--then I realize it is an archaic
space-helmet, clamped to the wall for safety when the wearer took it
off.
I take charge of the ellipse of light and move it slowly down, past
the fuse, to the thing below. A little dark scalloping of the edge of
the light. The tips of fingers. A hand.
I turn up the light.
When the missile struck the big computer was wrenched loose from the
floor. It careened down as the floor tilted, taking with it anything
that stood in its way.
M'Clare was just stooping to the fuse, I think. The computer smashed
against his legs and pinned him down in the angle between the wall and
the floor. His legs are hidden by it.
Because of the spacesuit he does not looked crushed; the thick clumsy
joints have kept their roundness, so far as they are visible; only his
hands and head are bare and vulnerable looking.
I am halfway down, floating on minimum gravity, before it really
occurs to me that he may be still alive.
I switch to half and drop beside him. His face is colorless but he is
breathing all right.
First-aid kit. I will never make fun of Space Force thoroughness
again. Rows and rows of small plastic ampoules. Needles.
Pain-killer, first. I read the directions twice, sweating. Emergencies
only--this is. One dose _only_ to be given and if patient is not in
good health use--never mind that. I fit on the longest needle and jab
it through the suit, at the back of the thigh, as far towards the
knee-joint as I can get because the suit is thinner. Half one side,
half the other.
Now to get the computer off. At a guess it weighs about five hundred
pounds. The beam-lever would do it but it would probably fall back.
Antigrav; the personal size is supposed to take up to three times the
weight of the average man. I take mine off and buckle the straps
through a convenient gap. I have my hands under the thing when M'Clare
sighs again.
He is lying on his belly but his head is turned to one side, towards
me. Slowly his eyelids open. He catches the sight of my hand; his head
moves a little, and he says, "Lizzie. Golden Liz."
I say not to worry, we will soon be out of here.
His body jumps convulsively and he cries out. His hand reaches my
sleeve and feels. He says, "Liz! Oh, God, I thought ... what--"
I say things are under control and just keep quiet a bit.
His eyes close. After a moment he whispers, "Something hit the ship."
"A homing missile, I think."
I ought not to have said that; but it seems to make no particular
impression, maybe he guessed as much.
* * * * *
I was wrong in wanting to shift the computer straight away, the
release of pressure might start a hemorrhage; I dig out ampoules of
blood-seal and inject them into the space between the suit and the
flesh, as close to the damage as I can.
M'Clare asks how the ship is lying and I explain, also how I got here.
I dig out the six-by-two-inch packet of expanding stretcher and read
the directions. He is quiet for a minute or two, gathering strength;
then he says sharply: "Lizzie. Stop that and listen.
"The fuse for the Andite is just under the antigrav. Go and find it.
Go now. There's a dial with twenty divisions. Marked in black--you see
it. Turn the pointer to the last division. Is that done?
"Now you see the switch under the pointer? Is your boat ready? I beg
your pardon, of course you left it that way. Then turn the switch and
get out."
I come back and see by my chrono that the blood-seal should be set; I
get my hands under the computer. M'Clare bangs his hand on the floor.
"Lizzie, you little idiot, don't you realize that even if you get me
out of this ship, which is next to impossible, you'll be delayed all
the way--and if the Incognitans find either of us the whole plan's
ruined? Much worse than ruined, once they see it's a hoax--"
I tell him I have two Andite sticks and they won't find us and on a
night like this any story of explosions will be put down to sudden
gusts or to lightning.
He is silent for a moment while I start lifting the computer,
carefully; its effective weight with the antigrav full on is only
about twenty pounds but is has all its inertia. Then he says quietly,
"Please, Lizzie--can't you understand that the worst nightmare in the
whole affair has been the fear that one of you might get injured? Or
even killed? When I realized that only one person was needed to pilot
_Gilgamesh_--it was the greatest relief I ever experienced. Now you
say...." His voice picks up suddenly. "Lizzie, you're beaten anyway.
