    *LEGIONS OF SPACE*


    *KEITH LAUMER*
    *edited & compiled by*
    *ERIC FLINT*


    *preface by*
    *JOEL ROSENBERG*

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

    Copyright  2004 to Baen Books.
    /A Trace of Memory /was first published as a serialized story in
    /Amazing /magazine (July?September 1962) and then reissued as a
    novel by Berkley in 1963. /Planet Run /was first published in 1967
    by Doubleday. "The Choice" was first published in /Analog /in July,
    1969. "Three Blind Mice" was first published in /The Many Worlds of
    Science Fiction /(Ben Bova, ed.), E.P. Dutton, 1971. "Mind Out of
    Time" was first published as "The Mind Out of Time" in /The Farthest
    Reaches /(Joseph Elder, ed.), Trident 1968. "Message to an Alien"
    was first published in /Analog /in June, 1970.

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

    A Baen Books Original

    Baen Publishing Enterprises
    P.O. Box 1403
    Riverdale, NY 10471
    www.baen.com

    ISBN: 0-7434-8855-5

    Cover art by Jeff Easley

    First printing, October 2004

    Distributed by Simon & Schuster
    1230 Avenue of the Americas
    New York, NY 10020

    Production by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH (www.windhaven.com)
    Printed in the United States of America


      *Baen Books by Keith Laumer*

*edited by Eric Flint:*

/Retief!/
/Odyssey/
/Keith Laumer: The Lighter Side/
/A Plague of Demons & Other Stories/
/Future Imperfect/
/Legions of Space/

*The Bolo Series:*

/The Compleat Bolo/ by Keith Laumer

*Created by Keith Laumer:*

/The Honor of the Regiment/
/The Unconquerable/
/The Triumphant/ by David Weber & Linda Evans
/Last Stand/
/Old Guard/
/Cold Steel/
/Bolo Brigade/ by William H. Keith, Jr.
/Bolo Rising/ by William H. Keith, Jr.
/Bolo Strike/ by William H. Keith, Jr.


      *ALL ABOARD!*

"And now," I said, "we're a couple of hundred feet under Stonehenge, and
you're telling me you'll be nine hundred on your next birthday."

"Remember the entry in the journal, Legion?" Foster said. "'I came to
the place of the Hunters, and it was a place I knew of old, and there
was no hive, but a Pit built by men of the Two Worlds . . ."

I glanced at the screen. "Here's another big number for you. That object
on the screen is at an altitude?give or take a few percent?of thirty
thousand miles." A pattern of dots flashed across the screen, faded,
flashed again. . . . Foster watched the screen, saying nothing.

"I don't like that thing blinking at us," I said. I looked at the big
red button beside the screen. Without waiting to think it over, I jabbed
at it. On the screen, the red blip separated, a smaller blip moving off
at right angles to the main mass.

"It looks like I've launched a bomb from the ship overhead," I said in a
strained voice.

The climb back up the tunnel took three hours, and every foot of the way
I was listening to a refrain in my head: This may be it; this may be it;
this may be . . .

I crawled out of the tunnel mouth, then grabbed Foster's arm and pointed
overhead. "What's that?"

Foster looked up. A brilliant point of blue light, brighter than a star,
grew perceptibly as we watched. "That's no bomb," he said. "It's coming
down slowly . . . like a?"

We watched as the vessel settled into place dead center on the ancient
ring of stones. A slit of yellow light appeared on the side of the hull,
then it widened to a square. A ladder extended itself, dropping down to
touch the ground.

"If somebody with tentacles starts down that ladder," I said, in an
unnaturally shrill voice, "I'm getting out of here."

"No one will emerge," Foster said quietly. "I think we'll find, Legion,
that this ship of space is at our disposal."

?from A Trace of Memory


  *Preface*


      *by Joel Rosenberg*

During a time when some major writer first makes his?or, rarely,
her?splash in SF, like some star flaring suddenly into a nova, there's
an understandable tendency to let your eyes get dazzled by that, and not
quite see the other stars that burn, stably if not nearly so visibly,
year after year.

Or, to try analogy instead of metaphor?the field is created not just by
the work of the master, but by the journeyman, as well.

Like, say, Keith Laumer, one of the great journeyman writers of the
field, although that's sometimes hard to remember. The Retief stories
have made such a strong impact and provided so many good catch-phrases
("I thought the nuances were the best part" is my own favorite) that
it's sometimes easy to forget the other stories, and when people think
of other Laumer stories, all too often, they're thinking of the Bolo
stories, and stopping there.

Which is a shame. Those less well-known stories are a whole lot of fun,
in fact, and well worth the bother. Sure; looking back in time, the
early sixties are much more marked by /Stranger in a Strange Land/, /The
Man in the High Castle/, /Glory Road/ and /Dune /than /A Trace of
Memory/?but that's not the point; the workmanlike Laumer story is still
a fun ride more than forty years later.

You'll see some of the same things over and over again, and frankly,
some of them can be annoying?like the always-similar tough-guy talk,
which does wear pretty thin on early twenty-first-century ears. But
more, you'll see the details?Laumer was always obsessed with the details
of how things are done, whether it's climbing a wall, or escaping from
being entombed. And if Heinlein had his Competent Man, and Poul Anderson
his Man Who Counts, Laumer has his Guy Who Gets Things Done, and it's
always fun to watch that theme get played out, over and over again, in
all sorts of different variations.

Like these stories.

Oh, they're not without flaws. There's a few things just plain wrong
with /A Trace of Memory/, for example. It's really just too much story
for a 66,000-word novel, for one, and, geez, having a character "My Name
is Legion," when it turns out that, well, that's just the character's
name? There's a few more flaws that I'm sure are there, but can't quite
name.

Flaws and all, and it's classic Laumer: a character who, once started,
just won't give up, even when he's not always sure what it is that he's
refusing to give up, and it's about time it got back into print for a
whole new generation or two who missed it the first time.

Without giving anything away, I think that I know the old joke that
Laumer was working from in writing "The Choice"?and it's not a bad joke.
Just light, although there's some echoes of the minor characters in the
Retief stories, who just can't think things through.

"Three Blind Mice," "Mind Out of Time," and "Message to an Alien" are
all worth reading, as classic Laumer?and if you think that the latter
story doesn't have some implications for modern politics, think again.
Please think again.

The real gem, though, in this collection is /Planet Run/, written with
Gordy Dickson. It's hard to say enough good about this one; it's got
both Laumer's and Gordy's strengths, but blended so seamlessly that it's
just about impossible to say who wrote what. I would have thought that
the Kipling reference was Gordy's, but I have it on the best authority
that bringing it in was Laumer's idea; Gordy and I discussed the story
over lunch one day.

When people write the history of science fiction, they understandably
tend to focus on the novas and supernovas of the field?Heinlein, Doc
Smith, Niven & Pournelle, Varley, Gibson, and Vinge. And that's
understandable.

For me, there's lots to be learned and a lot of fun to be had from going
back and spending an afternoon with an accomplished journeyman writer
like Keith Laumer, and I'm glad I did.

You'll be glad, too. Enjoy.

?Joel Rosenberg


  *A TRACE OF MEMORY*


      *Prologue*

He awoke and lay for a moment looking up at a low ceiling, dimly visible
in a faint red glow, feeling the hard mat under his back. He turned his
head, saw a wall and a panel on which a red indicator light glared.

He swung his legs over the side of the narrow couch and sat up. The room
was small, grey-painted, unadorned. Pain throbbed in his forearm. He
shook back the loose sleeve of the strange purple garment, saw a pattern
of tiny punctures in the skin. He recognized the mark of a feeding
Hunter . . . Who would have dared?

A dark shape on the floor caught his eye. He slid from the couch, knelt
by the still body of a man in a purple tunic stained black with blood.
Gently he rolled the body onto its back.

Ammaerln!

He seized the limp wrist. There was a faint pulse. He rose?and saw a
second body and, near the door, two more. Quickly, he went to each . . . 

All three were dead, hideously slashed. Only Ammaerln still breathed,
faintly.

He went to the door, shouted into the darkness. The ranged shelves of a
library gave back a brief echo. He turned back to the grey-walled room,
noticed a recording monitor against a wall. He fitted the neurodes to
the dying man's temples. But for this gesture of recording Ammaerln's
life's memories, there was nothing he could do. He must get him to a
therapist?and quickly.

He crossed the library, found a great echoing hall beyond. This was not
the Sapphire Palace beside the Shallow Sea. The lines were unmistakable:
he was aboard a ship, a far-voyager. Why? How? He stood uncertain. The
silence was absolute.

He crossed the Great Hall and entered the observation lounge. Here lay
another dead man, by his uniform a member of the crew. He touched a knob
and the great screens glowed blue. A giant crescent swam into focus,
locked; soft blue against the black of space. Beyond it a smaller
companion hung, gray-blotched, airless. What worlds were these?

* * *

An hour later he had ranged the vast ship from end to end. In all, seven
corpses, cruelly slashed, peopled the silent vessel. In the control
sector the communicator lights glowed, but to his call there was no
answer from the strange world below.

He turned to the recording room. Ammaerln still breathed weakly. The
memory recording had been completed; all that the dying man remembered
of his long life was imprinted now in the silver cylinder. It remained
only to color-code the trace.

His eyes were caught by a small cylinder projecting from the aperture at
the side of the high couch where he had awakened?his own memory trace!
So he himself had undergone the Change. He took the color-banded
cylinder, thrust it into a pocket?then whirled at a sound. A nest of
Hunters, swarming globes of pale light, clustered at the door. Then they
were on him. They pressed close, humming in their eagerness. Without the
proper weapon he was helpless.

He caught up the limp body of Ammaerln. With the Hunters trailing in a
luminous stream he ran with his burden to the shuttle-boat bay.

Three shuttles lay in their cradles. He groped to a switch, his head
swimming with the sulfurous reek of the Hunters; light flooded the bay,
driving them back. He entered the lifeboat, placed the dying man on a
cushioned couch.

It had been long since he had manned the controls of a ship, but he had
not forgotten.

* * *

Ammaerln was dead when the lifeboat reached the planetary surface. The
vessel settled gently and the lock cycled. He looked out at a vista of
ragged forest.

This was no civilized world. Only the landing ring and the clearing
around it showed the presence of man.

There was a hollow in the earth by a square marker block at the eastern
perimeter of the clearing. He hoisted the body of Ammaerln to his back
and moved heavily down the access ladder. Working bare-handed, he
deepened the hollow, placed the body in it, scraped earth over it. Then
he rose and turned back toward the shuttle boat.

Forty feet away, a dozen men, squat, bearded, wrapped in the shaggy
hides of beasts, stood between him and the access ladder. The tallest
among them shouted, raised a bronze sword threateningly. Behind these,
others clustered at the ladder. Motionless he watched as one scrambled
up, reached the top, disappeared into the boat. In a moment the savage
reappeared at the opening and hurled down handfuls of small bright
objects. Shouting, others clambered up to share the loot. The first man
again vanished within the boat. Before the foremost of the others had
gained the entry, the port closed, shutting off a terrified cry from within.

Men dropped from the ladder as it swung up. The boat rose slowly,
angling toward the west, dwindling. The savages shrank back, awed.

The man watched until the tiny blue light was lost against the sky.


      *Chapter One*

The ad read: Soldier of fortune seeks companion in arms to share unusual
adventure. Foster, Box 19, Mayport.

I crumpled the newspaper and tossed it in the general direction of the
wire basket beside the park bench, pushed back a slightly frayed cuff,
and took a look at my bare wrist. It was just habit; the watch was in a
hock shop in Tupelo, Mississippi. It didn't matter. I didn't have to
know what time it was.

Across the park most of the store windows were dark along the side
street. There were no people in sight; they were all home now, having
dinner. As I watched, the lights blinked off in the drug store with the
bottles of colored water in the window; that left the candy and cigar
emporium at the end of the line. I fidgeted on the hard bench and felt
for a cigarette I didn't have. I wished the old boy back of the counter
would call it a day and go home. As soon as it was dark enough, I was
going to rob his store.

* * *

I wasn't a full-time stick-up artist. Maybe that's why that nervous
feeling was playing around under my rib cage. There was really nothing
to it. The wooden door with the hardware counter lock that would open
almost as easily without a key as with one; the sardine-can metal box
with the day's receipts in it. I'd be on my way to the depot with fare
to Miami in my pocket ten minutes after I cracked the door. I'd learned
a lot harder tricks than petty larceny back when I had a big future
ahead with Army Intelligence. That was a long time ago, and I'd had a
lot of breaks since then?none good.

I got up and took another turn around the park. It was a warm evening,
and the mosquitoes were out. I caught a whiff of frying hamburger from
the Elite Caf down the street. It reminded me that I hadn't eaten
lately. There were lights on at the Commercial Hotel and one in the
ticket office at the station. The local police force was still sitting
on a stool at the Rexall talking to the counter girl. I could see the
.38 revolver hanging down in a worn leather holster at his hip. All of a
sudden, I was in a hurry to get it over with.

I took another look at the lights. All the stores were dark now. There
was nothing to wait for. I crossed the street, sauntered past the cigar
store. There were dusty boxes of stogies in the window and piles of
homemade fudge stacked on plates with paper doilies under them. Behind
them, the interior of the store looked grim and dead. I looked around,
then turned down the side street toward the back door?

A black sedan eased around the corner and pulled in to the curb. A face
leaned over to look at me through lenses like the bottoms of Tabasco
bottles. The hot evening air stirred, and I felt my damp shirt cold
against my back.

"Looking for anything in particular, Mister?" the cop said.

I just looked at him.

"Passing through town, are you?" he asked.

For some reason I shook my head.

"I've got a job here," I said. "I'm going to work?for Mr. Foster."

"What Mr. Foster?" The cop's voice was wheezy, but relentless; a voice
used to asking questions.

I remembered the ad?something about an adventure; Foster, Box 19. The
cop was still staring at me.

"Box nineteen," I said.

He looked me over some more, then reached across and opened the door.
"Better come on down to the station house with me, Mister," he said.

* * *

At Police Headquarters, the cop motioned me to a chair, sat down behind
a desk, and pulled a phone to him. He dialed slowly, then swiveled his
back to me to talk. There was an odor of leather and unwashed bedding. I
sat and listened to a radio in the distance wailing a sad song.

It was half an hour before I heard a car pull up outside. The man who
came through the door was wearing a light suit that was neither new nor
freshly pressed, but had that look of perfect fit and taste that only
the most expensive tailoring can achieve. He moved in a relaxed way, but
gave an impression of power held in reserve. At first glance I thought
he was in his middle thirties, but when he looked my way I saw the fine
lines around the blue eyes. I got to my feet. He came over to me.

"I'm Foster," he said, and held out his hand. I shook it.

"My name is Legion," I said.

The desk sergeant spoke up. "This fellow says he come here to Mayport to
see you, Mr. Foster."

Foster looked at me steadily. "That's right, Sergeant. This gentleman is
considering a proposition I've made."

"Well, I didn't know, Mr. Foster," the cop said.

"I quite understand, Sergeant," Foster said. "We all feel better,
knowing you're on the job."

"Well, you know," the cop said.

"We may as well be on our way then," Foster said. "If you're ready, Mr.
Legion."

"Sure, I'm ready," I said. Mr. Foster said goodnight to the cop and we
went out. On the pavement in front of the building I stopped.

"Thanks, Mr. Foster," I said. "I'll comb myself out of your hair now."

Foster had his hand on the door of a deceptively modest-looking
cabriolet. I could smell the solid leather upholstery from where I stood.

"Why not come along to my place, Legion," he said. "We might at least
discuss my proposition."

I shook my head. "I'm not the man for the job, Mr. Foster," I said. "If
you'd like to advance me a couple of bucks, I'll get myself a bite to
eat and fade right out of your life."

"What makes you so sure you're not interested?"

"Your ad said something about adventure. I've had my adventures. Now I'm
just looking for a hole to crawl into."

"I don't believe you, Legion." Foster smiled at me, a slow, calm smile.
"I think your adventures have hardly begun."

I thought about it. If I went along, I'd at least get a meal?and maybe
even a bed for the night. It was better than curling up under a tree.

"Well," I said, "a remark like that demands time for an explanation." I
got into the car and sank back in a seat that seemed to fit me the way
Foster's jacket fit him.

"I hope you won't mind if I drive fast," Foster said. "I want to be home
before dark." We started up and wheeled away from the curb like a
torpedo sliding out of the launching tube.

* * *

I got out of the car in the drive at Foster's house, and looked around
at the wide clipped lawn, the flower beds that were vivid even by
moonlight, the line of tall poplars and the big white house.

"I wish I hadn't come," I said. "This kind of place reminds me of all
the things I haven't gotten out of life."

"Your life's still ahead of you," Foster said. He opened the slab of
mahogany that was the front door, and I followed him inside. At the end
of a short hall he flipped a switch that flooded the room before us with
soft light. I stared at an expanse of pale grey carpet about the size of
a tennis court, on which rested glowing Danish teak furniture
upholstered in rich colors. The walls were a rough-textured grey; here
and there were expensively framed abstractions. The air was cool with
the heavy coolness of air conditioning. Foster crossed to a bar that
looked modest in the setting, in spite of being bigger than those in
most of the places I'd seen lately.

"Would you care for a drink?" he said.

I looked down at my limp, stained suit and grimy cuffs.

"Look, Mr. Foster," I said. "I just realized something. If you've got a
stable, I'll go sleep in it?"

Foster laughed. "Come on; I'll show you the bath."

* * *

I came downstairs, clean, showered, and wearing a set of Foster's
clothes. I found him sitting, sipping a drink and listening to music.

"The /Liebestod/," I said. "A little gloomy, isn't it?"

"I read something else into it," Foster said. "Sit down and have a bite
to eat and a drink."

I sat in one of the big soft chairs and tried not to let my hand shake
as I reached for one of the sandwiches piled on the coffee table.

"Tell me something, Mr. Legion," Foster said. "Why did you come here,
mention my name?if you didn't intend to see me?"

I shook my head. "It just worked out that way."

"Tell me something about yourself," Foster said.

"It's not much of a story."

"Still, I'd like to hear it."

"Well, I was born, grew up, went to school?"

"What school?"

"University of Illinois."

"What was your major?"

"Music."

Foster looked at me, frowning slightly.

"It's the truth," I said. "I wanted to be a conductor. The army had
other ideas. I was in my last year when the draft got me. They
discovered I had what they considered an aptitude for intelligence work.
I didn't mind it. I had a pretty good time for a couple of years."

"Go on," Foster said. Well, I'd had a bath and a good meal. I owed him
something. If he wanted to hear my troubles, why not tell him?

"I was putting on a demonstration. A defective timer set off a charge of
H-E fifty seconds early on a one-minute setting. A student was killed; I
got off easy with a busted eardrum and a pound or two of gravel embedded
in my back. When I got out of the hospital, the army felt real bad about
letting me go?but they did. My terminal leave pay gave me a big weekend
in San Francisco and set me up in business as a private investigator.

"I had enough left over after the bankruptcy proceedings a few months
later to get me to Las Vegas. I lost what was left and took a job with a
casino operator named Gonino.

"I stayed with Gonino for nearly a year. Then one night a visiting bank
clerk lost his head and shot him eight times with a .22 target pistol. I
left town the same night.

"After that I sold used cars for a couple of months in Memphis; then I
made like a life guard at Daytona; baited hooks on a thirty-foot tuna
boat out of Key West; all the odd jobs with low pay and no future. I
spent a couple of years in Cuba; all I got out of that was two bullet
scars on the left leg, and a prominent position on a CIA blacklist.

"After that things got tough. A man in my trade can't really hope to
succeed in a big way without the little blue card in the plastic cover
to back his play. I was headed south for the winter, and I picked
Mayport to run out of money."

I stood up. "I sure enjoyed the bath, Mr. Foster, and the meal, too?I'd
like real well to get into that bed upstairs and have a night's sleep
just to make it complete; but I'm not interested in the job." I turned
away and started across the room.

"Legion," Foster said. I turned. A beer bottle was hanging in the air in
front of my face. I put a hand up fast and the bottle slapped my palm.

"Not bad set of reflexes for a man whose adventures are all behind him,"
Foster said.

I tossed the bottle aside. "If I'd missed, that would have knocked my
teeth out," I said angrily.

"You didn't miss?even though you're weaving a little from the beer. And
a man who can feel a pint or so of beer isn't an alcoholic?so you're
clean on that score."

"I didn't say I was ready for the rummy ward," I said. "I'm just not
interested in your proposition?whatever it is."

"Legion," Foster said, "maybe you have the idea I put that ad in the
paper last week on a whim. The fact is, I've been running it?in one form
or another?for over eight years."

I looked at him and waited.

"Not only locally?I've run it in the big-city papers, and in some of the
national weekly and monthly publications. All together, I've had perhaps
fifty responses."

Foster smiled wryly. "About three quarters of them were from women who
thought I wanted a playmate. Several more were from men with the same
idea. The few others were hopelessly unsuitable."

"That's surprising," I said. "I'd have thought you'd have brought half
the nuts in the country out of the woodwork by now."

Foster looked at me, not smiling. I realized suddenly that behind the
urbane faade there was a hint of tension, a trace of worry in the level
blue eyes.

"I'd like very much to interest you in what I have to say, Legion. I
think you lack only one thing?confidence in yourself."

I laughed shortly. "What are the qualifications you think I have? I'm a
jack-of-no-trades?"

"Legion, you're a man of considerable intelligence and more than a
little culture; you've traveled widely and know how to handle yourself
in difficult situations?or you wouldn't have survived. I'm sure your
training includes techniques of entry and fact-gathering not known to
the average man; and perhaps most important, although you're an honest
man, you're capable of breaking the law?when necessary."

"So that's it," I said.

"No, I'm not forming a mob, Legion. As I said in the ad?this is an
unusual adventure. It may?probably will?involve infringing various
statutes and regulations of one sort or another. After you know the full
story I'll leave you to judge whether it's justifiable."

If Foster was trying to arouse my curiosity, he was succeeding. He was
dead serious about whatever it was he was planning. It sounded like
something no one with good sense would want to get involved in?but on
the other hand, Foster didn't look like the sort of man to do anything
foolish . . . 

"Why don't you tell me what this is all about?" I said. "Why would a man
with all this?" I waved a hand at the luxurious room?"want to pick a
hobo like me out of the gutter and talk him into taking a job?"

"Your ego has taken a severe beating, Legion?that's obvious. I think
you're afraid that I'll expect too much of you?or that I'll be shocked
by some disclosure you may make. Perhaps if you'd forget yourself and
your problems for the moment, we could reach an understanding?"

"Yeah," I said. "Just forget my problems . . ."

"Chiefly money problems, of course. Most of the problems of this society
involve the abstraction of values that money represents."

"Okay," I said. "I've got my problems, you've got yours. Let's leave it
at that."

"You feel that because I have material comfort, my problems must of
necessity be trivial ones," Foster said. "Tell me, Mr. Legion: have you
ever known a man who suffered from amnesia?"

* * *

Foster crossed the room to a small writing desk, took something from a
drawer, then looked at me.

"I'd like you to examine this," he said.

I went over and took the object from his hand. It was a small book, with
a cover of drab-colored plastic, unornamented except for an embossed
design of two concentric rings. I opened the cover. The pages were as
thin as tissue, but opaque, and covered with extremely fine writing in
strange foreign characters. The last dozen pages were in English. I had
to hold the book close to my eyes to read the minute script:

/January 19, 1710. Having come nigh to calamity with the near lofs of
the key, I will henceforth keep this journal in the English tongue . . .  / 

"If this is an explanation of something, it's too subtle for me," I said.

"Legion, how old would you say I am?"

"That's a hard one," I said. "When I first saw you I would have said the
late thirties, maybe. Now, frankly, you look closer to fifty."

"I can show you proof," Foster said, "that I spent the better part of a
year in a military hospital in France. I awakened in a ward, bandaged to
the eyes, and with no memories whatever of my life before that day.
According to the records made at the time, I appeared to be about thirty
years of age."

"Well," I said, "amnesia's not so unusual among war casualties, and you
seem to have done pretty well since."

Foster shook his head impatiently. "There's nothing difficult about
acquiring material wealth in this society, though the effort kept me
well occupied for a number of years?and diverted my thoughts from the
question of my past life. The time came, however, when I had the leisure
to pursue the matter. The clues I had were meager enough; the notebook
I've shown you was found near me, and I had a ring on my finger." Foster
held out his hand. On the middle finger was a massive signet, engraved
with the same design of concentric circles I had seen on the cover of
the notebook.

"I was badly burned; my clothing was charred. Oddly enough, the notebook
was quite unharmed, though it was found among burned debris. It's made
of very tough stuff."

"What did you find out?"

"In a word?nothing. No military unit claimed me. I spoke English, from
which it was deduced that I was English or American?"

"They couldn't tell which, from your accent?"

"Apparently not; it appears I spoke a sort of hybrid dialect."

"Maybe you're lucky. I'd be happy to forget my first thirty years."

"I spent a considerable sum of money in my attempts to discover my
past," Foster went on. "And several years of time. In the end I gave it
up. And it wasn't until then that I found the first faint inkling."

"So you did find something," I said.

"Nothing I hadn't had all along. The notebook."

"I'd have thought you would have read that before you did anything
else," I said. "Don't tell me you put it in the bureau drawer and forgot
it."

"I read it, of course?what I could read of it. Only a relatively small
section is in English. The rest is a cipher. And what I read seemed
meaningless?quite unrelated to me. You've glanced through it; it's no
more than a journal, irregularly kept, and so cryptic as to be little
better than a code itself. And of course the dates; they range from the
early eighteenth century through the early twentieth."

"A sort of family record, maybe," I said. "Carried on generation after
generation. Didn't it mention any names, or places?"

"Look at it again, Legion," Foster said. "See if you notice anything
odd?other than what we've already discussed."

I thumbed through the book again. It was no more than an inch thick, but
it was heavy?surprisingly heavy. There were a lot of pages?I shuffled
through hundreds of closely written sheets, and yet the book was less
than half used. I read bits here and there:

/"May 4, 1746. The Voyage was not a Succefs. I must forsake this avenue
of Enquiry . . ." / 

/"October 23, 1790. Builded the weft Barrier a cubit higher. Now the
fires burn every night. Is there no limit to their infernal perfiftence?" / 

/"January 19, 1831. I have great hopes for the Philadelphia enterprise.
My greatest foe is impatience. All preparations for the Change are made,
yet I confefs I am uneasy . . ." / 

"There are plenty of oddities," I said. "Aside from the entries
themselves. This is supposed to be old?but the quality of the paper and
binding beats anything I've seen. And that handwriting is pretty fancy
for a quill pen?"

"There's a stylus clipped to the spine of the book," Foster said. "It
was written with that."

I looked, pulled out a slim pen, then looked at Foster. "Speaking of
odd," I said. "A genuine antique early colonial ball-point pen doesn't
turn up every day?"

"Suspend your judgment until you've seen it all," Foster said.

"And two hundred years on one refill?that's not bad." I riffled through
the pages, then I tossed the book onto the table. "Who's kidding who,
Foster?" I said.

"The book was described in detail in the official record, of which I
have copies. They mention the paper and binding, the stylus, even quote
some of the entries. The authorities worked over it pretty closely,
trying to identify me. They reached the same conclusion as you?that it
was the work of a crackpot; but they saw the same book you're looking at
now."

"So what? So it was faked up some time during the war?what does that
prove? I'm ready to concede it's forty years old?"

"You don't understand, Legion," Foster said. "I told you I woke up in a
military hospital in France. But it was an AEF hospital and the year was
1918."


      *Chapter Two*

I glanced sideways at Foster. He didn't look like a nut . . . 

"All I've got to say it," I said, "you're a hell of a spry-looking ninety."

"You find my appearance strangely youthful. What would be your reaction
if I told you that I've aged greatly in the past few months? That a year
ago I could have passed as no older than thirty without the slightest
difficulty?"

"I don't think I'd believe you," I said. "And I'm sorry, Mr. Foster; but
I don't believe the bit about the 1918 hospital either. How can I? It's?"

"I know. Fantastic. But let's go back a moment to the book itself. Look
closely at the paper; it's been examined by experts. They're baffled by
it. Attempts to analyze it chemically failed?they were unable to take a
sample. It's impervious to solvents?"

"They couldn't get a sample?" I said. "Why not just tear off the corner
of one of the sheets?"

"Try it," Foster said.

I picked up the book and plucked at the edge of one of the blank sheets,
then pinched harder and pulled. The paper held. I got a better grip and
pulled again. It was like fine, tough leather, except that it didn't
even stretch.

"It's tough, all right," I said. I took out my pocket knife and opened
it and worked on the edge of the paper. Nothing. I went over to the
bureau and put the paper flat against the top and sawed at it, putting
my weight on the knife. I raised the knife and brought it down hard. I
didn't so much as mark the sheet. I put the knife away.

"That's some paper, Mr. Foster," I said.

"Try to tear the binding," Foster said. "Put a match to it. Shoot at it
if you like. Nothing will make an impression on that material. Now,
you're a logical man, Legion. Is there something here outside ordinary
experience or is there not?"

I sat down, feeling for a cigarette I still didn't have.

"What does it prove?" I said.

"Only that the book is not a simple fraud. You're facing something which
can't be dismissed as fancy. The book exists. That is our basic point of
departure."

"Where do we go from there?"

"There is a second factor to be considered," Foster went on. "At some
time in the past I seem to have made an enemy. Someone, or something, is
systematically hunting me."

I tried a laugh, but it felt out of place. "Why not sit still and let it
catch up with you? Maybe it could tell you what the whole thing is about."

Foster shook his head. "It started almost thirty years ago," he said. "I
was driving south from Albany, New York, at night. It was a long
straight stretch of road, no houses. I noticed lights following me. Not
headlights?something that bobbed along, off in the fields along the
road. But they kept pace, gradually moving alongside. Then they closed
in ahead, keeping out of range of my headlights. I stopped the car. I
wasn't seriously alarmed, just curious. I wanted a better look, so I
switched on my spotlight and played it on the lights. They disappeared
as the light touched them. After half a dozen were gone, the rest began
closing in. I kept picking them off. There was a sound, too, a sort of
high-pitched humming. I caught a whiff of sulphur then, and suddenly I
was afraid?deathly afraid. I caught the last one in the beam no more
than ten feet from the car. I can't describe the horror of the moment?"

"It sounds pretty weird," I said. "But what was there to be afraid of?
It must have been some kind of heat lightning."

"There is always the pat explanation," Foster said. "But no explanation
can rationalize the instinctive dread I felt. I started up the car and
drove on?right through the night and the next day. I sensed that I must
put distance between myself and whatever it was I had met. I bought a
home in California and tried to put the incident out of my mind?with
limited success. Then it happened again."

"The same thing? Lights?"

"It was more sophisticated the next time. It started with
interference?static?on my radio. Then it affected the wiring in the
house. All the lights began to glow weakly, even though they were
switched off. I could feel it?feel it in my bones?moving closer, hemming
me in. I tried the car; it wouldn't start. Fortunately, I kept a few
horses at that time. I mounted and rode into town?and at a fair gallop,
you may be sure. I saw the lights, but outdistanced them. I caught a
train and kept going."

"I don't see?"

"It happened again; four times in all. I thought perhaps I had succeeded
in eluding it at last. I was mistaken. I have had definite indications
that my time here is drawing to a close. I would have been gone before
now, but there were certain arrangements to be made."

"Look," I said. "This is all wrong. You need a psychiatrist, not an
ex-tough guy. Delusions of persecution?"

"It seemed obvious that the explanation was to be found somewhere in my
past life," Foster went on. "I turned to the notebook, my only link. I
copied it out, including the encrypted portion. I had photostatic
enlargements made of the initial section?the part written in unfamiliar
characters. None of the experts who have examined the script have been
able to identify it.

"I necessarily, therefore, concentrated my attention on the last
section?the only part written in English. I was immediately struck by a
curious fact I had ignored before. The writer made references to an
Enemy, a mysterious 'they,' against which defensive measures had to be
taken."

"Maybe that's where you got the idea," I said. "When you first read the
book?"

"The writer of the log," Foster said, "was dogged by the same nemesis
that now follows me."

"It doesn't make any sense," I said.

"For the moment," Foster said, "stop looking for logic in the situation.
Look for a pattern instead."

"There's a pattern, all right," I said.

"The next thing that struck me," Foster went on, "was a reference to a
loss of memory?a second point of some familiarity to me. The writer
expresses frustration at the inability to remember certain facts which
would have been useful to him in his pursuit."

"What kind of pursuit?"

"Some sort of scientific project, as nearly as I can gather. The journal
bristles with tantalizing references to matters that are never explained."

"And you think the man that wrote it had amnesia?"

"Not exactly amnesia, perhaps," Foster said. "But there were things he
was unable to remember."

"If that's amnesia, we've all got it," I said. "Nobody's got a perfect
memory."

"But these were matters of importance; not the kinds of thing that
simply slip one's mind."

"I can see how you'd want to believe the book had something to do with
your past, Mr. Foster," I said. "It must be a hard thing, not knowing
your own life story. But you're on the wrong track. Maybe the book is a
story you started to write?in code, so nobody would accidentally read
the stuff and kid you about it."

"Legion, what was it you planned to do when you got to Miami?"

The question caught me a little off-guard. "Well, I don't know," I
hedged. "I wanted to get south, where it's warm. I used to know a few
people?"

"In other words, nothing," Foster said. "Legion, I'll pay you well to
stay with me and see this thing through."

I shook my head. "Not me, Mr. Foster. The whole thing sounds?well, the
kindest word I can think of is 'nutty.' "

"Legion," Foster said, "do you really believe I'm insane?"

"Let's just say this all seems a little screwy to me, Mr. Foster."

"I'm not asking you just to work for me," Foster said. "I'm asking for
your help."

"You might as well look for your fortune in tea leaves," I said,
irritated. "There's nothing in what you've told me."

"There's more, Legion. Much more. I've recently made an important
discovery. When I know you're with me, I'll tell you. You know enough
now to accept the fact that this isn't entirely a figment of my
imagination."

"I don't know anything," I said. "So far it's all talk."

"If you're concerned about payment?"

"No, damn it," I barked. "Where are the papers you keep talking about? I
ought to have my head examined for sitting here humoring you. I've got
troubles enough?" I stopped talking and rubbed my hands over my scalp.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Foster," I said. "I guess what's really griping me is
that you've got everything I think I want?and you're not content with
it. It bothers me to see you off chasing fairies. If a man with his
health and plenty of money can't enjoy life, what the hell is there for
anybody?"

Foster looked at me thoughtfully. "Legion, if you could have anything in
life you wanted, what would you ask for?"

"Anything? I've wanted a lot of different things. Once I wanted to be a
hero. Later, I wanted to be smart, know all the answers. Then I had the
idea that a chance to do an honest job, one that needed doing, was the
big thing. I never found that job. I never got smart either, or figured
out how to tell a hero from a coward, without a program."

"In other words," Foster said, "you were looking for an abstraction to
believe in?in this case, Justice. But you won't find justice in nature.
It's a thing that only man expects or acknowledges."

"There are some good things in life; I'd like to get a piece of them."

"Don't lose your capacity for dreaming, in the process."

"Dreams?" I said. "Oh, I've got those. I want an island somewhere in the
sun, where I can spend my time fishing and watching the sea."

"You're speaking cynically?but you're still attempting to concretize an
abstraction," Foster said. "But no matter?materialism is simply another
form of idealism."

I looked at Foster. "But I know I'll never have those things?or that
Justice you were talking about, either. Once you really know you'll
never make it . . ."

"Perhaps unattainability is an essential element of any dream," Foster
said. "But hold onto your dream, whatever it is?don't ever give it up."

"So much for philosophy," I said. "Where is it getting us?"

"You'd like to see the papers," Foster said. He fished a key ring from
an inner pocket. "If you don't mind going out to the car," he said, "and
perhaps getting your hands dirty, there's a strong-box welded to the
frame. I keep photostats of everything there, along with my passport,
emergency funds and so on. I've learned to be ready to travel on very
short notice. Lift the floorboards; you'll see the box."

"It's not all that urgent," I said. "I'll take a look in the
morning?after I've caught up on some sleep. But don't get the wrong
idea?it's just my knot-headed curiosity."

"Very well," Foster said. He lay back, sighed. "I'm tired, Legion," he
said. "My mind is tired."

"Yeah," I said, "so is mine?not to mention other portions of my anatomy."

"Get some sleep," Foster said. "We'll talk again in the morning."

* * *

I pushed back the light blanket and slid out of bed. Underfoot, the rug
was as thick and soft as a working girl's mink. I went across to the
closet and pushed the button that made the door slide aside. My old
clothes were still lying on the floor where I had left them, but I had
the clean ones Foster had lent me. He wouldn't mind if I borrowed them
for a while longer?it would be cheaper for him in the long run. Foster
was as looney as a six-day bike racer, but there was no point in my
waiting around to tell him so.

The borrowed outfit didn't include a coat. I thought of putting my old
jacket on but it was warm outside and a grey pin-stripe with grease
spots wouldn't help the picture any. I transferred my personal
belongings from the grimy clothes on the floor, and eased the door open.

Downstairs, the curtains were drawn in the living room. I could vaguely
make out the outline of the bar. It wouldn't hurt to take along a bite
to eat. I groped my way behind the bar, felt along the shelves, found a
stack of small cans that rattled softly. Nuts, probably. I reached to
put a can on the bar and it clattered against something I couldn't see.
I swore silently, felt over the obstruction. It was bulky, with the cold
smoothness of metal, and there were small projections with sharp
corners. It felt for all the world like?

I leaned over it and squinted. With the faint gleam of moonlight from a
chink in the heavy curtains falling just so, I could almost make out the
shape; I crouched a little lower, and caught the glint of light along
the perforated jacket of a .30 caliber machine gun. My eye followed the
barrel, made out the darker square of the entrance hall, and the tiny
reflection of light off the polished brass doorknob at the far end.

I stepped back, flattened against the wall, with a hollow feeling
inside. If I had tried to walk through that door . . . 

Foster was crazy enough for two ordinary nuts. My eyes flicked around
the room. I had to get out quickly before he jumped out and said /Boo!/
and I died of heart failure. The windows, maybe. I came around the end
of the bar, got down and crawled under the barrel of the gun and over to
the heavy drapes, pushing them aside. Pale light glowed beyond the
glass. Not the soft light of the moon, but a milky, churning glow that
reminded me of the phosphorescence of sea water . . . 

I dropped the curtain, ducked back under the gun into the hall, and
pushed through a swinging door into the kitchen. There was a faint glow
from the luminous handle of the refrigerator. I yanked it open, spilling
light on the floor, and looked around. Plenty of gleaming white
fixtures?but no door out. There was a window, almost obscured by leaves.
I eased it open and almost broke my fist on a wrought-iron trellis.

Back in the hall, I tried two more doors, both locked. A third opened,
and I found myself looking down the cellar stairs. They were steep and
dark as cellar stairs always seem to be, but they might be the way out.
I felt for a light switch, flipped it on. A weak illumination showed me
a patch of damp-looking floor at the foot of the steps. It still wasn't
inviting, but I went down.

There was an oil furnace in the center of the room, with dusty duct-work
spidering out across the ceiling; some heavy packing cases of rough wood
were stacked along one wall, and at the far side of the room, there was
a boarded-up coal bin?but no cellar door.

I turned to go back up. Then I heard a sound and froze. Somewhere a
cockroach scuttled briefly. Then I heard the sound again, a faint
grinding of stone against stone. I peered through the cob-webbed
shadows, my mouth suddenly dry. There was nothing.

The thing for me to do was to get up the stairs fast, batter the iron
trellis out of the kitchen window, and run like hell. The trouble was, I
had to move to do it, and the sound of my own steps was so loud it was
paralyzing. Compared to this, the shock of stumbling over the gun was
just a mild kick, like finding a whistle in your Cracker-jacks.
Ordinarily I didn't believe in things that went bump in the night, but
this time I was hearing the bumps myself, and all I could think about
was Edgar Allen Poe and his cheery tales about people who got themselves
buried before they were thoroughly dead.

There was another sound, then a sharp snap, and I saw light spring up
from a crack that opened across the floor in the shadowy corner. That
was enough for me. I jumped for the stairs, took them three at a time,
and banged through the kitchen door. I grabbed up a chair, swung it
around and slammed it against the trellis. It bounced back and cracked
me across the mouth. I dropped it, tasting blood. Maybe that was what I
needed. The panic faded before a stronger emotion?anger. I turned and
barged along the dark hall to the living room?and lights suddenly went
on. I whirled and saw Foster standing in the hall doorway, fully dressed.

"OK, Foster!" I yelled. "Just show me the way out of here."

Foster held my eyes, his face tense. "Calm yourself, Mr. Legion," he
said softly. "What's happened here?"

"Get over there to that gun," I snapped, nodding toward the .30 caliber
on the bar. "Disarm it, and then get the front door open. I'm leaving."

Foster's eyes flicked over the clothes I was wearing.

"So I see," he said. He looked me in the face again. "What is it that's
frightened you, Legion?"

"Don't act so innocent," I said. "Or am I supposed to get the idea the
brownies set up that booby trap while you were asleep?"

His eyes went to the gun and his expression tightened. "It's mine," he
said. "It's an automatic arrangement. Something's activated it?and
without sounding my alarm. You haven't been outside, have you?"

"How could I?"

"This is important, Legion," Foster rapped. "It would take more than the
sight of a machine gun to panic you. What have you seen?"

"I was looking for a back door," I said. "I went down to the cellar. I
didn't like it down there so I came back up."

"What did you see in the cellar?" Foster's face looked strained, colorless.

"It looked like . . ." I hesitated. "There was a crack in the floor,
noises, lights . . ."

"The floor," Foster said. "Certainly. That's the weak point." He seemed
to be talking to himself.

I jerked a thumb over my shoulder. "Something funny going on outside
your windows, too."

Foster looked toward the heavy hangings. "Listen carefully, Legion," he
said. "We are in grave danger?both of us. It's fortunate you arose when
you did. This house, as you must have guessed by now, is something of a
fortress. At this moment, it is under attack. The walls are protected by
some rather formidable defenses. I can't say as much for the cellar
floor; it's merely three feet of ferro-concrete. We'll have to go
now?very swiftly, and very quietly."

"OK?show me," I said. Foster turned and went back along the hall to one
of the locked doors where he pressed something. The door opened and I
followed him inside a small room. He crossed to a blank wall, pressed
against it. A panel slid aside?and Foster jumped back.

"God's wounds!" he gasped. He threw himself at the wall and the panel
closed. I stood stock still; from somewhere there was a smell like sulphur.

"What the hell goes on?" I said. My voice cracked, as it always does
when I'm scared.

"That odor," Foster said. "Quickly?the other way!"

I stepped back and Foster pushed past me and ran along the hall, with me
at his heels. I didn't look back to see what was at my own heels. Foster
took the stairs three at a time, pulled up short on the landing. He went
to his knees, shoved back an Isfahan rug as supple as sable, and gripped
a steel ring set in the floor. He looked at me, his face white.

"Invoke thy gods," he said hoarsely, and heaved at the ring. A section
of floor swung up, showing the first step of a flight leading down into
a black hole. Foster didn't hesitate; he dropped his feet in, scrambled
down. I followed. The stairs went down about ten feet, ending on a stone
floor. There was the sound of a latch turning, and we stepped out into a
larger room. I saw moonlight through a row of high windows, and smelled
the fragrance of fresh night air.

"We're in the garage," Foster whispered. "Go around to the other side of
the car and get in?quietly." I touched the smooth flank of the rakish
cabriolet, felt my way around it, and eased the door open. I slipped
into the seat and closed the door gently. Beside me, Foster touched a
button and a green light glowed on the dash.

"Ready?" he said.

"Sure."

The starter whined half a turn and the engine caught. Without waiting,
Foster gunned it, let in the clutch. The car leaped for the closed
doors, and I ducked, and then saw the doors snap aside as the low-slung
car roared out into the night. We took the first turn in the drive at
forty, and rounded onto the highway at sixty, tires screaming. I took a
look back and caught a glimpse of the house, its stately faade white in
the moonlight?and then we were out of sight over a rise.

"What's it all about?" I called over the rush of air. The needle touched
ninety, kept going.

"Later," Foster barked. I didn't feel like arguing. I watched in the
mirror for a few minutes, wondering where all the cops were tonight.
Then I settled down in the padded seat and watched the speedometer eat
up the miles.


      *Chapter Three*

It was nearly four-thirty and a tentative grey streak showed through the
palm fronds to the east before I broke the silence.

"By the way," I said. "What was the routine with the steel shutters, and
the bullet-proof glass in the kitchen, and the handy home-model machine
gun covering the front door? Mice bad around the place, are they?"

"Those things were necessary?and more."

"Now that the short hairs along my spine have relaxed," I said, "the
whole thing looks pretty silly. We've run far enough now to be able to
stop and turn around and stick our tongues out."

"Not yet?not for a long while yet."

"Why don't we just go back home," I went on, "and?"

"No!" Foster said sharply. "I want your word on that, Legion. No matter
what?don't ever go near that house again."

"It'll be daylight soon," I said. "We'll feel pretty asinine about this
little trip after the sun comes up, but don't worry, I won't tell anybody?"

"We've got to keep moving," Foster said. "At the next town, I'll
telephone for seats on a flight out of Miami."

"Hold on," I said. "You're raving. What about your house? We didn't even
stick around long enough to make sure the TV was turned off. And what
about passports, and money, and luggage? And what makes you think I'm
going with you?"

"I've kept myself in readiness for this emergency," Foster said. "There
are disposition instructions for the house on file with a legal firm in
Jacksonville. There is nothing to connect me with my former life, once
I've changed my name and disappeared. As for the rest?we can buy luggage
in the morning. My passport is in the car; perhaps we'd better go first
to Puerto Rico, until we can arrange for one for you."

"Look," I said. "I got spooked in the dark, that's all. Why not just
admit we made fools of ourselves?"

Foster shook his head. "The inherent inertia of the human mind," he
said. "How it fights to resist new ideas."

"The kind of new ideas you're talking about could get both of us locked
up in the chuckle ward," I said.

"Legion," Foster said, "I think you'd better write down what I'm going
to tell you. It's important?vitally important. I won't waste time with
preliminaries. The notebook I showed you?it's in my jacket. You must
read the English portion of it. Afterwards, what I'm about to say may
make more sense."

"I hope you don't feel your last will and testament coming on, Mr.
Foster," I said. "Not before you tell me what that was we were both so
eager to get away from."

"I'll be frank with you," Foster said flatly. "I don't know."

* * *

Foster wheeled into the dark drive of a silent service station, eased to
a stop, set the brake and slumped back in the seat.

"Do you mind driving for a while, Legion?" he said. "I'm not feeling
very well."

"Sure I'll drive," I said. I opened the door and got out and went around
to his side. Foster sat limply, eyes closed, his face drawn and
strained. He looked older than he had last night?years older. The
night's experiences hadn't taken anything off my age, either.

Foster opened his eyes, looked at me blankly. He seemed to gather
himself with an effort. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm not myself."

He moved over and I got in the driver's seat. "If you're sick," I said,
"we'd better find a doctor."

"No, it's all right," he said blurrily. "Just keep going . . ."

"We're a hundred and fifty miles from Mayport now," I said.

Foster turned to me, started to say something?and slumped in a dead
faint. I grabbed for his pulse; it was strong and steady. I rolled up an
eyelid and a dilated pupil stared sightlessly. He was all right?I hoped.
But the thing to do was get him in bed and call a doctor. We were at the
edge of a small town. I let the brake off and drove slowly into town,
swung around a corner and pulled up in front of the sagging marquee of a
run-down hotel. Foster stirred as I cut the engine.

"Foster," I said, "I'm going to get you into a bed. Can you walk?" He
groaned softly and opened his eyes. They were glassy. I got out and got
him to the sidewalk. He was still half out. I walked him into the dingy
lobby and over to a reception counter where a dim bulb burned. I dinged
the bell. It was a minute before an old man shuffled out from where he'd
been sleeping. He yawned, eyed me suspiciously, looked at Foster.

"We don't want no drunks here," he said. "Respectable house."

"My friend is sick," I said. "Give me a double with bath. And call a
doctor."

"What's he got?" the old man said. "Ain't contagious, is it?"

"That's what I want a doctor to tell me."

"I can't get the doc 'fore in the morning. And we got no private bathrooms."

I signed the register. We rode the open-cage elevator to the fourth
floor, went along a gloomy hall to a door painted a peeling brown. It
didn't look inviting; the room inside wasn't much better. There was a
lot of flowered wallpaper and an old-fashioned wash-stand and two wide
beds. I stretched Foster out on one. He lay relaxed, a serene expression
on his face?the kind undertakers try for but never quite seem to manage.
I sat down on the other bed and pulled off my shoes. It was my turn to
have a tired mind. I lay on the bed and let it sink down like a grey
stone into still water.

* * *

I awoke from a dream in which I had just discovered the answer to the
riddle of life. I tried to hold onto it, but it slipped away; it always
does.

Grey daylight was filtering through the dusty windows. Foster lay
slackly on the broad sagging bed, a ceiling lamp with a faded fringed
shade casting a sickly yellow light over him. It didn't make things any
cheerier; I flipped it off.

Foster was lying on his back, arms spread wide, breathing heavily. Maybe
it was only exhaustion, and he didn't need a doctor after all. He'd
probably wake up in a little while, raring to go.

As for me, I was feeling hungry again. I'd have to have a buck or so for
sandwiches. I went over to the bed and called Foster's name. He didn't
move. If he was sleeping that soundly, maybe I wouldn't bother him . . . 

I eased his wallet out of his coat pocket, took it to the window and
checked it. It was fat. I took a ten, put the wallet on the table. I
remembered Foster had said something about money in the car. I had the
keys in my pocket. I got my shoes on and let myself out quietly. Foster
hadn't moved.

Down on the street I waited for a couple of yokels who were looking over
Foster's car to move on, then slid into the seat, leaned over, and got
the floor boards up. The strong box was set into the channel of the
frame. I scraped the road dirt off the lock and opened it with a key
from Foster's key ring, took out the contents. There was a bundle of
stiffish papers, a passport, some maps?marked up?and a wad of currency
that made my mouth go dry. I riffled through it: fifty grand if it was a
buck.

I stuffed the papers, money, and passport back in the box and locked it,
and climbed out onto the sidewalk. A few doors down the street there was
a dirty window lettered MAE'S EAT. I went in, ordered hamburgers and
coffee to go, and sat at the counter with Foster's keys in front of me,
thinking about the car that went with them. The passport only needed a
little work on the picture to get me wherever I wanted to go, and the
money would buy me my choice of islands. Foster would have a nice long
nap, and then take the train home. With his dough, he'd hardly miss what
I took.

The counterman put a paper bag in front of me and I paid him and went
out. I stood by the car, jingling the keys on my palm and thinking. I
could be in Miami in an hour, and I knew where to go for the passport
job. Foster was a nice guy and I liked him?but I'd never have a break
like this again. I reached for the car door and a voice said, "Paper,
mister?"

I jumped and looked around. A dirty-faced kid was looking at me. "Sure,"
I said. I gave him a single and took the paper, flipped it open. A
Mayport dateline caught my eye:

 

*POLICE RAID HIDEOUT* 

A surprise raid by local police led to the discovery here today of a
secret gangland fortress. Chief Chesters of the Mayport Police stated
that the raid came as an aftermath of the arrival in the city yesterday
of a notorious northern gang member. A number of firearms, including
army-type machine guns, were seized in the raid on a house 9 miles from
Mayport on the Fernandina road. The raid was said by Chief Chesters to
be the culmination of a lengthy investigation.
C.R. Foster, 50, owner of the property, is missing and feared dead.
Police are seeking the ex-convict who visited the house last night. It
is feared that Foster may have been the victim of a gangland murder.

 

I banged through the door to the darkened room and stopped short. In the
gloom I could see Foster sitting on the edge of the bed, looking my way.

"Look at this," I yelped, flapping the paper in his face. "Now the cops
are dragging the state for me?and on a murder rap at that! Get on the
phone and get this thing straightened out?if you can. You and your
little green men! The cops think they've stumbled on Al Capone's
arsenal. You'll have fun explaining that one . . ."

Foster looked at me interestedly. He smiled.

"What's funny about it, Foster?" I yelled. "Your dough may buy you out,
but what about me?"

"Forgive me for asking," Foster said pleasantly, "but?who are you?"

* * *

There are times when I'm slow on the uptake, but this wasn't one of
them. The implications of what Foster had said hit me hard enough to
make my knees go weak.

"Oh, no, Mr. Foster," I said. "You can't lose your memory again?not
right now, not with the police looking for me. You're my alibi; you're
the one that has to explain all the business about the guns and the ad
in the paper. I just came to see about a job, remember?"

My voice was getting a little shrill. Foster sat looking at me, wearing
an expression between a frown and a smile, like a credit manager turning
down an application.

He shook his head slightly. "My name is not Foster."

"Look," I said. "Your name was Foster yesterday?that's all I care about.
You're the one that owns the house the cops are all upset about. And
you're the corpse I'm supposed to have knocked off. You've got to go to
the cops with me?right now?and tell them I'm just an innocent bystander."

I went to the window and raised the shades to let some light into the
room, turned back to Foster.

"I'll explain to the cops about you thinking the little men were after
you?" I stopped talking and stared at Foster. For a wild moment I
thought I'd made a mistake?that I'd wandered into the wrong room. I knew
Foster's face, all right; the light was bright enough now to see
clearly; but the man I was talking to couldn't have been a day over
twenty years old.

* * *

I went close to him, staring hard. There were the same cool blue eyes,
but the lines around them were gone. The black hair grew lower and
thicker than I remembered it, and the skin was clear.

I sat down hard on my bed. /"Mama mia,"/ I said.

"Que es la dificultad?" Foster said.

"Shut up," I moaned. "I'm confused enough in one language." I was trying
hard to think but I couldn't seem to get started. A few minutes earlier
I'd had the world by the tail?just before it turned around and bit me.
Cold sweat popped out on my forehead when I thought about how close I
had come to driving off in Foster's car; every cop in the state would be
looking for it by now?and if they found me in it, the jury wouldn't be
out ten minutes reaching a verdict of guilty.

Then another thought hit me?the kind that brings you bolt upright with
your teeth clenched and your heart hammering. It wouldn't be long before
the local hick cops would notice the car out front. They'd come in after
me, and I'd tell them it belonged to Foster. They'd take a look at him
and say, "Nuts, the bird we want is fifty years old, and where did you
hide the body?"

I got up and started pacing. Foster had already told me there was
nothing to connect him with his house in Mayport; the locals there had
seen enough of him to know he was pushing middle age, at least. I could
kick and scream and tell them this twenty-year-old kid was Foster, but
I'd never make it stick. There was no way to prove my story; they'd
figure Foster was dead and that I'd killed him?and anybody who thinks
you need a /corpus/ to prove murder better read his Perry Mason again.

I glanced out of the window and did a double take. Two cops were
standing by Foster's car. One of them went around to the back and got
out a pad and took down the license number, then said something over his
shoulder and started across the street. The second cop planted himself
by the car, his eye on the front of the hotel.

I whirled on Foster. "Get your shoes on," I croaked. "Let's get the hell
out of here."

We went down the stairs quietly and found a back door opening on an
alley. Nobody saw us go.

* * *

An hour later, I sagged in a grimy coach seat and studied Foster,
sitting across from me?a middle-aged nut with the face of a young kid
and a mind like a blank slate. I had no choice but to drag him with me;
my only chance was to stick close and hope he got back enough of his
memory to get me off the hook.

It was time for me to be figuring my next move. I thought about the
fifty thousand dollars I had left behind in the car, and groaned. Foster
looked concerned.

"Are you in pain?" he said.

"And how I'm in pain," I said. "Before I met you I was a homeless bum,
broke and hungry. Now I can add a couple more items: the cops are after
me, and I've got a mental case to nursemaid."

"What law have you broken?" Foster said.

"None," I barked. "As a crook, I'm a washout. I've planned three
larcenies in the last twelve hours, and flunked out on all of them. And
now I'm wanted for murder."

"Whom did you kill?" Foster inquired courteously.

I leaned across so I could snarl in his face: "You!" Then, "Get this
through your head, Foster. The only crime I'm guilty of is stupidity. I
listened to your crazy story; because of you I'm in a mess I'll never
get straightened out." I leaned back. "And then there's the question of
old men that take a nap and wake up in their late teens; we'll go into
that later, after I've had my nervous breakdown."

"I'm sorry if I've been the cause of difficulty," Foster said. "I wish
that I could recall the things you've spoken of. Is there anything I can
do to assist you now?"

"And you were the one who wanted help," I said. "There is one thing; let
me have the money you've got on you; we'll need it."

Foster got out his wallet?after I told him where it was?and handed it to
me. I looked through it; there was nothing in it with a photo or
fingerprints. When Foster said he had arranged matters so that he could
disappear without a trace, he hadn't been kidding.

"We'll go to Miami," I said. "I know a place in the Cuban section where
we can lie low, cheap. Maybe if we wait a while, you'll start
remembering things."

"Yes," Foster said. "That would be pleasant."

"You haven't forgotten how to talk, at least," I said. "I wonder what
else you can do. Do you remember how you made all that money?"

"I can remember nothing of your economic system," Foster said. He looked
around. "This is a very primitive world, in many respects," he said. "It
should not be difficult to amass wealth here."

"I never had much luck at it," I said. "I haven't even been able to
amass the price of a meal."

"Food is exchanged for money?" Foster asked.

"Everything is exchanged for money," I said. "Including most of the
human virtues."

"This is a strange world," Foster said. "It will take me a long while to
become accustomed to it."

"Yeah, me, too," I said. "Maybe things would be better on Mars."

Foster nodded. "Perhaps," he said. "Perhaps we should go there."

I groaned, then caught myself. "No, I'm not in pain," I said. "But don't
take me so literally, Foster."

We rode along in silence for a while.

"Say, Foster," I said. "Have you still got that notebook of yours?"

Foster tried several pockets, came up with the book. He looked at it,
turned it over, frowning.

"You remember it?" I said, watching him.

He shook his head slowly, then ran his finger around the circles
embossed on the cover.

"This pattern," he said. "It signifies . . ."

"Go on, Foster," I said. "Signifies what?"

"I'm sorry," he said. "I don't remember."

I took the book and sat looking at it. I didn't really see it, though. I
was seeing my future. When Foster didn't turn up, they'd naturally
assume he was dead. I'd been with him just before his disappearance. It
wasn't hard to see why they'd want to talk to me?and my having vanished
too wouldn't help any. My picture would blossom out in post offices all
over the country; and even if they didn't catch me right away, the
murder charge would always be there, hanging over me.

It wouldn't do any good to turn myself in and tell them the whole story;
they wouldn't believe me, and I wouldn't blame them. I didn't really
believe it myself, and I'd lived through it. But then, maybe I was just
imagining that Foster looked younger. After all, a good night's rest?

I looked at Foster, and almost groaned again. Twenty was stretching it;
eighteen was more like it. I was willing to swear he'd never shaved in
his life.

"Foster," I said. "It's got to be in this book; who you are, where you
came from?it's the only hope I've got."

"I suggest we read it, then," Foster said.

"A bright idea," I said. "Why didn't I think of that?" I thumbed through
the book to the section in English and read for an hour. Starting with
the entry dated January 19, 1710, the writer had scribbled a few lines
every few months. He seemed to be some kind of pioneer in the Virginia
Colony. He complained about prices, and the Indians, and the ignorance
of the other settlers and every now and then threw in a remark about the
Enemy. He often took long trips, and when he got home, he complained
about those, too.

"It's a funny thing, Foster," I said. "This is supposed to have been
written over a period of a couple of hundred years, but it's all in the
same hand. That's kind of odd, isn't it?"

"Why should a man's handwriting change?" Foster said.

"Well, it might get a little shaky there toward the last, don't you agree?"

"Why is that?"

"I'll spell it out, Foster," I said. "Most people don't live that long.
A hundred years is stretching it, to say nothing of two."

"This must be a very violent world, then," Foster said.

"Skip it," I said. "You talk like you're just visiting. By the way, do
you remember how to write?"

Foster looked thoughtful. "Yes," he said. "I can write."

I handed him the book and the stylus. "Try it," I said. Foster opened to
a blank page, wrote, and handed the book back to me.

"Always and always and always," I read.

I looked at Foster. "What does that mean?" I looked at the words again,
then quickly flipped to the pages written in English. I was no expert on
penmanship, but this came up and cracked me right in the eye.

The book was written in Foster's hand.

* * *

"It doesn't make sense," I was saying for the fortieth time. Foster
nodded sympathetic agreement.

"Why would you write out this junk yourself, and then spend all that
time and money trying to have it deciphered? You said experts worked
over it and couldn't break it. But," I went on, "you must have known you
wrote it; you knew your own handwriting. But on the other hand, you had
amnesia before; you had the idea you might have told something about
yourself in the book . . ."

I sighed, leaned back and tossed the book over to Foster. "Here, you
read a while," I said. "I'm arguing with myself and I can't tell who's
winning."

Foster looked the book over carefully.

"This is odd," he said.

"What's odd?"

"The book is made of khaff. It is a permanent material?and yet it shows
damage."

I sat perfectly still and waited.

"Here on the back cover," Foster said. "A scuffed area. Since this is
khaff, it cannot be an actual scar. It must have been placed there."

I grabbed the book and looked. There was a faint mark across the back
cover, as though the book had been scraped on something sharp. I
remembered how much luck I had had with a knife. The mark had been put
here, disguised as a casual nick in the finish. It had to mean something.

"How do you know what the material is?" I asked.

Foster looked surprised. "In the same way that I know the window is of
glass," he said. "I simply know."

"Speaking of glass," I said. "Wait till I get my hands on a microscope.
Then maybe we'll begin to get some answers."


      *Chapter Four*

The two-hundred pound seorita with the wart on her upper lip put a pot
of black Cuban coffee and a pitcher of salted milk down beside the two
chipped cups, leered at me in a way that might have been appealing
thirty years before, and waddled back to the kitchen. I poured a cup,
gulped half of it, and shuddered. In the street outside the caf a
guitar cried /Estrellita/.

"Okay, Foster," I said. "Here's what I've got: The first half of the
book is in pot-hooks?I can't read that. But this middle section: the
part coded in regular letters?it's actually encrypted English. It's a
sort of rsum of what happened." I picked up the sheets of paper on
which I had transcribed my deciphering of the coded section of the book,
using the key that had been micro-engraved in the fake scratch on the
back cover.

I read:

 

For the first time, I am afraid. My attempt to construct the
communicator called down the Hunters upon me. I made such a shield as I
could contrive, and sought their nesting place.
I came there and it was in that place that I knew of old, and it was no
hive, but a pit in the ground, built by men of the Two Worlds. And I
would have come into it, but the Hunters swarmed in their multitudes. I
fought them and killed many, but at last I fled away. I came to the
western shore, and there I hired bold sailors and a poor craft, and set
forth.
In forty-nine days we came to shore in this wilderness, and there were
men as from the dawn of time, and I fought them, and when they had
learned fear, I lived among them in peace, and the Hunters have not
found this place. Now it may be that my saga ends here, but I will do
what I am able.
The Change may soon come upon me; I must prepare for the stranger who
will come after me. All that he must know is in these pages. And say I
to him:
Have patience, for the time of this race draws close. Venture not again
on the Eastern continent, but wait, for soon the Northern sailors must
come in numbers into this wilderness. Seek out their cleverest
metal-workers, and when it may be, devise a shield, and only then return
to the pit of the Hunters. It lies in the plain, 50/10,000 parts of the
girth of this(?) to the west of the Great Chalk Face, and 1470 parts
north from the median line, as I reckon. The stones mark it well with
the sign of the Two Worlds.

I looked across at Foster. "It goes on then with a blow-by-blow account
of dealings with aborigines. He was trying to get them civilized in a
hurry. They figured he was a god and he set them to work building roads
and cutting stone and learning mathematics and so on. He was doing all
he could to set things up so this stranger who was to follow him would
know the score, and carry on the good work."

Foster's eyes were on my face. "What is the nature of the Change he
speaks of?"

"He never says?but I suppose he's talking about death," I said. "I don't
know where the stranger is supposed to come from."

"Listen to me, Legion," Foster said. There was a hint of the old anxious
look in his eyes. "I think I know what the Change was. I think he knew
he would forget?"

"You've got amnesia on the brain, old buddy," I said.

"?and the stranger is?himself. A man without a memory."

I sat frowning at Foster. "Yeah, maybe," I said. "Go on."

"And he says that all that the stranger needs to know is there?in the book."

"Not in the part I decoded," I said. "He describes how they're coming
along with the road-building job, and how the new mine panned out?but
there's nothing about what the Hunters are, or what had gone on before
he tangled with them the first time."

"It must be there, Legion; but in the first section, the part written in
alien symbols."

"Maybe," I said. "But why the hell didn't he give us a key to that part?"

"I think he assumed that the stranger?himself?would remember the old
writing," Foster said. "How could he know that it would be forgotten
with the rest?"

"Your guess is as good as any," I said. "Maybe better; you know how it
feels to lose your memory."

"But we've learned a few things," Foster said. "The pit of the
Hunters?we have the location."

"If you call this 'ten thousand parts to the west of chalk face' a
location," I said.

"We know more than that," Foster said. "He mentions a plain; and it must
lie on a continent to the east?"

"If you assume that he sailed from Europe to America, then the continent
to the east would be Europe," I said. "But maybe he went from Africa to
South America, or?"

"The mention of Northern sailors?that suggests the Vikings?"

"You seem to know a little history, Foster," I said. "You've got a lot
of odd facts tucked away."

"We need maps," Foster said. "We'll look for a plain near the sea?"

"Not necessarily."

"?and with a formation called a chalk face to the east."

"What's this 'median line' business?" I said. "And the bit about ten
thousand parts of something?"

"I don't know. But we must have maps."

"I bought some this afternoon," I said. "I also got a dime-story globe.
I figured we might need them. Let's get out of this and back to the
room, where we can spread out. I know it's a grim prospect, but . . ." I
got to my feet, dropped some coins on the oilcloth-covered table, and
led the way out.

It was a short half block to the flea trap we called home. We kept out
of it as much as we could, holding our long daily conferences across the
street at the Novedades. The roaches scurried as we passed up the dark
stairway to our not much brighter room. I crossed to the bureau and
opened a drawer.

"The globe," Foster said, taking it in his hands. "I wonder if perhaps
he meant a ten-thousandth part of the circumference of the earth?"

"What would he know about?"

"Disregard the anachronistic aspect of it," Foster said. "The man who
wrote the book knew many things. We'll have to start with some
assumptions. Let's make the obvious ones; that we're looking for a plain
on the west coast of Europe, lying?" He pulled a chair up to the
scabrous table and riffled through to one of my scribbled sheets:
"50/10,000s of the circumference of the earth?that would be about 125
miles?west of a chalk formation, and 3675 miles north of a median
line . . ."

"Maybe," I said, "he means the Equator."

"Certainly. Why not? That would mean our plain lies on a line through?"
he studied the small globe "?Warsaw, and south of Amsterdam."

"But this part about a rock outcropping," I said. "How do we find out if
there's any conspicuous chalk formation around there?"

"We can consult a geology text. There may be a library in this
neighborhood."

"The only chalk deposits I ever heard about," I said, "are the White
cliffs of Dover."

"White cliffs . . ."

We both reached for the globe at once.

"One hundred twenty-five miles west of the chalk cliffs," said Foster.
He ran a finger over the globe. "North of London, but south of
Birmingham. That puts us reasonably near the sea?"

"Where's the atlas?" I said. I rummaged, came up with a cheap tourists'
edition, flipped the pages.

"Here's England," I said. "Now we look for a plain."

Foster put a finger on the map. "Here," he said. "A large plain?called
Salisbury."

"Large is right," I said. "It would take years to find a stone cairn on
that. We're getting excited about nothing. We're looking for a hole in
the ground, hundreds of years old?if this lousy notebook means
anything?maybe marked with a few stones?in the middle of miles of plain.
And it's all guesswork anyway . . ." I took the atlas, turned the page.

"I don't know what I expected to get out of decoding those pages," I
said. "But I was hoping for more than this."

"I think we should try, Legion," Foster said. "We can go there, search
over the ground. It would be costly, but not impossible. We can start by
gathering capital?"

"Wait a minute, Foster," I said. I was staring at a larger-scale map
showing southern England. Suddenly my heart was thudding. I put a finger
on a tiny dot in the center of Salisbury Plain.

"Six, two and even," I said. "There's your Pit of the Hunters . . ."

Foster leaned over, read the fine print.

"Stonehenge."

* * *

I read from the encyclopedia page:

?this great stone structure, lying on the Plain of Salisbury, Wiltshire,
England, is preeminent among megalithic monuments of the ancient world.
Within a circular ditch 300' in diameter, stones up to 22' in height are
arranged in concentric circles. The central altar stone, over 16' long,
is approached from the northeast by a broad roadway called the Avenue?

"It's not an altar," said Foster.

"How do you know?"

"Because?" Foster frowned. "I know, that's all."

"The journal said the stones were arranged in the sign of the Two
Worlds," I said. "That means the concentric circles, I suppose; the same
thing that's stamped on the cover of the notebook."

"And the ring." Foster said.

"Let me read the rest: A great sarsen stone stands upright in the
Avenue; the axis through the two stones, when erected, pointed directly
to the rising of the sun on Midsummer Day. Calculations based on this
observation indicate a date of approximately 1600 B.C. 

Foster took the book and I sat on the window sill and looked out at a
big Florida moon over the ragged line of roofs with a skinny royal palm
sticking up in silhouette. It didn't look much like the postcard views
of Miami. I lit a cigarette and thought about a man who long ago had
crossed the North Atlantic in a dragon boat to be a god among the
Indians. I wondered where he came from, and what it was he was looking
for, and what kept him going in spite of the hell that showed in the
spare lines of the journal he kept. If, I reminded myself, he had ever
existed . . . 

Foster was poring over the book. "Look," I said. "Let's get back to
earth. We have things to think about, plans to make. The fairy tales can
wait until later."

"What do you suggest?" Foster said. "That we forget the things you've
told me, and the things we've read here, discard the journal, and
abandon the attempt to find the answers?"

"No," I said. "I'm no sorehead. Sure, there's some things here that
somebody ought to look into?some day. But right now what I want is the
cops off my neck. And I've been thinking. I'll dictate a letter; you
write it?your lawyers know your handwriting. Tell them you were on the
thin edge of a nervous breakdown?that's why all the artillery around
your house?and you made up your mind suddenly to get away from it all.
Tell them you don't want to be bothered, that's why you're traveling
incognito, and that the northern mobster that came to see you was just
stupid, not a killer. That ought to at least cool off the cops?"

Foster looked thoughtful. "That's an excellent suggestion," he said.
"Then we need merely to arrange for passage to England, and proceed with
the investigation."

"You don't get the idea," I said. "You can arrange things by mail so we
get our hands on that dough of yours?"

"Any such attempt would merely bring the police down on us," Foster
said. "You've already pointed out the unwisdom of attempting to pass
myself off as?myself."

"There ought to be a way . . ." I said.

"We have only one avenue of inquiry," Foster said. "We have no choice
but to explore it. We'll take passage on a ship to England?"

"What'll we use for money?and papers? It would cost hundreds. Unless?" I
added, "?we worked our way. But that's no good. We'd still need
passports?plus union cards and seamen's tickets."

"Your friend," Foster said. "The one who prepares passports. Can't he
produce the other papers as well?"

"Yeah," I said. "I guess so. But it will cost us."

"I'm sure we can find a way to pay," Foster said. "Will you see
him?early in the morning?"

I looked around the blowsy room. Hot night air stirred a geranium
wilting in a tin can on the window sill. An odor of bad cooking and
worse plumbing floated up from the street.

"At least," I said, "it would mean getting out of here."


      *Chapter Five*

It was almost sundown when Foster and I pushed through the door to the
saloon bar at the Ancient Sinner and found a corner table. I watched
Foster spread out his maps and papers. Behind us there was a murmur of
conversation and the thump of darts against a board.

"When are you going to give up and admit we're wasting our time?" I
said. "Two weeks of tramping over the same ground, and we end up in the
same place."

"We've hardly begun our investigation," Foster said mildly.

"You keep saying that," I said. "But if there ever was anything in that
rock-pile, it's long gone. The archaeologists have been digging over the
site for years, and they haven't come up with anything."

"They don't know what to look for," Foster said. "They were searching
for indications of religious significance, human sacrifice?that sort of
thing."

"We don't know what we're looking for either," I said. "Unless you think
maybe we'll meet the Hunters hiding under a loose stone."

"You say that sardonically," Foster said. "But I don't consider it
impossible."

"I know," I said. "You've convinced yourself that the Hunters were after
us back at Mayport when we ran off like a pair of idiots."

"From what you've told me of the circumstances?" Foster began.

"I know; you don't consider it impossible. That's the trouble with you;
you don't consider anything impossible. It would make life a lot easier
for me if you'd let me rule out a few items?like leprechauns who hang
out at Stonehenge."

Foster looked at me, half-smiling. It had only been a few weeks since he
woke up from a nap looking like a senior class president who hadn't made
up his mind whether to be a preacher or a movie star, but he had already
lost that mild, innocent air. He learned fast, and day by day I had seen
his old personality reemerge and?in spite of my attempts to hold onto
the ascendancy?dominate our partnership.

"It's a failing of your culture," Foster said, "that hypothesis becomes
dogma almost overnight. You're too close to your Neolithic, when the
blind acceptance of tribal lore had survival value. Having learned to
evoke the fire god from sticks, by rote, you tend to extend the
principle to all 'established facts.' "

"Here's an established fact for you," I said. "We've got fifteen pounds
left?that's about forty dollars. It's time we figure out where to go
from here, before somebody starts checking up on those phony papers of
ours."

Foster shook his head. "I'm not satisfied that we've exhausted the
possibilities here. I've been studying the geometric relationships
between the various structures; I have some ideas I want to check. I
think it might be a good idea to go out at night, when we can work
without the usual crowd of tourists observing every move."

I groaned. "My dogs are killing me," I said. "Let's hope you'll come up
with something better?or at least different."

"We'll have a bite to eat here, and wait until dark to start out,"
Foster said.

The publican brought us plates of cold meat and potato salad. I worked
on a thin but durable slice of ham and thought about all the people,
somewhere, who were sitting down now to gracious meals in the glitter of
crystal and silver. I'd had too many greasy French fries in too many
cheap dives the last few years. I could feel them all now, burning in my
stomach. I was getting farther from my island all the time?and it was
nobody's fault but mine.

"The Ancient Sinner," I said. "That's me."

Foster looked up. "Curious names these old pubs have," he said. "I
suppose in some cases the origins are lost in antiquity."

"Why don't they think up something cheery," I said. "Like 'The Paradise
Bar and Grill' or 'The Happy Hour Caf'. Did you notice the sign hanging
outside?"

"No."

"A picture of a skeleton. He's holding one hand up like a Yankee
evangelist prophesying doom. You can see it through the window there."

Foster turned and looked out at the weathered sign creaking in the
evening wind. He looked at it for a long time. When he turned back,
there was a strange look around his eyes.

"What's the matter??" I started.

Foster ignored me, waved to the proprietor, a short fat country man. He
came over to the table, wiping his hands on his apron.

"A very interesting old building," Foster said. "We've been admiring it.
When was it built?"

"Well, sir," the publican said, "this here house is many a hundred year
old. It were built by the monks, they say, from the monastery what used
to stand nearby here. It were tore down by the King's men, Henry, that
was, what time he drove the papists out."

"That would be Henry the Eighth, I suppose?"

"Aye, it would that. And this house is all that were spared, it being
the brewing-house, as the king said were a worthwhile institution, and
he laid on a tithe, that two kegs of stout was to be laid by for the
king's use each brewing time."

"Very interesting," Foster said. "Is the custom still continued?"

The publican shook his head. "It were ended in my granfer's time, it
being that the Queen were a teetotaler."

"How did it acquire the curious name?'The Ancient Sinner?' "

"The tale is," the publican said, "that one day a lay brother of the
order were digging about yonder on the plain by the great stones, in
search of the Druid's treasure, albeit the Abbot had forbid him to go
nigh the heathen ground, and he come on the bones of a man, and being of
a kindly turn, he had the thought to give them Christian burial. Now,
knowing the Abbott would nae permit it, he set to work to dig a grave by
moonlight in holy ground, under the monastery walls. But the Abbott,
being wakeful, were abroad and come on the brother a-digging, and when
he asked the why of it, the lay brother having visions of penances to
burden him for many a day, he ups and tells the Abbott it were a ale
cellar he were about digging, and the Abbott, not being without wisdom,
clapped him on the back, and went on his way. And so it was the
ale-house got built, and blessed by the Abbott, and with it the bones
that was laid away under the floor beneath the ale-casks."

"So the ancient sinner is buried under the floor?"

"Aye, so the tale goes, though I've not dug for him myself. But the
house has been knowed by the name these four hundred years."

"Where was it you said the lay brother was digging?"

"On the plain, yonder, by the Druid's stones, what they call
Stonehenge," the publican said. He picked up the empty glasses. "What
about another, gentlemen?"

"Certainly," Foster said. He sat quietly across from me, his features
composed?but I could see there was tension under the surface calm.

"What's this all about?" I asked softly. "When did you get so interested
in local history?"

"Later," Foster murmured. "Keep looking bored."

"That'll be easy," I said. The publican came back and placed heavy glass
mugs before us.

"You were telling us about the lay brother's finding the bones," Foster
said. "You say they were buried in Stonehenge?"

The publican cleared his throat, glanced sideways at Foster.

"The gentlemen wouldna be from the University now, I suppose?" he said.

"Let's just say," Foster said easily, smiling, "that we have a great
interest in these bits of lore?an interest supported by modest funds, of
course."

The publican made a show of wiping at the rings on the table top.

"A costly business, I wager," he said. "Digging about in odd places and
all. Now, knowing where to dig; that's important, I'll be bound."

"Very important," Foster said. "Worth five pounds, easily."

" 'Twere my granfer told me of the spot; took me out by moonlight, he
did, and showed me where his granfer had showed him. Told me it were a
fine great secret, the likes of which a simple man could well take pride
in."

"And an additional five pounds as a token of my personal esteem," Foster
said.

The publican eyed me. "Well, a secret as was handed down father to
son . . ."

"And, of course, my associate wishes to express his esteem, too," Foster
said. "Another five pounds worth."

"That's all the esteem the budget will bear, Mr. Foster," I said. I got
out the fifteen pounds and passed the money across to him. "I hope you
haven't forgotten those people back home who wanted to talk to us," I
said. "They'll be getting in touch with us any time now, I'll bet."

Foster rolled up the bills and held them in his hand. "That's true, Mr.
Legion," he said. "Perhaps we shouldn't take the time . . ."

"But being it's for the advancement of science," the publican said, "I'm
willing to make the sacrifice."

"We'll want to go out tonight," Foster said. "We have a very tight
schedule."

The landlord dickered with Foster for another five minutes before he
agreed to guide us to the spot where the skeleton had been found.

When he left, I began. "Now tell me."

"Look at the signboard again," Foster said. I looked. The skull smiled,
holding up a hand.

"I see it," I said. "But it doesn't explain why you handed over our last
buck?"

"Look at the hand. Look at the ring on the finger."

I looked again. A heavy ring was painted on the bony index finger, with
a pattern of concentric circles.

It was a duplicate of the one on Foster's finger.

* * *

The publican pulled the battered Morris Minor to the side of the highway
and set the brake.

"This is as close as we best take the machine," he said. We got out,
looked across the rolling plain where the megaliths of Stonehenge loomed
against the last glow of sunset.

The publican rummaged in the boot, produced a ragged blanket and two
long four-cell flashlights, gave one to Foster and the other to me. "Do
nae use the electric torches until I tell ye," he said, "lest the whole
country see there's folks abroad here." We watched as he draped the
blanket over a barbed wire fence, clambered over, and started across the
barren field. Foster and I followed, not talking.

The plain was deserted. A few lonely lights showed on a distant slope.
It was a dark night with no moon. I could hardly see the ground ahead. A
car moved along a distant road, its headlights bobbing.

We moved past the outer ring of stones, skirting fallen slabs twenty
feet long.

"We'll break our necks," I said. "Let's have one of the flashlights."

"Not yet," Foster whispered.

Our guide paused; we came up to him.

"It were a mortal long time since I were last hereabouts," he said. "I
best take me bearings off the Friar's Heel . . ."

"What's that?"

"Yon great stone, standing alone in the Avenue." We squinted; it was
barely visible as a dark shape against the sky.

"The bones were buried there?" Foster asked.

"Nay, all by theirself, they was. Now it were twenty paces, granfer
said, him being fifteen stone and long in the leg . . ." The publican
muttered to himself, pacing off distances.

"What's to keep him from just pointing to a spot after a while," I said
to Foster, "and saying 'This is it'?"

"We'll wait and see," Foster said.

"They were a hollow, as it were, in the earth," the publican said, "with
a bit of stone by it. I reckon it were fifty paces from here?" he
pointed, "?yonder."

"I don't see anything," I said.

"Let's take a closer look." Foster started off and I followed, the
publican trailing behind. I made out a dim shape, with a deep depression
in the earth before it.

"This could be the spot," Foster said. "Old graves often sink?" Suddenly
he grabbed my arm. "Look . . . !"

The surface of the ground before us seemed to tremble, then heave.
Foster snapped on his flashlight. The earth at the bottom of the hollow
rose, cracked open. A boiling mass of luminescence churned, and a globe
of light separated itself, rose, bumbling along the face of the
weathered stone.

"Saints preserve us," the publican said in a choked voice. Foster and I
stood, rooted to the spot, watching. The lone globe rose higher?and
abruptly shot straight toward us. Foster threw up an arm and ducked. The
ball of light veered, struck him a glancing blow, darted off a few
yards, hovered. In an instant, the air was alive with the spheres,
boiling up from the ground, and hurtling toward us, buzzing like a hive
of yellow-jackets. Foster's flashlight lanced out toward the swarm.

"Use your light, Legion!" he shouted hoarsely. I was still standing,
frozen. The globes rushed straight at Foster, ignoring me. Behind me, I
heard the publican turn and run. I fumbled with the flashlight switch,
snapped it on, swung the beam of white light on Foster. The globe at his
head vanished as the light touched it. More globes swarmed to Foster?and
popped like soap bubbles in the flashlight's glare?but more swarmed to
take their places. Foster reeled, fighting at them. He swung the
light?and I heard it smash against the stone behind him. In the instant
darkness, the globes clustered thick around his head.

"Foster," I yelled, "run!"

He got no more than five yards before he staggered, went to his knees.
"Cover," he croaked. He fell on his face. I rushed the mass of darting
globes, took up a stance straddling his body. A sulfurous reek hung
around me. I coughed, concentrated on beaming the light around Foster's
head. No more were rising from the crack in the earth now. A suffocating
cloud pressed around both of us, but it was Foster they went for. I
thought of the slab; if I could get my back to it, I might have a
chance. I stooped, got a grip on Foster's coat, and started back,
dragging him. The lights boiled around me. I swept the beam of light and
kept going until my back slammed against the stone. I crouched against
it. Now they could only come from the front.