The ... I'm losing all feeling. Even pain. I can't feel anything
behind my shoulders ... it's creeping up--"
I say that means the pain-killer I shot him with is acting as
advertised, and he makes a sound as much like an explosive chuckle as
anything and it's quiet again.
The curvature between floor and wall is not helpful, I am trying to
find a place to wedge the computer so it cannot fall back when I take
off the antigrav. Presently I get it pushed on to a sort of ledge
formed by a dent in the floor, which I think will hold it. I ease off
the antigrav and the computer stays put, I don't like the looks of it
so let's get out of here.
I push the packaged stretcher under his middle and pull the tape
before I turn the light on to his legs to see the damage. I cannot
make out very much; the joints of the suit are smashed some, but as
far as I can see the inner lining is not broken which means it is
still air-and-water-tight.
I put a hand under his chest to feel how the stretcher is going; it is
now expanded to eighteen inches by six and I can feel it pushing out,
but it is _slow_, what else have I to do--oh yes, get the helmet.
I am standing up to reach for it when M'Clare says, "What are you
doing? Yes ... well, don't put it on for a minute. There's something I
would like to tell you, and with all respect for your obstinacy I
doubt very much whether I shall have another chance. Keep that light
off me, will you? It hurts my eyes.
"You know, Lizzie, I dislike risking the lives of any of the students
for whom I am responsible, but as it happens I find the idea of
you--blowing yourself to atoms particularly objectionable because ... I
happen to be in love with you. You're also one of my best students, I
used to think that ... was why I'd been so insistent on your coming to
Russett, but I rather think ... my motives were mixed even then. I meant
to tell you this after you graduated, and to ask you to marry me, not
that ... I thought you would, I know quite well ... you never quite
forgave me, but I don't-want-to-have to remember ... I didn't ... have
the guts to--"
His voice trails off, I get a belated rush of sense to the head and
turn the light on his face. His head is turned sideways and his fist
is clenched against the side of his neck. When I touch it his hand
falls open and five discharged ampoules fall out.
Pain-killer.
Maximum dose, one ampoule.
All that talk was just to hold my attention while he fixed the needles
and--
I left the kit spread out right next to him.
While I am taking this in some small cold corner of my mind is
remembering the instructions that are on the pain-killer ampoule; it
does not say, outright, that it is the last refuge for men in the
extremity of pain and despair; therefore it cannot say, outright, that
they sometimes despair too soon; but it does tell you the name of the
antidote.
There are only three ampoules of this and they also say, maximum dose
one ampoule. I try to work it out but lacking all other information
the best I can do is inject two and keep one till later. I put that
one in my pocket.
The stretcher is all expanded now; a very thin but quite rigid grid,
six feet by two; I lash him on it without changing his position and
fasten the helmet over his head.
Antigrav; the straps just go round him and the stretcher.
I point the thing up towards the trap door and give it a gentle push;
then I scramble up the rungs and get there just in time to guide it
through. It takes a knock then and some more while I am getting it
down to the next partition, but he can't feel it.
This time I find the door, because the roar of noise behind it acts as
a guide. The sea is getting up and is dashing halfway to the door as I
crawl through. My boat is awash, pivoting to and fro on the grips of
the front "limbs."
I grab it, release the limbs and pull it as far back as the door. I
maneuver the stretcher on top and realize there is nothing to fasten
it with ... except the antigrav, I get that undone, holding the
stretcher in balance, and manage to put it under the stretcher and
pass the straps between the bars of the grid ... then round the little
boat, and the buckle just grips the last inch. It will hold, though.
* * * * *
I set the boat to face the broken end of the ship, but I daren't put
it farther back than the doorway; I turn the antigrav to half, fasten
the limb-grips and rush back towards the nose of the ship. Silver knob
under the dial. I turn it down, hear the thing begin a fast, steady
ticking, and turn and run.
Twenty minutes.
One and a half to get back to the boat, four to get inside it without
overturning. Nearly two to get down to the sea--balance difficult. One
and a half to lower myself in.
Thirty seconds' tossing before I sink below the wave layer; then I
turn the motor as high as I dare and head for the shore.
In a minute I have to turn it down; at this speed the radar is
bothered by water currents and keeps steering me away from them as
though they were rocks; I finally find the maximum safe speed but it
is achingly slow. What happens if you are in water when Andite blows
half a mile away? A moment's panic as I find the ship being forced up,
then I realize I have reached the point where the beach starts to
shelve, turn off radar and motor and start crawling. Eternal slow
reach out, grab, shove, haul, with my heart in my mouth; then suddenly
the nose breaks water and I am hauling myself out with a last wave
doing its best to overbalance me.
I am halfway out of the boat when the Andite blows behind me. There is
a flat slapping sound; then an instant roar of wind as the air
receives the binding energies of several tons of matter; then a long
wave comes pelting up the beach and snatches at the boat.
I huddle into the shingle and hold the boat; I have just got the
antigrav turned off, otherwise I think it would have been carried
away. There are two or three more big waves and a patter of spray;
then it is over.
The outlet valve of the helmet is working, so M'Clare is still
breathing; very deep, very slow.
I unfasten the belt of the antigrav, having turned it on again, and
pull the belt through the buckle. No time to take it off and rearrange
it; anyway it will work as well under the stretcher as on top of it. I
drag the boat down to the water, put in an Andite cartridge with the
longest fuse I have, set the controls to take it straight out to sea
at maximum depth the radar control will allow--six feet above
bottom--and push it off. The other Andite cartridge starts burning a
hole in my pocket; I would have liked to put that in too, but I must
keep it, in case.
I look at my chrono and see that in five minutes the hopper will come.
Five minutes.
I am halfway back to the stretcher when I hear a noise further up the
beach. Unmistakable. Shingle under a booted foot.
I stand frozen in mid-stride. I turned the light out after launching
the boat but my eyes have not recovered yet; it is murkily black. Even
my white suit is only the faintest degree paler than my surroundings.
Silence for a couple of minutes. I stand still. But it can't have gone
away. What happens when the hopper comes? They will see whoever it is
on the infrared vision screen. They won't come--
Footsteps again. Several.
Then the clouds part and one of those superfluous little moons shines
straight through the gap.
The bay is not like the stereo the colonel showed because that was
taken in winter; now the snow is melted, leaving bare shingle and mud
and a tumble of rocks; more desolate than the snow. Fifty feet off is
a man.
He is huddled up in a mass of garments but his head is bare, rising
out of a hood which he has pushed back, maybe so as to listen better;
he looks young, hardly older than me. He is holding a long thin object
which I never saw before, but it must be a weapon of some sort.
This is the end of it. All the evidence of faking is destroyed; except
M'Clare and me. Even if I use the Andite he has seen me--and that
leaves M'Clare.
[Illustration]
I am standing here on one foot like a dancer in a jammed movie,
waiting for Time to start again or the world to end--
Like the little figure in the dance-instruction kit Dad got when I was
seven, when you switched her off in the middle.
* * * * *
Like a dancer--
My weight shifts on to the forward foot. My arms swing up, forwards,
back. I take one step, another.
Swing. Turn. Kick. Sideways.
Like the silly little dancer who could not get out of the plastic
block; but I am moving forward little by little, even if I have to
take three steps roundabout for every one in advance.
Arms, up. Turn, round. Leg, up. Straighten, out. Step.
Called the Dance of the Little Robot, for about three months Dad
thought it was no end cute, till he caught on I was thinking so, too.
It is just about the only kind of dance you could do on shingle, I
guess.