I glanced at the cleft the lights had come from. It looked big enough to
get Foster into. That would give him some protection. I tumbled him over
the edge, then flattened my back against the slab and settled down to
fight in earnest.

I worked in a pattern, sweeping vertically, then horizontally. The
globes ignored me, drove toward the cleft, fighting to get at Foster,
and I swept them away as they came. The cloud around me was smaller now,
the attack less ravenous. I picked out individual globes, snuffed them
out. The hum became ragged, faltered. Then there were only a few globes
around me, milling wildly, disorganized. The last half dozen fled,
bumbling away across the plain.

I slumped against the rock, sweat running down into my eyes, my lungs
burning with the sulphur.

"Foster," I gasped. "Are you all right?"

He didn't answer. I flashed the light onto the cleft. It showed me damp
clay, a few pebbles.

Foster was gone.


      *Chapter Six*

I scrambled to the edge of the pit and played the light around inside.
It shelved back at one side, and a dark mouth showed, sloping down into
the earth?the hiding place from which the globes had swarmed.

Foster was wedged in the opening. I scrambled down beside him, tugged
him back to the level ground. He was still breathing; that was something.

I wondered if the pub owner would come back, now that the lights were
gone?or if he'd tell someone what had happened, bring out a search
party. Somehow, I doubted it. He didn't seem like the type to ask for
trouble with the ghosts of ancient sinners.

Foster groaned, opened his eyes. "Where are . . .  they?" he muttered.

"Take it easy, Foster," I said. "You're OK now."

"Legion," Foster said. He tried to sit up. "The Hunters . . ."

"OK, call 'em Hunters if you want to. I haven't got a better name for
them. I worked them over with the flashlights. They're gone."

"That means . . ."

"Let's not worry about what it means. Let's just get out of here."

"The Hunters?they burst out of the ground?from a cleft in the earth."

"That's right. You were halfway into the hole. I guess that's where they
were hiding."

"The Pit of the Hunters," Foster said.

"If you say so," I said. "Lucky you didn't go down it."

"Legion, give me the flashlight."

"I feel something coming on that I'm not going to like," I said. I
handed him the light and he flashed it into the tunnel mouth. I saw a
polished roof of black glass arching four feet over the rubble-strewn
bottom of the shaft. A stone, dislodged by my movement, clattered away
down the 30 degree slope.

"Hell, that tunnel's man-made," I said, peering into it. "And I don't
mean Neolithic man."

"Legion, we'll have to see what's down there," Foster said.

"We could come back later, with ropes and big insurance policies," I said.

"But we won't," said Foster. "We've found what we were looking for?"

"Sure," I said, "and it serves us right. Are you sure you feel good
enough to make like Alice and the White Rabbit?"

"I'm sure. Let's go."

Foster thrust his legs into the opening, slid over the edge and
disappeared. I followed him. I eased down a few feet, glanced back for a
last look at the night sky, then lost my grip and slid. I hit bottom
hard enough to knock the wind out of me, I got to my hands and knees on
a level, gravel-strewn floor.

"What is this place?" I dug the flashlight out of the rubble, flashed it
around. We were in a low-ceilinged room ten yards square. I saw smooth
walls, the dark bulks of massive shapes that made me think of sarcophagi
in Egyptian burial vaults?except that these threw back highlights from
dials and levers.

"For a couple of guys who get shy in the company of cops," I said,
"we've a talent for doing the wrong thing. This is some kind of Top
Secret military installation."

"Impossible," Foster replied. "This couldn't be a modern structure, at
the bottom of a rubble-filled shaft?"

"Let's get out of here fast," I said. "We've probably set off an alarm
already."

As if in answer, a low chime cut across our talk. Pearly light sprang up
on a square panel. I got to my feet, moved over to stare at it. Foster
came to my side.

"What do you make of it?" he said.

"I'm no expert on stone-age relics," I said. "But if that's not a radar
screen, I'll eat it."

I sat down in the single chair before the dusty control console, and
watched a red blip creep across the screen. Foster stood behind me.

"We owe a debt to that ancient sinner," he said. "Who would have dreamed
he'd lead us here?"

"Ancient sinner?" I said. "This place is as modern as next year's juke box."

"Look at the symbols on the machines," Foster said. "They're identical
with those in the first section of the journal."

"All pot-hooks look alike to me," I said. "It's this screen that's got
me worried. If I've got it doped out correctly, that blip is either a
mighty slow airplane?or it's at one hell of an altitude."

"Modern aircraft operate at great heights," Foster said.

"Not at this height," I said. "Give me a few more minutes to study these
scales . . ."

"There are a number of controls here," Foster said, "obviously intended
to activate mechanisms?"

"Don't touch 'em," I said. "Unless you want to start World War III."

"I hardly think the results would be so drastic," Foster replied.
"Surely this installation has a simple purpose?unconnected with modern
wars?but very possibly connected with the mystery of the journal?and of
my own past."

"The less we know about this, the better," I said. "At least, if we
don't mess with anything, we can always claim we just stepped in here to
get out of the rain?"

"You're forgetting the Hunters," said Foster.

"Some new anti-personnel gimmick."

"They came out of this shaft, Legion. It was opened by the pressure of
the Hunters bursting out."

"Why did they pick that precise moment?just as we arrived?" I asked.

"I think they were aroused," said Foster. "I think they sensed the
presence of their ancient foe."

I swung around to look at him.

"I see the way your thoughts are running," I said. "You're their Ancient
Foe, now, huh? Just let me get this straight: that means that umpteen
hundred years ago, you personally had a fight with the Hunters?here at
Stonehenge. You killed a batch of them and ran. You hired some kind of
Viking ship and crossed the Atlantic. Later on, you lost your memory,
and started being a guy named Foster. A few weeks ago you lost it again.
Is that the picture?"

"More or less."

"And now we're a couple of hundred feet under Stonehenge?after a brush
with a crowd of luminous stinkbombs?and you're telling me you'll be nine
hundred on your next birthday."

"Remember the entry in the journal, Legion? 'I came to the place of the
Hunters, and it was a place I knew of old, and there was no hive, but a
Pit built by men of the Two Worlds . . .' "

"Okay," I said. "So you're pushing a thousand."

I glanced at the screen, got out a scrap of paper, and scribbled a rapid
calculation. "Here's another big number for you. That object on the
screen is at an altitude?give or take a few percent?of thirty thousand
miles."

I tossed the pencil aside, swung around to frown at Foster. "What are we
mixed up in, Foster? Not that I really want to know. I'm ready to go to
a nice clean jail now, and pay my debt to society?"

"Calm down, Legion," Foster said. "You're raving."

"OK," I said, turning back to the screen. "You're the boss. Do what you
like. It's just my reflexes wanting to run. I've got no place to run to.
At least with you I've always got the wild hope that maybe you're not
completely nuts, and that somehow?"

I sat upright, eyes on the screen. "Look at this, Foster," I snapped. A
pattern of dots flashed across the screen, faded, flashed again . . . 

"Some kind of IFF," I said. "A recognition signal. I wonder what we're
supposed to do now."

Foster watched the screen, saying nothing.

"I don't like that thing blinking at us," I said. "It makes me feel
conspicuous." I looked at the big red button beside the screen. "Maybe
if I pushed that . . ." Without waiting to think it over, I jabbed at it.

A yellow light blinked on the control panel. On the screen, the pattern
of dots vanished. The red blip separated, a smaller blip moving off at
right angles to the main mass.

"I'm not sure you should have done that," Foster said.

"There /is/ room for doubt," I said in a strained voice. "It looks like
I've launched a bomb from the ship overhead."

* * *

The climb back up the tunnel took three hours, and every foot of the way
I was listening to a refrain in my head: This may be it; this may be it;
this may be . . . 

I crawled out of the tunnel mouth and lay on my back, breathing hard.
Foster groped his way out beside me.

"We'll have to get to the highway," I said, untying the ten-foot rope of
ripped garments that had linked us during the climb. "There's a
telephone at the pub; we'll notify the authorities . . ." I glanced up.

"Hold it!" I grabbed Foster's arm and pointed overhead. "What's that?"

Foster looked up. A brilliant point of blue light, brighter than a star,
grew perceptibly as we watched.

"Maybe we won't get to notify anybody after all," I said. "I think
that's our bomb?coming home to roost."

"That's illogical," Foster said. "The installation would hardly be
arranged merely to destroy itself in so complex a manner."

"Let's get out of here," I yelled.

"It's approaching us very rapidly," Foster said. "The distance we could
run in the next few minutes would be trivial by comparison with the
killing radius of a modern bomb. We'll be safer sheltered in the cleft
than in the open."

"We could slide down the tunnel," I said.

"And be buried?"

"You're right; I'd rather fry on the surface."

We crouched, watching the blue glare directly overhead, growing larger,
brighter. I could see Foster's face by its light now.

"That's no bomb," Foster said. "It's not falling; it's coming down
slowly . . . .like a?"

"Like a slowly falling bomb," I said. "And it's coming right down on top
of us. Goodbye, Foster. I can't claim it's been fun knowing you, but
it's been different. We'll feel the heat any second now. I hope it's fast."

The glaring disc was the size of the full moon now, unbearably bright.
It lit the plain like a pale blue sun. There was no sound. As it dropped
lower, the disc foreshortened and I could see a dark shape above it,
dimly lit by the glare thrown back from the ground.

"The thing is the size of a ferry boat," I said.

"It's going to miss us," Foster said. "It will come to ground several
hundred feet to the east of us."

We watched the slender shape float down with dreamlike slowness, now
five hundred feet above, now three hundred, then hovering just above the
giant stones.

"It's coming down smack on top of Stonehenge," I yelled.

We watched as the vessel settled into place dead center on the ancient
ring of stones. For a moment they were vividly silhouetted against the
flood of blue radiance; then abruptly, the glare faded and died.

"Foster," I said. "Do you think it's barely possible?"

A slit of yellow light appeared on the side of the hull, then it widened
to a square. A ladder extended itself, dropping down to touch the ground.

"If somebody with tentacles starts down that ladder," I said, in an
unnaturally shrill voice, "I'm getting out of here."

"No one will emerge," Foster said quietly. "I think we'll find, Legion,
that this ship of space is at our disposal."

* * *

"I'm not going aboard that thing," I said for the fifth time. "I'm not
sure of much in this world, but I'm sure of that."

"Legion," Foster said, "this is no twentieth century military vessel. It
obviously homed on the transmitter in the underground station, which
appears to be directly under the old monument?which is several thousand
years old?"

"And I'm supposed to believe the ship has been orbiting the earth for
the last few thousand years, waiting for someone to push the red button?
You call that logical?"

"Given permanent materials, such as those the notebook is made of, it's
not impossible?or even difficult."

"We got out of the tunnel alive. Let's settle for that."

"We're on the verge of solving a mystery that goes back through the
centuries," said Foster, "a mystery that I've pursued, if I understand
the journal, through many lifetimes?"

"One thing about losing your memory: you don't have any fixed ideas to
get in the way of your theories."

Foster smiled grimly. "The trail has brought us here. We must follow
it?wherever it leads."

I lay on the ground, staring up at the unbelievable shape across the
field, the beckoning square of light. "This ship?or whatever it is," I
said; "it drops down out of nowhere and opens its doors. And you want to
walk right into the cozy interior."

"Listen!" Foster cut in.

I heard a low rumbling then, a sound that rolled ominously, like distant
guns.

"More ships?" I started.

"Jet aircraft," Foster said. "From the bases in East Anglia probably. Of
course, they'll have tracked our ship in?"

"That's all for me," I yelled, getting to my feet. "The secret's out?"

"Get down, Legion," Foster shouted. The engines were a blanketing roar now.

"What for? They?"

Two long lines of fire traced themselves across the sky, curving down?

I hit the dirt behind the stone in the same instant the rockets struck.
The shock wave slammed at the earth like a monster thunderclap, and I
saw the tunnel mouth collapse. I twisted, saw the red interior of the
jet tailpipe as the fighter hurtled past, rolling into a climbing turn.

"They're crazy," I yelled. "Firing on?"

A second barrage blasted across my indignation. I hugged the muck and
waited while nine salvoes shook the earth. Then the rumble died,
reluctantly. The air reeked of high explosives.

"We'd have been dead now if we'd tried the tunnel," I gasped, spitting
dirt. "It caved at the first rocket. And if the ship was what you
thought, Foster, they've destroyed something?"

The sentence died unnoticed. The dust was settling and through it the
shape of the ship reared up, unchanged except that the square of light
was gone. As I watched, the door opened again and the ladder ran out
once more, invitingly.

"They'll try next time with nukes," I said. "That may be too much for
the ship's defenses?and it will sure be too much for us?"

"Listen," Foster cut in. A deeper rumble was building in the distance.

"To the ship!" Foster called. He was up and running, and I hesitated
just long enough to think about trying for the highway and being caught
in the open?and then I was running, too. Ahead, Foster stumbled crossing
the ground that had been ripped up by the rocket bursts, made it to the
ladder, and went up it fast. The growl of the approaching bombers grew,
a snarl of deadly hatred. I leaped a still-smoking stone fragment, took
the ladder in two jumps, plunged into the yellow-lit interior. Behind
me, the door smacked shut.

I was standing in a luxuriously fitted circular room. There was a
pedestal in the center of the floor, from which a polished bar
projected. The bones of a man lay beside it. While I stared, Foster
sprang forward, seized the bar, and pulled. It slid back easily. The
lights flickered and I had a moment of vertigo. Nothing else happened.

"Try it the other way," I yelled. "The bombs will fall any second?" I
went for it, hand outstretched. Foster thrust in front of me. "Look!"

I stared at the glowing panel he was pointing to?a duplicate of the one
in the underground chamber. It showed a curved white line, with a red
point ascending from it.

"We're clear," Foster said. "We've made a successful take-off."

"But we can't be moving?there's no acceleration. There must be
soundproofing?that's why we can't hear the bombers?"

"No soundproofing would help if we were at ground zero," Foster said.
"This ship is the product of an advanced science. We've left the bombers
far behind."

"Where are we going? Who's steering this thing?"

"It steers itself, I would judge," Foster said. "I don't know where
we're going, but we're well on the way."

I looked at him in amazement. "You like this, don't you, Foster? You're
having the time of your life."

"I can't deny that I'm delighted at this turn of events," Foster said.
"Don't you see? This vessel is a launch, or lifeboat, under automatic
control. And it's taking us to the mother ship."

"Okay, Foster," I said. I looked at the skeleton on the floor behind
him. "But I hope we have better luck than the last passenger."


      *Chapter Seven*

It was two hours later, and Foster and I stood silent before a ten-foot
screen that had glowed into life when I touched a silver button beside
it. It showed us a vast emptiness of bottomless black, set thick with
coruscating points of polychrome brilliance that hurt to look at. And
against that backdrop: a ship, vast beyond imagining, blotting out half
the titanic vista with its bulk?

But dead.

Even from the distance of miles, I could sense it. The great black
torpedo shape, dull moonlight glinting along the unbelievable length of
its sleek flank, drifted: a derelict. I wondered for how many centuries
it had waited here?and for what?

"I feel," said Foster, "somehow?I'm coming home." I tried to say
something, croaked, cleared my throat.

"If this is your jitney," I said, "I hope they didn't leave the meter
ticking on you. We're broke."

"We're closing rapidly," said Foster. "Another ten minutes, I'd guess . . ."

"How do we go about heaving to, alongside? You didn't come across a book
of instructions, did you?"

"I think I can predict that the approach will be automatic."

"This is your big moment, isn't it?" I said. "I've got to hand it to
you, pal; you've won out by pluck, just like the Rover Boys."

The ship appeared to move smoothly closer, looming over us, fine golden
lines of decorative filigree work visible now against the black. A tiny
square of pale light appeared, grew into a huge bay door that swallowed us.

The screen went dark, there was a gentle jar, then motionlessness. The
port opened, silently.

"We've arrived," Foster said. "Shall we step out and have a look?"

"I wouldn't think of going back without one," I said. I followed him out
and stopped dead, gaping. I had expected an empty hold, bare metal
walls. Instead, I found a vaulted cavern, shadowed, mysterious, rich
with a thousand colors. There was a hint of strange perfume in the air,
and I heard low music that muttered among stalagmite-like buttresses.
There were pools, playing fountains, waterfalls, dim vistas stretching
away, lit by slanting rays of muted sunlight.

"What kind of place is it?" I asked. "It's like a fairyland, or a dream."

"It's not an earthly scheme of decoration," Foster said, "but I find it
strangely pleasing."

"Hey, look over there," I yelped suddenly, pointing. An empty-eyed skull
stared past me from the shadows at the base of a column.

Foster went over to the skull, stood looking down at it. "There was a
disaster here," he said. "That much is plain."

"It's creepy," I said. "Let's go back; I forgot to get film for my Brownie."

"The long-dead pose no threat," said Foster. He was kneeling, looking at
the white bones. He picked up something, stared at it. "Look, Legion."

I went over. Foster held up a ring.

"We're onto something hot, pal," I said. "It's the twin to yours."

"I wonder . . . who he was."

I shook my head. "If we knew that?and who killed him?or what?"

"Let's go on. The answers must be here somewhere." Foster moved off
toward a corridor that reminded me of a sunny avenue lined with chestnut
trees?though there were no trees, and no sun. I followed, gaping.

For hours we wandered, looking, touching, not saying much but saturated
in wonder, like kids in a toy factory. We came across another skeleton,
lying among towering engines. Finally we paused in a giant storeroom
stacked high with supplies.

"Have you stopped to think, Foster," I said, fingering a length of
rose-violet cloth as thin as woven spider webs. "This boat's a
treasure-house of salable items. Talk about the wealth of the Indies?"

"I seek only one thing here, my friend," Foster said; "my past."

"Sure," I said. "But just in case you don't find it, you might consider
the business angle. We can set up a regular shuttle run, hauling stuff
down?"

"You earthmen," sighed Foster. "For you every new experience is
immediately assessed in terms of its merchandising possibilities. Well,
I leave that to you."

"Okay, okay," I said. "You go on ahead and scout around down that way,
if you want?where the technical-looking stuff is. I want to browse
around here for a while."

"As you wish."

"We'll meet at this end of the big hall we passed back there. Okay?"

Foster nodded and went on. I turned to a bin filled with what looked
like unset emeralds the size of walnuts. I picked up a handful, juggled
them lovingly.

"Anyone for marbles?" I murmured to myself.

Hours later, I came along a corridor that was like a path through a
garden that was a forest, crossed a ballroom like a meadow floored in
fine-grained rust-red wood and shaded by giant ferns, and went under an
arch into the hall where Foster sat at a long table cut from yellow
marble. A light the color of sunrise gleamed through tall pseudo-windows.

I dumped an armful of books on the table. "Look at these," I said. "All
made from the same stuff as the journal. And the pictures . . ."

I flipped open one of the books, a heavy folio-sized volume, to a
double-page spread in color showing a group of bearded Arabs in dingy
white djellabas staring toward the camera, a flock of thin goats in the
background. It looked like the kind of picture the National Geographic
runs, except that the quality of the color and detail was equal to the
best color transparencies.

"I can't read the print," I said, "but I'm a whiz at looking at
pictures. Most of the books showed scenes like I hope I never see in the
flesh, but I found a few that were made on earth?God knows how long ago."

"Travel books, perhaps," Foster said.

"Travel books that you could sell to any university on earth for their
next year's budget," I said, shuffling pages. "Take a look at this one."

Foster looked across at the panoramic shot of a procession of
shaven-headed men in white sarongs, carrying a miniature golden boat on
their shoulders, descending a long flight of white stone steps leading
from a colonnade of heroic human figures with folded arms and painted
faces. In the background, brick-red cliffs loomed up, baked in desert heat.

"That's the temple of Hat-Shepsut in its prime," I said. "Which makes
this print close to four thousand years old. Here's another I
recognize." I turned to a smaller, aerial view, showing a gigantic
pyramid, its polished stone facing chipped in places and with a few
panels missing from the lower levels, revealing the cruder structure of
massive blocks beneath.

"That's one of the major pyramids, maybe Khufu's," I said. "It was
already a couple thousand years old, and falling into disrepair. And
look at this?" I opened another volume, showed Foster a vivid photograph
of a great shaggy elephant with a pinkish trunk upraised between
wide-curving yellow tusks.

"A mastodon," I said. "And there's a woolly rhino, and an ugly-looking
critter that must be a saber-tooth. This book is /old/ . . ."

"A lifetime of rummaging wouldn't exhaust the treasures aboard this
ship," said Foster.

"How about bones? Did you find any more?"

Foster nodded. "There was a disaster of some sort. Perhaps disease. None
of the bones was broken."

"I can't figure the one in the lifeboat," I said. "Why was he wearing a
necklace of bear's teeth?" I sat down across from Foster. "We've got
plenty of mysteries to solve, all right, but there are some other items
we'd better talk about. For instance: where's the kitchen? I'm getting
hungry."

Foster handed me a black rod from among several that lay on the table.
"I think this may be important," he said.

"What is it, a chop stick?"

"Touch it to your head, above the ear."

"What does it do?give you a massage?"

I pressed it to my temple . . . 

/I was in a grey-walled room, facing a towering surface of ribbed metal.
I reached out, placed my hands over the proper perforations. The
housings opened. For apparent malfunction in the quaternary field
amplifiers, I knew, auto-inspection circuit override was necessary
before activation? / 

I blinked, looked around at the yellow table, and piled books, the rod
in my hand.

"I was in some kind of powerhouse," I said. "There was something wrong
with?with . . ."

"The quaternary field amplifiers," Foster said.

"I seemed to be right there," I said. "I understood exactly what it was
all about."

"These are technical manuals," Foster said. "They'll tell us everything
we need to know about the ship."

"I was thinking about what I was getting ready to do," I said, "the way
you do when you're starting into a job; I was trouble-shooting the
quaternary whatzits?and I knew how . . . !"

Foster got to his feet and moved toward the doorway. "We'll have to
start at one end of the library and work our way through," he said. "It
will take us a while, but we'll get the facts we need. Then we can plan."

* * *

Foster picked a handful of briefing rods from the racks in the
comfortably furnished library and started in. The first thing we needed
was a clue as to where to look for food and beds, or for operating
instructions for the ship itself. I hoped we might find the equivalent
of a library card-catalog; then we could put our hands on what we wanted
in a hurry.

I went to the far end of the first rack and spotted a short row of red
rods that stood out vividly among the black ones. I took one out,
thought it over, decided it was unlikely that it was any more dangerous
than the others, and put it against my temple . . . 

/As the bells rang, I applied neuro-vascular tension, suppressed
cortical areas upsilon-zeta and iota, and stood by for? / 

I jerked the rod from my head, my ears still ringing with the shrill
alarm. The effect of the rods was like reality itself, but intensified,
all attention focused single-mindedly on the experience at hand. I
thought of the entertainment potentialities of the idea. You could kill
a tiger, ride an airplane down in flames, face the heavyweight
champion?I wondered about the stronger sensations, like pain and fear.
Would they seem as real as the impulse to check the whatchamacallits or
tighten up your cortical thingamajigs?

I tried another rod.

/At the sound of the apex-tone, I racked instruments, walked, not ran,
to the nearest transfer-channel? / 

Another:

/Having assumed duty as Alert Officer, I reported first to coordination
Control via short-line, and confirmed rapport? / 

These were routine SOP's covering simple situations aboard ship. I
skipped a few, tried again:

/Needing a xivometer, I keyed instruction-complex One, followed with the
code? / 

Three rods further along, I got this:

/The situation falling outside my area of primary conditioning, I
reported in corpo to Technical Briefing, Level Nine, Section Four,
Sub-section Twelve, Preliminary. I recalled that it was now necessary to
supply my activity code . . . my activity code . . . my activity
code . . . (A sensation of disorientation grew; confused images
flickered like vague background-noise; then a clear voice cut across the
confusion:) / 

YOU HAVE SUFFERED PARTIAL PERSONALITY-FADE. DO NOT BE ALARMED. SELECT A
GENERAL BACKGROUND ORIENTATION ROD FROM THE NEAREST EMERGENCY RACK. ITS
LOCATION IS . . . 

/I was moving along the stacks, to pause in front of a niche where a
U-shaped plastic strip was clamped to the wall. I removed it, fitted it
to my head?(Then:) I was moving along the stacks, to pause in front of a
niche? / 

I was leaning against the wall, my head humming. The red stick lay on
the floor at my feet. That last bit had been potent: something about a
general background briefing?

"Hey, Foster!" I called. "I think I've got something . . ." He appeared
from the stacks.

* * *

"As I see it," I said, "this background briefing should tell us all we
need to know about the ship; then we can plan our next move more
intelligently. We'll know what we're doing." I took the thing from the
wall, just as I had seemed to do in the phantom scene the red rod had
projected for me.

"These things make me dizzy," I said, handing it to Foster. "Anyway,
you're the logical one to try it."

He took the plastic shape, went to the reclining seat at the near end of
the library hall, and settled himself. "I have an idea this one will hit
harder than the others," he said.

He fitted the clamp to his head and . . . instantly his eyes glazed; he
slumped back, limp.

"Foster!" I yelled. I jumped forward, started to pull the plastic piece
from his head, then hesitated. Maybe Foster's abrupt reaction was
standard procedure?but I didn't like it much.

I went on reasoning with myself. After all, this was what the red rod
had indicated as normal procedure in a given emergency. Foster was
merely having his faded personality touched up. And his full-blown,
three-dimensional personality was what we needed to give us the answers
to a lot of the questions we'd been asking. Though the ship and
everything in it had lain unused and silent for forgotten millennia,
still the library should be good. The librarian was gone from his post
for forgotten centuries, and Foster was lying unconscious, and I was
thirty thousand miles from home?but I shouldn't let trifles like that
worry me . . . 

I got up and prowled the room. There wasn't much to look at except
stacks and more stacks. The knowledge stored here was fantastic, both in
magnitude and character. If I ever get home with a load of these rods . . . 

I strolled through a door leading to another room. It was small,
functional, dimly lit. The middle of the room was occupied by a large
and elaborate divan with a cap-shaped fitting at one end. Other curious
accoutrements were ranked along the walls. There wasn't much in them to
thrill me. But bone-wise I had hit the jackpot.

Two skeletons lay near the door, in the final slump of death. Another
lay beside the fancy couch. There was a long-bladed dagger beside it.

I squatted beside the two near the door and examined them closely. As
far as I could tell, they were as human as I was. I wondered what kind
of men they had been, what kind of world they had come from, that could
build a ship like this and stock it as it was stocked.

The dagger that lay near the other bones was interesting: it seemed to
be made of a transparent orange metal, and its hilt was stamped in a
repeated pattern of the Two Worlds motif. It was the first clue as to
what had taken place among these men when they last lived: not a
complete clue, but a start.

I took a closer look at an apparatus like a dentist's chair parked
against the wall. There were spidery-looking metal arms mounted above
it, and a series of colored glass lenses. A row of dull silver cylinders
was racked against the wall. Another projected from a socket at the side
of the machine. I took it out and looked at it. It was a plain
pewter-colored plastic, heavy and smooth. I felt pretty sure it was a
close cousin to the chop-sticks stored in the library. I wondered what
brand of information was recorded in it as I dropped it in my pocket.

I lit a cigarette and went out to where Foster lay. He was still in the
same position as when I had left him. I sat down on the floor beside the
couch to wait.

* * *

It was an hour before he stirred, heaved a sigh, and opened his eyes. He
reached up, pulled off the plastic headpiece, dropped it on the floor.

"Are you okay?" I said. "Brother, I've been sweating . . ."

Foster looked at me, his eyes traveling up to my uncombed hair and down
to my scuffed shoes. His eyes narrowed in a faint frown. Then he said
something?in a language that seemed to be all Z's and Q's.

"Don't spring any surprises on me, Foster," I said hoarsely. "Talk
American."

A look of surprise crossed his face. He stared into my eyes again, then
glanced around the room.

"This is a ship's library," he said.

I heaved a sigh of relief. "You gave me a scare, Foster. I thought for a
second your memory was wandering again."

Foster was watching my face as I spoke. "What was it all about?" I said.
"What have you found out?"

"I know you," said Foster slowly. "Your name is Legion."

I nodded. I could feel myself getting tense again. "Sure, you know me.
Just take it easy, pal. This is no time to lose your marbles." I put a
hand on his shoulder. "You remember, we were?"

He shook my hand off. "That is not the custom in Vallon," he said coldly.

"Vallon?" I echoed. "What kind of routine is this, Foster? We were
friends when we walked into this room an hour ago. We were hot on the
trail of something, and I'm human enough to want to know how it turned out."

"Where are the others?"

"There's a couple of 'others' in the next room," I snapped. "But they've
lost a lot of weight. I can find you several more, in the same
condition. Outside of them there's only me?"

Foster looked at me as if I wasn't there. "I remember Vallon," he said.
He put a hand to his head. "But I remember, too, a barbaric world,
brutal and primitive. You were there. We traveled in a crude rail-car,
and then in a barge that wallowed in the sea. There were narrow, ugly
rooms, evil odors, harsh noises."

"That's not a very flattering portrait of God's country," I said; "but
I'm afraid I recognize it."

"The people were the worst," Foster said. "Misshapen, diseased, with
swollen abdomens and wasted skin and withered limbs."

"Some of the boys don't get out enough," I said.

"The Hunters! We fled from them, Legion, you and I. And I remember a
landing-ring . . ." He paused. "Strange, it had lost its cap-stones and
fallen into ruin."

"Us natives call it Stonehenge."

"The Hunters burst out of the earth. We fought them. But why should the
Hunters seek me?"

"I was hoping you'd tell me," I said. "Do you know where this ship came
from? And why?"

"This is a ship of the Two Worlds," he replied. "But I know nothing of
how it came to be here."

"How about all that stuff in the journal? Maybe now you?"

"The journal!" Foster broke in. "Where is it!"

"In your coat pocket, I guess."

Foster felt through his jacket awkwardly, brought out the journal. He
opened it.

I moved around to look over his shoulder. He had the book open to the
first section, the part written in the curious alien characters that
nobody had been able to decipher.

And he was reading it.

* * *

We sat at the library table of deep green, heavy, polished wood, the
journal open at its center. For hours I had waited while Foster read.
Now at last he leaned back in his chair, ran a hand through the youthful
black hair, and sighed.

"My name," he said, "was Qulqlan. And this," he laid his hand upon the
book, "is my story. This is one part of the past I was seeking. And I
remember none of it . . ."

"Tell me what the journal says," I asked. "Read it to me."

Foster picked it up, riffled the pages. "It seems that I awoke once
before, in a small room aboard this vessel. I was lying on a memo-couch,
by which circumstance I knew that I had suffered a Change?"

"You mean you'd lost your memory?"

"And regained it?on the couch. My memory-trace had been re-impressed on
my mind. I awoke knowing my identity, but not how I came to be aboard
this vessel. The journal says that my last memory was of a building
beside the Shallow Sea."

"Where's that?"

"On a far world?called Vallon."

"Yeah? And what next?"

"I looked around me and saw four men lying on the floor, slashed and
bloody. One was alive. I gave him what emergency treatment I could, then
searched the ship. I found three more men, dead; none living. Then the
Hunters attacked, swarming to me?"

"Our friends the fire-balls?"

"Yes; they would have sucked the life from me?and I had no shield of
light. I fled to the lifeboat, carrying the wounded man. I descended to
the planet below; your earth. The man died there. I buried him in a
shallow depression in the earth and marked the place with a stone."

"The ancient sinner," I said.

"Yes . . . I suppose it was his bones the lay brother found."

"And we found out last night that the depression was the result of dirt
sifting into the ventilator shaft. But I guess you didn't know anything
about the underground installation, way back then. Doesn't the journal
say anything . . . ?"

"No, there is no mention made of it here." Foster shook his head. "How
curious to read of the affairs of this stranger?and know he is myself."

"How about the Hunters? How did they get to earth?"

"They are insubstantial creatures," said Foster, "yet they can endure
the vacuum of space. I can only surmise that they followed the lifeboat
down."

"They were tailing you?"

"Yes; but I have no idea why they pursued me. They're harmless creatures
in the natural state, used to seek out the rare fugitive from justice on
Vallon. They can be attuned to the individual; thereafter, they follow
him and mark him out for capture."

"Kind of like bloodhounds," I said. "Say, what were you: a big-time
racketeer on Vallon?"

"The journal is frustratingly silent as to my Vallonian career," said
Foster. "But this whole matter of the unexplained inter-galactic voyage
and the evidences of violence aboard the ship make me wonder whether I,
and perhaps my companions, were being exiled for crimes done in the Two
Worlds."

"Wow! So they sicced the Hunters on you!" I said. "But why did they hang
around at Stonehenge all this time?"

"There was a trickle of power feeding the screens," said Foster. "They
need a source of electrical energy to live; until a hundred years ago it
was the only one on the planet."

"How did they get down into the shaft without opening it up?"

"Given time, they pass easily through porous substances. But, of course,
last night, when I came on them after their long fast, they simply burst
through in their haste."

"Okay. What happened next?after you buried the man?"

"The journal tells that I was set upon by natives, men who wore the
hides of animals. One of their number entered the ship. He must have
moved the drive lever. It lifted, leaving me marooned."

"So those were his bones we found in the boat," I mused, "the ones with
the bear's-tooth necklace. I wonder why he didn't come into the ship."

"Undoubtedly he did. But remember the skeleton we found just inside the
landing port? That must have been a fairly fresh and rather gory corpse
at the time the savage stepped aboard. It probably seemed to him all too
clear an indication of what lay in store for himself if he ventured
further. In his terror he must have retreated to the boat to wait, and
there starved to death.

"He was stranded in your world, and you were stranded in his."

"Yes," said Foster. "And then, it seems, I lived among the brute-men and
came to be their king. I waited there by the landing ring through many
years in the hope of rescue. Because I did not age as the natives did, I
was worshipped as a god. I would have built a signaling device, but
there were no pure metals, nothing I could use. I tried to teach them,
but it was a work of centuries."

"I should think you could have set up a school, trained the smartest
ones," I said.

"There was no lack of intelligent minds," Foster said. "It is plain that
the savages were of the blood of the Two Worlds. This earth must have
been seeded long ago by some ancient castaways."

"But how could you go on living?for hundreds of years? Are your people
supermen that live forever?"

"The natural span of a human life is very great. Among your people,
there is a wasting disease from which you all die young."

"That's no disease," I said. "You just naturally get old and die."

"The human mind is a magnificent instrument," Foster said, "not meant to
wither quickly."

"I'll have to chew that one over," I said. "Why didn't you catch this
disease?"

"All Vallonians are inoculated against it."

"I'd like a shot of that," I said. "But let's get back to you."

Foster turned the pages of the journal. "I ruled many peoples, under
many names," he said. "I traveled in many lands, seeking for skilled
metal-workers, glass-blowers, wise men. But always I returned to the
landing-ring."

"It must have been tough," I said, "exiled on a strange world, living
out your life in a wilderness, century after century . . ."

"My life was not without interest," Foster said. "I watched my savage
people put aside their animal hides and learn the ways of civilization.
I taught them how to build, and keep herds, and till the land. I built a
great city, and I tried?foolishly?to teach their noble caste the code of
chivalry of the Two Worlds. But although they sat at a round table like
the great Ring-board at Okk-Hamiloth, they never really understood. And
then they grew too wise, and wondered at their king, who never aged. I
left them, and tried again to build a long-signaler. The Hunters sensed
it, and swarmed to me. I drove them off with fires, and then I grew
curious, and followed them back to their nest?"

"I know," I said. " '?and it was a place you knew of old: no hive but a
Pit built by men.' "

"They overwhelmed me; I barely escaped with my life. Starvation had made
the Hunters vicious. They would have drained my body of its life-energy."

"And if you'd known the transmitter was there?but you didn't. So you put
an ocean between you and them."

"They found me even there. Each time I destroyed many of them, and fled.
But always a few lived to breed and seek me out again."

"But your signaler?didn't it work?"

"No. It was a hopeless attempt. Only a highly developed technology could
supply the raw materials. I could only teach what I knew, encourage the
development of the sciences, and wait. And then I began to forget."

"Why?"

"A mind grows weary," Foster said. "It is the price of longevity. It
must renew itself. Shock and privation hasten the Change. I had held it
off for many centuries. Now I felt it coming on me.

"At home, on Vallon, a man would record his memory at such a time, store
it electronically in a recording device, and, after the Change, use the
memory-trace to restore, in his renewed body, his old recollections in
toto. But, marooned as I was, my memories, once lost, were gone forever.

"I did what I could; I prepared a safe place, and wrote messages that I
would find when I awoke?"

"When you woke up in the hotel, you were young again, overnight. How
could it happen?"

"When the mind renews itself, erasing the scars of the years, the body,
too, regenerates. The skin forgets its wrinkles, and the muscles their
fatigue. They become again as they once were."

"When I first met you," I said, "you told me about waking up back in
1918, with no memory."

"Yours is a harsh world, Legion. I must have forgotten many times.
Somewhere, some time, I lost the vital link, forgot my quest. When the
Hunters came again, I fled, not understanding."

"You had a machine gun set up in the house at Mayport. What good was
that against the Hunters?"

"None, I suppose," Foster replied. "But I didn't know. I only knew that
I was?pursued."

"And by then you could have made a signaler," I said. "But you'd
forgotten how?or even that you needed one."

"But in the end I found it?with your help, Legion. But still there is a
mystery: What came to pass aboard this ship all those centuries ago? Why
was I here? And what killed the others?"

"Look," I said. "Here's a theory: there was a mutiny, while you were in
the machine having your memory fixed. You woke up and it was all
over?and the crew was dead."

"That hypothesis will serve," said Foster. "But one day I must learn the
truth of this matter."

"What I can't figure out is why somebody from Vallon didn't come after
this ship. It was right here in orbit."

"Consider the immensity of space, Legion. This is one tiny world, among
the stars."

"But there was a station here, fitted out for handling your ships. That
sounds like it was a regular port of call. And the books with the
pictures: they prove your people have been here off and one for
thousands of years. Why would they stop coming?"

"There are such beacons on a thousand worlds," said Foster. "Think of it
as a buoy marking a reef, a trailblaze in the wilderness. Ages could
pass before a wanderer chanced this way again. The fact that the
ventilator shaft at Stonehenge was choked with the debris of centuries
when I first landed there shows how seldom this world was visited."

I thought about it. Bit by bit Foster was putting together the jig-saw
pieces of his past. But he still had a long way to go before he had the
big picture, frame and all. I had an idea:

"Say, you said you were in the memory machine. You woke up there?and
you'd just had your memory restored. Why not do the same thing again,
now? That is, if your brain can take another pounding this soon."

"Yes," he said. He stood up abruptly. "There's just a chance. Come!"

I followed him out of the library into the room with the bones. He moved
over to look down at them curiously.

"Quite a fracas," I said. "Three of 'em."

"This would be the room where I awakened," said Foster. "These are the
men I saw dead."

"They're still dead," I said. "But what about the machine?"

Foster walked across to the fancy couch, leaned down beside it, then
shook his head. "No," he said. "Of course it wouldn't be here . . ."

"What?"

"My memory-trace: the one that was used to restore my memory?that other
time."

Suddenly I recalled the cylinder I had pocketed hours before. With a
surprising flutter at my heart I held it up, like a kid in a classroom
who knows he's got the right answer. "This it?"

Foster glanced at it briefly. "No, that's an empty?like those you see
filed over there." He pointed to the rack of pewter-colored cylinders on
the opposite wall. "They would be used for emergency recordings. Regular
multi-life memory-traces would be key-coded with a pattern of colored
lines."

"It figures," I said. "That would have been too easy. We have to do
everything the hard way." I looked around. "It's a big bureau to look
for a collar button under, but I guess we can try."

"It doesn't matter, really. When I return to Vallon, I'll recover my
past. There are vaults where every citizen's trace is stored."

"But you had yours here with you."

"It could only have been a copy. The master trace is never removed from
Okk-Hamiloth."

"I guess you'll be eager to get back there," I said. "That'll be quite a
moment for you, getting back home after all these years. Speaking of
years: were you able to figure out how long you were marooned down on
earth?"

"I lost all record of dates long ago," said Foster. "I can only estimate
the time."

"About how long?" I persisted.

"Since I descended from this ship, Legion," he said, "three thousand
years have passed."

* * *

"I hate to see the team split up," I said. "You know, I was kind of
getting used to being an apprentice nut. I'm going to miss you, Foster."

"Come with me to Vallon, Legion," he said.

We were standing in the observation lounge, looking out at the
bright-lit surface of the earth thirty thousand miles away. Beyond it,
the dead-white disk of the moon hung like a cardboard cut-out.

"Thanks anyway, buddy," I said. "I'd like to see those other worlds of
yours but in the end I might regret it. It's no good giving an Eskimo a
television set. I'd just sit around on Vallon pining for home: beat-up
people, stinks, and all."

"You could return here some day."

"From what I understand about traveling in a ship like this," I said, "a
couple of hundred years would pass before I got back, even if it only
seemed like a few weeks en route. I want to live out my life here?with
the kind of people I know, in the world I grew up in. It has its faults,
but it's home."

"Then there is nothing I can do, Legion," Foster said, "to reward your
loyalty and express my gratitude."

"Well, ah," I said. "There is a little something. Let me take the
lifeboat, and stock it with a few goodies from the library, and some of
those marbles from the storeroom, and a couple of the smaller mechanical
gadgets. I think I know how to merchandise them in a way that'll leave
the economy on an even keel?and incidentally set me up for life. As you
said, I'm a materialist."

"As you wish," Foster said. "Take whatever you desire."

"One thing I'll have to do when I get back," I said, "is open the tunnel
at Stonehenge enough to sneak a thermite bomb down it?if they haven't
already found the beacon station."

"As I judge the temper of the local people," Foster said, "the secret is
safe for at least three generations."

"I'll bring the boat down in a blind spot where radar won't pick it up,"
I said. "Our timing was good: in another few years, it wouldn't have
been possible."

"And this ship would soon have been discovered," Foster said. "In spite
of radar-negative screens."

I looked at the great smooth sphere hanging, haloed, against utter
black. The Pacific Ocean threw back a brilliant image of the sun.

"I think I see an island down there that will fill the bill perfectly,"
I said. "And if it doesn't, there are a million more to choose from."

"You've changed, Legion," Foster said. "You sound like a man with a fair
share of /joie de vivre/."

"I used to think I was a guy who never got the breaks," I said. "There's
something about standing here looking at the world that makes that kind
of thinking sound pretty dumb. There's everything down there a man needs
to make his own breaks?even without a stock of trade goods."

"Every world has its rules of life," Foster said. "Some more complex
than others. To face your own reality?that's the challenge."

"Me against the universe," I said. "With those odds, even a loser can
look good." I turned to Foster. "We're in a ten-hour orbit," I said.
"We'd better get moving. I want to put the boat down in southern South
America. I know a place there where I can off-load without answering too
many questions."

"You have several hours before the most favorable launch time," Foster
said. "There's no hurry."

"Maybe not," I said. "But I've got a lot to do?" I took a last look
toward the majestic planet beyond the viewscreen, "?and I'm eager to get
started."


      *Chapter Eight*

I sat on the terrace watching the sun go down into the sea and thinking
about Foster, somewhere out there beyond the purple palaces on the far
horizon, in the ship that had waited for him for three thousand years,
heading home at last. It was strange to reflect that for him, traveling
near the speed of light, only a few days had passed, while three years
went by for me?three fast years that I had made good use of.

The toughest part had been the first few months, after I put the
lifeboat down in a caon in the desert country south of a little town
called Itzenca, in Peru. I waited by the boat for a week, to be sure the
vigilantes weren't going to show up, full of helpful suggestions and
embarrassing questions; then I hiked to town, carrying a pack with a few
carefully selected items to start my new career. It took me two weeks to
work, lie, barter, and plead my way to the seaport town of Callao and
another week to line up passage home as a deck hand on a banana scow. I
disappeared over the side at Tampa, and made it to Miami without
attracting attention. As far as I could tell, the cops had already lost
interest in me.

My old friend, the heavy-weight seorita, wasn't overjoyed to see me,
but she put me up, and I started in on my plan to turn my souvenirs into
money.

The items I had brought with me from the lifeboat were a pocketful of
little grey dominoes that were actually movie film, and a small
projector to go with them. I didn't offer them for sale, direct. I made
arrangements with an old acquaintance in the business of making pictures
with low costume budgets for private showings; I set up the apparatus
and projected my films, and he copied them in 35 mm. I told him that I'd
smuggled them in from East Germany. He didn't think much of Krauts, but
he admitted you had to hand it to them technically; the special effects
were absolutely top-notch. His favorite was the one I called the Mammoth
Hunt.

I had twelve pictures altogether; with a little judicious cutting and a
dubbed-in commentary, they made up into fast-moving twenty-minute short
subjects. He got in touch with a friend in the distribution end in New
York, and after a little cagey fencing over contract terms, we agreed on
a deal that paid a hundred thousand for the twelve, with an option on
another dozen at the same price.

Within a week after the pictures hit the neighborhood theatres around
Bayonne, New Jersey, in a cautious tryout, I had offers up to half a
million for my next consignment, no questions asked. I left my pal
Mickey to handle the details on a percentage basis, and headed back for
Itzenca.

The lifeboat was just as I'd left it; it would have been all right for
another fifty years, as far as the danger of anybody stumbling over it
was concerned. I explained to the crew I brought out with me that it was
a fake rocket ship, a prop I was using for a film I was making. I let
them wander all over it and get their curiosity out of their systems.
The consensus was that it wouldn't fool anybody; no tail fins, no ray
guns, and the instrument panel was a joke; but they figured that it was
my money, so they went to work setting up a system of camouflage nets
(part of the plot, I told them) and offloading my cargo.

A year after my homecoming, I had my island?a square mile of perfect
climate, fifteen miles off the Peruvian coast?and a house that was
tailored to my every whim by a mind-reading architect who made a fortune
on the job?and earned it. The uppermost floor?almost a tower?was a
strong-room, and it was there that I had stored my stock in trade. I had
sold off the best of the hundred or so films I had picked out before
leaving Foster, but there were plenty of other items. The projector
itself was the big prize. The self-contained power unit converted
nuclear energy to light with 99 percent efficiency. It scanned the
"films", one molecular layer at a time, and projected a continuous
picture?no sixteen-frames-a-second flicker here. The color and sound
were absolutely life-like?with the result that I'd had a few complaints
from my distributor that the Technicolor was kind of washed-out.

The principles involved in the projector were new, and?in theory, at
least?way over the heads of our local physicists. But the practical
application was nothing much. I figured that, with the right contacts in
scientific circles to help me introduce the system, I had a
billion-dollar industry up my sleeve. I had already fed a few little
gimmicks into the market; a tough paper, suitable for shirts and
underwear; a chemical that bleached teeth white as the driven snow; an
all-color pigment for artists. With the knowledge I had absorbed from
all the briefing rods I had studied, I had the techniques of a hundred
new industries at my fingertips?and I hadn't exhausted the possibilities
yet.

I spent most of a year roaming the world, discovering all the things
that a free hand with a dollar bill could do for a man. The next year I
put in fixing up the island, buying paintings and rugs and silver for
the house, and a concert grand piano. After the first big thrill of
economic freedom had worn off, I still enjoyed my music.

For six months I had a full-time physical instructor giving me a
twenty-four-hour-a-day routine of diet, sleep, and all the precision
body-building my metabolism could stand. At the end of the course I was
twice the man I'd ever been, the instructor was a physical wreck, and I
was looking around for a new hobby.

Now, after three years, it was beginning to get me: boredom, the disease
of the idle rich, that I had sworn would never touch me. But thinking
about wealth and having it on your hands are two different things, and I
was beginning to remember almost with nostalgia the tough old times when
every day was an adventure, full of cops and missed meals and a thousand
unappeased desires.

Not that I was really suffering. I was relaxed in a comfortable chair,
after a day of surf fishing and a modest dinner of Chateaubriand. I was
smoking a skinny cigar rolled by an expert from the world's finest leaf,
and listening to the best music a thousand-dollar hi-fi could produce.
And the view, though free, was worth a million dollars a minute. After a
while I would stroll down to the boathouse, start up the Rolls-powered
launch, and tool over to the mainland, transfer to my Caddie
convertible, and drive into town where a tall brunette from Stockholm
was waiting for me to take her to the movies. My steady gal was a
hard-working secretary for an electronics firm.

I finished up my stogie and leaned forward to drop it in a big silver
ashtray, when something caught my eye out across the red-painted water.
I sat squinting at it, then went inside and came out with a pair of 7x50
binoculars. I focused them and studied the dark speck that stood out
clearly now against the gaudy sky. It was a heavy-looking power boat,
heading dead toward my island.

I watched it come closer, swing off toward the hundred-foot concrete
jetty I had built below the sea-wall, and ease alongside in a murmur of
powerful engines. They died, and the boat sat in a sudden silence
dwarfing the pier. I studied the bluish-grey hull, the inconspicuous
flag aft. Two heavy deck guns were mounted on the foredeck, and there
were four torpedoes slung in launching cradles. The hardware didn't make
half as much impression on me as the ranks of helmeted men drawn up on deck.

I sat and watched. The men shuffled off onto the pier, formed up into
two squads. I counted; forty-eight men, and a couple of officers. There
was the faint sound of orders being barked, and the column stepped off,
moving along the paved road that swung between the transplanted royal
palms and hibiscus, right up to the wide drive that curved off to the
house. They halted, did a left face, and stood at parade rest. The two
officers, wearing class A's, and a tubby civilian with a briefcase came
up the drive, trying to look as casual as possible under the
circumstances. They paused at the foot of the broad flight of Tennessee
marble steps leading up to my perch.

The leading officer, a brigadier general, no less, looked up at me.

"May we come up, sir?" he said.

I looked across at the silent ranks waiting at the foot of the drive.

"If the boys want a drink of water, Sarge," I said, "tell 'em to come on
over."

"I am General Smale," the B.G. said. "This is Colonel Sanchez of the
Peruvian Army?" he indicated the other military type "?and Mr. Pruffy of
the American Embassy at Lima."

"Howdy, Mr. Pruffy," I said. "Howdy, Mr. Sanchez. Howdy?"

"This . . . ah . . . call is official in nature, Mr. Legion," the
general said. "It's a matter of great importance, involving the security
of your country."

"OK, General," I said. "Come on up. What's happened? You boys haven't
started another war, have you?"

They filed up onto the terrace, hesitated, then shook hands, and sat
down gingerly in the chairs. Pruffy held his briefcase in his lap.

"Put your sandwiches on the table, if you like, Mr. Pruffy," I said. He
blinked, gripped the briefcase tighter. I offered my hand-tooled cigars
around; Pruffy looked startled, Smale shook his head, and Sanchez took
three.

"I'm here," the general said, "to ask you a few questions, Mr. Legion.
Mr. Pruffy represents the Department of State in the matter, and Colonel
Sanchez?"

"Don't tell me," I said. "He represents the Peruvian government, which
is why I don't ask you what an armed American force is doing wandering
around on Peruvian soil."

"Here," Pruffy put in. "I hardly think?"

"I believe you," I said. "What's it all about, Smale?"

"I'll come directly to the point," he said. "For some time, the
investigative and security agencies of the US government have been
building a file on what for lack of a better name has been called 'The
Martians.' " Smale coughed apologetically.

"A little over three years ago," he went on, "an unidentified flying
object?"

"You interested in flying saucers, General?" I said.

"By no means," he snapped. "The object appeared on a number of radar
screens, descending from extreme altitude. It came to earth at . . ." he
hesitated.

"Don't tell me you came all the way out here to tell me you can't tell
me," I said.

"?A site in England," Smale said. "American aircraft were dispatched to
investigate the object. Before they could make identification, it rose
again, accelerated at tremendous speed, and was lost at an altitude of
several hundred miles."

"I thought we had better radar than that," I said. "The satellite program?"

"No such specialized equipment was available," Smale said. "An intensive
investigation turned up the fact that two strangers?possibly
Americans?had visited the site only a few hours before the?ah?visitation."

I nodded. I was thinking about the close call I'd had when I went back
to see about lobbing a bomb down the shaft to obliterate the beacon
station. There were plainclothes men all over the place, like old maids
at a movie star's funeral. It was just as well; they never found it. The
rocket blasts had collapsed the tunnel, and apparently the whole
underground installation was made of non-metallic substances that didn't
show up in detecting equipment. I had an idea metal was pass where
Foster came from.

"Some months later," Smale went on, "a series of rather curious short
films went on exhibition in the United States. They showed scenes
representing conditions on other planets, as well as ancient and
prehistoric incidents here on earth. They were prefaced with
explanations that they merely represented the opinions of science as to
what was likely to be found on distant worlds. They attracted wide
interest, and with few exceptions, scientists praised their verisimilitude."

"I admire a clever fake," I said. "With a topical subject like space
travel?"

"One item which was commented on as a surprising inaccuracy, in view of
the technical excellence of the other films," Smale said, "was the view
of our planet from space, showing the earth against the backdrop of
stars. A study of the constellations by astronomers quickly indicated a
'date' of approximately 7000 B.C. for the scene. Oddly, the north polar
cap was shown centered on Hudson's Bay. No south polar cap was in
evidence. The continent of Antarctica appeared to be at a latitude of
some 30, entirely free of ice."

I looked at him and waited.

"Now, studies made since that time indicate that nine thousand years
ago, the North Pole was indeed centered on Hudson's Bay," Smale said.
"And Antarctica was in fact ice-free."

"That idea's been around a long time," I said. "There was a theory?"

"Then there was the matter of the views of Mars," the general went on.
"The aerial shots of the 'canals' were regarded as very cleverly done."
He turned to Pruffy, who opened his briefcase and handed a couple of
photos across.

"This is a scene taken from the film," Smale said. It was an 8x10 color
shot, showing a row of mounds drifted with pinkish dust, against a
blue-black horizon.

Smale placed another photo beside the first. "This one," he said, "was
taken by automatic cameras in the successful Mars probe of last year."

I looked. The second shot was fuzzy, and the color was shifted badly
toward the blue, but there was no mistaking the scene. The mounds were
drifted a little deeper, and the angle was different, but they were the
same mounds.

"In the meantime," Smale bored on relentlessly, "a number of novel
products appeared on the market. Chemists and physicists alike were
dumbfounded at the theoretical base implied by the techniques involved.
One of the products?a type of pigment?embodied a completely new concept
in crystallography."

"Progress," I said. "Why, when I was a boy?"

"It was an extremely tortuous trail we followed," Smale said. "But we
found that all these curious observations making up the 'Martians' file
had, in the end, only one factor in common. And that factor, Mr. Legion,
was you."


      *Chapter Nine*

It was a few minutes after sunrise, and Smale and I were back on the
terrace toying with the remains of ham steaks and honeydew.

"That's one advantage of being in jail in your own house?the food's
good," I commented.

"I can understand your feelings," Smale said. "Frankly, I didn't relish
this assignment. But it's clear that there are matters here which
require explanation. It was my hope that you'd see fit to cooperate
voluntarily."

"Take your army and sail off into the sunrise, General," I said. "Then
maybe I'll be in a position to do something voluntary."

"Your patriotism alone?"

"My patriotism keeps telling me that where I come from, a citizen has
certain legal rights," I said.

"This is a matter that transcends legal technicalities," Smale said.
"I'll tell you quite frankly, the presence of the task force here only
received /ex post facto/ approval by the Peruvian government. They were
faced with the /fait accompli/. I mention this only to indicate just how
strongly the government feels in this matter."

"Seeing you hit the beach with a platoon of infantry was enough of a
hint for me," I said. "You're lucky I didn't wipe you out with my
disintegrator rays."

Smale choked on a bite of melon.

"Just kidding," I said. "But I haven't given you any trouble. Why the
reinforcements?"

Smale stared at me. "What reinforcements?"

I pointed with a fork. He turned, gazed out to sea. A conning tower was
breaking the surface, leaving a white wake behind. It rose higher, water
streaming off the deck. A hatch popped open, and men poured out, lining
up. Smale got to his feet, his napkin falling to the floor.

"Sergeant!" he yelled. I sat, open-mouth, as Smale jumped to the stair,
went down it three steps at a time. I heard him bellowing, the shouts of
men and the clatter of rifles being unstacked, feet pounding. I went to
the marble banister and looked down. Pruffy was out on the lawn in
purple pajamas, yelping questions. Colonel Sanchez was pulling at
Smale's arm, also yelling. The Marines were forming up on the lawn.

"Let's watch those petunias, Sergeant," I yelled.

"Keep out of this, Legion," Smale shouted.

"Why should I be the only one not yelling," I yelled. "After all, I own
the place."

Smale bounded back up the stairs. "You're my prime responsibility,
Legion," he barked. "I'm getting you to a point of maximum security.
Where's the cellar?"

"I keep it downstairs," I said. "What's this all about? Interservice
rivalry? You afraid the sailors are going to steal the glory?"

"That's a nuclear-powered sub," Smale barked. "It belongs to the Russian
Navy."

* * *

I stood there with my mouth open, looking at Smale without seeing him,
and trying hard to think fast. I hadn't been too startled when the
Marines showed up; I had gone over the legal aspects of my situation
months before, with a platoon of high-priced legal talent; I knew that
sooner or later somebody would come around to hit me for tax evasion,
draft dodging, or overtime parking; but I was in the clear. The
government might resent my knowing a lot of things it didn't, but no one
could ever prove I'd swiped them from Uncle Sam. In the end, they'd have
to let me go?and my account in a Swiss bank would last me, even if they
managed to suppress any new developments from my fabulous lab. In a way,
I was glad the showdown had come.

But I'd forgotten about the Russians. Naturally, they'd be interested,
and their spies were at least as good as the intrepid agents of the US
Secret Service. I should have realized that sooner or later, they'd pay
a call?and the legal niceties wouldn't slow them down. They'd slap me
into a brain laundry, and sweat every last secret out of me as casually
as I'd squeeze a lemon.

The sub was fully surfaced now, and I was looking down the barrels of
half a dozen five-inch rifles, any one of which could blast Smale's navy
out of the water with one salvo. There were a couple of hundred men, I
estimated, putting landing boats over the side and spilling into them.
Down on the lawn, the sergeant was snapping orders, and the men were
double-timing off to positions that must have been spotted in advance.
It looked like the Russians weren't entirely unexpected. This was a game
the big boys were playing, and I was just a pawn, caught in the middle.
My rosy picture of me confounding the bureaucrats was fading fast. My
island was about to become a battlefield, and whichever way it turned
out, I'd be the loser. I had one slim possibility; to get lost in the
shuffle.

Smale grabbed my arm. "Don't stand there, man!" he snapped. "Which way?"

"Sorry, General," I said, and slammed a hard right to his stomach. He
folded, but still managed to lunge for me. I gave him a left to the jaw,
and he dropped. I jumped over him, plunged through the French doors, and
took the spiral glass stairway four at a time, whirled, and slammed the
strong-room door behind me. The armored walls would stand anything short
of a direct hit with a good-sized artillery shell, and the boys down
below were unlikely to use any heavy stuff for fear of damaging the
goods they'd been sent out to collect. I was safe for a little while.

Now I had to do some fast, accurate thinking. I couldn't carry much with
me?when and if I made it off the island. A few briefing rods, maybe;
what was left of the movies. But I had already audited most of the rods;
I knew them as well as I know my tax bracket. One listen to a rod gave
you a fast picture of the subject; two or three repeats engraved it on
your brain. The only reason a man couldn't know everything was that too
much, too fast, would overload the mind?and amnesia wiped the slate clean.

I didn't have time to use any more rods, and I couldn't carry anything.
But just to walk off and leave it all . . . 

I rummaged through odds and ends, stuffing small items into my pockets.
I came across a dull silvery cylinder, three inches long, striped in
black and gold?a memory trace. It reminded me of something . . . 

That was an idea. I still had the U-shaped plastic headpiece that Foster
had used to acquire a background knowledge of his old home. I had tried
it once?for a moment. It had given me a headache in two seconds flat,
just pressed against my temple. It had been lying here ever since. But
maybe now was the time to try it again. Half the items I had here in my
strong-room were mysteries, like the silver cylinder in my hand, but I
knew exactly what the plastic headband could give me. It contained all
anyone needed to know about Vallon and the Two Worlds, and all the
marvels they possessed.

I glanced out the armor-glass window. Smale's Marines were trotting
across the lawn; the Russians were fanning out along the water's edge.
It looked like business all right. Still, it would take them a while to
get warmed up?and more time still to decide to blast me out of my fort.
It had taken an hour or so for Foster to soak up the briefing; maybe I
wouldn't be much longer at it.

I tossed the cylinder aside, tried a couple of drawers, found the
inconspicuous strip of plastic that encompassed a whole civilization. I
carried it across to a chair, settled myself, then hesitated. This thing
had been designed for an alien brain, not mine. Suppose it burnt out my
wiring, left me here gibbering, for Smale or the Ruskis to work over?

But the alternative was to leave my island virtually empty-handed,
settle for what I might in time manage to salvage from my account?if I
could devise a way of withdrawing money without calling down the
Gestapo . . . 

No, I wouldn't go back to poverty without a struggle. What I could carry
in my head would give me independence?even immunity from the greed of
nations. I could barter my knowledge for my freedom.

There were plenty of things wrong with the picture, but it was the best
I could do on short notice. Gingerly I fitted the U-shaped band to my
head. There was a feeling of pressure, then a sensation like warm water
rising about me. Panic tried to rise, faded. A voice seemed to reassure
me. I was among friends, I was safe, all was well . . . 


      *Chapter Ten*

I lay in the dark, the memory of towers and trumpets and fountains of
fire in my mind. I put up my hand, felt a coarse garment. Had I but
dreamed . . . ? I stirred. Light blazed in a widening band above my
face. Through narrowed eyes I saw a room, a mean chamber, dusty,
littered with ill-assorted rubbish. In a wall there was a window. I went
to it, stared out upon a green sward, a path that curved downward to a
white strand. It was a strange scene, and yet?

A wave of vertigo swept over me, faded. I blinked, tried to remember.

/I reached up, felt something clamped over my head. I pulled it off and
it fell to the floor with a faint clatter: a broad-spectrum briefing
device, of the type used to indoctrinate unidentified citizens who had
undergone a Change unprepared . . .  / 

Suddenly, like water pouring down a drain, the picture in my mind faded,
left me standing in my old familiar junk room, with a humming in my head
and a throb in my temples. I had been about to try the briefing gimmick,
and had wondered if it would work. It had?with a vengeance. For a minute
there I had stumbled around the room like a stranger, yearning for dear
old Vallon. I could remember the feeling?but it was gone now. I was just
me, in trouble as usual.

There were a lot of tantalizing ideas floating around in my mind, right
at the edge of consciousness. Later I'd have to sit down and go over
them carefully. Right now, I had my hands full. Two armies had me
cornered, and all the guns belonged to the opposition. That part was
okay; I didn't want to fight anybody. All I wanted out of this situation
was me.

A rattle of gunfire outside brought me to the window in a jump. It was
the same view as a few moments before, but it made more sense now. There
was the still smoking wreckage of the PT boat, sunk in ten feet of water
a few yards from the end of the jetty. Somebody must have tried to make
a run for it. The Russian sub was nowhere in sight; probably it had
landed the men and backed out of danger from any unexpected quarter. Two
or three corpses lay in view, down by the water's edge. From where I
stood I couldn't say whether they were good guys or villains.

There were more shots, coming from somewhere off to the left. It looked
like the boys were fighting it out old style: hand to hand, with small
arms. It figured; after all, what they wanted was me and all my clever
ideas intact, not a smoking ruin.

I don't know whether it was my romantic streak or my cynical one that
had made me drive the architect nuts putting secret passages in the
walls of my chateau and tunnels under the lawn, but I was glad now I had
them. There was a narrow door in the west wall of the strong-room that
gave onto a tight spiral stair. From there I could take my choice: the
boathouse, the edge of the woods behind the house, or the beach a
hundred yards north of the jetty. All I had to do was?

The house trembled a split second ahead of a terrific blast that slammed
me to the floor. I felt blood start from my nose. Head ringing, I
scrambled to my feet, groped through the dust to my escape hatch.
Somebody outside was getting impatient. It wouldn't do to have my fancy
getaway route fall in before I had used it. I felt another shell hit the
house: mortars, I guessed, or rockets. I must have slept through the
preliminaries and wakened just in time for the main bout.

My fingers were on the sensitive pressure areas that worked the
concealed door. I took a last glance around the room, where the dust was
just settling from the last blast. My eyes fell on a plain
pewter-colored cylinder lying where I had tossed it an hour before?but
now I knew what it was. In one jump I was across the room and had
grabbed it up. I remembered finding it aboard the lifeboat when I tidied
up; it had lain concealed among the bones of the man with the bear-tooth
necklace. He must have come across it, admired its pretty colors, and
tucked it away in his fur pants. And now I, with my Vallonian memories
banked in my mind, could appreciate just how precious an object it was.
It was Foster's memory. It would be only a copy, undoubtedly; still, I
couldn't leave it behind.

A blast heavier than the last one rocked the house; a big chunk of
plaster fell. It was way past time to go. Snorting and coughing from the
dust, I got back to the emergency door, went through it, and started down.

At the bottom I paused to think it over, and the earth jumped again. I
fell back, saw the roof of the beach tunnel collapse. That left the
woods and the boathouse. I didn't have much time to decide; the tunnels
might go any second. Apparently my architect had economized on the
tunnel shorings. But then, he hadn't figured on any major wars happening
in the front yard.

The fight was going on, as near as I could judge, to the south of the
house and behind it. Probably the woods were full of skirmishers, taking
advantage of the cover. The best bet was the boathouse, direct. I'd have
preferred to wait until dark, but the idea didn't seem practical under
the circumstances. I took a deep breath and started into the tunnel.
With a little luck I'd find my boat intact. I would have to pull out
under the noses of the combatants, but maybe the element of surprise
would give me a few hundred yards' start. I had enough horses to beat
anything afloat to the mainland?if I could make a clean break.

The tunnel was dark but that didn't bother me. It ran dead straight to
the boathouse. I came to the wooden slat door and stood for a moment,
listening; everything was quiet. I eased it open and stepped on to the
ramp inside the building. In the gloom polished mahogany and chrome-work
threw back muted highlights. I circled, slipped the mooring rope, and
was about to step into the cockpit when I heard the bolt of a rifle
smack home. I whirled, threw myself flat. The deafening /bam!/ of a .30
caliber fired at close quarters laid a pattern of fine ripples on the
black water. I rolled, hit with a splash that drowned a second shot, and
dove deep. Three strokes took me under the door, out into the green
gloom of open water. I hugged the yellowish sand of the bottom, angled
off to the right, and kept going.

I had to get out of my jacket, and somehow I managed it, almost without
losing a stroke. And there were all the goodies I'd stashed away in the
pockets, down to the bottom of the drink. I still had Foster's
memory-trace; it was in my slacks and there wasn't time to get out of
them nor to kick off my tennis shoes. Ten strokes, fifteen, twenty. I
knew my limit: twenty-five good strokes on a full load of air; but I had
dived in a hurry . . . 

Twenty-five . . . and another . . . and one more. And up above a man was
waiting, rifle aimed, for my head to break the surface.

Thirty strokes, and here I come, ready or not. I rolled on my back, got
my face above the surface. I got half a gulp of fresh air before the
shot slapped spray into my face and echoed off across the water. I sank
like a stone, kicked off, and made another twenty-five yards before I
had to come up. The rifleman was faster this time. The bullet crossed my
shoulder like a hot iron, and I was under water again. My kick-work was
weak now; the strength was draining from my arms fast. I had to have
air?but I could almost feel the solid smack of a steel-jacketed bullet
against my skull. I had to keep going. My chest was on fire and there
was a whirling blackness all around me. I felt consciousness fading, but
maybe just one more stroke . . . 

* * *

As from a distance I observed the clumsy efforts of the swimmer, watched
the flounderings of the poor, untrained creature . . . 

It was apparent that an override of the autonomic system was required.
With dispatch I activated cortical area omicron, re-routed the blood
supply, drew an emergency oxygen source from stored fats, diverting the
necessary energy to break the molecular bonds.

Now, with the body drawing on internal sources, ample for six hundred
seconds at maximum demand, I stimulated areas upsilon and mu. I
channeled full survival-level energy to the muscle complexes involved,
increased power output to full skeletal tolerance, eliminated waste motion.

/The body drove through the water with the fluid grace of a
sea-denizen . . .  / 

* * *

I floated on my back, breathing in great surges of cool air and blinking
at the crimson sky. I had been under water, a few yards from shore,
drowning. Then there was an awareness, like a voice, telling me what to
do. From out of the mass of Vallonian knowledge I had acquired, I had
drawn what I needed. And now I was here, half a mile from the beach,
winded but intact. But there was no time now to wonder at miracles . . . 

I raised my head and glanced toward the house. A column of smoke rose
from a gaping cavity where the bedroom windows used to be. A man jumped
up, darted across the lawn, fell. I heard a shot a few seconds later,
floating lazily across the still sunset water. There was no visible
activity at the water's edge; the rifleman was gone. He probably thought
he'd finished me, especially if he had noticed blood in the water.

I thought about sharks. I hadn't heard of any in this neighborhood, but
a little blood was just the thing to bait them in. I twisted, got a look
at the throbbing burn across my left shoulder where the rifleman's
bullet had grazed; it was nothing much, just a skin gouge. It didn't
seem to be bleeding. If it had been, there wasn't much I could do about
it. It was no time for worrying. I had to keep my mind on the problem of
getting to the mainland. It was a fifteen-mile swim, but if the boys on
shore could keep each other occupied, I ought to be able to make it. I
thought again about pulling off my pants and shoes but decided against
it; I'd be in awkward shape without them?if I made it.

I felt beat: as though I hadn't eaten all day?which wasn't too strange,
because I hadn't. Well, at least I wouldn't get stomach cramps while
circling the island. From there I'd strike out for shore. And the first
thing I would do when I got out of this would be to order the biggest,
rarest steak in South America.

I took a last look toward the house. I could see fire inside it now. I
guessed each side was rationalizing the destruction as denial to the
enemy. It had been a nice place and I'd miss it. Some day somebody was
going to pay for it.


      *Chapter Eleven*

I sat at the kitchen table in Margareta's Lima apartment and gnawed the
last few shreds off the stripped T-bone, while my girl poured me another
cup of coffee.

"Now tell me about it," she said. "Why did they burn your house? And how
did you succeed in getting here?"

"They got so interested in the fight, they lost their heads," I said.
"That's the only explanation I can think of. I thought I'd be as safe as
a two-dollar watch at a pickpockets' convention: I figured they'd go to
some pains to avoid damaging me. I guessed wrong."

"But your own people . . ."

"Maybe they were right: they couldn't afford to let the Ruskis get me.
Funny?if they'd just thought to write me a letter and ask for my
co-operation . . ."

"But how did you get covered with mud? And the blood stains on your back?"

"I had a nice long swim: five hours' worth. Then another hour getting
through a mangrove swamp. Lucky I had a moon. Then a three-hour
hike . . . and here I am."

"I hope you're feeling better now that you've had something to eat. You
looked terrible."

"Another block and I wouldn't have made it. I felt sucked dry. The
scratch on my back is nothing, but maybe the shock . . . I don't know."

"Lie down now and sleep," said Margareta. "What do you want me to do?"

"Get me some clothes," I said. "A grey suit, white shirt, black tie and
shoes. And go to my bank and draw some money, say five thousand. Oh
yeah, see if there's anything in the papers. If you see anybody hanging
around the lobby when you come back, don't come up; give me a call and
I'll meet you."

She stood up. "This is really awful," she said. "Can't your embassy?"

"Didn't I mention it? A Mr. Pruffy, of the embassy, came along to hold
Smale's hand . . . not to mention a Colonel Sanchez. I wouldn't be
surprised if the local cops weren't in the act by now . . . unless they
all think I'm dead. That impression won't last long after you show up
with a nice fresh check on my account and spend part of it on a man's
suit. I'll get some sleep and light out as soon as you get back."

"Where will you go?"

"I'll get to the airport and play it by ear. I don't think they've
alerted everybody. It was a hush-hush deal, until it went sour; now
they're still picking up the pieces."

"The bank won't be open for hours yet," said Margareta. "Go to sleep and
don't worry. I'll take care of everything."

I made it to the bedroom and slid out on the big wide bed, and
consciousness slipped away like a silk curtain falling.

* * *

I knew I wasn't alone as soon as I opened my eyes. I hadn't heard
anything, but I could feel someone in the room. I sat up slowly, looked
around.

He was sitting in the embroidered chair by the window: an
ordinary-looking fellow in a tan tropical suit, with an unlighted
cigarette in his mouth and no particular expression on his face.

"Go ahead, light up," I said. "Don't mind me."

"Thanks," he said, in a thin voice. He took a lighter from an inner
pocket, flipped it, held it to the cigarette.

I stood up. There was a blur of motion from my visitor, and the lighter
was gone and a short-nosed revolver was in its place.

"You've got the wrong scoop, mister," I said. "I don't bite."

"I'd rather you wouldn't move suddenly, Mr. Legion," he said. He
coughed, his eyes on mine. "My nerves aren't what they used to be." The
gun was still on me.

"Which side are you working for?" I said. "And can I put my shoes on, or
are you afraid I'll pull a gun out of my sock?"

He rested the pistol on his knee. "Get completely dressed, Mr. Legion."

"Sorry," I said. "No can do. No clothes."

He frowned slightly. "My jacket will be a little small for you," he
said. "But I think you can manage."

I was sitting on the bed again. "I'm going to get out a cigarette," I
said. "Try not to shoot me." I reached for a package on the table, lit
up. His eyes stayed on mine.

"How come you didn't figure I was dead?" I asked, blowing smoke at him.

"We checked the house," he said. "No body."

"Why, you incompetent asses. You were supposed to think I drowned."

"That possibility was considered. But we made the routine checks anyway."

"Nice of you to let me sleep it out. How long have you been here?"

"Only a few minutes," he said. He glanced at his watch. "We'll have to
be going in another fifteen."

"What do you want with me?" I said. "You blew up everything you were
interested in."

"The Department wants to ask you a few questions."

"Look, I'm just a dumb guy," I whined. "I don't know nothing about all
that stuff. I was just the guy that peddled it, see?"

He took a drag on his cigarette, squinted at me through the smoke. "You
ran up an A average in college," he said, "including English."

"You boys really do your homework." I looked at the pistol. "I wonder if
you'd really shoot me," I mused.

"I'll try to make the position clear," he said. "Just to avoid any
unfortunate misunderstanding. My instructions are to bring you in,
alive?if possible. If it appears that you may evade arrest . . . or fall
into the wrong hands, I'll be forced to use the gun."

I pulled my shoes on, thinking it over. My best chance to make a break
was now, while there was only one watchdog. But I had a feeling he was
telling the truth about shooting me. I had already seen the boys in
action at the house.

He got up. "Let's step into the living room, Mr. Legion." I moved past
him through the door. In the living room the clock on the mantel said
eleven. I'd been asleep for five or six hours. Margareta ought to be
getting back any minute . . . 

"Put this on," he said. I took the light jacket, wedged myself into it,
looked at my reflection in the big rectangular mirror that occupied most
of a wall above the low divan.

"It's not the real me," I said. "I usually?"

The telephone rang.

I looked at my watchdog. He shook his head. We stood and listened to it
ring. After a while it stopped.

"We'd better be going now," he said. "Walk ahead of me, please. We'll
take the elevator to the basement and leave by the service entrance?"

He stopped talking, eyes on the door. There was the rattle of a key. The
gun came up.

"Hold it," I snapped. "It's the girl who owns the apartment." I moved to
face him, my back to the door.

"That was foolish of you, Legion," he said. "Don't move again."

I watched the door in the big mirror on the opposite wall. The knob
turned, the door swung in . . . and a thin brown man in white shirt and
white pants slipped into the room. As he pushed the door back he
transferred a small automatic to his left hand. My keeper threw a lever
on the revolver that was aimed at my belt buckle.

"Stand absolutely still, Legion," he said. "If you have a chance, that's
it." He moved aside slightly, looked past me to the newcomer. I watched
in the mirror as the man in white behind me swiveled to keep both of us
covered.

"This is a fail-safe weapon," said my first owner to the new man. "I
think you know about them. We leaked the information to you. I'm holding
the trigger back; if my hand relaxes, it fires, so I'd be a little
careful about shooting, if I were you."

The thin man swallowed, a black leather bow tie bobbing against his
Adam's apple. He didn't say anything. He was having to make some tough
decisions. His instructions would be the same as my other friend's: to
bring me in alive, if possible.

"Who does this bird represent?" I asked my man. I noticed my voice was
pitched half an octave higher than usual.

"He's a Russian agent."

I looked in the mirror at the man again. "Nuts," I said. "He looks like
a waiter in a chili joint. He probably came up to take our order."

"You talk too much when you're nervous," said my keeper between his
teeth. He held the gun on me steadily. I watched his trigger finger to
see if it looked like relaxing.

"I'd say it's a stalemate," I said. "Let's take it once more from the
top. Both of you go out and?"

"Shut up, Legion." My man licked his lips, glanced at my face. "I'm
sorry. It looks as though?"

"You don't want to shoot me," I blurted out loudly. In the mirror I had
seen the door, which was standing ajar, ease open an inch, two inches.
"You'll spoil this nice coat . . ." I kept on talking: "And anyway it
would be a big mistake, because everybody knows Russian agents are
stubby men with wide cheekbones and tight hats?"

Silently Margareta slipped into the room, took two quick steps, and
slammed a heavy handbag down on the slicked-back pompadour that went
with the Adam's apple. The man in white stumbled and fired a round into
the rug. The automatic dropped from his hand, and my pal in tan stepped
to him and hit him hard on the back of the head with his pistol. He
whirled toward me, hissed "Play it smart" just loud enough for me to
hear, then turned to Margareta. He slipped the gun into his pocket, but
I knew he could get it out again in a hurry.

"Very nicely done, Miss," he said. "I'll have this person removed from
your apartment. Mr. Legion and I were just going."

Margareta looked at me. I thought over two or three remarks but none of
them seemed to fit. I didn't intend to see her get hurt?or involved.
Apparently my FBI type was willing to leave her out of it, if I went
quietly. On the other hand, this was my last chance to get out of the
net before it closed for good. My keeper was watching, waiting for me to
try something, tip Margareta off . . . 

"It's okay, honey," I said. "This is Mr. Smith . . . of our Embassy.
We're old friends." I stepped past her, headed for the door. My hand was
on the knob when I heard a solid thunk behind me. I whirled in time to
clip the FBI on the jaw as he fell forward. Margareta looked at me,
wide-eyed.

"That handbag packs a wallop," I said. "Nice work, Maggie." I knelt,
pulled off the fellow's belt, and cinched his hands behind his back with
it. Margareta got the idea, did the same for the other man, who was
beginning to groan now.

"Who are these men?" she said. "What?"

"I'll tell you all about it later. Right now, I have to get to some
people I know, get this story on the wires, out in the open. State'll be
a little shy about gunning me down or locking me up without trial, if I
give the show enough publicity."

I reached in my pocket, handed her the black-and-gold-marked cylinder.
"Just to be on the safe side," I said, "mail this to me: John Jones?at
Itzenca, general delivery."

"All right," said Margareta. "And I have your things." She stepped into
the hall, came back with a shopping bag and a suit carton. She took a
wad of bills from her handbag and handed it to me.

I went to her and put my arms around her. "Listen, honey: as soon as I
leave, go to the bank and draw fifty grand. Get out of the country. They
haven't got anything on you except that you beaned a couple of intruders
in your apartment, but it'll be better if you disappear. Leave an
address care of Poste Restante, Basel, Switzerland. I'll get in touch
when I can."

She put up an argument but I made my point. Twenty minutes later I was
pushing through the big glass doors onto the sidewalk, clean-shaven,
dressed to the teeth, with five grand on one hip and a .32 on the other.
I'd had a good meal and a fair sleep, and against me the secret services
of two or three countries didn't have a chance.

I got as far as the corner before they nailed me.


      *Chapter Twelve*

"You have a great deal to lose," General Smale was saying, "and nothing
to gain by your stubbornness. You're a young man, vigorous and, I'm
sure, intelligent. You have a fortune of some million and a quarter
dollars, which I assure you you'll be permitted to keep. As against that
prospect, so long as you refuse to co-operate, we must regard you as no
better than a traitorous criminal?and deal with you accordingly."

"What have you been feeding me?" I said. "My mouth tastes like
somebody's old gym shoes and my arm's purple to the elbow. Don't you
know it's illegal to administer drugs without a license?"

"The nation's security is at stake," snapped Smale.

"The funny thing is, it must not have worked, or you wouldn't be begging
me to tell all. I thought that scopolamine or whatever you're using was
the real goods."

"We've gotten nothing but gibberish," Smale said, "most of it in an
incomprehensible language. Who the devil are you, Legion? Where do you
come from?"

"You know everything," I said. "You told me yourself. I'm a guy named
Legion, from Mount Sterling, Illinois, population one thousand eight
hundred and ninety-two."

"I'm a humane man, Legion. But if necessary I'll beat it out of you."

"You?" I smiled, curling a lip. "You mean you'll call in a herd of
plug-uglies: real crooks, to do the dirty work. My only crime is knowing
something you politicians want, and you're willing to lie, cheat, steal,
torture, and kill to get it. You know that and so do I; let's not kid
each other. I know your measure as a man, Mr. General."

Smale had gone white. "I'm in a position to inflict agonies on you, you
insolent rotter," he grated. "I've refrained from doing so. You might
add that to your analysis of my character. I'm a soldier; I know my
duty. I'm prepared to give my life; if need be, my honor. I'm even
prepared to forego your good opinion?so long as I obtain for my
government the information you're withholding."

"Turn me loose; then ask me in a nice way. As far as I know, I haven't
got anything of military significance to tell you, but if I were treated
as a free citizen I might be inclined to let you be the judge of that."

"Tell us now; then you'll go free."

"Sure," I said. "I invented a combination rocket ship and time machine.
I traveled around the solar system and made a few short trips back into
history. In my spare time I invented other gadgets. I'm planning to take
out patents, so naturally I don't intend to spill any secrets. Can I go
now?"

Smale got to his feet. "Until we can safely move you, you'll remain in
this room. You're on the sixty-third floor of the Yordano Building. The
windows are of unbreakable glass, in case you contemplate a particularly
untidy suicide. Your person has been stripped of all potentially
dangerous items, though I suppose you could still swallow your tongue
and suffocate. The door is of heavy construction, and securely locked."

"I forgot to tell you," I said. "I mailed a letter to a friend, telling
him all about you. The sheriff will be here with a posse any minute now,
to spring me?"