When this started I thought I might be going crazy, but I just had not
had time to work it out. In terms of Psychology it goes like this; to
shoot off a weapon a man needs a certain type of Stimulus like the
sight of an enemy over the end of it. So if I do my best not to look
like an enemy he will not get that Stimulus. Or put it another way
most men think twice before shooting a girl in the middle of a dance.
If I should happen to get away with this, nobody will believe his
story, he won't believe it himself.
As for the chance of getting away with it, i.e., getting close enough
to grab the gun or hit him with a rock or something, I know I would
become a Stimulus to shooting before I did that but there are always
the clouds, if one will only come back over the moon again.
I have covered half the distance.
Twenty feet from him, and he takes a quick step back.
Turn, kick, out, step. I am swinging round away from him, let's hope
he finds it reassuring. I dare not look up but I think the light is
dimming. Turn, kick, out, step. Boxing the compass. Coming round
again.
And the cloud is coming over the moon, out of the corner of my eye I
see darkness sweeping towards us--and I see his face of sheer horror
as he sees it, too; he jumps back, swings up the weapon, and fires
straight in my face.
And it is dark. So much for Psychology.
There is a clatter and other sounds--
Well, quite a lot for Psychology maybe, because at twenty feet he
seems to have missed me.
* * * * *
I pick myself up and touch something which apparently is his weapon,
gun or whatever. I leave it and hare back to the stretcher, next-to
fall over it but stop just in time, and switch on the antigrav. Up;
level it; now where to? The cliffs enclosing the bay are about thirty
yards off to my left and they offer the only cover.
The shingle is relatively level; I make good time till I stumble
against a rock and nearly lose the stretcher. I step up on to the rock
and see the cliff as a blacker mass in the general darkness, only a
yard away. I edge the stretcher round it.
It is almost snatched out of my hand by a gust of wind. I pull it back
and realize that in the bay I have been sheltered; there is pretty
near half a gale blowing across the face of the cliff.
Voices and footsteps, away back among the rocks where the man came
from.
If the clouds part again they will see me, sure as shooting.
I take a hard grip on the stretcher and scramble round the edge of the
cliff.
After the first gust the wind is not so bad; for the most part it is
trying to press me back into the cliff. The trouble is that I can't
see. I have to shuffle my foot forward, rubbing one shoulder against
the cliff to feel where it is because I have no hand free.
After a few yards I come to an impasse; something more than knee high;
boulder, ridge, I can't tell.
I weigh on the edge of the stretcher and tilt it up to get it over the
obstacle. With the antigrav full on it keeps its momentum and goes on
moving up. I try to check it, but the wind gets underneath.
It is tugging to get away; I step blindly upwards in the effort to
keep up with it. One foot goes on a narrow ledge, barely a toe hold. I
am being hauled upwards. I bring the other foot up and find the top of
a boulder, just within reach. Now the first foot--
And now I am on top of the boulder, but I have lost touch with the
cliff and the full force of the wind is pulling the stretcher upwards.
I get one arm over it and fumble underneath for the control of the
antigrav; I must give it weight and put it down on this boulder and
wait for the wind to drop.
Suddenly I realize that my weight is going; bending over the stretcher
puts me in the field of the antigrav. A moment later another gust
comes, and I realize I am rising into the air.
Gripping the edge of the stretcher with one hand I reach out the
other, trying to grasp some projection on the face of the cliff. Not
being able to see I simply push farther away till it is out of reach.
We are still rising.
I pull myself up on the stretcher; there is just room for my toes on
either side of M'Clare's legs. The wind roaring in my ears makes it
difficult to think.
Rods of light slash down at me from the edge of the cliff. For a
moment all I can do is duck; then I realize we are still well below
them, but rising every moment. The cliff-face is about six feet away;
the wind reflecting from it keeps us from being blown closer.