"You mailed no letter," Smale said. "Unfortunately, we don't feel it
would be advisable to allow any furniture to remain here which you might
be foolish enough to dismantle for use as a weapon. It's rather a drab
room to spend your future in, but until you decide to cooperate this
will be your world."

I didn't say anything. I sat on the floor and watched him leave. I
caught a glimpse of two uniformed men outside the door. No doubt they'd
take turns looking through the peephole. I'd have solitude without
privacy. I wondered if Margareta had managed to mail the cylinder.

I stretched out on the floor, which was padded with a nice thick rug,
presumably so that I wouldn't beat my brains out against it just to
spite them. I was way behind on my sleep: being interrogated while
unconscious wasn't a very restful procedure. I wasn't too worried. In
spite of what Smale said, they couldn't keep me here forever. Maybe
Margareta had gotten clear and told the story to some newsmen; this kind
of thing couldn't stay hidden forever. Or could it?

I thought about what Smale had said about my talking gibberish under the
narcotics. That was an odd one . . . 

Quite suddenly I got it. By means of the drugs they must have tapped a
level where the Vallonian background briefing was stored: they'd been
firing questions at a set of memories that didn't speak English. I
grinned, then laughed out loud. Luck was still in the saddle with me.

* * *

The glass was in double panels, set in aluminum frames and sealed with a
plastic strip. The space between the two panels of glass was evacuated
of air, creating an insulating barrier against the heat of the sun. I
ran a finger over the aluminum. It was dural: good tough stuff. If I had
something to pry with, I might possibly lever the metal away from the
glass far enough to take a crack at the edge, the weak point of
armor-glass . . . if I had something to hit it with.

Smale had done a good job of stripping the room?and me. I had my shirt
and pants and shoes, but no tie or belt. I still had my wallet?empty, a
pack of cigarettes with two wilted weeds in it, and a box of matches.
Smale had missed a bet: I might set fire to my hair and burn to the
ground. I might also stuff a sock down my throat and strangle, or hang
myself with a shoe lace?but I wasn't going to.

I looked at the window some more. The door was too tough to tackle, and
the heavies outside were probably hoping for an excuse to work me over.
They wouldn't expect me to go after the glass; after all, I was still
sixty-three stories up. What would I do if I did make it to the window
sill? But we could worry about that later, after I had smelled the fresh
air.

My forefinger found an irregularity in the smooth metal: a short groove.
I looked closer, saw a screw head set flush with the aluminum surface.
Maybe if the frame was bolted together?

No such luck; the screw I had found was the only one. What was it for?
Maybe if I removed it I'd find out. But I'd wait until dark to try it.
Smale hadn't left a light fixture in the room. After sundown I'd be able
to work unobserved.

A couple of hours went by and no one came to disturb my solitude, not
even to feed me. Maybe they planned to starve me out; or maybe they
weren't used to being jailers and had forgotten the animals had to be fed.

I had a short scrap of metal I'd worked loose from my wallet. It was
mild steel, flimsy stuff, only about an inch long, but I was hoping the
screw might not be set too tight. Aluminum threads strip pretty easily,
so it probably wasn't cinched up too hard.

There was no point in theorizing. It was dark now; I'd give it a try. I
went to the window, fitted the edge of metal into the slotted
screw-head, and twisted. It turned, just like that. I backed it off ten
turns, twenty; it was a thick bolt with fine threads. It came free and
air whooshed into the hole. The screw apparently sealed the panel after
the air was evacuated.

I thought it over. If I could fill the space between the panels with
water and let it freeze . . . quite a trick in the tropics. I might as
well plan to fill it with gin and set it on fire.

I was going in circles. Every idea I had started with 'if.' I needed
something I could manage with the material at hand: cloth, a box of
matches, a few bits of paper.

I got out a cigarette, lit up, and while the match was burning examined
the hole from which I'd removed the plug. It was about three-sixteenths
of an inch in diameter and an inch deep, and there was a hole near the
bottom communicating with the air space between the glass panels. It was
an old-fashioned method of manufacture but it seemed to have worked all
right: the air was pumped out and the hole sealed with the screw. It had
at any rate the advantage of being easy to service if the panel leaked.
Now, with some way of pumping air /in/, I could blow out the panels . . . 

There was no pump on the premises but I did have some chemicals: the
match heads. They were old style too, like a lot of things in Peru: the
strike-once-and-throw-away kind.

I sat on the floor and started to work, chipping the heads off the
matchsticks, collecting the dry, purplish material on a scrap of paper.
Thirty-eight matches gave me a respectable sample. I packed it together,
rolled it in the paper, and crimped the ends. Then I tucked the
makeshift firecracker into the hole the screw had come from.

Using the metal scrap I scraped at the threads of the screw, burring
them. Then I started it in the hole, half a dozen turns, until it came
up against the match heads.

The shoes Margareta had bought me were the latest thing in Lima styles,
with thin soles, pointed toes, and built-up leather heels: Bad on the
feet, but just the thing to pound with. I thought about trying to work
loose a piece of rug to shield my face, but decided against it. I'd have
to stand aside and take my chances.

I took the shoe by the toe and hefted it: the flexible sole gave it a
good action, like a well-made sap. There were still a couple of 'ifs' in
the equation, but a healthy crack on the screw ought to drive it against
the packed match-heads hard enough to detonate them, and the expanding
gasses from the explosion ought to exert enough pressure against the
glass panels to break them. I'd know in a second.

I flattened myself against the wall, brought the shoe up, and laid it on
the screw-head with everything I had . . . 

There was a deafening boom, a blast of hot air, and a chemical stink,
then a gust of cool night wind?and I was on the sill, my back to the
street six hundred feet below, my fingers groping for a hold on the
ledge above the window. I found a grip, pulled up, reached higher, got
my feet on the muntin strip, paused to rest for three seconds, reached
again . . . 

I pulled my feet above the window level and heard shouts in the room below:

"?fool killed himself!"

"Get a light in here!"

I clung, breathing deep, and murmured thanks to the architect who had
stressed a strong horizontal element in his faade and arranged the
strip windows in bays set twelve inches from the face of the structure.
Now, if the boys below would keep their eyes on the street long enough
for me to get on the roof?

I looked up, to get an idea how far I'd have to go?and gripped the ledge
convulsively as the whole building leaned out, tilting me back . . . 

Cold sweat ran into my eyes. I squeezed the stone until my knuckles
creaked and held on. I laid my cheek against the rough plaster,
listening to my heart thump. Adrenalin and high hopes had gotten me this
far . . . and now it had all drained out and left me, a frail
ground-loving animal, flattened against the cruel face of a tower, like
a fly on a ceiling, with nothing between me and the unyielding concrete
below but the feeble grip of fingers and toes. I started to yell for
help, and the words stuck in my dry throat. I breathed in shallow gasps,
feeling my muscles tightening, until I hung, rigid as a board, afraid
even to roll my eyeballs for fear of dislodging myself. I closed my
eyes, felt my hands going numb, and tried again to yell: only a thin
croak emerged.

A minute earlier I had had only one worry: that they'd look up and see
me. Now my worst fear was that they wouldn't.

This was the end. I'd been close before, but not like this. My fingers
could take the strain for maybe another minute, maybe even two; then I'd
let go, and the wind would whip at me for a few timeless seconds, before
I hit . . . 

I had had a lot of big ideas but in the cosmic scheme I was a gnat on a
windshield. I thought I'd learned something, was a jump ahead of most
guys, and could play the meaningless game with a certain flair. But my
fancy philosophies were words written in smoke when they came up against
the raw power of blind instinct. My conscious mind had an I.Q. of 148,
but the idiot subconscious that had frozen me here hadn't learned
anything since the first ape that had owned it rode out a storm in a
tree-top and lived to be my ancestor . . . I heard a sound and it was
me, whimpering. I was a poor weakling, out of his element, bleating for
mercy.

Down inside of me something didn't like the picture. A small defiance
flickered, found a foothold, burned brighter. I would die . . . but that
would solve a lot of problems. And if I had to die, at least I could die
trying.

My mind moved in to take over from my body. It was the body that was
wasting my last strength on a precarious illusion of safety, numbing my
senses, paralyzing me. It was a tyranny I wouldn't accept. I needed a
cool head and a steady hand and an unimpaired sense of balance; and if
the imbecile body wouldn't cooperate the mind would take it by the
scruff of the neck and force it. I'd been feeding this hulk for
thirty-odd years; now it would do what I told it. First: loosen the grip?

Yes! If it killed me: bend those fingers! Sure, I might fall?all the
way?and splatter when I hit, but did this lousy slab of meat expect to
live forever? I had news for it: time was short, any way you figured.

I was standing a little looser now, my hands resting flat, my legs
taking the load. I had a good wide ledge to stand on: nearly a foot, and
in a minute I was going to reach up and get a new hold and lift one foot
at a time . . . and if I slipped, at least I'd have done it my way.

I let go, and the building leaned out, and to hell with it . . . 

I felt for the next ledge, gripped it, pulled up, found a toe-hold.

Sure, I was dead. It was a long way to the top, and there was a fancy
cornice I'd never get over, but when the moment came and I started the
long ride down I'd thumb my nose at the old hag, Instinct, who hadn't
been as tough as she thought she was . . . 

* * *

I was under the cornice now, hanging on for a breather, and listening to
the hooting and hollering from the window far below. A couple of heads
had popped out and taken a look, but it was dark up where I was and all
the attention was centered down where the crowd had gathered and lights
were playing, looking for a mess. Pretty soon now they'd begin to get
the drift?so I'd better be going.

I looked up at the overhang . . . and felt the old urge to clutch and
hang on. So I leaned outward a little further, just to show me who was
boss. It was a long reach, and I'd have to risk it all on one lunge
because, if I missed, there wasn't any net, and my fingers knew it. I
heard my nails rasp on the plaster. I grated my teeth together and
unhooked one hand: it was like a claw carved from wood. I took a
half-breath, bent my knees slightly; they were as responsive as a couple
of bumper-jacks bolted on to the hip. Tough; but it was now or never . . . 

I let go with both hands and stretched, leaning back . . . 

My wooden hands bumped the edge, scrabbled, hooked on, as my legs swung
free, and I was hanging like an old-time sailor strung up by the thumbs.
A wind off the roof whipped at my face and now I was a tissue-paper
doll, fluttering in the breeze.

I had to pull now, pull hard, heave myself up and over the edge, but I
was tired, too tired. My crepe paper arms with the wooden hands seemed
to belong to someone else, someone who'd been dead a long time . . . 

But the someone was me: death was an old story, one that I wrote myself.
This was something that had happened before, long ago, and the
palindrome of life was finished where it started, and a dark curtain was
falling . . . 

Then from the darkness a voice was speaking in a strange language: a
confusion of strange thought symbols, but through them an ever more
insistent call:

/ . . . dilate the secondary vascular complex, shunt full conductivity
to the upsilon neuro-channel. Now, stripping oxygen ions from fatty cell
masses, pour in electro-chemical energy to the sinews . . .  / 

With a smooth surge of power I pulled myself up, fell forward, rolled
onto my back, and lay on the flat roof, the beautiful flat roof, still
warm from the day's sun.

I was here, looking at the stars, safe; and later on when I had more
time I'd stop to think about it. But now I had to move, before they had
time to organize themselves, cordon off the building, and start a
floor-by-floor search.

Staggering from the exertion of the long climb I got to my feet, went to
the shed housing the entry to the service stair. The door was locked. I
didn't waste any time kicking at it; I got a leg up and stood on the
doorknob. Two jumps and it snapped off. I pushed the stub of the shaft
through and tickled the back edge of the locking tongue, eased it out.
The door opened.

A short flight of steps led down to a storeroom. There were dusty
boards, dried-up paint cans, odd tools. I picked up a five-foot length
of two-by-four and a hammer with one claw missing, and stepped out into
the hall. The street was a long way down and I didn't feel like wasting
time with stairs. I found the elevator, pushed the button, stood in
front of it whistling. A fat man in a drab suit came along, looked at me
distastefully, thought about telling me that the workmen used the
freight elevator, then changed his mind and said nothing.

The elevator arrived. I stepped in jauntily. The fat man followed me,
pushed the button for the foyer. I smiled and nodded, went on whistling.

We stopped and the doors opened. I waited for the fat man to leave, then
glanced out, tightening my grip on the hammer, and followed. I could see
the lights in the street out front and in the distance there was the
wail of a siren, but nobody in the lobby looked my way. I headed across
toward the side exit, dumped the board at the door, tucked the hammer in
the waist band of my pants, and stepped out onto the pavement. There
were a lot of people hurrying past but this was Lima: they didn't waste
a glance on a barefooted carpenter.

I moved off, not hurrying. There was a lot of rough country between me
and Itzenca, the little town near which the life boat was hidden in a
caon, but I aimed to cover it in a week. Some time between now and
tomorrow I'd have to figure out a way to equip myself with a few
necessities, but I wasn't worried. A man who had successfully taken up
human-fly work in middle life wouldn't have any trouble stealing a pair
of boots.

Foster had shoved off for home three years ago, local time, although to
him, aboard the ship, only a few weeks might have passed. My lifeboat
was a midge compared to the mother ship he rode, but it had plenty of
speed. Once aboard the lugger . . . and maybe I could put a little space
between me and the big boys I was up against now.

I had used the best camouflage I knew of on the boat. The near-savage
native bearers who had done my unloading and carried my Vallonian
treasures across the desert to the nearest railhead were not the gossipy
type. If General Smale's boys had heard about the boat, they hadn't
mentioned it. And if they had: well, I'd solve that one when I got to
it. There were still quite a few 'ifs' in the equation, but my
arithmetic was getting better all the time.


      *Chapter Thirteen*

I took the precaution of sneaking up on the lifeboat in the dead of
night, but I could have saved myself a crawl. Except for the fact that
the camouflage nets had rotted away to shreds, the ship was just as I
had left it, doors sealed. Why Smale's team hadn't found it, I didn't
know; I'd think that one over when I was well away from Earth.

It had been a long tough trip from Lima to the caon, but I had made it
without interference. I had swapped my platinum finger ring for a
beat-up .38 pistol, but I hadn't had to use it. In a shabby bar in one
of the villages I passed through I had heard a battered radio sputtering
news; there was no mention of the assault on the island, or of my
escape. It seemed that all parties were willing to cover it up and
pretend it hadn't happened.

I went into the post office at Itzenca and picked up the parcel
Margareta had mailed me with Foster's memory-trace in it. While I was
checking to see whether Uncle Sam's minions had intercepted the package
and substituted a carrot, I felt something rubbing against my shin. I
glanced down and saw a grey and white cat, reasonably clean and
obviously hungry. I didn't know whether I'd ploughed through a field of
wild catnip the night before or if it was my way with a finger behind
the furry ears, but Kitty followed me out of Itzenca and right into the
bush. She kept pace with me, leading most of the time, as far as the
space boat, and was the first one aboard.

I didn't waste time with formalities. I had once audited a briefing rod
on the boat's operation?not that I had ever expected to use the
information for a take-off. Once aboard, I hit the controls and cut a
swathe through the atmosphere that must have sent fingers jumping for
panic buttons from Washington to Moscow.

I didn't know how many weeks or months of unsullied leisure stretched
ahead of me now. There would be time and to spare for exploring the
boat, working out a daily routine, chewing over the details of both my
memories, and laying plans for my arrival on Foster's world, Vallon. But
first I wanted to catch a show that was making a one-night stand for me
only: the awe-inspiring spectacle of the retreating earth.

I dropped into a seat opposite the screen and flipped into view the big
luminous ball of wool that was my home planet. I'd been hoping to get a
last look at my island, but I couldn't see it. The whole sphere was
blanketed in cloud: a thin worn blanket in places but still intact. But
the moon was a sight! An undipped Edam cheese with the markings of
Roquefort. For a quarter of an hour I watched it grow until it filled my
screen. It was too close for comfort. I dumped the tabby out of my lap
and adjusted a dial. The dead world swept past, and I had a brief
glimpse of burst bubbles of craters that became the eyes and mouth and
pock marks of a face on a head that swung away from me in disdain and
then the sibling planets dwindled and were gone forever.

The lifeboat was completely equipped, and I found comfortable quarters.
An ample food supply was available by the touch of a panel on the table
in the screen-room. That was a trick my predecessor with the dental
jewelry hadn't discovered, I guessed. During the courses of my first
journey earthward and on my visits to the boat for saleable playthings
while she lay in dry-dock, I had discovered most of the available
amenities aboard. Now I luxuriated in a steaming bath of recycled water,
sponged down with disposable towels packed in scented alcohol, fed the
cat and myself, and lay down to sleep for about two weeks.

By the third week I was reasonably refreshed and rested. The scars from
my recent brushes with what passed as the law were healed. I had gotten
over regretting the toys I'd left behind on my island and the money in
my banks in Lima and Switzerland, and even Margareta. I was headed for a
new world; there was no point in dragging along old attachments.

The cat was a godsend, I began to realize. I named her Itzenca, after
the village where she adopted me, and I talked to her by the hour. I
always had felt that there was a subtle difference between talking to
somebody else and talking to yourself. The latter gets a little tedious
after the first few days but you can keep the other up indefinitely. So
Itz got talked to plenty as we rode to the stars.

"Say, Itz," said I, "where would you like your sand box situated? Right
there in front of the TV screen? There's not much traffic there, since
we cleared the solar system. You'd have the place all to yourself.

No, said Itzenca by a flirt of her tail. And she walked over behind a
crate that had never been unloaded on earth.

I pulled out a box of junk and slid the sand box in its place. Itzenca
promptly lost interest and instead jumped up on the junk box which fell
off the bench and scattered small objects of khaff and metal in all
directions.

"Come back here, blast you," I said, "and help me pick up this stuff."

Itz bounded after a dull-gleaming silver object that was still rolling.
I was there almost as quick as she was and grabbed up the cylinder.
Suddenly the horsing around was over. This thing was somebody's memory.

I dropped onto a bench to examine it, my Vallonian-inspired pulse
pounding. "Where the heck did this come from, cat?" I said.

Itz jumped up into my lap and nosed the cylinder. I was trying to hark
back to those days three years before when I had loaded the lifeboat
with all the loot it would carry, for the trip back to earth.

"Listen, Itz, we've got to do some tall remembering. Let's see: there
was a whole rack of blanks in the memory-recharging section of the room
where we found the three skeletons. Yeah, now I remember: I pulled this
one out of the recorder set, which means it had been used, but not yet
color-coded. I showed it to Foster when he was hunting his own trace. He
didn't realize I'd pulled it out of the machine and he thought it was an
empty. But I'll bet you somebody had his mind taped, and then left in a
hurry, before the trace could be color-coded and filed.

"On the other hand, maybe it's a blank that had just been inserted when
somebody broke up the play-house . . . But wasn't there something Foster
said . . .  about when he woke up, way back when, with a pile of fresh
corpses around him? He gave somebody emergency treatment and to a
Vallonian that would include a complete memory-transcription . . . Do
you realize what I've got here in my hand, Itz?"

She looked up at me inquiringly.

"This is what's left of the guy that Foster buried: his pal, Ammaerln, I
think he called him. What's inside this cylinder used to be tucked away
in the skull of the ancient sinner. The guy's not so dead after all.
I'll bet his family will pay plenty for this trace, and be grateful
besides. That'll be an ace in the hole in case I get too hungry on Vallon."

I got up and crossed the apartment; Itz followed me out to my sleeping
couch. I dropped the trace in a drawer beside Foster's own memory.

"Wonder how Foster's making out without his past, Itz? He claimed the
one I've got here would only be a copy of the original stored at
Okk-Hamiloth, but my briefing didn't say anything about copying
memories. He must be somebody pretty important to rate that service."

Suddenly my eyes were riveted to the markings on Foster's trace lying in
the drawer. " 'Sblood! The royal colors!" I sat down on the bed with a
lurch. "Itzenca, old gal, it looks like we'll be entering Vallonian
society from the top. We've been consorting with a member of the
Vallonian nobility!"

During the days that followed, I tried again and again to raise Foster
on the communicator . . . without result. I wondered how I'd find him
among the millions on the planet. My best bet would be to get settled
down in the Vallonian environment, then start making a few inquiries.

I would play it casually: act the part of a Vallonian who had merely
been traveling for a few hundred years?which wasn't unheard of?and play
my cards close to my gravy stains until I learned what the score was.
With my Vallonian briefing I ought to be able to carry it off. The
Vallonians might not like illegal immigrants any better than they did
back home, so I'd keep my interesting foreign background to myself.

I would need a new name. I thought over several possibilities and
selected "Drgon." It was as good a Vallonian jawbreaker as any.

I canvassed the emergency wardrobe that was standard equipment on
Far-Voyager lifeboats. There was everything from fur-lined parka-type
suits for outings on worlds like Pluto to sheer silk
one-man-air-conditioner balloon over-alls for stepping out on Venus. In
amongst them was a selection of dresses reminiscent of ancient Greece.
They had been the sharp style of Vallon when Foster left home. They
looked comfortable. I picked one in a sober color, then got busy with
the cutting and seaming unit to fit it to my frame. I didn't plan to
attract unnecessary attention with ill-fitting garments when I crossed
my first Vallonians.

Itzenca watched with interest. "What the heck am I going to do with you
on Vallon?" I asked her. "The only cat on the planet. You may have to
put up with an iggrfn for a boyfriend," I said, searching my Vallonian
memory. "They're about the nearest thing to you in size and
shape . . . but they're kind of objectionable, personality wise."

I finished off my new duds, then dug through the handicrafts gear and
picked out a sheet of khaffite, a copper-like Vallonian alloy that was
supposed to have almost the durability of khaff without being so hard to
work. There were appropriate tools in the little workshop for shaping it
and adding decoration.

"Don't worry," I said to Itz. "You won't go ashore shabbily clad either.
You'll be a knockout in this item." I parked her on the workbench and
sat down to my tools. I clipped out an inch-wide strip of the khaffite,
shaped it in a circle, and fitted it with a slip-out catch. After a
leisurely meal I spent what passed for an evening etching "Itzenca" on
the new collar with plenty of curlicues. Then I fitted it on her; she
didn't seem to mind a bit.

"There. All set to wow those Vallonians like they've never been wowed."
Itzenca purred.

We strolled into the observation lounge. Strange bright-hued star
systems glowed far away. "We'll be stepping out with our memories any
night now," I said.

* * *

The proximity alarms were ringing. I watched the screen with its image
of a great green world rimmed on one edge with glaring white from the
distant giant sun, on the other flooded with a cool glow reflected from
the blue outer planet. The trip was almost over and my confidence was
beginning to fray around the edges. In a few minutes I would be stepping
into an unknown world, all set to find my old pal Foster and see the
sights. I didn't have a passport, but there was no reason to anticipate
trouble. All I had to do was let my natural identity take a back seat
and allow my Vallonian background to do the talking. And yet . . . 

Now Vallon spread out below us, a misty grey-green landscape, bright
under the glow of the immense moonlike sister world, Cinte. I had set
the landing monitor for Okk-Hamiloth, the capital city of Vallon. That
was where Foster would have headed, I guessed. Maybe I could pick up the
trail there.

The city was directly below: a vast network of blue-lit avenues. I
hadn't been contacted by Planetary Control. That was normal enough,
however. A small vessel coming in on auto could handle itself.

A little apprehensively I ran over my lines a last time: I was Drgon,
citizen of the Two Worlds, back from a longer-than-average season of
far-voyaging and in need of briefing rods to bring me up to date on
developments at home. I also required assignment of quarters. My
tailoring was impeccable, my command of the language a little rusty from
long non-use, and the only souvenirs I had to declare were a tattered
native costume from my last port of call, a quaint weapon from the same,
and a small animal I had taken a liking to.

* * *

The landing ring was visible on the screen now, coming slowly up to meet
us. There was a gentle shock and then absolute stillness. I watched the
port cycle open; I went to it and looked out at the pale city stretching
away to the hills. I took a breath of the fragrant night air spiced with
a long-forgotten perfume, and the part of me that was now Vallonian
ached with the inexpressible emotion of homecoming.

I started to buckle on my pistol and gather up a few belongings, then
decided to wait until I'd met the welcoming committee. I whistled to
Itzenca and we stepped out and down. We crossed the clipped green,
luminous in the glow from the lights over the high-arched gate marking
the path that curved up toward the bright-lit terraces above. There was
no one in sight. Bright Cintelight showed me the gardens and walks and,
when I reached the terraces, the avenues beyond . . . but no people. I
stood by a low wall of polished marble and thought about it. It was
about midnight, and the nights on Vallon lasted twenty-eight hours, but
there should have been some activity here. This was a busy port:
scheduled vessels, private yachts, official ships, all of them came and
went from Okk-Hamiloth. But not tonight.

The cat and I walked across the terrace, passed through the open arch to
a refreshment lounge. The low tables and cushioned couches stood empty
under the rosy light from the ceiling panels. My slippered feet
whispered on the polished floor.

I stood and listened: dead silence. There wasn't even the hum of a
mosquito; all such insect pests had been killed off long ago. The lights
glowed, the tables waited invitingly. How long had they waited?

I sat down at one of them and thought hard. I had made a lot of plans,
but I hadn't counted on a deserted spaceport. How was I going to ask
questions about Foster if there was no one to ask?

I got up and moved on through the empty lounge, past a wide arcade, out
onto a terraced lawn. A row of tall poplar-like trees made a dark wall
beyond a still pool, and behind them distant towers loomed, colored
lights sparkled. A broad avenue swept in a wide curve between fountains,
slanted away to the hills. A hundred yards from where I stood a small
vehicle was parked at the curb; I headed for it.

It was an open two-seater, low-slung, cushioned, finished in violet
inlays against bright chrome. I slid into the seat, looked over the
controls, while Itzenca skipped to a place beside me. There was a simple
lever arrangement: a steering tiller. It looked easy. I tried a few
pulls and pushes; lights blinked on the panel, the car quivered, lifted
a few inches, drifted slowly across the road. I moved the tiller,
twiddled things; the car moved off toward the towers. I didn't like the
controls; a wheel and a couple of foot pedals would have suited me
better; but it beat walking.

* * *

Two hours later we had cruised the city . . . and found nothing. It
hadn't changed from what my extra memory recalled?except that all the
people were gone. The parks and boulevards were trimmed, the fountains
and pools sparkled, the lights glowed . . . but nothing moved. The
automatic dust precipitators and air filters would run forever, keeping
things clean and neat; but there was no one there to appreciate it. I
pulled over, sat watching the play of colored lights on a waterfall, and
considered. Maybe I'd find more of a clue inside one of the buildings. I
left the car and picked one at random: a tall slab of pink crystal.
Inside, I looked around at a great airy cavern full of rose-colored
light and listened to the purring of the cat and my own breathing. There
was nothing else to hear.

I picked a random corridor, went along it, passed through empty rooms.
It was all in the old Vallonian style: walls paneled in jade, brocade
hangings in iridescent colors, rugs like pools of fire: in one chamber I
picked up a cloak of semi-velvet and put it over my shoulders; I was
getting cold in my daytime street dress. Walking among the tangible
ghosts of the long past didn't warm me up any. We climbed a wide spiral
stair, passed from vacant room to vacant room. I thought of the people
who had once used them. Where were they now?

I found a clarinet-like musical instrument and blew a few notes on it.
It had a deep mellow tone that echoed along the deserted corridor. I
thought it sounded a lot like I felt: sad and forgotten. I went out onto
a lofty terrace overlooking gardens, leaned on a balustrade, and looked
up at the brilliant disc of Cinte. It loomed enormous, its diameter four
times that of the earthly moon.

"We've come a long way to find nothing," I said to Itzenca. She pushed
her way along my leg and flexed her tail in a gesture meant to console.
But it didn't help. After the long wait, the tension of expectation, I
felt suddenly empty as the silent halls of the building.

I sat on the balustrade and leaned back against the polished pink wall,
took out the clarinet and blew some blue notes. That which once had been
was no more; remembering it, I played the /Pavane for a Dead Princess/,
and felt a forlorn nostalgia for a glory I had never known . . . 

I finished and looked up at a sound. Four tall men in grey cloaks and a
glitter of steel came toward me from the shadows.

* * *

I had dropped the clarinet and was on my feet. I tried to back up but
the balustrade stopped me. The four spread out. The man in the lead
fingered a wicked-looking short club and spoke to me?in gibberish. I
blinked at him and tried to think of a snappy comeback.

He snapped his fingers and two of the others came up; they reached for
my arms. I started to square off, fist cocked, then relaxed; after all,
I was just a tourist, Drgon by name. Unfortunately, before I could get
my fist back, the man with the club swung it and caught me across the
forearm. I yelled, jumped back, found myself grappled by the others. My
arm felt dead to the shoulder. I tried a kick and regretted that too;
there was armor under the cloaks. The club wielder said something and
pointed at the cat . . . 

It was time I wised up. I relaxed, tried to coax my /alter ego/ into the
foreground. I listened to the rhythm of the language: it was Vallonian,
badly warped by time, but I could understand it:

"?musician would be an Owner!" one of them said.

Laughter.

"Whose man are you, piper? What are your colors?"

I curled my tongue, tried to shape it around the sort of syllables I
heard them uttering: it seemed to me a gross debasement of the Vallonian
I knew. Still I managed an answer:

"I . . . am a . . . citizen . . . of Vallon."

"A dog of a masterless renegade?" The man with the club hefted it,
glowered at me. "And what wretched dialect is that you speak?"

"I have . . . been long a-voyaging," I stuttered. "I ask . . . for
briefing rods . . . and for a . . . dwelling place."

"A dwelling place you'll have," the man said. "In the men's shed at
Rath-Gallion." He gestured, and handcuffs snapped on my wrists.

He turned and stalked away, and the others hustled me after him. Over my
shoulder I got a glimpse of a cat's tail disappearing over the
balustrade. Outside, a long grey air-car waited on the lawn. They dumped
me in the back seat, climbed aboard. I got a last look at the spires of
Okk-Hamiloth as we tilted, hurtled away across the low hills.

Somewhere in the shuffle I had lost my new cloak. I shivered. I listened
to the talk, and what I heard didn't make me feel any better. The chain
between my wrists kept up a faint jingling. I gathered I'd be hearing a
lot of that kind of music from now on. I had had an idealistic notion of
wanting to fit into this new world, find a place in its society. I'd
found a place all right: a job with security.

I was a slave.


      *Chapter Fourteen*

It was banquet night at Rath-Gallion, and I gulped my soup in the
kitchen and ran over in my mind the latest batch of jingles I was
expected to perform. I had only been on the Estate a few weeks, but I
was already Owner Gope's favorite piper. If I kept on at this rate, I
would soon have a cell to myself in the slave pens.

Sime, the pastry cook, came over to me.

"Pipe us a merry tune, Drgon," he said, "and I'll reward you with a
frosting pot."

"With pleasure, good Sime," I said. I finished off the soup and got out
my clarinet. I had tried out half a dozen strange instruments, but I
still liked this one best. "What's your pleasure?"

"One of the outland tunes you learned far-voyaging," called Cagu, the
bodyguard.

I complied with the /Beer Barrel Polka/. They pounded the table and
hallooed when I finished, and I got my goody pan. Sime stood watching me
scrape at it.

"Why don't you claim the Chief Piper's place, Drgon?" Sime said. "You
pipe rings around the lout. Then you'd have freeman status, and could
sit among us in the kitchen almost as an equal."

I went after the last of the chocilla frosting, licked my fingers and
laid the pot aside.

"I'd gladly be the equal of such a pastry cook as yourself, good Sime,"
I said. "But what can a slave-piper do?"

Sime blinked at me. "You can challenge the Chief Piper," he said.
"There's none can deny you're his master in all but name. Don't fear the
outcome of the Trial; you'll triumph sure." He glanced around at the
kitchen staff. "Is it not so, goodmen?"

"I'll warrant it," the soup-master said. "If you lose, I'll take your
stripes for you."

"You're going too fast for me, goodmen," I said. "How can I claim
another's place?"

Sime waved his arms. "You have far-voyaged long indeed, Piper Drgon.
Know you naught of how the world wags these days? One would take you for
a Cintean heretic."

"As I've said, goodmen: in my youth all men were free; and the High King
ruled at Okk-Hamiloth?"

" 'Tis ill to speak of these things," said Sime in a low tone. "Only
Owners know their former lives . . . though I've heard it said that long
ago no man was so mean but that he recorded his lives and kept them
safe. How you came by yours, I ask not; but do not speak of it. Owner
Gope is a jealous master. Though a most generous and worshipful lord,"
he added hastily, looking around.

"I won't speak of it then, good Sime," I said. "But I have been long
away. Even the language has changed, so that I wrench my tongue in the
speaking of it. Advise me, if you will."

Sime puffed out his cheeks, frowning at me. "I scarce know where to
start," he said. "All things belong to the Owners . . . as is only
right." He looked around for confirmation. The others nodded. "Men of
low skill are likewise property; and 'tis well 'tis so; else would they
starve as masterless strays . . . if the Greymen failed to find them
first." He made a sign and spat. So did everybody else.

"Now men of good skill are freemen, each earning rewards as befits his
ability. I am Chief Pastry Cook to the Lord Gope, with the perquisites
of that station, therefore that none other equals my talents." He looked
around truculently, saw no challengers. "And thus it is with us all."

"And if some varlet claims the place of any man here," put in Cagu,
"then he gotta submit to the Trial."

"Then," said Sime, pulling at his apron agitatedly, "this upstart pastry
cook must cook against me; and all in the Hall will judge; and he who
prevails is the Chief Pastry Cook, and the other takes a dozen lashes
for his impertinence."

"But fear not, Drgon," spoke Cagu. "A Chief Piper ain't but a
five-stroke man. Only a tutor is lower down among freemen. And anyway,
the good Soup-master had promised to take the lash for you."

There was a bellow from the door, and I grabbed my clarinet and
scrambled after the page. Owner Gope didn't like to wait around for
piper-slaves. I saw him looming up at his place, as I darted through to
my assigned position within the huge circle of the viand-loaded table.
The Chief Piper had just squeezed his bagpipe-like instrument and
released a windy blast of discordant sound. He was a lean, squint-eyed
creature, fond of ordering the slave-pipers about. He pranced in an
intricate pattern, pumping away at his vari-colored bladders, until I
winced at the screech of it. Owner Gope noticed him about the same time.
He picked up a heavy brass mug and half-rose to peg it at the Chief
Piper, who saw it just in time to duck. The mug hit a swollen air-bag; a
yellow one with green tassels; it burst with a sour bleat.

"As sweet a note as has been played tonight," roared Owner Gope.
"Begone, lest you call up the hill devils?"

His eye fell on me. "Here's Dugon, or Digen," he cried. "Now here's a
true piper. Summon up a fair melody, Dogron, to clear the fumes of the
last performer from the air before the wine sours."

I bowed low, wet my lips, and launched into the /One O' Clock Jump/. To
judge from the roar that went up when I finished, they liked it. I
followed with /Little Brown Jug /and/ String of Pearls/. Gope pounded
and the table quieted down.

"The rarest slave in all Rath-Gallion, I swear it," he bellowed. "Were
he not a slave, I'd drink his health."

"By your leave, Owner?" I said.

Gope stared, then nodded indulgently. "Speak then, Dugong," he said.

"I claim the place of Chief Piper. I?"

Yells rang out; Gope grinned widely.

"So be it," he said. "Shall the vote be taken now, or must we submit to
more of the vile bladderings ere we proclaim our good Dagron Chief Piper?"

"Proclaim him!" somebody shouted.

"There must be a Trial," another offered dubiously.

Gope slammed a huge hand against the table. "Bring Lylk, the Chief
Piper, before me," he yelled. "He of the wretched air-skins."

The Piper reappeared, fingering his bladders nervously.

"The place of the Chief Piper is declared vacant," Gope said loudly. The
piper pinched a pink bladder, which emitted a thin squeak.

"?since the former Chief Piper has been advanced in degree to a new
office," continued Gope. A blue bladder moaned, lost amid yells and cheers.

"Let these air-bags be punctured," Gope cried. "I banish their rancid
squeals forever from Rath-Gallion. Now, let all know: this former piper
is now Chief Fool to this household. Let him wear the broken bladders as
a sign of his office." There was a roar of laughter, glad cries,
whistles. Volunteers leaped to rip the colored air-bags; they died in a
final flurry of trills and flutters. A fool-slave tied the draggled
instrument to the ex-piper's head.

I gave them /Mairzy Doats/ and the former piper capered gingerly. Owner
Gope roared with laughter. I followed with /The Dipsy Doodle/ and the
new fool, encouraged by success, leaped and grimaced, pirouetted,
strutted, bladders bobbing; the crowd laughed until the tears flowed.

"A great day for Rath-Gallion," Gope shouted. "By the horns of the
sea-god, I have gained a prince of pipers and a king of fools! I
proclaim them to be ten-lash men, and both shall have places at table
henceforth!"

The Fool and I followed up with three more numbers, then Gope let us
squeeze into a space on a hard bench at the far side of the table. A
table slave put loaded plates before us.

"Well done, good Drgon," he whispered. "Do not forget us slaves in your
new honor."

"Don't worry," I said, sniffing the aroma of a big slab of roast beef.
"I'll be sneaking down for a snack every night about Cinte-rise."

I looked around the barbarically decorated hall, seeing things in a new
way. There's nothing like a little slavery to make a man appreciate even
a modest portion of freedom. Everything I had thought I knew about
Vallon had been wrong: the centuries that had passed had changed
things?and not for the better. The old society that Foster knew was dead
and buried. The old palaces and villas lay deserted, the spaceports
unused. And the old system of memory-recording that Foster described was
lost and forgotten. I didn't know what kind of a cataclysm could have
plunged the seat of a galactic empire back into feudal darkness?but it
had happened.

So far I hadn't found a trace of Foster. My questions had gotten me
nothing but blank stares. Maybe Foster hadn't made it; there could have
been an accident in space. Or perhaps he was somewhere on the opposite
side of the world. Vallon was a big planet and communications were poor.
Maybe Foster was dead. I could live out a long life here and never find
the answers.

I remembered my own disappointment at the breakdown of my illusions that
night at Okk-Hamiloth. How much more heartbreaking must have been
Foster's experience when and if he had arrived back here. And now we
were both in the same boat: with our memories of the old Vallon and the
dreary spectacle of the new providing plenty of food for bitterness.

And Foster's memory that I had been bringing him for a keepsake: what a
laugh that was! Far from being a superfluous duplicate of a master trace
to which he had expected easy access, my copy of the trace was now, with
the vaults at Okk-Hamiloth sealed and forbidden, of the greatest
possible importance to Foster?and there wasn't a machine left on the
planet to play it on.

Well, I still meant to find Foster if it took me?

Owner Gope was humming loudly and tunelessly to himself. I knew the
sign. I got ready to play again. Being Chief Piper probably wasn't going
to be just one big bowl of cherries, but at least I wasn't a slave now.
I had a long way to go, but I was making progress.

* * *

Owner Gope and I got along well. He was a shrewd old duck and he liked
having such an unusual piper on hand. He had heard from the Greymen, the
free-lance police force, how I had landed at the deserted port. He
warned me, in an oblique way, not to let word get out that I knew
anything about old times in Vallon. The whole subject was
taboo?especially the old capital city and the royal palaces themselves.
Small wonder that my trespassing there had brought the Greymen down on
me in doublequick time.

Gope took me with him everywhere he went: by air-car, ground-car, or
formal river barge. There were still a lot of vehicles around, though
few people seemed to know how to use them, simple as they were to
operate. The air-cars were more useful, since they required no roads,
but Gope preferred the ground cars. I think he liked the sensation of
speed you got barreling along at ninety or a hundred on one of the
still-perfect roads that had originally been intended merely as scenic
drives.

One afternoon several months after my promotion I dropped in at the
kitchen. I was due to shove off with Owner Gope and his usual retinue
for a visit to Bar-Ponderone, a big estate a hundred miles north of
Rath-Gallion in the direction of Okk-Hamiloth. Sime and my other old
cronies fixed me up with a healthy lunch, and warned me that it would be
a rough trip; the stretch of road we'd be using was a favorite hang-out
of road pirates.

"What I don't understand," I said, "is why Gope doesn't mount a couple
of guns on the car and blast his way through the raiders. Every time he
goes off the Estate he's taking his life in his hands."

The boys were shocked. "Even piratical renegades would never dream of
taking a man's life, good Drgon," Sime said. "Every Owner, far and near,
would band together to hunt such miscreants down. And their own fellows
would abet the hunters! Nay, none is so low as to steal all a man's lives."

"The corsairs themselves know full well that in their next life they may
be simple goodmen?even slaves," the Chief Wine-Pourer put in. "For you
know, good Drgon, that when a member of a pirate band suffers the Change
the others lead the newman to an Estate, that he may find his place . . ."

"How often do these Changes come along?" I asked.

"It varies greatly. Some men, of great strength and moral power, have
been known to go on unchanged for three or four hundred years. But the
ordinary man lives a life of eighty to one hundred years." Sime paused.
"Or it may be less. A life of travail and strife can age one sooner than
one of peace and retirement. Or unusual vicissitudes can shorten a life
remarkably. A cousin of mine, who was marooned on the Great Stony Place
in the southern half-world and who wandered for three weeks without more
to eat or drink than a small bag of wine, underwent the Change after
only fourteen years. When he was found his face was lined and his hair
had greyed, in the way that presages the Change. And it was not long
before he fell in a fit, as one does, and slept for a night and a day.
When he awoke he was a newman: young and knowing nothing."

"Didn't you tell him who he was?"

"Nay!" Sime lowered his voice. "You are much favored of Owner Gope, good
Drgon, and rightly. Still, there are matters a man talks not of?"

"A newman takes a name and sets out to learn whatever trade he can," put
in the Carver of Roasts. "By his own skills he can rise . . . as you
have risen, good Drgon."

"Don't you have memory machines?or briefing rods?" I persisted. "Little
black sticks: you touch them to your head and?"

Sime made a motion in the air. "I have heard of these wands: a forbidden
relic of the Black Arts?"

"Nuts," I said. "You don't believe in magic, do you, Sime? The rods are
nothing but a scientific development by your own people. How you've
managed to lose all knowledge of your own past?"

Sime raised his hands in distress. "Good Drgon, press us not in these
matters. Such things are forbidden."

"Okay, boys. I guess I'm just nosy."

I went out to the car and climbed in to wait for Owner Gope. Trying to
learn anything about Vallon's history was about like questioning a
village of Eskimos about the great trek over from Asia: they didn't know
anything.

I had reached a few tentative conclusions on my own, however. My theory
was that some sudden social cataclysm had broken down the system of
personality reinforcement and memory recording that had given continuity
to the culture. Vallonian society, based as it was on the techniques of
memory preservation, had gradually disintegrated. Vallon was plunged
into a feudal state resembling its ancient social pattern of fifty
thousand years earlier, prior to the development of memory recording.

The people, huddled together on Estates for protection from real or
imagined perils and shunning the old villas and cities as taboo?except
for those included in Estates?knew nothing of space travel and ancient
history. Like Sime, they had no wish even to speak of such matters.

I might have better luck with my detective work on a big Estate like
Bar-Ponderone. I was looking forward to today's trip. I was cramped on
Rath-Gallion. It was a small, poor Estate, covering only about twenty
square miles, with half a dozen villages of farmers and craftsmen and
the big house of Owner Gope. I had seen all of it?and it was a dead end.

Gope appeared, with Cagu and two other bodyguards, four dancing girls,
and an extra-large gift hamper. They took their places and the driver
started up and wheeled the heavy car out onto the highroad. I felt a
pulse of excitement as we accelerated in the direction of Bar-Ponderone.
Maybe at the big Estate I'd get news of Foster.

We were doing about fifty down a winding mountain road. I was in the
front seat beside the driver, fiddling with my clarinet, and watching
the road from the corner of my eye. I was wishing the driver's knuckles
didn't show white on the speed control lever. He drove like a drunken
spinster, fast but nervous. It wasn't entirely his fault: Gope insisted
on plenty of speed. I was grateful for the auto steer mechanism; at
least we couldn't drive over a cliff.

We rounded a curve, the wheels screeching from the driver's awkward,
too-fast swing into the turn, and saw another car in the road a quarter
of a mile ahead, not moving but parked?sideways. The driver hit the brakes.

Behind us Owner Gope yelled, "Pirates! Don't slacken your pace, driver."

"But, but, Owner Gope?" the driver gasped.

"Ram the blackguards, if you must!" Gope shouted. "But don't stop!"

The girls in the back yelped in alarm. The flunkies set up a wail. The
driver rolled his eyes, almost lost control, then gritted his teeth,
reached out to switch off the anti-collision circuit and slam the speed
control lever against the dash. I watched for two long heartbeats as we
roared straight for the blockading car, then I slid over and grabbed for
the controls. The driver held on, frozen. I reared back and clipped him
on the jaw. He crumpled into his corner, mouth open and eyes screwed
shut, as I hit the auto-steer override and worked the tiller. It was an
awkward position for steering, but I preferred it to hammering in at
ninety per.

The car ahead was still sitting tight, now a hundred yards away, now
fifty. I cut hard to the right, toward the rising cliff face; the car
backed to block me. At the last instant I whipped to the left, barreled
past with half an inch to spare, rocketed along the ragged edge with the
left wheel rolling on air, then whipped back into the center of the road.

"Well done!" yelled Cagu.

"But they'll give chase!" Gope shouted. "Assassins! Masterless swine!"

The driver had his eyes open now. "Crawl over me!" I barked. He mumbled
and clambered past me and I slid into his seat, still clinging to the
accelerator lever and putting up the speed. Another curve was coming up.
I grabbed a quick look in the rear-viewer: the pirates were swinging
around to follow us.

"Press on!" commanded Gope. "We're close to Bar-Ponderone; it's no more
than five miles?"

"What kind of speed have they got?" I called back.

"They'll beat us easy," said Cagu cheerfully.

"What's the road like ahead?"

"A fair road, straight and true, now that we've descended the mountain",
answered Gope.

We squealed through the turn and hit a straightaway. A curving road
branched off ahead. "What's that?" I snapped.

"A winding trail," gasped the driver. "It comes on Bar-Ponderone, but by
a longer way."

I gauged my speed, braked minutely, and cut hard. We howled up the steep
slope, into a turn between hills.

Gope shouted. "What madness is this?! Are you in league with the
villains . . . ?"

"We haven't got a chance on the straightaway," I called back. "Not in a
straight speed contest." I whipped the tiller over, then back the other
way, following the tight S-curves. We flashed past magnificent vistas of
rugged peaks and rolling plains, but I didn't have time to admire the
view. There were squeals from the odalisques in the rear seats, a gabble
of excited talk. I caught a glimpse of our pursuers, just heading into
the side road behind us.

"Any way they can head us off?" I yelled.

"Not unless they have confederates stationed ahead," said Gope, "but
these pariahs work alone."

I worked the brake and speed levers, handled the tiller. We swung right,
then left, higher and higher, then down a steep grade and up again. The
pirate car rounded a turn, only a few hundred yards behind now. I
scanned the road ahead, followed its winding course along the
mountainside, through a tunnel, then out again to swing around the
shoulder of the next peak.

"Pitch something out when we go through the tunnel!" I yelled. "Anything!"

"My cloak," cried Gope. "And the gift hamper."

One of the flunkies started to moan. The girls caught the fever, joined
in with shrill lamentations.

"Silence!" roared Gope. "Lend a hand here, or by the sea-devil's beard
you'll be jettisoned with the rest!"

We roared into the tunnel mouth. There was a blast of air as the rear
deck cover opened. Gope and Cagu hefted the heavy gift hamper, tumbled
it out, followed it with a cloak, a wine jug, assorted sandals,
bracelets, fruit. Then we were back in the sunlight and I was fighting
the curve. In the rear-viewer I saw the pirates burst from the tunnel
mouth, Gope's black and yellow cloak spread over the canopy, smashed
fruit spattered over it, the remains of the hamper dragging under the
chassis. The car rocked and a corner of the cloak lifted, clearing the
driver's view barely in time.

"Tough luck," I said. "We've got a long straight stretch ahead, and I'm
fresh out of ideas . . ."

The other car gained. I held the speed bar against the dash but we were
up against a faster car; it was a hundred yards behind us, then fifty,
then pulling out to go alongside. I slowed imperceptibly, let him get
his front wheels past us, then cut sharply. There was a clash of wheel
fairings, and I fought the tiller as we rebounded from the heavier car.
He crept forward, almost alongside again; shoulder to shoulder we raced
at ninety-five down the steep grade . . . 

I hit the brakes and cut hard to the left, slapped his right rear wheel,
slid back. He braked too; that was a mistake. The heavy car lost
traction, sliding. In slow motion, off-balanced in a skid, it rose on
its nose, plowing up a cloud of dust. The hamper whirled away, the cloak
fluttered and was gone, then the pirate car seemed to float for an
instant in air, before it dropped, wheels up, out of sight over the
sheer cliff. We raced alone down the slope and out onto the wooded plain
toward the towers of Bar-Ponderone.

A shout went up; Owner Gope leaned forward to pound my back. "By the
nine eyes of the Hill Devil!" he bellowed, "masterfully executed! The
prince of Pipers is a prince of Drivers too! This night you'll sit by my
side at the ring-board at Bar-Ponderone in the rank of a hundred-lash
Chief Driver, I swear it!"

"Compared with making a left turn off the Outer Drive at 5:15 on a
Friday, that was nothing," I said. I held onto the tiller and tried
breathing again. I'd been a fool to try to flip a heavier car?but it had
worked. And now I'd gotten another promotion. I was doing okay.

"And let no man raise a charge of Assassination," Gope went on. "I'll
not see so clever a Driver-Piper immured. I charge you all: say nothing
of this! We'll consider that the rascals merely outdid themselves in
their villainy."

That was the first I'd thought of that angle. To take a human life was
still the one unthinkable crime in this world of immortals?because you
took not just one, but all a man's lives. The punishment was walling up
for life . . . but just one life. In my case one would be enough; I
didn't have any spares. I had taken a bigger chance with Gope than I had
with the pirates.

Life here was a series of gambles, but it looked like the chance-takers
got ahead fast. My best bet was to stay on the make and calculate the
odds when it was over.

* * *

I spent the first day at Bar-Ponderone rubber-necking the tall buildings
and keeping an eye open for Foster, on the off chance that I might pass
him on the street. It was about as likely as running into an old high
school chum from Perth Amboy among the body servants of the Shah of
Afghanistan, but I kept looking.

By sunset I was no wiser than before. Dressed in the latest in Vallonian
cape and ruffles, I was sitting with my buddy Cagu, Chief Bodyguard to
Owner Gope, at a small table on the first terrace at the Palace of
Merrymaking, Bar-Ponderone's biggest community feasting hall. It looked
like a Hollywood producer's idea of a twenty-first century night club,
complete with nine dance floors on five levels, indoor pools, fountains,
two thousand tables, musicians, girls, noise, colored lights, and food
fit for an Owner. It was open to all fifty-lash goodmen of the Estate
and to guests of equivalent rank. After the back-country life at
Rath-Gallion it looked like the big time to me.

Cagu was a morose-looking old cuss, but good-hearted. His face was cut
and scarred from a thousand encounters with other bodyguards and his
nose had been broken so often that it was invisible in profile.

"Where do you manage to get in all the fights, Cagu?" I asked him. "I've
known you for three months, and I haven't seen a blow struck in anger yet."

"Here." He grinned, showing me some broken front teeth. "Swell places,
these big Estates, good Drgon; lotsa action."

"What do you do, get in street fights?"

"Nah. The boys show up down here, tank up, cruise around, you know."

"They start fights here in the dining room?"

"Sure. Good crowd here; lotsa laughs."

I picked up my drink, raised it to Cagu?and got it in my lap as somebody
jostled my arm. I looked up. A battle-scarred thug stood over me.

"Who'sa punk, Cagu?" he said in a hoarse whisper. He probed at a back
tooth with a silver pick, rolled his eyes from me to my partner.

Cagu stood up, and threw a punch to the other plug-ugly's paunch. He
/oof!/ed, clinched, eyed me resentfully over Cagu's shoulder. Cagu
pushed him away, held him at arm's length.

"Howsa boy, Mull?" he said. "Lay offa my sidekick; greatest little piper
ina business, and a top driver too."

Mull rubbed his stomach, sat down beside me. "Ya losin' your punch,
Cagu." He looked at me. "Sorry about that. I thought you was one of the
guys." He signaled a passing waiter-slave. "Bring my friend a new suit.
Make it snappy."

"Don't the customers kind of resent it when you birds stage a
heavyweight bout in the aisle?" I asked. "A drink in the lap is routine.
It could happen in any joint in Manhattan. But a seven-course meal would
be overdoing it."

"Nah; we move down inta the Spot." He waved a thumb in the general
direction of somewhere else. He looked me over. "Where ya been, Piper?
Your first time ina Palace?"

"Drgon's been traveling," said Cagu. "He's okay. Lemme tell ya the time
these pirates pull one, see . . ."

Cagu and Mull swapped lies while I worked on my drinking. Although I
hadn't learned anything on my day's looking around at Bar-Ponderone, it
was still a better spot for snooping than Rath-Gallion. There were two
major cities on the Estate and scores of villages. Somewhere among the
populace I might have better luck finding someone to talk history
with . . . or someone who knew Foster.

"Hey!" growled Mull. "Look who's comin'."

I followed his gaze. Three thick-set thugs swaggered up to the table.
One of them, a long-armed gorilla at least seven feet tall, reached out,
took Cagu and Mull by the backs of their necks, and cracked their skulls
together. I jumped up, ducked a hoof-like fist . . . and saw a beautiful
burst of fireworks followed by soothing darkness.

* * *

I fumbled in the dark with the lengths of cloth entangling my legs, sat
up, cracked my head?

I groaned, freed a leg from the chair rungs, groped my way out from
under the table. A Waiter-slave helped me up, dusted me off. The
seven-foot lout lolling in a chair glanced my way, nodded.

"You shouldn't hang out with lugs like that Mull," he said. "Cagu told
me you was just a piper, but the way you come outa that chair?" He
shrugged, turned back to whatever he was watching.

I checked a few elbow and knee joints, worked my jaw, tried my neck: all
okay.

"You the one that slugged me?" I asked.

"Huh? Yeah."

I stepped over to his chair, picked a spot, and cleared my throat. "Hey,
you," I said. He turned, and I put everything I had behind a straight
right to the point of the jaw. He went over, feet in the air, flipped a
rail, and crashed down between two tables below. I leaned over the rail.
A party of indignant Tally-clerks stared up at me.

"Sorry, folks," I said. "He slipped."

A shout went up from the floor some distance away. I looked. In a
cleared circle two levels below a pair of heavy-shouldered men were
slugging it out. One of them was Cagu. I watched, saw his opponent fall.
Another man stepped in to take his place. I turned and made my way down
to the ringside.

Cagu exchanged haymakers with two more opponents before he folded and
was hauled from the ring. I propped him up in a chair, fitted a drink
into his fist, and watched the boys pound each other. It was easy to see
why the scarred face was the sign of their craft; there was no defensive
fighting whatever. They stood toe-to-toe and hit as hard as they could,
until one collapsed. It wasn't fancy, but the fans loved it. Cagu came
to after a while and filled me in on the fighters' backgrounds.

"So they're all top boys," he said. "But it ain't like in the old days
when I was in my prime. I could've took any three of these bums. The
only one maybe I woulda had a little trouble with is Torbu."

"Which one is he?"

"He ain't down there yet; he'll show to take on the last boys on their
feet."

More gladiators pushed their way to the Spot, pulled off gaily-patterned
cloaks and weskits, and waded in. Others folded, were dragged clear,
revived to down another shot and cheer on the fray.

After an hour the waiting line had dwindled away to nothing. The two
battlers on the Spot slugged, clinched, breathed hard, swung and missed;
the crowd booed.

"Where's Torbu?" Cagu wondered.

"Maybe he didn't come tonight," I said.

"Sure, you met him; he knocked you under the table."

"Oh, him?"

"Where'd he go?"

"The last I saw he was asleep on the floor," I said.

"Hozzat?"

"I didn't much like him slugging me. I clobbered him one."

"Hey!" yelped Cagu. His face lit up. He got to his feet.

"Hold it," I said. "What's??"

Cagu pushed his way through to the Spot, took aim, and floored the
closest fighter, turned and laid out the other. He raised both hands
over his head.

"Rath-Gallion gotta Champion," he bellowed. "Rath-Gallion takes on all
comers." He turned, waved to me. "Our boy, Drgon, he?"

There was a bellow behind me, even louder than Cagu's. I turned, saw
Torbu, his hair mussed, his face purple, pushing through the crowd.

"Jussa crummy minute," he yelled. "I'm the Champion around here?" He
aimed a haymaker at Cagu; Cagu ducked.

"Our boy, Drgon, laid you out cold, right?" he shouted. "So now he's the
champion."

"I wasn't set," bawled Torbu. "A lucky punch." He turned to the fans.
"I'm tying my shoelace, see? And this guy?"

"Come on down, Drgon," Cagu called, waving to me again. "We'll show?"
Torbu turned and slammed a roundhouse right to the side of Cagu's jaw;
the old fighter hit the floor hard, skidded, lay still. I got to my
feet. They pulled him to the nearest table, hoisted him into a chair. I
made my way down to the little clearing in the crowd. A man bending over
Cagu straightened, face white. I pushed him aside, grabbed the
bodyguard's wrist. There was no pulse. Cagu was dead.

Torbu stood in the center of the Spot, mouth open. "What . . . ?" he
started. I pushed between two fans, went for him. He saw me, crouched,
swung.

I ducked, uppercut him. He staggered back. I pressed him, threw lefts
and rights to the body, ducked under his wild swings, then rocked his
head left and right. He stood, knees together, eyes glazed, hands down.
I measured him, right-crossed his jaw; he dropped like a log.

Panting, I looked across at Cagu. His scarred face, white as wax, was
strangely altered now; it looked peaceful. Somebody helped Torbu to his
feet, walked him to the ringside. It had been a big evening. Now all I
had to do was take the body home . . . 

I went over to where Cagu was laid out on the floor. Shocked people
stood staring. Torbu was beside the body. A tear ran down his nose,
dripped on Cagu's face. Torbu wiped it away with a big scarred hand.

"I'm sorry, old friend," he said. "I didn't mean it."

I picked Cagu up and got him over my shoulder, and all the way to the
far exit it was so quiet in the Palace of Merrymaking that I could hear
my own heavy breathing and the tinkle of fountains and the squeak of my
fancy yellow plastic shoes.

* * *

In the bodyguards' quarters I laid Cagu out on a bunk, then faced the
dozen scowling bruisers who stared down at the still body.

"Cagu was a good man," I said. "Now he's dead. He died like an
animal . . . for nothing. That ended all his lives, didn't it, boys? How
do you like it?"

Mull glowered at me. "You talk like we was to blame," he said. "Cagu was
my compeer too."

"Whose pal was he a thousand years ago?" I snapped. "What was he?once?
What were you? Vallon wasn't always like this. There was a time when
every man was his own Owner?"

"Look, you ain't of the Brotherhood?" one thug started.

"So that's what you call it? But it's just another name for an old
racket. A big shot sets himself up as dictator?"

"We got our Code," Mull said. "Our job is to stick up for the
Owner . . . and that don't mean standing around listening to some
japester callin' names."

"I'm not calling names," I snapped. "I'm talking rebellion. You boys
have all the muscle and most of the guts in this organization. Why do
you sit on your tails and let the boss live off the fat while you murder
each other for the amusement of the patrons? I say let's pay him a
call?right now. You had a birthright . . .  once. But it's up to you to
collect it . . . before some more of you go the way Cagu did."

There was an angry mutter. Torbu came in, face swollen. I backed up to a
table, ready for trouble.

"Hold it, you birds," Torbu said. "What's goin' on?"

"This guy! He's talkin' revolt and treason," somebody said.

"He wants we should pull some rough stuff?on Owner Qohey hisself."

Torbu came up to me. "You're a stranger around Bar-Ponderone. Cagu said
you was okay. You worked me over pretty good . . . and I got no hard
feelin's; that's the breaks. But don't try to start no trouble here. We
got our Code and our Brotherhood. We look out for each other; that's
good enough for us. Owner Qohey ain't no worse than any other
Owner . . . and by the code, we'll stand by him!"

"Listen to me," I said. "I know the history of Vallon: I know what you
were once and what you could be again. All you have to do is take over
the power. I can lead you to the ship I came here in. There are briefing
rods aboard, enough to show you?"

"That's enough," Torbu broke in. He made a cabalistic sign in the air.
"We ain't gettin' mixed up in no taboo ghost-boats or takin' on no
magicians and demons?"

"Hogwash! That taboo routine is just a gag to keep you away from the
cities so you won't discover what you're missing?"

"I don't wanna hafta take you to the Greymen, Drgon," Torbu growled.
"Leave it lay."

"These cities," I plowed on. "They're standing there, empty, as perfect
as the day they were built. And you live in these flea-bitten quarters,
jammed inside the town walls, so the Greymen and renegades won't get you."

"You wanna run things here?" Mull put in. "Go see Qohey."

"Let's all go see Qohey!" I said.

"That's something you'll have to do alone," said Torbu. "You better move
on, Drgon. I ain't turnin' you in; I know how you felt about Cagu
getting' killed and all?but don't push it too far."

I knew I was licked. They were as stubborn as a team of mules?and just
about as smart.

Torbu motioned; I followed him outside.

"You wanna turn things upside-down, don't you? I know how it is; you
ain't the first guy to get ideas. We can't help you. Sure, things ain't
like they used to be here?and prob'ly they never were. But we got a
legend: someday the Rthr will come back . . . and then the Good Time
will come back too."

"What's the Rthr?" I said.

"Kinda like a big-shot Owner. There ain't no Rthr now. But a long time
ago, back when our first lives started, there was a Rthr that was Owner
of all Vallon, and everybody lived high, and had all their lives . . ."
Torbu stopped, eyed me warily.

"Don't say nothing to nobody," he went on, "about what I been tellin'
you. That's a secret of the Brotherhood. But it's kind of like a hope we
got?that's what we're waitin' for, through all our lives. We got to do
the best we can, and keep true to the Code and the Brotherhood . . . and
someday the Rthr will come back . . . maybe."

"Okay," I said. "Dream on, big boy. And while you're treasuring your
rosy dreams you'll get your brains kicked out, like Cagu." I turned away.

"Listen, Drgon. It's no good buckin' the system: it's too big for one
guy . . . or even a bunch of guys . . .  but?"

I looked up. "Yeah?"

" . . . if you gotta stick your neck out?see Owner Gope." Abruptly Torbu
turned and pushed back through the door.

See Owner Gope, huh? Okay, what did I have to lose? I headed back along
the corridor toward Owners' country.

* * *

I stood in the middle of the deep-pile carpet in Gope's suite, trying to
keep my temper hot enough to supply the gall I needed to bust in on an
Owner in the middle of the night. He sat in his ceremonial chair and
stared at me impassively.

"With your help or without it," I said, "I'm going to find the answer."

"Yes, good Drgon," he said, not bellowing for once. "I understand. But
there are matters you know not of?"

"Just get me back into the spaceport, noble Gope. I have enough briefing
rods aboard to prove my point?and a few other little items to boot."

"It's forbidden. Do you not understand?"

"I understand too much," I snapped.

He straightened, eyed me with a touch of the old ferocity. "Mind your
tone, Drgon! I'm Owner?"

I broke in. "Do you remember Cagu? Maybe you remember him as a newman,
young, handsome, like a god out of some old legend. You've seen him live
his life. Was it a good life? Did the promise of youth ever get paid off?"

Gope closed his eyes. "Stop," he said. "This is bad, bad . . ."

" 'And the deaths they died I have watched beside, and the lives they
led were mine,' " I quoted. "Are you proud of them? And what about
yourself? Don't you ever wonder what you might have been . . . back in
the Good Time?"

"Who are you?" asked Gope, his eyes fixed on mine. "You speak Old
Vallonian, you rake up the forbidden knowledge, and challenge the very
Powers . . ." He got to his feet. "I could have you immured, Drgon. I
could hand you to the Greymen, for a fate I shudder to name." He turned
and walked the length of the room restlessly, then turned back to me and
stopped.

"Matters stand ill with this fair world," he said. "Legend tells us that
once men lived as the High Gods on Vallon. There was once a mighty
Owner, Rthr of all Vallon. It is whispered that he will come again?"

"Your legends are all true. You can take my word for that! But that
doesn't mean some supernatural sugar daddy is going to come along and
bail you out. And don't get the idea I think I'm the fabled answer to
prayers. All I mean is that once upon a time Vallon was a good place to
live and it could be again. Right now, it's like a land under an
enchantment?and you sleeping beauties need waking up. Your cities and
roads and ships are still here, intact. But nobody knows how to run them
and you're all afraid to try. Who scared you off? Who started the
rumors? What broke down the memory recording system? Why can't we all go
to Okk-Hamiloth and use the Archives to give everybody back what he's lost?"

"These are dread words," said Gope.

"There must be somebody behind it. Or there was once. Who is he?"

Gope thought. "There is one man pre-eminent among us: the Great Owner,
Owner of Owners: Ommodurad by name. Where he dwells I know not. This is
a secret possessed only by his intimates."

"What does he look like? How do I get to see him?"

Gope shook his head. "I have seen him but once, closely cowled. He is a
tall man, and silent. 'Tis said?" Gope lowered his voice, "?by his black
arts he possesses all his lives. An aura of dread hangs about him?"

"Never mind that jazz," I said. "He's a man, like other men. Stick a
knife between his ribs and you put an end to him, aura and all."

"I do not like this talk of death. Let the doer of evil deeds be
immured; it is sufficient."

"First let's find him. How can I get close to him?"

"There are those Owners who are his confidants," said Gope, "his trusted
agents. It is through them that we small Owners learn of his will."

"Can we enlist one of them?"

"Never. They are bound to him by ties of darkness, spells and incantations."

"I'm a fast man with a pair of loaded dice myself. It's all done with
mirrors. Let's stick to the point, noble Gope. How can I work into a
spot with one of these big shots?"

"Nothing easier. A Driver and Piper of such skills as your own can claim
what place he chooses."

"How about bodyguarding? Suppose I could take a heavy named Torbu; would
that set me in better with a new Owner?"

"Such is no place for a man of your abilities, good Drgon," Gope
exclaimed. "True, 'tis a place most close to an Owner, but there is much
danger in it. The challenge to a bodyguard involves the most bloody
hand-to-hand combat, second only to the rigors of a challenge to an
Owner himself."

"What's that?" I snapped. "Challenge an Owner?"

"Be calm, good Drgon," said Gope, staring at me incredulously. "No
common man with his wits about him will challenge an Owner."

"But I could if I wanted to?"

"In sooth . . . if you have tired of life?of all your lives; 'tis as
good a way to end them as another. But you must know, good Drgon: an
Owner is a warrior trained in the skills of battle. None less than
another such may hope to prevail."

I smacked my fist into my palm. "I should have thought of this sooner!
The cooks cook for their places, the pipers pipe . . . and the best man
wins. It figures that the Owners would use the same system. But what's
the procedure, noble Gope? How do you get your chance to prove who can
own the best?"

"It is a contest with naked steel. It is the measure and glory of an
Owner that he alone stands ready to prove his quality against the peril
of death itself." Gope drew himself up with pride.

"What about the bodyguards?" I asked. "They fight?"

"With their hands, good Drgon. And they lack skill with those. A death
such as you described tonight?that is a rare and sorry accident."

"It showed up this whole grubby farce in its true colors. A civilization
like that of Vallon?reduced to this."

"Still, it is sweet to live?by whatever rules?"

"I don't believe that . . . and neither do you. What Owner can I
challenge? How do I go about it?"

"Give up this course, good Drgon?"

"Where's the nearest buddy of the Big Owner?"

Gope threw up his hands. "Here, at Bar-Ponderone. Owner Qohey. But?"

"And how do I call his bluff?"

Gope put a hand on my shoulder. "It is no bluff, good Drgon. It is long
now since last Owner Qohey stood to his blade to protect his place, but
you may be sure he has lost none of his skill. Thus it was he won his
way to Bar-Ponderone, while lesser knights, such as myself, contented
themselves with meaner fiefs."

"I'm not bluffing either, noble Gope," I said, stretching a point. "I
was no harness-maker in the Good Time."

"It is your death?"

"Tell me how I offer the challenge . . . or I'll twist his nose in the
main banqueting salon tomorrow night."

Gope sat down heavily, raised his hands, and let them fall. "If I tell
you not, another will. But I will not soon find another Piper of your
worth."


      *Chapter Fifteen*

Gaudy hangings of purple cut the light of the sun to a rich gloom in the
enormous, high-vaulted Audience Hall. A rustling murmur was audible in
the room as uneasy courtiers and supplicants fidgeted, waiting for the
appearance of the Owner.

It had been two months since Gope had explained to me how a formal
challenge to an Owner was conducted, and, as he pointed out, this was
the only kind of challenge that would help. If I waylaid the man and cut
him down, even in a fair fight, his bodyguards would repay the favor
before I could establish the claim that I was their legitimate new boss.

I had spent three hours every day in the armory at Rath-Gallion, trading
buffets with Gope and a couple of the bodyguards. The thirty-pound slab
of edged steel had felt right at home in my hand that first day?for
about a minute. I had the borrowed knowledge to give me all the
technique I needed, but the muscle power for putting the knowledge into
practice was another matter. After five minutes I was slumped against
the wall, gulping air, while Gope whistled his sticker around my head
and talked.

"You laid on like no piper, good Drgon. Yet have you much to learn in
the matter of endurance."

?And he was at me again. I spent the afternoon back-pedaling and making
wild two-handed swings and finally fell down?pooped. I couldn't have
moved if Gope had had at me with a hot poker.

Gope and the others laughed til they cried, then hauled me away to my
room and let me sleep. They rolled me out the next morning to go at it
again.

As Gope said, there was no time to waste . . . and after two months of
it I felt ready for anything. Gope had warned me that Owner Qohey was a
big fellow, but that didn't bother me. The bigger they came, the bigger
the target . . . 

There was a murmur in a different key in the Audience Hall and tall gilt
doors opened at the far side of the room. A couple of liveried flunkies
scampered into view, then a seven-foot man-eater stalked into the hall,
made his way to the dais, turned to face the crowd . . . 

He was enormous: his neck was as thick as my thigh, his features chipped
out of granite, the grey variety. He threw back his brilliant purple
cloak from his shoulders and reached out an arm like an oak root for the
ceremonial sword one of the flunkies was struggling with. He took the
sword with its sheath, sat down, and stood it between his feet, his arms
folded on top.

"Who has a grievance?" he spoke. The voice reverberated like the old
Wurlitzer at the Rialto back home.

This was my cue. There he was, just asking for it. All I had to do was
speak up. Owner Qohey would gladly oblige me. The fact that next to him
Primo Carnera would look dainty shouldn't slow me down.

I cleared my throat with a thin squeak, and edged forward, not very far.

"I have one little item?" I started.

Nobody was listening. Up front a big fellow in a black toga was pushing
through the crowd. Everybody turned to stare at him: there was a craning
of necks. The crowd drew back from the dais leaving an opening. The man
in black stepped into the clear, flung back the flapping garment from
his right arm, and whipped out a long polished length of razor-edged
iron. It was beginning to look like somebody had beaten me to the punch.

The newcomer stood there in front of Qohey with the naked blade making
all the threat that was needed. Qohey stared at him for a long moment,
then stood, gestured to a flunky. The flunky turned, cleared his throat.

"The place of Bar-Ponderone has been claimed!" he recited in a shrill
voice. "Let the issue be joined!" He skittered out of the way and Qohey
rose, threw aside his purple cloak and cowl, and stepped down. I pushed
forward to get a better look.

The challenger in black tossed his loose garment aside, stood facing
Qohey in a skin-tight jerkin and hose; heavy moccasins of soft leather
were laced up the calf. He was magnificently muscled but Qohey towered
over him like a tree, with a build that would have taken the Mr. Muscle
Beach title any time he cared to try for it.

I didn't know whether to be glad or sad that the initiative had been
taken out from under me. If the man in black won, I wondered would I
then be able to step in in turn and take him on? He was a lot smaller
than Qohey but there was always the chance . . . 

Qohey unsheathed his fancy iron and whirled it like it was a lady's
putter. I felt sorry for the smaller man, who was just standing,
watching him. He really didn't have a chance.

I had got through to the fore rank by now. The challenger turned and I
saw his face. I stopped dead, while fire bells clanged in my head.

The man in black was Foster.

* * *

In dead silence Qohey and Foster squared off, touched their sword points
to the floor in some kind of salute . . . and Qohey's slicer whipped up
in a vicious cut. Foster leaned aside, just far enough, then countered
with a flick that made Qohey jump back. I let out a long breath and
tried swallowing. Foster was like a terrier up against a bull, but it
didn't seem to bother him?only me. I had come light years to find him,
just in time to see him get his head lopped off.

Qohey's blade flashed, cutting at Foster's head. Foster hardly moved.
Almost effortlessly, it seemed, he interposed his heavy weapon between
the attacking steel and himself. /Clash, clang!/ Qohey hacked and
chopped . . . and Foster played with him. Then Foster's arm flashed out
and there was blood on Qohey's wrist. A gasp went up from the crowd. Now
Foster took a step forward, struck . . . and faltered! In an instant
Qohey was on him and the two men were locked, chest to chest. For a
moment Foster held, then Qohey's weight told, and Foster reeled back. He
tried to bring up the sword, seemed to struggle, then Qohey lashed out
again. Foster twisted, took the blow awkwardly just above the hand
guard, stumbled . . . and fell.

Qohey leaped to him, raised the sword?

I hauled mine half way out of its sheath and pushed forward.

"Let the man be put away from my sight," rumbled Qohey. He lowered his
immense sword, turned, pushed aside a flunky who had bustled up with a
wad of bandages. As he strode from the room a swarm of bodyguards fanned
out between the crowd and Foster. I could see him clumsily struggling to
rise, then I was shoved back, still craning for a glimpse. There was
something wrong here; Foster had acted like a man suddenly
half-paralyzed. Had Qohey doped him in some way?

The cordon stopped pushing, turned their backs to the crowd. I tugged at
the arm of the man beside me.

"Did you see anything strange there?" I started.

He pulled free. "Strange? Yea, the mercy of our Lord Qohey! Instead of
meting out death on the spot, our Owner was generous?"

"I mean about the fight." I grabbed his arm again to keep him from
moving off.

"That the impudent rascal would dare to claim the place of Owner at
Bar-Ponderone: there's wonder enough for any man," he snapped. "Unhand
me, fellow!"

I unhanded him and tried to collect my wits. What now? I tapped a
bodyguard on the shoulder. He whirled, club in hand.

"What's to be the fate of the man?" I asked.

"Like the Boss said: they're gonna immure the bum for his pains."

"You mean wall him up?"

"Yeah. Just a peep hole to pass chow in every day . . . so's he don't
starve, see?" The bodyguard chuckled.

"How long??"

"He'll last; don't worry. After the Change, Owner Qohey's got a newman?"

"Shut up," another bruiser said.

The crowd was slowly thinning. The bodyguards were relaxing, standing in
pairs, talking. Two servants moved about where the fight had taken
place, making mystical motions in the air above the floor. I edged
forward, watching them. They seemed to be plucking imaginary flowers.
Strange . . . 

I moved even farther forward to take a closer look, then saw a tiny
glint . . . A servant hurried across, made gestures. I pushed him aside,
groped . . . and my fingers encountered a delicate filament of wire. I
pulled it in, swept up more. The servants had stopped and stood watching
me, muttering. The whole area of the combat was covered with invisible
wires, looping up in coils two feet high.

No wonder Foster had stumbled, had trouble raising his sword. He had
been netted, encased in a mesh of incredibly fine tough wire . . . and
in the dim light even the crowd twenty feet away hadn't seen it. Owner
Qohey was a good man with the chopper but he didn't rely on that alone
to hold onto his job.

I put my hand on my sword hilt, chewed my lower lip. I had found
Foster . . . but it wouldn't do me?or Vallon?much good. He was on his
way to the dungeons, to be walled up until the next Change. And it would
be three months before I could legally make another try for Qohey's
place. After seeing him in action I was glad I hadn't tried today. He
wouldn't have needed any net to handle me.

I would have to spend the next three months working on my swordplay, and
hope Foster could hold out. Maybe I could sneak a message?

A heavy blow on the back sent me spinning. Four bodyguards moved to ring
me in, clubs in hand. They were strangers to me, but across the room I
saw Torbu looming, looking my way . . . 

"I saw him; he started to pull that fancy sword," said one of the guards.

"He was asking me questions?"

"Unbuckle it and drop it," another ordered me. "Don't try anything!"

"What's this all about?" I said. "I have a right to wear a Ceremonial
Sword at an Audience?"

"Move in, boys!" The four men stepped toward me, the clubs came up. I
warded off a smashing blow with my left arm, took a blinding crack
across the face, felt myself going down?another blow and another:
killing ones . . . 

Then I was aware of being dragged, endlessly, of voices barking sharp
questions, of pain . . . After a long time it was dark, and silent, and
I slept.

* * *

I groaned and the sound was dead, muffled. I put out a hand and touched
stone on my right. My left elbow touched stone. I made an instinctive
move to sit up and smacked my head against more stone. My new room was
confining. Gingerly I felt my face . . . and winced at the touch. The
bridge of my nose felt different: it was lower than it used to be, in
spite of the swelling. I lay back and traced the pattern of pain. There
was the nose?smashed flat?with secondary aches around the eyes. They'd
be beautiful shiners, if I could see them. Now the left arm: it was
curled close to my side and when I moved it I saw why: it wasn't broken,
but the shoulder wasn't right, and there was a deep bruise above the
elbow. My knees and shins, as far as I could reach, were caked with
dried blood. That figured: I remembered being dragged.

I tried deep-breathing; my chest seemed to be okay. My hands worked. My
teeth were in place. Maybe I wasn't as sick as I felt.

But where the hell was I? The floor was hard, cold. I needed a big soft
bed and a little soft nurse and a hot meal and a cold drink . . . 

Foster! I cracked my head again and flopped back, groaned some more. It
still sounded pretty dead.

I swallowed, licked my lips, felt a nice split that ran well into the
bristles. I had attended the Audience clean-shaven. Quite a few hours
must have passed since then. They had taken Foster away to immure him,
somebody said. Then the guards had tapped me, worked me over . . . 

Immured! I got a third crack on the head. Suddenly it was hard to
breathe. I was walled up, sealed away from the light, buried under the
foundations of the giant towers of Bar-Ponderone. I felt their crushing
weight . . . 

I forced myself to relax, breathe deep. Being immured wasn't the same as
being buried alive?not exactly. This was the method these latter-day
Vallonians had figured out to end a man's life effectively . . . without
ending all his lives. They figured to keep me neatly packaged here until
my next Change, thus acquiring another healthy newman for the kitchen or
the stables. They didn't know the only Change that would happen to me
was death.

They'd have to feed me; that meant a hole. I ran my fingers along the
rough stone, found an eight-inch square opening on the left wall, just
under the ceiling. I reached through it, felt nothing but the solidness
of its thick sides. How thick the wall was I had no way of determining.

I was feeling dizzy. I lay back and tried to think . . . 

* * *

I was awake again. There had been a sound. I moved, and felt something
hit my chest.

I groped for it; it was a small loaf of hard bread. I heard the sound
again and a second object thumped against me.

"Hey!" I yelled, "listen to me! I'll die in here. I'm not like the rest
of you; I won't go through a Change. I'll rot here till I die . . . !"

I listened. The silence was absolute.

"Answer me!" I screamed. "You're making a mistake . . . !"

I gave up when my throat got raw. The people who dropped the bread
through the little holes to the prisoners had heard a lot of yelling in
their time. They didn't listen any more. I felt for the other item that
had been pushed in to me. It was a water bottle made of tough plastic. I
fumbled the cap off, took a swallow. It wasn't good. I tried the bread;
it was tough, tasteless. I lay and chewed, and wondered what I was
supposed to do about toilet facilities; it was an interesting problem. I
could see it was going to be a great life, while it lasted. I laughed: a
weak snort of despair.

As a world-saver I was a bust. I hadn't even been able to get around to
bailing out my pal Foster after Qohey had booby-trapped him. I wondered
where he was now. Sealed up in the next cubby-hole probably. But he
hadn't answered my yells.

Yeah, mine had been a great idea, but it hadn't worked out. I had come a
long long way and now I was going to die in this reeking hole. I had a
sudden vision of steaks uneaten, and life unlived. I would have been
good for another few decades anyway?

And then I had another thought: if I never had them was it going to be
because I hadn't tried? Abruptly I was planning. I would keep calm and
use my head. I wouldn't wear myself out with screams and struggles. I'd
figure the angles, use everything I had to make the best try I could.

First, to explore the tomb-like cell. It hurt to move, but that didn't
matter. I felt over the walls, estimating size. My chamber was three
feet wide, two feet high, and seven feet long. The walls were relatively
smooth, except for a few mortar joints. The stones were big: eighteen
inches or so by a couple of feet. I scratched at the mortar; it was rock
hard.

I wondered how they'd gotten me in. Some of the stones must be newly
placed . . . or else there was a door. I couldn't feel anything as far
as my hands would reach. Maybe at the other end . . . 

I tried to twist around: no go. The people who had built the cage knew
just how to dimension it to keep the occupant oriented the way they
wanted him. He was supposed to just lie quietly and wait for the bread
and water to fall through the hole above his chest.

That was reason enough to change positions. If they wanted me to stay
put I'd at least have the pleasure of defying the rules. And there just
might be a reason why they didn't want me moving around.

I turned on my side, pulled my legs up, hugged them to my chest, worked
my way down . . . and jammed. My skinned knees and shins didn't help
any. I inched them higher, wincing at the pain, then braced my hands
against the floor and roof and forced my torso toward my feet . . . 

Still no go. The rough stone was shredding my back. I moved my knees
apart; that eased the pressure a little. I made another inch.

I rested, tried to get some air. It wasn't easy: my chest was crushed
between my thighs and the stone wall at my back. I breathed shallowly,
wondering whether I should go back or try to push on. I tried to move my
legs; they didn't like the idea. I might as well go on. It would be no
fun either way and if I waited I'd stiffen up, while inactivity and no
food and loss of blood would weaken me further every moment. I wouldn't
do better next time?not even as well. This was the time. Now.

I set myself, pushed again. I didn't move. I pushed harder, scraping my
palms raw against the stone. I was stuck?good. I went limp suddenly.
Then I panicked, in the grip of claustrophobia. I snarled, rammed my
hands hard against the floor and wall, and heaved?and felt my lacerated
back slip along the stone, sliding on a lubricating film of blood. I
pushed again, my back curved, doubled; my knees were forced up beside my
ears. I couldn't breathe at all now and my spine was breaking. It didn't
matter. I might as well break it, rip off all the hide, bleed to death;
I had nothing to lose. I shoved again, felt the back of my head grate;
my neck bent, creaking . . . and then I was through, stretching out to
flop on my back, gasping, my head where my feet had been. Score one for
our side.