I must get the antigrav off. I let myself over the side of the
stretcher, hanging by one hand, and fumble for the controls. I can
just reach. Then I realize this is no use. Antigrav controls are not
meant to go off with a click of the finger; they might get switched
off accidentally. To work the switch and the safety you must have two
hands, or one hand in the optimum position. My position is about as
bad as it could be. I can stroke the switch with one finger; no more.
I haul myself back on to the stretcher and realize we are only about
six feet under the beam of light. Only one thing left. I feel in my
pocket for the Andite. Stupidly, I am still also bending over the
outlet valve of the helmet, trying to see whether M'Clare is still
breathing or not.
The little white cigar is not fused. I have to hold on with one hand.
In the end I manage to stick the Andite between thumb and finger-roots
of that hand while I use the other to find the fuse and stick it over
the Andite. The shortest; three minutes.
I think the valve is still moving--
Then something drops round me; I am hauled tight against the
stretcher; we are pulled strongly downwards with the wind buffeting
and snatching, banged against the edge of something, and pulled
through into silence and the dark.
For a moment I do not understand; then I recognize the feel of Fragile
Cargo, still clamping me to the stretcher, and I open my mouth and
scream and scream.
Clatter of feet. Hatch opens. Fragile Cargo goes limp.
I stagger to my feet. Faint light through the hatch; B's head. I hold
out the Andite stick and she turns and shouts; and a panel slides open
in the wall so that the wind comes roaring in.
I push the stick through and the wind snatches it away and it is gone.
After that--
* * * * *
After that, for a while, nothing, I suppose, though I have no
recollection of losing consciousness; only without any sense of break
I find I am flat on my back on one of the seats in the cabin of the
hopper.
I sit up and say "How--"
B who is sitting on the floor beside me says that when the broadcaster
was activated of course they came at once, only while they were
waiting for the boat to reach land whole squads of land cars arrived
and started combing the area, and some came up on top of the cliff and
shone their headlights out over the sea so Mr. Yardo had to lurk
against the cliff face and wait till I got into a position where he
could pick me up and it was _frightfully_ clever of me to think of
floating up on antigrav--
I forgot about the broadcaster.
I forgot about the hopper come to that, there seemed to be nothing in
the world except me and the stretcher and the enemy.
Stretcher.
I say, "Is M'Clare--"
At which moment Mr. Yardo turns from the controls with a wide smile of
triumph and says "Eighteen twenty-seven, girls!" and the world goes
weightless and swings upside down.
Then still with no sense of any time-lapse I am lying in the big
lighted hold, with the sound of trampling all round: it is somehow
filtered and far off and despite the lights there seems to be a globe
of darkness around my head. I hear my own voice repeating, "M'Clare?
How's M'Clare?"
A voice says distantly, without emphasis, "M'Clare? He's dead."
The next time I come round it is dark. I am vaguely aware of having
been unconscious for quite a while.
There is a single thread of knowledge connecting this moment with the
last: M'Clare's dead.
This is the central factor: I seem to have been debating it with
myself for a very long time.
I suppose the truth is simply that the Universe never guarantees
anything; life, or permanence, or that your best will be good enough.
The rule is that you have to pick yourself up and go on; and lying
here in the dark is not doing it.
I turn on my side and see a cluster of self-luminous objects including
a light switch. I reach for it.
How did I get into a hospital?
On second thoughts it is a cabin in the ship, or rather two of them
with the partition torn out, I can see the ragged edge of it. There is
a lot of paraphernalia around; I climb out to have a look.
Holy horrors what's happened? Someone borrowed my legs and put them
back wrong; my eyes also are not functioning well, the light is set at
Minimum and I am still dazzled. I see a door and make for it to get
Explanations from somebody.
Arrived, I miss my footing and stumble against the door and on the
other side someone says "Hello, Lizzie. Awake at last?"
I think my heart stops for a moment. I can't find the latch. I am
vaguely aware of beating something with my fists, and then the door
gives, sticks, gives again and I stumble through and land on all fours
the other side of it.