* * *

It took a long time to get my breath back and sort out my various
abrasions. My back was worst, then my legs and hands. There was a messy
spot on the back of my head and sharp pains shot down my spine, and I
was getting tired of breathing through my mouth instead of my smashed
nose. Other than that I'd never felt better in my life. I had plenty of
room to relax in, I could breathe. All I had to do was rest, and after a
while they'd drop some more nice bread and water in to me . . . 

I shook myself awake. There was something about the absolute darkness
and silence that made my mind want to curl up and sleep, but there was
no time for that. If there had been a stone freshly set in mortar to
seal the chamber after I had been stuffed inside, this was the time to
find it?before it set too hard. I ran my hands over the wall, found the
joints. The mortar was dry and hard in the first; in the next . . . 
under my fingernail soft mortar crumbled away. I traced the joint; it
ran around a twelve-by-eighteen-inch stone. I raised myself on my
elbows, settled down to scratching at it.

Half an hour later I had ten bloody tips and a half-inch groove dug out
around the stone. It was slow work and I couldn't go much farther
without a tool of some sort. I felt for the water bottle, took off the
cap, tried to crush it. It wouldn't crush. There was nothing else in the
cell.

Maybe the stone would move, mortar and all, if I shoved hard enough. I
set my feet against the end wall, my hands against the block, and
strained until the blood roared in my ears. No use. It was planted as
solid as a mother-in-law in the spare bedroom.

I was lying there, just thinking about it, when I became aware of
something. It wasn't a noise, exactly. It was more like a
fourth-dimensional sound heard inside the brain . . . or the memory of one.

But my next sensation was perfectly real. I felt four little feet
walking gravely up my belly toward my chin.

It was my cat, Itzenca.


      *Chapter Sixteen*

For a while I toyed with the idea of just chalking it up as a miracle.
Then I decided it would be a nice problem in probabilities. It had been
seven months since we had parted company on the pink terrace at
Okk-Hamiloth. Where would I have gone if I had been a cat? And how could
I have found me?my old pal from earth?

Itzenca exhaled a snuffle in my ear.

"Come to think of it, the stink is pretty strong, isn't it? I guess
there's nobody on Vallon with quite the same heady fragrance. And what
with the close quarters here, the concentration of sweat, blood, and
you-name-it must be pretty penetrating."

Itz didn't seem to care. She marched around my head and back again, now
and then laid a tentative paw on my nose or chin, and kept up a steady
rumbling purr. The feeling of affection I had for that cat right then
was close to being one of my life's grand passions. My hands roamed over
her scrawny frame, fingered again the khaffite collar I had whiled away
an hour in fashioning for her aboard the lifeboat?

My head hit the stone wall with a crack I didn't even notice. In ten
seconds I had released the collar clasp, pulled the collar from
Itzenca's neck, thumbed the stiff khaffite out into a blade about ten
inches long, and was scraping at the mortar beyond my head at fever heat.

* * *

They had fed me three times by the time the groove was nine inches deep
on all sides of the block; and the mortar had hardened. But I was nearly
through, I figured. I took a rest, then made another try at loosening
the block. I thrust the blade into the slot, levered gently at the
stone. If it was only supported on one edge now, as it would be if it
were a little less than a foot thick, it should be about ready to go. I
couldn't tell.

I put down my scraper, got into position, and pushed. I wasn't as strong
as I had been; there wasn't much force in the push. Again I rested and
again I tried. Maybe there was only a thin crust of mortar still
holding; maybe one more ounce of pressure would do it. I took a deep
breath, strained . . . and felt the block shift minutely.

Now! I heaved again, teeth gritted, drew back my feet, and thrust hard.
The stone slid out with a grating sound, dropped half an inch. I paused
to listen: all quiet. I shoved again, and the stone dropped with a heavy
thud to the floor outside. With no loss of time I pushed through behind
it, felt a breath of cooler air, got my shoulders free, pulled my legs
through . . . and stood, for the first time in how many days . . . 

I had already figured my next move. As soon as Itzenca had stepped out I
reached back in, groped for the water bottle, the dry crusts I had been
saving, and the wad of bread paste I had made up. I reached a second
time for a handful of the powdered mortar I had produced, then lifted
the stone. I settled it in place, using the hard bread as supports, then
packed the open joint with gummy bread. I dusted it over with dry
mortar, then carefully swept up the debris?as well as I could in the
total darkness. The bread-and-water man would have a light and he was
due in half an hour or so?as closely as I had been able to estimate the
time of his regular round. I didn't want him to see anything out of the
ordinary. I was counting on finding Foster filed away somewhere in the
stacks, and I'd need time to try to release him.

I moved along the corridor, counting my steps, one hand full of
breadcrumbs and stone dust, the other feeling the wall. There were
narrow side branches every few feet: the access ways to the feeding
holes. Forty-one paces from my slot I came to a wooden door. It wasn't
locked, but I didn't open it. I wasn't ready to use it yet.

I went back, passed my hole, continued nine paces to a blank wall. Then
I tried the side branches. They were all seven-foot stubs, dead ends;
each had the eight-inch holes on either side. I called Foster's name
softly at each hole . . . but there was no answer. I heard no signs of
life, no yells or heavy breathing. Was I the only one here? That wasn't
what I had figured on. Foster had to be in one of these delightful
bedrooms. I had come across the universe to see him and I wasn't going
to leave Bar-Ponderone without him.

It was time to get ready for the bread man. I had a choice of trying to
get back into my hole and replacing the block, or of hiding in one of
the side branches. I thought it over for a couple of microseconds and
decided against getting back in my tomb. If there were as many vacancies
here as I guessed, I'd be safe in any one of the side passages but my own.

I groped my way into a convenient hidey-hole, Itzenca at my heels. With
half a year's experience at dodging humans behind her, she could be
trusted not to show at the crucial moment, I figured. I had just
jettisoned my handful of trash in the backmost corner of the passage
when there was a soft grating sound from the door. I flattened myself
against the wall. I'd know in a second or two how observant the keeper was.

A light splashed on the floor; it must have been dim but seemed to my
eyes like the blaze of noon. Soft footsteps sounded. I held my breath. A
man in bodyguard's trappings, basket in hand, moved past the entry of
the branch where I stood, went on. I breathed again. Now all I had to do
was keep an eye on the feeder, watch where he stopped. I stepped to the
corridor, risked a glance, saw him entering a branch far down the
corridor. As he disappeared I made it three branches farther along,
ducked out of sight.

I heard him coming back. I flattened myself. He went by me, opened the
door. It closed behind him and the darkness and silence settled down
once more. I stood where I was, feeling like a guy who's just showed up
for a party . . . on the wrong day.

The bread man had stopped at one cell only?mine. Foster wasn't here.

* * *

It was a long wait for the next feeding but I put the time to use. First
I had a good nap; I hadn't been getting my rest while I scratched my way
out of my nest. I woke up feeling better and started thinking about the
next move. The bodyguard who brought the food was the first item: I had
to get a set of clothes somewhere and he'd be the easiest source to tap.
If my mental clock was right it was about time?

The door creaked, and I did a fast fade down a side branch. The guard
shuffled into view; now was the time. I moved out?quietly, I thought,
and he whirled, dropped the load and bottle, and fumbled at his club
hilt. I didn't have a club to slow me down. I went at him, threw a
beautiful right, square to the mouth. He went over backwards, with me on
top. I heard his head hit with a sound like a length of rubber hose
slapping a grapefruit. He didn't move.

I pulled the clothes off him, struggled into them. They didn't fit too
well and they probably smelled gamey to anybody who hadn't spent a week
where I had, but details like those didn't count anymore. I tore his
sash into strips and tied him. He wasn't dead?quite, but I had reason to
know that any yelling he did was unlikely to attract much attention. I
hoped he'd enjoy the rest and quiet until the next feeding time. By then
I expected to be long gone. I lifted the door open and stepped out into
a dimly-lit corridor.

With Itzenca abreast of me I moved along in absolute stillness, passed a
side corridor, came to a heavy door: locked. We retraced our steps, went
down the side hall, found a flight of worn steps, followed them up two
flights, and emerged in a dark room. A line of light showed around a
door. I went to it, peered through the crack. Two men in stained
Kitchen-slave tunics fussed over a boiling cauldron. I pushed through
the door.

The two looked up, startled. I rounded a littered table, grabbed up a
heavy soup ladle, and skulled the nearest cook just as he opened up to
yell. The other one, a big fellow, went for a cleaver. I caught him in
two jumps, laid him out cold beside his pal.

I found an apron, ripped it up, and tied and gagged the two slaves, then
hauled them into a storeroom. I was stacking Vallonians away like a
squirrel storing nuts.

I came back into the kitchen. It was silent now. The room reeked of sour
soup. A stack of unpleasantly familiar loaves stood by the oven. I gave
them a kick that collapsed the pile as I passed to pick up a knife. I
hacked tough slices from a cold haunch of Vallonian mutton, threw one to
Itzenca across the table, and sat and gnawed the meat while I tried to
think through my plans.

Owner Qohey was a big man to tackle but he was the one with the answers.
If I could make my way to his apartment and if I wasn't stopped before
I'd forced the truth out of him, then I might get to Foster and tell him
that if he had the memory playback machine I had the memory, if it
hadn't been filched from the bottom of a knapsack aboard a lifeboat
parked at Okk-Hamiloth.

Four 'ifs' and a 'might'?but it was something to shoot at. My first move
would be to locate Qohey's quarters, somewhere here in the Palace, and
get inside. My bodyguard's outfit was as good a disguise as any for the
attempt.

I finished off my share of the meat and got to my feet. I'd have to find
a place to clean myself up, shave?

The rear door banged open and two bodyguards came through it, talking
loudly, laughing.

"Hey, cook! Set out meat for?"

The heavy in the lead stopped short, gaping at me. I gaped back. It was
Torbu.

"Drgon! How did you . . . ?" He trailed off.

The other bodyguard came past him, looked me over. "You're no Brother of
the Guard?" he started.

I reached for the cleaver the kitchen-slave had left on the table,
backed against a tall wall cupboard. The bodyguard unlimbered his club.

"Hold it, Blon," said Torbu. "Drgon's okay." He looked at me. "I kind of
figured you for done for, Drgon. The boys worked you over pretty good."

"Yeah," I returned, "and thanks for your help in stopping it."

"This is the miscreant we immured!" Blon burst out. "Take him!"

Torbu shifted. "Hold it a minute," he said. He looked uncomfortable.

"Listen, you two!" I said. "You claim to believe in the system around
here. You think it's a great life, all fair play and no holds barred and
plenty of goodies for the winner. I know, it was tough about Cagu, but
that's life, isn't it? But what about the business I saw in that
Audience Hall? You guys try not to think about that angle, is that it?"

"The noble Owner's gotta right?" Blon started.

"I didn't like the caper with the wires, Blon," said Torbu. "You didn't
either; neither did most of the boys?"

"And I don't remember getting much of a show myself," I said. "There are
a couple of your buddies I plan to look up when I have some free time?"

"I didn't lay a hand on you, Drgon," said Torbu. "I didn't want no part
of that."

"It was the Owner's orders," said Blon. "What was I gonna do, tell him?"

"Never mind," I said. "I'll tell him myself. That's all I want: just a
short interview with the Owner?minus the wire nets."

"Wow . . ." drawled Torbu, "yeah, that'd be a bout." He turned to Blon.
"This guy's got a punch, Blon. He don't look so hot but he could swap
buffets with the Fire Drgon he's named after. If he's that good with a
long blade?"

"Just lend me one," I said, "and show me the way to his apartment."

"The noble Owner'll cut this clown to ribbons in two minutes flat," said
Blon.

"Let's get the boys."

"How could we explain it afterwards to the noble Owner?" said Blon. "He
ain't gonna think much of guys he thought was immured nice and safe
turnin' up in his bedchamber . . . armed."

"We're Brothers of the Guard," said Torbu. "We ain't got much but we got
our Code. It don't say nothing about wires. If we don't back up our oath
to the Brotherhood we ain't no better than slaves." He turned to me.
"Come on, Drgon. We'll take you to the Guardroom so you can clean up and
put on a good blade. If you're gonna lose all your lives at once, you
wanna do it right."

* * *

Torbu watched as the boys belted and strapped me into a guardsman's
fighting outfit. I had made him uneasy, maybe even started him thinking.
If I could last?just those 'two minutes flat'?before Owner Qohey killed
me, then he'd collect his bet, I'd be out of his hair, and he could go
back to being Torbu, a plain tough guy with a Code he could still
believe in. And if I won . . . 

I felt better in the clean trappings of tough leather and steel. Torbu
led the way and fifteen bodyguards followed, like a herd of trolls.
There were few palace servants out at this hour; those who saw us gaped
from a safe distance and went on about their business. We crossed the
empty Audience Hall, climbed a wide staircase, went along a spacious
corridor hung with rich brocades and carpeted in deep-pile silk, with
soft lights glowing around ornate doors.

We stopped before a great double door. Two guards in dress purple
sauntered over to see what it was all about. Torbu clued them in. They
hesitated, looked us over . . . 

"We're goin' in, rookie," said Torbu. "Open up." They did.

I pushed past Torbu into a room whose splendor made Gope's state
apartment look like a motel. Bright Cintelight streamed through tall
windows, showed me a wide bed and somebody in it. I went to it, grabbed
the bedclothes, and hauled them off onto the floor. Owner Qohey sat up
slowly?seven feet of muscle. He looked at me, glanced past me to the
foremost of my escort . . . 

He was out of the bed like a tiger, coming straight for me. There was no
time to fumble with the sword. I went to meet him, threw all my weight
into a right haymaker and felt it connect. I plunged past, whirled.

Qohey was staggering . . . but still on his feet. I had hit him with
everything I had, nearly broken my fist . . . and he was still standing.
I couldn't let him rest. I was after him, slammed a hard punch to the
kidneys, caught him across the jaw as he turned, drove a left and right
into his stomach?

A girder fell from the top of the Golden Gate Bridge and shattered every
bone in my body. There was a booming like heavy surf, and I was floating
in it, dead. Then I was in Hell, being prodded by red-hot
tridents . . . I blinked my eyes. The roaring was fading now. I saw
Qohey, leaning against the foot of the bed, breathing heavily. I had to
get him.

I got my feet under me, stood up. My chest was caved in and my left arm
belonged to somebody else. Okay; I still had my right. I made it over to
Qohey, maneuvered into position. He didn't look at me; he seemed to be
having trouble breathing; those gut punches had gotten to him. I picked
a spot just behind the right ear, reared back, and threw a trip-hammer
punch with my shoulder and legs behind it. I felt the jaw go. Qohey
jumped the footboard and piled onto the floor like a hundred-car freight
hitting an open switch. I sat down on the edge of the bed and sucked in
air and tried to ignore the whirling lights that were closing in.

After awhile I noticed Torbu standing in front of me with the cat under
one arm. Both of them were grinning at me. "Any orders, Owner Drgon?"

I found my voice. "Wake him up and prop him in a chair. I want to talk
to him."

Ex-Owner Qohey didn't much like the idea but after Torbu and a couple of
other strong-arm lads had explained the situation to him in sign
language he decided to cooperate.

"Get off his head, Mull," Torbu said. "And untwist that rope, Blon.
Owner Drgon wants him in a conversational mood. You guys are gonna make
him feel self-conscious."

I had been feeling over my ribs, trying to count how many were broken
and how many just bent. Qohey's punch was a lot like the kick of a
two-ton ostrich. He was looking at me now, eyes wild.

"Qohey, I want to ask you a few questions. If I don't like the answers,
I'll see if I can't find quarters for you in the basement annex. I just
left a cozy room there myself. There's no view to speak of but it's
peaceful."

Qohey grunted something. He was having trouble talking around his broken
jaw.

"The fellow in black," I said, "the one who claimed your place as Owner.
You netted him and had your bully boys haul him off somewhere. I want to
know where."

Qohey grunted again.

"Hit him, Torbu," I said. "It will help his enunciation." Torbu kicked
the former Owner in the shin. Qohey jumped and glowered at him.

"Call off your dogs," he mumbled. "You'll not find the upstart you seek
here."

"Why not?"

"I sent him away."

"Where?"

"To that place from which you and your turncoat crew will never fetch
him back."

"Be more specific."

Qohey spat.

"Torbu didn't much like that crack about turncoats," I said. "He's eager
to show you how little. I advise you to talk fast and plain, before you
lose a whole raft of lives."

"Even these swine would never dare?" I took out the needle-pointed knife
I was wearing as part of my get-up. I put the point against Qohey's
throat and pushed gently until a trickle of crimson ran down the thick neck.

"Talk," I said quietly, "or I'll cut your throat myself."

Qohey had shrunk back as far as he could in the heavy chair.

"Seek him then, assassin," he sneered. "Seek him in the dungeons of the
Owner of Owners."

"Keep talking," I prompted.

"The Great Owner commanded that the slave be brought to him . . . at the
Palace of Sapphires by the Shallow Sea."

"Has this Owners' Owner got a name? How'd he hear about him?"

"Lord Ommodurad," Qohey's voice grated out. He was watching Torbu's
foot. "There was that about the person of the stranger that led me to
inform him."

"When did he go?"

"Yesterday."

"You know this Sapphire Palace, Torbu?"

"Sure," he answered. "But the place is taboo; it's crawlin' with demons
and warlocks. The word is, there's a curse on the?"

"Then I'll go in alone," I said. I put the knife away. "But first I've
got a call to make at the spaceport at Okk-Hamiloth."

"Sure, Owner Drgon. The port's easy. Some say it's kind of haunted too
but that's just a gag; the Greymen hang out there."

"We can take care of the Greymen," I said. "Get fifty of your best men
together and line up some air-cars. I want the outfit ready to move out
in half an hour."

"What about this chiseler?" asked Torbu.

"Seal him up until I get back. If I don't make it, I know he'll understand."


      *Chapter Seventeen*

It was not quite dawn when my task force settled down on the smooth
landing pad beside the lifeboat that had brought me to Vallon. It stood
as I had left it seven earth-months before: the port open, the access
ladder extended, the interior lights lit. There weren't any spooks
aboard but they had kept visitors away as effectively as if there had
been. Even the Greymen didn't mess with ghost-boats. Somebody had done a
thorough job of indoctrination on Vallon.

"You ain't gonna go inside that accursed vessel, are you, Owner Drgon?"
asked Torbu, making his cabalistic sign in the air. "It's manned by
goblins?"

"That's just propaganda. Where my cat can go, I can go. Look."

Itzenca scampered up the ladder, and had disappeared inside the boat by
the time I took the first rung. The guards gawked from below as I
stepped into the softly lit lounge. The black-and-gold cylinder that was
Foster's memory lay in the bag I had packed and left behind, months
before; with it was the other, plain one: Ammaerln's memory. Somewhere
in Okk-Hamiloth must be the machine that would give these meaning.
Together Foster and I would find it.

I found the .38 automatic lying where I had left it. I picked up the
worn belt, strapped it around me. My Vallonian career to date suggested
it would be a bright idea to bring it along. The Vallonians had never
developed any personal armament to equal it. In a society of immortals
knives were considered lethal enough for all ordinary purposes.

"Come on, cat," I said. "There's nothing more here we need."

Back on the ramp I beckoned my platoon leaders over.

"I'm going to the Sapphire Palace," I said. "Anybody that doesn't want
to go can check out now. Pass the word."

Torbu stood silent for a long moment, staring straight ahead.

"I don't like it much, Owner," he said. "But I'll go. And so will the
rest of 'em."

"There'll be no backing out, once we shove off," I said. "And by the
way?" I jacked a round into the chamber of the pistol, raised it, and
fired the shot into the air. They all jumped. "If you ever hear that
sound, come a-running."

The men nodded, turned to their cars. I picked up the cat and piled into
the lead vehicle next to Torbu.

"It's a half-hour run," he said. "We might run into a little Greymen
action on the way. We can handle 'em."

We lifted, swung to the east, barreled along at low altitude.

"What do we do when we get there, boss?" said Torbu.

"We play it by ear. Let's see how far we can get on pure gall before
Ommodurad drops the hanky."

* * *

The palace lay below us, rearing blue towers to the twilit sky like a
royal residence in the Munchkin country. Beyond it, sunset colors
reflected from the silky surface of the Shallow Sea. The timeless stones
and still waters looked much as they had when Foster set out to lose his
identity on earth, three thousand years before. But its magnificence was
lost on these people. The hulking crew around me never paused to wonder
about the marvels wrought by their immortal ancestors?themselves.
Stolidly, they lived their feudal lives in dismal contrast with the
monuments all about them.

I turned to my cohort of hoodlums. "You boys claim it's the demons and
warlocks that keep the whole of Vallon at arm's length from this place.
In that case there's no protocol for a new Owner's reception at the Blue
Palace. A guy with a little luck and even less of a memory than usual
could skip the goblins and play it good-natured but dumb: show up at the
Palace grounds, out of common politeness to the Top Dog, to pay his
respects. Anything wrong with that?"

"What if they rush us first . . . before we got time to go into the
act?" said somebody in the mob.

"That's where the luck comes in," I said. "Anybody else?"

Torbu looked around at his henchmen. There was some shrugging of
shoulders, a few grunts. He looked at me. "You do the figurin', Owner,"
he said. "The boys will back your play."

We were dropping toward the wide lawns now and still no opposition
showed itself. Then the towering blue spires were looming over us, and
we saw men forming up behind the blue-stained steel gates of the Great
Pavilion.

"A reception committee," I said. "Hold tight, fellas. Don't start
anything. The further in we get peaceably, the less that leaves to do
the hard way."

The cars settled down gently, well-grouped, and Torbu and I climbed out.
As quickly as the other boats disgorged their men, ranks were closed,
and we moved off toward the gates. Itzenca, as mascot, brought up the
rear. Still no excitement, no rush by the Palace guards. Had too many
centuries of calm made them lackadaisical, or did Ommodurad use a brand
of visitor-repellent we couldn't see from here?

We made it to the gate . . . and it opened.

"In we go," I said, "but be ready . . ."

The uniformed men inside the compound, obviously chosen for their beef
content, kept their distance, looked at us questioningly. We pulled up
on a broad blue-paved drive and waited for the next move. About now
somebody should stride up to us and offer the key to the city?or
something. But there seemed to be a hitch. It was understandable. After
all there hadn't been any callers dropping cards here for about 2900 years.

It was a long five minutes before a hard case in a beetle-backed
carapace of armor and a puffy pink cape bustled down the palace steps
and came up to us.

"Who comes in force to the Sapphire Palace?" he demanded, glancing past
me at my team-mates.

"I'm Owner Drgon, fellow," I barked. "These are my honor guard. What
provincial welcome is this, from the Great Owner to a loyal liege-man?"

That punctured his pomposity a little. He apologized?in a half-hearted
way?mumbled something about arrangements, and beckoned over a couple of
side-men. One of them came over and spoke to Torbu, who looked my way,
hand on dagger hilt.

"What's this?" I said. "Where I go, my men go."

"There is the matter of caste," said my pink-caped greeter. "Packs of
retainers are not ushered /en masse/ into the presence of Lord
Ommodurad, Owner of Owners."

I thought that one over and failed to come up with a plausible loophole.

"Okay, Torbu," I said. "Keep the boys together and behave yourselves.
I'll see you in an hour. Oh, and see that Itzenca gets made comfy."

The beetle man snapped a few orders, then waved me toward the palace
with the slightest bow I ever saw. A six-man guard kept me company up
the steps and into the Great Pavilion.

I guess I expected the usual velvet-draped audience chamber or
barbarically splendid Hall, complete with pipers, fools, and ceremonial
guards. What I got was an office, about sixteen by eighteen,
blue-carpeted and tasteful . . . but bare-looking. I stopped in front of
a block of blue-veined grey marble with a couple of quill pens in a
crystal holder and, underneath, leg room for a behemoth, who was sitting
behind the desk.

He got to his feet with all the ponderous mass of Nero Wolfe but a lot
more agility and grace. "You wish?" he rumbled.

"I'm Owner Drgon, ah . . . Great Owner," I said. I'd planned to give my
host the friendly-but-dumb routine. I was going to find the second part
of the act easy. There was something about this Ommodurad that made me
feel like a mouse who'd just changed his mind about the cheese. Qohey
had been big, but this guy could crush skulls as most men pinch peanut
hulls, and in his eyes was the kind of remote look that came of three
millennia of not even having to mention the power he asserted.

"You ignore superstition," observed the Big Owner. He didn't waste many
words, it seemed. Gope had said he was the silent type. It wasn't a bad
lead; I decided to follow it.

"Don't believe in 'em," I said.

"To your business then," he continued. "Why?"

"Just been chosen Owner at Bar-Ponderone," I said. "Felt it was only
fitting that I come and do obeisance before Your Grace."

"That expression is not used."

"Oh." This fellow had a disconcerting way of not getting sucked in.
"Lord Ommodurad?"

He nodded just perceptibly, then turned to the foremost of the herd who
had brought me in. "Quarters for the guest and his retinue." His eyes
had already withdrawn, like the head of a Galapagos turtle into its
enormous shell, in contemplation of eternal verities. I piped up again.

"Ah, pardon me . . ." The piercing stare of Ommodurad's eyes was on me
again. "There was a friend of mine?" I gulped, "swell guy, but
impulsive. It seems he challenged the former Owner of Bar-Ponderone . . ."

Ommodurad did no more than twitch an eyebrow but suddenly the air was
electric. His stare didn't waver by a millimeter but the lazy slouch of
the six guards had altered to sprung steel. They hadn't moved but I felt
them now all around me and not a foot away. I had a sinking feeling that
I'd gone too far.

"?so I thought maybe I'd crave Your Excellency's help, if possible, to
locate my pal," I finished weakly. For an interminable minute the Owner
of Owners bored into me with his eyes. Then he raised a finger a quarter
of an inch. The guards relaxed.

"Quarters for the guest and his retinue," repeated Ommodurad. He
withdrew then . . . without moving. I was dismissed.

I went quietly, attended by my hulking escort.

I tried hard not to let my expression show any excitement, but I was
feeling plenty.

Ommodurad was close-mouthed for a reason. I was willing to bet that he
had his memories of the Good Time intact.

Instead of the debased modern dialect that I'd heard everywhere since my
arrival, Ommodurad spoke flawless Old Vallonian.

* * *

It was 27 o'clock and the Palace of Sapphires was silent. I was alone in
the ornate bed chamber the Great Owner had assigned me. It was a nice
room but I wouldn't learn anything staying in it. Nobody had said I was
confined to quarters. I'd do a little scouting and see what I could pick
up, if anything. I slung on the holster and the .38 and slid out of the
darkened chamber into the scarcely lighter corridor beyond. I saw a
guard at the far end; he ignored me. I headed in the opposite direction.

None of the rooms was locked. There was no arsenal at the Palace and no
archives that lesser folk than the Great Owner could use with profit.
Everything was easy of access. I guessed that Ommodurad rightly counted
on indifference to keep snoopers away. Here and there guards eyed me as
I passed along but they said nothing.

I saw again by Cintelight the office where Ommodurad had received me,
and near it an ostentatious hall with black onyx floor and ceiling, gold
hangings, and ceremonial ringboard. But the center of attraction was the
familiar motif of the concentric circles of the Two Worlds, sketched in
beaten gold across the broad wall of black marble behind the throne.
Here the idea had been elaborated on. Outward from both the inner and
outer circles flamed the waving lines of a sunburst. At dead center, a
boss, like a sword hilt in form, chased in black and gold, erupted a
foot from the wall. It was the first time I'd seen the symbol since I'd
arrived on Vallon. I found it strangely exciting?like a footprint in the
sand.

I went on, toured the laundry and inspected pantries large and small and
caught a whiff of stables. The palace was asleep; few of its occupants
noticed me, and those who did hung back, silent. It looked as if the
Great Owner had given orders to let me roam freely. Somehow I didn't
find that comforting.

Then I came into a purple-vaulted hall and saw a squad of guards, the
same six who'd kept me such close company earlier in the day. They were
drawn up at parade rest, three on each side of a massive ivory door.
Somebody lived in safety and splendor on the other side.

Six sets of hard eyes turned my way. It was too late to duck back out of
sight. I trotted up to the first of the row of guards. "Say, fella," I
stage-whispered, "where's the ah?you know."

"Every bed chamber is equipped," he said gruffly, raising his sword and
fingering its tip lovingly.

"Yeah? I never noticed." I moved off, looking chastened. If they thought
I was a kewpie, so much the better. I was a mouse in cat country here
and I wasn't ready to fake a /meow/?not yet.

On the ground floor I found Torbu and his cohort quartered in a
barrack-room off the main entry hall.

"We're still in enemy territory," I reminded Torbu. "I want every man
ready."

"No fear, boss," said Torbu. "All my bullies got an eye on the door and
a hand on a knife-hilt."

"Have you seen or heard anything useful?"

"Naw. These local dullards fall dumb at the first query."

"Keep your ears cocked. I want at least two men awake and on the alert
all night."

"You bet, noble Drgon."

I judged distances carefully as I went back up the two flights to my own
room. Inside I dropped into a brocaded easy chair and tried to add up
what I'd seen.

First: Ommodurad's apartment, as nearly as I could judge, was directly
over my own, two floors up. That was a break?or maybe I was where I was
for easier surveillance. I'd skip that angle, I decided. It tended to
discourage me and I needed all the enthusiasm I could generate.

Second: I wasn't going to learn anything useful trotting around
corridors. Ommodurad wasn't the kind to leave traces of skullduggery
lying around where the guests would see them.

And third: I should have known better than to hit this fortress with two
squads and a .38 in the first place. Foster was here; Qohey had said so
and the Great Owner's reaction to my mention of him confirmed it. What
was it about Foster, anyway, that made him so interesting to these Top
People? I'd have to ask him that one when I found him. But to do that
I'd have to leave the beaten track.

I went to the wide double window and looked up. A cloud swept from the
great three-quarters face of Cinte, blue in the southern sky, and I
could see an elaborately carved faade ranging up past a row of windows
above my own to a railed balcony bathed in a pale light from the
apartment within. If my calculations were correct that would be
Ommodurad's digs. The front door was guarded like an octogenarian's
harem but the back way looked like a breeze.

I pulled my head back in and thought about it. It was risky . . . but it
had that element of the unexpected that just might let me get away with
it. Tomorrow the Owner of Owners might have thought it through and
switched me to another room . . . or to a cell in the basement. Then
too, wall-scaling didn't occur to these Vallonians as readily as it did
to a short-timer from earth. They had too much to lose to risk it on a
chancy climb.

Too much thinking is never a good idea when your pulse is telling you
it's time for action. I rolled a heavy armoire fairly soundlessly over
the deep-pile carpet and lodged it against the door. That might slow
down a casual caller. I slipped the magazine out of the automatic,
fitted nine greasy brass cartridges into it, slammed it home, dropped
the pistol back in the holster. It had a comforting weight. I buttoned
the strap over it and went back to the window.

The clouds were back across Cinte's floodlight; that would help. I
stepped out. The deep carving gave me easy handholds and I made it to
the next windowsill without even working up a light sweat. Compared with
my last climb, back in Lima, this was a cinch.

I rested a moment, then clambered around the dark window?just in case
there was an insomniac on the other side of the glass?and went on up. I
reached the balcony, had a hairy moment as I groped outward for a hold
on the smooth floor-tiling above . . . and then I was pulling up and
over the ornamental iron work.

The balcony was narrow, about twenty feet long, giving on half a dozen
tall glass doors. Three showed light behind heavy draperies, three were
dark. I moved close, tried to see something past the edge of the
draperies. No go. I put an ear to the glass, thought maybe I heard a
sound, like a distant volcano. That would be Ommodurad's bass rumble.
The bear was in his cave.

I went along to the dark doors and on impulse tried a handle. It turned
and the door swung in soundlessly. I felt my pulse pick up a double-time
beat. I stood peering past the edge of the door into the ink-black
interior. It didn't look inviting. In fact it looked repellent. Even a
country boy like me could see that to step into the dragon's den without
even a Zippo to spot the footstools with would be the act of a nitwit.

I swallowed hard, got a firm grip on my pistol, and went in.

A soft fold of drapery brushed my face and I had the pistol out and my
back to the wall with a speed that would have made Earp faint with envy.
My adrenals gave a couple of wild jumps and my nervous system followed
with a variety of sensations, none pleasant.

It took me a minute to get my Adam's apple swallowed again and remind
myself that I was a rough tough son-of-a-gun from the planet Earth who
had parlayed one short life into more trouble than most Vallonians
managed in half of eternity, and I was on my way to get my pal Foster
out of a tight spot, hand him back his memory, and set the Two Worlds
back on the rails they had fallen off of about six hundred years before
Alexander started looking around for his first rumble.

I stopped before I got so confident I charged into the next room and
challenged Ommodurad to wrestle, two falls out of three. I could hear
his voice better now, muttering beyond the partition. If I could make
out what he was saying . . . 

I edged along the wall, found a heavy door, closed and locked. No help
there. I felt my way further, found another door. Delicately I tried the
handle, eased it open a crack.

A closet, half filled with racked garments. But I could hear more
clearly now. Maybe it was a double closet with communicating doors both
to the room I was in and to the next one where the Great Owner was still
rambling on. Apparently something had overcome his aversion to talking.
There were pauses that must have been filled in by the replies of
somebody else who didn't have the vocal timbre Ommodurad did.

I felt my way through the hanging clothing, felt over the closet walls.
I was out of luck: there was no other door. I put an ear to the wall. I
could catch an occasional word:

" . . . ring . . . Okk-Hamiloth . . . vaults . . ."

It sounded like something I'd like to hear more about. How could I get
closer? On impulse I reached up, touched a low ceiling . . . and felt a
ridge like the trim around an access panel to a crawl space.

I crossed my fingers, stood on tiptoe to push at the panel. Nothing
moved. I felt around in the dark, encountered a low shelf covered with
shoes. I investigated; it was movable. I eased it aside a foot or two,
piled the shoes on the floor, and stepped up.

The panel was two feet long on a side, with no discernible hinges or
catch. I pushed some more, then gritted my teeth and heaved. There was a
startlingly loud /crack!/ and the panel lifted. I blinked away the dust
that settled in my eyes, reached to feel around within the opening,
touched nothing but rough floor boards.

This would be an excellent time, I reflected, to back out of here, get a
few hours' sleep, and tomorrow bid Ommodurad a hearty farewell. Then in
a few months, after I had had time to organize my new Estate and align a
few supporting Owners I could come back in force.

I cocked my head, listening. Ommodurad had stopped talking and another
voice said something. Then there was a heavy thump, the clump of feet,
and a metallic sound. After a moment the Great Owner's voice came
again . . . and the other voice answered.

I stretched, grabbed the edge of the opening, and pulled myself up. I
leaned forward, got a leg up, and rolled silently onto the rough floor.
Feeling my way, I crawled, felt a wall rising, followed it, turned a
corner . . . The voices were louder, quite suddenly. I saw why: there
was a ventilating register ahead, gridded light gleaming through it. I
crept along to the opening, lay flat, peered through it and saw three men.

Ommodurad was standing with his back to me, a giant figure swathed to
the eyes in purple robes. Beside him a lean redhead with a leg that had
been broken and badly set stood round-shouldered, teeth bared in an
eager grimace, clutching a rod of office. The third man was Foster.

* * *

Foster stood, legs braced apart as though to withstand an earthquake,
hands manacled before him. He looked steadily at the redhead, like a man
marking a tree for cutting.

"I know nothing of these crimes," he said.

Ommodurad turned, swept out of sight. The redhead motioned. Foster
turned away, moving stiffly, passed from my view. I heard a door open
and close. I lay where I was and tried to sort out half a dozen
conflicting impulses that clamored for attention. A few were easy: it
wouldn't help matters to yell "Stop, thief!" or to fall through the
register and chase after Foster with loud cries of joy. It wouldn't be
much better to scramble out, dash downstairs, and turn out my bodyguards
to raid Ommodurad's apartment.

What might do some good was to gather more information. It had been bad
luck that I had arrived at my peephole a few minutes too late to hear
what the interview had been all about. But I might still make use of my
advantage.

I felt over the register, found fasteners at the corners. They lifted
easily and the metal grating tilted back into my hands. I laid it aside,
poked my head out. The room was empty, as far as I could see. It was
time to take a few chances. I reversed my position, let my legs through
the opening, and dropped softly to the floor. I reached back up and
managed to prop the grating in position?just in case.

It was a fancy chamber, hung in purple and furnished for a king. I poked
through the pigeonholes of a secretary, opened a few cupboards, peered
under the bed. It looked like I wasn't going to find any useful clues
lying around loose.

I went to the glass doors to the balcony, unlocked one and left it
ajar?in case I wanted to leave in a hurry. There was another door across
the room. I went over and tried it: locked.

That gave me something definite to look for: a key. I rummaged some more
in the secretary, then tried the drawer in a small table beside a broad
couch and came up with a nice little steel key that looked like maybe . . . 

I tried it. It was. Luck was still coming my way. I pushed open the
door, saw a dark room beyond. I felt for a light switch, flicked it on,
pushed the door shut behind me.

The room looked like the popular idea of a necromancer's study. The
windowless walls were lined with shelves packed closely with books. The
high black-draped ceiling hung like a hovering bat above the ramparted
floor of bare, dark-polished wood. Narrow tables choked with books and
instruments stood along a side of the chamber and at the far end I saw a
deep-cushioned couch with a heavy dome-shaped apparatus like a beauty
shop hair-dryer mounted at one end. I recognized it: it was a memory
reinforcing machine, the first I had seen on Vallon.

I crossed the room and examined it. The last one I had seen?on the
Far-Voyager in the room near the library?had been a stark utility model.
This was a deluxe job, with soft upholstery and bright metal fittings
and more dials and idiot lights than a late model Detroit status symbol.
This solved one of the problems that had been hovering around the edge
of my mind. I had fetched Foster's memory back to him, but without a
machine to use it in it was just a tantalizing souvenir. Now all I had
to do was sneak him away from Ommodurad, make it back here . . . 

All of a sudden I felt tired, vulnerable, helpless, and all alone. I had
been taking wild chances, setting my head more and more brazenly into
the kind of iron noose the Big Owner would arrange for his
enemies . . .  and without the ghost of a plan, without even an idea of
what was going on. What was Ommodurad's interest in Foster? Why did he
hide away here, keeping the rest of Vallon away with rumors of magic and
spells? What connection did he have with the disaster that had befallen
the Two Worlds?now reduced to One, and a poor one at that.

And why was I, a plain Joe named Legion, mixed up in it right to the
eyebrows, when I could be sitting safe at home in a clean federal pen?

The answer to that last one wasn't too hard to recite: I had had a pal
once, a smooth character named Foster, who had pulled me back from the
ragged edge just when I was about to make a bigger mistake than usual.
He had been a gentleman in the best sense of the word, and he had
treated me like one. Together we had shared a strange adventure that had
made me rich and had showed me that it was never too late to straighten
your back and take on whatever the Fates handed out.

I had come running his way when trouble got too thick back home. And I'd
found him in a worse spot than I was in. He had come back, after the
most agonizing exile a man had ever suffered, to find his world fallen
back into savagery, and his memory still eluding him. Now he was in
chains, without friends and without hope . . . but still not broken,
still standing on his own two feet . . . 

But he was wrong on one point: he had one little hope. Not much: just a
hard-luck guy with a penchant for bad decisions, but I was here and I
was free. I had my pistol on my hip and a neat back way into the Owner's
bedroom, and if I played it right and watched my timing and had maybe
just a little luck, say about the amount it took to hit the Irish
Sweepstakes, I might bring it off yet.

Right now it was time to return to my crawlspace. Ommodurad might come
back and talk some more, tip me off to a vulnerable spot in the armor of
his fortress. I went to the door, flicked off the light, turned the
handle . . . and went rigid.

Ommodurad was back. He pulled off the purple cloak, tossed it aside,
strode to a wall bar. I clung to the crack of the door, not daring to
move even to close it.

"But my lord," the voice of the redhead said, "I know he remembers?"

"Not so," Ommodurad's voice rumbled. "On the morrow I strip his mind to
the bare clean jelly . . ."

"Let me, dread lord. With my steel I'll have the truth from him."

"Such a one as he your steel has never known!" the bass voice snarled.

"Great Owner, I crave but one hour . . . tomorrow, in the Ceremonial
Chamber. I shall environ him with the emblems of the past?"

"Enough!" Ommodurad's fist slammed against the bar, made glasses jump.
"On such starveling lackwits as you a mighty empire hangs. It is a crime
before the Gods and on his head I lay it." The Owner tossed off a glass,
jerked his head at the cowering man. "Still, I grant thy boon. Now
begone, babbler of folly."

The redhead ducked, grinning, disappeared. Ommodurad muttered to
himself, strode up and down the room, stood staring out into the night.
He noticed the open balcony door, pulled it shut with a curse. I held my
breath but no general check of doors followed.

The big man threw off his clothes then. He clambered up on the wide
couch, touched a switch somewhere, and the room was dark. Within five
minutes I heard the heavy breathing of deep sleep.

I had found out one thing anyway: tomorrow was Foster's last day. One
way or another Ommodurad and the redhead between them would destroy him.
That didn't leave much time. But since the project was already hopeless
it didn't make much difference.

I had a choice of moves now: I could tip-toe across to the register and
try to wiggle through it without waking up the brontosaurus on the
bed . . . or I could try for the balcony door a foot from where he
slept . . .  or I could stay put and wait him out. The last idea had the
virtue of requiring no immediate daring adventures. I could just curl up
on the floor, or, better still, on the padded couch . . . 

A weird idea was taking shape in my mind like a genie rising from a
bottle. I felt in my pocket, pulled out the two small cylinders that
represented two men's memories of hundreds of years of living. One
belonged to Foster, the one with the black and golden bands; but the
other was the property of a stranger who had died three thousand years
ago, out in space . . . 

This cylinder, barely three inches long, held all the memories of a man
who had been Foster's confidant when he was Qulqlan, a man who knew what
had happened aboard the ship, what the purpose of the expedition had
been, and what conditions they had left behind on Vallon.

I needed that knowledge. I needed any knowledge I could get, to add a
feather-weight to my side of the balance when the showdown came. The
cylinder would tell me plenty, including, possibly, the reason for
Ommodurad's interest in Foster.

It was simple to use. I merely placed the cylinder in the receptacle in
the side of the machine, took my place, lowered the helmet into
position . . . and in an hour or so I would awaken with another man's
memories stored in my brain, to use as I saw fit.

It would be a crime to waste the opportunity. The machine I had found
here was probably the only one still in existence on Vallon. I had
blundered my way into the one room in the palace that could help me in
what I had to do; I had been lucky; I couldn't waste that luck.

I went across to the soft-cushioned chair, spotted the recess in its
side, and thrust the plain cylinder into it; it seated with a click.

I sat on a couch, lay back, reached up to pull the head-piece down into
position against my skull . . . 

There was an instant of pain?like a pre-frontal lobotomy performed
without anesthetic.

Then blackness.


      *Chapter Eighteen*

I stood beside the royal couch where Qulqlan the Rthr lay and I saw that
this was the hour for which I had waited long, for the Change was on
him . . . 

The time-scale stood at the third hour of the Death watch; all aboard
slept save myself alone. I must move swiftly and at the Dawn watch show
them the deed well done.

I shook the sleeping man; him who had once been the Rthr?king no more,
by the law of the Change. He wakened slowly, looked about him, with the
clear eyes of the newborn.

"Rise," I commanded. And the king obeyed.

"Follow me," I said. He made to question me, after the manner of those
newly awakened from their Change. I bade him be silent. Like a lamb he
came and I led him through shadowed ways to the cage of the Hunters.
They rose, keen in their hunger, to my coming, as I had trained them.

I took the arm of Qulqlan and thrust it into the cage. The Hunters
clustered, taking the mark of their prey. He watched, innocent eyes wide.

"That which you feel is pain, mindless one," I spoke. "It is a thing of
which you will learn much in the time before you." Then they had done,
and I set the time catch.

In my chambers I cloaked the innocent in a plain purple robe and
afterward led him to the cradle where the lifeboat lay . . . 

And by virtue of the curse of the Gods which is upon me one was there
before me. I waited not, but moved as the haik strikes and took him fair
in the back with my dagger. I dragged the body into hiding behind the
flared foot of a column. But no sooner was he hidden well away than
others came from the shadows, summoned by some device I know not of.
They asked of the Rthr wherefore he walked by night, robed in the colors
of Ammaerln of Bros-Ilyond. And I knew black despair, that my grand
design foundered thus in the shallows of their zeal.

Yet I spoke forth, with a great show of anger, that I, Ammaerln, vizier
and companion to the Rthr, did but walk and speak in confidence with my
liege lord.

But they persisted, Gholad foremost among them. And then one saw the
hidden corpse and in an instant they ringed me in:

Then did I draw the long blade and hold it at the throat of Qulqlan.
"Press me not; or your king will surely die," I said. And they feared me
and shrank back.

"Do you dream that I, Ammaerln, wisest of the wise, have come here for
the love of Far-Voyaging?" I raged. "Long have I plotted against this
hour, to lure the king a-voyaging in this his princely yacht, his
faithful vizier at his side, that the Change might come to him far from
his court. Then would the ancient wrong be redressed.

"There are those men born to rule, as the dream-tree seeks the sun?and
such a one am I! Long has this one, now mindless, denied to me my
destiny. But behold: I, with a stroke, shall set things aright.

"Below us lies a green world, peopled by savages. Not one am I to take
blood vengeance on a man newborn from the Change. Instead I shall set
him free to take up his life there below. May the Fates lead him again
to royal state if that be their will?"

But there were naught but fools among them and they drew steel. I cried
out to them that all, all should share!

But they heeded me not but rushed upon me. Then did I turn to Qulqlan
and drive the long blade at his throat, but Gholad threw himself before
him and fell in his place. Then they pressed me and I did strike out
against three who hemmed me close, and though they took many wounds they
persisted in their madness, one leaping in to strike and another at my
back, so that I whirled and slashed at shadows who danced away.

In the end I hunted them down in those corners whither they had dragged
themselves and each did I put to the sword. And I turned at last to find
the Rthr gone and some few with him, and madness took me that I had been
gulled like a tinker by common men.

In the chamber of the memory couch would I find them. There they would
seek to give back to the mindless one that memory of past glories which
I had schemed so long to deny him. Almost I wept to see such cunning
wasted. Terrible in my wrath I came upon them there. There were but two
and, though they stood shoulder to shoulder in the entry way, their poor
dirks were no match for my long blade. I struck them dead and went to
the couch, to lay my hand on the cylinder marked with the vile gold and
black of Qulqlan, that I might destroy it and with it the Rthr, forever?

And I heard a sound and whirled about. A hideous figured staggered to me
from the gloom and for an instant I saw the flash of steel in the bloody
hand of the accursed Gholad whom I had left for dead. Then I knew cold
agony between my ribs . . . 

* * *

Gholad lay slumped against the wall, his face greenish above the
blood-soaked tunic. When he spoke air whistled through his slashed throat.

"Have done, traitor who once was honored of the king," he whispered.
"Have you no pity for him who once ruled in justice and splendor at High
Okk-Hamiloth?"

"Had you not robbed me of my destiny, murderous dog," I croaked, "that
splendor would have been mine."

"You came upon him helpless," gasped Gholad. "Make some amends now for
your shame. Let the Rthr have his mind, which is more precious than his
life."

"I but rest to gather strength. Soon will I rise and turn him from the
couch. Then will I die content."

"Once you were his friend," Gholad whispered. "By his side you fought,
when both of you were young. Remember that . . . and have pity. To leave
him here, in this ship of death, mindless and alone . . ."

"I have loosed the Hunters!" I shrieked in triumph. "With them will the
Rthr share this tomb until the end of time!"

/"Then I searched within me and found a last terrible strength and I
rose up . . . and even as my hand reached out to pluck away the mind
trace of the king I felt the bloody fingers of Gholad on my ankle, and
then my strength was gone. And I was falling headlong into that dark
well of death from which there is no returning . . .  / 

* * *

I woke up and lay for a long time in the dark without moving, trying to
remember the fragments of a strange dream of violence and death. I could
still taste the lingering dregs of some bitter emotion. But I had more
important things to think about than dreams. For just a moment I
couldn't remember what it was I had to do; then with a start I
remembered where I was. I had lain down on the couch and pulled the
headpiece into place?

It hadn't worked.

I thought hard, tried to tap a new reservoir of memories, drew a blank.
Maybe my earth-mind was too alien for the Vallonian memory trace to
affect. It was another good idea that hadn't worked out. But at least I
had had a good rest. Now it was time to get moving. First?to see if
Ommodurad was still asleep. I started to sit up?

Nothing happened.

I had a moment of vertigo, as my inner ear tried to accommodate to
having stayed in the same place after automatically adjusting to my
intention of rising. I lay perfectly still and tried to think it through.

I had tried to move . . . and hadn't so much as twitched a muscle. I was
paralyzed . . . or tied up . . . or maybe, if I was lucky, imagining
things. I could try it again and next time?

I was afraid to try. Suppose I tried and nothing happened?again? It was
better to lie here and tell myself it was all a mistake. Maybe I should
go back to sleep and wake up later and try it again . . . 

This was ridiculous. All I had to do was sit up. I?

Nothing. I lay in the dark and tried to will an arm to move, my head to
turn. It was as though I had no arm, no head?just a mind?alone in the
dark. I strained to sense the ropes that held me down: still nothing. No
ropes, no arms, no body. There was no pressure against me from the
couch, no vagrant itch or cramp, no physical sensation. I was a
disembodied brain, lying nestled in a great bed of pitch black cotton wool.

Then, abruptly, I was aware of myself?not the gross mechanism of bone
and muscle, but the neuro-electric field generated within a brain alive
with flashing currents and lightning interplay of molecular forces. A
sense of orientation grew. I occupied a block of cells . . . here in the
left hemisphere. The mass of neural tissue loomed over me, gigantic. And
"I" . . ."I" was reduced to the elemental ego, who possessed as a
material appurtenance "my" arms and legs, "my" body, "my" brain . . . 
Relieved of outside stimuli, I was able now to conceptualize myself as I
actually was: an insubstantial state existing in an immaterial
continuum, created by the action of neural currents within the cerebrum,
as a magnetic field is created in space by the flow of electricity.

And I knew what had happened. I had opened my mind to invasion by alien
memories. The other mind had seized upon the sensory centers and driven
me to this dark corner. I was a fugitive within my own skull.

For a timeless time I lay stunned, immured now as the massive stones of
Bar-Ponderone had never confined me. My basic self-awareness still
survived, but was shunted aside, cut off from any contact with the body
itself.

With shadowy fingers of imagination I clawed at the walls surrounding
me, fought for a glimpse of light, for a way out.

And found none.

* * *

Then, at last, I began again to think.

I must analyze my awareness of my surroundings, seek out channels
through which impulses from sensory nerves flowed, and tap them.

I tried cautiously; an extension of my self-concept reached out with
ultimate delicacy. There were the ranked infinities of cells, there the
rushing torrents of gross fluid, there the taut cables of the
interconnecting web, and there?

Barrier! Blank and impregnable, the wall reared up. My questing tendril
of self-stuff raced over the surface like an ant over a melon, and found
no tiniest fissure. It loomed alien, inscrutable: the invader who had
stolen my brain.

I withdrew. To dissipate my force was senseless. I must select a point
of attack, hurl against it all the power of my surviving
identity . . . before it too dwindled away and the abstraction that was
Legion vanished forevermore.

The last of the phantom emotions that had clung?for how long??to the
incorporeal mind field had faded now, leaving me with no more than an
intellectual determination to reassert myself. Dimly I recognized this
sign of my waning sense of identity but there was no surge of
instinctive fear. Instead I coolly assessed my resources?and almost at
once stumbled into an unused channel, here within my own self-field. For
a moment I recoiled from the outr configuration of the stored
patterns . . . and then I remembered.

I had been in the water, struggling, while the Russian soldier waited,
rifle aimed. And then: a flood of data, flowing with cold, impersonal
precision. And I had deftly marshaled the forces of my body to survive.

And once more: as I hung by numbed fingers under the cornice of the
Yordano Building, the cold voice had spoken.

And I had forgotten. The miracle had been pushed back, rejected by the
conscious mind. But now I knew: this was the knowledge that I had
received from the background briefing device that I had used in my
island strongroom before I fled. This was the survival data known to all
Old Vallonians of the days of the Two Worlds. It had lain here, unused,
the secrets of superhuman strength and endurance . . . buried by the
imbecile of censor-self's aversion to the alien.

But the ego alone remained now, stripped of the burden of neurosis,
freed from subconscious pressures. The levels of the mind were laid
bare, and I saw close at hand the regions where dreams were born, the
barren sources of instinctive fear-patterns, the linkages to blinding
emotions; and all lay now under my overt control.

Without further hesitation I tapped the stored Vallonian knowledge,
encompassed it, made it mine. Then again I approached the barrier,
spread out across it, probed in vain?

/" . . . vile primitive . . ." / 

The thought thundered out with crushing force. I recoiled, then renewed
my attack, alert now. I knew what to do.

I sought and found a line of synaptic weakness, burrowed at it?

/" . . . intolerable . . . vestigial . . . erasure . . ." / 

I struck instantly, slipped past the shield, laid firm hold on an optic
receptor bank. The alien mind threw itself against me, but too late. I
held secure and the assault faded, withdrew. Cautiously I extended my
interpretive receptivity. There was a pattern of pulses, oscillations in
the lambda/mu range. I turned, focused?

Abruptly I was seeing. For a moment my fragile equilibrium tottered, as
I strove to integrate the flow of external stimuli into my bodiless
self-concept. Then a balance was struck: I held my ground and stared
through the one eye I had recaptured from the usurper.

And I reeled again!

Bright daylight blazed in the chamber of Ommodurad. The scene shifted as
the body moved about, crossing the room, turning . . . I had assumed
that the body still lay in the dark but instead, it walked, without my
knowledge, propelled by a stranger.

The field of vision flashed across the couch. Ommodurad was gone.

I sensed that the entire left lobe, disoriented by the loss of the eye,
had slipped now to secondary awareness, its defenses weakened. I
retreated momentarily from my optic outpost, laid a temporary traumatic
block across the access nerves to keep the intruder from reasserting
possession, and concentrated my force in an attack on the auricular
channels. It was an easy rout. Instantly my eye coordinated its
impressions with those coming in along the aural nerves . . . and heard
my voice mouth a curse.

The body was standing beside a bare wall with a hand laid upon it. In
the wall a recess partly obscured by a sliding panel stood empty.

The body turned, strode to a doorway, emerged into a gloomy
violet-shadowed corridor. The glance flicked from the face of one guard
to another. They stared in open-mouthed surprise, brought weapons up.

"You dare to bar the path to the Lord Ammaerln?" My voice slashed at the
men. "Stand aside, as you value your lives."

And the body pushed past them, striding off along the corridor. It
passed through a great archway, descended a flight of marble stairs,
came along a hall I had seen on my tour of the Palace of Sapphires and
into the Onyx Chamber with the great golden sunburst that covered the
high black wall.

In the Great Owner's chair at the ring-board Ommodurad sat scowling at
the lame courtier whose red hair was hidden now under a black cowl.
Between them Foster stood, the heavy manacles dragging at his wrists.
Ommodurad turned; his face paled, then flushed darkly. He rose, teeth bared.

The gaze of my eye fixed on Foster. Foster stared back, a look of
incredulity growing on his face.

"My Lord Rthr," I heard my voice say. The eye swept down and fixed on
the manacles. The body drew back a step, as if in horror.

"You overreach yourself, Ommodurad!" my voice cried harshly.

Ommodurad stepped toward me, his immense arm raised.

"Lay not a hand on me, dog of a usurper!" my voice roared out. "By the
Gods, would you take me for common clay?"

And, unbelievably, Ommodurad paused, stared in my face.

"I know you as the upstart Drgon, petty Owner," he rumbled. "But I know
I see another there behind your pale eyes."

"Foul was the crime that brought me to this pass," my voice said.
"But . . . know that your master, Ammaerln, stands before you, in the
body of a primitive!"

"Ammaerln . . . !" Ommodurad jerked as though he had been struck.

My body turned, dismissing him. The eye rested on Foster.

"My liege," my voice said unctuously. "I swear the dog dies for this
treason?"

"It is a mindless one, intruder," Ommodurad broke in. "Seek no favor
with the Rthr for he that was Rthr is no more. You deal with me now."

My body whirled on Ommodurad. "Give a thought to your tone, lest your
ambitions prove your death!"

Ommodurad put a hand to his dagger. "Ammaerln of Bros-Ilyond you may be,
or a changeling from dark regions I know not of. But know that this day
I hold all power in Vallon."

"And what of this one who was once Qulqlan? What consort do you hold
with him you say is mindless?" I saw my hand sweep out in a contemptuous
gesture at Foster.

"An end to patience!" the Great Owner roared. "Shall I stand in my inner
citadel and give account of myself to a madman?" He started toward my body.

"Does the fool, Ommodurad, forget the power of the great Ammaerln?" my
voice said softly. And the towering figure hesitated once more,
searching my face. "The Rthr's hour is past . . . and yours, bungler and
fool," my voice went on. "Your months?or is it years??of self-delusions
are ended." My voice rose in a bellow: "Know that I . . . Ammaerln, the
great . . .  have returned to rule at High Okk-Hamiloth."

"Months?" rumbled Ommodurad. "Indeed, I believe the tales of the Greymen
are true and that an evil spirit has returned to haunt me. You speak of
months?" He threw back his head, laughed a choked throat laugh that was
half sob.

"Know, demon, or madman, or ancient prince of evil: for thirty centuries
have I brooded alone, sealed from an empire by a single key!"

I felt the shock rack through and through the invader mind. This was the
opportunity I had hoped for. Quick as thought I moved, slashed at the
wavering shield, and was past it?

I grappled onto the foul mind-matrix, scanned its symbolisms: a miasma
of twisted concepts like great webs, asquirm with bristling nodes like
crouching spiders?and through it all a yammering torrent of deformed
thought-shapes.

In my eagerness I was careless. The invader mind, recovering, struck
back. Too late I felt it slip into my awareness, flick over the stored
information. I leaped to protect one fact . . . and lost my gains. With
only a single tenuous line of rapport with the alien mind still open, I
clung, shaken?but hugging precious patterns of stolen data. My raid had
been no more than an irritation to the other mind . . . but I had
fetched away a mass of information. I interpreted it, integrated it,
matched it to known patterns. A complex structure of relationships
evolved, growing into a new awareness.

Upon the mind-picture of Foster's face was now superimposed another:
that of Qulqlan, Rthr of all Vallon, ruler of the Two Worlds!

And other pictures, snatched from the intruder mind, were present now in
the earth-consciousness of me, Legion:

The Vaults, deep in the rock under the fabled city of Okk-Hamiloth,
where the mind-trace of every citizen was stored, sealed by the Rthr and
keyed to his mind alone;

Ammaerln, urging the king to embark on a Far-Voyage, stressing the
burden of government, tempting him to bring with him the royal
mind-trace; Qulqlan's acquiescence and Ammaerln's secret joy at the
advancement of his scheme;

The coming of the Change for the Rthr, aboard ship, far out in space?and
the vizier's bold stroke;

And then the fools who found him at the lifeboat . . .  and the loss of
all, all . . . 

There my own memories took up the tale: the awakening of Foster,
unsuspecting, and his recording of the mind of the dying Ammaerln; the
flight from the Hunters; the memory trace of the king that lay for three
millennia among Neolithic bones until I, a primitive, plucked it from
its place; and the pocket of a coarse fiber garment where the cylinder
lay now?on the hip of the body I inhabited but as inaccessible to me as
if it had been a million miles away.

But there was a second memory trace?Ammaerln's. I had crossed a galaxy
to come to Foster, and with me, locked in an unmarked pewter cylinder, I
had brought Foster's ancient nemesis.

I had given it life, and a body.

Foster, once Rthr, had survived against all logic and had come back,
back from the dead: the last hope of a golden age . . . 

To meet his fate at my hands.

* * *

"Three thousand years," I heard my voice saying. "Three thousand years
have the men of Vallon lived mindless, with the glory that was Vallon
locked away in a vault without a key."

"I, alone," said Ommodurad, "have borne the curse of knowledge. Long
ago, in the days of the Rthr, I took my mind-trace from the vaults in
anticipation of the day of days when he should fall. Little joy has it
brought me."

"And now," my voice said, "you think to force this mind?that is no
mind?to unseal the vault?"

"I know it for a hopeless task," Ommodurad said. "At first I
thought?since he speaks the tongue of old Vallon?that he dissembled. But
he knows nothing. This is but the dry husk of the Rthr . . . and I
sicken of the sight. I would fain kill him now and let the long farce end."

"Not so!" my voice cut in. "Once I decreed exile to the mindless one. So
be it!"

The face of Ommodurad twisted in its rage. "Your witless chatterings
too! I tire of them."

"Wait!" my voice snarled. "Would you put aside the key?"

There was a silence as Ommodurad stared at my face. I saw my hand rise
into view. Gripped in it was Foster's memory trace.

"The Two Worlds lie in my hand," my voice spoke. "Observe well the black
and golden bands of the royal memory trace. Who holds this key is
all-powerful. As for the mindless body yonder, let it be destroyed."

Ommodurad locked eyes with mine. Then, "Let the deed be done," he said.

The redhead drew a long stiletto from under his cloak, smiling. I could
wait no longer . . . 

Along the link I had kept through the intruder's barrier I poured the
last of the stored energy of my mind. I felt the enemy recoil, then
strike back with crushing force. But I was past the shield.

As the invader reached out to encircle me I shattered my unified forward
impulse into myriad nervous streamlets that flowed on, under, over and
around the opposing force; I spread myself through and through the inner
all-mass, drawing new power from the trunk sources.

I caught a vicious blast of pure wrath that rocked me and then I
grappled, shield to shield, with the alien. And he was stronger.

Like a corrosive fluid the massive personality-gestalt shredded my
extended self-field. I drew back, slowly, reluctantly. I caught a
shadowy impression of the body, standing rigid, eyes blank, and sensed a
rumbling voice that spoke: "Quick! The intruder!"

Now! I struck for the right optic center, clamped down with a death grip.

The enemy mind went mad as the darkness closed in. I heard my voice
scream and I saw in vivid pantomime the visions that threatened the
invader: the redhead darting to me, the stiletto flashing?

And then the invading mind broke, swirled into chaos, and was gone . . . 

I reeled, shocked and alone inside my skull. The brain loomed, dark and
untenanted now. I began to move, crept along the major nerve paths,
reoccupied the cortex?

Agony! I twisted, felt again with a massive return of sensation my arms,
my legs, opened both eyes to see blurred figures moving. And in my chest
a hideous pain . . . 

I was sprawled on the floor, gasping. Sudden understanding came: the
redhead had struck . . . and the other mind, in full rapport with the
pain centers, had broken under the shock, left the stricken brain to me
alone.

As through a red veil I saw the giant figure of Ommodurad loom, stoop
over me, rise with the royal cylinder in his hand. And beyond, Foster,
strained backward, the chain between his wrists garroting the redhead.
Ommodurad turned, took a step, flicked the man from Foster's grasp and
hurled him aside. He drew his dagger. Quick as a hunting cat Foster
leaped, struck with the manacles . . . and the knife clattered across
the floor. Ommodurad backed away with a curse, while the redhead seized
the stiletto he had let fall and moved in. Foster turned to meet him,
staggering, and raised heavy arms.

I fought to move, got my hand as far as my side, fumbled with the
leather strap. The alien mind had stolen from my brain the knowledge of
the cylinder but I had kept from it the fact of the pistol. I had my
hand on its butt now. Painfully I drew it, dragged my arm up, struggled
to raise the weapon, centered it on the back of the mop of red hair,
free now of the cowl . . . and fired.

Ommodurad had found his dagger. He turned back from the corner where
Foster had sent it spinning. Spattered with the blood of the redhead,
Foster retreated until his back was at the wall: a haggard figure
against the gaudy golden sunburst. The flames of beaten metal shimmered
and flared before my dimming vision. The great gold circles of the Two
Worlds seemed to revolve, while waves of darkness rolled over me.

But there was a thought: something I had found among the patterns in the
intruder's mind. At the center of the sunburst rose a boss, in black and
gold, erupting a foot from the wall, like a sword-hilt . . . 

The thought came from far away. The sword of the Rthr, used once, in the
dawn of a world, by a warrior king?but laid away now, locked in its
sheath of stone, keyed to the mind-pattern of the Rthr, that none other
might ever draw it to some ignoble end.

A sword, keyed to the basic mind-pattern of the king . . . 

I drew a last breath, blinked back the darkness. Ommodurad stepped past
me, knife in hand, toward the unarmed man.

"Foster," I croaked. "The sword . . ."

Foster's head came up. I had spoken in English; the syllables rang
strangely in that outworld setting. Ommodurad ignored the unknown words.

"Draw . . . the sword . . . from the stone! . . . You're . . .
Qulqlan . . . Rthr . . . of Vallon."

I saw him reach out, grasp the ornate hilt. Ommodurad, with a cry,
leaped toward him?

The sword slid out smoothly, four feet of glittering steel. Ommodurad
stopped, stared at the manacled hands gripping the hilt of the fabled
blade. Slowly he sank to his knees, bent his neck.

"I yield, Qulqlan," he said. "I crave the mercy of the Rthr."

Behind me I heard thundering feet. Dimly I was aware of Torbu raising my
head, of Foster leaning over me. They were saying something but I
couldn't hear. My feet were cold, and the coldness crept higher.

I felt hands touch me and the cool smoothness of metal against my
temples. I wanted to say something, tell Foster that I had found the
answer, the one that had always eluded me before. I wanted to tell him
that all lives are the same length when viewed from the foreshortened
perspective of death, and that life, like music, requires no meaning but
only a certain symmetry.

But it was too hard. I tried to cling to the thought, to carry it with
me into the cold void toward which I moved, but it slipped away and
there was only my self-awareness, alone in emptiness, and the winds that
swept through eternity blew away the last shred of ego and I was one
with darkness . . . 

 

 


      *Epilogue*

I awoke to a light like that of a morning when the world was young.
Gossamer curtains fluttered at tall windows, through which I saw a
squadron of trim white clouds riding in a high blue sky.

I turned my head, and Foster stood beside me, dressed in a short white
tunic.

"That's a crazy set of threads, Foster," I said, "but on your build it
looks good. But you've aged; you look twenty-five if you look a day."

Foster smiled. "Welcome to Vallon, my friend," he said in English. I
noticed that he faltered a bit over the words, as if he hadn't used them
for a long time.

"Vallon," I said. "Then it wasn't all a dream?"

"Regard it as a dream, Legion. Your life begins today."

"There was something," I said, "something I had to do. But it doesn't
seem to matter. I feel relaxed inside . . ."

Someone came forward from behind Foster.

"Gope," I said. Then I hesitated. "You are Gope, aren't you?" I said in
Vallonian.

He laughed. "I was known by that name once," he said. "But my true name
is Gwanne."

My eyes fell on my legs. I saw that I was wearing a tunic like Foster's
except that mine was pale blue.

"Who put the dress on me?" I asked. "And where's my pants?"

"This garment suits you better," said Gope. "Come. Look in the glass."

I got to my feet, stepped to a long mirror, glanced at the reflection.
"It's not the real me, boys," I started?Then I stared, open-mouthed. A
Hercules, black-haired and clean-limbed, stared back. I shut my
mouth . . . and his mouth shut. I moved an arm and he did likewise. I
whirled on Foster.

"What . . . how . . . who . . . ?"

"The mortal body that was Legion died of its wounds," he said, "but the
mind that was the man was recorded. We have waited many years to give
that mind life again."

I turned back to the mirror, gaped. The young giant gaped back. "I
remember," I said. "I remember . . . a knife in my guts . . . and a
redheaded man . . . and the Great Owner, and . . ."

"For his crimes," told Gope, "he went to a place of exile until the
Change should come on him. Long have we waited."

I looked again and now I saw two faces in the mirror and both of them
were young. One was low down, just above my ankles, and it belonged to a
cat I had known as Itzenca. The other, higher up, was that of a man I
had known as Ommodurad. But this was a clear-eyed Ommodurad, just under
twenty-one.

"Onto the blank slate we traced your mind," said Gope.

"He owed you a life, Legion," Foster said. "His own was forfeit."

"I guess I ought to kick and scream and demand my original ugly puss
back," I said slowly, studying my reflection, "but the fact is, I like
looking like Mr. Universe."

"Your earthly body was infected with the germs of old age," said Foster.
"Now you can look forward to a great span of life."

"But come," said Gope. "All Vallon waits to honor you." He led the way
to the tall window.

"Your place is by my side at the great ring-board," said Foster. "And
afterwards: all of the Two Worlds lie before you."

I looked past the open window and saw a carpet of velvet green that
curved over foothills to the rim of a forest. Down the long sward I saw
a procession of bright knights and ladies come riding on animals, some
black, some golden palomino, that looked for all the world like unicorns.

My eyes traveled upward to where the light of a great white sun flashed
on blue towers. And somewhere trumpets sounded.

"It looks like a pretty fair offer," I said. "I'll take it."

 


  *THE CHOICE*

For a second or two, when the red ALERT light started flashing, I didn't
know what it meant; then I saw the crinkly lines wiggling across the
counterscope and I knew that something out there was giving off
patterned radiation. Considering the fact that we were nine hundred
million miles out from Earth in unexplored space, that was kind of a
surprise. My first impulse was to switch on the transmitter and give
whatever it was a hail?but Commander Ironblood was awake when he
shouldn't have been. In two of those snappy military steps he was beside
me, elbowing me out of the comm seat and pushing buttons with both
hands. He was a big, thick man with quarter-inch gray stubble across his
skull, and barbed wire for nerves.

"Mr. Barker," he spat me as if I wasn't there, "duty station, if you
please. Power off. Observe total radiation silence." I wish I could say
he yelled, but he sounded just as iceberg-cool as he had back at Sands,
the day he told me the personnel computer had picked me out of the
reserve files as third man on the Neptune Probe.

"I didn't ask to have an untrained, unqualified civilian aboard my
command," he had told me, "but since you're assigned, you'll conduct
yourself as a SpArm officer. The first thing you'll do is get a
haircut?and get rid of that vacuous smile. Space is a serious business."

I stopped smiling, all right, as soon as I got my first look at the
ship, all gray paint and DO and DON'T signs.

"You mean I'm going to spend a year and a half cooped up in this
oversized phone booth?" I yelped.

Barker, the Number Two, had grinned at me out of the corner of his
mouth. He had one of those scraped-bone faces, plastered over with freckles.

"What did you expect, Goodlark," he asked, "the Imperial suite, complete
with gold doorknobs, silk sheets, and breakfast in bed?"

"Sure," I said. "Why not? Exploring the planets ought to be a groove.
Why come on like a bunch of monks? Why not have a little fun while we're
at it?"

He was grinning the same grin now; I guess he read my expression.

"Still looking for kicks, Goodlark?"

"Why the creep routine?" I countered. "Why don't we get excited and yell
and wave or something?"

"That's not the SpArm tradition, boy. No sissy stuff for us. We mean
business."

"I always thought seeing Barsoom up close would be a gas," I said. "But
all we gave it was a dirty look. How did we ever get started with this
by-the-numbers jazz? Where's all the music and laughter gone?"

"Are you kidding?" Barker looked shocked. "At two point seven billion
bucks a shot, you better not be caught laughing."

Just then the main fore DV screen picked up something. Ironblood
switched it up to high mag. The image jumped at us.

"Holy leaping Mehitable," Barker said. "Would you look at that!"

It was something to look at: like the insides of a satellite radar
station, but without the station. Big?no telling how big against all
that blackness?and complicated, glittering all over with lights and
shiny planes and tubes, and things that moved in long, slow strokes like
mechanical arms. It hung there, looking at us. It was alert, aware?but
not alive. Somehow you could tell that, just looking at it. It got
bigger fast.

"That's nothing /our/ boys ever built," Barker said. "Ye gods,
Cap'n?that thing's /alien/!"

"We're closing rapidly," Ironblood said with no visible emotion.
"Recommendations, Mr. Barker?"

"Let's arm our missiles and get a look at the whites of their eyes,"
Barker said in clipped tones.

"Captain Ironblood," I said, "I have a better suggestion: let's turn on
our nav lights and blink out a greeting. Maybe an eight-bar rhythm. They
might dig that better than the pussyfoot routine?"

He gave me a look like a jab with a sharp stick.

"SpArm isn't paying our salaries to play astrohippy on NASA time," he
barked. That was as far as he got before there was a sharp /bleep!/ and
the walls dissolved around us like a switched-off solido.

* * *

We were still strapped into our acceleration couches, but now they were
sitting in the middle of a little white-walled room about the size of a
dentist's surgery, and with that same feeling of something painful about
to happen.

"Great galloping giraffes!" Barker said. "The ship's gone! Dissolved
around our ears like . . . like?"

"Like a solido projection switching off," the captain said. "Stand
fast." He unstrapped and prowled the room, feeling of the walls.

"They're real enough," he said. "It appears, gentlemen, that we've been
made captive." He faced the two of us. "It's pretty plain that we're in
the hands of a nonhuman intelligence of a high technical competence. I
don't need to remind you that from this point on, our actions will
determine their impressions of the human race. Whatever happens, we must
show no signs of weakness or uncertainty. We'll present a united faade
of defiance and dare them to do their worst."

"B-but what if they're friendly?" I asked.

Ironblood jerked a thumb at the walls that enclosed us. "Does this look
friendly?"

"Where are they hiding?" Barker blurted. "Why don't they come out and
fight like men?"

There was a loud /click!/ from somewhere, and he whirled, fists cocked.

"Welcome aboard, gentlemen," a smooth voice said. "Please remain calm.
You have been randomly selected for stat analysis, and are herewith
designated specimens A, B, and C. If you're ready, testing can commence
at once."

There were a few seconds of a silence as heavy as wet underwear. Then
Ironblood spoke up:

"Who are you?" he called. "/Where/ are you?"

"I'm all about you," the voice said. "Or, more simply stated, you are
inside me."

"You mean we've been eaten?" Barker yapped.

"Not precisely, since I don't eat. I am a mere artifact, an information
gathering device dispatched by the Galactic authorities on a routine
sweep of the sector."

"Galactic authorities, eh?" Ironblood muttered. "Well, now we know who
the enemy is. I suppose their espionage apparatus has been spying on us
for years, monitoring our radio broadcasts, waiting for this
opportunity. But they'll find SpArm personnel tough nuts to crack. Name,
rank and serial number, that's all we tell them."

"Listen, Captain," I said quickly, "why don't we mention that we bruise
easily, and that, although we come from a small, backward planet, we're
pretty important to ourselves? Once they realize we're harmless and scared?"

"As you were, Mr. Goodlark!" Ironblood cut me off. "We'll wait for their
next move without whining. I suspect they can observe our actions,
overhear our talk?perhaps even read our thoughts. We'll, therefore,
think positively. Keep your minds on SpArm regulations. Think of the
Alamo and Pearl Harbor. Let them know we're prepared to die like men!"

"Why rush things? If we think peaceful thoughts, maybe they'll get the
idea?"

"The idea we're weaklings?" Ironblood barked at me.

"That's it!" I said. "I mean, why put on an act? Just let it all hang
out. We'll tell them we like to dance and sing; too bad SpArm regs
didn't allow me to bring my eighty-eight stringer, I could play a few
cool notes for them?"

"Dance? Sing? You're out of your mind with terror, man! Consider
yourself under arrest!"

"What's the point of this kamikaze approach?" I yelled. "I have plans
that involve living to a ripe old age?and there's a girl named Daisy
Fields who'll be pretty broken up if I don't come back?"

"Mere individuals are expendable, Goodlark, you know that?"

"Time is of the essence, gentlemen," the voice cut in. "We'll have to
hurry along now. I'll fire a standard stimulus-array at you and record
your response-gestalts . . ."

"Ignore Goodlark's responses," Ironblood ordered the voice. "The man is
a degenerate, a freak, not representative of his species. You may base
your conclusions on my reactions, and those of Mr. Barker. Remember,
Barker," he added in a low tone, "Regulations! Discipline! CinC SpArm is
counting on you!"

* * *

Suddenly the floor turned to wax. As we floundered, lights flashed, red
and green and blue. I was clawing my way through a fog as thick as
taffy, while sounds blared, squeaked, buzzed. There was a reek of burnt
feathers, synthetic rubber, a whiff of molasses, attar of roses, old
socks, new leather, dead fish. I was hot, then cold. Pictures of tigers
and girls and fast cars and tidal waves and pizzas and sunsets flashed
through my brain. Voices yelled, whispered, things poked, rubbed,
pinched, stroked me. I mustered what control I had left for a yell, and
abruptly it was all gone and the white walls were back. Barker hung in
his chair, looking a little pale under the freckles. Captain Ironblood's
hair was slightly rumpled and his collar was turned up on one side, but
he was still holding a face like a sphinx.

"Let them have their fun," he rasped. "We'll show them they can't break us."

"Why not yell or something, Captain?" I managed to croak. "Maybe they
think we like it."

"I'm warning you, Goodlark," Ironblood snarled, "you do or say anything
to disgrace the uniform, and I'll personally throttle you! Clear?"

"Strange, very strange," the disembodied voice of the machine said.
"They're going to have a hard time believing some of this back at
Galactic Center. Still, I suppose it takes all kinds of life forms to
make a Universe. Now, gentlemen, Galactic policy requires that all
testees be fully compensated for any inconvenience I may have caused.
Accordingly, I'm prepared to render my assistance to you in the
achievement of your personal goals. My facilities are limited, of
course, but I can offer you a degree of choice in the matter?"

"You mean?you've already completed your evaluation?" Ironblood took a
deep breath and straightened his collar.

"Chins up, men," he murmured. "We'll soon be on our way." He cleared his
throat.

"Ah, before we go," he called, "I wonder if you'd mind telling us how we
measured up?just as a matter of curiosity?"

"Why, you reacted as you must, what else? But now, on to the final
question: Specimen A, how would you prefer to die: by hanging, drowning,
or fire?"

* * *

"It's no more than I expected from the beginning," Ironblood said,
looking a little pale around the jaws but still holding his cool.

"Cap'n, tell 'em they can't do this?" Barker started.

"I'll not beg for quarter."

"I guess it figures," Barker said. "It can't complete its report until
it sees one of us die. Well, I guess you'll show 'em, Cap'n?"

"Stop chattering, you fool," Ironblood said. "I have a decision to make.
I'll discount hanging at once. It has a felonious connotation I don't
care for."

"I don't know, Cap'n," Barker said judiciously. "They say it's pretty
humane. I mean the neck snaps, /zop/, like that, and it's all
over?unless the drop is too short and you choke to death," he added
doubtfully.

"I've never cared much for the idea of drowning," Ironblood said. "On
the other hand, death by fire is reported to be rather uncomfortable
too, for that matter."

"Boy, I've really got to admire the way you're taking it, Cap'n," Barker
said.

"I seem to recall that if you inhale the flames, you scorch the bronchi,
bringing instant death," Ironblood said hopefully.

"Hey, neat," Barker said. "I'll remember that."

"Good luck, Mr. Barker." Ironblood thrust out his hand and they gave
each other the Grip, their Academy rings glinting in the glow from the
walls. Ironblood looked at me.

"You're a civilian, Goodlark," he said, "but I expect you to follow
Lieutenant Commander Barker's orders as if they were my own." He looked
up at the ceiling.

"All right, fire it is," he said. "I'm ready."

* * *

There was a sharp hissing sound, and suddenly there was a heap of
faggots half as big as a haystack, and Ironblood strapped to a stake in
the middle. Smoke whiffed up, and then red flames flickered and grew and
in five seconds the whole thing was blazing away. I got a last glimpse
of Ironblood standing at attention in the middle of the bonfire, and
then the smoke and flames covered him.

"He went out like a man," Barker said. "He gave himself to save us, and
never whimpered."

A brisk draft had carried the last of the smoke away. There wasn't even
a singed spot on the floor to show where the captain had made his exit.

"All right, you've had your fun," Barker said to the room. "Now how
about putting us back aboard our vessel so we can get on with the mission?"

"Unfortunately," the voice stated, "your ship has been disassociated
into its component atoms, in much the same manner as has Specimen A."

"You destroyed our ship?" Barker yelled.

"It could be reconstituted, of course, if needed," the voice said. "But
to what end? I have a question for you to answer, remember?"

"Huh? You mean?the captain's sacrifice was for nothing? You're going to
offer me the same lousy choice he had?"

"You disapprove of the alternatives offered?"

"I sure as hell do!"

"In that case, B, you may select your preference from among the
following: shooting, stabbing, or garroting."

* * *

Barker gave me his favorite crooked grin. "Well, Goodlark, it looks like
the end of the trail for me. But don't feel bad. I guess your turn comes
next."

"Listen, Barker," I said, feeling kind of cold-sweaty and hot at the
same time. "Why take it like a bunch of zombies? Why don't we do what
comes naturally and kick and scream and beg for mercy or something?"

Barker showed me a large, knuckly fist. "You let the cap'n down and I'll
beat your skull in."

"What I mean is, I don't like those choices at all, frankly. Do we have
to just sit here?"

Barker's grin got crookeder. "Forget it, kid. We've had it. But you're
right about one thing. I'm not sitting here and taking it like a little
lamb, like the cap'n did. I'm giving them a fight."

"How?" I said. "Who do you fight?"

"I dislike rushing you, but I'm a hundred and three years behind
schedule already," the voice said. "Your choice, please, Specimen B."

"Shooting, stabbing, or garroting," Barker mused. "A bullet is an easy
out, assuming the hit man knows his job. Stabbing: slower, unless the
knife gets to just the right spot?and messy. Garroting, now?that's the
lousiest way to go yet. But at least there's something to get hold of.
Yeah. I'll go the rope route."

Barker clenched his fists, half crouched, and tried to watch in every
direction at once. He almost made it?except that the noose dropped from
straight above, whipped around his neck like a snake, and snapped tight
before he could make a move. His tongue poked out, and his eyeballs, and
something made a noise like stepping on a paper cup, and it was all over.

And now it was my turn.

* * *

"Specimen C, judging by B's reaction, you, too, will desire a unique
demise," the voice said cheerfully. "Accordingly, I can offer you the
following selection: death by poisoning?fast-acting, of course; anoxia;
or simple heart failure. I'd have liked to widen the scope to include
exhaustion, desiccation, and starvation, but they're too time-consuming,
I'm afraid."

I heard myself swallow. I tried to speak, but my tongue didn't want to
cooperate. I thought about the bitter taste of arsenic; I thought about
not being able to breathe; I thought about sharp pains in the chest . . . 

"Well, how about it, C?" the voice said. "Name your choice."

"N-n-n," I said. "None of them."

"Eh?" the machine said. "How's that?"

"None of them, blast you!" I yelled. "I don't like any of your shortcuts
to oblivion! I prefer to get there in my own way, in my own sweet time!"

"Really?" the voice sounded shocked. "But?my study of the motivations of
specimens A and B indicated that their whole lives were a pell-mell rush
to destruction?theirs, and everyone else's?"

"Maybe so?but don't include me in your statistics! I'm not quite as
high-minded as they were."

"Then?what /do/ you want?" the machine asked.

I told it.

* * *

"Routine, Mr. Barker," Captain Ironblood said. "It was a simple matter
of calling their bluff. Once they saw we weren't to be intimidated by
their threats, they back-tracked in a hurry."

"I've got to admit it looks that way," Barker said. "But I'll tell you
frankly, Cap'n: when I felt that hemp cut into my neck, I never expected
to wake up back here aboard ship, on course and in perfect health."

"The illusions were fairly graphic," Ironblood said. "But I was quite
certain, privately, that they would never go so far as to murder SpArm
personnel."

"Well, I guess all's well that ends well," Barker said. "But I'd like to
see the look on Headquarters' face when they get our report."

I had an urge to speak up and tell them how surprised the Census machine
had been when it found out SpArm regs didn't quite cover the whole range
of human aspirations, and how accommodating it had been, once it
realized its mistake.

"There's one other thing," I had told it after it had reconstituted the
ship and fixed it up a little. "Kind of a minor point, I guess, but
don't you think you ought to reconstitute specimens A and B, too?"

"But surely, in view of their avowed aspirational patterns, they are
better off where they are."

"Probably; but CinC SpArm might not understand. And I wonder if you
couldn't make a few adjustments to help them adjust to the new conditions."

So the machine had popped them back into existence, as good as new, or
maybe a little better. But it wouldn't do any good to tell /them/ that.
They wouldn't have believed a word of it.

"There's just one thing that's a little unclear, Cap'n," Barker was
saying. "Why is it that you and I have to spend the rest of the cruise
cooped up in this crummy little compartment, while Mr. Goodlark has the
Imperial suite to himself, complete with a staff of ten, breakfast in
bed, et cetera?"

Ironblood frowned. "I can't recall at the moment just why that is," he
said. "No doubt the strain of what we've been through has given us a
little area of confusion there. Suffice it to say it's all in accordance
with SpArm regs . . . I think."

"It must be," Barker said. "Otherwise, why would there be an Imperial
suite aboard a three-man scout in the first place?"

"Logical thinking, Barker," Ironblood said.

I didn't wait around to hear the rest. I eased the gold-plated door shut
and turned and walked across the ankle-deep carpet past the table where
the evening banquet was spread out to where Daisy Fields waited for me.

 


  *Three Blind Mice*

As Cameron recovered consciousness, the first thing he was aware of was
pain: the sting of cuts and bruises, the searing sensation of a burn
that had scorched his left forearm, a dull ache spreading from his lower
back. The second datum he absorbed was that the three-man scout boat was
in free fall toward the glaring surface of a planet, looming on the
screen before his padded command chair.

His mind raced back over the final moments before unconsciousness. He
remembered the sighting of the Yrax cruiser as it had emerged from the
radar shadow of the uninhabited ice-giant planet, behind which he had
stationed his tiny spy ship. The great war vessel had apparently
detected the presence of the intruding Terrans at the same moment. Its
instant response had been a salvo capable of blasting a battleship into
its component atoms.

Which it might have done, had the target been a battleship, massive and
sluggish. But even as the Yrax missiles leaped forth, Cameron had stood
the tiny ship on its stern and blasted it from the line of fire at full
9-G acceleration. The scout ship had pitched and bucked in the
shockwaves as massive detonations ripped the space it had occupied
seconds before; but it had righted itself with a scream of overstressed
gyros and streaked outward. Though its crew lay stunned by the violence
of the maneuvers, its recorders whined efficiently as they abstracted
precious data on Yrax firepower and cruise capability from the
frantically maneuvering warship?data which had until now been an
absorbing mystery to Terran Space Command.

The war?if so one-sided a conflict could be called a war?was in its
third year; four Terran colonies had been attacked and wiped out to the
last man. Two dozen Terran freighters had been blasted from space with
no survivors. Six revenue cutters of the Terran Space Arm had been
jumped and vaporized without warning. Seven mining installations had
been reduced to radioactive dust. And still, absolutely nothing was
known of the enemy who struck so swiftly and so ruthlessly?nothing but
their name, the Yrax, gleaned from intercepted transmissions in an
unknown tongue, badly garbled by star static, attenuated by the vast
distances of interstellar space.

And now, Cameron realized, he and his two-man crew had encountered a
Yrax warship?and were still alive to report their findings?so far.

The planet below was less than five hundred miles distant, if the
mass/proximity indicator was reading accurately. The ship's velocity was
over 20,000 kilometers per hour, relative, fortunately at a tangent to
the planetary surface. Already the first whistlings of attenuated outer
atmosphere were setting up resonant vibrations in the vessel's
eternalloy hull. Cameron keyed the autopilot into action. At once the
braking jets flared, filling the screens with their pale fire.

Beside him, Lucas, the engineer, leaned groggily over the auxiliary
panel, his face barely visible in the dim glow of the instruments.

"Luke?you okay?" Cameron called over the sibilant shrill of the thin
gases that buffeted and tore at the hurtling boat. The engineer pulled
himself upright and glanced his way; his teeth showed in a brief,
encouraging grin. On Cameron's right, Navigator Wybold stirred, groaned,
opened his eyes, sat up.

"We're going to hit," Cameron said. "But maybe we've got enough stuff
left to cushion the crunch. How're you feeling, Wy?"

"Okay?I hope," the navigator said. "How about you, Jim?"

"Still breathing," Cameron said. He studied the instrument array,
forming a mental picture of the vast planet spreading below: the great
ice fields, the serrated ridges of mountain ranges thrusting up like
bared teeth into the dense, turbulent atmosphere. At less than one
hundred miles from the surface, the broken scout boat hurtled in a long
descending arc, slicing deeper into the gases of the upper stratosphere.

"We're starting to warm up," Lucas said in a clipped emotionless tone.
"Hull temperature 900 and climbing fast. But so far our refrigeration
gear is holding it."

"Try to put a little axial spin on us, Luke," Cameron said.

"I've only got about 25 percent control of the steering jets," Lucas
said, "but I'll see what I can do."

There was a surge, as the boat responded to the spurt of energy from the
small-attitude jets mounted equatorially around its hull. The panel
seemed to sink away, slide sideways, rise, fall back in a nauseous gyration.

"Not so good," Lucas said. "We're spinning, but with a bad wobble. I'd
better let it go at that. Another shot might put us into a full-fledged
tumble."

"Luke?switch on the stern screen, will you?" Cameron ordered. The
engineer fine-focused the foot-square aft viewer. Against the blackness
of space, partly obscured by whipping swirls and streamers of exhaust
gases, a brilliant point of light glared. Cameron saw the muscles at the
corner of the engineer's square-cut jaw knot hard.

"They're following us down," he said. "Those critters don't intend to
take any chances at all, do they?"

"They can't afford to?not with what we've got on our record spools,"
Wybold said.

"Well, maybe we'll fool them," Cameron stated flatly. "There's a lot of
real estate down there to get lost in. Let's see what we can do."

Ahead, a range of knife-edged mountains towered ten miles into the
eroding millrace that was the ice giant's atmosphere. Cameron jockeyed
the thrust controls with a delicate touch, holding the boat prow-first
in the direction of travel, using the malfunctioning steering jets to
aim for the deep-cut V, like a wedge chopped by a mighty ax in the wall
of jagged stone and ice. Now the peaks to left and right were above
them, ripping past, aglitter in the white glare of the distant sun. A
great slope of black stone rushed toward them, directly in their path.
Lucas slammed full power to the remaining starboard tubes; there was a
brief flare of energy, a bone-wrenching surge?then the damaged steering
engines flashed in an instant to white heat. A spray of metal vapor
engulfed the boat as the automatic safety circuits blasted the explosive
bolts securing them to the vessel. Light flared on the screens as the
jettisoned engines detonated half a mile astern. Then a crashing,
clanging impact, a long, tearing screech of tortured metal that went on
and on?

And then, amazingly, silence, and the absence of all motion.

* * *

A fitful wind whined over the broken hull. Escaping air hissed thinly.
Hot metal /pinged!/ contracting. The heaters hummed, attempting to
maintain a livable temperature.

Moving slowly, painfully, Cameron looked around the compartment. His
couch was half-ripped from its moorings. A tangle of wiring and fluid
conduits had bulged from the shattered control console. Beside him, the
bulkhead was creased out of shape.

"Where are we, Wy?" he asked the navigator.

"We're down on a continental ice mass about fifty kilometers north of
the estimated equator, a couple of hundred kilometers from a big sea to
the north. We're about two thousand meters above nominal sea level; my
range readings as we came in were kind of confused.

"We're in a high valley; peaks on all sides. Outside temperature, 210
absolute. Gravity, 1.31 standard. Air pressure, 23 psi; composition,
nitrogen 85%, oxygen 10%, some water vapor. Wind velocity, 20 m.p.h.
gusting to 50. It seems to be high noon; this sun radiates strongly in
the upper end of the visible spectrum and in the UV, and it's pretty
bright out there. It reminds me a little of Vera Cruz in that respect."
He smiled briefly at the comparison of his beloved desert world with
this frozen wasteland.

"I never did understand why anybody wanted to colonize that sandbox,"
Lucas mused, eyeing Wybold obliquely. "I suppose some people will try
anything, though."

"Right?like settling down on a high-G world like Sandow, where you have
to be a champion weight lifter just to walk around," Wybold replied with
a ghost of a smile.

"And it looks like we'll be walking," Lucas said bluntly. "Hull
broached, main power out, auxiliary power out, emergency power at 10
percent base capability. Communications out?super-E, infrawave, SWF?the
works." He shook his head. "However, I got off an all-wave Mayday,
before we broke through the troposphere," he added casually.

Cameron managed a grin. "I'm glad you weren't too busy adjusting the air
conditioning to see to that detail."

"Hard to say what good it will do us," Lucas said. "We're a long way
from the nearest Terran base." He turned to the dark cockpit display
screens, flipped switches. There was no response.

"Try the DV's," Cameron suggested. Wybold fitted his face to the padded
eyepiece and turned the dials which focused the direct vision scopes. He
squinted into the dazzling light reflecting from the icefield?bright
enough to be painful even to his insensitive vision, adapted to the
blazing sunlight of his homeworld. Steep escarpments rose to either side
of the long valley; against the glaring pale blue sky, a single point of
brilliance winked and flickered.

"Oh-oh," he said. "They're still with us. We'll have dropped off their
radar and gamma-tracer screens?but we'll show up like a bonfire on IR.
If they haven't pinpointed us yet, they will any minute."

"We'll have to get out," Cameron said. "They'll blow the boat off the
map. We can hole up in the rocks, maybe."

Lucas unstrapped, rose to his feet, his muscular bulk making his thick
body look short in spite of his six-foot-one height. He turned to the
suit locker, lifted out Cameron's suit, tossed Wybold's to him, pulled
out his own.

Cameron had swiveled the DV eyepiece around, reduced the light level,
and was studying the scene.

"Broken ground up ahead," he said. "Caves. That's the spot to make for."

"Sure. Better get that suit on, Jim. It's cold out there."

Cameron shook his head. "Sorry, Luke. You and Wy get moving. I'll sit
tight and give them a little surprise as they close in?"

"What are you trying to do, get a medal out of this, Jim?" Lucas said.
"Come on?time's a-wasting."

Cameron shook his head.

"What's this?the old captain-goes-down-with-his-ship routine?"

"My back's sprained," Cameron said. "I can't move my legs."

"Wy, let's help Jim get into his suit," Lucas said briskly.

"You're wasting time," Cameron said as the two set to work, moving
clumsily in their suits, hampered by the massive tug of the big planet.

"They won't try to land that big baby," Lucas said. "She'd break up in
this G-field. That means they'll have to send a shore party down in a
sideboat. That will take awhile. Wy, let's unclamp my couch for a
stretcher."

"That's just more extra weight," Cameron protested.

"Pile it on," Lucas said. "That's what these piano legs are for."
Working swiftly, the two men freed the couch and placed the injured man
in it, strapping him in securely.

Outside, Cameron looked back at the battered hull, half sunk in the
frozen snow at the end of the long trough it had scored in landing.

"Take a last look," he said. "She was a good boat, but she'll never lift
again?and neither will we, if we don't get out of sight in a hurry." He
glanced at Lucas and saw that the big man's eyes were tight shut. Tears
trickled down his cheek and froze.

"Hey, Luke?don't take it so hard," he started, only half jokingly.

"Sorry," Lucas said, opening his eyes just far enough for the navigator
to see that they were enflamed and red. "I'm afraid I can't take the
light. I'm snow-blind."

Wybold hesitated only for a moment. Then he stepped forward, freed a
harness strap, and clipped it to a D-ring on the engineer's belt,
linking them.

"Follow the leader," he said, and started up the long slope?to his
desert-conditioned eyes just pleasantly illuminated?toward the jumbled
rocks and the dark cave mouths a quarter of a mile away.

They had covered three quarters of the distance, when Cameron suddenly
called, "Duck!"

In total silence, the Yrax gunboat rocketed into view from behind them,
streaked low overhead, trailed by a deafening sonic boom that shook snow
loose from the high ridges all around. In an instant, the air was filled
with the rumble of sliding ice. The ground trembled underfoot, as
immense glacial fragments dislodged by the sudden shock detached
themselves from the slopes and started downward, driving whirling clouds
of loose snow ahead.

"Run for it," Wybold shouted over the thunder, and putting his head
down, he ran, with Lucas close behind.

* * *

In a blinding fog of whirling ice crystals, the men scaled the jumble of
rock, searching for a cranny big enough to conceal them. They reached
the top of the first incline, found a narrow ledge leading to the left
and upward between high walls?a route cut by ages of runoff water from
spring thaws.

"It might be a dead end," Wybold said. "What do you think, Jim?"

"We'll try it, Wy. We don't have much choice."

Even the navigator's desert-trained vision, developed on a world where
blazing sunlight and obscuring dust storms were a way of life, was of
little value now. He climbed doggedly on, feeling his way up the narrow
trail. There was a sharp turn, and the ravine widened into a bowl-shaped
hollow?possibly an old lake basin?the walls of which were riddled with
shallow, water-cut grottoes. Most of these were far too small to shelter
a man, and all were choked with ice. But ahead, on the right, a single
black opening showed. Wybold struggled across the drifts toward it. It
was a cave, its mouth protected by a narrow passage. It seemed clear,
but to Wybold the interior was only an inky blackness.

"Luke?can you make out anything in there?"

The engineer moved up beside him, blinked his light-burned eyes,
grateful for the soothing gloom.

"A small opening, but it widens out inside. Goes back a good twenty feet
and turns. It'll do."

Inside, Lucas deposited Cameron's improvised cot in a sheltered spot
well back from the entrance.

"All the comforts of home, gentlemen," he said.

"Better check out the back of the cave," Cameron said to Lucas. "There
may be another way in."

Lucas nodded and set off, moving surely in the near-darkness.

"What do you suppose their plan of attack will be, Jim?" Wybold asked,
scanning the expanse of dazzling white visible beyond the opening.

"If they're smart, they'll bring up some kind of heavy gun and blast
away," Cameron replied. "But if they're smarter, they'll try to come in
on foot and make sure of us."

"We'll know pretty soon," Wybold said.

* * *

The rearmost extension of the cave, Lucas found, though it narrowed
sharply, did not pinch off entirely. Concealed in deep shadow, an
opening some six feet high and barely two feet in width split the rock
wall. To ordinary vision, the darkness beyond would have been
impenetrable; but to the Sandovian's sensitive eyes a twisting tunnel
was dimly visible, leading back into the cliff. In ages past, Lucas
guessed, during a warmer age in the life of the big planet, thawing ice
had eroded this route down through the stone, which in turn implied an
unguarded access at the far end. For a moment, he considered reporting
on his finding and requesting permission to continue; then, he squeezed
his powerful bulk through the narrow aperture and, ducking slightly
under low clearance, prowled along the passage into the rock.

Almost at once, the way angled sharply upward, became an almost vertical
shaft through tumbled rock. Climbing was difficult; the water-worn
stones were smoothly rounded, hard to grip. After a dozen feet, the
narrowing tunnel leveled off, became a wide, low-ceilinged shelf. Lucas
was forced to lie flat and crawl, using fingers and toes.

The ceiling shelved gradually downward, closing in. When it was apparent
that no more progress could be made dead ahead, he angled to the right.
At once, he found himself wedged tight between floor and ceiling. With
an arm-creaking effort, he pulled himself through and the passage opened
out. Through a gap in the rock ahead, watery daylight leaked.

Lucas crawled forward, shielding his eyes from the light, saw a final,
irregularly-walled crevice leading out to the open. He made his way
along it, emerged on a windswept slope of frozen snow, bathed in the
deep blue shadow of an ice peak. Here, out of the direct sunlight, he
was able to see, though painfully. He made a narrow aperture between his
fingers, striving to make out the details of the scene below. He was, he
determined, at a point some fifty yards above and to the left of the
cave mouth?a spot inaccessible to any climber from below. At his back, a
vertical ice wall rose. As he was about to turn away, there was a sound
from below. Motion caught his eye, below and to the left. He went flat,
watched as a sticklike creature, moving quickly on four multiple-jointed
legs, rounded a shoulder of ice and poised on the narrow ledge leading
along the cliff face, its flexible torso curving upward in an attitude
of alert listening. Four additional limbs sprang from the alien's
shoulder region, the lower pair long, tipped with paired chelae, the
upper pair short, flexible as a monkey's tail. The body was the color of
blued steel, with a hard, polished look. Straps crisscrossed the narrow
thorax, bearing badges and pouches.

For the first time, a human being was looking at a Yrax soldier.

The alien stood for a moment, the stiff, antennalike members atop its
insignificant bullet-shaped head moving restlessly. Then, it darted
forward. From his vantage point above, Lucas saw the narrow cleft in the
ice lying directly in the Yrax's path. The Yrax, however, scanning the
slopes above, failed to notice the trap. As its forelegs went over the
edge, the long arms shot out, scored the ice on the far side in a vain
bid for purchase. But the weight of the massive body was too great. Ice
chips flew as the rear legs clawed, resisting the inexorable slide. Then
the heavy torso slid down, dropped into the crevasse. For another few
seconds the creature clung, while its arms raked desperately for a grip.
Then, with a final screech of iron-hard claws on ice, it was gone,
clattering away into the depths to lodge with a smash far below.

At the same moment, a second Yrax appeared around the abutment. It moved
briskly forward, paused for a moment at the edge of the cleft, then
raised its upper body and lunged across the yard-wide gap. For a moment
it seemed as though it might be safe, then the forward pair of
legs?which had gained a precarious purchase on the rim of ice?slipped
back. As the creature clung by its forelimbs?it had secured a better
grip than its predecessor?two more Yrax came into view along the path.
One veered to the right, the other to the left. Neither took any
apparent notice of their fellow, still clinging to his precarious hold
on safety.

One of the newcomers edged to his left along the cleft to the edge of
the narrow ledge it cut. It leaned out to examine the terrain below, but
seemingly found nothing there to encourage it. Moving back a few feet,
it sprang forward, cleared the cleft in a bound, landing with a metallic
clatter, but safely, only its hind pair of legs kicking fragments of ice
free from the lip of the pitfall as it pulled itself forward and
disappeared from Lucas' view.

Meanwhile, the second newcomer had explored to its right, moving out of
Lucas' line of sight. He heard the scrape of the horny limbs on ice, a
clatter, the sounds of falling ice chunks, then a distant crashing. The
creature did not reappear.

As a fourth Yrax advanced along the ledge, the unfortunate advance guard
who had been silently dangling above the abyss slipped suddenly, dropped
from view. Lucas winced at the now-familiar sound of impact far below.
And now more of the aliens were appearing, some scouting along the edge,
some launching themselves without hesitation, some crossing the gap,
others falling to unnoticed death. A few turned aside, began exploring
the wall to their right. If they found a route there, Lucas realized,
the rear entrance to the cave would be quickly discovered.

He eased back silently from the edge, studied the opening in the rock.
It was not large, but would be obvious at even a casual glance. It would
have to be camouflaged. That meant snow and ice?the only materials
available.

Lucas' eyes were burning, closing in spite of his efforts to keep them
open. He clambered up above the opening, then set his feet against a
large block of packed snow, and pushed.

The results exceeded his expectations. The crust broke away suddenly; a
slab of ice ten feet long and a yard high toppled over the edge to thud
massively down before the narrow entrance?and Lucas, deprived abruptly
of his grip, slid after it. He struck hard, a jagged edge of ice
smashing across his ribs with stunning force. He was dimly aware of the
impact of ice fragments around him, of the whirl of loose snow driven up
by the displaced air, of a distant, ominous rumble.

Then something struck his head, and all thought faded into swirling
darkness.

* * *

In the cave, Wybold cocked his head, listening to the muffled rumbling
that seemed to come from deep inside the mountain. A sudden gust of air
puffed from the dark recesses at the rear of the deep cave, bringing
with it a scattering of snow crystals. The sound died away; the fitful
draft dwindled and was gone. Only a long drift of powdery snow across
the floor attested to the brief flurry. Wybold turned; his eyes met
Cameron's.

"Sounded like a cave-in," the injured man said.

"I'd better go have a look," the navigator said. Neither man mentioned
the thought uppermost on their minds: /Lucas is back there
somewhere . . . / 

"You'll be as blind in the dark as Luke is in direct sunlight," Cameron
said bluntly.

"I can feel my way. Don't forget my famous Veracrucian sense of
direction." He tried to make the words sound light.

"Move me over beside the front door before you go," Cameron said.

Wybold paused. "I wasn't thinking," he said. "Of course I can't leave
you here alone."

"I have my suit gun," Cameron said. "Just prop me up so I can see down
that passage."

"Wait a minute, Jim?"

"Luke might be needing help pretty badly, Wy," Cameron cut him off.
"Better hurry up."

Five minutes later, with the crippled Cameron settled in position
guarding the entrance, Wybold set off along the path Lucas had followed.
At first, the route was clear enough; he slipped easily through the
cleft in the rock, moving forward by feeling his way with outstretched
hands, sliding his feet forward to explore for unseen pitfalls. At the
point where the route angled upward, he was baffled for awhile; then he
found the opening leading upward and began to climb.

In the low chamber where Lucas had almost become wedged, Wybold paused
for breath. In total darkness and utter stillness, he lay on his face
under the shelving rock, before starting on. Directly before him, the
ceiling dipped sharply. Lucas could never have negotiated that passage,
the navigator felt sure. But had he gone right, or left?

Either direction seemed equally likely. Wybold chose the left. The space
widened until he could rise to all fours, then to his feet, though it
was still necessary to stoop. Through his open faceplate, he felt a
steady flow of cold, fresh air. Feeling his way toward its source, he
saw a faint glow of daylight that widened out into a steeply angled cut
leading up to a strip of vivid blue sky.

It was a difficult climb up the twenty-foot slope of icy rock; but at
last he reached the top and emerged on a slope of glittering snow
beneath a towering crag. A ragged edge of broken snow crust ran just
below his position, as from a recent snowslide. The stretch of bare rock
thus exposed ended in an abrupt dropoff. Beyond and below this edge,
strange figures moved.

Wybold dropped flat, watching the Yraci scouts as they scurried back and
forth, exploring the extent of a great drift of broken ice blocking the
ledge along which they made their separate ways. One clambered directly
up the side of the heap, slipped as he neared the top, rolled helplessly
back down, and disappeared over the edge. Others climbed up at other
points; some succeeded in negotiating the obstruction, and hurried away
along the ledge; others tumbled back to the base, back near their
starting point and immediately tried again. Still others followed the
one who had fallen over the side. None appeared to be aware of the
efforts of his fellows. There was no particular effort to follow in the
tracks of the successful climbers or to shun the routes that led to
catastrophe.

For ten minutes, Wybold watched the procession. A few stragglers
arrived, picked their routes, fell or passed the blockage. One last
multilegged alien hurried up, skittered upslope, clattered down safely
on the far side and was gone. The navigator waited another two minutes,
then cautiously rose and worked his way downslope. It was an eight-foot
drop to the top of the ice heap blocking the ledge. As he debated
attempting the risky descent, with the idea of following the alien
scouting party, he noticed a small patch of dark blue visible through
the heaped ice dust?a blue of the identical shade of a regulation Space
Arm ship suit.

"Luke!" he exclaimed. In a moment Wybold had turned, lowered himself
over the edge, and dropped. He struck the ice heap near its crest,
caught himself as he slipped toward the adjacent chasm, and slid down
beside the place where the telltale color gleamed through the drift.
Quickly, he raked away the loose ice chips, lifted a larger slab aside,
and exposed the engineer's left arm.

The buried man was in no immediate danger of suffocation?provided the
faceplate of his suit had been closed. And the layer of fallen ice and
snow did not seem to be deep enough to have done any serious damage. But
Lucas lay ominously still.

Wybold cleared his arm to the shoulder, exposed his head, and breathed a
sigh of relief as he saw that Lucas' faceplate was closed. Five more
minutes' work had cleared the unconscious man's torso. At that point,
Lucas stirred. Wybold looked back down along the ledge; the route the
Yraci had used was marked by their many-limbed tracks that wound back
down toward the snowfield below. Ahead, the route curved out of sight.
No aliens were in view, but they could return at any moment.

"Luke! Wake up," Wybold urged. "We've got to get out of sight!"

Two minutes later Lucas was on his feet, groggy from the blow a
thirty-pound ice fragment had dealt him, but able to walk.

"They've gone on along the ledge, toward the cave mouth," Wybold told
him. "Let's get going. Jim's holding the fort alone."

Lucas looked up at the ice-rimmed ledge above. "I'll boost you up," he
said. He squatted and Wybold stepped up; after a brief scramble, he
pulled himself to the top.

"Hard work in this G," Wy panted. Lying flat, he extended an arm to the
engineer. Lucas found a small foothold, reached up as far as he was
able. His hand was a foot short of Wybold's outstretched hand. He found
a precarious handhold, pulled himself up a few inches, but slipped back.

"No go," he said. "You go on back, Wy. I'll trail our friends and keep
an eye on them. Maybe I can create a diversion?"

"Uh-uh," Wybold shook his head. "I can't see my hand in front of my face
in there. I almost got lost in that maze. I'd never find my way back.
And as for you keeping a watch?you can't see any better out here than I
can inside. We'll stick together and watch for a break." He slipped over
the edge and dropped back down beside Lucas.

"All right," the engineer said. "Let's go see what they're up to."

* * *

Alone in the icy cave, settled as comfortably as his wrenched back would
allow, Cameron had lain for the better part of an hour, sighting along
the barrel of the weapon propped on the stone before him. The afternoon
sun glared frosty white on the patch of snow visible beyond the opening
twenty feet away. Even his Earth-normal vision was beginning to suffer
from the continual strain; he blinked and turned away to rest his eyes.
When he looked back, an ungainly silhouette stood poised against the light.

For a long moment, neither Cameron nor the intruder moved. The Yrax
seemed to be studying the dark recess, considering its next move.
Suddenly it stepped forward on its four slim legs, lowering its upraised
torso to duck under the entry. Cameron waited. The Yrax advanced
cautiously. When it was ten feet away, it saw him. For a moment, it
halted; then, it gathered its legs and crouched. Cameron took careful
aim at the point of juncture of the slim neck and the horny thorax and
pressed the switch of the heat gun. A brilliant point of light glinted
on the alien's shiny blue-black exoderm. In the blue-white glare, smoke
puffed outward from the point of contact. The creature leaped backward,
its carapace raking the sides of the entry with a metallic clatter, and
was gone. A rank odor of charred horn hung in the air.

Cameron uttered a harsh sigh and blinked at sweat that had trickled into
his eyes. He resighted the gun and waited, looking out at stillness and
silence. And, suddenly, another Yrax was framed in the entry.

This time Cameron didn't wait. The beam lanced out, seared a smoking
blister on the chitinous thorax. As before, the victim recoiled,
skittered from sight, apparently unharmed.

Two Yraci arrived simultaneously. One thrust ahead; the heat beam caught
him, and he leaped back but collided with his fellow. For a frantic
moment, the two aliens threshed, limbs entangled, while Cameron raked
them indiscriminately. Then both tumbled away, darted from view.

After that, there was a lull that stretched on for half a minute, a full
minute . . . 

Abruptly, an alien was there, staggering under the burden of a massive
shape of dull metal, which it deposited squarely in the entrance. It set
swiftly to work, adjusting the apparatus, so that a series of what
appeared to be ring sights were squarely aligned along the dim tunnel.
At this range?the Yrax was some twenty-five feet distant?the diverging
beam of the heat projector cast a disk of light that was barely visible
in the glare of the sun, and seemed to discomfit the alien not at all as
it busied itself at its task. Cameron shifted aim, directing his beam at
the cluster of what he guessed to be the controls of the alien machine.
In seconds the iodine-colored metal glowed red hot. Moments later?as the
Yrax gunner squatted, multiple knees beside the armored body, to sight
along the firing tube?the weapon burst with a sharp detonation that sent
its operator flying in a cloud of ice chips. As the smoke of the
explosion cleared, Cameron saw that the body of the device had burst,
exposing coils of wiring that burned with a fierce light that suggested
pure magnesium. In the next five minutes, he fired on three more Yraci
who came forward as if to inspect the ruined gun. Their reactions never
varied from the pattern: immediate flight.

Then a lull. Ten minutes passed. Somewhere far away Cameron heard a low
rumble, as of distant cannon fire. Then nothing. Slowly, the shadows
lengthened. Cameron waited.

* * *

From a concealed ledge a hundred yards above the cave mouth, Lucas and
Wybold had watched as the aliens crawled over the tumbled moraine of
rock and ice, poking into one cave mouth after another. They had seen an
alien halt before the cave where they knew Cameron waited, alone and
hurt, watched as the intruder started in, then tumbled out in obvious
distress. They had observed as others made the attempt, ignored by their
fellows, who continued to poke and probe into other dark recesses in the
rock. When the weapon-bearing Yrax came up, they had tensed to jump to
their feet, shout, anything to distract the gunner. But the machine had
suddenly winked with blue-white light, and an instant later the sharp
crack of the detonation reached their ears.

"He's holding them off," Wybold said. "But it can't go on forever."

"They don't know much about cooperation," Lucas said. "Look at that
one?he's going to bring that whole ridge right down on his pals?" As he
spoke, a long rim of ice which had precariously overhung the floor of
the hollow broke away, came crashing down, raising the inevitable cloud
of snow and ice crystals. At once, Wybold saw the opportunity. He
scrambled to his feet.

"Luke?come on?while they're blinded!" He plunged forward, half slid,
half fell down the slope. He came upright in a white mist as opaque as
milk glass, and paused for a moment, attuning his directional sense.

"This way, Luke," he called, and plunged ahead. He dodged past the
dimly-seen figure of a Yrax, groping through the murk, and skirted a
mound of fallen ice; then the cave mouth opened before him. He
floundered through a waist-deep drift, gained the entry.

"Jim! It's me!" he shouted. Then he was beside Cameron, who reached out
to grip his hand.

"I knew you clowns had something to do with that snowstorm out there,"
the injured man called over the now diminishing roar. "Where's Luke?"

Wybold whirled. "He was right behind me?"

"Wait!" Cameron's voice checked him. "You can't go back out there, Wy!
They'll spot you! The snow is already settling!"

"But?Luke . . ."

"Luke knows where we are," Cameron said. "He'll expect to find us here."

"I guess you're right," Wybold concurred reluctantly.

* * *

When Wybold shouted and disappeared into the obscuring whirl of snow,
Lucas lowered his head against the blinding glare and charged after him.
He fell almost at once, regained his feet, fell again. A massive ice
block crashed down directly in his path; he veered to the left, recoiled
as the ungainly shape of a Yrax appeared before him, in distress as
obvious as his own. It ignored him, blundered past, and Lucas went on,
climbing the drifts, falling, picking himself up . . . 

The ground was rising; Lucas paused, picturing the lay of the land as he
had dimly seen it from above. There was no upward slope between his
point of departure and the cave mouth. And he sensed that he had gone
too far. He had covered a hundred feet at least, and the distance to the
entry had been no more than seventy at most.

Vaguely now, he could see a slope of craggy ice rising above him. No
more ice was falling from above. He looked back. The obscuring veil was
settling. Vague shapes moved in the hollow below. In another moment he
would be in plain view to the aliens. He resumed his climb, pulled
himself up into a shallow gully, turned to scan the back trail. He saw
the cave mouth now, half buried in snow. He had missed it by fifty feet.
At least twenty Yraci prowled the ledge before it. Wybold was not in
sight. That was good, Lucas told himself; he would be inside with Jim now.

And he was outside.

For half an hour, Lucas watched the apparently aimless movements of the
aliens. Many of them attempted to scale the slopes that enclosed the
ledge on three sides. All failed?which did not deter others from
attempting the same task. Along the lower trail?the single access to the
hollow, now that the upper trail was blocked?more aliens arrived, to
repeat the performances of their predecessors. Then they settled down in
apparent patience before the cave mouth.

"Stalemate," Lucas muttered to himself. "They can't get inside, and Jim
and Wy can't get out. And if they could, the escape route's blocked. The
only way out leads right into the arms of the Yraci." For another
quarter of an hour he studied the scene, as the sun, obscured now behind
a peak, sank swiftly lower, bringing a twilight that was soothing to the
man's burning eyes.

Can't stay here, he thought. Temperature's already falling. Have to do
something . . . 

A trickle of snow slid down from the slope above the cave to form a low
mound in the open trail. A lone Yrax, a late arrival, clambered up over
it, leaving a busy trail of foot and drag marks, hurried on to join the
waiting group before the cave. Bunched up as they were, they offered a
perfect target for a few well-aimed rounds of artillery fire, Lucas
reflected. All that was lacking was the artillery.

The engineer tensed suddenly, frowning in thought. Then he rose, moved
silently along the gully until he had traversed the crest of the ridge.
Below, the last gleam of dusk lit the long valley. Keeping to the high
ground, Lucas set off at a brisk walk directly away from the cave.

* * *

"Getting cold out there," Wybold said. "Luke can't take a night out in
the open. Maybe I'd better go look for him."

"To you, it's been pitch dark for an hour, Wy," Cameron said. "You
couldn't see your hand in front of your face. Anyway, Luke will expect
us to sit tight. If there's anything he can do, he'll do it."

"I feel pretty useless, just sitting here."

"I know how you feel," Cameron said. "But let's not make the mistake our
pals the Yraci do."

"What do you mean?"

"They don't work together. We do. And our part of the job right now is
just staying put."

"Maybe, Jim. But what if Luke can't reach the back door? What if he's
waiting for us to come out that way?"

"Wy?we're both blind in a dark cave. And you aren't a Sandovian like
Luke. You couldn't lug me that far on your back."

"I suppose you're right."

I hope so, Cameron thought.

* * *

The diffuse starlight lit the scene comfortably for Lucas. He made good
time, coming stealthily down on the wrecked scout boat from above after
a brisk twenty-minute hike. It was nearly buried in the snow that was
shaken down by the sonic boom of the Yraci landing craft. There were a
maze of alien footprints around it; trails led away across the snow in
the direction of the cave. But no aliens were in sight.

Lucas set to work, digging the soft drifts away from the hull, at a
point fifteen feet from the exposed stern. In a quarter of an hour, he
had excavated a pit six feet deep and wide enough to stand in, with a
minimum of elbow room. Against the curve of hull thus revealed, the
rounded bulge of a steering engine housing flared. The inspection cover
unsnapped easily. The engine itself was an eighteen-inch-long torpedo
shape, blunt at both ends, attached to its gimbaled mountings by four
heavy-duty retaining clamps. They were designed to be loosened quickly;
steering engine replacement sometimes had to be made in space, under
difficult conditions. In the tool locker inside the boat, there was a
special wrench for the purpose; but the hatch was buried now under tons
of ice. If the clamps were to be removed, it would have to be by hand.

Lucas dug away more packed snow to give his feet good purchase. He
planted himself, gripped the big knurled knob in one hand, closed the
other hand over it, and applied pressure. His grip slipped. He squeezed
harder, threw every ounce of power in his big frame into the effort.
With a sharp /crack! /the clamp spun free.

The second and third clamps turned more easily. The last was balky, but
on the third try?an effort that made tiny bright lights whirl before
Lucas' eyes?it yielded. Carefully, he disconnected the control leads; if
they were accidentally crossed, the engine would ignite at once,
ejecting a 2 cm stream of superheated ions at a velocity of 2,000 feet
per second?and incidentally pulverizing anyone in the vicinity. He
lifted the massive engine down?its Earth-normal weight was 240
pounds?cradled it in his arms, and started back toward the cave.

* * *

The hike back was not so easy as the outward trip. For all his giant
strength, Lucas was tiring. The bitter cold had taken its toll of his
resources, too. Toiling up the last few hundred yards of the climb to
the vantage point in the gully overlooking the cave mouth, he was forced
to halt for rest at shorter and shorter intervals. He arrived at last
and sank down, dumping his burden in the snow.

It had been two hours since Lucas had left the spot, but the scene below
was unchanged. The score or more of Yraci still crouched waiting,
outside the dark entrance to the cranny where the men had taken refuge.
The darkness or the cold, it seemed, had the effect of reducing the
activity of the aliens; there was no more nervous darting here and
there, no fruitless exploration of routes up the slopes, no activity
along the narrow trail. The besiegers seemed content to crouch
motionless but for aimless waving of arms, and wait.

Wait for what? Lucas wondered. Maybe they're bringing up some big guns
of their own. And if so, I'd better get moving . . . 

He righted the steering engine, placed it in a convenient crevice in an
exposed rock slab, and packed snow around it, taking care to lead the
control cables out into the clear. He aligned it carefully, then heaped
other stones over it, packing the interstices with ice. In use, the
engine was endothermic, absorbing heat from its surroundings. Firing it
would freeze the entire mass into a single unit.

And now he was ready. Lying flat behind the improvised heat cannon, he
grasped a wire in each hand, bringing them together?

A tremendous weight struck him in the back, slamming him against the
heaped stones and ice around the engine, in the same instant that, with
a hard, racking bellow, the engine burst into life. Lucas, half-stunned
by the impact, twisted onto his back, fighting against the grasping,
threshing bulk that had hurled itself on him so unexpectedly. He had a
confused glimpse of a weird, triangular head, the scarred, horny
thoracic plates and multijointed arms of a giant of the Yrax species;
then the alien sprang clear, rearing up to bring its anterior limbs to
bear. But Lucas was not the man to wait for the attack. He threw himself
at the ungainly, ten-foot creature, knocked its rodlike legs from under
it, grappled it around the body. Its limbs flashed as it struck vainly
at him, but he rose to his knees, and using the full power of his giant
torso and shoulders, hurled the alien from him. It raked at the ice,
sending up a shower of chips; then it was gone, to slam down the steep
slope with a crash like a ground car striking an abutment.

The roar of the steering engine had continued without pause. As Lucas
clawed his way back to it, he saw at once that the impact of his body
under the Yrax's attack had knocked it out of its careful alignment. The
jet stream?a blue-white bar of ravening energy that lit the scene like a
flare?instead of raking the besieging aliens, was searing the naked ice
slope above the cave, sending a vast cloud of exploding steam boiling up
against the sky. Vainly, the engineer threw his weight against the
emplacement; but the engine was locked in a solid frozen matrix as
impervious as granite.

As Lucas stared in bitter dismay at the target point across the gorge,
the entire slope seemed to stir at once. With infinite leisure, cracks
opened all across the great sheet of ice. Slabs the size of skating
rinks came sliding down to spill over the edge and slam down on the
ledge below. In moments, the hollow was a churning cauldron of whirling
snow, driven up by the stream of snow, ice, and rock arriving in an
ever-increasing volume from above. Here and there, around the periphery
of the bowl-shaped space, a Yrax was visible, frantically attempting to
climb the encircling wall, only to fall back and disappear in the
blinding flurry.

Lucas found a loose fragment of stone, pounded at the ice encasing the
bellowing engine, exposed the control wires. He ripped them apart and
instantly the booming echoes crashed and died. The rumble and thud of
falling ice dwindled, faded out. The blizzard driven up by the avalanche
settled, revealing heaped banks from which here and there struggling
alien limbs projected. But where the mouth of the cave had been, great
drifts of broken ice rose up, burying it at least ten feet deep.

A lone Yrax freed itself from the snow, hurried to the point at which
the trail had led from the hollow. But now a wall of snow barred egress.
The alien scouted back and forth, tried to find a foothold, fell back,
tried again, but fell back again. Others of the buried creatures were
struggling clear of their icy entombment, and each tried and failed to
find a route out of the hollow.

They're trapped, Lucas thought numbly. But so are Jim and Wy. I could
lead them out the back way?if I could reach it. They can't do it alone
in the dark, even if Wy could carry Jim.

And even if they got clear?what then? We can't live long in this ice
hell . . . 

There was a sound from below and behind Lucas. He crawled to the spot
where he had thrust the giant alien over the edge. Twelve feet below,
the alien crouched, its oddly featureless face turned up toward him. One
of its legs was broken in two places.

"You're in a bad spot too, aren't you, fellow?" Lucas said aloud. "It
looks like nobody wins and everybody loses."

A ratchety sound came from the creature below. Then a rasping voice
which seemed to emanate from a point on the alien's back said clearly:

"Human, I underestimated you. It was a grave fault, and for that fault I
die."

* * *

For a moment, Lucas was stunned into paralysis by the astonishing
speech. But only for a moment.

"Where did you learn to speak Terran?" he said.

"For nine hundred ship periods I have monitored your transmissions of
pictures and voices," the alien said in its flat, unaccented tone. "It
was a strange phenomenon, worth investigation though passing understanding."

"Why haven't you communicated with us before?"

"For what purpose?"

"To end this tomfool war!" Lucas burst out. "What do you want from us?
Why do you raid our colonies and attack our ships?"

The creature was silent for a long moment.

"It is the way of life," it said. "Could it be otherwise?"

"We could cooperate," Lucas said. "The galaxy is big enough for everybody."

"Cooperate? I know the word. It is a concept I have been unable to analyze."

"To work together. You help us, and we help you."

"But?how can this paradox be? Your survival and mine are mutually
exclusive destiny-patterns. It is the nature of life for each being to
strive to destroy all competitors."

"Is that why you've been killing men wherever you found them?"

"I have not tried to kill you," the Yrax stated. "Only your . . ." It
used an incomprehensible word. Lucas asked for a translation.

"Your . . . cell bodies. Minions. Worker units. Curious?I cannot find
the word in your tongue."

"You're not making sense. You were trying hard to kill us when you shot
our boat down!"

"You speak as though . . . there were other men in association with
you." The alien seemed deeply puzzled about something.

"It takes more than one man to operate even a scout boat. Anyway, a man
would go crazy in space alone."

"You are saying that you shared your ship with other men?"

"Naturally."

"But?what kept you from tearing each other to pieces, as is the law of
life?"

"If that's a law, it's time it was repealed," Lucas said. "Listen,
Yrax?you're not making any sense. You had a crew of over twenty Yraci on
your own ship?"

"Never! There was only I."

"You're talking nonsense, Yrax. A couple of dozen of them are digging
themselves out of the ice not fifty yards from here!"

"Those! But they are only my cell bodies, not Yraci!"

"They look exactly like you?"

"To alien sensors, perhaps?but they are no more than extensions of
myself, spored off by me as needed, mindless creatures of my will.
Surely, it is the same with you? I sensed, through their preceptors,
that you, as I, are larger than your workers. Surely, the two units
trapped in the cave are creatures of your mind and body, responsive to
your thoughts, having no volition of their own? Can it be otherwise, in
all sanity?"

"It is otherwise," Lucas said. "So you never heard of cooperation, eh?
Well, you claim to have all the brains in your party. I have a
proposition for you . . ."

* * *

"I had to give him credit for seeing logic when it was pointed out to
him," Lucas said forty-one hours later, seated before the alien control
panel of the launch provided by the Yrax. "Without his crew men?or cell
bodies, as he calls them?and I suppose he has a right to, his biology
isn't much like ours?Without them, he was dead. When I told him I knew
an escape route from the trap?and that I'd show it to him, if he'd lend
us transport home?he agreed in a hurry."

"You took a chance, trusting him," Cameron said. "After you hauled him
out and splinted his leg, he could have nipped you in two with those
arms of his."

"He'd still have been stuck. He needed me to guide his boys out. Once he
got the idea through his head that we could actually work together
instead of automatically killing each other, things worked fine. It took
us a few hours to melt a route to the top, and clear the cave mouth, and
he did his share like a trooper."

"It's strange to think of a race of intelligent beings who never see
each other, never have any contact, still developing a technology."

"With mutual telepathy, what any one of them learned, they all know. And
they can create as many cell bodies as they need to do whatever they
want done. I don't suppose there are more than a few hundred of the
'brain' Yraci on their planet?but there are millions of their workers."

"Not what you'd call a democracy," Wybold said.

"Their 'workers' are like our arms and legs," Lucas said. "Parts of
their bodies. You couldn't very well give your fingers and toes an equal
vote."

"Right now my stomach is giving the orders," Cameron said. "It says it's
time to eat."

"Have a nutrient bar?courtesy of our Yrax friend," Lucas said. "They're
not bad. Taste a little like stuffed dates. You know, there might be a
market for them at home."

"The Yrax was pretty impressed by the energy-cell principle of the
steering engine we gave him," Wybold said. "I foresee a brisk commerce
between Terra and Yrax."

"It's a tragedy that there had to be all that destruction, ships
blasted, lives lost?just because it never occurred to the Yraci to sit
down and talk things over."

"It's not an easy lesson," Lucas said. "We humans had a little trouble
learning it, if you remember your history." He grinned at Cameron, and
the captain's black face grinned back at him.

 


  *MIND OUT OF TIME*


      *One*

Strapped tight in the padded acceleration couch in the command cell of
the extrasolar exploratory module, Lieutenant-Colonel Jake Vanderguerre
tensed against the tell-tale bubbling sensation high in his chest, the
light, tentative pin-prick of an agony that could hurl itself against
him like a white-hot anvil. The damned bootleg heart pills must be
losing their punch; it had been less than six hours since he'd doped
himself up for the mission . . . 

Beside him, Captain Lester Teal cocked a well-arched eyebrow at him.
"You all right, Colonel?"

"I'm fine." Vanderguerre heard the ragged quality of his voice; to cover
it, he nodded toward the ten-inch screen on which the clean-cut features
of Colonel Jack Sudston of Mission Control on Luna glowed in
enthusiastic color. "I wish the son-of-a-bitch would cut the chatter. He
makes me nervous."

Teal grunted. "Let Soapy deliver his commercial, Jake," he said. "In a
minute we'll get the line about the devoted personnel of UNSA; and there
might even be time for a fast mention of Stella and Jo, the devoted
little women standing by."

" . . . report that the module is now in primary position, and in a G
condition," Sudston was saying heartily. "Ready for the first manned
test of the magnetic torsion powered vehicle." He smiled out of the
screen; his eyes, fixed on an off-screen cue card, did not quite meet
Vanderguerre's. "Now let's have a word from Van and Les, live from the
MTE module, in Solar orbit, at four minutes and fifty-three seconds to
jump." 

Vanderguerre thumbed the /XMIT/ button.

"Roj, Mission Control," he said. "Les and I are rarin' to go. She's a
sweet little, uh, module, Jack. Quite a view from out here. We have
Earth in sight, can just make out the crescent. As for Luna, you look
mighty small from here, Jack. Not much brighter than good old Sirius.
MTE module out."

"While we wait, Van and Les's words are flashing toward us at the speed
of light," Sudston's voice filled the transmission lag. "And even at
that fantastic velocity?capable of circling the world ten times in each
second?it takes a full twenty-eight seconds for?but here's Van's carrier
now . . ." 

"Roj, Mission Control," Vanderguerre listened as his own transmission
was repeat-beamed to the television audience watching back on Earth.

"Damn the stage machinery," he said. "We could have flipped the switches
any time in the last two hours."

"But then Soapy wouldn't have been able to air the big spectacle live on
prime time," Teal reminded him sardonically.

"Spectacle," Vanderguerre snorted. "A fractional percentage capability
check. We're sitting on a power plant that can tap more energy in a
second than the total consumption of the human race through all previous
history. And what do we do with it? Another baby step into space."

"Relax, Jake." Teal quirked the corner of his mouth upward. "You
wouldn't want to risk men's lives with premature experimentation, would
you?"

"Ever heard of Columbus?" Vanderguerre growled. "Or the Wright boys, or
Lindbergh?"

"Ever heard of a guy named Cocking?" Teal countered. "Back in the 1800s
he built a parachute out of wicker. Went up in a balloon and tried it.
It didn't work. I remember the line in the old newspaper I saw: /'Mr.
Cocking was found in a field at Lea, literally dashed to bits'."/ 

"I take my hat off to Mr. Cocking," Vanderguerre said. "He tried."

"There hasn't been a fatality directly attributable to the Program in
the sixty-nine years since Lunar Station One," Teal said. "You want to
be the first to louse up a no-hitter?"

Vanderguerre snorted a laugh. "I was the first man on Callisto, Teal.
Did you know that? It's right there in the record?along with the
baseball statistics and the mean annual rainfall at Centralia, Kansas.
That was eighteen years ago." He put out a hand, ran it over the
polished curve of the control mushroom. "So what if she blew up in our
faces?" he said as if to himself. "Nobody lives forever."

" . . . fifty-three seconds and counting," Sudston's voice chanted into
the silence that followed Vanderguerre's remark. "The monitor board
says?Yes, it's coming down now, it's condition G all the way, the
mission is go, all systems are clocking down without a hitch, a tribute
to the expertise of the devoted personnel of UNSA, at minus forty-eight
seconds and counting . . ." 

Teal twisted his head against the restraint of his harness to eye
Vanderguerre.

"Don't mind me, kid," the older man said. "We'll take our little
toad-hop, wait ten minutes for the tapes to spin, and duck back home for
our pat on the head like good team men."

"Fifteen seconds and counting," Sudston's voice intoned. "Fourteen
seconds. Thirteen . . ." 

The two men's hands moved in a sure, trained sequence: READY lever down
and locked. ARM lever down and locked.

/" . . . Four. Three. Two. One. Jump." / 

In unison, the men slammed home the big, paired, white-painted switches.
There was a swiftly rising hum, a sense of mounting pressure . . . 


      *Two*

Teal shook off the dizziness that had swirled him like a top as the
torsion drive hurled the tiny vessel outward into Deep Space; he gripped
the chair arms, fighting back the nausea and anxiety that always
accompanied the climactic moment of a shot.

It's all right, he told himself fiercely. Nothing can go wrong. In three
hours you'll be back aboard UNSA Nine, with half a dozen medics taping
your belly growls. Relax . . .  

He forced himself to lean back in the chair; closed his eyes, savoring
the familiarity of it, the security of the enclosing titanium-foam shell.

It was OK now. He knew what to do in any conceivable emergency. Just
follow the routine. It was as simple as that. That was the secret he'd
learned long ago, when he had first realized that the military life was
the one for him; the secret that had given him his reputation for
coolness in the face of danger: courage consisted in knowing what to do.

He opened his eyes, scanned instrument faces with swift, trained
precision, turned to Vanderguerre. The senior officer looked pale, ill.

"Forty-two million miles out, give or take half a million," Teal said.
"Elapsed time, point oh, oh, oh seconds."

/"Mama mia,"/ Vanderguerre breathed. We're sitting on a live one, boy!"

The voice issuing from the command was a whispery crackle.

" . . . that the module is now in primary position, and in a G
condition," Sudston's distance-distorted image was saying. "Ready for
the first manned test of the magnetic torsion powered vehicle . . ." 

"We passed up Soapy's transmission," Teal said.

"By God, Teal," Vanderguerre said. "I wonder what she'll do. What she'll
/really/ do!"

Teal felt his heart begin to /thump-ump, thump-ump/. He sensed what was
coming as he looked at Vanderguerre. Vanderguerre looked back, eyeing
him keenly. Was there a calculating look there; an assessing? Was he
wondering about Teal, about his famous reputation for guts?

"What you said before about spotting the record," Vanderguerre's voice
was level, casual. "Is that really the way you feel, Les?"

"You're talking about deviating from the programmed mission?" Teal kept
his voice steady.

"We'd have to unlock from auto-sequencing and reprogram," Vanderguerre
said. "It would be four minutes before Soapy knew anything. They
couldn't stop us."

/"Roj, Lunar Control,"/ Vanderguerre's voice cracked, relayed from the
moon. /"Les and I are rarin' to go . . ."/ 

"The controls are interlocked," Vanderguerre added. "We'd have to do it
together." His eyes met Teal's, held them for a moment, turned away.
"Forget it," he said quickly. "You're young, you've got a career ahead,
a family. It was a crazy idea?"

"I'll call your bluff," Teal cut him off harshly. "I'm game."

Say no, a voice inside him prayed. Say no, and let me off the hook . . .  

Vanderguerre's tongue touched his lips; he nodded. "Good for you, kid. I
didn't think you had it in you."


      *Three*

"I've locked the guidance system on Andromeda," Vanderguerre said. The
pain was still there, lurking?and the jump hadn't helped any. But it
would hold off a little while, for this. It /had/ to . . . 

"How much power?" Teal asked.

"All of it," Vanderguerre said. "We'll open her up. Let's see what
she'll do."

Teal punched keys, coding instructions into the panel.

/" . . . UNSA Station Nine has just confirmed the repositioning of the
double-X module in Martian orbit,"/ the excited voice of Colonel Sudston
was suddenly louder, clearer, as the big lunar transmitter beam swung to
center on the new position of the experimental craft. /"Van, let's hear
from you!"/ 

"You'll hear from us," Vanderguerre said, "You'll hear plenty."

"Board set up," Teal said formally. "Ready for jump, sir."

"Van and Les have their hands full right now, carrying out the planned
experiments aboard the MTE vehicle," the voice from the screen
chattered. "They're two lonely men at this moment, over forty million
miles from home . . ." 

"Last chance to change your mind," Vanderguerre said.

"You can back out if you want to," Teal said tightly.

"Jump," Vanderguerre said. Two pairs of hands flipped the switch
sequence. A whine rose to a wire-thin hum. There was a sense of pressure
that grew and grew . . . 

Blackout dropped over Vanderguerre like a steel door.


      *Four*

This time, Teal realized, was worse?much worse. Under him, the seat
lifted, lifted, pivoting back and endlessly over. Nausea stirred in him,
brought a clammy film to his forehead. His bones seemed to vibrate in
resonance to the penetrating keening of the torsion drive.

Then, abruptly, stillness. Teal drew a deep breath, opened his eyes. The
command screen was blank, lit only by the darting flicker of random
noise. The instruments?

Teal stared, rigid with shock. The MP scale read zero; the navigation
fix indicator hunted across the grid aimlessly; the R counter registered
negative. It didn't make sense. The jump must have blown every breaker
in the module. Teal glanced up at the direct vision dome.

Blackness, unrelieved, immense.

Teal's hands moved in an instinctive gesture to reset the controls for
the jump back to the starting point; he caught himself, turned to
Vanderguerre.

"Something's fouled up. Our screens are out?" He broke off. Vanderguerre
lay slack in the elaborately equipped chair, his mouth half open, his
face the color of candle wax.

"Vanderguerre!" Teal slipped his harness, grabbed for the other's wrist.
There was no discernible pulse.

Sweat trickled down into the corner of Teal's eye.

"Interlocked controls," he said. "Jake, you're got to wake up. I can't
do it alone. You hear me, Jake? Wake up!" He shook the flaccid arm
roughly. Vanderguerre's head lolled. Teal crouched to scan the
life-system indicators on the unconscious man's shoulder repeater. The
heartbeat was weak, irregular, the respiration shallow. He was alive?barely.

Teal half fell back into his chair. He forced himself to breathe deep,
again, and again. Slowly, the panic drained away.

OK. They'd pulled a damn fool stunt, and something had gone wrong. A
couple of things. But that didn't mean everything wasn't going to come
out all right, if he just kept his head, followed the rules.

First, he had to do something about Vanderguerre. He unclipped the
highly sophisticated medkit from its niche, forcing himself to move
carefully, deliberately, remembering his training. One by one he
attached the leads of the diagnostic monitor to Vanderguerre's suit
system contacts.

Fourteen minutes later, Vanderguerre stirred and opened his eyes.

"You blacked out," Teal said quickly, then checked himself. "How do you
feel?" He forced his tone level.

"I'm . . . all right. What . . . ?"

"We made the jump. Something went wrong. Screens are out; comlink too."

"How . . . far?"

"I don't know, I tell you!" Teal caught the hysterical note in his
voice, clamped his teeth hard. "I don't know," he repeated in a calmer
tone. "We'll jump back now. All we have to do is backtrack on reverse
settings?" He realized he was talking to reassure himself, cut off abruptly.

"Got to determine . . . our position," Vanderguerre panted.
"Otherwise?wasted."

"To hell with that," Teal snapped. "You're a sick man," he added. "You
need medical attention."

Vanderguerre was struggling to raise his head far enough to see the panel.

"Instruments are acting crazy," Teal said. "We've got to?"

"You've checked out the circuits?"

"Not yet. I was busy with you." Silently Teal cursed the defensiveness
of his tone.

"Check 'em."

Teal complied, tight-lipped.

"All systems G," he reported.

"All right," Vanderguerre said, his voice weak but calm. "Circuits hot,
but the screens show nothing. Must be something masking 'em. Let's take
a look. Deploy the direct vision scopes."

Teal's hands shook as he swung his eyepiece into position. He swore
silently, adjusted the instrument. A palely-glowing rectangular grid,
angled sharply outward, filled the viewfield: one of the module's
outflung radiation surfaces. The lens, at least, was clear. But why the
total blackness of the sky beyond? He tracked past the grid. A glaringly
luminous object swam into view, oblong, misty and nebulous in outline.

"I've got something," he said. "Off the port fan."

He studied the oval smear of light?about thirty inches in width, he
estimated, and perhaps a hundred feet distant.

"Take a look to starboard," Vanderguerre said. Teal shifted the scope,
picked up a second object, half again as large as the first. Two
smaller, irregularly shaped objects hung off to one side. Squinting
against the glare, Teal adjusted the scope's filter. The bright halo
obscuring the larger object dimmed. Now he could make out detail, a
pattern of swirling, clotted light, curving out in two spiral arms from
a central nucleus?

The realization of what he was seeing swept over Teal with a
mind-numbing shock.


      *Five*

Vanderguerre stared at the shape of light, the steel spike in his chest
for the moment almost forgotten.

Andromeda?and the Greater and Lesser Magellanic Clouds. And the other,
smaller one! The Milky Way, the home Galaxy.

"What the hell!" Teal's harsh voice jarred at him. "Even if we're
halfway to Andromeda?a million light years?it should only subtend a
second or so of arc! That thing looks like you could reach out and touch
it!"

"Switch on the cameras, Les," he whispered. "Let's get a record?"

"Let's get out of here, Vanderguerre!" Teal's voice was ragged. "My God,
I never thought?"

"Nobody did," Vanderguerre spoke steadily. "That's why we've got to tape
it all, Les?"

"We've got enough! Let's go back! Now!"

Vanderguerre looked at Teal. The younger man was pale, wild-eyed. He was
badly shaken. But you couldn't blame him. A million lights in one jump.
So much for the light barrier, gone the way of the sound barrier.

"Now," Teal repeated. "Before . . ."

"Yeah," Vanderguerre managed. "Before you find yourself marooned with a
corpse. You're right. OK. Set it up."

He lay slackly in the chair. His chest seemed swollen to giant size,
laced across with vivid arcs of an agony that pulsed like muffled
explosions. Any second now. The anvil was teetering, ready to fall. And
the dual controls required two men to jump the module back along her
course line. There was no time to waste.

"Board set up," Teal snapped. "Ready for jump."

Vanderguerre raised his hands to the controls; the steel spike drove
into his chest.

"Jump," he gasped, and slammed the levers down?

The white-hot anvil struck him with unbearable force.


      *Six*

Teal shook his head, blinked the fog from before his eyes; avidly, he
scanned the panel.

Nothing had changed. The instruments still gave their dataless readings;
the screen was blank.

"Vanderguerre?it didn't work!" Teal felt a sudden constriction like a
rope around his throat as he stared at the motionless figure in the
other chair.

"Jake!" he shouted. "You can't be dead! Not yet! I'd be stuck here!
Jake! Wake up! Wake up!" As from a great distance, he heard his own
voice screaming; but he was powerless to stop it . . . 


      *Seven*

From immense depths, Vanderguerre swam upward, to surface on a choppy
sea of pain. He lay for a while, fighting for breath, his mind blanked
of everything except the second-to-second struggle for survival. After a
long time, the agony eased; with an effort, he turned his head.

Teal's seat was empty.


      *Eight*

What did it mean? Vanderguerre asked himself for the twentieth time.
What had happened? They'd jumped, he'd felt the drive take hold?

And Teal. Where the hell was Teal? He couldn't have left the module; it
was a sealed unit. Nothing could leave it, not even wastes, until the
techs at UNSA Nine cut her open . . . 

But he was gone. And out there, Andromeda still loomed, big as a
washtub, and the Milky Way. It was impossible, all of it. Even the jump.
Was it all a dream, a dying fancy?

No, Vanderguerre rejected the idea. Something's happened here. Something
I don't understand?not yet. But I've got data?a little data, anyway. And
I've got a brain. I've got to look at the situation, make some
deductions, decide on a course of action. 

From somewhere, a phrase popped into Vanderguerre's mind:

"Space is a property of matter . . ."

And where there was no matter, there would be . . .  spacelessness.

"Sure," Vanderguerre whispered. "If we'd stopped to think, we'd have
realized there's no theoretical limit to the MTE. We opened her up all
the way?and the curve went off the graph. It threw us right out of the
Galaxy, into a region where the matter density is one ion per cubic
light. All the way to the end of space: Dead End. No wonder we didn't go
any farther?or that we can't jump back. Zero is just a special case of
infinity. And that's as far as we'd go, if we traveled on forever . . ."

His eye fell on Teal's empty seat. Yeah?so far so good. But what about
Teal? How does the Vanderguerre theory of negative space explain that one?

Abruptly, fire flickered in Vanderguerre's chest. He stiffened, his
breath cut off in his throat. So much for theories. This was it. No
doubt about it. Three times and out. Strange that it had to end this
way, so far away in space and time from everything he'd ever loved.

The vise in Vanderguerre's chest closed; the flames leaped higher,
consuming the universe in raging incandescence . . . 


      *Nine*

Vanderguerre was standing on a graveled path beside a lake. It was dawn,
and a chill mist lay over the water. Beyond the lazy line of trees on
the far side, a hill rose, dotted with buildings. He recognized the
scene at once: Lake Beryl. And the date: May first, 2007. It all came
back to him as clearly as if it had been only yesterday, instead of
twenty years. The little skiers' hotel, deserted now in summer, the
flowers on the table, the picnic lunch, packed by the waiter, in a
basket, with the bottle of vine ros poking out under the white
napkin . . . 

And Mirla. He knew, before he turned, that she would be standing there,
smiling as he had remembered her, down through the years . . . 


      *Ten*

The music was loud, and Teal raised his glass for a refill, glad of the
noise, of the press of people, of the girl who clung close beside him,
her breasts firm and demanding against him.

For a moment, a phantom memory of another place seemed to pluck at
Teal's mind?an urgent vision of awful loneliness, of a fear that
overwhelmed him like a breaking wave?he pushed the thought back.

Wine sloshed from the glass. It didn't matter. Teal drank deep, let the
glass fall from his hand, turned, sought the girl's mouth hungrily.


      *Eleven*

"Van?is anything wrong?" Mirla asked. Her smile had changed to a look of
concern.

"No. Nothing," Vanderguerre managed. /Hallucination!/ a voice inside his
head said. /And yet it's real?as real as ever life was real . . . / 

Mirla put her hand on his arm, looking up into his face.

"You stopped so suddenly?and you look . . .  worried."

"Mirla . . . something strange has happened." Vanderguerre's eyes went
to the bench beside the path. He led her to it, sank down on it. His
heart was beating strongly, steadily.

"What is it, Van?"

"A dream? Or . . . is this the dream?"

"Tell me."

Vanderguerre did.

"I was there," he finished. "Just the wink of an eye ago. And now?I'm here."

"It's a strange dream, Van. But after all?it /is/ just a dream. And this
is real."

"Is it, Mirla? Those years of training, were they a dream? I still know
how to dock a Mark IX on nine ounces of reaction mass. I know the
math?the smell of the coolant when a line breaks under high G?the names
of the men who put the first marker on Pluto, the first party who landed
on Ceres, and?"

"Van?it was just a dream! You dreamed those things?"

"What date is this?" he cut in.

"May first?"

"May first, 2007. The date the main dome at Mars Station One blew and
killed twelve tech personnel. One of them was Mayfield, the agronomist!"
Vanderguerre jumped to his feet. "I haven't seen a paper, Mirla. You
know that. We've been walking all night."

"You mean?you think?"

"Let's find a paper. The news should be breaking any time now!"

They went up the path, across the park, crossed an empty street; ten
minutes later, from the open door of an all-night dinomat, a TV blared:

/" . . . Just received via Bellerophon relay. Among the dead are Colonel
Mark Spencer, Marsbase commandant?" / 

"An error," Vanderguerre put in. "He was hurt, but recovered."

/" . . . Dr. Gregor Mayfield, famed for his work in desert ecology . . ." / 

"Mayfield!" Mirla gasped. "Van?you knew!"

"Yes." Vanderguerre's voice was suddenly flat. "In the absence of
matter, space doesn't exist. Time is a function of space; it's the
medium in which events happen. With no space, there can be no
movement?and no time. All times become the same. I can be there?or
here . . ."

"Van!" Mirla clung to his arm. "I'm frightened! What does it mean?"

"I've got to go back."

"Go . . . back?"

"Don't you see, Mirla? I can't desert my ship, my copilot?abandon the
program I gave my life to. I can't let them chalk up the MTE as
failure?a flop that killed two men! It would kill the last feeble spark
that's keeping the program going!"

"I don't understand, Van. How can you?go back?to a dream?"

"I don't know, Mirla. But I've got to. Got to try." He disengaged his
arm, looked down into her face.

"Forgive me, Mirla. A miracle happened here. Maybe . . ." Still looking
into her face, he closed his eyes, picturing the command cell aboard the
MTE, remembering the pressure of the seat harness across his body, the
vertigo of weightlessness, the smell of the cramped quarters, the
pain . . . 


      *Twelve*

 . . . the pain thrust at him like a splintered lance. He opened his
eyes, saw the empty chair, the blank screens.

"Teal," he whispered. "Where are you, Teal . . . ?"


      *Thirteen*

Teal looked up. An old man was pushing through the crowd toward the table.

"Come with me, Teal," the old man said.

"Go to hell!" Teal snarled. "Get away from me, I don't know you and I
don't want to know you!"

"Come with me, Teal?"

Teal leaped to his feet, caught up the wine bottle, smashed it down over
the old man's head. He went down; the crowd drew back; a woman screamed.
Teal stared down at the body . . . 

 . . . He was at the wheel of a car, a low-slung, hard sprung powerhouse
that leaped ahead under his foot, faster, faster. The road unreeled
before him, threading its way along the flank of a mountain. Ahead,
tendrils of mist obscured the way. Suddenly, there was a man there, in
the road, holding up his hand. Teal caught a glimpse of a stern, lined
face, grey hair?

The impact threw the man fifty feet into the air. Teal saw the body
plummet down among the treetops on the slope below the road in the same
instant that the veering car plunged through the guardrail . . . 

 . . . the music from the ballroom was faint, here on deck. Teal leaned
against the rail, watching the lights of Lisboa sliding away across the
mirrored water.

"It's beautiful, Les," the slim, summer-gowned woman beside him said.
"I'm glad I came . . ."

An old man came toward Teal, walking silently along the deck.

"Come with me, Teal," he said. "You've got to come back."

"No!" Teal recoiled. "Stay away, damn you! I'll never come back!"

"You've got to, Teal," the grim old man said. "You can't forget."

"Vanderguerre," Teal whispered hoarsely. "I left you there?in the
module?sick, maybe dying. Alone."

"We've got to take her back, Teal. You and I are the only ones who know.
We can't let it all go, Teal. We owe the program that much."

"To hell with the program," Teal snarled. "But you. I forgot about you,
Jake. I swear I forgot."

"Let's go back now, Les."

Teal licked his lips. He looked at the slim girl, standing, her knuckles
pressed against her face, staring at him. His eyes went back to
Vanderguerre.

"I'm coming of my own free will, Jake," he said. "I ran?but I came back.
Tell them that."


      *Fourteen*

"Not . . . much time . . ." Vanderguerre whispered as he lay slack in
the chair. "Enough . . . for one more . . .  try. Out here . . . the MTE
can't do it . . . alone. We . . .  have to help."

Teal nodded. "I know. I couldn't put it in words, but I know."

"Solar orbit," Vanderguerre whispered. "One microsecond after jump."

"Jake?it just hit me! The jump will kill you!"

"Prepare for jump," Vanderguerre's voice was barely audible. "Jump!"

Their hands went out; levers slammed home. Mighty forces gripped the
Universe, twisted it inside out.


      *Fifteen*

" . . . that the module is now in primary position, and in G condition,"
the faint voice of Colonel Sudston crackled from the screen.

Teal looked across at Vanderguerre. The body lay at peace, the features
smiling faintly.

Teal depressed the XMIT button. "MTE to Mission Control," he said. "Jump
completed. And I have the tragic honor to report the death of Lieutenant
Colonel Jacob Vanderguerre in the line of duty . . ."

 


      *Sixteen*

 . . . He knew, before he turned, that she would be standing there,
smiling as he had remembered her, down through the years.

"Van?is anything wrong?" Mirla asked.

"Nothing," Vanderguerre said. "Nothing in this Universe."

 


  *MESSAGE TO AN ALIEN*


      *I*

Dalton tossed the scorched, plastic encased diagram on the Territorial
Governor's wide, not recently polished desk. The man seated there
prodded the document with a stylus as if to see if there were any life
left in it. He was a plump little man with a wide, brown, soft-leather
face finely subdivided by a maze of hairline wrinkles.

"Well, what's this supposed to be?" He had a brisk, no-nonsense voice, a
voice that said it had places to go and things to do. He pushed out his
lips and blinked up at the tall man leaning on his desk. Dalton swung a
chair around and sat down.

"I closed up shop early today, Governor," he said, "and took a little
run out past Dropoff and the Washboard. Just taking the air, not headed
anywhere. About fifty miles west I picked up a radac pulse, a high one,
coming in fast from off-planet."

The Governor frowned. "There's been no off-world traffic cleared into
the port since the Three-Planet shuttle last Wednesday, Dalton. You must
have been mistaken. You?"

"This one didn't bother with a clearance. He was headed for the desert,
well away from any of the settlements."

"How do you know?"

"I tracked him. He saw me and tried some evasive maneuvers, too close to
the ground. He hit pretty hard."

"Good God, man! How many people were aboard? Were they killed?"

"No people were killed, Governor."

"I understood you to say?"

"Just the pilot," Dalton went on. "It was a Hukk scout-boat."

Several expressions hovered over the Governor's mobile face; he picked
amused disbelief.

"I see: you've been drinking. Or possibly this is your idea of hearty
frontier humor."

"I took that off him." Dalton nodded at the plastic covered paper on
which a looping pattern of pale blue lines was drawn. "It's a chart of
the Island. Being amphibious, the Hukk don't place quite the same
importance on the interface between land and water as we do; they trace
the contour lines right down past the shore line, map sea bottoms and
all. Still, you can pick out the outline easily enough."

"So?"

"The spot marked with the pink circle was what he was interested in. He
crumped in about ten miles short of it."

"What the devil would a Hukk be looking for out there?" the Governor
said in a voice from which all the snap had drained.

"He was making a last-minute confirmation check on a landing site."

"A landing site?for what?"

"Maybe I should have said beachhead."

"What kind of nonsense is this, Dalton? A /beachhead/?"

"Nothing elaborate. Just a small Commando-type operation, about a
hundred troops, light armor, hand weapons, limited objectives?"

"Dalton, what is this?" the official exploded. "It's only been seven
years since we beat the Hukk into the ground! They know better than to
start anything now!"

Dalton turned the chart over. There were complex characters scrawled in
columns across it.

"What am I supposed to make of this?this Chinese laundry list?" the
Governor snapped.

"It's a brief of a Hukk Order of Battle. Handwritten notes, probably
jotted down by the pilot, against regulations."

"Are you suggesting the Hukk are planning an invasion?"

"The advance party is due in about nine hours," Dalton said. "The main
force?about five thousand troops, heavy equipment?is standing by
off-planet, waiting to see how it goes."

"This is fantastic! Invasions don't happen like this! Just . . . just
out of a clear sky!"

"You expect them to wait for a formal invitation?"

"How?how do you pretend to know all this?"

"It's all there. The scout was a fairly high-ranking intelligence
officer. He may even have planned the operation."

The Governor gave an indignant grunt, then pursed his lips, pushing his
brows together. "See here, if this fellow you intercepted doesn't report
back?"

"His report went out right on schedule."

"You said he was killed!"

"I used his comm gear to send the prearranged signal. Just a minimike
pulse on the Hukk LOS freke."

"You warned them off?"

Dalton shook his head. "I gave them the all-clear. They're on the way
here now, full gate and warheads primed."

The Governor grabbed up his stylus and threw it at the desk. It bounced
high and clattered across the floor.

"Get out of here, Dalton! You've had your fun! I could have you thrown
into prison for this! If you imagine I have nothing better to do than
listen to the psychotic imaginings of a broken-down social misfit?"

"If you'd like to send someone out to check," Dalton cut in, "they'll
find the Hukk scout-boat right where I left it."

The Governor sat with his mouth open, eyes glued to Dalton.

"You're out of your mind. Even if you did find a wrecked boat?and I'm
not conceding you did?how would /you/ know how to make sense of their
pothooks?"

"I learned quite a bit about the Hukk at the Command and Staff school."

"At the Com?" the Governor barked a laugh. "Oh, certainly, the Admiralty
opens up the Utter Top Secret C&S school to tourists on alternate
Thursdays. You took two weeks off from your junk business to drop over
and absorb what it takes a trained expert two years to learn."

"Three years," Dalton said. "And that was before I was in the junk
business."

The Governor looked Dalton up and down with sudden uncertainty. "Are you
hinting that you're a . . . a retired admiral, or something of the sort?"

"Not exactly an admiral," Dalton said. "And not exactly retired."

"Eh?"

"I was invited to resign?during the Hukk treaty debates."

The Governor looked blank, then startled.

"You're not . . . /that/ Dalton?"

"If I am?you'll concede I might know the Hukk hand-script?"

The Governor rammed himself bolt upright.

"Why, I have a good mind to?" he broke off. "Dalton, as soon as word
gets around who you are, you're finished here! There's not a man on
Grassroots who'd do business with a convicted traitor!"

"The charge was insubordination, Governor."

"I remember the scandal well enough! You fought the treaty, went around
making speeches undermining public confidence in the Admiralty that had
just saved their necks from a Hukk takeover! Oh, I remember you, all
right! Hard-line Dalton! Going to grind the beaten foe down under the
booted heel! One of those ex-soldier-turned-rabble-rousers!"

"Which leaves us with the matter of a Hukk force nine hours out of
Grassroots."

"Bah, I . . ." The Governor paused, twisting in his chair. "My God, man,
are you sure of this?" He muttered the words from the corner of his
mouth, as if trying to avoid hearing them.

Dalton nodded.

"All right," the Governor said, reaching for the screen. "Subject to a
check, of course, I'll accept your story. I'll notify CDT HQ at Croanie.
If this is what you say it is, it's a gross breach of the treaty?"

"What can Croanie do? The official Love Thine Enemy line ties their
hands. A public acknowledgment of a treaty violation by the Hukk would
discredit the whole Softline party?including some of the top Admiralty
brass and half the major candidates in the upcoming elections. They
won't move?even if they had anything to move with, and could get it here
in time."

"What are you getting at?"

"It's up to us to stop them, Governor."

"Us?stop an armed force of trained soldiers? That's Admiralty business,
Dalton!"

"Maybe?but it's our planet. We have guns and men who know how to use them."

"There are other methods than armed force for handling such matters,
Dalton! A few words in the right quarter?"

"The Hukk deal in actions. Seven years ago they tried and missed. Now
they're moving a new pawn out onto the board. That makes it our move."

"Well?suppose they do land a small party in the desert, perhaps they're
carrying out some sort of scientific mission, perhaps they don't even
realize the world is occupied. After all, there are less than half a
million colonists here . . ."

Dalton was smiling a little. "Do you believe that, Governor?"

"No, damn it! But it /could/ be that way!"

"You're playing with words, Marston. The Hukk aren't wasting time talking."

"And your idea is . . . is to confront them?"

"Confront, Hell," Dalton growled. "I want a hundred militiamen who know
how to handle a gun: the blast rifles locked up in the local armory will
do. We'll pick our spots and be waiting for them when they land."

"You mean?ambush them?"

"You could call it that," Dalton said indifferently.

"Well . . ." The Governor looked grave. "I could point out to the
council that in view of the nature of this provocative and illegal act
on the part of?"

"Sure." Dalton cut off the speech. "I'll supply transport from my yard,
there's an old ore tug that will do the job. You can make it legal
later. Right now I need an authorization to inspect the armory."

"Well . . ." Frowning, the Governor spoke a few words into the dictypen,
snatched the slip of paper as it popped from the slot, signed it with a
slash of the stylus.

"Have the men alerted to report to the arms depot at twenty-two hundred
hours," Dalton said as he tucked the chit away. "In field uniform, ready
to move out."

"Don't start getting too big for your breeches yet, Dalton!" the
Governor barked. "None of this is official, you're still just the local
junk man as far as I'm concerned."

"While you're at it, you'd better sign a commission for me as a
lieutenant of militia, Governor. We may have a guardhouse lawyer in the
bunch."

"Rather a comedown for a former commodore, isn't it?" Marston said with
a slight lift of the lip. "I think we'll skip that. You'd better just
sit tight until the council acts."

"Twenty-two hundred, Governor," Dalton said. "That's cutting it fine.
And tell them to eat a good dinner. It may be a long wait for breakfast."


      *II*

The Federation Post Office was a blank gray five story front of local
granite, the biggest and ugliest building in the territorial capital.
Dalton went in along a well-lit corridor lined with half glass doors,
went through the one lettered /Terran Space Arm/, and below, in smaller
letters, /GSgt Brunt?Recruiting Officer/. Behind the immaculate counter
decorated with colorful posters of clear-eyed young models in smart
uniforms, a thick-necked man of medium height and age, with a tanned
face and close-cropped sandy hair looked up from the bare desk with an
expression of cheerful determination that underwent an invisible change
to wary alertness as his eyes flicked over his caller.

"Good morning, Sergeant," Dalton said. "I understand you hold the keys
to the weapons storage shack north of town."

Brunt thought that over, nodded once. His khakis were starched and
creased to a knife-edge. A Combat Crew badge glinted red and gold over
his left shirt pocket.

Dalton handed over the slip of paper the Governor had signed. Brunt read
it, frowned faintly, read it again, folded it and tapped it on the desk.

"What's it all about, Dalton?" He had a rough-edged voice.

"For now that has to be between the Governor and me, Brunt."

Brunt snapped a finger at the note. "I'd like to oblige the Governor,"
he said. "But the weapons storage facility is a security area. No
civilians allowed in, Dalton." He tossed the note across the desk.

Dalton nodded. "I should have thought of that," he said. "Excuse the
interruption."

"Just a minute," Brunt said sharply as Dalton turned away. "If you'd
like to tell me what's behind this . . ."

"Then you might stretch a regulation, eh? No thanks, Sergeant. I
couldn't ask you to do that."

As Dalton left, Brunt was reaching for his desk screen.


      *III*

Dalton lived a mile from town in a small pre-fab at the side of a
twenty-acre tract covered with surplus military equipment, used mining
rigs, salvaged transport units from crawlers to pogos. He parked his car
behind the house and walked back between the looming hulks of gutted
lighters, stripped shuttle craft ten years obsolete, wrecked private
haulers, to a big, use-scarred cargo carrier. He started it up,
maneuvered it around to the service ramp at the back, spent ten minutes
checking it over. In the house, he ate a hasty meal, packed more food in
a carton, changed clothes. He strapped on a well-worn service pistol,
pulled on a deck jacket. He cranked up the cargo hauler, steered it out
to the highway. It was a ten minute drive past the two-factory heavy
industry belt, past scattered truck-gardens, on another three miles into
the pink chalk, ravine-sliced countryside. The weapons depot was a
ribbed-metal Quonset perched on a rise of ground to the left of the
road. Dalton turned off, pulled to a stop and waited for the dust to
settle before stepping down from the high cab.

There was a heavy combination lock on the front door. It took Dalton ten
minutes with a heavy-duty cutter to open it. Inside the long, narrow
building, he switched on an unshielded overhead light. There was a
patina of dust over the weapons racked in lock-frames along the walls.

Another three minutes with the cutter had the lock-bars off the racks.
The weapons were 2mm Norges, wartime issue, in fair shape. The charge
indicators registered /nil/.

There was a charging unit against the end wall, minus the energy coil.
Dalton went out to the big vehicle, opened the access hatch, lifted out
the heavy power unit, lugged it inside, used cables to jump it to the
charger.

It took him an hour and thirty-eight minutes to put a full charge on
each of one hundred and two weapons. It was twenty-one thirty when he
put through a call on the vehicle's talker to the Office of the
Governor. The answering circuit informed him that the office was closed.
He tried the Gubernatorial residence, was advised that the Governor was
away on official business. As he switched off, a small blue-painted
copter with an Admiralty eagle and the letters FRS on the side settled
in beside him. The hatch popped open and Brunt emerged, crisp in his
khakis. He stood, fists on hips, looking up at the hauler's cab.

"All right, Dalton," he called. "Game's over. You can haul that clanker
back to the yard. Nobody's coming?and you're not going anywhere."

"I take it that's a message from his Excellency the Governor?" Dalton said.

Brunt's eye strayed past the big vehicle to the shed door, marred by a
gaping hole where the lock had been.

"What the?" Brunt's hand went to his hip, came up gripping a palm-gun.

"Drop it," Dalton said.

Brunt froze. "Dalton, you're already in plenty of trouble?"

"The gun, Brunt."

Brunt tossed the small gun to the ground. Dalton climbed down, his
pistol in his hand.

"The Council said no, eh?"

"What did you expect, you damned fool? You want to start a war?"

"No?I want to finish one." Dalton jerked his head. "Inside." Brunt
preceded him into the hut, at Dalton's direction gathered up half a
dozen weapons, touching only the short, thick barrels. He carried them
out and stowed them in the rear of the hauler.

Dalton ordered Brunt into the cab, climbed up beside him. As he did,
Brunt aimed a punch at his head; Dalton blocked it and caught his wrist.