Someone is calling: "Lizzie! Are you hurt? Where the devil have they
all got to? Liz!"
I sit up and say, "They said you were _dead_!"
"_Who_ did?"
"I ... I ... someone in the hold. I said How's M'Clare? and they said
you were dead."
M'Clare frowns and says gently, "Come over here and sit down quietly
for a bit. You've been dreaming."
Have I? Maybe the whole thing was a dream--but if so how far does it
go? Going down in the heli? The missile? The boat? Crawling through
the black tunnel of a broken ship?
No, because he is sitting in a sort of improvised chaise longue and
his legs are evidently strapped in place under the blanket; he is
fumbling with the fastening or something.
* * * * *
I say "Hey! Cut that out!"
He straightens up irritably.
"Don't you start that, Lysistrata. I've been suffering the attentions
of the damnedest collection of amateur nurses who ever handled a
thermocouple, for over a week. I don't deny they've been very
efficient, but when it comes to--"
Over a _week_?
He nods. "My dear Lizzie, we left Incognita ten days ago. Amateur
nursing again! They have some unholy book of rules which says that for
Exposure, Exhaustion and Shock the best therapy is sleep. I don't
doubt it, but it goes on to say that in extreme cases the patient has
been known to benefit by as much as two weeks of it. I didn't find out
that they were trying it on you until about thirty-six hours ago when
I began inquiring why you weren't around. They kept me under for three
days--in fact until their infernal Handbook said it was time for my
leg muscles to have some exercise. Miss Lammergaw was the
ring-leader."
No wonder my legs feel as though someone exchanged the muscles for
cotton wool, just wait till I get hold of Kirsty.
If it hadn't been for her, I shouldn't have spent ten days
remembering, even in my sleep, that--
I say, "Hell's feathers, it was _you_!"
M'Clare makes motions as though to start getting out of his chair,
looking seriously alarmed. I say, "It was your voice! When I asked--"
M'Clare, quite definitely, starts to blush. Not much, but some.
"Lizzie, I believe you're right. I have a sort of vague memory of
someone asking how I was--and I gave what I took to be a truthful
answer. I remember it seemed quite inconceivable that I could be
alive. In fact I still don't understand it. Neither Yardo nor Miss
Laydon could tell me. How _did_ you get me out of that ship?"
Well, I do my best to explain, glossing over one or two points; at the
finish he closes his eyes and says nothing for a while.
Then he says, "So except for this one man who saw you, you left no
traces at all?"
Not that I know of, but--
"Do you know, five minutes later there were at least twenty men in
that bay, most of them scientists? They don't seem to have found
anything suspicious. Visibility was bad, of course, and you can't
leave foot-prints in shingle--"
Hold on, what _is_ all this?
M'Clare says, "We've had two couriers while you were asleep. Yes, I
know it's not ordinarily possible for a ship on Mass-Time to get news.
One of these days someone will have an interesting problem in Cultural
Engineering, working out how to integrate some of these Space Force
secrets into our economic and social structure without upsetting the
whole of the known volume. Though courier boats make their crews so
infernally sick I doubt whether the present type will ever come into
common use. Anyway, we've had transcripts of a good many broadcasts
from Incognita, the last dated four days ago; and as far as we can
tell they're interpreting _Gilgamesh_ just as we meant them to.
"The missile, by the way, was experimental, waiting to be test-fired
the next day. The man in charge saw _Gilgamesh_ on the alarm screens
and got trigger-happy. The newscasters were divided as to whether he
should be blamed or praised; they all seem to feel he averted a
menace, at least temporarily, but some of them think the invaders
could have been captured alive.
"The first people on the scene came from a scientific camp; you and
Miss Laydon saw their lights on the way down. You remember that area
is geophysically interesting? Well, by extraordinary good luck an
international group was there studying it. They rushed straight off to
the site of the landing--they actually saw _Gilgamesh_, and she
registered on some of their astronomical instruments, too. They must
be a reckless lot. What's more, they started trying to locate her on
the sea bottom the next day. Found both pieces; they're still trying
to locate the nose. They were all set to try raising the smaller piece
when their governments both announced in some haste that they were
sending a properly equipped expedition. Jointly.