"I've got thirty pounds and the reach on you, Sergeant," he said. "Just
sit quietly. Under the circumstances I'm glad you happened along." He
punched the door-lock key, started up, lifted onto the air-cushion and
headed west into the desert.


      *IV*

Dusk was trailing purple veils across the sky when Dalton pulled the
carrier in under a wind-carved wing of violet chalk at the base of a
jagged rock-wall and cut power. Brunt grumbled but complied when Dalton
ordered him out of his seat.

"You've got a little scramble ahead, Sergeant." Dalton glanced up the
craggy slope looming above.

"You could have picked an easier way to go off your rails," the
recruiter said. "Suppose I say I won't go?"

Dalton smiled faintly, doubled his right fist and rotated it against his
left palm. Brunt spat.

"If I hadn't been two years in a lousy desk job, I'd take you, Dalton,
reach or no reach."

"Pick up the guns, Brunt."

It took Dalton most of an hour to place the five extra blast rifles in
widely-spaced positions around the crater's half mile rim, propping them
firmly, aimed at the center of the rock-strewn natural arena below.
Brunt laughed at him.

"The old Fort Zinderneuf game, eh? But you don't have any corpses to man
the ramparts."

"Over there, Brunt?where I can keep an eye on you." Dalton settled
himself behind a shielding growth of salt weed, sighting along the
barrel of the blast rifle. Brunt watched with a sour smile.

"You really hate these fellows, don't you, Dalton? You were out to get
them with the treaty, and failed, and now you're going to even it all
up, single-handed."

"Not quite single-handed. There are two of us."

"You can kidnap me at gun-point, Dalton, and you can bring me out here.
But you can't make me fight."

"That's right."

Brunt made a disgusted sound. "You crazy fool! You'll get us both killed!"

"I'm glad you concede the possibility that this isn't just a party of
picnickers we're here to meet."

"What do you expect, if you open fire on them?"

"I expect them to shoot back."

"Can you blame them?" Brunt retorted.

Dalton shook his head. "That doesn't mean I have to let them get away
with it."

"You know, Dalton, at the time of your court-martial, I wondered about a
few things. Maybe I even had a few doubts about the treaty myself. But
this . . ." He waved a hand that took in the black desert, the luminous
horizon, the sky. "This confirms everything they threw at you. You're a
paranoiac?"

"But I can still read Hukk cursive," Dalton said. He pointed overhead. A
flickering point of pink light was barely visible against the violet sky.

"I think you know a Hukk drive when you see one," Dalton said. "Now
let's watch and see whether it's stuffed eggs or blast cannon they
brought along."


      *V*

"It doesn't make sense," Brunt growled. "We've shown them we can whip
them in war, we gave them generous peace terms, let them keep their
space capability almost intact, even offered them economic aid?"

"While we scrapped the fighting ships that we didn't build until ten
years of Hukk raids forced us to."

"I know the Hardline, Dalton. OK, you told 'em so. Maybe there was
something in it. But what good is this caper supposed to do? You want to
be a martyr, is that it? And I'm the witness . . ."

"Not quite. The Hukk picked this spot because it's well-shielded from
casual observation, close enough to Grassport and Bedrock to launch a
quick strike, but not so close as to be stumbled over. That's sound, as
far as it goes, but as a defensive position, it couldn't be worse. Of
course, they didn't expect to have to defend it."

"Look, Dalton, OK, you were right, the Hukk are making an unauthorized
landing on Grassroots' soil. Maybe they're even an armed party, as you
said. Swell. I came out here with you, I've seen the ship, and I'll so
testify. So why louse it up? We'll hand the file to the CDT and let them
handle it! It's their baby, not yours! Not mine! We've got no call to
get ourselves blasted to Kingdom Come playing One-Man Task Force!"

"You think Croanie will move in fast and slap 'em down?"

"Well?it might take some time?"

"Meanwhile the Hukk will have brought in their heavy stuff. They'll
entrench half a mile under the surface and then start spreading out. By
the time the Admiralty gets into the act, they'll hold half the planet."

"All right! Is that fatal? We'll negotiate, arrange for the release of
Terry nationals, the return of Terry property?"

"Compromise, in other words."

"All right, you give a little, you get a little!"

"And the next time?"

"What next time?"

"The Hukk will take half of Grassroots with no more expense than a
little time at a conference table. That will look pretty good to them. A
lot better than an all-fronts war. Why gulp, when you can nibble?"

"If they keep pushing, we'd slap them down, you know that."

"Sure we will?in time. Why not do it now?"

"Don't talk like a damned fool, Dalton! What can one man do?"

The Hukk ship was visibly lower now, drifting down silently on the
stuttering column of light that was its lift-beam. It was dull black,
bottle-shaped, with a long ogee curve to the truncated prow.

"If I had any heavy stuff up here, I'd go for her landing jacks," Dalton
said. "But a 2mm Norge doesn't pack enough wallop to be sure of
crippling her. And if I miss, they're warned: they can lift and cook us
with an ion bath. So we'll wait until they're off-loaded, then pour it
into the port. That's a weak spot on a Hukk ship. The iris is fragile,
and any malfunction there means no seal, ergo no lift. Then we settle
down to picking them off, officers first. With fast footwork, we should
have them trimmed down to manageable size before they can organize a
counterattack."

"What if I don't go along with this harebrained suicide scheme?"

"Then I'll have to wire your wrists and ankles."

"And if you're killed, where does that leave me?"

"Better make up your mind."

"Suppose I shoot at you instead of them?"

"In that case I'd have to kill you."

"You're pretty sure of yourself, Dalton." When Dalton didn't answer
Brunt licked his lips and said: "I'll go this far: I'll help you burn
the port, because if you foul it up it's my neck too. But as for
shooting fish in a barrel?negative, Dalton."

"I'll settle for that."

"But afterward, once she's grounded?all bets are off."

"Tell that to the Hukk," Dalton said.


      *VI*

"Lousy light for this work," Brunt said over his gun-sights. Dalton,
watching the Hukk ship settle in almost soundlessly in a roil of dust,
didn't answer. Suddenly, floodlights flared around the base of the ship,
bathing it in a reflected violet glow as, with a grating of rock, the
Hukk vessel came to rest.

"Looks like a stage all set up for /Swan Lake/," Brunt muttered.

For five minutes, nothing happened. Then the circular exit valve
dilated, spilling a widening shaft of green light out in a long path
across the crater floor, casting black shadows behind the thickly
scattered boulders. A tiny silhouette moved in the aperture, jumped
down, a long-legged shadow matching its movement as it stepped aside.
Another followed, and more, until seven Hukk stood outside the ship.
They were slope-backed quadrupeds, hunched, neckless, long faced, knob
jointed, pendulous bellied, leathery hided. A cluster of sheathed
digital members lay on either side of the slab-like cheeks.

"Ugly bastards," Brunt said. "But that's got nothing to do with it, of
course."

Now more troops were emerging, falling in in orderly rows. At a command
faintly audible to Dalton as a squeaky bark, the first squad of ten Hukk
about-faced and marched fifty feet from the ship, halted, opened ranks.

"Real parade ground types," Brunt said. "Kit inspection, no less."

"What's the matter, Sergeant? Annoyed they didn't hit the beach with all
guns blazing?"

"Dalton, it's not too late to change your mind."

"I'm afraid it is?by about six years."

The disembarkation proceeded with promptness and dispatch. It was less
than ten minutes before nine groups of ten Hukk had formed up, each with
an officer in charge. At a sharp command, they wheeled smartly, executed
a complicated maneuver which produced a single hollow square two Hukk
deep around the baggage stacked at the center.

"All right, Brunt, off-loading complete," Dalton said. "Commence firing
on the port."

The deep /chuff! chuff!/ of the blast rifles echoed back from the far
side of the crater as the two guns opened up. Brilliant flashes winked
against the ship. The Hukk stood fast, with the exception of two of the
officers who whirled and ran for the ship. Dalton switched sights
momentarily, dropped the first one, then the second, returned to the
primary target.

Now the square broke suddenly, but not in random fashion; each side
peeled away as a unit, spread out, hit the dirt, each Hukk scrambling
for shelter, while the four remaining officers took up their positions
in the centers of their respective companies. In seconds, the dispersed
troops were virtually invisible. Here and there the blink and /pop!/ of
return fire crackled from behind a boulder or a gully.

The port was glowing cherry red; the iris seemed to be jammed half
closed. Dalton shifted targets, settled the cross hairs on an officer,
fired, switched to another as the first fell. He killed three before the
remaining Hukk brasshat scuttled for the protection of a ridge of rock.
Without a pause, Dalton turned his fire on the soldiers scattered across
the open ground.

"Stop, you bloodthirsty fool!" Brunt was yelling. "The ship's crippled,
the officers are dead! The poor devils are helpless down there?"

There was a violet flash from near the ship, a deep-toned /warhoom!/, a
crashing fall of rock twenty feet to their left. A second flash, a
second report, more rock exploded, closer.

"Time to go," Dalton snapped and, without waiting to see Brunt's
reaction, slid down the backslope, scrambled along it while rock chips
burst from the ridge above him amid the smashing impacts of the Hukk
power cannon. He surfaced two hundreds yards to the left of his original
position, found the rifle emplacement. He aimed the weapon, depressed
the trigger and set the hold-down for automatic rapid fire, paused long
enough to fire half a dozen aimed bolts at the enemy, then moved on to
the next gun to repeat the operation.


      *VII*

Twenty minutes later Dalton, halfway around the crater from his original
location, paused for a breather, listening to the steady crackle of the
Hukk return fire, badly aimed but intense enough to encourage him to
keep his head down. As well as he could judge, he had so far accounted
for eight Hukk in addition to the five officers. Of the five blast
rifles he had left firing on automatic, two had been knocked out or had
exhausted their charges. The other three were still firing steadily,
kicking pits in the bare rock below.

A few of the ship's ground-lights were still on; the rest had been shot
out by the Hukk soldiery. By their glow Dalton picked an exposed target
near the ship, brought his rifle to bear on him. He was about to pull
the trigger when he saw Brunt sliding downslope thirty degrees around
the perimeter of the ringwall from him, waving an improvised white flag.


      *VIII*

The words from the Hukk PA system were loud and clear if somewhat
echoic, and were delivered in excellent Terran, marred only by the
characteristic Hukk difficulty with nasals:

"Terran warrior." The deep, booming voice rolled across the crater.
" . . . orrior, rier. Hwe hno hnow that you are alone. You have fought
hwell. Hnow you must surrender or be destroyed."

The lone Hukk officer stood in an exposed position near the center of
the semicircular dispersement of soldiers, holding the end of a rope
which was attached to Brunt's neck.

"Unless you show yourself at once," the amplified voice boomed out, "you
hwill be hunted out and killed."

The Hukk officer turned to Brunt. A moment later Brunt's hoarse voice
echoed across the crater:

"For God's sake, Dalton, they're giving you a chance! Throw down your
gun and surrender!"

Sweat trickled down across Dalton's face. He wiped it away, cupped his
hands beside his mouth and shouted in the Hukk language:

"Release the prisoner first."

There was a pause. "You offer an exchange, himself for yourself?"

"That's right."

Another pause. "Very well, I accept," the Hukk called. "Come forward
now. I assure you safe-conduct."

Dalton lifted his pistol from its holster, tucked it inside his belt,
under the jacket. He studied the ground below, then worked his way fifty
feet to the right before he stood, the blast gun in his hands, and
started down the slope along the route he had selected, amid a rattle of
dislodged rock fragments.

"Throw down your weapon!" the PA ordered as he reached the crater floor.
Dalton hesitated, then tossed the gun aside. Empty-handed, he advanced
among the boulders toward the waiting Hukk. The captain?Dalton was close
enough to see his rank badges now?had pulled Brunt in front of him. The
latter, aware of his role as a human shield, looked pale and damp. His
mouth twitched as though there were things it wanted to say, but was
having trouble finding words equal to the occasion.

When Dalton was twenty feet from the officer, passing between two
six-foot-high splinters of upended rock, he halted abruptly. At once,
the captain barked an order. There was a flicker of motion to Dalton's
left. He darted a hand under his jacket, came out with the pistol,
fired, and was facing the officer again as a yapping wail came from the
target.

"Tell your troops to down guns and pull back," Dalton said crisply.

"You call on /me/ to surrender?" The officer was carefully keeping his
members in Brunt's shadow.

"You've been had, Captain. Only three of your soldiers can bear on me
here?and they have to expose themselves to fire. My reaction time is
somewhat quicker than theirs; you see the result."

"You bluff?"

"The gun in my hand will penetrate two inches of flint steel," Dalton
said. "The man in front of you is a lot softer than armor."

"You would kill the man for whose freedom you offered your life?"

"What do you think?"

"My men will surely kill you!"

"Probably. But you won't be here to transmit the all-clear to the boys
standing by off-planet."

"Then what do you hope to gain, Man?"

"Dalton's the name, Captain."

"That name is known to me. I am Ch'oova. I was with the Grand Armada at
Van Doom's world."

"The Grand Armada fought well?but not quite well enough."

"True, Commodore. Perhaps our strategy has been at fault." The captain
raised his head, barked an order. Hukk soldiers began rising from
concealment, gun muzzles pointing at the ground; they cantered away
toward the ship by twos and threes, their small hooves raising cottony
puffs of dust.

When they were alone, Captain Ch'oova tossed the rope aside.

"I think," he said, with a small, formal curtsey, "that we had best
negotiate."


      *IX*

"That fellow Ch'oova told me something funny," Brunt said as the cargo
carrier plowed toward the dawn. "Seven years ago, at Van Doom's world,
you were left in command of the Fleet after Admiral Hayle was hit. You
were the one who fought the Grand Armada to a standstill."

"I took over from Hayle, yes."

"And won the battle. Funny, that part didn't get in the papers. But not
so funny, maybe, at that. According to Ch'oova, after the fighting was
over, you refused a direct Admiralty order."

"Garbled transmission," Dalton said.

"Tempers run high in wartime," Brunt said. "The Hukk had made a lot of
enemies before we finally faced up to going to war. The High Command
wanted a permanent solution. They gave you secret orders to accept the
Hukk surrender, and then blow them out of space. You said no."

"Not really; I just didn't get around to carrying out the order."

"And in a few days, cooler heads prevailed. But not before you were
relieved and posted to the boondocks, and your part in the victory
covered up."

"Just a routine transfer," Dalton said.

"And then, by God, you turn around?you, the white-haired boy who'd saved
the brass from making a blunder that would have ruined them when it got
known?and went after the treaty hammer and tongs, to toughen it up!
First you save the Hukks' necks?and then you break yourself trying to
tighten the screws on them!"

Dalton shook his head. "Nope; I just didn't want to mislead them."

"You wanted their Armada broken up, occupation of their principal
worlds, arms limitations with inspections?"

"Brunt, this night's work cost the lives of fourteen Hukk soldiers, most
of them probably ordinary citizens who were drafted and sent out here
all full of patriotic fervor. That was a dirty trick."

"What's that got to do?"

"We beat them once. Then we picked 'em up, dusted 'em off, and gave them
back their boys. That wasn't fair to a straightforward bunch of
opportunists like the Hukk. It was an open invitation to blunder again.
And unless they were slapped down quick, they'd keep on blundering in
deeper?until they goaded us into building another fleet. And this time,
there might not be enough pieces left to pick up."

Brunt sat staring thoughtfully out at the paling sky ahead; he laughed
shortly. "When you went steaming out there with fire in your eye, I
thought you were out for revenge on the Hukk for losing you your fat
career. But you were just delivering a message."

"In simple terms that they could understand," Dalton said.

"You're a strange man, Commodore. For the second time, single-handed,
you've stopped a war. And because you agreed with Ch'oova to keep the
whole thing confidential, no one will ever know. Result: You'll be a
laughingstock for your false alarm. And with your identity known, you're
washed up in the junk business. Hell, Marston will have the police
waiting to pick you up for everything from arms theft to spitting on the
sidewalk! And you can't say a word in your own defense."

"It'll blow over."

"I could whisper a word in Marston's ear?"

"No you won't, Brunt. And if you do, I'll call you a liar. I gave
Ch'oova my word; if this caper became public knowledge, it would kick
the Hukk out of every Terran market they've built up in the past six years."

"Looks like you've boxed yourself into a corner, Commodore," Brunt said
softly.

"That's twice you've called me Commodore?Major."

Brunt made a surprised sound. Dalton gave him a one-sided smile.

"I can spot a hotshot Intelligence type at half a mile. I used to wonder
why they posted you out here."

"To keep an eye on you, Commodore, what else?"

"Me?"

"A man like you is an enigma. You had the brass worried. You didn't hew
to any party line. But I think you've gotten the message across now?and
not just to the Hukk."

Dalton grunted.

"So I think I can assure you that you won't need to look for a new place
to start up your junk yard. I think the Navy needs you. It'll take some
string pulling, but it can be swung. Maybe not as a commodore?not for a
while?but at least you'll have a deck under your feet. How does it sound?"

"I'll think about it," Dalton said.

 


  *PLANET RUN*


      *(with Gordon R. Dickson)*


      *Chapter One*

The sun was warm on his face. Through his closed eyelids, it gleamed a
hot orange?like a sunrise fog on a world called Flamme, long ago. And
Dulcia, the first Dulcia, came toward him, smiling through the wreaths
of mist . . . 

Something tickled his cheek; he brushed at it. Damned flowerflies! He'd
have to start up the repellor field; didn't like the damned thing. Made
a man's bones itch, like a couple of hours under high R, de-leading tube
linings . . .  The glory of his memory dimmed. A grim little note of
uneasiness struck discordantly through the dream. There had been
something he had been trying to put out of his mind, lately . . . 

The tickle came again, and the dream vanished. His eyes flew open and he
squinted up at a slim, blond, long-legged young girl in a brief pink
sunsuit, leaning over his garden chair with a long, feathery grass stem
in her hand.

"Dammit, Dulcie, you're getting too old to go around like that," he growled.

"No, I'm not, Grandpa! I'm just getting old enough. You should have seen
Senator Bartholomew's face when I went to the door?"

"Is that fool back again?" Captain Henry closed his eyes. But the
feeling of uneasiness was stronger, suddenly. Fat Bartholomew?/Senator/
Bartholomew now?was not quite a fool. Or at least he had not been a fool
forty years ago as a young man. Henry, already aging at that time, had
almost liked him then?sometimes.

Now of course he had become a "Senator"?and taken up the prissy modern
manners of movement and speech that went with the political image.
Still . . . the uneasiness moved stronger than ever in Henry.

"Send him on his way, girl," Henry said. "You know better than to
interrupt my nap?"

"He says it's awfully important, Grandpa."

"Important to him, not me! I've already told him what I think of his
politics, his business methods, his brains, and his taste in liquor . . ."

There was a sound of affected throat-clearing. Henry looked around. A
tall, broad-bellied man with a now-flaccid face, but with the same angry
black eyebrows Henry remembered from forty years ago, had come up behind
the girl.

"I thought I'd better make my presence known, Captain," the Senator said.

"You wouldn't have heard anything I haven't told you to your face,
Bartholomew," Henry snapped. "What's it this time? Not the same old
proposition?"

Bartholomew grunted, took the chair Dulcie offered him. For a moment the
girl moved between Henry and the sun?and for a second he was back in the
dream of her great-grandmother and the lambent mists of Flamme. Then she
moved out of the light and he was back in the present of hard
reality?and Senator Bartholomew.

Henry looked at the middle-aged man with harsh distaste. Bartholomew was
perspiring in a fashionable narrow-shouldered jacket of shiny green
material with short sleeves showing elaborate cuffs with large, jeweled
links. A three-inch campaign button lettered ELECT THE STATISTICAL
AVERAGE was pinned prominently to his breast pocket. His lower lip was
thrust out aggressively, frowning at the old man.

"I was hoping you'd reconsidered, Captain Henry. Since you didn't answer
my call?"

"If I'd had anything new to say I'd have managed to dodder to the phone.
I'm not bedridden?yet!"

Bartholomew pulled off his maroon beret, fanned at himself with it.
"This is a matter of planetary importance, Captain! Corazon is a
promising world. Surely you're not going to allow personal considerations?"

"Like hell I'm not!" Henry growled. "I've put in my time on the Frontier
Worlds, one hundred and fifteen years of it! I've had ten good years of
retirement?up until you started pestering me . . ."

"Pestering is hardly the word, Captain Henry! I'm offering you a
magnificent opportunity! You'll have the finest of equipment?"

"I prefer the sunshine?I know, you've put a roof over your town to keep
the fresh air out, but I like it?"

"All I'm asking is that you take the Rejuve Treatment just once more?at
/my/ expense?"

Henry looked across at the plump citizen.

"Your expense, eh? Hah! I've had the treatment three times. I'm a
hundred and thirty-five years old?and I feel every month of it. You know
what a fourth Rejuve would do to me."

"But I've seen your last medical report. You're in excellent condition,
for your age! The treatment wouldn't make you an adolescent again?but it
would restore you to full vigor . . ."

"I'd look young?for a few months. I'd fade like yesterday's gardenia
after the first year, and I'd be senile in three. After that, it
wouldn't matter whether I made the fourth year or not." He leaned back
and closed his eyes. "That's it, Senator. You'll have to find another
errand boy."

"You're not considering this matter in depth, Captain! A new world to be
opened for homesteading?the first in sixty years! This errand, as you
call it, would require only a few months of your time, after which you'd
not only have the satisfaction of having made a valuable contribution to
the development of the frontier, but you'd bank a tidy fortune as well!"

Henry opened one eye. "Why not send that Statistical Average candidate
of yours? If he's good enough to be a Planetary Delegate to the council,
he ought to be able to handle a little assignment like this."

"You're speaking frivolously of grave matters. Our candidate, as
representative of the median of Aldoradon society, is an eminently
suitable choice, embodying the highest concepts of democratic government."

"You can skip the campaign speech. I don't vote the Average Man
ticket . . ."

Bartholomew's veined nose darkened. He drew in a breath through flared
nostrils. "As to the venture we're discussing," he said harshly,
"your . . . ah . . .  specialized knowledge will outweigh other
considerations." Bartholomew's shifting gaze fixed meaningfully on Henry.

Henry looked at him through narrowed eyes; for a second he caught sight
of his own face reflected in a polished metal chair-back. It was like a
battered carving in ancient oak. "Just what specialized knowledge do you
have in mind?"

Bartholomew twisted his mouth in a smile-like grimace, spread his hands.
"Why, Captain, you're an old-timer, you know the space lanes, the
curious mores of distant worlds. You could face up to the ruffians one
would encounter out on Corazon, brazen it out, and take what you wanted.
And I think you'd know what to go after," he added, eyeing the toe of
his sandal.

"You do, eh?" Henry studied the other's face. "I've got twenty good
years left to sniff the flowers; what would make me leave that to get my
neck broken in a Run?"

"Are you interested in aluminum oxide, Captain?" Bartholomew asked casually.

The uneasiness was suddenly back?but not just uneasiness any longer. It
was like an ice-cold cramp in his stomach.

"?In the form known as corundum," Bartholomew was adding.

"Just what're you getting at, Senator?" Henry said harshly.

It was Bartholomew's turn to sit silent. His glance went to the girl
sunning herself by the poolside a few yards distant. Henry grunted softly.

"It's time for my lunch, Dulcie," he called. She looked up, glanced at
Bartholomew's face, then rose and went off across the lawn.

"All right," said Henry, without inflection.

Bartholomew hitched his chair forward, got out a dope stick, and?as an
afterthought?offered one to Henry. Henry waved it grimly aside.

"Ever since its discovery over a century ago, Corazon's been a closed
world, Captain." The visitor puffed perfumed smoke past Henry. "Under
close quarantine. But you were there once . . ."

"Sure. On a free-lance prospecting trip?before the Quarantine Service
ever heard of the world. What about it?"

"Why . . ." Bartholomew's eyes fixed on the glowing tip of his dope
stick, "just that your trip may or may not have been legal. You spent
several months on the planet."

"So?"

"And you found something."

"You asking me or telling me?"

"Telling you, Captain," Bartholomew said flatly. "And I'll tell you
something more. Corundum takes many forms. It makes an excellent
commercial abrasive; it also appears in more attractive guises?known as
ruby?emerald?sapphire, oriental topaz, amethyst, and others."
Bartholomew's voice was a purr now. "There's an excellent market for
natural gemstones, Captain; stones like the ones I saw your
great-granddaughter wearing last month when my boy Larry took her to the
graduation ball . . ."

He paused. Henry looked back at him expressionlessly, waiting.
Bartholomew's voice held a rasping note now. "I know a great deal about
your career, Captain?everything, in fact. I've made it my business to
find out, these last few weeks." He puffed out smoke, enjoying the
moment. Henry watched him, waiting.

"You've always lived modestly here?" Bartholomew waved a hand at the
garden, the pool, the old fashioned glass-walled house?"But you were a
wealthy man once. And 'once' is the word."

"Is it?" asked Henry, completely without inflection.

"That's right," said Bartholomew briskly. "You lived off your principal
instead of your interest, Captain. Any businessman can tell you what a
mistake that is. Now what you've got left is this property, barely
enough income for an old man sitting in the sun, and the credit backed
by the assessed valuation of those gemstones you were incautious enough
to let the girl wear. I know to the penny what that assessed valuation is."

"What's this got to do with the price of wamba-pears?" growled Henry.

"Just?that those gemstones represent your great-granddaughter's
inheritance," said Bartholomew.

"What's it to you? I won them free and clear."

"Did you?" said Bartholomew. "I agree you don't owe a cent?if you did
I'd know about it. But /own/ them?" His eyes narrowed in their folds of
fat. "I happen to know you went back to Corazon at least twice?after the
planet was placed under quarantine."

Henry did not move. He smiled a wintry smile.

"That was quite a while ago?if I did. Over a hundred years."

"There's no statute of limitations where possession of contraband is
concerned. Your later Navy service won't affect it, either. And that
last visit's essentially a matter of record. A hundred and four years
ago, wasn't it, to be precise? And you got back just one week too late
to be here when your wife died?"

Henry sat suddenly forward in his chair. His eyes locked with the Senator's.

"Never mind my wife, Bartholomew," he growled.

"What's the matter, Captain?" Bartholomew spread his white, slablike
hands. "You couldn't have known she needed you. Or could you? Of course
it was a pity, your getting back with the gemstones that would have paid
for the operation that might have saved her?just one week too late. But
there's no need to let your conscience bother you . . . though I suppose
it's hard, having a great-granddaughter around who's the image of the
wife you let die?"

Henry moved. It was a small move?simply a little shifting forward of his
weight onto the left elbow and the right fist as they rested on the arms
of his chair. But Bartholomew shut up suddenly. His sagging face had
tightened.

"Easy, Captain . . ." he muttered.

"Never mind my wife," repeated Henry, tonelessly.

"Of course . . ." Bartholomew wet his lips. Henry sat slowly back in his
chair. Bartholomew breathed deeply once more and his voice strengthened.

"It doesn't matter, anyway," he said, "?about your?about anything that
happened after you came back. It's Corazon, and your illegal trip there
I'm talking about. You're still a hero, Captain, still the first and
greatest of the old star-frontiersmen. The Quarantine Service wouldn't
do anything to you, personally. But those gemstones would be
confiscated, if someone whispered in their ears to run lattice
comparison tests between them and other, sample minerals from Corazon
itself."

He stopped speaking, flicked his eyes at Henry. Henry stared back; his
upper lip twisted.

"And you'd do the whispering, is that it?" Henry said. The other man did
not answer, letting silence speak for him. "I don't get it. You could
hire an army of hard cases, if you wanted to back somebody in the Run on
Corazon next month."

Bartholomew nodded, shortly.

"In spite of the fact that every slum in the Eastern arm has its quota
of gun handlers, you want me?a worn-out old space-hulk?because you think
I know something!"

"I know damned well you know something!" said Bartholomew suddenly and
viciously. "My God, man, there's a fortune to be made! I'll supply
everything you need. With my financing your entry, you'd be able to
stake your claim successfully?and you'd legally own those deposits of
stones you found more than a hundred years ago!"

Henry laughed suddenly, a mirthless, barking laugh that made the other
stare at him.

"I see," Henry said. "What kind of split did you have in mind?"

"In view of the risk?and the heavy initial expense?"

"How much?"

" . . . And under the circumstances of my knowledge of your past?90
percent for me, and a full 10 percent for yourself." Bartholomew smiled
ingratiatingly, puffed at his dope stick.

Henry gripped the arms of his chair with gnarled hands, shoved himself
to his feet.

"Get out!" he said.

Bartholomew's heavy jowls paled. He dropped the dope stick, scrambled
hastily to his feet.

"You don't talk to me that way?" he began.

Henry took a step forward. His throat felt as if it was on fire, and
there was a gathering haze, a blurring before his eyes. The pulse of his
blood pounded like a tom-tom in his skull.

Bartholomew stumbled backward. Two . . . three steps, but then he
stopped. The soft fat of his face hardened. He had been a tall man in
his younger years?although even then he had lacked half a head of
Henry's massive height and a full third of Henry's fighting weight.

"You'd kill me if you thought you needed to, wouldn't you, Captain?" he
said thinly, his eyes narrowing in their cushions of fat. Close to him,
Henry checked himself, fought down the rage that burned in him.

"Don't try me on that, Bartholomew," he said hoarsely.

"Oh, I believe you." The Senator laughed harshly. "But since there's
just the two of us here, let me tell you something. I'm capable of
killing, too, if it comes to that. ?I'll go!" he added hastily, as Henry
took another step forward. "But think it over," he went on, talking
rapidly as he backed away. "I still know what I know about you, the
gemstones, and Corazon; and the time for you to enter the Run is getting
shorter every day. Think about that great-granddaughter of yours?and
what it would be like for her to be just another penniless young girl,
with no hope of what she's grown up to expect?except possibly a wealthy
marriage?"

"Like your young whelp Larry, I suppose!" roared Henry, rolling forward.

Bartholomew turned and fled. For a few steps Henry pursued him; then he
stopped, and breathing hard, let the other man go. He turned and stumped
back toward the pool, stared down through the clear water at the
multicolored grotto of the mineral spring that fed it.

"Gemstones," he muttered; and then?"/Dulcie!/"

 . . . And not even he could have said for sure if it was the girl who
had left them a few moments earlier, or his long-dead love, of whom he
thought as he spoke.

* * *

"You should have seen the Senator, Uncle Amos!" Dulcia said. She poured
coffee into Henry's cup, passed the decanter of brandy to the small,
turkey-necked man who drained his glass, exhaled noisily, refilled it.

"Huh! Wish I'd been there!" He winked at the girl, tugged at one end of
a stained white moustache. "The Senator's used to getting what he goes
after. Guess it's the first time anybody's ever turned him down flat."

Captain Henry grunted, took an old-fashioned cigar from the heavy silver
box on the table. The girl held a lighter to it. The odor of tobacco
mingled with the scent of wood smoke from the fireplace.

"The man's a damned fool," he muttered uneasily. "Rubs me the wrong way;
chatters like a haki bird in molting season?and says all the wrong things."

She filled her cup and sat down. "Why does Mr. Bartholomew want you to
go to Corazon, Grandpa?"

The small man cackled. " 'Cause he knows damn well he's the only man on
Aldorado that can walk into that Corazon free-for-all and come out with
the back of his head still on?to say nothing about grabbing off a nice
chunk of real estate."

Henry blew out a cloud of smoke, leaned back in his chair, his long legs
propped on a footstool carved from the wood of the Yanda tree and
upholstered with the knobbed gray hide of a dire-beast. It was a relaxed
pose, but the tension shouted in the narrowing of his eyes, the set of
his shoulders.

"The frontier's finished," he said. "Corazon's its last dying gasp. It's
a hard world?rock and ice and tundra. No fit place for a man to live."

"But like you said, it's the last chance for a man with a yen for a gamble."

"Sure?if it had been halfway habitable, it'd have been settled a long
time ago?"

"I don't know?I've heard the Quarantine Service run into some funny
stuff out there?that's why they set on it for a hundred years." The
small man's dark, birdlike eyes were suddenly diamond sharp on Henry.

Henry met their stare, his own eyes as flat as a command.

"I remember," he said, "when there were fresh green worlds for the
asking right here in the Sector. That's what's wrong with people
today?all this Statistical Average horsefeathers. A man's got no new
frontier to go out and fight for."

"Unless," said Amos, softly, "you want to count Corazon."

"There'll be plenty that'll be after it?but not any Average Man party
Nancies . . ."

"There it is?a world for the taking." The small man put a log on the
fire, resumed his seat, dusting his hands. "With the new Terraforming
techniques, they'll transform her. Thirty million square miles of real
estate: farms, mines, ports; land that'll have cities growing on it in a
few years; open tundras where a man could run a million head of snow
cattle; mountains and waterfalls, and rivers, and sea beaches?free to
anybody that can grab and hold onto it. For a stake like that, every
gambler, pirate, soldier of fortune, and con man in forty parsecs would
sell his hope of a ringside seat in hell . . ."

"And Mr. Bartholomew wants Grandpa to go /there/?"

"Sure. I remember the first Run we was on together?out on Adobe, that
was." Amos turned to the girl. "We staked our claim to our legal hundred
square miles?a burned-out slab of desert tilted up on one side to where
a Bolo couldn't climb it. I went into a nine-day crap game with it at
Square-deal Mac's place on Petreac, and ran it up to half a
continent . . ." he cackled softly. "Before I lost it all on a deck cut
with Mac."

Dulcia's eyes shone. "That sounds like you. Was Grandpa ever on another
Run?"

Amos nodded his bald, freckled head. "Yep?last one was right here on
Aldorado. He was a little shrewder by then; grabbed off a nice piece of
land backed up to a mountain range, with forests and minerals?and facing
the sea, with a natural harbor that could handle any surface liner ever
built."

"Why, Amos?that sounds like right here?Tivoli Harbor, and the Mall . . ."

He nodded. "That's right, girl."

She turned to her great-grandfather. "But?then you must have owned the
whole town . . ."

Amos shook his head. "Nope. He was just a young fella then. It was just
before his second Rejuve. There were a lot of homesteaders who lost
out?left on the beach, with no money, no land, kids crying for home?all
that kind of thing. He didn't want the land; to Henry, it was a game. He
gave it to 'em. All he asked for was this little piece?and a house and a
garden?whenever he got ready for it."

"You mean all those people?Senator Bartholomew, all of them?owe their
whole old Mall, and everything, to you, Grandpa? And then they?" she
broke off.

"It was mostly their great-grandpas, girl," Henry said. "These people
don't owe me anything. I got what I wanted."

"And they're all working so hard to elect their stupid old Statistical
Average as Delegate! Why don't they send you, Grandpa? You've done more
for them than anybody!"

"Now, why would I want to be Delegate, Dulcie-girl? I just want to sit
in the sun and rest my old bones . . ."

"You know," Dulcia said. Her eyes went to him and fell.

He glanced sideways at her. Her eyes were large and dark; how much she
resembled her great-grandmother, now, sitting there in the firelight . . . 

"You're thinking about the Aeterna treatment," he said. "Forget it?"

"Why should I forget it! You could be young again?and stay young for
years and years?nobody knows how long! If they'd only had the treatment
back when you were opening up the Frontier, you'd have gotten it anyway
for Unusual Service to the Race?the way explorers and scientists get it
now!"

"Well," said Henry, smiling, "I missed my chance then?"

"But you can still get it! All Planetary Delegates get the treatment.
And you could get elected just by lifting your finger if you wanted.
People around here remember?"

"I'm no politician, Dulcie. Don't want to be. And I don't want to live
forever. I've had my life?more than enough. I've seen my friends go?all
but Amos here?killed or dead of old age, or just drifted away. It's not
the same universe any more I knew when I was young. It's the day of the
Statistical Average?"

"Oh, stop it, Grandpa!

"I mean it, girl. They want the man I was, not the old buzzard I am now."

"Old buzzard!" said Dulcia, fiercely. "You're still twice the man any of
them is!"

"That's putting it mild, honey," Amos put in. "And in the old days he
was the meanest, wildest, hardest-hitting young devil in the space
service. Many's the time I tried to whip him myself. Never could
though?he had too much reach on me."

"That was a long time ago," Captain Henry said. "We had our time,
Amos?and we lived it to the hilt?with no regrets. Now we've got a chair
by the fire. Let's leave it that way."

Amos poured again, tossed the drink back with a practiced gesture, sat
staring into the fire.

"Then the war came along. Your great-grandpa'd just paid for the
prettiest little fifty-ton fast-cargo cutter that ever outran a Customs
Patrol; he signed it up for the duration. They made him a Reserve Battle
Ensign; two years later he was a Battle Captain?Regular?and his boat was
a burned-out wreck."

"Grandpa?you never told me you were in the war . . . !"

"Ask Amos to show you his medals some day. He forgot to mention that I
was in the wreck when it was hit; he got me out."

"Oh, Grandpa?wouldn't it be exciting if you did?I mean if you took the
Rejuve, and showed them all . . ."

He looked at the glowing end of the cigar. "You mean you want me to go
along with Bartholomew's idea?"

"No?of course I don't! I want you to stay here?and live a long, long
time. I just meant . . ."

"Oh, well; I was exaggerating a little. If I took another Rejuve, I'd
still have maybe as much as five good years?" He broke off, glanced at
the radium clock on the wall, a relic of Old Mars. "Say, it's getting
late. What about that big dance you're going to with young Bartholomew?"

"I'm not going," she said shortly.

"Eh? Why this afternoon, it was all you could do to eat your lunch
before you dashed down to the Mall to buy a dress . . ."

"I don't want to go."

"Now, wait a minute, honey. Just because old Bartholomew's Average Man
party doesn't want me as a Delegate's no reason to miss your party?"

"It isn't that . . ."

"Hmm. How much of my talk with the old man did you 'overhear' today, girl?"

"I heard him say?you stole something! He ought to be ashamed of himself."

Amos cackled. "He called Henry a thief and got away with it? Say, I'd
like to back the Senator in a crap game, with /his/ luck . . ."

"So you think seeing the boy would be disloyal to the old man?" Henry
shook his head, smiling at the girl. "Don't visit the sins of the old on
their offspring. You go put that fancy dress on and go on to the dance;
have a good time?"

"That Bartholomew boy's not good enough for a gal like Dulcie, Cap'n,"
Amos cut in. "Always got his hair combed and not a scar on his knuckles?"

"Shut up, Amos. Larry's no worse than any other young fellow with a
delicate upbringing?" Henry frowned. "And what other kind is there these
days?"

"A ribbon counter boy?" jeered Amos, "and a girl like Dulcie? Why you
ought to?"

"You go ahead, Dulcie-girl. Amos and I want to talk a while." Captain
Henry paused to bite down on a fresh cigar and puff it alight. He blew
out smoke, winked grimly at the girl. "Leave the fighting for the older
generation; I think I can handle Bartholomew Senior."

* * *

The sound of Dulcie's Turbocad faded in the distance. Captain Henry
looked into the fire, drawing on his cigar. Abruptly, he took the cigar
out of his mouth, scowled at it, tossed it into the fire.

Amos looked sideways at him.

"What kind of bribe's the Senator offering, Henry?"

Henry snorted. "Ten percent of a jewel mine?that I've got hidden up my
sleeve."

Amos whistled. "Who's he been talking to?"

"I've been wondering about that."

"So the Senator thinks you know something, hey?" Amos cackled again.
"Say, now, that's an idea, Henry . . ."

"You're too damned old to be getting ideas, Amos. Fill your glass and
prop your feet up in front of the fire?that's our speed."

"Is it, Henry? There might be something in what the Senator was
peddling. These young squirts nowadays?they ain't got what it takes.
Look at that boy of his?a tennis-playing, baby-faced greenhorn. He
wouldn't last a week on a Run. But you and me, Henry . . ." Amos leaned
forward, his eyes sharp in his gnome-like face. "We could walk in there
and skim the gravy off Corazon like a barman cutting suds."

"How old are you, Amos?" Henry asked abruptly.

"Huh? I'm lesee, a hundred and fifty-two."

"How long since your last Rejuve?"

"Forty-five, forty-six years." He leaned forward, his old eyes bright.

"What do you say, Henry? We never were the kind to go to bed while the
party was still on. This setting around counting down to a
funeral?that's no fun. I want to go one more time, Henry! Sure I won't
last?but I want to be hungry again, and kiss a girl again, and pick one
more fight in one more bar?"

"Forget it, Amos. You're too old. The Rejuve would kill you."

"Forget it, huh? Too old?!" Amos came out of his chair like a
jack-in-the-box. He tossed the cigar over his shoulder. "I ain't too old
to have one more try?"

"Calm down, Amos. If guts were all you needed, you'd live forever. But
it's a little more complicated than that. Rejuve won't work at your age.
You can't change that."

"So you're just going to sit here and let a bunch of fuzz-cheeked
Johnnies walk off with Corazon?"

"Talk sense, Amos. I don't need a piece of Corazon; I've got enough to
last me."

"Yeah?but what about the girl? How's she going to be fixed?"

"Dulcie'll be all right. She's a smart girl?"

"Sure, she's smart?and purty. Purty enough to marry some lightweight
like Master Bartholomew and spend the rest of her days hand-washing his
silk socks while he's out campaigning for the Territorial Statistical
Average. That what you want?"

"I was wondering what brought you over here today, Amos." Henry glanced
across at him; their eyes caught and held level, and a near-forgotten
current of danger seemed to wake the drowsy air of the garden.

"Cap'n, I get around." Amos's voice was different, suddenly, harder and
more deliberate. "I pick up all kinds of conversation. I heard the
Senator had a bug in his bonnet to talk you into Rejuve so he could hire
you on for the run."

"So?" Henry's voice was equally flat and deliberate.

"So, Old Man Bartholomew's got some kind of a Nancy working for him?a
private secretary. He likes to drink. I bought him a few, and he got to
talking?"

"You wouldn't have put a few drops of something pink in his glass, would
you, Amos?" The irony in Henry's voice was heavy.

"That ain't the point, Cap'n," the little man said grimly. "I told
you?the Nancy talked."

"Whatever he said," Henry's voice marked the words like the slow beat of
a hammer on a forge, "it doesn't change anything."

Their eyes met and locked again. Amos drew a deep breath. "Henry," he
said, "what's on Corazon?"

Henry did not answer for a long moment. Then he picked up another cigar
and savagely bit off the end of it.

"Go to hell!" he said.

"All right," answered the little man, still steely-voiced and
undismayed, "I'm headed there anyway. Meanwhile I won't go away?and
neither will whatever the Senator's holding over you, Cap'n. Now if it
was just you, I'd say damn your worthless old hide and Bartholomew's
welcome to it. But according to that Nancy, it's something to do with
Dulcie?"

Henry jerked the cigar from his teeth and hurled it into the fire.

"That's a lot of good imported smoking you're making kindling out of
tonight," said Amos. "All right, I won't say any more. Only as I
remember, you used to be able to dicker and deal a bit. But I don't
recall it ever doing you any good until you started to talk trade."

Henry glared across at him.

"Bartholomew's not invulnerable, you know," said Amos, mildly. "If he's
got a hook on Dulcie, maybe I could cook up something about that
lace-britches son of his?"

Henry sat up suddenly. Amos abruptly stopped talking, watching him with
bright, old eyes.

"Corazon's a hell of a place, Amos," Henry said thoughtfully.

"Sure," said Amos, "all raw worlds are hell?but we could have ourselves
some fun, you and me, taming her down a little . . ." For a moment the
small man's eyes softened and became wistful. " . . . One last go-around
before the Big Dark. Remember, Cap'n, how it feels to have a deck under
your feet?going for broke against all the odds there are . . ."

"Damn your hide, Amos," Henry said softly. There was a new light in his
eyes. He got to his feet, grunting a little as he straightened his back.
"Maybe I've got things to say to old man Bartholomew at that!"

Amos jumped to his feet and laughed aloud, slapping Henry's shoulder.

"That's the idea, Cap'n! He can hum the tune?but we'll put the words to it!"

Henry scribbled a brief note to Dulcia, propped it on the table; then
the two went out through the kitchen entrance to the garage of the
antique-style villa. Captain Henry slid behind the wheel of a low-slung
black Monojag, started up, gunned it out along the drive. It was a clear
night with Hope, the bigger moon, riding high in the sky, and the pale
disk of Dream just peeping above the tops of the imported poplars.

He took the shore road toward the lighted towers of the Mall, driving
fast on the empty tarmac.

* * *

Senator Bartholomew stood in the doorway in his sequined dressing gown,
blinking from Captain Henry to Amos.

"What's this all about?" he blurted, staring at the tall old man with
the leathery face and the white bristle of cropped hair. "Why, it's the
middle of the night?"

"You were out at my place today, Senator, asking me to do a job for you.
I'm here to call your bet."

"You'll . . . you'll go?" The Senator stepped back, inviting the callers
inside. He ran his fingers through his thin hair. "Why, that's
wonderful! Marvelous! But why in the name of order didn't you say so
today . . . ?"

Henry glanced around the dim-lit, luxuriously furnished lounge room.
"I'm not doing this in the name of order. I'm doing it for the hell of
it. I guess maybe I've had enough naps in the sun to last me for a
while?or maybe the prospect of seeing your long face every time I came
down to the Mall for supplies was too much for me. What difference does
it make? I'm here."

"Yes . . ." Bartholomew was nodding his head. He rubbed his hands
together. "Wonderful news, Captain. I was sure you'd come to your
senses?that is, I knew you had a sense of community spirit?"

"Community bath water! Now, before we go any further, let's get a couple
of things straight. First?the split will be fifty-fifty."

Bartholomew jumped as though poked by a sharp instrument.

"Here?that wasn't the understanding?"

"Half to my great-granddaughter," Henry went on, "and half to your son."

Bartholomew's heavy eyebrows went up. "To Larry?" He looked dumbfounded.

"I don't like the idea of working for you, Senator?and your bank balance
is top-heavy already."

Bartholomew breathed heavily through clamped jaws. "It's the boy's
future I had in mind from the beginning?but why /your/ interest . . ."
he broke off, eyed Henry sharply, then nodded wisely. "Aha, I think I
understand. Your great-granddaughter?and?Larry?"

"Maybe you'd better drop that line right there," Henry said in a steely
tone.

Bartholomew tugged at the lapels of his dressing gown, "Very well; far
be it from me to quibble?but the profits will be calculated after
expenses, mind you!"

"All right; that's agreed then."

Bartholomew pulled at his lip. "You surprise me, Captain; I never knew
you to be partial to my boy . . ."

"He deserves his share, Senator; he'll earn it."

"Hey, Henry!" Amos started.

"Shut up, Amos; I'll handle this."

Bartholomew gaped at Henry. "Look here," he blurted. "You don't mean?"

Captain Henry nodded. "Sure I do, Senator. You don't think I'm going out
there alone, do you?"

"What is this?some?some sort of elaborate and reprehensible joke . . . ?"

Henry's eyes were sharp under white brows. "You want me to go to
Corazon. Sure, I'll go?but not unless your Statistically Average son
goes with me."

* * *

Bartholomew was mopping at his face with a large flower-embossed tissue.
He flung it to the floor, faced Captain Henry.

"No! I've told you ten times! You can have any other man you want?but
not my boy . . . !"

Captain Henry turned to the door. "Come on, Amos. I'm going home to bed,
where I belong?"

Senator Bartholomew pushed before him. His face was red. He raised a
finger and wagged it.

"Do you mean, with the wealth of a planet at stake, you'd make a game of
setting up fantastic conditions? What kind of insane prankster are you,
you . . . you . . ."

"A minute ago it was a noble undertaking?now you're calling it a crazy
prank."

"I didn't mean that! You're twisting my words!"

"Well, don't twist mine, Senator. Let's get it straight and clear.
You're risking your capital; I'm risking my neck. I'll come back?and so
will the boy?with a slice of Corazon that will make us all too rich to
talk to."

"I think I see; you want a hostage! You don't trust me!"

"That might be a point?in case you were thinking of cutting any corners."

Bartholomew took out another tissue, wiped at his face, patted behind
his ears.

"My boy's not prepared for this sort of thing," he said. "He's not
strong; he's overworked himself on behalf of his Territory?"

"I know: a politician never sleeps; he also never breathes fresh air,
feels the unfiltered sunlight on his skin, eats raw meat, or sleeps in
his socks. He'll do all those things on a Run."

"Captain Henry, you're jeopardizing a golden opportunity for a
vindictive whim! There'll never be another Run in this Sector! The
nearest uncolonized worlds are a hundred years away?!"

Captain Henry looked at Senator Bartholomew, the long, pale, soft face,
the extra chins, the damp, pudgy hands, the paunch straining under the
tightly buttoned weskit.

"Your son, Senator," he said flatly. "Or it's no go . . ."

Bartholomew stared at Henry, his jaw muscles jumping.

"Very well, Captain," he said in a whisper. "My son will go."

"Now," Henry said briskly. "I want a brand-new scout boat?a Gendye,
/Enamorata/ Class; and I want it trajectoried in here as hold cargo,
regardless of expense."

"But?that will cost thousands?" Bartholomew swallowed. "Agreed," he said.

"The same goes for her outfitting; I'll supply the list?no questions to
be asked."

The Senator nodded.

"No need to look like an old maid agreeing to lose her virginity," Henry
said. "It's for the good of the mission. Call your lawyers in and we'll
get the papers signed now. And you can call the Rejuve Clinic and tell
'em I'm on the way over."

"Oh, yes, certainly. First thing in the morning. I'll call Dr. Spangler
as soon as his office opens?"

"Tomorrow be damned! I'm here now?ready. Tomorrow I may be dead."

"Dead? You're not feeling ill . . . ?"

"Don't worry?I'll last out the night."

"But?it's after midnight?"

"Sure," Amos put in. "And in Antipode it's quarter after nine tomorrow
morning. When the Cap'n wants to do something, he wants to do it /now/!"

"Very well . . ." Bartholomew tugged at the violet lapels of his
dressing gown. "You enjoy an advantage, but that's no reason to bully."

"Sure it is," Amos barked. "We've got to maintain our reputations as a
couple of ornery old buzzards. It's one of the few pleasures we got left."

Back in the car, Henry swung out onto the third-level interchange,
gunned toward the glittering spire of the Med-center.

"All right, Henry," Amos demanded. "What's all this Young Bart business?
What do we want with that panty-waist?"

"Simple, Amos?I need a crewman?"

"What do you mean?" Amos's voice was hoarse with indignation. "Ain't I?"

"No. You know damned well you can't go through another Rejuve; I'm not
too damned sure I can."

"Now, wait a dad-blamed minute, Henry! I was in this all the way?"

"Sorry, Amos," Henry said more gently. "You know I want you?but facts
are facts . . .  And maybe the trip will do the boy good," he added.

"Hummph!" Amos sat silent for a moment. "So that's why you was so easy
to convince all of a sudden," he said. "You figure you can make a man
out of a boy."

"Maybe; it won't hurt for a handpicked sample of Aldorado's ideal
average manhood to find out what it's like outside a climate-conditioned
city."

"You're making a mistake, Henry. Young Bartholomew spends all his time
playing tennis and reading statistics; he'll cave in on you the first
time the going gets rough."

"I hope not, Amos?for a lot of reasons." The image of the first Dulcia
rose to shimmer before him. She seemed to be weighing his motives in the
balance with her clear, gray eyes.

Under the blue-white lights of the Rejuve Clinic, Captain Henry watched
as the doctor nervously laid out equipment.

"This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of," he snapped. He
was a tiny, birdlike man with overlarge eyes behind tinted contact
lenses. "A man of your age?and at this time of night. Why, there are
dozens of tests, measurements, biochemical analyses; you need at least
three weeks on a special diet?and I haven't so much as checked your
pulse, Captain Henry! And you expect me to put you in a regeneration
tank and subject your metabolism to seventy-two hours of profound shock?"

"I have three months to get ready and get to that staging area, doctor,"
Henry said. "I'll need all my horsepower to make it; I don't have three
weeks to waste."

"I have a good mind to refuse . . ." Spangler winked owl eyes defiantly
at Henry. "There is the matter of professional ethics to consider . . ."

"I've signed the release," Henry said. "It's my neck."

The medic picked up a hypospray angrily, took Henry's arm. "Very
well?but I wash my hands of responsibility; I won't guarantee an L.P. of
even twelve months . . ." He pressed the plunger, tossed the instrument
on the table, wiped his hands nervously.

"Kindly stretch out on the table here, Captain," he said. "You'll feel
the effects of the shot in a moment now. You're committed; it's too late
to turn back . . ." His voice seemed to come from far away. " . . . I
hope you know what you're doing . . ."

* * *

There were sounds that approached and receded, the booming of cannon,
cries, voices out of the past . . .  There were moments of sharp pain,
and he fought, striking out at an enemy that fled always before him.
Light glared, blindingly; then there was darkness through which he swam
alone, suitless, in the emptiness of space, and in his body a terrible
sickness flooded in relentless waves . . . 

/Later, he seemed to float, drugged, aware of an ache all through his
body like a gigantic throbbing tooth. Under him, hardness pressed; his
arms and legs tingled now. He tried to remember the accident, but there
was nothing; only the irritating voice that probed, prodded, forcing
itself into his awareness . . .  / 

* * *

" . . . up! Wake up! Wake up!"

He opened his eyes. A vague face floated over him. It was not a pleasing
face, like some of those he had seen?or dreamed about . . .  He closed
his eyes to the grateful darkness . . . 

"He's coming out of it!" The voices were sharp now; they rasped his
nerves like files.

"Go 'way," he muttered. He was abruptly aware of his tongue in his
mouth, a vile taste, dryness . . . 

"Water . . ." he croaked.

Arms lifted him, hands fumbled over him. He felt straps being released,
the cold touch of a hypospray. He was sitting up now, dizzy, but awake,
looking around a small, bright room.

"You had us worried, Captain," a thin voice was saying. Captain Henry
concentrated. He knew the man . . . 

"One hundred and eight hours," the voice went on. "For a while there it
was touch and go."

He was remembering now. Amos had been with him?

"Where's Amos?" Henry's voice boomed loud in his ears. He took a deep
breath, felt sharp pains that faded quickly. He shook his head. "I want
Amos . . ."

"He . . . ah . . . isn't here, Captain."

"He didn't wait . . . ?" Henry asked.

"Mr. Able . . . didn't make it . . ."

"Make what?" A feeling of immense irritability rose up in Captain Henry.
"What kind of a pal is he? Get him?now!"

"You don't understand, Captain. His system wasn't able to endure the
strain . . ."

"Where is he?" Captain Henry got to his feet, weaving. "Strain, my elbow!"

"He's dead, Captain," the thin-faced man said. "The Rejuve treatment?it
was too much for him. He died four hours ago. I did all I could . . ."

"You gave Amos a Rejuve? Why, you damned fool!"

"But?he said those were your orders?" Spangler gestured to a
sheet-covered table. "I haven't even had time?"

Henry stepped to the table, reaching out a hand for support, flipped
back the sheet. A waxy face, thin-nosed, sunken-cheeked, stared up at
him with eyes as remote as a statue of Pharaoh.

"Amos . . ." Captain Henry looked around blankly at the other two. "He
was my partner . . . ever since the beginning . . ."

"He . . . left this for you." The medic offered a white envelope. Henry
tore it open.

If it works, I'll make you a better partner than six green kids. If it's
a no go?then happy landings, Henry. I wish I could of been with you./
Amos Able./ 

Henry put a hand on Amos's shoulder, felt the bones through the skin and
the sheet.

"You didn't wait," Henry said. "You went ahead without me . . ."

* * *

An hour later, Captain Henry stood in the UV filtered light of the Mall,
flanked on one side by Dulcia, trim in a close-fitting suit of pale
green that accented the gold of her hair, and on the other by Dr.
Spangler, his hand under Henry's arm, chatting nervously.

"A fine recovery after all, Captain. Frankly, I'm surprised at the
outcome; I think I'm safe in saying we've achieved a Senility Index of
around .40?"

"Grandpa, I've been so worried," the girl almost wailed. "You're so
weak . . ."

"He'll recover his strength quickly," Spangler bobbed his head
reassuringly. "In a week he'll be his old self again. That is?his /new/
self." He beamed at his jest.

A wide low car, gleaming with pale gray porcelain and bright chromalloy,
swung up to the entry. A tall, slender young man with short curly dark
hair, clad in stylishly cut sport togs, jumped out. He came forward,
took Henry's elbow.

"Certainly fine to see you looking so chipper, sir," he said. "Dulcia's
been beside herself . . ."

"That was mean, Grandpa, to go off and just leave me a note!" the girl
put in.

The lad went through a gesture of assisting Henry into the car, went
around and took a seat in front; he turned, a polite smile on his
regular features.

"I was certainly pleased when I heard you'd agreed to let me go along on
the cruise, Captain; I'm sure I'm going to enjoy it immensely. I'm quite
looking forward to it."

Henry leaned back, feeling the sweat of exertion trickling down behind
his ear. He stared hard at the youth.

"I doubt that all to hell, son," he said. "A better man than either of
us has already died in the name of this caper. Maybe before it's over
you'll wish you had, too."

The smile dropped from the young man's face.

"Grandpa!" Dulcia said. "What a terrible thing to say to Larry."

"I know," Captain Henry said. "This is not the time for a pep talk about
how teamwork pays off. I'm not in the mood. I'm going home and sleep for
forty-eight hours?and then we're starting to work."

"Very well, Captain," young Bartholomew said. "I fully expect?"

"It's what you don't expect that hurts," Henry cut him off. "Pull in
your belt, youngster. You've got a tough sixty days ahead?and after that
it'll get tougher."


      *Chapter Two*

Senator Bartholomew hurled the machine listing to the table before
Captain Henry, waved his dope stick wildly.

"This equipment list is fantastic!" he stormed. "You're spending
thousands?thousands, do you hear! For what?" He slapped the paper with a
damp palm. "A battery of three-centimeter infinite repeaters; a
demi-total all-wave detector screen; a fire control board designed for a
ship of the line! Have you lost your mind? This is a peaceful
homesteading venture you're outfitting for?not a commando raid?"

"Uh-huh . . ." Henry grinned cheerfully at the paunchy financier. "I
intend to keep it peaceful, Senator?if I have to gun my way through an
army to do it. By the way, I've got a new list of stores for you
somewhere . . ." He slapped pockets, went to the desk, tried drawers.

"Dulcie!" he called out. "Where's that list we made up this morning?"

The girl put her head in the door. "Larry took it down a few minutes
ago? Oh, good morning, Senator Bartholomew."

Bartholomew grunted. "Now you're employing my boy as a common messenger,
eh? I suppose this is your idea of getting back at me for some fancied
slight."

"Why, Senator," Dulcia said. "Larry volunteered to go; he was going over
to the Mall anyway?"

"Never mind the Senator's cracks," Henry said. "His indigestion's
probably bothering him. Let's go over and take a look at the ship; I
want to show you something."

"Look here, I came out here to talk to you!" Bartholomew barked.

"Come around when you feel better." Henry took the girl's arm, escorted
her out to the Monojag.

"Really, Grandpa, you shouldn't goad him that way?"

"To hell with him. It's too nice a day to breathe second-hand dope." He
wheeled the car out across the ramp toward the silver lance-head of the
ship.

"She's really beautiful," Dulcia said. "Have you decided what to call
her yet?"

Henry pulled the car up in the shadow of the fifty-foot vessel, poised
on four slim vanes among stacked crates and boxes. Men in coveralls
paused in their work to eye the girl appreciatively. Henry reached in
the back of the car, brought out a tissue-wrapped bottle.

"In answer to that last question," he said, "I have." He stripped the
paper from the heavy bottle, held it up. The label read "Piper
Hiedsieck?extra brut." "So, if you'll kindly do the honors . . ."

"Oh, Grandpa . . ." Dulcia took the champagne. She giggled. "It seems
funny to go on calling you Grandpa; you look so dashing . . ."

"Don't get flustered, girl. Smash it over her stern pipes and give her
her name."

"Do you really want me to? Now? With just us here? Can't I call Larry?"

"Sure; go ahead."

The girl went excitedly to the field screen, located the youth at an
office across the field. A minute later his scarlet sportster headed
across from the Admin building, squealed to a halt beside the Monojag.
Larry Bartholomew stepped out, greeted Henry, beamed at Dulcia.

"Well, this is quite an occasion; real champagne, too . . ." He frowned
slightly.

"Don't worry," Henry said. "I paid for it myself. Go ahead, girl, let
her have it."

Dulcia took up a position by the stern tubes. "Grandpa," she said. "You
haven't told me her name yet."

"/Degello/," Henry said.

"/Degello/?" Dulcia repeated.

"Ah, a charming choice," Larry commented, nodding. "An old Spanish word,
isn't it?"

"That's right."

Dulcia took a breath, gripped the bottle by its neck. "I christen thee
/Degello/!" she cried, and swung the bottle. Wine foamed as the glass
shattered; a splash of gold ran down across the bright hull plates. The
workmen raised a cheer in which Henry's bellow joined. Larry clapped.

"Well, Captain, I suppose I'd better be getting back to my
ah . . . duties," he said, when the broken glass had been swept up.

"Not a bad idea, Larry. You're due at the gym now."

"Yes," his smile was a trifle strained. As he turned away, he waved at
Dulcia almost as if signaling her, and Henry, turning aside, later
thought he had caught sight of a small lifting of her hand in return.
But when he turned back to her, there was no sign of it in her face or
manner.

"Larry looks so much better, Grandpa, since you've had him working out,"
she said, "and getting out in the unfiltered sunlight. I really think
the trip is going to be good for him." She looked at her
great-grandfather with a sudden, unusual seriousness. "?It isn't really
going to be as . . . dangerous as Amos made out? Is it?"

"It'll be a picnic," Henry said breezily; he ran a finger under her
chin. "A couple more weeks and we'll be out of your hair."

"I keep telling myself . . . the sooner you go, the sooner you'll be back."

"That's the spirit; now, what do you say to dinner at the Fire Palace
and a swim under Castle Reef afterward?"

Dulcia hugged his arm. "Wonderful! And I've got something to talk to you
about, anyway."

"Something?" He stared at her. "What, girl?"

"Oh . . . something. I'll tell you later." She let go of his arm, danced
away. Wondering a little, he followed her to the Monojag.

The dinner at the Fire Palace was all that anyone could have expected of
it. They sat on the terrace afterward, watching the twilight deepen over
the sea, then changed and went down on the beach.

There, as the night closed down, they swam?and then, afterward, Henry,
out of sheer high spirits, built a roaring fire of driftwood. His
strength was back on him and it felt good to lay arms once more around
some log two ordinary men could barely lift, and heave it, crashing, in
among the crackling flames and glowing sparks. He was half drunk with
his return to an age of vigor; and in his exuberance, he did not notice
Dulcia's quietness until he dropped down once more on the sand beside
her and saw her sitting silent, hugging her knees, pensively.

He looked at her sharply; and she turned her face away from him, but not
before he had seen the sparkle of tears on her lashes.

"Dulcie-girl . . ." he put out a hand to her, but she shook her head.

"No, Grandpa," she said, "I'm all right. Really, I'm all right . . . 
It's just that you look so happy. Grandpa . . . tell me about her . . ."

"Her?" He scowled at the girl.

"You know . . . my great-grandmother. Was she really so much like me?"

In spite of himself his voice thickened in his throat as he answered.

"Haven't I told you a thousand times, she was?"

"It must . . ." still she would not look at him, "have been terrible for
her. Having you go off that way . . ."

A sudden deadly coldness moved in him. All the guilt that had lain
hidden in him all these years leaped snarling from the dark parts of his
mind to tear at him. But Dulcie?this Dulcia, the young girl of now?was
talking on.

"Grandpa, I told you I wanted to tell you something." She turned finally
to look at him. "It's . . . about Larry. I love him."

The coldness moved out to encase him complete, like a block of ice.

"Love?"

She nodded. "So now you see . . .  There are only two people I love
anywhere?now that Amos is dead?and the two of you are going off on this
Run."

"Dulcia . . ." his tongue felt clumsy in his mouth, "I told you there's
nothing to worry about. Nothing . . ."

"Isn't there? Really, isn't there?" She searched his face with her gray
eyes. "You've always told me the truth, Grandpa. But you tell me there's
nothing to worry about; and then you tell Larry something different. Do
you know why he's going on this trip, Grandpa? /Do/ you?"

"Why, his dad's sending him?"

"Oh Grandpa, stop and think for a moment!" Her tone was almost
exasperated. "Larry may be just a boy to you, but to himself and the
Senator and everyone on this planet, he's a man?man enough to run for
high political office. Larry's father can't send him any place he
doesn't want to go! Larry's going because he /wants/ to go?and you don't
even know the reason!"

Suspicion stiffened Henry.

"What reason?" he said, sharply.

"What do you think? /You/!" She stared at him with an expression caught
between affection and frustration. "You don't know?you've never known
how people think of you. Don't you know you're a living hero, a living
/legend/ to the people my age and Larry's, on this planet? To their
folks, you may still be just a man?but to my generation you're a
walking, breathing piece of a history book. Now, do you understand why
Larry never even thought of hesitating when his father told him you
wanted him to go with you to Corazon and the Run?"

Henry grunted, off-guard.

"But you scare him half to death!" said Dulcia. "According to you, he
can't do anything right, and all you have to do is look at him, to make
him so self-conscious that he trips over his own feet and starts talking
twice as foolish-stilted fashionable as he would ordinarily. But he'd
give his right arm to please you. Grandpa, /I know/!"

Henry stared fiercely at her. A small door somewhere in the back of his
mind where the memory of her great-grandmother lived, wavered half-open,
wanting to believe what she had just told him.

But then, unbidden, an image of the Senator rose in his mind's eye. The
fat, flabby man with the ruthless core. The boy was blood and bone of
his father. If there was something worthwhile in him, it would show
itself when the Run had ground the fancy manners and nonsense off him.
Until then?the small, half-open door in the back of his mind slammed shut.

"All right, honey, I'll bear it in mind," he said, patting her shoulder
gently. He rose to his feet like a spring uncoiled. "Now, we better be
getting home. Tomorrow's a large day."

They picked up their towels and climbed the beach back to the Monojag.
Driving home, Dulcia suddenly broke the silence.

"/Degello/ . . ." she said, unexpectedly. "Larry said when I christened
the ship that the name was an old Spanish word. What does it mean, Grandpa?"

Henry was suddenly conscious of her staring across at him, her face
white in the moonlight coming through the windscreen of the car climbing
the steep and winding road.

?And even as he spoke, he realized how his lips thinned at the word, and
he heard, like an echo, the grim, harsh note of hungry violence in his
voice as he answered: "Cutthroat."

* * *

From the window, Henry's eyes followed the white strip of beach that
curved along under the cliff-face, widening to the distant glistening
bubble of the Mall and the rectangle of the port, where the ship threw
back a blinding glint of reflected sun. Tiny figures swarmed around its
base; by now, Senator Bartholomew and his committee of Averages would be
getting impatient at the delay.

He turned, looked into the long mirror. The narrow-cut, silver-corded
black trousers fitted without a wrinkle into the well-worn but brightly
polished ship boots. He plucked the short tunic from the bed, slipped it
over the white silk shirt; the silver buttons, the swirl of braid on the
cuffs gleamed against royal blue polyon. He buckled on the broad
woven-silver belt with the ebony-gripped bright-plated ceremonial side
arm; he smiled, and a lean, bronzed face with blue-green eyes and short
blond hair touched with gray smiled back. He opened the door and walked
along the hall, down three steps to the lounge room.

Dulcia turned; her eyes widened. "Oh, Grandpa . . . !"

He grinned. "Come on, honey; takeoff in forty minutes. Let's go give the
natives a treat."

They took the Monojag, howled down the winding cliff road, along the
beach, cut across the Port Authority ramp, screeched to a halt beside
the ship. A crowd of stylishly dressed citizens waited behind a red
plush guard rope. On a platform beside the service gantry, a cluster of
officials stood.

"Everybody's here," Dulcia said breathlessly. "Look, there's the Council
Monitor . . . and?"

"Uh-huh; they'll have speeches planned, but I'm afraid I won't be able
to wait around for 'em." Henry stepped out, offered Dulcia a hand. The
babble of the crowd rose higher. Fingers pointed; strobe lights flashed.

"You were late on purpose," she whispered. "That's mean, Grandpa; I
wanted to see everybody cheering you."

"Where's young Bartholomew?" They crossed the open space, mounted the
steps to the platform. A short, narrow-shouldered man stepped forward,
offered a hand, adjusted a microphone.

"Mr. Mayor," he began, his amplified voice echoing, "honorable guests,
citizens of Aldorado?"

Captain Henry gently plucked the microphone from his hand.

"We're lifting off in twenty-one minutes," he said briskly. "Everybody
back behind the yellow safety line. Where's Mr. Bartholomew?"

There was a surprised stir in the crowd. Larry pushed through, mounted
the platform. He was strapped and buckled into an expensive ship suit
hung with bright-colored emergency gear.

"Ah, Captain, I was just saying good-by to?"

Captain Henry put his hand over the mike.

"Get aboard, Larry. Start the countdown clock. You know how to do that?"

"Of course, I do," Larry said urgently. His eyes went past Henry to
Dulcia. "But I don't see?"

"That's an order, Mister!" Captain Henry said softly.

Bartholomew reddened, turned abruptly, and stepped into the entry port.
Captain Henry faced the open-mouthed officials beside him.

"All right, gentlemen; everybody clear. The killing radius of the drive
is a hundred yards." He turned to his great-granddaughter, put an arm
around her, kissed her casually on the forehead.

"Better beat it, Dulcie-girl. Drive up to the cliff-head and watch from
there. You'll get a better view."

She threw her arms around his neck. "Be careful, Grandpa?and come back
safe . . ."

"Nothing to it," he said. He chucked her under the chin, steered her to
the stair, waved cheerfully to the assembled crowd, then keyed the mike:

"All right, you gantry crews; pull back there; disconnect all and make
secure . . ."

* * *

Inside the vessel, Henry climbed a short companionway in a smell of new
paint and insulation, emerged into a handsomely appointed control
center. Larry lay strapped into the right-hand cradle, watching the
blink of red, green, amber, and blue lights on a console that rimmed
half the chamber. He turned a resentful glance at Henry.

"Captain, I didn't have an opportunity even to wave to Dulcia?"

Standing in the winking multicolored glow of the panel lights, Henry
stripped off the braid-encrusted tunic, dropped the heavy belt with its
decorative weapon into a wall locker.

"Let's get a couple of things straight, Larry," he said evenly. "Up to
now it's been fun and games . . ." He took a plain black ship suit from
the locker, began pulling it on. "But the games are over. You're signed
on for the cruise?and maybe, if we're very careful, and very lucky,
we'll get home again some day. Meanwhile, we'll concentrate on the job
ahead with every ounce of brains and guts we've got?and hope it'll be
enough."

Bartholomew looked at Henry doubtfully.

"Surely you're exaggerating, Captain. This is merely a matter of
selecting a suitable area and establishing our claim . . ."

"There's more to it than that. There's money at work in this Run. From
what I've been able to find out, some of the toughest operators in the
Sector are staking outfits. New land's hard to come by these days; we
won't get ours without a fight." He took a second suit from the locker,
tossed it across to Bartholomew. "Better get that Mickey Mouse outfit
off and get into this. You've got about five minutes till blast-off."

Bartholomew climbed out of the couch, began changing suits. "This is a
very expensive suit," he said, folding it carefully. "A gift from the
Sector Council?"

"The shoes, too," Henry said. "Save those fancy ones for cocktail
parties after we get back."

Larry looked indignant. "Now, Captain; my father had these boots
specially made for me; they're the finest that money can buy. He
particularly insisted that I wear them?"

"All right; they're your feet, Larry; and they'll be going into some
pretty strange places."

"You make this sound like?like some sort of crazy suicide mission!"

"Sure . . ." Captain Henry settled himself in his couch, clamped in,
snapped his lifeline connection in place. "All suicides are crazy.
Buckle in now and get set for blast-off."

The ground-control screen glowed. "Zero minus one minute," a voice said.
"Ramp clear, final count." There was a loud click.

"Minus fifty seconds," the voice said. Henry adjusted the clock, watched
the sweep hand.

"Forty seconds. Thirty seconds. Twenty seconds. Ten seconds . . ."

Bartholomew cleared his throat. "Captain?"

"Too late now for second thoughts, Larry."

" . . . eight . . . seven . . . six . . ." the voice droned.

"I have an important primary in the fall," Bartholomew said. "I just
wanted to ask when we'd be returning."

A whine started up deep in the ship. Relays clicked.

"If we're lucky?three months," Henry said.

" . . . three . . . two . . . one?"

Pink light winked in the rear visiscreen. A deep rumble sounded. Captain
Henry felt the pressure, gentle at first, then insistent, then fierce,
crushing him back as the roar mounted to a mighty torrent which went on
and on. The weight was like an iron mold now pressing over his body.

"What if . . . we're not lucky . . . ?" Bartholomew croaked.

Captain Henry smiled tightly. "In that case," he said with difficulty,
"the question won't arise."

"I'm going to be sick again," Bartholomew gasped.

"Sure," Captain Henry said absently, studying instrument readings. "Just
be sure you clean it up afterward."

"That's what makes me sick . . ."

"Your stomach ought to be empty by now. Why didn't you take the Null-G
shot?"

"I heard?they made one . . . ill."

Henry tossed a white capsule over. "Swallow this. You'll be all right in
a few minutes. I'll put a spin on the ship in another hour or so, as
soon as I've finished the final tower check." He spoke softly into his
lip-mike, jotted notes on a clipboard.

An hour passed. Captain Henry made adjustments to the controls; a
whining started up. Under the two men, the cradles pressed faintly, then
more firmly.

"That's a standard G," Henry said cheerfully. He unstrapped and swung
out of the cradle. "You'll feel better in a few minutes."

"The pressure was bad enough," Bartholomew said weakly. "It seemed like
a week?"

"Only nine hours. I didn't want to put you under more than 2G?or myself
either." He took equipment from a locker, set about erecting a small
unit like a twelve-inch tri-D tank at one side of the twelve-foot room.
He buckled on a plain gun belt, fitted a pistol into the holster, took
up a stance, then drew suddenly, aimed, and pressed the firing stud. A
bright flash showed at the edge of the screen, faded slowly. He
holstered the gun, drew, and fired another silent bolt.

"What are you doing?" Bartholomew craned from his cradle.

"Target practice. Two hours in every twelve?for both of us?until we're
scoring ten out of ten. Better get out of that cradle now and get your
space legs. I'm upping the spin one rev per hour. It's a twenty-nine-day
run to Corazon. By the time we get there, we'll be working under a G and
a half."

"Whatever for?"

"Good for the muscles. Now hop to it. When you finish cleaning up in
here, we're going down to the engine compartment and I'll show you your
duties there."

"Good Lord, Captain! I'm not a . . . a grease monkey!"

"That's all right; you will be."

"Captain, I'm a trained Administrator. I thought that on this venture my
executive abilities?"

Henry turned on him. "Start swabbing that deck, Mister. And when you're
finished, there'll be other duties?none of 'em easy and none of 'em
pleasant!"

"Is that my part of the mission?" Bartholomew's cheeks were pink. "To do
all the menial work?"

"I'll navigate this tub. I'll be on the board twelve hours out of every
twenty-four, and I'll spend another four getting my reflexes back in
shape. If I have any time left over, I'll do my share of the shipboard
routine. If not, you'll do it all."

Bartholomew looked at Henry. "I see," he said. He got out of the cradle
and silently set about cleaning up the compartment.

* * *

Coming up the companionway, Captain Henry paused, hearing a voice above.
He came up quietly, saw Bartholomew, tall and thin in the black ship
suit, standing across the room, his gun belt slung low on his narrow hips.

"Very well, you scoundrel," the youth murmured. He whipped out the
training pistol, fired; a flash of greenish light winked in the gloom of
the control chamber.

He holstered the gun, half-turned, then spun back. "Aha!" he muttered.
"Thought you'd slip up on me unawares, I see . . ." He yanked the gun
up, fired?

There was no answering flash.

"Drat it!" Bartholomew adjusted the gun belt, took a turn up and down
the room, spun suddenly and fired, was rewarded with a flash.

"Ha!" he said. He blew on the gun barrel, jammed it in the holster.

"Not bad," Henry said, stepping up into the room. "You may make a
shooter yet, Larry."

Bartholomew jumped. "I was . . . ah . . . just practicing . . ." He
unbuckled the belt, tossed it in the locker. "Though I confess I can't
imagine any occasion for the exercise of such a skill."

"Oh, it's handy," Henry said, "when scoundrels sneak up on you."

Bartholomew blushed. "One must have /some/ amusement to while away the
hours."

"Call it an amusement if you want to?but keep practicing. Your neck may
depend on it in the very near future."

"Surely you're exaggerating the danger, Captain. All that talk of hired
killers and opportunists was all very well back on Aldorado, when you
were dramatizing the perils of the undertaking?"

"If you've got the idea a Run is something like bobbing for apples,
forget it. We're going to be in competition with men that are used to
taking what they want and worrying about the consequences later?much later."

Larry smiled patiently. "Oh, perhaps in the old days, a century ago,
lawless characters perpetrated some of the atrocities one hears of; but
not today, Captain. These are modern times; Council regulations?"

"Council regulations are dandy?to start a fire with when your permatch
goes dry." Henry settled himself in his couch, swung it around to face
Bartholomew.

"Corazon is a holdover from an earlier era. She was held under
quarantine for an extra seventy-five years, because of some funny
business with disappearing viruses combined with bureaucratic inertia.
The day of frontiering in the Sector is past; this is a freak, a
one-time opportunity?and every last-chance Charlie in this end of the
Galaxy who can beg, borrow, or steal a ship will be at that staging
area, ready to get his slice of Corazon. It'll be every man for himself,
and the devil take the slow gun . . ."

"But the Council Representatives?the referees?"

"How many? A hundred men? And no fonder of getting killed than any other
salaried employee. Sure, they'll be there to take your claim
registrations, hand out the official map, run a scintillometer over you
to make sure you aren't packing a fission weapon in your hip pocket?but
out of sight of the Q. S. Tower at Pango-Ri, it will be up to you and
your handgun and your bare knuckles and your brain."

"But, Captain, a few sane-minded claimants could easily band together,
form a common defense, and set about organizing matters as reasonable men."

"You won't find any sane-minded claimants; the sane people stay home and
buy their minerals from the developers after the gunsmoke has blown away."

Bartholomew pursed his lips. In the past two weeks aboard ship his black
hair had grown; it curled around his ears, along his neck.

"Then?how are we going to invade this hotbed of criminal activity and
establish our claims?"

"That's a fair question. I'm glad to see you taking an interest in these
little matters. It gives me hope you may wake up at some point before
it's too late and start taking this thing seriously." Henry crossed to
the chart table, flipped the switch. A map appeared on the screen.

"The big thing is to know what you want. Now, the official throwaway
charts give you continental outlines, and mark a few hot spots such as
deserts, active volcanoes, and so on. The rest is up to the customer?"

"Why, that's ridiculous! Surely the officials have detailed knowledge of
the terrain?"

"Yeah?but that would take all the romance out of it. The idea is for all
parties to have the same handicap: ignorance. But the result is that
line-jumpers have been going into Corazon for the last thirty years,
making up aerial surveys, taking harbor soundings, doing minerals
exploration?"

"Impossible! The Quarantine Service?"

"?is made up of people. Funny, fallible?corruptible?human beings. Not
all of them, of course. Not even most of them. But it only takes one
bought Quarantine Warden to let a man in?and out again, with the dope."

"But?we won't have a chance against anyone armed with that kind of data?"

"No, we wouldn't?if we didn't have a good bootleg map of our own."

Bartholomew looked at the map on the screen. Henry twisted the
magnification control; details leaped out; mountain ranges, contour
lines, notations of temperature, humidity, air pressure readings.

"You mean?" Bartholomew gasped, "this is an illegal instrument? We're
smuggling contraband?"

"Uh-huh. You remember the special appropriation of twenty thousand
credits I asked for?for navigational equipment?"

"You're saying that?this map?"

"That's right. It's the best there is. I've spent a lot of hours
studying it. I've picked out initial target point?and you can count on
it that the same spot will have been pinpointed by others."

"You paid twenty thousand credits of my father's money for this?this
stolen information?"

Henry nodded.

"Why?we don't even know if it's accurate! It could be some sort of
counterfeit, constructed out of whole cloth?"

"Nope. I got it from a friend of mine?an old space hand?too old to make
the Run himself."

"But how could he be sure it was authentic?even if he believed in it?"

"Easy; he made it. He always intended to use it himself, but the Q. S.
held off a little too long for him. So he let it go to me."

"This is?unheard of! Good Lord, Captain Henry, do you realize what the
penalty for possession of this document is?"

"Nope?but I know the penalty for /not/ having it."

"You talk as though this were some sort of military campaign!"

"Right. Now, the ground rules of the Run are simple. All entrants report
in to the staging area?that's a ten-mile radius around Pango-Ri?and
register. Then we wait for zero hour and hit the trail. There's no
restriction on the kind of equipment you use. We've got a nice converted
Bolo Minor in the hold. There'll be heavier equipment than that up
against us, but not much. There'll even be a few old-time hill runners
going in on foot; men who've spent their last credit on a space lift in
to Corazon. Believe me, there'll be dirty work in the underbrush when
they start to clash over who grabs what."

"Surely there's enough for all?"

"You tell that to a man who's walked day and night for a week to stake
out a mining claim that some tipster's sold him on?and finds three other
customers on the same spot. Now, all entrants depart at dawn?that's
oh-six hours, Pango-Ri mean time?from the staging area. They're allowed
to carry all the food they want, four issue markers?a special
self-embedding electronic model?communications gear, and light
hand-weapons?for hunting, it says in the Prospectus."

Bartholomew shook his head. "This is a pathetically ineptly organized
affair. Why, it would have been simplicity itself to survey the planet,
set out markers on a grid, and assign areas by lot to qualified entrants."

"Face it, Larry. New land on virgin worlds isn't doled out like slices
of cake at a church social. They can make all the rules they want, back
at Galaxy Central?but on Corazon, it'll be nature's old law. It's not
the Statistical Average that survives?it's the son-of-a-bitch that's
tougher than the hard case that's hunting him. Maybe the Survey
Authorities don't know that?or maybe they're smarter than we give them
credit for. You don't tame alien worlds with busloads of bureaucrats."

"But this arrangement is an open invitation to lawlessness."

Henry nodded. "And you can count on it there'll be plenty of takers."

"But?what can we do against men of that sort?"

"Easy," Henry said. "We'll do the same thing?only we'll do it first."

* * *

It was the seventeenth day in space. Captain Henry sat at the plotting
table. He lifted his head, sniffed the air, then rose, went to the
companionway, sniffed again. He grabbed the handrail, leaped down, dived
for the power compartment. Dense fumes boiled out from a massive grilled
housing. Coughing, Henry fought through to the emergency console, hauled
down on a heavy circuit breaker. A sharp whining descended the scale.
The smoke churned, trailing toward wall registers. Henry retreated to
the corridor, coughing violently.

"Are you all right, Captain?" Bartholomew's strained voice sounded
behind him.

"I don't know yet; we've got gyro trouble," Henry snapped, and plunged
back into the smoke. The haze was thinning quickly. The whine had fallen
to a growl, dropped lower, clicked to a stop.

"Bearings gone," Henry snapped. "Maybe we can replace 'em, and maybe we
can't. Let's jump, Mister. Every minute counts! Grab that torquer?get
that housing off!" Henry sprang for the parts index, punched keys. A
green light winked. A clattering came from behind the panel. He lifted
out two heavy, plastic-cocooned disks, eight inches in diameter and
three inches thick. The /ping!/ of cooling metal sounded in the room.
Bartholomew's wrench clattered against metal.

"It's awfully quiet, suddenly," the boy called.

"I've shut down the air pumps." Henry ripped at the plastic covering;
polished metal emerged from the dull brown casing.

"We'll choke," Bartholomew said. "The room's still full of smoke."

"Feel that faint surge underfoot, every five seconds or so . . . ?"
Henry snapped.

"Yes, but?"

"Keep working!" Henry ripped into the second bearing. "This ship isn't a
statically balanced unit. It's spinning a little over one revolution per
second. The axis of spin and the centroid of mass don't coincide.
There's also a matter of fluid inertia; the air, the water in the tanks,
lubricant reservoirs. I shut the pumps down to minimize the eccentric
thrusts as much as possible?but it won't help much. The wobble will
increase?and the worse it gets, the faster it will build. It's a
logarithmic curve; we'll go into a tumble in a few minutes, then she'll
start to break up. Got the picture? Now fumble that damned housing out
of the way, and I'll find out if we're going to live another hour . . ."

Bartholomew, white-faced, worked frantically at the fasteners; Henry
cleared the second bearing, leaped to help the younger man lift the
housing aside. A cloud of smog churned out from the uncovered gyro
chassis. Henry fanned it, peering down at the blackened shafts.

"No wonder she burned," he said harshly. "The bearings were running
dry . . . !" He turned to Bartholomew. The younger man swallowed, stared
back wide-eyed.

"When's the last time you made your maintenance check, Larry?"

"I . . . ah . . . this morning?"

"Don't lie to me! There's been no lubricant on these bearings for at
least thirty-six hours!"

"How was I to know this would happen?"

"Your orders were to take your readings at four-hour intervals and
maintain one hundred and twenty pounds oil pressure! I said orders,
Mister?not suggestions! Sometime in the past day or so a blockage
developed in the feed line; the pressure dropped. And where were you,
Mister?"

"I thought it was just a?a drill!" Bartholomew burst out. "I got tired
of dragging up and down those stairs! I didn't know?"

"That's right. You didn't know . . ." Henry slapped the blackened shaft
of the main gyro. "Let's get this bearing changed!"

* * *

The floor lifted, tilted to the right, fell, slanted to the left . . . 

"Brace your feet, and when I give the word, guide that end out." Henry
grasped the control of the cable hoist, waited while Bartholomew fumbled
for a grip.

"Up?and over?" Henry grunted. His biceps bulged; his straining shoulders
straightened. The shaft cleared the edge of the casing, teetered, then
swung over the side. Henry lowered it to the deck.

"It's getting worse?rapidly . . ." Bartholomew said.

"Yeah."

One of the old bearings, loose on the floor, bounded past, crashed
against the bulkhead. Henry hauled at the cable hoist; the servomotor
groaned under the unaccustomed load as the swing of the ship pulled at
the heavy shaft. At the other end of the shaft, Bartholomew clung,
green-faced.

"Steady as she goes, boy . . ." The walls seemed to tilt crazily now,
whirling. The loose bearing slid, bounced off a heaving casting,
clattered across the room.

"We should have tied that son-of-a-bitch down," Henry grated. "Don't let
her swing!"

The surge of the floor threw Henry sideways. He grabbed, raised an arm
to fend off the swinging shaft. The bearing, bounding across the room,
cannoned against Captain Henry's hand, where it gripped the housing.

Bartholomew straightened, breathing noisily. His eye fell on Henry's
hand. He yelped at the glimpse of bloody flesh, exposed knuckle bones;
he started toward him.

"Belay that, Mister," Henry ground out between clenched teeth. "It's now
or never . . ." He hauled at the cable; the wounded hand slipped; he
cursed, fought the hoist savagely. Bartholomew hung on the free end of
the shaft; his feet swung free of the deck for a moment. He oofed as he
slammed against the housing. Then the shaft dropped a foot, another,
clanged as it seated. Henry held on for a moment, breathing hard.

"All right, Larry. Cast off and button her up . . ."

Two hours later, stretched in his cradle, Captain Henry laughed shortly,
holding up his bandage-encased hand.

"Nice," he said. "We don't happen to have a depot handy to calibrate the
gyros again, so I'll be on the board, manually balancing her, watch on
and watch off, for the next six days."

"Are you in much pain, Captain?" The young man's face was white.

Henry shook his head.

Larry swallowed. He took a deep breath and stiffened, seeming to brace
himself. His face became, if possible, even a bit whiter.

"It's my fault, Captain," he said stiffly. "My fault entirely."

Henry looked at him grimly and a little curiously. By the boy's
standards, at least, it had taken a certain amount of guts to say that.
For a moment Dulcia's words about Larry on the beach the night before
they had lifted ship, came back to him. But he shoved them aside once
more. Larry might be showing something?it was too early to tell.

"Ever hear of shipboard responsibility?" said Henry harshly. "It's the
Captain's fault if he trusts a man who can't be trusted. Only a damn
fool would go on to Corazon now. You know that, don't you? We're asking
for trouble, going in like this."

"I'll not let you down again, Captain. The young man's jaw muscles were
knotted at the angle of his sharp face on each side. The sweat stood in
little beads on his pale forehead. "You'll see. When we get there,
you'll see that my knowledge of administrative routine will be a help to
you. As an official?"

"I don't know about that part," Henry cut him off roughly, looking at
his bandaged hand. "But you stitch a nice seam, I'll say that for you."

Larry flushed, opened his mouth as if to say something, then clamped it
determinedly shut again and turned away. He went out without a word.

All right, boy, thought Henry, looking after him. One swallow doesn't
make a summer. You've got a lot to learn yet?even if it turns out you're
capable of learning, after all.


      *Chapter Three*

The last murmur of the pumps died away. In the ground-view screen, Henry
studied the massive concrete block of the Pango-Ri Port Authority
building stretching to the barrier wall lining the ramp edge; beyond, a
mushroom-town of flimsy prefabs, inflated domes, and low wooden shacks
sprawled across the dusty plain. Farther away, clumsy structures, garish
with colored plastic, loomed up into the hazy afternoon sky of Corazon.

Henry shifted the field of view; a line of space vessels appeared,
parked in an irregular rank that stretched away toward the purplish line
of distant hills.

"All these ships are here for the Run?" Larry stared. "There must be
hundreds of them?thousands . . ."

"Yep; and every one of those tubs will be hauling anywhere from a couple
of men to a platoon. I'd say we've got upwards of a quarter of a million
competitors in this little rummage sale."

"All for this wasteland? I had rather pictured our wandering through
unpeopled forests, surveying vast, deserted tracts, selecting our
claim . . ."

"We'd better get over to Run HQ and get on the log or we'll be wandering
around an unpeopled port?after the rest of the Run has left."

Bartholomew frowned thoughtfully. "I think my informal official blazer
with the Statav pocket watch will be correct; I've no desire to overawe
the registration personnel." He glanced at Captain Henry. "I think I
should be the one to deal with the Quarantine authorities."

"We'll both deal with 'em?at the tail end of a long line. Wear warm
clothes you don't mind sleeping in?something with pockets; we'll pack
some hard rations. We'll be lined up for a good twelve hours."

Bartholomew raised an eyebrow. "I don't think that will be necessary,
Captain. A word from me to the appropriate individual, and we'll be
whisked through the formalities."

"Try bucking the line and they'll be whisking you off the deck with a
ramp broom. Let's go." Henry started past Bartholomew.

"Captain, surely you're not thinking of making your appearance in a
soiled ship suit? I'd suggest the outfit you wore when you came aboard;
it was quite impressive?to a layman, I mean."

Henry smiled. "You might have an idea there, Larry. It could cut down on
the competition. They'd die laughing."

Bartholomew shrugged, looked at Henry's bandaged hand. "How is your
hand? Perhaps I'd better call for a doctor."

Henry carefully pulled on a pair of soft leather gloves; he flexed his
fingers. "The hand's not too bad. Remembering not to bang it will be the
problem."

"It should be in a sling . . ."

Henry laughed. "Don't let's tip off the opposition, Larry. My little
infirmities will be our secret." He took a small box from the wall
locker, handed Bartholomew a palm-sized slug gun. "Keep this where you
can get a hand on it in a hurry."

Bartholomew looked at the weapon, a dull gray lozenge shaped like a
water-worn stone. "A gun? Whatever for?"

Henry pocketed the twin to Bartholomew's gun. "That's it," he said.
"Whatever . . ."

* * *

A heavy-faced man with a crooked jaw and a scar-furrowed cheek slammed a
huge rubber stamp against a blue form and flipped it into the hopper. He
jerked his head at Captain Henry. "Let's go, bud. Shake a leg." His
voice was a blurred growl. Henry dropped the sheaf of forms before the
official; he leafed through them, snapped one out, shot Henry a look.

"Where you been, /Degello/? This is the old PC Master's ticket; they
been invalidated over nine years."

Henry took a folder from an inner pocket, dropped a plastic-covered card
before the man. "Maybe this will do."

The crooked-faced man squinted at the card, looked up quickly.

"Why didn't you say you were Navy, pal?" He leaned forward. "Welcome to
the psych ward, brother," he said in a changed tone. "What brings you
out in the hot sun with this bunch of hull-scrapings?" He jerked his
head toward the crowd milling in the vast rotunda.

"Land," Henry said. He took the card, tucked it away.

The registration official nodded. "O.K., so I asked a stupid question.
Say . . ." he looked past Henry's ear. "You weren't at Leadpipe with
Hayle's squadron, I guess . . . ?"

"Second echelon. We hit Stapp's flank element just before the old
/Belshazzar/ blew."

"Whatta you know? I was in Culberson's Irregulars, covering off Amory
IV. We never got close enough to pick up a ping on the IFF, but we mixed
in nine days later, when Stapp pulled his Bogan reserves out of his
sleeve. Let's see now . . . what was the name of his flagship . . ." The
man rolled an eye toward the distant ceiling.

"/Annihilator/. A hundred and forty thousand tons, mounting six
hellbores and a stern battery of ten centimeter infinite repeaters; crew
of ninety-seven, Coblentz commanding . . ." Henry leaned heavily on the
table with his unbandaged hand. "Do I pass the quiz . . . ?"

"You got me wrong, brother . . ." the man looked at Henry reproachfully.

Bartholomew pushed up beside Henry. "Captain, I think this fellow's
hinting for a bribe," he said sharply.

The registrar's heavy brows drew down. His face folded in a pained frown.

"Back in line, buster?"

"Just a minute." Larry looked severe. "I happen to be a Designated
Territorial Statistical Average; I've been standing in this line for
over fourteen hours, and I have no intention of submitting to any sort
of shakedown!"

"You don't, hey?" the slurred voice cut in. "I wonder if you know that
guys get disqualified from registration for jumping the line?"

"You're drunk!" Bartholomew snapped. "You can hardly speak coherently!"

"Uh-huh." The official nodded. "You're right; I don't talk so good. But
I'm a whiz at blackballing lightweights that talk themselves out of the
Run?"

"Mr. Bartholomew would like to apologize to you, Registrar," Henry cut
in. "He had a hard trip out and he's not responsible. I'll see that he
keeps his chin dry from now on."

"This kewpie is with you?" The registrar aimed a finger at Bartholomew,
staring at Henry.

Henry nodded.

The registrar motioned; "Let's have the papers."

Bartholomew fumbled the documents out, thrust them toward the man,
opened his mouth?Henry's elbow stuck him under the ribs. He oofed,
grabbed at his side with both hands.

"A guy's got to have a sidekick," the registrar banged the stamp down on
the two sets of papers, shoved them across to Captain Henry. "But if I
was you, brother, I'd sell this one and buy a poodle."

"Thanks, pardner." Henry took a firm grip on Bartholomew's arm and led
him away.

The younger man caught his breath. "I'll . . . report him . . . Drinking
on duty?"

"Uh-uh," Henry shook his head. "War wound. Notice the scars? On his jaw
and throat? Blaster burns always leave a bluish edge."

"Eh?" Bartholomew pulled free. "You mean . . . the way he talked . . ."

"He had half his face shot off. They did a nice job of putting it
back?the tongue is tough to rebuild."

"Oh . . . I . . ."

"Forget it. We're registered. We've got a full day before the gun goes
off. Let's get a meal and then take a walk around Tent Town and find out
who's here. After that we'll have a better idea of what to expect?guns
or knives."

* * *

They sat in a booth in a low-ceilinged, dirt-floored shack, squat
finger-marked glasses before them on a rough plank table. Henry lit up a
dope stick, looked over the crowd. At the bar, a small man in undersized
sailing togs and a soiled white yachting cap with bristly blond hair
showing under its edge lifted a glass to him in a sardonic toast. Beside
Henry, Bartholomew nodded, waved. The small man rose, said something to
the man beside him, slipped off into the crowd.

"I see you've made a friend," Henry said.

"I met him while you were buying supplies," Larry said.

"What's he selling?"

"Selling? Nothing. He's retired, actually. His name is Mr. Columbia. He
owns a fleet of freighters. He's just here as a sort of relaxation. He
agrees that if we work together?"

"His name's Johnny Zaragamosa. He's put on weight since I saw him last,
but he's still wearing the same hat."

Larry opened his mouth; then he shut it with a snap. "Oh? Just because I
was the one who met him?"

Henry cocked a sardonic eye at the younger man. Larry was beginning to
feel his oats and answer back, was he?

"He was a dope runner when I knew him," Henry said. "Of course, he may
have quit and bought a freight line since then."

"Just?" said Larry, stiffly, "because it was my suggestion?"

"Why did he leave so suddenly, Larry?"

"How should I know?"

"Maybe he left the water running in one of those freighters of his."

"Captain, if there's an opportunity to work out a peaceable partnership
arrangement, surely you're not going to spurn it?"

"The only arrangements you could work out with Johnny would be for a
quiet funeral. Now keep your eyes open and let's see how many other
chiselers we can spot."

* * *

They were in another dive?the tenth?or was it eleventh?of the evening.
Larry leaned across the table, his eyes squinted against the layered smoke.

"It's almost three in the morning," he stated. "We've done nothing but
visit unsavory bars and drink unlicensed spirits with unshaven roughnecks."

"And so far we're still unshot, unknifed, and unpoisoned. We're doing
all right."

Larry gulped half his drink, made a face. "This time could have been put
to good use, working out a /modus operandi/ with other gentlemanly
entrants."

"I agree the booze is bad," Henry went on. "And some of the boys haven't
seen their barbers lately; but we might pick up something valuable
talking to the old hands at the game?"

"Drunken derelicts!" Bartholomew snapped. "They look like the sweepings
of prisons for incorrigibles?"

"Some of them are?and I wouldn't count on it they left by the front
gate. You'll also find ex-military men, cashiered cops, former bouncers,
bodyguards, and prize fighters, not to mention stickup artists,
needle-men, pickpockets?"

A small, slim man with an empty glass in his hand slipped into the seat
beside Henry.

"Twenty years no see, Cap," he said, bright eyes darting to Bartholomew
and back to Henry. "Did I hear you mention my name?" He had a hooked
nose and dense black brows, a thin-lipped mouth with a nervous smile.

"No, but I was getting to it. Mr. Bartholomew, this is Mr.
Minot?sometimes known as Back Fence Louie."

"Around here, they call me Lou the Shoe; it's like old times, Cap. I
heard you was here . . ." His eyes went to Henry's gloved hands. "And
that you had a little trouble on the way out . . ."

"Have a drink, Lou." Henry pushed the bottle across. "What else do you
know that's free?"

Minot poured, drank, sighed, refilled his glass. "You been here twelve
hours. You're riding fast iron; there's a roll behind you, so the small
operators are staking you out. They figure you're tracked. You're
hauling green freight?" Lou glanced at Bartholomew. "But the wise money
says there's an angle . . ."

Henry laughed. "You're slipping, Lou. Your curiosity's showing."

The little man leaned close, glanced around. "The word is," he said in a
low voice, "you went for the big Four, you must have a wire."

"I'm afraid I'm not following the conversation," Bartholomew
interrupted. "I confess this specialist's jargon is beyond me."

Lou the Shoe looked Bartholomew over.

"Your first time out, bud?"

"And my last!"

Lou nodded. "Could be," he agreed. He turned back to Henry. "They're all
aboard, this cruise, Cap; mop-up boys, dozers, kangaroos. There's three
backbone squads working Tent Town right now. Don't shop around, is my
advice: plant your markers and get out before the tombstone lawyers dope
your pattern."

Bartholomew shook his head sadly, leaned in his corner, his arms folded.
Lou blinked at him, gulped down the rest of his drink, wiped his lips
with a limber forefinger.

"Lou's just warming up," Henry said. "He's tossing out all the common
gossip on the off-chance I might look interested?"

"Gossip nothing," Louie countered, looking indignant.

"And meanwhile, he's trying to pick up salable information from us."
Henry refilled Minot's glass.

"Oh, yeah?" The small man's lips pulled taut, showing a gap in a rank of
ocher teeth. He leaned close. "Get this: Heavy Joe Saggio's in town . . ."

Henry paused in the act of pouring, then he topped off his glass, lifted
it in salute, drank half. His eyes seemed brighter suddenly.

"You wouldn't kid an old pal, Lou . . . ?"

Lou's face twitched. "He's holed up in the private room at the Solar
Corona right now, talking business with a sandbag squad from Croanie."

"Don't tell me you leaned over Heavy Joe's shoulder and heard him
mention me by name . . . ?"

Lou grinned nervously. "Could be, Cap. The way I remember it, you and
him had a couple of run-ins."

"That was a long time ago."

Lou nodded. He emptied the glass again. "Look, Cap," he lowered his
voice, talking behind a hand with which he seemed to be rubbing the side
of his nose casually. "There's dough behind Heavy Joe this trip; a
syndicate, out of Aldo Cerise. The word is, it's a split-and-snatch
deal, a kid-glove caper. That's all I could get. And stay away from a
joint named Stella's."

Henry put his hand in a knee pocket of his ship suit.

"Never mind that," Lou said. "It's on the house. Thanks for the drink."
He rose. Henry raised an eyebrow inquiringly. Lou leaned over the table.

"You got a lousy memory, Cap; I owe you a couple of favors. And take it
from me?keep your screens open tonight . . ." He slipped away in the crowd.

Bartholomew shook his head. "A childishly transparent effort," he said.
"I suppose later he'll be back, offering late bulletins for a price."

"Maybe?but I think maybe we'd better drift on now and see what jumps out
at us . . ."

* * *

Captain Henry and Bartholomew went in under a glare sign reading
STELLA'S, climbed the rickety stairs, emerged into a wide, crowded room
with an uneven ceiling half-hidden by a layered smoke. A short, burly
waiter with a black jacket and soiled ruffles came up, offered an
edge-curled menu badly printed on cheap wine-colored paper.

"What'll it be, gents?" he yelled over the blare of taped music, the
surf-roar of boisterous conversation. "How about a nice algisteak with a
side order of recon spuds?"

"We want steak off a cow," Henry said. "At a corner table."

"Sure?but it'll cost you . . ."

Henry fished a hundred credit token from a pocket, flipped it to him.

"Make it good," he said.

Bartholomew trailed Henry and the waiter to a table. Henry ordered; the
waiter slapped at the table with a damp cloth, moved off with the
gliding gait of an old Null-G hand. Two girls with dyed lips and
eyelids, swirling hairdos in silver and violet, multiple necklaces, and
bare breasts squeezed above dresses like sequined corsets, appeared out
of the crowd, dropped into the empty chairs.

"Hi, fellas. I'm Rennie; she's Nicki," the taller of the two said
cheerfully. "Got a smoke? Brother, what a day!"

"Yeah," Nicki agreed. "Did you see the big slob I was with? For ten cees
he wanted me to stand behind him all night while he shot dice; he said
I'd bring him luck. Boy . . . !"

Henry offered dope sticks. "Have you ladies dined? If not, please be our
guests."

"Hey!" Rennie smiled. "A nice guy for a change."

The waiter reappeared, hovering. Henry signaled. He grinned and went away.

"What's your name, Dreamboat?" Nicki smiled warmly at Bartholomew.

He cleared his throat. "Lawrence H. Bartholomew."

"Wow! That's a lot of moniker. I'll call you Bart. What's your friend's
name?"

"Why, ah Cap?"

"Call me Henry. You girls work here?"

Rennie lit up, blew out smoke, shook her head. "Not exactly; we're
free-lance. Stella's O.K., though. We get along. How about a dance?" She
stood and tugged at Henry's hand. He glanced over the crowd, then rose
and followed the girl out onto the floor. She moved into his arms?a
strong, slender, young body with a faint fragrance of exotic blossoms.

"I don't think I've seen you around, handsome," she said. "Just get in?"

"Uh-huh." The band changed its tempo, took up a rhythmic triple-beat
flamencito. The girl moved with a smooth, sure rhythm, following Henry's
lead.

"Say, you're good," she said. She glanced toward the table. "Your
partner's pretty young, isn't he?"

"You've got to start some time."

"Sure."

The beat changed again. "My God, it's great to find a real dancer, after
these cargo-sled operators that have been trampling me." Rennie executed
an intricate maneuver, looked at Henry with shining eyes. He grinned
back, made a sudden graceful move, twirled her to the left, then to the
right, let her fall almost to the floor, caught her up on the beat. She
laughed aloud. "Hey, Henry, you're the greatest! How about this one . . . ?"

The band played; the crowd milled and chattered. Against the backdrop of
people, the girl's face floated, a disembodied smile, her eyes on Henry's.

A heavy body slammed against Henry. He caught himself, turned to look
into a wide, broad-nosed face with scarred lips and a half-closed eye.

"Blow a whistle next time and I'll get out of your way," Henry said. He
half-turned away, turned back quickly and knocked aside a hand that had
reached for his shoulder. Rennie pushed in front of him, facing the
intruder.

"Get going, you big ape!" she spat. "Fade. Take the air!"

The scarred lips pulled back to show a chipped tooth; a square hand with
hair on the back reached for the girl. Henry eased her aside, stepped
close, grabbed the thick wrist. Over the man's shoulder, Henry caught a
glimpse of Bartholomew, nodding across the table at a man in a too-tight
uniform blouse; it was the man he had called Mr. Columbia and he leaned
toward him, talking earnestly. Nicki was gone. Then the crowd closed in,
shutting off the view.

The scar-faced man struggled to free his arm. Henry smiled tightly, face
to face with the other.

"Go play some other place, stranger," he said easily. "This spot's taken."

The wide face grew dusty red. "Don't get in my way, Mister." His voice
was a bass wheeze. "The doll is with me."

"Anybody can make a mistake," Henry said. "But only a damned fool
insists on it." He pushed the man from him; he staggered back a step,
then growled and moved in. Henry blocked a low punch with his left
forearm, set himself and slammed a short right that smacked home just
below the ribs. The man oofed and leaned on Henry as the waiter
appeared, fumbling at his hip pocket. Henry passed the man to him.

"He got hold of some bad lobster; help him outside." He turned; the girl
was gone. He pushed through to the table where he had left Bartholomew.
It was empty.

The waiter came up with a tray; he dumped it on the table, slid two
plates off. He looked past Henry's left ear.

"The ladies ah . . . run into a old customer," he said. His tongue
touched his upper lip. He reached over, dropped a used napkin in front
of Henry, tossed another before Bartholomew's empty chair. He stared at
Henry's napkin, then picked up the tray and slid into the crowd.

Henry prodded the napkin, palmed a slip of paper from under it.

* * *

DON'T EAT ANYTHING. WATCH YOURSELF. SORRY TO CUT OUT, BUT I'VE GOT MY
OWN PROBLEMS. RENNIE.

* * *

Henry turned away from the table. The headwaiter appeared, blocking his way.

"Anything wrong, fella?" His thick lips twitched in a sick smile.

"I just got a good offer from a Mr. Columbia, and I'm hurrying to take
him up on it," Henry said. "Which way did he go?"

The man's hand strayed toward his pocket. "How about the bill?" His
voice was thin and high now. There was a scar down the side of his face
like a seam in a football.

"There was a mistake on the order," Henry said. He looked into the man's
small gray eyes, set deep under meaty brow ridges. "The wrong kind of
sauce." There was a sudden shout outside. Henry turned, looking down the
stairs. He pushed past the headwaiter, went down into a rising clamor of
voices.

The crowd on the boardwalk was a dense-packed, pushing, bottle-waving,
curse-shouting mass of glassy-eyed, open-mouthed men in use-worn ship
suits, odds and ends of uniforms, patched weatheralls. Heavy guns were
strapped to swaggering hips; massive boots clumped; hoarse voices
bellowed greetings, snarled threats, blasphemed the gods of a hundred
worlds under the flashing, multicolored glare signs on bars, joy houses,
game rooms. Across the narrow strip of mud that served as a street,
massed backs formed a dense ring. Henry shouldered his way through,
reached the front rank. Half in a narrow alleyway between two shacks
built of packing case boards stamped KAKA, a body lay sprawled, face down.

" . . . turned around and there he was," another voice said plaintively.
"I always gotta miss the action . . ."

Henry stepped to the body, turned it over. The big-nosed face was a mask
of mud. A six-inch length of fine-gauge steel wire projected from just
below the left collarbone. It was Louie Minot, dead.

Henry looked across at a heavy-featured man who plied a toothpick on
large square teeth, looking down on the body.

"Did you see it?" Henry asked.

"Naw." The man smiled. "I'm ankling along, minding my own business, and
a guy shoves me. I damn near swallow my toothpick. I turn around and
there he is."

"Who shoved you?"

"What's it to you?"

Henry moved close. "You sure you didn't see it?" he said softly.

The bland expression changed. "Listen, you?" A fist started up in a
short, vicious jab; Henry's hand shot out, grabbed the other's wrist,
wrenched it behind him. The wide mouth opened; the toothpick fell. Henry
drew the man close.

"What's your name?"

"Pore Scandy. What's it to you?" the man blustered.

"Give, Pore," Henry said.

"Hey, that hurts," the wide-faced man was on tiptoes. All around, the
crowd watched, suddenly quiet.

"It was a guy with a mustache," the man blurted. "He had a pot belly,
and warts, and lessee?yeah, he had a game leg."

"You forgot the long red beard." Henry reached across, lifted a small
handgun from the man's side pocket. He put the muzzle against the
straining chest beside him.

"Your gun?" he inquired conversationally.

"Somebody planted it on me."

"A wire-gun. A torturer's rod. I ought to feed you one through the knee."

"Look, what's the beef?" the thick man grimaced.

"Where's the kid, Pore?" Henry asked softly, his face close to the
other's. The man's mouth went slack.

"Gimme a break," he hissed. "I don't know nothing."

Henry twisted the arm; the joint creaked. "Where's the kid?" he repeated
tonelessly.

"Look, it's all my neck is worth?"

Henry gave the arm another half turn. "Don't let's waste time; talk it
up, fast."

"Look, if I knew, I'd spill?but who tells me anything?" Sweat was
running down the heavy cheeks. "All I know is, it was a fifty-credit
caper. An old guy with a bad hand, Joe said?"

"Joe won't like you with a broken arm. Funerals are cheaper than doctors."

"O.K., O.K.," the man whispered hoarsely. "Go to the Solar Corona.
That's where the stakeout was?I swear that's all I know . . ."

Henry shoved him away; he turned and dived into the crowd, which was
breaking up and moving off now. A moment later, Minot's body was alone
in a ring of trampled mud. Henry looked down at the crumpled corpse.

"I should have listened closer, Lou," he said softly. "And so should you."

* * *

The Solar Corona was a blaze of garish light from the writhing lines of
neon radiating from the wide door cut in the corrugated metal front.
Inside, Captain Henry bought a drink at the bar, looked over the crowd.

"You have somebody special in mind, or will I do?" a voice rasped at his
side. A woman's face, haggard under uneven paint, looked up at him. A
thin hand tucked back a wisp of dead hair.

"Brother, what a night," she focused with difficulty on a jeweled finger
watch taped to a bony finger. "Two hours to go; three weeks I been
here?and I hardly make expenses . . ." She leaned on the bar, hitched
onto the stool.

"Seen Johnny Zaragamosa around?" Henry asked idly.

The woman leaned closer. Henry caught a whiff of stale face powder.

"Friend of yours?" Her voice was scratchy, like a cheap tri-D.

"A friend of a friend."

"Then your friend better keep his hand in his pocket, or Johnny'll be in
there ahead of him . . ." She showed her false teeth, swallowing half
the contents of the glass the barman had thrust in front of her. Henry
glanced sideways at her.

"My friend's got a strange sense of humor," he said. "But sometimes he
carries a joke too far."

The woman fumbled out a dope stick, drew on it, puffed out violet smoke.

"As far as Heavy Joe Saggio's rooms at the Dead Dog?"

"Maybe," Henry said. "He's a pretty funny guy."

The woman turned toward him, opened dry, crimson lips to speak?

She stared at him for a long moment. The dope stick dropped to the bar,
rolled off on the floor. She stooped swiftly, came up with it, leaned on
her elbows, staring at the ranked bottles on the back bar.

"I got a message for you from a girl named Rennie," she said rapidly.
"Your pigeon's in deep. Johnny used the pink stuff?too much. The kid
folded like a pair of deuces to a ten-cee raise. They're trying to bring
him out now. After they milk him?" She finished the drink in a gulp. "If
he's a friend . . . well, you'd better hurry . . ."

"Where's this Dead Dog?" Henry snapped out.

"A flop, a couple blocks from here?but some rooms fixed up in back."

"Show me." Henry slid a hundred-credit token along the bar. The woman's
thin hand went over it, whisked it out of sight.

"Listen to me," the woman said urgently. Her fingers dug into Henry's
arm. "The run starts in less than two hours. Leave the poor crut?there's
nothing you can do."

"Just a call on an old associate," Henry said. "I wouldn't want to leave
town without dropping a card."

"Don't be a fool! What can one man do?" she broke off. "Hey?your boat;
is it a Gendye fifty-tonner, a new job, plush . . . ?"

Henry nodded.

Her clutch on his arm tightened. "My God, listen! They're pulling a
hijack on you! Get back to your boat?fast! But watch it; there's a
stakeout on the gate . . ."

Henry peered at her in the darkness. "Who are you? Why are you helping me?"

"They call me Stella. Rennie said you were a right guy; let's let it go
at that." She plucked at his sleeve. "If you go in there alone, you'll
only get yourself killed. Play it smart! You've got a boat to save."

Henry took her hand from his arm gently. "I'd have to give it a try,
Stella?wouldn't I?"

She was a shadow against the faint glow from the crosswalk.

"Yeah, you would, wouldn't you?" Her voice caught. "Come on. I'll show
you . . ."

* * *

Captain Henry stood in the dark courtyard, scanning the barely visible
alleyway which ran along the left side of the ramshackle two-story
building. A cold rain was falling steadily now; Henry's left hand ached
inside the tight glove; he cradled it in his right, listening. The
silence rang in his ears. Far away, a drunken voice called; faint
footsteps hurried, faded. A night lizard scuttled in the shadows.
Somewhere behind the sagging faade of the Dead Dog, Bartholomew would
be coming out of the drug now, blinking at hard faces, feeling the smash
of heavy fists. Henry smiled tightly, hefted the wire-gun, then started
forward, hugging the wall. Skirting the yard, he moved quietly to the
back of the building. The alley ended against a sheet of perforated
metal. Above, he could see a glassless window opening overhung by a
crude awning. He listened for a moment, then tucked the wire-gun into
the thigh pocket of the ship suit, started up.

The reach from the metal wall to the window was a long one. He pulled
himself up and in, ducked under the header, stood in an unlighted room.
From somewhere, a murmur of voices sounded. A damp odor of moldy wood
hung in the air. He crossed the room, brushed aside a coarse hanging,
felt his way along an uneven floor to the wall against which two
vertical rails ran up, with heavy cross members spiked against them at
eighteen-inch intervals; the grand staircase of the Dead Dog.

The voices came from the other side of the partition. Henry felt along
the wall to the left, reached a blank corner. There was no door.

He went to the ladder, tested the rungs, then climbed carefully. His
outstretched hand touched the ceiling. He pushed; the cover lifted.
Cold, wet air blew in. He went up, emerged on a sloping roof. Rain
drummed against plastic roof panels; through wide gaps, lines of light
glared. He moved softly to the nearest aperture, knelt, looked down into
an empty room with a sagging cot, a rough pallet with a snarl of dirty
blankets, a table with glasses, an empty bottle. The voices were louder now.

He went on across the roof, following the line of the bearing wall.
Before him, a thin, translucent roof panel glowed softly; below, a thick
voice was talking in a monotone, not quite loudly enough to be
understood. Henry crouched, brought his face close to a quarter-inch crack.

A tall, heavily built man with a bald head fringed by curly black hair
paced under him, turned, waved a hand on which four rings winked against
sallow skin. A small man with bushy hair followed nervously, staying at
the bald man's side. Beyond, Larry Bartholomew leaned forward in a
chair, his hands tied behind him. The square-toothed face of Pore Scandy
was visible behind the captive. A pair of feet showed on the right.

Henry put an ear to the crack.

" . . . only got an hour; this punk's dry. We got to cut for it?now!"
The voice was Scandy's.

"When I need your mouth, I tell you, O.K.?" Heavy Joe Saggio's voice was
the growl of an old and ill-tempered grizzly.

"Maybe he got a point, /capo/?"

There was a sound like a dead fish hitting a sidewalk.

Saggio was standing, feet apart, a gun in his hand. The bushy-haired man
was dabbing at his cheek where a line of red showed. Scandy shrugged;
his mouth twisted. He came around Bartholomew, reached out. Saggio threw
the gun toward him; his hands curled lovingly around it.

Henry took the wire-gun from his pocket, flipped the safety off; he rose
to a kneeling position, aimed carefully through the crack, centered the
sights on Scandy's neck just below the hairline, squeezed the trigger.
As the gun barked, he shifted to the bushy-haired man, fired again. A
gun fell from the small man's hand. Scandy leaned, fell against
Bartholomew, slammed the floor. The small man was bent over, clutching
his side. Henry swung the sights to Saggio as the big man ducked back,
out of sight. The fourth man crossed Henry's field of vision in a jump.
The lights died.

Henry pocketed the gun, moved back quickly, got to his feet. He took
three running steps, crossed his arms over his face, jumped, landed
squarely on the thin panel that had glowed on the roof; sharp edges
raked the tough ship suit as he slammed through, hit the floor in a
shower of broken plastics. He rolled, came to his knees with the gun in
his hand. There was a tinkle as a final fragment dropped from the
smashed panel; then silence.

Across the room, Henry could see a thin line of light around the door in
the opposite wall. Against it, something moved, down low, coming between
Henry and the light?a man on all fours.

There was a sound of movement near the middle of the room. A groaning
sigh came from Bartholomew.

"One more move and the pigeon gets it," Saggio's deep voice rumbled.
Henry crouched motionless, silent. The crawling man came closer. Henry
could see his hands now, feeling over the floor. It was the fourth man,
searching for one of the dropped guns.

"I'm covering the pigeon," Saggio said from the darkness. "I know where
he is, O.K. I'm going out now?I leave him to you, nobody shoots. Deal?"

Henry breathed slowly, with his mouth open, not moving.

"I'm making my move now," Saggio said. "Hang loose . . ."

The crawling man turned suddenly, moved across the room, careless of
noise now. His breathing was fast and shallow. A board creaked; a
doorknob rattled, hinges squeaked.

"It's all yours?su?" Henry fired at the same instant that Saggio's
needler spat, heard Saggio's words break off into a snarl of pain. A
door slammed back against the wall. Henry fired again, dropped and
rolled, fired, heard a shrill ahh! that choked off. He fired again as
running feet pounded, receded into silence.

He got to his feet, flicked a permatch alight. Scandy lay crumpled by
Bartholomew's chair, a length of wire bright against the pale, coarse
skin of his neck. The small man lay against the baseboard, his toes in
neat shoes pointed like a diver in free-fall, his arms hugging his
chest, his mouth open, the cut on his cheek purple against green-white
skin. In the wood frame of the door an eight-inch length of wire stood,
still quivering.

Henry wedged the match in a crack in the wall; by its feeble light took
out a pocketknife, cut Bartholomew free, hauled him to his feet. The
younger man sagged, babbling. Blood dribbled from his cut mouth. Henry
shook him, then slapped his face with his open hand. A dim light seemed
to focus in the vacant eyes.

"Let's go, Larry. Make your feet work."

Larry groaned, tried to pull free.

"Before Mr. Columbia gets back," Henry said. Bartholomew's eyes
steadied; his feet groped, found balance.

"Come on . . ." Henry helped him to the door, plucked the match from the
wall. The narrow, unevenly floored hallway was empty, dark. They went
along it to a well with a ladder. At its foot, a man lay, face down. A
length of wire protruded from his back under the right shoulder blade.
Bartholomew shied when he saw the body.

"Don't worry about the dead ones," Henry said softly. "Heavy Joe's down
there somewhere?and he's alive, with a piece of wire in him. He'll be in
a bad mood about that. We'll take the back way. Can you stand now?"

Bartholomew nodded vaguely. "Mr. Columbia," he said thickly. "He took
something out of his pocket . . ."

"Sure, we'll chew over that later. Now let's see you work those legs."

* * *

In the alley, Henry helped Bartholomew to his feet. There was a sound
from the darkness. An unseen door creaked. A tall, wide figure eased out
awkwardly, one hand clamped to his shoulder, throwing a long shadow
across the muddy yard. He paused, reached for the light switch on the wall?

"Hold it right there, Joe," Henry said softly.

Saggio bared his teeth in a mirthless grin. He had large, dark eyes, a
shapeless nose, a square jaw, blue-stubbled. His hand was clamped to his
shoulder.

"Enrico, baby," he growled. "Someplace I heard you was old, you lost
your steam, got a bum hand. Ha! I should have knowed better . . ."

"Rumors get around, Joe?don't feel too bad. Turn around now, and head
back inside. Do it real nice."

Saggio started into the shadows. A thick tongue moved over his lips that
were black in the dim light.

"What you waiting for, Enrico? Maybe you never get me under your iron
again, eh?" He straightened. Some of the tension went out of him. "You
don't like to kill me, and maybe a couple of my boys mark you?"

Henry squeezed the trigger of the gun in his hand. A length of wire
spanged into wood. Saggio's head jerked convulsively; his eyes widened.
He stood very still.

"Better move, Joe," Henry said.

Saggio grinned suddenly, nodded. "O.K., Enrico baby." He turned away,
then paused, looked back.

"It's like old times, hey, Enrico? I see you again sometime, hah?" He
moved off, walking briskly like a man who had suddenly remembered an errand.


      *Chapter Four*

Inside the wide rotunda of the Port Authority Building, Henry walked
Bartholomew to the processing line. A familiar scarred face frowned up
at him from behind a desk, glanced at Bartholomew.

"Hi, /Degello/. What happened to Junior?"

"He had a fall," Henry said. "He'll be O.K."

The scarred man leaned forward, sniffed. He cocked an eye at Henry.

"The pink stuff, hey? He spill his guts?"

"They overdid it. He slept through the proceedings."

"Some smart guys outsmart themselves." The scarred man stamped papers,
waved toward the far side of the hall.

"You cut it close, bud. You got about thirty minutes before the red
rocket goes up. You played it smart, getting the extra crewman. He went
aboard the car half an hour back."

Henry looked at him. "Was he alone?"

"You ain't expecting to get a whole platoon into that Bolo Minor, I
hope. You'll be squeezed with three."

"Yeah. Thanks for everything."

"Good luck, bud?I'd still ditch dreaming-boy, if I was you."

"I can't. He owns the outfit."

* * *

Henry pushed through the turnstile, walked Bartholomew across toward the
high glass wall, with the sweep of flood-lit ramp beyond where the
massive armored ground vehicle unloaded from /Degello/ squatted,
dwarfed by the looming silhouettes of converted freighters, ancient
destroyer escorts, battered short-run liners. Bartholomew staggered,
breathing noisily.

"How's your head now, Bart?" Henry asked.

"Ghastly. My legs?like lead. I don't remember?"

"Forget it. Try to stay on your feet long enough to get aboard. Then you
can go to sleep."

"I guess I made a fool of myself . . ."

"You had lots of help."

* * *

Faint gray tinged the eastern sky now. A power unit started up,
stuttering. An odor of ozone and exhaust gases floated across from the
ships. Men hurried to and fro, throwing triple shadows across the
tarmac. The dawn air was tense with expectancy.

A line cart puttered into view, rounding the flank of a space-pitted
vessel. Henry hailed it; it slowed in a descending whine of worn turbos.

"I need a Decon; how about it?"

A tired-faced man in a white coverall stared at him from the cart.

"You birds; you drink all night, and all of a sudden you remember you
got no clearance papers. If it was left up to me, I'd say to hell with you?"

"Sure." Henry handed him a ten-credit chip. "Sorry to bother you. I've
had a couple of things on my mind."

He pointed toward the Bolo, parked a hundred feet away.

"O.K.; seein' it's just a car, I guess I got time . . ." The driver
maneuvered his cart into position, attached hoses. Henry lowered
Bartholomew to the ground, went to the panel set in the flank of the
heavy machine. There were tool marks around it; it opened at a touch.
Fragments of the broken lock lay inside. The button marked PORT?UNLOCK
was depressed. Henry pressed the LOCK button, heard the snick of the
mechanism above.

The Decon man started up the blower. Its hum built up to a sharp whine.
Minutes passed. Bartholomew had stretched on his back, snoring. Henry
lifted him to his feet, walked him until he could stand alone.

The driver shut down the blower, disconnected the hoses, reeled them in.
He revved up his turbos, wheeled off.

Henry helped Bartholomew to the car.

"Going to be ill . . ." the younger man said.

"Let's get aboard; then you can tell me all about it." Henry cycled the
hatch open; the two men climbed inside. A faint odor of Cyanon still
hung in the air. Bartholomew gagged.

"Why. . .another Decon. . . ? We did that. . .before. . ." He broke off,
staring at the body of a man, lying head-down in the short companionway.
The eyes of the inverted face were open; the mouth gaped, showing a
thick tongue. The thin features were a leaden purple.

"G-good Lord . . . !" Bartholomew groped for support. "There
was . . . man inside . . . when?"

"Yeah; let's get moving."

Henry hauled his sagging shipmate past the corpse, settled him in his
cradle, buckled him in. He flipped the count-down switch, set the clock.

"You knew . . . that man . . . was aboard," Bartholomew gasped out.

"Go to sleep, Larry," Henry said. He strapped himself into his gimbaled
seat before the Bolo's panel, punched buttons. A ready-light glowed on
the panel. The count-down clock ticked loudly.

"Attention!" the ground-control screen said. "Zero minus two minutes . . ."

There was a sudden loud snore from Bartholomew.

Henry started the engine, glanced over instruments, flipped on the
specially installed wide-vision screens.

"Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . ." the screen said. Henry slipped the
clutches, revved the mighty Bolo engines.

" . . . three . . . two . . . one . . ." The Bolo moved out of the
shadow of /Degello/.

"It's all yours," the speaker said. "Go and get it!"

* * *

They were ten miles into the rough country east of the port, slamming
ahead, over and through obstructions like a charging bull-devil. On the
screens, the clustered blips of other vehicles had fanned out now,
spreading to all points of the compass from the starting point. The port
IRAD showed a massive vehicle?a ten-tonner?pacing the Bolo at one mile.
To the right, two smaller vehicles raced, on courses converging from two
miles. Henry's glance went over the fire-control panel. Green GO lights
glowed cheerfully at him. He smiled to himself, added another five
hundred meters per minute to his speed. It was time to thin out the
opposition.

Beside him, Larry slept, strapped in his padded couch.

* * *

At twenty miles out, the ten-tonner?a Gendye Supreme, Henry
guessed?still held position at half a mile, matching his speed. The two
smaller shadowers had fallen back, were mere bright specks on the screen
astern. Henry flicked a switch; a pink light winked on the panel?the
BATTERY ARMED telltale from a salvaged destroyer. He boosted his speed
another half kilometer per minute. The Bolo bucked, slamming through
tangled desert scrub.

* * *

Forty-six minutes and forty miles from Pango-Ri, Henry adjusted course
to the south, punched a random evasive pattern into the course-control
monitor. The couch rocked under him as the Bolo curveted in a spiral
reverse. The escorting vehicle tracked him, holding interval. Henry
whistled. The boy was good?and riding good iron.

Abruptly the alarm bell clanged. Henry read dials. A forty-kilo mass,
closing at a thousand feet per second; a light missile. He keyed the
intercept-response circuit, felt the Bolo buck as his missiles launched.
Lights flashed as new missiles slid into position in the magazines. On
the screen, the two tiny rockets curved out, minute flecks of
yellow-white against the blackness, converging on the attacking missile.

The screens dimmed to near-opacity as the incoming weapon detonated in a
blaze of hard radiation.

Bartholomew stirred, opened his eyes. "What's . . .  going on?" he managed.

"Some lawless character just took a shot at us," Henry said tightly. "Go
back to sleep."

"A shot??" Bartholomew was wide awake now. "Did you report it?"

"Too busy?"

"But that's illegal! Can't we do something??"

"Sure; we can fire back with our own illegal battery."

"Captain, my father?"

"Shut up! I'm busy . . . !"

Ten minutes passed while the two war-cars raced northward side by side,
their courses steadily converging.

"A little closer," Henry muttered. "Just come in a little closer,
baby . . ."

"What are you doing?" Larry demanded.

"I'm letting him get his head well into the noose," Henry said. "If I
close with him, he might spook?but since he's playing the heavy . . ."

"Perhaps he just wants to?to negotiate!" Larry said.

"We'll fool him by opening the conversation first," Henry said, and
thumbed the FIRE button. A flickering glare sprang up around the Bolo.
The screens flickered uncertainly as excited ions struck in uneven
waves. The speeding Supreme veered away, suddenly wary too late. As it
turned, its image flicked into incandescence. The screen went from white
to yellow to red, faded to show long streamers trailing out to all sides
in a blaze of hard radiation. Dark pinpoints of solid wreckage fanned
out; a vast smoke ring shot through with bright flashes formed, grew.

The ground-control screen crackled.

"/Degello/?what's going on out there? A while ago, I read two blasts
near you?just now I picked up a two K-T flash less'n a mile abeam of
you. Plenty of the hard stuff, too! It'll be raining hot iron around
here for a week! Are you in trouble?"

"/Degello/ to tower," Henry grated against the slam of the speeding
machine. "No, I'm having myself a time. I guess some of the boys are
sloppy drivers . . ."

"If I didn't know a Minor didn't pack an armory, I might get an idea you
carted some contraband in here, /Degello/! You wouldn't pull one like
that, would you?"

"Goodness, that would be illegal, tower."

"It would at that. Maybe you better call a misdeal, /Degello/ . . ."

"I hate lawsuits, tower. I'll take my chance."

"It's your play. But watch somebody moving in at two-seven-oh. Tower
over and out."

A bell clanged. The IRAD showed a small car emerging from the dust cloud
that was all that remained of the heavy Gendye. It swung toward the Bolo.

"Looks like he carried a spare," Henry muttered; he waited, frowning,
his finger poised over the firing key. The car flashed past a hundred
yards distant, close enough for Henry to read /ISV MANTA-II/ lettered on
the side.

At the last instant, a bright flash winked from it. Henry's finger went
down on the key. The Bolo lurched. The vision screens blacked. Henry
fought the controls while Bartholomew clung to his cradle, his eyes and
mouth wide.

"Tricky," Henry grated. "A gyrob?a remote job. But I think we outgunned
them."

"Who are they?" Bartholomew demanded. "What does it mean?"

Henry was studying the terrain map. A long peninsula stretched north
from Pango-Ri, curving to the horizon and beyond?fifteen hundred miles
of mountain, desert, and ice.

"It means we're in the clear for the moment," he said. "We're
IRAD-negative, so maybe we've lost them for good?if we can stay ahead of
them. But hold on to your hat, Larry, the next few days are going to be
a little hectic."

* * *

Three days and nights had passed, Henry and Larry alternating at the
controls as they raced northward. Now massive ice crags loomed on the
forward direct view panel; a wilderness of broken ice was visible
beyond. Strangling voices were coming from the Bolo's power compartment.
Henry wrestled the wheel, attempting to brake the speeding machine to a
halt.

"We can't stop here," Bartholomew yelled above the tumult. "Nothing but
ice and broken rock . . . !"

"Left track's locking!" Henry shouted. "We'll settle for what we can get!"

Low, scrub-like trees hurtled past the Bolo. There was a rending crash,
a shock, and the car skidded wildly. The emergency retrorockets fired a
brief burst; then the car was careening sideways, throwing a spray of
pulverized ice a hundred feet in the air. It shot over the crest of a
rise, dropped into deep snow, plowed on another hundred yards, and came
to rest with a final bone-jarring impact in a jumble of fallen rock and ice.

Bartholomew fumbled his way from his couch, bleeding from a cut on the
side of his head. Choking, black smoke still wafted from the panel.
Bartholomew coughed, groped his way to the view screen.

"Where are we?" he gasped, staring out at the bleak, white wilderness
visible beyond the prow, half-buried in snow.

"About twelve hundred miles north of Pango-Ri, I'd estimate." Henry
tossed a smashed ration box aside, got to his feet, cradling his left
hand. There was blood on the tight black glove. "And lucky to be talking
about it. That last shot must have gotten to us."

"You've hurt your hand," Bartholomew said. There were dark circles under
his eyes, and his face was greenish pale.

"I'm all right." Henry looked him over. "How do you feel?"

"I ache all over," Bartholomew said. "And my mouth is cut . . ." He
explored the raw marks on his lip with his tongue.

Henry scattered gear aside, examining the panel. "Let's see how bad off
we are?"

He broke off as his eye fell on an instrument on the still-smoldering
panel. He swore with feeling.

"What is it?"

"Right on our tail?so much for forty thousand credits' worth of
radar-negative gear. A heavy job?a fifteen-tonner, anyway?about fifty
miles out."

"You mean there's a vehicle nearby?" Bartholomew babbled. "Thank heaven!
Signal them! Try the communicator?!"

"Calm down, Bart. Could be it's a far-out coincidence; wouldn't bet my
second-best brass cufflinks on it."

"But, Captain?it's an incredible stroke of luck?"

"The worst luck you could have would be for that car to pay us a call.
We've got to get clear of here?fast. Come on; get your pack ready!"

"Leave the car? But this is our only shelter!" Henry ignored him,
shoving food into his pack, checking the charge in his power gun.

"We don't need shelter, Larry," he said. "We need distance between us
and them."

"But they're our only hope of getting help!"

"Don't bitch about a little thing like a twelve-hundred-mile hike back
to port. We have more immediate worries. Get the first-aid kit!" Henry
picked up the folding marker frame and the plastic carton containing the
four official markers that had been issued to them at Pango-Ri, then
cycled the hatch open, looked out at blowing snow. Icy air cut at him
like a saw.

"Captain . . ." Bartholomew stood beside him, shivering in the arctic
wind. "You actually think they might /attack/ us?"

"Uh-huh."

"But?they can't do this! There must be a law?!"

"Sure; the Survival of the Fittest, they call it. It may not be
democratic, but it still works."

"It's madness!" Larry shivered. "This violence, lawlessness. Those are
civilized men?"

"Not these boys; they intend to kill us. I don't plan to let 'em, if I
can help it." Henry jumped down into the soft snow.

Bartholomew followed, then looked back at the warm cabin.

"But to leave this?to go out into a blizzard?how do we know we can even
survive?"

"We don't," Henry said. "That's what makes it fun."

* * *

An hour later, Henry and Larry came down off the broken rock-slopes to a
gravel-spit at the edge of a frozen river.

Larry dumped his fifty-pound pack with a groan of relief.

"Troubles?" demanded Henry, sardonically.

Larry looked over at him.

"My feet hurt," he answered. He looked at his hands. "I've already worn
blisters on my palms from trying to lift the straps free of my
shoulders." He stared at Henry. "How about you?"

"All right. You'll be all right, too. It's a matter of getting used to
the idea a little discomfort won't kill you."

Larry bit his lower lip.

"You're in command," he said. "But it's only fair to warn you I'm not
convinced of the need for abandoning the car and all the expensive
equipment in it. It'll be my duty to report that fact to my father, as
backer, when we return."

"Don't bother; he wouldn't appreciate the humor of it." Henry broke off,
looking back in the direction from which they had come. A low rumble
sounded; a flickering light winked against the lead-colored sky.

"Oh-oh; company's here." He got to his feet. "I hope this dissipates any
last, lingering doubts you may have had that we're the object of
someone's attentions," Henry said.

"But?if they're really after us?why aren't they following our trail?
We've only come two or three miles."

"Maybe they're a little extracautious. I did what I could to discourage
'em back at Pango-Ri."

"What /did/ happen there? Was there . . . violence?" Larry trailed as
Henry headed upslope against a driving wind.

"I guess you could call it that."

"Was anyone . . . injured?"

"Well, you got a split lip."

"I mean, seriously?"

"I don't think so. I left a couple of lads in an alley, nursing
headaches, and Heavy Joe has a piece of Pore Scandy's wire in his arm,
but they'll recover."

"Well, then, why are you so sure?"

"Of course, I killed four of them," Henry added.

Bartholomew stopped dead. "You k-k-killed four m-men?"

"Remember the chap we found when we came aboard? He got an overdose of
rat poison?"

"I-I seem to remember?something?a face, upside down . . ."

"That's the guy. You were coming out of the gas by then."

"But?you'll be tried for murder?"

Henry started off. "Who by?"

Bartholomew trailed him, still struggling into his pack harness. "By the
planetary law-enforcement agencies . . ."

"Not here; there's no law, no cops, no murder trials."

"Then the Quarantine Service?"

"They're busy managing the Run. They don't bother much with unsuccessful
entrants."

"But when we return to civilization?"

"We're outside the jurisdiction of Aldorado. The only law here is what
you make up as you go along. Heavy Joe sent his boys up against me, and
I outgunned 'em. It could have been the other way around."

"But?how could you do it, Captain?kill a man, a fellow human?"

"Before you see home again you may know the answer to that one."

They tramped on in silence for an hour; the probing wind bit at the
exposed skin of their faces and wrists; dry snow particles stung like
flying sand.

"What will we do when night falls?" Bartholomew called suddenly. "The
temperature is well below freezing now; it will drop even lower?"

A bright flash glared briefly against the snow, throwing long shadows
for an instant ahead of the men. Underfoot, the ground quivered. A dull
/boom!/ sounded, rolled, faded.

"There went the Bolo," Henry said. He stood, staring back along the
trail. Across the icy rock, a few footprints showed, filling rapidly
with brown snow. "She deserved better than that."

"They blew up our car?" Bartholomew's face was haggard in the fading light.

"Still think it's a detachment of the Travelers' Aid?"

Bartholomew stared around at the broken landscape of gray rock, white
ice. "What if they follow us?attack us here . . . ?"

"We're dead meat if they follow up close. My idea is to reach the hills;
maybe we'll find a spot to hole up."

"What then? Our suit power packs won't last forever; we'll freeze?even
if they don't kill us . . ."

"We're not dead yet. Let's stay alive and wait for the opposition to
make a mistake."

* * *

"Listen," Larry cupped an ear. "Isn't that the sound of engines?"

"Could be. I guess the boys plan to make sure of us."

"How?how many of them?" panted Larry, leaning against the slope and the
wind, "did you say you killed?"

Henry smiled grimly. "You like the revenge motive, eh?" He shook his
head. "It doesn't figure; they're spending a lot of money chasing us;
sentiment isn't in it."

"Captain?do you notice anything . . . ?" Larry stopped, stood with his
head up, sniffing the air. "I detect?a sort of fresh, green odor?very
faint . . ." He nodded forward, toward the next line of hills. "From up
ahead there . . ."

"That so?" said Henry. He turned to look oddly at the younger man.
"Well, the unexpected always demands an explanation. Let's shove ahead
and take a look."

Ten minutes later they topped a rise to look down across a sheltered
valley that stretched to a distant, hazy line of high white hills. A
dark clump of foliage showed starkly a quarter of a mile distant.

"Good Lord, Captain," Bartholomew stared at the scene. "Those are trees
down there . . ."

"That's right. We'll have cover?and they'll stand out like flies on a
wedding cake in all this nice smooth snow."

They tramped down across the snowy field. Ahead, the clump of trees
loomed up, tapered, pale-barked tree ferns, fifty feet high. The two men
circled cautiously, then came close. A breath of warm air seemed to flow
upward from the shadowed grove. They went in under the trees. A gentle
breeze stirred the feathery leaves on low-hanging branches.

"Captain?this is grass underfoot! And that wind! It's warm! It's coming
from there . . ." Bartholomew went toward the mound at the center of the
copse, almost buried under creeping vines. Henry stood watching the
younger man. Larry stopped, came up with a tiny, pale yellow flower of
intricate shape.

"It's incredible! This oasis?"

He broke off. There was a sudden motion; a tiny winged creature whirred
from the dark mound, darted past Bartholomew's head as he ducked. It
fluttered on, then fell to the snow at the outer edge of the ring of
trees. It lay, beating gossamer wings, then fell still.

"Captain!" Larry looked from the vine-grown mound. "There's a light
shining from here . . ." Henry came up beside him. Through the
blanketing tangle of fluttering leaves, a greenish glow filtered from below.

"There's sort of a crack down there?a slot in the face of the mound!"
said Larry, excitedly. "The air is coming from there!"

Henry shoved past him, pulled aside finger-thick creepers, revealing a
smooth, rock-like surface. It was geometrically flat, dull grayish-black
in color, with a five-foot-wide, three-inch-high opening.

"Why, it's man-made," Larry said. Henry nodded. He had drawn his gun,
almost absently. There was no sound but the steady sigh of air flowing
from the opening.

"It looks old," Bartholomew whispered. "But the light . . . Do you
suppose . . . ?"

"Nobody home?for a long time now." Henry holstered the gun, worked his
way behind the screen of vegetation; his feet sank into a soft mulch of
decayed vegetation. "Let's get this stuff cleared away and take a look
inside."

* * *

Half an hour later, Henry's knife sawed through the last of the
interwoven network of twisted vines; a mass of heavy foliage fell away
from the opening. A warm draft gushed out, blowing fallen leaves,
whipping at dangling tendrils of greenery. Henry looked down into a
rectangular chamber fifteen feet on a side, bare, unadorned, its floor
drifted deep with blown dust and dead leaves, dotted over with tiny
green plants and the white knobs of fungus. At the far side, a slab door
stood ajar; soft green light came from beyond it.

"If we pull a little more of this debris away, we can climb down in
there," Henry said. "Then if we can douse the light, we'll have a
first-class defensive position."

"Is that wise, Captain?" The green light cast shadows on Bartholomew's
face. "It may be some sort of trap."

Henry shook his head. His eyes glittered in the eerie light. "The boys
are tricky, all right; they trailed us a hundred miles off the beaten
track. But I'm pretty sure they didn't rush ahead and set up a booby
trap at the end of the line. Nobody's that good."

He dug into the loose-packed rubbish, cleared a trough, then turned and
lowered himself down the sloping heap to the floor of the buried room.
The light glowed from an open doorway. Beyond it was another room, much
like the first, but longer, bright-lit by the glare from still another
door. In the middle of the floor lay a pattern of small objects like
scattered sticks.

Bartholomew dropped down, came up behind Henry.

"What do you suppose it is?"

Henry stooped, picked up a curiously shaped object of reddish metal. A
shred of grayish fabric clung to it. He stirred the stick-like remains
with his finger.

"It's a skeleton," he said.

"A skeleton? Of what?"

"Something that wore clothes."

"Clothes . . . ? But those don't look like anything human . . ."

"Who said it was human?" Henry's voice was rough; it tore at his throat.
He turned toward the bright doorway, twenty feet away at the end of the
long chamber. A haze like hot air rising from a blast pad shimmered in
the rectangular archway. Beyond stretched a view of rolling green hills,
dotted with groves of thin-stemmed trees with celery-like tops. Far
away, wooded mountains reared up under a sky as deep and clear as green
glass.

"What . . ." Larry's voice stumbled. "What is it? How . . ."

But Henry scarcely heard him. He was already walking toward the
mirage-like scene. A steady flow of warm air pushed into his face,
bringing an odor of spring.

There was a moment of pressure as he passed through the door, like the
surface of a pond breaking; and he was standing among nodding wild
flowers. He filled his lungs with the warm air; like a man who has at
last come home, and something that had been locked inside him for so
long that he had all but forgotten it was there, released.

Then he came back to the present. He made himself turn and step back
into the chamber. Larry was staring at him.

"Good Lord!" said the young man, softly. His face was pale. "What is it,
Captain? What does it mean? Why didn't you toss something through there
before you tried stepping through yourself? Anything could have happened
to you, when you stepped through that?that /hole/ in the world."

"Let's get back topside and camouflage the opening," Henry said
brusquely. "Then we'll come back down and you can take a look for yourself."

* * *

The distant mutter of turbos rose and fell. "They're coming up fast,"
Henry said. "We left a pretty good trail that last half mile or so. When
they hit that, they'll be here in minutes."

"We've done all we can," Larry panted. "After we slide down, I'll pull
the mat in place. Then if we close the inner door to shut the light away?"

"Yes," Henry said. His mind was only half on the defensive preparations
they were making. He added, absently, " . . . and if they find us,
they'll still have to come through the door one at a time . . ."

The two men re-entered the chamber, settled the mass of bundled vines
firmly in the opening. Inside the inner room, they pushed the heavy door
to. It sealed smoothly. Henry turned to the entrance.

"?That skeleton, Captain," said Larry following him. "It must be from
some non-human creature?but on all the worlds we've found yet, there was
nothing higher than the insect level?"

"Martian pyramids," said Henry, briefly.

"But those were natural formations?"

"Maybe." Henry was almost to the entrance. "And on the other hand, maybe
whoever built this visited a few other places, too."

Larry caught at his arm, stopping him.

"Captain! You aren't just going to walk through that doorway again
without checking?" Henry shook off the younger man's grasp.

"Stay behind if you want to," he growled, and walked toward the light,
toward sunshine and flowers and grass. A tingling sensation washed over
his face as he went through and then the feel of yielding sod under his
feet. The warm, moist odor of clean earth rose up around him. Behind him
he heard the last half of a spoken word.

"?air!"

He turned; beyond the delicately carved stone of the doorframe, Larry
stood in the shadows, staring at him.

"Come on along, Larry," Henry said. "We've got some claim markers to plant."

"Captain . . ." Larry was staring at him strangely. "I have the
impression you know this place; that you've been here before."

"Do you?" Henry said, and turned and started away across the springy turf.


      *Chapter Five*

On the bank of a stream half a mile from the low, stone-faced building
that housed the portal, Henry set up the marker frame.

"O.K.," he said, "let's have the marker, Larry."

Larry opened a light case, took out a six-inch cylinder pointed at one
end, passed it over.

"These markers are the cat's meow, Larry," Henry said. "They blast their
way down about forty feet into solid rock, and fuse the hole closed
behind them; and a thousand years from now, they'll still be putting out
a trickle signal."

"Very interesting, I'm sure," Bartholomew muttered. He looked pale,
sick. Every few seconds he glanced toward the portal as if expecting to
see the enemy charging through, guns blazing. Henry ignored the boy's
worried look. He fitted the marker into the slide on the light frame
erected on the sod, clamped the cover tight.

"Let's get back of something; there'll be vaporized granite around for a
few seconds . . ." He moved off thirty feet to the shelter of a fallen
log. Bartholomew followed, limping on both feet.

Henry keyed the detonator. There was a spurt of white fire from the
frame, a deep-toned /whoomp!/ White light glared for a moment across the
sunny meadow, outlining the trees in vivid relief. An odor of hot rock
whipped past as the ground underfoot trembled. Dirt pattered down all
around.

Henry handed Bartholomew the bright red disk of plastic he had removed
from the marker before placing it.

"She's planted?but it won't do us any good unless we can produce the
tabs on demand?so take care of it."

"Why me?"

"Just in case the opposition catches me. I can't give 'em what I haven't
got."

"What if they catch /me/?"

"You stay out of it?don't try to help me if I'm caught. Hide; lie low
until you can get clear?then try to make it back to Pango-Ri?"

"Captain, look?I've been thinking. That other car; Ground Control at
Pango-Ri must have known we were in trouble, and sent out?"

"Mighty fast work; they were there within minutes. And what about that
blast we heard?"

"A signal?"

"Some signal; a flare would have been more to the point."

"But things like you're talking about just don't happen. My father?"

"Look around you, Larry . . ." said Henry, heavily, "and tell me that
'things just don't happen . . .' "

Larry glanced around at the turf, the distant trees, and the green sky.
He shivered, slightly.

"I . . . don't know . . ."

"It's pretty country, Larry. Go ahead and admit it."

"Yes . . . I'll agree with you there . . ." The young man's back
straightened, and a faint note of an enthusiasm Henry had never before
heard in Larry's voice sounded in it now. Then his gaze came sharply
back to Henry. "But we can't stay here indefinitely with the crew you
say are hunting for us up there and winter coming. We could be stranded
here . . . maybe we could come to terms with whoever's supposed to be
after us . . ."

"You're a forgiving soul, Larry?and a forgetful one. Relax. We'll get
our other markers planted; then we'll wait twenty-four hours before we
have a peek outside."

* * *

A blaze of stars lit the wide summer meadow like a full moon.

"That's Iota Orionis, all right," Henry said. He lay on his back,
spooning omelet from a ration can. "But I'm damned if I can find any of
the rest of the Orion stars from this angle."

"It's incredible," Larry said. "Why, with that much displacement of the
constellation we could be over a thousand light years from the Terran
Sector?but that's impossible."

"We're here," said Henry. "You'd better pretend to believe it." He was
watching the younger man. With the light of the fire on his face,
Larry's features showed a wonder and a kindling of excitement, an
/aliveness/ that was new to him. /I never meant to bring him here,
Dulcia . . . /Henry thought to his long-dead wife. /I never even meant
to bring myself again?or thought I didn't . . . / 

Then, suddenly, he was thinking of a duty left undone for more than a
hundred years. He got up unobtrusively and left the fire. When he came
back, some little while later, Larry stared at him.

"What is it, Captain?"

Henry shook his head and sat down by the fire again, dusting his hands.

"Burial detail," he said, shortly. "That's all?those bones we saw,
coming in."

"You buried that alien skeleton? But?" Larry broke off abruptly, his
brows narrowing thoughtfully as he stared across the flames at Henry.
" . . . Of course, Captain," he wound up softly. "You know best."

He turned to look at the star-filled sky again.

"I've been watching the stars move," he went on, in a strangely quiet
voice. "I've been watching the whole sky of them move as this world
turns . . . and I've been thinking. You know what this means,
Captain?what we've found here? We've got a universe to explore again!
We've been stagnating for a hundred years now; without FTL travel,
there'd never be another frontier, where a man could test himself
against the odds; we'd settled down to the day of the Statistical
Average?and I thought that was the millennium. But now I see it all
differently! Now?we'll study this thing, learn how it works. And when we
do?Captain, the whole Galaxy will be open to us!"

He swung about to face across the fire to Henry.

"Do you know what I mean?"

Henry was staring into the fire. There was a look on his face that made
Larry fall silent . . . 

Looking into the red embers, Henry felt the old words stirring in his
mind. He had thought he had forgotten them, a century before; but now
they came back as they had rung in his head when he had first walked
this alien earth, seen this other sky?rung in his head until he was
drunk with them and the new universe before him, until he had forgotten
his home, his race, even the first Dulcia, waiting for him on Flamme,
alone, with the baby due and no one to whom she could turn.

Oh, Dulcia. If only I'd come back to you when I promised you I would.
But it was a whole new world?a whole new Universe. I /had/ to see. You
understand how it was with me, don't you, girl . . . ?

?They came creakily, strangely from his tongue at first, but they rang
out, gaining strength as he recited . . . 


    /There's no sense in going further?it's the edge of cultivation,/
    /So they said, and I believed it?broke my land and sowed my crop?/
    /Built my barns and strung my fences in the little border station/
    /Tucked away below the foothills where the trails run out and stop./
     

* * *


    /Till a voice, as bad as Conscience, rang interminable changes/
    /On one everlasting whisper day and night repeated?so:/
    /Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges?/
    /Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go! / 

* * *

    /So I went, worn out of patience; never told my nearest neighbors?/
    /Stole away with pack and ponies?left 'em drinking in the town;/
    /And the faith that moveth mountains didn't seem to help my labors/
    /As I faced the sheer main-ranges, whipping up and leading down./

    /March by march I puzzled through 'em, turning flanks and dodging
    shoulders,/
    /Hurried on in hope of water, headed back for lack of grass;/
    /Till I camped above the tree-line?drifted snow and naked boulders?/
    /Felt free air astir to windward?knew I'd stumbled on the Pass . . .  / 

* * *

He chanted on, the fire of the old poem filling his veins with its light
and lifting him up, up and out toward the unknown stars as he talked. He
had forgotten the past and a hundred years of penitence and sorrow. He
had forgotten even the presence of Larry, staring silent across the
leaping flames at him. The old call?the call that had sung him out to
the worlds untrod by men ever since his strength had first come on him,
was singing to him now. The last verse of the poem rolled like an anthem
from his tongue . . . 

* * *

    / . . . Yes, your "Never-never country"?yes your "edge of cultivation"/
    /And "no sense in going further"?till I crossed the range to see./
    /God forgive me! No, I didn't. It's God's present to our nation./
    /Anybody might have found it but?His Whisper came to Me! / 

* * *

Slowly Henry came back from the wild cataract of feeling and memory on
which the ancient words had swung him, and now he was seeing himself
clearly: for the first time in a hundred years he stood face to face
with himself?and saw that the flame had never left him. It had been in
him, all this time, the fire that had beckoned him onward, ever onward,
always onward into new worlds. A noble fire, he'd always thought it?but
crimes had been committed in its name.

"Dulcie," he murmured aloud. "Oh, Dulcie . . ." He shook his head like
someone coming out of a dream; and looked across the fire.

On the other side of it, Larry still sat transfixed, staring at him, the
lean young face as still as if the boy had been magicked into stone.

"It's a poem," Henry said. "?/The Explorer/. An old Terran named Rudyard
Kipling wrote it back in A.D. 1600 or thereabouts."

"I think?I almost understand, Captain," Larry said.

Henry laughed harshly. "Who ever understands anything, kid?" he growled
and the spell that had bound both men together for a moment was broken.
But not completely broken, for Larry still looked at Henry with eyes
like those on someone who has seen a legend put on flesh and walk.

"Captain . . ." whispered Larry. "You . . . you'll never die . . ."

"Roll over and get some sleep," muttered Henry, lying down. "We'll leave
at dawn."

He rolled over himself, turning his back on the younger man and what had
just passed between them.

* * *

They climbed up at dawn through the blocked doorway, emerging into the
sub-zero cold under an icy blue sky.

"That was a long night," Larry said. "It looks like late afternoon here."

Henry led the way across to the edge of the clearing, looked out across
the snow.

"Footprints and tread tracks, but no signs of life now. It looks like
they gave up and went away."

"What will we do now?"

"First, we'll reconnoiter the area; there may be a useful piece or two
of the Bolo left lying around. Then we'll start walking."

"Walking?" Larry looked at him. "To Pango-Ri? Twelve hundred miles?"

"You have a better idea?"

"No. I . . ." the younger man hesitated. "I thought maybe we could
signal for help. Build some sort of communicator. It wouldn't have to be
a screen?even a spark-gap transmitter would do."

"No can do, boy," said Henry. "Not without the wrong people picking up
the transmission and homing in on us. No," he shook his head, "that's
out. We walk. Let's scout the remains of the car before full dark, and
then hit the trail. We'll be less conspicuous by night."

They started across the churned snow, reached the surrounding line of
hills, entered the area of broken rock.

* * *

Henry stopped, listening, looking into the early evening gloom with
narrowed eyes.

"Maybe I was a little too optimistic," he said.

"Optimistic?" Larry stared at him, his thin face tense.

"Turbos!" Henry snapped. "Hear them? This is where we split up, Larry.
Use your compass; head due south; I'll rejoin you as soon as I throw the
hounds off the trail . . ."

"You mean I'm to go?alone?" there was a faint ring of panic in the young
man's voice.

Henry nodded. "I'm sorry now I got you into this, Larry?but you're here.
Take the blaster . . ." He handed it over. " . . . And remember what I
said about letting me handle my own troubles. Good luck."

"Wait! I can't?"

"You'd better, Larry. Now split!" He turned, started toward the high
ground at a trot. Behind him Bartholomew stood, the blaster in his hand,
looking after him.

* * *

There was a sound from the direction of the slab-tilted crest ahead, a
stark and ragged silhouette against the red sky of evening. Henry
dropped flat. The low outline of a tracked carryall moved into view.
There was a sudden crackling sound, then an amplified voice:

"Play it smart and easy, and nobody loses nothing. I'm giving you fair
warning! I got twenty men. There's only the two of you. Now, you make it
easy on us, we'll make it easy on you. Put your guns down and stand up
with both hands in sight . . ."

Henry groped in a flapped pocket, took out a green capsule. He swallowed
it, then took the slug gun from his pocket, moved off, keeping in the
shelter of massive stone fragments. Harsh voices shouted. Off to Henry's
left a light winked on, a dusty blue-white lance stabbing into the
twilight. It reversed, playing over the rocky ground, swept up the
slope, throwing red-black shadows across the ice. Henry dropped, worked
his way back as the light glared just above his head. There were more
yells. A second light blinked on. Men crashed down the slope, fanning
out to surround his position. The light moved on; Henry rose to a
crouch, his feet dashed for a dense shadow.

Lying flat among tumbled boulders heaped at the foot of an exposed rock
face rising among the trees, Henry listened to the shouts behind him. If
he could make it to the top of the outcropping, he might get clear . . . 

Henry moved forward, keeping low; a cleft split the wall before him. He
wound his way into it, braced his back, got a grip above, pulled himself
up. The injured hand gave a stab of pain; blood trickled down his wrist,
hot as melted lead. Henry swore, reached again . . . the blood-wet hand
slipped. Henry lunged, missed, fell with a clatter. Someone yelled
nearby. Feet pounded, a man burst into view.

"Hold it right there!" The voice was like a knife grating on bone. A
whistle shrilled. Men closed in on either side; Henry saw the glint of
guns. Around him, the scene held a curiously remote quality; the capsule
he had swallowed was taking effect. There was a whine of turbos; the
carryall came up, light glared on its side. It halted; a big man jumped
down and came up to Henry. He was a looming black outline against the
blinding light.

"This him, Tasker?" somebody said.

"Sure, who was you expecting, the fat lady in the circus?" The
silhouette had a meaty voice. A hand prodded Henry.

"Where's the kid, Rube? You boys had me worried there for a while; you
dropped right off the scope. Where were you?"

Henry said nothing; silently, he repeated the auto-suggestion which the
hypnotic drug would reinforce. /I can't talk, I can't talk . . . / 

"I'm talking to you, hotshot!" the big man said. He took a step closer.
"I ast you where the kid was."

Henry watched; a heavy fist doubled, drew back?

Henry shifted, and swung a hearty kick that caught the big man solidly
under the ribs; as he doubled, Henry uppercut him. The impact against
his fist seemed as insubstantial as smoke. Someone yelled. A blow across
the neck sent Henry to his knees. He saw a knee coming, turned his face
in time to take it on the side of the jaw. The cold rock hurt his
knees?but distantly the drug was working.

Hands were hauling him upright. The big man stood before him, holding
one hand against his stomach, dabbing at his mouth with the other.

"I left myself open for that one," he said between clenched teeth. "Now
let's get down to business. You got some marker tabs; hand 'em over."

Henry shook his head silently. There were men holding his arms. The big
man swung a casual backhanded blow, rocked Henry's head. "Shake him
down, boys," he growled.

Heavy hands slapped at Henry, turning out his pockets. His head rang
from the drug and the blows he had taken. Blood trickled down his cheek
from a cut on his scalp.

"Not on him, Tasker."

"Give, hotshot," Tasker said. "You think we got all night?"

"What's with this guy?" a small voice asked. "He ain't said a word."

"Yeah; that's what they call psychology. Guys that think they're tough,
they figure it's easier that way; if they don't start talking they don't
have to try to remember when to quit." He hit Henry again. "Of course,
hotshot here knows better than that. He knows we got the stuff that will
make a brass monkey deliver a lecture. He just likes to play hard to
get." He swung another open-handed blow.

"That's O.K. by me," he added. "I kind of like it; takes my mind off my
bellyache."

"Look, we're wasting time, Tasker. Where's the kid at?" someone called.

"Probably hiding back of a daisy someplace. He won't get far in the
dark. After we work hotshot over, we'll have plenty time to collect the
kid. Meantime, why not have a little fun?"

"Yeah; this is the punk that drilled Pore with his own iron?"

"To hell with Scandy; he was a skunk. This crut clubbed /me/ down . . ."
A thick-set man with a drooping eyelid pushed to the fore, set himself,
slammed a left and right to Henry's stomach . . . 

To Henry, the pain of the blows seemed as blurred as a badly recorded
sense tape. His tongue was thick, heavy, responding to the autohypnotic
suggestion. Something as soft as down tugged his arms over his head. The
throbbing in his skull and chest was no more than a drumbeat now. He
blinked, saw Tasker's heavy-jawed face before him?like a slab of bacon
with a frown.

"This son of a bitch don't act right, Gus," he growled. A small man with
dark lips and white hair came close, stared at Henry. He thumbed his
eyelid back, then leaned close and sniffed.

"Ha! A wise jasper! He's coked to the eyebrows, boss. Some kind of a CNS
damper and paraben hypno, I'd guess." He looked sharply at Henry. "That
right, bud?"

Henry looked at the man. His vision was clear enough. He moved his
fingers; he still had motor control. If he got a chance, it would be
pleasant to kick Tasker again . . . 

A pillow struck him in the face. "There's no use hitting him; he can't
feel it," the small man said.

"Slip him some of your stuff, Gus," Tasker snapped. "He's clammed up;
O.K.; I know how to open clams."

"I haven't got anything that will kill this effect. We'll have to wait
until it wears off?"

"Wait, hell!" Tasker barked. "I want action?now!"

"Of course, he can hear everything we say." The little man's deep-set
eyes studied Henry's face. "Tell him you're going to break his legs, cut
him up. He won't feel it, of course?but he'll know what you're doing?and
if he tries hard enough, he can throw off the hypnotic inhibition on
talking . . ."

Tasker's face came close. "You heard that, didn't you, hotshot? How do
you feel about a little knifework? Or a busted bone or two? Like this?"
He bared his teeth, brought his arm up, chopped down with terrific
force. Henry heard the collarbone snap, and even through the anesthetic,
pain stabbed.

"Careful?the shock to the system can knock him out . . ." The small man
fingered Henry's wrist.

"Pulse is good," he commented. "He has a very rugged constitution?but
exercise a little restraint."

Tasker wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. His eyes were
unnaturally bright. "Restraint, yeah," he said. "You got one of them
scalpels, ain't you, Gus?"

"Umm. Good idea." The little man went away.

Tasker came close. His eyes were slits, like stab wounds in a corpse.

"To hell with the kid," he said softly. "Where's the mine at?" He
waited, his lips parted. His breath smelled of raw alcohol.

"I been over this ground like ants on a picnic; I'll be frank with you,
hotshot. I didn't see no mine?and my plans don't call for waiting
around . . ."

/If he'd come just a little closer . . .  / 

"Better give, sweetheart. Last chance to deal . . ."

Henry swung his foot. Tasker danced back. Gus came up, handed over a
short knife with a glittering razor edge. Tasker moved it so that it
caught the light, reflected into Henry's eyes.

"O.K., hotshot," he said in a crooning tone. "That's the way you want
it. So now let's you and me have a talk . . ."

Henry hung in the ropes, his body laced in a net of pain like white-hot
wires. His heart slammed against his ribs like a broken thing.

"You'll have to slack off," Gus said. "He's coming out of it; he's lost
a great deal of blood."

"It's getting daylight," someone growled. "Look, Tasker, we got to round
up the kid . . ."

"You think I don't know that?" the big man roared. "What kind of a guy
is this? I done everything but gut him alive, and not a squeak out of
him. Where's them tabs, you son of a one-legged joy-girl?" He shook the
black-crusted scalpel in a blood-stained fist before Henry's eyes.
"Listen to me, you! I got a pain-killer; it works fast. As soon as you
tell us where the tabs are, I'll give it to you . . ."

Henry heard the voice, but it seemed no more than a small annoyance. His
thoughts were far away, wandering by a jeweled pond in the sunlight . . . 

"All right, hotshot?" Tasker was close, his eyes wild. "I been saving
the big one . . ." He brought the scalpel close. "I'm tired of playing
around. Talk?now?or I'll gouge that eyeball out there like a spoonful of
mushmelon?"

"You'd better let me close up a few of these cuts," Gus said. "And I
need a blood donor; type O plus, alpha three. Otherwise he's going to
die on you."

"All right; but hurry it up." Tasker turned to the men lounging around
the clearing in the dim light of predawn. "You guys scatter and find the
punk. Slim, take your car and run east; Grease, you cover west. The rest
of you fan out south . . ."

Fingers fumbled over Henry; the net of wires drew tighter. His teeth
seemed to be linked by an electric circuit which pulsed in time to the
jolting in his chest.

Turbos whined into life; the high-wheeled carryalls moved off among the
rock. A tinge of pink touched the sky now. Henry drew a breath, felt
steel clamps cut into his side as broken ribs grated.

The small man whistled tunelessly, setting clamps with a bright-metal
tool like a dentist's extractor. The sharp points cut into Henry's skin
with a sensation like the touch of a feather. A grumbling man stood by,
watching his blood drain into a canister hung from a low branch. Gus
finished his clamping, turned to the blood donor, swabbed the long
needle, plunged it into Henry's arm, smiling crookedly up at him past
brown teeth.

"He felt that, Tasker. He's about ready . . ."

It was quiet in the clearing now. An early-rising song lizard burbled
tentatively. The trees were visible as black shapes against a pearl-gray
sky. Suddenly it was very cold. Henry shivered. A blunted steel spike
seemed to hammer its way up his spine and into the base of his skull,
driven by the violent blows of his heart.

"Where'd you hide the tab?" Tasker brought the scalpel up; Henry felt it
against his eyelid. The pressure increased.

"Last chance, hotshot," Tasker's face was close to Henry's. "Where's
that kid?"