"There's been no mention in any newscast of anyone seeing fairies or
sea maidens--I expect the poor devil thinks you were a hallucination."
So we brought it off.
* * * * *
I am very thankful in a distant sort of way, but right now the
Incognitans have no more reality for me than the Lost Kafoozalum.
M'Clare came through alive.
I could spend a good deal of time just getting used to that fact, but
there is something I ought to say and I don't know how.
I inquire after his injuries and learn they are healing nicely.
I look at him and he is frowning.
He says, "Lizzie. Just before my well-meant but ineffective attempt at
suicide--"
Here it comes.
I say quick If he is worrying about all that nonsense he talked in
order to distract my attention, forget it; I have.
Silence, then he says wearily, "I talked nonsense, did I?"
I say there is no need to worry, under the circumstances anyone would
have a perfect right to be raving off his Nut.
I then find I cannot bear this conversation any longer so I get up
saying I expect he is tired and I will call someone.
I get nearly to the door when
"_No_, Lizzie! you can't let that crew loose on me just in order to
change the conversation. Come back here. I appreciate your wish to
spare my feelings, but it's wasted. We'll have this out here and now.
"I remember quite well what I said, and so do you: I said that I loved
you. I also said that I had intended to ask you to marry me as soon as
you ceased to be one of my pupils. Well, the results of Finals were
officially announced three days ago.
"Oh, I suppose I always knew what the answer would be, but I didn't
want to spend the rest of my life wondering, because I never had the
guts to ask you.
"You don't dislike me as you used to--you've forgiven me for making
you come to Russett--but you still think I'm a cold-blooded
manipulator of other people's minds and emotions. So I am; it's part
of the job.
"You're quite right to distrust me for that, though. It is the danger
of this profession, that we end up by looking on everybody and
everything as a subject for manipulation. Even in our personal lives.
I always knew that: I didn't begin to be afraid of it until I realized
I was in love with you.
"I could have made you love me, Lizzie. I could! I didn't try. Not
that I didn't want love on those terms, or any terms. But to use
professional ... tricks ... in private life, ends by destroying all
reality. I always treated you exactly as I treated my other
students--I think. But I could have made you think you loved me ...
even if I am twice your age--"
This I cannot let pass, I say "Hi! According to College rumor you
cannot be more than thirty-six; I'm twenty-three."
M'Clare says in a bemused sort of way He will be thirty-seven in a
couple of months.
I say, "I will be twenty-four next week and your arithmetic is still
screwy; and here is another datum you got wrong. I do love you. Very
much."
He says, "Golden Liz."
Then other things which I remember all right, I shall keep them to
remember any time I am tired, sick, cold, hungry Hundred-and-ninety--;
but they are not for writing down.
Then I suppose at some point we agreed it is time for me to go,
because I find myself outside the cabin and there is Colonel
Delano-Smith.
He makes me a small speech about various matters ending that he hears
he has to congratulate me.
Huh?
Oh, Space and Time did one of those unimitigated so-and-sos, my dear
classmates, leave M'Clare's communicator on?
The colonel says he heard I did very well in my Examinations.
Sweet splitting photons I forgot all about Finals.
It is just as well my Education has come to an honorable end, because ...
well, shades of ... well, Goodness gracious and likewise Dear me, I am
going to marry a _Professor_.
Better just stick to it I am going to marry M'Clare, it makes better
sense that way.
But Gosh we are going to have to do some re-adjusting to a changed
Environment. Both of us.
Oh, well, M'Clare is a Professor of Cultural Engineering and I just
past my Final Exams in same; surely if anyone can we should be able to
work out how you live Happily Ever After?
* * * * *
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