Henry dried to draw back from the knife, but his head was cast in lead.
There was a snarl from Tasker. Light exploded in Henry's left eye, a
fountain of fire that burned, burned . . . 

"Watch it! He's passing out . . ." Voices faded, swelled, mingled with a
roaring in which Henry floated like a ship in a stormy sea, spinning,
sinking, down, down into blackness.

* * *

A veil of red-black hung before the left side of Henry's face. Dim
shapes moved in a pearly fog. Strident voices nagged, penetrating the
cotton-wool dream.

" . . . I found him," Gus was saying. His voice was urgent. "Right over
there . . . hunkered down back of your carryall."

Another voice said something, too faint to hear.

"You don't need to worry. We're your friends," Gus said.

"I've got my guys running all over the country, looking for you," Tasker
said heartily. "I guess you was hiding out right here all the time, hey?"

"Where's the Captain?" Bartholomew's voice almost squeaked.

"Don't worry about him none. Say, by the way, you haven't got the tabs
on you??"

"Where is he, damn you?" Bartholomew's voice burst out.

Henry hung slackly in the ropes that bound his wrists to the side of the
carryall. By moving his remaining eye, he was able to make out the
figure of Tasker, standing, feet planted wide, hands on hips, facing
away from him. Bartholomew was not in sight. Beside Tasker, Gus sidled
off to the left.

"Hey, youngster, let's watch yer language," Tasker growled. "We're here
to help you, like I told you . . ." He moved forward, out of range of
Henry's vision.

"Leave me alone . . ." Bartholomew ordered. There was a quiver in his voice.

"Looky here, sport, I guess maybe you don't get the picture," Tasker
chuckled. "Hell, we come out here to help you. We're going to get you
back to Pango-Ri, where you can get that claim filed?"

"I want to see Captain Henry. What have you done with him?"

"Sure," Tasker said agreeably. "He's right over there . . ."

There was a sound of steps in the brittle snow crest underfoot.
Bartholomew stepped into view, a tall figure wading through the ground
mist under the tilted rocks. He stopped abruptly as he saw Henry. His
mouth opened. He covered it with his hand.

"Hey, take it easy," Tasker said genially. "Ain't you ever seen blood
before?"

"You . . . you . . . incredible monster . . ." Bartholomew got out.

"Say, I told you once about talking so damn smart. What the hell you
think we're out here for, the fun of it? This boy's kind of stubborn;
didn't want to cooperate. I done what I had to do. You can tell that to
your old man; we went all the way. Now let's have those tabs and get the
hell out of here."

"My God . . ." Bartholomew's eyes held on Henry, sick eyes in a pale face.

"Weak stummick, hey? Don't look at him, then. I'll call the boys in and?"

"You filthy hound?" Bartholomew turned away, stumbling.

"Hey, you crummy little cushion-pup!" Tasker's voice rose to a bellow.
"I got orders to safe-conduct you back to your pa?but that don't mean I
can't give you a damned good hiding first?"

The little man came into view, moving quickly after Bartholomew. A gun
barked; he stumbled, fell on his face, bucked once, clawing at himself,
then lay still.

There was a moment of total silence. Then Tasker roared.

"Why, you flea-brained mamma's boy, you went and shot the best damned
surgeon that ever sold dope out of a Navy sick bay! You gone nuts or
something . . . ?"

"Cut him down," Henry heard Bartholomew's voice. "I'm going to take him
to your car. There'll be a med cabinet there?"

"Look here, buster," Tasker grated, "this bird alive is one little item
I don't want around, get me? You must be outa your mind. Your old man?"

"Leave my father out of your filthy conversation! He wouldn't wipe his
feet on scum like you . . ."

"He wouldn't, hey? Listen, you half-witted little milk-sucker, who do
you think sent us out here?"

"What do you mean . . . ?"

"I mean our boy here got a little too sharp for his own good. He held
your old man up for half a cut?and high-pressured him into sending his
pup along, just for insurance. The old man don't take kindly to anybody
twisting his arm. He give orders to let hotshot here stake out his
claim. Once he done that, we get the tabs and take 'em back?and you
along with 'em . . . And I'll tell you, buddy-boy, you're damn lucky
your old man's who he is, or I'd string you up alongside this jasper!"

"You're saying?my father sent you here?"

"That's it, junior. Your old man's quite a operator."

"You're lying! He couldn't have told you where to come; I didn't even
know myself . . ."

"There's a lot you don't know, sonny. Like that beacon you got built
into them trick boots you're wearing. The hotshot fooled the boys back
at Pango-Ri, all right?but it didn't make no difference. I had a fix on
the left heel of yours ever since you hit atmosphere." He chuckled.
"What do you think of that, boy?"

"I'll show you," Bartholomew said. He moved into Henry's field of
vision, a tall, slender figure with a gun in his hand.

"Hey?hold on?" Tasker started. Bartholomew brought the gun up and shot
Tasker in the face.

* * *

Henry lay on the ground, looking up at the pale light that illuminated
the eastern sky. A turbo started up, whined up to speed. Bartholomew
jumped down, bent over him.

"Captain?can you hear me?"

Henry drew a breath, tried to move his tongue; it was five pounds of
dead meat. Over his body, fire ants crawled, devouring. Deep inside, an
ache swelled and throbbed. He tried again, managed a grunt.

"You're horribly injured, Captain. I'm going to try to get you into the
car." Henry felt Bartholomew's hands under his. Red-hot knives plunged
into his body. Then his feet were dragging. Bartholomew's heavy
breathing rasped in his ear.

"I've got to try to get you up over the side now, Captain . . ." He felt
the other's shoulder under his chest, lifting. The pain swelled, burst
in a cloud of incandescent dust that filled the Universe . . . 

* * *

He was on his back again, feeling the bed of the carryall under him,
jolting, jolting. The sky was a watery gray now, heavy with snow.

"We'll be there soon, Captain," Bartholomew was saying. "Not much
farther now. We'll be there soon . . ." The turbos snarled, driving the
heavy wagon at high speed, changing tone as the ground sloped upward.

"Only a little farther, Captain," Bartholomew said. "Then you'll be all
right . . ."

The car was crawling now, wallowing along in deep snow. The turbos
slowed to a petulant growling. The jolting which had filled the Universe
since the remote beginning of time ceased suddenly, like a vast crystal
soundlessly shattering. Pain poured into the sudden silence. Henry was
aware of snow blowing against his face.

A voice dug at him like a knife. "I'll be back in just a minute, I have
to clear the entry."

Cold seared his face, like frost on an ax blade. How the ax cut as it
struck! But the blows were somehow less now, fading, like a pendulum on
an ancient clock, running down . . . 

Henry blinked. His left eye was glued shut. A heavy weight seemed to
press into his brain. Far away a drumming sound started up, rose to a
steady roaring. It reminded Henry of a waterfall he had seen once on a
low-gravity world, far out toward the galactic rim. Galatea, that was
it. A wide river had wound across a plain and spilled into a gorge,
fanning out into a rainbowed curtain, and the scattered droplets fell
around you, soft and warm . . . 

But the drops were cold snow, and they struck hard, hammering at him
like hailstones . . . 

Bartholomew was standing over him. Snowflakes clung to his cheeks,
melting, running down to drip from his chin. His ship suit glistened
wetly, its shoulders frosted.

"I'm going to lift you again, Captain . . ." Then there was movement,
and pain, and a scent of growing things.

" . . . be all right, Captain . . ." Bartholomew was saying. "All
right . . ."


      *Chapter Six*

The dream beckoned, but first there was something that had to be done.
He tried to remember; his mind seemed to slip away so easily, back into
the soft, distant dream . . . 

He tried again, rousing himself to urgency. /The carryall?it would
betray them. Get rid of it . . . to the east, about three miles, there
were high sea cliffs . . . / 

/And the birds would soar there, floating effortlessly on wide wings,
white and silent under the high sun . . .  / 

"?operating off broadcast power from their ship," Bartholomew was
saying. "They'll follow us?find our hideaway . . ."

Henry could see Bartholomew's face, hollow-cheeked, colorless, unshaven,
his lips black against the pale skin. Poor kid. He hadn't understood
what he was up against . . . 

"Captain?I've got to get rid of the carryall. I'm going to head east.
The map showed the coast?it's only a few miles. Maybe I can run it into
the water . . ."

Henry felt muscles twisting in his face. Good boy, he said clearly?then
realized, with a sudden pang of dismay, that his lips hadn't moved. He
tried to draw a breath?

The jaws of some ravening bird of prey clamped down on him, hurled him
into a red-shot blackness. A rotten log made of fire burst open, and the
grubs writhed there, deep inside him, while time passed like flowing
wax . . . 

* * *

" . . . Captain . . . it went over. It hit an outcropping on the way
down, and bounced out. It hit in deep water and sank. I don't think
there'll be any signal from it. But they can follow the trail. The
snow . . ."

The voice echoed on in the great hall. The lecture was dull. Henry tried
to settle himself comfortably and sleep. But the chair was hard. It cut
into his neck. And someone was shaking him. Morning already. And cold.
He didn't want any breakfast, he was sick. Tell them . . . too sick . . . 

"I salvaged a handgun and some cable, and a med kit, a small box of
rations?and the tarp. I'm going to have to leave you here a few minutes
while I try to find a spot . . ."

* * *

 . . . Something moved in the blackness between the stars. It was a
strange, arrowhead-shaped ship. Light winked from it?and his own ship
leaped and shook. It fled. But the path of its flight was clear in his
tracer tank.

He limped after it. It had homed for the desert world marked on the
charts as Corazon. In the hills he located it?and a lance of light
reached across to touch his ship and the metal flared and burned.

On foot, he moved through darkness, firing a handgun at a strange,
long-legged shape in glittering black silks. He drove it back to its own
ship, to the portal it had landed to build. The door was barred and
locked, but he blasted it in. Then he was inside and it was hand-to-hand.

It was larger, but he was stronger. Finally, it lay still. He looked
down at the strange, peaceful face in the metal room. Face and body,
clothing the bones he had buried . . . when? Yesterday? Then when had
they fought?

But he bore it no ill will. They were both forerunners?outliers of their
people, breakers of new ground, claimers of new worlds. It had beaten
him in space, ship-to-ship, but body-to-body on the ground, he had
beaten and killed it. That was how the chips fell.

 . . . It had completed the receiving end of its portal before he found
it. Wondering, he put his hand through, then stepped past the door into
a new world, with the green sky . . . 

And he had almost forgotten to come back . . . 

* * *

The music was gay. Dulcia, the young Dulcia, was dancing with him at the
Fire Palace . . . There was no need to worry, Dulcie-girl, he was
telling her . . . 

No need . . . He would not leave her defenseless to the wolves, that
much he could still do for her. If young Bartholomew was
salvageable . . . if there was enough in him to make a man . . . the Run
would show it up; and Henry would bring him back. If he was not, if he
was not fit to take care of Dulcia after Henry was gone, then he would
not come back. Henry would see to that. She didn't know. God willing,
she would never know . . . 

The boy was flesh and blood of his father. If he was headed the way his
father had gone, he would never see Aldorado again. Time would tell.
Time . . .  and the Run . . . 

* * *

The music was gay. Dulcia smiled at him small and golden-haired, slim in
a silvery dress with a long skirt, cut in the style of long ago. The
cloth rustled, whispering. It was cold to the touch. Dulcia's face was
cold. How still she lay, under the glaring lights. There was no smile on
the dead lips.

"We tried to reach you, Captain. I didn't know if you'd want to
authorize the surgery; fifty thousand credits?after all, this is not a
charity?"

Blood ran out of the pale, fat face. The hands on his arms were like
paper. He crushed the stones in his hand until blood ran out between his
fingers, and for a moment it seemed the rubies themselves were
bleeding . . . 

He threw them against the antiseptic white floor; they bounded,
sparkling red and green and blue. Stones . . . 

"There's your damned fifty thousand credits! Why didn't you save her life!"

Under the harsh light, the jewels winked against dead tiles. How cold
her face was . . . They pulled at him, and he struck out, but someone
had tied his arms now, and someone had broken his bones, and the pain
was an awful reality that raked at him, roaring in fury . . . 

Eons passed. Mountains rose up from the sea, streaming mud and
innumerable corpses of the microscopic dead. Storms beat about the
peaks; rivers sparkled, carving gorges. The surf rolled across low
beaches, flat in the white sunlight. Ice formed, broke with a booming as
of distant cannon.

He lay in the icy surf, stirred by the breakers that tugged, tugged,
unceasingly.

" . . . have to wake up, Captain. Don't die . . ."

His eye was open. He saw Bartholomew's face quite clearly. /If only he
could explain that he was encased in ice; the boy would understand that
it mustn't be broken, or the pain would flood back in . . . / 

Henry blinked. He saw Bartholomew's expression brighten. The kid was
having a tough time of it. Henry drew a breath; he wanted to tell
him . . . But no voice came.

His tongue?my God, had Tasker cut his tongue out . . . ? With an
agonizing effort, Henry pushed, bit down?

There was a stab of pain like a candle flame against charred wood. He
felt a hot tingle of reaction. His chest moved in a ghost of a laugh.
What did it matter whether a corpse had a tongue . . . ?

Something fumbled at his arm.

"I have the med kit here. This is supposed to kill pain. I hope it
helps, Captain."

It's all right, Larry. I don't feel a thing, as long as I lie still. You
see, I'm inside this cake of warm ice . . . 

/No, dammit. Keep your thoughts clear. This is that last lucid spell
before the end; . . . don't louse it up with fantasies. Poor kid. How
the hell will he get back? It's a long walk; twelve hundred miles,
mountains, deserts, bogs?and winter coming on. He's got a year?a short
Corazonian year?to file his claim . . .  / 

Bartholomew's face was strained. "I'm going to try to set the bones,
Captain. I can do it, all right, I think. I took a course at the State
Institute . . ."

Don't waste time on me, Larry. Tasker's men will be showing up, up
above, any time now. They'll see the tracks, all right. Maybe they'll
come in after us, maybe not. A shame for those bastards to get their
hands on this . . . 

You'd be safe here?if you ran, hid in the woods?but what will you eat?
Maybe, if you start back now, before the snow fills the passes . . . But
it's cold out there; the storm's just starting. It might last a week?or
two weeks. There's nothing to eat here?but if you leave, the wind and
snow will get you. Don't worry about the tabs, they don't matter
anymore. Too bad. Dulcia will be O.K., she's a smart girl?

/But Old Man Bartholomew; I should have figured that angle . . . a tough
old pirate . . . fooled me . . .  / 

"All right, Captain. I'm going to start now."

The real pain began then. It went on and on. After a while Henry forgot
it. He forgot the broken bones and the new world, found and lost again
so soon, and the storm that howled beyond the portal, and the men above
who hunted them and the endless wilderness that stretched to Pango-Ri.
He forgot all these things, and many more, and it was as though they had
never been; and he was alone in the darkness that is between the stars.

* * *

And then he was remembering. First the pain, of course; then the reason
for the pain . . . 

That was a little more difficult. There had been the order to disengage
and pull back to Leadpipe. His boat had been hit . . . a rough landing,
and then the fire. Amos?

Amos was changed. His face?all wrinkled, and his red hair gone?

Amos was dead. Something about a garden, and jewels?and a girl!
Dulcia?but not Dulcia. Only something in her smile, and the curve of her
cheek as she sat by the fire.

Old Man Bartholomew. Don't trust him. He wants?

The Run. Young Bartholomew was with him; smoke, and burned bearings . . . 

No. That was O.K. Just the hand. But maybe they'd piled in?

He opened his eyes . . . 

Just one eye. A knife had done that. But it was a dream. My God, what a
dream. Let it fade, lose itself in the shadows of the night . . . It was
good to be back in his own bed; but the mattress was hard. Where was Dulcia?

"Captain . . . ?"

Henry made out a vague form bending over him. It was a
boy?Larry . . . the name came from somewhere. What was he doing here . . . ?

"I've got some soup for you . . ." Larry's voice shook. He went away.
The light was brighter now. Larry was back. His face was like a skull
with skin stretched over it. He was wearing a false beard half an inch
long. It was ridiculous; Henry wanted to laugh. The false face had
fooled him for a moment.

Something warm touched his lips; an indescribably delicious flavor
flooded his mouth. He felt his throat contract painfully. More of the
warm fluid came. It burned its way down. Henry ate eagerly, lost in the
ecstasy of hunger appeased . . . 

Later, Bartholomew was back.

"I rigged a sort of bunk out of the tarp, to get you up off the ground.
I was worried, Captain. Almost a week. I was afraid you'd starve. I
saved the canned rations for you . . ."

Larry talked. It was a long story he was telling. Henry wondered why he
talked so much. What was it about, anyway . . . ?

" . . . I went up again, three times. I didn't see any signs of
them . . . I saw a few animal tracks. I'm going to try to hunt . . ."

Sometimes he wondered who Larry was, and he would rouse himself to ask,
but always it was too hard, too hard, and he would sink back, and Larry
would lean over him, with anxious eyes, and then the room would fade and
he would roam again through great deserted valleys where icy winds blew
without surcease, toil up lonely hills whose tops were hidden in mist,
following lost voices which called always from beyond the next divide.

* * *

He was looking at a hand?a broken claw, twisted, marked across by
purplish scars, vivid against the pale skin.

Gray light gleamed wanly through a narrow cleft in a wall of rock.
Snowflakes blew in, swirling, to settle melting, in a long puddle.
Shaggy animal hides lay scattered on the floor. A wisp of smoke rose
from a heap of embers against a blackened wall. There was a stack of
blackish firewood, two crude clay dishes and a large pot, a heap of
shredded greens, and a joint of purplish-black meat. It was a strange
dream?almost real.

Henry moved to push himself up to a sitting position. There was a weight
against his chest, pressing him back. He gritted his teeth, raised
himself to one elbow. An odor of wood smoke and burned meat hunt in the
air, and a thick, cloying reek of uncured hides. A coarse-haired fur lay
across his lap. He reached to throw it back?

His head rang from the blow it took as he fell. What the hell was wrong
with him? Drugged, maybe?

His eye fell on the butt of a Mark IX pistol. Beside it was a pair of
boots, caked with mud?and with a darker stain.

His boots. Quite suddenly, he remembered.

Tasker, and the little man, Gus. He had supplied the scalpel. They had
strung him up, and carved him into strips. And he had died, and gone to
hell.

And now he was here, alive.

Strange.

A pulse thudded like the beat of a hammer in Henry's temples. Larry
Bartholomew had killed Tasker?and Gus. Some kid! Well, life was full of
surprises. And he had brought him here?somehow?and kept him alive.

Henry moved then, pushed him over, face down, got his hands under him,
pushed himself up to a sitting position. His left hand?it was useless, a
frozen tangle of broken fingers. But the right?it would hold a gun . . . 

No telling how long the boy had wasted here, nursing him back to a dim
half life. Feeding soup to a broken body that should have died . . . 

He could reach the blaster; one quick squeeze, and the agony would be
over. And Larry could make a start for Pango-Ri. Henry dragged himself,
feeling the cold of the rough wet floor against his body. He rested,
with his face against the stone. He had a beard, he noticed. He touched
it with his left hand; over half an inch; a month's growth, anyway.
Damn! A wasted month, with winter setting in. If the boy had started
back as soon as he had killed Tasker . . . 

He reached the plastic case by the pallet of furs, fumbled the blaster
out. He set it on narrow beam, dragged it up until the cold muzzle
pressed against the thudding pulse above his ear?pressed the firing stud.

Nothing happened. The blaster fell with a clatter. He lay, limp,
breathing in wracking, shallow gasps.

He'd never committed suicide before. It was quite an experience. Even
when it didn't work.

Larry had used the blaster for hunting, exhausted the charge. So much
for the easy way. Now, he would have to crawl outside?as soon as the
faintness passed.

* * *

Bartholomew was squatting beside him. "Easy, Captain. Easy. You're
better! You crawled all that way?but what in the name of sanity were you
doing? It's cold over here . . ."

Henry looked at Bartholomew leaning over him, draped in a long-haired
animal hide. His face had aged; the skin was rough, scored red by the
wind and snow, with a network of tiny red veins across the cheekbones,
from frostbite. His beard was thick, black, curling around his mouth,
meeting the tangle of overlong hair about his ears. There were lines
beside the mouth. He was holding up two bedraggled creatures, half
rabbit, half bird.

"I'll broil these, Captain! They ought to be good! You should be able to
take a little solid food now!"

Bartholomew bustled over the crude pots. "You'll feel even better after
you eat, Captain. I've got some plant hearts here?ice bushes, I call
them?they're not bad. I've tried just about everything. We need some
sort of fresh vegetable along with the meat. And hunting's getting
harder up above, Captain. There seems to be no wildlife?out there . . ."
He nodded toward the shimmering wall.

He talked, building up the fire, setting out pots, cutting up the small
carcasses with a short-bladed pocketknife. He roasted the animals whole,
then cut off choice bits, fed them to Henry with his fingers. Henry's
mouth gulped them down like an automatic disposer, as though his
appetite were a thing apart from the rest of his body.

"Captain, soon you'll be strong enough to talk; we have so many things
to discuss?so many plans to make."

With a mighty effort, Henry pushed the food away, shook his head.
Bartholomew stared at him, then at the bit of meat in his fingers.

"You must eat, Captain?"

Henry shook his head again, fell back, breathing hard, his eyes fixed on
Bartholomew's.

"What is it, Captain?" Bartholomew put the clay pot of meat aside,
crouched over Henry. "What's wrong?" His expression changed abruptly.

"Captain, you CAN hear me . . . ?"

Henry managed a nod.

"And you're strong enough?you eat easily enough. Captain?why don't you
speak?"

Henry felt the pulse throb in his temples. He drew a breath,
concentrated every ounce of energy on forming a word . . . 

A grunt . . . 

"You /know/ me, don't you, Captain? I'm Larry?"

Henry nodded.

"You were injured. But you're safe here now. You understand that, don't
you?"

Henry nodded.

"Then?why don't you speak?"

Henry's chest rose and fell, rose and fell. Perspiration trickled down
the side of his face.

Bartholomew's face stiffened. His hand dropped from Henry's shoulder.

"Good Lord, Captain . . ." His voice broke. "You haven't spoken?because
you can't! Your voice is gone; you're a mute . . . !"

* * *

"It's all right," Bartholomew was saying. "It must have been the shock;
I've heard of such things. You'll get your voice back eventually.
Meanwhile, I'll just ask you questions?and you can nod, or shake your
head. All right?"

Henry nodded. Bartholomew settled himself, pulled his fur about his
shoulders, adjusted Henry's malodorous coverlet.

"Are you comfortable? Warm enough?"

Henry nodded impatiently, watching Bartholomew's face. /To hell with
that! Ask me about the weather, the mountains, the winter setting
in . . . / 

"Do you remember . . . what happened?" Bartholomew looked anxious. Henry
nodded. Bartholomew swallowed. "You . . . were right, of course,
Captain. I . . . I never dreamed such men really existed?"

Henry raised his head. /Why didn't the boy get on with it?get to the
important things?/ 

"I've concentrated on hunting and gathering firewood. In the evening,
I've been skinning animals, and trying to scrape the hides and sew them
together . . ." He tugged at his cape; the green hide crackled. "I'm
afraid I'm not very good at it. And I made the pots from clay?there are
great slabs of it along the river?" He broke off.

"But, of course, that's not important. Captain, do you suppose they'll
send out search parties from Pango-Ri?"

Henry shook his head.

"They won't find us . . . ?" Bartholomew's voice trailed off. Henry
opened his eye. /Now they would be getting to the point . . . / 

"I suppose I knew that . . . with a whole world to be lost in. But we're
running out of food. Game is getting scarcer?the cold, I suppose. And I
haven't dared try anything from?the other side . . ."

Bartholomew was getting to his feet. "You're tired, Captain. You'd
better sleep now. We'll talk again tomorrow?"

Henry tried to sit up, shaking his head, watching Larry's face.

"But I'll bring you food, Captain?and I'll keep the fire up. You'll see!
We'll be fine, Captain. And you'll get better?soon . . ."

There were tears on Bartholomew's face. He wiped at his eyes with the
back of his hand. "You have to be all right, Captain!"

/Yeah. Otherwise little Larry Bartholomew would be on his own. So that
was what was bothering him . . .  / 

"I think I understand, Captain. You think that you might slow me down?be
a, well, burden. Nonsense! We'll wait here until the worst of the cold
weather has passed, and by then you'll be?"

Henry was shaking his head.

"You're thinking of the claim? The time limit?"

Henry shook his head.

"Then you think?we won't manage through the winter?"

Henry nodded, waiting for the next question . . . 

Bartholomew chewed his lip. "Then you'll just have to hurry up and get
well, Captain."

Henry shook his head wearily.

"Oh, yes you will, Captain. I'm not leaving without you."

Henry nodded angrily.

"You feel we'll have to go soon?before the weather gets even worse. Very
well; I understand. We'll go as soon as you're ready?and don't bother
shaking your head?I'm not going without you. So if you want me to get
back and file the claim, you'll have to try very hard to get well,
Captain. You see that, don't you?"

Henry looked at Bartholomew. There were fine lines around his eyes?the
weeks of no sleep, overwork, and cold had left their marks. His eyes
held steady on Henry's.

Henry opened his mouth; Bartholomew fed him a charred lump. He sighed
and lay with closed eyes, chewing the rank, tough meat.

 

 

 

 


      *Chapter Seven*

"You're sitting up very nicely, Captain," Bartholomew nodded and smiled.
"Perhaps tomorrow you can try standing."

Henry shook his head. He laid the bowl aside, fumbled with his hands for
a grip on the wall beside him.

"I don't think you ought to try it yet . . ." Bartholomew fluttered,
then took Henry's arm. "But I suppose you're determined . . ."

Henry gripped Bartholomew's shoulder. It felt solid under his hand;
hunting and hauling wood and rope-climbing were filling out the boy's
lean frame. Then he let go, leaned against the wall.

It was a strange feeling to be standing again?or almost
standing?after?how long? Six weeks now? His legs were like rotten sticks.

"Captain, that's marvelous; now you'd better lie down again?"

Henry held on, straining to move the left leg; it hung limp and dead. He
clamped his teeth, heaved; the leg twitched. O.K.; at least it wasn't
paralyzed. Now the right . . . 

"Really, Captain . . ."

Henry struggled, concentrating on the leg. It was the bad one; the
broken knee hadn't turned out too well. He leaned his weight on the left
leg, the toes of the crooked right leg just touching the floor. He was
already dizzy?and all he'd done so far was get to his feet and lean on
the wall.

Bartholomew moved to help him. "Careful, Captain, you can't afford a fall?"

He shook his head, elbowed himself from the wall, stood teetering. /God,
how the hell did a kid ever learn this balancing act!/ He put the short
leg forward, then hopped. His leg was like a stick of soft clay.
Bartholomew was chewing his lip, getting ready to jump for him . . . 

The right leg again; another hop. /Watch it; almost went over that time/.

"Wonderful, Captain! That's enough for this time. Let me help you back
now." He came across, reached for Henry's arm. Henry motioned him back.
/One more step first/. He took a breath, felt his heart thud. /To hell
with the pain; that's nothing. Getting across the room?it just takes one
more step. And another. And another . . . / 

* * *

"I don't like that wind, Captain. You shouldn't try it today. Probably
tomorrow it will have died down. After two months, another day won't
matter." Bartholomew looked at him anxiously.

Wrapped in his stiff fur clothing, Henry pushed at the cape with the
twisted left hand, gripped the stick with the right. It was amazing how
much you could do with a hand, even with three fingers broken and stiff,
as long as the tendons hadn't been cut.

He moved across to the entry with his hopping gait, his left elbow
pressed to the side where badly mended ribs ached under their tight
binding. The scars on his face itched under the two-inch beard?a tangle
of gray and white. He staggered as the icy wind whipped through the
opening; Bartholomew boosted and hauled him up, out into the stinging
mist of blown snow. He squinted his eye against the cold that cut at him
like a great knife; the cape lifted, slapping at his back. His breath
seemed to choke off in his throat. He took a step; Bartholomew was
beside him, his arm under Henry's. "Watch out, Captain! That breeze is
pretty strong."

Bartholomew tightened Henry's pack straps. He moved his shoulders, felt
the dull pang from his left side. The coat Bartholomew had stitched up
for him felt better now; and his boots fitted better, too, with the fur
linings stuffed inside.

"Captain, are you sure it wouldn't be better to wait until tomorrow,
just on the off-chance?"

Henry shook his head, started unsteadily across toward the edge of the
grove.

The prints of Larry's shaggy homemade mukluks were bare patches of black
rock through the powdery snow. They led up a sharp incline among tumbled
boulders. Henry fought his way up, scrabbling with one hand and an
elbow, groping with feet that were like old boots filled with ice water.

There was Larry's face, Larry's hand reaching out to help, Larry's
voice: " . . . we've made a start! We're on our way!"

/Uh-huh. We've gone fifty feet. Only twelve hundred miles to go. / 

Henry ducked his head against the wind, started off down the
blizzard-swept slope. Forget about the pain. Walk as if you knew how.
What's pain, anyway? Nature's little warning. O.K. I've been warned.
Just make the legs work, one after the other, and don't think about
anything else. 

* * *

It was hard, counting the paces. Ten; and then fifteen. Then twenty.
Five times that, and it would be a hundred. Nine more hundred and it
would be a thousand. Another couple of thousand, and I'll have walked a
mile. 

Where was I? Twenty-five? Four times twenty-five is a hundred . . . 

To hell with that. All right so far. Thirty paces. Thirty-one steps from
the room; thirty-two crab steps away from the next by the fire . . . God
how it hurts . . . 

Bartholomew's hand was under his arm. "You're doing fine, Captain." He
had to yell to make himself heard over the shrilling of the wind,
through the muffling fur turned up about Henry's ears. The boy hadn't
done a bad job, making the parkas. And he'd killed the animals and
skinned them out, too. Not bad, for a lad who'd never chased anything
livelier than a statistic in his life. Larry might make it; stranger
things had happened. If he didn't panic. If he had luck with the
hunting, before he tackled the passes. If he didn't get lost. If?

If he had a magic carpet, he could fly back to Pango-Ri. Never mind the ifs.

Damn! He'd lost count again. Call it fifty. Still on my feet. Getting a
little numb, but that's O.K.; I can't feel the wind now. Frostbite is
the least of my worries. Fifty-five. Thank God the ground's level here,
no gullies to scramble through. Just put the foot, hop, put the foot,
hop. It's easy. Just do it enough, then you can rest. Lie down in this
nice white, clean stuff, and dream off into wherever it is that memories
go when they're forgotten, and let Larry get on with the business of
surviving . . .  

He was aware of Bartholomew's hand on his arm.

"Half a mile, Captain. The going gets a little rough ahead, I'm afraid.
Broken ground, and rock fragments?"

Henry's foot caught on an upjutting projection; he stumbled, tried to
stiffen his legs; they folded like paper. He went down, sagging in
Bartholomew's arms.

"I'm sorry, Captain! I should have stopped for a break before now, but
you were moving along so well . . ." Henry slumped in the snow. His
chest burned; the right knee pulsed like a great boil, ready for
lancing. His side?the damned ribs felt as though they hadn't even
started to knit; the raw ends were grating together . . . 

"A few minutes' rest . . . you'll feel better . . ." Bartholomew fumbled
in his monstrous pack, brought out something. He worked over it . . . 

An odor of hot stew struck Henry's nostrils with an almost painful
intensity; his salivary glands leaped into action with a stab like a hot
needle behind his jaws.

"I saved this, Captain . . . for the march."

Then he was chewing, swallowing. Food. It was better than rest, better
than warmth, better than the most elaborate pleasures devised in the
harems of kings. He finished, pushing himself to a sitting position, got
his feet under him. Larry was helping him up. He stood, still tasting
the wonderful stew.

"Watch your footing now, Captain." Bartholomew's hand was under his arm;
he leaned on it, tried a step. It worked. Ahead, the gray landscape
stretched off into the mist of blown snow. It was a little like life?a
foggy vista into which you pressed on, and on. And when you had gone as
far as you could?and you fell and the snow covered you?the unknown goal
was as far ahead, as unattainable as ever . . . 

* * *

The knee was the worst part; his face was nicely anesthetized by the
cold, and the side had settled down to a dull explosion that pulsed in
counterpoint to the fire in his lungs, and the drag-hop, drag-hop was a
routine, like breathing, that seemed to carry itself along by its own
momentum. But the knee . . . Surely, there were bone chips grinding the
flesh to shreds. The pain ran up to his hips, down to his ankle.

They had stopped. Henry looked around, saw nothing but endless snow.

"We've done a mile and a half, Captain. Shall we take a short rest now?"
Bartholomew's voice was an irritation, penetrating the simple equation
of agony and endurance. Henry shook his head; he took a step, faltered
for a moment, then caught up the rhythm again.

He drew a deep breath; that was a mistake?the fire leaped up, chokingly,
died slowly back to the cozy bed of red-hot embers. That was fine; it
was keeping him warm. But the knee . . . How long could a man walk on a
broken leg? There was only one way to find out.

Later, he was sitting with his back against a drift of snow, the bad
knee propped before him, the pain only a remote thump, like a doctor's
rubber mallet against a wooden leg. Bartholomew had his arm, doing
something to it. He felt a brief pang of a hypospray.

The snow was red, cut by the black shadows of tall trees.

"We'll camp here, where we have a little shelter," Bartholomew said. He
was roasting a curiously scaled and beaked creature with a meaty tail,
over a tiny fire.

"This is some sort of relative of the rabbity things I shot, back at the
portal. I'm sure it will be edible. A pity it smells so much like
burning butadiene."

Henry stared into the small, bluish flames. It had been a memorable day.
Walking, falling, getting up, walking . . . 

"I think it's done, Captain." Bartholomew took the roast from the spit,
sawed off a joint, passed it over to Henry. "I think we're going to be
all right for game from now on; there are a lot of these fellows around.
I shot three; I'm letting them freeze as reserve supplies."

Good boy. Hang on to the food. Twenty thousand feet; that's four miles,
straight up. Figure an average thirty-degree slope . . . A squared plus
B squared . . . call it a nine-mile trek to the summit of the pass. It
might be possible. It depended on things like snow depths, winds, unseen
crevasses, avalanches, snow blindness, or little unscalable rock faces a
few inches higher than a man could jump . . . 

Better tell him to rig some grapple hooks?out of what? And how to tell
him? Tramp out letters in the snow?

The meat was good?a little like turtle flesh, but tenderer. There was no
salt, no melted butter, no silver and linen and thin glass and fragile
porcelain, no candles and wine . . . but by God, it was as rare a feast
as had ever been laid before a hungry man.

"More, Captain? It's rather good, isn't it? I wonder if the animals
would be easy to raise, commercially? It's a mystery what they live on;
nothing here but rock and ice . . ."

Bart rambled on. Henry half-listened, his mind drifting off on side
trails. Old Man Bartholomew; would he live up to his agreement?if Larry
did get back with the claim? Too bad Amos wasn't there, to look out for
Dulcie's interests. He'd wanted to come pretty bad. Poor Amos. But maybe
he was lucky at that. His death hadn't been an easy one, but then these
last few weeks were a memory a man could do without, too . . . 

"We'd better tuck in now, Captain. A long day ahead tomorrow."

Henry nodded, managed to move, crawl the three feet to the tiny tent.
Bartholomew helped him inside; God, how it stank! But it broke the force
of the wind, and kept the snow out of his face. He pulled his blanket of
fur over him, settled himself. So this was the way it ends; you eat
dinner, and go to bed . . . Henry closed his eyes. And that was that . . .  

* * *

There was a smell of vulcanizing rubber, and for an instant, Henry was
back in a town on a small, backward world called Northroyal, standing in
the tree-shaded courtyard of an inn, watching the stableman weld a new
set of retreads to the worn wheels of the little red two-seater that he
and Dulcia had driven down from the port . . . 

"Breakfast is about ready, Captain," Bartholomew was silhouetted against
the pale light that filtered through the tent flap. The cold bit at
Henry's nose like pliers. He moved, felt stabs from every joint.

/Doctor prescribes long, invigorating walks in the open air for the
patient; this is guaranteed to give him an understanding of how a mummy
would feel, if you unwrapped him in a cold-storage vault . . .  / 

He lay, listening to the thump of his heart, the rasp of breath in his
throat. So he was still alive! He moved his right leg tentatively.
Fresh, vivid pain flooded up from it. Oh yes, he was alive, all right!
That wasn't what the program had called for. When a man?sick unto death,
with more half-healed wounds than the average accident ward,
undernourished and poorly clad?spent a long day overexerting in
sub-freezing weather?and then went to sleep in the snow?he was expected
to die of exposure, if nothing else.

But instead, he was alive?awake?still a dead weight on young
Bartholomew's back?and time was running out even for a healthy man,
alone, to have a chance of making it.

Henry drew a deep breath; his chest gave a dutiful stab of agony. He got
his hands under him, sat up. There was a moment of vertigo; the ribs
complained a little more. He rolled over, worked his way out of the
tent, feeling the icy fingers of the fitful morning breeze nipping at
him. The food smelled better now; he was getting used to the stink.
Knowing how it tasted helped; it was like cheese in that respect. He
took a mouthful of snow, let it melt and trickle down. Bartholomew
handed across a slab of meat. Henry bit into it. It was burned on the
outside, chilled in the center. He ate it hungrily.

"I slept on the breakfast steaks, Captain," Bartholomew said cheerfully.
"Didn't want them to freeze. We're getting an early start; sun won't be
up for another half hour."

Life was a perverse damned phenomenon; if there were a prize waiting for
him just across the next rise, a pretty girl, a bank account, a
vacation, all expenses paid?

He'd have dropped dead a hundred yards from the cave.

But all there was was twelve hundred miles of wilderness or maybe eleven
hundred and ninety-five, now. And he was good for another hour, or two,
three, of dragging himself on, spinning out the declining threads . . . 

"The wind's behind us now," Bartholomew said. "That will help some, of
course, but I imagine it will bring colder weather. I'd say it's down
close to thirty degrees of frost now. I suppose a little more won't make
much difference."

/No, not much; it would just freeze you, standing up, between one step
and the next; it would kill a patch of exposed skin quicker than a dozen
unshielded megacuries. But that might make it easier; a fast death was
more fun any day than this teasing along . . .  / 

Bartholomew folded the tent, strapped up his pack, hoisted it onto his
back. He stood before Henry.

The damned fool was actually grinning.

"We're going to make good time today, Captain. I have a feeling." He
took Henry's arm; Henry shrugged him off, got to his feet unassisted.
Why the hell had he been letting the boy waste strength, supporting him,
saving his own waning vitality? It was almost as though dying wasn't
what he wanted at all . . . 

* * *

Later, he was sure it was. It wasn't as though there were any hope of
surcease, ever; the supply of miles was limitless; the depths of cold
only skimmed so far. And if some weatherproof St. Bernard came along
now, with a keg of miracles hung around his neck?

He'd still be a mute, one-eyed cripple, pitifully maimed, horribly
scarred, lacking all sorts of useful parts. A man wouldn't want to live
in that condition, even if he weren't a drag on the living. That was
simple enough. Why, then, did he go on, head down, parka hood pulled
close about his face, lurching grotesquely onward, teeth clenched
against the pain, while thoughts of food, and warm beds, and blessed
rest tormented him like jeering imps?

Time lost its meaning. There are an infinity of infinities within
infinity; and an infinity of eternities within eternity. Forever passed,
while he endured; then there was a time of lying in the snow, mindless
with exhaustion, and then the brief, sharp sensation of food, and then
again, eternity . . . 

The sun was high, a pale disk in a glaring sky; later it hung in the
west, shedding its cold light without the faintest hint of heat, smaller
than it should be, subtly the wrong color. Bartholomew was moving about,
making a fire, chattering.

" . . . a good twelve miles, I'd estimate. And the mountains are closer
than we thought. It's the misty air; it makes things look far away.
We're almost into the foothills now; the ground was rising for the last
hour's hike today . . ."

The voice tuned in and out.

" . . . do you agree, Captain?"

Was the boy still asking questions of the oracle?the halt, the lame, the
half-blind oracle, dying before his eyes?

/Sure. Anything you say. It doesn't matter. Let's get going./ Henry
swallowed, got to his feet, pulled away angrily as Bartholomew attempted
to help him with his pack. The younger man started off, stamping away
through foot-deep snow; and Henry followed.

* * *

The peak loomed over them, dominating the sky. The wind had shifted
again, blowing across the slope from the west now, bringing a stinging
hail of snow particles. The drifts were deeper here?dry, powdery drifts,
that flowed underfoot like desert dust, each footprint sending down a
minor avalanche. Henry's eye burned from the white glare. Ahead,
Bartholomew stamped on, long-legged, tall, bounding up the slope like a
deer, then waiting while Henry dragged his way up behind him.

"I don't like the look of the clouds, Captain," he called. "They have a
sort of yellowish tinge; I'm afraid that means more snow . . . And it's
getting dark fast . . ."

Henry came up, kept going; the long slope stretched ahead, white,
smooth, blue-shadowed, rising in an unbroken sweep to the far heights of
the pass. Why waste time talking about the weather? Just keep going, up,
up, into the cold, into the thin air, thinking about nothing except the
fact that it was reach the summit?or die here.

* * *

He had fallen, and Bartholomew was pulling at his arm. Henry groped, got
his feet under him, struggled up. Couldn't let the boy waste his
strength. Had to go on . . . as far as he could . . . walk on until the
plunging heart burst. Maybe someday their bodies would be found, frozen
deep inside a glacier of blue ice, preserved intact, a silent memento of
the old days, long ago, when men had come, barehanded, to tame the alien
world . . . 

He was down again. Bartholomew's hands hauled at him. The wind howled,
drowning the boy's words. He shook his head; heavy, wet snow was caked
against his lips, his eye. He thrust with his feet, found a purchase,
crawled forward another foot. It was easier this way. The ground sloped
steeply up here. He reached, with one hand and one crippled claw; his
feet groped. Another foot. Where was Larry now? Good boy; not wasting
his strength any more. Gone on ahead . . . He could rest now . . . 

Bartholomew was back, pulling at him. Still at it . . . still determined
to coax a dead man over a mountain. Couldn't let the boy wear himself
out that way . . . Go on, a little farther. Die, body . . . Die, and let
both of us rest . . . 

* * *

He couldn't remember why the operation was necessary. It had been going
on for such a long time. The anesthetic was wearing off; he could feel
the scalpel cutting in?cutting into his eye?

No, it was his knee. They had cut it off, and now they were welding a
steel joint in place. The fools. You couldn't weld steel to flesh! And
the gas he was breathing; the welding torch had started a fire; the gas
was burning, and he was breathing in the pale flames, the blue fire that
was burning his chest out . . . 

It was a hell of a funeral. The pallbearers were carrying him, head
down?without even a coffin. A man needed a coffin. It was cold, when you
were dead, without a box to keep off the icy wind. And they had stripped
the body, too. And someone had cut off his hands, and his feet?

The stumps ached?but not as badly as the knee. They had tried to cut
that off, too, but it had been too hard. That was because it was made of
steel . . . 

The explosion jarred Henry alive. The end of the world. In a moment the
other bodies which had been blown out of the graveyard would come
raining down . . . 

" . . . sorry . . . Captain . . ."

There was one of them now. Not a body, though. It had spoken.

What were the words? Sorry . . . 

Oh, how sorry a man was, once it was all over?sorry for all the lost
opportunities, all the cruel words, all the joys untasted, all the
little trusts betrayed . . . 

"Couldn't be . . . much farther . . ." Henry heard. /Much farther. Much
farther . . . / 

" . . . a minute . . . try again . . ."

Try again. If only a man could. The awful thing about death was the
barrier that stood between you and all the things that you should have
done, once, long ago, when you were still alive.

But if you could push through the barrier . . . 

Perhaps if you tried . . . 

There had been something that someone had wanted. It had been a simple
thing, if he could only remember . . . 

"Please, Captain. Wake up. Wake up . . ."

That was it. He had to wake up. That meant to open his eye . . . 

No, that was too hard. It was easier just to pretend he was awake?and
who would know the difference? It was a clever idea. Henry wanted to
laugh aloud. He would pretend to be awake. He would move his legs?that
was important, he seemed to know, somehow?and his arms . . . 

One arm was gone. Yes, someone had cut it off once?But the other was
there. It had a steel hand at the end of it, and he would reach out,
catch it on something, pull, then reach out again . . . 

* * *

The shout rang, loud and clear?cut off quickly. Henry waited, listening.
He heard the screech of wind, the beat of blood inside his skull;
nothing more.

He was on a mountain?he remembered that. He remembered the funeral
clearly . . . 

But someone had shouted. He was alone, here, on the mountain that dead
men climbed?and yet a shout had sounded just ahead . . . 

His arm was a grappling hook. He threw it out, caught it, pulled himself
forward. It was not an easy way to travel, but it seemed correct,
somehow. He pulled, reached again, touched nothing. Strange. He pushed
with his feet, stretching . . . 

The world was tilting under him. He poised for a dizzy moment, hanging
in air?and then he was falling?and then a shock, an instant of wrenching
pain?and a vast softness that enveloped him in silence through which,
far away, a voice called.

* * *

There was an odor of wood smoke and hot food. Henry pried an eye open.
He was half sitting, half lying against a fur-padded wall of rock.
Overhead, a ledge slanted down to a curtain of animal hides. Beside him,
Bartholomew squatted by a small fire, feeding twigs to the flames.

"Just in time for dinner," Bartholomew croaked. His eyes were bright,
set deep in a weather-ravaged face above an ice-matted black beard. "I
dug you out of the snowbank; it broke your fall."

Henry's hands ached. He lifted one, stared at flushed, dusky-red fingers.

"Your hands were pretty cold, Captain, but I massaged them by the fire;
I think they'll be all right. My feet were a bit chilled, too."

Henry looked, saw bloody rags of fur wrapped around Bartholomew's lower
legs. He leaned back, closed his eyes.

"You understand, don't you, Captain?" Bartholomew said hoarsely. "We've
made it across the mountains; we're over the pass and a couple of
hundred feet down the south slope. We're going to make it, Captain!
We're going to make it . . ."


      *Chapter Eight*

Standing in the autumnal clearing, Captain Henry pressed the stiff
fingers of his right hand against his thigh; pain shot up to his elbow.
He pressed harder. The knuckle joints yelled reluctantly; the fingers
bent a quarter of an inch.

There was a sound of footsteps tramping through underbrush. Bartholomew
came into view, black-bearded, wide-shouldered; there were half a dozen
bug-eyed, thin-bodied animals looped to his belt. He tossed them down,
unslung his bow and quiver, crouched in the snow by the fire with the
short-bladed knife he used for skinning.

"Spider rats," he said. "No other game."

Henry picked up the bow clumsily with his stiff-fingered right hand,
looked at it critically, then pointed to the game and nodded.

"I'm getting quite accurate," Bartholomew said. "I picked off that last
fellow at over thirty yards."

Henry drew the blaster clumsily from the holster at his hip, closed his
thumb and little finger around it, tried to fit his forefinger around
the firing stud. The gun dropped to the ground. Henry shook his head
angrily, bent stiffly to pick up the weapon, holstered it, and resumed
his pacing, working at the stiff fingers.

"I saw traces of another camp fire," Bartholomew said. "Not over a week
old."

Henry picked up a stick, smoothed a muddy patch with his boot, scratched
words. Bartholomew craned to read them:

 

WE'LL SET WATCH TONIGHT

 

Bartholomew nodded. He reached up, caught a three-inch branch, with a
pull brought it crashing down. He stripped off the twigs and broke it
over his knees. His leather jerkin had split up the side, days before;
through the tear, Henry could see the play of heavy lateral muscles
under the shirt. His face was burned dark by the weather; the powerful
lines of his neck rose from wide, solid shoulders. His forearm, wrist,
hand were tanned, sinewy. He had changed, these last months on the trail.

There was a flicker of motion among the trees; Bartholomew dropped,
whipped his bow clear, and nocked an arrow in one motion. Henry hauled
the blaster from the holster at his side. His fingers closed clumsily on
the grip. A long-legged, long-necked creature bounded from a coppice,
scrambled up the slope, kicking up a scatter of rotted vegetation. Henry
brought the blaster up, fumbled at the firing stud. A brief glare winked
against the nearby tree trunks?

Bartholomew's bow twanged; an arrow flashed. The beast stumbled, struck,
and rolled, kicking, coming to rest with oddly joined legs atangle.

The two men moved up; Bartholomew's bolt projected from behind the left
shoulder blade, the bare-scraped wood white against the smooth gray
pelt. Beyond, a wisp of smoke curled up from a tree trunk, scorched by
Henry's miss.

Bartholomew took out the skinning knife, set to work. Henry picked up
the empty water bottle in his better hand, set off downslope. A hundred
feet from the clearing he halted abruptly, peering through underbrush at
a hut among the trees.

It was a flimsy construction of prefab plastic panels. Around it,
nothing stirred. There were two small windows on the side facing him;
dark, empty squares of translucent plastic. Dead leaves were drifted
against the side of the shack; wild spring flowers clustered about a
weathered refuse heap.

He moved back softly, retraced his steps to the clearing where
Bartholomew was turning steaks over the fire. As the young man looked
up, Henry motioned. Bartholomew's bow leaped into his hand.

Henry turned, led the way back through the deep forest trail. They
circled the hut, moved closer. A quarter of an hour later they stood by
the front of the deserted structure. There was a blaster burn on the
curled plastic panel. The door hung open, its lock broken. Henry stepped
through into an odor of mold and decay. A badly rotted corpse was curled
in a corner. Behind Henry, Bartholomew peered at the shriveled face.
Henry went across to a weather-stained chest, pulled open a drawer; a
twelve-legged spider leaped out, scuttled away.

"They deliberately smashed everything before they abandoned the
place . . ." Bartholomew opened a wall locker. Dusty garments dangled
from hooks. He pulled out a musty ship suit, tried the control; the
fabric warmed to the touch.

"Here, Captain?you'll sleep warm from now on."

Henry's scarred face twitched in a crooked smile. He began stripping
away his rotted furs.

Bartholomew took a box from the shelf, opened it. "They left us a few
amenities! God, won't it be wonderful to wash?and get rid of these
ghastly whiskers?"

* * *

Henry looked into the mirror; under grizzled brows, a single bright eye
set in a gray-whiskered face carved of scarred and ancient leather
stared back at him. Lank white hair fell in tangles to his shoulders.
Behind him, Bartholomew's scissors snicked. He caught Henry's eye in the
mirror.

"Captain, I wonder?the scars . . . What I mean is, your beard?I think
it's quite distinguished-looking . . ."

Henry's mouth twisted in amusement. He nodded.

"I'll just trim it up a little . . ." Bartholomew snipped carefully at
Henry's tangled mane, then shaped the three-inch beard before starting
on his own snarled black curls.

He trimmed his hair short, clipped the beard away, then lathered and
shaved with the old-fashioned blade razor.

"That's a bit better . . ." He stared at himself in the cracked mirror.
"I've changed, Captain," he said. "I don't think I'd know myself . . ."

Henry watched as Larry pulled on the ship suit, zipped it up; it was a
snug fit over his solid chest and filled-out shoulders.

"Clothes make a difference," Larry said. "Suddenly I remember some of
the comforts we've done without for a hundred and ninety days."

He threw a sharp look Captain Henry's way. "We've come over eleven
hundred miles, by my reckoning. We can't have much farther to go."

Henry nodded briefly. He went outside, picked a spot where soft ferns
padded the ground, stretched out. Bartholomew followed.

"That's the idea, Captain; get some rest." Larry took a spot beside Henry.

"It's been over six standard months since we left Pango-Ri," he said
thoughtfully. "They'll have forgotten all about us by now. When we reach
the port, suppose you go along to arrange for our passage out, and I'll
register the tabs . . ."

Henry glanced at him.

"It's in both our names, of course," Larry added. "Either of us can file
it. If one of us is killed, the survivor gets it all."

Henry's eyes narrowed. His glance held on Larry's face as the sunlight
struck across it, highlighting the new muscle of the jaw, the squareness
of the features. Henry frowned. Larry frowned in response.

"What's the matter? You think there'll be trouble?"

Henry smiled faintly. The eyes of the young man were seasoned now, and
wary. As Henry watched, they grimmed and harshened. For the first time
Henry noticed how the black eyebrows above those eyes had thickened and
begun to resemble the dark and angry eyebrows of Bartholomew senior.

The Run would toughen a man?but a toughened man could go either to the
good or the bad. Larry had yet to show which way events here on Corazon
had turned him?toward someone who would be good for Dulcia?or toward
being his father's son. If he was his father's son, it would be the
worth of their claim that would be filling his mind now . . . 

"Well, never mind now," said Larry abruptly. "Let's get a good night's
sleep. We'll talk about it in the morning."

The sun woke Henry, shining in his eyes. A piece of paper was pegged to
the ground beside him with a rusted kitchen knife from the cabin. He
unfolded it.

* * *

I'M GOING ON AHEAD TO PANGO-RI. ALONE, I CAN TRAVEL FASTER. IF THERE'S
TROUBLE, I'M IN BETTER SHAPE TO HANDLE IT THAN YOU. BY THE TIME YOU GET
TO PANGO-RI THE CLAIM WILL BE FILED. AND A WORD TO THE WISE?WATCH
YOURSELF COMING INTO TOWN.

LARRY

* * *

Henry crumpled the paper savagely, hurled it from him. He caught up his
pack, stuffed it hastily with what provisions Larry had left him, pulled
it onto his back, glanced at the sun, and set out southward.

* * *

Two days later, he struck a raw, unpaved road, rutted and potholed,
slashing through the dense timber like a wound.

After an hour, a heavy truck came into view from the north, its
air-cushion jets spattering wide sheets of mud. It halted, settled into
the muck; a red-faced man opened the cab, leaned out.

"You got a long walk ahead of you, pal, if you're headed for Pango; it's
a hundred and thirty miles. You better hop aboard." He looked at Henry,
lowered his voice. "What happened to you, brother?"

Henry swung aboard, flashed the driver a quick smile.

"Cautious, too, hey? Well, can't say as I blame you." He let in the
clutch and the truck heaved itself up, moved off in a howl of worn turbos.

* * *

Five hours later, Henry dropped from the truck at the edge of the
sprawling new city that had sprung up around the booming port of
Pango-Ri. The driver waved.

"Good luck, pal. You ain't much company, but I'll say this fer ya?you
don't talk a guy's ear off . . ." He gunned the truck. Henry watched him
out of sight, then set off as quickly as his crippled knee would allow
toward the shabby towers that had risen where Tent Town had been.

* * *

The crowd at the Solar Corona had changed. The bustling women were gone;
the loudmouthed hopefuls had disappeared; the hard-drinking adventurers
had sought cheerier surroundings for their dissipations.

Now half a dozen stony-faced teamsters hunched over the shabby bar where
a dyed slattern poured undersized drinks from a finger-stained bottle.
At a back table, a group of sullen-eyed men nursed thick glasses. The
late evening street noises seemed remote, far away.

Henry took a seat in a booth halfway down the room, signaled for a
sealed bottle, poured an inch of thin yellowish fluid into his glass,
sat waiting. One of the men from the table rose, walked past Henry's
table, darted a sharp look at him, went out through a side door.

Henry finished his drink, poured a second. The man who had gone out
returned, glanced at Henry again. Henry stared into his glass.

Three slow hours passed. The street door swung open abruptly; a
narrow-shouldered, gray-haired man with close-set eyes and a puckered
mouth slipped in, walked quickly back to the man at the table. He leaned
close to a thick-necked coarse-skinned redhead, muttered something. The
redhead barked a question. Henry caught a scrap of the conversation:
" . . . he look like . . . ?"

Under the table, Henry gripped the butt of the blaster, eased it from
its holster, fitting his clumsy fingers to its curve with his thumb
resting lightly on the firing stud.

The small man stepped back from the table; the redhead rose, headed for
the door, followed by the other three men; heavy power guns bobbed at
their hips. They moved up the aisle.

As they reached Henry's table, he brought the gun up into view, leveled
it at the square buckle on the belt that cinched in the redhead's ample
midriff. The man jerked to a halt; his freckled hand went toward his
hip, paused, dropped to his side. Behind him, the third man in line
dropped into a half crouch, reaching for his gun?

Henry moved the blaster half an inch, stared into the other's eyes; the
man straightened slowly, raised his hands clear of his sides.

Henry motioned toward the table; his glance darted aside to take in the
men at the bar; they hunched over their drinks, unaware of the byplay.

"What's the game, grandpa?" the redhead grated softly.

Henry motioned again, his eyes on the redhead's face. The other's pale
eyes narrowed under bushy auburn brows.

"You tired of being alive?" he started. His expression flickered suddenly.

"Hoad!" he snapped. The man behind him moved up cautiously, stared into
Henry's face.

"Ever seen him before?"

"Naw, I?" Hoad stopped. He gaped at Henry. "Jee-zus . . ."

"Uh-huh," the redhead said. "O.K., pop; I guess maybe you might use the
iron after all . . ." He backed slowly, his men behind him. Carefully,
they resumed their seats. Henry watched them, the gun resting on the
table, aimed steadily at the redhead's chest.

* * *

From his table, Henry had a good view of both the front door and the
four men at the table. Slow minutes ticked past. The men muttered
together. The man called Hoad rose, came carefully up to Henry, his eyes
on the blaster. His tongue darted out, touched his upper lip.

"Listen," he said. He had a small, hoarse voice, like a man who had been
choked too hard once. "Rusty says?he wants to make a deal . . ."

Henry looked at him with his one eye.

Hoad went on. "The deal is?a trade. You got something we want, see? And
we got something you want . . ."

Henry sat in the shadowy booth, the gun butt against the table, the
sights centered on Hoad's chest. Silently he waited.

"You give Rusty the tabs?and you get her back?all in one piece."

Henry's eye seemed to glitter under his shaggy gray brows.

"We got her, all right," Hoad said. He edged back from the table, eyes
on Henry. "Look, I'm just delivering the message, see? I ain't the
one . . ." He fumbled in his pocket, brought out a small object folded
in a twist of grimy paper. He peeled the paper away, held up a large
violet stone in a cage of gold wire, swinging from a delicate golden chain.

"Rusty says you'll know when you see this."

Light glinted from the swinging stone. It was a forty-karat amethyst,
flawless, polished in its natural shape. Henry had seen it last on
Dulcia's throat.

He stood, pushed out from the booth. Hoad licked his lip again. "So you
don't want to try nothing, or?"

Henry slammed the gun barrel down across the man's collarbone; he
stumbled back with a shrill yelp, fell on his back. Henry swung his
foot, booted him hard in the ribs. Hoad rolled to hands and knees,
scuttled under a table. The men at the bar were turning now, mouths
open. Henry walked toward the table where Rusty and his two men waited.
The big redhead rose, took a step toward Henry, hooked his thumbs in his
belt, waiting boldly. The other two crouched back, watching the gun.

"Easy now, pop," Rusty growled softly. He took a step back as the gun
moved up to within five feet of him. "We got the girl?you know that. You
better play ball, hah?"

Henry stepped around the table, stood covering the door and the men at
the bar.

"Put the gun up," Rusty said. "You ain't going to use it now, pop. Just
lay it on the table over there, and come on with me; I'll take you to
the girl." He watched Henry, his eyes narrowed. Henry stood unmoving,
the gun trained on the other.

"For Chrissake, say something," Rusty grated. "You ain't going to get
the kid killed, just for those lousy tabs . . ."

Henry moved suddenly; Rusty started, jerked his hands high. "Hold on,
damn you?"

Henry threw the gun on the floor, turned and walked toward the door.
There were quick muttered words behind him. Rusty pushed past him. The
blaster was in Rusty's hand now. He was grinning as he pulled the door
open; he motioned with the gun.

"For a minute there, grandpa, I thought you'd popped your hatch. Now
let's go see a man that's got things to say to you . . ." Rusty's glance
went to the men at the bar, watching, open-mouthed.

"You boobs didn't see nothing," Rusty grated. "That makes you lucky, get
me?"

Henry followed the redhead out into the street, into a dusty old-model
Turbocad. It started up and wheeled off toward the lights of the tall
towers beyond the port. As it rounded the corner, Henry caught a glimpse
of Bartholomew's tall figure standing on the curb, staring after it.

* * *

It was a dowdy copter hotel, with rooms strung like cardboard beads on
the undersized trusswork of the open-bar frame. They went in by a side
door between overflowing refuse bins, rode a noisy lift to the tenth
level, walked along a slanting floor to a door before which two
undesirables in loud clothes of cheap cut lounged, busy with toothpicks.
Their eyes darted over Henry. Rusty pushed between them, shouldered the
door open. His hand was near his hip.

"I got my eye on you, pops," he said softly. "So don't get any ideas!"
It was a floridly decorated room. Polarized panels let purplish light in
on high-gloss woven plastic rugs which stretched to walls hung with
hand-painted color-reversal scenes of night life on exotic worlds.
Shaded lamps glowed in each corner. In a high-backed contour chair done
in yellow plush, Senator Bartholomew sat, buttoned into a tight business
suit of conservative cut.

He glanced briefly at Henry; his mouth went down at the corners, opened?

His glance went back to Henry; his eyes widened. Behind Henry Rusty
chuckled. "I told you Tasker didn't sell out?he was cut out," he said.
"Some time I'd like to hear pops here tell me how he pulled it off."

"Where . . ." Bartholomew's eyes went past Henry. He clamped his mouth,
gripped the arms of the chair. His jowls were pale. "Where's my
boy . . . ?" he said hoarsely.

"Pops was alone," Rusty said.

Bartholomew looked at Henry, reluctantly.

"Where is he . . . ?" His voice was thin, stretched.

"Pops don't talk much," Rusty said. "Maybe he needs some
encouragement . . ." He moved to Henry's side.

"No!" Bartholomew put up his hands.

"He'll talk." His eyes held on Henry's face now. "Where's Larry? He's
done you no harm. Give me my boy and . . ." he swallowed. "I'll see that
you're well repaid for your efforts."

"I told him we got the girl," Rusty put in. Bartholomew's face dropped
into a slack mask of dismay?then tightened into fury.

"You . . . blundering idiot!"

Rusty swaggered over to the chair, looked down on the red-faced Senator.

"You may be Mr. Big back on Elderberry or wherever it is?but here, I'm
the one that draws the water. Sure, I mentioned the kid. I had to." He
barked a short laugh. "The old man had a blaster on me."

Bartholomew came out of his chair. "Where's my boy?" he demanded. He
took out a scented tissue, wiped at his forehead. He looked from Henry
to the redhead. "I have to know! Where is he?"

"Cool it, Senator. I can find out?but not by giving him lollipops."

"All right. Do?whatever you have to do." Bartholomew sank bank into the
chair, his eyes on Henry.

"You heard him, granddad . . ." Rusty's eyes were narrowed. "I don't
like to pick on cripples, but business is business . . ."

"If you want to see the girl again?alive?you'd better speak up,"
Bartholomew blurted.

"Shut up, Senator," Rusty snarled. "Sometimes you give me the feeling
I'm in a dirty racket." He faced Henry, scowling. "The Senator knows all
about your corundum mine; you've been feeding a few nice stones into the
market every year, just enough to get by on. He checked you out, found
out where you'd been; he narrowed the mine down to Corazon. Then he
foxed you into making the Run. He's put time and money into this
deal?and he wants his payoff. You can see that, pops. So give. Where's
your tabs?"

"Never mind the tabs?for now," Bartholomew cut in. "My boy?"

"You sent a guy to the Registry Office," the redhead went on. "He didn't
make it?"

"He sent a man? That might be Larry?"

"Naw?this guy was a bruiser. He caught wise and smeared two of the boys
and got clear?but he didn't register no tabs. Probably some timber bum
that pops here met up with and worked out a split."

"Split? I'll split him?" Bartholomew pushed up to Henry. "I see it
now?why you demanded that the proceeds be divided between you and?Larry.
You killed him?and now you think you can steal it all?"

Rusty elbowed the Senator aside. "You get too excited, Senator. Go sit
down. This is business." He sighed, looking at Henry. "Better give,
old-timer. Where do you and your sidekick meet? Where's the mine located
at? And just by the way, where's the Senator's kid?"

"Why doesn't he talk?" Bartholomew screeched. "Why doesn't he say
anything . . . ?"

"Maybe you make him nervous," Rusty snapped.

"I'll kill the girl!" Bartholomew snarled. "I swear I'll kill her?"

"Hold onto your hairpiece, Senator! Maybe this guy didn't kill your kid;
maybe he's just got a natural yen to hold on to the marbles; after all,
he found 'em?"

"If Larry's dead, I'll kill her!" Bartholomew pointed to a thin man
standing quietly near the wall. "Bring her in; I'll show him I mean what
I say?"

The thin man went through a connecting door; half a minute later he
pushed Dulcia into the room. Her hands were trussed together with a wide
strap; her mouth was gagged. She stared at Bartholomew, then at Henry.
Tears started, ran down her face.

There was a sound beyond the hall door. A brief /whap! whap!/ Then a
heavy fall. Rusty's hand darted to his hip, whipped out a 2mm needler.
He plunged for the door?

Henry took a quick step, thrust out a foot, hooked the redhead's ankle,
chopped hard at the back of his neck as he went down. Across the room,
the thin man yelled, jumped clear of Dulcia, reaching?

She spiked his foot with a heel, threw herself at him; they went down
together. As Henry turned, Bartholomew dived for a desk, snatched up a
gun, whirled?

The door slammed wide. Larry Bartholomew stood in the entry, a power gun
in his hand. The thin man flung clear of Dulcia, brought up a gun?

Larry fired, knocked the thin man flat; he whirled on the Senator?and
stood, frozen, staring at his father.

The gun in the Senator's hand jumped, a flat bark echoing in the room.
Larry spun sideways, fell against the wall, blood spattering behind him.
He went down on his face; his breath went out in a long sigh.

"Stand where you are," the Senator said in a high, thin voice. "You saw
how I shot that man. I'll kill both of you if I have to. Now answer when
I speak, or?"

A gun cracked beyond the door. Bartholomew tossed the gun from him,
looking startled. His expression changed, became blank. He leaned
forward, fell over the yellow chair, slammed the floor.

Heavy Joe Saggio eased his bulk through the doorway, stood, smiling
gently around the room. His eyes fell on Henry; he stared. The smile
faded. The thick tongue came out, touched his lips.

"Enrico, baby. I heard you had a tough time." From behind him, a small
man in a tight jacket and a yachting cap sidled into the room, looked
around.

"This is the kind of hotel I like," he said in a thin nasal. "Nobody
sticks their nose in, just because maybe they hear guns working."

Henry went past him, knelt at Larry's side, turned him over. There was a
scorched furrow across the side of his chest. His breathing was shallow,
noisy. Unseen, Henry slipped a hand into Larry's breast pocket, removed
the red marker tabs.

"The kid bad?" Saggio stood behind Henry, looking down at young
Bartholomew. Henry rose, shook his head, went to Dulcia, raised her,
pulled the gag from her mouth.

"Oh, Grandpa . . ." She smiled, crying. He fumbled out a knife with his
stiff fingers, cut the strap from her hands. She threw her arms around him.

"We . . . thought you were dead . . . It was so long . . .  and then Mr.
Bartholomew invited me to come with him . . . to try to find you . . ."

On the floor, the thin man sat up, whining. Saggio jerked his head at
the man in the cap.

"Take care of these bums, Johnny?and get a medic up here for the kid."

"Listen," the thin man gasped. "I know plenty, see? You want to get me a
doc, treat me right. This old guy's got this mine?the Senator knew about
it?"

Saggio stood by Henry. "I din't have nothing to do with it, Enrico?you
know I don't play them games . . ."

"Listen . . . !" The thin man was babbling, fighting as the small man
tugged at him. "It's a corundum mine, you got to listen! Stones like
pigeon eggs! He knows where it is, I swear?"

"What's he talking?" Saggio stepped to the thin man, slammed a blow to
the side of his head. The man went limp.

"Dump him in the alley. He's delirious. Then get that medic up here
quick." Saggio looked at Dulcia, showed a gold-toothed smile, bowed.

"I heard about the young lady, Enrico?but I don't know she's your
grandbaby. Otherwise, I fix these bums a long time ago."

"Grandpa?is Larry?did he . . . die out there . . ."

Henry nodded toward the tall, solidly built man lying on the floor.
Dulcia's eyes went to him. She gasped, darted to his side.

"Larry! Oh, Larry . . . Grandpa?will he be all right?"

Henry nodded. Saggio caught his eye. "The little lady's all right now,
Enrico. I get the doc here in a minute for the boy. I guess maybe you
got business now, hey?" His eye went to the empty holster at Henry's
side. He stooped, picked up the gun Larry had dropped, handed it to Henry.

"Maybe you need this, hah?"

Henry holstered the gun. Dulcia looked up.

"Grandpa?where are you going . . . ?"

"It's O.K.?your grandpapa, he's got a problem to settle," Saggio nodded
to Henry. "I'll see she's O.K."

Henry nodded. Saggio smiled, his eyes cool.

"I see you in a little while, Enrico baby . . ."

* * *

Henry stepped out into early-evening light, looked up and down the gaudy
street, spotted a glare panel indicating a bar. Inside, he nodded toward
a bottle on the back bar, took it and a glass to the table.

He poured a drink, swallowed it, then looked at the half-stiff fingers
of his right hand. He flexed them; they were like rusted metal. He
gripped the pistol butt, straining to fit his fingers to the contours.
It was like picking up an ice block with paper tongs.

He shoved the pistol back into the holster, had a second drink. Then he
rose, went out into the light-strung street, walked slowly west along
the plastic boardwalk toward the square.

The wide plaza was empty, bleak under the polyarcs of the port, an arena
ringed by the dark mouths of deserted streets. The harsh squares of
light that were the windows of the Registry Office threw pale rectangles
across the oily pavement. A block away, music thumped and screeched,
voices rang; here in the deserted square it was silent.

Henry moved out from the wall. Across the square, a large shadow
stirred. Heavy Joe Saggio stepped into view, a wide pistol belt strapped
across his chest, sagging with the weight of the heavy blaster under his
arm.

"I guess we're square now, hey Enrico?" he called softly. "You let me go
one time; I help you out just now . . . It's nice like this: Just you
and me?like the old days . . ."

Henry walked steadily toward the lighted door, halfway down the side of
the plaza.

"That kid, your compadre; he's O.K.; he was talking soft words with the
little lady when I go; it's a nice couple, Enrico; you should be proud."

It was a hundred feet to the office door. Henry walked slowly, not
favoring the knee.

"It was a kick, seeing you here last fall, Enrico; I'm getting dumb in
my old age, I didn't figure you had an angle. Corundum hey, Enrico?
Nice, those gemstones. I got a real fondness for them. They're nice to
look at, hah? Not like dirty money . . ."

Saggio came toward him, moving heavily?a big, thick-set, powerful man,
getting old now, but never soft . . . 

He stopped, fifty feet away, facing Henry. Henry saw his tongue touch
his lower lip, the glint of the gold tooth.

"You put up a good fight, Enrico. You make a monkey out of Tasker, I
hear. That's good. I never like that guy. And you make a great hike
back. It's a story I tell my grandchildren?only someplace I forget to
have some . . ."

Henry came on; somewhere a night lizard called monotonously.

"Look, Enrico?you make a split, now, hey? It's plenty for all, I hear.
You got a right?but what about me? I win a share on points, hey?"

They were thirty feet apart now. Saggio's eyes narrowed. His shoulders
tightened.

"That's far enough now, Enrico," he growled. "You don't talk much,
baby?that's O.K. But you don't go through that door before you give me
an answer. And I tell you, Enrico; the next word I speak will be the big
one, and the last one . . ." Saggio's hand edged toward the shoulder
holster, fingers curled?

Henry stopped and spread his legs, braced to draw?

"Captain!"

Henry whirled. Behind him, coming at him from the opposite side of the
square, was Larry Bartholomew, a white gleaming swathe of bandage under
his open jacket, his hands held out from his sides. Light glinted from
the polished butt of a power pistol at his hip.

"Back off, Captain!" he shouted at Henry. "Back off the way you came?"

Henry glanced over his shoulder at Saggio. Saggio's hand darted toward
his gun. Henry was caught between them. He drove his stiff hand for his
own gun, glancing back at Larry. Drawing as he ran, Larry was running to
his right. Saggio's gun coughed and the shot went wide of Henry, toward
Larry. Larry stopped; his gun was out; he stood, a hand on his hip,
sighting down the barrel at seventy yards. Saggio's gun snarled again.
Larry's pistol jumped, racketed. Saggio leaped back, tumbled down, his
gun clattering away; he coiled, grinding his face into the pavement;
then the big body went slack.


      *Chapter Nine*

The sun was warm on Henry's face. Dulcia sat beside him on the pool
edge, brushing her long pale gold hair. Behind her, the sunlight
sparkled in the varicolored spray of the fountain.

"I'm so pleased about your hand, Grandpa," she said. "Dr. Spangler said
it's almost well now. Please let him do your knee . . ."

Henry shook his head. Dulcia laughed.

"You don't have to make signs, Grandpa! Your voice is as good as new."

"Waste of money," Henry said gruffly. "Wants to graft an eye, too. What
for? I can see all the foolishness I want to with this one."

"Please don't be that way, Grandpa. You should be so proud! No one else
could have done what you did?a whole new universe opened up! Admiral
Hayle said in his letter it was the greatest discovery of the
millennium. They promoted you to Commodore?"

"Posthumous promotion," Henry growled. "And I didn't do it. Larry?"

"I'd rather we didn't talk about Larry," Dulcia said shortly. She tossed
the brush aside, picked up a colored pebble from the poolside, stared
into it.

"Where the devil is the boy?" Henry said. "Hardly seen him since we got
back."

"Making more deals, I suppose! You should have seen him when we landed.
Some of those terrible men who worked for his father were there; the big
ones?Councilman Hogger?came up and started to say something about how
they'd been the Senator's best friends. I wanted to tell him he ought to
be ashamed to admit it. I thought Larry would tell them to stay away
from him, that he wanted nothing to do with all that crooked political
dealing?but do you know what he did?" Dulcia stared at Henry
indignantly. "He started shaking hands and telling them how glad he was
to be back in time for the big campaign, and that he had ideas for the
Galactic Council nominee . . ."

"Can't blame the boy; politics is all he knows . . ."

"He ought to know a lot more now! He spent nearly a year with you on
Corazon, Grandpa. And he saw what his father was really like . . ."

"Can't ask a man to turn against his father?no matter what, Dulcie-girl."

Across the lawn, the porter chimed. Dulcia looked up. Larry Bartholomew
stood in the doorway, tall, solid, his hair neatly trimmed, a smile on
his regular features; he was dressed in the latest mode, and the tiny
broken veins just under the skin over his cheekbones from frostbite gave
him a look of ruddy health. He carried a box in his hand.

He came across the lawn, shook Henry's hand, turned to the girl.

"Dulcia, I want to apologize for my neglect these last few weeks; I've
been tied up?"

"I know. Politics," Dulcia said shortly.

Larry extended the legs of a small portable Tri-D, set it up in front of
Henry. "The election results are coming in," he said. "I wanted to be
sure you?"

Dulcia jumped up. "You know what Grandpa thinks of your Statistical
Average! No, Larry! I've kept all that away from him! I don't want him
upset!"

"But the delegates are on the final roll call now, Dulcia! This is an
important moment; Aldorado's first Galactic Delegate?"

"I don't care about that! It's peaceful here?"

"It's all right," Henry cut in, almost gently. "We can't stay shut away
forever, girl. Turn it on, Larry."

"Thank you, Captain." Bartholomew twiddled the control. A voice boomed:

" . . . candidate of the new Statistical Excellence party which Lawrence
Bartholomew, son of the late Senator . . ." Larry tuned it down.

"It's been a hectic seven weeks, Captain," Larry said. "I arrived in the
nick of time. My father's organization had been holding off their big
push, waiting for his return. I jumped in and started spending money
where it would do the most good the quickest."

Dulcia stared at Bartholomew. "You ought to be ashamed to admit you used
your money to influence the voting!"

"Why? That's the system, after all. I learned that from your
great-granddad; there's no point in waving flags; if you believe in
something, go get it?any way you have to."

Dulcia threw the bright stone down, walked away.

"Dulcia?" Larry started after her.

"Let her go," Henry said. "Let's hear what's going on."

Bartholomew turned the volume up. On the small screen, a wide-mouthed
man in an artificial-looking hairdo blared on:

" . . . slate of pledged delegates from their sector. And now the weight
of the entire northern tier will be thrown behind the Statex candidate!
It's an astonishing last-minute upset, a tribute to the organizational
powers and crusading zeal of young Bartholomew! Now here's the vote from
the Seaboard delegate, and yes! It's a bolt to the Statex standard! The
delegates are crowding down now, all eager to get on the Statex
bandwagon . . ."

Music blared up, drowning the shouting voice. Bartholomew tuned to
another channel:

" . . . and it is now conceded by all dopesters that the Statex slate
has taken the election by a rapidly widening margin, as delegation after
delegation goes over to make this a landslide victory for the dark-horse
candidate . . ."

"And yes, here it is! Provincial Chairman Crodfoller has conceded to
Lawrence Bartholomew, the Statex candidate, and the crowd here at
election headquarters is going mad with enthusiasm. Aldorado has a
Delegate to the Galactic Council! And?hold everything, folks!"

There was a new tumult off-microphone.

"Listen, everyone!" the announcer's voice came back, babbling with
excitement. "A flash, just in?Mark Hanforth, Chairman of the Galactic
Council, now meeting on Terra, has just proposed a further honor for
Aldorado. Speaking before the Council, just this past hour, he said, in
part, '. . . it is fitting that we take this moment in which a new world
is represented on this Council to repay a debt long owed by the whole
human race to a resident of that new world. I refer, Council Members, to
Commodore Henry of Aldorado, who in my opinion earned the title and
honors of Citizen of the Race, several generations ago?but who found it
necessary to discover even newer worlds for the human race to conquer,
before we laggards were reminded of the need to honor him.

" '. . . I propose, therefore, that without delay, and at the same time
as the new Delegate from Aldorado is invested with his rank and accorded
the Aeterna treatment?the prerequisite of that rank?that the treatment
also be accorded to Commodore Henry, as his long-overdue wages for a
long lifetime already devoted to the future of the human race . . .' "

The announcer babbled on. But the door of the house burst open and
Dulcia came running, her face alight with joy, sparkling with tears. She
threw herself at the old man.

"Grandpa! Did you hear? Now you'll get the Aeterna treatment
and . . . and . . ." She looked toward Larry. "Larry! Why didn't you say
something? You must have known something like this was in the wind! The
Council President's an Expansionist, just like your new Statex party is?"

"Knew!" grunted Henry, staring over her head at Larry. "He must have
been the one to arrange it?weren't you, boy? Hanforth wouldn't make a
move like this just at this moment without some reason!"

Dulcia turned to stare at Larry, who laughed with a rough touch of
embarrassment.

"Politics, Dulcie," he admitted. "The Expansionist and Conservative
sides of the Council table are tied even. The new delegate from Aldorado
was bound to break the tie. I just mentioned something about the Captain?"

"As the price of your party's alignment!" grunted Henry. "Very neat. Did
you ever think of asking me if I wanted to be one of their Citizens of
the Race?"

Larry looked squarely at him.

"Captain," he said, "I don't give a damn if you wanted it or not. I
wasn't much good for anything until you took me on the Run; and the Run
made a man out of me. But being with you on Corazon did more than just
that. It shook me up and let me see things squarely for the first time
in my life?and not just things about myself, but about you as well."

"Me?" growled Henry, shoving himself up from his chair.

"Sit down," said Larry, levelly. "And listen to me for a change. You can
cut a rough, whitish stone into a diamond that will knock your eye
out?but it has to have been a diamond to start off with. All right, I
needed to be cut to shine the way I should?but I never was a diamond,
Captain. Maybe a passable emerald, but that's it. I'm a
politician?maybe, with luck and Dulcie's help a great one, one day?but I
never was a Captain Henry!"

"What makes you think?" snapped Henry.

"I said, shut up and listen," Larry said evenly. "When I'm through you
can say anything you want. I'm telling you?there's only one Captain
Henry. I didn't get you the Aeterna treatment for yourself! I did it for
me?for Dulcie?for all of us. You remember that poem of Kipling's about
the explorer? The one you quoted, that night we went through the portal
on Corazon? Well, do you remember one of the verses to it?one that goes:

 

    / . . . Well I know who'll take the credit?all the clever chaps that
    followed?/
    /Came, a dozen men together?never knew my desert fears;/
    /Tracked me by the camps I'd quitted, used the waterholes I'd
    hollowed./
    /They'll go back and do the talking. They'll be called the
    Pioneers! . . . / 

 

" . . . that's you, Captain!" said Larry. "There's hundreds and
thousands of good men who can come . . .  'a dozen men
together' . . . and follow up where you've blazed the trail. But there's
only one man who can blaze that trail. That's you?and by God, the human
race needs you!"

Larry took a deep breath.

"I told you once, Captain, that you'd never die," he said. "And you
never will, if I have anything to say about it. If you don't want to
take the Aeterna treatment, I'll help hold you down myself while they
stick the first needle in. Because we're not going to lose you while I
have anything to say about it?and that's final!"

He swung about to the girl.

"Come on, Dulcie!" he said. "Let's leave him a while and give him time
to let some common sense soak into that diamond-hard head of his!"

He turned on his heel and left. Dulcie jumped up and ran after him.

"Dulcie!" roared Henry, in outrage at her abandonment of him at the
command of this brash young man. Still roaring, he heaved himself
heavily to his feet?but they were already disappearing into the house.
He was alone by the pool.

* * *

Snorting, he fell back into his chair.

"Hold /me/ down!" he growled in white-hot fury. "Why . . ."

He stopped. Slowly, the picture he must have made blowing and roaring in
protest like an overage walrus, began to grow inside him. Gradually the
humor of it kindled in him, and after a long moment he threw his head
back and began to laugh.

The laughter washed him clean inside. He sobered at last. Of course the
young squirt was right. He'd be the worst possible sort of pouting idiot
to turn down a chance at unlimited life and all the exploration that a
man could dream of doing. Henry laughed?softly this time.

Hayle had made him a Commodore. Well, he'd take him up on that. He'd
have a deep-space scout carted through the portal, piece by piece?and
reassembled?and he'd see what lay beyond those farther stars.

He stooped, picked up the bit of colored stone Dulcia had tossed aside.
It was twelve-karat amethyst of a flawless pale violet. He dropped it
into the pool, watched it sink down to nestle among its brilliant
fellows, stirring and sparkling in the natural spring which had washed
them up from the corundum deposit far below.

Colored stones. Men had died for them, too. And on the far worlds, what
unknown treasures might not be waiting . . . 

If only Dulcia could have been here. But a man couldn't have everything.
Life was compounded of equal parts of joy and sorrow; the trick was to
savor the one while you had it?and not let the other make you forget
that once life had been good?and could be good again.

Henry stood, looking down into the water, while the setting sun painted
the sky in the colors of jewels.

*THE END*